For as long as there has been an internet to exploit, people have been exploiting it. From those dark corners where nobody ever goes, to the more family-friendly end of the spectrum. Wherever you are on the web you can bet there’ll be someone behind the scenes who is monetizing it. As any budding SEO specialists will tell you, there’s always been some money to be made in optimising a page for a specific search term and peppering it with Adsense blocks. Sometimes, these sites can make thousands per month, other times they can make absolutely nothing. Call it niche marketing, micro niche blogging, or whatever you’d like, the question remains: is there still money to be made in this way, and more particularly in EMD (Exact Match Domain) sites?

A Matter of Distinction

So what’s the main difference between an EMD site and a regular blog or website? Well, simply put, an EMD site is dedicated to one particular keyword. The SEO, or whoever is running the site, will do some fairly thorough keyword research, find a niche that has low competition but a high search volume (and yes, this can take hours on end), then check that it has an EMD available. If so, they’ll snap it up and build a whole site around it. Ever seen a site on the web when you’re searching for something that’s plastered in ads and oddly targeted? That’s probably an EMD site. For example, if you wanted to find the best skincare product for acne, you might find a site called bestskincareproductforacne.com, filled with posts and articles on that very theme. The endgame of these sites is to have you click on the ads. Some are specifically designed to ‘confuse’ the visitor into clicking, by disguising the ads as links or other nefarious practices.

Are EMDs a Licence to Print Money?

When the web was very young, and the web-going pubic were naïve, EMDs would have made millions is Adsense revenue. Nowadays however, it’s a slightly different ballgame. Not only are web users getting a little wiser to such things, but the competition for practically every keyword combination is ramping up. So not only is it hard to get people to click on ads once they’re on one of these EMD sites, it’s also very difficult to find a niche which can bring in enough organic traffic to make the whole venture worthwhile. Remember that these sites can’t just be knocked together in an hour, it takes time and effort to create index-worthy content. Most EMDs these days are filled with cheap content that reads terribly, and it shows. That’s dilution of the web, and it’s not a good thing at all.

It’s not all Bad News

This may all sound like bad-mouthing of EMD projects, but that’s not necessarily the case. Yes, some of these sites are designed to draw in organic traffic simply to click ads. They serve no real purpose and offer no real answers. These sites are the ones that give niche marketing a bad name. However, there are a great many exact match domain sites out there that have become ‘authority’ sites. These are the other side of the coin; yes, they will have ads to generate income, but they also have valuable content written by people that actually know what they’re talking about. It’s the simple difference between a spam site and an informational one.

What it Boils Down to

So, the bottom line is that yes, there is still some money to be made in exact match domain websites; however any SEO who is planning to take on such a project will need to remember the golden rule: content is king. That means that if you’re planning on covering a site in ads, you need to have some real content to back it up. There are plenty of ways to get good content on a site – and sometimes writers will even provide it for free (think backlinks) – but that’s a discussion for another time. For now, don’t be tempted to fill the web with even more spam; if you want to make money with Adsense, do it the right way and make the web a better place for all of us.

Penny Lewis is a professional freelance writer and researcher who has worked in all manner of fields from promotional work with a hyper-luxurious furniture company to news pieces for a political blog. She has interests across all areas but has a strong background in online marketing and branding. 

Hi Tom, My Name is Lewis and we talked yesterday on the phone. I was telling you, that I must have my wife and friends website up in the next two weeks, because her GoDaddy account will expires then. For the WordPress site she using Catalyst: http://catalysttheme.com supposedly, one of the best Themes for WordPress. I like to use it since we paid for it, but we can’t I like find a WordPress Theme that is easy to use and works well with the search engines. Do you have any suggestion? ~Thanks, Lewis

Hello Lewis, thanks for the good questions. First off, all WordPress Themes work well with search engines. The WordPress platform, enhanced by certain Plugins, is what interfaces with search engines. It might help you to think of WordPress as the engine and chassis of a vehicle and the Theme is the bolt-on body.  Auto manufacturers will take one frame & engine and mount different body styles with various options and sell them as unique models. That’s what happens with Themes and “Child Themes”.

