Being A Better Member

[Mike Friedman]

As the community of The SEO Pub grows, we are always going to have, and always going to welcome, members of different degrees of marketing experience and skills. In order to grow this community into what I envision it becoming, and for you yourself to get the most out of it, I ask that you take a moment to read this and think about how you can be a better member of the community.

Questions are always going to be asked. This is an open forum of course. I would ask that before starting a new thread, you use the forum’s search function to see if there are threads that already exist which answer your question(s). If you have a variation on the question, just quickly ask yourself if it makes sense to start a new thread or would it be better to just revive the old thread.

Belittling members for asking questions will never be tolerated by the staff here. At the same time, if the question can be answered by a simple Google search, think about whether you are really contributing to the community in a positive way by posting the thread.

Some examples would be as follows:

Quote

What is a nofollow link?

versus

Quote

I was reading about and trying to understand how the nofollow tag works on links. My question is when is an appropriate time that we should consider a nofollow tag on an internal link? Is there ever one?

 

Quote

How can I make $100 a day online?

versus

Quote

After reading about another marketer’s success in generating buying traffic with Facebook ads, I’m wondering if it would work for my niche to drive traffic to my website for my offer. I’m in the…

In other words, ask specific and more in depth questions when appropriate. This will create more interesting and beneficial discussions both for yourself and other members as well.

This is especially true when asking questions about your specific marketing campaigns. Too many times in other forums I have seen posts like these:

• My site is not ranking on page one of Google. Can someone tell me why?
• I have a high bounce rate. Why?
• I only made $0.17 off of AdSense last month. What am I doing wrong?

If you want useful answers with actionable ideas that you can implement, then provide some information about your situation. What have you done to try to rank your site so far? What kind of traffic are you targeting? Where is your traffic coming from? How long has your site been active? What kind of content is on your site? What are you doing to try to capture your visitors information and bring them back to your site? How are you trying to engage your traffic?

These are examples of the kind of information that will help experienced members to assist you in diagnosing ways to improve your results.

Refrain from turning disagreements personal. There are tons of different ways to make money online. Your way is not the only way, nor is it the “right” way. Be open to other points of view and new ideas.

That being said, there are always going to be disagreements and arguments over marketing ideas and techniques. Keep those arguments to the points at hand. Fight for your point of view as strong and as hard as you want, but do not cross the line of attacking the person on the other end of the argument.

Some of the most useful forum threads I have ever come across and/or participated in were very heated arguments. What came out of those threads were some incredible nuggets for those smart enough to identify them.

Brag. I have never met a successful internet marketer without at least a little bit of an ego or who did not enjoy a pat on the back for a job well done. Brag about your online successes when they happen.

Do not just post Woohoo! I made $5,000 last month.

Tell us how you did it. You do not have to go into every detail or provide your niche, but share what you are doing that is working. Do not worry if it is not something super advanced. Sometimes being reminded that the basics of marketing are still effective is a good thing.

It can also breed competition. You may find someone that reads your post, and it motivates them to do even better. Success breeds success.

Help out where you can. If you see a member struggling with something that you can assist with, help out when you can. Maybe you shared the same experience and can point them in the right direction. If you are new to online marketing and feel you do not have much to offer (you are probably wrong), help the community in other ways. For example, there is a 'Report' link at the bottom of each post. If you see some posting spam or something that is inappropriate, help us to clean it up by hitting that link.

Use the 'UpVote' button. At the bottom right of each post you will find a button labeled 'UpVote'. If you want to thank someone for a post they made, hit the button. If you want to go into more detail thanking them and discussing which points you liked, by all means do so, but lets try to keep from clogging up the forum with a bunch of "Thanks for this" or "Great post" type of one line messages.