But first a parable of sorts…

Imagine, if you will, an advertiser with a big wad of cash. They NEED to spend it and they’ve left it very late, so they’re not too fussy about the ROI (believe me, this happens all the time when businesses confuse budgets with spreadsheets!).

Anyway, like a hot Fabergé potato, it’s burning a hole in their pocket and finally they find a suitable website that seems to offer a decent range of advertising options. Great! We’ll take everything for a month!

Not so fast… your website offers no email contact, no Twitter, no telephone number, no whois record. Just a contact form with a CAPTCHA.

So the opening offer is made, the CAPTCHA is entered, and the form submitted.

… COMPUTER SAYS NO

CAPTCHA is incorrect, please try again

… COMPUTER SAYS NO

Maybe be a dodgy CAPTCHA. Reload the page and try again.

… COMPUTER SAYS NO

and again, and again, and again.

So just because an anti-spam measure didn’t work on your website, they gave 5 G’s to your competitor.

Here’s what you need to do to make sure this never happens to you.

1. Use reCAPTCHA. That will allow your visitors to reload the CAPTCHA image as many times as they need to to find a more readable version without reloading the page. It’s also free, which is always good.
2. Check your contact form works. Check it regularly, especially if you don’t see a lot of use. Ask your friends to check it from different countries and browsers.
3. Offer an alternative contact method on your website; not only to avoid losing revenue opportunities, but also because using just a contact form can appear shifty to major advertisers.
4. Don’t ever, ever use Joomla’s out-of-the-box CAPTCHA. It’s terrible and, combined with Mollum’s spam (mis)management, you may as well randomly delete half your inbox each day for the same effect.

Check your CAPTCHA today… don’t be directly responsible for giving your competitors advertising money.

Google originally claimed that these paid search ads would receive better click through rates and inspire stronger consumer confidence – it would be interesting to hear opinions from merchants who have comparative data.

We do know that it’s very likely Google will incorporate the new +1 button with Adwords ads, so this change may be in preparation for that.

Another fledgling theory is that this may be somehow connected to Google Wallet – in which case perhaps there’s a shake up or merging of Google’s financial transaction products.

Here’s what little Google has to say about it:

Over the last few years, we’ve tested and launched many new extensions to ads on Google search results, including ad sitelinks, product extensions, seller rating extensions, call extensions, and location extensions. We’re constantly making changes aimed at improving the user experience and advertiser ROI.

Let me just run that through Google Translate:…

We think we’ve found a way to make more money from this SERP real estate.
 

It would be good to hear a more specific response, especially since this may financially affect paying advertisers.

The Google +1 Code Snippet

There are 2 code snippets you’ll need to add to your website in order to start displaying Google +1 buttons.

The Javascript call goes just before the closing </body> tag – similar to the Google Analytics snippet. It has a few configurable parts that set the annotation language and whether you want it to parse on load or explicitly – below I’ve used parse: On Load, which is probably going to be the most common version – (if you choose parse: Explicit then you’ll need to use a 3rd snippet to make the Javascript call). Most people will be able to drop the code below into their global footer file and forget about it.

<!-- Place this tag in your head or just before your close body tag -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js">
{lang: 'en-GB'}
</script>


The other Google +1 code snippet can be placed anywhere on your website wherever you want the Google +1 button to show.

<!-- Place this tag where you want the +1 button to render -->
<g:plusone></g:plusone>


This snippet offers a number of configurable elements:

• Size of +1 button: 15 pixels, 20, 24 and a special tall 60px version.
• Show a bubble with the +1 count? – Probably not if you’re just starting out!
• Add an additional Javascript callback function
• Specify a different URL to vote up (which opens up an interesting set of options)

Note that the URL that is voted up takes into account the rel=”canonical” instruction – so this will be respected should you add Google +1 buttons to non-canonical page versions. If you’re interested in the technical nitty-gritty, check out this in-depth +1 button FAQ by Google.

Overview of the available Google +1 button sizes:

Rules of Use

It’s not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them. ~ T. S. Eliot

Here’s a summary of the Google +1 button terms and conditions:

• Don’t collect button click data and then sell or share it with anyone else.
• Don’t try to identify people who click on your +1 buttons.
• Don’t alter the Google +1 button.
• Don’t place it next to advertising.
• Don’t “encourage” visitors to click the +1 button through payment or competitions.
• You must top-up your Google +1 account with 3 drops of blood every month.

OK, maybe not the last one – here’s the full list from Google.

