MLM Leads by Apache Leads

MLM Education

What is PPC ?

What is PPC? Get All The Traffic You Need

An SEO explanation first.

Long, long ago when the web was new, the only constant source of traffic (visitors to your site) was from the myriad of search engines which were around in those days.

Ranking high was easy. A high rank for your keywords brought a lot of traffic and still does today. However, it’s very competitive these days as there are only a few search engines. Google, of course, being the most dominant.

The problems associated with trying to rank high on Google are enormous and there are millions of pages explaining everything you could possibly want to know about it. The art of ranking high on search engines is commonly referred to as SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I call it an art because it kind of is, there are no definitive rules and no one knows the algorithm used by any of the search engines so it’s all pretty much an educated guess.

Also, it’s not something you can just ramp up when you want more traffic. Even if you are number one for your keywords you will only get a share of the traffic available for that keyword and no more.

Google doesn’t make any money from sending free traffic to your website and they are making it increasingly difficult to get free traffic. They stuff paid ads all over the top of the search results resulting in the organic listings to be pushed further and further down the page. They want you to click on the ads. That’s how they make their money.

Also, there are around 2 million new websites launched on the web every day. That’s a lot of competition for the available free traffic.

That’s not to say you should not bother with making sure your site is optimized to rank highly on the search engines for your keywords. You definitely should.

What is a keyword?

A keyword is anything you might enter into Google when you want to search for something. For example, if you were interested in buying some new shoes you might search for “men’s white cross trainers size 9”. That’s a keyword

Google would present you with the sites it thinks best suits your keyword search. The top 3 or so would be paid ads and their might be a local map on the right showing you some local stores which probably have what you want. Underneath the paid ads would be the organic listings which are the sites which are best optimized for your keyword search.

Remember, Google wants you to click on the paid ads so you must scroll down to see the organic listings.

Of course, it’s very rare that anyone goes past page one on Google. If your site is not on page one you can forget about getting any free traffic.

What is PPC?

Webmasters know all this and so does Google. The Google (and Bing) business model is to sell listings for keywords. Sticking with our shoe example. Sites which sell those trainers can pay Google to be listed within the paid ads space whenever that keyword is searched for.

PPC stands for Pay Per Click. This means Google will display your ad but only charge you when someone clicks on it. To ensure they maximize the opportunity for a visitor to click the ad, you must ensure that the ad is relevant to the search term. For example if the Google user types in “Men’s white trainers size 9” they are not going to show an ad for alarm clocks. That would just confuse and annoy Google users.

The setup of a PPC campaign can be quite complex and tedious but if it’s done correctly the returns can be spectacular.

A good PPC campaign will bring targeted traffic to your site and should increase sales or signups or whatever it is you are wanting to happen.

You get to determine how much you are willing to pay per click and you will never pay any more than that.

Keywords

You can have as many keywords as you want and all the search engines have keyword tools to help you with this. Their tools will tell you the average number of times each keyword is searched to give you a reasonably good estimate of the number of people who will see your ad. Whether they click on it is another thing.

When you use PPC you are in direct competition with other advertisers. Therefore, most clicks go to the highest bidder. If your competitor bids $5 per click and you bid $1 your ad will not be shown as often. Thus, your competitor will get substantially more traffic than your site.

There are other factors involved here as well; the “click through rate” is important. The search engines want to display ads that get a lot of clicks. Well written ads will always get more clicks than badly written ones.

While several factors determine how successful your PPC advertising campaign will be, you can achieve a lot by focusing on:

  • Keyword Relevance – Crafting relevant PPC keyword lists, tight keyword groups, and proper ad text.
  • Landing Page Quality – Creating optimized landing pages with persuasive, relevant content and a clear call-to-action, tailored to specific search queries.
  • Quality Score – Quality Score is Google's rating of the quality and relevance of your keywords, landing pages, and PPC campaigns. Advertisers with better Quality Scores get more ad clicks at lower costs.

Managing your PPC Campaigns

Once you have a campaign up and running the worst thing you can do is forget about it. You need to check in every day or so and look at the reports provided by the company selling you the traffic.

It will be an ongoing process, you will be like a gardener, tending to your campaigns to continually optimize them and to produce the very best return on investment.

Here’s a rundown of what you will be doing:

  • Add PPC Keywords: Expand the reach of your PPC campaigns by adding keywords that are relevant to your business.
  • Add Negative Keywords: Add non-converting terms as negative keywords to improve campaign relevancy and reduce wasted spend.
  • Split Ad Groups: Improve click-through rate (CTR) and Quality Score by splitting up your ad groups into smaller, more relevant ad groups, which help you create more targeted ad text and landing pages.
  • Review Costly PPC Keywords: Review expensive, under-performing keywords and shut them off if necessary.
  • Refine Landing Pages: Modify the content and calls-to-action (CTAs) of your landing pages to align with individual search queries in order to boost conversion rates. Don’t send all your traffic to the same page.

Most articles, including this one tend to focus on Google Adwords. However, Google Adwords is the most expensive, most complicated and most restrictive and most competitive PPC platform.

