This article is based on the “Weapons of Influence” explained by the now famous PhD psychologist Robert Cialdini in his book “Influence.”

These weapons of influence are the driving forces behind the decisions that cause people to take action.

Learn to wield these weapons and the benefits they can bestow on you may be immense.

“Influence” has made a huge mark in the Internet Marketing industry, it is Yanik Silvers favorite book, and I have heard more than a few famous Internet Marketers reference it before.

Simply put, the weapons of influence below will help you become more influential.

Online Influence Weapon #1 – Reciprocity

The “Law of reciprocity” states that: People tend to return a favor when a favor is given to them.

Reciprocity explains the pervasiveness of free eBooks, ecourses, etc, in the Internet Marketing world.  The more free stuff you give someone the more likely they are to buy something from you.

The “Law of reciprocity” has been the driving force of my online brand and business.  I really like this element of influence as it aligns well with my personal goal to help others as much as possible.

On Twitter reciprocity is especially evident.  When you retweet someone else they are much more likely to retweet you back.  Ditto for lists:  List and be listed, retweet and be retweeted.

Guest posting is also a great way to get to get the law of reciprocity working for you.  If you write a few guest posts for a big blogger they will be much more likely to help you out if you ask.

If you develop a product that you want to promote, for example, having bloggers who are highly likely to reciprocate a favor you have done for them can help you get some powerful affiliates to help with your product launch and this can be the ticket to earning tens of thousands of dollars in additional income.

Online Influence Weapon #2 – Commitment and Consistency

If people commit, orally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment because of establishing that idea or goal as being congruent with their self image. Even if the original incentive or motivation is removed after they have already agreed, they will continue to honor the agreement. For example, in car sales, suddenly raising the price at the last moment works because the buyer has already decided to buy.

This model is used effecively by some Internet Marketers to get people into continuity programs that they might not have otherwise purchased.  I am not a huge fan of this method, but some marketers make millions with it.

The way it works is a product will be offered for $7, or so and this pays for the first month of a program, and every month after is a set higher price, like $67.

Using this sales model customers will commit to a program and often remain in the program at full price for several months, even though they would never have purchased the program at full price.

Online Influence Weapon #3 – Social Proof

People will do things that they see other people are doing. For example, in one experiment, one or more confederates would look up into the sky; bystanders would then look up into the sky to see what they were seeing. At one point this experiment aborted, as so many people were looking up that they stopped traffic.

Whenever possible use social proof to your advantage.  This is why I think it is so crucial to build up strong social media communities, because they are a great way to show social proof.

The social proof that I have been able to build from Twitter, for example, has been able to land me contracts building social media brands for several companies, and has gotten me into a few exclusive high priced events for free.

If you want to learn how to build social proof on Twitter sign up for my free Twitter Course.

Online Influence Weapon #4 – Authority

People will tend to obey authority figures, even if they are asked to perform objectionable acts.

This law of influence is reflected in the way that wealthy people are often viewed.  Wealthy people are often considered smarter than average people, simply because they have the authority of wealth behind them.

A crazy rich person is considered eccentric, whereas a crazy poor person is downright insane.

To get the power of authority working for you, strive to establish yourself as an expert in your strongest niche. Authority comes in many forms, but if you are not afraid to tell it how it is you will begin to get respect as an authority.

Anytime you can succeed you will begin to gain respect and attention as an authority.  Facebook is a great place to launch an authoratative community, and if  you want to learn some powerful Facebook tips I recommend you check out my latest free eBook 25 Powerful Facebook Tips.

Online Influence Weapon #5 – Liking

People are easily persuaded by other people that they like. Cialdini cites the marketing of Tupperware in what is now known as viral marketing. People were more likely to buy if they liked the person selling it to them. There is also a bias in favor of more attractive people.

Cialdini wrote about the importance of liking before the Facebook “like” button existed.  These days in the online world the “Like” button is everywhere, and if you install it into your web content you will enable this weapon of reciprocity to work for you.

If you install a Like button into an opt-in page where you are asking for someone’s email not only will you be able to increase your opt-in rate after you get some people to click the “Like” button, you will also get additional opt-ins from the traffic that those “Like” clicks generate.

On my Facebookecourse.com opt-in page, for example, 44 people hace already clicked the “Like” button and I am sure that those 44 likes have led to several more opt-ins.  Currently more than 50% of the people that visit that page opt-in to recieve my free Facebook ecourse and this is partially thanks to the “Like” button.

Getting people to click the “Like” button on your content is not the only way to engage this weapon of influence.  The more personality you can inject into your content, the better!!

Don’t worry about trying to please everyone, you never will, instead just try to have fun with what you create and it will come back to you in the form of a more engaged and involved community.

Online Influence Weapon #6 – Scarcity

Perceived scarcity will generate demand.  For example, saying offers are available for a “limited time only” encourages sales.

I have heard several Internet Marketers say that scarcity is a marketers best friend.  The important thing to remember with scarcity is to do what you say you will.  If you say that you will be pulling an offer down after 72 hours, make sure that you do.

Limited time bonuses are a smart way to get people to act within a perticular time frame.  This also gives you an excuse to follow up with emails about the promotion.  Once way to do this is to offer a 72 hour sale.  You can then follow up at 48 hours, 24 hours, 6 hours, etc, counting down to the time when your awesome bonuses will be taken away.

Limited technology is one way to implement a scarce offer.  For example next week when I launch my new Facebook Training Program called: Facebook Power for the first 100 people who buy I will be offering a free Facebook Webinar.  I can only offer this bonus to 100 people because currently my webinar plan only supports 100 people, maximum.

Conclusion

In this article I tried to give insight into Cialdinis weapons of influence from an internet marketers perspective.  To get a more wholistic view of these “laws” I highly recommendyou grab a copy of Cialdinis book Influence.  If you apply these weapons of influence into your life and buisiness you will be able to exercise greater influence in your life, and achieve more of the results you want.

Feedback

Have you used or observed any of these weapons of influencein your own life?  If so let us know in the comments below.

Traffic is the lifeblood of the web.

Without traffic your online business will die.

With enough traffic your online business can make you millions.

In addition to the article on this page I have also created this content as a .pdf that I am giving FREE to anyone who leaves a comment on this blog.

I hope the 101 tips in this article help you drive serious traffic to your website, and rapidly increase your subscribers!

1. Start with a Good Domain

A good domain is an advertisement and a lead magnet in and of itself.

.com domains are your best bet, but since millions of them are already taken it might take some time to find one that you like.

Godaddy is where I buy all of my domains.

Do some keyword research before you buy your domain and try to include keywords with good search volume.  Make sure you select the [exact match] type of keyword so you get accurate results.

2. Create a YouTube Channel and Publish Videos

YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web, and they are owned by Google.

Be sure to track which of your videos get viewed and make sure that when a video gets more than a few views that you use the “annotation” feature of YouTube to add a call of action for viewers to go to the site where you want to drive your traffic.

Interlinking your videos with annotations can help you pick up more views and traffic as well.

Make sure to include a link to your website in the profile information of your channel.

3. Syndicate your Videos with OneLoad

Although the bulk of your video views will likely come from YouTube, by syndicating your video content to other video sites with OneLoad you will be able to pick up a considerable amount of niche traffic to your site.

When you are setting up your accounts on each of the different video channels be sure to include a link back to your website in your profile.

