Call Rail Review – Behind the scenes:

CallRail sits on top of the Twilio stack so you know the backbone of the SaaS is rock solid. Twilio is a very large, dominant player in the industry that offers vendors the affordability over the traditional, expensive Call routing provider. The benefit you get with CallRail instead of simply setting up a Twilio account is that you get Dashboards and customizations to reporting that you wouldn’t be able to generate without hiring a developer. They even recently added Webhooks so you can better optimize calls in the CRM process.

Pricing:

You can get off the ground with 10 local, unique, numbers with 500 minutes of call time for 30/month. Price plans go up from there as you scale your operations.

Ease of Setup:

I find CallRail to be relatively easy to setup. They even have a WordPress plugin so things are pretty simple to setup for the average webmaster who doesn’t like to fuss with PHP code and FTP.

Some of my favorite features in no particular order:

• Whitelabel abilities
• API
• Live Call Notifications
• Dynamic Phone numbers that auto-rotate depending what source the user came from (keep tabs on whether PPC vs Organic is converting the best) This technique is also SEO friendly as you use only one number on your whole site for monitoring which keeps your local citation consistent and clean for optimal SEO success.
• Call recording and playback
• Fallback Number- After X seconds of ringing your primary phone number (and simulcalls, if configured), dial your selected fallback number.
• Greetings – Greetings are played to the caller at the beginning of the call, before trying to dial the business. Greetings can be free-form text, or pre-recorded audio files.
• Call Notification Emails
• Reports that catalog calls by hour, calls by day of week, calls from repeat callers vs. first time callers. This is great business intelligence and makes the tool worth it just for it.

The post CallRail Review – Are You Tracking Your Calls? appeared first on Brian Chappell.

The latest round of concern comes from the US Govt, and I will emphasize this is hypothetical theory, but if Google is getting pressured by the higher powers to take a closer look at lead gen websites that might be serving nefarious purposes, whats to stop them from turning up the brand dial even more to try and solve this problem in scale?

Just because you feel like you have a solid offering, you are a legitimate business etc, doesnt mean you wont get caught in the fire.

Brand signals are something I will be talking about more and more over time but a few things to consider on that front:

• Do you have a physical business address tied to your website?
• Do you have any trademarks registered?
• Do people talk about you in social? (think social mentions and share of voice here)
• Are you getting cited by the press in any capacity, and I am not talking about throwing a BS press release through PRWeb?
• Are people Googling your website name? (brand name)
• Do people talk about your website in Gmail or other email services?
• Do you have a verified author associated with your domain?

If your website is brandless at the moment, what are you waiting for, become a brand.

The post Are You Telling Google You Are a Brand? appeared first on Brian Chappell.

Most folks would stop at head terms in the optimization process or not even have any SEO play at all. Typically you see app sites that are very small, what I would call brochure websites that might only be 20~ pages. You are leaving lots on the table that way. Zapier has thousands of pages on its site that are crafted in a way that solves peoples problems.

There is a treasure trove of keyword combinations this site targets and is doing effectively.

People increasingly use Search Engines to help them solve problems, you kind of expect it in today’s age. Many webmasters are looking for ways to connect things together and by creating combinations of ‘App name’ to ‘App name’ (even if Zapier doesn’t have the module built) will help people learn about them. Bonus brownie points for building a CTA that executes drip email campaigns once the module is created bringing users back.

Thinking about building a tightly focused app site? Leverage SEO and reap the rewards without leaving money on the table, which many vested App startups do.

The post SEO Is Rare With Web App Startups appeared first on Brian Chappell.

This post will outline the tools I use on a daily/monthly basis and their associated use case. Some of the tools listed below have multiple use cases, at which point I list them multiple times.

One thing I have learned over the years is that if you have ever managed teams of individuals, there is no right answer. Everyone has there own pragmatic approach to making things happen, whether you write content for a living, manage peoples’ PPC accounts, work for a PR firm, or own your own startup. There are undoubtly tools you use on a daily basis that help keep a roof over your head. Here are mine:

– Email

• Gmail

Gmail is a critical part of my daily workflow, although I try to stay out of it as much as possible. Gchat and the other various distractions that they have added to it over the years keep me from wanting to stay signed in for very long. In general, I try to stay out of email except for specific times of the day.

