"RANK"
SEO & e-Marketing Made Simple : A Workbook that Produces a Roadmap to Success.
A holistic approach to demand generation By Frank Ford : A professional SEO Consultant with 20 years of expertise in SEO, e-Marketing, Advertising, Design, Branding and e–Commerce. ©2008
Bookmark Now for upcoming additions : Lucrative SEO Jobs, The SEO Social Network and Kindle Book.

Foreword
 Why this book needed to be written and who can benefit from it.      

Heads Up
 Chapter 1 : SEO is a Rabbit Hole    
 Chapter 2 : Carving your Niche                                

The Foundation
 Chapter 3 : Web 2.0 Requires SEO 2.0            
 Chapter 4 : Customer Experience           
 Chapter 5 : Workshop – Delivering The Best Customer Experience                       
 Chapter 6 : Workshop – Establishing a Business, Marketing, Creative and Technology Plan                      
 Chapter 7 : The Holistic Approach : Content, Links, Love, Trust and Conversations                                                         

The Nuts & Bolts
 Chapter 8 :   Workshop – Link Building               
 Chapter 9 :   Workshop – Link Mechanics / Link Popularity       
 Chapter 10 : Workshop – SEO Copywriting                      
 Chapter 11 : Workshop – Creating Love & Trust. Plus, Killer Apps for Conversational Marketing (FREE Widgets)                    
 Chapter 12 : Workshop – Keyword Research             
 Chapter 13 : Workshop – Meta Tags               
 Chapter 14 : Workshop – Affiliate Marketing Multiplication                    
 Chapter 15 : Workshop – Marketing Metrics           
 Chapter 16 : Checklist – Avoiding Penalties  
 Chapter 17 : Workshop – Tracking Cause, Effect and Profitability (FREE Dashboard Download)             

Backword
 A rant about how I got ripped off by SEO and e-Marketing Consultants.    

Take Aways for the Lazy Reader
 Key points are highlighted in blue boxes.   

The SEO book that's built to last
Many SEO books become irrelevant within months of publication. This one will not. I will teach you how to increase website traffic with the essential principles endorsed by Google so that your site is built to last. I will connect the Google dots, make it simpIe and ground it within the context of business and e-marketing – allowing you to deliver the best customer experience possible.

I had one heck of a time coming up with the title and tagline for this book. It’s so much more than a “book”. It might be better described (and used) as a business plan or a marketing strategy workshop for anyone who wants to increase traffic and make money on the web.

I'm writing this book because:
• No one else is teaching SEO in a holistic manner.
• To simplify SEO and e-Marketing.
• Frustration over the existing misinformation.
• Having been ripped off by rogue SEO Consultants.
• To make a lasting strategy tool that outputs a roadmap.

I’ve spent countless hours in the rabbit–hole that is SEO and online marketing. Years designing ads, websites and products in a trial and error fashion.

I will provide the mechanics but you've got to have a comprehension of all the parts because they're intimately interconnected. I’m going to provide a strategic vision for your business and show you how to put all these parts together.

I’m not really a writer per se but there’s one thing I do know…that’s how to drive people to purchase a product or service, on the web or off the supermarket shelf. And I’m going to teach you everything you need to know in order to do it yourself.

SEO is an area of great conjecture, theory and pontification by so–called experts. Most have never worked in the fields of Marketing or Advertising. They don't see the big picture. I'm going to paint you the big picture using everything of value I've learned over the course of my entire career.

I've helped a lot of companies make a lot of money – by integrating SEO as a holistic plan. Convincing the discerning surfer today requires that you pull out all the stops.

The Internet is ultra-competitive these days, much greater than it was during the bubble. Google currently indexes over 150 million websites with 9 Billion pages. Niches and phrases that seem attainable were conquered by savvy site owners years ago and they continue to covet their territory. Repeat. Ultra-competitive.

Succeeding in the Web 2.0 world requires a holistic strategy. SEO has to run concurrent with your business, marketing, technology and creative plans. I'm calling it SEO 2.0.

A holistic website in and of itself will spread like a virus. Demand generation almost takes care of itself. Challenge your teams to implement your vision by employing their talents to encourage love, trust, links and conversations. Imagine not having large advertising expenses or the need for a salesforce. SEO when performed within the construct of holistic website design achieves maximum bang for advertising buck. This is your playbook for winning.

Who can benefit from this book
CEO’s, CMO's and results oriented leaders: Generate more demand for your product or service. Use these tools and workshops top-down to engage your team in a holistic strategy. You''ll create a demand generation strategy with a higher ROI than with other methods.

Web Designers, Developers, Content Strategists, Information Architects: What good is a Website if no one shows up? Avoid design pitfalls and obstacles that effect your site’s rank. Become a strategic player, not just a worker-bee. Build interfaces that appeal to spiders, crawlers and humans.

Small Business Owners: Save big when you do it yourself. Or atleast learn the language so your agency can't pull the wool over your eyes.

Absolute Beginners and Absolute Experts: Beginners will learn to lay a correct foundation. Experts can get back to basics with tried and true best practices.

Chapter 1 : SEO is a rabbit hole
An endless, winding, seemingly interconnected, underground subway that might lead towards a solution if you’re lucky. Very dense, sales-ie, tech-ie SEO websites where you can spend hours, days, months, following the latest tips, tricks, blog–o–rama’s and algorithmic fads trying to optimize your site. One turn puts you off into another tangent which sparks another tangent, which sparks another, while chasing the dream of making money on the Web while you sleep.

Don't go in the rabbit hole...take it from someone who's been there, everything you need to know about SEO is in this little book. I’m here to tell you folks (and so is Google) it doesn't have to be complicated. At the end of the day it’s all about content, links and usefulness. Weave an SEO strategy with your business, marketing and creative plans. Then you've got something that's built to last.

Don't go in the rabbit-hole. Put your head down and focus on 3 things: content, links and usefulness. But it’s the right content, it’s the right links and above all else…it’s how you put together all the interconnected pieces of an online marketing strategy that will ensure your success.

Online marketing has become an absurd world and is inhabited by very strange characters. I’m going to show you how to productively spend your time building your site or improving your site wisely. Doing it yourself without guidance can trigger completely unexpected results. Doing it with “experts”…you’re taking your life into your own hands.

Part of my approach involves “conversational marketing”. Your reach can spread far and wide (and quick) when you employ the right tools. There’s a brand new set of rules that Marketers, PR professionals and web developers need to know. If you want to reach buyers your best bet is to engage them in a conversation and make that conversation so compelling they can’t help but “gossip” about it.

I'm going to teach you how to avoid the rabbit-hole and focus on a the known factors that will help you rank and maintain rank.

Chapter 2 : Carving your niche
The right niche is everything. I will never forget as long as I live the SEO Consultant who told me as I was launching my first site “you’ve chosen an extremely competitive category...it will take you YEARS to rank for the necessary keywords.

After having quit my job to pursue this endeavor and having spent literally months developing content, this came as a devastating blow. As he described all his little link checking tools and competitive analysis software “the expert” advised me to scrap the site and find a smaller niche to carve.

In retrospect I see where he was coming from. My keyword was being targeted by thousands of other websites, there was over 1 million searches being performed by users every month. I didn't know then what I know now.

But guess what. I was so fired up about my idea I didn’t give up. I woke up every morning at 4 a.m. and just cranked. I mean cranked. I did everything in my power to make my site a success. I was hungry. And I was pissed. Pissed that someone who didn’t even know me or my business plan could be so cruel.

And guess what…By the end of my second year I had generated close to 6 figures in sales. Not bad for a rookie huh? And, I did it without much link building or advertising expense.

I tell you this because it illustrates a key success factor in online marketing – if you believe in your idea, don’t every give up. I don’t care what anyone tells you.

Passion, dedication and tenacity is what makes SEO work. Not some “expert” with a bag of tricks for $74.99.

And be very careful about who you take advice from. After all, who was this guy anyway? Just someone I found on a search. There are more schnooks in this industry than you can shake a stick at. They don’t care about you or your idea. They’re out to make a quick consulting buck.

As you’ll see in the “Lessons Learned” chapter, this guy wasn’t my only obstacle. I’ve encountered so many rogues along my path to success.

