A $279 Laptop ????

I got an email from TigerDirect advertising a $279 laptop - so of course I had to take a look.

I don't know who is worse on a computer me or my partner, SKinney - we both seem to wear them out within a couple of years. I've been using a Dell for a couple of years and honestly, it's lasted me longer than any other laptop I've had, but it too is wearing down. We travel a lot and my laptops just wind up taking a lot of abuse.

Anyway, I checked this out and it really looks fun.



Here are the bells and whistles the Asus Eee PC 2G Surf has :

Condition: New

Operating Systems: LINUX

Platform: Notebook PC

USB Ports: 3

LAN Ports: 1

Audio Out Jacks: 1

Microphone Jacks: 1

VGA Ports: 1

Processor Brand: Intel

Processor Class: Mobile CPU

Memory Type: DDR2

Memory Size: 512MB

Capacity: 2GB Solid State Drive (SSD)

Supplemental Drive Type: Media Reader

Media Types: Secure Digital Multi Media Card

Audio Description: Integrated Audio

Audio Chipset: Hi-Definition (HD) Audio Support

Graphics Description: Integrated Graphics

Communications Description: Integrated LAN/Integrated Wireless LAN

Interface Type: RJ-45 Ethernet Connector/802.11b/g Wireless Networking

Data Transfer Rate: 10/100Mbps NIC 54 Mbps

Protocols: 802.11b 802.11g

Width: 8.86"

Height: 0.79" - 1.26"

Depth: 6.30"

Weight: 2.0 lbs

Mouse Type: Touch Pad

Keyboard Type: 80 Key US Keyboard

Display Type: WVGA

Viewable Screen Size: 7"

Maximum Resolution: 800 x 480

Battery Type: 4-Cell Lithium-ion

Battery Life: Up to 2.8 hours


And here is a groovy little video that shows this fun machine in action!



Like it? Hate it? Tell me what you think! I think I might get one to travel with - ti would be just ideal to take along for writing (deadlines don't care I'm on vacation!).

A Writer's Thoughts About iContent Robot - It's Not Monkey Butt!

Curious about the title? Monkey butt refers to this hysterical email I got some someone long ago that was using an article spinner and it did something along the lines of taking some sales copy and turning it into:
"Yes, you need this, you and your monkey butt, how can you live without this monkey in your home making your butt make money - NOW download the screen and get your monkey butt in gear!"

I always cringe a little when I see my clients purchase automated content spinners. It's not because I fear replacement, there's no artificial intelligence that can come up with creative angles, new phrases and new ideas - it can only spin what is put into it. And when they give me 100 articles of basically crap to rewrite - I usually just wind up trashing whatever they gave me and rewriting from scratch so they get something quality and usable.

I had a client gushing to me about iContent Robot so curiosity got the best of me and I decided to look it over so I paid $67 for a membership (it's monthly). And here's a quick list of what rocks and what sucks about it:

What rocks about iContent Robot:
* iContent Robot creates content that is a lot better than every other content generator/spinner I've seen to date.

*This program is very easy to use, you simply put in the coded keyword or keyword phrase and you get an article. When you click "regenerate" it will spin the article to be written differently, yet about the same niche market. For example, I did "cell phone" and I generated about 5 articles in a row about choosing cell phone plans, yet no two were exactly alike and would have been considered unique content by the search engines.

What sucks about iContent Robot:
*$67 per month for a membership is a little steep for a lot of people.

*The articles are boring. You can get an article that's presentable but after 3 spins the content doesn't exactly repeat itself but it is still the same articles over and over. Unique for search engines to be sure but not your readers.

*The articles are very general (which of course I realize that they must be or spinning would never work).

