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Omits-Bagels posted:This is a pretty fun idea for a blog. Are you making many sales yet? I notice your amazon links are automatically directed to the user's country. What are you using to do this? A modest amount, but building traffic is the main focus for now. The site uses a Wordpress plugin called Amazon Affiliate Link Localizer.
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Feb 5, 2013 00:46
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MasterControl posted:any reason why that is? I'm guessing a list less than 10 might seem more clickable? Same reason you price things at 19.99 or 9.97. People don't roll past those numbers like they do nice even ones. I learned from my online biz coach that the best lists and price points are things that end with/include prime numbers basically. Forces the brain to stop for a second and process it for some weird reason.
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Feb 5, 2013 14:28
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Alfalfa posted:Same reason you price things at 19.99 or 9.97. I was always told that it was Psychological pricing and the 19.99 was used because it looks so much less than 20.00 and people round it down in their brain to 19. No reason they wouldn't both be true though!
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Feb 5, 2013 17:48
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Arsenic Life Form posted:Here's my blog on using everyday items to remake famous outfits from TV, movies, and the web. It's still in early stages -- just publishing a new post each day and building up the content for now. Check it out and let me know what you guys think. Really great idea, I hope you're working it into natural comments all over the loving internet. Reddit and cosplay forums, in particular, obviously. I would use automated scraping tools to find targets, then filter them for value using Excel for SEO and make manual comments. Google and Twitter alerts, working the url in anytime it makes sense in absolutely any cosplay conversation. It's a solid idea and the execution is good, it has potential if you can get the snowball rolling.
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Feb 6, 2013 15:29
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FCKGW posted:Try lists in something other than 10, like 9 or 12. They tend to get better click troughs. I hear 7 is the best number in fact. Im going to have to do that. My list items for my site usually require some original content for each one, so going with 7 instead of 10 is a lot less work.
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Feb 6, 2013 16:17
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Take a look at your headlines too. The headlines with the best clickthrough are ones that ask a question or omit a key detail from the story. Lets say that Facebook tomorrow announced they're going to make their own phone. A typical headline would be something like "Facebook announces new phone as a push into the mobile sphere" or something like that. The best types of headlines are "Is Facebook's new phone the last gap for mobile air?" or something like "Facebook's newest announcement bets the company on one key area." BusinessInsider.com does this better than anyone I've seen. I can't stand their articles littering up my flipboard feed but I can't help but clicking, their headline writers are really good. Time.com and Cracked are good in this space too.
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Feb 6, 2013 18:18
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Is there a decent market for less popular hobbies / interests out there? I've always tossed around the idea of starting up some kind of blog that deals with literature, both modern and classic (i.e. reviews, discussing themes, obscure references, introductory literary theory, etc.) because it's a personal passion, but given that a full 20% of Americans read a grand total of 0 books per year, and most people not many more than that, I'm not sure if it's an idea that has any traction.
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Feb 7, 2013 06:44
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This is the internet. There is a "decent" market for everything. It sounds like you haven't done a single second of research, because "modern and classic literature" is a HUGE market. Google returns over 20 million results for "classic literature blog" and over 40 million for "modern literature blog".
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Feb 7, 2013 14:44
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Honey Badger posted:Is there a decent market for less popular hobbies / interests out there? I've always tossed around the idea of starting up some kind of blog that deals with literature, both modern and classic (i.e. reviews, discussing themes, obscure references, introductory literary theory, etc.) because it's a personal passion, but given that a full 20% of Americans read a grand total of 0 books per year, and most people not many more than that, I'm not sure if it's an idea that has any traction. Niche markets are where the money is. It's way too hard to compete with a broader audience.
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Feb 7, 2013 18:02
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It is kind of cute that you think a massive market segment would be too small. As FCKGW says, it's way too big. It's the kind of segment you can only take on with a large team and a fat bankroll. A more appropriate segment would be something like "Feminist Literature in the Edwardian Era".* *Obviously I'm just picking a random thing here, do the market research...
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Feb 7, 2013 18:10
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mcsuede posted:It is kind of cute that you think a massive market segment would be too small. As FCKGW says, it's way too big. It's the kind of segment you can only take on with a large team and a fat bankroll. A more appropriate segment would be something like "Feminist Literature in the Edwardian Era".* Fair enough, just wanted to make sure it was viable at all before I started spending hours poring over AdWord numbers. Sounds like there is more than ample appeal if I can find a solid niche.
