First thing was to find some expert opinion and I found a nice list of 50 tips to increase your RSS subscribers by my old mate Daniel Scocco at Daily Blog Tips who is nearing 50,000 subscribers so looks like a safe bet on this issue. In an effort to not overload you with information I have provided a summary of the tips below as well as my opinion on each (in brackets). What will now happen is a series of experiments using one tip at a time and comparing the results. I will let you look over the list first and post my first experiment tomorrow.

1. Have a big RSS icon (Will replace my set up with a very standard Icon and make it bigger)

2. Display the RSS icon above the fold (Happens on every page other than the home page. May be worth testing)

3. Display the RSS icon on every page of your blog (done)

4. Use words.

5. Write a post asking for people to subscribe (Have Done with limited success. May repeat)

6. Use the FeedSmith plugin. (done)

7. Offer email subscriptions. (Will definitely Try)

8. Use an email subscription form. (see above)

9. Encourage readers to subscribe at the bottom of every post. (I do it at the top of every post in a less than ambiguous fashion. Will amend, then test).

10. As few steps as possible. (At the moment it is one step, may reduce to zero steps and see how it goes)

11. Use icons to offer subscription on the most popular RSS readers.

12. Have clear focus on your blog. (No chance the blog reflects my mind which is….Squirrel!)

13. Publish new posts frequently and consistently. (Not going to happen to improve my self-confidence. If I am able and the content is decent may try and increase frequency of post)

14. Don’t exaggerate. (Me? Never)

15. Write valuable content. (Done with bells on)

16. Write unique content. (No-one is quite like me or you or you or you…)

17. Don’t ramble or go off topic. (Do not read the above comment on 16, or 12, or 22…)

18. Use your RSS feed link when commenting on other blogs.

19. Run a contest. (Seems a bit superficial…perfect!)

20. Offer random prizes to your subscribers. (I will stop emailing you if you subscribe…hmm probably not)

21. Write guest posts. (Been There, failed that)

22. Welcome the new readers. (My face is on every page what more of a welcome could they possibly want)

23. Go popular on social bookmarking sites. (Its so easy to do and all. This will probably be my next series but not for RSS, for more visitors)

24. Explain to your readers what is RSS. (Hmm, may need wikipedia)

25. Have a special “Subscribe” page with all the info and links there.

26. Create a landing page on your blog to convert visitors in subscribers. (no)

27. Send traffic to that page using PPC. (No)

28. Write an ebook and ask people to subscribe in order to download it. (too much effort)

29. Launch an email newsletter with Aweber. (very Good Idea, although the results may be inflated considering I already have several thousand subscribers)

30. Offer a full feed. (So chips with the hamburger. Got it)

31. Clutter your website with ads. (probably need to read the whole post for this not to sound stupid)

32. Don’t clutter your RSS feed with ads. (Done)

33. Use social proof. (Most likely my first experiment. Stay tuned (by subscribing to my fed perhaps??(Can you do more than one bracketed comment at a time)))

34. Offer breaking news.

35. Mention that subscribing to your blog is free.

36. Use pop-ups to encourage subscription to your newsletter. (Not gonna happen)

37. Use an animated RSS feed icon to draw attention. (Good Idea)

38. Use feed directories. (No)

39. Email first time commentators encouraging them to subscribe. (seems slightly desperate. Perfect)

40. Make sure the feed auto-discovery feature is working.

41. Offer a comments feed. (seriously does anyone subscribe to this? And more importantly if they do why?)

42. Offer category feeds. (Probably a good way to keep my feeds on topic, on the rare occasion I post about the same topic more than once)

43. Run periodic checks on your feeds.

44. Recover unverified email subscribers.

45. Leverage an existing blog or audience.

46. Use cross feed promotion.

47. Use testimonials on your “Subscribe” page. (Not sure if my testimonials would reflect awfully positive and not sure if you can use your own testimonial, is that taboo?)

48. Get friends to recommend your site and RSS feed on their blog. (Friends…of course..I will ask them *Chirping Crickets*)

49. Do something funny or weird while asking for people to subscribe. (I could stand on my head but no-one would probably see it)

50. Start a long series so people subscribe to keep update with it. (Hmmm, where have I done this before?)

If you are not some sort of Internet moron who somehow has stumbled on my unambiguous website and completely missed the legend that is Paul the psychic Octopus well I have some good news for you. Paul has made further predictions (not on the result of football matches) but the future direction of the Internet and those who dwell upon on it. I will get back to this, but first I want to examine the theories of how this superior being came to existence:

1. Pure Coincidence – I thought in the effort of balance I would examine this obviously untrue and patently false accusation that it is mere coincidence that Paul the Psychic Octopus has correctly predicted the outcome of all the matches at the world cup. I suppose it is pure coincidence that 9/11 happened when that date represented by the font windangs is a plane and two towers as well.

2. Supreme Being – Perhaps Paul is not merely a conveyor of future predictions, but some sort of aquatic demigod who has come to earth to eat mussels, entertain visitors, predict football matches, and start a series of events that will ultimately result in the demise of the human race and the planet on which we reside. OK maybe not entertaining visitors but consider what if he isn’t predicting the matches so much as he is imposing his will upon the destiny of the earth?

