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Using Catalyst Theme To Build An Authority Site

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The original title of this site, when it was on blogger, was building an online income one website at a time.  I figured I’d need about 100 websites.  I’ve hung onto the niche website model for longer than most. I may well go back to it. But at the moment I feel like I’m swimming against the tide too much, and I’ve decided to build an authority site – just to see what happens – oh and to make lots and lots of money (of course)!  I’ve already have one authority site – this one – but I built it my accident, I want to build this one deliberately.  As  Regev asked a question in my last Catalyst Theme Review  I thought it was time to add a bit to that earlier review – by describing how I used the theme’s flexibility allowed me to achieve what  I want to do now, and how I can evolve the site  to what I want in the future, without a complete re-design.  The Two Main Types of Travel Readers  In my view, there are basically two types of people who read travel articles, be they blog posts or magazines:  armchair travellers, those reading about [...] Read more »

Postrunner V2 Is Coming – Sneak Peak Review from a Beta Tester

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Coffee anyone? Nelson, New Zealand

Postrunner is the guest blogging system which has been part of the Keyword Academy for several years.  Now however its being re-launched as a Postrunner V2.  What’s New With Postrunner V2? Well the core of Postrunner is the same as I described in my Postrunner review over a year ago. However Postrunner V2 is a complete re-write of the existing functionality – so it works robustly, plus a host of new features. The whole user interface has been greatly improved – its nice and smooth to use compared to the old one. The key functional changes are: site owners can determine how long an article they want and how many links they allow. No more standard 300 word posts with two links!  If you want 1000 words with one link – you specify that at Postrunner will ensure that is all you get.  site owners can add a long blurb introducing their site and saying what you will and will not accept – you can link out to a requirements page so you provide potential contributors detailed instructions  there is now an author score – this is determined by owners who score your articles. Site owners can restrict access to their sites by [...] Read more »

Build My Rank Alternatives

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Bamboo builds strong buildings; links build strong websites; Khao Sak, Thailand

I originally published this post in November 2011 pointing out that people really didn’t understand how to use link networks. I’ve now updated it = UPDATED: March 2012 after Google de-indexed Build My Rank  OK guys apparently the world changed and some of you didn’t notice. Ironic really, I’ve heard plenty of people whinging about not being able to get good backlinks. Or asking for alternatives to Build My Rank because the BMR blogs didn’t look “real” and weren’t niche specific. There are two really obvious things that are apparently from Google’s swipe at backlink networks. First obviously backlinks from these networks were effective (otherwise Google would have just ignored them) and, in future you are going to have to play smarter.  Build My Rank was not the only network to get deindexed and devalued, it was probably just the highest profile one amongst the make money crowd. SEO Nitro, SEO Linkvine. The sites that have not got hit are generally keeping a VERY low profile.  This is quite specific – Google isn’t targeting spammy backlinks from forums, automated bookmarking or the other stuff you can buy for $5 at fiverr.  People who have spammed the hell out of their own [...] Read more »

Build My Rank Is Dead – Long Live Links

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I'd call Google the elephant in the room - but I like placyderms

Build My Rank has been good to me. They’ve ranked my sites for years. It was easy, it was hands-off (I used an outsourcer), it worked. Until some time last night, my time.  I woke to find this:  Unfortunately, this morning, our scripts and manual checks have determined that the overwhelming majority of our network has been de-indexed (by Google), as of March 19, 2012. Read more here I wasn’t having a good day yesterday – seriously questioning what I was doing online and trying to figure out a new direction. Wizzley wasn’t living up to expectations, I was stuck in a funk of self-doubt and analysis paralysis.  When I read the post above I expected myself to freak out. Oddly I didn’t. I know this means I’ve probably lost two sites which I’ve aggressively used BMR on – the same two sites which I’d just received the dreaded “notice of detected unnatural links” message in Google Webmaster Tools.  Or maybe not.  The more I think about this the more I see the opportunities. I finally know what I’m going to be doing over the next few months.  First I’m not going to be doing anything Google would like me to do [...] Read more »

Market Samurai – Rank Tracker Alternative

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Sunset at Phuket

Sometimes you don’t know how much you like a tool until its gone. Although I’ve never been an affiliate for Market Samurai – I’ve used the tool on basically a weekly basis for years – I may have had it for about 3 years actually!  I used it to track my rankings – and now changes to Google mean that they are going to probably start charging for ranking data, at the moment its only working it a limited format.  If this is all news to you – then check out James’s post on Rank Tracking Software Other Than Market Samurai and Pat Flynn’s Interview with Market Samurai’s CEO Bugger, as they say, in software development, what do I do? (Oh I could rant on about the changes in costs for Market Samurai- but frankly, even if I never use them again – I’ve had enormous value from them for a $97 payment some years ago – I have no problem with them – I understand the problem is Google not them, and I can’t fix Google!)  But my issue is that I feel like I’m flying blind with no quick and easy way to check rankings – and worse – [...] Read more »

All I Want for Christmas Are Long Tail Keywords – Keyword Researcher Review

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no-results

Yeah Christmas or whatever you choose to celebrate or not in this happy/stressful/profitable time of the year!  I think its fair to say that 2011 has been a bit of an up and down year in terms of Internet Marketing, maybe I’m just bloody lucky, but really all the bad stuff that’s happened to me has been thanks to the TOS changes with HubPages plus nervous clients.  Google has been, interesting, but the most interesting thing, and totally bloody irritating part, are their continuing moves to restrict access to their goldmine of data known as the Google keywords tool. For a long time using the tool direct doesn’t give you real long tail keywords – you only get to about 3 or 4 words: a real long term is longer than that. Its very, very focussed, its not in Google’s best interest to reveal those because a) PPC advertisers would save a fortune only bidding on very specific terms and b) evil affiliate marketers would make way too much money.  Google’s changes to their API TOS has meant than some previously good tools have gone away – and I am sure I’m not the only one who has found I [...] Read more »

