Recently, the SBI Scam Bullshit post started getting some more heated comments. Over the last 10 months or so I have just let the comments sly over there… but recently, Curt Applegate, an SBI user started to stir up the mash a bit.. and he and I got into a debate. Long story short, I challenged him and this video explains it…

So you can see in the screenshot below, Curt’s stats are VERY impressive… but not to the “10s of thousands from Google” level. Either way, this dude has a good hold on the niche and I applaud and respect him for it… he was picking a fight with me for the “sport” of it and I was needling him back for the same reason… fun and debate all turned into this post.

He did send me some general stats…
So let’s break down the overall stats he sent me because I think you will see part of the issue with SBI SiteBuildIt… Ken Evoy keeps his people in the dark and confused with their stats… I suspect this is because he doesn’t want them to truly learn the business.. because if they do, well, Kenny will lose revenue… (that is MY OWN thought/opinion, Curt did not say or imply anything to that end). I am just gathering circumstantial evidence based on what I have seen, and what I currently see when it comes to Ken Evoy.

the stats:

I will leave it to you guys to parse this out and tell me what you think in the comments, but as a general rule, I have been told that:

Visits: Combo of new and repeat + spiders/crawlers/bots

Visitors: First time / unique visitors

I just wonder about July and April where the visits have an “*” and the visits are much less than the visitors. Was there an error?

Curt gets about 85% of his unique traffic from Google (he told me but won’t show me for good reason! LOL )… very good, but not quite the “tens of thousands” … but  it’s all good in the hood because as I stated in the viddy, he and I are working together now on some stuff… a little Joint Venture action maybe in the future. Bottom line, Curt is a good, smart dude who has a niche he is good at… SBI is just a platform for him… it is Curt’s knowledge of what the humans will buy that makes him a success.

LESSON:

The lesson here guys, and this is important… is in Curt’s quote to me in email:

“My only point is that SBI does deliver the rankings, however if the topic keyword is not being searched or searched by only a few people then the traffic will never come and that would be true of any method or service” — Curt Applegate

Guys, Curt gets it! He really does. He and I started off on a bad foot, but in the end, we do see eye-to-eye and that is cool. You have to target the humans in order to succeed!!!

Read more about Curt here: NBC Feature

Find his site: Robot Pool Cleaner Reviews (you guys be nice! send him related links where you see fit)

comments/thoughts ????

(Ken Evoy– you are still an elitest douche. I have a post coming out that will illustrate this)

Change Up – It’s Cool

You see, to be an internet marketer, you have to “bob-and-weave” (gayish corp term I know) with the changes in the landscape at hand. What works today may not work the same or as well tomorrow – the internet is just too new (what, 15 years old?) and ever evolving/changing/growing.

And if you think about it, most of the internet marketing advice out there is being delivered to you (and me) by people who have been doing it for like 2 or 3 years at best and those “teachers” aren’t making anymore money than you are! Would you trust your life to a spleen surgeon who had been just “scrubbing in” for 2 years but never really done the actual cutting?

I Don’t Sell Stuff Here (much)

In that same vein, I have been internet marketing and blogging seriously for almost 4 years now. I’ve done well by most people’s standards. I have been taught by those who are the “grand-daddies” in the industry (like Vic), but I am still experimenting and learning on my own too. I own nearly 300 URLs with live sites on them… a few are monetized, others are used for “other” stuff and still others are used purely for testing shiz. I am good at niche discovery and targeting, link acquisition and can write killer content that gains trust and sells – I can be an expert in ANY niche (you can too BTW).

I have friends too; we work together — but I am still NOT a pro or guru or anything such. I am just a dude who works for corporate robots during the day and makes money online by night. And recently, I have made some needed changes to my online business – here is some insight into my thinking. (remember the word “authority” is analogous to humans and search engines, interchangeably)

(boring reading ahead)

First off, you have to realize that Google needs traffic to be successful just like you and I need traffic. If regular people stop using them as their chosen search engine, then they (Google) will quickly lose value and go the way of Yahoo. To that end, the people at Google are constantly striving to keep their search results relevant and straight forward and simple for the searcher (the traffic).

