I need some help regarding SEO and blog structure. So I’m calling all SEO geeks that have any knowledge of what I’m about to ask. I know there are super genius SEO people out there that can give their two cents on this…

* Anyone that offers some solid tips I will make a follow-up post and give you the link of your choice to say “thanks.”

(And I’m sure the info will be of tremendous help to my blog readers.)

But before I proceed I want to clarify that I know a lot about SEO. I wouldn’t say I’m an “expert” as I don’t feel I have mastered it, that’s probably because it changes so much, but I’ve pulled in millions of visitors during the past year or so from organic results — my point is, I’m no newbie, yet I’m willing to admit I don’t know it all.

I have some issues I am interested in knowing answers for (related to optimizing blogs for SEO) and so I thought I’d create a post to “put it out there”…

WARNING: This is a very new blog and to be honest I haven’t yet had a chance to do everything I have planned to spice it up. So before I get beat up over it I know that I need to have my post titles listed before the blog name and some other obvious changes. I just haven’t yet had the time to do it (it’s coming very soon).

Hehe. It reminds me of Andy Beard not too long ago teasing me for not having permalinks setup on my old blog (that I posted to like once every 8 years). It’s just one of many things I knew I needed to do but kept finding ways to not do the work.

A big “thanks” to Aaron Putnam who contacted me to let me know there were some things I should do to improve the blog — he didn’t know I had all that stuff in the works but had been too lazy to add it yet. Aaron has a great pre-launch checklist for WordPress blogs that has some great tips for things you should do if using WP for your blog.

My Questions For The SEO Super Geeks

1. Permalink Post Structure - are there any test results (because I’ve read some conflicting opinions — and see my own confusing data) that indicate it’s better to be using a /name-of-the-post/ (directory) structure instead of a /name-of-the-post.html structure?

2. Permalink Post Structure Directory ‘Depth’ - same question regarding www.domain.com/name-of-the-post/(or .html) VS. www.domain.com/archives/some/other/folders/name-of-the-post/(or. html) ? i.e. is anyone seeing a real difference in archiving their posts in a several directory deep hierarchy compared to one closer to the root level.   [EDIT] The reason I mention this is because I have some data (non-blog pages, but many pages in a large series) that actually ranked better for the deeper path.  I had a pretty sophisticated sitemap for those pages and I’m wondering now if some of that linking structure (i.e. PR passing) is why; because I know the consensus is “closer to root ranks higher.”  So I was just curious to the data others have with blogs. 

3. Tags: Hype Or Reality? - I’m talking about putting a tag cloud after each post and filling it with keywords related to that post; then linking those keywords to a url like domain.com/tag/name-of-tag and having it go to the permalink for the post. So all the tags are just links to the same post. I have done a little bit of testing on some other sites trying to use a similar structure and wasn’t really seeing much from it. But maybe I wasn’t using enough tags and/or too many… or maybe there’s some other ’secret’ to it. I see a lot of tag usage now but I have yet to personally see much results from my testing. Maybe Andy Beard wants to chime in on this since I notice he’s using them for his posts?

4. PageRank ‘Aiming’ - this is getting a bit more advanced… does anyone have any experience with using a blog structure to no-follow certain links within the blog while ‘aiming’ all that PR on that page to a certain tag or special permalink for a specific post? Okay, that’s a bit geeky, I know. But some of this has worked for me in the past (not on blogs but web sites) and I am just curious if anyone happens to have figured out a pretty cool structure to do it with their blog — and might even be doing it to aim more PR to certain posts (i.e. ones that contain targeted keywords) compared to other posts that aren’t as much as a priority - yet still using SEO fundamentals so ALL the posts are getting indexed nicely.

Have Any Thoughts?

Please post your comments. Any solid tips will be included in the follow-up post with a link of your choice. I will email you personally concerning the link so don’t post it in the comments please.

Thanks!

I guess, you can pretty much ignore my previous “Disclosure” post — except for rare occasions. I came to a decision this weekend…

Income.com will no longer be recommending products, services, and resources and getting paid for it.

There might be a rare exception for some sort of marketing partnership but that would be very rare and it would also be fully disclosed.

I just sent out an email to my long-time “Marketing Secrets” newsletter list to explain this decision. I had written a long promotion for someone’s site and ended my write-up without an affiliate link. I explained why and here’s a copy of it…

* As always, I’d love to hear your feedback about this. Please post
your comment below!

—-

I know what you’re thinking…

“Wow, John is getting ‘tricky’…”

“He actually registered a unique domain
name to use for his affiliate link!”

BZZZZZZZZZZZ. Nope.

That’s not an affiliate link. It goes
directly to their site and I don’t make
a penny if you do end up taking
coaching from them.

Yes, that’s right. I probably just
forfeited enough commissions to
buy a new car. And all I had to do
was use my affiliate link.

