The question was something to the effect of “I have way too many applicants for a job I posted, and I just spent way too much time hiring the right person. Is there a faster way?”

I | Click for more...]]> I saw a post on oDesk forum today that I just couldn’t resist but tackle.

The question was something to the effect of “I have way too many applicants for a job I posted, and I just spent way too much time hiring the right person. Is there a faster way?”

I consider this a good problem to have, but at the same time it is clear you have a business to run and have to quickly sift through the applicants.

Here is a way I do this:

First, in the middle of the job posting (where it’s not easily spotted) I’ll place a request to apply using a word that wouldn’t normally be used in the job posting.

This is something you should do every time you post a job as it will allow you to separate folks that can follow instructions from those that can’t (or those that bulk-apply without reading the job description)

Ask to have that word used in the first sentence when replying. Then, using Firefox, use the “find” function (Ctrl+F – image below), type the code word and select the “Highlight all” function. That will highlight only the posts that have replied as specified, so I’ll shortlist them. If there are no hits on the page, the search field turns a color of shy:

This way you can cut your list in half in a matter of minutes.

Once done, simply set your oDesk filter to only show shortlisted folks (right sidebar).

Now you need to unshortlist the ones that don’t meet the criteria. Note that you’re still NOT reading posting replies or actively rejecting anyone – that takes way too much time. You are just refining your shortlist instead.

At the bottom of each post, you will see their qualifications. Simply un-shortlist the ones that have less then desirable qualifications (star icon), and they’ll disappear from screen since your filter is still active.

Once you have narrowed your shortlist down to a handful of applicants this way, I use a Firefox plugin called Multilinks to open all applications at once (the plugin opens them up in separate tabs).

This is the very first point where I will actually read the entire application. By this time I have eliminated 90% of those that wouldn’t be a good fit, and have saved a ton of time doing it.

If I find a few that should be rejected right there and then, this is where you do it. Those that are left over, I’ll sort in the order of preference (you can rearrange tabs the way you want them)

Then simply hire the top applicant or applicants. oDesk will ask you if you wish to notify others that you have rejected them. Click on “Yes” and you’re done.

Although it’s a good idea to contact top picks that didn’t get hired, but have still made the cut before you reject everyone. Simply ask if they would be OK with you keeping their names on file in case the opportunity comes up again. That way if you end up having to look for a replacement, you can save yourself a ton of time.

Also, keep the job posting on a text file on your computer. You never know when you’ll need to use it again, and having a previous hiring experience will allow you to make just a few tweaks and post a job in a jiffy. Yes, the old posting will still be in your history, but I just find this process a simpler way to organize my data as opposed to sifting through a ton of previously posted jobs.

By the way, if you’re not using oDesk to hire your peeps, you’re missing out. Aside from being the best platform that gives you the ability to check up on whether your staff is working or chatting on Facebook, oDesk rocks in every sense!

So if you woke up today to see a new 8-bit Google maps interface called Quest, and are wondering if it’s something you can use to further optimize | Click for more...]]> This morning Google introduced a new upgrade to its Maps called the “Quest” view. Incidentally a little experiment we did with it resulted in unexpected ranking changes.

So if you woke up today to see a new 8-bit Google maps interface called Quest, and are wondering if it’s something you can use to further optimize your site, I’m here to tell you that you can:

According to Google’s own instructional video, the QUEST view has been developed to interface with the biggest gaming device ever developed – the Nintendo Entertainment System

A team of engineers at Google has devised a way to interface the NES cartridge with Internet to allow users to take their game characters outside of the confines of the game you play, and into the real world, into Google maps.

So if you are a Super Mario fan, you can now collect caffeine jolt tokens at your favorite coffee joint, get healing powers at your local chiropractor or spit onto a plate of food at your competitor’s restaurant.

A simple test we did this morning using the game have shown a sudden change in rankings of the websites that have received a positive or a negative action by game players.

It seems that Google is using the game to assess the true feelings of gamers towards a business or a place, and change the businesses website rank accordingly.

Does this mean that the Search Optimization as we know it is dead?

In one way it does – in fact this opens up possibilities for further manipulation of the search engine algorithms by using something that is fun and easy to learn.

So next time you are approached by a client to do an SEO campaign for their site, all you have to do is set up a guild of players with a common goal, and offer minimal monetary incentive to the first one to complete the task. In essence you are paying only one person, while allowing the competitive nature of the game to attract additional participants to the game, and further optimize the site free of charge.

