Today I noticed my beef jerky review blog moved up on Google's SERPs for the words, "beef jerky". It's on the second page of results now. For the longest time, it was mired on the third page.

For the record, I launched this blog in March of 2008, about 13 months ago.

Ok, being on the second page is not necessarily worth dancing over, but hey, I'm happy right now.

As of this writing, it's sitting at #13...


The sites ranking above my site are all tough contenders, and are sites that have been around a lot longer than mine.

So how did I manage to make it up to this point? Just by writing lots of content that's all, and writing new content consistently. That's really the biggest SEO strategy that anyone can do.

But some of the smaller things (all of which add up) include...

• Making sure the domain name has the words "beef jerky" in it


• Making sure each page on the site has a link to the homepage


• Making sure I link out to other beef jerky sites


• Making sure I have a TITLE tag on each article (Blogger handles this automatically)


• Making sure I have META tags (Blogger handles this automatically).


• Getting links from other websites.

I was reading several SEO blogs yesterday because I haven't been keeping up with the latest SEO news recently.

First there are tons of SEO blogs out there. And two, almost all of them are publishing stuff of almost no value. That is, the blogosphere is run amok of "SEO experts" who have nothing worthwhile to say, or are simply pointing your attention to something they saw on another SEO blog.

So I wanted to point out that every website ranks #1 on Google for something. That is, it may be a very descriptive search phrase, or a phrase that hardly anyone ever searches for. But still, it shows up #1 for that phrase. So in fact, SEO is not about ranking #1 on Google, but ranking #1 for the keyword or keyphrase that you desire.

Take this blog you're reading, "In Your Web" for example. It has a modest PR4 value. But yet it ranks #1 for the phrase "AB 178 California tax bill" as of this writing.

So if my measily PR4 site with a dumb sounding domain name can get the top listing on Google for a specific keyphrase, then so can yours.

And the topic of AB 178 is a pretty well written topic.

On top of that, I haven't been following the latest trends in SEO, at least for the past 12 months. So technically, I don't really know what I'm doing if you ask the SEO bloggers.

The fact that there are so many SEO blogs out there is more of an indication that the topic of SEO is quite lucrative on AdSense than anything else. Blog publishers understand they don't have to write anything that actually helps you. They only have to write what is necessary to keep traffic coming into their blogs, and keep the monetization going. And maybe that's why I haven't been following the SEO blogs that often.

Here on In Your Web, I've tried to write useful content, rather than reblog what's already been reblogged a thousand times elsewhere. But the truth is that there is only so much useful information to disseminate. I'd have to publish a bunch of junk just so that I can publish new material.

My advice is to keep the subject of SEO as simple as possible. Publish new material often. Write unique material, that is say something of your own instead of reblogging someone else's observations. Maybe people will start reblogging your material instead. Oh, and it really helps to put the keywords into the file name of your web document. After that, don't bother pulling the hair out of your head trying to stay on top of the latest SEO myths. 99% of what you read out there, is just reblogged material from someone who sounds like they might know something.


Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

One of the nice things about the government, is that they create tons of free content for us publishers. That is, since it comes from the government, it's public domain.

What kind of content?

Most of it is news oriented, like alerts and announcements.

For example, I publish a community blog for my hometown, Menifee, CA. So one day I visited the website for the California State Department of Transportation, otherwise known as "Cal-Trans". Everyday they send out alerts in the form of PDF documents, notifying the public of road construction projects. The photo above is an example of one.

Since Menifee is in Riverside County, I subscribed specifically to receive alerts from this area of the State. I get something from them about once a day. That becomes free content that I can republish on my Menifee blog.

And that's just one example. State and federal government is chock-filled with e-mail subscriptions on a myriad of topics. You only need to visit government websites, and discover what's out there.

I also found that my county has its own e-mail notification system for most of its departments. For example, everytime the fire department publishes a press release, I get an e-mail on it.

Some of them are automated, in that you can visit a government website, and submit your e-mail address, and it's all done. But others, you may have to contact a person at an office, and request to be put on a distribution list. Here in Menifee, I contacted the City Clerk, and asked to receive advance copies of city council agenda items via e-mail.

