Category: Blogging

Categories
beginners Blogging Making Money Online

BubbleWS Review – Is This Really Easy Money for Writers? Or is it a Scam?

bubblews revoew logo

UPDATE NOVEMBER 2016 – Yup  BubbleWS is long gone- the only good thing is that I have copies of most of the content I wrote there so I can reuse it. If you are still using 3rd party sites-  PLEASE make sure you keep copies of content! 

Yes – I know it’s been a while – life got busy – to great advantage of my bank account, not so much my blogs. Long story short, I got some lucrative freelancing opportunities, which were fun and paid well. Plus I found a brand new online distraction.

My profile on bubblews Friends on Facebook talked about it, and talked, and talked.

I ignored them, for weeks. They said it was more fun than Hubpages in the early days.

I ignored them, Hubpages made me my first $1 online, and broke my heart later when their business model went bad.  I was well over third-party writing sites. I was focussed elsewhere.

And still they went on about it. After a 12 hour day, I took a peak.

They said it was a Facebook killer – that sounded good to me – Facebook is annoying me more and more with their intrusive ads, and my inability to contact my own followers without paying $5.

The new site was interesting – I went for a minute, I stayed for an hour.

I signed up – and posted something short about the earthquake we’d just had – earthquakes, even ones that cause no damage make it quite hard to concentrate.

I checked my stats – I’d made a $1.

I was hooked. Not for the $1 – but for the fact the site is fun. It is quite like Facebook – it’s not just another site to write SEO articles. In fact that might be worst thing you can do. Real people looking to socially connect with you probably won’t click through to an article titles “25 Ways To Attract Women” – they are far more likely to click on “Why my love life sucks”.

BubbleWS For Writers

What I do think BubbleWS is good for is that it’s fun for writers. If you have never written online- it’s the easiest way I’ve ever seen to get an audience. Plus you get paid for every view, every comment, every “like” you get.

Plus it’s bloody addictive – because most of the people there are real people. So they will give you real feedback – want to write humour or fiction – no problem. There are almost no restrictions.

It’s a great way to improve your writing – by practice. You will learn how much difference a compelling headline makes. You’ll see what works and what doesn’t almost in real-time. That’s an education you can’t buy.

bubblews revoew logo

BubbleWS For Cynics

I’ve seen plenty written about how this will fail, it’s not sustainable, and anyway they can’t be making any money. They probably aren’t making money (neither is twitter, tumblr, or facebook until very recently). They have investors, they have traffic, they have raving fans. That’s a bloody good start for a site which is only a year old.

They are getting ad revenue based on impressions not on clicks. 90% of their traffic is NOT from search. Though Google likes the site and seems to index my bubbles quickly.

That said, not every $25 (the minimum redeem level) is paid. Most non-payments are probably due to people breaking the rules. The rules are pretty simple:

  • don’t steal – words or photos
  • don’t use exchange groups to artificially increase your views
  • don’t use traffic exchanges, proxies etc etc
  • no porn
  • minimum of 400 characters (NOT words)
  • no pictures only
  • use English
  • no referral links to other sites.

Note I’ve played it VERY conservatively – all images are either copy-free, free to share with attribution, or mine. I’ve done very few external links. I’ve just asked for my first $25 redemption – should take 72 hours – we’ll see.

Why Use BubbleWS?

I still get emails people desperate to make money, any money online. If you can’t make money on BubbleWS then you probably can’t make it anywhere. Seriously, I’ve never seen an easier site to earn small amounts of cash. You need a Paypal account, the ability to follow the rules, and a lot of effort. I’ve seen people make money there that have tried for years. If this is you, give it a go.

But try it NOW, most of these sites get less generous as they mature – now may well be the sweet spot for revenue at BubbleWS.

If you need writing practice – the place is perfect. If you need to figure out what will engage an audience and what won’t – BubbleWS is your place.

Next Steps:

Signup – yes of course that’s my evil affiliate link. It’s not worth it for affiliate sales though 20c one time. What I really want is for you to connect to me.

I’ll connect back – my current theory is that the single biggest thing (given that you can vaguely write) that drives income on BubbleWS is the number of connections that you have.

Remember you and I don’t control the site – it may disappear tomorrow. It does go down quite often because of over-loading – I strongly suggest that you write offline and keep a copy – I use Evernote for this and other reasons.

Categories
beginners Blogging Lis Recommmends Making Money Online Paid Tools The Keyword Academy

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

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 post-Panda SEO world and as always – is it a scam or legit ?

Quick Summary of Keyword Academy 2.0  for the Attention Challenged Reader

  • Yes TKA 2.0 still works
  • The Keyword Academy is not a Scam
  • No I don’t know whether you can earn $2000/month in the next year from online marketing (but I know that I do ).
  • You will need to put serious work in to make money – but your work ethic is far more important than spending a whole lot of money up front.
  • Yes I really do use the program to make me money – and not just from the commission I get if you sign up NOW .
  • Yes I will get a commission if you do – but there is no real hurry so keep on reading, hang around, think about it – and remember if you cancel in the first 30 days you will pay nothing.

The Longer Version for the Procrastinators and For the Long-Tail Searches (thanks Google)

Lissie hard at it doing more research for you!

First is TKA2.0 a marketing ploy? Any of you who have been around the Internet Marketing/ Make Money Online world for more than a year or two will have seen how programs are always being updated and changed, usually accompanied by a price hike. The reason is usually pure marketing – make it new – make people buy now – before time runs out, hike the price while you’re at it.

That’s never been TKA’s style – lets face it they are yet to get around to creating some decent images for us poor old affiliates to use!

So why a new TKA now?

Does the change in TKA mean that the old approach of niche sites doesn’t work anymore? Did Panda (Google’s 2011 update in March and April) – ravage niche sites developed using the TKA method? Well my sites have been just fine – some have gone up, some down, but no I didn’t wake up one day and discover they are all gone. 

Its true though that some people on the forums did see some of their sites dropping. From what I’ve seen I’ve seen no real pattern – though newer sites, as always, are more vulnerable to bounces up and down the search results. From my moderately successful point of view – nothing much has changed – Google still counts backlinks, Google still can’t read or appreciate the finer points of English usage – but Google can find a keyword and related terms – just as well as ever.

What is changing is that competition is getting heavier and nastier. Google can’t tell very easily whether a site is purely a made for Adsense (or affiliate) income – but your competitors can – and its very easy for them to report you. That’s when you need to have a legit site – a site with real readers and which offers more to the web than the chance to click an ad.

So What is The New Keyword Academy Method
Basically its not a change of direction – more a change of emphasis. The emphasis is on fewer larger sites – emphasizing more personal experience and insight.

Ahh the cynics amongst you might say, well I did, like SBI or blogging – make a name for yourself, write your passion, the visitors will come and then you parlay that into a career as a speaker, writer, or (my own personal definition of Hell) a public speaker. Build your list, sell to your list retire to a pleasant beach bungalow on a Thai beach (for which you get a heavily discounted rate in return for a glowing review on your site).

Nope the heart of the Keyword Academy method is still keywords. That’s the key difference between The Keyword Academy and the  “the blog it and they will come approach”. Rather TKA combines finding something you are interested in – then finding some related keywords – writing about them and promoting them. This is not about acquiring 100,000 twitter followers or 1779  Facebook likes.

What Does TKA Offer in 2012 And Beyond

  1. A clear and precise set of instructions on how to start your online business – instructions on how to choose a topic for your sites, how to setup your sites, how to write, monetize and build traffic. 
  2. Postrunner – I’ve described a detailed case study about how I use Postrunner for real in my business. Postrunner is the easiest way on the planet to get guest posts and backlinks for your sites. In fact Postrunner even makes me some of my income as I (and you if you join) can have sites within the system. 
  3. Forum. The one thing I find that is huge with working on-line  is the loneliness and isolation.  Not one of my real life friends and family understand what I do online to make a living – they just kinda hope its legal!  Having a forum for bouncing ideas around in, is sanity saving! Its so much better than talking to yourself about it – trust me on this one! 
  4. Webinars. Mark does a weekly webinar – I dont’ always make it live – but still, after 2.5 years I make a point of listening to each and everyone (they are recorded). Mark really is an awesome trainer/coach – he should get out and do this in person – but maybe not as he’s in the US and I’m not I probably wouldn’t get to hear him in person! 

