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	<title>Mark Thompson &#187; Internet Marketing</title>
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	<link>http://mjthompson.net</link>
	<description>The Ramblings Of An Internet Marketer</description>
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		<title>Lead Your Readers Where You Want Them To Go</title>
		<link>http://mjthompson.net/1680/lead-your-reader-where-you-want-them-to-go/</link>
		<comments>http://mjthompson.net/1680/lead-your-reader-where-you-want-them-to-go/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 May 2012 08:51:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Site Promotion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[likes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pinterest]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mjthompson.net/?p=1680</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I recently had a conversation with a member of WordPress Goldmine about their high bounce rate. People were coming to the site reading the article and then going elsewhere. When I looked at their blog they had no recent posts in the sidebar, they listed no related posts and people weren&#8217;t encouraged to read anything [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1680/lead-your-reader-where-you-want-them-to-go/compass/" rel="attachment wp-att-1682"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1682" title="compass" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/Photoxpress_3074277.jpg" alt="lead your readers" width="300" height="201" /></a>I recently had a conversation with a member of WordPress Goldmine about their high bounce rate. People were coming to the site reading the article and then going elsewhere. When I looked at their blog they had no recent posts in the sidebar, they listed no related posts and people weren&#8217;t encouraged to read anything else on the blog.</p>
<p>A few quick changes later and the bounce rate dropped significantly.</p>
<p>On this blog all the posts with the highest number of comments are ones where I ask people to tell me what they think. See a trend here?</p>
<p>A few years ago the joke about twitter was that it was full of people posting things like  &#8221;Having a Shower&#8221; &#8220;Eating Toast and peanut butter&#8221;  why do you think that was?   Could it have been that the question they asked in the posting box was..  What are you doing? They later changed it to Whats Happening? and now it says Post a New Tweet.</p>
<p>The whole point of this is that before you write a post or before you even set up a blog you need to know what you want to achieve and then design the post or blog around that.</p>
<p>If for example I had a post that I wrote a year ago that got me a load of facebook likes then I would probably write a follow up to that post and point you to the original post.  The chances are I would get more likes.  If I wanted people to sign up to a list I would give information then maybe include a video and a link for further information that was available after a signup.</p>
<p>If I wanted to get some traffic from Pinterest well then I&#8217;d probably just do this;</p>
<p><a class="pin-it-button" href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmjthompson.net%2F1680%2Flead-your-reader-where-you-want-them-to-go%2F&amp;media=http%3A%2F%2Fmjthompson.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Ftumblr_kwu1eoXOGD1qap8fno1_500.png&amp;description=The%20Wisdom%20of%20Dumbledore.%20The%20easy%20way%20is%20not%20always%20the%20right%20way"><img title="Pin It" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" alt="" border="0" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1680/lead-your-reader-where-you-want-them-to-go/tumblr_kwu1eoxogd1qap8fno1_500/" rel="attachment wp-att-1681"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1681" title="dumbledore sayings" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/tumblr_kwu1eoXOGD1qap8fno1_500.png" alt="Dumbledore Wisdom" width="500" height="500" /></a><br />
<a class="pin-it-button" href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmjthompson.net%2F1680%2Flead-your-reader-where-you-want-them-to-go%2F&amp;media=http%3A%2F%2Fmjthompson.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Ftumblr_kwu1eoXOGD1qap8fno1_500.png&amp;description=The%20Wisdom%20of%20Dumbledore.%20The%20easy%20way%20is%20not%20always%20the%20right%20way"><img title="Pin It" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />
With planning and design you can help your readers do what you want them to do. But first you need to know what direction you want them to go in <img src='http://mjthompson.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
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		<title>Anti-Marketing Marketing &#8211; My Seminar Take Away</title>
		<link>http://mjthompson.net/1674/anti-marketing-marketing-my-seminartake-away-from-the-warrior-gathering/</link>
		<comments>http://mjthompson.net/1674/anti-marketing-marketing-my-seminartake-away-from-the-warrior-gathering/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 May 2012 10:52:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Make Money Online]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seminar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[warrior gathering anti-marketing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mjthompson.net/?p=1674</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve just returned from a weekend in London where I was giving a presentation at the London Warrior Gathering. I&#8217;ve done 2 presentations In the past to members of WordPress Goldmine and because they were quite small groups it didn&#8217;t really prepare me for a full on seminar like this which had over 120 attendees [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1674/anti-marketing-marketing-my-seminartake-away-from-the-warrior-gathering/federica-6/" rel="attachment wp-att-1675"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1675" title="federica 6" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/Photoxpress_1973998.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" /></a>I&#8217;ve just returned from a weekend in London where I was giving a presentation at the London Warrior Gathering.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve done 2 presentations In the past to members of WordPress Goldmine and because they were quite small groups it didn&#8217;t really prepare me for a full on seminar like this which had over 120 attendees and 10 other speakers. Let me tell you this,  I wouldn&#8217;t have missed it for the world.</p>
<p>Being able to talk to people at different stages of Internet marketing, from people with multi million dollar income to people who have been in IM for a few months and haven&#8217;t made any money yet you get a real feel about what actually matters in IM and more importantly what matters to people.</p>
<p>I am very aware that this was generally a UK centric audience, we did have a few visitors from the US and Europe so maybe the feeling would be different in the US but the impression I got was that people are tired of being sold to all the time, they are fed up of the hype, they even don&#8217;t want to have to market like that themselves.  Overall I felt that majority of the people i talked to really would like to see more rounded Internet Marketing.</p>
