Category: Tools

Categories
Beaver Builder Paid Tools Websites WordPress

Changes are coming Beaver Builder and new Technology

I’m excited, and I think this is the right place to write about it! As part of DIY Publishing Ltd we do websites primarily for authors.

My business partner, Kris, is a designer, and I’m the techie who has to make her designs a reality – well apart from the really crazy stuff which I just tell her to change! Over the years I’ve been using the same theme since it was  called Catalyst – and is now Dynamik for Genesis. It’s a great theme, and incredibly flexible.

But it’s not the best if you want the super fancy graphic-heavy designs that today’s websites apparently must be. So I started investigating page builders – and discovered a plugin called Beaver Builder.

website_etc

Websites for Authors and Politicians!

It’s early days – but I’m liking it a lot so far. I’ll be writing more about it more as I discover some more tricks and tips. To date here are a couple of websites we’ve done for clients:
http://tinanixonformasterton.nz/
http://dianamarjoriemartin.nz/

The thing with page builders is that they are a direct challenge to websites such as Weebly and Squarespace. These sites are very “pretty” and offer beginners the opportunity to design their own website using drag and drop. That’s the promise. The downside though is that you are tied down to their technology. You can’t expand beyond a website or blog – to say include product sales or event planning – without either paying them more money per a month for their ecommerce option, or finding that you’ve outgrown their platform.

I still love WordPress – because whatever you want it to be – there will be an extension, plugin or theme which will do it. But frankly some days – when trying to get a full-width image to scroll without mucking up the right-aligned top-menu, does my head in.

So enter Beaver Builder. It’s a page builder which allows you to do drag and drop .  So far I’ve had a learning curve, but I’m liking the plugin more and more. It has a very active engaged community some of home are building extensions for it. It’s very new, only 6 months or so, but so far I’m happy to keep using and watching this space.

Categories
Online Business Paid Tools

Bye-Bye Aweber – Hello Get Response! Facebook Changes – Make Email Subscribers More Important

Very New Zealand Christmas Scene - Onekaka Beach, Waiheke Island
Very New Zealand Christmas Scene - Onekaka Beach, Waiheke Island

I’m a hard customer to get – but if I’m happy with your product I’m pretty loyal. Indeed I’ve been an Aweber customer since 2007! But today I cancelled my account with them, and hit “buy” on my new GetResponse account. 

Why? Well two things really – price and features. 

Price 

Aweber pricing is: 

  • $19 – up to 500 subscribers 
  • $29 – up to 2500 subscribers
  • $49 – up to 5,000 subscribers 
  • $69 up to 10,000 subscribers (I wish!) 

In contrast GetResponse costs: 

  • $15 – up to 1,000 subscribers 
  • $25 – up to 2,500 subscribers 
  • $45 – up to 5,000 subscribers 
  • $65 – up to 10,000 subscribers 

There’s not a lot in it – unless you have between 500 and 1000 subscribers  -than it’s very worthwhile moving! Still I probably wouldn’t have bothered because there is a bit of work involved, finding where all the forms are and converting them. 

Actually I saved more because GetResponse currently has a 25% Christmas discount on annual plans – but that was just lucky! 

It’s About Usability and Features 

I’d got used to AWeber  -when I started using them I knew nothing about email marketing. I learned using their interface. It’s pretty darn ugly. Over the years it’s improved, but it’s still not pretty. It’s quite confusing. I recently taught someone how to use it – and yes it’s still confusing. 

Meanwhile a client asked me to set up an email  auto-responder series to support their eBook. They were already using GetResponse – so I agreed to do it using  their existing account. 

I expected to lose some time learning a new system. But like – wow- seriously easy! Okay I already knew email marketing – but the system was just easy. And nice. 

Not only was it easier to use  – but it did stuff that AWeber didn’t do (or didn’t do as well) 

  • all emails had a responsive design as well as a “normal” one. You could also preview in a number of email programs;
  • you could automatically send messages not just based on time or after a subscription but also after a user clicked a link, opened a certain message, reached another goal, change their data or had a birthday. 
  • the control over timezones and when messages are delivered is also better in GetResponse 
  • you can use Google Analytics with GetResponse 
  • they have surveys built into the account 
  • you can import existing contacts into a list without having to do another opt-in – that’s a biggie! 
Very New Zealand Christmas Scene - Onekaka Beach, Waiheke Island
Very New Zealand Christmas Scene – Onekaka Beach, Waiheke Island

Why Not Use MailChimp – It’s Free? 

Good question – indeed I do use Mailchimp for a non-profit that I’m secretary for. It’s not too bad  – for sending out newsletters. Unfortunately –  for the free version that’s all it does. It doesn’t offer a  true autoresponder for free. I use auto-responders all the time – particularly for my lists associated with books. Once you sign up for the paid version it’s the same price as GetResponse – but has fewer features. 

