Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-29
By Dee-Dee M | August 29, 2010
- #tc10 Module 4 – Day 1: What Is Passive Market Leadership? http://ff.im/-pBdJg #
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#tc10 Module 4 – Day 1: What Is Passive Market Leadership?
By Dee-Dee M | August 24, 2010
Module Four: Passive Market Leadership
Lesson 1: What is Passive Market Leadership
Presenter: Ed Dale – Challenge.co
Video Length: 29.:35 mins total
- Market Leadership 1 – 9:01 mins
- Market Leadership 2 – 13:03 mins
- Market Leadership 3 – 6:34 mins
More often than not the difference between someone buying from one or other seller for the same product is people are more likely to buy from the seller they know than a complete unknown. This is where Market Leadership becomes the magic sauce that can determine why some and not others succeed with an online business.
If you are everywhere in the marketplace and well know in your market you are well on you way to becoming a Market Leader no matter how large or small that market is.
The concept ‘Leader’ has subjective meaning – it means different thing to different people; some have a positive outlook and others, negative.
For some, ‘being a leader’ is the goal that drives them forward. For some, they become leaders by their desire to help. For others, the perceived pressures of leadership is too scary to contemplate.
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 3 – Week 3: Review
By Dee-Dee M | August 22, 2010
Whew! What a week! (or Two!) There is quite a bit to achieve during module three as we are setting the foundations of our backlinking network.
I think you will agree with me that there is a little more that 30mins a day required here this week.. What, with researching fodder for your article writing, watching the video lessons and then putting it all into action, (plus in my case I blog about it here) it has been a “challenge” fitting it all in with our busy lives.
My biggest challenge for this module has been dealing with a back injury I suffered late in the week before this module began. I had to take a week off work but I was so doped up with powerful pain meds and getting little sleep due to the pain of lying down (I ended up sleeping in my office chair), that I wasn’nt able to think straight.
I’m happy to say thanks to physio-therapy, rest and drugs I was back to work this rest week and I have been scrabbling to catch up.
By the end of Module Three You should have:
1. An Ezine Articles Account set up (one per person only)
Filled out Profile (specific to niche but general enough for multi-niches)
Submitted first Article
2. A Squidoo Account set up
- - Created a lens based on your main keyword phrase
- - Added an article to text Mod
- - Added Guestbook Mod, RSS Mod + 4 other Mods of your choice
3. Created a Posterous Account
- - Edited Profile
- - Added a backlink to niche site
- - Added a backlink to niche site
- - Added Auto-Post to Posterous
A Niche Facebook Page
- - Added a backlink to niche site
- - Added Auto-Post to Posterouss
A Linkdin Account
- - Added a backlink to niche site
- - AddedAuto-Post to Posterous
A WordPress.com Account
- - created a wordpress.com Blog
- - Added a backlink to niche site
- - Added Auto-Post to Posterous
A Tumblr Account
- - created a Tumblr Blog
- - Added a backlink to niche site
- - Added Auto-Post to Posterous
An Identica Account
- - Added a backlink to niche site
- - Added Auto-Post to Posterous
A Blogger.com Account
- - Created a Blogger Blog
- - Added a backlink to niche site
- - Added Auto-Post to Posterous
A Live Journal Account
- - Added a backlink to niche site
- - Added Auto-Post to Posterous
A Xanga Account
- - Added a backlink to niche site
- - Added Auto-Post to Posterous
5. Created Your first Posterous Post and sent it to Posterous
- - Checked post distribution by going to all above services
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 3 – Day 7: Posting To Your Posterous Network and Your Micro-Niche Blog
By Dee-Dee M | August 15, 2010
Module Three: Create Your Off-Page Network
Lesson 7: Posting To Your Posterous Network and Your Micro-Niche Blog
Presenter: Ed Dale – Challenge.co
Video Length: 15.:39 mins total
- Pulling It Together – 12:33 mins
- Posting Expectations – 2:26 mins
By now we should have out Posterous Network set up with Twitter, our Facebook Page, LinkedIn, a WordPress.com blog, a Tumblr blog, an Identi.ca account, a Blogger blog, a LiveJournal blog, and Xanga blog. Time now to go make a first post to all these by sending an email to Posterous.
