Thursday 19 December 2013

[Build Great Backlinks] Triple X Niche Case Study Update: Expenses Report

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Last month we mentioned that the Triple X Niche Case Study was now live on ViperChill. If you missed the launch then a quick summary is that three people will be tackling the same industry with three different approaches. I (Glen) am only allowed to focus on social media. Diggy (my SEO business partner) is only allowed to focus on SEO and Mr.V (a beginner to making money online) is allowed to do anything he wants.

When we originally planned the case study we each had a $1,000 budget in mind. After a lot of feedback however this was lowered to $500 for the first two months of the project; November and December. Many of you have been following the case study closely on the forums and I’m proud to announce the threads have been viewed over 40,000 times with over 30 case studies being shared there.

EXPENSES

Wednesday 18 December 2013

[Build Great Backlinks] 20 Mistakes Bloggers Are Still Making

Build Great Backlinks


Today I’m going to cover some of the biggest mistakes bloggers are still making.

Most of these fall under the category of “structural” or “conceptual.”

Chances are, if you're a novice, you're guilty of at least a couple.

Don't stress, this post will set you on the right track to becoming a more successful blogger.

But be warned…

You may find yourself compelled to throw out some posts, or even move your blog in a new direction altogether.

Mistake #1: Not Getting Your Audience

One of the biggest mistakes bloggers are still making is not identifying their audience.

Many get the topic and have the facts, but don’t connect with anybody.

As bloggers we have to understand the problems our readers face and empathize with them.

Literally feel what they feel and see through their eyes.

Once you do this, creating engaging posts that solve problems and answer questions is a breeze.

Aside from interacting with readers comments and installing Google Analytics, asking questions with a survey plugin like YOP Polls is great for identifying demographics.

You can even step the look up a notch with a service like Survey Monkey.

With the free version you get up to 100 responses and 10 questions per survey… and it’s easy to set up.

Survey Monkey Screenshot

Mistake #2: Not Choosing a Strong Niche

Another big mistake that bloggers make is trying to be everything for everyone.

You can't underestimate the benefits of strong focus.

Having a tightly defined and clear mission, makes you much more likely to gain a strong and passionate following that’s incredibly valuable.

Being passionate and excited about whatever it is you’re blogging really presents itself in your writing.

Mistake #3: Covering Too Much

A lot of bloggers want to appeal to a broad audience, so they write about a ton of topics.

You might be thinking, “well, that’s doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.”

The issue is, the blog can get a little too bloated and easily lose connection (and trust) with the reader.

Mistake #4: Inconsistency

This is one of the greatest factors of an unsuccessful blog, both in publication frequency and quality.

The hard part is these “elements of success” can sometimes seem like opposing forces.

Creating great content doesn’t typically take 5 minutes, which is a problem for those of us accustomed to instant gratification.

Ensure quality content on a regular basis by simply adhering to a publishing schedule.

Base your blogging on routine, not on whenever the muse comes to visit.

Don’t put out a great first post and follow it up with rushed crap. You’ll lose readers quicker than it took to write your lackluster content.

Mistake #5: Lack of Commitment

Not committing to blogging is another big mistake.

A lot of people get into blogging, and think it will have an instantaneous impact on their business – most receive a rude awakening.

You should plan on writing at least a couple posts per week for the first six months. It’s not likely you’ll experience overnight success.

But don't get discouraged and quit because…

“Anything in life worth having is worth working for." –Andrew Carnegie

Mistake #6: Quantity Over Quality

Your readers don’t want quantity, they want QUALITY!

Internet users want solutions to their problems with easy to digest information.

It WILL take you some time to research, write, and edit a good blog post…

Otherwise, a quick Google search would offer “good enough” information for your prospect.

Do yourself a favor and set your blog apart with unique content!

Steve Kamb of NerdFitness.com does a great job of making his content stand out in a VERY competitive industry.

Mistake #7: Writing For Yourself and Not Your Audience

Even if it sounds fun to share what's on your mind in the moment, if it doesn't help your audience, don't post it.

You can’t be selfish. You need to leave that to your readers.

They want information that’s helpful to them.

Recognize your audience's selfishness and feed them.

Indulging yourself doesn’t help your reader, which doesn’t help your blog.

Mistake #8: Making Your Blog About You

Remember, your audience doesn't care about you unless you're a celebrity.

Write blog posts that are entertaining, topical, and/or useful.

Unless you’re somehow directly relevant to how useful, interesting, or good your blog posts are, don't make it about yourself.

Mistake #9: Poor Writing

A blogger's job is to find and retain readers.

When you have more readers, you have an opportunity to help more people and make more money.

With this in mind, there’s one SUREFIRE approach to turn away new readers…

POOR WRITING.

Always proofread before posting. Use spell-check and review your readability statistics in Microsoft Word.

Take time to research the concepts, facts, and ideas in your posts.

Remember, your focus should always be helping people – especially if you plan to profit.

Mistake #10: Not Using Provocative Headlines

Engage your readers with compelling headlines.

Everyone’s more excited to check out a blog post when it has a provocative headline.

Make people want to read your stuff with seriously enticing headlines.

Here are 11 great examples of provocative headlines:

  • Don’t Even Think About Blogging Without Reading This Report!
  • Amazing New Discovery Kills Kitchen Odors Quick!
  • Why Some People Almost Always Make Money Online?
  • Is The Life of a Child Worth $1 to You?
  • 7 Reasons Income Diary Readers Live Better
  • Free Book Tells You 12 Secrets of Incredible Sex
  • Why Some Foods “Explode” in Your Stomach
  • The "Friendly" Health Advice You Should NEVER Take
  • The Strange Breathing Technique That Improves Your Posture
  • Thousands Now Play Who Never Thought They Could
  • Lose Weight While You Eat (10 Foods That Actually Burn Calories)

Mistake #11: Blogging on Your Own

Learning to adopt skills from popular journalists, digging up stories and interviewing others from my industry has enhanced my writing skills and opened many doors.

A lot of bloggers think they have to do everything themselves.

And I was guilty of this too.

Thing is, this puts a lot of weight on our shoulders and drains creativity.

Expand your reach by emailing other bloggers from your industry and asking them for interviews and to exchange guest posts.

Mistake #12: Adding to Information Overload

Don't just publish content for the sake of publishing content.

Try to create something unique and compelling.

Make sure every post has a lot of value, and doesn't just contribute to the clutter that’s already out there.

Mistake #13: Too Much Self Promotion

Go outside your own products, services, and company and talk about other necessary subjects to offer solutions to your readers’ issues.

This builds trust, and shows you really care.

Besides, you can't solve everybody’s problems.

Mistake #14: Not Connecting With Your Audience

A lot of bloggers just publish their posts and forget about them.

Looking at your comments, responding to them, and sincerely engaging with your audience, will help build strong relationships.

larry-summers-sleeping

Mistake #15: Not Thoughtfully Responding to Comments

One of the most blatant mistakes a blogger can make is not taking time to respond thoughtfully to comments and interact with users.

