Yellow Dog Ventures

There is a member on the Warrior Forum - sparrow - who appears to have worked in programming and SEO and related fields for awhile. My take is that he knows his stuff and has had some solid success building high ranking on search engines.

I became aware of him when he posted some special offers. The first was for a “secret” technique that would put static websites on a par with blogs in popularity with the SEs. With this he also included a method for getting pages indexed promptly and predictably. I have implemented most of this on my existing sites and look forward to testing the methods on some new sites I am creating. I’ll report back.

Next he offered his tracking software. This is a script that tracks when BOTS and other traffic visit your sites. With the other traffic, you have access to the website they came from. If this was a search engine, you get a clear picture of what keyword was typed in for the search and exactly where your site is listed in the rankings. People really do use long tail keywords.  It’s very fun.

Now, I know there are a bunch of programs that do these types of tracking, but this is the first I have tried. I expect I will learn a ton from watching the results. I plan to use this software in my work with SEO clients as well. Very cool.

Sparrow also promoted a program for Web 2.0 site submissions. I haven’t started working with this yet, but will very soon. My goal is to raise my sites out of obscurity and to build links and links and links. If “Search Engine Myths Exposed” (previous post) emphasizes anything it is the role backlinks play in search engine ranking success.

For a great series of case studies on generating attention and traffic for your sites, visit Steven’s Affiliate Marketing Diary. His blog is a goldmine and he is a very generous spirit. He offers really solid “how to” guides for what to put on your blogs and how to promote them. I can’t say enough about the value he gives away freely.

Finally, it’s time for a face lift on this blog. Expect a new look within a week or so. If you can suggest a great wp theme, please let me know.

That’s it for now. Thanks for visiting!

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Does anyone else feel like the days just flow together? Weeks seem to fly by in what feels like minutes.

What accomplishments can I report? Much of my time recently has gone into site building. I guess that is good, since I enjoy it. (Interesting that my html editor here will not let me use an apostrophe. Hmm… I guess it is time to upgrade to a newer version of WordPress.)

I was working on my project of transitioning the Niches-in-a-Box websites to new templates and was making very good progress. Then something prompted me to double checked how the sites were loading in Internet Explorer, since I use Firefox. They looked awful! The alignment was all off and I have no clue how to fix it. (If anyone can shed any light on this I would love it!)

So, I moved to XSitePro with a little trepidation. I am now in the process of rebuilding the sites with XSitePro, and it is working beautifully. That really is a good program and I know I have barely touched its power. But I am pleased. I can clone the silos, change some keywords and be ready to go.

I have hit a snag with an ebook download and have not been able to get the images to show up on a thank you page. Seems to be an issue with where I have them located on the server. I admit I have backed off for a few days and need to get back to it. Sometimes I just want everything to go smoothly but I know I learn a ton more when it does not. (Funny writing all of this unable to use contractions!)

So, checking to make sure all of my other sites were loading properly in Internet Explorer, I realized that my eBay plugin, BayRSS, was not working correctly when using certain templates. Actually, the images from the eBay RSS feed were not showing up.

Now all of those blogs have new templates and that has been a blast. Especially creating headers with images from the stock photo sites. Very fun — first finding the images and then making them work. I am using a combination of Paint, SnagIt, and Photoshop Elements to create the headers to fit within the Cutline theme for WordPress. Very fun and gratifying and they look great!

By the way, speaking of XSitePro — version 2 is due out before the end of the year. I expect great enhancements. Anyone who buys now gets a free upgrade to the new version. That is a good deal. Anyone who purchased before this has to pay for the upgrade, which makes it an even better deal. The learning curve to create a decent site with XSitePro is a little steeper than many marketers would have you believe, but after using it just a short time, I became quite comfortable with it. This latest project has challenged me to learn to use XSitePro in ways I have not done before, and it is coming through with flying colors.

