Category Archives: Blog Crap

Best Article Writing Tip

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The start of my article writing career, as a means of link building and advertising, has been met with simply the best tip EVER.  This article writing tip is straight from the pros over at EzineArticles.com and can be found within their free Article Writing Training series PDF.

Keep an Ace Up Your Sleeve: Alway skeep a tidbit of important information in reserve to make your readers want more.  Remember, your article can generate traffic, so use the Resource Box to entice your readers to click on your website link.

This little gem just struck me to the bone and really rang true in between my ears.  Furthermore, I wonder how many comments I've made on blogs, threads in forums, or just general blog posts where I didn't keep this tip in mind.  I could have been losing all a lot of traffic over the years, mainly because I've been primarily focused on 'content' content, content.  I think my composition needs to be reworked, proofed, and a specific goal with each article that I write.

Starting with this simple blog post, can you spot or guess the Ace Up My Sleeve?

phpBay To Offer phpAmazon

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Wade from phpBay.com is currently working on an all new plugin called phpZon, which will work similarly to phpBay but for Amazon products.  The work seems to be started from a direct response from current phpBay users who have been banned from eBay and looking for an alternative.  In todays affiliate landscape it's becoming increasingly important to diversify your revenue streams, everyone should start taking a look at their current portfolio.

phpZon beta has already been released and current owners of phpBay can take advantage of special pricing.  According to Wade the first official release of the Amazon wordpress plugin will sell for $49.00 and as features are added increase in price.  However, if you purchase phpBay now or are a current owner, you can buy phpZon for only $30.  Like all of Wade's plugins upgrades and added features in the future are all free.

phpZon Features currently implemented in Beta or on the way:

  • SEO Urls
  • mod_rewrite on Amazon Images
  • Options to display reviews, product features, sale price, normal price, etc...
  • Display user ratings
  • Adjust number of listings to be displayed.
  • and more in the future.

As mentioned in previous posts on NailsBlog.com, I'm sold on phpBay and use it on a handful of blogs.  I've already purchased the beta of phpZon and am looking forward to it's final release.  Before the price goes up, I'd suggest you purchase a copy as well.

Steal My RSS Feed

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Where has RSS footer been all my life?

Two years ago I had a wildly successful video game system blog that generated great traffic, but most of my content was constantly getting stolen.  Black hat sites and the like would take my RSS feed and build thin affiliate sites out of them, with of course no link back to me.  Attempting to get my content removed was a waste of time.

Now I've been using RSS footer on some of my niche blogs and it works GREAT.  RSS Footer is a wordpress plugin that will automatically add a link to your site at the bottom of each post, with the option of adding a link back to the specific post, complete with anchor text.  The features are customizable and you can even add bits of html code, to be displayed in your RSS feed only.

No longer will I have to worry about people stealing my content via RSS, as a matter of fact I want people to use it.  Generating links has never been easier for my niche content blogs and I'm hoping to really start feeling the SEO love before too long.

Celebrating 2 Years of NailsBlog.com

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Just happened to be going through some old posts and low and behold June was the 2 year anniversary of Nailsblog.com!  Can't say it's really been a fun ride, actually barely tolerable, but I have learned a lot.  The most important thing that I've learned is that the majority of guru's don't know the difference between there ass and a hole in the ground.  Generally speaking they are applying some half-ass butterfly marketing concept they read on the net from another empty headed douche bag.

Something else that I've learned, when dealing with people online looking to earn a buck, is that being nice does NOT pay off.  In the real world it does, but when helping people online it's generally better just to spit in their face and walk away.  If they don't know how to use a search engine to at least get a dirt floor grasp of a concept, then they aren't worth the greasy stuff at the top of my butt crack.