3. Back to the future – The most likely of the theories that surround Paul, is that he is of this world, but merely a passenger back through the passages of time. After intensive investigation is has been extrapolated based on Paul’s testimonies, that he is actually from the year 2080 and is 75 years old. Paul has been quoted stating “swim, swim, bubble, eat, ink, ink, swim” which roughly translates to “I used to swim in a private aquarium for my master, however some time in 2080 I was fed some out of date mussels and fell terribly ill. In a desperate attempt to make me better, my master underwent some experimental treatments, involving tin foil, a microwave, testicles from an ox, a copy of twilight, a unicorns horn and a modest American. OK I made the last bit up about the modest American, but some sort of accident occurred during the procedure causing a wormhole through time, in which I tragically fell into. I arrived in a German aquarium and was luckily placed in a position where I can tell my story because the aquarium people thought it was a clever idea to get football predictions from an octopus.”

So knowing that Paul is from the future I decided to ask for some insights in the future of the Internet particularly relating to webmasters. Unfortunately I was not able to secure the services of the octopus whisperer (who translated the above piece) so I was forced to merely place in glass boxes filled with mussels into his tank with two possible answers to the questions I pose to Paul. It is important to realise that I asked Paul to choose the closest correct answer so the answers are limited to how well I predict future trends. So here is the full transcript of the interview:

Adam: Hi Paul, its a pleasure to meet you, how are you?

• Option A: Fine
• Option B: I am a god-damn octopus what do you care?

Paul: Option A, Ink, Ink, Swim

Adam: I have been told by a reliable source that you are not in fact psychic, but have travelled back in time and was hoping to ask you some questions about the future. Let me ask you whether or not you know about me in the future and how well scribblescratch has done.

• Option A: You have become supreme overload of the earth, on the back of huge financial wealth and popularity gained through the growth of your website scribblescratch.
• Option B: You have become the supreme overload of the earth, on the back of huge financial wealth and popularity gained through the growth of your website scribblescratch.

Paul: Swim, chew, Option B

Adam: That very interesting although a fairly predictable outcome there. It has been recently predicted the generation x/y/z lacks the social co-ordination to become successful in the business world because of an over-dependence on technology and socializing via the new mediums. How exactly does Generation X/Y/Z stack up?

• Option A: Compared to the baby boomers? Ha its no contest, they are the most destructive, self-indulgent in history and are looked down upon as such.
• Option B: After Skynet was launched there really is no need to succeed in the business world.

Paul: Option A, death stare, bubble

Adam: It seems Apple, Microsoft and Google are the 3 big players in the various markets today. Will they still be around in 70 years? And if so are they still as dominant?

• Option A: They are much the same as today, diversifying with new technologies, they have many more competitors but are still looked at as being the most powerful player in their respective industries.
• Option B: Are you referring to the great three world republics of Googlonia, The democratic Peoples republic of Microsoft and the United States of Apple?

Paul: Option A, ink, swim

Adam: Is Steve Jobs still referred to as enlightened entrepreneur?

• Option A: No, he is still considered a tool
• Option B: Definitely a tool

Paul: Takes the mussel out of both boxes at the same time. Then inks.

Adam: What has been the most exciting advancement for the Internet in your life-time?

• Option A: Virtual Reality is the norm where you can experience almost anything imaginable.
• Option B: Spammers have been outlawed world-wide with a minimum penalty of death and enforced vigorously.

Paul: Option A

Adam: This interview and article is obviously becoming a farce with no real point, so for my last question whats the best condiment with calamari?

• Option A: Soy Sauce
• Option B: Tartare Sauce

(Paul smashes his glass aquarium and goes on a rampage killing 15 aquarium workers. He is shot by an off duty police officer, and we all enjoy a nice deep fried lunch with tartare sauce).

I was incredibly bored, being a Sunday none of my usual suspects were online to annoy; programmers, posters, commentators etc all had better things to do on the weekend then to amuse me. So after exhausting some online arcade games, and with no sound on the computer I am on, I thought I would check my emails for the 100th time. After absolutely no new emails I thought I would scrape the bottom of the barrel and check my facebook to see if anyone who I am not in close contact with (because if I was in close contact I would already know whats going on) was doing anything interesting. As I suspected everyone else’ life was as boring and shitty as mine, with the difference being that they could not admit it and were happy to announce it publicly.

So I thought in an effort to improve the Internet, the world and human civilization as we know it, I would chisel down the five biggest facebook faux pas (according to Adam) on a stone tablet and place it on top of Mount Sinai and wait for an arse kicking Hebrew to find it, but realising I would have to climb the mountain decided to just make it into a blog post instead:

1. Your life is boring, we don’t care.

What really started this post was 3 separate updates from a friend/acquaintance about their dreams. Yes you read correctly, Dreams! Seeing as a dream is a deeply personal thing with vivid imagery that is nearly impossible to describe and plot lines that follow no coherent order or make any sense at all, it is a good bet that no-one else can appreciate your dream quite like you did. Couple this with the fact that the only way for someone to have any emotional attachment to your dream, is through your delivery of telling them, with exaggerated body gestures, emphasis of words and overall enthusiasm in your speech as you tell them, it becomes rather obvious that a facebook update about your dream is as exciting as watching paint as it sits still inside the paint tin (watching paint dry is far more exciting). To these updates I say “We don’t care”.

• You are reading a book – “We don’t care”

• Your cat just meowed – “We don’t care”
• You had a good day – “We don’t care”
• You wiped your ass with your left hand as opposed to your right – “We don’t care”

And the definitely worse facebook update and one of the most common is updates about the weather. “Its cold today” is not a facebook update it is an observation that no-one cares about and in most of your friends cases (who live nearby), they probably already know. I use to check facebook to get an idea about the weather but a new social trend has just emerged where instead of going online, all you have to do to find out about the weather is go outside, or barring that look out the window.

