https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/387549718

 Thanks!

We look forward to your attendance!

Michael & Adam

We have some great announcements, and some great freebies for you, so let’s get to it!

Live Training

In case you didn’t see our email or forum post on Feb. 10th, we mentioned that we were looking to start providing free live training, and asked for your feedback – suggestions on what you would most like to see us go over.

The response was strong (thanks to those that took the time to post or email us) and gave us a good picture of where many of you are, and your current needs.

We’re now ready to begin. We’ll be offering training 2x per month, on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays. The first one will be this coming Thursday, February 23rd, at 9pm EST, and run for 1 hour. We’ll be sending out a link to sign up on Monday.

These training sessions are 100% free. We will do the live training, followed by a Q&A period for questions, comments, etc.

Please note: we want to accommodate everyone to the best of our abilities, but with some of you in almost every time zone, it’s tough to do. One option we’re considering going forward is to stagger the times – have every-other-session at opposite times for instance.

Based on the responses to our email asking what topics would be most worthwhile, we compiled a list and totaled the requests for each.

By a significant margin, the two most frequently requested topics – with almost the same number of requests for each – were niche & keyword research, and backlinking / rank-building. A large number of the niche & keyword research requests included competitive analysis.

After those, the topics of using social media, alternative traffic methods, and outsourcing were roughly tied for second.

Throughout the responses there were many requests along the lines of ‘going through the steps to research & build a site’, do a ‘case study’, and ‘walk through the entire process’.

Based on your feedback, we’re going to try something: we’re going to actually research, build, rank, monetize, then flip a new site. This will give us some framework for how to structure the training, and topics. It may not be in the exact order we do it in the courses, since we’ll want to cover some topics early on, but I think we can do it this way pretty effectively.

We’ll begin the first session by going over niche research & selection, choose a niche to use, then go over keyword research, including some competitive analysis, developing our site’s keyword phrase group through the process.

In that first session, we will spend a little time talking about backlinking since it was one topic that was most requested, and because it’s undergone so much change over the last year.

Subsequent sessions will include content development & outsourcing, setting up & optimally configuring a WordPress blog, optimizing the site, developing & implementing a social media strategy, backlinking & getting the site ranked, pursuing alternate traffic sources, and finally flipping the site.

Look for an email on Monday, with a link to sign up. The space will be limited, and a lot of people want to attend, so make sure to sign up early. I can promise you an exciting, informative, and actionable training series!

R100k

Thanks to all of you for your patience – “Reference $100k Blueprint” has been ‘in development’ for quite some time, and I’ve missed or extended my deadlines many times, yet no one has blasted me – well, not too badly, anyway…

This Monday or Tuesday, we’ll be posting a ‘pre-release’ version on our forum (if you’re not on our forum yet, this is one more good reason to join). Then on Wednesday or Thursday, the “1.0″ release will be sent out to everyone (actually, you’ll get a link to download it).

What you’ll be getting is essentially a guide, “How to succeed as an Internet Marketer in 2012 and beyond”. Inside, you’ll get clear, concise explanations of Panda, the current state of the ‘regular’ search algorithm, what you need to know regarding the most significant ‘rules & regs’ such as the FTC guidelines, etc. This will include what tactics & strategies to avoid, and how to ‘future-proof’ your existing efforts.

You’ll also be getting a breakdown of precisely what business models you need to focus on, including mobile, social, post-Panda SEO, and more, along with specific strategies, such as ‘mobile opportunities to pursue now’, and ‘the right ways to build, monetize, and leverage social media’. There will also be some eye-opening perspectives on the near-term future, and how to be out in front in these new or changing areas.

Cool Free Stuff

I’ll admit it, though I spend a LOT of time in, and talking about, the whole “Internet Marketing 2.0″ world, I haven’t done as good a job as I should on implementing it all. For instance, though we send out tweets whenever we update our blog, I haven’t been terribly active with Twitter. And I need to be, just as I suggest you should be.

And so it comes as no surprise that there wasn’t a huge response to my tweet of Feb. 14th, so I’ll include it here:

“Free, easy, & effective – what could be better? Wonderful tool for boosting traffic, rankings, & tracking engagement: http://www.tynt.com”

Tynt is an extremely clever app that tracks user engagement on your site by tracking copy and paste activity, and automatically adds a link back to your content when it is pasted somewhere else. Trust me when I say, this one is worth checking out. Click on the link above, and watch the minute and a half video – the what, how, and why will be very clear.

More Cool Free Stuff

I don’t know about you, but after years and years of being online, I’ve ended up with a LOT of bookmarks – sites that were interesting or useful enough to bookmark. But with so many bookmarks, a lot of stuff gets ‘lost’ – too many sites, many of them badly labeled.

Recently I started ‘exploring’ my bookmarks, and came across some real gems:

Mikes Marketing Tools

http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/

This site has been around forever (2002). I remember when I discovered it – and it quickly became one of my most visited sites. There’s a section “Free Marketing Tools” (http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/free-marketing-tools.html) that has some excellent keyword tools – managing and manipulating keyword lists, doing a lot of things that otherwise take way too long to do manually.

One of my favorites on the site however is the “Marketing Forum Watch” which displays searchable headlines from 30 IM and SEO forums, updated every 5 minutes:

http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/marketing-forum/

Free Logo’s & Banner Graphics

Cooltext (http://cooltext.com/) was one of my go-to sites whenever I needed quick-but-cool button, logo, or banner. It’s simple, fast, and works.

FreeWebPageHeaders (http://www.freewebpageheaders.com/) is a collection of ready-made website page headers – great for pages, new sites, ads, etc.

Flaming Text (http://www.flamingtext.com/) is almost a combination of the two above – a free logo & banner generator, but with some very sophisticated capabilities.

As always, we really appreciate you – whether you’ve bought stuff from us, downloaded a free report, or simply want to hear what we have to say and learn about upcoming products.

We take that seriously, and will never bombard you with useless pitches. Come to think about it, there’s nothing for sale in this newsletter! The only time we’ll talk about a paid product or service is when we feel it’s legitimately an excellent product or service, at a great price.

Sincerely,

Michael & Adam

In this new “Internet Marketing 2.0″ world, we’re seeing more critical and more frequent changes in how sites are ranked, how and where traffic is generated,  and the viability & success of monetization methods.

Way back in the “1.0 Dark Ages” of internet marketing – before 2011 -  many of us focused on traffic & conversions from the perspective of “more”, often to the exclusion of anything else – even ‘user experience’. For better or worse, things have changed; not only will this perspective no longer work, it can have serious and long-lasting repercussions.

(Note: the main focus of our soon-to-be-released ‘R100k’ is how to achieve success in this new “Internet Marketing 2.0” world.)