Which brings me to my final point – and I think the most important development for the Keyword Academy for 2011 and beyond. Mark Butler has done the hardest thing of all – and realised that he can’t do it all by himself. I don’t know why, but most entrepeneurs I have met are control freaks, they can’t delegate to save themselves, or their businesses. Its a character flaw which basically means their businesses grow to a certain level and no further. Mark has managed to get past this though and has partnered with a couple of new teachers to greatly expand the core lessons and basic support. He’s also opening up the Academy to other members who may have their own unique methods of making money online to add their 2c as well.

And that to me means that the Keyword Academy will continue to prosper in 2011 and beyond. So for those of you who skipped to the bottom of the page looking for the quick solution to making money online – sorry don’t have one.

If you want to learn how to build a genuine business online though – feel free to check out the Keyword Academy through my HONKING BIG AFFILIATE  link – free for the first 30 days and then billed at $33/month – you cancel via Paypal at any time.

Categories
Adsense beginners Blogging Catalyst Paid Tools Product Reviews Tools

Catalyst Theme and Adsense Review

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 Dutch is about at the same level as my php - I can recognise enough to order lunch but I don't speak it!

My requirements for when I want Adsense to show – and more importantly NOT to show on my websites come straight from the terms of service provided by our friends at Google.

  1. I only want to display at most 3 ad units and 3 link units on any one page.
  2. I don’t want to display ads on “filler” pages such as the privacy policy and “thin” pages like the “about” page.

More specifically I want:

  • to have a front page which consists of my last 3 posts;
  • a link unit in the header to show on all pages and posts except the “filler” and “thin” pages;
  • a honking big rectangle of ads to show near the top of each post  floated right in the text – including the 3 posts on the front page;
  • I want an ad block to show at the end of the post and in the sidebar – but only on single posts – not on the front page.

Now if  you know php you will be already shouting something like “use php if single command to only display on single posts” – but remember I’m an idiot and I don’t know anything about php, I struggle in html and  my CSS only got fluent since the last upgrade of Catalyst gave me the brilliant – “hold your hand point and click CSS builder” thingy.

Adsense Using Catalyst Theme Layouts

If you are used to free themes you may expect that every page and post has to have the same basic layout of sidebars and widgets. With Catalyst there is no such limitation, Every post and page can have a different layout.

Catalyst allows you to create an unlimited number of layouts – each of which can have a different arrangement of widths, widgets, sidebars – anything really. I use a combination of custom widgets and layouts to control where my Adsense ads show. This involves no php coding and a very little CSS –  it goes like this:

  1. Create a custom layout  called supportpage – this is for use of the privacy policy and about page. After creating the layout – you need to edit each page or post that you want to use the new layout by changing the drop down below the edit post area. Now you have a simple layout for these ancillary pages – job done.
  2. I also create a layout for each post page I want to display Adsense on – this I called “postpage”.
  3. Now for the custom widgets – I create three widgets: bottominpost, rectangleinpost and headerlinks – I think you get the idea what I might be putting in these! Each custom widget is hooked into a different place on the catalyst theme – a hook is just where you attach a widget into a theme – that’s how I have the yellow boxes below the header on this blog – there an awful lot of them – here is the visual for the main default catalyst home page hooks! 
  4. For each widget I have the option as to which of my layouts I want to use the widget on: so I control that none of these widgets show on the supportpage layout – but the headerlinks  and rectangleinpost widgets shows on the default and the postpage layouts and the bottominpost layout shows only on the postpage layout. You may be getting the idea about now – using descriptive names is good- because you end up with a lot of widgets!
  5. Now this is the techie bit – sorry – you need to click on the custom CSS option. The only thing we haven’t done yet is made sure that honking big rectangle of an Adsense ad floats right within your text – you can build what you want with the CSS builder option (this is a good place to change the colour or other styling of a widget too!) – or you can steal my code -here its is – suitable for the large rectangle Adsense layout:

    .rectangleinpost {
    width: 340px;
    height: 284px;
    float: right;
    padding: 2px 0px 0px 2px;
    }

    Now head over to your widgets page and drop text boxes in all your new widgets – into each text box drop the correct piece of Adsense code – job done!

Bonus – using the layouts will give you a new sidebar (if you chose that option) on your posts – so you can toss another tasteless skyscraper Adsense block in there as well.

Adsense on Catalyst Using Hook Boxes

Costa’s post on How To Create An Adsense Optimized Child Theme will walk you thru this one- must admit that post meant I kinda  understood hook boxes for the first time too! But it has that scary stuff php again …

Adsense on Catalyst Using Widgets

RT an American living in the Philippines has a similar approach to mine and wrote How To Display Adsense on a Single Post with Catalyst Theme as a guest post for Costa. But because he isn’t using layouts he’s forced to use the evil php stuff in his widgets – ugg!

Seriously there are lot of ways to achieve the same result in Catalyst –  all of these approaches will get you to the same place – but your mileage may vary depending on your skills and exactly what you are trying to achieve.

I actually think the use of layouts is really powerful – if for example you wanted to have different advertising (or no advertising) on different types of posts – e.g. some of your articles may suit Amazon ads – while others will have an affiliate offer or Adsense. In fact I may play around with something like that on this site – keep watching 🙂

I tell you what however you do it – once you have used the power of a decent framework theme like Catalyst you will NEVER EVER want to edit theme’s code again – just avoiding the whole drama of upgrading and losing all your customizations is so worth avoiding!

Oh and yeah – honking big affiliate link for Catalyst here! I’d be curious to hear from others doing something similar with a fancy theme – or are you all using plugins?

 

Categories
Blogging Catalyst Paid Tools Product Reviews Tools WordPress

Catalyst Theme Review

Yup its all changed around here again! Well not the content just he look and feel (ie if you are reading this via RSS – click thru !). I had hoped that going from Thesis to Frugal would be my last major change.  However Eric Hamm -the guy who created Frugal – upgraded the product so much – it now has a new name – Frugal is now Catalyst !

Catalyst actually came out just before I took off for a 2 month overseas trip with a 10″ netbook – netbook are good for lots of things but doing site design is not one of them!

When I got back I had a look at Catalyst and upgraded some of my niche sites with it. I liked it – but it didn’t have Frugal’s easy to install front page – with a wide choice of widgets. So I  didn’t upgrade this site. Then back in February Catalyst upgraded to 1.1 – and YES now there are EZI Widgets – which allows a flexible front page – like Frugal’s – but with even more options!

Still I hesitated – this site is a pain – it has a number of different looking posts and pages,  I didn’t really want to think about it.   Finally though I had to bite the bullet and get on with upgrading from Frugal to Catalyst – why?

  1. They have a discount for new sign ups of 25% (and incentives for affiliates) – so use the code: CATWP25when you sign up HERE – discount good to the 31 March 2011; (And yes I get an increased affiliate percentage in March too…);
  2. I think I can add value to Catalyst and do a series of tutorials here that will help the CSS-incompetent, design-disabled of you – you know people just like me!

I’ve already done a post on Catalyst’s SEO Options and I also what to talk about how to use Catalyst with the Keyword Academy’s Postrunner and also how to use it as a static site rather than a blog.

But I guess I should explain how I adapted the look of the site here.  I could have reproduced the look of the old site – but I decided to keep the general layout but change up the details and the look of the site.

From an SEO point of view its important not to make huge overnight changes to the main pages of your sites – or if you do be prepared to accept that your ranking will fluctuate until Google comes to terms with the changes.

How To Make a Catalyst Site Look Like This Site.

