When I started this blog it was purely a personal thing, a place I could put my thoughts and rants in writing however its grown a little from then. I enjoy writing in it and from writing alone I am able to learn a whole heap which is great. I’ve also steadily moved towards an Internet Marketing / Internet Entrepreneur theme as opposed to the much broader approach I have previously. This wasn’t something I intended but rather a natural progression.

There is a problem however. My SEO sucks. Seriously, your probably here because you searched “how to suck an egg” or something random like that and are wondering what the hell have you stumbled upon. If so, my apologies, feel free to move on.. here is a site .

So over the next few weeks I’ll be working on fixing my SEO a bit. I had never bothered about it before because I wasn’t particularly concerned about whether the search engines picked up my blog as it was something I did purely out of interest and even to this day I don’t run any advertisements so my intention to profit from it is still minimal.

But after a fair bit of interest and the soon to be launch of my new product, I figured I better sort out my SEO and start generating some really targeted traffic.

Three things I will be focusing on include my Title Tags, my H1 headings, bolded text (been doing this randomly but without much substance) and keyword density. I can’t really do much with my url’s as I have a fair few incoming links and don’t want them to be broken so I guess that’s something I will pay attention to from now on. Also my in-coming links will be phrased rather than under my url, www.williambakhos.com.

Now don’t think this is something your really going to notice as I still write for the people who are interested in reading this blog, but my aim is to drive more like minded people to join this community and benefit from the information provided.

It’s an awfully kept secret that the majority of good Internet Marketers are from North America. It’s not surprising really as the region is to me, the entrepreneurial nexus of the world. A lot of the good stuff comes from there (except cars.. why is it when there are 4 wheels and an engine they go all loopy?). Silicon Valley houses some of the greatest start-ups with investors willing to pump millions of dollars to support the dreams of budding entrepreneurs.

A lot of what I do everyday is a result of entrepreneurial insight from the region. I Jump on my computer (DELL, Austin TX, USA 1984) check my emails using Outlook (Microsoft 1975 Albuquerque, New Mexico), search using the Google search engine (Menlo Park, California, 1998), visit the Shoemoney Blog (Lincoln, Nebraska) using the Firefox browser (Again North America) and then when I feel thirsty I grab a Coke (take a guess?).

This isn’t surprising or a revolutionary insight by any means but I think its important to note the effect this has had on marketers. I’m an Australian but when I write a post or release a product, I know that the majority of the people making use of what I have to offer will be from the US. When I was writing my eBook I had an extremely enlightening recommendation from one of my reviewers who questioned my use of Kilograms instead of Pounds. I used the word ‘bootstrap’ in the title instead of ’shoestring’.

Tailoring my approach to suit the people most likely to follow me is now second nature to me. Whenever I’m asked to fill out contact details online, I instinctively put a +61 in front of the number. I even get excited when I purchase something and then realize that its in Australian dollars, thinking I’m getting a bargain because I’m so used to paying in US (about 80USc for $1AUS).

However something happened the other day which I never thought would, I felt I had an accent in my own mother tongue. I was creating a screen capture video and realized how ‘different’ I sounded to all the other Internet Marketers. I’m so used to hearing marketers from the US speaking in Audio and Video that my voice, even to me, sounded quite alien. Even after a few attempts I was considering a voice over! Obviously I didn’t take this route as I understand the importance of using myself as my brand so this was simply not an option, but the fact that the thought came to mind really made me think.

So I’m wondering whether other non US marketers have felt this sense of Internet Marketing alientation. The Internet is such a global medium yet there is a prominant ‘language’ in the IM world. Not that it bothers me at all, its just an observation which I find intriguing.

So Facebook have just released their vanity URL feature. So now instead of having some elaborate confusing URL, you can simply choose yours username. For example I chose just my surname (I got in early) so my username is www.facebook.com/bakhos.

The reason I chose this was that I wanted my full name, when searched, to link to this blog in the search engines, not my Facebook page.

I can imagine all the people taking all the “make money online”, “Internet business” names and it will become extremely transparent after a little while. The shame is that now when people do populat internet marketing searches we are going to end up with Spam pages or link farms via Facebook. I think we see enough of these on the net already but lets see what happens.

Any reasons why you have chosen the username you did?

If you havn’t got your username and are already a member of Facebook then I recommend that you do, mainly so you don’t end up suffering from some opportunistic creep stealing your name. You can do it by visiting Facebook Username page.

To check out these video squeeze pages click the link below:

Hot Video Squeeze Templates

There is a common saying that all marketers are liars. Now you can make your own judgment about that but I thought I’d throw a spanner in the works today.

I saw possibly one of the most amazingly honest marketing attempts in a while. Brute honesty is some what non-existent but there is always something that takes you by surprise.

Check out this listing for an old washing machine.

