It’s been two months since I wrote what’s been lovingly nicknamed “Virgin’s guide to SEO”. It’s probably been the most popular post that I’ve done with more than 250 likes. It’s a really hard act to follow, and I hope that I will be able to do it justice. If you haven’t already then I’d suggest reading it – Virgin’s guide to SEO

I intend to do a series, but I like to have tested out things that I’m talking about first. With anything Google/SEO this takes time, a lot of it, it’s a waiting game as much as anything. The Google cogs turn slowly and quite rightly they have probably trillions of pages to index and serve you up every-time you request your daily Google menu. Props on them, they do (and have) deliver(ed) the best results of any search engine for years now.

This (Part 2) is about the overall Ethos that goes into what you’re doing. It’s not spoon-feed step by step, often not my style, as I prefer teach a man to fish, rather than give him the fish, that way he or she learns to fend for him or herself. I can do Spoon feed on request, if there’s particular things people want clarification on.

Ethos is far more important than anything else. Far more important than the individual guides or concepts, simply with the right “attitude” you can achieve anything you want to – In this case getting visitors, pageviews, comments, followers and for some, spending customers.

Without promoting your website in the competitive online arena, I’m sorry but nothing is likely to happen for you. And it’s incredibly disheartening to expend all that effort only to have no one visit, I know this from my own experience. That’s why promoting has become so important to me.

Ethos of promoting a Blog or Website on Google – A.B.P.

In sales they have ABC – Always Be Closing. For promoting I have ABP – Always Be Promoting.

If there’s one thing you were allowed to take away from this post and had learn’t FULLY – it’s “A B P” ALWAYS BE PROMOTING. What does that mean? Well it means what it says, every-time you write an email, post a comment, design a logo, write a post, upload an image, eat your lunch, take a shower, your OVERARCHING thought is – BE PROMOTING.

How can I promote myself, my blog, my website? You live it, eat it, drink it, shower it, walk it and even poop it. Every conversation you have online or offline, how can I promote what I’m doing?

Of course make this natural, no one likes the pushy salesman or saleswoman, who is craving over dipping his or her needy little hand into your pocket, that’s just creepy isn’t it? What I mean is do it slowly, patiently, persistently, put passion and enthusiasm into it. People will start asking you about what you’re doing naturally. Take a look at this tweet that TravellingMacs sent me :

I like her attitude, she wasn’t afraid to ask for my help and advice. Since then we’ve had several conversations, and I’ve given her a ton of advice. She’s a lovely lady and great blog, I hope she’ll be as successful as she wants to be – definitely worth a visit – http://travellingmacs.wordpress.com/

Recently I went on a road-trip, 12 hours there and back, with a bunch of strangers (me and 6 others). Personally I like to listen to my music, relax, meditate a bit, not actively seeking to be sociable. The journey was enjoyable enough great scenery, I got the front seat in the mini-bus. On the way back we get a flat tyre, the driver stops to get it repaired at a garage. Of course we all get out of the mini-bus and stretch a bit. People start taking pictures, it’s an event, an ice-breaker. An American-Chinese guy and I start chatting. I tell him I’m doing a blog and doing promoting and SEO. BANG a switch goes off in his head and he’s like question after question about doing blogs, promoting and SEO. My point is that I’d actually gone out of my way not to be promoting myself, relax a bit, but the opportunity TO PROMOTE MYSELF arrived serendipitously. There’s always opportunities, all of the time and it pays to be a bit prepared for them.

Personally I’m a free-will-ist, so not luck, just happened to be what I was thinking about at the time. Enjoying thinking about what I’m doing with my blog and promoting it. And bang a potential customer or friend or whatever.

#1 THE NUMBER ONE RULE – ABP – ALWAYS BE PROMOTING

#2 Always be Proactive

Try and think of your own ideas and inspiration. If you’re struggling, take the first bit of inspiration that comes from outside. Do a post on cooking Pasta when someone talks about tomatoes, like the one I did here –https://doncharisma.org/2013/10/23/tomato-pasta-the-right-way/ which was promted by a friend’s ketchup recipe. Do a post on designing a logo when you’ve just done one. Do a post on how you’ve dealt with a debt collector recently. Go first, be a leader, take the initiative or take the first idea that inspires you and realise it now. Always keep trying new ideas, doesn’t matter where they came from or if they are original or not.