The most overlooked PPC platform is Bing Ads. Their rules are much more lax, their prices are much lower and they reach up to 30% of internet users.

If you have gotten something from this, feel free to take a look at a course I made for you, which gives you everything you need in a step by step approach. You can see it here.

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Goodbye Message

MLM Leads: The Goodbye Message

MLM Leads: The Goodbye Message

Let’s talk about MLM Leads… How often have you had meetings with a person, they seemed interested and now all you get is their answering machine. You sent them an information pack, you took them to a meeting, you even had them on a conference call.  Everything was going great, you had high hopes for this prospect.

Now all of a sudden nothing

It really hurts, right?

It’s infuriating, inside its even humiliating.

You’ve put in all this time and effort and had high hopes for this person.  You maybe even told others that you think this person is going to be great, finally I’m going to sponsor someone who really makes it big and of course you really needed them because your mortgage payment is due, your car payment, etc.

Didn’t they say they needed the extra income too?  Sure they did.

An then all of a sudden….they are gone

So rather than dwelling on it and feeling pain and misery, how about a pre-emptive strike:

Be the first to say NO!

Yes!  This is going to make you feel sooooo much better.

To all your wishy washy prospects get really good at leaving them a great goodbye message, especially on their answering machine, you’ll be amazed at what happens, try it.

Remember your mission is to be finding people who it’s the right thing to be doing now, either joining your business or trying a product or service.  That means never having to recruit people you got to drag across the start line, let alone the finish line.

OK You ready?

You call them one last time and say the following words in a friendly, gentle, kind, warm manner:

Hi Joe, This is Don I’ve left you a couple of messages but this one is the last one.  I won’t be calling you anymore because I don’t want to be a pest.  But whenever you are ready to move out of your car and into an apartment you let me know.  It’s just that I’m on a deadline right now I have to find people who want what they want right now.  So when you’re ready call me OK, talk to you later, bye
​

Watch what happens.  The ones who really want to change their lives right now will call you right back.  Those for whom the time is not right for any reason will not, but isn’t that all you want?

To find the ones who it’s the right thing to be doing right now instead of spending your whole life finding them?

What do you think about this, do you have some goodbye messages you leave?  Share them with us in the comments.

apacheleads-top-10-entrepreneurial-podcasts

The Top 10 Hottest Entrepreneurial Podcasts

Rumor has it that Apple and major car manufacturers are talking about making podcasting the new “car radio.”  Who knows, but there is no doubting that podcast popularity has grown over the years.

Personally I never used to listen to any as for reasons I cannot recall I had a poor perception of podcasts.  I think I had visions of amateurs recording them directly into their phone while in the cellar bedroom of their mothers house.

These days I listen to hundreds of hours of podcasts every year, whenever I am walking alone, traveling on planes, bored in shopping malls, walking on a beach, in taxis, relaxing on the bed… pretty much anywhere.

The reason I do it is it programs my mind to be learning, to be thinking, to be aware of opportunities, to think differently, to understand other peoples points of view, to broaden my view and thinking overall.

If you are in business and I think you are then you need to make the time to listen to a podcast at least once a week, every week and get your brain moving, thinking and getting it excited!

According to the Pew Research Center at the end of 2014 there were more than 22,000 active podcasts.  That number has probably doubled since then.  The phenomenal growth in popularity makes it difficult to determine which podcasts we should listen to.

Here’s a list of The Top 10 Hottest Entrepreneurial Podcasts of 2016

 

1. The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life

The Top is like a 15-minute, daily, audio version of a monthly income report. Nathan Latka is the 25-year-old CEO at Heyo.com, which has over 10,000 monthly paying customers and $2.5 million in funding. Latka drills into guests in a fast-paced, numbers-driven podcast that leaves you with the income numbers top entrepreneurs generated last month and a clear plan to getting ahead of your competitors, on your way to the top.

2. Entrepreneurs on Fire

Host John Lee Dumas brings on daily entrepreneurs and discusses their biggest failures, most rewarding successes, and what they’d do to start a business if they were stranded on a deserted island and had to start 100 percent from scratch.  Pretty interesting scenario right?

3. Perpetual Traffic

A weekly podcast produced by Digital Marketer. The hosts share cutting-edge strategies on acquiring leads and sales for your business through paid traffic. They focus on getting your product, service, or message in front of your target audience.  I really do love this podcast, the Digital Marketer team really are on the cutting edge and the best thing is they test everything.  They even tell you about their screw-ups.  Excellent show

4. Smart Passive Income

Pat Flynn releases one episode each week focused on how to generate passive income to free up your time and energy. Pat’s been supporting his family 100 percent with passive income generated online, easily earning a six-figure salary while only working a few hours a week. Automation, outsourcing, and SEO are favorite topics you can find discussed on the show.

5. Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield

Amy takes a behind-the-scenes approach on her show and shares highly tactical strategies that she employs with her own team and on her own launches. She’s a best-selling author, and shows you exactly how to increase your lead generation strategies so you can launch and promote your new program, grow your list, and build your authority.

