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These are the responses to the second round of Ask Josh. Occasionally I open up the floor for people to ask whatever they feel like asking. I don’t think there will be any perfect answers, but you asked for my opinion, so I’m giving it ;). Here we go:

Sherry Asks: What webhosting are you using? Have you heard of Shann Host or Dotster ? What do you think of the webhosting that I just mention.

Josh: I use 1and1.com as my webhosting. I have not heard of Shann Host or Dotster. I personally think web hosting has to do a lot with your needs are and how much you would like to spend. I have two servers, one shared and one dedicated, that I use for personal and business. I can tell you that the dedicated server customer support is much more knowledgeable and prompt. If you are only hosting a couple of sites and don’t drive tons and tons of traffic, focus more on the price. If you are hitting it hard, focus on the services and equipment.

BM Asks: When did you start blogging? How many blogs do you own? How many are active?

Josh: I started full-time blogging at the start of the year. I had written a few blog posts before that but wouldn’t really consider myself a blogger at that point. Currently, I work on about 10 or so active blogs. I have a few drifters that are waiting for some attention. Mostly I use the extra blogs to drive niche traffic or build support for other sites I work on.

Chelle Asks: Is the majority of your traffic from social media or organic search results?

Which makes me wonder, why do you think more people don’t search for more marketing related terms? I’ve done a lot of keyword research for it and there are very few that aren’t broad terms that get more than 20 searches a day. Are people just not thinking that way for marketing info yet?

Josh: Most of my traffic comes from organic searches or referring site. I am averaging about 150 marketing related searches a day via the major three Google, MSN and Yahoo.

It’s hard to have an accurate view of search traffic from just keyword searches alone. Once you are first for random marketing related terms, you would be surprised of the amount of searches they bring. I have moved up a lot recently for “marketing ideas” and related terms like “Halloween Marketing Ideas” which will bring a nice steady flow of traffic in at least until the end of the month. I usually see what people are searching for when they come to my blog and at what page I show up in the serps for that term. If they are finding me on page 5 and I know with a little work I can get to page 1, I will spend a little time doing that. The first spot on page 1 receives about 80% of the clicks for that search term. You never know what you are going to get until you do it.

shawal Asks: It is possible to sell a blogspot blog, if yes, HOW?

Josh: Technically, no. But can you work something out with a potential buyer? Probably yes. Not easy. That is one of the hard things to overcome in free hosting like Blogspot. Everything you do there is like renting a house. You don’t get the equity you put into it.

Driveway Sealing Asks: I’ve started a new site and I wanted to know: What would you do to get it ranked highly in the SERPS in under 3 months?

Is it blog commenting? or directory submissions? a combo of both maybe? Anything else I am missing?

Josh: I would approach this one of two ways depending on how old the domain is. If it is a brand new domain, you are going to shoot up in the serps and then right back down to work your way up again. This is Google’s way of preventing spam sites from taking over their serps. So in that case I would do directory submissions, blog commenting on dofollow high pr pages and reciprocal linking like blog rolls. It’s as effective as one-way links, but it passes link love more evenly while you crawl the new site back up the serps.

For an older site that has been established for at least 1-2 years, I would focus on high quality anchor links. Write a guest post for a high pr site with your link in it and comment on high pr pages with a contextual anchor link. I don’t personally do this but it works if done correctly to purchase a link from a high pr page. Sometimes it can run $30-40 a month for a good link, but it is an option. Always consider the risk vs. reward factor before doing any of this. Link building is strictly forbidden in search engines TOS.

These are the responses to the first Ask Josh round of questions. I opened up the floor for people to ask whatever they felt like asking. I don’t think there will be any perfect answers, but you asked for my opinion, so I’m giving it ;). Here we go:

BigPappa asks: What it the air speed velocity of an unladen African Swallow? There has been significant discussion but I don’t remember an answer being reached.

Josh: 10 meters per second. Thank you for providing the answer in a follow-up comment http://www.style.org/unladenswallow/.

Sherry asks: Just a question, are you wearing the hat always?

Josh: Sort answer is Yes, I usually wear a hat.

chris asks: I’m tossing up whether to personalize my blog about employment issues, or leave as an anonymous site (which it currently is). So I wanted to ask what difference it makes, marketing wise, on having a personal ‘this is me’ blog vs. an anonymous blog.

