An Article by Keith Wilcox

When I was in high school, I was a good runner. It wasn’t just in my head either; I won all sorts of fancy awards during my junior and senior years. I was good in college, too, but that’s a different story. I had the one trait that I thought mattered in a runner – natural ability and a high threshold for pain. My coaches, on the other hand, didn’t like me very much. One coach in particular, it seemed at the time, made a special point to thwart my self-imagined rightful place on the team. I never made the varsity team as a freshman despite the fact that I ran varsity times and regularly beat other varsity runners. I thought it was the height of injustice, but in hind sight I can see why I didn’t make it. It had nothing to do with my speed; it was because I rarely practiced and, when I did, I would make a joke out of it and spend my time distracting anybody within range of my shenanigans. It wasn’t clear to me until I got to college that the one trait that really matters in life is passion coupled with a willingness to learn. I eventually did learn my lessons, but it was a tough road. Most people never get it, and it’s one factor that makes hiring new employees a pain and firing them routine.

Get a Job, Keep a Job:

It’s one thing to fake your way through a job interview. It’s an entirely different matter to fake your way through a whole job. Do you know why people spend so much effort complaining about cubicle jobs yet almost no effort in finding alternate employment? It’s because this most common of employee subspecies can easily escape detection as a fraud in its current, and comfortable, habitat.  It has the luxury to complain about a job that affords it the ability to hide behind the redundancy of a multi-tiered corporation. Why would it ever risk detection in the big bad world of competition if it’s every need is already being cared for, it’s only sacrifice being freedom? This employee would convulse if it ever had to work for a boss who actually paid attention to how little, if any, daily work gets done.

Keeping a job in which your boss cares about results means that hiding isn’t an option. You’ll have to take some risks; perhaps also, when entrusted with responsibility, you’ll be required to make few command decisions. You’ll fail a few times in the learning process. Bosses tend to be upset when screw up happen, and you might spend some time being upset with each other as a result of mistakes, but don’t worry because the thing a boss, a good boss, really wants to hear is that you’ve learned something by the mistake and are enthusiastic about trying again (it would help of course if the boss also admitted his mistakes, but don’t hold your breath on that). Anybody of reasonable intelligence can keep employment provided he/she actually cares about the job at hand. Working for a boss stinks most of the time because bosses can be assholes with enormous, unwarranted egos.  But,  here’s the thing about wanting to learn that makes this risk worthwhile for the right person: when the time comes, and you’ve accumulated enough knowledge and experience, you can become your own boss with your own company. Isn’t that a nice little side effect of passion and dedication?

Washouts Like to Complain: Inoculate with Competency

I love to complain when things don’t go my way. I played a bad round of golf? Oh, it was because the grass was a little moist. I fell off my bike? It was clearly that damn rock that jumped out in front of me! I’ve even seen my kid complain about losing a tennis match because his serves didn’t go in. Serves are, incidentally, a prime ingredient in tennis; he could have been more convincing if he’d complained about a bug flying up his nose or something. Sports, academics, or whatever. It doesn’t matter – The fault for failure lies directly at the feet of the one doing the failing notwithstanding external, unpredictable influences. Losing is no great sin. Everybody does it. Making excuses, therefore, is unnecessary as long as you want to get up to try again. My boy’s coach doesn’t want to see sulking or some contorted look of dejection. Buck up, camper! Quit yer bitchin’ and try again! Competency doesn’t come as a natural right or like a union raise. It comes through actively searching for it. Good bosses, coaches and teachers (sometimes one and the same) know that their best students are the ones who want to be in the classroom. They can do without the naysayers or class clowns who do nothing but drag down the beating heart of the organization.

This is a guest post from David Kenward, the Mental Coach.  I’ve chatted with him a few times and see how his services can add amazing value to help folks perform under pressure, whether sports or business.  Watch the videos on his site to see…

In the film Chocolat, the protagonist (who made chocolates and owned a small retail chocolate store) had a specialty of finding each person’s favorite chocolate treat.  She was doing what she was best at and worked with people who came in because they wanted what she provided.

I wonder what would have happened if someone would have come into her store and said they didn’t like chocolate, or didn’t know if they did or didn’t have enough money to buy, but wanted her to spend her valuable time and resources on them while good customers (who like chocolate, have money and want to buy) would be forced to wait and might leave the store in frustration without making a purchase.

