I haven’t posted since May as have been dealing with the latest Google update Penguin 2.0.

The good news is that most of my clients have either not been affected or have improved in the rankings. Great for them and also good for me as I keep them as clients and help them to build their business.

A couple of clients have had problems and in fact we are still picking through the debris after their rankings took a tumble.

The first reason was that the site owner decided to obtain paid links. I advised against this but they still went ahead and did it…now they are paying the price with a Google penalty. I have been helping them to deal with this and it is a lengthy process and a long way back. If I can give anyone any SEO advice at all it is not to contravene what Google views as unnatural link building. If you do then they will find out and hit you hard in the rankings.

The other client used some poor quality SEO services before I cam along to help him and this was discovered once the rankings dropped for the site. I again investigated and found the poor quality links from way back in 2008 can you believe. Anyway we have sent these links to be disavowed through Google Webmaster Tools and continue to build good quality links to the site to bring the rankings back once the poor links have been deindexed.

The other reason I am posting is that I have reenlisted with John Thornhill on the Partnership To Success training mentorship. I had to stop at the start of the year as my SEO business suddenly grew and I needed the time to sort it out and get it on track. I have now done that and have a few helping hands including my eldest son Seb who has just finished his business degree and is now working for me full-time. He is already proving to be an asset to the business.

I am now going to start work on my 2 products – How To Build An SEO Business From Scratch and Learn SEO Basics Step By Step Training.

Will post some links here when I have something to show you!

Speak soon and be happy

Keith Dean

What you lookin at?

I haven’t posted on my blog for months which is on the face of it not the best way to keep in touch with people!

However I have a good excuse.

I have spent the last 12 months or so building my SEO business and am at the stage where I have this optimised to a good level which allows me to start building a new product. This product is going to be called “Build Your Own SEO Business From Scratch” and as you can guess from the title I am going to be teaching you how to do this.

It has taken me around 18 months to learn enough about SEO so that I could sell my services to clients. It then took a further 12 months to get to the stage where I am today – a six figure SEO business with many clients.

Now this might sound as though it is an easy path to making a substantial income….it isn’t!

However, as I have done all of the hard work, experienced all the pitfalls and problems and managed to attract pleasant clients who appreciate what I do for them then I can show you how to do this and you can benefit from my experience with it.

It hasn’t been easy but I have had some fun along the way.

The most crucial aspect in my opinion about building a business is how you interact with your customers or clients. I have “fired” a couple along the way for being too high maintenance…it may sound harsh but I only want to work with nice people who appreciate what I can do for them.

A good tip here is that you need to set their expectations right from the start. If you allow clients to contact you at any time of the day or night then they will. If you allow them to bully you and demand all sorts of things from you that take up a lot of your time then they will.

If on the other hand you set the boundaries right from the start then you will be fine.

When I take on a new SEO clients I explain exactly how I can help them, what I will do, how much I will charge them and also when they can contact me. I tell them that I need to be working on their campaign between the hours of 10am and 5pm Monday to Friday. They can email me whenever they wish but unless it is urgent (in MY opinion) then they won’t receive and answer until after 5pm.

I spend the first hour of every day working on marketing my own business. I then work between 10am and 5pm on the clients campaigns. I then answer all emails between 5pm and 6pm and if I need to talk to a client then we schedule either a phone call or more usually a skype call between 6pm and 7pm.

The main reason for these hours is that most of my clients are in the USA so there is a 5 hour time difference generally. If I email them after 5pm then they see the response around 12 noon their time.

If clients do not adhere to these timings then I ask them to find someone else to work for them. Again this may sound harsh but it works very well with reasonable clients and filters out the ones who want to take up most of your time.

Anyway you can find out more when I release my product in the next few months and if you want to be notified of when this is available then simply email me at pearlydean@gmail.com and I will put you on the waiting list!

OK, work to do so signing off for now,

Take care

Keith Dean

I have just been organising myself as I currently have 3 major things I need to work on and if I don’t stay organised and focused then it will all fall apart.

This got me to thinking about what I am like now and what I used to be like.

