So You Have a Website…
Welcome Zen Habits readers!
If you’re reading Zen Habits, you’re looking for ways to make your life simpler. (Either that or you just think Leo’s really cool.) When it comes to work, you’ve probably read about ways you can simplify your work life by either working from home or by creating multiple income streams.
This sounds great, but the problem with both of these methods is that you have to actually go out and court people to come to your website. You need to get asses in the seats.
Not as easy as it looks, and not exactly simple, either.
If you want to create truly passive income through a website, you need search engine traffic. By optimizing your website or blog for search engine traffic, you can attract people to your site without actively seeking them out. No paying for clicks, no banner ads everyone’s already blind to, and no hours of back-breaking work. Once your site is optimized, you can keep it optimized simply by following a few rules every time you post or add new content.
If search engine optimization (SEO) sounds like it would work for you, then read on. (Keep an eye out for the Zen Habits reader’s discount code.)
SEO is scary. I get it.
Maybe you’re just starting your home business. Maybe you’ve had it going for a while. Maybe you don’t even call it a business — you’re just trying to make a little extra money.
But it feels like everybody is doing better than you are.
It feels like there’s so much you need to learn before you can even start to catch up. Everybody’s trying to sell you something insanely complicated and you’re not ready for that. They’re selling memberships to sites you don’t even know if you have time to check out and 300 page tomes you’ll never be able to read, let alone understand.
It’s overwhelming and it feels totally pointless.
I’ve been there. When I started IttyBiz, I did it on about four days notice. I had no website. I didn’t have a designer, let alone a design. I hadn’t even bought my domain name yet. But then I got chosen to be the main sponsor in a giveaway on the Problogger website.
40,000 people were about to see my website, and it didn’t exist yet.
I scrambled and came up with the best thing I could in the time I had and crossed my fingers. I knew NOTHING. I was just an offline marketing consultant trying to make a go of it online.
I was willing to pay whatever it took to learn what I needed to about getting my website organized, but there wasn’t any information to be found.
All of the ebooks were either FOR experts who already knew the basics or BY experts trying to sell me something huge. Everybody had a bias, and it was impossible to tell the good information from the bad. (Plus, there was a startling lack of ninjas.)
The thing about SEO is that there are no absolutes. Google never came out and said “This is how it’s done, baby!” and because of that, nobody is able to say they have the definitive answers. (If someone does tell you they have the definitive answers, run away and bring your credit cards with you!)
As I went along, I spent a lot of money and a lot of time figuring out SEO. I’ve created this website and a few others and after a long learning curve, they started doing what I wanted them to do. I started getting the traffic. I started making the sales.
If you don’t already know me, I’ll give you a little bit of background. I’m a home business marketing consultant. I help people who run businesses with fewer than five employees create dynamic marketing campaigns on the cheap. My clients are broke. They hire me because I know how to market businesses and websites without paying a fortune.
They’re nice, normal people with crappy bosses and busy toddlers and annoying parents and they don’t have the money or the time to screw things up.
As my business moved forward, I started getting the same questions over and over.
What is SEO?
How can I get more search engine traffic?
Is there anything I can do to improve my rank in Google?
Should I hire an SEO consultant?
Somebody told me they could guarantee me a spot on the front page of Google. Should I hire them?
I realized that things hadn’t changed since I was in their spot. There still wasn’t enough information. Lots of people are out there going, “What? I don’t get it.”
That’s why I wrote SEO School. To help small businesses with even smaller budgets get a jump start on the search engines and start seeing results faster than they could get any other way.
Here are some of the things you’ll learn in SEO School:
How to figure out what you want to rank in Google for (it’s not what you think)
How to maximize the number of people searching for your keywords while minimizing your competition
When you want to optimize, and when you don’t
Where to find free tools — what you should pay for and what you shouldn’t
What to do about the Google sandbox
How to get creative with your SEO — it’s not just stuffing a bunch of keywords in and crossing your fingers
How to tell whether your niche is profitable — will you ever be able to rank for what you want?
Black Hat SEO vs. White Hat SEO — it’s not just for Westerns anymore
How to capitalize on long tail search terms — the ones that the big guys aren’t even trying for
Competition reconnaissance — how to know what you’re up against (Hint: ninjas are involved.)
In addition to the background stuff, you’ll come away with concrete, actionable ideas for what you can do to improve your Google ranking TODAY:
8 critical optimization tricks you can start using on your own site right now. Even if you don’t know anything about SEO. Even if you don’t know anything about websites.
6 ways to maximize the power of your inbound links, the thing Google looks at first
There are also two special sections at the end:
For Bloggers Only:
The 3 reasons you NEED a blog, even if you can’t write
7 blog-specific ways to improve your SEO
The Future of Google:
What to know and do now so you don’t have to redo this stuff again every six months for the rest of your life.
Keep in mind, SEO School will not turn you into an SEO consultant — that’s not the point. It does not have all the answers and it can’t teach Google a thing or two. But it has a lot of the answers — enough to get you on your way to better rankings and more sales.
SEO School is not expensive. It’s less than forty bucks.
SEO School has no scary words. Both my father, aged 70, and my son, aged 9, have read and understood it.
SEO School has all you need, all in one place. One of the hardest things about online business is figuring out who to trust. One person tells you one thing, another person tells you the opposite, but the blog posts were six months apart and you don’t know what’s true anymore. It’s easier to sit around and be confused than do something that might be wrong. SEO School isn’t like that. It has simple, step by step instructions in one complete resource.
SEO School is up-to-date. It was written in June 2008.
SEO School is not overwhelming. I didn’t artificially inflate the page count by explaining the origins of the internet (it’s a series of tubes, in case you’re interested) or waste 15 pages showing you screenshots of how to log in to your content management system. I even tell you when it’s OK to skip a section.
SEO School is accessible now. It does not promise that if you sign up as a member you can learn all you need to know over the next eight months. Grab yourself a drink and start reading and you can be implementing tips within a few hours. A couple days if you’re busy.
“When I’m deep in marketing-my-business mode, I spend a lot of time looking for a missing piece. Usually it’s an area where I kinda know what I’m doing but there’s some part that’s not working.
And then I don’t buy the stuff that is supposed to solve this problem because so much out of what’s out there is coated in slimy sleaze on a page full of highlighter and typos. Or occasionally I do buy something but then I have to go take a shower.
So when I heard you were putting out this ebook thing … well, there’s no good way to describe the excitement but it was huge. Someone who totally knows their stuff, is so not a jerk, and actually cares about helping me is going to give me SEO help? Joy-jumpingly great. Now just make an ebook for everything else you know and I’ll never have to buy anything from anyone else ever again.”
Havi Brooks
Fluent Self
As with anything we do here at IttyBiz, if you don’t like what you get, I’ll give you your money back and I won’t be a pain in the ass about it.
Click the little button below to buy SEO School and start ranking better, getting more customers, and making more money.
Buy SEO School
$39 USD
Zen Habit’s readers: use the discount code “zenhabits” (no quotes) to receive $9 off your purchase. SEO School is yours for only $30 USD.
P.S. Have you noticed how every sales page on the internet has a P.S. at the bottom? That’s cause us marketing types know it’s the most frequently read part of a sales page after the header. Normally there’s a threat here that if you don’t buy now, the puppy gets it.
Don’t worry, the puppy doesn’t get it. I don’t even have a puppy. I just want to say thanks for reading this far.