In light of my last post, I wanted to post a link for a forensic accountant.

This is offered from Business to Business CFO provides CFO services to growing companies and offering financial fraud investigation, litigation support, forensic accounting, and expert witness services to litigating attorneys on a nationwide basis.

They offer a directory service for a link exchange at their site. Take a look you might find a category to make it worth your while to post a link on your site.

I am starting to receive some requests for link sharing. It can be a daunting process to manage many requests… but I realize that link sharing is a great way to get inbound links and improve page traffic.

Ultimately, the way I really want to exchange links is by building a relationship. If you comment on my blog with something relevant, I may just link to you without asking for a link back. But, if you spam my blog with a comment that really doesn’t relate for the sole purpose of a link… you won’t get anywhere. If I like what you are offering on your site, I’ll link to you pretty readily.

So, here is how I want to do it. If you want to share links with me:

Here is what I want if you are a blog:

1. Right a post on your blog that links back to a post on my blog… that way I notice you.
2. I’ll subscribe to your blog because I always subscribe to those that link to me.
3. Write something compelling that I might be interested in.
4. Drop me a line letting me know that you linked to me and a post that you want me to comment on. My email address is on my about page.
5. I’ll write a post and link back… always. If you are a blog that relates to business and technology (or that I can relate to business and technology) then I really don’t care what your page rank is.

If you are a directory service or a non-blog site.

1. Since I have a page rank of 4, you should have a page rank of 4 at least. If your page rank is lower than 4, you should have a compelling reason for me to want to participate.
2. Send me a request via my email found on the about page.
3. Your link directory must match my category of business and technology
4. The page I link to must be related to business or technology.
5. I must be able to work the link into a blog post.
6. My blog post will indicate that the link is for the purpose of a link exchange. I want to be fair to the readers of the blog. My blog post can contain as much text as you want… so email me what you think I should say. I’ll edit it to match the way I talk.
7. I’ll send you an email back with the link, alt tag and description that I want for the link back to me. Please be considerate and post quickly so that I don’t have to call you out.

In either case, I won’t accept money for a link. I won’t even consider money, so don’t offer. If I see a request come through offering money for a link, I will simply delete your message.

So, I have been trying to figure out a number of ways that I can build site traffic. I mentioned last week that I have doubled my traffic in a couple of months. Here are some of the things that I have done that have made a huge difference.

1. I write on a more regular and consistent basis. If I want people to visit, I have to continue to write. Not only do I write for my blog a lot, I maintain OfficeProductNews.net, I write for HP and I write for other publications. Every little bit helps.
2. FriendFeed - I just started, but I have seen some traffic already. You can subscribe to my FriendFeed if you like. Of course… I would prefer you just subscribe to the right. But, I can’t deny that I have gotten some traffic this way.
3. StumbleUpon - I have had thousands of hits from StumbleUpon. I must admit that I am not as good as I should be about recommending sites, but the toolbar they have is pretty good. If you want to add me as a friend, my StumbleUpon Page is at http://coreyasmith.stumbleupon.com/. If you would like me to Stumble a page for you to get more traffic, let me know and I’ll tag it and write a note for you.
4. FuelMyBlog - I just signed up the other day for this service. I have already seen a few hits. You can see the widget on the right. You can help me out by Fueling My Blog there. You can get an account at FuelMyBlog.com. Now… to be honest, I am not really sure how it works. I get a little message that says that I haven’t added any friends yet, but it isn’t really clear on how to add friends… so I don’t know how effective it really is going to be. Help me out here and I’ll add your blog as a friend if you ask… even if you don’t ask very nicely. I don’t even know how to link to my profile… but I have seen hits.
5. ShareThis - I like to make it easy for people to Share a post. You may notice at the bottom of this post (and every post) is a Share this icon. Sign up for your account at ShareThis.com. They have an easy WordPress plugin. You can send this post to other people via email or various social networking sites. If you have an account, you can see what was shared. Share this post with someone… it will make me happy and will make me notice you
6. Technorati - I have seen a lot of hits from my account at Technorati. I like the authority component. If you link back to my blog from yours, my authority goes up. So, why not a little link love… you want me to review something on your site and give you a link back… just let me know. Of course, a little link love my way doesn’t hurt.
7. Directories and link exchanges- A great link building activity. In bound links have helped my site go from a Page Rank of 2 to 4. I am not exactly sure when Google made the update… but it was in the last day or so. One catalog that I am submitting to… if you are interested it is at 4 Your Information. Their Page Rank went from zero to two during this page rank update. The advantage of these types of services is they want a link back… so, as their rank goes up, the better the link back to you. I would expect my blog to show up there in a day or so. I’ll let you know. The reason they are doing this is to get a link back to their gift site where they sell incentive gifts to help improve performance. The likelihood is that you will only see the benefit in the search engines and not likely to get direct traffic… but it is still worth it for the inbound link.
8. Feedburner - I really like this service. Sign up at Feedburner.com. I like that people can signup via email or RSS Reader. Of course, I would love for you to subscribe to this blog. I think it is pretty cool. You’ll see the signup at the right sidebar at the top.
9. Email signatures - I have my blog in my email signature. I am surprised at how many click-throughs I get from people through an email client. If you simply add your site or your blog to your email signature, you’ll get traffic that you didn’t expect.
10. Blogrush - You may have noticed Blogrush on the right. Everyone in the network has this on their site. Now, I have been syndicated at least 5000 times and have had 3 clicks…. so, I don’t know if it is any good or not. I am leaning to no. But, it is real estate that is easy to give up… especially since I pulled off advertising. I would be interested to hear your perspective. Add your blog using this link and let me know your results. They wouldn’t let me add my copier and printer news service to the system… so you’ll need to add a site with original content.
11. Commenting - I get clicks from comments I have left in the past. I know that professional link builders use this approach, but I don’t want to hire them. I only want my comments to be very relevant to the conversation as that reflects on my brand.