This is probably the biggest favor that Google has done to us in the SEO business to date. But this is one change I welcome with open arms.

This has been No Borscht for you, my name is iVan, and you’ve been had. Happy 1st of April

Here is a little how-to, fellow WordPress users; I had cut a short video right after the last post – 39 seconds after posting it, to be exact.

Hey, if you like the video below – do share (that FaceBook | Click for more...]]> Wanna know how to get indexed the second you post new content on your site?

Here is a little how-to, fellow WordPress users; I had cut a short video right after the last post – 39 seconds after posting it, to be exact.

Hey, if you like the video below – do share (that FaceBook button at the top is a hint)…

Update

Want more proof? Here is a snapshot I took a few minutes after posting this:

Oh, and yes – last order of business – here is a list of ping services featured in the video:

• http://rpc.pingomatic.com
• http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
• http://ping.myblog.jp
• http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
• http://bblog.com/ping.php

But this is something you local SEO ninjas can implement right away to boost your rankings VERY quickly.

Image Credit: From | Click for more...]]> Last week an interesting SEO discovery stumbled upon me (that’s right – I rarely ever discover stuff… it’s more like discoveries have to punch me in the face for me to take notice).

But this is something you local SEO ninjas can implement right away to boost your rankings VERY quickly.

Image Credit: From a panel in Action Comics Annual #10, 2007

During a conference in California 10 days ago I went to check a listing which, here in Vancouver, ranked #4 for a specific keyword.

I was surprised to discover it ranked #1 in San Diego.

So I logged into my home PC (courtesy of a free LogMeIn account) to check if there was an across-the-board change in the way site ranked, or whether a pulsating rod of Google kryptonite just drove itself through my bare foot as I stepped on it.

Turns out that in Vancouver the site was still ranking #4.

In spite of it being 2,247 Km away, this site ranked better in an unrelated city than in its home town (sure, I could have said 1,400 miles, but think about marketing opportunities I gained using a large number that ends with 7 )

Turns out I did find kryptonite after all. Thinking back about the work I did for this client, I realized the backlinks and citations I generated were hosted on sites mostly frequented by US visitors.

What does this mean for you?

Simply put, placing citations and backlinks on sites that are frequented by visitors in your client’s ‘hood makes for a WAY faster ranking.

I actually tested this and was able to get my client bumped to #2 spot in less than 2 days (actually 20 minutes of work and 47 hr, 40 min. of routine daily activities involving eating, sleeping and scratching itchy spots to name a few…)

The Experiment

Here is what I did. Finding a shwack of Canadian sites to place backlinks in the time available was out of the question (I was particularly itchy and had to scratch myself of multiple spots at the same time), so I opted for a second best – get just a few of them, and then optimize those using ordinary methods.

In those 20 minutes I did the following:

1. I Googled for, and found, two Vancouver-based forums where I could create profiles. One of them allowed me to place a dofollow link in the profile itself, while both allowed non-hyperlinked signatures.

2. I found a post on each site that was recently read by a large number of people, posted one comment each, and in the signature placed an N.A.P. citation.

3. I went to OneHourBacklinks.com, and ordered about 2000 backlinks, linking all of them to those two posts, using a bunch of LSI keywords.

As all of this was taking place during a live seminar, I was distracted and  have completely forgot to link to the profile page (the one with an actual backlink). Yet, two days later my client was ranking #2 (bwa mwa ha ha!)

Now, keep one thing in mind – those forums were not semantically related to my client’s website. These were merely a few N.A.P. citations on a site frequented by Vancouverites.

In a nutshell, quality of traffic on a site where links and citations come from matters. The more local the traffic is on a given site, the more local value outgoing links and citations will have on such a site.

So if you’re optimizing your local business, or your local client’s site, start by looking for sites that are important to locals (forums, discussion groups, local teams’ fan pages, etc). Place citations (or backlinks when available), and then optimize those pages using keyword-targeted backlinks.

Want more cool tips? Do click on that lonely Facebook button at the top -  it sooo helps the site.

For your convenience I also included the MAC address generator to | Click for more...]]> In today’s How To Change An IP Address With Your Router video I reveal a simple way you can get a new IP address – rather useful when you’re trying to avoid a ban from certain websites like big G.

