After Google released it's Panda update I saw a lot of horror stories of how people were losing all of their rankings and traffic. Spammy links do not work like they once did.
New filters are in place and certain SEO methods have become obsolete. Only marketers who can learn how to adapt and change will survive in this game. Posting articles on EzineArticles is not going to get your rankings like it used to.
The fact is you've got to "feed" the Google machine what it wants if you want to keep in the SEO rankings. Love 'em or hate 'em, right now, Google controls search – there is no denying that – and if you want to be in the game, you gotta play by their rules.
And in this issue I would like to share with you the most important issues to this particular algorithm change – the most relevant factors I've seen in the past couple months.
It just so happens, however, that the goal of this Panda update was to improve quality and so if you follow these suggestions the likely outcome is that you'll have a better site for your users in the process and that, after all, is what Google is really after anyway.
Of course, the list below is far from being complete but I just tried to emphasize some really important points that matter most.
1. Is Your Content Unique?
Have you been posting spun content on your site for filler? If so, please stop now. In fact, stop yesterday. If you only have a small amount of it you should schedule that content to be re-written.
Don't delete those pages, you want to maintain larger sites for more presence and authority. So if at all possible I recommend rewriting the content and keeping the page rather than deleting it.
However, if you have a lot of content here, you may want to consider another tactic and that is making sure all of the duplicate stuff is in a separate silo. By that I mean that it is all grouped together on a sub-domain or specific category or directory structure. Ideally, however, you want to rid your site of duplicate content.
2. Size Matters… How big is your... CONTENT?
Keep in mind that content is the bamboo the Google Panda just loves to eat. You want to give it what it wants.
Do you have large 1000+ word rich content posts? If not, you should. We routinely make 2000+ and even 3000+ word posts and we find them to be very effective landing pages.
Large posts that have various sub-sections (keyword themed sub-sections with H2 and H3 tags) and loads of content are simply great for your site. It doesn't mean that you have to make all of your content that way – in fact you shouldn't because you want a natural mix.
But having large posts is one of the secrets of an authority site. Before you go and respond with dozens of authority site examples that don't have large content posts, yes, I know there are hundreds of them. But the goal here is to get authority as quickly as possible and large blocks of rich, quality unique and well written content can really help you along in that quest.
Then, of course, there are the other big advantages of large articles – they tend to get more natural links and they certainly get more long tail organic keyword traffic. The fact is that size matters and the more content you have on that page the more keywords Google can find you for and the more relevant your page appears to be to the topic.
3. Does Your Content All Look The Same?
In other words, if your site is a blog and you purchase blog posts, for example, to maintain the site they are probably all written at 250 or 300 words or something like that. It is not natural to have all of your content fit into one nice size like that and creates a footprint that is easily detected. So, make sure that you mix it up.
As mentioned above, throw in some big posts but you can also throw in some quick and short announcements or news posts as well.
The real key here is natural and varied.
4. What is the Content Footprint of Your Site?
This is another way of asking how many pages you have in the Google Index – this is often a strong indicator of authority and you want to evaluate your site in that regard. Remember that when you evaluate your site, do so relative to (a) your niche and (b) your competition.
So, for example, let's say you start with your sitemap.xml file and determine that you have 73 pages. Then you check to see how many of them are indexed and you come up with 59.
FYI, yes, you can do this via a simple site:domain.com in Google as well, but I don't really like that number because it tends to be skewed (high) since it takes into account things like Tags and such.
Now, how does that compare to the top 10 sites in your niche for the keyword that you are targeting? Do they have 113 pages, or do they have 10,000? This is just one factor of competitive analysis so I'm not suggesting it is in any way conclusive, but it is something you should consider in your niche and keyword select (along with a dozen or more factors).
5. How Much and How Frequently Are You Posting Content?
As you should know by now, the Panda wants to feed, so keep that bamboo coming! Google loves content – fresh content and quality content. So when you assess your site and its content footprint, earnestly spend some time considering what type of content needs you have and map out a game plan for addressing them.
If you need to get a 100 posts added to your site to increase your footprint, then transform that into a budget and a timeline. Can you do it in 1 month? In three months? What is realistic – pick that and map out a plan, set your publication frequency and get rolling.
6. What Does the "above the fold" View of Your Site Look Like?
This is something that has picked up significance in Google in past months and this recent Panda update. This item kind of goes hand in hand with the next one about how much advertising you have on the site, but it really is all about the user experience.
Now, just in case you're not familiar with the phrase "above the fold", let me take a minute to explain. It dates back to newspapers. An article that was above the fold was an article that was above the middle of the page fold mark where a person would see it as soon as they looked at the front page (or, more precisely, the top half of the front page).
In online terms, above the fold is a bit different because the page height is not fixed like a newspaper, so it does not mean the top half of the page, but rather it means the portion of the page that is visible when the browser is maximized to full screen resolution. So, it's a bit of a mess because what is above the fold for you on a 15” screen running in 1024 x 768 mode is not the same is what is above the fold on a 24” screen running in 1920 x 1080 mode. But you get the idea.
Now what Google wants to see is that your site has a lot of textual and relevant content to the topic searched on above the fold. Let me show you an example to clarify. Based on how bad this is you would think I spent 20 minutes looking for it, but in reality it was the first search I did and the third result on the page. It's a perfect example of terrible design and one that Google Panda is likely all over.
The only content that is above the fold at all is four small lines of text on the left in the Table of Contents for the post. Now, here is the second page down:
Honestly, it's not a lot better, but at least it has some content. So, in this example the site design has absolutely no content above the fold and even on the second page it's buried on the bottom half of the page.
What I recommend is checking your site in 1024 x 768 resolution and seeing what is showing up above the fold. Here are a few items you might want to consider changing:
- Shorten up the vertical height of your site header. Many times it is excessively thick and is pushing the content too far down the page unnecessarily. Often times just some minor site redesigns can tweak this pretty easily.
