Testimonials

I got my hands on your book just two days ago..

But I am allready full of new ideas from your framework!
The book is easy to read and loaded with great material for Search Engine Optimization.
I just can't put it down, I just keep reading and thinking, learning more and more with every page.

And you are giving it away, you got to love you for that!
I am writing some blogpost to send some more linklove to you (although you don't really need it )

I am building two new websites and was somewhat stuck in the process, you book give me the boost to get working on it using your Fast Start System to make sure they will be a succes.

So Thank you again for this Book and the Portal!

Im testing the nofollow tag and i see great results
Thanks

I have to disagree on some of your uses of nofollow tags.
There is no reason to add nofollow to all outbound links (even if they are on the homepage). Some sites such as blogs have many links to different pages on the homepage and their rankings are good and others such as the sites I own do not have any outbound links on the homepage because such links do not fit there.
And doesn't Google get wondering why you have nofollowed all the outbound links. That definately isn't naturallooking. Another thing is that I don't believe in using nofollow links to other pages on my sites. If I don't want Google to index those pages I block them using the robots.txt.

I do agree with most of your other points though.

BTW, the comment above is not replying to thanos but to Dan Thies.

Gutenburg:

As I mentioned in my last mailing, I'm writing something on this for Friday. Blogs are an exception, because the point of a blog is to link out, but for a business web site, why would you link elsewhere from the home page?

There are some homepage links we have to tolerate because they help with conversion – BBB Online, Hackersafe, etc. but there's no reason to have search engines following those links. Take Hackersafe/Scanalert as an example – WHY would you want your "this site is scanned" page indexed? It's not really useful content, is it?

Other than that, I believe in what I've said: if you want to pass some link love along, then do so. Nobody's stopping you.

Just keep in mind that with search engines, links are like votes. If you don't endorse the quality of the site on the other end of the link, then use nofollow, and don't vote for them.

This isn't about "leaking PageRank." It's about managing your links responsibly. I have outbound links on all of my sites, but I am mindful of what links do, and I act accordingly.

I have been watching Dan for a long time and he is one of the few SEO professionals that has always been providing excellent and straight to the point advice that anyone can follow, whether is free like the SEOFS or paid like the Search Engine Marketing Kit.

Keep up the good work Dan!

Dan, I continue to see great results in the SERP's. The reason I am in the portal is two fold.

1) You teach about having an overall plan not just SEO.
2) Your teaching abilities blow away the competition.

I live on the 5th hole of a golf club outside of Chicago.
When you come back to Chicago, the golfing for a foursome
is on me! I just hope you pick me as 1 of the 4. lol ):

Thanks,
Jeff

Just wanted to say a BIG thanks Dan for allowing this content for free. I know I should be shouting from the rooftops and telling everyone about it but the problem is I don't want my competition to get hold of this information!!

Selfish – I know.

I've read the book, watched the 1st video, and now I've started to put some of this advice into my site. Will report back with the results!

Jeff, I have not picked up a golf club since I moved to Texas in 1997. Too hot here. The irony is that all those world-class golf courses in Houston were part of the sales pitch that got me to move.

Darren, if you don't tell your friends, I just might have to mail printed copies to your competitors. What's that site again?

Dan, that is funny. Here is more irony for you…

I am paying crazy taxes because I wanted to live on this golf course. But I haven't golfed on the course in 2 years!
Coaching baseball and the SEO thing took over my life.

Maybe we can just play hackersafe.. I mean hacker golf then (:

Jeff

Put me in coach, i'm ready to play

Dan, okay you got me, I'll blog about it this week.

I'm reading the book a 2nd time, I don't have very good concentration levels and find myself re-reading section. You mention in section 3 about a spreadsheet that you use to record keywords, I don't suppose a template of this is available for download?

The spreadsheet is the same one we use in the linking clinic video class, you can download an example @ http://www.seofaststart.com/bonus/matrix.zip

Thanks for the spreadsheet Dan.

Dan,

I really new to this internet stuff, SEO, Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, etc. I worked as a Senior Programmer/Analyst for 18.5 years doing financial and land records applications, no Web Stuff just secure user applications.

Anyway, after I retired I thought I would get into the Internet thing. What a learning curve. I signed up for your news letter and unfortunately didn't pay to much attention to it until recently. After trying to figure out how to build a Web Site and get some traffic, you know (getting advice here and advice there) being totally confused because everyone has a different opinion.

I got an email from you today, remembered from a few months ago that you seemed to be a straight shooter and appeared to be interested in helping those of us, swimming in the cess pool of SEO. I down loaded your "SEO Fast Start 2007 Edition". Started reading through it and wanted to kick myself in the "a–" for having waited so long to come back to your blog.

Damn boy, your the first character I've run across that actually have something usefull to say about SEO. You're also the first SEO guy I have run across that will actually say what you "really think" about the big dog "Google".

