By admin
Using the tips I suggested in my post on how to set your goals. I’m going to share with you my goals for 2009. They are not extremely ambitious, In all honesty I hope to obtain these goals in only six months or less, but we’ll have to see. You need to remember when you are making your resolutions, you can always create higher goals, but you can’t make them smaller without failing. Though for most things my philosophy is to shoot high, in this circumstance I would suggest aiming low, and when you accomplish those things then make them harder. So that was what I had in mind when I created these goals, and here they are, my goals for mastersofseo.com
500 Subscribers
200 Newsletter subscribers/Email Subscribers
2000 Comments
250 Posts
200 Visitors a day (according to Google Analytics)
PR3
First Page Ranking for How to Blog
Make enough money to buy this. With all the cool additions I need 3,703.95$
Run a Blog Contest
Release my first E-Book combining my traffic generation and SEO knowledge
Develop further my Blogging Relationships
Post Every One or Two Days
Get a better Blog Template
Develop some form of consistency in my posting, commenting, researching…
Get an Alexa ranking of under 100K
Get a Technorati Ranking of under 25K
All of these goals are very obtainable, and some might think downright wimpy for my lack of ambition. But hopefully after I do these, I can create new goals, and achieve those as well. This way I’ll be constantly completing my goals, and I’ll never be depressed because I’m always preforming better then I hoped.
So what are your Blogging goals for 2009?
By admin
So since 08 is ending, It’s time to set goals or new years resolutions for the coming year. There are several things you must keep in mind when you’re setting your goals, these are to keep you from being to ambitious and thus unpractical. Nothing grates on you more like unfulfilled assignments, or goals. I’ve compiled a list of tips to keep in mind, when you are discovering and then accomplishing your goals.
1. Be Reasonable
Every heard the phrase shoot for the moon? Well don’t. Like I said earlier, when you set goals, and don’t do them, it can make blogging incredibly depressing. Set goals that are possible to obtain, that way you won’t get frustrated if you can’t. And every time you can check off a goal, it’s such a great feeling.
2. Be Consistent
In any goal you decide, consistency is going to be the key that gets you there. Working at it continually is the only way you’re going to accomplish your goals.
3. Set up Daily Reminders
Maybe you should start posting sticky notes at your computer, or some place you frequently visit. Especially if it’s something that will take a lot of work to do, let me assure you, you will try and fine ways to get out of it.
4. Set up Accountability
Get your blogging friends to help you, with emails or text reminders. Not only will this build your relationship, you’ll be able to remember, and maybe actually get them done!
5. Get your blog readers into it
Alot of bloggers use their blogs to keep them accountable. If you start getting comments and emails to do it, you’ll have a much higher chance of succeeding. Also it bands your readers into more of a community. It gives them a cause to work together on.
6. Take Baby Steps
When your goals is x amount of money, or x amount of subscribers. And that “X” is a large number, don’t try and do it in a month. You’ll just get frustrated. If it’s feasible then fine, but if it’s not, don’t get frustrated trying to do the impossible. Split your goals up into daily or weekly activities, that are obtainable.
7. Stretch but don’t Break “yet…”
Don’t push your self to hard at first. Ease into your struggles, then once you pick up steam it’ll be much easier.
8. Take time to Rejoice in Success
It’s not all about just getting to the next goal. Take time to celebrate when you accomplish something you set out to do.
9. Track your Results
Keep track of how you’re doing so that you can be motivated to keep going. And you can see as you progress. Start a Microsoft Word or Excel file, and update it as you progress.
10. Check back on your Progress
If you are constantly looking forward, then you’ll never accomplish anything. Looking back at what you’ve accomplished can give you that push to keep going. Don’t get to ambitious, that you lose sight of what you’ve already done.
11. Strategize
You can’t accomplish anything without a plan. Make sure you have a clear strategy for how to accomplish your goals. Have a plan as specific and in depth as you can make it, and stick to it.
12. Have Clear Goals
If you don’t know exactly what you’re trying to accomplish, then you’ll never be able to do it. If you’re trying to get 100ish visitors a day as a goal, 100ish isn’t a number. You’ll get to 80 and think, “hmm this is kind of 100ish.” Make clear goals, so that you can have clear accomplishments.