Know Google’s Start – Know Google Now

You realize what made Google originally appealing dontcha? It wasn’t their algorithm at first. Yes, their results were superior from the jump, but that is not what made them grow in the beginning. What made Google great was that VERY PLAIN search page that made it easy for people to go there and type their query. It was a one-step search and done. Everyday people loved that: especially because the likes of Yahoo and AOL were smattered, cluttered and scattered with all kinds of crap about celebrities and politics and world news and weather and shopping and “chat this and chat that” and blinking advertisements… and blah blah blah. Yahoo and AOL got so busy that searchers had to sift and swim through a bunch of crap just to get to the query box.

Look at AOL’s Homepage in 1999: (courtesy of Archive.org)

AOL in 1999, busy and cluttered

The folks at Google knew that getting searchers (real humans using the net) right to their destination (the search query box) would be appealing to the masses who wanted info and wanted it fast. Then, once they loved the simplicity Google offered on the home page, they could begin to love the results the patented algorithm delivered. (and begin clicking those un-assuming Adwords boxes at the top and down the sides)

Here is Google in 1999 – pretty similar to today really:

Google in 1999, same as today, simple, user friendly

The Simple/Concise Google Homepage is a Success, what about the SERPs?

Over the years, however, people (those dirty internet marketers) learned how the algorithm worked and learned how to manipulate it so their sites would show up top in the SERPs. More people (real humans wanting simple search results) used Google, and more marketers desired to be a part of those results. Of course, the term “manipulate” is NOT always negative or shady or bad. It is what happens in ANY industry that marketers work in (which is like, every industry methinks)

But the folks at Google were/are staunch in their stand. They don’t want some marketer telling them or their algorithm who’s site is “the best.” The Google folks want the cream of the crop to rise naturally in the SERPs and they are constantly tweaking that algorithm in order to ensure this end.

Remember, Google is all about SIMPLE, not only in their appearance, but in their USER EXPERIENCE… so if your “thin affiliate site” ranks #1, but is nothing more than a jumping off point to the “real answer to the query” so you can get a commission, rest assured that you may be bounced out eventually when tweaks are made by Matt Cutts and his crew. Google wants its traffic to find the answer to their queries in the shortest amount of time possible (or with the least amount of clicks). If your crappy (or pretty with good content) site that was made to make you money is in the way, the algorithm will find you and knock you down to page 55 or worse ROFL

Fast Forward to May 2010 – the MayDay Update

This update got me in a few places, and missed me in others. I watched what happend, figured out why, and changed the way I do business online.

Here is Matt Cutts himself talking about the May Day update. Watch and listen very carefully because this is part of what made me change the way I do things.

There is quite a bit to digest there, but what clued me in (and what I have seen in my money sites and test sites) is this quote:

“it’s an algorithmic change that changes how we assess which sites are the best match for long tail queries.”

Something many of you never think about is that Google does NOT index websites… they index Web PAGES (re-read that)… but this quote from Cutts indicates the algorithm is looking at an entire site and factoring relevance in a “NEW” way now.

He goes on to say that if you as a webmaster have been impacted (hurt/damaged) by the change, then you need to go back and see if your site is most relevant to the query and maybe throw in some more content, etc etc. He also talks about domain authority (which if you are a reader/viewer here you understand) but then says (loosely quoted/translated) “make sure your site isn’t just a match for the query keywords” and “ensure your site is relevant and ‘useful’ for that query”

Guys, are you getting this? The term “thin affiliate site” is starting to mean more now than ever. No longer do I build a site that is:

URL: big-red-beachtowels-cheap.com

10 posts all about “big red beach towels cheap”

Bolded key words “big red beach towels cheap”

Meta tags on every page/post “big red beach towels cheap”

Anchored links to homepage and posts “big red beach towels cheap”

I *think* (I am kinda sure maybe) this is what the May Day update did — filtered these perfectly tight sites out — at least my own network shows this to be true. You have to realize that there are absolutely almost zero real corporate branded websites that target keywords in the way we do. Most are hulking pieces of crap that gain links due to brand recognition alone. Their links are all over the board when it comes to anchor text, do-follow/no-follow, relevance, etc. If you analyze the big boys in most niches, they are not so tight. That is one of the keys to my new way of thinking.

