SEO Tips Videos

Here are some great SEO tips on video I found with Video Utility Poster.

SEO Tips - Keywords in the domain vs Keywords in page names

Wil Reynolds speaks at the Affiliate Summit about the important of including keywords in the domains or in the page names. Part 12 of 15.

SEO Tips - Save Time Using Firefox Plugins

SEER Interactive’s Wil Reynolds shares tips on how to save time using Firefox plugins, including SEOBook’s SEO for Firefox and Greasemonkey. Part 13 of 15.

Matt Cutts 3 step process to building up a really good site

Matt Cutts 3 step process to building up a really good site and getting a ton of traffic.

Blog version is on planetc1 blog at:
http://blog.planetc1.com/

URL was too long so search for “getting a ton of traffic”

Video recorded at PubCon 2007 during special session with Guy Kawasaki and Matt Cutts.

3 Easy Website Building Tips

SEO Tips for Beginners

http://www.seotipsforbeginners.com How I got a new domain in the top 20 in results for my primary key phrase (SEO Tips for Beginners) BEFORE my site went live.

Don't Miss Out On Free Traffic!
Subscribe to the FTR RSS feed or our email list so you don't miss out on real, traffic driving tips from Jack Humphrey!  Thanks for visiting!

No tag for this post.

Copywriting Videos

Here are some great videos on copywriting from YouTube.

Included: Ted Nicholas and John Carlton!

Post created in a couple of minutes with Video Utility Poster, available right now.

Copywriting Checklist Point 12 - Bullets

Ted Nicholas - Copywriting Tips For Beginners

Tags: copywriting videos, john carlton, ted nicholas

Dean Needs Help With His Killer Bunnies!

My buddy Dean Hunt is looking for the ultimate in “killer bunny” designs.  And he needs our help!

He has some designs up here and a voting system for you to give feedback.  Winner of the best feedback on this post will get his killer book on social marketing and buzz (he’s been on the Digg front page more than twice I believe.)

Help Dean choose the killer-est bunny and get a chance at his $97 ebook.  Either way, you need some entertainment sometimes!

Tags: dean hunt, killer bunnies

Narrow Your Focus to Broaden Your Sales

Guest Post By Michel Fortin

In the competitive marketplace of the new millennium, the demand for specialized products or services will increase. If your site sells everything or to everyone, chances are that your audience will not perceive any greater value in shopping from you than anyone else.

The more generic you become, the greater your competition will be, since you’ve placed your offering in the same ring as the Wal-Marts, Targets and eBays of the world.

In other words, cast a wider net, and the likelihood that more competitors who are trying to go after the same “fish” will occupy the same marketspace.

Unless you are trying to be another Wal-Mart, there’s no use competing with them. The sheer size of such Goliaths gives them a sizeable competitive advantage — purchasing power.

That is, they can buy their stock at considerable bulk discounts, giving them the low price advantage with which most small businesses cannot compete.

Keep in mind that price is never an issue — what’s important is the value behind the price.

Price is an arbitrary figure that merely represents the value of an offering. Here’s an example: you walk to your local home furnishings store. You ask the sales clerk, “How much for that washer?” to which he responds, “$600.” “Wow! That’s a lot of money,” you exclaim. “The price is way too high for me. I just cannot afford that.”

This is a typical knee-jerk response.

Moments later, you walk by a car dealership and notice that favorite new car you’ve been itching to buy for the last month and a half. You walk in. “It’s $25,000,” says the salesperson. “Wow! That’s great!”

You drive it off the lot that same day.

If you could not afford the $600 washer, why could you afford the $25,000 car? So, price is never an issue. In the case of the car, the perceived value matched or surpassed the price, which wasn’t the case with the washer — i.e., the washer was too pricey based on its perceived value.

Therefore, if your value is perceived as equal to that of others, naturally the cheapest alternative will win. Price is only a metric — a currency to which most people can relate.

Take the weather, for example. When you meet someone for the first time, the weather will likely be a topic of discussion. In terms of degrees or temperature, the weather is the same for everyone. But “hot” and “cold,” however, are different.

Similarly, price is only used when there’s nothing to which one can compare your value. (Of course, price is not the only metric, but it is the most common one. Most people easily understand units of dollars rather than value. Value is more subjective and personal. It cannot be measured.)

Therefore, if you’re too similar to your competition, price will always then be (or become) an issue.

