If I was in the US and able to vote Sarah Palin would have my vote, she’s what every country needs, someone with morals.

Obama’s campaign is dedicated to the idea that everyone is stupid. His filling that stadium shows, he’s onto something.

Obama said that John McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time.

As the people cheered and Obama smiled, he wasn’t smiling at their cheering but how stupid they were. Because he knew that George Bush was not in the Senate, and didn’t have a vote, so how could he measure the percentage of times that McCain and Bush voted the same?

The only way to vote with the President is to not vote at all, because the President can’t vote.

Obama talks about change; however a breakdown of his speech shows that it is politics as usual.

Obama says that he will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small business and start-up companies. A small business does not pay capital gain taxes, so how is he going to eliminate something they aren’t paying.

However they do pay income taxes and Obama plans to raise those.

Obama also said that McCain is not proposing tax relief for over 100 million Americans. The bottom 40% of Americans, do not pay federal income taxes, that means that 120 million Americans are not paying federal income taxes. Why should they need relief from something they aren’t paying?

Obama is politics as usual.

The change everyone is looking for is Sarah Palin.

She won the title “Miss Congeniality” in an Alaska beauty contest and the nickname “Sarah Barracuda” on the high school basketball team.

She’s young, good looking, fresh and has made a name for herself running against, through and over the Alaska all boy political network. Her ability to shake up the politicians is exactly what is needed in Washington today.

Unlike most politicians she never wanted to be a politician. She found corruption in the local system and reported it to the proper authorities. All the way up to the mayor who all refused to do anything about it. So rather than let it lye, she went a step further and unseated the current mayor taking over his position and started fixing the problems.

Once she took over the potion as governor she got rid of the governor’s private jet and fired her security detail.

Sarah Palin is the change Obama has been talking about.

I’m guessing it’s best to stop the debating and let them have their fun in the sun while I continue to rank my sites and make my money.

Why do I care if what they do works or does not work?

And the more bad information they spread the easier it is for me to navigate around them and rank my own sites. However one newbie SEO guy pointed out to me that I had no right to debate with them because they were SEO’s and I was not. I guess the thought is that it is best to attack the debater and not the debate.

I find it funny that he would point this out because the easiest business in the world to start is an SEO company.

Let me explain.

I took http://www.lickworthy.com stuck some text on it and will now start posting on some forums. I’m now a qualified SEO. And best of all I’m now their competition.

These guys now have to compete with me for every client they try to get from the online forums. But it gets worst; some of these guys build a site and hit the forums never marketing their own business other than through the forums. However, I’ve been making a living online for the last 8 years and have only posted on the forums for fun.

Now I’ll be marketing my business like I’ve marketed every other business I’ve started as well as competing with them on the forums. For example, I didn’t just threw a site together, I build a custom designed site with a tableless design that it W3C compliant and search engine friendly.
It is a kickass design with conversion in mind.

Then I needed something that made me stand out from the competition. I wanted something that removed the competition before we ever got started. I needed a guarantee that no one else would dare to match. How about, you don’t pay until you see the results?

A kickass design, a search engine friendly site and a hell of a guarantee wasn’t enough. So I contacted http://www.chirongroup.com/ a US company and asked them if they wanted to partner on this new adventure. They agreed and I’m now in the search engine optimization business with offices in the US.

While I’ll be using the forums to market my new adventure like many other search engine optimization companies it will only be a small part of what I’m doing. Since this is not my main business I plan to set up a blog and post step by step what I do as I begin this new adventure into the world of online marketing.

I’d like to get some insight or how I can make this a better landing page. The rest of the site is crazy and out of control so ignore it, please. I’m looking for insight into what the site visitor sees.

I tried building a page that only had one option for the visitor but as I tried to make it look better I ended up adding lots and lots of places for the visitor to go. I’m working on changing that now.

I want to build a landing page, so for the time I’m only worried about getting this page to convert. However if you want to talk about the SEO aspects I can start making those changes as well.

I’m no writer and the sales copy currently sucks so I’m willing to make changes there as well.

The SEO’s that are claiming linking out to these authority sites will help, have no way of knowing what an authority site is. We would need that information to even try and prove rather they helped or not. Makes me wonder how they tested this theory at all.

Then we have to add in the fact that no one knows the exact number of PR that is being leaked. We have a mathematical problem. One is adding in trust and the other is taking away PR. We would need to know how much trust helps with the ranking vs. how much PR helps with ranking.

We would then need to subtract the two and see if the one outweighed the other. And let’s keep in mind that this would be different for every site and every page, as the number of outgoing links and the amount of PR is different on every page and on every site.
Without that information there is no way to test it.

