Crank Up My Business

Search Engine Optimization Services

I get this phone call at least once a week... sometimes twice a week... and it annoys the HECK out of me every time!  The calls goes something like this...

"Hi - I'm ___ from the Internet-Marketing-Gurus Company!  We can make your website more profitable by Search-Engine-Optimizing it for you!  Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah..."

There are TWO THINGS that annoy me about this phone call... 

The first thing is that I picked up the phone to answer the call.   My most precious asset is TIME and this call just wasted 1 minute of that asset.  Usually they aren't as direct as the above so they waste 2, 3, or 4 minutes before I find out that this is why they called. 

Like the call this morning...  It was from "Discover", so I thought they were calling about our merchant account that allows us to take Discover cards.  Nope.  Discover apparently owns a search engine optimization service of their own, OR they sell their customers names and phone numbers to some SEO company that calls and claims to be affiliated with Discover.

By the time I have figured out who is really calling and why, their telemarketer is well into their pitch about how they can solve our problems.  Wow.  Pretty amazing.  How do they know I have a problem with search engine optimization?  Do they know how much traffic we get?  How many content pages we have?  How many number 1 spots we have in Google?   

No. 

But they know all about search engine optimization and they can solve our problem!

By now the telemarketer has said something stupid that reveals what they personally know about marketing on the web equals zero.  For instance, this morning's caller said "We want to burst the notion that keyword meta tags don't matter.  Only 2 of the search engines don't currently look at metatag keywords, over 700 others do!"

Okay - I should have just hung up the phone but I couldn't resist!  "Which two don't look at keyword metatags?"  I asked. (Already knowing the answer.) 

"Google and Yahoo" she says proudly!

"Great" I said... "Now tell me this - how much traffic do those other 700 search engines direct on the internet?"

Silence.

More silence.

"I'm sure I have that here..." she says, voice trailing off.

"The answer is 71% of all serches are done on Google and Yahoo as of April 2006 and the Google market share is growing by about 1% every 60 days"  I said. "So WHY would I want to optimize my website for the 29% of the engines that are losing market share every day rather than optimizing it for Google, the 800-pound gorilla?"

We finished our conversation in less than 5 minutes total time and I'm back to work on something important.

And that brings up the second thing that annoys me about these phone calls. I didn't even get into with the telemarketer.  But I will bring it up with you because you need to know this...

Search Engine Optimizing a website is not something you do AFTER you build the site!

Analogy: That's like building a house, then when it's finished, deciding you want to add electricity, plumbing, heating systems and a basement!  In order to do that, you have to rip out all the drywall, drill holes through lumber that's already nailed in place, crawl around in places you don't want to crawl through, jack up the framework, dig a hole under the house, fill it with concrete, ...  etc.  You get the idea.

It's easier and cheaper to bulldoze the house and start over again from scratch, this time planning for the plumbing, electricity, etc from the start.

It's the same way with a website! 

You don't want to build a site then once it's done start making it attractive to Google. It's too late!  You're better off scrapping that dog of a site and starting over again fresh.

Here's the bottom line in two points... 

1) If you're going to build a website, make sure you build it with search engine optimization built-in from the get-go!  Don't try to retrofit an existing site.

2) When the telemarketers call, let your answering system pick up the call.

(If you're building a website, start with a website building tool that builds search engine optimization into the process!  I know of two that do this for you... one of those programs is SBI! )

Graphics Made Easy?

It's pretty common to need a special graphic for your website. For example, today I wanted to add an arrow pointing to the right with the words "Prize Drawing" or something similar to one of my sites. You'll probably find you need special graphics too - so here's what I do to make them easily.

The program I use is called "Webstyle 4" and it's sold by Xara corp.  Here's the graphic I created this morning...

It only took about 5 minutes and ZERO drawing skills! That's the part I like best. I am not an artist but Webstyle makes it easy... just pick the graphic you want, change the lettering to suit your needs, and change the colors to suit your site.

Making Your Own Blog

How Is This Blog Made?

Someone asked me today how this blog was made.

It's created using www.typepad.com software.  You can sign up for 3 different levels of usage...

1)  Basic - gives you 1 blog and 1 author can use it. $4.95 / mo

2) Plus - gives you up to 3 blogs and multiple authors can use them.  $8.95 / mo

3) Pro - gives you unlimited number of blogs and multiple authors can use them.  $14.95 / mo

I chose the Pro plan because we know we will be creating at least one more and possibly 3 more blogs in the coming weeks.  Right now I have only created this one so I can get used to how the tools work.

Adding posts is as easy as using a word processor.  You have several choices for layouts and color schemes and you can even edit the style sheet if you know how to use CSS. (If you don't then just leave it alone!)  This blog is straight "click-click-click-done" with nothing fancy about it at all. I still haven't added a list signup point yet but once I do, this could turn into a great little stream of income! 

By the way, if you haven't read Robert Allen's book Multiple Streams of Internet Income: How Ordinary People Make Extraordinary Money Online, 2nd Edition yet, do it now!  It's all about adding income streams!

Staying Connected

Right now I am in my Jeep driving along I-294 outside of Chicago. We drive 58 miles one-way to see our vet in Tinley Park Illinois.  I drove down and Holly is driving back. That gives me time to be on the computer and get some work done.

The system I am using to connect is from Verizon. I am using their PC-5740 card that plugs into the PCMCIA slot on my laptop. Since I already have my cell phone with Verizon they discount the monthly fee to $59 for adding this sevice onto my package. That's unlimited time.

I was really skeptical about trying the system out because I thought the coverage would be spotty and the speed would be slow.  I was wrong on both counts. The speed is almost as fast as my cable ocnnection at home and the coverage area is large and solid.

