Early Warning System

Here’s a short video (<11 minutes) that explains the benefits of being in the first 2-3 comments on a new blog post. Then it shows you how to use a free tool to make sure you ARE the first person to leave a comment.

Worth a few minutes of your time? Once the video starts you can change the resolution to 720p and make it full screen to pick up the detail.

 

Blog Commenting and Feed Notifier

Here’s a bulleted summary:-

  • Blog commenting is good for getting backlinks – this is not a secret and has been in use for a long time
  • Making relevant comments that add to the orginal article will mean your comments get approved
  • Being first with a good comment will mean people may well click through to your site to read anything else you have to say
  • You can use a free tool called Feed Notifier that sits quietly in your Windows system tray and monitors a blog’s RSS feed
  • When a new post is made, then you can be there within a few minutes and leave the first comment

What isn’t discussed in this video is that RSS has been around for a long time but other than with techies, it’s never really captured the imagination of a wider audience. And that could be because it’s not click-click obvious and not really vital to a general internet user.

However after watching this video, then maybe (like I do) you’ll consider using this small and discrete free tool called Feed Notifier. It seems there are lots of tools and services that supply RSS reading capabilities, but Feed Notifier is quite sexy as it’s so small.

I realised the potential of Feed Notifier a while back and I saw that it’s not only useful for being the first to leave blog comments, but for all sorts of other things too.

For example last year I released a plugin called WordPress Updates which creates a private RSS feed on your blogs that you can subscribe to. When a new plugin or theme update is released, then the feed will be updated and you can pick up the notification using Feed Notifier.

So if you have lots of clients using WordPress blogs that you’re responsible for, then you can install the plugin on all their sites and get an immediate warning from each of them when they need you to go do some work. There’s nothing worse than an angry client complaining their site has been hacked or something has stopped working and you later find out it’s because you didn’t apply the latest updates. 🙄

I also have someone working on creating another new plugin called Events Notifier that will be released shortly. This allows you to create private and public RSS feeds and then add events and a date and time to go with them.

Apart from the obvious private reminders of birthdays, anniversaries etc, you can also use it to set up a public feed and broadcast important events to your subscribers, for example a build up to a new product launch. 😉

Or keep your affiliates notified of changes and new products in your affilaites scheme, or keep your customers updated about updates to products they’ve bought.

More on that little beauty soon.

So I hope you can see that RSS feeds aren’t just for the techies and with a little thought we can all start to benefit from them in all sorts of ways they probably were never intended for. 🙂

Here are some links to tools mentioned in the video, one for Portable Apps and Feed Notifier Portable, and also to the Feed Notifier site itself.

My own personal preference is to go with Portable Apps as it’s just so damn useful, and I’ll do a post about Portable Apps another time explaining how useful it can be even if you don’t use it portably.

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business, software, traffic

Multiple Streams Themes 001

Offer Closed

***

Today Friday 13th January at 6.00pm I’m running a final sale for Multiple Streams Themes ONE.

This has come about because in the last two weeks I’ve been asked by several people how the Ads Manager plugin works, and that’s then lead onto the videos I did for the original Multiple Streams Theme.

I’ve then had emails come back saying something along the lines of “Oooh!  That’s NICE!  I want that theme!”

Well okay.  I have to say that looking at it again, this first one is secretly my all time favourite.

It just looks really good.  😉

Anyway, as I said this is the original theme that first introduced the idea of owning a site that you could quickly set up to pull in Multiple Streams of income.  Hence the name.

The interesting thing is (and I’ve never tried to hide this), I *stole* the original idea from Jimmy Brown after he closed his site down and moved onto different things.  I thought it was a great idea (and still is) and I’ve pursued it ever since.

The theme has umpteen widgetised areas (sidebars) and supports WP 3.x custom menus, and included with the theme are the Ads Manager and Redirection plugins.

It comes with 8 small ads and 3 wider ads, and included are the Photoshop PSDs and also no-text PNG versions of them so you can add your own text to the ads with your favourite graphics editor or one of the online graphics services.

It really is a cool looking theme.

Today at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST), I’m running a final 25 copies only sale for MST001 available for just $10.

You can see the theme in action here:-

http://mst001.multiplestreamsthemes.com/

and see some videos of how to set it all up here:-

http://www.multiplestreamsthemes.com/multiple-streams-themes-videos/

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business

Multiple Streams Theme 007

Offer Closed

***

Today Friday 6th January at 6.00pm I’m running a final pre-release sale for Multiple Streams Themes Seven.

If you purchased this earlier last year in a pre-order sale, I sincerely apologise for the delay.  You can now go back to your personal download page and grab it plus pick up a little bonus I promised to those who pre-ordered and then ended up waiting a loooong time for it.

I finally (!) managed to get the original designer of the theme to do the conversion (after 2 attempts by others) and he’s done a great job of it.

He’s actually come up with a better method of adding a slider to the front of the blog under the header, and in fact it’s so nice now that I’ve made plans for where to use it myself on one of my sales sites.

I just have to bundle it all up with PSDs, banners etc and it’s ready to go.