<p>So what does more rounded Internet Marketing entail, in my personal view the balance between selling and education needs to be adjusted any selling should come on the back of educating your subscribers and readers. Rather than thinking what can I sell my subscribers today, think what can I teach my subscribers today, then you can look for products that will enhance that learning.</p>
<p>This post isn&#8217;t for everyone, just like my presentation wasn&#8217;t for everyone at the seminar.  Internet marketing is also like that.  For some people full on Marketing is a good fit, it&#8217;s suits their mentality and personality. For others like myself it really isn&#8217;t right for us,  we need to market in a different way.  I think this is maybe where people go wrong and give up online marketing,The see it sone one way and  they don&#8217;t feel comfortable doing it that way so they walk away from marketing.</p>
<p>There is another way.</p>
<p>Before going to London I thought that my &#8220;Anti-Marketing Marketing&#8221; style was something that not many people would be interested in I think I was wrong.  After my presentation I had lots of feedback from people who said that they would feel much more comfortable marketing if they could do it in a similar way.  You Can!  However you need to be aware that it is a far more long term strategy that can take a while to really pay off.</p>
<p>Even as you read this I am marketing to you,  I have my products listed in the sidebar, I have a link for a trial membership of my WPGoldmine Forum.. do you feel like I am selling to you?</p>
<p>More Importantly I don&#8217;t feel like I am selling to you and that suits me just fine.</p>
<p>Sometimes it seems like everyone Is selling something, be different &amp; be original and stand out from the crowd, get potential customers to come to you then build a relationship then and only then point them in the direction of stuff that will help them achieve what they want.</p>
<p>One of the other presenters who has been in IM about the same time as me showed how he made $12,000 on the saturday while he was looking around art galleries, thats a great achievement and I take my hat off to him, he also mentioned his office, his staff, his telephone sales staff, the $10,000 a month he&#8217;s spending on coaching.  That&#8217;s really not for me.</p>
<p>My idea of a good day in IM is to sit in the bar after a game of golf, check my emails and find I&#8217;ve made 10 product sales and got a few new subscribers to WPGoldmine&#8230; Different Strokes for different folks.</p>
<p>Find the type of Marketing that suits you, that you are comfortable with and then just get out there and do it!</p>
<p>Thanks to all the great attendees and presenters I talked to in London, you guys gave me so many ideas and so much encouragement to continue on this slightly weird marketing path.  There also wasn&#8217;t 1 presentation where I didn&#8217;t have an AHA! moment.  I am 100% serious the seminar really was that good. Finally a big thanks to Paul Clifford and Justin for organizing it and inviting me to speak.  Now bring on the next one!</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Guest Blogging 101</title>
		<link>http://mjthompson.net/1653/guest-blogging-101/</link>
		<comments>http://mjthompson.net/1653/guest-blogging-101/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 May 2012 07:03:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Article Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Site Promotion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[guest blogging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[guest posting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[how to guest blog]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mjthompson.net/?p=1653</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Since Googles crack down on unnatural linking methods two linking methods have come to the forefront, Blog Commenting and Guest Blogging (sometime known as Guest Posting). I&#8217;ve talked about Commenting in several posts so today I want to focus on Guest Blogging. The secret of effective guest blogging is to provide posts that are of [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1653/guest-blogging-101/shaky/" rel="attachment wp-att-1655"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1655" title="shaky" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/shaky-283x300.png" alt="Guest blogging" width="283" height="300" /></a>Since Googles crack down on unnatural linking methods two linking methods have come to the forefront, Blog Commenting and Guest Blogging (sometime known as Guest Posting). I&#8217;ve talked about Commenting in several posts so today I want to focus on Guest Blogging.</p>
<p>The secret of effective guest blogging is to provide posts that are of High quality and relevant to the blog you want to post on. The posts shouldn&#8217;t be self serving or thinly disguised adverts for your site. Done correctly a guest blog will get you a link back to your site plus traffic.</p>
<p>Below you&#8217;ll find a Video that shows you how I find sites to Guest post to and also how I get others to write a lot of my blog content by encouraging guest posts.</p>
<p>The Guest Blogging process is simple,</p>
<p><strong>Site Owners Who accept Guest Post:</strong></p>
<p>Create a page called &#8220;Write For Us&#8221;  and tell the world that you accept guest posts, also list the topics that you would like content on.  List any rules you have such as;  Maximum 2 links,  No Pharma links, links only in the bio section or links below the fold etc.</p>
<p>Thats it then sit back and you should soon start to get posts or requests for posts sent through.</p>
<p><strong>Guest Bloggers</strong></p>
<p>Search google for &#8220;Write For Us&#8221; Keyword and find suitable sites to write blog posts for.  Next you need to contact them and propose a post at this point I will usually just include a proposed title and summary. I also tell then that I will include a link in my bio or in the body below the fold.</p>
<p>Some people send the article through with the proposal, I don&#8217;t particularly like this as a blog owner, these posts often seem to be of a lower quality and it does seem presumptuous on the part of the guest blogger.</p>
<p>Once you have a reply from the blog owner then tell them when they can expect the article. I usually tell them that I will write it and send it through within 72 hours. Sometimes I have articles in stock and other times I write fresh articles.</p>
<p>If i have a particular rush on and need a bunch of articles I get Allison to write a lot of them  for me you can contact her through <a href="http://articleandcontentsolutions.com">Article and Content Solutions</a></p>
<p><strong>After Your Article Has Been Posted</strong></p>
<p>As soon as your article has been posting give it a bit of Social media love. Tweet it, add it to linked in mention it on Facebook or G+. It takes 5 minutes and will separate you from 95% of other guest bloggers.</p>
<p>I never understand why more people don&#8217;t do this, it benefits the blog owner who will be grateful plus it can generate a bit of extra traffic to your site via your links. If I see that one of my guest posters has put a bit of effort into promoting their article I always offer them the opportunity of writing more posts.<br />
