The Chinese Gods Have Spoken – Izea Insider Edition

If you’ll head on over to the Izea website and visit their blog, you’ll know there is a contest going on right now to win one 10 coveted positions as an Izea Insider.

Those selected will have access to all of the new things going on with Izea before the rest of the world, as well as other cool prizes and perks.  You can find out more about the Izea Insiders program here.

This is my entry into the contest.  A look at why I should be one of the 10 Izea Insiders.

A Little Bit About Me (And That Crazy Photo I Have)

I was born and lived in a town that no one reading this blog has ever heard of.  A place called Wingo, KY.  A place that isn’t much bigger than your great grandmother’s flower-patterned couch.  We had a school, a gas station, post office, and a couple of houses.

I only lived there for about (wait, you probably don’t want to hear all of this).  Fast Forward.

Here we are.  Eighth grade English class.  The first day of the rest of my life.

My eighth grade English teacher, Mrs. Owen, asked me if I’d like to be part of the school webpage club and design the school’s website.  I agreed, not even knowing what a website was.  But that week was when I realized the web is where I wanted to spend the rest of my life.

Since that time, I’ve become the senior website developer and graphic designer for a company here where I live, as well as an avid blogger, teaching others what I know best, and that is making money online.

So about that crazy photo?

That photo was taken by my beautiful wife as a joke for my originial steven-sanders.com website, which wasn’t anything more than a static page that had a crazy-ass picture of me on it.

But that picture is the reason I got the job I have now.  I was chosen over applicants much more qualified than me, just because I had a crazy personality, and my employers loved the photo.

I Know A Thing Or Two About Marketing

I’ve spent over 11 years learning about internet marketing and search engine optimization.  I’ve been here through it’s ever-changing ups and downs.

Within 4 days of launching the website of the company at which I currently work, we went from no listing in Google, to the first page for a couple of important keywords we were optimizing for.  It takes most websites a good month just to get listed, then another 15-30 days to get listed on the first page for good keywords.

Not long after this launch, I started this blog.  Steven-Sanders.com (the blog) has been here for 2 months now, and it has grown in leaps and bounds.

In this blog’s first month I saw an increase in visitors to over 4700, and now after month two, it’s grown even larger, and now has 66 RSS feed and newsletter subscribers, and is still growing at an alarming rate.

I’ve gone from a 12+ million alexa ranking to a 320,000 3-month ranking, and 142,000 1-week ranking.  This blog is going places, and it’s going there quickly.

You can find out more about the advances I saw after the first month here.

I am very confident I can take whatever is put in front of me and grow it exponentially in a very short period of time.

It probably doesn’t hurt either, that I worked with and been submerged into Military recruiting for most of my life.  It has not only helped me to learn the ins and outs of marketing, but also how to build one hell of a team.

Why Haven’t You Seen Me At Conferences?

This is an easy one!  I only just started blogging the last couple of days of August, so I didn’t have the time scheduled or the money set aside to attend any blogging events or conferences.  But you can bet I’ll be at quite a few of them in the coming year.

My boss has already told me he is sending me to conferences in my field of work, and since it ties in so nicely with the blogging community, I’ve already got someone paying for a few of them.  You can’t beat that with a stick.

My Tools Of The Trade

There are alot of plugins, and other online tools that I’ve recommended in past posts that I currently use, but I’ve never really talked about the physical tools I use behind the scenes at my dot com headquarters (read, my bedroom).

There really isn’t a whole lot to it.  I’ve got a Dell Inspiron E1705 because God knows I’ve gotta have the biggest damn laptop screen I can get my hands on.  I do have wireless built right in.  I even run a wireless router for internet access.  I’ve also turned an old Windows XP desktop into a home file server with external usb hard-drives to backup all of my important data.  You know… the thousands of songs I’ve got from iTunes.  I’ve also got a wonderful Flip Ultra (I really could use the new Mino, though), and a Digital Rebel XT for shooting those high quality photos that turn out so good.

And when I’m traveling, I’ve got an AT&T Tilt that tethers nicely to my huge laptop so I’m never without internet access.  I’m looking forward to using it at the next IzeaFest.

Why I Should Be An Izea Insider

Besides my mad internet marketing skills, and my crazy ass personality, the only reason I can think of for being one of the elite 10 Izea Insiders is because my chinese fortune cookie said, “You will be institutionalized very soon.”  And I thought, this must mean I’ll be joining people that look like this: