tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10458926537758650722024-03-09T00:40:19.367+08:00Marketing via SEO, Articles, Blogs, and FlyersI'm a Perth blogger. I've been promoting various services and programs online (and offline) for years. I'm always learning new stuff about blogging, article marketing, SEO, and affiliate marketing so I've decided to record this process in a blog.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.comBlogger224125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-71846516228953362512012-10-31T16:49:00.002+08:002012-10-31T16:55:25.168+08:00YouTube videos surprisingly quick and easy to makeGetting into YouTube is something I've been meaning to do for ages but just haven't gotten around to. I bought a video camera over a year ago, but have only just started to use it.<br />
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It's a lot of fun, and I'm sure it will bring lots of traffic to my sites in time. I have a local blog about Perth and decided to film some short videos of parts of the city. The thing I found most surprising was that it was a breeze to do. Within an hour I had about seven or eight short narrated scenes of a couple of landmarks in the city, and one pleasant little street.<br />
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When I returned home and looked through them I found three that were worth uploading. I was worried that the narration wouldn't come through because it was a
windy day. But while the sound quality wasn't great, it was definitely
audible.<br />
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Sure, these were not slick little mini-movies by any means. But they looked okay and were informative. Now that's good to know because at this rate I'll have a whole library of interesting content up there before long. They will help bring extra traffic via click-throughs. And I can embed the videos into blog posts as well.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-86917472325984474962012-10-26T10:39:00.001+08:002012-10-26T10:39:35.575+08:00A blog can help you get paid writing jobs for magazinesAs we all know, the growth of the internet -- particularly the online classifieds industry -- has heavily eroded the traditional offline publishing industry. But there are still many magazines and papers in operation. They continue to require content from freelance writers and are prepared to pay for it-- although generally a lot less than in years gone by. One good way of getting such jobs is if you build some authority online. And that's where a blog can really help.<br />
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I know for a fact that blogs can get you writing work because it's happened to me. Years ago, when I was living in Sydney, I met a fellow blogger, who was also an experienced journalist. I struck up a bit of a friendship with him. Eventually he scored a gig editing a magazine, and was looking for columnists. He knew I had a background in comedy, and that a couple of my blogs were humorous in nature. So he asked me to write a regular satirical column for the magazine.<br />
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Sadly it folded after about seven or eight issues. However I did get enjoy the experience, it was good for my resume, and I made some money out of it (although I didn't get paid for some of the later columns as the publication went belly-up!).<br />
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Just recently I've had another paid writing offer that came directly via one of my blogs. It's a local blog about my city. A magazine editor found it via a Google search and saw that I had a lot of local knowledge. So he sent me an e-mail asking if I would like to write a short recurring local guide for the mag. <br />
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I don't think I'll do the job because there's not much money in it (although the word rate is pretty good). And it's not the sort of thing I really like doing. Still, it was a pleasant surprise to get this offer right out of the blue. And it certainly shows you how your blog can get you noticed by people who are willing to pay for written content. MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-87090297332643127142012-10-20T12:36:00.000+08:002012-10-20T12:48:51.273+08:00Political blogging draws more traffic, comments than other nichesI've written numerous blogs in a few niches over the last 9 years. Several of them have been politically themed. What I've noticed is that it's much easier to get traffic to these blogs than all the others.<br />
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I think the main reason is that there's just generally less competition for this niche than the others. There are squillions of blogs about SEO, social media, marketing and making money, after all. So most of the generic, timeless keywords for these niches are pretty much saturated. Yes, you can crawl up the rankings and reap the rewards, but it takes a lot of time and effort to do so.<br />
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As well as there being fewer blogs about politics, there are also a lot more low competition keywords to use that draw traffic, many of them topical. By this I mean the names of people, places, parties, policies, etc. Everyone follows politics and there are always new developments that are reported in the mainstream media. So people are forever on the lookout for news and views related to them. You just have to write specific blog posts about these subjects and you're sure to snare some search engine traffic. <br />
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In niches that aren't about making money, people are motivated by their
passion for the subject. So their responses are genuine. They also really want to
express their opinions. <br />
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This is why you tend to get more high quality blog comments on political blogs. A blog like this one on the other hand gets quite a lot of spam. That's because bloggers in this niche are often commenting for promotional purposes instead. <br />
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I've seen this on Twitter too. If I tweet a link to this blog on my online marketing-themed account, it will generally get just a few clicks. But I consistently get ten or more clicks when I tweet blog links on my political account. And that has the same number of followers.<br />
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It is all a bit frustrating. The blogs that get the best results are the ones that aren't making me any money! MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-50290987112998432702012-10-18T13:11:00.001+08:002012-10-18T13:11:32.408+08:00Offline marketing of websites requires repetitionLately I've been promoting social media lessons in Perth. One of the methods I've been using is to leave ads up on community noticeboards. I'm sure you've seen the kind I've been using. They're the ones with the website address and phone number hanging down vertically from the ad, so that viewers don't have to write these details down. Each ad has about 7 or 8 of these stubs.<br />
