Archive for September, 2009

• With wonderful and easy to use tools like  the Web Design Generator – Artisteer, anyone can create their own custom blog theme in a matter of minutes as you will see on the video below.  You will need to download the software to do it and the video below will show you how easy it use to use once you have downloaded it.  Click here to download the free trial of Web Design Generator – Artisteer

P.S.  Money Saving Tip – when you purchase a license for Artisteer after seeing how easy it is, that the tutorials on this blog are all based on how to blog with Word Press.  With that in mind, you won’t need to purchase the more expensive license needed for programs like Joomla.  You can learn more about blogging with Joomla on my other site Online Business Academy.

To view the video in full-screen mode, click on the bottom right corner after it begins.

P.S. Thank you for taking your time to visit and hope you find the information useful. I hope to help you learn everything you want and need to know about blogging. I welcome your questions (site specific is good) and definitely your suggestions. I hope to answer your questions before they come up or when you find that you have one. By clicking on the Orange RSS Feed button on the left side of the screen, you will be automatically updated of new information available without having to "check in" to see what's new. It's the easiest way to keep up to date. Thanks again for stopping in, I value your time!

If you have followed the video tutorial on how to create your own Word Press theme in Artisteer, you may now be trying to figure out how to upload it, now that it is done.  This was the question I received yesterday and the best way to answer it in my mind, was to create a video and walk you through it step by step. If you haven’t created your Word Press Template, here is a link to the article -  “Creating a Word Press Template video tutorial”.  It may be a good idea to watch this video tutorial as well.

It’s really easy to do and pictures/vidoes are worth a thousand words.  Do let me know if you have further questions by posting them below.  I do answer all questions I receive because I have to assume that if you have the question, so does someone else.  This blog is all about YOU and teaching you what you need to know.

• Let me explain….Anytime you can link back to your own site using your specific keywords, it helps your “cause”. Let me give you a  very specific example with a keyword specific to one of my clients.

• The keywords “California mortgage loan” or “California home mortgages”  are being targeted by one of my blog subscribers who owns the blog/site www.cahomemortgage.net.   In the previous sentence, I created three valuable links to his site.

• A direct link by typing his domain name and linking it back to his site.  I have also created two even more valuable links back to his site by using his keywords and linking those back to his blog site.  When you have a link back to your blog/site which is  your actual keywords, it gives Google more clues as to what your site is about.

• The lesson here…create as many links back to your site on other websites or blogs which contain your keywords.  Having links to your site from other sites or blogs is one of the factors Google uses to determine ranking.  You can achieve more links by participating in social networking sites along with participating in other blogs and commenting and creating links that way as well.  Anytime you can participate AND add value to a blog or forum AND create links, it is a real win/win situation!

• When it comes to marketing one of the biggest and most common mistakes people make is forgetting the CUSTOMER.  You know…the person you wish to attract as a buyer.

• Maybe because your new to all this, you aren’t clear what a landing page is, you don’t know how to set up a registration form, build back-links and you haven’t invested in all of the newest greatest best most wonderful top of the line gizmo for your site because you just can’t afford it.  After all…you are a newbie…how could you? Right?

• Here is a little hand holding for you to help you understand what one of the greatest copy writers of all time Gary Bencivenga understood.  IT ISN’T ABOUT YOU!!!  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell or upset you, but it isn’t about you.  IT IS ABOUT THE CUSTOMER!!!  Oops, sorry about that…I am yelling again…aren’t I?

• In your next article or marketing piece

Describe the benefits, not the features:

• You may be asking yourself what the difference is so I figured I would explain.  The benefit of any product is “what the product does for you“.  The features of any product is “what it does“, the product specifications.  You have most likely been focused on what you or  your product does vs. what you do/it does for the customer, which doesn’t really help the customer understand how you or your product/service can help.

• People purchase air conditioners because “it keeps them cool“, not because it has a thermostat.  People purchase heaters because they are cold and “it warms them up”.

• When you write your next marketing piece or marketing message, the best way to figure out what your “benefits” are is to make a list of problems people are looking to solve with your product.  Once you have your list of problems, make a list of how your product solves those problems.  It’s pretty easy once you get “in the groove” of it.  You may struggle at first as it really is such a hard habit to break, but don’t give up.  You CAN DO IT.

