Andrea Wilson’s Blog

Well, Google indexed my site, but I stayed in #3 position. Will have to go to plan B (backlinks).

Meanwhile, I was out of commission while my office got painted and the carpet cleaned. And, as a result of unplugging and replugging a gazillion cords and cables, my phone quit working. Tried the same configuration as before (which involved two splitters) and nothing. So I have the Internet OR the phone, but not both! Stress level = Maximum!

I think I need to call in my secret weapon… Lee, HELP! My son, the IT guy, reads my blog.

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Although Google bots visit my site every day, Google has yet to index my site since I challenged myself to get to the number one position. I changed my page title and description, but the old one is still showing on Google, so I know I haven’t been indexed yet.

Meanwhile I’ve been busy with clients, the Thirty Day Challenge, buying a new car (whee!), family dynamics (aren’t they fun!) and putting up a couple of new Squidoo lenses in niches outside my normal Web-design-related markets.

I’ve found a lot of new resources through Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and other social bookmarking sites. I could spend my whole day researching online, but sometimes the rubber has to meet the road… meaning I actually have to write content and build blogs in order to accomplish my goal.

If you’re wondering why I’m not satisfied with the number three position in Google, it’s because the number one position gets the lion’s share of the traffic and traffic sharply drops off after that. More traffic means more clients. Clients are my life’s blood… and I love ‘em! They make my life interesting and fulfilled. I thoroughly enjoy talking to them and helping them. Besides, if I didn’t have clients to talk to, I’d be talking to the cats even more than I already do… and I don’t want to turn into the crazy cat lady!

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People think I’m nuts when they find out I work at home. They lean forward and say,”You really work at home?” as though maybe I’m avoiding taxes or running a nefarious pyramid scheme or something. At the very least they ask, “Isn’t it kind of lonely, not having anyone to talk to all day?” Now that makes me laugh.

Am I lonely? Nope! I talk to clients and business associates every day. I talk to friends and family. And I talk to the cats, too. They don’t listen of course, except when I use a certain high-pitched tone and say “Dinner!” Well, actually I could say, “Firetruck!” in the same tone and they’d come running. They don’t actually have a vocabulary. They’re good at other signals though… the sound of a can being opened, their plastic food dishes being tapped together, dry food pouring into their bowl, the fridge door opening, the rattling of the treat container, the crinkle of the corn chip bag (yes, they love corn chips). Hmmm… Do you get the feeling they’re obsessed with food?!

No, I’m never lonely. I enjoy my own company. Besides, I’m the best boss and the sweetest, most supportive co-worker I’ve ever had.

I don’t ever have to suffer sarcastic, mean-spirited co-workers again… or a boss I can’t possibly please because they never tell me what I’m doing right, only what I’m doing wrong. Here’s an example… When I expressed concern about possible layoffs, a former boss of mine once said, “You’re safe, Andrea. just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be fine.” Trouble is this person NEVER once told me what it was that I was doing right (I never had a performance review in the whole time they were my boss). I could’ve stopped doing the very things that were keeping me safe the next day and never would have know that I’d just blown my career. Come to think of it, I did get laid off from that company eventually. Well, one thing is certain, I’m never going to lay me off!

*ROFL = rolling on the floor laughing

Well, the Thirty Day Challengers have been scrambling to find new places to post their articles (to test the profitability of their chose keyword phrases) since the Tumblr slap. I think most will end up using a blogging system like WordPress, Blogger or even MovableType, although I know many have also started Squidoo lenses and HubPages and are quite happy with the professional-looking results.

Since most blogging applications are open source and hosting a blog on your own domain account is free if you put it in a folder of your main site, moving to a WordPress blog doesn’t violate our mandate to “spend no money” during the 30DC.

I decided to work on increasing traffic to my XSitePro templates site. My goal is to move up from the number three position to the number one position for the term “xsitepro templates.” Why do I want the number one position? More traffic, more authority, more trust for me and my site. Besides I know I offer more than any other site in the way of highly-professional and personalized service. I’m sure Intellimon never intended  XSitePro to do all the things I can make it do! It’s like putty in my hands.

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Today was the day of Tumblr slap, a not unexpected result of thousands of 30DC folks putting up blogs on Tumblr within a matter of hours. As a result, many people’s blogs, even those with really good, legitimate content, got deleted.

Because Tumblr couldn’t weed through all those thousands of blogs for content, the suspicion is that they deleted a whole block of blogs between a certain time frame. If many of the articles in the mass of 30DC blogs they first checked were pure garbage (not everyone in the 30DC is a pure as the driven snow) that would have upset Tumblr. They may have reacted by taking down all the suspected 30DC blogs. Mine is still there, but it may still get slapped. [Update: Yes, my Tumblr blog got slapped, too. Oh well, onward and upward.]

