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Joint Ventures – Should You Join?

September 30, 2010 By 1 Comment

Joint Ventures

Joint ventures are alliances in which two parties or more form a partnership. These parties are usually businesses, and within their alliance they share assets, knowledge, profits, markets and intellectual property. It differs from a merger in that within the deal, there is no transfer of ownership. This alliance may occur between large businesses or smaller businesses, usually in the belief that their partnership will help them to fight larger competitors successfully. Companies that have services and products that are identical can also form an alliance to reach new heights in their market that they could not achieve alone.

Joint ventures work by execution. All mergers need detailed planning as well as a strict plan so that they can be as successful as possible. These alliances require a legal agreement to which both parties should bring assets. They should also each have an objective in mind for joining in the venture. There are many questions to consider when deciding whether or not you should join in a joint venture. You should be able to answer these questions before you make an absolute decision about whether joint ventures are right for you.

What are the questions you should consider before joining joint ventures? There are nearly 20 questions you can answer. What do you sell, and how do you reach your target audience? Who are your competitors, and what do they possess that you don’t? Are there areas that will geographically remain unreached without partners? Do you need to develop a know-how? Can you find a logical business partner that will help you to penetrate the market? Do you possess all of the human resources that you need? How do you feel about combining resources?

There are more questions you should ask yourself about joint ventures. Do you have access to good legal resources? Can you bypass local legal regulations by joining with another local business? Do you have access to the experience of successful joint ventures? Do you understand that the decision process involves taking the time to write out a full business plan? Are you aware that most cases will result in workforce reduction, and how do you feel about that? Are you looking at this as a last resort? Do you already know a company that has an interest in partnering? Is your company in need of credibility? What are your weaknesses and strengths?

There are three final questions that you should consider about joint ventures. Do you have the support you need in order to make this change in your business life? The last two questions to consider are what are your chances of success and what are the risks and legal implications? Your chances of success depend on your knowledge sharing and integration of human resources. Financial factors and geographical location are important, but communication is the most important aspect. As for the risks and legal implications, remember to trust your business partner so that you do not risk your business. The legal implications will depend on your goals and the scope of your venture.

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Filed Under: Internet Marketing Tagged With: joint ventures

Tips for Growing Your Email List – Rewarding Your Subscribers and More

September 29, 2010 By 4 Comments

Growing your list

There are many practical tips for growing your email list. If you have recently started your business or launched your website, you likely will not have an email list to send to. You can start out by placing a form on your website to sign up for your email newsletter. Put a link to this form on each page of your website so that members will have access to it from anywhere. You may try including a link in a header or footer so that it is not awkwardly listed on your pages.

Once you have completed these steps, you can also place this link in your email signature. If you have others working for you, ask them to include it in their email signatures as well. Place it in your invoices for your companies as well. Other tips for growing your email list include posting free articles on your website. Ensure that these articles also do not require any subscription or registration. When sending out emails, make sure that they are personal for each of your clients, especially when you are asking them to sign up for your newsletter.

In your contact form on your website, include a checkbox that will allow others to sign up for your newsletter. Also add one to your checkout page for e-commerce. Of course, if you already have a list of email customers, you can take different steps. However, do not presume that because they are your customers that they want to receive your newsletter. Be sure to ask their permission to avoid irritating them. If you have an e-commerce store then you probably have a large list of customers. Again, don’t start sending these customers emails without their permission. If they don’t buy from you often, they may not even know who you are.

Yet another tip within the tips for growing your email list is to reward your subscribers. You can do this in one of two ways. The first is to offer free gifts or incentives from your website. This will allow your subscribers to gain your trust and try what you are offering them. If they are able to share your product with others or use it for themselves, they may enjoy it and want to buy from you more often. At the very least, they will be open to hear what you have to say.

