I've stumbled across a great function of Google Chrome to easily find out what kind of keyword density I'm putting into my posts. Actually, the function within the Google Chrome browser will provide feedback on exactly how many times a word is used on the open page and highlight where that word can be found.

To search the keyword, simply press Ctrl+F, which will bring a drop down in the top right of the browser to enter a search term. After entering the search term the keyword will be highlighted on the page. Within the drop down search menu will be a 1 of XX, displaying how many times the keyword was used on the page.

This neat little Chrome trick will help in increasing or decreasing the density of keywords being used on an article. Although it's also a great tool to use when searching for specific information on a HUGE page full of irrelevant text.

So Google has just released one of their better social networking applications and we can't even use it on their official Sites pages?  As of this posting there is no way to integrate Google Friend Connect gadgets on Google Sites pages.

I'm working on a few pages that would greatly benefit from having their 'Share This' gadget, along with member signups, and newsletter confirmations.  However, the current state of Google Sites prohibits the use of any code that requires javascript, other than their Adsense which can be added into the sidebar.

The Google Friend Connect code can be added via the html function of Google Sites, but the user is greeted with a warning that the potentially dangerous code will be removed upon viewing.  A la, no more working Google Friend Connect on Google Sites.

I'm not the only one upset that Friend Connect won't work with Sites.  A thread on the official Sites Forum has over 43 posts from people looking to add Friend Connect to their personal Google Site pages.  The reason it hasn't been integrated yet, my best guess is that they were too busy copying Twitter to come up with Buzz!.

Honeymoon is over PJN, time to start offering as many linking options as CJ in regards to the advertisers you carry.  I still stand behind my statements that the Pepperjam Network is one of the best online, but they are only as good as the tools they offer.  From where I'm setting, Pepperjam Ads just isn't cutting the mustard.  Lastly, for the life of me I can't get Pepperjam Store to convert, so what does work?

Currently on my automotive website I'm taking a much more proactive approach at attracting visitors for very specific products.  AutoPartsWarehouse.com seems to have plenty of products that can turn into a virtually endless amount of content for me to write about, but how best to link to what I'm trying to sell?  With Pepperjam my options are limited to banners, coupons, and some text links, however Commission Junction offers some fantastic Advanced Link options.

Specifically within AutoPartsWarehouse.com link catalog on CJ you are able to create interactive product searches.  More importantly there are figures published on CJ that prove these types of linking strategies work.  So why hasn't PJN offered these advanced links yet?  Is it a problem with Pepperjam or with the individuals in charge of AutoPartsWarehouse.com's affiliate program?

Maybe it's the fact that AdBlock Plus has started cutting into my profits, maybe it's the fact that I'm starting to like Chrome and faith that it will reach it's full potential, or maybe it's because I watched a 90 movie on the JFK assassination last night.  Either way, I'm starting to wonder if the Google Chrome Browser wasn't created to preemptively stop add-ons like AdBlock Plus.  Why wouldn't Google want to protect it's paying AdWords users from a potentially dehabilitating browser add on that is growing in popularity?

As you know, as of now, there are no add ons for Chrome.  Sure, there are tweaks, and lots of options to configure, but no real meat and potatoes for add ons, which are available for FireFox.  Now, I strongly believe in a future version of Chrome there will be some opening up to 3rd party addons and stronger in house addons developed.  However, I think they will be tightly monitored and those that couldn't potentially hurt Google's interests will not be allowed.  The best way to nip this in the butt, to start gaining market share now, to control the flow of change progress interruption.

I hope I'm wrong, because the slippery slope means bad things for the open source community.  But I just get the nagging feeling that Google is attempting to control the browser market so that they can eliminate potential 3rd party threats to their business models.

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WiredTree.com is my new hosting provider and I absolutely could not be happier with the level of support and flexibility they offer.  I've made several posts stating this even before they announced plans to release an affiliate program.  So it's obvious I'm happy with their hosting, at least the VPS package I've signed up with.  Even more impressive for a hosting company is that they've already upgraded my server package, for FREE.  I feel confident recommending them as a hosting provider to anyone interested in a step above shared hosting.

Alexis Babiarz has been charged with building and developing the affiliate program for the past few months.  From what I can tell from the beta release, it looks like time well spent.  The administration panel offers access to all the general tools for affiliate publishers, like banners, text links, and general information on becoming a better affiliate.  Of note are a few resources like a redirect tool for affiliate links.

