1 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom NOTICE: You DO NOT Have the Right to Reprint or Resell this Report! You Also MAY NOT Give Away, Sell, or Share the Content Herein Copyright © 2013 & Beyond ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without express written, dated and signed permission from the author DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES: The information presented in this report represents the views of the publisher as of the date of publication The publisher reserves the rights to alter and update their opinions based on new conditions This report is for informational purposes only The author and the publisher not accept any responsibilities for any liabilities resulting from the use of this information While every attempt has been made to verify the information provided here, the author and the publisher cannot assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions Any similarities with people or facts are unintentional AFFILIATE DISCLAIMER: The author may receive compensation from some of the entities listed in this report for referrals, as their “thank you” for sending you their way However, the author never recommends any service or product solely for the reason of receiving commissions (and neither should you) – You know our reputation is on the line Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom Contents A Practical SEO Guide The Old SEO The New SEO Social Signals Keyword Research Knowing What Google Says 11 Introduction to WordPress 12 Wordpress Is Easy to Configure for SEO 13 Getting Statistics On Your Site 14 So Why Is Analytics Important? 14 Analytics Will Tell You If Your Content Is Interesting 15 WordPress Plug-Ins 16 WordPress Themes 17 Off Page Optimization 18 What Are Search Engines Looking For? 19 Social Media Signals 20 Social Media Optimization 21 Networking and Back Linking 22 So how you get these authoritative links? 23 Blog Commenting 24 Backlinks from Videos 24 Doing Niche Research 25 Conclusion 27 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom A Practical SEO Guide This is a Practical SEO guide that will help you to get your site to be found by other people searching in Google This means being ranked at the top of the first page when people are searching using a certain keyword It's important for you, if you’re an affiliate marketer or if you are a small business marketer Your business will depend on how much traffic you can get to your website and that will depend on how often you’re findable when people are searching for what you offer SEO used to have a pretty simple formula First, a person had to concentrate on getting ranked in Google And then once they were able to get their site ranked in Google, the other major sites such as Yahoo and Bing followed suit The Old SEO And getting ranked in Google was basically getting the most authority backlinks to your site, as well as having a lot of relevant content on your site Most site owners created their own backlinks to mimic what it would look like if others found their site to be worth talking about The same site owners would create content that the algorithm would find relevant, even if it didn’t make that much sense to the actual reader If you don't understand the concepts of “algorithm”, “backlinks” and “content” right now, that's okay, I'll explain it more later in this guide You don't want to get to know the old way of doing SEO anyway You want to understand the new way of doing SEO that will be a reflection of the work you're doing to know your customers and to know your subject Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom The New SEO In 2011 and 2012 Google changed the way that they ranked websites by changing their programming In marketing circles, this programming is called their “algorithm” Instead of ranking sites on the first page, at the top of the listings by using the formula I talked about, they began to incorporate other aspects of online marketing In previous years, it was always said that it was unimportant for a website to be popular as far as what it did to determine the website’s ranking This means that website that received a lot of attention and a lot of traffic, didn't necessarily find itself at the top of the search engines when somebody typed in a topic that their site was about Now, popularity does matter It matters in how people use your website’s content in their social media channels; (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) and it matters how they show their approval of what your content says on a regular basis Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom Social Signals Google has called this “social signals”, and it means that if you give users things they like to read and share with their friends, you’re more likely to be first in your chosen topic for your keywords That also means that the “backlink” process has taken on a new form Marketers will now need to find new ways of networking with other website owners in their niche And they will also need to look to try to get attention from both news and related trade organizations This is the new SEO While you will find sites that will still use the old formula to rank, Google is working overtime in order to eliminate them the advantage that they used to have This May Seem Like A Lot of Work, But… Therefore, even though the way that I am teaching you in this guide will seem like a lot of work, you will not have to look over your shoulder six months or a year after you get your site ranked at the top You won’t be wondering if Google will penalize you and drop your site If you follow the guide that I'm giving you in these pages, you will have your site ranked; you will get traffic and you will have longevity in your market You Must Be Dedicated Obviously, I can’t guarantee these things to you because I don't know how much work you're willing to put in to this process I don't know whether or not you will be willing to the networking that it will take And I don't know whether or not you will want to keep working, or if you will hit a brick wall SEO is about relationships, persistence and determination…not about formulas The kind of person that does well getting their site ranked at the top Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom of Google for their chosen keywords tends to be a person that does not give up easily When one thing doesn't work, they move on to add another tactic And they keep adding them until they get what they want: which is to have their site ranked at the top for the keywords that their customers are searching for Your success in SEO will be determined by the same qualities So if you're ready, let's learn how to the basics that will put you in a position to be successful Once you have done the basics and everything else that you can do, you'll need to apply as much pressure as you can until you reach your goal Keyword Research