About John Alexander

John Alexander is Director of Training at the Search Engine Academy offering live, hands-on SEO workshops and has taught SEO skills to people from 87 different countries. John is author of an e-book called Keyword Forensics 2.0. John's articles can be read in publications like REALTOR Magazine, Search Engine Guide, WEBpro News, Website Magazine, Pandia Search and many others.

Internet Marketing – How You Can Find Your Own Authentic Niche Market

May 20, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Let’s start by defining the meaning of the word “niche.”

Definition of Niche…

1. A recess in a wall, as for holding a statue.
2. A cranny, hollow, or crevice, as in a rock.
3. A situation or activity specially suited to
a person’s abilities or character.

Internet Marketing and the importance of
finding your niche:

I think I always knew that choosing the right niche
market was considered essential to business success,
yet for me, as for many professionals, choosing a
niche felt something like the kiss of death.

When we dig in our heels against choosing a niche,
we are probably responding to one of the first two
definitions above. After all, who wants to do business
in a hole in a wall or in a tiny, rocky place, right?

If you believe that defining your niche market means
choosing a hard, cramped, and confining space, it’s no
wonder you resist.

People who bring their heart and soul to their work will
resist niche marketing that tells them they must restrict
the ways in which they offer value to the world.

The good news is that choosing your niche market will do
exactly the opposite: it will free you to be the biggest,
most authentic, and most complete offer possible.

Consider the third definition of niche.

“A situation or activity specially suited to a person’s
abilities or character.”

When you look at niche in this light, you will see that your
perfect niche market is that location or domain in which you
are most readily accessible to the people who are most likely
to benefit from (and thus value) the offer that you are and
in which you are simultaneously most free to exercise your
brilliance and expertise.

Your niche market is the place in which you have a natural
competitive advantage because you occupy exactly the right
place in the right ecosystem.

A good niche market is one in which:

  • You are highly visible and easily accessible to the people
    who are most likely to benefit from your work, including
    prospective clients and customers, prospective collaborators
    and partners, and others with whom value-adding activities
    are most likely to be mutually beneficial.
  • You can employ the widest range of your talents, skills,
    and training (your offer.)
  • There’s a paradox in naming your niche market.

When you give people a category to put your products or
services in, it is easier for them to get a handle on what
you do and to remember it.

It’s also much easier for them to appreciate how you differ
from other professionals in that category. In other words,
by putting yourself in a category, you can also make yourself
stand out because you distinguish yourself from others in
that category. This is best referred to as your unique selling
proposition (USP) or as some might call it, a unique selling
point.

Over 10 years ago, when I first started teaching SEO skills
to small groups of business owners, I had a vision to create
a form of event which would be unlike any of the other more
common SEO seminars or conferences. There were plenty of good
SEO type conferences around, so how would I create my USP?

My thought was that most conferences are big events with dozens
of speakers. Great for the big money type of event, great for
networking too.

But I decided that I wanted to do small groups and do them more
in the form of a hands-on SEO Workshop, over a period of time.
My thought was it could be a place where each student would get
individualized attention to detail, plus actual drilling
and hands on practice. A place where they would be able to learn
“by doing.”

Many big conferences offered upsells and add on services that
aim to extract even more money out of the attendees for things
like coaching or mentoring. Instead, we decided to offer the
benefit of mentoring in the form of a 6 month mentoring program
and include it as part of the training at no extra cost.

There are lots of other things we did differently too, like daily
evaluations to benchmark each student’s progress day by day and
we made it a priority to answer every students question.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So you can see that with all of these USP type things in mind we
started the very first SEO Mastery Workshop back in January 2002
in San Antonio, Texas. Today we have a  network of educators that
are located all over the globe, helping ordinary business owners
to understand SEO, Social Medial and a wide variety of high
performance topics to boost the success of their online business
and enable them to compete and win.

Remember to always consider your own USP carefully and build out
your business in an original way so that you separate yourself
from the crowd in whatever niche that you choose.

Check out our list of upcoming hands-on SEO Mastery Workshop
dates on this page.

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: Insights for Search, SEO, SEO Blogging Tagged With: , ,

Irrigate Your Mind With New Creative Internet Marketing Ideas For Your Web Site

April 16, 2013 By Leave a Comment

A recent quote I found from well known author, CS Lewis states:

“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.”

Over the last few years, this is one aspect in Internet Marketing that we can never encourage others enough with.  Learning new skills by reason of actual practice, testing and use, has always been our motto at the Search Engine Academy. You can read a good instructional book and learn some excellent things that way, but when it comes to our own Web sites, some people tend to spend all their time trying to study the work of others, but not too much time coming up with new ideas and  concepts of their own.

Why do you suppose people seem to have trouble coming up with the right content for their own Web sites?

There are at least 2 approaches to consider: Right and Left Brained Thinking

There are people who are left brain thinkers, which tend to be good at analytics, analysis and building something, so long as they have a plan or blue print to go by. They make great builders who know how to “get things done.” Then there are the right brain thinkers, who tend to be highly creative and they continually come up with new concepts and even entirely new ideas. Their greatest gifts are within their creativity or ability to look at the data, but instantly come up with brand new ideas and applications.  Then there are even a few folks that have both left and right side thinking capacity although most of the time, they will tend to be slightly stronger on one side or the other. The main thing to remember is that all of this is very good. All of it works together for your benefit in business because there is a requirement for both skills if you are going to be successful.

