And if you haven’t heard, the 202 family has launched their new partner network, Revolution202. Check it out, these guys are the best in the business!

Hopefully I’ll be able to catch as many sessions as I can. One I’m looking forward to is called Automating Websites and PPC Management presented by John Hasson, even though he’s stated that some of us may be leaving the session scratching our heads during his podcast with Andrew Wee. But it sounds intriguing right? Please check out the podcast if you’re interested in hearing an awesome discussion on keyword grouping and PPC management tips.

Anyway, stay tuned everyone!

What do I plan to do on my trip, you ask? First and foremost, eat. I plan to eat my way all the way through Japan, from Tokyo to Osaka. I have two weeks to consume as many delectable delights as my stomach can manage. I’m also going to try to document as much as I can, since well, who cares if I look like a tourist. I am a tourist, and I’m Japanese so it’s OK if I take my camera everywhere. Gives me something to post here on my blog.

I’m also looking forward to visiting the amazing temples and beautiful scenery of the countryside. While I plan to do these things, I really have no idea what to expect. Each time I travel it’s such a huge learning experience. It’s humbling, educating, motivating, and just fun!

But I have a question – do you think I should bring my laptop? I know, pretty lame question right? Well, I’m not sure I want to carry it with me, or worry about it. But you never know when it might come in handy, plus I could put all of my pictures onto my hard drive. Again, I know, lame, but let me know what you think. I’m not always going to be in the city, so I don’t know if I’ll have access to communication. The flip argument is that I’m on vacation, and I shouldn’t worry about the rest of the world. LOL

Passing the GAP exam means that you understand how to navigate the AdWords system, and that you understand the principles of how the system can be used for advertising on Google search. Knowing how to optimize your ad campaigns in your industry for maximum profit is another story.

I’ve been managing PPC for over a year and a half and I figured having my GAP certificate would be a helpful step in my pursuit of managing clients independently. It wasn’t difficult, and only took $50 and an hour and a half of my life to complete.

If you have any questions about the test, let me know. If you’ve taken the test and passed, congrats! You don’t know anymore about AdWords than you did before you took it, but you do get to post a neat little logo on your site saying you’re now an AdWords Pro. </sarcasm>

I just got some great news — I won the Nintendo Wii from Darin Carter’s giveaway contest! I’m so excited, I don’t know what to think. If you guys were me, would you contest it away like I did with the Zune, or would you keep it? Leave me your thoughts. Hope you all had a great weekend!

Thanks again, Darin!

“I want to rank now.”

A few people have mentioned to me that they want their sites to rank high for their (general) industry keyword phrases in search engine results…now. Businesses that operate in saturated markets will most likely not rank immediately for general terms via SEO tactics — but they can rank immediately in search advertising and start making sales with PPC. It’s the faster way to get the product in front of the people who are searching for it.

“I just want free traffic.”

Businesses should understand that while clicks on natural search results don’t cost anything, SEO is not free by any means. Just because a search ranking is considered “natural,” it doesn’t always get there naturally. If you know what I mean… So going the route of SEO first isn’t necessarily going to save the business money in the long run. In fact, it could cost the company in lost sales, sales which have been scooped up by competitors participating in PPC.

PPC vs. SEO in the Job Market

My thoughts on how I perceive PPC to be an SEO afterthought in the general business community was solidified when a colleague of mine did a search on Indeed.com for jobs that include the terms “PPC” and “SEO” in the job descriptions. Indeed provides a nifty little chart which shows the trends in job listings that include those two terms. Do you see what I see?

There is an exponential spike in SEO-related job listings that began around the spring of this year, and not far behind is an increase in PPC-related jobs. Surprise, surprise. My guess is that PPC-related jobs will follow a similar trend, but my hunch is based on my initial hypothesis that companies do see PPC as a strategy to be implemented in later phases of online business planning. However, paid search marketing should be considered in the early planning phases of any new online marketing venture where sales may be involved, and natural search rankings have not yet been achieved.

What do you guys think? Do you agree that people look to implement SEO first, then realize later on that they should be participating in PPC? Does your business or office have both PPC and SEO employed? I’m just glad to see that the industry I’m in has an increasing demand in jobs. That deserves a big ole woohoo!!

RESULTS:

“What Were The Chances I’d Win?”
In one month, this contest was able to receive a total of 74 official entries. What do I mean by official? Well, there were a couple entries that I didn’t allow because they were newly-created Blogger blogs (created the day of or the day before the entry). It’s not fair to all of you bloggers who work consistently on your blogs to lose a contest to someone who’s spent 10 minutes and zero dollars on their blog entering this contest. Therefore, a few entries were denied, and the true odds of winning was 1 in 74. In all, that’s very good odds of winning the Zune — not even 100 people entered!

