Bart The Bear Says

Drawback To Owning An Iphone - The AT&T Bill

support@moxie-drive.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:20:26 -0500

Interview with a blogger who received a 300 page Iphone Bill:

Somebody has to pay the bill. There always has to be a drawback, doesn't there?

How to build a Mixx Community

support@moxie-drive.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:42:27 -0500

Mixx.com has done it now. They are already a good thing in my opinion, especially when I am sitting on a PR5 profile. That means that anything I post to Mixx gets a PR5 backlink from a PR7 site. Nice huh?

What they have changed is a good thing as well in my opinion. I see the addition of communities as being the biggest bane to the other large social bookmarking sites like Digg and Propeller.

The addition of communities is going to make Mixx look huge to the search engines, and it is going to happen fast.

I have an example:

The BartTheBear community for Mixx.com was just started last month. The community should develop fast. Especially with Mixx's seeding concept, that is where Mixx is taking posts with relevant tags and categories and populating the communities automatically. This community already has 2,256 posts to it. Now multiply that with how many communities?

This is internal linking at it's best. I can easily post once to Mixx, add it to a couple of communities that I belong to personally, tag it with appropriate keywords, and the post will show up in at least a dozen places. That means 12 X # of tags and categories...I could get hundreds of backlinks to an article from one post in Mixx.com.

Brilliant!

Building a Mixx Community is very, very easy. Of course, first you have to join Mixx.com and create your own profile.

Then go to http://www.mixx.com/groups. Look to the far right of the screen and click on Create Your Niche Now!

Fill in the details, build your main categories and sub-categories, fill in the keywords at the bottom to seed your community with posts from Mixx.com, and wallah you have your community with content. Then promote the community and get some contributions. I announced this community to my group of friends in Mixx.com and got almost 40 in the BartTheBear community. I have also started one for my most successful niche in Moxie Drive Expressions, Iphone Heaven.

I am more open to having users join up in the BartTheBear community as the Iphone community content needs to be limited. There are spammers out there you know.

Anyhow, here is your opportunity to join the BartTheBear and contribute about social media, internet marketing, alternative energy, and Entertainment. They only allow 4 main categories and 4 sub-categories under each.

As this is directly linked from my PR5 Mixx profile, what do you think it is going to do?

"Build it, and they will come" - From Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner

Len, aka BartTheBear

Even Google Fails

support@moxie-drive.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:17:50 -0500

I was just answering a query from one of my good friends who asked me the question "where do you get the referrals from?"

He was referring to Google referral ads, similar to the ad links that are the most popular for contextual advertising.

My guess is that referral ads did not do so well since their inception.

I found the message, in read, that said "Note: Referrals will be retired during the last week of August 2008."

Sounds like Google is shutting down referral ads.

First I heard of it.

Used it sparingly and when I did not have success with it, I deleted the code with no looking back and stuck with good old fashioned ad links which continue to get hit on a 1:6 ratio.

Why mess with success?

Niche Marketing With An Article Directory

support@moxie-drive.com — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:08:07 -0500

Believe it or not, there is money in owning/running an article directory. The key is to niche it out and promote it with the marketing tools made available on the internet today.

Here is how I do it with Moxie Drive Expressions:

1. I approve an article, or series of articles on the same niche with a major category like Iphone.

2. I only bookmark a couple of them heavily at the beginning. I call it fishing. I use about 30 "dofollow" bookmarking sites and a few "nofollow" bookmarking sites. This is what I did with my first couple of Iphone download articles in January of 2008.

Believe it or not, I do not use Digg or Propeller for Moxie Drive Expressions because of their tendency to ban sites at the blink of an eye. And I just do not like their politics.

3. I use every single word in the article that I think could be included in a search phrase. Use single term keywords when bookmarking for the greatest effect. The search engines worry about putting these together for the long tail phrases that are actually searched for. I do not use any keyword research tools other than Google.

4. I wait for the results to show up in Google Analytics. The articles that peek their little heads up and get the most traffic are in the niches that I pay 20% of my time doing some major bookmarking and blogging to corner the niche and make some decent money with. I do not bookmark everything. Only productive niches. Once I get caught up on the articles that I already have, I just sit back and wait for the next to come in and bookmark it heavily. This is what I did and continue doing with the Iphone niche. Moxie Drive Expressions gets between 400 and 700 visitors a day for Iphone related organic searches.

I have since been fishing in the ipod, movie, music, automotive, computer, health, hobby, makeup and skin care, motorcycle, and the Pets and Animals niches. I discovered a process that works, why not repeat it. Moxie Drive Expressions is also #1 in Google for the keyword phrase free ipod songs, a new niche for Moxie Drive Expressions that I am promoting heavily.

If they are not productive, I either delete the category and all of the articles, or at the least, not pay a lot of attention to it when it comes to my bookmarking efforts. Sorry, I am not in it for the author, I am in it for the income. An article directory has got to support itself somehow.

Then I go find another category. As the articles come in, and the productive ones become obvious, I split off a sub-category with at least 10 related articles, make sure they are all bookmarked, and bookmark the sub-category page as well. I also start a Squidoo page for the subcategory. I may enlist the help of some friends to vote and bookmark the articles. This is not a paid activity, so I offer my PR5 profile in Mixx.com as compensation, but only for those articles that I am interested in. I do not just go out and bookmark everything under the sun.

Do make sure you have either a 728X90, 350X250, or 336X300 Adsense ad placed prominently above the web page fold. Then one at or near the bottom of the article text. These are the most effective placements. I do not mess with the 468X60 as the click thru rate is not very high.