<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HPj8h2-dEKk" frameborder="0" width="640" height="360"></iframe></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Have a great weekend!!  Oh and Well done to Rach one of our <a href="http://wpgoldmine.com">WordPress Goldmine </a>members who not only had her highest earning day yesterday but has a #1 Kindle book  on Amazon</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Finally&#8230;.  Samsung 1080P HD site owner you are a spammer and i&#8217;ll never publish one of your comments so SOD Off!!</p>
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		<title>Monday Tip &#8211; How To Play By Your Rules</title>
		<link>http://mjthompson.net/1640/monday-tip-how-to-play-by-your-rules/</link>
		<comments>http://mjthompson.net/1640/monday-tip-how-to-play-by-your-rules/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:45:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[List Building]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Monday Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mjthompson.net/?p=1640</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As I discussed last week there has been another Google algo change and once gain people are running around saying that SEO is dead and that they&#8217;ve lost all their sites and all other sorts of doom mongering. The first thing I&#8217;ll say is that nobody can&#8217;t say they didn&#8217;t know this was coming, Google [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1640/monday-tip-how-to-play-by-your-rules/london-traffic/" rel="attachment wp-att-1641"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1641" title="Traffic" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/london-traffic-300x219.jpg" alt="Get traffic" width="300" height="219" /></a>As I discussed last week there has been another Google algo change and once gain people are running around saying that SEO is dead and that they&#8217;ve lost all their sites and all other sorts of doom mongering.</p>
<p>The first thing I&#8217;ll say is that nobody can&#8217;t say they didn&#8217;t know this was coming, Google told us it was coming, blogs like this one told you it was coming (<a href="http://mjthompson.net/1451/google-algo-changes-is-seo-dead/">http://mjthompson.net/1451/google-algo-changes-is-seo-dead/</a>  I even mentioned it in the 2nd paragraph) and it&#8217;s happened too many times in the past for anyone to think it wasn&#8217;t going to happen again.</p>
<p>I ended a blog post last week with the line..  Play by Google&#8217;s Rules Or play By your Own.</p>
<p>The problem about playing with googles rules is that they generally change, although not as much as you might think. Google have always said that you shouldn&#8217;t partake in link building programs , we just choose to ignore that bit of advice and now google have done something about it.</p>
<p>So how do you play by your own rules?</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve talked about this a lot in the past month but a lot of it bears repeating, Cut google out of the loop and focus on generating traffic to your site via other methods.</p>
<p>You can do that in a number of ways.</p>
<p><strong> 1 Build a list </strong></p>
<p>When you have a list you can tell people when you have writhed a new post or have something important to tell them.  I bet the vast majority of people reading this post came here as a result of an email i wrote or a blog broadcast…  See it works   My Rules 1- Google 0</p>
<p><strong>2 Comment on relevant sites</strong></p>
<p>As soon as this post is published I&#8217;ll be going to several good blogs in the IM niche and commenting on their latest posts. By choosing sites that use the comment luv plugin i&#8217;ll get the link to this post displayed in the comment. If my comment is relevant and of good quality most blog owners will publish it.</p>
<p>This has 2 effects, 1 people see my link and come here to check out the post I also get a link back to my blog.</p>
<p>Thats more traffic that I don&#8217;t need google for  My Rules 2 &#8211; Google 0</p>
<p><strong>3. Write Guest Posts</strong></p>
<p>Find blogs in your niche and offer to write a guest post for them,  I had 7 guest posts submitted to various blogs last week , once again thats traffic and links</p>
<p>My Rules 3 &#8211; Google 0</p>
<p><strong> 4. Reach Out to Others in Your Niche</strong></p>
<p>If you see a good blog post as well as commenting on it write a reply on your blog and quote the original article. If you see a video on YouTube do a response video.  Be active in your niche, I talk to people on Skype several times a week about whats happening in several niches i am active in. Most people would regard these as competitors i regard them as allies (we all know who the enemy is!).</p>
<p>My Rules 4 &#8211; Google 0</p>
<p>Thats 4 simple methods you can use to cut google out of the loop I am sure you know more so let me know what you do in the comments..</p>
<p>You really don&#8217;t need Google, seriously this is not just marketer bullshit, with a plan and some focus you can bypass google. One of the members in WPG had a $700 last week and google had no input into that whatsoever.  I know people who generate 5 figure incomes every month and don&#8217;t even consider google for a minute.</p>
<p>Try It!!</p>
<p><strong> A quick announcement..</strong></p>
<p>I mentioned recently that I am having a get together in London in a few weeks time, you are more than welcome to attend, I plan to have a few drinks on friday May 11th and also have a bit of a brainstorming session about what people should be doing in the light of googles recent changes.  Although there will be several big name markers present on the evening, it&#8217;s totally informal &amp; totally free.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;d like to meet up for a drink send an email to  <a href="mailto:londongathering@aweber.com">londongathering@aweber.com</a> and i&#8217;ll let you know  where and when as soon as the plans are finalized.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s the same weekend as the Warrior Gathering In London I can highly recommend it (apart from the fact I am doing one of there sessions there).  I get the impression that people think it&#8217;s all going to be all about WSO&#8217;s it&#8217;s not!</p>
<p>It&#8217;s going to be  about building a business and showing you how to do it the right way… it&#8217;s also a no Pitch event!  <a href="http://warriorgathering.com/">http://warriorgathering.com/</a>   you can check out the list of speakers and topics on that page.</p>
<p>Seriously if I wasn&#8217;t speaking i&#8217;d go just for the networking aspect, these events very rarely happen in the UK so make the most of it, I guarantee you won&#8217;t regret it..It&#8217;s even tax deductible!  (ok I am not a tax lawyer or an accountant and that might complete tosh!)</p>
<p>The price has recently gone up but as one of the speakers I can pull some strings and get you a link for tickets at the original price (50% of the current price) If you&#8217;d like to go then let me know and i&#8217;ll hook you up with a link.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Have a great week</p>
