Archive for April, 2008
Continuing with the survey results I started to share Monday. Here are several responses to the question “What do you like least?”. First of all, thank for the candid responses. Constructive criticism can be helpful. Second of all, I learned a long time ago that I’m never going to please everyone. It’s best to be myself and let the everything else fall into place.
Here are a some responses in no particular order with my comments:
Response: “Unfortunately you seem to be just another “how to make cash site” but you aren’t as bad as others IMO since you engage your viewers and offer them something in return”
Comment: Thank you, glad to know I’m not as bad as others.
Response: “It doesn’t seem to have a lot of info on social marketing”
Comment: Up to this point, I have not used much social marketing. I’m not an expert on everything and I don’t pretend to know everything. Since I don’t use social bookmarking sites and don’t get much traffic from them, I don’t see a reason to make a post about using them so I can sound smart. Lots of other people seem to use them and there is a lot of information on other sites and blogs. I’m not ignoring social bookmarking though, I’m looking at a few ways to build links and drive traffic with them.
In January I experimented with social bookmarking in a post titled “Top 3 Reasons New Year’s Resolutions are For Losers”. I got hundreds of visitors a day from Stumble Upon for a few weeks but it wasn’t quality traffic. They didn’t stay long and they didn’t sign up for my list.
I like to stick with what works: article marketing, blog carnival submissions, and building one-way links with the keyword as anchor text all work and especially when you use all three of them simultaneously.
Here’s exactly what I’m using to build rankings and traffic:
1) Blog Carnival Submissions
2) Article Marketing
3) One Way Links with Keyword as anchor text (3 Way Links & Linktator2)
Does these methods really work? Check out the G results for “internet business”. The results change frequently but it’s a very competitive search term. I’m usually on the first page of results.
Response: long posts about sports teams I have never heard of
Comment: I realize this is not a sports blog but it is part of my personality. I’m a recovering sportsaholic. In my youth, I watched way too much sports on TV…not so much anymore. But I do still pay attention to what’s going on and watch a few of my favorite teams. I’ve always tied some kind of marketing or success lesson into those types of posts and I don’t think I’ve made more than 5 of them in the past year.
This is the perfect example of how you can’t please everyone. Many people like the fact that I try to inject some of my personality into my posts and this is part of it…but some people don’t like those posts. I can’t please everyone all the time.
Look for more responses & comments in my next post.
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WordCamps are my favorite events to go to because there’s something about the core WordPress community that attracts smart folks with good philosophies that are fun to hang out with. In this post I’ve collated the upcoming WordCamps we know about, including the one in San Francisco. Hopefully there will be one nearby so you can meet other WordPressers in your area.
WordCamp San Francisco will be August 16 at the Mission Bay Conference Center.
WordCamp Paris will be on May 3rd. Here’s their official site.
WordCamp Italy in Milan will be May 10th. (And I believe I’ll be there.)
WordCamp Birmingham UK will be July 19-20.
WordCamp Toronto will be October 4th.
There are people in the planning stages in Australia, Philippines, Beijing, Utah, Hawaii, UK, NYC, and possibly others, so if you live in one of those areas and would like to help set up a WordCamp in your area Google around or connect with bloggers in your area.
You can always find out more at WordCamp Central.
Welcome to WordPress. This is your prototypal post. Edit or withdraw it, then move blogging!
I wasn’t really planning on taking last week off but I did. I was in NY for my brother’s wedding last weekend. After that I took a few days to drive to Indiana stopping to see a few friends on the way and I never got around to making a post. I was intending to share the results of the survey I did a few weeks ago. I’ll do that this week.
The first question was “How did you hear about the CyberCashology blog”? The responses were roughly 75% from other blogs & 25% from search engines. I should have asked which search term but I didn’t. One of the responses indicated they searched on “kunaki review” and I have written about Kunaki a few times.
The next question asked how often you prefer new posts. About 10% prefer posts 7 days per week. Roughly 40% prefer posts every weekeday. And the winner was 3 posts per week at about 50%. I’ve been posting 3 times per week since January and that is my preference too so I think I’ll keep it there.
“What do you like most?” was the next question. The most popular answer was useful tips. Some others were personality, candor, honesty, sincerity, & personal updates. So I’ll try to provide more tips & injecting my personality into posts.
The next two questions asked “What do you like least?” & “What topics would you like to see covered more?” There were enough suggestions & opinions in the responses to those questions for another post or two so I’ll reveal those answers in the near future.
Tags: Testing & Tracking, Video Products
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Version 2.5.1 of WordPress is now available. It includes a number of bug fixes, performance enhancements, and one very important security fix. We recommend everyone update immediately, particularly if your blog has open registration. The vulnerability is not public but it will be shortly.
In addition to the security fix, 2.5.1 contains many bug fixes. If you are interested only in the security fixes, you can download these corrected copies of wp-includes/pluggable.php, wp-admin/includes/media.php, and wp-admin/media.php. Replace your existing copies of these files with these new copies.