4. Syndicate your Videos with Traffic Geyser

Traffic Geyser is like Tube Mogul, only it is a paid version with more bells and whistles.

However, you can get a free 21 day trial of Traffic Geyser.

Traffic Geyser sends your content all over the web, to blogs, video hubs, and other Web 2.0 properties.

5. Watermark your Videos

A watermark is an image overlay on top of a video.

Before I publish any of my videos I watermark them with the URL of the domain I want to drive traffic to with a video editing program.

I use the screen capture video software Camtasia to add my watermark.

Camtasia works on PC’s and Mac’s and comes with a free 30 day trial.

6. Screencast Videos

I find that Screencast Videos are an excellent way to produce video content that you can use to attract visitors to your website.

Camtasia is great way to go, and Jing is another powerful option, if you are looking for a more affordable option (Jing is only $10 a year).

One way to entice users to check out your website with a screencast is by at the end of the video surfing to your website and talking for a short while about the cool things that visitors can find on your site.

7. Write Guest Posts

Reach out to bloggers with audiences bigger than your own and ask them if they would like you to write a post for their blog.

Even if this strategy does not convert to a huge influx of visitors, it will get you quality backlinks that will boost the ranking of your site in Google.

The bonus of this strategy is that you will build relationships in the process.

8. Build an Email List

An email list is an exceptionally powerful way to drive traffic at the click of a button, build a community around your site, and make sales.

Building an email list requires an Email Service provider. I recommend Aweber since they are very user friendly, have great customer service, and have a powerful form building tool. You can get started with Aweber for $1.

Aweber’s form tool is important because great looking forms are vital to helping you build the biggest email list possible, which will be able to send you droves of traffic at the push of a button.

If you are on a tight budget you can get started Email Marketing with MailChimp for free, if your list has under 500 people on it. Be warned though, MailChimp customer service is pretty much non-existent, and from my experience it is impossible to get someone on the phone.

9. Create Epic Content

Content that goes above and beyond attracts traffic naturally due to the immense value that it delivers.

Epic content is not rocket science, it simply takes plenty of research to develop something that outdoes everyone else’s effort in a particular area.

10. Set up an Auto-responder Email Series

An Autoresponder is an email marketing tool that automatically sends emails to a subscriber in specific time insterals after they sign up to your email list.

I use Aweber to delpoy my autoresponders, and I have a different autoresponder series set up for every active blog that I own.

Ideally, you should have an autoresponder email for every important article on your blog.

Every email you write in your autoresponder should have a call to action designed to get the reader to click through to your site.

11. Give Away Free Stuff

Giving away high quality free stuff is a powerful way to drive traffic to your website, generate leads for your business, and make sales.

If you give someone $10 of value for free and then suggest a product for $1 people will be much more likely to buy compared to if you simply asked them for the $1 sale.

Free content is often shared, and the more value your free offer is the better your chances are of your content being shared virally.

12. Submit Your Site to Feedburner

Feedburner is a service owned by Google that takes your RSS feed and makes it easily accessible by a variety of RSS readers.

Feedburner also offers a variety of tools to track how many subscribers your feed has, as well as different ways to publicize your feed with widgets, and optimize the content in your feed.

13. Use Squeeze Pages

An effective squeeze page has a better rate of success for capturing new leads than any other form placement.

My squeeze pages get about a 50% opt-in rate, which is pretty healthy, and will build a traffic getting list fast.

Check out my Facebook Ecourse to see my standard squeeze page setup.

Want me to design a custom squeeze page for you, just like the ones I use? Just contact me, I’ll gladly throw one together for you for $50.

14. Create an Ecourse

A solid way to strat an autoresponder series is by offering a 7 day email course where you send seven emails for seven days to build a strong initial relationship and trust with your subscribers.

I use this strategy for a few of my lists, with my Facebook eCourse, and my Twitter Tips and Tricks Course.

15. Write a Free eBook

If you have blog posts already you can simply copy and paste your content into a document, then convert it to a .pdf, and just like that you’ll have an eBook!

eBooks have a high percieved value and are a great way to build your email list.

I use this strategy with my free eBook The Social Media Strategy Guide.

16. Write a Roundup Post

Write a post that rounds up a bunch of awesome people in your niche.

This strategy is an effective way to build relationships with influencers, if you reach out to them and let them know you are promoting their content.

Building relationships with influencers often leads to them returning the favor by blogging or tweeting about you, and thus sending traffic your way.

17. Interview Experts in Your Niche

By interviewing an expert in your niche not only will you get great content from their answers, you will also be building a powerful relationship in the process.

18. Twitter Traffic

Twitter is a huge source of traffic for me, second only to Google.

I have been able to get tens of thousands of visitors to my sites by building my Twitter network on a daily basis with an awesome program called TweetAdder.

Check out a video review of TweetAdder I did to get a better idea of how this program can build your twitter network, and drive traffic to your site.

19. More Followers for More Traffic

Your goal with Twitter should be to network and build relationships, and these relationships will lead to traffic to your tweets.

More followers = more retweets = more traffic.

Here is one proven way to get more followers is to unfollow and refollow highly visible accounts, like @aplusk and some of the other most followed people.

People often follow the followers of these folks so every time you use this strategy you will pick up some new followers.

20. Create a Facebook Page

By putting your traffic where users spend most of their time online you have the best chance of it being viewed.

Currently people in North America spend more time on Facebook than any other website.

If you do not have a Facebook page yet for your website you are seriously missing out on a huge source of traffic!

Install a “Like Box” into your website so that your visitors will know you are on Facebook and join your page!

For Facebook traffic secrets grab my free Facebook eBook.

21. Create an Infographic

I have seen many Infographics go viral.

If you have a little bit of design skill you can take stats about any topic spin them into a cool image, and then sit back and relax as your infographic is shared all over the web.

Make sure to include a url to your website within the infographic so that you can still get credit and traffic when your infographic is re-blogged elswhere on the web.

22. Create a .pdf Cheatsheet

Cheatsheets are documents with a bunch of important information about a subject that is intelligently organized so that someone can easily find the information they need.

People love content like this in .PDF format and if you create it the is a good chance that it will be shared.

23. Hold a Contest for Subscribers

You can do a one-time or a monthly contest where you give away a gift, like an amazon gift card, to one of your subscribers.

Offer this gift to the person who refers the most traffic to your squeeze page.  You can track the traffic with bit.ly links.  Encourage competition to get several people trying hard to send you traffic and win the prize.

24. Comment Contest

Another cool way to do a contest is to give a prize to whoever leaves the best comment on one of your posts.

This strategy can cause some serious attention to be attracted to the conversation taking place.  I recommend installing a commenting plugin like Livefyre so people can easily share their comments to FB and Twitter.

25. Content Contest

Ask users to create a piece of content to enter your contest.

With the viral nature of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter a contest like this could attract plenty of attention and net you a ton of traffic and many subscribers in the process.

Get users to upload a picture to your page, or a video, and this will not only bring you traffic it will make your community members feel more connected with your brand.

26. Traffic Contest

Earlier this year I won a free ticket worth $2,999 to an SEO contest by being the person who sent the most traffic to the contest page.

The way this can be done is by each user having their own bit.ly url. All bit.ly urls have built in analytics that can be accessed by adding a + to the end of the link.

27. Get a WordPress Blog (If you don’t have one already)

WordPress is open source blogging software that is the best way to publish your content online.