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		<title>The Hypocrisy of Internet Marketers &#8211; Rant!</title>
		<link>http://mjthompson.net/1624/the-hypocrisy-of-internet-marketers-rant/</link>
		<comments>http://mjthompson.net/1624/the-hypocrisy-of-internet-marketers-rant/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:21:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Income Generation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[page 1 google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ranking]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mjthompson.net/?p=1624</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve not had a rant for a long time, I started to think I was starting to mellow in my old age&#8230;wrong! Jonathan Leger made a post on his JL Forums today about the latest google update in it he said that a lot of old sites that shouldn&#8217;t be on the first page of [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1624/the-hypocrisy-of-internet-marketers-rant/ruota/" rel="attachment wp-att-1626"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1626" title="The hyprocracy of marketers" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/Photoxpress_4606482.jpg" alt="ranking on google" width="300" height="199" /></a>I&#8217;ve not had a rant for a long time, I started to think I was starting to mellow in my old age&#8230;wrong!</p>
<p>Jonathan Leger made a post on his<a href="http://jlforums.com/search-engine-optimization/major-google-update-(april-24th)/" target="_blank"> JL Forums </a>today about the latest google update in it he said that a lot of old sites that shouldn&#8217;t be on the first page of google were now appearing. and he gave an example:</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Overall Affect: Old Sites With Less SEO Ranking Better</strong></p>
<p>Lots of old sites are being resurrected into the search results, apparently because they have been less optimized. Google has been saying for a while that they would be going after over-optimized sites. That&#8217;s fine, but it&#8217;s sadly pushing a lot of really poor quality stuff into the search results, at least for the queries I&#8217;m following. Stuff that simply should not be in very highly competitive results is ranking well.</p>
<p>I mean, seriously, <a href="http://sheldonbrown.com/wheels/index.html" target="_blank">THIS page is ranking on page one for &#8220;bicycle wheels&#8221;?</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p></blockquote>
<p>Please go and look at that page and click on any of the articles that are linked to from it. I especially like the wheel building one.</p>
<p>If thats poor quality what on earth is good quality!</p>
<p>Now that you&#8217;ve read it please tell me why that site shouldn&#8217;t be on the front page of google?? In fact If I owned google I would put that page at #1</p>
<p>I accept that it&#8217;s a damn ugly site but not all of us are web designers, when that site started 17 years ago Wordpress wasn&#8217;t even a glint in it&#8217;s mother eye.</p>
<p>The wheel building article alone is 10,000 words of unique content and if you were building a wheel it has everything you could need in it. The site provides an amazing resource for all things related to cycling and building bikes.</p>
<p>The site hasn&#8217;t been built to make money it&#8217;s been built to help people and provide information the monetization was a secondary consideration. It&#8217;s exactly what google wants on the front page of google, the site has over 1,200 Facebook fans and you just know they weren&#8217;t bought for $5. You just also know he hasn&#8217;t used spun content and SEnuke to get thousands of backlinks.</p>
<p>So Mr Leger please explain why this site shouldn&#8217;t be on the first page of google?</p>
<p>I honestly can&#8217;t think why any marketer would begrudge a site like that a top 10 ranking. Unless of course it&#8217;s keeping their crappy MFA sites with 5 pages of perfectly spun content that don&#8217;t give value off the front page.</p>
<p>Far from decrying Mr Sheldon Brown I want to stand up an applaude him for the effort he&#8217;s put into the site, I want to hold him up as an example of the type of sites you should be creating (maybe use wordpress and a nice themes though!)</p>
<p>Let me make myself clear I have nothing personal against Jonathan Leger or nothing against MFA sites , hell I have enough of them myself but what I do object to is marketers who make their money from MFA sites and spun content saying in a public post that a &#8220;real&#8221; site shouldn&#8217;t be on the front page of Google.</p>
<p>We as Marketers do not have the divine right to be on the front page of google if google are making it more difficult for MFA sites to rank then we need to adapt not cry and whinge in forums that our sites have dropped 30 places and a horrible looking site has got to page one.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve been saying it for a while now, you have a choice , play by Google&#8217;s rules or play a different game.</p>
<p>So should that site be in the top 10 for wheel building? Feel free to tell me I am an idiot and Jonathan is 100% correct!</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Monday Tip &#8211; Google Doesn&#8217;t Care About You</title>
		<link>http://mjthompson.net/1613/monday-tip-google-doesnt-care-about-you/</link>
		<comments>http://mjthompson.net/1613/monday-tip-google-doesnt-care-about-you/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:41:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Monday Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[branding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mjthompson.net/?p=1613</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I had a totally different blog post planned for today but a number of things came together at the same time and it would be foolish not to highlight them. They are very important and all connected. The first was a post in the WordPress Goldmine Forum by one of our long term members Paul [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1613/monday-tip-google-doesnt-care-about-you/closed/" rel="attachment wp-att-1616"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1616" title="closed" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/Photoxpress_107370.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a>I had a totally different blog post planned for today but a number of things came together at the same time and it would be foolish not to highlight them. They are very important and all connected.</p>
<p>The first was a post in the WordPress Goldmine Forum by one of our long term members <a href="http://www.paulnichollsblog.com/" target="_blank">Paul Nichols</a> who pointed out a fiver gig that offered to sent 67,000 poor quality links to your competitors.  (probably the same gig that offered to send you 67,000 quality links before the last algo update!)</p>
<p>I know what you are saying…. Google says that competitors can&#8217;t harm our rankings.</p>
<p>Do they ?  Really?</p>
<p>Read this from the same thread</p>
<blockquote><p><em>Just so that’s clear: A competitor CAN build crappy backlinks to your website, and hurt your rankings. And Google now admits this.</em><br />
