Humber Starting an Internet Business Course

[adrian1170]

I am going to be helping to teach a 10 week course at Humber College in Etobicoke this Saturday called Starting a successful business using the Internet.

Even if you cant come to the course, I would be glad to help with any questions about ecommerce sites you might have.

I focus mainly on getting free traffic and working with Google adsense and affiliate programs rather than PPC.

If your site is new and needing traffic, I will try to help.

[red120]

Sounds very useful. Any protips right off the bat?

[adrian1170]

Give your a pages a keyword focus

Brainstorm your business or interests to create a list of keywords you wish to research.

Its a good idea to have 3 areas of interest in case your keyword research proves that 1 or more will be too competitive to rank in.

Take your three areas of interest and research keywords for each

Heres a useful free tool for this:

http://123promotion.co.uk/ppc/

This free tool gives an estimate of "profitability" which you use to determine if its worth writing pages with that keyword

If you find you have a niche with a least 30 profitable keywords you can write pages about, you are bound to rank well for some of them.

[wheel]

Don't take this wrong, but that sounds like a pretty lightweight approach to me.

1 or more will be too competitive to rank in.
That's not the right attitude at all. There's a reason areas are competitive - they're where the money is.

[adrian1170]

I dont take that wrong at all,

I respect your opinion, you know the PPC business pretty darn well

And in the PPC business paying to create and ad which uses a carefully selected group of keywords to hopefully get good position in a competitive niche is an art and a science.

But I'm not talking about PPC

I disagree with you for regular websites looking for free traffic.

Pick 1 or 2 keywords that are heavily searched but with little competition, provide excellent non gimmicky, honest content that others want to read and you will rank well.

It is that simple

[Canucklehead]

Rankings are algorithm driven so I don't think "excellent, non gimmicky, honest content" will cut it. The spiders don't evaluate the visual aspect of the site and interpret the content to see if it's "honest" or even comprehensible - that's why you see a lot of crappy sites ranking high (most tend to be SEO sites). Good for sites that rely on adsense but IMHO that is akin to seeing a HUGE sign in a store that says 90% off*...and in a tiny font at the bottom, it says "up to". Most customers walk in and walk out disappointed. You don't want to do the same thing on your legit site. The strategy is totally different.

I would focus on long tail search items instead of discounting those that aren't deemed "profitable". In any event, you're looking at a 2-3 month time horizon before you're anywhere near noticed aren't you?

BTW, I teach at Humber as well....marketing ;)

[adrian1170]

Rankings are algorithm driven to begin with but once human visitors discover the real value of your site they will begin visiting it and linking to it, driving your rankings higher. Its human visitors approval that you are after anyway. I dont mind waiting for that.

Why rush in ?

Set up your site properly, take your time, do your research. Build your "long tail" of high value keywords and pages that use them

First you get a few visitors, then that doubles, and doubles again and again

Whats wrong with that ?

[Canucklehead]

That's what I'm saying :) Nothing wrong with that.

[lindmar]

How do they decide on who teaches these courses..

I can't imagine going to college for this.
My business is 100% internet based, I went to University for something totally different.

[Rehan]

I can't imagine going to college for this.
My business is 100% internet based, I went to University for something totally different. Yeah, it doesn't seem like a typical college/university course.
http://calendardb.humber.ca/LIS/WebCalendar/CE/CourseOffering.do?name=BSIB_100

I wonder how many of the 12 students are going to recoup their cost for the course -- $800 plus their time. Does someone who need that much handholding really have what it takes to make decent money online?

[wheel]

Does someone who need that much handholding really have what it takes to make decent money online?
Maybe. When I first started I bought some consulting from sugarrae (http://www.sugarrae.com) and to date, it was the best money I've ever laid out. It got me from 0 to hero in about a week. Handholding money very well spent :). She taught me principles that still apply today even if some of the specifics have changed a bit through the years.

That being said, I predict this course will be a waste of money. I'm smelling all the signs of lightweight SEO. When the focus is on longtail and 'building good content for visitors', well, that crap doesn't last when you've got real competition that knows what they're doing. Because once you've got competition, non-specific platitudes like that don't get you ranked.

Ranking is about inbound links. That's it - nothing else. Anybody who says anything else simply doesn't know what they're talking about. Everyone's familiar with googlebombing and the term 'miserable failure', yet even with in your face evidence like that (and the fact that using inbound links as the primary ranking factor), people still try to take the easy way out and suggest it's about onpage stuff, or worse, about 'visitors'.

