Lots of the questions I get on Twitter and Facebook relate to blogging and SEO, and as I was typing up a quick and dirty guide to SEO Blogging for a client, I mentioned it to someone else and they asked for a copy. Then I mentioned it on Twitter and others asked. So I tidied it up a (little) bit, put it in PDF format and here it is

It covers:

• Thinking of what to write
• What not to blog
• How much should I write?
• How do I get people to comment?
• Should I tweet and facebook my blogs?
• Blogging for SEO – a quick and dirty guide
• Making sure Google knows about your blogs

It's not an advanced guide, it's not rocket science and hopefully it's not full of jargon.

I'm offering it free – no sign up, no cash, nothing – all I ask is that if you like it, you drop me a line in one of the many places you can find me, and then direct someone else to this page by either Tweeting about it, Facebooking it, mentioning it on Linked in, writing a blog post about it, or shouting on the High Street with a megaphone (special kudos to those of you who do the latter!).

Anyway, please click on the link to get 67 SEO Pointer for Blogging Beginners – a free guide

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photo credit: lumaxart

We’re on a bit of a Facebook Fan page mission here at NikkiPilkington.com – it seems that all of a sudden we’re building Fan Pages for clients large and small!

We love to see what others are doing with their Fan Pages, and with this in mind we’ve created the Here’s My Fan Page Fan Page!

Join as a fan, and post details of your fan page so other fans can find it! We’ll spotlight selected pages, post some of the on our other Fan Pages, and generally try to help you out with the gaining of fans.

All we ask in return is that you forward details of this page to your friends and contacts, and encourage them to join!

So please, become a fan, post details of your Fan Page, and help to spread the word!

And the other Facebook fan page post? Keep checking in or subscribe to the Feedburner feed top right to be alerted to it when it is posted!

We get asked this all the time – clients often spend a lot of time thinking about copy, words, structure and navigation, but then forget the essential piece that ties it all together – the pictures.

Only last week I had to tell a client that stealing pictures from other people’s websites was a BAD thing!

And yes, using Google Images to steal images is bad too – sorry!

Which is why I was very relieved to come across this post today from Web Design Booth – 30 websites to download free stock images.

It does what it says on the tin – 30 websites that offer free stock images that you can use on your website or blog without getting into trouble.

Now you have no excuses!

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Thanks to Dan at eco friendly hosting company Light Being Creations for helping us to point our clients to the Solar Powered Directory.

The guiding principle for the Solar Powered Directory is to only list businesses, NGO’s, charities and organisations that show a dedication to making this world a better place through ethical & sustainable business practices, care for the environment and valuing people.

As well as accepting business listings, the directory accepts personal sites and articles, and offers you the chance to create your own META tags in order to help your listings.

It’s new, so we can’t judge just yet, but it’s free and only takes 2 minutes – why not submit your site now?

If you know of any other ‘green’ directories, please let us know in the comments below.

A message that I’m constantly trying to get across to my clients is the power and value gained by “giving stuff away”. With a business that uses the Internet, it’s important to establish yourself online and giving stuff away is one of the quickest and most effective ways to do this. You don’t have to give up your valuable patents to share your knowledge with potential clients and lay the groundwork for turning freebies into paying customers.

Demonstrating Expertise
How does someone know that you can do what YOU say you can do? Demonstrate it. Make a Video Clip or write an article demonstrating just how much knowledge and expertise you have in your field. It can’t fail to impress and when you impress, you make an impression – leave a good impression and they’ll remember you, which means they’ll come to you when they need your help.

Establishing Credibility
Getting someone to buy something from you online is tough. How do they know who you are and how can they trust you? People buy from people, and the Internet causes a bit of a problem with that sales philosophy. So, extend your personality into cyberspace by giving away your knowledge and advice. Establishing credibility online is about convincing people that you can be trusted. The more they can find you efficiently demonstrating expertise, the more credibility you’ll establish and that means people will buy from you.

