I wear many hats. For a long time I have been a cartoonist. In my mid-40′s I went back to college and studied business and Internet technology. Suddenly I was an IT Professional and a cartoonist. The conflict was deciding if I should just be an IT pro, or continue my cartoons. After all, I had spent a decade on the cartoons and built numerous gift stores, some megastores with inventories of 100,000 products. What to do? Now I had some new tools, a major one known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I decided to utilize that skill to work on my cartoon and cartoon gift sites. It was a good decision. I am learning new things about SEO every day. I am hardly a guru.
Nine times out of ten, the writer of that ebook has downloaded other ebooks, before writing his/or hers and simply copied the main points, thinking, “If I bought it on the Internet, and from a guru, it must be hot stuff. It is hot stuff. It is the road to Internet hell.
The reason I don’t write Ebooks or call myself an expert or guru is because I am not. I know a lot now, from studying three years in college focusing on Internet studies, but I’m still no guru, nor claim to be. However, I am good at SEO. How do I know? I have SEO’d my own cartoon site up to number 65,000 in Alexa. With 6-8 billion websites on the Internet, try getting in the Alexe Top 100,000. I wish you luck. It took me seven years but I kept studying and learning, and now know a few things. But I still research numerous times to make certain those things are correct. There is just too much bad information out there that even the author believes is good information.
I guess the most asked questions are, “What should I do, PPC Advertising, article marketing, blogging, link exchange, keyword optimization, or what?
What method(s) of SEO work the best? The question is not the same for everyone, though a few of the basics apply to all sites.
When launching your website, look at it as a store in an empty mall in a part of the North Pole where no man has been before. Your job is to find a way to attract people to visit there, and eventually make it a major tourist attraction. Not such an easy task. But very do-able.
Can it be done overnight? Sure, if you want to get kicked off most of the major web engines. You simply start spamming and spamming is a numbers game. The problem is spamming is bad netiquette and even illegal in some states. And you will be spinning your wheels. That is not just email spamming but blog spamming, article spamming and any other kind.
One SEO method at a time. Learn it well and go to the next. Learn it well and go to the next. I always start with keywords and blogging and go to the more complex ones like article marketing and ppc advertising after I’ve mastered the first. Some like to learn it all at once. It’s a matter of style. Use keywords wisely and sparingly and very targeted. Don’t stuff them all over your site.
A lot of webmasters overlook blogging. They think it is just for kids. Kids love it but adults need it too, for business. Get your own blog using your own URL name if you can. Remember you are also branding your product or service and you want it to be your blog, not Myspace, or some other swanky big name social blog. When you blog with them, which is okay for meeting people, socializing etc., you are branding them If you feel so charitible then do so. I have blogs at many different sites, but I use my main blog with my company’s name on it the most often. That is my “focus blog”. I always ping my blogs at Ping-O-Matic or some other free service.
I still believe article marketing is king, that is, if you are a good writer. If not, there are places to find them all over the web. It can be worth it to pay for a few good articles and let them submit them, but be sure to get it on Ezinearticles and maybe Isnare, as those are the most read.
Some SEOs use article submission software and online services that prevent spamming, and can write and rewrite your article and allow you to use targeted keywords that prevent it from pinging unwanted blogs.
Be careful though, when using these softwares and services and make certain they do what they say they do. A good place to start is Tucows or Download and read some of the reviews. Cnet offers a good many reviews as well.
Please, again, be patient. You may have a hundred articles under your belt before you notice a change ina rank change dramatic increase in visitors. Also, in article marketing, as in any other kind of SEO, “Its a jungle out there” or even a war, and everyone is vying for the top position. So for heaven’s sake don’t just write an article and put your link. Google is on to that and can see through it pretty fast. Write something of value and substance that people can and will use.
Google Adwords and Yahoo Search is frequently mentioned in conversations. I use ppc, and so should you. But before using it, read the tutorial or knowledge page that the service offers. I have used most of them and find Google Adwords to be the easiest interface and most flexible. MSN Adsense, though not as big, offers some fun surprises too. Both offer quality hits.
I tend to overlook the smaller ppc engines as their traffic is bustling, but generally not very targeted.
On that great big Internet there is so much to learn, and I am but a beginner. I will share hopefully good information, as I research and find it to be accurate. I know targeted keywords and article marketing works in my own Londons Times Cartoon stores, and I have seven of them. If I didn’t use it, I would simply have seven desert islands with a lot of optioned undeveloped land.
About the Author:
Cartoonist E-Entrepreneur Rick London started with nothing and now owns the top cartoon site on the net and several gift stores, Guru-Free SEO Marketing By Rick London Cartoon Gift Stores, and