- Re-Evaluate ad placement. This can be more complex, but still, if you haven't got real content on 50% or more of your above the fold real estate then you need to make some changes.
- Look at the vertical spacing. Sometimes just due to CSS and such, there is too much white space above the Title, for example. Or too much blank space below the menu.
- Can you move anything out of your header? Perhaps you have all of those social media buttons up there, or a search box, or a banner ad – whatever it is, look to simplify.
- Look for any other thing that is pushing your content down on the page and consider revising it.
While you're hoping to find easy stuff, sometimes a more major site redesign is in order. You need to have your primary content on at least 50% of the above the fold real estate. If you think about it, it really makes sense from a user experience standpoint and you can probably understand Google's perspective on this one. You will likely have a better overall user experience by going through this experience.
7. Ratio of Information to Advertising on the Page
This is very similar to the above item, only this relates not to the content on your page but rather the advertising. It's not uncommon to have a banner image and big blocks of Adsense on your site, but you've got to be careful about their placement and just how much vital real estate that they are using.
Let's pull up this screenshot from above again only this time let's focus on the ads above the fold.
8. Hide Your Affiliate Links
Google doesn't like to see a site full of affiliate links as it makes them suspicious of whether or not you're a spammer. So you need to cloak your affiliate links so that they don't appear so much like affiliate links. This also can help your affiliate sales conversions as well as customers generally don't like to see them either.
So a link that might look like this:
http://merchant.com/cell-phone/?affid=1234
Ends up looking like this instead:
http://www.mydomain.com/cell-phone
Now, both of those links will take you to the same location, but the former is ugly and just screams "affiliate marketer" while the second doesn't.
9. Make Sure to "NoFollow" Outbound Paid Links
This is something that Google has always been on the lookout for and something that you should have heard of or seen by now, but you should still double check it.
The theory behind this is pretty simple. They don't want you selling Page Rank and a DoFollow link passes Page Rank. I'm not so sure how much of that is really even important nowadays with PageRank Sculpting getting much less attention than it used to, but still it's a Google requirement that shouldn't be ignored and can have big, negative impacts on your site.
10. Don't "NoFollow" All Outbound Links
This is important as well. You don't want to just try to save time and effort by simply converting all of your site links to 'NoFollow'. That makes you look like you're trying to manipulate PageRank and hoard it – Google doesn't like that.
This is a holdover from the earlier days when PageRank had more of an impact on the SERPS than it does today. PageRank sculping is still practiced today, but much less so. And you have to make sure you're following the rules and not setting off any red flags.
11. Make Sure To Have Outbound Links to Authority Sites
Google wants to see that you are a part of the community – the larger community that forms the Internet. That means, do you participate in it or do you try to hoard traffic for yourself? It also touches on the issue of giving credit where credit is due.
So if you're using another reference as the source article for your blog post, it doesn't hurt to drop credit to them and make a link for reference. In fact, it helps. This shows Google that you are trying to give your customer the best possible answer even if that means that further research may be acquired elsewhere – and that's normal. No one has all of the information or is the expert in everything.
The Internet is made up of sharing and links are just that – a form of sharing. Google wants to basically see that your site plays well with others.
The other aspect of this that helps with your authority is that by citing credible sources it makes you credible as well. A spammer is not going to tell you who they swiped their illegitimate content from, but a quality journalist always cites their sources.
Do you have to do this in every post? Is there some fixed rule of how many links you should create? No. There are no hard and fast rules like that. You just need to assess your site and ask yourself some of those Google checklist questions (the ones directly quoted from Google) and see what makes sense from your standpoint. And, observe your niche and competitors. What are they doing?
12. Make Sure You've Got the Relevant Disclosures
You need to check out your site and make sure you have all of the relevant disclosure pages, such as your Privacy Policy, DMCA Policy, Anti-Spam Policy, Terms of Use, Earnings Disclosure, Affiliate Agreement and others such as your About Us and Contact Us pages.
13. Are You Acting Like a Spammer?
Sorry, not trying to insult you here, but sometimes you may be doing things you don't even realize that are sending off the wrong signals and that is something you've got to be cognizant of. Most of these tactics are old and have long since been abandoned, but I still come across them on many sites almost daily.
- Don't Use Hidden Text – What is hidden text you ask? This is an old tactic where spammers would create a long list of relevant keywords for a site and then make the text white in color and super small so that it wasn't even noticed and shove it way down on the site below the footer or something.
The point is that the text isn't visible and not providing any value to the user, it was simply a strategy for trying to manipulate the search engines. Don't do this. It is super easy from their crawler to spot and you can get penalized for this type of behavior.
- Don't Use Images When You Should Use Text – This is the spam tactic of taking duplicate text, for example, that you don't want Google to see and putting it into an image instead. We still see a lot of this today. With CSS you can easily overlay text right over the top of fancy graphical backgrounds and such, so there really is not much need for this.
One of the places we see this tactic used a lot in the Internet Marketing space is with Testimonials. Many sites use images for their testimonials instead of text because you can be sure that marketer is likely using that exact same testimonial in several places, endorsing several products and he or she doesn't want you or Google to know that.
- Don't Put Text or Images Off the Page – With <div> tags and page definition we have seen various sites that want to hide their links by putting them into the page source so that the crawlers see them but in a location that they physically do not show up on the page. So below the boundary of the page, or so far to the right of the page they'll never be displayed, etc…
As you begin to reverse engineer your competition you'll start seeing this behavior. You'll see that site A is getting a link from Site B, but when you go to site A to find that link you can't. So then you do a 'view source' to view the raw HTML behind the page and you uncover these hidden links.
Google has been very clear about this stuff – do it and you'll pay the price. It's frustrating when you find this on sites ranking above you – trust me, I've seen lots of competitors doing less than ethical stuff and seemingly getting away with it. All I can tell you is that karma will eventually get them.