The other way you can reward your subscribers is if you have a blog, or perhaps an electronic newsletter. Instead of offering only an RSS feed for your blog, offer an email subscription as well. Most blog readers prefer to read emails than RSS feed. Thus, make sure that you give people the option. If you don’t, you may be neglecting many people that could have been your potential subscribers or customers. Offer users a gift for subscribing, such as a product of yours or a complimentary lesson, or perhaps access to a part of your website for a time, or a program.

Start building your list today!

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Filed Under: Internet Marketing Tagged With: customers, ecommerce, emails, growing your email list, list, rss feed, subscribers

Managing Multiple Websites – How to Make It Possible

September 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Multiple Streams of Income

You have often heard that the key to success on the internet is to have multiple streams of income. This way, if one stream of income dries up, you have other ones to fall back on. You can make yourself multiple streams of income by setting up multiple websites. Most affiliate marketers will tell you that they run multiple affiliate websites. They may even dabble in other niches, such as SEO and blogs. All of these subjects require their own separate websites. Managing all of these topics together on one website will make the website look sloppy and disorganized. This will be detrimental to the owners, because it will result in a lack of visitors.

Setting up a website for each separate niche takes time. Even if all of your websites revolve around affiliate marketing, every website must have its own theme. For example, if you’re interested in selling electronics, information, and household cleaning products, then you will need three separate websites for these subjects. This helps keep you organized. However, you still need to know how to manage all of these websites. For most people, the thought of managing multiple websites is a headache and a chore. But it doesn’t have to be that way. All you need is a bit of prudent planning.

Look at your schedule. No matter how busy you are, you can always find at least 10 minutes a day. Take those 10 minutes and work on one of your websites. It doesn’t have to be every day. You can do it once a week. As long as you do it on a regular basis, that’s all that matters. The 10 minutes can be used to do one or two things. You can set up affiliate links, or put information on your website. You can choose a layout. You can rearrange some things. As long as you do some work on your website in those 10 minutes, you’re managing your website.

You don’t have to work on all of your websites at once. If you have three websites, try working on one each day each week. There are claims that with some websites you can just “set it and forget it.” This is entirely untrue. A good webmaster will check on his websites if nothing else. Make sure that your links are still valid. Broken links can lead to a decrease in visitors and less traffic. You don’t always have to change your layouts, but perhaps updating information is in order. If some things have changed, you want your website to reflect those changes. Keep the information on your website current.

Your time constraints or circumstances don’t matter. Managing multiple websites is completely possible. You have to manage your time correctly in order to succeed at it. It also helps not to take on more websites than you can possible handle. If you’re new, try out no more than five. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself or burn yourself out. This will result in your websites being neglected. In the long run, such a thing can hurt your success in whichever niche you choose.

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Filed Under: Internet Marketing Tagged With: affiliate marketers, blogs, multiple streams of income, multiple websites, niche, theme, webmaster

Competitive Research

September 24, 2010 By 1 Comment

competitive research

Competitive research is a crucial aspect of developing any business structure, whether it is yours, mine, or Coca Cola’s the goal is usually the same. For this article I’m going to cover more of the things you might look at when researching a competitor’s site and ways you can improve your own in order to outrank, or outperform him or her.

There are two basic questions that you’re asking here.

1.       What are they doing?

2.       What are you doing?

Why do competitive research?
Well if you happen to be the guy sitting at the top of your niche looking down at the way you’ve come, then it’s always a good idea to watch out for whoever happens to be number two, because chances are he didn’t plan to stop when he got to the second spot. Also, you never know who might be rising in the ranks to overthrow you and your site, like they say when your number one, there’s nowhere to go but down!

Now whether or not your number two, or the new guy (or gal) on the net, then it’s probably safe to assume you’d like to increase your positioning in your field whether that means ranking your site for your best keyword, or beating your competitor in the sales area, or any other aspect that you deem to be of importance.

There are merits to both positions, if you’re at the top of your game, and have been there for any length of time, you have experience on your side, you’ve got connections to people, and companies that you’ve met along the way, and you’re probably financially better off than when you first started the climb.