IMPORTANT: Do not add your main niche site to your Posterous network as on this site we want to add our “premium” content.
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: 30 Day Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 3 – Day 6: Adding Blogger, LiveJournal and Xanga To Posterous
By Dee-Dee M | August 14, 2010
Module Three: Create Your Off-Page Network
Lesson 6: Adding Blogger, LiveJournal and Xanga Accounts To Your Posterous
Presenter: GuruBob – Challenge.co
Video Length: 17:02 mins total
- Blogger Blogs – 6:50 mins
- Live Journal – 3:51 mins
- Xanga – 5:12 mins
Still continuing to build our publishing platform, we are again going to add another 3 services to our network; Two blog networks and one social network that has a member blog.
Using Blogger.com Blogs
Blogger is part of the Google Toolkit and is associated to a Google Account. The easiest way to get a Google account is to get a Gmail account. If you have created a Gmail account for your niche make sure you are logged in before joining Blogger so your Blogger Blog will be associated with the correct account.
Dee’s TIP: Because I have a number of micro-niches I want to develop within a Niche I used a more generic user name for my Gmail account and because a user can setup any number of blogs on Blogger.com, I then started a keyword specific blog for my Challenge micro-niche blog. This way I can maintain a Niche Identity that covers a range of micro-niches.
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 3 – Day 5: Adding WordPress, Tumblr, and Identica Sites To Posterous
By Dee-Dee M | August 13, 2010
Module Three: Create Your Off-Page Network
Lesson 5: Adding WordPress.com, Tumblr and Identi.ca sites To Your Posterous Account
Presenter: GuruBob – Challenge.co
Video Length: 26:42 mins total
- WordPress.com – 11:59 mins
- Tumblr Blogs – 4:56 mins
- Identi.ca Micro-blog – 3:07 mins
Today GuruBob showed us how to broaden our publishing platform by using another three Services and adding them to our Posterous AutoPost.
The purpose of these sites is to set them up so they get indexed in the search engines and thereby get credited with the back-links we place on them. In saying that you can customize them if you wish but it’s not totally necessary, so don’t waste too much time on them.
Using WordPress.com
Begin creating a WordPress Blog by going to WordPress.com and clicking on the [sign up now] button.
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 3 – Day 4: Building Your Publishing Platform Using Posterous
By Dee-Dee M | August 12, 2010
Module Three: Create Your Off-Page Network
Lesson 4: Building Your Publishing Platform Using Posterous
Presenter: Ed Dale – Challenge.co
Video Length: 26:42 mins total
- Introducing Posterous – 11:59 mins
- Setting Up Posterous – 6:44 mins
- Add Sites To Posterous – 7:06
Using Posterous we build a publishing platform to set the stage for the next three modules of the Challenge.
Posterous is a blogging “service” commonly referred to a a micro-blog with a posterous account we get a blog that we can email to.
The power of Posterous is ‘leverage’ – the ability to send one email that contains content into your marketplace using a multiple of other services. And because we now have smartphones, ipads and such we can send email from anywhere we happen to be.
The Duplicate Content Penalty Myth
“You can’t have the same content on multiple sites! Google will penalize you and remove your site from the rankings!”
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 3 – Day 3: Squidoo – Setup An Account And Create A Lens
By Dee-Dee M | August 11, 2010
Module Three: Create Your Off-Page Network
Lesson 3: Squidoo – Setup An Account & Create a Lens
Presenter: Michelle MacPhearson - Challenge.co
Video Length: 11:34 mins total
Creating a Squidoo Lens is a great way to get a high PR link back to your site. Quite often your Squidoo lens will rank on the first page of the Google Search Results for your keyword phrase before your site does so you can get traffic from your lens even if your site isn’t ranked in the top 10 so is an important step in our back-linking strategy.
However in order to do this you will want to create a ‘good quality’ lens with useful information for your target market. ‘Junk’ lenses will quickly drop in popularity.
Today Michelle McPhearson took us through the process of signing up to Squidoo and creating a lens.