So why can it seem to feel so hard to work creatively on your own Web site?

If you have ever felt sometimes that your Web site is (for some reason) much harder to build than for example, working on someone else’s Web site, (then you’re not alone.) We’ve heard this from people over and over again. It’s like your project is nearly just a little bit too close to you at times and so you struggle to come up with the right ideas. It’s not uncommon to sometimes feel like all the fresh ideas have dried up. “It has all been done before and there just is nothing new under the sun.”  -  But don’t you believe it.

For this article, I want to share with you an easy ways to irrigate your mind and foster fresh new ideas without so much stress. Learn how to exercise your “lateral thinking skills.” This is one of the best ways to get your thought processes alive and flowing again. You have probably heard of the phrase “lateral thinking” which for some people is just a buzz word.

What is lateral thinking?

Lateral thinking is a term coined by Edward de Bono in the book New Think: The Use of  Lateral Thinking published in 1967. It primarily refers to solving problems through an indirect and creative approach. ( from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateral_thinking ) Lateral thinking is about reasoning that is not immediately obvious. It is more about ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic or critical thinking.

What is Critical Thinking?
Critical thinking is primarily concerned with judging the true value of statements and seeking errors. (Critical thinking is much like the part of the CS Lewis quote to cut down jungles) But Lateral thinking is more concerned with the movement value of statements and ideas. Lateral thinking is much in line (with the CS Lewis quote to irrigate deserts.)

Keyword forensics research

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do I mean by lateral recall?

This is a term I use to describe recalling your researched information using the lateral thought process.   Let’s take for example keyword research creativity. So many people feel  stuck in a rut when it comes to keyword research. But lateral recall applies specifically to keyword research allowing you to connect ideas that seem to be totally independent but because of the end result of how they are combined, the result delivers a useful working SEO strategy. Most people search the Web  based on the conditions in their lives.

So let’s give you some early examples of user intent in search:

1. Probably one of the earliest examples was when I was researching user behavior around the topic of “baby names, boy baby names, girl baby name, Italian Baby names,  The meaning of baby names etc. It was very obvious that people were searching for actual name suggestions for their child. This resulted in some pretty interesting observations as I recalled an early client actually was interested in selling baby furniture, strollers, baby cribs, etc. The average person would be creating pages optimized for phrases involving strollers, baby cribs etc. But using this early trending, we shifted our focus creating a page with baby name suggestions and ultimately, the truth was that anyone who was thinking of a name for a new  baby on the way, could likely use some baby furniture too. Of course after I wrote an article about this common behavior, there were literally dozens of “baby names” pages being published all over the place. But for that very early SEO client this strategy attracted an average of over 13,000 user sessions a week. Quite a bit of  traffic for back in the year 1998.

2. An Insurance dealer once wanted to optimize for the typical type of verb-age that they thought they must compete for: “Auto Insurance Quotes.” However, I recalled seeing some interesting demand for an acronym “VIN” (which stands for Vehicle Identification Number.) Looking at the data of the time, revealed huge demand for
search phrases like:

  • VIN Ford
  • VIN Jeep
  • VIN Chrysler
  • VIN Chevy
  • Theft of VIN numbers
  • etc…

We ended up creating a total of 18 new articles all written by the Insurance man explaining where these VIN numbers could be located on each vehicle (since they generally are located all in different spots depending on the vehicle.) The 18 articles basically expanded the Insurance Web site’s traffic from about 4,600  user sessions per month, to just under 50,000 per month. What was the connection between insurance and the VIN article. Each article simply had a prompt asking the  question, “Are you Sure You Are Currently Getting the Best Auto Insurance Quotes?” Get a free quote by e-mail from our instant system (Click Here.) Sure enough just 18 pages created enough activity to keep this Insurance office busy with loads of new quotes each week.

A person would use lateral thinking when they want to move from one known idea to  creating brand new ideas. By practicing lateral recall, you can actually do some very creative and original keyword phrase research. It’s my understanding that that little insurance Web site with the 18 page strategy was finally sold for somewhere over 6 digits (not bad for an early investment of  around $2,500 back in the early days.

So how is your Web site doing when it comes to attracting the most correct searching audience(s)?

  • Are you feeling like there are no great windows of opportunity left for keywords?
  • Have you tried different keyword tools only spend endless hours collecting dozens of keywords that are just far too competitive?

If you are feeling like you wish there was a way to quickly tap into the hottest search trends based on real searches and you’d love to have an eye on the world’s searching behavior with a strategic look out for setting your online business totally apart, then there is good news after all. Last month, I made a decision to offer my keyword forensic research skills as a service to business owners. I have been helping clients find the hottest windows of opportunity and giving them reports that contain customized data including:

  • Exact phrases for their niche
  • Monthly search volume for each phrase
  • Competition Numbers based on AllinTitle Syntax (so you can see hot phrases with low competition)
  • A new more mathematically correct KEI3 value (to quickly show you the most stress free phrases)

Plus, I often can read into the behavior and offer you new and original strategies for your niche that you (and other Webmasters may never even think of) because I research all of the data that many folks can be bothered exploring. This aspect is especially helpful to those in very highly competitive niches. With my keyword forensics service, I can usually turn your project around in just 36 hours and provide you with a huge list of phrases based on your niche, which you can simply use to cherry pick the best phrases with the biggest windows of opportunity. If you’d like to order a report from me, or want more information on how to get a free no obligation quote, please visit http://keywordforensics.com/ for the details.