This is a great example of bad information being spread by search engine companies. As if they know some secret that the rest of the world does not know. If you feel a site will benefit your site visitors then link to it. But don’t link to a site because you think it is going to boost your ranking. That would be stupid. Although I did hear that linking to http://www.geeksonsteroids.com will help you rank better.

By many standards I am a success but I still struggle to make payroll and I’m late paying my bills from time to time.

This year has been one of the toughest for me as we’ve made a lot of changes, however I’m hoping these changes will pay of big in the future.

I’ve spent a lot of time on forums over the years and I’ve found a lot of people doing search engine optimization that are not making the money they claim. I’ve had SEO’s ask to borrow money but I didn’t have it to loan at the time. And don’t have it now, so don’t ask.

This year we talked about getting into search engine optimization and online marketing. I’ve been able to make a living with my own site but felt I needed to do some testing before trying to market someone else’s. I needed a way to measure and test what we were doing. Affiliate marketing seemed to be the way to go.

We created a couple sites and started playing with them. In no time at all we had one of the sites making us an extra $3,000.00 per month. I started calling some search engine optimization friends as well as started talking to some full time affiliate marketing people. I needed to figure out a way to increase the amount we were currently doing.

Within days I had a guy that had written an eBook on affiliate marketing calling me wanting to know how the hell I was making so much money with affiliate marketing. I had SEO’s wanting me to teach them or someone in their family how to do what I was doing.

At this point I decided I’d have to figure things out on my own and was a bit depressed and thinking the big money making secret was everyone is lying and no one is making money.

Then I came across one of the best articles I’d seen in a long time.

It’s Not Me It’s You

“Three quarters of the people you idolize and want to grow up to be like barely make a living on their own or couldn’t at all. Most of the people you read regularly are smoke and mirrors. Some speakers are given subsidies to speak at conferences, not because they refuse to come without it, but because they can’t afford to without it.”

The article was written by Rae Hoffman, also known as Sugarrae. Who is a former Sphinn moderator, a current columnist for Search Engine Land, a former WMW mod, a speaker at SMX, SES and Pubcon.
I’m glad someone has finally gotten the nerve to say what I’ve been thinking. And like Sugarrae, I’ve about gotten bored with all the SEO’s.

I guess the big question is what changed, what caused the jump?

One thing that changed was an increase in minimum wage. Minimum wage went up 70 cents.
When the government steps in and decides how we should run our businesses, we as business owners have to make changes to adjust to their stupid laws.

If I was an employee I’d much rather become an asset to my employer and get paid on my own merits rather than the government forcing my boss to pay me more. Of course the above problems belong to the US and I have to say that I love the US government. They help in alimenting my competition by passing law after law that hinder the ability of website owners to compete in an open market. Of course the funny part is the number of American people that want to pass even more laws that would hinder American business even more.

For example, a couple years ago a group of web designers wanted the government to step in and regulate the web design business. Set up a minimum requirement that a web design business must meet in order to sell websites. While they think this would be a way to eliminate competition, I saw it as a way to eliminate them. Had the government done that, the business owner would have to increase his cost to pay for the school and other regulations that the government would have imposed. Since I’m not in the US I would have not been affected and my prices would have stayed the same. Making it much easier to take their customers from them and increase my monthly income.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve got stupid laws here in Colombia I have to work around. And those laws, that were made to help the employee, have a direct negative impact on almost every employee I hire.

Let me explain.

Here in Colombia, the government in all their wisdom passed a law that said any employee that works for you for more than 3 months gets a tone of benefits along with bunches of money if they decide to quit or I decide to fire them. My past employees took total advantage of this law, some even quitting once the money built up. Then my accountant told me that the government fires everyone they hire, every three months and hire back the employees from the previous three months.

Now I do the same.

The people that got hurt where the people the law was made to protect. Had the government stayed out of it, my employees and many others would have a steady income year round but with the exception of a few that is not the case.

The reason for the rise in unemployment is because the government decided to step in and help out those people, whom on their own are unable to make more than the minimum wage. If these employees deiced to become an asset instead of a minimum wage earner, they’d have nothing to worry about. And if the government stopped trying to help them, they’d still have a job.

There are websites dedicated to checking and letting you know which directories are search engine friendly (another words pass PR) and companies dedicated to getting you as many links while altering the anchor text and descriptions to get the maxima benefit out of the directories.

The only time anyone uses a directory is when they are looking to add backlinks to their site. How many directories have you gone to and said, MAN, this directory is so good I’m going to bookmark it?

A good link is one that brings good traffic and visitors that do something you desire while on your website. Blog comments, forum posting, photo sharing and other social media sites can send these types of visitors but I’ve never seen anyone say submit your site to this directory for the traffic.

I do submit my site to directories but what unique value do I get from these directories? None or at least this is my own observation. However I submit my sites to directories for the backlinks they can send my site and in turn boost my PR and my ranking in the search engines.