2. Putting A Racing Stripe On A Turd

To coin another political phrase “putting lipstick on a pig” or “putting rouge on a corpse”. I am talking about dressing up your facebook account to reflect something that is not reality. Now, in life everyone has large mundane periods of time before they do something exciting or memorable. Its not something to be ashamed of, not something to hide, just a simple fact of life. So if you have nothing of note to report of facebook don’t try and dress it up.

“Had the best day doing nothing”. Did you really have the best day? Was a day about doing nothing really worthy of telling your entire social network about? If you had the best day doing nothing why do continually let me know when you are doing stuff when clearly this is not what you want to do? So many questions to answer.

3. Its not a competition

I have heard people proudly exclaim that “I have over 500 friends”. Well I guess that is true if you use Facebooks decimation of the definition of friends as your guide. But a Facebook “friend” is only a small step up from a twitter follower. To put it simply: You do not have 500 friends! You simply know 500 people who have facebook accounts. This fact is not a badge of honour, an example of social superiority, or a testament to your personality. It is however a sad indictment of how insecure you are as a person, and your inability to differentiate real friends from one-off acquaintances. So if you add me as a friend (when clearly we are not, which is pretty much everyone other than the two friends I have already added) to increase the number of friends in your facebook profile, I will either reject it outright, or if in a bad enough mood I will add you as a friend and write some really inappropriate things on your wall, for your real friends and family to see.

4. Profile Pic

Ah, the profile pic, the cover letter of the social networking world. And just like a resume that barely resembles your abilities and work experience, the profile pic has been suffering the same fete. But there is more than one crime committed by profile pictures on facebook

• The first and most common misuse of a profile picture is the false advertising used. Ever see one of your old friends or acquaintances pop up on the left and you being surprised by how good they look? I know I have. However further investigation reveals that they have chosen a completely unrepresentative photo of themselves, and you have wasted 2 minutes on a pointless cause. Now I am not saying you need to use your drivers licence photo or a photo of you passed out in a gutter, but something that is a fair reflection of yourself,not some photo shopped, obscure angle type of photo where the truth is hidden.
• The bait and switch is another common misuse of the profile pic. This happens quite a lot with the ladies, using a photo of themselves and their hot friends as their profile pic. Once again you fall into the trap of assuming the person in question is one of the hot persons in the photo, only to waste two minutes and feel disappointment.
• The last and most serious misuse of the profile pic belongs to the artsy (is that a word and if so how is it spelt?) crowd. Using stupid photo manipulation techniques they create “cool” images of nothing with stupid colors, weird graphics and indecipherable pictures. No-one (who matters) think you are clever, smart or cool, you come across a douche trying hard to be a turd.

5. Everything Else

Alliteration looks so good in a title. Unfortunately there are actually more than 5 facebook faux pas so in the interest of preserving my clever title I am going to include the rest of them under facebook faux pas number 5: Everything Else

Posting private shit publicly: I don’t care what kind of rash you have, how your sexual experience went last night, and I certainly don’t want to see pictures of you having your baby. So if you are posting something for a particular group be sure that only that group has to endure your inner most personal (and usually disturbing) secrets.

Provocative post: “I am so angry” is not a god damn status update! Well I will concede that it technically is, however it is such a blatant attempt to illicit a response from your “friends” that it pisses me off. I will provide feedback, or a compliment if you merit one but to try and illicit one is despicable. However people will continually fall for it hook,line and sinker. “Oh whats wrong babe”, “I hope everything is OK” etc. How about next time you are angry or sad or even happy you let us know why, so we can respond accordingly and even provide support if necessary. Otherwise my response will be a deliberate attempt to make your bad day worse, and your good day, well worse.

Pregnancy and kids: I think this is so obvious to anyone who has a facebook friend who is either pregnant of has kids. We all know its a social faux pas to incessantly bore your childless friends about every small detail of your pregnancy or child’s life. I went away for a week and mentioned my kids just twice to my friends. One was to politely answer a question the second was to complain about going home and having them destroy any chance of sleeping in. Now I am no monster and will allow an occasional post about big milestones in your and your child’s life but anything beyond that is wasting precious bandwidth.

Imagine Kirk from star trek talking about his kids. “Captains Log, Star Date 23510.5, little Jonny did a massive shit today and it went everywhere. Tried to convince the wife to change him, but she said if I didn’t do it, good luck having sex again. With the threat of abstinence I dutifully changed Jonny and put his clothes in the wash… Captains Log, Star Date 23510.6, Little Jonny is playing with his trucks…Captains Log, Star Date 23511.1, Jonny woke up three times last night.” I assume Spock as a loyal soldier would be telling Kirk where he can shove his pointless updates about his kids and as a loyal soldier to maintaining Internet social conventions I am going to do the same. Although my youngest son Zac has started becoming very active and is now able to sit up. Its sooooooooo cute.

So there it is the 5 (or 7) Facebook faux Pas to avoid if you want to keep your “real” online friends. I am going to finish up with my favorite Facebook status to date:

“Adam Diver: is laughing at the number of people who will probably read this status expecting to find some sort of information worth reading”

We should not forget blogs were originally web logs. An electronic diary documenting the journey of many important and un-important people alike. Whilst blogs have evolved to be online class rooms with teahcer (blogger) and student (reader) transferring knowledge does not mean that journeys are any less educational and in most circumstance more entertaining. Its been proven that most people learn far better from stories and anolgies as opposed to facts and figures. So how can you become a master of your niche without knowing anything? Document your Journey. I know I know it seems like straight forward advice but I come across very few truly journey blogs these days and its a niche within a niche that is largely untapped. So here are some tips to document your journey and access this untapped market:

Admit you dont know it all

The first thing to do is admit in your post/blog/about page that you don’t have all the answers. No-one does so this is a fairly easy step. But its important that your readers understand so that they can understand the context of your post. Of course its equally important to emphasis what the reader will benefit by reading your post as simply telling them there are gaps in your knowledge is not overly endearing and doesn’t exactly present the image you wish to portray. The added benefit of this type of admission is the fact that you are more closely related to your readers than many of these experts could possibly be because (whilst they won’t admit it), the experts cant possibly remember what its like starting out.

