Too Funny Not To Share

This is a very short post, I had this in my inbox from a friend, and I found it so funny I had to share it with you. To whomever shot this photo – hats off what a great shot!!

Let me introduce you to

– The Inbread Jack Russell!!!! – Please share him if you think he’s worth it!

Fallen Victim To Google Penguin!

Google Penguin has claimed at least one victim…

It has finally happened, even though I think it’s not fair!   haha!

I have fallen victim to the latest Google algorithm update that happened a couple of weeks ago, called “Penguin” (not “Panda” – that was last years big update!).

So what exactly do I mean by that? Well, I have had one site, my main money earner site, which has been on Page 1 of Google’s SERPs for most  its main keyword for the past 2 years or so. So I had a pretty good stream of visitors coming to my site (for free), and as you will know, the more visitors your site has the more revenue you are going to earn. Even though mine was not that much, it was still ok and I was (am) proud of the site.

Pretty exactly on Wednesday, 25th of April, I noticed a big drop in earnings. This didn’t concern me much yet – I have had the odd “very slow” day. But when it happened again the next day, and the day after, I was getting really concerned.

Straight away I went and Googled my main keywords, because I knew it must have to do with the search engine placement of my site. And guess what? My site had disappeared from page 1 (or 2 or 3 in some cases…) What had I done wrong?

You might know that Google has a certain algorithm to work out which sites get displayed in which order on page 1 of search results for certain keywords, right? And as Google continuously strives to improve their user experience, they also continuously strive to improve (which in this case means update and change) their algorithm to make sure only the best, most informative and most interesting sites will be on page 1.

Google Panda Attacks!

So first they did a major update around the middle of last year called “Panda”. I found some good explanations of it here and here. (Sorry, but I don’t want to rattle all the info off here if somebody else has written a good article about it ) My sites survived that update!

Google Penguin Attacks!

Then, and I only found out the hard way, on April 24^th Google released another change to their algorithm named “Penguin” with the intention of penalizing sites for over-optimization or spamming. There is a really good article on it here and on Matt Carter’s Blog.

After I noticed that my earnings had dropped and found out about Google Penguin, I logged into my Google Analytics account and checked out the traffic. And yes, on April 24th, I still had about 250 – 300 visitors a day, and then there is this rapid drop down to 125 or so in average. Have a look:

Hit hard by Google Penguin

That’s scary! So, panic settled in. What had I done wrong, and how could I rectify it?

After analyzing my site and what I had done with it in the last few months I found that

• I had not updated it regularly at all. The site has a blog attached but I updated maybe once every 3 or 4 months – if that! And Google loves new content.
• The site is mainly a site with static pages. Other sites on page 1 of Google in my niche were real blogs, with constant updates and changes happening. Fresh sites with a lot going on.
• I had not been doing any proper link building or SEO at all. I had been concentrating on trying to get more traffic and backlinks by buying all these fancy plugins that promised “automation and a ton of backlinks and therefore better SEO and rankings in the search engines, resulting in a ton of traffic” – hey, I had so many backlink and seo plugins installed I got completely confused about what was working for me and what not.
• I did not encourage my visitors to share my content through facebook, twitter, pinterest or any sites like that, which would result in more interest created about my site and therefore more visitors.

So, really, all I was when Google Penguin came along was a sitting duck with a “trying to be over-optimized” stale site that had been going ok so far but wasn’t really offering anything new or interesting to its visitors any more. So they just took me down!

But instead of throwing my hands up in the air and giving up, I am starting a counter attack to regain my previous status on the SERPs.  Here is my new plan of action of things to do that I believe Google wants (and to get what WE want we should do what Google wants, right?):

• Write more content and update my blogs on a regular basis, even if its only every 3 weeks or so
• re-think my static websites; static pages seem to have worked so far, but Google seems to put more and more value on sites that do stay fresh with new articles and information. I will either have to do regular updates on the static pages or run a blog alongside and keep things fresh.
• No more backlink, traffic or seo plugins – just pick the best seo plugin and chuck the rest. Go back to good old school backlink building! (Asking other webmasters for link exchanges, forum signatures, internal linking, comments etc.).  All this over-optimization has not worked for me! Let the site age and spread over the internet naturally.
• Getting into social sharing a lot more. Put share bars and social sharing buttons etc. on my site so visitors can tweet, facebook, pinterest or stumbleupon (etc.) what they find on my site and therefore also create more backlinks and visitors to my site. Of course, the sharing should start to happen naturally if I manage to keep my visitors interested and intrigued!

