Garry's Blog

Join The GarryConn.com FaceBook Fan Page

Garry Conn — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 03:32:39 +0000

I have been using FaceBook for over two years and slowly have found it to be very useful for staying in contact with family and close friends. About two months ago I decided to REMOVE everyone I had added as a friend who I didn’t know personally. The result ended with me having around 100 people I truly wanted to follow day to day closely. Prior to doing this, I wasn’t able to see what was going on because my News Feed was overtaken by 1000’s of updates from fans from my blog.

I have finally gotten around to creating a FaceBook Fan Page and wanted to extend an invitation for you to join. Doing so will give you a chance to win a free blog or website design by yours truly. So if you’re a fan of GarryConn.com and would like to stay in the loop with things going on in my dot Com world, be sure to join in… and once again, it could bring you a free design service offered by me.

I’ll announce the winner on my Fan Page wall next Friday.

Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/GarryConncom/389679718618

Are You Sick and Tired of Your Web Host Provider and Do You Feel Like Your Stuck With Them Forever?

Garry Conn — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:00:49 +0000

I’ve felt like this before. For over two years I did business with a company called PowerVPS.com. What a bitter sweet experience. Let’s just say that everything was always fine until it broke. And here’s the thing… I don’t mind things breaking, I understand that things happen in life. My issue is how people treat others when there’s a problem on THEIR end. To keep a long story short, I wouldn’t recommend PowerVPS to my worst enemy — assuming I had one.

Have you been tons of trouble with your current web hosting provider? Do you feel stuck? When I was with PowerVPS.com, I sure know I did! It was terrible being forcred to figure out things without support and getting frustrated with my sites being down countless hours. It was even more discouraging when I felt like I had no options and no one to speak to.

If that’s you, then I want to let you know that HostGator.com is here to save the day. Visit their home page, and see for yourself. They welcome clients coming in from another web hosting provider. HostGator will provide you with a free domain transfer, free file transfers, free database transfers, and even provide you with free script transfers. In other words, they do everything for you and they do it for free.

Ordering a web hosting plan with HostGator is easy. They have a few different packages to choose from. To get things started, I recommend ordering their Baby Plan. It’s very affordable and packed with a punch. The cost is only $9.95 / month and with the amount of things you get with the account, it makes you wonder why it’s so cheap.

If you’d like to try their services out for 30 days risk free. Use coupon code: GARRYCONN and I’ll discount your order down to ONE CENT. In fact, try them for 45 days, if you’re totally unhappy, they’ll even refund your penny! But that isn’t going to happen. I have no doubts that you’ll become a HostGator customer for life. I know that I am.

Stop feeling like there isn’t a solution to your problem. And stop trying to beat a dead horse. If your current web host provider isn’t, and hasn’t been working for you, nothing you can do or say will enable them to work with you in the future. Everyday you prolong the move, you’re only inconveniencing yourself and the people that visit your site. Make the switch, and HostGator will make the experience amazing for you.

If you need any additional help or support, feel free to contact me directly. I’ll be more than happy to personally assist you myself with your move. I’ll even help design a blog or website for you for free.

March 2010 NameCheap Coupon Code: NCSPRING

Garry Conn — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:47:20 +0000

I use NameCheap.com to register domain names. Prior to that, I used GoDaddy.com. NameCheap.com is so much better. The main reason is because it’s faster and less spammy. I can literally have a domain name purchased, DNS configured, and have the site online in less than two minutes. If you don’t believe me, check out this video I created:

Each month NameCheap.com issues out a new Coupon Code. Using the coupon code brings your total from $9.69 down to $8.81 per domain name. That’s a great deal in my opinion, and your order also includes one year of WhoisGuard. In case you don’t know, you actually have to pay extra for that with GoDaddy. And just as a quick tip, I use BustAName.com to help me find good domains.

So while you may have seen a GoDaddy commercial on TV, don’t believe the hype. GoDaddy isn’t really good at all. Their site loads incredibly slow, people are subjected to countless numbers of upgrade solicitations, and doing any form of domain management is a joke.

Use NameCheap.com for ordering domain names, and this month (March 2010) use coupon code: NCSPRING. Be sure to check my blog every month with the new NameCheap coupon code. Also, if you have any questions about NameCheap.com’s services, feel free to ask. I have been using them for two years now. I’ll try my best to help you out.

How To Make Money Online With Amazon Using Twitter

Garry Conn — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:42:11 +0000

As most of you know, I really enjoy the AdSense program. What you might not know is that my second and third favorite program is ClickBank and Amazon. At the moment I like ClickBank slightly better than Amazon, but both programs work well. I’d like to show you a very quick and easy way to increase your earnings with the Amazon affiliate program using Twitter.

Their program is called Amazon Associates, and last year Amazon produced an Amazon Associates Toolbar that appears on the top of every page within Amazon.com. This toolbar allows users, such as yourself, a quick and easy way to create affiliate links with your referral id. These specially created links are the links that give you credit for any sales generated from a click.

Newly added to their toolbar is a “Share on Twitter” button. This button allows you to instantly send a tweet with a bit.ly link pointing directly to the product page your on. The bit.ly link automatically shortens your affiliate link and includes it into the tweet.