MUST I Use An Email Marketing System?

Short answer – yes. 

Long answer – there are only two things you totally control on the Internet – your website (assuming you are actually paying for hosting) and your email list. In theory you can just keep a manual list of email addresses and email them from your own email account. But don’t come crying to me when your email provider bans you, or you find your emails go straight to the spam folder! 

 This week Facebook is full of bloggers crying because Facebook is now only delivering their FB Page’s updates to about 10% of their subscribers.

Of course you can pay (about $5/update) – but still not everyone will see your update. With email deliverabiltiy is pretty darn high well over 98% for both Aweber and Getresponse. 

Maybe Twitter then? Well it’s been floated too – so don’t be surprised when they start charging too! The thing is that all these companies need to make money at some point. Social media is not a bad way to drive traffic – but they are a means to an end – not the end itself. The result is having people interacting on your blog and/or signing up for your email list. 

Oh yeah those evil affiliate links again? Aweber or GetResponse 

What are you using for your email marketing? Are you pushing it up a notch now that Facebook is playing hard-ball. 

Categories
Authority Site Catalyst WordPress

Using Catalyst Theme To Build An Authority Site

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 a places that they will probably never visit (or not in the next year or two).  In the blogging sphere these are people skivvying off work, trying to keep the dream alive, or just escaping; 
  • those that are actually actively fact gathering for travelling. They may still be at a high level planning stage (how much money does 6 months in Thailand cost?), or they are getting quite a lot closer to departure (budget hotel near airport. Bangkok). 

Most published guidebooks cater for both. In fact the DK Eye Witness Travel Guides (some of the most beautiful guidebooks IMHO) – are pretty much designed for armchair travellers, unless you are using a porter they are far too heavy to actually travel with! Most travel addicts have at least one guidebook to a county they never quite got to! 

Most blogs only cater for just one of these groups –  often un-intentionally.

First there are those who are either gifted writers or just excited about documenting their trip know little about SEO, end up writing blogs which are great reads, but not very practically focussed.  Unfortunately most of these probably never find an audience because the writers have no idea how to promote their work. Writing and they will come still isn’t a great strategy as far as I am concerned, but if you are not writing keyword focussed content your odds of succeeding are minuscule.  To get this to work you need to be doing a lot of social media promotion. 

On the other hand there is also a number of travel blogs which were setup as, or evolved to, being mainly about practical fact gathering, often very focussed on SEO.   Some are quite fun, but then they go on a sponsored trip to “insert country you have no interest in here”, and you lose interest because its all about XYZ for months on end. Some of these sites also rely heavily on social media, but some too use a lot of SEO. 

What A Travel Site Needs To Have IMHO 

No surprise where I’m going here – I wanted a site which allowed me to reach both the “armchair travellers” with a range of amusing stories, and photos, and maybe even videos, which would get them interested in visiting a country.  Plus I wanted to use my knowledge of SEO and some specific travel destinations to write practical, “how to” style articles. I could see no reason why I couldn’t do both.  But I did need to think about how to design a site so I could regularly update both a  “travel blog” plus specific focussed “how to content”. The how to content needed to be easily found, without being in the face of the casual reader.  

I wanted to be able to feature photos. To me a travel blog without photos, is missing out on, a lot. You just gotta have the photos in my opinion. If nothing else it gives some credibility to what you are talking about.  I also wanted maps. Maybe I’m just a map geek – but I like to look at maps and I use maps for travel planning. 

I wanted clear menus and categorisation, so that visitors could find things easily. 

I wanted flexiblity to focus some categories as a silo – offering specific advertising and offers which only relates to those particular pages. Why would an advertiser of Thailand Vacations want to advertise on an article about Canada? I wanted it easy to do this.  In fact the more I looked into it the more I could see that category and tag pages are greatly under-utilised resources in many blogs. 

Using Catalyst To Design A Hybrid Travel Site 

Catalyst Theme - WordPress Accelerated

Basic Design Choices

I decided to use posts for almost everything except for genuinely static pages (Privacy Policy, About, Contact and similar).  Basically that’s because I want almost all my content to go to my RSS feed. I’ve found that content that I’ve added which is neither linked to from the front page OR the main navigation, still gets indexed quickly. The only reason for that is because its in the RSS. 

First I designed the categories up front. I needed a specific category for “travel blog” because not all of my posts were going on the travel blog.  I grouped a lot of my destination content around fairly standard geographic divisions. Designing categories gave me the main navigation of the site. I do NOT “no index” any part of my site including category and tag pages. Tag pages often rank first, before my post, so I find them useful “bell weather” indicators. Categories I have big plans for – see below. 