I believe that what Google wants are honest, interesting and informative sites that engage their visitors and offer them what they look for.

In my experience you cannot achieve that if you are trying to automate a lot of things, or try to over-optimize because you kind of lose control and that’s how the spamming starts. I have so many spammy comments on my sites these days its not funny any more. Trackbacks that get generated by some robot and are not actually coming from the site they refer back to, comments that on first look seem genuine until you start reading them and the words don’t make any sense. Thin websites with very little content are also on the blacklist. They simply don’t contain enough information.

So this latest Google Penguin update has certainly shocked me in my comfy chair I am convinced that I will be able to get my site back up and ranking for my main keywords, but it will take some work and time. On the other hand I will feel better for it, because I will know that my site actually will have something to offer to the people that are visiting.

I don’t know whether you have been hit or not, but I strongly advise you to consider becoming an “honest blogger” – we will probably all be surprised by the way Google is going to reward us for it in the future!

Now, if you liked my article, would you mind sharing it? Thanks!

WordPress Classroom – Get On Board Before The Price Rise!

WordPress Guide

Hi guys, I just received an email in my inbox from Matt Wolfe, one of the few Internet Marketers out there I hugely respect. He is the creator of the best WordPress Guide out there (in my humble opinion, anyway!) the WordPress Classroom. It’s an easy to understand, easy to follow, all video WordPress guide that holds heaps of value for both new and seasoned WordPress users alike.

In his email Matt declared that he has been really focused on making a ton of updates for the WordPress Classroom. So right now he is basically in overhaul mode. He is in the process of re-imagining the WordPress Classroom.

If you ask me, I always like when Internet Marketers who have released a product keep updating it – that means that they really stand behind it and did not just release it for the quick bucks, but really have something to teach and are conscious of delivering to their customers and staying current. That’s why I like what Matt is doing now.

The WordPress Classroom is fantastic as it is now. But I feel good about Matt wanting to deliver an even better product to us. There’s going to be an all new, intuitive layout, new topics of training, new ways to engage with Matt and other members, and, with all of these improvements (most likely) a new pricing structure… Apparently it is going to be big! He reckons we are all going to be blown away with all the new stuff that’s inside the WordPress Classroom.

If you are trying to break into the field of Affiliate and Internet Marketing, there is – in my opinion – no better way to do that than with WordPress blogs.  These WordPress Video Tutorials (yes, video!!) will be the best thing for you to ever have come across, they can take months, if not years, off your learning. I just have to think back to the way I had to learn the ins and outs of building a great niche site (long, painful, costly) – if I would have had a course like this one I would have grabbed it with both hands. And I want you to be able to AVOID having an extremely long and frustrating learning curve.

About the new pricing structure – that’s where I want to appeal to you. If you haven’t yet, please do check out WordPress Classroom, because if you don’t get in now whilst the price is still at an all time low, if you want to get in later you will most likely have to pay more. How much more I don’t know yet, but more is more and can’t be good! Mind you, whatever Matt will decide to charge, you can be sure it will be worth it!!! But still, just make sure you get in now to ensure that you’re grandfathered in to the lowest possible price.

I believe you can still sign up just for the free videos, which are fantastic, too. But if you are serious about making money online and want to use WordPress, you should upgrade to the paid Pro version.

So what are you waiting for? See you on the inside!

Blog Spring Cleaning – Do Some Pruning!

Blog Spring Cleaning

Yes, you have read right – even a blog needs spring cleaning and pruning at times.

