This post is about some of the best wordpress themes that I’ve used in 2012 & 2011, that I would recommend for anyone who’s wanting to develop an income online, whether as an affiliate marketer, or through promoting their own products or services on the web. As a successful web marketer you’ll have many tools in your arsenal, including wordpress themes – in my opinion, if you’re not using wordpress, you’re missing out – and one of the reasons for this is the awesome theme’s available, and the brilliant plugins of course. If you’re a career web marketer, then you’ll probably want a few different themes – I have a folder full of them, I’m always on the lookout for great new wp themes to add to my toolbox – as well as plugins. If you’re fairly new to web marketing and have so far invested mainly in learning materials, this is one major shift you’re likely to notice, that you stop investing in ebooks & courses – and instead you start investing in tools, that you can use over & over again to gain real returns.

The best premium wordpress themes

in my opinion:

The Ultimate Blogging Theme -  The theme by 16 yearold “kid blogger” Carl Ocab, who gained internet theme when he gained no1 ranking for “make money online” . OK, there is discussion on the warrior forum about the fact that actually this is the son of successful marketer Aron Ocab, and that it may have been a case of his father using his son’s name in order to cash in on the angle of “kid blogger” by doing some or all of the work…but who cares. The Theme is very clever, very easy to use, and has some great features.

Socrates - One of the most popular premium wordpress themes for people who want a fast solution for creating profitable websites and blogs. Very fast & simple to work with, very quick & easy to personalise with custom header or choose a stock header, layout choices are very simple, links & ads / adsense very simple to set up. It may not be as flexible and advances as some of the others, but when I want to build & populate a wordpress site quickly & I don’t have any spefic requirements which require more flexibility, then I go for Socrates.

Thesis - Arguably the most popular premium wordpress theme for more advanced users. Thesis isn’t just a theme, it’s a “framework” – if you just want to buy a theme & be up & running immediately, thesis probably isn’t for you, and if you consider yourself a newby technically speaking, then again it’s probably not for you. If you’re more of an advanced marketer, and you’re wanting to put some time in to set something up which then enables you to create your own custom websites / blogs exactly how you want them, then Thesis may be for you. Many developers use Thesis when creating websites for clients.

Authority Pro Theme - Very slick theme, packed with features! This isn’t the kind of theme for throwing up small niche sites – for this I usually go with socrates, but if you’re planning to build bigger sites, and you need more features, I’d have a look at this theme. I beleive that as with thesis, there are many developers who use this theme to create websites for clients. Again this is more than just a theme, probably somewhere in between flexsqueeze and Thesis.

Flexsqueeze - I love this theme, it takes more time to setup for each site than socrates does, but it’s great if you need a bit more flexibility. In fact, this blog that you’re reading right now is on flexsqueeze. Lots of options in flexsqueeze, but it’s all very simple at the same time, a beginner may need to spend a little time finding their feet – but not as much as with Authority pro or Thesis, it’s very straight forward, there are just quite a few options, once you’ve played around with it a bit it’s very straight forward.

Authority Pro Theme - Very slick theme, packed with features! This isn’t the kind of theme for throwing up small niche sites – for this I usually go with socrates, but if you’re planning to build bigger sites, and you need more features, I’d have a look at this theme. I beleive that as with thesis, there are many developers who use this theme to create websites for clients.

Market Theme – Ecommerce WordPress Theme - Brilliant eCommerce theme. If you’re wanting to create ecommerce / online shop sites with wordpress, check this out. Very simple to use.

Acme - Created by Dan Nickerson, co-creator of Socrates – This is a child theme of the twenty ten theme. If you like the twenty ten theme but you wish you could do more with it, then this may be a nice theme for you.

Film Maker Theme - This is a unique theme, aimed at people who want to create their own movies & sell them online – but actually it has multiple uses. Basically what this theme allows you to do is create a very cool looking movie tailor website, and link from your trailer to Amaxon, iTunes, Hulu & Netflix, so you can sell your movie. Great idea as a money maker, find niche video’s (could be movies, could be instructional) on Amazon, create your own site – wuth a textual review, and run the trailer along with your Amazon affiliates link…

Band WP Theme - Great theme for anyone wanting to create a bands website, with a very easy system for uploading tracks, one click twitter & facebook integration & LOTS more. I’m a musician, I’m not in a band at the moment but back when I was – we would have been thrilled to have a band website the likes of which this simple wordpress theme can allow you to create in less than an hour.

A note about the word free – if you’re looking towards the web as a way to develop an income, just remember the old saying, “you have to speculate to accumulate” – OK, if you really have absolutely no money, and it’s a complete necessity that you get everything you need free – then that’s unavoidable, but just beware that in most cases if you’re looking for free, you’re making a trade off, while it’s free in terms of the initial transaction not carrying with it a fee, it may not be free in real terms, when it comes to the value you may have got if you’d gone for a paid premium wordpress theme, or the extra time you may have to put in with free themes. So if you do have a few quid to invest – then if you invest in one of these themes, it really is an investment, not a cost.

Investing vs. spending – the key is RETURN.

Just keep in mind that there is a difference between investing money & spending money. Spending means putting money into something which brings no return, investing means putting in money into something for a return. Business is all about return on investment, (ROI) return on money invested, and return on time & effort invested. One of the key skills of successful business people, is knowing what to invest in, in order to bring about a return. What successful business people do NOT do, is waste precious time & effort trying to find things for free, instead they simply figure out what they’re best investing in, in order to get the best returns.

One of the issues I find with people who’re relatively new to online marketing, is they are looking at things back to front & upside down, they forget that they’re in business & what they need to do is invest wisely to bring about a return, and they often tend to waste hours & hours of precious time messing about with free stuff. Often times people waste money on stuff that they’re not going to get a return on (such as purchasing numerous eBooks & courses promising the latest silver bullet for web marketing success) , and then try to scrimp on the stuff that really does stand to bring them a return.

