I have just returned from spending four straight days absorbing tons of useful information while attending Yanik Silver’s Underground 5 online marketing seminar in Washington, DC. Rather than do anything like a blow-by-blow of the conference (which would take not one but several blog posts), I thought I would share with you one of my key take-aways, which involves dividing up the ways to successfully make money online into three distinct categories. (This possibly-perverse need of mine to categorize disparate and complex realities into a set of mutually-exclusive, collectively-exhaustive dimensions in order to get a clearer understanding of those realities is a vestige from my days as a doctoral student in psychology.)

I have created the following three dimensional map to illustrate my thinking. The background for this is as follows: after watching speaker after speaker at the conference, almost each one with his or her own rags-to-riches story, a key insight hit me, which was namely: everybody has their own angle, their own story, their own technique. In other words, after watching 15 or so speakers, I saw 15 completing unique approaches to making money on the Internet, with very little knowledge overlap amongst them. But, what struck me was that the various ways that they are each making money online can be distilled into a few simple dimensions or categories of skills:

1. the ability to create unique content, products or services (e.g., create an eBook, start your own fee-based membership community, sell a product, provide a service, etc.)
2. the ability to build a community (e.g., build a large list of opt-in e-mail subscribers, build a large following on Twitter, build a large community on Facebook, etc.)
3. the ability to achieve mastery over technical or operational elements of how the Internet works (e.g., become an expert at Google Adwords, SEO, buying and selling domain names, etc.).

Also significant (and this is a big one): no one person who is making big, big money on the Internet seems to be a high-achiever in more than two of these areas. Nobody! In fact, the vast majority of the speakers are getting rich (to the tune of $100K/month, $2MM-$20MM/year, etc.) by merely mastering one of these areas – and maybe dabbling a bit in one or two of the others.

Okay, so here’s my map:

A parting thought: an additional, essential element that anyone who wants to make money on the Internet needs to consider is this: you need to be able to monetize what you do. In other words, you could achieve mastery in any of the three areas shown above, but if you are not able to create and execute a vision for turning that mastery into revenue opportunities, your hard-won skills may be exceedingly interesting and fun, but they will ultimately fail to make you any money.

Black Hat techniques in SEO are those used to try to trick search engines into giving the target website a favorable ranking.  Common techniques include, for example: creating hundreds or thousands of worthless backlinks to one’s site, “stuffing” the site with the same keyword a ridiculous number of times, or duplicating one’s entire site and posting it on multiple domains (Web addresses/URLs) in the hopes of garnering more traffic.

Should you engage in Black Hat techniques? No! These techniques are not really unethical, per se, since they don’t hurt anyone – at least not directly. However, the argument can be made that they hurt the social and economic value of the Internet – since engaging in Black Hat techniques could potentially degrade the quality of the search results for users of search sites like Google or MSN.

The most important reasons to not engage in Black Hat techniques are that, by engaging in them you risk:

1. degrading user experience for visitors to your website

2. being flagged by top search engines, who can (if they catch you) ban your site from ever achieving strong search rankings

Bottom line: good SEO consists of featuring excellent (and fresh!) content, delivering a top-notch user experience, and generating lots of quality backlinks to your site. If you do these things and do them well, you can avoid engaging in Black Hat techniques. You will sleep better at night knowing your site is not going to be banned from Yahoo! or Google. And, your site will rank well for your target keywords – which will make you and everyone in your organization very happy campers.

Seth Godin, one of my marketing heroes, wrote a book called “The Dip” which offers some wonderful insights into the question of when to quit and when to stick with any given endeavor. One of his premises is that you should immediately quit something and move on unless you have the chance to become the “best in the world” at that thing.

Of course, this is a heavy statement for most people at first take, since only a select few of we humans are truly the best in the world at any given thing. But, Godin goes on to elaborate: his definition of the “world” does not really mean the entire planet – or industry in which you compete, as the case may be. For him, the “world” means the sphere of influence in which we have chosen to operate. So, if you sell cheeseburgers in Milwaukee and they are pretty darn good burgers relative to those of your competitors, you may well be in the running to have the best cheeseburgers in the world.

With his assertion, Godin brings to light a powerful concept which you can turn into a reality for yourself with through good SEO. In the world of the Internet, you are at the top of your game – the “best in the world” – when you can get people to find your website through achieving top search rankings. If you come up at the top of Yahoo! or Google for a keyword that is relevant to your industry, product or service, you are in fact  “the best in the world.” Congratulations!