Well.. that is the short list of what I do… it may seem long. But, if you want results quickly, you have to be willing to put in the time to make it happen.

Let me know your approach to building traffic. I want to find new approaches and with the evolution of the web, it can be daunting to stay on top of it. So, any advice you can give will be very helpful.

Interesting… as I wrote a couple of posts on my personal brand, I found a trailer for a documentary by Jim Killeen.

This is just fascinating. What do you find when you google yourself? Jeff Bettinger had an interesting post on the same topic here on this blog. You can read his post titled, A Cold Call to Myself.

Interesting concept: what would happen if I became friends with Corey Smith or Corey Smith? Would they even care who I was? Would it even matter? I don’t think that I have anything truly compelling to offer them like Jim Killeen does, but it could be interesting.

I mentioned that Justin Foster gave me some very pointed and successful tips to building my personal brand. His marketing agency, Tricycle Brand Management Team is putting on a seminar on how to brand yourself effectively.

Take a look at the details of the event coming up here.

If you are in sales or an entrepreneur that wants to get noticed, I highly recommend it. If you are in Boise doing business, I think it will be worth it.

I am going to be there because I figure there is always someone else that can know me.

Keep the data on your screen invisible to roving eyes. Not bad if it gets a little to bright to see your display either.

Thanks to Bekathwia for the pic.

Or… My quest to be number one.

That is not an easy thing when there is a country singer named Corey Smith that owns coreysmith.com and a Corey Smith that is a defensive end for the the Detroit Lions. (So I may not bee the best lookin’ one…you can blame that on my Dad).

When I started my blog just over a year ago and I Googled "Corey Smith" I don’t think that I was in the top 100 pages of search results. I started keeping track of my results in November of last year and I made it to position 63 (page 7).

As I continued to publish content and people started knowing me, I raise steadily in the ranks.

December - Position 27

January - Position 26

February - Position 21

Then, I had a lunch meeting with Justin Foster who gave me some pretty cool tips on the personal branding of Corey Smith. I wanted to start repositioning myself. Partly from a pride perspective and partly because I want to have multiple opportunities for business.

From that conversation, my blog was change from the Master the Business Blog to Corey Smith’s Business and Technology Blog. I signed up for social networking sites (like Blogrush, DIIGO and StumbleUpon. And I started to participate more. I have made a commitment that I would write at least five new posts per week (I hope you like them). I started writing content for other sites and publications (like BERTL and HP).

I just tried to be a great part of the conversation where ever I could.

So… the result in Google?

March - Position 12

April (2 weeks ago) - Position 8

April (1 week ago) - Position 7

Today - Position 3

At this point, I assume that I will fluctuate a lot, but I have learned some significant things through the process.

