Please give the last sentence some serious thought. If you’re site is struggling, I’d bet the farm that you have one of those two problems.

Most sites don’t have the rankings they would like to have, but I guess that’s obvious. Based on the number of people reading this site and others like it, we can reasonably assume that people still aren’t getting to the traffic numbers they’re looking for.

Search engines can be literal gold mines for individuals that are able to take advantage. Google especially can provide you with a residual influx of traffic, amazingly composed primarily of a specific group of people that are looking for the information, product, or service you provide.

So what do you have to do to get Google to see you as an authority for the keyword you would like to get ranked for.

The Quickest Way To The Top

With this game, there are a lot of ways to play. The easiest way to win is to enlist the help of the ‘authorities’ - better said, the people that Google already trusts for the keyword you would like to come up for.

Let’s say that I wanted to become an authority for a keyword phrase like ‘how to teach a gerbil to swim’. Well, first things first, who are the ‘authorities’ for this keyword?

Doing a quick search in Google will tell you exactly who Goog believes the authorities are, and it all starts there. If you could get the top ten URLs that are ranked in Google to link to you, you would become an instant authority and would likely have earned a great ranking for that keyword. With an easy keyword like this, you would probably get ranked first, unless your site was brand new.

Yeah I hear you, “Well how do I get those sites to link to me, Court?” Well that’s the question isn’t it?! It’s not always going to be possible. I said this was the quickest way to the top - it’s definitely not easy to get everyone to link to your site.

That said, if I wanted to get sites like these to link to my gerbil-swimming site (ha, can you imagine if I really had a site about this?), I would probably create some kind of free download that I could offer. For some reason, I have always had better luck getting people to link to downloads (as opposed to posts or articles).

Alerting a bunch of gerbil sites about your download would likely draw some links.

Most people never get this far because they don’t want to create something of value in the first place. If you honestly created the best report ever written about ‘how to teach a gerbil to swim’, it’s very likely that you would eventually climb to number one for that keyword, based on the fact that gerbil lovers would link to you. Creating a garbage page would put you in a much more difficult position.

The reality is that some keywords are much more difficult than this one, but the same principles apply. If you want to rank first for cell phones, they keyword authority you need will be a lot harder to get. Why? Because the sites that are currently ranked are seriously strong sites.

I would say that a healthy majority of you will never try to create the amount of keyword authority it would take to get ranked for a term like cell phones. Why? You don’t believe that you could do it. I think that many of you could achieve something like that. The problem is that people tend to quit before they get there.

I think if you took a hard look at the sites that currently rank for anything, you’ll find that they don’t do the greatest job ever of explaining their information. Any of us could probably do a better job and if we did, we would create some keyword authority out of thin air. Why? People always link to the best site that covers a topic.

I bet a good 90% of you would be capable of getting on to the first page in Google for a term like ‘cell phones’, if you were willing to pay the price. Of course, it wouldn’t be mathematically possible for you all to do it at once. It doesn’t matter anyway because 99% of people would just quit anyway - that doesn’t have to be you. You can be different, if you want to be.

How To Get Started With Your Site’s Keyword Authority

Going after a huge term like cell phones usually isn’t the best way to build keyword authority. If I had a site about cell phones, I would break it down into tons of subtopics that I could provide solid information about.

A subtopic like ‘how to change a cell phone battery’ would be easier to move up the rankings for, and would still help you to build authority for ‘cell phones’. Stringing together 50 or so keywords like that one on a single site will help you to start getting somewhere for ‘cell phones’, even though you haven’t tried specifically for cell phones. Why? Google and other search engines know that the terms are related.

The more specific, sub-topical terms you can rank for, the more keyword authority you will build for the more difficult keyword - the keyword most people would call a pipe dream.

Make a list of keywords that work well with your site, use those keywords to create awesome articles, notify other sites that cover the topic, and repeat.

So What Is Keyword Authority Exactly?

It’s a measure of how good your site is for a specific keyword. Google uses a lot of metrics to determine this, including use of keywords in your site (throughout your entire site), which sites you’re getting links from (and how authoritative they are for the keyword), and what words they use when they link to you (anchor text). Improve any of those metrics, and you will improve your keyword authority. Improve more than anyone else, and you will find yourself with a #1 ranking for your keyword.

There are, of course, lots of different methods that you can use to create keyword authority. We’re not going to cover them all today but I hope that this lesson will help you to understand a little more about what keyword authority is. Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions!

Does the answer to that question fly off your lips? Did you have to think about it? Can you answer it even after thinking about it?

