I sent out an email to everyone a few days ago telling them about my backyard gardening site (backyardgardening.org) reaching the #1 spot in google. That’s the site I used as an example in my Article Builder Video, just to show people how to setup up sites in AB. That site now ranks #1 in Google for “backyard gardening” which is a 12,000+ broad global monthly search phrase.

I’ve also recently got AccurankTracker up as high as the #4 spot (currently #6) for “rank tracker” a 22,000+ broad global monthly search phrase.

And many more… #1 for “private proxy list” etc. etc. etc.

How Do I Do It?

The same way it’s been done for years. The same way I’ve achieved top 5 rankings for MEGA competitive phrases over the past 8 years like:

Make Money Online
Article Directory
Article Marketing
Germany Tourism
Internet Marketing

And the same way I’ve acheived top 10 rankings (usually #1) for hundreds, if not thousands, of other, more long-tail phrases.

With links!

I’m currently using SEnuke XCr and DLP to build first tier links all the way to 3 tiers deep (tiered links are links linking to links linking to your money site.) In the near future I’ll migrate over to using the new SEO service that Jonathan Leger and I are developing. But it really doesn’t matter what you use, what matters is that you’re using SOMETHING or someone to generate backlinks to your sites.

I don’t have ANY set and forget backlink campaign strategy. I just vary the backlink anchor text to include a few obscure phrases like “original source” and “click here” while including several exact match and related phrases to my target phrase. And then I vary the backlink types across various different sources like web directories, rss directories, blog comments, social bookmarks etc. etc.

For a newer site I don’t overdo it. No more than a few hundreds backlinks a month for a new site. For an older site no more than 1,000 or so per month. Rinse and repeat.

It works. You can listen to the fear mongers, lead by Matt Cutts, or you can do some SEO and see what works. The fact is, backlinks equal rankings, just like they have for the past 8+ years that I’ve been doing SEO.

LINKS are still king in the SEO world. You can argue all you want, you can quote Matt Cutts all you want, but the proof is in the pudding as they say and the fact is, we’re getting brand new sites ranked for low, moderate and in a few cases highly competitive phrases with simple, “manual” backlinks from various sources like web directories, blog comments, article directories, social bookmarking sites etc.

We’re getting youtube videos, warrior forum threads and BRAND NEW sites ranked for competitive phrases by simply blasting thousands of low-quality backlinks at them. Is this a good idea for an authoritative money site? Maybe not, that’s up to you, but the fact is, it works.

I’ll admit, I was one of probably thousands of Internet Marketers who backed off of SEO after all of the big updates from Google, thinking SEO is changing for good and the days of getting sites ranked easily are gone. But a few months ago I realized… it’s been quite a while since all of this SEO drama and guess what! The little SEO I have done has been pretty much just as effective as the SEO I was doing years ago!

So what’s the moral of the story? Take everything that Google (usually Matt Cutts) say, or every rumor about Google that you hear, with a grain of salt. A BIG grain of salt. Just like many would say the media are masters at successfully pushing an agenda, Google are masters at molding the SEO space to the shape they prefer.

So what exactly IS working?

Content that isn’t 100% unique STILL ranks. This is something that google has been trying to convince you is false for years and years and years. And while 100% duplicate content can come with ranking issues, your content does NOT need to be 100% unique. That’s a fact, Jack (as Si Robertson would say.) As proven by the case study sites that are STILL increasing in traffic! By the way, ironically, the website I created in that video, now ranks #4 in google for “backyard gardening” which gets 12,000+ GMS’s! Content being automatically pumped into those blogs is about 75% unique and it ranks just as well as 100% unique content.

Easy, manual backlinks STILL get sites ranked. We’ve been getting loads of sites ranked using the same types of backlinks we’ve been using for nearly 10 years. Web directories, , forum profiles, social bookmarks, RSS/blog directories, Article Directories etc. etc. still get sites ranked for easy, moderate and occasionally even very competitive keywords.

Has ANYTHING Changed?

Yes a few things have changed, but nothing extremely significant. The big link/blog networks got many sites deindexed and should be avoided, unless you find one that has been restructured into a different type of link service. Diversifying your anchor text and backlink sources is more important than ever, although it’s always been important.

To sum it all up, SEO is still alive and well and Google is still ranking websites very similarly to how they have for years. Yes, you want to diversify your backlink sources and the anchor text you’re using and it’s best to use content that is at least 50% unique (AB’s 75%+ unique content is ranking like crazy… just like 100% unique content) but aside from those few precautions, we haven’t had any trouble at all getting both new and old sites ranked for low, medium and even a few high competition keywords.