  1. Install Catalyst 1.1.1,  then install dynamik child theme and activate it.
  2. Go to dynamik options/import/export – and play around with installing some dynamik skins until you find something you like (I think this is fluid blue).
  3. I kept the same top navbar – but used a custom menu which is new in WordPress fairly recently – much easier to manage the order etc than remembering to change priority on individual pages.  Set the option Core Options/Navbar
  4. I dropped the header image – instead the header is plain text. The graphic of my sitting on the beach is a no-repeat image in the body background.  I played with the header dimensions until they were something that I liked – 930px x 75px
  5. To do the front page and also some of the featured content: I used Ezi Wiidgets and setup a front page with 1/1/3 layout PLUS 2 feature widgets above the content (not showing on the front page but they do on other pages) PLUS a “fat footer” of 4 widgets. Each Widget can be styled separately so I add a custom style to the top of the front page and use Custom CSS to make its background yellow. The middle widget  and the bottom three widgets on the front page are all featuring a single page (excerpts in the case o the bottom 3). This is why Catalyst is so easy to get up and running with – widgets are easy to rearrange and the Catalyst specific excerpts widget makes it easy to feature content from a specific page (an improvement on Frugal where you tended to write the content in text widgets which doesn’t have enough spell checking for me.)
  6. Although much of my site has a single right sidebar some major pages I prefer to minimize distractions on so they have no sidebars – for example any of the pages on the top navigation or the 3 along the bottom of the front page.  I use Advanced Options to create a custom layout with no sidebar – and then edited each page to use the “nosidebar” layout I’d just created.
  7. I’ve put most of my signup and navigational aids in the fat footer which is throughout the site -maybe its a mistake – no one will ever sign up again – but I prefer that stuff out of the way.
  8. I used 2 Ezi Top Feature widgets to create the two boxes highlighted below the header (again with custom CSS to change the background). These I chose to display on posts but not pages.
  9. I created a custom widget which shows grey at the bottom of my posts to display my TKA advertisement.

Hope this helps for someone who is trying to combining a fairly general blog with some rather specific pages!

Categories
Blogging Making Money Online Online Business Passive Income Search Engines

Passive Income – There Is Such a Thing – Who Want’s a Business?

Passive Income - New Zealand Style

Had to engage in the conversation here – Leo – says there is no such thing as passive income he argues that we all should be developing businesses not just relying on SEO to climb to the top of the rankings.

Funny how my name has got associated with passive income – as friends pointed out to Leo (and not saying  Leo isn’t a friend  – merely wrong 🙂 )  I would be in for the argument.

Not Passive Income

OK so lets step back. In the dark times pre-passive income – I used to be a highly overpaid IT consultant – I was paid a nice hourly rate by companies who wanted to upgrade or replace software. I used to work on a salary – a “safe” job right. Yup, it was –  I never got fired from a permanent job – but it was huge, huge millstone around my neck.  You see turning up 40 hours a week – even if the hours were somewhat flexible – meant that I could only travel in the holidays-  I only got 4 weeks annual leave so even with creative use of leave without pay, public holidays and anticipated leave – I could only get away for 6 weeks ever couple of years.

I could afford the travel – but I didn’t have the time – the rules around my presence at work were  my definition of hell.

Business or Passive Income ?

I looked at options – buying a franchise is a popular one around here – but it sounded like buying a job to me (told what to do – lots of bosses (clients) and high overheads (franchise fees)) – no thanks.  Plus, again – you have to be in the country to run the business.

Starting my own business – I never considered it to be frank – I  not only couldn’t sell, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to risk my capital and the failure rate for small business in New Zealand is pretty high (and usually that takes your house too).

I started to look at other options. When I started researching my options I came across the concept that you could invest now and get paid later. I could buy property and get paid rents, I could buy shares and get paid dividends (rarely in my country but the principal is still there).

Passive Income Take 1

This was promising – I did quite a bit of research. In the end we invested in property (my partner was already in shares) – and its worked  for us and continue to do so.

Now some will argue property investment, particularly residential, free-standing, older wooden houses, in earthquake prone countries,  is not passive. They will say houses need to be maintained, tenants need to be  found, managed and got rid of.

Yup – and you can outsource the lot! Case in point – house we own in  small town New Zealand.

Passive Income - New Zealand Style

Here’s the rough figures (all NZ$ – NZ$1 = US$0.75 at the moment – but relatively it doesn’t matter).

Purchase price 2003 – $77,000

Currrent estimated value 2011 $150,000

Unrealised capital gain 6.4% a year

Original tenant left a few weeks ago – yup same tenants for 8+ years – never missed a payment – $140 to $160/week for 8 years.

Gross rental  income: $8320 or 10%  cash yield

Gross yield 16.4%/year (yup that’s why we don’t focus on shares very much).

Now the property does have expenses, we  use a property manager,  pay Council rates and insurance, and of course we borrowed the purchase price so there is mortgage interest as well – but time wise its cost us about  2 days when bought the place (one day deciding to buy the place, one day due diligence, signing papers) and now – eight years later we spent 1/2 day, inspecting the property and arranging for someone to give it a good tidy up.

Is that totally passive income? No

Is it bloody close, the way we do it  – yes.   And even we maintained and managed the properties ourselves (and plenty of larger landlords do) – we would have a business giving a us a ful-time income for a very part-time amount of effort. But we don’t that because between the two of us we are crap at DIY and are too soft to deal with ratbag tenants!

Will this property  be passive income for us for the next 10, 20, 30 years?   Should be, likely to be, unless there is a major earthquake in the region – when it won’t be a total loss – but we will probably get paid out and have to walk away at that point.   Is passive income guaranteed – nope.

So if property investment is so great – why didn’t I stick with it? Well we did – but we stopped buying – why? Risk, to make good money on property you need to gear up (borrow) – to do that you are layering  risk on risk – we got to the level of borrowing against asssets that we were comfortable with – and stopped.

Property is an as passive or active income as you design it to be.

Passive Income #2

My second attempt at passive income you are  familiar with, as documented right here. I rank websites at the top of  the SERPS and make passive income from the advertising on them.   Frankly I never started off to build a business online  – a wanted a passive, long term income – and I have that now. Some of my income is from fairly new sites, some of my income are from sites and pages that I haven’t touched for three years.  Last year I inadvertantly demonstrated that I could do little work for several months have not affect my income.

What’s long-term income though – will my websites still rank in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years? Maybe, maybe not – but every indication to date is that older sites rank and hold their rankings better than new sites. But one of the reason I have many websites is the same I reason I own 5 rental properties in smaller, cheaper places, rather than just 1 or 2 in the fairly expensive city I live in – diversification. If one of my houses is destroyed or untenanted – it hurts but its only part of my portfolio. If one of websites gets out of favour with Google or that particularly niche falls out of fashion – the others are still producing.

Now from what I am seeing – nothing much has changed on the last Google update – my sites are still ranking in the same place more or less, my Hubpages may be a little down  – but that could be coincidence/seasonal too.  February didn’t match my record January month – but I know my pattern is that once I hit a new income record it takes 3 to 4 months to match it again –  in short I am seeing nothing out of the ordinary in my business.

Leo argues that I really should build a business online – a real business with real clients – but nothing has much changed for me – my freedom is still the most important thing for me – and having to be available to clients cuts into that freedom. Having a few clients is fine (and I do) – but ramping it up seems to be just trading freedom for income – a trade I’m not really prepared to make.

Leo argues that SEO will get more and more competitive over the coming years – it could well do – though I wouldn’t overestimate the ability of corporates to adapt – pretty bloody slow in my experience. He argues that I should establish a “real” business which has real followers and therefore not be dependent on search traffic.  I know a little about this – because this blog gets “real”  visitors not just search traffic.  As far as I can tell though -the people who convert are the search traffic.

What I know is that with my silly little sites – I can make a little money – not a huge amount – sometimes $1/day – sometimes more. But even at $1/day lets look at the rate of  return:

Initial purchase of site: (all prices US$)

$8 for the domain

$10-$15 for content on the site Ti

Total: $23

Backlink articles at say $1/each – maybe 30 -90 articles – say $90

Annual profit $243 … annual costs say maybe $20…

No mortgages, no property managers, no rates, no insurance, no risk of earthquakes…

Passive Income – Is It For You? Maybe Not If …

If You Want to Make a Difference

If you want to make a difference in the world – then blogging ain’t where its at – go become a health worker, or a volunteer in a country that needs the help. An engineer bringing clean drinking water to kids in Africa, a researcher finding a cure for cancer is making a difference, me – not so much.