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Anyway, last night I returned to a couple of these ads that I'd left in a food court in Wembley and a nearby cafe about 3 weeks ago. I noticed that all the stubs had been removed from both of them. Now I have had a few clicks that I knew came from offline sources to the site that they were advertising. And I think I got one e-mail query as a result. But I certainly got fewer such clicks than the number of stubs that were removed.<br />
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Clearly, what was happening was that people were browsing the boards and tearing of those ads that took their fancy <i>at the time</i>. But most were not following up later on.<br />
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People are like that. What seems like a good idea one day just doesn't on another. A fraction of those who like your ad will actually check out the website listed. And fewer still will contact you.<br />
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Which just goes to show you have to keep at it until you find those people. It's just a long slow process of attrition.<br />
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So if you are using the noticeboard method it's a good idea to put ones up all over the city. Then go back after a few weeks and replace the ones with no stubs remaining. Out of the hundreds of stubs that people take home with them, a few are sure to convert into sales. Certainly this process takes a bit of time. But it's surely one of the cheapest methods of offline website advertising available.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-59113107468151145282012-10-15T12:18:00.001+08:002012-10-15T12:18:45.104+08:00Quality blog comments help SEO in the long runBacklinks are extremely important for SEO. And one method of building them that has long been popular is blog commenting. Many people still subscribe to the theory that if you just write heaps and heaps of them on countless blogs in your niche then the combined effect will be good for your search engine rankings. This is why there is so much blog comment spam out there, even today.<br />
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I still see it on some of my bogs, even from SEO companies. That bothers me greatly because they must be using it to promote their clients' sites as well. Think of all those bad links that they're building that will eventually be penalized by Google. To undo the damage, the site owner will have to get them removed. What a nightmare!<br />
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So, obviously, commenting should not be seen as a high quantity strategy, but one focusing on <i>quality</i> instead. That is, you should use them to get on the radar of blog owners as well as other bloggers who are adding to these threads. <br />
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If they like your input they will often comment on your blog -- and just as you have done, they will do that thoughtfully. Obviously that's a good thing, because we all love getting good quality comments. (And you should reply to them promptly, too. Readers who see at least two comments are more likely to add their own thoughts. And so the process continues.) <br />
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And the more comments you have, the more content is there to be found. That's another benefit for SEO. When looking though my stats I've found that those blog posts that have the most reader contributions tend to rank higher than those with few or none at all. <br />
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The other benefit you get from writing good comments on someone's blog is that the owner might even include a link back to yours in a post. That is even more helpful SEO-wise, obviously. MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-40556196779019578972012-04-24T10:32:00.001+08:002012-04-24T10:32:55.476+08:00Raise your Twitter profile by tweeting about popular TV showsThe thing people love about Twitter is its immediacy. You can post something about a subject that a lot of people are focused on and get a response almost immediately.<br />
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It's like fishing when you can see a massive school of fish circling around near the pier. Cast your line into that area repeatedly and you're bound to catch some good sized fish.<br />
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So, timing is important. You've got to know when your target market will be swarming on the site. Quite often a regular mainstream media event will attract them. TV shows are good for this. There'll be many tweeps watching it and tweeting madly at the same time.<br />
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Take the Aussie political show <i>Q&A</i>. Just about every Australian political junkie on Twitter watches that show, tweeting their thoughts with the hashtag #QandA. If you take advantage of this and offer some good observations you're sure to get some retweets and mentions and thereby raise your Twitter profile. <br />
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Of course not everyone's into politics. But there must be other shows related to different niches where the same conditions apply.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-68225588189236711062012-04-12T13:10:00.000+08:002012-04-12T13:10:09.067+08:00Bloggers should retweet often to grow their Twitter followingsA lot of bloggers sign up to Twitter and use it pretty much solely to tweet their blog posts. That's not recommended -- not just because you may eventually end up being suspended or even banned from the site. That's because if you do that you're missing out on a whole lot of other benefits.<br />
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It's really important to interact with other users. If you reply to their tweets they'll definitely notice you. They may end up following you, but even if they don't some are sure to reply to your tweets. If they have a lot of followers themselves then when they do this you'll be seen by a lot more people, and eventually get more followers that way. You should retweet their tweets for the same reason.<br />
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Keep interacting like this and you'll get a lot more benefit when you actually do tweet your blog posts. With a greater number of active tweeps aware of what you write, more retweets will follow. You'll also start to get noticed by those who edit the various Twitter dailies. If your blog posts end up being included in these then you will get even more clicks, of course. <br />
