ComTech News

Yes I am serious!  I have personally banned wikipedia links from every site I own including this blog.  I will never link to wiki ever again and in fact I took the several hours to go back through this entire blog from the beginning and remove every wikipedia link we had.

I got the idea recently while listening to this episode of SEO Rockstars from 1-23-07 where they just bust on Wikipedia's decision to apply rel=nofollow to all their out bound links. 

If you have not listened to SEO Rockstars it is run by Todd "Oilman" Freisen and Greg "Web Guerrilla" Boser.  Great show and you should indeed have a listen.  Any way Greg and Todd just tore up this decision by Wiki and talked about how we should all apply rel="nofollow" to any links to wiki.

I decided to take it a step further!  Right now I believe Wiki just has too much power and to many top rankings so I am taking all my link juice away from them.  Now I know I am small potatoes for a site like wiki who currently has like 51.8 Million Links.  Still there are plenty of people that would love to get links into my networks and I just killed off about 80 of those 51 million links.  Many were on PR 4, 5 and even some 6 pages!

What I would like to see is other bloggers and search engine marketers do the same.  Take some time and kill off some wiki links.  Why give these jerks your juice so they can just try to horde it with a rel=nofollow command that I don't even think works in the first place?

So I guess I have totally gone of the deep end.  I have removed rel=nofollow from our blog, I have banned Wiki and removed all their links as well.  Will it matter?  Not unless everyone starts doing the same thing but it does make me feel better. 

So I am asking for your help, just go remove a few of the links you have given to wiki in the past.  Redirect them to another source or to an internal resource of your own.  The heck with applying rel=nofollow just take them away.

So how many of you are willing to go out and nuke a few wiki links and stop giving them any more?

~  Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: wikipedia, rel=nofollow, greg boser,   todd freisen, seo, link building, link spam, nofollow, no follow, search engine marketers, wikiseek, spam

Popularity: 5% [?]

Spured on by the same reviews and discussions about Wikipedia's decision to add rel="nofollow" that led us at Comtech News to kill all use of rel="nofollow" on our popular blog and give our readers full credit for comment links, Michale Gray (known as Graywolf) has done what I must say is one of the best slams on Google I have ever seen.

His post entitled, Google’s Policy on No follow and Reviews is Hypocritical and Wrong is a must read.

Michael walks us through the history of nofollow, the changes made to it behind the screens and the misuse of it. He also talks about how it may be used to try to drive sponsored blogging underground.  Summary of his message is that Google is not as smart or capable as they claim to be and he makes a good case for it.

As for how I feel about nofollow personally read our comments policy,

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: google, goog, nofollow, wikipedia, seo, sem, links, advertising, search marketing, nofollow, michael gray

Popularity: 4% [?]

I was surfing the web and saw some people complaining about the new Wordpress Upgrade.  They didn't know how to upgrade and were afraid it would be too hard.

Our own blogger, Jack, recently wrote that he thought someone should go into business offering wordpress upgrades.

So I decided to do a little Camtasia video which shows step by step what to do to upgrade your Wordpress Blog.

So here is a little video and I put it up for all to watch over at YouTube.

Wordpress Upgrade

I hope you enjoy it.  If you have any comments or questions about the upgrade please leave me a comment and I'll be glad to respond.

Thanks!

Ben Fitts 

Popularity: 4% [?]

Wait!  Wait just a minute! How in the world can this be?  Did we not just say yesterday that most marketers fail to maximize income because their focus is way too broad?  

We did indeed and that is true but it doesn’t change the fact that the reverse can be true as well.  Let’s go back to our hypothetical marketer yesterday.  Remember our marketer started out as an Amazon affiliate who wanted to simply sell each and every product Amazon has to offer, then wisely narrowed it down to a few authors he or she enjoyed, set up an email list and did reviews.  

This was great and a perfect example of how to take a big concept and develop a narrow focus with it.  Here is the other side of the coin!  

Let’s say our marketer does a good job with the author site, it makes a bit of money (say 50 bucks a month) many times the marketer will feel that, "well that’s nice but clearly it is not enough to quit your day job".  They might start to self type cast themselves looking only for more authors or higher paying affiliate programs.  