Again, don’t ever give up because with hard work you’re probably closer than you think in making it to page 1 of Google. If you throw in the towel early wouldn’t it kill you to know that just a few more inbound links or a re–design was about to make your site a contender?

I’m going to show you how to find the right niche, how to carve it, and how to dominate it and how to maintain your rank for years to come.

Why the word "niche" so much? I cannot stress enough how incredibly competitive the Internet is these days. Back in my glory days clever manipulation of meta tags, keywords and keyword density were enough to make a comfortable living. That’s no longer the case. Keywords like books, insurance, computers, credit cards, travel…they were conquered by the big–budget–bohemuth sites like Amazon, Apple and Expedia years ago. Trying to tackle such heavily trafficked words is now an up hill battle filled with frustration. Unless you've got a big budget and an army.

Google indexes over 9 billion pages, I’ve heard rumor that there may be as many as 150 million websites in existence. Just imagine that for a minute. How are you going to stand out in a crowd that big? Lesson #1 be very strategic and do your homework when plotting your course. I’m going to show you how to do just that.

Chapter 3 : Web 2.0 requires SEO 2.0
SEO 2.0 as I've coined it is a method of driving out criteria and delivering solutions based on customer experience : A holistic website in and of itself will spread like a virus. Demand generation almost takes care of itself. Challenge your teams to implement your vision by employing their talents to encourage love, trust, links and conversations.

Ever wonder how sites like MySpace, FaceBook and Digg get so much traffic? They are all innovators in what is known as Web 2.0. What is Web 2.0? Communities that facilitate collaboration among users – by employing Cusomer Experience Management

The big players of Web 2.0 are mastering the art of 1 to 1 communication.

At the core of their strategy is a power-to-the-people mentality. To be really successful these days you have to build a community. Don't be intimidated by that – it sounds like a huge task but doesn't have to be.

I'm not saying your community has to contain 50 million users. A community of 5,000 can yield you a comfortable living. Look at what some of those cupcake sites are doing. Something as mundane as cupcakes can be a great community. The point is you have to cultivate, capture and maintain an a collaborative atmosphere. People love to "hang out" with those who share their interests.

Embrace this approach and you will win.  Community = Love. Love = Links. Links = Rank. Rank = $ 

I'm going to teach you how to build a community with what I refer to as SEO 2.0.

SEO 2.0 Workshop
Perform a core sampling of research–find out what customers really want, involve them during every phase of your development cycle and make them the center of the universe.

Make it explicit on the site that you want their feedback and will act on it. Not just a feedback button, an explicit portrayal that you're all about the customer.

How? There's lots of free survey software out there. Check out Vizu.com for some cool free tools that allow you to see what your visitors think. You can put polls on your site, conduct market research and measure your advertising campaigns. Powerful stuff.

Or, it could be part of your publishing effort. For instance, once a month post a bulletin requesting feedback on content, usefulness, security, etc. Make a contest out of it. Give away an inexpensive iPod to the most useful feedback.

Consider an Auto–Responder : A pop–up utility that creates a dialog with the customer after they’ve spent a few minutes on the site. The Auto–Responder may ask the customer if they would like to speak to a representative or it can capture their email address and phone number to complete the sale at a later time. Works like a salesman 24–7.

Build a forum feature. Facilitate the exchange of information amongst your community. This is easy to do. There are a lot of boxed solutions available that can have you up and running in no time.

I recommend Expression Engine : An affordable, SEO friendly Content Management System that's easy to use and easy to add on components like forums. It's very Mac-like in it's functionality too. Those guys thought through SEO while they developed their CMS. They didn't just retro-fit SEO on top of it.

Whatever you do – Identify your community's leaders and alpha-users, those with the most visits and comments. Put them in charge of something, empower them a a moderator or a decision maker with how the forum should be run. Stress the fact that there’s a human behind your site. You’re NOT just another website out to make a fast buck. You're out to build relationships. You will find much loyalty and word of mouth is achieved through a well managed forum. But the big payoff, you'll win the elusive, intangible of trust. When you gain a visitor's trust you'll capture them for an entire marketing life cycle.

SEO 2.0 as I call it is a method of driving out criteria and delivering based on customer experience. If you can discover the true intent of the searcher you'll know how to select your keywords better, you'll know what they're looking for in a site.

There's a psychology to search, not just nuts and bolts optimization. Get inside of the searcher's head and you will win. There's search but then there's intent. What is the true intent of the people who are searching for your site's product or service? Crack that nut and you're way ahead of the game.

The people searching for "cupcakes" for instance – are they looking to buy cupcakes, do they want to know how to bake them, is it recipes they want? Maybe they're looking for related baking utensils. Until you know these things you can't deliver a well focused site. The point? SEO needs to run concurrent with your business and marketing strategy.

Chapter 4 : Customer Experience
What do I mean by customer experience and why is it important? Create positive associations, implant desire, and make the customer #1. In the world of e-Marketing, SEO and Demand Generation : A positive customer experience equates to Love.

 Positive Customer Experience = Love. Love = Links. Links = Rank. Rank = $ 

Customer experience drives business results—everything from customer satisfaction, retention and revenue to long–term profitability and valuation. Research proves that companies who focus on building better customer experiences have 60 percent higher profits than their competitors. They're also twice as likely to exceed the expectations of Wall Street.

Customers don't purchase goods or services based on logic—It’s about building a brand experience that conveys a high degree of emotion, garners trust and connects with the customer at a sensory level. In my experience I’ve noticed that it's teams well versed in research and experience modeling that have a thorough understanding of the process and requirements for improving the customer experience. After all, It’s not rocket science—It’s social science. And I believe it's as simple as learning the old-timey principles you're Grandfather probably preached.

How you can increase and enhance the customer experience:

(1) Find out what makes them tick, gain insights into the customer’s world via demographic, psychographic and ethnographic research.

(2) Develop a technology and design platform based on those findings.

(3) Create an immersive, unique connection to the brand that evokes positive feelings

(4) Test those reactions with user testing groups to prove the platform

(5) Offer a dynamic and intuitive interaction with information architecture and content that wows the customer.

(6) Monitor the audience on a continual basis and promise to improve the customer’s life. Continue to innovate. Never lie to them. Most importantly: never, ever bore them. You will then own the customer for an entire life cycle and form a lasting bond.

(7) Various techniques and technologies from content management systems to brand architecture to blogging will help lay the foundation for a winning customer experience. But it is two underpinning principles that ultimately drive the customer to purchase: love and trust. If you understand the importance of love and trust you will always win. The customer has to love the brand first, then feel confident enough to proceed. ie: fill out a contact form or enter their credit card number. Remember, the customer enters your environment as somewhat of a stranger. So it’s important that the customer always be reassured.

Closely tied to love is trust. Given all the bad press about internet security many customers have a fear of using the web to it’s full potential. Trust plays the ultimate role in user decisions, customer acquisition and retention. Certain uses of technology can help the customer overcome hesitation and help the company’s bottom line.

For instance, intuitive architecture, navigation and functionality can improve user confidence, error–free–code, the use of trust seals may help convey the company is not just another dot con. A site advisor, a download assistant, an auto-responder, a wizard, or a live instant messenger may also be of value in letting the customer know that there’s a human behind this thing.

This sort of functionality serves an important purpose, it frees the telephones of the organization—customers can answer questions by themselves and not rely on a customer call center which increases productivity and lowers the cost of customer service.

Whatever methods employed, research shows time and again that increasing visitor trust in the site invariably reduces support costs. More importantly, when you gain a customer’s trust you own them for the entire life cycle and are able to cross sell and up sell them to other products, services of your own or that of your affiliates.

Creating this love affair with the customer is not always simplistic. Planning is everything.

Make use of the Business, Marketing, Technology and Creative Planning Workshops below to discover the true intent of your searcher so you can deliver a relevant experience.

Chapter 5 : Customer Experience Workshop
Reinforcing the 3-second rule. Distill your strategy into a few words. And shout it out in your page header. What do you want to be known for? You'll need to make that clear up front.

Remember that ivy-league study I mentioned earlier? An integral part of that 3 second love is not only a good brand-name but an accompanying tagline that conveys your value proposition in as few words as possible. You must have a call to action from the outset.