The most important aspect of what you'll be doing in getting your website to rank will be to determine what keywords you want your site to be found for To have your site rank for keywords that people are not searching for, will not make you any money The key to making money with your website will be having people who were going to the search engines and find your site when they are on the way to find answers for questions they have In most cases, these people will have not heard of your website or your company before they find it on the search engines To determine what keywords are most relevant, you'll need to go through a basics series of questions that will give you insight on what keywords you need to try to rank your site for The way I look at this is basically using question words such as: who, what, how and why Let's explore each one of the question words and how it relates to figuring out what keywords you would like to get your site ranked for Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom WHO Before you can get deep into which keywords potential customers going to use you're going to want to take a hard look at who would actually want what your website is selling Take a hard look at the demographics When I use the word demographics, I mean answering questions such as … will the people come from a specific country or geographic location? Will your customers be of a specific age? What about their gender? Will those customers have children or be interested in things for their children? Determine who your customer is WHAT When it’s determined which certain group of people you're going to be targeting, you want to start thinking about what words they use in order to search for things on the Internet You also want to determine the difference between words they use when they are doing research and words they are using when they are ready to buy You also want to think about their particular preferences What they like? What words they use to express their likes and dislikes? What is troubling them? See if you can find out what kind of solutions they like and prefer in order to solve their problems Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom The words that you want to rank for are those that people use when they are ready to buy You only have a limited amount of time and resources and you want to spend them on those people that are most likely to buy As time goes forward and you have ranked your sites for words that people use when they are ready to buy, you can then start looking to rank for research words But, you want to start with words that are buying keywords HOW You may be wondering how you are going to find these keywords Well, one of the best ways to that will be for you to use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool Basically, what you'll is to put your subject into the search box, and determine the results that Google gives you Google will tell you which keywords are searched for the most and you can use them to determine which ones you want to target In general, you want to try to target those words that don't have lots of competition, but yet are being searched for a lot It will be impossible for you to avoid competition altogether This is where your determination will come in If you're willing to invest the time and effort you may have to out rank sites that are your competitors When the keyword you’re looking at has lots of searches the effort that you make is going to be worth it The question you will have to always ask yourself is how long you want to work to get a keyword before it actually starts to make you money Make sure you’re always working on some “low hanging fruit” before you attack the “big” words Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom WHY The next thing you want to determine is why certain keywords are important and what keywords your customers have recently been using Google’s tool to give you this information is called Google trends Google trends will allow you to determine which searches related to your subject are rising in popularity If the search has been rising in popularity over the last six months, you'll want to use it even if you can't find that word in the Adwords Keyword Tool Focusing on those terms that customers have been using recently is a good strategy for finding keywords that may not have as much competition as others 10 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom This is important because if you spend money on a designer and you are unable to make the changes yourself, a considerable amount of your profit will be spent making updates to your website Wordpress Is Easy to Configure for SEO Using the plug-in system, WordPress has a number of ways that you will be able to make your site SEO friendly Many of the technical things that Google will look for in your site will be findable when you use plug-ins We will discuss some specific ways for you to find plug-ins for SEO and any other function that you'll need in this course 13 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom Getting Statistics On Your Site Before getting deep into specifics about plug-ins and settings, I want to talk about something that's very important to doing business online You may choose to use a WordPress plug-in to implement this and so this is a very good time to talk to you about analytics Analytics programs give you statistics about your website activity The best way to install an analytics program will be to look for a WordPress plug-in that uses the free Google Analytics online tool to add to your website To find this plug-in all you need to is to go to Google itself, type in Google analytics WP plug-in, and then look for the results Download the plug-in, and install it to your website You will be required to start a free Google Analytics account in order to complete the installation Once Google has verified that analytics is on your site, you will be ready to start analyzing statistics about who is coming to your site and what they're doing So Why Is Analytics Important? Google Analytics tells you most of what you'll need to know about your site visitors With the information you're given, you'll be able to make adjustments so that once customers began to arrive at your site you can guide them to see your products and services so that they can buy them If for some reason your customers are coming to your site and getting stuck on a page that does not put them in the position to buy, you'll want to know that If your customers are coming to your site and leaving very quickly, you want to know that also Google analytics will tell you who visit your site; how long they stay, which pages they access, who sent them, and when they visit All of this is very important information that you'll be able to use to improve on the activity on your site 14 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom Analytics Will Tell