14. The Formula is Becoming More Balanced
The fact is that Google's algorithm is becoming more and more sophisticated and less easy to "game" than ever. Will there always be away? Of course there will.
There will always be a place for SEO and Linkbuilding, but you do have to step up your game. And that is precisely what Google wants.
Here are just some of the recent shifts that show you that you need to up your game.
- Age is not as important. I didn't say it's not important, I'm saying that it is not as important as it once was. We saw many sites that were holding page one rankings for years just because of their age in the niche that suddenly dropped off to page #2 or page # after Panda. Why? Because although they had solid age, they had let time pass them by and were no longer in touch with their competition in terms of site design, content, links and other aspects of site authority. Bottom line is that the age of the site a ranking factor has definitely been depreciated – not eliminated, but certainly de-valued.
- EDU and GOV links have been downgraded. This is something that hasn't gotten a lot of buzz, but it is true. The Government and Educational sites lobbied pretty aggressively with Google to devalue the edge that their links had been given in the past. Why? The reason is that they were just sick and tired of being bombarded with all of the spam comments and knew that if their links were devalued there wouldn't be the same incentive for spammers to keep pummeling them.
- Link relevance is becoming more important. While "relevance" is still largely irrelevant, there has been a small step toward that direction of getting more relevant links within your niche.
15. Google is Forging Ahead with Social Marketing
Google has been slow to use social marketing because they haven't had a good solution. Maybe Google +1 will succeed where Google Buzz floundered, who knows. But what we do know is that Google is clearing laser targeted on Social Media and this is not something new. This actually began with the Caffeine update many months ago, but all signs are indicating that this trend is only growing.
With the Panda update, Google admitted that they compared the ban lists that people can create in Google Chrome (their browser) to the results of the algorithm change. That statement was a very curious one because it really revealed a lot. They are basically saying that they're using their Chrome browser for market research and that it is very likely that they may use that feedback directly within the search algorithm at some time in the future.
That's it for now! I hope that you have found this article to be informative and useful. Remember that SEO is a fluid not a solid – it is constantly moving and changing. Our goal is not only to learn how to do backward analysis, but also identify forward moving trends so that we can be well prepared for tomorrows rounds of algorithm changes.
And as always, work smarter not harder!
-- Alex
Today I want to tell you how you can create red-hot information products by tapping into the knowledge well of experts. Before you panic, you don't have to actually BE an expert to interview experts.
Image ©
In fact, that's the entire point of contacting experts in your niche market and securing 20 minutes of their time to sit down and talk to you. You can quickly create top-notch information products by asking a series of simple questions, and in turn, your expert gains free exposure, and can even make some money from the deal (depending on how you set it all up).
What is the #1 thing that your customers want from you?
Rock solid, proven and accurate information.
What better way to offer that to them than by having an expert share their personal experiences, tips and advice with you, while you ruffle through the data and create a comprehensive information product that your market can instantly put to use!
Being able to offer customers with direct access to an expert in your niche market will give you the competitive edge you need. You can highlight this exclusive interview on your sales page, driving up conversion rates, and better yet, you'll be able to build your own brand by piggybacking off of the affiliation.
Not only will you be able to offer your customer base with something fresh and new, but think about just how valuable this exclusive, proprietary content is outside of just the single product itself!
Once you have interviewed an expert, you can literally take the interview and turn it into a hot selling product in a matter of minutes. Best of all, you can repurpose the interview in a number of different ways, including:
- Sell Interview as Audio based Course
- Create transcripts of the interview as bonus / upsell options
- Create full length ebooks based on expert interviews
- Give the interview away to generate traffic and build a list
- Package the interview in with other products for a full featured course
- Use interview as primary guide and offer auxiliary components and additional training tools to expand training.
If you're wondering why an expert would take time out of their busy schedules to help you create an information product of your own, you need to switch your mindset around and instead think:
"Why wouldn't an expert give you 20 minutes of their time if they were able to generate free exposure, push their brand and make money by simply talking to you?"
You see, the only reason why anyone would struggle to secure time with a market expert is because they aren't making it clear as to how your subject benefits. If you simply approach an authority in your market, ask them for a few minutes of their time so you could interview them, the first thing they are going to ask themselves is "who are you and why should I talk to you?".
You want to make it clear from the get-go, exactly how they are going to benefit, and better yet, you lay it all out for them so that they can easily see what's in it for them.
And keep something else in mind: Just because they are experts on the subject matter doesn't mean they are KNOWN experts.
For example, there are experts who contribute to community sites like www.ehow.com and www.expert-exchange.com and while they have years of experience with a wide variety of topics, part of the reason why work so hard to submit quality content and answer popular questions in their niche market is because they a) need money and b) need exposure!
So, clear your mind of the idea that experts are raking in cash and that it's unlikely they'd be willing to talk to you because they simply don't need the money or exposure. In reality, there are experts in your niche market right now who will be more than willing to talk to you in exchange for the opportunity to expand their brand, and better yet, many of these experts won't even except any sort of monetary compensation for their time!
When it comes to approaching experts, you need a clear-cut system of contact in place.
You want to cover all bases while making your expert feel comfortable agreeing to sit down and speak with you. You never want to be aggressive, otherwise you'll come across as over zealous and lose any opportunity you had to establish credibility with your expert.
Your expert will know how you're benefiting from them giving you their time, so be upfront about it.
Don't be afraid to tell them how you plan to use the interview, after all, it's pretty darn close to a joint venture project and they should be aware of exactly how you plan to distribute it.
Getting Started
Before you even set out to contact an expert, you need to do your homework so you're prepared and more importantly, you know exactly what questions to ask. Since you'll have limited time, you want to make sure that you do your job of asking the questions that are of most interest to your niche market.
You need:
A Strict Focus And a Specific Topic
You can't find a qualified expert without having first identified the market you are interested in and more importantly, the segment of the market.
Don't make the mistake of choosing a broad market like "weight loss" and expecting to satisfy your customer base when you are asking questions that really don't relate to where they're at, or what they are most interested in.