We are told in “The Dip” to stick it out through the hard times when it seems that we will never become “best in the world” – provided that we have set realistic goals for ourselves. In SEO-speak, this thinking translates to the following: choose keywords for which to optimize your site for which you have a reasonable chance of actually reaching a number one (or at least page one) ranking. If you have chosen well, then don’t quit until you win.

However, if you never took the time to do the proper analysis as to which keywords to choose to optimize your website and are now frustrated at your lack of SEO progress after much labor and many hours spent, you likely chose poorly. In that case, you should quit now – right now. Then, start over by: doing the work (the analysis), choosing the right keywords, and continue driving hard until you appear on the first page. That’s how to be “the best in the world.”

Meta tags are data that work “behind the scenes” on your website but that most human eyes never see. There are many varieties of meta tags, but the most important ones in terms of search engine optimization are meta keyword, description, title, and image tags. Making sure that each page of your site has these meta tags – and that they are properly optimized by including the right words – has long been one of the mantras of webmasters and SEO gurus. But, do meta tags really matter?

Yes, meta tags do matter. However, they fall into the category that I refer to as “necessary-but-not-sufficient” for good SEO. In other words: yes, it is essential that each page of your site feature ample and relevant meta tags. And, yes, these tags need to be carefully compiled such that they are in alignment with the branding objectives and product/service offerings of your site. That said, having appropriate meta tags in your site’s code does not mean your site will suddenly rocket to the top of the search rankings.

I bring this up because, in my experience, people tend to have extreme views on the importance of meta tags: they either see them as one of the top 5 things they can do to improve their rankings or they believe that worrying about meta tags is so “1998″ (i.e., outdated) that they hardly warrant any attention – thus completely leaving them off of their websites altogether. Both views are out of touch with reality.

My advice on meta tags: spend some time creating the right meta tags for your site and inserting them into your code. Then, re-evaluate them every 3-6 months to make sure they remain a good fit for your site.  In the meantime, get to work on more dynamic and effective means of driving traffic to your site.

Short on SEO resources? Take a guerrilla marketing approach to SEO, including these 10 tips:

1. Add descriptive keyword, description, and title meta data to your HTML code

2. Submit your URL for free directly to top search engines like Google (http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl), Yahoo! (http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit), and MSN (http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx)

3. Announce your new site to business associates and friends (but be selective – and be sure to use your e-mail client’s bcc feature to avoid sharing your recipients’ e-mail addresses with the other recipients on your list) via e-mail

4. Feature your URL on the personal page of one or more social network service sites (e,.g., MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo).

5. Submit a site map to sites like Google (www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/) or Yahoo! (http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request), as well as many second and third-tier providers.

6. Request that other sites link to yours. If you do this, be sure to give the Webmaster of each site a clear, succinct reason why it would be beneficial and wise to link to your site. In other words: motivate them to care about your site.

7. Create downloadable white papers or other useful, easy-to-read information and post it for your site. By placing compelling, interesting content on your site, others will be more likely to link to you and to visit you often.

8. Make sure that your content is optimized for the keywords that relate to your products, services and/or theme of your site. For example, the most important keywords should appear in section headers and/or nearer to the top of the page. They should also appear more frequently than the other text on the page.

9. Create podcasts and videos, and include or mention the URL to your site. Then, post on YouTube (www.youtube.com), SoundLantern (www.soundlantern.com) and other sites. This is a great way to get free publicity and traffic to your site.

10. Write an article about the theme or general topic area of (but not specifically about) your website. Add a link to your site in the “by-line” and post it to free article syndication sites who make it available to thousands of others who are always hungry for fresh new content. A great place to start is eZine Articles (www.ezinearticles.com).

On a recent Sunday morning I had the unique pleasure of touring my home city of Austin, Texas on a Segway motorized vehicle with my visiting father and some other tourists. Besides the fun of riding this new machine which I have for years wanted to try, participating in the tour reminded me of the uniqueness of the city of Austin and why it is not quite like anyplace else.

As an Internet marketer, I could not help but link certain aspects of this new-found appreciation for my city with what I believe are some key insights about how my clients can better connect with customers online:

Insight #1: Project your own style:

Austin represents an eclectic mix of conservative Texas tradition, successful young professionals, and a postmodern hippy culture of artists and bohemians. If you look closely, you will see on every 50th car or so bumper stickers that say “Keep Austin Weird,” representing a quiet rallying cry of support for Austin’s unique brand of quirkiness. Similarly, your Web site needs to project who and what you are. Your goal should NOT be to attract hordes of prospects to your site. Your goal should be to attract a steady stream of prospects who have a high probability of converting into paying customers.

