Having a excellent host
It is quite true that you get what you pay for, however its also true that when you do your homework you can get quality for a great price. When I used to work for a guy doing websites several years ago we use a host that was quality buty pricy. After a couple years we shoped around and got the same quality for 1/3rd the price.
When I started with proxy websites I went with a host that was recommended to me. I knew quality was important as proxies are very volitile and even a day down time can deal a solid blow. I ran with them for while and they were helpful. However upon searching for a better solution I found WDservers.com aka thewird on Digital Point Forums. I was able get a server that supported more then 3 times as many users for basically the same price as I was paying at my old host. My profit went up immediately, becuase I had maxed out my old server and I didn’t realize how much I was losing.
More importantly the guy who runs WDservers is on top of his game. He has always helped me out above and beyond what I needed and fixed the couple of issues I have had, in the past year and a half, in no time flat. His service is just exceptional, and he is just a great guy too.
I got an IM today saying he had fixed my server for myspace. I didn’t know it, but Myspace made some changes and it required a server tweak to may my sites work. Point being, I didn’t even know about it. I realized that my profit had gone down all of a sudden, but I handnt been able to figure out why. It was because my sites were not working! I would have probalby not gottent he problem fixed with other hosts even if I had asked them too. My family has a site with antoher provide and I had just got off chat support with them trying to fix an issue 5 mins before thewird sent me the message that he had tweaked my server. My other host had no idea what they were talking about, and it was a WordPress related issue. You can’t get much more mainstream then that. Then I get a message from thewird that Myspace is fixed on my server and I didn’t even ask for help. Not to mention, I didn’t even know that was the reason my sites weren’t performing. Its easy to see where the quality is here. Great price, better service, hands down choice.
Edit: Of note: he told me that he is currently updating his site and prices may not be acurate.
Hiding your smily links
In my previous post I talked getting do follow links by leaving comments on various sites. The idea is that we would use a picture to get a link, like a smiley face, thus we don’t look like we are spamming. In reality we are not spamming because we are leaving quality comments, but we just want to get a link in there too.
On one site I was leaving a comment and it put a nice blue box around my picture like so:
Which make it obvious that it is a link. Thats not bad, its still unobtrusive, but its obvious. So I thought if you could dress up the image a bit to make it not so obvious it might be better. So I added boxes around the image like this:
Thus when it adds the blue link box around the outside it looks like this:
Grant it that this is not the greatest, but it makes the blue line less in your face. However its a bit big. Another option I did was backfill the smile face with the color of the blue:
Once it adds the link it looks like this:
Smaller and less noticible. Either way it camouflages the fact that there is a link. Not sure if it really makes that big of a difference, but its a thought. If anyone cares to comment if they think it really matters or other ideas that would be great. These were just a couple options I thought of real quick.
Link Devlopment with Media Sites
As I was reading Exposed SEO site I happened upon an article that he wrote on link development with Flickr. Since the premise of this article is based on his article you should probably read it first here:
Sneaky link development with Flickr – But before you jump in, Flickr is now Nofollow. This post is about adapting and expanding on the concept.
In short the concept is to gather dofollow backlinks from flickr by leaving comments and including an image (like a smile face) in the comment that links back to your site. Thus you don’t look like spam, because you are leaving a quality comment, and the link is from a harmless smily face. 
Its a great concept.
Since its no longer advantageous to do it with Flickr, the next question is how can it be applied. Without going into a long explanation of SEO and link juice (there are many others that can explain it better then me anyway) – we are looking for sites that get lots of links in. What made flickr so good is that flickr makes it easy to link to them by embedding the picture with the code they give you. It counts a link to the page that that particular picture is on.
So if you have 100 people link to an image, that page has a lot of “link juice” flowing into it. Then we put our link in the comment and we get to have a little juice from each one of those links. So we are looking for sites that make it easy for lots of people to link to them. After racking my bring for a few minutes the only type of sites I could think of were Media sites. Audio, Video, and Pictures. Anyone else thinks of any, please comment so we can take advantage of those too.
