As of late, blogs all over the sphere have been focusing a lot on SEO, traffic and of course… marketing. Of course, every one of us wants to become the next online mastermind that makes a killing online, so I figured I’d share a resource that  not only use, but highly recommend.

Why do I like this guy?

Before I go divulging who it is I’m talking about, I want to give you a few reasons why I so highly recommend this blog. As you all know by now, I love organic blogging. In fact I’m a freak for it. So much so, that I don’t even begin to try and put the Piss Biscuit into a niche like some folks say I should do.That said, this recommendation has been earned and let me tell you why.

1. He’s not selling me, you, or anyone else a damn thing. It’s organic. He writes for the love of his skill.
2. It’s honest and not to a fault. “White Hat”, “Black Hat”, “Purple Hat” shade matters none. You get it all.
3. Accounts his first hand experience with different techniques. Tried and tested… it can’t get better.
4. Real. Serious. He’s really serious. Both his Rambles and his articles keep me interested.
5. He’s not trying to be another MMO blog. Gotta love that.

So what’s the damn address already?

Well without further delay, let me introduce you all to… ExposedSEO.com. He writes this about himself:

Hey! My name is Ilia and welcome to my blog! I am 22 years of age, 7 of which I’ve spent working for myself. I’ve had a lot of success with seo and Internet marketing. I’ve achieved a number of highly competitive rankings, driven millions of organic visitors every month and generated thousands of dollars in revenue. Now I’m here to share some of my experience with you.

Right from the start Ilia is well spoken, informed me of why I should listen and tells me what to expect while reading his blog. I like it already!

So what can you expect?

Although NO blogger today ever goes to these lengths to write a “review”, I am a firm believer that you should not just recommend someone for a fee… or because they offer great affiliate payouts… I recommend something because I find it valuable. But to help you all determine for yourselves if this might be a valuable resource, here are a few recent posts from Iliam’s blog.

• His way of generating revenue with BANS.
• Why he runs more than one website at a time.
• Why affiliate marketing is better than AdSense.

I’ve got tons more I’d like to list, but I don’t want to put all the stuff I find interesting on here. I want you to head over there and take a look around yourself.

Why resources like this are important.

The fact of the matter is that in a little over two months, I’ve taken this blog from nothing, to around 350 uniques a day. I suck at Stumble. I can’t figure out how to make Technorati work in my favor. I don’t advertise and with work being so hectic these days, I don’t comment as much on other blogs anymore.

I don’t have a specific niche outside of blogging and of course… I’m constantly bombarded with the “bloggers blues”… So why go into all of this? To show you the value of organic, real life blogging. I think Piss Biscuit has really become a staple visit for some people and I’m proud of that. Visits will one day be in the thousands here, but for now, I’m quite happy with my current community.

This “plug” of sorts, is my way of showing thanks to totally awesome bloggers who do what they do just because. Oh, did I mention this was NOT a paid… or even requested plug… In fact, Iliam, has no clue this was even coming.  Enjoy it and let me know what you all think!

I’ve been reading a number of blogs now for a good while and have always been interested learning more about those little 125 X 125 pixel ads that almost every blog on the planet has these days. While I used to click on them quite regularly (almost like quick links to other blogs) I’ve often wondered how much traffic they actually drive to a site. Using an article written by “The Affiliate Post” who wrote a really interesting post about the infamous “Entre Card” … got me thinking about traffic drives to the Piss Biscuit and what some of those little colorful banners would really do for me here.

The Traffic Drive Experiment

Keeping the spirit of building The Piss Biscuit’s traffic numbers, as well as helping you guys in your daily blogging activities, I’ve decided to finance a little experiment that I’ll need your help with. Rather than offering some sort of freebie, or a giveaway that requires you to post something nice about me, I wanted to give you a chance to spend my money and learn from from the results. First hand experience is better then guess work in my book so lets get to it and maybe we all can learn something from it.

How it works…

I’ve got a list of blogs that I read every day. I’ve also got a list of blogs that have some major pull in the blog world (Don’t we all). But this experiment has nothing to do with what “I” think, it’s got everything to do with what “you” think. I want each and every one of you, to think about your favorite blog, submit your suggestion and tell me why you think we as a group would benefit form using your suggestion.

I’ll pick a handful of your recommendations based on the number of submissions I get, and advertise on them using the 125 X 125 sidebar banner. Every day, I’ll update the fruits of our labors page so that all of you can see what’s hot and what’s not.

What’s the purpose?