In order to compete & win going forward, we must shift our perspective, making ‘quality user experience’ the driving factor in our businesses. It may sound hokey or ‘old fashioned’, but this ‘new world’ will increasingly reward ‘quality user experience’, and penalize ‘poor user experience’.

But how exactly does that translate when we create our websites, and how do it while simultaneously optimizing for traffic & conversions?

While we’ve touched on some of these issues on our forum, there has been a spate of posts driven by Google’s recent ‘page layout’  algorithm update announcement (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html). Google understands that any way you slice it, their goal of  ‘quality user experience’ must take into account the landing page. Whether that’s the homepage, or sub-pages optimized to rank for specific searches or keywords, if it doesn’t provide a ‘quality user experience’, Google doesn’t want it to rank well. One obvious characteristic of a ”low quality’ page is a ‘low quality’ layout, a page that doesn’t quickly and decisively provide the ‘answer’ to a search that brings it up.

For this recent algo announcement, Google is targeting “ad heavy” pages – those pages that have a high ad-to-content ratio above the fold (the part of a page that’s visible when you first visit). Of course, there are other factors such as clear navigation and page load time that impact the ‘quality’ of a page or site. – obviously a page that takes forever to load, or a site that makes it difficult to get around is not of very high quality.

However, perhaps the biggest ‘quality’ factor is the harder-to-quantify ‘content quality’. This is why Google posted questions for webmasters to ask themselves, to “step into Google’s mindset” in understanding what they want to see: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html.

Search Engine Land recently posted an article that can help further understand ‘Google’s mindset’.

The article is an interview with a Google Quality Rater. For those not familiar, Google employs a few thousand “Quality Raters” who’s job is to manually rate webpages, search listings, etc. This became ‘big news’ when the “Quality Rater’s Guidelines” document was leaked, once in 2009, and again recently.

Just to be clear, these ‘Raters’ have no impact on a site’s listing or ranking, and has nothing to do with a Google team ‘Manual Review’ where someone from Google actually looks at a site and takes action on it.

It’s worth understanding what they do and why – I’ve also excerpted a few things from the article that I thought worth highlighting. You can read the article at: http://searchengineland.com/interview-google-search-quality-rater-108702

The job of these ‘Quality Raters’ is two-fold. First, to ‘manually’ rate a site on some particular criteria, so that Google can see whether their algorithm is producing results consistent with what a real person would think. Second, as changes to the algorithm are considered and rolled out, these ‘Raters’ do a side-by-side evaluation of search results before & after the change, to score whether the change has the desired improvement.

What I found particularly interesting and highlighted below were the perspective of these ‘Raters’ regarding quality and user experience. Note that sites are rated in relation to a search query, with one of five ratings being assigned: vital, useful, relevant, slightly relevant, or useless.

Keeping in mind that these are closely synonymous with the actual algorithm, it gives you good insight into what you should be shooting for with your sites and pages. In other words, ‘reverse engineer’ these answers to see what you should be doing in terms of content, layout, etc.:

Can you share a specific example of one of your recent tasks?

I can’t think of the exact URLs I rated, but the keyword was “Nike Women’s Running Shoes.” It gave me a list of 20 URLs to rate and I visited each one in order to determine whether they were vital, useful, relevant, slightly relevant, or useless. With a recognized brand name like that, it wasn’t hard to determine quality. For example, I think the Nike site was one of the options, so that would get a “vital” rating. I remember a couple of sites sold the shoes, so I gave them a “useful” rating and the Wikipedia entry on Nike was giving a rating of “slightly relevant” because I believe not many people searching for Nike Women’s Running Shoes want a history of the company.

When you click through from a Google search result page, what are you looking for on the web page that you visit?

When looking at a site, I always check for spam signals first — keyword stuffing, hidden text, sneaky redirects, and the like. Once I know it’s a good site, I start to look at the page as a person who would type the query in Google and whether or not the content on the page would help me fulfill my needs.

Do you ever look at the source code or anything like that? Are Raters asked or trained to look at source code of the web pages being rated?

There is a quick primer on looking at the source code in the guidelines, nothing in depth. Basically we look for hidden keywords and other spammy tactics discussed in the guidelines.

You mentioned URL rating tasks and Side-by-Side tasks, but also some that involve design and layout. What are those tasks like?

Design tasks ask if the page has a good ratio of main content, supplemental content, and ads. It also asks about the overall design, is it easy to read, clear communication of information, and the like. It’s not about whether the page is beautiful or amazing, but whether or not the normal user could find what they need on the page without getting lost.

———-

From this we can begin to shift our own mindset; instead of concentrating on how to maximize rankings & conversions,  we’ll do much better to focus on how to maximize the experience our visitors have. This will have the added benefit not just of helping our rankings, but of providing stronger long-term sustainability all around.

Welcome to this ‘Part 2′ newsletter (I sent out a note before the weekend, since I was going to be out of town for a few days – this is the actual newsletter).

As mentioned, we will be sending out at least one newsletter per week, and promise you to keep it mostly, if not all, informational.

Today we’re going to look at some extremely significant Google changes – yep, more Google changes… – and what it means. We’ll also talk about some new, updated guidelines you can use with your various sites and ranking efforts. Finally, I’ll update you on ‘R100k’, and out efforts at a consulting offer.

“Search Plus Your World” – Personalized Search

Last week (Jan. 10), Google announced something they call “Search, plus Your World”. Active when you are logged into a Google account, it should be fully rolled-out over the next few days.

(Here’s an excellent slide show / tutorial from The Washington Post explaining it: http://wapo.st/weaCwL

“Search, plus Your World” is an effort to combine ‘regular’ search, with things that are part of your ‘circles’ and social connections. This means, among other things, that you may see search results that include items that have been shared with you personally, or are prominent through your social connections, rather than simply because they ranked for your search.

One ‘side effect’ – and the main point of this post – is the further implementation of “personalized search”. With increasingly personalized search, efforts at ranking – and in fact the whole notion of “ranking” requires some re-thinking.

It used to be that we could do a search, see who the top ranking pages are, and target ranking efforts at getting those top spots. But what if there is no “top spot”? Increasingly, a “top spot” might be different for me than it is for you – in other words, my “Page 1 ranking” may not be a “Page 1 ranking” for everyone. The sites on Page 1 may be different for you than they are for me, or for someone else. This creates a dilemma – how do I get a “top ranking” when some entries are there because someone in my social circle was interested in them, rather than on their “ranking strength”?

The answer is, we do much the same as we’ve done before – with the newer awareness of the importance of “social signals”, and building our “social engagement”.

Going forward into this new “Internet Marketing 2.0″ world means, among other things, that we have to put some significant time, effort, and resources into understanding and building “social engagement”.

“Social Signals”

The term “social signals” refers to the ‘social factors’ are being used (not just by Google, and in fact not just search engines) to give us ranking, authority, reputation, etc. These include things like Facebook “likes”, Google Plus “+1′s”, Twitter mentions, and numerous types of “citations“.

(In this context, “citations” are ‘mentions’. These can be reviews posted somewhere that mention our page, comments left somewhere such as on an IYP – “Internet Yellow Pages” – site, local or Google Places listing, etc. In other words, a mention of our page or site somewhere on the internet.)

In many respects, these “social signals” are becoming the “new backlinks”, meaning they are increasingly becoming the ‘votes’ that backlinks used to be for giving us ranking & authority.

And so we want to begin building our “social engagement” in order to increase & boost these “social signals” for ourselves.

How do we do this specifically? We can begin by insuring we have entries on Facebook, Google Pages, and a Twitter account. Other ‘social media’ sites can increase our ‘social engagement’ as well – sites such as linkedin.com. We can build out this base by seeing where others, particularly our competitors, are. Twitter makes it easy to see who is ‘following’ whom, who is mentioning whom, etc. We can similarly ‘backtrack’ through Facebook, Linkedin, etc.

We also need to promote social engagement with our readers/subscribers/etc. This means, if you haven’t already, putting ‘badges’ at least for the top social engagement sites on our sites. Facebook ‘like’ button, Google ‘+1′ badge, Twitter ‘tweet’ button, etc.

IMPORTANT: Google’s whole ‘social engagement / social media’ effort is becoming more and more central to all-things-Google. If you haven’t created a Google+ page, create one, and if your website’s pages don’t have G+ buttons, add them.

It’s free, easy, and you should have already had one anyway. In fact, you can set one up for each primary business/website (not for every site, but every specific rank-building or monetizing site effort – which you should also be doing with Facebook, Twitter, etc).

A good, free ‘social share’ plugin that will integrate those ‘core’ important social media sites for you can be had here:

http://bit.ly/pvvZ1w

This will generate badges/buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, and integrate them into your blog.

We can take this a step further by actively pursuing social engagement – asking for ‘likes’, ‘tweets’, etc., even incentivizing them. A commonly used and effective tactic is to simply include in all of our posts & articles something to the effect of “Please share/like/+1 this article”, or offering an incentive such as a download, discount, or exclusive in return for a ‘like’ or ‘tweet’.

As search – and the rest of the internet – evolves into this “2.0″ world, we will never again have as direct ‘control’ over some things as we’ve been accustomed to i.e. creating backlinks. It’s harder to gain these ‘soft’ votes or points, and harder to measure them. But this is where things are going, and quickly. On the plus side, we have opportunities to move forward faster than many others simply by recognizing, and acting on, these changes now, before the rest of the world ‘catches up’.

New Guidelines That You Want To Use!

We get many questions on the forum to the effect of “with all the changes going on, Panda, etc., should we still ‘xxxxx’?” You can substitute that ‘xxxxx’ for ‘still use this backlinking strategy, still use this content strategy, etc.

We’re working on some updated guidelines that we’ll be sending out to you, but in the meantime here are a few specifics to work with now:

Backlinking. As mentioned in A100k V2 and T100k, the most important backlinking tactic today is guest blogging. This is simply finding good, relevant sites, contacting them, and offering to create articles for them in return for a link in the article.

We posted an excellent guest blogging resource; this can get you guest blogging gigs if you don’t want to do the research yourself:

http://myblogguest.com/

Here is a post from problogger.net on some do’s, don’t's, and general tips:

http://bit.ly/4wCOQb

There were some questions such as “Do we consider UAW (or BMR, etc) as guest blogging?

The answer is, no. Though some of those article distribution services end up getting you something very similar, with guest blogging you are (ideally) sending an article to a blog or site that doesn’t have a ton of sometimes-questionable articles on it already.

Content. Can’t stress this one enough: do NOT use copied, scraped, unmodified PLR, or poorly-spun content on your sites. Just say no. Not only won’t it help you at all, it very well may hurt you. And since more and more page problems generate site-wide hits, you don’t want to do this anywhere on your site.

Those of you who are spinning, make sure you spin to at least 50% ‘uniqueness’, and that the resulting articles READ WELL, meaning they don’t sound or feel like machine-generated, spun content. The resulting articles should sound like well-written, quality articles. If you’re spinning well and carefully, and still not getting good results, re-consider the source you’re starting with.

Look & Feel / Layout. Be careful with ‘over-monetized’ sites. Particularly if you’re using something other than our Adsense themes, DO NOT have a lot of monetization – ads, affiliate links, or offers – above the fold (the visible part of your site when you first land on it). The homepage, particularly above the fold, should be look and feel like a content site first and foremost.

Consulting Offers

If you’ve seen the ‘mock-up’ page we have (http://bit.ly/w3Abat), you’ve seen the basics of a consulting offer we’re putting together. Though there will be some minor changes, it’s pretty close to what we’ll be offering, and expect to open it up on a limited basis within the next few weeks.

Separately, I have been considering re-opening a “consulting / coaching” offer that I do on occasion for corp. clients, and occasionally for individuals.

What I had been doing intermittently – mostly between course/book projects – is to take on a very limited number of coaching / consulting agreements. I divide these between corp. clients, and individuals. Unfortunately, I’m usually pretty maxed out with corp. clients, but mid-2010 made a commitment to try and set aside more time for individuals.

In the past, I’ve had the most success with individuals using a goal-oriented consulting/coaching plan. The basic plan is a 10-12 week arrangement that includes an initial consultation where we go over the ‘where you’re at, what your objectives are’, etc., then come up with a specific plan & set of objectives. I then put together a preliminary ‘action plan’ outline to get from point a – where you’re at – to point b – your objectives/goals. We go over that, then set out on a 10-12 week initiative to build the foundation, and get everything in place to reach the stated goals, including the first couple of months of implementation. Over those weeks, we get together once or twice each week to discuss where things are at, learn, answer questions, etc., while progressing along with the ‘action plan’. At the end, I put together a ‘going forward action plan’ for continuing towards your goals. I’m available throughout the initial term, and pretty much anytime afterwards for questions, issues & obstacles, etc. The cost is $1500, and I limit myself to 4 gigs at a time – two individual efforts, and two corp. clients (those have a much different pricing arrangement). Price-wise, I figure it out to be approx. $35-50/hr. for the time I put in between the one-on-one time, ‘action plan’ particulars, tracking, ‘trouble-shooting’, etc, which is not a price point I try to do anything else at

I’ll probably take on 2-3 personal clients shortly; let me know if this is something you’d like to discuss further. I have a list of interested parties, and it’s generally on a first-come basis once I make slots available.

“Reference $100k Blueprint”

As I’m sure you’ve realized, it’s taking us a bit longer than originally anticipated to get this out the door. Part of the reason is that there have been so many significant changes happening, and we wanted to insure the initial guide is as current and useful as possible. We’ve already created the ‘cut-off’, and will include newer info and changes into the first of the monthly updates. As a result, we’ve been able to get to the final editing/proofing stage. I expect to have the initial pre-launch draft available to you before next week.