1. SEO takes time, effort and patience
2. A personal brand is critical to get noticed
3. Identifying yourself, who you are and what you do is critical to a personal brand.

What I am very happy about is the subscribers to my blog has doubled in the last 45 days.

Now, to say that the only thing I am concerned about is that I have branded my name as Corey Smith is simply not true. There are other ways that I want to brand myself. I want to be known for far more. There are many things now, because of my relevance in certain areas that search helps out… but the bottom line is that a personal brand is critical to the success of anyone in business.

Companies who can’t or are unwilling to practice business in a way that allows for a cleaner environment are allowed to purchase carbon credits. Basically, if I emit 100 tons of carbon and am willing to buy 100 tons worth of credits, then I really have a net carbon footprint of zero… now I can advertise that I am a “green” company.

It is really interesting to me that at least 20% of the UN’s Carbon Credits may in fact be bogus. Does it really come as a surprise that the UN would have a program that isn’t actually all that it claims to be?

Now, the UN is trying to change the way Carbon Credits are handled. So, businesses can’t buy credits if the UN thinks there isn’t enough validation in the way wind farms or solar plants or tree planters do things. (I can’t see what could possibly go wrong.)

Still, companies claim that because they buy these credits, it makes up for their poor environmental policies.

(the video might take a moment to load)

I am a fan of big business… I want my little business to become a big business. I am all for profit and capitalism. But, let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that it is okay for us to destroy the environment on our end of the world if we buy a bunch of solar power plants somewhere else in the world.

Did you notice that the bag for Sunchips is not bio-degradable?

Please read “Going Green is Marketing Ploy” Part 1 and Part 2.

In one way, I really hate April. Yesterday, April 22, was Earth Day. The day that people get together and "focus" on the Earth. The real issue that I see is that so many companies get together and pretend to really care about the environment.

As you may know, I maintain a news source for the copier and printer industry. I have been amazed at how many "green" news releases have come out this month when the rest of the year, very little is heard. Everyone seems to think that.

Going green is a way to market products to a different audience. The vocal minority that care enough about this dictate the marketing needs. If it was really important to them, they would do it with no marketing dollars. They would make it a quiet cause… or a cause that wouldn’t net them any gain.

ADD Sidenote: I wonder if they make a greater profit on their own coffee or if they do this because they are so concerned about the environment…

Don’t get me wrong. I love planting trees. I hate wasting water. I try to be efficient. I do hate recycling, though. But, it is one thing to be concerned about the environment and a whole other thing to sell your products based on that… it minimizes your credibility quite a bit.

The question I have… which may never get answered…. if companies maintained the same "green" practices they claim they do but not advertise it, would it make a difference on their bottom line? If it did, should that be an indicator that people don’t really care about the environment but care that people say they care about the environment? If they really cared, wouldn’t they just dump those advertising dollars in to more "green" ventures?

Don’t forget to read part one of Going Green Is a Marketing Ploy.

Green is nothing more than a marketing ploy. I have a hard time believing that if going green for a company didn’t get them a net gain of something (goodwill, marketing messages, net increase in profit, etc) they wouldn’t do it.

The best example I have seen in sometime is that of Walmart. My wife went to Walmart today and the greeter handed her a 16 page pamphlet (see at the left).

While the assertion they make is good, namely, "Earth-friendly products won’t save the Earth if they don’t save people money" is something that I agree with, what I don’t like is that they hide advertisement under the guise of helping the planet.

There are 8 sheets of paper. They hand it to everyone one of their patrons that enters the store… of which, they claim, according to the marketing piece, they have 200,000,000. So, based on my "million man" math, that means they are planning on passing out 1.6 Billion sheets of paper.

So, they are passing out 1.6 Billion sheets of paper to show how you can be environmentally friendly. Well, according to Laserfiche, 1 tree equals 8,500 pages of paper, so Walmart, in their effort to advertise how great they are at being environmentally friendly have resulted in the cost of over 188,000 trees. Not to mention the ink (which is often petroleum based), solvents for cleaning the ink, waste paper from the printing process (usually estimated at about 20% or more), delivery to the warehouses (gas used), delivery to the stores (more gas used). And after that, how many people do you think actually keep the document or recycle the document. A hefty percentage will simply end up in landfills.