One of the guys I always keep an eye on for new stuff – is Kelly Felix, now of “Bring The Fresh” and previously of “The Rich Jerk” fame. Kelly is one of the guys online who REALLY knows his stuff. This isn’t a “Guru” – in terms of “let’s churn out the guru fodder, and make money with the web marketing Guru status” – this is someone who has consistently earned big money online, most of the time while under the radar, and with stuff not related to the web marketing arena, that is – Kelly is one of the very rare people who’s out there doing this stuff, and shares what he is actually doing to make money online – I can’t tell you how rare this is!

Many “guru’s” in the web marketing arena that create hit products regularly, specifically build products to sell, they tell people what they want to hear, they regurgitate old stuff & re-package it with most of the focus on the launch & the packaging – this isn’t what Kelly does!

Bring the fresh is for real – I’m a member, and it’s a program I would wholeheartedly recommend that anyone looking to improve their ability to make money online, looks into.

See the Bring the Fresh video below

If you’re wondering how to get an SEO job, and possibly also you’re wondering why you should, or whether you should get a job in SEO, don’t ask a careers person, or a recruitrer – ask someone like me who works in SEO and has had an SEO job…. (I don’t have a “job” now as such, as I’m self employed, but I do wish I’d not have made the decision to go it alone so early, and that I continued with a job for longer, but anyway, you live and learn…

First of all:

WHY should you get an SEO job?

Simple – if you like SEO, then as long as you’re careful & you find the right company to work for, you’ll like your job a heck of a lot more than if you were doing something you didn’t like. For me personally, I enjoy SEO – I can spend a full long day doing it, and wonder where the time went – if the same is true for you, then an SEO job is a great decision. If in fact it bores the heck out of you & makes you feel tired, or gives you a headache, then think again!

How to get an SEO job?

See my recent Seo Cover Letter post, where I explain that although you need a great cover letter, there’s something else to it, that if you do, can make a huge difference!

One  thing is for sure, especially when it comes to client side SEO jobs (I explain the difference between agency side & client side in the Seo Cover Letter post) there are many jobs available, in a wide range of different industries, even more if you’re open to a more all-encompassing “web marketing manager” role, which usually include pay per click as well as SEO, and sometimes other discipline’s such as affiliate management,  display advertising, content creation, etc., If you’re an all round web marketing, then web marketing manager may be your perfect job!

Just received this question from Matt:

Kev, Is it good to pay for backlinks? Some say yes, some say no – I’m confused. help. Thx. Matt

Hi Matt,

First of all, I’ve written about the paid backlinks issue in two previous  posts: Why paid backlinks are a waste of money, and paid backlinks vs, backlinking services , so you may want to read these for a bit more background info.

The first thing I need to do is make it clear what I’m talking about when I refer to “paid backlinks” or “buying backlinks” – I’m referring to paying a webmaster / website owner for a DoFollow backlink on their website. For instance you may get to a directory, which sells inclusion to the directory including a DoFollow link to your website, for $x per month / per year.

What I’m not referring to is paying someone to do backlinking for you, or paying for membership to syndication networks such as traffic kaboom - investing money wisely into gaining quality backlinks is a good idea – investing money by simply paying webmasters to give you a link on their website, is not such a good idea.

What I’m also not referring to, is buying links on websites in order to refer traffic – it’s a perfectly good idea to invest in an ad on a website which is relevant for your products or services, which links people to your site – but if the advertiser is acting in accordance with Google’s rules, they will NoFollow the backlink, in other words visitors can follow the links, but code is used to stop the search engine bots from following them.

So if you’re asking is it good to pay for backlinks, in terms of looking for directories and other sites with paid inclusion, to get your backlinks that way – then no, it’s not good – as it’s against Google’s terms of service, anything that is against Google’s TOS is not worth doing – not so much because it will have a negative impact (although Google say that paid links “can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results”) but mainly because it’s a waste of money. I’m far less concerned about the potential that paid backlinks may hinder ranking, than I am that paid links are money down the drain, as Google is clever, they can see which sites are blatantly selling DoFollow links, and when they do, these sites that are doing the linking, lose the ability to pass anything of value (link juice) to the sites they’re linking to. This is what Google say about buying or selling backlinks:

So there you go, from the horses mouth.

Just to be clear, we’re talking about buying a link from a website, we’re not talking about the act of gaining backlinking, by article submitting, social bookmarking, quality blog commenting on high PR quality blogs that allow comment links to be DoFollow, content & video sydication programs such as  traffic kaboom - or hiring the services of a professional SEO company or consultant to outsource all of this.

If you’re using an SEO consultant (like me) or seo company, just make sure you ask them what they’re doing & that you can be confident that they’re not doing stuff like buying backlinks, or other ineffective or black hat (against Google TOS) stuff. I have had experience of so called SEO experts just investing the money you pay them into buying backlinks – at one time I was so busy doing SEO for other people, that I decided to hire someone else to take care of my own SEO, I spent a thousand pounds (nearly $2k at the time as the pound was stronger then), and to my dismay a few months later I found that all the guy had done, was to spend probably a quarter of what I paid him (if that) on buying backlinks – and it was £1k completely wasted, not one iota of improvement, and if not for the fact that I’m an SEO guy myself, I would probably have never known, so if it’s easy for me – a professional web marketing consultant – to get stung, then it’s not difficult to see why large numbers of business people have had their fingers burned!

SO anyway, there you go, in short:

 Is it good to pay for backlinks?

Nope!

So you’re looking for info on how to be found top in Google search results.

This is pointless if one of the following is the case:

1:You haven’t got great search term data from the keyword research you have conducted, or have hired a specialist to conduct.

2:Your website isn’t a marketing machine.

Many people focus time, energy and money on trying to get their website found at the top of Google without having done any search term research therefore it’s completely hit & miss in terms of whether or not they’re A) going to stand a chance of gaining page one ranking for the term even with a lot of effort and / or money invested, and B) going to bring any relevant, converting traffic. When I say converting traffic, I mean traffic which is likely to so whatever you want people to do on your website. Most business models revolve around people buying stuff, whether it’s products or services – so for most businesses what you need is buying traffic.

