To that end, I’ve created a short survey that should take you less than 5 minutes to complete. Please take my survey now!

erica.biz is about me, yes, but it’s also about you. I have many interests that I could ramble on about for hours here, but I know not all of those coincide with your needs and wishes. I will never know what works for you and what doesn’t unless you take 5 minutes and do the survey.

As an additional incentive, I have two $10 Amazon.com gift cards to give away to lucky winners who complete the survey! Just enter your email address at the end to be entered. (I won’t use your email address for any other purpose, and you won’t be subscribed to a list by doing this.) I’ll email you if you are the winner.

Please help shape the future of erica.biz…

Take my survey now and tell me what you think!

Guest Post Secrets Update

Guest Post Secrets was a huge success! The early feedback was amazing, and I know several people who bought it are already finding success by guest posting on other blogs in their niche.

Want a massive wave of traffic to your blog or website? The early bird special has expired, but I now have a special $20 off coupon for erica.biz readers only. Buy Guest Post Secrets now and enter coupon ERICABIZ for $20 off.

Also, if you have had a success story with Guest Post Secrets, please contact me and I will consider your story for inclusion on the Guest Post Secrets homepage. If accepted, I will also link back to your site–getting you more traffic!

Coming Up on Erica.Biz…

Have you clicked on my survey yet? If you haven’t, check it out… I created it for free with Google Docs. No need to buy expensive online survey services when Google Docs offers survey creation for free!

I’ll videoblog the whole process of setting up a free survey in Google Docs and show you what you can do with this nifty free tool later this week. Make sure to get my free business tips so you don’t miss a thing!

Don’t forget: Take my survey now and tell me what you think for your chance to win a $10 Amazon.com gift card!

I’ll close down the survey within the next 7-10 days. I may share some of the more interesting aggregate results publicly here on erica.biz. (I will not post any individual responses.)

Thank you for being part of my community–and I look forward to reading your survey response!

In December 2008, I re-launched with a new blog theme–the same one you see now. In both these cases, I spent many hours testing and tweaking themes.

Thank God those days are over! I’ve recently hired two different consultants–Courtney at CrushLabs and Cody McKibben–to work on all my Wordpress-related goodies.

Cody updated and made some minor tweaks to erica.biz last week, and I’m quite happy with the results! The main difference you will see is that nested comments are now enabled. That means you can hit “Reply” beneath a comment and your comment will show up under the comment you replied to. Very useful!

Next on my to-do list: A new blog header. Watch for that in early 2010!

Switching Hosting Companies

Many of you have asked what hosting company erica.biz runs on. When I sold my hosting company in 2007, I included in the sale contract 3 years of free colocation hosting.

In case you’re not familiar with colocation, it’s where you have your own hardware and place it in a datacenter. The hosting company only provides power and bandwidth–you’re on your own for everything else, including software updates.

When I first sold my business, I enjoyed building out all of my own servers and having total control, so colocation was a logical option. However, as the years went by, it became less optimal.

When I moved to San Diego, my server stayed in San Jose. If the server hardware ever failed, it was my responsibility–which basically meant a plane ticket back to San Jose and hours of downtime for my sites. That was a nightmare scenario I didn’t want to deal with. So, a few months ago, I researched several other hosting companies.

I finally picked ServInt, which has been in business since 1995. I chose their $49/month “Essential VPS” option. I have full access to my virtual server, and can create as many hosting accounts as I want. ServInt offers a generous bandwidth allowance.

Why Not Cheap Shared Hosting?

The most common question I get when I talk about ServInt or VPS hosting is “Why not just choose a company like HostGator and get ‘unlimited everything’ for under 10 bucks a month?”

While HostGator is great, and I recommend them for small, simple sites, the truth is that shared hosting doesn’t really scale as you get larger. While “unlimited bandwidth” may sound great, the server has practical limits. If you get a huge influx of traffic–thousands of visitors at once–HostGator and other shared hosting companies reserve the right to suspend your site. That spells disaster, especially if you are running a business and that traffic means customers won’t be able to order from your site.