Big Sites – Authority Sites

I am a blogger first, and internet marketer second. That has served me well. The site I sold for $30K was a pure blog when I started it, but was also well marketed the way I was taught by Vic and others. The site targeted hundreds of keywords effectively. It had posts that were written for humans and search engines (if you can’t do that then you are dumb and Ken Evoy owns you). It had many many subscribers and comments came in by the dozens, and it gained natural links naturally as well. The site made/makes lots of money everyday. That site was NOT effected at all by the May Day update (yeah, my analytics code is still installed in the header LOL) It’s a great site, but still falls short of what I do these days…

Nowadays, I build big sites where I establish myself as an authority and dominate – completely. Now, some of you are thinking “well shit man, Rowse and Risley and Shoemoney etc have been saying that for years.”

And, yes they have, but much of what we (us internet marketers) know still holds true and gives us the competitive advantage. It’s one thing to write compelling content, but it’s another to write it, promote it, market it, acquire anchored authority links to it, and do it all day long all the time consistently. Read This and understand, Seriously, READ THIS

I can pretty much guarantee you that most bloggers out there who have BIG social-type sites don’t actively take time to gain links for their posts… but I do and it works very, very well. Put the site on a pre-owned domain and you are golden.

Twitter and FaceBook Too?

I also throw in the social angle and support my big sites with Twitter accounts and Facebook FanPages. Surprisingly, the Facebook following grows pretty fast when you put that “LIKE” button over in the sidebar, and the links you post on there don’t hurt either. Of course, the followers may be joining because of the George Clooney avatar on most of my sites, but I am not sure (ROFL, just kidding George).

It’s easy to get followers on Twitter too, and tweet out links from my Iphone, and believe it or not, the no-follow links from Twitter do make a difference when it comes to authority – but it is cool to interact with the humans too – Remember, my content is really good, so my Twitter followers happen to be real and engaged. (no, the @allynpaul account does not re-tweet for my niche-big-blogs … I keep things separate on purpose)

Time And Fun

I have found that building, updating and maintaining big sites is quite rewarding and fun. I like writing as an authority about a topic. (my opinions count and they are unique, making me an authority). I also enjoy marketing my posts – I am strange that way.

However, these big-ass sites take a lot of freeeeeking time ya’ll. I can only handle 4 at a time right now and that means the growth is much slower. It’s a trade off really, but worth it in my estimation. I used to make around $4K per month from a bunch of sites, but now I am shifting to making $4K or more a month from 4 or 5 sites. (I am also pruning down my network so it is easier to manage)

A couple years ago I could pick a niche, buy a URL, outsource some posts, throw it on my server, get some links and walk away… but no more. It’s all different now for me.. I am good with it… you?

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

I would say that this is the most important and most informative post ever on this site. No shiz!

What Is A Pre-Owned Domain?

A pre-owned domain is one that has been live on the net prior to you owning it. (simple definition) Since I always try to illustrate these concepts using real world examples,  here ya go:

So in the vid, I talk about two neighborhoods, let me break them down and you draw the conclusions related to buying web properties.

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Park Ridge Real Estate

Park Ridge, IL: This is a well established and older town/neighborhood and is known as a “nice place to live.” Some would even call it “wealthy.” In Park Ridge, there is no “Riff/Raff” going on. Hillary Clinton is from there (she is a very trusted LINK to the town)

Park Ridge is very close to downtown Chicago also, a great location … in fact, you can’t get new land this close to downtown anymore … it’s all used up. Park Ridge also has a reputation for being safe and trusted… good schools, good police and fire protection, clean streets, mature trees, nice people, etc etc. You just cannot find this type of value this close to downtown anymore.

In Park Ridge, there are many many older homes. They are nice, but they are just not modern … sometimes people in Park Ridge die… leaving their old homes up for sale. So new people buy the old home and land, rip down the home and build a brand new state-of-the-art house there. (this REALLY happens in Park Ridge… a lot!!!) They get instand value because the house is great, but it is located in a WELL ESTABLISHED and TRUSTED/AUTHORITY neighborhood. The value is built in already!

What Park Ridge Can Teach Internet Marketers

When you buy old land (pre-owned domain) in Park Ridge and put a new house (your new website) on that land, you automatically have value (site authority) built in and that cannot be found anywhere else! But keep in mind, the Park Ridge Housing Inspector (Google) won’t allow you to build a crappy house there either!!!!

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Green Garden Township, IL Real Estate

Green Garden Twnshp is a newly developing area. There are nice houses there because they are being built that way, but there are many unknowns. Will the area flood or be in a tornado alley? Will neighboring towns fight over annexation? What will the taxes be there? Does anyone of note live there? (good LINK).