• Please let me know what you come up with when you list the features of your product and the benefits to each one.  If you can’t find a benefit to the feature, it doesn’t belong on the “marketing” list.  I look forward to brainstorming with you about this!  If you list your features and the benefits below it will help others as they try to come up with their list and this website is about helping people…right?

• The experiment with the Google Wonder Wheel Continues and we are up seven pages in the Google Index in just six days for the search term “door hanger printing”.

• When we started the experiment by using the Wonder Wheel as a way to identify the proper keywords, we were indexed in the middle of the page 14 for the term “door hanger printing”.  The results are astounding and Google hasn’t even crawled the updated page yet!  (Read the details about the Wonder Wheel here)

• On September 15th, I made changes to the web page based on what I found on the Google Wonder Wheel, created a blog post on our PrinterBees blog and of course included the key words in my blog posts on this blog site.  As of today, the page is the bottom of page seven and when I reviewed the “cached” page, it shows that Google last crawled the page on September 14th, so I will need to be patient to see what happens when the search engine crawls the page again.  I have my fingers crossed and again invite to you watch as the experiment continues.

• P.S.  You may be wondering how I knew that Google hadn’t crawled the most updated version of my webpage since since the 15th of September.  In the image above, I have put a red box around the word “cached”.  If you click on the link “cached” it will show you the version of the page that Google is currently using to rank your site in the index.   It will also show the you a date on the top of the page, which is the last time Google crawled your site.  I hope this is helpful to you!!!  Don’t forget to read the initial article about the Google Wonder Wheel and how I used it to increase our rankings.

• I could still most likely find more leads and prospects than most simply because I know how to blog! It usually isn’t in my nature to come off as so “arrogant” or “blunt” for lack of a better term, but I often feel like I am beating my head against a wall when it comes to helping out my “friends in the real estate business”.

 

• Though I do have a real estate license, I am not a Realtor, nor am I a mortgage originator or anything else I may need my license for. I am however the owner of PrinterBees, which I founded because I really…really…really wanted to help real estate professionals who were serious find new business as well as keep their businesses consistent with ongoing marketing programs that work. All you need is a little consistency – Did I mention the part about beating my head against the wall? This post isn’t about PrinterBees I (which I really do hope you will consider if you need printing done BTW…)

 

• This post is about something WAY MORE IMPORTANT and it sure costs a lot less too!  This is about how to use the Internet to build your business.

 

• I read a great post called “Why I’m Kicking Your Butt in Selling Real Estate“, By Bob Haywood and would encourage you to read it too! He is right on the money and I abosolutely love how blunt he is.

 

• As an Internet Junkie and one who really understand why the Internet is so crucial to your business, I am going to give this yet another try and HOPE…HOPE…HOPE…you may just take my word for it this time and actually follow through. Yes, follow through. As so many mentioned on the above mentioned post…put down the real estate magazine and do something different! If you don’t have a marketing plan that includes the Internet, your magazine won’t help you…trust me.

 

• I randomy picked the City of San Diego to try and help you understand the importance of having a presence on the Internet. I don’t have any clients there, so I won’t make anyone mad for sharing my secrets!

Currently (according to Google) EACH MONTH, there are approximately:

1. 165,000 searches for the term “San Deigo Real Estate”.
2. 8,100 searches for the term “Realtors San Diego”
3. 14,000 searches for the term “properties San Deigo”
4. 110,000 searches for the term “san diego houses”
5. 301,000 searches for the term “homes for sale san diego”

• This is just a VERY small example of the over half a million searches each month done by people looking to buy and sell real estate just in San Diego! Do I have your attention? THERE ARE OVER 500,000 people looking to buy and sell real estate in San Diego and I only listed off five search terms! There were thousands and thousands more that I didn’t take the time to add in.

 

•  Call me crazy, but I am thinking that if you have a website that is ranking anything close to page one on Google for any of the terms I mentioned above, I don’t think you have time to read a realtor magazine, because you are too busy running the bank to deposit your commission checks!