However, the more unique you are, the less competition you will have. And the less competition you will have, the less substitutable you are (or your product is). And the less substitutable you are, the less elastic the demand for your product will be (i.e., the less important price becomes, in this case).

So, if you try to copy your competition, or trying to promote your offering as one that’s better than your competition, like it or not you’re only reminding people of that which you are better: your competition!

It’s better to be different than it is to be better.

Being all things to all people will likely help you to stumble onto some people who will visit your site and respond to your offer — it’s the law of averages. Increase your hits and you will increase your sales.

But that’s not the problem. The problem, with such an approach, is the fact that you must generate a large quantity of hits in order to produce a certain result.

It is absolutely true that, if you want a lot of hits, you want your site (or access to it) to be in front of as many eyeballs as possible. But what about quality? Would it matter if your site generates an incredible quantity of uninterested visitors that will simply never buy from you?

Would you prefer less than 1% of 10,000 visitors? Or 10% of 500?

For those who wish to find more effective and cost-efficient ways of selling online, then attracting a higher quality stream of website visitors — that is, attracting interested, pre-qualified visitors that are genuinely interested in the website’s offer and ready to buy — is definitely a better alternative.

The more general or broad you are, the more you will need to paint your website or content with broad brushstrokes in order to appeal to everyone. In the end, the traffic you do generate will be just as general or broad.

Even if your product is a perfect fit for some visitors, it will only be a fit for a small percentage. Additionally, the broad nature of your offer and the image you project will likely convey that your value is equal to that of others and that there’s no added value in buying from you than in buying from others.

This is when price becomes the metric with which people will measure your value.

Additionally, out of the small handful of qualified prospects that hopefully hit your site, a large number of them — if not all of them — will likely leave due to your apparent lack of understanding of their specific needs, goals and concerns. In short, the more general you are, the more you are compared to others and therefore the more you dilute your value.

In other words, the more general you are, the less value you have.

However, the sales you generate will increase dramatically if your site is narrowly centered on a specific theme, product, audience or outcome. And niche marketing has an added benefit: the need to produce a sufficient quantity of visitors to produce similar results will lessen considerably.

Offline, being everything to everyone is understandable to a certain degree since, geographically, a niche will likely be small. Online, however, niche marketing can work since a market will expand, even if it is a small niche.

But it’s a double-edged sword.

Since the web increases your target market, it also increases the competition as a byproduct. Again, cast a wider net, and the likelihood that your net will fall into someone else’s waters will be higher.

Offline, location is important. And a competitor next door can be your biggest headache. But online, thousands of competitors have instantly become your neighbors.

Thus, niche marketing is even more important online since, by narrowing your focus, you both increase your niche AND decrease your competition!

Here’s an illustration: let’s say that your best client is the corporate executive earning $50,000 annually or more, and that your site receives approximately 200,000 hits per month.

If your site’s message aims for the public at large, you have a problem. There will only be a small percentage of that ideal market (i.e., corporate execs earning $50,000) that will hit your site. (And an even smaller percentage will genuinely be qualified for, and interested in, your offering).

For the sake of example, let’s say that this percentage is around 0.1%. That means that, out of 200,000 monthly visitors, only 200 will fit your perfect customer profile (and that’s a very optimistic figure).

Since your site is too general or too vague, an even smaller percentage of those 200 executives — let’s say about 0.5% — will be truly interested in your offer and eventually buy. In this case, 0.5% (of 200 qualified visitors) would equal to a mere client for an entire month.

(Following me so far?)

Looking at it in reverse it means that, if you want to achieve at least a single sale per month from this ideal market, your site will thus require at least 200,000 visitors on a monthly basis. So, based on the law of averages your marketing efforts will need to multiply exponentially in order to create a high enough quantity of traffic to yield acceptable results.

Now, take the example of another website dedicated exclusively to corporate executives earning over $50,000.

However, this site receives a meager 5,000 visitors per month — admittedly, it’s not a lot, especially when compared to the other. But in this case, the percentage of those 5,000 that fall into that site’s target market will be 100% — if my math is correct, that’s a 10,000% improvement.

Furthermore, the percentage of interested leads that are in a much better position to buy will be far higher by virtue of the fact that the site centers on their specific needs, goals and concerns. The perceived value of the site, in other words, will be greater in the mind of those specific prospects.

