Boo! The Slashing Blekko Is Open To The Public

A new search engine has entered the arena as Blekko has finally opened to the public. This new way to search gives a surfer an interesting new way to slash or create vertical type search engine for any search topic. Blekko has several other new type features and as time goes on it hopes to improve search relevancy. When you get done with your trick or treaters and your belly is full of candy, take it for a spin. It has a long way to go, but has different twist. Who knows what the future will bring. They said Google would never last. Happy Halloween!

50% Off Incansoft Halloween Sale

I forgot to pass this along to everyone, but Big Mike has everything in the entire Incansoft catalog at 50% off through the Halloween weekend. The coupon code to take advantage of this discount is HAUNTED (all caps). He has quite a few great programs that I use and you can not go wrong with 50% off deal. The coupon code for GFX Writer is GRAPHICS and the coupon code for the GFX Video Writer is VIDEO if you are interested an either of those two programs. I own both and they both do as advertised.

A Little Awesome Motivation

Happy Friday everyone, what an awesome week it has been. The human mind is powerful thing and if you dream it, you can achieve it. I though I would post a little compilation video I was turned on to of some awesome things people can do. You are your own limitation. Believing and planning is powerful. Enjoy!

Best Of The Web 20% Off Directory Listing Coupon Code

Best Of The Web is a fantastic and trusted web directory to be listed in and you have 3 days left to take care of a nice 20% off discount before it expires. Using them is getting a quality link from a well trusted source and now is your opportunity to do so. The coupon code you need to take advantage of this offer is SAVE20 and it will automatically knock off 20% of the regular price which ends up being a nice savings. There are only three days left to take advantage of this offer so you need to decide quick which sites you want to get listed or you can wait for the next discount to be offered as they usually do this a few times a year. I am taking advantage of it on quite a few of my sites this go around. I have used and advertised them for some time now.

Amazon Has The Trust

It is no secret that Amazon is very iconic and very trusted in the eyes of web consumers now. Their affiliate program was once frowned upon in the early days because of the short cookie. I am proud to say that this month, Amazon will take over the lead for my income over EPN and Adsense. I have been conscious over this last year to alleviate the direct pressure off of sites that were mostly living off of EPN without losing the EPN income. I have long owned and used the PHPZon and ReviewAzon plugins and just made sure to use them more in the forefront with EPN. The results have been amazing and the EPN earnings on those same sites have hardly suffered in the process. I am also working on slowly fazing out EPN on sites where the conversion rates are extremely high on some sites as it is stupid to give an option that produces less income when another produces more income at a better rate. This is not every site mind you, but the obvious ones are quite obvious. These type sites are your basic type sites that are built close to the way it is taught in the niche site guide. Nothing fancy, just using the basics along with great content. Amazon is not going anywhere and people trust it. Have you integrated it enough into your own sites? Have you tried adding it to sites using EPN. You might be surprised at the results.

Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin Updated

Yoast has worked out a ton of the early bugs in his latest SEO Wordpress plugin. The newest free version has been released and can be downloaded from here. Make sure it is indeed version 0.1.3 that you install up update to. If you want to see what all is fixed, you can see the changelog here.

If you do not know or are new to all of this, the plugin maker Joost de Valk , is a pioneer in optimization of Wordpress. This plugin is the one to have and I suspect most of the bugs have been worked out by now. Give it a try on one of your sites to test, it should more than fit your needs.

Free Wordtracker SEO Videos

Tonight I came across these great free videos done by Mike Mindel of Wordtracker that gives beginners a great overview of SEO. Mindel is the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Wordtracker.com, a tool that has been around for ages.

* SEO Your Web Page for Google - In the 1st video, Mindel shows you how to SEO your site, so you can rank for the keywords you choose and attract more traffic from Google.

* Discover a Profitable Niche for a New Website - This video is an overview of how to find a profitable niche market for a new site. Great to use at the start of your research process.

* How to Plan Your Site Structure for Maximum Traffic - In the last video Mindel explains how to plan out your site structure and why using category and content pages is the best way to do it.