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Remember that those editors have a big and constant appetite for content. So some of them will make you a favourite and include your blog posts repeatedly, if not regularly.<br />
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Whenever you see that you've been included in a Paper.li edition, you should retweet it. If you've got a decent number of followers that will really help the editor. So he'll appreciate this and be <i>even more</i> likely to include your blog posts in subsequent issues. MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-74119088334859100322012-03-26T13:03:00.000+08:002012-03-26T13:03:38.688+08:00Commission Junction (cj.com) is a good affiliate networkI have been promoting different affiliate programs on my various
niche websites and blogs for several years now, and have used several of
the main affiliate networks. One of the most well known and established
of these is Commission Junction (cj.com). It's based in the United
States but it's an international enterprise, and you can join from many
countries.<br />
<br />
It has a lot of merchants that are global in
nature, with products that are appealing to people in Australia. That's
good for me because I'm an Aussie, as are a high percentage of my
visitors. There are some that are specific to this country, too, which
is even better. <br />
<br />
There are other aspects that make it a
quality network. Firstly, the merchants tend to be top notch, with
great products to promote. So, whether you promote pay per lead programs
(and there are many of those) or pay per sale ones, it usually doesn't
take a huge number of visits before they convert. They tend to pay
pretty well, too.<br />
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They also have heaps of nicely
designed links, buttons and banners. These help a lot. They can actually
improve the look of your site. Also, their eye-catching nature makes
them more likely to be clicked on by visitors, which means more money
for the publisher in the long run.<br />
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The stats that you
get for your various campaigns are good as well. They are really
comprehensive and reliable (although perhaps a little confusing at
first). This is extremely useful, because you can get a very good idea
about which particular ads and programs are working well and which
aren't, so you can adjust them accordingly.<br />
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Finally, they pay like clockwork. I've had several cheques from them so far and they've <a href="http://www.matthemattrix.net/2011/10/commission-junction-payment-in.html">never been late</a>.<br />
<br />
I
know there have been reports of various negative of issues regarding
this network. However I have had no problems with them at all.
Everything so far has been positive. For this reason I recommend this
affiliate network highly.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-89211548818618257772012-03-24T11:55:00.002+08:002012-03-24T11:55:48.780+08:00Wizzley, WebNuggetz and now ZujavaSquidoo is an enormously popular and well-regarded site that has been around for a <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/">long time already</a>. Many people have used it to make money, and it's also a great way to build links to other websites.<br />
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The Squidoo structure has been used as a template for other sites. These include <a href="http://www.wizzley.com/">Wizzley</a> and <a href="http://www.webnuggetz.com/">WebNuggetz</a>. The latest of these is <a href="http://www.zujava.com/">Zujava</a>.<br />
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These all look pretty well run and are worth investigating.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-6760054736311519422012-02-17T11:42:00.002+08:002012-02-17T11:43:48.813+08:00Twitter loading problems seem to have disappeared, thankfullyYesterday, for much of the day, whenever I tried to log into Twitter at home, I kept getting this message reading: "Hmm, this seems to be taking a while. If problems persist, please reload to try again."<br />
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I logged in okay at a public library later in the day, so I thought it was something to do with my desktop PC only. But this appeared not to be the case, because when I got home last night I tried logging in on my laptop, which I hadn't used for a while. Same problem, with all the browsers. So it was clearly something at Twitter's end.<br />
<br />
There were several references to this problem on Twitter's help site. And there's this recently written question on Yahoo Answers which <a href="http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120216023812AAsfp84">refers to the problem</a>. So it looks like it was a pretty widespread issue.<br />
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Thankfully, all seems to be okay today, however. I was very relieved, because I think I've become somewhat addicted to the site. It was like not being able to have a coffee, to be honest! Hopefully they've got the issue sorted and there will be no more recurrences. <br />
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In any case, have other users had this problem?MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-90525569252626155652012-02-16T13:10:00.001+08:002012-02-16T13:11:11.646+08:00Content scrapers are stupid as well as lazyIf you blog or build and promote websites, you're sure to have <a href="http://www.matthemattrix.net/2010/08/blog-content-scraping-is-lazy-and.html">your content scraped</a> eventually. It's really annoying, although it's usually not worth the energy of trying to have the offending webmaster remove the content he stole from you. <br />
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I simply can't fathom why anyone would use such an underhanded technique to build up their content. Firstly, it's morally wrong to just rip off someone else's work. Secondly, Google is getting better and better at detecting sites using such dodgy tactics, so this method of building up your own site will either not benefit you in the long run, or result in you being blacklisted.<br />
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It's clearly both lazy and stupid. And if you want to know just <i>how</i> stupid these guys are, here's an example:<br />
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Today I just received an e-mail via a contact form on my website about SEO. I wasn't sure quite what he was referring to so I looked at his blog. I saw chunks of my text stolen verbatim from that very site on it! And his blog, like my website, was specifically about SEO.<br />
