Blog

So, if you read my first Blog Profitz review you’re probably waiting patiently to see if and how it works, and whether or not I find ways around some of the small issues I found with it.

First of all, if you’re here from a search engine for the first time – welcome, and be sure bookmark the Blog Profitz Review series page.

Click to see what BlogProfitz is. Yes, that’s an affiliate link (that’s how we pay the bills around here). However, this is an honest review of how I’m using BlogProfitz and how it’s working for me.

Now then, normally in a series like this I don’t post just a day later – but I thought that (if you were following this series) you would find this interesting. I like things that tell me what I’m doing is working, and also things that don’t work (so I can figure out how to fix them).

I want you to take a look at the image above – those are one first day’s stats for AutoPartsUsedCars.com (click on the image for full view). It’s not much, but I did get some traffic the first day – and as you can see, normally I don’t get much on this site. It has no pagerank, and normally gets almost no visitors. We’ll see throughout this week if that keeps up. But here’s what interesting…

The image above is my incoming search traffic for this first day using BlogProfitz. I’m getting targeted, longtail search traffic ON THE FIRST DAY! This may not seem like much – but remember, I’ve done no promotion at all, no linkbuilding -NOTHING! I’m also very happy that the very first entry with a couple pageviews is one of the original content articles I got from the content club! This is very promising.

In the first post, if you remember – I edited most of the first day post titles, and I made two of the original content articles “sticky” so they appeared first on the page. Also – on this autopartsusedcsars.com site, I added in a lot of rules, and it’s supposed to post more than a 100 posts about cars per day. I added tags to all the scheduled posts (by hand – ouch) as well. Did it work (did all the scheduled posts post?)? Well, I have 278 published posts and 171 scheduled, so I’d say that they didn’t all post like they were supposed to.

In case you were wondering about the gift site – let’s take a look at what happened:

In the image above you’ll see I didn’t fare nearly as good with the BestGiftFor.com web site, but I didn’t post as many things (only 9), I didn’t tag anything, I didn’t rewrite any of the post titles, some of the posts were ebay auctions with no description (or content other than the image thumbnail), and I don’t think any original content got posted at all. Take a look at the site for yourself, it kinda looks like a spamblog right now. This is purposeful, I wanted to create a total garbage site and see exactly how it fared against the other site that I’m trying to do well with (the auto site).

So those are my first day stats – nothing impressive, but we’re making progress. Now a little bit about how I’m attacking some of the little issues I found. BlogProfitz doesn’t tag posts, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t install a plugin to do that for you. There’s a plugin called Simple Tags that works well if you want to assign tags from a written list of ones you designate. There are plenty of other autotag plugins for WordPress, such as Strictly Autotag, which generates lots of quality tags from the existing keyword in your posts using regular expressions.

I’m going to search for a decent plugin for forcing the cron to – to get these posts published in a more timely manner (where I don’t have to push them all out). I was also told that you can change the BlogProfitz settings where you can post ‘x times per week’ instead of every day – I might just try that on a few of my established existing blogs, and see how that goes!

Keep reading for future posts and updates to the Blog Profitz Review series to see how my sites do, and also to see my strategy for getting them indexed and online authority to get more traffic (and make more money!).

Click to Try BlogProfitz for yourself!

Today I’m going to talk about a new service called BlogProfitz, and show you how I’m going to use it over the next 5-6 months. The BlogProfitz service (or engine) uses the “XML-RPC” protocol to auto-publish both original content, and affiliate products to your WordPress powered web site on a regular scheduled basis. There’s a monthly fee for BlogProfitz, and if you’re going to use a service like this – the goal is of course to generate multiple automated streams of income far and beyond what you’re paying for the service.

This is Part 1 of the Blog Profitz Review series.

Blog Profitz Intro

Blog Profitz offers some tools that you won’t find in other products and services online that make it unique:

• 12 Different Affiliate programs:  create and insert posts with Commission Junction, PayDotCom, Clickbank, eBay, HotelClub, Overstock, Click2Sell, AffiliateBot, Regnow, and Bridealux
• YouTube Videos:  create posts with YouTube Videos
• The Content Club:  15,000+ free original content articles for BlogProfitz members to use
• The ability to post to your blog(s) with XML-RPC eliminates the need to install or use a plugin

Everybody knows that the process of creating a WordPress affiliate store can be both painful, and time consuming. You have to setup WordPress, do some keyword research, create initial categories and do some on-site SEO, find affiliate offers, write original content, build links – you know the drill. Wouldn’t it be great if you could automate part of that process and go directly to building links and doing promotion for the site? Blog Profitz is advertised as a system that does just that. I’ve done a lot of reviews over the years (check my sidebar), and if you’ve read any of them you know that I don’t give you a glossy garbage overview of a product just to shove you through my affiliate link and see if you will buy it or not. I do use affiliate links (that’s how I pay the bills around here), but I prefer to write a series of posts in an on-going review so you can see how I used the product, and what I thought of it over time. This is the first part in that series for Blog Profitz.

