I’ve been blogging now professionally for over a year. I would say one of my keys to success as a blogger has been reading the quality content of others in my industry and then adding to what they say, disagreeing with what they say, and sharing my specific personal experiences in the SEO, SMO and the on-line business industry.

I talk to clients all the time about the importance of consistency in blogging. Not only is this important to readers who expect new information, but it’s also important to search engines: if search engine robots come back to your site to re-cache and they don’t see new content, they may not come back as often.

In my experience, the more frequently you get cached, the better chance you have of moving up the charts for the specific keyword phrases you are trying to optimize with. More consistency also helps build credibility and trust with other readers.

To prove my point, recently I received a Twitter.com message from a great on-line marketer, Lee Odden. This is what it said:

was going to biglist [MollerMarketing.com] but no posts since Nov 6th. no can do

Getting a link on a site with as much credibility and readers as TopRankBlog.com would be such an honor to me, but, because of laziness, over scheduling things, or whatever other lame excuse, I hadn’t blogged consistently for far too long. What to do? Well, I got back to setting some specific goals and doing things I had control of. I started posting again.

Just the other day, I received this notice:

Special thanks to Lee Odden from Online Marketing Blog for addition to his list of Best SEM Blogs on the Net and for his reminder that blogging consistently is really important if you want to build on-line credibility.

6 Comments »

About three years ago I started my first online business. I was nervous about the unknown and didn’t really know what were the right steps to take. Luckily I had a mentor who gave me great advice and taught me a lot about search engine optimization. I now work with small business start ups and find that most of my clients have the same questions I did.

To make it as easy as possible, help avoid confusion, and give everyone the opportunity to see the quickest results with their new businesses, I’ve put together another list of specific step by step to-do’s. I’m sure, if you put all my “lists” together, you’ll see that starting a business is not just something that people do with the snap of a finger and “voila”, the money comes flowing in. It takes time, persistence, creativity and hard work, but it’s really worth it.

This list is very step by step and is primarily for those looking to set up a business based on dropshipping.

1. Get your business entity set up with your state or country. Without the business entity, dropshippers won’t even consider working with you. The best way to do this is go to your state’s website. There you will find the paper work that needs to be filled out. You can also get the help of an accountant or legal advisor (there will be costs involved).
2. Start applying for suppliers. This is one of the biggest hurdles I came across as I got started. If you don’t have products, how do you plan to make money? Think about industries you’d be excited to be a part of.
3. Do keyword research: There are two things to look for with keyword research: demand and competition. I use a free keyword research tool at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com to help me find demand. Without demand for your product or idea, nothing else really matters. Find words and phrases that relate to the industry you are involved in and that people would be using to find what you are selling. There are a lot of ways to look at competition. The one I use to keep it most simple is google.com. When I get to google, I type in allintitle:”keyword phrase” in the search bar. This tells me how many websites out there actually have the specific keyword phrase in the title of their page. I call this my real competition even though I know there are other searches you can do too (allinanchor, allintext, allinurl). These are helpful, but I prefer to keep it as simple as possible. Make sure you record your research in a spreadsheet and keep it for later as you start to market more aggressively. If you want more information on this, contact me at (info at mollermarketing dot com.)
4. Research and Purchase a domain name for your website. When picking a domain name I follow these rules:
   - easy to spell
   - easy to remember
   - three words or less
   - avoid numbers (words and numeric symbols)
   - avoid words like “to, too, two”, “four, for”, and “you, u” because they are easy to get mixed up
   - use of a keyword phrase can be helpful but not mandatory (you don’t want to limit what you can sell by using such a specific phrase that you can only sell that product)
5. Look at website builder and hosting options. There are quite a few options out there. Before you buy one that says it’s so great, make sure it will do the following things: custom meta tags for all pages, no iframes, static pages that allow you to create friendly URLs (ie. http://www.ClogOn.com/used-clogging-shoes.html vs. http://www.ClogOn.com/page/12890328677.html - the first is what we want for SEO). A few builders and hosts I suggest are www.sitecreatorplus.com and www.BlueHost.com. There are other options too - just be careful. Remember, not all builders do what search engines look for.
6. Prioritize - Start getting content on the pages of your website: information, pictures, products, fun facts, testimonials and feedback, your opinions, what your business is all about, product comparisons, etc. The worst thing you could do is wait to put content on the site. It’s better to have something there that people can read or look at or sign up for than have a site that says “This site is under construction.” All sites are “under construction”, even if they look completely done.
7. Get the shopping cart set up on your website. Many builders and hosts have this already set up. If they don’t, I usually don’t waste time trying to figure out the programming on my own. You can find programmers at www.elance.com, www.getafreelancer.com, www.guru.com and http://forums.digitalpoint.com. Once it’s set up, I recommend going through the check out process as if you were a shopper. This way, when clients call you with questions or want to place an order over the phone, you know what they are referring to.

I will add to this list in the future. However, if you don’t get these things done, knowing more may not really help you. Skipping over the basic steps wastes a lot of time later on when you don’t even know what keyword research is or what phrase you want to focus on.

