Write Articles So Good That People Will "Like" Them On Facebook

WebProNews reports that Facebook has released some Platform updates with interesting implications for "liked" articles appearing in search results.

Facebook is surely becoming more an increasingly important tool for getting your articles seen.

But your articles will only be "liked" if you create genuinely good content, compelling content that people will like and then "like" on Facebook if they have the opportunity.

If enough people "like" your article it could start to go viral as more and more people see it and "like" it, further increasing its exposure to Facebook's 500,000,000 members.

Another point to consider is that "likes" come more easily than links because all a reader needs to do is click a button.

Full report here: Facebook Likes Just Officially Became More Important to Search

David Hurley
Free Business Websites

Blog About Your Passion, Connect It To Your Product & Sales Will Follow...

I run two blogs that both work in very different ways to promote my "best-Internet-marketing-strategies" website, Grasp-The-Nettle.com: the one you are reading now, and a Wordpress blog called Notes From The Tiger's Cave.

The blog you are reading focuses on various Internet marketing strategies and on my experiences with them, other people's take on them and so on. In other words, it is 100% "on message" in its relationship to my website.

Notes From The Tiger's Cave is different, more personal and idiosyncratic. It's a blog that celebrates the fact that I live in Japan and is devoted to Japan-related topics, but with this twist, that I usually seek to relate the Japanese topic to Internet marketing in some way, even if it takes a s-t-r-e-t-c-h of the imagination to find a connection! 

But, once you know what you want to do with your blog it gets easier to find ways to make the connections you want to make - especially if you are passionate about the topic you are writing about.

For example, in a recent blog post I gave a brief report about how my family and I spent the summer holidays in Miyazaki Prefecture, a beautiful, uncrowded part of Japan with a beautiful coastline and uncrowded beaches. I mentioned how one of my friends who lives in Miyazaki does all his business via email and how when you can work online you are free to live pretty much wherever you like.

The blog was posted on 30th August 2010.

The result?

So far, it has pulled in over $125 in affiliate commissions. :-)

Other posts on the same blog have helped me sell Japanese games such as mahjong sets and so on, but this is my biggest success for a blog post with an Internet affiliate marketing twist to it.

It's very encouraging to think that you can make money while blogging about stuff you are passionate about, provided you "make the connection" and "sell the sizzle".

Here's the winning blog post:

http://www.grasp-the-nettle.com/TigersCave/2010/08/30/how-to-live-the-good-life-in-japan-and-never-commute-to-work/

David Hurley
Free Business Websites

Another Good Reason Why Internet Marketers Should Use Forums...

There are many good reasons why Internet marketers should regularly participate on forums that have some relation to their online business.

One reason why a lot of people post comments on forums is that they can get backlinks to their website via a signature link that appears beneath each of their forum comments. Make 3-4 comments per day and you'll have 100 extra backlinks per month pointing to your website.

Another reason is that you can "build your brand" by joining in conversations relevant to your market niche and offering helpful advice WITHOUT trying to sell people on your products or services. If you give good value people are likely to remember you and check out your signature link and you get instant, free, targeted traffic to your website.

One more reason to like forums is that you really can learn a lot of good stuff from the participants. Of course, you might pick up misinformation from ignorant posters, but on a lively forum with good moderators, mistakes will quickly be picked up on and corrected.

By the way, one of my favourite online forums is http://evancarmichael.com/forums. Okay, I should point out that I'm one of the forum moderators so I might be a tad biased ;-), but still it is an excellent, friendly forum that's full of useful info and resources for Internet marketers, and completely free to join.

Another excellent forum for Internet marketers is Internet Marketing Forums, again it's completely free to join.

A final reason for using forums, I have just realized today, is that forums can be great sources of INSPIRATION! I was on the EvanCarmichael.com forum this morning when I read a new thread that Evan had started (yes, Evan actually spends a lot of time on his own forum, unlike owners of certain other forums I could name...). The thread was about the kind of "soul crushing cubicles" that millions of people squeeze into every day in order to do their soul crushing JOBS...

It's crazy that people would do that when, with a little bit of effort, they could set up their own online businesses using low cost and reliable web hosting and finding someone such as myself who would be willing to build them a free wordpress website.

Well, there's nowt so queer as folk, as they say in Yorkshire.

Anyway, as I was saying, I was inspired by the thread to write a blog report about a contemporary Japanese phenomenon, the soul crushing cyber-cafe cubicles where a whole underclass of "cyber-drifters" have moved in on a semi-permanent basis. There is an important link between this theme and starting your own business on the Internet...

Here's my report: How To Avoid The Fate Of A Japanese Cyber-Drifter By Depending On Your Own Ability & Starting Your Own Internet Business

David Hurley
Free Business Websites

Why I'm Not Hosting A Wordpress Theme Store On My Website...

I'm in the process of setting up a new Wordpress website called http://free-wordpress-websites.com where I offer to set you up with a free Wordpress website preloaded with content relevant to your market niche.