I recommend installing a self-hosted blog with a hosting service like Bluehost so that you can install plugins like Ultimate SEO, and Google XML sitemaps, which will allow you to optimize your content for Google.

WordPress is a powerhouse, driving tens of millions of blogs online.  Wordpress is also used by more of the top 100 blogs than any other platforms.

28. Install Social Sharing Plugins

At the very least your website should have Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons.

Share this offers a cool button that allows your users to share content to Facebook and Twitter, and a variety of other content hubs.

29. Start a Podcast

A Podcast is an excellent way to get content out to the millions of people with iPods and other Apple products.

Podcasts are a form of magnetic content that will allow you to build up an audience who you can form a strong relationships with.

These listeners actually hear your voice they are more likely to feel connected to you than if they simply read your content.

30. Ask People to Stumble Your Posts

StumbleUpon can be a huge source of traffic if your content catches on.

A great way to get your content going on StumbleUpon is to ask your friends to stumble it.

StumbleUpon recently surpassed Facebook to become the #1 referrer of social media traffic online, so it is worth your time to integrate StumbleUpon into your site with StumbleUpon buttons and badges.

31. Use the su.pr Link Shortener

Su.pr is StumbleUpons link shortener and I recommend using it to share the content you produce.

When you use Su.pr to shorten a link it will automatically submit your content to StumbleUpon.

32. SocialAdr

SocialAdr is a social bookmarking service that allows you to have your bookmark shared by others in the community if you share the content of others.

Users are able to choose the content that they bookmark, and whenever a site is bookmarked SocialAdr automatically bookmarks it on multiple bookmarking sites (over 20) at once.

33. OnlyWire

OnlyWire is a tool that allows you to send your content to up to 45 social sharing sites at once.

To use OnlyWire you must download an OnlyWire submitter to send your content to the different social networking and bookmarking sites, and this program works on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems.

34. Install a Facebook “Like” button

Facebook Like buttons are an excellent way to get people to share your content with the click of a button.

If you have WordPress I recommend the WP FB Like plugin.

35. Link to your site in your Email Signature

Every email you send is an opportunity to get traffic to your site.

Set up a custom signature with a link to your website, and the title of your site, and there is a good chance that it will get clicked.

The tool wisestamp allows you to add images and icons linking to your social profiles as well.

36. Customize your 404 error page

Hopefully your visitors never see your 404 page, but it is bound to happen as your site grows so it’s best to be prepared with a custom designed 404 page that suggests other content to your visitor, so they don’t bounce from your site.

37. Interlink your Pages

The more links you have within your content to other content on your site the better your site will rank in Google, which will mean more traffic for you.

Takeaway: Interlink the pages on your site as often as is relevant.

38. Emphasize your Popular Content

Make it easy for your visitors to find your best content.

The more visitors that check out your best content the better, since this is the content that they are most likely to share, which will bring you even more content.

Here is a Heat Map developed by Google that shows where users view a webpage the most.

To maximize subscribers experiment with the placement of your opt-in form, and try moving your sidebar to the left, instead of the right.  I found that this conversion strategy worked great for my blog Smart Online Success.

39. Test your Website in all Popular Browsers

The tool browser shots allows you to see what your website looks like in different web browsers. I use the firefox and chrome browsers exclusively, but Internet Explorer is still the most widely used browser out there.

Different browsers will render websites differently so it is best to check and make sure that your site looks okay because a messed up site will cost you visitors.

40. Speed up your Website

When a website takes more than a few seconds to load some visitors will leave simply because they are impatient.

Google has revealed that site speed is a factor in their ranking algorithm.

I recommend installing the w3 cache plugin if you have a WordPress.org blog.

Optimizing images with Yahoo’s smush.it lossless image compression tool will also help.

41. Optimize your Images

Size, alt tags, and title are three ways that you can optimize your images so that they are found by image search engines, such as Google Images.

You can also optimizing images so that your site loads faster by using the lossless compression tool jpeg mini.

42. Get Quality Website Hosting

With shoddy website hosting your traffic might not have a site to visit.

Don’t mess around with Hosting, go with a host that is well established and has great customer service.

The web host I recommend is BlueHost.

43. Build Backlinks

Quality over quantity is a truth that applies to link building.

One link from an authority site can do more for your site than 1,000 low quality links.

One place to find affordable SEO deals is the website fiverr.com.

44. Build Backlinks with Article Marketing

Article Marketing is a great way to get your content in front of many different people, and direct them back to your site.

In the signature section of articles you are able to build links and send traffic back to your site.

I recommend using the links in your signature to send traffic to a squeeze page with a relevant opt in offer.

I am currently using the paid service Distribute Your Articles  to sending your articles to many different content hubs across the web, allowing me to build many backlinks at once, and I will write a post in the near future about how well this service works to increase search engine rankings.

45. Use the Free Traffic System

The Free Traffic System is a tool that publishes your content and backlinks to blogs that are relevant to your niche.

Relevant links are worth more than irrelevant links so this system does indeed increase the rank of your site in Google.

46. Title Tag Optimization

By ensuring that your Title tags include the keywords that you are trying to rank for you will increase your chances of ranking in Google and getting traffic from searches containing those keywords.

47. Take Advantage of Mobile Traffic

There are over 4,600,000,000 mobile phones in the world and many of them are smart phones with Internet Access.

By optimizing your content for mobile you will be ready to take advantage of the plentifu; amounts of mobile traffic.

A great way to optimize your site for mobile devices is with the WPtouch plugin for WordPress.

48. Install a Forum

Forums are a great way to build a community around your site and in the process get plenty of user generated content.

Simple machines is free forum software that you should consider, and the best paid option out there is vBulletin.

49. Post Links on highly visible Facebook Pages

Craigslist forums are highly visible, and a great place where you can get the word out and drive some traffic to your site.

50. Squidoo

Squidoo is a Web 2.0 site that allows you to create “lenses” that tend to rank very well in the search engines.

Link back to your website and there is a good chance that you will get some serious traffic as a result.

51. Hubpages

Hubpages is very much like Squidoo, only instead of creating “lenses” you create “hubs.”

Another important difference between these two web 2.0 portals is Hubpasges is more strict about duplicate content, so if you are going to post similar content to both Squidoo and Hubpages, post to Hubpages first.

Like lenses, hubs rank very well in the search engines and can be a great way to direct traffic to your site.

52. Add your Site to Directories

By adding your site to directories you will be able to pick up some high quality backlinks that will help your site rank well in Google

Check out strongestlinks.com for a list of directories that you can add your site to.

53. Add your Blog to Blog Directories

There are directories for blogs only and by adding your blog not only will you be getting link juice you should also get traffic from people who are browsing the directory.

54. Build Links with Other Web Masters

One way links are more powerful that two way links so if you have two sites then build links with other bloggers by linking to them with one site and having them link to the other.This way you both get one way links.

If you have three or more blogs you can apply this same strategy internally.

55. Do Ad Swaps with Other People in Your Niche

Ad swaps are a form of cross-promotion and a powerful way to build your email list while building relationships in the process.

The way ad swaps work is you find someone in your niche with a similar sized email list and you send an email about their opt-in offer, and they do the same for you.

Not only will you get the initial traffic to your opt-in page you will also get repeat traffic as you send emails to your new subscribers.

56. Press Releases

Press releases are a good way to get many links at once and potentially get the attention of main stream media in the process.

