Well, it’s been a long while since I posted to this blog.  That’s one of the nice things about having your own blog is that you are in total control of when you want to post an entry.

It has been very interesting watching the traffic and other activity to this blog without any updates.  I have been updating posts to some of my other blogs and doing many updates to a lot of my other sites.

Happy Blogging……

- Hill Robertson

Submitting your blog to blog carnivals is one of the best ways to get quality targeted traffic to your blog. I am launching a new type of blog carnival submission service. It is a “pay per post” type of service. It is not a subscription service. This allows you to pick and choose the blog posts that you want to submit to the carnivals and when you want to submit them.

You can get it here:

http://hillrobertson.com/BlogCarnivalSubmissionService

All you have to do is purchase a submission and submit your blog post info in a simple form. Then, just wait for your information to be submitted to various blog carnivals that are related to the topic of your post. You will start to see your links posted to carnivals as they are issued. The links will start trickling in. The more submissions you make, the more links you get.

My service also allows you to stand out by giving you the option to add your own remarks about the blog post. This can be a summary or some sort of “teaser” to get readers to click on your link. This can be a very big advantage over the other blogs posted to the carnivals because most other blog links will just have the minimum information required.

Start sending quality traffic to your blog with my blog carnival submission service by clicking on the following link:

http://hillrobertson.com/BlogCarnivalSubmissionService

Submit your blog posts now.

- Hill Robertson

Did you miss the password for the last post? Sorry…..

The passwords for private (protected) posts are sent to my subscribers that are subscribed via email (not external RSS readers). They get sent out prior to the private posts.

If you want the password for future private postings, please subscribe at the top right of this page so you will get future notifications. If you do, you will also get other benefits such as early product launches and/or discounts as well as extra little tid bits here and there.

All you need to do is enter your first name and your primary email address. I will NEVER sell or give your information to anyone. I hate spam myself with a passion since I host websites and have web/email servers all over the country and I know what a pain it is dealing with it. You’ll want to use your primary email address to hopefully avoid spam filters that drop so much of the valid mail these days (especially to free email accounts).

You can always cancel your subscription at any time if you want to quit getting emails.

Go ahead and sign up if you haven’t already……….. Do it now.

- Hill Robertson

One of the most important pieces of a successful business of any kind is having a list of “customers”. My email subscription list is basically my list of customers. It doesn’t mean that any of them buy anything. But they do have an interest in the information I post on this blog. In a way it is similar to someone visiting a store and browsing the merchandise. Let’s look at an example…..

If I like model trains, I may visit a particular model train store every now and then to see what new trains are in stock. I probably won’t buy anything the first few times I visit the store but I will probably have a good time since I like model trains. While I visit the store, I may talk with the owner on occasion and build some sort of relationship with the owner. It still doesn’t mean I will buy anything. However, if someone else I know mentions something about model trains, there is a good chance I will mention the store that I like to visit. This is word of mouth advertising and can be very powerful for any business.

I would probably visit the train store many more times since I enjoy it and may learn something new about model trains that I didn’t know before. I will also probably meet some other people in the store that have something in common with me - model trains. This is even more reinforcement for me to return to the store another time.

Then, one day when I finally decide to buy a model train, I know exactly where to go. There is really not much “selling” or “pitching” the owner would have to do since I already have a relationship with the owner and have a sense of trust with him or her. I would probably even pay a little bit more to the store than I would to someone else that I do not know.

Blogs are really not much different. They are your “store” if you will. It is a place where your “customers” return on a regular basis and build a relationship with you and build a trust with you. They will keep coming back to see what is new with you and to hopefully learn a little bit more about what they enjoy.

This is one of the reasons it is so important to build a subscriber list. It allows you to let your subscribers (customers) know when you have updated your “inventory” or have some more words of wisdom to share with them. If you sell something through your blog, your frequent visitors will many times be the first to purchase your products since they already know you and trust you.

So, be sure to have an opt-in form so your visitors can subscribe to your blog and you can keep them informed and continue to build a relationship that will last a very long time.

One of the reasons I have started implementing the private posts is to encourage frequent visitors to sign up for my blog notification subscription so they can be added to my customer list. Subscribers benefit too with valuable information posts that I don’t publish to everyone and also with special product discounts or early releases.

Do you have a list for your business? You should. If not, get started right now….

- Hill Robertson

One way to get traffic to your blog or website is by having visitors “stumble” your blog entries by submitting them to stumbleupon.com. You will probably get quite a few visitors from StumbleUpon if someone submits one of your posts. While the traffic isn’t ideal, you will at least get visitors that have an interest in the topic of your blog. This should at least give you a little better chance of the visitor staying on your site instead of bouncing away.

If you don’t have an account already, you should set up account at StumbleUpon. It is simple to do and you can specify the types of sites you like. You install a toolbar on your browser so you can easily give a review of any site you find interesting and want others to know about. You’ll want to be careful about stumbling your own site. It is frowned upon in the StumbleUpon community. Self promotion in this case is not necessarily a good thing. It might even get you banned if it is abused in this way. However, you can encourage others to stumble your posts.