*You're limited to 50 topics to spin from per month. And not 50 that you come up with. You get to choose from a list the makers of iContent Robot are choosing.
A quick overview of a few from the list I got included the following:

( Cell Phones Topics )
cell-phone
cheap-cellular-phones
cell-phone-plans

( Finance Topics )
loans
bad-credit-loans
home-improvements-loan
critical-illness-insurance
yaght-insurance-costs

( Home Improvement Topics )
home-remodeling
bathroom-tile-designes
bathroom-decorating-tips
kitchen-remodeling

( Legal Topics )
lawyer
bankruptcy-lawyers
accident-lawyers
personal-injury-claims-lawyers

( Vacation Topics )
caribbean-island-cruise
business-travel-tips

( Beauty Topics )
using-beauty-care-products
cellulite
anti-aging
acne-skincare

( Health & Wellness )
back-pain
cancer
alzheimers

( Weight Loss Topics )
weight-loss-drugs
hoodia

( Miscellaneous Topics )
budget-car-rental-tips

( Weddings )
wedding-favors
cheap-weddings
choosing-wedding-rings

Okay all of those are decent niche markets, anyone into affiliate programs and PPC (pay per click) knows that. If you have a blog that you do this on - you can probably get away with using the Robot however, you will probably need to tweak the articles before you use them if you really want people to visit your blog more than once.

*And when I say you'll need to tweak the articles I mean these articles need a lot of tweaking. In the sample sets I ran (and I ran about 100 total articles on various subjects. Each and every one needed editing for incorrect words and just strange sentences that made absolutely no sense.

So make your own decision on whether or not you'd like to use iContent Robot - I have to give it kudos for being one of the best content creators to come out in a while - but like all the others - it's very limited in what it can do and but I will agree that it's not Monkey Butt.

Interesting Informations About Google Adwords and Our Book!

So I finally dove into Adwords. Wow what an education!

I dutifully used the keyword tool and chose my keyword phrases and completely missed the part about putting keywords in quotation markets for phrase match and brackets for exact phrase match. I had something along the lines of 600,000 impressions and 100's of clicks before I figured that one out and that was only day 1!

So I did some heavy reading at Google and "got my learn on" about Adwords. I'm spending MUCH less per day and my conversation from clicks to buys for our book have been really good!

Also, I've found it takes the average person about 5 visits before they buy the book. I'm not really sure why that is - just being a careful shopper I suppose but I found that really interesting.
Another good point is that we've been getting so much good feedback from people about the book.

I had a lady write me just today and tell me she needed to earn extra money because her husband lost his job and the wolves were at the door. She read the book and then slept on it and went to Craigslist and sent a small number of answers to advertisements looking for writers and she got a paying job writing for a coffee and tea company - something she has a real passion for but cannot even afford the luxury of right now - she went on to say she's getting free samples to write about as well as getting paid and her husband is now reading the book and getting ideas to make money writing from home too!
I love happy stories like that and I hope it works out so she can quit her day job and they both get to write full time - there is certainly enough work out there!

You know SKinney and I have a kind of wacky sense of humor and we're serious when it comes to writing good content, designing good pages and keeping those keyword stats in check - but we're two of the most fun people on the planet - so when we got together and wrote this book, we wanted it to be different.
And it is - it's about HOW to be a writer and HOW to make money.
Pretty sweet and simple.

Then it came time to get a cover and we went to someone and actually paid them for this:





Average and well......yawn - right?







So Skinney had a cow about the sheer boredom of this design and he tore it up and came up with something fun using our art.

Okay it's not conventional - but it's very "us" and we used out improved photos from our art company, 3am.


If you're ready to dive into the fun world of writing online and get paid to do something you will look forward to doing every single day - check out this book!

http://keywordcontent.net/writeallthewaytothebank.html

Search Engines Myths Exposed In This Free Report - Get Yours!

Confused about how to rank on Google?

There is SO MUCH bogus information out there, often coming from
the "gurus" themselves.

On January 9th, 2008, Jonathan Leger is releasing a new free report
that completely obliterates the following myths about Google (and then
goes on to show you what DOES work):

Myth #1: Google Knows All and Sees All
Myth #2: Google Will Not Rank Duplicate Content
Myth #3: You Must Get Links From Related Subject Sites to Rank
Myth #4: Your Site Must Focus On One Subject To Rank
Myth #5: High PageRank Means Good Rankings
Myth #6: To Maintain Good Rankings, You Must Add New Content

..and..
MYTH #7: THE BIGGEST MYTH: Ranking In Google Is Hard!