13. Don’t Undercut Yourself
Don’t allow yourself to settle for “100ish.” Make a clear goal, an stick to it. Don’t settle for anything less then what your goals are. But make sure it’s a feasible goal, otherwise you’ll just get frustrated.
14. Refrain from reading Other People’s Goals
I read datmoney’s goals right before I wrote this post, and I was like crap… there’s no way I can do that. Don’t let other people’s goals bog you down. Your goals are your goals, and other people’s don’t matter. It’s great if they can accomplish them, but if you think about them you’ll just get distracted and jealous.
15. Learn from your Mistakes
Maybe you didn’t do all of yours from last year, that’s ok, just learn from what went wrong. Don’t let them go to waste, let them be learning blocks for you to move forward.
16. Don’t Let Failures Demoralize You
Just because you failed on your goals, doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Not fufilling a goal is not that big a deal, as long as worked your hardest on it. If you did your best and failed, then it wasn’t a good goal. Learn from your past goals to make new ones.
17. Set Goals that Empower you
Don’t set pointless goals. Every goal should be empowering you and igniting your passion. They may be difficult like losing weight or something, but let it ignite your passion to be muscular.
18. Critically Analyze your Goals
Make sure all of them have a clear purpose, and are something that is really worth it. If you’re going to spend so much time and energy on it make sure it’s worth the time you’re taking.
19. Romanticize about when they’re Accomplished
This is another way to keep you motivated. Keeping thinking about how incredible, and how awesome it will be when you reach that point. Never lose sight of the goal you’re striving for, and how great it will be.
20. Work at one Goal at a Time
Don’t try and pay off to many debts at once, or you’ll just end up keeping all of them. Knock them off one at a time. Some goals will probably be collective ones, so you can work on several. But if you are at a loss for time, then pick one, and gradually check them off.
By admin
Blog Review: Retireat21
This is was a paid review by Jonathan Muller of mastersofseo. If you are interested in a paid review, check out my advertise page for more information. As you can see I cover all the aspects of your site. This is a great chance for you to get constructive criticism about your site.
Today I’m presenting you with retireat21.com which is administered by Michael Dunlop
Blog Template
The blog has a nice color scheme, with the green, grey and white coming together nicely. But the blog looks very cluttered, he has every possible feature I’ve seen on a blog. He’s got ads, blog posts, featured posts, recent posts, recommended sites, favorite sites, forum activity, about page, recent interviews, an ebook, the list goes on and on. The site looks very cluttered and needs a severe spring clean up job. There are several empty white spaces at the bottom of the page for some reason, which make it look like he wasn’t finished. The header and footer, are crammed with pages, and thus looks unprofessional. Very congested site appearance, with gives you a bad first impression.
Final Grade
4/10
Jonathan’s Suggestions:
Prioritize! Figure out which of your widgets are most important, and get rid of the rest, because right now it looks like you’re trying to cram too much information, into too small a space. This would be my opinion, but ditch the Michael’s favorite sites, or make it smaller and in the footer. Get ride of a lot of the pages. Make the about box on the sidebar, into a page. I don’t know how much money the shop is making, if it’s a lot then maybe it’s worth it. But I would recommend making that into a page at the top, or getting rid of it. A section called Retire@21 products would be a great way to advertise all of the things you’re selling. You could put your e-book and t-shirt links in this. I would recommend putting it where the about page is now, you’d probably sell more, and it would look more organized. Ditch the news post, and stop posting them as the featured posts. I would recommend either doing your featured interviews at the bottom, or just make it your most recent blog posts. I think if you made larger email/RSS buttons, you could improve your subscriber results. Maybe you could remove the search box, and then stretch the buttons to fill that space.
Navigation Through Site
All the pages are clearly in the middle of the header, but there are so many of them it almost makes it difficult. There are several unnecessary pages like news, creating websites, and then directory, hasn’t even been used for anything yet. It just has several test posts. Right now the site has recent posts/interviews options, so you can really take advantage of this. He seems to really be stressing new visitors seeing past posts.
Jonathan’s Suggestions:
I think instead of all the different widgets showing past posts, and nice archives system could do the job. You could set up a nice one on the homepage, and that would accomplish everything you are trying to do. Just make sections like Featured posts, Must Reads…
Final Grade
6/10
Extra Pages
There are Lots of extra pages. In total there are 37 page links, that is the most I’ve ever seen, and probably will ever see. Does that mean it’s bad? Not necessarily because each of them has great, informative content, but I think they could be compiled somewhat.
