This is one of the most important revelations I’ve had since I started blogging and it applies to everything we do:

Quantity is NOT necessary!

Focusing on quantity is the reason that the Internet is littered with useless blogs and Web sites created by people desperate to make money online.

Having multiple blogs seems like a good idea when you first start blogging because a blog needs to give the audience what they want and ONLY what they want as much as possible.

It doesn’t work though because there are only so many hours in the day and each blog needs someone who is passionate about creating exceptional content and interacting with readers.

FOCUS ON ONE QUALITY BLOG!
Guest post on related high quality blogs.
Collaborate with social-media savvy bloggers.

In all things you do FOCUS on RELATED collaborations!

That reality leads to trying to find ways to automate content which dilutes quality and sends your blog or business toward failure. Many viable sites drift along because the person who built them can’t focus enough attention on them.

People THINK quantity is required because they believe
that is what it takes to rank in the search engines –
especially Google.

Fortunately that is NOT true because
QUALITY and RELEVANCY work even better!

I can prove this. Do a search for the phrase gift affiliate program and check the positions of posts on MurrayNewlands.com, GrowMap.com and ExecGiftsBlog.com or see the screen capture below:

Google Results for search Gift Affiliate Program Dec 15, 2011

Prior to doing this search I logged out of Google and I used Google Unpersonalized so the results should not be affected by personalization.

You can see from the screen capture above the positions of these
three posts that are today ALL on the first page at Google:

• Third: MurrayNewlands.com
• Fourth: GrowMap.com
• Tenth: ExecGiftsBlog.com

Note the dates of these three posts: Oct 23, Nov 1 and Nov 2, 2009 - over TWO YEARS ago. I have NOT done any link building to any of those posts and have rarely even shared or looked at them since 2009.

They immediately went to the first page and there they still rank.

Sometimes one of them will slip to the top of the second page and sometimes all three on the first page. This is in spite of there being several very strong affiliate marketing forums ranking, that being a very good phrase, and there being who knows how many hundreds of gift affiliate programs.

WHY ARE THEY ON PAGE ONE?
Simple. They are highly relevant quality content
related to that phrase and they link to each other.

Will my publishing this cause them to fall off page one? I don’t know, but we’ll find out, won’t we?

SEO MYTHS:

What does this tell you about commonly held myths about SEO such as:

• Reciprocal linking is ineffective – obviously not.
• Huge numbers of incoming links are necessary – doesn’t look like it to me.

That is NOT the only example of my using that strategy, but it is the only one I’m going to share. I invite you to try it for yourself or if you don’t have access to relevant blogs or blogging skills you can hire me to implement this strategy as part of blog outreach for your blog or small business.

Instead of focusing on more than one blog, massive link building, article marketing – and especially instead of using horrible automated linkbuilding tools that steal the time of others do this:

Focus on ONE high quality BLOG
Guest post on RELATED quality blogs
Collaborate with social-media savvy bloggers.

In all things you do FOCUS on RELATED collaborations!

If you don’t already have one blog consider NOT starting your own blog at all – at least for now. Almost every top blog has evolved into a group blog even if they aren’t “officially” a group blog because they publish many guest posts.

Whether you have a blog of your own or not, what we really need are collaborations of related blogs and group geo-targeted blogs because reaching a specific niche geo-targeted audience is the logical next step for bloggers AND businesses.

Every blog (or collaboration) should have both a niche
AND geographically specific content
AND a geo-targeted Twitter account

Think of the blogs you read most or sites from which you have bought products or services:

• Q: Do they have auto-generated content?
  • A: Of course not.
• Q: Do they spam other blogs? 
  • A: Certainly not!
• Q: Do you buy anything from blogs covered in AdSense ads with mediocre content?
  • A: No? Then why would anyone else?
    
• Q: Would you buy from a site that is spamming you with blog comments, spam email, or on any social network?
  • A: Not if you have good sense.
    

I assure anyone reading this that quality always trumps quantity and I hope by what I have shared here you now realize that huge quantities are NOT necessary.

I am NOT saying that link building is not important.
What I am saying is that links from a quality RELATED site
are more valuable than a zillion links from auto-generated junk.

Success will come from focusing all your efforts on reaching the audience most interested in what you have to offer. That is true on social media (and easily done on Twitter), in your blogs, through guest posting on related blogs, and in building collaborations.

RECOMMENDED READING: Hubspot has an excellent blog and offers exceptional advice on lead generation and management. Start with their post Content Quantity Diminishes Quality [Research] Here’s an exerpt:

The quality vs. quantity content debate isn’t an uncommon one in marketing, especially in the world of inbound marketing. High quality content is beneficial from a thought leadership and brand perception perspective, but marketers also struggle with the need to produce content regularly and frequently to compete for higher search engine rankings and fuel their inbound marketing strategies.

With recent developments in ranking algorithms such as Google Panda, however, quality has gained a competitive edge, as search engines are starting to value content high in quality and ding websites with low quality content.

That intelligence, coupled with the insights from the Presenter’s Paradox, make for a compelling case for quality over quantity in content creation, doesn’t it? The lesson is simple:

Don’t dilute your high-quality content
with mediocre or low-quality content.

Don’t take my word for it. Test it for yourself. Or hire me to show you by doing it for you. [NOTE: I only work with 2-3 total clients per month because I give them vastly more time than I charge them for and so I can mentor them in how to blog, do social media, grow their influence, etc. - so if you want my personal assistance contact me asap because once those spots are full I won't be able to accept more clients.]

Read quality blogs about SEO, especially Aaron Wall’s SEOBook. Start with this interview with Aaron and Andy Hagans on Link Building. Don’t miss probably the most important post I’ve seen on Google’s plans and my comments in that post.

Lastly, check out the brand new SEO Infographic below by SEO Book:

SEOBook Organic Link Infographic

The information in the above infographic combined with my posts detailing why Google IS Evil and How Google Limits Our Freedom of Choice By Discriminating Against Small Business clearly show that Google has declared war on small businesses.

As always, my readers are encouraged to comment and leave relevant links. Businesses and bloggers alike should take advantage of putting their best keywords in as anchor text in their comments. See the information about How to Use KeywordLuv for more details on how that works and how it benefits you.

CONTENT MARKETING EVENTS:

• Content Marketing World: The largest and leading content marketing event on the planet. The 2012 event takes place at the Columbus Convention Center in Columbus Ohio, September 4-6.

CONTENT MARKETING WEBINARS:

• Content Marketing Institute Monthly Content Marketing Webinars

CONTENT MARKETING BLOGS:

• Content Marketing Institute Content Marketing Blog
• See the Junta42 Top Content Marketing Blogs List for the best content marketing related blogs

NEW: While the price HAS gone up,
buying CommentLuv Premium is still very affordable.
Click the banner below to see single site, multi-site and developer prices.

Click this banner to find out more and see the latest prices. This IS my affiliate link.

The much awaited day when anyone can buy their own copy of the 8-in-1 WordPress plugin CommentLuv Premium has finally arrived. If you don’t know why there has been so much buzz about it – or why you want to snap it up while it is on sale for the lowest price it will ever be available for again – check out these previous posts:

• 28 reviews of CommentLuv Premium by influential bloggers you probably already know who were handpicked by Andy to test before the official launch – why they use it and you should, too.
• Bullet points on the benefits of CommentLuv Premium
• CommentLuv Your Way to Business Prosperity – my unique take on how bloggers using CommentLuv can improve our economy, standard of living, and increase their traffic and income by being small business friendly.

Remember that all CommentLuv Premium plugin users are
automatically affiliates. The link you used when you signed up
to be notified is who will be paid an affiliate commission so
when you sign up use the link from YOUR favorite blogger.

