I was just setting here a few minutes ago thinking about what to write and actually earlier I was doing the same thing. Then I got to thinking to my self am I being stubborn because I think sometimes my stubbornness rubs off into the wrong areas, but then I was like no that’s not the problem the problem was I wasn’t being open with my blog.

Writing requires you to be open and share your true thoughts. Which of course we all have different views on what being open minded actually means, but when your building a blog its something that requires a lot of attention, maintenance, self-dedication, motivation, and you name it, but most important of all it requires you to be open with what your doing.

So in other words blog about things that people will want to hear about. For example don’t you like talking with someone when there more honest with you I mean why wouldn’t you or. Another example would be - have ever known someone that you wanted to know more on a personal bases or wanted to learn more about there professional life?

You must be able to open and communicate with your readers, make them feel attached to what your saying and most generally that comes with you being open to every one by writing it down. I think a lot of people struggle with blogs such as getting them going because there not an easy task to get going of course, but then again there’s some people that can just jump right into them and build them up, but most generally these are people that are very passionate about what there blogging about and are completely honest about what there blogging about.

That right there is what will get you far in the web 2.0 sphere is being honest when you write or at least being more open if you get my drift. When you learn to develop this type of behavior you will find out it will be so much easier to write because your actually writing what your thinking and is happening. I’m not saying you have to blog about your personal life all the time which it wouldn’t hurt every once and awhile to let your readers know who you are of course, but on a professional level what I’m trying to say is that you should try to stay more open at the same time.

Building a website that is full of compelling content can lead you into success (such as link bait, brand awareness, and etc). When a user visits your site and they see you have a ton of content or at least viral (valuable) content they will link to it or possibly spread it through social networks. And of course the more you have generally the better.

You know sometimes writing about new stuff (or at least finding new stuff to write about) can be a challenge at times unless it’s news related because most generally there’s always something new out there happening in the search world, but when it comes to educational type stuff that side can be a challenging. Some days I don’t even know what to write about out of all honesty - most generally when I feel like that its because I’m burned out, but lets get into the tips.

How can you build up new ideas for content creation?

1. Subscribe to other community related blogs: Sometimes this can help, the more blogs you subscribe to the better. The reason I say recommend doing this for is because sometimes it can create new ideas for you to write about or you might come across something that is valuable to write about such as news in the SEO / SEM space.
2. Your Work and Life: Every once and awhile blog about your personal life well if its relevant to what you do anyways. For example are you ever communicating with someone or doing something and you’ve learned something from it and it was half personal and half career like if so then blog about the experience. You might just help someone else out by blogging about it.
3. Create Guide Books: Create something that is almost like a guide these always work and people like to read them for example create a post called, The Guide To Getting Top Rankings, who knows you might have a lot of people that will be highly interested in what you have wrote about, but reguardless the title always catches there eyes.
4. Search Google: Do a search on Google and if you bump into something that you find interesting why not write about it (that’s what I’m doing now out of all honesty).
5. Go To Forums: Sometimes this can be helpful I mean. It depends, for example, say you see an interesting discussion going on or maybe a lot of people are asking questions about SEO why not answer the question through your blog then maybe you can spread it through the forums :).
6. Take Notes: Take notes of things you should blog about this can be very helpful I know it has helped me a few times I know some people that carry notebooks around or a PDA and they’ll take notes of stuff that happens daily and then figure out a way to apply it through there blog.
7. Be Open: When blogging stay open with your mind don’t be closed minded if you are closed minded it will hurt you big time I do the same thing sometimes not becuase I’m a close minded person, but because I get burnt out and then I start to lose my openness to blogging, so therefore I become stubborn and pass a lot of good ideas up.

Creating blog ideas can be a challenging process sometimes, but honestly I think the most important thing is about blogging is keeping a open mind. If you have an open mind then you could probably blog every day, so if your a closed minded person you better learn to be open minded because that’s what blogs are about.

Building channels to market through can be a task. Which of course we all know that using organic search and pay per click can be highly targeted traffic, but then again is there things you are missing? Yes I think there is I mean we all are missing certain little segments that can be exploded rather its through pay per click, organic search, or just the outside box thinking.

