And the lesson of the day is SEO

optimization and off page optimization.  The two terms are pretty straight forward, but I will elaborate anyways…  On page optimization is, just that, it pertains to the written content of the site, image names, meta tags, h1 tags, basically anything on your website that contains key words.  Google sends out “spiders” that go through the world wide “web” indexing different websites and their content.  By the way, if you think you are slick and want to flood your page obnoxiously with keywords thinking it will help your page rank…DON’T!  Google is smarter than that and it will likely get you kicked off or put in the hypothetical Google equivalent of time out.  Secondly, we have off page optimization, this is everything that is pointing back to your site, these are also known as back links.  Off page optimization is so worth it, it can get you to the top of Google with little or no on page optimization, just ask Ori who was recently number 2 on Google for the term “public speaker”.

Back links are kind of like this...

Earlier I mentioned “spiders” and “webs”, well if you pictured your site being the center of the “web” your off page optimization would be the different branches of the web.  When the spiders reach the site linking to yours it does a comparison of the content to make sure the content of the two sites is relevant.  The more relevant the back links the better they will do for your page’s placement on Google.  It also helps if the sites linking to yours have high page ranks, but that is a topic for another post.

I say all that to say this, SEO is difficult, it takes time, and it must be maintained in order to get to the top and stay there.  That was until LBR or Link Building Rocket came along.  It is a service which uses real human beings to build your site relevant back links for up to five different keywords or phrases.  The real humans part is pretty exciting considering most “link building services” use software or computers to build crappy non-relevant back links.  This can also get your site put into the same hypothetical time out mentioned earlier…this would not be good, especially if you are trying to make money with your website.

I want to tell you a little bit about LBR and what you get with the service.  LBR was created by Rob Burns whom is an extremely knowledgeable man.  To my understanding, Rob even handles all of the customer service complaints himself, so you know you are getting good help when and if you need it.  There are also tons of SEO tools for you to use once you sign up with LBR (these tools alone are worth the money).

Either way, I want to tell you what LBR did for my clients…

I started using LBR with one of my clients sites (Garrett Automotive) roughly 2

Analytics from April

months ago…for the record when I started checking the number of visitors to the site back in late April, we were getting around 41 Absolute Unique Visitors per month, we were not even on the first ten pages of Google for our chosen keywords, and we were not converting traffic to customers.  After using Link Building Rocket for one month, we reached the first page of Google…our AUV’s (absolute unique visitors) went from 41 per month to over 186 per month.

June AUV's Report

These are the real reports, and the numbers speak for themselves.  We are now #4 on Google for our search terms, and we should be number one in another month or so.  If you think you could use a service like this then visit the website…then again what do I know?!

This is the view from our backyard in SC

pretty much everything I imagined.  My fiance’, daughter, and I went to Beaufort, SC where I grew up to visit for a week, I was able to work with no problems what so ever, in fact I made a ton of progress on my book as well as my job (Garrett Automotive).  We went fishing just about every day caught mostly sting rays and a few sharks, hooked a tarpon, and we caught a blue crab.  The place I actually grew up is called Spring Island, and it is beautiful.  The island was originally a slave operated rice plantation…it is now a private island for golf, swimming, equestrian, hunting, and fishing.  It is home to the world’s largest live oak forest, hundreds of fox squirrels, healthy deer, and delicious fish.  Hard to come back to Atlanta after spending a week in paradise.

After all the fun in SC, it is hard to find equal adventures here in the city.  So I went to a place where my father took me when I was a kid.  It is a trail that you now have walk through a parking lot of a well known brunch place to get to the trail head.  Never the less it is as close to solitude as it gets inside the perimeter.  O yeh and there is a nice treat at the end of the hike   After about 3 maybe 4 miles of pretty intense hiking, you reach one of my favorite spots on the river…it is called Jumping Rock.

Jumping Rock

A 25 or 30 foot ledge that is perfect for jumping (hence the name).  I have always been a big fan of “tombstoning” or cliff jumping so long as there is no running required before jumping.  My timing is not very good and I typically don’t get the speed required to clear the obstacle.  There was this one place called Devil’s Elbow it is more of dirt bank that you are supposed to run and jump to clear the bank, well when I did it, as I was falling, I saw the people at the bottom make faces like I was going to hit the ground instead of the water.  I landed ok, but that was the end of my running leap days.  Either way, I will always be game for jumping off of something high into water.  The water around here stays around 68 degrees Farenheit through the summer, so on that particular hike I was pleasantly cool on the walk home.  Feet blistered a good bit, but I made it back in time before they got really bad.  All in all I would say the adventures have and will continue.  If you are ever in Atlanta and care to go for a jump, let me know!

This whole trip has been a dream of ours for a few years, and we are more than grateful to be going on a trip like this.  I could not have made this possible with out the help of a few incredible people to be named in a more in depth post in the near future.  Look forward to sharing with everyone.

Btw…this will be a perfect opportunity to bring my photography back out.  Ordered my camera battery charger for the car tonight so…look out world!

Now that you know a little bit about referral programs, let me explain the three that I put in place today.

The first is a business to business program.  If you live in a state that requires you to have an emissions inspection once per year, then you probably know what it’s like to fail an emissions inspection.  It typically means expensive repairs just so you can drive legally.  Sucks for everyone who drives, but for an automotive repair business, it is a perfect set up to capitalize on.  So I went over a quick script in my head, and began calling all of the emissions stations within 5 miles of our shop.  My script varied a bit, but went something like this, “Hey, my name is Robert, I work for Garrett Automotive just down the street from you guys.  Are you the manager?  Ok cool, well the reason I am calling is to find out if you guys had any associations with any of the local repair shops?  No, awesome, we are trying to set up a referral program, a sort of we scratch your back you scratch ours type thing, would you mind sending your failed emission clients to us?  Perfect, I will stop by to introduce myself and bring you a few business cards.  I hope we can help each other out.” This approach is simple, saves time, and it was effective with 6 out of 7 emission testing facilities near by.  Now every time a customer of theirs fails a $20.00 emission test, they will automatically be referred to Garrett Automotive.  Most of the stations will give the referrals for free, but if need be, we offer the station workers a bit of an incentive.  Maybe $10.00 per new paying customer that come to us.  The ten dollars is harmless because one of the stipulations requires that the referral has to be a paying customer for the station attendant to get paid.  The end result is that we have a new customer for life (we maintain an unrivaled level of customer satisfaction as well as quality work and guarantees), the station attendant made $10.00, and our new customer has a fixed car or truck.

The second referral program that I put in place today is a customer to customer referral program.  An add lib style card is in the process of being designed…it will read something like, “This card is valid for 50% OFF on one regular oil change for __________ (name) within 30 days of __/__/__(date).  Referred by _________(name).” When the customer comes in with the referral card, we put a tally next to the referring customers name in the computer, once the customer reaches 10 referrals, we send them a thank you card by mail, and a $100.00 gift card to either our shop or if we want to take it a step further, we can send them to a nice steak house.  This system costs a few hundred dollars to get the cards made up, $10.00 per new paying customer, and the time to write a thank you note to a more than loyal customer.  Yet again all three parties are more than happy in the end.

The third referral system is another customer to customer type of system, only this time it will be done using business cards and word of mouth.  This particular system will be using the students of Kennesaw State University the local college (within 2 miles) to bring in new customers.  One of the major discussions with college students is their income.  It is truly difficult to maintain a full time education while trying to work a full time job in order to make ends meet.  So, Garrett Automotive, as of today, has come up with a simple solution.  Write your name on the back of these business cards, and send people to us, if they pay to have work done on their vehicles, you will receive $10.00…KSU students and staff are already receiving 50% OFF on oil changes and alignments, and they receive an additional 10% OFF all other repairs.  With discounts like that, it is a no-brainer for the student to check out our shop for their next oil change. First of all that is a heck of a deal, second we are a truly honest repair shop (so no taking advantage of students), and third the students are now making money.  If you ask me they are also learning a bit about sales and marketing in the process…valuable lessons!  Yet again, everyone wins.

Per dollar, a referral program is by far the most effective means of customer acquisition you can use.  I hope this article will give you some ideas to apply to your own business and/or life, and help you to be profitable in the future.

I will write again in the next few weeks to discuss what results we see off of each program.  Check back with me soon!

The Man Himself

by his long hair and goofy personality, but none of us ever really spoke to him.  I decided to chat with him one day and found out that he really is a cool person.  Our relationship went a step further only after I had left Gold’s and went into the cabinet building industry.  At some point, Ori and I had discussed that he used to be in the printing business and had some connections in printing…well it had come to my attention that the boss of the cabinet shop was struggling to keep the doors open…my next thought was, “We aren’t doing anything to market the business…”  So I set up an appointment with the owner to ask him what I could do to help the business grow.  He said he was open to ideas, and so came my first marketing idea.  The idea was simply to have a few hundred tri-fold brochures printed and put them in the home audio/video stores so that customer who can obviously afford a home theater setup might also be interested in a custom made cabinet and or enclosure for their new home theaters.  Well I called Ori because he made mention of his past printing experience and he began to ask questions I had no idea existed.  Questions like,

“What is the target market of the cabinet shop?”, “What are you doing for marketing right now?”, “Have you given any thought to the copy that will go in the brochures?”, etc…

The next day I spoke to my boss and told him what I had found, he was extremely quick to say that it wasn’t in the budget and we would not be using the idea.  Ouch!!!  I told Ori about what the boss man said, and I somewhat vented to Ori that I thought it was stupid if you are broke because there is no one buying your cabinets, isn’t that when you should spend money on marketing?  So Ori invited me to my first ever marketing seminar…Matt Bacak’s Internet Marketing Madness. Ori took me under his wing and taught me that I am my best personal development tool as well as my own worst enemy.  He taught me that I could teach myself anything I wanted to learn, what I should spend the time learning, he taught me photoshop basics, sales, psychology, copy writing, and a plethora of other skills that have gotten me where I am today.  One of the things I taught myself (with the help of some other people and mentors) was how to design and create websites.  I was no expert, lol not by any means.  That was until Ori told me about a course he was developing…a course that would make it simple for the average person to create and manage their very own professional grade website.

The course wouldn’t just teach you how to create the site, it would even go as far as teaching you to generate traffic for your site, make your website profitable, and so much more.

Perfect, count me in!!!  I have since gone through the course and applied what I have learned to make my own website work way better than I thought it ever would.  There was a pretty huge set back when I irresponsibly let my site expire and lost all of my old posts…but The Daddy Adventure is making its come back.

Either way the reason for this post is to tell you about the only course I have that I have found, so far, that delivers exactly what is promised.  I guess now would be a good time for me to tell you more about the course.  It is called www.MakeWPEasy.com, and if you click on that link there is a video that will explain everything to you.  The course is completely online, there is no reading involved, it is all taught through video.  The videos are broken into segments for easy navigation…when you want to spend time on a particular video and absorb all you can about that particular segment, it’s easy to do.  Signing up for the course is a simple as a few clicks and filling out a bit of your information.  O and it does cost money, as with any course, however the product is well worth the money.  The possibilities that are made available to you, once you have a website of you own, or several websites of your own, are endless.

Ori has invested a lot of time in the people he cares about and in making their lives better.  This course is no different…Giving Ori a shout out and telling people about his course was the absolute least I could do for him.  I hope you will at least visit the site and watch his introduction video.  Who knows, maybe he could change your life too.

Either way, we were traveling with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines on the

Monarch of the Seas

Monarch of the Seas.  The boat was built in 1991 in France, it is 880 feet long, and it carries approximately 2700 passengers.  The ship is a little bit older, but it is full of a super great staff and tons of things to do.  The Cruise Director, Drew, did an excellent job keeping the mood up…he carries a lot of personality.  The rest of the staff was fantastic, all of them very helpful.

We did have a bit of a mishap right there in the beginning of our trip, our first night, I planned to have rose petals and champagne delivered on the following night.  This plan was going to be awesome, a perfect surprise!!!  Until we came in from our first night of dinner and they had delivered the rose petals and champagne 24 hours too early.  Needless to say, Megan walked in on the surprise, my only reaction was to tell her that cruise staff does fun stuff like this for couples all the time.  Which would have been fine, but now I had to make sure the cruise was going to step it up a notch after screwing up the time for the rose petals and champagne.

I spoke to the customer service desk and had them speak to Leo, Im not sure of his title, but I believe he is a boss.  He ensured me that he would send me an email with a solution to the problem…something creative that we could do to make up for the slip up.  I did receive the email, only it was a day late.  I decided that Megan would think it was special to have Isabella there when I asked the big question, so I waited until after our formal dinner.  Bella had on the prettiest, little sailor dress, and our dinner was soooo delicious, the sunset was perfect, and no one was on deck…Now would be the time.  I set Isabella on my knee, as I was obviously down on one knee, and asked her in about as plain a way as I could have.  (it is amazing how nervous that question can make you) It is pretty obvious what her answer was, especially with a stud like me…   Being on a family reunion also had its advantages as we had plenty of babysitters to watch Bella for the night.  Nana (Bella’s grandma and my mom) volunteered to babysit for us so we could celebrate our night.  We went up to the Boleros deck where there are tons of fun games and I basically forced Megan out of her comfort zone as we played a few games in front of the entire cruise…she is such a bad ass friend and companion by the way!

The next morning I got the email from Leo…It was an invitation, we were invited to go to the Bridge, where the driving is done.  We would be able to meet the Captain, tour the bridge, and although Leo’s message was late, he offered that I propose in front of the ships steering wheel.  The offer more than made up for the confused timing that happened the evening before.  That however was not our only surprise…When we got back to the room, there were chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of champagne from Leo, there was also a bottle of wine from Junior, the guy from guest services who helped me set up the rose petals and champagne. Thanks to Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines!!!

Swimming under the glass bottom boat...

I did opt not to go diving in the Bahamas, so Megan and I could spend the day together, so we went snorkeling instead.  We also went on a glass bottom boat where I happened to have a mask and snorkel with me…I got in the water and was helping McGraw find the local sea life.  We found a lot of stuff to show off…starfish, conchs, lobsters, and sea cucumbers.  We saw a nurse shark, barracuda, and tons of fish…Oh and we each tried a piece of raw conch pulled straight from the bottom of the ocean.  It was really good considering what I thought it would taste like.  A bit of a crab meets lobster type of taste, only when you chew for too long it does have a bit of a bitter after taste.  It does make good for other reasons as well…it was put to me like this, “As a man, if you don’t make good use of it, you will have to sleep on your back tonight!”

After the glass bottom boat, we went on a big catamaran to get to our snorkeling spot of the coast of Nassau.  Snorkeling is snorkeling, you get to see tons of fun, beautiful creatures, but you are severely limited.  Which is

The Dive Shop

why I am now the proud owner of an SSI dive certification.  I highly recommend the course, and if you are living near Atlanta I suggest you visit The Dive Shop off of Sandy Plains Road.  Bruce Klein, my instructor, is very knowledgeable and he does a fantastic job of making sure everyone is safe before they are certified.

As for our family reunion, it was awesome to see everybody.  We usually have 30+ people minimum on each trip, and a few of the family members are real characters…makes things super interesting.  As I get older, I seem to get to know the family better each year…I think most people would be surprised if they took the time to get to know their family better.  I don’t know about your family, but in my family we have artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, and stock market gurus, we have veterinarians, and vegetarians.  Everyone in my family is unique and super fun.  I cant wait to see everyone again soon.