The WiredTree affiliate program offers some very competitive commissions compared to other hosting affiliate programs.  The only thing that is missing as of this posting is the ability to accept a lower, reoccurring commission that benefits those referrals that become long time customers.  Below is a breakdown on the tiers of commissions currently available from the WiredTree program.

1 - 25 Referrals Earn 75% cash commission or 100% credit from each new
client's first month total.

26 - 50 Referrals Earn 100% cash commission or 125% credit from each new
client's first month total.

51 - + Referrals Earn 125% cash commission or 150% credit from each new
client's first month total.

According to the announcement within the Grove Administrative Panel on WiredTree.com the affiliate program has not been released to the public as yet.  So for now only customers of WiredTree can sign up and then must be manually approved.  The official launch of the hosting affiliate program will be sometime in August, I'm guessing August 1st.

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Just received a wonderful announcement today from my hosting provider WiredTree.com!  They will be bumping up everyone's VPS plan for free.  So whichever tier you choose, the program you choose will automatically be upgraded to the specs of the tier above yours.

Dear Valued WiredTree VPS Client,

We are pleased to announce we are upgrading VPS resources for all existing customers! We will be phasing out our VPS384 plan and we will be introducing a VPS1024 plan as our new high-end VPS plan. Every VPS plan will be shifted up a step from the plan it is on currently. For example, if you have a VPS384 currently, you will be upgraded to our new VPS512. If you have a VPS768 you will be upgraded to our VPS1024. This "level up" will be occurring for all current VPS customers, and the best part? Your rates will remain the same!

We have invested thousands of dollars over the past few months upgrading our infrastructure to support these increased allocations to ensure you are getting the best value for your money. These upgrades will be performed throughout the rest of the month and you will receive a personalized email when your VPS has been upgraded letting you know your new resources. Nearly every client will receive a memory and bandwidth upgrade and some will receive a disk space upgrade as well. Again, you will receive a personalized email for each VPS you have during the next couple of weeks with specific details on what has been upgraded on your account. There will not be any downtime required to perform the upgrade either!

I can't exclaim enough how much happier I am now that I've switched to them as a hosting provider.  WiredTree.com is heads and shoulders above the type of service and uptime I was receiving from ManageMyBox.com, good riddance.

The majority of sites that I operate work off of the WordPress blogging script.  I have been unable to find a comparable website backend that stream lines my affiliate marketing.  Everything is made easier in Word Press due to it's huge inventory of plugins, which allow for simple tasks like adding Amazon products to posts or full on automated scraping of articles and products.

Below are the Word Press affiliate plugins I can't live without. (Affiliate links are used, thanks for your support.)

phpBay Pro ($79.00) - My online life has changed since finding this handy little affiliate plugin.  Basically the WP plugin adds items from eBay onto your blog and can be customized to fit your sites style.  Items can be inserted in a shop type manner or as a few items listed at the bottom of a post.  This plugin has great support directly from it's creator Wade and is under constant improvement and updates to follow the changes within eBay.  phpBay Pro works with the eBay Partner Network and with Pepper Jam Network.

See phpBay Pro in action - Used Hybrid Cars

Amazon Auto Poster ($29.99) - I've only started using this WP plugin about a month back and it's already paid for itself.  As you can tell by it's name, this plugin scrapes product listings at Amazon.com and then creats blogposts automatically.  The items are scraped per your keyword choices, starting point, and category.  The posts generated can then be scheduled up to 9 days out or published immediately.

See Amazon Auto Poster in action - Flip MinoHD Camcorder

Article Auto Poster Premium ($29.99) - Again, I just started using this plugin about a month ago and it's already provided me with additional traffic, sales, and profits.  Just like the plugin name says, it scrapes ArticlesBase.com for the keyword you choose and generates blog posts off the articles found.  Each keyword creates it's own job to publish a post based off of that keyword as often as you want.  This is a great method of generating long tail keyword search traffic and keep your blog updated when you cannot be bothered with writing content.

See Article Auto Poster Premium in action - 10 People To Surround Your Band With

AD Rotator (FREE) - This free Word Press plugin makes ad management on your blog a no brainer.  You create a catalog of advertisements, which are then grouped by php code that you place within posts or on your theme files.  This will automatically rotate the ads you placed within the group.  Weights can be adjusted and there is no limit to the amount of ads that you use.  Great way to keep ads fresh on your site through multiple page views and try different affiliate products.

Closing Statement

I use a lot of different plugins with my Word Press blogs, but these are the ones that I can't live without and provide me the most commissions.  No, the majority of them are not free, but very quickly they can be paid for with just a little traffic.  Pair these WP plugins with a browser plugin like Affiliate Espionage and you'll see your weekly earnings rise.  It still takes hard work, but thanks to plugins our work as marketers can be streamlined.

Like any digital product your mileage may vary.  However, the items listed here I use on a daily basis and can vouche for their usefullness.  For more affiliate news and information please read my affiliate blog on Blogspot, where on my latest post I describe what makes a BAD landing page.

Update 7/2/09 - The Amazon Auto Poster and Article Auto Poster are now known as WP Robot.  I'm still on the fence on my opinion of the new wordpress affiliate tool.  First reactions is that there is only an option to schedule and not 'Publish Now', which makes it difficult to edit these posts before going live.  We'll see.

I'm guilty of having too many irons in the fire and this summer is no exception.  Although having this problem doesn't allow for any single project to be exceptionalin quality, it does allow some testing to see which sites will potentially be money makers.  That's why I continue to partially develop and build at a slow pace on many projects and then once they start earning money adjust my focus.

Tunerhybrids.com - Automotive forum dedicated to hybrid enthusiasts looking to modify their cars.

Why I Think It Will Work

Every type of car has an enthusiast that ones to customize and push the limits of the vehicle.  I thoroughly believe that they hybrid market is no exception and because of this I'm lookign to cash in early.  This forum will hopefully serve as a place for hybrid enthusiasts to meet up, discuss, and learn new ways to customize their hybrid cars.

suGuesstion.com - Humor site with failblog type pictures of search suggestions from popular search engines.

Why I Think It Will Work

Why do any humor sites make it, especially those like FailBlog.org and Icanhazcheeseburger?  It's a specific niche that can easily be updated daily, it will be a stop on the internet, not a destination.  With proper integration of social bookmarking scripts this can be another meme phenomenon.(maybe that's asking a bit much)

EvansvilleBlog.com - Local blog that focuses on what I'm doing in my home town.

Why I Think It Will Work

Currently there is very limited competition amongst the Evansville Indiana market for an online presence.  This seemed like a great opportunity, considering this is a city of more than 300,000.  Time will tell if I can keep it updated frequently enough to start drawing regular visitors and local advertising dollars.

Buy-HD.com - Testing blog for automated affiliate scripts focused on any product that claims high definition.

Why I Think It Will Work

So far so good, considering the majority of the content is scraped from article websites.  Furthermore it focuses on an affiliate program that requires a lot of volume to really make some money, Amazon.com.  I'm hoping that generated content mixed with my own articles will help bring in some of the residual search engine traffic, since I'm not too concerned with Google at the moment.

Dead Man Blogging - My actual affiliate 'guru' blog, with tips on marketing online.

Why I Think It Will Work

I'm not an expert on everything online, but what I do learn I like to share with others.  If nothing else this blogspot blog is a launching point for me to work on my writing skills.  So far traffic has been increasing on a weekly basis, we will see where it takes me.

The Google Blog Search powered Incoming Links widget on the dashboard of my WordPress blog is no longer functioning.  This has been going on for a few days now and I know I have links, although it shows none.  I've verified incoming links because I'm getting ping backs and interlinking amongst my own blogs as well.

Perhaps this function is broken because of a change in Google Blog Search or in the latest update of Word Press.  I can't remember if this just started happening around the time of upgrading to WP 2.8 or not.  Either way, it was a nice feature to have, especially when said blogs weren't pinging and were just mentioning your posts in passing.

Thank you Microsoft for finally launching Bing!  Taking it a step further, please continue to promote Bing and make it a real Google competitor.  Today traffic from Bing has made a substantial impact on my web stats.

Also, following the search terms used I'm seeing that the visitors are highly relevant.  In most cases it appears to be mimicking Google SERPS, but for now has me closer to the top of the results.  Although I know this is early in on it's launch, but it already feels better not having to worry about all my eggs being in Google's basket.

I think it's time I start looking into advertising on Bing, at least while the attention is high.  And, I'll kick back and hold my breath that the traffic will hold and increase as time goes by.  Google needs some competition.