More Twitter Tools

It seems like Twitter is becoming a bigger phenomenon every single day with more celebrities, companies and mainstream media jumping on the bandwagon and raving about Twitter.  So I thought it would be a good time to post about more Twitter tools that will help you get the most out of the micro-blogging platform. Before you get started with this list, remember to take a look at my previous list of Twitter tools as well!

twitterfeed - This takes your RSS feed and turns each new item into a tweet, essentially notifying your followers that there is a new post on your blog. This is a good way to notify your loyal readers of a new blog post instead of relying on RSS subscribers only.
http://twitterfeed.com/

TweetMeme -You’ve probably noticed the tweet counter at the top-left of posts here on DotComDud.com, well that is the tweetmeme button which not only counts the amount of times your post gets tweeted but the most popular pages are also listed on the tweetmeme website, very much like Digg.
http://tweetmeme.com

TweetLater - I mentioned this service in my Don’t Waste Time with Twitter post because of it’s ability to schedule tweets. Well it also offers a few other very useful functions, including auto-following those who follow you, Direct Messaging all new followers (but please don’t, it’s simply annoying), keyword searches, tracking your Bit.ly URL tweets and more. There hase also been the addition of a Pro service to TweetLater (which you can currently test out for 7 days) though at almost $30 per month it might be a bit pricey unless you are a real Twitter power-user.
http://www.tweetlater.com/

Twitter Grader - At first this might seem like nothing more than an ego-stroke as it gives you a grading based on your statistics (followers, updates etc) but it comes with the added benefit of giving you some good suggestions on other Twitter users you should be following based on niche and geographical locations as well as their own Twitter grading.
http://twitter.grader.com/

Mr. Tweet - This offers a similar benefit to that of Twitter Grader in allowing you to find great, relevant people to follow but as this is the primary purpose of Mr. Tweet, it does so much more effectively. The importance of finding relevant people to follow and targeted, interested followers can’t be stressed enough, it’s the only ay you’ll get real results from Twitter! Another benefit of Mr. Tweet is that it provides some interesting usage stats about yourself, such as tweets per day so you can measure yourself against others in your field to see how you compare.
http://mrtweet.net/

I hope you find this list and the tools reviewed useful. As always don’t forget to follow me at twitter.com/DotComDud and feel free to leave your Twitter profile URL along with your feedback in the comments.

3 Way Linking

After my recent post on More Link Building Methods I said that I would write a post explaining 3 way linking in detail and here it is! Simply put 3 way linking is when Site A links to Site B & Site B links to Site C (& sometimes Site C links to Site A). It’s probably easier to explain with a diagram, so take a look at the image below;

Now you might think from that image that there are 3 people involved in a 3 way link and while that might be true occasionally, generally a 3 way link exchange is done by only 2 parties. This is because 2 sites are usually owned by the same person. Basically for someone who has multiple sites and wants to build links for a specific one, they can offer link exchanges from their other sites in return. So why is 3 way linking becoming so common?

As the owner of 2 sites – You have a site that you want to build backlinks to (and might prefer not to link from to save link juice) and you have another site that you don’t mind linking out from.

As the owner of 1 site – You can exchange links without a direct reciprocal link, which are more likely to be discovered (and possibly penalized) by search engines.

It’s all about leveraging what you have for the best results!

Something to remember when 3 way linking is that it’’s harder to keep track of which 3 way link exchanges have been maintained and which links have quickly disappeared after the trade. This is usually difficult in regular 2 way exchanges and adding a 3rd site makes this even more of a chore.

3 way linking is, in theory, a win-win for both parties because they both get one-way backlinks instead of the usual reciprocal link, so just make sure you keep your links relevant and the trade is fair and 3 way linking might become a great link building method for you too!

OIOpublisher Coupon

This is just a quick post to let everyone know about the new OIOpublisher coupon for May. You can buy OIOpublisher quickly and securely at www.oiopublisher.com!

May Coupon Code: INDIGO-DUD

This coupon now offers $10 off the regular purchase price plus I’m still offering $10 cash back to anyone who signs up using this code! You can choose to have the $10 spent on purchased ads on your site or I can simply send you the $10 direct via PayPal if you’d prefer.

Either way you are getting a great deal on a great product, so if you want to save $20 when buying OIOpublisher, sign up now!

Entrecard – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

The last time I posted about Entrecard they had just reintroduced the Entrecard Market and finally updated their forum to run on vBulletin, which is something users had been requesting for a long time because even though they loved using the forum it lacked the functionality it really needed. Since then there have been some significant changes over at Entrecard and not all of them have been positive.

First of all though, the biggest change to occur is the fact that Entrecard now offers a paid advertising system which means Entrecard users can now trade credits for cash. Essentially meaning that you can now monetize with Entrecard!

The current trade-in rate is $1 per 1,000 credits so while Entrecard isn’t going to make you an Internet millionaire, it’s still good news for anyone who has built up a lot of credits and doesn’t want to spend them on Entrecard ads. Entrecard also promise that this trade-in rate should increase as the market balances out over time.

This is also good news for those using OIOpublisher because now allowing advertisers to pay using EC (an option that’s existed for awhile now) means that this is almost as good as a direct cash payment because you can simply trade the ECs afterwards into real money. In fact, I’m now accepting EC as payment on DotComDud.com in addition to PayPal.

Unfortunately not every change has been as beneficial - the Entrecard forum has been mishandled with a new structure that has frustrated a lot of members. The new rules required members to have purchased over 400 ads on the Entrecard network before they were allowed full access to the forum, regardless of how long they’d been an Entrecard supporter and if they were previously active on the forum before the rule changes.

Even though I’d posted on the forums previously, with no infractions, my 250 purchased ads simply weren’t enough. On top of this, the application process to become a full forum member required you to include your dashboard URL, something that you’d only find out if you read a specific post in the support thread. Why this wasn’t included on the access request form (a simple template edit would do it) is questionable. This is only a minor annoyance though and the real issue is that Entrecard seemed intent on turning their forum into a ghost town.

Luckily after a lot of feedback from unhappy members, Graham Langdon (owner of Entrecard) announced that the forums would be reopened to all members (except for a smaller VIP section for those who have purchased 400+ ads). This was several days ago though and as of this post, most of the forums still remain locked to regular members and this delay is just making matters worse.

Maybe this was all an attempt to encourage users to buy a pile of ads to reach the 400 limit, a sort of stimulus package for Entrecard but I doubt that. I’m not sure what motivated this new forum structure but what I do know is that the longer people are restricted from using the forums then the more likely it is that they will simply stop coming back.

More Link Building Methods

Not too long ago I posted my Link Building Checklist as part of my efforts to create a comprehensive list of potential sources for backlinks & SEO. At the end of that post I asked readers to respond with their own link building tips and the response was very good, I also received some other suggestions via the Digital Point forum and here are some of them.

Exchange Links
I really can’t believe I missed this method the first time around but it’s something I am only just starting to do! Link exchanges with sites similar to your own are a win-win situation and do more than just create a relevant backlink. By helping out other bloggers you are going to build better relationships with them and networking is a very important factor to success. Being listed in another blog’s blogroll will also immediately start building your reputation with that blog’s audience because it is a sign that the other blogger holds your blog in high regard.

Social Bookmarking
Sites like Digg can bring you an enormous amount of traffic if you make it to their front pages and even StumbleUpon can bring you a decent amount of traffic with a small amount of “thumbs up” votes from users. Unfortunately you wont get a tidal wave of traffic every time you submit something to these sites but the value of the links shouldn’t be underestimated either. Digg pages are known to rank highly in Google, sometimes even overtaking the actual article they link to! These social bookmarking links are also a great way to get your site crawled when it’s brand new.

Sponsor a Contest
I realise that in the first Link Building Checklist post I included the strategy of running a contest and gaining links by making it an entry requirement. Well there is also the option of sponsoring a contest that isn’t your own and it offers some extra advantages over running the contest yourself (apart from not having to organise and promote the contest by yourself). By providing a prize in another blog’s contest, not only do you expose your link to a brand new audience but if the blog has stronger PR than your own, you’ll get a good hit of link juice too. Another source of backlinks when running or sponsoring a contest are contest blogs, these blogs will happily link to your contest and will often include your sponsors & prize list as well!

Sponsor or Create a WordPress Theme
Now this method might be a little tricky and will require either money or some design skills but it can definitely pay off with a successful theme. These links are usually included in the footer of the file and by designing your theme targeted at blogs in your niche, you can ensure that your backlinks are from relevant sites! This isn’t limited just to WordPress themes either, there are many other things of this nature you can include your link with such as forum and CMS themes, website templates and more.

Buy Links
Just as there are paid reviews, there are also paid links for those who have money to spend on their SEO strategy. A lot of successful blogs will sell links by the month and these links can bring you a lot of targeted click-through traffic as well as helping you in the search engine standings. It’s important to find links that will give you good value for money, the prices of different links can vary greatly, so make sure you do your research before laying down money for paid links.

Those are just 5 more methods that can be added to the Link Building Checklist and as always, I would love to hear some feedback and any other ideas you might have. Keep reading DotComDud.com as I add more backlink boosting methods to this list!

OIO Coupon & Cash Back Deal

Are you planning to buy OIOpublisher but don’t want to spend the $47 it currently costs? Well you’re in luck because there have recently been some changes made to the way the OIO affiliate program works. Instead of offering generic coupons, OIO now lets affiliates create unique codes for new users to sign up with. To get your $8 discount when buying OIOpublisher, simply use my code listed below;

Coupon Code: SPRING-DUD

By using that code you will automatically save $8 off the price of OIO but I thought my readers deserved an even better deal so… As an added bonus, for anyone who signs up using this coupon code I will buy $10 worth of advertising on their site! So not only do you get OIO at a discount price, you also earn an extra $10 and start filling your advertising space straight away! This means you effectively save $18 on the purchase price making OIO an even more cost effective solution for making an online income.

For those who are not familiar with OIO then let me give you a brief overview. OIOpublisher is a powerful ad management system for WordPress and I’ve recently added it to DotComDud.com because it allows me to keep 100% of the profits. Unlike ad networks such as AdSense that only give you a percentage of the revenue your ads earn, OIO allows you to easily offer private advertising where every dollar you earn, you keep!

The REAL March Income Report

I hope everyone enjoyed the April Fool’s Day post showing my fake March income results. I was planning on posting my real stats sooner but I’ve been too busy to post lately. Luckily I should return to regular posting now and this income report is better late than never! My last (real) income report was my February report which saw most income come from Freelance work rather than my own sites.

Earnings Breakdown

DotComDud.com
Private Advertising = $3

Other Sites
AdSense = $0.11

Other Sources
Freelance Work = $15

Affiliate Earnings
PayPerPost = $0
OIO Publisher = $0

Total Earnings = $18.11

Conclusions

It wasn’t a fantastic month and it’s clear that I am still trying to find the right methods to monetise DotComDud.com. It also seems that OIO Publisher isn’t a simple “set & forget” solution to blog monetisation like I was hoping for. Instead it will require some tweaking and promotion itself to start attracting advertisers. Therefore I have adjusted my ad pricing to help make advertising on DotComDud.com an even better deal (a second text link has already been purchased in April).

I also asked ProBlogger for some tips via Twitter to see if he had written any posts on the subject that might help me out and here are a couple of them;

• 5 Ways to find Direct Advertisers for your Blog
• How to Find Advertisers for Your Blog

So I’ll put these plans into action and report on the results I get. If any readers have some tips of their own or links to other handy posts about finding private advertisers, please leave a comment and I’ll definitely take a look at them.

I’d like to thank my first private advertiser, which was a text link to How to Make Money Online for Idiots and this was also my only advertiser during March, so hopefully next month the ‘Thank You’ list will be much longer!

How did everyone else’s earnings look in March??

March Income Report

It’s the first day of April and that means one thing - time for a DotComDud.com income report!! Income has been a little slow in previous months and hasn’t been bringing in much cash, have I been able to turn it around over the past 31 days?

March was an amazing month for DotComDud.com and even though OIO Publisher didn’t get me great results, my new AdSense strategy did extremely well. I’m now a millionaire and well on my way to becoming the richest person on the Internet!

Earnings Breakdown

DotComDud.com
AdSense = $4,000,000+

Click the screen shot below for proof…

Conclusions

Conclusions? Who cares, I’m a millionaire! Instead I’m going to spend the rest of this post showing you what I bought with my AdSense millions!!

My New Car

I thought about a sports car like a Lamborghini or something real classy like a Rolls Royce for comfort but I realised these are for people who are only sort of rich, not super rich like me! So I decided to get the quickest car I could find; an F1 car!! This thing is great for long drives or even a quick spin down to the shops to pick up a hamburger.

My New House

Naturally I needed somewhere with lots of storage for all my millions as well as somewhere to park the F1 car too. While browsing around I came across this little place so I decided to put a deposit on it. I’m moving in on Friday, I’m just waiting for the current owners to move out!

My New Boat

Finally I thought I should spend some money on something fun! I had already taken care of the essentials like a car and house, so I figured I could splash out on some new toys as well. I’ve heard that fishing can be fun so I got myself a little fishing boat to sail around in, at least until I find something bigger!

April Fools!! I’ll be back with the real income report tomorrow.

Target Marketing

This post is part of a series on Business Basics, you can stay updated with the series by subscribing to DotComDud.com

Target Marketing involves taking the entire market (all possible customers) and breaking that down into smaller, specific segments based on different demographics and then focusing your efforts on certain market segments in order to achieve better results.

Demographics that are used to create market segments can greatly vary including, but not limited to;

• Common measurable statistics like age, gender, education & income levels
• Geographic location, culture and language
• Lifestyle preferences such as food & wine lovers, gamers, car enthusiasts etc.
• Level of knowledge - are they a beginner or an expert about a topic?

When you focus on a target market, you stop wasting your time and resources and can focus your efforts where they will be the most effective and efficient.

For a real-world example, consider a company that sells skateboarding equipment; they will get better results marketing to the age groups who are most interested in skateboarding rather than all age groups. If they can market towards existing skateboarders instead of everyone, they are again more likely to get a better return.

Target Marketing in Blogging

As with most of the concepts in this Business Basics series, Target Marketing can be applied to many areas of blogging. I’m only going to look at two specific areas though where I think this concept is especially important.

1. Traffic

You should focus your traffic building plans to the market segments that will deliver the highest conversion rate. For example, if you place an ad on a site that is in no way relevant to yours, then there is less of a chance that the site’s audience will be interested in your ad. Conversely, if you advertise on a relevant site then your ad will garner more attention from an already interested audience.

Secondly by sending only targeted traffic to your site, your conversion rates will be greatly improved because your visitors are more likely to stick around. As opposed to non targeted visitors who will quickly realise your site doesn’t interest them and leave.

2. Writing

When you are trying to appeal to a certain market segment then your blog’s content should reflect this. By tailoring your content specifically to your target market, there is a greater chance that it will engage them and more visitors will become regular readers (or other goals you might wish to achieve). A great example of this is the level of technical language you use; if your target market isn’t Internet savvy then you should avoid use jargon that they will not understand. On the other hand if you audience is quite knowledgeable on your blog’s topic, then you shouldn’t waste time explaining simple details to them which they already know and therefore will not be engaging to them.

Target marketing is an essential technique if you want to build a successful business of any kind and blogging is no different, by matching the right content with the right audience you get the right results!

An Interview With Problogger

Just about every blogger that is trying to earn an online income will be a regular reader of ProBlogger, one of the best sources for tips & advice about making money blogging. I’ve been lucky enough to have a guest post recently feature on ProBlogger and now Darren Rowse, the man behind ProBlogger, has been kind enough to answer some of my questions;

Q: It seems like there are hundreds of potential traffic sources these days and trying to focus on all of them can be almost impossible for new or part-time bloggers. What kind of traffic do you think these bloggers should focus on when they are first starting out?

I wish I had an easy answer on that one but unfortunately the answer depends largely upon the blog. Different blogs topics and target audience will lead a smart blogger to target different sources of traffic. For example, each of my three blogs have completely different mixes of traffic coming to them. Some do much better with Google, others get a lot of traffic from Twitter while others do better from getting other sites to link to them.

Ultimately the question I get new bloggers to ask is ‘where are my potential readers already gathering online?’

The answer to that question might be anything from Facebook (or some other social networking site) to a particular Forum or Blog in your niche, to Google.

Identify where online your readers are already gathering and work out how to participate in those places.

Q: Apart from Problogger.net, you also run the very successful digital-photography-school.com and have recently started twitip.com as well. How do you divide your time and prioritise between these blogs?

It is a juggling act but what I’ve been doing lately is dedicating a significant chunk of time to each one during the week. One day I’ll work hard on getting quite a few posts ready on ProBlogger, the next day I’ll do DPS and the next TwiTip.

Of course on each day I do lots of admin work on each blog but I find if I focus in on a particular blog for a full morning or afternoon that I can be quite productive.

Q: How important do you think good writing is in regards to a blog’s success? How did you develop your own writing skills and what tips can you give other bloggers to help them improve?

The quality of your writing is one of many important factors in building a successful blog. Blogging is largely a written medium so it makes sense that if you write well you’ve got an advantage over a blogger that doesn’t.

Having said that - it’s not the only factor and I certainly am not the best writer going around.

Perhaps the best tips I can give bloggers wanting to improve their writing is to:

1. Practice - the more you do it the better you’ll get
2. Experiment - try new styles and voices - there are many ways to express yourself - try new things and see what works
3. Read Other Blogs - watch what others are doing and identify what works for them
4. Do some training - there are lots of books and courses on writing - invest in some

Q: How far ahead do you plan with your blogs and business in general? Do you approach it day-to-day or do you have long-term goals in place?

I do a combination of both. I have some long term goals that I want to achieve in the coming months and even the next year - but much of what I do is either day to day or month to month (ie I think ahead about writing a series of posts usually a month ahead).

Q: Lastly, if you only had 24 hours to promote a new website, how would you do it?

To be honest I generally don’t expect a lot in the short term like that. I’m much more interested in building quality sites and building up readership over time. I find that when you do this your first 24 hours might not be spectacular but your first 24 months will build up to significant levels.

Having said that - when I launch a blog I think it is important to leverage any profile or networks that you already have established. Think about where you already have a presence (online or offline) and how you can tap into that network. It might mean promoting your site on another blog that you own, or to your Twitter friends, or to a club you belong to…. or sending your Mum an email and asking her to forward it to her knitting group

Thanks Darren for taking the time to provide such detailed answers and for being the first person interviewed on DotComDud.com!