My tags are not designed up front. I use tags on pages where I’m targetting specific search terms, plus as a way to cross reference photos to be including in the relevant destination searches. 

I wanted a clean nice looking site, which wasn’t too cluttered, but not too bare either. I don’t think minimalism works for travel.  On the other hand I am no designer so I wanted something that I could just use. 

Implementation: I picked the “Greenfields” skin for two reasons 1) I liked it 2) It’s free. The only thing I’ve really changed is that I thought the header was too deep and took up too much space above the fold so I reduced it a bit. I also didn’t implement the slider because I wanted to use more space on the front page featuring various parts of my site (blog, photos, key destinations etc). 

I wanted the site to look good on other devices rather than just computers e.g. tablets, smart phones. 

Implementation: Latest version of Catalyst allows responsive design (which is what this is called) with a click of the button – lucky as that’s all I know about it ! 

I wanted to use a static front page (rather than current posts), because I wanted to provide and overall view of a site that was bigger than just being a “travel blog”. 

Implementation: Used a static welcome page layout “wide left 2 3 3”. The header image is actually a top widget, so I can remove on certain parts of the site if I wish to, and similarly the bottom gray footer is also a widget area which can be dropped from parts of the site if required. 

Specific Page Types and Layouts 

Catalyst provides a  specific blog template. Create a blank page – give it that template, add a specific page layout – voila – a “blog page” 

Implementation: Under core options you can chose which categories of post show on your “blog page”.

Page layouts is where the power of Catalyst really shines. Basically any page or post can have any layout and any layout can have widgets and other content anywhere on the page. It gets confusing – so briefly here are some examples. The blog page above is using my standard layout with standard excerpts and a sidebar. 

Implementation:  Each layout is setup first with specific widgets on that page. You then populate those widgets with the code you require. I use a limited amount of CSS in order to float widgets within content e.g. to display Adsense with Catalyst. I also use CSS to suppress metadata on my evergreen content (Catalyst will let me turn it off or on for all posts – but I only wanted to show dates on some content). 

Other variations of page layouts  I’m using include: 

  • No advertising on irrelevant pages e.g. Contact 
  • Standard advertising using widgets on most pages – see any blog post. 
  • Full-width layout on some pages where I want to focus on the content: Packing List Book 
  • A different full-width layout for travel photos. 
  • Specific Thailand Category Page  – I’ll use a similar design for other destinations in the future. 

Specific Category Pages 

With Catalyst you can specify a particular page to display for each category. I’m using this feature to allow me to add value to my category pages, by mapping posts to a local geographic map at the top of the page, and then using excerpts below. In future I could replace the sidebar with relevant advertising for this region too. This is basically a development of the process of replacing the Post Page Associator plugin I’ve described previously. 

Catalyst Theme - WordPress Accelerated

This is a continuing series about developing an authority site. The next post will probably be about finding new keywords in your analytics – stay tuned. 

Categories
Paid Tools The Keyword Academy

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

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 requiring a minimum author score. If you don’t have high enough score you can’t post to those sites. 
  • on the flip side those selecting a site to publish on will now see the site’s Page Rank and, more importantly in my view, the percentage of posts ignored by the site, i.e. returned within 7 days.  
  • sites can be ranked up to 5 stars by article writers. 

Postrunner is positioning itself as an introduction service between site owners and those that wish to promote their own sites.  Postrunner sites are all owner by individuals, not the people who are running Postrunner. This is guest blogging, not manufactured backlinks. 

The aim is to get many more, quality sites into the system.  You may have noticed, having a few quality links to your site will trump thousands of trashy low quality links any day of the week. Although some, including me, will see it as a Build My Rank alternative, but really this is about legitimate guest blogging. 

Will Google like it? Who the heck knows – but I have NEVER seen or heard of a site being penalised for accepting guest posts, or using them for promotion. 

Coffee anyone? Nelson, New Zealand

Pricing Information: 

Indicated pricing for Postrunner v2 for new subscribers is:

  • free for promotion of one site; 
  • up to 10 sites: $30 per month;
  • up to 25 sites: $50 per month;
  • up to 50 sites : $75 per month;
  • un-limited sites: $199 per month; 

Note you submit as many articles on any plan – but you are limited to how many sites you can promote. 

But if you are amember of Keyword Academy WHEN Postrunner V2 is LAUNCHED you will be grand-fathered in and allowed promotion of unlimited domains. 

When Will Postrunner V2 Launch?

Postrunner is now live for all members of TKA

So what I am trying to say – its a really, really good time to join Keyword Academy – take advantage of the free 30 days look, check out Postrunner V2 – and if you decide to use Postrunner you end up paying $33/month for unlimited domains. Plus you get the other tools and information available for TKA members too. 

Questions, queries, comments? Ask away! 

Categories
Back Links beginners Build My Rank Paid Tools The Keyword Academy

Build My Rank Alternatives

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. 

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

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 sites are reporting no drop in rankings and no nasty messages in Google tools about “unnatural links being noted on their sites” 

This is all about networks which insisted on 150 -odd words of unique content. Google has found them and taken them down manually. 

So what do you do now to rank – what are the alternatives to BMR? 

Alternative 1: Forget Manufactured  Backlinks Make Your Site High Quality 

Yeah I know I probably just lost 90% of you. And no I’m not saying you don’t need backlinks – what I’m saying if you write really good content, engage with your readers, and be genuinely helpful. You will then, over time get natural backlinks, when people link to and promote your content. Its a sound approach, which will take a while, but at the end, you will be mainly Google-proof.  Not entirely – because you’d be an idiot to trust Google after this week – but a lot more than if you just have a mini-site of thrown together content that you don’t actually know much about. 

If you want to learn how to develop a long-term, high quality websites – CLICK to check out the Keyword Academy

Alternative 2: Find a Few High Quality links

I started a new site – 3 weeks later it was a PR3 – nine months later its still  PR3 and on page 1 for its desired keyword? What did I do? I gave it one single link from a PR3 site which I controlled which was relevant to the niche and didn’t have too many outbound links.

It not rocket science, it hasn’t changed any time recently. Some links are more useful than others. When you have access to strong links you will find it easier to rank your websites. 

Getting just one really, really good backlink can do more for your rankings than a 1000 crappy links. It will also look more natural to Google. 

What is a good backlink? A link from an authority site? So WTF is an authority site? A site which ranks well in the same niche as you, a site which has an engaged audience who find it useful, a page which has similar or the same keywords as you want to rank for, a site with PR (this is the least important factor). 

How do you get those links? Well as I said above the best way is to have such an awesome site that people in the same field WANT to link to you. But you can hurry up the process a bit. Its not rocket science. Its called guest posting. Try to find a blog who will accept a guest post from you. You’ll have to write really good content. You’ll have to make it possibly even more useful than the stuff you would publish on your own site. And in return they will give you a link. And you know what – you might even get visitors from that link – there’s a thought! 

Its pretty tough finding guest posting opportunities. You’ll have to contact a lot of webmasters, and expect a lot of rejections – or ignores. I hate doing it.  On the other hand after a while you get to know a few people in the same niche and then its a little easier.

It probably all sounds a bit overwhelming – and I can understand if you are pretty discouraged after the news of BMR. But if you give up now – Google wins – and I HATE letting the bullies win!

Check out the Keyword Academy – really – you’ll be pleased you did – its also free for the first month – so no risk to you. Really check out my new  Postrunner V2 Review – a great opportunity for quality backlinks. 

Categories
Back Links Build My Rank Paid Tools

Build My Rank Is Dead – Long Live Links

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 – so I will NOT be: 

  • I won’t be removing “unnatural links” to my two sites. 
  • I won’t be asking Google for reinclusion so they can run comparative stats and see which sites I removed. 
  • I won’t be removing content from BMR for the same reason.  

I’m not a conspiracy theorist – but I firmly believe that Google is playing a really two-faced game these days. Google does what Google needs to do to make it, not your or me, money. Although I don’t like this guy’s taste in MMO products – he’s spot on in this post about Google’s hypocrisy. 

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

Google Still Counts Links 

The mass de-indexing of BMR PROOVES that links still matter. I mean why deindex something that makes no difference! In fact THANK YOU Google for de-indexing BMR – now I know those links weren’t working (which I was beginning to suspect). 

So all Google’s huffing and puffing about social indicators and quality content – yeah may help – but links is still where its at!  I can’t believe they actually de-indexed the network though. Crazy – they could have just quietly devalued the links – would have been far more effective! 

Build My Rank Does The Right Thing 

And thank you the people behind BMR – because you are nice people. You’re not the first network to be hit – but you are the first that I know of who is offering pro rata refunds for the current month, will pay out affiliates before shutting the doors, and, this is the biggie – are offering to return user’s posts! Hell, some networks who have been de-indexed have even kept on trading! 

If you are a BMR member this is what you should do: 

  • cancel your subscription with Paypal for BMR (BMR can’t do for you AFAIK); 
  • keep an eye on their blog for when they release the tool to download your articles (unless of course you kept a copy of all your BMR posts on your hard-drive – yeah me to!); 
  • give in a few weeks and then quietly use that content either on other networks, or on your own network. (After all, its de-indexed now – not duplicate content!) 

