Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

Okay, so I’m browsing through the Warrior Forum this morning and I see a thread with the title, “Call the Internet Police! Domain Keyword Abuse!!” and I just had to open it up and take a look. Well, what I found was absolutely hysterical. There was this domain that somebody found that had to be one of the longest and most ridiculous domain names I’d ever seen. Something to do with cats, dogs, training, behavior, counseling, and a dog bakery. Yeah, don’t ask. Well, seeing this domain got me thinking. Why would this person want such a domain?

Well, I can think of one reason off the top of my head. You know how everybody talks about targeting long tail keywords? Well maybe this guy figured that by combining every single long tail keyword that he could think of into his domain name, he’ll get ALL the people who are actually looking up those keywords. I guess in a kind of twisted way it makes sense. But here’s the problem.

Most people, though not all, like to be able to remember the domains of places they go to so that they can just easily type them in. They also don’t like those domains to be too long so that they don’t have to type so much. Trust me, I have a couple of domain names that, though they would be considered perfectly acceptable, are probably longer than they should be. People are lazy and don’t want to do more than they have to… especially when it comes to typing in a URL.

So coming up with a name that is just ridiculously long is counterproductive to what you’re trying to do. Sure, you might get the curiosity seekers coming to your site to check out your long domain because it’s novel. But do you REALLY think that many of these people, if any at all, will turn into buyers? Maybe if you have some novelty item. Point is, you want to make your name as recognizable as possible. You don’t see Nike coming up with nike-is-the-greatest-sports-shoe-in-the-world-so-buy-one-and-just-do-it dot com, do you?

Picking a domain name is probably one of the most important things you will do. It will, aside from targeting certain keywords that you’re after, identify you for life. I for one don’t want to be known as the internet-marketer-who-has-ocd-and-just-cannot-get-away-from-his-computer dot com.

At least not yet.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html

What is it with Internet marketers? You’d think the very first thing they’d learn to do is use a search engine. I mean how hard is it? I see how you guys use search engines and it’s a crying shame. Well, this article is going to teach you the RIGHT way to use them. If you’re curious as to what I have to share, you might want to read this.

First of all, you have to get away from this habit of using quotes when you search for something. Don’t you realize that that’s only going to help you find what you’re looking for a lot quicker? What’s the fun in that? Don’t you want the adventure of scouring through all those meaningless search results when you look up things like “how do I get cat poop off of my Stetson?” If you use quotes, you’re going to find your answer way to fast as there can’t be too many sites that are going to have that exact question. But without quotes, well, who knows what you’ll find? That’s the fun of searching without quotes. Be adventurous! Dare to live outside the box!

Secondly, when you use the search engines, you want to ignore all those results at the top and the right hand side. Don’t you realize that, one, those results are probably going to be the most relevant since those people are actually PAYING for those positions and two, you DO realize that those people ALL have something to sell to you. Do you REALLY think that you’re going to get to those sites and get the info that you need for FREE? I mean get real. You’re a marketer for crying out loud.

Finally, when you use the search engines you DON’T want to use just ONE. I mean what fun is that? You end up getting blasted with the same irrelevant results for every search you do because the search engine you decide to use doesn’t know a pea from a peanut. You MUST use ALL the search engines. That way you can get an idea of which one provides you with the MOST relevant results. Then, you can decide, depending on whether you want info quick or just want to get jerked around, which search engine you’re going to use for THAT particular search.

There you have it…my top three tips for using search engines.

Now aren’t you glad you read this article?

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html.

There is no question that SEO is important unless you’re just going to spend all your time on paying for traffic. And even then, you want your pages to be as optimized as possible so that they are relevant enough to keep your PPC costs down. But how many people know if they’re up to their level of competition in the niche that they’re tackling? How do you find out? Well, this article is going to provide some simple, but effective tips for sizing up the competition to see if you can battle with the big boys.

Probably the first thing you want to look at is the site itself. What better way to know what you’re up against than to look it straight in the face? Take a look at how many indexed pages they have. See what keywords they’re tackling. Take a look at their site design. Naturally, you want to see what all this work has done for their ranking. If you want to beat them, you’re going to have to be better than them.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have seen some God awful looking sites at the top of the SERPs. You’d really have to wonder how they got there. Well, there is more to a ranking than just looks and content. Unfortunately, and until Google starts to give this less weight, backlinks play a big part in the ranking picture. A sight with a lot of backlinks, in Google’s mind, is a site that is popular with other sites online. As a marketer, you know that this isn’t really true. But that’s the flaw in Google’s algorithm. Hopefully, one day, they’ll change it. But until they do, backlinks are important.