COMMENTLUV SEARCH ENGINE

The new and improved Comment Luv search engine is already online to make finding other CommentLuv bloggers in your niche easier than ever.

Reading and commenting in blogs related to your own is not
only the best way to grow your own blog – it is also the most fun.Visit the Global CommentLuv Enabled Site Search Engine

I am having CommentLuv Premium installed in all the blogs I manage and recommend it to every client and blogger because it really IS that good. If you want it why not get it now while the price is so reasonable?

There are also a bunch of bonuses for buying now. I’ll let Andy tell you about them in the best CommentLuv Premium video he has ever done.

If you have any questions I’m happy to answer them in the comments of any of my posts or you can send me a regular tweet @GrowMap (if you DM let me know or I won’t see it).

Be sure to leave your links to be included
in my updated DoFollow CommentLuv Blog lists.

I’ll give bloggers some time to get CommentLuv Premium configured and then prioritize my lists into groups in this order:

1. CommentLuv blogs with dofollow keywords and CommentLuv links
2. CommentLuv blogs with dofollow keywords / nofollow CommentLuv
3. CommentLuv blogs w/ dofollow CommentLuv / nofollowed keywords
4. CommentLuv blogs w/ dofollow CommentLuv / no keywords
5. Nofollow CommentLuv blogs w/ nofollow keywords
6. Nofollow CommentLuv blogs w/o keywords
7. Non- CommentLuv blogs

As you can see that will take some major checking and continual updating as bloggers change their minds. This is how I decide where to spend my time – the more generous the blogger the more I promote what they’re doing on Twitter, StumbleUpon, Google+, Facebook, FriendFeed and now on JustRetweet, too.

The higher on the list a blogger is (and that is totally up to them)
the more likely they will be invited to specific projects that come
with benefits like our JustRetweet collaboration and our
Conversion Doubler landing page optimization program.

These are also the bloggers whose new posts I tweet,
that I recommend to other bloggers,
and who I link to in my posts here and elsewhere.

Don’t forget to let me know if you qualify!

Do you hate spammers? Many bloggers at least believe they do.  Hate only hurts the person who feels that emotion and does nothing to the object of your hatred.

Image Credit: RedWritingHood.ca ~ Click image to read My Hate Button is Broken

What I realize that many don’t is that there are different kinds of spammers. While there are some who know they are stealing our time and energy, probably the greater number of people bloggers refer to as spammers do NOT know they are doing this all wrong.

ANYONE that comments regularly IS going to
end up being flagged by Akismet as a spammer.

If we just delete them they won’t ever know WHY or how to get better. It makes more sense to EDUCATE new commenters than to slam the door in their face. If I deleted YOUR comments are YOU going to come back?

When shopping we expect the door to be open to the store, right? If a business keeps their door locked and grills you on WHY you want in or asks for your ID or references would you still want to buy from them – or even get inside?

I would not. Deleting comments willy-nilly is telling your new readers you don’t trust them and you don’t want to even give them a chance to interact with you! Most bloggers are so focused on being anti-spam that they’ve forgotten how to be human!

Put yourself in the commenter’s shoes.
(And you ARE in that place if you EVER comment in other blogs.)
How would you feel if I mistook you for a spammer and deleted
your comment that you spent your valuable time writing?

UNINTENTIONAL SPAMMERS:

• Some are new bloggers trying to find their way who don’t know how to write high value comments – yet.
• Many have fallen for spammy syndication and link building plugins and strategies being taught by the get-rich-quick crowd.
• Small business owners struggling in a declining economy and being hurt badly by Google updates and desperate to save their businesses and keep food on the table are being sold ineffective SEO linkbuilding through comment spam solutions. They usually are NOT aware of what these supposed “experts” are doing.

All these people are NOT your enemy.

They are humans just like you or me trying to figure out how to survive in a faltering economy in perpetual decline.

Just today someone Skyped to me complaining about comments appearing in this blog. I delete far more comments than I approve, but I do approve many comments others bloggers would delete because I know what they don’t know:

Many of these comments are left by people I already have relationships
on social media so I KNOW they are not drive-by link builders!

Some of them are bloggers just like us who have blogs they are trying to use to generate an income, who work for SEO companies, or who accept client work.

Many of our favorite bloggers write great comments that we don’t think are spam even though there are doing the things many bloggers THINK are behind spam!

Bloggers are so tired of spam
that they are spam-trigger-happy.

What IS Blog Comment Spam?

To compound the problem, while most bloggers BELIEVE they know what spam is their definitions are all over the place. Here are some actual answers I have personally received from spammers regarding what spam is from most obvious to most surprising:

REAL COMMENT SPAM:

1. Spambot generated comments  ~ These are blocked by our GrowMap anti-spambot Akismet Alternative plugin which reduced by 96% the number of comments I had to moderate on this blog.
2. Obvious spam because the comment has nothing in it specific to the post and is either an advertisement or a bunch of links.
3. Trackback spam that looks like a comment but is auto-generated (Blocked by Simple Trackback Validation Plugin.)
4. Phony Trackback spam that looks like a real trackback and is auto-generated, but either has no real link to you, or a link hidden in source code but not visible on the other blog OR has nofollow links in a mouseover section.
5. Copied comment spam.
6. Duplicate comments copied and pasted into posts manually.
7. Manually written comments that have nothing to do with the post where they’re left.

COMMENT LINKS MANY BLOGGERS PROHIBIT, EDIT, or DELETE:

This section discusses links often prohibited, edited or deleted by bloggers and my position on what I allow or do not allow.

1. Comments linking to sites in bad neighborhoods. For example, I do not permit links to ga mbli.ng sites including bi–ngo and cards or ad-u–lt content or to ph .ar a cueti  cals. (The reason these words are in this post in that manner is to reduce the likelihood that my having mentioned any of those topics will trigger alerts and flood my blog with “related” spam. I avoid using those words in posts, in in comment replies and on social networks especially Twitter where using any of those words will generate auto-tweets and get you followed by spammers.)
2. Linking to sales letters. Some prohibit links to ALL sales letters; others allow links to products and services they feel are ethical.
3. Comments linking to anything promoting unethical get rich quick methods, or selling Twitter followers or Facebook friends. Because these can be difficult to evaluate many bloggers prohibit all sales letters.
4. Links to a legitimate business ~ Even if they’re not in your niche they could be very interested and regular readers of your blog in any other niche. Everyone has multiple interests and most businesses ARE interested in social media, online marketing, and business blogging.
5. Comments linking to blogs in other niches – While I encourage bloggers to primarily comment within their own niche, I do NOT consider comments linking to blogs in other niches spam.

COMMENTS THAT ARE NOT REALLY SPAM:

1. Weak comments written by real readers who are sincerely trying to participate in your blog. These are virtually impossible to tell from weak comments left by spammers.
2. Comments that are difficult to understand because the reader’s native language is not English because writing in a secondary language is very difficult and machine translations are often of very poor quality. Do you really want to discriminate against anyone who doesn’t speak English as their first language by deleting all their attempts to communicate with you?
3. Comments left by someone who took the time to read your post and write a relevant comment.
   

There is NO WAY to know whether a commenter found
your blog because they were working on linkbuilding
or left a comment with a link because they are a
new or regular reader of your blog and
were interested in what you wrote.

There is NO WAY to know which came first:
the interest or the comment with link.

Every time you delete a comment you are slamming the door on an attempt to communicate. While we DO want to discourage spammers it makes more sense to teach others how we want them to comment than to delete them. What can they learn from THAT?

Many bloggers are making snap judgements about comments being spam that are NOT spam. I know this because I know most of my readers on Twitter BEFORE they ever comment – and most of their first comments are JUST LIKE the comments spammers leave!!

Many bloggers delete ALL comments that link to businesses.
WHY are you doing that?