["To prune": the objective of pruning is to produce strong, healthy, attractive plants]

You see, a blog does represent you on the web. You want to stay in favor in the search engines and be clean, organized and up to date. If you just keep posting and adding information to it without, for example, changing information that might be out of date, or links that might not work any more, eventually it will become cluttered, unproductive and unattractive.

You need to get the feather duster and the shears out and give your blog a virtual once-over every now and then (it does not have to be spring ) Just think of the plants in your garden – lots of them require pruning at some stage so that they will keep looking attractive, fill out and grow into a nicer shape!

I noticed on my blog here for a long time that I had links in my sidebars that I did not really support any more, and that a few blog posts were outdated. Also, the picture of me did not really represent me any more (it was taken a few years back), and I want to look as “updated” as possible for you all, even if it means that you will see me with a few more wrinkles, and shadows under my eyes… :-0 So I have uploaded a new photo of myself which is just a few days old, really!

My blog after the spring clean!

Here is a list of blog spring cleaning tasks that I want to do on my blog over the next few weeks, maybe this will give you an idea as to where to start on your blogs!

• check through all my widgets in the sidebar and make sure I display current information and any programs that I still support and believe in. Also delete widgets I don’t need any more;
• change my profile picture – check!
• go through some of my posts and close comments on them – some have grown really long beards and just become little monsters. Time to pull the pin! Also, delete some of my posts that really don’t hold any value any more;
• check all my links and make sure they are all working properly;
• go through my plugins and delete the ones I don’t need any more;
• Same with my blog templates. I had gone wild for a while and downloaded all sorts of templates, but I am really happy with the one I’ve got (Primepress)
• need to possibly go through all my categories and update/organize. I am just at this stage not quite sure what that will do to the URL’s that Google has stored for my previous blog posts that are “filed” under certain categories, and thus for my SERP rankings. Can anybody enlighten me whether it is ok to do so, or shall I better leave the categories alone?

That’s it for starters! Basically, what you want to achieve when spring cleaning your blog is to keep it up to date, fresh and appealing to your audience. There is nothing worse than landing on a blog that seems neglected (hm, mine was, for 9 months..), where links don’t work and where old and not relevant content is displayed.

So get the gloves on and the shears out! Your readers will appreciate it.

Now check out my new definition of “to prune”: ["To prune": the objective of pruning is to produce strong, healthy, attractive blogs]

I also found a great article on blog spring cleaning on the ComLuv Network right here.

If you like what I have written here, I would really appreciate a little “social sharing love” – please share on your favorite social sites through the slider on the left! Ta.

Bloggers Block! – Another One Bites The Dust?

Bloggers Block

Oh my, what a mess!!! I discovered that the last time I actually did a post on this blog was back in APRIL LAST YEAR! That is nearly a year ago! I am absolutely shocked. I knew it had been a long time, but THAT long?

Something interrupted me AGAIN!

I think I need to explain something; I love blogging and Internet Marketing, it has become one of my favorite hobbies in the last few years. Unfortunately, it seems that it is one of those hobbies that always seem to come last, as there are so many things in life right now that have to be done first that blogging and sitting at the computer trying to make some money just doesn’t get a chance.

Do you experience the same thing? All these other tasks that have to be completed before you can sit and enjoy time with your blog(s)… Here are mine (just in case you are interested; maybe you can find some which might actually excuse the length of time I haven’t been active here for so long):

Dash The Dog

Boomer The Bloodhound

And whenever I actually had the time to sit down and enjoy my Internet Marketing “hobby”, looking back over the past year I can honestly say all I really did was

• check my stats and earnings on any affiliate programs
• Check out any new product offers
• sign up for more crappy emails
• spend hard earned money on more products I don’t need
• kept stuffing my inbox and bookmarks with more and more offers and sites that got more and more confusing.

Yep, I can honestly say, when I look back onto my past year I have definitely fallen straight back into the Internet Marketers Trap. I did not take any action, but got lost in all the information out there.

What about blogger’s block?

Well, for the whole time since I have not been active with my blogs I had this nagging in the back of my head that “I really need to sit down and write a post again” (and remember, I have a few blogs that have grown stale over the past year, so –> more pressure).