It Ain’t As Easy As It Looks
So you write an article about how to turn your blue widgets into red widgets, or you demonstrate your own skill with a YouTube clip. People are impressed by your skill and knowledge. But once they have a go at it, they quickly realise that it takes skill and knowledge to do it like you do it. So they give you a call…

Branding
Everything you give away will include your branding. Imagine it’s basically an advertisement for your brand, product or services. But instead of just distracting them – the intention of most ads, the freebie is actually useful to them – helping them see you as helpful and making you the first point of call when they need your expertise, product or service.

Linkable You
If you put something out there that’s genuinely useful, people will link to it. Links can help with search engine rankings as well as provide all valuable traffic.

Referable You
When people like something, they’ll refer other people to you – which means you get free marketing.

It’s been my personal experience that every time I give stuff away for free, I end up getting dozens and dozens (if not more) of leads from it.

But won’t people steal your ideas and run away with your fortune? No. Ideas are ten-a-penny. It’s the delivery that counts.

But won’t people just be able to do stuff themselves without your help? Well, if it was that easy in the first place, they wouldn’t need you anyway.

Zig Ziglar once said ‘You can have anything you want in life, if you’ll help enough people to get what they want’. Give it away and it’ll come back to you.

Tell me in the comments below what YOU give away for free and how it’s helped you to bring in leads and sales.

photo credit: Stephen K. Will

I received the following request this morning:

I am looking to start a blog that is free (or very cheap) to run, is easy to edit and write on and add photos etc.

I want this blog to be fully search engine optimised, so it comes up close to the top of google for all relevant search terms as well.  I also want some ad space on the site so I can start earning straight away.

How much would you charge for this?  I just want to be handed a blog that is at the top of google and is ready to go when you are finished…

If anyone is handing these kind of blogs out, let me know please. If you have a spare Johnny Depp, I’ll have that too

People’s reactions to my job / business frequently amuse me, but none more so than the responses to various promotional links I place in the places I network online.

As some of you know, yesterday I wrote a list of “10 Things You can Post on Your Facebook Fan Page” – and at the end of it is a promo for a special offer we’re running on setting up Facebook Business / Fan pages.

Last night I posted a status update on Facebook mentioning this, and received the following response from someone:

“Wow, you CHARGE for something as simple as that? Its easy to do for FREE”

Anyone who has read my articles, posts and comments over the past 10+ years will know that I have ALWAYS said that you don’t have to hire someone like me to do your SEO, set up your Facebook fan pages, write your articles, do your blogging etc etc etc – you can do it yourself, and in fact I provide a whole host of articles aimed at helping you to do these things yourself, the aforementioned 10 Things You can Post on Your Facebook Fan Page included.

Recent articles and freebies I’ve published on the site include:

• Free Twitter for Business checklist – to help you plan and run your Twitter account
• Top Ten Tips to Make Article Marketing Work For You – showing you how to pomote yourself with articles
• 3 ways to Increase Your Website Conversion Rate – showing you how to increase leads and sales by changing a few things on your site and NOT hiring someone like me!
• 20 Ways to Website Heaven – 20 FREE ways to promote your website

The list goes on, but one thing all of these have in common is that I tell you you CAN do this yourself – if you want to and if you have the time.

OK, so a lot of the articles I write and the freebies I give DO have a link or promo for one of my services, but this is always the afterthought – the main aim of the article is to tell you that this stuff isn’t that difficult to learn – *I* learned how to do it, so you can too!

However, like anyone, I have to make a living. I give out free advice, help people out for free and even take on work on a pay by results basis on occasion, but at the end of the day I have a family to feed and a shopping habit to fund, so I charge for my expertise and time.

So to have someone (and it happens a lot) come clod hopping over my posts with ‘And you charge for that? But it’s easy to do for free!’ really really gets my goat.

