How did I get to #1 on google with the keywords “Demand the Debates”…… to be honest it was by accident. My goal was not to rank #1 on google it was to put out a petition.

The other day when McCain “suspended” his campaign I was enraged and asked myself… Self what can do you to voice your opinion?

What did I do?

1. Got Passionate about something
2. I found a (free) petition script on hotscripts.com
3. Went to google.com and registered a http://demandthedebates.com,
4. Then set up hosting with hostnine.com
5. Found blogs on blogcatalog.com about debates and posted comments back.
6. Added sitemeter.com to my site (for quick stats)
7. Added to twitter, facebook, posterous, blogcatalog and stumble, plus sent out a email to about 100 friends.
8. Added 2 articles with links about the candidates.

Mistakes I made……
1. Biggest mistake was putting the site out there without the petition verbiage. I only had the sign up and a header.
2. Not using SEO or SEF to the best of my ability
3. Not thinking about the possibility of ranking on google.

Next time……

1. Well I have the petition script and since it was free I can use it over and over again.
2. I might be willing to put google ads on the site.
3. Use the petition for list capture.
4. Attach a blog to it, like demandthedebates.com/blog
5. Comment on more blogs, only commented on about 6 blogs.
6. Spend more than 3 hours on the entire project
7. Spend more time promoting. I was about 3 hours late on getting the petition out the masses.

Lessons learned

Following a system even 50% will produce a success or a result.
The more time you spend the more you love it.
The hardest par of getting started is getting started.
We are living in a time that anything and I mean ANYTHING is possible.