Universal Search - Friend, Threat, Or ....?

Google has kicked around the idea of creating a Universal Search. Simply said it is a way for you to search things that center around your topic whether it is video, audio, text or animation. This is not a bad idea since the web is becoming more and more complicated. I actually applaud this idea and as a certified SEO do not feel threatened by it......

But this has caused some alarm in the community. It is discussed in a hush hush fashion and quietly passed over as a topic during popular discussions....

(See, Ann Arbor, MI - Seth Godin, and Internet Marketing Round Table event)

"It was if Seth Godin had taken us out of the rut and into the future while the round table took us back in time. The mood of the room and the overall feeling made me feel as though we somehow slipped back into the year 1992. No kidding....

There was little attention spent on Internet Marketing and more time spent on definitions of terminology taken from Dictionary.com.

There was little mention of anything in the realm of RSS development or traffic generation.The advice from Pure Visibility was perhaps the most disappointing. They suggested starting grass roots groups that meet regulary for Be Bim Bop and ... stamp collecting.

Seriously.

Do you have time for that?"

Get the whole article on the Ann Arbor IT Zone recent event here....

Getting to the root of serious Search Engine Marketing and even a much broader view of Internet Marketing should not startle you if this is what you do for a living. The learning curve to intertwine technologies from various sources may take a little more time and energy but the bottom line is ... its going to be worth it.

I suggested just a few weeks back that Search Engine Marketing as we know it will change. It has to with all of the new desktop technologies and hand held devices that are used to capture media and distribute it.

This is no time to get pompous this is a time to get intelligent. If anyone should be worried it should be the cable stations, radio stations and the newspaper industry.

A Universal Search would encompass all of these emerging technologies, (podcasting, web video, blogs etc.) and find things you are searching for. This is going to be more important in the upcoming months.

Ted Cantu posted this on May 23, 2007 at 1:36 am and can be found at http://www.1seomichigan.com


Source: http://seodetroit.blogspot.com/

Online Scams, Shams and Other Miserable Disasters

"Before You Whip Out Your Credit Card -- Think Before You Pick Up That Phone"

What a weird week. It started out somewhat normal but if I didn't have a sense of humor I would be a little upset. No, wait a minute scratch that, I would be VERY UPSET. And if its enough to get me upset I have to wonder what effect this must have on the population out there that has no training on online marketing.

Lets face it - a lot of this stuff is embarrassing.

Let me cut to the chase - a lot of people want my money. They want yours too but I am a little easier to get to than most people. I work out of my home and don't have a gatekeeper.... I usually pick up the phone when I am in my office.

Affliates Programs.com
I am sure these guys are pretty good as a whole. I happened to run into an individual who was wishy washy about our business dealings. After inquiring about their services a conversation sparked about my affiliate program. This sales rep wanted to not only take 50% of my profits but also charge me $500 bucks up front... (I have no idea what for). The best thing to do in a case like this is to just hang up the phone.

This went on for a while - back and forth. Missed calls and lots of voice mail. First they wanted no money, just my 50% that I was offering. Then they wanted the money AND the 50%. Sometimes they would leave messages on my voice mail and pretend that they did not call that day -- it was like WHO'S ON FIRST.

** And whats with the pouting? Do grown men pout? These guys did.

Shawn Casey
A few years back these guys were the bad boys of Internet Marketing. In fact I had inquired about how to partner up with them. But since I am a certified SEO, (yes, they did not know what that was....) I had little use for hiring them as mentors. But get this....

In order to partake in their "system" apparently you have to be married for some strange reason. The answer I got for this was very cryptic, silly and strange. According to the group at Shawn Casey and Associates a wife will support you in times of great indescision. Well thats comforting to know but i advised him too that a wife will also covet an 50% of everything you own and leave you stranded living in your car. All the more reasons not to do it.

Casey's group stood firm. Not only did they not take notes of our earlier discussions but called me relentlessly and batter rammed the price home.... $10,000. Sorry boys. But you never answered any of my questions.

On Blogging:
"I don't know what our position is on that but I am sure its a very good one"

On RSS:
"Sir, if I could have you speak to our senior account manager I'm sure we could research that for you"

When I informed them that I was positioned for profit they got all up in arms. This bit of interesting information went in one ear and out the other.

OPM
"SIR" (again with the sir, what am I .. Sir Lawrence Olivier?) "Have you heard of Other People's Money?"..... I replied well yes. In laymans terms they are called credit cards. I am not interested in maxing out myself in credit card debt to partake in your program. Again.... I had to repeat.... DO ANY OF YOU KNOW NOTHING KNUCKLEHEADS KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HOW TO CREATE RSS NETWORKS?

SEO SCAM
The recent scam on Podomatic had me laughing out loud. SEO Firms are skimming podcast pages for email addresses, (another form of spamming) and its known as email harvesting. From there they take these addresses and start spamming the masses with HIGH TRAFFIC SECRETS REVEALED !!!.... Is that hysterical or what.....??

Wait.. it gets better.

