John A Simpson » Promotion

Steps To Online Success

John — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:04:59 +0000

If you want to know what you need to do to make it big on the Internet, here is a podcast you should listen to. Tim Knox was interviewed by Heather Vaile on Internet Marketing Unwrapped, and Tim gave his blueprint to Internet Success.

I started listening to this podcast a month ago and I am still pulling new information out of it.

The biggest complaint I hear about getting into business on the Internet is that no one has been able to present a clear list of steps to take to do the same thing. A lot of those peoples’ judgments are impaired by the fact that they want to make money on the information. Tim laid everything out, step-by-step.

If you enjoyed this post, please make sure you register to receive these posts via email. You can also follow me on Twitter, link to me on LinkedIn, or visit my other blog, at www.spendingless101.com.

Shoemoney gives me my next income stream…

John — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 05:22:36 +0000

…or at least the next one I am going to work on…

A great idea for all blog readers…

John — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:52:34 +0000

Add my friends as your friends on Digg. WooHoo!!!!

6/26 Efforts To Quit My Day Job

John — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:44:13 +0000

Picked up books to sell
Made a post about garage sales
Made a post on Spending Less 101

6/24 Efforts toward quitting my day job…AGAIN!!!

John — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:25:56 +0000

I’m pissed. I wrote out this nice post with a whole list of things I did today and ScribeFire lost it.

Here it is…AGAIN:

Found additional items to post on eBay. Took pictures of all items.
Inspired by the sale of a $48.00 book today, I decided that I am going to acquire all the books that I can from FREE sources like FreeCycle, so I can sell them on half.com and Amazon.
Created new footer for posts and RSS entries on www.johnasimpson.com and www.spendingless101.com (see below).

6/21 Efforts toward quitting my day job…

John — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:35:51 +0000

Today’s List

Dropped some EntreCards.

I spent the day with my girls at the pool, then helped a friend switch from the hard top to the soft top on her Jeep.

6/20 Efforts toward quitting my day job…

John — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:55:06 +0000

Connected to key Internet Marketing gurus through LinkedIn.
Added affiliate ads from mysurvey.com to ad rotation.
Added LinkedIn widget to www.spendingless101.com and www.johnasimpson.com.
Added CafePress affiliate ads to ad rotation.
Added new McAfee ads from LinkedIn to ad rotation.
Read an article about getting 10000 links in 3 weeks.

6/19 Efforts toward quitting my day job…

John — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:53:23 +0000

Requested connections with several Internet Marketing pros on LinkedIn.
Posted an entry on 1plus1plus1.blogspot.com
Changed the theme on johnasimpson.com because the old theme did not have next/previous links. Without these, people tend to leave the site sooner because it is a lot harder to go from post to post.
Added remaining blogs to socialspark.com and accepted several offers from the site.
Dropped some Entrecard cards.

SocialSpark.com creates new linkbuilding opportunities

John — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:35:55 +0000

I didn’t think of this one. Someone else did. I’m talking about using Social Spark, which I thought was specifically for paid blogging, etc., to promote one’s blog…without having to pay anyone.

I logged onto socialspark.com and after adding all of my blogs, I started looking through the offers. Since my blogs are not approved, I can only accept the offers that do not involve money. I figured it would be a good exercise, so I settled on one to try. It actually was not related to posting. It was a request for an RSS subscribe exchange. I did it. I’ll have to see if the other part reciprocates. I found another offer, which involved writing a post about a site, then leaving a comment on that site. The payment is supposed to be the addition of my blog to his blogroll. The site is a PR3. The problem is, it won’t help me if I cannot somehow tie that site’s subject to the subject of my blog. It just so happens that it is related. In fact, you can check out http://lepixelshoppe.com/scrap4dollars yourself. I will also be adding this blog to my blogroll.

6/18 Efforts toward quitting my day job…

John — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:58:14 +0000

I will eventually quit my day job. My focus is Internet work. Please check back often, as I plan on keeping this blog up-to-date on my efforts.