Does this happen in your business?  Do you know what you are best at, but waste your time with potential customers who really aren’t a good fit?  I used to do this because I know the specialized service I provide (helping people overcome mental blocks holding them back) is what I’m best at and can help nearly everyone.

But, what I discovered is that many potential customers either don’t think they have a problem or don’t really want to fix it.  Also, like the great article on the “Five Magic Words to Grow Your Business” pointed out, a lot of people don’t have the resources to fix it, don’t want to invest in themselves to fix it or discount the value of the service.

I would feel bad because I know how helpful my service is and so I’d reduce my fees and try to convert every customer (even those who were just a bad fit).  The result was I didn’t have many good customers, my profit didn’t reflect the value of my service, the business was stagnant and I felt really frustrated.

Then I gave myself a business reality check, revisited the phrase: “I don’t have to hit my head against the wall to know it’s going to hurt” and embraced the concept of those “Five Magic Words.”  I increased my fees to reflect the value of my service, created a screening process to find the potential customers who would be a good fit and spent my time and effort on them.

The result is happy customers, increased profit and my business continues to grow.

Take a step back and look at your business – are you doing what you are best at and spending your time and resources on the right customers, the ones you really want, the ones that will help your business grow?  If not, give yourself a reality check and re-tool if you need to.  This is the road to consistently staying focused, motivated and on-track and enjoying your business.

Online Marketing is like Monopoly.

In the game of Monopoly you roll the dice, land on property, buy un-owned property, pay rent, develop property, collect rent and pass go. The problem many people have with this game is that they leave the game to luck and many hate the game because they rely on luck.

“I hate Monopoly, it’s all about luck.”, “It’s about the dice and buying the property first.”

If you feel that way about Monopoly, then I’m sorry, but you are missing some key elements and you are focusing on the wrong things and you will most likely lose.

Get a property.

Fortunately the online game of marketing removes some of those barriers for you. Online you have similar opportunities to buy property and develop property. Luckily you don’t roll a die to buy a property! But if someone else got there first then you are out of luck. Game over. Pack up. Go home. …OR, get the whole picture. The property, while key, is only one element. When I play Monopoly I typically don’t even go for Boardwalk, I go for the two brown ones right after GO. What you can’t recall the names of the cheap brown properties? That would be Mediterranean and Baltic, in the classic version. Internet Branding isn’t everything. There are plenty of people making money off of “Free” wordpress blogs, ebay, squido pages, Blogger Blogs, and so on.

Don’t really wholly on luck. If you really wholly on luck then you will lose when your luck runs out.

Develop your property.

The only way to make money in Monopoly is by collecting rent from visitors and passing Go… okay, minus the chance beauty pageant. FAT CHANCE! There are more beautiful people in the world then there are actors, models, and superstars combined. To collect rent you have to get visitors. To collect more rent you have to develop your property, i.e. target those visitors, direct visitors to goal. Ask Tim Ash about directing visitors, or just read his book. Targeting visitors can be the hunting portion. PPC and SEO fall under targeting practice. Directing visitors is getting them to buy, sign-up, call, or convert. If you don’t have a goal then you are not playing the game. It may be repetitive, but I am going to say it again, “Do you want visitors or do you want customers?” Yes, there is the argument that you must have visitors to get customers… Blah, Blah, Blah, …And what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Clearly you must have visitors to your property to collect rent. But if you are not watching the game and they move on before you collect rent then you lose. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR VISITORS IF YOU WANT TO COLLECT RENT. That’s really what Landing Page Optimization is all about. It’s “Listening to your Customers.” Every great company listens to their customers. …Okay, there are “nice players” that will pay you rent even when you don’t ask them to. So, you can leave your property undeveloped and wait for those nice people that will pay you on occasion. And most people aren’t that nice! So we are not talking about domain squatting here; we are talking about developing your property by optimizing your site.

Make Money: Win the Marketing Game

Never lose site of the whole picture. Don’t get too caught up in a few small details. A sports car is made up of thousands of parts working together. All playing a role. All important. But to go off on just how important the exhaust is and only work on the air flow out, while ignoring air flow in, will only make you look ignorant and or arrogant. So can make money by, speeding around the board in your sports car, or by building your property to collect more rent, or sell later.

