Blogging is not just Blogging
About Content and Advertising
“The more I blog the more I know what I don’t know… yet” - if you know what I mean.
Clearly - and as explained in our Blogging Article -, efficient Blogging - not to speak to Blog for Money - entails much more than meets the eye. Surely, to build a Blog with Semiomanitcs XO is not the same than setting up YORGOO Blasters - however, at the end of the day the same principles apply - and from there it’s a Science. You either escape in time or you prepare for the school of hard rocks.
Content or Advertisements?
If you think about our Semiomantics Blogs, the Content is the Magnet. . . although we are being taught that this will change in the future, where the Ad will attract… however, in today’s setups the magnet is not the ad because Google doesn’t read the ad. Google reads your Content and that content allows people to find you when they do a search on Google.
So if I type in ‘Louis Vuitton’ - I could be an affiliate of reseller of LV and I want to know how I can sell LV - then I am not typing in the same as the guy who wants to buy LV.
The guy who wants to buy LV may type in the “best price”, “best deal” or “where do I find authentic LV handbags?”
Now if I want to sell LV I might type in “how to sell LV”. . . or even better, I might look where my competitors are. So the question is: where are they? Where do I meet them? None of my competitors will tell me how to sell LV. . . but they will tell me how to buy LV.
Now what is my purpose?
I WANT TO LEARN HOW TO SELL.
Therefore I have to find and learn from those who successfully sell. So my search is not how to sell LV but how/where to buy LV… because that’s where I meet my competitors and then I’ve got to go after their websites and analyze them to see what makes them successful. In other words, I do an assessment of my competitors - to learn and to be inspired by what successful people are doing… and then try to do it better.
So I am not coming to their website to buy something.
If I went to their website to buy something then the owner obviously has a better chance of having a deal. So the Purpose must always be clear - for you as a buyer… or if you want to sell and you are putting yourself into someone else’s shoes in order to calculate your steps depending on where exactly you want to target.
The question is always the following:
What’s our real audience?
Who is our ideal visitor?
We try to imagine who the real guy is… and that’s why we created that icon you see here to the left… the guy with the credit card between his teeth who has the URGENT NEED TO
BUY THAT OBJECT XYZ RIGHT NOW ! No matter what it costs! He needs it NOW! That’s the ideal, that’s the extreme. . . and then you have all the ‘inbetweens’…
The Power of Content
…It’s the Content that attracts the Traffic, meaning the visitor with an urgent need to our website.
…It’s based on the content people will find us on Google.
…It’s based on the content that we will have more or less readers.
…It’s based on the content that we have more or less targeted readers.
…It’s based on the Content that people have an interest in buying.
So! The content is important… and if we can deliver the content in the best possible way, meaning that if we can give to that content to that article the highest possible Visibility, we collect most of the traffic from that content.
Example:
If I am writing an article in auctiontalklive.com (ATL) - a Semiomantics XO Script. This article is syndicated directly or indirectly by say 40 websites. But you don’t see ATL on page 1 or 2 … just perhaps on page 3 on Google. And let’s say there are 10 sites with that article or that content who are ahead of me on the keyword I am targeting… that means that the traffic is being collected by those 10 and as a matter of fact, my article has all the merit of carrying all those domains to the top of Google - but I don’t get the reward which could be that - along with my content - I deliver my advertising to the target.
This is ATL where we develop quality content.
With YORGOO Blaster on the other hand, we are choosing the content in function of the advertising we want to deliver, in function of our choice of what we want to sell.
Example:
Laetitia Paris wants to sell NIKON photo cameras. And say she is an affiliate on amazon.com and has a camera shop there. She decides to sell cameras. So she needs a website or Blog… that’s the support she needs so that Google can pick her up and list her under a particular keyword and this keyword or keywords have to correspond to what her target is looking for.
So say she wants to sell the NIKON D90 because that’s where she gets the best margin - she will start with the keyword focusing on people who are interested in buying a NIKON D90.
She could now set up a website or Blog (YORGOO Blaster) calling it NIKON DIGITAL CAMERAS - in YB terms: nikondigitalcameras.yorgooblaster.com.
As a next step, she will insert some TITLE to that Blog … which could be something like: BEST DISCOUNT ON NIKON D90
This is followed by the TAGLINE which could be something like BEST PRICE… BEST BUY… COUPONS… etc…
Then she will create some Categories picking up again the title… like:
BEST DISCOUNT ON NIKON D90
COUPONS NIKON D90
REVIEWS NIKON D90
etc
And once all this framework is set up, she will go out and look for content to communicate with those people with an urgent need who are typing “Where do I get the best discount on Nikon D90?” into Google. “Where can I buy NIKON D90 in France?” etc…
So she will need content in function of this framework that she has set up.
This co-called ‘Framework’ is what exactly?
It’s YB equipped with a TITLE, TAGLINE and CATEGORIES.
Now I need CONTENT… and that CONTENT must help me to get my site on top of these
keywords on Google.
Why do you want your site to be visible on Google?