I actually did have a few times when I made the time and sat down with the right intentions, just to discover when the allocated time had passed that again I had not achieved anything but more of the same as above.  It was like I was sitting down, wanting to write but couldn’t really think of anything, so instead of trying harder or really looking for a topic to write about I found all this other “stuff” that needed doing and felt like I did something useful, but that ended up not doing anything for my blogs, affiliate earnings or rankings. Know what I mean?

I think I was suffering from Bloggers Block. Couldn’t come up with anything interesting to write, the harder I tried the harder it got. Adding to that, having a blog in a niche with a lot of competition, like mine about weight loss and this blog about Internet Marketing, I started feeling that I could not possibly write about anything interesting any more than what all these much more experienced bloggers had already put out there. “How can I possibly top that, or write about something new, if there are so many people out there who seem to have more experience and knowledge than me?” – is what I started to think.

Well, thank God I seem to have overcome that!!! Who cares what others put out there – if you write from your point of view about the things you have learned, I am sure now that that can help others out there, too. You don’t have to be an expert to contribute valuable knowledge to the community. Don’t you think?

Well, this was rather a long post. I am all geared up and ready to jump back into the game. All I want to say is – don’t be too harsh on people who don’t update their blogs all the time, it’s tough sometimes to make it happen.

And I have learned that, if you want Internet Marketing to make you a full time income, you will have to devote at least as much time to it as you would on a full time job. Full stop. There are no shortcuts. That’s why I am treating my blogs as a “hobby” – I simply don’t have enough time in my current situation to devote a chunk of it to my blogs every day. And don’t feel bad if you don’t, either. You will get to it when you can.

In my de-blocked head I have a couple of new ideas about posts already, and I am looking forward to share them with you over the next few weeks.

NO, I am NOT going to bite the dust!!!

Bump Up Your Niche Site With The Right Backlinks

Whether you believe it or not, I have finally found some time again to work on my websites! I just thought I need to get my days better organized so I can fit a bit of time in each day. So – early mornings it is for me at the moment!

What I have started off with now is keep generating backlinks to  my websites. Over the past 2 years all I had done was mainly build backlinks to the home pages, and do a few posts every few weeks or so. So some of my homepages have been on page 1 of the Google search results for my main keywords for a while, and I have seen some consistent search engine traffic from it. But there I was, thinking how much more traffic I could generate if I managed to get my other pages on page 1 as well, for their keywords!

Luckily, I have been a subscriber for Backlink Builder for a while now, I just never did anything with them. Seriously, I was sitting on a Goldmine and just didn’t take the time to act on it. Well, when I finally decided to come out of my hiding a few weeks ago, that’s what I decided to do – go systematically through Backlink Builder and start building those all important backlinks to my inner pages, as well.

As I had the thought of reporting about it on my blog here, of course I wrote the “starting positions” of some of my pages down before I started. Here they are:

On March 24 I had:

And then I started with my backlink campaign. Just went systematically through the files that you get with Backlink Builder, linking back to my inner pages with the keywords for those particular pages as anchor text. I made a point of writing down which anchor text I used on which site, and which page on my site I linked back to. For that I designed a very simple table which I fill out as I go along (otherwise you lose track). If you click on the image you can see it in original size. I created it on Open Office.

My next date when I checked my keywords was April 6, so just about 2 weeks later. These are a few results:

Can you see the huge jump in those keywords? It’s nearly unbelievable.
These are the positions as of today (April 29):

I find this just amazing. Now, some of the rankings still jump around a little, but I am quite positive that it will come further up again. The jumping around at the beginning is quite normal.

You know what else happened now that my inner pages are up in the search results?

• My traffic has increased – from between 500-600 views a day to most days between 900-1000.
• My affiliate earnings have increased so far by about 30%. For example, one of my Affiliate Programs made me $72 yesterday:

So – all is green in my books, so to speak! This stuff really works. You build a niche site with a few relevant pages, create some good content on those pages, – it really pays off to put effort into making the site a site that your visitors will enjoy and benefit from! – and start building links to it. I’m chuffed!