Some key elements to Monopoly Strategy.

1- Get a monopoly.

2- Cash flow.

3- Negotiate.

Most people that rely on luck or think Monopoly is all about luck only see the first element and totally miss the second two. How often do the two losers join forces to beat the big guy? That’s negotiation. The two little guys are negotiating. Asking for 3 free stays on their properties to cover their rent, may be better than letting them sell out real cheap to the other players.

Creating a Monopoly Online

Creating a monopoly online usually requires you to find a monopoly waiting to be had and dominating it before it ever appears on the radar. These obviously are rare and like the cheap brown spots, often not worth as much. Take for instance Austin Scorpion Control. Many websites will have more visitors an hour then that website will have in a month. But, it will be hard to take over their positions on Google. And while the positions where cheap when they were undeveloped and unnoticed, the cost now is a bit higher. Not to mention the fact that you would need an exterminator that actually wants and likes to take on scorpion problems. Most exterminators don’t specialize in scorpion control. The second way to gain a monopoly, NEGOATION. Have you tried searching “cheap domain name” online lately? Godaddy and its affiliates own most of the first page of Google. That’s a monopoly. Or you use Godaddy’s other tactic to gain a Monopoly…MONEY. Big super bowl ads. Lots of Money. Big SEO campaigns, lots of money. Going for a monopoly on Atlanta Pest Control is a lot harder than a monopoly on Alpharetta Pest Control, a North Atlanta, GA suburb. Therefore the money required to get there is a lot more. But what about the Negotiation? Hey, if you have a valuable piece of a monopoly that I want and I have a piece of a monopoly that you want, then let’s negotiate. Make a deal and trade. I could care less if you create a monopoly for home security systems in Chapel Hill. All I care about is bug control. I want a monopoly for Pest Control in Raleigh. What do know, we share matching properties… Chapel Hill, NC and Raleigh-Durham, NC. So I help you get your monopoly and you help me get mine. The catch is you have to be willing to let go of your property and link juice in exchange for the monopoly you really want.

There are powers that be that control small monopolies online in Direct TV, local locksmiths, unique travel accommodations, do-it-yourself pest control products, and chicken coops. You laugh, but that chicken coop guru is laughing all the way to the bank!

This is a guest post by Keith Wilcox

Okay, I admit it.  Some of the details can be a little challenging.  I still have to look up a bunch of HTML that I’m sure other bloggers know by heart.  I don’t know exactly how Google PR works, and I’ll be damned if Alexa rankings make any sense to me.  What I do know is that none of that would matter to me if I had never written my first article 6 months ago.  Even tentative steps are steps.  Blogging really is nothing more than having something to say and saying it.  Indeed, there are some basic rules to follow, none of which are complicated.  First, have a theme.  Second, be consistent.  Third, don’t give up.  That, in a nut shell, are the rules by which people, whether they be athletes, politicians or actors, become successful.  When you execute on those three principals then you can start worrying about the details.  Excuses don’t pay the bills, and good intentions are good for shit.  The only thing that matters is taking one step forward – then another.

The Theme:

My blog is all about being a homeschooling Stay at home Dad (SAHD).  Every article I write has some connection to parenting, fatherhood, children or education.  Of course, themed blogs are not necessary if all you’re doing is updating friends and families on your daily routine.  However, for the purpose of becoming a web presence, a theme is vital.  You must find a niche and become an expert.  Butterflies, massage therapy, speaker technology, fertilizer – just pick something and go with it.

Consistency:

One sure fired way to fail is to be flaky.  Nobody likes a quitter, and nobody likes to be kept waiting.  Readers will read your content if you have something interesting to say, but they won’t keep coming back without fresh news and insights.  There are certain blogs I read every day.  There are others that I read once a week.  I know when to come back because I know the update pattern to expect.  People who aren’t consistent get forgotten.

When the Going gets Tough:

My blog spent 2 months at 20 visitors a day.  It spent another two at about 100.  Then it suddenly shot up to 1200 visits a day for a month.  Now it’s back down to between 300 and 400.  By successful blogger standards my traffic numbers are somewhat pathetic.  But, the trend says I’m going in the right direction.  Sure I had a month over 1000 visitors per day.  Then I bombed.  I could spend my time fretting about that dip, or I could focus on the fact that I started at 20 and I’m still trending up.  I’m a long way from where I want to be, but I’m not giving up just because I bombed this month.  That’s the story of life.  Quitters never prosper.

