My friend Ben Bleikamp has started a cool new blog called College Startup a guide to entrepreneurship, blogging, and college. I’ve known Ben for quite a while as he hangs out in the young entreprenuer community Youth Cove. I also know Ben because he and I communicated a bunch when he was starting the poker blog and I was working on learn poker strategy.

Now Ben has launched College Startup a guide to student entreprenuers. What is so very cool about this is that within a few weeks of launching his blog he was accepted into the 9rules blog network. Thats an awesome achievement for a brand new blog as 9 rules is a close knit group of bloggers. That shows how awesome Ben has become at blogging. He writes regularly and you wouldn’t know Ben was a youngster if he didn’t tell you.

I just want to say Congratulations Ben B. You deserve it!

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 7% [?]

My friend has been telling me about this service Got Links for months now. The idea is that Got Links helps you develop link partnerships so you can drive more traffic to your web site, and hopefully boost your search engine rankings. I always thought it was too complicated and didn’t want to take the time to look at it. Thats actually the opposite of Got Links which makes it easier!

Got Links is a link exchange where you find quality sites to share links with. You can select specific categories and only share links with sites on topics relevant to your visitors. You can also review people who want to link with you and decline anyone that doesn’t meet your standards. You can see an example of my gotlinks pages here.

The cool part is that Got Links helps manage everything. I just put up a single web page with some special code Got Links provides. Then I add my sites and start looking for link partners. As a free member I can request up to 75 link exchanges a day. Meanwhile other members will start to request links exchanges with me. The whole process probably takes 15-30 minutes a day at first, but as you build up a large link base you won’t need to do as much work. Maybe 15 minutes a week just approving link requests you have received.

In my first day of using Got Links I already have 17 new link partners sending links to my site. A few days later I’m at 34 link partners.

A word of caution.

YES, some of these people are cheaters. Be careful. Check out their sites. You’ll notice a few of them use the same template over and over and simply create a ton of sites for use with Google AdSense. I don’t link with those guys. However there are hundreds if not thousands of quality sites in the Got Links index.

Also keep in mind that the whole point here is NOT to automate everything. You should NOT go in and select all the sites within a category, or select all the categories. The best thing to do is find some sites and categories that are on topics similar to your web site. That is the way to build good link partnerships.

If you build erratically and link with anyone who wants to link to you, you’ll end up linking with cheaters and may end up with some crappy links. You may even end up having some problems with search engines like Google.

To play Devil’s Advocate here I also want to point you to a blog post at Web Guerrilla entitled The Truth About Reciprocal Link Networks. Greg is a search engine optimization consultant and talks about one of his clients who has gotten bad results with Google recently. They speculate it was because the client went out and developed over 7000 links using GotLinks. I’m not sure that was the only reason this client has been having problems. As I said he linked with everyone, and didn’t select specific categories to link with.

So now that I’ve played Devil’s advocate I can tell you I really enjoy Got Links so far. It really makes the job of managing my link exchanges much easier.

Heck you could use Got Links and not even seek out link partners. Simply use it to manage the links on your site and only approve people who seek you out to trade links with you.

Got Links, its free , setup your account and request a link exchange with me!

- Ben

Ps. Thanks to Jack Spirko of the Dallas Internet Marketing Blog for another great tip!

Popularity: 6% [?]

I’ve been gone for the Thanksgiving Holiday and just got back into town. Sorry for not posting for a few days…

Once again my buddy Jack Spirko has pointed me to a cool new Firefox plugin.

This plugin is called the search toolbar. It adds a Google Page Rank and Alexa Page Rank in the bottom right hand corner of your Firefox web browser.

If you are even a novice SEO guy you know that the Google Bar is a plugin you can use with Firefox, Mozilla, or IE to see google page rank. There are a lot of other cool features in Google Bar but none really oriented towards search engine optimization.

With the search status plugin they add Alexa as well as the Google PR. Yyou can also click on the little icons and you can check how many backlinks, cache, related links, traffic details, etc. You get a heck of a lot more information than you get with only the Googlebar. Finally you can right click on the web page (or the Q icon) and select the new keyword density option. You enter a keyword and it tells you how often that keyword appears on the page, in the title, in the meta tags, in the links, in the bold text, even in the headers. In short it gives you all the information you need to compare your site to a competitors and find out why their site gets better rankings in the search engines than your site.

For example. Here are the links that will appear in the bottom right hand corner of your web browser.

For more information download the search status toolbar or check out Jack’s original article on Search Status an extension for Mozilla or Firefox.

- Ben

Popularity: 8% [?]

