A REALLY GOOD AND INFORMATIVE BLOG POST AWAITS YOU

I’ve done the title in ALL CAPS to make this blog post seem really urgent, interesting and important. I haven’t written it yet so I have no idea if that will be the case, but at least it gives me something to strive towards.

I’m still not 100% sure what I’m going to write about, I’ve been way behind with blog posts recently but in the absence of my nuggets of gold/bull poop I’ve come across some interesting tit bits whilst stumbling around the Internet. So I think I’ll share them with you, and you can tell me if you agree, or god forbid, disagree!

Nugget 1: Meta Keywords & Descriptions – As Much Use as a *humorous metaphor goes here”

Since the dawn of time, people have been hung up on keywords and descriptions when it comes to optimizing their sites for the search engines.

Back in the good old days (pre-Google), this was a wise thing to do, the early search engines would base their results purely on the meta keywords for a web page. So you could basically spam the hell out of the keywords and rank for any given term with very little effort.

Since Google entered the search engine market and started to implement their algorithms, meta tags have become less and less important. People still say you should use them….but they just don’t carry as much weight as they used to.

After much (about 20 minutes) research, I say that’s a nonsense, in this day and age you may as well not waste your time putting them in there, but wait! I have 2 bits of evidence to back up my almost slanderous claims. I present to you the following your Honour:

Evidence 1

Do a search on Google for “John Thornhills Marketing Masterclass”, and you’ll see results similar to this:

The first result in Google takes you to www.johnthornhillmasterclass.com which is the “official” domain for the product, BUT take a look at the source code.

There are no keywords or meta tags to be seen, there’s also no content on the page at all as far as the search engine bots are concerned, just a video and an opt-in form. Yet that site out ranks all of the competition sites, which all contain nice fancy keywords, descriptions.

So is everything you’ve ever been told about SEO one big lie?

Maybe, who knows!

But I know what you’re thinking, of course John’s official domain will be top of the list. When people are searching for “John Thornhills Marketing Masterclass” Google wants to bring back the most relevant result which is going to be the official domain.

Evidence Verdict: Circumstantial

Evidence 2

When you are doing research on how to get to the top of the rankings, who better to ask than a professional SEO company?

So I did a quick Google search and typed in “UK SEO”, the results that came back can be seen below.

There are over 30 million broad results for that term, so you’d think the site that ranked number 1 must be some sort of SEO monster, and surely they must know what they are doing. So go ahead and click on the 1st result (which for me is www.davidnaylor.co.uk), and then look at the source code.

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. No meta keywords or descriptions, but still out ranks all of those sites that do have them.

Evidence Verdict: Conclusive

Nugget 2: Server Location Does Matter

I think I’ll save this nugget for next week, there’s only so many SEO nuggets you can digest in 1 blog post, especially if those nuggets are made from chicken and come from McDonalds, 36 is my record.

Nugget 3: A Lot Of “Internet Marketers” Are A*Holes

Did I get that right? We don’t really use the A*Hole term in the UK, so I don’t know if the * is needed or not, some American readers please put me out of my misery – misery may be the wrong word, but I’ll allow it.

But anyway, it’s a sorry fact that a lot of people online are vermin, harsh but true. I’m sure the majority of you reading this will have come across these people, and some of you will have been “burned” (not literally?) by their scams. They’ll go something like this: (This is based on a phone call I received, so I’m guessing I’m not the only one)

Dan: Hello

Phone guy: Small talk

Dan: Small talk

Phone guy: So, how’d you like to make money online

Dan: I’d love that so much more than words can express

Phone guy: Cool, we can help you with that by coaching you

Dan: Ripper (I was pretending to be Australian)

Phone guy: What’s your credit card limit

Dan: £5000

Phone guy: Cool, let me call you back

Phone guy: Hi Dan, I’ve gone through your requirements and we can turn you into Donald Trump for only £4995

Dan: Sorry, I’ve never forgiven him for splitting up with Ivana

*puts phone down*

They’ll actually target vulnerable people (not that I’m vulnerable, but I must have somehow ended up on a lead list!), ask them for their credit limit and then take it all away from them in one swoop for some BS coaching program, anyone that does that “for a living” deserves to be called an A*Hole as far as I’m concerned.

But anyway, does this nugget have a purpose or am I just venting frustration? IT HAS A PURPOSE!

Not every marketer online that offers coaching is an A*Hole, one person that falls into that category is Dave Nicholson.

I’ve known Dave for years, and I can tell you one thing about him – he likes Breaded Mushrooms.

Breaded Mushrooms are like kryptonite to A*Hole marketers, wave a mushroom under their nose and they’ll be able to outrun Usain Bolt.

But in all seriousness, anyone who has ever dealt with him will be able to confirm that he’s a stand up guy, and that he’s one of the good guys. I’m not going to try and sell you the coaching (I’d be stupid to, it hasn’t even launched yet!) , but I will provide you with this free 24 page report that he’s written, that shows you “The Real Truth About Online Marketing”.

Click on the image below to read, or right click on it to save to your computer, no opt-in required!

Nugget 4: My Faith In Human Kindness Restored

I’ll finish off (don’t cheer to loudly) by telling you a little story that happened to me over the weekend.

On Saturday I was out on an end of season football……for want of a better word – pub crawl.

On Sunday I realized that I’d either lost my wallet, or it had been stolen. It contained a bit of money, my credit/debit card and my driving license. So I quickly cancelled them all and ordered a replacement license.

I phoned round all of the taxi firms, and pubs that we’d been in but none had seen it. I tried to think where I had it last, and remembered that I must have had it in the taxi, or how would I have paid him!

But another call to the taxi company proved fruitless.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning, and a package drops through the letter box. I open it up and it’s my wallet, complete with all the cards, driving license, and the money.

There was no note in it, so I can’t be sure who sent it. But I’m assuming it must have been the taxi driver.

I thought that for him to take the time to go to the post office, and send it back, without taking any of the money inside was a very kind thing for him to do, and it’s restored my faith in human kindness.

So a lesson for you all, treat taxi drivers with respect, you never know when you may need them!

Signing off – at last!

Dan