6. The Tim Ferriss Show

Tim is a self-experimenter and best-selling author, best known for the book The 4-Hour Workweek. In this show, he deconstructs world-class performers from eclectic areas, digging deep to find the tools, tactics, and tricks that listeners can use. I do like this show and have listened to a great many of the episodes, however I do wish Tim would discover there are people outside the USA worth interviewing. It gets very stale that everyone on his show is American.

7. ProBlogger Podcast

Darren Rowse is your host and his sole focus is helping you build a better blog. He mixes case studies and actionable challenges to help you create compelling content, find readers for your blog, and deepen engagement with readers. Darren has been blogging since 2002 and making a full-time living from his blogs for the past decade.

8. The James Altucher Show

James is a successful entrepreneur, investor, board member, and the writer of 11 books, including the recent WSJ best-seller, Choose Yourself. In his podcast, he tells life stories based on a plethora of experience — he went from dead broke, to advising a billion-dollar company, and has had eight exits for himself over his career.

9. Mixergy

In his mid-20s, host Andrew Warner built his company to $30 million in annual revenue with no outside funding. Mixergy is the resource he wishes he had had back then. This is great street-smart education for any entrepreneur.  Mind you Andrew can be a bit too aggressive and often rubs me the wrong way, but ther eis a great deal to be learnt from his guests

10. The #AskGaryVee Show

Gary answers questions about marketing, social media, and entrepreneurship. Anyone can try to get on the show using #askgaryvee on Twitter and Instagram. Each episode averages 20 minutes and a new one is posted once every three or four days.  Gary loves himself and loves to hear his own voice, there is no doubt about that.  His style can only be taken in small doses but the info is solid.

 

What other podcasts would you add to this list? Leave a comment for me below.

Heres Why SMS Marketing Is Literally the Best Idea Ever

Here’s Why SMS Marketing Is Literally the Best Idea Ever

Here’s Why SMS Marketing Is Literally the Best Idea Ever
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Texts are quick and cheap, and always read by everyone.

I’m always surprised that more network marketers are not using SMS/Text to contact large numbers of leads.  It’s legal, it’s ethical and it so much easier than dialing thousands of leads on the phone right?

Have a read of this really interesting article I just saw on Entrepreneur and then check out our amazing offer on how you can get in on this super method for recruiting in both Australia and the US.

This post is a response to Here’s Why SMS Marketing is Literally the Worst Idea Ever.

*Ding ding* One new text. Maybe it’s that cute boy you’ve been talking to in chem class. Maybe it’s your boss wanting to congratulate you on your performance. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s an irresistible text offer from your favorite retail chain. What’s the first thing you do? Open it, duh. If you swipe left and delete the message before even reading it — well kudos to you, you’re a borderline extraterrestrial. Personally, I can’t remember the last time I didn’t open a text message, and I’m sure you can agree.

Here’s a little bit more about SMS marketing and proof to back up my bold claim.

It’s not spam.
​

SMS messaging follows the rules of permission based marketing. It’s 100 percent opt-in based. Simply put, customers have to give their expressed consent before receiving SMS messages. This can be done in one of three ways. New subscribers can double opt-in¹ via web widget, add their cell number to a compliant sign-up form or text to join. The latter is the most common. After opting in, the new subscriber will receive an auto reply confirming their subscription. If the opt-in was accidental, they can simply reply STOP, and all messaging will cease.

(Don’s Edit: I want to just add here that leads who complete a survey form on the web requesting information about a home business are giving you permission to text them, email them or call them)
​

Everyone reads texts. 
​

Ok, well almost everyone — 90 percent of all text messages are read within three minutes of being received. This isn’t just a fluffy statistic. Recent research gathered by Dynmark.com also suggests that “almost one third of of those targeted with SMS advertising campaigns respond to the correspondence; with almost half of this group going on to make a purchase.” This research totally speaks for itself. And yes, U.S. citizens can register with the do not call registry, but this has nothing to do with the sending and receiving of SMS.

In the article cited at the beginning of this post, the author boldly claims that “a major chunk of the population is already registered with the DND.” First, there is no clear statistical research backing up this assumption. Second, in the U.S., the Do Not Call registry protects consumers from just that — unwanted calls. It’s designed to prevent telemarketers from harassing consumers. This has absolutely nothing to do with text messaging. Now, if for some reason you do find yourself receiving unwanted text messages, you can file a complaint. But, knowing the permission-based nature of this marketing method, you may never confront this issue.

Character limitation forces marketers to get right to the point.
​

There is a 160 character limit on text messages. With SMS, it’s simply about providing an irresistible offer. There’s no point in droning on and on with a 300-word marketing message. Subscribers are opting in to receive an exclusive offer, not to hear about how your day is going. Our current digital age rewards simple marketing messages with easy to understand calls to action. The 160 character limit on SMS messages is actually ideal.

Now, just like with any other marketing method, can SMS sometimes come off as obnoxious? Absolutely. But so can Facebook, direct mail, pay-per-click ads, and so on. It’s not necessarily the channel, but instead the quality of the message and offer.

OK ready to learn a bit more about this exciting approach to mass marketing / recruiting?