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Feb 7, 2013 18:52
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Honey Badger posted:Fair enough, just wanted to make sure it was viable at all before I started spending hours poring over AdWord numbers. Yeah, you're gonna need to drill it down to something at a very minimum semi-specific. Classic lit is a HUGE segment to try to tackle.
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Feb 8, 2013 01:37
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So after I moved my "subscribe to blog via email" widget to the top of the page, I've went from 3 subscribes over 8 months to 10 in the past 3 days. What the hell do I do with the email list that it's building?
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Feb 9, 2013 05:40
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Send out a weekly digest of your sites content and include a CPA/sponsored link in the newsletter. Selling newsletter ad space can be very lucrative.
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Feb 9, 2013 06:07
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FCKGW posted:Send out a weekly digest of your sites content and include a CPA/sponsored link in the newsletter. Also offer something for free for subscribing. "Sign up for our news letter and get our free eBook on ____!"
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Feb 9, 2013 19:24
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Do you guys have any suggestions for changing the name of your blog to minimize losing readers, etc? I have the problem that my blog outgrew its name. Started as a place for Masters of the Universe stuff and ended up branching into all action figures. Going to trade shows and making professional contacts in the last year has been good but odd causes I sound like a he-man fan site instead of a toy blog. So this is why i need to transition. Any advice? I was thinking of what I could do, I could leave the old site up and update on occasion but there are checklists and event coverage I probably would want to move over to the new site. Or would it be better to just move everything to the new domain, build the setup and all and just have the old url forward to the new place? I don't know what the best course of action is. Caesarian Sectarian fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Feb 17, 2013 |
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Feb 17, 2013 01:23
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I've done it before going from longname.org to name.com. It's fairly easy, you just setup your new site and use a 301 redirect to send all vistors of the old domain to your new one. Then, log into your Google Webmaster tools account and notify Google of the changes to keep all your rankings and placement the same. Google has a nice page and video on the process: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=83105
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Feb 17, 2013 01:53
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Is it best to do a fresh Wordpress install or just update the old site with the new info?
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Feb 17, 2013 02:17
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I haven't seen anyone mention themes in a while. What is everyone finding success with?
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Feb 17, 2013 17:13
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therealjon_ posted:Is it best to do a fresh Wordpress install or just update the old site with the new info? You should be able just to update the domain in the wordpress admin interface and wordpress will handle the rest. As long as you don't have any hard-coded links to the old domain you should be fine. Step-by-step: http://kb.mediatemple.net/questions/1898/How+can+I+change+the+domain+name+for+my+WordPress+blog%3F#gs BulimicGoat posted:I haven't seen anyone mention themes in a while. What is everyone finding success with? I use Heatmap Theme on most of my blogs but it's a pay theme. It's extremely modular and dead simple to setup and use. I've also used various themes from http://newwpthemes.com and http://www.arrastheme.com for other blogs too. FCKGW fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Feb 17, 2013 |
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Feb 17, 2013 17:41
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So, I made a site and all, it is about Speech and such, and I was wondering how it looked to you all and if there were any improvements you would suggest Anyway, it is at https://www.speechishard.com
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Feb 19, 2013 04:16
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Minea posted:So, I made a site and all, it is about Speech and such, and I was wondering how it looked to you all and if there were any improvements you would suggest Buy/make a logo and a banner for up top because it looks super cheap and immediately makes me think "spam" when I see stock stuff like that, but that could just be me. Get rid of the gaggle of buttons up top. Make a facebook. Get buttons to like your facebook page and seperately like the post on facebook. Move the WP install to the top of the domain, not /wp/ Anyways those are my little suggestions.
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Feb 20, 2013 00:45
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invision posted:Buy/make a logo and a banner for up top because it looks super cheap and immediately makes me think "spam" when I see stock stuff like that, but that could just be me. Working on the banner. Did you coincidentally see the page when I accidentally put in two social bars? Or do you mean no social bar at all? Will do that, thats something I wanted to do, but then I forgot Yea, that was also an accident, will change Also, thanks for the input!