So it’s not general industry specific search terms you should be focusing on, but product or service related search terms which those who’re looking to purchase, will be searching for. You want the search terms that are being searched for one handed while the other hand is holding their credit card….

For instance, lets say you sell a natural homeopathic remedy for curing headaches – you may think you need to rank for “headaches” and other terms which would indicate that the searcher is probably in need of the product – but these kinds of terms are low conversion because just because someone has a headache doesn’t mean they’re wanting to buy a herbal headache treatment. Someone searching for “herbal headache cure” “Natural head ache remedy” and so on, however, are people who’re looking for exactly that product. So make sure that you’re targeting search terms that are bringing buyers to your website. Also make sure that the search terms bring traffic, and that they’re not far too competitive to stand any chance of gaining a page ranking for this term any time soon.

So that explains a bit more about what I mean by people focusing on the wrong terms – it’s pointless being on the top of Google for the wrong search terms, and it’s also pointless targeting the right terms when it comes to relevence, but which you’ll never get to page one for because they’re too competitive.

When I talk about your website not being a marketing machine, I’m talking about it’s ability to convert.

Your website is there to do something, right? Not just to look nice. So what is your websites main required function? What’s the one main thing you want your website to achieve for your business? It’s different for different businesses, it may be there to convert visitors into online sales. It’s job may be to convert visitors into enquiries, or demo’s, or to set sales appointments. It may be that your website is there to convert visitors into list subscribers so that you can communicate with them over time & build a relationship, let them know about new products etc., Whatever it’s job, it’s a conversion of some form.

Many businesses have websites which have been built with design in mind, they’ve been built to look good, but no thought has been put in to the question “what is it there to do” and as a result business websites often to very little – or they do very little particularly well.

Most new clients I speak to are very disappointed with their website, it just doesn’t do anything, and often when I ask the question “well, what is the job of the website – what’s it supposed to be doing that it’s not?” There is no answer, as the client realises that actually, they just wanted a “website” because they knew they should have one, and now they realise it’s not doing much for them but at the same time they’re not sure what it should actually be doing anyway.

Websites can be – and should be – fantastic marketing tools. Whatever it is that you decide your website needs to do – convert visitors to sales, convert visitors to subscribers, convert visitors to enquiries – it will do it’s job 24/7/365, it’ll never ask for a raise, pull a sickie, crash a company vehicle… It’s the perfect employee! But like any employee, if it doesn’t know what it’s job is, it’s going to struggle.

So if your website isn’t properly set up to perform a particular function very well – then again, being found on top of Google is pointless.

For more web marketing tips, join my web marketing tips list, up there – top right.

Thanks

Kev

So you’ve heard about this new product Online Profit Bot, you may have watched the video and be wondering what it is, who’s behind it, is it a scam, has anyone else tried it & are there any honest reviews on the warrior forum, etc. In general you want to know more.

I don’t blame you either, while the video is very provocative, and the guy shows you a video of his various clickbank accounts so you can see that this isn’t a fake – he kind of contradicts himself, in slagging off those “scum sucking guru’s” (his words not mine) who don’t even show their face on their website – well, OK his face is there, but it doesn’t say who he is, what his name is, who’s behind the program etc., so I don’t think he can blame anyone from thinking this may be some kind of a scam, or hunting for GENUINE reviews first before grabbing this online profit bot program.

He starts off by talking about how many websites showing screen grabs of affiliate commissions are photoshop created fakes, and uses this to build into a pitch in which  he shows video’s of his clickbank accounts to show that he’s for real & not fake.

Very good, very clever, brilliant presentation skills, and appears clear that the clickbank & other accounts he’s showing on video are not faked, but in actual fact this could be faked too, any developer worth their salt could knock up a copy of clickbank & allow him to create a video which shows staggering commissions in what appears to be a clickbank account.

The best way for him to have established that he’s not fake, would have been to tell us his name, so that we can Google him & find out that he’s the real deal & not some flash in the pan trickster just trying to grab some money off you before he disappears into the night…

As you’ll see in the video below, he makes some HUGE income claims.

So I did some digging, and from what I can make out, the people behind this program are Paul Liburd, Antonio Giuditta & Chris Tylor (this info was on the Warrior forum). I haven’t heard of these guys before, but from a bit of searching I can see that they have a track record for creating software for the affiliate marketing arena – and that they’re apparently super affiliates. I can see that they were the brains behind a previous program called “zero cost commission” – and in the sales pitch for this software, they were saying very similar things about how they make their money, so I can’t see anything contradictory. As far as I’m aware these guy’s aren’t up there on the who’s who of web marketing “Guru’s” – and actually this intrigues me instead of putting me off.

You see, with the very well known gurus who release hit program after hit program (software, ebooks, courses etc.) there’s always the question, how much can a guru like this who has built up a massive list, help someone who is just starting out – because they’re on a different planet with different challenges, for instance a “guru” with a reponsive list of tens of thousands, can make thousands per month by just sending out a broadcast email every few days, and hire people to create products for them, etc., so when they create a program for us mere mortals, they’re creating a product to sell – in theory, the best products for those of us who want to make money online, or make more money online, as an affiliate, would come from those who are making their money by doing exactly this – selling affiliate products – who just pop their heads up, and say – “hmm OK, I’m making a ton of money online as an affiliate, here this is something I use, now you can do the same…”

For this reason, when it comes to the latest eBooks, courses etc., a number of years ago I stopped buying into such publications / products, because I came to learn that I wasn’t buying info about how someone like me is making a load of money online, I was buying info that had been specifically created by (or for) a guru with a huge following to sell to people looking for info on making more money online… See the difference?

So when I do take notice of products like this, is when it appears to be a genuine case of someone having learned how to make fortune with a particular system (i.e. thanks to their system, and not because they’ve achieved guru status & have massive lists & tonnes of affiliates waiting to promote their latest product) and deciding to share it.

It’s not often, as far as I’m aware, that this happens – in fact I think it very, very rarely does happen.  Think about it, if you’re quietly making thousands per day while sat in a coffee shop with a latte & staring into space, while pressing a button or two on your Macbook Air, why would you want to share that with anyone to make a few extra grand? Especially considering that sharing this with someone would take the effort of turning it into a product, customer service etc – who in their right mind, who’s earning the kind of cash that is being stated here with some amazing system, would want to mess about creating a product & dealing with people??

Well, that’s what makes me question online profit bot somewhat, if it’s such a fantastic system, why the heck are these guys sharing it?

Also – why whoisblock their domain name? the onlineprofitbot.com domain has a protected whois, so you can’t see the name and address of the registrant. I suppose I’m being a bit  cynical here, to be fair it’s very common to do this – and when you’re registering with some registrants the whois block is selected automatically, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt & assume that they’re not doing this to hide who they are & where they are.

And with regards why they’re sharing it, I suppose there is an argument to say that if there’s three guys in partnership, they may have goals, to build their list & make even more money, and having their own products gives some level of security that affiliate marketing can’t offer in the long term – so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

What is Online Profit Bot?

OK so we’ve had the discussion on the sales video, and who is behind it – now what is it?

I have to tell you that at this point, I’ve not downloaded it (I will) and this info is coming from various sources, the warrior forum, and various other snippets of info – when I’ve downloaded it, I’ll come and edit this section & let you know ins lot more detail exactly what the online profit bot software is.

It’s a piece of software along with 5 video training modules.

The software includes the following features: keyword research, product research, website builder & “traffic robot”.

Looking at it in terms of what it is claiming to be, it looks quite promising. Keyword research and product research are immensely important areas which many beginners either don’t do, or don’t do properly – so if it does this well, this could be interesting. Website creation is again something which will help new affiliate marketers, if you’re more than happy to create wordpress sites for example, then maybe you won’t need this – but many new web marketers struggle when it comes to website building, so again, interesting. The traffic robot part of the software would be a very important piece of the puzzle, if they’ve created something which can drip feed some decent mixed PR, niche relevant, contextual anchor text specific backlinks – then as long as you create some unique content for each site, and as long as the search term research that the software does is good & you’re finding relatively ”low hanging fruit” then this could be a very interesting combination of tools, especially if the training modules are great.

In and of itself, a package like this is not unique, there are other tools out there which claim to be all in one money makers, keyword research, site builder, traffic generation – what interests me about this however is the fact that they appear to have proof of staggering income,  and they don’t appear to be known “Guru’s” so if they are actually out there making this kind of money actually doing “ground level affiliate marketing” and they didn’t actually get all these mega sales figures by selling other products like this (which doesn’t seem to be the case as I can’t find other products created by the same people) then – very interesting!

When I’ve had the time to download & test the product, I’ll edit this part of the online profit bot review.

Is Online Profit Bot a SCAM?

Simple answer to this is no. A scam is illegal, it’s taking someone’s hard earned money & not giving in return what is promised. This is a software package with training videos – so it’s certainly not a “brick in a TV box” scam, you’re getting something in return for your money.

What people really mean when they ask is something a scam, is does it really live up to the hype, is it as good as they say it is. Well, if you apply this test to all products, you’ll come up with the conclusion that EVERYTHING is a scam. Just look how amazing a big mac is on a TV commercial, they NEVER look like that when you get them – does that make a burger a scam too?

So, yes I would probably hazard a guess that once I have downloaded & tried this software & watched the training videos, that  I may well come to the conclusion that actually it’s not as steaming & as tasty as the sales pitch would make it appear – just like with a big Mac (but I’m vegetarian anyway so a big Mac doesn’t do much for me – but I wasn’t always veggie so I’m going from memory…) – but what do we expect? It’s not a good sales video if it doesn’t hype things up & state that the product is the best thing since sliced bread – doesn’t make it a scam if they have gone over the top a bit – all sales pitches go over the top, whether you’re being sold to on the phone, in person, via a website sales page or a video, you can usually bet your bottom dollar that it’s not going to be understated, conservative &  ”to the facts” – because if it did, it would flop! But having said that, if it’s even a faction as good as this video makes it out to be then it’s worth a LOT more than the price!!

I’ve just read a post online that someone has just started using it and is making a hundred quid a day so far  - so that’s promising, but it could be anyone saying this, including the creator of the product , so, we’ll see. I’ll download it & give it a try, come back in a few weeks  & i’ll hopefully have increased this review into a full case study.

Many of us, when we first get into web marketing, or affiliate marketing in particular, have an image in our head of sitting on a beach doing nothing, or sitting in a coffee shop typing the occasional thing into our top of the range laptop, while chilling out with a coffee – and earning money online – or earning genuine money from home while doing very little, or spending time with the kids – etc, etc. This is the dream that is sold, or that was certainly sold for a long time.

Then – for most of us – what happens is the COMPLETE opposite, at first. What we experience to begin with – in my own experience anyway – is frustration, annoyance, confusion, boredom, fear, worry – and even perhaps a touch of complete lunacy (or, maybe that’s just me ), we start to doubt, and to think we’ve been stupid, and at this point many of us lose faith & forget about the web marketing / affiliate marketing dream.

If this is you – let me just fill you with some inspiration – yesterday, I made about $100 affiliate commission while eating a meal & drinking wine, with my family at my in-laws, celebrating my daughters birthday. I wasn’t working, I wasn’t thinking, I was laughing & joking, spending time with my family, relaxing, eating & drinking, and having a good time. In what other job is it possible to earn money while doing this??

See my recent traffic kaboom discount post for one of the tools I recommend for getting more traffic & making more affiliate commission.

I just thought I’d log in and check what I earned during that time completely away from anything to do with work, so I can safely say that  I wasn’t doing anything at all “work” related while I was earning the money.

So when you look it like that – the dream is still alive, and it is possible.

OK I do not earn the  amounts of money that some do, and I do not consider myself to be living the web marketing dream that I envisaged when I got into web marketing,  BUT – i do earn my living on the web, and I do make money from the work I’ve already done – and the money comes in when I’m relaxing & doing none work related stuff, so I have to say, I do very much appreciate how lucky I am. Especially when you consider how hard some people have to work to earn $100. Thanks to tracking I know exactly how I made this money, and looking at it I can see it’s from a bit of writing – that’s it, and this “bit of writing” will earn me money over & over again, without having to do anything else with it.

When you look at the kind of effort some people have to put in with their jobs, it really does make me appreciate just how fortunate I am to be in web marketing.  I told a story the other day about how I went to the local farm to get some food for our chickens & ducks (yes, our house is a zoo!! ) and it’s lambing season – and the farmer looked slightly tired, I mean the kind of tired I might look when I’ve been sat on the computer “working” (with my fingers, on the keyboard) until 1 or 2  am, which I sometimes do) I asked him how much sleep he’s getting at the moment with it being lambing season – he told me he’d got to bed at 5, and got up at 6.30 AM, I thought Wow, he went to bed super early at dinner time as he knew he’d have to get up early, and then he corrected me – he went to bed at 5.00 am and then got up 1.5 hours later to start again… I nearly fell asleep on the spot, there mere thought of just 1.5 hours sleep makes me wobble, but add to this that he’d spent all day working hard, I just don’t get how he can cope, and he only looked slightly tired – in fact he was running around.

See my recent post on “Bring The Fresh” – you’ll like it, because it’s great…

So why am I telling these stories? Well, just to bring some perspective, and show that our frustration may actually be because we started off with an unrealistic view of what the WM dream really is – if the farmer was told that actually, he didn’t have to work his fingers to the bone all day & have just one and a half hours sleep, but he could earn the same kind of money after a bit of a learning curve, by just sitting at a computer – and it would mean that one piece of work could earn him residual income, while he’s relaxing, spending time with his family or whatever he feels like doing, he would probably think I was completely mad!

While I’m on the subject, I do think many of us get frustrated from internet marketing by asking for too much too soon. If you consider yourself a professional web marketer, as I do, then you probably feel a pressure to do it full time, and to not have any other “job”, and this is one of the things that I think causes problems for some people – as it’s certainly caused problems for me. I had such an ambition to be a full time web marketer, that I took the “leap” on a number of occasions, when I really shouldn’t have. I fell flat on my face, a few times – and some may say that this is brave, courageous even – it’s not, it’ just stupidity. If you have a family to support, and your online marketing is not bringing you nearly enough money to support you & your family, don’t even consider going it alone & becoming a “full time” web marketer, it’s madness. I look back, and I don’t know what I was thinking – I was doing most of my web marketing stuff in the evenings, so why would quitting my day job make a difference? It didn’t – and I shouldn’t have done it, not until I was making real money from it.

So if you’re at the stage where you hate your job, and you’re thinking of using web marketing as an excuse to quit (truth hurts sometimes! ) then just think trice – and if you really dislike your job that much but you love web marketing & you want to do it, consider getting a job in web marketing / seo. See my recent SEO cover letter post for more.

SEO Cover Letter

Jack T just asked me this question:

Hi Kevin, thanks for the email tips – you work hard on them!! Nothing like the other emails I get from people where they’re just ads! Yours is real, and I can see you put a lot of effort in, so thank you!

Here’s the thing, I have been studying seo for a ages, I have created lots of websites and got them to page 1 google, some no1 pos’s, I’ve done some SEO work for friends of friends, etc, but I don’t earn enough with affiliate marketing and things, to pay the bills, maybe one day I will, but  I’d like to become an SEO person for a company. But if you’ve not done SEO for a company before, how would you approach someone? Can you help me out with a cover letter?

Thanks in advance

Jack T

Hello Jack, thanks for your email – and the kind words!

First of all – if all you’re looking for is some help with cover letters then see amazing cover letters, Guerilla Resumes  & Oneclick cover letters but if you’d like more insight about getting a job in SEO, then keep reading.

First of all let me say, that I think you’re making a great decision. If you like SEO, and you need a job for stability – then looking for an SEO job is a GREAT idea!!

Many people who are wanting to make money online (and I did this at first!!) are so keen to live the perceived web marketing lifestyle of getting up whenever, working from a laptop in a cafe, having complete freedom and watching the cash flow in.

This is a nice vision – and there are some who achieve this – most don’t however, what we have to keep in mind is that it’s a business, whether you’re affiliate marketing, consulting, whatever – it’s a business, it’ll take your time up, you’ll prpbably end up working way longer hours if working purely for yourself, and often you’ll earn little – all in the aim of one day achieving that amazing position of having lots of residual income, and not having to work much – problem is, far more people go broke (or nearly go broke and end up looking for a job) on the way to achieving this, and never get there.

So my advice to myself if I could go back in time 12 years or so, would be to work on the web marketing stuff in the background while holding down something stable, and putting away money so you have a buffer when you go for it. Be patient and go it alone only when you have some back up funds, and some residual income flowing, don’t be impatient and make the leap of faith, because often times it results in landing on your face! I’m speaking from experience, I have made that leap a number of times, and landed flat on my face, god only knows how I’m still so handsome!! . Just remember, that it’s difficult to jump from a wobbly platform, the more stable the ground you’re on, the higher you can jump – and the more unstable, the more likely a leap will end up in an injury…Even now, years on, I’m still suffering from making that leap too early on more than one occasion – the first time I did it, we had to sell our first house & downsize as a result (loved that house too!)…And the second time I took a leap like that, we nearly lost our home – with two young children… not great - luckily my wife is incredibly patient & tolerant! Don’t put too much stock in old wives tails like “you need to be brave” – you may as well say “you need to be stupid” , it’s a fine line – if you’re being brave, it probably means you’re overcoming fear to do it – fear is your friend, if you feel fearful of something, listen to that fear in the same way that a fear of falling to your death would prevent you from stepping of a cliff. Fear may be a sign that you’re not ready, financially or otherwise, to be running your own business or self employed, it may be you infinitely more wise subconscious portion of your intelligence telling you “you’re not stable, you have no back up funds, don’t do it!” What’s more, don’t forget how your decision in this area can impact upon others, if you have a partner, and / or children, there’s more than just yourself that will be effected if you decide to quit your job & go it alone prematurely.

If you enjoy SEO, then what better job could there be for you, than doing something you like doing in order to keep some stability while you keep working on your web marketing stuff? SEO tends to be fairly well paid, comparatively speaking. There’s a big bonus too, in that when you work for a company in SEO, they will usually pay for things, for instance premium memberships for sites like SEOMoz which gives you all of their tools, content syndication networks such as traffic kaboom, and some of these memberships & tools are multi-site, meaning your own sites can benefit from them also (you may want to make sure this is OK with your boss first, most don’t mind that you have your own stuff going on to make extra money, and as long as it doesn’t cost them any more money, and that you’re not doing it in your working day while you’re on there time, many firms will be fine with this, more so if it’s client-side, rather than agency-side where things tend to be more strict & there tends to be more of a hierarchy.) Not to mention stuff like training, attending seminars & so on.

I’ll get to the SEO cover letter shortly, first of all though:

Agency Side or Client Side SEO Job?

So if you know you want a job in SEO, the next question is, agency or client side? Client side is where you work for a company on their own SEO – Agency side is where you work for an SEO firm and do the SEO on their clients sites.

Client side tends to be more relaxed, easier, less hassle, less politics, and less of the stuff that many SEO and SEM people hate, like sales meetings, training sales staff, sitting in on sales meetings with clients, creating reports for clients, phoning clients & explaining their monthly reports, fire fighting when a client isn’t happy, and various other stuff that comes with working within a marketing agency.

Client side is usually not quite as well paid as agency side – but also client side can be a more stable position, if you get a job as the SEO person for a well established company, this is often a much more secure position than a position within an Search company or Agency, as many seo firms are not so well established, and it’s not uncommon to find when you check out the financial stability of web marketing firms, including some of the larger ones, that they’re in risky positions – and there does often tend to be a more “hire & fire” mentality with agencies, than there is with client side positions for established companies.

I’ve done agency side, as SEO manager for a UK agency, parts of it is nice, work with some nice people, team spirit, the money tends to be better than client side – but for me, there was a lot I didn’t enjoy, such as having to try to keep clients happy while the management wanted me to do more & more stuff which had nothing to do with SEO, politics within the company – of which there was lots, and this can come with the territory with marketing agencies.

Client side can be a very cushy number, it really depends on the company. There are people in client side SEO jobs who are under very little pressure, encouraged to do well rather than put under pressure, and in environments where it often doesn’t even feel like work. Of course, there are positions where people are put under extreme pressure and expected to do the unexpected & perform miracles – so just do your research and make sure that duriung the interview you see it that you’re interviewing them as much as they’re interviewing you.

By the way – midway through writing this post, I left the laptop & drove to a local farm to buy some food for our hens (we keep hens & ducks, fresh eggs every morning, yum!) , and it’s Lambing season at the moment, so I asked the farmer how much sleep he got last night – he told me with a smile “went to bed at 5 AM, and was back up & working at 6.30 AM” – I nearly fainted from exhaustion at the mere suggestion of someone working physically all day, through until 5.30 AM and then having only one and a half hours sleep before starting again. I asked him how long this lasts, he said a couple of weeks. I asked what his working hours are outside lambing, and he said he starts working at about 7am, until it’s dark, but then at night he usually has things he needs to do also.

This really brings it home – there are jobs out there that are ridiculously hard, where you have to work physically, for long, long hours – not just farming, there are many jobs that are real hard work, us web marketing folk don’t know we’re born! We’re incredibly fortunate that we’ve somehow got ourselves into an area which involves just sitting at a computer, and where the pay can be way better than most physically exhausting jobs! OK we have to learn stuff, but so do people in physically demanding jobs. Just makes me appreciate how fortunate I am that I got into SEO and web marketing, instead of ending up in agriculture or one of hundreds of other jobs which involve real hard work!

So anyway, back on topic – have a think about what suits you better, agency side or client side, because the cover letter etc., will be different depending on which way you decide to go.

SEO Cover Letter

If you want some help with the cover letter, see amazing cover letters, Guerilla Resumes  & Oneclick cover letters - but the cover letter is not the be all and end all of getting the interview.  ANYONE can have a program like the above, and crank out a professional cover letter –  the cover letter is important, but in combination with the advice I’m giving you here, you have a lot more chance of landing your perfect SEO job.

Think of what you’re doing as creating a written sales pitch, you’re selling yourself as someone who can acheive the results that your prospective employee is looking to achieve, and  your cover letter is the entry into this pitch. So there’s some prep work that I’d recommend you do first, for much better results in terms of impressing a potential employer.

Examples / case studies & testimonials / references.

You need to put together some proof that you know what you’re doing & you can get results. If you already have a bunch of sites that you’ve worked on, either your own or for clients, then create a case study of each site, explain the search terms targeted, roughly the work that you did (but I wouldn’t go into infinite detail here, just breifly explain what was done), over what period of time, the starting & finishing rankings, traffic increases, and increases in sales / enquiries.

If you can get a few examples of sites you’ve worked on for clients – then this is great, because coupled with a testimonial from the client, it’s much stronger proof than an example of your own website.

If you haven’t done any work for any clients, and if you’re not desperate to get into an SEO position right this minute, then consider asking around, offer to work free or very cheap for friends, friends of friends etc, ask anyone you know who’s in business or has a family member or friend who’s in business – you may well find that someone with a small – medium business would be very happy indeed for you to work on their SEO free or cheap as an example to help your career.  Just make sure you focus on websites & search terms where you know that you can make a decent impact without too much time passing – if you can work on sites which are currently terrible for SEO, where you know you can make a big difference just with on-page changes alone, then these are the kinds of sites to work on, as you can get some good results for the client, get a glowing testimonial / reference, and dramatically strengthen your chances of landing a great job in SEO.

Put together the best case study or case studies possible, don’t make them to technical or full of jargon and waffle, just focus on the results you achieved, the before & after, and the testimonial / reference if applicable. Take care of presentation, make sure it’s not a dogs dinner, you want to put yourself forward as being professional & on the ball.