Insight #2: Shake things up once in a while:

A visit to many parts of downtown Austin indicates that the city is currently in the throes of change. Huge construction projects are underway to build the necessary residential and business infrastructure to accommodate shifting demographics. The city planners have clearly decided to be proactive about just how they grow. The alternative, of course, is stagnation. In the world of Web traffic, this insight calls for you to revisit your site on a regular basis. Add some RSS feeds. Change your skins. Start a blog and update it regularly

Insight #3: Be innovative:

On my tour I learned that the city of Austin employs am innovative car share program whose goal is to reduce downtown traffic and pollution while assisting residents to get around. The program has a number of designated parking spaces around the city for a handful of cars that can be rented by the hour. If a downtown resident has a doctor’s appointment or other transportation need, they just show up to the car at the right time and off they go. Very cool! So (you guessed it), your Web site needs to be similarly innovative. Being innovative does not mean reinventing the (mouse) wheel: it just means doing something that you have not tried before that could make a positive difference in the lives of your visitors.

Insight #4: Proactively drive traffic to your site:

As neat a city as Austin is, in the early ’90s the city’s tourism board was smart enough to know that they needed to get the word out about Austin. So, in 1991 they invented the slogan “The Live Music Capital of the World” to boast that they actually had more live music venues per capita than even New York City or Nashville. By the same token, your Web site can be the best site in the world, but if you do not actively try to drive traffic to your site you are missing out on a huge opportunity. Avoid succumbing to the “Build it and they will come” myth.

Insight #5: Know your audience:

Austin has a clear vision of itself in 10 or 20 years from now. There are numerous projects underway to attract successful, young professionals to the city with innovative developments that put an emphasis on walking and accessibility rather than on automobiles. Similarly, everything you do to drive traffic to your Web site needs to have your target audience in mind. How do they think? What is important to them? Know this and you will attract the customers you need.

Creating fresh, compelling content to post on your website is one of the foundations of good SEO practice. However, creating content is also a huge sticking point for most people in charge of their site’s SEO initiatives. Reason: creating content is very time-consuming, and writer’s block plagues even the most creative among us. So, what to do when you are in need of fresh content but don’t feel the urge to write?

Answer: re-use some of the content that you or your organization have created in the past! By changing your perspective a bit in terms of what qualifies as “good content,” chances are you will find that you already have a treasure trove of existing content you can use on your website.

It is likely that some of the re-usable content you already have is ready to go as-is, with little or no modification required. However, you may also find a lot of content* in other places that can be used on your website if you are willing to make a few modifications to format and do a little bit of editing.

Here are some ideas for where to look for this buried treasure of good, re-usable content:

Content to Re-use more or less “as is” (with little or no modification required):

• Product brochures
• White papers
• Articles
• Research reports
• Off-site blog entries

Content to Re-purpose (with some editing of format, sentence structure, etc.)

• Explanatory e-mails to co-workers or customers about your products or services
• PowerPoint slides for recent presentations
• Transcribed video or podcast content
• Customer tools and worksheets
• Web content from some of your other, related websites

Hint: be selective when re-purposing content. The act of re-purposing is not meant to replace the effort you would otherwise expend in creating completely-original content. Rather, it is a great option for finding viable sources to satisfy your need for fresh content when your creative well has temporarily run dry – or when you have made something in the past that is so good it deserves to be used again!

*note: I am talking in this post about using content to which you already have publication rights – not about content created by people or organizations to whose content you do not have rights. While there are many ethical and advisable ways to re-use other people’s content (with their explicit or implied permission), currently I am talking solely about the content created by you or your own organization!

Here’s a special treat for my regular blog readers: a podcast interview I recently completed on the topic of landing page optimization. For your listening pleasure!

The interview was conducted by Kimberly Friddle, President and Founder of KF Communications (www.kimberlyfriddle.com). It is divided into three parts:

Part A:

Part B:

Part C:

During challenging economic times, charities can be hit especially hard. As regular donors tighten their monetary belts, their budget for making donations to charities may be cut significantly. During times like these, charities with websites often search for more ways to gain mindshare among new, would-be donors. Enter search engine optimization (SEO). By employing simple, straightforward techniques, even charities who are strapped for cash can take actions to boost their sites’ rankings for desirable keywords on top search engines like Google and Yahoo!. And, of course top rankings means better visibility and improved mindshare.

Here are 5 SEO tips for charities:

1. Determine the keywords for which you would like your website to rank well:

Most would-be donors are generally not going to be searching the Internet for keywords that include the name of your organization. Even if they are, those are not the people whom you want to target for your SEO activities: you can safely presume that they will be able to find you if they are looking for you. No, rather it is those more generic keywords that relate to your organization’s mission and goals for which you want your site to be ranking well. For example, an animal rescue charity may want to rank well for keywords such as “dog rescue,” “cat neutring,” or “dog pound.” So, start your SEO efforts by creating a list of your most desirable keywords.