Blog Profitz Setup

Blog Profitz has 5 plans ranging from 3 to 100 blogs. I chose to use the second tier, or the ability to use the service with 10 of my blogs.

The first thing you have to do is add in at least one blog to your BlogProfitz dashboard. If you forgot to enable “XML-RPC” access to your blog you’ll get the error like in the image above.

If you get that error, go to “Settings->Writing” in your WordPress powered blog to enable remote publishing via the XML-RPC protocol, as in the image above.

Once you add at least one web site into Blog Profitz you need to enable all the affiliate programs you’re going to use. All you have to do is click on them one by one and enter your affiliate ID. Once you do, the ones available for you to use (that are activated) will have a green border – as in the image above.

Once you’ve added at least one blog and setup your affiliate programs you’re ready to start adding “posting rules”. Posting rules tell the BlogProfitz engine what to auto-post to your blog(s). In the image above I created a rule and called it “Father’s Day”. I set it up to auto-post items from Amazon, eBay, and Overstock 3-5 times per day. It’s also setup to grab original content articles from the “content club” for items related to men’s gifts 3-5 times per day. I can choose what blog(s) this rule posts to, and what category to use (per blog). The nice thing is, one rule can post to as many blogs as you want.

In the image above you can see the options for Amazon items. you choose the keywords, how many products to post, what categories of Amazon to post from, and how many items to post per day. The options vary from affiliate to affiliate, and ebay has had the most options out of the ones I’ve used so far. I will say as well, that eBay works differently with BlogProfitz than you might think. It grabs recent auctions from the same day usually, and the links are unobfuscated rover links. Everyone knows you shouldn’t use rover links, and that all affiliate links should be nofollowed – I don’t know why they’re not. Also – I’m not too keen on having eBay auctions that end the same day – I rather have live ones from the RSS feed. Whoever coded this doesn’t seem to have a decent understanding of how eBay works (or how the better WP eBay plugins work). Maybe I’m a bit jaded on that subject, since I put out WP-Easybay.

The image above shows the options for adding items with “the content club”. There are literally dozens, and dozens, and dozens of categories to choose from, and more than 15,000 original content articles. These are hand written by staff, not copied or taken from article directories. You can post by keyword, specify how many articles to get, and how many to post per day.

First Day Results

I used my BlogProfitz account to auto-post to 2 web sites. My first site Auto Parts Used Cars is setup to show auctions from eBay Motors. I’ve had this site awhile, and it’s the example site for the custom coding abilities of my eBay WordPress plugin WP-Easybay. What I was lacking was some original content – and blog posts. I had long since setup all the pages in the left sidebar with Foreign and domestic car auctions. With Blog Profitz I setup about 18 rules to auto-post used car auctions 3-5 times per day. I also setup a rule to auto post original content 3-5 times per day. You can see the results on my homepage, there are two original content articles first, and then car auctions. I did rework the original content posts to have line breaks, bold sub-titles, and an image with a keyword alt and title tag. So far, the auctions aren’t posting the description from eBay, and I don’t know why (yet). The title and thumbnail image are coming through just fine. BlogProfitz doesn’t tag anything either, so I had to go back and rework all the posts adding tags. While I was in there I rewrote all the post titles, to see if that would help any SEO wise. It’ll be interesting to see how this site does over the next few days, as it really didn’t ever get any traffic before at all.

Next I decided to try Blog Profitz on a more traditional affiliate site Best Gift For. This is a site that one of my interns started last December, and he ended up quitting before he got any traffic or creating any content. I should say – he got “fired” for not doing anything with it (lol). Seems like the perfect test for Blog Profitz. As I mentioned earlier I setup items to post from Amazon, Overstock, eBay, and original content from the Content Club. As in my other site, the eBay listings don’t have any descriptions, just the image and link. Overstock and Amazon items look fine – I haven’t seen any original content just yet. I might have to choose different keywords.

I also chose two different strategies here. On the Auto site, I posted 117 things the first day. On the Gift site I only posted 9. I’ll be watching and testing these sites over the next few days as neither really got any traffic at all before I started posting with BlogProfitz.

Conclusion

I think the BlogProfitz system is very promising, and it looks like it may work great with some domains I had that weren’t in use. I don’t care what anyone says – there’s no way in hell you can set it up in 5 minutes and start making money, but nothing does that. It does take some thought and consideration for keywords, categories, etc.

Pros:

• you don’t need a plugin, there’s nothing to update or upgrade ever
• it doesn’t just post affiliate products – you can get original content
• one “rule” can post to multiple blogs
• the posts are staggered at different times and intervals

Cons:

• none of the posts created are tagged
• you have to post at least one thing per day per rule
• you can’t put multiple items from a rule in the same post, they have to be separate posts
• if you have a low traffic blog, cron doesn’t always run and scheduled posts are missed

Keep reading for future posts and updates to the Blog Profitz Review series to see how my sites do, and also to see my strategy for getting them indexed and online authority to get more traffic (and make more money!).