But don’t take my word for it. Do some SEO tests like we’ve been doing all years. You’ll quickly see that SEO is pretty much the same as it has been for years! Oh, and by the way, watch out for an awesome new SEO service that Jonathan Leger will be launching in the very new future!

When I look back, there are some things I wish I never would have spent any time at all on, but there are other things that I REALLY wish I would have spent much more time and energy on … those things are what I’m spending more time on now, while I would be profiting from that knowledge if I would have spent more time back then learning them.

So today I would like to get a little deeper into those things, so you can learn from my mistakes and also from my successes.

Basic Skills that All Internet Marketers should Learn

There are a few skills that ALL Internet Marketers should learn. Sure, you can get away with outsourcing it all or only learning this or that, but it will ultimately cause headache, frustration and probably most importantly, lost time. With that being said, if you haven’t already, I highly recommend you learn the following if you plan to be a long-term, full-time Ineternet Marketer:

1. Basic Webmastering Skills: Connecting/Uploading/Downloading files via FTP, which includes understanding the basic structure of website directories and files. So first off, you should be able to connect via FTP using an FTP client like FileZilla, or a complete editing program like DreamWeaver (which I use) and then you need to be able to browse, edit and upload files, so you’ll need to know how the files and folders are structured.

For example, the root directory (with most servers) is public_html and within that folder the file that typically controls the homepage is index.html (at the most basic level.) Learning the basics of CSS is always good to know as well, since you’ll almost always be dealing with them when modifying websites.

2. HTML: You can get away with not knowing HTML, like I did at first, but eventually you’ll get to the point to where you want to make simple modifications to templates etc. and it just won’t make sense to find a coder, explain what you want done, hope he/she does it correctly, then pay him/her for the easy little change that you could have probably done in about 2 minutes if you just knew a little HTML. And it’s NOT as hard to learn as you may think! HTML seems difficult because all you see are a bunch of characters, but once you understand the basics of it, it really isn’t that difficult to understand. And it’s the “base” code for all web technologies, so it’s definitely a good thing to learn anyway. I HIGHLY recommend you at least start toying with it and learning something here and there, if not going all out and cracking open a tutorial.

3. Creating/Managing MySQL Databases: This one is actually pretty easy. You’ll need to learn how to create a mysql database and plug those details into scripts where they ask for them as you start developing more web properties and start installing scripts. Just google it. You do it within cpanel and it can be done very quickly even if you have no technical knowledge at all.

4. Understanding how PHP works within HTML: Don’t let this one scare you. I’m not saying you BETTER learn PHP. I’m not much past this stage in my own PHP education. But It is very helpful to understand how PHP is implemented into HTML for quick and easy modifications and tweaks. For example, some templates will include php in the title tag of an html page. By simply removing that code you can change the title to whatever you like, without hunting down where that php code pulls it’s info. That is only one of MANY examples.

Moderate/Advanced Skills that will Increase/Multiply your Income

1. Advanced PHP (web applications,) C# (desktop applicatesion) and Visual Basic: (desktop applications) This is something I’m just now getting into, but I’m loving every minute of it. Learning code, particularly PHP, C# and Visual Basic, is a skill that has an INCREDIBLY high profit potential! I know many 7 figure marketers who have similar Internet Marketing knowledge to me. The difference between their 7 figure income and my 6 figure income, is one thing: code! Most internet marketers come up with multiple excellent software ideas regularly, but since they don’t know how to code, they either outsource it or just never do anything with the idea. Outsourcing can work… that’s what I’ve been doing for years, but it’s expensive and you will NEVER get your point across completely to a coder, even if he/she is a good one (and believe me, they are hard to come by) and it will NEVER be as good as it would be if you did it yourself.

2. Server Management and Hardware Resource Management: There is probably some much better, more fancy technical terminology for what I mean, but learning how servers and databases work … what will cause stress and issues on servers, where to get certain types of servers, what is the best type of software to accomplish what you want to accomplish etc. etc. is something that will REALLY help out, especially once you have money to invest and really build out big systems with big user bases. These things MUST be considered in the VERY BEGINNING thought process of software creation. Often times server load and resource management will determine whether software is going to be web based or desktop based.

3. Excel: This might catch you by surprise, but I use excel ALLLLL the time! For my own record keeping, for various lists, for account details… I could go on and on and on. Excel is AWESOME! I don’t know nearly as much as I should about it… I really should take a course on it, but just from the things I do know about it… using formulas etc., it’s a huge time saver and actually a very good resource. Learn everything you can about excel!

I’m sure I’ve missed a thing or two, but off the top of my head these are a few of the most important things. Be SURE to learn those listed in the first group and if you’re making a solid effort to make Internet Marketing a full-time, high income career, I highly recommend you get started on those listed in the second group. I promise you, a person who has a vast knowledge of everything I’ve listed above has an incredibly high likelihood of mega success online!

