Are You a DO_follow or a NO_follow Blogger?

By admin | October 19, 2008

I know that I have to be careful with what I say here because I don’t wish to make it look like I was only commenting on peoples blogs for the sake of getting a backlink! I assure you I was not; however, we are all well aware that we do have our own interests at hand when it comes to online ventures.

I am relatively new to blogging but not so much to internet marketing as such. I have made a complete botch by not checking things before hand and misunderstood the theory behind blog commenting. I was NOT merely writing comments on people’s blogs just to get a backlink BUT I was under the impression that it was a proper backlink that I was getting. How wrong I was!

This site/ page, at the time of writing, has a page rank of zero but that is to be expected… I have only just started actively doing any form of promoting. Before this time I have basically been making sure that I actually have a sufficient amount of content on the site and to ensure the quality of that content. I now do have a barely sufficient amount of quality content on it so I have thrown the Zhuno name around a little bit. Much to my horror though, I now realise that I still have no backlinks leading to this site at all!

If I check on http://dnscoop.com then that will imply that I have a couple, but the problem is… that aforementioned site puts ALL of the backlinks and that includes the “no_follow” links as well.

Ok, my first interest for blogging came when I looked at Joes (much loved) site IMwithJoe and noticed that his Alexa rating had skyrocketed unbelievably and that he had a staggering 17,000 backlinks. I now realise that if you type in the link:http://imwithjoe.com into the Google search box you get in actual fact less than 200 links leading to his site. That’s a big difference. Obviously he is doing fine because his Alexa score is pretty high, especially for a 6 month old site.

Ok this is not just a petty attempt at getting people to make comments but I will declare now that this site is a DOFOLLOW site. That means that if you leave your website name in the comment box then it will give you a proper backlink back to your site that is recognised by Google. I see no reason why it should not be a DoFollow site… I monitor every comment at the moment anyway so there is no way that spammers can just leave a link for the sake of it. If a comment is irrelevant spam then I will remove it. This site will always be monitored. So I will not leave it to chance… I am not into automated “PLR automated spam” blogs anyway! Everything on this site is completely fresh… maybe like a fresh dog poo at the moment but you have to start somewhere!

Maybe that should be my new slogan:

ZhunoBlog… fresh, like a newly laid dog poo!

Feel free to comment at will (but no dog poo please! Just kidding :P)

Persistence or Obsession…

By admin | October 15, 2008

… in internet marketing.

I have been plugging away at internet marketing for a few months now with plenty of successes and failures along the way. I’m still here and it is all just a matter of sticking with it and doing more of what I’m doing.

I often feared that I had become obsessed with all this stuff. I have begun to realize though, that obsession is very easily confused with persistence. It is pretty obvious which one is intended to mean something positive and which one is negative. Check out the dictionary definition of them though:

Persist: To hold firmly and steadfastly to a purpose, state, or undertaking despite obstacles, warnings, or setbacks.

Obsess: To preoccupy the mind of excessively. To have the mind excessively preoccupied with a single emotion or topic.

The key word here is excess; the key question is… how do you gauge excess?

To be perfectly honest, I would imagine that the majority of people do not have either of these things. It appears that the majority fail at continuing with IM for that very reason. One thing that has to be said for success is that it is better to be obsessive than to be lapse. It is best, however, to be balanced.

I work full time on the internet and that is how I make my living. This does mean that I could be exposed to problems related to being obsessed. I believe that there are signs that you are overworking yourself and I will come onto that shortly.

Because working in any form of marketing can be frustrating it is important to know when to stop and take a break. A big problem arises in that you can do a great deal of work and receive nothing in return. When this happens it tends to make you go into overdrive and attempt to make up for the deficit by working yourself to the bone; or into carpel tunnel syndrome (or any of the other conditions associated with sitting hunched in front of a keyboard or computer screen.)

It is unwise to write an article which presents a problem without a solution to it, (hey, a little tip to budding article writers… maybe that is obvious; then again, maybe not), therefore I will therefore go about this in a methodical manner and present some answers.

I believe that there are many indicators of stress through obsessive internet work (or any other work for that matter). If you don’t recognize these then your efforts will actually become counter productive, let alone ineffective.

This is really directed towards serious internet marketers; the ones who have realised that they can actually make money… not the ones who quit because they had convinced them self from the start that they could not achieve any success.

Obvious signs of excessive work are:

1. Frustration and irritability
2. Feelings of negativity or futility
3. Lack of concentration
4. Making mistakes

Take a break before you blow a fuse…

I really have found myself getting wound up to the point of hysteria sometimes. When it gets to this point you really must take a break. Sometimes I have found that taking a break for a whole day is more beneficial than not taking a break at all. I have heard of people having to take weeks off due to the level of stress that they had built up. That is hardly any good for any type of business building but it is a reality.

When people work in a job they are usually given certain allocated break times and there is good reason for that. Because of the nature my employment trade I have actually had jobs in which I had flexi break times. In other words; it was up to me when I took breaks. As I look back I can remember doing the same thing with regards working for too long at a time. I worked in maintenance of automated production lines and on stand alone units. I often got to a point where I would make mistakes or miss something critical due to not taking regular breaks.

It may be true that when you are “on a roll” as such, you do tend to get progressively better as the day draws on. It is important, however, to recognise that you can still overdo it.

I have a rule of thumb by which I go by and it is very simple. I even keep a word doc displayed on my desktop with the title “never forget the meaning of life”. I don’t actually think that life has a meaning as such… that’s the wrong terminology, however, the point is:

Life should be enjoyable. If you are not enjoying yourself then you are doing something wrong. There are many people who actually believe that work should be unpleasant, or a burden. I beg to differ! Life should be fun and enjoyable regardless of whether you are at work or play.

Those who persist will be rewarded; those who obsess will sully their efforts…

… Any comments welcome

Post One!

By admin | October 1, 2008

Right well then! Better make a start to this blog then. It is not the first blog I have made and it more than likely will not be the last one judging by my previous actions.

One thing I wish to ensure is that I do not make this purely into an internet marketing blog. As much as it is a subject that most bloggers seem to be interested in, I do believe that I must vary my posts somewhat to go inline with my areas of interest.

I suppose the likelihood is that nobody will read this particular entry so maybe I should just fill it up with nonsense. On the other hand that would be a somewhat futile venture. I cannot really introduce myself in this post due to the fact that I do that on the about page.

I believe that there is a great possibility that I will remove this post then. You never know though… it may still be here in ten years time if the world is still in one piece. We shall see.