Click to Try BlogProfitz for yourself!

To say that WordPress and Facebook were made for each other might be stretching it, but WordPress users are finding that Facebook offers another outstanding medium for getting their message out. With social networking becoming an increasingly important way to build relationships for business, the fastest growing, largest SN site should not be ignored. These 10 plugins will maximize your Facebook functionality and efficiency when using WordPress.

1. Facebook Connect – This plugin adds Facebook to your WordPress blog using the Facebook Connect API. It’s handy enough to allow easy publishing of comments straight to the news feed, and provides comment avatars that display Facebook profile photos. Facebook Connect integrates nicely with a single login with your Facebook account.
2. Share on Facebook – This plugin adds a footer link that enables you to add that page or post to a Facebook mini-feed. When you activate the plugin the link will appear with the Facebook icon and the text “Share on Facebook.” Users will be taken to their Facebook page where they can add the link to their profile. Going viral just might start right here!
3. Facebook Posted Items – This plugin allows you to pull selected information from Facebook without having to login. You determine which friends you want to draw from, and their posts appear in list and link form. This plugin saves a ton of time scanning through Facebook pages to give you only what you really want to look at.
4. Gigya Socialize – This very friendly plugin lets you authenticate users through Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, AOL, MySpaceID and more. Update Facebook and your other SN pages right from WordPress and include your RSS feed, and don’t forget to invite your friends and followers to visit your blog or site, too.
5. JanRain RPX – This plugin allows logins on your WordPress site from Facebook Connect, and also from Google, MySpaceID, LinkedLN, Twitter, and more. RPX makes your site more accessible, and that will boost traffic nicely and increase interaction.
6. Status Updater – This is a multi-tasker you’ll immediately appreciate. It updates your Facebook status, Group page wall, fan page wall, MySpace and Twitter whenever you post something fresh. Save time and tedium with one simple click.
7. Fotobook – Fotobook uses the Facebook API for flawless importing of your photo album(s) into your WordPress installation. Link to entire albums or display random or selected photos in a sidebar. Get creative adding images to your blog or site, and increase the time your visitors stay onboard.
8. Facebook Dashboard Widget – This plugin lets you stay busy working on your WordPress sites and stay connected with your Facebook community at the same time. It’s perfect for checking out the latest happenings without having to login to Facebook. Options including checking status, getting RSS feeds, Facebook notification feed and more are accessed with individual widgets on your WordPress admin dashboard. Your productivity won’t suffer by getting lost on Facebook when you should be writing, organizing, or otherwise administrating!
9. Friend Bookmarklet – This is a great way to know if promoting your blog or site on your Facebook page is paying off. Friend Bookmarklet detects Facebook links, hcards and wink.com searches, giving you the opportunity to add those folks to your WordPress links network.
10. Wordbook – Wordbook is a simple and effective way to get your latest blog onto your Facebook wall, where your “boxes” tab will list your most recent offerings.

For many users of this versatile tool, WordPress is becoming the command center for their social and business networking, in addition to its workhorse nature for blogging. These tools focus on Facebook integration, combining the sleek and flexible usability of WordPress with the hub of social networking for growing millions. Maybe they really were made for each other!

James Adams is a full time staff writer working for Cartridge Save where he reviews products such as the HP 342 ink cartridge. He also helps update their blog about design and advertising.

Ask yourself this question – does your SEO suck? According to Shoemoney – it does. Todays article is based in part on his post Where my Hatred of SEO comes from. The man in that picture (Shoemoney) hates SEO. If you read his post it stems from the fact that he has never really had to do SEO in order to achieve success. SEO was usually an afterthought. He has some really, really good things to say – and in my opinion there are a few small elements he forgot to talk about.

His points are:

1. SEO should be an afterthought – build content people want to naturally link to
2. Getting traffic is useless if you can convert it to customers or sales
3. Become so big Google cannot ignore you
4. Do not fear making changes to your site because of potential negative effects to your rankings

I find it funny that his first point is the (now) age old saying ´content is king´. His second point is valid – if you concentrate only on rankings and forget about conversions you are missing out on sales. The third and fourth points I can only agree with for certain businesses.

I love Shoemoney – and I have been reading his posts for as long as I can remember. I do find though, that a lot of the time a lot of what he writes about relates to the world of Internet Marketing, and not as much for main street businesses. I mean, for example – if I am a dentist in Pittsburgh the thought of becoming so big google cannot ignore me is probably not an option. A dentist promotes products and services and his online web presence is merely an extension of his marketing and advertisement strategy to get new customers – not to build a brand. I mean, a dentist most certainly could turn his web site into a help site, forum, community – and let that brand complement his business to get even better rankings. But more times then not all they want to do is come up on the first page of google for mycity dentist.

