It seems I must be doing something right with Twitter, even though I don’t twitter everyday, and sometimes even miss a week or two, my twitter followers count continues to climb…

It seems the automated BlogMyTweet.com plugin that I have added to my main blogs (like this one) does help to even bring in some traffic to the blogs as well, so it appears that I’m not just twittering away to myself, phew!

lol…

I’ve recently added a twitter “Follow Me on Twitter” graphical button to my blogs to see if they help to pick up even more new “followers” and it does seem to be helping.

Here’s three of the best sites I’ve found with free Twitter “follow me” buttons you can use: -

Free Twitter Buttons

Free Twitter Graphics

Free Twitter Follow Me Buttons

I’ve also added the TwitterCounter.com chicklet to display the number of followers I currently have, which seems to add a nice touch of social proof, encouraging people to go ahead an follow me.

you can check out “TwitterCounter” here: -

http://twittercounter.com/?username=mattgarrett

and then enter your own twitter username to see your stats and get your own counter button code.

or download the  the plugin here: -

http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/twittercounter.zip

Although the days that I seem to have the most new followers sign up is the days that I make several tweets, especially those where I end up having a conversation with other people…

I’ve also tried to avoid the temptation to post “irrelevant” tweets, like: -

“I’m making a cup of organic free trade vanilla falvoured green tea and listening to the new Metallica album this morning”

as I know those kind of tweets tend to put me off following other people, unless they mix in a LOT of real content, although I have to admit one or two may have slipped in…

here’s a great post with 20 tips for getting the most from twitter: -

20 Tips For Using Twitter

and you can also see your own Twitter “Rank” by entering your username here: -

Twitter Grader

My “Rank” is currently 98.1, which puts me 0.03 below the “UK Twitter Elite”, which is topped by fellow bloggers Chris Garrett  (no relation) and Caroline Middlebrook

Quick Tip: using this to get your own Grade will mean that your twitter profile shows up on the front page of the site for a short while, which may help you to pick up a few more new followers, although they may not be well “targeted”.

You can also add a twitter application to your facebook profile to have your tweets update on to your facebook page, grab the app here: -

Twitter Facebook Application

While I’m on the topic of web 2 stuff, I also made a video showing how you can add your blog to the Facebook BlogNetwork application that you should consider checking out on BlogTactics.com

I’ve added four of my main “IM” based blogs to it already, and I even added Yaro Starak’s Entrepreneurs-Journey.com blog to the network, as he hadn’t done so yet.

If you’re wondering whether it’s worth adding your blog, well I spotted that Darren Rowse has well over 500 people following his ProBlogger.com blog on this facebook app, so I’d say it is, especially as it only takes a couple of minutes to add your blog, so go watch the video on how to do so: -

BlogNetwork Facebook Application

and you can follow my blog on the BlogNetworks Facebook application from here: -

Matt Garrett on Facebook

Perhaps you should do the same for your favorite bloggers, it’s a great way of making a connection and getting chatting with someone…

and don’t forget you can add links to any of your own sites to your facebook profile using the TagK application -
facebook backlinks application

and please start following me on Twitter @MattGarrett, I need to get my “Grade” higher!
thanks!

Get more Twitter Followers

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“Too many emails!”

that’s the most common comment I recieve from people who unsubscibe and it’s not surprising.

one of my subscribers mentioned recently that he’d had more than a dozen emails about Mike Filsaime’s Traffic Fusion on the launch day, which actually put him off.

I had to admit that I’d had around 3 times that many, but then I’m on just about every marketers list, including all my JV partners and adswaps partners, it helps to be able to spot the best stuff out there and find new JV/adswap partners, but it can get a bit much, even as a full time marketer who doesn’t have a full time job on top.

For anyone still juggling a “job” and their new internet marketing business it can be a killer…

In fact, receiving too many emails is also the best reason for unsubscribing from peoples lists, as With so many offers for the best new thing” flying around it’s very easy to get distracted and lose focus.

In order to be successful online you will do better by just finding one or two things that your comfortable with and focus on them until they start to bring in some cash (e.g. blogging and article marketing).

so what’s the solution?

well, I recommend keeping a separate folder in your email program for all the emails you get from marketers and when you read one that you like mark it as a good one, and vice versa.