Instead they should realize what they have just done is create a powerful residual income stream that they only update and cater to from time to time.  They should now use this model to exploit another similar but not fully related niche, building a second email list around another site about another subject with a fully different source of income.  Then seek synergies so they can cross promote to the two visitor groups.  

Further they should be open to any way to maximize the sites revenue.  The Amazon affiliate may add contextual ads like Google Adsense to their site, or set up as an affiliate with some one like Personalization Mall and offer writing journals (many readers like to journal) and other customized things that may appeal to their niche.  So books become the main draw but other source of income can be obtained.  The key is to, though I hate to use clichés, think outside the box at all times.

Eventually they really should start out a completely new concept with a complete new site and complete new subject matter.  Again they should do something they know but once the intimate subject (books by a favorite author) teaches them the process for an effective online system, that system can then be applied to anything they wish and more effectively with each subsequent project.  So that by the fifth or sixth project they are 10-20 times faster and more effective.

So the key, each project should be a narrow focused, special operations type mission with a clear cut timeline and plan.  Then with subsequent projects be sure you keep your options open and realize that you can honestly effectively earn income with any subject in any niche so make sure you are not missing the opportunity to diversify and maximize income.

This lesson is probably the most difficult to grasp but you will want to review it when you need it.  Next time you are stuck for ideas, feel boxed in or need inspiration, hold onto a copy and read it again.

~ Jack Spirko 

Technorati Tags: internet marketing, seo, sem, search engine marketing, online marketing, cognigen, amazon.com, seo training

Popularity: 4% [?]

Alright well yesterday we stated that not planning fully was the number one reason that new internet marketers and even some semi pros seem to fail or not maximize their earnings.  The only problem was I told you the problem but did not give you what was necessary to form an effective plan.  Each day until this course is complete from here on out I will tell you exactly the mistakes to avoid and that will form your blue print of what to avoid and what to include in your planning.   

So, on to today’s issue!  The problem of having to broad of a focus is a multi headed monster but we will touch on the major aspects to help you understand this problem, kill it, and effectively plan around it.  

A typical marketer may sign up as an affiliate for a big company like say Amazon or Cognigen Networks (where I learned the basics of internet marketing), etc.  Then instead of picking one product or product group, they try to copy the huge affiliate and do all things.  Developing a plan around this is almost impossible!  You just don’t have the resources of Amazon.com not to mention that you don’t have a few million affiliates selling for you either.  

Or perhaps the marketer does think a bit narrower and decides they are going to sell books from Amazon.  This may seem a bit better then books, electronics and the 9 billion other things Amazon sells but it is in reality no better because there are hundreds of thousands of authors and subjects and millions of books.  

Perhaps the marketer is even a bit more focused and decides to build a site based around the top ten best sellers, then archive them as they go off the list (so they are still available) but keep the top group always about the current ten best sellers.   

This isn’t bad and notice as soon as we got this narrow a plan just starts to form on its own!  It is a lot easier to fully plan when the plan begins to identify itself.  It is then that you know you are on the right track.  Still this is probably to broad a focus and to competitive a market for a relatively new marketer.  

The wise marketer would select an author or small group of authors whose work they know very well and enjoy reading and discussing.  Authors that were really big say 10, 20 or even more years ago but still have a fan base.  This marketer would put up reviews of these older books, comment on how they impact life, put up some pictures, develop an email list for their visitors and eventually have all of these older out of print books reviewed with info about the ones still in print and info about how to get used copies of the out of print ones.   

In fact the email list could notify visitors when ever such out of print items become available and where to go get them.  The marketer would simply sign up as an affiliate with every source of used books he or she could find, add the books in question to a “watch list” (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc offer this).  Each time a rare book became available the marketer would get an email and simply notify his/her list that there are a few copies available of the out of print title, etc.  Of course they would include their affiliate code in any links.  

Now that sounds like a plan doesn’t it?  Don’t get me wrong you would still have to create an outline, set priority for tasks to complete the project and more for the plan to be complete but simply by developing a targeted narrow focus, the plan just starts to appear.  

So do I think you should go out and build a book site focused on an author or group of authors like this?  Maybe, maybe not, honestly this is just a random example.  It does illustrate however, how one can take a seemingly totally broad based concept like Amazon.com and develop a tight narrow focus, with a reasonable income potential and minimize how many others you have to compete with.