How about this - fill in the blanks in the following statement:

“I give my users _________ and I get ________ in return.”

Am I overstating things if I say the key to success with any website is found in those two blanks?

A couple of examples…

On my ecommerce site: “I give my users a variety of trailer hitch accessories and I get money in return.”

On my wife’s personal blog, she would say: “I give my friends and family updates on my life (and about eight million pictures of our 11 month old son)  and I get a feeling of connection and happiness in return.

On CourtneyTuttle.com: “We give people simple insights into how they can get traffic from the search engines and we get coaching clients, membership website subscribers (until recently ) and joint venture offers from other businesses in return.

If you don’t have a written plan for your site, you should at the very least be able to make a clear “I give this and I get that in return.” statement.  If you don’t have that mantra in your head every day, how can you expect your business to progress?

I don’t do a lot of blog reading, but often I’ll click through to sites I find in comments here on the site. I’ll read a post or two, and all too often I find myself saying “What’s your point?” On most of the sites I visit I don’t see any clear message of “The author is giving me this, and hoping to get that in exchange.”

Now you might not care if your users/readers see an obvious “give and receive” message on your blog, but think about this: In the last 30 days, I have spent over $5,000 just on information. The crazy thing is I’m GLAD I’ve just shelled out five grand for knowledge, because I know I’ve purchased some really high ROI solutions to a few of the problems we face in our business.

If you want to make money, you have to be the provider of a solution for which a large enough group of people is willing to pay.

I don’t think that sentence reads very smoothly, but I’m leaving it alone. Go back over it a couple times and let it sink in.

What problem (faced by a large enough group of people) does your presence on the web solve?

Your primary goal, maybe even your obsession, should be to answer that question.

If you can’t fire off the answer, stop whatever else you’re doing and start figuring it out. Our experience at Court’s Internet Marketing School is the earning power of a site really takes off after a) the author discovers what problem he/she can solve for the audience, and b) the audience agrees.

Let’s Brainstorm Together

Maybe we can help you get started today by going through a little exercise in the comments section. Here’s how it will work: anyone who feels like they have a clearly defined “I give this and receive that in exchange” statement, please leave it in the comments. It’s some free advertising and a branding opportunity for your site. For those of you who aren’t quite sure yet, make your best attempt.

Everybody else, click through to the sites behind a few of the comments, then come back and reply to the site owner’s statement. Did the site match the give/receive statement? Leave some POSITIVE feedback. I’m putting everyone on notice now that any sarcastic and/or critical comments will be immediately deleted. Court and I have very thick skins; you can feel free to call us morons all day long. We’re not in the business of setting other people up for that same treatment though, so if you can’t say something nice…

I hope a few of you who are just getting started will put yourselves out there. This is a chance to have a very clarifying moment in establishing the direction of your site.

If you are dabbling with the idea of becoming a powerful copywriter, you need to start out by learning how humans react in a certain environment and why. Successful copywriters are masters of human psychology. They know exactly what makes us tick. The best in the industry have basically the power to print money on demand.

If you have been buying eBooks, courses, memberships in the past, you probably don’t even realize that most of that “buying” was done unconsciously - via clever marketing techniques e.g. - copywriting.

This is why the best copywriters in the business can demand large sums of money before a product is even launched. Internet marketers are only too happy to pay these guys their due fees because they know it will make them a stack more than it cost them.

When we buy, we do so because of emotion. Always.

We buy because we want:

• Money
• Security
• Confidence
• Knowledge
• Health
• Fame
• Comfort
• Time

Usually just before we click that “buy now ” button something important happens. Rarely do we justify why we should not buy. Most often we find plenty of reasons why we absolutely must buy. Even if that small voice within tries to tell us otherwise.

Such is human nature that our emotions are doing the selling for us. The copywriter is merely a master with words. He masterfully crafts his sales copy to nudge, poke, tempt, lure, provoke and eventually seduce us into buying.

Once we have convinced ourselves that we really need this product right now it is often too late. But what exactly happens just before that?

Emotions happen!

Whether you want to:

save

• Money
• Time

stop

• Worry
• Embarrassment
• Doubt
• Work
• Risk

or feel the need to:

• Collect
• Improve
• Beautify
• Express
• Be creative
• Be efficient

and experience all the other emotions we usually feel when we buy things doesn’t matter. On the bottom line we buy because we associate our emotions with the product. We feel that this product is the answer to our prayers. We believe it can help us to escape our misery.

