Simplenomics » Blogging Simplified

Scribe: The SEO Plugin That Breathes New Life Into Old Posts

Mike Sigers — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:19:22 +0000

Wow!

That’s about all that needs to be said for the Scribe SEO WordPress Plugin that we recently installed on 10+ sites.

Wow!

That’s what you’ll say after you install it and try it out.

Wow!

That’s what you’ll say after you look at your server logs and see all the new traffic you’re getting from old posts that are now optimized and are actually doing what they should have done way back when blogging and WordPress were still in their infancy.

Here’s What I Had Before Scribe

The screencap to the right shows what I saw a lot of when I first installed Scribe.

I have well over 500 posts on this blog alone. Before we installed the current theme, Thesis, I’m sure I had 2, 3 or maybe 4 other themes and none of them made it easy to optimize my Title, Meta Description and the content of the post.

Now that I use Thesis, that part is simple, but what about all those old posts I wrote when I was new, fresh, hungry and more likely to post several times a week?

You know, those posts that are now long-tail search fodder and bring in thousands of viewers a month. Yeah, those posts.

I have, or did have, hundreds of posts that needed a way to quickly and easily do what needs to be done to them to make them more magnetic to the masses and more loved by the search engines.

Scribe has done that for me and I’m a happy little camper because of it.

Here’s What I Have Now Because Of Scribe

The screencap to the right now shows an optimized post. The posts now do better in the search engines, I get more traffic and it was easy to do.

I have a lot more of them to do, but when I’m done, I’ll have 400-500 more little search engine magnets out there sending me more eyeballs and more potential friends, more potential guest posters, more potential partners on projects and more people to leave comments, which is free content and search engine juice. What more could you ask of a plugin?

The More Of What You Asked For

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that besides the obvious Title and Meta Description love that Scribe and Thesis have given me, Scribe also tutors me and chastises me for doing a poor job with my Title, my Meta description and my content.

The screencap below will show you what I got after analyzing this post, which I did before it was finished, because I needed the screencap, for obvious reasons:

The last time I scored a 99% on anything was during kindergarten when I colored the horsey.

Since then, I’ve come to accept scores that were, shall we say, a wee bit lower.

An old post that I recently updated using Scribe scored a whopping 22% before I Scribed the heck out of it. 22 freakin’ %.

Updating old posts amounts to small bits of rewriting and we all know rewriting something is much easier and faster than starting from scratch. So going thru the rest of the posts in this site and several others will take some time, but not as much as writing 400-500 posts would have taken.

The payback is more than worth it and thanks to Scribe and Thesis, I’ll never have to do it again and from now on, the posts I write will be much better thanks to the fine folks at Scribe.

Do yourself a favor and head over there and grab a copy before the price increase, but even if they doubled the price, it’s worth every cent and more.

EDIT 3/05/10: Everything below has been altered from the original post.

I now have changed all the above links to affiliate links, meaning if you buy, I’ll end up retired on my boat at the lake a lot sooner, because I’ll get paid.

I originally had non-affiliate links, but literally a couple of dozen people emailed me and said they were buying simply because of this candid review and wished I was getting compensated.

Well, I’m still getting a hundred views a day to this review, so I’m going to allow you to choose whether or not you want to click an affiliate link or not.

If you don’t want me to be compensated, but do want to buy Scribe, just follow this link: Scribe rocks!

No hard feelings. I didn’t write this for compensation, as evidenced to the thousands who read this before I was convinced to change my links.

Again, I stress that the affiliate links is not a big deal. I don’t want something like that to keep you from investing in something that I positively know will make your WordPress powered site even better than it is now.

EDIT 2/26/10 approx 2 PM CST

I’m sitting at #1 in Google for the term – scribe seo plugin – ahead of Scribe’s own site and some very powerful sites.

I’m attributing it to my usage of Scribe, along with lotsa comments, left by you guys. And you guys wouldn’t have been here if not for uber-traffic sender Chris Pearson, creator of Thesis, which help power this blog.

Click here to see a screen cap of the rankings.

The Definitive Copywriting Guide is Content Rich by Joh Wuebben

Mike Sigers — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:01:44 +0000

Today we have a guest post by the blogger who writes for the #1 self help blog, as ranked by Google.

That blogger, Joi, also happens to be my better half….by far!

I can’t possibly read all the books that are sent for me to review and she’s forgotten more about writing than I’ll ever know, so I begged her for a little help. Thanks to her for all that follows and please click thru and check out her blog:

I read a great number of copywriting books and articles – online and off. The problem with many of them is this: The authors try to teach the reader how to write content the way they would write it. Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web by Jon Wuebben teaches you to write content how you should write it. He gets that our copywriting should have our individual voice and he helps the reader find that voice.

Then he shows us how to use that voice to attract wealth.

As Jon Wuebben points out in the Introduction, the written word is more important than ever. During the course of the day, take note of the number of words you read, online alone. The number’s astronomical. Now take note of the number of words you’ll remember. The number of words that, long after your eyes were through with them, lodged in your brain and heart.

That’s a writer’s goal after all. A good writer doesn’t want the reader to read then forget, a good writer wants the reader to read and respond. The writer has to connect with his or her readers on an emotional level and the reader has to feel that there is a person behind the words – a person who they’d be friends with!

If they can’t hear a human voice through the words, they aren’t going to respond to them. And the response is what every copywriter is aiming for.

“If you want to know the real secrets to online traffic and a non-stop turbo boost in sales, it’s right here in this content-rich book. Packed with tips and techniques, insights and practical advice, this is one of those rare books that truly delivers. I loved it.” – Dr. Joe Vitale, author of “Hypnotic Writing”

Whether you are an individual in business for yourself or you are part of a larger corporation, Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web is the next book you should add to your library.

