Thies, by Dan Net er Stomp ber y Mem Facult
5 TNE Volume 1 - Issue 6
lbert Einstein famously defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” He wasn’t talking about search marketing, or business, but that doesn’t matter. That little fact hasn’t prevented every pointy-haired boss in the history of business from repeating some variation of this simple idea as his or her own. You know what’s really funny? It’s actually only half true. Because doing the same thing in a slightly different way, or even doing the same things in a different order, can lead to a dramatically different outcome.
You get no results and no income from the first step. The second step is unlikely to change that much. That’s at least half an hour for next to no results – right? For less competitive search terms, you might start to see some results after completing the third step, and for competitive keywords, you’re going to need to put even more time in at step 4. Altogether, the time commitment is about 3 hours or more per search term, if you’re going to take it even a little bit seriously. Now if you are doing all of this yourself, that means something.
A Very Plausible Scenario
As an example, let’s assume that: A. You have 8 hours (480 minutes) per week to spend on SEO. B. You have a list of 20 keywords that you want to target. C. You want to start seeing some results as fast as possible. If you work on all 20 keywords at once, which a lot of folks do, here’s how you spend your time in the first week: • Deciding which pages to optimize… Time Spent = 20 keywords x 10minutes = 200 minutes Time Left = 480-200 = 280 minutes left for the week Optimizing on page factors… Time Spent = 20 keywords x 20 minutes = 400 minutes Time Left = 280-400 = Oops. Ran out of time.
Keyword Strategy Ain’t Sexy…
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past ten years thinking about keywords and keyword strategy. You might say, an unnatural amount of time. I’d have to agree with that. You might think, after all that time, that there wouldn’t be anything new to say about keyword strategy. I’d have to disagree – I don’t care how much you know (or think you know) – there is always room for improvement. Most people, if they think about keyword strategy at all, are probably asking a simple question: “Which keywords are going to bring me the greatest return for the time and money I invest in search marketing?” That’s a good question, but if you stop there, you’re not going to get the greatest return. Keyword strategy doesn’t stop when “doing SEO” starts. Building that initial keyword list is the easy part. In fact, the initial “keyword research” phase can be finished very quickly these days, thanks to tools like Keyword Discovery, Nichebot, and Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool, that will examine a web site and build keyword lists automatically.
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See what just happened? You didn’t even finish doing on page optimization in the first week. In fact, if you play this very plausible scenario out to its conclusion, you haven’t started any link building until the third week! Now, if the pages you worked on were already attracting a little search engine traffic, your on-page efforts (which you didn’t even finish) will probably raise that trickle of visitors to a slightly greater, well, trickle. Working on all of your keywords at each step in the SEO process actually delays the benefit – even with a fairly small number of keywords.
The Real Time Suck Is “Doing SEO”
The truth is that you spend the bulk of your time, money, and brainpower on getting pages ranked. There are also some very distinct steps in acquiring rankings, traffic, and profits from a search term you’ve decided to target: 1. 2. 3. 4. Deciding which page(s) you’re going to optimize (10 minutes) Optimizing on page factors, title tag, meta description (20 minutes) Optimizing internal (on site) links to boost rankings (30 minutes) Building inbound links (off site) from the web (at least 60 minutes – often much more!)
It’s Not Your Fault – It’s The Way You Were Taught
I used to teach a 10-week “SEO Workshop” course, and we always started with a module on planning and processes. It was a little unusual, and my students were often impatient to “get into the SEO.” But it worked out, because they learned to think about the entire process before they even started.
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A little time spent planning things out will almost always help you grow your business. I’ve never seen anyone else teach SEO like I did, with planning & processes first. So, if you’ve been doing things in the crazy “step by step” way, maybe it’s because you were taught that way. I don’t mean to put the blame on whoever taught you SEO, because it’s perfectly natural to learn the “steps” in order. However, literally going through the steps in order may not be the best way to get the results you want. That’s the easiest way to learn the mechanics of SEO, but in practice, it’s not the best way to actually do SEO. Getting the order right starts with understanding a simple idea: You are not optimizing for rankings, you are optimizing for business results (profits). Most of us just want as much profit in our pockets as we can get – and we’d like to have it as soon as possible. This means you don’t want to put big effort into keywords that don’t convert, and that you need to juggle the schedule a bit to get the absolute most profit. To develop a completely optimal plan, there are a lot of factors to consider, such as how difficult it’s going to be to get ranked, how much traffic you could get, how well that traffic will convert... I could go on but I’ll stop here, because we’re not going to go there today. Stompers know that over-thinking anything kills your ability to act. I said “a little time” on planning, not “work on the plan until it’s perfect.” I’ve developed a couple of very simple methods over the years that will give you a quick improvement in your results without leading to the dreaded analysis paralysis. These two methods are called Serializing and Triggering. They work together to help you take intelligent action and accelerate the benefits of doing SEO.