If you choose weight loss, go a step further and decide on a specific segment within that market, such as muscle building, fitness for women, or healthy eating.
Develop a Theme
In order to drill down into the heart of your niche market and be able to get as much information from your expert as possible, you need to decide on a theme for your interview.
This is different than just choosing a topic because now you are going to create the structure for your actual questions.
While your expert might be experienced with many different aspects of a larger market, you want your interview to carry a very defined topic. Going back to the weight loss industry as an example, decide what the top 10-20 questions in the market are, and use them as the basis for your interview.
Your interview isn't going to answer every question that your target audience has, so it's important that you narrow down your focus so that you can cover the most important questions possible.
Your interview theme should be similar to how you'd title a report or ebook. For example "Top 10 Weight Loss Secrets", which will give you clear direction as to what questions you need to ask.
Define Your Questions
When you contact experts, you'll likely encounter a few who prefer to create the questions for the interview, and if so, don't panic! They may simply be comfortable answering certain questions based on their experience but don't want to be put on the spot being asked questions that they aren't so sure about.
Image ©
Remember, not every expert will be able to answer every question imaginable even if they are experienced with the topic. So be prepared to run into a few experts who aren't all that flexible with the line of questioning and want to pre-plan the questions and answers in a script-like format.
If it's up to you to come up with the questions, you've got a bit of homework to do. You always want to format them so that they address the most in demand questions and concerns in your niche market. In order to know what those are - you need to thoroughly evaluate your market.
This doesn't have to take up a lot of time. Simply start with niche oriented forums. Community boards are fantastic resources for niche research because not only are they active, but they offer the opportunity to search through archives and past discussions so that you can get a good feel for what questions are consistently being asked.
You're looking for the top 10-15 questions that are repeatedly asked by those in the market.
Pay attention to bullet points, as they're a great source for ideas on questions that you should ask your expert.
When creating the actual structure for your questions, you want to keep a few things in mind. First, if your interview is being conducted on Skype or the phone, you want to write down your questions and then read them out loud prior to the interview. Make sure they sound natural, and are worded so that there's little chance for your expert to be confused by the question, or to go off track.
Sample Questions:
What is the easiest way to...?
What products or services would you recommend in order to..?
What is the one piece of advice you've give to..?
What should people know about..?
How can people save time with..?
How can people save money with..?
What should people looking for help with______ be most aware of?
What is the most important thing that people looking for______ should know?
How can people avoid being_____ ?
When creating your questions, think about how you can later format them into chapter titles.
Example: If I asked my expert, "How can people save money by going green?", when I later created an information product based around the interview, my chapter title could be "5 Ways You'll Save Money Going Green", with the chapter outlining all five points that my expert made during the interview.
Avoid questions that require a simple "yes" or "no", so that you can keep the conversation flowing.
Even if your interview is taking place through email, you want to give them clear direction with the questions you ask, ensuring that they fully understand your question. This will avoid any misunderstandings or need for clarification.
Example: Rather than asking your expert "Should dieters be cautious with all liquid diets?", ask "What are the concerns that dieters should have about liquid diets?".
You should also be comfortable asking your expert to clarify points, or to expand on certain answers in the event you are concerned that your readers might require additional information. This is another reason why you need to be careful when constructing your Q&A sheet, paying extra attention to tweaking your questions to that they are clear and direct.
Your job is to get as much specific information from your expert as possible. You want your readers to have as much information as possible, but to also avoid lost time going back and forth with your expert. One way of encouraging your expert to elaborate on their answers is by asking "multi-part" questions.
For instance, "Are low carb diets an effective way to lose weight? If so, what are the best ways to create a low carb meal plan?"
If your interview takes place on the telephone or via Skype, you want to do your part to think from the perspective of your buyer.
What questions would they ask your expert?
What "last minute" questions can you squeeze in that solidify a point, or serve as a segway into other relevant questions?
While it's important to pre-plan your questions in order to have structure and for your interview to go smoothly, you also want to give your expert room to expand on topics, or even to provide additional tips and advice on your topic that you hadn't intended.
You'd be surprised just how willing your expert is to spend a bit more time talking to you, especially if you come across as someone genuinely interested in the topic, and you give them the elbow room to not only answer your questions at depth, but to also expand on their answers however they wish.
Remember, experts are passionate about the topics they have personal experience with, and if you don't get in their way, you'll come out with a rock solid, meaty interview!
Next, write down more questions than you intend to answer. It's better to have more questions to choose from should your expert answer your questions quickly without elaborating, than to have too few questions to fill up your allocated time. Plus, depending on how your expert answers specific questions, how much passion or detail they give you, you might want to quickly choose different questions than you originally planned, so write down twice as many questions than you expect to fit into the interview.
When you have finished researching your market, compiling questions and developing a theme for your interview, it's time to approach the experts.
Finding Experts
Locating experts who are willing to talk to you is easier than you might think. In fact, it's likely that you'll be able to secure interview time with multiple experts in the same niche market, once you've gone through the process once.
Image ©
So, where can you find qualified experts in your niche market?
The easiest place to begin - authority blogs!
Professional bloggers love to communicate their message, talk about their niche markets and share advice and information with other people. You know how much work blogs take to update? It's a key example of just how dedicated they are to the topic.
All you need to do is locate authority blogs in your niche market and then contact the website's administrator requesting an interview.
You can find relevant blogs in your niche a number of different ways. Just by visiting Google and entering in search queries including "niche+blog" or "niche+Wordpress" will give you plenty of options.
But an even better way to target authority blogs in your market is by using Google's flexible blog search engine, available at http://blogsearch.google.com
Begin by entering in seed keywords for your niche market. In my example, I'm interested in creating an information product on "celiac disease" including a handbook of gluten free recipes. I'd begin by search on BlogSearch by entering in "celiac disease".