If You Need Money Now

As I have advised many people – if you need money this month, or next month – or even in the next 6 to 12 months – this won’t work for you – it may, but for most beginners it won’t work. It didn’t work for me – I got a job – it paid, it was a crappy job but it delivered what I needed at the time – cash.

If You Have Huge Income Requirements

I remember when I wrote about making $1000/month with Adsense – that it seemed like a lot of money (I hit that milestone almost exactly 2 years later) – $1000/month is a lot of money to me – its not enough to live on – but I could live on it if I had to – its pretty much what the NZ government pays as a pension for the over-65’s and most of  them seem to do just fine.

About US$5k /month would work just fine for me – but I see people making $10k plus in the TKA forums – frankly that’s nice – but its unlikely to ever be me – because I don’t really need the money I will probably never persue it!   If you really need to make a 6-figure salary – again I’d say get a job – just make sure you have the right skills.

Categories
Blogging Catalyst Lis Recommmends Paid Tools Tools WordPress

Frugal Theme Review – Frugal and Thesis Themes Compared

I’ve been running Chris Pearson’s Thesis Theme on this site for a while – last  July I installed Thesis. As I talked about in my last post : I am now running Frugal Theme not Thesis.

Why I Chose Thesis in the First Place

I am not a designer I know little CSS far less php, enough html to get by. But I wanted to be able to develop custom websites – not just for my own use but also for SEO clients. Thesis seemed to offer the promise of doing this without coding – their advertising is based around that, At the time I bought Thesis there was no money back guarantee – so I wanted to make sure I got it right. So researched, and then bought Thesis 1.4

I was never impressed with Thesis and although I bought the $87 single use licence intending to upgrade to the multi-site use Developer’s version I never did.  Instead I bought Elegantthemes for my other sites and retained Thesis here. I think my relationship with Thesis soured when I had to go their support forums to learn how to install my own header image and change the site’s background colours to match.

The Boxes Thesis Failed on – Is Frugal Any Better?

Originally I decided not to upgrade to the developer’s version of Thesis for the reasons I listed in this September 2009 post about Thesis. I recently updated to Thesis 1.7 and my issues still stand – so I have reproduced my original problems with Thesis and compared Frugal with the same issues. Yup this is genuine review of Thesis 1.7 and Frugal 3.3 from someone who has used and abused both.  The Thesis comments below are my original September comments – and then I’ve followed them with my take on how Frugal Theme stacks up.

THESIS: It has not one but two Thesis Options panels – this is confusing – I am always going to the wrong one – even after months. Actually its up to five now plus the Thesis Openhook plugin – which always felt like functionality which should have been in the base Thesis install.  But to be fair – this was my first experience with a sophisticated Framework rather than a simple theme – it took some getting used to!

FRUGAL:  Frugal installs a 6-option menu which I find quite simple to work my way through. The excellent videos from the developer Eric Hamm describing each and every option are extremely useful.

THESIS:  I  had to use code to add a header image and to match the background colour. This is the single reason why so many Thesis installs look like a default Thesis install.

FRUGAL: For comparison purposes I’ve included a list of Thesis and Frugal themes sites at the end of this post – just to show what “non-designers” can do with these themes. But the bottom line is that its really easy to add a header and then change the background colours of Frugal – much, much easier than it is with Thesis. If you can do these two things you can make your site look unique!

THESIS:  Using images is painful – I have to import an image and then cut and paste and add the thumbnail image code so that I can have the combination of having a picture anywhere I want in the picture plus having the thumbnail appear on other pages such as categories – its a nuisance. (Upgrading to 1.7 made this even more painful as I had to scroll a LONG way below the post past all the useless javascript libraries to get to the thumbnail options.

FRUGAL: Thanks to Thesis 1.7 ignoring the functionality of WordPress 2.9 native’s support of thumbnails I’ve had to go thru my past posts and nominate an image as a thumbnail – but going forward – images are very straightforward – import the image into the post – nominate as a thumbnail – job done!

THESIS:  Thesis is expensive if you want to deploy it. If you want to run it on more than one site you need that developers editions – that’s another $77 over the initial $87 for a single user. Plus if you want to sell a customised theme to a client that’s another $15 now $40 per a client theme.

FRUGAL: Exactly the same pricing! For one site $87 for a single site or $164 $164 for a developer’s licence  plus $40 per a client site. I notice that both themes now have a 30-day money back guarantee – something that Thesis didn’t have when I bought it. Nice to see competition doing its thing. Honestly I think Frugal should be a little more aggressive on their pricing in order to differentiate themselves from Thesis – once they have the market share they can then up the price – but until then – just my opinion though!

THESIS:  Thesis makes a big deal of being SEO friendly – but its SEO settings are no more difficult to use than the free all-in-one-seo plugin – it replaces that plugin – but most people would already be running all-in-one anyways.

FRUGAL: Is just as easy to set up for on-page SEO- if not more so (the defaults are much better than the Thesis defaults for SEO).  I’ve seen Frugal Theme criticized for  its SEO this over and over – there is no issue that I can see Frugal is just fine for SEO (and replaces All-in-one-SEO or Platinum SEO plugins).

THESIS:  if you are a designer Thesis really is a framework and you can no doubt do beautiful things -but its a bit like giving me a top-quality blank canvas and a paint brush and tell me go create – I am a rather more paint by numbers gal! You maybe able to do beautiful things with Thesis – or afford someone who can – I can’t do either.

FRUGAL: Frugal is astoundingly easy to to customise for a non-designer.  It is dead simple to produce a site which looks like a website not a blog. Its astoundingly easy to customise the look and style of the site. Its everything I hoped Thesis would be  when I bought Thesis 1.4 and which Thesis 1.7 has still failed to deliver on

THESIS:  The ability to display ads using the “multimedia” box is fine and the ability to control this down to post level is impressive. What’s not is the place you put the code shows at most 2 lines of a narrow column- you have to use a text editor to actually edit and update the code – this is because most of the screen space has been used on the unecessary design elements.

FRUGAL: There is not quite the same concept as the multimedia box in Frugal – but you can do custom layouts for pages and the ability to add custom widgets at almost any point in the design – so I am experimenting with this. I’ve gone away from the standard 125×125 ads in the sidebar anyways – they use up a lot of space and rarely converted. Frugal Theme’s use of and implementation of hooks is brilliant – its a difficult concept but a truly understood it with Frugal – never had with Thesis. The fact that you get dummy text when you hook in widgets to hooks is fantastic for those who are learning this stuff (like me and most of their customers).

THESIS: Their affiliate banners are really. really ugly – yellow is the only option – and this is in the marketplace where people care about design. This may have changed with the outsourcing of their affiliate program – I’m not up to date but Costa at Bloggigs is not very impressed with the new Thesis affiliate program for international affiliates

FRUGAL: In-house affiliate program which pays 40% to affiliates running on the iDevAffiliate platform which I’m seeing more and more often (TKA uses it too). Nice set of pretty banners – like this one 🙂

On Going Thesis Development Issues

Since I raised the issues above in September I have found Thesis continues to annoy. Because I chose to have images in my posts in different places in each post – there is no way that I can create an automatic thumbnail for each post – which is used in the extracts of older posts (a feature I really like with Thesis, but is easier to use with Frugal). Instead, after importing an image to a post, I had to go to the advanced setting of that image and cut and paste it in the thumbnail url below the post – and then edit it to reflect the actual thumbnail name!

The latest version of Thesis – made this worse by adding a whole bunch of JavaScript libraries immediately below my post’s editing area – which I now have to scroll past to get to the image urls and options.

Thesis seems to be loosing the plot with what features are released when. There was an active debate in their forums expecting that Thesis 2.0 would be out in September 2009 – and that it would have such innovations – such as easy point and click to change the header image. Still waiting on that easy header change AND Thesis 2.0 – but Thesis 1.7 has a whole bunch of javascript library options? Sorry but WTF  –  although its true that customers don’t always know what they want – but wanting to change a header image – thats pretty darn basic!  Because if you can’t retain your customers they are going to go elsewhere – and the options are starting to improve – not just Frugal but Headway too.

Which is Best Frugal or Thesis

As my readers know I don’t mind calling a spade a bloody shovel and I think Thesis is slipping behind. The risk is though that its winning the marketing war – the line up of “big” name A-list bloggers really does seem to impress people into the desirability of buying.

