Guest Post by Larry Kim

Let’s face it: Many of us have websites so we can make money. As much as we’d like to call ourselves savvy communicators, prolific content creators, or detail-oriented designers, our main purpose for being online is earning a buck.

Optimizing our sites for search traffic is a means to achieving that goal. But in order for us to know if our efforts are paying off, we need to track our SEO progress. Here are the five best measures of that progress…

1. Conversion rate is an important, if not the most important, metric for evaluating SEO efforts. It is defined as the number of website visitors who complete a desired goal out of the total number of visitors. Sometimes that goal is getting people to give you their contact info. Sometimes it’s getting people to download one of your white papers. Sometimes it’s getting them to make a payment. Whatever it is, it’s a step in your sales process. An easy way to track goal conversion data is through Google Analytics.

Google provides step-by-step instructions on how to set up goals for analysis.

2. Site traffic is also very important when it comes to measuring SEO progress. Your site may have a high conversion rate, but if only a handful of people are visiting it each week you likely aren’t getting very many sales. There are many ways to get more traffic on your site, including submitting your site to search engines, asking other sites to link to you, and using relevant keywords. If people like what you have to offer, they will come back. They will also tell their friends about you, and those friends will tell their friends about you, and so on. Google Analytics tracks site visits and page views.

3. Number and quality of links is another key metric for evaluating SEO improvement. Google attaches much importance to these factors in determining which sites appear at the top of its search engine results page (SERP). While it is helpful to link outward, and to other pages on your site, you benefit most from having other sites link to you. There are various ways you can get sites to link your way. Those include syndicating a press release, reviewing products on Amazon, and creating a page about your company in Wikipedia. Creating regular content that’s useful to your audience, especially via a corporate blog, can also be very helpful.

You can track links to your site by downloading a free service from Majestic-SEO.

4. To evaluate your SEO progress you also want to keep tabs on how your site ranks in Google and other search engines. Ideally your site will appear on search engines’ first results page when your target keywords are queried. That’s a goal worth pursuing, considering many people don’t click past the first page. The website SEO Book offers a free tool that tracks your rankings on Google.com, international versions of Google, Yahoo! Search, and Microsoft Bing.

5. Bounce rate and time spent on pages are two related metrics also worth measuring. Bounce rate is the ratio of the number of visitors to a site who view just one page to the total number of site visitors. If you have a high bounce rate, your site isn’t engaging visors. You also aren’t captivating readers if they are spending little time on your pages.

You can use Google Analytics to get these measurements. If you are disappointed with your bounce rate you might need to revisit your landing page’s headlines and copy, and consider whether they address the keywords you’re attempting to target. If readers are spending little time on particular pages, you should probably focus on updating and improving the quality of content on those pages.

About the author: Larry Kim is the Founder and VP of Products for WordStream. Follow him on Twitter or subscribe to the WordStream Internet Marketing Blog. Larry lives in Cambridge, MA.

The McGuffin has been a powerful storytelling device for a long time. It was Alfred Hitchcock who popularized both its use and the name that sounds like it should be on a dollar menu.

The McGuffin has a cool job: to keep the plot, character, or situation rolling along. It draws us into the story and drives the action. The McGuffin is often an object of high value, which everyone covets. It can be ambiguous, entirely undefined, generic, or left open to interpretation.

Remember the suitcase in “Pulp Fiction?” Classic McGuffin. Though it showed up a few times throughout the film, and was important enough to get a handful of people peppered with bullets, we never actually saw what was in the suitcase.

And consider “The Maltese Falcon,” one of the most famous McGuffins of all time. Though the falcon in question drives the entire story and moves us from scene to scene, we never actually see it at all.

That is what’s cool about the McGuffin. Its purpose is served so long as it moves the story along. In many stories, by the time we should be demanding to know what the McGuffin actually is, we have forgotten about it entirely. That’s because we’ve been deftly redirected to the author’s true purpose.

If the author executes the McGuffin well, you’ll barely notice the technique. And that’s how it should be.

How the McGuffin can make you money

Writing online to build your business means you are directing the story. Whether you want people to download your product, subscribe to your newsletter, or hire you for $250 an hour, you must drive them to that decision.

The McGuffin is the wind that will sail a prospect’s ship into your harbor. Your offer is the anchor.

There’s a good chance you’re already using the McGuffin without even realizing it.

While talking about your highly productive methods for moving mountains and getting things done, aren’t you really laying the stage for your new How to Move Mountains and Get Things Done! info product?

When you’re telling interesting stories about your life as a freelancer, aren’t you really showing how terrific an experience your customers are having?

(If not, you might want to think about changing that.)

The engaging stories about your topic are the McGuffin — the interesting, attention-focusing “grabber” that pulls your readers in.

But where they go once they’re there is up to you.

Handle with care

Many poorly written novels and films show the McGuffin can be horribly mishandled. If you misuse the McGuffin, you will leave your prospect feeling unsatisfied at best and betrayed at worst.

Don’t promise the beach and then drive to the desert just because there’s sand. It’s fine to shift gears after you’ve brought a reader in with your fascinating McGuffin. But the place you’re bringing your readers still needs to make sense, and to deliver an experience she wants.

If you surprise your prospect with a smile, you will likely keep her coming back for more. Startle her with disappointment and she will leave and never come back.

At its best, the McGuffin is a pleasure and can help the audience to enjoy the ride. I don’t hold it against Tarantino for never showing me what’s in the suitcase, any more than I’d hold it against Brian for letting me know about Thesis after I came here for some advice on my headlines.

I love “Pulp Fiction” more with every viewing, and my affection for Thesis deepens with every site my business builds.

I don’t mind the change in direction, because I’ve been led somewhere I want to go.

This story about the McGuffin is, of course, a McGuffin itself. My real intent? To show an interesting technique that both helps other writers and, of course, gathers more copywriting clients for my own business.

How about you? What curiosity-provoking, desire-inducing McGuffin could you be writing about on your blog that would drive your readers to take action? And once they’ve shown up, where will your copy take them next?

About the Author: Sean Platt writes direct response copy, as well as helping authors write, publish and promote their book. Follow him on Twitter.

Many bloggers already know that Twitter is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your blog.

When I talked to Guy Kawasaki about my book, he called the Tweetmeme Retweet button “the most important button on the web,” because of the enormous traffic-driving power it possesses. With one click, any of your readers can spread your post to hundreds or thousands of their followers.

As a marketer, I, of course, see this as an opportunity for optimization. When I see a powerful tool, my first impulse is to figure out how to make it even more powerful.

When you click that button, Tweetmeme grabs the title of the page it’s on, shortens the URL, and combines the two into a autofilled tweet for posting. Thus, the title of your post becomes the tweet that is shared with a potentially huge number of Twitter users.

If the importance of compelling headlines wasn’t painfully obvious before, it should be now.

Nearly 20% of all “normal” tweets contain a link, yet almost 70% of retweets do. Retweeting is the most common way links are shared on Twitter.

I’ve done research into various factors surrounding retweets and found a handful of factors that you may want to take into consideration when writing headlines for posts that you hope to share and spread on Twitter.

Use nouns and third-person verbs

When I looked at the parts of speech that occur in retweets versus those that occur in normal tweets, I found that retweets tend to be noun-heavy and use third-person verbs.

This pattern is reminiscent of newspaper headlines. Highly retweetable headlines talk about someone or something doing something.

A headline should never talk about all the things you did yesterday and how you did them, as past-tense verbs and adverbs both lead to far fewer retweets.

The most (and least) retweetable words

The words that tend to occur more in retweets than in normal tweets are topped by the word “you.”

This means, whenever possible, you should talk directly to your readers. “Top” and “10″ also rank highly, showing that lists do well on Twitter. Not surprisingly, talking about social media and Twitter itself also helps.

On the other side of the coin are the least retweetable words. Random first-person verbs and details about your life, however fascinating you may find it, don’t get a ton of retweets.

