I’m going to share a story with you about Jim Westergren and why he is news worthy to me.

About a year ago I decided to really push search engine optimization (SEO) for one of my websites. I wanted to buy text links and submit this website to as many directories as possible. I decided to see who I could outsource this work to and find all good directories that I could buy permanent links from. I visit many webmaster forums daily and one of them is Digital Point(DP). While browsing through DP’s directories thread, I saw this guy with a real picture as avatar here:

hahaha yeah! I thought it was weird too, since most people try to stay as anonymous as possible and refrain from showing pictures of themselves on the internet. This guy Jim started a thread called “Directory List Challenge, Earn Money!”

He caught my attention with that title, I’ll admit it. What he was doing though turned out to be the opposite - asking for people to come to him. Most people are there to look for work and want to provide a service and get compensated for their time. So this thread started to grow rapid-fire!

Basically he started a website called www.AddURL.nu by the way this site is still alive and well maintained to this day. The rules to this challenge were:

For every 5 directories you find that are not on my list but has the 4 requirements I will pay you $10 Paypal.
We have 4 requirements for directories to be listed:

1. Has to be SEO friendly.
2. Has to be a general directory.
3. It has to be free to submit links.
4. No reciprocal link is to be required when submitting a link.

Our goal is to have this list fully updated at all times.

I thought this was a great idea! One centralized location of all available free directories. There were many people who participated in this challenge getting paid $10 over and over again long as they met the requirements. $10 payment was pretty good for short amount of time you put into finding free directories.

So… this challenge goes on for a long time while Jim’s AddURL.nu site maintained well with updated list and he was using this list to provide his own SEO services. He started a company called SEO-FUSION. His company provides smart building services, directory submissions, and renting strong links for period of 6 months or longer.

If you are looking to submit your site to directories then you have to check out AddURL.nu This directory list is organized by name, page rank, comments, and best of all, direct link to submit page! This is great resource Jim is offering free to everyone in the world. Check out the Alexa graph and see how much traffic is there.

I thought about doing the submission myself using this list but this will take at least a week or longer for someone who has never done this before. I’m talking about a week or longer because the novice can’t sit down and do this overnight! This is why there is such a huge demand for this type of outsourcing work. Also, people in UK, India, and Australia are becoming a huge SEO providers.

I think Jim should receive some sort of an award or Paypal donation page for allowing people free access to this list. This is exactly the type of site that could turn into a membership site because the content has quality with frequent updates! e.g., SaleHoo Wholesale / eBay(R) Directory.

If you are looking for reliable Product suppliers that stock a variety of genuine & quality products then you have found the best source! You will get full, instant access to drop ship, wholesale, liquidation & manufacturing suppliers from around the global that are wanting to do business with you! - SaleHoo

So life goes on and I went on doing my business for quite some time until recently I ran into his SEO-FUSION website again and saw that he started his own blog. After reading through his last blog post on September 7th here:
JimWestergren.com

He talked about his business brought in $30,000 a month from March to June total of $95,000. He ran this business very well and written an inspiring story about his success and why he has decided to leave this business to become a writer.

In 2007 when I have my new major link building service set up I will withdraw a bit from the SEO world and I will then go back to my writings and write the 4 novels I long wanted to write. Perhaps I will take a laptop and travel somewhere far away …

I was shocked! Why drop it when your company is very successful?

The reason for me starting up a company in the first place was to earn a living and to make it possible to write. The company was never meant to go that far.

Dear Jim Westergren -

I have been following your work on and off for quite some time now. I also have seen you purchase multiple websites from many different sellers to build your portfolio for SEO services.

It makes me realize that there are people out there like you who want to follow their dreams and shown that money isn’t everything in this world. Congratulations on your success. Thanks for sharing your life stories and good luck.

Filed under: Internet Entrepreneurs