I don’t know how much longer that is going to work though – I think Thesis has made three key mistakes:

  • they haven’t listened to their customers and responded to the customers fairly basic requests (e.g. easy custom headers);
  • they do now provide a 30 day guarantee so that people aren’t “stuck” with the product that didn’t live up to the hype;
  • they have pissed off a whole lot of their affiliates – eBay has discovered that pissing off the people who bring you traffic is dumb idea – it looks like Thesis is going the same route.

Frankly Thesis hasn’t kept an eye on the competition. Frugal  does everything that Thesis sold itself to me that it would deliver on:

  • easy to customize without knowing css and php;
  • easy to upgrade and modify as my site developed ;
  • easy to deploy for my clients and to maintain for them (or preferably, teach them to maintain).

Frugal Example Sites

Terrible for SEO – but different Jim Chao

Used as a CMS rather than a blog – variety of different page styles Real Estate Leads

Leo is running Frugal on his Internet Marketing blog using a static front page layout which I may adopt.

More “standard Frugal” – but still unique enough Living Frugal Tips

An in your face design who seems to have upgraded from Thesis to Frugal for similar reasons as I  Enemy of Debt

Zen Habits – no introduction required I think. There is a free skin available from  Frugal based on Leo’s blog’s design (with his permission).

Thesis Example Sites

Most of the Thesis sites I found using a “powered by Thesis” search – found me SEO ‘s sites – Thesis is loved by the SEO and design community because of its promotion by the “A-listers” and its opportunities for consulting by writing e-books on how to use Thesis and custom designs for those who give up on the books.

Friction Marketer again a basic Thesis look – well worth reading the article linked to from the point of view of Brian Clark’s social media skills.  (BTW that was September 2009 Brian is talking about the release of Thesis 2.0 – it hasn’t happened yet).

R James Horne – the classic “Thesis look” – sorry James !

Even More classic Thesis (sorry Steve!) Social Media

These are more sophisticated Thesis “looks” – but would have taken quite a bit of custom code to achieve:

SEO Pitfall

Quick Online Tips

Simply

Frugal Theme Reviewed  Big Thumbs Up

Sorry – the post is a bit long even for me! But I really found it an interesting comparing Thesis and Frugal – one should have the first mover advantage (Thesis), both obviously have extremely talented developers – but one (Thesis) has outsourced their marketing to the A-listers, the other (Frugal) is going it alone and trying to build a good affiliate network. Frankly one of the reasons I took so much time on this post (and it took days) was that I have seen very few in-depth reviews of Frugal – and  came across some downright misleading stuff (like the so-called lack of SEO). This is my attempt to fix that (oh and get a bit of affiliate income too!)

Categories
Blogging Catalyst Lis Recommmends Paid Tools Tools WordPress

Passive Income Online – Now Running Frugal Theme!

Passive Income running Thesis

Update April 2011 – I have updated the theme again – Frugal became Catalyst – which is a really, really turbo charged version of Frugal -which I got a free upgrade to as an existing customer. To read more about Catalyst check out my Catalyst review

Hi all – if you click thru and get your  yourself onto the actual site – you will see some stuff has changed around here! I am still getting the  edges smoothed off but Passive Income Online has had a spring clean and  is now running the Frugal Theme by Eric Hamm.

I have a (very) long post coming out in the next few days describing why I decided to move away from Thesis ( a theme I’d already paid for) and install Thesis Frugal – this is the short version in case anyone happened to notice (or care) about what happened around here.

In case you have already forgotten: this was this site running Thesis 1.7:

Passive Income running Thesis

After a bit of practice with Frugal (I’ve owned if for a couple of weeks) I took the deep breath and installed it here. Out of the box – i.e. just after I hit activate after uploading the Theme I had a site that looked like this:

Frugal Default Install on Passive Income

It took me a couple of hours – and I had written down the details of the design from the Thesis install. But I now have a site which at least resembles what this blog looked like with Thesis. I’m going to change it more – but I thought I would be too radical to start off with just so people didn’t think they’d wandered into the wrong site!

Frugal Looking Like My Thesis Install

If you want the gory details of how I did the customisationisation without writing a single line of CSS code and very little html. This is the short version.

  1. I made sure that I had the custom header which was kindly given to me by Costa over at Blogigs: WP Easy Customization Tips.
  2. I trawled thru the custom CSS  being used in Thesis plus the font and design options and wrote down little details like fonts and sizes and colour codes for the backgrounds, fonts and other shite.
  3. I installed Frugal 3.3
  4. I was impressed that Frugal preserved my existing sidebar arrangement complete with widgets.
  5. I easy fixed my top of page navigation which has been broken since I upgraded to Thesis 1.7.
  6. I had read the Frugal manual and watched Eric’s excellent videos so knew that I could use his custom widget functionality to add my yellow welcome box at the top of  the page (I chose to change it so it was full width not just above the content column as in  Thesis – it was easy to change by choosing a slightly different hook).
  7. I also used a custom widget to add a the blue box at the bottom of posts promoting The Keyword Academy.
  8. I have to go through each post and add a thumbnail. I wasn’t surprised – Thesis 1.7 was suppressing the WordPress 2.9 functionality of thumbnails so I knew I’d have to go back and fix a pile of posts. The good news is that from now on to add a thumbnail all i have to do is click that option when I import an image – not more cutting and pasting image urls yeah!

So far there are two things that I can’t  find a way to reproduce with Frugal:

  1. I quite like the single post followed by excerpts  of older posts which Thesis does. Frugal well let me have 3 excerpts below the main post – but I haven’t found a way to do more than three (without code – I’m sure I CAN do it with code but that’s not the point) Confirmed by Eric (the developer and owner of Frugal) that I will need to look at a slightly different layout – given that some of you commented you hadn’t realized I’d changed themes thats cool;
  2. The comments on pages appear to have gone AWOL – not sure how to get them back! Answer go to the “main options” page and select comments on pages and posts options – duh!
Categories
beginners Blogging Free Tools Search Engines WordPress

What is a Long Tail Keyword? Keyword Identification for the New and Clueless

What is a keyword – or more specifically what is a long tail keyword phrase –  caused me endless confusion when I first began. I totally didn’t get it – that’s why products like Scribe SEO exist – to prey on beginner’s confusion. That’s unacceptable in my view – so here is the information that you need about keywords. Its here for free, you don’t have to sign up for any membership site or even a one off payment.

There are heaps of erudite SEO expert posts on keywords out there – this isn’t one of them. Instead this is an attempt to take it back down to basics – stick with me because I want to start to with a real world business example – and then we will move onto niche sites and blogs.

Keywords For a Service Business

I’m going to tell you how to do it for free. Lets assume you offer house washing services – purely because I am in the market for the same at the moment. Now I may search for “house washing” now this gives me a mixture of results including DIY articles on how to wash my house down and news results for house washing. But I am not interested in learning to wash my house down – I want someone to do it for me! The result is somewhere there in the 7 million pages returned by that first query – but its too hard to find. Instead I try again and type “house washing service” now I have the right sort of result – but they are in Michigan and Atlanta – its (now) obvious I want a local service – so I try “house washing service Wellington”.

So pretty much your keywords are all terms that should appear on your business card; what services you provide and the geographic locality that you service. Most businesses will have a number of keywords. House washing dude may end up with a list that looks like this:

  • house washing Wellington
  • house washing northern suburbs Wellington
  • water blasting Wellington
  • window washing Wellington
  • quick quote house washing Wellington
  • guaranteed house washing Wellington

So basically the keywords for a service business include each service you provide (house washing, water blasting), the location you services (Wellington, northern suburbs) and your unique selling points (guaranteed, quick quote). And all of these are in the language that your customers will use to find you – not the industry terms common among the experts!

Keywords for a Consultancy Business

One of the things I learned in my brief tenure over at Third Tribe Marketing was that an awful lot of people start with the thought that they are going to use the Internet as way to drum up services as a consultant. Common trades seem to include:

  • Social Media Consulting
  • WordPress Blogging Tips and Tricks
  • Marketing Strategies
  • freelance writing

This is a little trickier – basically because its harder to define a consultancy business – a plumber has regulations about not doing building or electrical work, possibly unfortunately, white collar consultants do not. From a business point of view you really, really should define your services very clearly. If you are planning on providing “web services” to the world and can’t define it any further – your problem is not keyword identification – its a business plan!