 

• It may seem like having and maintaining a website is like climbing Mount Everest without the proper training and preparation, but it really isn’t that hard with a little direction. Seriously, it isn’t that hard and I really want to help you.

 

• My first e-book, was profitable blogging and written to help people understand how to make money and residual income by blogging. I then authored “Blogging For Buyers”, After reading Bob’s post about why he is kicking your butt in real estate to help you get started with your website. He inspired me along with all the great responses I read following his post. Thanks Bob…I hope it helps!

 

• There is no catch, you don’t even have to register to download it, I only ask in return of my providing you with the steps by step instructions of how to get started, that you actually do it! At least try…what have you to loose? Oh…and if you need printing, please remember PrinterBees, it is how I eat.

 

• The book can be downloaded here and I also encourage you to visit my blog and subscribe to it. I am passionate about helping people learn how to utilize the Internet and I know it is what I was born to do….teach! The Internet is here, it’s really cheap when it comes to marketing and most importantly, it is what people are using to find what they are looking for. I hope they find you!

In the last post, I described how to use the new tool found on Google to help your rankings and as promised will follow up with videos and posts to check our progress with this test.  This is a totally new approach for me to SEO, so we will learn as we go along and I will show you step by step what I have done and what I have changed to increase the rankings for the search term “door hanger printing“.

One of my other tactics is to make sure I am also creating links back to my website using the term Door Hanger Printing to help my cause of climbing up the ranks.  Currently, Printerbees is on middle of page 14 for the search term Door Hanger Printing.

The first video recorded in this series is located here. Hoping the “Google Wonder Wheel” will help us get ranking for Door Hanger Printing.

One Day – advanced 4 positions so far.  Up from middle of page 14 to the top of page 14.  Page 13, here we come!!!!

• I am often asked how to go about choosing the right keywords to optimize for with regards to Google and I have to tell you that it really is no easy task, it does take research and more importantly it takes time.  For companies that provide SEO services, one of the most time consuming aspects of doing SEO for any website, is determining the right keywords to optimize for.   There are several factors to consider when choosing your keywords and I am hoping this article will help explain what to look for and how to do it yourself.

• What needs to be considered when choosing your keywords is the following:

1. Who am I trying to attract?
2. What might they be looking for (“Googling”) when they enter a search term
3. How will I identify the most qualified prospects, the ones looking to make a purchase?
4. What is the competition for the keyword?  When you “Google” the keyword, how many results come up?  Is it 35,000,000 or is it 500,000?  Obviously it will be much more difficult to compete with 35 Million other websites vs. 1/2 million.
5. How many people are actually searching the keyword you wish to optimize for?
6. What words are “related” to the keywords you are optimizing for?  This is called your “semantic keywords”.  Semantic keywords are explained in the youtube video below.

   Here is the link to the Google Adwords/Keyword Tool so you can try it yourself
   The keyword we are after is “door hanger printing”, so you can Google it to see how we are doing.

• I encourage you to watch the video, which will explain how to accomplish what I have listed above.  It is also VERY important that you you use the tools Google makes available to you to increase your chances of being indexed.  If this all seems like a bit more work than you have time for.  I do have a team of people who do much of my SEO.  It is very time consuming, but if you have more time than money, I do encourage you to try it on your own first.  What have you to loose?  If you feel like you need help with your SEO and managing it, I provide SEO services for a monthly service fee starting at $499/mo.  The clients I work with do rank, do get traffic and do see an increase in business when we start optimizing their sites.  The investment pays for itself several times over.  Again, following all of the tutorials included here will help you to rank yourself.

Follow the series of videos to see how the rankings are coming along for “door hanger printing” and if what we are doing is working or not.

• The word “Blog” comes from the term “Web Blog”.  Web Blogs became a popular and easier way to communicate once the Internet came along than past methods like having a Pen Pal, mailing cards or even writing emails.  With a “blog”, friends and families can communicate with everyone at one time by simply adding a blog post and allowing everyone to have access to it

• When “blogging” first became popular, people used blogs as on-line diaries and journals.  One of the things that made it fun and exciting was giving family and friends the ability to comment on blog posts and interact with one another via their web logs.