These are not earth shattering, but they are great basics that often get overlooked.

Clickthrough Data & Google Analytics Skewed Matches

Matt Cutts recently answered a question that many might have had on why click through data for the keywords in your Google webmaster tools report does not always match your Google Analytics data. Most of it deals with the surfers and javascript in their browsers.

Learn To Hit The Ball Before You Hit A Homerun

I was asked yesterday by email if every site I build is a "homerun". I see what he was asking and the answer is obviously, no. I do consider though a site that averages a $1.00 a day though a success. $365 bucks a year off a site that might have $100 bucks or so invested in it is a success. I use the $1.00 a day as a low side as well. I have a few that earn less than that, but not many and most are earning that because of mistakes on my part. Bad market research, keyword research etc.

I think most vision getting one, two or three sites up and sitting back and watch the money roll in. You will have your "homeruns" the more you do. I have several, but it does not stop me from learning to hit the ball better. I love the sites the have about $150 bucks invested in them and earn around $5.00 a day. Does that start in month one? No, not always for sure, but by around the 6 month mark they are. They then payback that same $150 bucks every month. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

Stop focusing so much on hitting the homerun every time and focus on hitting the ball better. The homeruns will come and your bank account will grow just off of line drive base hits. Don't over think this business, just swing the bat.

20% Off Coupon Code For phpBay Pro or phpZon Pro

Wade Wells has a deal going right now where you can get 20% off either phpBay Pro or phpZon Pro by using the coupon code E907DB07EB

I have used both these great products for a long time and Wade is quick with any changes that either affiliate programs makes. Both these plugins are in my top 40 Wordpress plugins list and are a MUST in your toolbox. You can make a living off of using just these two plugins and Wordpress alone.

Most of you already own these I am sure, but you can not go wrong at this price. The forum also is top notch and worth the price of admission alone.

Exact Match Domains To Be Penalized Soon?

What a great post today by Rand Fishin ON SEO Moz as he addresses the question of if exact domain matches are too powerful and if they will be penalized in the future. Some experts believe that Google is rewarding sites too much right now for exact domain matches and believe you could indeed see a shift in the next 6 months. Right now it seems to be highly educated guesses on this, but owning quite a bit of exact domain name matches, I will be watching a little more closer than normal starting around the 1st of the year. My view is that Google should be able to take other on page things into consideration instead of just throwing the baby out with the bath water so to speak. The best way to combat this is too build sites that do not suck and hopefully you and I have been doing it all along. Sure I have some more spammy than others and will get around to upgrading the quality as I get back around to them. Some great comments in that post as well and I highly suggest chiming in there as well to add to the conversation. Great post as usual by Rand.

What’s Hot In Affiliate Marketing With JJ McCarthy Of EPN

The latest video episode of Chatting with eBay Partner Network is up now and I must admit they are getting better at these then when they first started. In the latest episide, JJ McCarthy discusses what’s hot in affiliate marketing and shares examples of leading content curators. Depending where you are at in this business, you may or may not learn something here.

Chatting with EPN: Episode 9 from eBay Partner Network TV on Vimeo.

Cpanel Operations Wordpress Plugin

I came across the Cpanel Operations Wordpress plugin today and tested on a site with no problems. The plugin is billed as a quick solution to creating an email account and/or ftp account on their cpanel from within their WordPress site. You can see the screen shots here. Now this is not a plugin you of course will need on every site, but I have had a few in the past that I needed to have multiple email addresses for and this makes it easy to do. Also having the ability to create a FTP account on the fly might come in handy some day, especially if you needed help from someone and wanted to quickly get them access to the server. This too is not an everyday need, but you can tuck this away or bookmark it should the need ever arise. I would be tempted to disable it when not in need though.