It goes without saying that you want to get web traffic to your foreign-language website or blog. SEO is one of the best ways to do this.

Get it right and potential buyers will see your site in the results and click through, leaving you in a position to seal the deal.

On the other hand, a wrong move with your SEO and you could end up with what looks like good traffic figures, only to find none of it converts. Or, worse, you wind up talking to the online equivalent of tumbleweed.

Foreign-language SEO offers you a couple of different strategies to try. Take a look at them to find the best fit for your business.

Do SEO by Language

If your budget for marketing isn’t large, it makes sense to consider doing SEO for each language rather than each country.

Pros:

• Keep costs lower. No need to worry about a whole number of different campaigns for south-west Europe and South America, for example. Focus instead on Spanish and Portuguese and you’ve got those countries covered.

• Keep things simple. You won’t need a top-level domain for each country you hope to reach, e.g. .pt for Portugal and .br for Brazil. Opt for generic domains or sub-domains on your main site where you deliver translated content.

Cons:

• Relationship-building is harder. People relate better to people who are like them. But, just as by using US English you mark yourself as ‘not belonging’ to other English-speaking countries, the same can happen with foreign languages. If you opt for South American usage, Europeans might be harder to convince, and vice versa.
• Search engines like ‘local’. If you are not tying your content to any particular country, the search engines who favor local content, such as Google, could give preference to your country-specific competitors.

Do SEO by Country

So this points to SEO by country being a more effective strategy, right? That depends on your circumstances.

Pros:

• Localization opens doors. By honing in on particular countries, you can research local language usage and cultural conventions. Adapt your content to fit that population’s needs and you’re more likely to win trust and build a good reputation.

• A more user-friendly experience. Localization also lets you take regional differences such as currencies and local holidays into account. You can make it as easy as possible for your customers to do business with you, lowering the risk that they decide to go elsewhere.

• Local search results. Serve up to Google, Yahoo! or Bing content that has local relevance and you have a better chance of being sent traffic for that country.

Cons:

• More work, more cost. There are a whole lot of countries out there. Can you afford to create and manage online marketing content for each of them? If you do go down this route, you need to commit to getting it right – half measures won’t get results.

• Putting out too much content. Or rather, too much that is the essentially the same thing repeated with the odd change of word and a different currency symbol. Search engines don’t like duplication and your SERPs ranking could suffer.

• Dealing with multilingual countries. Say you invested in a .ca domain for Canada or a .ch for Switzerland. Which linguistic group will you target there? Doing SEO by country in these kinds of cases can mean playing favorites with the dominant language, leaving other groups in the cold.

Striking a Balance

When it comes to SEO for foreign languages, the reality is that the best approach depends on your own particular markets. Take the time to identify these first.

Once you have specific countries in mind, research their official languages and decide how many different SEO campaigns you will need. Also, find out how different regional usage is for a target country compared with the standard form of a language, if one exists. Differences between the language varieties of close neighbors (e.g. Germany and Austria) are likely to have a smaller impact than those of geographically separate varieties (e.g. Brazil and Portugal).

If your biggest foreign-language markets are concentrated in a few monolingual countries, an SEO by country approach could work well. A tight focus will let you fully localize your site and build a strong presence in each country.

On the other hand, if you need to have a global reach but lack the budget to match, try SEO by language in combination with geo-targeting. This will let Google, Yahoo! and now even Twitter know where your intended audience is located, so you still benefit from ‘local’ results.

As we’ve seen, a smart foreign-language SEO strategy can grab the attention of search engines and bring interested customers your way. Use it to your full advantage to boost your international business.

About The Author: Christian Arno is the founder of Lingo24, a translation company launched in 2001. Lingo24 now has over 180 employees spanning three continents and clients in over sixty countries. In the past twelve months, they have translated over forty million words for businesses in every industry sector, including the likes of MTV, World Bank and American Express. Follow Lingo24 on Twitter: @Lingo24.

You have questions and I have answers (maybe not to every question, but you get the point.) So lets hear them. I promise to answer every single question that is asked related to Internet Marketing… making money online in general up to 100 questions on this post.

You can ask either via the Facebook comment section below the post, or (below the facebook comments) through the normal blog commenting area below.

In case you haven’t been following the Ethical IM blog and newsletter for a while, here are a few of my stronger areas of expertise:

- Product creation and marketing (primarily ebooks, reports and software)
- Email Marketing
- SEO (on-page and off-page)
- General affiliate marketing
- Membership sites
- General webmastering (HTML, FTP, very basic PHP etc.)