Looking forward to your comments!

Best Password Manager

I cannot believe it has been since early December since I posted last. I have to admit that for the past 1/2 year or so I had a bit of a burn out happening. I just couldn’t get the energy back up to do all that needed doing (regarding my internet marketing) in the evening after the kids were finally in bed. Now I can feel that some of my interest and passion is returning and I hope to get right back into it in the next few months!

Today I wanted to let you know about the best password manager I have come across online. I only found it a few weeks ago, and I love it already.

When you get into internet or affiliate marketing, you will soon notice that you will very likely start signing up for many, many sites and services. Be it Affiliate programs, forums, social networking sites, social bookmarking sites, article sites, squidoo, youtube  – you name it, you will sign up for it and need a user name and password.

Many people start out with writing their user names and passwords on pieces of paper (like me), or start writing up a notepad on the computer and just create one long (and usually disorderly) list of secret names and numbers. It can be hard to find what you need on that sometimes!

What an Internet Marketer really needs is a great password manager. One that remembers every single user name and password for you, no sweat. And Last Pass is exactly that (and no, this is not an affiliate link! )

Last Pass is literally the last password you will ever need! You will get one master password, and the program will remember all of  your user names and passwords for you, super easy. If you have a look at their home page, there are plenty of testimonials on there from enthusiastic users, and also some really good reviews from sites like PCMag.com, ZDNet Microsoft Report and PC World.

Now, I am not good at explaining any technical things or how exactly it works, but it does, and it’s brilliant! Oh – and did I mention that it’s free, too? I would suggest for you to just head over to their website, have a bit of a snoop around, and check it out!

Seriously, as Internet Marketer this is something you really need, and Last Pass is one of the best password managers you can get!

Snowball Fight

I haven’t posted anything remotely funny for a while, and I came across this video on YouTube and thought I am going to share it with you. I love horses (used to ride when I was younger – looooooong time ago), and this video is just great. Hope you like it! Fits in the season, too (apart from Australia, we are getting real hot weather here now).

Enjoy!

Monetize Your Blog With In Text Advertising

Kontera Payment

A little while ago I had an email in my account from a service I had forgotten about for a long time. It was Kontera, my in-text advertising program I had signed up with in January 2009. They were letting me know that they had paid me $107.29 in USD for the advertising on my sites http://www.mybeachdecor.com and http://www.healthydietweightloss.com. WOW! Happy Day!

Then I looked back to see for what time frame this payment really was. Yep, you guessed it, it was for the time from when I signed up (January 2009) to July 2010. That makes it 1 1/2 years, or 18 months. Spread the payment out over 18 months and it means I earned not quite $6 per month with Kontera. Whoopidoo!

Well, to be honest, whilst it seems very disappointing on first glance, it is still money I earned for doing absolutely nothing extra, just by installing Kontera In-Text Advertising on my blog. So as “bad” as the payout seems, I think it’s worth adding some In-Text Advertising to monetize your blog.

What exactly is in-text advertising? Well, have you ever seen a website where some of the words are underlined, or maybe dotted, highlighted in blue, and when you hover over them you get a little window pop up with some related information? (Have a look at my site about Lighthouse Home Decor you can see it there).

What you will have to consider is whether the extra advertising on your blog will actually turn people off. If you have a very loyal readers base or customer base, it might actually annoy them if there are too many links that point them away from your site.

There are quite a few different companies out there that offer this service. Opinions on these services differ quite a lot. Some Affiliate Marketers don’t seem to like Kontera, but swear by InfoLinks, – they seem to be paying out at a better rate. There are some others, but I have not investigated them yet.

What I have decided to do is to stop Kontera for now and sign up with Infolinks. I want to see for myself whether there is a big difference in the payout and service. I remember, what I don’t like about Kontera is that you can never look back more than 6 months for your earnings. Which makes it a bit difficult if it takes you more than 6 months to earn up to your payout threshold. So after about 6 months, whenever I wanted to know the total earned in my account, I had to email Kontera and request a figure. Which was a real pain in the butt.

