Internet Marketing Speaker – Looking For a Good One?

Internet Marketing Speaker

Need a good speaker on Internet Marketing?

Actually, and in the interest of full disclosure, that’s not a picture of me to the left, just an image I’m using off of Flickr with permission and credit below.

I know plenty of excellent speakers in the field of internet marketing – if I’m not the right guy for you I probably know someone who is.

Are you looking for someone to talk about the internet marketing and search engine marketing (SEM) industry on the whole?–where it is, where it’s headed?

Are you looking for more niche topics like SEO (search engine optimization)?

Are you looking more for a “guru” type (by the way, that’s also not me, guru, that is – but I know some self-proclaimed internet marketing gurus).

I’m based in the Pacific Northwest in Vancouver, Washington (yes, there is a Vancouver in the U.S.!) which is right across from Portland, Oregon – so if your a business or association and need a local speaker, give me a call!

My forte is SEO, SEM, and helping small business owners to get their websites on the first page of Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

Here’s my number – or feel free to fill out the form on the contact page – (360)-209-2028.

I hope I’ll be speaking for you soon, and guess what – you might even get me to speak for free!

Best,

David Portney
aka, The Internet Marketing Brain
photo credit: bengrey

Expert Website Review

Please be gentle, this is my first website!

Got a Website?

I currently have 34 websites.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years with my websites. One of the reasons I put info on this site is so you can avoid mistakes and get it right the first time. That way you don’t have to stumble around out there with your online marketing.

With 34 websites and growing, I’m much less attached to my sites, emotionally.

If you have only one website, you probably are emotionally attached to your site.

It’s your baby. It represents you. Moreover, you paid money for it so you’re financially invested in it.

If I were to do a site review of your website – or, an in-depth SEO site analysis, you might feel a bit defensive as I point out the flaws with “your baby”

So, here’s a way to learn some things you probably didn’t know that you should know about your website.

And, this is a terrific way to discover what you’re doing wrong and should change about your website – by seeing the problems that other people’s websites have.

See, that way, you don’t have to be offended or defensive about your website-baby; it’s much easier to watch other people’s websites get torn apart, eh?

This video is by Matt Cutts who’s the head of Google’s Webspam team, so he knows a thing or two about good and bad websites.

Check it out and learn a thing or two about your website.

I’ll post more info later when there’s something I think you should know about.

photo credit: bjornmeansbear

Internet Marketing Mistakes Business Owners Make

Here’s a very common mistake that business owners make with their websites.

After paying to have their website developed, paying the website designer, paying for hosting, paying for their domain name, paying to get their website, paying to have their website properly optimized for the search engines (SEO), then they sit back and wait for the site to get results.

What results?

Results like phone calls and <gasp!> sales.

Now, here’s the mistake part:

The do NOT set up some kind of automatic email capture mechanism!

What? What’s that, you ask? It’s where you have an automatic way to capture the email of your site visitors by offering them a coupon, free report, sample, free trial, discount, free download – SOMETHING of value to your website visitor in exchange for their permission to be on your email contact list.

I use a company called Aweber for automatic email service.

To see an example of this in action, check out BestPublicSpeakingTraining.com – you’ll see a pop up offering a free training course.

Now, before you get all uppity and snooty and say you hate those kind of things, listen to this simple fact:

They work. And, they work very, very well.

This is called “permission marketing”, and yes, it’s one of the tried-and-true methods of online marketing so it’s a good idea to not be cheesy with your offer because people don’t like giving their email address away due to spam fears.

The idea here is that a prospect who shows up at your site is there because they’re actually interested in what you offer, what you do – so, you want them to become a customer for life, right?

So, show ‘em why you’re better. Give them some value. It’s called a “freemium” – something for free that’s a premium-something… it’s valuable, but it’s free.

You want to get them into a relationship with you and into a comfort zone with your company.

Don’t be cheesy about this. Be up front. You don’t have to hide that you have something for sale, or do a bait-and-switch on them.

It’s like when you’re at the food court at the mall and they’re giving away a free sample – you taste it, you like it, you go in to buy more cookies or ham or whatever you sampled.

Email capture is just part of effective internet marketing, I’ll talk about more tactics soon.

The Internet Marketing Brain has spoken… now, what do you have to say? Say it in the comments box below.
photo credit: bk2000

10 Terrific Google Gmail Tips

Ya Gotta Love Gmail!

I love Gmail.

