A lot of people have recently been asking me why I started blogging, and I guess that’s understandable at my age, but I always have the same answer: Because I wanted to ^_^.  

Honestly I don’t think I’ve ever started doing something I didn’t want to do just because I could. I mean, it doesn’t even make sense to do something you’re not interested in! I know a lot of my friends thought I did it for money, but I can legitimately say I just wanted to experience what it was like to connect with a large amount of people through the blogosphere and share information and knowledge on an endless amount of subjects.

So if you’re like me and are still in the start up stages of your blog, please don’t just write a bunch of useless information that won’t help anyone. And certainly don’t continue blogging if you don’t care about it and you’re just doing it because someone told you to. But if you really enjoy what you’re doing, go ahead and KEEP ON BLOGGING!

A great deal of people out there seem to be launching their affiliate pages without giving anyone the heads up about it. From what I’ve read in multiple ebooks about affiliate marketing, this is the complete wrong thing to do.

I’ve recently been reading “The Butterfly Marketing Manuscript” by Mike Filsaime. Mike repeatedly points out how important the pre-launch to a site is. From what I can see, the longer you stay in pre-launch, the better. Here’s why:

• Create a buzz - Get the word out about what will be coming in the next month or so. He calls this “Salting”.  Get the dogs hungry for the dog food before you bring it out, try even giving them a sample to get their taste buds going.
• Blog traffic - I feel some what hypocritical saying this as I have very little traffic, but nevertheless having a blog with constant updates on your upcoming sites will only bring in more traffic to the sites. 
• Name and email - Give people the option to leave their name and email so they can have direct updates and events for the new site. 
• Events - Create a want to be one of the first to join the new site. Pull in people by saying the first x number of people to join will get discount prices on all packages. Let them know they’re important. I know for one that I’d want to be one of the first people to join a site if I spent a lot less on something that others are willing to pay double for. 

Once you create the want, they create the return. 

While I was in school last year, I had the opportunity to meet two successful business men that had volunteered to come into my economic investments class and share their wisdom. Although I can’t remember their names, I do remember referring to them as the “Bobs” because they reminded me so much of those lovable guys from “Office Space”. 

When remembering back to that class, there were two fairly cliche phrases that the “Bobs” constantly hammered into our heads: “Plan your work and work your plan” and “People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan”.  If you can’t see it yet, PLANNING seems to be the theme here. I can’t tell you how much these two simple phrases have helped me in my everyday life.  Each day from when I wake up to when I fall asleep at night, my day is at least vaguely planned out within the first five minutes of the day; if not already from the night before. Now this doesn’t mean I write out what I’m going to be doing during every minute of every day, but there are always blocks of time set aside for tasks or events that I have planned for. 

One thing I’ve just started to do is WRITE THINGS DOWN! I’m sure everyone has heard this multiple times in their life, but if you haven’t tried it yet, you’re missing out on the benefits. Time management is something I’m still getting used to so when I write things down, It helps me to almost always follow through.

So now that you’ve planned out what you’ll do for the day and written it down, the only thing left is execution. If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my short time here on earth, it’s that saying you’re going to do something is much easier to do than actually doing it. I used to do this so regularly, that when I finally would consecutively keep my word, (not just to others, but myself as well) I felt a tremendous amount of accomplishment in it that helps boost my ego enough to do it again. 

So hopefully while you were reading over this and watching some video you found on break, you whipped out some paper and a pencil and thought, “what are my plans for the rest of the day?”.

Finally, I’ve written my first post! For the past two months, I’ve been learning about how to blog and all of the benefits that can come from it. Admittedly, it’s difficult to find the time to write when I already have to for school. I’ve recently been caught up in doing high school soccer everyday as well, but enough with the excuses. Here’s a little background info on what got me started…

My brother, Matt Blancarte, started a business with his two best friends from high school last summer. You might have heard of Unique Blog Designs or UBD somewhere online, most likely on natewhitehill.com or from their work on John Chow’s and Shoemoney’s blogs. They are a prominent blog design firm that operates totally online.

Matt invited me to stay down at his house in Scottsdale for a few days back in April, and I can’t tell you how glad I am to have accepted his offer! It was a HUGE eye opener. I had no idea you could make money online!  I’ve come to really enjoy learning more and more about online marketing and doing business online.

Although I am still what most would call a “noob” in this subject, I hope to change that very soon through reading and connecting with everyone in the blogosphere. I’m really looking forward to meeting as many great people and sharing knowledge to benefit everyone.

With this being my first post, I’d like to try and share at least one thing I’ve noticed when looking at other blogs out there. When I read a blog, I read it for it’s valuable content. So when I come to a blog that has excessive amounts of links and adds that take up half of their entire page that are embedded into a design that’s crazy and confusing, I just get distracted and usually end up leaving right away. I think most people agree that if you keep it simple and content-driven, you’ll gain trust more easily than if you spam people with ads! That’s my two-cents, anyway…

I’d like to extend thanks to you for taking the time to come by my blog and learn about me. Don’t be afraid to say hello in the comments section. I’d love to use this blog as a way to visit YOUR blog!