Action versus inaction

This morning I got an email from a great subscriber of mine (who is hopefully going to guest Blog for me soon!) suggesting that I should have edited the audio before sending it out. Some people also suggested that I send the audio in a different format.  As always, I appreciate feedback.  And as always, I use every situation I face as an example to teach/help people.

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Without getting too personal and boring you with the details, let me say that I am about to be out of the office for a couple days for medical reasons and am also dealing with the imminent death of my Grandmother.  I am short on time and have a lot I am trying to get done.  Things like this happen often.  We always have to balance life and business. 

In a perfect world, the audio would be edited and it would be in an easier format.  BUT I am getting inundated with requests from people that are anxious to hear it (thanks guys, I appreciate your interest - you all rock!).

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So the question becomes:

Is something better than nothing?  My general feeling is that action is always better than inaction.  So if I can get people info, even if it isn't polished, it's better than nothing.  BUT the problem with that is people judge you based on what you put out there and if you aren't putting your best foot forward, you risk alienating people and having them form incorrect judgments about you and your work.

In marketing, no one is going to get it right all the time and that's just a fact.  I still think the principal that action is better than inaction is a good one to live by.  We are all juggling a million things in life and in business and if everything was perfect before it went live, less would get done quickly and delays are rarely good.

BUT it also depends on the quality of what you are putting out there.  On this one, I may have made a bad call and probably should have done some editing but at least the content is there among the unedited mess.  :)

So I ask that you learn from this little lesson and consider the options and consequences of "action versus inaction" and "'polished enough' versus perfect".  I also ask that you forgive my error in judgment in getting this audio out before it was edited.  :)

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Seo Growth in 2012?

Has 2012 gotten off to a good start for you?  Are you on track to reach your goals? 

If you don't have the rankings, traffic and social media exposure that you need to create real growth, or if you have some questions on where your focus should be for maximum growth maybe it's time to get a little advice from a professional? 


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We are currently offering Business Growth Consultations.  No obligation.  We are here to review what you are doing and see what we think you could do a little differently to get better results.  This is my favorite part of my job.  I get to talk to (or email) people and find out what's going on with their business and offer solutions.  It kinda rocks.  I love examining what's working and what isn't and figuring out the next 3 things that need to be done to create some momentum and growth.

There has been a ton of shake-up and news lately - stay tuned for my next jam packed newsletter.

Have a fabulous weekend! 


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Ohhh, anyone going to watch the SAG awards?  My friend works there and got me a pass for the Red Carpet.  It's a blast to hang out and watch the celebs all do their thing on the Red Carpet.  Stay tuned, I may share a few pics in my next newsletter (so unrelated to SEO, I know, but it's still fun).  That is so far removed from the life I lead, its fun to have a little glimpse into it.  :)

Facebook Fan Page Can Improve Your Seo

The topic for this fine day: Facebook Fan Pages.

Fan Pages have more benefits than I can list in one email.  Let me list just a few:
1.    They boost your SEO
2.    They help you generate new leads and funnel people back to your site
3.    They allow you to tap into an audience that you may otherwise miss
4.    They allow you to engage Fans, which leads to more sales
5.    They allow you to join a conversation that is already happening - with or without you

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We recently requested proposals from competitors to see what others are charging and we got proposals ranging from $300 - $975!!  I was blown away.  My first thought was "wow I need to raise my prices" (we only charge $275) but then I realized I don't want to do that.  Keep my pages affordable is what allows me to get more people hooked up with killer Fan Pages.  So instead of increasing my prices, I went the other way and am offering a Fan Page at the discounted rate of $225 ($50 savings off our regular price)

Get the details now:  =>> Click Here for Best SEO Plugin for your website

This is a limited time offer, only good until midnight October 20th.  So if you want to jump on this, do it soon!

There is one of three things you can do right now:
1.    Do nothing (but you may want to search for how many of your competitors are on Facebook and you'll see that you are missing out)
2.    If you already have a Fan Page, send me the link and I'll do a review and let you know if you are on the right track and are set up to have it act as a lead generation tool.
3.    You can order your Fan Page at the discounted rate and within 5 business days have a killer page working for ya!

SEO Rant

Which one of those statements is true for you?

I am willing to invest time or money to get top rankings.
I am not willing to invest time or money to get top rankings.

Which one of those statements is true for you?


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Not many things in life are black and white...but getting top rankings for your website is.

You either have them or you don't AND you are either willing to do something to get them, or you're not.