Imagine sending out say 1,000 texts each day with a cool message and an instruction to call back for more information.  That’s how to get hot interested leads to call you. We have everything you need to get started.

We have US Mobile Leads which are all 100% mobile numbers, plus all the usual contact information. We have Australian Mobile Leads which are mostly for SMS Texting Marketing.
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To teach you how to choose a system to send your SMS message to thousands of leads and how to design a message that get results we put together the ultimate guide.  Initially we wrote the course for Ringless Voicemail Drops but we should have chosen a better name because it works exactly the same way for SMS Marketing

There you have it an explanation of “Here’s Why SMS Marketing Is Literally the Best Idea Ever”  it truly is a fantastically easy method to have any number of leads calling you wanting more information and you can set it all in motion by the press of a button!

Get the drop on your competitors and get it set up and running today

As always gentle reader, if you saw any value in this post, please like and share and if you have some questions and would like them answered by me, ask them in the comments below

Bangkok

The Big Adventure Started With A Few Mis-Steps

Last night I arrived in Bangkok.

It was not the nicest journey. Theary booked us flights from Phnom Penh (Cambodia) to Bangkok with Air Asia.  In case you are not aware of that airline, they are on the cheap end of the spectrum.

The flight was delayed 40 minutes and no announcement was made. Therefore we arrived 40 minutes late into the old airport which is used by Air Asia. It’s really not a good airport. It’s overcrowded and the lines for immigration were very long.  There may have been 40 or so lines each with around 50 to 60 people waiting and busy on their phones.

Each line has a person processed about every 2 minutes, it seems like an hour though.

I got through Immigration and went to the carousel to to pick up our two suitcases.  As it had taken quite awhile to get through Immigration the baggage had been on the carousel for some time.  I could see that where the carousel returns back out to the loading area, there had been some sort of obstruction caused by one or two large suitcases.

the crowded, hot and very slow moving immigration hall at the old airport in bangkok, avoid it

the crowded, hot and very slow moving immigration hall at the old airport in bangkok, avoid it

They were blocking all the luggage behind them which had resulted in all the bags being tipped off the carousel and onto the floor in an ever increasing twisted pile of suitcaes, backpacks and other assorted items.

I looked around for some staff and saw a couple of them studiously not looking in the direction of the suitcase carnage.

I went over there and worked my way through the cases and got to those causing the blockage and cleared that.  By then there were hardly any bags left on the caoursel.  found our two and went to wait for Theary.

When she joined me we went through the green “nothing to declare” part of the Customs area.  It would have been a drug smugglers dream come true, not a customs official in sight anywhere.  So that was a breeze.

We bought Thai SIM cards for our phones and then joined the long long lines for taxis.  We were both headed in different locations as Theary was going to go to her brothers house and I was going to take all the bags to the hotel.   I was already running late for a meeting with a client.

the awfully slow moving taxi lines at the old airport in bangkok, totally avoid this airport

the awfully slow moving taxi lines at the old airport in bangkok, totally avoid this airport

The taxi system at the new, really modern airport in Bangkok is brilliant, the wait time is usually less than 1 minute.  That’s not the case at the Don Meuang airport which is really only used by budget airlines.  It’s a matter of waiting for taxis to arrive, park and for the driver to walk into the room and present himself to the “taxi rank” people who then assign him to a waiting passenger.  It’s crazy and takes ages.

Eventually a taxi was assigned ot me and I trundled off with 2 suitcases, 1 laptop bag and a small backpack.  Away we raced into the night.  All was going quite well until we only had about a kilometer to go to my destination.  We ground to a stop.  Meanwhile I’m chatting on Messenger with my son, Kris and my client who is on Skype.

I’m trying to get them both to meet up and keep each other company until I can arrive.

It was like herding cats.

The traffic was absolutely horrendous and we were on the freeway offramp.  In the last 30 minutes we had moved about 100 meters. When it rains in Bangkok, the terrible traffic becomes a real nightmare.

Finally we begin to get moving and I get to the hotel, check in seems ot take forever.  You know how things are when you are stressed and in a rush.  I go up to the suite and dump the bags, race back down to the ground and out the door to the hotel next door where Kris and my client meet me in the reception area.

My client is happy to see me and gives me a bottle of Johnny Walker Double Black as a gift as we make our way into the Bangkok night for much anticipated dinner, drinks and a chat.

It’s all good.  Bit of a misstep to start off the adventure but, it needs to be remembered not everything goes to plan and thats what life is…it’s what happens while you’re busy making other plans.  I’m led to believe John Lennon said that

John Lennon

 

The night turned out well and I made a deal worth $31,200 and a bottle of very nice Scotch. My client got what he wanted, my son got a free meal and drinks. So like I said all good.

One thing I learnt is that cheapest is never really worth it

Today Theary is off wandering the markets and I’m relaxing writing this post for you.

Tomorrow, after lunch we will go to Jomtien Beach near Pattaya for a nice break by the Gulf of Thailand.  Kris is on his way to a wedding somewhere north of here and will catch back up with us on Saturday night.

Trust me gentle reader, life is great…. it sure beats the alternative!