You If Your Content Is Interesting The other important factor is that it will tell you whether or not people are interested in your content The more interested that people are in your content, the more they are likely to share on social media and the more likely they are to stay and read As part of its algorithm, Google has taken into consideration how long a person stays on your site, as well as how many or how much they share your information with their friends If your content doesn't interest people and they’re are quickly leaving, use your analytics program to help you to develop better content and to continue to improve on it until you get the results that will help you to get better rankings you want as well as to influence more people to buy Another important aspect of Google Analytics is it will tell you what mobile users are doing As you know, an increasing number of searchers are using their mobile devices to access the Internet You want to make sure that these mobile users find your site enjoyable and acceptable Use Google analytics to monitor this and make adjustments so that this increasing number of people will want to visit your site Analytics will also give you good information to share with advertisers When they approach you about wanting to put their ad on your site, you can use your analytics information to share with them You be sharing real information that will help them to make a good decision about whether or not your site is worth their time Also, once you have an analytics program, you can then begin to set realistic goals for your site and then work on them until you accomplish them For example, you may want to set a goal of a certain number of site visitors by certain period of time Your analytics program will tell you how you're progressing, and will give you clues on what you can to increase that traffic until it reaches what you want it to 15 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom WordPress Plug-Ins I would like to talk a little more detail about WordPress plug-ins here Plug-ins are a way for you to add new features to the way your site works WordPress is a great word website builder all by itself However, you may find that your particular market or site visitors would like to have something on the site that would make their experience a better one You can find plug-ins that will help you to change your site’s function You can change the way comments appear, you can change the way advertising appears, you can add social media buttons and the list is endless When you are running up against a brick wall in terms of what your site does, a quick trick to find out if there is a plug-in for it is to go to the Google search engine, and type in what you want your website to and along with “WP” and “plug-in” If there is a plug-in available, typically, you'll be able to find one this way In most cases the plug-ins that you will find when you look for them in search engines will be free In other cases these plug-ins will require you to pay, or make a donation The good thing about paid plug-ins is that the creators will keep up with the changes that WordPress makes in its platform And you won't probably have to wait for the functionality to be fixed With free plugins, there is sometimes a wait before a creator has time to fix their software to match any security changes that Wordpress must make to patch their software… There are certain plug-ins that you will need to make your life easier, doing SEO on your site I will provide links to these plug-ins below In order to start your site successfully for SEO, download the following plugins and install them into your WordPress site Each plug-in may require some additional configuration However, if you are uncertain about the configuration, then just use the default You will be able to customize the plugin as your site matures 16 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom Akisimet (Spam Protection) All In One SEO Pack Google Analytics Shareaholic (Social Media Sharing) Online Backup for Wordpress W3 Total Cache WP Touch (For Mobile) WordPress Themes WordPress themes will help you to customize the way your site looks to site visitors They allow you to change the site’s design, colors and overall feel Since you want visitors to stay on your site as long as they find it interesting, you want to what you can to make your site appealing The look of your site is important, depending on what your visitors expect So, you'll want to choose your theme carefully, and continue to make changes as your site matures and as you get more visitors Monitor your analytics program to watch your visitors to make sure that they are enjoying your content, sharing it, and reading it for a considerable length of time While the theme itself will not affect your site’s ranking, the length of time they spend on your site will affect the rankings In addition to that the number of times people “like” (in the social media way) and share your content, this will also have an effect Therefore, having an appealing look to your site that's pleasant and helps people to enjoy what you’re giving them will help you to rank your site Like plug-ins, WordPress themes can either have a cost or be free You can easily find themes that are free to use by searching for them on Google or any 17 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom other search engine However, since this is for your profit, you may want to consider purchasing a theme As is the case with plug-ins creators of paid themes make sure that their themes work when there are changes in the WordPress platform What you don't want to happen is for your free theme to break, just as you are beginning to get new customers to come to your site Disrupting the flow of buyers can be damaging to your income, and you want to make sure that you keep that pipeline open Off Page Optimization The word optimization basically means that you're making your site findable in the search engines You can optimization work on your actual site and on websites outside of yours The work you outside of your site to make your site findable is called “off page optimization” This is an important part of what you need to for the search engines to consider your site to be one that is credible to be shown to those searching for certain keywords 18 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom Don’t Look for Secret Tactics Or A Magic Bullet While you may be looking for certain specific secret tactics that exploit holes in Google's algorithm, that is not a good long-term strategy Google is closing up an increasing number of gaps in their algorithm to help them figure out which site is authoritative and which one isn't in a particular niche In this guide I have been telling you about things that you can to work with the search engines, not against them And if there is any one message that I have for you when you're doing