2. Review your website for content optimization opportunities:

80% of good SEO involves a combination of the following two straightforward, no-frills practices:

a. getting other, high-quality sites to link to your site

b. having keyword-optimized content on your website

(note: the final 20% is the bag of tricks and techniques that seasoned Internet marketers learn over time).

And really, both of these practices boil down to one thing: good, relevant, keyword-optimized content. So, take a look at your current site and make sure you have keyword-optimized content – and lots of it!

3. Request backlinks directly from other sites:

Ask any hard-working Webmaster conducting SEO on a regular basis: building backlinks to one’s site is no trivial task. However, charities have a unique advantage over for-profit organizations such as companies in this department due to the fact that the former are presumably out to explictly perform some public service: a benefit to society, people, the environment or the world-at-large. In other words: they are often what people term “do-gooders.” And, for some unwritten reason, do-gooders can stand up tall and – with little justification or explanation – boldly request a backlink without flenching or hesitating. And, provided you are contacting the right kinds of sites, you have a better chance of your request being honored! Still, even though it is a simpler task for charities to request backlinks, your site still needs to feature compelling content on it if you want people to respond positively. Which brings us to our next point.

4. Build fresh, new content for your site regularly:

Search engines love fresh content. They eat it up, in fact. They are hungry for it and are always looking for it. For your site to get noticed by search engines, you need to update it regularly with new, interesting, keyword-optimized content. Create a blog. Write articles. Publish a regular newsletter. Post white papers about your organization. Host an online forum wherein people can discuss issues important to your organization. Remember, the lifeblood of your site is content, content, content. Never forget that and you will always be on the right track.

5. Be the expert:

There are sites on the Internet called expert sites where people post questions in hopes of getting answers from (self-proclaimed) experts. And, people in fact do post answers. Why? Not only to help others or to be in fact recognized as an expert; they also do it to build backlinks to their sites. A good place to start is LinkedIn Answers (http://www.linkedin.com/answers), but there are many other good ones, as well.

If you are interested in garnering more attention for your charity during challenging economic times like these, consider putting more effort into promoting your website to search engines. It is a smart way to gain better visibility and potentially increase donations. And the time and effort you spent now, if spent wisely, will pay off for months or years to come.

Technorati Profile

Building backlinks is merely the process of finding ways to entice other Web sites to link to your Web site. The more quality backlinks that you have pointing to your site (along with a number of other factors that search engines take into account), the more favorably search engines will rank your site.

The most desirable backlinks pointing to your site are those that come from referring sites that:

1. are contextually-relevant to your site (both in terms of the extent to which the content on those referring sites is in alignment with the content on your site and in terms of the keywords embedded in the links themselves)

2. are high-profile sites according to the indexing search engine (e.g., have a respectable Google PageRank, have a large number of backlinks referring in turn to those sites, etc.)

So, how do you build more backlinks to your site for improved search rankings?  Here is the Golden Rule for Building Backlinks:

Create a site that adds value to a well-defined segment of would-be site visitors

This is a deceptively simple rule, but nevertheless it holds true. But, it makes sense, right? To see why, put yourself in the shoes of the Webmaster receiving your request add a backlink to your site. Provided that they are inclined to offer backlinks to other people’s sites anyway (and that they are in a good mood, you are asking nicely, etc.), the first thing they will want to know is whether this would, indeed, be worth doing. In other words, they have to ask themselves: “Will adding a link to this site add value to the users of my site, or will it just seem like I am stuffing my site with useless links?”

Okay, so hopefully we agree that building backlinks successfully is all about value of your site (okay, and it’s also a bit about how you ask!). The question for you then becomes: how do I create a valuable site that people would actually want to link to? Well, that is the $20,000 question because there is no single right answer; it depends upon a number of factors. But, here are some hints to get you on the right track. To be perceived as a valueable site, the site you are requesting backlinks to must perceive your site in one or more of the following ways:

1. it is relevant to the their site in terms of content, theme, etc

2. it offers lots of fresh, original, value-added content

3. it has a high utility value in terms of useful tools like online calculators, searchable reference information, relevant industry information, etc.

4. it looks really, really cool (but without overdoing it or being “too much”)

5. it describes products or services that their own users might benefit from

So, if you want to get Webmasters of other sites to agree to link their sites to yours, focus all of your efforts on building a value-added user experience for some well-defined target segment. In other words, give those Webmasters a very good reason to say, “Yes!”