But to make things easier, there are some plugins that you can just… plug in to WordPress that let your visitors rate posts or pages. Actually they rate a product or service, and write their review in the comment box. What does that mean ? Well the post to describe the product is written by you, with your affiliate link. But reviews are written for you, by users.

Of course you can write your own in the comments, maybe to have at least one review, if you have used the product yourself. In any case, your post would then only have to describe the product.

The plugins let you rate products on multiple criteria that you define yourself. There are 3 plugins you can use to do this. You should visit their respective site to decide which one is the best for you. There are 2 paid plugins and one free that I have to show you.

• WP Review Site : $97 for one site, $199 for multiple site. You can see how it looks on http://www.awardwinninghosts.com/, where web hosting companies are reviewed. You can define your affiliate links for the keywords, there’s also a widget you can use in the sidebar, so the products listed show the average rating.
• WFReview : $139 and you can install it on unlimited websites. It has more features than the other ones, just see the video on the home page and you’ll see all the things possible. You can automatically generate reviews for example, scrap directories to make automatic posts, define affiliate links for specific keywords…
• GD Star Rating : This is the free one. You are able to use multi rating, and there are also many graphic sets to download. So if you want to rate with hearts or thumbs up instead of stars, just download a set you like. I guess you can even design your own set to use the plugin. You can also add ratings for the comments. There is a widget you can use in the sidebar too. You’ll find tutorials on customization, graphics, widgets… The plugin is free, however the premium support is paid ($25.00 per hour), but with the tutorials you may not have that much problems. Of course you can comment on the GD Star Rating website and the creator will answer your questions.

So if you’d have to go for a paid one, I guess WFReview should be preferred as it is cheaper for a multiple site license use. Both paid ones have a forum support. But GD Star Rating is free and certainly worth a try as it offers what most affiliates need.

What I’ve done ?

Principally, I’ve used the Conduit Method, by Chris Rempel to build and markets few websites. This is something I already mentioned here, I know, but this can’t hurt to tell you again how simple and profitable this is.And again the Chris Rempel’s VIP reports are cheap and can immediately be put into action. Now, just a tip, if after you buy one of his VIP reports you get an upsell that allows you to get all others VIP reports, even the ones that are not released yet, then take this opportunity.

(I don’t want to sound like I’m hard selling, but if you are looking for simple and smart ways to make money online, then I hugely recommend you buy Chris Rempel stuff, at least take the Conduit Method, it’s only $14.95.)

There was a comment recently on this blog about Chris Rempel stuff I promote, someone said it was good to say a product is good but you have to use it. I replied that I am using it and am making money with this. I’ve always wondered if I should add screenshots of some affiliate networks accounts to show proof. I’ve always thought there will be people who say you edited your pictures with Photoshop, or you’re just bragging about your earnings. Also I am not sure it helps anyone to show a screenshot.

Plus, by outsourcing few tasks like article writing I’ve been able to do much more things. My productivity increased and speaking of this…

Productivity

I’ve joined the Wake Up Productive program by Eben Pagan. By the name you have guessed this course teach you how to be more productive. This is a good course that is spread on 12 weeks. It’s $297, and currently closed. It was opened for a very short time at the end of december, or maybe start of January.

However, just after I joined, I downloaded a free interview Jazon Katzenback (aka JohnCow.com) did with Mark Joyner. Mark Joyner is a big name in the Internet Marketing industry. The report was about planning in 2009. And (I’m sure many of you already know this website), I discovered Simpleology. Believe it or not, I didn’t know about this website 3 months ago, but this is an extremely high value resource.

Simpleology 101, the simple science of getting what you want. Create an account there, it is free. You’ll get a full course on productivity and how to manage your time better and get many more things done. And you know what ? I prefer the Simpleology website than the Wake Up Productive course. Why ? There is a community forum, support, and tons of free resources, and a lesson (video, ebook to print, audio) to learn and practice everyday. With Wake Up Productive, you have one lesson (video too) each week (12 weeks) to practice and integrate to your routine. The only way to communicate with others is via comments, just like any other blog

Don’t get me wrong, Wake Up Productive is very good too, Eben style is great and there is a high value in it that’s what I stayed in this program too, but I guess this is better to take these kind of programs one by one, and not at the same time.

Since Mark Joyner is an internet marketer too, be prepared to receive some emails that promotes many of his products. However, you will receive more free stuff from Simpleology, you don’t have to buy anything more if you don’t want too. But I suggest you keep the emails he sends you, because when he offers something this is at a discounted price, if you then want to buy it from Simpleology you may not get this same discount.

Now something that you MUST read too : I got an email for one of his book : Mind Control Marketing. The email said that this book was so big that he had to stop selling it. And people started to resell their version on Amazon Marketplace or eBay for something like $500. I didn’t believe it really, so I checked Amazon and eBay, and searched for Mind Control Marketing. And indeed, this is the case. But you can now get the ebook version for only $27 if you create an account with Simpleology.

As for the free resources I mentioned, these are the ebook version of his bestsellers “The Irresistible Offer” or “The Great Formula”, still selling well at Amazon.

Damn I’m not even getting paid for telling you about this ! There is something inside Simplology 102, the simple science of money ($97 but you’ll get an offer to have it free with another product that you can try for $1, I did), and this is about “Word of Mouth”, that is the most powerful marketing model for your business.

Thinking about creating my own product

I don’t know really if it will be about Internet Marketing or launching online business, if I’ll write it in French or English and many other things. I’ve signed up for an InfoMillionaire membership, this is a course by Frank Kern, and a good one. Basically, you send traffic to a squeeze page that redirects to an affiliate program. You then create your own product, and market it to the list you just built. You need to create a product that is better than the one you are promoting, and of course you now have a targeted list to market to.

I don’t know if I will stay in the InfoMillionaire membership, I have received 2 monthly issues for now. This is very good yes, but I know there are other courses that can teach you how to create your own product and how to build your list. And oh, the 2 last Chris Rempel VIP reports are The Rapid List Profit Formula, and the 24 Hour Hot Product Formula.

The 24 Hour Hot Product Formula hast just been released, it is live from yesterday. I didn’t have time to read it, but I can tell you it’s 28 pages, and that this is the method Chris Rempel used to create $76k in December 2008. What he says is that Affiliate Marketing is great, no inventory, no customer support, but then you have all the promotion and traffic generation work to do. Creating your own product can be done in 24 hours, and doesn’t take that much effort, even less than being an affiliate. And all the promotion and traffic generation is done by… affiliates. When I will have read it I’ll provide a review as always.

Video Marketing

I joined Easy Video Sales few months ago, a course created by Jason Moffatt, and thus have started a bit of video marketing. Video websites receive high traffic and why not have some more exposure for your websites ? So I have made a few videos for some offers but I was concerned by getting more traffic, not just YouTube.

I have tried Video Post Robot, a software that automates your video submission to 18 video websites. It used to be more but some repeated bugs lead the team to remove some. Is it good ? Well, yes it is. How much ? $197. I said I tried, this means I asked for a refund. Now I’m wondering if I shouldn’t really have to stay with it.

I wanted a refund because it always failed to upload to YouTube (and Yahoo Videos and MSN). I’ve checked many times my settings and “Status = Failed”. YouTube being the BIG one, I thought it was really bad if it can’t upload there. But actually, it would have been only 3 websites where I would have to upload manually. Anyway, I think you should check it out for yourself, and don’t worry, you have 30 days to try it, if you want a refund you just ask the customer service team and they are very friendly.

Maybe you will have more success with your uploads, there are other automation softwares I want to try. When you need to get more things done you need to automate some parts of your business, and you either do it by outsourcing or use the tools that can do it automatically.

