Forum

[jacie]

Hi all,

I'm a newbie here and have actually viewed the Week 1 videos of the "90-day roadmap course" as well as videos under "finding profitable markets and conducting research".

However, i have some qns..

1) What do you mean by pay-per-click markets? Do they refer to those that u have to pay google to get it listed?

2) What if I wanna keeps costs to a minimum, can I simply use overture, the free wordtracker tool and forums to conduct my market research?

3) And what is the main purpose of doing keyword research? Is it to help me choose a topic or to optimize the website that i'm going to create??

I realise keyword research is actually one of the final things that one have to do while choosing a topic is actually the first. Pretty confused there.

Would appreciate any help for my queries! Thank you very much!! :D

Oh btw, do I have to know all about adsense or adwords right at the beginning or can I learn about that later after uploading a site because I'm still at the stage of choosing a topic...

Thank you~!! :)

 

[adrian]

1) Pay per click refers to a paid form of advertising. You bid on certain keywords and pay "X" amount of cents for a visitor to come to your website through your ad. These are displayed down the right hand side of the search results on Google.

2) Yes you can certainly use those 3 you mentioned to get yourself started. I did and still do.

3) Without keyword research you are going to be creating a site blindly. You will not know what words to go after, which words have a better chance of ranking, and which words get searched. Keyword research is crucial for both SEO and PPC.


.... and yes, you can learn adwords much later if you like. You don't need to master adwords in order to build up a site for organic search traffic.

 

[jacie]

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for your reply!

Hmmm... does anybody have any tips on choosing a topic?

Thank you!! :D

 

[sean06]

Very soon, I hope to be giving away the adgroups I use myself for a 300% ROI, it will make sense why I would do that when I explain myself fully.... :)

 

[kiwikool]

Hi Jacie,

:idea: Choose something you are passionate about first, Make a list of the the top 5 things that interest you. :P

:arrow: That might be

- Sport (Football, Basketball,Soccer)
- Hobbie (Dancing, Chess, Collecting)
- Movies (Horror, Romance, Action)
- Books (Reviews)
- Travel (Countries you like to visit)
- Music (Different Genres)
- Health (Beauty, Aromatherapy, Lose weight)
- Money ( Make it, Save it, Spend it)

Niche down right into what would get you excited every morning to work on your website, this is important for your first site because if you choose something that is just for the money and you aren't really into it...you may lose your enthusiasm.

For your research, first look at other sites that may be doing something similar to what you want to do, get ideas from them then adjust to suit.

Regards

Matt 8)

 

[jacie]

Thanks for your replies, Matt and Sean! :D

Hi Matt,

I like singing, music, movies, games, etc..(entertainment in general) However, I don't see how to make money from these topics..
Pls help.. :(

Hmmm... I also remember Mark saying something about different types of websites which we can set up.. right?

Thanks!! :D

 

[kiwikool]

Hi Jacie,

So once you have found what you are interested in this is what you need to do.

:idea:RESEARCH

:arrow: 1. Use traffic travis or any other keyword tool, see what people are searching for i.e. Singing, singing lessons, how to sing, singing training etc, find out how many people are looking for these niche subjects.

Google:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Google Trends:

http://www.google.com/trends

Density Analyser:

http://www.keyworddensity.com/

SEOBook

http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/

:arrow: 2. Type in Subject in Google i.e. "How To Sing" look at the top 20 sites and see what they are doing, Are they doing articles, reviews, forums, blogs, Take lots of notes and save sites in a folder in your favourites to look back again and again.

Google Search:"How to Sing"

-http://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+sing&rls=com.microsoft:en-au:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7HPAB

:arrow: 3. Type in your subject + Affiliateprogram i.e. "Singing+Affiliate Program" and you will see different affiliate programs come up that you can join. you can also search the affiliate directory on affilorama.

Google Search: "Singing+Affiliate Program"

-http://www.google.com/search?q=Singing%2BAffiliate+program&rls=com.microsoft:en-au:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7HPAB

:arrow: 4. Keep going with the 90 day program! take it one step at a time.

