I decided to do a test of a few different document sharing sites and compare them to see which really is the best. With SEO it’s all about optimizing our time and getting the most bang for out of our effort. So let’s look at the results!

The four sites I used for this test are:
Issuu, Scribd, Docstoc and Doxtop.

For this test I used the exact same article on all four sites and published all articles at the same time with the help of my SEO team.
We used an article with obscure and low competition keywords so that we could see the results more clearly.

INDEXING
The first test preformed was indexing times of each of these sites. For this test we simply published our content on the site and let it sit. We didn’t do any Social Bookmarking, Pinging or any other tactics that might alter results. Results may vary.

1. Doxtop – (Indexed in 16 hours of publishing)
2. Scribd – (Indexed in 23 hours of publishing)
3. Docstoc – (Indexed in 3 days of publishing)
4. Issuu – (Indexed in 6 days of publishing)

Doxtop and Scribd are very quick to get indexed but the other two sites take quite some time. In a case like this I would add these two sites into a software like Traffic-Bug to increase the indexing time.

RANKING FOR KEYWORD (TITLE)
The second test was preformed after all sites had been indexed. We also verified that all articles were on a level playing field and no one article had comments, traffic or backlinks. Since all four articles had the exact same title it would be easy to do an exact phrase match search and then log which sites ranked best.

1. Scribd
2. Docstoc
3. Doxtop
4. Issuu (ranked two pages lower than Scribd)

Scribd was the clear winner but Docstoc and Doxtop weren’t far behind. Issuu in this test scored miserably.

RANKING FOR TEXT IN BODY(GOOGLE)
Next I wanted to see which sites preformed best for the actual body text. Title’s are nice but often times we are unable to squeeze our keywords into the title of an article. So it’s very important to test how the body text is ranked. For this we used an exact phrase match for a phrase in the body of each article and compared which articles ranked best. I wanted to take this test one step further and so I divided Google and Yahoo into two separate tests.

1. Scribd
2. Docstoc
3. Doxtop
4. Issuu

RANKING FOR TEXT IN BODY (YAHOO)

1. Docstoc
2. Scribd
3. Doxtop
4. Issuu

Docstoc had a clear advantage over Scribd in this test on Yahoo. In Google both services were fairly close. In both tests Scribd and Docstoc were clear winners over the other two services.

PAGE RANK OF SITE
For the most of us we aren’t actually using these sites to necessarily target rankings. It is nice to dominate the entire first page on Google, but the reality is we may have dozens of these articles all pointing back to our main page. So it’s important to measure how much weight each site carries. So I did a quick measure to see how the sites rank in Page Rank. *Note. Just because a site’s homepage is a certain PR does not mean your article is that PR. This test is more of a measure of the strength of the overall site in general and the link juice it can pass.*

1. Scribd – PR8
1. Issuu – PR8
2. Docstoc – PR6
3. Doxtop – PR4

EASE OF USE
Sometimes it’s all about speed and ease of use. If a backlink is only 10% more effective but it takes 3x longer to achieve it often times is not worth the extra effort. So for this test I wanted to quickly compare which sites were easiest to use. The trick to this test was to get an objective opinion. Since I used three of these sites regularly and have my favorite and hadn’t ever used Docstoc before I didn’t want to be the judge on this test. So I brought in my wife who hadn’t ever used any of these sites. I had her go through the whole process of creating an account and publishing her first article on all three sites. Then I had her give her opinion on which site were easiest to use and her preference.

1. Scribd
2. Docstoc
3. Doxtop
4. Issuu

SPECIAL FEATURES, LIMITATIONS, FUNCTIONALITY

1. Issuu
++Link for every document in doc description (DO FOLLOW)
++Link on profile page (DO FOLLOW)
+Facebook connect appears to have been added. This was added recently after my test and I have not verified.

