Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

It’s only a matter of time before Internet connections become standard on airplanes. When that happens expect Skype to become one of the favourite APs to be used while high in the sky. I like the idea of calling my family on the way to Canada and letting them know I’m just over the Rockies and will see them soon!

Here is an example of someone already having some fun in the air.

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You probably do this already - complete regular searches in Google for your key phrases and see how high you rank. It’s well known that the first three results are far and away the sites that get the most clicks. If you can get one of the top three results in your key terms then you will have more targeted visitors coming to your site. If you can get the first result, well that is even better. Of course all your competitors want to do the same.

One of the great things about Google is that is updates quite frequently. That little GoogleBot is busy 24/7 indexing the web to make sure everyone gets the best answers to their search questions. I’ve recently been playing with a technique that I thought might be worth testing and because Google has updated so quickly I’ve been able to get a result within a few weeks, and I got the perfect result - a number one ranking for one of the key phrases I was after. In fact this technique worked so well that I got the number one result for a related search phrase too!

A Quick and Easy Google SEO Trick

The technique I used was to place an ad in a particularly highly ranked classified site. In this case it was the famous site Craigslist. This site is the original free classifieds trading community that has become a world wide phenomenon driven by word of mouth. But that’s not important. What is important is that Craigslist is very popular and has a high PageRank, and most importantly you can place a free ad on the site anytime you want to. There are restrictions and limitations but it is easy to do, there is no reason you shouldn’t make an ad or two. It’s free promotion for your business that may happen to also help with your placement in Google SERPs.

Key Term: SERP - Short for Search Engine Results Page, the Web page that a search engine returns with the results of its search. The major search engines typically display three kinds of listings on their SERPs. Listings that have been indexed by the search engine’s spider, listings that have been indexed into the search engine’s directory by a human, and listings that are paid to be listed by the search engine.

A Practical Test

For testing I was after the search phrase “Thesis Proofreader” for my business site’s thesis proofreading service. I entered the term into Google and noticed that a Craigslist entry was receiving a high result, but the subject and keywords were not highly targeted. However they were good enough to get a third page result in Google for that term. I went in and created a very simple ad in Craigslist that directly targeted my keywords and a week or two later I had the number one result for that term in the Google global SERP. Also because I had used the term “Essay” in the subject of the ad I managed to secure the first page result for “Essay Proofreader” as well. Not bad hey.

A Bit Hit and Miss

I was surprised that it worked as well as it did but I know better than to expect that good a result every time. One important consideration in my test is that there just isn’t much competition for my search phrase; hence it was easy to get the top result. If your market is more competitive your result likely won’t be as good. Craigslist deletes ads in 45 days so it’s not a permanent result either, you will need to keep going back to recreate your ad if you want to keep the result.

You should be sure to check the current results in Google to see if any free listing sites like Craigslist are pulling up high results for your terms. If you have some advertising cash to spend, see if any pay-for-entry directories or classifieds are pulling high results too. If there are then there is a good chance that if you create a well targeted ad you will have positive results.

It’s important to do search research first so you know which city listings in Craigslist are pulling the high results. Ideally for an online business that can service the world you would have a Craigslist listing for every city, but that just may not be feasible and may break the Craigslist rules anyway. With search research you determine which city is pulling the best results for your terms, which could be caused by a whole number of reasons - backlinks to that particular Craigslist city, key terms - the amount of variables to consider are beyond human comprehension, let Google handle that and just take the results on face value.

Take the time to locate the best city based on current search results and place your entry in that city at the very least. If your business is specifically targeted at a geographical area then it is a good idea to do a comprehensive ad in your Craigslist city (if available) as well, it certainly won’t hurt.

It’s also important to note that there is nothing stopping competitors doing the same thing as you. The SEO war may spread into Craigslist and muddy the site, which would no doubt prompt a clampdown on commercial listings in Craigslist. Perhaps this technique is best for those operating in small or unique industries since it is unlikely that competitive action will ruin it for everyone.

Also note that Google itself is a completely uncontrollable variable in this equation. Google may decide that it will no longer count Craigslist entries. Maybe it will decide to only index for certain terms. Just accept that you can’t control what Google decides to do, but you can test to see what results you can get. Not trying guarantees no results.

It’s Too Easy Not to Test

There is no good reason to not use this technique. Classified sites want listings, it’s what they do. You may or may not achieve better search engine results but at the least there is a chance that a browser may stumble across your ad and come shopping at your business. It takes very little time and usually is free so get out there and start creating those free ads. Just remember to use the right keywords and don’t go overboard, you don’t want all your incoming links to come from free directories because in the long run Google may penalise your results.