Before I was running my own businesses properly I used to jump from one thing to another all the time and then end up with lots of unfinished work, ideas and general chaos. This isn’t good for the mind or income so I knew something had to be done.

I have read a lot of business books from attitude, to sales and business planning etc etc and I the one that really helped me with organisation was Stephen Covey’s the 7 habits.

Since then I have been much better organised and can run several things at once as long as I am making progress and more importantly tracking my progress.

Take for example my SEO business. This is my main work and provides the income to pay for my office, business expenses, help towards the household bills and meals out and keeping my children on the straight and narrow!

I keep spreadsheets of my current clients, the websites I am working on and tracking the progress of the keywords we choose to rank for. If I didn’t do this then my clients would not see the value of what I do for them and I would not have a clue what I had done, have left to do etc.

However, I also have two other main business areas where I need to focus and this reminded me of the power of 3.

I start work quite early in the morning, but before I do anything I sit down with a cup of tea and think about what needs to be done today.

I tend to segment things into – business things, personal things and things to make me happy…

So for example today I had to do this for personal things:

1. Cancel current car insurance and pay for new policy online

2. Speak to my builder about the repairs to a buy-to-let property I own

3. Check on the progress of our house sale

and business things:

1. Set up a regular monthly rental payment for my new office

2. Send weekly invoices for last week’s work

3. Do my accounts

and things to make me happy…

1. Confirm going out with friends tonight to celebrate their 1st anniversary

2. Feed my cats

3. Walk to work in the sunshine

As you can see I do everything in 3′s which is the secret of getting things done.

If when you wake up in the morning you are worrying about things, feeling stressed and just generally panicking about what has to be done then you need to follow my advice…or technically Stephen Covey’s advice

This is how I do it…

I wake up, make a cup of tea (coffee if you like) and sit down with my to do pad.

I think about my business first and decide what 3 things HAVE to be done today no matter what so that the urgent stuff gets sorted from the start.

I then think about the personal things…insurance, bills, putting the bins out etc..

Again it’s the 3 things that HAVE to be done so that you don’t worry.

Then, this is very important….

3 things to make me happy.

You need to enjoy something each and every day otherwise what are you working for?

So I choose to spend time with my children, friends, animals….or listen to some music, watch a film or read a good book. These can be scheduled in at the start, the middle or the end of your day depending on how you feel at the time.

The whole point of this is that you are addressing all of the urgent and important things that have to be done or you wish to do in various areas of your life.

If you have 5 urgent business things to do…what are the 3 most important – do them first…then schedule 3 more for today or tomorrow.

Let’s face it, if you do 3 things a day in 3 areas of your life then by the end of the week you have accomplished a lot and also had some quality time for yourself.

Right that’s my blog post done…now off to do 2 more things

Speak soon

Keith

Hi Keith Dean here again with a new post!

It’s been a while since I last posted here and if you see the title of the post you will understand why.

It is so easy to get distracted when you are working online…checking your emails, looking at facebook updates, posting a quote or comment on twitter etc etc.

What you should be doing is working to your plan to acheive your goals.

I have my own plan but hate to be too organised as I feel it suppresses my natural energy as I like to come up with and establish new ideas all of the time. I am not just interested in making more money as the money will come if you just work on great ideas and see them through.

This is what I have on my plate at the moment…

Running my SEO business where I am helping around 23 clients of different sizes to rank their keywords. I have been working in the SEO arena since 2000 when I had my own website which generated enquiries for work to be carried out on their homes by reliable tradespeople. This was successful but crashed and burned due to various reasons – I won’t go into them on this post but suffice to say I lost quite a bit of money but learned a lot about business and SEO that has paid me back handsomely since!

So my SEO business takes up around 80% of my time and pays me a decent wage in return. SEO is forever changing and you need to keep up with all of the latest trends and methods to ensure that you stay at the top of the rankings. I manage to do that for my clients as they all subscribe to my medium to long-term strategy which works very effectively.

A lot of SEO “experts” have recently moved on to other ideas since the launch of the Google updates “Panda” and “Penguin” to name just two!

