The book has been up and ready to read for a few days now and I’m getting caught up with the audio files. I just finished the last ones today. Each chapter is a separate file, so there is a set of 10 audio files.

M4A files, or AAC files, are available as well as MP3 files. There are both file format versions of each chapter, so I guess there really are 20 files total. There is a total of 69 minutes and 29 seconds in the files.

You can download the first two chapters for free, by clicking the links in the matrix below.

If you buy the book, you’ll see this matrix below, only all of the links will actually work.

Click here to buy The Simple Guide To Internet Marketing Basics.

You can listen to them even if you never intend to buy the book.

I know you want to listen to the dulcet tones of my voice.

The 10 for 10 Challenge

This does two things. First, it builds inbound links to your site, boosting your SEO and ultimately getting more traffic from search engines. Second, there’s an immediate effect of having the site owner, other readers, and commenters become aware of you, which might lead them to check out your site, using the link in the comment.

This works for both other blogs and for forums. It also works on Facebook and Twitter, but I’m not convinced that it works as effectively there. Maybe you can prove me wrong on that point. There are a lot of people who read this site that have Etsy shops. Their forums are a great place to post.

I want to help you out, my precious readers. I want you to have a direct benefit from reading this blog. So, here’s what I’m going to do.

The Challenge

I’m announcing the “10 for 10 Challenge”.

Post at least 10 comments on other people’s sites for 10 days in a row. That’s a total of at least 100 comments.

Document the number of visitors to your site on the day you start and at the end of the 10th day. That’s 10 full days of visitors.

The Prize

Whoever has the greatest increase in those 10 days will get a promotional article on my site, including an interview with you, a review of your site and your products, and a link in the sidebar on walton.com, (which is great for your SEO.)

The Rules

You need to have Google Analytics installed on your site, or another statistics program that can be verified.

The 10th and final day must be on or before July 12, which is 2 weeks from the day this article is published. That will give you a couple days to get the statistics program installed if you don’t have it already and you can do a little research for where you want to leave comments. If you want to start now and pick the best 10 days to get your maximum number, you can do that too.

Send me a screenshot of the statistics program, show the number of visits for each of 10 days in a row. The site with the greatest increase in the number of visits between the first day and the tenth day will win.

That’s not a percentage, it’s the number. It’s not the number of page views, it’s the number of visits. It’s not just the 10th day either. It’s the first day compared to any other day within 10 days. If you have a bump on the 7th day, then it declines, take the number on the 7th day. We’re looking for the greatest increase.

The actual comments that you leave are not verified. The only thing we’re counting to win is the increase in the number of visits.

Email me with your results. Show me a screenshot. The winner will be determined based solely on my judgement and my decision is final.

The Strategy

The way to make this work is to know your market. Research where they hang out. Search Google for your keyword and the term “forums” to find forums related to your product. Use your keyword and try searching for “best keyword blogs”. You can search for just your keyword, note the top 10 results, and see which are blogs or places that accept comments.

Once you have a good list of places to leave comments, hit them all, every day. See what people are talking about first. Don’t just jumps in with “Please visit my site”. No one cares about that. You need to be helpful. Answer questions. Be an authority. Give solid information. Ask great questions. Be that interesting person at the party that everyone wants to talk to.

The Benefits

If you are not using a stats application now, you should be, and this challenge might push you into doing that. Going through the process of looking for sites to leave comments, then actually leaving them, will get you into a great habit that will SEO your site for the long run.

If you leave 10 comments a day for 10 days, you WILL have more traffic, regardless of this challenge. You may not win this, but you will have more traffic. Everyone who attempts this challenge will have more traffic.

At the end of the day, isn’t that what it’s all about?

In this one, I talk about taking control with WordPress. People who are not able to update their own web site, should be using WordPress. I’m a control freak, so it’s all about taking control. You should be too.

Again, let me know if there are any issues with the video. Still playing with formats and sizes, etc.

You can watch it here on YouTube.

I always start with an outline. I wanted to organize all of the information that I have swirling around in my head. I figured I should review what some others have written about it. I was interested in one book in particular that I remember teaching me a lot.

As I read through it, I realized that they had a lot of great ideas, facts that are true, and pearls of wisdom, but it was like walking through a paintball war zone. Things were flying at me from all directions. There was no order or organization to it.