SEO, for the long run, especially if you're doing it for profit is that you want to work with the search engines and not against them So what are the search engines looking for? What Are Search Engines Looking For? They're looking for sites that have authority, relevance and credibility in their niche Let's think about it from the search engine’s perspective If you owned Google, you would want people to have a good search experience every time they came to type keywords into the search engine bar In order to that you will want to make sure that when they type in words then they would find what they were looking for, because if they didn't they would go and look for another search engine to use You would then try to make sure that every time someone searched for something, they would get the most credible and relevant site that they could find You want to make sure that the sites were reputable amongst their peers and that people found their information so important that they felt they need to share it This is not much different from the way that Google determines which sites show up when people type in words to the search engine You will want to 19 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom work “off the page” in order to help to determine that your website is credible, authoritative and relevant for the subject and keywords that you're competing One of the ways that Google will determine this is that they will look at social media signals Social Media Signals This basically means how people on social media are using your content Do they find it interesting and useful? If they they will share it with their friends and this will be easily traceable by Google Content that people are finding shareable gives your business more power in the search engines and helps you to rise above sites that have no credibility So, one of the things that you'll be able to is to make sure that you are connecting with those social media sites that your customers use You want to create content that is interesting that visitors will want to talk about, and share Don't be afraid of being criticized As long as people are interacting about your content, the search engines will find your site relevant As you have news, or interesting items, or changes in what you're offering, make sure to put this information on your social media sites Share it with the people that you are connected to Monitor your analytics to make sure that they find it interesting enough to share with their friends Continually look for ways to get people on your social media accounts involved with your content This is a very important part of getting social media signals working for you 20 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom Social Media Optimization I want to take a little more time and get into social media optimization Obviously I talked a little bit about it in the last section But I want to make sure that I share the mindset with you that you will need to be successful with social media, so that you don't alienate people as you start promoting your business Most importantly, you want to make sure that social media is done Socially! That means that you'll need to make sure that your relationships are two-way In other words, when you share content and someone comments, you’ll want to make sure that you are commenting back to them You may be tempted to use your social media accounts as a place online just to share your links as you develop them While others this, it is the wrong mentality to have if you want to have long term success You want to use social media as a way to share with people that you are connected to That means that you'll need to participate in conversations In some cases you will be the one to start these conversations In other cases others will start them and you will get involved The point is that social media works best when people know you and like you And the way that you that is by helping them to get to know you and you to get to know them Social media optimization is easy once you understand this simple principle The more people that like your content, the better your search rankings will be The more people share your content, the better your search rankings will be So the best thing that you can is to get involved on social media, with the intention of having a conversation Here are the sites that you want to start with: 21 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom Facebook Twitter Google Plus LinkedIn Pinterest YouTube Make sure that your website is clearly displayed in your account so that when people find what you say interesting they want to go your website and check out the rest of your content Also, when you fill out your profile make sure you make your profile personal Add a picture, add some personal details, and make it so that you look like someone that to be friends with Networking and Back Linking Still an important part of SEO is getting sites that have authority to link to your site It is an indication to the search engines that others in your niche find your site credible and worth talking about If you go back to the section where I talk about what you would if you owned a search engine like Google, you would want to show sites to your visitors that come highly recommended by experts in their area When you have authoritative links from people in your niche to your site, it’s a way of saying to the search engines, “people that know what they're talking about recommend my site” 22 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom So how you get these authoritative links? Here is where you will want to be careful You've probably read in SEO guides that what you'll need to is to try to fake out Google and create this authority yourself This guide will not cover those methods First, they are false authority While they may work a little bit longer in the future, Google is intent on rooting them out and if you are in business you not want to base your profits on something that could be eliminated As I have said before you want to work with the search engines, not against them What does this mean? This means that you will need to get authorities in your niche to link out to you One of the best ways to this is to build relationships with some of the other site owners in your niche What other site owners say about what it is that you're doing? Do they know you? Are they aware of what you're writing and what you're doing? If not, you will want to let them know and to make sure that they are aware of the kind of things you're doing What you may have to before they are going to be ready to link out to you, is for you to link out to them first Basically, you are building relationships with people with whom you share a common interest Another thing that you can is joint ventures (JV) You'll these events with individuals who are key people in your niche By doing joint venture events, you can