I don’t know one person that has a blog or some other form of online business that hasn’t uttered the phrase, “If only I had known then what I know now…”

I’ve said it myself more than once. When we started blogging it was looked at as a hobby. This fact, coupled with the newness of the blogosphere from this perspective (the blogging side) allowed us to make a number of mistakes. Years later, I am scratching my head wondering what I was thinking.

Some things I am happy to say I avoided just out of sheer vanity and stubbornness on my part, but a lot of those common mistakes that people talk about making, I made, too.

photo credit: Mab879

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When Ashtyn and I were building up our original business, Dominash Studios (formerly DomAsh Designs – but changed due to another company with the same name), we worked with a lot of real estate agents and mortgage companies. The majority of our work was a combination of writing, editing, SEO and internet marketing work. Working one on one with real estate agents could sometimes be like stepping into a shark pit. A lot of them did not really understand the Internet and how to utilize it to maximize their business. It was our job to guide the way to the future. With many of them stuck in their old, image marketing ways, they spent time bemoaning about themselves. When would they see a profit? What payoff would the work we put in for them have and why were they not seeing same day results? It was always about them and how great they were as agents. Telling them to have patience in order to reap greater rewards was like telling them to stop acting like yapping, self-centered Chihuahuas.

We had proven success at what we were doing to help real estate agents. Getting them to understand these results did not happen overnight was the hard part. It takes time and patience to build an internet mecca, but we’d done it for more than one real estate agent. Perhaps that is what kept them listening. Regardless, I grew tired of their Me-centric attitudes and in my frustration I wrote an article listing EVERYTHING I felt agents were doing wrong. After writing it, as this was before my blogging days, I submitted the article to a free article site, which let business people use it if they gave me credit and linked to my website. Then, I subsequently forgot about it.

Imagine my surprise when a few months later, I came across my article on a realtor’s site. There, in big, bold letters was my name. A Google search revealed my article had exploded across the web. Four, five, SIX or more pages of my article littered Google. From time to time I do a search for the article. To this day, a few websites are still using it, and with good reason.

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Rocky is one of the best movies of all time. The series, or a good number of the films, was on cable today and it got me thinking. You have to like Balboa because he’s the underdog. He’s a fighter. He’s not huge compared to most of the guys that he fights, but fighting is all that he knows how to do. He can’t go out and get a day job or make a living any other way. So, he goes out, all heart and passion and does what he does best. He has guts and he realizes that without sacrificing something, there is nothing to win. All of this made me realize, we could all learn a little something from the Italian Stallion.

photo credit: Jase The Bass

In order to emphasize these life lessons you can learn, I will use some quotes and expand from there.

Adrian: Why do you wanna fight?
Rocky: Because I can’t sing or dance.

Sure, this is more of a comical moment, but there is some seriousness to it. Why do you want to do what you do? Is it because you have no choice or because whether circumstances led you to it or not, you have passion for what you are doing? If you’re doing it because you have to do it then the “eye of the tiger” most likely is not there and you will only get so far in your chosen or pre-determined career.

Rocky: It really don’t matter if I lose this fight. It really don’t matter if this guy opens my head, either. ‘Cause all I wanna do is go the distance… if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren’t just another bum from the neighborhood.

If you aren’t willing to go the distance in whatever it is you choose to do then you shouldn’t bother getting in the ring. Whether you have something to prove to yourself or someone else doesn’t particularly matter. What does matter is the hunger you have for what you are doing. Every major business decision and many of the seemingly minor ones need to be considered with this in mind because those that are not willing to risk something never really gain anything.

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Being reviewers, one of the questions we are asked the most is: What is your page rank?

In fact, it’s a consistent question. It always makes me smile when I hear or see this question asked, because I remember the whirlwind craze that Page Rank caused a few years back, when having the best Page Rank was all the rage. Website owners of all types scrambled to get higher numbers, though none of them quite knew how. They hired people to find other businesses to link with them and to write articles that could be used as link bait. Some even went as far as full site redesigns and having copy written with a high density of the site’s most searchable terms in hopes that it would raise the site’s PR. In the latter case, all it did was create copy that made the average person’s eyes want to bleed.

A Crazy Mathematical Conundrum Applied to the Web

Today, Page Rank still seems to be important, especially to marketers and those involved in PR. However, it still is not clear how Page Rank is determined. Back in the day, we used to write articles for Page Rank obsessed companies about the Google Page Rank Algorithm. The Algorithm combined complex mathematics with a little bit of luck. Google would not explain exactly how this Algorithm tallied Page Rank. They also were said to frequently change the Algorithm, to prevent crafty, mathematically-inclined individuals from figuring the Algorithm out.

To this day, it is still not clear what kind of things Google uses to penalize websites in the Page Rank department. With each new update, blogs and businesses bounce between seemingly unrelated ranks, moving up and down and causing a lot of speculation as to why the changes have occurred. There is no rhyme nor reason to why a Page Rank has changed, and frankly, we’ve seen it cause panic amongst the masses who freak out at any small tweak to their Page Rank.

It’s Really a Cat and Mouse Game…

….And…lets not forget that some popular websites/blogs have had their Page Rank dropped by Google for a myriad of reasons, despite the popularity of the site/blog. These are the infamous ones who decry Page Rank by principle. If Google does not wish a site to reap the benefits of Page Rank, they can, essentially, pull rank and deem the site unworthy in Google’s mind. We’ve seen these kinds of plays made by Google before. We can argue semantics and ethics, but Google controls Page Rank, therefore Google, justly, has prime say over what they do to or with each site’s Page Rank. Their site, their rules, and therefore, there should not be as much stock put into Google Page Rank.

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