EDIT: JUST TO REPEAT IN BOLD – IF YOU GET A MESSAGE ABOUT UNNATURAL LINKS BUILDING WMT DON’T REPLY TO IT AND REMOVE ANY DOUBT! ITS AN AUTOMATED BOT MESSAGE IGNORE IT! 

Categories
Paid Tools Tools

Market Samurai – Rank Tracker Alternative

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 –  I want a solution that I can use with a third-party website that I don’t control i.e. Wizzley. And double worse I’m aggressively testing new keywords at the moment! 

Sunset at Phuket

 

Eliminate the Expensive 

There are actually quite a few options out there – most of which are monthly payments, and some of which are VERY expensive. Monthly payments are the fastest way to financial misery that I know of – I am very, very loath to pay monthly unless there is absolutely no alternative.  

Eliminate the Very Cheap

Rank tracking is fundamental to my business. Its a pain to have to change software, I don’t want to be doing this every few months – the opportunity cost of swapping over is too high for me to be bothered with software I’ve never heard of, from developers I don’t know. 

Alternatives that I’ve Tried: 

I tried SEO Power Suite’s Rank Tracker – I’ve tried the software before and I know some sing its praises, its never done it for me. It took me several goes to download the software – the site seems quite often down which doesn’t fill me with confidence. Invariably their site freezes on my when clicking around when trying to find answers! 

Also I don’t like their rather less than transparent pricing – its not a one-off price -the first price only gives you “updates” for 6 months – after that you have to pay for a subscription. 

And I particularly don’t like how, when checking a few hundred keywords it got my IP banned from Google search, and wasn’t smart enough to wait and try again later automatically. 

I got the distinct impression that this software has a large user base, and hasn’t really been investing back into its tools to make them as good as they should be for the price. $99.75 plus after 6 months about another $48 to keep it going for another six months. 

[No affiliate link as I don’t really like it, and I hate Plimus as an affiliate manager – use James’s link if you are keen] 

Keyword Strategy as A Rank Checking Tool 

I already have an account with Keyword Strategy – so I decided to give it a long hard look. I dumped some of my Wizzley pages in, linked up Google Analytics and it did quite a lot of stuff very, very well. 

Keyword Strategy – What It Does Well 

  • it did NOT get me banned from Google search and it ran pretty fast; 
  • works well with any site that you use your own Google Analytics account with. I have several accounts on Wizzley and all of them combined and came across to my Keyword Strategy project very easily; UPDATE: Keyword Strategy will no longer work with Wizzley – see here for details
  • it was almost automated – because I already had some traffic to my wizzley pages – KS used the analytics data to pull over far more keywords than the ones I originally aimed to rank for; 
  • adding new pages and keywords is easy using the “import” feature; 
  • KS ads backlinks to your project based on visitors who have clicked through on your link – very useful, and a better option for identifying strong backlinks than the usual method of SEOMoz rankings or similar; 
  • its particularly suited for larger sites where you are into promoting a single page to rank for  keywords, 

What I Don’t Like About Keyword Strategy

  • you can’t use the same keywords on more than one page;
  • with a new page I like to closely monitor rankings for the first few days – however Keyword Strategy seems to have no mechanism for me to force an update on the rankings;
  • the pricing model is by website as I am regularly monitoring 20 odd websites – it wasn’t really a cost effective option, though I’m border line that if I had more control over the ranking checks that I may pay for the $100/month package. 
Keyword Strategy does a LOT more than just tracking rankings this isn’t a complete review – I’m just trying to sort out my current problem! 
Keyword Strategy is free for the first 30 days – pricing starts at $25/month for two sites – 10% off on-going if you click the <<EVIL AFFILIATE LINK HERE>> 

Traffic Travis as A Rank Checking Tool 

 This one’s been around for a long  time, its just I didn’t need another tool when Market Samurai was working.  Its a one off cost, and the free version runs forever (with limitations). One-off cost got my attention – so I downloaded it and started playing .

 What I Like About Traffic Travis 
  • Very good video instruction – its worth watching the videos first – it makes the tool easy to use first off; 
  • Quick – well it was until SEO Power Suite blocked my IP address – then it was smart enough to stop checking and say it would try again in a couple of hours (Power Suite just kept on trying). 
  • It was excellent for my niche sites – I added the url – told the tool to find all the pages on the site (which it did) – uploaded a list of exported keywords from Market Samurai and a few minutes later I had rankings. 
What I Don’t Like About Traffic Travis 
  • It couldn’t handle Wizzley – it just automatically tried to upload all of the site’s pages! Even when I told it to not do so and let me upload a limited sub-set of pages – it didn’t seem to be able to do that. 
  • It doesn’t allow me to monitor a mixture of sites in the same project – which is annoying – I like to manage my web2.0 sites in the same project as the main money site they are supporting. 
Traffic Travis is a one-time cost of $97,  the free version will work forever, but you are limited to 5 projects and 100 keywords per a project. 
<< EVIL AFFILIATE LINK HERE >>Note there is a heavy up-sell to Affiliorma membership site – I know little about this product and am not recommending it. 

