“Ooh, look the bar is like ummmm, 75% green…that’s good, right? That’s like…a lot of searches, isn’t it?”

That was my usual thought when using the Google keyword tool. But no longer!

I logged on to their keyword tool today to do a search and what did I see in my results? THE SEARCH VOLUME IN NUMBERS!! Google finally got it through their head that those little bar graphs showing the average search volume just wasn’t cutting it anymore, especially not with other tools such as Wordtracker providing actual numerical data. (I would mention Yahoo’s Overture tool, but they finally put that tool out of its misery - you can read more about the Overture shutdown over at Search Engine Roundtable.

It is SO much more powerful to be able to find the actual number of searches for a given keyword on Google, even if it’s an average. We spend a TON of money on Google every month, the least they can do is give us as in-depth data as possible in return!

It’s not really surprising that they finally made this change, since they’ve already released Google Ad Planner and Google Trends with numbers with the purpose of hiding nothing from users.

Anybody read TV Guide? They always had a Cheers & Jeers section.

Well ‘Cheers!’ Google, for finally giving an actual number for approximate search volume.

‘Jeers!’ for taking so dang long to do it!

OK… first off, I have to say this… GREAT JOB THOR! In a previous post, I explained my frustration with where Top Affiliate Challenge was headed. I hated the fact that there was no real “content” within the episodes and was getting sick of listening to the contestants whining like my kids.

Episode 5, although not available on their site presumably because of a “trick” shared by John Chow on how to cheat Adwords, was incredible! THIS is what I am looking for. Props to you guys!

They got into tips and tricks with drupal and wordpress and talked about delegation and much more. I highly recommend checking out episode 5 here.

So, I have been excited for months for the internet reality/game show Top Affiliate Challenge to come online. I love affiliate marketing and am learning all the time new ways to create income streams with it. Affiliate marketing has truly turned into a large portion of what our team does each and every day.

I watched the first episode and was totally disappointed. Everything seems so scripted from their host and it just feels completely amateur. Which… don’t get me wrong… there’s NOTHING wrong with amateur. I would be game if they were just casually filming this thing and editing it together to post… but I think what gets me is that they are TRYING SO HARD to make the show look like an “Apprentice” style thing and they are being lazy with their editing (probably because they are over committing their time frames of being online).

So far… I HAVE SEEN NOTHING of what the contestants are actually doing to win or lose money. All they do is talk about relationships they have and the whining from the contestants is ridiculous. The producers are trying to put twists into the game… but they are so non-relevant and don’t even make sense. In all honesty I am just having a hard time following it all.

I have to give props to Joel Comm, who’s show, “The Next Internet Millionaire” looked great… especially compared to this one. But I had the same complaint about that show that I do about this one. There is very little video of the contestants doing the actual tasks… it’s just a series of interviewing. At least Joel made his show one where you could actually start to root for certain contestants.

Look, when I watch a show like this I want to do it on the edge of my seat going, “No way! That’s a freaking incredible idea! There’s no way he’s going to lose this one!”

Instead… I have nothing to root for… and the only judgments I can cast about the contestants is relating to personality traits and public speaking abilities (which very few of them have).

Will I continue to watch? Yeah… I will… so they’ll still get their impressions from me (well, maybe not because they clearly didn’t look into how much bandwidth they were going to need, so the site can’t even play the videos right… so I just go right to google video). But I’d also watch a train wreck it I knew where and when it was going to happen.

Come on Thor! Give me something to root for man… I was prepared to be your biggest fan!

Hello All! It’s been so crazy around here… we have a lot happening that we will be telling you about very soon!

In the meantime… be sure to tune your ears into Webmaster Radio tomorrow at 1pm. I will be making a guest appearance on the SEO 101 Show with David Brown, Brian Mark, & Carolyn Shelby where we will be talking about link building for beginners.

I was honored to be asked to be on this program in part because of the many internet marketing experts that have appeared including Todd Malicoat (stuntdubl), Jeremy Schoemaker (shoemoney), Joel Comm, Michael Gray (graywolf) and many others.

The show will re-air in re-run and be available on demand for a few months after the live broadcast tomorrow at 1pm.

See you then!

UPDATE: Here is the link to listen to the show!

I’d like to take a second and allow myself to introduce… myself? Ok, so that doesn’t sound so great. Maybe I should introduce myself in the third person…

“Jonathan Bentz now works at ProspectMX. He’s a Link Architect.” No, I’m not arrogant enough to actually talk about myself in the third person for very long, so that won’t work either.

