Software Reviews

Manual Directory Submission

Many of you heard about directory submission. It's a well known, thoroughly tested method of obtaining one-way links. While some argue the efficiency of directory submission nowdays, I'm a strong proponent of the technique, basing my support on just facts. If you can get your site some PR and traffic by directory submission alone, it works by my definition.

Obviously, many tools are available to help you with the submission because it's a tedious process; you need to submit every site to thousands directories to be accepted in a few hundred of them. While many tools do a decent job, the ones that are automatic can actually give bad results because they can mess your submission and you have no way of checking live what's going on. You can get rejected from all directories because your shiny directory submitter sent your Health site by mistake to the Automotive category (I've seen this a lot).

If for you time = money, the best solution is to outsource the activity. Manual directory submission services, like the one offered by Pro Link Directory are guarantee to be carried out by experienced professionals who not only work in search engine optimization but also manage link directories. You don't even have to provide all your site details, they can choose what's best for you. Manual directory submission is very straightforward: a real person goes through a list of directories, one by one and enters your site details. They then check for a verification email and click any links required to activate the newly-submitted listing. It's a simple but tedious job, worth outsourcing!

Site monetization - one passive income method

Many website owners have as their (main) motive money. Not unusual at all, not strange at all. And not trivial at all.

However, there are sometimes methods that can prove easy and yet legal. And this is exactly what about this post is: a simple way to make 75 pounds (about $150) per month. The best part is however that you don't have to work for them. It's all passive income.

What you need to know first is that you need at least one website or blog to take advantage of this opportunity. However, to use it at its maximum capacity 5 websites (or blogs) are needed.

Edit: in the meantime, match discontinued their services.

That being said, the method is simple: place ads on your pages and get paid for them no matter what your traffic or pagerank is. Who's offering this? matched.co.uk under the name of `Publisher` account. Tell them on what pages you're willing to place ads and they will provide you the appropriate code and will pay 3 pounds (about $6) per month for each page. For 25 pages (5 sites x 5 pages) you'll get about $150 per month.

The ads are non-intrusive, having a adsense-similar look. And, the best thing of all - after you add the provided code to your pages, there's nothing else to worry about. $150 will arrive in your PayPal each month (or your UK bank account if you prefer).

Google search - top keywords download

Wordze is giving away for free a database of more than 111,000 terms tracked down by their system since Jan 8th,  2008. These are the top keywords for every hour since then.
It's a nice resource and can provide some good info on the search trends for this period. If you find it useful, you can always register for an account with them for updates. Standard subscriptions are $45/month.

Download link here.

SEO Book Review

If you’re new to everything Search Engine Optimization means, if you want to see a great presentation of the topic or if you just want to expand your horizons, there’s one SEO book I recommend named simply ‘SEO Book’ because it’s actually the only decent book approaching the subject.

Everybody does SEO?

It seems that everyone who has an online business has to come in contact at some point with Seach Engine Optimization because search engines are a resource you can't afford to ignore. Because they'll give in return of your optimized sites, quality targeted traffic for free.

Typo traffic - the hidden market

The last days I got my hands on a new book, TYPO GOLD: Get a Ton More Traffic for Pennies...or Less.   After reading it I realized there's much more to the typo traffic than I thought - it looks like you can build an entire business around this or seriously improve your traffic to your current ventures.. So, if that sounds interesting enough read below.

For more details or check the author's page directly

First of all, the opening credits hit you: one of the writers Jaclyn Easton,  was a seven year business columnist for the Los Angeles Times and an Emmy Award winning business reporter for CBS News. She also wrote the #1 best-selling book StrikingItRich.com. You never see these kind of credentials on an ebook and you see the fingerprint of this experience throughout the Typo Gold;  it is a pleasure to read because it's well-written AND because backs up its facts with screenshot after screenshot of proof.

As for the strategies, I was amazed how many times I thought 'brilliantly simple' when reading it.  Why? Because as the title suggest, '..for pennies or less', the book shows you dozens of methods based on typos/mistakes to make many steady streams of income with only a small initial investment. (Actually a bunch of the strategies require NO investment).  What does 'small initial investment' mean? Around $150. In how much time you recover your investment? About a month if you're serious about it.

Some quick math: if you reinvest all your income after the first month, you'll have a business producing $300/mo. If you reinvest that after 2 months you'll be producing $600/mo. $1200 after 3 months. Where's the limit? Pretty high because most of this is on auto-pilot. You'll eventually say stop when you'll feel there's too much to handle but at that point you may very well be doing more than a few thousand
dollars per month on different niches.

Just the facts:

• it's a complete walkthrough. It will take you by the hand through the entire process
• shows you techniques to avoid 'trial and error' methods and go directly to the jackpot
• gives you unlimited access to two custom made tools by for the purposes of this book
• gives you relevant case studies and statistics to guide you in making the best choices

To rewind, if you think of any questions, you'll most likely find the answers, demo videos and more goodies here.

Instant Article Wizard

Article marketing is an easy, safe and rewarding method that should be in everyone’s arsenal. Basically you write an article (a few hundred words) on the subject you want to promote then send this article to sites that publish it. You get links to your site from the article plus traffic.

One of the best known sites is www.ezinearticles.com and there are literally hundreds of article directories that accept and publish your content at no cost. And you can also approach the problem from the Squidoo point of view and publish a ‘lens’ - there’s a little more work involved but if you play your cards right there’s more in the reward.

Actual, visible results won’t happen with anything less than 10-50 unique articles depending on your niche so finding a fast way to get unique articles is of utmost importance. The best solution I found so far that I’m using myself is the Instant Article Wizard, a program that makes human-readable and content-rich articles on any topic you give it - a must have tool for anyone doing or looking to start article marketing.

Matt Cutts - Google's spokesman?

You probably heard of Matt Cutts. He's working at Google and has his own blog called Gadgets, Google, and SEO. Why would this interest you? Because you'll find many interesting things, some from 'behind the curtains', some about what Google does and how it works.

Don't expect to see full disclosure on how Google ranks sites for example. Just tips, tricks and sometimes hints on what you should or shouldn't do.

Also, he has a few videos you should really watch if you're into the SEO business: start with the SEO Myths and follow the links from there

Subversion + Tortoise SVN = Love

This is something useful for all you programmers out there!

Version control is usually a subject considered when there's a team of programmers involved and keeping track of changes done to the code is vital. But I, as the only programmer on my projects, I find it priceless.

Case study number 1:
-taking phpLinkDirectory and adding new features to it for my own use. This means I sometimes have to modify the core files provided by the authors. But what happens when they release a new version? Do I have to do everything from scratch? No! The Subversion system shows me exactly what files, what lines and in what way I modified for each feature added so applying the changes to the new version is a breeze. Priceless.

Case study number 2:
-Rollback. Adding new features to an existing program you made can be very tempting. Sometimes too tempting. Not once I found myself wanting to rewind everything back to the stable point I was a few hours ago. Ctrl-Z can help, but you're very limited. Subversion does it with just a click.

It's a 100% open source client/server program. The server is available at the subversion project home. You have the option to build it from source or download already made binaries for most platforms from Linux and Solaris to Windows.

As for the client you have more than one option but by far the easiest to use is Tortoise SVN. It integrates directly with your Windows Explorer and you're ready to start in a few minutes using virtually any programming language.

As an alternative, plugins for NetBeans, Eclipse and JDeveloper are available.

Not in the last place, you should get the SVN book. Free of course ;)

Role models

Do you have role models? People you like, people you admire?

I'm not gonna get into a generic 'role models' subject. I'd rather go for big names from the software/marketing/affiliate business. Tell us who's you're model and why.

Bill Gates (Microsoft)? Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google)? Steve Jobs (Apple & Pixar). Or perhaps you prefer something more like a niche. Online affiliate marketing (Mike Filsaime)?

And there's always the choice 'I just want to be me'. I'll go for this one for example. But whatever it is, drop a comment.

For the finale, I'll let Steve talk (it's a 15 min speech so make sure you have time)