Guest Blogging eBook

Guest Blogging has many benefits including guest posting for networking and exposure to guest blogging for greater reach to  geo-targeted blog outreach.

When you want to guest post, it is critical to include a few simple things in your guest posting requests.

Guest Blogging Requests

What to Include:

1. Two or three examples of posts you’re written – ideally on topics related to the one you’re pitching – any writing if you don’t have some specific to that niche.
2. A few title or suggested topics for your guest post.
3. Any sites you wish to link to in your post or author box. I do not mean every link you might use. I mean your blog, specific site or social network where the blog owner can quickly see what you’re about plus any business site or blog you are creating content for or promoting.
4. Your Twitter username and links to the social network you use most.

Guest Blogging Tips:

You can increase your chances of getting a yes by doing the above and:

• Reading the guest posting guidelines for that site. Some have them in a separate tab (tabs are located under the header where the name of the blog appears) and others put that information on their about or contact tabs. Mine is under Guest Posts on my Contact Page.
• Being familiar with the blog’s content. At least skim the recent posts or categories. Even better, read and comment in a few posts so the blogger already knows who you are BEFORE you pitch your guest post ideas.

YES! Guest posts are accepted on GrowMap
See guidelines under Guest Posts on my Contact Tab

Guest Posting Submissions

There is great variance in how you submit guest posts so be sure you read the blogger’s guidelines. Some common methods of submission include:

1. Granting you contributor access so you can enter the post yourself. Be aware that once you submit it in most cases you CAN NOT make corrections so be sure to proof it BEFORE you submit.
2. Giving you author access so you can create your post, control formatting, add images (on some blogs – on others you can’t and would have to submit them some other way – see the individual blog for how), and links with mouseover text (if allowed) and edit your post yourself. This is my preferred method here.
3. Writing your post into a proprietary system. This are often challenging to work with and a major reason why even though I have been approved to write for a site they are far less likely to get a guest post from me. Social Media Today’s system is a good example of one that is not intuitive, time-consuming to navigate, and could easily lead to poor quality results. I would love to write for that site, but that system is a major roadblock. If you are going to require guest bloggers to use your system, make it as close to WordPress as possible and provide excellent help and FAQs. I have too many questions about how the system @SocialMedia2day works to be comfortable using it – and am too busy to want to invest time in sorting it out – at least for now.
4. Emailing your post. The blog needs to specify what format they want the post in and how to handle links and images. Some want you to send them as attachments while other blogs forbid attachments which makes including images problematic. When a guest poster does not know WordPress I ask that they send me their post in .html version and also in .txt and/or .doc (Word) because pasting them into WordPress often creates formatting issues that can be very time-consuming to resolve.

Share Your Guest Posts

You will want to create a page for your guest posts. I still need to do that myself. An example of someone who does this very well is Kristi Hines @Kikolani. She writes so many guest posts that she now has them in guest blogging categories on her archive page.

My Guest Posts

My readers may be interested in seeing some of my guest posts, where they’ve been published, and an excerpt:

Liz Strauss Successful Blog (Feb 6, 2012)
Does Your Business Style Connect or Make People Cringe?

You may be wondering about the image to the left. That is a Ten Penny nail next to four pennies. I share it here to illustrate how big one is – and that is central to the story I share in my post on Liz’ blog.

Image Credit Santa Cruz Construction Guild

“There is something more serious you must be aware of as well and that is what kind of image you are presenting to the world. Specifically, what you consider acceptable regarding profanity, off-color humor, suggestive images, etc. may be anything but appropriate to your potential customers.”

Most people over fifty will know exactly what I mean, but those who are significantly younger may not realize that what is normal to them – whether that is dropping the f-word, cursing God, piercings or tattoos or pink or green hair – may cause many to not take them seriously.”

Social Media Today (Aug 14, 2011)
Social Media: Why You Must Specialize

If you want to be recommended – by me or anyone – you have to give us a reason. A reason to single you out. A reason why you are just the person for a particular business to contact. What marketers and Web designers have always recommended:

YOUR USP – Your Unique Selling Proposition.
Why You Must Differentiate or Die!