Another thing you have to look at is how much they’re actually paying for advertising. By paying for advertising, they’re getting more visitors to their site. In turn, as time goes on, those visitors bring their pages up the ranks. If they’re spending a lot of money, can you compete with them? I’ve seen sites spending thousands of dollars a day in PPC costs. Most beginning Internet marketers simply cannot compete with them.

Point is, sometimes you have to pick your battles. If you find you’re looking to get into a niche that is dominated by sites with high PR, tons of backlinks and an ad spend that would make the US debt look tiny in comparison, you might want to reconsider and get into something else. I’m not saying that they can’t be beaten. What I am saying is that it’s going to take a lot of work.

So take a look at your competition and figure out what YOU have to do in order to give THEM a run for their money.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html

I’ve seen marketers make stupid statements before but the other day, over at the Warrior Forum, I saw what was probably the stupidest statement ever. I am talking about relevant backlinks. The person who started the thread claims that the only backlinks that are relevant to your site are ones that come from sites that are in the same niche. In other words, if you have a site on home repair, the only backlinks that are relevant are the ones that come from other home repair sites. If you believe that, I have some land to sell you…cheap.

Okay, let’s clear this issue up once and for all because this is the biggest bunch of malarkey I have ever heard in my life. Probably the best way to illustrate my point why ALL backlinks are relevant (though some are more relevant than others) is with an example. I hope this example paints a very clear picture for you.

Let’s say, for argument sake that you have a site that sells hard to find trading cards. I’m talking about cards from old TV shows like Combat, Batman and so on. You’ve got tons of these, all in mint condition. People who are card collectors absolutely LOVE your site. Some of them love it so much that they actually rave about it on their blogs. But wait a minute. What kind of blogs do these people have?

Well, seeing that these are just regular folks (not marketers) it turns out that they have blogs that have all sorts of content on them such as needlepoint tips, entertainment watches, photos of cats and dogs and just about anything you can think of that has NOTHING to do with collectible trading cards. In fact, there are no backlinks to your site from any site that sells trading cards. Why? Because the last thing they want to do is promote the competition.

So you have all these backlinks from sites that have nothing to do with trading cards and these backlinks, along with the fact that you have some great content on your site, shoot you right up to number one on Google’s hit parade. So tell me. Are these backlinks NOT relevant?

Sure, it would be great if you could get some backlinks from authority sites in your niche. But just because you don’t doesn’t mean that the ones you DO have are meaningless, worthless or whatever the person at the forum is claiming.

Okay, point made? Any backlink that you can get is going to help you with your site ranking as long as it’s not one from a site that has been sandboxed by Google for being in a bad neighborhood, spamming or whatever the reason is.

Hope this clears up this ridiculous issue once and for all.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html

Do you know what I love about marketers? I love how they absolutely can butcher some terms to death. SEO and SEM are two examples. Many beginners use these interchangeably as if they meant the same thing. However, they are not the same. So, in order to clear up some of the confusion, this article is going to first explain the difference between the two and then offer some tips on each. I am sure you will find this informative and hopefully, keep you from talking about one thing when you really mean the other.

Let’s start with SEO, which stands for search engine optimization. This actually refers to the practice of using on and off page tactics to get your site ranked higher on the SERPs. On page tactics would be the use of keywords, anchor text, meta tags and so on, in order to get your site ranked. Off page tactics would be writing articles, getting backlinks, using video and other web 2.0 properties to get your site ranked higher on the SERPs. In a nutshell, that’s SEO.

Okay, so then what exactly is SEM? SEM is using paid marketing in order to get more traffic to your site. This could mean using things like Google Adwords or even Yahoo’s or MSN’s pay per click services. Essentially, you are using paid search engine listings in order to get traffic. It has nothing to do with your actual organic placement in the SERPs. In fact, your site can be on page 100 organically. But if you bid high enough on keywords, you could be listed first in the paid listings. So as you can see, the two work together but one is not dependent on the other.

As for tips, let’s start with SEO first. If you’re on a tight budget, as many beginning marketers are, this is the way you want to go. You can actually get a good ranking without ever having to spend a dime on advertising. By optimizing your site as best as you can, writing articles, submitting press releases, making videos, bookmarking and getting backlinks, you can easily conquer even the toughest niches. If money is tight and time is not a problem, this is the way to go.