A few things I am admittedly NOT strong in:

- PPC
- Aggressive sales funnels/systems

I’ll answer any IM question on your mind, right now. One per person and up to 100 questions. If I don’t know the answer for sure, I’ll tell you. I’m not a “know-it-all” type of person. So rest assured, if I know I’ll tell you. If I have no idea, I’ll tell you that. If I know a little, I’ll tell you the little I know.

So lets have it. What can I help you with?

Then, after Jonathan Leger promoted that first ebook back in 2005 (or maybe it was 2006?) I learned the POWER of email marketing. So I learned about that and started building email lists. Then, over time, I realized that software products typically sell much better and solve more problems, so I started outsourcing software development. Then I started doing $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 and even $40,000.00 promotions to my lists!

Then I realized, if I only knew how to code, I could save thousands of dollars, get products done quicker, produce better products (no more communication errors) and kick out many more products and at the same time build my lists MUCH faster … lists full of proven buyers.

I’m still learning the coding part. I’m fairly proficient with HTML and I’m learning PHP and MySQL currently, but there is no doubt in my mind that once I am proficient with a few good coding languages I will once again multiply my income.

So why am I giving you a run-down of my Internet Marketing? It’s not because I like to brag. The fact is I’ve been Blessed and I constantly strive to remain humble. But I want to share with you what has worked for me, so that you might decide to go down a similar path… a path that has been very kind to me over the years!

You don’t need to go down the same path… many paths lead to success, but there are a few skills I HIGHLY recommend you learn if you want to be a successful Internet Marketer!

1. —> CODING! < --- It took me YEARS and years and years to realize the potential in coding and I have to admit, I owe this to Jonathan Leger, who not only showed me the enormous power of email marketing, but who also showed me the enormous power of developing your own software! For the longest time I was perfectly content with outsourcing all of my coding. But after working with Jon, I’ve realized that a good coder can get his own product done 10x quicker (or more) and make it potentially 10x better and save thousands and thousands of dollars at the same time!

That’s HUGE because even if you have a great coder you’re outsourcing to, he can’t read your mind and the best you can do is TRY to explain exactly how you want things. This may not sound like a big issue, but believe me, I’ve outsourced MANY software projects including systems that have $100,000+ invested in them. Coders who write their own code and develop their own products are almost ALWAYS many times more successful than people with similar marketing knowledge who outsource all of their development! If you plan to be in the Internet Marketing space long term, LEARN CODE!

2. List Building – I’ve probably said it 1,000 times over the years and I’ll say it once again: The Money Is In The List! If it weren’t for my lists I would have a JOB right now. It’s that simple. You can constantly fight with the search engines and other sites building traffic to your sites in order to get more and more people to them (it’s a never ending battle) or you can put that time and effort into building your list and literally have money on demand! This isn’t hype, email marketing is the real deal. Email marketing has made mannnnnnnnnnnnnny millionaires and it is probably one of the, if not THE, most realistic and relatively easy ways for an “average Joe” type of person like me to reach 7 figures.

3. Outsourcing – Obviously the more you can do on your own the better. After-all, I just said learning to code is huge. HOWEVER, if it weren’t for outsourcing I would be limited to writing content, conducting SEO and selling ebooks for the most part. And while I’ve made alot of money doing those things and there are millionaires out there who do just that, there is SO much more potential online that you could be tapping into and all you have to do is find qualified people to do those things, whatever they are!

I’ve spent close to $100,000 on oDesk, probably more, over the years outsourcing different projects. And while I would be MUCH better off if I could do all of those things myself, I can’t (for now.) So outsourcing is still better than just not doing those things!

4. SEO – I almost didn’t list this one, but if you’re in the Internet Marketing niche, you really do need to know SEO. You don’t need to be an expert, but you do need to know how SEO works and you need to keep up with the SEO world for the most part, simply because if you’re going to be marketing to Internet Marketers, they’re going to expect you to know. AND search engines are one of the better traffic sources… traffic that you can retain via email marketing. So I do recommend you learn SEO, if you haven’t already, and subscribe to some of the top SEO newsletters so you can “stay on top of the game” as much as possible.

5. Social Media – This is looking to be the future of free traffic generation, so staying on top of the most popular social media sites is definitely a requirement for any Internet Marketer! I admit, I’m not much of a social media expert, but I do keep up with the latest happenings in regards to social media marketing and I learn a little more each day.

Why Don’t I Mention Affiliate Marketing?

I’ve made a great deal of money with affiliate marketing. So why don’t I have that listed above? Because I don’t see it as a skill. If you have a list that converts, you really don’t need any skill at all in order to make loads of affiliate sales. You just need to be honest and recommend products that you really do believe are helpful. That’s it. Are there techniques that can be leveraged in order to make good affiliate sales? Absolutely and if you want to go that route, there is nothing at all wrong with that. There is alot of money it! One Week Marketing (OWM) is one coarse I highly recommend.