Next you should be aware that not all keywords are possible to rank for easily. Some have more competition than others. In broad terms the longer the phrase the more likely you will get to rank for it fairly easily and the more likely you will get a paying customer. For example which of  the following phrases typed into a search engine by a potential customer do you think may convert to an actual customer? Lets assume you are selling writing services

  • freelance writing
  • web freelance writer
  • freelance writer for hire
  • freelance writer for hire cost less than $500
  • freelance writer to write about home improvements

Now before some freelance writers jump on me and say some of those terms are not grammatically 100% – I say  that’s the point – people tend to type into Google as they think – they don’t edit for perfect grammatical structure.  Useful keywords are ones that reflect how people search – not the text book!

Now those last couple of phrases will show in the Google Adwords tool as having no searchers – that’s an approximation. The same tool tells me there is no searches for people looking for family home for sale in Khandallah but there is at least one – I have shown her the  house… At that’s the point I need exactly one person to buy the house, if you are freelance writer a client a week or even a month could be the start of a profitable career – you don’t  need a thousand new clients a month to launch a freelance writing career – so find very long tail keywords that relate to the services you can offer  and use them for post titles – it really is that simple.

So Which Longtail Keywords Should I Use on My Blog?

Many people start off in the general – this is my life or my work or my passion blog. These seem to particularly struggle with adding keywords to their posts – because its an after thought. Often they have bought into posting an excessive number of times a week – i.e. more than the once I manage around here.  They’ve been told they have to post all the time – guys YOU DO NOT! Some of my favourite bloggers post once every few months – but when they do post its a useful, worthwhile and generally long post – it usually then has another few thousand words added in the comments – if you are good enough people won’t forget you! I’m not that good – but I can go weeks without posting anything here  – and it rarely drops my subscriber count, doesn’t hugely effect my traffic, and makes little to no difference to the income I earn from this site.

Oh and you can ignore a site for months and suddenly start posting again to – I just did with a site of mine – posted for the first time in 4 months- indexed within 24 hours!

Why? Because most of the people who buy from me  come from search traffic – often they will stick around, clearly dazzled by my deathless prose, but I measure success by income not subscribers (blame it on my bank – they are more interested in dollars in my account not my feedburner stats!).

If you are trying to kick start a new blog – or an old one which has the classic 10 readers, one of which is your  mother – think about what you are offering your readers: if you aren’t offering them something then that could be part of the problem.  This is why focusing on a niche for a blog is easier – if you start writing about the joys of being a first-time step dad and then continue onto to home renovation – your original audience may fall by the wayside. Which is not to say that you can’t have several topics going at the same time – but starting with one and expanding it will be easier – not just to bring your audience with you but also for the search engines to rank your posts because they have already ranked you for related terms.

Which is not to say you can’t change topics and introduce new things.  For example when I started getting a significant number of readers here a lot of us knew each other from online forums – most of my readers knew more about keyword search than I did. But recently I seem to have acquired some new readers who may have missed some of these basics – so hence this post.  Some of my regulars will have dropped off by now – but they should be off doing some work anyways- those that are still awake may have learned something.

So What’s a Buying Keyword?

Canon SX20 IS SuperZoom Camera

I thought this was magic for a while too.  A buying keyword is also known as commercial intent. Sometimes we search to buy stuff – sometimes we don’t. Consider these search terms which I just made up:

When I typed in the query about fish recipes – I got the recipe for the kedgeree that I was looking for – there were ads on the page but Iwasn’t interested – recipes are great things to find online but don’t expect to start a recipe site and make money – you visitors want the recipe – you’ve answered the need – end of story. I site about cooking techniques would possibly do better

Passive income – its kinda in between – people are looking for information – they may want to do something with that information – they may become regular readers or subscribers (in the way the fish recipe person probably won’t) – but they don’t have a huge urge to act now.

The Canon SX20 IS is my latest oh so cool gadget – its a top-ranked megazoom camera with a 20X optical zoom and a 12MB maximum file size and does cool video too – I love it!  Now I bought it recently and I was aware of how to search online but basically I started with a search along the lines of “wide angle, 20x zoom, AA batteries” and came down to narrowing it down to this one and another I searched on the very specific model number to understand the pluses and minuses of that particular model. Its an expensive camera I wanted to be sure. I spent 5 minutes going to a local shop and holding it in my hand – I spent hours finding all the reviews for it. It should have been a buying keyword for someone – unfortunately I don’t live in the US and the cheapest place I could buy it doesn’t have an affiliate program –  and that’s one of the reason that usually US traffic will convert better (Amazon won’t ship the camera to New Zealand (or Australia) and that’s very common for electronics). Not all search traffic is equal – luckily you are unlikely to get serious numbers of visitors to your camera review site so don’t worry about it too much!

Generally as you get closer to spending money  the longer the keyword you type in  “Florida vacations” could be a school assignment on American domestic travel or a bored office worker dreaming at their desk, “family Florida vacations” – is someone getting a bit more serious about actually spending some money: “Florida Disney World Vacation hotels” – is getting better – but “Florida Disney World Vacation hotels coupons” could be a very good buying keyword indeed (it may or may not be – its not mine, its just my opinion, your mileage may vary etc etc).

Oh and engage brain about buying keywords before you use a tool – if someone is looking for a free WordPress theme – do you really want them on a blog you are trying to sell paid WordPress themes from?

So find specific keywords for your niche – sure start with the Adwords tool for brainstorming – but look at what is being pushed on TV and newspapers as well.

Optimizing Images

You’ll notice that cool camera pic is named for the  name and model and has a similar caption and alt-text. Google can’t “read” images – it reads the name of the image, the alt tag and the caption …

Double Indexing in Google and Retrofitting Keywords

Now this is a bit of confession – not every post here is written with a keyword in mind – in fact in the early days – none of them were. Even these days I will sometimes just post cause I want to share with my readers and can’t be arsed with the search traffic.

But there is a secret to old posts – and I don’t do this often enough – the edit key.  This is the trick to getting a double listing. Obviously ranking on the first page for a keyword is nice – but getting double listing is even better: one that looks like this:

The trick is this – each post has a link within the text of the post which links to the other one with the anchor text “third tribe review”. I usually work it something like . In the second post I will say that as a follow up to my recent post on (and I ad the link)  <long tail keyword phrase here> blah blah. Then I edit the first post and often at the end of the post I will add a sentence or so that that says – read my follow up of <long tail keyword phrase> here.

FAQs  About Keywords

Does capitalisation matter? It may to the grammar police – but not to the search engines – the key word lis sowerbutts is exactly the same as Lis Sowerbutts – how do I know – try the two searches and compare the results – you will find they are the same.

Is the plural version of a keyword the same as the singular? No its not – but they are very closely related. Rank yourself for “blue widget” then getting the ranking for “blue widgets” will be much easier.

Does punctuation matter? To EzineArticles definitely, Google – no. Whether you link to “blue widgets” or blue widget’s” or even “blue widgets’ ” its all the same to Google – they are all the same keyword phrase.  Same goes for punctuation – whether you link to: ” Products are available in red or blue. Widget and doodas are available ..” Or “blue widget” the keyword is the same keyword.

On Page SEO

That is the book as far as I am concerned about on-page SEO. The short version of how to write for your readers is something like:

  • write descriptive titles (headlines);
  • I link to relevant posts on the same topic in the text of the post;
  • use subheadings if it fits in – use your keyword in them if reads naturally;
  • include useful information in the post about the topic – this means I will naturally use terms related to my my main keyword;

If  I am writing for search engines I do:

  • all of the above
  • I try to include my keyword in the first 60 characters so its automatically in the post’s excerpt which is shown in the search engines;
  • more words is better than less – the reason that this post is so long is hat the main keyword is quite competitive – the more I write the more likely I am to hit some obscure phrase that someone may search on…
  • if I am using WordPress -add relevant tags to each post and make sure the blog is set up to index the tag pages
  • if the whole blog is about a specific keyword I include that in the title and sometimes the tagline

My point is that none of the stuff I do for the search engines to find my keywords – has any affect on my readers, if you are in a non-make money online, non-SEO niche they won’t even notice.