I think a lot of people fool themselves into thinking they will do what it takes and then when the times comes to invest the time or put up money, they don't follow through.

I don't mean to be too blunt, and I definitely don't mean to be offensive but I do want to be honest and hopefully get you thinking.

It's worth repeating.

You either have top rankings or you don't.
You are either willing to do something to get top rankings, or you aren't.

What is true for you and what does that truth mean to you, your business and your goals?

It has been said that inaction is action, in and of itself.  So, the question is - you are already taking action in some form, so are you taking the right action?

SEO may not be for you.  You may not want a lot of new traffic and leads and sales.  If that's the case, that's OK.


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But if you want or need traffic, leads and sales - then you need top rankings.

Not sure where that come from, but I guess that was my little rant for the day!  Stay tuned for more SEO tips.

3 Simple Questions

I wanted to ask you a favor.  I'm trying to get a feel for what my subscribers are looking for.  I want to be able to answer your questions and provide you with the info you are looking for you.

Would you be willing to hit reply and answer 3 really simple questions?  I'd appreciate it!

1. What is your biggest question related to SEO, or what topic interests you most? (Ex: links, social media, writing keyword rich text, just getting on the top of the engines, etc)
2. If you aren't currently doing SEO (either yourself or by outsourcing to a company), why not?
3. If I were able to demonstrate the value of SEO and show you the traffic that you have the potential to tap into, would you be interested in working with me?  (C'mon, can't blame a girl for asking!  I'd love the opportunity to earn your business and thought I'd just come right out and ask if that's a possibility)

I appreciate your time and your feedback.  I promise I'll compile all the answers and start addressing the questions and topics through my newsletter and Blog.

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SEO Made Simple

So you want to learn about SEO?

Maybe you want to handle your own SEO?  Maybe you want to brush up on your understanding so you can check on the work an SEO firm is doing for you?  Maybe you are just curious and want to learn more?

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Learn about social media, link building, on-page optimization, writing for the engines,  Google tips, Bing tips and more!

Get life time updates at no charge (pretty cool, if I do say so myself)

Check it out now:  =>> Click Here for Best SEO Plugin for your website

Have a great day and thanks for letting me into your inbox.  I always appreciate it.  As always I welcome questions and feedback.

Did You Pass The Test?

I wanted to share a powerful marketing tip with you today.  This is something that when done properly, can improve your results and increase your sales WITHOUT adding a single penny to your costs.

This is something that all successful internet marketers have so ingrained into them; they mumble it in their sleep!

Test, Test, Test!

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So, testing - that's nothing new.  What's the big deal?  The big deal is that most people overlook this and miss the opportunity to significantly improve their response rate.

Let me explain....

You run a PPC campaign on Google AdWords and you have one ad running. Let's say you sell shoes, and here is the ad you were running.

Designer Shoes are Affordable
Women's Designer Shoes
Big names, great prices

Now, let's say your click through rate (number of people that click on your ad) is 4.2%.  You are happy, because that's better than you've ever done before. What most people do is keep running with that ad.  What we want you to remember to do is Split Test.

All that means is create a second version of your ad, to compete against your first version and see who wins.

So, now look at version 2:

Designer Shoes are Affordable
Lady's Designer Shoes
Big names, great prices


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Do you see the difference?  Only one word (more about that in a minute).  In the first ad we have

Women's Designer Shoes and in the second ad we have Lady's Designer Shoes.

So, let's look at the results.

Ad 1 - 4.2 click through rate
Ad 2 - 5.1 click through rate!

You just increased your response rate by 21.4%!  No extra costs, simply changing one word and getting an improved response.

Why did more people click on Lady's than Women's?  We don't know, we may never know, but we also don't care.  All we know is have now improved our click through rate!

Now are we done?  Not even close.  Now we take Ad 2, and create another ad to split test against Ad 2.  You can constantly test 2 ads against each other and incrementally increase your response rates.

What can you test?  Anything and everything!  Test your ads, test headlines on your site, test your pricing.

Test, test, test.

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There's so much more about testing that I could go into, but we'll have to save that for another
time.  For now, just remember these 2 important points...

1. Test EVERYTHING!

2. Only make one change in each test for accurate results.  If you were to change the headline and the middle text on Ad 2, you wouldn't know which was the cause of the higher response.  So, take one thing at a time and test, test, test.

I hope you enjoyed, and will profit from, the invaluable concept of testing.  I have nothing to sell or offer you today - just wanted to pass along this advice, as it has put tons of extra money into our bank account and I know it can do the same for you!

