Here I am at 24 years old laboring over what I want to be when I grow up , and two months away from moving to Houston to do I’m not exactly sure. I know I love internet marketing and web development on the whole, but what is it, exactly, that I want to achieve? (Do I want to run a blog or leave it to collect dust?) I’ve been trying to come up with some “life goals” for a while now, goals meaningful to me. I think sometimes we’re led into making others goals our goals, like being rich and/ or famous. Many people say their goal is to be a millionaire because they think being a millionaire is synonymous with success. Generally thats what we’re raised to believe I think. But is being a millionaire really your idea of success?

I stumbled upon this article last night in Men’s Health magazine and I had a revelation of sorts. I’m having trouble deciding what I want to do with my life because in my mind I haven’t defined what it means to be successful. Before any goal setting can occur I need to decide what success actually is. From there I can set goals to reach that success. Success can be a simple as eating steak every night to having a loving wife and family to being a millionaire.

So lying awake in bed for a few hours I came up with my definition of success. If you’re having trouble figuring out what you want do with your life, ask yourself what success is, then commit the answer to writing.

Success is:

• Good Health. Physically, mentally, spiritually.
• Being the best I can be at whatever I do in life. (Insider’s tip: Compare yourself to yourself only. Comparing to other people is a recipe for disaster. E.g. “To be a better at whatever I do than anybody else.”)
• Contributing something of value. Accomplishing something every day.
• Helping people. If you can’t help others what good are you?
• Success is owning as much real estate as I possibly can.
• Not ever having to worry about money. One of the most stressful things in life is worring about money. I don’t want to do it. If I do the previously listed things, I shouldn’t have to worry about money. — I also think having a private jet would be pretty cool, to me that means you’ve really made the big time

Here is a video Pankaj sent me of Andy dancing at the SEO Meet in Delhi, India. It’s a little choppy but you get the idea.

UPDATE: Also make sure you notice Rich McIver dancing as well. His dancing skills may, in fact, be more hilarious than Andy’s.

UPDATE 2: Apparently, this is the original source.

Well now that people on the social media sites are starting to catch on / have caught on to link baiting, I’ve noticed it’s much harder to make the likes of the digg or reddit front pages. One to two months ago this was a much easier task. I’m not exactly sure if there has been one incident or algorithm change that caused the increased difficulty of making digg’s front page, but I do know that the window on link baiting is quickly closing.

I think part of the reason of the increased link bait promotion difficulty is people have caught on to the sensational titles that were the critical component of a successful link bait. Its becoming more and more rare to see an “ultimate guide”, or “12 tips you never knew”, on the much sought after front pages of the big time social sites. I think as a general rule these are great copy writing techniques that really spark the readers’ interest, but with the communities link bait radars now on high alert these are now a sure-fire way to get your story buried.

The next logical question becomes “So how do I make my story stand out without a sensational title?” Quite honestly, I’m not exactly sure. I think comes down to several things:

• High quality domain name. People are now giving an extra look at the domain the story appears on. If you happen to own freedebtconsolidation.info I think you maybe in real trouble.
• High quality site design. Kill anything that can be construed as ’spammy’: ads or misaligned text and images, or just a crappy all around design.
• High quality content. Its more important now than ever to create actual valuable content. Take your time, and make your writing as perfect as possible.

The long and short of it is: make a quality website … I know, I know, we all hate doing it. I have always defined link bait as creating quality content that adds value and then promoting that content. With the promotion vehicles wising up, the quality content part becomes all the more important, or, maybe you just have to just get used to a lower successful link bait average. If that ends up being the case, I wouldn’t worry, some other link building method will come along shortly.