I promise you it will be worth the wait!

Sincerely,

Michael & Adam

Once we reached the point where significant sums could be made by targeting individual keywords & phrases, the ‘game’ was on. In the “early days”, when the sophistication of search was considerably lower, it was possible to gain top rankings through simple tactics such as keyword stuffing. As search evolved, the effort required evolved with it.

Since the value of a top listing can be huge, and grows along with the general growth of internet usage, a whole cottage industry of keyword ranking has grown up in the internet marketing industry. Along with various keyword and website tools, products such as George Brown’s “Google Sniper” and “Google Sniper 2″, and John James Robinson’s (‘xfactor’) “Micro Niche Adsense Course” exploited these opportunities with courses in how to build and rank these ‘single-keyword-focused’ sites “quickly & easily”.

The main strategy revolved around researching long-tail ‘buying’ keywords (or alternately ‘product name’ of ‘product model #’ keywords), building a small site around the product and the specific keyword phrase, and – in theory, anyway – getting it ranked on Page 1 . More specifically, there were a slew of keyword research methods and programs designed to find those terms and phrases with sufficient search volume and “commercial intent”. This gave an approximate sense of their ‘value’, whether it was the CPC (“Cost per Click”) for Adsense, or the value and likelihood of a sale (as in “Nikon D7000″). From there, these methods generally translated as using the chosen term in the page title (title tag), article title (H1 tag), and throughout the body. Finally, build enough exact-match anchor-text backlinks, and you had yourself a Page 1 – maybe even #1 listing.

Even beyond the internet marketing cash-grab products, the more “traditional” SEO methods varied little: optimize for specifically-chosen keywords using page, title, and H1 tags, and generate anchor-text backlinks.

Since Google unleashed “Panda” however, this is no longer a viable strategy. In fact, ranking for individual keywords by itself is a failed strategy; this new, emerging “2.0″ environment requires an entirely different strategic focus. Of course you can still rank for individual keywords, but that’s now a function of a broader set of circumstances, and if you don’t understand them, you’ll have a difficult time of it. Worse, you might find yourself getting penalized.

It isn’t terribly hard to discern “keyword-ranking optimization” efforts. Most of us could look at a page and determine if, and for what keywords, the page is optimized to rank for. So how hard would it be for Google to do the same thing, even algorithmically? Don’t let occasional appearances or hearsay fool you: Google is a VERY smart animal. And with Panda, Google has begun addressing many of these, and other ‘obvious offenses’.

So What’s A Marketer To Do?

The answer, in a word, is “Content Marketing”.

We begin with some new suppositions: first, single-keyword-focused sites ala “Google Sniper” and “X-factor” micro-niche sites don’t work. Does this mean small, ‘micro-niche’ sites should be avoided or don’t work? Certainly not; our own “Adsense $100k Blueprint” course teaches how to do ‘micro-niche’ sites properly (it’s worth noting, the course is over a year old, and some of the sites used to develop it predate the course by two years, yet none have been “Pandalized”. In fact, with the exception of those sites that we’ve completely neglected, all have maintained their rankings and revenues).

The key here is “micro-niche”, or more precisely “niche”, rather than “single-keyword-focused”. The sites we build and teach, and most others that have maintained their rankings, are true “niche” sites, meaning they focus on a narrow topical interest; the content, layout, and ranking focus is a broader niche-relevant “keyword phrase group” rather than a single keyword.

Which brings us to the next supposition: theme relevance. By this I don’t mean a WordPress ‘theme’, I mean ‘theme’ as in ‘niche’ or ‘topic’. Successfully ranking keywords requires that the effort be a broader ‘thematic’ focus. Beyond the single-keyword-focused sites, a good red flag indicator of ‘keyword ranking manipulation’ for Google is the “variations” keyword group. We’ve all seen these, sites like “www.bright-green-widgets.com” with a page each devoted to “bright green widgets”, “widgets that are bright green”, “green widgets that are very bright”, etc.

A ‘legitimate’ topical niche site doesn’t look like this. Instead, it might have pages such as “bright green widgets”, “history of widget-making”, “choosing a widget color”, and “bright versus plain widgets”. In our courses, we teach looking for niche opportunities rather than keyword opportunities. The research to find and assess these niches eventually leads to a “seed” keyword, what we refer to as an “umbrella term”. It’s the main or primary keyword phrase that essentially describes what the site will be about, and ‘under’ which all the other keywords come.

By way of example, an early site we developed was CNA Training Class.

I had been researching the ‘Vocational Training & Careers’ niche, looking for what I term “secondary” niches and “secondary” keywords. I use that term to imply the less-than-obvious high-competition niches that are often chosen, looking instead for opportunities ‘under’ or ‘below’ the obvious big ones.

In this case, while poking around various career training and certification programs, I came across a keyword phrase “CNA training” that eventually led to that ‘Grand Slam’ site – sold for $32,500 100 days after registering the domain, reaching over $300/day by 9 months. It fit the bill as a ‘secondary’ phrase & niche: it wasn’t a ‘mainstream’ target, but there are a lot of people interested in the area – meaning good search volume, and good “commercial intent”.

With the chosen niche of “certified nursing assistant” and the keyword “CNA training” as my ‘umbrella phrase’, I began developing a ‘keyword phrase group’ – keywords that fit under the main term. Phrases such as “CNA skills test”, “Red Cross CNA training”, and “certified nursing assistance degree” became my ‘keyword ranking targets’. As a result, I ended up with a thematically tight, relevant niche site, with each post & article supporting the others (the appropriate keyword phrases fit naturally in the content throughout).

My backlinking efforts for the most part remained relevant – articles, social bookmarking, Web 2.0 sites, etc. Building backlinks became innately relevant because I used relevant content and went after backlink opportunities that I had some control over i.e. Web 2.0 sites that I would build, making sure to populate them with content that was either in the vocational training & career niches, or the medical & healthcare niches. Articles followed the same topics, meaning my ‘in-content’ links were automatically relevant.

And as a result of that, I was able to get top rankings for my chosen keywords.

Going forward, with the additional ‘burden’ of Panda, we have to be even more careful in our keyword ranking efforts. Those days of succeeding by using software automation to generate hundreds or thousands of low-value blog comments, for instance, or paid packages of thousands of ‘profile links’, are gone. Worse, doing so can definitely hurt us.

On-page, we still want to include the target phrase in the title, page, and H1 tags, but no longer want them all to be “exact match”. Using “dog training collars” as an example, the page title might be “dog training collars”, while the article or post title and/or H1 tag might be “The best dog training collars”, or “Collars used for dog training”. Also, having more than a few instances of the exact phrase is no longer necessary, and again might hurt us.

