Archive for September, 2009
It’s always interesting to check out other peoples’ stats for their sites so I figured I’d go over ways you can find out what keywords are my competitors using. Plus, you can also check out what these sites say about your own blog as well.
I’m sure you can analyze your own stats with Google Analytics or something equivalent but getting the inside scoop on other websites can give you a good upper hand.
Honestly, there are tons of different websites that analyze site stats but none of them seem to be fully accurate. But to be fair, I don’t think any site will ever be 100 percent accurate. These sites are meant to be for getting a good idea on what a particular site has to offer. Basically, to get a general idea on what the site brings in with traffic, revenue, etc.
I occasionally like to check out random sites to see what type of traffic they’re getting, how many backlinks they have, where are those backlinks coming from, what keywords they rank high for, etc, because I want to know where I should be at and I like to get ideas off of that type of data.
For instance, if I see a site that is doing great with organic traffic and rank for keywords with low competition, why shouldn’t I test out those waters to see if I can do just as good? And no, it’s not stealing. Most of the time we all have enough room for everyone to compete for.
Plus, it can also help me improve my own site.
Anyways, let’s get to what keywords are your competitors using and how you can find out that info.
This discussion has been going on for quite sometime and it still goes on. But should you include the “www” in front of your domain name or not? We have different reasons for doing one or the other but which one should we really stick to?
Yes or No with the WWW?
Honestly, it doesn’t really matter which one you use but whichever one you decide to use, it should remain consistent throughout your site. For instance, if you don’t include the “www” in front of your domain then you shouldn’t all of a sudden include it on certain pages.
The reason is the fact that when search engines come to your website, they see those two as completely different URLs. So, “http://www.datmoney.com” and “http://datmoney.com” are technically two different URLs according to the crawlers that crawl your site.
So, in essence, if the search engine crawlers check out your site, see the two different URLs (although they are both the same), there is a risk of duplicate content and both of those pages not getting indexed. I know there is a whole debate on if duplicate content is just a myth or not but I read that if its duplicate within the same site, then there might be a penalty.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to risk it. Feel free to try it out and let me know though!
But luckily, most of us use Wordpress so there’s an option to edit both the “Wordpress address (URL)” and “Blog Address (URL)”. Both of these should be the same. To access this, go to your Wordpress panel, click “settings” and “general”. (see the screenshot below):
Don’t worry, for you Blogger users, its basically the same thing. They even have a redirect of “http://datmoney.com” to “http://www.datmoney.com”. To do this, simply go to your Blogger account panel in “advanced settings” is where this option is. (see the screenshot below):
What Do I Do?
I’m actually pretty late on commenting on this but it looks like Digg.com has a new nofollow policy in which is supposed to cut down on a lot of the spam. I believe they made these changes at the beginning of this month but how are these changes going to affect us? How are these changes going to affect new site owners trying to get ranked in search engines?
I read somewhere:
“We’ve made a few changes to the way Digg links to external sites that may impact some folks in the SEO community,” says Digg’s John Quinn. “These changes reduce the incentive to post spammy content (or link spam) to Digg, while still flowing ’search engine juice’ freely to quality content.”
Do I agree? Well, of course. But only to a certain extend. I mean, spam takes over too many aspects of the internet so I definitely understand that they’re trying to cut down on the spammers. But there are a few things that worry me about these changes. The SEO for us non-spammers.
How Will Digg’s Nofollow Affect Us?
Like I said, SEO will be affected. Because essentially what they are saying is the fact that the “rel=nofollow” attribute will be tagged on external sites that aren’t exactly trusted. And that includes external links in comments (which is understandable), user profiles and story pages.
There have been some people who have asked me how to write a sales letter before, so I figured I’d try to help you guys by writing out a semi guideline on how to go about doing so. Though, I can’t promise it’ll be a “how to write a good sales letter.” 
Just joking!
I have only written a handful of sales letters for people (and for myself) before so I’m far from being a professional at it. Though, those people I have wrote something for have been happy with the writing with no complaints (maybe behind my back on the complaints but not to my face ) and someone told me their sales have been pretty damn good.
Hey, if I can impress those few, you guys should easily be able to do the same and more. I mean, there are a lot of people who are in need of people who write sales pages. Not necessarily because they can’t write it themselves but simply the fact that they are crunched for time. Those are the same people who outsource all their work (design, sales letter, traffic, etc) and I bet if you do a good enough job, you’ll get someone to keep you around for quite some time.
The reason why people come to me is simply the fact that they think I’m good at writing as well as good at persuading people. I think I’m okay but just as long as other people are happy with it, then that’s all that really matters to me!
Plus, it’s not that hard, you just have to cover and highlight the best qualities of whatever product you’re selling.
Anyways, below is a guideline on how to write a sales letter:
Create an Attention Grabbing Headline - This should be in big letters and should be the very first thing you see besides the header design. It should be somewhat short, snappy and something that sticks out. A lot of people tend to ask a question when doing this but you don’t have to.
Some people use quotes on it as well but it’s not necessary. But I would definitely suggest it. Also, you may want to use the headline format as well as change the color so it’s different from the rest of the body’s text.
Example:
“Who else wants a powerful online money making system that does 90% of the work for you?”
*This was taken from a sales letter I seen.
I tend to also write a couple of bullet points right below it just to back up the headline. It should only be a few lines that highlight your main selling points.
The Body Should be a in Formal Letter Format – If you know how to write a regular letter to someone, then that’s exactly what you should do here. The main body of your sales page should be this long letter. I mean, it’s called a “sales letter” for a reason, right?
The reason why you’re writing in a letter style is you want to make it personal and ask questions that you already know the answer to.
These weekly updates are starting to become monthly ones but at least I’m still updating you guys! But ever since my blog auction ended and no sale met my reserve price, I was going to commit a little more time and this site as well as my other ones.
So, let’s get to some of the changes.
OIO Publisher Plugin Purchased – As you guys should all know from my last post OIO Publisher Coupon Code – Save Up to $20!, I purchase the OIO Publisher plugin and it has worked wonders for me. This is just one small step for Jay and one giant leap for DatMoney. Okay, that was corny. But this purchase is just a small step towards taking DatMoney to the next level. Trust me, all the small steps will add up to one huge step.
Advertisement Page Changed – Don’t worry, I didn’t raise any prices, I just made a few changes to the options, text and I added some purchase links so you can buy ad spots directly without needing to contact me and waiting. You can even upload images yourself, as an advertiser. Also, text links on the sidebar has a direct purchase link there as well.
Free Blogger Templates - To support our free blogger templates section, I decided to add a small banner on the sidebar. I actually did this a while ago but if you never noticed it, its directly under the “Popular and Helpful Posts” on the sidebar. I also added a tracking option on it just to see how many times it gets clicked on as a banner on that spot.
Passwords to Protected Posts Sent! - If you subscribed prior to September 8th then you received an e-mail from me with the passwords. Some of you guys unsubscribed shortly after, some e-mails bounced back and one person even decided to reply to the e-mail telling me “don’t send it again.” I didn’t understand that one. Anyways, I’m actually considering taking some good advice and signing up for Awebar to handle all my subscriptions and password e-mailing stuff for me.
Design Change - I actually like this template and I got used to it but too many people have this same exact one. I’ve been leisurely looking for a new design, premium theme, but haven’t found one I can really bite down on. Anyone have any recommendations? Or possibly a good theme designer for a reasonable price? Let me know and I like your pick, I’ll sign up through your referral link or convince the designer to give you a finders fee or something.
One of my Sites Went Down! - There was a reason why there was a lack of posts here this week. One of my sites went down and I have no idea why. Of course, since the site is a pretty profitable one for me, I had to turn my attention to it because the longer it stays down, the more I potentially lose in revenue. Unfortunately, it was down for about a day and a half (from what I know) so that kind of hurt. But I finally managed to fix the issue and everything seems fine once again.
Anyways, that’s it for now. I’m sure there are a lot of updates and changes but I’ll save that for the next one.