There are several paid PR services and a free solution I have heard mentioned a few times is called PRLOG.

57. JV Partners

If you have a product an awesome way to promote it is by finding other people in your niche and partnering with them to promote it.

JV stands for Joint Venture, and a JV works when both parties involved promote each others product.

58. Keyword Research

By using the Google Keyword tool you will be able to find keywords that are relevant to you with a low level of competition.

Traffic Travis is free SEO software that can show you exactly how many back links your competitors have so that you know how many you will need to build in order to outrank them.

59. Google AdWords

PPC Advertising is a good want to go if you have a sales funnel.

When paying for traffic it makes the most sense not to send traffic directly to your homepage, but instead to send it to an optimized landing page or “squeeze page” where there is a single call to action  such as subscribing to your newsletter so you can follow up via email.

60. Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads are awesome because you can hyper target your market.

You can choose to direct your ads to any age group, in any region of the world, who”like” pretty much anything.

Due to Facebook’s massive user base you will probably still have a large group to market to even when you drill down to your ideal prospect.

61. Syndicate Content to StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is now the #1 referrer of social media traffic, and has over 25 million users.

Entertaining and highly visual content stumbles well, so if your website features this type of compelling content you should certainly look in to StumbleUpon.

StumbleUpon paid discovery (ads) is one way to get more views on StumbleUpon, and this solution has already been used by over 60,000 advertisers.  Investing into StumbleUpon Ads can be a way to get the ball rolling and start your content going viral.

62. Solo Newsletter Ads

Solo ads are a list building technique. How they work is you pay a list owner and they mail a list for you.

Make sure to find a list owner with a very good reputation, and preferably one who guarantees a certain amount of clicks.

63. Purchase Ads on a Website

There are many website owners who have invested plenty into building their blog and brand, but are willing to sell ad space for very cheap.

Send the site owner an email and you might be surprised at how cheap you can purchase hyper targeted traffic for.

Of course, you should link these ads to an optimized landing page.

64. Paid Site Review

By getting a problogger to review your site you can pick up quality backlinks and benefit from the exposure to their community.

I am willing to do a thorough review of your site and share it with my followers for $40, which is a pretty sweet deal since I often get more than this to send a single tweet.

If you are interested in me reviewing your site contact me, and I can certainly send some traffic your way.

There are many other bloggers who do reviews as well and you can find some of them at sponsoredreviews.com.

65. Business Cards

Make sure to include your url on your business card and let people know about your site when you give it to them.

66. Give out Swag with your URL

Everyone loves swag.

Make the swag you dish out as cool as possible so that people actually wear it.

If you just give out a plain t-shirt with your logo there is a good chance that it will end up in the trash.

Go to threadless.com for some inspiration.

67. Post Content on a Regular Basis

Regular content generates a regular readership.

Millionaire real estate marketer Dean Jackson of marketingmonday.com is a good example of how regular publishing can work very well.

Try to get your next few posts in the hopper so that you can always get your content out on the same day even if your week gets crazy and you don’t have a chance to create new content.

68. Be Controversial

Take a stand. The world belongs to the bold.

69. Choose a Smart Domain

Having a domain with the keywords you are trying to rank in Google for gives you a step up on everyone else trying to rank for those words.

70. Add a translation widget to your site

Want non-english speaking traffic?

Take advantage of traffic from non-English speakers with the Google Translate Tool.

71. Submit your Site to Search Engines

If your site is new make sure you manually submit it to Google, Yahoo, and BING, so that they know to crawl it on a regular basis.

If you have a WordPress blog install the Google XML Sitemaps plugin so that your site is crawled regularly.

72. Alltop

Alltop is Guy Kawasaki’s creation that does a pretty good job of syndicating all of the top stories about a huge variety of topics.

Submit your site and it provides another place for visitors to find you.

73. DMOZ

DMOZ is a huge directory and getting listed with them holds alot of weight in the search engines.

Every new link to DMOZ is manually reviewed, and few are accepted, so you may or may not be included but it is still totally worth a try.

74. Put Your Website Everywhere

Don’t be afraid to do a little bit of Guerilla Marketing.

Get business cards with an incentive for people to visit your site on them and leave them everywhere.

Go to an auto detailer and get a decal of your url for your car.

Get stickers with your url on them and stick them on people.

Do whatever it takes to get people to your site!

75. Ask your Readers for Feedback

What are some traffic tips that I could have mentioned in this post? Let me know in the comments below.

How else can I improve this site? Don’t be afraid to ask people what they think of your site and you might get some great feedback.

The better you can make your site the more visitors you will get over time from repeat visitors, and people spreading the word by word of mouth.

76. Track your Rank in the Search Engines

If you are regularly checking your rank in Google there is a good chance that you will make more effort to improve it.

Market Samurai has a rank checker tool that works great, or if you are looking for a less robust solution you can go with the free Rank Checker firefox plugin.

77. Get Guest Bloggers

Myguestblogger.com is a community of guest bloggers looking for blogs to write on.

78. Get an Awesome Design

If your site has a stellar design it will increase the chances that your visitors will come back for more.

A great design starts with a great Theme, if you are on WordPress, and two theme developers I recommend are WooThemes and Elegant Themes.

Another place to get awesome designs is 99designs. The way 99designs works is you put up a price for the winning design, and then bloggers compete to create the best design. The result is a bunch of designs that you can choose from to pick a winner.

79. Join a Forum Relevant to Your Niche

Forums are an awesome way to build your brand by helping people, and learn from other people who have already “been there and done that.” If you are interested in Internet Marketing I recommend checking out the Warrior Forum.

80. Distribute Your Articles

Article Marketing is a great way to spread your content across the web, and build links back to your site.

You can distribute your articles manually, or you can use the paid service Distribute Your Articles to send your articles to many article directories at once.

81. Network with Other Bloggers in Your Niche

The more relationships you build with other bloggers you can build, the better.

Go to blogging events and network with as many people as possible.

Tweetups are a great way to meet people if you are on Twitter.

Eventcast is a cool way to keep up with the events your friends are attending.

Knowing influencers is immeasurably valuable, and the reason why elite conferences like Shoemoney’s Elite Retreat and Yanik Silver’s Internet Marketing conference sell out despite a price tag on the tickets of thousands of dollars.

82. Install Google Analytics and Optimize Your Site

Google Analytics is easy to install into your site, and once you do you will be able to track a variety of variables that will give you insight into how to optimize your site.

If you have a WordPress blog the plugin Google Analyticator makes it exceptionally easy to install the Google Analytics tracking code.

By looking at the exit paths of visitors, for example, you can see which pages should be tweaked to prevent people from bouncing from your site.

82. Comment on other blogs

Comment on big blogs, like Mashable or TechCrunch so your comment will have the most visibility, and try to be the first person to comment.

83. Add your Blog to Technorati

Technorati used to matter much more than it does today in the blogosphere, but adding your blog to Technorati is still a very real asset.

Once you do this all of your blog posts will be imported into Technorati, thus giving your site powerful backlinks from an authority site every time you publish a post.

84. Spy on Your Competitors Links

Go to Google and search for the keywords you are trying to rank for.  Once you know the pages that out rank you it’s time to spy on their backlinks.

To do this go to Yahoo (they show more results than Google) and type in

link:pageurl -site:domain.com

This will show you the links that are pointing to this page so that you can attempt to duplicate them.