Tell me something new

I compared how common words in retweets are to how often these same common words appear in normal tweets, and found that rare and more novel words are highly retweetable.

When you’re writing your headlines, you should be striving to say something new that breaks through the clutter of everyday chatter.

Don’t be dumb

I expected to find that retweets were simple and required less intelligence to understand. But my data showed the opposite.

Using two readability metrics, I found that retweets often use longer, more complex words. So don’t try to “dumb down” your headlines for Twitter; users and power retweeters are smarter than you may think.

Stop talking about yourself

LIWC is a linguistic system designed to identify concepts in pieces of text.

The most striking thing I found when using LIWC to analyze retweets is that self reference does not get a lot of sharing.

In other words, don’t talk about yourself if you want Twitter traffic; talk about your readers.

If you’ve been in social media awhile, you probably already guessed that was the case — now you’ve got the data to back it up.

About the Author: Get more tips like this and learn about the full range of social media marketing platforms, tool, techniques and strategies from Dan Zarrella’s The Social Media Marketing Book, published by O’Reilly.

Recently, I learned a handful of techniques from Brian Clark that brought me some pretty intriguing results.

234% more site memberships.

62% more unique visitors.

100% more paying clients.

How much did I pay Brian to teach me how to do this? Not a dime. I got everything I needed out of a free report.

Let me tell you how I did it.

Where I started

I operate an online community for Sedona Method users. (Sedona Method is a technique to release unwanted emotions and keep them from making you miserable.)

I learned from surveys and feedback that the majority of my audience was new to the Sedona Method and wanted a definitive but practical guide to the basics.

I was spending a huge amount of time responding to e-mails from many different people who were all asking essentially the same questions. Not surprisingly, it just so happened that they were questions about the basics.

Having just recently read Brian’s free report Authority Rules, I took what I’d learned and created an eBook and supplemental audio program that had seven key characteristics. (I’ll let you know more about those below.)

My readers were thrilled.

But that turned out to be just the beginning.

Real-life results

As a direct result of publishing these two pieces of content, I saw incredible improvements in my website immediately. I gathered data from the 30 days following the eBook launch and compared that data to the 80 days prior. Here are the improvements I saw in that short amount of time:

• 234% increase in site memberships
• 100% increase in paying clients
• 48% increase in total site visits
• 62% increase in unique visitors
• 92% increase in visits per day
• 12% increase in referring sites
• 113% increase in search engine traffic
• 10% decrease in bounce rate

This chart shows the trend of memberships on my website. The green shaded area represents the 80 days prior to my eBook launch.

Oh, and did I mention that I was spending a lot of money on AdWords ads early on but stopped purchasing them 15 days before the launch?

No guest posts, no commenting campaign, no Google ads. The bulk of this success was a result of providing a “no-opt-in” download that saw some great retweeting on Twitter.

I call this kind of content reciprocating content. You can give it away for free and it gives right back to you.

When you create reciprocating content, everyone wins — including you. Your audience gets what they want, and you get what you want.

This ain’t your ordinary free content

You’re probably familiar with the “one-way street” nature of traditional free content. You work tirelessly to create a real gem, pouring everything you’ve got into it. Your readers get a lot of benefit from it, but at best you get a brief spike of traffic, some comments, and a link or two.

Basically, it’s a huge amount of work that doesn’t leverage well for you — especially if you are a newcomer like I am. Over time, if you repeat the process enough, you will eventually see more stable and consistent returns that creep their way down to your bottom line. But that can be an exhausting and disconcerting path.

Reciprocating content differs from traditional free content in that it benefits your audience and you at the same time. Additionally, you see the benefits quickly and they keep on coming. And the best part is that all you have to do is find opportunities that are already here.

So what makes content “reciprocating content”?

The seven key characteristics of reciprocating content

None of the characteristics listed below should be unfamiliar to you. It’s not uncommon to incorporate one or two of these into any given piece.

But the secret formula of reciprocating content is the combination of all seven. That’s how you turn your content into a well-oiled machine that gets right down to business.