Josh: I would personalize the blog. Personalizing helps to enable discussion and communication from visitors. When a site or page is anonymous, it is perceived as a static website. The element of a real-life human being behind the helm goes a long way. People like to relate to a real person.

What type of ‘low cost’ ways can I compete with likes of Monster.com on marketing? Or should I not try?

Josh: From what I can tell looking from at your site, the best angle to go about helping people with their resumes would be to personally ensure success with your service. I like the testimonials and think there should be more of them throughout the blog. If you can guarantee and deliver the promise of the best personal resume service out there, people will naturally talk about it. The lowest cost way to promote your service is to make it the best service possible. As demand grows, so can your pricing structure. Maybe throw in a simple resume editing service or a two-tied slow / fast service.

Metroknow asks: Hey there Josh, my apologies if you’ve answered this before, but I was curious about your thoughts on the benefits of Entrecard. I still use it a little, but I have felt that the time trade off to build credits is not worth the return (very few clickthroughs, for example). What are your thoughts on Entrecard?

Josh: Personally, I see value in Entrecard (EC) or else I would have removed it from my blog. I think you can get out what you put into it at the cost of time. I rarely drop Entrecards anymore because I do not have the time. I do keep EC because I do get a trickle of visitors, comments and subscribers from it. I don’t recommend spending time dropping cards. Spend that 20-40 minutes a day building better content, making comments, building links to your blog and whatever it takes to increase your exposure. Dropping cards on people so they will drop cards back won’t help increase your readership or make more money. But putting the widget into your blog and leaving it there doesn’t cost a thing.

Susie Kleiner asks: As an “unconventional marketer” what are your thoughts on exhibiting at trade shows? With many companies cutting back their marketing budgets, do you feel this is area will be affected or do you foresee people continuing to push product/service through trade show marketing?

Josh: I think trade shows are invaluable simply because of the networking factor. I do believe these shows will and are taking a big hit right now with current economic circumstances. I believe people will start to get more creative with how they market at trade shows. Just this year there were numerous non-tech businesses at the Blog World Expo in Las Vegas. They went there because they knew that is where the talkers are. Believe it or not, bloggers talked about them, go figure.

A new marketing idea that some are starting to run are free workshops. Free workshops aren’t new. But running them for the sole purpose of helping others in order to get them to use your services is a new idea. What if people started opening up free courses on starting a business blog? Do you think businesses would show up? Do you think they might solicit your services after realizing it is something they need but don’t have the capacity to see through? I think so.

Matt Urdan asks: What’s the best way to monetize your blog without it becoming overrun with ad banners with designs you can’t control?

Josh: Use your blog to promote yourself and establish yourself as an authority on a subject. Unless you are receiving 300+ unique visitors a day, I wouldn’t mess with ads. They will only dilute your message. Selling unadvertised paid reviews or links can be another way to monetize your blog. I think having something people want and using your blog to promote that is the best way to monetize it.

You can create a thousand different sites that will produce good income all on their own. If your blog is your flagship site, I would leave it alone and use it as a funnel to recommend products or services to others occasionally but more as a free and open resource tool. The better idea would be if the products or services you recommend were your own.

Matt Richling asks: I see at the bottom of your blog, on the right side, you have some quick monthly goals. I was wondering what some of your more long term goals for the blog are? Or maybe your vision for where you see your blog in the future!?

I started posting goals on my blog about the second month into blogging. I thought they would be a great way to track progress and forward movement. I don’t give them too much thought anymore, just kind of fun to have. I don’t blog because of money. I blog because I like to network and share my passion for marketing in lighthearted, open discussions.

I would like to see this site develop into a community where more than one person posts frequently about the subject at hand. I want people to come, visit and walk away with something of value for free. As this site grows and more people visit it, I hope they get more and more value. I used to think that being an A-list blogger was the way to be and how to make money online. I now know it is better to network and give from your blog than to take. Anything I make from the blog I put back into the blog. I make money through different means online.

So to answer your question in numbers:

• RSS goal for the next year: 3,000+
• Newsletter subscribers for the next year 1,500+
• Frequent posters 3+

If you didn’t get your question is this time, thats ok. I am sure I have have another soon. I had a lot of fun answering these questions and hope that they showed you a little bit more about myself and other readers on the Unconventional Marketing Blog.