#3 Always be Positive

Positivity will push you forward, negativity will drain your energy. Same for others in your social circles and networks online and offline, gradually “loose touch” with the negative people and actively engage with and reward the positive influences. Try and retrain your own thoughts to be more positive or at least find the positives in any negative situations. By all means help and support friends, family and others who are a bit negative, but retain the positive energy you need to be doing what you want to do.

#4 Always be Posting

Promoting is akin to advertising. You just keep on doing it. Try, refine, try, refine, try, refine. Keep on posting content, even if it’s not 100%, you can always learn something, often others will see the value where you sometimes struggle. Genuine readers who genuinely enjoy your website, will ignore the stuff they are not interested in, they scan stuff anyway. Just keep posting as often as you can, or if you’re lucky enough to have a surplus of content, schedule it, and schedule it for time of day you think your audience will be most receptive. I just did a post on what are good times of day to post here – https://doncharisma.org/2013/10/27/what-is-the-best-time-of-day-to-post-on-your-blog/

#5 Always be Polite

There’s very rarely a need for rudeness. All of the people that I admire and respect are polite. Yes they are firm, and perhaps a little rude if provoked. But polite people have respect for others. Treat other people how you’d like to be treated yourself.

And that doesn’t mean cleverly crafted passive-aggressive insults and innuendos, most people are intelligent enough to see what you’re actually saying, if you haven’t got anything positive or polite to say then shut-up, or keep it brief.

If you want to know more about my attitude to people behaving badly, then you might like to read my post on how I dealt with trolls here – https://doncharisma.org/2013/10/10/trollsrus-a-guide-to-blog-trolls-moose-mr-whisk-and-the-axe-murderer/

#6 Always be Patient

This shit takes time, a lot of it, and a lot of effort. The little Google elves that drive the Google machine have a massive workload. It takes time for Google to do anything on their search engine, it makes sense they have trillions of pages to deal with. Also your blog or website will take time to get momentum going. Be patient and realise that the job at hand isn’t seconds or minutes, it’s measured in weeks, months and years. Don’t lose heart, just keep at it, the rewards will come, patience is important !

#7 Always be P…Happy (are you still awake ?)

Isn’t really a ‘P’ – I get things done better, quicker, more innovatively when I’m relaxed and happy. I also enjoy what I’m doing, and people looking at my cartoon or my logo or my content will get that. It shines through in what I do and who I am. Try and be happy as you can in doing all of the mundane and fiddly and time-consuming bits, there are lots of them. And especially be happy when you’re making your content, happy content is gonna get you friends, links, reblogs, reviews, mentions. All this drives traffic into you blog or website, and all help you promote yourself.

#8 Always be Personable

People that visit your blog or website and make comments are generally decent normal people same as you. Being friendly and helpful, pegs you as an ally, a friend, someone the other person could give a damn about. Further, it pegs you as someone who is worthy of their time and support, they might end up a customer, they might reblog one of your posts to there 25000 readers – A fellow blogger actually did this for me recently, and that was even after I didn’t help him previously when he’d asked me. Main thing is I’m friendly, positive and generally enjoyable to be around.

Treat others how you’ve like to be treated yourself, and others will help you.

#9 Always be (a) Professional

It’s often tempting to do stuff which isn’t very nice to other people, especially when they are being stupid. Professional means having ethics, morals and integrity. Which means you do your best to be a good person, and act like any sensible normal well adjusted person would in all situations. Ethics, morals and integrity inspire trust in others. Others that trust you will help you promote what you’re doing, they will visit your site, participate in what your doing and might end up being friends or customers.

#10 Always be Presentable

I have to put myself in the shoes of LedaMonsterBunny (not literally of course), before she’s making a YouTube video that gets a million hits. For those that don’t know her she’s a “scene girl” and a very popular one at that. I was a little hard on her in my last post, but didn’t mean any harm, I’ve researched her a bit now and she’s alright. Anyway, she has all that makeup to put on, get it just right, the hair died or she’s had to go shopping for a wig. The clothes and the accessories. My point is that there’s a hell of a lot of planning, and preparation. She’s had to think about what she’s going to say, and about how she’s going to do the video before switching the camera. She works incredibly hard to make the PRESENTABLE image that she wants to present. If you don’t like Leda bunny, maybe look at Brad Pitt or Robert Downey Jr or even Richard Branson. They are ALWAYS presentable, ALWAYS. If you’re gonna be successful, being presentable is so crucial.

And look please stop deluding yourselves, it’s got FUNK all to do with vanity, forget that shit. It’s got to do with being a charismatic leader, and charismatic leaders are PRESENTABLE, they do it for you mostly, not for them.

