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January, 2012:

More Google Post Panda Testing

Just thought I’d drop a quick update to yesterdays email where I discussed an ongoing case study we were carrying out on some brand new domains and also checking how well the SLS Network was performing at the start of 2012.

OK interim stats are as follows:

1. 15 Domains bought and launched

2. All 15 were indexed and were starting to rank (albeit in a limited manner) within 24 hours.

3. For Narrow match terms, 4 had hit Page 1 in Google within 3 days, 5 had hit Page 2, 1 was on Page3, 1 was on Page 4 whilst the remaining 4 were lost in the mire (sub Page 5 but we’ll get them to where we want them to be ( it’ll just take some more time). So that’s a 60% success rate at Page 2 plus within 3 days.

On one of the sites we carried out more of an in-depth analysis and I am forwarding this video to my small “Peer Group Review Team” to confirm and the results picked up from that were really exciting. OK it was a tightly focused Niche we were after but still in narrow match had 411,000 competing pages and the results we had were as follows:

The time period was as mentioned three days since we bought and registered this domain and we were looking at the following results for one term (our main and keyword targeted term) plus as we had launched a while network of sites there was also some collateral penetration as well in that some of our other sites were also showing up for this term:

1. 5 Places controlled by us on Page1 in Google.

2. 4 Places on Page 2.

3. 5 Places on Page 3 (including Bookmark Directories).

4. 7 Places on Page 4 (including Bookmark Directories).

5. 5 places on Page 5 (including Bookmark Directories).

Plus when we expanded the Search queries it showed on Pages 9 & 10 that we had in some cases 90% of the page tie up for our sites / terms etc when we also took into consideration the member Directories of SLS which had also started to appear.

All we used in this promotion were a couple of items that we discuss in the members area of SLS plus the Bookmark Network using one account to deep link the sites.

So the quick response to does Social Bookmarking still work in 2012 (heck there was a post in the Warrior Forum recently that predicted the “death of…..” yawn) is yes and is alive and kicking.

The key thing that you have to bear in mind and I’ve stated this on countless times over the years, SEO is a constantly moving form of marketing. You have to keep evolving or you are finished and that’s what Simple Leveraging does, it moves constantly with the times and if it seems that in 2012 we are massively different animal to how we were in 2009 when we first emerged then in certain cases we are but in our core methodology? Nope, our principles and approach have stayed the same, just the implementation of them has been slightly “tweaked” that’s all.

If you read nothing else today, read this…these results are that good.

“I love it when a plan comes together” or so said the late great George Peppard as Col “Hannibal” Smith in the A Team (in virtually every episode) and in this case perhaps I should paraphrase the quote to run “I love it when someone pays attention, takes action and then hits the target”.

In this case I mean by taking my recommendation regarding the use of the various Simple Leveraging techniques and getting them to work extremely well.

Literally a few hours after my last email I received this quote in from one of our members who I “talked through the process” of putting this sort of plan together only a few weeks ago.

I won’t embarrass him by giving out his details but his quote ran as follows:

“I ran one press release test on a new site using the PR submission service, followed by your instruction and I followed that with an RSS Submit Submission and nothing else and take a look at the results 48 hrs later. Now this is a pretty none competitive keyword with a number of local modifiers but I’ve never seen this many keyword ranking combinations ranking this fast.

My friend you’re the man. Thank you for sharing with us.

You really over deliver.”

H e enclosed an excel spreadsheet of SERPS that quite frankly if I delivered it to a client without checking I would have basically been laughed at.

It was that good.

Seriously, I mean it.

If you thought yesterdays statistics were mind blowing (and humbly speaking I reckon a 443% increase in traffic ain’t too shabby as they say over here in Northern Ireland) then pick a couple of cushions to soften your fall ‘cos this is going to knock you sideways.

His spreadsheet enclosed (and I kid you not) the following statistics taken over 1200 terms:

Google:

500 Top 5 slots (251 at No 1)

Yahoo:

607 Top 5 slots (343 at No 1)

Bing:

605 Top 5 slots (343 at No 1)

Now this was 6 weeks ago so between a few of us we random checked about 70-80 terms this morning and….yes there had been some slippage but who the heck is going to complain if a few of the terms had slipped from No 1 to………No 2? To balance that in quite a few cases he had tag teamed the No 1 and No 2 slots and this was still 6 weeks after the release!

All in all we found that 75-85% of his results still stood so extrapolate that over 1200 terms and you get the picture as to why he was so excited and why the hard-bitten SOB’s (OK guys not really) in our ClientSEO Team were so impressed.

And we thought our results were mind blowing.

Listen boys and girls, there is so much…..how can I put it, but think of the smelly stuff that comes out of the rear end of a cow, flying around being sold nowadays that it is nice when something that is so achievable and practical appears that sometimes it is very easy to overlook it.

In this case it is the execution and implementation of the process that brings about the results here.

So, before we get tooooo carried away with everything let’s put in place some caveats here to bring about a dose of reality to the situation.

Yes as he said, a lot of his terms were very very Long tail..but in most cases (90% of the terms we checked) they had adverts running alongside the SERPS so someone was bidding on the traffic so that confirms to me that yes the majority of these terms had traffic (albeit small amounts but traffic nonetheless).

Does this technique work 100% all the time, every time?

I wish I could say yes and claim 100% perfection but to be honest I failed those exams at school so I’ll settle for a slightly “grubby” 75-85% hit rate which is still well above the average and in a lot of cases delivers results that most folks out there only fantasize about.

Hmnn that’s about it really.

Too many folks have come back now with amazing results for this not to be genuine. As I’ve said, it might not hit the target absolutely 100% all of the time but the strike rate is too convincing now for it not to be included within everyone’s’ armory.

Now those of you who have been receiving emails and newsletters from me for some time will testify that we don’t go down the conventional “Guru, churn and burn” route i.e. I very rarely send out emails promoting other peoples products purely just to create affiliate income. I know there hundreds out there who do but I don’t as I will only promote something that sits alongside our Simple Leveraging methodology and also something that we have tried out, tested and found to work on our clients first.

As an organization, we don’t exist purely on earning our income via affiliate sales in fact affiliate income accounts for less than 1% of our turnover so if we do send information out about another product or service (and I think we’ve done it 3-4 times in the past 2 years) then it’s because we think it will help your service.

Also because we feel so strongly that you should be using this we are quite prepared to waive potentially $480 worth of affiliate income per user, as a way of saying “Thank You” and also to act as an incentive for you to get hustling and do something.

If you or a client are working on a project and you absolutely have to deliver on something quickly then this is the road down which you should go, even allowing for the pre Christmas rush.

When you are promoting something for either yourself or a client then you have to make one of two decisions regarding SEO.

Firstly, how quickly can I get the target page into position in the SERPS to start the traffic flowing and how much of a fight is it going to entail and also how much budget do I have?

Secondly, if I can’t get my target page onto Page 1 quickly then I absolutely have to get either a Press Release or some form of associate page there to at least get into “the action” and deliver some sort of ROI.

Press Releases, designed, implemented and submitted correctly fit the bill here. Put it together with our SLS methodology and Bookmarking Network and you really have the weapons with which to carry the fight forward towards the achievements of your goals.

If you are a member of SLS and not using this technique then the first thing you should do after reading this email is to email me by return and I’ll get you set up with our discount link and get you up and running.

$480 worth of savings is not to be sniffed at, especially in these times of hardship and recession.

Only Google could do it? Plus another Volume of Back Links Heaven released

You have to ask yourself the question, given the resources it has at its disposal, the seemingly limitless funds and general marketing & personnel clout that it can throw at a situation, how come Google so often seem to open their mouths to change their feet?

How can such an organization that prides itself on the quality of its staff and resources engaged employ such a bunch of idiots to actually go out and do what they do at times?