Fresh Blogger Template Designs

A few of you still may utilize blogger as a main blog or a feeder site and I came across a Mashable post I bookmarked that features 10 fresh blogger templates for any type application. Although EPN frowns on you using Blogger with their affiliate program, Amazon endorses it. I hate to see people not be able to make money because they are technically challenged by Wordpress, hosting or are just flat out broke. If you are any of these, you should start with Blogger. These templates are easy to use, the platform is easy to use and there are tons of free videos on using the platform out there. You can indeed build a review type site very easily using Amazon or many of the other affiliate programs out there. It is true you do not actually own the site, you can easily back it up and buy a domain to forward to it. If for some unknown reason you delete the site or Blogger takes it from you, you still have the domain you can point elsewhere. Enough about that. Where there is a will, there is a way and these Blogger templates look like they will do the trick for you.

Twitterfeed Adds Easy Monetization Option With Skimlinks

I came across news yesterday that TwitterFeed is introducing a new promotional partner, called Skimlinks. When you become a Skimlinks publisher you can earn money from your blog’s content effortlessly and transparently, by converting your normal links into affiliate links, and turning product references in your content into relevant, geo-targeted shopping links as well. You can learn more about Skimlinks in the video below.

69 Days Until Christmas

I keep a little app on my computer that runs your around that lets me know how many days there are before Christmas. Why? It really motivates me year around. I can already tell that online buying has started for Christmas as it shows in my traffic and earnings. Realistically the real HEAVY buying season does not start until Thanksgiving, so you just have over a month to try to get a few new sites built, indexed and backlinked. With the right niche and the proper use of social media, it is never too late to start. Let the countdown to Christmas motivate you. I myself have a few sites I installed a little while ago with the Keyword To Websites Plugin that are ready for their makeover with purchased original content from my writers. These sites are primed in some hot niches that I expect will do even better once we get past Halloween. It is never too late to start, even if you build out of the box sites to break the ice.

Video On Basic Tips Of Image SEO

Happy Friday everyone, it is Friday and that of course means there was a White board Friday video posted up on SEO Moz, one of my all time favorite sites. This week, Danny Dover tackles the basics of image SEO and offers up what is being termed as experimental ways to SEO images that may prove useful now and in the future.

Google Third Quarter 2010 Financial Results Released

I am WAY behind today thanks to a charity bake sale project my wife sprung on me late this afternoon. Crisis has been diverted and now everything has been baked and cooling down. Damn I am good! Who else is good? Google of course. I have owned Google stock since early 2006, so I love to hear when their financial results are released to skim through them. Admittedly, much of the stuff on the statement is not important to most webmasters, but on the flip side there is a ton you can take from these as well. I think Google is just scratching the surface of total world domination. Is that good as a whole? Probably not, but they put a ton of money in my pocket through Adsense and affiliate programs and the last thing I want to hear is instability. To hear Eric Schmidt talk, instability is no where close as Google had an excellent quarter. Long Live Google!!!

Easy Wordpress SEO & More On The Yoast SEO Plugin

Often times it is good to go back to the simple things to refresh what we do or do not know and what we may have forgotten. Such is the case with this post from Siobhan on the Wordpress & Multisite blog. This post is another great basic and easy to follow SEOing of Wordpress. You will also notice several plugins from Yoast included in this post as well as the WordPress SEO Presentation at A4UExpo London that he did a year ago. Also included is a video on how to setup the WP Super Cache Plugin For WordPress.

You may remember the new SEO plugin I posted about a couple of days ago that is in beta, well Daniel Haim has a flattering review of as well. He goes in further detail how that plugin eliminated 7 different plugins that he uses and you will definitely recognize them. GET THIS PLUGIN NOW!!! I do not know how much clearer I can be on this. Go over the SEO post as well.

Are you Ready For WordPress 3.2 Using PHP5?

When WordPress 3.2 comes out it will be dependent on your host running PHP 5.2 in order to install or upgrade to WordPress 3.2. Now is the time to make sure you know for sure if your host is with the times or not. I came across this PHP 5 testing tool that is designed to help you find out whether or not a certain site is ready for WordPress 3.2. The tool simply looks at the information returned by your server. If the server you test doesn't identify the PHP version being run on it, instructions for an alternate method will be provided. This tool is more of a point and click type tool and if you have any real concerns, you should contact your host to ask them the hard questions. If the server is not ready for the new version of Wordpress, you should consider switching host as by now, most should be able to accommodate this. HostGator is currently running either PHP version 5.2.13 or 5.2.14 and is fine for lower volume sites that are not auto blogging.

