Email Marketing Success Tips
I was reading through a forum just earlier tonight, when a poster asked the question:
“If my website’s main goal is to get their name and email, then how should I use a sequenced email campaign to bring them on as customers?”
After spending quite some time preparing an answer, I decided it might be worthwhile posting that answer on here for anyone seeking some tips on setting up a successful email autoresponder sequence. Enjoy.
Pimp My Google Analytics!
Well, it seems our friends at Google were getting bored, because I just logged into my Google Analytics account and it has been given a MAJOR makeover!
Totally different, much more user-friendly look & feel!
Fantastic effort Google. I always found Analytics fairly painful to use, and certainly not very intuitive, but this new “generation” is very slick, modern looking and much more simple and obvious.
Here’s a pic of the dashboard, courtesy of the Google Analytics Blog:
Not everybody will see the new look straight away - in some cases, it might take several weeks to activate it in your account, according to their blog. Guess our MCC account does enough turn-over to get priority eh?!?!?! LOL 
For a smooth transition, here are a few helpful resources specific to the new version:
- Take a tour of the new version
- Report Finder Tool: will help you see where data from the previous interface is located within the new version (it is also linked to from within your reports on the left navigation menu)
- FAQs for more details about the new version
- New version features page
And as always, the Help Center, the Google Analytics Authorized Consultant program and the Analytics Help Forum are available to help you.
The new version of Google Analytics is easy enough for a layperson to understand, but also offers the sophistication experienced users need.
OK, that’s it for my first post in ages. Sorry about the long absence - I’ve been busy with other projects, but you can expect to see more posts on a semi-regular basis from now on.
Have a great day and please leave your comments about what you think of the new-look Analytics once you’ve had a chance to play with it.
Testing New Blogging Software
It’s been too long since I last added a regular post to this blog, and I think part of the problem is that it’s such a hassle to login to Word Press and create a post.
I find that it just runs rather slowly at times (which I am quite sure is more to do with my hosting account than WP itself, but still..), and sometimes it has crashed and I have lost my work!
So, tonight I am trying something new!
A client-side blogging tool that works on my PC and allows me to write everything locally and then it will post remotely to my blog/s. It’s called Performancing For Firefox, and it’s a rather neat but simple Firefox extention that creates a blogging tool within your Firefox browser.
Obviously, this means you need to install Firefox, but given all the hassles I have with IE, that’s not a drama! Then just mosey on over to www.performancing.com and grab their free blog editor for Firefox. It’s quick and easy to install, and so far, looks fairly simple!
Lastly, I am going to add a photo to this post (because I have never posted a pic to my normal blog pics before (except for the one on my permanent contact me page, which is slightly different) and see how it handles that as well.
Anyway, nice work to the folks over at Performancing.com - I recommend you go check their site out. Lots of cool content & tools for bloggers.
OK, here comes the photo…
This is a pic taken late July 2006 of my twin sister & myself at our 41st birthday party! A fun day…
OK, that’s it for my first use of Performancing. Lets see if it speeds up the postings I can make from now on! lol
Eran
powered by performancing firefox
Website Traffic Secrets…
Getting website traffic seems to be the #1 concern of most people trying to make an income on the internet.
Go on, admit it! That includes you too, doesn’t it?
I thought so…
But…I’m not psychic - by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, Blind Freddie could have figured that one out in about 5 seconds, with his eyes closed…
Seriously though, almost every single person I know who’s trying to make money using the internet craves traffic. It’s their addiction, you could say.
Why?
Simple really, website traffic = $$$
Or, to put it in different terms, the more eyeballs you have cruising through your website, the more chance you’ve got to have them buy sometime from you, or click on an ad on your website, or even sign up for your email newsletter (which you then promote products and/or services to them through that medium…don’t you???).
From an Adsense perspective, the higher your number of website visitors, the more money you make from some of them clicking on your ads.
From an affiliate marketer’s perspective, the more website traffic you get, the more sales you ultimately get.
And if you’re one of the smart ones, you’ll be selling your own products and/or services, and doing even better from all those surfers.
“Real businesses” 
can and should use website traffic to collect sales leads and sell their products and services online. Even accountants and lawyers can make money online - you don’t need to be an eBay or Amazon.com to make money on the net.
So, now that we’ve established the fact that website traffic is a GOOD THING (!), why is it that so many website owners struggle so much to actually get that traffic?