Yes, I charge for my services. I charge for my time. And I charge for my knowledge. It’s up to my readers and contacts to decide whether or not they want to take the free advice I give and do the work themselves, or pay me and my colleagues to do it for them.

As for the person complaining about me charging for something “so simple”? Well, he’s a business coach. I’m thinking of posting “Wow, you tell people how to run their business? And you CHARGE for that? How far into the course does the ‘post unprofessional comments on other people’s posts’ module kick in?”

Grrr….

photo credit: Jan Tik

One of the more frequent questions we get asked here at NikkiPilkington.com is ‘Where can we submit our press releases for free?’

Usually we tell people to ‘Google’ for free press release sites, but it always makes us feel a bit mean, so the lovely Leigh has put together a list of free sites for you!

You can download the Free Press Release Sites PDF here

We know from our overflowing inbox that lots of you have questions about Google Adwords.

It seems so easy – sign up, post some ads, get traffic, make money.

But as everyone who has tried it soon finds out, there’s more to it than that!

This FREE e-book will help you through the process of setting up and making money from your Google Adwords account – download it now with our compliments

See below for a full chapter list:

• “Are You Prepared To Profit From Instant Web Traffic?”………………………….4
• “10 Minutes To Instant Web Traffic”…………………………………………………..10
• “Keyword Research Basics”……………………………………………………………..23
• “How to Write Ads that Attract Clicks”……………………………………………….33
• “Tracking Ads and Landing Pages”……………………………………………………45
• “Adwords Keyword Strategies”…………………………………………………………55
• Bonus Chapter – Finding Profitable Markets……………………………………….63
• Bonus Chapter – Finding High Paying Adsense Keywords……………………..72
• Bonus Chapter – Finding Profitable Keywords…………………………………….78

So what are you waiting for? It’s here, it’s fab and it’s FREE

FREE STEPS TO HEAVEN

Leading Internet Marketing expert Nikki Pilkington releases acclaimed E-Book FREE for one day only!

Author and Internet Marketing Legend Nikki Pilkington reveals the secrets to website success in her acclaimed E-Book ‘299 Steps to Website Heaven’, available for FREE download for one day only – August 1^st 2008.

You may have the most innovative, extraordinary product on the market, but isn’t it frustrating that no one ever visits your website? You may as well hand it to the competition, along with the profits!

These days, web presence and Search Engine rankings are vital to the success of your business.   If you’re clueless about web presence, stuck down in the rankings, baffled by keywords and dumbfounded by density, you need this FREE E-Book. Without this crucial inside-information, you’re leaving a critical element of your Internet Marketing to chance.

But there’s so much conflicting advice from experts, it’s easy to be confused and it’s hard to know the truth. Search Engine Optimizers employ a wide variety of tricks and techniques to provide demonstrable results to their clients.  These SEO experts are more than happy to charge you an arm and a leg for it too!   If your business can afford the monthly expense of SEO support from an expert, that’s great!  But for the rest of us, there’s Nikki Pilkington’s 299 Steps to Website Heaven.

Imagine the time and money you could save by doing it for yourself!  And you can, because Nikki Pilkington’s 299 Steps to Website Heaven gives you concise, clearly written tips for optimizing your own website.

Following Nikki’s expert advice, you will learn to:

• Understand the basics of Search Engine Optimization
• Choose and employ Killer Keywords in just the right density
• Utilize your new knowledge to gain Higher Search Engine Listings
• Communicate effectively with SEO Professionals

With these valuable secrets in your own hands, you’ll benefit from the measurable differences in just a few weeks.   You’ll spend less time looking for customers, as increased traffic brings them directly to you!

This strictly limited offer E-Book is yours absolutely free to download on 1^st August 2008 (GMT).

If you’d like to take advantage of this exclusive offer to download 299 Steps to Website Heaven completely FREE, click here to sign up –  or contact Nikki directly at Nikki@NikkiPilkington.com