Introducing

Blogging Ultimatum

• 55 pages of practical, useful information you can put to immediate use in your business
• Fast Action Bonus 1:  Worksheet
• Fast Action Bonus 2:  Checklist
• Fast Action Bonus 3:  Process Map

I wrote this guide because I discovered a strong demand for more quality information to help regular marketers gain more from blogging platforms. Gone are the days when you just make a post and slap some AdSense code on your site to receive peanuts back… By far, the absolute best way to monetize your blog today… especially if your site receives a lot of traffic, is to take advantage of the flexibility and functionality of WordPress Content Management System (CMS) in your busness. And that can be done with some simple tweaks, installations and system automation.

Here’s a brief overview of what my guide will show you:

• I discuss what blogging is, the benefits, and recap a history of blogging.
• Then I show you some people that have made a fortune through their blogs – just to prove that you actually CAN do it!
• Discover the available hosting options and the differences between them.
• You’ll learn about the different blogging platforms, how they operate, and plug-ins you can use to empower your business.
• How to tweak your WordPress setup so your site will rank highly in the search engines.
• I give you full instructions on how to embed images, video and audio media in your site.
• Sure, you can make money the traditional way through AdSense, but I’ll show you the new hi-tech ways to make money and tons of it!
• You’ll also discover the one key area that you’ll be able to earn serious money in…
• You’ll learn about conventional forms of traffic generation, then I share some special WordPress plug-ins that attract traffic to your site quickly and easily.

The Blogging Ultimatum package comes complete with a companion worksheet, checklist and process map to ensure you cover all bases, don’t skip a crucial step, and prepare properly for the successful integration of a profitable CMS into your business.

Click here for more details about the guide…

For complete list:  http://www.onewaytextlink.com/links.php?type=free

Submitting your domains to directories is ONE valid way to get backlinks to your sites.  There are paid services and free services.  Concentrating on the relevant directories to your field will help insure quality backlinks which will be noted by the major search engines.

Directory submission, pinging, social bookmarking:  learning how to use these tools to help other people solve the problems they have will catapult your services further on the web.  Regardless of your niche or business, the key to success lies in helping as many people along the way you can.

For services helping with your company’s SEO, please contact me here or hop over to my services page.

I have been quietly working on various projects over the past months and have even come so far to start training new people to come up alongside me to help with my efforts. Which is wonderful and only possible because of the financial opportunities I have had over the past months.

Two projects which I want to remember here are my local niche project here in Frankfurt. An automobile blog targeting also insurance and the geographical region. The site is growing slowly but very nicely. I am pleased that the visitors are highly targeted (I do not need oodles of hits, I need qualified hits). So this is my very first super tight niche in the German language and I am flabbergasted at the potential!

Here is a peek at the back end:

You can see the steady growth, over 2.5K posts and over 11K comments.  An active little niche.  I post this because now I am entering the phase where in the new year I will approach various local automobile related companies and solicit them for direct marketing opps on my blog (or via other services I offer, for example mobile site creation).

As you can see in the next graphic, there is hardly any traffic coming from off page sources OTHER than google.  This is due to my lack of attempts to get or create backlinks to the project.  I only have google adsense up on the site to get the bots coming and indexing and I post aggressively (up to 10 posts a day, all automobile related).  This is all I do.  Have a look at the hits from yesterday, where they came from:

The first pic is of the referrers, you see, perhaps 3 if I have a lot on any given day:

And now the search engine traffic, you see that yesterday’s hardly fits on the screenshot!  Every day I get great, qualified traffic for this super tight niche!  (And this excites me…)

So that is one of my German niche sites which is doing very well (amazon affiliate sales for such gadgets as “car seat heating” are in full swing and an added bonus).  I wanted to also mention a new project which I started last week and will be pushing through over the holidays.  It is an English language (targeting the US market) campaign to sell ONE toy.  I incorporate online tools such as flickr, youtube and web2.0 properties to see what combinations work well in promoting this kind of project.

