Internet Marketing Trip

This morning I posted on my “non blogger” attitude, being not able to update this blog everyday, and now this is my second post today… I just read Dean Hunt’s last blog post, The Interview with a blind Internet Entrepreneur. Well not only it was inspirational (just read it), but this is an easy way to have something to write.

Blogging about other blogs. Well I know, this is not adding something really new, because you will go to the blog post and read it, I will not really say something about it that you can’t get from the original post. But anyway, blogging about other blogs allow you some networking and maybe one day when I’ll have something interesting published, I’d also get some backlinks.

To get back to the Blind Internet Entrepreneur Matt Watson, and he built a system for horse racing. Check the FP System website to learn more about it. No there is no affiliate link here, because I don’t see any affiliate signup there (otherwise I would of course put one, hmmm). It costs £97, yep that’s around $200 or 150 Euros. But this is not a clickbank product with 8 weeks money back guarantee. You get a 12 month money back guarantee, or one year, or 365 days.

So lesson of the day ? Blog about other blogs, other websites when you get something from them. If it brings you some information, motivation, inspiration, it may help others too. And you may even get thanked for sharing.

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>

I just finished reading the How to Develop Money-Making Niche Sites with WordPress guide by Caroline Middlebrook and it is a good read.

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.

As some of you may know, I run the blog Replicas Suck, the authentic fashion blog. Well, I also run more blogs and of course, these require time. Actually, this blog Internet Marketing Trip, and my personal blog are not as updated as the others I run.

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/

Yesterday I logged in my Commission Junction account and saw a new affiliate program was added. The website is Uneetee. I don’t know all the details, so you may want to contact them to learn more.

Here’s the concept : designers can submit their design to be printed on t-shirts and hoodies. Every day a new t-shirt/design hit the homepage. Each time your design/t-shirt is sold, you earn a commission. They also run contests and the winners (most sold designs) get bonus commissions.

Also since they have an affiliate program at CJ (and ShareASale from their website), you could promote your t-shirts portfolio from your blogs and website. The commission rate is set to 21% at both networks.

I know designers earn more money by selling their designs and logos directly to webmasters and various freelance works but this could be an extra income.

Some web designers are very famous and recommended online. Having a kind of gallery/store on their website could be a nice addition to their portfolios and their clients could reward them by buying a T-shirt.

If you submit your designs there, just contact me and I’ll be happy to promote your t-shirts on my various blogs. You can also join ShareASale using my link  or CJ (no affilate program ).

Hey everyone, I already add a post about getting traffic to your website and blog, actually it was an article from Tay, at SuperBloggingTips.com (you can see my post about it here).

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 .

I know I already blogged about that, it was for a merchant that (still) didn’t answer me for an order of 50 items. One of my visitor asked to have a discount for such a high order and I contacted them 3 times, still waiting.

This time, this is another merchant, and if I say they don’t care about affiliates, they may also don’t care about themselves and being promoted properly.

Okay, you may already know I have started a website and I was going to reveal the name when I make my first sale. The first sale is made, the website is Replicas Suck, Authentic Fashion Deals.

I promote apparel, jewelry, watches, handbags, shoes… only authentic stuff, cause replicas suck, that’s the direction of this blog. I also talk about emerging designers that most of us don’t know, but still offer great quality products, and cool style.

Well it sounds like a press release, it’s not, so let’s get back to the purpose of this article. One of the merchant I promote, Bosca has its affiliate program with ShareASale. I like using ShareASale, it’s easy and convenient and also merchants can publish their whole catalog, so you have affiliate codes for each products on their websites.

This is of course something really cool when you want to promote something as large as fashion, there are thousands of products. Sadly, not all the merchants use this feature, and this is the case of Bosca.

Bosca products are leather made : handbags, travel bags, briefcase, wallets, well… mainly luggage. Excellent quality, a recognized house, leather working from near a century. The products are great but there is a problem, at least for me.

On Replicas Suck, if you look at the bottom of the page, there is a banner for Bosca, that says “Bosca | Life. Luxury. Leather. ” This is the only banner they have to propose. No other formats, not any other link for a special category of products, just this.

Of course, with ShareASale, you can create a custom link to any page of a merchants store.

One banner only, the only problem ?

No. This is not the only one. Since there is no product datafeed I thought I could use pictures of their products, I would have save the pictures of the products I wanted to promote and upload them on my server. But first I needed the permission, so I asked.