That's it. That is how I make the most money with the Moxie Drive Expressions article directory. Let's just say that I am making enough today to keep the wife satisfied for the time being. I will be satisfied when I reach the 10k mark per month. I can see this happening.

This can be done with a blog or a web page as well.

Simple, huh?

It's All About The 3G Iphone

support@moxie-drive.com — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:28:38 -0500

I find the Iphone to be an amazing concept. Having enjoyed an MP3 player for a couple of years now, I always wondered when someone would empty the pocket that I carry my cell phone in and combine an MP3 player with it. Seemed like the next logical step to me.

The first pass was a doosie, and now Apple is coming out with the 3rd generation Iphone, that can be used in even more countries, including Japan. This Iphone will be made available in 70 countries.

The new Iphone is priced right to. It will still come in the 8GB and 16GB models, but the prices have dropped to $199.00 and $299.00 respectively.

Analysts, according to Computerworld are now saying that Apple could sell 18 million of the 3G Iphone's in 2008 because of the new price structure. That is a nice compromise between 5 million sold so far and the speculation that as many as 25 million could be sold in 2008.

Key note here. There have been approximately 5 million of the original Iphones sold since June 2007, one full year. 18 million is more than 3 times the number sold, in half as much time. That is some Iphone!

To explain why this is soooo important to Moxie Drive one more time...Moxie ranks #3 today for the Google keyword phrase iphone download.

If you had a product that was about to sell 3 times as many units in half a year, like the Iphone, and were getting traffic from Google for thousands of relevant keyword phrases, 10,665 to be precise according to Google Analytics since June 2007, wouldn't you be excited?

I am.

Release date for the new 3G Iphone is July 11, 2008.

A New Iphone Means More Iphone Downloads

support@moxie-drive.com — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:43:49 -0500

On Monday Apple (AAPL) is widely expected to introduce a zippier version of the Iphone that will operate on both a faster AT&T network, and speedier networks internationally. The price also will rock: $199.

What does this mean for Moxie Drive Expressions?

A lot.

Moxie Drive is sitting at the #5 position in Google for the keyword phrase iphone download and gets over 400 visitors to a variety of Iphone articles contained in it's article directory.

Not a bad position to be in.

There has been some speculation that Apple may sell as many as 25 million Iphones this year. I can see that happening with a price tag of $199, can't you?

Apple has the momentum, even though it may not compare with the big dawgs.

Iphone Download Membership Sites Are Coming Back

support@moxie-drive.com — Fri, 30 May 2008 09:56:32 -0500

Well at least a couple of them anyhow.

The DMCA that Apple filed against Clickbank was devistating to the existing Iphone download membership sites including:

Iphone Nova
Iphone Download Pro
Iphone Unlimited
Fill Your Iphone
Iphone Magic

And many, many more I am sure.

This week, I got a courtesy email from PhoneDownloadHub.com stating:

Dear Leonard

This is a personal invitation.

We are happy to invite you to our affiliate program.

Our Website was down for 4 days.A lot of iPhone Download
Websites were shutdown because of DMCA issues but we
successfully resolved the issues with Clickbank and Apple.

Visit us to know more details.
PhoneDownloadHub.com

admin
PhoneDownloadHub.com

Phone Download Hub is like the previous champion Iphone download membership sites in that it gives you the instructions, the tools, and the software to download music, movies, and games using P2P which seems very popular compared to other methods of downloading these files. I am referring to the pay sites like Itunes, Zune, and Amazon MP3 which cost between .79 and .99 per song.

The price for a membership at PhoneDownloadHub.com is $49, and yes it is a Clickbank product listed at the number 6 slot for the Clickbank keyword phrase "iphone download".

Let's do the math. $49 / .99 = 62 songs if you decide to get your music from Itunes. I can download hundreds of songs in an Iphone. If I maintain 500 on average at $49 for a lifetime membership that is less than 10 cents per song.

Sounds like a deal.

I am now thinking that many of the iphone download membership sites will be rectifying their DMCA issues and reappearing with new faces that do not include the copyrighted words IPHONE, IPOD, AND ITUNES.

Final opinion - Enforcing copyrights in this fashion is a selfish act that will only tarnish Apple's reputation. Iphone owners are looking for cheap or free downloads. Iphone Downloads should be kept cheap if not free...

Killer Strawberries

support@moxie-drive.com — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:46:23 -0500

Weird title huh?

As the oldest brother I want to say things like "wait to go butt head" or "If I go, I sure would like to go in a field of strawberries surrounded by my family, nice job".

I did not know know picking strawberries could be so lethal.

My brother, Kenneth Bartholomew age 49, died of a massive stroke while picking strawberries with his immediate family on Saturday 5/17/08. Our family history sucks as Dad also died of vascular complications at age 44. I always thought it would be me first. Either way, it is a pretty sad state of affairs.

Kenny was the most wonderful brother, and man for that matter, that anyone could have known. I was able to spend some quality time with him in February at Lake Lure NC in a 2BR Deluxe timeshare that my wife Susan owns. We visited the Biltmore House in Ashville NC and had a wonderful time.

Forgiving of others, always. Kenny always brought up past history when we were kids and I used to beat the hell out of him. He did it again in February. I squared off with him one more time and told him honestly that I am not the same person I was back then and promised him that I would never, ever beat the crap out of him ever again. He said that he had forgiven me a long time ago. Now, I will never hear about it ever again. I am soooo glad that I was able to spend this time with him and make this amend.