I currently have a flickr campaign set up as well as the first web2.0, a squidoo lens.  Simple layout, pulling the graphics from the flickr account which simply allows me to connect the two web2.0 sites together.  Here is a screenshot, not much happening yet since this is the beginning of the campaign.

I plan on reporting on these two sites again in the new year.

It boils down to this: find your way to engage with your audience and move with it. For example I am currently working for a money-saving small business and I was asked to move along side them and support their backlinking strategy. My fortune, they have a blog and regular content coming through, but to be honest: living in Germany and working for an American business owner can be more than a challenge. How am I supposed to develop a web 2.0 backlink strategy with them if their actual topic is of little interest to me by the very merit that their information is useless to someone living in Germany?

I have two goals when helping on these kinds of projects: to be true to myself and to be true to the brand I am hired to work for. And after some careful consideration, I found a way to combine those goals into a platform which hopefully will encourage social media traction as well as provide value and benefit to the “target audience”.

This is what I did: took my ignorance of the market (and general theme “save money”) and created first a mini-video series on “How to Save Money Buying a Home — Can You Trust Your Real Estate Agent?” with the purpose to embed those videos on a squidoo lens (web 2.0) which offers an existing community, great opportunity to interact and expand as time goes on and information is gathered, thus hopefully turning “How to Buy a Home” into a growing source of information and authority.  For that is the cool thing about this project:  I am not selling anything, so I can concentrate of giving value to those who click on over.  The web 2.0 property is leveraged only by giving valuable anchor-texted backlinks back to that small business in the States.

If you take a moment to look at the second video which I offer you here, you will notice also how I have crafted them to a) offer value while b) being authentic and true to myself by c) gaining value myself from the interaction, responses I get.  This will help me in the long run as I can profit from other people’s wisdom while coming closer and closer to actually moving to Canada and buying property when we get there.

I would love to hear what you have to say about this kind of marketing specifically, however if you have something to reply to the content of the video, please consider hopping over to “How to Make an Offer on a Home”.

Naturally this sparked an interest in “who is this guy” and I found myself cruising his main blog, Bricks of Wine. It was not until Vintank introduced their juicy offer: $100K for Successful Murphy Goode Candidate where I actually noticed that Eric had found his way over to my blog… he defended the offer of Paul Mabray and his fellow VinTankers and went on to apply for the possible support from them. VinTank accepted Eric, writing up the following in endorsement of this creative and versatile man:

Born in Hong Kong and arriving in the U.S. when just 4 years old, Eric has lived his life embracing change. He has reinvented himself in his career several times to stay at the forefront of technology. While majoring in urban planning and design at the University of Cincinnati, he turned his facination with computer programming into his first job in that field. From network engineer to commercial photographer to user experience designer, Eric’s love of learning has allowed him to make these transitions successfully. [Source: VinTank Supporting a Goode Candidate]

And sure enough, Eric was amongst the top ten for Murphy Goode… but as we all know, Hardy was the chap to get the job. So, what happened to Eric?

Turns out he has been working his social media magic within the wine industry. He was “picked up” by Vintage Wine Estates and has been blazing a trail ever since. I especially find this a winning combination: The strong team built up to manage the corporate blog Carpe Vino with passion and dedication, for this was one of my key questions during the Murphy Goode campaign — what are you going to leave behind? It is exactly this dedication to the brand, building it up so that one day you may be obsolete which actually strengthens your position for you become indispensable in the process… and I think Eric is right on track with his strategy.

Here is an excerpt of what Eric wrote when I asked him where the MG application process has led him:

My life has changed dramatically in the past 6 months. The first time that I showed my wife the MG thing back in April of last year, she said that I could easily do that job and encouraged me to create a video and apply. You and most people know about the next couple of months with the final 50 and then the final 10, but few people realize that although Hardy got the MG gig, some of us got some pretty sweet deals too–permanent jobs with equally good pay, albeit without the cool house in Healdsburg.