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Anyone who knows anything about SEO knows that content scraping is heavily frowned upon, to say the least. The fact that he's using it -- and quite obviously so -- discredits him completely. <br />
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And it was even more astonishing that <i>he contacted me!</i> You'd think that the last thing someone ripping off another person's material would do is actually tell this person about the blog it was on so he could discover the plagiarism.<br />
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I can only conclude that he must believe that he's not doing anything wrong. What an idiot.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-40172575872017583332012-01-15T12:14:00.000+08:002012-01-15T12:22:37.967+08:00JustUnFollow and Friend or Follow are good sites for Twitter usersWhen using Twitter, you shouldn't go crazy following others in the hope that they will follow you back. But even if you're only following, say, five people a day on average, then you'll end up hitting the two thousand limit in around a year. If you don't have at least the same number of people following you back, then you can't follow any more. Then you have to start unfollowing people from time to time if you wish to follow those who are already following you. <br />
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There are several tools you can use to do this. I've been using both <a href="http://friendorfollow.com/">Friend or Follow</a> and <a href="http://www.justunfollow.com/">JustUnFollow</a>. I think the latter is better for choosing who to unfollow simply because of the way it's laid out. (With the former all the tweeps you're following are shown in a grid and you have to mouse over their photos to see their details, after which you can decide what to do. But with JustUnfollow all that information is laid out in front of you already and you just place ticks in boxes.)<br />
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If you are going to use one or both of these sites (or others like them) then you should be careful not to overdo it. Regularly unfollowing lots of people <a href="http://www.versatilecontents.com/5984/tips-for-online-marketers-to-avoid-twitter-account-suspension/">can result in account suspension</a>.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-85988114842283015682012-01-07T12:31:00.001+08:002012-01-07T12:34:07.805+08:00The site eBooks.com is based here in Perth, Western AustraliaWhen you look at a commercial website, particularly if it has a sleek design and lots of good content, you generally have little idea of exactly where the company behind it is located (unless it is geo-specific in nature, of course). For some reason many people still tend to think that big authority sites with "dot com" and "dot net" domain names must be American ventures. But that doesn't necessarily follow. Nowadays they could be run from just about anywhere in the world.<br />
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The first big surprise I got regarding this misapprehension was a few years ago when I first learned about the world's top "problogger" Darren Rowse. I found his site, and had a look through it, assuming that he was from the USA. But I was stunned to learn that he actually lived in Melbourne. That really opened my eyes.<br />
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I still haven't completely gotten over that misapprehension, however. I'm a member of Commission Junction and I was looking through their list of merchants to promote. I found one that looked really good called <a href="http://ebooks.com/">eBooks.com</a>. It seems to be the top site in that category, ranking number one in Aussie Google searches for the keyword. (I suspect that's the same for Google's main international site also.)<br />
<br />
Learning more about the site I was surprised to discover that it is not a USA-based company, but is actually run from right here <a href="http://www.cylex.com.au/company/ebooks-corporation-14941308.html">in little old Perth</a>. So, there's another example of the global nature of the internet (not that there's a lack of them of course), and still more proof that it really is a great equalizer in so many ways.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-78037305700294009212012-01-05T11:56:00.000+08:002012-01-05T12:09:58.385+08:00Using Squidoo and Wikinut for SEO purposesMost readers will be aware of sites like Squidoo. Their characteristics vary, but they are usually like a combination of blogging platform and article directory, and they allow users to make some money through various revenue sharing arrangements. Because they have so much content up there and are updated so often they rank highly in the search engines and are great places to build backlinks to other sites.<br />
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With these factors in mind I recently submitted a couple of lenses to Squidoo to get a bit of <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/matthemattrix">a feel for it</a>. While they haven't been up there long enough to discern any noticeable SEO benefit to the sites I linked to (with the big arrow!), I do know that both have been indexed by Google.<br />
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Surprisingly, it does take a little while for the indexation to occur, even if you bookmark your lens here and there. And the process often seems to be twofold. Firstly, you have to wait a few days before you see the lens listed. When you do see it there, it often appears quite high in the results. Then it disappears for a few days more while Google does a bit more "thinking" about how it should rank. You can find it again at this stage, but it's often much further down the list of results. (This exact process occurred with one of my lenses, and I've read it described repeatedly on blogs.)<br />
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The reason I mention this is because many people submit lenses and freak out when they can't find them by Googling, even after a week or more. So, don't worry. It will happen.<br />
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That idiosyncracy aside, there's something very appealing about the whole lens building process. It's quite different to submitting articles to directories. With these, you just put your article into the form provided. But Squidoo uses a module based structure, and you can add text or link lists or other things. Just the fact that these options are available is conducive to creativity. While you're playing around with them, new ideas seem to suggest themselves.<br />
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The modules also make you think carefully about what you'll include, and pare the content down to the bare essentials. This means that lenses tend to be more jam packed with information, giving more value to the reader. <br />