If you're looking at doing SEO, get your head around Canuckle's post. It's about an algorithm, a formula. Not something nebulous and vague. No, we don't know what's in it, but we can guess. Certainly Google doesn't rank 'good content' or 'visitor behavior' or anything else vague like that. If you're reading stuff that doesn't specifically point to something that Google can obviously measure, then it's not going to get you ranked.

Google does look at onpage things. But they're measurable and identifiable. Things like title tags. Is the content unique. length of content. outbound links. And so on. And all those things pale in comparison against the weight that Google affords inbound links.

Given enough inbound links, you can rank on anything just by throwing up some content. I know this firsthand. Given enough good content, you won't rank on squat without the right inbound links. And someone else can easily come along and eat your lunch by having a site with better inbound links.

[Canucklehead]

Yeah, it doesn't seem like a typical college/university course.
http://calendardb.humber.ca/LIS/WebCalendar/CE/CourseOffering.do?name=BSIB_100

I wonder how many of the 12 students are going to recoup their cost for the course -- $800 plus their time. Does someone who need that much handholding really have what it takes to make decent money online?

This course is designed for those that don't have time to invest in learning the basics OR for companies that send their staff to get "educated" quickly. Money is not the primary concern here. I suspect that those that need this kind of handholding would value one-year access to a website building system with standard "forum" support - they just don't know better. They will invest hours building a site on a proprietary system and then after the free year, the monthly fee kicks in. They won't want to rebuild their site and the service providers gets a long-term revenue stream!

If someone really wanted to take a course, they could register for a under $100 or even FREE via their local Chamber of Commerce, Small Business Development Centre or Library.

There IS a price to pay for ignorance :)

[adrian1170]

Ouch !

You guys sure know a lot about this course considering you've never taken the time to look into it or even speak to me at length about it.

I think theres a little bit of jumping to conclusions going on here.

Bear in mind that I show you respect when I think it is due, I think your comments are a little uncalled for.

Let me explain a little bit about this course and perhaps you can afford to be a little bit more open minded.

This course is one of 14 being run across Canada and the USA by Sitesell, a company that was founded by Dr Ken Evoy. Mr. Evoy started Sitesell in 1995 and is a true pioneer in the ecommerce industry.

Sitesell normally sells its all-in-one ecommerce websites for $299.00 a year. A couple of years ago 2 sitesell users set up a course at Dawson College in Montreal to guide people through the 10 day action guide used to create a sitesell website. The course was very well received and continues there to this day. Dawson College charges $600.00 for their course.

This year the 2 creators of the Dawson College course put together a group of 14 experienced SBI owners and set about starting the course in Universities and Colleges across Canada and the USA. Presently their are courses running at the University of Arizona, at Algonquin College in Ottawa, at Conestoga College, Humber College and even as part of the MBA program at the Citadel
University in South Carolina.

The course is worth every penny of the $800 Humber charges. My partner Anthony and I are gong to bend over backwards to make sure the 12 students going though the course right now earn back every cent through their websites and more.

You can certainly learn a lot for free over the internet but for some people, who are not quite as smart as you gentlemen obviously are, its very difficult to put all the techniques together. There are people who need hand holding.

They are people who know their business and know how to work hard but have been taken to the cleaners by unscrupulous web developers and promoters. Some business owners spend thousands apon thousands of dollars on websites which produce absolutely no traffic.

Once our students finish our course they will continue to receive support through the instructors, from Sitesell and through the best ecommerce support forum available, which is included with their $299 per year subscription.

[wheel]

We understood that you were promoting sitesell's services via the course without the extended clarification. We also understood that there's a lot of unscrupulous/unknowledgeable folks in the SEO industry without the extended clarification, which you might consider as part of the reason some of us are posting here.

What we're (I'm) saying is that everything YOU'VE noted makes this sound like overpromoted lightweight SEO techniques. I didn't make that up, I took it from your posts.

, provide excellent non gimmicky, honest content that others want to read and you will rank well
That is like two pounds of crap in a one pound bag. That's what that is.

Why rush in ?
Setup for failure.
First you get a few visitors, then that doubles, and doubles again and again
Oh, OK. Great plan if you can implement it. How about my plan that I implemented last year on one of my sites that doubled my already high traffic in under a month? You'd suggest I slow down a bit?

If you find you have a niche with a least 30 profitable keywords you can write pages about, you are bound to rank well for some of them.
I disagree 100%.