Very little spam, terrific deliver-ability. And a ton of terrific features you just don’t with Outlook, and I love me my Outlook, but…

I just read this Google Blog post with 10 terrific tips for using Google gmail, I just had to tell you about it.

You can read the full post here.

I’ll let you know when I think there’s something else you might be interested in.

The Internet Marketing Brain.
photo credit: adria.richards

The Truth About Internet Marketing

Lots of small business owners feel like they’re being left behind when it comes to online marketing.

Some have sheepishly admitted to me that they don’t have a website and the longer they don’t have one, the more they feel the pressure that they *should* have one.

Others small business owners have told me that they just plain don’t have time for all this internet marketing stuff – they’re busy enough just trying to be a real estate agent, run a pizza parlor, be a therapist, or manage a small accounting business.

So let’s strip away all the tech stuff – set aside the HTML and PHP coding; cast away all the SEO and SEM stuff; push off the table all the Mobile Marketing, Facebook, Email Marketing, Twitter, Online Reputation Management, and Social Media Marketing (hey, no wonder small business owners are confused, eh?)

Let’s get to the core of what internet marketing really is:

Internet marketing, despite all the fancy terms and technology, is not different than any other kind of marketing; it’s about getting your message across to the people who want and need what you have to offer.

Sounds like a “smack yourself on the forehead” *duh* statement, right? Well, not so much – because the fact is that business owners get all caught up in the flash and glitz of the web, and forget that at the core they’re in business simply to attract and serve customers and clients.

Sure, the web has created amazing new methods of marketing such as Pay Per Click and Facebook demographic target marketing. But those are just methods of getting yourself in front of your target market with a (hopefully) irresistible message.

In the final analysis, yes it’s true that internet marketing continues to evolve at a rapid clip and will continue to do so as far into the foreseeable future as any of us can predict. Are there now and will there be a continual stream of marketing methods?

Of course. But if you’re a small business owner, don’t let that intimidate you or concern you. Look before you leap. Get some good advice and ideas first. Go to a seminar or read some online articles. Decide for yourself which online marketing methods make sense for your business and reaching your target market effectively.

Above all, never let the glitz and glamor or the internet cause you to lose sight of the fact that it’s all about your customer. It always has been and always will be so.

Do you disagree? Think I left out something important? That’s what the comment box below is for.

More soon,
The Internet Marketing Brain.

photo credit: es74273

How to Register a Domain Name

Before you can have a website, you need to register a domain name.

A domain name is like “YourWebsite.com” 0r, InternetMarketingBrain.com, for example.

Everything seems scary and hard, until you learn how to do it – before I knew what I’m about to show you in this video, the getting of a domain name was a complete mystery to me.

In this video, I’ll show you not only how to register a domain name, but I’ll also show you how where I go to make sure I’m always getting the lowest possible price and cheapest domain names.

Internet Marketing Tools Browser Toobar

Get Immediate & Automatic Internet Marketing Updates - Without Lifting a Finger!

Want some great internet marketing tools?

Want to keep up on all the latest developments in internet marketing, right at you fingertips, without any work on your part?

The image above might not look like much, but if you click on it, or click here on Internet Marketing Tools, you’ll have the opportunity to add my special toolbar to your browser…

What’s in it for you?

I’m constantly monitoring 47 different blogs from Google and various internet marketing, SEO, and search marketing sources.

I’m constantly keeping my finger on the pulse of the constant changes going on in this industry.

I’ll keep you up to date; I’ll make sure you know about all the important updates. You can relax and just see it all right from the comfort of your favorite web browser.

That’s right – my toolbar, installed in your browser, means you can be totally current on e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g that happens, I’ll do the work, you get the benefit.

What’re you waiting for?? Install it now.

More soon,
The Internet Marketing Brain

Announcing Google TV

This Changes Everything, Total Game Changer

This is so huge, it’s not even funny…. Google TV is here.

And here’s why, and just to be fair to the ol’ Internet Marketing Brain, I’ve been predicting this for some time…

The reason this is so huge is because we’re about to witness TV and the internet merge in a way no one has (ahem!) predicted – and no, I’m not talking about simply having the internet on your TV.

What I’m talking about is – well, picture this:

You’re watching TV at home one night and you see a cool car on a TV show and you wish you could get more info about this really cool car….

You pause the program, click on the car, and get taken to the car makers site with all the specs and videos and all that info.