A few days ago I came across a Wordpress theme designer who had a software package that allows you to load a Wordpress theme store onto your website, sell his themes and keep the profits. It seemed ideal as an upsell for my own free offer and as it cost less than $20 I bought it...

Then the fun began!

Everything went smoothly at first. I downloaded the package, unzipped it, uploaded the relevant bits to a directory.

Then I had to set up a database, which, after a bit of fiddling around, I managed to do.

All the time I was following an instructional video that came with the package. The only problem is that software designers are not often very good teachers and the guy assumed that some of the steps were obvious when - to someone like me who is a marketer, not a techie - they were not!

More fiddling around searching for extra info on Google and so forth...

Finally, the permissions to all the relevant files have been changed, and everything seems to be ready - but when I check the site, nothing is showing because a crucial file is missing.

More fiddling about...

Still nothing is showing...

I find the relevant bit of code within one of my old files that needs to be changed, deep in a part of my hosting account where I have never ventured before...

I make the change and save the file...

Still nothing is showing.

By now, a job which was advertised as taking "less than half an hour" has been going on for 3 hours or so and it is well past my bedtime!

So I abandon the operation for the night and go to bed. As I climb into bed the thought occurs to me that really I'm wasting my time struggling to host a themes shop on my website. After all, there are plenty of Wordpress theme affiliate programmes that I could simply point my website visitors to!

The obvious solution!!

The next morning I logged in to my hosting account and promptly uninstalled the programme and all its associated files. I then spent five minutes searching for a suitable affiliate programme and ten minutes later I had an affiliate banner posted on my site.

Job done!

Mental note: There is no need to go through the hassle of hosting other people's products on your website when you can much more easily point your customers to an affiliate site instead.

David Hurley
Free Business Websites

5 Reasons Why You Should Be Willing To Host Guest Bloggers On Your Blog

Having recently posted about the benefits of guest blogging from the point of view of the guest, here's an article about the benefits of guest blogging for the blog owner.

Perhaps you can see the advantages of blogging on someone else's blog, but are not sure about why you should allow anybody to post their blogs and links on yours...

Here are five reasons why you should:

5 Reasons Why You Should Allow Guest Blog Posts On Your Blog.

David Hurley
Free Business Websites

Get A Year's Free Upgrade On Flippin' Hits, The Newest Traffic Exchange In Town!

After several years promoting his websites in traffic exchanges, one of my online business partners, John McRae decided to start a traffic exchange of his own.

Introducing: FlippinHits.

I joined John's TE a few days ago and have been testing it out. It is one of the easiest to use, with not tooooo many buttons to confuse you with. It does exactly what you want a traffic exchange to do, and it gives you bonus credits every so often.

I told John I liked his site and would like to recommend it to my forum membership. John promptly got back to me with a FREE UPGRADE for members of my PLR Article Club.

Here's what you get FREE for a whole YEAR if you are a member of DPH-PLR:

Get one year Standard Pro membership free!! (Usual price, $5.99 per month.)

* 1-1 Surf Ratio.
* 7 Second Surf.
* 500 Website Credits.
* 2500 Banners, Text Ad Credits.
* Add 15 Websites, Banners, Text Ads.
* Add 10 Downline Programes, Tracker Links.
* 35% Discount on Purchases.
* Upgraded Accounts Remain ACTIVE.
* Low Cost Of Just $5.99 Per Month. DPH-PLR Members get it FREE for one year !!!
* Random Referrals.

Click the link to join FlippinHits as a free member.

Remember, the key to success with TEs is to grab as many free and bonus offers as you can. Lifetime offers are the best, and 1 year free upgrade offers are also not to be missed - that gives you room to try out new or previously untried TEs. You have nothing to lose, and yet it's also a fantastic deal!

What to do to get your FREE Standard Pro Upgrade:

1. Okay, to make this a very sweet deal, I'm offering ONE MONTH FREE MEMBERSHIP of my high quality, limited membership PLR article club.

2. After you have joined, sign up for a FREE account at Flippin Hits via one of the links in this blog post or on my membership forum.

3. Then, send John a "support ticket" from within Flippin Hits to say that you are a member of DPH-PLR. John will verify it with me and then upgrade your account.

That's it!

Happy surfing!

David Hurley
Free Business Websites

Benefits of Guest Blogging, part 4/4: Long Term Benefits

Many people overlook the long-term benefits of guest blogging, which isn't surprising since there are so many short-term benefits to focus on as I've discussed in my three previous blog posts.

One of the best long-term benefits is that if you write a really good post, then there's a good chance that the blog owner, or other website owners, social networkers and so on, will refer to it in future posts, which provides even more benefits - such as extra backlinks and extra traffic - than having it posted only once.