So what ever your market may be remember developing a laser targeted focus will be key to effective planning and your eventual success.

 ~ Jack Spirko 

Popularity: 4% [?]

Yesterday, Wikipedia made the big announcment that they are now applying the rel="nofollow" command to all out bound links to combat what they consider "link spam" which the elitists Illuminati at wiki seem to consider any link added that goes to any site with any commercial content, by a person that owns the site or anything they personally don't want.

If you are not familiar with rel="nofollow" when applied to a link it tells the search engines not to count the link as a typical link and not factor it in the ranking of the target site.  This originally came about to combat blog spam which has failed miserably to effect in any way and blog spam is now at an all time high. 

The theory was if the link would not help rankings the incentive for spam would be eliminated and it would go away.  The problem is spammers don't care a link is a link and if they can spam they will spam.  Worse the search engines don't seem to care ONE BIT about the no follow command.  My personal research and that of Mark Barrera both show this to be the case.  Basically we have both in independent research shown that nofollow, doesn't seem to mean a hill of beans.

So it does not work either to dissuade spammers in any way and it doesn't even seem to be respected by the search engines that say they respect it.  So now the geniuses (said with major sarcasm) at Wikipedia (and no they are not getting a link from me) are going to fix everything by using it!

So I did a little research and found there is a word press plugin to remove the rel=nofollow function from your comments in your blog.  I installed it at once and from now on if you comment in our high PR blog you will get link juice in return for it.  Now don't go getting to happy or SPAMMY, all comments are moderated so read our comment policy and get commenting because at least we will give you something in return for your participation.

I have also decided to install the plug in on all my blogs and may post a list of them soon once that is done.  I am tired of this nonsense, rel=nofollow is useless all around.  I have also decided that Wiki will get no more links from me or on any of my sites.  Two can play at this game.    Of course I know they don't need my links but it is a matter of principal!

I am also making it even better, if you remove no follow from your blog, post a comment here about doing so and when I visit your blog to confirm it and I will list you in a new page to be added to this blog shortly that will be called Friends of Do Follow! 

I say lets end this nonsense, if you think it doing this will bring you more spam, check how much spam Askimet is already catching for you, with us it is several hundred a day. 

~ Jack Spirko 

Technorati Tags: rel=nofollow, nofollow, no follow, link spam, blog comments, blog, blogs, blogging, blog spam, spam blogs, search marketing, building links, comment links

Popularity: 8% [?]

I recently bought an IPod and a new Samsung Blackjack cell phone. Both these pieces of technology cost me a few hundred bucks (each) so I wanted to protect them. I don't want them getting scratched up and beaten up. A friend recommended this product to me called ShieldZone.

These guys invented this thin material to protect helicopter blades. They call it the invisible shield. Then one day they got the idea to apply it to a ipod. It's see-through, in fact it even makes the ipod "shiny". Yet it is super strong. You can't tear it, you pretty much have to cut it. When it's on your ipod you can beat your ipod up with your car keys and yet it won't bear a scratch mark. It is really amazing stuff. Don't believe me? Watch the videos of demonstrations they've done. They take two ipods and put them in a paper bag along with some car keys. One of the ipods is protected, the other isn't. Then they shake the bag vigorously. Needless to say when they come out the one ipod is covered with scratches. The protected one looks brand new.

The only bad thing about the shield is that they are die cut with a laser to fit your equipment. So they have little holes where buttons go, where the headphone jack is, etc. You have to apply the shield yourself so it can take a couple of tries to get it to align right. In fact i might even suggest buying 2 so you can feel free to remove it and try it again.

ShieldZone also makes invisible shields for cell phones, that cover the cell phone screen and unprotected areas of the phone. They even had one for my Blackjack (which was difficult to apply, the ipod one was much easier to apply.)

I highly recommend these guys.

These are not affiliate links, just a product I think is awesome and you guys should check out.

- Ben Fitts
Custom Card Guy

Popularity: 5% [?]

In case you haven't heard yet, Ian Thomas, who works for Microsoft's adLabs team, has confirmed that Microsoft is working on its own analytics software - a modified version of the analytics software created by DeepMetrix (who was purchased by Microsoft last year).