The copywriter is the conductor, while you are the musician, playing to his tune.

Now that you know these emotional sales copy triggers, you might be able to withstand impulse buys in the future.

I am remarkably stubborn sometimes…

In the end, a few things helped me to change my mind and as it turns out, I was very very wrong. I’m sorry for that and I hope sincerely that you all can accept my apology.

My theory that ‘Content Is NOT King’ had a huge fatal flaw and in order to set things right, I wanted to let everyone know exactly what that flaw was:

If your site doesn’t have quality content, a Google search engineer can crush it with a simple push of a button.

On the other hand, if your site’s content is of stellar quality, a Google engineer who came across it would love it. This doesn’t mean they will give you a manual boost - Google doesn’t work that way. It does mean that you are protected because of the quality of your site. Google isn’t going to smack the legitimate, solid sites.

Incidentally, if your site’s content is high caliber, it can survive without Google. Frankly this is the type of site Google loves to rank well anyway.

Once I admitted to myself that I was wrong on this issue, I came to some hefty (and boy do I ever mean hefty) realizations.

First of all, since content is the most important aspect of a site, calling keyword targeting by the name ‘keyword sniping‘ gives people the wrong idea. If we expect to get a ranking for a certain keyword, we should create a high caliber resource for that keyword and I’m afraid that the name ‘keyword sniping’ doesn’t give you guys that impression.

Even though I have invested crazy money and time into TheKeywordSniper.com, I have had to face the fact that the concept is not properly focused on content and that the name/brand in general gives people the wrong idea. That said, the site is now closed and I will be creating a new line of products that will help you all to create legitimately solid content sites.

The funny thing is that I have always believed that you must provide solid information, even when creating a niche content site. The problem is that ‘keyword sniping’ as a concept implies something different and that’s why I’ve done a huge overhaul to my business. My keyword sniping posts and reports have been deleted and my site has updated to be inline with my new philosophy.

Guys I know this is a huge flip-flop and for that I apologize. When I realized how wrong (and dangerous) my belief was, I had to make a change. My conscience wouldn’t let me do otherwise.

In a client/service provider relationship, communication is key to making sure we are on the same page at all times. It is so easy to misinterpret information and if left unaddressed, this can lead to misunderstanding pretty fast (like in the case with my friend).

“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.”
– Martin Luther

Funny enough, in my business communication is key, and even though I know this, I let my friend down by not communicating what I should have. I was driven by guilt to be honest, which stemmed from my lack of doing something for him. Guilt is a funny fellow. He makes us act like total losers and admitting this isn’t an easy feat, since I have to show that I have dark sides too and nobody likes to do this.

So now you know the truth about me (I am human after all), here is what I have learned about guilt and communication.

Always act on your promises

This is where I failed. I promised to so something and then didn’t do it. That really sucks and while I normally always fess up to delivering on my promises, in this case I didn’t and look what can happen.

Regardless of how long it takes you to do a job and whether you are busy with other things, stick to your promises, no matter what.

Also, don’t put a monetary value on your promise, since this is exactly what I had done. I failed to deliver because I run out of time due to a fully booked schedule.

Don’t promise what you can’t keep

While I did deliver on my promises to my friend initially, I couldn’t do it lately and that is where the trouble was. When you make a promise, look at it long term too. I didn’t and I learned a good lesson from this.

So how does my experience tie in with customer service and communication?

[BTW, for those of you who wonder, my friend and I realized we had neglected our communication channel and after discussing the matter at hand, all is well again.]

I guess I just reaffirmed myself how important it really is to communicate with each other, regardless whether professionally of with friends. The following pointers should hopefully help you in your communication ventures so you don’t repeat my silly mistake.

Double check

When you work with clients make sure to always double check. They often fail to provide you all relevant information upfront and once you start your work you could experience a rude wake up call - when half way through the job the tactic changes.

“Effective communications starts with listening.”
–Robert Gately

It helps to ask questions. Lot’s of questions. Get into the mind and shoes of your client and think of ways to help them better their brand. Once you do this, the questions will come.

Corporate rules

Corporate clients are a lot more demanding than individual business owners. This is not because they are more nasty or anything like that. The demand stems from the different environment in which business is done.

Expect meetings, interviews and tests and be ready for them. Again, it is of the utmost importance to ask a lot of specific questions to nail your part in the puzzle. You need to know exactly what is expected of you in order to service your client best.

