Bring the Fresh Recap – Week ending July 10, 2011

This week features some nice content posts and a few awesome
success stories.

To see more, go here:

http://www.bringthefresh.com/forum (you need to be a BTF member to access)

To become a member go to http://www.bringthefresh.com
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>>>FORUM POST

“Almost 1st Page Of Google In 24 Hours?? Newbie…

Hi guys!

This is my first success story... I think..   

I followed the SEO guidelines from BTF and found a keyword
( some kind of disease cure). It has 2400 exact searches
per month and a SEOC of 21,000 + Good CPC value. 

I got the EMD domain, installed WordPress and followed all
the tweaks from the pdf guide. Then today I did a search
and I'm on 2nd page of google doing a broad search for my
KW(491,000 results), and on 1st page (10th place) doing a
exact search! (51,700 results ) So I was very excited today
to see my page up there.. Or maybe this is normal and I'm
just over excited? I haven't even added any posts yet.

Now I need to get an adsense and a Clickbank acc and of
course the most important part... the articles.. Any suggestions
for a nice converting theme for both adsense and Clickbank?

Thanks!”

>>>MY COMMENTS

Great job in getting the exact match domain.  It will make
your life a lot easier when trying to build backlinks to the site.

How does it feel to see how easy it is to get your first site
up and RANKING within a few hours from each other?  That feeling
never goes away no matter how many sites you build  

From my experience, it may bounce around a little until you get
those posts up.  Once that’s done, follow the steps outlined in
the fast start guide to move ahead of your competition.

As for a converting theme, I wouldn’t worry about that too much
for now.  You can always change/optimize it later.

I would first focus on your money post because that’s the first
thing people will see when they come to your site.

Once traffic starts to come in, you can test and tweak things
like headlines and where you put your link to get the best
conversion you can.

Keep us posted as you rank higher and we’ll all give you some
more feedback and input.  Good luck!

-Kelly

>>>FORUM POST

“Platinum SEO – Do You Index Or Follow Your Posts?

Hi, a quick bit of help/advice need please from anyone using
the Platinum SEO Plugin.

When you create a post do you: index follow / index no follow /
no index follow / no index no follow ?

What do you do and why?

Thanks.”

>>>MY COMMENTS

Hey man, thanks for your question… it’s definitely important that
you let your posts be indexed and followed.

If you change those settings, Google will not show that particular
post in the search engines and that will ultimately bring you less
visitors.

There’s many different long tail keywords you could rank for that
you would never know about until your site gets ranked and getting
traffic.

Make sure you install Google Analytics like we explain in the fast
start guide so you can see what keywords are bringing you traffic.  

Once you know which keywords are bringing you visitors, you can
build more backlinks to those keywords and generate even more
traffic from the higher ranking.

The only thing we suggest is to keep using the “nofollow” attributes
are in the Platinum SEO plugin settings.

Make sure you read those instructions carefully on pages 14 & 15
because they’re important  

-Kelly

>>>FORUM POST

“whats more important???

hey guys,

when your looking at market samurai, traffic travis etc do you
consider the amount of backlinks to the page that is ranking or
the website as a whole??? or both???

Ive found some really good keywords to go after which look easy
to get top spot but when i look at the total backlinks to that
particular website, there in the 10's of thousands!!!

Do i stay clear of something like that or not????let me know
your thoughts 

James”

>>>MY COMMENTS

When first starting out, seeing those kind of numbers can be
overwhelming and might make some people not want to go into
that market because of that.

Not for BTFers!  

Look, don’t get me wrong, those numbers are very important to
look at … along with other key factors, but shouldn’t scare
you away.

Just because they have a ton of backlinks, doesn’t mean the
backlinks they have are specifically targeting the phrase
you’re going after.

Here’s a cool little tool you can use:  

Go to www.opensiteexplorer.org and poke around the site.
You can see your competitors domain strength, pagerank of
their backlinks, how many backlinks they potentially have,
what anchor text they’re targeting and more.

This resource can give you a lot of competitive intelligence
all in one place so take advantage of it.

If you follow the steps in the fast start guide and stay
consistent, I know you’ll be just fine!

Keep at it.

-Kelly

>>>FORUM POST

I cant seem to make a sale!!

Hey everyone. I been doing this seo thing for a while now and
built a good amount of sites that rank pretty good but can't
seem to make any money.

Not sure if my conversion skills just suck or maybe I'm choosing
the wrong niches? If anyone has some ideas for me on what I
should target for stuff to promote that others have heard good
things about I would love some help here. I do good at building
the sites and getting them ranked but as for getting paid for my
efforts now that's a different story lol

Well thanks for reading and look forward to any advice anyone
would have for me. Anyone that gives me some good advice I would
be happy to build some links to your sites to say thanks.

Leo”

>>>MY COMMENTS

Leo picking the right keyword is half the battle.  Here’s how to
see if the keyword you’re going after is worth your time or not.