 So at the moment I have a mixted solution – Traffic Travis for all my sites except web 2.0 sites. Keyword Strategy for web 2.0. Its not perfect though and I’m still missing functionality I got from Market Samurai. 

Anyone else got a better solution? 

Categories
Back Links Free Tools Tools

Pinterest For Backlinks, Affiliate Sales, and Recipes

I am liking Pinterest! SY gave me a heads up about why I should use Pinterest ages ago, and sent me an invite. I ignored it. Then she told me I REALLY needed to have a look, and finally I did. I figured it would be a distraction, it was, but what may well be a useful one.  First off the site scared the bejeesus out of me – it is very “pretty” – I am graphically challenged and easily scared by people who can do pretty! Apparently a lot of the users are female – I’m not surprised. 

But even for the non-visual amongst us, and, dare I say it, those of us who don’t have any clues as to “our style”, and no desire to plan a wedding, its kinda cool, and useful. 

Cool Stuff You Can Do On Printerest 

  • Its good for collecting stuff together – I did a bit of baking around Christmas I was forever googling “how to make marizpan” and similar stuff – I found some good recipes – this would have been a good place to keep them all together (maybe next year). 
  • You can upload your photos. Its as close to a good place to share images that I’ve seen. You don’t have huge options as to how to arrange them –  that seems to happen automagically – but its cool. I’d suggest that you watermark them though. 
Pinterest for Image Sharing

 And For the Internet Marketers Among You..

  • Well I’m counting at least two do-follow links here one at the top above the pic and the pic itself. Those links stay when the pic is shared too – OK multiple links from the site doesn’t have as much value sure, but it gets you in front of more eyeballs… 
  • If you sell anything pretty – photos or crafts you should be on this pronto. This is not my area of expertise – but people sharing and being to link through to your pretty cup cake holder – or whatever it is you sell can’t be bad, can it? It also works for non-fiction indie authors. Oh and you can even advertise the price on it too. (I can’t get any html to work in the description though). 
  • Hey, even if you don’t make stuff – or your product is not particularly visual, those links could be your affiliate link you know! 
Now, at the moment, there seems to be more real people on Pinterest than internet marketers, it won’t stay that way for long, as several of the big boys are calling Pinterest as the next big thing in social media. 
 
Frankly its refreshing – the interface is simple and intutive – after G+ and Facebook its a bloody joy I can assure you! Within minutes of tossing up some pretty pictures I had complete strangers share some of my stuff. That kinda gave me pause, these people did it because they wanted to not because they knew that sharing my book site might make me money. 
 
Amazing! I want to go to Myanmar this year because I don’t think it will be long before its completely over-run with tour groups, and has a McDonalds on every corner, and nice modern buses and trains.  It will loose its current run-down, worn-out bucolic charm. You might want to check out Pinterest while its still dominated by people sharing their interests, it has a certain bucolic charm too. 
 

Follow Me on Pinterest

Categories
Paid Tools Product Reviews Tools

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

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 miss my long-tail search tools 🙁  

But nature abhorrs a vacuum – well Internet Marketers do anyways – so when a tool is lost, and the whinging is loud-  something else pops up to fill its place! 

However because its Christmas – here are three two (third one coming in a day or so – the developer is just sorting out his landing page, and this is getting too long anyways) rather cool ways to work around Grumpy Google: 

Tony’s Keyword Researcher Review 

Easily get all the long-tails that Google provides through “auto-suggest” – really quick way to build out a site or an article.

This cool little tool is based on Google suggest – you know the annoying pop-up that you get when you start typing a query into Google. Its not the only tool that does this – (scrapebox.com is the common one) – but I like this tool a lot more: very, very easy to use, just watch the videos at Keyword Researcher and get on with it! I’ve been doing this for a while and Tony has some different wrinkles I’d not thought of… 

Google doesn’t say how many searchers need to be looking for a phrase before it pops up into auto-suggest, but we can all assume its probably more than a few. 

Now this tool won’t give you the competition figures, but it will give you a pretty long list of suggestions – and you can continue your investigations from there.  

Nice Features: 

  • easy and intuitive to use – doesn’t try to be overly fancy;
  • free download and trial (does everything the paid version does but only on the first 1/2 of the alphabet) 
  • one-time cost and cheap! 

