We’re On Alltop!

October 25, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 1 Comment

We’re On Alltop! Yippee:)

Getting your site included among the coveted web directories is frankly like pulling teeth! You either have to pay for one like the Yahoo business directory (which I don’t know how good of an investment that is any longer) or you have to have the patience of Job and bide your time.

Well patience finally paid off because my site is now included in the much coveted Alltop.com Directory. With pretty high standards, I can’t even tell you how long it took before I was accepted into Alltop but that’s okay, because I am super excited about contributing my content and what I know about content marketing to the Alltop community.

If you have your own page on Alltop of your favorite blogs (something you should do if you haven’t), then I humbly ask if you’d add my site to your list of blogs to watch. Find me in the content marketing section here: http://content-marketing.alltop.com/.

I’m among some fine company on that page: Seth Godin, Copyblogger, The Blog Squad — so I’m definitely feeling like “I’m one of the cool kids!” (Of course you need to scroll it bit down on the page to find me:)

How To Find Google Analytics Tracking Code

September 9, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 3 Comments

How To Find Your Google Analytics Tracking Code (Cause It Ain’t Easy!)

In this article I am going to show you how to find your Google Analytics tracking code. You would think it would be easy, but truth be told — it’s kind of a pain to find it! Note to Google (my love:), please make it easier to find our code! Okay enough of my whining, here’s what you need to do to find your Google Analytics Tracking Code lickity split.

1. Log in to Google Analytics account at http://www.google.com/analytics

2. From the Overview page, select the account that has the profile for the tracking code you’re looking for, because your tracking code is profile-specific.

3. Select the website profile from the accounts Overview page.

4. From that profile’s Actions column, click Edit

5. At the top right of the ‘Main Website Profile Information’ box, click Check Status

6. Your tracking code can be copied and pasted from the text box in the Instructions for adding tracking section

7. When adding your tracking code to your web pages, make sure to paste it into the body section of your HTML code (WordPress editor), immediately preceding the </body> tag if you use the ga,js code. If you use the asynchronous code, you should add it immediately preceding the </head> tag.

8. If you are adding your code to a Thesis blog, you’ve got it even easier. Just go to Site Options and paste your code into the Stats Software/Scripts Box.

How To Get #1 Search Engine Rankings Using The Google Mindset

September 4, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 2 Comments

Getting Into The Google Mindset

It is no secret that writing high quality articles is my #1 traffic generator and list building strategy for ALL of my websites. In fact, writing good articles is an advantage that many coaches and consultants have because many of us are “natural writers“. We have a message and we want to help people with some sort of problem, so we have a lot of content already spilling out of us. We’ve just got to get it all down and spread to prospects in a BIG way. One of the best ways I have found to get my message out to thousands of people is by taking advantage of the search engine powerhouse Google.

Google has been sending me oodles of free traffic to my main and niche websites for many years. In fact, I have held the #1 position for over a 100 of my keywords for over seven years! That’s seven years of Google updates and Google slaps. Seven years of the ups and downs of marketing trends. And the reason why my #1 positions have never waivered is because I have always chosen to have the Google mindset when writing my articles.

For me, the Google mindset means to write my articles with my readers needs #1 and the search engine’s criteria #2. That’s really what Google honchos want from us as webmasters and that should be what we want for our businesses too. First, we need to serve our clients. And then we need to make sure that we can do it in a BIG way, so that means we should write using good search engine etiquette.

So What Is The Google Mindset?

Not too long ago there was an article published on the Google webmaster site about how Google identifies a high quality article and a high quality site. While they were not going to reveal their secret algorithms for ranking content, they did give webmasters a LOT of insight on the questions that they ask when they evaluate a piece of content (and how we should evaluate our own content as well). Here they are:

1. Would you trust the information presented in this article?
2. Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
3. Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
4. Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
5. Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
6. Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
7. Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
8. Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
9. How much quality control is done on content?
10. Does the article describe both sides of a story?
11. Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
12. Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
13. Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
14. For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
15. Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
16. Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
17. Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
18. Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
19. Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
20. Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
21. Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
22. Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
23. Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