• Thunderbird

I use Thunderbird because I am a big fan of opensource software. Outlook is a great piece of software but time and time again Outlook grew to a size that became very cumbersome and slow for the OS to load over the years. Thunderbird is a much more lightweight solution that I use.

• Buzzstream

If I need to partake in outreach and have more than, say, 30-40 people to contact, then I manage that process through Buzzstream as they have handy templates I can use to help expedite what might otherwise be a timely process.

• Boomerang

Buzzstream recently added the ability to schedule emails which takes away a bit of the efficiency of using Boomerang, but Boomerang still has its purpose for me since some emails that come through Gmail don’t need my attention until later on, at which point I schedule it to be re-delivered.

– Bookmarking

• Evernote

I used to use Delicious until the product was shutdown. So then I finally realized the power of Evernote and I use this more than most of the other tools in this list. It helps keep an order to my life that was otherwise missing. I bookmark, create notes and keep certain things out of the grasp of the big three with it (Facebook, Google, Apple). I have around 29k notes for perspective after using a paid account for about 3 years now.

– Task Management

• Trello

Whenever I onboard new contractors or employees, I get them accustomed to working with me inside of Trello. It’s a great (and currently free) tool that jives really well with how I think, left to right. It’s based off of the Kanban card system and works really well for folks who like simplicity in task management. I don’t look at this as a serious project management tool but utilize it for smaller tasks that do not have long lifespans.

• WorkFlowy

Workflowy is open on my computer all day. I used to write down a list of things to get done each day but as I bounced around computers, I found that hard to keep up with. This tool takes the place of my lists and saves a few trees at the same time.

• Google Docs

When my tasks grow too big to fit inside of Trello, or things start to become too large to make sense inside of Trello, then I utilize Google Docs and create tasks out of Docs. I typically have the same sort of structure as Trello and list subtasks in groupings of To Do’s, Working On, and Done and utilize Google comments to keep track of any issues with each subtask. If I finish a task, I strikethrough it and move it to the Done column.

– Project Management

• ActiveCollab

Active Collab is the project management tool my internet marketing agency, Adapt Partners settled on. We experimented with Basecamp, Redmine, Asana and Getflow over the last six months and came to the conclusion that AC was the best fit for us. One of the biggest pros for us for an agency-level project management tool is white-labeling, self hosting and development backed module development. AC fit the bill on all levels and their plugin repository for project management modifications was icing on the cake. One of my favorite modules is the notations plugin for commenting on wireframes and mockups via ZingDevs Notations module. With AC priced at a one time fee of 500 bucks, it made sense over the alternatives which typically charge per user and are priced monthly.

• Google Docs

For some of my smaller projects where I work with contractors, Google Docs makes sense. One, because everyone uses it so onboarding people into Gdocs is a snap. Furthermore, the commenting abilities and intuitive interface makes it very easy to use.

• iDoneThis

I take a bit more of a hands-off approach with some contractors. I still like to have a good idea of what they did for the day but it just doesn’t make sense to constantly badger them with questions/thoughts/concerns. I find iDoneThis to be a great way to stay up-to-date with team members without needing to be in their face (per se) on a daily basis. Most folks who tend to use it also like the fact that it melds into their workflow. Basically, you submit an email at the end of the day and jot down things you got done, at which point I get an email update.

– Screenshots

• Clarify

Clarify is a tool that lets me stitch together screenshot ‘stories’ as I call them. Sometimes I need to convey something in more than just one screenshot and clarify facilities. I am also a big fan of having shareable protected links that I can instantly upload to the cloud and share with team members. Clarify does all of the above. It is a paid tool, however, with a one-time fee of $29.99

• Jing Screencast

I share on average ~30 screenshots a day with team members. This is probably the single most important tool in my arsenal. It keeps lengthy, confusing emails at bay. If I need to showcase something a bit more complex then I will use Jing to also create a video screencast of what I might be trying to portray. Once again, same goal in mind. This tool helps keep work flowing smoothly and limit confusions that might occur through textual explanations.