They all utilize the WordPress engine and create different models to address unique applications.  There are themes that are geared to photo portfolios, magazine style layouts, e-commerce applications, product showcases and of course the traditional essay style blog. The Themes control the look & feel, page placement of text and image blocks, font type, size and color, width and a host of other design-related options.

I am not personally familiar with “Catalyst” in that I have never used it. From looking at their website it appears that this is a theme platform or framework, vs. a generic WordPress Theme. There are a number of such theme framework/platforms that operate this way such as Thesis, Genesis, etc. Their claim to fame is that they offer the ability to customize the entire presentation.

The best part about themes is that the content you create never goes away.  The text and images (posts and pages) that you create over time work like they are part of the WordPress platform if you will. While the Theme will rearrange that content relating to its placement on the page, colors, fonts, etc.

Most WordPress Themes work ‘out-of-the-box’ and require little or no customization to display your posts and pages. The problem is that we seldom can find a Theme that addresses our needs 100% of the time, that’s where the customization comes in.  The problem with the high-end packages like Catalyst, Thesis, Genesis, etc. is that they can offer you hundreds of customizable options, but most come with a steep learning curve.

Additionally, there are free themes that offer excellent customization options, but they also require that you spend time learning how to customize the Theme. One perfect example is a favorite of mine, the Atahualpa Theme by Bytes for All. I have used this Theme for dozens of my customers’ sites and a number of my personal sites. It did take me a while to learn how best to customize it, but that investment in time has paid off tremendously.

The picture below shows just one screen of the many customizable options in Atahualpa. The left-hand column shows some of the main items and the right-hand pane is where tweaks and adjustments are made.

WordPress Theme Options

If you can invest the time, I recommend that you choose a Theme that can be highly customized and learn it. You’ll find that it can be adapted to almost any website building project and the more familiar you become working ‘under the hood’, the more rewarding it will be. If you want to find a theme where someone else has done the work to customize it and you’re looking for an off-the-shelf solution, I’d recommend that you browse some of the low-cost Theme collections such as:

• Themeforest
• ElegantThemes
• iwordpressthemes.com
• newwpthemes.com

I hope this helps you with your search for the Theme that fits your needs. Remember that the best part about WordPress Themes is that you can upload and try out new Themes all day long and it won’t affect the most important part of your site…the content.  Good luck to you and let me know if you have other questions.

You’ve probably heard it a 1000 times, that creating good unique content is the secret to writing an interesting blog post or creating a video.  This is true but sometimes we confuse creative writing with good content, and they are not necessarily the same thing.

A story can be written or told through a video, and it can be well constructed and reported in a creative fashion, but that may not make it interesting. Additionally, the topic we are writing about may be headline news or it could be as obscure as shucking corn.

How many times have you labored over a blog post or video trying to make it the best it can be hoping that it will go viral?  What makes this video so compelling that almost two million people have already watched it?

What caused this video to go viral?

Is it the elderly gentleman who is the star of the movie?  Is it do to the popularity of his topic?  Is it the lavish sound stage where this is filmed?  Is it the script?  Obviously, it is none of these things.

This video went viral because it offered a cooking tip that resonated with a lot of people.  It is probably something you have never heard before; I was not aware of this tip and the video was forwarded to me from a casual friend.

This video is the epitome of unique, interesting & believable content.

I can guarantee you that this fellow had no idea that his video would become a viral sensation across the Internet.  If you note from his channel, this is the only video he has produced. Neither his YouTube channel or this video uses any SEO. It does not appear that this gentleman has a website, Facebook, Google+ or Twitter account, for all we know he made this video with the intention of sharing a cooking tip with his kids.

Take away…

So the message here and the answer to creating a viral video is simply to make it interesting.  If two million people are interested in learning a new method of cooking and shucking corn imagine how many people might be interested in what you have to say.

Maybe you’ve heard that Netflix has decided to rename its DVD delivery service “Qwikster.” A catchy name and one that would be easy to brand, but there is one slight problem; the Twitter account is already owned by someone.  A whois search shows that Qwikster.com has been registered by Netflix, but www.youtube.com/qwikster is also owned by someone not related to Netflix.