The problem is that there are general background concepts about marketing and there are tactics specific to the Internet. It’s difficult to explain concepts, strategies, and tactics at the same time. You should know phrases like “Unique selling proposition”, “Target market demographics”, “Conversions”, and “Relationship Marketing”. You will hear them in any marketing book. I want to focus on Internet Marketing tactics. I need to explain concepts first so that the tactics make sense.

Here is the core of how to market specifically on the Internet. I see 4 steps. Every business is different and there are many variations, but the “straight down the middle”, step by step process, is linear and easy to follow. I think this is the basic way that most people who are selling a product or a service will be successful.

Yes, I really used this photo to illustrate 4 steps

Here are the four basic steps to Internet Marketing:

1. Get a web site. It’s the center of the universe. All roads lead back to your web site. Without a web site, there’s no foundation to build everything else on.

2. Get people to read your site. SEO, social media, advertising are all ways to get traffic to your site. Targeting specific people that meet your target market is part of this effort. Getting people in the front door is what this is about.

3. Get people subscribed to a mailing list. Use a mailing list management service to allow your readers to subscribe and manage themselves.

4. Sell to the mailing list. Publish a newsletter. In that newsletter, you should offer valuable content and then sell your products.

If you follow these steps, you will understand the basics of Internet marketing. You will be selling stuff.

If you know how to do each of these steps, you don’t need to buy the book. If you need help and advice, explained in a simple, easy to understand way, then the book will be really helpful.

From Noami at IttyBiz.com:

There’s a lot of talk these days about creating the business, product, or service of your heart. Kind of like business as self-actualization tool. We’re all supposed to create the thing that would bring us transendental bliss to make. Create soulful stuff, they say, and people will come.

Yes. Fair enough. If you create exactly what makes your heart sing and publicize it adequately, your odds are good that eventually, somebody will show up and buy your sh*t.

Alternatively, you could look at the people you have now and solve a problem they already have.

You see this a lot in, weirdly enough, craft businesses and techie types.

Read the entire article at:
http://ittybiz.com/selling-what-people-want-to-buy/

I heard about a friend of a friend recently who had a bunch of ideas for businesses to start. All of the ideas were bunk. (Yes, bunk. I said it.) It seemed that all of the ideas were about what they wanted to do and had no relationship with what anyone else, their customers, might want. They wanted to sell where there was no market. They wanted to produce a product that no one wanted.

“It’s great that you want to sell this thing, but you realize that no one will pay you any money for it, right?”

I was talking with another friend recently who had one idea for a business they were starting. It met a specific need for a large market. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t “fulfilling”. It did save a lot of money for the clients and could possibly make him a lot of money. There was the possibility of a million dollar deal in the works.

“Do what you love and the money will follow” has been going around for years. There is some truth to that. There’s a lot more truth to “Find a problem and solve it.”

Marketing, at it’s core, is about what your customer needs and meeting that need.

Forget about yourself. No one cares what you want. It’s not about you.

The craft people she mentions love doing their crafts. They add features and make products that they love to make. It makes them happy. If you want to be happy, make the nice things that you love. If you want to make money, make the nice things that other people love.

I’m a techie type, so I know what she’s talking about with us. We love to add cool features because of the cool technical challenges. We think that everyone else is as interested in AJAX and PHP and databases as we are. They aren’t. No one cares that the database is UTF8_Unicode compatible. They just want it to work. “But, dude! This is 64 bit!”

I once read a study that asked people what they most valued in supermarkets. I figured the number one issue was price. I’m always looking for the cheapest price on stuff. I was wrong. The top priority for stores where people buy their food is “cleanliness”. Woah, I guess that’s right. Me too. I didn’t think of that. What aren’t you thinking of? What aspect of your service or product do people care the most about, but you didn’t think of?

Think about who you are selling to. It’s time for a little market research. Ask. Watch. Listen.

Here’s a practical way to find out what people want, by looking at what people search for on the Internet.

Click here: adwords.google.com

What is your client’s greatest problem? How can you solve it for them? You may think this is a simple question, or that you’ve heard it before, but if you don’t have an answer, then you don’t have a successful business.

Find a problem and solve it. If you do that, you’ll make a ton of money.

What problem have you solved? Tell us in the comments.

It will look nothing like this.

Etsy has put a lot of people on the mailing list, so I figured that would be the clear winner, but there are people who have never heard of Etsy on the list.

There are also a surprising number of people who have Etsy shops, but are tired of the fees and lack of control, so they are looking for other ways to market their product.