Topics: 30 Day Challenge | No Comments »
Twitter Updates for 2010-08-10
By Dee-Dee M | August 10, 2010
- #tc10 Module 3 – Day 1: The Basics of Backlinking http://ff.im/-p3d3e #
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#tc10 Module 3 – Day 2: Setting Up and Submitting To EzineArticles
By Dee-Dee M | August 10, 2010
Module Three: Create Your Off-Page Network
Lesson 2: Ezine Articles – Setup An Account & Submit An Article
Presenter: Caro McCourtie - Challenge.co
Video Length: 14:11 mins total
Writing high quality articles and submitting them to good quality Article Directories is a good way to obtain high quality back-links to your new site.
Ezine Articles is considered the one of the best article directories to submit to because their strict editorial guidelines produces high quality content that can be syndicated and used on other websites. Knowing this, Google gives articles published on Ezine Articles authority.
To make it easier for yourself and the article reviewers, it pays to familiarize yourself with the Ezine Articles Editorial Guidelines before you submit your articles.
The benefits of submitting an article to Ezine Articles is many fold once your article has been reviewed, approved, and published.
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 3 – Day 1: The Basics of Backlinking
By Dee-Dee M | August 9, 2010
Module Three: Create Your Off-Page Network
Lesson 1: The Basics of Backlinking
Presenter: Ed Dale – Challenge.co
Video Length: 16:37 mins total
Modules One and two were about getting the “on-page” search engine optimization (SEO) right for your new site and if you have been following us thus far… that’s the SEO Competition factors that gave us the all green line in Market Samurai. They were all green because the ranking pages were NOT fully optimised giving us an opportunity to hit the top ten in the search engine results.
Module three takes us into the “off-page” optimization, commonly referred to as back-links.
What is a Back-link?
Back-links have two components
- Web Address
- Anchor Text
The Web Address is where the backlink is going to send the person who clicks on the link.
The Anchor Text is the word or words that are hyper-linked on a web page meaning that when you click on them you will be taken to another web-page. (internet users are familiar with this)
What is crucial about anchor-text is that your keyword phrase must be the text in the backlink to your site.
Not all Back-links are created Equal.
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 2 – Week 2: Review
By Dee-Dee M | August 8, 2010
Week two of the Challenge, particularly the tasks involved, can be a real stumbling block for some. Writing new original content for your new site, especially if the niche is about something you know nothing about can be challenging.
Naturally, if you have found a niche which is associated to a personal interest or hobby, you will find it easier to write with knowledge, personal experience, and passion.
However if the ‘numbers’ stacked up in an area where you have little knowledge or experience this doesn’t mean you are in any way doomed to failure. Knowledge can be learned and experience earned by a little daily application.
By the end of this module you should have accomplished the following:
- Acquired a keyword optimized domain name
- Acquired hosting for the domain
- Created your free trial account with WordPress Direct
- Installed your new site using WordPress Direct
- Used the Find Content Module in Market Samurai to do article research
- Written at least 3 articles usign the ‘Free Writing’ Technique
- Used the Publish Content Module in Market Samurai to Edit, Optiimise and push your first article to your site.
- Set up Google Analytics and installed to Your Site
- Set up the Rank Tracker Module in market Samurai for your site.
- Announce your site to the world using Traffic Bug
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | 2 Comments »
#tc10 Module 2 – Day 7: Getting Your WPD Blog Indexed By Google
By Dee-Dee M | August 1, 2010
Module Two: Publish Your Micro-Niche Website
Lesson 7: Getting Your WPD Blog Indexed By Google
Presenters: Mike Roberts – Traffic Bug
Video Length: 12:02 mins total
As recent as 2-3 years ago it used to take up to three months to get your new site indexed in the Search Engines. Being indexed means being recognised by the search engines and having their spiders crawl your site.
Since then the Challenge Team have figured out how to whittle that down to a few weeks, then a few days or even just a few hours.
The big issue with the technique was that it took up to an hour for each and every post to be bookmarked at Social Bookmarking Sites, and submitted to Web Directories, RSS Directories, and Search Engines.
Traffic Bug is an automated indexing tool that reduces the time to do this to a few minutes so you can spend your valuable time creating good content.
Getting Started with Traffic Bug
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 2 – Day 6: Setting Up Google Analytics and Rank Tracker
By Dee-Dee M | July 31, 2010
Module Two: Publish Your Micro-Niche Website
Lesson 6: Setting Up Google Analytics and Rank Tracker
Presenters: Emily Becker – WordPressDirect & Ben – Noble Samurai
Video Length: 16:36 mins total
- Google Analytics 8:14 mins
- Rank Tracker 7:12 mins
Tracking and collecting statistics about your site is an important measure of how effective the content is and how well you site is doing for traffic and ranking in the search engines.
Webhosts using cPanel will have a builtin traffic tracker called AWSTATS but it is a good idea to use third party tools as well.
Setting Up Google Analytics (GA) For Your Site
Google Analytics is a tracking tool that gathers all sorts of data about our website. We use GA as a third party tracking system because of the quality and quantity of the data and it is an accepted industry standard.
Data Stats from GA is considered reliable and true so will add weight to your traffic claim when and if you decide to sell your site.
Installing GA onto your site is a two step process
- set up a GA tracking code
- install code onto the pages of your site
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 2 – Day 5: Setting Up Your WPD Blog and Publishing Your First Article
By Dee-Dee M | July 30, 2010
Module Two: Publish Your Micro-Niche Website
Lesson 5: Setting Up Your WPD Blog and Publishing Your First Article
Presenters: Marty Rozmanith – WordPress Direct & Dr Anthony – Noble Samurai
Video Length: 19:00 mins total
- Setup Your WPD Blog 14:20mins
- -Publish Your Article 4:40mins
Zero to Website… in minutes using WordPress Direct (WPD)
WPD can use any cPanel Hosting account so if you already have a hosting account check that it has cPanel before using it. WPD has a list of host providers in their FAQ so check that out too. For the Challenge Hostgator is recommended and if you already have a Hostgator account then you can make an add-on domain in your cPanel dashboard.
Before installing your site using WPD you need to have:
- Your WPD account
- Your domain name based on your theme Keyword
- A web-hosting account that hosts that domain
- Your category keywords
- A brief 20-30 word (160 characters) description of your site
- Checked your domain name servers have updated (go to domain URL to see “Index of” listing or hostgater welcome screen)
- An email address for this website (use a personal one but I suggest creating one usng cPanel – create an admin@ or contact@yourdomain email acccount)
To install Your Site Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 2 – Day 4: The “NO IDEA” Challenge
By Dee-Dee M | July 29, 2010
Module One: Publish Your Micro-Niche Website
Optional: “NO IDEA CHALLENGE
Presenter: Ed Dale – challenge.co
Video Length: 9:40mins total
Ed introduces a fun ‘game’ to spur folk on in seeking a micro niche. This optional module one challenge was introduced for those challengers who have got to Module 2 without a Micro-Niche to move forward with.
The Rules:
- Play for 5 days (or until eliminated)
- Only thing you can do (until eliminated)
- 30 mins a day max (you must have a timer!)
The Object of the Game
How many niches can you investigate in 30 mins using Market Samurai.
How to Win
The Winner is the the most niches researched in five days, 30 mins a day.
The Prize
$50 iTunes voucher
How to Get Eliminated
If you find a theme keyword you can use for the rest of the Challenge you have been eliminated – That is:
- SEOT = 80
- PBR = 15%
- SEOC = <30,000
Plus Competition Matrix all green for
- PR = 0-2 (page rank)
- BLP = 0-200 (back-links to page)
- YAH = NO (site listed in Yahoo Directory)
- TITLE = N (keyword in page title)
- URL = N (keyword in URL – domain or directory)
How to Enter
- Tweet in Twitter “I’m taking the No Idea Challenge #td10″
- After each 30mins research session tweet ““I researched x niches in 30 minutes! #noIdea #tc10”
x = number of searches
I think this is a great way to get the ideas flowing. It changes the focus from being disappointed at not finding a micro-niche to throwing any old idea into market Samurai.
If you are in the “No Idea” boat – have fun with this
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 2 – Day 4: Editing Your Keyword Optimized Content
By Dee-Dee M | July 29, 2010
Module Two: Publish Your Micro-Niche Website
Lesson 4: Editing Your Keyword Optimized Content Using Market Samurai
Presenter: Ed Dale – challenge.co
Video Length: 14:20mins total
After sitting on the 10min free writing session from the day before we now go back to it and clean it up for publishing. This is when you can be a little more anal about spelling, grammar, and the flow of your article. This can be all done within the Publish Content Module of Market Samurai.
