Podcast 06: Craigslist & Other Classified Sites
Posting free ads in Craigslist and other classified ads websites.
Show Notes:
Craigslist.org - Avoid problems with posting and getting your ads listed by getting someone else to do these for about $2-$3 per ad. Don’t pay anybody until your ad shows up. You may be able to get by these “spamming” rules by doing image ads instead of just text.
Vonage - virtual phone numbers, toll free phone numbers, all with the ability to forward to your cell phone.
Photobucket.com - image hosting (several other free image hosting provides will host your image for you)
Other Classified Ads Websites:
Craigslist.org
Kijiji.com
Backpage.com
USFreeAds.com
Google Base
Adoos.ca
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Youtube Vids Renamed For SEO
I wanted to post very quickly while it was on my mind what I did two days ago. I went into my youtube video accounts (I have 5) and checked out all of the videos to see which ones were getting viewed. I did some keyword research (which I hadn’t done when I originally uploaded the videos) and renamed several of the videos so that there was a better likelihood of getting them ranked in the top 10 of Google.
You’ll be able to see which ones I redid if you’d like to see all of my accounts, here they are:
youtube - info720
youtube - topwebhosting
youtube - 4bluehost
youtube - dailytutorialsdottv
youtube - roguebillionaire
These may be great case studies to see what I’ve done with keyword research and getting these renamed. Also, I selected about 6 of these individual videos to have my VA start socially bookmarking to get some backlinks to these video pages and hopefully start seeing some rankings.
By the way, just a heads up, if you do want to get a virtual assistant and have several web properties that you’d like to start getting ranked, let me know and I’ll keep you on a special email list to notify once I’ve got a bunch of these video tutorials created for my VA. You can use them for your VA or you simply tap into some of those that I’ll have trained in the next 30 days (hopefully).
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VA: 2008-08-01
I wanted to document for all of you what I’m having my virtual assistant do for me and provide some results. I thought that this would add value to those of you visiting my blog and podcast on a regular basis, so enjoy.
The first session I’m having her setup several new accounts at social bookmarking sites. I decided to go with a separate email address that she and I will both have access to and one that she’ll be able to check for confirmation, profile creation, and anything else project related.
I am using a Gmail account because it will lend well to using Google docs, blogger, Google Groups, and anything else Google owns. Note: use a different password for the Gmail account than the one that you’ll use for all of the social media bookmarking sites.
I am having my virtual assistant start setting up the accounts at www.socialmarker.com - I’m personally using most of the “best” as well as the “dofollow” options. There will be some there that I’ll have her skip, but will see what she does with these.
In order to make this process really simple for her, I recorded a video tutorial introducing myself and very briefly letting her know what to get started with. I’m planning on “training” her to the point where I’ll simply give her a URL and a keyword phrase and turn her loose on the social bookmarking. I created a very easy tutorial using free software that you can download at Jing Project which is the same company that makes Camtasia (which I use religiously for all of my screen capture youtube tutorials).
You can pretty much use any headset you’d like, but the one that I use for my tutorials and podcasts (when I’m not recording in the car) is the Sennheiser PC 166.
Ok, back on track. I’ve given my VA the task to setup these accounts and then about 6 different youtube videos to “socially bookmark”. We’ll see how many she gets through. I have high expectations, but I anticipate having to spend some time training to get to where she’s very effective at this. I don’t know what she’s capable of yet and we’ll see how she does for this first assignment.
Here are a few other ideas that I’ve started thinking about for her to do next:
- Bookmark & ping (social bookmark)
- Revise articles to be used in blogging (probably will train her on using Diigo & Blogger for this purpose)
- Comment on Blogs (will be using Courtney Tuttle’s list of DoFollow Blogs - will setup an RSS feed for this purpose)
- Classified Ads - This one I’m not too sure about yet, but I’m going to figure out about 4-5 things that she can always default to in case she finishes with the tasks of the day and has time left.
There will be many more I have no doubt, but thought I’d give you a tentative list to start with. I’m using this VA to accomplish as much of the “busy work” that I simply don’t have time or attention span to accomplish.
