Britney Shears, SEOMOZ Comparison, Keywords, and Myspace Contest

Sorry this weeks Monday Questions was so late to be posted. I am busy with some projects. I also will probably be cutting back on posting this week.

Shoe - off the wall question. Curious what are some of your more recent ideas that did not work out and what are some that have.

Well the other day on the news when I saw that britney had shaved her head the reporter called her Britney Shears... I went to godaddy to registered and... too late =( Domain Name: BRITNEYSHEARS.COM Record created on: 2007-02-17 11:02:51.0 I think I missed it by about a hour so sad o well... that domain is going to be good for some typein traffic. (or just vanity) AND WTF IS WITH THIS TATTOO BRIT?!?

Shoe last October rand broke it down and compared his site to yours. In the comparison some of his employees seem to take some pop shots at you saying you are not humble. Do you think its because you have Adsense check which is more then that company has ever made?

Well... I run several companies and this blog is like 20th on my priority list. If I have something to say I write it. I don't spell check and have horrible grammar also I sometimes break out in l33t speak amirite? I have fun with this blog and try to inspire/help people to make money. Thats it... Last I checked SEOmoz had like 10 authors and some full time employees. Plus SEO is there thing... its not mine. Its there business. I am flattered that they consider this blog to be comparable. As far as money goes... That check was more of a revenue achievement for me being at that time it was the single biggest amount any of my websites had earned in 1 month. Some people goto college to get diplomas to hang on there wall... I get phat checks to put on my walls ;) I have no clue what SEOMOZ makes as a company but I am sure they do fine. As far as humility goes its funny... Rand discloses all of there figures and he is a hero to his employees. I show 1 month of net revenue for 1 website and I am a braggart? go figure... Ok here is another thing... there is a LOT more ways to measure success then money. Rand just got engaged and seems like he is living the dream.

This is kind of like a chicken and the egg question. Do you recommend building your site based upon what works through ppc or do you just try to hammer out a site in an industry that you think you can rank in? What comes first the ppc research(of what works) or the actual site? Are you looking to rank for the most profitable keywords even if they are not necessarily the most searched for or do you go for quantity? I'm sure there is probably a trade off between affiliate sales vs. adwords profit between these two approaches.

I discovered PPC because I already had successful sites in the industry. I do really well in markets where I have built successful SEO sites over years. I think its because you really get a great understanding for your industry. I recomend you build a site for something you are passionate about or atleast do a lot of research. If you go for broke without any experience in the industry at all its likely you will get really frustrated and quit. For the second part of your question... You ask what I try to rank for then ask me about adwords profit? I am guessing you mean AdSense? To be honest AdSense is just a temporary stage of advertising for me. If a site takes off its much more profitable to get direct advertisers in the market. Take this blog for instance.... with Adsense it makes about 25$ a day or so but with direct sales of advertising we do about $13,000.00 a month.

Whats the deal with your MySpace contest? I saw you post it in your forums a while back then there was something on your site about it but it was gone shortly after?

Well about 3 months ago I thought it would be a great idea to see who could get the most friends on myspace. Everyone would have to start at zero and it would last for 3 months or so. Your url would be private until the contest was over but if you got banned by MySpace for spamming then you would be out. I was also going to give away a Playstation 3, xbox360 or Nintendo wii to the winner. Now I sit here with a brand new in box Playstation 3, Nintendo wii and xbox360 and still thinking whether or not to do the contest or do do some other kind of contest (and no I don't want to do a seo contest). Then also I have been approached by a company who wanted to sponsor this contest but then pulled back when they they found out they were getting sued by MySpace for spamming. Each Monday I am going to try to take some questions asked to me in email and here on the blog and answer them. I call the answer part the “Shoemoney answerâ€? mainly because I do not know if its right or wrong but its what I think based on my experience so far.