The site is in pre-launch now, but if you sign up early you will get
a sample chapter full of proof and details.

And did I mention he'll pay you for referring other people to this
powerful f.ree report? And that he'll pay you for anyone THEY refer
as well (even while it's in pre-launch)? Find out more about that
when you download your sample chapter from:

http://searchenginemythsexposed.com

Write All the Way to the Bank Updated for 2008

We released our book "Write All the Way to the Bank" last year and we've had a really great response. It's not a book about form or sentence structure, but rather about how to create your own writing business.

Many people have a talent for writing however they don't pursue their dream because they don't know how or where to start and that's where our book comes in. We show you how to find the jobs, how to land the jobs and how to get paid.

We included several places that hire bloggers and web writers on a regular basis and updated the list to remove some companies that are either no longer hiring or have been absorbed into other firms. Get the scoop on writing for the web, creating keyword articles, and avoiding the scams that take advantage of new writers.

If you're ready to make a living writing online - check out our 2008 release of "Write All the Way to the Bank" - many people have written to say they landed a paying job the first week after they read through our book - we think that's great!!!

Keyword Articles Are Still the King of Web Content (Human Written)

I keep getting advertisement after advertisement in my email box for all these "miracle" keyword article writers. In my humble opinion - they all suck.

I've been given several different programs that promise to spin and rewrite articles which they do but they don't seem to make a lot of sense and I just don't think the AI is far enough along to replace good old human input.

I won't mention any product names but one in particular is good for counting keyword density and theme keywords densities and even gives helpful suggestions and shows you where you boo-boo with a misspelling in your piece - however when it's time to rewrite and you tell it to change the keyword article into something that could have been written by a child from a third world country.

I'm not saying don't use private label rights articles unchanged or don't spin your own articles - it's cost effective and works for positioning if you do it right, what I am saying is that in the time it takes to set up the program and tell it what to replace blah, blah, blah. You could have opened that keyword article in Notetab Pro (one of my favorite programs) or even Microsoft Word and used the Control + R function to replace the keyword or keyword phrase with whatever you wanted. It's clean and goes sentence by sentence so you can rewrite as necessary. It's faster and it WORKS and it works very well.

and that's my 2-cents - your thoughts?

Confused About Using PLR Articles?

Since I mentioned the Private Label Rights, I've had some emails from people who are confused about how to use PLR articles.

It's easy, you just post them wherever you need fresh content.
Just like when we ghostwrite articles for you, you own the right to rewrite, change, distribute, publish under your own name or resell your articles. They are yours. The only difference between PLR articles and keyword content articles that you order from us is that there is zero waiting time. You pay, you download, you use. The number of PLR articles in each set is limited however so you can keep your exclusivity on the web.

Another great way to use PLR articles is to rewrite them (also sometimes referred to as "spinning"); I know, I know, you're saying, "But I bought articles because I don't write my own material" and that's the case of 99.9% of our clients - however what you can do is change an opening paragraph, add a sentence or two to make an article refer directly to a product on your site and link to it or otherwise replace a keyword phrase with another hot keyword phrase.

Here's an example using a PLR article paragraph:
"If you're interested in finding ways to make your small room
appear larger,an old standby trick of many interior designers
is to use a mirror or two on the walls to give the appearance of
more space in the room. You can also use lighter colors in your
interior decor as it gives a room a more spacious feel, darker colors
tend to make a room feel smaller ."

And here is the same paragraph with an added bit to make it specifically address a product:
"If you're interested in finding ways to make your small room
appear larger,an old standby trick of many interior designers
is to use a mirror or two on the walls to give the appearance of
more space in the room, such as the XYZ Mirror.
You can also use lighter colors in your interior decor as it gives
a room a more spacious feel, darker colors tend to make a room feel smaller ."