Show your readers some love and respond to them.

Let them know you’re a real person that truly wants to improve their lives.

Make it clear by going beyond the initial response and following it up with engaging comments of your own.

Mistake #16: Not Promoting Your Blog Posts

To my disbelief, I see many bloggers not promoting their stuff. 

Once the article goes live, they’ll jump on Facebook, put a link on the fan page and that’s it.

Then you have those who go overboard and promote too much…

You have to strike a balance, getting your posts the attention they deserve without driving your followers crazy with self promotion.

Ideally, you want people sharing your content. Your traffic will go up once your stuff starts to get shared on social media.

You’ll achieve this by consistently writing engaging content geared toward solving your readers’ problems.

Mistake #17: Not Becoming Part of the Community

One of the most limiting mistakes bloggers make is trying to do everything alone.

There are a lot of dedicated, passionate writers out there who would like to help you craft a community blog around the great content in your niche…

This would accelerate the growth of your site with additional promoters and give you a greater social circle to utilize for exposure.

Resources like Blog Catalog can help you find other popular sites in your niche.

And communities like BlogEngage are awesome for the exchange of feedback and links by like-minded bloggers.

Mistake #18: Not Engaging Other Bloggers in the Industry

You want close collaboration with other bloggers in your industry.

You could even try to form a blogging group in your local community and start or join a group on Facebook.

The sky’s the limit.

Don't think of your blog as a separate entity, acknowledge it as part of a larger community – collaborative partners can only help your site.

Think of your blog as one of many and link up with others for the benefit of your audience. You’ll destroy yourself trying to cover everything your niche has to offer alone.

Mistake #19: Not Sharing Your Expertise

Sharing your talent and expertise with other bloggers and websites builds trust, reputation, and credibility.

The quickest way to develop a community on the Internet is to share information.

Your readers can and will come from other authority blogs.

Get your foot in the door with the best blogs in your niche by doing guest posts, commenting on their stuff and asking to do interviews.

Mistake #20: Ignoring Keyword-Rich Titles to Appear Clever

A lot of bloggers choose really clever or catchy titles, but they don't think about keywords.

Keywords can make a big difference to the search engines – especially for the long term.

Choosing a keyword-rich title can make the difference between your post living on and fading into nothingness.

You DEFINITELY want a catchy title, just make sure it’s relevant to your message.

We live in the age of information.

On a daily basis we’re exposed to more ideas, blog posts, and news stories than we could ever consume.

That said, time is a limited resource for most people these days.

And with an abundance of mediocre and regurgitated information, treating your readers' time with respect is critical…

Remember, the best way to respect your readers’ time is by delivering great content on a regular basis.

Success by choice, not by chance.

-David Aston

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Build Great Backlinks
David Aston
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com

Friday 6 December 2013

[Build Great Backlinks] The Ultimate Guide to Making Online Video Tutorials

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Teaching a concept or process through a video tutorial is one of the single most valuable types of online content. It’s an easy and effective for your audience to learn a new skill. Video tutorials are sure to attract new followers and convince your current one’s that you’re serious about providing them the best content possible.

Creating a quality video tutorial doesn’t have to be difficult. It’s actually possible to create an adequate tutorial in ten minutes, no video editing required.

I’ll teach you how to do that below, but I’ll also give more in-depth information for those who are re­ady to dig in and really create a top-caliber video. That means how to prepare for your video, tips on recording, getting your audio right, and how to best edit, upload, and publish your video online.

You can jump right to the beginning of the guide by clicking here or by using the table of contents above.

Example of a Video Tutorial

I made my first video tutorial a few weeks ago for PopUp Domination. I learned a lot through the process and it inspired me to write this post for you. You can watch that video tutorial here.



If you want to learn more about PopUp Domination, go to the official site. Or you can read Josh Dunlop’s recent post on the 10 different ways that he uses PopUp Domination.

Expert Video Advice:

Throughout the article, I’ll be sharing exclusive advice from Gideon Shalwick of Rapid Video Blogging. He’s had huge success through video tutorials so I’m really happy to be including his insight in the article.

All of these Gideon Shalwick quotes are from Income Diary’s own book of interviews with top online entrepreneurs, Web Domination 20.

Now, onto the guide.

 

Before You Press Record

Press Record

Know Your Stuff

The first step to making a good tutorial is to know all of the ins and the outs of the subject you’re teaching. Hopefully, you’re already an expert on the process you’re teaching. If not, you should probably run through it a few times to make yourself as knowledgeable as possible.

I also suggest looking around on forums and blogs to see what problems people are having commonly and the types of questions that they are asking.

Write a Bullet-Point Script

I don’t recommend writing out the entire script of your video, because it’s better to be in the moment and to sound natural (this is called an ‘extemporaneous’ delivery). But having a few key bullet-points in front of you on a piece of paper or electronic device can help make sure you don’t miss anything important and remind you what’s coming up next.

Create a Clean Environment

Keep in mind that if you’re recording your computer screen that may include recording your desktop background, programs you have running, browser windows you have open, your bookmarks, and more. Before you press record, make sure that your computer’s display looks professional and won’t show any overly personal information.

 

Choosing Video Recording ‘Screencasting’ Software

snagit image

You can spend your time downloading and installing any number of free screencasting options. But I tried this and was met with unacceptably low-quality video. If you’re absolutely set on using free software, then the highest ranked free screencasting software (according to Wikipedia’s comparison) is VirtualDub.

But in my experience, you get what you pay for. If you want the cream of the crop, go with $299.00 USD Camtasia. Personally, I chose the $49.95 Snagit and I couldn’t be happier. It’s easy to use and it has all of the options that I wanted (plus a few more).

If you’re not ready to part with real money, both Camtasia and Snagit offer free trials. Download one for a month through the links above, make a few tutorials with it, and then you can decide whether or not to invest with a purchase.

Audio Recording

The Right Mic

With Snagit, you can record your voice through your computer’s microphone simultaneously. This is an easy way to do it, but the audio quality may be thin and full of static. If you speak loudly and clearly, your audio will likely be okay.

If you’re going to be doing this a lot, you’ll probably want to invest in a quality USB microphone, like the Yeti. Gideon offered us microphone advice for the professional:

"My microphone that I currently use with my Canon 60D is a wireless microphone from Sony, the UTX-B2. So that plugs into my camera and then I can have a very nice, little, wireless lapel mic on me when I record the videos. They're a bit more expensive, $700 bucks or so."

And the budget-conscious beginner:

"You don't need to start with the UTX-B2. I actually used a $30 Audiotechnica microphone that I got from an electronics store. It provided near professional quality audio and the only drawback was that it was not wireless. It came with a four meter cord. You don't need to spend a lot of money to get a great result."

An Optimized Acoustic Environment

Turn off any fans, heaters, or other devices that produce ambient noise.