2. Doxtop
+Link on profile page (NO FOLLOW)
+Facebook connect or login with Open ID (registration is much easier this way)

3. Scribd
+Link on profile page (NO FOLLOW)
+Facebook connect

4. Docstoc
+Link on profile page (NO FOLLOW)
+Facebook connect

THE RESULTS
*Drum roll please*

1. Scribd.com -25 points
2. Docstoc.com -20 points
3. Doxtop.com -17 points
4. Issuu.com -15points

And there you have it! Now you know which sites are ranked best and are worth your time. Though Issuu ranked in quite lower and I don’t use it as often I still find it a great resource! It is the only site on this list that offers a complete (DO FOLLOW) backlink that will show up on Google! A great tactic can be to publish several Issuu documents with backlinks to your main site. Then to give Issuu the boost it badly needs, simply input that URL into Traffic-Bug. This way you will look at much faster index times and are easily able to see backlinks being built to your main site.

If you have any suggestions on other article sites you would like to see tested just let us know in the comments section below.
or
If you have a different type of test you would like to see let us know! We are open to share our results on any subject!

**If you liked this article then let us know by clicking the facebook like button or sharing on twitter!

Just testing some various SEO techniques.  Will post my results.

;P

Michael Roberts

Sure we all might not have the SEO know how as someone like Matt Cutts but did you know you can start making a nice income right now with what you do know?

I am sure you are all aware on how Google and other Search Engines have been shifting their focus to “Local” results. But, us as internet marketers, don’t have a local business…so how can we use this to our advantage? Well local businesses are clueless when it comes to optimization, getting content indexed, installing a blog, etc.

When I was 19-21 I owned a janitorial company that had 13 employee’s working for me full time. We had several company vehicles, equipment, etc. Sounds like a decent size company right? Surely bigger than your standard chiropractic office or small restaurant. However, even with my resources and company size I was still clueless about how to even begin to build my business online. I was strapped for time working in my business, didn’t have time to learn to do this stuff myself and there were so many “So Called” SEO companies out there who wouldn’t work with me…All they wanted to do was pressure me into signing a contract for thousands of dollars.
I would have killed to have someone cut through all that tape and help me build my business online!

You think my scenario was unique? Of course NOT! In 2008 there were over 29million small business in the USA alone. Talk about a big market! I will take a bet that all of you who are reading my blog have never targeted a keyword that big.

So there is a huge market for local businesses needing SEO and Web services and now that Google is moving things locally…it’s like Google is literally putting a golden nugget right on our lap. All we have to do is take action!

Some of you reading this still may be skeptical or hesitant. I can already here a few of you saying, “Michael that’s great and all but I just don’t know enough to take action. I am no where near Matt Cutts. How can I do this?” The truth is..sure there are people out there who know more than you about SEO and there are also tons of people out there who know more than me. But that is irrelevant. The services these small local business need don’t require some huge GURU’s knowledge. Think of it this way….These local businesses don’t want to hire Leonardo De Vince to paint a wall red! That’s overkill and ridiculous. But if these business approached someone like Leonardo De Vince to paint their wall red….all the artist would do is talk to them about how he could make this wall a piece of art. Something magnificent, something that would be remembered forever…..which all sounds good…but that artist would also be asking a fee that is likely more than the business is worth, let alone Leonardo De Vince would be using terms and techniques that would just confuse and frustrate the business owner.

I hope you are understanding the power and opportunity that is now sitting in front of us! However, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. There still are several hurdles you will need to overcome. I developed some techniques nearly a year ago to refine this process for myself, but then when I met Caro she showed me that she had so refined this process it works like a highly oiled machine!

Caro and her business partner are both very successful in the online marketing world. When they got together they teamed up to build OHM (Offline Hero’s Method) to make this process highly refined. I was blown away by how much attention to detail and how much hard work they have done.

I find So Called GURU’s all over the internet who try to sell stuff that they actually have no knowledge about. It’s very frustrating to know who to trust. With Caro, she already has a successful consulting business and she is already making this work! So you may ask then why is she willing to sell this secret? (Remember that number I told you about earlier? 29+million businesses in the USA alone a few years back. Who could possibly corner the entire world market of local businesses? It would be silly for her not to share and sell her techniques.)