Are these insurmountable problems? Maybe not, but IMHO Netflix didn’t do their homework when researching the name they chose to do business under. When I deal with a client that is looking to brand themselves online, developing a suitable name is only part of the challenge. Making sure that you can brand that name on the social networks is paramount.

Netflix has the option of buying those accounts from their owners (lucky owners), but that could be prohibitively expensive for companies with fewer resources. Better to find a name that is available for your domain and the related social media sites. If nothing else, Netflix should have approached those owners (silently through an intermediary) and acquired the accounts prior to making their public announcement.

Whoa boys – slow down!

It seems that Netflix is moving so fast that they are making a number of faux-pas of late. They just came under a lot of heat for a pricing announcement that wasn’t received well by their customers.

Don’t misunderstand my intentions with this post, I love Netflix and was a customer of theirs for many years. I wouldn’t be so presumptuous to assume that my advice is better than what they are receiving from their marketing team. My comments are geared to businesses facing similar decisions.

When you are choosing a domain name to brand a company, service or product, do your homework and ensure that the social media sites can support the marketing effort with accounts and channels that are also available. Replicating your brand name with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social sites will make the marketing effort easier and create more awareness with your audience.

As you might imagine, the work I do for clients covers a broad spectrum.  A basic project typically involves research to establish the most popular keywords associated with the company’s products or services.  That is usually followed by a domain name research, and then configuring the domain, installing the blog, adding email addresses and other one-time set up tweaks.

Once this setup work is done and the website and/or blog are configured and optimized I will then meet with the client and show them how to use WordPress and manage other aspects of their domain.  I encourage all of my clients to buy my book, SEO & Social Media Marketing Guide, not because I need the $10, it’s because everything they need to know at this point is detailed in the book.

Additionally, I go to great lengths in the book to explain what they need to do and why these things are necessary to get traction online.  I also cover the basics of WordPress usage and optimization, which will serve as a great reference source as they assume management of their website.

The project I just described is something I do for clients who are looking for someone to help them get started.  As a result, once this has been put in place my relationship with the client usually ends…temporarily.  Unfortunately, people who hire me to provide this “starter package” often contact me again a few months down the road.  Their questions or pleas for additional assistance are usually the same.

I heard from two such clients this week, both asking me virtually the same questions.  In essence they wanted me to tell them how they could avoid all the hard work and jump to page one on Google.  At this point, I usually ask a client if they have read my book and followed of my instructions.

No doubt you can guess their response.  Their negative reply is usually followed by a number of reasons that include their busy schedule, commitments, this lousy economy and a host of other excuses that quite honestly are all valid.

The problem with starting from scratch is that there is nothing to compare it to.  In other words, if a person had a website and it was generating sales or business leads and website disappeared for some reason, you would know that the work involved in rebuilding had a payoff equal to X sales dollars or X business leads.  Justifying the time and work required would be much easier.  When you are starting from scratch the big unknown is how much work and time will be required before you start seeing a return.

What usually happens during this building phase is that those things that we know generate business tend to require more of our time.  The end result is that the new website or blog and the effort required to manage them loses priority.  The client, like the rest of us, has only so much time they can devote to an additional project, and this is usually when I hear from them again.

My schedule does not always permit me to take on a new client (or an old client for that matter) but there is one suggestion that I give to all clients.  Take my book and give it to your receptionist, secretary or hire a college kid and tell them to read the book and follow my instructions.

SEO requires time and effort to implement. 

Social Media marketing demands interaction and personal involvement. 

There is no silver bullet or way to cut in line and land on page one of Google search results.  However, if you follow my blueprint you will obtain your objective.  It requires time and involvement, but the payoff he is exactly why you contacted me in the first place.

Is this where we may be headed? Will there be a twelve-step program to help addicts wean themselves from the addiction of texting?  This (very creative) video is a hoot to watch, but I’m afraid there is more truth to this than any of us are comfortable in admitting.

Yes, I really am a geek.  If you’ve read my bio you know that I’ve been involved with the Internet since 1993. I spend far too much time at my computer, but I can argue that it’s my job.