– Digital Asset Creation (content/multimedia etc)

• Google Docs

If I am creating content for a client or working with a contractor to create content, I prefer working through Gdocs for its collaboration benefits. The idea of working out of Microsoft Word just doesn’t meld well anymore. I say this and realize I havent given their Sky drive accounts a decent shot.

• UsabilityHub Suite of Tools

If a piece of content or multimedia takes 10 hours of work or effort, then I will run it through a tool like the 5secondtest to get people’s reaction to it. Especially for pieces that have a promotional aspect behind them and/or cost a lot to create – divulging user’s initial impressions can be impactful.

• Topsy

No one has all the ideas, and frankly you cannot guess what would fit all the time so I tend to hop over to Topsy to either do competitive research on what is already out there or I look for hot topics that are worth calling out.

– Outsourcing

• Odesk

I’ve dabbled with most of the outsourcing services over the years, however, I have found that most can’t compete with Odesk. There is a significant number of folks on it – for example, just for consultants who have experience with Excel there are 77k listed potential contractors.

What do I outsource, you might ask? Well, usually things that don’t make sense for me to spend my time on or things that one of my full time contractors/employees cannot accomplish. Things that I do tend to outsource are very task-oriented jobs. I would never outsource, say, the design and fabrication of an entire website. I might just outsource the skinning of a specific element of it. My biggest tip for people looking to outsource is you get what you pay for. Seriously. I typically pay more for domestic help vs. going overseas if I have the choice.

• Amazon Turk

Anything that requires repetitive, task-oriented help that the masses can help add value to I bake Amazon Turk into. Most instances don’t make sense as the data you get back can be very noisy but some jobs make sense to utilize a service such as MTurk.

• TaskRabbit

This is a new service I have started testing out a bit (it’s not available in all cities) but brings online outsourcing to your local city. There are some interesting applications to it that are worth looking into.

– Data Massaging and Reporting

• Excel

Excel is awesome. Simple as that. Google Spreadsheets has its place but I still rely on Excel for making quick adjustments to data all the way up to needing to crunch tens of thousands of rows of data. I use it for practically all aspects of my business.

– Payment Processing

• Stripe

Stripe is the latest tool to come out for users who are looking for a better alternative to Paypal. Many of the businesses I run require me to be paid by credit card and it serves as a great (and lower cost, mind you) alternative to Paypal. It also has an API that we are just starting to get comfortable with. There is a lot of potential with Stripe and I am excited to see where the platform goes.

– Website Management and Development

• Lucid Chart

If I am creating a website from scratch/or doing a major overhaul, I like to start with a storyboard tool (also known as flowchart) such as LucidChart, which is a great SaaS paid tool we use at Adapt. I typically start with 2-3 different common user flows based on where traffic is coming form, then determine site structure to create based off of that information. We don’t work in a bottle so I also take into account any SEO related issues that need to be addressed at this stage as well.

• FileZilla

I know most devs might cringe to hear I use Filezilla (or FTP for that matter) but it’s simple enough for someone like myself. I rely on it daily to help maintain all the websites I have control/access to.

• Stylizer

My development skills do not keep me fed, but I tend to think I have a good eye for design and I like to get my hands dirty from time to time. Stylizer is a unique application that lets me edit the CSS of a website without needing to manipulate code. It’s a GUI of sorts for CSS editing.

• Sublime Text

Sublime Text is my favorite textpad. I sometimes find myself having to code and sometimes I need to write things without getting distracted, at which point I open up Sublime and go full-screen with it. Sublime also saves content automatically so if your computer crashes or you need to unplug and shutdown really quickly then you don’t need to worry about losing all that info.

• WordPress

I’v dabbled with well over 10 various Content Management Systems over the years. Each one has its place, however, WordPress has won me over in the long run as it’s just so simple to use and to customize. I also find the developer market out there for WP is by far the largest, which is great when you need to make small custom changes but don’t want to have to spend months finding the right person who can help modify something for you.