Real people just like us own those businesses.

They are the solution we need to more jobs,
a better economy and a higher standard of living!

What many bloggers are doing is slamming the door in the faces of a huge percentage of their real readers. If you use Akismet and don’t moderate everything it puts into spam THEY are slamming that door for you.

If you use Akismet, use GASP to block 96% of the spam Akisment misses that is spambot generated so you can FIND the real comments in your spam folder.

Many of our regular readers are consistently flagged as spammers
by Akismet because SOME bloggers flag almost ALL
the comments they ever receive from ANYONE as spam.

THESE ARE NOT SPAM!

Here is what bloggers have personally told me they flag as spam:

1. “Comments that link to ANY business.”
2. “Any comment from someone I don’t already know”.
3. “Any comment I don’t like.”

THAT is why Akismet can never work well. Read in their own words how Akismet works. They mention that hiring people to comment is ” exploiting low-paid workers” but that is NOT true.

We all need to get clear on who is exploiting whom.

Hiring people in other countries because the difference in the value of their money and yours or the difference in the cost of living allows people to live well on less money does NOT equal exploitation.

All people anywhere deserve to be paid
a living wage to do ethical work.

The solution to the declining standard of living is to support small businesses because money we spend with them stays in circulation.

SPENDING MONEY WITH SMALL BUSINESSES:

• Is almost immediately reinvested in the economy locally and in the economies of their suppliers.
• Pays their employees wages they can actually live on.
• Is spent to buy products they sell us – and if they are wise they buy from other small businesses.
• Pays taxes that support services communities need.

WHY I DO NOT BUY FROM CORPORATIONS or BIG BRANDS

None of what I wrote about small businesses is true for multi-national corporations – the big brands most people support. This holiday season and throughout the year I implore you to really understand how changing where you spend your money can save YOUR standard of living.

Big Brands pay far less in taxes. Some pay none – all pay less than almost anyone reading this or any small business. They squeeze their employees and suppliers dry and keep squeezing. They intentionally endanger their employees lives to maximize their incomes.

The profit from the money you spend with them is taken out of circulation, paid out in obscene bonuses to the already wealthy, and hoarded in overseas tax shelters. THAT is the reality.

The “illusion” we’re sold to justify all manner of green and
corruption is that we should all be striving to get rich, too.

Those who buy into that illusion defend horrendous behaviors like the Enron VIDEO employees bragging about how they stole money from little old ladies by intentionally causing unnecessary blackouts to increase their stock earnings.

The defenders of our current economic system claim this was an anomoly. I disagree – that is business as usual for most publicly traded companies. As Dr. Jeff Schweitzer , a recognized ethics expert writes:

Wall Street is a casino rigged against investors
sold false hope by unscrupulous companies
sanctioned by government to deceive and bilk customers.

It is time for those who still believe in the illusion of “The American Dream” to finally wake up to the fact that is IS only an illusion. I compile my proof for that claim in my post about Why Small Business Can Not Afford to Ignore the Occupy Movement.

It us up to US to stop supporting unethical activities.

We can start by not promoting Amazon who chose to have ambulances stand by to cart away their employees who get heat stroke – a totally unethical “solution” when they should have FIXED THE CAUSE! (Here is the alternative to Amazon I am supporting – and there are many others.)

The solution to finding what you need online is blogging communities – collaborations of bloggers who recognize and work with the other quality people in their niche and location.

We need to teach each other to create geo-targeted blog collaborations
and/or group blogs that work together and welcome local and
related small businesses into their blogging communities.

I provide free mentoring to bloggers and small businesses and share best practices and tips for those who prefer the do-it-yourself method. (I encourage even them to contact me for greatest benefit.

BLOGGING RESOURCES:

• Blogging Ethics: Time to Choose
• WHY you should start including local content on your blog.
• Blogging Collaborations Best Practices
• Twitter for Business: How to Geo Target Twitter for Local Small Businesses

HOW TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESSES:

Use these to help your favorite local and online small businesses to STAY in business and to share with your customers so they can help YOUR business stay alive.

• How and Where to Write Business Reviews for Your Favorite Small Businesses
• Why sharing our favorite small businesses through word of mouth improves our standard of living
• CommentLuv Your Way to Business Prosperity

Click Image to read why we need Geographically Targeted Group Blogs

Small businesses and bloggers are missing enormous opportunities that can be easily accessed by creating geographically targeted Twitter accounts and blog content.

By adding a local component to your social media accounts and blog, or creating accounts specifically to reach a location based audience, your Twitter account becomes far more valuable – for you and others.

Any business that operates in a limited geographic area will want to implement these tips as will all bloggers – whether you think this applies to what you are doing or not. Read on to find out WHY your geolocation is your strongest niche.

Small businesses probably already realize that a Twitter account with followers scattered around the world is unlikely to increase their local leads or sales. They will understand why the people they most want to reach are their neighbors who could be interested in their products or services.

Small Businesses Need to Reach Local Audiences –
Bloggers Who Have Local Influence Are Invaluable
Because when you can reach a local market
It makes sense for businesses to buy advertising
on your blog or pay you for blog outreach services.

Bloggers frequently tell me they do not want to “limit” their audience to a specific location and I spend a lot of time explaining to them why adding geo-targeted information to their blog positions them where the money is and will get them more recommendations.

Blogs and Twitter accounts providing LOCAL information that
shares content specifically beneficial to people in your location
makes others want to share it with others
BECAUSE IT IS UNIQUE and provides value.

Adding a local component to your existing blogs or Twitter accounts OR creating a Twitter account or blog specifically for a particular geographic location is not difficult.

WHY GEO-TARGET YOUR TWEETS?

Are you a tiny fish lost in a HUGE ocean?

When you are a tiny fish
in an enormous ocean
of 1000s or 1os of 1000s
of Blogs in your niche –

WHY should anyone recommend you?

Be one of the Biggest fish in your LOCAL pond

Decide to become a HUGE fish in your Local Small Pond and provide content on your blog and on Twitter that is interesting and useful to that local audience you give them an excellent reason to share what you are doing with others.

Go out of your way to create content of local interest and connect with people interested in what is happening locally.

You become a more effective influencer
With a much more targeted audience.

HOW TO TWITTER LOCALLY:

1. Claim a Twitter username that includes your location. Consider common abbreviations and local nicknames. You must use a different email address for each Twitter account. You can get a free email address from mail.yahoo.com and many other sites.
2. Add an Avatar image related to your location and write a bio specifically about that city, metro, state or country.
3. Create a blog page about your new location and link to it from your Twitter account and make sure your Twitter username is easy to locate on that page and on your blog or site.
4. Follow Twitter users in your desired location (see tools below for how to find them).
5. Find interesting content about what’s happening, live events, local entertainment, or even the local news and weather and use Twitterfeed or something similar to feed useful information to your local followers.
6. Manually share additional tweets of interest locally.
7. Interact with others in your target location.

Join experienced bloggers with social media influence
on JustRetweet.com ~ Read about how we support other
bloggers and small business with Twitter retweets.

DoFollow CommentLuv Bloggers Add Your Blogs Here
to be considered by our special projects and private forum.