Catalyst as a Post Page Associator Alternative

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catalyst-250x250

I’ve used Post page associator plugin for a while. Its a handy plugin which allowed you to do what it says on the pack; add a list of your posts in a certain category, at the bottom of the page. I used it here for example.  However the developer has been under criticism for included a “please donate”  large ad on your main dashboard if you hadn’t paid – in fact I had give a donation – but I was buggered if I was going to donate for EACH blog I used it on – so I found the advertising a little annoying.  There was toys tossed in the WordPress forums though, some users found the nag VERY annoying,- and the developer has taken his toys home – or in this case made the plugin paid only (and quite expensive at that). Free Option: List Category Posts Plugin  You’ll find this plugin if you search on the install plugins page. It works – you add a short code somewhere in a page where you want the listing of posts to occur – and it does. Now there are a bunch of options, but making it look pretty involved php and [...] Read more »

Keyword Academy 2.0 Review – TKA 2.0 Review: Scam or Legit

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Lissie hard at it doing more research for you!

UPDATED January 2012. The Keyword Academy drives me insane sometimes! If we could just get Mark to dot some “i’s” and “t’s” it would be so much easier!  Its been a long time since I did my first Keyword Academy review – nearly 3 years  in fact. So is the Keyword Academy still working in 2012?  Yes it is but some of wish Mark would hurry up and update his bloody sale’s page from time-to-time – like once every couple of years OK!  Google is always changing the game, and in 2011, in response to changes in Google (known as “”Panda-monium” by those of low humour standards) – so-called TKA2.0 was released.  The core lessons were updated, changed from video format (really hard to update) to written form, some tools had to be retired because they just didn’t work with anymore with the changes to Google’s programming feed. But now the buzz is that The Keyword Academy 2.0 is out and I’ve had emails asking – is this program still good to go – is it worth it could you please update your Keyword Academy review? What’s changed – will it still work for me? Does Keyword Academy work in a [...] Read more »

Hubpages Money Making Update

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Traffic still dropping on HubPages.com - from Quantcast.com

OK about a month ago I asked if you could still make money with Hubpages in 2011. You might want to read that again quickly but here are the results of my two case studies: Case Study 1 Adsense Niche Starting positions previously top ranking hub #4 niche vacation site #7 All links were built using BMR (Build My Rank review here). All dates in proper format! 16/5 Adsense  hub  is back to #1 on scroogle.org  42 articles live on BMR 31/5 after sitting at #1 consistently for a week, today is back to #2 – 60 articles live on BMR 16/5 niche site dot info – #8 on scroogle.org – 32 articles live on BMR 31/5 after sitting consistently at #2 and #3 for the last week – has now dropped to #6/#7 – 60 articles live on BMR Conclusion – a hub will rank again if you build links to it – whether you have to keep building links to it remains to be seen.  For the amount of work you have to do – you might as well just build your own site. Hubpages.com will continue to drop traffic because most of the writers there believe passionately [...] Read more »

Niche Reaper Review – Scam or Legit?

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niche-reaper-big

Well the whole world is buzzing about the launch of the newest, greatest, bright shiny object of the Make Money Online world – Matt Garrett and Gary Prendergast’s Niche Reaper – this is pretty much the best thing since the invention of the Internet  - on account of it it will pay me a nice recurring affiliate income  and hey you guys might have fun playing with it – was that hardcore affiliate marketing enough for you? Anyone still here? OK. WTF Lissie why are you doing flogging yet another MMO product – well Splork has a way about him that makes me buy shit that gets past his bullshit radar. So when I was procrastinating today Splork came up in my Google reader – and I am now $67 dollars frigging poorer – thanks mate. Niche Reaper Review So what does Niche Reaper claim to do – well their main claims are: Uncover Hidden Keywords - Over 20,000 brand new fully researched keywords unearthed every single day! Dominate Entire Markets – Keywords are grouped into niches so you can build authority sites, not just keyword landing pages No More Keyword Research – Simply log-in and pick a colour-coded niche we’ve done all the [...] Read more »

Catalyst Theme and Adsense Review

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My Dutch is about at the same level as my php - I can recognise some bits but I can't write it!

OK this is another instalment in my collection of articles about how the premium WordPress theme Catalyst: it may not be free but it allows even the technically terrified to  do cool stuff! On of the things that I like about Catalyst is that its one theme that I can use for everything – from a mini-site to this site, to a client’s professional site. I use Catalyst for all  of them. Today I’m concentrating on using Catalyst with Adsense. Now there are plenty of WordPress plugins that promise to manage your Adsense easily with any theme. But plugins have their own issues- every plugin you add to a site adds a level of complexity and invariably need upgrading every time WordPress upgrades, and sometimes they break and sometimes they even send a quiet percentage of impressions to their author’s Adsense publisher ID! There are a number of ways to deal with Adsense using the Catalyst theme – I think I have the simplest - and I will point you to a couple of alternative solutions at the end of this post. How to Manage Adsense on a WordPress Blog My requirements for when I want Adsense to show – and more [...] Read more »