That applies to every small business, every blogger and every consultant. Make a name for yourself in something SPECIFIC – not just social media, or blogging, or whatever your business does.

You must answer this one question:
Why should I recommend YOU over everyone else?

PerformInsider: Quick Ways to Get Bloggers to Notice You (Aug 10, 2011)

“You have a new blog – or maybe you just want to grow your existing blog. One of the fastest ways to get more visibility is to connect with established bloggers in niches related to yours. There are three fast ways to make that happen: linking to their blogs, effectively using social media, and blog commenting.”

Adotas The Google Guillotine (Jan 28, 2011)

Google Guillotine"

“Big G intentionally created these problems with their MFA (made for AdSense) offering that I explained in my post about Google Killing the AdWords Golden Goose and their official Google AdSense© for Domains offering that pays big bucks to people who have littered the Internet with parked domains full of canned ads.

These tactics are what PPC (pay-per-click — i.e. AdWords and similar ads) experts call distribution fraud because advertisers can not opt out of them and a page full of canned searches is not a search and will not convert like a search…

Another “groan-inducing defense” that is getting old is the company that creates the problem claiming they are “fighting” the problem. Oh please.

Big G is trying to “clean up” the Internet to favor big brands and that has very serious implications for small local and e-commerce businesses and bloggers alike. I commented in this post on SEOBook by Aaron Wall regarding the now-famous Internet Cesspool quote on what I believe their CEO meant.”

Adotas: Email + Social Media: The Horse Goes in Front (Aug 18, 2010)

If you have a business, blog or existing mailing list I hope you’re paying attention to the speed with which the time spent Social Networking is increasing. Adotas quoted Nielsen stats earlier this month showing Social Networking accounts for almost 25% of all time Americans spend online.

That time online means opportunities for the wise, but investing your time or money in advertising or Social Media to attract visitors to your site before having a strong system in place to enable you to capture those new visitors for your mailing list is a waste of your money.

The best way to assure a positive ROI from all of your online marketing methods is to first capture and then effectively market to your in-house, highly targeted mailing list.

Your first priority is to select the best list management and email newsletter software for your business. Because changing solutions can cause you to lose subscribers and learning to use any new tool takes time, you must choose wisely.

The number one criterion when deciding is deliverability rate. If what you send to your list does not get through because of spam filtering where is the benefit to you?

There are three clear leaders among email marketing companies:”… CLICK >>> to READ MORE

QUESTION: Does anyone have an autoresponder set up to send those interested in guest blogging their guest blogging guidelines and submission instructions? That would be very useful.

If you do, please tell us about it in the comments and I will include your tips and a link with your desired anchor text to your chosen landing page in this post.

Guest Blogging Invitation ~ Hiring Writers? Ask Me!
I am interested in being a regular contributor on select blogs

This is a guest post by Manuel Marino where he shares how he has combined using LinkedIn for connections with blogging to build a community of artists helping artists.

Is it possible to merge an artist’s talent with social networking, adding some blogging spice for a perfect mix?

My name is Manuel Marino and I’m a music composer and producer, but I consider myself an all around artist, blessed with many talents, from music to painting, graphics and design.

I have many websites, most important are my weblog about music and arts ManuelMarino.com and my studio homepage MarinoSounds.com.

Why YOU Should Use LinkedIn

From my profiles, the best one is the LinkedIn profile where I have more than 27,000 direct contacts. Is it important?

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network
with over 120 million members and growing rapidly.

LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.

For a music professional, this means Heaven.

85% of my projects come from LinkedIn contacts.

I’ve been able to meet online impressive guys like Vince Desi (I consider him a friend) and many other powerful individuals from the video games, music and entertainment worlds.

I use many LinkedIn tools to contact artists all over the world and collaborate with them on music and multimedia projects. You can really feel like a world citizen this way!

IMPORTANCE OF BLOGGING

What about Blogging? Is it more or less important than networking?

If networking is the pillar of the Internet world, blogging
is the way to communicate your ideas inside the networks.