You'd be surprised how many times I've had a client go to one of my sites and say "yeah I saw your site, it's cool. I still don't understand what you do though". That's because the visitors have the attention span of a mosquito. People designing Web 2.0 sites certainly get that. Have you noticed how efficient and solidly-sparse Web 2.0 sites are? Look at Mozilla.com, 37Signals.com or Ellislab.com. Bam! they know the 3 second rule. And they've got a call to action straight out of the gate.

With only 3 seconds to capture a potential visitor be clear what you're all about, what tasks visitors can perform, and the value you propose. And all of the above have to scream that you're passionate.

Obtaining name recognition and remembrance is one of the more difficult aspects of the web, but one of the most beneficial. Type–ins account for a lot of traffic. When you’re synonymous in a particular category, searchers will type your url straight into their address bar.

e–Bay–it, PhotoShop–it, Google–it have become popular action verbs in our culture. You can certainly do the same. And if you can weave a keyword into it, all the better.

Chapter 6 : Workshop SEO 2.0 – Business, Marketing, Creative and Technology Planning
Consider this as your foundation. This workshop / brainstorm session will allow you to harness your business. It provides direction and develops key marketing criteria that will become the foundation of your site's demand generation

And if you're looking for funding or want to sell your site...these are questions that VC's and buyers are going to want answered. Either way, this workshop will be the cornerstone of your online marketing strategy. Call your entire team to this workshop. It's insightful, inspiring and a lot of fun.

Business Brief
What is the nature of the assignment and the primary business challenge?

The Business Direction
What is the marketing objective?
What is the marketing strategy?

The Marketplace
What are the most unexpected nuggets that differentiate our company?
Who are the current & emerging key competitors, and how are they perceived? What are they getting right? What are they getting wrong?

The Customer
Who is our selected target audience?
What do they embrace about our company's brand and service?
What are the big pictures issues in their life?
Other customer insights?

The Brand
What is the big idea, product or service that makes it great:
What are the physical characteristics and the common creative elements that link all brand communications.

Personality
What are the brand's 2 or 3 most distinguishing traits?

Brand Health
What is our primary strategic challenge?
Who is our audience and how do they perceive our brand?
Who are our strongest advocates and what distinguishes our brand for them?
Who are our main competitors and what territory do they own?
What are the main category drivers and how well do we deliver against them?

Brand Positioning
Who is our potential audience?
How do segment this audience? (demographic vs. loyalty vs....)
How do we want them to perceive our brand?
What is the widest scope of business for the brand?
What does our company see as its fundamental reason for being?
How is it differentiating?
Is it relevant to our target audience?
Are the benefits emotional or rational? or both?...define them.

Communications
What is the communications insight of our category/niche?
How can we leverage the our site to solve their problem?
How does or site integrate with other communication vehicles?

The Role of Advertising
What is the single most important contribution it can make and what effect is it designed to have on:
building the brand? selling the service?

Creative / Marketing Brief
1. The problem is…………..…..….(Why we're making this website)
2. So we must say…………….…...(Keyword Messages)
3. With an image and promise…...(Look, Feel, Usefulness)
4. In this way…………………….….(Tone and Manner)
5. To move these people……….…(Target Audience)
6. Who will believe it because….…(Support)
7. So that this happens…………....(Desired Outcome)

Technology Brief
What techniques and technologies can be implemented to gain the user’s satisfaction and trust? List them. Use my SEO 2.0 graphic below for a technology brainstorm session.

Chapter 7 : The holistic approach : content, links, love, trust and conversations
I want to show you the big picture of SEO, online marketing and demand generation while focusing on just a few nuts and bolts that never go out of style.

Critical success factor #1. Search Engines love text. And lots of it. While movies, pictures and sound can be appealing Search Engines cannot read or understand them. When using non–text items always place a descriptive Alt–Tag on them.

Present your text in small chunks, parse it out as if you’re a movie director telling a story on a story board. Keep it concise and authoritative. Bold your key phrases in headlines and if possible tag them as an <H1> in your html—Search Engines decipher your pages intent by interpreting bold and normal text. ATTN: Web Designers : Are your Flash files SEO friendly?

A key benefit to parsing is it makes the page more easily digestible to the reader, you’ll also reap the reward of having more page views per session—a factor that is key in ranking. Google tracks the behavior of the clickthrough to determine if they have displayed a relevant result (the key to their business model) When they win, you win. When a visitor thoroughly devours your content, you must be an authority. When you get a single click with a 3 second session that tells Google you’re not delivering to the user.

Nothing is more valuable to the Search Engines as User Centered Design. Design, write and optimize your site for humans, not Search Engines. Always ask yourself...Will this help my customer? Text for Text sake will only have a limited run.

Create and maintain a weekly (preferably daily) RSS feed. Place it everywhere from My Yahoo to Bloglines and all points in between. This is another way of telling the search engines your content is fresh and is updated daily.

Because Google loves fresh, original, frequent content (in text format) they will reward you in the result pages for publishing on a regular basis.

If you're a new site you need a niche, a differentiator over your competitors in order to rank and maintain rank. You will have a HUGE advantage over your competitors who do not publish.

Remember those 6 figures in sales I mentioned earlier? Most of it was driven by publishing daily.

Ever notice how Wikipedia is on most of the result pages? They've become a trusted resource for relavant content. But I know you can out-do the randomness of their contributing writers.

Maybe you're already an authority and aren't leveraging your existing content. Maybe you've written a book? I suggest parsing out your book into 500–1,000 word weekly "broadcasts" on your site where customers can subscribe via RSS with the ability to comment. In addition to rank, return visits, community-building and customer loyalty, you will become what is known as an Authority site. Google has high regard for authorities on a particular subject. Sounds crazy doesn't it? How can Google discern authorities? They've got artificial intelligence algorithms we don't even know about yet.

Chapter 8 : Linkbuilding Workshop
Critical success factor #2. Nothing helps rank and maintaining rank like 1–way inbound links. This is Google’s #1 factor in determining who gets ranked and how high. But not just any links, you need relevant, quality links pointing to you. Google is ALL about trust and relevance.

Obtain links from related sites. sites that are of a similar theme as yours. They should be text links with anchored text that incorporates the keywords you're targeting.

Never purchase links from a Link Broker. Never sell links to others. No matter how tempting. Google has now figured out how to spot a paid link and will penalize you for it. They see it as spamming their engine and trying to manipulate the process. Once you’re identified as a Spammer you’ll dig yourself a hole you’ll never be able to climb out of. My mantra – if it's not endorsed by Google, don't do it!

There's a big ruckus amongst SEO Consultants right now – they're pushing what they call "Linkbait" on their clients. Some outrageous video or this week's viral thing-a-ma-jig subversively poised to shock and awe and entice inbound links from the unsuspecting. A holistic website in and of itself is all the link-bait you need. Get the basics down and link popularity will often take care of itself. If you have to constantly subversively fish for links you might want to rethink your entire business model.

Link Bait campaigns generally start at $5,000. That money might be better spent on content, press releases or making your site more useful.

Your link–building must appear natural, grow and increase naturally over the course of time. Google uses that in determining rank.

As you might guess since links are the #1 factor for Google rank they’re also the most difficult factor to overcome. Obtaining links is a very time consuming, difficult task. And you've got to ask yourself every step of the way...is this link-worthy?

Unless you’ve got a team of college students or relatives who will work for free, building links becomes almost impossible for the average site owner. I recommend designing a powerful site and let it do the work for you. Many people get this false mentality...If you build it they will come. Huh, if you make it link-worthy they'll come!

It’s very difficult to obtain links if your site and it’s offerings do not display immense passion in it’s visual design and content. You must convince the user within 3 seconds that “wow this is cool, I would be proud to point my customers here, these guys are visionary.” Most site owners know the value of delving out links, and they don't give it up easily.

You might also establish processes whereby your business partners and customers are encouraged to link to your site in exchange for a spiff. For instance, incentivize people. You might offer a 15% discount to vendors, advertisers or customers who agree to permanently link to you.

You're going to find that your competitors have thousands of inbound links. Beating them in this area is absolutely critical. While it may seem daunting, don't give up, your linking strategy can have a snowball effect when executed correctly.

