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Archive for November, 2008

If you like the posts of mastersofseo, please subscribe to my rss or email feed by using the tools in the sidebar. I going to start offering prizes to email subscribers,  hopefully starting in december, so make sure you are subscribed, and through email if you want free prizes.

I wrote on my twitter account a couple days ago, “So has anybody been trying any twitterflipping? And the response, was a ton of emails asking what was twitterflipping. I didn’t think this was that new an idea, but apparently I’m one of the first who thought of it. Now I’m not really advocating this because of the potential of annoying twitter and getting suspended, but I’m writing this post to explain what it is, and to show links proving it’s out there.

If you don’t know what twitter is, read these other posts I’ve written on twitter, for help on setting it up, and using it to help your blog. Tips for maximizing your Twitter, and How to Use Twitter.

Twitter Flipping is similar to site flippping. Which in case you don’t know, is essentially buying domains to sell them for a profit. When you buy a domain to sell it, there are lots of factors that go into it, especially if it’s one that is expiring, and thus already has links and subscribers. If your interested in siteflipping here is a great site to help you with finding good ones to buy.

But Twitter Flipping is slightly different in that, it’s free. All you do is make an account for free, and then you can potentially sell it. However, because they are free, most likely nobody wants it. So the question is how can you make it worth anything? There are several ways to make a twitter account worth selling, which I will explain in steps below.

1. Make your own custom design

Twitter has included the option, of allowing you to create your own unique design. Because most people don’t really understand how to valuable twitter is, very few people take the time to create a custom design. If you are good with web design, then you can create a nice unique one, the will really help the price of the account.

2. Make sure it have a lot of followers

I wouldn’t recommend selling a twitter account that has less then 1,000 followers. There are many different ways to get more followers, putting a link up on your site, being active on the twitter, writing a post about it asking for followers… This is one of the most attractive points when you’re selling a twitter account, and largely what they will determine whether to bid or not. Although a twitter follower is no where near the value of an RSS subscriber yet, we may be quickly reaching that point. Not in a 1 to 1 ratio, but in like a 7 to 1 or maybe 5 to 1 ratio. Twitter followers are very useful as a way to get traffic, and can be just as devoted as subscribers. Having alot of followers, makes a twitter account worth buying, because of the great marketing potential.

3. Make sure the account has a good reputation

If the account’s reputation is for being a spammer, who just posts his blog links every time, then you won’t be passing on a good piece of merchandise. If you have a reputation for answering questions, being polite and helpful, and your able to pass that onto to the buyer, then people will continue to follow the account. Look at it like if you were flipping a site, spend time, get to know your followers, and be helpful to them.

4. Keep the account for several weeks at least

Don’t sell the account in the first couple weeks. Like a blog domain, it appreciates in value, give it a chance to grow some. Don’t put it on the blog forums to fast, let it grow.

5. Look for a valuable account name

This is the most important one of them all, and the one is the most valuable. Look for a twitter account that has the name of a popular site, or movie, or famous person… If someone was able to get twitter.com/problogger it would have been worth a lot of money. Twitter accounts are going Fast! so now is the chance to grab up potentially valuable accounts before they are gone.

Those are some tips that should help your twitter account be worth more in value. Now you may have read all that and gone, isn’t that illegal? The answer is surprisingly no, there is nothing in Twitter’s Terms of Service that talk about selling accounts. Now, does that mean this will stay that way for long? probably not. However, for now it is legit, so take advantage of it while you can.

Your second question is, “now who in the world would buy a twitter account?!?!” This all started when Andrew Baron from rocketboom.com thought,

“It would be silly to just delete this account I have here, especially if there is someone out there that had like interests and had something to say or wanted to get involved in some relevant conversations. In terms of monetary value, I have no expectations or needs at all so I decided not to put a minimum bid on this. Whatever will be, will be. The winner of this auction gets my account with all of my followers.”

And so he put the auction up on ebay, and it sold for over 1,200 dollars. That’s quite a bit of cash, especially when he self admittingly had no idea what he was doing with the site, and didn’t even use his account very much.

Now your third question is, well even if somebody was stupid enough to buy it, he would immediately lose all of his followers once the blog changes right? Wrong. The followers of the site under Andrew Baron was, 1397. Since then, the number instead of decreasing, has jumped to 4324.

Now all of this I find very interesting, becuase I never thought that people would actually be able to make money from this. Does this article mean I am telling you to go do this? No. Am I telling you that people can do it, and can make money from it? Yes. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether you want to do it or not. But I just find it all very interesting, and if you want to do it, these are some tips to show you how.