Anyway, I am who I say I am… and this past Tuesday I was welcomed by the ProspectMX team to become their Link Architect. I have returned to Lancaster, PA (where I grew up… Penn Manor in the house!) after spending the better part of six years in West Virginia and Western PA, gettin’ my learn on at West Virginia University and working in hospitality marketing at a classy resort. Ya gotta click the link above if you wanna find out more about me… who else would force that but the “Link Guy?”

I find social media absolutely fascinating, have waaay too many internet profiles, and have a passion for internet marketing. That’s right folks… I used the terms “passion” and “internet marketing” in the same sentence.

ProspectMX seems like an interesting place to work… especially since 105.7 the X came to visit during my first week. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Nipsy and Earl came for a visit from The Peoples Morning Show today and they were hillarious! We had a great time and they even fed us… Thanks, guys!

Our team had a ton of laughs and the guys were awesome to chat with.

Update! June 2, 2008

The guys from The Peoples Morning Show have decided to come and see us! Whoo Hoo! We’ll update you after Wednesday.

__________

Ok…

So my favorite morning drive radio show, The Peoples Morning Show, on 105.7 The X is looking for a business to visit with next Wednesday. They’re brining lunch and doing a 30 minute comedy deal…

We want them to come to our place, so we decided to put this together… I have to apologize to the tech team because we ran out of hard drive space and couldn’t get them in here… so Ashley, Chad, Alex and Zim… I apologize…

Here’s the video.

I was sitting down tonight getting ready to do some press release marketing for a customer and I realized that I had an issue. My selfish intention of the press release to was to promote the business and hopefully create some traffic to the site and therefore leads.

The problem with this approach, if you’re not familiar with press releases and their intention, is that simply “promoting” a business with ad copy disguised in a press release isn’t exactly proper etiquite. It can also get you banned from the better press sites if you’re found doing it often.

After doing some research online and reading many other’s opinions, I came to the conclusion that if you want to do a true PR campaign, then you can’t just always make stuff up… your company should truly remain news worthy. If this seems like to much of a hassle, or if you’re an affiliate marketer or something where you’re strickly generating leads, then the opening of your business may be the only news worthy thing you ever do… but I wouldn’t recommend that as a long term business strategy.

Why are press releases important?

I didn’t always believe in press releases, but have found many reasons why it is not only important, but in many cases imperative.

1.

Googling your name in the search engines.

Google (and the other engines that wish they were google) knows that content that is on press release sites has been already seen by a human and the press release wire site. Therefore, it gives it a bit more credibility. Write a press release per week for three weeks with your name in the title of the press release and watch what happens within days when you google your name. The releases will kick many of the existing pages right out of the results.

2.

Industry site pick ups

We wrote this press release on February 19, 2008 and because the release had two specific words in it, it ended up getting picked up by a well known mortgage industry site the next day. Because of that pick up, we received many inquiries and solidified an ongoing relationship with an exciting start up that has an ongoing need for internet marketing.

3.

Media Attention

There will be times that you will be writing about a topic and a reporter will be researching that topic at about the same time. If that’s the case, there is a great chance that your release will get noticed. If it does, you may get a call from the reporter, or they may quote from your release directory. Either way… more traffic.

4.

Branding

Press releases and articles are two of the only ways to get more indexed search results under when people search for you name. The engines are only going to reference so many pages from your site. But, you can build up a list of press releases and then build links to those releases. This allows you to pick and choose what you want people to see when they search your company name if done properly.

5.

Link Building

Let ‘s not forget about one of the most important things… building links. Each press release you write will end up getting posted on multiple sites. Each one of these sites will link back to your site, if you do the resources box properly (most, anyway… some don’t allow the resources box).

So, what do you write about? Well, I’m going to get back to that next time… subscribe to my feed and you’ll be updated when I post 14 and a half Killer Press Release Ideas For Your Site!

And we apologize for it! We’re actually in the process of moving clear across town to a new building, and as we’ve learned, with a move this big, things rarely go exactly as planned.

We’re really excited about the move since it’s in a great area and we actually get to design and decorate the inside ourselves. Dave’s been going crazy taking pictures for around the office and we’re all working double time to get all the equipment set up and still maintain some productivity!

Let’s just say…I don’t understand how companies with 500+ people do it!

Also - big monopoly companies suck. There’s not many choices for good Internet connections in our area and the big companies know it - and use it as an excuse to drag their feet and raise their rates. Jerks.

Anyway, again, we apologize for the general lack of life around here, but the move should be finished up by the end of the month and things can get back to normal!

Go ahead and talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic.

The peanut is neither a pea, nor a nut. Discuss…

I am so inspired by this video from Shoemoney… this is link bait at it’s best. By the way, his site is incredible if you’re interested in making money online with affiliate marketing… you should check it out!