Yoast SEO Wordpress Plugin Now In Public Beta

The day has finally arrived as Joost de Valk has released his long awaited SEO Wordpress plugin to a public type beta. I have followed Joost (known as Yoast) for a long while as he is an authority on making Wordpress dance and optimized to it's fullest potential. I highly suggest using this on a site of your own and read all of the post on it. This should become the end all, do all plugin for Wordpress heading into 2011. Get it downloaded and going today and make sure to subscribe to the Yoast blog and follow him on Twitter. He has helped me tremendously over the years as I have learned so much from him.

Using Social Network Profiles For SEO

I am getting caught up thisd evening on some blog reading and have not been to SEO Moz the last few weeks to see the Whiteboard Friday videos. I am glad I did though as Rand had a great video the first of the month about Using Social Network Profiles For SEO. In this video, Rand goes over five ideas for using these types of sites to help with your SEO strategy.

Do Picture Only Blogs Work?

I was recently asked what I thought about autoblogs that post only pictures. I can say that I have only 2 set up using the WP Robot plugin that post only pictures from Flickr and they each earn 20-30 bucks a month mostly with Adsense ads. Now you may have seen the one Michelle McPherson has had up for a while targeting Cool Tattoos. This site has been around for a while and I believe uses the Photo Dropper plugin. Now 20-30 bucks might not seem like a bunch, but that is 300 a year earnings based on 25 bucks a day. Now some niches are better suited than others, but 300 bucks for a $169 plugin you can use to do a myriad of things with is a great investment. That is if you you only use the Flickr Module. If you are new, just start with that and slowly learn how to maximize the use of other modules. Also if you only use the Flickr module and post only photos once or twice a day, you should be able to fly under the radar of a shared host like Hostgator that normally frowns on autoblogs because of the load it places on servers.

Oh, The Things People Will Buy

First off all thanks for the many emails I received on the passing of my grandfather. I certainly appreciate it. Surely you all have read, "Oh! The Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss. If not, run to your local Books-A-Milion this weekend and grab a cup of coffee and knock it out. It will not take you long. I call this post "Oh, The Things People Will Buy" just as a play on words, but it amazes me at the things people really do buy. Not always what I am trying to sell them either. That is what is so great about this business. You set the line for a tuna and catch grouper and amberjack at the same time.

There are not enough hours in the week for me and sometimes I concern myself more with stats and earnings and not so much what I sell. I made an effort late last night to go over the huge reports of products I have sold, and uncovered 3 very untapped niches with a wealth of untapped keyword phrases and exact domain name matches unregistered as well. These sites will all get a quick install this weekend of the Keywords To Websites plugin I talked about in my top 40 Wordpress plugins post until I can get back around to giving them content and converting them into full fledged review/product niche sites. I have 100% confidence these will do splendid right out of the box and even better when I get them built to their final stage.

I highly suggest looking over your sold reports in Amazon, EPN and whatever other affiliate program you belong to that lets you see what you sold. If you are new to the business, but do not sell much currently, pick a day and just surf aimlessly through Amazon and eBay. Make notes for about 30 or so different items and then do your research. Do not pre-judge anything, let the research tell you the good or bad. Your own stats and numbers have so much information that we often ignore.

New Google QR Code Generator

Been a busy day as my grandfather passed away this morning. He was 90 plus, so he did not get cheated and went down hill in just a few days. No lingering and suffering. Regardless, it has me tied over over the next few days into next week. I am headed back out to family here shortly, but wanted to pass along a link to the new Google QR Code Generator. As Mark Sprague points out in the post, it has a long way to go, but you will be seeing more and more of that type code image in magazines, newspapers and the web. It is used already in Website Magazine and has been for quite a while. Do not ignore this going forward.

