Archive for December, 2009
It’s always a good thing to revisit your goals and of course, analyze your stats. Well, around the same time last year I decided that I would actually set some goals for myself for 2009. I didn’t set too many as I didn’t want to overwhelm myself but even this short list made me really think.
Let’s go over the five main goals I set for myself and see how I have progressed.
Increase my RSS Feed Count to 1,500 - Obviously, I didn’t succeed but then again, I didn’t push as much as I should have. I believe I started the year around 700, give or take, and I’m currently sitting somewhere around 1,050ish.
When I came up with that goal, I figured I could easily double up my numbers over a span of a year. Unfortunately, so many things happened this year which also included the fact that I was going to sell this blog! Of course, that didn’t end up going through which is a good thing.
Technically, it was a failure but I did increase my RSS Feed count by 150% over the course of the year. so, although I didn’t meet my goal I did make good progress.
Make $1,000/month from this Blog Alone - Another fail! Like I mentioned previously, I considered selling this blog and even put it up for auction which seemed to have hurt my value a little bit. Of course, it started to pick up a little more of late as I get back into the swing of things.
When I came up with that goal, I was figuring I would make somewhere around $12,000 within the year. I just figured if I could average $1,000/month I would meet that goal especially given the fact that with online entrepreneurship, revenues tend to fluctuate month to month. And things come up that sometime require your attention too which takes you away from the entrepreneurship.
Let me start off by saying I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and all that good stuff that comes with the holidays at this time of the year! So, we finally have a lucky winner picked at random for the 8GB iPod Nano! But before I get to who the winner is, I’m going to bore you guys with a few things…
People Didn’t Really Participate But Said They Did?
Let’s start off by saying that there were a handful of people who commented saying they subscribed via e-mail but in actuality, they didn’t. If you didn’t subscribe with an e-mail I could actually check, didn’t verify or simply just lied saying you subscribed, well, your entry was not included. Of course, a few people unsubscribed right before the contest too so I don’t know what happened… maybe they didn’t want to participate anymore?
It was definitely interesting because those people who said they subscribed and didn’t, I really don’t know what they were thinking. I actually take the time out to check to see if people subscribed, blogged (and included the links) and checked the proofs of the donation to the charities.
Late Entries Were Accepted
And based on my last post, I mentioned that late entries weren’t going to be accepted. I ended up including those who were late as well. At least for those who did it by the date’s deadline but happened to miss the time portion. If you’re from another timezone, you probably don’t keep track of other timezones’ time, right? Well, at least I don’t.
Plus, I included the late entries because I figured it was Christmas and this was a contest for that very reason so it would seem pretty scrooge-ish of me to not include them, huh?
Stats of the Contest
The contest definitely wasn’t as big as I wanted it to be. But given the short time I had for the contest, the non-promotion and the fact that people said they participated when in actuality they didn’t, made the entries a little longer than what I thought it was going to be.
The number of contestants that actually qualified to enter was 62 people totaling 213 entry points. Of course, those numbers would have been slightly higher if people actually subscribed when they said they did.
It was a little disappointing because I figured at least 100 people would participate and we didn’t even come close to hitting the 200 contestants mark for an additional iPod Nano giveaway.
I believe only three people ended up getting the maximum amount of entries because they donated to a charity and sent proof, subscribed via e-mail as well as blogged about the contest.
How I Randomly Picked and The Winner Is…
I basically made an excel spreadsheet and entered each contestants names as I received them. And for each entry, I would just type their name that many times.
For instance, if you subscribed via e-mail, blogged about the contest and donated to a charity then you would have ended up with 11 total entry points, so I would have typed your name 11 times for 11 possible chances to win.
Thank you to everybody that participated in our Christmas Contest for a chance to win an iPod Nano and I forgot to post this yesterday but the contest did already end. Unfortunately for some, there were a few late entries that will not count. I had a deadline of December 23rd at noon EST and a few of you guys managed to enter after.
We actually had a good number of participants in this contest, though, not as many as I would’ve liked. And surprisingly, there were at least a handful of you guys that donated to some charity in 2009 to participate in this contest. So, I applaud you guys and I know you didn’t donate to try to win something, you donated for the good. I just figured I would give you a chance to win something good just for giving back, you know?
This topic gets discussed quite a lot but a lot of people still don’t know how to get ranked higher on Google. Although, no one knows exactly how Google functions, a lot of us have tested out different things that have worked and just took it and ran with it. Of course, some of the testing that I have done seem to contradict in some ways which leaves a question mark for myself. But either way, search engine traffic has been key to a majority of my online income.
Before I go on, I would just like to point out that your sites layout and design really have nothing to do with you getting ranked higher in Google. I have built some of the ugliest sites just to get something out there and ranked and surprisingly, some of those ugly ass sites rank a lot better than my well designed ones.
Anyways, let’s get to the things that I know have worked and then I’ll follow with things I didn’t know before which seem to work now.
What Has Worked in Getting Ranked Higher in Google
Picking your Keywords – I always try to use keywords that I know will be searched for and the less competition that keyword has, the better. If you want to know how I do keyword research , check out that post. If you want to know the easy way of seeing how much competition a keyword has, just do a simple search in Google and put quotes around it.
For instance, “make money online blogging” and then you would see how many results you get back. It’s not always accurate but you can get a rough idea just based on that.
Titles – If you’re making pages, posts or whatever, those specific keywords you’re trying to target within that specific post should be included within your title. Personally, I try to put the specific keyword as the entire title rather than just the main ones. And so far, it has seemed to work just fine.
For instance, if you wanted to rank for “make money online blogging” then I would just use that entire keyword phrase as the title rather than something equivalent to “I make money online blogging doing some easy things!”
Both ways work but the second way would probably need a lot of more link building than the first. And in my experience, it’s a lot easier just putting the keyword phrase as the entire title.
Permanent Link Structure – Speaking of putting the keyword phrase in the post title, you should probably have your title included within your URL as well. In the instance given above, it should look like “http://www.datmoney.com/make-money-online-blogging.html” or something equivalent.
I just wanted to remind you guys that there are only a few days left on the iPod Nano contest so if you haven’t had a chance to enter yet, feel free. It’s pretty easy to enter and it’s just as simple as subscribing to my RSS Feeds via e-mail and commenting on the contest post. If you’re already subscribed, all you have to do is take 10 seconds to comment on the contest post and simply say “I’m subscribed!”
As of right now, the contest seems to be going on pretty smoothly with pretty minimal promotion of it. Though, the unfortunate news is the fact that it doesn’t seem as though we will have 200+ people joining the contest for the second iPod Nano. I’d be a little surprised if we were to break the 100+ people that entered the contest.
Anyways, the contest ends on Wednesday December 23rd at noon EST and no late entries will be accepted! I will try to have the winner picked within the next day or two following the end of the contest.
Good luck to everyone and thank you all for participating! Stay tuned because again, I will probably have another contest shortly after this one ends.
And yes, that is a hint. 