But I didn’t…

I’ve been the #1 affiliate for the past
12 -14 promotions in a row that
I’ve really put an effort into. One of them
recently earned me over $1,000,000.

(Not bad for sending out a few emails!)

SO WHAT ON EARTH AM I DOING?

I have an affiliate link. Carlos gave it to me.

But I’m not using it. Why?

FOR *TWO* VERY IMPORTANT REASONS…

1. I truly think you can benefit from what
Carlos & Lupe are sharing — even the free stuff.

2. I’m done.

“Huh?”

I’ve sincerely appreciated all of my links in the
past that you’ve clicked on and the purchases
that you’ve made through my affiliate links…

I’ve made millions of dollars from it.

And I truly thank you!

BUT…

I won’t be sending you anymore affiliate offers…

…I’m done.

Let me explain…

I have started a new company… Income.com, Inc.
And I have BIG plans for it. I truly want to make
a tremendously *positive* impact on the world with
it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that sounds hokey
but it’s true…

I want to empower as many people as possible
around the world to succeed with their own Internet
business. And I believe in order to do this I need
to make some changes… at least to accomplish
the ‘vision’ I have for the company and how I believe
I need things to go…

One of these changes is to stop promoting
affiliate offers to you. Yes, I will be potentially
losing a small fortune. I realize that…

But I want to set a unique precedent for Income.com.

We will only recommend truly great products
and services to our customers and subscribers
and we will only do so WITHOUT COMPENSATION.

I know, I know. This is absolutely unheard of
for the Internet Marketing industry. Especially
for its #1 Affiliate.

But it’s just something I feel Income.com needs
to do. Now don’t get me wrong, I plan to make
Income.com an incredibly massive success as a
business, but I believe in that pursuit that we
should not recommend outside products and
services and get paid for it.

There may be the rare exception for some sort
of “joint partnership” but those will be rare and
if they do ever happen it will be fully disclosed.

So from now on any links you receive from me
you can just know are NOT affiliate links
whatsoever. If there ever is a reason for one
it will be fully disclosed and made blatantly
clear.

I also want to add that marketers using affiliate links
are NOT evil. My decision to do this is not
to judge or “put down” other companies that
generate revenue from affiliate promotions.

In fact, I highly recommend you *DO* regularly
incorporate affiliate marketing into your
efforts. It’s a powerful way to generate
revenue without selling your own product!

I just feel this is a personal decision I need
to make for Income.com because I feel it’s
going to be in a very unique position and
I want to do everything I can to retain its
INTEGRITY.

And, No, I’m not saying that if someone recommends
a product and gets paid a commission that they
have no integrity. I just think it’s what
Income.com needs to do based on how I want
to position the company. I’ll just leave it at that.

Jeremy Schoemaker and Rand Fiskin recently got into a healthy debate about their thoughts on disclosing affiliate links and other financial relationships. They pretty much had opposite opinions.

By now you should know who “Shoemoney” is as I recently interviewed him for nearly two hours. Jeremy is the creator of AuctionAds.

*There’s a reason I just used that AuctionAds affiliate link. It’s so I get to use my new Disclosure Button. I’ll explain it in a moment…

If you don’t know who Rand Fiskin is you need to. He’s one of the top SEO experts in the world. I highly recommend you check out his site - great stuff!

Andy Beard recently chimed in on the discussion and had some great stuff to say about this blog disclosure issue.

I’ve become a big fan of Andy’s blog and highly recommend it. He does a great job of creating very thorough posts.

So what do you think? Do you think a blogger should clearly disclose that they are being compensated for posting affiliate links on their blog? (Or other links where they receive compensation.)

Here’s What I Think

I think it’s best to be as open and honest with your prospects and customers as possible. Trust is a major issue online and anything you can do to gain that valuable trust the better.

The ‘laws’ regarding this type of marketing disclosure are still a little unclear. Some think it’s fine to just include a small link somewhere on the blog that discloses that the blogger receives compensation from certain activities on their blog. Others feel there needs to be more transparency than that.

I agree with those that think there should be more transparency. There is already an abundance of deceptive tactics being used online — and Internet users are realizing it more and more everyday.

I believe we, as marketers, need to start doing more things that build TRUST with our users. It’s just like publishing great content. The more VALUE you provide your audience the more it will benefit your business.

And oh yeah, it’s probably also just the right thing to do anyway.

And here’s the ironic part for marketers that are afraid that their compensation activities will suffer if they bring more attention to it.

I believe the opposite is true.

If you aren’t aware of the psychological implications of reciprocity then you need to read (or reread) Robert Cialdini’s valuable book Influence.

If you’re delivering tremendous value to your blog readers they will actually want to help you. And this includes making purchases or following your recommendations when they are fully aware that you are being rewarded for it. They want you to be rewarded.

Because blogger disclosure is still very much a voluntary thing, I want to do my best to set a good example and start doing more for the Income.com Blog.