Experiments are killer titles

There are hundreds of post about properly naming your post. There is top 10 post, using numbers in titles, reverse psychology (i.e. don’t read this if…) and many more types of titles that can get your post or article some interest and ultimately more readers. But for me and many other web users the titles I find hardest to ignore is the experiment title. “My such and such experiment” creates such an unbelieveble urge within to find out how the experiment went and if the author was successful. You could also throw in “my experience” titles, and “what I have learnt from” titles as great bait for readers. The best part is that it requires no great knowledge to produce one of these posts.

Infomative post pose further questions

Recently I read one of Darren Rowse’s many great post How to pitch to bloggers – 21 tips. Suffice to place a link to the page on my blog their wasn’t really much I could add to the topic particularly since I have very little experience pitching and being pitched too. However I can take this infomation and provide it to my readers form another angle. You see such informative post just raise further question in the minds of most readers. How well does it work? Which tips are the most important? Will it work for the average person? Who will accept these pitches? If I want to know the answers its a fair bet that most of my readers do as well. By trying to answer these questions, you provide content to your readers that will help you become a master of your niche.

Newbies every day

Another thing to consider is that many of the experts of any niche have often become disconnected from the newbies. Its human nature to forgot your origins and your knowledgebase at the time when you first started. I remember how much trouble I had setting up a website with a host all those years ago when I first started and now take that knowldge for granted. So whilst I ramble on about creating popular blogs thier is a niche under me to explain to the newbies how to set up a website and host it which would probably be best coming from someone who has newly mastered the skill. If I try to write a post on it I could not remember the exact stumbling blocks I faced at the time and the infomation would not be well targetted. So it doesnt matter what niche you are writing for you can be assured there is plenty of other newbies looking for advice on some of the simpler tasks and it is an untapped market that should not be forgotten.

People need to connect

Being a successful blogger is all about connecting with your readers. I have mentioned Yaro and Darren a few times throughout this blog and I think of them as friends. This is despite the fact I have never met both of them and the only contact I have had is a few emails back and forth, commenting on thier blogs and thier about page. But if they recommend a product or service I generally pay attention, not because they know everything but because I feel like I can trust them. Now if you happen across a blog and its first post is a definitive guide to anything it can be difficult to connect. Who is this blogger telling you that they know everything when you don’t know them. Its like the strangers who walk up to you in the street and give you parenting advice. I don’t know you and as such I will politely ignore what you are saying. I would even go as far as saying that it could almost be detrimental to a new blog to be such an expert so early. How can a new reader validate your claims of infomation with nothing to compare it too. Don’t get me wrong these pillar post are critical to the success of many blogs but I feel early on you want to connect with your readers first before telling them whats right and wrong. A few humble post on mistakes you have made and lessons you have learned is a far more agreeable way to start a new relationship.

Enjoy the benefits

I have touched what you should do and a little bit about why you should do it. But there really is an endless number of benefits to this type of blog. The first and by far the most important for me is finding new content for my blog. Like everyone the amount of knowledge I actually have is very little. When you compare it to what I dont know then the amount of knowledge I contain is embarrisingly trivial. If you write about what you know and get about 1000 posts out of it, then the amount of post you can get out of what you don’t know is infinate. So even if you don’t take all the advice from this post at least consider writing about things you don’t know to get extra great content.

Having content is great but my favorite part of having this content that each time I write a post I learn something unique and valuable. If I wasn’t writing these experiments there are probably hundreds of things I would never try. If I buy something and test it out and it doesnt work I can justify the purchase as a learning experience and content for my blog. If you write long enough about things you have learned, experiments etc you become a master of your niche by default just becasue your knowledge base grows so much.

I mentoned that you need to connect to your readers. Well this writing style is far more intimate than the teacher/student relationship of most blogs. Generally you will get far higher comment counts, more questions from readers and your readers are more actively involved in your blog. So when it comes time to sell a product that has helped you immensily and possibly proven through previous post do you think the chances of your readers buying it are higher?

But the benefits don’t just stop with you. Your readers will also benefit immensily (which is the aim of the blog when you think about it). The content is written for them, from thier perspective and can often uncover alot of mistakes which they would of inadvertenly commited down the track as well. If you publish the mistakes you made with an experiment about gaining traffic, losing weight or training a dog the reader not only gets a list of what works but also what does not which can be equally beneficial.

So don’t be afraid to look as though you don’t have all the answers. Chances are that you don’t and you just look conceited and shallow if you try to appear otherwise. Incomporating mistakes you have made, lessons you have learned and experiments you have tried can provide more useful infomation to your readers than you think. More importantly this type of infomation is more endearing to a reader and is an excellent way to create strong and lasting relationships with your reader. Do it long enough and you will probably evolve into a blog which can provide expert advice simply from the amount of experiences you will have and you can become a master of your niche. .

So I should be upfront, this post is more about the way of thinking for your sites advertisements as opposed to straight up tips and advice to get more visitors. Two reasons for this, obviously every website is different, with different content and different target markets and all advice should be tailored to the individual needs of that website. The second and more important reason this article is more philosophy, over facts is that finding and checking facts is really hard and takes a lot of work and like most webmasters I have an adverse reaction to hard work. So I could write another whole article on efficiency (although that would be more effort again) but given a choice between a philosophical diatribe that will change your (the reader) life, or another bland list of tips requiring vast amounts of effort and time and I think you will see the decision is clear.

