SiteSell Blog

Come Celebrate at SiteSell Facebook!

How to Build an E-Business

Let the celebration begin! The SiteSell Facebook community has reached an exciting milestone - 10,000 "Likes" and growing!

As a thank you for everyone's enthusiastic support, there's a special 3-day event happening. It has two exciting parts...

1) Comment SurPRIZE

We'll be giving a variety of mystery prizes for your comments. The surPRIZEs? They all depend on the who-what-when-where-why-how of your comments.

2) The Buy-1-Get-1-Free SBI! Special

Use this super deal to start your own long term profitable e-business... and help someone else to achieve the same financial freedom!

For full details, please visit SiteSell Facebook...

http://www.facebook.com/SiteSell/posts/190700744301146

"ITAS!" Don't Be Evil?

Ken's Blog

In a recent post, I talked about how Google is the master manipulator of the press. I was planning to follow that up with a 10 year case study of how brilliantly Google has managed the media.

However, as so often happens on the Web, I was distracted. This time, it was an e-mail from a friend. He is what I call a "regular" person, not an "Internet marketer." We tend to forget the gigantic chasm between "them" and "us."

However, there he was, commenting on content farms and their incredibly ridiculous material.

When regular people start noticing Google flaws, red alarms blare at Google. New "algorithms" are released to much fanfare. The "searching masses" are reassured and Google's all-important public perception is, once again, safe.

Collateral damage of "the fix"? It is merely the cost of doing business. Google does not even pay that price. The "little guy" does.

Why Are Testimonials Like Potato Chips?

Digital & Hard Goods

What’s the biggest single factor your visitor will look for if she decides your product is just what she wants?

Your credibility.

Overcome any fears and doubts convincingly by telling her what your present customers have experienced.

Testimonials are incredibly persuasive. If you can get your visitor to read a testimonial, you have jumped quite a bit ahead in your sales effort. And testimonials are like potato chips... once you eat one, you want another and another and another.

The keys to an effective testimonial are...

Want More E-zine Subscribers? Be Valuable!

PREselling

Publishing an e-zine is a great way to further establish your credibility, build trust and establish a rapport with your audience. Ongoing communication keeps your website in the forefront of your visitor's mind, ensuring that s/he will return to it time and time again to check your updates and business offerings. So...

How do you overcome your visitor's skepticism and entice him or her to sign up for your e-zine?...

Do You Know Your "Backup Response"?

E-Business Tips

What's in the future for those who leave your website? Not you or your website... not unless you put your business into their futures. 

The reality is, unless you provide "Backup Responses," they won't return to your site even if they like and bookmark it.

It's nothing personal. It's simply a big Web out there... and they "might as well see something new!"

So offer a Backup Response, one that delivers a free benefit to your visitor...

Google Farmer's False-Negatives and eHow.com Let's Get Some Examples

Ken's Blog

A friend sent me an article that cracked me up. Someone was making fun of content farms.

So if you ever wanted to strike gold (or even if you didn't) - if you want to understand what a content farm is - read this post...

http://thecontentfarm.tumblr.com/post/3742445338/how-to-strike-gold

The author also makes an important (and equally hilarious) announcement - a brand new website dedicated to "the content farm"...

http://thecontentfarm.tumblr.com/post/3764246620/the-content-farm-launches-new-website-deserves-many

The new site's at...

http://www.thecontentfarm.net/

Hilarious stuff. It's all a parody, of course.

Content farms aren't really that bad, are they? Could they?

Are You Paying for Plagiarism or Quality Content?

Content & Article Writing

Be sure you are not buying plagiarism if you outsource content. You become legally responsible.

First, you should have a basic agreement in place that includes a point that all material submitted is original, does not violate anyone else's copyright and that they have the sole right to sell it to you, and that they are selling it exclusively to you.

This is a key clause. It makes them legally responsible to you.

Make Your Writing Feel Like a Welcoming Handshake

PREselling

The goal of good writing is to communicate... to build relationships with your audience.

All day long, in your "offline life," you do exactly that. You PREsell yourself. You build your personal "offline brand of one." This is the image that people have of you. Building a "brand of one" is just as easy to do online through your writing.

Relax. There is no mystery to good writing. No secret society. No smoke and mirrors...

Google, Master Manipulator of the Press

Ken's Blog

As I look back at the frenzy of activity after Google's Pap/Farmer/Panda release, the overall conclusion is that Google did some good with this algorithm, knocking many content duplicators and paraphrasers out of the Search Engine Results Pages ("SERPs").

That, of course, is good for quality sites of all sizes.

I've been a big fan of Google's for as long as I can remember. But there's a negative buzz lately. I believe it originates, partly from Google's DNA and partly from a conscious manipulation of the press. This post discusses the latter...

What bothers me about this release is how perfectly Google manipulated the agenda from the very beginning. And no one from the mass media really pressed them on it.

Start with Google's announcement of their algorithm.

The Google post can be summarized by these 2 following passages...

Google's Big Pap Attack, Part 2

Ken's Blog

This was not supposed to be Part 2. It was not supposed to exist at all, actually. But adding this is the only way I can help things make sense to those impacted by the other half of what Google is attempting to do... at the same time, it released its algorithm to fight content farms (except ehow.com -- it seems ehow.com is not a pap-churner, after all, despite the clear impression to the opposite of thousands of knowledge surfers and Blekko's inclusion of it on their blacklist -- but I digress).

Google launched Google Recipes at the same time as they launched their "content farm" algorithm to root out pap. If you have not followed the content farm story, start here...

http://blog.sitesell.com/sitesell/2011/02/googles-big-pap-attack-part-1.html

(Read the background posts that I link to in that post.)

If you have not followed the Google Recipes story, start here...

http://blog.sitesell.com/sitesell/2011/03/want-a-no-paying-data-entry-job-at-google-recipes.html

It's a fascinating story of exclusion of the "individual" followed by the coercion of same. Well worth the read.

Now, for those with recipe sites, put that fact aside for a moment...