The last point, about not making changes to pages for fear your rankings will change, I think you have to ponder what that means and how it will affect you. For instance, if you are as big as Shoemoney you do not care about SEO because you are already pagerank 6, and everything you do already oozes authority online. I think something more important to remember is that you shouldn’t be relying solely on google for traffic. Make sure you are getting traffic from Yahoo, bing, social media, and wherever else you can get it. Make sure that changes to your page layout and design complement your listings and SEO – and that they don’t obfuscate it.

Is Google too Powerful?

I think that one of Shoemoney´s underlying themes is to not let google completely dominate your business model. Letś look at one of the links he gave as a reference Graywolfś Why everyone should turn off blog comments. Michael Gray (Graywolf) says heś turned off his comments because the added content that keywords add change the SEO and rankings of the page – in addition to the fact that he doesn´t have the time to moderate or deal with them anymore.

Read that entire post from Graywolf – you might also be surprised that heś removed all the dates from his posts because google often ranks content based on the fact that the newer it is, the fresher or more important it is. Guess what – the comments were adding dates to his post. You probably noticed on this site I don´t have any dates on my posts either. I removed them 3 years ago for that very reason. My comments still have dates, however.

So we have here the two extremes, Shoemoney who thinks you should never do specific things like this to get or stay in googleś good graces, and Michael Gray who has done specific things for better rankings. Who is right, and who is wrong?

How much do you know?

In my opinion, whether your SEO sucks or not depends on what you know, combined with what you need. I have been watching the comments roll in from that Shoemoney post, and I could not resist mentioning this one that just came through:

Author: James Is (Not Working)
Comment:
I COMPLETELY AGREE with this post, and I’ve got the experience to prove it. You know, I was making some fat cash off a site last year. I was slapped by Google, and have not been able to recover. My site was SEO’d to the T. I watched my traffic plummet from 3,000 visitors a day / $18,000 / month to about 50 visitors a day. I am submitting resumes, bar tending, and trying to launch new sites while I figure it out. I have reworked the old site and am offering more value driven content, but I have a feeling it is going to take at least a year. It took me a year to get to where I was. I certainly hope I can recover. Building a business on SEO is like building a castle on the sand. Never again will I fall for that trap.

So this guy agrees with Shoemoney because he had a site making 18 grand a month and google suddenly gave him a penalty that reduced his income to zero and now heś out work work claiming building sites on SEO is like building castles in the sand.

First of all – he doesn´t say what his site was about, how much original content and authority he had, and how long he was making that kind of money. More than likely he did something against google Webmaster quality guidelines and got a penalty for being a thin affiliate site. Secondly, if he was making that much money and didn reinvest part of it in other forms of marketing to strengthen his business model – shame on him.

SEO is not just keywords and where to put them. SEO is doing all the things you need to do for optimum search engine place. Itś not necessarily how to game google, it´s how to get natural search rankings because you deserve them.

SEO IS:

• keyword research
• site setup
• competition
• metadata
• copywriting
• internal and external links
• linkbating
• integrating marketing with content

Shoemoney thinks that people shouldn’t have to learn to use SEO, and by creating content people want to link to they will naturally get good rankings. That is an admirable statement and one that could apply to lots of people. In my daily routine with clients that have regular businesses, and even people that want to create sites to make money online so they can quit the daily grind – creating good content alone just is not going to cut it.

For instance, a lot of my new clients already have 100 blog posts of pretty high quality content, but they still don’t get any traffic. Once I teach them how to use a little SEO, they start getting more traffic – and the targeted traffic they wanted in the first place. Most business owners aren’t very good at writing marketing copy. If that is you – you will also be bad at writing blog post titles. You may also have a hard time figuring out where and how to use the right keywords too. With a little tiny bit of SEO training – these same people start to get traffic FOR THE FIRST TIME!

I do agree with Shoemoney – don´t put all your apples in Google. But then again, you at least need to know how you can leverage it´s benefits for your advantage – because not all of us have a year or more to wait to build up a big brand like Shoemoney did. Most business would like to start getting more traffic now.

If your SEO sucks – find out what you don know and have someone (like me) help you. It does´t have to cost thousands of dollars to learn how to do better online.

The popular Yelp.com review site is accused of extortion, and apparently this is not the first time.

What Yelp.com is accused of?

The crux of it an Animal Hospital in Long Beach had a bad review and noticed it was 18 months old (and possibly not even based in fact). Yelp.com has a policy of allowing reviews to be posted for visits that occured during the last 12 months – and the facts of that review revealed the visit was 18 months before posting. The “Cats & Dogs Animal Hospital” contacted Yelp.com to have it removed (which they did).

