Windows Internet Explorer
Image via Wikipedia

It’s the same story that plays out in hundreds of unhappy homes. Husband looks at some naughty pics featuring people doing weird things with animals which are probably illegal.

Wife borrows laptop, see’s video of a farmer desecrating a baby sheep (or something like that – who knows).

Disgusted she vomits all over her hubby – and Superman, er.. Dean Cain as he explains the benefits of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer’s InPrivate feature.

This is one of a Series of PSA-style Vids to promote Internet Explorer 8, amid fears of losing market share to Firefox, Safari, and Google.

After the tongue-in-cheek video on IE8’s InPrivate Browsing feature becomes a mega viral success – what does Microsoft do? Pulled the plug – as apparently a few people found the ad disturbing.

I got ask this question though – Why pull the plug on an online video that you have the power to edit and that is going global and actually working to increase your brand, I’ll give you that the video is edgy – but have you seen Microsoft’s other commercials?

I’m beginning to think that their whole advertising arm is made of stiff 70+ year old men who have no idea what sells to the new generation.

Everyone knows the Mac commercials with the Mac and PC characters – they’re practically cultural icons.

Check out the video for yourself:

If Microsoft truly wants to become the powerhouse that it once was – and apply that to other areas such as IE, and Search it is going to have to embrace creative content.

That’s the heart of social media. Before social media you made a commercial and spent a $million dollars on it. Then you buy advertising from TV Networks for a couple million dollars more.

Today you create a video or a bunch of promotional videos and launch them on youtube. Or even have a contest to get user submitted media(which is sometimes better than professional done videos) – then youtubes’ users decide which videos will become viral sensations – and when they do it’s FREE commercial advertising enmasse.

According to Jolie O’Dell @ Read/Write/Web this video is just too cool for Microsoft. They finally do something right, and decide it’s too edgy.

Come on Microsoft – Grow a Backbone why don’t you. Steve Ballmer for cryin’ out loud you have ‘Ball’ in your last name – why don’t you grow a pair!

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This is the simplest tip I’ll ever write about – it’s also the hardest.

How can you guarantee more traffic?

WRITE MORE POSTS!

Did I say it loud enough for you? Fact: There are a million different things you can do to try and optimize your blog, but if you don’t have the traffic it doesn’t matter. Each blog post I write will bring in at least 200-400 unique hits initially from google and twitter.

That’s a fact. If I write 5 posts a day I’ll get at least 1000-2000 unique hits.

Your theme doesn’t matter, the number of plugins you install don’t matter, the design doesn’t matter (much…) It’s how much quality content you can spit out.

I’ve managed to write around 300 posts in 1 year, I feel disappointed in myself. I took a few months off to work on other projects. My goal for the 3rd year is to write 3 posts per day 5 days a week, or 5 Posts for 3 days a week, or 60+ Posts a month.

Setting goals is important if you’re going to be successful.

What are your posting goals for your blog?

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The Stand (TV miniseries)
Image via Wikipedia

Today I woke up, and had a desire to know what’s up in the world.

I strolled on over to MSNBC.com and saw the Breaking News: America Declares Emergency due to Swine Flu Epidemic!

I read maybe 3-4 articles on the front page of MSNBC regarding Swine Flu. As someone who read Stephen King’s ‘The Stand‘, in 8th grade I was quite alarmed.

I’ve seen many movies, including Outbreak, and 28 days later, where pandemics are no laughing matter.

Being the romanticising movie nerd, that I am I’ve always wondered what would happen if a major pandemic hit the world.

Apparently, I’m not the only one worried by this. The hottest trend on google, and twitter both revolve around Swine Flu.

According to TechCrunch, Google trends is reporting that the search term: “Swine Flu Ohio” is the 27th most popular search term. I checked myself, and it has currently dropped to #30, but that is still alarming.

This is even more troubling to me, because I happen to live in Ohio. Sure it’s troubling that Swine Flu has hit Texas, Kansas, California, and NYC – but Ohio is a bit close to home.

