Here is a list of my all time favorite plugins for WordPress.  Now remember these aren’t just for bloggers.  You can create great non blog realted websites with WordPress.

Anyways, here’s my favorite plugins and a little description of them.  Some of them cost money.  But all of the listed plugins are gold in my book!

1. Akismet – This is standard with all wordpress plugins.  Basically Akismet is a spam protection plugin.  I like it alot because it has already caught some 11,779 spam! Pretty freakin kool if you ask me. Sure saves me time. You have to register with wordpress.org so you can activate the plugin but its definitely worth it.
2. All in One SEO Pack – This is an excellent addition to any blog with a lot of content.  This plugin gives you control over the meta keyword and description tags.  You also have the option of overwriting the default title tag.  Definitely a plugin that every blog HAS to have.
3. Dofollow – It’s always nice to pay back your readers with a nice dofollow link.  The dofollow plugin disables the rel=nofollow attribute in the comments.  Thank you for all of your comments!
4. Bannage – Just what it says… This plugin allows you to ban commentors by IP, username, email or URL.  Unfortunately some people just need to be banned.
5. Gravatar and MyAvatars – Both of these plugins allow for those nifty little images next to your name.  This is great for identification purposes.  I have both installed right now incase someone has one but not the other.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak at the Dallas Affiliate Marketers Associate.  There I spoke about focus and getting started.  I wanted to take some time in this post to respond to “Grow Your Own Bamboo”.  (hmmm interesting choice for a name HAHA).

GYOB asked “What do you do to stay focused?”  The answer unfortunately isn’t one I want to tell you.  Why is that?  Because then you wouldn’t read the blog anymore HAHA just kidding.

Focus is a difficult thing to accomplish especially when you are trying to work from home and on the Internet.  Often times we get discouraged because we aren’t making any money online.  The only reason for not making any money is the simple fact that we aren’t focused on getting a job done.

Most if not ALL new Internet marketers experience an inability to focus.

It’s a sad statement but its true and I was one of those people that couldn’t focus when I started online.  So how do you break the cycle and get your butt into gear?

JUST DO IT!

Unfortunately this is one of those easier said then done tasks. When I started online I spent over $5k on junk products and ebook that promised the world to me.

“BUY ME I’LL MAKE YOU RICH!”
“LEARN NOW I MADE 10k IN A DAY”
etc etc etc

You’ve heard those stories and I wouldn’t doubt it if you have fallen into the cycle of buying things from the “Gurus”.  So what got me to stop the cycle?

Videos on landing pages are great! From my own personal experience and experiments I have seen conversions double when a video was placed on a landing page.  This being said, that is not always the case.  Your videos can distract from the task at hand.  They can confuse visitors so much that they want to leave your site.  So how do you make the video work for the site?

Creating your own video these days is really easy.  There is a lot of different pieces of software out there to use.  Camtasia is one of the most well known out there.  Because I have a Mac I use “Jing“.  Jing is a free piece of software from the creators of Camtasia. I don’t know about Camtasia but Jing only captures your desktop. To capture my head shots I use the built in piece of software for a mac… iMovie. (What is there to use for a windows machine?)

When you are capturing your video you want to do a combination of headshots and screen shots.  People like to see that there is a real person behind the voice on the video and they like to actually see what you are doing. Building trust with people is the key to success.  If no one trusts you why would they take your advice online?

Now, before you actually start your video you should have a plan.  Write down on a piece of paper or a whiteboard what you will do.  Make sure you have step by step so that during the video you aren’t fumbling around or saying “ummm”. You want to give a professional yet personal feel to the video.  If you have to write a script do it.  Just don’t sound like a robot when your filming.

As an affiliate marketer I have had the opportunity to write some pretty junky sales letters.  I have also had the pleasure of writing some pretty profitable ones as well.  Writing a sales letter can be fun at times. This post is going to give a little insite on how I write a profitable sales letter on a page.

When I write a review style landing page for visitors I like to give the visitor a taste of what they will encounter on the actual offer page. I even like to show them how they can benefit.

Lets take for example paid surveys. My paid survey page generates massive sales and here’s how. There are four little parts to make this completely successful.

1. Make a POP OUT headline
   • Use the words “For FREE”
   • Choose a bold headline color (When in doubt just use Red)
   • Pose a thought provoking question
2. Add a video above the fold
3. Add written content below the video
4. Add several sites you like and several you don’t

Thats it.  Thats what makes a winning landing page. Now here’s the question.  What is so profound about a video and the content.  We all know that those should be on the page. So tihs is what you do.  Yes this will separate you from the rest of the affiliate marketers but you do what you have to do to get sales.  The “secret sauce” is to tell people exactly how they will benefit.  In other words… If I am promoting these paid surveys I will tell people EXACTLY how to fill them out.