Send Out Cards is finally getting the recognition they deserve!

In Today’s Wall Street Journal there was an article entitled: Happy Holidays… From My PC.

The article describes how it is so much easier to send your greeting cards using online systems like Send Out Cards that print a real card, lick the stamp, and stuff the envelope for you.

With Send Out Cards you can send cards for only 98 cents each (plus 37 cents postage for a stamp.)

For more information check out the Send Out Cards Wall Street Journal Article. If you’d like a free gift account so you can try out the service, visit my web site: Remember Christmas Cards and request a gift account. Or if you have read enough and you want to get started with your own account visit: Send Out Cards. If you are prompted for a distributor id enter: 1899.

Got any questions about Send Out Cards please don’t hesitate to call or email me. I’m glad to help. Press inquiries are invited.

- Ben Fitts
ben at benjaminfitts dot com
877-BEN-FITTS (236-3488)

Popularity: 7% [?]

Hey guys,

My friend Jack from dallas internet marketing blog just posted a pretty cool link I think you guys need to check out.

Its a search engine optimization plugin for Firefox.

The plugin provided by Webmaster Brain is only for Firefox. If you aren’t using the Firefox web browser yet, after reading the next couple of articles, you’re going to want too!

The plugin is called the SEO links extension. What it does is it allows you to surf the web. As you are surfing the web you can hover your mouse over any link on the web page. The SEO links extension will popup a little window and give you some additional information on the web site that the link is pointed at.

The information it gives you tells you a sites ranking for the particular text in the link. So for that keyword phrase it will popup a window that tells you how many links are pointed at the same page, and if the page ranks for that keyword it will tell you how well it ranks at various search engines. Within a few minutes of using this tool I was able to spot some linking patterns that helped me better understand how to do search engine marketing. It is awesome! I want to thank Jack Spirko for pointing it out to me.

Here is a sample of what the tooltip looks like when you hold it over a link:

Stay tuned tomorrow as we tell you about another really cool Firefox plugin.

- Ben

Popularity: 8% [?]

My good friend Jack as you know has a new site search engine positioning experts.

Well he has also recently started blogging. In the past few days he has posted some REALLY awesome tools for search engine marketing. They are Firefox plugins that allow you to see a sites rankings in the search engines, and a tool to check your competitors keyword density.

Within 30 seconds of downloading the tool I had discovered that my remember custom christmas cards web site was failing in keyword density. Why? Because I had made a mistake in my meta tags. This tool is really cool because I probably never would have seen it otherwise!

He likes the name Dallas Internet Marketing, but I think the Dallas Search Engine Marketing Blog is better.

What names do you think Jack should use for his blog? Leave us a comment and let us know! (Jack reads this blog too) or visit Jack’s new blog and leave him feedback. He’ll appreciate it.

- Ben

Popularity: 6% [?]

Today I issued a press release for my latest Send Out Cards project: Custom Christmas Cards.

Finally Custom Christmas Cards are a Luxury You Can Afford

This year get your holiday cards done by a professional for less than the cost of a cup of coffee. Not only will we include your personal photo, we’ll print your message and signature in your handwriting. What’s better is that we’ll stuff the envelope, lick the stamp, and mail your cards for you.

(PRWEB) November 18, 2005 — This Christmas people all over the world will find sending holiday cards easier than ever. Services such as RememberChristmas.com are offering to send your custom Christmas cards for you, and they’ll do it for less than the cost of a traditional greeting card.

“We found that many people weren’t sending their holiday cards because they didn’t have enough time to hassle with putting together a mailing of 100 or 50 or even 20 cards,” says Benjamin Fitts founder of RememberChristmas.com. “We now make it easier than ever to send your cards, because we’ll do all the work for you. Our technology allows us to print, stuff, and send your cards cheaper than you can buy them at the greeting card store.”

That technology is what makes RememberChristmas.com so easy to use, so reliable, and so affordable. They offer the ability for you to go to a web site and select your holiday cards. They then print your message inside the cards, in your handwriting, and can include your signature. You can even upload photos to be printed inside the cards. Once the cards are completed they stuff the envelopes, lick the stamps, and put the cards into the mail for you.

How affordable are the cards?
Benjamin Fitts says “Our standard greeting cards are 98 cents per card. Holiday cards with your photos printed inside are only $1.47. If you’d like a custom card designed by our expert staff we can do so for a small fee.”

RememberChristmas.com is also preparing additional features for the holiday season such as including gift certificates and personal checks inside their greeting cards.

For additional information contact Benjamin Fitts or visit http://www.RememberChristmas.com today to request a free gift account so you can try out their custom Christmas cards.