The notoriety from being in the MG Top 10, made a few people in the wine industry stand up and take notice. One of those people was Pat Roney of Vintage Wine Estates. Google his name and you’ll find lots of info about Pat. He’s a man who knows trends that help his business and he saw that Social Media was the future.

Pat contacted me within days of the announcement of the winner of the MG gig. I was already back in Seattle but getting ready to return to the Sonoma area for the WBC 09 and agreed to talk with him that Sunday in Windsor, CA after the conference. After months of interviews and negotiations, I accepted the job from Pat at Vintage Wine Estates as the Social Marketing Director for their brands. Those brands include Girard Winery in Napa, Sonoma Coast Vineyards, Windsor Sonoma Winery, Windsor Vineyards, Grove Street Winery, Fire Station Red and International Wine Accessories. In all, they produce nearly 200,000 cases of wine each year.

I moved down from Seattle and started work at the end of September and I have to say that working with multiple brands has many challenges but also many opportunities. Hardy’s new gig involves Michel Schlumberger and the NPA–2 brands. Rick Bakas represents St. Supery–one brand. I’m representing 7 brands. Seven different brands including a wine accessories brand means I have lots of things I can promote and a wide variety of topics I can blog and vlog about. It also means I can do things that other wineries can’t do, such as have contests and award non-wine prizes–the benefit of having a wine accessories company as one of the brands I represent.

Eric shares some insights on how Social Media can improve the bottom line:  Content is King he says so he has taken this to heart, constantly and consistently offering fresh, relevant and qualitative information.  Not only that, he has connected with people he has met via social media personally… which is way cool and an aspect I totally missed out on for my dealings with Wine and Social Media.  At any rate, the bottom line for Eric has improved pretty much across the board, from 30% increase in twitter followers to some specific wine and accessories sales up to 1000% and a few neat stats in between.  Eric shows me that paring wine with social media, a drive for excellence and a hunger to get to know the person behind the gravatar is a winning combination. And this is what I call Wine Social Media Magic. Cheers and all the best, Eric!

People can follow Eric on twitter or read his blogs at:

bricksofwine.com
blog.iwawine.com
carpevino.wordpress.com
blog.girardwinery.com

Eric Hwang
Social Marketing Director, Vintage Wine Estates
Direct: 707-921-2882, iPhone: 206-369-1696
www.vintagewineestates.com

Word even a buzz in the German media: Facebook has security problems, compromising privacy issues, etc, yada, yada. If you have not got caught up in the buzz then surely you are sleeping.

What actually is happening?

Yesterday I was asked for my opinion: Should you delete or reduce your content on Facebook in light of the recent *troubles*? This is what I answered:

Prudence and Intent. These are two things which we must bring to keep our facebooking in balance.

I am bold in my beliefs — business, political and religious, yet very reclusive with my family relations here.

I also check my privacy settings for each post when I post. I might choose to go to someone else’s wall to post something and start the conversation *there* instead of *here*, I am careful to set each NOTE to be open to specific groups and/or individuals.

There is only ONE small aspect which really, really gets me and that is when OTHER people post pictures of my kids and tag me. I don’t think it should be allowed to post pictures of people without their consent. Having said that, it is an amazing networking tool (tagging people in pictures and notes), one of the best that facebook brings to the table.

The only reason (at present) that I would leave facebook is if my purpose here could better be filled elsewhere.

Here are some interesting takes:

• The Real Story Behind the Facebook Privacy Backlash
• 5 Essential Facebook Privacy Tips

Bottom line is: with 500 million registered users (or close to it), and 80% of those completely unaware of these privacy issues, I don’t see the mass exodus happening. It may turn in to the “older generation’s playground” while the hip and young define their new myspace/skype/facebook platform…

If you are looking to delete your facebook account, here are some helpful tips:

How to Permanently Delete Facebook Account and Profile | KEEMANXP.COM

Is Facebook conquering your life to the extent that you don’t have enough time to go out and get your work done? Or you’re just getting sick of being too socialized via Facebook as almost every details o your life is shared globally?