Bosca affiliate program is managed by another company, so my email got to this marketing company. A nice guy answered me, said he submitted my request and I’ll get a reply soon.

Now, guess what was the reply. Negative. I can’t use their products pictures on my website to promote them.

This is really something irritating. You are doing work for them and you want to do it right. I could have used the pictures without any permission and they may never see this.

Now, if they thought a little bit they would know that when you have a product, people like to see it, especially in the fashion world, where style is something that influence our choices. Ladies, would you buy a handbag without seeing it ? Or any clothes you could buy online, (gents too) ?

At least, imagine this situation. Let’s say you have two merchants to promote, and you decide to display 10 products from each. Well you can with the first, but not with Bosca. There are 10 more chances that a visitor clicks on a picture to see more details of the product.

If a picture amazed you, or if you find something very original, you will wompletely forget about the others.

Maybe they never heard a picture speaks more than words.

Well, you can do the promotion of a merchant, without his products pictures. But will you do it more than once ? When there are 100 products, you can imagine 100 posts or articles, 1 per article.

Too bad, merchants are lazy. They could ask their affiliate marketing manager to create a product datafeed, or code for each product categories, or for some best sellers.

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The first sale made from this website was for a $139 item, not from Bosca. Damn, the commission was only 6% ($8.34). But that keeps growing

I was reading some few posts on DigitalPoint when I saw the signature of a member that linked to an article titled “75 Ways to Increase Blog Traffic“. This is the kind of articles we all like, at least I do. A good list, simple to read. You just take the tips you want or experiment everything.

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.

Today, I’m going to talk about an internet marketing guru. No don’t go, wait ! A real guru, yeah, a king with a crown on his head and all.

Name : Dean Hunt

If you don’t know him, then I could call you “sucker”, but I didn’t in July too. At this time I read a thread at DigitalPoint forums entitled “Buzz Marketing Case Study Part 1″. It hooked me, Dean then added a part 2 and 3, that I’ll talk about later.

For those who wonder what is buzz marketing, I think he defines it better than me, in an interview he gave to Carl Ocab. What ? You don’t know Carl Ocab ? Sorry but this time : Sucker !

“Buzz Marketing is the art and science of standing out from the crowd, being talked about and being remembered. Or in other words… it is the ability to create a buzz about a service or product.”

Why is it so interesting ? Traffic for FREE, with only words for weapons, and those can make a killing (marketing speaking of course). Maybe you already read somewhere that writing something controversial attracts people attention. It suggests interest but also creates people opinion. That’s what buzz marketing is about : make people talk about you or your company.

Okay, now where’s the free stuff ?

Dean uses Social Bookmarking websites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious to generate traffic. From his experiences (the buzz marketing 101, 202, 303), he made a Case Study that you can download for free : Web Traffic Orgasm. As you can see there is a book coming soon. If the Case Study gives you some clues, the book will bring you secrets.

Want more ?

Dean interviewed 14 of the top 30 StumbleUpon users. Yes, you can dowload that for free too. I guess you never thought about getting your buzz marketing Christmas gift in advance, so go thank Dean for his efforts, have a good read and start creating some buzz.

This is being discussed a little everywhere on the blogosphere, so I thought it was my turn. GoogleLady is actually running a case study to make money online in three months, with Amazon affiliate program. Everyone can follow her footprints or just read for inspiration.

I actually am thinking to reproduce her efforts since I just re-apply to Amazon associates, but also because I just started a new blog where I add content every day, but haven’t yet started any promotion, except some links from Yahoo! Answers.

Here is where the case study started : Make to Money Online In 3 Month . She now is in her 5th week and already achieved what we can call a success : 1 month later, almost $1500 for November, and the wesbite is still not ranked well in search engines.

What’s interesting in this case study is that not only she almost teaches people for free how to make money online, but do it with a brand new website. New domain, no traffic and no backlinks at the start of the case study, only $100 to invest.

So if affiliate marketing is something you want to start, with a low budget, then I recommend you visit her blog, and start to read. She gives you tips and resources all the way.

Congrats, Lady, I wish you all the best for this future website. You could even stop your case study, you proved how to make money in one month.

My prediction for the end of December ? It will be over $2,000, and maybe reach the $3,000. Christmas is coming, and there will be lots of sale everywhere, her new website being around coupons, she will profit from returning traffic and new one with word of mouth. Plus she can add more merchants to promote, so it’s more choice for visitors.