Marketing through search engines is a very powerful way to market, but sometimes it goes deeper then that. For example have you ever thought about building a parallel market? You can do this through all major search engines when I refer to a parallel market — what I’m trying to tell you is that you should build something that will come back to you 10 times more then what it would if you just had an average ranking with a keyword vertical.

For example why not build some link bait content and then market the content through pay per click and / or organic search, I mean it only makes sense right? If you ask me it does sometimes your content might not get seen, so therefore you should build links into that content with relevant keywords, therefore you will gain more market, but ultimately creating a viral market (link bait baby).

If done properly you can get a lot back from it people might do the following: spread it through forums, link to it, e-mail friends to tell them about it, or even submit it to social network sites such as Digg, Reddit, Stumble Upon, and etc. It really depends, but really what your trying to do is to just get the content to viral out there reguardless of what people are doing with it.

If you get the content to viral out there one way or another then you know you did something right specially if people are linking to it.

Conclusion
Always keep in mind there is several ways to market and sometimes you just got to think outside the box. If there is content you want seen and you think its going to answer a lot of question in certain market segments why not market this content through pay per click or organic search before someone else provides somewhat similar information.

Building a brand online can be done through multiple channels rather it being through search engines or online advertise, but let me give you some tips on where to market and why you should market there.

1. Search Engine Optimization (Organic Search): Optimizing a websites visibility through organic search is a *must* if you ask me. If you have a great visibility level through organic search then the chances are your going to drive some direct high quality leads, so therefore this gives you more room to build your brand (more clients the better).
2. Pay Per Click (Sponsored Listings):Pay Per Click can be quite costly, but honestly from our testing and from every one else I have talked to most generally you can drive better leads through pay per click then what you can through organic search which granted there is a lot of variables to this. The thing is with PPC is that you can manually edit all your descriptions, titles, and deep links accord lying to the way you want them. PPC also allows A / B testing on your landing pages and ads, so it can be a pretty powerful tool if you learn to use it to the fullest.
3. Online Advertising: Advertising through relevant channels can increase brand awareness dramatically. See the thing is with online advertising is that your traffic or ROI (Return on Investment) might not come back right off the bat, but if you keep pushing that image out there it will tattoo into the consumers head therefore it could create a word of mouth effect or even if there looking for certain services thats relevant to what you offer they might think of your brand right off the bat.
4. Blogs: User generated content in the web 2.0 space is highly important now and I see a lot of people lacking in this area. Generate link bait content can increase brand awareness through search engines due to the link popularity that it creates, but at the same time creating social networks that might create media.
5. Press Release: Submitting press releases can be very effective which granted this is probably something that we need to do more of for our clients and our own services, but you can use press release articles to create media speaking you have something that worth talking of.

There is so many ways to market online rather it being through PPC, Organic Search, Blogs, and you name it. The idea is to use numerous strategies combined and believe me you’ll develop new strategies on your own from experience. The best thing to do is think outside the box when you think outside the box or at least discover outside the box strategies you will drive leads like you never imagined.

Find your market segment and explode it, but keep in mind that segment will not always stay open specially if someone else finds out what your doing.

Building a business online is quite simple which of course there is several channels to market through such as pay per click, SEO, contextual advertising, and you name it. There is also ways of generating sales by just having content around a certain service or your company all together, so let discuss that.

When you create content on a website it can be very valuable which granted not every piece of content you put on your website might not turn out to be a link bait, but with enough content sooner or later your going to start capturing links . The results of capturing links will be higher search engines rankings. When people find compelling content they will most generally link to it, bookmark it, show a friend, or spread it through social networks which then can turn into more links.

How should you build your content?

1. Tips: Offering tips is a great way to build your subscriber list or even at the same time capturing more links. People love to check out websites that offer valuable tips for example if someone sees a title that says 101 ways to build a successful blog there going to check it out and you never know they might even spread it through social networks or they could even blog about it there self.
2. Educational: Try to offer things that are educational, so in other words make sure your audience will benefit from what your writing, people love to to read stuff that will help them.
3. Link Out: This would fall back under the category of offering educational information, so make sure you link out to other blogs that are offering valuable information therefore this will help with the awareness of your blog because when people see your linking to them they might link back and review your blog post.
4. Use Images: Using images believe it or not will help your blog huge time it can give it more of a viral hook I mean the more creativity you use in marketing the better right? It only makes sense which granted don’t take me wrong I know of blogs that are plain English written, but have been very successful, but either way using images can surely help and make things look a lot better.