By the way, Google has a great tool (that is available at no cost) that allows you to set up these split tests easily.  Check out Google Website Optimizer!

Google and Sites That Don't Belong

SEO is complex.  SEO is maddening.  SEO is confusing.  But more than anything  SEO is EFFECTIVE.

It is unanimously agreed that SEO is the top source of driving targeted traffic to sites. Everyone wants top SEO rankings.  The problem is, you look at the SERPs (search engine results pages) and you find sites there that you don't expect to.  You see sites that are filled with spam, you see sites with no content, you see sites with no inbound links.


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And worst of all is what you don't see - YOUR site.

It makes no sense - you've done everything you can, followed all the rules and still your site is no where.  How are these other sites that don't belong there holding on to your coveted spot?

The truth is, as smart as the engines are, they don't catch all the garbage sites out there as quickly as we would like them to.  There are 2 things we can do to help eradicate this problem.

1.  Report any and all spam and garbage sites to Google (and the other engines you use).  This is not being a tattle tale, this is not going out for revenge.  This is simply asking Google to uphold the rules that they are asking you to follow.  It is saying, "I'm playing fair here, so level the playing field so my competitors that are "less-than ethical" don't rule the SERPs".  To notify

Google of a spam site, click here:
http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html


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2.  The second thing you can do is follow best practices 100%.  Be aggressive, be proactive, but be ethical.  The more people insist on "black hat" tactics, the more sites we'll see that are sneaking by Google.   Know that with active efforts Google is making daily to weed out spam - you have everything to gain by patiently, aggressively and ethically optimizing your site.

Top SEO Rankings: Do You Have A Plan?

You need traffic to build a business. There are a lot of different ways to get traffic and hopefully your marketing plan includes many of those different strategies. Most online marketers agree that the foundation should always start with SEO. Regardless of what you do with paid traffic, you always want a stream of targeted traffic coming from the organic engines.

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So what are you doing to get that traffic?

And here's a question we never had to ask in the past....what are you doing to KEEP that traffic if you already have it?

While rankings were never something that were "owed" to you, in the past when you ranked well you could pretty much count on it continuing. These days that isn't the case. With Google targeting links, or duplicate content or lack of fresh content, there are plenty of ways a site that was sitting pretty could get knocked down.

It's getting harder to get rankings, but it's no less important to get rankings. So what is your plan to get and hold on to rankings?

I want to offer you 2 things today and I hope you'll take advantage of one or both of them...

1. Breaking The SEO Code is my downloadable book about SEO. It's less than $15 and it goes over SEO and social media. It's the perfect reference tool and at that price it's a no brainer. Whether you want to learn SEO or check up on work someone else did, this book is a comprehensive resource that includes lifetime updates (at no additional charge). If you own a site, you need this book. It's that simple.

2. If you don't have the rankings or traffic you need, if you don't have a plan for social media or fresh content, if you have any questions at all about your business - request a free consultation or proposal now. I'll review your site and help you come up with an action plan.

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There is no obligation with a consultation or proposal, but I ask you to seriously consider 2 things...

1. Be honest about your budget. You are under no obligation to outsource but if there is even a slight chance you need some help, you want a proposal that is tailored to your needs. If the budget you list is too high or too low, there is no chance that it'll work for you.

2. Please reply and acknowledge the proposal. I am not pushy. I don't harass people into doing business with me. But I do put a lot of time into the site reviews and proposals and want to be sure you received it, so I will follow up. I am looking for serious business owners that want to actually grow their business this year. I am prepared to share helpful information. But only if I know you will at least confirm you received it and let me know your thoughts and questions. You don't have to work with me - that's OK. But do seriously consider the info I share with you!

It's early in the year and NOW is the time to take action. Action may mean hiring someone, it may mean buying a book and digging into the work for yourself. Either option is fine. But inaction is not fine. Not if you want to grow your business. Think about it. Buy the book if it makes sense to you. Request a consultation or proposal if it makes sense to you. Reply with any questions if that is what you need right now. The only thing I ask is that you don't file this email away and do nothing. :)

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December SEO News

Topics Covered:
Facebook Marketing
Google Patent
SEO Tips
And more

One last thing: If you don't have a killer Facebook Fan Page with a custom tab (studies show fans grow 44% faster with a custom tab) now is the time to get one. Save $50 for a limited time. Email me for details.

