Originally this blog was created to test my ability at social media, internet networking and SEO (search engine optimization) The popularity I recieved from my how to videos has led me to leave the marketing firm I was with and start freelancing. So I am now a freelance internet marketing manager handling adwords campaigns for affiliates, businesses, arbitragers and others. I learned a lot, especially about social media, and I am sure I still have lots to learn, but I no longer need to focus on it anymore since it is not a work requirement.

Lets look forward to a great second half of the year…

I know everyone has been looking forward to some new tutorials on Google AdWords, but I recently quit smoking, and unfortunately I developed what is called “The Quitters Flu”. I didn’t know this would happen when I decided to commit to quitting for good. All I can say is that I feel sick, and I have never felt so sick in my life. I would probably never have felt this way if I just kept smoking, but I know smoking is bad and is something that should be done.

I have been smoking almost half my life. I stated when I was 14 and now I am 27. I figure, smoking for almost 50% of your entire life as to do something to you permanently. At the very least you become dependant on it. Before I decided to quit smoking I could have never pictured myself a day without a smoke.

I had a discussion the other day with a buddy of mine, and he explained to me that I work so hard at mastering my life, hence my blog motto, How To Rule The World. He said, you are mastering everything around you, but you are not mastering yourself. Why do it, just to throw it all away due to an illness or the inevitable effects of smoking.

So therefore, I QUIT and the hard way too, Cold Turkey.

I was good for the first 24 hours, then around 48 hours in I began to feel sick with flu like symptoms. I thought I was coming down with something, but honestly, I have not had the flu since I was probably 8 years old. I have a rock solid immune system. I can be in a room full of people with the flu and walk out of there never getting sick. So I knew something was wrong. I started researching the effects of quitting and came across a few articles that mentioned the quitter’s flu. By my 72^nd hour of not smoking all I could do is lay in bed. It reminded me of that scene in the Johnny Cash film Walk The Line, where Johnny Cash was locked in his room until he is sober. I was curled up in a ball, I broke out into a cold sweat and couldn’t sleep a wink. I felt like ripping my skin off and my bones and muscles were so sore all I could do is lay there and wish it would all stop.

Well, I am feeling better, but now I have developed this insane cough. All I do is cough all the time. I just wish something would come out. I cough so hard I want to puke, but normally I don’t. I cough at random moments, in the middle of talking, eating, driving, and even while I am sleeping. Last night alone I must have woken myself up at least once every hour to cough about 100 times into my pillow. I just coughed after finishing that last sentence…

Lastly I seem to be loosing my voice now… I can’t speak and half the time I feel like I’m yelling just to say a word. Then while I am trying to say something so hard, I end up squealing like I’m hitting puberty. It’s all really annoying, if you ask me. I hope I get over this fast.

Anyway, since all I do is cough all day long and can’t speak, I basically can’t make a video until this all ends. So for now, I will provide some other insights and thoughts via the good old text written article method.

For those of you who are interested, here are my QUIT SMOKING stats

Time Since Last Cigarette | Amount Saved Since Quitting

(Except Porn, Hate, Or Anything Offensive)

Since I have 4 ad spots available right now, this first round will have 4 winners. After this 1^st round I will host this contest again, but this time only for 1 ad spot. The winner of the new ad spot will take over the 1^st ad spot. The person who has the 1^st ad spot will move to ad spot 2. Ad spot 2 will take over ad spot 3, and ad spot 4 will get removed off. You will get a minimum of 4 weeks of advertising for FREE! Every week I will re-host this contest for the 1^st ad spot and move all the rest accordingly.

If you want to win one of these ad spots you must do one or more of the following

1. Link back to my blog within your blog roll with a quality Anchor Text Link of your choice

2. Write a review of my blog and introduce me to your readers

3. Write a review about one of my articles

4. Include an anchored text link in your Forum Signature

5. Provide some type of other text link back to my blog.

Once you have done one of the following above, come back to this contest page and leave a comment to let me know what you have done and how you have done it. At the end of this week I will announce the 1^st 4 winners and then continue to host this contest every week after that.

The winners will be picked either at random or based on the person I feel that has best represented my blog with a text link. There are no entry points, and I will not be picking names from a hat. The winners will be based on who deserves it, and who put their best effort forward to win the contest.

Good Luck!

Please send all comments to beta@robdogg.com

Thanks

Today I learned about rss link backs from Mixed Marketing Arts in an artlce called Increase Website Traffic with this RSS Feed Directory List. The recommendation was to signup for RSShugger. I visited rsshugger, signed up and was told I needed to post a review about the rsshugger service to get approved. So here is my review.

If you are wondering what rsshugger does, here is a quote from their site

rssHugger is a unique website that aims to bring bloggers and readers together. rssHugger aims to provide blog owners with a unique easy-to-use way to promote their blogs by sending them traffic, building backlinks for search engine optimization, as well as attracting new rss subscribers if the content is interesting to the reader. rssHugger aims to help visitors be able to easily find blogs that write about subjects they are interested in. These subjects include: internet marketing, making money online, charity, sports, gambling, and many more. If the visitors find a blog that they had not previously heard about, they can easily add it to their RSS readers or bookmark it.

If you want to learn more about this service visit the rsshugger about page.

If you want to see what your rsshugger page will look like, take a look at mine

www.rssHugger.com/robdogg.com

What are the benefits of owning a blog page with rsshugger?

For the blog owners:

· Raise awareness of your blog

· Send tons of visitors to your blog

· Share traffic with the community

· Be part of a viral/buzz marketing campaign

· Build deep-links for your blog posts to help with search engine optimization

· Get new interested RSS subscribers who view your content on a regular basis.

For the visitors:

· Find blogs that interest you

· Easily subscribe to many blogs

· Skim over hundreds of blogs to find what suits you

So there you have it. If you want quality linkback from a PR3 site (at the time of writing this), and some extra traffic to your blog, then sign up and give them a try

Here are my 10 Reasons Why John Chow Should Pick Me Over All The Rest.

I’m A Specialist – I am a web analyst, and specialize in PPC management, and optimization for fortune 50 companies. John Chow will know his money is not being wasted on someone who will do nothing with the information gained from the summit.

I Attend Summits – I am already a regular attendee at summits that specialize in PPC and SEO optimization. I understand how these events work, I know what to expect, and I am prepared to mingle and learn.

Location – I live in Southern California and drive to Las Vegas all the time. I will not complain about needing airfare, and I will not need a Hotel room since I have a time share on the strip, which I can stay at any time I want.

I’m a Do-er – I’m and doer not a don’t-er. I don’t give up because a project gets to hard. It’s a well known fact that 80% of all bloggers will give up based on a small amount of failure. I am a trial and error kind of guy, and failure only means I have found one more way not to do something.

I’m A Leader – I’m a leader, not a follower. I create my own rules, find exploits, and learn ways to use the system. I manage special projects at my current employer, advancing the company into new, and unknown territory all the time. Only a leader can do something in the unknown.

Entrepreneur – I’m an Entrepreneur. From 2000 to 2006, I owned my own business selling home décor, and plumbing supplies nationwide. This provided me and my family a full time income from which we lived on. I grossed over 1.5 million in sales per year from this venture and then sold the business before the industry crashed.

Passive Income – I currently have, and am in the process of developing additional multiple streams of passive income. Attending the affiliate summit will help gain additional insight on how to better monetize my life.

Active Subscriber – I am a current, and active subscriber of John Chow. I read his blog daily, and I have him on RSS. I comment frequently, and even call him out on mistakes he has made. John Chow Posts Bad Advice For AdWords

Educate Others – I have a passion to educate others in what I do, how I do it, and in detail. Sending me to the summit will not only educate myself, but will educate many others in the process.

Nickname – I am the only blogger who uses his nickname as his blogging handle (pseudo name). Most people just use their real name, or buy a domain with the term blog in it. (Sorry John Chow) Don’t take it personal. =)

So, there you have it. The 10 reasons why I should be the affiliate summit winner

How SEO is Like Guitar Hero (or Rock Band, if That’s Your Thing)

I am not a big guitar hero fan but I started to think about this. I used to be a big MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) fan. I was heavily addicted to World of Warcraft, Diablo and other such games.

Blogging is a lot like MMORPG style games. Your blog is your character. You dress it up, make it look cool. Write a few articles and create an about me page. Since nobody is reading a damn thing you’re saying yet, it’s kind of similar to chatting with some NPC (Non Playing Characters).

Now you’re ready to explore the lands of social media. You travel to StumbleUpon Land, and make a few friends. They tell you to visit some ancient gurus like Shoemoney and John Chow for advice on how to level up and make money. You take the warp browser and end up at shoemoney place.

You spend some time reading but it’s hard to grasp and understand. It’s kind of like talk to yoda from star wars where you just get little bits and pieces of information.

Master Shoemoney: “hmm… Make money you will, blog like and pro and you will beeee and pro”.

            Young Newbie Blogger: “But Master Shoemoney, what does that mean?”

Master Shoemoney: “Worry not much my young newbie blogger, visit master Chow for now, learn much you will”

You set off on your journey to see Master Chow, but you must pass through the Temple of DIGG on your way. Upon your arrival, you see marvelous articles all over the place, towering to the heavens with visitors. On the small side streets you can hear the small ramblings from people about the “DIGG effect”. As you pass through a crowd you hear the shouts “MSaleem please DIGG me, please!!!” You can see him in the distance, but he is unreachable, and you know you can’t get his attention… yet

So you decide to continue your Journey for knowledge, and visit Master Chow on Money Making Advice. All of sudden, on your way to visit Master Chow, you get attacked by a Stumble Troll that has been following you since StumbleUpon land.

Your first battle!

You throw a couple flames his way, but he is unaffected by your weak attacks.

You cry out for help, but nobody hears you.

You cast the spell of Ignore

Sweet, you manage to get away… for now. You know there will be more fights to come in the future, but you know you will learn quick…

I could probably write a novel like this, but as you can see, blogging is just a really crazy, advanced version of role playing games. You get to mingle with other characters, level up as you learn how to properly blog, and visit crazy lands such as StumbleUpon and DIGG, and just like any role playing game, you set out for wealth and power.

Well, I guess it’s all left to the imagination, and how you want to perceive blogging.

How do you see it?

Just to let you all know. In order to help spread the word, and make this a more active blogging environment, I have installed the DoFollow plugin for Wordpress. Thats right, I am rewarding all my fellow readers, commenter’s and Pingbacks and trackbacks.

However in order to fight back on spam, the nofollow will be removed 24 hours after you have posted so that I may have enough time to delete any spammy messages.

I advise that you do not abuse the system, or I will punish you all by disabling it…

Happy commenting!

Thanks to all who reviewed and thumbed up my article…

You have made my day

Don’t forget, I have started a series about how to master StumbleUpon. If you want to learn how to do this as well, be sure to take a look at what I have posted so far

StumbleUpon Series Part 1 – A Commitment To Mastering StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon Series Part 2 – My True Intentions Are Not To Spam Or Game The System

StumbleUpon Series Part 3 – Where Does All That Traffic Come From?

So… my questions is.

What else do you want me to blog about?

Do you want to know more about blogging, mastering social bookmarking and monetizing your blog? What other subjects are you most interested in? PPC, SEO? Give me your opinions, because they matter to me and guide me in the direction of my audience.

You can send your comments to rob@robdogg.com