Liane Carmi

So…

When I first started this blog, I had just started a 90 Day Challenge with Dennis Karganilla and Jimmy Davis. For 3 months, I pushed myself beyond my limits, and brought myself to a place where I could quit my job and work for myself, full time from home.

Recently, I’ve come to realize that this self-challenging is what makes people successful.  My friend Donovan calls it “CANI – constant and never-ending improvement.”  I call it “busting through brick walls.”

Basically, it’s doing more than you think you can – forcing yourself to power through until you reach your goal, or until you do what you or someone else has challenged you to do.  And I could give you at least 100 stories about that -

Like the time I copied the Wall Street Journal sales letter 7 times over by hand because I wanted to improve my copywriting skills.  My hand was hurting after the first page! But I kept going, and I made an effort to make each copy neater, cleaner, with less errors…

Or we could go way back to when I was in the Army, and was told to run four miles.  Four miles?  Puleez!  I was out of breath after 3 steps!  But guess what?  I did it.

Or that time I jumped my first set of stairs on my rollerblades, at 12.  It didn’t seem so hard to repeat after that.

Every day, I push myself and challenge myself to do more than I did before.  And when my mind says, “time to quit,” I say “keep going!”

That’s why I decided to join Justin Brooke’s 90 Day Challenge.
Justin’s a cool guy, he gives great advice, and he KNOWS online marketing.  So I trust him to point me in the right direction.

And if you’ve read this far into my post…you’re probably ready for a move in the right direction.

So I’m gonna do something – a little “extra” to help you get started.
Check my blog for regular updates on the challenge, and little bonuses – like this worksheet (click to download) to help you get through day 2 of the challenge.

Oh – and of course, here’s where you sign up for the challenge:
SiteFling’s 90 Day Challenge
See you there!

If you’ve been following the fierce competition on the dk-is-a-street-performer Google keyword challenge this past week, then you’re probably just as tired as I am of typing the phrase

“dk is a street performer”

into the Google search bar.

I’ve personally gotten very involved in the challenge (and done very well, as you’ll see in the video below) – but if you think this is all about winning…

Okay, you’re partially right.

After all, in real life, you make money when people see your website and click on your links…

But here are seven very important lessons that I’ve learned along the way.  I’ll put them in the form of action steps, so you can print it out, or copy and paste it – save it somewhere for future reference.

1. When it comes to new long tail keyword phrases (ones that have very little to no presence in the search engines) –
   

   be the first, and act fast.

   The first two sites to rank for the keyword phrase “dk is a street performer” were two twitter accounts who had simply blogged about the contest – and added the keyword phrase to their twitter bio.  These sites later stayed on the first page for a while – and then hung around the second page.

2. Create as many different sites as possible.

   The strangest sites will rank on the first page of Google – for example, my flickr account.  You never know which site will end up on the first page.

3. Don’t wait to see what your competition is doing before you act.

   Stay ahead of the game by going to new places – but be sure to check out your competition and also emulate what works for them.
   

4. If something works, keep doing it!

   This blog post is a perfect example.  Google seemed to rank my blog very high, and in several places every time I posted using the keyword (dkisastreetperformer).  So I’m posting now – in hopes of bringing yet another website to the first page of Google.
   

5. Watermark your pictures.

   Other than awarding an Amazon Kindle for the person who is able to rank the most sites on the first page of Google, Howie also offered a bonus for anyone who places DK’s face on the NYC Naked Cowboy.  When I uploaded an image that my wife had photoshopped for me, another marketer snagged it and put it up as his own.  This was actually the first lesson I had learned.  A watermark would have either kept him from taking the photo, or would have been even more advertising for me if he put it on his own site.
   Believe it or not, people take photos off the web all the time – even when they are not public domain.
   

6. Use good SEO strategies.

   Sites come up on the first page of Google all the time – and then shift back down to the second, third, or even 47th page.  The way to get a site up and KEEP it up is to use good search engine optimization strategies (these can be learned in a variety of ways, but no one teaches them like Howie Schwartz.  Check out Howie’s Apprentice (link on the right).
   

7. Even when you think you’re ahead, keep going.

   At one point, I had 8 of the 10 top spots on the first page of Google for the keyword phrase “dk is a street performer.”  Had I stopped at that point and declared myself victorious, my competition would have completely obliterated me.

So what happens now?

Well, personally, I’m going to be watching the keyword phrase dk_is_a_street_performer for a while.  Here are some things I’d like to find out:

• Which sites have staying power?  Why?
• How long does it take the search engines to see all strategies I used?
• Which sites completely disappear?  Why?
• Which of the SEO strategies I used worked best?  Which gave little to no result?  How can I improve those strategies?
• Which sites creep up to the first page – even after marketing strategies have stopped?

Here is a video showing last night’s rankings.  But don’t stop with the video, read below!

So now…as we come up to the final hours of the competition…I need to ask you:

Who do you think will win the “dk is a street performer challenge,” Liane (me), or Rick?

Check out the photo below and then leave a comment with your response.