Guest blogging, private article & blog networks, on-topic Web 2.0 sites, forums, and blogs – these are the areas to stick to for backlinks.

As for the keywords themselves, keep them thematically related (but not those obvious ranking-target variations). A great resource is your Google Webmaster Tools account. It will tell you what keywords your site is already being shown for. Look for the ones that have high volume that you aren’t directly targeting, and use the lower-volume ones within the body of new site content, which in most cases will get you improved rankings just like that.

There have already been some huge changes, or “shifts” in the Internet Marketing space this past year – chief among them Google’s “Panda” updates, but many others such as the Federal Trade Commission bans.

As big as they are, however, they’re just the “tip” of what’s about to happen. Everything – really, everything – is about to change. I don’t mean an algorithm change / update, or a TOS change, I mean everything.

And not just at Google.

What follows is a report I wrote entitled “Disruptive Correction, and the Death Of Internet Marketing”. It describes and explains what is undoubtedly the most significant change in internet marketing since the field began, the death of “Internet Marketing 1.0″

Please Note: This is a very long post. Here is a link to download the report as a PDF. I encourage you to distribute and share the report freely: http://www.100kblueprint.com/correction_report.pdf

Disruptive Correction, and the Death Of Internet Marketing

Introduction

Internet Marketing and the wider internet economy is about to change forever. The days of overnight internet millions are already gone. And the remaining days of “easy money” are numbered.

This isn’t a ‘scare tactic’, and I’m not trying to sell you anything. But for those involved in internet marketing, you are about to see everything – and I mean everything – change. With the right information, you’ll have an advantage few have ever had. Without it, you simply won’t succeed.

In the next few pages, I’ll tell you what is about to happen, explain the “what” and “why” so that you’ll know what to expect, then tell you what you can do to be among those few who were in the “right place at the right time”.

Where We Are, and How We Got Here

In the span of just 20 years, the internet has become the largest economic ecosystem the planet has ever seen.

In that time, the newly-minted field of internet marketing has provided an unprecedented opportunity for almost anyone to earn thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of dollars online.

Because the nature of the internet created that “even playing field” where anyone can launch a website,  the barriers to entry for making substantial money online have been incredibly low: for as little as $10 – $20 (the cost to get a hosting account and register a domain) and a few hours researching the latest search engine ranking techniques or marketing tactics, internet marketers have been able siphon off a disproportionate funnel of revenue.

Much of this revenue comes from search traffic – millions of consumers using the search engines to find answers and solve problems, converting into revenue at the sites they end up at, usually through a purchase, an ad click, or some other conversion.

I use the terms “siphon off” and “disproportionate” because we – internet marketers – haven’t ‘earned’ this revenue by being the ‘best’ or ‘right’ destination for these searches, but instead figured out ways to insert ourselves at the top of the traffic stream, usually through ranking manipulation, funneling these conversions away from the destinations that were appropriately earned, in essence “hijacking” the revenue.

I’ll explain this more later on, but for now recognize that in large part, internet marketers prospered by “gaming the system”, finding shortcuts, loopholes, and other ways to intercept traffic & generate revenue.

Great stuff for those who were fortunate enough to be there and cash in.

But all that is about to change.

Unless you’ve just recently started out online, you’ve already seen, heard, or experienced the ‘leading edge’ of what’s about to happen. Business models, strategies, and tactics that used to work, are failing. Sites are being de-indexed. Accounts are being closed on a massive scale. Companies and government agencies are imposing sweeping changes & regulations, closing loopholes and avenues, completely re-writing the rules of internet commerce.

What gives?

What gives is something that will change internet marketing forever, something so big that it’s “hidden in plain site”, but which will become increasingly obvious and visible.

It’s unavoidable, but as you’ll see, completely inevitable and predictable. And if you take heed, you’ll be in the very small minority that can fully leverage the coming “Internet Marketing 2.0” – an advantage as valuable as all the previous trends that made millionaires of the few who got there first.

There is a massive, disruptive correction underway, and it’s going to change everything. This system-wide correction effects the entire online commerce ecosystem, and most directly impacts internet marketing.

Let me explain…

Consider the internet as an ecosystem driven by money. As an ecosystem, it maintains a ‘balance’, and when things get too far out of balance, they correct themselves. It is self-correcting.

To get a clearer picture, think of the stock market. Stocks are priced based on their value. Because money follows value, stock prices find their ‘level’, a price that equals their value. When a stock price strays in one direction or another, it becomes ‘out of balance’ with it’s value, creating opportunities for profit. Then a ‘self-correction’ begins: those who see the imbalance quickly will buy or sell for the spread (the difference between it’s value and where it swung to), until the spread diminishes and balance is once again achieved.

These imbalances happen all the time, this is the nature of large systems. In our stock market example, factors such as economic news, company earnings, new products, seasonal changes, etc., move prices up or down. Speculation, analysis, or guesswork allows for profiting on the ‘spread’ between the movement and a new balance.

Over time, a stock price will eventually find it’s true value.

On the internet, the ecosystem consists of buyers & sellers, providers & consumers, an extension of real commerce. But the technology has enabled a critical imbalance, and it is about to be corrected.

Lets look at search and commerce. Google, as the largest search engine, tries to provide the “best” results for a given search. Their entire business model is predicated on this – people use Google in order to find ‘best’ answers to their queries, and Google profits from this traffic through advertising.

By providing better results than competitors Bing and Yahoo, Google gets the majority of this traffic, and has achieved market dominance. If Google stops providing ‘better’ results, people will stop using Google.

In fact, Google has been in increasing jeopardy of this happening – providing results that aren’t the ‘best’.  And the root causes jeopardize more than just Google.

To understand this, we need to consider the question of ‘best’.

Rather than look at how Google determines the ‘best’ results to show, consider it from the opposite perspective, where it looks just like the “real world”.

In the “real world”, there is a huge cost to being a ‘best’ choice for consumers, businesses, etc. Companies ‘earn’ their revenues – their customers – through quality, reputation, price, innovation, brand, etc., qualities which are conveyed through word-of-mouth, advertising, etc. It takes time and resources, or sometimes a ‘better mousetrap’ – innovation. As such, one can’t simply start a business and ‘claim’ quality, price, reputation, etc., and expect to thrive – that would be an imbalance, “hijacking” consumers who are looking for “best” and funneling them instead to you. It must actually be earned, otherwise consumers will eventually see through the claim, and revenues will decline. It will re-balance.

The same holds true online. When someone does a search, Google should show those “best” results – the companies that legitimately provide a best answer.

These are critical paths in this ecosystem, controlling and routing huge numbers of people, and even bigger sums of money.

Like the financial markets or other similar ecosystems, when huge sums of money are involved, imbalances create enormous pressure to re-balance.