The clear winner is the book on Internet Marketing.

It was split evenly between people who like “step by step” instructions and those who like “general principles”. I guess I’ll have to write it from both perspectives and do both!

I will be working on the book over the next couple weeks, so if you have any suggestions or specific questions you want addressed, please leave them in the comments below.

Thanks to everyone who responded. You guys rock.

Among the 7 people who followed directions and commented on the post was this from Tess Richardson:

After months of procrastinating over the SEO thing, I downloaded your free guide and started getting busy. In the two days I’ve been searching out, and talking on, sites related to one of my Etsy products, Google analytics has shown a jump from 0 to 132 page views. I can send you a screen shot if you would like it.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement, Conrad.

Click to see the whole chart.

This kind of feedback makes me crazy, so I had to follow up and find out more. Please visit her site. Here’s the interview she gave me. The book she refers to is The Simple Guide To SEO.

What prompted you to download the SEO book?

Tess Richardson

I was–until Dec. 31 of last year–a communications and marketing director for an employee benefits consultant. I am not new to some of these concepts, but I had never tried them before and did not have a comprehensive understanding of them until I read your free download. Before that my knowledge consisted of bits and pieces: use really good keywords, inbound links, converse on other’s sites/blogs in a meaningful way. I never had time to put this knowledge to work at my previous job. I really needed someone to put it all together in terms I understood.

When I saw the post in the Etsy forums, I thought I’d give it a look as it sounded like what I needed.

How would you describe the book? Good points? Bad points?

I love the glossary. I love the light, readable style. I love that it’s free! (I kept wondering, “What’s the catch?”)

I LOVE the checklist toward the back, but it doesn’t seem to be in the same order that things are discussed in the book. That bothered me.

I would also like to see the checklist broken up into “Things to do RIGHT NOW,” “Things to do next week,” “Things to do next month,” or something like that. For newbies it’s a lot to digest in one sitting, even if it is all well-explained. I have gotten a start, but I did skip over some of the “sign up for this account and that account” things. I mean to get back to them, but I just picked a couple of tips at random and jumped in. Many people are not comfortable doing that, I suspect.

What did you learn from the book? What stood out?

One thing jumped out at me right from the moment I skimmed it, before I downloaded and printed for later digestion: You must have a blog. Since I’d been hemming and hawing for months on whether I should start a blog, what would be the focus, what free blog site should I use, would it be a waste of time (and all the other second-guessing) that was like a bolt from above. I set up my blog 2 days after reading the book. http://homespunlife.wordpress.com

Another thing was about using bold and italic. I had never read that elsewhere.

Tess Richardson at her Ashford Spinning Wheel (aka My Precious)

How did you find the sites to comment on?

A little background on my Etsy site…I started with rosaries, then added homespun yarn, then got a great idea for a charm bracelet based on a young adult trilogy, The Hunger Games (THG) by Suzanne Collins. A friend turned me onto the books, which are really starting to gain traction and may be the next BIG THING, like Twilight, but there is almost no merchandising yet. Even though I hope to really establish myself in the homespun yarn market (hence my blog focus), the bracelets seemed like a way to bring in some early sales since it was an untapped niche with an eager market.

I thought about where I could find my target (tweens and teens who loved the books) and started Googling for fan sites. That got me a few hits, so I began visiting them, getting a feel for the audience, what was discussed and how open I thought they might be to shameless self-promotion. Some I had to join, like Facebook fan pages and Fanpop.com.

How many comments did you leave? How much time did you spend?

I was afraid I would have to spend weeks becoming a familiar and accepted visitor to these sites, but teens and tweens are pretty open to anyone with something to offer that strikes a chord. I seriously just posted once to the sites I visited this week. Since I’m a fan of the books, I was able to “speak the lingo” about characters, and be authentic, not fake. And I tried to be humble, not pushy; just another fan who wanted to share this great tip about something others might like. And if I had to register to post, I chose a fan-specific username.

It was time consuming, though. I spent an entire morning on it earlier this week and maybe posted on 4-5 sites total.

What was the biggest obstacle in starting from nothing to getting 132 page views?

Having to register for some of the fan sites. I’ve got enough usernames and passwords to keep track of!

What was the easiest part?

Actually, it was all pretty easy. I believe in my product and think there are a lot of girls who would love it. Since I am a fan of the books, it was not hard “hanging out” on the fan sites.

What surprised you the most?