With ServInt’s VPS option, they don’t shut you down if you get tons of traffic–they simply upgrade you to their next level of service. Their levels of service go all the way up to many thousands of dollars a month. They host some major blogs (getting millions of visitors a month), so I feel comfortable recommending them. And they offer free site migration if you’re ready to step up from a shared hosting company.

I migrated erica.biz to ServInt about a week ago, and so far, things have been flawless. The server is fast, and I’ve had no complaints from site visitors about erica.biz being slow. In fact, a couple people have said it’s even faster!

A few days after the dust settled with the migration, and everything was working well, I installed WP Super Cache as well, so now pages (especially my home page) should load just about instantly. This is another safeguard in case my blog gets a lot of traffic.

If your blog or website is getting more than 1000 visitors a day, I’d say it’s time to consider upgrading to a managed hosting solution like ServInt…especially if you could be prone to an avalanche of traffic due to publicity. Don’t risk your business on saving a few dollars a month…it’s not worth it.

Sign up with ServInt and get a free migration of your current site (assuming you’re on another provider that uses cPanel; call ServInt with questions.)

If you’re just starting out and on a limited budget, you really can’t go wrong with HostGator, and you can always move to ServInt later as your blog or website grows.

Try out HostGator and get started cheaply.

Rockstar Guide to Wordpress

Are you interested in setting up your own blog? My friend MJ Schrader recently released a comprehensive guide to setting up and tweaking a Wordpress blog called Rockstar Guide to Wordpress. I’ve read it and it’s fantastic. She walks you through how to get Wordpress up and running, what themes and plugins are (and which ones you need, and how to install them!), how to add an email list to your blog, and even several options for monetizing your blog.

If you are interested in setting up your own blog, or you already have a blog, but it’s gathering dust because you’ve been frustrated by all the options, MJ’s step-by-step guide is worth every penny.

I convinced MJ to give you a super deal because I want you to go ahead and get your blog set up now. Not only will you get $5 off the regular price for her guide, but you’re going to get her next guide, Wordpress Plugin Guide, absolutely free!

Finally, you will receive a $70 discount off her upcoming Instant Start Guide, which will be her new guide to creating and selling your own information product. Just make sure to sign up for her newsletter after you purchase her Rockstar Guide to Wordpress.

Tired of putting off setting up your own blog or letting it gather dust? Order Rockstar Guide to Wordpress today and be on the way to setting up your own blog! (Note: This special deal won’t be available for long, so definitely take action instead of putting this off. Once you purchase, the guide is yours for life, so there’s no reason to wait.)

Finally! Get your blog up and running today with MJ’s step-by-step guide.

Entertainment Book Special Through December 20: Time-Sensitive

I just paid $35 for my local Entertainment book, and the next day I get an email saying they’re down to $19.95. These books are definitely worth it even at $35, and at $19.95, it’s a no-brainer. What do you get when you purchase one? Here are some of the discounts I’ve used in the past:

• $7 movie tickets at your local movie theater (vs. $10.50 or more if you pay regular price!)
• $5 off $50 purchase at Safeway and other grocery stores; can be used quarterly (always handy!)
• 5% off any American Airlines domestic flight booked through aa.com (we used this to travel to Miami cheaply.)
• Perhaps the cheapest rental car rates you’ve ever seen. (I used an Entertainment coupon code to book online at enterprise.com, and got a rental car for $9.90/day. The guy behind the counter said he’d never seen a rate that low.)
• Hundreds of restaurants, both local and national chains, offering 2-for-1 discounts. We’ve used this to get gourmet 4-star meals at local restaurants for the price of a mediocre meal at Applebee’s or Chili’s…well worth it!

When you add all that up, plus the fun of eating out at a great, fancy restaurant for half price, the Entertainment book is totally worth it.

The Entertainment book continues to be one of the most popular promotions I run on erica.biz, showing that my community understands its value. Also, last time I showcased one of these special promotions, people wrote me after the deadline and said, “Hey, I can’t find the special!” Yes, these great prices do expire. The $19.95 deal expires December 20, so don’t wait.

Start getting great deals with your Entertainment book today!