Then, find out who’s responsible for the position, who should you write to? Never write to “Dear Sir or Madam” – imagine if they receive 30 applications, and yours is addressed to the correct person, when the rest aren’t – not only will yours get more attention, yours will probably get to the decision maker first.

Before starting the cover letter, make sure you fully understand what the role is, for instance is it SEO only, is it an SEM position, is it “web marketing manager” to includer SEO, pay per click, display, affiliate management, web master, etc? Only apply if you think you’re right for the position – if you don’t think it’s right for you, for instance if it’s mainly PPC and you’re not that in to PPC, or if you don’t like the industry, or if it’s client side and you only want agency side, or agency side and you want client side – or if there’s anything that makes you think it’s not right for you, don’t waste your time on it, select those which appear to be the positions which suit you the most.

In your cover letter, address the person who’s responsible for the position, give a bit of background, sell yourself, not just in terms of your abilities but in terms of how you get on with people and work well both individually and as part of a team, explain that you believe you’re a perfect match for the position and why, and that you have enclosed some proof of your abilities in the form of recent case studies, and references (or testimonials, same thing). End by saying something along the lines of “I would very much welcome the opportunity to meet you, and to find out if I am a good fit for the company culturally, to ensure a long and mutually successful relationship between my self and the company.” or words to that effect – don’t use these exact words, write how you would right, but in other words you’re saying that you know you’re the right person to achieve the results they want achieving,  this isn’t in question – but what you’re eager to discover, is will you fit well in the company, will you enjoy the environment, get on well with the people, will they get on with you.

This makes it very easy for the employer, they can see by the proof you’ve shown that you can do what they need you to, you’ve also shown that you’ve done your research and you know what the position entails, and you’ve shown that you’re not jumping at any opportunity because you need the job, but you’re looking for a long term move, so you want to make sure that you’re a good fit for the company.

Do the above, send along with the case study or studies, and a well developed CV – and you should find a VERY good conversion rate from letter to interview.

If you don’t have a good CV, then write one – or find someone to help you to write one (I’m not a CV expert)  - but, if you do as I’ve suggested above, the CV will be a lot less important, in fact some employers will look with interest at your cover letter, case studies & references & will just briefly scan the CV with little interest, as they’re already sold that if they like you when they meet you, then you’re the person for the job.

Don’t forget, when someone is employing, they have a real challenge to find the right person. I know from experience, it’s not easy – you  have to sift through some junk – and by junk, I mean that people will send CV’s with no cover letter, a cover letter with spelling errors or silly statements which make me throw the whole thing in the bin without even reading the CV! I’ve had CV’s which don’t have their phone number on, and no phone number on the cover letter so how can I call them to offer them an interview? I’ve had typo’s all over CV’s, CV’s with dirty marks on them, covering letters sent to “Dear Sir!” when my name was even on the job ad… so beleive me, when you put in the effort to send something of quality to a potential along the lines of what I’ve suggested above, you will get their attention.

Next step – the  job interview

If you do the above well, you’ll get some interviews, or send me a hat and I’ll eat it!

This is the important bit, you need to make sure it’s the right company for you.  Don’t go in there completely focused on you being right for the company, and on answering their questions – it’s a two way thing, and you need to make sure that the company is right for you.

When you’re offered the interview, ask is it a two step interview or one step. If it’s only one step, insist that the interview includes being introduced with everyone that you would be working with (if it’s 2 interviews this will usually happen at the second interview). If they question you about this, reply that you’re looking for a position that you’ll be happy in for at least the next five years, and you’re not going to make a decision about whether the company is right for you without meeting the people you’ll be working with. If they’re funny about that, move on to the next potential employer – because if they don’t see the value in making sure it’s a perfect fit, then the chances are it’s not going to be a great company to work within.

Be yourself, don’t try to act differently, if you’re a character – be a character, if you’re funny – be funny, obviously don’t go over the top,  but the important thing is that they like you. We like people when we know they are who they are, when we sense someone is being fake,  acting for the interview, it’s just not the same. If you’re yourself and they don’t like you – good, you just saved yourself an uncomfortable period of employment! What’s more, if you’re more relaxed and yourself, the employer is likely to be also, so you’ll get a better feel for who they really are too. And of course the more relaxed and normal you are, the less difficult it’ll be, so you will find that you’re not dreading interviews as much as you may have in the past.

Ask questions – make sure you know exactly what the job is, is it SEO only, is it SEO & PPC, if it’s PPC what programs? (just adwords, or other PPC also?) Will you be part of a team, or the sole SEO guy or web marketing manager. (if it’s agency side, more than likely you’ll be part of a team unless it’s a web dev firm branching out into SEO, in which case just be careful as that can be a tough gig, with sales people selling stuff that you may find difficult to deliver!). Are you taking over from someone, why did they leave. What are their goals,  etc etc, write lists of questions, not just lip service though – you want to find out, is this going to be a nice place to work, and will you enjoy the job.

ASK ABOUT MONEY. Some careers advisers say not to do this – complete balls – you’re not going working there to pass the time, you’re doing it in return for money, so talk about it. Don’t make it the first thing you mention, but make sure it’s discussed. Find out if there’s a bonus scheme, or any form of incentive.  Make sure you talk long term, employers usually hope that you’ll be with them a few years, they don’t want people in & then out in a few months, so ask about things like pensions, things which put forth the impression that you would be hoping to stick around (even if actually you hope to only be working for a year before you can go it alone, if that’s what you want to do).

So there you go – this is my advice on getting an SEO job, including the cover letter – I really hope this helps you Jack, and anyone else reading who has a similar question.

Thanks

Kev

I’ve just received the following question:

Hi Kev, 

I have been reading your blog with interest, a lot of very good information – but can you just tell me really simply without too much technical stuff, how to get listed on Google?

Thanks

James

My answer:

Hi James, thanks for the question.

By “how to get listed on Google” it seems you’re asking how to actually get a website indexed on Google. Getting listed, also known as getting indexed, on Google & the other search engines, is really simple – it’s the easy part, once you’re on google the more tricky part is how to get found on Google, i.e being on there is one thing – but not much good if you’re on page 24, most of the buying traffic stays on page one, so once you’re on there, you need to then think about how to get higher on Google, and the other search engines.