To be honest, this blog was originally started to help support P2P, torrents, and other piracy deeds.  In my previous life I was involved heavily in some places that were shut down...in a not nice way.  Since the start of the blog the following things have changed my ways and outlook on life in general:

  • I got married.
  • I had a daughter.
  • I bought a house.
  • I bought a dog.
  • I learned that life meant nothing before #1 and #2 happened.
  • I learned that friendships online are just as important as real life friendships.

Thanks for everyone that has been with me so far and I look forward to at LEAST another 2 years of prosperous endeavor seeking blog crap.  I leave you with what my daughter thought of her very first sparkler on her very first fourth of July.

Emma Fireworks

Top 5 FeedBurner Feeds

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I know there is nothing hardcore statistically correct about my method for finding the top 5 FeedBurner feeds, but I found the information interesting nevertheless.  To be honest I'm not sure if the list contains the most subscribers, highest page rank, or search volume, but Google seems to think these are the top 5 feeds worth subscribing to.

  • Adventure Sports - No subscriber feed listing number of feedburner subscribers but he does have a FeedBurner email signup, RSS Icon, Google Reader, and Bloglines subscription chiclet.
  • My Way The Entrepreneur Network - Again, no listing of how many RSS subscribers, but the site does offer Kindle, FeedBurner, and FeedBlitz RSS subscription Icons.
  • Rede WebTuga - Site is down, notice of the future home of Rede WebTuga Feedburner Network.
  • BizJournals - They offer two locations where a user can subscribe to their feed, simple text, and then bright orange RSS button and box above the content.
  • The Conservative Blog Network - Network of various blogs, usually displaying simple RSS buttons and an email signup.

Unfortunately I don't feel like I really learned anything from the list above, other than the power of having an email signup to subscriptions.  Obviously this will offer 2 benefits, one you get more subscribers and a way to get your updates directly to their inbox, where they are more likely to check everyday...unlike some Readers that are used rarely.  Second, you are starting to build a list of emails that can be accessed via FeedBurner and used for other marketing purposes.

Now, what value does being on the list above have to the site owners...probably none considering any searches will result in actual blog pages being found.  However, it's still neat to see what's most popular out there in the eyes of Google.

Necessary Scheduling

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In the past it's never been a problem for me to find a little bit of time to make a single post a day, sometimes more on my multiple blogs. However, since I now have a little mouth to feed, and often times at all hours of the night, I'm exhausted and don't have the time needed to commit to blog posting. Well, with a little bit of searching I found a solution to my problem, future blog posting.

According to WordPress.com you can type out a post, just as you normally would, and then edit the time stamp to the time you want it actually published. Therefore, I can now make multiple blog posts, when I have time, set the stamps to auto-publish once a day and walk away. It's a perfect solution to those days when being productive just isn't an option.

For a full explanation on Future Blog Publishing check out the official WordPress site.

phpBay Review

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Let me start by giving a brief over view of the WordPress plugin phpBay. It's a tool used to help integrate you're eBay affiliate marketing with any WordPress powered blog. By entering a few variables and filters you can easily add a list of eBay items into your post with each link automatically containing your referral link. It's not a free plugin and requires a one time fee for unlimited domains for $39.

Who could benefit from such a plugin?

Almost any blog could benefit from this plugin. Chances are even personal blogs go into details about certain products from time to time and this is just another tool in your shed of marketing. However, just because you could benefit from the plugin doesn't mean it's for everyone. eBay affiliate commissions can be minimal and require substantial traffic to convert to anything worth getting a check for.

Can it be used with other advertising programs?

Typically when people ask this they mean, 'Can I use phpbay with Adsense and not get banned?' Yes, you can use this side by side with Google Adsense, because it is not a form of contextual advertising.

List me the Pros of phpBay.

  • plain and simple installation, exactly like every other WP plugin.
  • decent selection of options to make sure you display the right eBay items.
  • fairly inexpensive for what you get.
  • good customer support.
  • does not require a mysql database, therefore ideal for light weight hosting.

List me the Cons.

  • only one instance of phpBay ads can be displayed at one time, therefore you must place phpBay ads after the <more function. (See below for more of my frustration in this.)
  • not enough options. Although decent I'd like to see the ability to integrate it into sidebars, not just in posts and better category selections.
  • costs money. Yes I did list that as a Pro, but as many free WP plugins that are available, this should be one too.

Summary

It was a decent purchase and defintely not a waste of money like so many other programs and scripts available out there. I would consider this plugin juvenile in it's existence and would hope for some more development in the very near future. The inability to display more than one instance of itself on a page is very frustrating and should at least be remedied with a short cut fix.

Adsense Deluxe is a perfect example of a plugin that was designed to work with no more than X instances of itself on a page. This should be easily integrated into phpBay so that if it detects more than one instance of itself on a page it doesn't load the others. As it stands now, it will screw up your RSS feed without placing the code after the <more tag.

Currently there is nothing else really to compare it to in the marketplace of WordPress plugins. However, when compared to other eBay affiliate tools like BuildANicheStore, it has a long way to go. Check back soon for my review on BANs.

Continue reading →

ScribeFire Humps My Face

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Perhaps I'm behind the times or maybe I just hadn't found a use for the application yet, but let me tell you I absolutely love ScribeFire. This little plugin for FireFox allows me to blog to any of my multiples of blogs (see blogroll for an idea) from one location.

ScribeFire automatically manages all of my blogs from one location, by logging in and retrieving previous posts, tags, pages, and the ability to keep notes. I know right now I'm just scratching the surface but damn, it's already making my life easier. We'll see if I have any login issues once I get around to upgrading to the latest WP release. eeek?!

This is an unsolicited post, if your interested in ScribeFire click here.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Bummer Summer

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My internet marketing and sales took off for the first time, in it's existence this past fall and peaked just after the first of the year. The bummer is that since it turned hot, my traffic has decided to take nose dive into a cool swimming pool. What's the answer?

I've learned that a diverse portfolio does no good, unless you plan for the dog days. Knowing trends is beneficial in keeping a steady income, instead of crossing your fingers and hoping for the best each month. This uneasy income flow has caused me to create a few goals for myself.

1.) Don't play so much during the summer time, I still have to work, no matter how nice outside it gets.

2.) I know kids are outside playing, because it is nice, so my MySpace targeted sites are gonna drop. Likewise for my gaming blogs, I'll need to add MORE content to keep their attention and gear content towards a summer time theme.

3.) Plan accordingly, I should have a summer time themed website and/or network of sites. Who cares how full my plate is, I want consistency dagnabbit(1 word or 2?).

4.) Buy new window blinds.

5.) Sell any one of my sites to Google and retire at the ripe old age of 25.

Playing along…

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I'm usually the person to break a forward and have everlasting bad luck for the rest of my life, but this time I'm gonna play. Yesterday I received note that I had been blog-tagged(not to be confused with bag-tagged) and I needed to post 5 things about myself others might not know.

Thanks for the tag Mrs. Bailey. :)

1. I quit smoking 1 week after getting married. Still clean, which others thought I couldn't do and I'm on month 4 at this point.

2. I'd rather drink my mothers warm urine from a rusty bucket than play a board game.

3. I think racial profiling is a good thing.

4. My house received some damage a few months ago due to flooding. My house is not in a flood plane and the city I live in has already received over 20" above normal rainfall. No flood insurance. :(

5. Although tentative, my 5 year goal is to earn enough from Adsense and Affiliate Sales that I will not have to work for someone else, ever again. I set this goal 4 months ago and it looks like it will be sooner than 5 years. ;)

I'm willing to bet these people will not follow suit, mainly because I'm too lazy to PM all of them like Cricket did, but maybe they will see me in their stats. Just maybe.

Ok, now I need to tag a few peeps to keep this viral seobs rollin:  Cass Knits, irregular, bullet proof, webpuffs, wonova