What We Can Learn From Green Garden

Because it is new, it is not trusted yet by Real Estate appraisers/investors (by Google). You can build a nice house there, but the value will pretty much stay flat for a while. There is no telling what will happen there, it will take quite a while to gain long term value. It’s just the way new neighborhoods go.

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Buying Pre-Owned Domains

Buying the right pre-owned domain is important.. I stress “the right” domain !!!! When we talk this way, we mean buying domain names that have been housed on the net somewhere consistently for the past few years. There are some important considerations here, so let me break this down. When you get ready to start up a new site, buy a pre-owned domain that:

1) is a few years old or more. I prefer 3+ years minimum, but 10+ years is GOLDEN. Keep in mind, the internet as we know it is essentially 15 years old, and the longer a URL has been alive online, the more trust given it by Google’s algorithm. After all, if a site has been live that long, it must not be a “thin spammer site” right? Logic in the algorithm: imagine that!!

BTW– let me say here… even with a 15-year-old golden domain, don’t YOU DARE build some crappy thin site! Don’t be a dumb-sh*t!!!

2) it must have had a live site on it consistently over the years with very few “under construction” or “park page” gaps. It is also important that the domain most recently had NO gaps and is still indexed in Google. This is important because a site that has been alive is also a site that is regularly crawled and indexed properly. If the spider is accustomed to going there that bodes well for you and your new venture. It also makes sense that a live and old domain will have been gaining links over time so when you send it new links, it’s “all good in the hood” ya know?

3) has not been used for gambling or p*rn or pills or other seedy garbage. A bad reputation is often impossible to overcome, both in life and on the net … ’nuff said. Only a dumb-ass would build a $500K house in Gary,IN.

4) has links already pointing at it. This is super important for several reasons, mostly because building links is tough work and if you get a domain that’s already got 1,000 or 10,000 links pointing at it, you just saved yourself some hours didn’t ya? In addition, these links are very “natural” and so any of your Darren Rowse link building tactics will be blended in! Keep in mind, that if you are a true internet marketer, you will be building links with proper anchor text anyway, and these will be blended in or “hidden” amongst all the natural ones that the previous person gained from his/her compelling content. Cool right?

5) has traffic already going there. Now this one is debatable. Personally, I rarely buy a domain because of the traffic unless I plan to re-purpose the domain in the same niche the previous owner did. Again, this is rare for me, but there are folks who like buying domains with traffic already flowing.

Many of you will wonder if it is worth it to buy pre-owned domains with PageRank already on them. This is a HUGE debate to be honest, but I will break it down simply right now.

PageRank On Your Money Site Is Not Important (for the most part)

If you are buying a pre-owned domain to use as a money site, then forget about PageRank and focus on age first, then links second, and PR last. If you can get an 8-year-old domain with a good keyword and it is PR0, that is a good purchase and prolly will cost you less than $15. You have a winner!

long story short, a pre-owned domain will gain traffic very quickly once you start adding good content. THAT is what we care about… the good content !!!

I buy all my pre-owned domains from Freshdrop. (NOT an affiliate link) Don’t join unless you are a serious internet marketer who knows what you are doing. I mean that. Otherwise, you will end up buying junk and not realizing it.

comments and questions are always encouraged ya’ll…

These are big sites, they do fairly well with Adsense.

I do, however, have smaller niche sites, but not for Adsense… I prefer Chitika for smaller sites. I also use some easy affiliate stuff on my small niche sites, mostly stuff from NeverBlue.

I take other measures also that help me to stay “legit” and my next post is about this very thing… in fact, my next post is the very most important thing I have ever talked about here. It has actually been written for about 3 weeks now (sitting in drafts), but I just have not taken time to shoot the vid that illustrates the point. Afterall, this is “Blogger Illustrated” ain’t it?

Jumping Into Social Media

I have also been learning, watching, experimenting with social media marketing. Yeah, hard to believe eh? But there is no denying the usefulness of this medium when it comes to brick and mortar businesses. (not that social media fluff where some dude with a sh*t eating grin runs around giving seminars). I am talking about REAL social interacting from REAL businesses with their clients or potential clients. It’s been quite obvious to me for many years that big business doesn’t get it, but small ones do!.. and that is cool shix IMO!

Couple social media platforms with some bad-ass SEO and you are golden. I’ve always known WHAT social media SHOULD be, but it took Josh and Steve to really hit me with it head on and calm my passionate outbursts LOL.