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: Content Marketing, Insights for Search, PR Web, SEO, Workshops Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Internet Marketing – Learning To Recognize And Explore Common User Behavior Search Patterns

April 4, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Internet Marketing – Learning To Recognize And Explore Common User Behavior Search Patterns
By John Alexander

For years now, I have been fascinated with the concept of how people search for information on the Web. While it’s true that the Web has made searching for information easier, it is still interesting that search methods can vary widely depending on how the individual is thinking plus I still find that the ways they conduct a search still follow a much more limited number of identifiable patterns.

By examining certain factors that cause variables in user search behavior and taking into account those details, you’ll often discover variations to help identify common search behavior patterns and gather a sense of what is most important within the users life that causes them to search the way they do.

What type of behaviors are going on over the Web these days?

It’s most often that a person’s search behavior is influenced by the conditions that they are experiencing in their lives.

When it comes to understanding user behavior, for the purpose of keyword research and SEO, I have learned that too often, the keyword research defaults to logically guessing at what keywords might be used rather than exploring a much wider scope and researching all of the associated data.
What Factors affect user search behavior?

Search behavior is the result of several independent factors and influences that the user brings to the search operation.

1. Search experience – these days people are searching more intelligently:

Users who possess a better understanding of a search engine’s capabilities and options may have more ways
to go about finding fresh information. If you for example know how to use Boolean operators, exact strings,
filtering controls, and have proven strategies for exploiting search, then you have a much richer arsenal
at your disposal for research. But search experience alone, by no means is an absolute requirement for success.

I have seen that users who are short on possessing the technical skills and yet may be rich in there
exploration of even more common terms, that can often get by and find those nuggets of gold too. On the other
hand, there are others who tend to have great difficulty finding information in certain subject matter or an
unfamiliar body of knowledge.

2. What are the most common stumbling blocks that prevent people from discovering useful and
   interesting user search behaviors.

A. Many people tend to want to explore keyword phrases based on the most logical options. They often
will in fact, spend periods of time trying to guess at the phrases that make the “most sense.”
This type of research rarely reveals the trails of gold that exist. Most often the results only
reflect highly competitive terms and often only average search volumes that a huge number of people
seem to be limiting themselves to.

B. Often people are not exploring the data because they assume some of smaller, boring little words
could not possibly have any benefit. This is simply not the case. But the only way to determine
whether a root word may be part of a fuller, revealing, search phrase that is actually being used,
is to follow through the process to completion. I have found many examples where what started as a
random even slightly illogical sorting of data, ends up revealing very powerful and telling phrases.

By this, I am referring to those little phrase clusters, that actually tell a bigger story about the
conditions existing in the users life.

C. Sometimes a business will postpone the keyword research phase (thinking they’ll do it later
on after the Web site is finished being built.) This is putting the cart before the horse
and does not afford the SEO staff the ability to build content to match the timing and the
magnitude of the hottest searches that are happening in the now.

A far smarter approach is to get the keyword research done first so that you can take advantage
of the true search phrases that users are searching with. It’s wisdom to use fair to high
volume keyword phrases that also have lower or moderate competition.

In this fashion, you are publishing each new page with a strategy to attract the most correct
searching audience and in many cases, you’ll achieve much higher organic results within a much
shorter time frame simply because you are not competing with the masses.

3. Considering the users cognitive search style:
• Those with a broader thinking style usually first try to build a wider level of understanding
across several topics that are related in some way.

• The more logical or analytical style thinkers tend to dig right into a specific topic and
research it thoroughly to resolve a related specific problem.

Many people lie somewhere in between either of these extremes and occasionally using either cognitive style but often tending to use more of one than the other.

4. Understanding user search behavior with the end goal:

Search criteria will vary from one query to the next, and may be broadly classified into 3
different category types such as:

• Navigational type searches (which are usually conducted to find a specific location,)
- Looking for a site to convert world time zones
- A site that allows the look up of zip codes
- Etc.

• Informational searches (which are usually conducted to find specific and detailed information,)
- Statistical searches
- Historical information
- Instructional information
- Etc.

•Transactional searches occur (which usually is conducted to transaction related variables,)
- Buying tickets online
- Locating flight costs, travel times on an airline
- Etc.

5. Taking into Account the user’s reference of seeking information:

This can range from exploring information on known items or products, where people know exactly what they need and how to describe it, to much more exploratory searches, where they may only possess a loose concept what they want to find.

Examples of telling search phrases:

- “crime rates in New York City” or “crime statistics NYC” (could possibly reflect a user interested in moving to New York)

- “Nikon vs Cannon”   (comparison shopping for digital camera prices and benefits)

- cost of living comparrisons in the US (Someone searching for where it might be more affordable to live.)

- franchise opportunities under 10k  (a business opportunity seeker looking for a lower cost franchise)

- dollarama versus walmart  (Dollar store shoppers trying to price comparrisons on less expensive products.)