Also look out for flat, uncovered walls and hardwood floors that may create harsh, reverberant echoes. If the room that you’re in is producing too much reverb, you can cover the floors with rugs, the walls with blankets or paintings, and place pillows or comforters in the corners.

Or simply record in a different room with better acoustics.

The Sound of Silence

After you’ve finished recording your voice walking through the video, record about 30 seconds of dead silence. When you’re editing the video later, you may need to separate parts of the voiceover and you can use that "white noise" to fill in the gaps without the audio cutting out entirely and distracting the viewer.

Background Music

ccmixter license example

There’s a variety of sites online to find licensed music for free in the creative commons. I’ve had good luck with ccmixter.org and that’s what I used to find the background music for the PopUp Domination tutorial video.

If your voiceover is difficult to understand for any reason, then you may want to consider skipping the music altogether. In any case, keep the volume down so that it doesn’t distract from what really matters.

Cleaning Up Audio

Cleaning up noisy, static-filled audio is easier said than done. You can use advanced software like ProTools or capable freeware like Audacity, and they all have ‘noise reduction’ tools and equalization, but the truth is that it’s usually impossible to cut out static or noise without also cutting out important frequencies of the voice itself.

For that reason, I recommend most people just try to get the best audio quality to begin with and don’t count on any audio editing magic to bail you out.

 

Recording the Video Tutorial

If you know the process that you’re teaching and you’ve familiarized yourself with your screencasting software, recording the tutorial should be a piece of cake. Just press ‘Record’, then walk your viewers through the process.

Striking the Right Tone

It’s good if you can be personable and maybe crack a joke or two. Your personality can make your video stick out and encourage people to feel the type of personal connection with you that will get them to want to come back for more tutorials.

But if you’re taking a lot of time with your humor and theatrics you’re just going to frustrate your viewers. For a video tutorial, I would rather have someone be dry and to the point then overly colorful. Of course, the best option is to find the happy medium.

Recording a Video So You Don’t Have to Edit

When you click ‘Record’ with Snagit, they give you a three second countdown before it starts recording your screen. That’s enough time to switch windows to the screen you want to start the video with. In most cases, that can simply be the software or web page that you’re going to be instructing the viewer on.

If you want to get really fancy, you can design a special title screen to welcome your viewer and inform them about what you’ll be teaching. In that case, you can make that image your desktop background or have it up in a photo viewing program.

popdom title screen

This is the welcome screen for the PopUp Domination video that I designed in Adobe Photoshop. I used graphic design that had already been made for PopUp Domination’s website in order to give it a professional, branded look.

If you like, you can make another such image for the conclusion of your video. With Snagit you can press Shift+F10 and exit the video promptly without any wasted seconds at the end.

Regardless of whether you use special screens for the beginning and ending of your video, if you go through the process clearly, quickly, and you don’t trip over your words too much, you can record a video that is completely functional without having to do any further editing.

If you want to add text or interactivity to the video, you can add those through YouTube annotations. I recently wrote a guide on how to use YouTube Annotations if you would like to learn more.

Nevertheless, if you want the highest quality of video tutorial, you’re probably going to want to do some basic editing.

 

Editing Your Video Tutorial

Choosing Your Software

adobe premiere creative cloude

As with screencasting, there are a bevy of video editing software available, both free and paid. In fact, most computers come with perfectly capable video editing software and many screencasting programs (such as Snagit and Screenflow) also feature video editors tailored to the needs of someone editing a video tutorial.

For WebDomination 20, Gideon Shalwick walked us through his process of selecting video editing software:

"I started with iMovie, worked my way through to Final Cut Express, and I ended up settling with ScreenFlow.

"Once I started using ScreenFlow, I thought, "Why bother with Final Cut?" ScreenFlow did everything that I wanted it to and it was much easier to use and gave me amazing results.

"Even to this day, if I want to get a video done really quickly, just something with simple cuts and very simple editing, I use ScreenFlow. Just record, get it on ScreenFlow, export, upload, done. It's just so good."

I use Adobe Premiere to edit my videos for work and you can get a free a trial of that through Adobe’s website. But generally the more advanced video editors have a higher learning curve and they won’t provide casual video editors with anything that they really need for most videos.

Edit to Save Your Viewer’s Time

One of the principle benefits of editing your video is using transitions to save your viewer’s time. If there’s a process that takes a while in the middle of your video (like a loading screen or an upload) then you can simply cut that part of the video. It’s also a good opportunity to fix slip-ups or pauses in your speech.

Adding Text to Guide Your Viewers

By going through the process and talking to your viewer, you can convey most all information necessary. But if you want to help the learning process further, adding text is a great way to add further clarification for your viewers.

text example video tutorial

I added text at the top and bottom of the PopUp Domination video tutorial with a template that I created in Adobe Photoshop. The text on the top tells is like a header, identifying the larger goal we’re accomplishing in the video. The text below identifies the individual step in the process that we’re currently completing in the video.

Branding and other design elements add to the professionalism of your video and help your viewer to remember your name. As you can see, I incorporated the PopUp Domination logo directly into the design of the text bars.

Outsourcing Editing

Hiring someone else to edit your videos for you can result in a more professional video and free your time up to focus on other activities. Gideon Shalwick put in his time editing videos himself but he explained to us that he now mostly outsources:

"Currently, I don't do much editing myself anymore. My business has progressed so well now that I can afford to have a team of video editors to do all my editing for me. That's really helped me take my business to heights that I couldn't have even imagined. My videos look so much more professional now than I could have ever even tried to do on my own."

If you decide to go this route, you can create the tutorial yourself and outsource the editing or you can hire the entire tutorial created, as Michael did when he recruited my video service.

Wrapping Up

YouTube Interactivity Guide

Choosing a Video Service

There’s no shortage of ways to get your video online and for the most part they all work fine. But if you want your video tutorials to be found and viewed freely by as many people as possible, YouTube is the way to go. Gideon Shalwick explains:

"Really it's all about traffic on YouTube. That is the short answer. Last time I checked, YouTube is the second biggest search engine, after Google. Three billion views a day is pretty impressive. Personally, I can't really fathom the number three with nine zeros next to it. It's just incredible."

Uploading & Optimizing

There’s a host of things you can do to optimize your video so that it will show up in more sources. That’s not really the subject of this article so I’ll be brief.

The title is the most important part for SEO, but it’s also important to fill in the keywords and description area. You can use the list of bullet points you created earlier to fill in the description area in a breeze. Don’t forget to add a link to your website in the first couple lines of the description area so that people will be able to click on to your site.

Make an Accompanying Blog Post

If you really want to do it up, write a blog post that also walks through the process and embed the video at the top of it. Now you’ve created a complete educational resource that’s likely to be favored by Google’s search engine spiders.

That’s a Wrap!

You can rest easy knowing that every day someone, somewhere is learning thanks to the time you spent putting together a quality video tutorial. That’s a pretty cool feeling.

If you want to learn more about video, you can check out my articles on the top YouTube channels, profiles in viral video marketing, and my 21 ways to dominate YouTube.