And when those imbalances are artificially created from ‘bugs’ in the system, that system will attempt to repair itself. The more money that’s at stake, the more resources will go into fixing it.

Now here’s where things really heat up. Because of the very nature of this system – the internet – this imbalance has been able to grow so far and so fast, it actually threatens the system itself.

Let me illustrate.

Most of us understand the value of top Page 1 rankings – they get the majority of the traffic for their search volume. A top Page 1 ranking, say #1 for a keyword or phrase like “cheap car insurance”, with thousands of searches per day, many resulting in a high-dollar conversion, might be worth millions of dollars. And there are thousands upon thousands of these.

Google earns billions of dollars by being the starting point for most searches. But if they began showing “low quality” results, much of that would eventually evaporate. With so much at stake, they’ve gone to great lengths to maintain the ‘quality’ of their results.

In spite of this, internet marketers have consistently found ways to “cheat”, manipulating Google’s ranking formula to get their own pages to show up at the top of searches.

The technology is such that it’s much, much easier to ‘cheat’ – to find and execute ways to get to those top spots – than it is to neutralize or ‘patch’ each new method.

And because it’s driven by profits, the numbers on the internet marketing side grew geometrically faster than on the ‘patching’ side.

The result is that over time – and we’ve now reached that point – there is significant and growing ‘pollution’ of Google’s search results.

Who hasn’t done searches and been presented with low-quality or poorly relevant results listed higher than better, more relevant results? Product information searches returning mostly fake ‘review’ sites; information searches returning scraped or copied low-quality content, or single-keyword “Made For Adsense” sites, etc.?

The point of critical mass has been reached where stop-gap measures and algorithm patching can’t keep pace with the proliferation of sites and methods.

And with billions and billions of dollars increasingly at stake, Google will do what it must to ‘protect’ itself.

As a result, a wholesale correction is happening.

The above example revolved around Google. But the ‘problem’ extends well beyond Google.

And so the correction has become system-wide.

Because it has been relatively ‘easy’ to earn money essentially as a parasite on the system – bleeding off people and money with little or no value in return – it has spread across the whole ecosystem, with technology enabling a scale that becomes system-threatening.

It had to happen. There is far too much money at stake.

And like the run up to the stock market crash of 1929, few people saw it coming until it was upon them – but looking back, it seemed clear and obvious.

Five years from now, this “internet ecosystem correction” will be obvious to everyone in retrospect – even to the point of being taken for granted.
Today

Before we talk about the unprecedented opportunity this brings and how you can leverage it, we’re going to look at exactly where we are right now – the signs of the correction, and the first of the profound shifts that are already taking place.

Until recently, much of internet marketing revolved around search engine traffic and rankings. More than half of the various business models involved manipulating the ranking system in order to leapfrog to the top of the search engine results, where we could hijack that traffic.

As such, perhaps the deepest and most visible ‘breakdown’ in the system revolves around the search engines. And as the dominant force in that space, Google sees a huge share of this, resulting in their database and ranking system being corrupted.

No surprise then that this is ‘Ground Zero’ for the correction.

Before reaching the current critical mass, the whole industry of internet marketing developed and grew, largely at Google’s expense. But up until recently, it’s been more of a nuisance than a business-threatening condition.

Google – and the other search engines – have continually tried to combat the ‘problem’ by playing a never-ending game of catch: we figure out ways to game their ranking system, they patch it, we find new ways, they create new patches.

But because the technology enables such quick, easy, and inexpensive entry to this game, and is driven by quick & easy money, the ‘problem’ continued to outpace the patches to the point where there it is no longer feasible to play this game of catch.

And so, in February, Google rolled out “Panda”. Unlike previous algorithm updates and patches, Panda is a whole new paradigm. It represents the beginning of the correction in search, and with that, this system-wide correction or “shift”, began.

In lockstep with the release and subsequent refining of Panda, we began to see the ‘fallout’. Postings like these on various IM forums began to multiply:

• “Sudden Ranking Drop, HELP!”
• “Why have my pages gone from the SERPs?”
• “Anyone notice their sites disappearing after most recent Panda Update?”
• “What happened to my website?”
• “All my sites are gone – my income just went to zero!”

The business models – the products and strategies that created this situation – suddenly began failing. Instead of individual patches – algorithm ‘updates – Panda is Google’s search-side shift to correct the imbalance.

Much of the problem stemmed from the almost linear model Google used to rank sites: ‘x’ number of factors, such as backlinks, number of keyword instances, placement of keywords, etc., each being assigned a value, the total of which dictated rank position. It’s simply too easy to game, and too unwieldy to keep patching.

Panda is essentially a ‘non-linear’ model – it’s factors such as user metrics, non-linear backlink values, etc., are considerably more resistant to gaming. At the very least, there is no longer the huge imbalance of being easy to game and hard to patch.

(We’re going to post a follow-up article shortly delving into Panda in more detail, to show you what it really is, particularly in the context of the correction, and why it completely obsoletes the “old” world of internet marketing. It’s also worth noting their search-side efforts go beyond Panda – additional ‘changes’ such as the recent elimination of some keyword referral data.)

But if this is truly an ecosystem-wide correction, there should be far more than a paradigm shift just in search. And there is.

With Google such a primary force in the entire ecosystem, we can see evidence even there that goes beyond search.

On the search marketing (PPC) end, Google’s Adwords program has slashed huge numbers of accounts and advertisers and virtually eliminated affiliates and affiliate marketing.

On the ad-placement flip side, the Adsense program has undergone profound change, again eliminating huge numbers of accounts, radically tightening it’s policies and program application.

Youtube has begun a massive ‘house-cleaning’, while eliminating entire categories – and existing accounts simply because they used arbitrary ‘red-flag’ keywords.

Looking beyond Google, we see similar disruptive corrections:

• Federal Trade Commission regulations – ‘Non-typical results’ banned
• Legislation efforts such as SOPA and PIPA
• Clickbank, Plimus, other networks banning products and tightening policies
• Amazon accounts killed, Kindle restrictions
• Youtube accounts killed, “Biz opps” keywords flagged
• “MLM” banned from PayPal
• “Internet marketing” mailing lists banned from MailChimp
• “Work from home” videos being banned from YouTube

The State Of Things Right Now

On the one hand, the ’causes’ of the imbalance, being profit-driven and absurdly accessible, have run at a far higher rate than the system could keep up with, resulting in a huge gulf between the two. Every time a loophole, strategy, or method for gaming part of the system was discovered, it was able to proliferate far and wide through forums, websites, product launches & emails, articles, etc. almost instantly, with it’s impact multiplied by tens of thousands of marketers and companies, and through automation software.

On the other hand, the system became increasingly unable to keep up with the occurrences, and the ever-evolving tactics.