But if you build a responsive list that trusts you, the affiliate marketing part will come and in my opinion it’s easier to build a list than it is to master any affiliate marketing technique. Everyone IS different though, so I definitely wouldn’t say that applies to everyone. If you do decide to master an affiliate marketing technique, OWM is what I recommend. PotPieGirl is definitely the real deal and one of the only people I would listen to if I decided to concentrate on affiliate marketing.

So there you have it. If you can learn just a few of those skills and put them into action, you have a VERY good chance of making a good living with your online business, as I’ve enjoyed since I went full time in 2007 after getting out of the Army (did IM for 3 years part time while in the Army.) And if you can learn and master all 4 of those skills, it is very possible to earn a 7 or even 8 figure income online! Just start with one, learn it… put it into action and then start learning another!

After a year or two of small to moderate success here and there, I would frequently look through all of my affiliate promotions and try to find trends. Why did “this” promo do so much better (or worse) than “this” promo. That’s when I started to realize the extreme importance of the “angle” (as I call it) and the offer.

When you’re executing an affiliate promotion, no matter if it’s to a mailing list, on an affiliate site or done in some other way, the angle and the offer are the two most important factors that will determine whether the promo is a success or a failure.

The Angle: This is how you present the product. For instance, if you’re promoting an SEO product, the angle might be “This Guy got a #1 Ranking in 2 Days Doing THIS” or it might be “A good SEO Guide I just Picked up.”

The Offer: The offer could be thought of as the actual product, but what I mean by the offer is what are you offering that others aren’t? An offer might be a discount that is exclusive to your list or website. Or the offer could be a special bonus that is exclusive to your list or website. It could be one of many other things too.

For quite some time I didn’t even consider those things. Of course, I figured a good angle and offer would be good, but I just didn’t quite understand at the time just HOW important they are in the success of any affiliate offer. I quickly learned that these two things can and often times do make the difference between a $100 promo and a $5,000 or even $10,000 promo. I learned this by looking at trends from my previous promos.

Once I started concentrating on these two things primarily, while making list and traffic growth secondary, I immediately increased my income! Just think about it. In my “Angle” example above, I mention two example angles for the same product. Both angles are for the same product, but I would bet that the first example would outperform the second angle by 30% or more simply because it hits on results while the second does not. You want to hit the emotions of your viewers… give them an angle that draws on their emotions… in this case, they WANT top rankings. So “This is a good guide” is not NEARLY as good of an angle as “This guy got #1 rankings… here’s how!” (for example.)

The offer is equally huge. You could be promoting the same product, using the same angle, but if you did a promo offering a small discount or a good bonus (for example) you would do many more sales and in most cases you would end up earning much more money simple because you’re offering something that others are not offering. It also helps convert those people who view your offer that would have normally ordered through their own affiliate link, or through someone else’s because now they have a good reason to order through yours. This is especially important when you’re promoting a product AT launch time while loads of others are promoting at the same time. But even when that’s not the case, offering something special is almost always a good idea that will earn you more money!

Anytime you can promote a quality product that has a limited supply and/or only sells for a limited period of time you should consider it as well, but only if there is a good reason for the scarcity of course.

Here are the key characteristics of a perfect affiliate promotion. Obviously, this isn’t going to happen for all of your promos BECAUSE of #1:

#1 The product is of quality and helpful to your visitors/subscribers.
#2 You have proof that the product does exactly what it says it does and you use that proof to create a compelling “angle.”
#3 The product owner sets up a special discount or other offer that is available exclusively to your people. Or you offer something of value to those who order through your link.
#4 The product is either only available for a limited time (a few days to a week ideally) or only XX number of copies are available.
#5 The product has some kind of a free trial. Free trials are a great way make sales. The free trial could be letting users use the software, if it’s software, or it could be giving away one chapter of an ebook, if it’s an ebook or one of many other options. Ideally, you let the customer get a taste of the product, then when their free “taste” ends, they can’t use it or finish it, so they must buy.

The more of these five characteristics that you can incorporate into your affiliate promo, the more sales you’re going to generate whether you’re promoting to 100 people or 100,000!

So continue to work on generating more subscribers/visitors, but put that task second. Working to get the most out of the visitors you already have should be first! AND converting first time website visitors into recurring visitors (by getting them on your mailing list) should also be a top priority.

Back then, on-page optimization was crucial and it mainly consisted of trickery and spammy methods

But, times have changed!

It didn’t take long for the search engines to start changing things, making on-page factors less important. I mean, if you think about it, no good search engine is going to allow the webmaster to control the rankings THAT easily. Something had to change and it had to be on-page ranking factors.