I attended a presentation with Jack Spirko last year and we first reported about adCenter's 3.0 beta upgrades. During this presentation, we asked about Microsoft developing an analytics solution for its advertisers. At that time, we were only told that the adLabs group was working on something but no more information was provided.Now, we are sure that Microsoft is working on this and has codenamed this analytics project 'Gatineau' (note- this link will not allow you to login or register as it has not even reached Beta stages). Gatineau is the name of a city in Canada that at one time housed the headquarters for DeepMetrix.

Not much else has been released at this time, but expect that this should launch hopefully before the end of the year. I do expect the system to fully integrate your adCenter data for advanced tracking. Also, in case you don't think Microsoft can outdo Google Analytics on this one, just take a look at what they are working on at adLabs at http://adlab.microsoft.com/.  Many of these tools are not functional, but just the fact that they have let the hat out of the bad on these shows that they will have them soon.  I have yet to hear of tools from Google that give the advertisers the ability to know and market to specific demographics as well as these from Microsoft.

Now, on to the other product we asked Microsoft about at the adCenter lauch - When are we going to see a publisher network come out of adCenter so that advertisers can get increased exposure, and publishers can get some money? My guess on this one is late this year or early next year - I just got invited into their publisher network for their partner sites so the next step seems to be to open it to all web site publishers after they work out the kinks on their current network of sites.

Popularity: 3% [?]

One thing that gets overlooked by many marketers is Domain Name Trademarks, specifically those who have a ton of domains.  Recently I discovered a forum that deals with nothing but Domain Names and I mean everything from Domain Trademarks and Legal Issues to Domain Registration and Legal Issues surronding owning and managing domain names.

You may want to visit this forum, it is the first forum I have found that is dedicated totally to domains and the issues surrounding them. This is a very active forum with thousands of active topics and members and if nothing else there is alway the chance to make new contacts with a vibrant and active forum.

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: domain names, domain name registration,   domain trademarks, internet marketing, internet marketing forum, domain legal issues

Note: This was a sponsored post. 

Popularity: 3% [?]

Today I will begin what will be a 13 part series on the top mistakes of new Internet Marketers.  The reality is good marketers also make these mistakes or at least some of them, every day too.  So tune in and for the next 13 work days I will be bringing you one new mistake each day.  Today we begin with

Internet Marketing Mistake Number One - No Cohesive Plan

This is probably the one thing that either keeps any given internet marketer from making money or from making as much money as they possibly can.  You simply must have a full plan before you launch any project or you will most likely cause the following things to occur.

One – You will leave out critical steps, like tracking everything so you can make adjustments, getting your on page factors right and millions of other details.

Two – You may be doomed by the number one thing that plagues countless would be great internet marketers.  This is having 4-5 or more projects going at once each that could be completed in less then a month, but because you are juggling it takes 5 or more months to fully finish any or worse yet none of them ever get fully completed.

Three – Your project ends up needing constant support to keep going even if it works.  Because you are not fully planning in the beginning you only develop a site and a product, not a system.  Done right your projects should result in creating systems that run themselves once complete so you are free to now do another project.  With out planning this will never happen you will always have more to do.

That is really just the beginning!

In reality there are tons more things that not planning out a project create but the three above honestly are the big ones.

In the beginning of my career and even mid way into it this was my biggest mistake.  Fortunately for me I did focus heavily on learning to optimize web pages and just kept building more and more of them.  In time despite my mistakes the traffic alone helped me make a decent income. 

Yet I am telling you this because I want you to understand how important planning really is because not planning in those early years easily has cost me six figures or more of income I can never recover! 

If I had done extensive planning from day one I would have a much bigger contact list today, far more effective tracking and trends to rely on and far more high ranking web pages (I currently personally have more then 500 top ten rankings not to mention what I have done for clients and employers, so imagine how many I never acquired do to poor planning in my early years).

So don’t make this mistake!  I was going to save this article for your last lesson because the other lessons are actually going to help you be able to form your own outline for your projects.  So you can create your own custom plans and set priority based on your own timelines.