Why Getting Into The Google Mindset Is Critical Right Now

If you hadn’t heard, Google has been implementing Google Panda which is a long-term algorithmic shift that has involved several updates. The first update, Panda 1.0, rolled out in February and has been followed by several more, all of which have affected a growing number of sites. The updates, as of this writing, include:

Panda 2.4 on August 12th.
Panda 2.3 on July 27th or so.
Panda 2.2 on June 18th or so.
Panda 2.1 on May 9th or so.
Panda 2.0 on April 11th or so.
Panda 1.0 on February 24th

It is more important than ever to get into the Google mindset for writing high-quality articles and content for two reasons. One — you don’t want these updates to affect your site, your articles, and their ranking. You want to stay where you are or rank even higher for your keyword terms. Two — you want to be ready to step into the place of some of your competitors who were affected by this update or who will be very shortly. As some of your competitiors fall in the rankings for certain terms, that leaves room for entrepreneurs with the Google Mindset to step up and take your rightful position of #1 !

If you’re ready to learn more about the Google Mindset and how to write articles that Google loves for more guaranteed search engine traffic and #1 Google positions, go to: Writing Articles That Google Loves! to download my special report with bonus step by step checklist where I spell it all out for you in easy, simple, steps.

In less than 30 minutes you’ll be a Google ninja!

Why Google Still Matters

April 20, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 8 Comments

Why Google Still Matters

In this internet age of social media madness, there have been dozens of articles written by marketing “experts” discussing statistics between Google and social media giants like Facebook. Many of these articles discuss how Facebook is taking Google’s place in terms of shear numbers of people using and visiting the site vs. Google. As of this writing, Google still holds the #1 spot and Facebook holds the #2 spot in the rankings. Even with Facebook at #2 though – a lot of entrepreneurs and marketers would like to ignore Google and simply focus on Facebook traffic from fan pages and Facebook ads. Let me explain why, why I will not use it as my marketing model, and why I think Google still matters today.

Why Some Entrepreneurs Are Relying On Facebook

I’ve mentioned in earlier articles that there was an update made to Google’s algorithm (nicknamed the Farmer update) which has changed some of the rankings for sites and individual articles on sites. Some businesses have seen better rankings with this shift, others have pretty much stayed the same, and a few saw a serious drop in ranking a.k.a. traffic to their sites. It is many of these marketers and their friends:) that have decided to make a shift to focusing on social media sources such as Facebook.

Facebook is the second most visited site on the web. I only know a handful of people who do not have a Facebook account and they are over the age of 50. So it is not surprising that marketers and business owners are flocking to this very social and active site. Your prospects are on there. That’s a given. There are very few niches who do not have prospects on Facebook and of course you can create your own Facebook Fan page or Facebook Group to attract those people to you and what you do.

There is also the growing popularity of Facebook ads. Once they were not so favored upon – the conversion was awful, but as the site has grown into the mega giant that it is – the popularity and conversion of Facebook ads have seemed to have taken a turn for the better. In fact, there are experts so disillusioned with organic search a.k.a. Google that they teach people how to create Facebook ads that convert and that sell, etc. They teach these types of techniques because they believe that it is a mistake to depend on the search engines for your traffic as you can be dropped from the results at their whim and in turn lose a lot of business.

I cannot deny that Facebook is an extremely viable option for creating relationships, building communities, and really connecting with people who may want to do business with you in the future. Yet having said that – relying on Facebook for traffic to my site is not my marketing model because…

People Use Facebook and Google Differently

Although I realize that Google has attempted to jump in the social media pool (Google Buzz), the truth is – is that they aren’t very good at it. I mean I don’t know that many serious marketers who even bother with Buzz — not when there’s Twitter. So let’s just put that out there. Google does not do “social” really well. BUT that’s what makes the two powerhouses different. People use Google and social media sites very differently.

Think about it.