Watch Out For: 

  • the tool is installed on your PC and its scrapping Google results – you’ll get banned (plus anyone else using the same IP) – its not big deal – the tool will point this out to you – wait 15 minutes – try again. 
  • this won’t give you competition or difficulty for your keyword phrase – doesn’t pretend to.  To get these you will need to put the terms through another tool: Google Adwords, Keyword Strategy, or Neale’s No Results Report (review coming this week) – would all work! 

Good For: 

Want some variation on your core keyword – for sub-headings? Want to build out a site? Looking for a few easy pages to rank on Wizzley?  

That evil, self-serving affiliate link again: Keyword Researcher – even if you don’t buy – check out the vids they are worth listening to! 

Tool number two for today (hell a girl’s gotta get her commissions up you know!) is 

Amazon Gold Mine Review 

Provides new lists each week of Amazon products based on their price/popularity/discount/top ratings and lots of reviews. In other words – the products you want to the affiliate for! Also provides a “bargain basement bin” for very cheap products – which I don’t use – but might even save you the fee if you are in the US! 

Lets be upfront – I’m not the world’s most successful Amazon affiliate, I’ve only recently started focussing on it, but I’ve sold enough random products over the years to be constantly amazed at what does actually sell on there (thank you whoever you are who decided to buy $300 worth of textbook and maths teaching guides, and the guy who bought not one, but two $500+ woodworking tools!) And no I am in neither of those niches! That’s the power of amazon-  get the customer to click through on your 99c e-book and suddenly they will remember they need to do thousands of dollars of Xmas shopping – all on your commission! 

Nice Features:

  • the last six week’s reports are available in the membership area – you don’t have to rush to download them. In fact maybe its all the reports since you became a member? Anyways I’m pretty sure on subscription you get the last 3! 
  • sorted by department – so its easy to find your niche. 

Watch Out For

  • to be up front – you can do this yourself – at least the basic query – by using some clever stuff in Google – for me – I can’t be arsed  the easy format and the tagging of which products are “NEW” on the list each week – is worth it for me! 
  • its a monthly subscription – not a huge amount of money – but yeah its money- a pain. Take a note of the sub date and remember to cancel in Paypal if you are not using it – or you have enough results for now. 
  • there’s an up-sell of some AMAZING affiliate system on the front page – I know nothing about it and don’t recommend it – all I know about Amazon I’ve learned from Dave from ZenDuck

Good For 

The criteria for product selection means that its easy for anyone to write a review – so I’m using the list to develop ideas for Wizzley for a new niche. Basically I can try a product related niche out – see if it ranks easily in Wizzley and build out a site later if it works out (and use Wizzley for the backlinks). 

Yeah and here’s that evil self-serving link again: Amazing Gold Mine – or take the criteria they use and develop your own queries! 

THE BIT AT THE BOTTOM YOU SHOULD READ!

I’ve found a cool wrinkle on the hubpages fiasco – but I don’t want to shoot my foot here – I will be saying something to subscribers later this week – so sign up OK – that’s the honking bit form just below here – that one -the big one you can’t miss! 

Categories
Marketing Online Business Passive Income Tools

I See Video In My Future – And Its Very, Very Scary!

Let’s face it – I am scared of the camera – well one that takes moving pictures anyways! I don’t really have an issue with photos of me per se, particularly if they are stored on my computer so  I can delete at will. But video has always made me nervous. 

I’ve tried it a couple of times – and I dislike the sound of my own voice. A lot.  Talking the camera is also perilously close to talking to an audience which is alive. And that gives me stage fright. 

The Dog's Keen - Me Not So Much!

But the case for audio and video is becoming a bit overwhelming. For example. No prizes for figuring out that both this blog and Pat’s over at SmartPassiveIncome.com go after the same main keyword. There’s not much in it – at the moment he’s #2 and I’m #4 in the SERPs. But I’ve never been able to figure out one little thing – why the hell does he have so much more traffic than I do? According to SEMRush he doesn’t rank for another huge keyword in this niche – so WTF was going on? 

Now there are a dozen ways to game social media figures and subscription numbers, but Pat doesn’t do any of them – his subscription numbers are genuine, you can tell by the genuine conversations going on in his comments.  Those numbers are real, and impressive. 

Then finally I noticed Pat pointing out that- its his podcasts which bring he traffic from iTunes and videos which bring him traffic from all over including YouTube. 

At the same time I have Mark from SEOCobra bending my ear, that he doesn’t get why more people aren’t adding Youtube videos to their posts in the system. Mark has a tendency to call late at night, after I’ve had a gin or two, or early in the morning when I haven’t had enough tea (its a time zone thing) – but finally, today,  once the coffee kicked in, I went oh duh! 