Check out this website if you want to create great videos using Screenflow.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Making Online Video Tutorials appeared first on How To Make Money Online.



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Build Great Backlinks
Nick Scheidies
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com

Thursday 5 December 2013

[Build Great Backlinks] 10 Prosperity Conscious Principles for More Business Profit

Build Great Backlinks


This post is part of our MoneyLove series. In part #1, we talked about why you should love money. In this article, we'll talk about how to get more of it.

A Moneylove Approach to Playing Larger and Winning Bigger

Doing is being.
To have done's not enough.
To stuff yourself with doing — that's the game.
To name yourself each hour by what's done,
To tabulate your time at sunset's gun
And find yourself in acts
You could not know before the facts.

The above is just the first part of Ray Bradbury’s poem, Doing Is Being. Ray showed the poem to me before it was even published in the early 1980s, sitting under a tree among the rolling seaside hills at the Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference, where we were both members of the faculty, though he was one of the celebrity keynoters and I just taught some classes in nonfiction writing.

I loved the phrase, “To stuff yourself with doing.” As I have found true with so many creative geniuses, Ray had a grand generosity of spirit, and gave me permission to use the poem in my book, Psychological Immortality, even before his own poetry book containing it was released.

It struck such a deep chord in me because I always believed the best teaching came through developing experiential techniques. I pioneered a lot of these in workshops I led for the adventurous Association for Humanistic Psychology. I also taught them to other authors who were brilliant speakers or counselors, but didn’t think in experiential models. People like Louise Hay, Mark Victor Hansen, and Wayne Dyer.

This is why I think so many of my Moneylove ideas have stood the test of time, and new ones I am regularly creating still have impact in the world. Though I call the following list, 10 principles, they are really action-oriented strategies, all requiring that someone adopting any or all of them, do something or change something they are doing. It doesn’t even really matter if taking one of these specific action steps is the right or ideal one to explore. Just the taking action itself is shaking things up, transforming the equation, “to find yourself in acts you could not know before the facts.” To do, and therefore to be.

prosperity-350x248

1. Start Immediately

Nothing dissipates a great business idea like delay. The most promising prosperity-producing business plans can scatter like smoke through too much pondering and indecision, or talking about it. I am not suggesting that you have to start big, or do it all overnight. Rather, baby steps are often a good way to build the momentum to manifest your dream results. It's important that you begin doing something that will serve your specific idea and start putting it into a physical form. This may indeed become a false start, so don't expend too much energy on it initially, but create some kind of movement toward what you envision that idea becoming.

This is not a brand new idea. At the very beginning of Moneylove, I quote pioneering psychologist, William James, who said that to change one's life you must "start immediately." And even though some scholars dispute whether the famous "begin it now" quote originated with Goethe, it certainly predates James: "Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."

In a similar vein, one of my mentors and friends, Bob Schwartz, founder of the School for Entrepreneurs at Tarrytown, New York, used to say that a major factor in business success is what you do "when the rubber hits the road." Even the most luxurious, high-powered car won’t get you anywhere with a burned-out starter.

2. The Law of Subtraction

This is simply to focus on being more discerning, more selective, more aware of what really matters. In other words, being more discriminating in your choices.
There is so much stuff pouring out in this era of instant access to just about everything, so much information bombarding us, we have to make a much more intentional, concentrated effort to pick out the truly valuable and worthwhile from all the clutter.

One of the best explanations of this came over a hundred years ago from Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, when he had Holmes explain to Watson his own particular take on what information to take in and what to leave out:

"The mind is like an attic, you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out."

What a beautiful way of expressing the problem of information overload. Essayist Lance Morrow, also did a great dissertation on this subject, in Time magazine, saying:

"The mind takes its shape from what it holds, and therefore, Zen-like, sometimes grows more graceful because of what it has kept out."

And so it is true, that it is often what you subtract that is as important or even more so than what you attract.
And this brings me to one of my favorite affirmations, which many people have used as a guideline to help decide what to let in and what to keep out:

"If it doesn't bring me profit, pleasure, or knowledge, it isn't worth doing."

If you simply make a list, with headings for Profit, Pleasure, Knowledge, and put down all the things now happening in your life, all the things you are now paying attention to, and seeing where they fit in this trio of categories, you would begin to get more of a sense of what belongs in a successful, dynamic life and what doesn't. How many of these things actually fulfill two or three of the criteria? Obviously, your life is more dynamic and creative and has more potential when more of the things you do give you profit, pleasure, and knowledge.

3. Your Ninety Day Trial Period.

This is a take-action strategy that many coaching clients have credited with quick and powerful results in their creative and financial lives. In this whirlwind life many of us experience, with so many choices, so many ways we can be in the world and use our various skills and talents, it is essential to set certain boundaries, and this is an easy one that seems to work well for everyone who tries it.

Very simply, whenever you have more than one important choice–and this works in your professional life as well as your personal situation–you pick one of those choices and commit to giving it your all–your total focus, energy, and time for the next ninety days. In most such activities or projects, ninety days is enough time to know whether this was the right decision for you. If it still feels right after ninety days, you keep doing it. If you can see that it is not nearly producing the results you expected, let it go and move on to your next choice. If you are applying this to a creative activity, there's a good chance that you might have wasted a year under the normal circumstances of deciding whether or not it works for you. With this strategy, you get to check out four projects or decisions in that same year.

4. More Than Their Money's Worth

This is such a basic marketing concept that it often amazes me why people don't adopt it as their personal credo. When I first started marketing myself as a speaker and workshop leader, and then started producing my prosperity audio program, I always had as my main foundational tone the idea of giving my audience, "More than their money's worth."

And here's an important part of that–don't tell them that is your intention until you deliver their first order and they can confirm you are indeed delivering something more valuable than the amount they are giving you. IncomeDiary.com is a great example of taking this even further. In chats with Internet entrepreneurs and bloggers, time and again, these online masters have almost awestruck regard for Michael Dunlop and what he has done by starting out giving huge amounts of valuable free information. It isn't complicated, but it is brilliant. By building personal relationships with the best and brightest bloggers and online marketing masters and content providers, Michael has been able to give away what many other bloggers and entrepreneurs charge for. Talk about giving people more than their money's worth!

5. Your Next Big Thing

When I met Wally Schirra in the green room of a television talk show in the mid-1980s, I think astronauts were a bigger deal than they've become in recent years. As one of the original 7 Mercury astronauts, Wally was as big a deal as there could be in that realm.

So I asked this American space hero a pretty obvious question: "After soaring to the heights of space, wasn't it a big letdown to come back down to earth and eventually become a businessman?" Wally laughed and said he did get that question a lot, usually accompanied by arched eyebrows. He said he had always thought he would like to try some kind of business venture once he retired from space. He said his father, also a pilot, told him when he was very young that one should always know what they wanted to do next after achieving their primary dream. Wally also told me that he was the only one of the original 7 astronauts who had a clear idea of what he wanted to do once he retired from the space program.

