Link Juice, what is it? Is it comparable to V-8, apple or orange juice? I had a friend explain this to me before I got more internet savvy, and I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about to be exact. If you’re anything like me, it takes time for ideas to come together and for things to “click.” I am glad things are finally clicking and coming together for me. I am learning more about SEO and how important and easy it is, to get your site ranked. So… I bet you are still wondering what link juice is, right?

I link, you link

It is important to get backlinks to your site. Backlinks raise your status in the eyes of Google and other search engines. For example, if you look at google there are only 10 spots on the first page. You really want to be on the first page! It’s no secret the majority of website traffic is received from the first ten slots. I have consciously made an effort to pay attention to the times I have gone past the first google page when searching for a keyword and i can say without hesitancy… zero! If you aren’t on the first page, chances are no one will find your website and you’ll be hanging the “closed for business sign”soon. How can you protect yourself against it? Get you some links!!!

“Spider” Web 2.0

I’ll be honest with you. When I first heard of web 2.0, I thought about the old commodore 64 and Atari 2600. I thought it was some kind of game or basic programming language. I didn’t know what it was, but now I do. Web 2.0 are sites which will help you get backlinks to raise your status in the search engine rankings. Here are some examples of these sites: squidoo, Linked In, and yes even good ol’ Facebook.  You’ll need to access these sites and use your keywords and anchor texts so these sites will point back to you and raise your seo rank. It can be time consuming but its something you’ll need to do to get traffic to your little corner of the world.

It came together

If you’re a newbie or someone with a bit of experience, Internet marketing can be overwhelming because there are so many terms to learn. Hang in there… it will come together. It did for me after I learned it in The Challenge. My recommendation is to take the Challenge when you get a chance as it is an excellent program to teach the basics of online marketing promotion. On a side note, Michelle MacPherson taught some of the backlinking modules and I found her to be a great teacher and she made it easy to understand. You can have a look at Michelle’s blog HERE. I’ll see you on the other side and don’t forget to drink your link juice!!!!

Darren McDuffie
“Internet Marketer”
“Who says Jocks aren’t smart?

The Symphony of Internet Marketing

“The Symphony” I enjoyed as a youngster brought back memories when I joined Ed Dale’s Challenge 2010. Ed sent out an email called the Symphony of four parts and it struck a chord with me. In the email, he talks about the average internet marketer and how they fail at online marketing. I can certainly see how this happens as he goes on to explain what every Newbie does. Most Newbies pick something they’re passionate about and go online hoping to make it and when the results don’t come, they quit! Ed breaks it down into four parts in which he explains how you must have a demand for your product or service and do the necessary research to ensure you are successful online. I can relate to this as I did the same thing he described when I started out online. I went after something I was passionate about and knew enough about, so I could feel comfortable. Does that sound familiar? We all want to fall into our comfort zones because it requires less effort on our parts, but to do it right it requires research.

The code of the Samurai

How do you do your research? I have a tool called Market Samurai. I mentioned this in a post I did some time ago. My main reason for doing the Challenge was to learn how to use this tool a little better. The guys who are sponsoring the Challenge are the ones who invented Market Samurai. I have had this tool for a few months and know how to use it, but I can always get better. I am going to have fun and learn as much as I can and hopefully strike a good niche and in turn strike it rich!!! Enjoy the clips below of The Symphony and Shogun Assassin. I am a big fan of martial arts movies and Shogun Assassin features a samurai… maybe Market Samurai? Seize the day!

P.S. Sign up for the Challenge… it is well worth your time.

Darren McDuffie
Internet Marketer
“Who Says Jocks aren’t Smart”

Ranking for keywords

Are you ranking for your keywords so people can find your blog? I thought I was but it just so happens I wasn’t doing it at all. How do I know? When I first started my blog, I downloaded the All in One SEO pack and never used it. I was very unaware that you had to go in and configure the panel for the keywords you were ranking for, in the home keywords section. Its very simple to do just get the plugin and go to the configurations panel and once you are in go to home keywords and insert them.