Anyway, I won’t bore you with details but my methods work and pay my bills so I am happy, my clients are happy and my good lady wife is happy as we can pay our bills

My other project at the moment is a kitchen facelift business that I am in 50/50 with a good pal of mine. I used to have my own kitchen business and had to stop that in 2010 due to ill health as I was trying to do everything in the business and took on too much. I earned a good amount of cash and we fitted some great kitchens but health is more important than money so had to call a halt.

I am much better now and the itch to make money from kitchens is still there so I need to scratch it.

The other major project I am working on is my mentoring with John Thornhill. He is mentoring me not the other way round! John is a well respected marketer and is one of the top selling people on Clickbank. I have always wanted to produce my own digital products and have several ideas where I can share my expertise…SEO, Selling, Social Media..and more…

However, I am sure John will shout at me for this…I have not done anything about this in the past few weeks due to the other 2 projects taking up my time.

So….

I am going to get organised and focus on ONE THING TO GET ME GOING…

I have over 30 years worth of sales experience…selling kitchens, insurance, windows (the ones that open and shut not crash), SEO services etc etc.

I consider myself pretty good at selling as I enjoy it and don’t see it as a chore or a mindbending pain in the rear end.

So I am going to start my first product under the tutelage of John Thornhill and help people to understand the psychology of sales and how to build great relationships with people – so they buy off you rather than the old foot in the door technique…which doesn’t work by the way

So that’s it for today…I have made my proclamation and will live or die by it. If you are interested in sales, SEO or anything like that and you want a few tips then keep popping back for a read and I will do my best to help you.

Speak soon

Keith Dean

SEO Services

Before you start using software though I would suggest you find out the best way to perform SEo tasks for your own webistes and build your own case studies. Once you have proof that your methods work then you can start attracting clients and making a decent income online.

One of the best SEO tools I have used is a software called Magic Submitter. It allows you to set up your own content, spin articles (I never do that) and then insert links for your keywords which link back to your website. You then press the big green go button and see your content submitted to hundreds of sites.

The best feature for me is the link manager service where you can see your live links, click on them to check they are there and then export them to a text file or spreadsheet to send to your client!

As with all software it is how you use it and if you abuse it by creating thousands of links from one profile then you will see your efforts penalised.

If you are looking for help with this then just subscribe to my members only newsletter (it’s free) by entering your name and email top right of this blog…

Also here is a link for Magic Submitter where you can try it out for a month at only $4.95. After the first month it will cost you $67 pm but as I have lots of clients then it is cost effective for me.

Again is you need help and advice on how to build your own SEO business step by step then subscribe to my newsletter and I will send you details.

Right…off to watch the football…see you soon

Keith Dean

Magic Submitter

What you lookin at?

The new updates have unusual names….Google Panda….Google Penguin…..whatever next? And what is this fixation with animal names anyway?

The good news for my clients is that I have been doing most of the right things to optimise their keywords from the outset so we haven’t seen the crash in rankings that others have.

My strategy is simple…

Create interesting unique content…articles, videos, blog posts to name just a few…

Syndicate this content across the Interweb so that lots of people who may be interested in this content and more importantly what the business has to offer, then this will bring lots of visitors to the websites of my clients.

All of my existing clients are very happy with the service I provide to them so I must be doing something right!

If you are interested in building your own SEO business online then sign up to my FREE newsletter to the right of this post. You will see a nice shiny blue box and all you have to do is enter your name and email address and you are in. I may even send you a free gift to welcome you to the club

Speak soon
Keith

I haven’t posted here for a while as I have been really busy with my SEO business. However, I always like to spread the risk when it comes to business and don’t want to just rely on SEO as my main income, especially when Google are making so many changes to online search.

So I already know quite a bit about online marketing and have in fact released one or two of my own products in the past.

I hooked up with a mentor about 18 months ago and he set me on my way but I ended up with some personal issues that needed attending to so stopped working with him.

So I am pleased to say that I have just contacted John Thornhill again and booked a full 12 month mentorship program with him again to get me on the right path.