This really is all you need to know about what you should be writing on your site as far as long tail keyword research is concerned. If you want to seriously increase you traffic then spend a bit more time find long tail keywords you can easily rank for and less time pushing out more and more content which is unlikely to really engage your readers or show up in the search engine results.

Of course the on-page SEO stuff I have been talking about here is the 20% – the other 80% of your effort should all be about Back Links – but that’s another post and fortunately Allyn’s already written the definitive post about how to get backlinks check it out !

Categories
Blogging Making Money Online Product Reviews Rants

Tribes – Why I Don’t Belong To Third or Any Other

70's Fashion at Wellington 7s 2010

Sorry guys this is probably gonna be an odd rambling personal post.  My Third Tribe review is honest – I do indeed think the Third Tribe  Marketing service is over priced and won’t help most beginners make money online  and yes I knew I could rank for the relevant keywords. But it was a fundamental – emotional “yuck” response which I got first – well Cat confirmed that maybe t wasn’t just me …

70's Fashion at Wellington 7s 2010

Cat left a comment on my followup Third Tribe Marketing review which made me realise perhaps I should admit the real reason I made the original review  post. Cat said in part:

And that’s an example of what bothers me about this whole notion of being in a ‘tribe’ – there’s this impression of forced conformity – that you’re either on their side, in agreement with their whole philosophy, or not.

Frankensteins at the Wellington 7s Costume Parade

And that is something that has bothered me my whole life. I don’t know where it comes from either . When I was about 13 I was at a holiday camp run by a somewhat Evangelical Christian group – at the end of the week there was a big wrap up meeting – and towards the end we were invited to come forward and “pledge our lives for Christ” or similar – I was sitting towards the back – as people went forward they were hugged and kissed and welcomed to the group – after about 15 minutes there were a handful of us still sitting down – the vast majority were up in the “in” group at the front – I remember feeling terrified and cornered but physically holding the chair I was sitting on so I wouldn’t go up (I was there without my parents by the way) – it was the hardest thing I’d ever done NOT to go up  – I so WANTED to be part of that group- but I knew I was an atheist, I knew that wasn’t my group up there – but it was bloody hard to not become part of it – because the majority were.

"Rodney Hyde" and Maori Activist - Wellington 7s 2010

I was yesterday to a friend and we somehow got to subject of Amway and Landmark Education came up, all of us  had had friendships damaged with friends and relatives who had joined these programs and who in turn and pressured us to become part of them. My friend (who’s a bit older than me) knows exactly why she doesn’t like “tribal” marketing  – she had childhood memories of her parents talking about Hitler Youth (they were displaced persons from Austria and Holland) – because of that she’s always hated any marketing which involves you becoming part of the “in” crowd at the exclusion of the “others”.

Hot Cops - Wellington Rugby 7s 2010

Went I went to Brett McFall seminar I saw the same thing at work – on group a lot older than 13! At the end of the day the sales pitch was – go to the back and sign up in the next 15 minutes for a product which cost around $10k (!) – some people went – as he kept talking he dropped the price down – after 20 minutes my head count was that he had got at least 50% of the room to sign up for something … And the more people signed up – the more the people left became uncomfortable, many left the room rather than stay as the minority.

I thought I was only me that has an instinctive run the other way reaction  when I am pitched to do something as part of a group which will make me “different” from another a group – and often better.

I think most people who are trying to make money online are a little “odd” anyways – which probably makes the call to be part of a new “tribe” even more seductive – don’t fall for it.

The supreme irony should be obvious in this classic clip from Monty Python …

The photos? Wellington was very tribal this weekend with the Annual Wellington Rugby 7’s in town …

Categories
Blogging Free Tools Making Money Online Paid Tools Product Reviews Rants

Third Tribe Review – Inside Rowse’s Third Tribe Is it a Scam?

You need accurate road maps in Internet Marketing - and the Northern Territory, Australia
You need accurate road maps in Internet Marketing - and the Northern Territory, Australia

Which Tribe do you belong to? Apparently – according to Darren Rowse, Brian Clark, Chris Brogan, Sonia Simone – you really should be in the Third Tribe. Up until now there has only been two tribes: the sleazy, scum-bag Internet Marketers who promises the earth, or usually $14,449  plus a Lamborghini, while you sleep, and then there are the nice social media folks – they hang around singing kumbaya making lots of friends and making no money.

I couldn’t stand  a kumbaya video – so here’s a video of my aspirational Lamborghini – from my favourite car reviewer –

Apparently there was no middle ground – which was bit of a surprise to me as I have been doing it for a couple of years and so have a whole bunch of other people I know online – but no apparently there has been a vacuum… and Darren Rowse has decided to fill it.  There is apparently a third way  – oops I mean a third tribe (apologies to Eastern Religions there) – Internet Marketing Strategies That Work (Without Being Obnoxious) – as they like to subtitle themselves.

What Exactly is Darren Rowse’s Third Tribe – and How Will It Make Me Money?
Well first off its a membership site -built around the concept of “teaching sells“. I might have been a little sarcastic on that one – but I still stand by it. Now I didn’t put the nearly $2000 into joining Teaching Sells- but the Third Tribe was an affordable $27/month  (but if you join now you’ll pay $47/month)- but its going up soon so hurry – so I “invested” $27 – note that is what its going to cost you – you cancel the sub immediately via Paypal – but you will sink the $27 to check this out – but its OK I can handle the expense – business tax deductions are beautiful things!

What did I get for my $27 (Its now $47 – to pay for the affiliate program no doubt) –  I was promised:

  1. “An Education” – well personally I got a lot of education when I first started working underground in Australia as a fairly naive 21-year-old – but I digress. Darren’s Third Tribe Marketing offers me  the chance to attend a webinar or listen to an audio class each month. In the first month the sales copy promises me three “education seminars”.  One is an interview by Johnny Truant who went from making pennies on Adsense to “5-figures a month”  – titled “The Quick Start to Making Money Online”. Then later on in the month – haven’t seen this yet – there is promised a three-hour-long (yeah – bring the popcorn) self-congratulatory talk-fest on how Darren, Brian, Sonia, Chris et al build a “Strong Business Around a Blog” . The third event is mysteriously titled “Interaction” – about building a community of learning – probably something about not writing critical stuff on your blog cause you may upset IMPORTANT PEOPLE – oops…
  2. “Live Q & A” – at least twice a month – where you can ask questions about your business with at least two of the founders of Third Tribe. Hmm – cool – perhaps I can ask some questions when it comes up…Well maybe it will work better than  getting any of these guys to actually respond to comments on their own blogs …
  3. “Interactive Forum” – really as opposed to the static, non-interactive type?

So how exactly is the Third Tribe exactly going to make me money?  Well…

Johnny Truant spent 9 months doing what everyone says you’re supposed to do to make money online, and made a whopping $111. Then he changed his strategy to a Third Tribe model, and quickly started having 5-figure months. Johnny gives all the real-life details in this hour-long seminar hosted by Sonia Simone, along with concrete steps you can take immediately. You get instant access to it when you join.

Now how “Johnny” made his Adsense payout was the highlight of this post recently – his business model was “write funny blog posts and generally just hanging out online,” – and he managed to make over $100 in Adsaense, in less than a year,  – in fact I am absolutely astounded he made that much! The mind boggles as to what Adsense ads were showing up on funny wity posts, but I’m pretty darn sure they were far from relevant. So the take away from that is that  Adsense sucks – its not a “real business model” – well I’d agree – Adsense certainly isn’t a good monetization method for a humour blog!

