Couldn’t resist publishing “The Weekend Web” this week. Because in this edition we will be speedlinking to making your video more powerful.
Last week I attended a traffic and marketing webinar. Although I am in no position to purchase the offer, I have been putting everything I learned into action. First of all it made sense. But most of all the tips save time. And in this particular webinar, I learned just how important video is to getting traffic and marketing anything.
What does this have to do with this post? I’ve got proof. I’ve got Stats! Video Stats. Continue reading →
“RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary”. It is an XML code that “feeds” out information from a site in an organized manner. The feed must be subscribed to and is read using an aggregator, or feed reader, tool. (Some feeds can also be subscribed to and set to send you a new email whenever the site is updated, but this is an option that the site has to make available to its users.” The Online Instructor
Why give your readers a subscribe to RSS feed by email option?
Your audience may not be into using an RSS reader
Email is a familiar tool
Your readers get an email every time you add a new post
RSS feed subscription on WordPress
Making it easy to subscribe to RSS feed via email on a WordPress site can be a little difficult. I know I went the rounds to figure it out.
First of all I wanted an RSS feed to email alternative to using FeedBurner. But I have come back to using FeedBurner for now. And because it is the Feed most people use I will be teaching you how to set up your email with FeedBurner.
I have noticed that most WordPress sites do not give this email option. And there are those that have the icon on their site but it is not set up right. So here is a tutorial to help you fix that.
What your need for set up
A social media plugin with an RSS email option
A Google Feedburner Feed
The correct URL to put into your plugin
Social Media Plugin
I use “Social Media Widget”: Adds links to all of your social media and sharing site profiles. Icons come in 3 sizes, 4 icon styles, and 4 animations.
This plugin gives you a widget you can drag into your sidebar. You can see the widget in action at the top of my sidebar.
Upload “Social Media Widget” right from your WordPress dashboard.
Google FeedBurner feed
Feedburner is one of the many tools Google has to offer. Using your FeedBurner as a way for your readers to subscribe to your blog is only one of the ways to syndicate your blog using RSS feed.
Google gives loads of great information about using their RSS feed to email and some basic directions. But they do not give you the exact code you will need to use in your WordPress social media plugin.
Now lets cut to the chase with step by step directions and pictures.
First you will need to go to your Google account. Make sure you are logged into you Gmail account. Now you can set up your FeedBurner account or access your current account at http://feedburner.google.com. When you are logged into you Google Account this link should open up to enable to create your account or get your account info.
If your are new create your feed.
OR
Select the feed to your site.
On the next page click the top “Publicize” Tab.
On the next page you will choose “Email Subscriptions” in the sidebar.
Now scroll to the bottom of the next page…this is where you will get your URL. Do not get confused it is inside a piece of code. You are going to grab code, and I am going to show you how to edit it for your plugin.
Copy and past the code onto a notepad or a sticky note on your desktop.
Decide if you want to receive emails when someone unsubscribes.
Save…which now makes your service active.
Next we are going to pull the URL you need for your Plugin
Choose the piece of code in between the parenthesis copy, paste and save it.
Now go back to your sites side bar widgets. Make sure Social Media Widget has been drug into your sidebar.
Open the widget and find the E-mail URL space.
The top URL is for your RSS Feed and will populate your RSS Icon. It is usually http://feeds2feedburner.com/YOURSITENAME
Copy and paste the E-mail URL you created and saved on your notepad. It will populate your email icon.
Hit the save button at the bottom of the widget.
That is it! Now go give your readers another way to subscribe to your site.
Sheila
P.S. Subscribe to Newbie Lifeline by RSS feed to email.
P.P.S.Update.. Two of my subscribers are having a problem getting their Feedburner account. Here is a link that will give you step by step directions
Don’t you just love finding the best free web testing tools and free tools that help you improve your site?
While I am searching the web I grab and test out the free tools I find. In fact I have compiled my list and put them in a free report for you.