I personally believe it’s because they don’t understand a few key fundamentals about what makes the Internet work, and, they then don’t know how to properly use that knowledge and put a plan of action into place to actively and deliberately get web site traffic to their site/s.
I’m lucky in 1 respect, and that is that I work as a Search Engine Marketer for a real bricks and mortar company. That means that every day I get to play with all the key elements that are important when it comes to getting website traffic, and put them into real-world action for my clients.
These companies and individuals pay thousands of dollars to have myself and my co-workers do “that SEO thing!” on their behalf, and they expect results!
Actually, we plan for results ourselves, because we offer a money back guarantee on our SEO services, so we can’t afford to not perform. Nothing like a bit of pressure to make you get the job done right!
Now, the main reason I am writing this blog post is that there’s 2 things happening at the same time right now, and you can benefit from this day to day experience I get at work, and turn that into your own website traffic!
Firstly, I am about a week away from the launch of my new Video training product:
Website Traffic Secrets: 26 Ways To Drive Cheap Or Free Traffic To Your Website
This CD will contain over 2 Hours of narrated live screen capture video, walking you through all the different aspects of driving traffic to your websites.
It will be all laid out for you in a simple, easy-to-understand, step-by-step action plan…
In Video…
With Audio narration…
And, lots of great free and cheap resources to help you get started.
Plus, it will have my IE Favorites list, pointing you to all the sites that I use on a regular basis that can help you in your quest to get that traffic.
This is a condensed version of my work experiences over the last 12 months + 12 years of working in IT, Sales and Training. In short, you could describe it as a website traffic braindump!
There’ll be more about this CD soon…
But for now, the other thing that’s happening is that I will be adding a new article to my blog every day until the CD is launched, discussing website traffic concepts and hints/tips to get you started.
You don’t have to buy the CD when it’s launched, because it’s only for those folks that are TRULY serious about getting as much website traffic as possible.
However, for those of you just putting your toe into the water and needing a plain english introduction to the whole topic of getting website traffic, then I guarantee you’ll really get value from my upcoming articles.
So dear reader, see you back here tomorrow for article #1 (”The 2 Most Common Ways To Get Website Traffic”), and have a fantastic day!
Joel Comm Is Selling Keywords Now? What a Scam!
God, am I the ONLY person out there in the big wide world who is not frothing at the mouth about the newest “trend” to hit the get-rich-quick Internet Marketing community?
Joel Comm (of Adsense Secrets fame) has been promoting his 500words.com site around the net lately, and when I saw the site, a sense of deja vu wafted over me in a major hurry!
Reminds me of the pixel selling craze of a year or so ago, where everybody went ballistic buying 1 pixel ads on a site to get link popularity benefits from Google & co.
That was great for the first 1-2 players in the field, and it got a LOT of press and some good dollars for the early mover, but have you noticed that no one seems to be paying much attention to it these days?
Why, you ask?
Simple really - because it goes against what Google (in particular) and the other major search engines are looking for when it comes to measuring the worth of incoming links.
My philosophy when it comes to the “fad of the month” brigade is simple: If I can show it to a Google Search Engine “cop” and have him or her be happy that it’s legit and fair and honest, and give me full value for the link, then it’s all good.
However, if the Google cop laughs at me and asks me if I’m on drugs, I know it will ultimately be a waste of time. It might work temporarily, but once Google figures it out, they will add a small routine to their algorithm to ignore the value of links from sites like this.
Even more than that, I am really disappointed that Joel Comm is the one promoting this. Mr Adsense himself should know better than to try and get one past Google!
If his idea was SOOOO good, he would keep his mouth shut & just build these sites for himself to get the link popularity.
Instead, he’s selling the script to build the keyword sites instead - THAT’s where the money is. He’ll sucker in hundreds of get-rich-quick starrey eyed individuals who think they will make a fortune with it, and in reality, HE will make a small fortune and probably only 1-2 others will as well.
Folks, use some critical thinking here PLEASE!
If this was really as good as he says it is, why is he selling the system instead of using it for himself?
Simple really - he makes money on the people who buy the links AND he makes money on the people who buy his script.
However, I can guarantee you that within 6 months (probably less), Google will be giving links from these sites little or NO value. All these word links are doing at the moment is drawing traffic from the buzz, which is nice, but not sustainable long term!