Within seconds I'm given direct access to over 140 blogs that feature information on my chosen niche.
The next step?
To spend a few minutes evaluating the different blogs in search of a qualified authority. I'm looking for blogs dedicated to celiac disease, detailed posts and articles as well as an active community of followers who post comments and feedback.
Why?
This tells me that not only is the blogger strictly focused on my niche topic, but that they have already developed authority (or at least a presence) in the market so that my customers can identify them. While it's not imperative that your expert be someone that is recognizable, it definitely will add impact to the value of your interview.
As you come across different blogs focusing on your niche topic, you're interested in three different things:
1) Whether the website is offering quality content.
2) Whether the majority of posts are written by the administrator.
3) The contact information of the blogger.
You don't want to waste your time approaching bloggers who outsource the content, or where the blog is powered by guest bloggers. You're looking to get in touch with an expert who knows the topic inside and out and is willing to share their experiences and information with you.
Look for blogs where the majority of posts are written by the same user, and then find the contact information for that person.
Create a swipe file that includes:
- Direct links to websites
- Contact information for each expert
- Specific theme or focus of each blog
- Additional websites or products developed by the expert
Before contacting any particular expert, you want to do your job to understand what they are all about, as well as what other products or websites they offer, and whether their primary focus is involving your niche market.
Doing this will also give you a better idea as to who the real experts are in your niche market, and give you even more options as to who to contact.
When searching for experts, don't limit yourself to just blogs and websites but instead, search for quality information products in popular marketplaces like Amazon.
Not only will you be able to quickly determine who is really experienced in your market, but since these experts already have written an information product, chances are that they'll be more than interested in gaining free exposure.
Just offer to include a direct link to their website or Amazon product within the transcript (as well as within any audio interviews as well) and you'll have no trouble finding as many experts as you need.
Contacting Experts
When contacting experts, you want to take the time to customize each email so that it speaks directly to them. Reference their websites, explain that you are familiar with their work, and let them know what you are hoping to accomplish.
Be transparent with your experts. You don't have to hide the fact that you are interested in creating an information product or that you plan to monetize the interview.
The more honest and upfront you are with your experts, the more they'll trust you. These relationships are incredibly valuable to you if you plan to create follow up products, so don't try to pull the wool over their eyes.
Since you want to make this a lucrative opportunity where your expert benefits from the time spent with you, create your proposal prior to emailing each expert and include the benefits that you are offering.
For example, you could offer a percentage of income derived from product sales, or you could offer promotional space on your website as well as in all of the information products associated with the interview (reports - worksheets, transcripts etc).
Start by creating an email template that you can easily customized based on each person you are contacting. You can choose to include a Q&A sheet with each email you send out, giving experts the opportunity to respond with answers to your questions, or if you're primarily interested in an audio based interview, focus on getting your expert to agree to a date and time, and then send them a copy of the question sheet you are planning to use.
Make sure that they receive this copy at least a few days before the interview so that they can prepare for the questions, and voice any concerns or questions they may have before the big day.
Planning The Interview
Once you've received a response from an expert that you're interested in interviewing, it's time to set a date and time! You want to try to book at least 60 minutes in with your expert, which gives you both enough time to cover the most important questions in your market, without feeling rushed.
Keep in mind that they are agreeing to speak with you - and THEY have the information you need).
When it comes to conducting the interview via telephone, there are a few different ways to do this.
First, you could purchase a telephone recorder and offer to call your expert directly while recording the conversion to MP3 format.
You could also conduct the interview via Skype, which is both easy to use and affordable. Just make sure to purchase a high quality headset so that your call is clear. Just ask your expert to download a free copy of Skype in the event they don't use it, grab a copy of MX Recorder and you'll be able to record all of your Skype conversations very easily.
You can also take advantage of online conference call services that will help you manage your interview, such as with Free Conference Call. It minimizes your workload by creating your final MP3 file for you. They offer extensive features as well, including the ability to include an audience on your call in the event you are interested in holding a teleseminar or group based interview later on.
If you develop a good relationship with your expert, chances are that they'll agree to host another interview with you and this time, you could include an audience who has an opportunity to ask your expert questions after the interview is over.
Think about just how valuable that is in developing your brand, establishing your own authority in your market and being able to offer exclusive content that no one else in your market is offering.
Free Conference Call is very easy to work with, and once the interview is over, you can log into your administration center and download a copy of the call.
If you need to edit the audio clip, I recommend downloading Audacity, which is a very simple yet powerful audio editing program (and best of all, it's free :-)
After The Interview
When the interview concludes, you want to thank your expert for taking the time to talk to you (or complete your questions by email), and then work towards fulfilling your obligation to your expert. Depending on what you both agreed to, you want to do your part to make sure that they're satisfied with the outcome, so that they'll agree to speak with you again in the future.
Image ©
If you offered to include free promotion of their website or their own information products, make sure that you fulfill your obligation to them. This is when you'd ask them for the information they'd like to have included in your promotional campaigns, on your website or in your information product.
Ask for a short bio or background information about them so that you can create a detailed introduction in your own material. If you are including multiple experts in your information product, be sure to include their information directly under the interview transcript or download, so that your readers can easily identify who you are talking to, while ensuring that your expert gets the credit they deserve.
If you have access to multiple experts (and it's likely you will), you'll want to decide on the order in which to feature them based on how detailed their answers were, who was willing to share more information with you and who went out of their way to really share their experiences with your audience.
If you found after interviewing two different experts that one answered your questions more generally than the other, I'd suggest organizing your content to include the most compelling interview first. The second interview could be included in the main information product, or offered as a bonus.
You also want to create an introduction and conclusion for your interview if it's in text format immediately following the interview, while the conversation is still fresh in your mind.
Your introduction should briefly explain what is being covered in the interview, who the expert is and of course, who you are.
If your interview is audio based, you want to create the introduction after the interview is over, rather than wasting valuable time with your expert going over their credentials or background.
