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Content
28 September 2009, 17:21
Michael Angier builds business by helping others build their
South Burlington company sells success
By Matt Sutkoski • Free Press Staff Writer • Monday, September 28, 2009
SOUTH BURLINGTON — Michael Angier is optimistic.
It’s all there on his Web site, SuccessNet.org, which is packed with information on how to become a success in business and in life.
The site oozes with ideas for success, how to win solid profits in a principle-driven business. Discover your life’s purpose. Get your book published in 60 days or less.
Angier says he makes a comfortable living, and greatly enjoys his job, offering memberships and subscriptions to his site for clients worldwide.
Not bad for a man who says his own success rose from the ashes of failures.
Angier grew up on Addison County farm land, raised hogs, and eventually established the Vermont Meat Packing Co. This was in the days before the interest in local food, and the prematurity of his business contributed to the venture’s death, he said. He moved on to found Creating Excellence magazine. “We did well right up until the recession,” he said. Money got tight, advertising diminished, and the publication fell victim to overhead costs and folded around 1991.
By 1996, he’d created Success Networks International and its flagship Web site SuccessNet.org, an early entry into online publishing. On this attempt, the timing was right. People were being drawn to the Internet, interest in small business was rising, and Angier discovered he could run a business online with little overhead, a problem that sank Creating Excellence.
Overall, Angier says people must continually strive to move forward, no matter the circumstances. In one of his blog posts he writes: “I didn’t give up, although I wanted to. Instead, I recommitted and went back to the basics.”
He described those basics as follows: “Get clear on what you want, why you want it, stay focused and take consistent actions toward your goals. You will succeed. And you’ll have a lot of fun along the way.”
SuccessNet helps mostly small-business owners find ways to focus, move forward and make their enterprises thrive, Angier said. The site offers plenty of free advice, but people can also buy memberships and subscriptions to receive additional help. That’s how Angier makes his income from SuccessNet, which has about 97,000 subscribers. Basic memberships cost $17 and “gold” subscriptions cost $99. He also sells his books and other publications online.
There is an element of nuts-and-bolts practical advice sprinkled throughout SuccessNet, but the site largely offers lessons in business and life philosophy. “What we look to do is work on principals of business rather than strategies and tactics,” Angier said.
Angier, who runs SuccessNet out of a basement office in his South Burlington home, calls himself the Chief Inspiration Officer. “People need to be inspired, especially people who work at home who need stimulation from outside.”
One feature of SuccessNet that people can buy is a way to meet up with other business owners, in what Angier calls Master Mind Teams. Angier facilitates online meetings between five subscribers who bounce ideas off one another, share tips, offer support and ask questions.
Angier is also organizing a SuccessNet Summit in Dallas on Nov. 6-8. He has a variety of business experts, coaches, authors and entrepreneurs lined up to give talks. He held a similar summit in Burlington last year. He said such meetings help people make connections, more so than is possible online.
Angier said making money is fine, and he encourages people to find ways to do it. But it has to be done in an authentic way, he says. That enhances the chances the business will last, and also makes running the business more satisfying, he said.
The authenticity Angier prescribes is in large part a plea for basic honesty and truthworthiness. Many businesses proclaim they can be trusted. “A lot of it is probably lip service. They’re looking for ways to stand out.
“If you say ‘We’re the company you can trust,’ you have to back it up. A lot of companies don’t do that.”
He said, in general, businesses owned by women have better odds of surviving than those owned by men. “Women have higher success rates than men. They bring a little humanity to the table.”
Every business needs a vision statement, Angier said. He said the vision should be somewhat unrealistic, painting an idealized picture of what the business will look like when it reaches its ultimate success.
“Your vision statement should be your best possible outcome,” he writes. “Remember that the purpose of your vision statement is to inspire, motivate and stimulate creativity.”
Angier said much of what he does stems from his voracious reading habits. Angier said his eldest son, a successful stock analyst, told him he remembered Angier’s remark from years earlier: “Leaders are readers,” he said.
