Well today marks a milestone for this lil ole blog of mine. You see www.motivationselfesteem.com/talk is officially ONE YEAR OLD today! Yep, I started it up on the 27th of November 2008 after signing up to Alex Jeffreys’ Internet Marketing Course.

Since then I have turned this site into a POWERHOUSE of Internet Marketing information – most of which is FREE. Here are just some of the highlights along the way…

1 – Back then I was getting approximately 50 to 75 visitors a day. Today I regularly get 600 to 800 per day and have had many days over 900 and even 1,000. The biggest visitor number was last week at 1,310 visitors for the 24 hour period. That is high traffic!

2 – I went from having ZERO followers on Twitter to having some 27,000 followers now,

3 – My Alexa Ranking has gone from 5,179,210 on the 27th November 2008 right down to being in the top 100,000 websites in the world with a present popularity rank of 92,216 (and still falling like a stone) – and that is a significant achievement to be ranked 92,216th in the WORLD out of about 50,000,000 (50 million) websites!

4 – I have added content almost every week – this has drawn 3,573 comments in the 12 month period.

5 – I have also added many informational e-books to the blog to help people understand the concepts of copywriting, time management, adswapping, list-building, Giveaway events, motivation, inspiration, Twitter AND there are more to come!

6 – Added over a dozen educational (and sometimes funny and even raunchy) videos to make my points.

So, little grass-hopper… IF you think you cannot build a blog from scratch to the monumental level that you see right here, then THINK AGAIN! Sure, I’m a writer – and I can write the OO’s of just about anyone on the planet (I’m not kidding when I say that either – LOL!) – but do you know what has REALLY got me here? Let me tell you…

… sheer discipline, the will-to-succeed, self-motivation, educating myself and a host of other things but most of all… PLAIN HARD WORK! Even the BEST of the BEST in anything will NOT win if they do not use those traits. Laziness NEVER wins anything. Remember that!

You can do it. Do you want it bad enough? Well… do you? (I was gonna say “punk” – LOL!)

This blog is PROOF of what can be done in just 12 short months! Now go out and succeed!

PS: Click on the banner below for some awesome free information on how you can improve your lifestyle:

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Are you sick of the same old results? Change your thinking and change your outcomes. To learn more click the banner below:

“You cannot teach a person anything, you can only help them find it within themself.” – Galileo (1564-1642).
Your JOURNEY to now has created the LIFE you are living.
Improving yourself will enable you to fulfill your DESTINY.
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I hope you have been enjoying my Internet Marketing Tips videos too. I have five of them up now and many more to follow. Keep an eye out for them coz some are serious and some are frivolous and just poke fun at things. That’s me. I can’t be serious all the time. But today I want to be serious.

Oh… oh. That usually means… RANT coming! Well, not really but close to it.

You see, today I want to talk about blog hijackers.

What’s a blog hijacker? A blog hijacker is like a graffiti idiot. They come to a blog with the intention of spraying their invective bile all over everyone and everything. They make disparaging and often completely incorrect comments in a feeble attempt to “take over” the purpose and intent of the blog. In other words, they just want to disrupt everybody from the target of the blog. Most often they attempt this by trying to “take down” the blog owner – to make him or her look foolish to the blog owner’s readers.

Blog hijackers nit-pick on things like innocent comments or even spelling mistakes. They are hecklers.

Yesterday I was at a blog belonging to an aquaintance of mine, Dean Holland (Deano and I were in Las Vegas together in May/June this year), who is trying to help people understand the miasma of Internet Marketing. I think Dean is doing a pretty good job. But then…

… along comes “Mike.” Well, I doubt if that is his real name but that is what he called himself.

Mike’s sole intention was to hijack Dean’s blog with snide remarks, rudeness and smart-alec comments. If you are interested enough you can see what was said here: www.DeanHolland.com. But please read on first…

I have seen this type of miserable behavior before. Many times, in fact. Such individuals think (erroneously, I might add) that if they can take down the King or the Queen (ie the blog owner) that they can assume some sort of leadership or importance mantle. But it almost always backfires and simply makes them look foolish.

It’s a classic case of an individual attempting to disrupt a project by hijacking it to place all the emphasis on himself (or herself – but it is usually males who do this). It’s a matter of low self-worth and low self-esteem manifesting itself through jealousy.

When such an individual feels in his or her own mind that he or she cannot be part of a group moving forward they attempt to strike back by shredding the sails and throwing out the anchor. They sabotage the group by whatever means possible.

