Toronto Affiliate Marketer & SEO Consultant Lorne Fade

Today I am going to talk about the steps put forward when taking on a new SEO client or when optimizing my own sites.  I use a 10 step formula which basically covers all aspects of optimization and ranking.

From competitive analysis, keyword research, directories and articles all the way through to social bookmarking. Everything you need to get started optimizing your site today, in a quick and easy to follow manner. So lets get started..

1. Initial Analysis

During the initial analysis of a campaign I will look at what your target niche is and plan around where you would like to take it. Whether that may be a service or product route or if your simply ranking for an aggregate affiliate program, the ground work needs to be laid out so you can decide on which keywords to focus on, which leads into the next stage.

2. Keyword Research and Analysis

Perhaps the most important of all the stages, keyword analysis sets the tone for your entire optimization process and will prove whether or not you are successful marketing with the search engines.  I like to use Keyword Elite for my research as it has a friendly interface and makes your keyword research a breeze.  What you are looking for when researching keywords are niche relevant words that have a decent amount of search traffic, but not so much as to make it too competitive.  Its about finding the right balance, which can sometimes be hard to do.   Thankfully there are other tools available like the Google Keyword Tool which can make this daunting task simple.

3. Competitor Analysis

Once you have your keywords selected you will need to take a look at what the top sites in your niche are doing to have those top rankings.  You can use free online tools like SEO Digger to lookup their info, or you can use a more complete solution like SEO Elite which will automate it all for you (in a very similar way to Keyword Elite).  Once you know what your competition is doing, or not doing, you will have an advantage on where to go next in terms of your optimization campaign.

4. Sitemap/RSS Feed Inclusion

The next step I like to do is generate an xml sitemap for google, so that the spiders can start tracking your pages as fast as possible.  If you are running a wordpress blog, this task is done quickly and easily with the Google Sitemaps plugin. After creating an xml sitemap I make sure I have an RSS feed setup for subscribers, and make sure its easily accessible.

5. Search Engine + Directory Submission

While it is debated that you should allow the spiders to crawl your pages instead of submitting to the SE’s, I myself have never had any issues with this and always find that I can get my pages indexed that much faster simply be submitting to the major engines. (Yahoo, Google, Msn)  Directory submission is a whole other ballgame.  There are services on Wickedfire and DP for directory submission and you can usually get your site submitted to 500+ directories for pretty cheap.  While this doesn’t really boost you THAT much in the rankings, it does help and should not be overlooked.

6. Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is submitting your site and your sites content across social networks like digg, reddit, furl, delicious, technorati and the list goes on.  Even now I would consider using twitter as a social bookmarking tool.  I prefer using Bookmarking Demon for my submission as it makes it quick and painless for a task that would otherwise be mundane and time-consuming.  There are other free services out there like Social Marker that do the same thing in essence, so be sure to check them out too.

7. Blogs & Press Release Creation

Its a no brainer that the search engines love wordpress, so creating a blog for rankings should fall hand in hand with any SEO campaign.  At the same time creating a press release for the launch of a new product or service is a great way to build steam aka traffic for your site.  Once you have a press release written up I would recommend using PR Wizard to get it blasted out to over 28,000 media outlets, which in turn create backlinks and much needed publicity, a big plus.

8. Article Submission

Once you have some content on your blog/site, you will undoubtedly have some articles in which to press around the various article sites on the net.  Now while there are a few major ones which gain more precedence than others, I prefer to just submit them to the whole lot using Article Post Robot. This neat little application allows you to select as little or as many article sites from their database of over 500.  You can select sites with the highest PR or you can just choose the ones that don’t require a login (save time), the choice is entirely up to you.

9. Link Popularity

Link popularity is the measure of quality incoming links from other sites.  The more backlinks you have from higher PR sites, the higher your link popularity will be.  There are service sites out there that will check it for you, or you can go the old fashion way and just go to Google and type link:www.sitename.com and get your total number of listed backlinks.

10. SERP Report

Once I have completed all these aforementioned steps I usually do a final report to see where I am ranking and also to see what I can improve upon.  I record my keywords and where they are ranking at the start of my campaign, and then do another lookup at the end of the campaign (usually a month) to see the progress I have made. I prefer to use SEO Elite for my reporting but there are a slew of programs out there that you can use.

I don’t cover link bait development in my SEO campaigns, and I don’t drive tons of backlinks using other social media methodologies not discussed.  But using these basic 10 steps you can build a basis to work from, and will more than anything be a step ahead of the competition.  And as niches and sites get more and more competitive, it definitely doesn’t hurt to get a step ahead.

Yeah so I thought I’d go ahead and flex my e-peen and let you all know that I just copped a Blackberry Bold.  While the haters out there are already telling me I shoulda got the new Blackberry “Storm” that’s coming out, I frankly don’t see you haters, and because my old phone was such a piece of shit, ANY phone would be better.