Small Businesses AND bloggers should also read
CommentLuv Your Way to Business Prosperity

HOW TO ADD A LOCAL COMPONENT TO YOUR EXISTING BLOG:

1. When writing about your usual niche add specific information useful to your local readers at the end. For example, if you’re a deals blogger add a few local deals at the end of your regular posts.
2. Write some posts specifically for your local readers. To continue with our deals example, if your blog has lots of deals content it won’t hurt to write a few posts about deals that are only available locally. Put those in a separate category.
3. Create categories for your geographic niche. When you include local info at the end of posts about your usual topics put those in the usual category AND the geo-targeted category. If a post is ONLY of interest locally, put it in the geo-targeted category only.
4. Use local businesses as examples in posts about your usual topics.
5. Write featured reviews, interviews, and human interest posts about topics of interest to your local audience. Your national or international readers are likely to consider these interesting for the same reason travel blogs are so popular. Those that don’t can skip over them because you’re putting them in a separate category.
6. Offer a separate RSS feed for you geo-targeted category so non-local readers can opt out if they wish. I will research and add a post on how to do this as soon as time allows.
7. Use these tips from professional copywriter Donna Anderson (@SheWritesALot) on writing compelling local content and read about or join our local blogging collaborations.

Join us at Just Retweet ~ Bloggers supporting bloggers and small business

TWITTER LOCAL

Although there is an account for the Twitter Geo Team @Geo and there were posts about Twitter Places there does not appear to be anything happening as far as an official Twitter Local offering except for prompts from the Tweet Location Feature

Ways tools can determine location:

1. Information in the Twitter profile.
2. Locations mentioned in tweets.
3. Profiles completed on third party sites.
4. By pulling data from additional sources.

All our Twitter related tips and strategies can be reached through
Our Twitter Best Practices post on How To Use Twitter Effectively.

TWITTER SEARCH TOOLS

Listed in order of usefulness at the time I tested them:

• Advanced Twitter Search ~ Type the location you are interested in into the Places /near this place field and select the number of miles around you want to search. Many of the results returned will be from Twitter users in that location. For large metro areas like Dallas Ft. Worth I use 50 miles. For small locations you may want to reduce that and if you are targeting an entire state you would select a city near the center of the state and select the number of miles it is from that city to the state boundary lines.
• FollowerWonk ~ Includes an option to search your followers by location. Use this when you create Twitter account(s) for specific locations so you can follow those you already have relationships with in an existing Twitter account.

ONLINE TWITTER GEO TOOLS:

1. WeFollow by City ~ Search for Twitter user by city; choose results ranked by most followers or most influential.
2. TwellowHood ~ Simple tool to use – just type in a location to find Twitter users who mention that location in their Twitter profiles. Results are ranked by number of Twitter followers by default. While you may find disabled accounts Twellow is a good way to locate blogs, businesses and individuals by niche, interests, or location.
3. TweetGrader ~ Twitter Elite by Top City – lists of the top 50 Twitter users for a given city, but although their blurb says the lists are ranked by number of followers that is clearly not true now. Exact criterion for ranking unknown. If you know how they are ranking, leave details and/or relevant links in the comments of this post and I will update this section.
4. Twitaholic – while not intended for the purpose, you can find someone in the location you are interested in on Twitaholic, click on the location link, and you will get the top Twitter users for that location ranked by the number of followers they have.
5. Twibs ~ Search Twibs for Twitter users by Geographic Location
6. ChirpCity ~Find out what Twitter users in a city are tweeting OR what tweeters around the world are saying about a location. Searches by keyword so all results will not be what you’re seeking.
7. Local Tweeps~ Looked like a good idea: Register a location for your Twitter account, then log into the site to follow other Twitter users in that location directly on the Local Tweeps site.  Unfortunately I was not able to get logged in and none of the four people listed on their about page has tweeted since at least Nov 15 or between Nov 15-Nov 22, 2011.
8. NearbyTweets ~ I was unable to get this tool to pick up my location because I recently tweeted about New York and clicking preferences in FireFox and Chrome did nothing. If there is a way to manually enter your location I haven’t found it yet. If you are able to get this to work for you, please leave a comment with details.

TWITTER LOCAL TOOLS:

• TwitterLocal.net – Adobe Air based tool that has to be downloaded to be used.

How to Find Local Twitter Users:

• Mashable: Local Tweets: 9 Ways to Find Twitter Users in Your Town (Jun 8, 2009)

MEET LOCAL TWITTER USERS:

• Tweetup Meetup Groups – Use this Tweetup link to search for Twitter Meetups around the world.
• Twtvite ~ Site to create Tweetup groups by location or plan local tweetups

LOCAL iPhone Twitter Apps:

• According to Mashable Local Tweets Post from Jun 8, 2009: “Four iPhone Twitter apps that include location-based search are Twinkle (free), TwitterFon (free), Tweetie ($2.99), and Twittelator Pro ($4.99). “

INACTIVE TWITTER APPS:

After I had come across so many Twitter apps that used to have local features that are no longer available I added this section so that I and others will not be looking for them.

• Tweetmondo

Do you have tips or additional resources
for geotargeting Twitter accounts?

We’d love to hear from you. Just leave a comment
or use our contact tab. Relevant links always welcome.

Click this image for many LISTS of Exceptional Bloggers with Twitter Usernames for Follow Friday

Friday is a popular day for link roundups and Follow Friday recommendations.

Both are excellent ideas for bloggers and social media users to emulate.

I highly recommend you
seek out other bloggers in your
niche and physical geography.

Reach out to them by linking to and
commenting in posts you appreciate.

Share and recommend them on Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Google+ and elsewhere.

Develop a group of bloggers who support each other’s efforts and recommend each other for Follow Friday on Twitter. Encourage them to use Twitter and share my Twitter Best Practices with them.

The ever popular Kristi Hines has long done what she calls Fetching Friday Link Roundups and I know that many blogs I regularly visit do similar roundups so I’m asking YOU to remind me where they all are!

Just today I discovered a new DoFollow CommentLuv Premium blog thanks to a REAL trackback including one of my guest posts in his TGIF Resource Mashup.

SmallBizTrends published a roundup yesterday of the Best Small Business Advice and many other top sites publish exceptional research that is well worth republishing.

Think about what people where you live or interested in your niche would most want to find and you can compile research that many are highly likely to link to, share and appreciate.

Here are some examples (and if you’ll add YOUR favorites – either on your own blog or anyone else’s site – I will move them up into this list):

• Library Blogs
• Gardening Blogs
• DoFollow KeywordLuv Blogs
• 100 Twitter Ready Quotes
• CommentLuv Premium Reviews
• Top Black Social Media Influencers and Black Social Media Influencers
• Google Plus FollowFriday: 50+ Bloggers Worth Following on Google+
  
• Example Follow Friday Roundup where the blogger used optimum anchor text for each blog she recommends.

Many blogging collaborations do unique types of roundups like these:

• Recipe Roundup
• Budget Recipe Roundup
• Organic and Natural Coupon Roundup
• Green Resources

If you regularly publish a link roundup series
please leave a link to a post about that OR
to your latest roundup so I can include
YOU in this post. Thanks!

Your relevant links are ALWAYS welcome in the comments here and do take advantage of KeywordLuv to link to your most important search phrases. That’s what we offer it!

WORDPRESS PLUGINS / BACKLINK TOOLS TO AVOID:

1. Digi Auto Links ~ http://www.digiautolinks.com/
2. AutoBackLinkCreator ~ http://automaticbacklinkcreator.com/
3. Backlynx ~ http://backlynx.net/ ~ syndicates your posts to blogs – mostly poor quality blogs 0n auto-pilot
4. Autobacklinkbomb.com
5. Freebacklinktool.com
6. Backlinker-professional.com
7. Autobacklinkbomb.com
8. Socialmonkee.com
9. SEO Link Monster

Anyone who can make a case for any of the above NOT being spam tools or
who have others to be added to the list are invited to comment in this post.

Click the image to read about Simple Trackback Validation plugin that DOES NOT defeat this new kind of trackback spam

Bloggers are now spamming other bloggers with phony trackbacks.

I suspect some don’t realize that is what something they installed does.

Others are just selfish and do not care that doing this will ruin our ability to meet bloggers with related blogs and quickly spread awareness of urgent issues.