If you download the entire 2.5.1 release, you will be getting over 70 other fixes. 2.5.1 focuses on fixing the most annoying bugs and improving performance. Here are some highlights:
- Performance improvements for the Dashboard, Write Post, and Edit Comments pages.
- Better performance for those who have many categories
- Media Uploader fixes
- An upgrade to TinyMCE 3.0.7
- Widget Administration fixes
- Various usability improvements
- Layout fixes for IE
Secret lives of blogs
Since 2.5 your wp-config.php file allows a new constant called SECRET_KEY which basically is meant to introduce a little permanent randomness into the cryptographic functions used for cookies in WordPress. You can visit this link we set up to get a unique secret key for your config file. (It’s unique and random on every page load.) Having this line in your config file helps secure your blog.
Many thanks to Steven Murdoch for responsibly reporting the security issue (CVE-2008-1930) and Alex Concha for reporting an XSS issue.
An Event Apart is a web design and development conference which features some of the same fine folks who helped out with WordPress 2.5. (And many others.) I attended the one in Chicago a while back and was engaged the whole day in interesting talks on design, writing copy as interface, advanced CSS, and creativity — each topic presented by the leading folks in the field.
The conference normally costs just under a thousand dollars to attend, which is well worth it, but because of our association with the folks they’ve set up a discount for WordPress users.
If you enter AEAWP on checkout the price drops to $795, or $200 below the regular registration fee. The coupon is unlimited, and can be used for one ticket or five. They have events coming up in New Orleans, Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago. You can learn more and register on their site at aneventapart.com.
We’ll also have some final dates for WordCamp San Francisco coming up, I’ll be posting those soonish so people can start making vacation and travel plans. (Nothing like a blogging vacation.)
I was watching Jay Leno the other night as I sometimes do and in his monologue he told a joke about a stupid criminal. This guy tried to rob an auto repair shop but the mechanic told him the manager was the only one who knew the combination to the safe and the manager was out to lunch.
So this stupid criminal gives the mechanic his cell phone number and tells the mechanic to call him when the manager returns so he can come back and rob the shop. The criminal got a call when the manager returned and of course the police were there to arrest him when he showed up to steal the money. Can you believe it?
It’s hard to believe people can be that stupid…but sometimes business owners can be just as stupid and I’m not excluding myself. Business owners sometimes do stupid things like failing to test and improve conversions, failing to offer an upsell, failing to provide prompt & courteous customer support (good luck getting repeat sales if you fall into that category), and lots of other simple things.
The sad part is that stupid (or maybe lazy is a better word) business owners are robbing themselves blind and they probably don’t even realize it. They could be making more money with minimal extra effort. It doesn’t take long to set up a split-test and customer support can be outsourced.
So the next time you hear a comedian telling a joke about stupid people, go ahead and laugh if it’s funny. But take a minute and consider everything you’re doing (or not doing). We all do stupid things from time to time and there’s no time like the present to find solutions to challenges.
Tags: Article Marketing, Testing & Tracking
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If you’re going to be successful, you’re going to have to overcome obstacles….lots of them. The simple fact is that everyone faces obstacles and challenges everyday. The major difference is that successful people persevere and find ways to overcome the obstacles while those who aren’t so successful use these obstacles as excuses for not succeeding.
I’m no different than anyone else. I have obstacles to overcome too. For example, an opportunity has come up recently which I won’t elaborate on at this time but the “perfect storm” of circumstances including the timing, the weather, and my travel schedule has arisen to make a simple task full of challenges.
I’ve been in Phoenix for almost the past four months. I specifically chose someplace warm because I hate snow and cold weather. It seems without exception bad things happen when it snows and I’ve had a not-so-subtle reminder in the past few days. I need to receive a Fed Ex package with an assignment and reply to it by Monday April 21. On the surface, it seems very simple doesn’t it? It hasn’t worked out that way.
First of all this is the week of my brother’s wedding and I’ve known I would be driving across the country most of the week for probably 6 months. Secondly, I make a conscious effort not to be anywhere there is even a remote chance of a blizzard until May when I feel safe Spring has sprung. I made a rare exception this week to drive through Minnesota to pick up my uncle for the ride to New York so he could attend his nephew’s wedding and see his children.
Literally while I was on the road, this opportunity came up. I was a day away from Minnesota (or so I thought) and planning to be there through the weekend leaving early Monday morning so it seemed simple enough to have the package delivered to Minnesota where I could work on it over the weekend. It was sent Fed Ex overnight delivery on Thursday to arrive Friday.
Of course the blizzard hit Thursday & Friday. I drove through it for two days. It was absolutely miserable. I saw at least 3 jacknifed Fed Ex trucks on the interstates. Of course the package did not arrive Friday. It wasn’t delivered on Saturday either. Not knowing when (or even if) the package would be delivered on Monday, I left at 6 AM just like I had planned. Of course the package arrived about 10:15 AM Monday morning.