Their mission is to assist other Internet Marketers, who may not have yet made the money they want online, and are looking for new opportunities to build a credible, sustainable and profitable consulting business, as they have. They have created a Training Center which is jam packed full of information on how to:

Identify the ideal Local Business Client
How to Obtain The Local Business Client
How to Retain that Local Business Client

The biggest mistake Internet Marketers make when approaching Local Business Clients is that they list their Services and expect the Business Owner to be impressed. Feeling quite disappointed when they are not. OHM focuses on teaching it’s Offline Consultants about providing VALUE for their Client, which is a HUGE shift in focus to what most have thought was the way to approach a prospect. The key is to know how to pick what is valuable for a prospective client, and how to get their attention so that they will listen to what you can do for them. All of which can be found in OHM’s Training center

There’s no magic pill. It is about taking action. And it’s about knowing the, Right‚ way to do it. All of the materials offered in OHM are exactly what Caro and her business partner use for their Offline Consulting businesses. So there is no need to guess what works. Or go through the painful trial and error process. It’s proven as they’re doing it!

Consulting to Offline Clients is a real opportunity. Yes it is, the next big thing,- and it is still at it’s early stages, which means there is plenty of Local Business Clients needing online marketing assistance. All you need to know is how to approach and win them!

Michael Roberts

I want to send a warm thank you out to Caro McCourtie from OHM and 30dc.
I also want to send a thank you to her partner who helped set up the camera equipment and helped produce the OHM method.

If you want to learn more about the Offline Hero’s Method please go check it out here:
OFFLINE HERO’S METHOD

The OHM course teaches you how to attract business clients and teaches you how to help them build an online presence. I used many of the same tactics taught int he OHM course and I was easily able to bring in a very nice income. I think Caro and her partner really hit this course on the head when they laid it all out!

Some of my favorite quotes from Caro’s speech was:

“If you have any level of IM experience currently, you ALREADY know more than they do!

Remember to ask the client questions, not make statements, as the power is with the person who asks the questions (as you become the informed one).

You are NOT selling services; you are providing VALUE, this is a HUGE shift in thinking and how you approach your prospective Client – it’s about helping them get more customers, not demonstrating all you can do for them. ”

Here are some very solid tips everyone who owns a local business should be utilizing.

1) Register your business in Google Places.
a) When you register your business in Google Places be sure to fill out your profile as throughly as possible. Connect as many pictures as possible, video, etc. Also be sure to use your keywords in descriptions and for the IMG ALT tags on the photos.
b) Get as many reviews to your Google Places listing as possible. Offer new customers a discount in exchange for a review or contact some old clients that you have a good relationship with and ask for a review.

The more complete your profile is and the more positive reviews you have the better your listing will preform.

2) Build local back links!
a) Goto Google and type in (Your State) (your niche) blogs. Then start doing blog commenting on all the blogs in your niche for the state. After you do many of these narrow your search even down to seeking blogs in your city or adjacent cities.
b) Start finding all the directory type sites in your niche and create profiles and drive a few reviews. (A good example would be to get a profile up on Yelp if you are a restaurant.)

3) Try migrating your website to a server that is closer.
a) I talked about this in one of my news videos. In our testing we saw a small difference on rankings depending on where your server is located. Chances are your server is States away or possibly even in a different country. Locate where your server is actually at and move your website to a more local server.

4) Put these three steps above into action.
a) From my experience, finding good information to learn is not the problem. I could go on listing more tips, but the problem I see is people don’t put what they learned into action! I want you to take these three steps and really work hard on these. Build local back links and fill out a Google Places account. Even if you already have a Google Places account I want you to go in and review it. Can you add more pictures? Can you drive more reviews?

5) For USA readers…try filling out an Angie’s List profile.

Check out Caro’s own video now!

CARO’S  VIDEO

Michael R Roberts

So I put together this video for you so you can see how easy it is to use and how I am using it as a set and forget
back link strategy.

Check out this vid! ;)

GET ACCESS TO THIS AMAZING SOFTWARE NOW!

The software uses RSS to build a ton of very high quality
BACKLINKS, improves PAGE RANK and brings increased targeted
WEB VISITORS.

On TOP OF the usual genuine bonuses they throw in, I have got them
to also include their special powerful TWITTER module that is
usually only available to their members.

The Twitter module shows you how use Twitter to generate a huge
list in no time at all.

Tim himself has just under 25,000 Twitter followers!

25,000…

Anyway, I strongly suggest consider getting the Web Traffic Genius
software.