The fact that my Etsy product page doesn’t show up on Google, but my one post on Fanpop.com make it to second place, on the first page overnight!

What advice would you give someone else with an Etsy shop?

Some niches will be much harder than others to see results on. For example, my homespun yarn is going to be an uphill climb because the market is so full of competitors. But it’s something I’m passionate about, so it’s no sweat to read and comment on other people’s spinning and knitting sites. Really, the challenge of developing a unique product and finding that “blue ocean” is harder than the SEO stuff.

Any other comments?

Having spent time chatting up my Hunger Games bracelets on fan sites makes me look at my future product offering with new eyes. I realize, for example, that I don’t really want to spend time chatting on Catholic sites and will probably drop rosaries from my Etsy shop. On the other hand, I’m thinking of maximizing my time spent in finding and joining Hunger Games fan sites by developing other products for HG fans. New products will give me more legitimate reasons to revisit and repost, so I’m not just the nag who keeps hawking her stuff over and over.

Another thing I’m really excited about, having tasted just a bite of success, is that I am in the progress of self-publishing my first novel–a historical fiction. My head is already buzzing with ideas for getting out there and making online connections with history fans.

Thanks, Tess!

If you want more information about Tess, please visit her sites:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ColdHandsWarmArt
http://homespunlife.wordpress.com/

What did you learn from this story? Did you learn that if you leave interesting comments on other people’s sites that you might end up getting a lot of attention for your site? Would you like to leave a comment now, after reading the interview, and tell us all what you learned? I thought you might. Thanks!

If you haven’t read the book yet, you can download it here:
The Care and Feeding of Search Engines, A Simple Guide To SEO

Etsy published the “Etsy Guide to SEO”.

SEO is generally divided into “on site” factors and “off site” factors. In their book, they detail the things that you can do to your Etsy shop and products pages, all of them “on site”.

What they don’t tell you about are the “off site” techniques. “Off site” is everything that is not on your site. It generally refers to building links from other sites to your site, which is the biggest factor in SEO.

They only devote one page to link building ideas and only one paragraph to any task that is not on the Etsy site. They want to keep all of your attention focused on their Etsy site and not necessarily the absolute best ways to get traffic.

Let’s gaze off into the distance and see if we can build some inbound links another way, without anything to do with Etsy.

Before you do anything else, you need to define your keywords. I’ve written a few posts about that and cover it in the SEO book.

• Before You Do ANYTHING Else…
• Small Business SEO – Sea Glass Jewelry- Keywords and Competition
• Sell Handmade Stuff On The Internet – SEO, Part One

When you have your keywords picked, we’re going to create a new website, for FREE, and build a bunch of links ourselves. It’s way easier than you think. Really. Watch closely.

Pick your top 3 keywords.

You’re going to create a new web site for FREE. It will have some limitations, so you can’t do everything that you might want to do, but it will do enough to make this technique work and it’s free.

Go to http://www.wordpress.com and follow their instructions, using the top three keywords as your user ID. If your keywords are “handmade glass jewelry”, then create the site as “handmadeglassjewelry”.

That will give you a site with a domain name of “handmadeglassjewelry.wordpress.com”. You get SEO value for having the keywords in the domain name, even if it’s got the “wordpress.com” in there too.

They have some instructions there about how to create posts and pages, so when you figure out how to write a new post, write a new post about one of your products. Use all of the keywords that you can think of when describing it. Put in a photo. Write naturally, like you were writing so that I could read it. I have some WordPress Tutorial Videos that might be helpful.

Put in a link to your product page on Etsy. In the “edit” page, put in the name of your product and select that text. There’s a “link” button at the top. Click that. Copy and paste in the URL to your product page. Insert that into the copy on the page. You’ve just created a link to your product page.

Write a new post for every one of your products. Write naturally, but use your keywords. Put a link, or maybe two, from each post to each product page.

When you are done, you’ll have a web site, with your main keywords in the domain name, and links to every one of your product pages.

As you publish new products on Etsy, write a new post for each one on your web site. As your products sell, leave the posts and links. The search traffic will build up over time.

If you start to love this stuff, write other posts about the subject of your products, and not your products specifically. Your site will get some SEO just from the related content. Your site gives your Etsy shop a bunch of SEO.

As your SEO rankings start to build and you start see some results, consider creating your very own site that you fully control, instead of the wordpress.com free version. You’ll be able to do more things with it and you will have complete control over it.