For your convenience I also included the MAC address generator to create a unique MAC address you can use with this technique.

So if you need a fresh MAC address to force an IP change with it, simply refresh this page and use the string below this video

Admittedly I’ve been away from my blog all too long. But believe it or not, that’s good news.

See, about 8 or so months ago I’ve learned about a secret little technique that my then-marketing-instructor-now-close-friend Michael X has quietly been crushing with.

Japanese kanji for Ninja

| Click for more...]]> Hey gang

Admittedly I’ve been away from my blog all too long. But believe it or not, that’s good news.

See, about 8 or so months ago I’ve learned about a secret little technique that my then-marketing-instructor-now-close-friend Michael X has quietly been crushing with.

Japanese kanji for Ninja

He’s the kinda guy that does everything. – CPA, traditional affiliate marketing, software development/sales, etc…

Well, almost everything – he won’t touch MLM with a 10-foot pole (not gonna get into that right now, but it will suffice to say that nobody is perfect, lol)

But this one technique was nothing short of a miracle. In fact – Mike is the real ninja behind yours truly

Picture this – rank #1 for ANY keyword in ANY niche with ANY product – in 30-60 days of… watching TV, busting the StairMaster, heck – even jumping on a pogo stick, for all I care!

Bullshit?

How’s this – a few months ago I leaked just a part of this technique to a close friend who then used it on his client’s website to score the first page for a word fish.

Yup – just one word, and it was for a fish market… shop… thingy (what are those things called anyway – “fish shops”? Sounds like bishops to my untrained borscht-grown ears)

Admittedly the listing stayed up for only a few days, but then again – that was just one part of the technique, and it was a single friggin’ word

The reason I’m posting today is to let you know that I just got off the phone with Mike, and I got a confirmation. After oodles of tests, we’re blowing the technique out of the water

There are two ways you can learn about it:

One, you have to attend the free webinar that Mike is putting up on May 19th* (yikes that’s in two days, folks!)

Or two, you have to attend the free webinar that Mike is putting up on May 19th =)

Now, I’m gonna be perfectly frank with you – if we reveal every aspect of this technique on a freakin’ free webinar, we’d get murdered by Google.

But it will suffice to say you’ll learn the strategy, and I couldn’t care less if you turned around and did your own Ninjutsu to develop it for your own nefarious purposes =)

So if you really, really wanna get a good idea of how this is done, you’ll have to join us for the webinar

So be there (or no borscht for you!) =P

Simply saying “I am your father”, “just follow the smell” and “Because he has three legs” just doesn’t cut it anymore (get it? “tip” the | Click for more...]]> As a marketing trainer I get asked a lot of questions: “who are you”, “which way is the bathroom” and “why didn’t you tip the waiter”?

Simply saying “I am your father”, “just follow the smell” and “Because he has three legs” just doesn’t cut it anymore (get it? “tip” the waiter?.. that’s friggin’ hilarious)

Aaah, you can always count on me to laugh at my own jokes

Recently I got a few WordPress RSS questions that involved a tad more tactful answers (after all they came from paying clients), so I decided to blast this out to the ether and play nice today.

So here they are:

What Is RSS Feed?  Isn’t It When Anytime I Write A Blog Post, The Person Who Subscribed Will Receive A Link To It In Their Email?

It is and a bit more – it’s basically a way for web-savvy people to get your blog content delivered to a central location.

And for those of you with a dirty mind – I’m talking about an email, or an RSS reader (it’ll be a cold day in hell before you get me to say navel on my blog)

Navel Base?

The simple way of looking at it is this -if you pretend for a second your blog is like The New York Times, RSS would encompass all of the different methods your paper gets delivered to places where it can be read.

So RSS are like fleets of trucks that distribute the paper.

And following the same analogy, email accounts and RSS Readers would be like newsstands, libraries, hotels, barber shops and navel bases

No worries folks – there are unlimited opportunities for bad jokes like this (after all, this blog has its own RSS feed)

What The Heck Is “Submitting A Feed”, Do I Need To Do It, And Why?

OK, let’s use the same analogy

No Mojo

By default, WordPress has a widget that adds a feed button allowing your visitors to go to your feed so they can subscribe to it themselves. That’s like having a little outlet right in New York Times lobby where people can come and ask to get the paper delivered to their house from now on.

