Here’s what I emailed him:

1) Write down 15 common questions regarding your site theme. Write down 15 things your prospects should know about what you have to offer. Okay, that’s 30 topics for 30 videos or articles…. use them to presell your sites presell/sales pages…not to thoroughly educate your prospects.

2) Create a video or article every day. This usually takes 15-30 minutes. Don’t go into special effects if you don’t have much time. Make sure videos have a watermark with your website URL…and that you mention it in the video too.

3) Use a tool like Tubemogul.com and submit the video to all sites. Use different account names on all sites.

4) After the videos are submitted, go to each video site and change the titles so that they are unique and so that you rank for other keywords for the same video. For example, if my video was called “getting cheap life insurance”, the same video on another site might be “getting affordable life insurance quotes” – same focus different keywords.

5) 3-7 days later, bookmark the videos using random profiles names (do not use the same profile/user names used in the past). You’ll find a list over at SocialMarker.com. Slowly bookmark each video over time. I’d rather bookmark 1 video over with 10 bookmarks over 10 -30 days rather than push 10 bookmarks on 1 video in 1 day.

That’s about it.

That’s a 2 hour or less plan a day. If it takes you longer than 2 hours, look at what you’re spending your time on …if it takes you more than a half hour to create a video, then your taking too long… videos should last close to 5 minutes and they don’t need to look highly professional…just okay.

Do that for a month and you will get traffic. If you’re doing email marketing, push some traffic to a page with an optin form as well…this will diversify your efforts and split the risk in case another page is not converting well.

Hope this helps!

-Charles

…1 hour and 17 minute to be exact. I wish I recorded this video earlier…at one point I was able to have 8 listings on the first page of Google …which has a total of 10 listings (something that you do not want to do for your main money site). As you’ll see in this video…a bunch of MLM/ Network Marketers have launched a bunch of videos using the same target keyword after I wrote the article – pushing me a few listings down to #3. Unfortanately…my counter attack:) didn’t work with the little effort I put into it.

One thing that I forgot to mention in the video was my process for creating content.

It was very simple…
1) I created 1 article in 15 minutes
2) I created a simple Powerpoint presentation using that content for Slideshare.net
3) I used that presentation to create a video to distribute

So check out this video as I go over exactly what I did with that content to easily get ranked in Google.

Right Click and Save (23mb)

Question: Charles, I’m a bit confused about tags… If I’m writing a post, I usually start writing what my head, heart and soul gives me. I don’t think about keywords or tags. But do I need to change that process?

Should I select a tag or keyword and then write about that… which is very hard for me since I write from the heart, not the head. Bottom line, what is the most successful way to do this. I’m already behind a few posts without tags and I need to go back and tag them.

Second, how is the best way to find the right tags. I notice there is a page where you can list many tags, but not sure what those are for versus the tag you type in on an individual post. Got any guidance here friend?

Answer:

If your content is for your paid membership site, you can focus on the content that you want to develop…then create the tags later on.

My Purposes of Using Wordpress Tags

My purpose for using tags is about distribution via RSS for traffic. In the past, only the category name of the post was used. With the use of tags, you can focus on pushing keywords into tags instead of creating multiple category names. I try to use 3-5 tags per a post. It would be pretty spammy throwing in like a dozen of tags into each post.

Whether people use blog directories or find you via Google, there are times when those sites rank highly for the tag…so you’ll be able to piggyback from other sites. A good example of this is technorati. I get traffic via listings in Technorati because of tags.

So after I create my post, I create my tags…they aren’t long tail keywords…usually 1-3 words for each tag.

What I don’t use tags for are for making tag clouds or for posting tags on the bottom of my posts…that’s just something that I don’t do.

Wordpress Tags for SEO

If you’re focusing on search engine optimization (SEO), don’t confuse blog tags with meta keyword tags. Many high quality bloggers do quite well without using old school meta keyword tags. I still use them on some sites…but it’s a very minor traffic tactic in my book.

About content for SEO, it’s something that I still put a lot of focus on. Most of my traffic comes from SEO. I’ve hired bloggers in the past to post themed content. The problem is that they create a lot of content that is either highly competitive…or not really searched for. That’s why keyword research is important.