Guess what happened next? A new negative review appeared 5 days later and then Yelp.com salesman started calling the animal hospital using high pressure tactics to sell an “advertising package” ($300/mo) to remove the negative review. You might say coincidence – right?

Well if you are – then think about this…the animal hospital refused to buy the $300 per month advertising package, and 5 days later ANOTHER negative review popped up. The lawsuit paperwork reveals that Yelp called the animal hospital frequently using “high pressure tactics” promising to move or delete negative reviews in exchange for a 1 year advertising contract – and even allegedly said they wouldn’t appear in google or search results.

This could still be coincidence right? Well, when the hospital refused to buy the ad contract – the original bad review from the 18 month old visit was republished. Followed by another bad review from the second reviewer. Still coincidence? I still say – highly doubtful in my personal opinion.

What allegedly happened here might no doubt be the work of an unscrupulous rogue employee within a large company of well meaning workers. On the other hand – it might be a regular business practice. When I read that article on Wired, what immediately came to mind for me was conversations I’ve had with clients of mine who own main street businesses, and their dealings with salesman in the new directories.

Something Phonebooks Could Never Do

If you don’t own a business you may not know this, but the phonebook, yellow pages, and local newspaper charge a LOT of money for advertisement. I can remember back in the 90′s working for an Internet Service Providor and the Yellow Pages ad salesman coming round once per year. To purchase a 3 or 4 inch square ad in the yellow pages could cost $5,000 per year (or more). The same ad in the local paper could run $500 per week (or may, depending on how many days it runs). The local phone book and newspaper have held for decades a stranglehold on main street businesses because that’s where the majority of people turned to find local merchants and services. If you were a dentist, doctor, accountant, lawyer, pizza palace, or muffler shop – it was vital that you have exposure in the yellow pages and local paper.

Phonebooks are dead now. Where I live we used to get 4-6 phonebooks per year. Now, I’m lucky to get one, and the last time it arrived it was 1/2 the size it used to be, about double the size of a paperback in width and height, but not as thick. Why? Because people don’t use them anymore. They use their cell phones, itouches, iphones, blackberrys, ipad, laptop, netbook, and some even lcd screens from their car. “Local search” is blowing up worldwide, and “getting found” online to a business is more important now than it ever was. I’m not just talking about the bartender at your favorite watering hole getting the business a MySpace or Facebook page either.

If you own a business you have to be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the “public Internet”. It’s very easy to setup your own web site in this day and age – even on a minimal budget. In my experience half of more of American small business owners don’t have a web site – because they don’t feel they need it. The local brake shop, the donut hole, the greasy spoon, and in some cases the lawyer or auto insurance guy may not yet have a local web site. Even if you do – if you don’t hire an expert to “get it ranked”, it won’t matter anyway (because no one will ever see it).

In my experience the small business owners that do “get” what the online world can do for them are people that thrive on “leads”. The local window and siding guy, the mortgage consultant, and even people like plumbers, painters, and general construction contractors. These are the people that live and work in a semi-populated area, and they’re very concerned about what comes up when you type something in like “painting contractor tampa” in google.

Try typing in “painting contrator yourcity” and see what you get. You might be surprised that all the results aren’t actual painters. Some are sites with nothing more than a list of painters, or a “directory”. Rather than look at individual painter sites all – a list of painters makes it easy to find one close to your neighborhood. But wait! Some of these directory listing sites have “reviews”. Now there you go – there’s something phonebooks could never do, offer interactivity and “real reviews, from real people”!

The “Squeeze”

It’s only natural that some of the first online directories would be from actual phone companies, like Yellow pages (AT&T), and Superpages (was Verizon). These sites offer “enhanced listings” just like real phonebooks, but they also offer reviews that nearly anyone can submit. When you do a search for something like “painter atlanta” usually half or less of the results are painters, and the rest of dirctory sites like superpages, and yellow pages – but many are now more like “review sites”, such as Angie’s List, Service Magic, or even Kudzu. Yelp is starting to get ranked more and more for searches like this as well.

In the beginning many local directory sites like this were just listing sites that made money form advertisements alone, but the tide has surely changed with the ripe smell of money in the air. I’ve talked to painters, plumbers, and general contractors who were clients of mine and they described the phone conversations with salesman at a directory like ServiceMagic.com. The directory says right at the top of the page “pros screened and approved by Service Magic” leading you to believe there’s some kind of rigorous entry process. I was told for the most part if you pay the fee (upwards of $5,000/yr? for most categories) – you’re in!

Let’s say you’re a local plumber and need first page google ranking for “yourcity plumber” to survive and get business. Can you imagine having to pay the listing fees for Yelp, Service Magic, Kudzu, Angie’s List, Yellowpages, Google Local search, Yahoo local search, and Superpages? I know businesses that can and do pay all those fees. “The Squeeze” occurs when you run in to a situation like what allegedly happened at Yelp where you feel forced to pay the fees to combat negative listings. There are two things going on here I don’t like. One is the blatant manipulations of the reviews in the first place (tainting the supposed “real reviews” usefullness of the site), and the second is the fact that asking for money to remove the negative reviews really boils down to extortion.