I cannot stress enough the importance of the recommendations in this book as they are designed to boost your link–popularity and win the link game. Especially if you're in a highly competitive niche.

When you're scratching your head about your fluctuating or sporadic rank – 9 times out of 10 it's because you don't have enough links or you don't have the right links. Remember, don't go in the rabbit hole to try and find "solutions". Put your head down and build quality inbound links. And you know the beauty about links – they pull double-duty. They're key to algorithmic rank but they also deliver traffic. Win win.  Relevant inbound links = Rank. Rank = $ 

A word about outbound links – Did you notice how I linked out to Google WebMasters immediately at the very top of this page?...I want the world to know (Google included) that the intent of this book is to put the Google Webmaster guidelines into real practice. In so doing, I hope to be ranked, classified correctly and trusted by linking to a trusted resource. In a nutshell, outbound links build relevance and help substantiate your site's theme.

Link building via copywriting
The most cost effective and easiest way to build inbound links is to write compelling articles that focus on making someone's life or business better. This can be quite the art form in and of itself. Consider copywriting angles that solve a problem or embed aspiration like...

• Wouldn't you like to have a _______?
• My Secret of _______.
• A way to help _______.
• Enter our weekly _______ Contest. You could win a Free _______.
• Little known methods of _______.
• Get rid of _______ with this method.
• How to solve the problem of _______.
• You can achieve _______ by doing _______.
• What my Dad taught me about _______.
• How to build a _______ that everyone will envy.
• Everything you've always wanted know about _______.
• How _______ can transform your _______.

This form of publishing solves a problem in the customer’s life or it makes their life easier. Customers will love you for it without knowing that you’re fishing for links. Sprinkle you copy with targeted keyword phrases, but don't over do it. Just write naturally.

 Good Copy = Usefulness. Usefulness = Love. Love = Rank. Rank = $ 

Snowball your links with Press Releases. This can be the biggest bang for your buck. A mere $80 can generate a wealth of traffic. Build rank and maintain rank as an authority by performing press releases. But not just the standard press release – your releases should be sprinkled with keywords and correctly targeted to the appropriate industries.

I recommend PRweb.com. You will need to merge the art of copywriting with SEO. Put your best wordsmith on this. Use a key phrase in the headline and the sub headline. Weave in a few keywords in the body of the text. Select your industry targets carefully and the next morning by 7am you'll be in the News Headlines of Google, Yahoo, MSN and other business related sites.

Your Press Release will reach relevant Editors, get forwarded, written about, and will also generate a natural one–way inbound link to the site that remains in the SERP’s for about 6 months. This has a potential snowball effect. Links beget links, beget links in a viral manner. All the while boosting your rank and credibility, saving you the expense of hiring a Link Builder.

If nothing else submitting press releases can be useful in testing the waters for a new offering. If your release results in a lot of traffic you might be on to something that's worth developing further. And I don't know of anything more cost effective in spiking traffic. I've done press releases where for $80 I got over 250,000 reads.

The trick to high traffic press releases is to make them timely. Tie the theme of your release to what's happening in popular culture or the news headlines and you'll find they perform very well.

PRWeb provides extensive information on how to execute winning releases. Check them out.

Leverage the competition – Capitalize on the work your competitors have already done. Directly phone, mail or email site owners who have already linked to your competitors. These sites are more likely to link to you since they have linked to your competitors. Put your best salesperson on this task.

This approach will save you a lot of time and expense without the need of hiring a Link–Building Firm. Type these commands into Google for a list of prospects :

link:www.your–competitor's–url–here.com
related:www. your–competitor's–url–here.com

Give away useful free stuff. People love free stuff. Editors and site owners will point their readers to usefulness. You’ll build links, loyalty and authority. Maybe you're a guy who builds motorcycles...give away a free How-To-Guide on something you've built.

Relevant Posting – Places like download.com, softpedia, CNET, etc. are great exposure for software developers. Maybe you've created a gizmo or a new way of looking at things? Seek out relevant directories that "house" your product or service.

DirectoriesBusiness.com, The Yahoo Directory and DMOZ remain as the few valuable directories. They're trusted by Google. If you don't have any quality "link-juice" associated with your site, start here. That 6 figures in sales I mentioned earlier? This was the only 3 links I had! I focused on building a site that people liked and let mother nature handle the links.

Business.com links are $150 each. Yahoo Directory is $300 annually. Make sure you target your industry correctly and have a compelling 150 word site description ready. A Yahoo Editor will review the site before placement so it’s good to have any house cleaning done before submitting. Who knows, you could get recognized as a Yahoo site of the week.

Get listed in DMOZ.org. The web’s most trusted Directory which still feeds portions of Google. Again have your 150 character site description handy, place your site in the most relevant category. No fee for this listing and they won't accept commercial sites. If your site is commercial, maybe you submit a company blog designed for a common good.

Other Directories – Forget it, read my lessons learned chapter and you'll see why they’re a useless expense. Contrary to what you may see at some SEO sites that sell Directory submissions, this is a practice of the past with not much current value.

While relevance is key it still helps to have as many inbound links as you can muster. Tap every site owner and blogger you know and ask them to link to you. A link is a link. Another "vote" in the democratic process of search engine ranking. Google considers the democratic voting process as the fairest way to rank sites. If companies A, B and C are linking into your site it’s like a vote. So they figure there must be something good, or some enduring qualities about your site if people continue “voting” for it.

Powerful and I mean powerful.edu Links – Think of these links as "The Super–Delegates" ! Do what you can to obtain these. A .edu link is extremely powerful, much more powerful than a .com link. If you can get these high quality links from Universities, you’re golden. It’s not the quantity of inbound links, it’s the quality. Why are .edu links of such high quality? Think about it...Search Engines know that University websites aren't Spammers or just some jack-ass with a blog. They trust them implicitly because of their accuracy of information and their high ethical standards.

Chapter 9 : Link Mechanics Workshop
You'll need a guideline of standards when building inbound links. Certain rules apply to their ethical accumulation :

• Links must be 100% SEO Friendly. Just normal <a href> links. No dynamic or redirect links.
• No keyword spamming within the anchor text.
• No run–of–site links. (Links on all pages of a site)
• Vary the copy of text links with one keyword per link. (Don't have all your links say the same thing.)
• Links within running copy are best. ie : editorials, reviews, blogs.
• Have your links point to different interior pages, don't point them all to your homepage.
• Links must come from unique ip addresses.
• Place links on relevant, high quality sites preferably with a similar theme as yours.
• Never buy or sell links. Google is now penalizing sites for buying links.
• Monitor your links and make sure they're not broken over time.

Internal Links
When adding a new page to your site place the relevant keyword or phrase in the url using dashes to separate keywords. This helps build relevance of the page and can make a difference of a page break. Your information architecture provides great insight into the theme and intent of your site. Leverage it. Use text in your navigation. If you can't then place ALT Tags on your buttons.

Deep Linking
In my best estimate I will say that your homepage optimization accounts for 75% of your rank. Do a good job here and you're almost there.

Most people make the mistake of having all their inbound links point to the homepage. This can appear suspect…because surely a trusted site would have valuable information in all locations right?. Your site should be deep information throughout, so therefore it's only natural that people would be linking to different locations.

It’s ok to have a strong percentage pointing to the homepage but it’s best to mix it up – point your links to interior pages.

Link Popularity
Here's a great way to monitor your success in link building. Using this tool from Market Leap type in your URL and 3 of your competitor's URL's to see where you all stand.

Let's have a look at who's winning the link game for the keyword "cupcakes". "Cup Cakes Take The Cake" is clearly dominating. Why? In my analysis of all 4 sites they seem to be the authority for everything having to do with cupcakes. They're using my rules of fresh content, viral marketing, linking and usefulness. You might also agree they seem to be the most passionate.

You might also like Alexa (The information company owned by Amazon). It will give you good insight into how you are ranking among the top 100,000 sites in the universe. You'll enjoy reading about reach, rank, page views, etc. but remember...don't dwell on these metric services too much. It'll drive you nuts.