1) Reciprocating content provides incredible value to your audience

This should go without saying, since our primary purpose is to provide incredible value to our audience. However, all you have to do is read around to find that there is a whole lot of content out there that provides little to no practical value to the reader.

Reciprocating content does not just provide “good,” “nice,” or “theoretical” value. Reciprocating content can stand on its own, because it provides real-world value that your audience can put to use right now. It’s the kind of value people expect to pay for.

2) Reciprocating content solves a common concern for your audience

When you get to know your audience well, you’re able to learn about their most common concerns. Your reciprocating content should solve one of these concerns.

To clarify, reciprocating content does not just address the concern; it solves the concern for your audience.

3) Reciprocating content solves a pressing concern for you

Is it possible to solve a major concern of your audience and solve a major concern of your own at the same time?

Yes!

All it takes is a little analysis to find out how you can create the win-win.

4) Reciprocating content builds trust and establishes your authority

You already know this, but authority rules. Trust isn’t to be scoffed at either.

You’re an authority on something, and your reciprocating content establishes and demonstrates this. It also builds trust and rapport at the same time.

5) Reciprocating content is delivered in the format(s) that your audience prefers

Believe it or not, the format that you deliver your content in can make a significant difference in how useful it is for your audience. Reciprocating content is highly effective in part because it’s delivered in your audience’s preferred format, be it text, audio, or video.

Don’t know what their preferred format is? Ask them!

6) Reciprocating content stays genuine and authentic to who you are

The last thing you want to do is win over a huge, avid audience with your reciprocating content only to disappoint them when they discover it wasn’t really you.

Reciprocating content is authentic to you. Because of this, it does a great job of qualifying your audience. They know what to expect when they come to you for more.

7) Reciprocating content does not contain a sales pitch

Your reciprocating content does all of the above without asking your audience to buy anything. It provides the experience of a dynamite solution with a zero pressure approach. It makes your audience think there is such thing as a free lunch.

That’s a powerful combination, and one that can actually increase your revenue later.

Strategizing your reciprocating content

Creating reciprocating content is not difficult. Opportunities already exist, you just need to see them.

• What are the most common concerns of your audience? (Surveying comes in handy here. You also want to pay close attention to questions and blog comments, and tune in to the Twitter conversation on your topic.) Take a moment to write these concerns down on paper. For me, the answers to this came from reader surveys.
• What are your own most pressing concerns? Take a moment and write some down on paper. One of my most pressing concerns was the amount of time I was spending answering the same questions over and over again.
• Look at both sides and notice opportunities where you can help your audience while simultaneously helping yourself (in other words, killing two birds with one stone).
• Figure out what kind of content would benefit both sides. Make sure it exhibits the seven characteristics of reciprocating content mentioned above.
• Publish it and get the word out!

Work smarter, not harder

It’s not hard to create reciprocating content, it just takes a little big-picture awareness and some connecting of the dots.

So the next time you’re about to put your blood, sweat, and tears into your work, take a second to step outside the box. Create reciprocating content to become more efficient, deliver more value, and cut down on waste.

About the author: Craig Wildenradt is a personal development coach who helps clients shatter limitation with the Sedona Method. He founded the BloomVerse community and also writes about the Sedona Method on his blog Inward Bloom.

Over the last 2 weeks I have had a handful of conversations that have absolutely blown my mind. I am nothing short of amazed at the hoops people jump through, the money people spend, or the messes people get into trying to make money online.

Newsflash: Internet Marketing is not that complicated!

There is no big secret to making money online. I have yet to figure out why people tend to over-complicate it, or treat it like some myth from a sci-fi movie. Or go at it like a treasure hunt… instead of a business model.

The crazy thing is that people keep coming out with these complicated systems and solutions – and everybody jumps on board like it’s magic or something. Seriously – have we learned nothing?!

So many people are spending entirely too much time and energy, not to mention hard-earned money, trying to avoid working – or setting up a real business model. Investing everything into shortcuts or strategies, only to end up empty handed and discouraged.

