Improve your powers of laser focus!

Laser Focus–Make it Your Watchword for 2012

I totally agree with the trend back towards FOCUS, as opposed to ‘multi-tasking’, which is the modus operandi of anyone who is easily distracted by the latest shiny new thing. In fact, I’m making it a major part of my business plan for 2012 to learn to focus. It’s going to be a challenge for me because naturally, I have what my mother used to call a butterfly mind.

Multi-Tasking–Out With the Old!

I always felt rather uncomfortable with multi-tasking, even when it was regarded as a virtue, because it just doesn’t sit well with me that when you’re flitting from task to task you could possibly be doing your best work. And now it has been confirmed that multi-tasking is actually bad for you. Could you read three books at a time? No! You unquestionably get more out of your reading experience if you allow yourself to focus on the words of one book at a time, and read it in sequence, page-after-page, right to the end.

To me, it seems common sense that everything in our life is like that. Natural health experts of all persuasions tell us, for example, that we benefit more from our food if we allow ourselves to focus on nothing else, and if we don’t try to combine eating with catching up on email, or watching TV.

And there’s no question that what allows Olympic-class athletes to be the best is focus. Often assisted by some kind of meditation or mind training.

While i acknowledge that being too much of a perfectionist could be what’s holding many of us back from reaching our true potential, when we put off completing anything because it’s never good enough, I still believe that a far higher level of focus than average is necessary to plow through our to-do list and reach our goals. The key is balance. To be focused while you’re in the midst of a project, but to have the presence of mind to know when the task is done, not perfect but done to the point where it serves its purpose, and just put it out there for the world to see.

So, for me, the order of work for 2012 is going to be to create a plan and tick off those tasks, one-by-one, with as much focus as I can muster until I reach my goals.

What can focus do for you?

1. Increase your productivity.
2. Improve the quality of your tasks.
3. Reduce the stress associated with intense multi-tasking.
4. Brings tranquility and order into your life. The more you focus, the more you invite tranquility.
5. Reduce stress-related health issues.
6. Free up valuable time to allow you to set more ambitious goals for yourself.
7. Give you a huge sense of achievement.

Learn to Focus!

OK, so that’s all very well. But how can we improve our levels of focus to a point where we’re achieving nicely?

• Decide when you are most likely to achieve that all-important mental clarity that can lead to intense levels of focus. It’s not the same for all of us.
• Create a checklist of sub-tasks that, when completed, will mean that your project is finished. This is so that you don’t become subconsciously distracted and convince yourself that the project is finished when it’s not. There are a million online tools for creating your to-do list, but here’s the Google lead–it’s free and good.
• Decide on a length of time you want to focus on a task to the exclusion of all else
• Use a timer and ignore everything else but the task to hand until the timer goes off
• Don’t set yourself unrealistically long periods of time for focus. Anything from 2 minutes to 30 minutes is optimal. But the trick is to ignore everything else while you’re ‘focusing.’
• Learn how to meditate. It increases your powers of focus no-end and has other desirable side effects that will help you move forward in your life.
• Increase your powers of focus by training yourself not to move on to another new project until you’ve finished the one at hand. The more unfinished projects you have in the pipeline right now, the more important this part will be to you… (note to self…)

I sincerely hope that you achieve mental clarity, laser focus, and all of your goals for 2012!

Should I set my inner child free?

Quite Out of Character For Me…

After twenty years of freelance consulting I arbitrarily, and quite uncharacteristically decided to accept an offer from a major publisher–a very flattering offer I might add–to go and manage their local publishing operation in the Middle East, which is, as I’m quite sure you know, a major emerging market for many fields these days.

Talk About Diving In Head First!

Although it wasn’t exactly far for me to go–no relocation was necessary–it was a drastic change from my usual pace: not quite working in my pajamas every day, but certainly enjoying the extreme latitude that working from my cozy leather recliner afforded me. Now I must snap out of bed at a respectable hour every morning, slug down a cup of something hot and get myself showered, dressed to face the world, and out of the door in time to negotiate the short drive to the office. I’d almost forgotten what rush-hour traffic was all about, since consultants rarely venture out at those certain hours of the day. They’re at perfect liberty not to!