For example, we drove from Detroit to Chicago a couple weeks ago and only dropped the connection in two or three places in the whole trip. And the dropped connections only lasted a couple minutes. Somehow their data network seems to be better than their voice network but I think it's really that the data only needs to connect in bursts.

As a comparison, I have had a Cingular system similar to this in the past and it was slow (like a dial-up connection) and coverage was not as wide as the Verizon area. We also had (still have actually) another system.  It's called "Internet In Motion" and runs through the Sprint system. It is CRAP compared to this Verizon card and I will be disconnecting their service.

We travel a lot and until now have been at the mercy of finding WiFi systems to stay connected. The Verizon system has replaced the need to find those WiFi's now. Yeah! 

Your Single Most Important Tool...

If you've read a few of my articles already then you know the number one thing I will tell you is to build a list. Build A List - BUILD A LIST - BUILD A LIST!

Your question is "HOW DO I BUILD A LIST?" 

You need three things to do this...

1. You need the software to make a list with.
2. You need a website where people can opt-in to your list.
3. You need a "strategy" for getting people onto your list.

Let's start with the software.  There is nothing better on the market than AWeber.  Take a FREE TEST DRIVE from them! Just fill in the form below and see how their system works...

AWeber Demo

Capture Hidden Profits with Unlimited Autoresponders AWeber's automated unlimited autoresponder follow up increases sales, lowers costs, builds lasting customer relationships, and increases your profits! Find out how with Unlimited Autoresponders.

Don't bother messing around with looking for a cheaper service, or a better service or a faster service.  I have used several other services and I'll tell you what you will find if you research the alternatives...

PRICE: Most services charge you a LOT of money. Here's a price list from one of them that is pretty typical.

I'll call them "Competitor C"...

• The first 500 people on your list cost you $15/month.
• Up to 2,500 people costs you $30/month.
• Up to 10,000 people is $75/month. 
• Up to 25,000 people is $150/month. 
• Over 25,000 people -- call us!

You've heard the saying "Life begins at 40" right? 

Well "LIST begins at 10,000" in my book. With a list of 10,000 names you begin to make a living on the web.  That means it would cost you $75/month to host your list with this competitor.  And when your list gets to 30,000 and you're really doing well - I don't even KNOW what they'll charge you - but it's at least $300/month!

AWeber charges $19.95 for the first  10,000 on your list.  Then $9.95 more for every  10,000 above the original 10,000 people.  So a list of 35,000 people will cost you $39/month with them. 

SERVICE: Yesterday I was looking at my list and wondering what all those "unsubscribed" names on the list were all about. I called their toll-free number at 800-531-5065 and got a real person in tech support on the phone in less than 3 minutes. 

She explained that "unsubscribed" people had subscribed to my list then opted out at some point.  They may have clicked the UNSUBSCRIBE link embeded automatically into every email or they might have clicked the AOL "report as spam" button and been automatically unsubscribed. 

That brought up another question I had... after three years of hosting my list I recently received my 500th SPAM complaint. All 500 were from AOL users!  How did their company view that?  Her answer was that they and AOL both know that AOL users click that link instead of finding the UNSUBSCRIBE button in their emails and that it wasn't a problem for me as long as we weren't really spamming anyone. And I had another question, and another, and just one more. And she answered them all for me and even deleted the unsubscribed list for me when I asked her to.

I still remember the frustration I had when trying to get a tech-support question answered by "Competitor T" a few years ago.  There is no phone number. Only an email form. And I waited 4 days for a response.  And I was paying over $100/month for their service with just over 10,000 emails on my list.  For the monthly service fee I pay AWeber, I didn't expect to get a real, live technician to talk to on the phone. But I did and that's impressive! 

Look for parts 2 to follow showing you several options for building a website and keep reading here in the "Let's Talk Strategy" section for more on how to get people onto your list!

The Norton Dance

A customer wrote... "My Gateway desktop is going beserk and before I talk myself into calling Gateway and trying to communicate with someone whose primary language skills are not English, I thought I'd send up a flag here...

The PC is a 7200 media center, 18 months old. Windows-XP Pentium-4. I am getting one error message after another about everything from 'can't access memory' to 'not a valid version of Windows'. The machine can't stay running, keeps shutting down.

I have recently renewed my subscription to Norton antivirus and I can't download the newest definitions. What is new....I recently downloaded NAV from Symantec."

Welcome to the Norton Dance! To begin the dance, place your hands in the position illustrated...

Did you load Norton Antivirus or Norton Internet Security?

IF N.I.S. then that is very likely to be the problem. Search Google for others with similar stories... http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=problem+with+Norton.  This will make you feel less alone in the world. 

Better yet... read some of the comments on this blog... http://www.welchwrite.com/blog/2005/02/norton-internet-security-problems.asp for others with similar problems.

There's two possible situations here...

Situation A) My condolences to you - but it's very likely that the only solution will be reformatting your drive, reinstalling windows and restoring your hard drive from your backup.

Oops! 

Situation B) If you don't have a backup of your data and you don't want to lose the data on that hard drive, then you will want to take a different path because reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling windows will overwrite your data files - losing them forever.

If I were in situation "B" then here's what I would do...

1- Get a new hard drive installed in the PC and load Windows onto the new C: drive.

2- Connect the old hard drive as an external drive through a USB cable. (http://tinyurl.com/koeez)

3- Copy my data files from the old drive to the new one.

4- When I got all the important stuff from the old drive, reformat it and keep as external drive.

One more thing - the Trend Micro Internet Security Suite doesn't seem to have the same problems as Norton or McAffee. While some people have no problems with Norton or McAffee, a lot of people experience problems like yours.