This post is a bit long now and I still have things to say. But I’ll finish with this :

Free Stuff

Just because I like free stuff and I know we all like it, here are the things that I have came accross recently that may help some of you :

Simpleology. Again that’s free and will teach you how to get more productive and manage your time better. That’s cool !
2009 Planning – The Mark Joyner interview by Jason Katzenback.
(I just visit JohnCow.com for the link above, and that reminds me he wrote a nice free ebook : How to Build a Business Not Just A Blog, you’ll find it easily there).
CPA Marketing – I got an email, I don’t remember who sent me this, but this is a free report that would certainly be useful to those who want to try CPA Marketing, it has been very hot recently. So if you want to do or already are doing some Pay Per Click marketing then grab it. This is written by Gauher Chaudhry, from PPC Classroom.

I’ll post again tomorrow. Have a nice day, or night depending on where you live.

Their main product is G-Lock Easy Mail, it’s a mailing list management tool, which you can send your newsletter or promotional emails with. There’s a free, a personal and a business version. That’s cool to send to your list, but you first need to build it.

Now the title of this post is Free Ultimate Email Marketing Guide, so go check their free. Actually you have the choice to buy and download it for $19 or read it completely free online. The guide is available on the G-Lock Easy Mail website which actually is a great resource blog for email marketing. They have many posts for getting a list and take the maximum out of it.

They have created a free WordPress plugin, named WP Double Opt-In List Management Plugin (available on the G-Lock Easy Mail website too). You can add it as a widget to your blog, the users who register will be added to your WP database and you will be able to manage your list from WordPress, sending an automatic confirmation email and welcome email. You can then export your list or link it to G-Lock Easy mail, I don’t know if the list, once exported can be used with another email software, but I think that should be possible.

Two other G-Lock softwares may interest you :

• Fast Blog Finder (download – homepage)
• Fast Directory Submitter (download – homepage)

Both have a free trial and paid version. The first will search the internet for blogs related to yours, so you can go and comment on them for backlinks. The second is an automatic directory submission software. There are currently more than 2800 directories it can submit too, but it’s for the paid version. You can still use the free version and submit your website or blog to 150 directories.

Finally you can check G-Lock Software website if you want more details about them.

The full story can be read here : Has Your WordPress Blog Been Hacked ?. It will tell you how to be protected.

Dean was in the top 25 make money online blogs when it happened to him, so he created a tool that checks your Google cache. It will show you the external links from your website, so if at the bottom of the list you can see some spamming links, then something is wong. The tool is the cache checker.

See the following post Dean made : Top 100 Make Money Online Blogs Hacked. Dean checked the top 100 blogs to find if there blogs were hacked, and he found anoter one, Affiliate Confessions.

What’s the end of the story ? Getting hacked gets you backlinks ! Hmm, just kidding. Use the Cache Checker tool and see if you’re safe, and read the posts from Dean to be protected.

For those who were wondering if I’m still alive (about 0.6 person), I’m still busy with my review works but almost done. They will be the base of some case studies as I am combining some of the few techniques I learnt to make and use reviews (and make a bit of cash).

However this is not something I want, and this blog should live. The truth is I am busy, very busy, think “Work” and lot of it. And I know Iam too busy because I am not really organized. I end up with tons of tasks at the same time because I don’t stay focus on the work to do. And I don’t do tasks in the right order.

An example, I try an idea for one website and it shows profitable, I should stick with it and develop it to be even more profitable. But instead I could create on another website and try something else. Well, at least I know my flaws and I know I’m not alone in this case.

Here in my “Write Post” section of Wordpress, I can see 3 drafts, I think the topic I wanted to cover were already all over the web so I didn’t publish them. Sometimes I also all the words in my head to write a good article, but they come when I’m already making something else. I should grab a voice recorder, it saves time and you actually speak more naturally than you write.

But there is some hope, after all, I’m blogging now. I have to learn about time management or self improvement, and focus on my goals. I thought about reading books like Getting Things Done, or The 4 Hour Work Week (that has been translated in French !). Maybe I could plan more my work.

