Archive for March, 2009:
31 Mar
Picture from Candace Duff Jones
At the end of the month I start looking at the following month. It’s a trend I’ve had for the past few years and have put into effect with just about everything. I take about a day or two (sometimes up to a week depending on the events going on) and look over every day.
Planning ahead is the most important thing we can do as working online. People we speak to who say we “blog” or “market online” think we are wasting our time and majority of the time some of us are. We aren’t using our time effectively.
I’ve been able to review the top factors in my personal life and break them down and only from there I am able to see just how my month will work out. While it’s not a guarantee it does show my path.
The factors I look at first are as follow and is in order (this can change per individual – per month):
Family Schedule
This is priority number #1 for me. I make sure to look over my wife’s working schedule – my son’s schedule and various family obligations (birthdays/anniversary’s/etc). These always go first no matter what.
Work Schedule
Yes, I work at a full time job. This you should know by know just by reading the “About” me page. As much as I would like to work for myself I need to make sure everything is taken care of in these tough economic times from health care benefits to guaranteed salary.
Now, since this pays most of my bills its priority is #1. It’s usually one of the big factors why I don’t blog – there was a period our office was going through some hurdles that I had to focus on other things at the time. Those times are now over (for the most part) and this is how I’m able to take on the 90 Day Challenge.
Night School Schedule
Yep – I go to night school and as I try to better myself educationally I make sure not to over do my schedule. At one time I was taking on a full course load – working full time – in the military reserves – baby boy – newly married. How did I do it? In all respect – I didn’t. It drove me crazy. I ended up finishing up that course load with a great gpa and didn’t do it again. I finished up my term in the military and got out. I then focused all that time on my family that I was missing. I forgot to mention all during this time I was starting up a small management business that ended up going bust.
Nevertheless – school has become a priority as I try to gather more knowledge every day in my career field and work towards the day of actually just working for my family. I have a believe that you don’t really “work for yourself” – if you have a family then you really “work for your family”. That’s besides the point.
Fun Schedule
This is MY work schedule. This is when I can scare up a few hours at night (usually from 10 pm to 1 am and 5-6 a.m) and during the weekend (even though 99% of the time that is marked for family time).
How do you plan your month out – what get’s top billing? It’s interesting to see how people look at their day/week/month and then look at the things they ‘want’ to accomplish. We have the time – it just needs to be done in segments is all.
30 Mar
90 Days to the top
It’s official. It’s in the works and April 1st will be the beginning of the 90 Day Challenge. I’ve changed the theme around edited up some plugins and various php files so let’s get the ball rolling.
The 90 Day Challenge isn’t just a challenge to you rather a challenge to me as well. The challenge is to get a project(s) that I’m working on and catapulting it to top of Google using social media and search engine optimization. What I will be doing is picking a specific ‘popular’ keyword and/or phrase. I will show the beginning ranking and give updates as time goes by and show how well it improves using various methods.
What methods will I be using exactly? Well, it will be ranging from twitter to facebook and stumpleupon. I will be showing how to utilize each feature from the beginning to advanced. I will be showing basic search engine optimization practices and how to turn them into everyday habits. That’s the point of this challenge – to turn what might be hard concepts broken down to everyday habits.
So, how am I going to get this information to you? I have decided to put together a newsletter sent out to those who sign up. The difference from my blog post and the 90 Day Challenge newsletter is that I will share in-depth information and the combination between them should be quite useful for improving your site statistics.
Are you ready? LET’S GO!
Still not sure or have questions? Check the FAQ’s for 90 Day Challenge
25 Mar
Okay, this is the second time at this post. The first one was deleted due to a freak power outage. So here goes nothing.
In the coming months, three to be exact, I plan on adding a #1 in a few key choice phrases and keywords to the most specific one in the group. An example would be “basketball gyms in ohio” and ranking #1 yet the goal is getting to “basketball gym” or even “basketball”. While this is not the ‘specific case’ I can’t get into the specific keywords/phrases due to this project not fully being mine rather a client.
I will be starting this project on April 1st – no April fool’s joke – and it will continue for three (3) months. In it I will be showing various way I climb to the top of a specific keyword/phrase using search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing (SMM).
In doing all this work and allowing you to reap the benefits I’m just asking for one thing. Your email address. That’s right – you will be notified specifically when a post is ready to go live. The post will be private so only YOU have access.
I will more information on this tomorrow.
Why three months? Well, the point of this is not just get to the top for a week only to get knocked down. The point is to get there and stay. In actuality I plan on getting to the top in 2 months (probably sooner) but showing you how you can stay there.
24 Mar
Hi, my name is Nathan Driver and I’m a Twitter-o-lic. Ok, seriously I do tweet a lot but in my defense I have a wide range of connections ranging from SEO to managing a rap artist (although I detest that term – music artist really).
Nonetheless I try to keep an even keel of connections through twitter. Recently I read an interesting tweet regarding the tagline, “Twitter Unveils New Premium Accounts” accompanied by a url. Now, I’ve been wondering ever since I joined twitter just how exactly they were going to start monterizing their site. They keep receiving funding but no ad’s.
So, after seeing this particular tweet and whom it was from I decided to click on it. What came next made me literally laugh out loud:
Twitter
- Sparrow ($5/month): 145 character limit, 5 extra random followers.