Beautiful singing voice - trained at Bob Jones University from 1976-1978. Never graduated because he decided to marry and start a family, but did continue his singing career and blessed thousands of people with his Bartholomew Ministries.

Artist - worked for Sarkis Studio, a small Decorative Arts Studio specializing in manufacturing and finishing fine drapery hardware.

Kenny was a long time friend of Sarkis and roomed with him at Bob Jones.

He was also a long time friend of Steven Key who I am sure to see at Kenny's visitation and funeral. Kenny met Steven at Five Points Community Church in Auburn Hills Michigan, close to our home town of Rochester Michigan. This had been our home church for a number of years back in the 70s. Kenny and his wife Ruth continued to travel home to sing for this church every year.

Kenny is survived by his wife Ruth, Sons Kenny Jr. and Steven, daughter Emily, brothers Leonard (myself) and Tom, grandmother Barbara Morris, as well as many, many friends.

If there is any person in this God's earth that I know would make it into heaven, it is my brother Kenny. Sweet, sweet man.

In loving memory...

The Death Of Iphone Download Membership Sites

support@moxie-drive.com — Sat, 31 May 2008 12:25:46 -0500

Bottom line is, Apple has filed a DMCA report against Clickbank according to a message I received from Clickbank today, May 15, 2008. "ClickBank has decided to impose a moratorium on any new products that use "IPHONE" "IPOD" or "ITUNES" in their domain names or used such names or related images."

No more $30 commissions for iphone download membership sites like Ipod Downloads Pro, Iphone Nova, Iphone Download Pro, Iphone Unlimited, Fill Your Iphone, Iphone Magic...

The membership site's recourse? "Each site either submits a counter-notification that contains all the required information, or the publisher can provide confirmation that they have permission from Apple to use its names and images to promote specific products."

Moxie Drive Expressions has removed, or is in the process of removing, all text links and banner ads related to these membership sites. there goes about $400 per month from Clickbank.

That's OK. I found it to be a distraction from any Adsense and Chitika income. The membership sites have the choice of paying Apple whatever copyright fees necessary to keep their sites alive. Certainly they have made enough money to do this and get Clickbank to reactivate them. Certainly this kind of thing has happened before, right?

Think about all the Adwords ads that are leading to now defunct web pages. And we thought Google made us jump when they changed their algorithm. Now Apple is doing it. All those ads are now costing the ad publisher with no chance of income on the conversion. Neat, huh?

A publisher's recourse - it is back to promoting mp3 and music download, movie download, and game download sites that do not infringe on the Apple DMCA.

Maybe there is still some income potential for download membership sites, just not the ones labeled "Iphone", "Ipod", or "Itunes" in their URL.

I'm sure the membership sites will figure out a way...

Note from publisher, 5/31/08 - And at least one of them has. Iphone Download Hub is now Phone Download Hub. It was down for what they claim to be 4 days and are back online. That was fast. I wonder when the rest will follow?

Go Apple Iphone!

support@moxie-drive.com — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:53:42 -0500

According to Macworld Magazine, Apple reported a 1.5 Billion quarterly profit for the 2nd quarter. 1.5 BILLION!. Revenue grew 42%, or $7.51 billion. How would you like a 42% raise in your income?

They sold 2.2 million Macs, 10.6 million Ipods, and over 1.7 million Iphones in that quarter. That is 5.7 Iphones sold since its introduction last year.

Apple says "no problemo" to selling a total of 10 million Iphones in 2008.

Apple is supposed to release the new 2G (2nd generation) Iphone in May 2008 that will expand it's features dramatically.

This is significant to the Moxie Drive Expressions Article Directory because a full 50% of the traffic to this directory is related to Iphone downloads. There are a little over 50 articles out of over four thousand articles that are about the Iphone in this article directory.

The more Iphones sold translates to more people looking for downloads. Expressions has been hit for over 7,793 variations of keywords related to Iphone since December 6, 2007. This generated 20,799 visits in a little more than 4 months time.

Moxie Drive Expressions continues to place well in the search engines for Iphone related keywords according to my SEO Elite reports.

It's nice that the Moxie Drive Expressions Article Directory is now making some money to support me and my lovely wife.

Thanks Apple...

Why Would Scam Affiliate Programs Buy Pay Per Click Anyway?

support@moxie-drive.com — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:01:07 -0500

In my previous post David, a good friend of mine from Init2Winit, asked the question "Why would scam affiliate programs buy PPC? I feel compelled to answer this question.

Because most affiliate marketers are Adwords savvy enough to only have to pay about 5 cents or less per click for PPC and they can get "the herd" to behave certain fashion, that is to buy more, very easily this way. These ads are just recirculated affiliate programs with a different covering. Look at the Day Job Killer affiliate program for instance. They change it a little and, poof! There you have what looks like a brand new affiliate program to get the suckers in your list to buy.

Take "Get Google Ads Free" for instance. Basically, you get your Google ads free by selling text links on a landing page. This is a simple, yet unremarkable, idea that will net the author thousands because of a good title. You may make some money, but there is no guarantee. My bet is you will not make a lot of money by buying this ebook, mostly because it will probably end up sitting on a book shelf and the principles contained in it not used to a great enough extent to really learn how to get results.

This is what happens to the majority of people who buy into an affiliate program. They fail because they stop too soon or expect too much. Is that the truth? I did not quit and I certainly did not expect too much, yet I failed to make more than $60.00 per month with an affiliate program that was "guaranteed".

I don't buy into affiliate programs anymore. I have no suggestions as to what affiliate programs work and what affiliate programs do not work. Howevever, I can make money online by selling them.

