Tag Archives: blog
Alex Jeffrey’s New FREE eBook - Newbie’s Nightmare Released!
Posted on 20. Jun, 2009 by Derrick.
I’ve been enjoying an extended holiday over the last month and a half travelling to Hong Kong, London and Paris and have now relocated to Singapore for the time being enjoying the rare pleasure of feeling like I’m in a sauna 24/7:), In any case I’m ready to get back into some blogging!
Anyways I just got an email a couple of days ago letting me know Alex Jeffrey’s has just made his latest Free ebook “Newbie’s Nightmare” available online. So I thought I’d make a quick post about it.
Last year I was involved with his Internet Marketing Coaching program (and hence the birth of this website:) and while he was teaching a lot of strategies and important information on how to be successful online, he also learned a great deal himself about his students and rolling out a coaching program. One of the things he learned was some of the most common reasons why 99% of people fail to make money online. He shares this for free in his ebook Newbie’s Nightmare as well as some of the key strategies to make money online successfully. At just 46 pages its an easy but powerful read. I’ll be doing a full review in the coming days. . in the meantime you can download Newbie’s Nightmare yourself for Free here.
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Preview of Alvin Phang’s Atomic Blogging 3.0 System
Posted on 05. Mar, 2009 by Derrick.
I’ve been out of action for the last 2 weeks due to my offline work and projects and have just found some time to make a new post. Over the last 3 months I have done a lot of research on the net for blogging and internet marketing resources. One of the resources I have come across is Atomic Blogging by Alvin Phang. I signed up to his mailing list, and ever since have received various emails including his recent engagement!. .
In the last few days I have received a number of emails with regards to his latest version of Atomic Blogging. Having decided that blogging is definitely something I want to continue, I read with interest what his Atomic Blogging would provide me.
The system he sells inlcudes his
- Blogging Guide 3.0
- Atomic Blogging 3.0 Wordpress Plug-in
- Atomic Blogging Nuclear Nodule Pack (A collecton of Wordpress plug-in’s Alvin Recommends)
- One Month Free Access to his Atomic Blogging VIP Membership including his Atomic Blogging 4.0 Wordpress theme and 500 Fresh New PLR Articles every month.
- Interview with Yaro Starak
- Private/ Master Label Rights for the Barking Traffic Videos (14 Videos), Adsense Revenue Exposed and Bloggers Guide To Profits ebooks plus eWriter Pro Software for writing ebooks.
Limited Time Bonuses:
- Atomic Blogging Keyword Research Tool Version 2.0
- Interview with John Chow and Carl Ocab
So after reading what the package included, besides the actual Atomic Blogging 3.0 Guide, the key products I found of interest were the Atomic Blogging 3.0 Wordpress Plug-in, as I have not come accross this plug-in before. Most social bookmarking plug-ins I found only add the functionality of making it easy for others to social bookmark your article, but don’t actually submit your article to the social bookmarking sites. If you have ever submitted your own article to Digg or any other social bookmarking site, you will know it can easily take 10-15 minutes to do. This software submits your article to up to 15 social bookmarking sites everytime you publish a new post! This will definitely be a timesaver and help with traffic.
The other product is the Atomic Blogging 4.0 Wordpress theme. I still haven’t found the perfect theme, but always interested to try a new one and see how well it works. Also the Atomic Blogging Nuclear Module Pack would be very useful as I’m constant looking for new plug-ins to provide more functionality to my blog, so hopefully there will be a few new plug-ins I can use here.
The final product that looks very useful is the Atomic Blogging Keyword Research Tool. I’m only just beginning to realise how important keyword research is, so again, I look forward to test this one, and find out how useful it is compared to other tools I have used.
Anyway I’ve decided to buy the Atomic Blogging 3.0 Pack, and look forward to do a more detailed review, once I get a chance to study the Atomic Blogging Guide and test out the Plugin’s and software. If you are already a user or have any comments to add please feel free to comment below!
Click here to check out Atomic Blogging 3.0
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How To Increase Your Click Through Rates And Maximize Profits From Affiliate Programs On Your Wordpress Blog.
Posted on 11. Feb, 2009 by Derrick.
Before I get to the meat of the article, I thought I would first define a few terms just in case you’re a newbie: If you already have some knowledge in this area, feel free to skip the definitions and go straight to rest of the article.
DEFINITIONS
What is an affiliate program?
An Affiliate program is simply a program you can join that allows you to sell specific products for a commission. Usually when you join such a program, you will be provided with a specific affiliate web link to the product sales page. This allows the Affiliate Program to track referrals to their site from your link, and thus compensate you for any referrals that actually lead to a sale. This is probably one of the easiest and fastest ways to create an income online, as you don’t need to create, deliver or provide support for a product - you just recommend it.
What is a Click Through Rate?