Ask for feedback/Give feedback

If you are working on a long term project, ask for feedback. Especially if you don’t get any while you work. Most of my clients drop me a hint or two about their pleasure with my work quite naturally along the way. But if they didn’t, I’d be worried as quiet doesn’t always reflect happiness.

Also, don’t be afraid to give feedback in return. Your clients appreciate this as much as you do.

Voice your concerns

If you have concerns in regards to a client, don’t be afraid to voice them. Things are often half as bad as they feel or look once you take the initiative to talk about them.

It’s the tone of voice in which you voice them that makes all the difference between a successful or unsuccessful confrontation.

Sort out confrontations fast

Sometimes confrontations can’t be avoided. It could even lead to termination of your working agreement between each other. Sometimes it is actually better for both parties to go separate ways when bad blood has been voiced.

It really depends on your relationship though. A long term client is much more open to your suggestions or complaints. After a while there is a mutual relationship that grows together like a marriage. You become comfortable with your client and he with you.

“The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.”
– Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French Philosopher

Don’t get too complacent though. It’s in those times when divorces happen so keep your communication channels open at all times.

Speak up

Never be intimidated to speak up, even when you are at fault. I admitted mistakes to clients before on several occasions and I am still alive and kicking. They didn’t lynch me. We all make mistakes of some kind and the most important thing is to admit them and clear the air ASAP.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Proper communication helps us to iron out those crinkles so that the business can go on… just like in the movies.

Ego and communication - not a good match

I wanted to touch on the subject of egos. They really don’t fit well with communication. Sometimes we just have to admit we stuffed up, even though we don’t like to. Yes, we all have an ego tucked away somewhere and admitting a mistake is not a good for the ego.

“Communication is really all anyone ever gets paid for ultimately…and if you cannot effectively communicate…you will PAY…not get paid…”
– Doug Firebaugh

End notes

I want to leave you with the following end notes. They perfectly convey that in the end, we need to step aside and listen to the other person before we go and bash the living daylights out of them.

“The first and most difficult task of dialogue involves parking the ego and listening with an open spirit. From this receptivity can come questions which lead to understanding.

“What is it you see that I don’t?”
“How do you see this differently and why?”
“Please help me understand from your perspective.”

To ask these questions requires that one no longer need to have the best or last answer. Expanding one’s understanding becomes more important than being right or getting one’s point across.”
—Dr. Ann McGee-Cooper
from the article Dialogue: The Power of Understanding

The vid is part of my ‘How To Start A Blog‘ series. Make sure that you subscribe through RSS if you don’t want to miss any of the 50+ videos that will show you how to start a blog for profit.

Those of you that are reading this through RSS will have to click over to the post to watch the video.

© Court’s Internet Marketing School

The more time I waste, the less money I earn because my rates are tailored to the time I need to get the job done. Tailoring my searches to my respective needs means that the results are more accurate right away, allowing me to concentrate on the writing, rather than spend time researching Google for hours.

Also, I wanted you to know that while I mention Google here, some of these search terms will also work on other search engines. I simply love Google and couldn’t imagine life without it. It is the tool I used most in my business besides my brain and my fingers.

1.) The hyphen search string

A hyphen search string will omit any word that is being placed after the actual hyphen in your search.

For example, if you were to search for Internet -marketing, the results would omit anything to do with marketing but return information related to the word Internet.

2.) The wildcard search *

To use a wildcard search insert the * symbol instead of a word. This is great for long tail searches as well as comparison searches. Examples, the search pay * will return varied results while you can do comparison search to find more detailed information like this search: [pay * per word]vs[pay * per hour]

3.) The date range search

To search for information within a specific date range, do this:

Internet marketing daterange:2008 january-2008 july

This type of research is especially important if you need relevant and updated information.

4.) The exact search

The phrase or exact search allows us to find relevant information by putting quotes “” around our search term. This will cut out all irrelevant and time wasting results. Example: “marketing blogs”

5.) Blog keyword search

If you are a niche marketer, or an assistant to a niche marketer you will find this particular tip very handy while searching for blogs to comment on.

writing inurl:blog

You can also use the search term inurl: to restrict the search to page URLs e.g. inurl:writing

6.) The filetype search

I love this search as I can find PDF’s, PPTs, spreadsheets (xls) and more with this particular search:

business filetype:pdf

7.) The safe search

The safe search excludes all adult content from the results: safesearch:online

8.) The link search

This search finds linked pages on any website. While Google does return results, you will find more up to date stuff on Yahoo for this particular search.

link:www.courtneytuttle.com

9.) The site search

If you want to find information on only the one website you are best off to use the following search term to find the most accurate results: site:courtneytuttle.com

While you could also do a search with the www in front of the URL, the results are often limited.