More adventures to come.  Please share some of your travel events below, I promise to respond to all comments.  Also, please help get the word out by hitting the share buttons.

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Apacheleads Phuket

August is Adventure Month

Greetings

August is definitely shaping up as “Adventure Month” for us.

Late next week I’ll be heading to Bangkok for a couple of nights to meet with a business associate to discuss a joint venture.  Of course we will have our meeting over a few refreshing drinks at the worlds most famous alley bar, Cheap Charlies. It’s the most amazingly weird bar I’ve ever seen and is always a “must visit” on any trip to Bangkok.  Sadly it will be closing soon to make way for yet another Hotel, so if you’re going to get to Charlies, you better get going on it.

After Bangkok, Then Theary and I are going to Pattaya (Thailand) for a few days in what looks like a gorgeous hotel on the beach. It’s 5 star and cost a measley $35 per night for a luxury room with ocean view.  Pattaya is a short freeway ride to the east of Bangkok.  It’s a mixture of wild crazy nightlife  and upmarket resort and retirement places.

On the 1st August we are flying to the Philippines for a few days on these islands of mind blowing beauty.

Then we will fly down to Davao City (Philippines) to our office and interview some staff for customer support and call center duties.  Davao is where the new President of the Philippines was the Mayor for many years.  He ruled with an iron fist and is alleged to have a vigilante force which were ruthless in wiping out serious crime, in particular drug dealing.  Davao City may have been thefirst city in the world to entrely ban smoking.

After a couple of weeks in Davao we will need to get to a beach again so, on the 30th August we will probably go to Phuket, (Thailand)

So a busy month coming up

What’s the point of me telling you this?

I really had to give posting this quite a lot of thought because some people are definitely going to take it the wrong way.  They will label me as a show off asshole.  Well yeah ok, that’s up to them but they are missing the point.

The point is that when you and I mean you, achieve time and money freedom this is how you could choose to spend a month.  Occasionaly, sharing some of my rather frequent trips and adventures is to prove to you that it really all is possible.  Sure, there are things we all need to learn in order to build a business and often that is going to take soem personal development as well.

Think about it, if we all knew how to build a business and had already been blessed with an awesome personality then it stands to reason we already would have a huge booming business which was still growing everyday.

I had to learn so much stuff and still have to study every day, because if I don’t I’m afraid that I’ll go backwards and no one likes to go backwards.  This blog you are on right now has a ton of tips and mini-lessons which WILL help you grow your business faster.  We also have a FREE club for those wanting even more free training.  It’s called “The Insiders Club”

Apache Leads has invested thousands of dollars in our unique and free Leads Manager.  We are continuing to add more features and improvements every week.  Some you see and some are behind the scenes.  We are striving to make working with us super easy, efficient and very rewarding for you.  The Leads Manager is a marvelous tool for any Network Marketer seriously wanting to build a business and finally achieve the dream of financial freedom.  Please do check out The Leads Manager and see how good it is.  It’s 100% Free

Whats in it for you and me?

Great question!  So glad you asked it.  MLM and the leads business are very closely aligned.  Allow me to explain;  your busienss grows when you share it with new people, introduce them to the products and train them how to buy leads and make calls and sponsor people.  So basically, you need to help some people get what they want so you get what you want.

My business is no different.  We only grow and get what we want if you get what you want.  We really want your busienss to grow and for you and your downline to kepe working with us.  That’s what makes our business grow and provides the lifestyle we want.

This is why we provide so much free training and the very best leads possible.

We want to meet you on the beaches of the world.  Come on, we’re waiting and there is plenty of room for all of us

 

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SEO - Search Engine Optimization - Concept

Why Expert Search Engine Optimization is Really Important to You

Why Expert Search Engine Optimization is Really Important to You

Back in 1996 when I first learned it was important to rank highly in the search engines it was super easy.  There was a whole lot of search engines in those days, Google was not even a word yet.

One day I looked at the top ranking site that I wanted to beat.  I went to their site and simply looked at their HTML code.  This revealed to me that to get to the top they were stuffing the meta tags of their site with keywords.   So I copied their meta tags and simply pasted them twice onto my site.  My logic was if I had twice as many mentions of the keywords in my meta tags then the search engine must rank me higher.

Guess what happened

Hard to believe but it worked.  The very next day my site was ranked number 1 and the visitors to our site more than doubled.

Those days are long gone, now SEO is hard and has plenty of traps for the uneducated and inexperienced.

Just 2 years ago my site, Apache Leads, was at its usual rankings for a bunch of search terms (keywords) when Google decided to update their algorithm.   Without any warning Apache Leads absolutely disappeared from Google!

I honestly thought I was going to have a heart attack.

I searched everywhere on Google and found Apache Leads still ranked on some keywords, but trust me, no one is looking for you at rank 67, 73, 84 and 98. Nope no one is looking for you after the first page, let alone on page 10.

This was a total disaster because the majority of visitors to my site come from Google, the rest are from email messages and Facebook advertising.

I was furiously reading all the SEO forums with topics pertaining to just disappearing after this latest algorithm change.  The opinions of the experts was not encouraging.