Go to google and search for the keyword term you want to target.
Are there any sponsored ads?

If not, there’s a 99.99999% chance that it’s not a “buying keyword”,
meaning, the great majority of the people searching for that phrase
are just freebie seekers.

An exception would be internet marketing / bizopp terms, since
Google typically doesn't allow those types of ads anymore.

Names of products and names of product creators are usually
good in the IM niche.

Outside the IM niche, when you find a lot of advertisers for a
certain keyword it’s a really good sign.  Competition means people
are spending money in that niche.

If that’s NOT your issue, and you are generating traffic, you’ll
need to set your sites up to convert better… i.e. write better
copy, test different headlines, placing links above the fold, etc.

Post your site so we can all have a look at it and post suggestions.

-Kelly

>>>FORUM POST

“Hosting WP Blogs W/ Godaddy

Could Some One Explain Why Its best to buy your domain with Go Daddy,
but not host with them.... I have use them in the past to host WP Blogs,
I have found Go Daddy WP hosting to be very easy to use..

Could some one tell me why I should switch to Host Gator”

>>>MY COMMENTS

Hey man, good question.

One big problem with GoDaddy hosting for me, is that it doesn’t
incorporate “Cpanel” in it.

Meaning, it’s a little more of a pain to add additional sites with
Wordpress.  Also, you can’t add on a domain to your account and have
a wordpress blog installed on the root domain of the new URL.

So for every new blog you want to add it will always look like this:
http://newblog.yoursite.com and not www.newblog.com. 

Just trust me on this… stay away from Godaddy when it comes to hosting.
There are much better companies out there.  Stick with Hostgator, Brainhost,
or Justhost and you’ll be good.

-Kelly

>>>FORUM POST

“How to get more posts read on your blog

This may be a concern if you have more than your money post as the post
driving traffic to your affilaite link. 

I have a blog with about 8 posts, that's now #2 or #3 for its keyword.
The traffic is over 100 visitors per day. This makes testing easy with
that kind of traffic.

I changed my theme from the standard theme (with customized header) to
optimize press blog theme, which basically includes the first 4 or 5
lines with a "read more" link. This gets more posts showing above the
fold, and makes the front page more of a table of contents. 

Since doing that my older posts are getting 4-5x as many reads as prior
to the change with the standard/default homepage.

Now I don't know if this is good or bad. it depends on whether or not
your posts all have calls to action or not and what your ultimate
conversion is. 

But I just thought I'd share this observation, it's kind of cool.”

>>>MY COMMENTS

Cool tip!

That’s really great tip to increase the time the visitor stays on your
site as well as decrease your visitor bounce rate.

These 2 factors are pretty important to Google and I feel they hold a
lot of weight when it comes to ranking organically in the search engines.

It doesn’t make sense for the “big G” to rank websites highly that people
immediately leave once they click over from the search results…

Google has made it clear that their main focus and priority is making
their users happy.  They want to deliver the most value they can to the
people who use their site.

The more people use Google and come back to use Google, the more money
they’re likely to make through all sorts of advertising avenues.

Thanks for sharing your insight with us!

-Kelly

>>>FORUM POST

“Event Launch Jacking

I was on my way home from running this morning and I was listening to
the Kevin and Bean Show on KROQ. They announced that they would be giving
away tickets for the Rage Against the Machine LA Rising concert and it got
me thinking...

There might be a huge payday out their for those who want to launch jack
concerts, sporting events, and shows.

The tickets sell for anywhere from 36 to over 300 bucks and there are a
couple of affiliate programs that I found.

Just an idea, tell me what you think!

JJ”

>>>MY COMMENTS

JJ, thanks for your post.  It’s definitely refreshing to see other BTFers
thinking outside the box.

There’s so many launches happening everywhere both online AND offline and
if you keep your ears open, you can jump on opportunities before anyone else.

That’s a HUGE leg up on the competition!

What about this?

Set up a BTF site like we talk about in the fast start guide.  Then since
this concert will be held in LA, use an email capture like pop up domination
and collect names and emails.

Promote the upcoming concert and once that’s over.  You still have all the
names and email addresses to promote other related concerts in the LA area.

Trust me there’s a LOT.  

Not bad for a small little side business  

Keep us posted!

-Kelly

>>>FORUM POST

“Keyword SEO Help Please

Hi,

Really struggling now with all this information.

It is irritating me to knowing that others are getting and having
success from using the information contained within this website
which I am happy for them, it just makes me get annoyed with myself
that I cant achieve the same results and am always falling at the
first hurdle however simple it may be.

Here is my question.

Lets say for example I have done some keyword research and found
that it gets a decent amount of search daily/monthly along with
seeing PPC ads and banners around the web, is there a way for me
to see if I can rank on the front page of google for a keyword
without having to invest in MARKET SAMURAI????