It frustrates me to no end.

It’s not entirely your fault. The experts told you it would work. The sales copy truly was hypnotic. That shortcut really did seem legit. You got sucked up into the Internet Marketing space, and lost your vision for the customer and the value.

You consume so much information at such a fast pace, that you’re simply reacting to it all instead of putting careful consideration into how it applies to your business model.

Is any of this hitting home??

Take a step back from the programs, tricks, strategies, resources, etc, etc, etc. Analyze what you’re doing, and try this: analyze it from the buyer’s side. Instead of looking at your business model from your end of the monitor, get into your visitor’s head and look at your entire system through their eyes. See if you can answer the question “what’s in it for me?” from that perspective.

Another great reality check is to ask: “How would I market this website if search engines did not exist?” Here’s an interesting tidbit for you: that is exactly what will ultimately gain you favor with the search engines!

Which do you think will take you longer: a) create hundreds of social properties, each with their own unique content, and link them all back to your “money site” – or b) create a really cool website/model and get legitimate inbound links from a mix of relevant sources.

The answer: they take about the same amount of time, give or take. No joke.

Which do you think will give you the best results?

(b) I’m hoping that was obvious

The bottom line is that you will spend a lot less time and money in the long run, and get far better (ie long term) results, doing things right the first time.

This is my 13th year in business. I’ve made a profit every single year, including my start-up year (and my start-over year). For many years I just quietly created my models and worked with my customers or merchants, and ran nice profitable businesses. Meanwhile people would hit the scene, run circles around me, and disappear, year after year. I’ve watched empires rise and fall, and I’ve seen hundreds of tricks work and then tank.

Odd as it may sound, I am still doing many of the things I did online 5 years ago, the very same today – with great success. It might shock you to learn that I own zero squidoo lenses and have never ‘dugg’ my own content. Crazy, huh? That’s not to say that those things don’t work, or that I advise you not to do them – just to say that you might be spending a lot of unnecessary time in the wrong place.

Seriously – it’s not that complicated.

And just to be 100% clear, I didn’t “get lucky” or “strike oil” anywhere along the way. I worked. And I still work.

You have to get off the IM roller coaster, and spend some real time on your business model. Create a business that serves a market, a system that benefits its buyers. Study working models, and study marketing, but don’t just throw anything at it to see what sticks – use what makes sense.

Question: How many products have you bought? How many of them delivered the desired results? How many months or years have you been trying to make money online?

How much further along would you be right now if you had stuck to your original business plans, or followed your instincts along the way – instead of going down the “magic solution” rabbit hole?

I know you’re hoping I’m going to give you a link here, a solution to all this madness that will fix everything for only $97. The solution is common sense (which is not sold anywhere online that I have found).

Best,

p.s. If you’re frustrated with your online business or your marketing results, and you have a question or need some help, leave a comment below. I also have a discussion forum where I answer questions daily, so feel free to join us there. It’s time to stop the madness, and I would love to help you get things going in the right direction.

There is a lot of upset over the new internet sales tax laws that apply directly to online sales, and are already hitting some affiliates hard.

These laws require online merchants to collect state sales tax if they have local affiliates in those states. The states currently affected include California, Hawaii, North Carolina and Rhode Island – but many other states are in the process of following suit…

Merchants have always been responsible for sales & use tax on sales made within their own state whether that be online, offline, or mail order sales. The new laws propose that online merchants should also pay state sales tax in certain states where they have affiliates. The argument being that their affiliates represent a “physical presence” in that state.

A handful of cash-strapped states have weighed laws that would use the presence of affiliate marketers to force e-commerce companies into collecting sales tax. source

The New York State legislature has included a provision in their $122 billion budget. About $50 million of this is meant to come from a tax on some online retailers. source

How will the new internet sales tax laws affect you, as an affiliate marketer or as an online merchant? Good question.

So far the damage appears to be fairly contained, directly affecting affiliate marketers in the 4 states mentioned and larger online retailers that ship physical products.

