WebWorld’s 30 Day Challenge Blog

According to the “Bum SEO” process, we should (ideally) avoid targeting KW phrases with SERP results in positions 1-10, coming from the following Web 2.0. sites.

a) Squidoo
b) Hubpages
c) Tumblr
d) Netscape
e) EzineArticles
f) Myspace
g) Youtube
h) Ehow
j) USfreeads
k) Zimbio

I don’t think YouTube is a deal-breaker, because you can piggyback off the traffic for videos that are listed in the top 10 SERPS. Create a “Video Comment” response, and it will be listed on YouTube underneath the profiled video.

Found a great list of sites to submit your press release to—free of charge. To get backlinks/exposure, you can submit press releases FREE to these 10 sites:

prwebdirect.com (PR7)
free-news-release.com (PR6)
prleap.com (PR6)
1888pressrelease.com (PR5)
ecommwire.com (PR5)
przoom.com (PR5)
pr9.net (PR4)
prbuzz.com (PR4)
pressexposure.com (PR3)
press-base.com (PR0)

I’ve read a couple of blogs that have been criticizing the GTrends process and the method that Ed & Dan are teaching. Here are my thoughts on this (and I’ll make them brief):

1. Save criticism until you have real-world RESULTS of whether the method works.

It’s so easy to criticize someone else’s teaching, based on your own personal preferences (what you think works, what you think should be taught, how you think material should be presented), but the proof is in the pudding. The only thing that matters is…does Ed & Dan’s method work? Is it effective?

The only way to know for certain is to apply the method. Save criticism/feedback until you’ve put the method into practice. Try it out—see what happens. Then talk. Then criticize. Then give feedback.

2. Teaching a group of people with a wide variety of skill levels (from complete newbie to advanced) is difficult.

I have real-world experience with teaching, and I know this…

It’s difficult—even for a very experienced teacher—to instruct a group of people with extremely diverse skill levels. For example, pretend you are teaching a mathematics class. In your class, you have students who can’t do basic Algebra problems; however, you also have some students who know Calculus. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to teach a math class with such a wide variety of skill levels?

Here’s the crux:

If you make the material too basic, then people with advanced knowledge feel bored and “tune-out/drop-off.” On the other hand, if you make the material more advanced, you risk losing the newbies - people with less knowledge who are easily overwhelmed. It’s a sticky situation all around.

The 30DC is geared toward new people, so more advanced marketers will have to accept, and deal with that.

Ed, Dan & Nick - I appreciate all the hard work you have put into the challenge. Thank you. I will stick with the process for 30 days. I’ll learn what I can from it - and then tweak the process as needed in the future. Ignore the naysayers - they will only drag you down!

This post is more for my own benefit.

Here’s a summary of the Web 2.0 Market Selection Process, as taught by Ed & Dan. I’ve nicknamed it “Bum SEO” because it reminds me of Travis Saigo’s “Bum Marketing.” We’re targeting low-competition KW phrases that we can easily rank for.

1. Find a handful of low competition KW phrases for your selected niche that you can easily rank for (using Web 2.0 properties - parasite SEO).

Selection Criteria:

A. Under 30,000 results in the SERPS using phrase match (quotations around the KW).

B. At least 80-100 searches/day for your “Bum SEO keywords” as determined by Google Trends. (This is ideal, but lower search #’s combined with more KW phrases will work too.)

Part One: Find KW phrases that are related to your target market. I think you’re better off using Google’s External KW Research Tool (with the little green bars) instead of Wordtracker. WT data only represents 1-2% of all searches, and doesn’t really match up with the # of KW searches on Google. The best KW research tool that I’ve found (so far) is Wordze.  Wordze has a fairly accurate estimation of KW search count. (But, Wordtracker is a sponsor for the 30DC, so of course, WT is being promoted.) If you’re like me, you can use the Google External Keyword Tool to choose KW phrases to research (traffic and # of SERP competitors).

Step Two: Once you’ve found a KW that meets the “Under 30,000 competitors in the SERPS” criteria, you now need to make sure your KW gets enough searches/day. After all, it’s completely useless ranking for a KW that doesn’t bring you traffic.

Determine the estimated traffic using Google Trends. Again, the ideal is at least 100 searches per day, but for a lot of my KW’s, the GTrends tool would only show 20-80 searches per day.

Notes on Google Trends:

• We are using the KW male yeast infection as a traffic baseline. According to Dan, Male Yeast Infection gets 500-550 visitors each day while ranking #2 in the SERPS.