If you’re on several marketers lists then you’ll find it easy to spot those who are just using the deafult “promo email” provided for the product…

Then every 4-6 weeks you can have a look through the folder and unsubscribe from all the marketers/lists that haven’t sent at least 1 or 2 good emails in that period…

this should help you to keep your emails down to just those that are usefull and worth spending a few minutes reading.

As per Tim Ferris’s “The 4 Hour Work Week” (a must read book), you should also limit your “email time” each day/week and not have your email software open so that you get distracted everytime a new email drops in to your inbox. I find doing so has made a big difference to how much work I get done in a day, although I admit I’m not perfect at following this discipline, let’s call it a” work in progress”…

~##~

just a quick reminder I’ll be at the Focus Marketing Seminar in London on Oct 17th to 19th if you fancy a beer and a chat.

if you sign up through my affiliate link I may even buy you the beer - have a beer with MattG

you can read more about it on David Congreave’s TheLucidBlog.com Blog - Focus Marketing Seminar

Matt Garrett

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If you’ve been in the Internet Marketing (IM) market for any length of time you’ll be familiar with the principle of a “One Time Offer” (OTO), where after signing up for a free offer (or a paid product) you will be be given a “special offer” for a product or service, usually at a discounted price, but will only get that price if you take the offer right then.

It’s a fairly standard marketing approach for professional online marketers (big and small) to make such an offer and can be very effective.

However, it can also cause confusion and irritation if people are not expecting it or haven’t come across it before, I recently recieved a support ticket accusing me of being a “con merchant” because of it…

I use AdSwaps as part of my list building process and it works very well, adding over 2,000 new subscribers to my newsletter in the last 24 days for example.

After signing up for my free offer the visitor will be sent to a OTO page, as well as being sent an email with a optin confirmation link in it (for “double optin” to comply with the “Can Spam Act” rules).

Only once they have clicked on the link in that confirmation email they will then get sent the download link for the free offer/report, as the “free report” is being offered on the basis that they sign up for my newsletter.

But, if someone is not familiar with this practice they can end up looking at a OTO page where there are no free download links and they’re being asked to pay for something…

This can obviously cause a feeling of having been “conned” by a free offer that they’re not going to get, even though it’s already on the way to them via email.

for most of my AdSwaps I make sure that people are sent to a “email confirmation instructions” page first so that they know what to expect, they are then sent to the OTO page when they click on the confirmation link in the email.

but I’ve recently set up my OTO on the PayDotCOm affiliate program so that I can offer my adswap partners a commission, however this means I have to leave out the confirmation page and this has resulted in me receiving a LOT more support tickets and emails about this.

When I say “a LOT”, it’s still only around 5-10 people out of close to 10,000 emailed (which is around 0.1%), so it’s not a huge number, but it is higher than I am used to seeing or wish to see.

To be fair the problem seems to have been made far worse over the last week or so as the autoresponder service I use (aweber) has had some real problems getting the confirmation emails sent out, with delays of over 12 hours last week, and the same again yesterday.

I have over 100 optins that are showing as unconfirmed from yesterday and from the support tickets I’ve received it seems to be simply because they still haven’t received the confirmation email, nit a good situation.

In fact, these problems, combined with AWeber’s recent SIGNIFICANT price rise have promoted me to look at alternatives to aweber, but I’ll save that for another post, once I’ve had chance to test out the best.

So what’s the solution?

1. Make a post like this and send it to my list to help people understand how an OTO works and that they are not being “conned”.

2. use a different affiliate pogram for my adswap OTO affiliate program that will allow me to put the “confirmation” page back in so people know the download link will be received via follow up email

3. mention the OTO process to people in the adswap emails that I send out so that it’s not unexpected

guess i’ve got some work to do to get all that done…

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Alex Goad released his new Affiliate Payload report today, you can find out what I think of it in my full review here: -

Affiliate Payload Review

There haven’t been as many bonuses on offer form other marketers as I’d expected, but I did spot four worth listing, so I thought I’d list them here as usual, along with my own of course.