The point in this exercise is simple really. Many people don’t have an advertising budget for their blogs even though they’d really like to. I for one, have always wondered if advertising is worth it, so I’m sure at some point it’s crossed your minds as well. This experiment sets to help kill the curiosity each of us may have without you having to spend a dime.

Of the millions of blogs out there, you tend to see the same ads over and over again. That’s because people like us usually can’t allocate an expense to something that we’re are not 100% sure about. With your help, I’m setting out to solve the mystery.

Well… no worries, I’m about to give all of you the chance to spend my money and learn from it. As i’ve already mentioned. You’ll all get to see the increases or decrease in traffic, subscribers, comments and overall blog participation as a result of your pics. Anyone with a blog, ought to love this especially since it’s my hard earned cash and not yours.

What you need to do…

Simply put… use the comments here to enter your suggestions. One at a time is fine, or 15 at once… it doesn’t matter to me as long as you include a link to the blog you’re recommending and a “short” plug to why you think you’d spend my money there.

Your descriptions could be as simple as “…they have 25 million readers…” or “… It’s someplace I’ve always wanted to advertise, but been skeptical of…” or even better “… I know it works jerk! Just do it, you won’t regret it…” I’ll collect the submissions until Saturday June 14th, 2008, and spend the rest of the weekend researching how much money you people are going to cost me… I’ll announce the final advertiser list and start spending money! I’m excited and thrilled and I know that you guys are going to come up with some great ideas and I look forward to sifting through tons of submission!

Alright guys, I was going to post the second article in my blog design series series titled “Making Your Blog Sexy”. But low and behold at 2:00 this morning I felt the need to post a little information on the progress of this blog. We’ve talked about a lot over this past week and I think it would be good to share the lessons learned and get some feedback on what has been happening here. You all know, that I like sharing information that betters our blogging community, so here is my first public contribution to building a btter blog.

The Piss Biscuit was launched officially on May 28th making us one week old. So what better time than now to show you guys the fruits of OUR labors.

Traffic Stats

Traffic is an interesting thing and many people have different views on what is and isn’t important. So instead of trying to figure out what number you’d like to see, I’ll just start with a list of stats that I feel is important to MY motivation… If I miss something that you’d like to know more about, just hollar and I’ll be more than happy to go dig it up for ya.

May 28, 2008 – June 05, 2008

• Unique Visitors: 1,045
• Hits: 42,616
• Pages: 10,625

Best day for traffic: June 03, 2008 at 407 unique visitors

Social / Networking

• Feedburner Subscriptions: 9 confirmed, 1 un-confirmed
• Technorati: Favorites 1 | Authority 3
• Stumble: 1 Stumble
• Trackbacks: 4 (four)

Best response from a social tool: Stumble Upon with 370 queries on June 04, 2008

Freebies and Giveaways

• A Premium WordPress Theme for subscribers (Expires June 28, 2008)
• A Premium WordPress Theme for posts! (Expires June 28, 2008

Comments

• 173 New Comments (Does include my own)
• 11 Comment Subscribers (I’m not included)

Well there you go, just a quick content oriented look at some of Piss Biscuit’s stats after one week in business. Did I miss anything? And for those of you who have had blogs longer than a week, what do you think? What were your experiences? I know mine are not all that great… but I think it’s progress. What do you think? What are some goals I should set for this blog? Thanks again ladies and gents, for everything!

Okay people listen up and listen up good! I’ve been asking for help since almost day one and I’ve gotten so few responses it’s pathetic! I was giving away free hosting for a year to someone who could help me figure out how to give away a conference ticket worth almost $1,000.00! I mean c’mon people, I can’t give away stuff… to help me giveaway more stuff to save my life. So, let me try this baby out… How about a free premium WordPress theme?

Here’s the deal…

So you’re interested in getting a free WordPress theme from your pal PB right? Well I thought you would! So here is the deal… Bryan has recently enlightened me to a whole new way of looking at online investing. His formula is to create assets from liabilities. Assests make you money, and liabilities cost you money… pretty simple right. But the most interesting point he made is that subscribers are worth about $18.00 each. I have no clue how that number comes about, but if you’re curious, head on over to his site and ask.

Knowing that figure, and looking at my current subscriber list via feedburner I’d say this blog is worth about… $18.00 thanks to my man Affiliate Post who is the ONLY subscriber I’ve managed to earn… and here I thought you guys were diggin it? I know I’ve got some subscribers in various readers… but I need some e-mail subscriptions to build up the value of my “investment” and I’ll hook you up with a killer theme (I love great design)… for the help. Are we on the same page? Good!

