Author: Kathleen

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Won’t You Leave A Comment?

So I am trying a little experiment here. This is a really old blog that I have resurrected. I probably should call it the Lazarus Blog, just for fun!

Except for this post, all the posts are very old and some are completely irrelevant. But for now I am going to leave them all here and see if they get any traction.

So if you happen to stop by, could you please leave a comment? Either on this post, or any post you think is worth a comment. Either because it is so terribly good, or terribly awful. (I suspect most will be in the awful catagory!)

Thank you so much for your time.

If you think this is really weird, feel free to follow me on Twitter. @weirdtrep I follow back!

Kathleen

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Free Domain Names: Give Them to Your Visitors and Reap the Rewards – Part 4

Unfortunately, this is the final part of this series on domain name giveaways. But don’t be sad, my dear readers: before this article comes to an end, you’ll find some practical tips on how to get more comments from your visitors.

Site activity

If you own a blog—or a static site that includes comment forms—you know how important comments are. A lack of reader’s feedback can make your blog look “dead.”  This is where domain name giveaways come in handy.

  • See what Kat has been doing right here at The WebMaster Blog. It’s an excellent idea that you can adapt to your own sites.
  • Before you start giving domain names away to commenters, decide whether you’ll tolerate lame messages like “great post” or not. Make your comment policy clear and easily accessible.
  • If your blog or site displays a list of top commenters (many WordPress blogs do), you can choose to reward only those who make it into said list. Remind them that your comment policy still applies, no matter how many comments they post.

Readers’ attention

Are you a fiction writer, poet or artist looking for more feedback? Or do you have a special article you’d love to get more comments on? Yes, you guessed it: you can use free domain names to “bribe” your readers into paying attention to your pieces.

  • Do not aim at quantity. If you want true, valuable feedback, remember that quality always comes first.
  • Start a review contest. Explain exactly what reviewers should write about. For instance, if you want them to read your novel, have them analyse plot, character development and dialogues. The authors of the best reviews will get free domain names as prizes.
  • Decide whether you want both positive and negative feedback or only the former (or maybe only the latter, if you’re brave enough). In case negative reviews are allowed, make sure you’ll have the strength to recognise a  devastating comment as the best of all if it really is.
  • Some people have the ability to write convincing reviews on things they’ve just skimmed (yes, it is possible, believe it or not). To make sure your piece has been thoroughly read by those who claim to have done so, you can send them one or two very specific questions by email. Don’t make the questions public, otherwise someone could share the answers with people who may never read what you wrote.

And this is the end … of the “giving free domain names” series, not of The WebMaster Blog! Keep on checking back for more site promotion tips and don’t forget to subscribe to our blog now.

Karen Zara is a full-time writer and blogger. You can read more of her articles at Abaminds Entrepreneurs, a blog for business owners, freelancers and entrepreneurship enthusiasts.

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Free Domain Names: Give Them to Your Visitors and Reap the Rewards – Part 3

Today you’ll see that offering domain names for free is a good way to get more backlinks for your sites and/or make people subscribe to your content.

Link building

Since building links is a major concern for many webmasters nowadays, I chose to start with this topic. Here’s how you can use domain giveaways for link building purposes:

  • Create a contest (e. g., “write a blog post about my site”). Domain names will be the prizes.
  • Have contestants link to your site or blog. Make sure they use your desired anchor text. If I were you, I’d offer various anchor text options and let each contestant pick their favourite one.
  • It may be a good idea to limit participation to webmasters who own sites related to your niche.
  • If your contest is a one-shot event, those who don’t get any prizes may simply remove your links or add a no-follow tag to them afterwards. To avoid this, you could run periodic contests, so contestants feel encouraged to keep your links on their sites for longer.

Subscribers and members

Do you want to get more subscribers to your newsletter or RSS feed? Or more members for your forums and membership sites? Domain giveaways can help you a lot:

  • Offer free domain names to your most active forum members. Make it clear that only those who write quality posts will be awarded. Unless you really don’t mind having lots of “me too” messages on your boards.
  • Ask your blog readers to subscribe to your RSS feed by email. Then compile a subscriber email list and run a draw. The owner of the drawn address will be given a free domain.
  • The idea above also applies to newsletters. To ensure that your subscribers will actually open and read your emails, you could have them answer questions about each issue. Only those who sent you correct answers would be entered in your free domain draw.

These tips are enough to keep you busy until I publish the final post in this series. It will show you how free domain name offers can be used to generate more visitor activity on your site. Remember, you won’t miss my future suggestions if you subscribe to The WebMaster Blog.

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Free Domain Names: Give Them to Your Visitors and Reap the Rewards – Part 2

I’m finally back and resuming this series on domain name giveaways. As promised in the first part, today I’m going to offer some suggestions regarding niches to which this tactic would be appropriate.