The Good–And the Not-So-Good!

In some ways working in a brand-new, high-tech, corporate office has been a ball. I often wondered, as an SEO consultant working from home, how I’d get on in a real-live-office after all these years. And no, I’m not going to tell you how long it’s been since my last full-time job. There are some things one should simply to keep to oneself.

Anyway, I found out that I’d do just fine. I admit that I have a huge advantage over many who must battle it out in the corporate jungle every day: my surroundings are pleasant and my co-workers are, for the most part, a delightful bunch.

But I miss my SEO work. I sorely miss writing every day. Writing is an art that, if you have it in you, you just gotta do it. It’s as simple as that. Believe me, non-fiction writing is no less creative than great works of fiction. It takes all the creativity a writer’s got to write well and to entertain an audience.

My marriage is suffering since now our respective schedules keep us totally apart for much of the week. I am no longer at liberty to rush to the aid of any of my adult children should they run into difficulty; something that truly saddens me. Let’s not even begin to mention my dearest friends, who have been so patient while I’m away exploring a world I’d thought I was done with forever.

The real trouble though, is that I miss the unfettered creativity of working as a consultant. Not just that. My inner child is pining. In fact she’s fairly wasting away. I can no longer switch as the mood takes me from serious and focused, to silly and game-for-a-laugh. Some days it’s as much as I can do to prevent Miss Inner Child from romping forth in the corporate setting, linking the laser printer up to the coffee machine, and parachuting gleefully to a damp landing in the fountain on the ground floor…all the while screaming ‘free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.

So this is what I want to know. What do you think I should do? Do you think I should keep going and anticipate the promotion that’s almost certain after I pull off the next few successful projects? Or should I do what I dream about most nights, and let my inner child escape the bonds of the corporate world? Should I return to my old self-employed stomping ground, despite the fact that it might be difficult to get the SEO gigs coming in at the required pace again? If you leave a comment it’d be great to discuss this wouldn’t it?

Seven great strategies for blogging success!

Bloggers-Make Every Post Count

If you blog, it’s important to write firstly because you just want to. You have something inside you that needs to be said. But in order to have a successful blog there are some parameters that need to be met.

1. Only blog when you ‘ve got something to say (that means no waffle posts–it’ll drag your blog down and detract from your true writing potential)
2. Try and have something to say on a regular basis because it does count. We all fall off the wagon in that department from time to time, but please schedule yourself to write often.
3. To help you have good things to write about, keep a little notebook where you can jot down ideas for blogposts even if you’re shopping, or in the shower, or even (OK don’t try this) climbing a mountain. Catch those ideas–they’re priceless.
4. Determine whether your blog post actually serves a purpose in the scheme of things–does it? Really? If your blog is about software, very few people will be interested in the antics of your cat (unless its a very special cat), so bear that in mind.
5. Read through your blog post to make sure your sentences flow, you’ve said what you meant to say, and there are no typos.
6. If you can’t think of a word to write, look around at some of the great blogs in your niche and become inspired. Looking at hot topics (trending on Twitter, Google, Yahoo and more) is a great way to get an idea.
7. Remember to give your readers added value by linking out thoroughly to other posts on your blog (where relevant of course) and to other good blogs that are also relevant to your subject. This practice is excellent for your readers and also excellent for the crawl-worthiness of your site. Remember this is strategy number seven–and that’s my lucky number (hint, hint).

Nope, not a cliffhanger!

Some of you may have wondered if I’ve slipped over the edge of a cliff somewhere. It’s been so long since I posted.  Or perhaps you were wondering if I’d given it all up and gone to live in Katmandu?

Let me reassure you that I’m still here, and still battling. Ever felt out of control and overwhelmed? Well that has been me for the past month. I have been indulging in a little introspection as to why recent events reduced me to a pile of rubble. Before I go on let me bore you with the main points of our family news for April and May:

• 3 semi-serious car accidents–thank God only whiplash, bruising and scrapes sustained by a deployed airbag were the result, but much mangled metal.
• 1 broken ankle (me–I fell again).
• 1 serious concussion (my son when he slipped on the University steps banking his head).
• A run-in with a failing antivirus application necessitating yet another laptop reconfig. (AV is one of the big-boys but I’m not mentioning it here lest I end up with a lawsuit on my hands (if you really want to know ask me on Twitter (skinner).

