31 December 2010 Update

Hi Jeremy,

I added two more posts in the Acer netbook category and one more in the deals category. Also made some posts to my Facebook page.

The carousel widget is exactly what I had wanted from my wireframe. I'm very pleased with it.

I will plan on getting a list of ideas for graphic templates done this week. I had a hectic week at work and home.

Happy 2011,

me

Memories of cha-ching

Back in 2002 -2004, I used to be able to log in to cj.com and practically refresh the page every few minutes to watch the total go up.

Just memories.

http://jeremypalmer.com/

Two posts, Nov 26, Nov 28, 2010.

Well, at least I got an idea that I should put an affiliate link to BOTW on my blogs. Hah, I just got a note from BOTW that I have affiliate funds less than minimum payout.

What is Tumblr? I mean, why would I use any product non-Google? I can quickly and easily set up both AdSense and Amazon for any Blogger blog I own, stats (use the beta dashboard and you'll see), I can add the sitemaps to my Google Webmaster Tools easily...

The WordPress blogs I have attached to sites are fine. I like having control of the hosting and content. I like not having a risk that Google will shut down my blog for some reason. But WordPress is constant upkeep. Update this plugin, update that plugin, update the database, blah, blah, blah.

And I won't be using one again as the main CMS for a website.

Wherein the author sighs and wonders where the heck 2010 went

Circular. Working on getting menus in WordPress to work wasn't what I signed on for. But when they still don't work, my motivation to write content sinks too low to get more done.

Of course, if there was traffic to the existing content, I'd probably have enough positive reinforcement to overcome the menu curse. But no, traffic is drips and drops.

No links coming in from qydj, and tomorrow is Dec.1.

It's difficult to feel at all optimistic. And with no optimism, it's hard to keep writing content and working on link building... which was supposed to be what I signed on for.

Update 5 November, 2010

Hi Jeremy,

Things accomplished:
1) I'm working on the questions for the showcase.

2) I finished my first ebook and posted it. For now since there is so little traffic, I haven't set up an email list, just a download and suggested people favorite the page and join the Facebook page for free updates. Here's the landing page: http://netbookguide.org/netbook-guide-2010-free-e-book/ .

3) I had some fun and played with making a text to video movie via Xtranormal.com and posted it to my YouTube channel. BTW, currently the links from YouTube channels are still do-follow. http://www.youtube.com/user/netbookguideORG

4) Submitted the free ebook to various ebook directories, such as http://www.jogena.com/ebookdir/computers.htm , http://e-library.net/search.php?q=netbook+guide&cx=partner-pub-3841787588316075%3A3xfxvk-veru&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=ISO-8859-1&I1.x=0&I1.y=0#242 .

5) Posted these and other amusing video clips on my Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Netbook-Guide/162452683767371 .

Questions:

We forgot to discuss possible free options for an email newsletter to capture emails for brief follow ups after downloading the ebook. Do you have any thoughts on this?

all the best,

me

Update 22 October, 2010

Hi Jeremy,
Do let me know what time on Monday is good to talk, please.

Tasks accomplished this week:

1. Published four more posts on the site. Two in the deals category, one in the Asus category, and one in the Acer category. The Asus and Acer posts are based on the keyword research with WT.
2. Posted an update to my Facebook page about the deals.
3. Set up the links page and wrote to each of the sites requesting reciprocal links. One already linked back: http://netbook-evangelist.com/ .
4. Looked at back links on the sites that I contacted and applied to several directories. Accepted in to at least two.

Questions:
1. The links page always puts something as a "menu" at the bottom of the page. I changed it to the main navigation, but I don't really like having any menu down there. Any idea how to fix this?
2. As we get more into Q4, traffic becomes imperative. Do you recommend starting a ppc campaign at some point?

Hope to catch you soon,
me

Of balances between link building tasks and content building and WTF with WordPress

After reading in the partners forum that some folks are seeing spikes in traffic, I figure I'd better do something besides the web 2.0 profiles and posting in forums and no-follow ezine article links.

One of our tasks had been to make a list of top sites in our niche: forums, blogs, companies, etc.. So I started there and got the basics of my links page started. Then I wrote to each site the good old "Hi, I've posted a link to your site, I'd love a link back."

Then look at the backlinks to THOSE sites and see if I can get some of them, also. Two directory submissions, plus check on a submission from about a month ago. Oh, good, that one is in.

Then on to post some content and get all flustered about the Word Press side bars again. I hate them.

Since I got the site theme, I cannot get the sidebars to do what I want when I want. At some point I settled for one side bar for all pages, but then that got tweeked out again. The default side bar never shows in categories that have no defined sidebar. So I have to go in and define every single category side bar to have a side bar that isn't WP default.

So I found yet another subcategory that isn't pulling the default menu and I have to go put in menu widgets. Well, I also realized that product reviews are in one category, and the related products are in another. Can't have product specific menus in the review category, since all other reviews are in that category.... and this is what it's been like for months now.

On the good news side, I did have a first sale. Still hoping Q4 can recover the year's costs.