 ~##~

I’m going to list mine first, but there are 3 other bonuses below, from Ben Shaffer, Ellery Coleman and Chris McNeeney respectively, just in case one of those is of more interest to you.

My Bonus Offer -

1. Two keyword targeted articles written for you for your first two cpa offers (value $14)

2. 400 keywords researched and analyzed for you, including search volumes, competition (kei) and ppc bid values (value $54).

Note: I’ve owned and run the TopKeywordlists.com private membership site for the last 3 years, so I know a thing or two about keyword research.

3. my personal list of extra places to submit your articles for extra traffic to your CPA offers (value $17)

Total bonus value = $85
 
which is more than it costs for the report, nuff said!

here’s my link again: -

http://www.mat4.com/files/apl.html

and just send a copy of your receipt me askmattg “at” gmail.com or via askmattg.com to claim the bonus, you can tellme the two keywords you want the articles and research done for whenever you’re ready, i.e. once you’ve found a good CPA offer to run with.

~##~

Ben Shaffer’s bonus offer: -

Ben’s offer is only available to the first 50 buyers and in his words: -

Adsense is not just about building sites anymore, but about how to drive effective and targetted traffic. ie. how to get people to your site, but more importantly the right people who will come to your site and click on your ads.

Recently, one of my [Ben] friends online developed a system to automate this which is so powerful and potentially so lethal that I [Ben] knew that this is something that I [Ben] had to have. And perhaps more importantly (for you) knew that I had to give you an opportunity to see it also.

So if you buy through his link and you’re one of the first 50 he’ll give you access to it.

Ben’s link: -

http://www.clarifywithben.com/recommends/affpay

to claim your bonus from Ben paste your Clickbank receipt at

replytoben.com

~##~

Ellery Coleman’s Bonus Offer: -

a copy of Craigslist Blackhat System

and

a copy of Killer Video Conversions

Ellery’s link: -

http://z30.com/payload-ae

then send a copy of your receipt to: -

support “at” articleexplosion.com

~##~

Chris McNeeney’s Bonus offer: -

Chris has prepared an extensive “Landing Page Formula” report tailored precisely to be used with Affiliate Payload. 

This will show you the exact strategies and techniques to implement on your Payload landing pages to almost guarantee your Payload campaigns convert like crazy so you profit from the get-go.

Chris’s Link: -

http://www.dayjobkiller.com/affpay

then send an email with a copy of your Clickbank receipt to: -

affpayload “at” dayjobkiller.com

 ~##~

Chris Freville’s Bonus Offer: -

It’s his Ultimate Guide to Super-Affiliate Status in 60 Days or Less.

In 96 pages, it covers:

1. The Basics of Affiliate Marketing
2. Choosing Products that Work
3. PPC Affiliate Marketing Techniques
4. Setting Up for The Next Steps: Your Own Site 5. The Affiliate Blogger 6. Web 2.0 and Social Networking - The Affiliates Best Friends 7. Email Marketing 101 8. Furthering Your Affiliate Business 9. What is an Insider, and How Do I Become One?
10. Niche Marketing / Name Building as an Affiliate

He only just finished writing the Affiliate Insider last week, and it is all Brand New material, not even released yet.

when it is it’s likely to cost at least $147.

it will only be available for the first 50 buyers…

Chris’s Link: -

http://www.automatedlistbuilder.com/alexgoad.php

then send your Clickbank receipt to chris “at” web20stampede.com and he will send you your bonuses within 24 hours.

~##~

and here’s my Bonus offer again, just in case…

1. Two keyword targeted articles written for you for your first two cpa offers (value $14)

2. 400 keywords researched and analyzed for you, including search volumes, competition (kei) and ppc bid values (value $54).

Note: I’ve owned and run the TopKeywordlists.com private membership site for the last 3 years, so I know a thing or two about keyword research.

3. my personal list of extra places to submit your articles for extra traffic to your CPA offers (value $17)

Total bonus value = $85
 
which is more than it costs for the report, nuff said!

here’s my link again: -

http://www.mat4.com/files/apl.html

and just send a copy of your receipt me askmattg “at” gmail.com or via askmattg.com to claim the bonus, you can tellme the two keywords you want the articles and research done for whenever you’re ready, i.e. once you’ve found a good CPA offer to run with.

hope you found this useful, sorry it’s so long, but there’s a heck of a lot of stuff in the report…

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Damn, I had no idea it would be so difficult to pick a winner, I think that’s why I’ve not been in a rush to close the competition, I wasn’t looking forward to trying to pick just one winner, there’s some excellent posts!

You can read the original post and the replies here: -

http://mattgarrett.com/jv-tips-100-prize/

There are a few bits especially that I’d like to highlight: -

All of Reed’s points are bang on, unsurprisingly, but meeting someone at a seminar shouldn’t be underestimated. Just one JV partner that I made at the last seminar I went to paid for the cost of the seminar for me…

Giving the person a testimonial for their product is also a great tip.

Ben mentioned that it’s a good idea to offer potential JV partners a review copy of your product, you shouldn’t really expect them to pay for it after all, and they’re not likely to promote it if they don’t get to check it out…

Ben’s point ofmaking sure you give the right information so the potential jv partner can make thedecision easily is also very important. Most people you get in touch with will get several such emails each and every day, the more clearly you can present your offer the more likley that it will be read, rather than deleted.

John’s suggestion of creating a product to promote their product can also be very effective…

Andy also mentions that you REALLY want to try and get them to include an email for your product in their autoresponder follow up series, as this can bring you long term profits.

Andy makes another exellent point that your really do need to keeo in mind from the start - “if you first consider what you can do for them before thinking about what they can do for you, you can build a much stronger JV relationship”

and there’s a couple of other ideas that occured to me: -

1. offer the potential jv partner a special discount that they can give their readers. I’ve even set up permanant discount offer pages for some of my jv partners.
2. offer to put one of their “offers” on your download page as a “unannounced bonus”
3. and obviously offer to put a promo for their product in to your autoresponder follow up series

so who’ve I picked as the winner?

well, all four posts covered important points, heck I could probably turn the answers in to a mini ebook or report, so I’m gonna be a total wimp and call it a draw and send Reed, Ben, John & Andy $30 each, which should be enough for a beer and a pizza on me as a thank you for their suggestions and time.

Thanks guys!

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Wow! What a weekend!

I don’t make it to many internet marketing “events”, but this weekend I had the chance to help out Tim Brocklehurst with one of his TheFreedomClass workshops.

The workshops are designed to get people totally up and running with their own MyViralSpiral3.com site, including a blog, their own info product and affiliate program and show them how to start getting traffic in to build their list virally.

So by the end of the weekend they’ve got everything in place to start building a REAL online business that will last.

I’ve had MVS3 for a while now as I recognised how powerful it is when I saw Tim present it at Robert Puddy’s BritPack seminar last year, but hadn’t had time to get to grips with it properly, so the weekend was also the ideal opportunity for me to do the same as the students, get it all up and running and building me a list virally.

I found it so easy to set up and use it was no problem for me to do mine and have time to help the students.

Tim was smart enough to realise that having a couple of other internet marketing tech heads along to help everyone keep up to speed and it seemed to work very well, although Rob O’Callaghan and I did a lot of running around, everyone did end up with a fully set up and running MVS list building business.

Tim also had some great guest speakers lined up: -

First up was Ange Wayne who was so energized and passionate in her presentation it was contagious and she had the whole class, including us “experts”, swept up with her, which is pretty impressive for us “reserved” Brits.

If you ever get the chance to see her speak I highly advise you make it happen, she will open your eyes to your true “greatness”. I know that sounds a little “corney”, but if you do see her speak, you will understand totally.

Then we had Martin Avis, who I’ve know for a few years now and whilst he’s a fairly quiet, un-assuming guy, he really does know his stuff and makes it easy for people to understand how to do stuff like writing articles and building a relationship with you subscribers the RIGHT way.

On the second day we had Alan Forest Smith, a top copywriter who I’d never met or seen before. There were some students at the class that had seen him before and they were impressed that he wasn’t just giving the same presentation that they had seen before, it was all new stuff and real cutting edge copywriting stuff, but he also put it across so well that it was easy for even a “newbie” to understand and get the most important foundation for writing truly effective copy.