We see this often with disruptive junior students in classrooms across the country. Unfortunately, there are older people – who should know better – but have never grown out of this negative mindset. [Maybe they should study my "Mindset" e-book... but of course, they wouldn't do that. Their mindset just wouldn't allow it]

These hijackers attempt to divert attention away from the direction and focus of the group by being critical – often over the most trivial of issues. In the case above, Mike attempted to belittle Dean for mis-spelling the word bonanza. However, in doing so he committed his own literary gaffe. I won’t go into what that was here but he also told everyone that they were “blowing smoke up each other’s backsides.” Then, when he was castigated for that, he did what MOST of these types do. He then assumed (incorrectly) that he was the victim and told his own critic, “not to get personal.” Duh!

This is also a common trait of these people – they can give it but they cannot take it. But worse than that here is what happens:

The “Mike’s” of this world are given a second chance and sometimes they “play along” for a little while. But what they really want to do is divide and conquer. They want some of the visitors/readers to take their side with the empathetic/sympathetic approach. They like nothing more than for other commenters to start FLAME WARS against each other. This is their intention. They want the focus to be on their poor behavior. And when they can achieve factional camps within the blog then they are well on their way to the disruption that the initial criticism set out to achieve.

Some months ago, I watched negatively inspired people attempt to hijack Mike Filsaime’s Butterfly Marketing 2.0 launch during his live streaming. There were some people at that event who were hell-bent on ONE THING only – taking Mike Filsaime down. Why? Same reasons – low self-esteem manifesting itself as extreme jealously.

When the negative ones can get people focussed on their own ridiculous sideshows then they feel satisfied with their usual miserable existence. They re-inforce their own negative mindsets. Their equilibrium is restored.

If they are not banned from the discussion then they just keep needling away enough to keep the two emerging factions (those “sympathetic” towards the aggravator and those aggravated by the aggravator) watching all comments like hawks to see who says what. This keeps the entire sideshow simmering away in the background.

The best thing to do (after ONE opportunity has been given to ameliorate poor behaviour on a blog) is to remove the errant individual. Fair criticism is OK. However, blog hijack is something entirely different.

Michel Fortin of www.michelfortin.com and Christopher Knight of www.ezinearticles.com have stated many times on their respective blogs that their blogs are NOT democracies. And that’s fair enough.

Owners invest a LOT of time and money into their blogs. What rights do interlopers have to come and attempt to destroy all that work?

Quite simply, if somebody doesn’t like a website or a blog then they should just STAY AWAY!

So, after all that… what do you think? Remember, I’m open to well-placed disagreement but, as the blog owner here, I also have the “dump button.”

[PS1: BTW... Mike, if you come here via my link on Dean's blog you can defend your actions. However, if you try that garbage that you pulled on over there with Dean then I'll do what he did and it will be sayonara to you.]

PS2: Click on the banner below for some awesome free information on how you can improve your lifestyle:

************************************************************************************
Are you sick of the same old results? Change your thinking and change your outcomes. To learn more click the banner below:

“You cannot teach a person anything, you can only help them find it within themself.” – Galileo (1564-1642).
Your JOURNEY to now has created the LIFE you are living.
Improving yourself will enable you to fulfill your DESTINY.
************************************************************************************

I have a VERY SPECIAL TREAT for you today.

Linda has a message for anybody who is despondent and/or frustrated with their own “results” or more importantly, perceived lack thereof at this point in time.

Linda’s message was inspired by what she read at Nigel Yip’s blog. As some of you will know, Nigel has decided to quit.

Anyway, have a listen and please post a comment about her message. What are YOUR thoughts on this? Do YOU want to make an affirmation to YOUR success here? Are you gonna quit or has this just re-doubled your resolve to succeed?

Click to listen [time: 5 min 29 sec]

PS: When you read this Nigel – as I know you will, eventually – I want to thank you for all the help that you have given the F500 students with their video production. Your knowledge and assistance in that is first class and it is a pity that you didn’t push past your doubts that you could succeed in this area. There are a lot of people who have benefitted from what you have done to help them. They will go on, of course and you will forever be a part of their success. I sure hope you will one day find what you are looking for. And I say that sincerely to you.

************************************************************************************
Are you sick of the same old results? Change your thinking and change your outcomes. To learn more click the banner below:

“You cannot teach a person anything, you can only help them find it within themself.” – Galileo (1564-1642).
Your JOURNEY to now has created the LIFE you are living.
Improving yourself will enable you to fulfill your DESTINY.
************************************************************************************

Gary Simpson’s Blog is being powered up, extremely powered up. Now, what is this all about? I’m so glad you asked…

[ tik-a-tek-a-tik-a-tek - ZULU Time - Tuesday 13th January, 2009 - 1.13 am ]

I think you will find this post rather exciting. I know I will. I’m gonna make it “sticky” by constantly updating it to reflect all the changes that are happening. The date line above will allow you to follow all this in as real a time as the net will allow you to do or you want to do.