Instead I decided to start with this lesson so your mind would be in the right place going forward.  I encourage you to read this lesson at least one more time and commit to yourself that you will begin to fully plan and prioritize any of your online projects from now on. 

Popularity: 3% [?]

OK so while I am sitting here like a sucker in the US paying about 24 bucks a month to get a true 1.5 MB connection on my DSL those of you in the UK have the ability to get a much bigger connection for a lot less money.

I just ran across this cheap broadband deal that unfortunately I can't get here in the States.  Here is what you get,

- First Month Free
- Free Wireless Router
- Free Set Up and Hardware
- Unlimited Downloads

All for about £14.95 a month!  Now before my fellow US Residents start saying that sounds a lot like AT&T or Verizon, etc.  get this your connection speed with that plan is 8MB! We here in the states have to shell out quite a bit for an 8MB connection.

They offer a variety of plans for light to heavy users but if you don't mind me saying they all beat anything I can get here in Texas.  Hopefully one day we will catch up with the rest of the world in the realm of residential broadband but until then for those of you in the UK I recommend you take a look at Home Broadband from Eclipse.

 ~  Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: broadband internet, broadband, residential broadband, residential dsl, uk broadband, uk internet, internet access, high speed internet

Note: This was a sponsored post 

Popularity: 5% [?]

OK sometimes I am just stubborn, I heard all the blogs buzzing about Crazy Egg after they were on Webmaster Radio but I just did not see the point.  I just wondered what could this possibly show me that Google Analytics would not?  Well apparently a lot, but more to the point I can get data I want with a lot less work.

Let me explain, note the cut out of a screen shot from this blog to the right.  Notice what is heat mapped is my Disclosure Policy.  Yet we see a lot more then people are clicking there!  You see exactly WHERE people are clicking on those links.  

Like in the upper one they are clicking on the word Disclosure mostly, where as on the lower one they are clicking all the way to the right.

Now that is cool, I am not totally sure how practicle it is but it is cool. 

Now let's be practicle, I don't really care what part of my link you click on but what I do care about is if I have two links on the same page that both point to the same location, which one users are actually using.  What I mean is this, if I look in Analytics at the site overlay it will tell me that the same number of people clicked on both links.  So I know the target page is being viewed but not how people are getting there.

In this case both links are getting used so I would want to leave them both intact.  But let's say I am doing some marketing with a goal to get people to go through a process.  Now on that first page of the process I have two links a person might use to take the same step, wouldn't it be nice to know if one got used and the other did not?  Wouldn't that make improving my page easier?

How do I do this with Analytics?  It is a pain, what I have to do is create a tracking id for both links, like www.domain.com/target?1 and www.domain.com/target?2 then my overlay in Analytics can see the difference.  That lets me split test layouts and make good judgements on tweaks.  Of course it is a pain in the butt so I don't always take the step like I should.

Conversely setting up a Crazy Egg project takes about 25 seconds and pasting one line of code.  You then know exactly how your landing pages are being used.  On top of this you can get a lot of use out of their free version so there is not much to loose by giving it a try.  You can run 4 tests at the same time with up to 5,000 monthly page views for free and that gets a lot of data for you. 

This is not like a typical program you run non stop on all your pages, you just put in on one page, set the duration of your test and run it long enough to get your answers.  Give it a shot, I can promise you that you will learn things about your sites you never even knew to ask about.

~  Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: crazy egg, analytics, web site analytics, google analytics, google, internet markteting

Popularity: 3% [?]

At first MySpace was all about bands reaching their fans, next thing we knew it took off like wildfire with high school kids, college students and then it seemed that every person under 27 had their own MySpace page.  Now MySpace is not just a social networking site any longer, major corporations have their own MySpace page.  Companies like Coke, Cingular and many others have made a MySpace page part of their online marketing with very good results.

So if you are going to set up a MySpace profile what do you do to make it your own.  Well most people with design skills just cutomize their own but many rely on many of the Myspace layouts that are available from a variety of sources.  I recently ran across a website called, WiseGuys.co.uk that offers everything from Myspace icons to Myspace backgrounds and various other ways to customize your MySpace page all for free.

So if you are looking for a way to make your MySpace more unique give WiseGuys.co.uk a visit and try out their layout generator to create a truely one of a kind layout for your MySpace page.