Now, if you wanted to make a life easier for your readers, you’d contact all the different distribution fleets and ask them to distribute your paper to the newsstands – that’s what submitting the RSS feed is like.

Do you need it? No, but without it your blog won’t have the mojo.

More mojo = more fun, and ultimately this is all about getting traffic, so do it!

How Do I Submit My Feed For Free?

Rather than give you links to software that may not be around tomorrow, I recommend Googling ‘free RSS submit’ (sans quotes). You’ll inevitably find a number of programs and/or websites (some free, some paid) that will notify the appropriate “fleets” automatically

Whichever one you choose, all you have to do is paste the URL of your feed (that’s the URL of the page that your feed button takes you to)

Choose as many sites as the program/website allows and hit submit.

That’s simply going to let those “fleets” know your feed is alive and should be included in their hit list

You only have to do this once, it’s well worth doing it, it only takes a few minutes and will bring additional traffic

Plus – Google likes feeds, which equals even more mojo, man!

What Is A FeedBurner, What Does “Burning A Feed” Mean, And Where The Heck Is The Bathroom?

A FeedBurner is a free feed service that is part of Google universe. It’s just like a feed thingamajigy on your WordPress site, only it’s not on your site, and it’s nothing like your feed

Simply put FeedBurner = more mojo

In a few more words, FeedBurner can bring more folks to your site

Say you decide you wish to track the number of subscribers to your feed,  the easiest thing would be to move your feed away from your site and to Google’s FeedBurner (“burning” a feed).

That allows Google to better estimate the readership of your site, and if your content is good, there is a greater likelihood of getting more subscribers and therefore better ranking with Google.

To do this, go to http://feedburner.google.com and “Burn” a feed (you’ll get instructions plus a plugin for your WordPress that will take care of the transfer for you)

Bathroom is down the stairs… just tip the waiter before you leave…

Any topic ideas or questions for the next post, folks?

If you’re using a Smart Update Pinger WP plug in (especially important to those who have been recommended to use it through TrafficFormula 2.0), you might want to disable this plugin as soon as you read this.

Here is the scoop – the original Smart Update Pinger | Click for more...]]> Hi Gang!

If you’re using a Smart Update Pinger WP plug in (especially important to those who have been recommended to use it through TrafficFormula 2.0), you might want to disable this plugin as soon as you read this.

Here is the scoop – the original Smart Update Pinger WordPress plugin (at the time of this writing) has been abandoned, and has disappeared from WordPress plugins page – for a good reason as it turns out.

In certain situations, it was discovered, it ended up doing the exact opposite of what it was intended to do, and a number of blogs ended up being banned due to ping spamming.

No fear-mongering, just a friendly warning .

Now, I’m not the kind of guy to stand on the corner with the “The End Is Nigh!” sign, so I got a solution for you guys.

The solution is another plugin, but the installation requires extra two steps in order for this to work.

And rather than write a lengthy post, I simply cut a short video that will guide you through the process

Do comment if you dig it

(hint: you can do one or the other)

I just got an email asking about preventing comment spam on a WordPress blog.

I’m lazy, so rather than paraphrase my reply, I’ll just paste what I wrote back | Click for more...]]> Preventing comment spam or using it to boost your on-page SEO; which one is it going to be?

(hint: you can do one or the other)

I just got an email asking about preventing comment spam on a WordPress blog.

I’m lazy, so rather than paraphrase my reply, I’ll just paste what I wrote back (I’m omitting the the sender’s name)

Using Others’ Comment Spam To Boost Your Rankings

“Hey there, (name omitted)

Yup, that’s spam, all right…

When it comes down to on-page SEO, there are several things that get you Google juice. By now you probably know all about keywords in URLs, Title tags, meta descriptions, etc…

But one thing you and I never discussed is incoming links (links from other sites). When you get a link from, say, hubpages.com coming to your site, in Google’s eyes, that’s basically like someone else saying your site is ‘spongeworthy’ (if you weren’t a Seinfeld fan, that means very valuable)

And if the link comes from a relevant authority site, that’s like having Seinfeld himself say your site is cool (and if the link itself is a relevant keyword, that’s as if he said it while being a guest on Oprah).

So, blog spammers use comment-spamming bots to seek out any WordPress blog and post a fake comment in order to obtain a backlink.