Publish Date: 05/19/2010 18:16

http://keemanxp.com/blog/2010/how-to-permanently-delete-facebook-account-and-profile.html

Heads up for this: As of May 3, there is a new privacy setting on Facebook called “Instant Personalization Pilot Program” that shares data with non-Facebook websites. — > read the following article for more information:

RR: How to Delete FaceBook account?

Looks like FaceBook took a page from the credit card bankers’ and 1980s cable TV outfits’ book… by making it next-to-impossible to delete FaceBook account- or at least a well-guarded secret. Recent leaks re. …

Publish Date: 05/14/2010 17:15

http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-to-delete-facebook-account.html

Delete Your Facebook Account: ‘Quit Facebook Day’ Wants Users To Leave

As controversy swells around Facebook’s latest changes to its privacy policy–which is now longer than the Constitution and offers some 50 settings and over 170 options–users’ interest in deleting their Facebook accounts has soared.

Publish Date: 05/15/2010 18:29

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/15/delete-facebook-account-q_n_576956.html

So by now you know that there is a movement out there to get a mass exodus going — jump from Facebook! However, I doubt that 500 million users will all leave. I personally plan to “attend” the June 6th boycott by NOT posting, reading, liking or even logging in to FB on that day. This means also for me: no linking from outside (no connecting of twitter or blogs to my facebook accounts).

What do you think of it all?

The topic of today is “Finding a Freelance Writing Job on Craigslist”.  Shara shows you how to get your duck’s in a row before even consulting the pickings at Craigslist, then she gives you great spam control advice and drips you two tips to using Craigslist:  as the one offering services and as the once searching for services.

I decided to scope the web for you to see what others have to offer on Craigslist and Job Hunting:

Freelance Writing Jobs at Craigslist

Craigslist is a classifieds behemoth with categorized jobs organized by location. Find writing jobs by perusing the writing/editing jobs or one off writing assignments under Gigs.

Publish Date: 04/07/2010 16:58

http://www.writesearch.com/blog/2010/04/find-writing-jobs-at-craigslist/

When I read the following article I was asking myself: Really? Find a job via Twitter? Please, if you have ever found a job by tweeting around, let us know!

Finding and Advertising Microjobs

Freelance websites, such as iFreelance and Virtual Vocations, are good sources of microjobs for writers, web workers and programmers, though it helps to be discriminating to get the best jobs. Some of the freelance sites also charge the … Find microjobs on Craigslist and Kijiji. A tutor, writer, personal care service provider or a home service provider can easily find clients with a simple free ad. Ads do need to be renewed since some ads will only run for thirty days. …

Publish Date: 05/16/2010 22:21

http://job-search.suite101.com/article.cfm/finding-and-advertising-microjobs

Once you cut through the funky stuff at the top of this page, you will likely find some interesting points in this article, especially concerning the “Qualifications”, the “Pay” and the “Risk” of the individual looking for a freelance gig:

Freelance Writers: Tips to Maximize Your Earnings on Craigslist

While job boards and bidding websites are always a great place to get started, another good place to look is Craigslist.org. While Craigslist has gotten a bad reputation among many freelance writers due to the number of frauds that …

Publish Date: 05/02/2010 7:31

http://www.craigslistingonline.net/uncategorized/freelance-writers-tips-to-maximize-your-earnings-on-craigslist/

I would have loved to show you a video on “how to”, but to be honest, I did not quite think any of those on YouTube were gonna make my cut. Perhaps I will take Shara O’Ryan’s lessons and go find me a freelance writing job at Craigslist (oh, I guess I need to hone my writing skills, eh?) and document it all in an Andy’s Goode Life manner to post here for you. Unless someone beatss me to it, that is…

Over at Work, Wine and Wheels we are reminded again that there is true value in social media campaigns.  Jumping into social media is simple enough if you follow the three steps which Chris deals you up:

• Have a strategy for social media that supports your business goals — “we’ve got to get in because our competitors are” doesn’t cut it
  
• Integrate the sales team from the beginning — Strategic helps its clients meet revenue goals, and if the sales team perceives social media as just another marketing campaign, they won’t buy in
• Produce good content, repurpose existing content and focus SEO efforts around a small set of keywords

Hopping over a few blogs and we see the same questions popping up:  What is the ROI of Social Media?