Lots is happening with the program I joined awhile back with the purpose of creating an Internet consulting business. LOTS is happening. I will fill you in very soon.

That is it for now. Thanks for being here and have a good one!

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Pretty low-key day today. I’ve spent sometime posting to blogs and adding articles to some webpages.

The blogs are ones I created to compliment the Niches-in-a-Box websites. I moved them to totally separate domains a short time ago, but used the same niches. Amidst the blog posts I’m featuring eBay auctions, using the BayRSS plugin. I have to say they look pretty cool. They’re all indexed. Now I have to promote. It would be a good idea to set aside a day this week to work on that.

I finally figured out how to put an optin box on a website and have the form fit in a sidebar! I know, I know, most people figured this out a long time ago. But I’m fairly new to Aweber and auto responders, and feel pretty good about my accomplishment. Now I can do it anywhere. Maybe I’ll add an optin to my NIAB blogs.

My latest read is “Strategic Social Marketing” by Laura Childs. I’ve sort of followed her work for a couple years now, maybe not closely enough though. She has been doing research on Web 2.0 and traffic for many months now. A definite trend she and others have documented is a decrease in traffic through search engines. Apparently SEs are not the portal of choice of a growing number of Internet users (like millions!). Web 2.0 properties are their choice instead. But there are SO many of them, I feel overwhelmed in an instant!

I’m only half way through her report so far, so still have no clue where to start generating traffic through some of the social bookmarking or social networking sites using Laura’s methods. She promises to teach how to set up a game plan. I’ve been bookmarking for a long time now and seeing minimal results. Laura also promises that this can improve, given some research and knowing how to approach each niche.

I’m interested in reading more. You can find Laura at The Stampede Secret if you’re interested. She’s sharp. She’s been on line for a long time, and knows how to weather the evolution. I’m glad I found her.

That’s all for now. Thanks for visiting and have a good one!

P.S. Remember, if you’re an eBay affiliate, there’s a free copy of the BayRSS plugin available to you. Check out the link I created for the sidebar, just under the Blog Rush box.

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Wow, PHP is something else! Wrapping my brain around it is a challenge.

I’m still working on transitioning a Niches-in-a-Box website from one template to another. The HTML part is pretty easy. I feel comfortable working with that. The CSS is another step up in challenge. Some of it is making sense to me and is fairly easy to manipulate, and some makes no sense at all.

To help my cause, I read a report on CSS and it did help alot. But, some of it is still over my head. I think it would help a ton if I reread the report a couple times. The info might sink in better each time.

The report is: “Taming The Beast: Cascading Style Sheets.” The author describes the 3 levels of CSS - Inline, Internal Style Sheet, and External Style Sheet. I got lost somewhere in the middle of the Internal Style Sheets. You can download the report here (free) if you’re interested in an overview of CSS. It is well written and entertaining, if you can believe that.

With my website transition, the index/landing page is finished and looks great. I like it and I had a lot of fun creating it. The silo sites are turning out to be much more of a challenge. These have a good amount of PHP built into the structure, and that makes sense since each silo is based around a different keyword. But I clearly have a whole lot to learn and I’ll do some research now on PHP and see if that helps make the project a little easier.

That’s all for now. Have a good one!

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Boy, am I having fun!

I mentioned that I would be transitioning some websites that I got through Niches-in-a-Box to new templates, which will make my sites much more unique from the other members’. I’m following along with a series of videos and really enjoying the process.

The ultimate benefit will be a great looking new website. In the meantime I am learning so much. I’m working extensively with html and php. I’m learning how to take a free template off the Internet (from oswd.org) and turn it into my own. I’m learning how these complex websites are structured. What an education!

NIAB truly does offer a lot more than websites. The training is exceptional.

It’s also really clear to me that I like building websites. That’s important information as I go forward with Internet marketing.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

P.S. Are you visiting DealDotCom.com everyday? I remember most days. I’ve already purchased two products that I have been wanting for awhile.

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