- Dove ($15/month): 160 character limit, 25 extra random followers, 1 random celebrity follower, auto-spell check, “Fail Whale” T-shirt.
- Owl ($50/month): 250 character limit, 100 extra random followers, 2 random celebrity followers, 30 minutes on recommended list, auto-spell check, “Fail Whale” hoodie.
- Eagle ($250/month): 500 character limit, 1000 extra random followers, 3 celebrity followers of their choice, 5 hours on recommended list each month, Twitter Concierge for Tweeting while user is asleep or busy (and more), auto-spell check, “Fail Whale” tuxedo, custom “Fail Whale” page when service is down.
So I RT (Re-Tweeted) to pass along – think of it like passing a great joke in email. Yet, little did I know this ‘joke’ was making it rounds already in the twitterverse as @MariSmith writes.
The sad thing is I actually received some questions about this via Twitter and Facebook (since I have the two synced up) asking if this was indeed real. People were believing it left and right (as seen in @MariSmith’s post).
So, the question to you is do you actually read tweets and the url’s that are passed around or do you just RT?
23 Mar
I’ve been out of high school for 10 years and as I prepare to get ready for the reunion I look back over social networks. First there were messageboards I would actually run into a few people I would run with.
Then came classmates. Classmates came into the scene hard and grabbed everyone they could. I actually tried out their service and in the end was quite upset with the way they handled things. From spamming false “messages” to two week turnaround (if that) replies – it was enough for me. Then came MySpace and Facebook for FREE. I could not believe it. After a few years I look back at Classmates and find that there are still paying advertisers on that site and while I doubt they are making the same figures they were 7 years ago but with over 14.6 million people still going to the site they should be still ahead.
The point is why are advertisers reaching out to a service such as classmates instead of Myspace and Facebook or the million other networks out there? Why are they paying for ad space when they could be creating pages for free? Why not be “friends” or “follow” your consumers and get to know them instead of trying to not put a face to the dollar figures?
All questions I can’t answer and hopefully don’t have to. In social media networking is key and being able to connect with the consumer is a huge deal. Get away from trying to pay your way to a level of branding instead reach out your hand to the public and you’ll be sure to get a handshake in no time.
20 Mar
It’s time for the NCAA tournament time and if you’ve been following me, at all, via twitter (@drivenmg) then you’d know I’m a huge college fan. I love picking out the possible winners for office pools and trying to look at upsets. I go with the history of the top seeded teams in the finals but that’s not always the case in history.
When I watch the games I usually root for the underdog yet I picked the favored team. There is more to the sport then just winning / losing (and no – its not the cliche’ “how you play the game”) – its the thrill of coming out on top when everyone around you thought you were doomed.
Giving It Your All
Was I upset when 5th ranked Illinois got beat by a 12th seed? You bet – I had Illinois winning the next round as well. Yet, I can’t help but feel good that a team that a few years ago getting into a NCAA tournament alone was a joke.
You take that same principle and apply to business and you have the makings of a champion inside and out. Small businesses right now are flourishing left and right. They know how to run their ship on a shoe string and come out ahead. They can take those clients away from the big corporations with high overhead and show them they have the same drive and have more of a focus on them: the client.
Right now small business are the 12th ranked team and it is prime time to beat the 5th seed (if not #1) in business.
19 Mar
There is no such thing as being “equal” in a partnership. When taking the dive into joint ventures you do so on the hopes of utilizing your potential and your new partner(s). Yet, it never works out that way.
Before I go any further I have to give credit where credit is due. I got the inspiration from this post from Seth Godin’s newest blog post “Advice on equity“. After reading it I felt the need to dive a little deeper into it with good reason.
Joining Forces
A few years back I was involved in a partnership agreement that didn’t end up the way I had dreamed it should have. Whose fault was it? It really doesn’t matter but what does is learning from the experience. While you can have every “T” crossed and “i” dotted someone in the partnership will feel slighted. They will feel they are doing more than their fair share and usually at the same time its vice-versa.
Going into a partnership requires a LOT of patience and resourcefulness. You don’t want to go into business with your ‘friend’ whose great for sales but can’t balance his checkbook to save his life. That will carry over into the partnership. The last thing you would want is a ‘family member’ who is terrific in managing but has no clue how to utilize technology. That will carry over in productivity.
See where I’m going with this yet?
Is having a partner bad? Is it worth your time and effort?
From my point of view I would advise against it yet in reality it can come in quite handy. The best bet is to link up with someone who has the same drive and passion as you. To find that person who looks at the bottom line and see’s what needs to be done but needs help from someone else (you) to make it better.
18 Mar
So, as you might be aware it has been awhile since my last post. While I’ve been ‘meaning’ to write more post I just haven’t had the time. You know the ol’ saying:
“Those who can – do and those who can’t – teach”
Well, I’v been bogged down with work and attending night school to wrap up some items in these tough times. So I had to choose – work or blog. As you should know work won on this but not overall because during these past few weeks I’ve been jotting down subject titles and various post ideas to share with you all. I’ve got some great ones and I plan on entering the field of vlogging as well (that’s video blogging if you weren’t aware).
Nonetheless expect some great content coming towards you and if you ever want to see what up to follow me on twitter @drivenmg
Until next post:
SEE – BELIEVE – ACHIEVE