<br />
Another site that is a lot like Squidoo is Wikinut. You can make some money from it. However the general perception from people using it for this purpose seems to be that the financial fruits are very small indeed. Still, it has a nice design, a PR of 3 and it allows you to put dofollow backlinks in your articles. So it's worth contributing to for the SEO benefits alone.<br />
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Like Squidoo, Wikinut has a module based structure (although with not as many different options). So, that's another positive aspect. Also, it gets indexed very quickly. <a href="http://www.wikinut.com/author%7Etippm/Matthemattrix/">I've submitted two pages</a> there so far and they both appeared within hours of being published, maybe sooner. So, it actually beats Squidoo in this regard.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-35843759890477404152011-12-04T16:24:00.001+08:002011-12-04T17:28:30.705+08:00Articles submitted to Ezinemark approved, indexed quicklyEzinemark is one of the lesser known but <a href="http://ezinemark.com/">growing article directories</a> I have been using lately. It's a nicely designed and efficiently run directory with a PR of 4.<br />
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I have submitted a few articles there, and they all get approved pretty quickly. That's good to know. Also, like <a href="http://www.matthemattrix.net/2011/10/articlesbase-gets-indexed-very-quickly.html">Articles Base</a> and <a href="http://www.matthemattrix.net/2011/09/sooperarticles-gets-indexed-by-google.html">Sooper Articles</a> your articles can be found in Google search results almost immediately after they've been published there. So that's another sign that the search engines crawl it often and regard it highly.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-71593662516096199392011-11-29T12:09:00.001+08:002011-11-29T12:37:21.393+08:00Merchant affiliate commissions vary between networksI posted earlier about why joining several different affiliate networks <a href="http://www.matthemattrix.net/2011/10/joining-many-different-affiliate.html">is recommended.</a> One commenter mentioned that if you do that you'll sometimes see the same merchant using different networks, and that the size of the commissions they pay for leads or sales varies between each. Obviously, you should go for the one with the highest payout.<br />
<br />
I've done that recently with one program. It's just a pay per lead one. The commission is around three bucks per lead at one network, but over double that amount at another. I'm glad I've done this, and wish I had switched over earlier. This is a popular program and if it keeps on going for a long while I'll be making hundreds of dollars more per year from it.<br />
<br />
That said, I can't be sure when this higher commission commenced with that particular network. I think it might have only started recently. In any case, it is a compelling reason to not only join different networks, but also to keep browsing through what they offer occasionally. Do that and you're sure to find programs that will bring you more money for the traffic that you're already getting. <br />
<br />
As to why merchants vary their commissions between networks, I'm pretty much in the dark. Maybe it reflects the relative quality of the signups that the affiliates from each program deliver. Or perhaps the setting of commission size is partly out of the merchant's hands, and is recommended by the network? Or it could merely be due to a lack of organization on the merchant's part ... <br />
<br />
I really don't know the answer. But for anyone who promotes affiliate programs it's certainly a factor worthy of close consideration.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-49320950140201145872011-11-27T18:54:00.001+08:002011-11-27T19:31:02.294+08:00Why you should follow good people on TwitterMany people who start using Twitter just want to get heaps of followers as quickly as possible. Maybe that's because they want to feel like celebrities, or intend to spam people. These are bad motivations for obvious reasons.<br />
<br />
However I think most people who do use the social networking site sincerely still feel a pressing need to try and get lots of followers, and soon. It's only natural. And of course you want as many people as possible to read what you have to say in your tweets.<br />
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One of the main ways that Twitter newbies try to get those numbers up quickly is by following tweeps <i>primarily</i> in the hope that a certain percentage will follow them back. But in the end I think the best policy is to try and curb that need for <i>quantity</i> and keep looking for <i>quality</i>.<br />
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If you don't do this you'll end up with heaps of irrelevant or just plain spammy tweets in your timeline. So you'll have to spend more time wading through them to find the nuggets that you can learn from, retweet and reply to.<br />
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If on the other hand you make a point of following really good people in your niche, then that river of tweets will be consistently golden. You'll find interacting with the people you follow a lot easier and more rewarding.<br />
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Not only will this get their attention -- making them more likely to mention and retweet <i>you</i>, thereby lifting your profile -- you'll also accumulate far more tweets up there on the site, meaning you're more likely to get found by people looking for others to follow.<br />
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Sure, a certain proportion of these followers will be low quality themselves, but there will be some goodies. And they will have chosen to follow you because they liked what you had to tweet -- not just because you followed <i>them</i>. That's a better way to kick things off, surely.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-84466921320833125452011-11-24T11:07:00.001+08:002011-11-24T12:04:26.459+08:00Some factors that seem to increase conversionsI have been promoting affiliate programs for quite a while now, although this is not my main focus. Basically I love to write so I just keep doing that and make a few sales from stuff I'm advertising on my blogs and sites along the way. While I don't monitor my statistics really closely like some people do, I do try to keep an eye on them and I have noticed some trends when it comes to conversion rates. <br />
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Firstly, there's a much greater chance of conversions if visitors come via a specific search. They really trust Google, and if they're looking for something to buy that will definitely shape their search query. So, if you're ranking for these kinds of keyword phrases people can often arrive at your site pretty much already primed to purchase something you're advertising.<br />