If you want link popularity, spend the money you would have paid Joel to buy his script and/or buying a word on his site, and pay someone from rentacoder or elance to write you some unique articles instead.
Link your primary keyword/s in the author resource box and publish the articles on your own site. THEN, modify the articles sufficiently so that they have at least 25-50% different wording & content to the original, and publish them on the major article sites like ezinearticles.com.
The value of the link popularity you will get from doing this will far outweigh any value you will get from the 500words site over the medium to long term.
Just this technique alone has got my biggest client to #1 GLOBALLY on Google for one of their primary keywords in less than 6 months. It took me about 2 hrs of work to publish the articles for him, and that’s all I’ve had to do since.
The link popularity he has earned from those published articles has steadily climbed and climbed, until it is now at #1 against 115 MILLION competing pages!
Now, THAT you can take to the bank. It’s a solid strategy, it keeps Google happy, and obviously it thrills my client and makes me look good.
What more can an SEO ask for!
I love Internet Marketing, but I despair at times at how many people just chase the newest fad, hoping to get rich quick, instead of working smart & hard and putting together a quality site.
One-way Incoming Links from Directories
As with everything in life, there is an easy way, and there is a way that works effectively…
There are plenty of software tools out there that will submit your sites to the free directories…BUT, they come with a price, and I aint talking purchase price either.
It’s the same old story. If you try to cheat the system, the search engines will just ignore your efforts, which defeats the purpose of submitting to the directories in the first place.
Submitting the same entry (via software)Â to 50, 100, even 200 different directories is much the same as posting a copy of the exact same article to 1000 different article sites on the web. It will get indexed, and then promptly ignored, except for MAYBE 1-2 entries, by the search engines.
The search engines are wise to this spamming of the directories, and are ignoring entries that are the same.
Also, another thing about submitting a link to 200 directories is that those links will all show up on the next crawl of the spiders, and all of the major SE’s now monitor the growth rate of links to websites. If they see a massive level of growth in 1 day/week/month, and then no more after that, they automatically flag that site as suspicious, and it suffers for this. So, using a software tool to submit to a pile of directories in 1 shot is just a waste of time.
What’s the only way to avoid this problem? Submit a different entry to each directory, and the best way to do that is to do them manually… which is what everybody wants to avoid.
Think long term people - don’t spam the search engines, and your sites will perform better and last longer. If you can create sites that last for years in the SE’s, even if their rankings aren’t huge and their traffic isn’t massive, you get a much better bang for your buck than thinking short term.
That’s why just building scraper/spam sites for adsense earnings is a short-term tactic. At the end of the day, you will have to keep building new ones all the time to replace the ones that fall over after a month or 3.
Tag and Ping Disaster
Poor Sean Wu!
I wrote about him & his upcoming release of Tag and Ping the other day. I am guessing things went well, sales-wise, but the poor guy has been visited by Murphy (that famous Irish gentleman, whose law has been one universal constant in our world since day dot!) since then.
I just got home this evening, and found an email waiting for me from Sean…
Seems he had a major snafu with his autoresponder system:
Today I woke up to check my email - only to find
out in HORROR that my autoresponders from my
automation system has been sending me ALL of the
pre-programmed messages in the sequence
repeatedly… to MY inbox!At first I thought it was only doing this to me -
until I noticed that I’m getting a few complaints
from some people telling me that they’ve been receiving
up to 10 or more emails from my autoresponders,
in ONE day.Also, I’ve also noticed that some people are NOT
able to “opt out” of the sequence - even after
they’ve removed themselves from my autoresponder’s
database (I checked and their records have already
been removed - but the emails won’t stop for some
reason).*I’m also getting emails from ALL of my autoresponders
to MY inbox repeatedly too (and I can’t even “opt out”
of my OWN autoresponders!)
I hope the poor guy manages to sort this drama out! I’m sure its probably freaking him out a bit…
However, much more importantly AND significantly from my point of view is the latter part of this email, which says:
Third and finally - a BIG WARNING I want to give to
you:http://www.tagandping.com/warning.html
I’ve warned repeatedly, in EVERY teleseminar I did and
also on my Update Blog at http://www.tagandping.com/updates/,
as well as on the “Download Page” you are forwarded to
after purchasing the course…To NOT, in ANY circumstance, attempt to abuse or *spam*
the “authority sites” I mentioned in the course. I’ve
warned repeatedly that you should “go slow” AND add
valuable links & content… and NOT just links to your
own sites.The methods presented in the course are powerful -
BUT you MUST use it ethically.I’ve already seen some attempts to flood the authority
sites mentioned in the course with links to “page
generated” sites… and if you’re doing this - I ask
that you please stop.You should use these services the way that they’re
designed to be used - by adding valuable links that
other people will also find useful (in addition to
links to your own sites).DON’T overdo it!