That should be enough info for now, go and do those few things and then let us know how you get on

Regards

Matt 8)

 

[jacie]

Thanks Matt!

Were all these taught in the videos? Because I have watched the videos and I was still lost.. Hmmm... perhaps i missed it or something... :?

 

[jacie]

Hey all!

I was using inventory.overture.com and the results they gave me was that of January 2007.. I thought it's supposed to be the results from the previous month? Which should be June right?

Thanks!

 

[adrian]

Hey all!

I was using inventory.overture.com and the results they gave me was that of January 2007.. I thought it's supposed to be the results from the previous month? Which should be June right?

Thanks!

Overture is very finicky.... learn to live with its rollercoaster :)

 

[jacie]

Ok.. Time to update on my progress.. haha..

Well, actually I have decided on what kind of a website I would like to set up.. However, I'm not too sure if it's feasible for a newbie like me..

I understand we should look for our niche market and go from there.. I also remembered Mark mentioning in one of the video lessons that it is better to create a general recipe site with subcats rather than making different sites on different topics..

So my idea is something like that, to have a site that teaches people how to play the guitar, piano, sing and also how to write songs.. Is it too ambitious?? I'm not even sure what topic these come under.. Music would be too broad.. Playing instruments would be weird since songwriting isn't even an instrument.. As a result, I can't find a suitable domain name..

Pls give me some advice?

Thank you very much!! :D

 

[sean06]

I would think for a beginner, setting up a site like that is way too difficult. I would focus on separate sites for each "instrument".

Theres no reason you can't create a network of sites that are semi related like that.

 

[jacie]

Alright, guess I shall focus on one first then..

I'm currently on my way to uploading the simple web page..

However, I already have FrontPage 2003.. so I think I should use it.. but the video lessos are mostly on Dreamweaver and the notes for FrontPage are for the 2000 version...

Hmmm.. Are there by any chance video lessons for FrontPage 2003 anywhere?? And also, I don't know how to use the article and review templates provided... :(

Thanks!! :D

 

[markling]

Hey Jacie,

I'm not sure how much will have changed between Frontpage 2000 and Frontpage 2003. Chances are the most important things are still the same, and if they're not there should be help files on the subject either in Frontpage itself or on the net. Sorry! We do our best, but we can't really give comprehensive web building advice for every software out there -- there are too many!

Just remember that at its core, every web design software has to do the same thing. And the internet is full of people who know how to create websites, so there are tutorials and explanations for pretty much everything you need to know... ask Google and you'll get answers!

The article and review site templates are just really basic layouts that you can change and use for your own website. You can either open them up in Frontpage and have a tweak, or you can go old-skool and edit the source code directly. They should be reasonably well commented (things inside brackets <!-- like this --> that are invisible to the browsers) so you can see what everything is.

Let us know how you get on!

All the best,
Mark

 

[jacie]

Hey!

I have a question.. purely out of curiousity though..

**Is it illegal to use blog sites like blogger to promote products? hmmm..

Anyway, for some real qns..

1) Is it OK to post youtube videos on one's blog?

2) How's affilorama's hosting? Anyone tried it before? (I understand that free hosting comes with the purchase of a domain.. haha..)

Thanks!! :D

 

[sean06]

Use blogger to promote stuff as much as you want, tons of other people are :)

You can add youtube vids to your site.

Affilorama hosting is good, but since I have a lot of sites, I like to host them on the one account, makes things easier to manage. Not to mention cheaper.

 

[jacie]

Hi Sean!

Then why is there a need to create our own websites if we can use blogger? (just curious.. :wink: )

Oh and I have another question.. how is setting up a blog using blogger going to help your site since it's a separate website altogether right? and it's not username.com/blog or something like that.. :shock:

 

[adrian]

Using blogger enables you to make posts from a different IP and link to your website. You can't change the code on blogger to optimize your site and you can't design it like you want. Having your own site allows a lot more flexibility. The point of one is for updates and links and traffic.