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Feb 20, 2013 00:51
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quote:I haven't seen anyone mention themes in a while. What is everyone finding success with? This doesnt really count, but I thought I'd post a general update. I havent had a lot of time (stupidly busy period at work)to update my astronomy news site, but when I do I get a couple of pings through Tweetdeck that people are liking the articles, liking the facebook page and sharing them themselves. Revenue is generally low and only spikes when I do a concerted effort to throw articles up on Reddit, but its still far below what I paid for the site registration and hosting costs. This week I have off, so I'm doing new posts, tweaking parts of the site and going over google analytics data to help me improve the site. Things I need to do: 1) Get a logo. I didnt do this earlier because I was out of work when I started the site but Ive got a goon working on it, so this should be done by the end of the week. 2) Alter the sidebar of the posts. Analytics tells me that people arent using the little widget Ive got there to find other posts and are mainly looking at the image based links below the article. I'll probably throw in some graphic amazon ads instead. Or I might change it to an RSS or email subscribe link. Or both. 3) Keep promoting the site. Updating once in a blue moon isnt cutting it - a constant effort is needed. I dont mind losing money on it in the meantime (man I loving love science and space!) but to eventually get somewhere (either with the amazon ads or hopefully getting some merchandise revenue with the new logo on it) I'm going to have to keep pounding away. Anybody who feels like retweeting each others articles or forming some form of collective should probably get in touch. 4) Pondering a change of direction - instead of "Astronomy news, condensed" Im wondering if I should go with "Astronomy news, explained" since I'm taking press releases and explaining what the hell actually happened for the news to be announced instead of just repeating it verbatim. ADVICE FOR PEOPLE LOOKING TO START THIS NOW - AKA dont copy me! 1) Choose a subject for your site that doesnt require constant updates like mine does, especially if you work long hours. 2) Choose a direction that allows you to make good clickbait titles - I know I'm purposely handicapping myself by refusing to give in to the same horseshit that other space news sites do by intentionally misreporting findings for the sake of good headlines.
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Feb 21, 2013 16:13
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How much traffic do I need to get before I can start making money from private advertisers (ie non-adsense ads). How do I go about finding advertisers? Also, does anyone have a forum on their site? I was thinking about adding one to my site but there is nothing more depressing than a forum with no community. Anyways, anyone have any recommendations for forum software/providers?
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Feb 21, 2013 17:41
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Zero Gravitas posted:
Yeah, I've resisted adding clickbait articles but I think I might finally give in. My site's traffic has started to increase (despite of me not updating my site) but new "clickbait" articles will probably help increase my exposure.
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Feb 21, 2013 18:20
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Zero Gravitas posted:1) Choose a subject for your site that doesnt require constant updates like mine does, especially if you work long hours. Man did I ever learn this lesson. Now I'm learning JSON/my first API so I can add some automatically updating content to my site to help fill the gaps between my content.
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Feb 21, 2013 18:52
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Raskolnikov2089 posted:Man did I ever learn this lesson. Now I'm learning JSON/my first API so I can add some automatically updating content to my site to help fill the gaps between my content. http://www.blogsense-wp.com/ This does blog automation.
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Feb 21, 2013 19:37
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Be careful, automation is an easy way to get panda slapped.
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Feb 21, 2013 19:43
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Yes I would stay away from blog automation, serving content from other websites etc etc. Really - you WANT a site that requires a lot of updating. That is - if you want to make money. You want a site where you can sit down and come up with 100 content ideas without even doing keyword research at all. For all you guys starting out - content rich sites, both in terms of quality and quantity, are the way to go. Most of my sites are content rich, and I launch them with about 30 articles to start with, then add a minimum of one per day. My latest site(that I'm working on with my brother in law who is new to this so we're keeping everything super basic) is http://www.betnhl.ca - launched about 3 days prior to the NHL season starting this year. We had 20 articles upon launch, then add one article per day just for the tips of the day, then in addition to that we add more articles - usually 3-5 per week. If you can't spare an hour a day to write for your website or work on it, or if you can't take a few hours downtime on the weekend to work on your website and its content for the next week - you really should just forget about making money online with websites. And I mean I do this full time - but my brother in law runs his own pizza business and is crazy busy during the day etc with the business and his family. But he's always finding ways to write - be it on his iPhone during breaks or slow time, then during his off days he'll sit down and write etc. If you're really driven to make money from these sites you'll find the time.
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Feb 21, 2013 21:53
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Scotsman posted:Yes I would stay away from blog automation, serving content from other websites etc etc. Why Headspace SEO over WordPress SEO? The later is much better, imo. Also why the non-pretty URLs?
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Feb 21, 2013 23:42
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mcsuede posted:Why Headspace SEO over WordPress SEO? The later is much better, imo. Also why the non-pretty URLs? I use different seo plugins on different sites. I'm not sold by any yet as a "must-use" Non-pretty urls?