Chapter 10 : SEO Copywriting Workshop
It bares repeating. You've got to creat content that makes people want to link to it. When developing content ask yourself...Is this link-worthy? Is this authoritative enough or compelling enough that I would want to link to it?

Remember – You've got to enhance the reader's life or their business in some way in order to motivate them to link in.

Again, here are some potential angles you might explore :

• Wouldn't you like to have a _______?
• My Secret of _______.
• Cut through the clutter of _______.
• A way to help _______.
• Enter our weekly _______ Contest. You could win a Free _______.
• Little known methods of _______.
• Get rid of _______ with this method.
• How to solve the problem of _______.
• You can achieve _______ by doing _______.
• What my Dad taught me about _______.
• How to build a _______ that everyone will envy.
• Everything you've always wanted know about _______.
• How _______ can transform your _______.

Not to say these content angles wouldn't also be a perfect fit for Flash or YouTube movies. Just remember to mirror your effort in text so that it can be read by the search engines.

Team your Copywriter with a Graphic Designer. Illustrate your copy in a manner that blows people away visually. People are equally impacted by strong visual design. Take for instance what Burger King did a while back with their interactive chicken website. They engaged their viewers with a completely wacky Flash movie thing-a-ma-jig that just blew people away. Within weeks they generated over 75,000 inbound links and now rank as the #1 search result for the keyword "chicken". Sorry Tyson, you lose.

So, don't forget to have some fun with your content. Let your creative teams bust out.

Who says online banking has to be straight-laced?

Who says an online stock trading site can't be as sexy as a women's fashion site?

Who comes up with these rules?

Most sites are losing the love game because they've become sheep. Followers of old web standards. They've followed the advice of stodgy consultants who don't enforce innovation.

In a Web 2.0 world...innovate or die!  Usability + Sexy = Unique. Unique = Love. Love = Rank. Rank = $ 

You'll need to have structure and guidelines to keep your teams on the same page. I recommend having an editorial guideline. It is especially useful when hiring freelance writers to write articles for your site. It will save you a lot of time and money when everyone is armed with your set of rules and intent.

Editorial guideline sample
• All articles must be 100% unique and never duplicated anywhere on the web. The site is monitored with Copyscape, if it's found this rule is broken I will demand a full refund.

• You are writing marketing copy! Never associate negative things with my products or services. If there is a negative or potential drawback, reinforce it with a positive.

• It's ok to be an informative guidepost but don't make decisions for my customers. You can guide them to water, but don't tell them what to do.

• Tone is strictly business. factual. professional. friendly. trustworthy. I'm not saying be boring....there is room for aspirational tone to avoid boredom.

• The goal is to sell while being a trusted resource of information.

• Consider the audience demographic: (Excel document attached). The way you talk to business people won't be the same for consumers or students.

• Don't list things that fluctuate on a daily basis, this makes for an editing nightmare on my behalf.

• All content must be 100% unique, exclusive to the site and not be found as duplicated on sources like copyscape.com

• Use my keywords and keyword phrases in bold headings when possible but don't over-do it. The copy must be natural.

A great place to find affordable writers is at Craigslist.com. I prefer to hire recent college grads. I've found they're full of passion and a joy to work with as they offer fresh perspectives on what might otherwise be a mundane subject.

You’ll also need to determine what you’re willing to pay for content. Depending on the writer’s credentials you could pay up to one dollar per word…a rate that the average website owner simply can’t afford. I’ve been able to find very sharp recent college grads on Craigslist that have worked for a lot less because they’re excited to be working on a quality site. This is another instance in which if people love your site they want to be part of it.

Sample Scale:
250 – 499 words : $40.00
500 – 749 words : $50.00
750 – 999 words : $75.00
1000 – 1499 words : $100.00
1500 – 1999 words : $125.00
2000+ words : $150.00
3000+ words : $200.00

Chapter 11 : Workshop for SEO 2.0 – Killer Apps for conversational marketing
I've created this little pull-down "utility" to help you connect with your customer, spread the word about your site, and gain link popularity. What a beautifully discreet way to build traffic and inbound links...Place it after every blog entry. Heck, make it explicit in your global navigation.

Bottomline : To build a community, your visitors have to (1) Share (2) Subscribe (3) and Save.

Fact : According to Yankelovich.com the average American sees up to 5,000 advertising messages every day. Research proves they're just plain sick of it (consider the wild success of TiVo). Conversational marketing capitalizes on that fact with "word of mouth" recommendations from web communities. And this buzz marketing as it's also called is a big business.

We talked earlier about the importance of content. But getting your content devoured! is the key. Repeat...you have to get your content devoured by the visitor. Getting devoured equates to page views. Page views equate to rank. Page views equate to how much an advertiser will pay you for running their banner ads.

This widget I've made called "Scoop" allows you to stand out in the crowd, get your content thoroughly devoured and maintain an authority status all the while discreetly making money.

Imagine one of your keyword-rich articles. You've placed a large + next to your bolded keyword (the keyword people have just entered into Google before they landed on your page) Rather than slathering your page with obtrusive ads use this contextual marketing method to make your visitor stick.

When the user mouses over the + the scoop contextual menu appears giving them related options and activities. Remember, they're actively searching using your keyword. You must deliver by proving to them that you are the authority on your subject. The result? they'll stop searching and bookmark you. Why? because you haven't slammed ads down their throat, they can read your page comfortably, and you've given them options.

The beauty of "scoop" is that it allows you to cut through the clutter and to literally cut the clutter – place a relevant banner ad, cross-sell, up-sell, get sign-ups, while presenting your site as an authority. And Hello page-views! A curious searcher will devour your content with this. All the while you're making money from the banner ad, affiliate links and Google search.

And let's say they're not completely satisfied with your site, at least you've made a little money when they exit using your monetized Google Search Box. Use your imagination with scoop but keep it relevant and contextual to the theme of your page.

Bottomline : People want to be part of a trusted community. Not a tabloid newspaper. Not hawked at as they read or watch your video. When people feel like your site is just another tabloid, they will bail. Critical success factor #3...people have to love your site.

 Getting your content devoured = page views. Page views = Rank. Rank = $ 

Love
Before you dismiss this section as not being the typical SEO gear-head mechanics remember its all about links. If people love your site they'll link to it. It's that simple.

 Love = Links. Links = Rank. Rank = $ 

Critical success factor #3 : people have to love your site. I almost hate to put it in such elementary terms. But a huge part of your success depends on captivating the visitor within the first 3 seconds of arrival. Is your visual design link-worthy? Does your value proposition make an impact? Most importantly, is it evident you're passionate? Remember, it's all about links! No one will link to a hum-drum tabloid.

There was a big study performed recently at one of the Ivy League universities that proved that within 3 seconds of landing on a website users have made an intuitive, gut reaction as to whether they like the site or not. I was a little perplexed by this study—3 seconds? Seems like it would take longer than that to even react to the color. But I guess it’s similar to meeting someone in person for the first time. If they greet you with a smile and an enthusiastic hello it makes an immediate impression.

Don't laugh. Those gut feelings translate into page views, bookmarks, emails to a friend, a registered user and/or the almighty inbound link.

Would you show up at an important business meeting unprepared, dressed in cut–offs, a tank top and flip flos? Probably not. So why do so many sites show up in cut–offs?

As elementary as this sounds it’s the #1 online success factor – people have to like love your site. Now by that don’t think a flashy intro is going to be the answer. It’s probably 100 little things. At any rate, in this day of ultra–competitivenss your value proposition better scream with passion and make an emotional and logical connection with your visitor. And you better make it obvious that there’s humans behind your site.

Make use of the Creative Workshop. Output design criteria that will inspire your team.

Think of your site as a physical space. Would you trust your Doctor if his office was in a wood-panelled trailer located in the hood with equipment from the 1950's?

Back during the Internet boom consultants called for "creating an immersive experience". Hardly anyone really did it though. Very few still do. Because it's hard to be an original.

Knock people's socks off! What are you afraid of being called innovative?

Remember, there are over 150 million websites out there. There are thousands in your category.

I had a client recently that is essentially launching a brochure. A big, boring brochure. To him it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. To the average visitor it's dry as a bone. Now this is a smart guy. He agreed with my recommendations on how to improve traffic but said "I just don't have the time to make it happen". You've got to make time. The old saying "you reap what you sew" is key to designing a successful site.