To be conservative, let’s say that this percentage is only 5%. It means that out of 5,000 visitors per month, one can achieve 250 sales — that’s 249 more sales than the other (and, on top of that, with only a quarter of the traffic).

But let’s be a little more conservative for a moment. Let’s say that only 1% buys. It’s still a remarkable 400% improvement over the other, as 1% of 5,000 visitors equals to 5 sales per month (4 more than the other).

Of course, the above example is when all things considered are equal — I agree that there are many variables, here. But the spirit of this illustration is clear: it took an equal if not lesser investment of time, effort and money to achieve 250 sales per month than it did to achieve a single one.

So, there is much truth to the statement that you will get more with less. And online, where there is so much more of nothing, less is indeed more.

Therefore, the paradox is true on the Internet: by narrowing your focus, you will likely broaden your chances of online success.

Although most business owners are aware of clear, target marketing strategies to achieve results that could be far more effective and cost-efficient, the ideology remains: to be successful one must be everywhere. That statement may be true to some degree and should not be discounted…

… But it is far better to be everywhere that matters.

In other words, your message should appear in front of those people who will likely read your ad and take action. If you promote your online business in places in which your target market is likely to congregate, it is fair to admit that your immediate costs will likely be higher.

Targeted marketing is not cheap. However, the bottom-line is the fact that your visitor value will increase substantially as a result. That’s more important.

In essence, it will certainly be cheaper for you to spend the money in these targeted areas than it would be in trying to find those ideal clients any other way.

Remember that your goal should be to attract people to your site who have a genuine interest in what you have to offer. Targeting as many people as possible particularly with a message that appeals to only a portion of them may produce a fair amount of hits. But it will mostly consist of people who will never be your clients anyway — you will attract the curious and not the serious.

With all things being equivalent, if your ad appears on a site that caters to your ideal market, you may get less hits but you will certainly get more sales.

Nevertheless, combining targeted and niche-based marketing strategies can make substantial improvements over general, non-focused marketing. By lessening your market as well as the market to which you advertise, you will proportionately increase your sales.

Jim Banks started selling carpets online in 1998. He admits that, at the time, he knew nothing about it. Says Banks: “I thought that it would be a non-competitive market (’who would want to sell carpet online?’ I asked myself) and it would allow me to learn about this whole new Internet thing.”

But at first, Jim floundered.

“I showed carpet on the website, sent out samples, and used a wholesaler in Georgia to deliver the goods. I made some money, but it was a lot of hard work. In fact, a lot of hand-holding of customers was required, and my time was a limiting factor in how much money I could make.”

But then, Jim had an idea. He adds:

“I had read one or two of your articles at the time where you stressed the importance of niche marketing. And after thinking about that, and applying it to my industry, I came up with the idea of selling carpets and area rugs with children’s designs (e.g., animals, letters, game boards, etc). Today, things are going very well!”

(By the way, see Jim’s site at KidCarpet.com.)

In conclusion, here’s my advice: if you’re looking at starting a business online, first find a niche and fill it. But if you already are doing business online, then narrow your focus to a specific outcome, audience or product.

And finally, if you do sell everything to everyone already, I suggest breaking your business down by developing several sites, which sell the same things but targeted towards different segments of your market.

Don’t be the best. Be the first. As Earl Nightingale once said, “Don’t copy. Create!”

In other words, don’t duplicate. Differentiate.

About Michel Fortin
Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter, marketing strategy consultant, and instrumental in some of the most lucrative online businesses and wildly successful marketing campaigns to ever hit the web. For more articles like this one, please visit his blog and subscribe to his RSS feed.

Copywriting Videos

Tags: making sales, michel fortin

Vegas…again

Hey all. Just dropping by to report my where abouts so no one freaks out and I don’t go too long without posting.

It is also required by my probation officer, and the CIA likes to keep track of me as well.

Wish I had some pictures. Staying at the Mirage, home of “Love” - the Cirque du Soleil Beatles show. I’ve certainly seen some weird things here. Beautiful people are everywhere. And they’re all wearing retro 70’s clothes as if someone circulated a memo (that I didn’t get, damned spam filters!) that there was a dress code to match the Beatles theme which completely permeates this massive hotel.

Brandon is downstairs either losing his ass or up again. By now I think he’s had enough complimentary beer to pickle a mastadon. Hey, he deserves it for all the programming he’s done lately.