So having aired my dirty laundry and given you the mistaken impression that I am lazy and don’t really care I am actually going to start and try to provide some insight for you. I was thinking of going into political speech and writing a 2000 word donut. It looks good on face value, leaves you mildly satisfied but after further thought you realise its hollow inside. Despite the fact I have been doing exactly that for close to three paragraphs now I am going to stop and discuss your website, well not exactly YOUR website but personal websites for webmasters.

Back on topic (“finally” I hear you all say) but the number trillion is an amazingly huge number. I know this is obvious but if you really consider that a trillion $1 bills stacked upon each other would stretch one quarter of the distance to the moon or 67,866 miles. Now consider each one of these as a website and its obvious why pages on your site would be so easily missed by the majority of the internet world and it becomes clear why search engines and social bookmarking have been so successful.

Usually the advice here is to make your site “stand out” from the crowd yada, yada, yada. But if your site does not “stand out” or offer a point of difference than your site is obsolete and adding to the garbage pile that is unused websites online. So assuming your site stands out, or at least competes on some level as to have a purpose, you need to attract visitors. But instead of broad, sweeping methods to attracting visitors, many of whom have no interest and will provide no value to your website, you need to be specific (a good analogy to use is the dating scene which I am an expert at). Now when looking for a partner (long term not this one night stand crap, think visitors to your site) your personal traits (website) play an important role. A devout christian would obviously be well advised to look for partners in their congregation or other christian groups. Someone who loves to party and go out would be well advised to look for a partner at a night club. And someone who hates going out, hates crowds, hates most people like me, can look for partners on the internet. On a side note my casual search has resulted in many offers of marriage (because I am such a catch obviously) from women all across the world. Currently Oksana and Tatiana are vying for my love but I have to organise immigration details and pay some sort of fee, I assume its a Russian family thing.

Obviously I am not discounting the effectiveness of targeted paid advertising and the rewards of great search engine rankings. But these are not the only ways to get some quality visitors to your site. From experience the ones who comment on my post, buy my products and share my material are the visitors that I have personally gone out and found. This may not be the best approach for many types of websites but when in my case you are looking to build a community, not those communities in the deserts where the patriarch has several partners (although if there are 10-20 beautiful women looking for this type of community please contact me because I will see what we can do), but a community of core contributors through discussion makes good information, great.

So what kind of visitors do you want, and what type does your website need? Spending some time on related forums and blogs and building proper relationships like the one I have with Oksana, and the rewards can be great. It can be another issue of quality over quantity where a strong relationship with one visitor may result in them buying several of your products and become more profitable than 100 random visitors to your site. Also not to be underestimated is the security such visitors provide to you as a webmaster. Often all your work can seemingly go unnoticed and unappreciated and a few comments from your regulars can really boost your self-esteem and confidence although personally I have never had such issues, especially with Tatiana by my side, oops I mean Oksana.

So if your website is lost amongst the other trillion web pages online, consider refocusing your goals from making your site stand out to millions of internet users and apply some time and effort to headhunting quality visitors to your site. The rewards are small to begin with but there is a snowball effect with this type of marketing, particularly if you do it correctly because your initial visitors will become long term contributors (in the right environment) and may also be able to successfully promote your site depending on your individual circumstances. So the question now becomes…will you be my friend? You can have dinner one night with me and Oksana. Pleasssseeee?????

This is an extract from wikipedia: “Steven Paul “Steve” Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American business magnate, and the co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple and known turtle neck wearing tool that produces closed off electronics that have more faults then a tennis match, but inexplicitly still has a rabid fan base that rival star wars fans (or possibly the fans are one and the same) and hails him, and his products as some sort of enlightened entity, worthy of spending freezing nights in the cold to get the first copy of what will most likely be a faulty product”.

Early Years

Jobs was born which seems normal enough except for the fact that he came out of the womb wearing a turtle neck. Then he was constantly bullied at school for continually demanding to be the center when playing grid-iron and refusing to throw the ball to the quarterback (rather strongly insisting the quaterback should “come and get it”) and for continually using his patented “bear hug tackle” well after the play had finished. In the mid 70’s jobs travelled to India in search for spiritual enlightenment. He returned to the united states as a shaved-head Buddhist with new found eastern philosophies such as creating shit electronics, closing off technologies, avoiding western medicines and using brilliant marketing techniques to confuse the masses and brand his company all over recent technological trends.

Founding Apple

In 1976 along with Stephen Wozniak and Ronald Wayne he founded Apple. Secret tapes reveal the exact moment that the Apple concept came into being

