I’ve been following Caroline Middlebrook’s blog since I started What Sells Online, and I must say that she is one of the most inspiring bloggers I’ve seen online. Most importantly, I’ve learnt a lot from her posts, which greatly helped in setting me on the right track with my own online marketing efforts.

With this, I thought it was timely that I conducted an email interview with her, and post it here so that everyone can learn from her. Here’s the transcript:

1. What are your virtues that you think have made your blog successful?

In a word - Honesty. I have always spoken my mind, been open about what I am doing and about my opinons. I know I have been labelled the “honest blogger” quite a few times and I like that.

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How can we combine traditional marketing methods with online marketing strategies?

While running a search on “What to Sell Online”, I came across this post by Ray Edwards. Essentially, it highlights steps on what aspiring online marketers should do to find a product or service to sell online.

Product surveys, personal interests and data analysis are some of the methods advocated by Ray. Granted, these are all traditional marketing research techniques commonly utilized by marketing gurus. They are thoroughly effective for either 1) Large corporations with a huge marketing and distribution budget or, 2) Brick and mortar small businesses with customers within an X-mile radius. Ultimately, these are great if you are answering the “What to sell” question.

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Whilst working on optimizing our website content and incoming links, the importance of outbound links is often overlooked. However, I’ve reason to believe that the quantity and quality outbound links are one of the factors used in search engine ranking algorithm. Let me illustrate this with my own experience.

My own experience with outbound links

Having conquered search engine optimization for several niche keywords (with low traffic volume), I turned to something more challenging. I wanted to search engine optimize one of my blogs for a keyword that had greater competition and a higher traffic volume.

As this blog was initially created out of personal interest, no SEO techniques were used on the existing content. Thus, the first thing I did was to optimize the content using the techniques highlighted in Building a Niche Blog for Top Search Engine rankings, with the exception of incorporating outgoing links.

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(Putting the 30-day challenge into practical use – Part 2)

On my previous post, I highlighted some of the methods I used to get top search engine rankings for What Sells Online! In How to Generate Ideas on What To Sell Online, I revealed some of the ways to get ideas for potential niche keywords. Finally, in Putting the 30 day challenge into practical use – Part 1, I discussed some ways anyone can use to nail down several niche keywords they could work on.

Now that you have your list of niche keywords, here’s what you need to do next:

• Use niche keywords to write good content
• Post your content on a Web 2.0 site or blog
• Search for relevant affiliate products to promote
• Get your niche blog listed on top of search engine results
• Other methods to draw traffic to your niche blog

a. Using niche keywords to write content

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There is no doubt about it: The ability to draw traffic is the key to online success, no matter what you are selling online. With top search engine rankings, you are able to capture potential buyers who are specifically searching for your product or service.

Ever since launching What-Sells-Online.com, I’ve been trying for top search engine ranking for the search results of “what sells online”. A bulk of my traffic came from my articles posted on Ezinearticles.com, many of which were listed on the first 2 pages of Google’s search results.

Eventually, I was able to get top search engine rankings with these strategies:

1. Post articles linking to your site on Ezinearticles.com

It seems that Google has an affinity for high PR websites such as ezinearticles.com. Thus, new articles on this site optimizing specific keywords will easily get a first page ranking. If you have just started a new
website, it helps to have an article (not duplicated on your blog or website), posted on Ezinearticles.com (or other popular article submission sites).

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Reading the JohnChow.com2007 Blog Income Report indicates that we don’t necessarily have to sell stuff online to make money. Working on a blog, with the right publicity, traffic generation techniques and some writing skills on the right topics, are some of the key ingredients for success.

Of course, all these do not come free. I’m certain that at some point or other, John Chow had to work hard to promote his blog before the money came pouring in. And, if you review his Blog Income Report for 2006, there is actually a significant difference in the income he’s getting. Apparently, according to this report - How Top Bloggers Earn Money-John Chow dot Com Income Report-August 2007 – John Chow had only started with a few hundred dollars of income in the first month. To me, this small amount is
great, as it indicates the effectiveness of his traffic drawing methods. Apparently, he started with only $3,440.66, which then grew to a whopping $27,240.83 at the end of the year.

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