See how easy that is?
That's one of the things that makes using PLR articles so easy to do.
You can make and every article read as though it were written just for the niche market on your website. One sentence or comment can do it.

Our private label rights articles will be available starting in January and they will be very different from what is currently available. I wanted to put together something affordable, useful and limited in number so anyone using them will get real benefit. Join the mailing list on our PLR page and get the updates and I'm thinking about giving everyone on the mailing list - early entrance to the PLR articles first.

:)

The Great Thing About Being a Freelance Keyword Ghost Writer.......

The bar none coolest thing about being a writer is that I have to research what I write about and I learn so many cool things about the most common everyday things.

I was writing for a cell phone blog today and when I was looking up keyword phrases for search volume and blah, blah, blah you know the drill - I kept running across "mosquito ring tone"...which intrigued me. Did people actually want that high-pitched annoying sound on their cell phones?
I was wrong - it's not just a ring tone at all.

Here's a snipped from freemosquitoringtones.org :

What is the Mosquito Ringtone?

The short version, A tone outside the audible range of hearing of most people over 30. This means that you can get phone calls and receive text messages in class or school without teachers hearing it. For more in-depth information on how the mosquito ringtone works, please see the Mosquito RingTone FAQ. For information on how to get the ringtone on to your phone, see our Mosquito Ringtone How To Guide.

+

=

A ring tone teachers & parents can't hear!

So that's it in a nutshell - the tones are available for a free listen on the website - can you hear them?

What the Heck is PLR Content or PLR 101

Since our announcement the other day we are putting together a real hoss daddy of a PLR section for people to use, I've gotten a few emails from people wondering what exactly PLR content is and basically why they should use it.

Besides being economically smart (the article sets are less than you'd pay to get custom written content) you own the work 100% upon payment just like having articles ghostwritten.

So, here is a little PLR 101 for you (from our PLR section) :


What the heck is PLR Content?
Private label rights or PLR content is growing rapidly in popularity as it gives you not only original content - you own it!

When you purchase a set of PLR articles, you have full latitude to do with them as you please. You may change them, sell them, publish them on your webpage or blog or use them to create your own ebooks to promote your business. Brand them with your own company name and sell them as your own creation - and when you buy them from us - we won't tell - our clients are confidential!
The only limit for how to use your PLR content is your imagination.

Why are only a limited number of sets available?
As you know, Google (or any search engine) doesn't like duplicate content. By keeping the number of sets down, your sets can be considered exclusive on the web.

Are these articles written by outsourced people outside the USA?
A very valid question. While we think America is a groovy little melting pot - we don't outsource writing-ever. Our own staff of writers research and write every set of articles that we make available so we have total control over our PLR products from start to finish.

What if I need niche topics I don't see available on your site?
With the ever evolving nature of the Internet, the hot mesothelioma keywords of today will give way to lemon law and other hot topics. If you have a market you want content for, just use the handy form that is available on every page of our PLR section to request a topic. We will have the set up within 5 working days or less.

Want to Know How to Get Those Subscribe Buttons On Your Blog?

Want more readers to your blog? Let people subscribe and put your blog feed in My Yahoo, My MSN, My AOL, blah, blah, blah you get what I'm talking about.
If already know html/xml - no biggie to do.

However if you don't there is an easy solution for you.

Go here http://www.toprankblog.com/tools/rss-buttons/

And then you will need 3 pieces of information.
1- Your Blog Name
2- Your Blog URL
3-Your Blog Feed URL (usually URL + atom.xml )

Choose default setting to start and the cut and paste the code into your template.
You may have to play around a little and keep hitting "Preview" to get the look you want.

But the result will be roughly like this:

R|Mail


Except it will be in a straight line down the page - great for a side column on your blog.

Simple? You bet.

Elance Discontinuing Their Select Membership - But Do You Qualify for a Premier Membership?

Elance is one of the few places I would tell people it's okay to pay for a membership because I have connected with very cool clients through there and we still do business today. I have been with Elance a long time and only got hosed by one person-ever. That's a great ratio in this biz.