- These are only just a few short samples of keywords that reveal search behavioural insights – There are thousands more.

In Summary:

User search behavior varies with technical skills, cognitive styles, search goals, and mode of seeking.

All of these factors will interact in complex ways to influence a user’s actions. The primary thing is that the SEO or business owner cannot select the search behavior that a user will follow
when conducting a search.

However, it is possible to research keyword phrases in a way that helps reveal user search behavior and give you the insights into what your ideal buying audience is actually searching for. With this comes the revelation of the user’s search intent which is still extremely valuable when building useful and engaging content that ties in very hot and in demand topics for the searching audience.

About Keyword Forensics Researcher John Alexander:

John Alexander is Founder and Director of Training for Search Engine Academy since January 2002.
John also offers consulting services and keyword forensics research services to SEO Professionals,
Internet Marketers, Web development professionals and business owners through
Http://KeywordForensics.com

Are you interested in attending an SEO Workshop?

Check out our upcoming SEO training locations and dates here.

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: Content Marketing, Duplicate Content, Insights for Search, Link Building, Local Search, PR Web, SEO, SEO Blogging Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Internet Marketing – How Far Will Google Glasses Take The User Into Augmented Reality?

March 19, 2013 By 4 Comments

Here is a little bit of internet marketing opinion and some search engine optimization thoughts, along with some historical trivia of interest.

By now you’ve probably heard about the new Google Glasses soon to be released. If we let our imaginations go with it, just how will Google glasses change the way we socialize?

The concept of wearing a pair of electronic glasses that can project various data over what we see in real life, is not too hard to believe. The concept of seeing someone in person, and perhaps the augmented data ripples through a bunch of social media tags with face recognition software that suddenly projects the name of the person you’re greeting so you can greet him by first name, even though a moment ago, you could not remember it.

Or how about receiving all kind of interesting statistical data based on everything you are seeing in real life?

Do you suppose in these lenses there might be Google adwords popping up with marketing messages all day? Possibly delivering personalized results on products that you are genuinely interested in based on your user search query?

How old is the concept of “augmented reality?”

The whole concept of electronic data being projected through some special lenses is actually originally referred to as “augmented reality.” Where does this term come from and how long ago was it first projected as something we’d see in the future?

For some of you, it will come as a surprise that the term was first dreamt up back as early as 1901 by an author of fantasy and science fiction Mr. L. Frank Baum. Not only did Mr. L. Frank Baum come up with the term augmented reality but you may also know that he was the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

In fact according to Wikipedia:

L Frank Baum authored 55 novels and his works anticipated such century-later commonplaces as the television, augmented reality, laptop computers (The Master Key), wireless telephones (Tik-Tok of Oz), women in high risk, action-heavy occupations (Mary Louise in the Country), and the ubiquity of advertising on clothing (Aunt Jane’s Nieces at Work).

If you want to read up on this author’s life, click here.

How might Google glasses change the way we communicate? How far do you think it will reach? It should be interesting to see how diverse the functionality of such eyewear will be.

In time, one can only wonder where technology will take us. In the meantime, if you’re interested in the most up to date, real-time SEO information,check this page for the next SEO Mastery Internet Marketing Workshop coming in a community nearest to you.

Curious to see our list of detailed agenda topics for 2013? The SEO training agenda is here.

 

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: Content Marketing, Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Insights for Search, Mobile Marketing, Rant, SEO, Workshops Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Search Engine Academy – Things to Think About for Promoting Your New Home Based Business

March 15, 2013 By 2 Comments

Are you thinking about starting your own new home based business?

If you have ever owned a home based business you understand just how
important it is to have a good promotional plan.  After all, you will never
be successful if people do not even know that you exist.  The good thing
is that if you own a home based business there are several ways to promote
it to potential customers all over the world.

The first thing that you will want to do when you are promoting your home
business is to write up a plan; this is often referred to as a marketing plan.
In this plan you will want to outline everything you intend to do as far as
promotion is concerned.  By doing this before you even get started, you will
ensure yourself of having a guide to help you benchmark your progress along
the way and through the different stages of marketing. People sometimes
overlook this step because they think that they can simply promote as they
go along.  This is true, but by having a promotional plan in place you will be
much more successful.

This is especially important if you are planning on requesting financing for
your business launch. Remember, when financing a new business with a bank,
they will want to see not only evidence that you have a well though out plan,
but that you also know it off by heart. You should be well able to answer any
questions they may ask you, such as what will your office hours be, or perhaps
what your customer service policies will be etc.

Starting a new home based business

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the best ways of promoting your home business is through the use of
a website. By having a website, you will be able to promote your business
to people from all over the world. There was a time when this option was
not easily available, but those days have come and gone.  If you want your
home business to be successful, you will need to have a top notch website
that you can rely on.

When we say you need a top notch Web site, we are talking about more than
just something flashy in design. You’ll want your Web site to clearly
communicate all about who you are and what services you provide in a way
that compels visitors to contact you. This is style of sales copy is
referred to as “persuasive copywriting.”

Of course you can learn something about SEO or Search Engine Optimization
to help your pages be found more easily by those searching the Web. You
want your Web site’s message to be clearly written so that as readers land
on your page, they will instantly be able to understand what you do, your
expertise.