 

[jacie]

Hi Adrian!

Sorry.. but i don't understand the part about making posts from a different IP and linking to my website..

I remember in one of Mark's video, he mentioned that one of the uses of blogs is to show that your website is being updated constantly right? So what I mean is if we use blogger for example, then we would be updating username.blogspot.com instead of our own website right?

Hmmm.. I'm really a noob at this... Really really grateful for all the help you guys give me.. THANKS!!

 

[sean06]

An IP address is like a residential address for the internet. Having different IPs linking to you is good because it shows than several people are interested in your site.

And yeah, if you have a blogspot blog, it will not reflect on your real domain.

You can host wordpress blogs (for example) on your own server and have them look like yoursite.com/blog

 

[jacie]

PROBLEM!!

Hey guys.. I have a problem.. I have purchased my domain name from affilorama and tried to use the free hosting... But after uploading, my site still doesn't show.. i understand that i have to wait between 4-8hrs... and i have waited.. but still.. :(

 

[markling]

Hi Jacie,

Some say 4-8 hours, others say 12-24 hours. Is it still not showing up? Have you set the name servers of your domain to point to your hosting?

Affilorama hosting is actually GoDaddy hosting. I strongly, strongly recommend that you *don't* use the free hosting. (You're very unlikely to do well as an affiliate with the free hosting because it's plastered with ads that you don't get credit for, plus it's only about $4/month for paid hosting)

If you're still having problems with getting the hosting to work, I suggest you contact the GoDaddy hosting support team. They'll sort it out for you.

All the best, let us know how you get on.
Mark

 

[jacie]

Hi Mark,

yes.. it's still not showing up.. I thought the name servers are automatically adjusted or something?

Think my hosting can't work becos' I probably missed out some steps or something.. not really sure how to do it.. I used the web-based FTP Client.. but it doesn't work.. :(

 

[adrian]

Hi Mark,

yes.. it's still not showing up.. I thought the name servers are automatically adjusted or something?

Think my hosting can't work becos' I probably missed out some steps or something.. not really sure how to do it.. I used the web-based FTP Client.. but it doesn't work.. :(

You must point your nameservers to the nameservers you received when you signed up for webhosting. They normally give 2 nameservers. It should look something like:

XXX.XXXXXXXXXX.XXX

 

[jacie]

Hmmm.. How should I go about doing that? (I'm not using hostgator..)

 

[adrian]

Who is your webhost provider and who did you get your domain with?

If you got your domain name from the same company you got your hosting... it should be set already. If not, you are going to have to log into your account wherever you got your domain, and change the default nameservers to the ones that you were provided with by your hosting company. Other than that I can't be of much help, you are going to have to email the support staff for each company if you don't have the information.

 

[markling]

There are lots of reasons why your site might not be appearing, some of them really simple (such as not having an index.html) to the more technical. It's pretty hard for us to see from this end, sorry!

If you purchased your domain name through Affilorama hosting/GoDaddy, I suggest you talk to their customer support guys about it. They'll have a lot more experience in specific problems relating to their services, and they'll probably be able to look into your account and see what's going on.

Good luck,
Mark

 

[jacie]

Hey, I've got a qn..

For the 14-day plrpro trial right, can we cancel our membership after 14 days if we want to? or do we have to pay the $97 for the first month?

 

[markling]

You can cancel before the 14 day period is up and you won't be charged any more. Pretty good deal for $1.

Mark

 

[jacie]

Hi!

Is it possible to change the date and of posts for wordpress blogs that i have installed on my server?

Thanks

 

[markling]

Yup.

Go Manage > Posts
Find the post you want to change
> Edit

Go down to where it says "post timestamp" on the right
Change the date.

Easy as that!
Mark

 

[jacie]

How can I customize my wordpress blog? for eg, how do I produce my own header image?