When I got up this morning, SKinney was going to go work out (he is way too motivated in the morning) and I said I didn't want to - I wanted to do some work and have a cup or three of coffee. So first thing is first, open ye olde email and see if any fires occurred overnight I need to put out first thing and I got this email from Elance.

Dear keywordcontent, Thank you for using Elance. As of December 4th, the Elance Select program, as you know it today, will be discontinued. While we know the Select program was popular, offering many benefits such as restricted access to Select projects, profile differentiation, and a generous portion of bids, the only criteria to become a Select provider was a higher membership fee. Unfortunately, the Select seal indicated a level of quality that just didn’t have much weight behind it. To address this, we are excited to introduce the Premier Program - a new merit-based program that incorporates quality and participation as a requirement for membership. We encourage you to visit the Premier Program overview page for more information. And, if you haven’t done so already, check out the new memberships available December 4th by clicking here now. We truly appreciate your business. Sincerely, Jon Diller VP, Provider Network & Services www.elance.com

Premier membership requirements are here: http://www.elance.com/p/help/provider/premiermembership.html

They made what I would call a good move. Effective December 4th. Because basically (like their letter said and I wholeheartedly agree) the Select Membership gave a false impression that you got a higher quality writer when the only criteria was that you pay something like $69 a month instead of $20 or so. So they are raising the bar and killing off the Select Program.

However, I mentioned this to a writer friend of mine and he flipped out. He has nothing verifiable other than he's one of the best writers I know. He graduated high school - started writing straight away and never stopped. He's a great copywriter, ghostwriter and keyword article creator but he has no verifiable credentials other than a virtual stream of very happy clients and the fact he lives a very comfortable lifestyle afforded by his skills to attest to what he does and does well.

So Elance may lose some good people too in this change.

Want to Know Exactly Who is Visiting Your Website for Free?

If you have a website and you want to track your visitors, you can do so silently through the use of Google Analytics.

There is a very simple script that you put every page of your site that you want to track and you can see some interesting information about your visitors. Including the city and state the visitor is located in, their user defined settings, what browser they use, how they connect to the Internet, their screen colors, screen resolutions and if they have java and flash support. You can see what pages they visited and how long they spent on each page. Also, if the visitor or new or returning is also noted.
The Map Overlay feature is really handy - it lets you see via a world map where your visitors are coming from.
The one displayed in Google Analytics is a lot bigger than the example you see here.

You can click all the way down and see exactly where someone that visits your site is if you get a number of visits from one particular person repeatedly you can watch to see if they are considering using your product or services or if someone is being an annoying stalker :) .

The Traffic Referral feature is also a great feature. It shows where your visitors are coming from and how the found your site. Whether it was from a direct request, organic results or a referral from another site. Also the keywords used to find your website are also noted so you can use those in your SEO and work towards elevating your website's relevance to those keywords.

If you want to find out more about your visitors and how to better your conversion rates, check out Google Analytics and learn how to better sell your services through the power of information.

Private Label Rights Articles- Coming soon!

Fall is definitely giving way to winter here in Ohioland and I'm a Texas girl and I really don't do well with the chilly factor, maybe someday I'll acclimate.

I wanted to tell you something exciting we're working on, I have heard from numerous clients for a long while and especially over the past year - how they need niche market content but all that they seem to buy is either rehashed content that's already out there OR worse, it was written by people who did not speak English as a first language (which leads to such wonderful phrases as," I am for to be telling you with absolute sincerity that fine dining in Miami is best when you wear your fine clothing - clothing is a must when fine dining...).

So my writers and I have put together a huge list of the niche markets we write the most and we are going to release limited edition PLR (private label rights) articles. We are going to limit these to 100 sets per topic and then close it out to keep everyone's content exclusive and original.|

What can you do with PLR content? You can post it on your website, blog, article directories, add a sentence or two and make the article refer directly to your own products and services, link from your PLR articles to your products and services on your website and you can also use them in ebooks to promote your site. You own all rights and you may even resell them. You own the rights to your set to do with as you darn well please.