<em>Look how google have adapted there guidleines:</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong><em>“Can competitors harm ranking?</em></strong></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong><em>There’s nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.</em></strong><em> If you’re concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don’t control the content of these pages.”</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Then, in November, it got “slightly” modified… just a TINY fraction too:</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong><em>“Can competitors harm ranking?</em></strong></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>There’s </em><strong><em>ALMOST</em></strong><em> nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you’re concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don’t control the content of these pages.”</em></p>
<p><em>Wow, what a difference one word can make! So hang on, saying “almost nothing” means “can”, no matter which way you spin it.</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Then on March 14th, they caved.</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong><em>“Google works hard to prevent other webmasters from being able to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. </em></strong><em>If you’re concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don’t control the content of these pages.” -</em><a href="http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=66356"><em>http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=66356</em></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong><em>In case you missed it, the key difference is in that first line:</em></strong></p>
<p><em>From “nothing” to “almost nothing” to “perfect political answer”</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p></blockquote>
<p>Now do you think that a competitor can&#8217;t harm your rankings?</p>
<p>With gigs like that available on google you really had better not be relying on Google for your traffic. Google is no longer a search engine they are an advertising agency with shareholders, 2 things matter profit and the war to stay bigger than Facebook. That means like every war there will be collateral damage and thats us and our sites.</p>
<p>So whats the alternative?</p>
<p>Well one alternative is BRANDING…</p>
<p>Jonathan Leger pointed out in a post over the weekend that many people go directly to Amazon when they look for a product rather than Google.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote><p>Well, my friend, Google is only sending your site &#8220;walk-in&#8221; business. It&#8217;s your job to convert those walk-ins into long-term, repeat customers. Do that enough times and it won&#8217;t matter if the search engines got shut down by the government. You&#8217;d still be in business, because you have a brand. People would still be typing your domain name into their browsers&#8217; URL bars, and you would be fine. Your revenue might take a hit (as would Amazon&#8217;s), but your business wouldn&#8217;t shut down. <a href="http://www.jonathanleger.com/googles-out-of-business-are-you/" target="_blank">Source</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Until last year I thought my biggest screwup in IM was not building a list sooner, I was wrong about that as well , my biggest mistake was not branding myself sooner. (not literally!)</p>
<p>I actually mentioned this in a forum chat and branding expert <a href="http://thebrandingblog.com/" target="_blank">Martin Jelsema</a> replied</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Mark: You&#8217;ve been branding all along, you just weren&#8217;t in control of it, and it may have not been consistent, unique or compelling. Now you&#8217;ll make branding work for you!&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>That my friends is the key!  Everything you do online can add to your brand but you need to be focussed,  You need to be consistent, unique and compelling.</p>
<p>How many of you found this post via Google?   Not many!</p>
<p>In January this year I set out to consolidate my Branding and start to drive traffic to this blog, below you&#8217;ll see 2 screenshots of the unique traffic from December and from the first 22 days in April. Apart from the obvious increase in traffic you&#8217;ll see the percentage of people coming from google has dropped significantly. I really do want to get that figure to be below 10% while the number of visitors rise on a monthly basis.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<div id="attachment_1614" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 310px"><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1613/monday-tip-google-doesnt-care-about-you/screen-shot-2012-04-23-at-10-11-30-am/" rel="attachment wp-att-1614"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1614 " title="Screen Shot 2012-04-23 at 10.11.30 AM" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2012-04-23-at-10.11.30-AM-300x225.png" alt="Traffic December" width="300" height="225" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">December Traffic</p></div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<div id="attachment_1615" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 310px"><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1613/monday-tip-google-doesnt-care-about-you/screen-shot-2012-04-23-at-10-12-45-am/" rel="attachment wp-att-1615"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1615 " title="traffic april" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2012-04-23-at-10.12.45-AM-300x235.png" alt="" width="300" height="235" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Traffic April 1st -22nd</p></div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>It doesn&#8217;t matter if you have a micro blog about acne, or an authority site about Finance whatever niche you are in you need to start branding yourself and remove yourself from the threat of googles frequent changes.</p>
<p>Start today!  I&#8217;ll come back to this topic a bit more in the coming weeks but the first thing you can do is make sure you use the same avatar on every site you have, every social media account and every forum you visit. Also decide if you want to be the guy with the woody woodpecker avatar or do you want people to see the real you?</p>
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		<title>Micro Niche Sites Vs Authority Sites</title>
		<link>http://mjthompson.net/1608/micro-niche-sites-vs-authority-sites/</link>