Availability – US only for the moment

Sorry for hiding this at the end, but I wanted you to read the article first. Advertisers don’t dig high bounce rates ;)

For a recap on what the Google +1 button is, and how it can be of use to your websites, visit the Google Ads Innovation +1 Button page. You can also increase my time-on-page metrics and watch the video below too.

I was one of the 132 top-tier SEO professionals involved, so I can personally attest to the sheer amount of data SEOmoz have incorporated into the research… we offered to slog through page after page of multiple choice questions, as well as prioritising dauntingly large groups of ranking factors and red-herrings.

It was a long, long evening with the laptop for the love of SEO and the mozzers!

In the full release of the SEOmoz 2011 Search Ranking Factors, I’m really looking forward to reading some of the insightful free-form answers from around the world, but for now the analysis is purely quantitative data and top-level.

Click here to see the initial presentation of the SEOmoz 2011 Search Ranking Factors

The great thing about working with so much SEO ranking data is that it really gives fantastic insights when presented and framed with standard deviation and Spearman’s co-efficient.

If I’ve lost you already, don’t worry! There’s plenty of board-level bullet-points like the example slide below… such as social signals (Facebook and Twitter) are believed to play a much bigger role in future SEO performance!

• The example in the picture is a semi-branded term, but I swear I’ve seen this in action on generic keywords.
• The lucky brand dominates the page, pushing down all the other results
• There’s no apparent reason why these particular pages are chosen (I’ve seen really obscure, deep pages returned, so it’s not due to internal links, page authority or jump links)
• I confirmed it works whilst logged out
• I confirmed it works on any browser
• It works as part of Google Instant

Unfortunately, I can’t replicate the results on my own computers, hence the low quality screenshot.

What does this mean?

At this point, it just means that Google is testing the search result layouts again.

However, if it does get rolled out then obviously expect an outcry at brands dropping 12 places on terms such as “car insurance” (tested and confirmed!).

So yeah, this blog is a little schizophrenic in that it covers SEO, finance and productivity. I make no apologies for that, since I feel all three subjects are awesome enough to explore and they have some real areas of overlap – essentially common-sense development of small businesses and entrepreneurial spirit.

So with that out of the way, let’s crack on with some SEO news!

Google +1

Those in the Search industries will be aware that Google is making a very calculated play into Facebook’s territory, by developing and promoted a new social layer to the search results. Google +1 — believed to be the release versions of the secretive Google Me and Emerald Sea projects — is essentially Google’s version of the Facebook Like button.

This mean yet another social button to add to your websites, but with one MAJOR benefit: web pages that have been +1′d (plus one’d) by Jack, for example, will recommended to all of Jack’s contacts in his Google social circle. Not only this, but there’s a pretty good chance that these social upvotes will start to play a significant part in determining how high the page sits on the organic search results.

In essence, Google is laying the groundwork for a ranking factor that could be as important as inbound links.

Now Google has apparently claimed it’s not trying to take a bite out of Facebook, but it’s worth remembering Google also said they were not trying to create a Paypal competitor with Google Checkout – which of course they did.

There are some really comprehensive articles on this that you simply must read when you get chance.

One more thing: these little +1 icons will also show next to paid search results (Adwords) although it’s confirmed upvotes will not directly affect Quality Score (and therefore bid prices). Again, Google is being ever so sneaky with this: any brightly coloured icon next to a paid search result will definitely assist click-through-rate, and in doing so will indirectly affect Quality Score.

So Google’s unspoken message is this: If you don’t want your competitors to have an unfair advantage in either SEO or PPC, you must implement our new product.

Unlike Buzz, Wave or SideWiki, I actually think Google +1 is a good idea that will stick around, and I’m excited at the potential for links to become less important as a ranking lever.

But why? And why should you care?

Interest rates on our cash savings are absolutely crap at the moment, generally no higher than 2.5% pre-tax. Current inflation is 3.2%: meaning our cash is worth less and less each year.

The logical next step for Joe Bloggs saver is to consider locking that money away for a year or two in a fixed term product such as a bond. This will increase the interest rate to around 3.2% pre-tax guaranteed.

Still a zero sum game.

To take advantage of our current predicament, it looks like banks are keen to lock in savers’ cash for long periods of time to reboost their balance sheets in the aftermath of the recent banking crisis.

If the Bank of England base rate increases, banks will be forced to offer savers better interest rates to compete. Therefore it’s really within the banks best interests to advertise and lure as many customers into bonds now, whilst the base rate is a super-low 0.5%.

Remember folks – rightly or wrongly, the bank is not your friend: You both have a conflict if interest.

The base rate has stayed at 0.5% for the past 21 months as the UK tries to manage its finances – absolutely great for borrowers but dire for savers – and there’s whispers it will increase in the second half of 2011.