Obviously hanging out online your friends is a real business model – maybe. But its OK Johnny is going to reveal his big secret: how to quickly make money online. I can’t tell you exactly what that is – as it part of the $27 $47 Third Tribe membership program – but from his published post on copyblogger:

  • One that you can stand behind publicly. Hmmm right – I have  a few issues with this – after all this is from a guy calling himself “Johnny B Truant” – now I not one to assume that anyone is making up a name on the Internet- people have weird names  I should know! So checked the whois on his website – that’s not his name. Its his brand – I know the maketing geeks will rush over and tell me that’s OK – I know according to the marketing game it is, in the context of a blog,  written in the first person – its not honest IMHO.
  • One that’s based on helping others in exchange for pay. Oh you mean running an Internet-based consultancy – OK that will work – especially if you have skills that other people want to pay for and can be delivered online (anyone want a dance lesson?). Regrettably this is the same problem as Teaching Sells – most begineers don’t have those skills – that’s why they are prepared to join a membership stie and give you money in the hope they can learn the secret!
  • One that benefits from being a real, authentic person. Well I personally am unreal inauthentic person – except when I am being real on this blog. Is Amazon a real authentic person ? I buy from them all the time – same with trademe.co.nz New Zealand’s very own eBay. I don’t know or care who runs these companies they have blue widgets in stock and I need blue widgets at 2am – I buy from the website.
  • One that matches your best abilities to the needs of others. Yeah you seriously shouldn’t take marketing lessons from me – I am telling you that now!  My point is as above though – you need to play to your strengths sure – or hire talent to fill the gap. Or just be at the top of the search engines when someone asks the question – “where do I buy blue widgets at 2am?”

So how exactly is this going to give a beginner a “quick start to making money online”? Well to be honest I’m completely unclear. I understand how it will  make Darren, Brian et al money. I understand how Johnny makes money – he gets to plug his blog setup service amongst other things – but how its going to  make a newbie money online – someone who is new to business, new to being online and basically desperate to make money in months not years – I have no idea – and paying my $27 $47 didn’t clear things up.

After the first “educational event” with Johnny I was left pondering what my online skills were. That’s OK for me I have been playing around on the online sewer of fake Internet Marketers for a couple of years now – I do have some skills – but the  program isn’t designed for me – its designed for beginners …

Who Do I recommend the Third Tribe Memberhip Site For?

Frankly no  one at the moment – well not unless you just feel you need to give Brian Clark or Darren Rowse a donation. Its early days the site has just launched – maybe it will improve. But at first glance its a lot of waffle dressed up with a slick site design and convincing sales copy. Actually on second  thoughts I  do recommend it to anyone wondering how you go about selling a little for a quite a lot of nice recurring income – watch what they do don’t listen to what they say though.

In fact I’m pissed off for many of the good meaning folks who will join – and who will really get a warm cuddly feeling being part of a supportive online community. There is one part of the sales copy I agree with – paid communities do have a lot less trolls in them and can be very helpful in learning this business. Is this worth $27 $47 /month – well its cheaper than cable I guess – as a form of entertainment, but  in terms of teaching you to make money online, its not just a waste of money its a waste of something even more critical – time.

Darren, Brian, Chris and hangers on – I think you guys make a nice living online – I just think its complete crap that you do so setting up schemes like this to milk your followers and send them off down dead ends. Now a  lot of the people in the community will be quite happy but I really think you need to be upfront that this is a community for people who want to talk about making money online – not for those who actually want or need to be making soon.

You need accurate road maps in Internet Marketing - and the Northern Territory, Australia
You need accurate road maps in Internet Marketing - and the Northern Territory, Australia

So Smart Arse Lissie  How Do You Make Money Online Quickly?

If you are reading this because you were hoping that the The Third Tribe was going to make you money quickly – I’m sorry in my opinion – worth exactly what you paid for it- -t won’t. The following will definitely make you money though:

  • sell stuff on eBay and cragislist – no not as a flipping affiliate. Sell the stuff in  you yard that you never use, sell the toys the kids grew out of, sell the clothes you grew out of;
  • sign up for some of the writing sites which pay – this is a lot easier if you live in the US – start with places such as Demand Studios, Suite101 – the pay is low and the work is boring but they will pay you  regularly. If you want the details on how to launch a freelancing career in around 6 months check out Monika’ Freelance Superstar e-book.
  • sign up on  freelance brokerage sites such as odesk and elance – there are lots of jobs, the pay is low – but again you are likely to get paid in a short time frame.

Oh that’s not what you had in mind-  you want to start a blog and hang with the cool chics? Well then the Third Tribe by Darren Rowse is perfect for you – you probably won’t make you much money but you will feel part of the tribe, the community – that counts – doesn’t it?  The reality is that is room at the top of the “famous A-lister” blog set for very few – if you areading this and haven’t got a popular blog – you are probably too late! In contrast all the suggestions I just gave you are sustainable low-cost business models which you can start on the kitchen table today without any connections, online or otherwise.

How to Really Learn Internet Marketing Strategies That Work

Well you learn from some real experts who have actually done it. Josh over at Unconventional Marketing has good information and Leo Dimilo is well worth reading everything and subscribing to his newsletter on Internet Marketing.  These guys don’t have super pretty blogs – but they do have solid advice based on experience – and can give you information which you can apply.  der:

I’d also suggest you join up with HubPages (free) and  write around 100 hubs –  for each hub pick a phrase which you think people might search for – something you might have searched for in Google perhaps – ask you friends – just try it. Odds are at least some of those hubs will get search traffic and those will make you money from Adsense, eBay or Amazon;

Finally if you are determined to spend some money join The Keyword Academy (honking great ad below) – its a membership stie too. But you can join for only $1 – on going $33/month – I haven’t space  here to say why its so much better than this Third  Tribe review (subsribe to the RSS feed to be automateically notifed)  –  some of you will assume its because I get a commission if you sign up. You’d be wrong – but I will  leave that for another post.  Suffice to say – its entirely predictable and relatively easy to get your blog to rank for something people are  searching for – people who are searching are potential customers – if you connect to customers (not friends – customers) then you can make money.

UPDATE: Thrid Tribe Marketing Affiliate Program

There is a now an affiliate program for Third Tribe Marketing – and it now pays affiliates 33% – or $15.50 a month per a sign up – thought I would mention it if you were wondering about all the new Third Tribe Marketing Reviews you are seeing!

DISCLAIMER

The Third Tribe doesn’t have an affiliate program – yet (watch for that when the price goes up) – but even if it didn’t you wouldn’t find the link for it. If you are determined to join do someone a favour and Google “Third tribe affiliate” and sign up using their link and you will make someone a little cash – and cost yourself nothing extra.

I am however a member of The KeyWord Academy – if you sign up with the any of the links on this blog I will make 33% of the commission. If you are not happy you can cancel within the first month and pay Mark and Court only that $1. In fact drop me a line via the contact form at the top of the page  using the same email address and I will happily refund your $1  so there is no risk with joining. What’s the worst that could happen – you might learn something useful …

Categories
Blogging

New Comment Policy

This is actually going to be a short post – I think … I have an awful lot of comments on this blog – and most of them never see the light of day – the spammers love this blog and I generally wake up to several hundred offers to enhance my sex life. They are easy to deal with. The less easy comments are the ones that are just slightly more than “nice post” but not much.

Sit right down and write myself a letter...
Sit right down and write myself a letter...

There are various plugins available to manage this sort of comment spam – I have tried most of the usual suspects.  But Todd over at Todd’s Tps pointed out a recent plugin which really seems to be the business – its called SEO Super Comments. What it does  is basically redirect the link on a person’s name to another internal page on this site UNLESS I have added their website to a whitelist of “friend’s sites”. In either case the link is do-follow.

This solves several problems for me:

  • it means I can approve comments that I am not sure of knowing that I am not going to linking to a dodgy neighbourhood;
  • I can still reward friends with a do-follow link;
  • it has a nice internal SEO benefit of creating additional internal pages on the fly.

Unfortunately it does mean that I”ve had to turn off commentluv – as it kinda defeats the point of this plugin.

If you want to see what the plugin does if someone’s site is not on the white lis t- click on my name in any comment.

Now I just spent 1/2 hour adding a long list of friends to my white list – but its a manual process I may have missed you – especially if you are a friend with a new website. If you think you’ve been unfairly missed out then drop me a comment or a private email via the contact form. This is a site by site basis not an IP or email basis

If your link was to a site promoting SBI or Teaching Sells – its not a mistake you aren’t on the white list…