10.) The find stuff using either or results

if you need information on two words that might not even be related, you can use the OR in between. Example: marketing OR writing

11.) The definition search

The definition search is great for writers or bloggers. Whenever you don’t quite understand the meaning of a particular word or phrase you can use this search to find its definition.

define:writing

Bonus tip

Did you know that you can also use Google like a simple calculator. this is so handy when you add up all your income at the end of the month. Simple us the same symbols like you do on a simple calculator:

• + = add
• - = subtract
• / = divide
• * = multiply etc.

You too can become a search warrior

Knowing your way around the search strings will make your online life a lot easier. If you struggled up to this stage, these “shortcuts” will give you a huge advantage over your competition since you will be faster and able to find more accurate information from now on.

I know that there are many more of these search strings and if you feel like sharing, feel free to let us know which ones need to be on this list. Maybe it will become the 50 best killer research strings instead.

Those of you that are reading this through RSS will have to click over to the post to watch the video.

© Court’s Internet Marketing School

But instead of writing about the various tools that can take you from a procrastinating professional to an effective and kick ass time management warrior, I rather talk about what I tried and failed with before I discovered the simple ways to control my business in the end.

I think the biggest issue we face is to have too many choices in tools to help us manage our time. It can be hard to resist the pulling forces of all the cool apps currently floating around on the Internet. So many have tremendous appeal and they offer us every imaginable ability, except they can’t make us coffee. Bummer.

My desperate search

So, in my search of trying to find the best medium to help me keep control of my ever increasing mountain of paper clutter, digital clutter and schedules, I tried just about anything out there. Leo Babauta wrote a post on 8 Simple Online Time Management Tools a while ago on Freelance Switch, but despite the shiny facade of the application mentioned I found none of them worked for me. I might mention here that I did try them all bar one or two. Not to mention the many others I discovered along the way in my search for the holy grail of time management tools.

The magic discovery

After trailing and failing with dozens of applications, ways, ideas and DMO’s, I made a miraculous discovery. In fact, if it wasn’t for this particular discovery I’d still be searching for the perfect time management tool for me.

And you know what, this tool I discovered has got to be one of the easiest, straight forward and manageable tool ever invented. Not only that, but this tool has so many uses it is a true all rounder.

This magic discovery is the one and only Moleskine. Now, before you ask “what is a Moleskine”, let me explain. The following is an excerpt from the actual slip of paper that comes with every Moleskine notebook:

Moleskine is the legendary notebook used by many European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin.

This trusty, pocket size travel companion held sketches, notes, stories and ideas before they were turned into famous images or pages of beloved books.

It is that easy. Since I discovered the Moleskine notebook, I quit on all the other online time management tools. To be honest, I found them time consuming, which in my eyes defeats the purpose of managing time in the first place.

Instead of spending two hours inserting schedules, reminders and contacts into the various online time management tools I spend about 15 minutes max. every Sunday evening. Not only is my week ahead clearly outlined, but I have developed a great system to keep the tool easy, fast and fuss free. And best of all, it works a treat!

Hacking your Moleskine

I basically own a Moleskine dedicated as a diary. It fits into my pocket and my hand bag and I can take it with me everywhere I go without the extra bulk, extra weight or having to be afraid to drop and break it.

To make it my own I hacked it according to the guidelines of Mike Rohde. My Moleskine Hack is the easiest time management tool I have come across in all the years I have been online.

Important aspects of taking control

Before you can use any tool to manage your time, whether it is online or offline based, you need to be clear about the work flow. The biggest setback for me in the past was my inability to keep things simple.

I overcomplicated matters and worst of all I always tried to do too many things without matching them for realistic execution.

Instead of opting to complete six major jobs in a week I now space these out. I also found it best to mix small tasks with big ones and never to include more than two major tasks every single week.

The moment I started to execute this, I finally managed to finish my to do lists pretty much every single day.

The other benefit

Ticking off your list has another major benefit. Besides getting things done, you will actually go to sleep with a sense of accomplishment rather than feeling stressed.

Keep it simple stupid

The K.I.S.S. principle applies also very well to time management. If you struggle with it, then take a step back and go easy on yourself. Release the self imposed pressures. You will soon find that you’ll actually get a lot more done once your new time management system is in place.

Those of you that are reading this through RSS will have to click over to the post to watch the video.

© Court’s Internet Marketing School