Tim Hickman

Okay… so it has been a long time since I have been here. I was starting to do an offline marketing Case Study. It actually went pretty well, but I never updated on here like I started to. I thought about just deleting that last post because it almost seems out of place, but I rethought that idea. And I am glad I did. I logged in to my blog today and to my surprise, a good amount of traffic is still coming here daily, despite me not updating it in months.  So I went over the good and bad points of doing so in my head. Here are the reasons why you should NOT ever delete your old blog posts:

1. You will lose all those inbound links

All the backlinking you have done for each blog post, such as twitter, facebook, and that bulk of social bookmarks, will be invalid. Those backlinks wont disappear, even worse, they will just give people that try to go to your site 404 errors and never see your site. At least if it is just a bad post or ireelevant post, they can browse your site and read other content, if you don’t delete the post. Also if someone else linked to your post in their blog, people that read their blog will get errors and tell that blogger. That could lead to them not linking to you anymore for the fact they do not want it to happen again. So you could lose out on future link juice as well!

2. You will lose the SEO benefits

Blogging frequently gives you good SEO benefits over other companies and websites. We know this. Every piece of content you write adds more search engine juice for you. Deleting a post will remove the benefits of that. By the time you have blogged for a few months regularly, your site gets decent traffic (if you have been doing proper SEO!). Imagine where you would be without any of those blog posts; you wouldn’t have that SEO traffic! Don’t delete your posts.

3. You lose lead generation opportunities

The more blog posts you have the more legit your site and company looks. Each blog post is actually a lead generation tool! Or lead generation opportunity. I actually still get inqueries from a blog post that is over a year old, because it is indexed in google and ranking, and people get the number from that post. If you delete that post, you delete that reference, and therefor that lead opportunity.

4. Basically, you waste time.

Trying to figure out what to write about can be a long process, then actually writing it and formatting it the way you want (this post took me 2 days). Maintaining and creating a blog takes a lot of time and effort! Now I am not saying I’d rather have a blog with 365 posts of junk content over 12 posts of super quality, at the same time I want a good amount of content and do not want to delete them after the time I took to post them.

What are your thoughts, did I miss out any reasons not to delete posts, or do you think its no big deal to delete blog posts. Put your thoughts in the comments.

Okay so I haven’t been here awhile, but I am going to start something to see how it goes, and keep this updated on the progress. So stay tuned to find out the progress of this case study.

The scope of the project is to see how well offline marketing will work to show off my SEO skills for companies in need. There were lots of different topics to choose from, but finding an ad on craigslist decided to have me start in the niche: concrete. Sounds vague. Let’s back it up and talk about exactly what this will be about.

This case study will be to create a very fast website with a very targeted domain name, in the hopes it attracts targeted visitors which will then convert for a client. I say “a” client and not “the” client because there is no actual client for this yet. It sounds crazy, I know. Just keep thinking: CASE STUDY! I will outline the steps I do each time, not all in one post. I have a gameplan set, but this will keep me motivated. So

So. Day 1:

-Purchase domain name.

I said I was doing it in concrete, but in a specific area to really get a targeted audience. the keyword is concrete in Blackwood NJ. Doing some research the same amount of results came up for “concrete in blackwood nj” and “concrete blackwood nj” so I decided to go with the latter.

The problem is, Google adwords keyword tool didn’t seem to pull any data on how many people search for this term monthly. Hmm, let’s just hope its inaccurate. In any case, this is a case study, right?

So I purchased the domain name, concreteblackwoodnj.com. From there I will set up the site. That is all for now.

Has anyone else seen these new wordpress tool bars on their wordpress blogs now? Strange thing is, I host my own blog on my own server, but the toolbar is there, but I assume only when you are logged in. More importantly, it has a ‘shortlink’ kind of like the bit.ly service. This URL could become useful to send out, especially on sites like Twitter, facebook etc. I noticed it on my blog writing service site. This is what the shortlink looks like: http://wp.me/1eNcW (shortlink for my blogging service, not here).

As of yet there does not seem to be any form of link tracking, such as bit.ly by adding a + at the end (read my article on bit.ly tracking here). Perhaps that could come down the line.

Here is a screenshot of the toolbar in case you have not seen it yet. (click for larger picture).

*Update*

You can also use the shortlinks for individual posts, which I discovered linking to the other post. In the edit posts or new posts page, where the permalink is, you click “get shortlink.” Neat feature.

http://bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/107402?load=comments&page=1

http://timhickman.com was rated best new blog about blogging in 2011! I am pretty happy about that. Perhaps you can contribute and vote for me? =)

Thanks!

This is a small sample of what will work in 2011, compared to techniques from 2010 and before. Multiply this graph by 30 and you have a better idea:

Again, this is only a small portion of a complete linkwheel.

http://reputationmanagement2011.com

A press release has been written about me and my new site =) I guess the word is out now:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) February 21, 2011 –
A new domain name has been registered this year for the “Reputation Management” niche. Nothing new there, except the name of the site is what succeeds in drawing in attention. According to WHOIS, it is registered to Tim Hickman, blogging champ for small businesses in Philadelphia and around the US.