A click through rate or click through ratio is simply the number of times a link is clicked on and goes to the linked web page over the number of times that link is shown within a specified timeframe. (Also known as “impressions”). For example if this article was visited 100 times, and one of the specific links were clicked thru 20 times to another webpage - then the click thru ratio would be 20%.
THE PROBLEM
So if you’re an affiliate marketer, ie an independent sale’s agent for specific products, you would normally make your sales through having a website with links to these products. There are many other ways to do this such as creating advertisements that link straight to the their sales page (and therefore not requiring you to have a website) as well as email marketing (which requires you to build a list). For the purposes of this article I’m focusing on people who have set up a website or blog and primarily write articles that include links to the products they are recommending.
Most people who do this, simply insert their affiliate links into their blog or website: They simply copy and paste the affiliate link into the post. Now here’s the problem. Most affiliate links look horrible and meaningless as they are computer generated and created primarily to produce a unique link so your referrals can easily be tracked. Here is an example of how these affiliate links can appear:
http://www.AffiliateProgram.com//a.php?a=CD13798&b=25367&d=0&l=0&o=&p=0&c=4110&s1=&s2=&s3=&s4=&s5=
Of course this is not the link that will be in the text - however this horrible link will show up in the status bar. (usually at the bottom of the web browser). They appear when you hover over the link - revealing the address of where the link will take you. Because the link is meaningless and looks ugly, many people will choose not to click through and therefore you are losing opportunities for sales. These are visitors who have somehow found your website as a result of the the time you have spent with traffic generating strategies. You can stop losing these potential sales.
THE SOLUTION:
There is a way to minimize the loss of these click throughs and that is by creating professional looking and meaningful links. This is done by creating a redirect ie - creating a nicer looking link that redirects to the actual affiliate link. Here are some examples of such links:
http://www.YourDomainName.com/AffiliateProgram
http://www.YourDomainName.com/recommends/AffiliateProgram
http://www.YourDomainName.com/Goto/AffiliateProgram
Compare these links to the one previously. Which would you prefer to click thru on? As you can see, these links look much more professional, meaningful and therefore more likely to be clicked through. By creating these links you should be able to increase your average click through rate. Also since redirects conceal your affiliate ID’s within the actual affiliate link - you are also stopping people from stealing your commissions by removing your affiliate ID and replacing with their own!
So how can you set these “redirects” up? I’ve been using a software that not only creates these redirects but also helps you manage and track your affiliate links within Wordpress. Normally when you use the affiliate links you have no idea how many times they are actually clicked on unless you login to each individual affiliate program and check your statistic there - This can be very time consuming if you have subscribed to many affiliate programs. This software makes it much easier to see an overall picture of how effective each of your affiliate links are - all in one place.
Besides this great benefit and helping you make more money and preventing loss of income from stolen afffiliate ID’s, the software has many other features which also help you save time and maximize your affiliate programs. For more information about Ninja Affiliate click here and watch their video on how you can do this and more.
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Progress Update : 2009 January 19th-31st
Posted on 05. Feb, 2009 by Derrick.
Ok. . Another 2 weeks has passed. . and I feel I have neglected my blog. . but not for good reason, As I have been busy working on videos for the Video Competition. I was shooting to win the creative and was still hopeful for the video that gets the most traffic for my last video uploaded 2 days before the comp ended (I Guess I was a little too optimistic on that one). . Anyways. .I haven’t heard confirmation of the winners yet. but will be sure to post the results when I do.
So what’s happened in the last 2 week of January? well after checking my time log, I was a little shocked to discover I spent just over 50 hours on the 500 Video! And due to a couple of mini holidays during this time - weekend trip to Brisbane for Chinese New Year and a 4 day break at Jervis Bay in New South Wales - that also cut down my time available to be productive :). So here’s what I have achieved:
- Produced the 500 Video - I know I probably over did it :). . but I wanted to be totally happy with it, and I have to say I am pretty proud of the result
~ 50 hours - Traffic Generation Activity ~ 3hours
- Building and optimising blog ~ 4 hours
- Writing Content ~ 2 hours
- Miscellaneous ~ 10 hours
After this first full month working on the blog. . - which has mainly consisted with producing the videos :). . and just in my research on what’s happening and whats out there, I feel I’m getting a much better idea of where I am best placed within the World Wide Web - I’ll be making my plans in the next week as I spend time evaluating where I should be heading, and what I want to spend my time on.
Jan 2009 Work Breakdown
Ok. . so lets see how all this activity affected my traffic to my site: - Just click to open up the full size image
Google Analytics Jan 19th-31st 2009
You’ll notice a HUGE peak on the 19th wtih 144 Visits in one day! This was as a result of my first Video being launched. My Second Video was launched on the 30th Jan and had to leave for my mini holiday so didn’t have the proper time to promote it.