		<comments>http://mjthompson.net/1608/micro-niche-sites-vs-authority-sites/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:03:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Income Generation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[authority sites]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[micro niche sites]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mjthompson.net/?p=1608</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve recently been hearing about a number of major players in the  AdSense and Niche blog business losing their Adsense accounts. &#160; The consensus of opinion seems to be that one of the reasons for the AdSense accounts being closed is that google doesn&#8217;t like people who set out to earn lots of money from [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1608/micro-niche-sites-vs-authority-sites/screen-shot-2012-04-18-at-12-01-19-pm/" rel="attachment wp-att-1609"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1609" title="Screen Shot 2012-04-18 at 12.01.19 PM" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2012-04-18-at-12.01.19-PM.png" alt="authority sites vs micro niche sites" width="300" height="196" /></a>I&#8217;ve recently been hearing about a number of major players in the  AdSense and Niche blog business losing their Adsense accounts.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>The consensus of opinion seems to be that one of the reasons for the AdSense accounts being closed is that google doesn&#8217;t like people who set out to earn lots of money from AdSense revenue by creating hundreds of niche blogs.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>For a change I can actually see their point, from experience I know that once you start getting a lot of sites you struggle to keep them updated and fresh. That&#8217;s not to say that Micro sites don&#8217;t have a place, after all I still have a lot of 3 , 4 and 5 page sites but I do think that maybe you should carefully consider what you build in the future.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>What I want to discuss today is which is better Micro Niche sites or Authority sites,  … I say discuss because I want your views on this.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>I wan&#8217;t to be as impartial as possible and I&#8217;ll put forward the pro&#8217;s and cons for each type of site.  For the purposes of this I am going to call any site with less than 10 posts a Micro Niche site.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>What is a Micro Niche Site?</strong></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Essentially a Micro Niche Site is a site that is quick and easy to create,  You build it , get some backlinks and then move on to the next site the process is as follows</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Find a keyword with 1000+ searches a month.</p>
<p>Find &amp; buy exact match domain.</p>
<p>Create or outsource some content</p>
<p>Build backlinks</p>
<p>Move on and repeat 100&#8242;s of times</p>
<p>After that you sit back and hope that it makes a few dollars a day on each site</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Micro Niche sites are quick and easy to build and you can take a shotgun approach if you wish. Generally speaking they will make you money and you&#8217;ll generally recover your costs in a few months. They can be easily scaled up, by outsourcing all the processes to cheap overseas workers.</p>
<p>Nobody should ever pretend that that Micro niche sites are built for any other reason but to make money and I think that this is why google doesn&#8217;t like them.  Micro Niche sites should be looked on as a short term strategy, they still work but I do feel that they may soon struggle to be as effective as they were.</p>
<p><strong>What Is an Authority Site</strong></p>
<p>An Authority site is a site that has a lot of content, is frequently updated and focusses on a much broader niche than micro sites (think of the difference between a pamphlet and a magazine).  You need to regularly update them and you should try to connect with your readers.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Find a group of 3-10 keywords with a large number of searches these are your main categories.</p>
<p>Find a generic domain name or brand type name you can use</p>
<p>Launch the site with 10 or more pieces of content in place</p>
<p>Post Content regularly and target every keyword in that niche</p>
<p>Build links to each post and have a social media strategy that you apply to each piece of content</p>
<p>Focus on a core of 5 -10 sites.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Authority sites are a long term strategy and take time and effort to get established, with a low number of sites you do run the risk of being more affected by any algorithm changes.  However by building a list of subscribers and a strong Social media presence for each of your authority sites you can eventually become pretty much immune to Googles changes.</p>
<p>Building Authority sites does give you the ability to target every keyword in a niche over time,  the main difference between them and Micro niche sites is that you would build a Micro niche site around &#8220;Dog Training Collars&#8221; but an Authority site around &#8220;Dog Training&#8221; and within the authority site you would plan to have 1 or 2 articles about Dog Training Collars at some point.</p>
<p><strong>Authority Or Micro Niche Sites?</strong></p>
<p>From a personal point of view I am now focusing on authority style sites, some of which are former Micro sites that I am upgrading and expanding.  But I really want to hear your views on this debate as I do feel it&#8217;s extremely important and something that we all should be paying attention to.</p>
<p>Do you think that Google wants to kill off Micro Niche sites either now or in the Future</p>
<p>Should you have a Mix of Authority sites and Micro niche sites?</p>
<p>Is Authority Sites the best way forward?</p>
<p>Should we just do what we want and ignore Google?</p>
<p>Let me know what you think?</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Lets get back To Basics &#8211; Keep it Simple</title>
		<link>http://mjthompson.net/1578/lets-get-back-to-basics-keep-it-simple/</link>
		<comments>http://mjthompson.net/1578/lets-get-back-to-basics-keep-it-simple/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:21:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Income Generation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Site Promotion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adsense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[keyword research]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[niche sites]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seo]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mjthompson.net/?p=1578</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We humans are perverse creatures we all seem to have a tendency to take the easiest most simple things and then try to make them difficult. Creating a niche site isn&#8217;t difficult, Seo isn&#8217;t difficult , Keyword research isn&#8217;t difficult so why do we all (myself included) make things so difficult that we sometimes struggle to get it right? [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1578/lets-get-back-to-basics-keep-it-simple/screen-shot-2012-04-11-at-11-20-49-am/" rel="attachment wp-att-1579"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1579" title="Screen Shot 2012-04-11 at 11.20.49 AM" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2012-04-11-at-11.20.49-AM-300x196.png" alt="Get back to basics" width="300" height="196" /></a>We humans are perverse creatures we all seem to have a tendency to take the easiest most simple things and then try to make them difficult.</p>
<p>Creating a niche site isn&#8217;t difficult, Seo isn&#8217;t difficult , Keyword research isn&#8217;t difficult so why do we all (myself included) make things so difficult that we sometimes struggle to get it right?</p>