I’m not exactly a newbie at copywriting, although I tend to get experts (thanks Randy) to do most of my stuff for me, but Alan taught me quite a few VERY useful things and when I get the chance to see him speak again, I’ll jump at the opportunity.

Last up was Diane Corriette who covered podcasting and managed to keep something that could have been scary for “newbies” simple enough to be understandable and useful to everyone there.

Unfortauntly Rob didn’t get the chance to do a presentation, which is a shame as he’s got such a depth of knowledge on the latest web 2 and social site stuff.

The most important question is how did the workshop go for the students, but I guess that’s something that only they can answer, so I’m going to invite as many as I can to post comments to this post and see what they have to say…

For me the weekend was great on a lot of different levels: -

Getting my own MVS3 site up and running was probably the least important part of the weekend for me, although I know it’s going to add to my online profits this year.

Catching up with Tim, Martin and Rob is always fun, but also meeting Diane again, as well as Ange and Alan for the first time was very cool.

Having the opportunity to help Tim’s students to get to grips with everthing and make the most of the weekend and their new online list building business was also great feeling. It’s cool to have the opportunity to share my knowledge with people who are going to use it to make money online.

but the best part of the weekend was simply meeting some cool new friends who had such a positive outlook on life and were keen to get their internet businesses off to a good start!

so as well as thanking Tim, I need to thank Nicola, Suzanne, Lorna, Alison, Sue, Trisha, Lucy, Chris and everyone else who made me feel so welcome.

thanks!

Internet Marketing Blog

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These are just a few of extra JV tips that I thought of while writing yesterdays post, but couldn’t work in to the flow of the post, details of the $100 competition are at the bottom: -

1. The simplest way to start a “relationship” with a potential JV partner is to get on their newsletter, read it for a while, and when something comes up that you don’t understand or that you could help them with (i.e. have a genuine reason, don’t just make one up), get in touch.

note: being on a marketers newsletter for a while will also give you an idea of the sort of things that they promote to their subscribers. Don’t waste your time (or theirs) getting in touch with someone who only promotes a particular type of product or service if your offer is totally unrelated to it, focus on those who are likely to be intrested in what you have.

2. Always try and offer the potential JV partner that you’re approaching more than you will be getting in return, for instance rather than just sending out a promo email for them, you could also add a blog post that gives them a permanent promo for their product/offer, as well as a link back to their site

3. Sending something via old fashioned “snail mail” can be a great way of getting a potential JV partners attention, I’ve received not only postcard invites for JV offers, but even a mini remote control helicopter, although it turned out that was actually intended for another well known marketer.

4. Never ever send a broadcast email to several people, even if you use “BCC”. If you’re trying to build a relationship with someone, which is what a JV partnership is, it has to be based on trust and respect. Even the slightest hint that you’ve sent a “broadcast” email is going to get you off on totally the wrong foot.

5. Never be afraid to ask, if you don’t ask you can’t get a “yes”, but ALWAYS be polite and respectful.

That’s just a few extra tips that popped in to my mind while writing yesterdays post on building JV partnerships, so here’s your chance to win $100 cash (paid via PayPal)…

Post your best tips in the comments and I’ll pick my favorite from all the comments as the winner and send the poster $100, can’t say fairer than that can I…

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JV Partnerships are one of the most powerful tactics for getting traffic and building your list in internet marketing, but where do you start..?

If you’re just beginning and don’t have a list or product then that’s really where you need to start.

JV’s are usually based on a relationship that you’ve built up with the prospective JV partner, but you still need to be able to offer something of value, good JV partnerships are never “one sided”, and you want to make them as good an offer for your new partner as possible, as it should be seen as the start of a long term relationship/friendship, not just a “one off” thing…

Just writing an email saying “promote my product and you’ll make a bunch of money” is simply not going to work, unless you have something new and exceptional, which is rare, and it’s more likely to stop that potential JV partner from ever wanting to work with you.

So Step 1 of your plan should be to start building a subscriber list/newsletter.

the simplest way to do so is to grab a PLR product, re-brand it, and preferably add some extra value to it with your own perspective and ideas on the topic it covers.

then you can start using it as a free offer on a “Squeeze page” to get people to sign up to your newsletter.