If you really want to make money online, you need to change your mind-set. Read Are You Wasting Your Time Trying to Make Money Online?

The one thing that I wish Trent had addressed was the frivolous following of all these f'd up affiliate programs, which some follow after with abandon. Only 5% succeed. It is like playing the lottery. It should not be.

The key to Trent's article is "if you have done your research and are in the right niche, they are ready to spend money. These are the visitors you make money from."

1. You have to have a niche with a lot of content, like an article directory or blog, where the topics will gain the interest of your visitors.

2. Affiliate links/banners should be nested in the content to get the optimal click thru rate required to make money from them.

Simple text links work. I get about a 20% CTR with articles related to one niche. That is, 1 out of 5 that read about the niche topic Iphone downloads, 56 articles with approximately 286 unique page views per day, on average out of an average of 724 unique page views, in the Moxie Drive Expressions article directory, go directly to this link: Iphone Download Pro.

The trend for the Iphone articles contained in the Moxie Drive Expressions article directory are reflected in the Google analytics graph here::

The Iphone download articles started coming in in November of 2007 and showed up on the Analytics scope in December. Obviously, I was not ready for Christmas, but there was a delay in the number of units sold over the Christmas holiday and the number of Iphone owners looking for music, movie, and game downloads. These Iphone articles are now enjoying a good bit of traffic.

Apple reported that they had sold 4 million Iphone's by January 2008. They are releasing the 3g Iphone (now called 2.0) in May-June 2008 and expect Iphone sales to exceed 10 million by the end of the year.

I have a tiger by the tail. I have a collection of over 6,000 targeted keywords for Iphone from my Analytics that are not even reported in Word Tracker or the Google keyword tool. I can't keep track of them all in the search engines. That's the way it should be.

I have started breaking into the Ipod download niche as well as other gadgets. I have found traffic in these areas by replacing the word "Iphone" in my list of keywords and then writing or obtaining articles based on these new keywords and including them in my article direcory. Example: replace the word "Iphone" with "Ipod". Once you find a trend, stick with it. Or like MacDonalds, duplicate and repeat the process.

Get lots of content and promote products and affiliate links in the content. I finally figured this out in September 2007 after spending about 1.5 years promoting one affiliate program exclusively. I make about $60.00 per month from my down-line in that affiliate program. I guess that I did not do it the right way. Hell, what is the right way?

Since September 2007 my income from Adsense and Clickbank has continued to increase. I did not have to talk anybody into anything to do it either. The articles in Moxie Drive Expressions are showing up well in the search engines. As Trent said in his article " You need to get traffic from the search engines!". Traffic from the search engines will work if you have quality content on your website. You will make money if the affiliate links and affiliate programs that you promote are targeted to the content. You will make money from Adsense as long as the ads are targeted to your content. Learn more about Google section targeting.

These figures are based on actual receipts or receipts pending/not paid.

September 2007 - $140.68
October 2007 - $142.69
November 2007 - $257.51
December 2007 - $302.02
January 2008 - $547.69 (Clickbank text link income kicks in)
February 2008 - $1073.01
March 2008 - $948.88
April 2008 - $1,200.00 (estimate based on Adsense and Clickbank reports to date)
April 2009?

Now, answer me a question. How many of you reading this clicked on the Iphone Download Pro link?

That's how easy it is.

Oh, and to answer the question "Why Would Scam Affiliate Programs Buy Pay Per Click Anyway?" Because they cannot get to page one of Google the conventional way, through good old fashioned hard f'ing work.

I don't use pay per click either. Tried that too. I'm organic, 100%.

Why is an affiliate marketing Adsense ad showing up in an Iphone download article?

support@moxie-drive.com — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:15:29 -0500

I have complained about this before, even to Google in the Adwords and Adsense forums. If there were an advertisement server better than Adsense I would change over. I have tried, but they do not get the results that Adsense gets in Moxie Drive Expressions. This picture is just one. If it were not for the competitive ad filter in Adsense, I would not make any money. One of these hits and my eCPM gets cut in half. If I don't notice it right away, I lose a lot of money. I really wish Google would do something about these scammers.

Here is my Competitive ad filter content so far.

1affiliateanswers.com
3mhis.com
achieveteam.com
adready.com
advanceddatabasemarketing.com/
affiliatesden.com
affiliatesilverbullet.com
autopilotprofits.1st-eload.com
avaya.com
bigincomecoach.com
bigmoneypro.com
bigseminar.com
bluecollarriches.com
blutext.com
buildanichestore.com
buildanichestoreofficial.com
cheapestbestproducts.com
circuitcity.com
closelyguardedmlmsecrets.com
createbarcodes.com
djkassassin.com
dropshiphq.net
ebates.com
ebay.com
ebooks4people.net
energyvendingbusiness.com
everydayhealth.com
forexonlineprogram.com
forexpowerstrategy.com
freegoogleads.com
gillettevenus.com
google.com
gotomypc.com
insidersoftware.com
internetmilliondollars.com
legitimatebusinessreviews.com
livepowerful.com
makingmoney08.com
moneyanimal.com
myclickbiz.com
myperfectwealthformulaonline.com
officedepot.com
officialbuildanichestore.com
passive-residual-income-plan.com
phonepeople.com
pluginprofitsite.com
profitlance.com
profitmentoring.com
projectpayday.com
projectquickcash.com
quickfireprofits.com
realwebfortune.com
rebate-processor-jobs.com
searchanalytics.compete.com
secondrotation.com
sellerathome.com
sellingtohumannature.com
shoretel.com
singleschat4all.com
sixfigureprogram.com
thebestbizreview.com
thehomebusinessexecutive.net
themaptowealth.com
thousanddollarprofits.com
toponlinecompany.com
truckshops.org
www.superaffiliates.com
yourworryfreebusiness.com

Notice all the affiliate programs. They are all scams...

It Is Spring And It Is An MP4 Download Kind Of World

support@moxie-drive.com — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 23:53:43 -0500

Read the article about mp4 download.

This article has been read 6597 times since December 2007 when I noticed it and started focusing on this niche. This one article has been hit for 842 different long tailed variations of the keyword "mp4" for the same period. It is taking about 100 visits per day at the moment.

All of my Iphone articles, 44 in all, are taking between 400 and 600 unique visits per day. There have been 3,817 variations keyword phrases containing "iphone" for the same period with over 18,000 unique visits to all of the 44 Iphone articles.

Killer huh?

Long tail traffic is easy to get. You just have to find it or have an article directory that finds it using the "sheer dumb luck" principle.

I am currently working on about 6 different niches.

This is only one article out of many in the Moxie Drive Expressions article directory.

Here is the formula:

1. Find a niche that is asleep.
2. Build an article directory or website niche of your very own unless you already have one like I did.
3. Promote the crap out of it (my secret).
4. Wait for the results.
5. If no money, move to another niche.
6. Rinse and repeat.

I have been working on the niche "home based business opportunity" for almost 2 years now. I show up on page 1 in Google for this keyword phrase and over 3000 others with the home based business theme according to SEO Digger.

I make $60 per month with my main page and the Plug In Profit Site. This is pitiful. It is full of newbies just kicking the tires. They do not jump into it 100% and usually last about 30 days or less expecting it to work with no effort on their part. It makes me sick. I was almost ready to give up on internet marketing until my article directory took off.

I am no longer going to promote home based business or PIPS heavily. It is over crowded from my perspective. I may promote a product that is home based business related. For instance, I have discovered that Moxie Drive Expressions has 14 articles about the Reverse Funnel System that I am about to run through the process. I should be finished and showing a multitude of page one Google results in a few weeks to a month if not earlier. I am in a joint venture that is not going to cost me a nickel. I will be making 100% of the Adsense income from these articles and a cut of the affiliate income, which I have a tracking page for.

So, thinking outside of the box, I have already found a profitable niche not related in any way to home based business and have been making money with it. I did not have to find one affiliate to sign up under me. I repeated the process successfully to various extents with half a dozen other article niches.

I have started making in excess of $1,200 per month with Google Adsense and Clickbank from Moxie Drive Expressions since I started doing what I have been doing recently in January of 2008. It is growing at about a 50% rate every month. If only I had known a couple of years ago what I know now.

I have made more money from Adsense and Clickbank in the last two months than I have spent with the Plug In Profit Site over the past two years. I am not spending any more money on the Plug In Profit Site.

Gee, what do you think is working for me? Affiliate Marketing or Article Publication and Affiliate product promotion from Clickbank and Adsense?

Here is a suggestion:

Get a bigger net. You will catch more fish.

I am going to focus on my article directory and the goldmine of content contained therein. It works.

The Bear is still here. I have learned even more than before and have a formula that works as you can see.

Otherwise, I will be working moderately, taking it easy, and hibernating.

Len

Social Bookmarking - The Effects On Article Submission

support@moxie-drive.com — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:01:45 -0600

There is a disadvantage many marketers may be unaware of to using some of the article directories as suggested. A recent blogger that I read mentioned a "massive article campaign for back linking". Many of these article directories, including the mighty Ezine Articles, are using the html link attribute "nofollow" meaning that they do not give away any link "juice". Their links are worthless. Ironically the blog post was taken in it's entirety from an Ezine Articles submission.

The blogger was willing to give away a backlink to this Ezine Articles submission in this blog post. My question is did he also post it to the social bookmarking sites to broaden the exposure of the blog post?

I hope not in this case. Using an article that is not yours on your blog or your own article directory and then posting it to the social bookmarking sites is called "source hopping". It can get you banned from the social bookmarking sites. Of course, the original author needs to notice the infraction first and complain about it.

I would also ask why the blogger found it necessary to post non-unique content to his blog in this age of "Google requires uniqueness".

There is a solution that will supplement your back-links without having to write lengthy articles and submit them to the article directories as frequently, social bookmarking using sites that do not use the "nofollow" attribute. Provide title, description, tags, and the url and you will have a collection of perfectly good back-links to the article that you are targeting. It takes me about 30 minutes to get 30 solid PR 4 - 7 backlinks from the social bookmarking sites. The resulting traffic to Moxie Drive Expressions Article Directory is proof that the bookmarking process works. Using Code to Change Your MySpace Fonts has been read nearly 8,000 times since it was submitted in May of 2007. How would you like an article that got read a thousand times a month?

Social bookmarking is the bomb...

Is Digg Really Worth 300 Mil?

support@moxie-drive.com — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:24:00 -0600

I think everyone is wondering if Digg is going to sell for the 300 million dollar price tag. I sit back and wonder how it went from 100 million so fast.

Then I read an article. This one comes from Fast Company.

Apparently there is a Diggnation wannabe , minus Kevin Rose, that started up with it's first video show today called Digg Reel.

Digg Reel is a presentation of the best videos posted to Digg. There was even one posted by our friends in the social media world, Muhammad Saleem, so I knew this was worth looking into.

The videos were great, and not all about cute animals. No cats. Not one.

The show did show a bunny rabbit with a very practical talent. Everyone should have one.