I’m hoping that the swine flu cases in ohio, skip over me, as I just got over a really bad stomach virus two weeks ago.

The silver lining on the Swine Flu epidemic, at least for us Americans, is that the US cases of Swine Flu have all been much milder than the cases in Mexico, perhaps it’s because we have better hygiene, and sanitation systems. Perhaps we just have more immunity to the bug, hopefully this doesn’t turn into something bigger though.

What do you think about the Swine Flu? Is it something to worry about, or is it just something hyped up by the news agencies?

Read more about the Swine Flu Panic spreading across blogs, twitter, and social networks.

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Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...
Image via CrunchBase

Link building is an essential necessity for all bloggers, unless you don’t want to be indexed by google and drive a ton of traffic to your blog, then by all means – skip right past this blog post.

Here is a definitive – simple list of things you can do to get incoming links.

  1. Give away Freebies
  2. Contribute to popular forums, using your link in your signature.
  3. Write a pillar or link bait article, and get it plastered on digg, reddit, and other viral sites.
  4. Create video link bait that goes viral on youtube.
  5. Post your link as the source on Question and Answer sites like Yahoo Answers.
  6. Write a Wordpress Theme, or Plugin. Themes are great because you can link back to your site in the copyright area.
  7. Do something unusual that gets you noticed on a popular news site.
  8. Share the link love, link to others who may link back.
  9. Insult an authority in your niche, might get you flamed but it may get you some good backlinks.
  10. Become top commenter on do-follow blogs.
  11. Produce killer content that people quote, and link to.
  12. Use Ping.fm to post your blog posts across multiple social networks so people see it, and link to it.
  13. Cross link from your other websites.
  14. Provide a great service, or design a web app.
  15. Make an ebook. Give it away for a great way to get new email subscribers for your blog.
  16. Starting an affiliate program, is a great way to get a ton of incoming links, and authority.
  17. Write guest posts for other blogs in your niche, make sure to add your link in the bio box.
  18. Submit articles to article sites, linking back to your site in the bio.
  19. Purchase Reviews, or ask people to review it.
  20. Become DoFollow and Submit your blog to dofollow directories.
  21. Write reviews, if you give a good review the site may link to you, if you give a bad review then other sites might link to your review.
  22. Submit to free and paid directories.
  23. Write list posts, people love lists(you’re reading this post aren’t you?), and lists get lots of links!
  24. Make a poll or survey that people are interested in.
  25. Create a wikipedia page about your blog, that links back to it.
  26. Sponsor other sites, get them to review you.
  27. Start a charity or non-profit.
  28. Hold contests. Then post that contest at Blog Contest Site.
  29. Release a firefox extension or plugin that is a must have.
  30. Interview someone famous, or at least semi-famous. Even a popular blogger will work, your mom, though in most cases won’t work.
  31. Writing meaningful, non-spammy, comments on do-follow blogs.
  32. Ask for people to retweet, digg, or stumble your best articles.

What do you do to build links that I missed?

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Ali Vincent
Image by mgonamission via Flickr

In times past this blog has been a blog about blogging. I’ve also blogged about marketing, and pretty much anything that mattered to me at the time. I’m finding now isn’t the best time in the world to be starting a blog to make money.

Sure I’m still making some money – not nearly as much as I used to, especially being banned by google because somebody clicked on too many links from my page – none of my fault.

I’ve made a new plan or goal in life – first off I am spending 6 -8 hours working out 3 days a week, and changing my diet. I’ve lost 75 pounds since January 12th, 2009. (Yes that’s under a month but I have a lot of weight to lose – I started weighing 660 lbs, and now weigh 577).

This is my primary goal right now – my wife works in Private duty home health, I am currently between jobs – other than my blog, which I have neglected a bit as of late. These days just about everyone is either between jobs or knows somebody else who is.

Why – being between jobs isn’t such a bad thing – for me I have always had excuses for why I couldn’t lose weight, or workout. My main excuse – was I have a lot of work, not enough energy, and not enough time.

