Brian Mark - Guitaraholic

I've been using Shoemoney Tools for a while now, and I've got to say, it's a great program. Not cheap, but still very nice for someone doing SEO or affiliate marketing. His keyword tools generates a decent list, although it doesn't have search volume. But, as I've said on SEO 101 before, I don't care about volume - I want to rank for everything. ;) One of his coolest tools is a "Domain Marketplace". This is for domains that aren't currently registered that have .edu, .mil or .gov links. That's a great way to kick off a new project. I've seen some interesting looking domains, but only bit on one so far. I hope to buy more soon. I suggested they add a search function, and Dillsmack added that, which makes it very useful. It'll allow you to search for a word and it finds it in the domains that are available, so you can find something that's at least somewhat related to what you're doing. The keyword tracker is ok, but not amazing....

First off, I love the idea behind AuctionAds . I have talked to Jeremy a bit and know more than I probably should about how their system works. At this point, however, I'm discontinuing my use of the service. For some sites, it's not a big deal to display whatever shows up. For a commercial site, that's not the case. Our theory was simple. If someone searches on ToolBarn.com for a phrase where we have zero results, show them AuctionAds results to try monetizing that traffic. On the surface, it sounded great. When we started getting complaints on some of the results, we started digging a little deeper. The tests I had done last week were all fairly decent. Talking with Jeremy, I understand that queries that don't get done too often won't have decent results. But when results like pictured below started to show up, I had to pull the plug. Since it's tough to see, here's a zoom on the block in question. Now, I don't know how many sites have had a similar...

Jeremy Schoemaker put together a nice event for Nebraska, which I attended last night. Today I see he's already calling me out to speak at the next one. If that's the case, I'll have some demands. First, I want access to the presenters lounge. I think that's the restroom, but someone's gotta show me where that is anyway. Secondly, I'm gonna need another link, but this time with the words power tools pointed at ToolBarn.com. Third, I want a couple of questions to answer to get started. I've never actually been asked to speak on SEO, and I've got no idea what level the attendees are at, so it'll be much easier to speak if I have questions from the group. I'm sure a post on shoemoney.com would get a few responses that would help. Oh, and #2 is optional. The bottom line: I'd be delighted to speak to the group, Jeremy. And, not being like those MBL people , I'll even send you an email to let you know this.

We've been having some trouble with the checkout process on our sites over the past month. First, we have been preparing a third party integration on ToolBarn (not even Offermatica, as that's been installed and running for a while now without problems) that caused SSL warnings in checkout. This lasted most of a business week, causing sales during that week to seem slightly "soft" (our term for below average.) Secondly, Shoemoney had a $50 coupon for AdCenter (Microsoft's advertising platform for those not familiar with PPC). Well, I got it all up and running, and we immediately started having people calling in saying they were having problems with checkout. The oddball part here - they all have MSN as an ISP, most using MSN Explorer for a browser. So I'm left trying to figure out why. I mean, IE and FireFox are both used in our call center, and we've got the occasional Opera user testing it. I have a Mac to test things on as well. I also use Linux, so yet ...

I was reading an article in a magazine about another Nebraska resident that goes by Shoemoney (who I met in San Jose last month - nice guy) and he was talking about diversifying within your niche. This had me scratching my head a bit, then Allan Dick from Vitage Tub and Bath sent me an email. Clawfoot tubs are a niche, so when he gave me an email about diversifying, Jeremy's interview popped into my head and things started clicking for me. Kitchen Sinks What Allan and his guys are doing is expanding within their niche. They have supplies for all sorts of bathroom related products already. They have relationships with Kohler, Whitehaus, American Standard and the like already. These manufacturers also make kitchen products. So what they're doing is expanding into a new area without setting up new vendor relationships. They're selling Kitchen Sinks and faucets at a new website - appropriately named buykitchensinks.com . So now expanding within a niche starts to make sense t...