Other considerations for your Web site content might include:

  • SEO skills training
  • Genuine customer testimonials using the names of actual clients.
  • Perhaps some of the most “Frequently Asked Questions.”
  • A professionally taken photo of yourself and members of your team.
  • Remember, when putting forth a marketing message or sales letter, it can be
    very beneficial working with a professional writer experienced in how to
    write effective and persuasive Web copy.
  • For more ideas of what to include on your Web site, please see this post.

In addition to promoting your home business with a website, there are other
ways that you can do this online as well. Placing ads in e-zines has been
proven as a successful promotion method. The main advantage of doing this
is that you can reach a target audience that is interested in what you have
to offer.  This is much better than simply placing an ad in a publication
that does not even correspond with your company.

Of course, promoting your home business can also be done in more traditional
ways as well.

Many people feel that direct mail is still a great way to promote their
business.  This can be done by obtaining a mailing list, and then sending out
some well written materials that will intrigue people to contact you.  Even
though this method may seem a bit outdated, it can still be very successful
if done correctly. Then there is great opportunity to build your own list of
permission based subscribers too (also great for keeping in touch with readers
who want your information.

Promoting your home business is the only way that you are going to be able to
grow.  By starting out with a plan you will be able to ensure yourself of
guidance along the way.  Remember, there are hundreds of promotional tactics
available.  Find a few that work for you and stick with them.  You will be
seeing results in no time at all!

Check out this page for a list of Internet Marketing Schools located around the
globe where you can get SEO certification training in a personalized Workshop.

 

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: Content Marketing, Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Misc, SEO, SEO Blogging, Workshops Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

A Few Essential Principles For B2B Internet Marketing

February 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Anyone who plans to sell goods or services to businesses and
markets online must understand the difference between business
to business (b2b) internet marketing and selling directly to a
consumer.

While some of the basic principles of marketing are the same,
there are some differences that if not taken into account can
sabotage your marketing efforts. The good news is that in some ways,
selling to businesses is easier than selling to consumers, and very
often the profits to be made are much greater, especially in the
beginning.

One of the biggest differences between b2b internet marketing and
marketing to consumers (also called b2c marketing) is that you’re
no longer trying to sell to a single person.  At first, that sounds
pretty obvious, but business purchasing isn’t just a group of people
looking at your product or service at the same time and then making
a decision.  The question of whether to buy or not goes from one
person to another, sometimes in a very long chain of command, and
can take a lot of time (and convincing).

Sometimes you are dealing with committee approvals or their may be
issues involving something be approved by a businesses internal legal
department. The same is true when you are dealing with government
organizations too. Everything in the buying process just takes a
little longer for a variety of legitimate reasons.

Understand that when you’re selling something to a consumer, you’re
dealing with one set of eyes and one person to convince.  An important
key in marketing to consumers is repetition, as most people just won’t
buy the first time after only one visit, but once your items have been
put in front of them multiple times in an appealing way, they’re more
likely to make a buying decision. With b2b internet marketing the same
principle applies, but this favorable impression must last down a long
line of people who must make the decision. Getting the item or service
in front of them many times is crucial with businesses, too.

Email marketing is one great way of keeping your products or services
in front of them, but when b2b internet marketing with emails you have
to be even more careful than when marketing to consumers.  Many people
who receive an email, particularly one they’ve agreed to receive, are
going to be more concerned with the product or service offered, the
discount, and what the item can actually do for them in terms of
the benefit, than how professional and well-done the email is.  This
is less likely with a business.

SEO Training From Search Engine Academy For Internet Marketers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because the business may have its own b2b internet marketing plan,
they’re going to expect a certain level of professionalism in any emails
or correspondence you send them. Typos, strange line breaks, broken images
and anything else that screams “amateur” or “careless” is likely to ensure
that your message goes no farther down the line—the kiss of death for
anything you’re trying to sell them. Take extra care with your email
marketing plan.  Don’t just make them correct and tidy, make them very
helpful, engaging and attractive.  Your emails and correspondence need
to look as good as anything coming from that company if you really want
to impress them.

If you sell to businesses, you already know your target market very well.
Be sure that all of your b2b internet marketing efforts are professional
and focus not on you, but how you can fill their companies’ needs, and
you’ll get your products noticed far more often with the b2b market.

Remember that the endurance factor needs to be there, especially for very
large jobs. I remember one time on winning an SEO training contract where
we were working together with a company who wanted us to conduct a private
in-house corporate workshop for their staff, but the catch was they wanted
to apply for a government grant to help pay for the event.

This required us to answer a few questions and complete some correspondence
and we were told that it would take some time for the government grant to
be approved and processed.

In this case, probably some organizations would have give up along the way
since the grant was finally approved after 2 full years. It had taken so
long, that the person we originally corresponded with to process the
application had left the organization and had been replaced by a new contact.

Was it really worth a 2 year wait? You better believe it was worth it. We
ended up being flown down to a major university which was equipped with a
high tech computer lab. It was a great workshop and the students were given
our complete hands-on SEO Mastery Workshop and the government grant paid for
the companies tuition, the training facility and for our travel and our
accommodation expenses.

The event was one of the most memorable events and very much worth our while.
The whole class was trained in SEO and mentored so that they gained the top
skills in the minimum amount of time and by the time we finished teaching,
they were able to maximize their natural organic search visibility and they
reduced their Pay Per Click budget by nearly $12,000.00 per month but without
losing any visibility for their entire product line.

The moral of the story in these B2B type contracts is, fortify your endurance
and never ever give up. Realize that while B2B marketing can take time, it will
usually pay off in some very big ways, for those who refuse to give up and can
stand the test of time.

Find a hands-on SEO Training Certification Workshop located closest to you here.

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: Content Marketing, Events, SEO, Workshops Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Internet Marketing – Search Engine Optimization Experts Can Help You Grow Your Business

January 18, 2013 By 2 Comments

If you want the benefit of search engine optimization (SEO) but just
don’t have the time, or inclination, to learn how to do it or to spend
the time doing it yourself, you don’t have to miss out. You can hire
search engine optimization experts to do it all for you.

If you’re a small business just starting out you may think that you
won’t be able to afford to hire anyone, and you may be right. I don’t
have any way to know your budget, but I do know that there are many
companies online who specialize in this type of work and work with
small and mid sized companies.

The reason I know many of these professional firms is that here at the
Search Engine Academy, we’ve been training many of them over the last
11 years or so since 2002.

When you reach out to a SEO firm, you may actually find that you may be
able to afford it after all.

The truth is that to have a vibrant and effective SEO campaign will take
some time and effort. You see, the search engines are always “improving”
their algorithms and they don’t like to share to much detail, but they
prefer (naturally to sell sponsored Pay Per Click listings) and they don’t
exactly tell every one just exactly how they figure out which sites will
be ranked for top visibility.

For this reason a lot of self-taught SEO is little more than intelligent
guessing. It is pretty much a full time job to stay abreast of all the changes
being made in regards to SEO. That’s why you want to hire someone if at all
possible.

Many of our professionally trained SEO students are Alumni graduates, which
means they tend to come back to our Workshops every so often because they
understand the value of being kept up to date with the freshest strategies.

And don’t think that just because your niece Sally, is online all the time
and can put up a blog or send out a tweet that she is competent to do SEO
for you, because most of the time that won’t be the case.

There are many elements that go into a successful SEO strategy and a professional
firm will have their own way of doing things, but there are some things that you
will want to look for.

1. For one thing, any company you are looking at should provide you with an initial
assessment of your website. They should be able to give you an idea based on where
you are already, how much the whole thing will cost.

2. After that, they should be able to come up with an extensive keyword list based on
actual research (not guesswork) that is loaded with highly targeted and highly relevant
keywords based on how your ideal buying audiences are searching the Web.

How can someone determine the most exact and correct keyword phrase usage
by searchers?

The thing to remember is that the reason people search the Internet in the
fashion they do, is nearly always based on the conditions in a searchers life.
So as important as it is to search for very exact keyword usage, it can be very
useful to learn how to discover user intent, through a study of search behaviour.
This is just one skill we help our students with. How to actually discover and find
the reasons why searchers are doing what they do. In class, we refer to this as
“keyword forensics research and analysis.”

Whether someone is looking to renew their mortgage, or searching for a place to
dine out on the town, or even if they are looking for specific professional
services, or price comparisons, it all begins with a search on the Web. But the
surprising thing is, that often Webmasters miss they keyword phrases that offer
such a telling story about their needs and user intent.

Nevertheless, if chosen properly, this list can be just like money in the bank for
you and your online business.

Once the keyword list is in place, the next step is to “clean up” your website. Make
sure everything is set up in the optimum way to grab the search engines attention as well
as it needs to be compelling to the reader.

And the next step once everything is as ready as can be, would be to get your optimized
pages into the search index for the search engines. After that, it will be important to
track your results so you can see how effective the changes you’ve made are.

This final step is very important, and often overlooked. If you can’t track your results
how will you know whether or not the money  you’ve invested in your SEO company is money
well spent or just a waste?

Grow Your Business With SEO in 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What should you be tracking?

  • Track how long your visitors are staying on your pages.
  • Track your conversions and you should see new leads and sales coming in.
  • Another thing that you should be tracking are the analytics that are important to
    your business.

What should you not be tracking?

Remember not to get caught up in traditional ranking reports which these days tend to
fluctuate do to the “personalization of search.” In our newest classes, we actually
teach our students how to accurately measure other things like your competitive landscape.

How to optimize your pages with more accuracy and exact5ness than ever before.

If you want to learn all the ins and outs of SEO and Social Media, Google Analytics and
how to watch for strengths and weaknesses in your competition and how to recognize new
opportunities and take advantage of them, then consider coming out to a 5 Day Complete
Hands-on SEO Workshop.

But if you are too busy just running your day to day business, then hiring your own search
engine optimization experts to oversee all your SEO needs is a great idea for any online
business. You can get the maximum benefit with a minimum of effort from you.

Choose carefully who’s voice that you listen to. When you find someone who has proven their
ability (don’t be afraid to do some due diligence checks or even ask to speak to a couple
of the SEO firm’s recent clients to see how happy they are with services rendered.

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: 301 Redirects, Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Insights for Search, Link Building, Local Search, SEO, SEO Blogging, Video for SEO, Workshops Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

6 Tips To Follow When Starting Your Internet Marketing Strategy in 2013

January 1, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Starting an online business is a great way to attain the financial freedom you
desire. Owning your own online business allows you to work when you want
and from wherever you want. It gives you the flexibility to live your life and
the money needed to enjoy it.

However it is not all that easy to get your business up and running without
giving full consideration to your own specific Internet Marketing strategy.

Having and fine tuning your Internet marketing strategy to help you get yourself
going. But trying to formulate this strategy can be difficult as you may not know
where exactly you need to begin.

Here are 6 more tips to help you with this which I hope you’ll find helpful.

1. Understand that this is a business.

This is the first thing you need to wrap your head around before you really get
going. This is not some get rich quick scheme, it will not make you money over
night. You need to be prepared to consistently work at your business for a few
months before you start seeing a return. If you can not see yourself doing this,
then you may as well quit right now and save yourself the hassle.

One of the biggest mistakes that I’ve seen new students make, is either buying
into some ready made affiliate tool without giving much thought to their business
plan.

2. Do research that is required.

If you are willing to put in the time and effort needed, then your next step in
your internet marketing strategy is to do research on the niche or product you are
trying to promote or sell. Knowledge is power, so knowing all there is to know is
important and requires some due diligence.

3. Organizing your new online business is key.

Make yourself a set schedule on when you will work, how long you will work, and
follow it. As I have stated above this is a real business so you need to treat it
as such and take it seriously. Give yourself a Monday through Friday work week,
spend a couple hours every day working at your business. If you just poke at it
like some hobby, it will not grow.

 

 

 
4. Do not hesitate to ask questions.

There are tons of forums and other places where the experts offer their knowledge to
newbies to help them get going. However it may seem intimidating or embarrassing to
ask for help. Do not let any of those fears dissuade you. If you need help then ask,
better to ask questions then to let your business fail after all.

5. By reason of experience, learn to watch for writers and advisers that you can trust.

This is extremely important, because if you carefully choose the advice you follow, based
on success and continually choosing that same mentor who does not lead you astray, it is
the mentoring stages, that you are building your “muscles of experience.”

6. Avoid trying to reinvent the wheel one more time.

It may seem like a good idea to try and come up with your own methods, to be unique and
stand out. However sometimes simply going with the flow is best. The experts out there have
figured out what works and what does not. So instead of trying to figure this out for yourself,
just use their knowledge and use the strategies that are proven to work.

These tips are not the be all end all of making an internet marketing strategy, however they
can give you an idea of what exactly is needed and can lay the foundation for you. If you follow
these tips and stick to your work then your business will generate all the money you could need
and allow you the freedom you want.

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: Link Building, Local Search, PR Web, SEO, Workshops Tagged With: ,

Are You Starting Your Own New Internet Marketing Business – Where Can You Get Started

December 11, 2012 By 1 Comment

More and more people are turning to the internet for all
their needs, and businesses are following suit. We live
in a society where, if your business does not have a
presence on the internet you are going to be losing out
on a lot of potential fresh, new, business opportunities.

This opens up a great avenue for those looking to start
their own internet marketing business.

Owning your own online business has a lot of advantages,
and very few drawbacks, if you do it in the right order.
Unlike a conventional businesses, starting an online one
can be done fairly easily and without much overhead.
One of the best businesses you can start up is an internet
marketing company.

Where are the best places to get started?

Training For A Internet Marketing Business is not as
difficult as you might think. When people hear the word
“marketing” they assume it is some elaborate process which
requires a great deal of knowledge, and while that is not
totally inaccurate, that does not mean it is impossible
either.

Marketing on the internet shares some  of the qualities
with conventional marketing, but it also uses a lot of
unique methods. If you want to be successful you need to
learn these methods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While it can be somewhat time consuming, if you approach
it in the wrong order, they are pretty straight forward
so all you need is the dedication to continue (and maybe
some money depending on what resources you use).

If you want to start Training For A Internet Marketing
Business then the first thing you need to do is find a
place to start. There are a lot of guides and training
courses out there that give you the ins and outs of
internet marketing, but to properly use that you need
to build a solid foundation.

I like to say that the sooner you build your SEO and
Social Media skills “comfort level,” the better.

There are a lot of beginner courses out there that can
help you do this. With so many courses out there it can
be difficult knowing which to use. Some are fantastic
and will get you going on your business right quick,
but others are not quite up to par and you might find
yourself wasting excess time. What you want to look for
in determining the quality of the training course is
how easily you understand it.

Many places will give samples of their course for you
to read over. You should look into it and see whether
or not it makes sense to you. Sometimes these courses
can be too complicated or tend to skip over critical
steps leaving you confused. You want a training course
that will walk you through, step by step.

Here at the Search Engine Academy, we have found one
of the very fastest ways to ramp up a students skills,
is with a personalized, hands-on workshop where you
can work one on one with an experienced professional
and you learn “by doing.”

Beyond that you will want a training that is fairly
comprehensive and is made by someone who knows what
they are talking about. The best way to find this out
is simply by looking at consumer reviews.

See what your peers thought, did they understand it
and more importantly did what they learn really help
them?

Lastly, when looking for Training For A Internet
Marketing Business, you need to worry about money. The
benefit of an online business is that it can be started
for next to nothing, so if money is tight you need to
look for a quality training course that you can afford.

On the other hand, you want training that will also fully
equip you with the right skills to make an impact on those
early client Web sites.

  • One thing that you can consider exploring is how long the
    training company has been teaching.
  • What kind of track record do their graduates have?
  • When was their most recent updates to their course material?
    (Everything on the Internet changes often)
  • Do they include any ongoing support after class such as a
    Mentoring program.Ideally any ongoing mentoring should be included in the cost of tuition rather than some huge expensive upsell.

For a complete list of hands-on Workshops being conducted globally around the world, please see our dates and locations pages.

 

 

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: Content Marketing, Google Analytics, Link Building, Local Search, Meta Tags, Mobile Marketing, SEO, SEO Blogging, Video for SEO Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Internet Marketing For Profit – How You Can Create A Successful EBook

November 29, 2012 By 2 Comments

Internet Marketing For Profit – How You Can Create A Successful EBook
By John Alexander

Taking a little break from the topic of SEO Training, I was thinking back to 9 years ago when a friend of mine, Michael Campbell, encouraged me to write my first e-book. Never having written one before, I guess I thought to myself, but who would want to read my e-book?

I had just shown Michael some recent keyword research and that’s how it all got started. I took his advice and he provided me with some great insights on everything from how it needed to be written, the language and even the graphics and pricing. My first e-book was created in 2003 and I called it “Wordtracker Magic.”

Basically, it contained my personal methodology of using the tool called Wordtracker, to research user search behavior. How to save literally hundreds of hours of time and quickly tap into pure gold. Last year, I finally took the book off the market, since Wordtracker had changed their metrics.

 

 

 

 

Let’s talk about how you can create a successful e-book of your own.

Your e-book deserves to be seen by everyone in your niche, but unless you have an effective internet marketing strategy no one will ever know about it. The difference between your e-book being great and being successful is your ability to get it in front of the people. Once you have the e-book completed and to your high expectations the battle is only half over.

The rest of your work now is finding how to market it online.

The most important thing that you can do is make sure that your e-book is the best that it can be. Make sure that your ideas are crisp and clear, that it is error free grammatically and everything is spelled correctly.
Also ensure that all illustrations help emphasize the points you are making, and that it is pleasing to the eye.

It is easy for bad illustrations to become a distraction, so make sure they are done well. If you need to, get people to review and critique it for you and you take their advice seriously. The better your product is, the more
excitement will be created around it.

Between 2003 and 2005 that little e-book called “Wordtracker Magic” had earned over $50,000.00 and it sold for just $29.95.

Around the year 2005, I decided to re-write my original book and I added more examples and more methods for instantly finding the hottest phrases in Wordtracker’s keyword tool.  I renamed it “Keyword Forensics 2.0 for SEO” and nearly everyone that had bought the first version, came back to get the second version and it continued to make money every day, whether I was in the office or whether I was away teaching an SEO Workshop somewhere.

A couple of important points here:

1. Wordtracker, the tool had very few instructions back in 2003 and in speaking with others, I had learned that many people were spending hours just trying to find good keywords. I learned that not too many people used my methodology to quickly find search behavior.

When you write your e-book, it needs to be an eye opener. If it is instructional, then whatever strategy you are writing about must really help the reader in some useful way.

Ask yourself:

  • Will your book help save people time?
  • Will it help them make money?
  • Will it help them improve results somehow?
  • Will it help improve their performance in some way?
  • Will it somehow fill in a missing gap in a product?

Give it some thought, because this is crucial to building the readers desire to read it. It must be something truly useful. Strive for excellence and people will strive to get what you offer them.

2. Make sure your sales letter is well written and that it spells out all the benefits in the book. I was fortunate to have the very skilled help of Michael Campbell to watch over my shoulder. He actually helped write the original sales letter and that’s where I learned a lot about how people think when they are reading a Web page.

Once everything is published online, you can let your subscribers know that you have a new e-book. But also use word of mouth to spread the word about your e-book. It would be best to supply your customers with a form that they can recommend it to their friends and associates.

If it becomes hot enough, remember to put a “buy now” link right at the top of the sales letter so people can buy right away if they’re hearing good things.

Another marketing strategy that is going to be incredibly helpful is providing short articles full of good information to e-zines.

The internet is full of these type of sites and used by a wide range of people to seek out this kind of information. What this can accomplish is you make yourself known on a wider audience as an authority or expert on the subject you are dealing with. This will only help you, though, if you provide a link to your site or your e-book.

Don’t let them know everything that you know. Leave them with only part of the answers or snippets of information that you want them to know and that to get the rest of it they are going to have to pay for it. If you do this part right, they are going to buy.

A key strategy is to create a group of customers who will keep coming back and buying what you offer in the future. Offer free incentives for them to buy your e-books like an e-zine, newsletter, or even an e-book that you have written earlier or one that you have rights to.

The benefits of the e-zine or newsletter is that you are seen as a constantly good source of information and you stay on their radar. When you have your next e-book, you will have your first group of customers ready to go.

These ideas are only the tip of the iceberg but enough to get you going. If you have something excellent to offer people on the internet with your e-book, then have a marketing strategy that will bring it the attention it deserves.

 

 

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: Article Marketing, Content Marketing, Misc, SEO, WordPress, Workshops Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
« Older Posts