These guys promise OPT IN success, high ranking results and a lot more. Oh, he wants his money too, how much? Its expensive. If you see this guy lurking around beware - hes a crook and a phoney and is up to no good. Here is his information.....

------------------

If I could get you five times the RELEVANT traffic at a
substantially reduced cost would you be interested?

Netsuccessusa can place your website on top of the Natural Listings on
Google, Yahoo and MSN. Our Search Engine Optimization team delivers more top
rankings than anyone else and we can prove it. We do not use "link farms" or
"black hat" methods that Google and the other search engines frown upon and can
use to de-list or ban your site. The techniques are proprietary, involving
some valuable closely held trade secrets. Our prices are less than half of what
other companies charge.

I would be happy
to send you a proposal using the top search phrases for your area of expertise.
Please contact me at your convenience so I can start saving you some money.
Please do not hesitate to email or call me if you would like further
information.

Sincerely,

Ron Carter
Executive Vice President

NetSuccessUSA
24648 Via
Tecolote
Suite 102
Calabasas, California 91302


Phone – 818.264.4569
Toll Free
– 866.446.2885
----------------------------
WORD TO THE STUPID - Never try to scam a certified SEO. By the way, if your SEO guy is advertising this way to sell HIS OWN SERVICES, he doesn't know shit about SEO. So keep your credit card locked up tight in your wallet where it belongs.

Ted Cantu posted this on May 14, 2007 and can be found at http://www.1seomichigan.com

WordZe : New Kids On The Marketing Block

"What Makes You So Sure People Are Searching For Your Products Online?"

After a brief but relevant discussion we have scaled our efforts back a bit with Search Engine Marketing, Our topics have become more sharply honed and our keywords have been toned up quite a bit. We are still excited but our methods have become more calculated......

Ah... let me back up a bit.

It seems a few days ago one of my partners was convinced that everyone was looking for his services. He sells amazing high end products to upscale salon owners.....

But the keywords that we used had other conotations.

** Schwarzkopf Hair Products = General Norman Schwarzkopf
** Color Vanish Hair Care = Color Varnish, (as in wood stain)

ouch......

A lot of people are looking for Gen. Schwarzkopf in Michigan according to the keyword search engine directories. This adds up for a little confusion. To make matters more confusing there are a lot of home owners out there that own elaborate decks alongside their homes. They are in the market for wood stains and color varnishes....NOT COLOR VANISH FOR HAIR......

I was somewhat dumbfounded when I looked over at the results. The number of people out there who were searching these terms for our products were very small. We needed to tap into specific keywords and phrases that people were actively using to find our goods and services.

Getting A Better Keyword Researching Tool
WordZe is the latest in search engine keyword research. This is a little more expensive than its competitors but its a nice toolset to have in your back pocket. It is worthy of its price and can cut through the clutter of irrelevant keywords.

At a closer look we were a bit stunned to learn the following:

* Hair = The keyword hair had 630,000 possible competing web pages
* Beauty Salons = This keyword had 53,000,000 competing web pages

That means to compete in these highly competitve searches we have to beat out 630.000 in our competition! This is not going to be easy to do if we are just doing the bare minimum and using these keywords in very expected ways.

We had to find out angles in our sales copy using keywords that centered around these topics. You see, we do not have to actually use THESE keywords to talk about our subject matter at hand.

We can still introduce our Color Vanish product to beauty salons who are:

* Looking for another revenue source
* Salons looking to add another service to their menu
* Beauty salons who are looking to offer unique services in their geo target area

**** This product by the way actually strips out the artificial color out of the hair. This is an amazing hair color care product and you have to see it to believe it. It is such a unique Michigan beauty salon service that it needs to be experienced on a personal level. Not every salon is going to go for it. That is part of its charm. We are banking on that so that key salons will jump on this amazing financial opportunity. Its an excellent way for a salon to become UNIQUE in its own marketplace.

By using this strategy we are going to stand apart from our competitors.
That is how you want to use your keywords. There is little point at going out of your way to blend into a highly competitive keyword category.

The last thing you want to do is become irrelevant or invisible.

Ted Cantu posted this on May 13, 2007 at 10:49 pm and can be found at http://www.1seomichigan.com

Blogmania: "I Believe In The Age of the Uber Network"

"The Secret To Great Rankings Includes Having A Great Blog Infrastructure"

This week I was in NYC. I was there for 5 bustling days - hopping cabs, jumping down subways and in and out of meetings - it was good to be back.

I hit a couple of great bookstores along the way in Borders near Madison Square Garden and Times Square. I covered about 12 books before I found a couple on Blogging that I thought would be useful. None of these books on RSS or Blogging really nailed down the concept of.... UBER BLOGGING.

What on earth is that you say?

This is a concept that i have recently come to grasp. There are so many sites out there that do not embrace the full community concept of blogging or what it can do. There are a few references to building super UBER social networks for your Blog in the book... Clear Blogging.

You can find the book here....
The Clear Blogging Blog....

There are some funny anectdotes on here about blogging and lot of it is well known information. But if you want to find out about how to create and tap into super social networks there is a really interesting chapter on it in here. The authors name is Bob Walsh........