As you may know, I have been fore-shadowing the fact that things are gonna go to a whole new level at Gary-Land (ie my blog). I have surreptitiously been laying the “bread-crumb trail” ever since the start of the new year. A little crumb here, a few crumbs there. Here a crumb, there a crumb, everywhere a crumb, crumb. But not too many all in one place.

If you go back and read my last entry for 2008, you will see that I was making a bold statement then. Like what else would the Gazz-Man do? But it got buried as the new year opened up upon us. I knew that it would but I still wanted the “PROOF” to be there. So it IS there if you care to go back and read it but please don’t make any comments back there, for this is a NEW YEAR and the Gazz-Man is surging forward. If you wanna make a comment then make it HERE.

There have also been a couple of “notices” and several mentions to various people within replies to their comments at this site as I have been beefing the content up. You see, content is nothing to me. I can write 10,000 words in just a couple of hours. I do it all the time. So, that side of the equation I have got well and truly nailed. I never struggle for something to say – as you MAY have noticed. LOL!

What I do struggle with, however, is all the technical side of things – as I am sure so many others do. Of course I’d like to know a lot more (and I am learning all the time) but that is not the most efficient use of my time. I need to be spearing ahead with what I am good at. So, the fiercely independent Gazz-Man has done what he rarely does. He has “out-sourced.” Isn’t this what Alex Jeffreys suggests so strongly that we do? Outsource our weaknesses and leverage our strengths?

Well, now you know WHAT I have out-sourced but you don’t know WHO it has been outsourced to. More on that in a moment…

Hilary Dickinson was perspicacious enough to see some of my hints and bits and pieces that I have been embedding. Hils asked a question of me about her “observations” of this over at her blog. But I deflected her direct question with a short cover drive (cricket term) and ran down the wicket. Now Garry Parkes is a cricket afficionado. He will understand that but, you see, Garry also knows just a little more than most because I have emailed him privately to tell him, inter-alia, that I have engaged somebody of such rare and extreme talent to work on many things here at this blog.

Some of that work will not be immediately evident to the naked eye. However, it WILL be evident and relevant to Google and Yahoo and Alexa and all the other ‘bots and spiders and gizmos and things that madly rush around electronically gathering data.

So, who is this technical person? Well, answering that would just spoil all the fun and the BIG surprise I have in store. But I will say this – this person is a world authority in these matters. IM(NS)HO there is NOBODY finer. This person, will be reading this and will probably be more than a little embarrased to see such comments. But let me say this … I stand in AWE of this person’s extreme ability in this field. And the Gazz-Man does not stand in awe of too many people in anything. (You may even find out why at some future stage).

I think that will do for now. I have made my opening statements and I will blog at regular intervals with a time line so you can follow (not “the Foxy,” oh no!) the Gazz-Man. Yeah Follow the Gazz-Man and his secret, as yet, unrevealed accomplice.

Oh, one more thing… I can’t resist saying this… you will be shocked at who this person is. (And NO – this isn’t a trick – it ain’t me. I have less that 1% of this person’s extraordinary ability – big to you. I know you are here with me now.)

If I were YOU (heh… and, when you see what the Gazz-Man has cookin’, I’m kinda glad I’m not) I’d bookmark this spot. Coz you are in for a treat! And there will be some treats on offer to a lucky few.

[PS: This is phase 2 of a 4 part plan]

Here are some of the salient points of the seminar. (Note: I cannot possibly put everything here. Where you see GS, well, that is my little side comment)

GENERAL OPENING STATEMENTS:

• Build your business around FUN. (GS: OK, I can almost guarantee that most people will MISS this MASSIVE point),
• Take ACTION. Keep failing until you win (GS: Ditto above comment),
• Do NOT pimp yourself (GS: ie don’t bust into other people’s blogs and forums and start blabbing on about what you are selling – show some DECORUM),
• People ONLY want to visit your blog if you leave value in your comments (GS: this is on your own blog and also when you comment on other people’s blogs),
• Don’t get it RIGHT just get it GOING.