And is it possible to customize the fonts of the words that show up on the blog? I don't see an option to change the font and font size.. only Bold and Italics.. :(

The themes found at WP don't really fit what I want..and it is quite hard to customize those..

 

[jacie]

Oh my god.. I just made a 'GREAT' discovery!!

i had initially wanted to change the colour of the background of my wordpress site.. not the background of the centre block where the post goes but the background of the whole page.. for eg. in this forum, it is white..

And i was changing the colour code in the theme editor (style.css) in wordpress admin that has the word background in it and totally nothing seemed to work!! the page colour still remained the same..

Then finally I remembered when i downloaded the templates, there's this file called background.gif and i edited the colour from there and it worked! But i don't think this the correct way of changing colours or is it??

Does anyone know why and how this happened?? i wanna know......and is this the right way to change colours??


oh and btw.. are we allowed to edit, change and customize wordpress themes in whatever way we want?

 

[markling]

You're in the right place already. To change the appearance of your wordpress blog you need to edit the style.css.

Now, to do this you can either just keep changing things in the style.css and see what the result is by refreshing your blog (trial and error!) or you can look at the html/php that drives the site, and try to locate what "classes" and "ids" correspond to each section. Your page is broken into lots of pieces (header, footer, main page, sidebar, etc), and each of those will have its own file in the theme editor.

To change the background colour... remember that background gif that you edited to change the colour? Look for that in the stylesheet. That'll show you which section is specifying the background colour. Delete the css that says background: url(image.gif) and replace it with background-color: #ffffff (or whatever colour you want it to be). If you want to keep it as an image, just edit the image, like you've already done!

You're getting a crash course in CSS right now! It can be a bit mindbending trying to work out how someone's stylesheet works, and it's even more confusing with Wordpress because you can't see the source file (eg. header.php, footer.php) and the CSS file (style.css) at the same time... you have to save one and then look at the other. But you'll get there eventually just by trying bits and pieces. It's a good idea to save old versions of everything you change in case you make a big mistake and you can't remember what you did! Otherwise you'd need to reinstall the theme again and start from scratch.

Good luck!
Mark

 

[markling]

P.S - Yup, you can change wordpress themes in whatever way you like. You might want to see if there was any "terms of use" documentation that came with the theme... but generally you can just tweak away.

All the best,
Mark

 

[jacie]

Hey Mark!
Thanks for replying!!

I finally understand a little about the workings of wordpress.. :)
But i can't find the background.gif filename in the css.. :(

Regarding free images, for eg, from sxc.hu, must we use it as it is or we are free to edit it as well? I don't see any conditions or terms relating to this on the site.. so I'm not very sure..

Thanks!!

 

[adrian]

I edit mine.

Hey Mark!
Thanks for replying!!

I finally understand a little about the workings of wordpress.. :)
But i can't find the background.gif filename in the css.. :(

Regarding free images, for eg, from sxc.hu, must we use it as it is or we are free to edit it as well? I don't see any conditions or terms relating to this on the site.. so I'm not very sure..

Thanks!!

 

[markling]

But i can't find the background.gif filename in the css..

It'll be in there somewhere. Are there multiple stylesheets for the theme? Perhaps try checking in the header? Trust me... It'll be there. The most obvious place it would be is in the "body" part of the stylesheet. ie

Code: Select all

body {background-image: url(image.location.gif);}

But depending on the design, it could also be somewhere else. Check up the top of your stylesheet.

Mark

 

[jacie]

Hmmm... I still can't find it.. but it's ok.. i have found another way to do it.. Thanks anyway!:)

I realised the importance of cloaking hoplinks and had wanted to do it.. i searched everywhere but can't seem to find the answer to my question.. However, i managed to use my cpanel redirects to redirect [http://www.mysite.com/something] to my hoplink..

This means during mouseover, it would show [http://www.mysite.com/something]. However, when the page loads, my hoplink will show.. is there anyway to cloak it? i know about this:

(removed broken link)

but i dunno where to place it... I'm using wordpress by the way..