Here are a few free tools that you can use:
Free Keyword Discovery
Wordtracker via SEO Book

Nowadays, I’ve been using Niche Inspector for most of my projects. In the past, I used to use the paid version of Wordtracker and Nichebot to dig up tons of keywords. I don’t think those tools are as important as they used to be. You don’t have to dig up thousands of keywords to do well only…just a few hundred. That’s my opinion. Out of those few hundred, only 10 percent of them will be the ones that bring you the most traffic…and those are the keywords that I target…the ones that bring in sales conversions – not just traffic.

So working at this angle, I create free posts and articles based on these keywords. I make sure that the title contains the keywords or variations of them. Then I create a topic that focuses on the idea of the topic…. I try to make it useful, but incomplete as Jimmy Brown often mentions. The purpose of free articles are to bring people in and convert them to a desired action (ie. typically an optin or a new member).

After I create the article, then I create 3-5 medium to high traffic tags. That’s about it. That’s just a part of the equation. While it doesn’t create huge results, spending a few extra seconds to add tags will bring in additional traffic.

In this lesson, I’ll go over:

• The #1 SEO rule that you must follow to get ranked in Google
• The various ways to effectively link to your site
• The most common SEO mistakes and how to avoid them

Download this audio lesson today…

[audio:http://digitalstream.justinformed.com/fms/SEO-Fundamentals-2_.mp3]

Click Here to Download (8mb)

In this audio lesson I’ll be going over:

• Learn about the basics of SEO,
• Old tactics that used to work…and that you should avoid,
• Find out what tactics I currently use to optimize my pages,
• and more!

Download this audio lesson today…

[audio:http://digitalstream.justinformed.com/fms/SEO-Fundamentals-1.mp3]

Right Click and Save Download (13mb)

Resources
Get a Free Keyword Research Trial at Wordtracker
Nichebot
Niche Inspector

[audio:http://digitalstream.justinformed.com/fms/FASTmembershipsites.com-MarkThompson-Traffic.mp3]
 

Click to Download (21mb)

Resources
Wordpress Goldmine
Marks Traffic Guide
http://www.profitablewebsiteguides.com
Qassia – a credit-driven intelligence engine

09/04/2008 Update

Here’s How You Can Auto-submit Unique Articles to Hundreds of Directories
After I did the article marketing interview, I did some investigating and found a great time saver! If you’re short on time, here’s a great way to automatically spin and submit articles. Probably one of the biggest hassles when doing article submissions is signing up and confirming for all of the directories that you submit to. This is more of a hassle when you use multiple pen names. This new article submissions service that I’ve been using skips all of that. So all you have to do is create your spin and click on a few buttons to submit. You have the option to spread submissions over time or submit them in 1 shot. This is absolutely one of these easiest ways to get 100’s or even 1000’s of backlinks to your site. Click here to check it out!

Imagine having 10 different pen names. Some directories only allow 1 pen name per an account. So that means you’d have to create 10 accounts for each article directory. Imagine submitting to 300 directories. In this example, you’d be signing up for 3000 accounts.

Here’s how you can easily submit articles and manage multiple author profiles:

First of all, you’ll have to identify directories that allow multiple pen names. The easiest solution is to sign up with article directories that use the “Article Dashboard” article directory script.

You don’t have to hunt them down. I’ve actually compiled an excel spreadsheet that lists over 600 of them. You can download this spreadsheet here.

After you sign up, you’ll have to confirm your email address. Then, just login and create multiple pen name accounts.

The Importance of Submitting Articles

Articles allow you to easily get the word out about your site. You’ll have your article that can be seen from multiple websites, many which may be highly ranked in the search engines and can be seen easier than a site that has just been created. You’ll also get the benefit of backlinks. So creating links to your site from the resource boxes are very important. This will help increase your search engine rankings. Make sure that you vary your anchor text (the actual text in the link).

Why Would You Want to Create Multiple Pen Names?