We're also doing something else I haven't seen done - we are allowing people to request niche markets they would like added to the site. I'll keep posting updates as we get closer to the launch and in the meantime, feel free to go ahead and request a PLR topic that you'd like to see.

Get on our PLR mailing list to stay up to date on the launch and when new sets are released and as for me - right now, I need ice cream!

Making Money With Your Blog - For Real

I finished reading "Blogging to the Bank" by Rob Benwell earlier this month and it's excellent and let me tell you why. I did web design for years and I have a really good grasp what the search engines want out of a page and this book really impressed me.

He wrote it for both people not really familiar with html so he kept it very simple and straight forward but he didn't write really far below my knowledge either - there are a lot of screen captures as he explains how to set up your blog - even shows the most profitable way to set up your blog to make the most money and also shows the reader how to choose the affiliate programs that will give the best returns.

Finding keywords, niche markets that will give a good return and how to get good, exclusive content as well as why that is important are all detailed. He shows how to set up a blog in Wordpress however you can translate the same techniques into Blogger quite easily, it's best if you host the blog on your own server instead of at Blogger.

How to get links (as you know Google will blacklist you if you use a Link Farm) however trading links with like companies in the same genre is good and will help your page rank. Where to do this is highlighted.

He turns a 6-figure income through blogging so he obviously knows what he is doing . I went in a little skeptical - but I have to tell you this ebook impressed me - check it out if you're ready to start making a passive income from blogging - I have already started implementing the techniques in this ebook and they WORK - it's only been a couple of weeks but I'm already seeing results!

Get Your Copy of Blogging to the Bank Click Here!

Search Engine Optimization Basics

When a client comes to you and wants help to make their website appear higher in the return results for Google and other search engines, they are asking you for search engine optimization services and there are a number of ways to you can “tweak” out a website (including your own) to appear higher in the search rankings. Statistics show more people go to Google to find companies for products and services instead of their local Yellow Pages. When you search for something how many pages on Google do you go down? If you’re like most folks, about 2-3 pages of results, there might be a better deal buried 20 pages down in the results but because they don’t have good search engine optimization, Google doesn’t feel their site has as much relevance to your search as the sites that appear in the top pages.

First of all, let’s start with the basics; there are search engines and there are directories. They are slightly different but will be looking for the same basic criteria on the web pages to determine how relevant your website is based on the text on your page and other small factors.

A search engine is a place that uses purely computerized ways to calculate the relevance of web pages using text-indexing robots called “spiders”. Spiders patrol the web and index every piece of text they find and assign relevance to that information based on other factors on the web page. A web site that has their SEO (search engine optimization) done correctly is said to be “spider food”. Google is an example of a search engine.

The other side you’ll be optimizing web sites for are the search directories. A search directory works just like a search engine in terms of sending spiders to come index the web sites; however the relevance of that returned information is decided by an actual human being called an editor. Yahoo is an example of a search directory.

Google has a tool called “Page Rank”. Install it on your web browser and with every website you visit, you can see what the importance of the website is based on their spider food factor. You can get the version for IE here. The version for Firefox browsers is located here.

Alexa will also tell you how important a website is, traffic information and such but Amazon purchased them and now they charge a small fee for everything; if you want to spend money go for it – but you can find everything you need to know through Google.

What Do You Look For When You’re Consulting On a Website?

When someone wants SEO services, visit their website and then note the Google Page Rank and the Alexa (if you choose to use that service) information about the site. So you have a baseline to start from.

Then, note that information down and then look at the website. And make special note of the following:

☺ Does the title of the website (not the URL) reflect what the site is about? A primary keyword phrase that describes the content of the site accurately will have page rank power in the title.

☺ Check the header of the site (read the source code by clicking “View” in your browser); does header show that the text on the page is in head (h1 – h6) tags? If it does or doesn’t make a note of it. You will want to make your text on the page into H-tags so the search engines will index all the text on the page as more relevant.