So what about you? Do you have an idea of what you might want to do next if and when you reach your current major aspiration?

It's a simple matter of saying to yourself, "When I get there, I know where my next "there" is. Knowing what you will want to do next after finishing with what  you are doing now is a tremendous source of inner peace and invigorates one’s sense of purpose.

6. Your Powerful Voice

In terms of speaking out to the world and your actual physical voice, whether you want your audience to learn something from what you are saying, or buy something you are selling, a strong, clear, tonally pleasing, well modulated, and consistent voice can make a huge difference in how your message is received by others.

Many studies have shown that in the corporate world and most other professional realms, the man or woman with a pleasing, strong voice has a big advantage.

And here's the good news. Your voice is not a locked-in physical attribute. It is an instrument, and can be trained to be much more effective and attractive. It just takes a basic course, many of which are available online, and daily, steady practice. The results will come fast and it can be a lifelong practice that will produce many personal and professional benefits.

I put both the writing voice and speaking voice under the same heading because they do have an impact on each other. The best writing comes when the writer is able to speak directly into the keyboard as if he or she was having a conversation with the reader. I always encouraged students in my writing classes to "Speak through your fingers." Clarity, individual style, and a pleasing rhythm are major factors in successful writing and speaking.

7. Be Open But Very Picky

This principle was actually inspired by a novelty button I once bought that said in big, bold letters, "I'M AVAILABLE," and below in smaller letters, "BUT VERY PICKY." At the time, I was a member of The Inside Edge, a leadership support group that met early Tuesday mornings at the Beverly Hills Hotel. My fellow board members included Jack Canfield, Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, Stuart Wilde and the membership consisted of workshop leaders, authors, movie people, musicians, and a lot of smart, successful, beautiful women. I got the button to wear at meetings, and only a couple of weeks went by before a beautiful woman named Jessica, who was intrigued by the button and the fact I had the nerve to wear it, approached me. We started dating and ended up in a very lovely relationship. The experience got me to thinking that good things come to us in all areas of our lives when we follow that mantra, "I am available, but very picky."

8. Compliments as a Powerful Prosperity Resource

As we go through life, we receive many compliments. These can become a powerful motivating force in your life, and tell you all you need to know about your perfect path and purpose. One of my personal favorite strategies and one that I get a lot of compliments on from readers, listeners, coaching clients, and workshop participants is my Compliment Bulletin Board. Whenever someone pays me a compliment, either professional or personal, that feels especially good, I ask them to put it in writing and sign it. I keep my board in a prominent place in my office, as well as a copy on my computer desktop.

I actually just received an email with a compliment from one of my Moneylove Club audio subscribers: "I feel my life has already taken a turn for the better." I will print and pin it, but in the meantime it resides on my desktop. There's something I like about that phrase, "A turn for the better." My subscriber is a professor and writer and her simple compliment has already provided an energy boost as I am recuperating from a case of food poisoning which had dramatically slowed me down this past week.

A turn for the better. A direction we can all aspire to, wouldn't you agree?

9. Say What You Are Going to Do and Then Do It

I got this phrase from my friend, Maria Nemeth, Ph.D., author of The Energy of Money. I find Maria's work a perfect complement to my own and she has become a mentor and this has become a core phrase in my life. She says, "Making and keeping promises moves you along your path.

My life has definitely taken a turn for the better since I activated a decision to always say what I am going to do and then actually do it. An important piece of this is to only spend time with and do business with people who meet this same high standard. It sounds simple, but in execution, many people fall by the wayside. There is such a temptation to take on more than we can faithfully execute with so many choices and temptations out there,

I don't like the phrase "I can't afford it." when applied to one's money situation, but the one place I do use it in bolstering my own prosperity consciousness is to say to myself, "I am moving toward always saying what I will do and then doing it, and can't afford the energy or effort to spend time with anyone who isn't doing the same." A life filled with broken promises in either direction is simply a broken life.

10. Leave Room for Surprises, Opportunities, New Adventures

To my way of thinking, there is a hierarchy of success. It is a high level indeed to be doing work you love doing and feel is important and rewarding. However, I reserve an even higher position for those who can always answer with a resounding "Yes!" the question, "Have you left room in your life for something or someone new and wonderful to show up?"

Warm and prosperous regards,

Jerry

Free Audio–Available Here and Now

Rare and fascinating insights into bringing a lot more money into your life this month are found on a 40 minute audio Jerry is giving away. It’s called “Maximum Money in Minimum Time.” On this free audio, exclusively available to readers of this post. you’ll discover how Jerry has helped thousands throughout the years become rich beyond their wildest dreams. Now he wants to help you…

Please Note: If you get an Already Subscribed notice when submitting this form (because you have joined Moneylove previously) then email Jerry direct on jerrygillies@gmail.com and Jerry will send you the Audio Link.

Special Note:
This eight week series of exclusive Income Diary articles by Jerry Gillies, author of Moneylove, continues next week with 50 Powerful New and Provocative Prosperity Quotes.

The post 10 Prosperity Conscious Principles for More Business Profit appeared first on How To Make Money Online.



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Build Great Backlinks
Jerry Gillies
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com

Wednesday 4 December 2013

[Build Great Backlinks] How We Use ManageWP to Protect & Manage Our WordPress Sites

Build Great Backlinks


When our websites go offline, I receive a text, letting me know that I need to do something about it.

This text saves me thousands of dollars every year.

I’ll tell you how I set this up shortly, but first, let me tell you about one of the most important things about running an online business….

Uptime. You have to make sure that it’s always online.

Servers go down due to heavy loads, so quality hosting is incredibly important. But it’s not always as simple as that.

Just this week, one of my site was hit with a DDoS attack, which meant that it was taken down for a considerable amount of time.

For those of you who don’t know, a DDoS attack is when your website’s access routes are hit with a bots attempting to try as many different passwords as possible.

Our site was hit with 195,000 hits in just a few minutes, from IP addresses from all over the world, and although we’ve put systems in place to prevent this from happening again, our website was still down for a considerable amount of time.

And this is where ManageWP comes in.

No matter how safe and secure your server is, there will come a time where it’s going to go down unexpectedly. And you need to ask yourself, what systems do you have in place when it does?

Your website isn’t making money when it’s offline.

Do you have customers who log in to your website, who will be annoyed when it’s not there?

How many sales are you going to lose out on?

How important is it to you to get back online quickly?

When our DDoS attack occurred, we knew about it, and could deal with it right away – even though I’m not always on my site.

photo

How?

Because I use a service called ManageWP, which lets me know as soon as it’s down. This ultimately minimises downtime and loss of income, as I can deal with it straight away.

ManageWP is a service for managing WordPress sites, which, among other things, will notify me through text whenever one of my sites is down.

That means that I don’t have to be tied to my computer at all times, but I also don’t have to be worried about uptime of my websites.