OK I know all this, while inconvenient, is not really enough to send me into a tailspin. So why have I dropped all my balls (metaphorically speaking) in the past few weeks?

Because I’m a raving control freak that’s why. I hate it when stuff happens unexpectedly to mess up my schedule. And while we’re on the subject of me, I’m a chocoholic as well as a crank you wouldn’t want to run into in the wee hours of the morning.

There. My secrets are all out. Now you know exactly who you’re dealing with. I hope you’ll continue to read my blog though, or I might stalk you.

Seriously, I realize this is why I’m drawn to SEO; it’s all quite predictable once you master the basics. In reality there are no big surprises unless there are huge gaps in your knowledge on search engine optimization.

Oh, and if you’re interested I have migrated to Kaspersky for antivirus protection.

PS: I’m working on setting up this WordPress blog on wallpaper. Whaddya think?

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

Cloaking: Nefarious form of Black Hat

Of all the various methods of getting a website to show further up in search results, cloaking is the one  that’s pretty much unanimously regarded as ‘Black Hat.’ There are some pertinent reasons why this is so.

But first, what exactly is cloaking? Here’s Google’s definition:

Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to users and search engines. Serving up different results based on user agent may cause your site to be perceived as deceptive and removed from the Google index.

The Penalty for Cloaking

If you are caught cloaking by the search engines (it’s actually more a case of when than if), you will be immediately removed from the major search engines (and most others too).  If it’s bad enough you could also be blacklisted. This means that not only will you have to begin again with marketing your site, but you will also have to purchase another domain name. That’s as bad as it gets with a search engine penalty.

If you are a website owner and you hire an SEO consultant, be absolutely sure about their intentions and their ethics. And never buy software that claims to be able to cloak your pages or links or anything else. It’s simply not worth the huge risk involved.

What’s Left When You’re Busted?

And if by some miserable chance you were cloaking for a client you will have a reputation in tatters and may even be the subject of a lawsuit.

So why do people insist on using cloaking? Personally I have a hard time understanding why anyone would take the risks when there are so many other ethical ways to optimize your site that don’t involve cheating the search engines.

It is important to understand that the search engines are there to provide a service and if they turn a blind eye to sites that try to cheat them they will be ruining their own business. So who can blame them for coming down so hard?

This is a follow-on post for my post on the Rise of the Blog as a Business Gateway over at SEOscoop.

If you read the post and the comments you will see that Glenn over at Divinewrite raised so many good points that I realized I’d left out some important information.

More About WordPress and SEO

I can’t find any decent usability studies, but there’s a ton of information all over the web that talks about WordPress’s SEO-friendly setup. There are a couple of hitches: duplicate content is one but you can largely cut that out by disabling the content preview (excerpt) pane if your blog is set up like that, so that the whole post is featured on the front page instead of only a part of it. If you’d like more on how to make your WordPress setup more friendly, you can’t do better than The Definitive Guide to Higher Rankings for Your Blog.

The most obvious example I can think of for how successful a blog can be for business is my own. My main business website has been Wellwrittenwords since 2002.

My Blogging for Business Experiment

As late as 2006 I decided to experiment with blogging for business after seeing how blog posts were doing so well for my clients. I didn’t want this associated with my main site in case it didn’t work out, so I bought (in retrospect) a terrible domain name: marketmou.com and set up the blog as a sub-domain. Within months I had a PR of 4. Meanwhile, due to changes in Google’s algorithms, my Wellwrittenwords.com site lost page rank from 4 to 3.

Traffic rose steadily with Marketmou and despite long periods of inactivity and things not going the way I wanted, I continued to get good traffic and increased incoming links with practically no effort.