So to answer the question about how to get listed – the fast track way to do it, is to get links on pages that are already on the Google index, so that when the Google bot crawls that page, it will follow the link to your site & then index your website – and you’re then listed / indexed. See the Google page about submitting your site to Google , you’ll see that there’s a way via the subit URL link, or via webmaster tools, to request a crawl – but I find the easiest way to do it is to just gather some backlinks, social bookmarkeing, directory backlinks etc – and this is in effect hitting two birds with one stone, because gaining some backlinks is the way to start gaining some Google link juice.

By doing a bit of backlinking, you should find you can get your website listed on Google within a few days – but that’s just the start, once the site is indexed you need to ensure that the site is found on Google – which means getting it found higher on Google for specific search terms.

Don’t skip keyword research, this is an incredibly important part of search engine optimisation, many website owners are focusing on completely the wrong search terms, either they’re far to competitive so there’s no chance they’ll rank on page one for the term within the near future. The other problem is terms which are not buying keywords, so they’ll bring traffic – but not buying traffic, which means low conversion rates, and another issue is targeting terms which bring little or no traffic. What you need to figure out is, which search terms are relevant, buying keywords, which will bring people who’re close to purchasing, which are not too competitive to expect to rank on page one for within the near future, and which will bring some traffic. Keyword research isn’t easy, but it needs doing, if you don’t do your KW research, you’re going in blind without any idea of whether or not your efforts are going to be for nothing.

Once you have your search term data, it’s about having unique content which includes the main search terms – don’t use old-hat keyword spamming tactics though, stuffing the keyword into the content all over the place, just write generally about the search term & the target phrase and related terms will naturally occur. Make sure you do your on-page SEO, page titles, meta descriptions, header tags, internal linking etc., I’ve written other posts about the various elements of optimization, so I won’t go into detail here. Just remember to include your main search term for each page of content as soon as possible in the page title, make sure it’s in the description, and in important area’s of the content, image alt tags, header 1, header 2 tags, internal link anchor text, etc (If this all sounds like rocket science, it’s really not, it’s actually ridiculously simple stuff, just do a bit of reading around my blog, and search Google, you’ll soon get to grips with it).

Once you have got to grips with on-page optimisation, the most important thing is content – unique content. Just write stuff, or have stuff written, and make it as relevant, as informative & high quality as possible, and if you stick to this you cannot help but build a valuable website – and as long as you’re following general SEO principles, it will naturally get higher in the Google rankings, as Googles algorithms are all about allowing the cream to rise and the crap to sink, so if you’re focusing on ensuring your website is the cream – as well as following basic optimisation principles, the big G will see that your website is quality, and you’ll find that you have great rankings & traffic.

This is the opposite way to the approach many website owners take, most people try to get away with doing as little as possible when it comes to content creation, and pay very little attention to the quality of the content they’re creating, and focus on cheats & loopholes to try to trick Google into mistaking crap for cream & allowing it to rise. Sometimes this works for a bit, and then Google’s systems get even more intuitive, and these kinds of sites end up plummeting into obscurity over time.

So there’s your answer, how to get listed on Google – and how to get found higher on Google once your website is indexed.

So you’ve got your website, and you now need targeted traffic to create enquiries & sales – so you’re wondering how much SEO is going to cost you?

You have a couple of main options: Do it yourself, or hire an SEO firm or consultant.

Obviously the cheapest option is to do your own search engine optimisation – and it’s not really rocket science, yes there are things you need to learn, and it’s time consuming – but if you don’t have the budget to pay for SEO, then doing it yourself is a perfectly reasonable option.

If you decide that you don’t have the time or inclination to do it yourself, then again you have a couple of options, with varying costs.

You can decide to hire an SEO company or agency to setup & manage your optimization campaign, hire a freelancer to design & run your search engine optimization campaign, or design your own campaign & hire different individuals or companies to handle the various aspects.

How Much Does SEO Cost? Time to smash Mr. Piggy?

In terms of costs, the most expensive option would usually be to hire an SEO agency or large optimization firm, hiring a smaller search marketing company is usually cheaper, and seeking out a freelance SEO consultant can be cheaper still – and if you find a great freelance consultant you can get a great deal more value for your money, in my humble opinion – for the simple reason that companies & agencies are paying sales staff, account managers, and all the overheads associated with running a company, premesis, business rates etc., whereas with a freelance all of the money you’re paying is going into the time of the freelancer.

Running the campaign yourself and hiring different people to handle the different elements, is also a valid option, and can be the cheapest in terms of costs, but at the same time it can be hit & miss in terms of finding people to do a good job. For example, you could find someone to do keyword research for you, someone to do content & article writing,  someone to sort out your on-page SEO, someone to do directory submissions, profile backlinks, Angela’s backlinking packages, etc. There are an abundance of freelancers available via various freelancer sites, and often they’re in India, the Philippines, or other countries where the currency conversion rate & cost of living etc means that website owners in the US & UK etc can get great value for money. The problem with this is that just like with managing your own property development yourself, there can be a lot of hassle involved in managing various people handling different aspects of a campaign, so although it can work out well in terms of cost – you may lose a fair amount of hair in the process!

In initially got into SEO because in the late 90′s when I started my first online business, I couldn’t afford the cost to hire a company, or a freelancer, I was running the business on a shoestring – so I decided to teach myself. I discovered that I found it challenging & enjoyable – but having said that, when I first started it was easier, far less competition online, when Google came along there was no backlinking factor, it was all about onpage, the keywords tab etc -it’s definitely got more difficult over the years.  I didn’t really plan on becoming an SEO consultant, it was just word of mouth, family & friends were asking me to help them get traffic to their site, I started to get some good word of mouth & it grew from there.  So, investing some time & effort into learning to market your own websites may well take you further than you thought & end up with you doing it for a living, who knows – that’s what happened with me, and I wasn’t planning on it.

Thanks for reading,  my How Much Does SEO Cost post, I hope it’s helped.