☺ Link on the page should not be made with “click here” or “view more” or “continue”. The search engine spider will follow those links and look for a page containing information about the name of the link. If you have a write up about electric dog polishers and it contains a link for more information and a purchase page, but the link says “click here”; the spider will follow
that link and when it doesn’t find anything about “click here” it will discount both pages as irrelevant on a site about electric dog polishers. Making that link “purchase a dog polisher” or “more information about dog polishers” will give both pages (the page the link is on as well as
the page it connects to) power.

☺ How often is the site updated? Google’s spiders will actually “learn” the habits of a website come back to crawl more frequently on a site that is updated more often. Posting informational
articles with relevant links to products or other information on the website will serve two purposes, it will add links that mean something if they done correctly (using actual descriptive words instead of “click here”) and the other purpose will be that sites that are updated more frequently are considered more relevant as their information is deciphered as more current.

☺ Exclusive content is a must. Anyone can run out and get free articles for their website off a billion different websites that offer that freebie service and post them every day – but those articles won’t add an iota of relevance to the website and will actually drive the rankings down
making the site less important. Can you guess why?

The reason is simple. The information isn’t original.

When Google indexes an article on a page that has been used on another site – it will penalize both sites and discount BOTH pages as irrelevant. This makes exclusively written content more important than ever. And that doesn’t just mean articles that means all the content, from the about us page to the frequently asked questions. Any website that reads just like all the rest will be stuck in the lower rankings of search engine results forever.

☺ Links on the website are also important. Once upon a time it was easy for sites that had a little disposable cash to pay larger sites to post links back to the little guy’s site. CNN.com and Weatherunderground.com were two places that did this.

Here’s how it works. Some guy with electricdogpolishers.com would pay one of these (or many of these larger sites) about $2500+ a month to have a link back to his electricdogpolishers.com site. Because these big websites are so popular and get a lot of traffic, not only would more people see the link to the company that could fulfill all their electric dog polishing needs, it would also mean Google would rank their site as “more” important than their competitor dog polisher sites because of the power of the links from big sites like CNN and Weatherunderground.

Companies called “Link Farms” sprung up overnight to sell their services. For a monthly fee they would place a link to a site back and because of all the links on these “farms” it falsely raised the page ranks for many sites and in turn raised the page ranks for any site on these link farms. It was a way many websites “manipulated” the algorithms of Google to get a better ranking than they probably deserved.

Google got wise to this and changed the playing field literally overnight. They did an update to the spiders and overnight, any site that was linked on website that wasn’t in the same genre was discounted as relevant. It made the Link Farms industry out of business overnight. Then in early 2007, Google took it a step further and wanted anyone that knew of any websites that were paying for links or taking money to link– to report it to them and Google began penalizing both sites for either taking money or paying for links.

In the present, the links on the website must be in the same genre of the site and must have a
similar page rank to be considered relevant when being indexed for importance.


Putting It All Together

When you’re ready to go forward with a client. Talk about the information on their website and give them the following solutions.

☺ Add a description in the title page, including a relevant keyword phrase.

☺ If there’s text on a web page – it must be exclusive as well as containing keyword phrases that are gently repeated to increase the relevance. 3-5% is the standard relevance for repeating keyword phrases. So if you have 450 words on a web page, repeating a keyword phrase about 13 times will give you a minimum. A good way to write it so it doesn’t sound stupid and repetitious is to just write your text and then go back and change your pronouns to the keyword phrase where appropriate. A good formula to follow is to use the keyword phrase once in the title, once in the opening and closing sentences and then in the body of the article for the remaining number of times. Never use a keyword phrase twice in one sentence and read it yourself, if it sounds ignorant and overly repeated to you – it will to everyone else. Keyword written material is only successful when the reader doesn’t really notice the gentle repetition of the phrase.

☺Frequent updating is a must. A blog is a great way to do it. They must host the blog on their website or they won’t be generating page rank for their site but where the blog is hosted. Google owns Blogger.com and most people go with that. Blogs are pure text and putting articles about the products and services complete with links is a beautiful way to build page rank, update the site frequently and spread good information.