Phony trackbacks appear in your dashboard
claiming to link to you - often from a related blog or using
relevant anchor text – but when you visit the site there may or
may not be a visible link to you.

If you view source on their page you will find your URL
along with many others in some code for some kind of script.

The reason generating phony trackbacks will kill trackbacks is that bloggers have already started either blocking ALL trackbacks or are so tired of checking them and finding they aren’t real that they just start deleting trackbacks from any blog they don’t already know.

There is another reason even worse than just not being able to meet other bloggers in our niches:

Trackbacks are the fastest way to notify
other bloggers of a serious issue – Kill trackbacks and you
take away that ability to reach out to many bloggers at once.

Here are a couple of examples of how I use trackbacks to do that:

1. Funding for libraries is being cut across the country. Libraries are important resources – especially for those who can not afford to buy reference materials and books. When I wrote about that issue and linked to all the library blogs I could locate, those that allow trackbacks were made aware of that new list of library blogs and some tips on how to promote their own library.
2. The oldest seed company in the United States -which is also one of the few companies selling heirloom, non-GMO seeds we have left – is being threatened with closure. When I wrote about saving Landreth Seed Co. I linked to all the gardening blogs I could locate to make them aware of the challenges facing Landreth and hopefully get them to encourage their readers to take action by buying catalogs or seeds. If you care about preserving seeds that can reproduce and be saved to plant the next year, please read that post: Gardening Bloggers Wanted to Help Save Historic Landreth Heirloom Non-GMO Seed Company for what you can do.

Trackbacks let us know when another blogger
links to any of our content.
WHY that is important and what I do:

I visit blogs when I receive trackbacks and if they have written useful content I comment in it and review it on StumbleUpon and share it on Facebook, FriendFeed and Twitter.

I can often send a small or new blog more traffic than they normally get in a day with one tweet. Because I consider it highly important to encourage other bloggers I still check every trackback even though I am being flooded with so many phony trackbacks that less than 10% are real.

Sometimes the blogger has written such a compelling post or has such a useful blog that I will write a post and link to them or review multiple posts or schedule many tweets for them over one day or many.

A few selfish people who want to build backlinks
by stealing them instead of earning them have
put the entire usefulness of trackbacks at risk.

This is highly unethical and will result in every blog generating phony trackbacks being blacklisted.

I have identified these sources of phony trackbacks:

• Digi Auto Links at http://www.digiautolinks.com/
• AutoBackLinkCreator at http://automaticbacklinkcreator.com

WHO is Andy Fletcher and HOW can we contact him?
(Creator of Digi Auto Links – most of his contact links are phony, too.)
If you know, please share that information in the comments
or contact me privately.

If you are on the list below, you are advocating blog trackback spam. IF you are ethical, you need to stop doing this, edit your recommendation post and publish a new post retracting your recommendation.

BLOGS RECOMMENDING TRACKBACK SPAM:

There are page after page of these so this list will grow as time allows.

1. WARRIOR FORUM – shame on you! You should know better. http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-forum-classified-ads/453755-sale-digi-auto-links-discount-bonuses-special-discount-bonuses-warriors.html
2. Adam Tezer http://digiarticleblasterreview.net/
3. Anwesh Rath http://anweshrath.com/
4. Baaltazar Shanton http://www.digiautolinksreview.com/
5. http://www.clickbankwarehouse.com/recommends/digiautolinks
6. http://www.kevintir.com/digi-auto-link/comment-page-1#comment-4350
7. http://in-review.net/internet-marketing/backlinks/digi-auto-links-plugin/comment-page-1/#comment-1289
8. http://jvbonusandreview.com/digi-auto-links-wp-plugin-is-here/comment-page-1/#comment-307
9. http://www.mola-hotel.com/2011/10/digi-auto-links-automation-all-it-is-advisable-to-know/#comment-794
10. http://www.coastalvalleyaviation.com/archives/3339
11. http://www.krights.net/2011/10/digi-auto-links-automation-all-you-must-know/
12. http://wp-seo.net/plugins/digi-auto-links.html
13. http://webtrafficproductsreview.com/backlinks/digi-auto-links-wso-special.html
14. http://nichesuccesspro.com promoting automaticbacklinkcreator.com

If the link has #comment at the end I left them a comment notifying them that Digi Auto Links generates phony trackback spam.

TRACKBACK SPAMMERS:

There are dozens to hundreds of these already. After I publish this post I will continually add to this list so that bloggers can add these sites to their blacklists.

TRACKBACK SPAMMERS NO URL

These blogs send trackbacks but the url of your blog is not visible on their site and can not be found by viewing the source code for their page. One easy way to recognize there is that all of the links in their content are usually on their own domain like this:

Example of trackback coming from http://johnfwagner.com/blog/2591/is-it-spam-or-marketing-on-twitter/ - Click image to see full size

I just identified another plugin that generates Trackback spam: Automatic Backlink Creator – and this one with no links at all on the originating site. All blogs using that plugin or generating phony trackbacks that have no links will be blacklisted and published here:

1. johnfwagner.com
2. ebook-review.org/2011/10/09/automatic-backlink-creator-review/ Review of that other plugin
3. secureyoursfree.com
4. thebestworkfromhomejobs.org
5. ebook-review.org
6. powercashonline.com – puts the title of posts on the page but no URL in source code or on the page

TRACKBACK SPAMMERS HIDDEN URL

These blogs hide your no-followed URL in the source code. (View source and search for your domain and you will see it there, but it will not be visible on the actual page on their site.)

1. localsearchresults.com.au/
2. lowcostdomainnameregistration.org
3. hostingwebhostingservices.com
4. thealexangroup-viralspiral.com
5. allanwilsonuk.com
6. jamesmillermarketing.info
7. walkingdeadseason2.a1-blogs.com
8. nichesuccesspro.com
9. kids-gardening.net
10. wedipit.com
11. 1stfinanceguide.com
12. profit-now-at-this.com
13. eftvideos.org
14. ws-blogs.com
15. secureyoursfree.com
16. michaelharringtonblog.com

Because this is unethical, your site will be blacklisted and any comments you leave here will be blocked or deleted.

If you stop generating phony trackbacks and
remove the unethical plugin you can request
to be removed from the blacklists.

My blacklist will be shared with any other blogger on request so that they, too, can block your phony trackback spam and comments.

ETHICAL BLOGGERS WHO REMOVE THESE PLUGINS:

New and even experienced bloggers may not realize what these plugins are doing. When they find out and contact any of us I add them to this list of ethical bloggers and ask that others welcome them warmly and assist them in any way we can.

There is no shame in following bad advice before you know it is bad advice – only in staying on an unethical path once you know what that is IS unethical. There are tons of very slick sales pitches that sound so good that anyone can fall for them – ANYONE!

Bloggers must decide whether they want to create a site
that tries to make money by auto-generating content
that provides almost no value in an attempt to
generate money from AdSense or get rich quick
plugins, ebooks, and memberships sites

OR

They want to have a high quality, ethical blog
with unique content that creates relationships with other
bloggers, readers and potential clients, customers or buyers.

UNSUSPECTING BLOGGERS REMOVED from BLACKLIST:

Bloggers who have been added here get links and suggestions. They often have fallen for the snake oil sales pitches that claim anyone can get rich quick online by auto-generating spammy posts or by scraping content from other blogs.

• freedrinx.com – Phoenix online marketing ~ Frank Schwarz @freedrinx

I hope they will read this section because none of those things work any more.

There IS NO ETHICAL WAY to
GET RICH QUICK online or offline –

And even the UNETHICAL ways rarely work!

They USED TO work but the search engine algorithms have been tightened up so that those types of sites sometimes generate AdSense or affiliate income but they quickly get eliminated from organic listings and get blacklisted for comment spam.