Also, a strong blog post provides link building benefits for life as most will allow you to include at least one link back to your main website. (There is not so much point in guest blogging if the blog owner won't allow you to link back to your website.)  If your post is of high quality, then the blog owner, along with their readers, will likely visit your website.  And, if your website is good enough, it may be referred to within future posts on the blog a number of times over the long-term.

Now you can see that there are a number of benefits to adding guest blogging to your internet marketing arsenal.  To recap, four of the biggest benefits include instant reputation enhancement, effective niche penetration, increased networking opportunities and a variety of long-term benefits.

David Hurley
Free Business Websites

Benefits of Guest Blogging, part 3/4: Networking

One of the best Internet marketing strategies is to build up a strong network of people within your particular market niche. This will give you many opportunities to attract targeted traffic to your website and also to learn from others and to get involved in joint ventures and so on.

If you're brand new to a particular niche, then guest blogging is a great way to start networking with people within that niche.  You won't only create a relationship with the owner of the website that is allowing you to guest post, but you'll increase your chances of others finding out about you as well.

The benefits of networking within a niche cannot be overstated, and guest blogging is a very effective way to get started.

David Hurley
Free Business Websites

Benefits of Guest Blogging, part 2/4: Niche Penetration

In my previous post I talked about how guest blogging can enhance your reputation and help to build your brand. In today's post I'll say something about how guest blogging can help with "niche penetration".

Niche Penetration

To be successful with an online business you need to focus on a specific market niche. Of course, you can multiply the number of niches you work on, but each niche should have its own website and/or blog specifically aimed at promoting your products within it.

Niche penetration is all about getting seen wherever people go to find information about the particular niche you are promoting.

Because the internet is such a vast place, there's a good chance that there are thousands of people out there who would benefit from the products your website offers, but the difficulty can be in getting seen. Your products may be great but if your target market doesn't know you exist, you won't make many sales.

One way to get more exposure (i.e. greater niche penetration) for your website is by guest blogging. By guest blogging, you can leverage all of the SEO and traffic generation techniques that have already been done for the website that you’re posting on.  You’ll have access to visitors that otherwise would never know about you.  For example, if your website relies primarily on social sites for its traffic, then you can guest post on blogs that focus on video creation or forum interactions to attract a different set of people - as long as you make sure that your website is relevant to what they are looking for.

David Hurley
Free Business Websites

Benefits of Guest Blogging, part 1/4: Enhance Your Reputation

For a start, just what is Guest Blogging?


Guest blogging is when you allow somebody else to publish an article on your blog, or when you get permission to publish an article on somebody else's blog.

Guest has become a popular method to gain visibility for yourself and your websites. It is also a good way to generate additional incoming traffic.

There are several key benefits to guest blogging that you shouldn’t overlook. I'll cover four of the main benefits in this and my next three blog posts:


Reputation Enhancement


If you want to become credible and a trusted source to a particular niche, then guest blog posting can be very useful.  Guest blogging can increase your reputation in various ways. By posting an article on a well-respected website, the community will be able to see that other leaders in that niche value what you have to say.  Also, by having someone else post your articles on their blog, they’re essentially telling their readers that you can be trusted and that you provide valuable and reliable content.  It’s basically like having other leaders within your community and niche vouching for you.

On the other hand, if you can find someone with a high reputation, a recognised expert in the field, to publish articles with you, it will add a great deal of credibility to your blog and also draw in more traffic.


So, if you are wondering how you can raise your profile and build your brand, think about doing some guest blogging.


David Hurley
Free Business Websites

Another Great Traffic Exchange Lifetime Deal...

In a recent post I explained the outstanding value for Internet marketers of lifetime credit deals on Traffic Exchanges. It is a great way to guarantee yourself a consistent flow of traffic to your website, or - more effectively - to your splash pages.

Today, I signed up to another very special lifetime credits offer over at Traffic Showdown - an up and coming traffic exchange run by the dynamic Kym Robinson. Here's what I get - every single month of the rest of my life, for just a one-time payment of $147:

• 1000 credits for my webpages, plus 1000 banner ads & 1,000 text ads.
• 7 Second Surf Timer - i.e. 1 credit every 7 seconds that I surf the members' pages.
•  50% commission on upgrades by my sponsored members.
• 30% commission every time one of my sponsored members buys something.
• Earn surf credits on 4 downline levels.
• Random referals.
• Every site surfed earns 1 credits and 2 banners and 2 texts.

There's a bunch of other stuff as well as that, but what is really special is the way your credits will go up in the first five months, by 100 per month, until you end up with a cool 1500/1500/1500 each month. And remember, it costs nothing more than the original monthly membership price of $147 to get these benefits month after month, month after month.

Now, if you add the site credits here to those of the Traffic Taxis lifetime deal, you'd be getting 4,700 page views guaranteed every single month. And if you split test your splash page, you should see increasingly good results over time.

Seriously, this TE strategy is an absolute no brainer, so if you'd like to get in on it, click the link to join Traffic Showdown on a free account.

Cheers for now,

David Hurley
Free Business Websites