How This Contest Affected MsDanielle.com
You can read my blog standings as of one month ago here. As you can see, my Technorati rank at the time I posted the contest announcement was 8,797, with an authority of 395. Today my ranking stands at 5,282, with an authority of 573.

I think a good portion of the increase was an effect of the contest, either directly or indirectly. Some people linked to me to enter into the drawing, some wrote about the contest to let others know (but didn’t enter — thanks David!), and some found my site through the grapevine and wrote about something they enjoyed here. The contest began a wonderful ripple effect for my blog that I couldn’t predict or control.

THOUGHTS:

What Should the Winner Do Now?
There are three options for bloggers who win tangible prizes from promotional contests.

1. Keep it. This is obvious. If you really need an MP3 player, keep it, or give it to someone you love.
2. Sell it. eBay, Craigslist, or your own blog are viable ways to sell whatever you won for cash.
3. Give it away. Prizes won can be recycled into future contest prizes.

If I had kept the Zune, that would have been end of story. John Chow, Jane May, Michael Kwan, and other popular bloggers wouldn’t have written about my blog. I wouldn’t have been linked by BlueFur or Andrea Micheloni, ever. MsDanielle.com wouldn’t have received as much publicity as it had, and I wouldn’t have come across so many great blogs and people along the way. Some of the entries had me almost falling off my chair, they were so entertaining!

The point is, there really is no dollar amount that I can assign to how this particular contest affected my blog. It does help that the Zune (originally purchased by Millnic Media, given away by the Affiliate Marketing Alliance, and won by John Chow) has a slight history. If I were Enkay, I’d really think about what my next move would be, and try to ride the wave that has been lovingly referred to as “The Great Zune Monomyth.” Of course, it’s difficult to predict how contesting it off again would result, but if it continues to make its way through these contests, and around the world, it could quite possibly become the most popular prize in the blogosphere. And the most famous White Elephant ever on earth.

The Next Great Promotion
Now, you didn’t think that the contests were going to end just yet, did you? Of course not! For those 73 of you who didn’t win the Zune, you have another chance to win an even better prize. You might not think that’s saying much, but my good buddy Mr. Gary Lee is giving away a free iPhone! Yes, you read that correctly. A free iPhone! Apparently they’re sold out for now in stores. So, head over to his blog and check out the details on how you can enter. Maybe you’ll get this one for free!

Thanks again to everyone who participated. If you enter to win the iPhone, I wish you the best of luck! Oh and my blog turned four months old yesterday. Woohoo!

Happy Fourth of July everyone! Here in the US, the Fourth is a national holiday which represents the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. This is where we declared independence from Great Britain. Most people will be celebrating by barbequeing, going to the beach or a picnic, eating hamburgers and hot dogs, and later tonight, watching fireworks and waving around those sparkler thingies. Happy times…

And to my friends up north, I’ve read it was recently Canada Day. Happy Canada Day! I never knew this holiday existed, so from your friends down south, we hope you had a wonderful, and safe, holiday. Now, I’m off to the pool as it’s currently 73 degrees outside.

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Grandma’s right — we are a good looking bunch!
Last weekend I went to Las Vegas for a huge family reunion. Most of these relatives I’ve never met, and the best part was meeting all of my “new” cousins. There were 17 of us, to be exact, a mixture of first, second and third cousins. Some weren’t able to make it, so I don’t even really know how many of us there are. Including the parents, aunts and uncles, there were 50 who attended the reunion.

Meeting new family is great, especially when there’s lots of love and positive energy floating around. My adorable grandmother made a speech at the reunion dinner, announcing in an evenly-toned manner, “I am so proud to be part of such a wonderful family. Everyone likes each other. We’ve got doctors and lawyers, students, and others who are still trying to find what they want to do [not to mention teachers and a tv newscaster!]… And, we’re a good looking bunch.” LOL I almost fell out of my chair when she said that!

Here’s a group shot of most of us cousins on our way to Stratosphere. There are three rides way up on the top (one goes up and down the red pointy thing in the background!), and we had the greatest time bonding and screaming our heads off at the same time.

And here’s something else that wasn’t so cool, but both aggravating and entertaining enough for me to capture and write about — the most annoying car to drive behind in the fast lane on the way to Las Vegas. This video is 5 seconds long:

Microsoft Zune Contest Nearing the End
I announced the end date of the MS Zune giveaway, and just wanted to remind you guys that I’ll be randomly pulling a name out of a hat next weekend to see who’ll be getting it next. Thank you so much to everyone who’s participated! This thing sort of took on a life of its own after John Chow, Jane May, and a few other popular bloggers announced the contest. I will note that having a substantial prize helps motivate people to enter, as well as spread the word, and the fact that it first came from John Chow also helped a lot. I don’t have an exact count at the moment, but there are probably about 60 entries at this point, which is still good contest odds for winning a nice prize like the Zune. If you’re still interested in entering the contest, feel free to post your entry and let me know by next Friday.