Starting today, if I ever make a blog post that contains an affiliate link or any other link that directly compensates Income.com in someway, I will include a little ‘button’ at the bottom of the post to indicate it. The link next to this little dollar sign button will say Contains Compensation. When someone clicks on this link this is the message they will see:

Financial Relationship Disclosure

This blog post contains one or more links that Income.com is being financially compensated for and we wanted to be open and honest with you about it.

From time-to-time other companies will pay us a commission on any referred sales or other compensation if we send any of our site visitors to their web site.

Although we are sometimes compensated for making such recommendations please rest assured that Income.com will NEVER willingly promote poor quality products or services.

You have OUR PROMISE that we will only recommend products and services that we honestly feel will provide you with tremendous value.

You can test the new button at the end of this post.

Why am I including this at the bottom of all those posts and not just putting a link in my sidebar or footer menu? It’s simple…

Because most people WON’T SEE IT in the sidebar or footer menu. And if most people won’t clearly see it, it’s just like not having a disclosure policy at all.

A tiny sidebar or footer link might protect you legally but it’s not going to increase the trust with your blog readers.

Since 95% of the attention on a blog happens within the space where the blog posts are displayed, I feel it only makes sense to include it in the same section.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

* I’m working on a solution for my feed since they can’t view the button.

Contains Compensation

Here’s another video excerpt from my recent StomperNet keynote presentation. This clip contains several very valuable lessons!

Again, the video quality isn’t great but it’s well worth watching.

Make sure and post your feedback about this video in the comments section below. (Thanks!)

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Sorry for the delay…

Here’s the first video for you. This is an excerpt from a keynote presentation I gave in February of this year at the StomperNet Live conference that was held in Orlando, Florida. There were about 600 people in attendance. You can’t see the full crowd in the video.

The video quality (due to bad lighting in the ballroom) isn’t the greatest and the guy running the live ’switch’ between the cameras and powerpoint shot seemed to fall asleep at times (long duration of just the powerpoint still) but it’s at least watchable.

Make sure to watch it until the end for the surprise conclusion!

* As always please post your comments and also post and let us know how the video-playing experience is as well. We’re testing some new servers and I am interested in knowing if it downloads quickly. Thanks!

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

I am writing this post at 6:28AM EST.

I actually went to bed last night at a very reasonable hour, at least for ME… about 1AM.

But I couldn’t sleep… I was tossing and turning and struggling to fall asleep. My brain would just not shutdown for the day.

Ultimately, my brain ended up on fire from all the thought activity that it made me get on my computer at 3:45AM. And I’m still here about 3 hours later doing some research.

Here’s Why

When I was trying to sleep I started to think about all these random concepts and ideas (way more than usual) … it seemed like I was literally thinking about 50 unrelated things at once…

…and then something strange happened…

All these individual concepts somehow just slammed together!

And then it happened…

I thought of a truly amazing project idea. As if I needed another one to distract me!

Obviously, our team at Income.com is currently working like mad to get our core application launched. So the last thing we need is to add another project to our workload…

BUT… I really believe in this new idea. In fact, I think it could be revolutionary for the Web. Yes, that’s a monster claim, I know.

We already have plans to develop the Income.com Network (in Stage 2 of our company plans) which will be a network of web services and tools to help webmasters and marketers generate more traffic, customers, sales, and partners. And this new idea fits perfectly into that overall vision.

So it would potentially become the first “little brother” site to join the Income.com Network.

And because I feel so strongly about this idea, I just can’t put it on the backburner and wait several months to have it developed. There are too many reasons why it needs to be created ASAP — and many great ideas come down to “timing.”

Soooo… I’m going to hire some additional developers to just focus on this new project. My goal is to get it developed and launched ASAP. And, I guess, I’m kind of making this blog post to hold myself accountable to see if I will indeed follow-through.

As we all know, great ideas are a dime-a-dozen. And most of us (myself included) probably only execute on about less than .1% of our ideas.

So now’s my chance to continue to “practice what I preach” and see if I can take action on this idea and get it to market as fast as possible.

We’re about to find out.

And so begins the secret development of Codename: BR

I am just calling it “BR” for now because it’s a quick label I came up with for it. But don’t put any emphasis on this silly code. It doesn’t actually identify the idea itself. It’s just something I kind of had fun thinking of and so I am using it as a temporary name.

And let me save you the trouble…

It’s not about business, brokers, bartering, bills, banking, ratings, rankings, reviews, reports, resources, etc. Or any other number of things that might come to mind based on those letters.

Again, it’s just a little code I came up with. I just figured it’s better than calling it “Project X.” So let’s not get into a guessing game about what it stands for — it will be a waste of your time, I promise.

I’ll post more news as it develops.

Enjoy Your Weekend!

Ugh… I need to try and go back to sleep but I’m too excited about this idea…

The first video should be posted within 24 hours.