First there was last year’s little escapade over the serious emergence of their new Social Media Promotional angles when they said that certain types of Link and Referral data was being withheld for…wait for it……Data protection issues. Then they were found to be selling, yes you’ve guessed it, that same Data to Adwords Buyers if they paid the right fees. The whole exercise was then blown wide apart when most observers rightly (in my opinion) highlighted the whole incident as the opening shots in driving the free version of Webmaster Tools under and the emergence of a Premium version of Webmaster Tools.

Now they’ve gone and done it again in another “hello Mr Foot please meet Mr Mouth” incident over paid Linking Campaigns.

Now for those who have only just entered this fun packed little Industry of ours, Google have developed, over the years, quite a negative stance (understatement here) on the whole concept of paid links. They don’t like them, they don’t like the practice of it and if they catch sites doing it then they basically consign them to the “nether regions of on-line hell” (or certainly below No 500 in the index or ban entirely) or so the theory goes.

Imagine the hilarity then when the Big G themselves get caught out a few days ago, supposedly engaged in a paid Link Building Campaign for their Chrome Browser but when challenged about it, suddenly develop a sense of moral outrage that “yes the Campaign was ours but it was not what we signed up for!”.

Really?

As they say over here in Ireland, “Do they think we’re not wise?”

Anyway back to the point, this whole episode highlights a great many things.

Firstly Google are going to do what Google want, for the interests of Google and not anyone else and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise?

Secondly they are not above making waves and delivering changes that come completely out of the blue as with yesterdays “Search, plus your World” announcement.

Now this has to be as clear an indication that they have finally decided to come out of the closet and take on FaceBook head on in the Social Arena with a beefed up “Google Plus” program.

Now my opinions of Google Plus in the early stages were very undecided and were very much powered by my distrust of all things Google and I still have some of the reservations but I do think that Google Plus could be “where it’s at in 2012″ and that 2012 could be the first year that FaceBook “catches a cold” (albeit not a major one).

We need to study at greater length the Google “Search, plus your World” concept further and we’ll write about in the days and weeks ahead as this could be something that it is essential to keep on the right side of with regards to Google but let me finish this with one last  warning.

If in your or your client’s Campaigns you are indulging in anything even remotely, how can I put this, slightly greyish/leading to Black Hat then steer clear of Google Plus by a country mile.

The downside of Google Plus is that because they call the shots as you can only take part if you have a Google controlled account, this means that if a Grey Squirrel as much as breaks wind in Southern Spain then the boffins at the Googleplex in California will know about it. I know this might sound as if I am an apologist for the likes of George Orwell et all but Google plus could possibly turn out to be the most potentially Orwellian of online marketing tools in that it really is a case of Google playing the role of Big Brother.

They do know what you are up to so keep it smart and stay safe.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t indulge in the odd piece of “cute” marketing as that would be boring but just don’t do it with any user logins or profiles that you use for Google Plus.

Now a newsletter / email like this wouldn’t be the same without a “shameless wee plug” for one of our ongoing promotions and Volume 3 of Back Links Heaven has just been released and in this edition we cover the Forum software punBB and how we can use sites using punBB for our needs when it comes to placing links.

As with other editions of Back Links Heaven this version is available from us here at Backlinks Heaven (http://backlinksheaven.com ) and so far we have covered the following formats in Vols 1-3:

1.       Vol  1 –  UseBB +10k Assorted Forums

2.       Vol  2 – AEForums + 10K Assorted Forums

3.       Vol  3 – punBB + 10K Assorted Forums

Basically this whole Series will encompass over 500,000 assorted Forum Domain Urls spread over nearly 50 different Platforms that will, when finally published amount to arguably the largest and most comprehensive resource on Forum Marketing there is.

Each volume is available for $ 16 but there are a few limited slots still available for the Series Subscription which is $160 and represents a saving of over $640 over the entire Series.

If anyone is interested in this then get in touch and I can get you set up on the system.

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