RememberChristmas.com:
Is a custom Christmas card service provided by Benjamin Fitts and other independent distributors of Send Out Cards, LLC. Their goal is to create senders of greeting cards and bring smiles to the faces of millions of people around the country.

Benjamin Fitts
RememberChristmas.com
877-236-3488
ben@benjaminfitts.com

Popularity: 7% [?]

Wooo Hooo!

What an awesome company we have! This truly is the best company!

Next time they have a Holiday Kick Off event you guys need to do whatever it takes to get here! It has already been a special event and we’ve only experienced two hours!

There were a ton of new announcements.

Let me see where to begin.

Site Changes:
We have a new logo and a newly redesigned web site. Login to your Send Out Cards main menu to see some of the changes. The front end web sites will be changing soon too! The new logo and web sites are much more professional!

Trainings are now available from the web site on all aspects of the back office.

Card Changes:
We will SOON (in days?) have new options when we are editing cards. It functions more like a word processor where we can align the text of the cards, center, left, right. We can change the color, change the font, change the font on on side of the card and a different font on the other. Change the color of the text on one side and put a different color on the other side. You can also see the font in your live preview!

Pictures, we will be able to put up to 4 pictures on a card! Each side of the card has two sections. The sections can contain images OR pictures. So you could put two images, a big image, and then underneath that image put a smaller image (like maybe a business card). Or you could put an image and some text including a signature on the same side of the card!

You can add all 4 pictures and the cost is still only 1 point to add all 4!

Gift Certificates:
Hey, guys its here!!!!! SOC has signed an agreenment with Borders Bookstores and Circuit City. We will be able to include gift certificates from those companies inside cards. Erik showed us a dozen other companies that they are currently negotiating with and expect to have some more deals lined up by the end of the year.

Guess what? It gets BETTER!

We will be able to put CHECKS inside the cards!

So I’ll be able to send my nephews a check for their birthdays! It only costs 5 points plus the cost of the check. SOC makes out a check to our family member in our name. How cool is that!!!!! NO ONE HAS THIS!!!! Not the US Postal Service, Not American Greetings!!!!

Distributorships:
Not only can we signup Canadian Distributors and Customers but SOC is going to start sening Canadian cards locally! No longer will they have to pay international postage when shipping within Canada! Before the cards would originate from Salt Lake so we’d have to pay international shipping!

Australia and UK are OPEN FOR DISTRIBUTORS!!!!!

Right now it is NOT on the web site. If you have a UK or Australian distributor you will need to call in to support to have them signed up manually. Once again when we get to 100 distributors in either country we’ll start mailing their cards locally!

Erik says that early next year you can expect us to be open in ALL ENGLISH SPEAKING COUNTRIES!

BONUSES:
From today on until the end of the year… Any new distributor who signs up a new distributor in his first 30 days will get 100 extra points added to his account! This is unlimited. He could sponsor and coach 10 people and get his 100 points. He DOES have to coach them though.

If you are a new distributor and lets say you started November 1st. You are still within your first 30 days. However they won’t count anyone you signed up prior to November 11th. However you still have the remaining 19 days to sponsor someone and get 100 points.

That is in addition to the coaching bonuses you get!

How awesome is that!?!?!?

Ok guys I am going to try and get some sleep. I’ve been up a LONG time today. We’ll have more announcements and stuff for you guys soon.

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 8% [?]

My friend John just got hired by a big Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firm. They are putting together a new web site called Search Engine Positioning Experts.

Keep in mind it is a new site but John is a cool dude who has lots of tricks on search engine optimization. He already started to put together a list of search engine positioning tools.

At the very least you guys should bookmark the site because if I know John he is going to make a kick butt seo site!

- Ben

Popularity: 6% [?]

Google just launched the free version of their statistics program to track the visitors to your web site. The software is called Google Analytics and is available right now!

All you have to do is signup for the program. If you already have an AdWords account, use that to signup as Google will allow you to do some advanced tracking of how well your AdWords is peforming. You can track conversions of clicks on your AdWords to see if the visitors are actually buying anything.

Urchin was a private web statistics company that sold a $500 web statistics package. Then Google bought them. Now Google has taken that technology and turned it into Google Analytics.

All you have to do is signup using one of your Google accounts or register for a new Google account. I recommend using the same account as on your AdWords. Then you setup a profile for each of your web sites. for each web site they give you a specific Javascript code to insert into the header of your web pages. If you are a blogger like me it is just a matter of inserting that javascript into the header.php of your wordpress template.

Simple to do and damn good stats too!
- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 7% [?]