Lastly my Alexa Ranking has improved as well. . I didn’t do a check on the 31st so here are my stats from today:
Alexa Ranking February 6th 2009
Wow - I’m now in the top 250,000 websites :). . My goal to get to the top 100,000 is in sights! When I first started this blog sometime in mid December it was ranked around 9 Million, and slowly I have gone up the Alexa Ranks :). .anwyays still much more work to do, but this is definitely encouraging!
THE FUTURE:
Anyways. I think my future lies in making instructional videos and reviews, so I’m researching on what I should be making them for. If you have any ideas or suggestions on what type of videos I should be making - please leave your comments below!
Cheers,
Derrick
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Progress Update : 2009 Week 2 January 12th-18th
Posted on 20. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.
Ok, So a couple of days late. . but I have legitate excuses (Difficultly uploading video to Youtube - for some reason, it wouldn’t accept my HD version, and attempted nearly 10 times - the file was huge - over 700MB :). .Anyways, here’s my progress report for 12th to 18th of January. (times are approximate, as there were a few times when I was in deep concentration on making the video, I forgot to start the timer
My Achievements:
- Brainstormed Ideas for Video Contest & Produced and Uploaded first Video (~16 hours+)
- Researched Wordpress themes and revamped my blog ~ 15 hours
- Initiated my first Joint Venture Project - I’ll reveal more of this later ~ 4 hours
- Writing 2 Key articles - one on article writing, the other on directory submission ~ 9 hours
- Spending a very small amount of time on Traffic Generation ~ 2 hours (I think this is a little inaccurate - probably more closer to 4-5 hours and this was mostly oil rig hopping - visiting and commenting on other peoples blogs)
Below is a nice coloured graph showing you the breakdown:
Work Breakdown Jan 12th -18th 2009 - Click to enlarge
Now that I have showed you what I have done - Lets check what the RESULTS are
My Key Performance Indicators from the goals I set in January were based on the following : Income, Visitors, and my list building. As I have been focusing on producing content and updating my site (and subsequently very little on traffic generation) my results this week, have not suprisingly been bad :) Firstly here are my google Analytics stats:
Google Analytics - Jan 12-18th 2009 - Click to Enlarge
As you can see I nearly dipped to ZERO on the 16th, but I was luckily able to resurrect my traffic after I finally uploaded my Video to YouTube. I have to say its very discouraging when you aren’t getting traffic, but its an adrenalin ride when you do:)
Ok. big question : have I made any money? And the answer is NO. . in fact I’ve spent some money (spent $70 buying the WooTheme to update the look and feel of my site). But I know I will very soon. . How about my list? No subscribers yet either, but again I do have a plan. . so this will change very soon
One other bit of good news is that I have climbed in the Alexa Rankings - I’m now proud to say I’m at 580,385 Check it out below:
Alexa Rankings 18th Jan 2009 - Click to enlarge
Oh, and one other thing. . I just passed 1000 friends on twitter :). . so all in all despite not being good to my bank account, it has been a good week :). . .
Well that’s it for week 2.
My plan this week is to continue working on my blog usability and functionality, adding lots of quality content, and spend more time in traffic generation activities
Would love to hear any questions you may have or your thoughts on how I could be more productive, or where you feel I need to focus my energies for the coming weeks - post your comments in the box below
Derrick
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Blog Makeover - New ‘Professional’ Wordpress Theme :)
Posted on 17. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.
Ok, so I’ve been a bit slack posting up on the website, but only because I’ve been busy working on a few things for the site - including the NEW LOOK!. . And as usual everything takes time. I Spent about 5 hours yesterday setting up, plus about 5-10 hours surfing the web looking for what I wanted this week.
Still a few minor tweaks to get it to how I want. I’ve attached a snapshot of what the old blog looked like (with some missing widgets as I forget to take a screenshot before I changed the theme, so its missing my RSS subscribe and optin box for the ebook, at the top right, but it gives you a pretty good idea to compare:
Blog Theme Jan 17th 2009
I’m aslo thinking of bring back the cartoon element, as I like it better:
Blog Theme Dec 2008
What do you think? Do you like the new look? Prefer the old one? Think I should bring back the cartoon character?
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Module 5 : Traffic Tornadoes - 5 Key Traffic Generating Strategies
Posted on 09. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.
Hi Guys,
Just had our first Coaching session for 2009 with Alex Jeffreys.
Before I get to the key points, I just wanted to say that technology never ceases to amaze and excite me. Even though this is about my 6th or 7th conference web call, I’m still excited as ever by the power of this technology. . (Yes I am a geek
The Ability to do a live web coaching seminar to people all over the world and interact is amazing. Because of this technology, we are all able to have a class together, and get a ton of great information on the web conference, plus hear students ask live questions and add even more great information.