• • •
High Volume – the top third Mid Volume – the middle third Low Volume – the bottom third
Naturally, you’ll probably have more than 20 keywords to start with. That’s okay, I usually start with 20-50 search terms.
Same Scenario, Different Result
Now take one keyword from each of the three chunks, and get to work. Here’s what happens the first week: • • • • Deciding which pages to optimize, 10 minutes x 3 keywords = 30 minutes Optimizing on-page factors, 20 minutes x 3 keywords = 60 minutes Setting up internal links, 30 minutes x 3 keywords = 90 minutes You’ve still got 5 hours left to work on link building!
So instead of spending 3 weeks just getting stuff set up on your site, you’re already well on your way to getting some results after just one week. You can spend a little extra time on link building for more competitive search terms, without ignoring the mid-volume and low-volume keywords. The following week, you start again with another set of three keywords. What you learn from watching the keywords you’ve already worked on will help you plan out the best ways to get ranked for other keywords, and you can always take some time out to focus on specific opportunities. Please keep in mind that serializing is just a helpful technique, not a religion. It’s not intended to replace your own good sense. If, for example, you’ve worked on a high-volume keyword and it’s still not getting results after a few weeks, do put in more time on that. If you’ve assessed the competition and decided you need to do a lot more link building, then by all means, do it!
Serializing: Doing the Same Thing with Different Results
Remember how I said you could get very different results, if you just do things in a different order? Well, let’s take another crack at our “8 hours a week with 20 keywords” example. Instead of working on all the keywords at once, at every step, we’ll do it just a little differently. To avoid worrying too much about the difficulty of getting ranked, let’s split your keyword list into 3 equal chunks, based on the search volume:
Triggering: When Opportunity Knocks, Answer the Door!
Blindly following any plan forever will eventually lead you astray. Serializing is a nice little crutch to help you plan your attack, but without a little course correction now and again, you won’t get the best results. Triggering is designed to give you those course corrections, and identify opportunities to turn a little activity into a lot of profit. Here’s how it works:
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1.
For every keyword that you’ve worked on, track your rankings (don’t obsess!) and the referral traffic you’re getting from the search engines. When you start to see referrals for new keywords you’ve been working on, that’s a trigger to act. When you see more than a few referrals for (relevant) search terms that you haven’t been working on at all, that’s another trigger.
2. 3.
Both #2 and #3 above are triggers to act. In both cases, you’re seeing referrals (results) for search terms, and of course, you’d like to get more referrals so you can make more profit faster. When this happens, take some time to check your rankings, and analyze the situation. This is where your SEO skills and experience come into play a bit. Taking a little time to add some more internal links can quickly boost your ranking on less competitive midvolume search terms. Spending a little of your link building time to get more links from other sites also helps. Even if you just add a few more internal links, it’s hard not to get a boost in your rankings. Triggering works because it lets you focus your effort on your best opportunities. Search engines aren’t as predictable as we might like. If they were, you could come up with a perfect “serial” strategy. Using both of these methods together will help you accelerate your profits and get more out of your SEO efforts. As always, I wish you success!
This Could Be You!
Valerie VanBooven
http://www.TheLTCExpert.com TNE Reader for Six Months Valerie’s back-story is both common, and yet very unique. Like most people who make money online, she once had a “real” job as an RN and an Elder Care Manager. When we asked her why she went online and tried her hand making money there she told us: “I experimented with writing and selling two books- The Senior Solution, and Aging Answers (Amazon.) Once those were successful, I knew I could do more...Plus, the financial security of having a successful online business in a crazy economy is priceless.” Here’s the unique part of Valerie’s tale. Are you ready? Valerie told us that she made”...$15K in one day using StomperNet strategies, actually in about 1 hour- and that achievement was based on The Net Effect and free online videos that StomperNet had released for 5 launch.” Whoa. That floored us. She went on to say that the most valuable The Net Effect articles to her were the Social Media Survival Guide (Facebook/Mari Smith), Page Rank, UStream.TV . Valerie gave us one more bit of jaw-dropping inspiration. “I’m the mother of triplets who are two years old now. I have two part time nannies, and a stay at home husband (our choice when the girls were born-he quit his corporate job), and I work from home. If I can have a successful online business, ANYONE can. You need to educate yourself. You should never rely on anyone else to provide you with some get rich quick/magic bullet scheme. Only you are the master of your destiny- and the only way to make it happen online is with education and hard work. I love my jobs, I love the hats I wear, and I love the fact that I’m at home with my family. The recession hasn’t had any effect on our lifestyle. StomperNet is the place to be!”
8 TNE Volume 1 - Issue 6