Another thing.. I have tried whatever I could to add a caption to the bottom of my image but i can't seem to do it!!! spent the whole day looking up everywhere... :evil:


Thanks!!

P.S. I read from somewhere that says that cloaking affiliate link is against most guidelines.. is it true?

 

[MacDee1823]

I use this jacie,

<a href="http://www.your-affiliate-link.com"
onMouseOver="window.status='Your Text Here'; return true "
onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true ">Your Text Here</a>

 

[jacie]

Hi,

Where do you insert that?

Thanks!

 

[MacDee1823]

Jacie,

You will need to place this javascript in the coding first: Place it between the <head></head> tags of the html coding.

<script>
function hidestatus(){
window.status=''
return true
}
if (document.layers)
document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEOVER | Event.MOUSEOUT)
document.onmouseover=hidestatus
document.onmouseout=hidestatus
</script>

Than insert the <a href="http://www.your-affiliate-link.com"
onMouseOver="window.status='Your Text Here'; return true "
onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true ">Your Text Here</a>
werever you want the affiliate link to appear on the page. Just make sure that you change the link to the link you want and replace the text with what you want it to show in your browser. The last 'your text here' is for your text link on the page.

Let us know how you go.

Wes

 

[jacie]

Hi Wes,

Do you by any chance know how to go about putting captions under images as well?


And I wanted to submit my site to directories and one asked what type of link is mine? they gave the options: regular, pdf, rss and atom..

I have no idea what's mine.. i know it's definitely not pdf.. Does anybody know? Mine is a wordpress blog (as mentioned previously)..

And i know this sounds lame.. but we are supposed to submit our articles to as many article submission sites as possible right? There's no such thing as submitting only to one article directory right?

Thanks!!

 

[markling]

You add a caption to the bottom of an image in the same way that you add any HTML to your page. The problem is that you need to be able to format the text so that it doesn't just look like normal text on your page.

So you're actually getting into REAL html territory there. What you probably have to do is enclose your image inside a DIV and then put your text with it inside the DIV.

Code: Select all

<div class="divname">
<img src="/imagelocation/image.gif">
<p>Your caption here</p>
</div>

and then in your stylesheet you'll need to specify things like how wide you want the div, whether you want it to float / align left or right, how big/what colour you want the caption text to be... for example:

Code: Select all

div.divname {width: 400px; float: right;}
div.divname p {font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;}
div.divname img {border: 2px solid #cccccc;}

It would probably be beneficial if you do a little bit of studying up on HTML and CSS. Even though you're using Wordpress, you still need to know these things if you want to make your site really nice. All you have to do is Google!

And I wanted to submit my site to directories and one asked what type of link is mine? they gave the options: regular, pdf, rss and atom..

It's a regular link.

And i know this sounds lame.. but we are supposed to submit our articles to as many article submission sites as possible right? There's no such thing as submitting only to one article directory right?

You can submit to just one article directory if you like.

All the best,
Mark

 

[jacie]

Hi!

Thanks Mark!

U know in the July Update you mentioned joining social bookmarking sites?

Well, i have joined a couple of them.. However, I'm not sure what to do next.. I have updated my profile and added my website and stuff.. but I'm not too sure how people can actually find your site? Or maybe I should say, how do i make sure people find my site?

For eg in technorati, i might have claimed my blog.. but i dun think anybody knows of my existence.. LOL..

Pls advise..

Thanks!!

P.S. wow.. i think this must be one of the longest thread around here..i ask too many questions :X

 

[jacie]

Hi,

Are there any good programs that allow you to see where people come to your site from, how many visitors everyday, bla bla bla?

Any recommendations?

Thank you.

 

[markling]

Your hosting admin panel probably has Webalizer and/or AWStats installed on it, which will allow you to see some info. Otherwise you can use Google Analytics, which involves shoving a little bit of code in the bottom of all your pages, but gives you really comprehensive stats. More info than you'll know what to do with :)

Good luck,
Mark