Here are 3 free web testing tools from my list that now has over 275 free tools and resources.
Have you ever wondered who is copying and using your blog posts? Or wondered if the content you are buying is original?
Copyscape offers free web testing tools for checking originality and to find those who have copied your hard work. They also offer a very nice upgrade for their professional services.
Plus you can get a Copyscape warning button for your Website:
Now how would you a free web testing tool that will grade your site?
HubSpot has a free website grader that is just fabulous, and aptly named, Website Grader.
You will be asked to opt in for your free report. You will be glad you did optin. Hubspot has loads of valuable information and webinars.
Two of my favorite online entrepreneurs, Lewis Howes and Marcus Sheridan share a little more about Hubspot.
In this video Lewis Howes interviews Hubspot head of marketing, Mike Vople. Not only do you get a quick over view of Website Grader, Mike gives you a quick lesson in how they use this free tool in their marketing.
When it comes to getting conversions from your site, how would you like to start out knowing where your readers attention goes?
A heat map will help you do this. You can tell where you viewer will be looking when they come to your site.
If you are using IE or the Firefox browers you can get a visual heat map of clicks on an HTML page with ClickHeat.
There are several free heat map resources, but I found that AttentionWizzard works the best and it is next to free. For 1 penny each you can get 10 heat maps of your site. At that price it is next to free.
Attention Wizzard is easy to use and cheap. Even the upgrade is a nice price for Web Developers.
Have fun testing your website!
Sheila
P.S. Sign in below for more Free Web Tools.
P.S.S. Tell us about any free web testing tools you love.
Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.
It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
M’m! M’m! Good!
Just Do It
I’m lovin’ it
Things Go Better With_____
Have it your way.
What happens in ____stays in ______.
Even a caveman can do it.
Good to the last drop.
Is it live, or is it _______?
Thirty Minute Meals
Two things stand out with these famous taglines – money and relevance.
The huge amounts of money spent on an advertising campaign can make any tagline stick in the minds of your audience. I’m “lovin’ it” is a good example of this. This tagline could be used for just about any product from hotel service to underwear.
Just imagine the big money spent by McDonalds to make their tagline stick in the minds of their customers.
Brand Taglines
Putting your brand into your tagline makes it relevant: “Things go better with Coke.” “Is it live, or is it Memorex?” There is no guessing with brand taglines. But still, it has taken some pretty big bucks to make these stick.
Don’t have big bucks? Don’t need big bucks.
Relevance
“What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas has relevance since Las Vegas has a reputation for being Sin City.
When it comes to the Internet, blogs and marketing niches, you better have a tagline that is relevant. New visitors to your site will only take a few seconds to decide if the site is relevant to their search. The best taglines say “this site is exactly what you are looking for”.
You will need to come up with a website tagline that is easy to read and relevant to what to you and your site. You want a blog tagline that quickly reveals exactly what your site is about.
Have you been taking advantage of PLR (private label rights)? Or have you fallen in to a great big PLR trap?
Now that I have been writing articles for clients, I have found my self using more and more PLR. It saves me tons of research time and makes it easy to come up with tons of new ideas.
You can expand and grow a niche pretty darn quick with PLR. You can build up a brand and grab more exposure. Whether you sell your own products or affiliate products PLR makes it super easy to get more information online quickly.
But there are some great big PLR traps you can fall into just as quick.
Pitfall #3 – Failing to have a purpose for your PLR purchase
What do you want that PLR to do for you? Exactly what will you be using it for? Know before you purchase any PLR.
Will you use it for blog posts? Good, get the PLR and rewrite it for your blog. Need it for an email e-course? Good, rewrite the articles and get them on your auto-responder and your optin box on your site. Want to use your PLR package to promote a product? Excellent, rewrite it for your blog and email series and promote away.
Pitfall #2- Buying PLR you do not use
What is that PLR doing sitting in a folder on your hard drive? You bought for what reason? Yea, yea. It is easy to purchase products on the Internet. It is much harder to get them polished up and put into action.