Now if you’re the new guy on the block, then you probably aren’t financially set, you haven’t yet made those connections, and your experience is all in front of you. But what you do have is drive and determination right? Couple that with a willingness to take action, and your all set!

I’m going to share with you my own version of competitive research, and what it means to me, as well as the part it plays in my site planning, growth, and development.

Before we get started, here are a few things you’ll need.

-          A Clear Goal: Before you even attempt to do any competitive research, you need to know exactly what it is you’re trying to achieve with your site/business. Are you wanting to rank higher than them in the search engines, do you want to have more content than they do, do you want to be more of an expert in your field. What’s the purpose behind doing the research?

-          A list of your competitors: If you don’t know who they are it’s going to be a little more difficult to research them don’t you think?

-          A box of brains: No, wait… that wasn’t it. A “Thinking outside of the box” mentality will help you in your research, there is a ton of information out there, but sometimes finding it requires some creative thought.

-          A spreadsheet: I use Microsoft Excel to track my competitor’s information, and Microsoft word to make wanted posters with the top ten people/sites on it! (Just kidding…)

-          Research Tools: There are a number of tools out there that can help you in your quest, some are free, and other’s paid. I’ll get more into which one’s I use further down.

Ok, now on to the good stuff!
What can I find out about my competitors and what can they find out about me?

First and foremost is the obvious, but often overlooked. Spend some time on their site, read their content, see what they offer to their readers. Opt in to their list to see how they build a relationship with the people on their list and what sort of offers or information they send them, as well as how often. Often times you will see things that they are doing better than you, and you can then improve upon or others that don’t agree with, and can avoid doing to YOUR readers or clients.

1.       Next list the stats for both your sites, here are a few things to get you started.

-          Domain age

-          How long is the domain registered for

-          PageRank of the site as well as future PageRank prediction

-          Moz ranking

-          Domain and page authority

-          What is there SEO Score

-          How many backlinks do they have in the different search engines

-          Where are those backlinks, and who is linking to them

-          What is there Alexa rank, compete rank

-          What are their sales figures annually

-          How much do they spend on marketing

-          How much content do they have?

-          What keywords are they targeting

-          Where do they rank for those keywords

-          What products or services do they offer

-          How many employees do they have

-          How is their image or brand, is it glowing and wonderful, or damaged

-          Social media – do they have a Twitter account, how many followers do they have, when is the last time they tweeted? How about a Facebook fan page?

-          How big is their subscriber list

-          How many websites do they own

-          What are their strengths/weaknesses

-          What resources do they have available to them financially etc.

Whichever items you chose to keep track of is up to you, these are just some of my own things I look at when doing competitive research on my competition.

Where can you find this information? Well, like I said you may have to think outside of the box for some, but others are readily available to you, I’ll list the resources I personally use, and you can try those, or find some of your own.

  • Note for many of these I use Market Samurai, so will place a (MS) for those that apply as well as including a free resource where I can

Domain age – (MS) Google “Whois” and you’ll find sites that will tell you age and expiry dates

Domain registered for – Any domain lookup tool or website

PageRank – (MS) can use the PR Toolbar, or try www.linkvendor.com

Moz Rank – http://www.check-domains.com/ (use the website analyzer)

Authority – http://www.check-domains.com/

SEO Score – Linkvendor.com (under SEO Challenge)

Backlinks – (MS) Linkvendor.com (Link popularity)

Who links to them – (MS) you can also Google “link popularity tool” to find a ton of sites, try several to see which gives you the most accurate results

Alexa – Either install the Toolbar, or you can visit them directly www.alexa.com

Sales – Look for pages like “investor relations” some sites will guard this information, other’s will have it available publicly

Advertising budget – www.spyfu.com will tell you a company’s keywords and AdWords budget

Content and indexed pages – (MS) You can take a look at their sitemap, or  many site will show you how much content Google has indexed for a particular site

What keywords are they targeting – (MS) Take a look at what they put in their keyword Meta description as well as take a look to see what they are talking about on their site.