<p>What&#8217;s difficult about creating a site? Install WordPress with a few clicks of a button, add a simple theme , add some plugins that do things we need then add content.  Voila that&#8217;s it&#8230; why the hell did I then spend 2 hours yesterday getting a header in the right place on a blog and reorganizing the sidebar?</p>
<p>Have a look at the quote below, can you guess when I wrote that?  last month? last year when panda hit?  Wrong I wrote that back in  2007</p>
<blockquote><p>Taking things back to basics also means you can react to situations quicker, if Google tweaks their algorithm again. Also by keeping things simple you are doing what the search engines want you to do. Which do you think Google finds more appropriate a wordpress blog updated 3 or 4 times a week with unique content or a generated site with multiple pages of PLR content and random rss feeds added?<br />
Read more: <a href="http://mjthompson.net/57/want-to-make-money-online-the-keep-it-simple/#ixzz1riei2w5T">http://mjthompson.net/57/want-to-make-money-online-the-keep-it-simple</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Lets all make an effort to build a blog this week and keep it simple I mean really simple. Then see how it performs.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Keyword Research</strong></p>
<p>Find 3 keywords that you think you can write about without much effort.</p>
<p>Forget finding a specific number of searches, thats irrelevant, what counts is how much you&#8217;ll make when someone clicks on an Adsense ad so take the number of searches and multiply it by the adsense CPC.   If it comes to $3000 or more consider it.  Look at the top 10 results in google, have they been updated recently?  Do they look very professional?  Do they have loads of social media interaction.</p>
<p>If the answer is no to all 3 then Use the keyword.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Create Your Site</strong></p>
<p>Set up Wordpress and Use the 2011 theme, put a recent posts widget in the sidebar and add no more than 6 plugins.  Choose wisely!</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Create Content</strong></p>
<p>Write 3 articles based around your 3 keywords.  Post them to your blog.  Now set aside 30 minutes every day for the next month (5 days a week) to write one article per keyword.  Don&#8217;t worry about article length just make sure you create good content.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Simplify SEO</strong></p>
<p>We are going to keep this simple, no more than 15 minutes a day.</p>
<p>First off get your onsite seo as good as you can so one of those plugins should be an SEO plugin</p>
<p>When you write a post, link to it in Facebook, Google + Linkedin. Tweet about it, and do some blog commenting. Take one of the articles you posted on your blog the previous week and post it to an article directory BUT link it to a new article (not the same article).</p>
<p>Do the things you have forgotten about, Article Marketing , Yahoo answers, press releases, use forum signatures etc.</p>
<p>Read <a href="http://storecoach.com/articles/article/store-coachs-insanely-simple-seo-plan">Store Coaches Insanely simple seo plan</a> for ideas and adapt it to your situation</p>
<blockquote><p>Without further ado (whatever that means), here&#8217;s my insanely simple SEO plan:</p>
<ul>
<li>Post at least once a week in 2 different authority forums in your market</li>
<li>Post as a &#8220;researching shopper&#8221; in 2 forums per month</li>
<li>Answer at least 1 &#8216;Yahoo Answers&#8217; question a week</li>
<li>Post 1 article a month on an authority article directory</li>
<li>Post 1 press release a month</li>
<li>Post once a week on your on-site blog</li>
<li>Post once a week on your off-site blog</li>
<li>Get at least 5 social network links per month</li>
<li>Get at least 2 &#8220;personal or hobby site&#8221; links per month</li>
<li>Get at least 1 guest article posted per month</li>
</ul>
<p>Using this plan &amp; this plan alone you should be able to get to the top of Google for your targeted keyword phrase</p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Once your keywords are researched and your site is built then you only need to focus on 2 things content creation and then SEO. Get up 30 minutes earlier and go to bed 30 minutes later and you have all the time you need.  Take time when you are sat on a bus or train or drinking a coffee to jot down ideas for articles or indeed write the articles.</p>
<p>Keep it simple and i think you&#8217;ll be surprised at the results.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Monday Tip &#8211; Use The Rel=Author Tag</title>
		<link>http://mjthompson.net/1545/monday-tip-use-the-relauthor-tag/</link>
		<comments>http://mjthompson.net/1545/monday-tip-use-the-relauthor-tag/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Apr 2012 09:22:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Article Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Monday Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[authorship tag]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rel=author]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mjthompson.net/?p=1545</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Last year Google introduced a new tag called rel=author, the purpose of the tag was to identify the author of a piece of content and assign the authors image to it in the rankings. There has been much written about it since but despite that it seems that very few people have implemented it. I could write [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1545/monday-tip-use-the-relauthor-tag/typewriter/" rel="attachment wp-att-1553"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1553" title="rel=author authorship tag" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/Photoxpress_18511264.jpg" alt="rel=author authorship tag" width="300" height="200" /></a>Last year Google introduced a new tag called <strong>rel=author</strong>, the purpose of the tag was to identify the author of a piece of content and assign the authors image to it in the rankings.</p>
<p>There has been much written about it since but despite that it seems that very few people have implemented it.</p>
<p>I could write pages about why you should be implementing <span style="text-decoration: underline;">rel=author</span> but <a href="http://www.highrankings.com/jill-whalen" target="_blank">Jill Whalen</a> has covered it really well on her High Rankings blog where she gives 5 reasons for implementing the authorship tag.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote><p>If you&#8217;re thinking it&#8217;s just not worth the trouble, here are 5 reasons why it&#8217;s super important:</p>
<p><strong>1. It&#8217;s kinda sorta easy to implement.</strong></p>
<p>While it is a bit confusing to figure out exactly how to enable authorship based on<a href="http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=1408986"><strong>Google&#8217;s directions</strong></a>  (which seem to keep changing), in reality their latest criteria have made it easier than ever to implement.</p>
<p><strong>2. It makes your content stand out.</strong></p>
<p>Imagine if you could put big stars around your content listings in Google&#8217;s search results that everyone would see. <em>Rel=Author</em> does exactly that! Only it&#8217;s not stars, but your name and photo.</p>