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Then there's the geographic factor. People do seem to be more likely to buy products and services that are produced in their own country. Sometimes the reason is obvious, such as when they're looking for a dating site. Obviously they are more likely to join if they know that it's based in their country since there will probably be more local members signed up to it. <br />
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But sometimes this geographic influence is a little more subtle. Say you're promoting an ebook about a subject that in itself is not geo-specific. I think that prospective buyers tend to feel that if it's written by someone who lives in their country it will be more relevant to them somehow, and they will therefore be more likely to make the final decision to purchase it. <br />
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Also, I think that factors such as a sense of patriotism, and the desire to keep the money within the country increase the likelihood of conversions a little. <br />
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Then there's the power of your own recommendation. There's no doubt that if you write something positive about the product you're promoting, people will be more likely to buy it. This applies generally, and is an even more powerful factor if you have built up a reputation as an expert in your field.<br />
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That's why writing lots of thoughtful blog posts and articles is still financially worth it in the long run. You will eventually end up with an opinion that people will value when making purchasing decisions. That's definitely something you should utilize -- although of course you wouldn't want to abuse it by going <i>crazy</i> and recommending anything and everything (which would surely negate the effect in time anyway!).<br />
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Of course there are many other factors that can increase conversions. However, from my experience these seem to be among the most significant.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-22342892754606373232011-11-21T11:43:00.001+08:002011-11-21T12:01:30.113+08:00Leaderboard banners get more clicksI have been trying out different banner sizes and positions on my various website sand blogs. And leaderboards -- those 720 x 90 banners placed at the top of pages -- do get more clicks than others.<br />
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This is hardly surprising, of course. They stand out more, and are the first thing the visitor sees. Also, only a small percentage of people actually read web pages all the way through, so those ads placed down at the bottom will obviously get fewer clicks, no matter how big they are.<br />
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So, if you are promoting different affiliate programs then it's a good idea to to advertise your highest paying program with a leaderboard. Do this and you could see quite an increase in your earnings.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-27500520706417206252011-11-07T18:32:00.001+08:002011-11-07T18:35:13.461+08:00Wordpress powered classifieds sites and SEOIt's well known that Wordpress is one of the best platforms for SEO. Blogs built with it tend to rank quite highly even when they haven't been around all that long and don't have much content up there. I'm no geek so I have no specific insights into why this might be. Whatever the reason, there's clearly something about the way Wordpress is designed that makes Google tend to like it!<br />
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Given this fact, I thought I'd try out some free classifieds that are powered by Wordpress to advertise a new site I have which is about garage sales in Perth. There are more and more of these popping up now, and a <a href="http://perthclassifiedsonline.com.au/">few of them</a> <a href="http://adsforfree.com.au/">are tailored</a> <a href="http://www.egads.com.au/">towards Aussies</a>.<br />
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So I submitted a couple of ads with headings like "Perth garage sale promotion" and "Local Perth garage sale advertising" to these sites. I only did this a few days ago but the ads I posted on the Wordpress sites are already ranking highly for related keyword searches. Similar ads posted earlier at other -- seemingly more well established -- classifieds sites took longer to get indexed, and have often been beaten in the rankings by these newer ads. <br />
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Of course free classifieds sites shouldn't just be judged on SEO. Some of them get huge traffic for a whole bunch of other reasons, and so are well worth using -- particularly if you are advertising a locally oriented <a href="http://www.matthemattrix.net/2010/06/free-classifieds-do-work-gumtree-is.html">product or service</a>. Still, this aspect is something to keep in mind. And it will be interesting to see how well these sites do in the future.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-54115242069334523462011-11-04T12:31:00.000+08:002011-11-04T12:32:40.495+08:00Expert opinions on website making, Wordpress and SEOAnyone who has been browsing the blogosphere in the last few years will have noticed the huge increase in the number of slick, sleek Wordpress blogs -- particularly in the online marketing niche. There also seem to be many more business websites that have been made with this platform. It seems to be the CMS of choice if you want to have a fast loading, search engine optimized website with blog included.<br />
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Being a long time Blogger user, who has never had a Wordpress blog, I am not the person to ask about it. Dean Wormald definitely is, however. That's why I have asked him some questions about Wordpress, as well as others on the subject of website making, social media and SEO. <br />
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<i>1) When getting ready to <b>build your own business website</b>, what are the <b>most important factors</b> to consider and why?</i><br />
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The old phrase, "if you plan to fail, you fail to plan" is a good one to keep in mind when getting ready to build a business website. There is a set process I follow when I create any website, and all businesses should do the same.<br />
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First there is the requirements gathering phase. This involves evaluating the business and communication requirements. A good start is to reflect on your business plan and consider what the website must achieve for the business. It could be generating enquiries through telephone calls, get more customers through your door, or simply build up your profile as an expert in your field.<br />