There are many reasons…but I’ll give you just one. I manage and promote a bunch of sites in different markets. Imagine if somebody looked me up and saw that I wrote articles in over 50 different markets. How would you perceive this? I’m not really sure, but if I bought a dog training book from a guy that was also a bone health specialist, and also was a hypertension wiz, that would look kind of strange and make me second guess before buying something from the guy.

So that’s why I create multiple pen names. I create different persona’s in different areas. That’s just me. You don’t have to create multiple pen names if you’re trying to market your own name without pen names.

Speed Account Creation

I wanted to make this as easy as possible for you. A couple of years ago, I had a script that was able to automatically sign up for hundreds of accounts in less than a minute. That saved me a lot of time in creating accounts. However, I just tested it and similar programs this past week. They don’t work as good as they used to. So after signing up for close to 400 accounts, I realized that only 5% actually were successful. So you’d be better off manually going into each one and signing up.

The good thing is that they all use the same (or similar sign up form). So you can use a program like Robofrom to automate sign ups. If you don’t want to pay for another piece of software, you can use this free form filler called KeyWallet. It’s a little buggy, but it will store all of the fields like username, password, address,…etc. You can then go into each directories sign up form and automatically fill all of those fields out. So the sign up process is pretty quick; you just need to confirm via email and create pen names.

09/04/2008 Update

Here’s How You Can Auto-submit Unique Articles to Hundreds of Directories

After I did the article marketing interview, I did some investigating and found a great time saver! If you’re short on time, here’s a great way to automatically spin and submit articles. Probably one of the biggest hassles when doing article submissions is signing up and confirming for all of the directories that you submit to. This is more of a hassle when you use multiple pen names. This new article submissions service that I’ve been using skips all of that. So all you have to do is create your spin and click on a few buttons to submit. You have the option to spread submissions over time or submit them in 1 shot. This is absolutely one of these easiest ways to get 100’s or even 1000’s of backlinks to your site. Click here to check it out!

So in this interview, Jason interviews me and asks some questions regarding how to spin articles for a site that he’s working on. While he’s working on an affiliate site, you can apply many of the principles to your membership site as well.

In this interview, you’ll learn:

• My top 3 sources for getting free backlinks
• The psychology of selling and how it applies to your spun articles
• The exact formula that I use to spin articles
• The difference between a light and full article spin and when you should use each one
• How to create a resource box that stirs up a ton of traffic to your site
• …and more!

This interview is 1 hour long. You can download it here…

(Article Spinning Mastery)

[audio:http://digitalstream.justinformed.com/fms/fastmembershipsites.com-20080428-interview with Jason_.mp3]
 

Click Here to Download (18mb)

09/04/2008 Update

Here’s How You Can Auto-submit Unique Articles to Hundreds of Directories
After I did the article marketing interview, I did some investigating and found a great time saver! If you’re short on time, here’s a great way to automatically spin and submit articles. Probably one of the biggest hassles when doing article submissions is signing up and confirming for all of the directories that you submit to. This is more of a hassle when you use multiple pen names. This new article submissions service that I’ve been using skips all of that. So all you have to do is create your spin and click on a few buttons to submit. You have the option to spread submissions over time or submit them in 1 shot. This is absolutely one of these easiest ways to get 100’s or even 1000’s of backlinks to your site. Click here to check it out!

More Resources
IMwishlist.com – Free article directory and search engine friendly directory submitter
Roboform – One of the best password managers
Search Status – Mozilla Firefox SEO extension
SEO Quake – SEO Extension for Mozilla and Internet Eplorer

After I posted the free backlink strategy, I got a bunch of questions. So in this article, I’ll be clearing up some of the confusion and help you get started using this powerful strategy.

Q: Which sites should I submit my articles to?
A: I started compiling a list this month, based on an older list that I had. My intention was to classify the various sites, and to list the latest Google PR. While this list contains hundreds of article directories, keep in mind that a small percentage may not work, and that the PR and type listings are incomplete. However, you can use this spreadsheet to keep track of sites that you’ve submitted to. One way to do this is by coloring the fields. So you can copy this file into a directory for a specific website, or rename the file to the name of the website.