The particular areas of UBER BLOGGING as I call it involves the instant addition of 5,000 - 10,000 NEW fans who are absolutely wild about what you are selling or discussing online. These are FREE organic hits to your web sites and blogs. And this is daily. This is not paid traffic.

But that still is not enough for me. I wanted more.

I went through the entire database at Borders and quized the staff over a potential BLOGGING BIBLE for Crikeys sake but to no avail. I needed a lot more.

The bottom line here folks is that there aren't TOO many shortcuts when it comes to creating an power surge of inbound traffic overnight. There are lot of tactics that are getting ignored rather quickly such as link buying... and excessive reciprocal link trading. These are great ways to get your site blacklisted if you are not careful. But by setting up power structures of multiple blogs that feed information to eachother would be a brilliant way to go.

Walsh's Book Says There Are NO SECRETS
I disagreed with this statement as soon as I read it. There ARE secrets. There are MANY secrets in fact when it comes to getting good rankings and positioning on the web. That secret lies within your web presence and its ability to get connected to the right niche markets online. There are social considerations you need to look at too such as DIGG.

In that list I also want to add:

* Creating new tools and toys for cool boys and girls -- from API's
* WIKI's
* Sticky Web 2.0 material
* Geek attraction

Your goal in business should be to attract as many geeks and cash spending enthusiasts on your subject. Encourage it. Don't be dry. And you shouldn't be too shy about it. You need to kick up their enthusiam. Which is why copywriting should be in your kit bag of great aresenal.

Does it always boil back down to copywriting?

Yes, in most cases.

We want to introduce our products and services into powerful hyper kinetic infrastructrures. This is the way to do it.

Posted by Ted Cantu - on May 11, 2007 at 5:57 am. Cantu can be found at http://www.1seomichigan.com

Dirty Direct Mail Secrets - REVIEW

"It Is Practically Astounding What You Can Send Through The U.S. Mail These Days"

You can throw postage on pretty much ANYTHING and get it to go through the U.S. mail. No joke. You should heed my advice and take this to the test. There is so much truth to this statement. You can literally put a stamp on anything and get it through the mail system. This list continues to astound and excite me......

At last glance there seems to be no set limit on how small or how big a postcard can be. The types of material they can be printed on continues to intrigue me as well. There are a lot of people out there who have never considered printing on an entire sheet of posterboard - front and back and putting a stamp on it and putting in the mailbox.

Why is that great?

This ONLY Works If You Write Solid Sales Copy

The only time you want to take a risk like this and get sales copy written -- on printed real estate that big is when.....

* You actually have something worth saying
* Your sales copy performs an entertaining function, (teaches, alerts etc.)
* Creates interest
* Stirs up excitement
* Supports urgency

But here is whats interesting. I have recieved promotional sales copy in strange packages over the last two years. I will only share with you THE STRANGEST OF THEM ALL....

The best was a bankers deposit bag with postage. Once you unzipped it there was a sales letter inside explaining what the offer was all about. I kid you not this thing was an honest to gosh bankers deposit bag. There was a real live postage stamp on it and it tops the list as being one of the more original things I've come across......

Out of disbelief this led me to take various containers that could hold sales letters to the post office for review. I usually do this during hours when there is the least amount of line traffic. I ask them if I can stuff a sales letter into this or that and put a stamp on it. Most of the times I have no problem with this.

Bottom line is that the post office loves money -- hands down.

So why not make yourself memorable?

ProfitSecrets - Ted Cantu has posted this on May 3, 2007 at 12:38 am. He can be found at www.1seomichigan.com and his podcast show at www.podomatic.com

Internet Marketing: Getting Into The Consumer Mindset

"Captuturing Customer Information Is Serious Business"

This is something to think about when you create your onilne campaigns.

My Life81268: SEO - Crucial SEO Site Elements: "Asking yourself the following questions may help you create a web site that is nicely and organically search engine optimized and that is geared towards making the most profits. Once again, these principles are in accordance with generating multiple streams of income as this is one of the basic intents of including SEO in a web site design in the first place.

1. Where am I going to put my request for the customer's email address? Remember that if a customer visits your site without entering their email address you have not only lost an opportunity to network with them but you will have no database to sell to advertisers.

2. Where am I going to put my banners and links to affiliate programs? Remember that you don't want them to become so wowed by a banner that they forget to read about YOUR products before they click to another site."

Source:
http://ceri73446.blogspot.com/2007/04/seo-crucial-seo-site-elements.html

This is a good thing to consider when you design your web pages. There are different ways of getting consumer information. This is something that is changing. The "Newsletter"thing has been a bit overdone and there is realy only so much news one can take on a daily basis. You may want to consider the following:

* Exclusive chat transcripts
* FAQ access, (YES, ask for contact info before you allow entry)
* Mini Courses
* Direct Mail packages (guarantee your direct mail to be opened!)

Just a few nuggest of wisdom to chew on.

Posted by Profitsecrets, on April 29, 2007 at 12:10. You can find us at http://www.1seomichigan.com