Quality PLR are diamonds in the rough. They need some quality cutting and polishing. They need to be put on display in order to go to work for you. And they are not doing their job if you are not using them.
Pitfall #1- Using PLR “as is”
Don’t you think it would be a little embarrassing to have the same article or email as someone else? Especially when you are putting your name on it. Taking the lazy way out is foolish, especially when you can make a diamond out of a quality PLR article.
You may find that it is quite a trick to rewrite PLR articles. You may find it difficult to improve a PLR article and make it unique. Or you may find it very time consuming to rewrite PLR. Which really does defeat the purpose of using PLR in the first place.
It is not too late to grab all that old PLR you have not used and rewrite it.
Learn PLR rewriting, quickly and painlessly. Peggy Baron, a PLR writer since 2008, has put together “How To Rewrite PLR”. Her 80 page ebook is a workbook for rewriting headlines, content and closings. My favorite part is all the examples of rewrites that add value to your writing and make your article unique.
Once you read this book you will grab the PLR you have and make it your own. And you will be excited to purchase new PLR and get them working for you too.
P.S. I love being an affiliate for Peggy. She always produces a quality product I am proud to promote. She also provides plenty of help for her affiliates. In fact this article is one Peggy provided…and I rewrote, using the rewriting PLR techniques in Peggy’s book. Niffty huh?
Recently I received an email from Adeel Chowdhry, reminding me of a great system for making money online. No matter your skill level, this system works…and in just 7 days. Plus he takes this simple idea and gives you a complete business model.
You get…
Secure payments: Money is deposited to your PayPal account through safe escrow accounts.
Independence: You work independently and grow your business from your own work and abilities.
Low skill level: This method will allow any newbie to start offering services to people for cash. You will need to know general computer skills and have good writing skills.
High skill level: This method also works for those with a higher technical skills like Adobe Photoshop, software development or phone apps.
If you are not familiar with Adeel Chowdhry, he is an Internet Marketing genius. He put this video guide together a few years ago and won a contest on the Warrior Forum. It is so solid that this method still works today. I have updated his list of resources for you.
Download and watch the video. It is only 30 minutes long. Then use this blog post for all of the resources you will need to put this into action.
PayPal - An easy way to get paid for your services.
Elance – Post your services and Elance guarantees your clients will pay on time, every time. They will also send your clients a 1099 at the end of the year.
Guru – Get work with Guru.com. It is as simple as posting your profile, bidding on jobs, doing the work and getting paid through their safe pay escrow account.
ODesk – This is another top site for posting your profile, bidding and getting paid through their secure payment system.
vWorker (RentaCoder) – Guaranteed payments and a big variety of jobs.
FreeLancer – Bid on thousands of projects. This site also has secure pay.
GoFreelance – This is a membership site. They teach you the ins and outs of freelancing and list hundreds jobs.
GumTree – Advertise your skills and expertise on this easy to use free site.
CraigsList – Post your work on this free classified ads site.
DigitalPoint- Advertise your services on this forum.
Warrior Forum- Use the classified ads and services section of this forum to get work. This forum has tons of traffic and it is easy to build a good reputation.
Open Office – Manage your accounts with this easy to use spreadsheet.
Once you have gotten your business going you can use the referrals, your online reputation and the skills you have developed to:
Start your own freelance business. You have learned the ropes now you can be the one organizing all of the outsourcing.
Put together your own PLR packages for your own PLR business. Use your expertise and your resources for quality PLR.
Build your reputation right on the sites listed above for a steady income and higher pay. You will actually be in demand.
Download the video and get started. You can make money in the next 7 days.
Sheila
P.S. Don’t you just love the “no-hype” business models?
While setting up websites for clients. I was amazed to find how much I depend on Google. First of all I want my clients found when people search for keywords in their niche. Second I want clients to have tools that are easy to use and understand. Google does that.
Google Analytics
Let’s start with one of the Google tools I use the most and put on every clients site…Google Analytics. We always use the Google Analyticator plugin.