What inspired me initially was the idea to freely surf and read everything about anything. This always fascinated me. I think this is why people love to have many blog feeds to read daily. Next to this idea is the one to freely write interesting articles for the Internet community. Both give a kind of freedom that I never felt before.

This freedom is the foundation of my blog. ManuelMarino.com is about music, arts, philosophy, poetry, independent artists, humanities and freedom. I invite experts and sincere professionals and artists to write articles. I believe very much in freedom, honesty, sincerity and I’m able to feel these when I meet people. There are many good people in the world, but sometimes we are too obsessed by everyday life to understand and find this.

When I write my blog posts – usually my ideas about news, culture and art – sometimes my intuition is what’s behind the post. We need more intuition, people tend to forget the importance of it and uses too much their left brain. (Want to see the right brain in action? Just check my sketch lady, and my 3d works beauty and vampire night).

After you find the right idea, it’s the word of mouth that can make it a success on the Net! Backlinks are even more important, but the two are very related. I’m talking about the natural backlinks from fans and readers and word of mouth can only maximize the effect even more. That’s an awesome connection toward success!

What connects networking to blogging? Freedom. Yes, this amazing freedom feeling the Internet gives. Building an online network of contacts gives you freedom and the ability to “move your mind” in so many projects, countries, cities. You are able to find new traditions and culture.

As an example, I learned important details about Buddhism and oriental culture through a friend in Singapore. We also had much fun playing GO, an oriental board game. Singapore is very far. It’s not easy to reach it through a “real trip”. Internet can help, when distances are so far. The world is just one click away.

I just want to mention a success story that helped me realizing all of this.The mp3.com experience has been very important for me. It showed me the great potential of the Internet and gave me the ability to meet new friends and collaborate with them through the web.

It has been about 12 years ago. Musicians were working together and many projects were born. First Internet radios provided an important community of listeners who were supporting us. We were able to produce albums at no cost to us.  (It was a real innovation in that period). The royalties mp3.com was giving us were fair and honest. I will always be delighted to remember those years.

For the rest of January, obtain your FREE copy of my Audio Mastering Guide and participate in our community to promote your blog or Website and connect with other musicians and artists.

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!).

College Students Discussing Censorship

Twitter IS definitely censoring tweets and hashtags. This post includes proof.

I’ve been warning my readers that we must not be complacent and make the assumption that platforms we use online are unbiased.

We must pay attention to what happens when we invest our time on sites that are not under our own control.

Those who realize there is a great movement sweeping the world already know this:

Regardless of how many tweets are sent for hashtags related to
Occuppy Wall Street NONE of those hashtags ever trend
on Twitter locally – or  nationally.
AND ESPECIALLY not in the CITY concerned!!!

But THAT is NOT ALL! >> Last week I noticed a new message on Twitter:

Your account may not be allowed to perform this action. Try logging out and in again.

Are You an Advice-Taker or Advice-Tester?

If you hate to read or have little time: Read just the text in red. It contains the most important points for every person.

If you are involved in small business, marketing or social media, also read all the gold text in gold boxes.

If you’re like me and you want to really understand what is going on, you will want to read through this three times:

1. Read just the red text.
2. Read just the gold text in gold boxes.
3. Read it all.

That is what you may see when your tweets are being censored: and here’s the proof:

When Twitter refused to accept that tweet, I removed the shortened link and did NOT get that message. So I did some further testing:

Testing With THAT Specific Shortened Link - Twitter refuses the Tweet

So I removed that link and sent EXACTLY the same tweet without the link and it went through:

Removed ONLY that shortened URL and as you can see the Tweet is live on Twitter

I even briefly got the message “Your Tweet to @SEOCopy has been sent” but it didn’t stay long enough to be screen captured.

Click This Image to READ: Twitter gives brands the ability to censor tweets!

WHY KNOWING WE ARE BEING CENSORING IS IMPORTANT:

I have been warning this day was coming for a very long time now. Few see how dangerous this is to our ability to make a living or even retain our freedom.

This is so important
I implore you not to leave this post
without understanding WHY.