Wish me (and her) luck!
Filed Under Virtual Assistant Services | 3 Comments
Podcast 05: Amazon Stores, Selling on Amazon & eBay
Amazon Web Stores, Selling on Amazon and Arbitrage between eBay and Amazon.
Today’s Podcast brought to you by Get Google Ads Free
Show Notes:
You can profile a lot of products that are selling for less on eBay and then resell the same product on Amazon. You can do this both ways, buy on eBay and sell on Amazon or sell on eBay and buy on Amazon.
This is one of the strategies that I use for getting started with ecommerce very quickly. You can add products directly from Amazon as an associate without having to have your own products. You can customize your own domain name.
I used Sony and Canon as examples here, but the likelihood of getting any direct contract with Sony or Canon or Nikon or any of the big brands, it won’t happen until you’re able to purchase a lot of quantity and distribute that quantity, (think Best Buy, CompUSA, etc).
Amazon A-store (available through their affiliate or associate pages).
Use Google Adwords to promote your Amazon Store. Google may not allow you to bid on trademark names or use trademark names in your ad, but you can still have your ads still point to your Amazon store. Focus on products that have a higher cost so that your 4-5% will still allow you to make some money from the adwords side of things.
I use the word “easily” a bit too quick. Nothing about ecommerce and affiliate marketing is as “easy” as all that. There is work, dedication, determination and a lot of mindset and solid strategies required to make money. It is “easy” for a lot of people that are there already, but they or you won’t get there without the work.
Today’s Podcast brought to you by Get Google Ads Free
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Podcast 04: Yahoo Answers, RSS Feeds & The Ultimate Guide To Google Adwords
Using Yahoo Answers, RSS feeds and The Ultimate Guide To Google Adwords.
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Show Notes:
This episode was one that I recorded awhile ago and wanted to publish this content. This is kind of an introduction to me, a bit more about what I do and how I go about internet marketing.
RSS - What is RSS? (from wikipedia)
Brian’s Ratio - The number of people that believe a product or program is a scam increase in proportion to the popularity of that product.
Pareto’s Principle - Definition (from wikipedia)
Yahoo Answers - http://answers.yahoo.com - you can get answers to a TON of questions that you have on any number of subjects including internet marketing. You can save your search as an RSS feed and import that into your RSS reader (www.google.com/reader or any number of other sites or readers)
Pay-per-click advertising: Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, & MSN
- GET THIS BOOK: “The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords” or buy the physical book, “The Ultimate Guide To Google Adwords” - In fact, start with the < $20 physical book from Amazon and then upgrade later to the Definitive Guide…
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Podcast 03: Affiliate Marketing Intro
An introduction to affiliate marketing for someone who is relatively new to internet marketing.
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Show Notes:
Methods of affiliate marketing:
- direct linking (linking a pay-per-click ad directly to an affiliate product)
- list building: drive traffic to a landing page to give away something for free in exchange for their email address.
Select a Niche:
- avoid anything related to “make money online” if you’re just getting into list building for less competition and less saturation.
- FYI, Frank Kern’s video “How To Make A Lot Of Money Forever” is currently offline… it may be somewhere on youtube or revver or another video site, but the original link isn’t there anymore.
Get Started with Affiliate Marketing:
1. Pick your niche… do keyword research to determine who competitors are and what keywords you could realistically compete with.
2. Clickbank - get started with affiliate marketing here. Plenty of products and you don’t have to have a website in order to get started. (Yes you can get started with nothing more than an email address, but it isn’t recommended. Too many free sites are readily available including Blogger.com)
3. Check out the cost of keywords if you’re going to get into pay-per-click. This can be a great way to test out a market, but can cost you a lot as well. If you decide to go with pay-per-click, you should definitely get Perry Marshall’s book, “The Ultimate Guide To Google Adwords”
4. Search engine optimization. Use these keyword marketing research videos to help you find keywords that are “low hanging fruit”.
5. After you get your blog installed or site installed and your keywords selected, use the information in this article by Courtney Tuttle called “Keyword Sniping” to get your website ranked for those keywords you’re going after.