Or let’s say one of the TV shows’ actors is wearing a really cool jacket and you wish you could get a cool jacket like that – you’re one click away from more information – and even completing a purchase – for that jacket.

Think how huge this is for advertisers and consumers: advertisers will no longer need to interrupt the program with a “sponsored message” – instead, viewers will know to try to click on anything they see in a TV show or movie to get either Google search results for that item, or be taken to that advertisers information and sales page for those products or services.

Sure, there may be some of the “old-style” adwords ads here or there; but the scenario I exposed above will have advertisers climbing all over each other – translation: paying big bucks – for this new pay-per-click and pay-per-impression model of advertising, right there on your favorite TV program.

Google TV is a brave new world…

Think I’m wrong? Am I missing something? That’s what the comment box below is for.

More soon,
The Internet Marketing Brain
photo credit: visiophone

Protected: What Google “Forgot” To Tell You

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Yes, Virginia, The Internet IS a Cesspool

Please Put Me On The Internet

Who says the internet is a cesspool, anyway?

Well, for one, how about Google CEO Eric Schmidt who said that back in October of 2008 – and it’s just as true, if not more true, today.

Who says that’s true today?

Well, me for one.

The more time I’ve been working as an SEO and Internet marketer, the more I’m convinced, and let me tell you all about it.

If you’re not an SEO and don’t work in Internet marketing, then you might think the Internet is a cesspool because every bozo with an Internet connection can upload a YouTube video, and any other clown with the most rudimentary skill can set up a blog or website and spread messages of hate, set up a porn site, or post patently false rumors and untrue information.

And, you would be right.

But if you are an SEO and do work in Internet marketing, you have an even deeper understanding of how true it is that the Internet is being polluted – I’ll explain:

Put in the most simple terms possible, Google’s algorithms value websites that have lots of links pointing at them.

This is an oversimplification, but each link pointing to your website is counted like a “vote” of popularity for your website, so if I have more links pointing to my website than you do, and both of our sites are about internet marketing training (for example) then Google will see my site as more important than your site.

Yes, it’s a little more complicated than that because the links pointing at my site and your site are “rated” by Google based on a number of factors such as the theme of the site linking to our sites, the PageRank of the page and site linking to us, how many links are on the page of the site and page linking to us, what the anchor text of each link is, and other complicating factors like that.

But in the most simple terms, if I have more links pointing to my website than you do, Google will see my site as more important than your site, more relevant than your site, and when someone types “Internet Marketing Training” into the Google search box, my site will rank higher than your site.

So, armed with that very-basic understanding of SEO and how Google ranks websites (and keeping in mind this is a stripped-down explanation for sake of brevity) if you’re an SEO, have a website, or you’re an Internet marketing company with clients, one of your major activities is building up links to your website – often called “backlinks” because they’re links pointing back to your site.

Affiliate marketers, SEOs, and others (cough-black hat SEOs-cough) and spammers have sought to game the system in order to rank more highly in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).

Those strategies include, for one of many examples, article spinning – using software that take a single article and “spins” the content into dozens or even hundreds of variations of that article, which are then uploaded to dozens/hundreds of article directory sites with – yep, you guessed it – each article containing a backlink to your site!

If I take an article – even if that article is a high-quality, content-rich article – and spin that into 99 other articles spread throughout the internet with the sole intention of getting backlinks to my site, then tell me: what value do the other 99 articles really contribute to the internet as a whole?

If you answered that those 99 spun articles do not contribute any additional value, you would be correct. Starting to see the light here? Now multiply this many millions of times over and multiply this times the millions of spammers, black-hatters, affiliate marketers, and so on, you begin to realize that yes, Virginia, the internet is indeed a cesspool.

As an SEO, I’ve decided I’ll not contribute to the cesspool. I can’t justify putting crap on the internet just to get backlinks to my or other people’s sites.

There are legitimate ways of getting backlinks by contributing actual value to the ‘net, and that’s what all of us SEOs and Internet marketers need to do.

We need to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, and not cave in to the pressure that others are doing it and therefore getting a competitive advantage on us.

And that’s not just a self-righteous statement, it’s a statement of surviving and thriving in the future because guess what? – Google is going to evolve and get smarter and improve their algorithm, and those crappy backlinks you built up just to get ranking are going to be devalued, and only the quality links will remain.

Don’t agree? Think I’m wrong? Have an opinion or question? That’s what the comment section below is for.

More soon.
The Internet Marketing Brain

photo credit: GypsyFae