SEOBook author Aaron Wall, has switched his SEOBook product over to a subscription community. I just had a chance to sign up today (link here.) At $100 a month, its not cheap, but you get access to his training program plus exclusive SEO Forum.

I have been a member of several exclusive, paid forums as well as free private communities. The biggest downside is often a loss of momentum due to members cutting their subscriptions. Given how prolific Aaron Wall is with his blog and promoting I am willing to bet this will be a hit.

Microsoft has submitted a $44.6 billion bid to buy Yahoo.

This is the only scenario I can see as someone becoming a serious threat to Google. Yahoo attempted to become a content company rather than a data company, as Google is. They made a lot of mistakes, going entirely in the wrong direction, in my opinion.

This business is all about sending traffic to the most valuable source. Google understands that. Yahoo didn’t, or doesn’t. The question now, will Microsoft?

2007 was big. 2008 is shaping up to be even bigger. I have decided to significantly scale back my posting on Web Publishing Blog. This already happened in 2007, to a degree, but now I just want to make it official. Do not expect any regular posts here on out.

Between business and personal time, things are very tight. I am not alone, other top tier bloggers have done the same, or closed up shop completely.

Here are the facts. Launching the blog was the best business move I have ever made. I can not put a value on the personal contacts I gained as a result. The networking effect continues to compound on itself every single day.

Time goes on, and the law of diminishing returns begins to catch up. Right now I need to walk away for a while, and place my focus on my businesses as we scale them up and out.

Here is a New Years resolution for you. If you have not blogged, then try it out. Forget the organic search traffic, use the platform to aggressively network with others. Likewise, if you blog a lot (or post on forums) then scale it back.

I hate mixed messages, but some times it is what needs to be said.

Holidays + big business projects = no time for blogging. I’ll be back in January.

By the way, you should already have your 2008 goals ready! Coincidentally the post I made exactly a year ago — December 2nd, 2006 echoed this same thought. I’ll just repost it below:

The countdown clock is rapidly approaching a new year. I like to get the gears moving on next years big projects a month or two before that new year actually begins. It is going to be a lot easier for you to meet 2007’s 2008’s goals if you are already working on them right now.

Last year , in 2005, I got the ball rolling for a big project in November, a strike of luck right before Christmas meant I was on the ground running by the new year. This year I had my 2007 financial goals set by September. Good news, I am already well on my way there.

Mapping out your goals based on years and dates may seem small-minded or arbitrary. I think it simply reminds us that we don’t have forever to accomplish what we want.

People want directions. They demand that things be spelled out one step at a time — in the most simplest of terms.

This works out wonderfully for many things. Driving a car. Making a sandwich. Opening a bank account. Creating a Power Point presentation.

In a business environment influenced by rapidly evolving market forces, this does not work out very well at all. Very quickly you’ll discover you are “dumb money.”

Consider this, Bloomberg reports John Paulson is at the top of their best-paid hedge fund managers so far this year. How much has he and his co-manager made this year? $2.69 billion. Thats averages out to about $8 million a day.

Whats the big secret? “Rather than depend on evaluations of mortgage- backed assets by rating companies such as Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s, he and his staff dig into the securities and look at thousands of individual loans.”

Each one of us owns and runs a unique business. We build a body of knowledge, skills, and assets that enable us to approach our market differently from everyone else. In order to discover what works for your business and what doesn’t you need to experience things first hand.

Personally, looking back at my various business ventures, my most profitable ones have involved things everyone said were “worthless”, “too difficult”, or “too much competition.” If I listened to everyone, I would have a college diploma right now

As promised, here is a review for Marketing Sherpa’s Landing Page Handbook Second Edition. I read the entire pdf in about a day, a hard copy is still on its way in the mail. I think that it was released earlier this month, Shawn Collins made a blog post about it and somehow I missed it.

The reviews are trickling in, but I hope this one will be comprehensive enough for my audience. If you have any questions, just ask them in the comments of this post.

For beginners — why landing pages matter a lot

Landing page optimization is the quickest way to increase your web site’s revenues. A visitor arrives at your web site and based on countless variables decides to either buy something or not. A few changes and tests can double or even triple your earnings. This is a heck of a lot easier than doubling the number of targeted visitors arriving at your site. Surprisingly, many web business owners still do not take landing pages seriously.

A landing page isn’t just about making a sale. It is the foundation to all goal driven web sites, be it signing up for an e-mail newsletter, joining a forum, subscribing to an RSS feed, or arriving at a parked domain and clicking ads. Like it or not, your web site is just a bunch of landing pages.

If you are hesitant to spend the money there are lots of free articles and case studies that you can read online. I’d recommend reading this blog post first, which highlights the two simple rules I follow biblically myself.

The best part: ideas

This guide has lots content. Everything is laid out as straightforward guidelines and explanations with extensive charts and data to back it up. Just like with Marketing Sherpa’s case studies you will see images of pre and post-optimized landing pages along with the exact conversion rates for both. (If you want to see some cited case studies used in the guide, check out the links in this post from Jonathan Mendez at Optimize & Prophesize.)

Should their suggestions be memorized and followed exactly? Of course not. What you should do is read the handbook, make note of the new ideas you see, and then test them out. You may very well find that what they wrote doesn’t work for your particular site.

One of the parts I was really impressed with was a radio advertising case studio. I have never done anything with radio, but when I do, I will know exactly where to start. Again, I can run my own tests, but this information gives me a great starting point rather than attempting a blind entry all on my own.

Just as with radio, The Landing Page Handbook is not just about what is on your landing page. The chapters cover how the landing page relates and correlates with your traffic sources — banner, email, search, TV, radio. For me thats a plus, however for others it might be considered filler.