Working online can be a lonely existence and also it is easy to get distracted, jump from course to idea to the next “get rich quick” scheme…so I want to do this right and already know that John is a great mentor.

I will post my progress on here so if you are interested you can see how I get on.

That’s it for today as now have a lot of SEO work to get finished for my clients so see you again soon!

Cheers

Keith

I often get emails from people who have contacted me from fiverr.com or the Warrior Forum and also from other lesser known forums asking me how I manage to work for myself and pay my bills!

This isn’t another of those “get rich quick” hyped up posts that just really annoy me to be honest.

There are a lot of people in the current financial climate who are really struggling to make ends meet. The last thing they need is to be sold yet another magic formula for making money online.

I am not saying that these methods don’t work…some of them do…it’s just that people new to working online do not have the focus needed to work on just one thing and make it work for them before trying anything else.

So what I am trying to say is – I have a method for making money online….but I stick to it and make it work which is the real difference.

When I first started working online a few years ago I flitted from idea to idea trying everything at once and just getting nowhere fast. I ended up frustrated, annoyed, short of cash and generally struggling to build an online business.

However, I have had 4 offline businesses which all worked so just applied the same methodology to my online business.

I now have a six figure SEO business which I love, have great clients (I have sacked any clients that were too high maintenance) and am enjoying life again!

If you want to know how to do the same and would like a no nonsense guide without all of the BS and hype then sign up for my free newsletter updates in the box on the right.

You may not hear from me every day, or be bombarded by WSO of the day emails…but I am sure you hate that anyway right?

OK that’s it for now… clients to talk too and work to get on with…if you want to know how to build a real online business just sign up to my free newsletter.

Speak soon

WP-Malwatch Plugin

As my blog was hacked recently I decided to install the WP-Malwatch plugin.

This is the result of the first scan with this plugin in place and activated:

Very pleased with the initial scan and this will run in the background for me to hopefully ensure that my blog remains safe!

Akismet Plugin

The Akismet plugin is fairly straightforward – it stops spam comments. Lots of people now try and post spurious comments with links back to their own websites and this plugin identifies the worst of them and keeps them off the blog. It’s a little like the spam filter in gmail – you don’t need to go and look you just feel safe.

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog. This is essential when you first submit your blog to Google using the webmaster tools.

Ultimate Google Analytics

This simply provides you with the Google Analytics of your website visits. GA is very in depth and you can check all sorts of things such as keywords used, serach engines, operating systems and much more.

Easy Privacy Policy

If you are going to put Adsense on your blog then the compliance statement from Google requires that you have a privacy policy. This plugin generates the required information. You just activate the plugin then go to Settings – Easy Privacy Policy and click “Create Privacy Page”. I have just done this so look on my navigation bar and click on the Privacy Policy tab to see what it generates – pretty nifty eh?

Quick Tip: If you look at the bottom of your Privacy Policy page you will see a link to an affiliate of the plugin. To remove this simply deselect the option right at the bottom of the options page – Include a credit link for the Easy Privacy Plugin.

WordPress Database Backup

This is one of the crucial plugins you need just in case anything goes wrong. Install the plugin and activate it. You can then choose how to receive your backup. I do a backup straight away when I set up a blog and then set it to create one weekly. The easiest option for me is to have it sent to my email address which I can access if it is ever needed.

I will add more later today as it is 1.30am here and I am tired out now!

This is the start of the process of setting up my blog…

So the first thing I did was remove WordPress using Fantastico and also removed any other files that were left over using file manager so I had a clean install. I then went back into the control panel in Hostgator and performed a clean install of WordPress.

The reason for doing this is the original hack of my blog left some nasty code in the wordpress install so rather than spend hours trying to “clean” the code I started from fresh.

This presented me with the Twenty Ten theme which is the default theme from wordpress.

I need a more flexible and powerful theme that I can use to present information in my own way. The theme I have chosen is a premium theme called Headway.

The next step for me is to delete the Hello World post and comment and remove the Links as I will set up my own later.

The next post will show you the plugins that I use to make my blog super efficient.