So I did a quick search for photo sharing, and I just went down the line checking each one to see if it was dofollow or nofollow. Either by signing up and leaving a comment or looking at someone elses. The point here is there are other options, we just have to do a little footwork and we can apply the same concept. The first one that found that passed link juice was webshots.com. However they don’t let you bring pictures in, but rather only put in your website in the http://www.xxx.com format. So we can’t just leave our website everywhere, or we will get deleted for spam. However we can leave relative comments and leave our site on a couple of them. So we keep moving down the list.
Always leave relative, quality comments. Use an image as a link when possible, and don’t spam.
Props to Exposed SEO for the concept.
Doing What You Love
I have heard it and read it many times, from many reputable sources. You should do what you are passionate about and the rest will follow. Well I figured I was passionate about business and that I would try to make money. I just didn’t get it. I often struggle with getting burnt out and focus. Some times I feel like I am just spinning my wheels.
However the past 24 hours have hit me hard. I have heard it and read it so many places and finally it is starting to sink in. I know it works, becuase that has been the path of successful people, I just didn’t know how I could do it. I mean how am I going to make money off of what I love? Who is interested in what I am?
Well after hearing Gary V here:
http://garyvaynerchuk.com/post/79804838/chasing-dollars-instead-of-passion-many-people
http://garyvaynerchuk.com/post/79163716/new-media-expo-vegas-08-see-what-people-say
Then turning around and reading this:
http://www.zanderchance.com/2009/02/20/do-what-you-love-the-rest-will-follow/
And recalling Shoemoney and others having said the same thing.
Well I finally get it. Now I just have to do it. Its a long road ahead, but I believe 2 years from now I will be able to look back and see myself enjoying what I do. Plus see myself self supporting my family without the need for a day job.
So what is it I am passionate about? I love helping people. How am I gong to make money from that? I have absolutely no idea LOL, but it will come.
The plus side to being hacked
So one of my blogs was hacked last week. By hacked I mean when you loaded up my home page you got a nice black page that said “hacked” and gave an email address. The hacker was kind enough not to delete my database, but only some restoreable files. I regained access and got everthing restored in a few hours.
However I am grateful the fact that it happened now and not down the road. In the past few days I have learned more about securing wordpress then I even knew existed. I have taken every step I can within reason to secure my work. I am quite confident that I can still be hacked and there fore have daily database backups that are stored off site as well as weekly complete backups.
I am not goint so say exaclty what I do, as that is like putting up a sign that says “the key is under the mat”. however there is a great article about it here:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress
It takes so much stinking work to implement security just so people don’t destroy your hard work. Such is life, but it makes me hustlel.
You just can’t help some people
(This post may look a bit odd in Firefox)
One thing that I have found out form working in retail for many years, is that you just can’t help some people. Some people don’t want to be helped, some are willingly ignorant and proud of it, and a few may even just be straight up stupid. Either way, a picture is worth a million words:
How did he get a lawers liscence anyway?
Who voted for these people?
Do you think the people in Utah really need to be reminded of that?
Odd, thought TEEN pregnancy would drop off completely at age 20….
You just can’t help some people.
Missed Shoemoney
Shoemoney was here in Phoenix, AZ for the past few days. Last night he hosted a tweetup and ivited everyone to attened. I work a “day” job that often has me working 2nd shift. I wanted to attend the tweetup as it was an excellent opportunity to meet Shoemoney and many others. Unfortunately I had to work my day job and was unable to attened.
I got kind of frustrated as this kind of opportunity doesn’t come around everyday, and I don’t like my day job anyway. It pays the bills, and I am grateful, but its not what I want to do. My normal response would have been to get mad and get down. Then I would have gone into a slump and been un productive for the next week or two.
After my previous post about association I have noticed a HUGE difference. Just by being on twitter every day and reading and communication with successful people my perspective has completely changed. Associating with people that are where I want to get to is like an injection of a productive attitude.
My thought this time around is what do I need to do to be ready for an opportunity the next time it presents itsself. The answer is as pound it out | work my rear end off between now and whenever it is. The bottom line, this time I am motivated to move forward and hammer it out. Associating with the right people is an amazing thing. Twitter is an amazing tool.
Business and Web 2.0
The more I learn the more I realize how little I really know. Fortunately for me there are those people much greater then myself who are willing to share with me what they know. Also fortunately for me there is the Internet that allows me to connect and learn from these people. The past few days I have spent some time dealing with things like Motivation to work, Associating with the right people, how to use Social Media and related issues.
