Blogging

5 Reasons Why SEO Is Completely Overrated

August 9, 2014 by Marc Guberti 12 Comments

SEO has been praised by many people as a way to get hundreds of daily visitors. In fact, some blogs get thousands of daily visitors from SEO, but there are certain details about SEO that many of the experts leave out. I now get hundreds of daily visitors from SEO alone, but that only happened when I did not focus most of my attention on SEO. I know; very ironic.

I have come to a conclusion. While it is good to do some SEO, it is completely overrated. Some people think of SEO as an easy to access gold mine, but it is anything but that. The only way you land in that gold mine is by driving a clown car and falling into it. Maybe I’m just adding another flavor to Mark Zuckerberg’s comment about Twitter, but that is really what happens with SEO. Ultimately, it’s overrated, and here’s why.

SEO takes a boat load of time to build up. It took me almost two years before I got hundreds of daily visitors from the search engines. Some people take even longer.
My SEO traffic only went up when my social media traffic went up. I’m not going to question that it also takes a long time to build up social media traffic. It took me 993 days to reach my first 100,000 Twitter followers. However, by building your social media presence, you will be hitting two birds with one stone. In addition, once you build your social media audience the first time, it becomes easier over time. Although it took me 993 days to get 100,000 Twitter followers, I can now reach the same milestone in less than 200 days. When I reach 200,000 Twitter followers, I expect to get the same feat accomplished in under 150 days.
Learning SEO takes up too much time. Most people browse through dozens of SEO articles to learn how to boost their SEO. All you need to do is read this article about SEO, and you will have all of the basic knowledge about SEO that you need.
By focusing on SEO, you are competing with millions of other articles. There are millions of articles on the web that are about the same topic as your blog post. By only focusing on SEO, you are competing with the millions of other articles on the search engines. Building a powerful social media presence allows you to escape relying on being on top of this competition. In addition, a powerful social media presence will allow you to eventually end up on the first page of search engines.
Many people strive for SEO more than social media traffic. Many people are implementing tactics to enhance their blogs’ SEO without giving social media a glance. Many of these people have fewer than 1,000 followers on their social networks, but when it comes to bounce rate, catchy headlines, and tags, these people know what they are doing. The result is no blog traffic because SEO needs a big push, social media traffic, in order to bring in more traffic for your blog.

Those are the five reasons why SEO is completely overrated. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips and advice? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

UPDATE: Looking back at this article, I realize SEO traffic is important, but still overrated. Boosting your social media audience and getting more social shares boosts SEO, so I believe focusing on social media is the better strategy. I’ve read more blog posts from QuickSprout so I know SEO is important, but regardless of what stream you use to boost traffic, valuable content is critical towards any blog’s success.

Think You’re Cut Out For Blogging? Take This Quiz

August 8, 2014 by Marc Guberti 8 Comments

Blogging Quiz

One of my favorite toys to play with as a kid was the 20Q toy. I enjoyed how I could respond to 20 questions, and somehow the 20Q toy would always know what I was thinking about. I decided to mix the 20Q toy with my love of blogging to come up with a 20 question quiz to determine whether you are cut out for blogging–and being successful at it–or not.