Deactivated channels for dead blogs on LinkShare account
Added new channels for additional blogs on LinkShare account
Filled out and faxed in/Verified W-9 forms for:
Created post about Overstock.com on www.spendingless101.com.
Listened to several Internet Marketing Unwrapped podcasts.
Read several blog posts and Internet Marketing articles.
Created a new post on Spending Less 101.
Created/scheduled a post on Spending Less 101 for 6/21/2008.

Not a lot was done on 6/18. I spent some time with my family in the evening and when I got home, I went directly to bed. I ended up getting 9 hours sleep last night. This is a lot more than normal and I feel pretty good today. We shall see if that has an effect on how much work I get done today.

6/17 Efforts toward quitting my day job…

John — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:11:42 +0000

There are a lot of other things on my list. These are just the things I completed on 6/17:

Dropped the smallbusinesshowto.blogspot.com blog. I did not have enough time to keep up with posting content and leaving it out there, letting it get stale would just nag at me (an Open Loop in NLP).
Dropped the simpsonproperties.blogspot.com blog for the same reason I dropped the small business blog.
Removed the two blogs above from Technorati.
Joined www.multiply.com so I can post to it through socialposter.com.
Joined www.postonfire.com so I can post to it through socialposter.com.
Joined www.hugg.com so I can post to it through socialposter.com.
Added a WordPress plugin that allows me to add HTML/text before and after posts, pages, and RSS feed entries, then added a copyright notice to both the feed and the posts on www.spendingless101.com. Once all of the bugs are worked out and I figure out how to put adds in my RSS feeds, I’ll do the same thing to the remaining WordPress blogs.
Joined MySpace so I can post to it through socialposter.com.
Added all of the posts from the www.alexsimpson.info blog to my social bookmarking promotion queue.
Joined www.theseotree.com so I can post to it through socialposter.com.
Joined www.business-planet.com so I can post to it through socialposter.com.
Joined www.tumblr.com so I can post to it through socialposter.com.
Joined www.searchles.com so I can post to it through socialposter.com.
Re-joined www.a1-webmarks.com so I can post to it through socialposter.com. Not sure what happened to my previous account, but I was able to register with the same account name I had before.
Joined www.upchuckr.com so I can post to it through socialposter.com.
Joined www.dropjack.com so I can post to it through socialposter.com.
Promoted the Learn How To Save A Dollar A Day post from Spending Less 101, through socialposter.com.
Tried to monetize my RSS feed…I’ve been trying all day, with no success.
Joined bloggerschoiceawards.com in order to vote for John Chow’s blog as best blog.
Joined the RocketProfit affiliate.
Entered a contest on the John Chow blog only to find out that the contest ended over a year ago. Guess I need more sleep.
Finally, did some research on a URL rewriting solution that does not require me to have access to the server’s console, because I don’t have that with my existing hosting service. This will continue tomorrow…

Yell it from the roof-tops…or at least from the computer screen…

John — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:10:40 +0000

Twitter has become the rage. People tend to use Twitter to tell the world what they are doing at all times of day and night. I admit that I’ve gotten caught up in it also. I use Twitter through the FireFox plugin, TwitterFox. Twitter can be used for SEO. There are a few WordPress plugins that automagically submit links to your new posts on Twitter. A few of them are:

OnlyWire Service + OnlyWire WordPress Plugin (free)
Auto Tweet
Twitter Tools

Even without automatically posting to Twitter, you can still keep your friends (and/or followers) informed as to when you make changes on your site and when you post new content. If your friends are using TwitterFox or one of the other Twitter-based interactive plug-ins, they will immediately know when you have new or updated content. Also, those viewing the everyone timeline in Twitter will see your update. More potential visitors to your site.

Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Right

John — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:00:00 +0000

You’ve probably heard your parents say this when you were a child. It’s true. By the way, this statement does not conflict with the 80/20 rule, which states that 80 percent of the effort goes into 20 percent of the work. In most cases, though, 80% is acceptible. I always end up getting stuck in trying to make something perfect. What I am saying here is that only YOU can decide what “right” is in the “Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Right” statement.

Doing SEO Right:

Make sure your keyword research is thorough. There are services out there that can help with this such as, KeywordDiscovery and WordTracker. There are even software packages that you can purchase for this purpose.
Make sure you posts contain valuable information. Don’t pack your posts with useless information and graphics.
Make sure that the information you present on your web site is relevant to the basic subject of your blog.
BE PATIENT. It takes time for a web site to go from relative obscurity to awesome popularity. Make progress every day. Promote. Read. Learn. Grow.