However, if time is at a premium and money is no object, then there is no quicker way to get traffic than through SEM. A paid ad that appears at the top of the paid listings can bring you hundreds of visitors a day IF the demand for those keywords is there. As I said, you can be on page 100 organically and it won’t matter. However, IF you are going to go the SEM route, you want to make sure that you get a solid education on pay per click marketing before you tackle this beast. Many marketers have lost their shirts going the SEM route because they didn’t know what they were doing.

There you have it. The difference between SEO and SEM and some tips on using them both. Hopefully, you found this information useful.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html

If you’re concerned about SEO (who isn’t?) and you’re new to the game, you might want to read this article. Why? Well, things aren’t quite the way they were back in the good old days. Of course, if you’re new, you don’t remember the good old days. Or maybe you do and don’t realize how much has changed. Either way, this article will get you up to speed.

Okay, so just what WERE the good old days of search engine optimization? Well, when it came to on page optimization and keywords, essentially it went like this…use as many relevant keywords as you can throughout the page. But then the search engines saw what people were doing and started dropping the hammer on these sites. Maybe you were a victim yourself. I know I was. Yes, guilty as charged. Anyway, those days are dead and gone. What’s replaced them is a little tricky to work with, but well worth the effort. Why?

Well, it comes down to visitor experience. More specifically, you want YOUR visitors to have the best experience that they can have when visiting your site. And that means, if you have a site on, say, debt relief, they don’t want to see the phrase “debt relief” a hundred times on the page. Not only is that going to annoy the heck out of them, it’s going to tick off the search engines as well. And when that happens, your site disappears from the listings.

Okay, so what DO you want to do IF you want to rank for debt relief and related keywords? Actually, it’s quite simple but DOES take a little bit of thought. You want to mix up your keyword phrases while at the same time, make sure they’re still all loosely related. For example, using debt relief, you might want to use keyword phrases like “get out of debt,” “erase debt,” “relieve debt” and so on. Related phrases are easy enough to find by going to Google’s keyword tool. The key is to use these phrases in a natural way so that they don’t sound forced.

Like I said, it takes a little work, but if you want your sites to stay listed and even have a chance to rank well, you’ll take the time to do this simple little thing.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html

The irony of this whole article has not escaped me. It is an article on SEO for those who don’t like to read. And yet, in order to get this very important information, you need to read the article. Yes, irony is a beautiful thing. Anyway, in this article I am going to focus on a subject that screws up a lot of Internet marketers, not just in regard to SEO, but for other things as well. Keep reading to find out what I’m talking about.

If you are concerned with SEO, you probably have a lot of plugins installed in your browser. Today I want to specifically talk about one plugin…SEO For Firefox. Why do I want to talk about it? Well, if you’re one of those people who don’t like to read and have downloaded this plugin, you have probably noticed, when trying to get data for sites, that nothing comes up. You’re like, “What’s up with this?” And you can’t understand why you’re not getting any page rank, links or anything for that matter.

Well, if you were to take the time to read, more specifically, take time to read the user notes, you will have found that everything was set to on demand instead of auto. Meaning, that if you want to have stats displayed automatically when doing your keyword research, you have to actually go to the options of this plugin and change them…manually. Why did they do this?

Well, again, if you read the page where you actually downloaded the plugin, they tell you right on it…they have done this in order to keep those who will simply abuse the plugin (leave everything on all the time) from abusing it. This way, when they go surfing and see nothing come up, they’ll either have to manually click each stat they want OR figure out that they have to change the options.

And this problem goes beyond just SEO plugins. It extends to just about everything that these marketers do. They don’t read the manual of software, they don’t read the ebooks of SEO instruction in order to actually learn SEO and they don’t read stats in a way that makes them meaningful. They briefly go over them and shrug their shoulders. They don’t do the necessary research to REALLY decide if a niche is viable or not. In other words, they’re lazy.

You’re not lazy right? So, if you want to know why your site is sinking like a rock in the SERPs, you’ll read past my signature at the end of this article.

Or not.

The choice, is entirely up to YOU.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html

Everybody is so concerned about content when it comes to the SEO game that they completely forget about something as simple as a photo. Think photos aren’t important to search engine optimization? Think again. This article is going to explain exactly why photos are important and how you can use them to not only get your site to the top of the ranks but enhance your visitor’s experience as well. Keep reading to find out more.

Okay, so what’s the big deal with photos? Certainly they don’t get indexed, right? Wrong! Head on over to the Google search engine and look up anything at all. Heck, let’s look for Betty White. There are something like 13 million results. Well, take a look at the top left hand corner of the search engine page. See where it says “Images”? Click on that.