If you liked this post I would appreciate it if you would subscribe to my RSS feed by using the sidebar options, and stumbling this post, so that others may learn as well. Also, if you want you may follow me on twitter.

29 Nov 2008

What is Twitter Flipping?

Author: Don Gilbert | Filed under: Social Media

I apologize for having this site be so messed up for so long. I’ve been hammering out some template issues, and then upgrading wordpress… and all kinds of other fun stuff. So this is the template I’ll be having for now, I’d love to hear your comments. And yes, you can comment now as well. The comment boxes weren’t working for several days, but they are now up and active.

If you missed it, I wrote two great posts in the past week. One on increasing your RSS subcribers which you can, and another on how to use twitter. I’ve been using twitter more and more recently, so if you want to follow me on twitter you’ll be a lot more updated, and I look forward to interacting with you on it.

Once again I apologize for all of the confusion, and thank you for bearing with me. I’ll be getting back into a routine with blogposting, so make sure you subcribe to my RSS or Email feed, by using the box in the sidebar, for more updates on How to Blog.

26 Nov 2008

Template Issues

Author: Don Gilbert | Filed under: Conversion

17 Uses for Twitter

 How to use Twitter

 

The more I read and use twitter, the more valuable it has become. I wrote an earlier post a couple weeks ago on some basic techniques for it, but it’s uses have been growing and growing. When I first looked at the site I was like what is the point of a site where all you do is have 140 characters to write about how you are doing. Well actually, it’s incredibly useful.

Pretty much every blog related to blogging, has written a post about twitter. Using my typical strategy, I’m going to combine the strategies of all of these posts into one, as well as including many of my own. So here is my list, of 17 uses for twitter.

1.
    Bragging Rights

Have you seen on blogs that more and more regularly, you are seeing their amount of followers next to their amount of subscribers? It’s becoming very popular. I found a figure for how much a twitter follower is worth, now I realize it’s based on completely sketchy and unreliable information, so it’s not really true. But some guys came up with the figure 6.19$ now it means absolutely nothing beyond the fact, that you can now brag that your site is worth xxxx$. But hey, it’s just as unreliable as Alexa, and Technorati and everything else on the internet right?

2.
    Getting RSS Subscribers

I read a great guest post by Nathan Rice over at dailyblogtips about this. Twitter friends will often turn into RSS subscribers if you can help them out. People ask questions a lot on twitter, just help them out, and then politely tell them you could do even more for them because your blog talks about what they need. And so if they subscribe they can get more information. Don’t be a spammy about it, but if it can help them out, then it really works.

3.
    Getting Friends and Fans

Twitter is a good way to build some relationships, because it is instant. It is like a site designed solely for the purpose of writing your facebook update, and allowing others to comment on it. People love talking on this, and so not only can you help your site out, you can make some good friends, and learn things as well.

4.
    It’s Easy

Twitter is a great program for Social Networking because it is so simple. There is only the chat box, and then followers. The only slightly difficult part in the whole thing, is figuring out how to reply to people. Have you ever heard the term, “retweet” ? This means when you write a twitter update, and others like it so they retweet it on their site as well. But the question is how do you do this? All you have to do, is write this symbol @ and then their username. So to retweet something I said, you would write @mastersofseo to start the message, and then type the message.

5.
    Viral Effect

If you write a good enough tweet, then it can get fired across the twitter world very quickly. Because it’s all instant, and everybody is refreshing the page constantly, if you write an interesting enough thing, then it can fly across the internet instantly. You can receive a flood of traffic, if it’s done well enough.

6.
    Help with Digg and Stumbleupon

If you’ve been a good twitter person, and you’ve been nice to your followers, then you can occasionally ask for stumbleupon and digg requests. If you do it rare enough, and make sure it’s only one of your “killer” articles, then your followers will be happy to help you out. And depending on how well you write your twitt, you can experience two viral effects at once.

7.
    Feedback

Do you have any questions you want to ask an unbiased opinion? Here is your chance. Ask your followers what they think of your template, ask them if they think your blog content isn’t up to par. Twitter is a great way to ask people for help, and to actually receive it. Twitter users are very kind, and I’m sure they would be happy to help, if you aren’t being a jerk about it.

8.
    Gathering News

Things on Twitter fly so fast, it’s crazy. By just reading your homepage, you can pickup all that is happening around the world. All the new releases, tech updates, and latest blog posts, on twitter you can get it all, fast.

9.
    Keeping in Touch

Twitter is a great way to realize what your blogger friends have been up to. You can learn all of their latest updates, and be able to keep in touch, even though you are far.

