I can rebuild them. I have the technology. I can use a different platform to completely transform my “tumblelogs” into full-fledged something or others. Better than they were before. Better. Stronger. Faster.

I’ve created new blogs for three of my keyword phrases, and if I don’t fall asleep I’ll have the other one finished before bed.

What am I doing now?

I’m building better content. I haven’t even added affiliate links yet. I’m just trying to get listed. One of my blogs was listed at #11 and #12 for the exact and broad match phrase, respectively, in less than two hours. Still waiting for the others. I’m also using two blogging platforms. One is kind of iffy, I never heard of it before and doesn’t have that great a layout, and the other is probably going to be one of the more popular Tumblr replacements. I won’t mention their names but you can probably figure out the latter.

Each blog has at least five initial posts with decent content. I’ve mixed a lot of other media in there, including videos and pictures. I’ve actually acquired a genuine interest in one of my niches, and I think it’s really showing in my posts.

Technorati Tags: 30DC, TDC, Thirty Day Challenge, 30 Day Challenge, Tumblr, Tumblrgeddon, Tumbliterated, Tumbludgeoned, Tumblrdered, Tumblelogs, Content, Better Content, Six Million Dollar Blog

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Word on the forum is that Tumblr just mass deleted all the 30 Day Challenge tumblelogs. In other words, we just got F’d in the A. All my tumblelogs are gone.

Just a small setback, right? It seems we’ll have to use some other Web 2.0 territory to plant our flags. I’ll tell you straight up, though, if there is another “official” blogging platform or other free platform, I won’t be using it. At least not for most of my blogs. The mass creation and promotion of tumblelogs brought this upon us, and I won’t be following fellow 30DCers off a cliff like a herd of bison.

I had a feeling this would happen, and I’m sure a number of you did, too. I have to hand it to Tumblr, though. They did a great job of cleaning up very fast. I don’t know what they used to mass delete all of them, but unless they have a crew of people sifting through the latest created tumblelogs, they probably used something to detect affiliate links or similar system to detect our tumbelogs.

I know that Ed’s tumblelog is still around, but that might be because (if using human detection) it was built a bit before the tumblespam, or because his affiliate links are cloaked.

Don’t worry folks, it’s not the end of the world. Time to look for some free online real estate.

Technorati Tags: Tumblr, Tumblelog, 30DC, Thirty Day Challenge, 30 Day Challenge, TDC, Ownage, Pwnage, Banhammer

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So I just woke up and saw that neither of my four tumblelogs were ranked, although one of my posts on Netscape was listed. A little disappointed, even if I would never expect to be listed in less than 24 hours. But this isn’t what I was afraid of.

While using SocialPoster, I noticed something. I noticed a lot of other tumblelogs on all of the social bookmarking sites! It seems the one problem of having a huge turnout for the 30 Day Challenge, aside from the increased bandwidth usage, is that when Ed posted Rob’s Tumblr and SocialPoster videos there would be a huge surge of freshly created Tumblr sites posted on the major social bookmarking sites.

It appears I’m not the only one who noticed this. The funny thing is early yesterday morning, just hours after the SocialPoster video was put up and before I was even finished all my tumblelogs, IndianPad banned Tumblr links from being posted.

The problem is that you have all this tumblespam on Digg, Reddit, Netscape, etc. which is getting very little “love” except from teammates and a few other fellow 30DC’ers. Most tumblelogs don’t have much in the way of content, while there are some that really do a good job of using great, even “sticky” content in just a few posts. Unfortunately most of those get buried in the deluge of other tumblelogs on the social bookmarking sites.

This publicity is also turning Tumblr into the next Squidoo, and may get “slapped” by Google in the future. Although a more likely scenario that could happen before the end of August is Tumblr deleting the blogs with the least valuable content on them. And seeing how almost everyone is posting a couple times and just leaving their tumblelogs alone, that might not bode well for 30 Day challengers. In fact, I think I’ll make another post on my tumblelogs today.

This challenge is going to be especially difficult since I’m working without a team and because my goal is $100. Now that I think about it, I have less than two weeks to make $100.

Technorati Tags: 30DC, TDC, Thirty Day Challenge, 30 Day Challenge, Parasite SEO, Ticks, Tapeworms, Tumbleweeds, Tumblr, Tumblespam, Tumblelogs, Blogs, IndianPad, SocialPoster, Web 2.0, Social Bookmarking, Googleslap, Content

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Just a few hours ago, I posted on my first Tumblr blog, marking the end of the strategic phase and the beginning of the tactical phase. We’ve laid the plans as per Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and now we wage war!

It is a battle against ourselves, against laziness and lameness, and tap into our potential. It is a battle against the internet, an unforgiving environment where you will find some of the most unsavory characters that have ever traversed the web. It is a battle against all odds to reach our goals before the month’s end.

I’m all open. All out on the internet now. I’m still finishing up my last two tumblelogs. I’ve submitted my completed tumblelogs to a whole slew of social bookmarking websites, not necessarily to get traffic, although that would be a bonus, but to get Google to notice my blogs and rank them quickly.

The tumblelog-building process has been enjoyable to say the least. My original plan of 2-3 posts ended up being 3-5 posts. I discovered that I could easily add video content which would complement and add much more value than just my text and odd picture. I also sprinkled affiliate links here and there. One potentially “killer” keyword phrase has about 34 000 results, but 400 daily searches according to GTrends. If I can even hit the top 10 I’m sure I could get a nice juicy slice of that traffic.

