Liane Carmi

It’s Wednesday night, and tomorrow Dennis Karganilla will log into Google and type in the phrase “DK is a Street Performer,” at which point he’ll pick the winner of the dkisastreetperformer contest.

A few weeks ago, Howie Schwartz decided to challenge the members of Dennis Karganilla and Jimmy Davis’ “90 Day Challenge” marketing group.  The question was, who can rank on the first page of Google multiple times – as many times as possible – for the long keyword phrase.

Personally, I took massive action, and remained consistent throughout the month of the competition.  Here are 10 things I learned about SEO, challenges, and what it takes to rank on the first page of Google multiple times.

1. Quick action gets you on page one fast.
When the challenge began, there were no results for the given keyword phrase in Google.  Acting quickly got me on page one, where I immediately owned at least six of the 10 sites.

2. A good blueprint is essential.
I used a marketing strategy I learned from Howie Schwartz.  Without this strategy, the competition would have been a big game of “who just posted last.”  But using a specific link-building trick, I was able to give my websites authority that helped them stay high on page one.

3. Consistency is a must.
Because I promoted consistently for 3 weeks, I was able to monopolize page one, getting as many as 9 out of 10 choices on the first page of Google, but more often getting 8 out of 10. Even when my competitors tried to catch up after taking a break, they couldn’t.

4. No automation = time suck.
I managed to automate a few of my processes.  Had I not, I would have spent at least 10 more hours each week trying to promote my sites.  Or I would have had less substantial results.

5. Outsourcing is a necessity in the real world.
One keyword phrase is easy.  But when it comes to really ranking on Google – in normal situations – you need to rank for multiple keywords.  That’s why you need more than automation.  You need someone – or a group of people – who you’ve trained and can take over the day-to-day tasks.

6. In a new niche like this one, Google lets you decide.
Yep – that’s right.  YOU decide what goes in Google.  But it’s more complicated than that.  Google consistently optimizes its search pages.  And it wants to know, what are people clicking on, and what are the media related to this new niche.  In the beginning, many competitors were using blogs and videos.  So for a long time, Google placed two videos, side-by-side, on the first page of search.  Towards the end, most of the marketers leaned towards press releases, and today, as I write this, there are 3 press releases on the first page of Google.

7. Google gives new sites the benefit of the doubt.
So when you create a new webpage, Google throws it on the first page of results – just to see if people like it.  It’s a good way to get quick rankings.  Follow this up with a good marketing campaign, and you can stay on top of the results.

8. Social marketing has a strong influence in several ways.
Tweets on twitter actually can rank on the first page of Google.  But that’s not the really important part.  What’s really incredible is how much social media – twitter, facebook, etc., can influence success in a new market.  When videos were on the first page of search results, the videos shown were ones that had been visited the most and had some ratings.  Someone with a good following on any networking site can post a link and have immediate rankings on YouTube or other video sites.

9. Challenges help people take action – especially when there’s a prize.
You may be wondering what the point of this challenge was.  Other than bragging rights, the winner gets an Amazon Kindle from Howie Schwartz.  The possibility of receiving a prize gets people in motion.  Good thing to remember if you’re trying to motivate a team.

10. The only way to really learn about something is to do it.
I thought I knew a lot about ranking on Google.  And I did.  But now, after being “intimate” with Google for one keyword phrase, I know even more.  And when Google introduced a new tool, I was one of the first people to see it.

So…

That’s what I learned in the DK is a Street Performer SEO Challenge.

Do you think you could use some of these tips to help you in your marketing?

Leave a comment below – I’m curious to know what you think!

A friend of mine recently sent me this message:

——————————

> Just to let you both know that I’ve just deleted all marketers from my
> Myspace members – so it’s nothing personal. I’m trying out Mike Dillard’s
> new tactic of getting rid of anyone that’s not a potential client ( don’t
> know if you saw his autoresponder or not ).
>
> Just thought I’d try it to be different, so don’t be offended!

——————————

Here’s my response:

I believe Mike Dillard was talking about twitter.  His point was that he couldn’t keep up with all the tweets being sent out by the 10,000 + people he was following.  He ascertained that, if people really cared about what he had to say, they’d keep following him regardless.  This is a somewhat good tactic for twitter for a variety of reasons.  First, if only people who actually care follow you, they’re likely to be more responsive.  Second, Mike Dillard is well-known, and will acquire followers no matter what.

Now, let’s think about it from our perspective.  We’re not extremely well known in this industry.  If anyone other than our team members and close friends follows us, it’s either because a) they happened to see our tweets re-tweeted by someone else and thought we were cool or b) they’re following people en masse just to get followers.

Fact is, if you don’t start following people – and following people BACK on twitter – you probably won’t get very many followers…those who follow may eventually unfollow when they see you didn’t return the favor.  The good about that is that only people who really truly care what you have to say will be following you (a more responsive list).  The bad part is that the less followers you have, the less likely you are to get responses & retweets, and the less likely other people are to find you.

Okay, now let’s take that to facebook & MySpace, YouTube, and so on.  All of these sites have really one main point when it comes to network marketing – and that’s networking; connecting with people in a non-business way.  It’s like going to a party and saying “hi” to many people, chit chatting, hanging out with those whose personality you enjoy…  Eventually, you start to get to know a few people better, and you invite them to your “home” – your blog.  That’s where they can learn even more about you.  From there, if they’re in need, and you can help, you send them to your sales page.

Now, who exactly are the kind of people you resonate with – who would resonate with you – and who might become your leaders (in your downline) one day?  The network marketers!  You’re new to it now, but eventually, you’ll be coming out with your own products and ideas and things that people who are already marketers will be interested in.  And who to resonate with better than someone who does the same kind of thing you do?

Mike Dillard’s method works for Mike Dillard.

That’s how I see it.

What do you think?  Click on “Comment” and let me know!

Hey guys,

I was playing around on Google & Yahoo, using some advanced operators, when I suddenly realized something important.

Using the ‘site’ operator lets you see how many pages your website has. For example, let’s say I wanted to see how many pages there are on this site, yourwebprosperity.com. I’d type in, “site:yourwebprosperity.com” in Google search and hit enter.

Now, when I first did this, I had 86 pages listed on Google. I was thinking, “damn I’m good.”

Then, as I scrolled through the posts, I noticed that WordPress was showing me the same page over and over sometimes – under different TAG directories.

So, if i had a post that used the tags “make money online” and “affiliate commissions,” Google showed the same post twice, once under a directory called /tags/affiliatecommissions/, and again under /tags/makemoneyonline.

So I thought I’d give something a try. I went into my admin panel for my blog, and added tags for the newest post I’d added. Then, I repeated the Google search using the ‘site’ operator.

Lo and behold, my pages went from 86 to 145.

Why does that matter? Good SEO.

Plus it’s super-cool to have lots of pages on your site.

So if you have a blog, make sure you add related tags to each of your posts. And of course, be reasonable – if you’re blogging about fish, don’t add a link about cats

…if you liked this post…if you hated this post…if you have some other feeling about this post that can’t be stated…leave a comment!