Melinda Knapp offers this answer in her guest post over at DrinkNectar:

As a consumer, walking into a wine store or the wine section of the grocery store can be intimidating.  I could go with the old standby, but I really want to try something new.  How do I choose?  What is going to make a bottle jump out and say “buy me”?  Familiarity.  I am looking for something familiar to me like winery, vineyard, region etc. This is where social media comes in.

She goes on to explain how her engagement with the brand on social media platforms has increased her awareness and familiarity while expanding her choices by the power of suggestion simply by brand recognition.

And finally, if we join Rick Bakas and his interview with SmartBrief editor Liz DeHoff, we can read Rick’s answer to the ROI question:

I always say social-media strategy is like planting vines. You don’t get fruit right away, but if you nurture the vines organically, they will eventually produce results year-over-year. We are moving out of the first phase of our SM strategy into a phase where we are going to start answering this question. We’re just now starting to get the fruits of our labor.

Rick goes on to say that it is not the buzz of social media, it is simply people connecting with each other (via the internet).  Keeping the person you are communicating in mind is how you pair wine with social media.

My question to you is this:  do you *see* the people you are communicating with, are you aware that it is a two way street or are you just out there blasting your message to the masses?

Your ROI will reflect the degree of relationship and connectedness you have with your readers.  Give your message a personality, a face and a voice.  This is what social media is all about.

I discovered Frank relatively early in my hunt for the goode guys.  His URL was set up, but he was still “creating” himself online as Frank loves wine.  Wow.  A passionate fellow this one, and a very lucky Anita, for sure!  To call Frank a filmmaker would be correct but not appropriate:  He is a story teller.  This is what Frank wrote when I touched base with him recently asking what he is up to since Murphy Goode:

Hi Andy,

Sorry for the very late reply.

I’m very happy to hear about your new business.  I hope it all goes well.

A lot has changed for me this past year.

My latest accomplishment is the video for Conundrum Winery

The ball is still moving and I hope to have more news for you in a couple months.

Cheers!

Frankie H. Gutierrez

Wine Blogger & Social Media Brand Mgr.

www.frankloveswine.com

818.384.9252 . fhgutierrez@mac.com

Twitter: twitter.com/frankloveswine

Facebook: facebook.com/frankloveswine

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/frankloveswine

In this video published over at Conundrum Winery Blog, Frank walks the talk:  I noticed Eric Hwang and Ashley Bellview, two of the MG winners, both having found career moves within the wine industry due to following their passions and the MG application process.  Frank also connects with Chuck Wagner (Owner), Jon Bolta (Winemaker) and Chef Greg Johnson (Owner / Chef at Zinsvalley Restaurant).  Beautiful!

This little piece of art shows Frank’s mastery of his work:  pairing wine with social media.  It has been a pleasure to meet up with Frank and one day, I hope to sit with him and his lovely bride and enjoy a glass of creepy wine… .

Any winery can call itself blessed to enjoy strong ties with Frank Gutierrez, for it is surely to be a fruitful relationship.

Going that extra mile, connecting with each individual on your blog, on your facebook profile, over at twitter or where ever it is you hang out:  this is social networking and social media at it’s best.

Don’t join the noise of the web, join the value.

Agree?  Disagree?  How do you see your friendships on facebook?  How do you use your blog?  Just tossing those tweets out left, right and centre?