This is such a vital issue in Internet Marketing. What qualifies as quality content? Can a few paragraphs with an affiliate link thrown in the middle pass as good quality content? There are no hard and fast rules, but I believe there are degrees of content quality. Spam is the absolute worst, and those newsletters that you can’t wait to devour are at the top of the list, and then there’s some stuff in between. Sometimes new internet marketers tend to fall in this in-between category.
I think the problem lies in trying too hard. We are trying so hard to write a good article, or to write a pre-sell, or to prevent a sales pitch from sounding like a sales pitch, or to stuff keywords in our articles to make them relevant, that we truly lose the essence of own voice in writing. This creates a horribly written end piece that does not appeal to the user. And because of that, you lose. You lose the reader. You lose the potential sale. You lose credibility.
Now, if you just stopped trying really hard and forcing the writing, and instead, took a deep breath, and started ’speaing’ in your own voice, you’ll see a completely different piece develop. Most of all, write with the audience in mind. Write with respect for the audience in mind. I’m reading Robert McKee’s Story, and he mentions this point in his introduction, and it really hit home. Think about how your readers will feel when they read what you have written. Ed Dale has re-iterated this point over and over again in the 30 Day Challenge - Simple put, when the reader comes to your page, do they get happy or do they get sad?
Yes, its just as basic as that. Respect your audience, give them quality content, and make them happy :).
Tags: affiliate marketing, internet marketing, quality contentWhen blogging, you need to notify the search engines that you’ve updated your blog, and here comes the value of the ping list. This list allows you to notify the engines themselves rather than wait for them to come along to your site. Since most of my websites are now wordpress based, pinging comes extremely handy.
I originally got my ping list from Brandon’s SEO blog at SEOFeed.com, but since then have looked at additional resources, and added some of my own to the mix. Here is my current ping list:
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc/
http://coreblog.org/ping
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blogbot.dk/io/xml-rpc.php
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://mod-pubsub.org/knapps/blogchatt
http://ping.amagle.com
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2
http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ping.php
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogoole.com/ping
http://www.blogoon.net/ping
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogroots.com/tbpopuli.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/knapps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
I have been thinking about buying the pricey SEO Elite for some time now since I had read only positive reviews. Just recently got around to doing my own research, and found some useful free alternatives mentioned on seobook.com:
BacklinkWatch is a web-based tool that shows the page rank and anchor text of inbound links for free.
This is another web-based tool that compares your site’s link profile with the sites that rank in the top 10.
Tattler and Backlink Analyzer are both downloadable tools that provide backlink information for free. This is primarily the reason I was interested in SEO Elite, and since all of the tools mentioned above are free, I think I’ll try them out first.
No TagsI joined the Firefox boat kind of late - I really resisted joining. I was very happy with Internet Explorer until the new version started crashing on me all the time in the middle of my work. I finally decided to try Firefox and I am truly amazed at the capability of this browser.
First of all, I think it is a must have if you have kids. Countless times I have stepped away and my 1 yr old has come and shut down my computer. Thankfully, if a firefox browser is not closed properly, it asks you to restore the session. It remembers all the browser windows that were open which is such a total lifesaver!
Plus the totally amazing plugins. With the 30 Day Challenge, we were asked to install some handy plugins and here they are:
Firebug - useful to debug web page errors
I’ll write more about each as I start to use it extensively.
No TagsPart of my recovery process has been to go through all of my online receipts and come up with a general idea of what I had on my computer. Some things were free and I’ve lost them forever. I’ve also lost the plethora of notepad files that I jotted notes down on. But thank god for the internet - because I have almost all my receipts online. I guess the lesson to be learned is:
1. Make backups of your hard drives regularly.
2. Keep a hard copy list of inventory.
3. Keep items in your email or saved at some central location whenever possible.
In a way, I almost feel refreshed. I am starting out from a clean state with a nicer computer and a cleaner desktop. Let’s hope it stays that way!
No TagsWhen I last left this blog, I was in the middle of typing an SEO tools entry and had to take a break. Went out to eat and my car got broken into with the laptop stolen. I didn’t and don’t care about the physical laptop, but my hard drive must be my most prized possession! I’m a bit more over it now and I do for the most part have receipt for the all the software and ebooks ($5500 worth mind you) that I have bought. It’s just going to take time.
So now I’m really one of those people (well not really, but close enough) that are asked - hey so, what if you had to start from scratch - what would you do? Well I’m going to document my recovery process one by one, including what I’m doing differently and how I’m recovering all the stuff I had before. I’m also going to work out a back up plan to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
Anyway, for now, how I’m going to start is — the Thirty Day Challenge. I had already completed most of the preseason items that were for prep, so it should not take me too long to repeat them again.
So let’s begin!
No Tags