As always, let me know if you have any questions!

Google Algorithm Update

I recently received an email telling me that it's insulting that I act like I "know and am friends with" the people that subscribe to my newsletter. Since I never want to be insulting, let me start by saying:

Dear person I do not know, please find important and impersonal information below. If I knew you, I may say you would find this info helpful but since I don't know you, I would never presume to know what info you like....

OK, can't do it. Sorry guys, it's my style. I like people and I like my work, so I come across as <gasp> friendly and personable. Needless to say, she is no longer on my list to endure the blatant insults. :)

So now that I got that little rant out of the way (it's cloudy and cool this morning in Huntington Beach - seems like a perfect rant worthy morning), lemme share some info with you....

Google has made a bunch of algorithm changes recently (about 10) - which is not newsworthy in and of itself - they always make changes. I'll cover the other ones in my next newsletter. But there is one that is worth talking about now.

It seems freshness is good not only in baked goods but also in the engines (yep, another attempt at humor, don't tell my husband, he still doesn't get how funny I am!)

OK, back to Google freshness.... Here is a quote from them:

"As we announced just over a week ago, we've made a significant improvement to how we rank fresh content. This change impacts roughly 35 percent of total searches (around 6-10% of search results to a noticeable degree) and better determines the appropriate level of freshness for a given query."

So the take away? Keep content fresh! Hmmm, I think I've been saying that for years. It's becoming more important than ever. Especially if you are in an industry where things are changing and there are clear and strong trends - you want to keep feeding fresh content to the bots (resisting the urge to insert a really bad joke here about them eating fresh content and me preferring fresh bread!).

You are busy running your business and taking care of a zillion things but content addition needs to make your list of things to do - unless you are outsourcing. Someone needs to be adding high quality content to your site.

OK, this is a long one, so 2 last things and then I'll let you go.

A tip from PubCon: Matt Cutts said that Google was testing algorithms that determine how much content is available above the fold on your web pages. He cautioned that sites that have ads that obscure content could be in trouble. Check your site - do your website visitors see the content easily and readily on your site or is it obstructed by ads and other distractions?

Lastly, I wanted to remind you about (and shameless promote) my book:

Every day I get so many questions about SEO, social media, budget for SEO, Blogging and more. I realized that a lot of you may not know about my book Breaking The SEO Code.
For under $15 you can access to my book with all the step by step details on SEO, in-depth social media information and Blogging etc.

Who is this book good for:
1. Anyone that wants to do their own SEO on their site
2. Anyone that wants to understand SEO so they know if their current contractor is actually doing a good job or not
3. Anyone that wants one source of info they can trust on SEO, Blogging and social media
4. Anyone that knows a little about SEO but wants to know more

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SEO Case Studies

Real Results!

I wanted to take a minute to share some really cool results that real clients have gotten from SEO:

Check out this case studies and see for yourself the full impact of optimization.

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canfi.com
Before EcomBuffet: 0 top rankings
Now: 386 top rankings
"Ecombuffet has provided us with excellent results. We have seen a 200 % increase in booking via internet sites" - David Breithaupt

If you are interested in achieving results like these for your own site and aren't able to do the work yourself, please contact me to request a consultation or a proposal. I will outline how I can help you and what the costs would be. No obligation.

Can you afford not to find out how to improve rankings, traffic and sales?

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One final quote I wanted to share with you: "I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse" -- Florence Nightingale

16417 Lazare Lane, Huntington Beach, CA 92649, USA

To unsubscribe or change subscriber options visit: http://www.aweber.com/z/r/?jAwMTJwsrLSsDGysHIyMDLRmtBzMTJyszEw=

Secret SEO Tip To Spy On Your Competitors

Here's a quick and easy way to see what content your competitors (or even you) have for any given keyword phrase.

Once you know how much content you both have, you can create an action plan to build more content and beat them out!

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In your Google toolbar or the search box on Google.com type in:
=> site:website.com Keyword Here

So for example if you wanted to search CNN to see how many pages refer to election you would type: site:www.cnn.com election

Hope it helps you to spy on your competitor!

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The Importance of SEO in Todays Market

SEO has evolved and changed over the years (I've been doing this for over 10 years and have seen so much change sometimes my head spins). One thing that remains constant is the importance of SEO. Actually that isn't even entirely accurate. SEO continues to become more important.

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Back in the good old days, not everyone understood the importance of SEO so there was less competition. As more and more companies realize the importance and hire an SEO company, the competition continues to get even more fierce and the importance of getting listed in the engines is greater.