Where do they rank – (MS) for this one, it’s probably easiest if you go with a paid program like Market Samurai, or Internet Business Promoter

What products or services do they sell – Their website, their email list

Employee count – Just call and ask them!

How is their brand or reputation? – www.Google.com because people talk!

Social media – If they are utilizing it, they will be advertising it via their website

Subscriber list – Sometimes you can get an estimate if they show their Feedburner stats

How many websites do they own? – If you do a Whois search on the domain, it will show how many others they also have registered

Strengths & weaknesses – you can get an idea by observing, or from the data you’ve already collected

Resources available to them – Can usually be determined by using the data collected above

Remember to update your files monthly or at least on a regular basis so you know who is on the move, and in what direction

.And there you have it, you would now have a pretty clear picture of who exactly this company or website was after spending a few hours doing some good old fashioned competitive research

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Filed Under: Internet Marketing Tagged With: alexa, authority, backlinks, budget, competitive research, developing a business, domain age, feedburner, goal, Google, keywords, Linkvendor, moz rank, pagerank, rankings, social media, subscriber list, whois

Facebook Down – Good for Blogs

September 23, 2010 By 1 Comment

Facebook Down
Facebook started experiencing problems at around 2:30 PM EST
Yes, Facebook has been having issues today, and is experiencing down time for the second time in two days. The shutdown has taken the like button with it, as well as any Facebook widgets you may have installed on your site.
Facebook has issued this public statement:
“We’re currently experiencing some site issues causing Facebook to be slow or unavailable for some users. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.”
Maybe we can all manage to get some work done now!
For now, here are 10 things you can do to improve your website or blog.
1. Email someone who’s left you a comment to say thank you!
2. Visit a neighboring blog, and introduce yourself, leave a comment for them.
3. Visit 20 sites you admire, and list all the things you like about them, start making a list of improvements you can add.
4. Order a set of banner’s for your website (see services page, or head over to freelancer.com)
5. Write out a list of goals for your site to achieve over the next 30 days.
6. Join a blogging community.
7. Conduct an online interview with a blogger you admire (have your questions ready)
8. Write a guest post for another blog and offer it to them
9. Check your site for broken links and fix or replace as necessary
10. Add the “Top Commentators Plugin” to reward your commentators

I’m sure before you’ve finished some of these tasks, your favorite social media giant will be back up and running, and you’ll have a slightly better blog because of it!

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Skills of an Internet Marketer – How to Recognize a Skilled Internet Marketer

September 22, 2010 By 8 Comments


Internet marketing isn’t just about getting sales. That is only part of what internet marketing is. A very skilled internet marketer will use all sorts of methods available at his disposal, not just one or two. Skill also comes with experience. No one is going to just jump into internet marketing and automatically become successful. Everyone must find something that works for them. There are many blueprints to follow in internet marketing. A skilled internet marketer will find their own blueprint to follow, and make their own success. Perhaps he will even teach others how to follow his blueprint.

How do you judge the skills of an internet marketer? When you first set up an e-business, you’re going to have to learn how to present your niche in such a way that people will want to purchase the product or information you have to offer them. A good internet marketer won’t expect people to spend a ridiculous among of money off the bat. This is usually the sign of someone who just wants to line their pockets. You can also be on the lookout for false promises. How can you recognize them? Use common sense. Internet marketing is no different than offline methods of marketing. The only difference is where the marketing is taking place.

Another good way to determine the skills of an internet marketer is to join their mailing list. Most good internet marketers have mailing lists. Carefully go over the emails that arrive in your inbox for a short period of time. Are they trying to sell you things right off the bat? Is every email just an advertisement for a product that they want you to buy? Or are they giving you knowledge that you can use in your niche? Mailing lists are usually used as a form of advertisement, so don’t be immediately turned off by the ads. However, the majority of the emails should contain information that you can use, and not just products that you can buy.