Above are just a few tips, but the idea is to keep writing and build that subscriber feed up. When you have built your subscriber list you have more leverage to work with therefore you can leverage your visitors around your products or even get them to link to certain parts of your website.

Building a blog takes time, so stay persistent and just keep writing. Out of all honesty thats where a lot of people go wrong at is they give up too soon or they quit right when there blog is starting to take off. Just give it time and try to keep everything educational, but at the same time keeping the reader in mind.

I’m pretty burned out on writing and don’t really have much to write about today which I’ll continue to write of course, but I had a few ideas that crossed my head, so I figured I’d write about them.

One thing I wanted to write about is where you can find educational information on the web that can help you with your SEO / SEM campaigns. The reason I decided to pick this topic for is because I have had a quite of few clients ask me on where they can learn more about SEM / SEO.
What Blogs should you read?

1. DeWitt’s Media - Yes of course you should read our blog on daily bases we cover numerous topics such as affiliate marketing, SEO, SEM, Social Media, and you name it.
2. SEOMOZ - Rand’s Blog he has done a very good job at building his blog it has a unique character just like every other blog and there blog has grown a *lot* since I first started reading it which was awhile back, but they cover numerous topics. Most of the topics they cover are SEO related they don’t really get into PPC well a little bit, but not like they do SEO, but either way its a great blog that’s for sure.
3. Search Engine Land - Search Engine Land covers a lot of news which they do offer some educational information to, but honestly its more based around news that is related to Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
4. Super Affiliate Mindset - If you want to learn more about PPC (pay per click) and affiliates this is a must subscribe blog right here I have learned a lot from it.
5. Search Engine Journal - SEJ is another news related blog, but then again it does cover numerous topics that are highly education such as link building techniques, content creation tips, blog building tips, and you name it.
6. Matt Cutts - Now you have to subscribe to Matt’s blog I mean if not you’d be crazy every once and awhile he will offer some very good insight in the search world (FYI if you don’t know who Matt is he is ahead of the link spam team at Google).
7. SEOBook - I almost forgot to list SEObook which is owned by Arron Wall who wrote the SEObook. Aaron covers numerous topics in the search world such as affiliates, PPC, and SEO.
8. Jim Boykin - Jim who is CEO of webuildpages.com has a great blog well speaking he would write more he use to write all the time, but here lately he has not been writing, but every once and awhile he will offer some valuable insight that is related to link building.

There is a ton of SEO blogs out there, but the ones listed above are mainly the ones I read on day to day bases there a few other blogs I read to such as Google Adwords and etc, but you should check out the ones above. Keep in mind just from reading the blogs above I’m sure you will trail off into other direction such as finding more blogs that you might like.

Some people relate to other blogs better then what other people do, for example you might like SEOMOZ blog, but you like Search Engine Journal and vice versa just depends on what you click with. Just find a blog that you can relate to and participate in that community.

Ignoring certain things in PPC can take a total haul on your account and believe me there is certain things I have ignored at times well I wouldn’t considering it as I was “ignoring” them, but more then anything I wasn’t focused in completely as much as I should of been into that specific area.

What are important things you should really zoom in on?