As regarding updating this blog, maybe I should write about every little things I do, and the ideas I get from these things could be useful for others.

 Well thanks for reading this useless post I’ll do better next time (I’ll try), and if you have any thoughts, advices, anything, feel free to leave a comment.

Yesterday, I blogged about the Caroline Middlebrook free Ebook which teaches you how to create niche website with WordPress. I also said that you could give your feedback or suggestions. I did.

 A section is dedicated to the blogroll, but there is something I was wondering for some times. I didn’t know how to add the nofollow tag to my blogroll links in some of my blogs. You see, when you edit your blogroll in WordPress, there are several link relationship options, but no rel nofollow.

So I asked Caroline if she knew it but she didn’t. I asked to her as I asked few days ago on DigitalPoint, but didn’t get an answer. I posted in the SEO section, because Google recommends affiliate links to get tagged by nofollow for SEO purpose.

Yesterday, I logged in on DigitalPoint again and asked for this same question, this time in the Blogging section and had a quick answer from user Richie_Ni. It lead me to 2 solutions.

He provided me with this nofollow relationship to wordpress blogroll solution from mydigitallife.info. You have to edit a file, nothing complicated, this will add the nofollow relation to all your blogroll links.

Now maybe some of your links are affiliate links or other links you don’t want to give weight to, but you feel some deserve some too. I just watched the comment, and the right solution was there, from Justin Cook’s blog : How to add nofollow to wordpress blogroll links.

Another file to edit, very easy, just copy and paste the code provided, and here is the result :

In your blogroll editor, you now have the option to add the nofollow tag to your links, individually. Save changes and you’re done.

I could post the codes directly here, but I’m sure the author would prefer to hear your personal feedback (and a little backlink).

If you want to add a nofollow tag to a link in a post for example, here is how it should look in your code view :

<a rel=”nofollow” href=”url” mce_href=”url”>Click Here</a>

There are many things you may already know about WordPress, and the first thing is this is a blogging platform. In this completely free guide (she even doesn’t ask your email adress), you learn how to develop niche websites, not niche blogs.

Caroline takes you through the whole process of installation of your blog and tells you how to structure your blog to make it a website. Of course, it is a useful guide, since it is a little about website monetization too . She also shares some resources for you to help improve your site. Resources like plugins, tools, and an AdSense theme.

If you are a beginner and want to launch your first website, this is a simple guide you must check. It will work too if you want to use WordPress as a blog, since the installation process is the same. The concept is “how to turn a blog into a website”.

I have to admit this is an idea I had for few websites, but still didn’t do it. I have a new niche idea to launch, the content is already written, but I’m not sure I can write on a regular basis on the topic. So launching a niche website will be my choice, and hopefully, it will be a money making website.

Plus, WordPress is so convenient to manage content, change design that I don’t want spend some time to build and code a website myself.

So, right, I knew how to use WordPress to make it look like a website, and if you are using WordPress for some time now, you may see how to do it too. But it’s always good to have a guide to rely on.

Caroline updates her guide regularly so don’t forget to check for updates. Give her your feedback and suggestions, sure she will appreciate.

Last words (repetition) : it’s free.

Visit Caroline Middlebrook’s blog, there are some nice articles too.

Well, of course for now I’m not monetizing this blog and tomleroy.com, so that’s okay, but I would really want to have time to make them grow. Back to ReplicasSuck.com, I decided to make it run in auto pilot, until March.

What do I mean by auto pilot is having article posted every day. You may know there are plugins that will allow you to post new entries from RSS feeds, but that means your blog becomes a splog (spam blog).

So what am I gonna do ?

I will just prepare some posts and edit the timestamp in WordPress. I even already started to do it.

Lots of people already know about it, this is a trick that is used by many bloggers. It is a cool feature of WordPress, that is recommended to use when you are on vacation. This way you can write your post in advance and decide when your posts are published.

I already had this idea in the past, but I also read about the “ping” that could make you banned from saerch engines or ping services.

You see, when you publish a new article, your blog is automatically pinged, and services come to see the new content on your blog. With a future post, there is of course no new content live, since it will only appear in the future.

So the services can think that you’re just abusing the system to tell the world your blog is updated when actually (it will be) it’s not. And then services, search engines, robots… ban your blog.

So there is a plugin I use that only pings when your post is live. Also, when you edit an old post and save it, WordPress is normally pinging the services too. Since it’s an old post, it’s not new content, this plugin will correct that too. No more pinging again for edited posts.

I use the MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer. A similar one, that does the same thing is Smart Update Pinger.

So here is my plan, everyday :

• I choose a category,
• I write 10 articles for this category,
• I post 1 article every week for 10 weeks.

For example, today is Wednesday. I choose the “Watches” category at Replicas Suck. So one article is posted today, and the following 9 articles will be posted the following 9 Wednesdays. They are already written, I just edited the timestamps before hitting the Publish button.

Tomorrow, I’ll choose another category and repeat the process. 10 articles in another category, 1 posted every Thursday.

I have 8 categories to blog about at Replicas Suck. So that means next week, I’ll have articles going live everyday for 10 weeks. That hsould let me more time for my other blogs.

Update about Smart Update Pinger, from the MaxBlogPress comment below  : http://www.maxblogpress.com/blog/211/important-message-smart-update-pinger/

I’ve found this article at DigitalPoint Forums, and there were some others I alredy read in the past that you may want to check too.

Of course, you will find some similar tips but the point is to  burn it on a hard drive part of your brain, and also get some knowledge. Plus these articles are in a list form so you just take the elements you like, and maybe add some later.

So here are some resources that will help you to get more traffic to your website. I’ve found these articles at DigitalPoint but I suppose the authors of these articles would prefer to receive a linkback to their blog where they put effort and quality into it. So you may discover some blogs you didn’t know with great resources to use for your blogs.

 The first one is a Sticky in the Link Development section at DigitalPoint, made by Mr Kumar. Link building is of course a fundamental part of SEO.

Link Building Tips and Resources.

(Mr Kumar, if you’re reading this, why don’t you use the /%postname%/ permalinks structure in your blog instead of the Default one that creates a url like /?p=128 ?)

The second one has been published by superflytrainer. The title was 101 ways to get more traffic on DigitalPoint, but at Imutopia, the author’s blog, it sounds better :

101 Muscular Ways To Get More Targeted Traffic To Your Sites/Blogs Today!

For the third one I need to link to the thread by whatadeals, since it has not been published on another blog (at least I don’t know). But here is the website of the author : TeeVeeLive. Here is the article :

50 Tips On Getting More Traffic To Your Website

I hope you will like what you will read there and crash your server .

So as the title suggests, Tay (her name) gives you 75 tips to improve your traffic. A very quick preview here, I won’t steal her content, she developed every points she makes, so visit the link above for a guaranteed good read (sorry, no money back guarantee, it’s free).

“1. Write more content“. This is the number 1 of the list and it should be the most important one for every blogger. Yeah, me included, even if I am busy, I should at least spend few minutes every day to add one article. Focus on quality unique content, and frequency.

“4. Start using StumbleUpon“. A social bookmarking website that will bring you traffic from other people, who will rate thumbs up or down your pages. If you didn’t read my previous post about free web traffic resources, Dean Hunt, interviewed 14 of the top 30 StumbleUpon users, there is also a case study about buzz marketing that you MUST read.

“11. Link to other posts.“ & “17. Establish relationships with fellow bloggers.” That’s what I’m doing right now. I’m blogging about a very helpful article, I will comment on her blog and thank her for her efforts. Tay may be notified of a pingback from this article and may comment here if she wants it.

Just 3 ways here, there are 72 more. Read, digest, take action.