The include a 60 day FULL REFUND GUARANTEE so frankly why wouldn’t
you try this?

Submitting to RSS sites is much like that pinging feature I taught to you guys. (Pinging feature tip)
It’s something you need to be doing. However, RSS is more powerful than pinging and it is more time consuming.
Below is a list of RSS sites you should be submitting any new post to:

blogdigger.com
blogpulse.com
devasp.com
feedage.com (requires account)
feedagg.com (requires account)
feedboy.com
feedest.com
feedgy.com
feedooyoo.com
feeds2read.net
icerocket.com
newsisfree.com (requires account)
ngoid.sourceforge.net
overskrift.dk (requires account)
plazoo.com
rss-feeds.info (requires account)
rss-network.com
rssmotron.com
rssnetworkfeedsdirectory.com
weblogalot.com

The Web Traffic Genius software automatically does this for you, but if for some crazy reason you don’t want to try a 0 risk software
then you should be doing this list by hand!

By the end of 30 days you will be more than happy with the results from this tip! ;)

I will be doing a news video this weekend and also have some pretty cool seo tips in the pipeline so we will
catch you next time!

Michael Roberts

P.S.
I know this software will over time easily pay for it’s self….There is no doubt in my mind. Even if it just moved you from position
4 to position 3 that is a 3-4% increase in traffic every single month!
BUT
I wanted to throw in a free tip for you that you can utilize today to save money online! This tip alone in the course of a year can easily purchase this software for you! Internet Tip To Save Money
(Many of you may already know this tip but I was surprised how many weren’t using this!)

If you don’t think page load speed is important then watch my video and find out why it’s becoming more important than ever!
PAGE LOAD SPEED VIDEO

WP SUPER CAHCE
1) Install Plugin: WP SUPER CACHE
2) Before activating this plugin leave the plugin area and goto “settings” > “permalinks” > Select Custom Structure and enter: /%postname%/
3) Go into your WP Super Cache settings and set up your preferences and enable the plugin

WP Touch iPhone Theme
Awesome tool to install onto your blog to make it cell phone friendly. Greatly sped up the load time on my phone. Less scrolling and less junk to slow a cell phone browsing down.

Optimize your photos for load time
1) Free online tool to edit your photos is Picnik
2) Be sure to always remove all the white space around your photo. Crop that down as close as possible to the actual image.
3) Reduce the file quality. Often times you can greatly reduce a file size without seeing any loss in quality to the human eye.

CSS SPRITES
Another great way to reduce load times is by turning multiple back ground photos into a single photo. This will reduce the number of HTTP requests made and is a fundamental technique in increasing your websites load times.

1) Visit Spriteme and drag and drop the text/icon into your tool bar
2) Visit your webpage you want to create a CSS Sprite to
3) Click the Spriteme button in your toolbar
4) Click the make sprite button under the recommended sprites
5) Once the file is made click the export to CSS option
6) Now you can use your favorite HTML editor and FTP program to upload the new CSS Sprite

Spritme worked very well for me but a buddy of mine had issues using it. So here is a link to the second best free
CSS Sprite creator I found: http://csssprites.com/

FREE TOOL TO HELP YOU SEE PAGE LOAD SPEED ISSUES
1) First you will need to use which you can download here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/upgrade.html
2) Next install FIREBUG
3) Now install Google’s Page Speed Plugin for it here: http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/download.html

- Simply visit any URL now and click the firebug button and you get a nice report on issues effecting your page load speed! *MAGIC*

BONUS TIPS NOT INCLUDED IN THE VIDEO!

1) XHTML instead of tables

*This tip is a bit more advanced and will require you to know how to fiddle around with your websites code.

If your currently using Tables they render much slower than DIVs by your browser. By using XHTML instead of tables you are essentially accomplishing more with less code which increases page load speed!

However, like most things tables do have their place in this world. In some situations using a table is going to make a lot more since. Creating a 6 columned table could require a lot more coding using XHTML so just be sure you use tables when necessary but try to switch to XHTML for the majority of your work.

2) Compress & Merge JavaScript Files

* Another more advanced tip

Compressing JavaScript files can greatly lower the size of your files and doesn’t have any negative effects on your side.
Try to merge JavaScript files to prevent multiple includes and if a JavaScript file will be used only in a few pages then try to include them inside those pages.