Correcting an imbalance this wide and fundamental, in a system with such a deep-rooted imbalance, is going to be very “disruptive”,  displacing huge numbers of people and organizations.

But it’s already begun. In fact, it began some time ago – but is just now reaching “critical mass” and becoming clearly visible.

What This Means To You

Internet marketing “1.0” is dead, period. Nearly everything that lived in the ecosystem as a parasite – taking out money disproportionate to the value put back in – is dead or dying. This means gaming the system, manipulating the system, leveraging loopholes, cheating, earning through false or inflated claims, etc.

Internet marketers, many of whom earned their entire income through ‘old’ – and now obsolete – strategies & tactics, either have, or will shortly see their entire businesses evaporate:

Autoblogging; “xfactor” & “Google Sniper” type single-keyword-focused sites; ‘curated’/aggregated sites; keyword-based Adsense sites; virtually all ‘traditional’ (thin) affiliate marketing; aggressive marketing product sales; advertising revenue sites that lived off search engine traffic gained through rank manipulation; most CPA efforts; mass/automated site building; etc., etc.

“Cottage industry” providers have already, or will soon see their products & services rendered ineffective or useless – backlink providers, backlink automation software companies like SENuke and Scrapebox, etc.

Product developers who created courseware, reports, software, etc., that leveraged these “old” strategies & tactics have, or very soon will find their products rendered not just useless, but dangerous.

Larger organizations who focused too narrowly on SEO & ranking tactics, and depended too heavily on search traffic – many have already seen their businesses drop precipitously.

The unavoidable truth is that, for the most part, internet marketing as it has been, is over. There may be some time before the last of the websites, tactics, and products are gone or useless, but the shift is happening, and it will continue gaining speed.

What To Do

Does this mean the internet marketing dream is over? Certainly not, however it is being radically reshaped.

The old strategies, tactics, and methods are dead or dying. With them, the websites, products, people, and organizations living off them will disappear.

A vacuum is being created, and that means enormous opportunity for those who put themselves in the position to take advantage of it.

Just like it has been through any disruptive correction, those willing to “re-think & re-train” will have the incredible benefits of a wide-open and almost empty playing field:

• The ‘old’ methods, strategies, and tactics for getting traffic are dead or dying. Learn how to get traffic in this ‘new world’ and you can make a fortune.
• The ‘old’ model of affiliate marketing – the zero-value-add middleman – is dead or dying. Learn how to create true ‘value-add’ affiliate sites and you’ll have almost every niche open and available to you.
• The ‘old’ models of selling online are dead or dying – learn how to interact with mobile & tablet users, correctly engage through social media, and multi-modal channels, and you can make untold fortunes.
• The ‘old’ methods of gaining conversions are dead or dying – learn the new rules of trust, authority, reputation, and branding, and you’re online efforts will succeed where nearly all others fail.

The ‘old’ model of… everything, is dead or dying… No longer is ‘somewhere’ everywhere. Geotargeting & local means that ‘everywhere’ is somewhere. Personalized search means ‘traditional’ SEO is becoming irrelevant.

‘Traditional’ IM business models and opportunities are giving way to Internet Marketing 2.0 businesses:

• Post-Panda SEO
• Lead generation
• New rules of content, engagement, and selling
• Effective mobile strategy
• Retargeting / remarketing
• Offline marketing
• Local-reach marketing
• Online efforts that aren’t simply the ‘old’ ported to ‘new’…

How To Do It

The first step is to understand what’s changing, and how.

While you might be able to read up and learn how this correction is unfolding in ecommerce, search engines, advertising, government regulations, TOS changes, paid search, mobile, etc., you’d need some background and foundation in each of these areas, and would still forever be playing ‘catch-up’.

On top of that still, you’d need to stay abreast of all the emerging business models – what they are, how they work, competition & best practices, etc.

However, we have a better way. We saw ‘the writing on the wall’ almost a year ago. Since then, we’ve put a huge amount of effort into all of the above – and completely re-shaped our own business along the way.

About 6 months ago, we laid out a plan and began working on a solution, which we’re getting ready to release in the next few weeks:

‘R100k’ – “Reference $100k Blueprint”

‘R100k’ is a complete and authoritative guide to Internet Marketing 2.0. It consists of a core reference guide, and monthly updates.

The main reference guide condenses all the shifts, corrections, and changes into an easily digestible, easy-to-understand guide written specifically for internet marketers, and specifically about internet marketing.

It will tell you exactly what you need to know regarding Panda, including what you must know & do for your efforts going forward, and how to ‘retro-fit’ your previous efforts. It will tell you what you need to know, need to do, and need to be aware of regarding coming government regulations, provider TOS’s, and the like – how the things we used to do have changed, and what must be avoided.

Just as importantly, it will tell you what no longer works, and what will work going forward – including all the new business models and strategies that are the huge, new, and untapped IM opportunities.

Best of all, ‘R100k’ is free.

We want everyone to have the opportunity that we’re enjoying, even though we know most won’t take action or take advantage, and will end up in that majority of those who don’t “make it” in IM.

Since this correction, and the ‘new world’ online are continuing to evolve, we’ll be publishing a monthly R100k report, providing ongoing detail on new opportunities, “how-to” information, etc.

And the monthly reports will be just $4.95 per month by subscription.

You can get more information about R100k and sign up to receive the core guide at:

http://www.reference100kblueprint.com

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be releasing a series of reports going into more detail about the things mentioned in this report, including a report explaining exactly what Panda is, what it isn’t, how it works, and what you should be doing about it.

You can download this report that you just read at: http://www.100kblueprint.com/correction_report.pdf

You are welcome to link to this post, or distribute the downloaded report providing it remains unchanged.

Whether you take advantage of  ‘R100k’ or not, if you plan to continue in internet marketing, you must heed the coming correction, and the shifts that are already happening. Don’t invest any further time and effort into strategies, tactics, and methods that are doomed to fail. Consider these new “IM 2.0″ business models mentioned in this report; learn just one of them and you’ll be in an enviable position.

The purpose for our content may vary – articles for article marketing, website content, Web 2.0 posts as a platform, or for linkbuilding, etc. – but whatever the purpose, we need our content to get indexed in order for it to ‘work’. In some cases, we want it not just to get indexed, but to rank well.

Beginning in Feb. 2011, Google’s ongoing “Panda” updates imposed some sweeping changes on the world of content. “Low quality” content is increasingly disappearing, being de-indexed or not indexed in the first place, and at best, struggling to rank well.

Not only is it failing to rank, it now impacts the entire website. In addition to evaluating a lot of factors individually, “Panda” takes it’s findings and applies it to the whole site. It has significantly raised the bar on content, while also penalizing whole websites for failings of individual pages. This means one page of poor content can, and will hurt rankings for all pages.