You have probably already heard the news of Amazon.com dropping affiliates in certain states, but here is a list of merchants that dropped affiliates in New York: Merchants that Dropped New York Affiliates.

Merchants are fighting back

Dropping their affiliates in the affected states is a direct message to that state regarding their disagreement with the new internet sales tax laws. Basically, they are refusing to pay the additional state sales tax by pulling their affiliate program in those states.

“It’s painful to have to terminate these relationships with affiliates, simply because they live in states where counterproductive (and likely unconstitutional) laws are being passed,” said Patrick Byrne, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Overstock.com. source

The states that are looking at passing this provision to their sales tax law obviously want to increase their tax revenue. Unfortunately, given the widespread response by major online merchants, the new laws will create hardship on their local citizens – ultimately damaging their local economy even further.

Imagine for a moment that you live in New York, and earn a healthy 6-figure income from your affiliate sites. You pay income tax, and contribute to your local community. You are one person. In steps this law, your primary merchants drop you as an affiliate, your income drops to below poverty level practically overnight. (Overstock.com dropped 3,400 New York Affiliates)

Amazon.com and Overstock.com, two of the internets largest retailers, have both filed lawsuits against the state of New York. Overstock dropped the NY affiliates, while Amazon decided to pay the sales tax on sales made by NY affiliates pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

The outcome of those lawsuits, and each states response to their lack of participation in sales, will ultimately influence the future of online sales and affiliate marketing.

Personally, I applaud the merchants for taking a stand, and the affiliates who have written to their state representatives regarding the new internet sales tax laws. Affiliates in the affected states are currently taking the hardest hit, but this is something we should ALL be paying close attention to.

Will the Internet Sales Tax Laws affect you directly?

If you are an affiliate in California, Hawaii, North Carolina or Rhode Island then you have probably already experienced immediate termination by certain online merchants. What about the rest of us? You need to keep an eye on your state, because you may just be next.

The question has been raised by independent merchants, regarding their sales tax obligation in these states where they may have active affiliates. To date, the laws are obviously targeting the larger online retailers.

New York, for example, has a $10,000 threshold:

If an online retailer did not make at least $10,000 in gross sales to New York residents, they are not obligated to collect sales tax. source

It seems obvious that they are also targeting the sale of physical products. But don’t get too relieved just yet if you only deal in ebooks and virtual products. New York also wants to impose a 4 percent sales tax on online downloads of music, ring tones, games, movies and other media from online retailers. source

Are smaller retailers and info-products next on the list? Obviously that depends on each state, the outcome of current lawsuits, and the response from buyers and sellers alike. As I said, this is definitely something we all want to keep an eye on.

In the meantime, I suggest “business as usual”. Do not let this deter you from setting up affiliate sites or starting your own affiliate program. I live in Tennessee which is so far unaffected, so I plan to continue managing my affiliate sites and setting up new ones.

If you live in the affected states, and worked directly with merchants who are declining affiliates in those states, look for independent merchants to work with. Worst case scenario, you can sell profitable affiliate sites to someone in another state. Partner with someone in another state. Remove affiliate links and monetize with Adsense and advertisers temporarily until things (hopefully) resolve. Create your own info products, etc.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these new Internet Sales Tax Laws that seem to be spreading through the states like wildfire. And affiliates from California, Hawaii, North Carolina and Rhode Island – We’d love to hear from you! What are you experiencing on your end, and what is your recovery plan?

Best,

Resources Related to Internet Sales Tax Law:

• New York State Sales Tax Negatively Impacts NY Affiliates
• Internet Taxes, Wikipedia
• Overstock.com Drops Internet Affiliate Advertisers in California, Hawaii, North Carolina and Rhode Island.
• Amazon Cuts Ties to Affiliates in Hawaii
• The ‘Amazon Tax’ and the ‘iTunes Tax,’ Compared
• Dear Legislators – The Amazon Tax Won’t Raise Tax Revenue
• NY’s “Amazon Tax” Takes First Casualty: Overstock Affiliates