Having a newsletter is also the sign of a good internet marketer. Most internet marketers fail to see the power of newsletters. Again, people want information. They normally don’t want to pay to have it. So sharing your knowledge on a particular subject is a great way to get people to buy products. For example, if you run an SEO writing company, it would probably be in your best interests to have a newsletter. If you’re keeping up to date in what’s going on with your industry, you can share your knowledge and opinions on then. You can also offer tips on how to succeed in the SEO world. People are more trusting of those who are trying to help them, instead of those who are trying to line their wallets.

You can also attend a webinar hosted by an internet marketer. Hearing a marketer talk directly on a subject is a great way to determine the skills of an internet marketer. This way you can judge for yourself if they’re trustworthy or not. Are they being pushy? Or are they relaxed? Do they really connect with the attendees? Or are they just trying to get people to buy their products?

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Making Money with YouTube – How to Do It

September 21, 2010 By 4 Comments

Make Money With YouTube
Many people believe that making money with YouTube can only be done if you’re a partner. However, this is not the only way. To start, you will need a YouTube account, as well as internet access. You will also need a video camera or a webcam, a Blogger account and subscribers to your accounts. Start out by creating your YouTube account if you don’t already have one. People who have the most subscribed lists are able to make a lot of money. They are promoted by YouTube and can capitalize on their videos.

You do not have to be one of these people in order to enjoy making money with YouTube. Look at the videos that have been posted lately by the most famous people on YouTube, and respond accordingly within the comments for that video. This may get you to be a favorite of the person who posted the video. After finding these videos, make a video about these videos, since people will search for videos related to these. This will get you a good base of views. Once you have this, you can start working on a blog. People subscribed to your YouTube account will notice that you have a blog and likely want to support you.

In order to start making money with YouTube, you can start a free blog or post a blog on your own personal website. Add Google Ad-Sense so that you will have ads for your blog. This will be your income, and you get paid per click. After setting up your ads, be sure to post in your blog and update often. Make a video response to another popular video, and add the link to your blog this time. Talk about the video, but don’t give the viewers all of the information about them. Have them click the link if they want to learn more about it.

To keep making money with YouTube, continue to promote your personal blog in your videos. The more people that visit your blog, the more likely they are to click on your ads, which will add to your revenue. Be sure to keep your content interesting, and updated frequently so that people will come back to see your new updates. This will also give you credibility among your viewers and readers. It’s possible that you may start seeing revenue as soon as the first day you put your blog up and recommend that people come to see it.

How fast you start making money with YouTube may depend on how fast the list of your subscribers begins to grow. You can earn up to thousands of dollars every month. In addition to this, you can apply for partnership with YouTube. To do this, you must have at least 500 subscribers. Ad-Sense should also be put up next to your videos. If you are denied partnership, you will still be making money with YouTube, so you will not be at a loss. You can also reapply for partnership at a later date.

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Filed Under: Internet Marketing Tagged With: adsense, blog, content, making money with TouTube, partner, subscribe, subscribers, video camera, webcam, website, youtube

Buying a Website

September 20, 2010 By 5 Comments

Doing your Due Diligence when buying a website
For many out there looking to get started in the internet marketing world, it seems an attractive proposition to pick up a ready-made website that is already built, and perhaps seeing some traffic, and possibly some earnings already.

It’s extremely important to do your due diligence when considering buying someone else’s website from them. The majority of sites listed these days, are cookie cutter sites that are mass produced and sold on a daily basis. Many of these are identical, and use PLR content (Private Label Rights) which is fine, as long as you understand what it is you’re getting into.

There are some things you should pay close attention to when researching a potential site, especially if the cost seems high. I’m going to give you a few tips on what to look for, and things you can check yourself fairly easily.

Let’s start at the top, the domain name. I’m seeing more and more domains listed and being touted as a “premium” domain, that are simply misspelled versions of the original. I was looking at picking one up yesterday from Flippa (a great place to see what’s on the market) and came across www.successystems.com which sounded like a decent name and was selling for around $500.00

Now I usually check my sites and domains out rather than just hitting the buy now button, and it’s probably a good idea, those of you with a sharp eye will have spotted the fact that the above domain is missing a letter s. Is it still a premium domain name? You decide!