Well – my wife took that excuse away agreeing to work, while I workout – for every hour she works I spend an hour in the gym – for the most part anyways. We are also changing our diets together and eating healthier. I have no excuses now to losing weight and it’s working like a charm – almost as good as if I were accepted on the Biggest Loser, which I’ve always dreamed of being on.

This year I’ve decided I can wait until I get accepted on the Biggest Loser – and maybe die in the process or I can be my own biggest loser. I spend 6-8 hours x 3 days per week using water weights while swimming, water walking, and water kickboxing.

I’m also drinking 1 gallon+ water per day, and cut out 90% of soda – I’ll have a coke zero every now and again but mostly drink water.

My other focus – I’m going back to school to get a degree in Sustainability(that’s green technology, green science, green business, basically anything green or eco related.) With my desire to go into green technologies as a career – I’ve decided to change my blog’s theme a bit. From now on this blog will feature a lot more information on going green and being an eco-friendly blogger.

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Matt Cutts Crush, SEO Comic
Image by ByronShell via Flickr

Does Google PR even matter anymore?

Nobody knows when or how it’s decided, save a few select programmers at google. Does it even matter anymore?

I have 0 PR after having my blog up for nearly 2 years. I have many incoming links, I have a google index of 3,180, an alexa rank of 250,000 give or take, daily traffic equal to about 700 hits per day, and a yahoo index of 11,400.

My blog is also helping me earn over $1000 monthly working from home on a consecutive basis.

I’m at the point where whether I write or not I get traffic – when I do write an article I will spike and get between 2-4k hits on those days.

Each of my blog posts are pinged to many directories, and announced via ping.fm to all my social circles.

Yet, I have never sold or bought links. I have never blatantly spammed my links. I have never done anything to try and gain incoming links in a blackhat manner. All my incoming links are perfectly organic.

So, why do I have a 0 PR?

I would love Matt Cutts to write to me and give me a good reason. I’d also like a good reason why this site has been adsense banned, not that I need adsense I make more off adbrite, and honestly think it’s probably better going with a different company than google.

Especially when google hires Nazis like Matt Cutts and other programmers who basically have the power to say who can or can’t stay in their program based on stupid reasons, and won’t answer why.

It’s like the statement JP Morgan Chase Bank made today about the bailout:

“We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,’” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.”

Lets change this to Matt Cutts of Google (I attack Matt Cutts because he’s the PR arm and well known, maybe he won’t like being attacked and will answer my questions if not then he truly is a Nazi and I’m calling him out on it):

“We’ve slapped some sites, we’ve not slapped a few, we’re not giving any accounting of who we have slapped, or why.  We don’t care if people’s businesses are hurt by it – we’re google we can do anything. Oh and by the way about that “Do no harm” thing…haha just kidding!”

With all this said – the funny thing is I may be google slapped when it comes to PR but I do still get good traffic from the search engine arm – I just have no PR juice, maybe that will change – I’d be happy to write a retraction if I ever get an answer as to why my PR is still 0, and my adsense account was deactivated.

Do I have high hopes? Nah – maybe someday though Matt Cutts will see this and look into it, maybe he googles his name every now and again, maybe he will see me ranking high for the term Matt Cutts is a Nazi.

One last thing I use Nazi, not as white supremist, but as totalitarian. Hitler had full control, and could do as he pleased. Those at google think they have the same power when it comes to the internet – I’d love to see them get slapped with an anti-trust lawsuit by the USA – it’s only a matter of time.

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Set Goals or DIE! Part 2: Traffic Goals

I wrote the first part of this series about a month ago, and it’s taken me awhile to get back on topic. November has been a busy month for some of my other business ventures.

The rest of the series can be found here:

  1. Set Goals or Die! Part 1: Posting Frequency Goals…
  2. Set Goals or Die! Part 2: Traffic Building Goals..
  3. Set Goals or Die! Part 3: Monetization Goals…(forthcoming).

I’ve been doing a lot of ppc campaigns, as well as some blackhat techniques(shhhhh)…

In the first part of this series I spoke about setting and keeping a daily posting schedule of at least 1 post per day, but 3 is an ideal number. If you can post religiously 3 posts per day, your blog will be at the top of your niche in just a matter of months.

Today I’m going to talk about traffic building. Traffic is also paramount to a good successful blog. In fact traffic is the lifeblood. We include with traffic building – building followers or subscribers.

Here are a few steps on getting a lot more traffic.

1. Help people on forums. The more help you provide on forums like digital point, blackhatworld, or one specific to your niche, the more credibility you will build. Apply your link in the signature and you’re sure to get a lot of new visitors and blog subscribers.

2. Use google trends. I’ve spoken about this a lot. Google trends is a great way to get some immediate traffic. If you have some other good posts at the ready, people will stay a lot longer and might even subscribe. One thing I’ve done though that I’d actually advise against is using this exhaustively.

I posted a large amount of posts related to google trends, and got a lot of traffic – but it wasn’t the best quality because it didn’t always match my blog’s topic. Use this technique sparingly – but use it. I’d recommend posting 1 google trends blog post for every 5 normal blog posts.

3. Build backlinks. A great method I use for this is comment kahuna. This software finds blogs that remove do-follow and helps you write comments faster. One tip though: When writing comments try to find a post related to a post on your blog, then for your link back link to that post, not to the front page of your blog. This will build your google PR better, plus the people who visit your blog will be looking for similar information and will be more likely to subscribe.

4. Moniter your traffic. Part of setting goals is monitering what you’re doing and seeing if you’re making progress or not. I use statspress reloaded wordpress plugin, alexa, and google trends to track my traffic. I think it’s best to use multiple tools so you can get a more realistic picture.

5. Tweak. To be successful in blogging you will always be tweaking your efforts. Find what works for you. There will be some things that work for one specific niche that would never work for another. Just keep working and researching new ways to gain traffic.

6. Newsletter. To build stickyness and repeat traffic it is highly recommended that you give away an ebook, and build a newsletter with it. You can see an example with my newsletter form at the top of this blog.

7. Set little goals. The best way to build anything is to set mini goals. For instance set a goal of 1000 unique hits for December. Then set a goal for maybe 1500 for the next month. Do what you need to do in order to get those hits and you will be pleasantly surprised that you might get a lot more.

Bottom line: Don’t get discouraged, and never give up. You will succeed if you stick with it. Most big blogs began as small blogs. Also most big blogs took at least a year to build to big. It takes a lot of time and effort but in the end it is so worth it. It’s recession proof. I make money each month regardless of the financial woes of the nation or world. That’s job security.

Feel free to add any traffic tips you might have to this post and help others out.

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Is Do-follow in Comments Dead?

dofollow

Image by shawnblog via Flickr

This is primarily heresay, and only the opinion of one blog – but they tend to have some highly informative articles.

I was reading a very interesting post from SEO 2.0 entitled “Commenting on DoFollow-blogs as a link building Strategy“.

The blog asks the question whether do-follow in comments matters anymore.

According to SEO 2.0 they say it doesn’t matter anymore. Apparently google is an intelligent beast, and knows whether a link is in the blog post, comments, sidebar, or footer.

Comments and footer are devalued largely, where as the link may appear on a PR 4 blog it might only provide a PR 2 or even PR 1 benefit.

So is it worth it to waste your time commenting for hours on end?

I think that link-building or gaming of google is dead.

At least traditional methods, I think the better way to get search engine traffic is via a combination of writing high trend posts via google trends, writing seasonal articles that will bring traffic year after year, and being sure to link out to other blogs to get pingbacks.

Content is still king – don’t waste time commenting – write, write, write.

I stick to my guns on this point. If you’re not writing a blog post now, you’re probably not making money. You should always be writing, or looking for something to write about.

The one factor that all the Rich bloggers share is they are always writing new content. They have over 1000 articles and counting. They keep content coming.

The best way to get ranked by the search engines is to be unique, and keep writing unique content.

Don’t give up, and don’t stop writing!

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Google Trends Facebook

Image by AJC1 via Flickr

The past few months I’ve been doing some big experimenting with bringing in new people to this blog. I’ve been focused big on writing for google trends, over writing real deep informative articles on social media, marketing, and making money.

I’m planning on making some changes to that in the upcoming weeks. I still plan on having at least 1-2 google trends related posts every day or so, but I will also have a lot more blog posts to help you – the reader.

One thing I have learned from this experiment is that if you can write posts that are related to happenings of the day, you will get a lot in search traffic.

I’m planning on adding some keyword related content for Thanksgiving, and the Holiday Season as well.

If you haven’t already subscribed to this blog – please do me a favor and subscribe now!

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Too many posts to handle? If you missed out on a great post from last week, here’s a quick digest of the top posts that you may want to check out:

Free Ebook: Ten Commandments of a Kickass Blog
Posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 in Announcements – Views: (228)

Join our Newsletter get “The Ten Commandments of a Kickass Blog” FREE!

I’m launching my newsletter this week. As a free gift to new subscribers we are giving our subscribers a FREE copy of my newest ebook entitled: “The ten commandments of a kickass Blog”.The book tells you the 1 thing that you must do above all else to become a successful blogger.I’ve gotten my blog up to 45,000+ hits per week, and this lays out what I’ve found is the number one, and possibly the only thing you need to do to be successful.

Sickening Racist Obama Jokes floating around the web…

Sickening Racist Obama Jokes floating around the web…
Posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 in Politics & Community News – Views: (2732)

Just when you thought America has turned a proverbial leaf, it appears that some big Racist Obama Jokes are floating around.Come on people – aren’t we beyond our stupid petty differences?I mean heck, some people actually believe the guy is a muslim. Barack Obama is neither Arabic nor Muslim. But if he were – what would be wrong with that? Shouldn’t anyone be allowed to run for President in America despite their ethnic background, and their faith?
Shocking Negative Searches on Barack Obama in Google Trends…
Posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 in Politics & Community News – Views: (326)

I was taking a gander at Google trends, and am seeing some curious trends right now.There are many bigots apparently ‘afraid’ of an Obama presidency.FACT: Barack Obama is not, and never has been a Muslim. Anyone who says otherwise is Bearing False Witness and breaking a commandment – therefore must not be Christian.Fact: Obama is NOT the AntiChrist, there is no reference to this anywhere in the bible.

John Mccain Out of Touch – He thinks this is normal?
Posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 in Politics & Community News – Views: (323)

I know this is a little late for election news, but John Mccain was talking about his mom, who wanted to go to France, so she went to France, she wanted to rent a car, but they wouldn’t let her because of her age..So she went and bought a car, so she could drive around France.Must be nice to just be able to drop a load of cash in a new car out of nowhere, instead of renting one.

The Top 3 Laws of Professional Blogging.
Posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 in Blogging – Views: (357) The top 3 laws of blogging.

Law #1 is write.Law #2 is write some more.Law #3 is never stop writing!I know this sounds quite redundant. Writing is the untold key to successful blogging.The more you write, the more traffic you get, the more money you make.Yeah, I know sometimes it’s not easy to ‘just write’. Sometimes we want to do other things that we feel are ‘helping’ but aren’t as important.

Breaking Economic News: It Sucks. Break that! Sell Your Gold to Buy Christmas Gifts…
Posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 in Making Money Online – Views: (201)

I know the economy is bad right now, and it’s not getting better. Everyone keeps talking about it, companies are laying off left and right. The holiday season looks bleak.Well here’s a good way to make a little extra christmas cash. It’s simple, easy and doesn’t take any effort.The economy may be going down, but gold is going up. People are moving their investments from stocks to metals.If you need money to buy Christmas for your family, then selling your gold is a good option.

John Mccain’s Concession was an Eloquent end to a Tough Election…
Posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 in Politics & Community News – Views: (185)

As an Obama supporter, I’m very glad that John Mccain did not run his campaign as classy as he did his concession speech.Speaking from Arizona’s Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, Mccain told his supporters: “It’s natural to feel some disappointment. Though we fell short, the failure is mine, not yours.”I don’t think John Mccain is a bad guy, it’s his policies. I like John Mccain as a person a lot more than I do Bush.

He did it! A New Day has Dawned. Congrats President-elect Barack Obama.

Posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 in Politics & Community News – Views: (193)

America, I introduce you to the 44th President of the United States of America. Barack Obama. God bless the USA!

I’ve believed the polls, but the pessimist inside me, never would give up. I didn’t believe deep down inside that Change was fully possible. I had my relenting doubts.A relief has washed over me, like none other I’ve ever felt.I feel like a new man. Relating it to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, it feels like the day after the destruction at Mordor.

Breaking News: Obama’s Grandma Madelyn Dunham passed away..

Posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 in Politics & Community News – Views: (397)

The Obama campaign has just released a statement that Obama’s maternal grandmother Madelyn Dunham who was influential in raising him, has passed away.Barack Obama visited his grandmother a week ago, as she was severely ill. I’m just glad he got that chance, in his busy schedule to at least say his goodbye.This is the official statement from the Obama Campaign on behalf of Barack Obama and his sister:”It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer.

Sarah’s New Career – Playboy Bunny??
Posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 in Politics & Community News – Views: (222)
Apparently following the success of her documentary ‘Nailin Paylin’, Sarah Palin has found a new career: Playboy Bunny.

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The western (front) side of the United States ...

Image via Wikipedia

This presidential race has been one for the history books, that’s for sure. Finally the end is near. The finish line is upon us.

All we need is for you to vote! I don’t care if you wait 15+ hours – you have to cast your ballot tomorrow.

Here are some great resources to help you get to the voting or poll locations. These will also tell you when the polls open, and hopefully answer any other questions you may have about “where do I vote?”.

Google Maps – Google has put together another great feature filled site, in partnership with the League of Women Voters, that will help you find the nearest polling place. Check this list first to find out where and when to vote.

Vote411. Is a site that features tons of election information to help you prepare to make your choice. It also features a convenient poll finder.

Can I Vote? Not sure if you’re registered to vote or not? Can I vote will help you to confirm whether or not you are in fact able to vote. If you’re not showing up, most states will allow for provisional ballots to be cast when your name isn’t on the voting roll.

Overseas Vote Foundation – A great help and resource site for Americans living or traveling outside of the United States during Election Day 2008.

Pew Center on the States – is a site that has information on poll opening and closing times.

Go vote Absentee – This site prepares you to cast an absentee ballot if you’re traveling within the United States.

Brennan Center for Justice – is an organization that provides voting information for Students.

Election Protection – Is a wonderful website that monitors voting problems, errors, voting machine malfunctions, etc. Be sure to report and track all issues as they happen. Make sure your vote is count. If we allow voting fraud to creep into our society, we may wake up one day and realize we’ve lost our democracy. Also you can report issues by calling:

1-866-Our-Vote (1-866-687-8683)

And remember – if you don’t vote – you will have no voice to complain later on. You will not be able to say a word. Imagine what the world would be like today, if Bush had never been President.

Now imagine if you could’ve been the deciding vote, but chose to stay home instead.

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Simple example graph of Web traffic at Wikipedia.

Image via Wikipedia

This has been an awesome month for “There’s a Blog in my Soup”. We have had a tremendous amount of traffic. Most of which has come from stumbleupon, and google.

Our traffic for the month is 46,512 – Of course this is liable to go up a little before the end of the day.

The majority of my traffic comes between 13:00 hours and 19:00 hours.

My unique hits for the past 7 days is: 4,286.

My total hits for the past 7 days is: 28,331.

Since March I’ve had 156,587 total hits with 32,926 unique hits.

I’m very excited with the growth, and am working hard to put up seasonal posts per each holiday that will bring in some good targeted traffic year after year. I’m also working on increasing the amount of posts that I write each week. My goal is to break 500 posts by the end of the year.

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Google, Inc.

Google Trends

Is Google trends the new linkbait?

There are sites popping up that create random text posts using keywords from google trends, and other sites of such, but when you view the listing in google it’s apparent that it’s a scam-site even before visiting.

I must say, blogging about Google trends topics is very smart. It’s obviously what people are searching for. I’m amazed at how much traffic I’ve gotten from google after using google trends – lets just say I went from 90% of my traffic coming from Twitter and other Social networks, as well as from subscribers of the blog, to now getting 75% coming from google, many of which decide to subscribe.

Now it used to be a great idea to come up with a really unique and popular pop culture post, that everbody links to. This would be called linkbait. It could be a list of things related to a specific topic as well. All that matters is that it’s widely popular, and spreads virally.

However writing linkbait, or trying to – is a hit or miss. Either your post becomes viral or it doesn’t. I’ve had a few posts go viral, but I must say that google trends is guaranteed.

You write a post on a google trends topic, and you will get traffic, and it’s very likely that you will also get linked.

Here are some tips to writing a good google trends article for maximum traffic:

  1. The Number 1 trend isn’t always the best – sometimes the topic has peaked. If you click on the trend it will show you whether the item is going up or down.
  2. Choose a topic that you’d like to talk about there are many to choose from, choose one that fits in well with your site.
  3. Keyword saturation is key – you need to use the exact google trends phrase as often as possible, and insert at least 1-2 variations. For example today I posted about “Hummingbird Sex Position” I included the keyword phrase about six times, but also used the hummingbird sex technique, once throughout.
  4. Always include related posts – you’ll get trackbacks that will help bring in more traffic.
  5. Add a picture. You’ll also get traffic from google images.

Another great suggestion is to use a tool that helps me greatly, called Zemanta – it’s a firefox addon that suggests related images / blog posts, so that I don’t have to find them myself – it doesn’t always find related posts but it’s pretty good.

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Simple example graph of Web traffic at Wikipedia.Image via Wikipedia

The past few days I’ve been experimenting with google trends.

Google trends are hot topics of the moment. I wrote one tiny post using the keyword phrase Hurricane Gustav track, and have gotten about 500 hits in two days.

Not too shabby, I can always use more traffic, and I have impression based advertisers who pay me for each view of my website, which is nice.

I was quite amazed at this technique myself, as I never expected it to be this valuable.

The more amazing thing is the fact that I was also able to round up about 35 new subscribers overnight. I didn’t think the traffic would be that sticky but apparently I’ve got myself some new readers.

I’m definitely going to be using google trends more and more to bring in more quality traffic, and keep you posted on the outcome.

One note- Hurricane gustav is still bringing in a lot of traffic, my advice would be to write a blog post about Hurricane Gustav track, and see how much traffic you get from it.

On a side note -I do feel bad for those in the path of Hurricane Gustav, and making money off a hurricane isn’t that great, but they’re used to hurricanes and if I went through something like Hurricane Katrina, there’s no way I’d move back to the gulf coast region. My thoughts and prayers are definitely with the people down there.

Lets hope Hurricane Gustav proves to be a let down as far as hurricanes go..

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Google Trends

Google Trends update:

Yesterday I mentioned delving into google trends as a way to bring new traffic.

Yesterday I wrote a post about Mackenzie Phillips, Del  Martin Dieing, and Hurricane Gustav track. Each of these topics were at that point in the top 5 google trends.

I know I planned to write 25 posts on google trends topics, however I had some errands to run offline and was unable to get back on – don’t worry I’ll be doing a lot more of these.

I found out that it’s a very wise thing to do, in fact I’m thinking about instituting a trendy wednesday. Every wednesday I’ll focus my efforts on google trends topics.

The results have been astounding – I got 131 hits to one blog post on hurricane gustav. All these hits were either from google search or google blog search, which definitely proves that the point is valid, perhaps if I’d worked on a longer post with more mentions of hurricane gustav I would’ve ranked even higher.

At any case this does prove something pretty remarkable, and that I’m going to be delving a lot deeper into, over the coming weeks.

Stay tuned for further updates on google trends.

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