This is where your YB is an absolute perversion: your purpose is not to provide Google with the best content on Nikon D90 - what you want is that your Content - from whatever source - gets your site in position so that the site gets the Traffic… and then to get your Ads to the Target, to the top of Google. That’s what you actually want.
You can imagine now using any kind of content from anyone and use that content to cause Google to list you in the right category, to index you properly and to list you in a very good spot … and when people go to that webpage they don’t find what they are looking for but they only find your ads. It’s extreme… but this is what it’s basically.
So: the purpose of the content is to POSITION your site on high visibility spots on Google in front of the audience that you want to target. That is what the content is all about.
And Google has been telling us for years that they want to have great content. They want to have unique content, great content and it must be CONTEXTUAL CONTENT… it shouldn’t talk about 20 things in one article… the more specific it is, the more credit you get from Google… and the better your article will be considered when being fit into the list of search returns.
Now that is fine! They tell us lots … but if you do everything they tell you to do, you probably don’t end up on Google TOP 10 within the next 2 years.
Now… if I am talking about the CONTENT, everyone might understand something else… some may think it’s everything from the title to the video, to the images… the text… etc yes, that’s all content. But where we’re going is … we are going into a completely different context… we are moving into a context where we are going to rip apart the context.
Atomising the Content
As YCADEMY Seminar Participants have seen we have atomised the whole content. The structure is no longer the same from a script point of view; we don’t have content as just being content. We have clearly ripped apart every part of the content - the comment, the body of the blog, the images, the custom fields (and then depending which custom field), the feeds, the titles, the sub-titles, the archives - anything!
So it’s all ripped apart. And every piece of that content is treated individually and differently in function of what the purpose is of that piece of content.
Example:
What is the purpose of your article title?
You can say it is to attract the readers’ attention and hope that he is going to read on.
Now… what your reader might find attractive, is one thing.. but for Google it might be a different story. That’s why we separated the visible title from the slug. In other words: the slug is one thing and the title is something else.
So the title could be: How to smile like a Pink Hamster on Google? which may be funny as an “insider” title but not really interesting for Google. The question now is what I really want to promote… and that might be Alejandra Neri’s Smile. So I separate the two and communicate to each entity what they want: the reader… and Google.
So here we still have been dealing with Content like with Content - meaning that the title of every post is a H1 tag. And then we have H2 and H3 and H4 etc… throughout the blog.
So the Content before and in Google’s eyes usually is what?
It is a POST or it is WRITTEN CONTENT that is structured according to the formula h1, h2, h3 etc… and normal text. Of course, it can have some other attributes like pictures, media files, etc, but it’s all dealt within the same way as CONTENT.
However, in the recent script like at http://biancagubalke.ycademy.net we have ripped all that apart and we are dealing with these things differently.
Example:
We are creating particular PERMALINK STRUCTURES. Whenever we set up a blog, we have permalink structures which is postname/category name. This means that we want the slug of the category and the slug of the article post to have a very particular function where we attract Google’s eye immediately.
Now obviously you cannot imagine that somebody who’s writing an article, will start thinking about all these things when he is writing this article and posting it to his website or just putting it up on his html page; that’s just impossible.
But what we can do is build these things into our script and make it thus available. It all boils down to one thing: if we are setting up a website, then the website has a purpose. And say the purpose is to get targeted traffic to that website, meaning that people must be able to find us if we are doing passive marketing - so if we say we just go to Google and Google picks us up and then we want to be listed on Google Search Returns where there is a lot of traffic - so now it’s the purpose of the content to assure our great Listing. And hopefully that listing is sticky.
And then comes the second element… and that’s our ADS, that we want to deliver alongside. So obviously you now have 2 possibilities:
in YORGOO Blaster we say: our content is irrelevant… we just want to deliver our ADS. That’s really the main issue: THE DELIVERY OF ADS TO THE TARGET.
The content and the framework serve us to reach the target. The Ads must be the visible
elements that the people are attracted to so that they click on them and then the job is done. This is really what we want. And if you are thinking in function of Purpose: the YB Blog is great for people who don’t know how to write!
But imagine now someone who knows how to write!
Well… things change! On one hand the YB has this advantage that if you are not very good at writing in an efficient way, then as a matter of fact the content that you would produce would HARM YOUR LISTING on Google rather than the opposite. So if you grab content from people who are great writers, that content will help you to get a good listing.
That’s true - however there is a limitation: on YB you are losing one big benefit and that’s the benefit of your own content. In YB you are NOT interested in people reading your posts because chances are big that in those posts they find links from other people; not your’s. So those articles that you are importing are competing with your ads. However, the ADS must have more importance than the content.
So while the YB user is profiting from other peoples’ work, saving a lot of work, and being able to set up multiple blogs in no time, and on all those blogs generating daily new entries and new posts… he does not have the benefit of the content.
IMAGINE now if you are someone like Laetitia with her photo cameras: what’s the best way if you want to sell a Nikon D90? Well the best way is to go and buy one, shoot some pictures, take pics of you shooting some pics… take videos of you having it in your hands,… and start writing reviews of every function of that camera.
What is the kind of content that you are looking for?