The Details:

You’re not technically minded?  Neither am I.  I have a double major in History and Spanish.  What do I know about computers and the world of online advertising?  Well, I didn’t know anything before I started, that’s for sure.  Now I know a little, and thats the most I can say.  But, look at my blog.  I’ve asked a ton of questions to people who are experts at this stuff.  They’ve helped me, and I’ve learned.  Did I know who Shawn Collins was before I Started?  Nope.  And, I’ll bet he doesn’t know who the heck I am.  I read his blog though and listen to what he’s saying, and I’ve learned some things.  Dennis here has  been an invaluable resource for SEO advice.  You don’t have to be technical, you just have to be curious.

So, you want to be a blogger, but you haven’t started yet.  You’re probably more qualified than me; but, I’ve done something and you haven’t.  I might never be comfortable with my expertise or I might be worried about what people will say.  I might even be concerned that I’ll get badmouthed and threatened because of the things I say.  You can’t live your life in fear.  One step at a time, that’s all I’m asking.

The following is a guest post by an affiliate who has being creating websites and doing various affiliate marketing for over 8 years.

I could be making 10 times more money than I am right now. So why aren’t I? Because I enjoy what I’m doing. I’ve done a lot of affiliate marketing in the past and I must say, it is incredible how much money you can make, the problem for me is I don’t enjoy doing it full time anymore. What I do enjoy is blogging on work at home scams.

I’m not saying don’t do what makes you good money (because having money allows you to do the things you love), but if you don’t fully enjoy it try mixing in other things that you do enjoy. I still do various affiliate marketing every day but not anywhere near the level that I used too.I make less money doing what I enjoy and I am much happier because of it. Think about your future, will your current job or career make you proud? Maybe you don’t care yet, but someday you will. Someday you will realize that money isn’t everything. As the legendary Biggie Smalls put it, “Mo money mo problems”.

Bruce Forbes of Equation Audio sent us 3 sets of his awesome headphones for review.  In his words….

The RP-22X’s were developed after we had perfected the RP-21’s as far as that design topology and material integration would allow.  The thing that is selling these headphones is they compete extremely well with many competitive models that are more expensive, yet considered inferior in performance.  Subjective?  Yes!  But the total numbers chosen at blind shoot-outs held around the country don’t lie.  RP’s win over 80% when compared to headphones at or above their published MSRP.  And well over 50% when compared too competitive models costing as much as 40% more.  Granted, there will always be subjective opinions that vary per headphone and even dependent on the sound source, type of music, etc.  But there is often a pleasant surprise to hear such great reproduction in general from a new brand, because there have been no serious alternatives to the major brands, only an increasing number of confusing models designed for arbitrarily designated applications.

The majority are purchased by musicians for tracking during sessions, same for engineers and they are very popular when the tracks go through the final mix and mastering process, particularly on the growing home studio front, where many DIY artists and engineers master their own CD’s.  Our number one application for the RP’s is tracking, with growing use in the HiFi market.  The RP-21 is smooth throughout the frequency bandwidth (about 20Hz-22kHz). Although they respond below and above that, the roll-off considerations make listing them useless for most practical applications.  We make fun of the ‘hype’ in the industry by listing a fantasy or some other comical response specification, because many companies list response frequencies below 10Hz, even 5Hz (more a feeling) and above 22kHz, in ranges bats and porpoises have yet to verify.

The public response for us taking the ‘let’s get real’ position has been overwhelmingly positive. Overall, the RP-21’s produce low aural and physical fatigue, generating pleasing, relatively accurate reproduction of most sources.  There’s very little ‘hype’ though some have remarked they felt the bass was augmented a bit.  We would agree except during in-house tests with similarly priced and type competitive headphones, the 21’s tend to get high marks for bass response sounding closer to a good pair of soffet mounted or larger near-field speakers in a well treated room.