Here is a link to a JavaScript Compressor

3) HTTP Compression & Gzip

Ok this tip is probably one of the more effective tips and it doesn’t take a whole lot of knowledge.
If you simply can’t figure out how to do this see one of my lower tips on outsourcing this task to someone I have used and is cheap.

There are two common choices and you can either use HTTP Compression or Gzip.
You can either use Gzip (which is what I use), which can be enabled at the site level
or
you can use HTTP compression which is a great choice as well that can be enabled on the server side.

I would go into describing this but there is already a perfect detailed article on how HTTP Compression works.

4) GETTING A FASTER SERVER

A lot of people who get into the affiliate marketing game just dip their feet into the water. They don’t want to spend a bunch of money until they know they can make it work. This can be a very smart decision and is what I refer to as Boot Strapping. However, sometimes this can wind up shooting your self in the foot. You pick out a the cheapest shared server you can find and then the next thing you know your having reliability and site performance issues.

Making sure you have a fast server is critical. If you are getting 4-10k worth of traffic then it is definitely time to step up your server and move to a VPS (Virtual Private Server). This may sound big and scary but were only talking around $24 per month for a quality set up.

It’s at least worth looking into!
Hostgator is a great option with very good customer support, Softlayer is awesome and has slightly better prices and the last hosting company I have recently found is probably more suitable for smaller affiliates. They have crazy low prices and they are who I am using on many of my sites now.

If you want to get ahold of the nicest sales agent I have met over there contact: lijeesh@subhosting.net
(Tell him I sent you and to give you a killer price!)

5) HIRING AN EXPERT

My business model is focussing on putting out quality content into each one of my niches. I find it very difficult to hire someone to put together quality content, but for everything else someone else can do it better! Why sacrifice 8-16 hours of my time optimizing some of the more complicated tasks in improving my site speed when I can pay someone to do that and focus on the most important thing…putting quality content on the web! Now for me putting up quality content is what makes me money so everything else is just a distraction.

Hiring an expert though doesn’t have to be scary. I have done over 150 out sourcing projects and I have found some incredible and some awful freelancers. For this post I am willing to share the name of one of my better HTML, SEO, Web design guys. He even agreed to run the paypal transactions right through my company so that you guys don’t have to be scared sending your money over seas, etc.

If you need any help with improving your site speed, optimizing your on page seo, etc. just shoot him an email!

You can get ahold of my guy at:

siteimprovements@gmail.com

LAST NOTE:

I thought it was important to say not to get too carried up in this!  Obviously page load speed is important.  It has been proven to increase conversions and might start becoming a factor in rankings.  However, I wouldn’t spend all your time worrying about this as content is still king!  If your page loads extremly fast already don’t spend coutnless hours trying to squeeze more out of it.  My homepage and blog on this particular site do need some work and so in the next 30 days I have already set aside time to improve that, but note I am not going to drop all other SEO efforts for the month to worry about that.
Take it in stride!  :)

Hope you enjoyed the article!  If you found this article useful please share it on twitter, stumbleupon, dig, etc!
It really helps especially on these longer articles I put together for free for you guys!

Thanks again,

Michael Roberts

P.S. For an extremly detailed list of all on page factors you should take into consideration you should visit:

http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html

I have compiled a large list for you guys that you need to have uploaded onto your Word Press site! Just watch the video and follow the instructions and paste the following list into your WP options.

Please do remember to rate the video and subscribe to my channel! :)

Also don’t forget to set this up any time you create a new blog.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.wasalive.com/ping/
http://www.blogsdominicanos.com/ping/
http://www.xianguo.com/xmlrpc/ping.php
http://www.feedsky.com/api/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping

Ok this is NOT my finest hour as far as videos go!  It’s 4:18am and I pulled an all nighter.  The wife went over to visit the grandparents and I am a bachelor working late, not shaving and eating lots of pizza!  ;P

Below is a quick video explaining to you what I am giving you guys and below that is the download link to go and get the pdf.

77 Ways to Get Traffic Download Link

Hope you guys enjoy it!  ;)

Michael R Roberts