Downsides? While they do mention Google’s quality score, you won’t learn much about it. Given how complex and rapidly changing their walls of “deception” are, its probably better Marketing Sherpa avoids the topic. Additionally, if you are a smaller affiliate marketer, much of this information will not be helpful either since you can not control external landing pages (but thats not to say you will walk away empty handed.)

Final Thoughts

The Landing Page Handbook is just that, a handbook. It is not an end-all source or the holy grail to building landing pages. Anyone from a beginner to experienced web developer/marketer will learn new stuff from reading it. All but the most veteran of experts should be able to grab at least an idea or two from the book.

Just starting out, have no product or traffic? Then it might be best to avoid it and come back later when you do.

If you want to see a detailed table of contents or buy your copy (immediate pdf download with a hard copy following in the mail) check out The Landing Page Handbook’s own landing page. (not an affiliate link, by the way.)

This isn’t breaking news, but I noticed that MarketingSherpa has released the second edition of their very popular Landing Page Handbook. The first edition had been out of print for a while (despite also being sold in an electronic format) so naturally many web entrepreneurs had been searching for both pirated and after market copies. Now you can buy the real thing, and get data that isn’t two years old.

So, is it worth $501? (thats what I just paid.) Its your call. There is plenty of filler here, but as any successful online marketer knows: just a single idea can foot this price many times over.

I just bought my copy 15 minutes ago, a complete report/review will be forthcoming.

I never got around to applying The Four Hour Work Week, but I have followed a few lessons from the book. Most specifically, eliminating distractions and “Become(ing) and Ignoramus.” (page 92)

For a moment lets just forget blog RSS feeds, forums, and CNBC — instead consider your daily personal contacts and work interruptions.

Step 1 — Create an “personal” e-mail address. Its brand new and no one even knows what it is.

Step 2 — Get a new “personal” phone line / number. Again, its brand new and no one knows it yet.

Step 3 — You have two options, either have an employee become your intermediary to filter out the garbage, or give out this personal contact information to only your most important contacts.

For example, a company that you do 5/6/7 figures of business with a month may qualify as high priority. A company that you used in the past does not. This also means from time to time you may need to create a new “personal” contact system.

Have two sets of business cards. If you go to a conference, give one to the people trying to sell you something. Give a second to the important people you need to contact. If you have met me, you know I do not even give out any business cards. I’ll take yours, and contact you on my own time.

Because my company is very tiny (in employee size) I do not have anyone filter my contact information for me. I am sure there are many people who are pissed that I answered their voice mail 2 months after they left it. Thats ok, because if I spent my time reading through every personal correspondence, there wouldn’t be much business left.

Ironically you will notice I have a personal contact email on this blog (as of the time I write this.) Your contact structure does not have to be limited to two tiers. It can be very beneficial to make it multi-channeled. As the business owner, if might be ok for your press contacts to have direct contact information. Or perhaps there is a more “casual” contact point that you can access after work that you know will never contain urgent news to break you away from family time.

Consider these ideas and build yourself a custom solution, if you haven’t already. As always, these aren’t rules; test things out and figure out what works for you.

Big companies rarely have reason to use whois privacy on their domain names. Thousands of webmasters who work out of their homes feel otherwise. Sometimes the reasons are innocuous as avoiding whois harvested junk mail and telemarketers; other times the reasons are far more serious, such as death threats and stalkers.

Some web site developers own hundreds, or even thousands of websites. Old projects are often left forgotten beyond monthly checks from advertising networks.

There is a big downside to hiding your domain name contact info: what if someone wants to purchase your web site? For sole web site publishers, leaving a few thousand dollars on the table is more than worth it for remaining distraction free. However, would you feel the same way if it was tens of thousands of dollars or even hundreds of thousands?

My recommendation — keep your whois information hidden, but leave an open contact email on every site. At the very least, register your domain names under a corporation (or corporations) and not your personal home address.

The “hot” topic of the website development industry right now is the mobile web. Last week Google announced that they would be releasing a mobile operating system, Android. Adwords advertisers noticed this timed nicely with Google’s expiration of free mobile advertising.

Weeks earlier, a TRAFFIC domain name auction set records with .mobi domain names climbing into the six figures. However, controversy quickly followed with personal accusations flying within the domain name community.

From a web site owner’s perspective — mobile web site access is important. Conversion and revenue numbers aside, millions of people do and will continue to access the internet through their personal mobile phones years into the future. However, this alone is hardly a case for investing money in a new domain name extension.

Consider this:

#1 Web sites can automatically detect what platform a visitor is accessing the site through. Go to facebook.com on your phone, you end up at m.facebook.com. Its hassle-free to the end user.

#2 Big brands do not need to spend money or dilute their dot com/net/org/edu by promoting, and explaining their .mobi. Just like a social networking site, domain name extensions become successful when lots of people use them and recognize them. There is a local restaurant that uses .ws, everyone asks what it is — they do not even know its a web site address.

#3 The distinction between mobile browsing and desktop browsing has already blurred. My smart phone has a fully functional web browser, and runs both Opera Mobile and Internet Explorer. The iPhone’s web browser is an excellent example of this (YouTube video.) Additional advancements in Ultra-Mobile Computing (UMPC, for short) make the desktop experience truly portable. In the long term, users will not settle for crippled internet access.

Those pushing the pro’s of the .mobi point out that some big companies are buying and promoting the extension. Domainers today are hoping to bank on the same corporate spending wave that left them with understood and recognizable dot coms after the late 90’s tech bubble deflated.

If the corporate world catches on, and you see .mobi domain names being promoted everywhere offline and on, it might be worth catching a ride. Sure you’ll end up paying a premium, but in this business time is often far more valuable than money.