In fact, there’s even quieter whispers it might increase to 0.75% in the first half of 2011.

So this is my hypothesis: In the belief that the base rate will be increased very soon (maybe even sooner than we think), it’s a race against time for the banks to get savers to lock in to fixed term bonds at crap rates.

I don’t know what the situation is in other countries at the moment, I’d love to hear from some other readers!

First, a really important concept…

COSTS exist before INCOME

Everybody starts life with basic costs (food, housing and clothing). The fundamental reason why you earn money is to cover these costs. They will not simply disappear if you stop earning money.

Of course, once you cover these costs, you’re free to create yet more costs in your life such as a car, a social life, better food etc. as Maslow’s trusted Hierarchy of Needs dictates.

The same is of course true for small businesses: Revenue does not start from day one, but costs often do.

So it makes a lot of sense to learn to control your costs, both personally and in business.

Why Focus on Controlling Costs

It’s much easier and faster to reduce your outgoings today, rather than increase your income.

For a small business, it’s just as important to improve your profit margins by sourcing cheaper packaging, postage, insurance, outsourcing, phone bills etc. then it is to increase your product sell price.

Here’s some examples that immediately come to mind as a I write this post:

Individuals:

• Quit your £30/month gym membership
• Switch to a bank with 0% overdraft
• Downgrade your phone plan
• Buy bulk food (rice, bottled water, meat to freeze)
• Avoid buying lunches in the city

Small Businesses:

• Print on both sides
• Use Skype instead of the landline where possible
• Chase invoices earlier

I could write hundreds of small tips to cut costs, but that’s for another article I think. It’s more important for you at this stage to understand that reducing costs is essentially the same as immediately earning more money.

Stop Haemorrhaging Money

I own an iphone – a wonderful work of art and engineering that never ceases to frustrate me – However, I am legally obliged to pay £30 a month as a priority before I buy food or pay my rent.

How wack is that?!… I am legally bound by contract to pay for a mobile phone BEFORE I feed my family.

Add to this car insurance, music, TV, landline etc. and very quickly it becomes apparent I have hundreds of pounds of costs before I have even bought my food or paid my rent!

Everyone – indivuals, families and businesses – needs to be very careful before they commit to regular payments, especially when unable to cancel at short notice.

When Your Costs Control You

This post was inspired by a movie I just watched, The Joneses, in which a man, Larry, kills himself because his monthly credit repayments are too much, leaving him unable to pay his mortgage or support his wife – oh yeah, spoiler alert!

Larry had a serious problem that he alone was responsible for – he allowed his outgoings to exceed his income.

He was undisciplined and shortsighted – just like most of us.

In 1850 Charles Dickens also gave us a lesson in how this way of life ultimately results in misery. He introduced us to a character called Wilkins Micawber, whose famous quote is enshrined in economics and popular culture as Micawber’s Law:

Annual income twenty pounds,
annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six,
result happiness.

Annual income twenty pounds,
annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six,
result misery.

Of course in less eloquent language, this means those who spend more than they earn are on course for disaster – you can literally plot their descent into misery on a graph!

For those international visitors who are not familar with old British currency, you can think of it as:

$10.01 income
$10.00 expense
= happiness

$10.00 income
$10.01 expense
= misery

Micawber’s law will ALWAYS be relevant to both individuals and businesses. I know it’s super basic and a little patronising, but so many people fail to apply it to their lives or businesses.

Thanks for the Lesson, Dad…

You’re welcome. And tell your mother I said hi.

Joking aside, this may be the single most important post you’ll ever ready if you honestly apply this concept to the way you view finance.

Making more money doesn’t get simpler than spending less.

Recently I spent some important time redefining my priorities: both online and in the real world. Much of this has involved identifying elements that drain my time and focus with little return – the old 80:20 rule.

I’m feeling really positive about this, and I hope I can pass some of that on to you, even if you just apply one tip from below to your work life.

I warn you, it’s a long post. Here’s what I’ve done over the last month…

I LET SOME PROJECTS GO

I let a handful of good domains expire that I’d bought with the best intentions to monetise. I didn’t even sell them!

I no longer have any regular freelance clients on my books – I’m not averse to taking any on, but I have a clearer idea of what is (and isn’t) mutually benficial to both parties.

There was one project that was very difficult to let go: a joint venture with a friend that was starting to make money and had the potential to scale nicely. In the end we decided the full revenue would benefit him far more and I stepped out.

The end result has been a massive weight lifted from my shoulders, and a resolution not to spread myself too thinly again.

I DELETED MY TWITTER ACCOUNT!