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Second, following the requirements gathering phase is the content requirements phase. Knowing what the business and communication goals for the website are, I collect, create and organise the content that will be on the website. This also involves describing any functionality requirements, for example, contact forms. Doing this before buying website hosting or a domain name is key to ensure a good work flow through the process of making a great website.<br />
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After the requirements have been clearly defined and all the content collected, it's time to buy website hosting and a domain name. I always buy these together. Australian businesses, I always buy the .com.au and .com variations of the chosen domain name. For larger companies we'll buy all domain name variations possible. Then we direct the un-used domain names to a primary domain name.<br />
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For Australian businesses, it is critical to buy website hosting with a <a href="http://youmakethewebsite.com.au/resources/website-hosting/">reputable Australian website hosting company</a> who has servers based in Australia. This influences search engine rankings.<br />
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<i>2) You are obviously a fan of <b>Wordpress for building business websites</b>, as well as for <b>blogging</b>. Why do you think it is so good?</i><br />
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I've been using WordPress both professionally and personally since 2005 (before it even had a WYSIWYG editor!). I'm more interested in spending time on making great interfaces and content, than coding a website. Over time I have used other CMS platforms like Drupal and DotNetDuke, as well as other blogging services like WordPress.com (free hosted WordPress blogs) and Blogger. I believe the WordPress software (installed on your own hosting) is just as simple to setup as a free hosted blog, however it allows for much more customisation.<br />
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The WordPress community is huge and thriving. There are hundreds of thousands of active users contributing and helping out with customising or troubleshooting WordPress. A portion of this community also creates plugins and themes, which enhance websites in a huge variety of ways. Over the last few years I've been quite immersed in the community and have even written an eBook. It's a guide on <a href="http://youmakethewebsite.com.au/buy-the-guide/">how to make Australian websites</a>.<br />
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Perhaps the number one reason I use WordPress is the focus on web standards and usability. The software is constantly kept up to date with evolving technology and on the front-end (what the site visitor sees) you get a great interface.<br />
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<i>3) <b>Website building technology</b> has been developing extremely quickly
over the last few years. What do you think will be the <b>next big trends</b>
in this field?</i><br />
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HTML 5. The previous version, HTML 4, was released in 1997, a grandfather in Internet ages! HTML 5 will help to standardise a lot of different web technologies. For a long time developers have been trying to make mobile content with this (and other) web technologies that just aren't suited for these devices. HTML 5 also displays multimedia content, without the need for plugins like Flash Player or Shockwave.<br />
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Over the next few years, the groups working on the HTML 5 specification will finish it off completely, and it will become the new standard. When it dones, I wouldn't be surprised if a few Flash developers found themselves with less work.<br />
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<i>4) With the <b>rise of social media</b>, some pundits are predicting that
search engines will gradually lose their influence, and that <b>SEO</b> will
become a minor consideration for website builders. What are your
thoughts on this prediction?</i><br />
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Just like HTML 4, the current methods used by search engines are based on old technology. When I worked with Microsoft on the Bing Search team in Sydney, one of the heads of search in the USA said "however brilliant the current search algorithms are, and they are brilliant, in many cases it fails to give the best results. As one of the most influential factors to ranking highly is to have many inbound links to your site, search engines today serving up the most popular, not the most relevant results."<br />
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While you can't argue that social networks are growing at a phenomenal pace, when seeking specific information, people still need to search for it. SEO will still be important, with the foreseeable/possible changes currently on the table. The biggest change will likely come from a radically different search algorithm. This would have an impact on the scope of SEO activities, but website owners will still need to engage in SEO.<br />
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I've heard of one interesting idea that uses the information from your social network profiles to gain a better understanding of the context of your search. So perhaps one day social networks and search engines will work together, using a new search algorithm to return more relevant results.<br />
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<b><i>About Dean Wormald</i></b><br />
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Dean Wormald has been working in the digital industry since 1998. After
studying Multimedia and Marketing at university, he has worked with the
biggest and most award winning agencies and companies in Australia,
including: Amnesia Razorfish (with clients like Xbox 360, Microsoft,
Land Rover, Holden, Lynx and IKEA); Bing Search Team (Microsoft
Australia); Clemenger BBDO and Proximity (with clients like Yellow
Pages, White Pages, M&M'S, Dulux). Recently he released a guide on <a href="http://youmakethewebsite.com.au/buy-the-guide/">how to start a website</a>, make it look professional and market it successfully.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-52320868623059562612011-10-28T11:29:00.002+08:002011-10-28T11:31:00.656+08:00ArticlesBase gets indexed very quickly by GoogleStill on the subject of article directories: I just submitted an article there. Not only was it published very quickly, it was in Google straightaway as well. And it also came up when I did a backlink check using Yahoo. That was noticeable because I did have at least one other article with a backlink to that site. That article was indexed by Google at least a week ago, yet it wasn't showing up as a backlink.<br />