85. Encourage Active Commenting

Answering comments with a question is a good way to keep the conversation going.

The first comment is often the hardest one to get, and to hedge against this a strategy I have seen used is for bloggers to break the ice by being the first to comment in the own post.

Ask people what they think about the post you wrote, and don’t put them down if they disagree, and you’ll have plenty of comments in no time.

If you are running WordPress consider installing the disqus commenting plugin, which allows users to login with Facebook or Twitter, and then share their comment with these networks.

86. Write about Twitter

From my experience I have seen that content that deals with Twitter tends to be shared on Twitter very liberally.

Writing about Facebook tends to retweet quite well also, and posts about Facebook are also “Liked” liberally on Facebook.

87. Do not install ads

Ads send traffic elsewhere on the web, and once your visitors click away they may never return.

If you’re thinking about installing AdSense try thinking about something else. AdSense is often called “the bloggers welfare program” since it sends your hard earned traffic elsewhere for pennies a click.

A saying I came up with, which relates to smart blog building, is “popularize, then monetize.”

I recommend building your email list and content base before you consider installing ads.

88. Include at least one Picture in Every Page on your site

Pictures say a thousand words, so use them liberally.

If you have budget then consider buying stock images from places like iStockPhoto.

Even if you don’t have cash to spend on images a quick Google image search will likely reveal an image that will work well for you.

89. Befriend the Giants

Twitter is a great platform for reaching out to people with bigger networks than your own.

90. Check for Broken Links

Use this link checker tool to scan your website and point out the broken pieces.

91. Start a Fight with Another Blogger

Don’t agree with everything you read.

If you disagree with another blogger, say so.

Everyone likes to watch a good fight, so this tactic can bring plenty of traffic your way.

92. Write Easy to Read Posts

List posts work well, and the same goes for posts with short and simple sentences.

93. Get a Favicon

This one won’t get you mountains of traffic, but it will help with both traffic and consistent branding.

Personally I only bookmark websites with favicons, and the sites I bookmark get more traffic from me.

I recommend using the favicon.cc tool for an easy way to make a favicon.

94. Write for the Reader, not for Google

Right now my articles that get the most traffic from Google are the ones that have been shared the most on Social Media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and StumbleUpon.

Sometimes when people are trying to rank for certain keywords they stuff those keywords into the content in an unnatural way.

Keyword stuffing tells your readers that you don’t care about them, and visitors will probably not return if they feel like you could care less that they are reading your content.

I recommend including your keywords only a few times in your content; once near the beginning of your article, once at the end, and in the Title. If you have your keywords in these three places, and in the URL, that is all you need.

Write your articles in a way that will be the most valuable for the person reading it.

By writing for the reader you increase the chances that your content will be shared, and sharing is more of a factor in Google’s algorithm now than ever before.

95. Help People

If you make this the primary goal of your blog you should have little difficulty building up a following, as the people who you help will sing your praises on social media.

96. Write a Post Every Day

If you write a post every day you stand a great chance at building up a strong readership, since people will check back often, knowing that there will always be fresh content.

All of the massive blogs on the net publish content daily.

97. Install a Contact Form and Respond to all Contacts

People use my contact form If you have a WordPress blog I recommend the simple plugin Contact Form 7.

98. Write a post that has a cliff hanger ending…

Keep readers coming back for more. In the next post I will let you know which one of these traffic tips has been the most effective for building my traffic.

99. Study Viral Marketing

Two Blogs that I highly recommend you check out if you want to learn Viral Marketing are ViperChill and Copyblogger. Reading these blogs has taught me some strategies that make me very dangerous to my competitors, and they can give you the same edge. Stay tuned to this blog as well, of course, for the latest viral

100. Be Persistent

Rome was not built in a day. Persistence is what separates the winning websites that enjoy the majority of traffic, leads, and profits, from the millions and millions of bloggers who let their blogs stagnate and die. The more you put into your blog, the more you will get out of it. So work hard, persist, and before long you will be reaping the rewards

101. Write List Posts

List posts cater to the short attention span that our generation has developed. They are very scan able and easy to write.

I write lists posts first by writing the list points, and then by filling in the details once I have my list down.

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If you like this post leave a comment below and share it with your friends!

Focus is the underrated blade that can help you cut through the clutter in your life and get you straight to your goals.

As you exercise your ability to focus on what really matters the mental muscle you build will render ravishing results and get you more free time to enjoy the finer things in life.

With effort focused like a magnifying glass on the important goals in your life you can achieve your goals with blazing success.

In the BBC YouTube video below shows how a lens only 10ft in diameter can create a focused stream of light hotter than 3,500 degrees.  There is no known material on earth that can withstand a temperature of that intensity.

In this post I’ll share with you my top tactics sharpening your focus like a laser so that you can better tackle the most important goals in your life.

1. Eliminate Distractions

Distractions are murderers of focus and achievement. Eliminate every distraction possible and try to create an environment where you can create at peak performance.

For me this means that when I am in the zone I don’t listen to certain music because some songs have the power to pull me into the music and away from the task at hand.

A few ideas for music to work with are the instrumental jams of Deadmau5 and Skrillex if you are in a high energy mode, or the station Groove Salad on soma fm if you are feeling chill.

Eliminating random environmental noise with noise reducing headphones is also a definite plus.

2. Be Specific About Your Goals

Simply saying “I want to be rich” is a goal without much substance.

Substantial goals have specifics; once you get specific about what you want you can set to taking the specific actions that you need to take to get the results you want.

Owning a Lamborghini Aventador is one of my goals.  This car costs $387,000, which means that to buy it I will need to make a little over $1,000 a day, for a year.  Totally attainable.

Another one of my goals is to net a million dollars in revenue, in a year.

A million dollars in a year is $2739.73 a day.  In order to achieve $2739.73 a day I will need to sell about 28 copies of my FBPower Facebook Marketing Training product a day, 7 days a week.

In able to hit 28 sales a day I am going to need to continue to provide massive value for my customers and focus in on the things that will seriously drive sales for my business.

FBPower will need to remain on the cutting edge so that my refund rate remains very low, and I should expand into other product categories asap.

The specific points of action above would not necessarily follow from “I want to get rich” goals get specific and their costs are understood then the specific actions needed to get there become increasingly apparent.

3. Get Plenty of Sleep

Good luck finding fluid focus if you are running on only a few hours of sleep.

Sleeping relaxes and refreshes your body and gives your sub-conscious a chance to think about and decode challenges that might have caused you frustration throughout the day.

Everyone is different, but I have found that seven to eight hours is ideal.

4. Exercise on a Regular Basis

Exercise is an amazing natural way that you can eliminate stress from your life and help make you able bodied and open to addressing the challenges that you face every day.

If your work does not involve much physical activity making sure you get exercise can seriously help you improve the quality of your work and the quality of your life.

Exercise not only strengthens the body; it sharpens the mind.

5. Review Your Goals Often

Without reviewing your goals you might forget them, and if you forget your goals the chances you will achieve them are slim to none.

Keeping a list of the goals you hope to achieve will help you keep these goals in mind so that they don’t slip away from your grasp.

Don’t just have grand goals, it helps to start with small goals that will help you build the momentum you will need for massive success.

6. Tackle The Most Important Tasks First

Getting most important tasks done first is both the most efficient way to begin your day and a method that will encourage you to vigorously tackle other tasks.

