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Big Manta’s BIG Contest: Winner Announced!

BigManta — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:57:35 +0000

UPDATE: This week’s winner has been selected and will receive a 2 month FREE PRO account at SEMRush valued at $100!

Thanks to everyone who participated and check back soon for the next contest!

I am excited to announce my first contest here on BigManta!

As we passed the 30-day milestone just a few days ago, I started thinking that it would be fun to run a contest for the readers of the site (and we all know contests are an excellent way to spread the word). I am going to start doing a different contest each Friday and give away something that will help you become successful (or more successful) online.

This week’s prize – A free 2-month PRO account to SEMRush ($100 value)

Earlier this week I was given a sneak peek on how SEMRush works and what it does, and they have generously donated a 2-month PRO account for this contest! If you have never heard of this program before, you really need to go check it out. Whether you’re involved with pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, interested in SEO, or want to perform analysis on your competitors, this tool allows you to delve into those areas. With SEMRush, you can:

See which terms are driving the most traffic to websites
View your competitors AdWords ads, cost per click, and keywords
See organic search engine ranking results
Export your findings
Track competition, trends, volume of keywords
Analyze individual domain names

To be honest, I had not really seen SEMRush before this week. However, after using it for a while I have to say that I’m extremely impressed and would recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about their own (or their competitor’s) sites. I played around with it quite a bit and would honestly recommend it to anyone trying to boost their SEO or pay per click, or see what other sites in their niche are doing.

Click here to find out more about SEMRush

How can you enter to win?

To enter this contest, you have several options:

Sign up for my newsletter
Subscribe to my RSS (by email so I know you subscribed)
Mention this contest on your own blog

You can do any or all of the methods above – but if you do all 3, then you will get 3 entries in the drawing!

As an added bonus, anyone who has already subscribed or mentioned my blog in a post is automatically entered in the contest!

Contest Deadline

The contest will end next Thursday October 22, 2009 at midnight, so be sure to have your entries submitted by then! I’ll announce the winners Friday morning here on this post. Good luck to everyone!

Spread the word

It would be appreciated if you would pass this along (email, Twitter, etc) to anyone you think might be interested. Thanks for following along so far, and I wish everyone the best of luck!

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The 5 Keys to Success – A Free Guide to Succeeding Online

BigManta — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:57:10 +0000

I’m very proud to announce my free guide entitled “The 5 Keys to Success.”

There are several essential components that I believe every business owner, marketer, entrepreneur, and aspiring online money-maker should be aware of in order to really be successful online. This guide outlines those elements and explains the reasoning behind why some people do very well online, and others end up with mediocre or disappointing results.

It’s a great guide even for those outside of the internet marketing and making money online world, so please feel free to pass this page on so other people you know might be able to benefit from it.

While the guide is completely free, all you need to do is join my newsletter and you will receive instant access to the free guide in a link via email.

In addition to the guide, with the free newsletter you’ll also receive exclusive content, free tips and tutorials, and a bunch of other really cool stuff to make your journey to making it big on the internet – easier and more profitable. Simply enter your name and email below to sign up and gain instant access to the guide:

The Top 3 Reasons Why People Fail at Making Money Online

BigManta — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:38:00 +0000

As much as I would like to tell you that there is some magic secret to being successful and making money online, I’m afraid that’s not the case. There’s no quick road to riches, if that were the case then everyone would be millionaires and we would all spend our days relaxing on the beach.

I believe that if you approach making money on the internet with a systematic approach, you are virtually guaranteed success. Once you get in the groove, it can actually become quite easy to succeed and generate a lot of income. If this is true, then why do so many people fail at making money online then? In my opinion, it boils down to 3 main reasons:

Failing to start

In order to make money online – you must start somewhere. Whether it’s blogging, creating a website, promoting affiliate offers, whatever method you have decided to use to make money – you must actually get started. Many people scheme up grandiose ideas and the next thing that’s going to catapult them to success… but never lift a finger to start. If you don’t start somewhere (anywhere) – you have nothing to generate income.

Failing to take action

Right after “failing to start”, we have a failure to take action as a large reason why many people have not been successful online. Although you may have launched your site, blog, or campaign, it needs to be continually enhanced to keep growing. Just like a garden needs sunlight and water – you’re online endeavors need to be fed with marketing, new content, and direction so that they can thrive.

Imagine a business opens in your city and they go and build a huge new building and announce their grand opening to the public, place ads in the newspaper, and have a spectacular opening. You then walk into the store only to see the shelves nearly empty with just a few products in the back corner. This is similar to how many blogs and sites end up – as shells with only a few pages or posts that were never fully developed.

Failing to persevere

The final reason why I think many people fail to succeed is their lack of perseverance. You must admit to yourself that you will face tough times and face obstacles that you need to push through. If you’re a blogger, you may not have an audience for months, but if you stick with it – you will start seeing results.

Create a Persona to Connect With Readers & Convey Personality

BigManta — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:57:55 +0000

Connecting with your readers is an excellent way to build your prominence and build a loyal following. A personality not only gives you a way to separate you out from the crowd, but it brings uniqueness, individuality, and personality into your writing and content. Many of the most successful bloggers have built a very loyal following around the image they have worked hard to build.

Why should you create a persona?

As mentioned above, a personality can bring a human touch into your writing and give your readers someone to connect with. Instead of a cold, lifeless blog that simply new information – you inject yourself (and your personality) into your writing and allow your readers to see that you’re real, just like them.

Corporate and business blogs are notorious for not connecting very well with their readers, due largely to their cold and personality-less demeanor and way of writing. If you can show people that you are real (just like them) you can have a much easier time building connections and fostering a community.

With this blog I am using BigManta as my moniker and trying to get people to associate that name with succeeding online. Also, you will notice that I just added a little cartoon avatar in my sidebar – which I did to intentionally show that there is a real person behind this blog.

Successful examples of blogs with personality

I thought I’d share a couple examples of some successful blogs who have built a name for themselves (and their blogs) by using a personal approach. You will notice that many of their blogs immediately correlate to a particular individual or a persona that they have created online:

Problogger - Darren Rowse
DoshDosh - Maki
Copyblogger - Brian Clark
Shoemoney - Jeremy Schoemaker
John Chow – John Chow
Mashable - Peter Cashmore
Entrepreneurs-Journey – Yaro Starak
Zen Habits – Leo Babauta

While you may or may not know all of these blogs, they all share a common characteristic of having a personality built around their blog – and themselves. You can even be a character you have created, just like Maki has successfully done with DoshDosh.

A persona isn’t necessary, but it can really help

I’m not going to say that you MUST have a persona or character that your readers can connect with. However, with blogs I think you will find that it does make growing your blog a whole lot easier.