Can you write blog posts every day for many years to come? The right answer is yes.
Do you believe your traffic will dramatically increase overnight? The right answer is no.
How long will it take for your blog to become popular? The right answer is at least one year.
Are you writing about what you enjoy? The right answer is yes.
Is a blog merely a place to promote a product? The right answer is no.
Is a blog a place to show ads? The right answer is no (more on this here)
Will you trade in your passion for money? The right answer is no.
Will you treat blogging as a hobby? The right answer is not forever. It will become more than that.
Would you blog even if you knew you wouldn’t make any money from it? The right answer is yes. It takes some bloggers a few years before seeing a huge profit.
Would you write a blog post late into the night if you had to? The right answer is yes. If you enjoy blogging enough, writing late into the night won’t be a problem.
Do you read books? The right answer is yes.
Are you only blogging for the money? The right answer is no.
Do you want to avoid making mistakes? The right answer is no. We all make mistakes anyway. As hard as it is to believe, I make mistakes too (okay, my ego got the best of me there).
Do you envision your blog becoming successful? The right answer is yes.
Do you want to be an author? The right answer is yes. If you want to be an author, then you would also make for a really good blogger.
Are you blogging just to get more traffic? The right answer is no.
Is blog traffic more important than having fun writing the content? The right answer is no.
Are you happy with where you are? As long as you keep on growing and never settle, it’s great to be happy with where you are. If you settle, there’s a problem.
Do you set goals for yourself? The right answer is yes.
Would you write for a guest blog? The right answer is yes. This shows you enjoy writing content and getting traffic to the point where you would write for someone else. This will make you a better blogger and writer when you write for your own blog and publish your own books.

If you had the right answers for most of these questions, then you are ready. If you got more than five answers wrong, you need to change your thinking about what it means to have a blog and write blog posts.

How did you do on the quiz?

5 Quick Blogging Tips That Will Take You Less Than A Minute To Read

August 8, 2014 by Marc Guberti 20 Comments

Quick Blogging Tips

When you master blogging, you will be able to spread your message and communicate with others in a way never done before. My blog’s success has allowed me to interact with thousands of people and meet well-known entrepreneurs of our era. Having a successful blog automatically boosts your credibility. I understand that you are a productive person and are experienced with getting swamped with work on some days. That’s why I made this blog post especially short. Here are five quick blogging tips that will take you less than a minute to read.

Focus on getting social media traffic. Social media is a better way to get more blog traffic than SEO. In fact, your SEO will improve as you get more social media traffic.
We are trained to notice mistakes first. That’s why you always need to proofread your blog posts. Uh oh, did I spell proofread wrong? I bet I didn’t have to tell you that. Proofreading your blog posts will avoid something like that from happening by accident.
Schedule blog posts in advance. There are some things in life that we can’t account for until they happen. Scheduling numerous blog posts in advance will guarantee that you remain consistent.
Write one blog post every day. Writing one blog post every day will allow you to become a better writer. As your writing improves (and there is always room for improvement), you will be able to write better books at a faster rate.
Stick with it. Blogging at times can get annoying. There’s writer’s block, low traffic stats, and other things that discourage us from writing another blog post. Here’s a picture I share a lot to help you stick with blogging, but it is still powerful.

How long did it take you to read the tips?

Why Bloggers Give Out Oodles Of Information For Free

August 6, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Free Content

At this point, I have written over 300,000 words for this blog. I know there will be a certain point when this blog reaches 1 million words. Many people wonder why I have given away this much information for free, and better yet, why I actually plan on continuing. Other bloggers have also given away oodles of free information, and people continue to wonder why these bloggers give so much content away from free.

The goal of free valuable content is to build a connection with the person. The more valuable content you provide for free, the better your paid products must be. Customers have a belief that a paid product is better than a free product. When bloggers provide oodles of free content, visitors believe that the paid products contain more valuable content than what they are already getting. This does raise the bar quite high for bloggers, but it also results in more sales.

Bloggers want their visitors to subscribe and receive blog posts through email. Then, this leads to a sale. If you want to boost your sales and get more subscribers, you need to provide more free content and make sure that free content is also valuable. That’s how giving away oodles of free information yourself can grow your business.

Blogging Monetizing Do’s And Don’ts

August 5, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Blog Monetization

There are many ways to make money with a blog. Just like in any other scenario, not all options are created equal. Some methods of making more revenue with a blog are very effective while other methods are not what they appear to be.

Advertising is a big don’t. Many people see advertising as a way to generate extra revenue for a blog, but advertisements distract a visitor from reading your blog content. In addition, if someone is visiting your blog for the first time and clicks an ad, that person may not come back. You lost a potential returning visitor (who could have been a customer) for two extra pennies in your pocket.