If I get a text, I go and find a computer, or I talk to Michael, and one of us will sort it out.

If you run an online business, this is an absolutely essential tool – no excuses. You simple can’t have down time on your website. Even if your site only goes down once every six months, you need to use this.

Sometimes when I’m away, I will go a couple of days without viewing my website, and without a service like this, I wouldn’t know if my site was even online.

And that’s just one of the features I like about ManageWP; it does a whole lot more too.

WordPress Management

If you run multiple WordPress sites like we do, then you can use this service to manage all of them at once.

Updating Every Site At Once

For example, in our dashboard, it tells us if we ever have anything that needs updating, and if we do, we can update it from there. It will also notify us via email if we want it to.

It’s important to keep everything up to date for security and performance reasons.

Screen Shot 2013-12-04 at 12.14.25

How I Manage Comments For All Sites, In One Place

We can also keep track of, and reply to recent comments, on all of our sites, in one place.

Screen Shot 2013-12-04 at 12.14.36

Publish Content Across Multiple Sites

You can write posts, publish drafts, and post content to multiple sites, all from within the ManageWP dashboard.

Screen Shot 2013-12-04 at 12.15.16

Traffic Alerts

Do you sometimes get a bit slack when it comes to checking your Google Analytics traffic? What if someone refers a few thousand people to your website – how long will it go unnoticed for?

With ManageWP, we have alerts set up for whenever there’s a spike in traffic, so that we can take advantage of these great opportunities.

Whether one of our posts has gone viral, or we’ve being hit by bots, we will know immediately.

Automated Backups For Peace of Mind

You back up your sites regularly, right?

Because you should do. We’ve actually had to use a backup before, but fortunately for us, we backup regularly.

We use ManageWP to schedule regular backups, to keep our content safe and secure. When it’s finished backing up, we have it download the backup and store it in our Amazon S3 account; that way our bases are covered.

You can also sync you backups with Dropbox, FTP Email, and more.

Screen Shot 2013-12-04 at 14.55.56

Site Cloning and Deployment

On ExpertPhotography, we’re bringing out a done-for-you blogging service where we build websites for photographers, and this feature is going to be huge help.

It allows us to create "template" websites with pre-installed themes and plugins, which can be used again and again for new sites. Then take advantage of our website cloning tool to quickly and effortlessly deploy these sites in a production environment.

It takes 95% of the work behind setting up a website and does it for you.

I honestly believe that ManageWP is worth the $4+ a month fee for the uptime notification alone, but features like this put it over the top.

SEO and Analytics

ManageWP include powerful SEO analysis tools without the extra costs. You can use this information to know where you stand, and use it to improve your search engine rankings.

There’s also powerful keyword research and ranking tools built right in so that you can know which words your sites rank well for, and identify the other areas where you can improve.

You can also integrate your Google Analytics right there into the dashboard so that all of the vital information that you need is right there where you want it, without having to browsing through loads of separate Analytics accounts.

Screen Shot 2013-12-04 at 14.53.09

Increased Security

ManageWP use state-of-the-art encryption and security standards that go above and beyond what WordPress offers, to ensure that your sites are protected to a high standard.

You can also integrate with Securi.net so that all of your sites are free of malware and other harmful viruses. With these tools, you can easily check the health of your sites, and if there are any problems, you can quickly fix them.

Great, Flexible Price

It’s actually remarkably cheap to manage your websites, with all of these amazing features. If you have five sites or less, and you want to professional plan, you’ll only pay $12 a month.

And the more sites you run, the less you’ll pay per site each month.

And of course, there’s a free trial too.

Screen Shot 2013-12-04 at 14.57.50

14 Day Free Trial

This is a service we use every day in our business, and believe that you should too.

Try it for yourself, for free, and see what you think. You’ll have access to all of the paid features for 14 days, and then after that, if you choose not to upgrade, you’ll still have access to basic features.

Start taking proper care of your websites by clicking on this link today.

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Build Great Backlinks
Josh Dunlop
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com

Wednesday 27 November 2013

[Build Great Backlinks] 25 Lessons, Quotes, and Productivity Tips from WordPress Founder Matthew Mullenweg

Build Great Backlinks


You know about Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and John Dorsey (Twitter). But what about the guy who’s in charge of the platform that powers “18.9% of the top 10 million websites”?

That would be Matt Mullenweg, the 29-year-old at the heart of WordPress. With 60 million websites built with WordPress (including this one), it is by far the most popular blogging platform in the world.

From the beginning, Mullenweg has done business differently:  WordPress was open-sourced , which means that the code was free to be developed by anybody who wanted to contribute. Mullenweg is also a vocal advocate of distributed work and 130 of Automattic’s 150 employees work outside of their San Francisco headquarters.

Let’s dig in and find out who Matt Mullenweg is, with an eye for learning from his innovative business strategies, productive work habits, and his best quotes.

Who is Matthew Mullenweg?

matt mullenweg by kwightka

  • Born January 11, 1984
  • Studied Political Science at The University of Houston before dropping out in 2004
  • Founded Automattic in 2005, the company behind WordPress
  • Matthew lives in San Francisco, CA but he travels as many as 200 days a year
  • Hobbies include photography and music
  • Mullenweg maintains his own blog, Ma.tt
Photo Credit:  : kwightca via cc

5 Business Lessons from Matthew Mullenweg

#1  Occupy the Space Left Open by Competition

Mullenweg would have never started WordPress if another platform hadn’t disappeared overnight. Back in 2003, Mullenweg was a teenager volunteering some of his time coding for B2/cafelog — an open source blogging platform that was employed on about 2,000 blogs [wikipedia].

One day the leader developer disappeared, leaving Mullenweg and the rest of the volunteer programmers without a project. Matt decided to step up to fill the void. He wrote a blog post to the community, rallying them to join him in starting a new open source blogging platform. Mike Little commented on the post, “You serious about this? Let’s work on it together.” The two had never met. Mike was in the UK and Matt was in Houston, Texas. But the partnership worked. “We just started collaborating over the Internet,” Mullenweg explained. WordPress was born.

WordPress caught it’s big break the following year, when one of its leading competitors — Movable Type — decided to start charging its users. Hordes of thrifty bloggers abandoned Movable Type for the best free content management system available:  WordPress.

 

#2  Seek to Better Understand Your Users

"It’s my responsibility to meet as many users as possible and direct the software project in a way that reflects their interests. Last year, I probably met 2,000 or 3,000 people who make their living from WordPress."

Matt Mullenweg

Knowing your end user is the first step to being able to give them what they want. Mullenweg is one of most well-informed founders in the world when it comes to understanding his audience. His robust travel schedule brings him to scores of WordPress conferences every year.

 

#3  Know Your Creed

“If you're building a startup or any sort of organization, take a few moments to reflect on the qualities that the people you most enjoy working with embody and the user experience of new people joining your organization, from the offer letter to their first day.”