When you want to do a little research on dog food or gardening tips, you don’t go on Facebook to search for this type of information – for solutions. You go to Google. You “Google it”. When I want to see what one of your old friends from high school is doing, you go to Facebook. Now you may also visit my Article Marketing Income Fan Page, but maybe that’s because you were already logged into your account and saw something interesting come up on your wall that I posted to my page. So you stopped by – which I appreciate by the way:) But that’s another point…

People drive traffic to their Facebook Fan Pages. Google doesn’t have to do this (in terms of search anyway). We are already programmed to use Google to search for information. They don’t have to do anything fancy to lure us there. The statistics are clear. Google dominates search. Yahoo and Bing come up a far distant second and third. Which totally supports my position that…

Google Still Matters — A Lot!

Google by far is the dominant tool used for search. They also own YouTube which is the #3 site in the rankings. Where your content lies in Google matters very much and instead of trying to beat the system, cheat the system, or be mad at the system — the much easier alternative is to learn the system and get in where you fit it! The marketers who “hate Google” or who are finding this powerhouse all of sudden not as relevant as it use to be are what I like to call “haters”.

They hate the fact that they have lost some of their “free” (by the way:) traffic to their sites because Google has penalized them for either bad backlinking or content farming. They hate the fact that they were able to obtain terrific traffic by creating mediocre at best content — but now are finally being held up to a higher standard.

The rules are simple with Google.

Write informative content and publish it to relevant outlets (including your own site) and you should never encounter any problems with Google. I know I haven’t, and it’s been since 2002 for me. In fact, you are rewarded with great positioning in the search engines which brings you a ton of new traffic; but if you write junk and spread that same junk around to hundreds of other sites — Google will penalize you and off you and your site go into the bottomless sandpit.

Conclusion

As I have mentioned before in other articles, the economy is affecting the way many marketers do business online. Many entrepreneurs simply don’t have the disposable income to throw around on the latest marketing strategy. Finally, business owners are being forced to make smarter decisions about what they will spend their money on and what strategies they will use to market their businesses — so with that in mind — it would be foolish for you to not consider focusing on search engine traffic (which is 100% free) as a major part of your marketing strategy.

Ready to learn more about how to write content especially for Google. Content that Google will love and rank high, which will send you steady streams of search engine traffic. Stay tuned for more news about my upcoming event which will teach you how to write, rank, and stay ranked in Google and the other search engines!

What To Include In A Testimonial

March 3, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 1 Comment

What To Include In A Testimonial

Recently a few of my members had the opportunity to receive a free copy of my soon-to-be-released program Easy Article Submission Secrets. All I asked in return was if they found value in it, to give me a testimonial about it.

As many of you may already know, sometimes getting a testimonial from even the most satisfied customer/client is like pulling teeth! Many entrepreneurs simply freeze up and don’t know how to say what they want to say, or sometimes they have no idea what they really should say. So you know what happens? Nothing.

Now getting nothing or not receiving any sort of feedback on my products, is definitely not what I want happening in my business. I want the social proof that testimonials offer for potential sales AND it’s not great for the person trying to write the testimonial as well, because if they don’t get it done, they miss out on an opportunity for free publicity. And you should never pass up the opportunity for free exposure.

So I thought it was a good idea, right here and right now, to explain to you why you should write testimonials for other entrepreneurs and what to include in those testimonials.

Why Should You Write Testimonials?

So what’s in it for you other than great karma? Well, you should write testimonials because of several factors. First, testimonials can bring you backlink love and this works if the entrepreneur’s sales page allows live links to be placed under their testimonials. Now while a whole lot of marketers don’t do this, there are those that still do and you will benefit from their search engine ranking.

Second, testimonials bring you traffic. I track this every month and sure enough, testimonials I have written for products that I have found very useful in my business, send me traffic on a monthly basis. Does the traffic compare to say my traffic from the search engines? No. But it’s free traffic that may not have found me any other way – so I’ll take it! This works whether or not your links are live or not. If a person is interested in your business, they will copy and paste that url, and go visit your site.

Third, a potential client or customer will associate you with the site they saw your testimonial on. Or in other words – birds of a feather flock together. This is great for you if the product is good, so remember to write testimonials for products and services that you truly find valuable. Something that you would refer to people even if there was nothing in it for you.