Google says buying links are bad yet directories continue to sell them. How is it that directories get around the algo tweaks while real sites continue having to make changes to keep Google happy?

Google has stated that paid links should not pass PR, so in all fairness should paid directory links pass PR?

Google has forced blogging platforms to add nofollow tags to their software as well as sites like W3C and Wikipedia and others to add nofollow tags to all outgoing links. I’ve also recently heard that Google has figured out a way not to count links coming from blogrolls, yet directories continue to sell links and pass PR.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining and I enjoy the boost in PR that directories send. However I have to wonder if I should be worried about a future algo tweak that could very well discount the links coming from directories. Or do directories somehow have a special place in Google’s heart that allows them to break rules that other sites have to obey?

I’m just a girl yet I’ve been called a black hat SEO as well as a spammer no less than 3 times this week. Seems that so-called white hat SEO’s call anything that might cause them a little extra thought a black hat and or a spammer.

They’ve gone so far as to say that if you post on a blog or forum with the sole purpose of the backlinks then you’re a spammer. When I pointed out that all my posts are good they pointed out that it makes no difference. What matters is where your mind is when you’re making the post. Are you thinking about the backlinks or helping others.

Kind of like Google saying if you do anything to your site with the intentions of a higher ranking then you are a blackhat. Your intentions seem to play a big part on rather your blackhat or a spammer. I figure these must be church going folks as I remember something similar coming from the preacher when I was growing up.

I’ve got no problem with going along with being a black hat and or a spammer. It’s got to mean something good as I look back at my track record. Spammers bring good to both forums and blogs.

Let me explain

Chances are if you own a blog and or a forum and have lots and lots of people posting on them, the posters that seem the most knowledgeable and the most willing to help, are spammers. Their hope is to make a post good enough to drive both links and traffic to their site.

Before I got burned out on the whole forum thing I was getting at least 3 to 4 emails a week from people asking me to be a moderator on their forum and I was moderating on about 10 different forums already. Webproworld was one of the hottest forums online and I was starting more post that got higher responses than anyone else. And at the time I knew nothing about SEO but was making a killing off the forums.

I was what most forums needed. As time went on I got really good at understanding how to get a site ranked but got burned out on the forums. Many people have accused me of being a spammer even though I rarely ever linked to my own sites. And as I left those forums I’ve noticed most of them have died down quite a bit. I like to think it’s because I no longer posting on them but it’s likely something totally different.

Either way my point is this isn’t church and what we are thinking when we make a post or leave a comment doesn’t mean shit.

If you’ve got a kickass looking website but it’s not turning visitors into cash there are a couple things I would look at.

1. Do you have a toll free number in the header on every page?

2. Is the content easy to read?

3. Is there a call to action in the top right corner of the page?

4. Is every page on your site set up as a landing page?

5. Do you have a logo?

6. Is the content written so it is easy to understand?

7. Did you get your website designed by a professional? Good companies might charge slightly more than your friend, but in the long run, the benefits directly affect the conversion ratio.

8. Did you design the ordering process keeping in mind that the average potential customers might have minimal internet skills?

9. Is there a call to action, such as asking to place the order, or sign-up for email should be used at every possible conversion point?

10. Did you make the information about ordering the product is easy to understand and find?

11. Did you place the questions that your visitor might ask in the FAQ section or as small tips during the ordering process?

12. Does your copy instantly connect with the visitor and speak in a personalized and persuasive way?

13. Make your web forms short, sweet and easy to fill. Most importantly, do not ask for unnecessary information.

14. Place endorsements from reputable organizations to build customers trust.

15. Where are the visitors coming from, are you sure they are looking for what you are selling?

16. What colors are you using for your website?

Yes, one of the most interesting things to me is how colors affect the way we think and feel. They affect us whether we are aware of it or not. Some colors affect us more than others but they all have their own individual properties that affect us.

All colors don’t affect all people in the same ways, however, there have been extensive studies done that show how colors effect the majority of people in the same ways. As with all rules, there are exceptions, but to ignore the power of colors would be to ignore an essential element of a good website design.

Another extremely important element to colors is not only the properties or emotions each color conjures up in each of us, but also how combinations of colors make people feel. And to further complicate your perfect color selection you also have to be concerned with the fact that people have to be able to read your content or the most beautiful color in the world will be for nothing.
No matter how important you feel the content on your site is, if they can’t read it due to bad color selection they will leave in search of another site to serve their needs.

I wouldn’t want a president who can “unify” the world or identifies as a “citizen of the world.” I want a president whose absolute number one priority is protecting my country and promoting my country, not world values. I want a president who is tuned in to the countries voter, not the wishes and desires of the man-on-the street in Berlin. I want a president who is willing to make the hard choices for his country. America does not need a transnational president, it needs an American president.