I just added a StumbleUpon link at the bottom of my blog postings to encourage visitors to click on it and write a short review. You can do the same for your blog or website to hopefully increase your traffic.

You will also have a Stumble button on the toolbar. If you click on it, you will be taken to a randomly selected site that has already been submitted to StumbleUpon that meets the criteria of your selected topics as listed in your profile. You may find some really interesting web sites that you never would have found otherwise. Then, you can give them a thumbs up or thumbs down depending if you liked the site or not.

Stumbling around the internet can be very interesting. However, be careful when doing it because it can be a major form of distraction. Before you know it, you will have stumbled away to some really cool and entertaining site and wasted hours of time instead of focusing on building your internet business.

- Hill Robertson

Have you subscribed to this blog yet? If you haven’t yet subscribed to this blog, now is the time to do it. The best way is to fill out your name and email address in the subscribe area at the top right of this blog to get email notifications. You get several benefits by signing up for email notifications as follows:

• The popup box will not annoy you any more (see No Aweber Popup for Subscribers Procedure for more info)
• You will get passwords for special private blog posts
• You may get product offers earlier or at more of a discount than those who are not subscribed
• You may get other bonuses that I decide to give at any random time

If you don’t subscribe, you may just miss an awesome deal. Go ahead and subscribe to get updated with great success related information and products. There is no obligation and remember, I will never give or sell your information to anyone, guaranteed!

Subscribe and Enjoy!

- Hill Robertson

So, you are spending a lot of your time writing blog posts, submitting articles, posting in forums, optimizing your site, and everything else under the sun as you attempt to get more people visiting your blog. You feverishly watch your analytics and other stats. You watch your web server access log as visitors hit your site. You pray that the next visitor will sign subscribe to your blog. You keep tweaking your opt in form. You make it pop up from every possible direction and you throw in every type of buzz word you can as you watch and wait for the next subscriber.

Dreams of 100,000 subscribers spin in your head. Maybe 10,000 is enough for you. You think to yourself that if you could sell something for $100 and just 2% buy it, you would make a cool $20,000 and could pay off your credit cards or buy a car. Or, you just want 1,000 subscribers or would be happy with 100. Whatever your subscriber goals are, you just want subscribers, right? Not so fast…….

While you do want subscribers, you want quality subscribers that are specifically interested in your products. It wouldn’t do any good to have 1000 subscribers that just signed up to get your free report on the top 5 ways to chew bubble gum if your products are all about shoes. You would make more sales to a subscriber list of 30 that were interested in shoes than 1000 that were interested in bubble gum.

The next time you start to get upset or depressed when someone cancels their subscription, you should be thankful. It is simply their way of telling you that they really aren’t interested in your information. It actually improves the quality of your remaining list. The longer the rest of your subscribers stay subscribed, the more likely they are to purchase your products somewhere down the road.

When the next subscriber cancels their subscription to your blog, it is not a bad thing. Your list just got better. Be thankful when they leave.

- Hill Robertson

As we start out the new year, I am launching my first product on this blog. It is for those of you who have a blog or website of your own and you use the aweber service for an opt-in popup. When someone subscribes to your blog, they shouldn’t have to keep putting up with the popup window anymore. I know I wish blogs that I subscribe to didn’t keep bugging me to sign up.

The product is an online video procedure where I show you how to set up your blog or website to stop the aweber popup window to new subscribers after you implement the procedure. It may even be a good incentive for your readers to sign up knowing that they won’t get bothered anymore.

It is only $10 for the next 72 hours (until 11:59 PM EST Monday Evening). You have my full money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. If you are satisfied, please post a testimonial as a comment on this post so I can use it on the sales page.

Here is the link:

http://hillrobertson.com/aweberNoPopup

Now get rid of those popups to reward your subscribers for signing up…..

- Hill Robertson

Looking back on decisions I have made in the past and why I failed or quit at anything was quite often due a quiet little creeping creature called doubt. It usually isn’t obvious at the time but its grip is strong and deadly. Doubt will absolutely kill anything worth while if you let it.

Doubt creeps into your thoughts saying things like “you can’t write a good article”, “you’re not an expert”, or “no one will ever buy your product”. If you listen to doubt, you will never succeed. You will always come up with a reason not to do something. However, all of these reasons are just excuses. Nothing will ever get done when you dwell on what you can’t do.

Remember one of the most important rules is to “just do it”. If you wait to long or you try to make everything perfect, you will start letting doubt creep in and you will start focusing on the negatives and you will paralyze yourself and you won’t do anything. You will convince yourself that it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Once you realize you are sliding down the slippery slope of doubt, STOP IT! Focus on the positive and JUST DO IT!

- Hill Robertson