Steve Jobs: I am tripping so hard on this LSD. People who don’t understand my counter-cultural roots could not fully relate to my thinking
Ronald Wayne: Your not going to still be wearing turtle necks in 30 years are you?
Jobs: You just don’t understand, Ron this LSD is one of the top 2 or three most important things I have done in my life.
Stephen Wozniak: That is because you are a giant tool Jobs.
Jobs: Shut Up Stephen and pass me the playboy.
Ronald: Can you guys imagine having a girlfriend like those ones in playboy?
Jobs: Can you imagine having a girlfriend?
Stephen: What other books do you have Jobs, I am keen for some more nudity?
Jobs: I only have the one playboy the other ones got wrecked from ah…the rain. But I have some national geographic mags, an illustrated bible and this copy of house cleaning weekly.
Ronald: Ooooh, thats a bit of a stretch Jobs.
Jobs: I know, but its not like the computers have nudity on them.
Stephen: That would be awesome we could look at naked women all the time.
Jobs: We could even make virtual girlfriends for ourselves.
Ronald: You know what, there would be heaps of people who would like this idea and pay heaps for it.
Stephen: Problem is how can everyone look at it in private. No one is going to go to the universities to look at naked women. We need something everyone can access.
Jobs: How about we make personal computers so that everyone can look at naked men. I mean wo-men.
Long Pause
Ronald: Pretending I didn’t hear that I think we have an idea. I think we can make computers for the average household and they can use word processing, play games, save information as data, share information, and
Jobs: Look at naked pictures
Ronald: Yes look at naked pictures, God Jobs give it a rest.
Stephen: Well what do we call it.
Jobs: (looks up from the bible) Look at this picture of eve. I can almost see everything except for this apple in the way.
Stephen: Apple….Hmmmm. I like it.
Jobs: Like what, boobies?
Stephen: No the name Apple for our company.
Ronald: What happens when people ask how we thought of the name Apple?
Jobs: Just tell them its from Einsteins infamous Apple moment.
Stephen: You mean Newton.
Jobs: Who?
Ronald: Don’t worry Jobs I doubt you will last long in this company anyway

So from 1976 to 1983 nothing happened for jobs. One can only assume he begin earning enough money to buy the playboy subscription and spent many hours with his tissues and hand moisturiser (which he claimed was a result of incredibly dry skin) locked in his apartment with his developmental version of the Apple Mac. The rising cost of tissues in 1984 spurred jobs and the apple team to release the first commercially successful small computer with a graphical user interface the Macintosh. An industry wide sales slump in the end of 84 reportedly led to an internal power struggle where Jobs was relieved from his position in Apple in May 1985. However it can be revealed that the internal friction was actually caused by the board rejecting Jobs idea of making everything on the small computer from the mouse icon, to the background pictures of naked (wo)men. Jobs resigned as a result of having his creative direction ignored.

NEXT

Jobs upset at the lack of progress on the nudity front then founded his own computer company to take personal computers in the direction he wanted them to go. The company was meant to be called SexY with the Y a capital for the male chromosome. However, unfortunately Jobs filled in his company applications whilst on a LSD trip and the registrar read it as NeXT. The NeXT company focused on industry applications and became popular in academic and scientific fields partly because of the innovative and experimental new technologies the computers were equipped with, but mostly because there was a free copy of playboy and national geographic with every sale.

Pixar

In 1986 Jobs purchased the Graphics group later renamed Pixar and after years of selling unprofitable computers, contracted with Disney to produce some animated films. Due to lack of direct control with the creative influence in Pixar, the company actually produced some quality movies including toy story, incredibles, finding nemo, cars and the very beautiful Up.
However Jobs was at it again in 2003 whilst unsuccessfully negotiating a contract extension with Disney. In 2005 Bob Iger took over Disney and placed the exact same deal on the table for Pixar with one proviso. A free all access pass to 10 of the most popular porn sites on the Internet. An agreement was immediately reached.

Apple Mach 2

Meanwhile while Pixar was producing some solid work Apple board members whilst on their own LSD trip joked about inviting Jobs back to company. However the joke backfired when jobs did not note the sarcasm from the board and showed up at apple headquarters in 96. The board being too polite and embarrassed to point out both theirs and Jobs mistake reluctantly re-instated him in late 96 and ousted the current CEO. In the noughties the Apple company has gone from strength to strength releasing aesthetically pleasing while technologically incompetent personal electronic devices starting with the iPod. Fortunately for Apple the entire electronics industry decided to avoid the consumer trends towards these products and Apple had entire control of electronic marketing for a decade. For a few hundred dollars you could buy a technologically less advanced music device, that breaks easily and is locked to their own music store. Obviously consumers jumped at this chance to be locked down by technology . They later released the iphone.

Noughties

And most recently apple is releasing the iPad an electronic device for menstruating women that lets you read books or something. Jobs claimed that he got the idea from watching THAT scene in Superbad.

Paternity Issue
In 1978 Jobs had his first child to a Bay Area Painter. Paternity of the child was initially denied in most part because jobs had never touched a women. After realising it was a result of one of the thousands of sperm donor ships Jobs used to get through college he later accepted paternity whilst remaining a virgin.

Half Man- Half Robot

In 2004 Jobs was diagnosed with a rare (less aggressive) form of pancreatic cancer. Initially, true to form he attempted to thwart the disease with a special diet and after realising how stupid that is finally decided to get a Whipple procedure to remove the tumor. Jobs announce that because of the delay in getting proper health care and after years of reportedly ill-health that he was undergoing a liver transplant. Again recently uncovered tapes of the operation reveal this is not the full extent of the story.
Surgeon: Beginning the operation how is he Doctor
Anesthetic Guy: Hard to say doctor he is still coming off an LSD trip. Will increase the dosage
Surgeon: Be careful to not decrease his brain activity too far
Anesthetic Guy: Brain Activity???
Surgeon: I’m just shitting with you, but seriously is he out yet?
Anesthetic Guy: Yes finally. Getting him to count back from 10 was very difficult. He should be fine, I am going to play around on my Ipad.
Surgeon: You bought one of those?
Anesthetic Guy: Of course its like reading a magazine on a hard glass interfaced electronic device. You can turn pages and not even have to scroll.
Surgeon: OOOOOKKKKK, Will see you later
Nurse: I have all the tools ready, Doctor
Surgeon: Well the anesthetic fixed up the final tool
Everyone: Ha Ha Ha
Anesthetic Guy: (in the distance) Fucking Ipad, where is the USB port? What? They don’t have any? You have to be kidding.
Surgeon: Making the incision now. Removing the liver. Nurse pass me the transplant.
Nurse: Doctor, I can’t find the liver transplant.
Surgeon: No, nurse pass me the mac motherboard over there.
Nurse: What?
Surgeon: Its a long story, just pass it here
Nurse: Ok, here you are doctor
Surgeon: Now connecting the CPU to his nervous system. Connecting the floppy drive connector to the, well you can guess. Connected peripherals to skin. Closing the opening now. Now pass me the Turtle Neck, the stitches and the needle.
Nurse: What for
Surgeon: Save him having to get dressed every day. Finishing the stitching, and there we go. The “job” is complete
Everyone: Ha ha ha
Nurse: You crack me up doctor. Look he is coming to
Jobs: Aw-Ew-Ah. How did it go doctor?
Surgeon: Your Mac integration was a complete success. Check your side, you have several peripheral inputs available to hook up directly to your nervous system. And your Turtle Neck looks great on you.
Jobs: What about some USB ports?
Surgeon: Of course not.
Jobs: Oh thank god. So you took my liver out as well?
Surgeon: Yes, it went exactly as we discussed.
Jobs: Ok so how is my going to break down fats, produce urea and filter my blood.
Surgeon: Uhhhhhh