And his favorite saying is "If you build it they will come". Nothing! could be further from the truth. He's so hyped up on his idea he can't see the forest for the trees.

If you build it with value and it's unique then yes, they will come. And yes, they will link to it.

One of my bosses always used the word "desire-ability", translation in the SEO world : your site’s architecture, copywriting, graphic design and programming has to wow people. It made him a cult hero in the company. His mantra – Create desire in the heart of the viewer and you'll win. Everyone is aspiring to something while they surf. Desire-ability translates to trust, love, a sale, a bookmark, a registration, an e–mail to a friend and the almighty inbound link.

Trust
Trust and love go hand in hand on the web. Establish trust and you'll establish sales. You've got to make people feel o.k. about entering their personal information. I've been to sites where I feel like I need to empty my cache, clear my cookies and restart my computer to avoid spam. There was an Internet story this morning on the national news explaining how some sites are embedding malware into their banner ads. The reporter advised "don't click if you don't have to". I think you should assume that most new visitors to your site wil be skeptical until you convince them otherwise.

In the age of spammers and scammers ask yourself...what can I do to ensure visitors trust my site? Visual appeal, solid architecture, error free code, authoritative copywriting, innovation, SSL Certificates, a BBB Seal, a Hacker-Safe Seal? All of the above.

For instance...those little green hacker-safe icons you see on a lot of e-Commerce sites? I talked to their representative and he swore that placing their icon prominently in the page header yields on average a 14% increase in sales – that gives you a good idea about how intangibles like trust and love equate to the e-marketing bottomline. I encourage you to use your imagination in building love and trust. If a little icon can increase sales 14%...I bet your designer and programmer can come up with other methods.

 Trust = Love. Love = Links. Links = Rank. Rank = $ 

Make use of the Business, Marketing, Technology and Creative Workshops in this book. They will drive out important criteria in gaining the visitor's trust.

Chapter 12 : Workshop – Keyword Research
Get a leg up on the competition when you research what real people are really searching for. The results will often surprise you. Have a look at the WordTracker research below for the example "cupcakes". You might think "ice cream cupcakes" would be an ideal phrase but it turns out "ice cream cone cupcakes" is what people are really after. Keyword knowledge is power. Weave your findings into the copywriting and linking strategies we've discussed and you'll refine your niche.

I recommend performing your research at Wordtracker.com.

People use different words when they search for your products online. Words much different than you might think. Incorporate a keyword strategy into your website copy and people will find your site when they search. No matter what business you are in, Wordtracker will tell you the words people use when they search – and how popular each word is.

Wordtracker allows you to :
• Optimize your website content by using the most popular keywords for your product and services
• Generate thousands of relevant keywords to improve your organic and PPC search campaigns
• Research online markets, find niche opportunities and exploit them before your competitors
In short, your search engine ranking will soar, you'll get more visits to your website and more people will buy your products.

These words provide a foundation for the content strategy and become useful in copywriting, press releases, link–building, meta tags and PPC.

Determine 25-100 keyword targets and get out, don't go down the rabbit-hole. Getting hung up on one single component of SEO will cause you to avoid the other parts.

Don't overuse your keywords on your pages as that could be interpreted as spamming. Incorporate them into your web page copy in a natural way. It will read better and you'll rank better. Remember, Google is looking for high quality sites they can trust. So are users. FYI - Wordtracker only provides estimates. Multiplying their searches x 4 is probably a more realistic representation as to the number of actual searches that are being performed across all search engines.

Take a look at my "cupcakes" keyword research. WordTracker states 1095 searches have been performed in the last 24 hours. In actuality it's probably more like 4,400. Google spits out over 6 million results for "cupcakes". You can see from this limited data alone, cupcakes are a hot category and a competitive one. It's going to take work to rank for the keyword "cupcakes". But not nearly as much work it would take for "cakes", there are over 40 million results for it. So if you run a bakery maybe "cupcakes" is the right niche and you cross-sell visitors to the "cakes" section of your site.

Pay attention to what's happening on the news, the radio, magazines, your friends, the junk in your mailbox – learn to spot a trend before it explodes. And keep an eye on Google Hot Trends

Chapter 13 : Meta Tags Workshop
This is where many people get jammed up. Meta tags became synonymous with SEO back during the bubble. Today they're a very small percentage of the rank factor. In this workshop I'll show you how to make your meta tags pull double-duty.

I encourage you to think of your meta tags as advertisements. Very important little advertisements. Notice the result pages in Google? Those blue headlines? Often times they're your Meta Title Tag. Take this opportunity to write a very short, very snappy "headline" that encourages the user to click to your site. Expand on this approach with your Meta Description Tag. Often times it is displayed along with your Title Tag on the results pages.

Don't try to make the sale. Try to entice a click by describing your value proposition in a meaningful way.

 Think of your meta and alt tags as advertisements, not optimizers. For instance: 

<TITLE>Short, sweet value proposition using one keyword</TITLE>

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="A reason why the user should click. Use another keyword or two.">

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="Don’t use this tag. It’s no longer used by the search engines, it's irrelevant and overstuffing it may appear as though you’re spamming.">

You'd be smart to spend a lot of time with this workshop. Put your marketing hat on and choose your words very carefully. Getting your site on page 1 is one thing. Getting someone to click on it is another matter entirely.

I recommend using the book "Words That Sell" by Richard Bayan as a copywriting resource to help you transform mundane words into phrases that entice an action. It's brilliant in it's simplicity. Especially when you're doing PPC advertising – where you only get 85 characters to attempt a sale.

ALT Tags
Instead of traditional html Alt Tags consider a more innovative alternative. Google says that ALT Tags should only contain necessary text to describe an image.

You can take ALT Tags to a new level by employing my link-preview-rollover. Your site's internal linking structure and usability will be greatly enhanced. You'll also find more efficiency in promoting site features. Seems you invariably run out of layout room in trying to promote offers or features. This rollover helps solve that.

Chapter 14 : Multiplication Marketing Workshop
You will reach a point when the traffic you've acquired is not enough. Or your return is lower than you hoped. Or you'll get frustrated that you're just some sort of online broker, trapped between the buyer and the real money.

Multiplication is a beautiful thing in e-Marketing. Surely you've seen it work in the real world with franchise businesses like McDonald's or pyramid structures that usually reward those at the top of the pyramid.

Or maybe you're building your site for venture capital or just want to be bought. VC's and buyers are going to drill you on your business and marketing plan. You're going to need a defensible site that is proven to have reach. What's in your secret sauce?

The solution : Establish an e–Marketing Channel whereby you become an online Advertiser where other website owners market your product in exchange for a commission on each sale. You'll create an army of salespeople. Probably the same one's that used to participate in your forum.

You can get back to what you love, your Affiliates do the dirty work.

This is the model that propelled Amazon.com. In the world of SEO this solves the link popularity problem and will allow you to target the best industry keywords.

What could be better than hundreds or thousands of other website owners marketing for you and providing inbound links to your site all the while? Ka-Ching. You're King of the pyramid.

Spend some time ideating about the most valuable part of your offering and how it might be multiplied. Check out the leaders Linkshare and Commission Junction to get a feel for Affiliate Marketing.

Now what about the other way around? Where you're the Affiliate. All those banner ads you see everywhere?...Affiliate Marketers. Sure they make money turning clicks for the Advertiser. The problem though? Everyone is doing it, you'll have duplicate content (a big no-no), compliance rules, PPC restrictions, and no one wants to link to affiliate sites. Think about it, why would I want to link to a page full of ads?

Anyway, you want to be King of the pyramid don't you? Establish your own Affiliate program. This alone could be all the viral marketing you need.

Want to really accelerate the multiplication process? Check out viral-looping. Be your own MySpace, be your own FaceBook. Why should they get all the link-juice? A great way to build a community and drive traffic is in creating your own social network. Viral loops may be the best low-cost business accelerant I’ve ever seen.

A viral loop is a forum on steroids. Check out Ning.com. They offer a free online service for creating, customizing and sharing your own Social Networks. It leverages the beauty of Multiplication Marketing in it’s ability to replicate new users at an alarming rate.

If you’re on a low budget  this could be the biggest bang for your development buck. 

Chapter 15 : Marketing Metrics Workshop
This is where everyone gets jammed up. They spend countless hours tracking the performance of their site. Human nature I suppose or maybe it’s a feeling of power to measure and metric–ate in on’es little command center. It’s quite addictive, you jump out of bed every morning wondering if the work you’ve been doing is paying off in traffic.

I have one client in particular who cannot stay away from his analytics. He calls me either in excitement of in frustration when he sees spikes. And in the process he’s driving himself nuts. The 2 hours a day he spends on this should be applied to improving the quality of his site.

If you only learn one thing from this book, learn this…Keep your head down performing the tasks I’ve outlined and you will gain traffic and customer loyalty. Check your rankings once a week, spot trends in your analytics but spend your time productively by building a site people love. Remember, you cannot make a search engine do something it doesn’t want to (ethically). So the next time your hear of the latest new–new thing in the search engine algorithms don’t make a rush to re–SEO your site. At the end of the day it’s all about fresh content, quality inbound links, killer–design and usefulness.

There are many resources available but they carry the risk of pinging the Search Engines with your url. A practice frowned upon by most. People wind up over–using these services out of curiosity and get bogged down in frustration because they’re not ranking where they want to be.

It’s best to focus on developing the best customer exsperience possible and watch your success using your Google Webmaster accounts – Vital crawl, index, subscriber, page rank and keyword performance is easily tracked here. These are the only metrics you need.

Create a Google Webmaster and a Google Analytics Account. This will become your dashboard to see how your site is performing. All sorts of goodness exists with these free tools.

Having a well made sitemap is critical for the search engines to correctly spider and index your site. I recommend (as does Google) generating them in .xml format to ensure your site is properly crawled and indexed. I recommend xml–sitemaps.com. Just enter your site’s url and you’re practically done.

Upload your sitemap.xml file to your server's root directory and verify it in your Google Webmaster account. You will want to confirm that your site is fully indexed. This can be confirmed by typing – site:your url name here.com into Google. Note: Upload and verify this file on your main computer since Google will ping your IP address and confirm you as the trusted owner of the site. When you add pages or delete pages to the site this .xml file needs to be updated to reflect the current state of your site.

Chapter 16 : Checklist Workshop
1. Never over–do keywords, meta tags, buy links or try to manipulate the Search Engines. Never fall prey to those who guarantee quick results or high rankings. You can't make a search engine do anything it doesn't want to do. But you can certainly be penalized in trying.

2. Never use duplicate or copied content. All content must be 100% unique. Once you’re tagged as a site that copies content it’s difficult to overcome. You will receive penalties and possibly blacklisted. Remember, Google is in the business of serving up 100% relevant results. They must trust you.

3. Run a periodic check of your original content to make sure other sites aren’t “scraping” your content. See www.CopyScape.com and protect yourself.

4. Make sure you never link to a “bad neighborhood”. Avoid links from a “bad neighborhood.” Association with junk will yield junk.

5. Avoid using SEO Metric or Checking Software. Don’t ping Search Engines too much, it can appear as though you’re trying to manipulate. Focus on your Google Analytics and Google Webmaster accounts only.

6. Don't buy or sell links. Acquire links naturally. Google claims they have a new method of spotting sold links and they will penalize you for it.

7. Make darn sure your Content Management System is SEO friendly. Many content management systems produce complicated URL's that cannot be indexed or text gets trapped behind complicated code, or they incorrectly export data or have spidering issues. Confirm your spider-ability with the Linux browser – you will see what bots and spiders index.

8. Look before you leap. When in doubt use Google WebMasters Guidelines. In fact make sure your programmer, developer and graphic designer know the rules before they work on your site.

9. Stay current by reading the Official Google WebMaster Blog.

10.  Stay focused on the principles that work – follow the proven strategies of this book. 

Chapter 17 : Tracking cause, effect and profitability
I've created this SEO Dashboard in Excel for you to easily track your efforts and profitability.

What's making your metrics move? Use the journal portion where you'll enter the date, the task performed and the effect that the task had on your traffic and ranking. This is a good way to find out what works and what doesn't. You'll see how your optimization techniques are relating to your bottom line.

It also contains an automated profit / loss statement. Just enter your data into the cells – your income and expenses are automatically tabulated. You'll always know where you stand when you use this spreadsheet. It also makes tax reporting a snap. Download my SEO Dashboard for Free

Or, just buy your way to the top
I encourage my clients to think of my process as an investment. To have a real appreciation for my process try doing some Pay Per Click Advertising. The cost you will pay per click will astound you. I had an Attorney client recently who wanted to bypass organic SEO and buy his way to the top of the result pages. He lacked the patience and know how and wanted immediate gratification. When I showed him that his keyword “mesothelioma” costed over $35.00 per click he just about fell over.

So we tried it with a daily PPC budget of $500.00 per day. His conversion rate turned out to be less than 1%. He got some phone calls and a couple small clients out of the deal but at a rate of $3,500.00 per week in clicks (plus my fee) he was disappointed. He could have built a killer website which would continually return on his investment via natural rank.

Doesn’t it make more sense over the long haul to build a brand that ranks on the first page or two and get “free” traffic, naturally? Think of organic SEO as an investment. It generates demand that you don't have to pay for.

All the clicks you get from employing my Organic SEO techniques are essentially free, all you invest is the your development time.

A smart approach is to do PPC in conjunction with Organic SEO. While you’re in the process of building a useful site the PPC campaigns help augment your marketing efforts and generate sales.

But SEO remains critical in a Google Adwords campaign. A well optimized landing page will continue to be important as Google now "grades" PPC landing pages on overall quality, relevance and usefulness. You'll be surprised how these factors influence the rotation, frequency and price per click that you will pay.

Fast track your competitive research to see what you're up against with SpyFu and KeywordSpy. These services give you visibility into which keywords your competitors are using in their PPC campaigns and which ones they're using for organic SEO. Once you understand your competitive landscape, you can beat your competitors at their own game and exploit their weaknesses. You'll also be able to find out what they're paying per click. Powerful stuff. But sneaky. Some might say ethically questionable.

This e Book version is Free for now. (it's future depends on you.)
The business model for this site is what I call "Freemium" – my exclusive, premium content Free of charge. But with a twist – that I'm going to call "PPV" : Pay-Per-Value.

What if I told you I could get your website 5,000 unique visitors per day within 3 months? That I can show you how to make money on the Web while you sleep? And get you one step closer to quitting your 9 to 5 and following your passion. I bet you'd be willing to pay me a premium. Wouldn't you? What if I could make you a star at your next business meeting? That you become known as the person in your office who knows how to drive traffic to the company website?

When you employ my recommendations and you see your rank improve, remember me and Donate to the printing of this book

Backword
In closing I'd like to share some of my lessons learned. In my early days of trying to make money on the internet I made some major blunders. Some of them costed me my entire ad budget. I guess bought lessons are the best lessons.

If you’ve got the insight to learn from the mistakes of others you’re way ahead of the game. One of the most valuable things I can lend to your success is an inspection of my failures. Those failures help drive my recommendations. I definitely know what not to do...

• Forget all those cheezy SEO sites you’re visiting. With promises of optimizing your website overnight and making money while you sleep. Don’t you think that sounds too good to be true? Hellllllllo? The only rank you’ll achieve is the rank smell of old cheese.

• Forget about those “professional” SEO firms that charge out the wha–zoo. They’ll read you the time on your watch IF they choose to take you on as a client. And if they do take you on…you’re probably looking at a minimum of $10,000 in monthly retainer fees.

• SEO is an area of great conjecture, theory and pontification by so–called experts. Most have never worked in the fields of Marketing or Advertising. They don't see the big picture.

My first experience with SEO was when I was Creative Director with Sapient Corporation so you would think I had the smarts to smell a rogue consultant, but like a lot of unsuspecting folks I got snookered by some really smooth salespeople.

That 6 figure success I mentioned earlier? When it began to tank I became frantic. How could I go from page 1 to non–existent overnight. Fact is, I was shattered. Depressed. I was making a 6 figure income while I slept. Suddenly it’s just gone? How could all my hard work in making it rank just vanish?