Twitter is a double-edged sword: on one hand it’s a direct connection to so many people, and so much information, and on the other hand it’s a direct connection to so many people, and so much information.

You see what I did there ;) Twitter is also as addictive as crack-flavoured Ferrero Rocher.

One morning recently, I woke up with a burning conviction to reclaim some of my productivity and decided to go cold turkey: I completely, and irreversably, deleted my Twitter account.

In short, I realised that the time and effort Twitter required of me was not proportionate to what it gave back.

Now, I realise some people have built a great deal of their industry reputation through consistent Twitter activity, but honestly ask yourself if you’re on Twitter every couple of minutes then what else are you actually doing?

I REASSESSED MY USE OF EMAIL

Remember that childhood excitment on recieving a letter? I’ll bet adult life has replaced that with the knowledge that 99% of letters you recieve are bills or junk mail.

Email has become a very similar medium – 99% of my inbox consisted of newsletters from the myriad of web services I’ve signed up to over the years, or one-sided requests for marketing help.

My ideal inbox is one that contains only these:

• Communications from project teams I’m actively working on
• Purchase Reciepts
• Alerts (e.g. if my server falls over, or if traffic drops below a threshold)
• The odd personal email from friends and family
• Emails from affiliate networks telling me they are increasing my commissions and sending me another Maserati

I UNSUBSCRIBED FROM EMAIL LISTS

In the space of 2 days I have unsubscribed from Amazon, Maplin, Ebay, Confused, Play, Linkedin, Sprouter, Unique Blog Designs, Market Samurai, Liverpool Airport Parking ffs and more, simply because their emails offered absolutely no value to me.

Those that didn’t allow me to unsubscribe easily have been marked as spam (Play and Confused for example) for Gmail to deal with in the background.

EMAIL NOW WORKS FOR ME (not the other way around!)

I now use my unread items as a general to-reply list – type in:unread into Gmail – and when I’ve actioned an email I mark it as read. I now try to respond to emails immediately when possible… my replies are usually one of three things:

• Confirmation that I have done something
• A polite reply that I’m unable/unwilling to do something
  (although I usually offer friendly advice – i.e. pay me, speak to this guy, use a certain tool)
• A quick reply to say I’ve recieved their email, and will get around to actioning it within timeframe X

I avoid this final type of email wherever possible, simply because:

• I hate holding back a project because a bottleneck step rests with me
• I would like other people to complete their bottleneck steps as soon as possible, and I aim to be an example
• My peace of mind is directly linked to the length of my to-do list

I CLEANED MY DESKTOP

I used to use my Windows desktop as a workspace to save documents to, with the best intentions to move them to their rightful folders at some later, unspecified date. As you can imagine this never happened!

Now, I use my desktop as a zen-like starting place that focuses me on the task at hand. It only contains shortcuts for the functions I heavily use:

• Advanced Web Ranking
• My Desktop
• My Network Places
• Recycle Bin

…along with Calvin Coolidge’s wise words on persistence:

“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. “

My browsers (FF, IE8,7,6 and Chrome) are in my Quick Launch bar along with SciTE, the only text-editor you will ever need (except perhaps Darkroom).

This tip has to go hand-in-hand with a new resolution to file your documents with discipline and logic so you can find them again. I use a 1.5TB external hard drive for all my documents – whilst my installed programs which live on my internal hard drive – this allows me to move to another computer and take my familar folder structure with me.

I REGAINED CONTROL OF INSTANT MESSAGING

I used to get bombarded with frequent requests to Digg this or Stumble that. This, along with my friends being only a click away to chat, simply had to go.

Skype and Digsby (probably Adium or Pidgin for you Ubuntu or Mac-boys) are now tools I boot up only when I’ve pre-arranged to chat with someone; they don’t stay open in the system tray, pinging me relentlessly.

I ORGANISED MY START MENU

My Start Menu looks like this now – it’s logical, short and a pleasure to use. My Start Menu has now almost totally replaced my desktop icons.

I UNINSTALLED MY VIDEO GAMES

I’ve always been a PC gamer as opposed to consoles, but this has meant having my games installed on the computer that I work from… Peggle was the first to go! I also uninstalled Steam, which is just too much of a temptation to re-install old games.

The only game I’ve kept is the Witcher; and only because I’m close to finishing it!

I IMPROVED MY PASSWORD MANAGEMENT

Anyone who aims to make money online will have built up a daunting collection of login details for the websites they use. You can’t be an SEO, affiliate, adsenser, dropshipper or article marketer without juggling accounts and passwords. This creates two problems:

1. Security

If you’re simply remembering your passwords, then chances are you have between 4 and 8 combinations that you use consistently; you know this is an accident waiting to happen but you risk it every time you sign up to a new service with the same details.