Audiences interested in domain give aways

If you own a blog, website or forum in any of the niches below, you’re guaranteed to catch your visitors’ attention whenever you offer free domains:

  • General Internet marketing
  • Make money online
  • Affiliate marketing
  • Article marketing
  • Ebook writing and selling
  • Blogging
  • SEO and SEM
  • Web hosting
  • Domains (duh!)
  • Webmaster tips and resources

This should go without saying, but just in case you’re wondering, the reason why domain name giveaways are successful in such niches is the fact that their typical audience already knows the value of a good domain name. So you won’t have to educate anyone. You won’t have to explain why your visitors should care for your offer.

Audiences that may or may not be interested in free domain names

Here are niches whose typical audience isn’t always aware of the importance of domains:

  • Small business
  • Work-at-Home Moms/Dads
  • Anime/Manga

If your site belongs to any of these categories, should you offer free domain names to your visitors? It depends on how educated they are. For instance, some small business owners don’t even realise the importance of a website for their companies. Others are partially or fully engaged in online marketing practices such as SEO and social media. If your typical visitors fall into the latter group, your domain giveaway will likely be successful. So the first step you must take is knowing your audience, really.

Subscribe to The WebMaster Blog so you don’t miss the next post in this series. It will contain some concrete examples of benefits you can obtain when you distribute free domain names.

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Free Domain Names: Give Them to Your Visitors and Reap the Rewards – Part 1

Kat’s recent domain give away made me realize the potential hidden in this kind of offer.

After some brainstorming, I came up with a set of tips to help you use domain names as gifts for both your visitors and yourself.

Why would I want to give domain names away?

Your domains cost you money. Your hard earned money. Why wouldn’t you save them for yourself?

Of course you’re entitled—and encouraged—to invest some money in the purchase of domains for your own use. But make no mistake: when you offer domain names as gifts to your readers, they won’t be the only benefited ones. You’ll reap rewards too:

– Traffic (people must visit your site to learn about your offer).

– Increased site activity (depending on what you ask interested visitors to do).

– A good reputation (you’ll be seen as a nice guy/gal).

Remember that site activity and a good reputation lead to more traffic. The 3 items together can help you make more money.

Why would my visitors be interested in getting free domain names?

Domains are very affordable these days. Your visitors wouldn’t be interested in your domain name give away because they can buy URLs for themselves, right?

Wrong!

A minute ago you objected to offering for free the domain names that had cost you (little) money. But if you could grab some free domains for your own use, you’d be very happy, wouldn’t you? Now why would your visitors be any different? Everyone likes freebies, especially when such freebies can help them make more money, as is the case with domains.

You may have guessed that domain name give aways don’t necessarily appeal to all types of audience. In the next installment, I’ll tell you one or two things about adapting free domain offers to various niches. Stay tuned and subscribe to The WebMaster Blog!

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I’ll Show You the Best Way to Turn Entrecard Users Into Loyal Readers

Most Entrecard users are selfish.

They just access a blog, drop a card on the Entrecard widget and move on to the next blog, where they’ll repeat the process. They couldn’t care less for the bloggers behind the pages they visit. They don’t pay attention to the posts. All they want is to accumulate Entrecard credits as fast as possible. However, when other Entrecard users behave the same way, they complain a lot: “How come all those people come here, drop a card and go away? Why don’t they take the time to click on my wonderful headlines and read my precious articles? How can they be so evil to me?” Talk about incoherence!

But do you know what? There’s an easy way to take advantage of this situation.

It’s very easy to beat selfish Entrecard users

If you’re surrounded by a selfish crowd, what’s the best way to stand out and make a difference? That’s an easy one: do not be selfish. Be generous and friendly. Offer the others exactly what you’d like to be offered.

Do you want interested visitors? Subscribers? More comments? You can get it all if you do one simple thing: whenever you visit a blog owned by a fellow Entrecarder, drop your card and leave a meaningful comment on a post.

By doing this you’ll show good-will towards the blogger, whom on his/her turn will likely return the favour. This could be the beginning of a promising relationship. In the end the blogger may become a regular visitor and/or subscriber to your blog. Of course, I highly recommend that you reciprocate.

“This is too time-consuming,” you might argue.

Let me tell you something that shouldn’t be a secret for anyone: there’s no magic way to generate repeat visits for a blog or site. If a traffic generation method looks too good to be true… you know. All effective promotion techniques require time, effort and persistence. This one couldn’t be different.

Besides, it’s about giving people what they want, as opposed to sitting down and waiting for everyone to serve you as if they were your slaves. Be nice to others and many will be nice to you too. It’s that simple.

How the Entrecard-drop-and-comment scheme works

1. You visit a blog containing the Entrecard widget. Ideally, you want to access blogs whose topics you’re familiar with.

2. You drop your Entrecard, as usual.

3. Instead of leaving the blog right away, you choose a post that catches your attention and read it.

4. Finally, you leave a relevant comment on the article you’ve just read. Since you’re familiar with the blog’s topic, it shouldn’t be difficult to come up with a nice message.

Special tip: let the blogger know you’ve found his/her blog via Entrecard. The reason why you want to do this is to show the blogger you aren’t one of those selfish quick droppers. You use Entrecard as a networking tool and you’re genuinely interested in building relationships.

There you have it: you’ve just made a blogger happier–who doesn’t like comments?–and encouraged him/her to not only reciprocate your Entrecard drop, but also pay attention to your posts. There’s no way a quick dropper can cause a better impression than you.

For more Entrecard tips and blogging advice, subscribe to our feed and read the new posts as soon as they’re published.

Your feedback is welcome. Leave a comment and share your Entrecard experiences with our readers.

Karen Zara is a writer who favours relationship building over selfish promotional actions. You can click here to contact her and/or learn more about her SEO writing services.

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Updated Google Chrome TOS & SiteMeter Face Lift

Hi, as you all may already know, Kat will be away for a few days. I am here to deputize for her.

First of all, in the last post, Kat linked to a post on Veritable Life regarding the controversial Section 11 of Google Chrome’s terms of service (TOS). For those who have not read the post yet, apparently in the first version of Google Chrome’s TOS, by using Chrome to post, submit or display any content which belonged to you, you automatically also grant Google worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify and publish the same content.

However, on 4th September 2008, barely a few days after the release of Google Chrome, Google has come out with an official statement saying that Google Chrome’s TOS has been updated, more specifically the content of Section 11 has been altered to:

11. Content license from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

The updated Section 11 is rather short but it is effective and simple. Internet users can now use Google Chrome without worry. You don’t even need to download a new copy of Chrome, because this updated TOS is retroactive and will cover everyone who has downloaded Google Chrome since the first day it was launched.

By the way, hot off the stove is the news that SiteMeter has completed its migration and it has a face lift in the way site tracking reports are displayed. Site tracking reports are now displayed with Flash. Check out the screen shot on the right.

One of the most noticable changes is that now you can manage all your tracked sites individual accounts under one primary account with only one login and password required. Previously there was no way for users to link several individual accounts under one primary account, users have to keep many logins and passwords and spend a lot of time just to login, logout and relogin to view other accounts. On top of the primary account, SiteMeter users can also receive Stats by email for multiple accounts.

Premium account users can also enjoy several new features from SiteMeter such as Aggregate Reports, Dedicated Path Report, RSS Activity Report and Most Popular Pages report.

SiteMeter is one of the better site and visitor tracking services available. It is especially useful for webmasters whose host do not provide built-in tracking reports and also those using free blogging platforms such as Blogger which also lacks such a feature. If you need such a tool for your website, feel free to check out SiteMeter.

Question(s) of the day: Have you been using Google Chrome? What do you feel about it? What site statistics tools do you use for your websites?

Do you enjoy our post? If yes, why not take a minute to subscribe to The WebMaster Blog?

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How long does it take for a site to start making money?

This is arguably one of the most asked questions when people who have no experience in making money online and internet marketing are pondering whether to throw themselves into the pond and get wet or to distance themselves from the internet wealth folly.

I have tried googling this question, hoping to find at least one appropriate answer or perhaps some logical arguments. However, it seems that no one online (and offline) has a good answer to this particular question. You can of course, try Yahoo! Answers, Ask Jeeves and some other similar sites to see what invaluable views we have in there. It will be interesting to read about various people’s opinions and I shall be grateful if you could share what you find about this topic with us by commenting on this post.

What is my personal opinion regarding this issue?

First of all, I do not have an extensive experience when it comes to making money online and internet marketing. However I have placed myself pretty near the center of the battlefield and through my observations and a little experiment on my own, I believe I have the ability to make some money online (and I have) and I am entitled to voicing out my opinions regarding this matter. You are free to judge whether what I say is accurate, doubtful or unclear by commenting on this post 🙂

OK, I do not want to generalized all sites. How soon a site can begin making money depends on many factors such as the age of domain, the Page Rank of the domain, whether the domain is banned, penalized or indexed by search engines, the targeted niche and keywords of the site, the content of the site, marketing of the site and how is the site presented – whether in the form of a blog, a website or a community board.

With all the factors above in mind, I personally think that a site can begin making money from as early as 3 months. There are sites which make money right from the first month itself, no doubt but 3 months is sort of a benchmark, which webmasters can use to gauge their performances. If one of your sites start making money earlier than the age of 3 months, then you are obviously doing things right and are well on your way to making money online. If however, your site do not generate any income after 3 months, you should probably consider seriously whether to continue running the site or perhaps there is a need to change the direction (and marketing strategy) of the site and hire an expert consultant.

The are many reasons why I think a new site will mature within 3 months and be ready to generate income. Firstly, the domain would have been indexed by search engines. It will be enjoying organic traffic from search engines and other sources depending on your methods of site promotion. For sites of some niche, 3 months will be sufficient for them to be released from Google’s sandbox (nobody can be sure whether this is just a myth!) and most quality sites would have been given appropriate Page Rank, Alexa rank, etc. Within the first 3 month, the content and frequency of content addition should have been established and webmasters have sufficient time to tweak their sites, gain members, subscribers and followers. Advertisers are also prone to advertise on a mature site with good rankings and considerable number of visitors.

Well, there goes my reasons for clinging to the magical number 3. If there is someone who tries to sell you the idea that you can make loads of money almost instantly, you should definitely beware of him. Although making money online as fast as possible is important, do remember to be prudent, you don’t want to be scammed.

Do you agree with me that sites will start to make money when its age is around 3 months or so? Why?

I will frequently be raising questions which are of import to webmasters. Subscribe to The WebMaster Blog now and you won’t miss any of our discussions. And remember that by subscribing you’ll have the chance to win several prizes in our contest. Click here to learn more about it.

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Generating Traffic Offline

There are a lot of articles and reports about generating site traffic online. On the other hand, I’ve seen only a few that discussed ways to generate traffic offline. So here are some ideas I’ve picked up here and there, and some of my own.

Give away “branded” stuff. Brand things you give away with your site address; t-shirts, caps, pins, stickers, anything. You can sell them, but it’s better to just give them away. The reward you get is much more fulfilling (you get a walking billboard), not to mention socially responsible (you clothe someone).

Harness the power of traditional media. Advertise on newspapers, on television, or on-air radio. Certainly it isn’t cheap, but well worth the money. Then again you can always try to do what people from my part of the world do when they want some press attention for free. Climb up on top of a really high place and make as if you’re about to jump (don’t do this at home kids). That’ll get you some looks from the media. Just don’t forget to wear your site-branded shirt.

Get the word out. Word-of-mouth promotion is free. Use it! Tell your family and friends that you have a new site or blog. Better yet, tell everyone. This is easy. Go to social events (parties, etc.) and try to subtly include your site in every conversation you make. This may offend some people’s sense of propriety, but it beats the alternative: telling complete strangers to visit your site as you pass them on the street.

Sponsor Events. Offer to contribute something to a community affair in return for a plug. You can do this with dances, league games, and other celebrations/programs. Or create an event of your own; a contest, for example. A word to the wise: beware the snowball effect. One must always be prepared (financially) for everything that can happen when conducting a contest-else he may find himself running from an avalanche of winners because he didn’t expect such enthusiastic participation and didn’t prepare enough prizes.

Involve others. Look for other webmasters who promote their sites offline. This way you can try the more outrageous promotion methods (these methods warrant a separate article) with safety in numbers. Also, try to make tie-ups with small businesses using a “You-promote-me-I-promote-you” approach. One that is related to your site’s niche is best. You wouldn’t want your “All about dogs” site to be promoted by an adult specialties shop, and vice versa, would you? Not only is it illogical, it’s also a bit of not downright disturbing.

So there. Good Luck!

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The No-No’s of SEO

Search Engine Optimization can be a daunting task; hence many bloggers succumb easily to the temptations of the ‘blackhat.’ Blackhat techniques violate the rules of SEO and provide bloggers who use it with unfair advantage over others.

On the other hand, most start-up bloggers do not know about SEO and they become innocent victims of Blackhat techniques. They are taught to use them not knowing that these SEO techniques are wrong.

Here are some Blackhat techniques to avoid:

Keyword Stuffing. This is when the webmaster fills the site with hundreds or even thousands of keywords. One of the oldest Blackhat techniques, keyword stuffing is different from optimization in that it involves keywords that are repeated in an irrelevant and illogical way.

These keywords are hidden by color blending (where the background color and text color are the same so humans can’t see it but search engines can), or by putting keywords in meta tags / script tags, or even by placing the keywords outside the visible screen area via cascading stlye sheets (CSS).

Link Farms. These are websites created only for the purpose of accommodating unrelated links. Avoid link farms because you can get penalized and banned for using them. Make it a point to know where links to your sites are coming from.

Auto Generated Pages. These pages consist of content automatically derived from other sites. No part of the page is original since it contains snippets of content taken from other sites.

Gateway Pages. These pages are usually invisible to the user and are designed for only the search engines to see. These use redirect scripts that leads site visitors to another site automatically.

On the other hand, some landing pages are acceptable. Landing pages that contain relevant information where the reader is not tricked to click or go to another site is fine.

Don’t try using these because you’ll get caught eventually. Work smart and work clean.