Yaro Starak
Google Hunter

Note: The links in the article to Google search results were current for the date that this article was published. There is a very good chance that the Google search links no longer validate the test completed for this article because Craigslist only allows ads to stay online for 45 days and Google constantly refreshes search results. Regardless it is still a very good practice to advertise your business in free online classified sites - it’s free advertising, so well, duh! - Just pick the reputable and popular authority sites and get busy creating ads.

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Here is another business idea from Yaro’s notebook of business creativity. As usual if this idea inspires you don’t be afraid to steal it, modify it or do anything you like with it. It is completely open source and I’d love to see it put into action. Or perhaps if you know of a business already operating in a similar manner to this idea, please feel free to point it out in a comment reply.

Car Advertising

I had this idea back when I was studying at university after getting my first car, a secondhand white Mitsubishi Cordia (this car later died in a car accident, may she rest in peace). Many small business owners already detail their car, van or business vehicles with their logo, phone number, web address, email etc. Pizza business are a good example - their fleet of vehicles are covered in branding and may even feature unusual augmentations such as a giant phone on the roof of the car that draws attention to the vehicle.

A car is a great advertising tool because it has such broad exposure, it’s like a mobile billboard, and some clever people have taken this one step further and created mobile billboard services. It’s quite common to see mobile billboard advertising vehicles driving around my city. You may have seen large trucks with a full size billboard in the back and even little mopeds/scooters, often travelling in groups of three (they travel in packs), pulling little billboard trailers promoting the latest softdrink or fashion label.

Many-to-Many Car Advertising

I came up with the idea to establish a many-to-many business model to provide car advertising services that would provide income to students as well. This was before mobile billboard businesses existed, at least in Brisbane, Australia. At the time I had no specific comprehension of what M2M was, I just understood that for scale efficiency on both the supply and demand sides of the business equation that this sort of model was the way to go.

In a nutshell this how I envisioned the business would work - Students, or people in general, could offer their car to be detailed with an advertisement from a corporate sponsor. In return they would be paid a once off fee, or a monthly fee, depending on the arrangement with the advertiser. The business would act as the middle man, coordinating the sale of advertising space, the detailing of cars, signing up new cars and controlling campaigns. The business model provides access to a potentially huge fleet of advertising vehicles limited only by the amount of advertisers willing to pay for the service. It would be possible to localise a campaign by grouping cars based on where the owners live or frequently travel, or even on the type of car (a fleet of four wheel drives for example) or even based on the model (VW Beetle for example).

Of course it would be necessary to ascertain any laws that might impinge on the business working, whether their are any restrictions on car advertising etc. The business would also need to coordinate quality control since perhaps certain advertisers would not want to see their brand associated with a banged up bomb student car.

Side Idea: Car manufacturers could possibly twist this idea as a method to reach the student market. Target early adopter students, offer them a heavily discounted or free new model car with the condition that the car is detailed with extensive advertising of the car/brand. You could possibly even wrap this idea up into a competition or promotion to give away a car or three during launch. I would imagine someone that just won a car or was offered a significant discount would be telling all their friends and driving the car around campus, to parties, everywhere, and the car would be a roving advertisement providing significant exposure and brand recognition.

Of course there is a fine balance to be kept between good branding/exposure vs. negative and this form of advertising would not be for everyone. It’s certainly has the potential to dramatically increase the exposure for a new product or service if handled well. Imagine a fleet of Mini Coopers driving around town plastered with imagery of the iPod Mini. That would certainly stir up some attention and repeat exposure.

Yaro Starak
Entrepreneur

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This is an excerpt from the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

It’s well worth a read.

Stanford Report: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

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I came across a report by Dane Carlson from the Business Opportunities Weblog that Google could be entering the online payments industry. I was very, very pleased to read this news. I’d love to see some really serious competition for Paypal emerge and judging by past innovations and the solid reputation of Google they could go a long way and provide a superior product. At least I hope they do.

WSJ.com: Google Inc. this year plans to offer an electronic-payment service that could help the Internet-search company diversify its revenue and could put it in competition with eBay Inc.’s PayPal unit, according to people familiar with the matter.

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It’s quite strange, but when I think of Paypal I get an uncomfortable feeling. A feeling of mistrust, difficult to use and poor customer service. I’ve developed this perception from my experiences with Paypal and reports from others. Worse still because of Paypal’s mainstream penetration I often must use their system because they have the critical mass. The good thing is, unlike Paypal’s owner, eBay, Paypal’s critical mass can be competed away by a superior service. Paypal’s large user base is not quite as much of a competitive advantage as eBay’s is. The switching cost to move away from eBay is way too high and it’s not likely they will ever loose their market dominance. Paypal however could lose their dominance much easier because the switching costs are not nearly as high.

When I think of a Google run service I get very excited. I expect innovative features, ease of use, simplicity all backed by a business with a good reputation. I just wonder how far Google can successfully diversify away from search. Time will tell.

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