How to Add Video to Your WordPress Blog
Posted by: Adriana Post date: February 8th, 2010
Video is popular and getting more so this year, and I hear many asking how to include video in their blogs.
Let’s add the Google’s Love Story Super bowl Ad here, since it’s fresh on everyone’s mind:
Now let’s see how I did that. On the right side of the screen, when you are on the video page, you’ll see this little wheel looking button, as seen below:
Click on that button, and the space below it will an expand with more options. Make sure you unclick the related videos if you don’t want more videos to pop at the end of the video. Also, if you’d like to add a border around the video, you can pick any of the color combinations you see there. You can also choose the size of the video.
Once you are done, it’s time to copy the code and paste it into your blog. Click anywhere on the field next to “Embed”, and it will be highlighted.
Then, click CTRL to copy the code, and go to your HTML view on the dashboard:
Point to where you’d like the video to show, and paste the code. You are done. And it was really easy, wasn’t it? If you still have questions, feel free to leave a comment below.
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My February Traffic Challenge
Posted by: Adriana Post date: February 7th, 2010
I don’t know about you, but challenges, especially public ones get results. Last month, Lynn Terry challenged all her Elite Members to an office clean up. I am very happy with my results for that challenge, so this month I am challenging myself publicly to increase traffic to this blog. How much? I am going to shoot for 75% increase in unique traffic (I was going to do 50%, but noticed I am on track for that anyway, so it wouldn’t stretch me too much). My blog is fairly new (only started it at the end of October last year), but already has a good number of daily visitors.
So, in order to keep myself accountable, here are my January stats:
This means, I need 2084 unique visitors in February in order to accomplish this challenge. I need to get to work immediately, as I only have 379 unique visitors for February as of now, so I am way behind.
I noticed that my daily visitors are dependent on my posting schedule: if I post, regularly, my visitor number grows exponentially.
So, in order to accomplish getting 2084 visitors this month, here is what I am plannign to do:
- post 5 times a week, no matter how hard that will be. I tend to write about 3 posts a week, but need to be more disciplined and post more.
- submit one article each week to EZA, Go Articles, Idea Marketers, and my favorite article directory, Website Articles (they don’t add AdSense, allow you to include images & videos to your articles, and promote the articles for you)
- guest post at least once
That’s yet for now. I’ll be back at the beginning of next month with my results.
Do you need more traffic to your blog/site? Why not join me in this challenge? Let me know below if you’d like to join my challenge, and we can keep each other accountable.
Free Niche Research: Truck Accessories
Posted by: Adriana Post date: February 5th, 2010
Today’s niche is one I know absolutely nothing about. But I learned that there are a lot of searches for truck accessories, and thought: why not? Someone out there will want to offer help to all these people searching for accessories for their trucks. So, here it goes.
| Top 10 Highest Paying Keywords(from the Google keyword tool)
pickup truck bed accessories $2.84 chevy truck accessories $2.29 chevy truck accessory $2.22 new truck accessories $2.19 commercial truck accessories $1.98 pickup truck accessories $1.87 truck and suv accessories $1.85 john deere truck accessories $1.83 buy truck accessories $1.81 semi truck accessories $1.80 Bonus Keywords aftermarket truck accessory $1.80 suv truck accessories $1.73 work truck accessories $1.73 pick up truck accessory $1.72 |
Top 10 Most Searched Keywords(all phrases are exact matches in Google)
truck accessories 90,500 truck accessories store 18,100 chevy truck accessories 18,100 pickup truck accessories 5,400 truck accessory 4,400 custom truck accessories 3,600 car truck accessories 2,900 truck bed accessories 2,900 bully truck accessories 2,400 semi truck accessories 2,400 Bonus Keywords truck parts and accessories 2,400 pick up truck accessories 1,900 4×4 truck accessories 1,600 accessories for trucks 1,600 |
Resources
Well, as i said: I am not at all familiar with this niche, so after a little research, I found these places that are pretty good for gathering information: The Truckers Report, The Truckers Forum, Trucking Boards. These are not specific for truck accessories, but they are forums for truckers, an d they are very active, so you could become a member and participate and ask questions.
Possible Affiliate Programs
Again, Amazon.com has everything. Here are some of the accessories you can fin there: truck bed covers
CJ.com has weathertech.com offering 5% commission, autopartswarehouse.com offering 8 – 14%, advanceautoparts.com offering 8%, and a few more.
Monetization Suggestions
AdSense payouts, while not the greatest, are not bad either, so you could create an informative site about trucks, and use it there alone, or combine it with specific offers for accessories through pages with affilaite links.
Here are some domains available for this niche at this time:
TruckAccessoriesStore.net, .org & .info with over 18,000 exact searches/month.
TruckBedAccessories.info: with 2,900 exact monthly searches
BullyTruckAccessories.org & .info: 2,400 exact searches monthly.