Enkay Analyzes Ms Danielle dot com and Finds a Typo
That’s right people. It’s true. “N-K” of Enkay Blog has sifted through a majority of my blog posts and has found two typos that I let slip by. Why did he do this? Because I challenged him to find a typo in my blog, and if he found one, I would do a site review of his site. To make a long story short, somewhere I’ve misspelled “participated” and left out an “s” in pictures. Therefore, he gets his well-deserved review.

I believe I was first contacted by Enkay via MyBlogLog (which you all know I love). Subsequently, NK, as I’ll call him, submitted an entry for my Zune contest that I found personally entertaining. Not only does his blog cover a range of interesting topics like blog tips, entertainment, and technology news, he reports them in a way that’s very enjoyable to read. I find that the most refreshing writings are those that sound like people are conversing out loud to a group, and not just writing for the sake of putting something on their blog. Imagining that you’re addressing a group helps create a model for dialog exchange, which carries over into the tone of your writing, since you are addressing a pretty big group — the entire www. My only issue is his header which I think can be better branded. Other than that, it has potential to gain a very loyal readership.

Get a Free Review at Cash for Comments
My friend Prija recently started a blog called Cash for Comments. No, he doesn’t actually get paid to comment. But I have to admit it’s a very intricate yet simple plan to help everyone increase content and SEO value. This is how it works:

1. Leave five valuable comments on his blog and contact him to get your free review.
2. He will write a 200-word review of your site.
3. Let your readers know that you’ve been reviewed by Cash for Comments.
4. He will leave five valuable comments on your blog in return.

What are the benefits? Well, first of all, we know as bloggers that “content is king,” right? Well, commentary also counts as content. A large number of comments equal added value, therefore both sites benefit by gathering additional content. Second, both sites receive in-content links, links placed withing the content on the main body of the page. Google likes these kinds of links, and they will help your site’s SEO. Check it out if you want a free review and extra content on your blog. At the very least, it’s free!

FeedBurner
With that said, my rankings to date are satisfactory, when considering everything from readership to traffic. And also considering that this isn’t a highly targeted niche blog. I’m very proud to say that I’ve crossed one threshold recently that I’ve been eagerly awaiting. My goal of attaining a readership base of at least 100 was reached on Monday, June 4th. Woohoo!! To think that 100+ people are now reading this blog proves to myself that I am producing quality content that others find interesting. Your readership number will guide you in how you’re doing overall as a blogger, as drop-off rates indicate the interest level of your readers. If you are a blogger, keep in mind Darren Rowse’s readership poll that found the top two reasons why people unsubscribe from a blog are 1. too frequent posting and 2. not posting frequently enough. Posting fives times a day can be just as detrimental to your blog as posting once every ten days, in some markets. And on that note, if you’d like to subscribe to my blog now, just click here and choose your method of subscription. I try to post about once every 1 – 3 days, so I promise I won’t inundate your reader with content, which I know could result in number 1 of above.

Technorati
As for my other metrics, my current Technorati authority is 395, and my rank is 8,797. How did I do it? With the help of other bloggers and a little online marketing. 395 indicates that there are 395 other blogs that link to my site. 8,797 indicates my actual ranking among the 70million+ blogs that Technorati is tracking. Getting your site out there through community interaction and getting others to link back to your content is good SEO. If you forget how to get people to link to your site, just remember this first and foremost, Don’t publish poor content. No one wants to refer a friend to a mechanic that knows nothing about cars. Similarly, no one will link back to your blog if they don’t consider you a good resource in one way or another.

Alexa
My Alexa ranking today stands at 92,938. This is a bitter sweet accomplishment, since I had the goal of reaching under 100k, knowing all the while that Alexa rankings don’t really mean much concretely. I could put it this way — my blog is ranked 92,938 out of the millions of web sites that are tracked by Alexa, through methods of tracking that are skewed and inaccurate, and most likely not a true reflection of my ranking, but for lack of a better source, will have to do. So…relatively speaking, it’s pretty good I suppose. At least it’s not ranked in the millions anymore!

The Next Three Months
I’m hoping that in the next three months I’ll be able to better focus this blog, consistently publish interesting quality content, and keep gaining in my readership. I’m realizing that unless you’re aggressively seeking monetization, you don’t have to worry too much about these statistics. As I’ve mentioned before, the most important thing is that you’re constantly moving forward and making progress. Keeping this in mind, all of the statistics I’ve listed are an improvement from a month ago. Thank you to everyone who’s read my blog, left a comment, or subscribed to MsDanielle. It’s because of all of you that I keep this thing going!