Category: Blogging Strategies It’s been a while since I did a blog post and much of my time today was spent working out and having lunch with friends. You can imagine that my brain was not able to think anything remotely interesting about SEO today. Nevertheless, I took a few moments to jot down a list of the top 10 things to think about when deciding whether you’re ready to become an Internet marketer. I’m using the word “marketer” instead of “Internet marketer” because I believe SEO involves a bit of both. It’s your responsibility to understand both sides of marketing and work in the mix. SEO is different and is only part of a complete marketing strategy. It’s the search engine optimized component. SEO is what your visitors see when they search for you. SEO includes the websites you have, the web pages and blogs you have published, content you have created and distributed, and much more. It’s the way you’re marketing yourself. What’s the best method to learn SEO? I recommend doing a Google search for SEO tips. You should see this page at the top of your results. Then read through this post and absorb the information. You can start now by searching this blog for “SEO tips” or “How do I get better SEO?” (I used the two different searches because I did not want you to think the tips in this post would not be useful to you). What are you selling? Behind every successful Internet marketer is a service that they’re trying to sell to other people. They’re selling an information product, a service, a tool or a course. You might already know that or it might be a new idea to you. Maybe you have a book you’ve written. Maybe you’re teaching people how to build and sell a home based business. Maybe you teach people how to market their businesses. Whatever it is, you have a good idea that you believe can be turned into a service or product. This is important because you’re marketing yourself on the Internet so it’s not about the products or services you’re selling but the way you’re marketing yourself and the message you’re sending. Think of a product or service that you are a fan of and what you’ve read about that company. What do they do to market themselves? I guarantee you’ll learn something from them and will see how their company has branded itself. What does the company represent? What message do they give the public? What story are they telling to get the person to buy their products and services? What can you do to develop your own “story”? It might sound weird to start with a discussion of story because the web has all sorts of stories. However, in my opinion, the most powerful stories online are ones of success. One way to look at it is that stories of failure don’t sell nearly as well. So if you want to be successful online, your stories have to be stories of success. You need to create your own success stories by creating them yourself. What kind of message do you want to send? How do you want to be seen and heard? What do you want to be remembered for? What do you want people to say about you? What can you learn from the success of other people that you can use to position yourself for success? This process starts with understanding how you want to be remembered. Who are you? What kind of legacy are you leaving? What do people say about you now that won’t go away? What do you want them to remember about you? Your answer to these questions will help you set the tone for your success story. In some ways, the story is more important than the product or service you’re marketing. How will I know if I’m successful? The best test is one that I’ve used in my own life and in the careers of many of my clients. I use a simple question, “What would I do differently if I could do it over again?” When you give this question enough thought, you’ll likely be amazed at how many new and amazing ideas you’ll have. Just try it and see what you come up with. What’s the best way to develop your own website? This is a huge topic in its own right and there are plenty of great resources out there about this topic. There are other books you can read about this topic. If you have the time, read everything you can. The Internet is a great place to find information, but in many ways the information is less valuable than a human being telling you directly. When I get asked how I developed my blog from a zero to a popular blog, I tell them to think about how people think. When you start off with zero, you think about how you’ll get something, then you go look for it, and you think about what’s out there that’s similar to what you want. Then you have to figure out how to do it. After you think about it, then you do it and are successful. Keep in mind that success can mean that you have less work than you did yesterday. Success means that you’re building a reputation and a platform that you can build on. You have to start and that means learning. It’s the basics again, but it’s the easiest to forget. SEO and SEM are not everything I recommend learning as much about SEO as you can. However, I don’t recommend that you spend an insane amount of time getting into the minutia of SEO and just creating your own content. Most people can create good content in less time than it takes to learn how to manage the SEO of their blog or web pages. I can create a ton of content in 10 minutes. I can make thousands of words worth of content. That means that a lot of people who want to build a web presence need to invest more time in their writing and blog posts than in SEO. You’re not just creating a web presence, you’re creating an Internet presence. You’re showing up in Google. I’ve met a few people who are not really interested in marketing their company online or having a presence there. They’re afraid of “the Internet” and think they’ll get too much attention if they show up. That’s the wrong attitude to have. To position yourself online, you must do everything that your competitors are doing. Don’t try to develop your own system or systemize your own methods. Develop your content and blog on a platform that provides SEO options. As you continue down this path, keep in mind that you don’t just need to do SEO, you also need to monitor what people are saying about you and link to other material that relates to your content. This means you need to create a community that is interested in what you’re doing. It also means that you have to provide them with content that they’ll respond to and find helpful. SEO, even from a company that works like the Search Engine Optimization Ranking Factor blog, is really important. A search engine optimization company can help build your web presence, but you have to work it hard to make it happen. How do I pick a domain name? There are plenty of books that go into the domain name selection process and I think I’ll cover that in another post. Your domain name is your domain name. It’s your name that people type in to their browser to view your content. There are plenty of ways to pick a domain name and picking one that’s memorable is a good start. For many, the domain name is also an area of personal identity. Do you see the overlap between the way you describe yourself and the way you present your work? The point is, don’t pick a domain name just for the sake of SEO. If you are going to use a domain name that includes your name, then you’re going to get the most SEO benefits if you pick a domain name that’s simple, easy to remember and easy to say. If it has your company name in it, you might also want to choose a domain that is memorable for other reasons. If you use words and phrases that other people use frequently, you might end up with content that is well written and easy to understand. How do you measure the success of your domain name? It’s easier to measure and understand success by identifying what you’re trying to do with your business. Is your business providing local search results for local businesses? Does your company want people to understand that they have a brick and mortar business? Is your website driving your clients to your brick and mortar location? Do you want your business to be the most popular or are you just making things easier for people to find information? Is your website focused on creating a community that will help each other? What do you want people to say about you? You need to know what you’re selling so you can measure the success of your campaign. Without knowing that, how will you know when you’ve done something right or wrong? The goals of your campaign need to be clear and specific. Is your goal to drive new customers to your business? Is it to get them to buy your products or services? Is it to build links? If you haven’t defined your goal, how will you know if your campaign was successful? My final tip on this topic is to know where you are in the search engine results. You don’t just want to look for one spot in your web pages. You want to see