Matt Mullenweg, from ‘Why Your Company Should Have a Creed’

According to Mullenweg, a creed is “basically a statement of things important to us, written in the first person.” And Matt’s such a big believer in creed’s and their influence on company culture that he’s put Automattic’s creed above the signature on every new employee’s contract. He described the move as “an easy change that had a big impact on the company.”

In case you’re curious, I’ve included the entire Automattic creed at the bottom of the page.

 

#4  There’s Always Room to Grow

“There’s 6.999 billion people who don’t have a blog yet, don’t have a website yet, don’t have WordPress yet.”

Matthew Mullenweg, from Unreasonable.is

Matt is a mild-mannered Texas native, but his ambition is anything but mild. When asked how he felt about his platform serving 17% of the web, he said, “I obsess over that other 83% of the web that we don’t have yet.” Matt said in an interview, “There’s a much longer road ahead of us than what we’ve done so far.”

 

#5  Eat, Breathe, and Sleep Your Business

“WordPress is a part of who I am. Like eating, breathing, music, I can't not work on WordPress.”

Matthew Mullenweg, from Ma.tt

We work best on the projects that are aligned with the core of who we are. That’s what Mullenweg has with WordPress. He has said, “I go to sleep and I wake up thinking about WordPress,” and “I consider myself very lucky to be able to work on something I love so much.”

 

10 Productivity Tips from Mullenweg

wake naturally

Back in June 2009, Matthew Mullenweg told Liz Welch about his day-to-day habits running WordPress in a piece called, "The Way I Work." The next ten productivity tips have been culled from Mullenberg’s account of his highly-effective work habits.

 Photo Credit:  Khalid Almasoud cc

#1 Wake Naturally

Waking with the daylight instead to a screeching alarm helps you go to work with a calm and focused mind. It’s also linked to higher blood pressure (ABC News, 2011)

Mullenweg says he tries to "avoid alarm clocks as much as possible."

 

#2 Have an Unplugged Morning

Mullenweg told Inc. that one of us his goals was "to avoid looking at the computer or checking email for at least an hour after I wake up." Starting your day unplugged gives you time for reflection and calm at the beginning of your day.

 

#3 Ditch the Coffee

To many, caffeine is a prerequisite for productivity. Not for Mullenweg. "I’ve got enough stimulating things in my life already," he says.

Going without caffeine has been linked to increased calmness, less anxiety, and better sleep. But I must confess, I took a sip of green tea before writing this sentence.

 

#4 Know Your Prime Times

Mullenweg has noticed that he’s more productive at particular times of the day. Matt has said, "I do my best stuff midmorning and superlate at night. Even though midmorning is prime working time, Matt doesn’t do meetings in the mornings. "The earliest I’ll do a meeting is 11 am," he told Inc.

Everybody has times of the day (or night) during which they can be particularly productive. Try to make sure you’re working during the times when you do your best work.

 

#5 Respect Flow

Mullenweg on flow:  "When you’re coding, you really have to be in the zone… if you are taken out of the flow, if that little toaster pops up that says you’ve got mail – and you look at it, you’ve lost it."

To me, being in a state of ‘flow’ means being totally immersed in the task at hand. When I’m flowing – whether I’m writing, editing a video, or making music – I find that my work comes easily, happily, and inspired.

You can increase your chances of achieving flow by turning off your cell phone and your computer’s Internet connection. One of Mullenweg’s methods is listening to music.

 

#6 Music is a Focus Tool

"Music helps me when I’m coding… I’ll listen to a single song, over and over on repeat, like a hundred times."

Matthew Mullenweg, The Way I Work

Mullenweg’s favorite musicians include Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Jay-Z, and Beyonce.

 

#7 Rescue Your Time

A couple years ago, I recommended adopting Rescue Time as a great New Years resolution for entrepreneurs.

Turns out Mullenweg is also a big fan of the productivity app. He called Rescue Time, "one of my favorite programs that I didn’t make."

 

#8 Cut Back on Email

Reports suggest that the average office worker spends a quarter of their day in their inbox (about two and a half hours). Mullenweg has made a concerted effort to avoid the great email time-suck:

"I realized that even though I was doing e-mail only a couple of minutes at at time, it was adding up to a couple of hours a day. So I’m trying to reduce that."

 

#9 Multiple Monitors, Multiple Devices

"In my home office, I have two large, 30-inch computer monitors — a Mac and a PC. They share the same mouse and keyboard, so I can type or copy and paste between them. I’ll typically do Web stuff on the Mac and e-mail and chat stuff on the PC. I also have a laptop, which I have with me all the time, whether I’m going overseas or to the doctor’s office."

Matt Mullenweg, The Way I Work

Notice the way that Matt talks about his various digital tools: each one has different responsibilities and roles. If you can afford it, try boosting productivity by using specific devices for specific tasks.

 

#10 Hire Well, Manage Sparingly

Sometimes the key to productivity is setting things up so that they require less work. That’s how Mullenweg has turned management into something that takes very little time out of his workweek.

"My management strategy is to find extremely self-motivated and talented people and then let them go." Mullenweg explained.

Note:  for more, see our list of 7 Surprising Productivity Tips for Self-Employed Entrepreneurs

 

10 Best Matt Mullenweg Quotes

mullenweg krug

Photo Credit:  Kris Krug cc

#10  “If you’re not embarrassed when you ship your first version, you waited too long.”

#9 “I don’t have big ideas. I sometimes I have small ideas, which seem to work out.”

#8 “Technology is best when it brings people together.”

#7 “As the web becomes more and more of a part of our everyday lives, it would be a horrible tragedy if it was looked up inside of companies and proprietary software.”

#6 “Do what you love and don’t focus on the money. Life is too short.”

#5 “For me, it always comes back to the blogger, the author, the designer, the developer. You build software for that core individual person, and then smart organizations adopt it and dumb organizations die.”

#4 “You can’t teach taste.”

#3  “My own personal dream is that a majority of the web runs on open source software.”

#2  “I am an optimist, and I believe that people are inherently good and that if you give everyone a voice and freedom of expression, the truth and the good will outweigh the bad. So, on the whole, I think the power that online distribution confers is a positive thing for society. Online we can act as a fifth estate.”

#1  “We are much better at writing code than haikus.”

Note:  if you like quotes, take a look at our list of the Top 40 Blogging Quotes.

The Automattic Creed

As promised, I’ve included Automattic’s official creed (posted by Mullenweg in September 2011):

I will never stop learning. I won't just work on things that are assigned to me. I know there's no such thing as a status quo. I will build our business sustainably through passionate and loyal customers. I will never pass up an opportunity to help out a colleague, and I'll remember the days before I knew everything. I am more motivated by impact than money, and I know that Open Source is one of the most powerful ideas of our generation. I will communicate as much as possible, because it's the oxygen of a distributed company. I am in a marathon, not a sprint, and no matter how far away the goal is, the only way to get there is by putting one foot in front of another every day. Given time, there is no problem that's insurmountable.