☺Use the web stats from the client’s website to decide what the keyword phrases to hit first are. You might find that people are using the word “dog wax” or “cheap dog polisher” to find your client’s website. Optimize those words first as people are already using them to find the website.

Another place to get valuable keyword is Google’s Keyword Tool. It will read the site of your
choice and tell you what Google thinks are relevant keywords and you can see clearly if the site is on target for content and then use the flip side of the tool and get additional keywords that will make great ideas for articles, informational pages and more.

☺Your client needs to understand that they need to update their site regularly – at least with articles or information. Many of my clients update using keyword articles on new products and services or just an interesting use for a product with links to those products from 2-5 times a week to maintain the legitimate page rank that they have worked hard to attain and want to keep.

☺A great way to generate links back to the site is to write exclusive articles with a resource box that links back to the website. There are numerous article directories and one post a week will help build traffic going to the client’s website. Many websites publish monthly newsletters and they go to those websites looking for content. Your client may want to consider having a newsletter of his or her own. It can include tips and tricks for using their products and services, coupons for products and news of upcoming changes, specials and more. Keeping their company name in the forefront of their client’s minds will keep the clients stopping by to visit.

☺ A press release once a month is another way to generate news. I highly recommend PRWeb.com as the place for getting the most traffic. A new product, service, safety about a product or just because July is National Dog Polisher Month – all of these are reasons for a press release.

☺It can take from around 3-6 months for the page rank to begin to move and once the process is started, it can’t be stopped or your client will lose ground and lose it quickly. That’s the main reason most people don’t have a good page rank or as good as they could because they aren’t willing to stick to the program and keep updating their site. They want to make these changes and suddenly have a page rank of 9/10 and it’s not going to happen.
It will be a slow, steady climb if done correctly but yes it can be done.

If your client chooses to go the blog route, you will want to put the information out on a “feed” where it can be picked up by other blogging and news service.

Independent Contractors Need Love (and Brains) Too....

I had a "People are Dumb" moment recently that I wanted to share with you.

I adore my writers, every single person I get the chance to work with is cool and always teaches me something - I love the fact I get to interact with so many different people from so many backgrounds.

Also, I get a number of e-mails per week from people that would like to jump into the world of keyword article writing. It's not rocket science and for someone that wants to learn discipline so they can finally finish that novel they've been working on for ten years, keyword articles will definitely help build discipline because there are so many and the due dates are usually quick requiring someone to really stay on task.

Anyway, I got an email from a person that wanted to learn to write keyword articles, they had immaculate diction and grammar in their email and sent me a sample article that - as my 2 year old would say, "Had pow" - it was really good.

I had really high hopes for what this person could do writing-wise. So I wrote them back and said, "Welcome aboard!" and gave them the standard Independent Contractor Agreement and other information I give new writers.

They took a few gigs and then nothing. They never turned in one single article for what they took. And I wrote and wrote and got no response so I buckled down and did the writing myself and all was well.

So a few days after deadline I got an email - the writer said that the computer they used had been infected with a virus and they lost all of their information and could they PUH-LEEEEZE have another chance?

'Okay, I'm a glutton for punishment" I thought - "I'll bite".
"Sure" I wrote back - "One more chance".

So, I put out gigs again and they took some and again the deadline went whooshing past.
Duly finished the missing articles myself and wrote the wanna-be writer and said, "Okay what's up?"

Finally three days later I got a response she had been in the ER with a migraine for the previous three days. Either the line was really long or this writer had killer insurance to stay in the ER for three days.

I said I thought it would be a good idea if they pursued gigs elsewhere as I didn't think this arrangement was working out.

So - yesterday I got a letter in the mail that this brain surgeon had filed unemployment on me.
I detest state government anyway and DUH this person was an independent contractor. I sent a copy of their IC agreement back and told whoever the hearing person was to say, "Dee Dah Dee" Carlos Mencia-style for wasting everyone's time like this....

It truly takes all kinds doesn't it?