Currently

To summarise Jobs is living in the closet, as a hippie-Buddhist with his head up his arse, addicted to porn, half man, half Mac with a turtle neck permanently sewn to his torso and a company that makes crappy electronics and the inability to break down fats in his diet.

References

• Wikipedia
• Judgements I have made with minuscule observations
• My own sense of Jealousy of his success (and his turtle neck shirt)
• Out and out lies

Footnote: Suing me is akin to clubbing a baby seal and would result in poor branding of a company and massive drops in sales.

The article in question can be found here, and basically describes how a sick individual from the UK (the home of sick individuals? Think posh, Jordan and Gorden Brown) used facebook to connect with kids he would meet as a postman and as a soccer coach. It claims that the social networks were an important factor in his “operations” and were derelict in their failure to protect the children (won’t somebody think of the children”). Now I like a good dose of tall poppy syndrome in my news week but its getting to be ridiculous. Media is like the cool kids at your school. There is no discernible feature that makes them cool, but there is no denying that once seeing and meeting them their coolness in instantly recognisable. Hot topics in media are the same. No idea why it is suddenly cool to bag out social networks security issues, but suddenly every second article had been dedicated to just that. Its a herd mentality that seems to have no distinguishable leader. So in providing equality in the media I am going to propose others who could also be to blame for this, all jokes aside, horrible situation.

The Media

Ever seen the news were they highlight a flaw in national security and then go into great detail how to exploit said flaw? Its absolutely ludicrous. Constant media coverage of the flaws in security and the ease in getting access to children via social networks may just be compounding the problem. Just a thought.

The Post Office

What kind of organisation allows a man to roam the streets and canvas houses in disguise? Its the 21st century version of a ninja, paying someone to canvas the community (and deliver mail). We don’t even need the post office, we have emails, but if we must keep it we can at least publicise times when the postal rounds are being done so that we can safely lock children away during these times.

The Soccer Club

Apparently soccer clubs have children running around, wrestling, playing, getting sweaty, getting undressed, and all sorts of sick activities for paedophiles to prey upon. In addition adults are allowed full access to these children under the guise of “coaching” and “community service”. Why don’t we just lay out the welcome mat to all paedophiles for a free buffet. All kids sports should be banned immediately.

The Kids

Apparently kids are unable to make friends outside of an online setting. Even worse though I saw kids at the beach in swimmers! I am not kidding there was more skin visible than somewhere where… there is even more skin visible. Can you even blame the paedophiles with kids dressed so inappropriately these days.

The Parents

My wife tells me that parents are actually responsible for the actions of their children. If this is the case (although I can’t see how it could be possible) then all poor decisions made by the kids in these circumstances can reflect a lack of parenting. How about keeping an eye on what your children do every now and then. Protecting your kids is not the governments job, its not the police’s job, its not the communities job and its not even facebooks job, its your job so do it.

George W Bush

Well George is pretty much responsible for everything else wrong with the world, so its only a matter of time before a direct link will be found in this case. As he once said “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — [pauses] – shame on you. Fool me — You can’t get fooled again.” Well said George, well said.

Kevin

Kevin promised to protect us from this with a mandatory ISP filter. One that I assume will be adopted by the rest of the world when Australia’s success is evident. However it still hasn’t been implemented yet so this is your fault, Kevin.

God

God created the heavens and the earth, Man, and well lets just say everything. Therefore God created this man, facebook, soccer, and the postal service which all contributed to this. So he or she is ultimately responsible and our outrage should be directed to him/her or it.

You

That’s right you and me are just as much to blame. We are the ones who like connecting with friends on social networks. We are the ones that send and receive mail through the post. We are the ones that like watching sport and encourage it. We are the ones who allow children to wear whatever they want and get seen in public. If it wasn’t for us and all our selfish desires this may never of happened.

The Paedophile

Last one although it probably is not their fault at all, but I thought I should mention the actual pedophile himself. Without social networks, postal service and soccer he probably could not of perpetuated the acts, however some blame should probably be apportioned to him (not as much as facebook though). Because before Facebook and soccer and the post there were never any Paedophiles around.

Thankyou for sending the same comment on everysingle one of my posts. I can only assume that you really like my work and every post on the site particularly because you mention you like my writing style every time. However when I went to reciprocate the favour your site featured pictures of naked women. Were you aware of this? Some of the pictures even have women and men trying to make babies. I was horrified and after searching through every page on your site for a contact page or exit button, I finally managed to close down the site after running out of moisteriser and tissues.

