Every now and then, an offer does the rounds offering “lifetime” hosting for a one off fee.
And my reaction is the same every time:
Don’t touch it.
And strongly consider unsubscribing from anyone offering it to you as they’re more likely to have the interests of their wallet at their heart rather than your best interests.
You’ve probably heard the saying “Jack of all trades but master of none”
I’m used to it – my degree was Business Studies and that’s quite close to the definition. We had lots of topics and in reality skimmed the surface of most of them.
That works OK for initial education and it gave me an overview of the real world.
But specialising is where the real action is.
There are various stages involved in researching a new niche and one of them is the actual topics you’re going to create content about.
The figures in keyword planners are less reliable then putting your finger up in the air to find out which way the wind is blowing.
There are just too many variables involved to get an accurate handle on the real life figures.
What I like to do when I create a new site is just put content on it.
Typically I’ll target long tail keywords – everyone else is targeting the relatively short phrases that you’ll find in keyword planners.
I don’t much care about the “volume” they’re supposed to attract.
The main test I do is whether or not the title I’m thinking about creating new content for comes up in the suggestions that show up as you type.
If that’s the case, that’s a good start.
Until recently, I’d have said that internet advertising was doing its best to imitate a dinosaur and was facing extinction.
Of course, the major ad players would beg to differ and certainly Google make a nice amount of money from the adverts at the top of their search results.
But “lesser” sites (by which I mean almost any other site) are struggling.
The more they pester us, the more inclined we are to thwart their attempts with ad blockers. Because it’s nice to view pages without auto play videos or pop ups littering our screens. That’s extra true on mobile phones where download speeds aren’t always as fast as they are at home and where screen space is at a premium.
There’s been a lot written about longer pages attracting more traffic to your content. And, yes, I know that the idea of a lot being written means the whole thing could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Recently, I read a forum post where someone had analysed the relationship between longer web pages and where they showed in the results. Unlike some other studies I’d read before, this one used some basic math to figure out the relationship and also included results where the pages were similar in size.
As you’d probably expect, similar pages couldn’t be differentiated by word count because there wasn’t a difference in the first place. Which means that other factors would have come into play to figure out the order.
But all other things being equal, longer pages seem to help nudge your site higher up the results. Continue reading
Promoting other people’s products – probably as an affiliate – is a tempting way to earn money from your website and your list.
But is it worth doing?
As always in life, the answer is qualified – some of the time, yes it can be. Other times, it’s definitely not.
You have to decide each individual case, which is where your due diligence comes in.
If you’ve got your own products (and if you’re in a niche that lends itself towards digital products it’s a really good idea to have at least one product of your own) then it’s worth adding in an affiliate program.
Affiliates are the internet’s version of commission only salesmen: with most programs, they only get paid when they introduce a sale.
Which means that they only “cost” you money when you’ve earned money.
Depending on the sector you’re in, affiliates can be seemingly everywhere you turn – internet marketing is that kind of sector – or they can be more hidden.
But they’ll be there.
Not everyone likes writing – tapping away at a keyboard for what seems like hours on end.
Which can make voice to text software seem attractive: you speak into a microphone and your computer types out the words for you.
Windows has some built-in voice to text software. They don’t seem overly proud of it but you can get it set up if you follow the instructions Microsoft give.
The big bonus here is that the software is free, so you can find out whether or not voice to text is for you.
Questions like this one are asked all the time in forums and Facebook groups.
Maybe it’s because we like the idea that there’s a set amount of time for things to happen or a yardstick to figure out whether we’re doing better or worse than other people.
The thing is, there’s no specific amount of time for most things. Just as different babies take a different amount of time to walk or speak. Or different cars take a different amount of time to make a journey.
With email list subscribers, it’s even more variable.
Much as in Animal Farm, whilst in theory all emails on your list are equal, some are (much) more equal than others.
Which means size isn’t everything.
Pre-selling is the art of getting people in the mood to buy without seeming to be too pushy.
There’s a fine line here: if you’re too gentle with your pre-selling, people won’t take the hint. If you pressure them too much then they may decide not to buy either or might buy and then experience buyers remorse and ask for a refund (very easy to do on the web).
There are various options available to help you nudge people in the right direction (where that means they click the “buy” button and earn you some money).