Ever since I found this site, I cannot keep from comparing him to James Martell. Their research methods and approach to site building are virtually identical in my mind. James Martell is VERY well-known and when he says he makes over $xx,xxx per month, I believe him … unlike other “gurus” who say they make a lot of money but I don’t put much credibility behind what they say.

James Martell’s methods work … and therefore so should what Mark is recommending. The difference here is that with BANS, you don’t have to write a million articles like you do with Martell’s method! With the keyword-loaded eBay listings, you can get away with much fewer articles which makes it much more manageable for most of us.

If Mark tells you (“you” in the generic sense so that would apply to Day Job Nuker as well as anyone reading this) that you need to do these 10 steps to achieve a certain goal, then you need to do ALL 10 steps. Doing only 1 or 2 of the recommended actions and expecting the same success is ridiculous. Not only is there a reason for doing all the steps but more than likely they also have a cumulative effect. So doing only 2 of 10 steps will not even get you 20% of the expected results.

And to say that a site lost rankings because of Mark’s recommendations without acknowledging a drastic PR update during that time is extremely narrow-minded. Many people’s sites lost PR in this last update. I have a James Martell-type site that had received PR 1 and PR 2 rankings about 6 months ago but all the pages are now down to PR0. Am I blaming James Martell for that? Google yes, Martell no. But I quit writing articles and quit promoting it so who do you think is really to blame for the loss in rankings?

Mark put a lot of effort into the review and recommended changes for this site … with absolutely no monetary compensation. He is simply sharing his knowledge and suggestions. Take them or leave them … but I think everyone here knows that he is giving good advice. SEO is hard work and there is no easy way to do it!

I don’t normally bother to write a comment (or a novella) to come to someone’s defense. But in this case, I feel it was very much warranted … and worth my time

Keep up the good work, Mark. Please don’t let “one bad apple” spoil it for the rest of us. I, for one, have learned an incredible amount so far and hope to keep finding great advice here.

Thank you for your time and effort, Mark!

Cindy

You can hardly find me to blame for not making the recommended changes! I have visited your site several times over the past 4 months, both the GPS and the DJN’er site (Since you were pulling a file from my server) just waiting to see the changes being made!

Of the entire review written above, you only took one or two bits of the advice and incorporated it into the site! Many of the category changes you made are listed as #1 in Alexa, and the other engines will follow suit over time. (Garmin 3210C GPS System, GPS Garmin Antennas, several others)

I even did the legwork and posted a sheet with the HIGHEST ROI terms, listed in their order of least competitive… ie: High KEI and easiest to rank for in the shortest amount of time. You have not targeted one single phrase on that list… but chose to stay with the default categories and very generic meta optimization with the exception of a few pages.

I am more than willing to lay down a bet with you that if you setup a category for me on the site – lets call it “GPS Proving Grounds”… send me the login and PW to the site and give me 45-60 days, I will get the 10-15 categories/product pages I place on the site to rank in the top 10-20 for EVERY one I develop! I am not talking abstract phrases either, I am talking about high efficiency, high converting terms that nobody else is after.

I dont blow smoke up anyones ass here – I use raw data to formulate and implement a plan of success on ANY site. I can only do so much in these reviews, what the user chooses to do beyond reading it, is purely up to them.

Mark

Thanks for the comment – 2 Years ago, I would have said the “ultimate best way” to list search terms for that particular page would be:
“Garmin 3210C GPS Systems,garmin,3210c,gps,system”.
Doing so would definitely net the EXACT term referenced during searches. Since the keyword and description meta tags have been somewhat discounted by search engines in leiu of page content, I have found that using the individual terms works just as good and does not risk getting viewed as keyword stuffing. (Repeating keywords multiple times in one meta tag)

Incidentally, in less than 3 weeks – for Non-Sponsored results:

Garmin 3210c GPS #1 in MSN & Alexa
Garmin 3210c GPS Systems #1 in MSN

Google & Yahoo will follow soon… they always take longer!

Mark

On the Wordtracker site they allow you to differentiate between keywords in quotes(key phrase) and keywords without quotes. The idea is that if the keywords are in quotes and your site has that keyphrase, then you show up in the searches higher than someone who targets the words in the phrase.

In the example above you tell him to make a Garmin 3210C GPS page because that nails a keyphrase but in the META keyword you split up thhe phrase into seperate keywords.

Wouldn’t it be better if the keyphrase was left intact? Is the keyphrase in the URL, description and pagename adding more SEO weight to the keyphrase?

It puts the entire thought process and implemetation right there on the screen. No more guessing, nor more “art of seo”, no more “figuring it out”.

I’ve bought e-books with less info than this.