More Site Updates

I’ve set up a Products I Love page, which showcases many brands and products I believe in. Like all of the products I’ve linked to in this blog post, I only choose to highlight products I’ve personally purchased and/or reviewed and loved. For instance, the “20 Ways to Make $100 A Day” book, which continues to be one of the most popular sellers on erica.biz — I paid $27 for that book, too, and found it to be well-worth the money.

Check out other Products I Love (including web hosting, financial companies, merchant accounts, and business phone services.)

Facebook Fan Page

erica.biz now has a Facebook fan page! (Thanks to Lisa Morosky for setting this up.) I’m going to be posting links and articles there that don’t quite fit into a whole blog post. If you’re on Facebook, please become a fan.

Enjoy your holiday season, stay safe…and thank you for reading and participating these past two years! I expect the next two years will be even better — for all of us!

A Quick Tour of the New Theme

There are a few new items on erica.biz that I wanted to point out:

• A new email list option. Over on the right, there’s a new email list option. When you sign up here, you’ll not only receive new post notifications, but you will also receive additional behind-the-scenes tips, interviews, giveaways, and other cool stuff that will only be available to email list subscribers. I’ve already had many people sign up — don’t miss your chance! Go to erica.biz and sign up now!
• My Twitter feed. I post pretty much every day on Twitter, and it’s a way for you to see what’s going on in my personal life. I’ve added my Twitter feed to the sidebar, and you can see my latest posts there. Add me on Twitter to get to know my “real life” better.
• An ad section. On the bottom right, you’ll see some ads. No, I haven’t “sold out.” These are actually products I enjoy and use! Check them out; they have great deals.
• I’ve also added an ad policy page that explains why I pick the ads I do. Finally, if your business is interested in developing a long-term relationship by advertising on erica.biz, there’s a new page all about that here – the advertising page.

I Need Your Help!

One of the reasons I have been rather quiet lately on this blog is that I have been working behind the scenes to launch both my new blog theme and Inspiring Innovators. Now that I have the new theme for erica.biz launched, though, I need your help!

I’ve received lots of emails and Twitters with your questions, comments, and thoughts about this blog, and I sincerely appreciate them all. I know that there are thousands of you subscribed and reading, so I wanted to give each of you the opportunity to tell me what you want.

To that end, I’ve created a short 8-question survey that should take you less than 5 minutes to complete. Please take my survey now!

erica.biz is about me, yes, but it’s also about you. I have many interests that I could ramble on about for hours here, but I know not all of those coincide with your needs and wishes. I will never know what works for you and what doesn’t unless you take 5 minutes and do the survey.

As an additional incentive, I have 3 books that I will be giving away to random survey-takers: two copies of Seth Godin’s Tribes and one copy of Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development for Smart People. To enter, just put your email address in on the last “question” of the survey, and I will email you if you win. Winners will be randomly selected, and I won’t use your email address for anything else.

Take the survey now and tell me what you want me to write about!

Special Deals

There are a few great deals that I wanted to mention while they’re still going on…

• A lot of you who read this blog still have your money in a savings account that earns practically no interest. Some banks even charge fees for savings accounts! Forget all that nonsense and open an account with ING Direct instead. They offer a 2.75% APY (way better than your local bank!) Plus, transferring money to and from your regular checking account is as easy as clicking a mouse. I do have an ING Direct account and recommend them. Open a savings account in less than 10 minutes today!
• For the month of December only, the Entertainment book is offering $10 off and free shipping. The Entertainment book offers 2-for-1 discounts in most major cities at restaurants. Don’t eat out? Use the drugstore and grocery coupons to save big bucks. For instance, here in San Jose, the Entertainment book offers $20 in Safeway coupons for groceries, and $20 in coupons for Longs drugstores — easily enough to pay back the book! I do buy at least one of these every year; last year I had two. You will definitely save money if you use the coupons. Get $10 off the 2009 Entertainment book if you order by December 31!
• Need a fax line or a toll-free number for your business? I use RingCentral. RingCentral offers a fax line or toll-free number free for 30 days. You can send and receive faxes directly from your computer and email. It’s easy! I continue to be their customer. Try RingCentral today for free!