Digg Reel makes it easy to view the latest, and best, video submissions so you do not have to go searching in Digg for a good laugh.

Will it be popular? I think so even after just one show I think it is obvious that this is going to be a hit.

Add to the price tag? You bet. Digg saw it coming.

Social Media Marketing, SEO, CTR, and Conversion Rates

support@moxie-drive.com — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:37:12 -0600

Social media marketing is the best way to get known on the internet buzz, buzz, buzz, fast, fast, fast. People are getting to know BartTheBear and the traffic to my web pages show it. It is all about traffic. A lot of it. And it is good for backlinks if you choose the right social media sites.

One of my friends uses them primarily for the backlinks. I can't get him to vote on my social media submits to save my life.

If you want to get to the #1 in Google for a particular keyword phrase, here is the SEO part of this post, here is my advise, I would become the guru for that keyword phrase. Blog about it, write about it in the article directories, and build yourself up in the social media sites as this guru. Develop your persona. Be the expert. Don't be spammy, be the one who people go to for the information on your chosen keyword phrase or theme.

Read about 100 blogs related to your keyword phrase and submit the best stories to the social media sites, throwing 1 out of 10 of your own material into the mix. I find that this mix prevents the spam accusations. When someone does complain, back off for a few days.

People will start following you. I read over 80 blogs on a variety of topics right now and it takes me about 30 minutes to find 10 articles a day to post to the social sites that I use. Then I either write or find a good article in my article directory that I want to promote and people will find a good read and submit it to 6 -10 social sites.

My latest niche is IPhone, only because it is the favorite topic in Moxie Drive Expressions. Out of 323 keyword phrases, since December, one particular article in this article directory is showing up in Google on page #1 for the keyword phrase how to download music to iphone.

This article went hot in Google in December and has had over 1,000 visits. I can't get one of my articles in Ezine Articles to draw over a few hundred reads in a whole year!

The Moxie Drive Expressions article titled MP4 download has had over 1,400 visits in the same period.

This was mostly because of submitting them to the social media sites as well as having a tight nit internal linking strategy for Moxie Drive Expressions. I get backlinks in the fraction of the time from the social sites than it takes to write/submit an article or ask for a reciprocal link (worthless). Not only do I get the backlinks from my social media efforts, I get backlinks from other bloggers referring to the original article if they so choose. Social media can be used as a link-baiting exercise . This just pushes the pages in question up higher in the search engines.

Make friends in the social media sites. They will follow you and light the fire under your website that you are looking for. Ask for their friendship.

More people will flock and ask you questions than you could ever have believed, and then they will also flock to your website. Knowing you a little better, they will join your programs. Drive traffic to your web pages and it will come.

Look at the big picture here. What would you do with a hundred thousand visits per day? Check out Whateverlife.com. Ashley, the website owner, uses Myspace to socialize with and gets over a hundred thousand visits from young girls a day to her website. She has a magazine, a blog, gives away free Myspace backgrounds that are developed overseas, and makes 100% of her income from Adsense. She is a millionaire at 17 years old. She is all about traffic and friends...hers, the income is incidental. CTR and conversion are an afterthought. Focus on the website community. The income may come.

We all want to make money online, but if you fight for it, it will flee. Why not coax it instead?

My Name Is BartTheBear - 2008 Social Media Ninja

support@moxie-drive.com — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:23:57 -0600

You may notice that I have a new badge on the left side of this blog. I am sharing, gracefully, the 2008 Social Media Ninja award that is given out by the folks over at Collective Thoughts, the latest rave in social media blogs. I believe that I got the popular vote at 20, at least what is showing, in the comments at the voting post titled Social Media Ninjas - Unite!.

I share this award with another good friend of mine Ann, aka SEOSmarty. Just a short note on Ann. I think it is remarkable that someone with a persona starting with "SEO" wins anything to do with social media. Sometimes I think the social crowds imagine there is a fence between SEO and social media marketing. I think that is changing.

So, everyone is wondering how I did it, right? I will tell you. I pulled out my "friends" trump cards.

1. I placed a link at the top of my blog at Bart The Bear Says asking for your vote.

2. I shared the post with my friend's list over at Stumbleupon asking for their vote. The post, Social Media Ninjas - Unite, where Collective Thoughts announced the candidates for the award, was submitted by Kimberly, aka spostareduro. With 17 reviews and 50 votes in Stumbleupon, this probably sent a wave of traffic over to Collective Thoughts due to the Stumble Effect. I usually get about 2,000 to 7,000 unique visits at this level. I am not claiming responsibility for all of the votes and reviews for this post. I just helped things along.

3. Did not vote or comment over at Mixx.com...until today. I think I remember sharing it with my list of 300+ Mixx friends asking them to vote for BartTheBear.

4. I got embroiled in a discussion about the courtesy of leaving a comment with voting a topic down, which I wrote about in the blog post titled Hitting A Social Media Nerve and got some very controversial exposure with my blog from the Mixx.com post titled Social Media - Dealing With The Negative Vote. I am sure a lot of people were watching this. It sits at 80 votes which I think is pretty high for a Mixx post.

5. I then delivered a post titled Secrets Of Stumbleupon - Going Viral and shared it with my friends list over at Stumbleupon, giving my vote request link in #1 above a second round. Stumbleupon topics always draw a great number of readers for me. I seem to have developed a following and am sitting at 265 Stumbleupon friends. This includes the 200 that reciprocate friendship.

6. Lastly, and these are the folks who have known and supported me for the longest time, I announced the birth of my new persona "BartTheBear" over at the Plug In Profit Site forum after changing my forum signature read "Bart The Bear Says". They saw the vote link in my blog and I got a number of votes.

I could and should write an ebook about Stumbleupon.

A lot of my friends are in both Stumbleupon and Mixx. Thinking that I usually get about a 10% response to the requests that I send or share over at Stumbleupon and at Mixx, I figured that I could get at least 20 votes. That is exactly what I got according to the comments over at collective thoughts. I am wondering if there were any votes emailed? I thought I had a chance to get this award if I executed my campaign effectively.

Bottom line, I used my network of friends to generate traffic and gather votes. This is the same thing that the politicians are doing with social media for the current election. Maybe BartTheBear should be running for President?

I want to thank all of those who participated and especially my own network of friends for supporting me in this adventure.

Friends rock! Isn't that what social media and social networking is supposed to be all about?

Secrets of Stumbleupon - Going Viral

support@moxie-drive.com — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:15:31 -0600

What a day! And this will be my third and final post before bed.

Everyone has heard of the "Stumbleupon Effect" where a post goes viral and delivers thousands of visits to a web page. This just came to my attention about how Stumbleupon really works and it is dead on.

I suspected that this was the nature of Stumbleupon and have experienced the Stumbleupon effect with my own posts a number of times.

Bottom line is a post needs both reviews (socially endorsed content) and thumbs up votes (relevance filtering) to get the attention needed to be sent to the Stumble button on the Stumbleupon toolbar and go viral.

The more reviews and votes, the more the web page will show up when somebody Stumbles.

Simple huh?

I have had to do some campaigning to get both the reviews and the thumbs up necessary, but that can be part of the fun. Especially "sending" a post to 200 friends (the friend limit set by Stumbleupon) one at a time (a tedious process). I have the send process down to about 30 minutes for all 200 of my friends. I think they know this.

That is close to 200 visits at a minimum if your friends are paying attention to the forced Stumble sent to them by the "send to" process.

One of my posts from today, Social Media - Dealing With The Negative Vote gathered eleven reviews and and 50 thumbs up. The 50 Thumbs up is a record for one of my posts.

Analytics is showing 978 unique page views so far. I do not think it is over. The last time I had one like this, it was over 6,000! Still, not a bad return for about an hour of work I think.

The diagram works.

I would like to thank all of those who vote and especially those who review my posts. Those of you who did both can take the day off tomorrow...I am taking a break from the world of social media to look for a job. I have a spouse that thinks it is necessary for me to have a "real job". I guess I can do both...

Google Fridge

support@moxie-drive.com — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 07:35:10 -0600

Dan Perry over at http://danperry.com/wordpress/ is giving away a piece of schwag. The only requirement is to give him a link back (some serious link-baiting going on here!), and an explanation why you want it. So here goes my winning entry:

BartTheBear wants the fridge so he can have a place that advertises Google to keep our fish, a delicacy for us bears, cold and fresh!!! We will invite our Polar cousins in the north to come and visit us. The ice-bergs are melting and they can't live there anymore.

Wow, that has got to be a winner, huh?

Social Media - Dealing With The Negative Vote

support@moxie-drive.com — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 13:58:16 -0600

I like the way Stumbleupon works with negative votes. It still counts as a vote and the readers of your profile will still see the post as a result. It actually increases exposure of the article. As the posts in Mixx don't show up in a profile unless you have added the contributor to "Your Mixx", exposure stays limited to those who might read it on your profile or under the popular list if the post should go popular.

In any case, I believe that it is the net number of positive votes in Mixx that makes a post go popular, so a negative vote could effect the status of the post. That is ok in this democratic environment and nobody is going to do you harm just because you vote something down. They may however, have some harsh feelings. Don't take it seriously.

I received a message from Mixx feedback today that says:

Hi Len~
A lot of other sites, Digg included, have a very unpopular feature that doesn’t show anyone who votes down (or, in digg terms “buries”) your submission. This leads to a LOT more negative votes because there is no accountability .

We’ve discussed putting a little overlay up when someone does vote a story down that asks them to generate a reason why they are voting down. We just have to figure out the best way to do this...

The key word here is "accountablity". I like that and am looking forward to the day when Mixx implements this function.

In the mean time, I think it would be courteous to include a comment with your negative, as well as your positive, votes. There has got to be a reason for your vote and I for one like to read them as well as the posts.

Hitting A Social Media Nerve

support@moxie-drive.com — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 20:28:50 -0600

What a day! So far the feedback on my BartTheBear theme has been positive. The feedback on one of the blog posts that I submitted to one of my favorite social sites was not. It was about search engine optimization from my good friend Lyndoman. Goes with the territory I guess. I have run into some real adamant karma in the social sites about posting SEO related articles to them. I thought/hoped that it would be different at my latest most hottest social media site, but I sense...well no sense in going there just to get beat up.

What I want to say here is that it is ok to vote a post down in the social sites. Nothing wrong with it. People do it all of the time. I do wonder the reason behind the down vote and encourage comments to go along with the down vote as a courtesy. I would like to know why my post is getting a down vote and would adjust my posting to the social media site if the general consensus agrees with this.

On the other hand, let me share my definition of controversy with you. Controversy is the laboratory of innovation. Without it we do not grow, so if you have to vote down, give us a reason so we can understand. If it turns out to be controversial, then there will be some discussion about it and someone is bound to learn something new...about you, your likes, and your dislikes.