webinars that provide helpful information; you can a Google hangouts or face to face events Live events are great way to get exposure from long-standing players in your niche, as well as to build the kind of relationships that cause authoritative linking Of course, in some cases some site owners will ask you to write articles for their site This is typically called guest blogging In order to have those kinds of relationships you’ll probably have to some guest blogging offering yourself 23 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom I always say that when you want to have something in your business, give it away, first Therefore, you will probably need to be the first to start offering chances and opportunities for people to guest blog on your site I would recommend that you wait until you're getting some traffic so that it will benefit the person doing the blog When you're constantly building relationships in this way you will find that others are willing to give you the same opportunities as you are giving them to get more exposure to their site into their blog As you develop relationships with other bloggers and site owners, you will also find occasion that you'll want to comment on their content In fact this is one of the best ways to get the attention of influential bloggers and let them know that you are serious Blog Commenting Typically a blog will have a space for you to comment on a particular article and you'll want to that with a link back to your site In cases where you're not giving a link back to your site, you may want to reserve the amount of time that you spend commenting on those sites Although they may be great for relationship building, they may not be sufficient for building either revenue or rankings Backlinks from Videos In order to promote your site, one of the things that you'll be doing is creating videos to give people an idea of what else they can find on your site Videos are one of the best ways to promote your website In most cases you will create what's called teaser content You'll give people a video that will tell them what they can find on your site, without giving them the entire part of what you're offering People who see your video will then 24 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom click through to the link to find the rest of what they would like to find out on your site In most cases you will put your video on YouTube and other video sharing sites that are like it The best part about this is that you will actually be creating back links to your site that will give your site more authority The more videos you create, the more opportunities for authority that you will get in building your site for SEO The problem may be the amount of time that it takes to create and upload the videos to the various video sharing sites The software Video Niche Dominator makes the steps easy by giving you tools to create the video and then automating the process of uploading them to the sharing sites Regardless of what you used to get your videos posted, they serve two purposes First, videos give people a personal connection to you and your content Second, they also give people a different way of experiencing your content You should be using videos as much as you can Doing Niche Research In determining the interesting parts about your market, you'll need to specific research in your niche You'll need to know what keywords people are using, as well as what they find interesting, perplexing, and attractive We've already talked about how you will use the Google Keyword Tool in order to some of your keyword research However, that will not be the entirety of the work that you'll need to to determine what people in your niche are really concerned about What you want to is to try to find out what questions people are asking in their own words And one of the best ways to find out is to use Yahoo Answers Yahoo Answers is a website that people used to ask questions in order to get answers from individuals all over the Internet 25 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom Therefore, when you find questions that pertain to your niche, one of the best ways to get traffic to your site is for you to answer a question that someone has asked with a link back to your site Not only will this give you credibility, but it will also give you that all-important link that will be directed to a portion of your website But even if you choose not to answer questions but you just choose to use Yahoo Answers as a place to research, trying to go through each individual question can be difficult You'll know your keyword but you won't know whether or not each individual answer to a question is worth your time iSoft Easy Answers is a great way to search through Yahoo Answers to determine what information is relevant and what you can use In addition to this, the software makes the process of doing niche research outsource-able So while you are determining some of the other more important factors of success in your niche, Yahoo Answers is being used to help you to find those people genuinely looking for solutions 26 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom Conclusion Make sure that you're doing your work on your website for your visitors If you satisfy your visitors the search engines are moving in a direction where this will be easy to pick up and easy to reward you for it And you will be rewarded with more top search rankings for more keywords You may find that people are gaming the system and making and finding new holes in Google's algorithm While you can go this route and find other course teaching you to that, I would suggest again that you follow the course that I've set out for you What I have laid out for you may be more work, but once you have achieved search rankings using these methods, it will be difficult for anyone to move you out, or decide that your site is not appropriate In the end, remember that the key to SEO is not working against the search engines it's working with them Work with search engines to give site visitors what they want, and you can get traffic and rankings Although sometimes you may have to be more determined than your competition by putting the work in to make it happen, you will see the benefit in the long run 27 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom ... doing to know your customers and to know your subject Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom The New SEO In 2 011 and 2012 Google changed the way that they ranked websites by... you are signed up for Google Webmaster Tools This will require you to align your site with 11 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom Google and you will get communication... your site to be one that is credible to be shown to those searching for certain keywords 18 Copyright © 2013 & Beyond All Rights Reserved EarnersClassroom Don’t Look for Secret Tactics Or A Magic