I have heard others saying to use SEO QUAKE to but is there anything
else that I can do or look at to see if I can rank on front page?”

>>>MY COMMENTS

Hey man… it’s ok to feel frustrated at first.  You just have to
realize that you’re so close to success.  Just keep going and
don’t give up.

To answer your question… yes it is possible to do proper keyword
research without investing in other tools.  Will the tools make
it easier? Yeah of course. 

But there’s a way around everything  

Here’s what I would do:

1) Type in your keyword you want to rank for in Google and look at
the top 10 websites.

2) Does every listing have the keyword in the:

a. Title?
b. Description?
c. Domain?

3) If you see a few that don’t, there’s a good chance you can
outrank them because you WILL have all those things working for you.

4) Now you’re going to analyze the top 10’s backlinks.  You can do
this by using opensiteexplorer.org, siteexplorer.yahoo.com, or majesticseo.com.
I prefer Open Site Explorer.

5) You want to see how many backlinks they have, what’s the Pagerank
of the domain, and what anchor text they’re using.  Make a note of
all that.

6) Next thing you want to do is retype your keyword in Google within
quotes like this: “your keyword”.

7) How many results show up?  Keep in mind, the higher that number is,
the harder you’ll have to work.  (Try to keep it below 100,000 results
when you’re first starting out…maybe even lower.  As you get better you
can rank for almost anything, it’ll just depend on how long it’ll take.)

8- Type allintitle:"keyword" into Google to see how many sites are
using the keyword in their title. This is an even BETTER indicator
of the competition.

That’s how you analyze the competition without any paid tools.  

Now get to work!  

-Kelly

>>>FORUM POST

“Facebook shares and Google+

A quick question:

Is there a way to check how many google+ and facebook shares you
received on your website?”

>>>MY COMMENTS

(Here’s what a few top contributors in the Bring The Fresh forum
replied with…)

“Not sure on Google+ other than maybe through google analytics.
But for Facebook, if you have a share button you can track through
Facebook Insights. But that is using the API so you would have had
to set up the like button. 

I will keep searching for you though, unless someone else answers.

ScottVentures”

(Here’s another response from another top contributor in our forum)

“Nick.

For Google+ you can check in Google Webmaster Tools. There is a
section on the left that tells you how many shares and over what
time period.

Thanks,
rcallaby”

Thanks for your help Nick and Richard   Always appreciated!

-Kelly

>>>FORUM POST 

“Facebook virgin wants to create an effective Fan Page

Hello Everyone! 

Until now I've been a Facebook virgin, but I know that fan pages
are an excellent way to drive traffic to your sites, so now I want
to create one and need advice please. If anyone has experience with
FB fan pages and wouldn't mind sharing what newbies like myself and
others should do that would be awesome.  

Specifically I'd like to know how to create an effective FB fan page
that funnels traffic to my money site.

What should this look like and what should it include?
Are there things I should avoid doing?

Can the fp have a money post or is this not recommended or allowed?
Can you show me examples of good and effective fan pages?
How do you get people to go to your fan page if you are a new FB member
and don't have any friends yet? 

Your advice and feedback is hugely welcome and appreciated!
Thanks so much,
Susan”

>>>MY COMMENTS

Garry, a fellow Bring The Fresh member, explains this perfect in
his explanation… check it out.

“Susan -

Short answer though is that there is a lot you can do with a FanPage.
The two broad categories are design and marketing.

As for design

There are basically 5 areas that can be customized and very few people
get them all right.

- The main banner
- The content area
- The Photostrip
- The name
- The tab icons
- Custom URL

In the content area you can essentially have a mini-website, including
a nav bar and external links

One common trick is called Like/Reveal basically you withhold info until
someone has "liked" you page, then another window opens up.

In terms of how to customize the content area there are several ways to to,
but all involve creating a special app within Facebook . . . it's not hard
and there are lots of good tutorials.

The most common next step is to tie your Page to an external website. You
can do it with any if the formatting is correct, but I know WordPress so
we stay with that.

With WordPress you need to decide if you will go with a theme based or
plugin based solution. 

The main limitation of theme based solutions is that each FanPage requires
it's own WP site . . . but the themes are easy to work with. FanPage Pro
is one of the more versatile, but not the most elegant.

A Plugin based solution will usually allow you to manage multiple FanPages
from one WP installation. It also allows you simple use the plug in on an
existing site. The best I've seen of these is easyfanpagedesign.com. It
looks daunting at first, but is really not so hard.

How to Market on FB is another topic, for another post.

-Garry Dufresne”

Thanks for the contribution Garry… well said  

It’s so awesome to see other BTFer’s contribute value and help each
other out. 

You guys are awesome!

-Kelly
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That wraps it up for this week.
To see more, go here:

http://www.bringthefresh.com/forum (you need to be a BTF member to access)

To become a member go to http://www.bringthefresh.com

Tags: bring the fresh, kelly felix, mike long