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: myspace, online marketing, myspace layouts, blogging, social search

Note: This was a sponsored post

Popularity: 6% [?]

There has been a ton of press as of late about the need to update Wordpress Blogs and we do it here, however I consider it a major pain in my rear end!  It is not difficult but it takes time and you mess with everything and pray it all still works when you are done.

Sure you make back ups (unless you are brain dead) and can revert if you screw up something but that sucks too because you just spent all that time to end up back where you started and have to start over.

So this got me thinking I wonder if there would be any money in doing Wordpress Upgrades?  I am not going to do this, as I DESPISE doing them but check out the reality here.

First I searched for a few terms on Google and Yahoo and MSN along the lines of the following,

wordpress update
word press update
wordpress upgrade 
word press upgrade
upgrading a wordpress blog
etc. etc.

I found no sponored listings at all on Yahoo, None on Google and while there were some on MSN none of them were about what I was searching for.  I checked the traffic behind these terms and it is modest, that said good research could dig up a ton of low cost terms that were highly targeted for users who want to update Wordpress blogs.

Now there are dare I say it 10s of thousands of existing Wordpress Blogs out there in need of updating.  Many are quite a few versions behind and require multiple updates etc.  Now while I loathe this process myself once you have done it a few times it is pretty strait forward and like anything if you did it daily for a while you would get very good and very fast at it.

You would soon master all the typical problems that come up, learn about issues specific to different hosting platforms, etc.  In short when you do one thing often you swiftly become a competent expert at doing it.

The final thing if I searched for Wordpress Update and saw the following,

I will Upgrade Your Blog
Fast, inexpensive, reliable
we do everything for you.

(something like that)

If I then clicked on that sponsored link (and I would) and found a real company that made me feel safe enough to grant them access to my hosting accounts and if they would do my upgrade in the 50 dollar range I would give them my business.  Assuming they did a good job and I had no problems with my update I would NEVER EVER do it myself ever again.

Now to me with services growing like Blogsvertise and PayPerPost and new ones every day.  With blogging getting to be more profitable and more main stream the number of users needing this type of service can't help but grow.

So if a company (could even be one or two people) were to specialize in this niche, provide excellent service and have even a modest ability to run a few PPC and Organic Marketing campaigns, I just don't see how they could fail.

So there it is, almost an instant business with no competition and I even gave you sample ad copy (though I recommend you improve it).  Now the question is, is there anyone who actually enjoys doing Wordpress Upgrades?  If so you have a unique opportunity not to mention a unique psyche.  If so the field is wide open and as long as you can demonstrate your competence to me, you have your first customer the day you start.

One person could do this with a very modest marketing budget and I think easily do say 20 of them a week.  Even at just 50 bucks that is 50K plus a year which is not huge money but far better then the salary of many American's who hate their jobs far more then I hate doing my own upgrades. 

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: wordpress, wordpress update, internet marketing, business idea, blog service, blogging, blogger, blog

Popularity: 6% [?]

I just came across a company called eTrafficJams and took a look in particular at a page on their site about Search Engine Optimization Information.  While the company is an SEO firm and their site is really designed for gathering new customers and leads (as it should be) I also found it to have a great deal of valuable information and tips that a person using a self service approach or working in the SEO space would find useful.

Some of the topics of interest on the eTrafficJams site included,

- Why Small / Medium Companies Turn to SEO Firms
- Why Large Corporations Turn To SEO Firms
- Search Engine Optimization Design Factors
- SEO Copywriting That Wastes Your Money
- SEO Copywriting That Makes You Money
- Understanding the SEO Process

This is one of the things I really enjoy about working in the internet marketing and SEO space, the way competitors freely share information with each other and act as resources for one another as well.

On the pure resources end eTrafficJams also offers

- A SEO/Internet Marketing Blog
- An Email Newsletter
- A Free SEO Analysis
- A Free Keyword Analysis
- A Collection of SEO and Internet Marketing Articles

So stop by eTrafficJams sometime and take a look at their informative and well put together site.

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: seo, sem, internet marketing, seo firm, internet marketing firm

Note: this was a sponsored post 

Popularity: 3% [?]