When people have the illusion of freedom
and feel they have a voice
they are content to move ever closer
to the total loss of both.

The masses will tweet and feel they have a voice -
but if those tweets go nowhere -
they don’t!

They only have the ILLUSION they have a voice.

When important issues are being discussed online, people spend their most valuable assets: their time and money, working to spread the word.

When what we share is being actively censored -
and most will NEVER KNOW when that is happening -
our time and money are being stolen from us!

Every social network can easily censor what we say and do
and make that VERY DIFFICULT to detect by letting
YOU see what you shared but not showing it to anyone else!

You don’t have to believe me. You CAN find out for yourself. Simply ask your friends and followers to tell you if they saw something important that you shared with them.

WHICH SOCIAL NETWORKS CAN WE TRUST?

So it all comes down to which social networks CAN we trust? There is a simple way to tell. If the major media touts them and links to them they can’t be trusted. If they don’t, they might be trustworthy.

Particularly suspect are:

1. Twitter
2. Facebook
3. Google+
4. LinkedIn
5. MySpace
6. FriendFeed
7. StumbleUpon
8. Who else? Tell me in the comments and I’ll add them here.

What we really need is an independent social network.

They will have GREAT DIFFICULTY gaining enough users to be financially viable so we MUST all get behind any that surface. I know of one being developed which I will share as soon as they’re ready.

If YOU know of any let me know in the comments or by contacting me.

This goes deeper than Freedom of Speech.
Our Freedom of CHOICE is also at risk.

When you automatically use Google
we, the people, will ONLY see those Google chooses to grant visibility.

Small businesses become invisible to us and will eventually fail – taking away ever more choices until all that is left are Big Box stores – maybe even Big Box STORE – ONE company store because at that point they won’t need multiple brands.

That limits our choices in EVERY WAY
from where we shop to what products and services
we know exist to what information we can find -

And that information determines
WHAT WE BELIEVE IS TRUE.

Q: What do you do when one airline treats you horribly?

A: You switch airlines. Then when that one treats you horribly, you switch again. If the wealthy elite control each major airline they don’t care which one you use but you BELIEVE you have freedom to choose. DO YOU?

SUGGESTION: Switch to a regional airline.

Q: What do you do when your cell phone carrier does you wrong or is overcharging you?

A: You switch to another major cell phone carrier that is running a sale (oh – but you can only get that price if you accept a long term contract filled with tiny print you can’t understand. And when THEY do you wrong? You’re stuck with them for X amount of time until your contract runs out and then you can again jump out of one frying pan into another fire.

SUGGESTION: Switch to a smaller carrier. While they, too, are most likely RESELLING those same brands you are trying to escape, at least they MIGHT have customer service that MIGHT care about you. (Know of a small cell phone company you can recommend? Tell us in the comments – links to their Web site are OK.)

I included these two examples to open more eyes to the truth:

WE, the people, have never had many OBVIOUS real choices.
We have only been given the ILLUSION of choice!

We DO have CHOICES though
When we SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESSES

Our money recirculates in our communities
creating jobs and raising our standard of living.

By buying local WE can take control back.

Where you spend your money MATTERS.

Before the Internet, the wealthy few controlled everything we saw through their ownership of the major media, movie studios, newspapers, magazines.

Since the Internet, people like me and legions more can share what we’ve learned over a lifetime, and anyone can tune in and figure out what works for them.

The wealthy elite want their control back and they are doing everything they can to get it from imposing National ID systems to tracking devices to censorship.

WE are handing them that control
when we automatically believe that
ONLY what THEY HYPE is THE BEST

STOP giving them your time, money and attention.

CONNECT THE DOTS:

You MUST understand why all of this is important.

Your financial survival depends on it
So do your freedoms of choice, speech, travel, religious choice,
and even your freedom to not be imprisoned
even though you have done nothing wrong.

Think it can’t happen to YOU? You’re wrong! Our prisons are full of innocent people!

Most use Google so they only see what Google shows them.
How many businesses already don’t show up in search?
How much information is already difficult to find?

Will YOU notice when posts and stores disappear?