The problem with texting is that unlike your computer, you can’t push back from the desk and leave the room. That smartphone that we all love so dearly travels everywhere with us. And that is part of the problem.  Yes, we can turn it off, but how many of us have the courage and discipline to do so?

As plugged in as I am to all things Internet, online marketing, social media and SEO, I must confess that I am relatively new to the smartphone phenomenon. I work from a home office in a very rural part of NW Montana, so I’m not out and about all day. I honestly didn’t have a need for anything but a basic cell phone. With the lapse of my last contract with Verizon, I decided to upgrade to a Motorola Droid, and I love it.

On the surface, I don’t have a problem with texting. I do it a few times every day. I use it as a tool, not a 24×7 tether to the universe. Also, To be honest, I hadn’t realized how serious this texting thing was until a relative of mine came for a visit last month.

Our guest is about 30 years old, so he’s not a love struck teenager, but he must have texted his girlfriend 100 times each day he was here. Again, I have no problem with this; it wasn’t until after the 10th. time he asked me to repeat myself that I realized all his attention was focused on texting, not listening or interacting with a conversation.

On one occasion we were driving into town and I saw a beautiful ’63 Corvette making a turn and I said something like “wow, check out that Vette”. After I didn’t get a response, I looked over and saw him typing furiously when he raised his head, smiled and said, “What”?  Even that wouldn’t have bothered me, but it was the third “what” during our 15 minute drive.

I guess my point is that in our quest to remain 100% connected, are we losing connection to the people we are with “in real life”? Are we placing too much value on this communication method that requires our hands, eyes and conscious thought to process an unimportant message?

What’s your thoughts about this? Text your comments below

In its present configuration, Google+ is much different from Facebook, but that hasn’t kept people from speculating as to which platform is better and who will win the yet to be launched social media application war.

Spending a few hours over a crap table in Las Vegas years ago taught me that I was incapable of foretelling the future and I have resisted prophesying upcoming events and outcomes ever since. However, if we were to consider possibilities…

When the smoke clears and a ceasefire has been ratified, the Google+ vs. Facebook war could end up being little more than the Chevy vs. Ford or PC vs. Mac debates. On the other hand, if Google has learned anything from their past missteps Google+ could cause Facebook to follow its predecessor MySpace into the realm of forgotten space.

The Facebook Argument

The main argument we hear from Facebook defenders is that from Buzz to Wave, Orkut to Voice, Google has failed in their previous attempts to launch a social media product. They claim that Facebook will find it easy to counter any Google threat, but I believe this is where their line of reasoning is vulnerable so here’s my two cents.

• Google owns the global search market. What do you use for search?
• Google owns online video, a critical gear in the social machine.
• Google owns almost 25% of the browser market.
• Google owns sophisticated cloud-based business applications that will enhance their G+ business offering TBA.
• Google provides some of the best tools and resources for webmasters and web surfers alike.
• Google’s embedded base of Gmail users and toolbar integration will jumpstart user acceptance.
• Google’s greatest advantage is what they have learned from Facebook’s and their own mistakes; knowing what not to do can often provide a tactical advantage far more valuable than knowing what to do.
• Google has a world-class team of computer programmers and behavioral scientists designing a platform using a clean slate (no legacy code) and guided by some of the top marketing brains in the universe.

From a business perspective where the goal is to drive traffic to a website, Google+ in conjunction with the +1 button will obviously be incorporated into the ranking algorithm so adoption and participation is a must. You have to ‘Like’ (pun intended) Google’s odds of being able to out-Facebook Facebook.

It has only been around for a month so like everyone else I am new to Google+ but so far I like what I am seeing. I find it far more intuitive to use than Facebook was in the beginning. It seems to have a more professional feel to it than Facebook and as a Gmail user, I like the toolbar inclusion.

Okay, you’ve read my blog posts (and hopefully my book) so you know that I recommend video as an important piece of your marketing strategy. If you missed it, understand that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the universe and throws off the best Google juice of any ‘authority’ site. Two very good reasons to have a video on YouTube.

There are dozens of other reasons to use video such as it helps keep people on your site longer (a metric that Google uses to judge the value of your website), and video does more to sell your story than any amount of text and pretty pictures.

