If you’re one of millions who are watching their PPC rather closely, and you want to have full control over things, you really need to watch out for messages from the PPC companies about scheduled maintenance. (more…)

My buddy Derek Chew just got a new job with Yahoo!

Congrats, mugsy!

So you read my post on how to get your first seo client, and now you’re out bustin’ down small business doors and teaching classes to seal a deal. You get a few solid leads, but when you follow up, they all tell you the same thing: We don’t have that kind of money.

Well, you’ve got a few choices…

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With tragedies such as what happened at Virginia Tech on Monday, there are always the scum that crawl out of the sewers to take advantage of the good will of others. In cases like this they register a domain name and then send spam attempting to fool people into going to the site and donating money to help the families of the victims. We saw this when Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi, and after the bombing of the Federal Center in Oklahoma City.

GoDaddy and other registrars are reporting a host of new registrations of domain names that relate to the tragedy at Virginia Tech. Many will prove to be valid attempts to support family and friends of victims and will not even ask for money. Others will certainly be those that want to make money through the suffering of others.

Also realize that it may be a phishing attempt to get personal information about yourself in preparation for identity theft. If you receive email, FAX, or phone attempts to get money from you supposedly in support of the victims of the massacre, please check out the organization closely first.

To learn more about phishing and related illicit activity, the following two links provide some very good information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
http://www.antiphishing.org/

If you’re one of the idiots trying to profit from this, stop it. There are plenty of more legitimate ways to make money online. Don’t stoop to this level, take the high road to success.

So you’ve been bustin’ your ass for a while now with a few of your sites, and you’ve got them ranking pretty well. You’ve studied all the ebooks on SEO, you’ve read John Battelle’s Search book, and you’re ready to take on your first paying SEO client.

Since you’re just starting out, you’re obviously at a bit of a disadvantage as far as marketing is concerned. Chances are, you’ve been spending all your time (and money?) marketing your SEM sites, and not your SEO abilities. That’s ok, finding a client won’t be too bad.

If you’re a web designer, you’ve probably already got a list of clients that you could contact. Tell them about your “newest service”, search optimization. Or search marketing. Or search engine marketing. Whatever you want to call it. (more…)

Whenever I launch a new locally-targeted website, I head over to VistaPrint and order up some business cards. For only about $16 bucks, I can have nice color cards, complete with my name, website, and other important info. I’ve probably got ten different business cards at any one time.

Some people advocate handing out business cards blindly, but I’ve found it smarter to get to know the person, even if its just their name and the business they’re in. Now I’ve got an arsenal of ten differently-targeted business cards to pull from. If he’s in the concrete business, I’ll give him a card about my deck website. If she is a dental assistant, out comes a teeth-whitening card. Small business owner? Hand them a local forum card with an advertising discount.
Many of you are missing out on the huge local market. Quit trying to rank for mesothelioma. Everyone’s doing that. But I’d be willing to bet no one is trying to rank for roofing in your town. Build a site that refers only quality roofers to customers, then charge local roofers per lead to be listed on your site. You’ll be the only one trying, and I can almost guarantee you can rank for not only great roofing terms, but you could even rank for the roofers’ business names as well!

So next time you meet a nail salesman, hand him that roofer card. Chances are he knows some people that you need to know.

Oh, and while I’m mentioning VistaPrint, when you’re filling out those fields about your business, don’t follow the captions. For example, if it says FAX: but you think your website address would look better, put it there. There are no rules saying you have to follow their form. Make your card look nice and flowing, not just like everyone else’s.

Whether you’ve been doing SEM for a week or a year, you should always see an increase. While I chose the name Poor SEM for this blog, it is my hope that everyone grows out of reading this simplistic site and reaches a point where they have to dig deeper.

Teach yourself about LSI. Study (and attempt!) Linkbaiting.

Read How to Win Friends & Influence People and Think and Grow Rich and the The Little Red Book of Selling. In fact, don’t stop reading. Visit Borders all the time and check out the newest Marketing and Sales and Business and Finance books. Get them all. Or get them from the library. Just get them and devour them.

My fourteen year old is interested in making money online. He’s smart, and will be making fifty bucks a month within a few weeks. Sure, he’s got the Dad advantage, but so what. You’ve got it too, you just don’t know where to look.

Poor SEM is a great place to start out. But don’t hang around. Start here, take the tips, expand on them, make some money and then make more.
And don’t build a site that tells its readers to go away