I recently performed a complete overhaul of the website, LP Copywriter, which includes a fresh design, a portfolio, and so far, a single new blog post about writing headlines.

I offer a wide variety of services, including:  landing page copywriting (squeeze pages, flogs, review landers, email captures, you name it), ad copy creation(Facebook, Adwords, etc), and anything else you can through my way.

If you’d do me the pleasure of sharing your thoughts on the new site, or if you’d like to request a free quote, check out Landing Page Copywriter now.

Luckily for me the recently added a “web careers” associates degree, although the courses give me the impression that they are a bit behind the times (go figure!). Not only will this help gain clients, but it will greatly improve my efficiency in all areas of my work. After I get my associates, I may go for the bachelors, but I find it HIGHLY unlikely. The only good state school (University of Maryland) is still way too expensive for skills I don’t think I will be making use of anyway.

This segment of 20/20 pretty much cemented my goal of getting my associates degree, and nothing else:

This semester for example, I will be taking “COMP GRAPHICS: ART & ILLUS I” :

Creative use of the computer as a design tool and illustrative medium. Topics include elementary computer graphics techniques; aesthetics; and principles of design, color, composition, and spatial relationships. Students will create a series of illustrations involving freehand drawing, geometry, logo and product design, presentations, rendering, and fine art composition. (ARTD) (G and R only) Two hours lecture, four hours laboratory each week.

The first class is likely dedicated to the explination of “RGB”. I actually took this class about 3 years ago. It was too low pace for me so I once again didn’t put much effort into passing. If I remember correctly they use Photoshop and Illustrator, both of which I’m not all that talented with. I’m actually quite horrible with Illustrator.

One thing for sure, taking a lab and lecture beats working a 9-5 or retail job any day.

I also have a Local SEO post almost completed and will have it up this week.

2008 in Review

2008 was an interesting year for myself, and the world as a whole. We elected the first black President of the United States, and even though I was not a supporter of Obama, I am extremely exited for this new “change” and can’t wait to see how our nation will perform over the next 4 (8?) years. In addition, we suffered the greatest economic crisis my generation has seen, despite the fact that some saw it from a mile away.

I too had my own economic crisis. I was convinced once again to pursue a dead end job in retail management around April, and moved back to Gaithersburg, MD, where I was transferred. Needless to say, it was a far from successful venture. For about 4 months I spent 50-70 hours per week on my feet in order to earn $300 in commission from the minimal traffic our store saw. This was far too little to support my brother and me. Long story short, I wound up with a bunch of debt.

I could go on and on about how miserable of a summer this was, as I love to rant, but I’ll spare you the sob story, and get to the point. As horrible as it was living in a small apartment with 3 other guys, working from sunrise to sunset for minimal pay, and accumulating way more debt than I ever thought I could handle; I’ve experienced more, grew more, and made more mistakes this year than ever before. I also partied like an ‘effin broke rockstar, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. The past 12 months have made me a better person.

The Future

I, like everyone else, get motivated to change certain aspects of my life when the new year rolls around. I, also like everyone else, stick to very few of my resolutions. This is why I won’t be stating my resolutions in full here. It would be a waste of your time, as well as mine. I will however tell you what you can expect from this blog.

• More Focus On Local SEO/SEM – As I spend more time on local projects, my interest in this area of SEO grows. In turn, I will have more strategies, tips, and theories to share with you. In fact, my next post is likely to be in regard to local seo. On the same note, I am likely to start a blog focusing on SEM for small business.
• Less Content Writing, More Focus On Long Term Profits – The past 12 months I’ve spent writing have kept me afloat, but now that I’m largely debt-free I can put freelance writing on the back burner, and focus on more profitable ventures. As a result, I am likely to expand the scope of this blog to other areas of internet marketing. Affiliate marketing and PPC are likely to be a big part of this blog in 2009. As you can see, I removed the “content services” page. If you would like some work done, feel free to contact me.
• Blog Style Format – Nick at Elegant Themes made updates to many of his themes, one of which included an update to the theme used here. I can now use the blog format which makes much more sense for a small blog such as this one. I can’t emphasize enough how awesome Nick from Elegent Themes is, keep up the good work, it is much appreciated.
• Regular Useful Content – I realize that many of my posts aren’t much more than rants and personal ramblings. In 2009, I hope to bring you more intriguing, actionable content.

The sun is now rising, and I’m getting dumber by the second. It is time for me to sign off. To all my Wickedfire peeps in Vegas – have an amazing time, try not to get too drunk, and don’t blow too much of your hard-earned cash.

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.

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…

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.

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’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.