YouTube wants to help you create better videos. They are offering the YouTube Creator Playbook that offers suggestions on how to create better, more compelling videos.  The playbook also includes new strategies, tips, and optimizations.

This isn’t a fluff piece or a hype-driven con to get you to buy something. This is good stuff and I recommend that you download this free ‘how to’ guide.  Check out the YouTube Creator Playbook.

In my previous post I broke the news that my book was now available in the Kindle bookstore. Whoa, I really should have done this sooner, sales have been surprisingly brisk and some great reviews are starting to come in. A special thank you to all who purchased my book.

Amazon sells almost 200 Kindle books for every 100 print books, which should be an important message for every author.  Amazon is the world’s largest book seller and the Kindle is the #1 selling product on Amazon, it is easy to conclude that your book belongs on Kindle.

So what took me so long to get my Kindle act together?  Quite honestly, it was the time required to reformat the book. Kindle has special formatting requirements and I just put it off due to time constraints. In hindsight, that was a mistake so learn from me.

The Press Release announcing this Kindle news came out today. See, “SEO & Social Media Book Released as Kindle Edition, Price Slashed” on this website or on PR Web.

Leapfish Folds Their Tent

Leapfish ‘was’ an interesting company and a unique resource for web marketers. In fact, I recommended them in my book, the “SEO & Social Media Marketing Guide” as a strong link resource.  What they offered was the ability to choose a unique name (i.e. www,leapfish.com/YourCompany) and have your Twitter and Facebook feeds stream on your page. Plus, you could add your videos from YouTube, photos and your products or services with complete keyword-rich descriptive text. Unfortunately, Leapfish closed their doors last week and their website is no more.

Leapfish had a healthy Google Page Rank so it could have been a great resource for backlinks to your website. Their advertising model left a lot to be desired in that they sold keywords for a one-time fee, which was renewable every year for $50. An advertiser might pay anywhere from $100 to many thousands of dollars for particular keywords. The promise was that if a keyword search was performed on their site and you owned those keywords, your ad would appear at the top of the search results page. It was kind of a Google ad play except there was no bidding for position.  You bought it once and owned the 1-2 or 3rd. position on the page.

Learn from the Leapfish demise

This is a perfect example of why your offsite SEO needs to be an ongoing effort.  Search Engine Optimization is not a one-time set it & forget it exercise, it should be something that you do on a consistent basis.  The online world changes every day and oftentimes these changes can affect your marketing strategy.  Companies (even big companies) come and go and their popularity is as fleeting as the seasons.  Can you say MySpace?

It is challenging enough just to keep pace with the ever-changing Google algorithm, but making Google happy is only part of the equation. The things we do offsite play a significant part in determining our rank in search results and ultimately the traffic to our website.  Why believe it or not, you could write a book about this stuff

Electronic books (eBooks) have been around since the last century (1990′s), but today, ebook sales are exploding and new readers such as Amazon’s Kindle are a major reason why. The latest Kindle only costs $114 and it boasts 50% better contrast, 17% Lighter, a two month battery life, double the storage, and built-in Wi-Fi. In fact, with ‘Text-to-Speech’, Kindle can read English-language content out loud to you.

• There are 700,000 titles in the Kindle library. Source
• Amazon sells 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books
• U.S. Kindle Store Now Has Over 700,000 Books
• No, you’d better make that 7000,000 plus 1

Last September I released the “SEO & Social Media Marketing Guide”. Since then it has been updated a number of times with new information. The original book was only available as an eBook, a PDF download, which worked great for most PC or Mac users.

SEO & Social Media Marketing book now available for Kindle

Today I am pleased to announce that the “SEO & Social media Marketing Guide” is now available in Amazon’s Kindle bookstore. Not only is it available in Kindle format, but the price has been reduced more than 70%.

Thinking about buying a Kindle?

If you like to read, but don’t like to pay the exorbitant prices for a paperback or hardback book, you really should consider buying a Kindle.  It weighs less than a typical paperback book, is about the same thickness as a pencil and you can read it in direct sunlight without any glare.  Best yet, you can buy books (including current bestsellers) for prices that are a fraction of the “dead tree” versions.

Learn more about the Amazon Kindle, click here…