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I don't have detailed knowledge of how all this works. So I may be drawing a false conclusion. But I think the fact that the ArticlesBase link appeared in both Google's results and Yahoo's backlinks immediately says something about how highly that article directory is regarded by these search engines.<br />
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So, if you do have a new site that you are keen to get indexed as quickly as possible, then writing an article about its subject and putting the URL in your author bio-box, then submitting this to ArticlesBase is a very good idea.<br />
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The only drawback is that the link will be nofollow. However, that might not be such a negative SEO-wise in the long run, <a href="http://www.matthemattrix.net/2010/10/articlesbase-can-help-with-seo-even.html">as this post explains</a>. MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-1826666688959258952011-10-25T11:09:00.001+08:002011-10-25T11:10:37.747+08:00GoArticles versus Sooper ArticlesHaving used various article directories over quite a long period now, I can see patterns start to emerge with them. For example, I've noticed that when you submit articles to <a href="http://www.goarticles.com/">Goarticles</a>, they do get used by other publishers quite quickly.<br />
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Of course that's what you want to happen. However that can also be a problem in that they might not faithfully cite you as the writer, with bio-box links intact. Or if they do do that, they might be using nofollow links -- or the site is just not well regarded by the search engines. If Google then indexes your article at this site before it does at Goarticles (which is PR 3, I think now) then you are being penalized, or at least not getting good value from having submitted there. Outcomes such as those described above have resulted when I have submitted articles there in the past.<br />
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But one thing that I've noticed with <a href="http://www.sooperarticles.com/">Sooperarticles</a>, which I'm using more and more now, is that very soon after you get the notification that your article has been published it's <a href="http://www.matthemattrix.net/2011/09/sooperarticles-gets-indexed-by-google.html">right there in Google</a>. So, there's virtually no chance of penalization occurring. <br />
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The downside with Sooperarticles, though, is that it sometimes take a while before your article is approved by one of the editorial team. Still, I think that's a small price to pay.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-281184008459138692011-10-17T19:54:00.001+08:002011-10-17T20:02:52.560+08:00Find and write for Twitter daily newspapersOne thing that has become increasingly popular among avid Twitter users is to start a daily newspaper using <a href="http://paper.li/">Paper.li</a>. This is an excellent way of giving your followers lots of interesting reading material.<br />
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Some of these dailies get a large number of views, so it's great if you can become a regular, or even occasional contributor to some of them. If you're pretty active on the site, have a decent number of followers and tweet interesting content then this is certain to happen eventually. <br />
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But you can increase the odds of this occurring by looking for these daily newspapers on Twitter, then following their creators. The favourite phrase that people use to announce their latest edition is to tweet "The (insert title here) Daily is out!". Because these editors often use a specific keyword in the paper title, then all you have to do is search for that phrase, inserting a keyword describing a subject you tweet about often. <br />
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The other way of finding them is just to search for those keywords in Paper.li itself. This has the advantage of showing how many views each paper is getting as well. <br />
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If you use these methods you're sure to get more and more of your tweets included in these papers, thereby substantially lifting your profile on Twitter. If you're primarily tweeting blog posts then of course you'll get extra clicks on them. Google takes Twitter activity into account so this should help a bit with SEO as well.<br />
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Of course, if you do get included, then it's a good idea to retweet the newspaper edition to your followers. That's a way of saying thanks to the paper's editor as well as increasing the odds that he'll include your tweets in subsequent editions as well.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1045892653775865072.post-22607002270302265982011-10-13T10:27:00.002+08:002011-10-13T10:28:03.740+08:00Joining many different affiliate programs is a good ideaEveryone knows the saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket". That's good advice generally. It also applies to affiliate marketing, as a recent experience confirms.<br />
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See, I've been promoting various affiliate programs on a few different websites. They come from different networks like Commission Monster and Check My Stats. A couple of them have been working consistently, and I've come to count on getting a small but regular flow of commissions from them.<br />
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On one of them I'd racked up forty bucks for the month so far. But then all of a sudden this just disappeared. As far as I can tell this was because the merchant had just cancelled its relationship with that particular affiliate network. So all earnings that had not been paid out just dried up.<br />
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It's not much money, of course. However it's a bit annoying. And as well as that saying I cited at the top of the post, there's another one worth remembering: "Don't count your chickens before they hatch."<br />
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I'm glad I've signed up to several different programs, so it's not such a big problem. However if I'd put all my work into promoting just one affiliate program and was earning substantial monthly payments and that went belly up all of a sudden -- well, it really would be back to square one and be very disheartening.MattHaydenAUhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876978310266835471noreply@blogger.com5