I recommend using AWeber for managing your list, you can get a free trial here

There’s also some free videos on using AWeber and ading optins forms to your blogs here:

Free Internet Marketing Tutorial Videos

but how do you get traffic to that offer page to start building your list?

Well, the quickest way is to use PPC (Pay Per Click), but that can be expensive depending on your market.

I recommend trying out some less well known PPC sites (e.g. 7search) if you’re on a smaller budget.

The cheaper, but slower, way is to use good old fashioned article marketing, just don’t forget to do some keyword reseach to make sure you’re targetting terms that will get you some traffic and are targetted enough for it to convert in to optins.

The advantage with article marketing is that you do the work once and the traffic will keep on coming for months and years to come, so all you need to do is keep writing and submitting more articles to increase the number of optins you’re getting each day.

Step 2 - AdSwaps

Once you have have 250+ subscribers on your list you can use a free forum like Internet Marketing Ad Swaps to start doing AdSwaps with other list owners, which can easily double the number of optins you get each month.

Step 3 - Giveaways

Giveaway events are a great way to get even more optins for your list, but most will only allow you to join as a “contributor” once you have a list of a certain size.

Alex Perez-Prat runs a very useful group on FaceBook where you can find out about upcoming giveaway events: -
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6405644093

You can get more suggestions on how to get your own products for giveaway events here:

List Building With Giveaways and AdSwaps

In the month of May this year I added over 1,500 new subscribers to just one of my lists from just doing Giveaways and AdSwaps, so I know this works…

All this extra list building and taking part in giveaways will also raise your profile with other marketers, so you should start to find it easier to build those all important relationships for future joint ventures, especially as your new list will allow you to promote other peoples products and become a JV partner for them.

It’s a lot easier to approach someone to become your JV partner if you’ve already promoted their product!!

Step 4 - Permanant JV agreements

Your long term aim should be to set up permanent JV agrements with other succesful marketers.

This could be as simple as trading spots in your autoresponder follow up sequence with another marketer, or it could be something a little more sophisticated, like setting up a “partnership” site with some fellow marketers that you get on with and compliment your own areas of expertise, so that as a group you can offer even more to potential subscribers and customers…

To see an eample of this in action take a look at the newly launched AskTheIMExperts.com

This is a great example of four succesful internet marketers with diffeent areas of expertise working together on an ongoing basis, to the benefit of all four, Kevin Riley, Daniel McGonagle, Fabian Tan, and some guy with a silly goatee…

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Discussion of twitter seems to be all the rage at the moment, so I thought I’d chip in, again.

I posted something a while back about “getting” twitter, and I have to say that whilst I am finding it worthwhile for myself, I can still understand why some people think it’s just another time sucking social black hole.

I now spend more time than I would prefer each day keeping an eye on my twitter feed, I use Twhirl.org, so it “beeps” me when there is something new, which does help.

Neil Shearing posted an “anti twitter” post recdently on his blog: -
http://www.neilshearing.com/2008/05/02/is-twitter-just-bird-chat-for-people-with-add/

and the ironic thing is that most of the replies he got to the post came from someone posting the link to his post on twitter…

Now Neil does fire of some fairly strong points about why and how twitter can be a waste of time, but if you read his post, and the replies you’ll notice that he actually mentions one of the reasons I enjoy twitter: -

“or a group of work colleagues twittering socially”…

If you only follow people you are interested in, then this is the situation you can get from twitter, and trust me, this makes it a powerful tool.

Suddenly I’m building relationships with “peers” that I might not have been able to get in touvh with via email, and it’s all happening naturally!

now you need to understand that I’m a fairly “practical” person (virgo) and am happy to kick things out if they are wasting my time, which I thought Twitter might, but I’ve somehow managed to put together a list of people that I follow that regularly supply me with interesting/useful info that I wouldn’t otherwise get.

Some of the “tweets” I’ve received have even helped me to provide my newsletter subscribers with very valuable content, as an example, just a couple of days ago Michael S Copeland Twittered about a free audio on how to deal with self limiting beliefs, which is a very important aspect of gaining success in life.