TRAFFIC GENERATION MATERIAL:

• Twitter is all about relationship building – NOT “pimping.” (GS: Pimps and spammers get dumped, so why even do it? It’s just DUMB!),
• Traffic techniques are SIMPLE but not necessarily EASY,
• A BLOG “pre-conditions” people to trust you. (GS: Show yourself as a real person – look at all my pix etc running down my RHS column),
• Visit Andrew Fox on www.followthefoxy.com for some great tips and ideas.
• If you TELL somebody something they DON’T CARE but if you DON’T TELL people then they become intrigued.

EXAMPLES OF SITES FOR TRAFFIC INVESTIGATION:

• www.blogcast.com
• Google’s facilities such as allinanchor:(insert name or website), allintitle(insert name or website) – find out what the competition is doing and who is linking in – this is for competitive intelligence analysis,
• Yahoo’s facility such as linkdomain:(insert name or website) – again for competitive intelligence analysis,
• www.alexa.com – use to search for traffic rankings and linkbacks to sites (GS: I have been using this site for years and it is a GREAT resource)
• www.prweb.com – use for press releases (this site “blasts” to 100’s of sites)
• SO OBVIOUS but… WATCH the 21 videos of “List Building with Alex.”
• www.ebay.com – this is the 19th most popular website on the net with a HUGE traffic throughput
• www.youtube.com – 52% of all traffic online is now video traffic. Video listings on YouTube can show up in minutes on Google. (refer to blog thread on the Internet’s “Video Marketing Queen” Maria Andros)
• www.trafficgeyser.com – investigate this site for video marketing

GENERAL ADVICE:

You need to learn to GIVE before you can RECEIVE. How many people are trying to TAKE your money? Most people are doing it all WRONG. Make a difference! Be different. Stand out by GIVING. Drive traffic and build your own BRAND. Sociall media is the NEW way to bond. A good relationship with people will eventually lead to sales.

Well, there was WAY too much in this Module to do it justice but those comments above were some of the main points I made from my 8 pages of notes in this two and a half hour webinar.

Oh, I’ll leave you with this thought:

“People like to BUY but they don’t want to be SOLD to.”

Best Wishes

Gary Simpson

NOTE: This thread has been thrown up in a hurry. I know it’s rough. I’ll come back and edit and format it later. Just wanted to get this up for you quick.

Many have been noticing this and mentioning it but have YOU noticed how popular my www.motivationselfesteem.com/talk blog is becoming? It is getting a LARGE number of comments for almost every topic I put up. And this means one thing… even MORE are viewing this blog.

[UPDATE 27 August 2009: In my ACTION Plan I set a target of 500 visitors a day by 30 June 2009. I didn't meet that because some other things got in my way and I lost a little bit of focus and momentum. But... right now I am meeting that target EASILY. 500 visits a day is now pretty standard for me. Most days I get a lot more, even over 600! Sorry to interrupt. Keep reading...]

[UPDATE 10th March 2010: This blog is now getting - on a REGULAR basis - between 800 and 2,000 visitors per day.]

So, why IS that? What is happening here? But, more importantly, what can YOU learn to make YOUR blog just as successful? Just to give you some idea… my blog has had 437 entries since Boxing Day 2008 (NB: to 6 January 2009 when this was written). You can add them up yourself if you want just by going down to that day and looking at the public records. But if you bother to do so, the number will invariably be more.

Plus JFYI, behind the scenes, I have 13 search engines crawling all over my blog madly indexing everything. So, I am expecting a good boost in my Google ranking when that result comes out later this month. I don’t have all the technical stuff nailed down tight yet. That will come.

In the last 12 days I have averaged 36 comments per day. Yeah, OK probably almost half that was me babbling on AND I do have a “captive” audience right now. (It won’t be like that for much longer). But how many blogs on the entire internet could boast those figures – especially since this blog was only commissioned on the 27th November 2008? I have had a PLAN since day one and I have been executing it, though not as fast as I wanted. And this is only stage one of my three-part plan. So, if you think I know what I am talking about, read on…

Right. Here we go. Now, you can either agree or disagree with all or part of this, it’s up to you. Take what you want, leave what you want. It’s a smorgasbord. I’ll present this in seven point form so that it will be easy to comment on individual points if that is what you want to do, or if you would like me to expand on anything in the thread here.

1 – BE EDUCATIVE or TOPICAL – The topics are either educational or topical and they are almost always provocative. I like to make people think. Jeffrey Dibble hit on this in the last thread about the F500 Statistics. If people can learn something they will come. If it is bland or just outright boring they will not. Simple.