2. Recollection

Or lack of it. Being productive is all about getting into the flow of something and having to find your passwords is a sure-fire way to break that focus. Even worse is when you can’t access a critical service because you hit the 3-try lockout!

I now use Roboform to encrypt and store all my passwords, as well as share them across all my computers. I can only imagine the time and frustration this program has saved me. There’s a free ten-password version if you fancy trying it out. I’m sure there’s Mac/Linux alternatives too if you’re a doting fanboy of either ;)

I FOUND A TO-DO LIST THAT MATCHES MY PERSONALITY

My day is too short to aimlessly meander with the hope I’ll achieve an objective. To-do lists are essential for me, but badly implemented they can errode my focus rather than sharpen it.

I recently discovered and fell in love with TeuxDeux – an intuitive web-based to-do list that beats everything else I’ve tried. Now I add all my tasks, and whichever ones are not completed today will be automatically moved onto tomorrow’s list. This is awesome for me, because I was well-known for finding forgotten to-do lists in my jeans pockets on washday.

Also, it’s an awesome to see all the completed tasks stacking up: in fact, it actually encourages more produtivity.

I RUTHLESSLY PRUNED MY RSS SUBSCRIPTIONS

I’m a big fan of RSS in Google Reader – I log in every morning and quickly scan down the list of new posts from bloggers I respect. But in reality, very few of these posts offer anything new and even fewer offer real, actionable insights into making money or achieving goals. Most offer nothing except appeal to my fear of missing some important tip, only to be fed some re-packaged best-practice guide on optimising my dog for WordPress and attracting more comments from Twitter.

Some resources are just too good to lose however, so I cut my RSS reader down to just these:

• Viperchill
• Smart Passive Income
• Problogger
• Copyblogger
• Sugarrae
  (I’m in two minds about keeping this one, but I appreciate brutal honesty)
• Duct Tape Marketing
• SEO Book

From this point on, every website is going to have to invest in me before it will earn a place in my RSS reader.

CONCLUSION

This whole process has taken quite a lot of time, and has ironically distracted me from getting things done, BUT I consider it a worthwhile investment. This has been my stitch-in-time that will hopefully save nine, or something equally cliche. Already I feel I can think far clearer, work more efficiently and rest easier.

The process is far from finished, and here are a few things I’m still looking to achieve:

• Avoid any and all Flash games
• Stop visiting Reddit – There is no greater time-suck than this.
• Learning to say no more… read The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey
• Further developing a mindset of prioritisation

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this, and that you can find something valuable to add to your own approach.

I also hope you’ll leave a comment with your thoughts/additions/criticisms :)

Most people know I’m a fan of guest posts as a high-quality way of acquiring links; it provides quality, fresh links and equally importantly, it forces the client’s link profile to stay relevant*

Essentially you provide an on-topic website with free, high quality content for their readership in return for an optimised link from within the article. Everyone is happy, and here’s the bonus: you’ll probably get some old-school on-topic visitors via the link too.

Anyway, back to My Blog Guest: It’s run by the ridiculously talented Ann Smarty and some helpful moderators, and it’s essentially a forum for blog owners and content writers to find mutually beneficial partnerships.

My experience so far
I’ve partnered up with a few websites in the travel industry recently and the results have been spot on: no tampering with my links, no no-follows, no dodgy iframe redirects or other BS. It’s early days yet, but I’m sure anyone taking content for nothing will soon get reported and banned.

Finding the right writer or website
I don’t have much time to check forums, but My Blog Guest makes scanning for suitable site owners very easy by allowing everyone to essentially tag their profiles; mine for example revolves around the travel industry whilst my copywriters have a much broader scope of clients they write and distribute for.

Isn’t it full of spammers?
Not yet: Ann and the mods do a great job of sorting the wheat from the chaff which for me is probably the reason I continue to use the service. I have no wish to spend hours researching and writing an awesome article for it to only end up on an Adsense farm.

Why build relationships with website owners in your topic?
Having working relationships with those influential bloggers who write about your niche comes in real handy when you’ve got a press release and want to get it picked up (bypassing those expensive online wires).

It can also give you better rates on advertising on their site or newsletter (*cough* sponsorship), or even just staying front-of-mind for when they feel like linking out – you do remember naturally obtained links don’t you ;)

* Now I know some people don’t feel link source relevance is an important factor in Google’s algorithm and chase any old high PR source, but I don’t. I feel the the logic is just too compelling to completely disregard relevance in link building.