• Your “traffic baseline term” (in this case, male yeast infection) should be broad match, and your KW should be phrase match. Type the following into GTrends: male yeast infection, “your KW phrase here”

• Your KW will only display in the GTrends graph if it gets 200-250 searches per day.

• If the graph doesn’t display, look under Languages to gauge the # of searches based on the length of the image bar (in comparison to Male Yeast Infection).

These 2 videos summarize the process:

Phrase Research
Traffic Estimates using GTrends

Mark over at 45n5 has created a cool affiliate site builder script that uses the API from Ebay, Amazon, and YouTube to create dynamic content. He is generously giving away the script under a Creative Commons License. Thanks Mark!

I’m going to build a couple of sites using this script. I plan to add Adsense ads at the top, with a Lightbox popup to build a list (to market back-end affiliate products, or to test demand for info. products). You could also use the “Traffic Regenerator” feature when they go to leave. As with any site, getting traffic is the 800-pound gorilla.

In the words of Marlon Sanders, you will need to “Promote, promote, promote.”

Using this script, the site creation process is easy and you don’t have to worry about adding content. The more time-intensive process, however, will be getting backlinks, traffic, and ranking.

Go check it out.

My thoughts on toolbars and privacy:

Call me paranoid, but I refuse to install any toolbar into the browser that I use on an everyday basis (Firefox). There’s too much room for privacy abuse. Depending on how the toolbar was developed and configured, the toolbar creator can have access to every webpage I visit…and every search I perform. In essence, toolbars can potentially track 100% of your website usage.

Not cool.

Here’s the good news, though. Firefox offers an extension for almost every possible “Toolbar” offered. For example, if you need Alexa data - instead of installing the Alexa toolbar, you can use the SEO Open extension. The SEO Open extension provides access to Alexa data, backlinks, indexed pages, PR, WhoIs data, and more.

I feel much more comfortable installing an extension from Mozilla than I do installing a toolbar (spyware?) from a marketing company such as Alexa or StumbleUpon.

Google Toolbar

Do you want to see the PR for every website you visit, but you don’t want to install the Google toolbar?

Just install the Live PR extension for Firefox.

StumbleUpon Toolbar

What about StumbleUpon?

In order to use StumbleUpon, I was asked to download a toolbar. I decided to install the toolbar into Opera, since I don’t use Opera as my main browser. [I have Opera installed to test webpage design. 99% of the time Opera renders HTML just like Firefox, since they are both standards compliant. IE is another story.]

Problem is, StumbleUpon doesn’t offer a toolbar for Opera.

Fortunately, there’s a group of developers who created a toolbar for Opera. It’s called OperaStumbler and offers the same features as the toolbar for IE and FF. (Thank you Kyle.)

So, if you feel uncomfortable installing the StumbleUpon toolbar into your main browser, you can always use Opera and OperaStumbler.

I received several emails (and videos) about a product that was launched today. Not going to name the product, but the sales copy made extensive use of the word “explode.” As in…

“Explode the profits in your business practically overnight.”

– Yes, that’s verbatim from the sales letter –

Other examples…

Explode your business. Explode your success. Explode your opt-in list.

Every time I see the word “explode” used, I can’t help laughing. It’s such hyperbole. Such hype. Surely there’s a better way to phrase this.

Skyrocket?

Sounds “hype-y” too.

The word “explode” is one of the funniest - and most overused - internet marketing verbs.

Okay, here’s how I’m accessing my 30DC blog, since the wp-admin link isn’t working.

Go to thirtydaychallenge.com/blog/wp-admin. Login with your username and password. Then visit blogs.thirtydaychallenge.com and click on “Create a new blog.”

Wordpress will show you the blog(s) that you’ve already created. Click on your blog’s name, and then click on “Edit” (for one of your posts). This will bring you into your Admin panel.

I’m having trouble accessing the Admin interface. When I visit:

blogs.thirtydaychallenge.com/webworld8/wp-admin

and attempt to login, I get an error message saying “The page isn’t redirecting properly.”

To get back into the Admin panel (still had cookies intact from prior post), I had to visit:

blogs.thirtydaychallenge.com/webworld8/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit
&post=3

Anyone else experiencing this?

Everything is set up, and I’m ready to start the challenge. Thank you Dan for setting up Wordpress MU. Great idea.

It’s a little different getting accustomed to not having FTP access to Wordpress (i.e. can’t upload a header graphic, can’t change CSS link color, can’t choose a custom theme), but it works well enough for the 30DC.

I’m curious to see what the process will look like this year - especially since Adwords is out of the picture.