It is only a matter of time before search results are sanitized for our “protection”. [Read: cleared of people like me and any businesses that dared to compete with Google or their favored big brands.]

Google is already churning results. If you have access to any analytics, simply compare the keywords sending you traffic from Google prior to July 28, 2011 to the keywords sending you traffic since July 28, 2011.

Also compare your bounce rates before and after that date. Most will think “great, Google is still sending me traffic” and not realize that – just as they do with Distribution Fraud in AdWords – traffic that isn’t your target audience consumes resources and provides no benefits.

It HIDES the fact that even if your traffic stays the same you can no longer reach your target audience!

Churned results means you can NOT consistently get
targeted traffic from Google to your small business or blog.

The Google Panda updates that continue to be rolled out have already cost many businesses 1/3 to 1/2 of their traffic and incomes so far. As long as the customers they want to reach automatically use Google they’re toast. (Definition: “We’re toast” – slang expression meaning we’re getting burnt; we don’t have a chance.)

WHAT WE CAN DO:

1. Use alternative search engines. I will put together a group to research and publish our options.
2. Communicate DIRECTLY over the phone or through Skype or Instant Messenger (IM) chat. If you get a yellow triangle icon with an exclamation point (!) in it on Skype the other person DID NOT receive that message. Yahoo IM is more reliable and you can leave messages when someone is not online that they SHOULD receive later. DO NOT assume they received them though – see point 4 below.
3. Assume that ALL COMMUNICATIONS are being recorded including email, phone, and chat.
4. NEVER assume what you sent was seen or received UNTIL IT IS ACKNOWLEDGED. That goes double for email. See Closed Loop Communications for details.
5. Save URLs to sites you visit that are important to you somewhere they can not be changed without your knowledge. I use Tomboy Notes and there are multiple backups of everything on this blog, but even those COULD be hacked.
6. Seek out other bloggers like you and exchange direct contact information including phone numbers, email addresses, and social networks where they’re active.
7. Be part of the solution. If you do nothing you are part of the problem and pretending it doesn’t exist will not change what happens to you if we don’t PROTEST CORRUPTION!

If people are ever going to wake up, they must do it NOW!
Stop being naive and believing media spin.
Do not let only what they tell you be what you believe is true!

The best way to connect with other bloggers is to install either
the free CommentLuv plugin or CommentLuv Premium.

Search for blogs in your niche and physical location, and GO COMMENT IN THOSE BLOGS. Follow the CommentLuv links from blog to blog. (Right click and choose open in new tab to open those you want to go visit.)

Communities of bloggers can be the solution to
how we find each other and stay in touch.
We MUST seek out and create LOCAL BLOGGING COMMUNITIES.

It is CRITICAL that we find each other NOW
Because it will become harder to use Social Networks
and Search Engines to find each other later!

POTENTIAL BIG PROBLEM:
WordPress is controlled by Automattic and part of ‘The Borg’
(The Borg is how I refer to all things controlled by the Wealthy Elite)
What that means is they COULD censor our blogs
even if they are on our own domains!

If you know others locally, if Internet access if interrupted for any reason you know people you can connect with physically.  All it takes is one blogger willing to lead a collaboration of local bloggers to effect change in your community.

Through supporting local businesses you also position yourselves to earn an income to support your blogging efforts. I personally mentor bloggers and am seeking Bloggers willing to Lead Blog Collaborations.

Together we can ensure that our freedoms are not taken from us!

WHAT TO DO IF YOU’RE FEELING OVERWHELMED:

Many will read this post and be totally overwhelmed.

RESIST the compulsion to just leave.

For your sake and the sake of every person on the planet, do one thing for me:

Go back to the top of this post and just read the red text and nothing else. That will give you the main points everyone needs to get.

If you’re up to it or you have a business or are involved in marketing or social media: go back to the top again and read just the gold text in gold boxes. That will give you additional MUST KNOW information.

Be CREATIVE.
If a social network censors tweets or shares
worded a particular way or that include a
specific URL, change the wording or the URL.

If you have questions, don’t be afraid. Just comment here – or if you don’t want to comment publicly, contact me.