How to Get An SEO Job Part 2

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We wrote a post a little while ago about how to get your first SEO job. It had a few techniques, but we thought it would be good to expand on the matter a bit to help any who are still struggling.

The hardest thing about breaking into the SEO consulting world is finding your first couple clients I think. Many people have a hard time roping their first clients in. There's many reasons for this, part of it may be that we come on too strong and creep the people out a little. IMers, we are used to marketing, we get our inbox bombarded daily with the latest and greatest gizmo, and we have to buy now and hurry, or a pack of squirrels will beat us to death with their nuts. ... strange picture... anyway... what we are missing is often the simple act of human interaction and friendship. The less like a salesman you appear and more like a friend, the more likely you will get your first clients.

Look local first. Not only is it easier to start out, but the personal face to face interaction puts many at ease. Think about the companies in your area, the smaller construction companies, the real estate developers, and others who are probably hurting in this economy. These people understand that you need to spend money to make money.

Use the search engines, or better yet, cruise around and take down businesses website addresses off their building or business cards or your local supermarket classifieds board. Odds are if you can find them at all in Google, they are less likely to need you. A huge number of company websites aren't even indexed yet. When you get home, do a bit of research.

It's pretty easy to identify a target: nice site (or not), no links to speak of, on page 10 of G for the obvious keyword they are looking for.

Email is a safe, non threatening way to approach first, you can be sneaky about it too. Later of course you'd want to talk in person or over the phone.

Say for a mold remediation company in Washington I'd do something like this:

Dear Sir or Madam (or name if there is one),

You have a very nice website, I can tell you have put a lot of work into the design. Your web designer is to be complimented! We recently had a big problem with mold in our house and had to have some contractors tear out a large part of our bathroom. They did a terrible job, I wish I'd seen your website earlier. It was on like page 10 of Google, so I missed it. How is business going for you? Hope you are fairing well in this economy.

Sincerely,
James Defranco

Plant the seeds of "Oh crap, I need to be better in Google if I'm going to get business, why the heck did I pay that guy $3000 for a site that nobody sees??" If they choose to respond, then I hit them with the what I do for work.

Hey Sam,

Glad to hear the work has been sufficient at least Hey you know, I might be able to help you guys with your rankings in Google if you want. I work as an internet marketer and it is my job to optimize web sites so they appear higher in search engines like Google and Yahoo and such.

As a suggestion, you might want to change the title of your web site from "Chuck and sons moldy old business" to "Mold Remediation in Washington" since that is what you want to rank for in Google. There's a ton of other things you could have your web designer do, it's pretty technical, but I'm sure it would help if more people could find you on the search engines. It's important to get as much exposure as possible in this market!

-James Defranco

Finally if they respond again positively you hit them with your pitch:

Oh, sorry to hear that your web designer isn't available anymore and is a worthless punk for how much he charged you... hey, if you'd like I can take a whack at it. I've done this plenty of times, and have lots of experience, I've been able to help a couple other companies like yours. ***(have an example of one of your own sites ready to prove it)

I think a three pronged attack would be best for you guys, optimize your website, get you more exposure from other parts of the internet, and maybe even launch a cheap advertising campaign on Google. Your website is already so good I know for a fact that I could get you to the front page, if not the #1 ranking for Mold Remediation in WA. Here's my phone number, give me a call! 555-555-5555

Your friend,
James Defranco

Leave it at that, don't even mention money, or how much you will charge. Just let them think about it. They'll email or call if they are interested and if you even stand a chance. But by doing it in three or more steps, you don't look like a starving or desperate in your face internet marketer looking to make a buck but you look more like a friendly neighbor who they can trust. That's what you want when you can't use your reputation to proceed you.

Remember, once you rope your first client, word of mouth generally spreads if you do an exceptional job. The opposite effect can also be true if you do a terrible job or rip them off. So be sure you don't disappoint them.

Leveraging Your Authority Blog

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Short post this time, I'm discovering that real internet marketers don't run active MMO sites. I've been far to busy actually doing the work as opposed to just writing about it. Sorry for those few of you who actually come read this blog. I don't bother promoting this blog either, no time, and frankly I don't really want to. The more people that know how I work, the less effective it will be. For now, it's just word of mouth and the random SE hit.

Today's topic is on Leveraging Blog Authority.

So often when trying to create backlinks and/or break into a new niche, it is very easy to overlook your already established authority sites. You know the ones I'm talking about, those blogs you started when you were just a blogging newbie, the ones you put your heart and soul into, built up to a decent readership, and never earn a penny off of since they weren't built for making money properly and you don't have the heart to rip all that hard work to shreds to turn them into a money maker... or maybe that's just me.

Needless to say, don't every underestimate the authority links you can give out from an established blog. See, PR isn't everything, in fact Google authority is probably equally as important. If you have a blog that has been given authority, the links you give out will carry much more weight. In addition to that, any page you create on your authority site will rank much easier and higher, even if it is off topic. I have seen this on many occasions myself and use it to test new niches.

Pretty much, you can blog about whatever you want, within reason of course, on an authority site. If your site is about cars, and you have decent google authority, then when you write about say tractors or hair cuts, that post will rank for that term much easier since it has the authority of your quality site behind it.

This is a resource often overlooked by bloggers, especially those who don't have an understanding of how Search Engines work. True, nobody really knows exactly how they work and it is a closely guarded secret, however we have some clues to how they function based on results and comprehensive testing. Google Authority is a pretty established fact.

The more authority you have, the less on topic you need to stay with your blog. Leverage that to your advantage when starting a new website, testing the waters for new topics, or giving out high quality links. Leverage your authority blogs to your advantage!

Getting backlinks on a budget

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The Best IM Tools To Start Out With

In order to make money, you really have to spend a little, any businessman could tell you that. Problem is, most of us don't have much money to spend. There are a ton of progams out there that all claim to have everything you need to earn income online and be an internet marketer. Most are absolute rubbish, but a few are true to their word. Problem is, they cost an arm and a leg to get in.

Now I do have adsense on this blog, mostly just to show a good example of how you can easily set up a blogger blog to make money. Other than the adsense advertisements that don't make me any money anyway (because the kind of people who read my blog don't click ads), I seriously suggest looking into the tools I have listed. Yes, I am an affiliate with them, and yes I hope to make a little cash off of your signing up, but these three programs I have advertised here are by far the best bang for your $$$ to get backlinks and I seriously suggest looking into them.

I have already written a post about how to get the most out of your Article Marketing Automation account. That is an incredible system that just blows me away every time I use it. The potential is huge, and once the sites age, you'll have a great system with minimal work. Right now, it takes just a little work to get things going. Running Bookmarking Demon on your pingbacks is a great way to get the link juices flowing. I really recommend Article Marketing Automation. I'd stay on just for the spinner they have, it's great.

Connect Content is another great system. Low cost and well worth the few bucks a month price tag. For the money, you won't find a better deal out there, and since everything is pretty legit, you have very little to worry about.

Finally, I recently joined up with Backlink Solutions. They opened their doors for a short time, and I jumped on the bandwagon. They have a much smaller reach than either of the other systems, but they have a powerful technique for making each link count. Well worth the price if you ask me.

Put together, these three systems cost less than most of the major networks out there. Individually, each is great and can be very useful, but stack them up, use one to promote the other and such... well for less than it would cost you to join LV or TK, you've got yourself pure Internet Marketing gold. That's something any Internet Privateer would be interested in. If you need any help figuring out how to do this, then drop me a comment in the blog and we can talk.

Like what you see? Do me a huge favor and use my links to sign up. You don't have to, but it costs you nothing, and it certainly would help me continue to test out other systems and bring the results back to you.

Oh, and one last note, before you sign up to these services, make sure you know what you are doing and how to use them appropriately. The last thing anybody wants is to get G slapped.

Internet Privateer Out.

Building A Killer Keyword List

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So, we all know that the key to making money with adsense is figuring out some killer keywords that are easy to rank with. But just how do you build up a killer keyword list that will earn you income online? Get it straight from the horses mouth.

This was originally posted on a blog I read regularly SEO Scientist:

1. Google Sets - get it straight from the horse’s mouth. Google’s Labs project may tell you what are the keyphrases related to your niche.
2. Google tilda (~) search operator - this one is great for single word queries. It performs the search on all the related terms to your query (and marks them bold in your SERPs). For example, performing a [~SAP] query will give the following list of related keywords: CRM, ERP, ABAP, supply chain, mysap, supply chain management, CIO, peoplesoft, enterprise resource planning, business application programming, etc. Then you can perform a tilda search for each of the related phrases you got and filter out with the (-) operator all the phrases that you already have. You can end up with quite a large list of phrases which may not all sound relevant to your niche, but hey, Google deems them semantically related, so who are you to argue ?
3. Yahoo suggestion tool - just below the Yahoo search box, there is an expandable section called Search Assist. It has two areas: Suggestions, which will give you all the phrases that include the phrase that you searched and Explore Concepts which is the list you are looking for and will give you related phrases to your search query. It can go really wide so apply some common sense. On the other hand, going really wide may be just what you need.
4. Ask suggestion tool - perform a query on Ask and on the left hand side you will see again two main areas: “Narrow Your Search” which will give you all the queries that include your keyword and “Expand Your Search” that will give you all the queries that do not include your keyword but are related to your keyword.
5. Google Adwords Keyword Tool - you can use the experience that the hordes of PPC marketers have accumulated to your linking benefits. While not being so great at predicting the amount of traffic/impressions/clicks/search volume your ad will get, it can tell you what are the keywords that the publishers in your niche are using, which should be what they think their customers are using. While they may be wrong on guessing their potential customers’ intentions, they are usually good with defining the semantic field of every niche.