I can deploy websites super quickly with WordPress and the plugin repository more often then not saves me money in development time.

• TigerTech

I’ve utilized easily over 20-30 hosts over the years and TigerTech takes the cake. Super quick support (don’t expect to be able to call, however.) They reply to tickets within minutes-> 1 hour. Security is top-notch and their uptime is great. If you are looking to start the next Twitter, however, I would roll something like http://www.linode.com/

• Amazon Web Services

For all of my larger sites where I need speed on the cheap, I run with AWS. Great for bootstrappers and you can do just about anything you want with them.

• Browser Labs

Browser interoperability is a major factor most folks often overlook. Know your target demographic and understand the browsers they use. You might think everyone uses Chrome but some audiences still heavily rely on IE. This tool from Adobe does a fantastic job of giving you quick screenshots of what your site looks like in the major browsers. It even goes back all the way to IE6, although thankfully most people do not use that browser anymore.

– Website Design

• Photoshop

Photoshop lets me do just about all the design work I need to do. Simple copy/paste/cut and logo design is all I really need on a daily basis. I have dabbled with many simple design programs over the years but having enough chops to handle some of my own design work through Photoshop has paid dividends.

• Dribbble

Dribble is my source for design inspiration. Its really easy to find design elements that strike a chord with me on Dribbble. If I know of a look and feel I am after for one of my projects, but cant convey it through words, I hop over to Dribbble and find a similar graphic element to share with my team. Its also a great place to find talented front end contractors.

– Wireframing

• MockFlow & Moqups.com

I have been using MockFlow for a long time and use it for most, if not all, web mockups I need to create. Balsamiq is also a great tool but I work way too much with individuals across the states and need the ability to quickly share mockups via shareable links which Balsamiq lacks, and MockFlow has.

I am also enjoying testing https://moqups.com for its simplistic approach – it’s a new mockup tool I recently came across. One big thing missing from MockFlow is an autosnap mechanism that Moqups has.

• Axure

For my more complex mockups, where I need more of a prototyping tool, this is how I accomplish that. Perhaps I need to dictate or show fancy transitions. Axure helps accomplish that.

• Pencil and Paper

I still like to use pencil and paper. There is still something inherent about writing with lead that helps get the creative juices flowing. I am no artist by any stretch but many times I start with paper and then translate that to the screen.

– Team Communication

• IMO.im

I have IM accounts on many, many services but find that keeping up with all of them is tough. IMO does a great job pulling them all together in one place for me. I used to use tools like Digsby and various others but gave up with them as they were problematic over the years. I like browser-based solutions over standalone desktop apps if I can.

• QuicklyChat

Recently I have found Quicklychat (voice chat service) which aims to help indicate when a team member is available (by indicating if they are busy or not busy) automatically. It’s based on which programs the user has open and can be a great way to avoid bugging someone at the inopportune time. The tool is still free and has a few bugs I have noticed, but it’s a great solution outside of Skype, which still dominates this niche.

– Event Scheduling

• Google Calendar

Google pretty much killed it with their Calendar service. The UX is great and the auto functions make it a snap to add events. Most folks have a Gmail account as well so its easy to send users Google Calendar invites and not run into too many issues.

– Link Management and Analysis

• Buzzstream

I built a link management tool when I was in-house back in 2007. It was called Manage Your Links (now defunct). The complexities around running such an operation are vastly complex between all the APIs (at that time non existent in large part) and is why the tool never really took off.

Around 2009 Buzzstream came around and I realized there wasnt a need to build my own anymore. I happily paid for their service and never looked back. One thing that is promising is the fact that the vendor is focused simply on the tool as a link management/contact management database and isn’t bloating it out with additional features that are unnecessary.

• Ahrefs + Majestic SEO+ SEO Moz

Ahrefs + Majestic SEO + Seomoz are three great link services that I subscribe to. I don’t like utilizing any one link data source so I tend to use multiple ones. I find all 3 give me about all of the coverage that I need.