#11 Always be Pondering

Think about (and if you’re capable feel into) how to, how to, how to. How can I promote what I’m doing ? What can I do to promote what I’m doing ? Dream about it when you’re on a bus or out walking your dog, or watching TV. Invent new stuff in your imagination. Imagine what if, cultivate little ideas that pop up, expand and develop them in the best testing space there is, in your imagination. It’s such a powerful tool, shame to let it go to waste.

And it’s also really, really fun. My daily walk along the beach of around maybe 5 miles, I love to listen to music that I’ve selected that makes me happy and gets my creative flow going. Use that free time to dream your way to where you want to be. Many of my best posts and ideas are created this way.

#12 Always be Photoshop’ing

I really really FUNKing enjoy the design aspects of doing blogs and websites. I LOVE creating visual effects and doing the stuff that I could only dream about in the past, with text, graphics, cartoon, colors etc. It’s so rewarding to me, step back and look at it and say WOW I DID THAT MYSELF and I have proof that I can show to everyone else. Photoshop, GIMP, Illustrator etc are powerful tools for creating awesome stunning graphics. They also say a picture says a thousand words, entirely correct. Use those tools to make a wall of text into a fun little journey for you and your readers. Break it up with some humour, and get their emotional brain going, along with the intellectual.

I couldn’t stress just how much fun and pleasure I’ve had creating visually appealing stuff, it just makes me happy every time. Obviously be patient with Photoshop, it’s got a massive array of features and needs time to take in. Best way I found to get started is hunt for videos on YouTube and then you can follow the other person step by step. Google it, “Grafitti text photoshop” find the guide you want, try it out, easy. Check out my friend Danny’s tutorial and video on creating a Graffiti logo – http://dannyboybroderick.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/how-to-create-a-graffiti-logo/

#13 Always be P…Lucky (13’s unlucky ?)

Personally I’m not a fate-ist, I’m a free-will-ist. I like the sentiment luck, but I believe we create a lot of out own luck. So find out a way to be lucky, find out how to win, it’s that simple. You can use your imagination to help you with this.

#14 Always be Progressing

Some people may be happy with 1000 impressions a day on Google and 20 pageviews. I am not, I want to reach a level, enjoy it a bit and then move towards the next level. There is always a next level. Aim to keep progressing, try and think ahead at the current level and incorporate what you’ll need later into what you’re doing now.

I’ve included here (above) a recent screen-print from my Google Webmaster tools. I’m making progress. No I’m not getting millions of hits on viral posts. But I am making progress, good progress, Google are showing my posts more and more often. I’m starting to gain some trust from Google and they are starting to give me more “authority”.

#15 Always be Pioneering

The arenas that you’ll be competing in are constantly evolving, changing. Look for niches and exploitable anomalies and try them out. Maybe it’ll be cooking recipes of the ancient island people of “Tou-man-fou” or secrets of growing authentic Japanese wasabe at $100 a root. Find those niches and anomalies that you think you can take advantage of and try it out. Marketers and promoters are constantly pioneering, and learning as they go along. Think of an idea, try it, look at feedback, do again adjusted for success. With a new idea incorporate what you learnt on your earlier attempts. Try, try, try, try, try, try, try, and keep on trying until something works, and then keep on trying.

Never stop trying new things, be a leader, go first, be a pioneer.

#16 Always be Passionate

Somebody that’s doing a blog or website just for the money or because he or she feels she ought to, or they are bored and haven’t got anything else to do, is likely to produce BORING and UNINTERESTING content. This means they don’t get any followers, don’t get any pageviews, don’t get any customers and they really don’t get any success. Somebody who LOVES the hell out of what they are doing, can’t hardly sleep because they are so excited about it, will produce awesome, first class, innovative content that others can’t wait to see.

Simple really ?

#17 Always be Persistent

Never ever give up. Take a break, rest, have a sleep, have a holiday. But NEVER EVER GIVE UP on what your dreaming to do. Just keep at it, do the best you can, try, try, try. Persistence does pay off with Google and the success of your website or blog. I’ve been doing this now 5 months, added over 5000 followers and my daily impressions on Google are close to 2000. It wasn’t always like that as you can see from the graph I’ve included here (a few pictures above). It doesn’t even include the impressions and hits from before I bought my own domain DonCharisma.org, when it was still DonCharisma.wordpress.com

Just have to keep on pushing at it, slowly and surely you’ll get there, the rewards will come to those who persist.