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to take the survey!

It’s worth noting that I didn’t start out with any specific visitor goals in mind. I know some bloggers talk about how having specific goal numbers to hit every month helps keep them motivated to blog. I found I didn’t operate this way. Instead, I focused on four things:

My Four-Step Plan To Tripling My Traffic

1) Write catchy headlines.

Most blog owners aren’t very good at writing catchy headlines. To figure out what worked, I went to pfblogs.org and flipped through several pages of their headlines. I noted what made me click and what didn’t. pfblogs.org also has an indicator that shows how many times an article has been clicked, which is also a useful gauge of what is getting people’s attention. Posts with specific numbers in the headlines made me click. Posts that made me think worse of myself didn’t.

The worst headline of my recent blog entries was Why Your Business Isn’t Doing As Well As It Could Be. The post has some great advice, but the negative headline doesn’t make people click on it, because clicking would be akin to saying your business isn’t doing well. I learned a lot from that headline and the resulting low traffic.

On the other hand, Why You Don’t Save Money, Even Though You Know It’s The Right Thing To Do was my most popular post in January. Business owners have a tough time admitting their businesses aren’t doing well, but almost everyone will agree with the statement “I need to save more money.” We all have excuses as to why we don’t save, and this struck a nerve. In fact, Trent from The Simple Dollar pulled it out and made an entire post on his blog about it. That drove a lot of traffic to my site (more about that later.)

Takeaways: Read a ton of other blogs — the more popular, the better, and the more geared toward your niche, the better. Study which headlines do and don’t work well, and figure out what emotion they invoke in you. Think about which words you can use to invoke the desired emotion in your readers.

Final note: I often don’t write headlines right away. I start writing the blog entry and then write the headline at the end. Just as often, I’ll type a “starter” headline and then change it as I realize the blog entry is going off in a different direction. Don’t be afraid to change the headline before you publish your blog post.

2) Look at common themes from a different perspective.

When I started reading a lot of personal finance blogs in December, I noticed a theme: most blogs encouraged their readers to set up an automatic savings plan. Also, blog owners encouraged readers to look at ways where they could save money; cutting out trips to Starbucks was the most common example cited.

Instead of simply parroting those same lines, I decided to go one step deeper and address why most people weren’t saving money. If saving for retirement was as simple as cutting out a latte every day and putting that money in a retirement account, why weren’t we doing it? Why are we so savings-poor as a country? I realized it wasn’t about the dollar amount of the latte, but that we felt entitled to have that latte. We’d earned that latte. The latte had an emotional significance that putting the money in the savings account could not compete with. I could write an entire book about this (and for sure, other people already have — including the excellent Your Money or Your Life.)

Why You Don’t Save Money, Even Though You Know It’s The Right Thing To Do talked about my discovery of the emotional significance of spending money. In February, I took this a step farther and wrote a controversial post about how renting instead of owning a house can make you a millionaire in 20 years. Using my headline skills, I called it The Real American Dream (Hint: It’s NOT Owning A House!) This post turned into what I’d call a “blockbuster” post, with over 10,000 visits, about 50 new subscribers, and 77 comments. I took a theme (easy steps to save money), combined it with a “why”, and wrote something that got people’s attention and made them comment.

Being controversial (and being able to back up my points) makes the world a lot more interesting — I had a ton of fun responding to comments and emails about the blog post and working to correct or expand on my thoughts as necessary.

Takeaways: Don’t be afraid to stir the pot! Take common perspectives and put them in a different light — preferably one that not everyone will agree with. Polarizing your audience is one way to build loyal readers and fans (I got a huge number of emails thanking me for writing about renting as a path to millions.) Think about why certain things happen instead of just noting that they happen. The “why” is often as much or more valuable and relevant than the “how.”

Final note: I plan to be controversial a LOT more in the future. One of my upcoming posts is about how men and women think completely differently about starting and owning businesses. In it, I detail reasons why men are generally more successful than women in business. I expect it to generate a significant amount of controversy, talk, and interest. That’s good — getting people thinking differently is one of my big goals on this blog.

3) Email and comment on other blogs or websites where I know my content might be of interest.