Holy kanibilas Batman! There will be TWO winners!

Okay so if you haven’t got my drift, here it is in plain English for ya.

One random “FEEDBURNER” subscriber will earn his or her choice of premium themes found on my premium themes page.

One random “LinkBack” or “Trackback” with a post written about how cool this blog is will get you hooked up with another chance to get a killer design.

Yes. I said not one, but two people will win the premium theme of their choice. That means if you subscribe, and write an awesome post that you KNOW I’ll appreciate… you’ve got twice the chance of winning. I don’t need posts talking about the “contest” directly… but it might be a good idea. As long as you link it to this post and say something that might make me blush… I’m cool with it!

How long will this thing last… Hmmm how about two weeks? That gives you plenty of time to spam all your friend’s blogs… Kidding… and me time to figure out the next bit of awesomeness I’m going to give away. So… June 28th, 2008 at midnight… it’s all over people. I’ll video tape the random drawing… or handle it via Yahoo Live so you all can see what’s going down and who the TWO lucky winners will be.

Don’t Forget!

Some things to keep in mind… When you ask for e-mail delivery of Piss Biscuit posts via feedburner… you’ve GOT to confirm the registration, or it will not show up in my admin panel!

If you’re going to write a post, please please please make sure that you allow pingbacks and trackbacks… other wise, I wont have a clue that you wrote something nice!

For those of you interested…

I will also check my traffic so that I can DOCUMENT the real live results of your efforts to help me build a better Piss Biscuit. So unlike those people who don’t want to spill the beans… I’m going to kiss and tell which should be an awesome learning experience for all of us! Oh, and while Stumbles and Diggs are NOT required for this sweet little deal… they are greatly appreciated!

PS: If the 1,800 subscribe now links in this post isn’t good enough, then you can always check the top right of every page for the link labeled e-mail.

Well this ought to be more fun than a barrel of drunk monkeys… Over the past few days, I’ve had a number of people, both at the office and here on PB, open up discussion on “About Me” pages. Now I know there are like 10 zillion posts out there talking about how important these small, sometimes obscure pages really are so lets forgo the same old stuff an try something new.

Let the fun begin…

We already know that PB just isn’t your normal hot spot right? We’re different, we’re fun, we’re a little off the wall sometimes… and we really wanna see pictures of your loved ones. Yep, you read it right, not you… your loved ones. I know some of you won’t ever admit this, but you know you’re curious to see what some of our significant others look like and so do millions of other bloggers! So in the spirit of traffic building and shamless self promotion, I propose that we offer up our special someone as… well… bait!

The making of a movie star…

You all all know what my ugly mug looks like, and I can see most of you all too… either on your about pages or on your gravatars… but what about the ladies and gents that hold our attention outside the wonderful world of blogs? Why have we forgotten about them? I think it’s time we change that and get some attention for it too.

I know that the first blog Cassey ever setup, she felt like a movie star… and in some way, it actually helped her understand what it is that I do for a living. As of late she’s growing to understand how blogging can become so addictive. She’s not a blogger, but she’s always asking me to put a picture up so the world knows that I’m taken… I know cute, but a little to sappy right. So, in respect of her wishes, a picture it is!

You show me yours… I’ll show you mine.

I’m going to get a gallery going that shows gives a spot for your loved one, a little description on the blog of your choosing, and a little link love to boot. The purpose is simple… we’re going to so something no one else is really doing and nab droves (good word) of traffic at the same time. It’s my plan, I guess I’ll be the first… but I expect you all to follow suit… don’t leave me hangin’ out here!

The problem and the plan…

I don’t have any idea what to call this page so your ideas are needed and needed quick! Something tied into biscuits or piss or piss biscuits… LMAO… just doesn’t sound right does it? But who better to ask than you guys and gals. It’s got to be a slick title so it’s easy for all of our new traffic to find. It’s also got to be tasteful because they are… after all, our loved ones. So moving forward, if you all think it’ll be fun to make your loved one famous piss biscuit style… let me know, and I’ll get a little uploader ready, I’ll make a fun page and we can start playing around with it. Can’t you see it… hundreds of people a day visiting your blog just because you’ve offered up your loved one as bait… gotta love it and can’t wait for your thoughts!

Note to the pervs: Nothing sexual in nature… or overly personal please. Sexy is fine… we all like sexy, but make sure it’s something you’d want your momma to see. Okay? Good.