Hi Everybody!
So, as promised this newsletter would be about optimizing your pages for increased rev-share, oh, for the new guys on this list, this maybe too much, there are good days ahead, but maybe read the Newsletter archive and work on some tasks before making your way through this one.
Many of you have gotten the hang of tasks and now want to start earning more with your pages. This is good, I'll get to that but first things first, let's take a moment to congratulate Jason - @jmd364, Matt - @cantstop85 and Jose - @jmp247 on being the latest three to reach the 10 task training goal! And sport recruits @mbalshin_93 and @gnix on being the latest additions to the How-To Team. Those on the How-To team need to know that in February there is a bonus for completing "25 Bulk How-To's" - I have an insane long list of How-To's related to sports, contact me if you are interested our good man @Justimko has already started on this project and I trust all is well. Google ranks Mahalo high for How-To's and that is why we are pushing the project. I also get a bonus in this deal, so if you want to help me out, take my tasks :)
Now wait, what does that mean? "Google ranks us high?" - Well, on the web Mahalo is considered an authority in "How-To's" - (we are also an authority for Coupon pages), this means our pages automatically rank high on Google, the same way IMDB rates high for Movies and the Food Network ranks high for recipes. It takes time, dedication and a lot of people linking to you to earn such a position. That is the ultimate goal for our sports department, to get ranked high in search engines and linked to as often as possible, we can become an authority and trusted archive of sports information, it all starts with us. At the end of the day this will equal more traffic and ultimately more revenue for us as managers of the Mahalo pages.
What we want to accomplish with revenue-share is to turn the M$3 task you build into something that brings you much more. Most companies will pay you a sum for Pay-per-piece, but then they keep all the long term revenue, others will *allow* you to publish using their platform, then promise you rev-share as it comes in. We tried to find the middle ground, offering a bit of both. Let me tell you now how over time we can maximize your earnings through rev-share.
I'd like to call this Mahalo S.E.O - and SEO doesn't stand for your standard "Search Engine Optimization" - It's the acronym to follow to get the most out of the Mahalo pages you manage over a long period of time.
S - Sharing
E - Embedding
O - Optimizing
That's pretty. Let me go through each point one by one. Sharing is the biggest.
Sharing
For all those who have been living under a rock the past 5 years, the Internet has been engulfed by social media. First blogs, followed soon after by social media mecca's like Reddit.com, StumbleUpon, Digg.com, Facebook and more recently Twitter. If you publish on the web, you need to be signed up, familiar and active on all of these networks if not more of them.
When it comes to your Mahalo Page, it is absolutely essential that you share it. Let's begin with Facebook. - Say you just updated the [[Daytona 500]] page > Log into facebook drop the link on your wall and say something about it, tell your friends you wrote the page, or simply tell them something about the event. Don't be shy, use these tools as they were intended, to share with your friends.
Twitter, is a trickier beast because you need have followers before you get any substance with your sharing. The way I see us all benefiting from Twitter is by connecting with each other for starters, if all 40 of us were inter-connected it would make for a powerful group right off the bat. The act of us sharing our pages with each other, in public, will help us grow out our network and create a sense of camaraderie. I am making a list of Twitter accounts as we speak, if you have one please let me know your username, if you don't have one, sign up today! I will dedicate a whole future newsletter to Twitter to ensure we are all making the most of this gem of a program. - Also download the desktop Twitter program - twhirl (or Tweetdeck) Because honestly, Twitter is useless without them.
Posterous, this is a service that allows you to share your links across dozens of networks with one click. It is a tad more advance, I do recommend it - Read http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-use-posterous - All the Mahalo elites use it, you might as well get signed up and connected early, again, someday I will have an entire other newsletter solely about Posterous.
Other Social Networks - Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Propeller, Fark, ballhype, the list goes on, there are hundreds of large link sharing networks where you can share your work. I've worked in social media for years now, even before I started with Mahalo I worked full time for one of those major networks and I must share with you....
The Golden Rules of Social networking etiquette. These apply for Twitter and Facebook too.
1. Do not only post your work. Honestly, Mahalo links can only be 10% of your postings. Anything more people will ignore you, you'll get pigeon holed as a self-promoter, and that will be the end of you on the internet. Use social media responsibly.
2. Appreciate other peoples work and gain respect. These networks are called "social" for a reason, they are communities, like ours, made up of thousands of users. Before you even begin eying them up as sources of traffic, take part in the network by watching others, find people you find interesting and connect with them (follow them on twitter, "friend them" on digg etc..)..comment on their posts...retweet their tweets... "like" their Facebook posts. The goal is to build a trusting network that pays just as much attention to you as you do to them.
Embedding
Every Mahalo page has an embed option, right under your manager badge. It looks like this, and you can copy that code to your blog. If you don't have a blog! Build one! Today! Honestly, you can start your bare-bones blog in under 3 minutes...I timed myself, it actually took me 39 seconds with my FireFox browser, I recommend Google Blogger. Even if you have no idea how to blog, or what to do with a blog, just start one and keep it as an archive of your Mahalo pages. Each time you build a page, go to your blog and post your widget. Like with everything this is not mandatory, it's just a helpful tip that will do your managed pages wonders, as an added incentive, Mahalo will pay you M$1 for every 1,000 times your widgets are viewed on your blog. Maximize your revenue!
As you know, Mahalo pages are factual, informative search engine results, there is no room for opinion or bias commentary, and when it comes to sport, we naturally have that instinct. With a blog you can get the most out of your Mahalo page by taking the information you just researched and doubling it up with a well versed blog post, be creative talk in your own voice on your blog. Blogging about your Mahalo works on so many levels!
A) It creates Google friendly back-links, helping your Mahalo page in Search Engines.
B) It allows you to post your widget, earning you more money through views.
C) It allows you to use your research a second time and be creative with your writing, if your Mahalo page does not get traffic, maybe your blog will?
Start a blog today, send me a link to your blog and soon we'll all create a blog-roll network.
Optimizing
What all this sharing and embedding leads to at the end of the day is optimizing our Mahalo pages. I look at our stats and a good 80% of our traffic comes from the great Google himself. The term you'll hear often in the web-industry is "SEO - Search Engine Optimization", some people earn a lot of money being experts in this field. We don't want to become SEO experts, we want to become Sports experts with the knowledge of SEO. We know SEO exists, and we know it works, let's not break our backs figuring it out.
It's not rocket science. Everything you learned in Mahalo training was essentially a form of optimization training, we taught you how to inlink, we taught you how to add citations and we taught you the importance of related pages. You practically know everything there is to know about optimizing your page. I'm going to include adding a video to your pages to this list, because having a user sit on your Mahalo page to watch a video is a beautiful thing on so many levels.
What we've learned today is only the tip of the iceberg, web-writing is a brand new ball game, a whole new playing field, a clean sheet of ice....a basketball court?..umm
I'd just like to say that all of you are doing a great job with tasks, an honestly you can forget everything you learned in this email and still do a great job just writing tasks, the content should speak for itself and traffic should find it's way in one way or another. It really is the beauty of Mahalo, you really can take your passion for sports writing to any level you are comfortable with, and if you are as passionate about is as I hope you are, you will stick around and help this department grow, and become an authority on sports.
The Super Bowl is this weekend, if you will be at your computer during the game, spend it with me in the chat room. Naturally, I will be working.
NBA All-Star game and the Daytona 500 are coming up - If you are interested in either event, let me know and I will assign you some related pages.
Otherwise, blinders on. It's all Olympics from here till the end of February.
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