That being said, I still see a potential for making money on a blog with advertising. However, I only see advertising useful for the big guys like John Chow and Jeff Bullas. Being one of the big guys means being as low on the Top 100,000 list as possible. If your Alexa Rank is not under 100,000, then you are not ready for ads. If your Alexa Rank is under 100,000, then it is at that point when people know about you and you are popular in your niche. You can slip in some ads on your blog at that point because you are going to make much more than two cents, and those people are going to return anyway.

No matter where you are with a blog, having your own products is a big must. Having multiple products with these three different price structures as well as some free products that provide value will allow you to make more revenue with your blog. This pricing system is used by John Chow who now makes seven figures (yes, the big million) every year from his blog.

It is important to note that creating your own products and being an affiliate are two different things. Being an affiliate marketing means promoting someone else’s product and getting a cut. However, when you get the sale as an affiliate marketer, people don’t come back to you. Let’s say you are an Amazon Associate, and a customer buys something with your referral link. You get a cut, but people are not going to come back to your blog just to buy from your referral link. Instead, they go directly to Amazon. They don’t care about your affiliate link. They only care about Amazon.

So, is affiliate marketing dead? I don’t think so. You can do a mix of affiliate marketing and promoting your own products (although you want to promote your products more often). In addition, you can tell your visitors to buy something with their affiliate link and then you will throw in one of your products for free. This means it is still possible for you to get a returning customer.

Another thing that works well is consultation sessions, if you have the time to do them. When deciding whether you are the right person to consult with, people will look at how valuable your content is and what you charge for a consultation session. The less you charge, the more sales you are going to get, but at the same time, you are going to have to talk to more people for more hours. That may get in the way of your work. The best option is to charge a high (but not overwhelming) price that encourages some people to buy the consultation session.

Two great ways to make money with a blog are creating your own products and having a consultation session. Affiliate marketing can be used sparingly, and affiliate marketing works as a good substitute for the people who do not have their own product…yet. Advertising should not even be attempted until your blog’s Alexa rank goes under 100,000. That means you are getting a huge number of returning visitors even if you slipped in an ad or two on your blog. At the same time, you don’t want to display too many ads no matter how popular your blog is because that popularity can spiral downwards with too many ads.

How To Get More Blog Traffic From Squidoo

August 5, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Squidoo is a big hub and a great source to get more blog traffic. On Squidoo, you are able to write pages (they call those pages lenses) that you can use to write content on almost anything. Squidoo gives you the ability to promote your blog using their sidebar feature and the ability to promote products on Amazon and eBay.

If you create enough pages on Squidoo, and some (or all) of those pages become popular, your blog traffic can dramatically increase. Let’s say you have 100 pages on Squidoo, and they all bring in 1 visitor to your blog every day. That’s an extra 700 visitors every week, 3000 visitors every month, and 36500 visitors every year. Those numbers really add up, and you only get to take advantage of that by creating pages on Squidoo.

Creating a page on Squidoo is very easy. All you need to do is create a page, work on it for 15-30 minutes, and then you’re done. Promoting your page is all you need to do at that point. Promote it on your blog and social networks. You may be wondering why you don’t promote your blog right from the get-go, but circular viralocity says otherwise. You want to promote something that leads to your blog or social networks, and have those blogs and social networks promote each other.

Promoting a Squidoo page has the potential to share valuable insight with others. If people take the step to click a link on your blog, they will most likely read through your blog’s content and follow you on your social networks.

Not only is Squidoo a great way to bring in more blog traffic, but it is also a great way to earn extra revenue. Some people on Squidoo are making thousands of dollars every month from ads and product commissions. You also have the option to donate a percentage of your earnings to charity. Whether you feel like donating 7% or 77% of your earnings to charity, you can donate any percentage of your earnings to charity.

Do you want to bring in more blog traffic. Squidoo may be the answer you have been looking for. What are you waiting for? Join us!