And now look how much this peice of junk is going for. There may still be room for some honest marketing yet!

I am absolutely astounded at the difference between the really good online marketers and the not so good ones. What I’m astounded at is that the difference is not as obvious as you may expect. You’d think some have flashy videos, great graphics and unique designs but it just doesn’t work like that.

I’ve been checking out some of the best online marketers and trying to figure out what makes them so successful. I have even gone to the extent of screen capturing their sales pages to try and understand what it is. It’s hard to compare my own because I become subjective so I feel it’s best to use others and take a completely objective point of view. The truth is in the detail and the delivery. It’s not much really and can range from a better fonts, bolder boarders, use of keywords and their uncanny ability to make you like them. This is probably one of the biggest marketing factors that most people are yet to fully understand and that is that the real good internet marketers are hard to hate although you think you should.  What do you think about the Virgin brand? I don’t know too many people that hate it because the brand is just so likable.. now what makes the Internet Marketing industry any different?

Then on the other end of the scale you’ve got the guys who have scam written all over them and the sad thing is, these are probably legitimate online marketers. However because they used a few over-zealous words, a dodgy squeeze page and maybe a few too many bells and whistles they are dismissed and placed in the Internet Marketers dregs pile. Think of any telco and compared it to Vodafone. They might both offer great product but for me personally, I struggle to hate Vodafone because of how to hold and promote their brand.

It’s sad really, a few choice words and a different colour can be the difference between being successful in this industry and being an ‘also tried’. My advice, and I can’t believe I’m saying this… find the good guys, observe, analyse and implement for a solid foundation. Only then may people tolerate your re-invention of the wheel and if not, you’ve still got a fat pocket to survive off until your next charge but remember wash up before you go out again.

I have written a few post about the micro-blogging, social networking monster on this blog and I have been relatively frank. But this post is probably a bit more candid than the rest of them because I’m pretty frustrated with the platform to say the least.

To give you a background, I’m a relatively recent blogger, with this blog only starting in late Feb 09 (from memory). So its safe to say that I am a relative unknown compared to some of the super bloggers and IM superstars such as Jeremy Shoemaker, Darren Rowse, John Chow and the rest. I’m not going to try and tell you I’m a superstar because I know I’m not, I’m new in the online world and I know where I stand and don’t really have a problem with it.

An example would be John Chow writing a great article about Blog Marketing vs Email Marketing vs Twitter Marketing. John was able to get several sales out of Twitter promoting a product (a $27 footer ad which I’m suddenly interested in at the moment!) but I have a feeling that if someone not in John’s league did the same thing, the results would be completely different. John has a brand and has effectively and intelligently been able to leverage off his brand to make Twitter work with him.

The guys I mentioned earlier have all lauded Twitter and the utility is has provided them. This is fine and dandy but they have a name and an online presence which not all of us have. By the way, I’m a big fan of the above mentioned bloggers… so by no means am I discrediting what they have to say. But what is it like for those who are not virtual brands like these guys? If they were to state: New blog post “http://ww….” then yeh, a flood of people go rushing to their blog interested in the next post and that’s very understandable as I do it myself. For example if Coca Cola brings out a new drink and a Coke rep tells you that they are bringing out a new drink then immediately, you want to know more, right? However if Florentine says they are coming out with a new flavored milk what would you say? Exactly what I would say; who the hell is Florentine? Or more appropriately, flip the page, change the channel or check the other Twitter updates.

There is a vicious cycle developing here which I believe has lead to the overwhelmingly skewed favoritism of the network. This is when people go out and read reviews of the site, chances are these reviews are conducted by the very people who already have an online presence, ie the top 20% of bloggers, IMers or webmasters. Well is a proven fact (I have proved it) that the top 20 sites in the world receive roughly 80% of the traffic therefore 80% of the audience are fed with ideas that all is good in the Twitterverse. The other 80% of blogs (the majority) make up the measly 20% of the audience. These lesser read blogs are those that will probably have alternate opinions, the opinion of the majority but because they only receive 20% of the audience, not that many are listening. Here lies a problem where the ideas and opinions are bias towards the top bloggers, IMers and webmasters… who own 80% of the audience.. Vicious circle.

So what if your Florentine? (by the way I have completely made that name up, but lets use it as an example). What is Twitter like for all the other Florentines? Well, it’s a pretty lonely place to be honest. The truth is, apart from friends and family, not many people actually care what you have to say but at the same time they want you to care about what they have to say. You feel like a 8 yr old, you can speak, people can hear you but not many people are that interested in listening. You yell, wave, RT, @, RTT and still silence. No love. Just another 40 Tweets with affiliate hoplinks in them. Well maybe it’s just another step, you need to wait until your a little ‘order’ and maybe people will start listening.

In conclusion, “what are you doing?”. Apart from the select few, does anyone really care?