Talked to Mike Filsaime, Carl Galletti, Dr. Mike and Frank Sousa today. As if there weren’t enough things to compete with in Vegas already, the Mirage now has an adult section of pool called “Bare.” Carl is some kind of miracle worker for having any men in his conference at all.

We’ll be getting back on Monday, my birthday, and getting back to work. Have to get Video Utility Poster released and prepare for the onslaught of orders. The excitement over this one is surprising considering I only made a post about it. Now that I am about to be an “elder” people seem to be listening to me a little more. (I’ll be 40 in case you were wondering)

Thinking about some more social marketing and organization software apps now. Some neat things in the pipeline I think the blog heads are going to like a lot.

Soon as Brandon gets back from Betty Ford Center I’ll have him working on finishing those up. He does his best work after rehab.

Tags: vegas update

Top 10 Social News Sites

What Is A Social News Site?

Social news sites are very specifically sites where users submit pages from around the web they find interesting.  The core of any social news site is community sharing of information, videos, and pictures from all over the web in different categories.  Users provide a URL to the news or media they want to share, enter a description and some tags, and  submit the listing to be viewed and voted on by the community.  Submissions that become “popular” move to the top pages of these sites and tend to get a lot of traffic in a short period of time.

Looking for the most active, highest traffic social news sites? How can you possibly decide among the “millions” that are out there? Here’s a quick breakdown of the top 10 sites according to Google right now:

1. Digg: Currently holding the number 1 slot for social news sites, Digg is easy to use, and new users can have their accounts going in a matter of minutes. It’s simple to browse through the different categories of news articles, with a huge variety of topics. The Digg community is very strong, users can “Digg” or “Bury” an article, affecting its popularity. Some argue that Digg cliques can potentially unnaturally affect popularity of items.
2. Propeller: Formerly known as Netscape, Propeller boasts a useful control panel for users to see other related articles very easily. Users vote on an article, hopefully helping to rank the best ones. A wide variety of topics and categories are covered.
3. Reddit: A popular site with many categories and subcategories (subreddits) that, although not focused on major news headlines, offers very simple, no-frills news. You can often find interesting and off-beat articles here, but without moderation the quality control can be questionable. Again, users can vote for or against items.
4. Newsvine: Here you can find community-driven news stories. Editorials and opinions are very common on Newsvine. Users of this site can have their own blog for commenting and following news stories and threads. Give and receive comments easily for postings. (Good luck with this one though. They have an itchy “ban” finger and are quite full of themselves.)
5. Fark: This site specializes in news articles, and administrators moderate the site, so only approved content and links are posted. Basic services are free, with varying subscription levels and additional access to be able to comment or access and post adult content.
6. Slashdot: This site is considered to be a current-affairs news site, with a “nerdy” twist. Each item has its own forum for comments by users. Semi-random moderators “score” items on several variables, giving users their own “karma score” which then controls what they can access. Users with high karma scores have more broad access.
7. Metafilter: A free blog site that welcomes comments by users, it’s designed to help users share links and interesting discoveries on the web. Members can make one post per day, and this must include one link. No longer free (costs $5 to sign up to limit membership a little), only members can participate actively but anyone can lurk and read.
8. I am bored: This news site covers general topics, with a slant toward off-beat and unusual news (the stuff that can keep your interest on a boring Saturday night). Initially founded on the idea that people surfing the net can get so bored that they actually type “I am bored” into their search engine, this site is offered as a remedy to that situation.
9. Mixx: This site features news articles from every category. Users develop their own “Mixx” that focuses on their interests. Groups with similar interests can be connected and comment interactively on items. You generally only get the Mixx items that pertain to your preferences.
10. Shoutwire: Shoutwire provides links to other news sites, but users can submit their own articles. Users can give ratings to articles, a “shout” or a “bash,” affecting a ranking and popularity. Similar to dig, users are not moderated, and opinions are those of the users.

Each of these sites is a little different, some are more controlled by the users, others are moderated carefully. Visiting a variety of them on a regular basis will allow you to keep your finger on the social news pulse and get your site noticed!

Tags: social media, social news, social news sites

Video Posting Software Sneek Peek!

I am playing with a beta version of a new piece of software we are going to be releasing soon. Remember Utility Poster? Well, not to sit on our past success, we immediately got to work on other things that bloggers could post to their sites with such a tool and created “Video Utility Poster.”

Don’t go looking for the URL. You can’t have this puppy just yet!