One thing to look at when checking out a domain or website is to see if it’s been banned by Google, or any of the other search engines. After all, we all rely heavily on traffic from them in order to be profitable. Another thing to look at is it running AdSense, if it is great it most likely is in good standing with Google, and when you take it over it will be fine to run your ads on. Some sites have been banned by Google from running AdSense, and the process to get this lifted can be lengthy and not always successful.

Next take a look at the statistics they are offering, do they include Google Analytics (more reliable) or are they relying on the Awstats that come with your hosting company? Analytics will give you a more accurate representation of the traffic that the site is receiving as Awstats will count every single visit, whether it is real or a bot. For my site each 1000 visitors that I actually receive (via Analytics) equate to close to 4000 via Awstats, so you can see how the numbers might seriously mislead you.

If they haven’t listed any Analytic Stats, take a quick look at the source code of the page you are interested it by right clicking on the page, and selecting “view source” scroll through and see if you can see the code embedded in the page which if the numbers are legitimate, the owner should not have a problem showing you. Here is an example of what the code looks like:
google_ad_client = “pub-14324953037675″;
/* 468×15, created 1/29/10 */
google_ad_slot = “3344298564″;
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 15;

The Alexa ranking is another indicator that you can use to get an idea of the traffic, though keep in mind this number is only good as an indicator and not accurate by itself, use it in conjunction with other measures to get a rough idea. If the site is up in the millions, you know it is getting very little traffic, and that is something you’ll have to build on your own.

Take a look to see how many back links the site has, and where they are coming from, you can do this by using some free online tools like www.linkvendor.com or you can simply type into Google search:

site:.com websitename.com -site:websitename.com

Or Yahoo:
linkdomain:yoursite.com

Obviously you swap out website name or yoursite for the URL of the site you want to check. There are other methods as well, that you can try if you’re already familiar with using search operatives.

Page Rank, we all know what it is, and we do our best not to become fixated on that little green bar, but let’s face it, most of us check it out when we are looking to pick up a new site. PR can be faked easily enough, but there are loads of sites out there that will check and verify that the PR is indeed valid, I’d recommend checking just to be on the safe side.

Earning, if they are claiming earnings for the site, look to see how old the site is, if a site was launched last month, and they are claiming earnings, and you can see there is no traffic yet, then find out where the earnings came from. Too often these earnings are estimates of what you could potentially earn. For example, this product sells for $49.99 and if you just sell 2 a day you’ll replace your $3000.00 income entirely. Sure, but a lot of work will be involved to take you to that level.

Another thing to keep an eye out for is if they show an earnings statement, that shows nothing more than the figures, how do you know that those earnings were generated by that particular site? I can show you my Clickbank statement to try and impress you with my next website sale, but how many of those sales came from site 1 that is 4 years old and established vs. site 2 that I just built 2 months ago to flip? (I don’t sell sites, this was just an example)

If you notice a lot of the comments are being deleted in the comment section, take notice, it means that someone is leaving comments the owner does not want you to see, and could be an indicator that he has something to hide. In some cases it can just be someone trying to interfere with a sale, but if you notice that comments from several people are being deleted it can be a pretty good indicator that something is not on the up and up!

Take a look to see how the site earns money; is it something you can duplicate? If you buy a site that generates the majority of its income providing a service of some sort, make sure it’s a service that you, yourself can do or that you can reliably outsource while still maintaining a profit.

Another thing to watch for that I’m starting to see more of, are people building sites, to basically become resellers for their own service. Example If I’m a supplier of website traffic, I can easily whip up 50 or so sites, and sell them cheaply knowing that your source of traffic will be me. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but it is something that you should know before buying or even bidding.

Do a Google search on the site, and see what comes up, see if it’s been sold before, possibly recently. A lot of times you will uncover a little more information on a site, especially if it’s an older one, that hasn’t been built with the sole intention of flipping for a profit.