Depending on how you are presenting the information, you may also want your conclusion to direct readers or listeners to your sales page or a squeeze page, if you require additional action on their part.
Packaging Your New Product
If your interview is an audio based one (which are the best ones to get), you have greater flexibility with what you can do with it than just text-based interviews. For one thing, you now have the opportunity to offer the interview in different formats.
For example, you could offer the interview in MP3 format, while spending a couple of hours creating a PDF transcript of the call.
You could offer the transcript as a free bonus, or even as an upsell - instantly maximizing your profit!
You could also package additional auxiliary components in with the audio and transcript, such as:
- Workbooks that provide lesson plans so your customer can take action.
- Video guides that provide visual training and elaboration on your topic.
- Additional interviews with other experts in your niche market.
- Ebooks, reports and training guides that help your customer better understand the information.
- Offer a "customer only" newsletter with tips and information based on your niche market. This is a fantastic method of building your lists while also furthering brand awareness.
- Create a private community forum with extended support options. This is a very easy way of creating a back-end service if your primary product is based on software, scripts or requires further technical knowledge.
- Develop a membership site around your topic with various levels of access for advanced training.
- Create a coaching or training program, offering short reports and additional interviews as weekly lesson plans.
- Offer physical copies of your information product such as CD's, DVD's and books.
When creating transcripts or compiling an ebook based on your interview, you want to create a PDF file, as it's viewable on all operating systems. Your reader only needs a free copy of Acrobat Reader installed on their computer, and that's it!
I hope this article was helpful for you and now you can see how you can easily create your very own info product with killer info! ;)
Please, leave your comments below. I'm happy to hear your feedback!
Later,
Alex
As SEOs we work on the title, description, page name, even snippets to get a person to click on our site in the SERPs.
At this point, a new visitor doesn't know what the page actually looks like until after they've made the click, right? Not anymore.
Image ©
As you know, users can now see an image of your page in Google SERPS using Previews, a new feature of Google Instant. In the search results, a magnifying glass icon appears next to each title. When clicked, an image of your page appears on the right side of the search screen. This means that your page design and layout can now sway or dissuade the click through decision.
In comparison to other search engines, when a user scrolls to the right of an entry in Bing, a window pops out showing "More on this Page" or "Popular Links" information, but no image preview which makes Google Preview different. But this isn't exactly a new concept when you compare this to online catalog searches or sites like eBay with images in search results. All are designed to help people find what they're looking for faster.
Let's walk through a quick example.
I need a good sweet potato recipe, so let's do a search for "sweet potato recipes" in Google and see what's cooking.
Notice the magnifying glass icon that appears next to each title? Click on it to activate previews.
The #4 site, Southern Food at About.com, sounds good. I scroll over a title and a window pops out with a Preview image of the webpage.
Let's see if the #4 site really has what I'm looking for.
If I was deciding on whether or not to click based off the title and description, I would have clicked on this site. My decision has changed though.
Why? I saw an image of the homepage. Before even starting this search I had an idea of what I was looking for: a nice list of recipes with pictures. This page has fluff text and those links look like a run around. Plus there are only two food images. I think I can do better. Pass.
What does a person think when they see your page preview?
Does the image continue the conversation you've started with the title and description?
Does it give the searcher what they’re looking for? Or it is a let down?
The description of this next page caught my attention, but the Preview image doesn't show any images — just a long list of text recipes. Moving on.
The Food Network Preview shows exactly what I envisioned: an organized list of recipes with user reviews and pictures. Nice list. Scannable. What I’m looking for. It got the click.
Real-Time Previews of Your Site?
Are the Preview images real-time? Some images are gathered when Google crawls your site, so it could be 5 days to 2 weeks old.
If the page changed during that time, it won't be an exact match. Google is also using various user-agents for showing images on the fly like Google Web Preview (Mozilla/5.0 (en-us) AppleWebKit/525.13 (KHTML, like Gecko; Google Web Preview) Version/3.1 Safari/525.13), so you may see these names in your referrer log.
What Each Preview Reveals
Previews are more than "screenshots" of your site. They identify where the searched phrase actually appears on the page by outlining it in orange.
That same text is displayed in call out boxes, but with larger font making it easier to read. Users will be able to determine if the text is just a quick mention or an entire section of information.
They'll quickly identify if this is what they’re looking for or if it's spammy and off-topic.
Multiple keyphrase mentions in the text result in multiple text boxes. From the sample searches I've done, only body text is appearing in the call out boxes.
So, if you use the keyphrase in navigation, gutters, headings, or anchor text, it may not appear in the call out box. Make sure you're using important keyphrases within the body text.
A Preview image is not a static snapshot. It changes per the keyword phrase searched and where that phrase appears on your page.
For example, a keyphrase might be mentioned at the beginning and end of the text on a very long page. In those cases, you’ll see a cut-and-paste Preview image with "tears" (shown below).
Why Does Your Preview Image Suck?
As of now, Flash, some video content, and even some CSS and inline images are not rendering properly in Preview and appear as a black space or puzzle piece. Google acknowledges they are still working on this.
Optimizing for Google Instant Previews
Here’s what you should do now:
1. Run a search for your most important keyphrases (make sure Google Instant is on).
2. In the SERPs, click the magnifying glass icon and scan all page previews on the page.
3. How does your image measure up? Are there more appealing images that may take clicks from you?
4. When someone views your Preview image does it visually communicate what they’re looking for?
Using our recipe search as an example, does your site have too much text and not enough images? Is the design spammy and full of links? Does it look off-topic or boring? Take an honest look at the image and if need be, improve it.
5. Keep your pages clean and structured. Make the user experience good by giving them what they’re looking for.
6. Are your Preview images void of call out boxes?
That means you’re not using the keyphrase in the body text. Also, make sure that your page content matches the meta title and description. You do this for the same reason your AdWords ads need to match your landing page–to keep the conversation going.
