Unpopular Advice on the Latest Search Engine Optimization Update

Right about now…

…I’ll be getting onstage at the Underground Online Seminar to give my presentation, “The Right Habits of Internet Millionaires”. If you’re in the audience, please clap when the “Applause” sign goes on.

Just kidding. The presentation is my life’s work. The problem isn’t making it good, it’s sharing it all in just 50 minutes.

Now onto today’s Unpopular Advice column followed by some bad news from Nicky Parsons about why your website traffic may have dropped in the last 2 weeks.

Question: I’ve made a few videos and them to go viral, any tips? – Dwayne

Answer: Yes, accept the fact that you have no control over this.

You don’t make something go viral.

It either goes viral on its own or it doesn’t.

It’s not about getting a lot of people to look at it quickly, or about getting a famous person to send it to their email list.

It’s either viral or it’s not.

There’s nothing you can do after you’ve the video.

As for creating a viral video…I’m sorry, I’m not an expert at this.

Some things catch, and 99.99% of things don’t. Focus on making good quality content for your specific audience instead.

Question: I have been working hard on getting a blog, sales page and my ebook created. I have done all of this under an alias of [Name Withheld]. Just wondering your thoughts on doing something like this? I assume you go by your real name but realize the Masterson and Ford names of ETR fame are fictional names. In an  effort to keep as private as possible, is this something that is ok to do? – D.

Answer: Hi D, thanks for your email and I’m impressed by everything you’ve done so far. I also appreciate the fact that you are documenting everything.

About the alias…I get this question a lot, and frankly while it sounds seductive (I’ve thought about doing this for a few business I never got around to starting), I’ve come to the conclusion that overall, it’s NOT a good idea.

Using an alias creates an ever-present tension between you and your readers.

You end up painting yourself into a corner you cannot escape.

And it’s tougher and tougher to maintain the alias in this day and age.

I wouldn’t recommend it.

Then again, I’m from the Dan Kennedy school of baring every single wart and all. I’m an open book. I’ve written about the death of my father from alcoholism, the doubts my mother had about my career choice, my failures, my weaknesses, and pretty much anything and everything that makes me look…human.

And I believe that is the best way to go.

My proof?

Arguably the most influential woman in the world – Oprah.

She’s affected more lives than almost anyone else in the entertainment world, and I believe a large amount of her success is due to her openness.

I’ll leave the final decision up to you…but understand that slapping a pseudonym on your site comes with its own problems.

Question: Let me first of all say I am a big fan of everything that you have been doing lately. I have been a ready of Internet Independence from almost the beginning, recently a member of Early to Rise.

In the book ‘Internet Independence Fast Start Program”, item #1 in the top 10 thing you did to build your online business was networking.

Besides interviews, what else can you do for that person in hope that they will return the favor? – Bryan Carlton

Answer: Bryan, thank you for your kind words and for your support. That’s a really great question. Here’s the short answer, and I’ll put more thought into a longer essay for ETR soon.

There are many things you can do:

1) Try to connect them with people who you think would be a good fit.

2) Promote their product to your list.

3) Send them resources that might help them (i.e. I used to send books to people of influence with notes in them)

4) Offer to create a bonus that they could use in their program or on their site.

5) Most important – be an action taker with a quality message and a powerful mission – that way you ATTRACT people into your life.

********And now…and update from Nicky********

Nicky vs. The Panda – ROUND TWO of the SEO Battle

In case you don’t know anything about SEO, here’s the deal:

The Big G controls the Internet – essentially – through their control of their search engine rankings.

They control how websites rank.

The “calculation” they use to determine a website’s ranking often changes over time.

Essentially, what has tended to matter the most is:

– The content on the website pages
– The number and quality of the links back to the pages

That’s a super-duper simplified version of SEO, but that’s where we need to start.

The problem is that people try to influence The Big G’s website rankings, most often through getting more links sent back to their website.

And so the Big G fights back by changing their “website ranking calculations”, also known as an Algorithm.

Each time they make changes, The Big G gives the changes a name. The most recent update was called the “Panda Update”.

And just this week, The Big G made even more changes to their website ranking algorithm.

You might have noticed your website traffic drop. Nicky explains why this happened…

“Today Panda 3.3 was officially announced and one of the major factors in this update was they changed the way they look at link valuations. In addition, the update also DELETED many backlinks to many websites.

A year ago when Panda was originally released it shook up the SEO world and a lot of websites lost rankings.

But SEO experts were still manipulating rankings with tons of links from blog networks.

But now we are seeing the Panda Strike Back (cue image of Panda in a Darth Vader outfit – someone draw me this, please).

The Big G has decided to DELETE all of these backlinks from blog networks in a process called “Deindexing”.

In fact, here’s the official word from the Big G:

“Link evaluation. We often use characteristics of links to help us figure out the topic of a linked page. We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years. We often rearchitect or turn off parts of our scoring in order to keep our system maintainable, clean and understandable.”

So if you used blog networks to get links, you’ve probably lost all those links and lost a lot of your SEO rankings…

…and therefore your traffic.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

The Big G is obviously sending people into blog networks now to take them down.

Kind of like sending in Agent Smith(s) to find Neo in the Matrix.

Google is heavily attacking blog networks and now even going after SEO Hosting companies.

The strategies that SEO experts – like me – were using 2 years ago are now going to work even better, so I’m going back to those tactics.

SEO is forever going to be a slower and steadier process. It’s like they have taken away modern engineering and are requiring Nascar drivers to use cars from the 1960’s again.

It’s safe to say that using aggressive strategies to gain rankings very fast are going to be a thing of the past and using slower more painful methods will be necessary.

One thing I’ve noticed is that Youtube videos and Press Releases have moved up in the search rankings.

So that’s where future SEO opportunity may lie…”

Nicky Parsons, reporting from parts unknown

*************

Thanks Nicky.

SEO is a tricky biz…which is why it’s more important than ever for you to focus on creating an irresistible offer.

Jason Leister, a master copywriter, will be talking about that in our Early to Rise Implementation Day on Sunday.

Watch for a future report on that essential topic soon.

Have a great weekend,

Craig Ballantyne

“To whom much is given, much is expected.” – And the truth is, everyone reading this has been given so much…much more than any other generation in history. Use your talents. Share your gifts with the world.

Avoid the temptations to waste your time and talents on insignificant matters.

There are too many people to help, too much good to do. Don’t let anyone, any negativity, or criticism, stop you from living the gifts you’ve been given.