Getting my Google Page Rank Back

So a few months back I decided that I’d been torturing myself long enough. The marketmou domain name was now annoying me to the point of insanity. So after careful consideration I took the decision to cannibalize it and import the posts to my Wellwrittenwords site. I simply don’t have time to keep them both going and my main site was suffering: a stupid situation since Wellwrittenwords has the domain age that is so coveted. Yes, you get SEO points from Google just for having an aged domain.

Within weeks I had my PR of 4 back on Wellwrittenwords. When I post I am often at the top of Page 1 of Google for a search on the relevant keyphrases. To take an example from this week, please Google ‘SEO self regulation.’ It was the first time I had mentioned that phrase on my site (so the Google authority attribute was not from some previous post) and the same day, March 11, I was at the top of Page 1 on Google.

Now, if you will, take a look at my post of March 12: Failproof FaceBook Strategies for Growing Your Business. Google the phrase. Now Google FaceBook Strategies for Growing Your Business. See what I mean?

Still doubt that WordPress–or blogging–is the reason? Remember that pages on a static site take days at least to get indexed. The quickest I’ve ever hit page 1 of Google for content on a new page of a static site is a week. With my blog it’s consistently hours.

Permanent Text on Your Blog’s Front Page

As for Glenn’s point about putting a blurb on your site’s main page: there are so many ways to achieve this with a blog. You can easily modify a WordPress template to include a text box in the main content column right under the header. In fact I do it for all the blogs I work on. Sometimes it’s just to urge people to sign up for the RSS feed, but often there is other information there too. Also you can insert any text you like into the widgets in the side bar. No problem at all inserting any text you want to show up on a permanent basis. It is also possible to add a page to your blog (with some templates–not all) that is static so that the blog posts show up on a secondary page.

I don’t think the goods and services come off as an afterthought on a blog at all. Rather, you can demonstrate to your clients that you really do know about all the goods and services you’re offering. This is often reassuring to potential clients, not to mention that it gives them a chance to interact with you in an informal way before they purchase.

There I rest my case. If it’s not convincing enough I’m content. We bloggers are stealing the show–ssshhh.

I got tagged for this back on January 25th by Neal Jansen over at The Puck Writes but I only just saw it: Sorry Neal!

The Rules for This Particular Meme

* Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post. (see above)
* Share seven facts about yourself in the post. (see below)
* Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs. (see below)
* Let them know they’ve been tagged. (you’ll just have to trust trackbacks and such)

Without further ado here are 7 things you probably didn’t know about me:

1. I have been married for 33 years.
2. I have been working online since 1996
3. SEO has been a passion of mine since 2003
4. I’ve been writing for 21 years
5. I’m a Brit, but I live in Jordan and do SEO and copywriting mainly for companies within the US (you’re right: that’s three facts–you’re getting a few more than you bargained for)
6. I tend to be very direct and say exactly what I mean (Oh, OK, you already knew that–I’m sorry)
7. I’m an intuitive empath which means I can feel whatever other people feel and it’s also why I no longer enjoy huge gatherings. Now if there were only six things you still wouldn’t know that would you.

I tag:

1. Richard Dewick of Makakmedia Blog
2. Donna Fontenot at Dazzlin Donna’s Blog
3. Bridget Ayers over at the Get Smart Blog
4. Barry Welford of The Other Bloke’s Blog
5. Andy Beal, better known for his Marketing Pilgrim site
6. Jill Whalen of High Rankings
7. Bill Slawski of SEO by the Sea

Is a spammer stealing your traffic?

For those of you who hate it when I’m in a bad mood, RANT ALERT!

I woke up this morning to find this on my blog:

Hi,
let me first tell you this not spam.i am a real person sitting at a real desk.I am Rajeev Mahadevan from India.I just wanted to tell you that i have found a really easy way to make money online.its free,and easy.i made $142/- in my first week.below’s the link.if you want to make effortless money.
A.W.SURVEYS

First, Rajeev, let me tell you that if you had read any of my blog at all it would have been plain to you that if there’s anything I hate, it is spam.

You seek to justify yourself by telling me that your comment is not spam, so it seems I am going to have to enlighten you about the definition of spam.

How do you think spam gets written other than by real people at real desks? True we might think of them in our mind’s eye shuffling up to a trough in a barn, but the truth is most of them look just like you or I and they do, wait for it, sit at a desk somewhere.