7. Develop Successful Routines

Yesterday I hit a goal at the gym I have been striving towards for two months.  I have put on 15 pounds of muscle in two months and the number one reason I got these gains was thanks to my solid routine.

Every evening five nights a week I hit the gym with my friend Tj.  We go at the same time every night unless something serious comes up.  Thanks to this routine I have seen more gains in strength and size in the past 3 months than I saw in the entire year previous.

Routines can strengthen your success in whatever aspect of life you apply them to.

8. Apply the Pareto Principle

The Pareto principle suggests that in many instances about 80% of the results are derived from 20% of the effort.

Apply this principle by analyzing the activities that give you the results you want and focusing your energy on doing more of the activities that give you the greatest results.

In the world we live in where there is infinite distractions those who are able to apply the Pareto principle (Also known as the 80/20 rule) and focus on the most valuable actions will reap the lions share of results.

9. Track Your Progress and Make Improvements

By tracking your progress you create emphasis on the variables that directly influence your success.

Conversely, if you fail to track you are on track to fail.

I have found that by focusing on the variables that matter to my business (such as traffic, subscribers, and sales) I am able to improve my results and discover which actions are the most important for improving my results.

10. Drink More Water

If you’re dehydrated this will mangle your motivation, mood and focus.

Try and always have water within your grasp and the H2O will help you stay on top of your tasks.

11. Hit the Sauna

I find that after a relaxing sauna session I have an unparalleled clarity of mind.

The sauna causes your pores to open and the enables toxins to escape from your largest organ, your skin.

The sauna relaxes your muscles and relieves mind-clouding tension.

Shortly after I bought a new lock for my gym locker I forgot the combination.  Rather than heading to the front desk to get them to chop it off I hit the sauna.

As soon as I got out of the shower, toweled off, and came back to my locker I unlocked it on my first try.

12. Outsource More

With effective outsourcing you can make more money by focusing your efforts on what drives results while someone else tackles a task that they specialize in.

I recommend hiring an employee from the phillipines.

Some of the most popular outsourcing websites are: Elance.com, Scriptlance.com, VWorker.com, Freelancer.com, Guru.com, and oDesk.com.

If you are outsourcing your design work a cool service to use is 99designs.

99designs is the #1 marketplace for crowdsourced graphic design. They connect passionate designers from around the globe with customers seeking quality, affordable design services.  99designs is exceptional because it gives you many choices for the design project you post so you will almost certainly get connected with an awesome design that you love.

13. Stay Motivated

Celebrate when you achieve your goals.

Make time for exercise, friends and fun.

Keep the reasons why you work hard in mind and these will make the work not seem so bad.  Having a desktop wallpaper to remind you of your motivators is a good way to stay focused on doing what it takes to get them.

My computer desktop has pictures of some of the cars I plan to own and the places I plan to visit.

Conclusion

Focus has driven some of the greatest innovations of our age.

It is clearly an important factor in Facebook founder Mark Zukerberg’s life, just check out this recent picture he took of his desk:

It’s important to focus on what you do best and partner with others who have invested countless hours into their own areas of expertise.

How do you stay focused? Drop a comment below and let me know.

By knowing how people share content you can get your content shared more by emphasising these sharing outlets on your site, and making it easy for people to share with them.

There is no shortage of Social Media sites.  Two of my Facebook friends, Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas, collaborated to create the conversation prism to help make sense of the very long tail of social media.

It’s good to know what sites are out there, but more important than knowing that there are many social media sites is knowing which social media sites are actually used, and who uses them.

This next infographic show how different age groups use some of the top social media sites.

When it comes to sharing everyone has different preferences and habits.  But the simple fact is that some social media sites are more successful than others, and as such deserve more attention.

This next graphic shows some important information about the way people share.

The social media landscape has changed since this graphic was created in July of 09.  Facebook has added a few hundred million users, and twitter has grown by leaps and bounds as well and is now the 10th most visited site on the Internet.

If the above graph were to be updated it would likely show that Twitter is used for sharing more often than email, and Facebook sharing has likely increased as well.  This in mind Twitter and Facebook sharing buttons are a must.

Social Sharing Widgets

Twitter Tweet Button

Facebook Like Button

If you have a WordPress blog you can maximize sharing potential by installing the Digg Digg plugin (to get those snazzy floating buttons to the left) and to get the animated sharing buttons I have at the bottom of this post install the Sexy bookmarks plugin.

No matter what your site is built on, you an install the add to any button and get

Another social sharing option is the share this sharing widget.

Where your content will be shared really depends on the type of content you have, and how easy it is for people to share your content.

Make sure you have social sharing plugins installed and people will use them.

Get your content rolling by sharing it yourself.  Social proof has a very real effect on sharing and once your content is shared the odds that it will be shared again increases.

Twitter is becoming an ever greater force for social sharing so if you are not on Twitter already I strongly recommend you sign up for a Twitter account.

If you are on Twitter I recommend you sign up for my free Twitter Course to learn some tips, tools, and tactics for effective tweeting!

The tweets per day keep going up, which means more noise than ever.  Despite the noise on Twitter if you can stand out with quality content the opportunity for you to get many shares and go viral on Twitter is greater than ever!

Looking to the future it is good to keep in mind where time is being spent online so that you know what audience to target your content towards.

Facebook has emerged as a clear leader in terms of on site time, and the trend of time spent on Facebook seems to suggest that people will be spending more time on Facebook in the months to come.

With this in mind having a strong Facebook presence is more important than ever.  Consider installing a Like Box into your site, and if you want to go all out hire me to design a custom Facebook page for you.

Of course you should check out my Facebook Tips blog as well and sign up for my free Facebook Course.

Feedback

If you like this post please share it with your friends!  Let me know what you think in the comments below.

By: Kelly & Garin

You can’t be awake and all over the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. But your online brand is.

Your website doesn’t have an off switch, and neither does your brand.

Here are ten different ways you can develop and make your online brand more global!

1. Put some serious thought into your design.

Don’t take your design for granted!

Carefully think all this through choose the best brand for you. It’s very important to really think about what you want your brand image to say about you – because it speaks volumes.

While larger corporations hire Brand Specialists, this isn’t necessary if you’re an Entrepreneur or Small Business Owner. There are more resources out there than ever before, and most of them cost very little, if anything at all.

If you use WordPress check out this guide Garin wrote about how to find a fantastic wordpress theme.

2. Keep compelling content on your radar.

I use social media to track awesome streams of content.

I use Google Reader for my many rss subscriptions and follow 10 Twitter lists that I created.  This content is great to learn from and I re-share the coolest and most powerful resources I find.

Bill Gates was right when he said content is king so I do my best to create and share the highest quality content possible!

It is a good idea to subscribe to the blogs you find the most interesting and helpful.

Breaking the blogs you down into categories will help you filter for the information that interests you the most.  In Google Reader you can organize your RSS feeds with folders.

Keeping the number of blogs you follow to a manageable number will help eliminate information overload.

If you follow many blogs on Twitter you can separate them into more manageable sections using lists to create unique streams of tweets.

3. Take advantage of free Google services.

A site that organizes and centralizes all the blogs you follow into one place is called an “aggregator”. One of the best known aggregators is Google Reader.

Since new blogs appear daily, it might be a good idea to set up a Google alert for your blog and other blogs containing keywords that are in your areas of interest. This is a great way to stay current with information, brainstorm new post ideas, and learn new things.