What keywords?

What keywords to choose? You can go for the bigger keywords like internet marketing, etc. but chances are you aren’t going to rank on google’s first page by targeting this word. You may want to use a tool like Market Samurai to dig a little deeper into sub niches of internet marketing such as online marketing. If you do this, it can and just might get you on google’s first page where people can see your blog. This is just a very elementary way to research keywords and there is more involved with it. You can always use Market Samurai’s tutorials to find out more on keyword research and better your chances of rising to the top page of google. In the meantime, just make sure you are using the All in One SEO plugin. You will be glad you did!

Who Needs Help?

As a leader, I never thought I needed help. I figured if I was a leader why would I need it? In college during my freshman year, I was asked to participate in study groups and I always declined. I had this air of arrogance surrounding me, and I thought leaders never followed groups, and did their own thing. It served me well until the courses got harder, and I needed to reach out for help. It took everything I had to bury my pride and join the group, but it was worth it. I developed some great relationships, and I learned you can be a leader in a group setting. I even noticed some people like to follow more than they like to lead. I guess there is nothing wrong with that.

Modern followers

In this world of “twitter chitter chat”, following has suddenly become cool. Do you agree? I follow several people on twitter and some of them I know, but the majority of them I don’t know. I guess I don’t have to know them and should be glad they are following me, right? Well, I am very thankful people want to follow me, because it means I am doing something right. I follow a few people who are very important to me and my success as an internet marketer. Who do you follow out side of twitter? Do you have a mentor? In the days when I was unsuccessful in internet marketing, I was a leader who didn’t like to follow anyone. I guess this is why I never succeeded. I had to take a cue from my early days and bury my pride and start following someone. Dean Holland and Alex Jeffreys were the two I chose to follow. These guys have given me a great foundation to build upon for my internet marketing future. Who do you follow and why? If you aren’t following anyone, maybe you need to start to be successful. Remember: no man is an island.

Darren McDuffie

“Internet Marketer”
“Who says Jocks aren’t smart?”

Henry Ford

How important is your mindset when it comes to your success? I would say it is very important. You really have to think “you can”, before “you can”. If you are tired of sitting in that cubicle at work every day living a meager existence, do you think you can finally break free? Its important to have an attitude of, “I can” before anything happens especially when it comes to Internet Marketing. If you don’t think you can, it won’t ever happen.

If you look at all the successful internet marketers, they first thought they could make a living on the internet before it ever happened. For example, I can remember the first time I met Dean Holland on the Warrior Forum and he announced he quit his job to go full time into internet marketing. I thought to myself is this guy crazy? I knew this was something I wanted to do, but I still had this fear inside of me. The same fear I had inspired me to sign up for Dean Holland’s Starting with Marketing to learn how he did it, and  to learn more about Internet Marketing. I learned many things through Dean’s class and also Alex Jefffreys class, but what I took away from both of  the classes was the attitude of believing I could do it! Its a funny, little trick your mind plays on you just to keep you safe. It will tell you can’t and you have to battle with it to say I can. You really have to work on your mind and change it before the success will come. Google can take your page ranking or WordPress can delete your blog, but guess who the real enemy is? It is you and you will have to tame it before success will come. Seize the day!

Darren McDuffie

Internet Marketer

“Who says Jocks aren’t smart?”

If you are anything like me, you want your situation to change quickly… most of us do. I had to realize that my present situation didn’t happen over night, but I wanted it to change like it did. Doesn’t make much sense, huh? This led to my constant working to achieve my goals and my eventual burn out. I had to understand this to move forward and I am willing to bet there are more of you who are exactly like me. I refer to myself as a “driver” or the “energizer bunny” because I will keep going and going until my goal is achieved. I guess many people are like this, but it has some consequences to it. What are those? How about feeling like you are on a schedule all the time? Have you ever been sitting at the beach and thinking to yourself, “I really need to finish this Aweber email list”? You can’t relax because you are thinking about the next thing you want to get done!

