Introducing "The S.T.A.N. Plan"

How Unpublishing Articles Got Me More Readers

Get More Views By Unpublishing Posts

So apparently when you turn a post into a draft, and then re-publish it again, it re-posts it to your stream as well. Bear in mind that happens ONLY IF you have the 'Google+" link enabled in your
Blogger Dot Com account, which I do. That's not really a good thing for what I was trying to accomplish. But it could be a good thing for what actually happened. My goal was to unpublish around 188 articles on Surfin With Stan, and then move them one by one to their new home on Stan Bush Dot Net. I have a different plan for Surfin With Stan now and wanted to get most of those posts "off the grid" so to speak. I wanted that site to be clear of any of the old posts that won't be relevant once the switch is made. But that didn't happen.

Poor Planning - Surprising Results

What happened was, I began thinking about the number of hits that Surfin With Stan was getting. I admit that I hadn't looked at it in a while.I hadn't been active on it. I hadn't even posted to it in about a year.  As it turns out, it had received a little over 7,000 hits last month. So I decided the best thing I could do was NOT to unpublish those posts, but just move them one by one. I also knew I needed to remove the URL using Webmaster Tools. And...Yes, I realize that 7,000 hits isn't a lot when you compare it to the superstars on the net, but there are two questions you have to ask yourself.

  • Do you really want to immediately alienate 7,000 potential readers?
  • Are you one of those superstars that get a gazillion hits a day? 
If the answer to both of those is NO, then you should be glad I made this colossal error. It may help you grow your readership. 

Would YOU throw away 7,000 Hits

I think the answer to that question in most cases is going to be a resounding "NO". Especially if you're just beginning to get some traction. After 15+ years of posting things randomly, I've decided to practice what I preach. So I decided to republish those posts, even though I had removed the menus to their 'Labels". What happened was somewhat mystifying. It's only been about 5 hours and those pages have had over 6200 hits on them today. So this means instead of backing off of what my plans are, and how I've been operating... I need to continue forward. Somewhere, somebody.... is listening.  I appreciate that. .

To Those Readers - Here's What's Going On

I've decided to put into place the things that I have been going on about for 15 years. I'm going to demonstrate that the integration of Google applications is much deeper than just 'I can send you a picture from my phone."  There are things below the surface in Google Apps that are impossible to get your head around. Everything is connected in some way.  For example, not only do I know that the hits went up....but I can use my analytics application to learn even more about where they came from, and why. I've already mentioned WebMaster Tools in this post, so yeah.... it's integrated too.  

A 1 Mile Overview Of My Personal Project

First of all, at least 80% of what I'm working on is relying on the Google Platform. But I'm not walking around blindfolded either. Everything is backed up to three TB Drives, and another cloud storage solution you might have heard of called Amazon.  
  1. I'm going to nothing but Chromebooks.  I'm tired of worrying about updates, and patches. I have too much to do without having to worry about some poorly implemented patch that won't let my machine shut down. I'm also not interested in having Apple grab me by my privates and hold me hostage anymore. I don't want to relearn Linux either. Besides, the way that I'm working ...it's not about the operating system or device. I can use anything and switch when I want. 
  2. Sales Training And Networking is the core domain (publicly) for these efforts. Looking at it today, you're going to find it in disarray. If you want to see what it looked like before, you can see it's legacy site at Upgrade Sales Training And Networking. You'll see an old Joomla installation with JomSocial on the side.  What you can't see from there is all the private pages, links, and tools behind the scenes. You have to login to see that. There are tutorials, videos, groups, and other tools that are hidden from the public. I'm working on creating a subscription site there, on how to manage your Google Sphere. The truth is THIS POST started as my Daily Circadian (think of Julie Cameron's Morning Papers or a 'Daily Journal'). 
  3. Stan Bush Dot Net is where you are now. It's purpose is to get concepts, news, and other posts. It will be used to 'explain' things as I progress. 
  4. Surfin With Stan is being migrated/changed/morphed into something that I'm really excited about. I can't let the cat out of the bag yet... but it will be fun. 
  5. The Circadians, yeah.. well.. that's a site that will allow people to test the things that they are learning at the Sales Training And Networking site.  Things like authorship, photos, G+ techniques, integration of third parties and more. There are links on the side bars to follow, add me to your circles, and join my pages. Use them if you want to know more. Or you can contact me here as well. And BTW, even that link is a demonstration of the integration. That link uses shortlink technology that is BRANDED to send you to a page I want you to see. I'll write an article about that soon. I promise. 

Wait. There's More

There's at least 25 more sites that are involved in this project, so obviously I can't go over all of them in one post. I am going as fast as I can. What I can tell you is that you can make things easier on yourself by following whatever your path is. My path is not one of Super Star Status, but one of Servitude.  I learn something...and pass it on.  I hope it helps others. That's it. Nothing deeper than that. The things you thought were important 15 years ago are probably relevant today. It would be easier to repost them than write another article about the same subject from scratch. And THAT was the reason for the title. I unpublished articles, then republished them.  And I got more readers. (maybe even YOU)

What I Would Like You To Do

Take a few minutes out of your day to comment below. Let me know what you think of this type of article.  I have been writing them 'internally' for about 15 years.  Is it something that you would want to read?  Thanks for reading.


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