Ed Dale’s response was to take responsibility for not introducing us to multiple blog sites at the outset of the 30DC. C’est la vie. I think we have only had a tiny bump in the road. Social bookmarking works. We just have to do it responsibly, like any other SEO technique. And there will always be the black and grey hat folks who try to get away with putting up complete drivel and calling it content.

My blog is actually doing very well. Prior to the slap, I was ranked for my Redit and Digg entries, but today my actual blog is ranked on page one (exact match) and page three (broad match, with over 2,000,000 pages of competition) of Google. Amazing!

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I must admit before I started the Thirty Day Challenge, I was doing almost nothing in the way of social bookmarking. MySpace made me gag, I wasn’t into YouTube at all and RSS just hadn’t made it onto my “must learn” list.

Well, then the floodgates opened! The 30 Day Challenge hit the beaches like a tsunami and my “umbrella phrase” shot to the first page of Google in a matter of hours! Granted it was for the phrase match (using quotation marks around my phrase), so I didn’t fall off my chair… well not until I came up #21 out of over 2 million pages for the broad match (no quotation marks around my phrase). Yikes! That’s the top of page three of Google in a matter of hours!!! At that point I definitely fell off my chair.

Now once I make a sale with my affiliate program, I will be totally converted and hungrily begging for more. At that point my excitement will know no bounds! As it is, eating and sleeping are getting short shift.

Nevertheless, I haven’t completely gone bonkers! Tomorrow I will take a lovely break in the afternoon. I will be spending some time with my family (including my three-year-old grandson whom I adore) at Granville Island here in Vancouver. It’s a wonderful big marketplace. Hmmm… I’m sure to find a few niche ideas while I’m there, too.

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Today I learned how to begin using social bookmarking to drive traffic to my niche articles. It’s very cool. I just have to try to keep up with it all… and still make sure my clients are getting what they want and need in the way of XSite Pro templates and headers.

It’s great having a Thirty Day Challenge team (we’re The Rockets!) with some people in it that I actually know. It means we can discuss our other ongoing projects in terms of the Web 2.0 marketing we’re learning… and figure out how to use XSite Pro in the scheme of things, too. I wonder if version 2.0 of XSite Pro will have any cool Web 2.0 features?

With the tools we’ve been given — free, I might add — by our Thirty Day Challenge mentors and members, niche research has just become push-button easy. Even with the odd bug still being worked out, these tools are dynamite! I have located half a dozen profitable niches using them and I’ve picked a couple to delve into for the Thirty Day Challenge.

I’ve written six mini-articles for one niche and now I have to do some research and write six more for my second niche. With Bloglines as my research tool and Google Notebook as a way to keep all my notes together, this has actually been an enjoyable and manageable experience.

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By Kellie Fowler

If you’re struggling to keep up with busy schedules, growing time constraints, escalating financial issues, and a family that you yearn to spend more time with, you’re not alone.

Like you, more and more people are fed up with the 9-5 grind and with putting in overtime hours and efforts that go above and beyond only to receive disappointing paychecks.

Understandably, they feel they are missing out on life and looking for legitimate ways to generate additional revenue without resorting to just another low-paying part-time job.

And, as many of these people have found, the answer they are looking for can be found in affiliate marketing.

With little start-up costs and the only resources needed including just a computer and Internet access, this online publishing business is freeing people up to live their lives to the fullest, all the while finally achieving financial freedom, while simultaneously spending more quality time with family and friends.

It may sound too good to be true, but it’s not.

Better yet, you can learn the techniques and strategies used every day by James Martell, a successful affiliate marketer, in his online course, to be conducted one evening per week for eight weeks.

It’s called the Affiliate Marketers BootCamp - Online “Night School” Edition and “seats” do fill up fast!

Why? Because Martell has been successfully teaching students how to create profitable affiliate marketing businesses for years.

See for yourself what one Martell student says about the BootCamp training: “In the past, I’ve attended several seminars with multiple speakers. None came close to James’ powerful, articulate, hands-on, gritty presentation. He’s by far the best Instructor I’ve been privy to hearing… and grasping.”

Martell BootCamp student Darryl Ruff agrees: “I’m a slow learner, but James makes things simple to understand. Would I attend another BootCamp as a refresher? In a heartbeat!”

Martell’s BootCamp students consistently give the training an enthusiastic thumbs-up, with BootCamp student Sheldon Smollan calling the BootCamp “a genesis opportunity.”

