zutroy.net

So I have been working in SEO for about 10 years now.  That’s Search Engine Optimization to all you non-techies.  Basically it’s what makes a website show up at the top of the list when you google something.

It’s funny I have done SEO for countless websites and I haven’t ever really done it for this website.  Why? Because honestly I don’t care who comes to my site.  In fact, I would prefer that I didn’t get tons of traffic because I don’t use my website to make money.  Lots of traffic would actually cost me more  money.

But lets say just for fun that I did want lots of traffic.  What are some things I would do?

1. Content.  I would pick a theme and stick to it on my blog.  If you notice this list of categories over there on the side, I don’t really have a central theme.  But if I wanted to make money here, I would.  I would also do some things to make visitors want to stay here once they got here.  Good articles, videos, products reviews, links to my amazon affiliate products, etc.

2. Links.  The way Google knows that your website is important is by other sites linking to you.  That’s pretty fair right?  So how do I get people to link to me?  I would do several things.  Send out regular PR to online pr sites, get all my friends to link to me, post comments on relevant blogs linking back to me, probably create a couple sister sites that are loosely but not 100% related and have them link back to me.

3. Freshness. I would dedicate a few hours each week to adding new stuff to my site.  Google loves new content. Google loves new links.

4. Social Media.  I would make sure I am actively participating in related discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc.  And I would definitely keep my profile on those sites updated.  Again, just a couple hours a week.

So how does someone that hasn’t been doing SEO for years tackle this?  Until now it has been by hiring someone, throwing money at Google Adwords blindly with fingers crossed or by finding a mentor.  Now there’s finally a solution for the DIYer.  Enter DIY SEO from Main10.  Here’s a nice little program that knows where you should do each of these things and can walk you through it all. One step at a time.

If you have a website that is intended to make money (directly or indirectly), go check it out. It just might be the solution that you have been looking for.

A Friend asked me the other day what I would do if I had been challenged to make $1000/day.  I think he was half expecting a short answer.  And I tried to figure out how to put it into 140 characters or less.  Not that it was on twitter, just that 140 is a nice round number.

Well I couldn’t. So I am attempting to do it in a blog post.  Here goes.

Step 1 – Find something that’s worth $1000/day. I have chosen a business.  Mine is a plan for a scalable online SaaS (software as a service) that will be sold not by me, but by resellers looking to offer something solid on a very flexible pricing model.  I have run the numbers over and over on this one and I see it being quite a bit larger than $1000/day.  I started with about 25 business ideas that could have easily sucked up as much time and effort as this one.  Only 1 or 2 of them even approach this one in terms of monetary potential.

Step2 – Learn as much as possible about managing a business that can pay me $1000/day.  I have resorted to blogs, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  I have found some of the more expert people in various aspects of what I need to do.  I read A LOT from these guys.  And I’ve learned a lot about how I want this business to run and how to market it.

Step3 – Don’t go alone.  I started this out with 2 partners.  We have kept each other on track when it was most tempting to give up or take the short way out. I  think attacking something like this alone is a stupid idea. Don’t do it.

Step 3 – Create a solid plan. I have spent the last year and a half building this thing.  We started out with 2 solid months of planning. Sometimes for several full days each week. (one of the advantages of being unemployed at the time) We analyzed the competition and anything out there that remotely touched our sphere.  I might also add that I have been working in this technology for that last decade.  Part of being able to create a solid plan is to follow one of Warren Buffett’s rules “stick to what you know”.

Step 4 – Be flexible. We have stuck to our plan but not been so blind as to not recognize when we had something wrong and needed to go back to the drawing board, or white board in our case.  We have made major shifts to the project.  But (and this is the most heartening part) our overall strategy has not changed. The marketing and industry we are targeting is evolving into what we need it to be.  Had we launched a year ago, we would probably have not been well accepted because the market wasn’t ready for it.  Now I’d say it has almost been perfectly primed.

Step 5 – Don’t give up. We’re still not done but we’re approaching the completion of version 1.  We have thought we were close before.  We even thought we were done at one point.  Thinking this would have been done toward the end of 2008 and still not having it done by mid 2010 could really suck the spirit out of a lot of people.  I think having the right partners has made us be able to keep going.  Did I mention the importance of having partners?

So I guess there isn’t much else I can really say without showing everyone what this project is.  Well, I’m not ready to show it off.  And I’m not really sure when it will be.  Don’t worry, once it’s ready, that’s all you will be hearing about.  Just stay tuned.

And keep in mind that this isn’t what I would tell everyone else to do, this is just what I have chosen to do.  For some people I would say the best way for them to make $1000 per day is to go to law school and work their way up in a law firm and get to where they can charge $250/hour and work 4 hour days.  That’s just not me.

Good luck.