2nd Page Sniper WordPress Plugin Released

Todd Dickerson just released a new Wordpress plugin called the 2nd Page Sniper. I have only downloaded the plugin and plan to put it to work on a test site on Friday as I have way too much on my plate until then. The plugin goes hand in hand with this PDF he created called Beyond Link Building in which he describes his 2nd Page Sniping concept and introduces the plugin and how to use it.

In short, the 2nd Page Sniper logs all incoming search queries from Google, Bing and Yahoo to your website including the page that you are currently ranked on in that search engine. It will then display those links in the sidebar of your blog that it determines to be most likely to create significant ranking increases for with the greatest traffic potential. I should warn that with any plugin like this, you should experiment with it on a test blog before implementing in your entire network of sites. The concept is interesting, but once again I have yet to tackle it myself.

Matt Cutts Talks Html Sitemaps

In the latest webmaster video by Matt Cutts he covers the need for a html sitemap in addition to a xml sitemap. Cutts goes over the advantages of having one and how simple or expanded you can go with them. Even an archives type tree in the sidebar could suffice if using a platform like Wordpress. I have talked about a plugin called Sitemap Generator Plugin for Wordpress by Dagon Design as well. See video below.

Do Not Ignore The Trust Factor

I think what I have learned most with building niche sites over the years is not to ignore the trust factor of a surfer. It is very important as they must trust in order to buy. That is most of the time mind you. I have broken down 4 areas on your site that the trust factor must not be ignored on.

Look - Does your site look trust worthy? Does it look like a 5th grader built it? Sometimes less is more and it is a trap we all fall into. A simple clean layout with a small professional logo is more than enough. Also stick to just two or 3 colors. Black, white and one primary is perfect. I have gotten over creative before. You likely have as well.

Content - Does your content make sense? Does it read right? Is it factual? I love the Best Spinner, but it can be used to the wrong way very easily to create plain crap that is unreadable. Also make sure the facts are right about a product or an article. Surfers pick up on inconsistencies very easily. You do not need to be a Pulitzer Prize winner to create simple, to the point, factual content. Use your content to paint a pretty picture and sell the product. It is not hard to do.

Ads - Are the ads you are showing trustworthy looking? Do the banners look good? Do the ads match what you are selling? No obnoxious clams? Any stats you can look at for the banner conversions inside your affiliate admin panel? This is often overlooked. Too many times we head for a banner we like and fail to look if there is one that has been converting better. It draws clicks because the surfer trust it.

Exit - Are you sending the surfer to a trustworthy site. Did you trick them to go there? Are they going to where they think they are going? Will where they are going have what they need or are looking for?

A Great Free 158 Page Ebook

A bit under the weather today and am behind getting some task done, but I came across a great new 158 page pdf ebook written by Anik Singal and wanted to point everyone to it. In it he teaches how to build an online business empire from scratch like he has done. He has laid it out nicely and you can currently opt in and get it for free for a limited time. Let me tell you that it is not earth shattering, but you can learn quite a bit from it as it is easy to follow. He goes over research, site creation and list building. Without giving too much away, just go download it. You have nothing to lose.

Video Marketing At SES London 2009 & Facebook Jumps To #2

I have talked a ton about video over the last year and recently Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR discussed YouTube and Video Marketing at SES London 2009 in a video interview below. There is also a post up on Search Engine Watch that covers the comScore Video Metrix of US video sites where not so surprisingly, Facebook.com has jumped one position to capture the #2 spot with 58.6 million viewers of video in the US.

Firefox Plugin For Converting HTML to RSS

I came across this great video the DapperFox Firefox addon to make an RSS feed from a site or sites that does not have a specific RSS feed. I am going to play this next week to return product specific listings from CraigsList site wide among a few other things I want to play with using it. Pretty good stuff right here, especially if you are aggregating some feeds in as content with an autoblog or the likes. Watch this and give it a try. I will have more after I play with it myself.