• Link Prospector

The link Prospector helps me find possible sites to outreach to depending on the various content I am promoting. This saves me time in manually scouring through google with advanced queries as their tool does it for you automatically.

– Analytics

• GetClicky

For the blogs that I run/manage, or any site I don’t necessarily want Google Analytics to be hosted on, I use GetClicky. They have a fantastic API which you can do some cool stuff with. If you need a different viewpoint on your traffic than what Google Analytics gives you, I suggest checking out what a live analytics tool looks like. It’s priced well at around ~$50 month. Furthermore, the mobile apps are great for folks who are away from their computer a lot. It’s easy to spot big surges in traffic and be able to act accordingly.

• RavenTools

Raven is also a great tool but the biggest thing I use Raven for outside of rank tracking is its ability to pull in Google Analytics via their API. I don’t have time, nor do I want to, have to access the hundreds of smaller sites’ Google Analytics logins. I simply pipe them into Raven and am able to access the various dashboards all in one place. This also keeps me from needing to associate all of my sites together as I create unique Gmail accounts for each site.

– SEO

• Screaming Frog

One might wonder why I don’t list more tools than I do in this section. Well, frankly, SEO comes down to more than just tools. However, one still needs things like crawlers, which is where Screaming Frog comes in handy. The tool basically does what Xenu sleuth did for many years except it has additional features from an SEO practitioner’s perspective. It allows you to quickly identify 404 pages, duplicate titles, and other various things that frankly are out of the scope of this article. Generally it’s the first thing I fire up whenever I am auditing a website.

• Charles Proxy

The Charles Proxy isn’t quite what it sounds like. This tool checks the headers of a page and allows me to see things like chained redirects and other nebulous things that can harm a website’s ranking.

• HideMyAss

Sometimes I have to act like more than one person. HMA allows me to be in multiple places at one time which can be good for certain SEO related issues.

– Lead Generation Tracking

• CallRail

Many of my projects have a healthy mix of traffic, coming from free search and paid search with a dash of social mixed in. If I want to distinguish how each source of traffic is performing with Callins, then I use CallRail. Callrail is a turnkey system that I use to setup 888 numbers that I can track basically, and you can create many of them for relatively cheap. The setup runs on top of the Twilio stack but what is unique about CR is that it adds automated reporting options as well as a layer of additional features such as Fallback Numbers, simultaneous ringing, message recording and voicemail integration.

– CRM

• PipelineDeals

If I need to manage customers and deal flow, I use PipdelineDeals. I choose it because of their simplicity and the fact they have an easy to use API. Its a relatively inexpensive CRM solution and many providers are more expensive for what you get, in my experience.

• LiveChat

When I need to manage potential customers live, on a website, I choose Livechat to be able to field inquires/questions.

The post 48 Digital Tools I Use To Make Things Happen appeared first on Brian Chappell.

Here are a few what ifs that I could think of:

• Many successful websites would be able to sell advertising without worrying about losing 65% of their traffic
• Google wouldn’t make updates like domain crowding
• SEOs wouldn’t feel as inclined to have to add G+ buttons to their content
• GWT warning messages wouldn’t exist
• Webmasters might consider blocking GBOT via robots.txt
• You would be able to buy links on relevant sites because it actually generated sales and not worry about the rel tagging game.
• You wouldn’t have to hear industry experts always talk about Google at conferences
• PPC would be reasonably affordable for high traffic verticals
• Search quality would be more important again, not just “good enough”
• “Not provided” would have never started

As someone who owns small businesses, is invested in large businesses, and help clients make more money online, I can only hope that something comes along that gives Google a run for its money in the coming years to alleviate problems like this, and this.

Competition is healthy. Users need it and businesses need it.

The post What If Google Had Real Competition? appeared first on Brian Chappell.