Do a Whois search, to see who owns it, it will often tell you if they own other sites, you can then do a Google search on the registered owner if they are listed, which could bring up some more information. My information is freely available by doing a Whois domain search, and people can easily do a search to see what I’m about, or if I’ve attracted any bad press around the net. Know who you’re doing business with if you can.

This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but it will get you started in the right direction. Good luck and I wish you all the best with your new site!

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Filed Under: Internet Marketing Tagged With: adsense, Analytics, backlinks, blog, buying a website, domains, due diligence, earnings, flippa, Google, internet marketing, questions to ask when buying a website, site, site flipping, traffic

101 Ways to Drive Traffic to your Blog

September 19, 2010 By 20 Comments

Drive Traffic to your site
1. Utilize Social Bookmarking Sites like Stumbleupon, Digg, and Reddit
2. Comment on Blogs in your Niche
3. Link to your blog from your Twitter account
4. Include your URL in your Facebook profile information
5. Setup your Signature file within your email accounts
6. Post video’s on YouTube linking to your Blog
7. Search Engine Optimize
8. Submit your Blog to the top directories
9. Submit your Blog to all the rest of the directories
10. Include your URL on your business cards and stationary
11. Install a “subscribe” button for your comments
12. Build an optin list, and start building a relationship with them
13. Participate in link exchanges
14. Guest post on other Blogs
15. Build Squidoo lenses and link to your site
16. Submit press releases
17. Participate in Banner exchanges
18. Purchase banner spots on popular sites
19. Submit articles to article directories
20. Freelance some useful software and offer it for free (software sites will include a link to your site, and they are some of the busiest sites around)
21. Sponsor a WordPress Theme (your link gets included in the footer)
22. Participate in forum discussions and include your link in your signature
23. Hold a contest
24. Offer a free report, or eBook on your site
25. Translate your website into other languages
26. Modify your site to suit mobile technology
27. Brand yourself in all your products
28. Create link bait regularly
29. Respond to your comments in a timely manner
30. Email, and thank someone for commenting
31. Install the “Top Commentators” plugin to entice comments (hence visitors)
32. Build a Facebook Fan page
33. “Break” news
34. Cover controversial topics
35. “Showcase” your website or Blog, on design sites
36. Write great content
37. Do your keyword research, and tweak the ones bringing in the most traffic
38. Publish a newsletter
39. Publish a podcast
40. Offer “Training” video’s on your website e.g. www.ericstips.com (great website)
41. Analyze your log files and see where you can improve on traffic sources
42. Off answers with Yahoo Answers
43. Create a “viral” video
44. Update often
45. Offer a full RSS feed and make the button prominent
46. Fine tune your PPC campaigns (pay per click)
47. Use PPC search engines
48. Use a memorable domain name (If it’s not too late)
49. Ask people to “Critique” your Blog, they may become regular readers
50. Capture their email, so you can contact them after they leave
51. Use tell-a-friend scripts or techniques
52. Use appropriate titles for your images (Google Images sends Traffic)
53. Syndicate your content when you can
54. Make it easy for people to retweet your articles
55. Offer your reader’s “related posts” to try and keep them on the page
56. Launch a forum
57. Link out to other sites
58. Become an “expert” in your field
59. Write testimonials for sites or services that you approve of
60. Create a podcast for your visitors
61. Build creative 404 pages
62. Link to your site from your other sites
63. Donate mouse pads with your site on it to the local Internet Café
64. Design a cool screensaver with your URL on it, and give it away
65. Design cool wallpaper and submit it for others to download, Include a small link to your site
66. Try some “offline” marketing
67. Run an ad in your local paper
68. Invite “special” guests to guest post
69. Interview someone “famous” in your niche
70. Write lists of 101 ways to do something
71. Use a favicon to be more memorable
72. Ask your guests to “bookmark” your site
73. Welcome your visitors, and thank them for coming
74. Make your site easy to navigate
75. Build an attractive site
76. Include a scheduled “tip of the week”
77. Offer your reader’s a “special” discount on your products or services
78. Submit your RSS feed to feed directories
79. Claim your blog on Technorati
80. Write a long term “project” post covering your progress
81. Incorporate a webcam into your site, point it at you, point it at your fish tank, and point it at your monitor! (careful with that one)
82. Join blogging communities
83. Use Google Local listings
84. Use a spell check program
85. Use classified ads like Kijiji, or Craigslist to give something away via your site
86. Be Creative
87. Start an affiliate program
88. Ask your readers’ questions
89. Ask them for their opinion
90. Put your website and logo on your vehicle
91. Tell people about your site and where to find you
92. Build an IPhone App for your website
93. Launch something newsworthy via your Blog
94. Write and publish a book in your niche
95. Write your URL beside a busy highway in white rocks
96. Run a promotion announcing a $100 prize for your 10,000 visitor of the month (tell them to leave numbered comments! ;)
97. Place a sign in your front window
98. Use Tags for your posts
99. Ping your posts after publishing them
100. Get your site listed in the Guinness book of World Records
101. This one is up to you, please leave your comments with your ideas below