• Websites like MySpace, used mostly by teenagers and young adults  really helped blogging  explode in popularity giving users the ability to post something on MySpace page and other users/friends could respond and interact about whatever had been posted.  Posting photos, change themes and customizing MySpace pages to fit personal tastes, the latest trends, or simply rebel against parents made it even more exciting and fun for this generation.

• Blogging became a new way of communicating with friends.  When other social websites like FaceBook and Twitter began to catch on, it closed the generation gap and kids found not only their friends had Facebook and Twitter accounts, they even found their grandparents “twittering” as a way to stay in touch.

• “Twittering” is considered “micro blogging” because you are limited to 140 in each “tweet”.  Read more about Twitter and how to participate in the post “Six Easy Twitter Lingo “Twips”.

• Because blogs offer dynamic content vs. static content with a standard HTML web page.  Search engines like Google have become more fond of blog sites because the content us much more fresh and up to date and therefore end up closer to the top of a search result in many cases.  With all of the talk about Search Engine Marketing and businesses trying to figure out the secret recipe to being indexed on page one of Google, more and more businesses are turning to blogs to create current content, make announcements and keep their clients up to date about their businesses.

• For businesses, a blog could and really should include announcements, market updates along with any and all commentary having to do with the industry the business is serving.  The more relevant and important the information, the more people will frequent the blog.  Businesses who have blogs and depend on their blogs as a communication tool, need to commit to keeping their blogs updated and current.  Businesses who don’t make that commitment and are fortunate enough to make their way up to the front page of Google because of their blogs, will soon find their websites lost in the shuffle without such a commitment.

• With regards to maintaining a company blog, it should fall under the specific job description of someone in the company who should be held accountable to keep it up to date.  In an ideal world, a blog is updated daily, but updating it two to three times per week is totally acceptable as well.

• The big thing to remember is to provide your readers quality and relevant information.  Filling your blog with a bunch of fluff meant to keep search engines happy will not help your business in the long run.

• Learn more about blogging for money by reading the free e-book, Profitable Blogging.  Profitable blogging includes everything you need to know to help you get started.

• Feel free to ask any questions you have regarding blogging or how to blog either below or on the “ask a question page”.

Happy Blogging! ~ Nadine

IMPORTANT!!!! You NEED To Back Up Your Blog

• Lesson I learned THE HARD WAY…BACK UP YOUR BLOG.  My blog was hacked and completely down and frankly I wasn’t sure how the heck I was going to fix it!   New experience…never been hacked before and hope it never happens again.

• Obviously we worked out the kinks and the blog is now back up and running, but there was some definite panic when I paid a visit to my site only to see a huge banner on the front of it “tagged” this site has been hacked…with a logo!  The person who hacked the site, has their own logo saying they hacked it along with proud link to their website and blog…. Are you kidding me!

• Thank goodness, WordPress had an upgrade and this is what I did to get our site back up and figured I would share in the event this “special” person/bot pays a visit to your site.

1. I upgraded our WordPress because there was a new release available.   This is one of the many reasons I LOVE HOSTGATORS!!  Hostgators makes everything so easy and automated.  I went to Fantastico, clicked on WordPress, it showed there was an upgrade available, I click it and upgraded.  It automatically created a back up for me as well…which is highly recommended.
2. I found that most hackers attack your wp-blog-header.php, which I checked and nothing obvious there.  I am no “technical wizard” so if there was something there, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have noticed it anyway….probably the case!
3. I read that you should immediately change your user name and password as the friendly hacker who tagged your site may have created an additional account as well, which is what happened in my site.
4. Make sure to check your User Administrator Accounts.  My friendly hacker, was kind enough to set up his own administrator account.  Wasn’t that nice of him???  Delete the user account immediately…obviously.
5. I then went to my handy dandy “artisteer” program, which I ABSOLUTELY LOVE for creating my own templates and exported a new template thinking that if the hacker did something in the CSS or the HTML template file, deleting the old and replacing with a new one may do the trick!  It worked and it only took about five minutes because the program is so easy to use!