Besides the quality information being shared, one of the biggest advantages I’ve found by being part of this program has been great community of students who not only have been very supportive but just as importantly been sources of inspiration and knowledge in helping me build this blog :). .
So thank-you to all those who have offered your help and support!
Today’s session on Traffic Tornadoes was excellent. While the information may not be new. . the value of having someone who knows what he is talking about, and showing you live how to use the technology is fantastic. There ’s so much information out there, so its always great to have someone give you the big picture and show you what’s important. Here are the FIVE KEY WAYS we covered today to help generate Traffic:
- Writing Articles
- How to Network Online, Research your market (Using Google, Yahoo and Alexa) & Make More Links.
- Press Releases
- Giveaways
- Ebay Traffic
To motivate us to put these strategies in place, Alex announced a new Traffic Competition to see who can get listed as No.1 on Google for the search term Alex Jeffreys. Whoever gets the coveted spot (currently occupied by Alex’s own website - www.MarketingWithYou.com wins the $1000.00. (ps - I believe this competition is only available to students of his current coaching program, in case you got excited but are not a student of Alex’s
I gotta go out right now, But I’ll be posting again very soon to expand on some of the traffic techniques listed above as well as our extra session on Video Marketing with Maria Andros. . Stay tuned!
Derrick
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Blogging Progress Report Thursday 8th January 2008
Posted on 08. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.
Hi All,
Had a busy day today.
Here are the goals I Kicked today:
TRAFFIC GENERATION
- Sketched out my 2 ideas to generate traffic. . to be implemented in the next two weeks - I’ll reveal these when they are ready to be launched
- Left comments on about 10 blogs - One thing I have to improve is to devise a better way to keep track of these other than ticking them off on two different sheets. . I’m finding its taking me about 10 - 20minutes per blog visit and comment, so end up spending about 1-2 hours doing this.
- Submitted my site to Alexa - by the way, I checked out my Alexa Ranking a couple a days ago, and was blown away by my ranking - I’m in the top 1 Million Sites Baby!
CREATING CONTENT
- Wrote my Jan Goals Blog Entry
- Wrote this Entry
- Wrote My Preview for 3 Software Programs
- Getting my New Blog Design Ideas together
RESEARCH & STUDY
One the major frustrations of building the blog, is that there are SOOO many things I want to get done - I have so many ideas, but at the moment am limited by time and assistants (ie I have none at the moment - so I need to look into how I can get some help
- Anyway one of the things I’ve spent 2-3 hours doing today is evaluating the value of some software that should save time, improve my blog standing and make money - I’ve found three that look very useful:
- Directory Submitter - Free & Paid Version - Just submitted to 10 directories tonight
- Article Submitter - Free & Paid Version
- Ninja Affiliate - Paid Version Only - wordpress plugin to make affiliate management much easier
In my next post I’ll give a quick preview
Oh. .yeah. .and still no Moolah :). . (but that’s all according to plan 
- see my earlier post
Derrick
Popularity: 43% [?]
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Wordpress
Posted on 01. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.
I’ll be updating this page with all the best information in relation to Wordpress Blog Platform.
WORDPRESS THEMES:
One of the things I found myself spending a lot of time on, was actually looking for a theme I was happy with, In the process I came across a variety of really nice theme sites. Please find links below to some of the better ones:
Revolution Theme by Brian Gardner
Woo Themes are 3 Freelancers who came together in 2008 to create premium Wordpress Themes. They have a great selection of georgeous themes to choose from. They have been running some great promotions in the past, and now have a permanent promotion which is great value - a 2 for 1 offer, or you can become a member of their theme club and have access to all the themes. I have also found their customer service very responsive and helpful (within 24 hours via email). Check them out here.
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Brainstorming Session 2 : Blog Critiques
Posted on 23. Dec, 2008 by Derrick.
Woah! still buzzing, ok, not quite, but still quite awake, after waking up close to 5am for this mornings brainstorming session that went for a marathon 7 hours!!!! I think Alex got thought about 40 of students, answering questions and giving us comments about how our blogs are looking. .Lots of great ideas were gleaned from the session - I’ll review these later, once I’ve got all the ideas organised into an easy to read format
Once again I’ve been told to change my header!!! Arghh!. . nothing personal, just a sigh of frustration :). - Appreciate all the honest feedback and comments I received via the call - afterall without them the last time, It woudn’t have evolved to how it is now - which personally I’m very happy with.
I’ve already spent quite some time the header, so rather than spend another 3-4 hours working on a header right now, I’m just going to leave it for the moment, and see what other ideas come to me . Would love to hear your comments and your thoughts about it and if you think i should change it - For those of you who were on the call I have modified it slightly as I know it was mentioned it looked a bit busy, so I’ve opted for a colour gradient - below is how it looked before:
The Net Experiment
Thanks in advance for your comments!
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