What You Can Do as A Business Owner

The nice thing about the Internet is that (despite what I just pointed out) – it’s a level playing field (provided you have someone that can help you). What you can do is take the elements of the Internet that could work against you (interactivity) and use them to your advantage.

Specifically…

• Start a Reputation Management Campaign: If you have negative reviews online, hire an online marketing specialist to run interference for you. A “reputation management” campaign can lessen the impact of negative reviews by enhancing your brand and online image with positive information
• Start an Online Authority Campaign: Instead of paying outrageous monthly fees to multiple online directory sites – invest that money building up a network of your own online properties to get ranked for the keywords that can bring you business through an online marketing consultant

John Pratt has 15 years experience working online, let me him put his skills to work for you. To find out more, just fill out the quick form on his “hire me” page.

Have you ever had to work with a client’s site on WordPress on Windows IIS web hosting (like Godaddy) – and you have no idea how to get the permalinks to work? The problem is mod_rewrite generally doesn’t work on Apache with Windows webhosts. Sometimes with a client – moving the entire WordPress site from Windows to Linux isn’t an option (or in their budget). So what can you do?

Believe it or not, there is another way. In the root of the Windows web site find a file called “web.config” (an XML file), and download it to your local PC. Open it in a text editor (like Notepad), and you’ll see something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<rewrite>
<rules/>
</rewrite>
</system.webServer>
</configuration> 

Just change that to this, and save on your local PC, and re-upload in FTP:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<rewrite>
<rules>
<rule name="Main Rule" stopProcessing="true">
<match url=".*" />
<conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
<add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
<add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Rewrite" url="index.php/{R:0}" />
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>

This IIS fix is not a complete fix for mod_rewrite, but you will be able to get “pretty permalinks” working in WordPress hosted on Windows web hosting. I fixed this on Godaddy – and the URL’s worked just fine.

For more information visit the Using Permalinks page in the WordPress Codex.

If you use Adsense on your web site, are you targeting the appropriate content to get the ads displayed that you want?

I am astounded sometimes by people that say that they can’t make any money with google Adsense.  If you get as little as 50-100 pageviews per day you can make money with Adsense!  The problem is, you have to learn how to display ads that are relevant – so people will click on them!

I have a client right now that I built an resource site for, to be used for a particular market.  Let’s say it’s “electronic gadgets”.  If he installs some adsense ads and his main site keywords revolved around electronics terms – the ads displayed could vary wildly from pages, to posts, to categories, and tags.

Here’s an example, the home page targets “gadget reviews”, but there’s one whole page devoted to “DVR’s” (digital video recorders).  If the adsense ads displayed for that page are for gadget reviews, they might not get many clicks.  But if they’re ads specifically “DVR’s” – the odds of getting clicked go up about 1,000%!

Believe it or not, you can target sections of a page and tell google adsense to use just that section for keywords to generate adsense ads, and to ignore everything else.

<!– google_ad_section_start –>

content you want to suggest ads from

<!– google_ad_section_end –>

If you’d prefer, you can also tell it to “ignore” sections that might be throwing off the ads:

<!– google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) –>

content you want adsense to ignore

<!– google_ad_section_end –>

For my clients site, we wanted the adsense ads to reflect the post/page title and it’s content – ignoring the sidebar, header, and footer.  So we placed that code around “the loop”.  Of course, you’re going to need enough content to actually spawn some ads from adsense (and not get public service announcements), but you should have good original content on all your pages already anyway!

Have you ever heard of the “first page of google ranking penalty”? Probably not – because I just made it up. I made it up to name a current trend that I’ve been seeing over and over again in regards to first page google rankings. I’m a professional linkbuilder and SEO, and in addition to WordPress work that’s what I do day in, and day out. People hire me to get ranked in google for their keywords – so I’m constantly watching search listings for a wide variety of keywords. In addition – I see a lot of web sites get on the first page of google (because I put them there) for the first time.

Google is smart. The algorithm is constantly changing to keep you from trying to “game the search engine”, or figure out the exact method to get perfect rankings every time. Google likes sites that naturally attain authority over time. If you do something that seems out of the ordinary, like get an unusually large amount of links in a short period of time, or add an unusually large amount of content to fast – it looks unnatural.

What I’ve noticed is that if you setup a web site properly, and start to build links – sometimes you can be surprised how fast you can make it to the first page of google results. It can be pretty easy at times to rank #8, #9, or #10 on the first page. But it never lasts. I’ve had half a dozen times recently where it only lasts anywhere from 3-10 days. Then it goes to the top of the second page of results.