Now, the rule when spamming blogs is to try to keep the blog moderator (you) from deleting the comment (and therefore a link), so they’ll typically try to post a compliment of some kind.

Bust since they’re using spamming bots to send out a comment to hundreds, or even thousands of blogs, they have no way of customizing the comment to what you’re actually talking about, so they make it as broad and vague as they can

And THAT is how you can tell if the comments marked as spam really are spam

Now, your site was built to automatically turn each outgoing link into a ‘nofollow’ link, so their comments aren’t leaching much Google juice from your site. So even if your spam tool didn’t catch the comments, they wouldn’t be getting much juice from you anyway.

But how do you turn spam to your advantage?

Google likes content. Better yet, it likes frequently updated content.

When you get a comment on your page – that, in effect, is an update to the entire page. If Google sees new comments every time it crawls your site, it comes back for more, and it does it more and more frequently.

Now, the last thing you wanna do is turn off your Akismet and let all the spam get through. Comment spam doesn’t provide a value to your readers, and it – well, it looks spammy.

So this is what you do: quickly scan through your comments, and find a few that are ‘almost spongeworthy’.

The first step is to approve them.

That solidifies an entry in your logs showing where the comment came from (meaning it shows you didn’t create a comment yourself)

Then tweak it. Get rid of the link to their site. Add a little value to their comment and (if you can) use a keyword or a semantically related phrase. Then update the comment, and voila – you have updated your page with more relevant content, and it only took you a second.

Unethical? Hey – those dirty buggers spammed YOU; never forget that!

Of course, never do this to someone who provided REAL value. If someone actually commented on something you wrote and placed a link to their site, let them keep it. I don’t consider that spam.”

Now, some of you probably don’t have the time for that, so, here is the alternative

Preventing Comment Spam

Simply put, if you want to stop blog spam, you simply need to make yourself invisible to spambots that look for blogs to post comments to

The way a lot of spambots find your site is by doing web searches for default text in your comment box that ships with Popular WordPress themes or WordPress itself.

So by changing the text that identifies your comment box, there is no way for the less sophisticated spambots to find you.

After I did this on one site a while back, I saw roughly an 80% drop in blog spam within just 4 weeks

Which ain’t that shabby at all!

However I’m no longer preventing comment spam if I can help it. I say bring ‘em on!

What’s wrong?

A few days ago I taught a group of | Click for more...]]> OK, for months you kept your head buried in the books; you built a great website and it’s just the way you wanted – all the bells and whistles are working just fine, but you’re not getting any traffic, opt-in leads, conversions or cash.

What’s wrong?

A few days ago I taught a group of local business owners how to set up their first cash-producing website (that’s me standing in the picture below).

I said BELOW, not the guy with the head in the book

Yesterday one of them approached me asking for advice.

This was a sharp dude; he knew about the “love affair” between WordPress and Google, wanted to leverage that to get opt-in leads, so he was building entire site in WordPress.

Smart!

But he was keen on building a site with a static-look home page. The rationale was that he didn’t want to waste visitor’s time, and wanted to show them what he does and “what he’s all about” by decking it out 20^th-century-style.

He wanted to know if this was possible to do that with WordPress.

“It is, but if you’re building a leads list you’re dead”

No, that’s not what I told him, but those words paint a pretty good picture.

Why?

We often forget why it is that visitors come to a site in a first place. They want information, and they want it now.

They may very well need what you have to offer, but they don’t know that.

So when you create your site around your business, you end up with a site that appears self-serving and without any value to the visitor.

When targeting opt-ins, it’s all about the value

So if you focus on the content that is asked for, and wrap “what you’re all about” and what you have to offer INTO what they’re looking for – you’ll have a winner every time.

It’s like giving your dog a medicine. You have to give it what it wants, or else you’ll find yourself shoving the friggin’ pill down its throat.

(Coincidentally, that’s how I was fed my medicine when I was a kid, so now I wet my bed and like to hide in confined spaces…)

Take a look at your site and ask yourself if you built it just to screw around with Google, or are you really serving your readers.

It’s great to have a pretty website that you can show your friends, but that’s not what’s getting the opt-ins or putting the money in your bank.

Don’t reinvent the wheel – stick with what’s working right now and you’ll be fine.

If your site isn’t getting any opt-ins, it’s likely not talking to them in their language.