Just wanted to pop in really quick to wish my 2 readers a happy Thanksgiving. We as affiliates, SEOs, or whatever you may do online, are extremely fortunate that we can work the way we do; when we want, how we want, and for as much money as we want if you really think about it.

Just the fact that we were able to afford a computer and internet connection at one point, so we could start our own businesses online, is far more than a lot of families have, not just in the US, but worldwide.

Take the time to donate to your local food bank, a little money goes a very long way. It’s too late to help people get food on the table today, but you could make a trip to a food bank or soup kitchen and really touch the lives of a lot of people.

Black Friday

In a few short hours, I’ll be stuffing my face with turkey, numerous high carb foods, and dessert. I’ll probably fall asleep well before 10PM (I won’t have my computer around to keep me up). Well before the butt crack of dawn, most of my family will be out in the cold waiting for some deal of some sort. I on the other hand will be waking up in the afternoon, and will hit the online retailers in the comfort of my own home. Suckers… I’ll probably just pick up a 22″ LCD monitor, but who knows.

I’ve never really looked into the traffic on Black Friday, but I assume it could go either way. Monday, no doubt, will be a high traffic day. I’ve recently hired a well qualified local writer to ease the work load, and I’ll be launching a content generation promo for Cyber Monday.

Anyway guys, once again, have a great Thanksgiving. Spend plenty of time with the family, and maybe try to get away from the computer for a little bit.

Oh and if you don’t like sweet potatos with marshmallows, you’re freakin’ insane.

I’ve added the no-follow free plugin to hopefully give motivation to those willing to participate.

November 11th emp posted an update on Blind Ape SEO, with a fancy graph. Go check it out in all its fanciness.

Glowleaf is way ahead, with Greg in second with a baller moustache for the month of Movember. However, assuming that nobody has written much in the last few days, my new word count would put me in second. I’m sure an update, is gonna put be back at least into 3rd. Ballinnnnn…

GaithersburgLocal is coming along nicely, the links from this blog got it indexed almost instantly. But as it turns out, there isn’t a whole lot happening in Gaithersburg, so finding content has been tough. I’ll be making an update about my progress in an upcoming post, as well as some ideas I have for promotion and monetization.

In other news, I’m selling a Pomegranate site on DP, as of now the bidding has reached only $25, with a BIN of $75, a damn good deal if you ask me…

Every time I start a new Wordpress based site, I usually spend multiple hours looking for an appropriate theme. Luckily I know enough HTML, CSS and PHP to modify the themes a bit. Otherwise I don’t think I’d ever get any projects completed.

There’s always something like 125×125 ads, horrible coding, bad slicing, or some idiot trying to be innovative by adding a completely useless feature that only confuses visitors, and break the theme if you take it out. Not that I don’t appreciate the open source community, especially the one supporting Wordpress, but damn make more functional themes for God’s sake.

Improvements are on the horizon with the new magazine theme fad, and more flexible and robust themes, but I still find it almost impossible to find a decent theme these days. Maybe I should stop bitching and finally learn how to put a Wordpress theme together. Naw, maybe some other time.

This is a horrible way to do things if you’re trying to utilize the fire and forget mindset. Just get something up. Eventually you will stumble across a theme that you think will work for it.

While the Carrington Blog theme was pretty slick, the whole reason I use Wordpress is because it is easy, and I can manage almost everything from the control panel. Carrington on the other hand had me constantly going back through though dozens of theme files locally. Which is a big pain in the ass. The theme is supposed to be aimed towards developers and I’m sure it really flexible, but this is a personal blog of sorts, and I’m lazy.

So I finally decided to shell out some cash for some premium themes. So I got a license for the cheapest theme club I could find. So far everything looks good, but I’ll probably spend tomorrow messing with it. I think this theme adds a more professional feeling to things, which I think will be good for marketing my services. I’ve also been looking for themes for local projects, and I think at least one of the themes here will do.

In other news…

Obama won the presidential election, and I’m up to 3835 (including this post) for the WebWriMo challenge.

I’ll be posting some semi-useful stuff in the next couple days, which will be aimed towards beginner to intermediate afffiliates, so you guys already banking, don’t expect a whole bunch from me. Though you guys probably don’t waste much time reading such posts anyway.

I mentioned my extra motivation to get this blog up in my first post. EMP, veteran WickedFire member, and the writer behind Blind Ape SEO has started the first WebWriMo challenge. The goal is to write 50,000 words worth of content during the month of November.

The idea is inspired from National Novel Writing Month where people are encouraged to write a full novel in a single month. Quality is not a factor, the goal is to just get shit done, and hopfully inspire some creativity in the process.

I’m not quite sure how many words in I am yet, but an update, and possibly a sidebar feature will be up soon to track my progress. I know I’ve already done a few thousand words for personal projects as well as writing content for others.

I encourage the couple people that happen to find my blog this month to participate.

Update 11/3: I got the progress bar up, and calculated my word count, which is just about 2k words.

I happen to be far more productive around 2-3am than any other time of the day. The bad part is that I get exhausted around 6am. This leaves me with 2-3 hours of peak productivity. During the day I’m constantly getting distracted by my horrible cigarette habit, my ever-nagging brother, or even TV when I’m extremely bored and unmotivated. But in the wee hours of the morning, I can actually focus in on my work and get some shit done.

I’ll admit, I decided it was time to get my personal blog back up right before I hit my exhausted stage. We shall see in the morning if it will remain up. Part of the reason I’ve decided to get it going again is because as I’m growing more and more in the internet marketing industry (affiliate marketing, SEO, etc.). As I expand my services and knowledge, I get the growing urge to share what I’ve learned, and network with others, particularly in my area of Gaithersburg, Maryland and the Washington DC/Baltimore area as a whole. I’ll be explaing the remaining part of my motivation for getting this blog up in my next post.

To be honest, I have no idea what direction I will be taking this blog. But as they say, “strike while the iron is hot”. If I didn’t get this blog up tonight, I may have never done it.