Learn how search engines respond to copywriting. Your search engine performance can make or break you and your copywriting can make or break your search engine performance.
Learn how to write powerful e-mails and newsletters. People get a ridiculous amount of content in their inbox, it’s imperative that your’s stands out. Chapter 11 shows you how to make sure it does just that.
If you fall in love with copywriting, Chapter 16 introduces you to copywriting as a career.
How to generate free publicity! Free’s usually the right price, and Chapter 7 teaches the reader how to build links and get free word of mouth. Saving money while making money is a concept we can all get behind.
Chapter 9 introduces you to the power of blogging and rss. Many, many times if you can look at something and say, “Everybody’s doing it,” there’s a darn good reason they are.
You’ll learn the pages you’ll need to write for your website and the importance of each. It’s critical that you know what your site should include and what it shouldn’t.

In a nutshell, Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web is the definitive guide to copywriting.

Think of the words you write as Point A and connecting with your readers as Point B. Wealth and the lifestyle of your dreams is Point C. Let Jon Wuebben show you how to connect each of the three in a way that’ll build a bridge to the future of your dreams.

You may have heard me use the analogy before of the importance of teaching someone to fish rather than giving them a fish. If you give them a fish, they’ll eat well for one meal. If you teach them to fish for themselves, they can eat well for the rest of their life. This book will teach you how to develop a copywriting system that will make you a great deal of money. But the beauty of it is this: It’s a system that you can use time and time again.

“This book will help you make more sales and more money on the Internet than you ever thought possible!” -Brian Tracy, author of “Getting Rich Your Own Way”

Calling All Leaders

Mike Sigers — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 05:49:22 +0000

My friend Bill Caskey and his team have done it again.

Not only do they have the best sales related podcast on the planet, not only do they have a great blog, but now they’ve created the Leadership Institute of Indianapolis and a new blog, Leadership Insights to go along with it.

Do me a favor, do yourself a favor and head over and give ‘em a read and subscribe to their RSS feed.

You can thank me later

Do That One Thing That You Do Better Than Anyone Else

Mike Sigers — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 02:12:12 +0000

For those about to blog, about to sell, about to work, about to live, we salute you.

Brian Johnson, lead singer of AC/DC since I was a wee lad, was interviewed in the USA WEEKEND section of my Sunday paper.

He gave away their secret, which happens to also be a marketing secret, a product creation secret and an entrepreneurial secret of the same magnitude as “You Shook Me All Night Long”, one of the five best rock songs of all time, in my musical opinion:

“We do one thing and that is rock.” Not rock, fused with country. Not rock fused with jazz. Not rock watered down with anything.

Simply rock.

The lessons here are many, so sit down, buckle up and hang on.

Keep Your Classic Sound

AC/DC has never veered from their roots and that has led to their success. Every day I see blogs that are veering from their roots and I unsubscribe. Every day I see sales people who leave the roots of their product and try to make it appeal to everyone, instead of to their target audience. Sales suffer because of this.

I veer off topic rarely here on Simplenomics. Sales, marketing, ads, blogging. That’s about it.

In my offline career, I never try to sell my line of products to those who don’t need or want them.

If your blog’s about sales and you start adding in posts about clothes, shoes and your opinion about sports teams in Auckland, I’m unsubscribing, because you’re done. Say goodbye to your tribe.

When bloggers go off-topic too often it’s because they’ve run out of experiences, tips, teaching, etc.

If you sell blue widgets to Smurfs, make sure you sell every blue widget to every Smurf you can find.

If that only takes 20 hours a week, find an additional product to sell. Don’t attempt to sell blue widgets to those that only want and need green ones.

Work On Your Strengths, Not Your Weaknesses

AC/DC took eight years in between Stiff Upper Lip and Black Ice.

None of their fans left them or unsubscribed from their previous albums.

If you need to post less often, it’s okay. I never unsubscribe from a blog that’s not posting, only from blogs that post crap or go off-topic too often.

In the entrepreneurial world, don’t try to perform every task yourself.

For example, if you’re a sales trainer, don’t attempt to be your own webmaster, your own recording studio, your own transcriptionist, etc.

Create content and outsource the tasks that are time and energy suckers.

Your strength is sales training. Other people are strong at creating websites, recording and editing audio, etc. Let them earn a living doing what they do best and you earn your living doing what only you can do.

Got Another Interest Aside From Your Main Love ?

That’s fine. Jump on it and ride. Don’t mix it with your current venture.

If you blog about sales, don’t start adding in posts about words, weasels and what you think about politics.

Start another blog. It ain’t that damn hard.

If you supply me with lemon scented soap, don’t think for one minute I want to also buy semi-conductors from you as well. I don’t. You have no credibility.

Brian Johnson wanted to do a musical about Helen of Troy. He didn’t mix that with AC/DC’s business, he did it as an aside. Smart man. If he’d tried to add a track or two into an AC/DC album, they would have lost loyal fans.

Do what only you can do and do it well and you’ll build your tribe. Trying to do two or three things in one spot leads to confusion and confused people don’t spend money.

Revolutionize Your Blog !

Mike Sigers — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 05:19:00 +0000

Don’t forget to listen in tonite, Tuesday March 25th, as Brian Gardner, designer of the Revolution series of WordPress themes answers your questions about using Premium WordPress themes.

Head over to the site for listening to the telewebcast and ask a question or just listen in and discover the secrets that Brian lets loose.