Speaking of which, it comes with a nice selection of pre-designed banners including blank JPEGs / PNGs and PSDs for them, plus umpteen sidebars, an additional page template, plus plugins (Ads Manager, Redirection, Squeeze Page Templates), and a set of theme options too.

The theme options allow you to turn on and off the featured content and top boxes and change footer text. The theme also supports the WP 3.x features of custom menus.  And finally, we’ve included a really nice slider area at the top under the menu where you can place presentational images, extra ads etc.

You can place content including an image into the slider simply by making a new post and then putting it into a category called “featured”.  The theme will then pick up the first part of the text of the post and place it in the slider area – it’s really cool.

If you want to add an image as part of the content of the slider, then you can use the built in WordPress “Featured Image” functionality just by editing the post and clicking “Set Featured Image”.  You can then upload or choose an image from the library just as you would when adding any image to WordPress.

If you use an image with a transparent background then it will cleanly overlay and merge with the bacground of the theme.

It’s amazingly simple to do and the results are stunning.

I’m going to use it as a showcase on one of my own sites, so watch out for that shortly.

Today at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST), I’m running a final 25 copies only sale for MST007 available for just $10.

(I’m also re-opening Affiliate Click Pal this weekend for those people who’ve written to me to say they missed it last week because they were away.  Fair enough.  I’ve made another 10 copies available and that will close when they’re gone.)

In the meantime you can see the MST007 theme in action here:-

http://mst007.multiplestreamsthemes.com/

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business, software, WordPress Themes

Affiliate Click Pal – It’s a Monster

Offer Closed

***

Today Friday 30th December at 6.00pm I’m running a final pre-release sale for Affiliate Click Pal (ACP).

Yes I know some people reading this thought they’d never see the day, but ACP is finally done.  (Those people who purchased in the pre-order sale several months ago will now be able to go back to their download page later today and grab the first release version of the completed script.)

It’s a monster.

What started off as a fairly small but entirely useful *little* script that allowed you to unify all your sites through a single ClickBank account is now a HUGE MONSTER of a script that incorporates all sorts of related things.

So…

It now has secure digital delivery – that wasn’t in the original plan.

It now creates secure order buttons for you – that wasn’t in the plan.

It has a built in autoresponder and broadcast mailer for both customers AND affiliates – that wasn’t in the plan.

It has built in integration with ImnicaMail, Aweber and Mailchimp – that wasn’t in the plan.

It now unifies multiple ClickBank accounts – that wasn’t in the plan.

It gives you full control over affiliates and their percentage commission via the use of multiple ClickBank accounts – that wasn’t in the plan.

It now uses secure download templates like SmartDD – that wasn’t in the plan.

Or you can optionally redirect buyers to a URL – that wasn’t in the plan.

It has a multi-level of granularity of control over both saleable items and affiliates – that wasn’t in the plan.

And there’s other stuff too.

I now look at this whole project and and I’ll openly say that my handling of it was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done.  What I *should* have done is released the very small script that I originally promised and then built on it from there.

But what happened was I got the first small release version back and spotted a couple of minor issues with it, and then asked if we could just have this “one little thing” added to it…

And then this became a cycle for the next few weeks and eventually months.

The dang thing just got way bigger than I expected it to and I let it all get out of control.

I’m really sorry if you’re one of the people that bought this on pre-order expecting to get it a couple of weeks afterwards – I’ve apologised individually to people who’ve asked about it.

The good news is I’m *much* happier releasing this as it stands now than the original script I envisaged.  In fact the original script was planned to be very much like Easy Click Mate only better and at half the price.

Now it’s a much more well-endowed script that does some pretty cool stuff.

For example, just taking one of the key points from above.  Originally it was intended for you to be able to unify sales of multiple products across multiple sites through a single ClickBank account.  That alone would save you a small fortune in opening vendor accounts with ClickBank as you can now use the full 500 products available to an account but spread across lots of different sites.  Woohoo!

But then I realised that this meant that everything you sold would be at the same commission rate as it can only be done at the vendor account level.  What if you had some products you wanted to apply a 50% commission to, and others a 60% or 75% commission?  With ClickBank you can’t normally do that, so if you wanted to pay JV partners or super affiliates a higher rate of commission as a reward for promoting for you, it was impossible to do.

Until now.

Now you can open a second vendor account with ClickBank and set a different commission rate.  Then in ACP you specify that the item you’re selling should be linked to that vendor account instead and it all gets handled automatically.  You can also flip individual affiliates (or groups) between different commission rates any time you want to without them having to change their affiliate links.  😉

Today at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST), I’m running a final end-of-year sale and making ACP available for just $17.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a $97 product given the development time and effort that’s gone into it.  If you don’t get it today, then in the new year it will go on sale for a month at $27 during the launch period, then $47 and finally $97.

Now’s your chance to get it at a massive discount at only $17.

-Frank Haywood

P.S.  In case you’re wondering, it’s NOT a WordPress plugin it’s a standalone script and so will need a touch more work to install as you have to create a database for it first.  It’s not hard to do (5 minutes or less) and well worth the little bit of one-off effort needed to centralise all your sales.