So now I’m scrambling to have the package delivered again to New York. It ought to arrive by Friday or Saturday…but it should have arrived in Minnesota last Friday or Saturday too so who knows. And how much time do you figure I’ll have to focus on the task with all the wedding chaos? I only have a vague idea of what the task is because I don’t have the package yet.
It would have been simple to handle this at any time during the previous 4 months while I was in Phoenix. And it would have been simple to handle this next week or probably for the next several weeks. But it all had to happen this week when I’m driving literally across the country to my brother’s wedding and throw in a freak April blizzard on the way.
Why? Who knows and who cares? It doesn’t matter. It’s a complete waste of time to wonder why or why me? That’s what losers do. They would use all these obstacles as excuses. I’ll just deal with it and do the best that I can. The reality is that I was able to get my deadline extended to Wednesday April 23rd and if the package arrives this weekend that should be plenty of time.
Don’t get bogged down in the details of this particular situation. The bigger picture is that everyone faces their own challanges on a daily basis. It would be stupid to think you’re the only one with obstacles to overcome. We don’t have much control over when opportunities arise. We can only pounce on those opportunities quickly before they disappear despite any and all challenges that arise. Good luck overcoming your obstacles.
Tags: Testing & Tracking, Success
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I’ve heard one of the biggest mistakes made online is not making an offer on your sales page and another is not asking for the order. I’ve only heard this…not really noticed it much. Most of the sales pages I visit make an offer and ask for an order although sometimes the offer is not very clear. Are you making these mistakes?
The thoughts about offers and orders occurred to me as I was driving through a freak winter storm on my way to Minnesota. On the bright side, it served as a not so subtle reminder of why I hate snow. The weather has added an extra day to an already long drive. Highways (including long stretches of US Interstates) aren’t plowed and barely passable. It’s like driving on unpaved roads and there were more cars in the medians and jack knifed semi-trucks than I could count. Luckily I wasn’t one of them but there’s nothing anybody can do about the weather and that’s not the point.
I will normally just drive straight through but due to the road conditions I’ve stayed at 2 motels on the way. At both places I decided to stop there were several national chains and hardly any of them are making an offer…unless you consider the sign an offer. All I wanted was cable so I could watch the Masters and high-speed Internet. It would also be nice to know the price of a one-night stay.
Not a single one of these national chains made an offer with all three of those things. Some offered a price. Some offered high-speed Internet. Some offered cable. But none of them clearly offered all three so I was left to guess. I wasn’t about to drive around to all of them and ask so I just picked one based on the incomplete offer one of them made and that’s where I stayed.
One morning I woke up at 5 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep so I clicked on the TV to check out the weather and found an endless stream of infomercials. I actually like to watch infomercials occasionally because they are masters of direct marketing. It’s kind of like a sales letter that comes to life. If you listen, they use a lot of the same words & phrases you’ll find in written sales letters.
One guy had invented some contraption that would save me hundreds of dollars on dry cleaning among other things. I wasn’t interested but he was going to knock off one of my 29.95 payments, send me 3 bonuses, and upgrade me to express shipping if ordered now. He even put a phone number up on the screen and told me to call it right now. That’s the TV equivalent of a big bold clickable order link that says “Click Here Now to Order.”
See the big difference? The infomercial guy gave me several reasons to order now and told me exactly how to do it. I just didn’t happen to be interested in his offer. On the other hand, I had a choice of about 6 motels to stay at and none of them stood out and gave me reasons to buy. They all used the same mediocre marketing. I bet one of them lost my business because they didn’t make it crystal clear what they were offering. Don’t make that mistake.
Tags: Article Marketing, Domain Names
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A few weeks ago, Ed Rivis released his book “The Ultimate Web Marketing Strategy .” I like Ed’s blog and read it weekly so naturally I ordered the book during his special offer and I finished reading it last week. It’s just over 200 pages and it’s very easy to read…especially if you understand most of the web and information business jargon like landing pages, back-end, etc.
Ed must be a bit modest because he told me I didn’t need to read it and I probably already knew most of what was in it. To a certain extent he was right, but I did learn a few things and it was worth reading. The book also does a great job of laying out a clear strategy on how to use the Internet to increase your business.
Mostly I learned about a few free tools I’d never heard of like BrowserShots.org which shows you how your site looks in different browser windows. That’s a lot simpler than firing up several browsers. There were also a few others I hadn’t heard of but I can’t remember them off the top of my head.
If you’re looking for a straightforward web marketing strategy, this book is for you just as the title says. It’s not just about making money online. It’s more about how to use the Internet as part of a larger business model incorporating offline tactics too. Considering Ed is a consultant, this books is a great advertisement of his expertise and clearly establishes him as an expert.
Ed sent me two copies of the book but I don’t have one to give away. I sent the extra copy to James Lee because he sent me a book about AdWords a few weeks ago. That’s reciprocity at work.
Tags: Success, Article Marketing
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- August 2008 (4)
- July 2008 (3)
- June 2008 (10)
- May 2008 (12)
- April 2008 (15)
- March 2008 (3)
- February 2008 (1)
- December 2007 (2)
- October 2007 (2)