Others, such as our local Sheriff's department, publishes a "police blotter" on their website, but doesn't offer an e-mail subscription. I have to visit that site regularly to see what's new. Nonetheless, it's news material, and public domain.

So, with all that free content available at taxpayer expense, what websites can you build with them? Will these websites monetize well with AdSense, or with CPM ads, or an affiliate program?

Maybe you can find every city and county law enforcement office in the country that will deliver arrest reports via e-mail. Then you find the most funniest, strangest, or dumbest criminals, and create a "stupid crimes" blog.  ✓

All of a sudden, I discovered my Blackberry Storm would no longer sync with Outlook Calendar. It used to sync before, but not anymore.

It appears the Blackberry Desktop Manager syncs the Contacts, Tasks, and Memos, but bypasses the Calendar.

Then I figured it out.

I had installed the new Blackberry Facebook application version 1.5. It seems this Facebook app sets the Facebook Calendar as the default sync-to calendar. I switched it back to my personal calendar, and it syncs to Outlook Calendar now.

To do this,

1. Run the "Options" app from the Blackberry


2. Select "Advanced Options"


3. Select "Default Services"


4. Where it says "Calendar (CICAL)", select your personal calendar, which should be denoted by your e-mail address".


5. Save

One of the reasons why 20% of the affiliate marketers earn 80% of the total affiliate marketing money is because they're proactive in matching up audiences with the products their marketing.

I think every one of us affiliate marketers started out with passive marketing, where we created a website, and then joined a few affiliate programs that seemed to match up. We sprinkled some links here and there, and expected money to roll in. But alas, a little bit of money came in, enough to encourage us, but never enough to pay the bills with.

That's passive marketing. That is, you started by creating lots of good content, and then added some affiliate links to it.

Proactive marketing starts the other way around. You start with an affiliate program, and then determine what are are the best customers for that merchant, and then design a website that will attract that demographic.

Here are some things to think about...

• What are the most popular keywords customers use to find the products your merchant is selling? Use AdWords Keyword Tool to find out.


• Register a domain name that has these keywords, limit to no more than three keywords


• Build a handful of companion websites, each on their own domain names, to point links to your main affiliate site. These companion sites can be blogs, forums, or even a dedicated Twitter account.


• Keep your main affiliate site very simple in design. Use very little graphics; use too much and it diverts attention away from the affiliate links.


• Don't expect overnight success, good affiliate sites take time to refine and tweak.

I added a new background to my Twitter page.

Here's what it looks like at 1280x768 resolution...


Here's what it looks like at 1024x768 resolution...


Doing a Google search on "how to create a Twitter background" yielded several results. I read some of them, but they all seem to want you to create a full page background, like 1280x768, or 1024x768, etc. All you really need to do is create an image that fills the left side of the screen, since Twitter defaults to pushing the image to the left.

• Make sure you design the background for 1024x768 resolution, since as of this writing, anywhere from 25% to 40% of Internet users still view at this resolution.



• But make use of the top margin (the top 68 pixels) for your logo.

I revised my corporate website (link).

With this new design, I wanted a simpler style. This new design only has this one web page, no other pages. I dumped the blog, since I never update it. I also cleaned up the logo.

Moreover, I published my corporate address, phone number, and e-mail address as imaged text, to thwart the scrapers, bots, and spiders.

Here's the new design...


Here's the previous design...


If you want to see the old site in all its old glory... (link)  ✓

Back on March 11, 2009, I ordered a new Dell laptop. And I customized it, adding some upgraded options. Originally Dell's website said it would be shipped out to me in a couple of weeks.

But since then, I received their famous automated phone calls telling me that the order is being delayed.

But the delays were very short. Instead of being shipped out in two weeks as was originally stated, they would be adding a few more days to it. "Ok", I thought, what's a few more days? So I press "1" on my phone to accept the new delivery date.

I had since received another such call, adding a few more days on top of that. "Sheesh!". I press "1" to accept the new delivery date. And then, I got another such call, and again I pressed "1".

But then the calls stopped coming in. And just a few days after my expected delivery date came and went, I checked my order on Dell's website. Now it said the expected delivery date is May 7, 2009.

So as it is today, I have another two weeks to wait.

