Quite a few months ago, I taught myself a lesson that I am relearning every day  I look at my blog stats. Both Google and wp-stats are telling the same tale of great SEO that was a total accident and is now unwelcome.

Yup, I totally screwed up and have been rewarded for it.

On September 13th, 2009, I published a post titled Freelance Writer Or Crack Whore without realizing just how popular crack whores are on the Internet. Every day I am delivered a handful of traffic that has something to do with crack whores or five dollar jobs. But, alas not much in the way of freelancing.

So, I went to do some research on just how well that post was doing in the SERPs, but first I checked out the keyword crack whore and found that there were well over 2,000 search queries yesterday alone. Pretty impressive.

But, as far as the SERPs go, that post is no where to be found in the top five pages on the top three search engines, with the exception of…

…page one on Google, and that was in Google’s Friends In My Social Network feature.

I don’t think I’ll ask which of my friends have been researching crack whores. Just wouldn’t be prudent.

What I will wonder about is whether or not I discovered a niche, and if there is a way I can exploit that niche. Are the affiliate marketing products for crack whores? I wonder what kind of ads Google’s adsense would throw up on the site?

Oh, wait! What about about an eco-friendly market? Green crack whores? Nah, that will most likely draw a crowd looking for fresh on the streets coke heads.

Oh well, whatever the outcome is, I’m sure I will be rewarded another year’s worth of traffic when I publish this post.

© 2010, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

The blogging community I own and operate, Crabbysbeach, slid head first into a cement brick early this evening while I was working under the hood at one of the blogs. Funny thing, only the hub blog and several other blogs seem affected by the trauma, as the rest seem to be in good order.

I must have put a blue wire where a green one belongs. I dunno.

Although I have a fair idea what my next course of action is, I want to be sure, so I posted the issue in the BuddyPress forum to get some of that “God, we are smarter than you and here’s why…” action. I sure could use SOME action, even if it is full of humility and embarrassing shame.

Now my dilemma is what to do with myself while I am waiting for that answer, so I have created a short list of activities to occupy myself while I await the answer from above.

• Write A Blog Post Or Two Ahead

Why on earth would I do that? I’d miss the fatigue and anxiety caused  by pushing deadlines, and all that intimate time with my adrenal gland. It would be too much like being prepared.

Forget that!

• Drink The Rest Of My Tequila

Yeah, just what I need, to dance around carefree and naked while wearing nothing save for  a sombrero, while my site needs fixed. Wouldn’t be very responsible now, would it?

Ooops, the tequila is gone.

Wait!

Now it is.

• Answer The Flood Of Panicky Email

This how pathetically lonely I am. I have received 3, count ‘em, 3 emails from bloggers who are all worried about their blogs. The time down has been about 7 hours and there are 50 bloggers at the site.

I guess I need to get dressed, put away my sombrero, and start worrying about my image.

• Hang Out On Twitter

At this time of night, the bars are starting to empty out, or there’s a lot of in between gigs, tequila swillin’ freelance writers like me in the Twitterverse. Too many drunk tweets to try an decipher with one eye opened.

• Visit My Favorite Porn Site

I don’t bank any of my daily allotment for porn, so I’d have to eat into tomorrow’s scheduled porn slot a little, and everyone knows that a well balanced diet of porn is healthier than lopsided distribution.

Besides, I ran out of paper towels earlier.

• Play Call Of Duty 4

No way! This is the time of night when all the real terrorists get online and play. Those dudes play rough.

• Write Some More In My Novel

Actually not a bad idea, but I hate to be the odd man out. So I’ll let it sit in a drawer like so many of my friends are doing with their novels.

Besides, I hate rejection so much it pains me when my hand cramps up (see the first line under Answer The Flood Of Panicky Email).

So, what do you think? Should I be doing one or several of these? Maybe you have an idea that you’d like to share with me, or maybe not.

© 2010, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

Way back in the stone ages of Internet marketing, one of the “must do’s” for every marketer was to set up multiple accounts, one for every niche they were going to promote. The most widely quoted reason for this was to not water down one’s authority on a single topic, because the belief was that no one would buy a marketing e-book from the same guy who was selling dog collars.

I have seen other reasons for multiple accounts given, such as protecting original content, but I think that all reasons for multiple accounts add up to one sum; bullshit.

What do I believe is the real reason? The marketers felt slimy about what they were promoting. Aching to make money quickly so they could have statistics to quote in their own get rich quick e-books, some marketers would push and promote any product that preyed on the weak and desperate.