Keep Moving Forward

John — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:44:00 +0000

When you are planning on make a good idea into a great blog or web site, you need to make sure that you don’t slack off and let the tension go out of the line. What I mean is you need to continue to work on the blog on a daily basis. At the beginning of each week, I create a to-do list for the week for the promotion and content efforts of my various sites. There are some things that need to be done on a regular basis and there are new things that I try each week.

Here is a typical weekly schedule:

Monday

Drop 300 EntreCards then use ec credits to advertise on EntreCard member sites
Review search keyword report on Google Analytics
Add content: Create 2 new blog posts including some of the more commonly used keywords.
Visit related blogs, read content, and leave 5 comments
Submit new blog posts to social networks using socialposter.com or socialmarker.com

Tuesday

Drop 300 EntreCards then use ec credits to advertise on EntreCard member sites
Submit RSS feed to 10 RSS directories (track)
Check affiliates for new promotions
Add content: Create 2 new blog posts including keywords from affiliate text ads.
Visit related blogs, read content, and leave 5 comments
Submit new blog posts to social networks using socialposter.com or socialmarker.com

Wednesday

Drop 300 EntreCards then use ec credits to advertise on EntreCard member sites
Add content: Create 2 new blog posts including affiliate text ads and related information.
Submit Blog to 10 blog directories (track)
Visit related blogs, read content, and leave 5 comments
Submit new blog posts to social networks using socialposter.com or socialmarker.com

Thursday

Drop 300 EntreCards then use ec credits to advertise on EntreCard member sites
Visit related blogs, read content, and leave 5 comments
Look for a girlfriend that is beautiful and computer savvy
Add content: Create 2 new blog posts
Submit new blog posts to social networks using socialposter.com or socialmarker.com

Friday

Drop 300 EntreCards then use ec credits to advertise on EntreCard member sites
Visit related blogs, read content, and leave 10 comments
Add content: Create 3 new blog posts
Submit new blog posts to social networks using socialposter.com or socialmarker.com

Saturday

Drop 300 EntreCards then use ec credits to advertise on EntreCard member sites
Visit related blogs, read content, and leave 10 comments
Add content: Create 3 new blog posts
Submit new blog posts to social networks using socialposter.com or socialmarker.com

Sunday

Drop 300 EntreCards then use ec credits to advertise on EntreCard member sites
Visit related blogs, read content, and leave 10 comments
Add content: Create 3 new blog posts
Submit new blog posts to social networks using socialposter.com or socialmarker.com

Things do not always work out and sometimes, things get missed. If I miss something on one of the days, I move that item to the next day (except the EntreCard tasks due to daily limits — missing a day is a lost opportunity). This can usually only be done once before there are too many things backed up in order to be able to catch up.

Every once in a while, I will dedicate a day to one particular thing that I think may be lacking, like using a day for reading and commenting only or using a day to write, write, and write some more.

Quality content and consistent promotion are the keys in promoting a web site or blog.

Read This Post and Receive A FREE Gift!!!

John — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:00:00 +0000

Get people to read your blog posts by putting provocative titles on them like the one on this post. Sometimes, the horse can’t find the water on it’s own. It needs to be led. Once there, your readers can drink from the fountain of your knowledge.

Here are some examples of post titles:

Live Nudes…Read This Blog
More Info On The Microsoft, US Government merger…myth
10 Ways To Skin A Cat

I’m sure you are wonder about the Free Gift. Well, for reading this post, I want to give you the gift of a personalized “Thank You”.

Thanks you for visiting my site and reading this post.

I hope you enjoyed your free gift and will visit again soon. If you REALLY want to know something about getting your posts read, Check out the 10 Unconventional Site Promotion Ideas post.

Drive Ginormous Traffic: Redirect Microsoft.com To Your Domain

John — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:00:00 +0000

Before I get to the meat of this post, let me tell you now that you will NOT be able to actually grab microsoft.com’s traffic for yourself. I used that title as an example of what this post is about, which is using expired domains to drive traffic to your site. Besides, Billy G. would never let microsoft.com expire.