Fast forward 15-20 years and on-page optimization is MUCH different. You can no longer get a site/page ranked simply by doing “this” and “that” to the page. Sure, for very long-tail phrases that have little to no competition it is still possible to get a site ranked with on-page factors alone, but 95% of the time that traffic is going to be so low that you’re not going to benefit from it much, if at all.

The fact is, these days, if you want to get a site ranked, your site is going to have to obtain multiple, legitimate backlinks. BUT, there are still a few on-page factors that do influence a website’s ranking, even in 2012.

1. Title Tag – This the only on-page factor that is still CRUCIAL for a ranking. Yes, you can get a site or page ranked for a specific keywords/phrase without having that keyword/phrase in the title tag, but having it in there helps a BUNCH! You need to at least have a variation of the keywords/phrase you’re targeting for each page of each of your sites in the title tag of each page.

2. Internal Link Structure – Especially for big sites, a good internal link structure is very important! For smaller sites with only a handful of pages it really doesn’t matter, but if you have a content rich site full of hundreds or thousands of articles, a good internal link structure can hurt or help your site in a major way! Here’s a video I recently created for Jonathan Leger, as his affiliate manager:

3. Credibility Pages – How many popular, authoritative websites have you come across that do not offer a way for their visitors to contact them? How many of them do not have some sort of a legal and/or privacy page? Pages like this, or “credibility pages” as I call them, in my opinion, have an influence on rankings these days. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t seen or conducted any case studies to prove this, but I have see first hands sites without these pages never rank in the SE’s, while lesser sites that do have them rank highly. To me it makes perfect sense. A credible site is simply going to have these pages.

4. Word Count – Now more than ever you want to have alot of content on your pages. That could be in the form of text, videos or something else, depending on the intent of your website. If it’s content, make sure each page contains at least 400 words, but the more the better! Google has made it clear that these days they like to see pages loaded with content. So the more content you have, the better the chance of that content ranking in Google.

5. User Engagement & Social Media – If you have two sites of seemingly equal value, one has a facebook app integrated and users are commenting with facebook, liking the page and sharing it and the other has no social media integration, no comments or any other form of user interaction, which one do you think is going to rank better? Social media and user engagement are two ranking signals that are becoming more and more important these days.

6. Images and Videos – Many SEO’s are claiming that simply adding images and video to content does help improve rankings these days. Whether it’s true or not, images are valuable as visual aids and videos are obviously valuable information providers, so it would make sense.

7. Bold, Italic & Headings – Using bold and italics to highlight certain keywords/phrases and headings (ie. h1, h2, h3 etc.) to highlight headings and subheadings does help emphasis certain text, which could contain your keyword, so they can be useful, BUT they can also harm your rankings if you overdo them or if the keyword saturation of your page is already very high and/or if you overdo it by using them over and over and over in throughout your entire page. Headings, I believe, are less destructive, as they are much more common and make more sense to use more frequently. But bold and italics should be used sparingly.

8. Ads – Some things influence rankings, but only one way … backwards! For years you could get away with having as many ads on your site as you want. These days if your site is saturated with ads, it’s going to drop it’s rankings fast if it had any and if it didn’t, it won’t likely be obtaining any in the near future.

9. Paid Links – Again, this is something that will only hurt you and I learned the hard way. One of my most popular sites was hit hard for selling links. Now I still sell them, but I append a nofollow attribute to each link, which is perfectly fine with Google and in line with their TOS. The downfall is that I must now charge less for the ads, but I still made nice profits, so it’s worth it.

10. Affiliate Links – Google and Bing do not like affiliate links! Your affiliate links need to be cloaked in some way! A simple 301 redirect is sufficient and it’s what I use. I add a 301 redirect and I also add the rel=”nofollow” attribute for good measure.

Here’s a recent video I make on how to setup a redirect and nofollow it, for JLAffiliates.com

And then there are META tags, which are almost worthless these days.

Back when keyword stuffing worked, leveraging META description and keyword tags were a big part of it.The search engines looked at those things and used to to determine what to rank the site/page for. These days both are almost completely ignored by Google and Bing. They will sometimes pull the site description from the META description that you add, but not always and if it’s missing they’ll just pull some other text. So the META description can still be fairly useful, just in a very minor way, but the META keyword tag, I would argue, is completely worthless these days.

With all of that being said, although there obviously are several things that you can do in regards to on-page optimization, the “power” of on-page optimization is much less these days when compared to 20, 10 or even just a few years ago. Off page factors are becoming more and more important. But that doesn’t mean we should be ignoring the on-page factors listed above! Take a look into each of these things, make corrections and you could easily see a nice increase in your site’s rankings.

