I had an interesting conversation over the weekend with Marvin, who called me to discuss Network Marketing. Somehow we had become connected through Facebook or another social networking website and he thought that since we were tagged as being friends online he believed that that gave him permission to call me and try to sell me something. That’s a whole other blog post in itself, and a debate that could go on and on. My conversation with Marvin, a network marketer who is heavily involved in MLM (Multi Level Marketing) and network marketing, thought that he could sell me a domain name and website. Marvin and I talked about it, and I explained that buying a website wasn’t my thing: that it in fact was not a way to “get more leads” by simply buying someone else’s website content that they were selling. In fact, doing so is actually leaning towards search engine spam, and that simply copying someone else’s content was a no-no.
This was an eye-opening experience for Marvin, someone who was trying to “make a buck” by trying to get me to sign up for the multi level marketing scheme that he was involved in, something called “Global Domains International”. In fact, we talked about the fact that it was better to create a unique website, perhaps a blog, with unique content on it rather than using someone else’s templated content that’s duplicated over 128,000 times on the internet:
You see, if you are a network marketer, you probably have been “given free a website” where you can drive “leads” to and get people to sign up to run their own free business. In other words, your website would be a lead generation tool, whereas the network marketing company is “giving you” a free website. Most likely, you’re doing all the work and getting others to sign up for this “opportunity” for them to make more money. But is that what you are really doing? Are you actually in business for yourself, living the “American Dream” so to speak, and actually making money for yourself? Probably not. You’re making some money, but you’re also making money for someone else (the network marketing company and those who are situated “above you” in this whole multi level marketing “program”).
I’m not going to go off on a tangent here and talk about one particular Multi Level Marketing (MLM) opportunity or even several of them. My whole point of this blog post is actually to talk about what these MLMs tend to do: give out free websites. This is easy for the MLM company to do, to set up literally thousands of websites, the same websites over and over again, the same content. But perhaps a different name, the name of the individual who has “bought” the website. In other words, it’s duplicate content.
Duplicate content on the internet is spam, plain and simple. The search engines don’t want it, and people don’t want it.
By using the same duplicate content and duplicate websites, over and over again, you’re not doing yourself a favor. In fact, it’s actually hurting your chances of bring in more targeted leads. One way that a business can bring in more targeted leads is via the internet search engines. In fact, when you are looking for something in particular (perhaps “making money at home or some other keyword phrase), we go to the search engines like Google.com and search for it. The search engines are interested in giving us, the searchers, the best search engine results. What would happen if they gave you a list of websites that are exactly the same, over and over again? You wouldn’t be very happy with that search engine, and you would probably go somewhere else, another search engine.
That’s what the search engines want: they want to give us the very best search engine experience. So, one way that Google does that is they remove all the duplicate web pages: if you’re a search engine optimization expert like myself, then you have probably heard the phrase “duplicate content”: which is not something that you want to be involved with. If you have duplicate content on your website or if the content is already indexed on the web, then it’s not going to rank well in the search engines: or it might not even be indexed at all by Google. And some people actually think that you’re penalized for it.
So, what can you do if you are a network marketer and want to bring in more network marketing leads? What if you have already spent money on a multi level marketing “program” and want to get more people in your network? The best thing you can do is go out and buy a domain name (they cost about $10 to register) and set up a website for yourself (or a blog). Start promoting yourself and start promoting your name. Start posting (blogging) or writing about your multi level marketing experience. Write every day if possible. Keep your website up to date. Learn a little bit about search engine optimization, if you can. Work on getting links to your website. Not to the actual landing page of your own “free website” that the multi level marketing organization gave you, but to YOUR website, to your blog. Start building your own list of followers, people who like to receive information from you, not from the multi level marketing company that you’re involved with this month. Put your time into keeping your own website, your own blog up to date. And even if your ultimate goal is to drive more leads to the multi level marketing program that you’re pitching, your search engine optimization efforts of promoting yourself and your own blog will help you more in the long run. In fact, if you ever switch gears at some point and start something with another multi level marketing or network marketing program, it will be a lot easier for you to change gears and start talking to your followers: those who are on your own mailing list.
If you’ve taken the time to set up your own website or blog, and you are linking and sending your followers on the social networking websites to your own blog, then your blog can link over to whatever opportunity you are involved in right now. By using search engine optimization techniques and by updating your website with unique content on a regular basis, you will end up bringing in more leads than you could ever imagine.
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