New Phone:

Old Phone:

You can obviously see the ginormous difference between the two.  Anyways lets hope this builds upon the creativity and networking capabilities that I was so limited to before. With msn/aim/twitterberry all loaded onto my handheld, I think I’ll be able to keep up where ever I am.  All i need now is IRC and id be complete…oh IRC for blackberry, where art thou?

I was also in awe that I could load up a gigaton of e-books in .pdf format and now can read them where ever I please.  This is a huge bonus, because I hardly have time to sit at my computer and read e-books.  I got my music setup on there, custom ringtones so the ladies know im ballin, and the camera actually doesn’t suck, I think its a 2.0 megapixel.  The only downside is that I need to wear a proverbial phone-bra since the phone is really delicate, and i’ve heard some horror stories about it being dropped once and never to return.

Another huge plus is having connectivity to my email accounts, as well as the fact that I can browse the web for only the price of a small car every month.  (okay well its not that bad, but seriously our data plans SUCK in Canada.)

All in all its a great phone, has everything you need, and while it may not have all the apps of the iphone, it still holds its own.  Anyone out there who is looking to upgrade their curve’s or the like should look into the bold. If anyone knows where I can get some bootleg apps for blackberry’s please let me know.

The latest installment in the Zeitgeist movie project explores the dependency we have on money and exposes the monetary system and how it is used to control the masses. A very interesting piece indeed.

I had to break this recap writeup into several posts because the trip was just too epic, and there was so many things going on all the time that I wanted to make sure nothing got left out. Although that might be hard to do considering the amounts of alcohol I ingested during my stay.

Well I made it back in one piece with a mild migraine a little bit of disdain for coach seating, but all in all no complaints since I didn’t end up in the Hudson.  So after touching down in Vegas, taking a cab from the strip to the palms, I was greeted by a sexy latina maid who obviously didn’t know she would be cleaning my room at the end of the week, and impromptu handed me a full bottle of Captain Morgan spiced rum.. A nice start to my trip Id say. From here I cruised to the strip, checked out the AVN porn convention, met kid rock (who’s girlfriend was undoubtedly checking my shit) and proceeded to stumble over to rain nightclub in the palms where I was zombified but still managed to enjoy the flaming atmosphere.

After my eventful Friday night, I prepared for the first actual full day, and the arrival of my fellow affiliates and networks.  I woke up late, then headed over to the Rio where not too many people had arrived yet, so I got into the 1/3 hold’em game and made a couple hundred before heading over to TGIF to meet up with a bunch of my fellow affiliate elites.  I was greeted by Eli from bluehatseo who insisted on hugging it out bitch, over the proverbial handshake.  Nick Mattern aka bbwolfe was shit wasted talking shit about some WP Plugin, and a few other guys from #cakes chat were there kicking the shit.  I pounded back a few drinks, then prepped for the Wickedfire pre-summit meetup.

Wickedfire Pre Affiliate Summit Meet Up (Tangy,Lacrosse_20, Me, Bryn)

After the initial meet-up, and meeting a lot of really cool people with money on their mind, I headed back to my room where I had to get ready to meet-up with HustlinGrind for my first night of mayhem. Suited up I strolled by about 100 people waiting to get into Rain Nightclub @ the Palms, where Paul Oakenfold was set to tear up the club. I was lead upstairs to a skybooth where the gold patron was already poppin and the party was gettin started.

Oakenfold Performing

Flames from above the dance floor

At this point the actual affiliate summit hadn’t even started yet, and I was having the time of my life.  The club was amazing, and I was already partying it up with some great affiliates.  I left the club early for an after party with some ladies who apparently didn’t want to stop because they had the insight to show us around town, and proceeded to drive us over to Studio 54 at 5am for an all nighter.

Definitely not a bad time for my first full day of ASW. Day 2 didn’t start until late partly due to the fact that I didnt get in until 7am.  So for the first full day of the actual conference I only really went for about half an hour, met some AM’s, got some free beer to fix the hangover, and made plans for that evening as it was already late afternoon by the time I was leaving the summit. About 10 or so of us were at the Rio waiting for a shuttle bus that took us to the Advaliant red rock mansion party, where supposedly 80 dancers awaited (yeah right).

entering the red rock mansion

Upon arriving at the red rock party, we were greeted by free cigars and an open bar, not a bad opener if you ask me.  As for the promised dancers, well they were nowhere to be found, and it was the usual affiliate marketing sausage fest.  I mingled for a bit, met some cool people, played some pool, and got my fair share of the open bar. I stumbled my way over to a couple poker tables they had set up only to find out they were playing for FREE?! (A giant WTF goes off in my head)

one of the poker tables

I proceeded to infiltrate the game and convince everyone to put $20 down, since no one wanted to play for more.  After much deliberation we got about 9 players in the game, and I was off and running.  I musta had luck on my side, because I played like a total donkey and somehow took it down. Around the time I was finishing the poker game, the man, the myth, the legend, Nicky Cakes showed up, too bad for him though, he brought his girlfriend.

