“Control your own destiny or someone else will.” – Jack Welch

I was privileged to have been invited to participate in the .co Co-Founder program right from the beginning and was lucky enough to be able to capture my main target keyword (GuruBob) as the domain name for this blog. It had irritated me for some time that the .com variation was not available and I was very happy to be able to locate my personal blog on http://www.gurubob.co/ as I wrote in the post entitled GuruBobsBlog.com has moved to GuruBob.co.

Right from the outset, I was aware that as a Colombia domain, Google would probably penalise my rankings in the search engines for searches (of my target keywords) anywhere outside of Colombia so I was quite specific in my advice to the .co domain register about applying to Google to have .co domains treated as a global domain like .com and .net domains. As it turned out I was able to secure sufficient SEO authority that I was happy with my search engine rankings anyway, despite the fact that it was being treated as a local Columbian domain.

Fortunately, that is now all in the past as Google is treating .co domains as global domains meaning that you can set the geographic target that your .co domain is associated with. Setting the geographic target in Google is handled within your Google Webmasters Tools account and I have recorded a video below to show how this is done:

Now that Google is treating .co domains as global domains, I believe the main SEO impediment has been removed for .co and I’m happy to recommend .co as a suitable alternative to other global domains. I am of the view that it is much better to be able to secure a domain that only contains your target keyword or keyphrase rather than adding hyphens or adding a prefix or suffix to the keyword. Of course, if your keyword is already taken, then you have no choice but the addition of .co as a domain choice, particularly now that Google is treating them as global domains, means that you have an increased chance of securing your preferred domain name which in my opinion justifies the premium cost of a .co domain.

It is…as it is.

Guru Bob

Technorati Tags: .co, co-founder, domain, domains, geographic target, global domain, google now treating co as a global domain, GuruBob, gurubob.co, SEO

“Everyone should have their own opinion and be able to voice it. No matter what it is. Of course, that does not mean your opinion is always right. But, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion.” – Tim McGraw

There comes a time in a person’s life when they feel that they have something to say. And for me, Robert Somerville (aka GuruBob)…that time has come. The amazing thing about the internet is how relatively easy it is to voice ones own opinions, in other times it was much harder.

All you have to do is to start blogging!

I have been many things in my life of 47 years (so far), I’ve been a student, university graduate, scientist (15 years as a Geologist with the Shell Company), business consultant, NLP Master practitioner, Franchise Manager, Marketing Consultant, Father, mad keen Kangaroos supporter (that’s Aussie Rules football), golfer, lover of inspirational quotes…

These are some of the things that I am but none of these things define me.

Probably the main reason I’ve decided to start blogging though is what I have learnt about the wonderful world of Internet Marketing which was introduced to me by Ed Dale in 2004 when he asked me to join him and look after the back-end of his business. I thought it was going to be part-time and a bit of admin and customer service…little did I know.

I knew nothing about Internet Marketing back then and it was a tremendous challenge to come up to speed. Ed decided to start the 30DC one month after I joined him and that was really a scramble (for me)…but more of that in another post.

Along the way I’ve developed a certain amount of expertise online and a certain way of looking at the challenge of Internet Marketing. I’m certainly no Ed Dale, but because of my scientific background and analytical personality I am constantly fascinated by the science of marketing online and ever searching for the reasons ‘why’. I love to find out why and how things work and you can expect my blogging to be dominated by that focus, particularly in relation to the Thirty Day Challenge (30DC). I have been privileged to be in a position to have a significant strategic input to the 30DC and the tools that we have developed over the last 5 years and I wish to discuss some of the reasoning behind what we teach and support.

But the 30DC is not the only thing I want to blog about. I’m interested in general Internet Marketing subjects and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I’m fascinated by the laws of influence and change and techniques like NLP for the implementation of such. I’m intrigued by the reasons that cause people to take action to get started. I love Movies, Apple products, technology and technological innovation particualarly on the internet.

I am constantly buying products, software and ebooks looking for what works and what doesn’t and hope to be able to discuss some of the better purchases.

I won’t promise you’re going to love everything I blog about but hopefully there will be something for everyone.

Many of you already know me from the 30DC so don’t be shy, if you have a question or a subject you would like me to comment on then let me know by leaving a comment or by sending an email to emailgurubob@gmail.com.

I would be honoured if you would give me your name and email address below to receive email updates when I post new content on the blog. For those people that do, I’m giving access to videos of my last major presentation at the $5,000 “Over The Edge’ seminar in Beechworth, Australia amongst other things.

Till the next time, It is…as it is.

GuruBob

Technorati Tags: 30dc, blogs rss feed, ed dale, GuruBob, Internet Marketing, internet marketing subjects, it is as it is, reasons for blogging, Thirty Day Challenge, who is gurubob8230and why is he blogging