“I read a fair amount and I subscribe to certain blogs,” he said. “Reading is kind of a catalyst for thinking.” From there, he thinks about how what he reads can be applied to business success. “I’m pretty good at connecting the dots.”
His passion for reading has translated into books for others to read. He has written such publications as “101 Best Ways to Be Your Best” and “101 Best Ways to Get Ahead.” Another book, “Growing You and Your Business,” is due early next year. He said he’s published about 1,500 articles and operates more than a dozen Web sites beyond the core SuccessNet.
The Internet has made it possible for anyone to easily start a business, but such Web-based businesses can be isolating, Angier said. SuccessNet aims to combat that isolation by connecting people with each other, and new ideas.
Internet and business possibilities are not endless, he said. He counsels business owners and would-be entrepreneurs to figure out how to marry whichever of their passions can work together, and maybe not purse some that can’t be part of the business.
“You can achieve anything you want, but not everything,” he said.
Angier said he has achieved the satisfaction he urges others to find. “Eighty-five percent of what I do, I’d do for nothing,” he said.
Contact Matt Sutkoski at 660-1846 or msutkosk@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com.
ENJOY!
Margarita Nomeikiene
Content
21 September 2009, 13:53
Online journalism
How Brent D Payne increased Tribune sites’ monthly visits by a cool 20 million
By Rachelle Mone
Brent D Payne, as the Tribune Company’s in-house Director of Search Engine Optimization (and bald SEO legend), has managed a 20 million increase in monthly visits to its websites, including the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times. Payne tells Rachelle Money how these spectacular results have been achieved, including using keyword research to help give readers “the news we know they want”.
The Tribune Company has been in the press for all the wrong reasons in the last few months. In December 2008 it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from its creditors as it struggled under the load of a $13bn debt. The move came weeks after the company reported a $124m third-quarter loss, compared with an $84m profit in the same period of 2007.
With hundreds of jobs under threat many journalists have looked to the online editions of their newspapers for a glimmer of hope. For some it's the only part of the industry where there seems to be good news.
Brent Payne was the man given the task of increasing traffic to the Tribune Company websites and he's managed just that. “In 2007 we had 14m monthly visits from search engines, in 2008 it was 21 million and in 2009 it's 34 million”, says Payne.
SEO traffic has also increased its share of total Tribune traffic. In 2007 SEO accounted for 22% of traffic, in 2008 it jumped to 31% and in 2009 it stands at 36%.
So how did he do it?
Educating journalists about the benefits of SEO and keyword research has not been easy. When Payne joined the Tribune he gave a presentation to a roomful of suspicious journalists and used a simple analogy to make his case.
He told them: “Consider the news stand of today. Even though you write a great article, if no one sees that article it doesn't really matter. Online you can take a news stand and put it in the middle of Times Square by doing good SEO, or you can take your news stand and stick it in the middle of Kansas by doing no SEO. It's your choice.
“I said to them that although it may not be perfect for you guys journalistically to put a full proper noun in a headline, it makes a huge difference to the number of people who read your quality content.” Payne said his presentation connected with only around a quarter of those in the room, but that didn't dishearten him. Instead he used this minority to gain wider support in the best way he could – by exploiting the journalists' egos. Payne explains:
“Every time the stories from that 25% hit the top of Google an email went out not only to them but to their bosses as well. I sent a short email which said great job, your story got the first page of Google, you have driven this much traffic to our site - and that reaffirmed to them that this (SEO) was the right thing to do.
"From there people started preaching SEO without me even being in the room. One journalist talks to another and before you know it, it spreads like a virus through the newsroom.”
But not everyone at Tribune is converted.
'' There are still some who are stubborn, but it's the other way round now: 25% are still refusing to take SEO on board.”