**cough** I can build one for you… **cough**.

The more pages you have on a site, the more links you have, and the more links you can point at your Etsy shop, and the more search traffic you’ll get from the search engines.

There are many other SEO things that you can do, but this is free, easy, and effective. Call it the “low hanging fruit”.

Feel the power.

Timothy Adam Designs

I started reading the Etsy forums to see what people are talking about there that might apply to my products here.

One area popped out at me and that’s the problem with getting traffic to your Etsy site. There are 21 items posted every minute there! There are 135,000 new people joining every month! I was shocked. No wonder products get buried there.

The first post I read there was from Warmth, saying they were ready to pay someone to help get more traffic. There seems to be some real desperation. (If you like cute little felt mice, check out their store on Etsy.)

Of course, I think I have all of the answers, but that’s just my personality type. The answers would be having a blog and promoting it off site. There are things to do on Etsy, but I know more about the off site stuff.

I found this thread in the forum and they had a lot of great advice. There were 569 responses when I saw it.

Here’s a quote of a small part of the initial post. It’s worth reading the whole thing. Notice the mention of a blog and a mailing list. Key factors there!

By Timothy Adam Designs

I am only going to hit a few key types of off Etsy marketing.. There are so many, so i will share the 3 that I use the most. At the end I show how put all three together along with on etsy promo to get 500 views to my shop in just over 1 hour.

Blogging:

I have been blogging for a little over a year. My blog has played a very important role in the growth of my Etsy shop. With my blog I have grown an e-mail list through my monthly giveaway.. This list has grown to 1500 people.. Last spring I held a product test with the small list I had at the time, which was 250. Long story short.. I sold 15 of the product test necklaces in less than 2 hrs. E-mail lists are very powerful!

Your blog should include links to your Etsy shop. These link should be very visible so it is easy for your readers to navigate to your shop. The best method for acheving this is to use the Etsy mini that is provided by Etsy.. here is a how to video I created all about the Etsy mini.. CLICK HERE

Facebook:

I recently joined facebook, and I have found to be a very powerful marketing tool. I use my facebook for networking and marketing my business, but you have to tread lightly. Facebook is cracking down on accounts that are doing this.. make sure your main account is set up in your name and not your business. You can set up a group for your business.. where you can promote all you want.

Twitter:

Twitter is my big hitter right now.. it is very powerful.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. wiki

I am running a Lunch Time Shoppers Series, which generates great traffic. The most popular post is the Top 10 Monday post.

Tune in every Monday at lunch time (12pm) for my top 10 Etsy picks. This list is generated from the top 10 monday thread forums on Etsy, which starts at 11 am sharp. This is part of my “Lunch Time Shoppers” series… you can find these posts from 11:30 am to 12.30 pm. Check out more details HERE

Read the entire article at:
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5959620

My apologies to Stanley Kubrick.

I was talking with a potential client the other day. They had been referred by someone else, so I asked if they had seen my web site. They replied “Yes, and you’re not going to get me to blog!”

I understand how much some people hate to write blog posts, people like me, for instance.

We all need to get past that.

The advantages of write blog posts on a regular schedule are huge. I know. I know. You don’t have time and you’re not a good writer and you have nothing to say and blah, blah, blah.

I don’t want to hear it. If you want to have any success at this stuff, you need to have a blog and you need to write on a regular schedule.

Google loves a “regularly updated” web site. You get points for not being stale. If someone is taking the time to update a site, it must be more valuable than one that’s not been touched in years. I love to blog.

If you have 5 posts written, publish one a day for 5 days instead of 5 all on one day. Google loves that too. I love to blog.

Google will come back and crawl your site more often if you publish more often. If nothing changes for a week at a time, why should they come back any sooner than that? I love to blog.

Every time you publish a new post, your blogging software creates a new page with that post on it. More pages equals more authority for your site. I love to blog.

On every one of those new blog post pages, you have a menu that links back to pages on your own site. More pages have more menu links that increases the number of internal links that your site has. I love to blog.

Every time you publish a new blog post, there are more words on your site. If those words are your keywords that you are trying hard to rank high for, then you will rank higher for them. More words equals higher rank for those words. I love to blog.

Every blog post that is interesting will draw in links from other people who are interested in it. More external links is good for search engine ranking. I love to blog.

There are probably other good reasons to write blog posts, but these are all I can think of off the top of my head on a rainy Friday afternoon.

Did you get my point? I love to blog! You should love it too.