Web Analytics allows you to measure and track how your customers interact with your website.
Analyze your web analytics account to determine how you can improve your site layout and attract new customers.
Once web analytics isimplemented, you can see where customers came from, how long they stayed on your site, and where they clicked.
Google Mail
Google Mail has several built in tools that work well for us and our clients. First of all it easy to setup mail at Hostgator (our hosting account) and have it sent to our Google Mail account. This keeps all of the mail in one place.
For example, sheila@wpstartablog.com goes directly to my Gmail account.
FeedBurner
FeedBurner – Gives you and easy way to syndicate your blog. Although you have an RSS feed built right into your WordPress site, FeedBurner gives you some extra advantages.
For example you can set up RSS feed to email on your site with FeedBurner.
You can put FeedBurner on your site with an easy plugin. Google recommends FeedSmith.
Google Alerts – Get Google Mail notices of what your competition is doing or see who is talking about you with Google Alerts.
For example, I like to see every time some one mentions my name, since I have been using my name as part of branding my business.
Google Canned Responses - While having and email auto-responder may be ideal for some businesses. We have come across times where it was not necessary to set up and teach a client how to use an auto-responder.
Instead we use Google Canned Responses: You compose a message, save it, and send it over and over again as needed. This is perfect if you frequently e-mail customers special instructions for using a product or service. You just put that information in a Canned Response and send it out as needed.
For example we have client that wants a class reunion site. His contact list is a small list of only 42. And he is not real tech savvy. So we will set him up with Canned Responses. Now he can send the same email over and over to different classmates. This keeps his emails from looking spammy and he does not share the emails of other classmates.
Google Voice
With Google Voice you can use a phone number on your website that is forwarded to your cell phone, home phone, office phone or all three. Depending on the setting you choose you can have different messages for each kind of call coming in.
For example: We have set up Google Voice for our business: WebPressUtah.com. The client has the option to reach us by phone. This is quite unique in the web design business. We have set it up so that the phone rings both me and Kathy at the same time. We can each have our own greeting and we have online voice mail.
Google Places
Google Places – Because we are focusing on helping local business, I have learned all about using Google Places.
For example, we are currently setting up websites for a real estate agent and a title company. The competition is fierce for both of these niches. But know how to make the most of Google Places will help them be on top with their web presence.
50 percent of all searches on the web are for local businesses. 80% of people says they search on line before they shop a local business. Google Places makes the most of those searches.
Google Keywords
Google Keyword External Tool- Although this tool was set up to help you find adwords to buy. It has now become the basis for most keyword software.
This free tool works well if you understand how to use it correctly.
On July 5th there is a new Keyword Tool coming on line…SECockpit.com WOW! out of all the Keyword Tools I have tested and used this is by far the best thing that has happened. In just a few minutes I can do a keyword search for a client.
For example our client has a business I know nothing about. He has an Organic Farm and sells a weekly box of produce to clients. All of this was new to us….but a good keyword search helped us find a way to get him noticed. From choosing a blog title, posting blogs to registering with Google Places, we use targeted keyword.
Using this new keyword tool makes it easy and fast to grab all the keywords we could ever want. SeCockpit.com pulls keyword from Google Suggest, Google Wonderwheel and Google Keyword External and spits out huge lists of targeted keywords.
I can’t wait until July 5th. You will love this tool too.
My Google Analytics tells me that the second most viewed page on my site is “Sheila Recommends”. So I have revamping that page to reflect all the tools we have been using to setup sites for our clients.
I hope they help build your sites also. These Google small business tools work for your online business and your brick and mortar business.
Sheila
P.S. Goolge has two new services you should keep and eye on Google Business Photos and Google Local Directory . Hmmm, looks like Google is dominating their own search engine. Smart!
Because you like fabulous free resources right at your fingertips, this list was made for you. In fact there are more than 201... I got carried away and lost count.
Twitter
Email
Youtube
RSS