You can see my blog post about it, along with the link to the free audio and Mike’s blog post here:

http://iamuncovered.com/free-self-limiting-beliefs-audio/

I was able to shate that free audio with my subscribers because I saw Michael’s Twitter about it…

There’s another blog post I’d recommend reading if you are interested in building your own Twitter following…

http://www.doshdosh.com/how-to-get-more-twitter-followers/

DoshDosh makes some excellent points, and yes you can get more Twitter followers by following other people, his example of “Osen” is perfect, but my advice would be very strongly not to do this.

It’s down to the twitter equivalent of website keyword targettiing, follow people people you are interested in, and twitter good stuff and you will gain followers who are actually interested in what you have to say.

Osen may have ended up with over 7 thousand followers (after signing up to follow ove 41 thousand other people, but how may of them are actually interested in what he has to say.

Osen’s tactic seems effective, but I would happily put money down on him not having made much money from that “experiment”.

and of course Mr ProBlogger, Darren Rowse, also has an opinion on twitter that’s worth reading: -

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/05/08/5-tips-to-grow-your-twitter-presence/

here’s the thing to remember though, Twitter is not going away.

Twitter is becoming bigger and bigger.

If you “get” Twitter now, I believe the time you spend will be a good investment.

For me, I know that I now have the opportunity to build relationships with people that it would have been hard to do so without twitter…

nuff said.
;]

Matt Garrett

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Wow!

I can’t believe I haven’t made a post to this blog since the start of the month!

It shows what can happen when we get some sunny weather here in the UK!

I know us Brits are supposed to be “obsessed” with the weather, but that’s because a lot of the time it does rain or get “cloudy”, so when we have a week or so of summer weather in May we tend to want to enjoy it, just in case it’s the only summer we get…

That may sound negative, but you have to remember that last summer I had to leave my home for several weeks because the flooding was so bad there was no power or fresh water, that was a serious exception to the norm, but we don’t have great summers here that often, so when it feels like summer, we have to rush out and enjoy it while it’s there…

And the weather isn’t the only factor in my lazy lack of posting, having also just moved to a far better part of town, in walking distance of all the best pubs, I seem to have re-discovered having a “life” outside the internet.

and I have to admit I’m not even going to make this blog post particularly intersting, let alone “groundbreaking”!

Instead I’m going to tell you a little bit about the history of this domain name, “mattgarrett.com”

Until I turned this in to one of my “main” blogs a month or so ago, this was pretty much a “dead” domain name.

Let me explain a little more..

MattGarrett.com was the first domain name I ever registered, about 9 years ago, and back then registering a domain wasn’t quite so cheap as it is now, MattGarrett.com cost me over £250 ($500+)!

In fact when I registered the domain there were far more valuable domain names available, including domains names that have sold for $millions since, so I guess it’s a sign of my own “hubris” that I registered this domain when I could have registered something with a very high “retail”/”resale” value…

or perhaps I just have a lot of belief in myself…

So why didn’t I use this domain more?

Well, back in 2000/2001 I did, but even back then when I was first learning about “SEO”, I was experimenting with the “blackhat” side of things, and for a while the site did very well, it got up to PR6 at one point and then was hit with a PR0 before (back in 2004) people were even talking about Google Penalizing sites for bad liking practices…

I did spend some time on the site correcting what I believed Google were penalizing the site for, but back then there was no “re-inclusion” proceedure, so I shot off a few emails to the big G with the typical result, no-reply, so I stopped updating the site, getting links to it, or doing any work on it for several years.

and then about 6 months ago the domain suddenly got some “google love” again, the PR was back and it was back in the index, after 3+ years of being “shunned”.

I hadn’t changed anything on the site itself, so I’ve no idea why google decided to pay attention to the site again, but once I realised they were I decided to do the natural thing (for me), set it up as a blog and start blogging…

has it worked?

check for yourself, do a search on Matt Garrett, with or without “’s and this is the site you will find at no. 1, at present anyway..

so what’s the moral of this post?

a. I’m self obsessed plonker who could have registered a valuable domain like “business.com”, but chose to register my own name instead… 

b. who knows what the frack google are going to do to your site

c. blogs are good!

d. taking time out fromn blogging to enjoy the sun when it is shining is a good thing to do.

Matt Garrett

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