7. In some cases, pop up ads are being picked up as the "Preview" image as seen below. Go through your code and make sure Google can get a good preview image of your page.
8. You can opt out of the Preview image by adding the following meta tag to the <head> section of your site:
Instead of an image, users will see a "Preview Not Available" message. If you have a quality site that visually communicates what you're saying in SERPs, think twice before opting out. It could be an advantage.
According to Google, "…results which were previewed were more than four times as likely to be clicked on."
How Google Instant Previews Affects Site Stats
How does a Preview affect impression and click throughs? Clicking the magnifying glass icon and viewing a Preview image counts neither as an impression nor as a click through. A click continues to be when someone clicks the title of your page in the SERPs to visit your site.
A page impression in Google Instant results when someone performs a search and uses the "Search" button to get results (in which your site appears). An impression is also counted when SERPs refresh automatically in Instant and the user pauses three seconds on the page.
You’re Ahead of the Game!
Think about what a page bounce is. Someone clicks through to your site, doesn't see what they need and leaves. With Google Instant Previews, instead of making that, "should I stay or should I go now," decision on your site, the searcher can decide that in the SERPs by looking at a Preview image. But this could work to your advantage!
When you optimize for conversions you always have the searcher in mind. You're not just interested in winning that click–you want the sale! So you anticipate the conversation the searcher is having when you create the meta title and description of your page. That conversation carries over to the landing page (which the searcher can now see via Previews).
Once on the landing page, there is a very clear call to action. What the searcher is looking for, based on your title/description, should be very clearly available to them. Your site should have an excellent headstart/advantage over others in standing out with Google Previews, you just need to ensure the page communicates all this visually as well.
I hope this article was helpful for you. Please do leave your comments below. I'm happy to hear your thoughts! ;)
Later,
Alex
I'm sure you know about the Pareto Principle that said 20% of the people typically own 80% of the wealth.
Over the years, Pareto’s Principle has been applied to many areas of business, and has yielded some very interesting findings.
For example, studies of leading North American banks show that:
- 15 to 20% of a bank's customers generate up to 95% of the bank's profits.
- 5% of all Internet sites generate more than 85% of all Web traffic.
- 80% of the e-mails you send out typically go to only 20% of the people on your email list.
What does this mean for the entrepreneur and business owner?
It means that to increase revenues and profits and grow your business, you cannot allocate the same amount of time to all of your business management activities.
In fact, the secret to running a successful business—whether you have $1 million or $1 billion in annual sales — is to find out what you should be doing and hire, barter or outsource people to do everything else.
Here's how the Pareto Principle can help multiply your business revenues and personal effectiveness by at least 16 times.
Image ©
Suppose your business has 50 different activities, such as sales, marketing, operations, finance, research, customer service and so on. According to the Pareto Principle, 20% of those activities will generate 80% of your revenues.
Conversely, 80% of those activities will generate only 20% of your revenues. Doing the math shows that 10 out of the 50 activities will produce four-fifths of all the income your business generates.
Now, assume that your business takes in $100,000 a month. According to the Pareto Principle, 10 of your 50 activities would account for $80,000 of your monthly revenue, which works out to $8,000 per activity.
Conversely, 40 of the activities would produce only $20,000 each month, which pencils out to a paltry $500 per activity. Sixteen times 500 equals 8,000, so your top 10 revenue-producing activities are 16 times more effective than the bottom 40.
Suppose you took it even further and moved the 80/20 ratio to 90/10, so that only 10 percent of your activities produced 90 percent of your revenues. That would make you 81 times more effective than you currently are. Merely by focusing your time and attention on the five or ten activities that have the highest impact on your business, you can increase your revenues and income by 16 to 81 times!
If focusing on your five or 10 most impactful activities can increase your revenues 16 to 81 times, here’s the million-dollar question: what specific activities should you be focusing on?
There's a three-step process for answering this question, so that you learn to work more efficiently and effectively, grow your business, and increase your revenues faster than you ever thought possible.
This process was originally created by OneCoach and it helped me tremendously with my own businesses.
Step 1. Identify your Passion and Purpose
Passion is one of the most potent forms of energy in the universe. It emanates from your heart and soul, and sends out a powerful electromagnetic frequency into the universe that attracts people and resources to help you pursue that passion.
Passion is contagious. When you express passion, people are automatically attracted to it. When you’re passionate about what you do, your product or service speaks for itself. If you’re not passionate about your business, you might want to reconsider why you went into business in the first place.
So the first big question is: what are you passionate about?
Next, look at your purpose. Are you in business merely to accumulate wealth or do you have a strong desire to help others? Most very wealthy people have a higher social and moral purpose that goes beyond the simple quest to make money. Yes, they went into business to enjoy a great lifestyle, but they also did it to make a difference in the lives of others.
When you can match up your purpose and your passion, magic happens.
It puts you in front of all the others who have lukewarm enthusiasm for what they do. What is your purpose in business, how does it match up with your passion, and how do you combine the two to make the world a better place?
Step 2. Identify Your Strengths
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. In order to succeed in business, you must get very clear about your unique abilities and then focus on them almost to the exclusion of everything else.
The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is thinking they have to do everything themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Successful entrepreneurs know what needs to get done and then they figure out how to get it done, not how to do it themselves. If an important task or activity matches their personals strengths or unique ability, they do it themselves. If not, they delegate or outsource it to someone else.
Don't buy into the notion that you will become a better business owner by shoring up your weaknesses. That’s a sure recipe for mediocrity. Instead, identify your strengths and spend most of your time using them to perform the highest-impact activities in your business.
Step 3. Manage Your Time
This step is actually a misnomer, because when you get down to it, it’s impossible to manage time. What you can do is manage your activities by tracking where you spend your time on a daily basis and using that information to help you focus on high-impact activities.
As CEO/owner of your business, one of your most important tasks is identifying the highest income-generating activities in your business and devoting a minimum of 80% of your time to those activities. This principle works whether you’re a “solopreneur” with one product or a giant conglomerate with multiple lines of products.
