I write this post with the purpose to educate and help you to determine if your money (or your company) is well-spent through online campaigns.

The keyword here is measure. You cannot manage what you can’t measure. It is through testing that I managed to increase my Adsense earnings by 200 to 300%, it is through testing that I discover profitable keywords with extreme high ROI ($0.20 per click to convert a $400 course). I mean, what is better than having an increased in revenue without additional budget for marketing =)

No matter how much you spend currently for your marketing campaigns, you must track and measure if the channels are effective. Google Analytics is one of the best tools (its free!) in the world to help you measure such effort. Everything seems to clear up once you look into the analytics report.

The following is one video that illustrates how to identify profitable keywords by using Google Analytics.

If you are still unsure what this post is about, drop me an email and I will be glad to help you out =)

So what is this SEO Training Program about?
Previously known as SEO Book, Aaron has improved the program to more than a book. If you have been searching around, you will see people talking about how the SEO Book have helped them in gaining good rankings. Now, Aaron has extended the program and bring in far more useful resources such as videos, tools and an active community.

Of course, when you join the current SEO training, you will also get the SEO Book =)

How Aaron’s SEO Training has helped me?
I was struggling with my websites about 2 to 3 years ago before I stumbled upon the SEO Book written by Aaron Wall. There were basically no income from my websites at that time due to the way I promote and my lack of knowledge (SEO Skills) to leverage the Search Engine traffic.

After purchasing the SEO Book, it opens my mind and make me realize the elements of successful Internet business! I was actually hoping to get a book on SEO but what Aaron has included in the SEO Book is more than just SEO. Every page is gold and it illustrates to me very clearly on why my Internet Business is not working. I read the book and starts to implement what it preaches and day by day, I see the results coming in.

Enjoying the fruits now
At the time of writing this post, I am having a constant stream of traffic coming from the Search Engines to most of my websites. Take for example, below is the monthly statistics from one of my website in the Web Design niche.

About 20,000 unique visitors are coming to my site every month through my organic search rankings for the site below.

Having this much of traffic has allowed me to sell good advertisement space and promote other web design related services as affiliates.

Beyond a book now
SEO Training is now a very comprehensive training program that empowers people to not only learn SEO techniques through reading but also through videos, tools and forum.

To me, I find that the videos provided by Aaron is already well-worth the $100 investment to the program. I have made back several times the investment just by selling my advertisement space every month.

Another extremely useful resources is the forum. There are a few active forum in the SEO niche and what is better than having Aaron himself answering your question? The forum is perfect for people who have lots of questions to ask and you couldn’t find them in the book and other materials.

Overall, its good but Aaron has missed out one thing
In summary, I will recommend Aaron’s SEO Training program to people who wants to learn how to optimize their websites and capture massive natural traffic from the Search Engines. To me, the program will be perfect if Aaron decides to provide a list of resources for effective link building.

Due to this fact, I am supporting Aaron by providing you with a Link Resource Guide that includes:

1. Over 200 free web directories bearing a PageRank of 9 to 4.
2. The top ten article directories that you should submit to for relevant links.
3. Top ten social bookmarking sites that everyone needs for massive traffic.
4. Top forums that allow your signature to be indexed by the search engines!
5. 200+ blogs that allow their comments to be followed by the search engine bots!

How you can receive the Link Resource Guide?
If you are keen to join the SEO Training program, I will be ready to support you by sending you this guide. Just follow the steps below to receive the guide:
1. Clear your browser cookies. Refer to instructions here to do so.
2. Join the SEO Training Program via this link.
3. Send me an email stating the time and date you make the purchase and I will reply with the Link Resource Guide.

Your Investment
The SEO Training costs $100 per month but you are allowed to cancel anytime. Personally, I believe most people do not need to stay in the program for more than 3 months. Within the first three months, you will be able to pick up the essentials from the book, videos and forum and implement them effectively.

All the best and drop me an email if you want to know more details =)

I think this is also a good case study to share some of the strategies I used so that to help you in optimizing your new website for the search engines as well. Let us start with the on-page optimization:

1) Descriptive titles – Every web page should have a unique title to describe the content of the page. A one or two liner should be enough to do the job.

2) Use text-based navigation menu – Use meaningful anchor text to link to your internal pages. This will help the search engines to allocate more relevancy to your page.

3) Include keywords in critical places – In general, you should insert keywords in your page META tag, images, headers and most importantly, in the content of your page.

You can read the comprehensive guide on Google Search Engine Optimization released by Google here. There are many other things you can do to your page but I find the above three things work best for me =)

If its so easy, why everyone is struggling?

Of course SEO does not stop here. What we have done above only covers 20% to 30% of all our effort. What matters most is how you are going to get people to link to you. This is where the other 70% fits in. The following are some of the ways to boost up your rankings via link baiting.

1) Write articles with your author’s bios and submit to article directories. Visit this top 21 directories list to start off.

2) Comment on blogs and get people to visit your site. This works well if your comment is highly valuable and people will click on your name to find out more.

3) Rand from SEOMoz mentioned something on getting awesome links sometime ago.Watch this useful video and apply the techniques!

Image by pshutterbug

Identifying your Mission Critical Page is only the first step. The next important step is to be focus.

One objective per page
This not only apply to all normal pages, this is also extremely true for Mission Critical Page. If the BIG objective of your site is to get sales, your Mission Critical Page should do just that. Don’t start selling advertising blocks on your MCP or talk about your other related products or services. Be focused and help your visitors to realize your greatness and take action.

It is seldom that a home page will have the highest conversion because home page is the most unfocused page in the entire site especially for corporates. There is nothing wrong with unfocused home page as long as it can help to guide your visitors to the respective pages with unique objectives.

Keep testing to achieve break-throughs
The only way to achieve a higher level of results is through testing. There is no way that your current MCP is the best version… There is always room for improvements, the question now is whether if you are prepared to make that uncomfortable change.

Remember, focus brings great power!

Rand illustrates three types of positioning in general. Watch the following video and I’m sure it will make you think twice and refine the blog that you are starting.

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Positioning Your Blog from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

Lesson I’ve learnt

I have been too busy talking about myself for the past few months and only get to realize this when I was watching Rand’s sharing.. It is time for me to show some concern to my fellow blogging partners and business associates!

I will be talking more on Internet Business monetization techniques and perhaps some coverage on several networking sessions that I have went so that you can also link up with my business associates if you have something valuable to offer to them

More exciting stuff coming up!