We’ve made money with other things as well and I highly recommend offering everything you have to offer, but this may be a good start if you’ve been considering the notion of offering IM services offline. Or, if you’ve already started, this may be something that helps you increase profits.

The technique is fairly simple actually and somewhat inexpensive, although it does require some investment.

What I’m referring to is a specific, although very well known and proven long-term, technique that gets small business owners to call you and pay you for your expertise!

The first goal for any IMer looking to help out small businesses is to figure out the best possible way to get the most people to call you. From there you can sell them on a variety of services, so don’t worry about offering the world. We like to find one specific thing that business owners need, concentrate on getting them interested in our services in that specific thing and then expand our offer from there.

That “thing” is offering websites! Just about EVERY business owner knows the importance of a website. They may or may not know the potential that websites have in the sense of driving more business, but nearly all small business owners know that any credible business is going to have a website for their current and potential customers to view in order to find hours of operation, services offered etc.

With some IM services you really need to give them a good sales pitch in order to convince them that they NEED this service that you provide. Some good examples are SMS marketing and Google Places/Maps optimization. Those things often require salesmanship and a good call to action.

But a website is a different story. Everyone knows what a website is. Everyone knows that if they own a business, they need a website. And everyone knows what the potential benefits are to having one.

This was our thinking when we decided to concentrate on offering websites. At first we were charging too much and offering the wrong “type” of website, so there was a learning curve involved, but these days we have it down pretty well. So how do we do it?

How we Get Web Design Clients

1. First, obviously, you need a way to reach out and let people know that you offer websites. There are many, many, many different ways to do this, but we have had the most luck with yard signs and direct mail. There are pros and cons to both, but they have both been effective.

a. Yard Signs: These are probably my favorite and they are also much more consistent than direct mail. Before we started doing yard signs I always thought they were useless garbage. I see them out all over town and have previously thought of them as cheap, ineffective marketing tools. That’s until I gave them a shot! I QUICKLY realized why I see so many of them … because they work!

We use Victory Store (direct link, no aff) and we’ve been happy with them so far. We’ll typically order 100 or so signs, the more the better obviously. 100 well placed yard signs will bring in multiple phone calls just about every day! If you put a bunch out in one day, you’ll likely start having phone calls before you’re finished putting them out!

We use a white background with red lettering and we make the message as simple and to the point as possible. Something like “NEED A WEBSITE? Professional Websites for Cheap! Call 555-555-5555″

Don’t go sticking them in the busiest areas you know! You can, and it may result in a burst of calls, but they will be removed very quickly. Putting them in areas that aren’t extremely busy, but have regular traffic are often the best spots.

b. Direct Mail: This has been something that is less consistent than yard signs, but has big potential. We’ve done mailers that have brought in LOADS of calls, which have resulted in very nice profits, but we have also done mailers that have brought in very few calls and caused us to lose money. When we do send out direct mail, we either send out a standard sized flyer or a postcard. Be sure to have it designed professionally.

2. Get a designer OR stick to template websites exclusively. You can just sell template sites, but you’ll have to charge less. Custom sites bring in more money, but you will have to pay your designer too. We do make more profit from custom sites though, so it’s always a good option to offer. If you just can’t find a good designer, or just don’t want to mess with custom sites, you can just offer template sites though. To find a good designer, ask around. You can also look around on oDesk.

3 Now you need to close the sale! Depending on your own ability to sell, you may or may not need to hire a sales person or find a sales person to partner with you on the business. If this is the case, be VERY selective! Be sure the person has solid sales experience, because the last thing you want is to be paying someone, or handing over 50% of your business to someone, who can’t close a deal! On the other hand, even if you can sale, if you know of someone who’s a REALLY good sales person and they would be interested, that would free up more time for you and could end up being even more profitable.

Whether it’s you who is selling or a sales person, there are a few things to keep in mind when speaking to leads.

a. Have specific options to choose from. When we started off we decided to just play each lead by ear. Find out what their needs were then customize a site just for them. The problem is most small business owners don’t know what they want! So now we have two clear options: a template site or a custom site. So we explain the difference (a template site is not custom… THIS is what it will look like … give them options though.) A custom site is just that: custom. It will look exactly how they want it to look. Templates sites are cheap… no more than $200. Custom sites start at $900.