Image ©
For the entrepreneur and small business owner, the highest income-producing activity, bar none, is generating revenue.
Every day, your primary focus should be on how your company will generate more revenue.
If you’re not spending a minimum of 80 percent of your time on incomegenerating activities, your business will struggle to grow and increase revenues.
If your personal strengths lie in sales and marketing, then you need to spend a minimum of 80% of your time performing these activities. However, if your personal strengths lie elsewhere, hire an expert to do the sales and marketing for you and focus your time and energy on those high-impact activities that match your personal strengths.
The secret to growing revenues and building a successful business is to focus only on what you do best and hire or outsource everything else.
Will that cost a lot? Well, not a lot if you follow the right advice. :) But in any case, if you’re focusing on your highest-impact activities and they are generating 16 times more revenue for you, then you can hire all the people you need and still make a lot more money.
Work On the Business, Not In It
Big businesses get built when the owner leverages his or her personal strengths through the use of other people’s unique talents and abilities. In other words, successful business owners focus on their highest income-generating activities and then build great teams around them to do all the other important activities they don’t do well.
To build a great team, you must overcome the typical entrepreneurial thinking that you have to do everything yourself. More important, you need to stop working in the business and start working on it.
That's where my Outsourcing Blueprint comes in...
In it, you'll quickly learn everything you need to know about Finding, Training, and Getting Maximum Results from as many hard-working outsourcers as you need.
All while protecting the intellectual property of your business and securing its assets.
My Coaching Course will show you ways to dramatically expand your company.
Even if you're just starting out, or a growing concern this is going to help you to get real key boosters to jump to the next income level.
The skills and tested "done for you" templates in this course can put you on track to create massive profits and break-through achievements.
All the details are here… check it out: How To Get Other People To Do All The Work For You.
I hope this article was helpful for you.
Please, share your comments using the form below :)
To your Success!
-- Alex
As you know, one of the typical methods to build thousands of subscribers in a short period of time is by launching products.
However, product launches involve a lot of work that needs to be done upfront, such as
- Making your own product.
- Having support from joint venture partners (involving establishing relationships with them)..
- Making sure that the product would sell very well.
- Getting your affiliates and JVs to promote it.
All of this can be very time consuming. And if you’re just starting out, it’s definitely not the best route to choose.
But is there any way around?
It definitely is :-).
And I’m just about to reveal to you a method that I’ve been using for years. It has generated for me thousands of subscribers and continues to do so.
How To Build Your List At Turbo Speed
Image ©
I think you have heard (and some of you used) the free report method where you write or outsource a report on your topic and then give it away for free to generate traffic with it.
But here’s the problem with that method. Let’s say, you go to a JV partner and say something like, “Hey, do you want to give away my free report because it’s valuable to your subscribers?”
Would it benefit them? I don’t think so. There’s nothing really in it.
As Kim Roach points out, “The KEY in JV partnerships is to provide VALUE first.” Think what’s in it for THEM.
And here’s a great way to do that. It will build your list automatically and keep your JV partners happy at the same time.
- Write a report between 10-20 pages long on a real hot topic within your niche. You can also outsource it.
- Sell the report for $7.
Here’s where the magic happens...
- There's a simple program out there that allows you to set up JV partners to sell the $7 report.
- You give them 100% of the commissions which is very easy to sell for them.
You don't need to care about the commissions because you just give it to them. It'll convert really well. Only you get to keep the list and that's where the money is. The money is in the list (and, of course, in your relationship with that list, but that’s another story)
You get to keep all the buyers and this is much more valuable.
A Really Dirty Secret Of Marketing (kept between the pros)
Image ©
Buyer leads, in other words, people who spend money are MUCH more valuable than free opt-in leads.
For example, if you offered me 500,000 people who had entered their email for a free report or some sort of free competition to win an iPod or 1,000 customers who had bought a $7 report on how to find their true purpose in life..
I would choose 1,000 buyer leads without question.
In any niche, including the IM niche your paying customers, even as little as $7 are much more valuable than a free subscriber.
So, I'm going to show you exactly how to do this and where to get this simple script.
It was created by a friend of mine, Don Morris and he sells it for $7. Let me tell you, for $7 it’s great value.
You can get the script, including the simple step-by-step manual on how to install and use it here: http://www.coachtutorials.com/7dollar/
It’s called “$7 Secrets”.
Although it’s only $7, it’s still money. So, if you have your own engine that can automatically give 100% commissions, you’re free to go with it. Or you can just manually do that every time which I wouldn’t recommend as it could be a real headache.
What's Next?
For now, you should have the following:
- A 10-20 pages report on a hot topic in your niche that you will sell for $7.
- A script that automates giving 100% commissions.
Let’s say you wrote a report on how to find a purpose in life in 30 minutes.
What you do next is this. You simply go to Google and find websites in your niche. Then you email the owners of those websites with the $7 JV approach letter.
> Download this letter HERE. (txt) <
Obviously, you can tweak it as you want and add your own text.
This is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful, cheapest and effective methods to building a list. Especially if you are quite new to this stuff and need some credibility.
The $7 report is definitely the backdoor to this.
From my experience, I get 1 response out of about 4-5 people whom I approached with the JV letter.
I can guarantee that if you try it in different markets you will certainly get responses.
"What’s in it for THEM?"
"Will it benefit THEM?"
"How can I increase my service to THEM knowing that my rewards must be in exact proportion to my service?"
And everything else will take care of itself ;-)
Image ©
I hope you enjoyed the article.
Please, leave your thoughts using the comment box below!
To higher profits and higher value delivery ;-)
~ Alex Wayo
Follow Alex Wayo
Subscribe via RSS and follow me on Twitter.
Out of this 277, 149 are PR 4-8 WEB PROFILE SITES that you can USE immediately to get more backlinks LOVE!