Time was flying by and nothing good was happening, site traffic had plummeted and so had sales.

It became apparent I needed to hire a professional to help me diagnose the problem.  Without knowing exactly what the problem was there would be no way for me to rectify it.

I engaged an expert and he had a swag of really powerful software tools which analyzed Apache Leads as well as all the hundreds of websites which linked to Apache Leads.  Remember kids, links form other sites are super important.  They tell Google a lot about your site, both good and bad.

Yes, that’s right, there are good and bad links these days’ kids, just like good and bad neighborhoods in a city.  Turns out if you are getting links from bad sites then Google just assumes you are also a bad site.   Remember when your mother told you not to hang out with those bad kids back in high school?  Same thing for your website.  If it hangs out with bad sites, its considered bad too.

The software revealed that there were hundreds of links to Apache Leads which were from sites with very bad reputations.  Finally we felt we had located the source of why Google had lost its love for my site.

OK now that I was pretty sure that I had the cause, what the heck was the cure?   There was no way in the world I could manually get rid of all these bad links.  There were hundreds of sites involved.  What was I supposed to do…call the owner of each one and beg them to go to their site and delete the link?  Where is their motivation?  Why would they care?

They wouldn’t, it’s a lot of work going and finding a link and removing it manually.  So that option was a non-starter.

Because I had used my brain enough to engage a professional SEO expert he gave me the answer.

Google has a tool called the Disavow Tool which is simple to use.  You make a CSV file of all the bad links and upload them to your Google Webmaster account.  Basically you act like a school snitch and tell Google these bad sites linked to you and you want them to go away.  Google then disregards those links to your site because you have been a good boy and snitched.  I know that sounds weird but it’s true.

A few days later Apache Leads bounced back to all its high rankings and the crisis was over!

This entire drama had lasted nearly 2 months. It cost me tens of thousands of dollars, sleepless nights and a lot of high anxiety.

If my story was not enough to convince you that SEO is important and you need the help of professionals, then here’s 7 more reasons to convince you.  This article was published on Entrepreneur

Search engine optimization (SEO) has long been an important strategy for business success, and it’s becoming more relevant. More people are ditching desktops and laptops in favor of mobile-only devices, and conversion rates on smartphones are 15 times higher from searches than as a result of social media recommendations. Need more convincing? Take a look at these statistics:

  • 81 percent of B2B buyers start with a web search, and 9 out of 10 B2B buyers say “they’ll find you” when they’re ready to make a purchase.
  • 78 percent of internet users in the U.S. researched products and services online in 2013, with more than 10.3 billion monthly Google searches.

SEO can bring a lot of value, so whether you should be managing it yourself is worth some thought. Here are seven compelling reasons to hire a pro.

1. SEO is not easy.

Read an article about on-page SEO best practices and you might think you have it all figured out. In reality, an effective SEO strategy covers a lot of ground. There are technical considerations specific to your website, content optimization, user experience and effective back linking. Not to mention optimization for other emerging rank factors such as RankBrain and social. And what about your local SEO efforts? A professional can recommend and execute the best strategies for each.

2. The rules keep changing.

Even if you take the time to read five books on SEO and become a self-taught expert, it’s a temporary expertise at best. Google regularly rolls out major and minor algorithm changes.

ApacheLeads-Google-Search-History-Timeline-from-1997-2013-infographic

Image credit: Digital Information World

That doesn’t even include the changes they don’t tell you about. Some of them effectively rewrite the SEO rulebook. RankBrain is one of the top three rank factors now, and Google didn’t clue in marketers for months.

As an online marketer, you likely don’t have the time or resources to identify, understand and optimize for every change Google makes. It’s an SEO pro’s job to pay attention to algorithm changes and how they affect search engine results pages (SERPs). True experts understand how to monitor for under-the-radar updates as well.

3. Mistakes can hurt you.

Not all SEO is good SEO. Some tactics actually can hurt your rank in search, or worse, get you penalized. Steer clear of these:

  • Getting artificial backlinks
  • Stuffing keywords
  • Using unrelated keywords
  • Cloaking
  • Duplicating content

An SEO pro knows how to avoid these pitfalls and fix any implementation mistakes you’ve already made.

4. The pros have the right tools.

Resources abound to help you develop an effective SEO campaign. But you’re a busy marketer, so you might not even know about some of them. Others cost more money than your budget allows.

Advanced analytics programs offer features that Google Analytics can’t provide. Phone Interviewed keyword research tools provide greater context and extra insights into keyword relevance, competition, search volume and more.

ApacheLeads-wordstream-keyword-research-tool-bounce-house

Image credit: Wordstream

A professional SEO expert invests in the most important software to improve your SEO. On top of that, she or he will know the best application for every tool.

5. They offer robust analytics.

SEO software helps you see the nuances of your efforts. It identifies which keywords and placement strategies are driving results and which aren’t. This information is invaluable because it allows you to tweak your SEO efforts for maximum impact on your specific audience.

But SEO software can be complicated. Seeing your analytics doesn’t mean you’ll have a clear picture of what it means for your SEO or how you can fix it. You might notice a high bounce rate on your landing page, but can you determine why?