The reason for the hype is that Tim himself talked previously about the numerous reputation sites out there. So could this one have the potential to be different? The URL seems to say as if there are new techniques to the Reputation Management Services (RMS), or that reputation management has completely changed from the past. The URL in question? ReputationManagement2011.com

According to internet analysts, “RMS could be changed as we know it.” We see how different the internet has become in just one year in 2010, with the use of Twitter, Facebook and Linked In marketing. Perhaps 2011 will be a new ball game as well. One thing is for sure, with a domain name like that you can bet it will rank high almost automatically for that keyword, and let’s just hope they are ready for any mass streams of traffic or potential clients. The site can either be a hit or a miss. Given Tim Hickman’s history with blogging and social media marketing, it has the potential. But will it deliver the results?

This week’s Fan Of The Week (FOTW) is Karen Mccarthy, of CalypsoIT. Thank you for contributing to my sites and facebook page, and here is the favor returned!

To visit CalypsoIT page click the link:

Although they may not use it, by now most internet marketers have heard of SENuke. At $97 per month,  it is not the cheapest of tools. But most agree it is the best. I just came across a tool called XGen SEO. It is not new per say, but it has gotten good reviews. Some say it is better than SENuke, but that is to be debated. It does solve captchas on its own, with no payments needed for decaptcha. On the other hand, the software can be slow. Also, it is only slightly cheaper than SENuke at $79/month. Could it be better?

I may go into more details with this software at a later date, perhaps once I try it out. What are your thoughts, which one is better? Do you think that will change in the future?

If you are into internet marketing, then you are nowprobably into Twitter as well. If you are into Twitter, you have probably run into numerous Twitter follower sites on the web. They promise to get you 3,000 followers or more, for about $70. These sites are popping up all the time now. Maybe they are run by the same company, maybe other people just want in on the action. Either way, I am here to show you the easy secret that is behind all of the sites.

Perhaps you know it, perhaps you don’t. But if you use those services, changes are you do not know. Now this is merely just a method on how to do what they do, for basically free. The software may not be the same, but the general idea behind the method is the same for a lot of the twitter follower sites.

Step 1:

Get the software Twiping. Twiping used to be free, and not many people knew about the software. Now it costs $9, which is cheap and much cheaper than $70 each time you want followers. Basically the software is twitter account management software. It allows you to follow, unfollow, find targetted people to follow, etc.

Step 2:

If you want targetted followers, which can be even better than what the twitter follower sites do, start by clicking on someone you follow in your niche. then select to see their friends or followers. You can filter results, and by doing so can follower and target only people that have the keywords you decide (such as internet marketing). You then follow everyone listed.

You can also just select anyone, and follow anyone if you just want to increase your follower count quick.

Step 3:

Twitter has restrictions and only lets you add about 1,000 new users a day. After 2,000, you have to keep a 10% ratio between friends and followers I believe.

So after you have added 1,000, wait a few days until everyone has followed you back. Most poeple follow whoever follows them. Whoever does not follow you back, use twiping to select “friends not following me” and delete them all.

Step 4:

You now have a pretty equal friend to follower ratio (depending on how your ratio was when you started this). You then repeat the process.

That is basically it. That is what most of these sites charge you for. Add friends, delete friends that do not follow you, add more friends.  By doing this, I have increased some client’s userbase by 1,00s within a week or 2. And they love it because they are all targeted followers.

Let me know your results or thoughts in the comments.

Okay there is a lot of hype about this guy Trey Smith right now. And I really do not know why. He creates these few videos on the most basic knowledge and people are treating him like a God. His first video okay perhaps is helpful, teaching people you can TOO make iphone apps. I knew this awhile ago, almost did it, but actually getting your app into the app store is NOT easy.

His third video “The Black Box” hypes about this “almighty secret” that no body knows about. Its the “secret that got Bill Gates rich!” Do you want to know what the secret is before giving your precious email account away to some unknown guy? The secret is the word: Software.

That is it! He talks about how great software is, and then updating it is. And how by having updates, it gets people like Bill Gates rich. This is the secret of Windows. On top of that, all of thse people are singing his praises for this information. I did not realize the internet was full of complete newcomers, to not understand how software and updates work. When you purchase software, and there is an update, and you pay for it, that is how you get rich.

I give it to Trey for having enthusiastic videos and such, and I guess internet newcomers is his market, I just did not realize people do not know the basics of software and updates. I do not know where Trey Smith came from, he popped out of the blue and has these professional looking videos. I am going to stay away from him, his knowledge has no use to me, perhaps it does others though. Although I guarantee most people will not do his course, which is about making iphone apps.

What are your thoughts, do you like Trey Smith or do you agree your basic knowledge surpasses his information? Leave a comment below or on facebook.