Now add the economy into the mix, and things really start to heat up.

As much as I hate to bring up the economy (we are inundated with talk of the economy all day long) I have to. Not because I want to add to the negative talk out there, but because the poor economy is actually playing an interesting role in how people search online. More than ever people are comparison shopping, so getting your site listed on top is even more crucial. You want to be one of the sites they consider when they are doing their comparison shopping. You also want to make sure your site is in tip-top form so that you can earn that business while they are doing their comparison shopping.

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Another interesting tid bit about people's shopping habits in this crazy economy: while people always look for a deal - they are now looking for who offers the best value and not necessarily the cheapest price. Rather than automatically lowering your prices like everyone does, why not try building up the value? Make yourself stand out from the crowd. Add some freebies in there and win them over with the value you offer!

So, the take away here?

1. Make sure your site is listed on top of the engines.
2. Make sure your site is a selling machine and prepared to convert your traffic into good old fashioned paying customers.
3. Consider bulking up your offerings to increase the value and make sure people feel it's a no brainer to do business with you.

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That's all for today. Stay tuned for a cool SEO trick that allows you to spy on your competitors a little bit!

Getting On Top Of The Engines With Twitter

SeoLover,

Real-time search is still a part of SEO and the relationship between social media and SEO continues to cement itself and become more important!

I am hearing a lot of questions and talk from people who don't know how to best take advantage of this new opportunity. I suggest you read my book for more details, but here is a summary of what you need to do:

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1. Get tweeting now, so you can start to build some history and get yourself in real-time search.

2. Tweet often and use keywords well (but never spam or bombard people with keyword stuffed text)
3. Include links in your tweets
4. Don't feed your tweets and Facebook status messages to each other anymore, go unique on each.

5. Create a Facebook Fan Page (with all the bells and whistles so you get the most out of it)

The first point above is the most important - if you aren't on Twitter you need to be. If you are already on Twitter, make sure you know what you are doing and make sure you are tweeting effectively.

If you need more traffic and exposure, then you need this: Best SEO Plugin for your website

...

Facebook Fan Pages - Do You Really Need One?

SeoLover,

You've heard all the buzz about Facebook. If you're like most people, you fall in one of two scenarios:

You are already excited and on board with it with a killer Fan Page
-or-
You are confused and don't know how to participate in the action.

I'm going to help with that confusion, in just a minute.

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There is no denying the importance of Facebook. We are seeing the numbers of users growing regularly and we are also seeing the amount of time spent on Facebook increasing. More importantly, we are seeing that people are proactively seeking out pages to "like" (become a Fan of) and people are starting to search for what they need in social media sites and not necessarily on Google or other search engines.

No this doesn't mean you should stop worrying about SEO, there are still hundreds of millions of searches each day but what it does mean is there is a section of your audience that you are missing out on if you ignore social media.

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A recent deal between Bing and Facebook also gives an advantage to pages that are "liked" in Facebook. Let me explain.

You can see if any of your friends have liked a page in the search results before you go to it. Pages that are liked will be promoted in Bing results.

That means if anyone "likes" your page and then one of their friends does a search on Bing relevant to you, the fact that their friend "liked" your page, gives it prominence on the page. That is not such a big deal when only a handful of people "like" you but it becomes more powerful when more and more people "like" your page.

For those of you that don't get know what it means to be "liked" I probably just confused you - don't worry. The point you need to understand is the ties between the engines and social media are getting stronger and it's no longer a matter of "should you get a Fan Page" - it's now - "what will I put on my Fan Page to make it really good".

If you need more traffic and exposure, then you need this: Best SEO Plugin for your website

SEO Action Plan and plugin

If you need more traffic and exposure, then you need this: Best SEO Plugin for your website

As always I want to keep this short and to the point - you are visiting this blog because you are looking for ways to increase rankings, traffic and to learn about social media. We've created a PDF that details step by step how to create more exposure for your site. This document is not available to the public and you are only receiving it as a thank you for being on our blog.

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Optimization Step By Step

I have a ton (10 years worth) of SEO information floating around in my brain and sitting down to share the key points with you in an overview was actually a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Let me know if you have any questions as you read through the material. Also, I'd love to hear your thoughts so I welcome any feedback!

Stay tuned for SEO tips and advice and some really cool info about marketing in a tough economy.

You'll get your Social Media Strategy, Action Plan and 2011 Checklist tomorrow!

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