Glowleaf

Namedrive just let me in on the Beta of  Fastpage, which is a glorified way of saying “autosites”.

In the beta, you just switch a few domains from your standard parked domain portfolio over to Fastpark. You add their keywords and categories, as normal. And then you hit “publish”.

After a few minutes, the autosites go live and you can edit them and custom tailor them to what you want.

Here is a screenshot of the beta editing interface:

As you can clearly see from the screenshot (you have to click it, duh…), you can easily and quickly change colours, columns, widgets etc. On the optimize button you can add meta data for better seo.

The current widgets are fine by themselves:

• Text adds a text box that you specify, just like in wordpress
• Blog entries does not seem to work yet
• Image uploads an image from your drive
• Widget is for custom widgets, i.e. amazon?
• Affiliate code is where you put your affiliate codes directly in the page
• Bookmark just adds the well known widget bookmark everything
• CPC ads puts a box that pulls ads like Adsense
• Chat room adds a “room” with javascript IRC goodyness.
• News pulls news articles based on a keyword you specify.
• Photos adds photos from the web based on a keyword you specify.
• RSS feed is, yes! An RSS feed you specify. Propably the most powerful feature. You can put your own site’s feeds, or product feeds with affiliate codes, or whatever.
• Search box adds a redundant search box. There is another one on top.
• Full page widgets are very powerful, they are filled with pictures and article snippets and even ads. A single one of them makes the site look like a real one. Currently, there are only a few choices but this is still beta. The themes are Lottery, Horoscope, entertainment, stocks, swimsuit models (yes, babes), recipes, soccer, mortgages, MPG ratings,  sudoku (!), flight tracking, fitness videos. They are great so far, and I am sure that upon Fastpage’s launch there will be enough to feed the world.
• Flights shows up a flights search box, with aff links. You get a part of the payout.
• Hotels, same as above.
• Jobs shows job listings, you can put in a keyword, or leave it black and let it geolocate. Yup, awesome.
• Local directory, same as above.
• Products (affiliate) pulls product feeds based on keyword, with per sale commission where as,
• Products (CPC) does the same, but you earn per click. Pretty good if you ask me.
• And finally property listings pulls data based on zip code, or if left black it geolocates.

It generally is an awesome feature, but still in the early days of beta. The interface is simple yet powerful, and it enables you to manage, optimize and monetize a large portfolio of parked domains. Especially Fastpage is a true example of set-it-and-forget-it, you do the work once, you let it work forever.

It is still early to judge results, but I suggest that you add the RSS feeds to your fastpages so that they remain fresh to the bots.

Click this to Signup at Namedrive.

Popularity: 1% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: fastpage, minisites, namedrive, parked domains, site creation

Today I am going to talk about a premium wordpress plugin, called WFReview.

Since most of my readers are also Wickedfire members, you probably know of WFReview already. Whether you already own WFReview or not, I suggest you read on. There are plenty of tips.

WFReview is rather simple, it enables you to import csv files into templated posts, and adds a rating feature. Yes, the five star thingie.

What is so great about this plugin, is that when used right, it can supercharge an otherwise crawling site. How? I will show you.

First of all, the import function works great. I have never had a problem even with huge csv files, and even when I did, it proved out to be my fault. The csv import can be automated, to keep a site such as a niche store up to date. WFReview can be set up via a cron job to fetch an updated csv file from FTP. That csv file could be an auto updated product export from Commission Junction for example (it can be found under Account-Services-Create product export in your CJ panel).

Most sites will have no need for that, but automation is always good to have.

WFReview can also be used as a massive site generator. With the right csv data, you can generate a blog thousands of pages long in no time. It will also look good if you dedicate enough time to it… The custom template for the posts is where you need to put most of your attention. Make a test csv file 2-3 rows high and test and re-test the template until you get it right. Don’t forget that this is plain html, which means you can add whatever you like, clickable product thumbnails, buttons, similar posts code etc. Just do it right, its the most important step.

Now, how do you get those csv’s?

There are plenty of options:

• Google them. You can search for filetypes you know.
• Generate them at google squared. Here is the square for “space shuttles” for example. The squares can be cleaned up manually, then exported as csv files. I suggest similar categories, e.g. horror movies, action movies, comedy movies.
• Get them at factual. It is still in beta, but there is a wealth of data in there.

Ok, then. Lets say you generated a couple of those massive post blogs. What now. How do you monetize them?

WFReview makes it easy. There is a keyword rewrite function, which lets you automatically rewrite any keyword to a link. It is under the “Affiliate links” tab. Yes, fill it up with your aff links. I told you it rocks. But don’t use it only like that. Use it to link to your moneysite’s posts, deeplinking with nice anchor text while keeping it clean.

Another cool feature of WFReview is the “Generate reviews” function. It basically creates fake reviews, randomly votes of stars in your posts. It is really good, but you need to keep a few things in mind:

• It doesn’t comment. Of course, a rating looks ok by itself.
• Put a small number of ratings, like 3-17. The problem is that the randomizer ends up averaging the ratings, and if you put too many, you end up with 2000 posts all with 2,5 rating. It doesn’t look natural, and it defeats its original purpose.
• Voter’s names are pulled from two files, one for male names and one for female. The files are plain text, firstname_female.txt and firstname_male.txt. The problem is that noone on the internet actually signs with their first name. Just check out WOW, for all those druuuids and Gand@lfs and Legolasses. Instead, I created a username list that I use, that I feel is more realistic. You can download it here.
• The autogenerated comments are great, but what is really great is that rating forces interactivity in your site. Make sure to put a “Recent comments” widget in your sidebar, and fine-tune the rating classes and the whole layout to provoke rating from the real visitors. Auto comments are fine, but their real purpose is to kick-start the site. Remember that.

To summarise, WFReview is an amazingly powerful tool. It enables you to make great affiliate sites. I strongly encourage you to buy it, but only if you are willing to take the time and utilize this powerhouse to its fullest.

Did I mention that all future updates are free?

Click here to Buy WFReview

Popularity: 2% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: csv import, minisites, niche sites, review plugin for wordpress, wfreview, wordpress

Using social media is a one-way street in today’s internet. What used to be a passing fad 2 years ago is now a serious marketing platform.

It depends on your site/product/service of course, but social media can push serious traffic towards you.

Facebook.

By hitting the 300 million milestone, Facebook is now a huge platform. Have you ever dreamt as a marketer “what if I could reach out a whole country? That would be awesome.”

Well, now you can. Facebook has the biggest userbase in the world. What used to be a fad, is now a must. The smart thing that facebook did was the notifications. A friend of yours signs up on Facebook? You get notified, because it parsed his email list. Someone added you as a friend? You get emailed. Someone tagged you on a photograph? The same. Someone replied on that comment on a photograph? Spam, spam spam. And the funny thing is, that it is never treated as spam. Facebook just lets you know that other people are doing stuff on your account. And since those people are your friends, you never get offended if they keep spamming you with sheep and mafia guns. Facebook is just the messenger.

Twitter.

Twitter must be the biggest fad of them all. Many have fought it and then fell in love with it. Even I did. In fact, it is so great, that its traffic must be the most valuable of them all. Twitter traffic comments on your posts, subscribes on your RSS and email list, blogs about you, retweets your tweets etc. You might not be able to directly sell something on twitter, but you are bound to get some exposure. And if your promo is worth it, that exposure will convert indirectly.

I think that twitter nailed it with the 140 word limit. People get spammed all day, every day, around the world. Ads, radio, phone calls, SMS, emails, billboards, leaflets, a whole blizzard of little spammy messages are fighting each other for your attention. And researches show that the average attention span of a person has been reduced significantly the last few years. Twitter fits that lifestyle perfectly. The way I see it, it is even better than RSS feeds. I used to go through my subscribed RSS blogs every few days, and had to read to whole posts etc. Now, I just have a twitter account, follow those people who interest me, and receive manageable chunks of info from them every day. It is a mashup of little shouts, and they stay non-intrusive because I chose to receive them!

Myspace.

Don’t neglect Myspace. Yea, its old. Yea, it sucks. But there are a lot of people on it. And the best part is, a lot of stupid people. People to whom you can sell stuff.

Ok then, how can we leverage these 3 social sites easily and effectively?

There is a little piece of software that does all that. It is called tweetdeck, and it rocks. It started out as a more useful GUI for multiple twitter accounts, but the newest version bridges Myspace and Facebook as well. I believe it is a marketer’s wet dream.

Once you set it up, you can manage each of your site’s social exposure on 3 social networks from the same interface. Lets say you have your personal blog, so you make accounts for it at Myspace, Facebook and twitter. You pass everything into tweetdeck, and voila, you can post and manage them from one location. Want to promote your service? 3 more accounts, set them up in Tweetdeck, and you can go back and forth between them all day inside tweetdeck.

Of course, setting up the accounts is an important step. Different social sites need different approaches to succeed in getting lots of victi… cough, sorry, friends.

Honestly, for Myspace I have no idea what to do to make an account popular. Google it, someone will know.

For facebook, I found this useful article on Mashable amongst the enormous pile of crap on that domain.

For twitter, a lot has been said, but it is all bloated bullshit. What you need to know is this: link periodically to interesting stuff in your niche. That is all, honestly. Either do it manually or automate it. An easy way to do this is to fire up tweetdeck (I told you it rocks!) and open a search tab. As a keyword put something in your niche, for example #php or #wordpress or #lol. Spend exactly 40 seconds every day, check that tab on tweetdeck, and retweet something that looks even remotely interesting, you don’t even have to click the bit.ly

Of course it is not as easy as it sounds. Creating a following through social media takes time, and there is no secret recipe for it. What is certain is that it does help your site, and it does help get exposure.

Now, what should you promote? Not everything works when you promote to the social crowd. Think about building/promoting:

• Viral content
• Video
• Interaction/Flash promo
• Polls
• Contests
• Interesting articles

How can you twist the above into sales? Well, that is for you to find out! It is different for every product, but there is always an angle of approach you can take to twist linkbait/socialbait into buying.  Use your imagination, and keep an eye open for what other marketers are doing on the same platforms.

Signup on my mailing list if you want juicier stuff than this.

Popularity: 3% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: facebook, myspace, social media, tweetdeck, twitter

Here is how to add a sitemap to Phpfox.

First of all, you will need a script that is now paid, but my version is an old free one. I have it available for download here, the sitemap generator.

Just unzip the file and add the generator folder as it is on your root, so that you have yoursite.com/generator

This script can actually generate sitemaps for any engine, so you can use this for other engines as quirky as Phpfox. Its installation instructions are pretty straightforward, follow those, but you will need a few hacks as well.

You will need notepad++ to edit the .htaccess file. Please note that the .htaccess usually cannot be seen from most ftp clients, you will have to get it from your host’s file manager. If you can’t find notepad++, here is a download page.

Now, all you need to do is add exceptions to the htaccess so that, one, you can access the xml generator script and two, so the sitemap.xml is accessible.

Open the .htaccess with notepad++, and add these 2 lines of code:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/generator/.*

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/sitemap.xml

to the first batch of commands, and again the same two lines on the second batch of commands. Save as .htaccess, and upload. Then you navigate to www.yoursite.com/generator/index.php and configure the script.

After you set it to spider your site and the sitemap is generated, you can submit it to google.

Popularity: 3% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: htaccess, notepad++, phpfox, sitemap generator, xml sitemap

When I look back to my internet assets, I see a lot of foundation, a lot of “solid” matter to rely on and push my new sites upwards. Of course, a lot of work and experimentation went into those foundations. Blind stumbling was involved too. Well, you don’t have to run blind.

I assume you have read Eli’s SEO empire, if not, then you certainly should. Actually print that out and have it by your desk for reference.

I also wrote my version of the concept. I haven’t read it recently, and I assume it will not be as good.

Anyway, based on these concepts, here is a great opportunity to begin your SEO foundation. There is a guy on WF, who is making mininets for you. Feedback seems to be excellent from the thread(s). Yes, his average prices are steep if you are just starting out, but hey, you either do the gruntwork or pay for it. And the cheapest package is 80$. Come on.

I suggest you buy one of his mininets (don’t wait too long, he won’t be around forever) and take that as a framework to learn and develop your own.

Popularity: 4% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: mininets, seo empire