Here are a few of examples of how I did this with negative votes, and comments, that I made at:

http://www.mixx.com/stories/49873/a-new-sith-or-revenge-of-the-hope/

http://www.mixx.com/stories/51744/man-saves-his-trash-for-the-entire-year/

http://www.mixx.com/stories/38335/religious-freedom-in-military-questioned-yahoo-news

and

http://www.mixx.com/stories/49865/junk-food-ad-ban-comes-into-force/

Honestly, I found the articles to be quite funny. However, I also found them to be lame and therefore gave them the down vote and made a comment on each of the posts so people would know why. Especially the Star Wars post because the original article had been written in 2005. Seemed a little late to have this post on ancient history showing up in a social bookmarking site.

All of this activity came to a head, and hit a nerve, when I asked a couple of down voters that I had noticed, why they had voted down Lyndoman's post and got a history of all my down votes in a comment response. I got spanked. Kind of felt good...

Someone is tracking the votes. Of course they are. They have to to give out all those wonderful awards over at Mixx. I love to get them myself. Even the most contentious which is consistently won by Tamar, one of our most notable social media elitists. I like it when she votes my stuff down because I already know the reason. She just likes to vote stuff down based on her standards because she can and that is reason enough. I love it when I get a negative vote or comment from Tamar because it is a clear signal that my post sucks. Kind of like a social media police woman giving out tickets.

At least she makes it clear, even if indirectly by winning the contentious award frequently. Not saying you have to. You can keep your anonymity if you value it or if your are just plain chicken. I prefer leaving a comment out of courtesy...

New persona - New blog name

support@moxie-drive.com — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:20:09 -0600

Everyone seems to be enjoying my social media persona "BartTheBear" at Stumbleupon, Mixx, Sphinn, and yes even the mighty (and sitting over at the slave auction) Digg. I gave this some thought, all of about .10382938 seconds, and decided that what I write about just does not fit "Turnkey Business Blog". So I have changed it to "Bart The Bear Says".

The url for this blog has not changed. It is still http://www.moxie-drive.com/blog.

The format of the blog will be, well everything. So far I have written about social media/networking/bookmarking, seo, internet marketing, blogging, and dog training plus many more topics. I write pretty much whatever comes off the top of my head, in response to emails, and requests from my readers. At this point I do not have too many readers so you make it easy on me. I would like that to change. Thus, the persona "BartTheBear".

History on the name "BartTheBear". My last name is Bartholomew. I am 6'6" and 300lbs+. When I give someone a hug, they indicate that I am as big as a bear. Plus one of my favorite movies, "The Edge" (1997, has it already been over 10 years?) starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, has a bear in it called "Bart The Bear". Poor guy bit the dust a while back, but you can still find him on the internet.

I pray that this change does not cause too much inconvenience. To continue reading my blog feed at "Bart The Bear Says" you will need to re-subscribe at http://feeds.feedburner.com/BartTheBear/.

Not necessarily in negative fashion, I am letting the persona of "BartTheBear" to completely take over my writing style. It has to some extent.

This is going to be a lot of fun.

In memory of
Bart The Bear...

Social Networking In Action

support@moxie-drive.com — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 14:29:51 -0600

I was notified this morning that I was one of 13 candidates nominated for the Social Media Ninja Contest awards. I am listed as BartTheBear for those of you who have not yet voted. Yes, this is a humble request for your vote please.

This came as a complete surprise, and I want to first thank everyone for the opportunity to serve, second talk about the process by which I think I got the nomination.

Obviously, someone thought that my contributions were worth the merit of being on this distinguished list of experts. I think there is much more to this. Let's review the basics of getting the successful results that I have gotten using the social networking sites, in this case Stumbleupon:

1. Fresh content
2. Tagging
3. Friends

These principles work in all of the social networking sites that I am currently using on a regular basis and the ones I am experimenting with. My latest is Facebook.

Fresh content is the fuel of social media. Without it there is no content, nothing to read, and no real interest in either the social media site or the contributor.

Tagging is the delivery system of social media. Tagging determines what Stumbler's will see when they hit the Stumble button. The Stumbler's determine which tags are their favorites, so if you are not using appropriate tags in your posts, you are not likely to get viral traffic. Research your tags carefully and you will increase the likelyhood of viral traffic.

Friends are the spark of social media. Social sites have a mechanism for you to send, or force Stumble in the case of Stumbleupon, your posts to all of your friends along with a short message. In Stumbleupon this is done one friend at a time. I send to my Stumbleupon friends in about 30 minutes. Stumbleupon has a 200 limit to the number of friends you can reciprocate with.

Your friends read, vote on, and review your posts. In turn, their friends read the same post on their Stumbleupon. Some of them continue the voting and reviewing causing the post to go viral. My thinking is that friends, by far, are the catalyst of exposure and reputation on the internet today. Social Media is great for exposure and reputation. A lot of people get to know who you are and what you are about real fast!

These principles can be applied to almost any social media site. My latest activities have been with Mixx.com. I used Mixx to confirm the three principles. I sense that the traffic from Mixx is growing. It is also a great place for valuable back-links. Some social media sites are not and use the "nofollow" link attribute. Mixx does not.

So what is the point of this post? Apparently, I know something about social media. Somebody noticed and decided that I merit being included in a high profile list of other social media hopefuls.

Here is the "in action" part. I have sent the link for the Social Media Ninja Contest to the 200 of my friends in Stumbleupon, 357 friends in Mixx, and also posted it to one of my favorite forums for support. At 3:17 pm Eastern, the post has 30 votes, 14 reviews, and has probably already gone viral in Stumbleupon. This viral activity will continue with every vote and review. What is the purpose of having friends if you can't ask them for their help every once in awhile?

Don't forget to vote for BartTheBear!