Content warning – as usual Gary [...]]]>

Gary is one of my very favorite business visionaries of all time.  This video rocks, it is hard core, it is real and hell, doesn’t he sound just like me?  Or do I sound like him?  LOL.  Just thought this would be a good one for the weekend.

Content warning – as usual Gary is even a bit harsher with language then I am.  You have been warned.

Enjoy the Superbowl tomorrow folks!

Recently I mentioned a bit about StumbleUpon as a source of paid advertising traffic and that has sparked some follow up questions.  Mainly how do I use it?  I think a lot of you guys may have signed up for the “user side” of it.  If you want to [...]]]>

I Really Love StumbleUpon

Recently I mentioned a bit about StumbleUpon as a source of paid advertising traffic and that has sparked some follow up questions.  Mainly how do I use it?  I think a lot of you guys may have signed up for the “user side” of it.  If you want to buy traffic from Stumble you need to set up an account as a StumbleUpon Advertiser.   They refer to this as “paid discovery”.

They big issue with Stumble is that it is more of a social networking and viral type of traffic stream.  While I feel this is extremely powerful you have to think that way when building a landing page.  Most likely if you send traffic to a typical “sales page” they likely will not approve you.  Further even if they did you wouldn’t get very good results anyway.   Some ways to get the best bang for the stumble buck would include…

• Use quizzes and the score page to capture subscribers by asking for feedback
• Use video embedded in a blog post to gain commenters, subscribers, YouTube subs, etc.
• Build a photo slide show and do the same thing
• Tie in the above with the WordPress ThankMe Later Plugin

Join me today as I actually come up with info capture campaigns for StumbleUpon while doing the episode and driving my F-350 Super Duty and one again you will realize how bad to the bone WordPress is.

Discuss Episode 79 at The Road to 100K Forums

I have been getting more requests to expain how to do podcast interviews from a technical stand point.  The reality is they are pretty simple.  I just use skype and pamela. If you have high speed internet (most podcasters do) this is the easiest [...]]]>

Recording a Interview for a Podcast is Not Complicated

I have been getting more requests to expain how to do podcast interviews from a technical stand point.  The reality is they are pretty simple.  I just use skype and pamela. If you have high speed internet (most podcasters do) this is the easiest way to do things.

When your guest also has skype the call quality and recording quality are pretty damn good.  I personally edit in Sony Vegas but you can also use Audacity which is free.  I use a free program called levelator to balance out the two sides of the call.

I also explain today how to do a good job interviewing a guest and let you know many of the mistakes I made in my first interviews.  I explain some ways to put your guest at ease and make the interview conversational.  I also explain how to get onto other people’s podcasts as a guest and why for some people that is a great option.  They key to geting on podcasts as a guest is to make the life of the host as easy as possible.  Provide sample questions, a brief bio, a proposed subject and links to your websites and blogs.

Resources for this Episode

• Skype
• Pamela
• Audacity
• Levelator
• Sony Vegas
• Video on How I Publish a Basic Podcast
• Understanding Podcasting – Free eBook I Wrote

Discuss Episode 78 at TheRoadto100K.com

Understanding Googles New Privacy Policy, Personalized Search [...]]]>

Google’s new privacy policy has a lot of people concerned. I am pretty concerned about a few aspects of it myself. However this video looks at what it means to us as marketers, how personalized search will evolve along with how ad serving technology will evolve.

Understanding Googles New Privacy Policy, Personalized Search and Ad Serving Technology from Jack Spirko on Vimeo.

I think most people today look at the internet and think, “the future is here”, I laugh when I hear such cliches.  I think these people have already forgotten the world of “you’ve got mail” following a series of buzzes, beeps and clicks.

Okay you get a twofer today!  The fist listener question is about IP diversity in relation to building a site network.  In other words is it bad to have 50 sites on one shared IP, in general the answer is yes but [...]]]>

Creating Consistant and Great Content is More Important than Its Format

Okay you get a twofer today!  The fist listener question is about IP diversity in relation to building a site network.  In other words is it bad to have 50 sites on one shared IP, in general the answer is yes but you also don’t need 50IPs for 50 sites and there are many cheap solutions you can enact here.

Next up another listner want to know how important it is or is not to produce daily content in a unified format.  In other words if you were going to produce three pieces of content a week does it matter if you do three different types of content, say a blog post, a podcast and a video or do you need to stay consistent and do say 3 blog posts and make the videos and podcasts extra.

This isn’t quite that easy to say yes or no to.  The reality is content is content and while I think 5 times a week beat the hell out of 3, exactly what form the content takes isn’t that important.  There are deffinitely some advantages though in becoming a “Jack of many trades and a master of one”.  Tune in to hear more about that and some other cool stuff in today’s episode.

Discuss Episode 75 at The Road to 100K Forums

Building a Site Network for Branding, Direct Traffic and SEO Value from survival podcast on Vimeo.

In an effort to make good on my promise to provide more advanced topics I am releasing this video on building a site network and exactly how and why to do it.  How to do it strategically, [...]]]>

Building a Site Network for Branding, Direct Traffic and SEO Value from survival podcast on Vimeo.

In an effort to make good on my promise to provide more advanced topics I am releasing this video on building a site network and exactly how and why to do it.  How to do it strategically, how to create link relationships, how to occasionally use the Press, how to build both big and small satellite sites, etc.

The big thing I want to caution you with though is don’t loose focus on your primary site.  The biggest problem most of you guys seem to have is chasing 20 ideas instead of really doing one and doing it well.   So understand a site network is a very powerful tool.  It is something you build over the long haul unless you have the resources to have the work done for you vs. doing it yourself and even then phasing it in over a year or two or more will still make sense.

On your commitment to daily content creation though, sites in your satellite network DO NOT COUNT.   So it really makes sense to work on your primary site for 3-6 months daily at a minimum before you start building out a network.  It will also help you if you do the following….

• Become very familiar with WordPress so you can use it to quietly build your mini sites.  WordPress doesn’t have to look like a blog or even have posts you can do a 4-5 page mini site with it very quickly and easily using many of the free themes available out there.  Here is one example – Jack’s Online Business Card

• Do your first few mini sites are pretty small undertakings, a top ten list of associated sites or something like that.  Something fast you can do in a day to 3 days max.  It will give you confidence and get you going faster.

• Learn to reuse and more accurately re-purpose your content.  Combine several bits of old content to make one new piece on your sat sites.

• Make and keep a list of anywhere and everywhere you can post content and get links without the rel=”nofollow” attribute, we should perhaps do part of this one on the forum together.  To aid with this get the “search status” extension for FireFox and keep the “high light no follow links” option on.

• Consider hiring some copywriters to do up copy for your sites, then you can just slap them together.

• Keep track of the links you build and the link relationships you create.  Don’t fear reciprocal links or three way associations but keep a lot of variance in your link structures.

• When you are setting up stuff like blogspot blogs, tumblr blogs, hubpages, etc just for links, bang em out fast, get it done.  You ain’t writing great pose for such things just get enough content out that is in the niche for it to count with Google and move on.

• Do keep great records of every site you create profiles for so if something comes up you can add links, modify content etc.  RoboForm Excels for this purpose and will make you life a lot easier.  If you want to try RoboForm for free you can do that by just right clicking and selecting save as on this link.

It is well known that I prefer a informational or soft product to a hard product for online marketing.  I am not anti physical product or anything I just know for a fact margins and logistics are much better with a non physical product.

Recently Google dropped a bombshell in the personal privacy world with what can only be called “integrated tracking” across all Google services.  Meaning in one place Google will store things like, what you search for, what you watch on youtube, [...]]]>

What is Personal Search and Why Does it Kick Ass for Niche Marketers?

Recently Google dropped a bombshell in the personal privacy world with what can only be called “integrated tracking” across all Google services.  Meaning in one place Google will store things like, what you search for, what you watch on youtube, what you do with your email (that’s the big one to me and why I REFUSE to use Gmail), what you say and who you talk to on Google Plus, etc.  Further given Google’s Analytics is used by the vast majority of web site owners we have to believe they are using it to compile data all across the web.

Today though I am not talking about the political implications on personal privacy but what does this mean to us as marketers.  The reason Google is doing this is to improve personalized search and this yet again has cries that “SEO is dead” coming from the gaggles of armatures that don’t really have a clue what SEO is all about or simply want to be dramatic.  Said amateurs fail to understand that personalized search has been part of Google since at least 2007 on some levels and this is nothing but a further evolution of that.

This is nothing new, here is a really great collection of SEO is Dead posts, all of which make for some amusing reading given how old most of them are.

In today’s episode I explain the evolution of personalized search, why it makes SEO more important than ever and how it is one of the greatest things that could ever happen to niche marketers on the internet.

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