Because those methods no longer generate the income they used to generate, unethical affiliate marketers and spammers are focusing even more attention on selling worthless ebooks, unethical plugins, and memberships in sites that teach black hat methods that can get you banned for life.

You CAN make money IF you do it wisely. Start by adding local content to your blog and creating quality content that will provide a reason for local small businesses to hire you to do their Local Directory Listings, Blog Outreach and advertise with you.

Create a hire me page with information similar to what I have on my hire GrowMap tab for Small Business Marketing – read Why Your Blog Should Have a Hire Me Page and Setting Up Your For Hire Page Dos and Don’ts.

Or create an offering like my Small Business Internet Marketing Starter Package. I provide free mentoring, assistance and training in anything on those pages.

WOW! Are we in for a treat. When I saw that Chris at The Traffic Blogger had written in a guest post on Problogger about how to sell a Web site that he had sold a site for $50,000 that was making a consistent $4,000 a month, I asked him to share with us how he did it. This guest post is his reply.

Recently, I announced on problogger that I had successfully sold my first website for $50,000.

One of the first questions asked of me was from Gail of GrowMap, (paraphrasing):

“I would love you to share with my readers (AND ME!) how your site was earning a consistent $4,000 and was worth $50,000?”

Thank you Gail for the great question. Now that I’m finished transitioning control of the site, I finally have time to respond with more than the following two words:

SALES FUNNEL

So what is this mystical “sales funnel” that we hear so much about? What are these “lists” that people claim are the secret to  making money online? Contrary to popular belief, understanding and implementing these concepts is not difficult. The real challenge is applying them in such a way that you both maintain and grow your audience.

To understand a sales funnel,
you need to look at its simplest form:
a referral.

When two good friends get together and one friend notices the other has something they want, then there is an opportunity for a referral. “You can get this video game at Gamestop for $59. I bought it yesterday and it’s a blast. Go get it so that we can play co-op together over x-box live.”

The process of a friend referring another is the simplest form of a sales funnel. Like most things in life, the simplest method is the best and most effective method.

REFERRALS

So why was this friend able to make the referral in the first place? There were three things present that made the referral possible: trust, need, and social proof.

Three Requirements for Referrals:
Trust, Need and Social Proof.

From a series of life experiences, the two friends trusted each other deeply.

Referring someone without first establishing trust
is like trying to get politicians from opposing political
parties to fix our economic recession –
virtually impossible.

In the case of our example, a single recommendation was enough to convince one of the friends to go buy the game without even reading its description. Now that’s trust!

Every aspect of your business should be focused on
building trust and convincing others that you are a
genuinely honest, respectable person.

BE TRUSTWORTHY

Never miss an opportunity in private or public conversation to show that you are trustworthy to a fault. The act of following up on promises and making yourself available for others is a lifelong habbit that we could all use more practice at consistently applying. These traits also make you likeable, trustworthy, and attractive to others.

THERE MUST BE A NEED

The need of the one friend to have fun playing a video game was present before the referral was even made. All it took was a little encouragement from one trusted source and the purchase was complete.

If your referral targets a non-need then the odds of completing the sale are close to zero. Let’s say the referral was for hockey skates and the target of this referral had no intention of ever playing hockey. That’s a pretty long shot for any purchase to be made and the referring party would surely get some strange looks from the potential buyer.

SOCIAL PROOF

Part of your job as the developer of sales funnels is to attract the right people to the right referrals.

Social proof is the most vital aspect of your business.
Without it, you’re basically hoping that your audience trusts
you enough to rely soley on your word to make a purchase.

Even though our friend in the example purchased the game without even reading the cover, he had already seen commercials advertising how great the game was as well as heard about thousands of people who had already purchased it.

[Note from Gail @GrowMap: And THIS is why we must support small businesses that can't afford high dollar advertising.]

The best way to provide social proof is to
publicly record and spread statistics about
your referred products in each sales funnel.

EMPHASIZE VALUE

Whenever I refer a product in my own funnels, I try my best to lead up to it with lots of numbers that prove the value of whatever it is I’m selling. A combination of these numbers and my own personal success with a product are usually a surefire way to sell anything.

How you go about accomplishing trust, need, and social proof are up to you, but I’ll now explain how I managed to establish them in order to sell my website for $50,000.

BUILDING a List of TRUSTING LEADS

Lists are essential to having a real online business. Without a list of past and potential customers (usually you track their email and preferred username), you’re basically starting over with each referral you create.

Through powerful online tools you can
automate your list building and sales funnel.

For my own site, I both used and recommend Aweber for developing both a list and sales funnel in a singular tool. I’ll now go through the steps I took, in general terms, to capture leads, establish trust, display social proof, and make the referrals again and again.

USE AN AUTORESPONDER SERIES

Using Aweber’s inline and outline forms, I was able to introduce potential customers to my sales funnel. These forms enticed subscribers with the right needs by offering a free, seven day email series that focused on providing solutions to these needs.

By offering a series of emails instead
of a single, downloadable report I was able to
ensure that most subscribers remained
members for at least seven days.

This method is the best way I’ve found to keep people on your list longer, because it eliminates the common practice of signing up, downloading the freebie, and then unsubscribing from the list which a lot of people do now-a-days.

The seven day series helped me to establish trust
and credibility with the new member of my sales funnel.

Aweber’s follow up series (what I use to present the seven emails and many more automatically to new followers), gave me a method for making sure that every member of my sales funnel went through the same emails.

Through reporting tools I was able to refine the sales funnel and improve upon the emails based on when people clicked on my suggested links or even unsubscribed from the autoresponder.

PERSONAL CONNECTION BEYOND AUTOMATION

Besides the seven day series, I also asked after a few days how the subscriber was doing, what questions they had, and if they had any suggestions or requests.

This single followup email has provided me with
an endless supply of ideas for writing, improving,
and interacting with my audience.

It also helped to establish a connection with
each member, even if they didn’t respond.

You see, even though my autoresponder was automatic, when a list member did decide to email me I was able to have a personal conversation with them that went beyond the automation.

Due to this effort on my part, I created a very personal and real experience for the subscriber: in their mind every automated email was a one on one conversation.

This, combined with valuable content, created an excellent level of trust between myself and the list member.

MAKING THE SALE

When it came time to refer a product, I simply released an email to my list that showcased social proof and many purchased within an hour of reading it.

This social proof contained numbers; both from myself and others who had used the product. More often than not, this was enough to make a large majority of my sales.

A responsive, trustworthy list combined with
a tried and true sales funnel was one of the primary
reasons that I could sell my site for $50,000.

SALES FUNNEL PROCESS:

This sales funnel could be broken down into the following steps:

1. Attract leads with free offers.
2. Collect leads with Aweber sign up forms.
3. Provide content, develop trust, and ask for feedback with followup series.
4. Display social proof.
5. Make the referral.

One final word on selling your website: your affiliates have the greatest potential to buy your site and that’s exactly who purchased mine.

They are already making sales with your products and know firsthand how effective your sales funnel is if you have ever sold their products in the past.

Make connections and network like crazy,
regardless of your niche.

Good luck! If you want to see a full report on how I sold my website, please download it here (I do not require you to sign up for this, I’m giving it away for completely free!).

Giveaway Deadline Wednesday Nov 9, 2011
16:00 PST / 17:00 MST / 18:00 CST / 19:00 EST

Click THIS image to ENTER THE GIVEAWAY IMPORTANT: Follow DIRECTIONS in this POST

It is no secret that I am one of the biggest CommentLuv enthusiasts ever.

(More on WHY in a minute.)

GrowMap.com was in on Andy Bailey’s “beater test” (inside joke – what beta test sounds like on the videos in Andy’s UK accent).