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Podcast 02: SocialMarker.com, NoFollow Attrib & YouTube Rankings
Some great websites that will help you with your social media optimization.
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Show Notes:
Create a profile on these social bookmarking sites. I have limited time so I have my virtual assistants do most of this “busy” work for me. Either way, these profile pages can be used to link back to your main site using your keyword phrase.
You should also be using http://blogsearch.google.com/ping, http://www.pingoat.com, http://www.pingomatic.com, & feedshark.
You can often times get your Propeller.com page ranked in the top 10, top 20… There are other sites that tend to rank pretty well also including digg.com, reddit.com and other social bookmarking sites.
Use YouTube. I found the keyword “Keyword Marketing Research” from Google that was getting thousands of searches per month. I created a video tutorial and uploaded it to YouTube with the title, “Keyword Marketing Research” and was in the top 3 within about 6 hours. I’ve since dropped because I haven’t done much with it since, but it is now hanging out around number 14. I’ll be having my VA do some linking back with profiles and some other sites including pinging those sites and back-linking to my YouTube video with the keywords “Keyword Marketing Research” as the anchor text.
I’ll also be having my VA take the code to embed and insert that into a hubpages.com page as well as a squidoo page and some other pages similar that allow youtube embed code and then do all the social bookmarking for those pages as well as the pinging.
In fact, here’s a quick link to the video… well, here’s the 1st and 2nd part of the video tutorial for your viewing pleasure. This is updated even past some of the things I talk about and reference in the podcast…
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Keyword Research Basics
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Why Keywords?: Keyword phrases are the means to an end. These are what people are searching for on the internet. Before you go out and create the website or the product specific, you need to know what people are searching for. Once you know what people are searching for, you can give it to them.
Keyword Research Tools: Some of the tools I use are freekeywords at Wordtracker and the keyword research tool at SeoBook.com. I also use Google Adwords keyword tool to cross-check these results. These tools will help check for demand i.e. how many times a day are these keyword phrases getting searched for.
Keyword Competition: I use the allintitle, allinanchor, “keyword phrase in quotes”, and just plain keyword with back-link check to see who the competition is.
What constitutes a good keyword?: This really depends on the industry, but here are some general guidelines:
- more than 50 searches per day
- less than 20,000 allinanchor or allintitle (or both)
- how hard you’re willing to work
Word of Warning: Don’t spend all your time in research. Use these principles to find good keywords and start working on those keywords with your website, article marketing, social media optimization, etc.
Paid Keyword Tools: I’ve used several and there are many good tools out there. The only time you’ll really need these tools is when you’re doing pay-per-click marketing. To get a list of 1000s of keywords i.e. the “long tail” keywords, you’ll need something more than these free tools. If you decide to go this route, you should use Keyword Elite (aff).
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Podcast 01: Intro, Keyword Sniping & Mindset
My take on an article that can teach you how to get a top ranking in Google.
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Show Notes:
Intro: My name is Brian Armstrong and I’ve been consulting with Internet business owners now for about 7 years. Recently I’ve moved my focus specifically to the marketing arena and now coach and mentor internet business owners on their website marketing plan and strategies.
Keyword Sniping: This was a blog post by Courtney Tuttle who actively promotes Internet Marketing and at the time of this post is in the top 3 for Google when searching for “Internet marketing” which is a highly competitive keyword. You can find the article in its entirety here: Keyword Sniping
- Step 1: find the keywords
- Step 2: use the keyword phrase 10 times on the site (i.e. 10 blog posts) as anchor text pointing back to the root of the domain or blog
- Step 3: write articles that utilize the keyword phrase or are relevant then use the author profile or resources box to link back to your website using your keyword phrases again as anchor text
- Step 4: Lather, Rinse & Repeat… always Repeat!
Mindset:
Success Requires No Apologies, Failure Permits No Alibis.
Give me a stock clerk with a goal,
and I will give you a person who will make history.
Give me a person without a goal,
and I will give you a stock clerk.
Write your goals down, commit them to memory and review them often.
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