1. Keyword Matching Type: Pay attention to your keyword matching options and if you find any negative keywords  make sure you add them to your negative side and try to use exact match when you first launch your campaign then you can possibly (slowly) start going down to broad or phrase match, but make sure you pay attention to what your negative keywords are because if not your account balance could sky rocket over night with no conversions.
2. Ad Groups: Try to split your keywords up into more relevant Ad Groups even if you have to create 1 keyword per adgroup. I mean it only makes sense if you have a keyword performing at a higher CTR (Click Through Rate) then why not. Also make sure your descriptions and titles are relevant as can be because this will improve your CTR big time I had one campaign go from 2-3 percent CTR to ~10 percent ctr by just creating around ~100 well defined ad groups with only 2-3 keywords per ad group.
3. A / B Testing: Always perform A / B testing and never quite. You need to squeeze as much out of your campaign as possible, so always make sure your testing at all times (Note: Be sure to test your landing pages to with website optimizer).
4. Keyword Conversion Tracking: Make sure you install the keyword conversion tracking tool this will dramatically help you. It will give tell you exactly what keywords are converting and what keywords are not converting, so therefore if you have any keywords that are not converting you can eliminate them.
5. Decreasing Bids to Soon: If you ask me this is the biggest problem in Pay Per Click is that people decrease there bids too soon, you always want to bid super high in the beginning stages of your campaign to collect data.
6. Landing Page Quality: Building the best landing page as possible and alway try to make improvements to it. I know some people say that having more content increases your ability to have a better QS (quality score), but I don’t really believe that which granted it might help, but honestly we have had affiliate sites and I know of affiliate sites that are performing very good such as having a QS of pratically great across the board.
7. Ad Words Tools: Use the tools provided by AdWords to your advantage such as the Keyword Tools and etc they can be helpful when I firs started using AdWords out of all honesty I didn’t see much use in them, but then as I started to play around with them I come to find out they were very effective and can be used for numerous things specially if your wanting to build your keyword list up.

Conclusion
There are many factors in the Pay Per Click game, but the idea behind it is to test, test, and test then see what results you get if it works then keep pushing that direction and testing more. Just make sure you use the tools provided by pay per click programs and use everything to your advantage, but like I said the idea is to test, test, and test that right there is the magic recipe to being successful with PPC.

I get a lot of clients that ask me on what they should use PPC or SEO and I’m thinking to my self why not both? I mean it only makes sense you get a huge ROI from organic search and you can get a huge ROI from PPC which of course your going to have to put time into both of them speaking your wanting measurable results.

What Does SEO have over PPC?

The thing is with SEO is that once you get your rankings established there stuck there and you don’t have to keep investing money into links maybe a few links here and there to stabilize your position, but after time your current rankings will start to stick, speaking your building good links into your site.

Which granted SEO does take time it can take a good year before you start getting measurable results or I should say results that are very profitable sometimes longer, but keep in mind if you are a talented SEO you can produce measurable results very fast. When I refer to fast I’m referring to ranking very competitive keywords with then 3 months because it can be done we have done it many times with our client sites, but be careful try to take a more viral approach such as blogs when trying to get these results and of course use viral content.

Another factor about SEO is that when you get a broad term ranking you can easily build 1000’s of long tails around the competitive term.

For example say you got a keyword like Real Estate ranking number 1, but you want to rank Indiana Real Estate which granted it would probably only take a few keyword rich links to get it ranking speaking your already ranking number 1 for real estate, but say you didn’t have any links that contained that exact keyword just sprinkle the keywords through out your page and it might show up just depends on the trust and page rank of your website, but quite honestly my approach would be to acquire keyword rich links ;).

Generally the higher your page rank, the more your content is valued, but don’t get caught up on every single link coming from a higher page rank site just try to get a hand full of page rank 1+ links or a few good PR links, but other then that you can pratically rank for anything if you have enough links regardless of page rank (the idea is to get relevant links that will carry value for years).

Anyways SEO does have some advantages over Pay Per Click and one of the biggest advantages it has is the free traffic it can send you, but keep in mind you can’t depend on that traffic, not 200 percent anyways. If you build a good site and things to that nature the traffic will stick and your rankings will stay pretty steady.

What Does PPC have over SEO?

PPC can be a very powerful source of traffic speaking you know what your doing, but keep in mind you can lose a ton of money if your not experienced with Pay Per Click, but hey thats the learning process of it don’t except to throw a PPC campaign up and start profiting right off the bat unless you very famaliar with it already (or you get lucky), but either way it takes time to build new accounts up and of course new keywords.

PPC can be very powerful for many reasons one reason is that you can carefully select your keywords and manage them just like you want to, so therefore you can build traffic through them keywords, but at the same time a lot of PPC accounts offer tools such as keyword conversion tracking tools which will track what keywords are converting such as turning into sales and leads.

