So the traffic competition has reached its end, how did you do?

With the time off over Christmas and being busy working on studentsofalex.com I didn’t do as much traffic generation as I would like. But hey, you can’t do everything!

Anyway, my stats for the 2 week peroid were just a little over 900 visits. Considering my focus was not on driving traffic in that period, I’m more than happy with that. I’m sure that won’t be enough to win the $1000 but that wasn’t really the point of the exercise anyway. It was all about taking action.

I’ve seen some great traffic results on other blogs and I look forward to finding out who won. I will have to wait a bit longer than most to find out as I am going away this week. So I will miss both the webinars being held this week and I am a bit gutted about that. I planned my dates around the original webinar date of the 6th. Not a massive problem though and watching them in the members area will be one of the 1st things I do when I return.

Let’s see….so that’s two webinars to watch….that will be about 15 hours viewing time then, LOL

I have to be honest. I was tempted to sneak my laptop into my suitcase and work while away, but that wouldn’t be much of a break would it!

I won’t be completely idle while away though. I have not finished my year, 90 day and monthly plans yet so I will be completing those. The beach, sun and a cold beer to two should give me all the inspiration I need

I also want to catch up on some reading. I’m half way through Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill, my second time reading this great book. I have uploaded the book in PDF to my site and you can download it here

The other books I will be taking with me are, The 4 Hour Work Week as recommended by Alex Jeffreys and The Little Gold Book of Yes Attitude. Mike Filsaime talks about this book at the start of his 7 figure code seminar and highlights it as an essential read. That’s a good enough reason to read it for me!

Studentsofalex.com is progressing well and myself and Mark Call will be starting the interviews when I return. In the meantime we will be sending you some questions to answer. These q&a will help you and us prepare for these interviews and will give us an idea of what you would like to talk about.

The more information you can provide the better. You will receive an email with details of the questions and how to answer them very soon, so please make sure you check your inbox. We are really looking forward to doing these interviews and they are going to be a great promotional tool for us all. If you have not already signed up to be interviewed, you can do so in my last post here.

Nigel has made a few changes to his original video (thanks Nigel!) and you can see it below. if you would like to add the video to your site, use this code to embed the video:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://widgets.clearspring.com/o/46928cc51133af17/495ea300b3524cef/46928cc5552b8140/55cd1ad8/-cpid/4993daa1f1ee6e3f/autostart/false/widget.js”></script>

If you do add to your site, Nigel has asked that the following credits be included:

Artist: Rick Clarke - (RickVanMan )
Track: Oriental Trance 2
Link: Free Music from: http://www.Music4YourVids.co.uk

It is also on youtube here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BmgtN1wyCl8

Ok, thats it from me for a week or so. How will I survive without my daily blogging fix, lol.

Alex is starting another competition this week, $4000 this time!! As I’m not here, I guess my chances will be slim of catching up so good luck to you all!

Who do you think the special guest speaker will be?

Let me know what I miss on this thread as I’m sure to be checking in while away. What can I say…..it’s an addiction

Speak to you soon, and keep an eye out for that email!

Mark

Here’s the video:

You may have seen on Mark Call’s blog that Mark and I have teamed up to work on studentsofalex.com. We would like to arrange an interview with as many students of Alex Jeffreys as possible. In these interviews you can talk about your experience of the coaching, the progress you have made, your plans for the future and most importantly, promote your website.

We will then be putting these interviews into the studentsofalex.com site which we will be heavily promoting and hope you will to. We will be adding to the site on a regular basis and there will be many opportunities for you to promote your websites, ebooks and products.

If you have already signed up over at Mark’s blog to take part you do not need to do anything further at this stage.

If you have yet to sign up and would like to be interviewed and have your site promoted, please fill the form below and we will add you to the list.

Please use the comments section of the form to highlight any areas in particular you wish to talk about in your interview. Maybe your ebook or future ebook, how you have built your list or success you have had with the PPP for example.

We are in the process of getting things in place for the interviews and hope to have them all completed in January. I am currently building the studentsofalex website and it’s still very much a work in progress but here is a screenshot to give you an idea of how it will look. Any feedback as always appreciated

So if you would like to put yourself forward for an interview, fill out the form below, leave a comment here or on Mark’s blog and we will be in touch!

All the best and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to you all!

Mark

****UPDATE****

I have just received a video from NIgel Yip that he has kindly made for us to promote the studentsofalex website. I will email you all a link soon so you can put it on your sites to promote your interviews!

Thanks NIgel! If want to know how Nigel makes these videos, download his FREE EBOOK from his blog HERE

After a slightly longer than planned Christmas break I’m back.

I did intend to be back to work much sooner . But after one too many comments from friends and family that the best way to get my attention would be to leave a comment on my blog, I got the hint, LOL

It has been great spending sometime away from the PC and catching up with people. The downside is it’s always hard getting started again!

I have taken a quick look round other Alex Jeffreys students blogs and now feel a bit guilty. Some of you have written many posts since Christmas and I need to get back in gear.

Having said that, it has been quite interesting to take a back seat and just read other blogs..

One topic that seems to be hotly debated is the use of the blogroll. The question had been raised during the last webinar by Joe Trueman that our lengthy blogrolls could cause us problems with Google. The reason being it could be viewed that we are trying to artificially increase our page ranks.

It’s not something I had considered but even the possibility should be taken seriously . The last thing any of us want after the all the hard work we have put in is to receive the dreaded Google slap!

In my quick trawl through some of the blogs, a few solutions have been offered.

JT Martin had a post about a ‘no follow’ plugin and this is a quick fix to the problem. This plugin gives you the option to set your outbound blogroll links as a ‘no follow’ link so they will not have an influence on the Google page rank.

Unfortunately for me, I stopped using the blogroll facility and placed all the links into a text widget a few weeks back. Seemed like a good idea at the time, If only I could remember why, lol. So to make use of this widget I will have to enter all the details back into the blogroll, what fun!

Dave Dunn has solution that I also quite like. He has set up a RSS feed that will show subscribed students latest posts. He also has a recent comments widget. The benefit of this solution is that those who are active will still feature on his blog.

I sure you have all read Garry Parkes post about his blogroll dilemma and it is something I can definitely relate to. I have over 150 students listed and it is getting to the unmanageable point. I know Garry is trying to work out some sort of ‘scoring’ system for who should be included, but as I posted in my comment to his thread, this could become time consuming. I don’t know about you but I find there are not enough hours in the day already.

All this debate about blogrolls and who should be on them and where doesn’t surprise me. I think the real question being asked is the value of the blogroll and the community itself. The stage is fast approaching now that our future success lies in how much we are doing outside our community, not just in it. I know that this question is occupying many , I have had many emails on the subject.

Whether you are on someones blogroll or not, that is not going to be the key factor in your success. Part of our traffic generation plan should be to actively engage with other marketers outside the Alex Jeffreys coaching program. Predominately via their blogs and forums. Do we add all of them to the blogroll, should they add us to theirs?

Yes, it’s a silly question but it does make me think that the whole blogroll situation is taking up more of our time and focus than it deserves.

That is of course just my opinion, I maybe wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time! Lol.

What do you feel about the blogroll, it‘s benefits and criteria for being included?

I would love to hear you thoughts.