Keeping everyone updated on my articles

As most know I have been working on articles for my web site, not so much for content but to put on article sites for the links back, and hopefully some others will pick them up also. Now with 4 complete and 3 more just about done here is the update on their progress.

The first one to go up was the "History of Colombian Coffee" which is linked back to my Colombian Coffee product page. With only 9 links back to that page right now it is #7 on MSN for that keyword. I submitted the article to Article Hut and paid for their submission service for $5 USD to submit it to 150 other sites. There was at one time 14 links back to the Colombian Coffee page but that has now dropped to 9 although the content seems to be listed 52 times on the web the links are not or have not been picked up. If/when they are is the question.

One thing I find amazing is that even with only 9 links back to the Colombian Coffee product page it is ranked #7 on MSN. For all my other similar coffee's the next highest ranked on is lower than #70, and Colombian Coffee is the most popular search term for all those similar products. What that shows me is it only takes a little push to get them high in the listings.

Yesterday I bought a program called Instant Article Submitter ($77 USD). What I liked about it is that it also automatically registered you with the sites and then allowed you to set the category for your article, then it submits them. I started by registering with the sites and although a lot less painful than doing it manually it is still an unpleasant task. I then submitted the History Of Colombian Coffee article to about 200 sites of which about 175 went through. Some failed, others timed out, and some said invalid login. Me bad, I did not save the list to make it easier to correct the errors which is going to mean getting the same errors for the second article I submit.

What I will probably do is check the progress over the next few weeks with this one article I submitted and see if it is being displayed properly, am I getting the links back, etc. and then make any changes to the next round of articles.

I will post again in about a week and update on what has happened. Oh, if you want to read my articles they are at my other blog All About Coffee

Looking for new space

My lease is up in November and with the new owners of the building I think/know my rent is going to go way up, along with taxes/maintenance/insurance. Before if I needed anything fixes the guy was always around to take care of it, now there is a growing hole in front of my parking spot and all I ever see it the new maintenance guy sleeping in his truck for a couple of hours and then leaving. The new owners don't seem to care about much except their rent cheque.

So I have started looking for new space. Right now I have 1700 sq feet which is more than enough. I don't even use half of it for my business, my parents have stuff stored here along with my sister and a couple of friends. Roasting coffee does not require too much space.

I really like the area where my sister lives (near Peter McGrath from oscMall). I found a spot that is suitable near there in a town called Stirling but it is much bigger than what I need at 2500 sq feet but even that would be a bit cheaper than what my rent is in Toronto. If I take that spot I could set up a little coffee store and sell beans out of it also and maybe make a few extra $$. It is in an industrial area with no residential around which is what I need because roasting coffee produces some smoke which might bother someone living nearby. I could do it in a residential area but that would mean adding an after burner which is not economically viable for my size roaster because of gas consumption per batch.
I could just live in a town such as Stirling and have the factory in a more major center such as Belleville or Trenton and do the 20-30 km comute but there is a lot to be said for being able to park the car and biking to work and having ALL the bike trails within 100 metres of the factory.
So the question is besides opening a little store to sell beans from, what do I do with ALL the extra space I would have????

Update on everything

Well I seem to be coming slowly out of the Google sandbox (started site Jan 9th 2006) which I am really really really happy about. I think this has to do with good SEO tactics , our reprintable articles I have been getting out there and some good quality links back such as a Chef School with a PR 5 which I have Colin (my web host to thank for that one. I am now ranked for "bean coffee shop, "coffee bean" and "coffee shop" on Google but still not for coffee but given time I am sure that will change.

I have 4 articles finished and am working on a 3 page one about the "history of coffee" that will be available soon also, makes for great work to do at the cottage.

For 1 day at least I broke the top 100,000 on Alexa so you now see a little "bump" in my graph. I don't expect that so stay but it is nice to see.

I also haven't forgotten about Burt and will update his AIS web site address soon.

I know there are a few posts which I haven't responded to and I am sorry about that but I will get to those also in the next few days, the weather has been good so trying to enjoy some of it and not spend all my time siting in front of the computer or working.