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Filed Under: Blogging

Backing up your Blog

September 18, 2010 By 13 Comments

Backup Your Blog!

This morning, I was making some changes to the layout of the site, swapping out some under-performing ads, to replace them with new companies I’m affiliated with. I added the related posts plugin, so that when someone finishes reading one of my posts, they have 2 or 3 links to related posts which might keep them on the site a little longer.

I modified the front page post to include more text so that readers can see more of the current post without having to click through.  I added the “Featured” ad spot which at $75.00 for the year or $10.00 for the month is a great deal! (Yeah, yeah, shameless plug) Hard to believe 6 months ago, our Alexa rank was well over 12 million!

Well the last thing I decided on was the wp-database plugin, which backs up your database on a regular basis that you set, and it will even email you a copy. Sounded great! I installed it, set it all up and went about my morning, completely oblivious to the damage I’d just done to my site.

About an hour later, I was at my site and noticed I had a major problem on my hands. All my 125×125 banners which I like to keep separate from the content were listed straight down the page running over anything in its path! I scrambled to see what was amiss in the settings, and tried resetting everything back to normal. I retraced all the changes and reset everything back the way I had found it, (Did I mention html isn’t one of the languages I speak?) only for the problem to remain to torment me.

I’m fortunately one of those individuals who has learnt his lesson about keeping a current backup of his site and files, and I was able to upload a clean set (still have no idea what went wrong) and get everything back normal. I redid all the changes, but left out the wp-database plugin and all is well.

I had meant to swap out the anti-spam plugin with something that wouldn’t send my legitimate comments into the spam folder where I might never find them, and in my travels I came across a wonderful site for the first time http://www.growmap.com/ who happened to be testing out a wonderful new anti-spam plugin (not yet available folks, but stop by her blog, and subscribe to the comments here http://www.growmap.com/help-us-test-gasp-anti-spam-wordpress-plugin/
Feel free to stop in and read all about it, and join in the discussion.

“Having tested the Bad Behavior plugin which behaved extremely badly – locking us all out of GrowMap” ~ Gail @Growmap

In the article Gail writes about her plugin locking her out of her site all together!

Now if you’ve ever been in this situation, you know how your heart starts to beat fast, and you mentally calculate how many visitors, have already seen the mess you’ve (I’ve) managed to create for yourself, as well as wonder just how many more will see it before you can manage to fix it, or find someone who can do the repairs for you, depending on how badly things are twisted up.

This one tip, which should really be a no-brainer, is one that is too often overlooked by blog owners.
Don’t fall victim to some malicious hacker (even if it happens to be you), or an inadvertent server crash, or even a simple plugin install gone wrong. Set up a schedule that works for your posting frequency and backup your site, and database regularly. It is definitely well worth it even just for the peace of mind it instills.

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Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: backing up your blog, backup, blog, Blogging, growmap, hacker, plugin, server crash, spam
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