So there you go. If you are trying to build up a killer keyword list to target for your article marketing and adsense sites, this is the best free way to get it done.

Social Bookmarking for SEO

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Social Bookmarking for SEO

Social bookmarking has become a very popular method for sharing and dispersing information on the internet. When it comes to earning income online, social bookmarking can be a fickle beast. It can be a great way to get lots of traffic to your website if you manage to write something that is attractive enough to a broad enough range of people. But in order to get the most from Social bookmarking it takes a bit of work to get set up.

*Disclaimer- There are a good number of very good SEO's who avoid the social bookmarking scene like the plague. To them it is a time waster that would better be spent gathering higher quality backlinks. They are right. Social bookmarking is not for those who are trying to make adsense blogs, for those who want clicks on ads since the traffic you get isn't targeted to your product like it would be in Google. What it is good for is if you are trying to build an email list, or just get overall more traffic to your website and possibly try to create a community. That is the power of social bookmarking.

Pros and Cons of Social Bookmarking

Let me start off by saying that social bookmarking isn't necessarily good for selling things. It's not the best way to get clicks, sales, or signups, nor is it the best way to SEO your site. You aren't getting targeted traffic like what you would get from Google. What it is good for is getting the word out about your content, drawing traffic, and possibly going what is called 'viral' which means your website gets its 15 minutes of fame as thousands upon thousands visit it for a few days. If you have optimized your newsletter signups well, you might manage to get a hefty boost to your email list and rss subscribers.

From an SEO standpoint, a social bookmark backlink is a low quality backlink. They are not ranked very high anymore with Google, and many of the big social bookmarking sites add "nofollow" to the link, so it's not ranked at all with Google. However, there are a number of sites that do follow your links, and it adds a nice diversity to your backlink profile as well.

So, social bookmarking isn't the end-all answer to your SEO needs, but it is one avenue to explore in an overall optimization strategy.

Guide to Social Bookmarking for an SEO

There are literally thousands of SB sites out there. Too many to keep track of, much less post to. The best thing to do is focus on one or two major social bookmarking sites as your core submission sites, and one or two niche social bookmarking sites specific to your niche, and just use an automated or semi-automated bookmarking service to take care of the rest. More on that later.

Building your Core Social Sites

To build your core bookmarking sites and niche bookmarking sites, choose which ones you will focus on first. What you need to do is appear to be an active and participating member of the site. So fill out your profile with details, add a photo (doesn't have to be yours), join a couple groups, and add some friends from those groups. This will make your account appear legit and less like a spam account. Stumbleupon, Digg, Mixx, Reddit, and Propell are all good sites to look into for major general topic social sites.

Once you do that, you can start submitting sites to the network. But don't only submit your own stuff, it will look like self promotion and nobody will pay attention to it. It's much better, with your main social sites, to submit a good variety of different links and websites, intermixing your own stuff in. Comment on other postings and look like an active member. Gradually, once you gain trust and influence in the community you can start focusing more on your own stuff. On the big sites, this grows your network and makes you look legit. On niche social sites, it is very easy to become a big fish in a small pond very fast, you can gain influence over the community and what you submit will be taken seriously.

Semi-Automatic Bookmarking submission

Now, once you have started to build up your core sites, you can start to use a automatic/semi-automatic system to get your link on the rest. I like http://socialposter.com/ personally. It has a list of over 70 sites, an option to select only the sites that allow dofollow, and if you select "Frame Submit" it makes everything easy and much faster than doing it without the help.

You will need to go in and sign up individually to each of those services. It is a one-off, if tedious, project that will reap rewards.

When using that to submit, make sure you vary the titles, descriptions, and tags that you enter in. You don't want all the titles to look the same since that would quickly be flagged as Spam from google. You want it to look like 70 different people submitted a page to 70 different services. Although be sure to include the keywords you are targeting, it may be a low quality link, but it's still a link.

Social bookmarking this way is free to do, the only thing it costs is time.

Automated Submission

Social Poster offers a program to download that will submit automatically to 120ish websites. I have not tested that though. The reason being is there is a far superior, if more expensive program called Bookmarking Demon. It automates the submission to hundreds of social sites, randomly crawls your websites and submits articles, and it also automatically injects submissions from other popular sites to effectively cloak your own self submissions. It's almost untrackable and very effective at social bookmarking. It's got a hefty price tag, but is worth it if you want to get hundreds of low quality links.

Social Bookmarking for SEO Step by Step

1. First focus you efforts on 1 or two major sites, and one or two niche social sites
2. Start off being active- Join groups, comment, add friends
3. Don't just self promote at first, submit lots of different kinds of links
4. When submitting to multiple services, vary the titles and descriptions (always include a keyword)
5. Decide which is more valuable to you, your time or your money, and choose either an automated system or a semi-automated system

If done correctly, then you should develop a decent portfolio of deeplink backlinks to your websites, and have a steady increase in traffic as well.