2 – HONE YOUR WRITING STYLE – Many people tell me they LIKE my writing style – even if what I say is annoying. I have a dozen or so direct quotes saying this. So, how can you develop YOUR writing style? EASY! PRACTICE. I have said this over and over and over again. Use these blogs to hone your craft. You can also get a great STACK of HINTS & TIPS right here on my blog. Just look under that section in my side panel. It is sitting right there and has been for MORE than a month yet so few even look at it.

We also have some excellent writers here in the F500 TEAM. Find some whose STYLE you like and craft your style around them. Without mentioning every good writer here go and check out Thomas Northrop and Valerie Davies and Hilary Dickinson. These three and others are technically good, amusing and they just make great sense in everything they write. In fact, to give an example, Thomas wrote a piece on Andrew Fox’s blog (Follow the Foxy) the other day that was so crafty, witty and technically brilliant that it made me drool with envy. And I went on Thomas’s blog and told him so!

3 – READ AND ANSWER THOUGHTFULLY – When somebody makes a comment on your blog and it is deserving of an answer then ANSWER it. Nobody likes being ignored. I have left a LOT of very detailed replies on other blogs and three, seven, ten days later they are still just sitting there with no reply. Duh! Why would I want to say anything else? I just move on.

4 – STAY ON TOPIC – This goes BOTH for blog owners and visitors.

4A – Blog owners – Always try to steer the conversation back on course when it deviates too far. You started it – YOU should finish it. Don’t throw everything including the kitchen sink into your opening entry either. Leave some gaps and openings for others otherwise it just becomes a LECTURE (hmm, how odd is it that I should say that? LOL!)

4B – Visitors who make comments – Why would any blog owner want to answer something like this? “You have a nice blog. Put me on your blogroll.” You know which two words spring immediately to my mind when I see this JUNK? Well, to shield sensitive eyes and minds I’ll just give you the last word. It’s “OFF!” This is far worse than saying nothing coz it smacks of ME first, ME second and ME last. It is utterly insincere and you will be “pegged” because people will see your “dumpings” everywhere they go.

5 – MIX YOUR BLOG UP & INTERACT – This may seem like it contradicts 4 above but it doesn’t IF it is done properly. Many of you will have seen the exchanges between me and Garry Parkes when he came over here with his (STUPID) “Declaration of War” (which, incidentally I “pantsed” him on. You KNOW I did Gazza – Admit it! LOL!) That was a perfect opportunity “engineered” by us for so many others to come in and have some fun on both blogs and yet so very few did. What! Wasn’t it funny enough? Did you think we were serious?

Humour is GOOD! Also, check out the tete-a-tete that Nikki (Nix) Stephens and I get into from time to time. Nikki is very witty and I like trading comments with her. And look at all that GOOD-Gary and BAD-Gary rot that I carry on with. It’s just fun. If you can do it with humour it will make people laugh and show them that you can be fun and they will WANT to come back. But don’t OVERDO it and become a complete clown. (hmm – note to self on that! Yellow sticky post-it on screen – “Gazza, don’t be a d*ckhe*d all the time!”)

6 – CREDIT PEOPLE – Look at what I have done above. I have mentioned people and given them credit and credibility for what they do. How many times have you gone to a blog and seen your name mentioned? Never? Once? A few times? How do you feel when you see that? Good? Yep. Me too. Nigel Yip recently said something along the lines of “Gary Simpson’s most excellent blog.” Wow! But be SINCERE (I know you were Nigel!) and ONLY give praise when it is DESERVED. If you praise everyone all the time then you will be seen as a suck-holing praise idiot. Be judicious and don’t play favourites!

7 – PUT FRESH CONTENT UP AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN – Have you ever visited a DEAD blog? That’s one where the owner just lets it all go for weeks and sometimes even months? Pretty uninspiring, isn’t it? Why would anyone want to put a comment up on a dead blog?

Again I will say this – GET ACTIVE! Nobody wants to visit a corpse and talk to it.

Anyway, these are some of my ideas and observations about getting your blog humping and pumping. I have a lot more to offer but, like I said above, I don’t wanna hog the whole subject. Remember, I have posted this to help YOU!

I’d be happy to receive any comments or questions if you want to come and speak your mind.

[UPDATE 10 March 2010: Apart from the above, could this huge traffic flow possibly have something to do with (a) having an ACTION Plan? Ooh, look! There's a (free) ACTION Planner over there on the RH column. And (b) using Twitter intelligently. Oh, gee... lookey, lookey again. There's a (free) Twitter-Muscle book there too! OK, I'd better run now. I have horses to water (hint). And you have MORE visitors to attract.]

PS: Click on the banner below for some awesome information on how you can improve your lifestyle: