Do You Really Need All Those Plugins?

If your blog seems slower lately, you may have too many plugins. These days, you can get a plugin for just about anything, and many people do so before even thinking of how it will affect their blog’s performance.

I am as guilty of it as anyone else: I hear about a new pluguin, or an old one I didn’t know did something “cool”, and download it to my blog. And soon enough I have so many plugins I don’t even know what each of them do.

It’s still the beginning of they year and it’s time to go through your blogs and check to make sure you don’t have any unnecessary plugins added.

So, your first step is to go and check how many plugins you have, and how many you really use. If you don’t use it, remove it!

Plugins are notorious for slowing down your blog, and many can be eliminated with just a little bit of a tweak here and there. See if you have any of the following on your own blog, and how you can replace what they do easily.

Google Analytics Plugins – there is no need for a plugin to include your Google Analytics. You simply open your footer.php, and add the code right before the closing body tag. A 1 minute job, actually faster than finding, uploading and activating a plugin.

The only time you need to be careful is if you decide to change your theme: you’ll need to go into your new theme’s footer.php and do it again.

AdSense Plugins – there are lots of options for presenting AdSense on your site, but unless you want o place your units in the middle of an article, or in some other odd place, you can actually code your AdSense into your template quite easily, removing the need for just another plugin.

After removing all those unneeded plugins you’ll be happily surprised with a faster blog.

How to Create and Upload a Simple Twitter Background

my twitter background

Today I decided to update my Twitter background and logged my steps so I can share.

I used Photoshop Elements to create my background, but you can use another program you have and/or like better.

1. First, I had to decide what size to create my background. I did a little bit of research on the web, and learned that most internet searchers use a resolution equal or greater than 1024×768, so i used that as my guide.

2. I created a new image with those dimensions, and made it look like the background of my site, which is a light gray checkered image. Here is what my images looked like at this point:

light gray checkered background image

3. Next, I created another image sized at 550×125 pixels where I added the URL of my site. I used the same blue background my website header has, and white letters, since I want my Twitter background to have the same theme as my site. I needed to try several sizes for this step, and eventually came up with the above sizes (some were too wide, some were too long, etc.).

Here is this image:

blue background

4. My next step was to add this smaller image to my initial image. I selected the image, copied and pasted it into my first image. I then had to rotate it 90 degrees to the left, so that instead of horizontal, my image now was vertical. I dragged the image to the left of the original image, and here is how my final twitter background image looks:

twitter

5. Next, I needed to upload my new twitter background image to Twitter: Click on the “Settings” link at the top of your twitter page.

twitter settings

6. Then, click on the “Design” link:

twitter design

7. Scroll all the way down, and you’ll see this:

twitter change

To upload your image, click on the “Change background image”, and you’ll see this:

twitter browse

8. Click on Browse, locate your image, and then click on “Save Changes”

You are all done with your twitter background. But you still need to change the look of your links, so that the colors match. Here is how you do that: Go back to step 7, but instead of clicking on “Change background image” click on “Change design colors”, and you’ll see this:

Change design colors

Click on each one of those squares, and modify the color, so that it matches your background image and/or your site. For example, I used yellow for my sidebar and red for my sidebar border, so that it ties in with the newsletter sign up on my blog.

Wasn’t that easy? Let me know if you have any questions.

5 Ways to Make Money With Pay Per Click

There are a number of different pay per click networks the most well known being Googles Adwords. Simply because Google gets the most search engine traffic so it’s logical to use them if you want to make money with pay per click. That’s not say you can’t make money with the others, in fact many people do. Just that if your looking to make the most money possible you want lots of people to see your ad. There are a number of different ways you can make money with pay per click. These are building a list, promoting affiliate products, promoting your own product, testing and creating better affiliate promotion material.

1. Building a List – If you’ve been online for more than a minute then you’ll have heard the phrase “the moneys in the list”. An easy way to build a list is by sending pay per click traffic to a squeeze page. This is simply a page which has an opt in box and offers a free gift such as an ebook in exchange for their email.

2. Promote Affiliate Products – This is the easiest way to get started as it doesn’t require you to set up a site. All you have to do is select a product from one of the many affiliate networks such as clickbank or commission junction. Then create an ad which sends traffic to them.

3. Promote Your own product – A step up from promoting affiliate products is promoting your own. Of course this takes longer to set up as you have to purchase a domain, sort out hosting and actually create a product. But the benefits are well worth it as you get 100% of any sales you make. Which not only means you make more money but you can bid more on keywords. As even if you don’t make that much on the front end you can still make money from an up-sell.

4. Testing – Pay per click is a great way of testing as it provides you with a steady stream of instant traffic. Allowing you to tweak your sales copy so that when your site starts showing up in the organic results it’s already converting at a decent rate.

5. Creating Better Affiliate Promotional Material – By running your own pay per click ads you’ll find out which keywords to use along with which ads convert best. Now your probably wondering why you’d want to give that information to your affiliates. Simple sure you wont make as much per sale but it frees you from having to constantly manage your campaign. Also the more affiliates promoting your product the more money you can make on the back-end.

There you go that’s 5 ways telling you how to make with pay per click.

If you need a guide on how to start your first campaign and beyond, check out Matt Levenhagen’s Campaign Blasts.

Free Niche Research: Digital TV

free niche research

This past year saw a huge move towards digital TVs for everyone.

And it’s understandable: we see more and more quality videos online, so why not want/demand better quality from TV as well.

With that said, there is now a huge interest in everything that has to do with digital TV. Let’s explore how we can take advantage of this trend.

Top 10 Highest Paying Keywords(from the Google keyword tool)

digital tv offers $8.24

digital tv switchover $7.64

digital tv service $6.02

digital tv coverage $5.37

digital tv information $5.11

digital tv services $4.52

digital tv receivers $4.18

digital tv boxes $3.81

digital tv schedule $3.55

digital tv aerials $3.23

Top 10 Most Searched Keywords(all phrases are exact matches in Google)

digital tv 33,100

digital tv antenna 33,100

digital tv converter 14,800

digital tv recorder 14,800

digital tv tuner 12,100

digital tv channels 4,400

digital satellite tv 3,600

digital tv for pc 3,600

digital cable tv 2,900

digital tv converters 2,400

Resources

Follow the news from/about TV manufacturers and you’ll probably have all you need for your content.

Setting up Google Alerts for your keywords would bring up to date news about the industry, and give you a starting point for your content.

Possible Affiliate Programs
As always, Amazon.com has hundreds of Digital TVs, portable digital tv (this is huge niche on its own! Hint: check it out), and everything else you’d need to equip your entertainment center: digital tv tuner, digital tv converter box, digital tv antenna, etc.

CJ.com & Share a Sale are always great alternatives: you’ll just need to find a merchant you like and go with it.

Monetization Suggestions

HUGE AdSense payouts make this a great niche to start an information blog: people have questions about the new technology, and the new types of TVs available, as well as accessories. BE the place to get that information, and then create affiliate pages for specific types of direct TV’s,  tuners, antennas, conversions boxes, etc., where you can point people as you mention them in your informative posts.

Here are some domains available for this niche at this time:

SmallDigitalTv.com, net, .org & .info with 1,300 exact searches/month. WOW! What a great find!

DigitalTvRadio.net & .info: with 1,900 exact monthly searches

DigitalTvCard.net, .org & .info: 720 exact searches monthly.

DigitalTvRecorder.net & .info, with 14,800 searches a month: how about that?

LcdDigitalTv.net, .org & .info, with 880 exact searches a month.

DigitalTvBoxes.org gets 1,600 exact searches monthly

DigitalTvTuner.org & .info get 12,100 exact searches a month.

DigitalLcdTv.org & .info get 1,000 exact searches a month.

Lots of great domains available! So, what are you waiting for? Get a domain and start building your site!

BTW, if you’d like some keywords research done just for you, I now offer that for a small fee. Comment below and I’ll contact you with more information.

Campaign Blasts Review

step-by-step affiliate marketing with AdWords

At the beginning of this year, I decided I need to go back into PPC: I’ve done really well in the past, and got sidetracked a little over a year ago.

And, in order to make the most of my PPC campaigns, I am re-reading Matt Levenhagen’s Campaign Blasts ebook.

The Campaign Blasts Affiliate Marketing System can be your opportunity to start making money on the Internet too, like it was mine.

Matt Levenhagen is an AdWords professional with a proven track record as someone who knows how to profit from Google. The material in this course covers the combination of Google AdWords and affiliate marketing to help you learn to create an income for  yourself with the potential to continue to grow and grow.

The guide that you get with this system is divided into 4 major parts with a total of 21 chapters in all. These parts include:

  • Blasting Orientation – Chapters 1-8
  • Markets, Merchants and Keywords – Chapters 9-11
  • Putting it All Together and Launching – Chapters 12-15
  • Expansion and Some Loose Ends – Chapters 16-18

All of this valuable information is then summarized in a great conclusion that really shows you how to take everything you have learned and make something of it. This is the type of program you can pick up, read through and then begin applying the tactics right from the start. As you can guess, this is very beneficial to anyone looking to start Internet marketing, AdWords or improve their existing campaign and strategies.

When you apply the principles outlined in this course, you can find your own success through blasting landing pages, blogs and websites.

This is more than just a system for making money on the Internet: it’s actually a philosophy. It’s a whole new approach to pay-per-click marketing and when done correctly, it can make you a great deal of money. When you want to be a better marketer and you’re serious about taking the steps needed to succeed, the campaign blast method will walk you through it step by step while also giving you the tools you need to continue to create your own successes in the future.

If you’re not 100% certain if you’re ready for the course, you can start off with only the Blasts guide and a basic membership and then add the full XP All-Inc experience later on.  You will find this is one of the most extensive memberships of its kind and it comes with many additional free material and added goodies. When you want The Best in Adwords Training, this is where it’s at.

Questions? I’d love to help: just ask!

P.S. I made $28,483.94 in commissions in one year with only one program using Matt’s methods. Don’t you think you should see what it’s all about?

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