What To Include In Your Testimonial

If you’re going to write a testimonial, you might as well do it right, and be featured prominently on a sales page or in the front copy of someone’s book. So in order to get your testimonial selected quickly, you need to write a BENEFIT RICH testimonial. Not just a blurb about how cool the product was! You need to include a bit more. For example:

1. Use numbers. “Articology improved my writing production by 32% per week. This was just the training I needed to gain forward momentum.” or “I received over 27 new subscribers this week after publishing only 3 of my blog articles. Thanks Lisa!”

2. Stress benefits. “My list became more interactive with me after I learned how to publish my own ezine from Lisa.”

Also, I have been contacted before by people who have read my testimonials for other products. That’s right. People actually do verify the testimonials that you have on your site/blog. So make sure to include all your information for your testimonial. Several of those initial contacts ended up working with me in some capacity. This is what you should include:

1. Your Full Name

2. Your Business Name

3, Your URL (Very important! Use only one though, and if you don’t have one, use your business based email address – no free ones.)

4. Your City, State, Country

5. A headshot or lifestyle shot of you. (Don’t worry about size. The site owner will crop the image for you.)

Testimonial Bonus Tip – To track your testimonial traffic, you can assign a specific url for testimonials. For instance, I often sign my testimonials with ArticleMarketingQueen.com. When I get traffic from that specific url, I know it’s because someone saw it on a testimonial, which gives me a better idea of how many people have found me through a particular site.

Testimonial Bonus Tip 2 – To get your testimonial guaranteed visibility, send the product owner a video testimonial. These are very easy to do and business owners love ’em!

Any thoughts on writing or gathering testimonials? Leave ’em in the comment section below and let’s get a conversation going…

Article Blogging: What Do I Do First?

February 17, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 3 Comments

Article Blogging: What Do I Do First?

I cannot say enough about the power of writing articles for your own blog and other people’s blogs. Making the decision to write some of my best articles for my own blog and even better ones for other people’s blogs was a major reason why my list grew from building at a snail’s pace to growing quickly on a daily basis. Not only were people subscribing but they were verified subscribers (meaning they were completing the double opt-in process).

When you decide to become an article blogger, you will begin attracting traffic in several ways:

1. Organically. People will find articles on your blog by conducting a search for your article’s keywords and/or topic in Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, etc.

2. Referrals. People will discover your articles when they’ve been referred to it by another person via ezines, forums, other sites, or social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, etc.

3. Combination. When you write articles for other people’s blogs (guest blogging or guest posting) you get the benefit of both organic and referral traffic. New readers may find your articles via search engines, and a blog’s regular readers may read your guest article and visit your site based on the referral link of the blog you were featured on.

Blogs are also easier to start and maintain than they’ve ever been:

1. One of the most popular blogging platforms for both entrepreneurs and hobbyists is the WordPress platform.

2. You can start your own blog for free at WordPress.org

3. You can host your own WordPress blog on your own domain (seodomainhosting.com). I use this option for all of my sites.

4. You can set up a blogger blog which is limited in flexibility but is very easy for beginners to use.

5. You can do all of this for free or very little money, but see a tremendous return for your business. Every business should have a blog in this day and age.

Okay so now that I’ve sold you on starting a blog. What do you do first?

The very first thing you should do when you decide to start a blog is to be clear about WHO you are writing for. In other words, who is your target market? At this point on the web, there are so many websites and blogs out there that you have to be super niche focused and especially clear about who you are talking to and what information they want from you.

Once you are crystal clear about that, the next thing you can decide is what blogging platform you will choose. If you are a hobbyist, say you are going to chronicle your weight loss journey – I’d go with Blogger because it’s super easy to learn and get started with quickly.

If you are creating a blog to support your business, then I strongly recommend you go with a self-hosted WordPress Blog. I set up writer-friendly and Google-loving WordPress blogs for clients all the time, so for them it’s just a matter of learning a bit about how to write and post to the blog. For others there may be a steeper learning curve — but it’s not too steep. Not like setting up the old html websites.