So that is what and where I am… plus, I still work my corp job and right now I am pulling 13 hour days — No vaseline.

Hit me up on Facebook if ya like.

3 Points About The Walmart Blog

(1) The Walmart blog FAILS! because big companies won’t devote the right resources to social media projects, if they devote any at all. Keep in mind that I work for a very large company and have for the past 12 years. I am a middle manager.

I am also the guy who has been quite outspoken when it comes to bending the ears of all the top execs at every chance I get, urging them to jump head long into social media and blogging. So far, my big mouth has really not made much of a difference because the lawyers have warned the c-level execs about the “dangers of social media.” But one good thing happend recently: the head of sales for our entire company took a pop shot at me at a high level meeting by snidly remarking, “well, if you need to get ahold of Allyn Hane, just go to his blog… har har ha ha…”

My company is stuck in the dark ages, so I applaud Walmart for at least giving it a go, but to be honest, the failure of the Checkout Blog actually speaks volumes more. It shows me that the giant Walmart does not see the value in blogging and web 2.0 style interactions. If they did, they’d hire 4 or 5 people who did nothing more than just blog, full time. But instead, the large team of writers for the Checkout Blog are middle and senior managers who are already very busy and stretched in their other responsibilities –meaning the blogging takes a back seat when things get busy. They also have no direct incentive to make the blog profitable, so they don’t.

Can you imagine the great things that could be done on a Walmart blog that was alive and full of passion and human interaction and cared for by a full time staff of fully invested employees? Let’s talk more about that in the next point ok?

(2) Without a doubt, blogs are the ULTIMATE social media tools for business and personal uses. Any so-called social media professional who does not value blogging for business is a fake and a liar, straight up! In the case of Walmart, their blog was started for the wrong reasons: this is obvious as it has been left to die a terrible death on a well-designed page.

Here Is What WALMART Should Do With Their BLOG

So what could the Walmart blog be? Let me run with it… after all, I am just a blogger myself…

Right now, it is spring time, and the Walmart near my house is loading the parking lot with all kinds of great landscaping supplies, trees, shrubs, flowers, fertilizers, top soil, garden statues and other cool outdoor decor. If Walmart had a full time lawn and garden blogger, that person could hold a small workshop teaching people how to build a beautiful flower pot bouquet with annuals. The entire workshop could be conducted in the local Walmart garden center and could be filmed, edited and posted on the blog. Cool right… and guess how many flower pots you would sell across the country? Probably more than a few, but you wouldn’t come off as pushy of overly marketing! You’d offer value locally at the store, and nationally on the blog… coolio!

Let’s go a step further: what if that lawn and garden Walmart blogger got together a group of Walmart employees and they went to a local nursery school in an economically depressed area and re-landscaped the front of the school using eco-friendly landscaping principles and native plantings that require little water? What if they also set up a compost bin and taught the kids some of the principles and uses behind composting? Video tape it and blog it boys and girls!!!!

How many compost bins could you sell at the local stores? But more than that, what great public relations feelings would this spread about the Walmart brand? How good would those volunteer employees feel about the good they did? How cool would it be for them to be on video or in pictures on the blog that is viewed by hundreds of thousands of people?What if the local TV news picked up the story? What if you tweeted about it? The possibilities are freeeeking endless!!!!!

Are you getting the point here guys? More than that, why is Walmart NOT getting the point?

(3) Big companies dumb down their employees and outsource creativity to people who are not personally invested in the business, thus harming their message and killing the passion dead! (I’m guessing a little here, but I bet many jobs that were performed by actual Walmart employees 20 years ago are now outsourced… not necessarily overseas, but they are outsourced to companies that are not directly related to Walmart) …So when mid-level employees are afforded a chance to be creative, like on the Walmart blog, they have forgotten how to be real, fun and passionate about their subject. They instead are used to following rules and staying inside a safe box of cold corporate guidelines. These Walmart employees are not in creative positions like marketing and design as those functions are now outsourced. They have also forgotten how to interact with humans who also happen to be customers. It’s become all about numbers, counts and profits, not relationships and meaningful interaction.

You guys tell me what you think. I am very interested in your opinions. By the way, this is EXACTLY why I am teaming up with Steve, Josh and Brian on a new project, Echelon Social Media Consulting. It’s about time.