Its because most of us are idiots and don’t haven’t made  youtube videos promoting our sites, or demonstrating the products we are flogging.

How stupid is that? 

And its across everything – non-fiction indie  writers do book trailers. 

Wizzley allows you to add videos so you can demonstrate what you are talking about. 

If you do it right – you can submit the audio to iTunes – in fact get yourself an iTunes channel – and the video goes on Youtube.  

Do You Do Podcasts / Video – What Tools Do You Use? 

I’ve used video once to sell something. I used Picasa to string a bunch of photos together to help sell our previous house. It was a lot quicker than learning how to edit video, and I was running out of time after days spent cleaning! It worked pretty well: 

I’ve played a little with Jing – which I quite like. I’m perfectly willing to procrastinate over the technology for a while – so what are you guys using – and please,  I’m not buying a Mac – it has to work on Windows!  

Have You Signed Up Yet? 

Did you sign up for the newsletter yet? If you don’t you’ll miss out on all the inside Z-Blogger tips! And how much money I did or did not make this month.  

If you keen to check out SEO Cobra when it re-opens – remember lists are awfully good place to make announcements! 

Categories
Article Marketing Back Links Free Tools Lis Recommmends

Wizzley Review: The Answer to the Hubpages Scam?

Are Lissie and her scams right? Well its hardly my fault that scam is a the word Google likes to give this blog authority on. Well OK maybe it is my fault! And so yes I can use it to my own benefit as in HubPages Scam, SEO Scribe Scam, Keyword Academy Scam, and of course the one that started it all SiteSell Scam. 

What is Wizzley?

Wizzley is a place to write articles and get paid via affiliate programs plus get backlinks to your sites. It has a nice set of tools which are drag drop to build your “wizzes” (yeah really that’s what an article is called, where I come from is what a little boy does when he stands up to go to the loo – but whatever!). You have to have at least 400 words, the usual topics (porn, guns, drugs) are banned as are some other rather commonly over-used topics including acne, credit card debt, forex and weight loss. 

What does Wizzley offer? 

  • revenue share starts at 50% – goes to 55% after 50 articles and 60% after 100 articles; 
  • revenue is from Adsense, Amazon, Zazzle and AllPosters – and you are paid direct by those advertisers – you know like hubpages used to be. You get paid for referrals too 10% of impressions from referral’s articles – paid from Wizzley’s share. 
  • instant indexing – I created a new user on Wizzley – added an article I’d been forced to remove from HubPages – and it was indexed within the hour! 
Stuff you should know: 
  • they have human editors, don’t submit crap – they will reject it.  
  • don’t submit duplicate content – they will reject it. 
  • minimum article length: 400 words. 
  • its a new site – it opened to the public about June 2011, therefore its not huge, and it doesn’t have the internal traffic hubpages has. 
  • you can control the urls (the default is the same as the page’s title), as the site is new, you can probably get your URL of choice. 

Wizzley Compared to HubPages

  • if you want to use the site for backlinks you have to have some advertising enabled, if you don’t want Adsense on the article, turn advertising off and then add an Amazon (or Zazzle, Allposters) module somewhere. They won’t accept articles solely for the purpose of backlinks
  • unlike HubPages you don’t have to run Adsense – turn off “advertising” on the right side of the edit page if you just want to use the other modules
  • unlike HubPages Wizzley has a nice little contents module
  • unlike HubPages there are quite a number of different ways to use the Amazon module – examples  here 
  • a brand new identity of mine on Wizzley had my first article indexed in Google inside an hour. With my 4-year old ID on hubpages recent hubs have taken days to be indexed
  • others are reporting getting keyword targeted articles on the 1st or 2nd page with little backlinking. I’ll comment when I have tried myself. 
  • Wizzley has partner sites which accept German and French articles! 

If You Make Money With HubPages You Might Want to Move to Wizzley ASAP

As of 2012 – HubPages’s Amazon modules will be paid via the HPAds programs, NOT via your own Amazon affiliate ID. If you are making good money with Amazon I shouldn’t have to explain to you why this is a terribly bad idea, and why, I have spend hours today un-publishing hubs on one of my accounts so I can move them over to  Wizzley. 

If you want to know the details of why this is a bad idea: check out my Move Amazon Earning Hub to Wizzley

Ideally of course if your articles are making money, they should be on your own sites. But I haven’t time to create a bunch of sites, so in the meantime I am moving them to Wizzley. 

On the face of it I like the layout of Wizzley and think I can use it to create a good CTR to Amazon. If the site stays in Google’s good books and pages rank easily – then as they say YAH CHING! 

Oh and here’s that EVIL AFFILIATE LINK AGAIN