Only in America

Watching the election coverage late Tuesday night I couldn’t help but be inspired by the scene of celebration going on around the world. My political views are pretty conservative, as I tend to believe those that govern God’s people should be close with God. For whatever reason, conservatives typically honor that mantra, at least in what they say. Basically I’m independent with a highly likelihood of skewing Republican in any given race, as that party typically represents my values for most issues besides gun control, and school funding. Regardless, Obama inspired a nation for change, and who am I to get in the way of that.

As I watched the sea of people at Grant Park I couldn’t help but be happy for them, happy for me, happy for the world. Listening to African American’s talk about a day they thought would never come has given me chills of excitement, and goose bumps of inspiration. A race that has been through so much for so long has a champion in the highest office at last; a day most never thought would come in their lifetimes. How could any red blooded American not be excited about that prospect, about a success story so unbelievable, it’s only possible in America. As the television coverage spilled into Wednesday I saw republican leaders tear up at the results, not in defeat, but out of respect and admiration for what one man accomplished.

While I don’t like the idea of my business getting taxed more, and I certainly don’t like the idea of leftist policies dominating the legislative dockets for the next four years, I believe hope trumps it all. Hope and optimism is exactly what this country needs, and it became glaringly evident on Tuesday evening that the masses have spoken for change.

While I still believe conservative values and policies are essential for this country’s long term success, I’m not afraid to say that I don’t know it all, and the wisdom of the people is far greater than my own. And most importantly, as a businessman I’ve learned to never underestimate the motivated. I’ve learned to never doubt those with little to lose and much to gain, to never say no to people that refuse to listen to the naysayers, these people are the air in America’s lungs, and President elect Obama is one of them, no doubt whatever that man choose to do with his life he’d be a success, and by his own example he has now shown others it is possible for them to achieve greater than thought possible results.

Here is to America taking back its place in the world in a way that we all know it can.

The Key to Article Marketing: Do It Again, and Again, and Again

It finally struck me that it might make a little bit of sense to post something up here for those article marketers out there. Since article marketing is growing by the day, and since my inbox has about gazillion people all wanting to know the secret to article marketing, I figured what better place to put it than right here on my blog.

Oh, the secret, you want to know it right now? Ok, well here it goes. Consistency. Consistency, consistency, consistency. That's it.

Toss all the other rules of thumb out the door, if you are consistent in creating and submitting freshly written articles, then nobody can stop you, not even page-rank-1043-adobe.com type sites. How is that possible you might be wondering? Let me break it down for you this way...

Most sites start out as little diamonds in the rough, surrounded by so much rough the site's owner doesn't even believe it's a diamond. Yet little by little, fresh article by fresh article, they become more and more relevant in the search engines for the keyword terms they contain.

Want to get ranked for the keyword phrase Texas Oil Tycoon? I bet if you did 75 articles on the term alone, titled each one with that phrase in it, and submitted them all to ezinearticles.com within 6 months you'd hold the number one spot, whether you owned a lick of oil or not.

The point is, be patient, be consistent, be blind to the lack of results when they don't come, and be expecting of the leaps and bounds when they do. I know that's how I felt when I noticed this blog right here jumped 18 spots in Google's natural results for my namesake, not bad for an occasion post about football here, and an occasional post about life there. Not bad at all.

Sick & Busy

Not feeling great today, I think I have the flu. A few updates though about goings on in Clark world.

-We finally have a office not located in a place that I sleep. This has been about 3 years coming, and although the space is small (250 sq ft) and out of the way (Hopkins, SC) it is our own. We should have a staff member in there doing my taxes, mailings, appointments, and other misc stuff in about 2 weeks.

-Working on our publishing company a lot lately. After a more-than-disappointing relationship with my current publisher (name omitted for fear of Google alerting those airheads) I’m taking the idea of our own publishing company much more seriously. I’ve had a great experience with a book printer for my first novel, and plan on using them for our upcoming nonfiction titles.

-Speaking of books, The Definitive Guide to Writing Online for Profit by Clark Covington is lightening up the kindle sales charts, pick one up here if you have a kindle, or here if you like books on paper.

-Our launch of our alternative email marketing service Power of 30 went pretty well, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen when we sent out the notification of it going live, but people signed up a good bit, which I think means they like it. I think it’ll work well since it defies most conventional ways of email marketing that absolutely do not work.

-I put 8 hours worth of songs off my itunes on my shuffle, who says you need a big ipod to rock out all day?

-Donated $100 to World Food Program today, that stuff that went down in Haiti is horrible, we all need to pitch in.

I could write more, but you get the idea of what’s going on with me. How are you doing? Good I hope.

NYC = Lots of People

Newsflash, if you are going to get some work done at a Starbucks in New York City, expect a crowd.

I'm away from my beloved South Carolina for a few days, and have been hanging out in NYC. While I actually grew up just 11 miles from this massive city, it always amazes me just how crowded it is when I return back.

I walked a few blocks from the midtown apartment that I am staying at, to a Starbucks that I thought would be a great place to get some work done. Boy was I wrong! The place was a total zoo, a line literally out the door for the entire 2 hours that I was there. I guess that's just NYC for you. I love the energy of the people here, but the crowds are not my thing, I'd rather be in a half empty strip mall looking at a coffee shop with less than a half dozen people inside it than in this human traffic jam. Oh well, life goes on.

On a better note, I had lunch with my Mom at this awesome place called Moonstruck, props to Clif for pointing it out. Only $28 for two people, not bad for Manhattan at all.

Working on a white paper this week for Search Marketing Standard called "The Case for Ala Carte SEO" which should be a industry shaker...Or at the very least something to get people to think outside the normal model of doing SEO business.

Finally I noticed a few people started to use AdWords on my name. I knew it would happen, but I wasn't thinking it would be right now. I had a little fun with my own ad, search for me and you might see it. ;-)

-C