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business, software

How To Succeed In 2012

That’s a bit of a grand title isn’t it?

The fact is, the majority of hopeful onliners won’t succeed in 2012.  My personal estimate is that 99% will be in the same situation as they are now or worse by this time next year.

It’s a fact that I’ve gone over and over here on my blog that only 1% will succeed with their online business.

Here’s a good question for you.

What’s the one determining factor that decides whether your business is going to succeed or not?

We’ll get to that in a bit, but first a quick statistic discovered by a friend and mentor a few years ago.

SIXTY percent of people starting today with the thought of “Can I make a living online?” will NOT be around in 6 months time.

That’s a very sobering thought isn’t it?

There will be people reading this who in 6 months time will have thrown in the towel in frustration at having gone round in circles trying to work out what they should be doing (and HOW) and eventually giving up.

It’s a shame and it’s also completely avoidable with a little thought and preparation.  I know for a FACT what works.  It works for me and it works for thousands of other people too.

Think about this for a moment.

There are lots of different business models and some of them are really quite complicated.  A lot of people find out a little about some of the more complicated and well, let’s say “flaky” ones, and try to get to grips with them.  The problem is, deep inside they already know they’re going to fail because they don’t *quite* believe what they’re being told, and rightly so in most cases.

Here’s what I know DOES work, and you’ll know right away for a FACT that it works the moment the words settle in, and that’s because you see this every day.

Here it is.  Ready?

You create a product that people want and you sell it to them.

What on this planet could be simpler to understand than that?  But many (and this may be you) don’t know how to get from A to B.

So you end up with puzzles like “How do I come up with a good product idea?” and “How do I get it created?” and “How do I unleash it on the world when it’s done?”

I know it can seem never ending and an insurmountable task when you don’t know how.  But the best way of approaching it all is with a plan and one step at a time.  With my learning and experience, I can help you get from A to B when you join my personal coaching.

On Thursday 15th December I’ll accept you and four other people to join me during the first two months of 2012 and coach you through product idea to creation to sales page and promotion.

When you have that product online and making sales and building a mailing list, you’ll agree with me that signing up for personal coaching with me was the best thing you ever did.

My coaching with you will be one to one which is why I call it personal coaching.  You and I will sit and chat and work out what it is you want to do and I’ll help you put together a plan and achieve it.    So If you’ve spent some time just thrashing about a bit and don’t seem to have any real direction, or things are moving a little slowly…

I’ll get you on track.

I’ll show you:-

  • How to come up with neverending product ideas.  There’s a few simple techniques that means you’ll never go short of a good idea.  Heck, I’ll GIVE you some ideas if you want – I have more than I can possibly ever implement, and I add new ones almost every week.[br][br]
  • The steps you need to take your ideas and turn them into profitable reality.[br][br]
  • How to build a mailing list and with that a profitable business.[br][br]
  • The tools and methodologies I use on a day to day basis.[br][br]
  • How to find good (and very low cost) outsource staff and get them to do the things you can’t or don’t want to do.  Not as easy as you might think – certainly not as easy as I thought two years ago.  Yes I believed all the blather and hype about it.  You live and learn.[br][br]
  • Where to find that staff (and I’m not talking about the Freelance sites) and how to approach it all to pick up the right people.  I’ll help you hire them and hold your hand while you do it.  And here’s a tip to keep your costs down – you don’t have to hire them full time if you don’t want to.  Many outsourcers are more than happy to earn “bread and butter” money from you while doing other things.  Some only want to work part time, and I’ll explain why that is when you join.[br][br]
  • How to realise that opportunity is all around you, and all you need is to be prepared for it.  Someone told me a few years ago that “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”  Boy were they right.  If you’re prepared, then when the opportunities arise (and they always do) you’ll see them as your “Lucky breaks.”[br][br]
  • How to learn some of the essential skills you need even though you may be totally unaware of them right now.  And also the methods I personally use, and then I’ll help you to use them too in order to make sure you get a good response from what you do.[br][br]

And finally, of extreme practical use to you (and I’ve learned this is a blocker for most people) I’ll write your sales copy for you for the product you’re going to have created by the end of the coaching period.  I’ll also explain the entire copywriting process to you, and why I did what I did.

That last one alone is worth the entire cost of the coaching for many people.

Talking of cost, this isn’t going to break your bank.

Let me explain.  I spent about $10,000 on coaching a few years ago and I still think of it as the best thing I ever did.  I went into it scared and came out confident a few weeks later.  I’d invested in the most important part of my business.

Me.

So to answer the question I asked earlier – “What’s the one determining factor that decides whether your business is going to succeed or not?”

It’s YOU.

In case you missed my point above, you shouldn’t see the coaching I’m offering as an expense.  It’s an investment in YOU.  (I’m NOT charging $10,000 either, or anywhere near it.)

When I open the doors tomorrow at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST), stick the investment cost on your credit card and pay for it later out of your profits.  That’s exactly what I did.

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business