However, the RP-21’s didn’t seem to deliver sufficient ‘ballistic’ response such as those associated with percussions and bass instruments requested by many extreme users, especially drummers and bass players, so we decided to create a product with those applications in mind.  We started with the RP-21 ear cups and added a higher mass diaphragm, coiled to accept more power and added a dual element ear pad that has a port or ear opening designed to compliment the acoustics and deliver more low frequency punch.  This enhanced low frequency response along with the added power handling capability provides an increase in percussive ballistics and bass signals of all types, without adding the typical sack of mud that some other competitive models reportedly add to the mix.  Bear in mind this added bass and percussive response does not compliment mixing multi-track recordings or listening to a well recorded orchestra.

RP-22X’s are not as flat or smooth as the RP-21’s, though you can boost the drum (ballistic mixes and bass instrument mixes) and rock on, The X is for extreme.  Remember to carefully elevate the volume to prevent accidental dangerous SPL- you rarely recover from nerve damage, never return to ‘good-as-new’ when you damage the tympanic membrane (ear drum), so I harp on the be responsible theme, even on the packaging.  Be kind to your ears and your future – use headphones responsibly!

The only time I prefer the 22x’s is when I want more kick and then I EQ or add the highs and mids I want to compensate for, producing quite an energetic and pleasing mix, though this is for limited use, due to prolonged higher SPL applications.

All things considered, the RP-21 and 22X headphones sell at a street price that literally blows away same priced headphones and seriously challenges many headphones that are priced higher.  That’s our mission and with these two products, and we have well achieved our goal.

——————-

Dennis’ comment: If you want us to review your stuff, send it to our office address at:

BlitzLocal LLC
1490 W 121st Ave, Suite 101
Westminster, CO 80234

We don’t guarantee that it will be a positive review, but you will get at least a PR5 link.

I was able to catch up Murray Newlands, a famous blogger. We were able to have nice about his work in affiliate marketing, and the secret behind site, Murraynewlands.com, an affiliate blog that came from nowhere and is now everywhere in Google and twitter. Not only has he some great content on his blog, but is getting picked up and noted all over the blogosphere. Google Famous Blogger and you will see his name, I even hear he is working on Celebrity Blogger!

Murray, what ideas are interesting to you at the moment?

Chris Brogan’s writing on Trust Agents hit a chord with me. I have been very successful as a blogger since launching my blog earlier this year. My SEO is great, and a large reason for this is the links that people give me. I put this down to the content which people do like, yes, but there is more to it than that. I get lots of links from some great people I know in the industry become they want to help me. I always try to help other and I have found that truly what goes around in the blogosphere comes around. You want to connect with people who will engage with you and you soon learn who can fulfill that need with you and who will not. Once you get a reputation being engaging and helping others, you are soon introduced to more people who will also interact with you. It is a virtues circle of people who help each other, and these people swim in schools.

Who are some bloggers I should be trying to connect with?

Greg Rollett http://www.rockstarlifestyledesign.com

Drew Benskpark.com

Heather Smith boatinginbeautifulbritishcolumbia.com

Joetech Joetech.com

Steve Hall Adrants.com

Shawn Collins blog.affiliatetip.com

Connie brainfoggles.com

Chris Brogan ChrisBrogan.com

Eric Schechter www.ericschechter.com

Missy Ward www.missyward.com

Rax www.raxraxrax.com

How does blogging fit in with your affiliate marketing work?

Well, I blog about my work, and writing is a great way to explore ideas and concepts as well as share industry news. It is also a good means of making new contacts within the industry many of whom I now do business with.

What fears do you have with blogging?

When I first started I was worried about what people would say about my blog, my writing, MY SPELLING. Now I am not so worried about that, what I do worry about is the people who I forget to say thank you too and the missed opportunities. There is so much going on and so little time. I also have other projects which are getting more demanding and taking me away from my blog. I am not giving up.

Footnote: Murray knows how to draw positive attention. He ranks on Dennis Yu via just one interview with me.

This is a guest blog post by Ahteram Uddin, who runs online marketing for the Times of India, the largest newspaper in the world. Yes– bigger than New York Times.

If you are into News aggregating business or your website has an industry specific News section you stand a chance to drive additional traffic from the Google News Search, which is very powerful yet simple tool to make it work for you.

I am going to tell you how to invite Google News Bot and rank your news in the Google News Search. I will try to talk about all ranking factors, best practices for the News optimization and answers to some frequently asked questions.