Whether or not you sit at a desk is not a measure of how spammy your comments are. The measure is this:

If your comment contains a self-serving link leading to a site that has NOTHING to do with the contents of the blog post then, yes, you are a spammer, whether you choose to call yourself that or not. You are attempting to steal my traffic. And while you say you are inviting people to ‘make effortless money,’ let me tell you there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch.’ You may not be working for the traffic, but the people who own the blogs you are spamming most certainly did work hard for that traffic. They spent endless hours educating themselves about their subject, they have built up a network of people they know, like and, dare I say it? TRUST online (and yes, who also recognize them by name). Additionally, legitimate bloggers spend hours researching and writing blog posts so that others will want to visit and read.

Which brings me to yet another point: while you’re posting spammy comments on other people’s blogs, you are not finding targeted traffic. Targeted traffic is when you aim for people who are looking for what you have to offer (just so you know).

So someone, somewhere is paying for your traffic (assuming anyone in their right mind would want to click on your link).

Sorry Ranjeev, your spammy comment is in the spam bin where it belongs.

Legitimate Promotion Strategies

But in the spirit of online camaraderie, let me just give you some advice.

Unless you’re planning to give something back, such as a valuable link from your website, a talkup on your blog, or the like, never try to benefit from someone else’s hard work. They’ll resent it.

There are plenty of legitimate ways you can promote your product. I suggest you try one of the many great forums on affiliate marketing for this.

Create a web page to promote your product and drive traffic to that with legitimate comments on other people’s blogs (no need to spam, you still get the link if you take part in their conversation). Create meaningful, mutually beneficial online relationships that will fuel your progress. Heck, shell out and buy some PPC. That’s always a great choice for anyone who doesn’t know what else to do and it needn’t be very expensive.

My Big Announcement

It won’t be news to you that one of the best way to get quality backlinks is guest posting for a website with complimentary content to what’s on your website. In reality of course, if you pick your guest posting venues carefully you get a whole lot more out of the deal than just hot backlinks.

If you’re writing for a blog that gets a lot of traffic then some of that traffic will definitely spill over onto your own. You will also gain exposure in your chosen field. If your writing is good you will even be establishing yourself as an expert, and that’s a truly priceless prize.

See Me on Marketing Pilgrim

I’m lucky enough to have just had my first guest post, Getting the Hang of the Twitter Culture accepted over at Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim. This is an important step for a successful blogger, and so exciting for me. Just look at that traffic (oh sorry, if you don’t have the Compete extension for FireFox you won’t be able to see that!). Not to even mention the Google PR of 7. This will make for some highly valuable backlinks. You can be sure that I will put aside time from my frantically busy schedule to write more posts for Andy because it benefits me almost more than it does him.

By the way, if you go over to read my post, please be sure to give us a Stumble or add us to your other favorite bookmarking venue if you like it. You could even Tweet about it on Twitter.

I have been offline for a while because my ISP had a technical problem that affected a whole batch of DSL subscribers. FAIL.

Back to Business!

So when I finally got back online I had a whole pile of work to catch up on. I only had three-and-a-half hours sleep last night. But so far today I have installed a WordPress theme, tinkered with two others, and caught up with a whole load of email correspondence.

One of my clients chose a really great WordPress theme over at Revolution. Very nice theme, although a little complicated to set up–much more so than regular WordPress themes.

I may decide to use one of those themes on here, they’re so professional-looking. We shall have to see if I even have time to get around to that any time soon.

The blog is taking over!

Interestingly I have had a number of clients recently who want WordPress installed on their main website. They have heard good things about it’s flexibility and the fact that in general, the search engines love it. It certainly makes it easier if a number of people need to upload content to a website. I love it and always encourage anyone who wants to install WordPress.

WordPress Makes Search Engine Optimization and Pleasing Visitors Easy

The major advantage in using WordPress is the fact that it becomes really simple to add new content to your site on a regular basis. This alone will make the search egnines, and Google in particular, love you to bits. More to the point, if there’s plenty of interesting information on your website your visitors will love you too.