We know the following:

• Google doesnt make much money off of the long tail
• Long tail queries and sub 20+ rankings sometimes brings to the surface sites that otherwise shouldn’t even really be listed for the query

My personal opinions on the matter:

• Many times I have seen domain crowding, albeit not all instances, its on the back of the index (20+ rankings) or when a domain name is inside of a long tail query
• If Google sees your website portraying the query on your site repetitively, on many different pages, you might get the crowding effect

Engineers are always looking for scalable solutions. So instead of having to fight spam piece by piece this could be an easy way to push  ’mediocre’ sites out of users clicks. Googles take is this could help quality at the same time getting users to search more and click on more ads (maybe that was the intention but that might be too much conspiracy theory). If a user sees the same site 10 times listed they are more than likely going to search again, and possibly get off the long tail query that got them to the domain crowded results set.

It wouldnt surprise me if this gets tweaked back a bit (as Getstat points out overall its a bad user experience) but I expect to see this line of thought going forward as Google continues the push against spam and ramping up brands frequency in their index.

Immediate Ramification:

• If you rely on traffic from queries that have other people and or companies names in them you might want to rethink that model

The post Why Domain Crowding Might Not Be a Bug appeared first on Brian Chappell.

Something I have noticed over the last few months and even into late last year is something that gets back to, directionaly, how Google is attacking its algorithm as of recent.

Google expects sites to showcase brand signals

One thing I plan on taking a deeper dive into on my blog in the coming months is this idea of portraying brand signals for a small, mom and pop site and/or affiliate site (basically any site that has a hard time naturally looking like an entity that is a Brand). It is critical going forward to make your site look bigger than it really is if you want to compete organically.

So back to the topic at hand, thinking about starting a new site? Like that exact match variation becuase you read an article from 2009 that says they are the way to go. Well trying to encourage users to search for your domain name and sticking around for a while is a great place to start. That’s one tip, there are many other signals you can portray but it certainly seems that IF the algorithm doesn’t see search volume for your domain, users dont stick around for long, there isnt much natural linking variations taking hold then you are going to struggle to get over the hump.

What do you think? Do you still roll with exact match domains if they make sense? Or do you completely disown them and go for a memorable name that people will search for after visiting your website.

The post Exact Match Domain Filters on New Websites appeared first on Brian Chappell.

I decided to open up a few of the websites I have allowed access into GWT to take a look at them and noted a few things that I thought I would share:

Now if you are not sure how to find this data, here is a quick screencapture on how to navigate to it.

How To Find Google Webmaster Tools Site Crawl Data

Legend (via Google)

Total Index: The total number of URLs from your site that have been added to Google’s index.

Ever Crawled: The cumulative total of URLs from your site that Google has ever accessed.

Not Selected: URLs from your site that redirect to other pages or URLs whose contents are substantially similar to other pages.

Blocked By Robots: URLs Google could not access because they are blocked in your robots.txt file.

Graph #1

Graph #2

Graph #3

Graph #4

Google Webmaster Tools Site Crawl Takeaways

• ‘Total indexed’  – is what you want to focus on overtime if your site is in content creation mode. Ideally this line should trend up. Keep a close eye on its association with ‘not selected’

• ‘Ever crawled’ - is somewhat interesting when you take into context with total indexed and not selected. Ideally your ever crawled should be near your total indexed in the most efficient scenario. The thinking here would be you give Google BOT exactly what it needs and nothing more to save it time and resources. As you can see above, however, the sites I picked never really had ‘ever crawled’ near ‘total indexed’ since it is in fact a cumulative trend line. The others are not.

• ‘Not selected’ - if this line segment wasn’t in this tool then I probably wouldnt even be writing this post. This is the closest glimpse at Google giving you an indication via THEIR data as to how your site is viewed in terms of indexable content.What might be seen as indexable content, you might ask? Obviously the more unique it is the better, but even rehashed content could be seen as fit and not get grouped into this category.
  • If your ‘not selected’ line is above your ‘total indexed’ then you know you have an issue at hand that deserves looking into. Many CMS’s out of the box could create this issue. You can see this is the case in Graph 2 above.
  • Overall I would want this segment of the chart to be as near the bottom as possible. Graph #3 above is a good example that I would like to see; a site with a lot of indexed content with very few proportionate pages ‘not selected’. This to me indicates a site in good health. You are controlling the robots appropriately and not wasting their time with ‘bad content’.
  • It would be interesting to test graphs that are sites seemingly hit by Panda and compare those to sites that have not been hit by Panda. Remember Panda was GOOGs attempt to remove thin content out of its index.