I also noticed that I’m probably going to have some friendly competition with fellow 30DC participants in a couple of my niches. I hope they can settle with being #10 as I steal 1st place on the SERPs. :p

Today is a good day, and if I get ranked and start getting some traffic, today will be quite nice.

And if I make my first sale, today will be super awesome.

Technorati Tags: 30DC, TDC, Thirty Day Challenge, 30 Day Challenge, Tumblr, Affiliate Marketing, ClickBank, GTrends, Google, Genghis Khan, Sun Tzu, Art of War

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Today Ed covered deeper market research. I know we’re supposed to take it slow, but I feel like I’m being teased with little bits of information each day. But we’re closing in on the earth shattering, mind blowing techniques that he’s been going on about. It’s only been a few hours since I watched the latest videos, but I want it to be tomorrow already.

Something I’m realizing is how much of the Web 2.0 phenomenon I’m being exposed to each day, and how many “Web 2.0-ish” applications and tools I’m using. Before the 30 Day Challenge, I never really got into Web 2.0. I never really used my personal MySpace or Facebook, didn’t use del.icio.us or an RSS feed reader until almost a month ago, and this blog which went live in late June is my first personal blog.

Now? The size of my feed list that I go through every day has more than doubled, most of which are blogs, including those of fellow 30 Day Challengers. I’m using StumbleUpon for the first time and I’ve already had a taste of the power of driving Web 2.0 traffic because of it. I’ve got ScribeFire, which is what I’m using to post on Life Conquest and other blogs. I’m using Google Notebook and Google Docs & Spreadsheets because I’ve been doing my research on my desktop and laptop and wanted updated notes and tables easily accessible to both of them. I’ve also signed up on Flickr, but haven’t really used it yet.

My previous strategy to drive Web 2.0 traffic was simply submitting to social bookmarking websites like Digg or Reddit. But as we’ll learn in the next 30 days, a multi-pronged approach, not unlike the graphic displayed above (lol), will likely be used to bring in the free traffic I need to make my $100.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, 30 Day Challenge, 30DC, TDC, Thirty Day Challenge, Web Applications

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For those who don’t know, the 30 Day Challenge (30DC) is an annual internet-wide challenge to earn your first dollar on the internet. This year, however, the challenge is to earn your first $10 on the internet. It’s open to anyone and everyone, free of charge. I recommend all three* of my blog readers to sign up for the 30 Day Challenge, as it’s going to take place in the month of August. If you’ve never made a dollar on the internet in your life, you will be shown, step-by-step, how to start earning money on the internet. If you’re a veteran internet marketer, Ed Dale (who is spearheading the 30DC) says there are things they are going to cover that will “blow you away.”

This year is different, not only because they’ve upped the challenge from $1 to $10 (of course, you can set whatever goal you wish!) but also because you will not have to spend a cent to get started. In previous challenges, you would pay for things like PPC advertising to get traffic. This year, everything will be completely free. This year is going to be “completely different,” they say. I’m thinking most likely that it will focus on using Web 2.0-oriented techniques to drive traffic and get sales, but I don’t really know much about it as they’re still setting it up for Day 1.

Seriously, you have absolutely nothing to lose except some time. And the 30DC is going to lay it out step-by-step for you. Those running it and the participants are also a very supportive group and just a great group of people. I can easily hit that $10 mark, so I’m aiming for $100 by the end of August. I’ll keep you updated!

30 Day Challenge

*Nobody reads this blog.

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Nobody is reading this blog now except me. That’s going to change by next week. I’m going to be promoting this blog and no, not just by submitting it to blog directories!

Yeah, it’s a few days old, but it seems weird talking to myself here. Then again it seems weird that I’m making a blog about myself. Even weirder is that I’m telling you (currently non-existent) readers that I am actually planning to promote this blog. I’m going to wait a few days before I do it, maybe post a nice attention-grabbing article instead of this boring “TODAY I DID THIS, TODAY I DID THAT,” sort of post which unfortunately due to the nature of this blog will be very common.

If you’re reading now and it’s some time in early July 2007, I’ll bet you probably stumbled here through Squidoo, HubPages, or perhaps a blog directory. I expect nobody to find this place from a search engine at this point, in fact I haven’t done any intentional SEO at all on this blog. And I need some visitors first before this blog spreads through word-of-mouth.

I mentioned Squidoo and HubPages. Up until now, I only heard about these sites being used like article marketing. I’m not even sure if “article marketing” is the right term, but it is a form of marketing where you basically write an article, plug a product with an affiliate link somewhere in there, and submit it to a free article database. People can then pick up your article, put it on their blogs or websites, and due to the terms of use they have to keep the links in there and usually include a little blurb about the author (which you also write up and can put a link to your site inside). You build eleventy billion lenses or hubs, link a bunch together and include plenty of affiliate links.

I’m not going that route, but I am going to be using Squidoo, HubPages, and other similar sites I can find. I’ve been using HubPages for one of my other blogs and it’s just an RSS feed with some static extras, yet it’s given me an extra 20 uniques per day to my blog. It also offers a free backlink from a trusted domain (HubPages) which should help my PageRank quite a bit.

I’m hoping to do the same thing with this blog and get it off the ground.

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