Both companies have a payment threshold of $50 and pay straight into your paypal account.

So, if you are thinking of monetizing your blog or site, have a think about In-Text Advertising.

I would like to know also whether any of you have experience with this, and how your success rate is/was. Which company do you prefer? Do you know of others that might be better? Let me know!

Joining Affiliate Programs – Why Less Is More

Hi all, I know I have been neglecting this site – and all my others, too.

It has just been so busy in my life lately, my partner and me are running several “offline” businesses, and I am trying to bring all the paperwork up to date, because we are soooo far behind it’s not funny. So whenever I am not at my TAFE college studying bookkeeping, I am sifting through piles of paperwork and purchase dockets trying to make sense of it all. In between I do all the stuff around the house (boooooring….) and take the dogs for long walks at the beach for relaxation (much needed!). In my other little free time I take care of the kids (slowly growing up, but still in need of lots of Mama ) and occasionally meet my friends (yes, I too do socialize!).

With the result that at night, when in the past I sat down to take care of my blogs and learning about Internet Marketing, I am just so tired once the kids are in bed that I fall asleep in front of the TV!!!! I guess it’s a little burn-out syndrome….

So that’s why you have been missing out big time!

Never mind, I will eventually get back into it. But for today I wanted to talk about one of the first steps you have to do when you are starting out with affiliate marketing, and that is “joining affiliate programs”.

When I started my very first website in February 2008 (Beach Decor), I had no idea about nothing. I was being taught by a company over the phone once a week, got homework and just had to build the website step by step, including writing content for the pages and – you guessed it – joining affiliate programs to promote products on my new site.

So I jumped right in and searched high and low for affiliate programs that fitted with my beachy decor theme. I was so excited by it all that I ended up joining 16 +/- different affiliate programs and plastering links to them all over my site. Mind you, the site did not look spammy or overstuffed or anything like that, I just had different programs for different pages on my site, depending what the theme was. It actually came together quite nicely!

Since those early days I have not touched the site too much apart from adding a page here and there, changing some “Feature Items” and adding a blog post occasionally.

But the other day I sat down and had  a think about how successful this site has been, and what kind of results I have had with the different programs, and what I could do to improve my site. And when I looked at my affiliate programs and their performance, I have to say it was a bit of an “AHA” moment.

There are only very few programs that have made me consistent sales and brought in consistent affiliate commissions. There are quite a few that have not had ONE sale in the past 2 1/2 years, not ONE! Even though when I look at the statistics they have had quite a good visitor turnout. And then there are some that have made some sales, but don’t seem to be able to reach the payment threshold that’s been put in place.

So what does that mean?

I think that one of life’s principles also applies to Affiliate Marketing: If you want to be successful, you must focus and concentrate your efforts, instead of spreading yourself too far and wide. Meaning, if you put all your efforts into a few select affiliate programs and promote their products on your site, you are more likely to receive more commissions more easily, and faster, than if you have your efforts spread out over too many.

If I had made the few sales that my “minor” programs have made through one of my better going programs, I would have reaped the rewards already! Instead, I might have to forgo the money I have earned in these programs, as I don’t think I can wait another 5 years before I make the next sale!

I hope you get what I am trying to say here. Just work out which programs will suit your site, sign up and then stay true to those few select ones, don’t get carried away because you see another great site with an affiliate program attached where you could possibly sell something on your site.

I found that if you have a site which might promote products in several different areas it will be best to join one of the bigger networks like Amazon, Commission Junction, Linkshare or Shareasale (this is my favorite right now, it’s made me a few really good sales lately ). They have a huge array of different businesses within their system which you can promote (apart from Amazon, but they just have every product under the sun…), and every sale you make will be thrown together in the one pot. Easier to track, and a quicker way to get a payout, for sure!

So, time for me to start working on overhauling my Beach Theme Home Decor site!

Please, let me know what you think.

Well, I have been working overtime tonight (it’s 10pm…), so I am off to bed!!! Ready for an early paperwork start tomorrow…. Nite Nite…