Page 1 on Google in 22 days!

I am sure, like me, you receive those emails about how they will help get your site to the top of page 1 on Google, for just a small fee. I have seen anywhere from $100 to $4,500 quoted!

Be first on MSN, GOOGLE, YAHOO ..
"Without being seen first on the search engines, your site can be little more than a glorified business card"
"If you're seen first on the major search engines, chances are you're the one people will call first. It's that simple."

Once, when I had pnemonia, and my website host suddenly changed my URL (this was in my pre-domain days of borntolove.com) - I broke down, and paid someone $99 to get me re-listed quickly - or so I thought...

Didn't make one bit of difference! I was so angry. So, as soon as I got better, I went back to my slow but sure method of submitting my site individually myself to the various search engines and waiting. And yes, it worked well for me, as it always did.

So I created this Marketing on a Shoestring blog on January 3/08, more to keep track of my marketing efforts and blog hacks than anything else. I did nothing, spent nothing, to promote it.

On January 4th, I received my first comment! A few days later, Blogger Templates (gave me 199 hits so far) added my link to my Blogger Hack: Three Columns, Any Browser on their site. Every day I post a new post, they update my link!

Insight Of Nothingness offered free links to 50 blogs, and I was fortunate to get 4 of my blogs added on the list.

So I decided to list the Marketing blog, along with my other blogs at BlogCatalog.com (11 hits), Zimbo.com (2 hits), Sitehoppin.com (17 hits), MyBlogLog.com (2 hits), DotDashCreate.com (18 hits) and Bumpzee.com (0 hits). Added a stats counter from Statscounter.com.

Still hadn't gotten around to listing it on any of the search engines, it was still too new. So I thought the other day, I would just check for search engine hits on my Recent Keyword Activity page of StatsCounter. And discovered I actually already had 13 Google hits!

So I click on some of the links to see where I am at, and find the following:

Date______Name____________ Query_________
Jan 6 -- blogsearch.google.com -- link:http://dzrbenson.com/blog/
- My Recent Keyword Search Increases Hits article is on page 1, 2nd listing down!

Jan 12 -- www.google.com -- hack three
-- My Marketing on a Shoestring: Blogger Hack: Three Columns, Any Browser article is on page 1, 2nd listing down, AND the coveted indented second entry Marketing on a Shoestring : Marketing on a Shoestring underneath.

Jan 15 -- blogsearch.google.com -- blogged find better blogs
- My Recent Keyword Search Increases Hits article comes up as
"Results 1 - 1 of about 1 for blogged "find better blogs"."

Jan 18 -- www.google.co.uk -- dotdashcreate.com
- My Marketing on a Shoestring: 1/6/08 - 1/13/08 article comes up on page 1, 9th listing down.

Jan 23 -- www.google.com -- marketing tip white space
- My Marketing on a Shoestring article comes up on page 1, 3rd listing down.

No, not every listing made it to page 1, but 5 out of 13 isn't bad and none were further back then page 2.

Considering I still haven't spent much time (and absolutely NO money) promoting the blog, AND it's only 23 days old - I am impressed with my little blog!