Share this article with your friends who want to start an online business by adding this code to your website:

<a href=”http://mollermarketing.com/2007/12/10/starting-an-online-business-in-7-specific-steps”>Starting an Online Business</a>

9 Comments »

My Stumbleupon friend Kate proposed an interesting question the other day: “How can Social Media sites be improved?”

As an eCommerce Consultant, one of my main focuses is sales conversion. The question I get all the time is “Which SMO tools are the best for SEO and Sales Conversion?” The first answer is this - “Are any of them really for SEO and Sales Conversion?” I would definitely say SMO and SEO go together, but I personally haven’t seen a drastic increase in Sales Convesion because of SMO tools, at least nothing I can track directly back to a SMO reference point.

One issue I do have is the ammount of SMO tools out there to keep track of. I’ve lost count of how many there actually are these days but, as I teach people how to use them in their online marketing strategy, clients ask – Which ones are the best to use?

Stumbleupon has proven to get me the most traffic but does that traffic ever convert? NO! (not that I’ve seen anyway) Digg brings in traffic but there are definitely “insider tips” on getting on the popular pages or even upcoming status. I did get some traffic from del.icio.us for one article a while back, but rarely see much from traffic; however, I still use it - the main reason being links. I’m reading more and more recently about the downfall of Facebook – which I have generated some business from via networking.

The problem is, the SMO list goes on and on: twitter.com, mybloglog.com, sphinn.com, newsvine.com, mashable.com, reddit.com, etc, etc, etc. Whatever happen to the “keep it simple stupid” acronym? The bottom line is SMO is great for link building, which in turn helps you get recognized more by search engines, which then helps you move up the SERPs. The networking can be a great in too as you use these tools consistently.

What are your thoughts about the oversaturation of SMO tools?

Here are some of the things I do like about the SMO tools:

Facebook for Networking
Why Use StumbleUpon
The Power of SMO

1 Comment »

I read an article about affiliate marketing by Newspapergrl. Janet interviewed Teresa Tao, a 2007 Commission Junction Horizon Award winner and affiliate marketer of www.shoebuy.com. They talked about 3 simple steps to start up an on-line business. My question is, “Is starting an online business as easy as 1, 2, 3?” If you are in the process of starting your first online business, these 3 basic steps will help you lay a solid foundation. You will need that solid foundation if you plan to survive when “the rains [come] down and the floods [come] up.” (too many nursery rhymes with our little ones)

1. Focus on one market or marketing strategy then build upon it. This is so important. If you haven’t read the article about industry focus before, here’s the most important part:

Focus on the smallest possible problem you can solve that will potentially be useful. One of the biggest problems many new companies make is trying to do too many things at once. This makes life really difficult and can impede our progress. Focusing on a small niche has so many advantages: with much less work you can be the best at what you do. Small things almost always turn out to be much bigger when you zoom in.

My recommendation here is to focus on an industry you are interested in, something you will enjoy working on day to day, week to week, FOREVER!

Create a list of hobbies, interests, things you have some knowledge about or at least would love to do research on and become knowledgeable about. Keep options open but don’t go so far out there that you get lost in all your ideas. One of my favorite quotes is “What would you do if you knew you wouldn’t fail?” Ask yourself this question as you create your focus list.

2. Educate yourself constantly. As many of you know, I was mentored by one of the best in the SEO business. He laid the entire opportunity out there for me, taught me more than I could really handle, and then said “Good luck - go to work” (or something like that). I feel it’s what I did with Mat’s knowledge during but mostly after my initial mentoring that has helped me see the results I’ve seen to date. From using all the resources available to me at Prosper, to reading blog after blog about on-line marketing and SEO, to finally just taking a step in the dark and doing what I was taught, the education has been ongoing.

What you’ll find with an internet business is that the job is never “finished”. There will always be something new and exciting out there, a new strategy, more competitors, changes in what Google looks for, etc. If you expect running a business to be a walk in the park, you can probably expect to be one of the statistics of a business that throws in the towel after not seeing the immediate results they’d hoped for. As Mark Twain said, “The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.” (Any of you ever heard that before )

3. Persevere with a positive attitude. My wife and I’s first date was to the movie “Remember the Titans”. One of the lines that still sticks out from that movie is “Attitude reflect leadership - Captain!” Self motivation, confidence and mindset are all components of a positive attitude.

It’s sad to say, but after having worked with so many clients from all over the world with different backgrounds, experience levels, and internet knowledge, I can almost tell after the first or second meeting if they are really going to achieve a lot with their business. Knowledge and internet understanding have nothing to do with it - it’s ATTITUDE! “If you think you can or you think you can’t - you are RIGHT!” What an over-stated cliche but it’s true! My favorite thing is when a client who may be somewhere in between positive and pessimistic decides to make a decision to not look back and just go for it. Abraham Lincoln stated: “That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.” Why not YOU?

So, how are you going to implement these basic steps to on-line success? It’s all about the basics really…

7 Comments »