My friend Kevin told me that I had in fact, visited a pornography website, but it was OK because he would ban them soon in Australia anyway. Still it hurts me not to be able to let you know how much I appreciated the sentiment of your comments on my post. It was lucky you sent the comments though when you did because I accidently installed Askimet and now I dont get many comments at all. And lots of the comments I do get, actually have the nerve to argue with me, provide more infomation or an opposing point of view like I actually allow comments for discussion or something. Not you though, you just re-affirm my self-confidence, whack about 20 links in there and be on your way like a true anonymous hero. You are a real nice guy or gal and its hard to find these types of people online.

I wonder if you know or are related to some of the other people who comment on my site. You all write extremely similar messages and you are very successful because you have so many websites. I only have a couple but then again I don’t comment on many blogs so that is probably why. I have heard people on forums and stuff bad mouthing you for saying nice things about so many people, but I suspect that they are just jealous because you would have so many friends and lots of money compared to them. I reckon you should video yourself writing all these nice messages and post it on youtube. You could be like that guy that gave free hugs away and he is super famous and everyone loves him now. Why do people who want to hug everyone always look like they are afraid of the shower? Anyway if you get as successful as the dirty, hippie, hugging guy, then maybe hallmark or someone will give you a job in writing nice messages and you can be even more rich and popular, if that is even possible.

Cheers
Adam

My name is Adam and I am your biggest fan. Everyone calls me a Twat because I am so good at twitter and have so many friends. Somehow I got on the twitter bandwagon late and only now I am catching up. I wish someone could of mentioned twitter earlier to me or even tweeted it, which now I think about it would be redudant because I still would not of seen it. Anywho I am writing to ask you for a favor. Your technology is geting old and needs to be replaced ASAP.

“It became difficult to let everyone I know, every single one of my thoughts”

Back in the dark ages before twitter I used to have to have real human being friends to tell them stuff, and news agencies didn’t report tweets as news. Also if I wanted everyone to know what i was doing I would need to update my facebook page, but it became difficult to let everyone I know, every single one of my thoughts. So I was stuck with only updating my status 10-12 times a day and had way too many characters to play with which confused me and terrified me. In fact I dont think I have ever been that confused since a priest was comforting me after losing a friend saying they are now with Jesus. As a 12 year old it was hard to understand why I am thankful that Jesus is looking after a freind whom he was so kind to kill anyway. Only when I realised Jesus was jealous of me having so many cool friends that he tries to steal them did this make any sense. Unfortunately for Jesus I have 50 million twitter friends now so good luck with that plan, although I heard his dad wiped out the entire poulation except for one family. How they reproduced to repopulate the earth gets a little vague though.

“I propose some kind of mind control device that reads all your thoughts and immediately publishes them”

Back on topic, Twitter is now reaching the limit that facebook had reached earlier. There is not enough time and energy in a persons life to send out a sufficient number of tweets. I propose some kind of mind control device that reads all your thoughts and immediately publishes them. Did I say mind control I meant to say “Mind Reader” device. Dont want to go all Plankton on the population now do we? Without such a device millions, possibly billions of thoughts are being wasted without anyone to hear or read them. Human intellectual capital literally going to waste. Just imagine the possibilities, Ashton Kutcher tweeting “That was one of the biggest shits I have ever done” or Kim Kardashian tweeting about her underage liasons with Justin Bieber. My friend Kevin doesn’t like the idea and thinks governments should be responsible for what we think, read, see and consume but he is old so does not count. I am pretty sure everyone else in the world agrees with me. I have attached a picture of the mind control device for your tech guys to use as a model.

Thanks

Adam Diver

P.S. I think its cool that a Blue bird can be so successful particularly since glass ceilings (and windows) are so hazardous for birds.

So in an attempt to enlighten new and old webmasters alike I have decided to not re-invent the wheel and instead compile a directory of valuable SEO links where you can learn everything you need for SEO.

General (all encompassing)

All you need to know about SEO – Nice blog post on DP by Dan Shultz a very experienced webmaster. Covers pretty much everything about SEO including the how and why as opposed to just the what.

FAQ: Search Engine Optimization – Another excellent blog post this time on Sitepoint by one of their most experienced members Stymiee. A simple FAQ to answer all the question you may have about SEO

Keyword Analysis

Competitive Keyword Analysis – Choosing keywords can be one of the most important aspects of SEO. This thread at Sitepoint is a good discussion on the various methods and their importance.

On Page Optimisation

On page Optimisation – An Introductory Guide – A great post on SEOchat providing in depth information on all the aspects of SEO you can control on your site.

On Page Optimisation – A complete Walk through – Another comprehensive article on all the aspects of on page optimisation.

Off Page Optimisation

SEO Link Building – A very comprehensive post into link building by the guys at SEO chat forum. Lots of background information allowing you to understand best methods and practices and apply them today.

101 ways to build link popularity – This is one of the first resources I can remember reading online and it is still as good today as it was before. As the title suggest it provides 101 ideas and strategies to build links to your site.

Misc

Optimize a single blog post – Probloggers Darren Rowse shares his secrets on getting individual post (pages) to rank well. If you just want some SEO knowledge to get a few more visitors this is the resource I would recommend first.

List of best SEO Tools – There are a large number of SEO tools available that make your SEO efforts much easier. They range from automated links to keyword research and the guys at Smashing Magazine have done a nice list of the best ones available.

SEO Plugins every wordpress blog should have – Another great post at Problogger outlining for those wordpress bloggers out there the easiest way to improve your SEO via some of the great plugins available.

If you have any other resources which you think will be helpful please let me know in the comments below.