Sean, you should have thought of the “possibility” of some morons using your techniques to spam and/or abuse these sites BEFORE you released this product…
Where I live, we have a saying for this - something along the lines of locking the barn door AFTER the horse has bolted!
This is why I often describe the Internet Marketing field as a shark infested pool…Along with all the nice fish, there are plenty of sharks who really don’t give a damn what they do to get traffic and sales on the net.
It’s not just the black hat crowd, it’s also the unethical, the ignorant, and the stupid that screw things up for the rest of us, who are happy to earn a living online without crossing the line into inappropriate tactics and techniques that just muck it up for everybody else.
Let this serve as a warning to those of you who think it’s OK to cut corners and not care about the consequences of your actions. If you’ve ever complained about all the trashy spam sites in the search engines now, then know that these unethical people are responsible for them. Makes Google and Co’s life hard, so in order to deliver the best deal possible to their REAL clients, they are now making legitimate internet marketers lives difficult, just to cope with the spam and dirty tricks brigade.
I truly hope Sean Wu won’t be looked upon (in 1-2 years) as the guy who started the downhill slide for tag and ping, and destroyed the value of this technique and these social bookmarketing sites, etc. I wonder if he thought about this properly before he decided to release this product?
I wonder…
Press Release: Australian PhD Student Gets Snapped up by Google
26 year old Australian student Ori Allon - a PhD student at the University of New South Wales, has been hired by Search Engine giant Google, along with his search engine creation Orion.
Young Allon, an Israeli-born, Australian student, has been working on the next generation search engine (code named Orion) as part of his doctoral studies.
It obviously has something of interest to the Search Engine market, because the bidders on it included Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft!
All 3 courted him (and the University of NSW), before Google won the bidding process for the license to use the technology from the University (who owns the rights to any research done by its students and staff).
The Orion technology has the potential to “revolutionize existing search engines”, according to a press release put out by the University of NSW. Amongst other things, it will improve search relevence, offering terms related to what was initially searched for.
Allon has previously given an example of a search on “American Revolution”, that could return results for “american history”, “george washington”, “Boston Tea Party” and other related topics.
Allon is now working in Google’s Mountain View HQ in California, and could be a major figure in the company in the years to come, depending on how things shape up.
Naturally, SEO companies the world over will be keeping a close eye on this new development. “Every change at Google flows on down to the Search Engine Optimization market, and it should see another big shake-up of the industry”, according to Australian Search Engine Marketer Eran Malloch.
“A change to the SEO / SEM market driven by an Australian invention would be an exciting experience.” says Malloch. “I’ll eagerly await the outcome of Orion + Google - let’s see whether this gives the big G a renewed competitive advantage in their slowly dropping market share.”
SEO - Writing Quality Content For Optimization
by Guest Author Michael Russell
If you are a marketer or just trying to earn an online income, then you probably have heard the terms “SEO” and “Search Engine Optimization”. Everyone knows that getting a good page rank or just ranking high in the search engines is probably the most important aspect of driving traffic to your website. What people don’t know or don’t tend to realize is that these are important aspects, but should not be focused upon as much as creating good quality content for your website. If the content of your website is looked upon by your reader as “valued” then your website will thrive. Way too many website owners give little thought to their content. This happens much more frequently than one expects with people who claim to be web professionals. However, without good content on your site repercussions can be immediate. If you want better web site traffic results then make the creation of good content for your web site your first priority. Whether you write the content yourself, or hire professional writers to develop it for you, it needs to be quality writing.
If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might have more than one. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Always make your title “rich” in keywords. Make your articles pertain to your title. Be sure to add some keywords throughout your article as this will help the “spiders” that “crawl” your pages and index your information. Don’t just start repeating the keywords throughout your article. This is called “stacking” and this too can lead to your pages not being indexed or to a possible banning. How long will it take? Nobody knows the answer to that question, but, as long as you are writing content that appeals to people, the traffic will come.