You asked for a testimonial and you got it buddy. Keep us all informed about what's happening (in your opinion of course). I laugh my butt off at some of your threads because they are so true.

Long winded. Got to go.

Take care and God Bless.

PS. Hope you come out with an "SEO Fast Start 2008 Edition".

Thanks, Lee – 2008 edition will be out before May.

Hi Dan,

I read your e-book SEOFS two months ago given by a very good friend of mine whom I consider as my mentor in this internet profit making goal that I have.

Your book is really down-to-earth and I thank you for giving it for free. That book have opened up opportunities for me in all my sites and blogs.

Though I can't say that I am already earning well for my needs online; yet I am happy to reap the reward of my labor and time spent online because of your SEOFS e-book.

Hopefully, you will continue to help many others like me who do not have an extra-budget for advertising my sites and blogs. I only have my time and my commitment and of course your book—and they did a tremendous help I never expect to happen.

I am still trying to find ways to learn more on the online trade.

Thank You.

Sincerely,

Neil Anthony

Hi, I've not been signed up long and I'm currently making my way through the SEO Fast Start book. Thank you so much for sharing it. It's really clearly presented and informative. I've learned so much. Nice work! I have a few contacts in mind who will surely benefit from it too.

By the way, what is the latest with PPC Fast Start? Is that going to happen? Has it been released already? I'm eagerly awaiting this as your ATM video was awesome.

Thanks again.

Gordon

Read your download in less than 2 hours and it was **tremendous**. It defined so many things that I, up until reading your book, didn't understand. I will recommend this to everyone that I think could benefit from it. Thanks!

Hi Dan, SEO Fast Start is simply awesome!

How about the next release being: SEO Fast Continue What You Started.

Dan, you haven't posted any comments here for nearly a year. Are you alive? You must be because you've been sending out emails about Formula5 from Stompernet.

Any news on PPC, which was supposed to be launched November 2007?

I realise you're giving lots of stuff away for free which naturally might command lower priority than paid projects, but any chance of a hint of a glint of a peek of a response, even if it's to say that you're not going to do anything with this site for the foreseeable future? Please don't keep us all in the dark. Are you secretly working on tons of goodies and preparing us for a big surprise? I'd like to assume so…

Thanks in advance.

Gordon,

I've been answering questions on the blog when I've got time. Several in the past week or so, actually. I also spend time in the private site when I can grab some time.

PPC Fast Start has been on hold because of a contractual situation and I haven't had a definitive response that I could offer on a release date. The last delay was my fault.

Really boils down to the simple issue that I've got to protect my intellectual property. That's all resolved now. Earliest release is Jaunary 22. Latest is February 1.

Beyond that I've been working on a new webinar series called "SEO Mastery" that will probably start in February. We've got some live testing going on that may not resolve itself as quickly as we want it to. Search engines are not always as cooperative as we'd like.

I'll let folks know what else I've been up to soon. I've just been kind of busy doing it.

Thanks!
Dan

Hi Dan, that's me put straight then!

Just a little sarcasm there, hope you weren't offended

Really looking forward to the new material as always.

Cheers!
Gordon

The sarcasm is well-earned, no doubt.

Dan, not wanting to hog your time, but I have a question about your ATM Video. I was going to check on the ATM page but I just noticed the link to the video page (from this comments page) seems to be broken so I don't know if you've answered this question already.

During your video you advise creating 3 copies of your control group so as not to steal valuable clicks from an already performing ad / ad group. You also mention that it is good practice to run separate ad groups if testing for broad, phrase and exact match.

My question is this: what if you only have a budget of say $50 per day? To run broad, phrase and exact match for your control group and 3 copies could take a long time to test as the budget might be used up pretty quickly in the day. How would you deal with this situation? Would you just start with one type of match, maybe exact, and see how that goes, then move to another type?

Thanks

They're moving servers around, it should take about 24 hours for all the DNS and load balancing madness to get sorted.

I always start with exact matches and test the other stuff when exact match is profitable.

Hmm, that's interesting. So you would start with a big list of all the keyword combinations you can think of and set them as exact match and then find the good ones?

What about using broad match to find keywords you may not have though of and drilling down in the AdWords report to see what the actual keyword used was? Is that not as effective in your experience?

So where does that leave phrase match then?

Many thanks

Gordon

There are tools to research keywords. Google's tool will suggest the broad matches for you. Broad match can be useful as a 'collector' at a certain point, but I'll take my keyword research as a far better starting point.

The basic idea is to start with exact matches, expand profitable exact matches to phrase matches, then test broad match. Phrase matching has a lot of utility, sometimes it's extremely important to a campaign. Once you go beyond exact matches you've also got to work negative matches so it's a little more work. Anything with significant volume can be targeted as an exact match.

Many thanks for the the advice, Dan.