I haven’t had much luck emailing blog owners, as most seem to be swamped just with keeping up with their blogs! However, leaving a comment on their blogs garnered huge responses. My big win in January was when Trent at the Simple Dollar posted an entire blog post regarding my blog about not saving money. You can see the comment that I wrote that generated his response on this blog post of Trent’s (look for comment #6.) As you can see, it’s just a simple request for his opinion.

You have to have good, thought-provoking content for this to be successful. Preferably, it should also be polarizing. I sent this same post to several personal finance blog owners, but only Trent picked it up and ran with it — indicating that it struck a personal nerve with him, but not with the other blog owners.

I also email Patrick of patrick.net whenever I post a new blog about real estate. He posts news about real estate every day. His site drove 3500 blog readers to my January blog post, Real Estate Bubble: The Tidal Wave of Foreclosures Strikes the Bay Area. It also drove over 7000 visitors to my “Real American Dream” post.

I plan to email my real estate-related updates to several other places in the future, but if Patrick likes your real estate post, you have a small gold mine of traffic waiting for you. Keep in mind that Patrick posts from a contrarian perspective, so any cheerleading posts will be ignored. That’s part of figuring what sites will work best for your posts.

Takeaways: Comment often on other blogs related to your niche; blog owners love it. Use a unique name (or your full name) to make a comment so they will remember that you have commented often. Commenting is the best way to reach other bloggers. Every time you make a post, comment about it on other blogs (but please don’t spam them — if they like it, they’ll post about it.)

Final note: I also used several blog carnivals to promote my “Real American Dream” post. These can be good way to get visibility and backlinks. I didn’t get a huge amount of traffic from them, but I still think they’re worth doing to help build up “link love”. My post got selected as an “Editor’s Choice” on a few of them, which drove comparatively more traffic. If your post does get selected for a blog carnival, do drop the carnival owner a “thank you” comment as a courtesy.

4) Keep up with comments and feedback from my visitors.

Question: What’s the #1 way to turn a commentor or emailer into a subscriber?
Answer: Email them back!

I try to respond to every email I receive about this blog. Mostly, I send a quick “Thank you”, and if the person isn’t a subscriber, a note asking them to consider subscribing so they can continue to receive great content. Most of the people I email asking to subscribe do, so the few minutes spent writing emails is definitely a worthwhile investment. If someone emails with questions, I try to answer their question quickly by referring them to books or blog posts regarding their question.

I also respond to most comments on the blog. Similarly, this generates loyal readers. By request, I added a “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” button on the site, so you can get an email when there are new comments.

As this blog grows in the future, I can’t guarantee I will be able to reply to everything (responding to emails already takes 2 hours of my week.) However, I know how important it is, and I may end up eventually hiring someone or setting aside more time to do this.

What’s Next?

My primary goal right now is to simply grow my blog’s unique visitors and subscribers every month. I haven’t set a more specific traffic goal at this point, though I expect to in the future. I also have a goal to write at least one “blockbuster” post per month — those posts are worth the time and effort to write since they generate a ton of links, comments, and emails.

How have you grown your blog’s traffic? Do you have further questions or comments? Leave them as a comment below and I will respond as I can!

What do I mean, retired? Oh, yeah. I sold Simpli Hosting. I had run Simpli for over 6 years, and web hosting, though fun, wasn’t what I wanted to continue doing. On September 7, the acquisition closed, and by mid-October, I was frrrreeeee!

So what do I do with my time, and what’s next? So many questions I need to answer…I know! I’ll give you a couple of hints here: I’ll likely be starting another business in late 2008. Also, if you were paying close attention to my 2007 goal list, you’ll notice there’s one goal still unaccomplished for 2007: Start a new blog. I still have the domain name and still have the idea. Expect that to be a big part of my work for 2008. More goals to come soon, as it is the goal-setting time of year.

Please, click around, and let me know if you see any bugs or have any problems with the site (please use the comments feature here instead of emailing me, so others can chime in.) This was a ton of work, but it’s reached a 1.0 release marker: erica.biz 1.0! Much, much more to come, and many more blog entries to write…