Each time you do a submission, do a color fill for the row. If you do another set, use another color. This may be hard to visualize, but the main thing is to use a method which will allow you to keep track of your submissions.

If you don’t have Microsoft Excel, you can use a free program called Open Office Calc to open this file:
http://www.fastmembershipsites.com/innercircle/?dl=FMS_article_directories.xls

Q: There’s so many directories out there, how do you keep track of all of them?
A: One way is to use the spreadsheet. For passwords, you can use a password manager. A paid one is called Roboform. This is a software that makes filling out forms easy. It will store hundreds or even thousands of passwords. Just fill in your master password and you’ll have the ability to login to sites easily. If you want a free one, then use something like KeyPass. Download the portable one and you can use it even from a USB stick.

Q: Do you use a special rewriter or article submission software for this?
A: Not really. Just a spreadsheet to keep track of what I’ve done and a password manager. I own article submission softwares, but I don’t do mass submissions for this system, as too many backlinks too fast may raise a red flag…especially if the rate of inbound links isn’t consistent.

Q: Do you submit to any other free sites besides article directories?
A: Yes. In fact, it’s good to have diversity…especially from an I.P. standpoint. Look into free blogs and other Web 2.0 sites. Knowledge sites and social communities that allow SEO links are what you want to look for. What I mean by this is primarily using sites that don’t use nofollow tags. If you use Firefox, there are a variety of SEO extensions that allow you to easily see nofollow links. You can use this free blog search tool that will list a bunch of blogs for you to post comments on – all without nofollow tags.

Q:Do you spin article titles and the resource box? If so, how many?
A: I try to spend every title and sentence (within the resource box) at least 5 times. That’s the lowest. However, I normally use 20 or more alternate titles, and many resource boxes. When I start a site, I’ll usually have at least 10 articles related to a product that I’m promoting. Before generating any content, do keep in mind that it’s for an offer that will make money…and I know from testing. Okay, continuing forward… I have 10 articles and that means they’re focused on a particular keyword with low to medium competition (under 100,000 competing pages – many under 10,000. That’s using the keyword in quotes (not allintitle). That’s because I’m competing against any competing page, not just SE optimized pages. Okay, so I have 10 articles based on 1 keyword. However, I do have secondaries that I’d like to rank for…at least 2 others.

So when I create a resource box, I’ll create variations. So let’s say that I have 3 keywords. One resource box might have the full URL to that article. Once resource box may have anchor text linking to that article. Once might have anchor text for secondary keyword and a link back to my homepage. Another might have a link back with another secondary and the full URL as a link to my home page or another page. Another might use a “click here” link. So I can use any 3 of these templates for all 10 articles. That means I would have 30 different resource boxes, building up deep links to all article pages and some to the home page.

I’m trying to create many variations to seem random and natural…and at the same time generating somewhat unique content.

Q: How long does it take to spin 1 article?
A: It takes me close to 2 hours to generate over 100 unique articles, with uniqueness of 35-65% (based on small random groups of articles that I’ve checked). That’s based on all of the info I mentioned so far, with the main body having at least 5 alternate sentences. …and I type at close to 60 wpm.

Q:Do you only spin certain parts of the article?
A:No, all of it…sentence by sentence. Sometimes, I’ll use a group of 2-3 sentences as an alternate for 1 sentence. They have the same meaning and flow with the intent of the article and paragraph.

Q:Do I proof read each article?
A:I just proofread each sentence after I type it, then I do a global spelling check. Remember, this isn’t using some synonym replacer, so everything is readable without looking like auto-generated content.

Q:How many articles can I output?
A:It depends on what you’re spinning. Use this as a general formula:
number of sentences X number of alternates (spins) = # of articles

So let’s say you had 4 paragraphs, each containing 5 sentences. If you used 5 alternates, you would have a maximum of 100 articles. Keep in mind that I did not factor in the titles or resource boxes. While you can, I personally don’t. This also increases the amount of uniqueness. I would rather spin another article, just to have another set of content that’s totally different from the last set. That’s just what I do.

Q:Do you use a thesaurus or synonym replacer.
A:No. For what I do, I do just find without spending additional time with those tools.

Q:Do you use LSI for these articles?
A:No. My focus isn’t to improve on page optimization for these pages. My goal is to get the page on my site ranked by forming backlinks from uniquely themed content. In fact, it’s not the whole article that I really care about – it’s the several words around the links that I focus on – the resource box. This area is very important. You want content around the anchor text to be well themed.

Q:How many articles directories/content sites do you submit to?
A:Roughly 3-5 a day. Each day is a different submission site. This rate may seem slow, but keep in mind that other webmasters will post your article onto their site. A recent group of 5 article submissions created 40 additional backlinks in less than a week. That’s the basic plan. While there’s an advanced one, I’ll have to go over it in the future.

While this process may seem tedious, in fact it’s pretty basic. You spend 2 hours to spin, and 30-60 minutes each day to submit articles. Then every 2 weeks update your site with new content. So with this plan, you’re spending close to 8 hours a week to promote your site and get hundreds of backlinks each month. …all without generating garbage content.

BTW, I don’t think that the search engines or articles directories like us spinning content – so be stealth about it and don’t let your competitors know what you’re doing.

9/4/2008 Update

Here’s How You Can Auto-submit Unique Articles to Hundreds of Directories
After I did the article marketing interview, I did some investigating and found a great time saver! If you’re short on time, here’s a great way to automatically spin and submit articles. Probably one of the biggest hassles when doing article submissions is signing up and confirming for all of the directories that you submit to. This is more of a hassle when you use multiple pen names. This new article submissions service that I’ve been using skips all of that. So all you have to do is create your spin and click on a few buttons to submit. You have the option to spread submissions over time or submit them in 1 shot. This is absolutely one of these easiest ways to get 100’s or even 1000’s of backlinks to your site. Click here to check it out!

In the past, getting links from places like guest books was a hot idea. Now it’s not and people are doing similar things with blog commenting/splogging. The same thing goes for search engine friendly directories. The effects are getting more diluted over time. I’ve even stopped most of my reciprocal linking.

What if you put up content on various websites that linked back to yours? Well, this idea isn’t new, but I’ve got a spin to it. I’ll let you in on low cost (or even free) strategy that is barely used by most webmasters….

Here’s something that I posted on another private forum that will give you a better idea about article spinning and how you can use it to get backlinks:

You can do a good spin and end up with over 100 unique articles and distribute those through tons of directories and web 2.0 properties to get inbound links in a natural fashion. I typically spin sentences and use many related anchor text’s.

I typically spin at least 5 alternate sentences. So if you have 5 alternate sentences, 5 sentences per paragraph, and 5 paragraphs, you can have close to 125 unique articles – with about 30-40% difference. I just did one and it took me close to an hour. Some people take half the time, double the time, and I’ve read about a guy doing one with 10 alternates and it took him a day.

I usually post these over a period of 1-3 months. Once those are done, I’ll spin another article and send them to another group of article directories (mostly different from the first set – with some overlap). So I expand the amount of C-Class IP’s pointing to my pages. Between different article sets, I randomize the order of the directories I submit to as well.

Even though this might seem like your competing against yourself, the overall plan is to boost your page using backlinks and be on top of your submitted pages and your competitors.

With this strategy, you’ll want to focus on deep linking (linking to internal pages) and getting them ranked. If you’re just starting out, try to rank pages that have less than a few thousand competitors. You’ll see the results pretty fast.

If I have time, I’ll usually social bookmark the stronger sites. If I’m more aggressive, I’ll social bookmark the social bookmarks and ping their RSS feeds.

So how do you spin? For a limited time, I’ll give you access to an article spinner.

Click here to start spinning

9/4/2008 Update

Here’s How You Can Auto-submit Unique Articles to Hundreds of Directories
After I did the article marketing interview, I did some investigating and found a great time saver! If you’re short on time, here’s a great way to automatically spin and submit articles. Probably one of the biggest hassles when doing article submissions is signing up and confirming for all of the directories that you submit to. This is more of a hassle when you use multiple pen names. The new article submissions service that I’ve been using skips all of that. So all you have to do is create your spin and click on a few buttons to submit.