Why Break Up the Content Creation Process?
Most would baulk at the time factor involved (basically 3 days) in creating content this way..
- Day 1: Content Research
- Day 2: 10 minute free writing
- Day 3: Editing
…because it seems less efficient. I mean, if it takes 3 days to write an article how on earth do we get enough content written over a short period of time?
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 2 – Day 3: Writing Keyword Optimized Content
By Dee-Dee M | July 28, 2010
Module Two: Publish Your Micro-Niche Website
Lesson 3: Writing Keyword Optimized Content Using Market Samurai
Presenter: Dr Anthony – Noble Samurai, Ed Dale – challenge.co
Video Length: 22:19mins total
- -Publish Content Module – 4:10mins
- -Free Writing – 13:34mins
- -Writing Your Article – 4:27mins
Dr Anthony took us on a brief tour of the “Publish Content” Module of Market Samurai. To be quite honest, even though I have had MS for 2 years now I have never use it or even realized what this module could do!
The method I have used for writing articles was to
- Draft in notepad then
- Edit in MSWord then
- Copy back to notepad to remove the MS Word formatting then
- Copy and paste into my site or article directory
Now that I know I can do all of this from within Market Samurai, I think I will be better at churning out much needed content for my sites.
The Wonders of Free Writing
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 2 – Day 2: Finding Keyword Optimized Content
By Dee-Dee M | July 27, 2010
Module Two: Publish Your Micro-Niche Website
Lesson 2: Finding Keyword Optimized Content Using Market Samurai
Presenters: Ed Dale – challenge.co
Video Length: 19:19 mins total
- Finding Content Basics – 7:48mins
- Finding Content Tools – 11:41mins
If you are like me (and a lot of other folk), the ideas of writing content for a website or article directory will have you either wringing your hands with anxiety or procrastinating in order to avoid doing it. In fact the number one reason why many drop out of the challenge is at this stage of the process. It’s not that I am a bad writer.. it’s more to do with being a perfectionist and not wanting to appear foolish or “bad”.
I must say that I agree with Ed when he says, writing blocks are “not our fault’… the way we were taught in school to write formally was the wrong way to do it.
Filling Up – The New Method to Understanding Any Niche in Record Time
“I know nothing about this niche! – How can I write content about it??”
Creating content is like a driving a car… ideas are the fuel to get your writing up and going, So Ed is going to teach us the WOW Fact Method as taught to him by talented copywriter Gary Halbert.
The first stage of the process is Capture:
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »
#tc10 Module 2 – Day 1: Domains, Hosting & WordPress Direct
By Dee-Dee M | July 26, 2010
Module Two: Publish Your Micro-Niche Website
Lesson 1: Get a Domain, Hosting, and A Free Trial WPD Account
Presenters: Kenny Goodman – Domain Face &
Marty Rozmanith – WordPress Direct
Video Length: 34:14 mins total
- Domain Importance – 5:31mins
- Acquiring A Domain – 10:54mins
- WPD Introduction – 12:10mins
- WPD Signup – 5:39mins
Today Kenny Goodman from Domain Face took us through the importance of domain names and how to get one for our challenge site using Market Samurai. Next, Marty Rozmanith from WPD introduced us to WordPress Direct and showed us how to get a free trial to use for the Challenge.
The Importance of Domains
The domain and domain name you choose for your site is the foundation of your online presence. It is a piece of internet realestate and where you set up shop for your online business. Domains are identified by the extension that is used – eg. ‘.com’, ‘.org’, ‘.net’ etc.
There are a variety of domains and can be likened to neighbourhoods in the online world and just like the real world there are certain neighborhoods that are better than others.
‘.com’ is considered the best and should be the one we target first with ‘.net’ and ‘.org’ considered as top level domains as well. ‘.govt’ and ‘.edu’ are considered as authoriative domains because of their association with world government and educational institutions. Domains can be country specific as well eg. ‘.com.au’, ‘.co.uk’, ‘.net.nz’ etc.
The Biggest Domain Name Mistake – Trying to be Clever or Sexy
Topics: The 2010 Challenge | No Comments »