SEO professionals understand the relationships among your key performance indicators. They’ll use that knowledge to tease out a strategy that improves the customer journey through your online presence.

6. They keep track of your competitors.

Competitor analysis is a big part of getting the most from your overall SEO efforts. A professional can identify the best strategies to set you apart from your competition. Even better, an SEO expert with experience in your field will know what has and hasn’t worked for similar businesses. These insights can inform other aspects of your business efforts. Suddenly, your SEO professional is an integral part of helping create a unique selling proposition, decide which audiences to target, brainstorming content topics and more.

apacheleads_coolerinsights

Image credit: Cooler Insights

7. There’s serious ROI potential.

SEO offers a unique opportunity for return on investment (ROI). Unlike any other kind of offline or online advertising, SEO targets people who are specifically looking for the products and services you offer. Traditional advertisements — and even pay-per-click models (PPC) — can require a significant financial investment to be worthwhile. Professional SEO services, on the other hand, can be quite affordable. And they can deliver results that continue boosting your bottom line down the road.

Hire a pro who knows how to do SEO the right way and take advantage of more dividends than with any other marketing strategy. Know any other reasons why it’s a good idea to hire a professional to manage SEO? Comment below to add your voice to the conversation.

Closing

In closing it may be extremely helpful for you to know the SEO team we choose and trust.  ArdorSEO.com is different from all the other SEO outfits.  These guy do the behind the scenes work for other SEO companies.  So rather than pay bloated prices, go straight to the source with ArdorSEO

Please like and share this post if it was beneficial to you.  Leave a comment and I will reply personally

Thanks for reading

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Apache Leads Lead Capture Page

What Makes A Good Landing Page?

Lead Capture Pages: You are busy making a living, building your business and just living life so we wanted to give you some short cuts to success.

Landing Pages (lead capture pages) have rapidly evolved over the last 2 years and unless you are plugged into some of the big time internet marketing gurus you may not have kept pace with what’s working now.

Your business needs new people, new leads every day. Well designed landing pages are the most cost effective way to build your email list and your leads list. The better your landing page works, the less expensive each lead is to you.

Allow me to explain why I’m even writing this article for you. In addition; if you are one of our guaranteed signups clients then this going to have a huge effect on how quickly your order is filled. If you have a landing page that is really popping then the traffic we send to your page will yield a higher percentage of people that signup as opposed to a boring page.

The problem is that most mlm companies do not build good landing pages. I’ve seen a ton of them and very few are interesting let alone compelling. Most a quite boring and want to bang on about product or some boring facts about the company…. Who cares! Not the visitors, they don’t care about the company’s growth or its amazing tonic which cures world hunger.

They only want to know one thing: What’s in it for them! That’s such an important thing to remember. But not many web designers even know it, let alone remember itWhat else is it that most web designers don’t know about landing pages? Glad you asked, cause it’s a fair bit they don’t know.

Number One: A landing page needs an attention grabbing headline. You know from your own actions when surfing around. We all give a website around 2 seconds to impress us or we click away.

That’s what the attention grabbing headline is all about. It gets you interested enough to take a look and start asking… what’s in it for me.

Number Two: Compelling bullet points. Landing pages which drone on and on with facts, figures and other bullshit are boring and no one ever reads them. Landing pages are not meant to be full of details, they are meant to collect he visitors contact information, that’s it, nothing more.

They most certainly are not meant to be trying to sell them on your business, that’s a 100% waste of time and money. So give them the benefits in 3 or 4 snappy bullet points.

Number Three: Call To Action! Wow how many pages have I seen that simply don’t tell the visitor what to do. Worst mistake ever.

The call to action needs to be compelling and have some urgency about it. You don’t want the visitor to go and think about it, you want them to enter their details in your form right now, not next week. Take a look at this page (not an affiliate link) The guy who owns that site is known for testing , testing and testing again.

There is nothing he doesn’t know about landing pages. If you can honestly say your landing page has all those points then great, there is nothing here for you. On the other hand, if you feel your page could do with some work, may I suggest you join Ryans site for just one month and do his course on landing pages.

It’s truly going to help you make tons of money. It’s a measly $38. Go here and check it out www.DigitalMarketer.com (not an affiliate link)

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leads manager system

5 Ways to Stop Busy Work and Be More Effective

Basically I’m a lazy and disorganized person, pretty messy too.  I’ve often said: “If I had a bigger desk, I’d have a bigger mess”.  It does sum me up quite accurately.

I’m the kind of guy who has 27 browser windows open, a Skype chat going, emails half written, articles in the same state.  I’m probably never going to change that much.

My saving grace is I work long hours to get the important things done and I have good staff who compensate for my bad habits.

While writing this though, I’m thinking about a trip to the seaside next week. Often the choice of hotel is the same as I’ve stayed in it a few times now. It’s right on the river, very scenic and very quiet.

Oh dear, back to writing this intro for you…

You are probably more disciplined than I am and you are likely to get some good benefits from taking onboard these 5 tips which will help you stop doing “busy work” and keep you on track to be much more effective.