#18 Always be Paraphrasing

Google and any search engine relies on words and the magic SNIPPETS. Learn to paraphrase, that is say it in your own words. More than that in fact, play around saying your message in 2000, 1000, 500, 200, 100, 50, 20, 10 words, different size Snippets for Twitter and for Google. Look at what others write and what appeals to you. SNIPPETS are really really important, I want to do a whole post on that later.

#19 Always be Pliable

Adapting to changing circumstances, not being rigid, not sticking to rigid idea, be Pliable. The game your playing in will and does change often, you need to adapt to and exploit these changing circumstances. Be adaptable, pliable, flexible, this makes you much more able to succeed. Drop ideas that don’t work, try new ones. Also it’s a different ballgame having 500 followers than it is with 5000, and then again different ballgame at 50000. So you need to adapt and change to suit where you currently are.

A big for instance is that WordPress.com recently added Google+ in Publicize. For those of you who don’t know about Google+ authorship, well it’s possible to get your photo right there on the Google results. This is massive, huge, if you haven’t done it, create you Google+ account and set it up on your blog or website. I’d want to do a post on this later, as Google+ is really important.

#20 Always be Powerful

You may not always realise but your words and what you do on your blog or website have an impact on other people. You can literally change people’s lives with what you say and do. So word your content powerfully, make your graphics bold and say things clearly and forcefully. Obviously temper that with wisdom, overly arrogant isn’t necessarily very attractive or powerful, might be more the words of a tyrant, so don’t be afraid to soften where appropriate. As you become more and more successful, your words and deeds get amplified, more people read and more people are influenced. Be powerful in your words and deeds. Be firm and straightforward. But don’t be a tyrant.

Most people know the story of the Wizard of Oz. He didn’t think he was very powerful, but turned out he was a lot more powerful than he thought. Great movie, watch it.

#21 Always be Peaceful

Sounds like a contradiction to some of the other “Always Be…” rules. Sometime it is or can be.

What I mean is that rest, relaxation, time to just “be”, time for your friends, family and loved ones, is AS, if not more important than your promoting/working time. Use these times of PEACE to relax, meditate, ponder, strategise, build ideas and use your imagination to help you towards your goal of that internet success that you want. Also you will make mistakes, get tired, bored and have other commitments that will mean that you can’t “Always Be …”. Deal with these interruptions with the same passion and enthusiasm, you’ll find that they become less of a difficulty and just well, life that happens along the way.

If you can always try to get back to being peaceful inside, you will work better and more effectively, have more energy and enthusiasm.

#22 Always be Prepared

This is the Scouts motto I believe.

Plan, strategise, think what’s coming up next, prepare for it, get ready for what’s next. Read about it, talk to your friends that are doing similar things. So you’ve written a bunch of content, 30 articles, don’t dump them all out there in one go, schedule your posts so your readers have time to take them in, one per day, week or whatever schedule you think best. Get ahead with your content if you can, as this takes the pressure off. You’ll make better content when you’re not under pressure. Be ready for people to give critical advice, and be ready to either ignore it or factor it in or learn from it. Be ready, think about what might be ahead, prepare for contingencies, take backup of your blog.

People who prepare are ready when a challenge arises, people who don’t often just get knocked over or blown out. Succeeding at promoting your blog or website will take planning and preparation.

Conclusion

My ethos on promotion is simple, ALWAYS BE PROMOTING. The elements of this I’ve listed as the 22 “Always Be P…” ABP rules. Use these to guide you in all you do with your website or blog. They form my basic Ethos, mindset, paradigm or whatever you want to call it. They are a major part of (the secrets of) how I’m successful at what I’m doing.

OTHER PEOPLE CHARGE FOR THIS INFORMATION, so be grateful it’s here and I’m giving it for free, share my stuff, reblog it, tell your friends about my blog, tweet about me, facebook about me, help me promote myself. There’s more to come much much more, and all of those encouraging tweets, shares, reblogs really do drive me to do more for people reading my blogs.

Thankyou for reading:)

Future

This is part two, the next part of this series will likely be about brands and domain naming. After that I’d like to write about snippets and Goolge+. So please do keep reading my blog, tell your friends about it, share my stuff (sorry I promote hard, said this already before !). Obviously if you see things in your inbox that aren’t for you then ignore and wait until you see something you do like, it will come I promise.

Resources & Sources

Original images courtesy Google Images, from THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

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