And so in order to accomplish our objectives, whatever they are, we need to put an emphasis on content “quality”. But what exactly defines “quality”?

Though “quality” is a subjective value, we do have a good idea of what Google wants to see. They’ve also provided some tests, or questions we can ask ourselves, to help determine whether we’ve met their standards.

Note: We’ve reprinted these ‘questions’ at the end of this article.

Follow these guidelines, and you’ll be on the ‘right’ side of “quality”:

Length. For content we want to rank – articles for article marketing, Web 2.0 sites that we’re using as our target platform, and of course our own websites, we want a minimum of 400 words per article or post. If it is a target article, meaning a page on our site we’re specifically trying to rank as opposed to ‘supporting posts’, bump that to 500 words. If it’s simply for backlinking i.e. Web 2.0 “feeder site” posts, we can get away with 350 words.

Grammar. No play here – all articles should be 100% grammatically correct, and that mean zero typo’s as well.

Originality and “Uniqueness”. Don’t use scraped or copied content, period. Let me say that again: do not use scraped, copied, or otherwise duplicate content. The “Panda” updates are specifically targeting ‘non-original’ content, and will continue to get better at finding it. If you’re spinning your content, you want an absolute minimum 45% uniqueness, preferably 50% or more. Do not use unaltered PLR.

Keywords. Avoid “keyword stuffing”, meaning filling your content with more than a few instances of any particular keyword, or packing in every possible variation of targeted keywords.

If you are targeting specific keywords, make sure to use variations where it works.

Content Quality. Do not use poorly written filler or fluff articles – you know the kind, generally written by someone with no knowledge of the subject, or with little grasp of the language. All articles, posts, etc., should be at least marginally worth reading: informative or entertaining or thought-provoking or enlightening, etc.

If you follow these basic guidelines, your content will accomplish what you want it to. Below are questions Google published in order to help webmasters evaluate their content:

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

This was taken from Google’s Webmaster Central blog, which is one of their official channels. You can find the entire post here:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html.

It’s a good place to visit periodically; they provide a surprising amount of information.

Welcome to another action-packed $100k Blueprint newsletter! In this issue, we’ll tell you about a new A100k & SECockpit video, give you some actionable Panda tips, and update you on R100k, the site builds that were ordered, and the last days of the SECockpit special offer.

A100k & SECockpit

For those who are unfamiliar with it, SECockpit is a revolutionary keyword tool that was recently released (more about it below). They’ve built the A100k Blueprint tasks & Action Plan right into the software, so that you can use SECockpit as a ‘dashboard’ for creating your Blueprint sites – doing everything from within the software. From your initial keyword research, through rankbuilding, it’s an incredible time saver – and virtually insures you’ll have a successful site.

The developers just finished a video showing you how you can integrate the A100K Blueprint with SECockpit and have all of the relevant tasks display inside your SECockpit dashboard.

http://bit.ly/rvhQa0 <— click here

And speaking of SECockpit, for those who aren’t familiar, it’s a revolutionary new keyword and competition research tool that simply blows away anything else on the market. It does things no other tool does, almost guaranteeing you’ll find those “golden” money keywords. It also gets our single highest recommendation.

In working closely with the developers, they let us offer our list a rare discount on the software. Well, that offer is about to expire. If you haven’t taken advantage of it, I strongly suggest you consider it. You can check it out at:

http://bit.ly/raBE0p <— click here

R100k

The world of internet marketing is undergoing a profound and complete change. The ‘old’ ways of making money online are dying, and will soon be a thing of the past. Google’s Panda updates are just the tip of the iceberg – the industry is truly changing, and will soon be almost unrecognizable compared to what it has been.

“Reference $100k Blueprint” is our soon-to-be-released guide to this new world of internet marketing. Unlike our previous courses, this is a reference guide and monthly newsletter. It will tell you – clearly and unambiguously – what you need to know if you plan on continuing as an internet marketer. This includes the specifics such as understanding Panda, how to succeed with it, what you’ll need to change or avoid, and the other significant factors adding to this industry sea-change: changes in affiliate marketing, the Federal Trade Commission rules & regulations, navigating the increasingly important Social signals like social media & citations, the emergence of local & geotarget importance, and more.

The core R100k guide will be released in December, with monthly updates beginning in January. If you’re receiving this email, you’re already signed up to receive the core guide, for free.

Panda Tips

One of the ‘bellweather’ signs in this industry shift is Google’s Panda updates. Unlike previous algorithm changes & updates, Panda is completely different. It’s a separate program that is run against the entire search database, resulting in site-wide changes in ranking. It’s currently run every few weeks, and can completely change your rankings.

Here are some things you want to consider, both to avoid being “Pandalized”, and to insure you can still achieve top rankings (we’ll be writing about this more in the forum and on our blog http://www.100kblueprint.com, as well as in R100k):

Backlinks

With Panda, Google is evaluating backlinks on a far deeper, and wider level. This means more significant, and more frequent penalties for ‘bad’ backlinking. It also means that a link’s value will vary, depending on where on a page it is, it’s anchor text, and the incoming links to that page.

Avoid backlinks from sites that have scraped or ‘duplicate’ content – meaning ‘autoblogs’, scraper sites, etc. Used to be these were just very low-value links. Now, they can actually cause penalties for you – and not just on the page you’re linking to, but your whole site!

Mix up your anchor text. Specifically, avoid having all your backlinks use the same keyword phrase. Try not to have more than 50% of your backlinks use the exact keyword phrase as it’s anchor text. What you want to do is use variations. If your target keyword phrase is “best dog training”, make half of your links with “dog training”, “best training”, “training”, “best training for dogs”, etc. Keep it focused on your primary keywords, but mix them up and include variations.

Link relevance is also becoming increasingly important. By this I mean don’t have “best dog training” links in the resource box of an article about “dieting”, or as a blog comment on a post about “travel”.

Content

You probably know by now that Panda makes ‘quality’ content even more important, and we’ve went over some guidelines in the A100k V2 course, as well as in T100k.

One area I want to emphasize is ‘readability’. It’s imperative that you use 100% correct spelling, and correct grammar. If you are outsourcing or spinning, make sure you use spell check. Many word processors also have grammar checkers. Use them! And if you aren’t a good writer or proofreader, make sure you have someone proof your articles & posts before publishing them!

In the next newsletter, we’ll talk about how to improve the ultra-important ‘site metrics’ and usability factors, as well as the increasingly important ‘social signals’.

Site Builds

We recently opened a few slots for custom-built Adsense sites. We’ve sold out almost all our available capacity, but if you wanted one and weren’t able to get it in time, and we’ll see what we can do for you (you can email us or post on the forum).

For those who were able to get in and order, we’ve begun work on them. We don’t rush these, so please be patient – after all, we’re building these to the same standards we use for our own sites. We’ll send out updates.

Sincerely,

Michael & Adam