We would love for all our blogging friends to have CommentLuv Premium!

This is the unlimited version developer’s license so you can use it on all of your blogs (current and future) and your client’s blogs, too.

I can’t make that happen, but just today Andy agreed to let me give away ONE CommentLuv Premium Developer’s License.

Giveaway Deadline Wednesday Nov 9, 2011
16:00 PST / 17:00 MST / 18:00 CST / 19:00 EST

How to Enter This CommentLuv Premium Giveaway:

1. Simply copy and paste the following paragraph in your next post:

There is a valuable giveaway going on at GrowMap, where Gail shares how to grow business sites and blogs. You can win your own copy of the hottest plugin release of the year – CommentLuv Premium.

Entering is VERY easy: just visit Gail’s CommentLuv Premium giveaway page for more information.

2. Leave the link to your post in the comments below (in THIS post) along with why you want to win.

3. Share this post on whichever social networks you favor such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or one of my favorites, reviews on StumbleUpon or on voting sites like BlogEngage – wherever you feel it fits.

You help me spread the news about the plugin
and I’ll promote YOUR post and send you traffic! *

*As long as your site doesn’t contain adult content or images or encourage vices or anything illegal or immoral.

IMPORTANT: Do YOU and ME a big favor by entering
your email address on Andy’s CommentLuv Premium list.

That way if you don’t win you will be able to get your hands on
CommentLuv Premium the minute the official launch starts.

BONUS: get a free course by five top writers on
how to get more comments in your own blog and
write better comments so you can attract more traffic.

WHO WINS?

Andy suggested that we choose randomly. I have never been a fan of games of chance, so IF ANDY DOESN’T OBJECT* what I want to do is ask other bloggers who collaborate with me to join me in choosing the blogger who shares the best reason for wanting CommentLuv Premium.

*If there is some reason Andy really wants the giveaways to be a random drawing you WILL be entered to win and a winner will be chosen at random. This post will be updated to let everyone know.

You can write it in a post (so your blog gets valuable backlinks) OR you can simply leave it in the comments below.

I’ll ask around among my collaborators and see who is willing to vote on who writes the best “why I want to win a CommentLuv Premium Developer’s License Plugin” or “How I Think CommentLuv Premium Will Benefit My Blog or Business”.

Before the judging begins I will edit this post with the names of some of my favorite bloggers who have agreed to vote on YOUR entries.

Writing a blog post on your blog about it will benefit you the most because we’ll share your post and send you new visitors who – if they like your blog – will become regular readers and commenters.

Do be sure to share the link to your post in the comments with a short description of what you wrote about why you want to win.

Your friends and supporters and my readers are encouraged
to click the reply button and comment in the reasons you like best.
We’ll take your input into consideration when choosing the winner.

I promised to share WHY I feel CommentLuv is so very important. I’ve written so much about it I’ll simply share these links:

• CommentLuv Your Way to Business Prosperity – How bloggers can choose to improve the economy by being small business friendly. Includes the best graph I’ve seen on why supporting the Buy Local movement keeps money recirculating which creates jobs and a stronger local economy.
• Highlights: The Benefits of CommentLuv Premium.
• DoFollow CommentLuv Lists Being Updated – This post contains 28 CommentLuv Premium Reviews written by leading bloggers who recommend upgrading.
• How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs – Contains tips for bloggers and businesses on how to benefit from using CommentLuv.
• KeywordLuv: How Using It Benefits Us All – Explanation of the free KeywordLuv plugin – the Keywords function in CommentLuv Premium works the same way. Also contains my list of DoFollow CommentLuv Keyword enabled blogs – add yours if you qualify as all my lists will be updated to reflect nofollow versus dofollow.

CommentLuv Premium gives bloggers full control over which fields they make dofollow or nofollow and my lists will be updated and prioritized in this order:

1. Dofollow the CommentLuv and Keywords fields
2. Dofollow the Keywords field but not the CommentLuv field.
3. Do follow the CommentLuv field but not the KeywordLuv field.
4. There is NO REASON to Do follow the Twitter field (although that is an option for some reason). Leave it NoFollow.

I can’t wait to see which Ethical Bloggers get added to my lists and join our close-knit CommentLuv Community that supports each other’s efforts!

NEW: If you REALLY want CommentLuv Premium,
take Andy’s short survey and enter all the other
CommentLuv Premium Giveaways

DEADLINE for MY CommentLuv Giveaway:
Wednesday Nov 9, 2011
16:00 PST / 17:00 MST / 18:00 CST / 19:00 EST

This is a guest post from @IvanWalsh, a blogger and online marketer with over twenty years of IT experience who has been online since 1992 which is as early as you could BE online. He has skills in all the Internet Marketing Strategies you need to take your business or blog to the next level.

Click Image to Read How to Get Your Prospects to Hire You

Do you rarely get asked to provide consultancy services?

If so, you need to examine your For Hire page. Look at your For Hire page and ask yourself:

• What do others think of this page?
• What do I want them to do next?

How can I improve my For Hire page so that passive browsers become active customers?

Why Set Up a For Hire Page?

Why do you need a For Hire page? Because it is one of the top three ways to earn an income from your skills and talents.

There are three ways to make money online:

1. Products
2. Services
3. Advertising

If you want to provide services, such as writing designing and
marketing, you need to create a sales page for your services.

So, let’s look at how to set up a For Hire or Services Offered page and attract more clients.

Before we start. What goes into the For Hire page?

What prospective customers want:

You need to break it out into five sections:

• Who you are – keep this brief, use a real name (or even a pen name) and include a photo. People like to see who they’re dealing with.
• What you offer - list three to five services you provide. Don’t write a laundry list. Keep it focussed.
• Customers – list customers you’ve worked with. If you’re new to this area, discuss who you’ve worked for in the past. If you’re totally new, highlight the sites you’ve guest posted for. It all helps.
• Credentials – highlight qualifications, endorsements and other types of social proof that position you as an ‘authority’. More on authority later.
• Contact – provide multiple ways for prospective clients to contact you. I added my telephone number recently and was surprised (read: amazed) that people started to phone instead of emailing.

These are the five areas to concentrate on. If you look at
blog superstars, you’ll notice that… they DON’T do this.

Why? Because they’ve already established their authority, you know what they offer and you probably already follow them. And they’re after corporate clients. Maybe you’re not.

With that in mind, develop your For Hire page for the ‘specific’ customer profile you’re trying to attract. This is very important. Let’s look at this for a moment.

Create your For Hire page so that it matches your prospective customer’s deepest:

• Pain points
• Urgent needs

People come to your site because they have a problem.
How do you solve it?

TELL THEM!

They need to fix it now – how will you help them do this?

Design your For Hire page along these lines and you’ll get more inquiries.

How to Set Up a For Hire page

The next step is to create your services page. This will take a few drafts until you get it right, so take your time.

Don’t overwhelm readers with text. Write the page to be scanned. Use lots of H2 headings and bullet lists.

• Summary – identify what you offer in twenty words. Be ultra specific. Remove waffle. Keep it tight.
• Bio – provide a short pen portrait of who you are and link to your About Us page; include a warm, friendly photo.
• Services – bullet points for the five services you offer. Link each service to its own dedicated services pages. This gives readers the in-depth information they’re after while keeping your primary (For Hire) services page focused.
• Social Proof - this means that the reader can see who you’ve worked with, what qualifications you have (degrees, published papers, awards), who recommends you, what sites you’ve written for and anything else that reduces their anxiety, doubts, or concerns.

Your goal here is to reassure that reader that you’re a real person,
that others trust you (your testimonials or recommendations)
and that you’re an authority in your field.

Another way of looking at this?