This is a robust set of values that lays out not just how to be a good employee at Automattic, but how to build a successful business or achieve any great goal. I hope that you’ve found these lessons, productivity tips, and quotes from Mullenweg instructive and inspirational.

If you like learning from the founders of the top Internet startups, you may enjoy our 21 Lessons from the Life of Steve Jobs.

The post 25 Lessons, Quotes, and Productivity Tips from WordPress Founder Matthew Mullenweg appeared first on How To Make Money Online.



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Build Great Backlinks
Nick Scheidies
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com

Monday 25 November 2013

[Build Great Backlinks] 10 Different Ways I Use PopUp Domination At Once

Build Great Backlinks


I’ve been using PopUp Domination since I first started online, in early 2011, and since then, I’ve amassed a list of over 20,000 subscribers, most of whom signed up using PopUp Domination.

Since the early versions of PopUp Domination, the plugin has grown to include more themes, as well as shortcodes so that we can enter subscription forms about our website, such as in the footer and sidebar.

I use various themes from the premium theme pack at once, so that I can convert the most amount of visitors possible, while keeping the offers relevant.

It’s helped me to build multiple lists, so I’ve written this post to show you the different ways I use PopUp Domination.

It may be more powerful than you realise – I use 6 different popups at once.

Exit OptIn PopUp

This is my go-to pop up, and where most of my opt ins come from. I’m constantly updating this with one of the 25+ themes available, to see which provides me with the best conversion rate.

It’s set so that when you leave my page, the pop up appears, asking for your email address in return for a free ebook.

I A/B tested it earlier this year, and I found that I got a better conversion rate by asking for people’s email addresses as they were leaving, rather than when they land on the page.

It makes sense really because when they’re arriving on the page, they’re looking for something, and when you display a pop up straight away, they’re more likely to get rid of it and find what they came for.

Screen Shot 2013-11-22 at 12.17.55

A/B Testing

Always be testing.

There’s always unlocked potential in your opt in pages and pop ups, but you never know what’s going to convert best until you test it.

I initially tested a few different themes against each other, but when I found one I liked, that seemed to convert well, I then switched by making adjustments to one theme.

I test colour, heading, length of bullet point, and my favourite point of all; button text.

Sidebar & Footer OptIn

With version 3 of PopUp Domination, you can now do in-post opt ins, by taking a shortcode, and inserting it wherever you like.

I use a sidebar opt in, using PopUp Domination, as I find that they convert well and they’re well designed, especially in comparison to Aweber‘s templates.

I also use a free plugin called Q2W3 Fixed Widget, to allow my sidebar items to scroll with the page.

Again, this helps to remind people that there’s a free gift waiting for them, and encourage opt ins. My income comes from my list, so I prefer to advertise that, rather than an affiliate product.

I also use the shortcode to enter a form at the bottom of every post, like so:

Screen Shot 2013-11-22 at 12.19.17

Exit PopUp Notification for Sales Pages

People leave your sales pages for a variety of reasons, but whatever that reason may be, don’t you want a final chance to display a message to them and entice them back into your page?

That’s what I do on my sales pages.

It’s just a really simple popup with a list of benefits that they may have missed. If you present this to them in a really easy to read manner, there’s a good chance they’ll come back and have another look.

Instead of collecting email addresses, we just have a link to the page, or the cart, depending on the product.

This has been a proven method to make more sales for us.

(Premium theme below)

Screen Shot 2013-11-22 at 13.32.11

Video PopUp

Sometimes, video just works best.

I have various video sales letters, from the short and sweet, to the 15 minute long informational videos, and it’s good to be able to display these videos on relevant pages.

For example, I recently created a 7-day video course, for free, to help promote my paid course. I had a video popup appear to visitors on the pages where the topics were mentioned, asking them to opt in.

This way, I can talk to them through the medium they will expect to see me though, and I’m only targeting relevant content.

It also means that I can use my regular pop ups on the other pages.

(Premium theme below)

dark-blue2

Redirection Pop Up for Posts Related to Products

My front-end video course for amateur photographers covers about 25 different posts on my website. They were simply adapted into videos and sold as a package.

Because I already have written versions of these videos, I can then go back and target those posts with my popup.

I do this by adding them all to a single category, and then making the popup appear on pages from that category.

There’s already an ad inside each post, but the popup appears as they enter each page, which helps to encourage them to view my paid product.

I find this kind of popup works best on page load because I can show my visitors the alternative, before they’ve even started reading.

For Establishing Interest in a New Product Idea

This is an awesome trick, if I may say so myself.

I’m testing the market for a new course on composition, because it’s not worth me creating the course until I know whether there’s interest or not. Otherwise I’ll do months of work, for very little return.

I create a popup with a similar offer to the product that I’m going to create.

For me, I’m thinking about creating a photography composition product. So I created a popup, offering a free composition video I’d made, in return for their email address. Then I go into the Analytics in PopUp Domination and look at the conversion rate. If it’s good enough, I will create the course.

And if I do launch the course, I have a list of potential buyers.

I only make this popup appear on the composition category.

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Earning Money with An Affiliate Link

If you have a Clickbank account, you can start earning an affiliate commission on PopUp Domination with about 15 seconds worth of work.

You simply go into the affiliate settings, and enter your Clickbank username.

Now, not only are you collecting emails with PopUp Domination, but you’re advertising an affiliate product too.

You can view the affiliate information here.

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Affiliate Contact Form PopUp

I use this pop up as an exit popup on my contact page, and an entrance popup on my affiliate page.

I’m always happy to have other people promote my products for me, and if I’ve managed to get them to go to a page where they might sign up, I want to do everything I can to get their contact.

My pop up is really simple, and looks like the image below, only with a couple changes.

I ask for their name, email address, website, and online following.

In the bullet area I include demographic information, earnings per click, and information on promotional material, such as banners and email copy.

I also have PopUp Domination notify me whenever anyone signs up to the list, so that I can go and check it out, and get in contact with them.

The reason I use a list, rather than a regular contact form, is that I then have a list of email addresses I can easily send information about product launches, special offers, etc.

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Analytics

If you work online, and you don’t know your data, then you’re just lazy.

One of the key ways to earn more money is to improve your conversion rate for more leads, or sales.

So for that reason, every page that could potentially lead to a conversion of some kind, is always being tested, and I’m always looking at the analytics.

PopUps are an incredibly powerful too, but you’ll never know how much powerful it could be, without the use of analytics.

Conclusion

The business’ main source of income comes from my list, so it makes sense for me to do everything I can to build on this list.

You may consider me to be bias, as the product was created by my brother, but I can say for certain that my business would not be where it is now without the use of PopUp Domination, and the premium theme pack.

I think that the majority of people do not realise the true potential of this plugin, and hopefully I’ve shown you some of the features you can unlock with the premium theme pack.

Along with OptimizePress, this is just one of the plugins that are essential to my business.

The post 10 Different Ways I Use PopUp Domination At Once appeared first on How To Make Money Online.



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