Since then, I've been shopping for a new laptop by going to competitor websites like Lenovo, Toshiba, Sony, and HP. I've been checking out similar laptops, and comparing prices, and of course estimated delivery dates. But I haven't submitted an order.

If I go back to Dell's website, and notice the date has moved back even further, I'm cancelling the order, and finding something else. That'll be it for Dell, at least with me anyways. No more of my money.

Oh and then today, I read this on CNET (link)...

According to the study, which asked 4,500 U.S. consumers to rate the usefulness and enjoyability of products, Dell received a "poor" rating in overall customer experience. The company mustered a "very poor" when it came to the customer's enjoyment using Dell products. HP's experience was rated as "poor," while Apple led the way for computer manufacturers with an overall "good" experience.

One of the blogs I'm actively writing is Best Beef Jerky, which contains reviews of beef jerky brands. Since I've been writing it, I've had the pleasure to meet with people behind certain brands.

This afternoon I met with another, a marketing guy for Pacific Gold, a brand owned by Oh Boy! Oberto. I met him in Temecula, at a Costco store, where Pacific Gold gets most of its sales. He talked with me about the history of the brand, what his job is, and gave me some insight on the marketing of the brand.

He in turn was intrigued with my beef jerky blog and asked me lots of questions. He probably had more questions for me than I of him. But still, I learned some things about the beef jerky industry.

My meeting with him won't help increase visitors to my blog, nor will it provide me any insight on SEO, or getting some lucrative advertising deals. But the knowledge I've gained will help me write more intelligent content.

But the most interesting thing I learned is perception.

His perception of me was as the world's preeminent expert on beef jerky. He said himself, that no one in the world has eaten as many brands and varieties of beef jerky as I have. And in thinking about it, I'd probably agree with that.

But I see myself as just an average joe who knows how to make a website. I don't really see myself as a beef jerky expert, I'm just someone who's eaten an awful lot of different brands, and can draw comparisons between one brand and another.

Part of his interest in talking to me is because his wife wants to build a website for her own personal business. He asked me for tips on building a site. But being that he's in the business of beef jerky, I'm sure he'd like to learn more about me, particularly since a Google search of his company's brand name results in my site ranking #2, right underneath his company's.

He was savvy enough to do some research on me before our meeting today. He got a better idea of who he was dealing with, just a guy working out of his house, but a guy who knew something about Internet marketing. Still, he considered me as the world's expert on beef jerky.

Considering no one else in the world has bothered to write about as much about beef jerky as I have, maybe I am. But, in reality, I know myself pretty well. And I'm really not a that much of an expert.

But then again, that's perception for you. And maybe that's all that really matters. I gained a contact within the Oberto empire, which I can use to help me write more informative content. Maybe he'll refer all of his Pacific Gold and Oberto co-workers to my site, and who knows what can happen from there.

Maybe his perception of me as the world's foremost authority on beef jerky will result in the higher-ups at Oberto to think of creative ways to utilize me.

Either way, it interesting how much respect an average joe like me can enjoy, just from building a website.  ✓

A lot has been blogged, twittered, and message-boarded about California AB178, dubbed the "affiliate tax bill". I think there's a lot of panic going on. While I agree in general that this is bad for affiliate marketing, and hopefully will be defeated, I don't think the implications are that dire.

In the New York State example, merchants chose to drop their New York-based affiliates, rather than pass sales tax to their customers. That effectively caused some affiliates to lose a lot of income (or declare residency in another state).

But assessing sales tax online is a trend that will continue throughout every state. Merchants like Amazon.com will eventually have to deal with it, instead of trying to run away from it. New York is but one state. And, California is a whale of state, where the lion's share of affiliate marketers reside. Can we truly expect Amazon.com to drop its relationship with tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of affiliate marketers in one fell swoop?

And the tide keeps on rolling, because other states are currently considering the same law. Is that to say that Amazon.com is going to pull the plug on its affiliate program across the entire USA?

I doubt it.

Second, this California bill applies only to sales of tangible goods. These are things that you can feel and touch, like shoes, books, gadgets. This law does not apply to the sales of intangible goods, such as subscriptions, professional services, memberships. Those of us marketing dating sites, real estate services, credit cards, web hosting, paid content, etc., won't notice a thing.