The Purpose of your For Hire Page:

1. Establish yourself as a definitive authority (one reason to write a book as it gives your status almost immediately)
2. Show who else believes this (endorsements, guest posts etc)
3. How you provide value for money

SEO Considerations:

While we write for humans first, we also need to consider search engines.

• Page Title - Write a short focused keyword rich title.
• Page Description – As this will appear in the search engine results, write it as a question. For example, ‘Google Analytics?  Ever wonder what they really mean? Contact us today to… ’ This will get you more visits as it addresses the reader’s pain/needs.
• Linking - Add links to this page from blog posts. I know this sounds obvious but most bloggers forget to link to their For Hire page. Don’t over do it, but do add links where it makes sense.

6 Mistakes to avoid:

I think you get the idea of what we need to cover. So, what happens if you’re not getting leads?

1. Authority - have you demonstrated that you’re an expert? If not, why would someone hire you, right? How can you do this? Create very long detailed tutorials that establish you as the definitive authority on this topic. Create a suite of articles (5-7) and interlink them. Pretty soon these will become the most trafficked pages on your site. Then link from here to your For Hire page.
2. Credentials – how do I trust you? Ask your colleagues, friends and others for recommendations. If you’re new to blogging, look for ways to generate goodwill (e.g. ghost write a set of posts, design graphics, setup Facebook pages for non-profits, etc). People will return the favor in time.
3. Examples – link to your best work; add logos/badges of sites you’ve written for. If you don’t have any clients, then provide cheat sheets, FAQs, and presentations that demonstrate your expertise.
4. Social Proof – If you have 300 followers on Twitter, it’s unlikely that others will see you as an expert. I know you can ‘buy’ followers, but try to avoid this. Instead spend 30 min every day building up your network and engaging with others. The fastest way to generate goodwill is to put others first (i.e. big up your friends) and ask for help later on.
5. Contact – It’s shocking the number of bloggers that don’t include their address on their blog. I don’t mean street address but even a PO Box or telephone number. What’s the worse thing that can happen if you put your telephone number online? Now think of the best
6. Drive Traffic – Find ways to drive traffic to these pages. Besides using onsite links, look for ways to create back links from other sites and social media networks. One trick is to ask others to ‘critique’ your For Hire page. You’d be surprised the number of comments you get if you do it right.

Conclusion

Let’s wrap up. One a scale of one to ten, how important is your For Hire page? It should be nine or ten, right?

Set aside an hour this week and review your page… through the eyes of a prospective customer. Look at other sites in your niche and see what works best. Don’t be shy about asking for help. Reach out to trusted friends and ask for their opinion.

Remember, this is the one page on your site that has to convert.

Over to you.

What’s the most important thing to put on the For Hire page? What mistakes do you see others making?

NOTE from GAIL @GrowMap: Working with someone with experience – someone who actually MAKES MONEY ALREADY and has a vast business background – are the most important attributes needed for success.

When you’re in the market for a social media marketing consultant or mentor, put Ivan on your short list.

If you enjoyed this post consider following Ivan on Twitter @IvanWalsh, on Facebook and on LinkedIn. See his contact page for direct links.

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR FREELANCE INCOME:

• Why Your Blog Should Have a Hire Me Tab
• Getting Paid to Write – It’s More Than Just Writing
• Freelancers: How to Get More Freelance Work
• Paid Guest Blogging Opportunities
• 3 Keys to Getting Your Prospects to Hire You
• 4 Ways To Manage The Overwhelm as a New Freelance Writer
• How @YoungPrePro 17 year old Blogger Made over $5000 Last Month

I have been recommending collaborations of bloggers for several years now and many bloggers are working together informally. Now would be a great time to get serious about putting together niche blogging collaborations.

I am developing a blogging collaboration process
because not all bloggers know how they can benefit each other.

Five couponing bloggers have volunteered to be the test collaborators and have their benchmark data and results published here at GrowMap and probably elsewhere. Here is what they have been doing so far:

BLOGGING COLLABORATIONS PROCESS:

1. Kelli of 3boysandadog is Team Leader and selected the other four bloggers in her niche.
2. Each blogger benchmarked their current stats (more details on that below in the benchmarking section).
3. Explained what anchor text and keyword phrases are so that each blogger could choose the first three phrases they want to work on.
4. Use the tips in this post on how to use keywords in blog posts to develop a landing page for each of the keyword phrases selected.

BLOGGING BENCHMARKS:

Benchmarking is simply the process of recording where you are now so you can determine where you are making progress. Here are the metrics we chose to measure:

1. Unique Visitors
2. Page Views
3. Traffic Sources: Referral (other sites referring visitors)
4. Traffic Sources: Direct
5. Traffic Sources: Search (search engines)
6. Alexa Rank
7. Compete Traffic
8. AdSense Income
9. Inbound Links
10. RSS Subscribers

SOCIAL MEDIA BENCHMARKS:

1. Google Friend Connect (Quantity of friends / 3 of 5 use Google Connect – 2 do not)
2. Twitter Followers
3. Facebook Friends
4. StumbleUpon Friends
5. PeerIndex Rank
6. Klout Score

It is so disappointing that we can not get PostRank Analytics numbers as they would be some of the most revealing. Unfortunately, Google bought PostRank and that data which was public is now gone and only a blogger who has an existing login can see their PostRank analytics data now.

Kelli set up a Yahoo! Group with databases in it to collect these numbers for the bloggers in the collaboration.  I will discuss with them what data they are willing to share and publish at least the increases between now and result checkpoints. If they don’t mind I may share raw data as well but I will give them the choice to share or not share what is not publicly available information.

BLOGGING COLLABORATION BENEFITS:

• One-on-one assistance to understand proper use of anchor text.
• Six minds to research and select the best keyword phrases.
• Having the other bloggers offer feedback to improve key landing pages.

Each of the bloggers has already increased the number of incoming links they have from my linking to them using their best new keyword phrases and Rene at Budget Saving Mom announcing her involvement in the Couponers Case Study.

Is the effort worth it? Here’s what Renee wrote about our collaboration so far (and we’re just getting started):

I have tried to learn more about blogging and technical computer stuff over the past several years that I have been blogging, but honestly with organic gardening, homeschooling, and a family there has not been a lot of time.  I have learned a few things, but not nearly as much I would love to know.

Enter this group. I can not believe how much I have learned just in the past couple of weeks. Gail has been wonderful teaching us about how to grow our sites.

However, on top of that, I have had four other frugal bloggers that I have been able to talk to each day. We have all been able to help each other learn so much. It has turned into a wonderful support group that we can bounce ideas off of as well as learn from. We have talked every day (multiple times), and I have loved it!!

I absolutely love blogging, and my biggest frustration in the past has been lack of knowledge and technical know how, so it is wonderful to have this resource, and I am sure that my blog will benefit from it over time.

There have already been some unexpected benefits from the collaboration. Any time five people with similar interests start interacting regularly that is bound to happen.

Among the good ‘unintended consequences’ are:

• Brainstorming keyword phrase ideas.
• Helping each other install coupon databases.
• Discussing plugins resulting in installing CommentLuv in at least one of the blogs that did not already have it.

There will be many more posts detailing what we are working on and documenting the results. I encourage other bloggers to apply whatever they can and ask questions as they come up.

Any blogger willing to put together a five blog group for their own niche (topic or geographic location) is invited to contact me about free mentoring. I can even assist you to find bloggers in your niche.

If you need one-on-one assistance Skype is the best way to reach me. (I’m the only GrowMap there.) Leaving a comment here is the second best way and sending a Tweet to @GrowMap works well. (I don’t stay on top of DMs in a timely manner because there are so many auto-DMs.) You can also use the information on the contact tab but do let me know if you send an email so I make sure to look for it.