If you go to Amazon and you take a NIKON D90 feed… what is that feed actually? Getting Amazon offers for D90’s, it’s the technical fact sheet, and it’s reviews. The question now is: How many reviews you want to stream into your blog? How many offers you want to stream in? As amazon is offering everything on RSS - you can define the RSS stream you get from amazon in function of what you actually want.
IMAGINE NOW that you become an Authority on NIKON D90… because you have written 50 articles about it, and they have been picked up all over the place and it’s your articles, you are the author… YOU HAVE AUTHORITY.
If you are going to write an article on the NIKON D90 and in your review you add a link where people can go and get that camera, there’s a strong chance that they will go and follow that link.
IMAGINE that you import into your YB the review from Laetitia and you are also selling this NIKON D90 and you have a beautiful AD on the right side of this NIKON D90 but people are reading Laetitia’s review, and let’s say she develops such a high degree of trust in the reader… and she builds into her article a link to HER AMAZON SHOP, well chances are big that you’ve seen it.
That’s why I say: you don’t have the benefit of the content. So you are NOT interested in your content, you are interested in your ADS. You want people to click on the AD anyway. But just under normal circumstances, if there’s somebody serious out there… who REALLY wants information, who REALLY reads what people are writing, like reviews before buying… maybe in her review, she added a PRICE COMPARISON ENGINE LINK …. - or she ads here EBAY AD and amazon AD … well, chances are big that you’ve had it.
This is the disadvantage - the limits you have when using the YB. . . where you say I don’t want to work, I just fetch the content from someone else… but then the other side of the medal is that the content that helps you to get a high ranking on Google, that that content by itself does not really help you, namely if that content has links in it… as they all do.
So here you make the difference between a BLOGGER and just a BLOGMASTER. The blogmaster is like a site manager or webmaster. A blogger can do both… and a blogger writes and creates CONTENT. A blogmaster is supposed to do both… but he can say I OUTSOURCE MY CONTENT CREATION - I buy articles or I syndicate articles, etc. But what I am…. I am just a Publisher and I publish content and I am the Master of the ADS I am publishing. And those ads should be the ones that reward me for my job. In this case, those people who are also producing their own content have the advantage of being the master of the Content as well - and the content to a large extent is part of your communication and marketing strategy. Therefore you also profit from that side of the blog.
Traffic Traffic Traffic
We have to go step-by-step in our whole marketing but there are certain basics that we just cannot change. We cannot be successful without TRAFFIC - we know that. And we also know in as far as blogging is concerned, we cannot blog for money if people don’t see our blog. . . ie if we don’t get Traffic.
How do people see our blog?
Most likely if they go to Google and type in a keyword and they find you, they read you, they might want to sign up with you… tag you, grab your feed etc… and that’s the way to do it. So we know that if we cannot get to the top 10 on Google, Traffic remains a Dream.
The first priority therefore is to get to the TOP 10 ON GOOGLE.
The YB strategy is a very smart one with a clear goal - and everybody can do it. Not everybody is a great writer. Some people are great writers but they can’t produce enough content so they maybe will mix content. So you might end up with mixed blogs like we have done on Semiomantics, where we mix between own content and other great content you import - which is already better as you conquer back the benefit of the content - at least partially, and then the ultimate would be your authority blog where your goal is then to be an OPINION LEADER. Whatever that opinion is. An Authority Blog.
So this was the framework which is the whole contextual way of looking at things where we just have a clear goal where we say: WE WANT TO MAKE MONEY.
So what do we need to make money?
We need traffic.
How do we get traffic?
From Google for example - we gotta be on the top 10 on a keyword where there is traffic.
One thing is clear: if you can position your YB in such a way that every day you make 20 cents on every blaster you have set up in Google clicks, you’ve done your job because then it’s just a matter of multiplying the YBs. That everybody can do - it’s not a matter of neurons, it’s just doing it… over and over again.
The YB is a simple efficient tool that was designed for something very defined. The YB is not meant to be an Authority site… that’s for Semiomantics.
Blogging is not just Blogging
As a resume… we see that as everywhere on the net, everything is in flux, there is no end to the learning and there is constant change and adaptation… we better get used to it and rather let it excite us! And as you’ve seen. . . if you are a good writer you want to improve your Publishing Skills… and if you’re not, you want to create the correct framework to support third party content that brings you to where you want to be - TOP 10 on GOOGLE where your ADS have optimum exposure.
YCADEMY February Seminar
Whatever your case and interest may be, continue your Education and refine your Knowledge and Skills - make sure to get into the next Seminar on 21 and 22 February 2009 that will focus on something that will make our life as a Blogger much easier - something we all need as part of what we do: aggregators.
Yorgo spoke about these before and as we all focus on Content - own and third party - and as Syndication, RSS and Feeds are still dark mysteries to some and cause for shaky knees… this Seminar will most definitely bring clarity and turn this part of the Web 2.0 ballgame into sheer fun!
Whatever we conquer and know we do no longer fear… and it’s part of the puzzle we are all putting together in our minds before implementing our newly gained knowledge and skills in a meaningful and cash-generating way.
Happy Blogging!