The traffic is instant from PPC, its not a waiting game like organic search, but then again keep in mind it is a learning experience or can take time to build a new account history up or a new keyword list, but after you get that rolling your on your way to making ROI (Return on Investment).

Building a viral website is very important now days specially in the web 2.0 space. At one time blogs, forums, and other forms of social networking was not such a big deal. Today its a whole different story blogs are largely used along with many other forms of online networking.

When computers first came out it was mainly about instant messaging, chat rooms, and things to that nature, but then as the web evolved people realized they could use blogs to market there website by building communities up and things to that nature and that right there is what I’m going to talk about.

So why are blogs so important to have?

1. Social Networking: Blogs increase your ability to open communications with other people for example if your someone that has around 20,000 subscribers into your blog and some of them people are promoting your articles through social networks or just telling other people about it the chances of people knowing who you are will be a lot higher, therefore it opens new doors up for you to meet new clients or just people in general.
2. Increased Search Engine Rankings: Blogs allow you to increase your search engine rankings strategically through all the major search engines, but why is that? The reason behind this for is because when people link to you its a vote from the search engine which a lot of you are probably famaliar about this, but if not keep in mind the more links, the better therefore blogs will create this.
3. Brand Awareness: If your a CEO of company like me then you will definitely know how important this is and blogs can create brand awareness and when I say create brand awareness I’m talking they can create brand awareness *big time*.

What are some tips on building a viral blog?

1. Keep Writing: I can’t say how important this is, but honestly this is your key to success right here persistency pays off big time. The idea is to keep writing don’t get caught up on trying to make every post a viral post which don’t take me wrong put a lot of effort into it and create something that people will like, but the main idea behind a blog honestly is to stay writing the more content you have the better that’s for sure which granted you need to hook people in, but as you write a lot you’ll figure out what works and whats not working.
2. Creativeness: Be creative use things such as images, videos, and things to that nature. Use images that will go along with your post or at least where it will make sense by using images it sets more sensors off in the mind set of the readers, so therefore the chances of them linking to it or spreading it will be a lot higher.
3. Link Out: Try to link out to other popular blogs because you never know when someone might see your article and then want to link back to you or might of liked the article then it’s a good possibility they’ll write an article up on you or about your article anyways.

Conclusion
The idea behind building a viral website or blog I should say is to just stay persistent if you stay persistent sooner or later everything will start making sense and coming together you just have to stay on it. If you stay on it then the chances of you succeeding will happen a lot faster the thing is when people start writing or promoting a blog they give up very fast and believe me when promoting a blog its something that takes time and effort and can be very discouraging, but you have to over look that and over come that and when you get to that level of where you can overcome them feelings then you know you your heading in the right direction.

Networking is very important in the web 2.0 sphere. The good thing about networking on the internet is that you have a broad reach to many people. When your stuck in one city with one business your pretty much capped on what you can do and who you know to a degree, but the internet is not like that you can meet any one and every one, so in other words the web is like a mad leverage tool (talk about major momentum).

I get clients all the time asking me how do you get the clients you do or just general SEO’s and I’m thinking to my self are you kidding me. Most generally I tell them just be good at what you do and network, network, network and build your brand like no other brand and you’ll be fine.

I mean really building a company is all about having patience and staying persistent no matter how tough it gets it will just continue to grow, now if you was working for someone else would you continue to grow through the company maybe a little bit, but not like you would if you was conducting business with your own brand.

So what are some good ways to network?

1. Communications: <— This right here let me tell you one thing and one thing only this is the key to success is being good with people and communicating if you can communicate with people or find a way to communicate with people then your heading in a positive direction, but there again you have to stay persistent.
2. Social Networks: This will open the communications up for you participate in blogs, forums, and other social networking sites this can help big time the best thing to do is create your own blog and start building content through the site and possibly creating discussions.
3. E-Mail: Try to communicate with people through e-mail, so in other words just e-mail people and start a conversation up with them and let them know who you are specially if its someone you think could use your services.

Them are just a few tips to open up your mind which don’t expect to be a millionaire over night by doing the following above, but I will tell you it will help you a lot and think about it as your client list grows; you grow; then your brand grows therefore you can price your product on a higher scale because people trust you and know your good at what you do, so they won’t mind paying you what you want.