But never before has this “opportunity” been offered online, allowing Martell’s students to save time, money and the associated travel, which means everyone now has the chance to achieve true online success - and from the comfort of their own homes, with Martell looking over their shoulder every step of the way and available to answer questions, address concerns, and more.

So, even if you already have Martell’s top-selling Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook, or listen to his engaging weekly audio newsletter, the Affiliate Buzz, this online course curriculum may be just what you need to propel your online efforts to sure-fire success.

And if you are not familiar with “Martell’s book, buzz and bootcamp” (as they are referred to throughout the industry), you can get everything you need now in this exciting and informative first ever online BootCamp course.

“I believe my experience at (Martell’s off-line) BootCamp was the best investment I’ve ever made in myself, in my family, and in our dreams, explains BootCamp attendee Denis Vaillancourt. This opportunity has energized and motivated me to get to the next level of my affiliate marketing career. I’m confident in my future success now because of my BootCamp experience.”

Understanding from students like Vaillancourt the overwhelmingly positive impact the BootCamp has made on their personal, professional, and financial lives, Martell has searched for some time for a way to personally deliver his training “live” to his worldwide audience, but it wasn’t until recently that he found the robust technology he felt truly mirrored the personal training he painstakingly delivers through his off-line BootCamps.

So, just a few weeks back when Martell was exposed to an online conference room that would allow him to present the entire BootCamp using his PowerPoint presentation, live videos and live audio feeds, he knew he found the answer - and the first ever online affiliate marketer’s course curriculum was born.

Structured much like a night-school course, the curriculum will be delivered by Martell “live” in eight classes.

Martell will dedicate each class to covering one of the eight steps outlined in his recently refreshed Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook - “2006″ (THIRD EDITION).

Students can watch via the Internet as Martell personally delivers the powerful tutorials that allow students to watch him as goes step-by-step through all the stages of building a website, finding products to promote, determining which companies to partner with as affiliates, adding keyword-rich content to his site and submitting his site to the search engines.

What’s more, Martell’s online students will participate in live, interactive question and answer sessions, and be on track to complete weekly assignments all of which, when added together, make the online BootCamp experience as effective as the off-line BootCamp experience.

And because you’re learning from someone who uses these same eight steps day-in and day-out to maintain his own enviable success, you bypass the steep learning curve associated with affiliate marketing and can be up and running and making money in a matter of weeks, after implementing Martell’s proven eight steps - which have more than withstood the test of time, much like Martell himself.

What this means for you is that you can get your online business up and running faster and you can be assured that, once you implement the eight steps just as Martell details them, you’ll be on your way to making money - be it part-time or full-time - from the comfort of your own home.

Now, you really can take control of your future and your family’s future and steer it in the direction of financial freedom, allowing you to determine how much you work and even how much you make.

So, the big question is: What’s stopping you?

You and your family are worth it and this online training is, as Martell’s students have pointed out, the chance of a lifetime.

All you have to do is grab it.

For more information, and for class schedules, visit:

http://www.affiliate-marketers-bootcamp.com

About The Author

Kellie Fowler is a successful freelance writer and a seasoned professional providing valuable insight and advice to those wanting to create work at home business for themselves. Her numerous articles offer real-life tips and techniques to those looking for a way out of the rat race.

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Got back last evening after spending three days on Whidbey Island, Washington with my women’s group, the Otter Daughters. The group is semi-fluid, with some core members and others who drift in and out. There were seven of us this time. We ate, laughed, cried and shared our stories.

We helped one member with her English: she now knows the difference between “public” and “pubic.” LOL And she shared a Chinese joke with us about “old eagle feather,” but it’s a bit risque to explain here! She now also knows that “volunteer” is not from the same root as “valentine.” We had a lot of laughs as we tried to explain some English words to her. Somehow they all seemed a bit risque in the end! Okay, maybe not “retriever” and “driftwood,” I guess. Although given time, we might have come up with something!

All in all we had a lot of fun and I didn’t think about the Thirty Day Challenge at all. But today I had to catch up. I thought about how much my little “community of women getaway” meant to me and how the Thirty Day Challenge is a community, too. And a very generous one, at that. It brought my two worlds together and made me thankful even for online groups in a world where communities in our everyday lives have dwindled to almost nothing. Women in particular need community. And we are the ones flocking to forums and chat rooms in search of what we have lost.

The times are gone forever when women spent their days together looking after the children, gathering food, cooking and making clothes. The days of sharing, learning, laughing and crying together are few and far between. In the Western world women are far too isolated from one other.

If you don’t have a little community of women you truly love and respect, you should try it. The freedom to be yourself is amazing. Any old group won’t work though; you need to find a warm and loving community like the Otter Daughters, bless their souls.

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