SEO Scams

I want to talk a minute about what I call “SEO scammers”. These are the guys that claim to get you on the first page of google “fast”. They buy links, or build a few high PR links – or maybe some quick social media exposure. They can get you ranked on google’s first page of results….just long enough to get your money. Then, once you fall to the second page of results – they are long gone.

If you’re going to hire an SEO expert, the best advice I can give is to ask a lot of questions. How do they build the links? To they build them buy hand, or buy them? Do they comments on blogs? Submit to directories? Use Social Media? Submit to article directories and document repositories? Post links in forums? Can they help you get registered with search engines and setup an XML sitemap?

Sometimes (if you know enough) you can trick your “SEO expert” into inadvertently admitting they aren’t an expert at all. Have they researched your keywords? Can they tell you what your SEO competition is? Can they give you examples of how many searches per day/month your keywords bring in for broad, phrase, and exact match results? Can they give you an actionable list of items that need to be done to actually compete with and beat your competition on the first page of google?

Google’s Preventative Measure

Online authority is an ongoing and arduous task that never ends. It can take 3-6 months to get “consistently” ranked on the first page of google, and then regular work to maintain it. I think that what I call the “first page google ranking penalty” is really more Google’s own ‘preventative measure’ to ensure you can actually maintain a first page ranking. Now that google has switched to it’s new algorithm (caffeine) as of Jan 15, 2010 – the index is a little more “immediate”. Google likes to show you some of it’s latest and greatest results, but I think the algorithm also has a little followup script I like to call “15 seconds of fame”.

In other words, if you get enough authority to push you to the first page of google – you’ll get your 15 seconds of fame. But without supporting elements, your fame won’t last. So if have an article that gets 400 tweets, or 100 diggs, or you get a big pagerank link – you might make the first page of google. If it’s the first time you’ve been on the first page some time after a week you’ll get swatted down to the second page of results. I don’t think of this as a penalty, as much of a “holding period” – where google is waiting to see if your site is really growing (or not). If you continue to get organic links, quality traffic, and have new content released regularly – you stand a pretty good chance of getting on the first page of google in a permanent spot. If your online authority isn’t naturally growing – odds are you “online fame” will fall from the second page of results right back into search engine obscurity.

JTPratt is available for hire as an Online Marketing Consultant and SEO.

A lot of people overlook the fact that you can can use video to get backlinks, online authority and brand exposure online. I have to admin, I haven’t used it nearly as much as I could have over the years – but I have used it enough for myself and for my clients to know that it shouldn’t be ignored, and should be part of every online marketing plan.

Where do I Get the Video From?

I think this is the one problem holding most people back from online marketing with Video promotion. A lot of people think that the video has to be of “you”. If you have a web cam – or flip video, or even a decent cell phone or digital camera (or camcorder) you can can easily make a video of yourself or of something to use for promotion.

One way most people forget about is what we call a “screencast”. That’s where you record your computer screen while you’re talking about providing an audio commentary. This is one of the easiest ways to quickly made a video, and there are so many things you can record. Show “how to” do things in WordPress, various online marketing or backlink building techniques, or even how to use different features of your own web site. For one of my recent clients, I just did a walk-through of his web site in a video with an audio annotaion.

Most of use have been using Camtasia to do this for years, but there are many in-browser free screencasting tools now available.

Screencasting Tools (for free!):

ScreenToaster
Screencast-o-Matic
AVI Screen
CamStudio
Jing

Editing the Video?

People edit their video in all kinds of ways. Some people add background music, titles, and credits. I’d say that whether you’re putting together a video of someone speaking, or a screencast – the most important thing is that it’s branded properly. You can some type of quick intro title telling where it came from, and credits saying the same – or some people have constant lettering in the corner while it plays with the URL or your site prominently displayed. Whatever tools you’re using to create the video, if possible take every advantage to ensure it’s branded properly because it could be online for years. Especially if you share it through free video sharing sites, because then other sites will pickup and share the video as well.

Can you SEO an Video?

It doesn’t matter what your market or niche is, you can benefit from having a video out there. Some people have limited visions about their search listings. They concentrate on their web site coming up on the #1 position or first page of google (which is important). They forget about the other 9 slots on that page. Why allow your competitors to be listed there for your brand keyword? Get video and social media listings on there with your main company listing so you completely dominate the first page of results!

I also find that many people don’t understand that you can SEO a video. You can give it a great SEO title (which is often enough for rankings). I normally try to SEO my video title for both my main keywords, and my brand (as I would on the web site itself).

I did this when I created my Smorgasbord.net Amazon Kindle 2 Review. It worked pretty good too, because now when people google my domain name the video comes up right under my domain listing like this:

The goal was also to rank for searches for “amazon kindle 2 review”, and had I built more backlinks I would have come up for that keyword phrase as well. It’s funny how the weight of a domain plays in ranking, because often if make a video SEO title you can rank in google for your YouTube listing, but not your own blog or web site. That’s where video promotion can really come in handy. Most video sites also allow a short description, and sometimes categories and tags – which can help a lot. At YouTube if you put in your domain name in the description starting with “http://” it will automatically be linked! It’s a nofollow link, but so what – many search engines don’t even pay attention to that, and people DO click on URL’s! Some video sharing sites like YouTube allow you to edit the video and add annotations (and links) online, without editing software.