From here I went outside to find the usual crew of hoodlums up to no good.  We decided we were gonna take a limo to Body English @ the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, which sounded good to me, since I was pretty drunk at this point, anywhere with girls would suffice. It also proved for a good photo opportunity.

eric aka tangy pimped out

lacrosse_20 & cracked content totally gone

me and mystery the PUA

I decided to convince Mystery the big pimp dude to roll with us, figuring his skills would surround me with glorious women all night, but boy was I wrong.  The guy decided to hang out with this one chick the whole night and didn’t share with any of us.  Anyway we got to the club, they said they were full until I demanded 5 bottles of goose, at which point we were promptly let to a private booth a couple booths down from E-40.  Pretty much everything at Body English was a total blur to me, all i remember is running around with a bottle of Greygoose and bringing girls back to our booth, total madness.

Once the smoke had cleared, the club was closing and everyone was heading their seperate ways, except for me, Rocco (ironlogik), mystery and his chick.  So we went upstairs to the 11th floor where there was an apparent after party in one of the suites. We somehow lost Mystery and his chick but wound up inside this private suite with a live DJ and a bowling alley, not to mention girls dancing on poles and total debauchery everywhere.  I cant remember much, but what I do remember was bowling a strike between some hot girls legs, somehow, and this is one of those stories that stays in Vegas.

rocco (iron logik) and some ladies

After getting back to the palms it was about 8am and I was shit wasted, I walked up to the roulette table and put $100 on black just to see if I could hit, I mean I had bowled a strike earlier and won a poker game piss drunk, I should be able to do this. But alas the casino edged me out when it bounced out of black into a red square at the last second, my signal to go pass out.

Day 3 rolled around and I finally made it to the conference around 3 in the afternoon, once everything seemed to be dying down, and after such an epic night i was simply taking it easy.  I hit the conference for a bit, grabbed some affiliate schwag, and then went to the poker tables to try and recoup my losses from the previous nights festivities. After a few hours and up a couple hundred I left the poker room at the Rio and met up with team Canada and shoe money’s crew for a limo ride to spearmint rhino, spared no expense.

Upon my arrival to the rhino we got a bottle of goose, and just lounged back and tried to resist the temptation to drop thousands of dollars on scantily clad women.  I find that if you just talk to the hired guns as if they are normal people, you can end up getting much more than a lap dance if you know what I mean.  Ten free lap dances later I got up to find everyone missing, cue the Vegas girls I had met down there to come pick my drunk ass up.  We made our way back to the palms where there was a shitload of people trying to get into the Copeac invite only party, of which I forgot to get an invite for.  After attempting to bribe the bouncer to let me up and failing miserably, I went to the playboy club for some drinks and more scantily clad women (of which there is no shortage in Vegas).  At this point a bunch of people were gathering to head over to XS nightclub which was apparently one of the hottest new spots in Vegas, I however was totally burned from the last two all nighters and decided to crash early, or else I wouldn’t make it through the next day.  And so drew an uneventful close to my night.

The last day of the conference allowed me to sober up a little bit from all the past days/nights festivities and recoup for what we actually came to Vegas for, networking with affiliates and networks.  I hit the floor early and made a point of talking to and meeting my AM’s from Neverblue, Maxbounty, Copeac, A4D and C2M.  Out of all of them, Id have to give C2M the nod for being the coolest, most down to earth network out there. With Ads 4 Dough a close second.  They dont bullshit when it comes to your offers, and they are straight up and will simply tell it to you like it is, something that has dissappeared in this industry.  So its nice to meet some real people in this industry that aren’t just money hungry and only looking out for themselves, because lets be honest here, none of those networks would be anywhere if it wasn’t for their affiliates.

After about 3 laps of the exhibit hall, and about 30 business cards later, I decided to call it a day, and headed back to my Palms suite to see what kind of trouble I could get in that evening.

So I signed up way back when they launched, status updates seemed like a cool thing at the time.  But then I totally forgot about that fleeting twitter account, and just earlier today came across a hilarious video entited “twitter whore“.

Now if watching that isn’t enough to turn you off twitter for the rest of your life, well… Either way, I decided I would log into my twitter account to brush off the cobwebs, and what do I come across?

Twitter was down:

So I’ve come to the conclusion that I think I am pretty much done with Twitter, that is unless something useful for it comes along and I can manipulate it in a way to make a profit.

Sort of a continuation of my previous post, Firefox has decided to take it one step further and attempt to set a world record for most software downloads in 24 hours, and if anyone can do it, Firefox 3 can.

They have setup an affiliate page in pretty much every language you can think of with banners like the one below, so if you haven’t already, click below and pledge your allegiance to Firefox 3, and help set a world record. And if you decide to sign up to their affiliate program over at spreadfirefox.com you can earn points for your efforts which can win you t-shirts, if thats your thing.

At the time of writing this they are at roughly 175,000 users who pledged to download on the release day, and firefox itself had been downloaded 562992952 times, finally people are pushing IE under the carpet.

So go ahead and pledge to download Firefox 3 and set a Guinness World Record. I voted but im pretty sure it will come down to what the superdelegates want.

Update:

Download day is today!