Another thing to keep in mind is that we have not had much success offering “packages.” The reason why, we believe, is because each potential client wants something different…usually. You’ll come across the occasional lead who is open to whatever you suggest, but most don’t want to do everything under the sun. They want a website and sometimes they’ll want SEO or Google Places optimization (for example) but rarely are they open to different packages. Packages could work though, I’m sure, if presented in the right way. We just haven’t had much luck with them.

b. Have demo sites and/or a portfolio to show them. For both options, you need to have multiple sites that your designer has done, or template sites that you’ve completed, to give them an idea of what they can expect.

c. Try to close the deal on the first call! Many people shopping for a website are doing just that, shopping. They call multiple web design companies and go with the one they like the most. So your goal should always be to close them on the first phone call! We always charge 50% up front… that’s what you’re trying to get from them ASAP. Don’t be rude or pushy, obviously, but DO offer a special discount or SOMETHING to give them a good reason to go ahead and pay that retainer and place the order right away.

d. Don’t charge crazy amounts of money, especially in this economy that won’t be getting better anytime soon! Be realistic. Some business owners are perfectly fine with spending thousands of dollars, but most are on a tight budget, especially these days, and are hesitant to spend too much with a company that they have not done business with previously. This is DRASTICALLY different though when the lead comes from a word of mouth referral, where the person who referred them has done business with you before. In THAT case they are often very willing to open up their wallets wide. For most leads however, which do not come from a word of mouth referral, you’ll want to offer good prices to convince them to gain your trust. Then you can up-sell them! We typically charge anywhere from free to $200 or so for a template site, depending on how many pages they want etc., $900 and up for a custom site and for ALL sites we charge $19-$29 per month for hosting and “webmastering” (which means we’ll make minor text edits etc. for free.)

e. After you close the deal and they’ve decided to move forward with the website design, up-sell them! SEO is a good one. We typically charge anywhere from $49/m. per keyword to $120/m. per keyword depending on how competitive it is, whether it’s a local term or not etc. You can also up-sell them on business directory submissions (which you can outsource for cheap to an oDesk worker,) google places/maps optimization (also can be outsourced to oDesk worker,) etc. etc. SEO is probably the most popular with our clients.

That’s it! Do all of these things and you have a very good chance at making some very good profits by offering professional websites to small business owners!

Am I so powerful that a billion dollar company changed because of my 33 page report? Not likely But the fact is they have changed. It was definitely something that they’ve had in the works for a while and decided to “release” last weekend.

Their latest update supposedly targets “low quality” sites, but seems to be very inconsistent. Take a look at the spreadsheet that I put together if you like:

This spreadsheet contains a handful of my sites. All of these sites were in the top 10 of google just last week. Half of them still are and half of them are nowhere to be found.

Matt Cutts tweeted that the update was targeting EMD’s (Exact Match Domain’s) but I believe it’s more than that.

My Germany Tourism site, which I’ve mentioned many times before, enjoyed top 10 rankings for much of it’s 8 years of existence and it too was hit by this update. From 8 years at the top of google to nowhere to be found. It’s full of high quality content, much of it I write personally after having lived in Germany for 5 years and having a German wife. The site has DMOZ and organic Yahoo Directory links (which I didn’t pay for… they were natural) along with many other very solid, natural links.

And then there are my Rapid Niche Profits sites, which are all exact match domains. But the odd thing is that only about 40%-50% of them were hit. The spreadsheet above shows a handful of them. The green ones are still ranking in the top 10, while the red ones are gone, but were ranking last week.

My data shows that it was not JUST EMD’s that were targeted. Obviously, more of my EMD’s are still ranking than are not ranking. That spreadsheet does not show all of them, but it’s about 40%-50% that were hit. If Google just adjusted that one thing … “EMD’s now have ‘this’ much less authority” then they would have all been hit because I didn’t do anything drastically different with any of them and the strength of competition for all of them, while obviously not exactly the same, are consistently similar.

Another theory I’ve heard is that they targeted EMD’s in high CPC niches. But I don’t see that trend (see spreadsheet.)

It doesn’t seem to be that the sites are “thin” because I have sites with as little as 4 pages that continue to hold top rankings.

It doesn’t seem to be that anchor text saturation because I have sites that have 100% anchor text saturation for their primary keyword that continue to hold strong in the top ten (yeah, I know, I need to follow my own advice.)

It doesn’t seem to be a certain type of backlink strategy, as I have sites that continue to rank with minimal backlinking and the backlinks they do have are manual, cheap backlinks and I have some that have been hit that had very solid, natural links.

It doesn’t seem to be too many ads on the sites or above the fold because most of my niche sites have the same structure with the same ad placement and some continue to rank while some were hit.

It doesn’t seem to be site age because some older sites were hit and some newer sites continue to rank well.

What I’m starting to lean toward is that this update was a modification to multiple ranking factors, which combined caused many sites (not just EMD’s) to either go from top 10 to nowhere or to drop a few spots in the SERPS, which many of my sites that continue to rank experienced.

I’ll continue to look into this and monitor what others are saying about it as well and update you the second I learn of something set in stone. What about you? Have you been affected? If so, what are your theories?