Google Apps for business is an awesome way to share files and documents with a team, and set up custom branded email addresses for free.

4. Get the word out.

One of the easiest things that you can do is to customize your email signature. We see it all the time, but many people forget to do this for themselves.  A cool and free tool for customizing your email signature is Wisestamp.

For example, you could add your full name (first and last), your website URL, and any related profiles, such as LinkedIn. Whatever you put in your custom signature, keep it related to your brand. This will also subtly say “I’m a professional”. For more constant and interactive promotion of your brand, it’s highly recommended that you roll up your sleeves and get into Social Media.

Social media is not as scary as it may seem. Setting up a Twitter profile and engaging with the people out there is as easy as saying hello or asking a question. Staying plugged in and keeping the Twitter conversations going will help you build a community of clients, prospects, and colleagues that will reach further than an ad in the classifieds.

To take this a step further, you can build a Facebook business page and fan page. Invite the people from Twitter to these pages. Be sure to leave the Facebook pages and your Twitter page public so that you are easy to find. Facebook and Twitter are instant and endless sources of global connections.

5. Keep your writing style scan able

The easier your copy is to read the more people will read it.

Break your writing into short sentences, rather than long rambling paragraphs.

Using bullets and sub-headers is a great call.

A few reasons bullets are a good tool to use are:

• They make content easy to read
• They look good on the page
• They show the style of bullet you use, which is an element of your theme.

Concise writing is awesome.   Less is more.

6. Use free communication software

When two people have Skype accounts they can talk to each other face-to-face for free as long as they both have broadband internet connections.

Skype has an iPhone app that works pretty good for making calls via wi-fi internet.

Google also offers free video & voice calling

I use Google’s Gmail to make free calls almost every single day.  Thanks Google!

I’m also pretty active on Google Plus.

7. Be consistent.

Be certain to use the same fonts, colors, writing style and other brand specific characteristics consistent throughout every piece of written material.

When you are consistent you are setting a high standard of quality.

High quality standards are good for everyone!

A standard that I am carrying forward on this blog is to make sure that every blog post has at least one high quality image.

I also plan to create a variety of media for my different websites moving forward, including both audio podcasts and videos!

8. Be creative.

People love fresh and exciting ideas.

Sometimes the best route is the simplest one.

One of the best traits a businessperson can have is to find new ways of doing what everyone else is doing.

Sure, most businesses have a website now. But what can you do, in a creative way, which makes you stand out from the crowd?

Is your business card a standard size and shape like everyone else that passed out cards in the room?

Does your brand make someone stop in their tracks and take notice?

9. Be memorable.

It’s no secret the endless names of companies that have achieved memorability. The key is to be memorable for the right reasons.

Social Media connections are real life connections with real people and these can help you create awesome new friendships and powerful new opportunities.

10. Build Connections & Help Your Network

Help people stepping into your neck of the business woods with solid advice and resources.

Engage with your network and work with the influential people within it.  Help other people and they will help you too!

Maybe you retweet someone on Twitter, maybe you leave a comment on their blog, maybe you connect with them on Facebook, there are many different ways to connect with people these days.

The more connections you have the greater your influence will be in terms of the overall reach of your content.

The more you engage and help your network out the more they will return the favor and the better off everyone will be!

The last time I wrote about WordPress plugins I wrote a post called: 10 of the most popular plugins for WordPress for the Swedish uptime blog pingdom.

Since then I’ve been keeping my ears open for the best wordpress plugins around and the list below is what I came up with.

Make sure to let me know what your favorite plug-ins are in the comments below!

1. WPtouch iPhone Theme

All Time Downloads: 1,054,757

WPtouch makes your WordPress Blog awesome on the iPhone.

This plugin takes less than a minute to install.

Even if you don’t have an iPhone I highly recommend you install this plugin.

2. Thank Me Later

All Time Downloads: 19,368

This plugin was not developed by Drake, but it does send an email to every new commenter on your blog.

I just installed this plugin so drop a comment if you want to see it in action

3. WP-PageNavi

All Time Downloads: 1,006,160

This plugin adds a navigation system to your blog (ie. [1] [2] [3]…[17],) rather than simple “Older posts” and “Newer posts” links.

This plugin makes alot of sense to install once your content starts to build up.

4.  SEO Ultimate

All Time Downloads: 78,026

Every blog needs an SEO plugin.  Probably the most popular SEO plugin is All in One SEO pack, which has millions of downloads, and is worth checking out.

For my blog I wanted more flexibility when rewriting my titles and SEO ultimate is perfect for just that.

5. W3 Total Cache

All Time Downloads: 115,574

W3 Total Cache claims to be the fastest and most complete WordPress performance optimization plugin in the world.

6. CommentLuv

All Time Downloads: 222,259

CommentLuv is my favorite way to encourage blog commenting.

With this pluigin installed commenters will see a commentLuv button and if they leave a message a link will be dropped linking to their last blog post.

I personally comment more often on blogs when I see they have CommentLuv installed.

7. YouTube with style

All Time Downloads: 12,054

The youtube with style plugin allows WordPress users to easily embed a youtube video with a stylish player, instead of the standard boring embed.

With this plugin you can add a widget to your sidebar with videos from your youtube account, and use a lightbox to display them.

8. SexyBookmarks

All Time Downloads: 434,904

At the bottom of this post you will see the SexyBookmarks plugin in action.

This plugin is a very stylish tool for getting your readers to actually submit your articles to numerous social bookmarking sites.

Plugin Tip: Sexy Bookmarks releases a new update almost every week.  Don’t waste your time constantly updating this plugin because the updates are usually minor (they do it so that they can get their download count up) and updating causes you to waste your time re-selecting the social networks you want to display.

9. CformsII

All Time Downloads: Unknown

To use this custom forms plugin you will need some coding skills, but if you have them you can wind up with some wicked results.

10. Contact form 7

All Time Downloads: 2,389,781

Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.  I use Contact Form 7 for the contact form on this blog.  It was very easy to install and configure.

11. WordPress Related Posts

All Time Downloads: 254,022

This plugin allows you to display a specific amount of related posts, and to exclude categories if you so choose.

I have not installed this plugin, but with 254,022 installs I’m going to assume it works well.

12. Apture

All Time Downloads: 32,553

Apture works amazingly well on rww, the site where I first saw it in action.  Unfortunately when I installed Apture on this blog it did not work the same; it was very laggy, so I removed it.

Apture auto searches any words that you highlight on a page.

Despite it’s failure for me, I still think Apture is a wicked plugin, with alot of promise.

I am not surprised that Rww decided to call Apture one of the top 10 semantic products of 2009

I’ll probably try installing Apture again in the future, hopefully with better luck.

13. Better Tag Cloud

All Time Downloads: 59,112

This plugin creates more options for tag cloud widgets.

This means that you can easily customize things like custom font sizes, colors, HTML markup and ordering.

14. Permalinks Moved Permanently

All Time Downloads: 33,821

If you just migrated your WordPress blog from one permalink structure to another, and you don’t want to lose traffic that accesses your blog through the old permalinks, this is for you.

15. WP to Top

All Time Downloads: 7,166

This plugin will add a “Back to top” link automatically to your blog.

WP to Top features a smooth scrolling effect and customizable options.

16. Digg Digg

All Time Downloads: 114,946

Digg Digg is an awesome plugin that I first noticed on the popular blog Mashable.