<p><strong>3. Provides credibility and more exposure.</strong></p>
<p>Beyond just seeing my smiling face in the listings for my content, as you can see in the above screenshot, Google is also showing how many people have circled me on Google+ as well as a &#8220;More by Jill Whalen&#8221; link. Clicking that link shows more information about me from my Google Profile, plus posts I&#8217;ve made on Google+ related to the search query, and all the other articles that I&#8217;ve written on the subject.</p>
<p><strong>4. Higher clickthrough rate.</strong></p>
<p>I&#8217;d say this one goes without saying, due to all of the above factors. It would be difficult to *not* click on the listing that Google is screaming for you to click on.</p>
<p><strong>5. Additional metrics in Webmaster Tools.</strong></p>
<p>As if all of the above weren&#8217;t enough, once you have your authorship up and running and showing up in Google results, you&#8217;ll also see new author stats in your Webmaster Tools account.</p>
<p>Read The <a href="http://www.highrankings.com/rel-author-323" target="_blank">Full Article</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>But for me the 2 main reasons for using the rel=author tag are</p>
<h4>1. It gives you credibility</h4>
<h4>2. You get a higher click through rate!</h4>
<p>With all the recent google changes anything that gets you more traffic naturally should be implemented without delay.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1545/monday-tip-use-the-relauthor-tag/screen-shot-2012-04-08-at-11-18-00-am/" rel="attachment wp-att-1546"><img class="size-full wp-image-1546 aligncenter" title="rel=author authorship tag" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2012-04-08-at-11.18.00-AM.png" alt="rel=author authorship tag" width="541" height="119" /></a></p>
<p> At the same time they introduced a Google labs feature that allows you to check the stats of your articles via the webmaster tools page.</p>
<p>The rel=author  authorship tag is relatively easy to implement and i&#8217;ve created a video below to give you more information and show you how you can implement it today.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a 2 step process, first you need a Google Plus account and then you need to link your google plus account to the blogs you contribute to and them link the content to your google plus account.</p>
<p>I appreciate that some readers don&#8217;t like giving google anything but the bare minimum of data and i can appreciate that BUT if you are writing a personal blog or have 1 or 2 sites that you publish in your own name then it&#8217;s a very worthwhile addition.</p>
<p>One of the things that I immediately noticed is that Ezinearticles is still a very useful source of traffic,  (what? You really thought Article Marketing was dead?)</p>
<p>One thing to be aware of is that you need to use a proper headshot for your profile picture at google, so it&#8217;s worth using the same image for all your sites and avatars as it helps with branding and makes your content immediately identifiable.</p>
<p>The Video shows you why I believe you should start using the rel=author tag and how to implement it</p>
<p>Have a great week!<br />
<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mDrY_xwbH8I" frameborder="0" width="640" height="360"></iframe></p>
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		<title>Results Of The Recent Survey I Conducted</title>
		<link>http://mjthompson.net/1537/results-of-the-recent-survey-i-conducted/</link>
		<comments>http://mjthompson.net/1537/results-of-the-recent-survey-i-conducted/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Apr 2012 08:32:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Income Generation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Make Money Online]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Lab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[content creation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[survey results]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mjthompson.net/?p=1537</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Thank you to all of you who took the time to complete the survey I recently posted, special thanks must go to the spammer who thought that by typing in a certain keyword about 100 times he would get some links&#8230; get a life loser! If you missed the original survey you can see it [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://mjthompson.net/1537/results-of-the-recent-survey-i-conducted/business-accessories/" rel="attachment wp-att-1539"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1539" title="Business accessories" src="http://mjthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/Photoxpress_5116107.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="222" /></a>Thank you to all of you who took the time to complete the survey I recently posted, special thanks must go to the spammer who thought that by typing in a certain keyword about 100 times he would get some links&#8230; get a life loser! If you missed the original survey you can see it at: <a href="http://mjthompson.net/1350/monday-tip-give-your-readers-what-they-want/">http://mjthompson.net/1350/monday-tip-give-your-readers-what-they-want/</a></p>
<p>The results were quite interesting and very enlightening and were actually very useful and have resulted in me planning some changes to the way I do things around here.</p>
<p>First off I now have a much better understanding of my average user&#8230;or at least the average user who wanted to fill in the survey, Lets call him Joe as there is a 62 % chance he is a guy.</p>
<p>Joe is over 40 (70%) and self employed (25% full time IM and 38% self employed non IM). He currently earns under $50,000 per month (78%) but wants to earn over $500 per day online 50% (this is very revealing as the last time I did a survey a few years back he wanted to earn $200 a day). The biggest thing thats holding him back is lack of motivation and focus 34%, Joe considers Content Creation and Traffic Generation 23% &amp; 22% to be the key skills he needs.</p>
<p>So Is that you? Are you my average reader?</p>
<p>I learned 2 things from the survey&#8230;</p>
<p>The main thing I learned from the survey is that the average person doesn&#8217;t like to do surveys <img src='http://mjthompson.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>But the 2nd thing is the most important, I need to tailor some of the tips and advice I do so that it covers specific areas and to allow people to get tips and advice on areas that matter to them. i.e I need some sort of way to deliver personalized tips and advice so that will be my project for later in the month.</p>
<p>One of the things that people mentioned that they struggled to create content, it just so happens that 3 years ago (almost to the day) I did a blog post about how to write content in under 10 minutes.</p>
<p>You can find that post at: <a href="http://mjthompson.net/257/how-to-write-an-article-in-under-10-minutes/">http://mjthompson.net/257/how-to-write-an-article-in-under-10-minutes/</a></p>
<p>Have a great easter and I&#8217;ll be back with a new post on Tuesday</p>
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