There are a ton of articles out there that profess the benefits of purchasing expired domain in order to utilize the traffic remaining on those domains. In How To Snatch An Expiring Domain, Mike Davidson tells all about his first experience with an expired domain. He indicated that he purchased the domain for $18.95 and in two and a half months, made $369. Another article, posted by Mike Santiago on MakeMoneyOnTheInternet.com, talks a lot about not only the existing traffic, but about building the domain up so it can eventually be sold for a higher price. Although a lot of the articles out there talk about making money on the site through parking, you can also 301 redirect that traffic to your site, as long as the subject is related.

Grabbing this traffic is like picking up the money someone has left on the table. I am doing this (just started so I have not made any money yet). Give it a try.

More Information:

Using Twitter To Promote Your Blog

John — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:30:00 +0000

You can even use the social networking site called Twitter to promote your site.

Here are some of the ways you can do that:

If your blog software is WordPress, you can install a plugin that will automatically post an entry to your Twitter account when you submit a new post to your blog.
Add your web address to your Twitter profile and a link to the web address will show up next to your account name on every tweet.
If your friends have a Twitter account (and even if they don’t—they can get one), have them tweet about your site and include a link.

I’m always on Twitter and I have clicked on links from there many times.

10 Unconventional Site Promotion Ideas

John — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:30:00 +0000

Here are some unconventional site promotion ideas I came up with yesterday:

Bathroom stall wall
Tape a note to your own back
Have the phone company change the name on your callerID to your web address
Create an email account like www.spendingless101.com_@gmail.com and use that to send out all of your emails.
Use your web address as your account on Windows Live Messenger, then log on and off periodically throughout the day. Your buddies will see your web address pop up in the lower right hand corner of their screen, which will entice them to visit your site.
Print up flyers with only your web address on it, then pay some kids .02 per flyer to put them on cars at your local mall. (I actually like this one)
Give your kids some chalk, take them to a grocery store, and have them write the web address on the ground in front of the exit door.
Pay a skywriter to write the web address in the sky above a croweded baseball stadium…preferably NOT on a windy day (visitors may end up at a porn site).
Write your web address on all of the paper money you come across (actually, this one has already been done – www.wheresgeorge.com)
When sending out emails, highlight meaningless characters, and hyperlink them to your web site.
(Bonus) Take a permanent marker and write the web address on every car in the parking lot where you work.

10 tips to drive massive traffic to a new blog

John — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:23:00 +0000

I have a process that I go through when setting up a new blog. I tried to get it all down on paper, but there are so many things. Here are 10 of the things I do…

Write your blog posts as if they were articles, then post them to article directories: This can drive a lot of traffic and can also get your work out to the public because your articles will be used as content on multiple blogs…all linking back to you.
Social bookmark your posts. SocialPoster.com is the best tool for doing this that I’ve come across.
List your blog in blog and site directories.
Add your blog to DMOZ.org, which is syndicated on quite a lot of sites.
Comment on other people’s blogs.
Join social networks, like Facebook, Friendster, MySpace, etc… #2 will drive this one because, most of the time, you have to be a member in order to post links on these sites.
Set up your RSS feed in FeedBurner.
Answer questions on Yahoo and LinkedIn. This will help establish you as an expert in the field of your choosing.
Add a link to your site in your email signature.
Write as much content as you can without forming blisters on your fingers. The more content you write, the more often the bots visit.

Good luck…

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Calgon!!! Take me AWAY!!!!

John — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:56:00 +0000

In order to completely get this blog caught up, at least by my definition of caught up, I would have to:

All posts must be submitted to all of the social bookmarking sites at socialposter.com. Currently, 41 have been submitted, which leaves 117 left to go.
Remove all unnecessary category tags
Take all posts that can also qualify as articles and post them to article submission sites (20)
Write enough posts to have two show up each day for the next two weeks (get two weeks ahead on posting)
Drop 300 EntreCards per day / advertise site with all available ec’s (daily)
Submit RSS feed to feed directory sites (20)
Create links from each post to at least one other post on the site (internal linking)

This stuff will never be done because more keeps getting pilled onto me every day. I need some help. I need an assistant.

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