As traffic begins to flow to your website, this will start to increase your link popularity. Link popularity is starting to become a major tool for the search engines. This “linking method” helps the engines decide if your content is good or not. Don’t just go to a website and “copy-and-paste”, that is infringement. Go and research your topics and put them into your own words. As long as you are doing your own work, and gaining popularity of people reading your articles and content, then you stand no chance of being in “non-compliance” with the search engines. These engines “crawl” and “index” your website pages, and if they determine that the content is “copied” or not “highly” valued, then you stand the chance of no ranking at all, and this could lead your website into being banned by the engines.
So to sum it all up, you must first focus on the amounts and quality of content you are providing on your site. The engines love “soaking” up new, fresh content. Once you get some pages built up, then start turning your focus to some quality links that pertain to your pages. Just do a basic search on your titles and write to the owners of the websites asking if you can provide them with a link, and in return, if you could receive one back. This will give your website the first boost you will need for the site’s search engine optimization.
Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to SEO
Don’t Fight Google’s Success - Take Advantage Of It
Hey there Website Owner, I just have a quick question for you…
While I realise you are ranking well for some of your main keywords on MSN & Yahoo, how are you doing for that and other more appropriate keywords on Google?
The traffic you’ll get for high rankings on Google will be more than Yahoo & MSN added together and then some, so it’s MUCH MORE value-for-money in terms of pursuing high Search Engine ranking results on Google than the #2 & #3 Search engines offer.
According to the statistics I’ve recently read, Google has nearly 81% of ALL the search engine traffic in Australia (and is similarly high in many other countries), which gives you an idea of how much traffic you are currently missing out just relying on Yahoo & Ninemsn.
If you do some quick searches and your web site doesn’t rank in the top 3 pages for your main keywords on Google (anything below the top 3 pages is pretty much a waste of time), then you’re leaving LOTS of traffic (and potential paying clients) on the table.
If you were to get (in particular) a first page ranking for one or more of your main keyword phrases in Google, you would be blown away with the amount of traffic and enquiries you get at your site, compared to what you currently receive.
Something else that’s important to consider when you review rankings is the amount of TEXT content on your site. The higher ranking sites almost always have lots of text content (articles, news, reviews, etc) on their site and the lower ranking ones don’t have much.
Here’s a quick experiment you can try for yourself. On Google, Yahoo & MSN, do a search for your top 1 or 2 keyword phrases, and note the sites that come out in the top 10.
Then, go to each of those 3 search engines and see how many pages of these sites are indexed, compared to yours. It’s easy to do this by just entering the following command in at each Search Engine:
site:www.domainname.com
(obviously substituting your site URL and the other top 10 site urls where appropriate)
If the number of pages in the index for your site is significantly lower than the competition, there’s one of your main reasons for a poor ranking (there are other factors, but this is an important one).
I often have prospective search engine optimisation clients give me the excuse that they are getting decent results from Yahoo & MSN, and anyway funds are tight, so they don’t want to invest in getting results in Google. You know, the old classic “Call me again in 6 - 9 months!”
However, what they don’t realise is that the additional income they would receive for a higher ranking on Google (from the ensuing customers it brought you) would not only well and truly pay for our SEO services but give them plenty of ongoing new clients, which would take care of any cashflow concerns they might have for a while to come.
Consider that many of the big companies in your market niche spend large sums of money to advertise on TV, Radio & Print to drive traffic to their web site/s & retail location/s, but a good SEO strategy will bring visitors to your site for literally cents on the dollar - a much higher ROI. According to Google’s statistics, a quality Search Engine strategy can achieve similar results but be 20 times CHEAPER than direct mail (for one example).
I guess the lesson here is not to be penny-wise and dollar-poor. Work out how many additional new paying clients you would need to get via Search Engine Optimisation results to break even with the SEO firm’s fee, and then go after the main game in town: Google.
Your return-on-investment for good Seach Engine rankings is way ahead of most any other form of advertising and marketing you can come up with, but you need to see the big picture first. Don’t wait until your competitor sees the light and takes action before you, or you’ll miss out.
Author: Eran Malloch is an Internet Marketing Consultant at WCR Internet Marketing, a specialist Australian Search Engine Marketing company. Visit our site to get a free web site analysis.