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Feb 22, 2013 02:13
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mcsuede posted:Be careful, automation is an easy way to get panda slapped. I'm ok with some automation if you're using it for seeding your sites content. Generate some spun content for a week or two, then start making real content. Hide the junk on your second page so lost visitors won't see it but google still will. This worked well for a couple of my blogs but it was mostly pre-panda. Do be careful with automated content. I had a very popular ipad blog that I let run with automated content a little too long. I was still writing good content but there was too much crap. The site eventually got banned from the google rankings and I have yet to remake it. That site was hovering around $50/day revenue for two months and climbing.
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Feb 22, 2013 03:52
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So I've done that modification of the sidebar on both the front page and the posts - I added a couple of static ads on post sidebars for some cheap astronomical telescopes for anyone kind of thinking "This poo poo looks cool, how do I get me some of that?" and a bigger carousel on the main page for more of the same and some background reading. I'm a bit concerned about getting the page sidebar right, because I dont know what to replace the "other posts" box with that will keep the other adverts in the peripheral vision of somebody reading a post. Again, if anybody fancies a bit of cross-promotion either by twitter or a dedicated link on a website, feel free to approach me.
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Feb 22, 2013 16:17
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I'd like to get some more critiques on my website. It has been doing well. I have not yet monetized it yet. Took a break for 3 months and now back, writing daily in relation to the topic. https://www.mrtrifecta.com During when I was promoting this on trackside tv, was getting 3-3500 visitors a month. Obviously that has gone way done since I am not on TV currently.
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Feb 22, 2013 23:38
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Zero Gravitas posted:So I've done that modification of the sidebar on both the front page and the posts - I added a couple of static ads on post sidebars for some cheap astronomical telescopes for anyone kind of thinking "This poo poo looks cool, how do I get me some of that?" and a bigger carousel on the main page for more of the same and some background reading. I'd be cool with that! I mean, this can only help us all out. Especially if we can get multiple people in on it as well.
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Feb 24, 2013 11:28
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I dont loving believe my rotten luck. I dont know if anyone follows my site, but that update spree I went on last week was in anticipation of having more spare time to do stuff to the site because my workplace hired a guy to help me in my department of the hotel to take the pressure off so instead of doing six days at work (inc one day of uni in the morning, work at night) and one uni "day off" I got five days working, two days "off" (but actually spent at university - still getting a good amount of relaxation time to update the site). I gave the guy a crash course in the three days before I left for Norway last week on how to run things and I left feeling pretty good that things were in safe hands and that things were looking up, with more time off and less stress at work in the near future. But no.  That motherfucker had a giant loving meltdown the first day I was away on holiday, getting himself fired for being swamped under a normal weekday workload and then swearing at the general manager of the hotel in a yelling match in front of customers. So that stupid bastard has likely cost me my relaxation (aka site update) time! Anyway. I shared this news (probably not as much updates in the future as I'd hoped)on twitter and got a heartwarming response from one of my subscribers: quote:Stay with it. I think independent sources of space exploration news are valuable. Which is pretty encouraging that *someone* likes what I'm writing.
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Feb 25, 2013 02:48
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Does anyone have any advice for getting your sites known? I have made some cool sites about really niche topics and I am trying to figure out ways to get them known. I submitted them to google and am trying to form backlinks but I dont just want to go around spamming my site. Also I got a VPS and it is amazing for hosting a large amount of blogs. Now I don't have to worry about running out of space or pissing off my hosting provider. Thinking about reselling it though since I still have like 30% of the server underutilized.
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Feb 25, 2013 19:52
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Mr.Trifecta posted:I'd like to get some more critiques on my website. It has been doing well. I have not yet monetized it yet. Took a break for 3 months and now back, writing daily in relation to the topic. https://www.mrtrifecta.com Using Chrome, I'm getting this error code:I wouldn't have a "Popular Posts" section with no posts. To me it just screams no one is reading this site. Kinda the same thing with the featured video. I wouldn't have this section if it's going to be empty. I like the over all theme though. 
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Feb 25, 2013 22:30
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Stealthgerbil posted:Does anyone have any advice for getting your sites known? I have made some cool sites about really niche topics and I am trying to figure out ways to get them known. I submitted them to google and am trying to form backlinks but I dont just want to go around spamming my site. Twitter and follow a bunch of fans of the largest account that services your niche. This only works if your site fits the niche and follows would know what you are. For example my site britpopnews did this for all the bands in the music scene. You can go bonkers with it but that's my initial method. I'm up for grouping up. A few pages ago someone wrote about stumbleupon collectives. I have a few account and would gladly stumble through anyones site if they did in turn for mine. Or maybe it's mentioning sites in a blog posts to help our backlinks SEO. Or scoopit or liking Instagram photos, whatever! Pm me and let's get something going.
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Feb 26, 2013 07:32
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