In my SMX East presentation on Actionable SEO Insights from Analytics Data this past October I spoke a bit on what I call keyword branches – and why you need to consider the entire branch before you make a shift in your keyword targeting.
I want to highlight the point here, because I think it’s something often overlooked when we’re choosing which keyword(s) to target (I know I’ve made the mistake in the past).
Jeremy Shoemaker makes a lot of money online.
ShoeMoney (as we know him) is maybe the most well-known affiliate marketing millionaire. There are others, but few have been as interesting and outspoken.
Jeremy just launched the Shoemoney System – a training course that, Jeremy says, will teach you exactly how to do what he does and make money online.
That’s not an affiliate link above- I’m not part of the affiliate program. It doesn’t matter anyway: the ~500 spots available at $197/month sold out in just a couple of days. If you want in now you’ve got to add your name to the waiting list.
Do the math: Jeremy’s going to pulling in roughly $100,000/month through this educational program. That’s a lot of cheese.
He’ll be walking his new students through tips, tricks and how-to’s, all while pointing out the pitfalls they should avoid.
And I’d wager almost none of them will get rich.
Most blogging platforms (WordPress, Blogger, Movable Type, etc) make it pretty easy to get the logistic stuff figured out so you can start doing what you set out to – creating masterpieces.
But when you’ve been blogging for a while, seeing a few comments trickle in, you might find yourself asking, “who’s reading this crap anyway?”
Hang around in the SEO circles long enough and you’ll find no shortage of anecdotes about poorly-served clients and agencies that just don’t get it. I’ve certainly seen my share.
There are still businesses out there selling “search engine submission” services – I had a VP at a marketing company explain to me just a few weeks ago how they were providing this for all their clients. Most knowledgeable SEOs consider this a scam, but in this case I was pretty confident the marketing company just hadn’t done their due diligence. Not that that’s any excuse…
It’s mind-boggling, but not when you consider that most entrepreneurs, especially small business owners, are way too busy running their shows to keep up on search engine technology. That means the companies selling them SEO services get to slack off. There is no watchdog outside this two-partner relationship.
Am I an “SEO?”
It’s certainly how people introduce me.
“This is Mike – he does SEO.”
“Mike’s an SEO guy.”
I cringe a little when I hear this. Today, having just returned from Seth Godin‘s talk on his new book Linchpin, which tries to get at an identity/work problem we all face in our post-industrial age, I’m feeling a little introspective and asking myself why.
And I think I’m starting to realize. It isn’t that I don’t work on SEO – it’s been my focus for years. The problem is that, outside of the SEO industry, the label (and work) is sorely misunderstood.