Some of the old school Pulitzer prizewinning journalists aren't interested, but I'm not standing over them asking them to drink the Kool-Aid. Most of the newsroom are doing it and seeing great results, so I refuse to battle with a minority of journalists.” When asked what his involvement is once a story has been written and is ready to be published, Payne replied: “I have full access to the CMS (Content Management System) and I can edit whatever I want, like title tags, headlines, sub headlines or even the story if I wanted to.”
However, that's not the best way to do it if you want long term success. What I tend to do is edit the title tag myself and I won't touch the headline. Instead I'll email or instant message the online editor and say this needs to be better optimized. They change it and it's nothing to do with me, it's them making that change.”
Using keyword research and SEO in breaking news stories
When a breaking news story surfaces and it's crunch time for a newspaper site that has to rank high for relevant search terms, then Payne will step in to rewrite headlines.
The death of Michael Jackson is the biggest news story of the year so far. Payne told me that in the hours after the story broke he scrambled to win the race to the top of Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for the keywords 'Michael Jackson dead' and 'Michael Jackson death'.
“When Michael Jackson died I didn't win for 'Michael Jackson' which frustrates the hell out of me. I won for 'Michael Jackson dead', 'Michael Jackson death' and 'Michael Jackson obituary'.“
I nailed those but what I missed was 'Michael Jackson', and the reason was because there was so much competition. I got 10% of the queries on Michael Jackson but I also had a record day, despite having only a tenth of what I could have got.”
MTV, TMZ and people like MichaelJackson.com won. And then someone who bought MichaelJacksonDead.com. You have to sometimes realize that you won't win every time.”
Most people who do SEO won't have to contend with thousands of pieces of content being published on their website every day. In the 15 minutes Payne spoke during the interview, more than 300 content items were published on Tribune websites. That includes photos, columns and stories. 38,031 different items went out on Tribune feeds in one recent day.
When you are responsible for that much content your SEO process must be watertight.
Enjoy!
Margarita Nomeikiene
Content
16 September 2009, 12:54
It's not what you are that holds you back...
A while back I spoke to a group in Houston and I showed them pictures of
some very famous people.
They included Thomas Edison, Cher, Walt Disney, Richard Branson,
Jay Leno, Whoopi Goldberg, Ted Turner and my hero Winston Churchill..
Then I asked the audience what they all had in common..
Can you guess?.
There were quite a few answers from the audience and they were all
wrong. It was only after I pulled out $100 and offered it as a
prize that a person in the back overcame his fear of being wrong
and volunteered the correct answer.....
....they were all dyslexic!.
I pointed out that the role that made each of them famous also
required a lot of reading. Do you know how hard it is for a
dyslexic person to read?.
But not a single one of those great people that I cited let
dyslexia keep them from being all they were created to be..
That's why one of my most favorite quotes is, "It's not what you
are that holds you back, it's what you think you're not.".
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It's the cure for low self-esteem while building a World-Class
confidence...Only 5 days remaining to save 35%.
http://www.asamanthinketh.net/denis.
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I use that quote by Denis Waitley virtually every time I speak to
an audience..
Because it really speaks to the problem I think most people have in
struggling for success --- they believe they're lacking something
that, if they possessed it, would make them successful. When the
truth is, they already possess everything they need to be
successful, they just need to learn how to use it to their
advantage..
This feeling of lack can be directly associated to a low
self-esteem, and I don't know anyone whose better than Denis at
teaching you how to build a world-class self-esteem. That's why
the late Dr. Norman Vincent Peale said, "he has the rare ability to
motivate every reader and listener.".
Last week we offered an incredible discount on Denis' 18-CD
Platinum Collection and the response was exactly what we expected!
But by prior arrangement we can only offer that discount for five
more days..
So if you haven't listened to the extended play sample
http://www.asamanthinketh.net/denis.
And please never forget this, "It's not what you are that holds you
back, it's what you think you're not.".
As always, thanks for supporting our sites :-).
Vic and Lisa Johnson.
ENJOY!.
sincerely, Margarita Nomeikiene.
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