In the series reboot of the FFCA Podcast Series, Jon Reed welcomes Morris Rosenthal of FonerBooks.com and the author of Print On Demand Book Publishing for a totally unscripted conversation on web business and self-publishing. Listen in as Jon and Morris debunk popular myths about blog traffic, Google Page Rank, and how to succeed as an Internet-based self-publisher (Morris) rather than an overworked blogging and consulting diva (Jon).
After we taped this podcast, both of us felt that we can improve upon this one, so we look forward to your comments. But, there’s enough on here worth sharing, including:
- Why blog “traffic” is deceptive and why web sites structured like books tend to get much better Google “love.”
- Morris explains why his blog traffic is significantly lower than his “static” pages, and why “blogging is a curse.”
- The dangers of publishers skipping the text-based content lessons of “Web 1.0″ and heading directly to the sexy social media era of Web 2.0.
- The continued victory of content over aesthetics when it comes to web business, especially for content producers.
- A juxtaposition of lifestyles between the high traffic self-publisher and the overworked blogger/consultant, as well as unfair dismissals and mockery of “cool bloggers.”
- How Free From Corporate America’s concepts on building income-generating assets mix well with Morris’ views on lifestyle profitability and the value of having a income profit margin versus overworking yourself for top line revenue.
- Morris’s 100,000 plus YouTube visitors and why they have had no positive bottom line impact on his business due to their lack of text-based traffic generation. (as well as the inherent difficulties of making multi-media searchable).
- The value of “contextual links” and why Morris would much rather have a high quality contextual link from an obscure site in his industry than a non-contextual link from a hot blogger.
- The limitations of getting home page links from blogs versus more desirable “deep links” to reference pages on your site from well-regarded sites in your industry.
- A brief review of hot social media sites (Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook) and an insufficient discussion of their pros and cons (a topic to be returned to in future postings and podcasts)
- Victory for Jon’s Zoom H-2 Recorder over Morris’ weak Walmart recorder that crapped out 10 minutes into the podcast.
- Traffic stats are cited, as well as how Morris tracks the traffic of his site compares to others using free tools (Alexa, Google Trends, and Quantcast).
FACT CHECK: As stated in the podcast, Morris’ web site traffic does currently exceed (or equal, depending on the tool) the traffic on Amazon’s Mobi site.
SHOUTOUT: To the Enterprise Geeks and Bill Simmons of ESPN for providing further validation of the longer, unscripted podcast format.
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Want to buy Free From Corporate America or see reviews of the final published version from readers like yourself? The printed book is now available on Amazon.com with product reviews.
You can also get a discounted version of the final book in eBook (PDF) format, or you can pick up a copy on the Kindle. The published version of the book is significantly enhanced from the web version available on this site.
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