Where should I upload my Video?

Well, due to bandwidth, the last thing you probably want to do is upload it to your own web site. That’s why YouTube is so popular. You can upload the video on their bandwidth dime, and still embed it within your blog or web site. You might think that some of your video would also do well if you uploaded it to some of the other popular video sharing sites, like Vimeo, Break, DailyMotion, MetaCafe, etc.

I recommend using a free tool like TubeMogul.com. You can upload your video ONE TIME to tube mogul, and then slingshot it to all the video sites online (kind of like a ping.fm for video).

Here’s a screenshot when I uploaded the Amazon Kindle review video:

You can see where I added in the title, description, and tags. In this next screenshot – you can see where I sent to various video sites. The little yellow dot turns green when it gets successfully uploaded to each video site. You can see where you can even send the update to twitter and facebook!

Conclusion

The online world is constantly changing, and the days of just getting a static web site and getting ranked in search engines for that one site ARE OVER. If your web site or brand is going to use online marketing campaigns for the greatest amount of exposure possible – you need to take advantage of all forms of online promotion. That includes video promotion, social media marketing, press releases, linkbuilding, and more.

JTPratt is an Online Marketing expert, to learn more about his services and to hire him click here.

Bill field was the first Online Marketing Intern I hired last Fall. I’ve posted some updates from him, but things have been so busy this year I’ve not had a chance to fully do justice to all the hard work he’s put in since he started. I have some reviews he wrote of ebooks that you’ll see in the future, but since his internship ended yesterday – I wanted to take the time to talk about his accomplishments now.

As a WordPress Consultant and SEO, I’ve developed a unique 4 phase system that I use when working with clients to take them from where they’re at to online success. I decided to start this internship program last Fall as a test. I wanted to see if I could write my system out in a private web site for just the interns, and have them follow my directions to build out a new web site. They would start with an empty brand new domain with a default blank install of WordPress and nothing more – and the rest would be up to them. I was looking for people with a working knowledge of WordPress and basic understanding of online marketing.

These are the “phases” of my system:

Phase 1: Security and Indexing – This phase is what I call the “foundation”, because making sure your web site is secure and indexable by search engines is the foundation of all your online success. I would say that 98% of all 150 clients I had last year had insecure WordPress web sites, and had no idea how to make them indexable by search engines.

Phase 2: Competitive Analysis – Most “online marketers” do some basic keyword research, but most don’t understand the difference between phrase, broad, and exact match – or know how to find keywords with lots of search traffic, but low competition. I also take these keyword phrases and look at the top 10 results in google for each so I can break down what the makeup of their authority is, and create an actionable plan to compete with them on the first page of google.

Phase 3: On-Site SEO – I call this phase “erecting the house on the foundation”, because we take the keywords from phase 2 and put them in the right places on the web site. Without the right keywords in the right places, what chances do you stand at getting good search listings?

Phase 4: Linkbuilding and Authority – This is where the rubber meets the road. Once your web site is setup to be indexed with the right keywords, without traffic it’s useless. Who wants a brand new store filled with products and no customers? This phase is all about how to create a long lasting and ongoing plan for building traffic and online authority.

So what happened here is Bill worked my plan for 4 months, he had to resign a month early for personal reasons. I can only imagine what he would have done with that last month had he been able to stay! Bills assigned site was “Best Gifts For“.

These are his accomplishments:

“Best Gifts For“.

• 47 posts
• 10 pages
• 46 comments
• 439 visitors/mo
• 1,264 pageviews/mo
• 326 indexed pages in google
• 85 pages indexed in yahoo
• 21 pages indexed in bing
• 13 article directory submissions
• 110 directory submissions
• 50 blog comments per week
• 2 out of 3 assigned keywords on the top of the 2nd page of google
• 11,153 backlinks in Yahoo (and growing every day)

I think what he’s done is nothing short of amazing, but it only shows that the only limits online are your own abilities and the amount of time you put in. In the next post I’ll reveal a few of Bill’s backlink building secrets. In the future, I will be opening up my 4 Phase System to everyone (once all the documentation is complete). Signup to my mailing list below so you are notified of the launch when it’s ready.

I’m using my interns to create an entire Online Marketing Course using the exact same principles and techniques I use with small business and corporate clients every day. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, signup to my email list using the form below. I’m not going to spam you with crazy “magic bullet” and “list control” offers. I will only send you email every now and again about techniques and products I actually use (there’s a small handful), and later this year my Online Marketing Course when it’s available.