My first issue is Motivation. I work a regular 40 per week day job (1st and 2nd shift). Motivating myself to work in my time away from work and on my days off from my regular job can be tough. I work with people who are not motivated beyond coming to work, going home, and spending all the money if not more then all the money they have. These are the majority of my “friends” and the influence I am under all too much. Aside from them I have my family and 1 other good friend that I talk to regularly. The 1 good friend is/was the only solid business contact I have and he is always moving forward and runs his own business. He has been a great help to me, but most other people, outside of my immediate family are neutral at best when it comes to moving forward and helping me stay motivated to grow my business. Here in lies the problem, You Are Who You Associate With. John Chow has expertly addressed my issue here: Guilty by Association. After reading his advice I realized that the motivation stuggles I have been having is due to not associating myself with the right people. I have heard that you will never earn more then 10% above what your 5 closest friends earn. Well for me that means as of a few days ago I was destined to be broke for the rest of my life. LOL. Also, I believe John Chow said that you are the average of your 5 closest friends. So with that enlightenment I realized my goal is simply to surround myself with people greater then myself – From how to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (excellent read IMO).
So I figured Facebook and Twitter were the best way for me to start, but I didn’t really understand how to use them. I mean how do you use Facebook and Twitter and whatever else to create friendships and associate yourself with successful people anyway? Epic fail on my part for not grasping ahold of this before now, but thanks to Gary Vanerchuck who expertly answers this question: It’s not stalking, it’s a darn handshake. Thanks to Gary’s video and a video I watched and blogged about some time ago I finally have an understanding of how to use Web 2.0. It about a hand shake, its about relationships, its what the business world is becoming. I am finally onboard.
So now that I know how to use it, I have to go and do it. Now I am back to the whole motivational factor. I can make myself just do it for a while, but that won’t last long enough for me to be successful. However I decided to start with Twitter. After using twitter for only a few days I had some wonderful motivation that I gleened and am charged up to keep going. This post by Robin Sharma is great: The Fire Inside along with another great video by Gary Vanerchuck: Stop crying, think, wipe your tear and crush it!
Having only been using twitter now for just less then a week, I am starting to learn. I am learning how to shake peoples hand and people are shaking my hand back. Its quite invigorating. I am excited, I know that success is not a skill or a talent, its a result of a grip load of hard work. I will work hard, and I will be successful. To sum it up here is a great quote from @marieforleo on Twitter:
Are you engaging or enduring? In any given moment , this determines your success.
Finally got my name as my domain! – Gripmoney moving to MAttBorden.com
My name MAttBorden.com has been unavailable. Thus I started Grip Money some time ago for lack of a better option. I was checking domains the other day and I randomly just checked for mattborden.com and it was available! I was shocked and thought it was a mistake. I was in such a hurry to buy it I didnt even take the time to grab a discount code from Digital Point (as I usually do, typically saves $1 per domain). I just bought it and still didnt believe it for a few days.
This opens up a whole new realm for me. Now I can brand my name over years to come, like John Chow and others. Altough I doubt I will ever be as popular as him, but anyway. 
I have twitter.com/mattborden and feedburer.com/mattborden and am moving forwared. Keeping my picutre the same for all avatars, its of me so that makes branding unique. I still use the name loopline on forums like DP, but the rest will all be MAtt Borden going forward.
Thus in the coming week or two I will redirect gripmoney.com to MAttBorden.com and that will be the permanent domain name. I am also going to start posting more often, hopefully 1 time per week or more and turn this blog into something worth reading! So if you are signed up for the Gripmoney RSS feed, be sure to sign up for the MAttBorden.com RSS.
Picked up 30 new domains today, $.99 .info sale at GoDaddy.
I picked up 30 new domains for my proxy sites today. I try to get them when they are a good deal and right now Godaddy.com has .info domains for $.99, thats 99 cents each! Thats a smokin deal, so I grabbed some while they are cheap. I have in the past only grabbed a few and came back a couple weeks later to find that they had gone up to $3 each. Which means I could only get 10 for the same price as 30. Its not a huge price difference, but cash is cash you know.
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