Third, the law only applies to the sales of these tangible goods. It does not apply to lead generation.

Fourth, the law only applies to tangible goods that are subject to sales tax. Each state has a list of goods that are exempt from sales tax. Often times, food is included in this list, as are healthcare items.

It's not the end of the world for publishers.

Affiliate marketers are always adapting to changes with Google, so why should this really be any different? This is only going to separate the men from the boys. So which one are you?  ✓

Yesterday, I dropped my Blackberry Storm on the floor of my home office. The floor is laminate. So when the Blackberry fell, I had a "Holy Shit!" go through my mind.

I picked it up, and everything seemed to work just fine.

But for that brief moment, my life flashed before me.

When I got my first cell phone years ago, dropping it on the ground didn't really bother me all that much. First of all, they seemed to have a more solid construction back in the early 1990s. But more importantly, in those days a cell phone did only one thing: phone calls.

Fast track to this Blackberry Storm, and it's a different story. It's still largely a communication device, but not just a phone. I'm always reachable via e-mail and text-messaging. When I'm in my office, my laptop contains my entire business. But the Blackberry is my office away from office. So, if this thing falls on the floor and breaks, it's like being castrated for a few days until I can get another Blackberry.

So, I have one of those rubber cases around the Blackberry, and a write-protector sheet over the display. Maybe that's a little extra insurance to keep my business running full steam ahead.

But the thought I wanted to leave you with, is that we're taking bigger and bigger risks as we become more dependent on these devices. As they get smaller and more powerful, they effectively become our office, storing all of our documents, providing connectivity, portability, allowing us to be more productive than ever. But all it takes one drop to the floor (or douse of water), to see your business take a serious setback.  ✓

I had a Twitter account laying dormant for quite awhile because for the life of me, I couldn't understand why anyone would want to "microblog". it wasn't until a month ago, with all the hype that Twitter has been getting lately, when I decided I needed to revisit this thing.

Just 140 words to say something? I mean, who really cares that you're eating a taco at El Torito at 11:49am in Hollywood?

As it turns out, a lot of people are using Twitter to post links to articles they found on some other website. About 90% of these links are to articles that most of us are already aware of having read them elsewhere, either on the front page of Yahoo, in the newspaper, heard on the radio, saw on television, or heard from a co-worker. But yet people feel compelled to post the links there anyways.

Is that Twitter is used for? Posting links to articles on other websites?

Not always. Sometimes people talk about the tacos they're eating at El Torito.

"Hey everyone, I uploaded a photo of me holding a bloody mary at a bar in Santa Fe, with a cute looking asian chick."

The content on Twitter is still useless.

Admittedly, I'm guilty of posting the same crap on Twitter. But then again, it's more like that old adage, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do".

Does anyone use Twitter to say something worthwhile? Does anyone use Twitter to say something constructive? Does anyone actually use their Twitter account to do something original?

It would be cool to find someone who tweets a project step by step. If you love to write haiku, it might be cool to tweet a new haiku of yours each morning, provided it can fit into 140 characters. But no one is using Twitter for something cool. They're just posting links to headlines we've already seen, or telling us how delicious that taco was.

Just a week ago, I took a motorcycle camping trip with some friends to Utah and back. I tried to tweet the whole thing. First, I posted an article on my Motorcycle Philosophy blog, telling people that I was going to tweet the trip, and gave them the address. A handful of people visited my Twitter feed to follow it along.

But as it turned out, it's not all that easy to do. First, you have to have a handheld device, such as a Blackberry or an iPhone. That is, you can't really carry a laptop on a motorcycle camping trip. Well ok, I guess you can do that, but there's not much room left for a laptop on a motorcycle after it's been loaded down with camping gear. But second, you can't really pick up network access if you travel deep into the outback of rural America.

But that was my one attempt at trying to create interesting content on Twitter.

Considering there are so many people using Twitter, there's got to be something more constructive, productive, or useful that it can be used for. And don't tell me that twittering can boost the profitability of your business. No one has tweeted their business to the tune of higher profits. Twitter is still just a respository of mindless banter.  ✓