Matt Coddington

The closest you can ever get to predicting the future is by coming up with an educated guess. Even then, at the end of the day, it’s just a guess.

This time of year is exciting for me. It’s draft time. Soon I’ll find out whether or not the Cowboys will finally fix their weak secondary or if the Panthers will finally get a decent complement to Steve Smith. But I digress.

With draft time comes the mock draft. The mock draft is as far from an exact science as you can be, but then again so is online business. Predicting the draft is tough, and so is predicting the next big online earning avenue or niche. Here’s why.

Writers try to take in so many factors when coming up with a mock draft to make it as accurate as possible. They look at overall performance, year-over-year improvements, combine numbers, and personality. They take this all over the place data and try to quantify it and put a value on each player.

Analyzing a new online business is similar. Rarely you’ll find specific data that will tell you exactly what you will earn with each site you produce. Sure you can take certain data - competition, total searches (estimated traffic from those searches), growth trend, available monetization methods, etc. But at the end of the day, it’s an educated guess.

Even the pros make big mistakes with their draft picks (*cough* Leaf *cough*). But that doesn’t stop them. They do the best they can with the information available.

They make the call on draft day and wait for results. If they’re good they continue - if they’re bad they cut it and move on.

Food for thought.

I’ve enjoyed the last 2 months of next to no online work. Most of you probably already know I started a “9 to 5″ in Charleston, SC back in August and have since taken a break from my online work. I guess technically since I’m a web designer/marketer I’m still doing online work, but you get what I mean. No clients, no thinking up blog posts, no stress.

But a break is only worthwhile if you come back stronger than ever. Well, here I am.

Big things are about to happen, bitches. Here is a bit of a breakdown of what’s about to be going on.

First off, this blog is going to be monetized. I know, I know, everybody is trying to make a penny off of their personal blog nowadays. Well now I’m going to start doing the same, so shut up. You’re going to see a few paid posts here and there, maybe a paid text link or two, etc. This blog won’t become John Chow. I promise.

Secondly, expect a new site from me THIS MONTH. A brand spanking new site that has been in the making for just about the whole summer is now days away from being ready to launch. There is currently no site like it (although it contains features of many existing sites) and will really really kick ass. So definitely check back for more information on that.

I’m finishing that damn eBook. And I’m doing a second while I’m at it. Expect those next month. If you’re against eBooks, don’t bitch to me about it until you’ve read mine. They’re going to be good. No fluff. Real information. No bonus “reports” or “super secret tools”. Just the good shit.

And that about covers it. I’m back.

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A recent post on Jon’s blog (Jon from WickedFire … I don’t think he actually has a last name) is bad linkbait.

Before I get into that post, I just want to say that I hate the term “linkbait”. It’s stupid. It is a buzz word created by gurus in order to package all campaigns geared at generating natural linkbacks into a nice friendly single idea so that the idiot masses could slurp it up and execute it without ever really knowing what it is or why it is done.

The actual practice of link baiting, however, is good (if done right). For example my first big article on NBB about building niche minisites can be considered linkbait in that I wrote it with the intent of acquiring links from outside sources. What is the difference between my linkbait and Jon’s linkbait?

The difference is good linkbait is something worth reading. It delivers *something* to the end user whether it’s information or entertainment. Bad linkbait delivers crap to the user. Jon’s linkbait, for example, is never anything more than lies dressed up in the disguise of “marketing”.

You can succeed with bad linkbait - after all Jon was nothing (wait, scratch that, he was a “super affiliate” according to himself) before he created his famous CJ screenshot. Even better is that he got me to link to his article! But should you resort to bold faced lying in order to generate a couple linkbacks? If you want long-term success, and more importantly respect, then you really should focus on delivering good, quality content to the end user. Not sensationalist bullshit - ironic that Jon’s tagline is “A no BS approach to the art and business of affiliate marketing” when bullshit is all he produces.

But hey, Jon is a marketing genius, and I’m just jealous. What the hell do I know?

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