I knew why my site tanked. I stopped publishing. I stopped building links. I looked at my stats too much, I thought I had it made. Lesson learned? Always be working to make your site better. Your competitors are.

I knew what it was going to take to re–gain my rank but the amount of work required was overwhelming so I went in search of “the experts” to help. Mistake #1, I went into the rabbit hole.

I didn’t mind paying contractors or firms to help me get back on page 1, but let me tell you, what I encountered along the way was absolutely astonishing.

Here I am with 15 years of experience at the time and I somehow managed to get the wool pulled over my eyes. Stupid me again starts searching for seo, consultants, link–building, etc. like I was a rookie again.

I began to interview prospective consultants to help dig me out my hole. Why? I was being lazy, didn’t want to do the work myself. I just wanted to sit in my command center and analyze my stats and let these other folks do the dirty work. Maybe I was just burned out or uninspired. Had I just stuck to my guns everything would have been fine. I got cocky. And that’s not good. Why didn’t I just stick to what worked the first time?

My plan was to hire a writer to develop fresh content and an SEO/Link Building firm to get other sites to link to the new content.

I started interviewing consultants and contractors and was amazed at one thing they all had in common. None of them spent any time convincing me they were right for the job, they didn’t ask what my goals were, they didn’t spend any time trying to build a rapport with me as a new customer. It was obvious they were just offering out of the box packaged “solutions”, down and dirty quick hits to make a sale. They were all so freakin' arrogant. They had the secrets to rank and they aren't telling you without making a hand full of cash.

How can you exist in business like that I thought. But what really got me is that they all went way off course in pointing out things that weren’t part of the project.

I was trying to hire this one writer and she within minutes said that “I’ve reviewed your site and see a lot of copy–editing that needs to be done first. You need to do this, this and this before I will write for you”.

I call another writer who’s claim to fame is writing for Yahoo! At a rate of $1 per word. And before we can discuss the content I want written she starts flying off the handle about what I really need is a complete website re–design. Otherwise the content she writes won’t get displayed correctly. And she's having none of that. What a fruity–ass! I thought.

I call an SEO firm (to help me build links) whose site has all these seals of approval and life changing testimonials – shortly after saying hello they go off into this spiel of “well your homepage needs to be re–done to make more of a funnel so that we can route people to different offerings. We'd be glad for our design department to help you. Are you kidding me I thought. Here I am an internationally acclaimed Creative Director and these cheeze-balls are telling me my design sucks?

But wait a minute, I called them to build links! Ugh. I couldn’t believe it, these guys couldn’t design their way out of a paper bag.

Was all this an up–sell, a cross–sell, was I just small potatoes in their eyes?

I still don't know. They were arrogant idiots. I was amazed at how popular they were given the fact they didn't even spend 5 minutes getting to know me or my business.And stupid me for thinking they actually cared about the success of my business.

This went on for weeks. So I figure what I should do is hire the uber-expert. I got one of the large well–known SEO firms to call me back when I agreed to a minimum monthly spend of $10,000. After answering a very long questionnaire this guy tells me “I don’t think we’re right for each other”. Translation = I knew too much about marketing and SEO, he would not be able to baffle me with his bullshit process.

Lesson learned This is not rocket science folks, do it yourself!

After more searching I come across a guy that bills himself as a “Link–Builder”. Mmm sounds perfect. Links is what I need. He’s got all this fancy software and processes to generate 200 inbound links to my site for a mere $3,000. Unlike the others, he impressed me with his business acumen and guarantees his work. So I hire him. Two weeks later he reviews my project with me, starts showing me all the links he’s built. They were placed on the most irrelevant, cheeziest sites I’ve ever seen (many based in India). And here’s how I got really screwed, without telling me beforehand he used the content I had written to his own gain. He placed his own affiliate links within and around my articles which he had placed on other sites. Granted at the end of each article there was a link to my site but within the body of the articles he was linking out to other sites so he could turn a few cents per click. Thank God I paid this guy with my American Express Card which has buyer protection. After much haggling I got a refund.

But look where that left me. 30 days wasted. Now what? Hire someone to take his place and risk losing another 30 days of valuable time?

I come across another “expert” who swears if my meta tags were re–done and would adjust the keyword density (3 to 7% density) of my pages I could get my rank back. That didn’t work. Another $1500 down the drain. Keyword density? Please.

In my frustration I continue on.

This time I figure what I really need is an SEO to analyze my site and just supply me with advice. I’ll do the content and link building myself. So I take those exits on the rabbit hole highway. I’m shocked to find that $500 per hour is the going rate for talented SEO Consultants. That was not a typo. Five hundred dollars per hour.

I finally decide on a well referenced guy for a mere $150 per hour. He tells me how hard it is to build inbound links for a site like mine, reads me the time on my watch and changes his rate to $175 per hour during our call. He said that he had meant to say $175 when he first quoted me.

And my favorite. I hired a well known firm to “hand” place my site in 400 Web Directories at the bargain price of $1250. They said they would vary the descriptions and keyword anchor text so that it would appear natural to the search engines. I would gain 400 inbound links and get back to ranking on pages 1 and 2 for sure. After waiting 3 weeks for them to perform the work they get back to me with a client review. They did what they said they would do. Sure enough there they were 400 Directory listings. 400 of the cheeziest sites I have ever seen. It wasn’t long after that all the buzz on SEO blogs was that directories were dead and no longer offer any link value. So painfully true to this day. What a chump I was.

Lesson learned – Today's surge is tomorrow's tank. Get back to basics.

OK. So none of that is working. Screw it. I’ll buy my way to the top with a Google Adwords campaign with my clicks starting at two dollars a pop. Making my way down that part of the rabbit-hole I interview several PPC “experts”. (At this point I’m about 60 days into this effort with no return or improvement in rank).

Frustration building. An the thought of 2 dollars per click gave me I.B.S.

I find this firm I like but will encounter set–up fees, astronomical hourly rates and that I would also have to pay an additional 15% of my daily budget for account maintenance.

Lesson learned – Don’t panic when you tank. Put your head down and get back to the core principles that made you rank in the first place.

At this point I’ve thrown my arms up.

I don’t know if the planets were misaligned during my 60–day skirmish but I got so exasperated I decided to just do it myself.

If I had just put my head down for those 60 days instead of relying on others I would have been fine. And that’s what I finally wound up doing. Unfortunately I lost 4 months of valuable time. And over $5,000. 4 months is a lifetime in Web years. All the while my competitors had their heads down building fresh content and quality links and were now hot on my tail.

Biggest lessons learned:

(1) Following the latest trends, succumbing to seemingly good ideas in the blogoshere, trying to snap-on a demand generation strategy after a site's launch is much more difficult than creating a holistic strategy grounded in business.

(2) Time can become more critical than money. SEO is a rabbit hole. Take a wrong turn and you'll get smashed.

(3) Be very careful who you hire and who you take advice from.

(4) If you want something done right, do it yourself.

(5) A well made website in and of itself baits the hook for demand generation. If you have to resort to linkbaiting you might need to revisit your marketing strategy.

About the Author
Frank Ford is a professional SEO Consultant with 20 years of expertise in the areas of e–Commerce, Advertising, Design, Branding, and Marketing.

Throughout a very successful career Frank has achieved esteemed recognition with 54 international, national and regional awards in Advertising, Design, e–Commerce, e–Marketing and Corporate Identity. He has been published in numerous industry trade journals, books and other publications.

Frank's clients have ranged from Mom & Pops to America's premier Fortune 500 brands including the initial launch of Chase.com, eTrade.com, Morningstar Advisor, Allstate.com, Avid Technology and many more.

Frank has served as Creative Director for Sapient Corporation and Creative Director for iXL where he led project teams as large as 35 people. He has also worked with other highly acclaimed agencies including Thirst, Jaeger Di Paola Kemp and Titanium, where he mentored with living legends: Rick Valicenti, Clement Mok, Michael Jaeger and Dann DeWitt.

Currently Frank operates a portfolio of e–Commerce Websites and provides consulting services in Advertising, e–Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, PPC, Social Media, Design, and e–Commerce.

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