TruckPartsAndAccessories.net, .org & .info, with 2,400 searches a month
4×4TruckAccessories.net, .org & .info, with 1,600 searches a month
AccessoriesForTrucks.net, .org & .info, with 1,600 exact searches a month.
Some good domains, and big possibilities.
If you need help with your keyword research you can have it in 48 hours or less: just click on the button below.
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What Is a Blacklist and How to Avoid Being Blacklisted
Posted by: Adriana Post date: February 4th, 2010
You may have heard the term “blacklist” and wondered what this meant. If you’re blacklisted it means you’ve been labeled as a Spammer by the internet service providers and the penalties can be stiff.
Now you’re scratching your head and thinking, “well I don’t send unsolicited emails or bulk email messages so I’m safe, right?”
Not really. There’s still more to worry about. There are actually several types of blacklists or reasons for blacklisting. It’s important to understand the difference.
Spam Blacklists are lists of mail servers or open relays known to be used by spammers to deliver unwanted email. An open relay is an SMTP server configured so that anyone on the internet can send email through it, including Spammers.
IP Blacklist blocks specific IP addresses, message senders or message recipients as determined in the blacklists. They can be temporary or permanent.
Email Blacklists include known mail servers and addresses used by spammers. With these lists in place, access to the server can be denied and unwanted email messages are discarded. Additionally your legitimate emails may also be blocked.
DNS Blacklists are usually maintained by anti-spam organizations. They include a list of IP addresses that send unsolicited emails.
Staying Off the Blacklists
To stay off the blacklists there are a few things you can do:
- The most obvious is to not send unsolicited emails or bulk e-mails – don’t SPAM.
- You’ll also want to make sure your server is correctly configured and secure, and not an open relay mail server. This is why it’s important to make sure your website is being hosted by a legitimate provider who doesn’t host to Spammers because if you’re sharing a server, then you can be labeled as SPAM too because you’re coming from the same server. My preferred host is MomWebs
- You’ll also want to make sure your subject lines and email body doesn’t trigger SPAM filters. Occasionally run your content through a SPAM checker site to make sure you’re not triggering any filters.
- And check to make sure you’re not already blacklisted: it can happen quite unintentionally. You can check if you’re listed by visiting:
- http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx
- http://www.dnsstuff.com/
If you are blacklisted, de-listing isn’t easy but it’s necessary if you want to use email marketing to build and grow your business. The first step is to find out why you were listed and who listed you. Each agency has their own delisting procedure. Follow it, get back in their good graces and then follow the suggestions above to stay off the blacklists.
Getting blacklisted isn’t the end of the world but it can put a huge kink in your email marketing strategy. Best advice: stay off the blacklists by making sure everyone who receives an email from you wants it, don’t SPAM, and make sure your mail server is secure. You can also recommend whitelisting you to people who request email messages from you. This will help ensure they receive your email messages on time.
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What To Do When You Find a PPC Winner
Posted by: Adriana Post date: February 3rd, 2010
So, one of your campaigns is doing well: you have a few sales, and wonder what’s your next step. Can you take it to the next level? Make it more profitable? Let’s talk about expansion, as Matt Levenhagen calls it.
If you are using the Adwords Editor, you can view your stats for that campaign and even search for specific parameters. Do you see lots of keywords that have no impressions? Remove them. Do you have keywords with lots of impressions, but very few clicks? Delete those too, since they’ll pull down your CTR, unless they are making sales. If they are making sales, you need to figure out why your CTR is so low, and take steps to improve it.
Next, you’ll need to see if you have keywords that are getting clicks but no conversions. How do you do that? Well, hopefully you set up tracking at the keyword level when you first started your campaign. If a keyword is getting lots of clicks but has made no sales, it’s time to pause it.
After you you prune your keywords list, take a look at your ads, and start split testing your ads. Here is a little tip for you: create 3 copies of the original ad (so you’ll have 4 of the same ad), then create a new one by just changing the headline or one of the description lines. Now you’ll have 5 total ads running, but you’ll only be showing the new ad 20% of the time, preventing you from losing too much if the ad will not perform.
You should also figure out how much you earn per click. This is easier to do when you promote a product with a specific price, but it’s important to at least get an idea of your even if the products you promote have different price points. To learn how much you earn per click, divide your profits by the number of clicks you paid for. Now you know how high you can bid to break even. If your ad position is low, you might want to try increasing your bids to get your ad higher on the page, since ads at the top of the page usually perform better. Of course, always test: your specific ad may do better in position 4-6, rather than 1-3. Each campaign and product is different: one size does not fit all.
Go check on your campaigns and see if you can expand on your winning ones. If you want more information about how to tweak your affilaite PPC campaigns, check out the Campaign Blasts Forum: it’s absolutely full of excellent information, and everyone there is willing to help.