The first thing I always do with search software of any kind is a vanity search on my own name. I found some videos people had done on YouTube that I hadn’t seen before. (Video Utility Poster will also search Truveo but I haven’t gotten that far yet.)

As you check these out, remember how long it takes you to go search, grab embed code, paste it, and then go BACK if you want more than one video from your search and do it all over again.

I just searched, previewed each video on my desktop, and dragged and dropped the ones I wanted below and hit “Publish.”

Jealous? You’ll have your chance to grab this software very soon. If you already have Utility Poster, you’ll even get a break on the price!

Rick Butts on Authority Site Center

Jack Humphrey, CEO of Authority Site Center is the true voice of the future of Internet marketing. Author of Power Linking - he is the MAN!

Warner Carter on Social Power Linking

http://socialpowerlinkingtoday.com

Check this link for more info

Andrew Daum on Social Power Linking

http://andrewdaum.com/checkitout/powerlinking

Social Power Linking intro video.

Social Power Linking is the holy grail of membership sites on how to use social networking and social bookmarking to drive traffic to your web site.

Something Random on Social Power Linking

http://www.socialpowerlinking.com Jack Humphrey
Presents Website Promotion Tips With Today’s Topic
Social Media Marketing. See www.socialpowerlinking.com For More Information Now!

Site Reference Hired Someone To Just READ An Old Article of Mine, lol

“Are You Taking Advantage of Web 2.0 Marketing?” by Jack Humphrey

Internet Marketing, Web Design, Programming, Search Engine Optimization, & SEO Articles brought to you by www.Site-Reference.com

Tags: truveo, video posting software, vlog software, youtube

Twitter Hacks: Free Personal Assistant

Grinding put up a neat post I missed in February.

What if you could have a Twitter account that keeps up with all your social sites, blog comments, and more?

You can set Twitter up as a “personal assistant” and get all your important information fed to your account for easy access no matter where you are!

Check out “how to stay in contact when you’re everywhere ” and set up a Twitter account to get yourself organized!

No tag for this post.

How to turn tiny sales into huge commissions…

We’ve just upgraded the Content Desk affiliate program where all my products and services are now sold under one roof.

It was a massive undertaking, but it is finally done.  All the products in our line are integrated now and affiliates can earn a heck of a lot more with commissions on single product purchases rolling up into continuity programs all the way to a package that earns affiliates $500 commissions.

It is all integrated so whatever you want to promote puts our entire product line in front of prospects you send us so that you can receive multiple commission notifications from just one prospect at the same time!

You can literally turn an easy $47 software sale into almost $700 in commissions for a certain percentage of the people you send us.  (Not to mention over $150 per month in residual commissions!)

If your current affiliate programs are doing that for you, stick with them.  If not, join ours and profit all the way to the top of our funnel instead of getting cut out of the backends!

Watch My Video of the New Content Desk Affiliate Program

Tags: affiliate programs, content desk, make money online

Guy Kawasaki Says I Kick Ass!

There’s an interesting new site on the web. It is the creation of Guy Kawasaki, Will Mayall, and Kathryn Henkens. Its called Alltop and it is a different kind of news aggregator.

The fact that this blog was chosen to be in their blogging category with the likes of Problogger, Shoemoney, Copyblogger, and Dosh Dosh, among others, has nothing to do with my writing about them today.

The fact that I got a badge that says that I “kick ass” had little to do with my decision to write about Alltop today. I’m sure it helped. Bloggers aren’t immune to having their egos tickled.

Aside from the honor, fame, and prestige heaped upon the Traffic Report, Alltop is something to behold as a new way of thinking about information aggregation.

“You can think of an Alltop site as a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet. To be clear, Alltop sites are starting points—they are not destinations per se. The bottom line is that we are trying to enhance your online reading by both displaying stories from the sites that you’re already visiting and helping you discover sites that you didn’t know existed. In other words, our goal is the “cessation of Internet stagnation” by providing “aggregation without aggravation.”

Notice their header is right in the lower 3rd of the page when you get there. This is, as they say on their About page, to highlight the information instead of their own site.

Being part of the information their talking about highlighting, I find it hard to argue with their design choices. I just like seeing evolution in all its forms on the web.

Want to get your feed listed at Alltop?  They have many categories.  Check out this page to learn how you too can Kick Ass.

Tags: aggregators, alltop, alltop review, news aggregator, news sites

Next Page »