Maybe they really didn’t feel slimy about what they were promoting, but the multiple accounts allowed for the marketer to be ingenuine about his efforts and spammy about his tactics. If a campaign failed or was flagged as mildly fraudulent, the marketer could walk away unscathed, because no one really knew who he was.

Personally, I think that tactic is bogus and is being seen as more dishonest than writing about a wide variety of products. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that you (the reader) really has no problem buying a television this week from the same person you bought car insurance from two months ago. Why? because you trust the writer’s opinion and experience. He is not hiding, and with the amount of information at our fingertips, products do a lot of their own selling.

Think about shopping at Wal-Mart for a second. The reason Wal-Mart is successful is because a shopper can make a purchases of  respected brand name products for not only lower prices than most other places, but all at one stop. We trust Wal-Mart to deliver what they are offering and we keep going back.

When Wal-Mart decides it wants to build on a certain site, the company spares no expense to secure that site AND deliver a store that the community will accept as asthetic. You’ll find many different styles of Wal-Mart stores, but they all say Wal-Mart.

Personal branding is tantamount today, because it is easier to see all on the Internet. We can surf from one site to another quicker and scan so much more information that we could even two years ago. This is how we build a reputation, because we are exposed, and this is how it should be. We should be honest about who we are and then attach products to our personal brand.

Although some still practice the art of multiple accounts and attach false personal brands to products, the tide is changing and we can be proud of who we are and allow ourselves to promote any and all products we choose.

Let the buyers trust us or expose us.

© 2009, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

© 2009, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

I’m a million miles away from my blog at the moment and can’t seem to get a ticket on the next caravan back. I have started a half a dozen different topics and trashed each one. On the other hand, I feel all wound up, heart is pounding, and anxious. I need to write.

Nothing seems to be inspiring me today. There have been a million posts about 9/11 and I don’t think mine would be any different than half of those. Sure, I could write about how the world, not just America, changed on that day, but that’s like beating a dead horse. I could say what I feel about the dark era we were thrust into that day, but hell with that, we have enough finger pointers on both sides of THAT fence.

I almost wrote about how I nearly flushed this blog down the drain while trying something radically new to me. Watching the blog not reload after trying to to re-install the back up was frustrating to say the least. In the end, it all came back up and was really nothing to get excited about.

The dogs probably could have gotten some blog time if I felt motivated enough to give them the time. I mean, the little Amstaff, all thirty pounds of her, is baiting the ninety lb. Lab mix into a game of tag. Chloe, the Amstaff, runs up and jumps to nip at Pooh’s jaw, only to land in a ready to run position. Then Pooh lunges as Chloe steps just out of reach. All this on a hardwood floor, so there is a lot of action, but no progress.

I know if I went into Squidoo I could find a lens or two to write about, or maybe I could blog on about Factor Y, but nah.

There is one topic that touched me today, an ongoing one, and that is one that my dear friend JaguarJulie has been blogging about at her Topicality blog. Julie has be covering the topic of etiquette. In particular, online etiquette, and I think she is dead on when she states that we should behave the same way do online that we do off.

The problem I see is that some of us already do, always have, and always will. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t politely point out the fault in that behavior. We ALL have to share the same space, cyber or otherwise, so why don’t some of you grow up or get out.

So, I guess I need to find my creative genius to find something of value to blog about.

This image for this post is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License via Master Man

© 2009, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

Bustin' out!

WordPress Jail. That’s what brings me to Extreme Writing Now, a suspension over some unnamed TOS violation. I have written support and have seen not a peep, in fact I found out about the suspension through a friend who trying to read one of my blogs there. Honestly, I can’t fathom what it is I did, but I’m not overly upset about it. The life sentence just forced my hand in starting the “stand alone” blog I’ve been wanting to start for sometime anyway.

The one thing I am a little pissed about is all the time I am having to spend setting this up. A lot of work is getting suspended until I fire this beast up. I have projects just starting, projects I’m in the middle of, and Squidoo lenses to build. I am attempting to get to the Giant 100 club by the September 30 deadline, and this move is putting a crunch on it. But, I’ll be on track in no time, and those of you that know me understand I won’t quit until it’s done.

Just like the now defunct, Extreme Writing blog, I’ll be writing about writing here. Freelance, article, content and more. I’ll also be blogging about Squidoo here, just because I’m lazy. Well, that and I am a typical male who will chase a shiny piece of foil if it floats past.

© 2009 – 2010, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.