SEO for News

All right, so where do you find your News listed – On Google.com (or .co.in) like the one below

And on the Google News

I am sure you must have wondered at some point of time – how do these articles appear on Google and how does this work?

Well in one line I can say “Google crawls it, groups it and then rank it here” but this isn’t fair if I don’t tell you what exactly helps your News qualify for the listing and get that Free traffic and audience base. I am going to make an attempt to cover each factor in as much depth as possible.

How does Google discover my News articles?

CRAWLING- Much like Search bot, Google has these News Bots who are gonna go out to the news sites to look for the news articles. There are two ways Google retrieves these articles

1. Discovery crawl – Google sees new URLs and makes a crawl and indexes it.
2. News SiteMaps – This is a unique method of telling a News bot about your new content by including all your new URLs

If there are some articles or content that you don’t want Google to index and crawl you can always use a robots.txt file to ask them not to do so. Google respects the protocol, alternatively you can also use header tags for the same.

GROUPING- Once the articles are crawled they are brought back to the Google’s database for the grouping phase. Google has its own content classification idea, if you look at the below articles from TimesofIndia.com

In case of the above news Google looks at “Business, Sensex, BSE and Nifty” words and determines that this article belongs to business section and similarly looking at “India, Mumbai and Bombay” it makes out that this is geographically targeted to India. That’s how Google populates different editions like US, UK and India. The sections in Google News like entertainment, politics and health are also populated in the same fashion.

NEWS CLUSTER RANKING- The story ranking algorithm decides which story to place higher and then on the subsequent ranks. Once the Google is ready with the news clusters (group) it ranks them basis “Aggregated Editorial Interest”.

What (t.f.) do you mean by Aggregated Editorial Interest?

In the upper diagram what you see is small news that makes an impact on the smaller region or group of people. For example an N.G.O. is distributing free umbrellas to the poor people in New Delhi. This is a great human interest story this might be covered in a few local newspapers and a few news agencies might pick up.  This is still a small story and not showing much aggregated editorial interest as compared to the announcement of Congress (I) forming government in the center, this will not only be covered in the local newspapers, will be covered by many news agencies globally, picked up by op-ed and there will be loads of follow up articles.

Therefore due to the larger aggregated editorial interest this news cluster will be picked up the Google to be placed above the news about NGO distributing umbrellas in Delhi.

ARTICLE RANKING- Article ranking helps Google post a cluster of news articles, so let’s say if there are around 300 articles about “new government in Delhi” Google has a way to determine which one to rank first and which one to second and so within the cluster. There are several factors for an article ranking but I am going to talk about the few most critical ones-

• Fresh and new – It’s essential for the article to be recent, substantial, and original and focused to the topic. Op-ed, satire, press releases and subscription are not eligible to lead the cluster.

• Duplication and novelty detection – Google always tries to give credit to the original and the novel content. Let’s say there was an article originally done by the economictimes.com and later another article on the same topic gets published by financialtimes.com with a reference to economictimes.com original article saying this story was broken by ET and mention it as their source of information.  So now this article from ET might start ranking higher now because other people are sending reference to it quoting it as the original story.

• Local and personal relevancy – It is given weightage by section and story and more credit is given to the local sources which are likely more relevant to the news article. For example the news about NGO distributing umbrellas Google would prefer to choose Delhitimes.com rather than expressIndia.com which has all India reports.

• Trusted source – Google uses its historic data to decide what type of source works best for which section or geography. So if there are 5 stories published in a particular section and most of the people clicked the 4^th one then Google records it in its database as the most relevant source for that type of news.  Therefore over a period Google starts building a database of what type of news from what publication work best for which geography. This must be kept in mind that the trust weightage is allocated at the section level at not for the entire news source. For example economictimes.com may be more reliable source for Google news when it comes to the breaking business news but moneycontrol.com may be its favorite for the stock related searches. Similarly, WSJ could be a reliable source for the finance related news in the USA but not in India.

Q. What about News SiteMaps? What the advantage of submitting one?

Well, Google says they are not only useful to News Bot but to the webmasters as well for the following reasons:

• Provides greater control over which of your articles get publish over Google news that’s because as I mentioned above also they compliment discovery search. It tells Google exactly which articles are new and the ones to crawl.

• It helps you give Meta information about your each individual article. You can provide things like:

1. Publication date
2. Keywords – which help target your article both geographically and section-wise

This is very beneficial to large News publishers.

Q. Can Google bots visit our News URLs more than once?

The answer is YES!

Google Bot comes back to the article to find any updates, there are different crawl rates allocated to different websites depending upon their reliability, audience size, genre and geography. Google has confirmed this that they come back to find any update to the article within 12 Hrs of the first discovery.

Q. I have News content which is not just the text. I have videos and images too. How do I optimize them to appear in the News section?

Optimizing multimedia content:

Video content – You can create a Youtube video channel. Google says that they are in the process of supporting other platform like Metacafe etc. but it may take a while. Youtube is a trusted source therefore if you get visitors your videos would rank on top of the Google news as well.  Remember to include rich textual description and transcripts every time you submit a video to Google as it helps them identify the category and geography of the video.

Images – There are five tips Google gave for the image optimization to get them included in the News Search

1. Use a large size image with good aspect ratio
2. Descriptive captions and alt text
3. Keep the image as close as possible to the title
4. Keep it Inline, don’t make it a clickable one
5. Google prefers JPEG

Q. Does it help to achieve better ranking in news searches if I have higher PageRank?

Google says PR plays a very small role in deciding the rank for a news article as compared to what it does for the regular web search. There is a simple reason for this – it really doesn’t make sense to compare the linking structure an article which was published minutes ago with the one which has been floating for years. PageRank has been used in determining a news rank but very delicately. These are those other factors we spoke about earlier like timeliness, freshness and relevancy to a category etc.

BEST PRACTICES – Here are couple of best practices indicated by the Google

1. Keep unique permanent URLs with at least 3 digits
2. Do not break up the article body, keep the entire news on a single page
3. Put date between the article and body
4. Titles matter, always keep an extremely indicative title of the story
5. Separate News articles from the press release by using a directory structure
6. Publish unique and informative content, if you get news from an agency try re-writing in your own words

A guest blog post by Velina Lujan, a Boulder massage therapist and BlitzLocal client.

Questions to ask Yourself before interviewing Massage Therapists:

1. What do I want out of the session?
2. Do you want to just de-stress, work out some really big knots, focus on an injury or a  combination of things?
3. Do you like to chit chat or do you want to be silent and just let go during your session?
4. Do you like to feel nurtured and cared for in a session or are you a no-nonsense client that just want to get the work done?
5. Every therapist has their strengths and weaknesses and just like in romance, there is someone for everyone in the bodywork world.
6. Getting clear on your needs and desires before interviewing will give you a much better chance to finding that perfect therapist.

As a massage therapists who hires therapists for my business, and a very picky client, I always look for these qualities. Having been highly successful myself in my practice offering these qualities, I believe that this is what delivers a great massage, every time!

First and foremost, are they warm, open-hearted and confident, yet humble? The worst massages I ever got were from therapists who had every certification in the books and many years of experience but were cocky, rigid and ego-centric. They had their way of giving a massage, their idea of what worked and what was best for me and didn’t listen to what I was asking for. Some of the best massages I have received were from therapists that just graduated or went to alternative training. They listened openly and were flexible and willing to do what it took to make me comfortable. Years of experience and a diverse background are wonderful and that can bring a lot to the session if they are service-oriented and attentive.

Ask the therapist what their ideal client is. This may throw them off but will give you a good sense of who they are and how they approach their work. If the answer is too rigid and doesn’t sound at all like you, that is a good clue that it is probably not a good fit.

Trust your gut. This is a person who will be touching your naked body for a full hour or more. Do you like the sound of their voice and the feeling that you get when you talk with them? Do they sound genuinely interested in you and what you are needing? Are they asking you questions and listening to your answers?

The truth is, you can’t be completely sure until you actually get the massage, but the biggest mistake most people make is that they don’t tell the therapist what they want or how they are feeling, such as “OUCH! Don’t do that! It hurts!!” Or, “OH YEAH!! DEEPER PLEASE!!!”

Just remember, the therapist can’t be expected to read your mind, and no body is the same. So if they are a good therapist, they are going to want to know. They are at your service, and you are probably paying them a lot of money. You are the boss of your body and they are there to honor you and your needs, not be the expert and do their thing.

Wishing you a wonderful massage experience.

Velina Lujan, MA, CMT, CDH

Owner

Stress Management Services