• ‘Blocked By Robots’ – This is an obvious one that can alert practitioners to situations that might be problematic. Didn’t mean to have 500 pages blocked by Robots.txt? This line can help.

The post What To Make of the New Google Webmaster Tools Site Crawl Data appeared first on Brian Chappell.

It takes a lot for me to blog nowadays. To say my plate is full is an understatement when combining the lead gen projects I have going on and the Agency job at Ignite. One such article that appeared a few days ago, however, seems to have caused me to break my silence. In fact it’s not even the article that makes my blood boil, its one comment that was shared by the owner of Blogcatalog.com (h/t  @johnandrews)

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100901/how-google-cost-me-$4-million.html#comment-74033863

This is a pretty tough subject to stomach when you see webmasters getting decimated by Google. I have seen this same experience firsthand when I worked in the Ticket industry. In fact, in 2008, Googles spam team made a point to show the world that they were serious about enforcing there massive PR campaign that launched in late 2007 about paid links. Since that time there have been many websites ‘dinged’ ‘removed’ ‘penalized’ etc from the SERPS that once filled their pockets with cash.

What happened to Blog Catalog is case in point in why it is so critical when dealing with Google to stay lightweight.  Here are a few tips I want to share, to help avoid these types of scenarios.

1. Don’t let Google Organic be > 75% of your revenue stream. Period. Just don’t do it.
2. Don’t build giant enterprise level sites and utilize tactics that work extremely well, so well that you literally own the SERPS. Google doesn’t like this even if you are white hat. You don’t have the golden ticket like Mahalo, Wikipedia, Demand media etc. so get over it. Google doesn’t care about you, as you are not helping them make any money.
3. If the above statement is true, you are relying on Google for a lot of your income, then it would be wise to actually give some of it back through Google Adwords. Figure out how to make ROI on Adwords. Google is going to be much less likely to kick you completely out of the SERPS if they see you are spending a million dollars /year with them. Trust me whoever is making that call to remove you from the SERPS will check to see if you are a paying customer.

A Google representative has since clarified they do would never do this.

1. Build multiple sites in the same niche, expand into different niches and continue to build, build, and build. I for one will never ever rely on one site to pay my bills. It’s just nonsense, there is no need. The internet is not a traditional brick and mortar, it’s very easy to start a new venture. Buy a new domain name, host the content and get it rolling in a week vs. 9 months it takes to build a new brick and mortar location.
2. Bottom line is don’t be too aggressive, don’t be too successful. It’s much easier to be the #3 guy in your vertical than be the lone wolf sitting at the top, pushing the limits of what is possible and ranking across the board for mid-tail competitive terms.

Every webmaster has a different moto, has a different purpose. There is no cookie cutter formula to making money through Google.  If you want to make money through Google, unfortunately, you have to play by their rules. Trust me I am not any more excited to have to say that than the next person. Building a wall of defensible traffic is one of the smartest moves any online marketer can make in todays game.

img src

The post Danger Ahead: Google Will Burn You appeared first on Brian Chappell.

Seeing a tweet from @jonathanmendez got me thinking a bit this morning. “Don’t be evolutionary. Be revolutionary.” There has never been a time where that is more true. With the Internet it is very easy to get in a routine or a siloed structure of creating things. Marketers are constantly copying others techniques and rehashing them. This does no one any good.

Take for example a blog post (if you want to call it that) created by Iampaddy.

http://iampaddy.com/lifebelow600/

I would be willing to bet you a pretty penny that if Mr. Paddy created this same topic in a blog post, with no images, on a stock wordpress install this would have gotten no coverage what so ever. Instead, this piece trended on Twitter (that’s a ton of sharing), and will undoubtedly get passed around for the next few days and could even find itself front paging DIGG or REDDIT.

The unique nature and creative aspect of this example brings real world perspective to the saying “Don’t be evolutionary. Be revolutionary.”

How are you thinking outside of the box with your content?

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