10.
    Getting Traffic

You can install an application for firefox here that allows you to update your twitter without even going to the site. By updating it a lot, then people will be interested in what you do. Too often people make the mistake of only writing on it when you write a post, people get sick of only links. Tell them what your doing, and they will in turn visit your site, this application makes it easy.

11.
    Twitter users have Alexa Toolbar Installed

Take a look at this Alexa picture from the last three months, see that jump on Nov 22?

 How to use Twitter

 

I didn’t receive more traffic then usual, I actually received less then usual, then why the jump? Well one because Alexa is a piece of junk, but besides that, because almost 60% of the traffic that day was from Twitter. So even though the traffic number wasn’t that high, a much higher percentage had the alexa toolbar, thus exploding my Alexa ranking. Do you see that number for yesterday?

 How to use Twitter

41,139, that’s really low, in case you know nothing about Alexa. Using Twitter can greatly help you lower your Alexa ranking

12.
    Every Tweet Counts

Each one is like a digg submission, make it right, and it will pay off. Use the right type of words that won’t diminish your reputation, and that will entice people to talk to you. That’s right, I said talk to you, not to visit your site. This is about relationships just as much as it is about traffic. Tell people how you are doing, and when you are telling about your post, then do it in a nonspammy way.

13.
    Be Original and Smart

Just like with every other social site, don’t try and pass off old information as new. Don’t do stupid scams, and lies to get attention. Use the site as it was meant, and tweet you information, that’s helpful to people.

14.
    Hiring People

Are you looking for a web designer, programmer, or for blogging help? Then send out a tweet looking for recommendations. It’s a great way to interact with people, and the Twitter users will surely be nice enough to help you out. This is a great way to fine freelancers as well.

15.
    Creating your Image

Twitter allows for the options of creating your own layout. You can use your logo to create a unique twitter site for you. This helps to broaden your personal image, because you have essentially another site that is purely your own.

16.
    Planning Meetings

Twitter can be used as a simple facebook. Instead of sending a personal email through facebook, just give them a quick tweet on twitter. This can be used for all kinds of information, that only needs quick messages.

17.
    Twitter Flipping

The new wave of siteflipping is twitter flipping. Thanks to free accounts, and the uniquness they allow with only one allowed per site, people are grabbing up free accounts, for the purpose of selling them on auctions. Twitter sites like @lifehacker or @problogger if grabbed early enough could have been worth a lot. But the pickings are quickly decreasing as the accounts are snatched up. So grab your free twitter accounts now, for selling later.

 
 
If you liked this post, please subcribe to my feed, for more tips on how to blog, by using the subcribe box in the sidebar.

 

25 Nov 2008

How to use Twitter

Author: Will Fowler | Filed under: Social Media

Increasing your RSS Subscribers is one of the most important things that a blogger needs to do. Not only is it a way to sell more ads, it also is a big statement about your blog. Typically your RSS subscribers, are frequent visitors, and so the more you have, the more traffic you have coming to your site. However, getting RSS subscribers sounds a lot harder then it actually is. People are surprisingly willing to subscribe, if you go about it the right way. I’ve compiled a list of strategies that I use, and I would highly recommend for you as well.

1.
    Always respond to emails.

Being available is one of the greatest encouragements to potential subscribers. If they know you actually care about them, then they are much more willing to subscribe. And also, people will subscribe just because you were nice to them, so make sure you are always polite, and try not to blow anybody off.

2.
    Display your numbers proudly

Don’t be ashamed of it, whether you have a lot, or a little, they are both good, and I will explain why. First, if you have very few people. If you actually have good content, then people don’t care how many other subscribers you have, it’s lets them feel happy because they can be one of your first groupies. If you have a lot of subscribers, then it really builds people’s confidence seeing the high number. Even if you don’t have very good articles, everybody is wondering why they have so many subscribers, and so they find themselves subscribing just because everybody else did. Either way, you win, and you don’t really lose anything. Just post good content, and you should be able to break the embarrassing point quickly.

3.
    Set up a popup

I’ve heard very mixed reviews about this, but I’ve never heard a review that said it didn’t work. Every article I’ve read about it, said it gave them great success. The only complaints were it’s annoying, but I mean, very few people would not read a blog simply because of a popup, just make sure there’s an easy way to exit out of it, otherwise you Will get lots of complaints.

4.
    Write Good Content

This is very straight forward, if you want to know about this, read this article on how to write a good blog post. Don’t waste people’s time, with articles that don’t help anybody, be original, informative, and helpful and you’ll be fine.

5.
    Have a Subscribe Button

And place it as far up on the page as you can. Do not hide it at the bottom of your side bar, advertise it, and make it obvious.

6.
    Have an Email Option as well

RSS subscribing is still relatively new. A surprisingly large amount of people don’t know what it is, so make sure people can do it through email. More then half of my subscribers are through email, so make sure you have that option as well. Also, have that high up on your sidebar as well.

7.
    Reciprocal Commenting

Every time you get a comment, return to that person’s site and comment back. Let them know you appreciate their visit, not by thanking them. But by returning the favor, I bet you they’ll come back. 

8.
    Write lots of Guest Posts

This is really important, because it’s a great way to advertise your site. Choose similar sites, with a similar audience, and it’ll be an incredible way to get new subscribers.

9.
    Make a Huge Subscribe button

Check out this site for an example. That guy has almost 4,500 subscribers, not a bad total,  I think he knows what he’s talking about. Now don’t make it that big, but the one I have now is too small, yes I admit that. Make it at least 125×125, and stretch it as far as you dare. 

10.
    Ask people to Subscribe

It sounds dumb, but people will really respond if you ask them to. Now you have to do it indirectly, don’t just write a post saying SUBSCRIBE!! with a big button in the post. The way I do it, is to ask at the end of every post saying, if you liked this post please subscribe. Short, sweet, and gets the point across.

11.
    Have all the Subscribe options

If you go into your feedburner account, there are a lot of different options. Make sure you have them all checked; you would not want to be preventing your readers from subscribing because you didn’t support their type of RSS reader.

11.
    RSS feed Vs. Url Feed

Now I have yet to test this out, but I’ve read that this works in a lot of posts. When you comment on a blog, instead of doing the url of your blog, do the url of your feed. If you have the full post option from Feedburner, then they will essentially be at your site anyway, and this way it’s easier for them to subscribe. I can’t recommend this as I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds like it could really work. I’ll try it and let you know my results at some point.

12.
    Participate on forums

Discussions, forums, message-boards, call them whatever you like, these are great ways to get subscribers and traffic. It’s like fast paced blog commenting. Just get in a forum your knowledgeable about, and related to your site, and just be very intelligent and help people out, and then refer them to your blog for more details. If your on the right forum, then this is a great way to grow your blog.

13.
    Comment on like-minded blogs

This is similar to the guest posting thing, but this is available all the time. Start doing the rounds in commenting, and visit similar blogs. Comment, help people out, you don’t even have to refer them, because your name will be a link, so you don’t have to be spammy. Just help people out, and you’ll be helping your site out as well. 

These are a few myths that I want to debunk. There are lots of ways that people say you can increase your subscribers, and these are popular. But don’t fall for them, they have very little if any real effect.

14.
    Don’t waste time with Feed exchange sites

There are lots of sites promising to advertise your site, for example Rsshugger.com I fell for that site when it first came out. To join you had to link to their site, and write a post about them. I was desperate for new subscribers so I gave it a shot. I think I referred about 150 visits to their site, and they gave me 3 total visits, and who knows if any of those even subscribed. And I was one of the tops sites for a while, because of all the traffic I gave them. Don’t waste your time with these!

15.
    Don’t use Feed Directories

These are a waste, and they really don’t help you any. It’s not worth the time it takes to put your site in them, and all you get in return is one more subscriber from the site. Very rarely will they ever actually refer anybody to your site, so don’t waste your time with them.

16.
    Don’t do feed exchanges

These are also a waste. What’s the point of a subscriber if you are both only doing it for the extra number? This is called rss faking. And no only is it a dishonest way to advertise your site, it doesn’t really help you out any either. One more person isn’t going to make that much of a difference, and even if you do a lot of these, you will be adding people who probably don’t read your site anyway.

If you liked this post, please subscribe to my free RSS feed, for more tips on how to blog. And please consider stumbling this post, so more can benefit from it.
   
   

20 Nov 2008

16 Ways to Increase your RSS Subscribers

Author: Don Gilbert | Filed under: Conversion







As the second post in my series on blog contests, I am sharing with you a contest over at mrjavo.com, you should already know the format of how this works, if not you can read the first one here. Just a note, this contest ends Nov 16th. Which I realize is only in four days. But this contest is similar to the linkers blog one in that, you can easily give yourself a chance of winning, without too much trouble, within the next couple days.  

Here is the link to the contest, Mr. Javo 2.0

 Contest Reviews #2 (MrJavo)

Prizes

1st Place

2nd Place

3rd Place

4th Place

5th Place

6th Place

7th Place

  • Thirty-minutes of blog consultations with Jim from The Net Fool – Value $30
  • A blog review, a 125×125px advertising for a month and 1000 EC by Louis Liem – Value $30
  • One month of 125×125px advertising On Mr Javo dot Com, courtesy of Revvenue.com – Value $25
  • One blog review on Niessuh.com – Value $20
  • One month of text-link advertising on WebTrafficROI.com – Value $10 NEW!

8th Place

9th Place

10th Place

  • 1000 EC from ThemeLib
  • 1000 EC from Cash In Style
     

    There’s a Ton of prizes! Now, there is no way that I’m going to review every single one like I did last time. But I’m going to review them generally. My first impression, is that I’m somewhat impressed. That ten different people all have a chance at winning, is very cool, and I like that because it gives you more motivation to rack up more points

    The prizes consist of lots of Ebooks, including some of the same ones from linkers blog. Again like I said in the last one, you can’t really know if they are worth anything until you’ve actually read them. So, I’ll just assume they are worth something. There are a few blog reviews, and consultations which are great. An objective opinion is always good, and all the reviewers have fairly successful blogs, so they Should know what they are talking about. There are also several themes, which could be quite nice. I like the UBD citrus theme, but everyone will have different opinions on blog themes. There’s lots of impressions from BlogUpp, which is a traffic exchange program. I’m somewhat skeptical of those, I’ve tried a few of them, including easyhits4u and they’ve always been a waste of time in my mind. However, I could be wrong, so these could potentially be useful, if they are actually good traffic. This also includes several blog reviews, and advertising opportunities, which are very nice. And then there are several pots of entrecard credits which are always nice.

    Now the big advertisement for this contest is that it’s worth over 2,000$ worth of prizes. Honestly though, I’d take 100 bucks over any of these prizes, and be thrilled about it. If your going to run a contest, cash is best. The first prize totals up to being worth 659$! Thathat’s a Lot of money. And yet besides the 200$ in a bidvertiser account, the lot doesn’t seem worth 459$. The best set of prizes in my mind was the sixth one. A paid review by Balkhis is a great prize. I give props to Javo for getting Syed to give that. And then there are several good advertising options in here, as well as consultations with thenetfool. Jim is a great blogger and I really respect his opinion. If I do end up winning any of these prizes besides the sixth one, it’s possible I may be putting them up for a little contest of my own.

    These prizes suffer from many of the same problems as the linkersblog’s one, no wow factor. The one thing that makes these prizes better, is that there are Way more of them, and there are ten different prizes which I like. It definitely encourages you to spend more work on it, because you know that you have a higher chance of winning something.

    Final Grade on Prizes

    6/10

    Requirements

    There are only a couple options to get points in this contest. Like the last one, this one is based by points, and will be decided using random.org. There are only 3 ways to get points, which just shows you that he’s running it for a specific purpose.

    By signing up and confirming your email for his newsletter you get 3 points. (this is also required to be in the contest.)

    By writing about the contest, you get two additional points.

    And for subscribing to his RSS feed by email, you get one additional point.
    Pretty straight forward and simple, he’s trying to get RSS subscribers. And from the looks of it, he’s done pretty well to. His subscribers have gone up by at least a hundred in the last couple weeks, and probably more, but I can’t remember the exact number it was at.

    The contest ends on Nov 16th at 22:00 GTM -4. So if you are going to join, Do it now! There is still plenty of time to do all of these things, and you will have a shot at one of these ten prizes.

    I liked linkersblog’s one better in this respect, because he had more ways to get points, but these ones still aren’t difficult to do.

    Final Grade on Requirements

    6/10
    Easy things to do, but not very many ways to get points.

    Chances of winning

    Here’s one of the problems with the contest, there’s a lot of people in it. Like a lot more then linkersblog’s one. On his post there are 123 comments, that’s A lot. The other contest only had about 30 or so. You can’t judge by the comments, but that’s at least 4x more people, then the other one. And who knows how many more just subscribed to the newsletter, and didn’t comment. And so the possibilities are a lot less, but there are ten prizes. So kind of similar to the other one, I think it’s worth doing, but still only medium or less chances of winning something. Also, it’s a random draw, so you always have a shot, just it’s significantly lower because of all the people in it.

    Final Grade on Chances of winning
    5/10
    More prizes, doesn’t necessarily mean higher possibility of success.

    Overall Grade
    6/10
    More prizes, and better prizes in my opinion, but still a bit on the weaker side. And your chances of winning are significantly lower then with the linkers blog as a result of more people. Some useful things in here, but again not worth spending too much time on.  

 

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13 Nov 2008

Contest Reviews #2 (MrJavo)

Author: Will Fowler | Filed under: Site Reviews