I recently read this article on Entrepreneur and thought of you. Take a look it’s really quite good and an easy read.

 

We all are too busy. There is no doubt about that. Thanks to internet and smart phones, everybody is available all the time.

However, did you ever notice that the people who constantly mention that they are very busy are in fact the least effective ones? Being very busy is not an indicator of being effective or successful. Some people like to tell everyone around themselves how busy they are so that nobody asks them to take on another task. Also, some people like to seem very busy because only then they can feel important. If you also feel very busy or tell around that you are too busy, you probably cannot manage your time properly.

Below are some helpful tips for being more effective and less busy.

1. Don’t say yes to every task.

If you have more on your plate than you can actually complete, don’t say yes to another task just to please your boss. This will decrease your effectiveness and success rate because you have to divide your energy between different projects instead of putting all into one and finishing it off successfully.

2. Create time for your friends and family.

Know the value of your loved ones, always create time to spend quality time with them. Not everything is about working. You should recharge yourself and refresh your mind from time to time and spending time with friends and family is perfect for that. Thus, do something other than working and call your loved ones.

3. Prioritize.

Prioritize your tasks and stop wasting time with unnecessary tasks. For example; don’t constantly check your emails or social media accounts. Don’t feel that you are immediately obligated to respond. Finish what you are working on first and then, start responding to emails or returning to calls. You cannot do everything at once.

4. Do not let others distract you.

Focus all of your attention on the task that you are working on and do not let your coworkers or anything else distract you until you finish that task or until your break time. If you give all your energy only into the task that you are working on, you will see that it will take you less time to complete.

5. Get enough sleep and schedule breaks.

If you didn’t get enough sleep and still feel tired from the previous day, then, you won’t be able to work as efficiently as you want. Therefore, try to sleep early and get at least seven to eight hours of sleep every night. Also, set yourself breaks during the day to refresh your mind and stay away from your desk. This will help you stay more driven and in the end, you will finish your tasks faster.

 

Hoping you enjoyed 5 Ways to Stop Busy Work and Being More Effective. Hoping it helps you  drive closer to your dreams and goals….faster

We really love hearing from you and invite you to leave a comment below and maybe even share the article by clicking one or more of the social buttons below.

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Lotto

My Lottery Win, My Dream

Greetings.

On Sunday morning I awoke to an email alerting me I had won a prize in the Lotto.  In an instant, my imagination was at full speed.  Images of me on a tropical island beach, surrounded by a bevy of beautiful bikini clad women, a pina colada in hand, a yacht anchored just past the waves, a big bag of cash at my feet.

Finally, my dream had come true!

I read further in the Lotto email, as I was very keen to learn when and how I would receive the billions of dollars that I was surely going to soon be enjoying.  My mind switched to transportation.

I’m currently in Cambodia and my winnings will be in Australia.  It’s quite a long haul flight which I’ve done in the past in both economy and business classes.  I positively know which one was preferred.  Now I began to consider, should I purchase a first class ticket to go get my big bag of money?

Yes of course, I can easily afford that now that I’ve won the lottery.  I quickly rationlized it thus: “Why the interest I make on my truckload of money each week will more than enough to pay for the ticket.”

Must remember the kids, how much should I give each one?

Enough to buy a house?

That’s quite a lot of money, maybe give them enough to buy a nice new car each.  I don’t want to spoil them.  Good parenting is important.

Ahh bliss, not only would I be living my greatest fantasy on a beautiful, tropical paradise, my kids would simply adore me for being such an amazing father.

Suddenly, my eyes landed on the amount of my winnings.  Instantly all my imaginings shattered and fell in a broken heap on the floor.

I had to read it a few more times to make sure I was reading it right.

Lotto-Win

 

$21.10!!  WTF?!?!?!

What the heck was I meant to do with $21.10?!?

Worse still, that’s Australian dollars not even US dollars.  Sure, it’s better than nothing but as far as islands, cars and first class travel, it’s just not going to cut it.

Of course, many people would judge me for such a frivolous dream, but not you, I’m sure, dear reader.  My dream doesn’t really matter, the point of this story is that it’s not impossible, but it’s highly unlikely, I or even you my loyal reader, will get to fulfill our dreams by winning the lottery.

Sure someone usually wins it but, it’s never me and it’s (so far) never been you.

Our destiny is to make our dreams come true by our own efforts.

Both of us know what needs to be done to reach our goals and dreams.  You have your business, think of it as your vehicle.  Your vehicle which is going to take you to your dreams.  Like all vehicles, it needs maintenance and fuels and someone at the wheel to steer it.

A wise man once said to me; “Don, you cannot steer a ship which is not moving”.  Same goes for every business.  If it’s not growing, it’s shrinking and stalling.

Apache Leads has been my business since 2003, it’s getting to be quite a long time.  It’s fed and sheltered me and others all that time, it’s taken me to dozens of exotic, interesting places all over the world and allowed me to have the time to enjoy those travels.

Often I sign off emails and posts with “see you on the beaches”  why I say it is it’s lonely without you.  There’s plenty of room for you on the beach, to get here, you just need to drive your business vehicle here.

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