You will, notice something very interesting. If you look at the URLs of the top sites where the top images are found, you will notice that they are different from the URLs of the top sites for the regular search. What’s this? You mean to say that you can appear nowhere on page 1 of Google’s search engine for a term and yet appear on page 1 of the images search? That’s exactly what I am saying. And do you know why?

Go back to my original statement at the top of this article. Most people are so concerned with just regular text content that they don’t even bother with images on their site. So many of the top sites in the regular search won’t even show up in the image search. This is where you can get an edge over other sites, by including relevant images on YOUR site.

Now, I know what you might be thinking. Nobody actually looks for photos. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong. Betty White photos get about 1,300 searches a month and have very little competition. You could easily rank at the top of the image SERPs if you had a page of relevant photos on your site like a photo gallery.

Make sure that the photos you put up are as relevant as possible. Also make sure that you have the rights to actually post these photos. There are some serious copyright issues involved with putting up photos of people where you don’t own the rights to them. So make sure you’re not in violation.

By optimizing your site for photos, this is a great way to get around the mass amount of competition in the regular search engine and get some extra people to your site.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html

See, this is what happens when people rely too much on two things…Google and automation. Boy, am I glad that I don’t rely on either or I’d be in the same boat as everybody else right now. Just recently, as I reported in another article, Google changes its search engine layout and its keyword tool. Well, this has totally sent everybody into a black hole as far as their automated keyword research and any other tool that has to do with the search engine. Well, if you’re one of the victims, this article offers some solutions to your problem. You may or may not like them.

At the top of the list is to contact the creators of the software you’re using. Some of these folks are already working on fixes. The problem is, some of the tools you’re using may be old and outdated and the creator may have decided not to fix it and just phase it out. What this means is you have two choices. You can either look for a replacement tool or you can do the process manually. I would think that the latter option is not one you’re looking forward to.

Another solution is to simply use another search engine. Google is not the be all and end all. Yeah, I know, they have like 50% of the search engine traffic. But what about the other 50%? Why do so many marketers ignore the other search engines? Do you know that a keyword that would cost you $2 per click through Google can be had for like 20 cents over a Yahoo? There is a BIG world out there that doesn’t start with the big “G”. So go and use MSN or Yahoo or even Bing, which by the way seems to be the search engine Google stole its new look from. Wonder why?

Your last option, if Google is all you’re willing to use and your keyword tool is not yet fixed and may not be any time soon, is to do all this stuff manually. Remember the good old days when that’s HOW we had to do things? It’s amazing how spoiled we’ve become with all these fancy toys that we have. Well, if you want to dance to the music, you have to pay the piper. My apologies to the Chairmen Of The Board, circa 1970. Man, that was a great song.

Anyway, there you have it…your options.

Choose the one that works best for YOU.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html

I have no doubt that I am going to get a lot of slack from some of the so called SEO experts over this article, but the heck with ‘em. There is a lot of misinformation going around about anchor text so I figured it was time for me to set the record straight. Contrary to what you might have been told, the kind that you will want to use will depend on what it is you’re using it for. If you’re confused, don’t be. Keep reading and it will all become perfectly clear to you.

What most SEO experts probably haven’t taught you is this. Anchor text serves two purposes. Oh, I know…you thought it was just to get good placement in the SERPs. But it serves another purpose…and that’s to get people to actually click on the darn link in the first place. What’s that you say? You can serve both purposes with the same kind of anchor text? Maybe, but what would you say if I told you that a particular kind that works well for the one purpose but not as well for the other?

Most people will use an anchor text that reads something like, “best-acne-cure” so that they get a good placement in the SERPs for it. And that’s fine. That’s the kind of anchor text you SHOULD be using, one that is keyword rich for whatever phrase you’re targeting. Sadly, and this has come from tons of testing, this anchor text sucks for getting people to click on your links. At least in comparison to another anchor text that works wonders for that. Know what it is?

Click Here!

Yeah, I know…pretty lousy for the SERPs, but if you want people to click on your darn link, you have to pretty much tell them to. Now, there is a way around this so that you can have the best of both worlds. What you do is something like this…

Click Here! for the “best-acne-cure”.

What you’ve done is made it so that you have the better click me link AND the better SEO link all in the same sentence. And if you’re submitting articles to directories, most directories will allow you at least two anchor text in your signature.

So, if you want to get the best of both worlds, use them both. Between the two, they WILL get the job done.

To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html