Start Example:

Do you want to know what I do to make OVER $700 a week For FREE?

Just wanted to let you guys know that I want to run a contest soon.  Don’t know when, don’t know what.  I’m going to see if any CPA networks would like to donate something. I will also be fronting some cash as well as a website that I have made some money with in the past. The website will be one of my search engines along with a copy of my ebook isearchebook.

Anyways, I will also be doing a case study once the RSS feed hits over 1000.  Thats part of the reason why I will be running a contest.  Contests always boost readership.

Thats it for tonight.  I’ll get back to posting the goods in the morning.  I hope you all had a good labor day :) I know I sure did.  I didn’t work at all this weekend HAHAHA.

Hey guys and gals. Today is a good day… Or night… Tonight is a good night. It’s 10:44 pm and I’m feeling pretty wide awake.

I wanted to take some time to write to you about headlines. The other day I spoke at the Dallas Affiliate Marketers Association (DAMA). While I was there I met the owner of PPCFool.com. It’s a blog I’ve seen around while searching for information to add in my brain. During a break between my SEO clients this afternoon I was browsing blogs and I came upon a post that David made titled “Increase CTR with Shock Advertising“. So I thought… Okay. I like that… I should give my readers some of this as well.

David’s post talks about using words like

• Exposed
• Scam
• Naughty
• Sneaky
• Secrets
• Wicked
• Yucky
• Disgusting
• Gruesome
• Fatal
• Jealous
• Traitor
• etc,

in your advertising… These words work great! Sometimes you just need to get traffic into your site. And these words will definitely do the trick. Saying something like that image I have up there and you’ll get crazy clicks! Shock factor is huge in the content network!

There is also a set of keywords… a huge list actually… That invoke a different feeling, but clicks none the less.

• secrets
• proven
• guaranteed
• winning
• breakthrough
• revealing
• suprising
• confidential
• remarkable
• dazzling
• sensational
• confidential
• immediately
• endorsed
• quality
• benefit from
• profit from
• potent
• mind-blowing
• alluring
• limited
• quickly
• valuable
• discount
• reduced
• lowest
• refundable
• revealing
• unlimited
• authentic
• energizing
• floodgates (of money, health, wealth, etc)
• etc, etc, etc

The mighty MSN has a new little tool. It’s called xRank!

If your a PPC person that is fond of celebrity type polls then this is what you need to be checking.  Don’t worry about buzz.yahoo.com or Google Trends. This new little toy from MSN will show you which celebrities are getting the most buzz. 

I know this toy will show you over 1000.  I didn’t search much after that.  But how cool is that.  You can even find celebs that get buzz… that you’ve never heard about! Building a campaign around a celebrity that no one in PPC is building a campaign for is gold!

Check it out at search.live.com/xrank/.

Okay… I know I said not to combine it with Google Trends or Yahoo! Buzz… But do it anyways… Now thats power!

Here is a quick update for my media buy.

I have 7 replies.   WOOT FOR ME!

So, here is the scoop.  2 of the websites I’m not going to advertise on.  They have way to much traffic and came back with an immediate $500 a month fee. I’m not saying too much traffic is bad.  I’m just saying that websites with high traffic can and almost always will command big bucks.

The other 5 sites I’ve been replying to back and forth a little bit.  One of them even accepted the offer of a 5 day test.  The enthusiasm that some of these website owners have is great! I hate to say it but… You can play on their excitement. Saythings like “yeah if this works out we can make a deal for several months!”.  They eat this stuff up!

That one site that is allowing the 5 day trial.  I told him if all goes well I’ll give him $35 for 30 days.  He seems happy… So I’m happy as well.  We still have some things to work out.  But this should be rolling by the end of the week at the latest.  Communication is a little slow.

2 of the 4 sites have flat out said they charge $100 a month.  Now, for one of the sites I can understand with the amount of traffic it is getting.  The other site however made me laugh… The traffic was pretty bad and I know the guy isn’t making that about from his poor adsense placement. So I replied to him with a counter offer of $60 for 30 days.

Lastly… 2 sites are in price negotiation.  Neither has a clue about what to charge so I am offering $40.  One has accepted and if all goes well a banner will be placed by Monday.  The other has yet to reply.