Digg Digg is installed on this blog and is responsible for the hovering sharing icons to the left.

The ajax scrolling feature of digg digg is really awesome, and allows custom sharing buttons to follow with a visitor as they scroll down a page.

Since digg digg makes sharing buttons more visible, they increase the likelihood that visitors will share your content.

17. Dofollow

All Time Downloads: 48,379

This plugin also help you to encourage the commenting in your blog by removing the nofollow attribute from your wordpress blog, and rewarding the commenter with a dofollow link.

With this plugin installed commenters will gain Pagerank for their blog every time they comment.

18. Google XML Sitemaps

All Time Downloads: 4,336,184

This massively important and popular plugin will generate a special XML sitemap for your blog.

An XML sitemap helps search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your web pages.

19. GoCodes

All Time Downloads: 30,709

This plugin is very useful for bloggers who promote affiliate products on their blog.

It works by hiding any URL and converting that URL into your blog URL and when some user click on that URL It redirects the user to your affiliate link.

20. WP125

All Time Downloads: 107,710

For those bloggers who want to monetize their blog through advertising units this plugin can be very useful.

WP125 supports One or two column ad display, and support through template tags to implement your own unconventional design.

Show as many ads as you want, and in either manual or random order

Keep track of how many times an ad is clicked

21. Google Analyticator

All Time Downloads: 1,007,686

Google Analyticator adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics logging on any WordPress blog.

My favorite feature of Google Analyticator is that it installs a dashboard widget, that allows me to view a graph with my site stats every time I login to my blog.

Feedback

What WordPress plugins are essential to you?  Let me know what your favorite wordpress plugins are in the comments below!

While working a new blog post I was determined to find the very best success quotes, so I read through thousands of success quotes including all quotes on every page in the top ten “Success Quotes” sites in Google.

During this process I created an epic list containing the top 100 success quotes…

…and “the secret to success is this:

There is no secret to success.”

That’s a quote from Elbert Hubbard and it aligns very closely with much of the wisdom contained in many of the best success quotes I encountered…

…Success is more of a science than it is a secret. It takes determination and persistence…

…and perhaps the most important lesson I learned from reading all these quotes is that there is nothing stopping you from succeeding if you set your mind to it!

Here’s the post: 100 Awesome Success Quotes

The success I have been able to achieve in building a profitable online business is largely thanks to the success of my blogs and the tens of thousands of people who read my articles and subscribe to my updates…

…Thousands of blogs are created every day but the blogs that matter and succeed are the ones that enjoy the most free traffic from Google and the profit that comes with it…

…My friend Corbett Barr is a successful blogger who makes six figures online and today he is currently launching a new project called:

How to Start a Blog That Matters

I highly recommend you check it out:

http://fbpower.com/recommends/startablogthatmatters

Blogging has taken my business from having to search for clients to the point where I am today with more clients coming to me than I can handle…

…If you can create a successful blog there are many ways to achieve success and make money from it…

…so start a blog that matters and before you know it you too will be enjoying the many benefits that blogging brings!

Cheers,

Garin

Today I am very excited to announce that my first fully custom multi-platform iPhone, iPad and Android app is complete!

I am very happy with this app as not only does it exceed my expectations in terms of fluid usability, it also has the added benefit of being accessible on several different mobile devices, and within the Google Chrome and Safari web browsers.

This year is going to be massive…

…especially for those people who know what is happening next with Facebook.

Facebook is going to reach two major milestones this year:

#1. Facebook will hit one billion users

#2. Facebook is going to have their IPO and become a publicly traded company…

This means there is going to be PLENTY of Facebook media buzz this year and more business owners than ever will be asking how they can use the power of Facebook to grow their businesses…

…and since you now know what is happening this year you can take advantage of this amazing opportunity and use powerful Facebook strategies to supply the ever growing demand for Facebook expertise.

Check out Facebook Power and discover the most powerful strategies for Facebook Success:

=> http://fbpower.com/pro

Cheers,

Garin

Recently I met with Trevor Mills, who is the founder and CEO of an app development company called Top Quark. Over a hot cup of Tim Horton’s coffee I got a live demo of the awesome iPhone app/wordpress plugin solution TopQuark has to offer.

Top Quark is a web app with wordpress integration that has the feel of a high quality iPhone app straight from the iTunes app store.  An awesome thing that makes a TopQuark app stand apart from the crowd is the fact that it can be accessed from an iPhone, iPad, Android mobile device, or even from Google Chrome on your PC.

Trevor has designed TopQuark with conferences in mind and I took a few minutes to research the competition and could find nothing that even comes close in terms of design and functionality.

In the future I plan to host a conference so that I can bring together the brightest minds in social media and digital marketing and when I do I am going to use the Top Quark conference app to make the mobile experience of the conference very cool.

I have been to several digital marketing and search engine conferences in downtown Toronto and California and although the tickets to these events have costed as much as a few thousand dollars each I have not been to one which had an official app.  I wish more conferences had apps like TopQuark to make the experience more fluid and less of a pain in the ass.

After checking out the demos of Top Quark’s awesome mobile conference app I have a feeling that more and more conferences are going to start to put this technology to good use.

I imagine going to an event that had an app like TopQuark and feeling much more connected to the event, since I would be better informed about the different events going on so I could make the best decision about where I should spend my time.

Conferences often have several different presentations going on at once and if one speaker is dull an app is the perfect resource for figuring out what the next best alternative is.

Powered by HTML5

A feature that I found really cool about Top Quark is that the app uses HTML5 to store the data on the actual device. That means the app will even work offline!

You can demo a live version of the Top Quark conference app for the Wordcamp Chicago conference if you are currently reading this post within an iPhone, iPad, Android, or Google Chrome.

To demo this app simple surf to: http://topquark.com/appdemo/2011-chicago.

A very cool feature about this app is how it pulls the content from WordPress posts, so all content can be managed within WordPress.

How much does this app cost? Alot less than you might think, considering the several features it comes with. Just $399.

The Top Quark app is integrated with the TopQuark WordPress plugin that allows you to create a custom web page on the fly for your next conference or festival using the same data that you used for your app!

Here’s the description of the Conference Plugin, direct from the TopQuark website:

Manage speaker and schedule information for your event. This plugin lets you use WordPress to track information about your multi-day, multi-faceted, multi-talented event, be it a conference or a festival or a tournament.

Google Maps API Integration

Another cool Top Quark app Trevor showed me is one that was created for the West Port Book Festival in Scotland.  This app featured venues at different locations within the town and using the Google Maps API it automatically dotted the Google map with alpha dots showing the names and addresses of the venues at different locations.

Despite this extra Google Maps functionality this implementation did not require extra data entry since the data for this app was pulled from an existing website.  Top Quark apps can be fed with data entered in another system and this very cool feature is one of several reasons why I think Top Quark has the best conference app solution on the market.

Check out the Top Quark wordpress conference plugin page for more information!

Conclusion

Trevor is a heck of a developer and TopQuark is awesome so I recommend you check out the Top Quark and contact Trevor if you are interested in implementing a Top Quark plugin.

If you want your conference or event to be cutting edge use TopQuark and your conference will stand apart from the crowd.

Feedback

Have you ever been to a conference that had it’s own app?  In the past the main mobile app that I have used at different conferences has been Twitter.

Leave your thoughts in the comments below!