So my opinion is to go with the self-hosted WordPress blog so that you have room to grow, because once you get the hang of consistent article blogging – your business will grow by leaps and bounds.

*I wouldn’t go with the WordPress.org blog because they have too many limitations on what you can write on blogs that they host. It’s not good for businesses. Fine for hobbyists though.

So think about this today…

Who is your ideal customer? What do they want learn? What is their biggest problem? And how will your blog address that? Once you have those answers, you will be well on your way to article blogging success!

Next Up: Ezine Publishing: What Do I Do First?

Last Article: Article Marketing: What Do I Do First?

Website Traffic Building – MarketingDotCom

December 13, 2010 By Lisa Angelettie 6 Comments

Website Traffic Building – Interview With MarketingDotCom

Next month you can find me being interviewed by uber marketer Mike Filsaime in his exclusive MarketingDotCom Print Newsletter (January 2011 Issue). For all of you who are already subscribers, I’m on page 9 discussing what I think will be the traffic trends for 2011. If you’re not a subscriber, you can grab a free issue to try it out over on: http://mikefilsaime.com/join-newsletter/.*

This is a very big interview for me because Mike’s newsletter is quite popular and is physically in the hands of thousands of people every month, so I’m real excited about it. I just love print newsletters. I’ve always subscribed to them, because I can always refer back to them. Even though I know that the nature of internet marketing is lightening fast – there are still so many points that are tried and true and are still relevant to this day (such as article marketing:)

Website Traffic Building – Trend Alert!

Being interviewed for this article really got me thinking about how I could help my community (meaning you:) this year, because I realize as the web grows by leaps and bounds (and pages and pages:), that it is more important than ever for us to be consistent, diligent, and precise when it comes to traffic generation and building content to attract that traffic.

This is an exciting time in the field of digital content these days. More electronic readers (e-readers) are being developed. More ebook publishers are jumping in the ring (even Google). Trust me when I say that it’s more important than ever to understand that you MUST publish content on the web — especially articles & ebooks to see your business grow. While I love physical books and print newsletters — the truth is — is that the movement of the publishing industry is into epublishing. And that opens up a world of opportunities for writers and marketers and entrepreneurs like us!

2011 is our year to make a website traffic building explosion! Make sure to look for me to talk more about this topic over the next few days and weeks – because it is absolutely essential to your business growth next year.

* (Not an affiliate link & you do have to pay for shipping and handling)

We’re On Alltop!

We’re On Alltop! Yippee:)

How To Find Google Analytics Tracking Code

How To Find Your Google Analytics Tracking Code (Cause It Ain’t Easy!)

How To Get #1 Search Engine Rankings Using The Google Mindset

Getting Into The Google Mindset

So What Is The Google Mindset?

Why Getting Into The Google Mindset Is Critical Right Now

Why Google Still Matters

Why Google Still Matters

Why Some Entrepreneurs Are Relying On Facebook

People Use Facebook and Google Differently

Google Still Matters — A Lot!

Conclusion

What To Include In A Testimonial

What To Include In A Testimonial

Why Should You Write Testimonials?

Article Blogging: What Do I Do First?

Article Blogging: What Do I Do First?

Website Traffic Building – MarketingDotCom

Website Traffic Building – Interview With MarketingDotCom

Website Traffic Building – Trend Alert!

IMPORTANT LINKS

From The Blog

CONNECT WITH ME

We’re On Alltop! Yippee:)

How To Find Your Google Analytics Tracking Code (Cause It Ain’t Easy!)

Getting Into The Google Mindset

So What Is The Google Mindset?

Why Getting Into The Google Mindset Is Critical Right Now

Top Online Document Sharing Sites

Why Google Still Matters

Why Some Entrepreneurs Are Relying On Facebook

People Use Facebook and Google Differently

Google Still Matters — A Lot!

Conclusion

What To Include In A Testimonial

Why Should You Write Testimonials?

Article Blogging: What Do I Do First?

Website Traffic Building – Interview With MarketingDotCom

Website Traffic Building – Trend Alert!

IMPORTANT LINKS

From The Blog

CONNECT WITH ME