I also disagree with every time you speak you focus on niche/long tail. There's very valid reasons for focusing on this from a business perspective. But when your teaching revolves around what are basically long tail terms, that says you're not going to teach how to rank on competitive terms. And the inference from that is that you don't know how to rank on competitive terms. Which gets back to one of the points you raised and I quoted above.

Mr. Evoy started Sitesell in 1995 and is a true pioneer in the ecommerce industry.
Never heard of him. I started my first ecommerce business in Canada in 1998 and was one of the first 1000 people in Canada to accept Visa cards online. Does that make me a true pioneer? Because if I get to ride around on one of those covered wagons, I'm definitely in.

SitesellSitesell Sitesell normally sells its all-in-one ecommerce websites for $299.00 a year. $600.00 for their course.

a group of 14 experienced SBI owners and set about starting the course in Universities and Colleges across Canada and the USA. $800 Humber charges. Sitesell$299 per year subscription.
I've restated your posts, with just the relevant stuff.

Until you show that you're going to show people how to rank on competitive terms, or even address any of my points in my post about linking, I percieve you as exactly the type of webmaster you claim to be against. You're using the name of a university and people's gullibility about SEO to promote Sitesell's paid service. And you're going to be teaching lightweight SEO techniques that won't get you ranked for squat. Despicable, and you got called on it.

Here's my advice on how to spend $800:
- find a website in your industry that has a couple of hundred links to it that is from 1999 and is basically abandoned. Buy it for $800
- Throw up some articles on it.
- wait 30-90 days.

You'll be outranking every one of Adrian's students.

[wheel]

Also, are you going to be teaching about how to spam Wikipedia.org? Or do you keep that practice for your own websites? :).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_door

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Screen_door&action=history

(notice all the edits by someone named adrian1170, adding links from wikipedia to the screen door site in this adrian1170's sig here).

Let's do this. Why don't you spit out some credentials of your own. Give us some competitive keywords that you rank for, something we can look at and say 'this guy knows what he's doing'. Cause that screen door site doesn't rank for squat.

[adrian1170]

"Ranking is about inbound links. That's it - nothing else. Anybody who says anything else simply doesn't know what they're talking about. "

Yes inbound links are important, building your own links is certainly not as "easy" as buying an existing site with existing links. But Buying such a site is definitely not for the beginner. You would really have to everything about that site to mak e an informed purchase.

I prefer to take the long hard approach of building links through forum posts, blog comments, using my url in my sif, posting articles on article city, on ehow and squidoo and so on. Not as high-flying as buying an existing site, but effective nontheless

Were not going to agree. But I will get my students plenty of traffic and have their sites make money.

[wheel]

I prefer to take the long hard approach of building links through forum posts, blog comments, using my url in my sif, posting articles on article city, on ehow and squidoo and so on. Not as high-flying as buying an existing site, but effective nontheless

Exactly my point. Every single link building technique you've mentioned are either simplistic beginner techniques or are long discounted by any respected SEO'er. I used them all years ago, I don't use any of them now other than rarely in passing because individually they're basically worthless.

For example, word on the street is that squidoo got a hand job from Google. I've got links there now, but certainly wouldn't waste my time on that anymore. Yet you're still touting it as a respected spot for links. Hadn't you heard about squidoo? It even made the public forums. Maybe it didn't get a hand job, but it's public enough that I discount it. Same goes for article submissions (done it), blog links (done it), and forum links (done it). Done it all; three-four years ago.

We're not disagreeing on tactics, there's plenty of folks know more than I do and use techniques that work that I don't use. But I've claimed your techniques as basically worthless - and you don't refute my claims with any evidence. Show me one competitive term you rank on using those techniques. Until then, we're not disagreeing, you're ignoring my claim that you have no credentials and don't know how to rank.

The paid SEO business is chock full of people peddling this garbage. Few know their business, and you don't find them peddling $800 courses. I get customers calling me telling me they've taken courses or they've laid out thousands for SEO work...and got nothing in the way of results. This course is another in a long line. It's just uglier because it's hooked to a good name.

But whatever. I've said my piece, you've said yours. Folks can read and decide if I've made claims and you've refuted them. I've also done SEO class type things and folks here can call me out publicly as promoting bullcrap too if they like :).

[adrian1170]

Wheel

I put my google sitemaps search query results in the following document:

http://aaadrafting/images/sitemaps.doc