Final Grade 5/10
Jonathan’s Suggestions:
Many of these pages are very small, and have a couple posts on them, then seemed to have been forgotten about. Ones like website ideas, and press releases, should be removed. There are many others on there can aren’t necessary, and could be compiled into fewer ones. Again a nice archives system could help eliminate part of this problem.
Content Quality
This is the clear selling point of the blog. It is one of the top blogs on the internet in this respect. It has some incredible interviews of famous internet entrepreneurs like Yaro Starak, Darren Rowse, Aaron Wall, and tons of others. He has lots of great lists, ranking top young moneymakers, and top bloggers. These lists have been really popular. He also runs a full-time blog, and forum, that both have great content on them. This has, and always will be the selling point of this site.
Final Grade
9/10
Jonathan’s Suggestions:
There isn’t much to comment on as far as content wise. What you do, you do great. However, my only thought would be, is more How to articles. Maybe an article on the affiliate marketing, or site flipping or something. I get all fired up after reading all these success stories, to get out their and start making money, so some tutorials would be a great help to bloggers trying to take it to the next level.
Ads
There are five different sets of ads on his homepage, but you would probably never of known that if I hadn’t told you. It has two affiliate marketing buttons, for Blogging to the Bank. One google adsense ad, and a set of text links and 125×125 ads.
Final Grade
7/10
Jonathan’s Suggestions:
They really aren’t much of a problem, but I just wonder if they are worth it. It doesn’t seem like the google adsense ad would make enough money to make it worth it, maybe it does but it just seems out of place, especially with it’s irrelevant ads. Google ads don’t seem to do a good job of having relevant links typically, so I would consider switching if not taking it down. There are two affiliate marketing boxes which are the exact same. They are right next to each other, and so it seems rather pointless to have both. I would recommend removing one. The text link and 125×125 ads are fine, they are too big, and I’m sure are good money makers. It’s rare to see all the text links filled up so I guess he’s making good money from them.
Site Stats
This site boasts an impressive 70K Alexa Ranking, with a PR of 3, which is ok for a blog. It only has a Technorati ranking of 118K but these links are purely through direct links. He does almost no commenting, and so unlike most blogs that have manipulated their way to a high ranking to lots of commenting, these are all purely from blogs that liked his content. So in reality it has a much better ranking then you might think.
Final Grade
8/10
Jonathan’s Suggestions:
Both of these ranking systems are very skewed and don’t reflect the true stats. It is averaging a large amount of visitors, and the Alexa ranking is very impressive. According to siteanalytics it got about 40K hits last month.
Drum-roll Question
Is this site worth visiting right now, Yes or No?
Yes. Despite poor navigation, and a crowded interface, the content is too great to pass up. A poor homepage is not enough to doom a site. These interviews have priceless information, and should be read by all bloggers. Any future entrepreneurs, or people seeking to make money online should definitely stop by. Especially for the new wave of teenage bloggers, and young entrepreneurs, these articles will be really useful to them.
Please consider subscribing to retireat21 by clicking here.
Final Constructive Criticisms
I asked several bloggers, to give me their first impressions of retireat21.com. So these are the opinions of Daniel Scocco and Normal Joe.
Objective Opinions
Daniel Scocco from dailyblogtips.com
“I came across RetireAt21.com a while ago, and the name of the site intrigued me to I decided to check it out. The information I found was interesting, particularly the series of interviews that the author conducted with young entrepreneurs. The design is pretty clean as well.”
Normal Joe from imwithjoe.com
I like the site, I used to visit it frequently when I first started reading various blogs. I haven’t been over there in a while but I think it’s a
great site and instills hope in people by seeing folks that are so young have success just from their creative ideas. I think the theme layout makes it easy to consume the information without forcing you to focus on one particular story. They have features, but other stories strategically placed on the front page so everyone can chose which they want to read. It’s efficient and effective.
This is was a paid review by Jonathan Muller of mastersofseo. If you are interested in a paid review, check out my advertise page for more information. As you can see I cover all the aspects of your site. This is a great chance for you to get constructive criticism about your site.
Please comment below, if you have constructive criticisms to add. I’m sure Michael would like to hear your opinion as well.