R- E- L-A-X! Learn to do this. If you look at the best IMERS out there, these guys work hard but they also play hard. I was under the impression that achieving a goal meant constant work. There is work involved, but it shouldn’t be constant. You have to learn to play! I didn’t know this until my “life coach” pointed it out to me. She told me “being able to relax, is a part of success”. I guess this is true because I have seen lots of people that don’t seem to enjoy their success because they are always thinking about the next thing they need to do. I guess the moral of the story here is there will always be work, but when you are on the beach, be on the beach.

Hey… if you have been thinking about hiring a life coach let me recommend mine. She has been very instrumental in helping me with various issues involving my business. You can check Sue out  down below. Tell her I sent you. I can’t believe I gave a referral without a commission (smile)… some affiliate marketer I am!

Darren McDuffie
“Internet Marketer”
“Who says Jocks aren’t smart?”

I remember searching through the Warrior Forum and reading where someone started a membership site from the WordPress platform. Hmmm… that was years ago! I wondered if there was something new and updated which would make it easier for me to design my own site with minimal work. I knew I wasn’t going to pay someone to design my site and then an idea hit me… I would use my Flexx theme to design my web site! I like the Flexx theme from Ithemes  and have constructed several blogs from that theme so I thought, “why not?” I started to dig into the Flexx theme some more and I had one little problem… I wasn’t able to take the date post out of the blog format. I immediately jumped on the ithemes forum to find out how I could remove the date post. I received the answer from the forum real quick. This is one of the things I really like about the guys at Ithemes, they will help you resolve any issues you are having fast. I got an answer to the question very quickly, but it involved changing the CSS within WordPress. I wasn’t to confident in changing the CSS, so I thought my dream of designing my own site was down the drain. But…my mom use to tell me,”where there is a will, there is a way” and lo and behold I found the way!

I bought my Flexx theme last year and had not visited the Ithemes site since that time. I am glad I decided to visit it, because I discovered the Itheme builder. Builder allows you create websites using the WordPress platform in minutes. I am not a web designer and I was able to put up a website in minutes . If you can put up a blog, you can do a web site using Itheme’s builder the same way! I watched the tutorial and within minutes I already had the hang of it and was on my way to finishing my first website. Ithemes builder runs about 127.00, but it will pay for itself, over and over again. I hope you will give Ithemes builder a try! I am not getting any affiliate commission for this and truly believe in the product.

See the Builder Theme

Seize the Day,

Darren McDuffie

“Who says Jocks aren’t Smart?”

So… I was gracious enough to have a very special someone send me a WordPress Plugin for Facebook. What does it do? Well, on FB there is a “like” button. For instance, if I posted something you “like” you can hit the button and it displays on your profile. Are you still with me? If you add the WP plugin for FB then the “like” button will display on your blog post and for those people who like it, they can hit the button and it will display directly to there profile. How does that help you? Think about it… TRAFFIC! Remember… you are only as good as the visitors coming to your site. See the link below to get the plugin

http://www.neo1seo.com/2010/04/facebook-universal-like-button-wp-plugin/

Seize the day,

Darren McDuffie

“Who Says Jocks aren’t Smart”

The Super Affiliate Handbook, was written by Rosalind Gardner. Rosalind was an air traffic controller and hated her job. Sound familiar? She wanted to have more free time, so she became an affiliate for a dating site and quickly started to make money. She then started to become an affiliate for other products and before she knew it she was making 400k selling other peoples products! Sounds easy, huh? Well, it isn’t that easy and this book does a great job of laying the foundation to affiliate marketing success. If you want to be a successful affiliate marketer this is a “must” read. I highly recommend you read it! Pick it up below. Enjoy!!!

Seize the day,

Darren McDuffie
Internet Marketer
“Who Says Jocks aren’t Smart?”

Darren McDuffie
Internet Marketer

“Who says Jocks aren’t Smart?”