Here’s an example of how simple it is for you to make money online with Amazon using Twitter. Last week I researched and purchased a new TV. I choose the Vizio VO32OE. It’s a very affordable and decent quality 32 Inch LCD HDTV for just a little above $400. We have had the TV for almost a week and things couldn’t be any better. We love it.

That said, I went back to the sales page and clicked the “Share On Twitter” button and posted a tweet about it.

Now here’s the thing about Twitter. A tweet on Twitter has about the same shelf life as McDonald’s French Fries. What I mean by that is as soon as you post your tweet, the traffic you get is almost instant and over within about an hour or two max. In other words, when you order McDonalds French Fries, it isn’t long before they start tasting old and nasty. So when you write a tweet, any traffic you’re going to get, you’ll get it within the first hour or two. After that, your tweet will be buried by updates from other people.

What does this have to do with Amazon? Well, one thing that you might not know is that Amazon Associates only have a 24 hour cookie on affiliate links. So quite honestly, when you’re throwing out your affiliate link, ideally you’re looking for the impulsive click and impulsive purchase. In my opinion, when people are trolling around on Twitter, they are bored and don’t have too much to do. If you happen to capture their attention with a product that captures their attention, they will click. And if you get enough people to click, you may find that a few people buy.

If anything it gives you something to tweet about and it’s a great conversation starter:

And here’s the neat thing about Amazon.com. If you refer someone to view the product page of one product but that person decides on purhasing a different product, you still get credit for that sale. Wouldn’t that be neat if ClickBank worked that way? One thing that I think Amazon could have done better was to somehow allow the bit.ly links to be assigned to bit.ly user accounts. In case you don’t know, bit.ly allows you to track the number of clicks on your links. This comes in real handy when you’re trying to track conversion percentages and such.

At any rate, I think it’s great that Amazon added the “Share on Twitter” button to their Amazon Associates Toolbar and even better that your affiliate links are automatically converted into bit.ly links. Give it a try, I think you’ll be pleased with the results.

Don’t Get Tricked Into Posting Comment Spam

Garry Conn — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:00:09 +0000

Comment spam is terrible. If you’re using WordPress, then I recommend activating akismet. It’s included with your install. All that’s needed is an API Key and for you to click the activate button. After that, akismet does all the work automatically. But it’s not completely fool proof. In many cases, you still have to make the final call on comments pending or accidently sent to spam.

One way that comment spam is getting through is by assigning an avatar to the comment. People quickly can assume that a comment with a functional avatar is a real comment. So basically the strategy is for people who are generating comment spam to catch you while you’re sleeping and approve the comment because it has an avatar assigned.

Don’t fall for this comment spam trick. Just because a comment has an avatar doesn’t mean it’s a real comment. Read the content on the comment and see if it makes sense. Also, you can copy the content of the comment and do a Google search on it to see if it returns duplicate content. Simply put quotes around the content and Google will do an exact phrase search.

If the content is duplicated across the net, then you know for sure it’s spam as well as duplicated content that you probably don’t want appearing on your site anyway.

What’s The Buzz on Google Buzz vs FaceBook vs Twitter?

Garry Conn — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:00:10 +0000

What are your thoughts about Google Buzz? Do you think it’s better than FaceBook? What about Twitter? Lately on FaceBook there has been a surge of annoying things popping up. I remember a few years ago people were participating in various ‘tag your it’ blog games. The game was simple to play, but annoying to say the least. An author would copy a message found on another blog and fill in the blanks with the names of a few of their blog friends and link to them. The links would then generate pings and those authors would then continue the chain by duplicating the process.

Most people particiapted in these linking games to increase backlinks, which then helped increase their authority in Technorati and ranking in Google. Today, we have a similar thing going on in FaceBook. The only difference is that people are trying to tweak the FaceBook algorithm rather than Google’s. Other annoying things on FaceBook include overly saturated streams of updates that most people could care less about. Examples include FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and many other games that cause our fellow friends to flood our walls.

With Google Buzz, so far, we don’t have to deal with any of that. But, does Google Buzz help you keep tabs on what’s going on? Does it work better for you than Twitter? In all honestly, I don’t like Twitter. I really think Twitter is a big waste of time. For me, Twitter is nothing more than a linking pool. In other words, I feel like the only purpose it serves is splashing a very small and brief advertisement coupled with a direct link to view the full ad. If the brief ad captures the attention of random people, then they click. When they do, it’s pretty unpredictable what they will do next when they view the page.

Twitter reminds me of this old glitched phone service I discovered when I was a kid. I don’t remember too much about it other than you dialed a number to get an automated message of the time of day. The glitch however, was discovered when two people realized that they could hear each other talk when then called to check the time at the same time. Soon thereafter, many people started calling this number and it soon turned into what I compare to Twitter today. You litterally had hundreds of people screaming out their name and phone number and asking people to call them.

So anyway, this post really isn’t about FaceBook or Twitter, or this old glitched phone service I discovered when I was a kid. What I’d like to know are your thoughts about Google Buzz? Do you think it’s something that you see yourself using as much as Twitter or FaceBook. Do you think it poses any kind of threat to Twitter or FaceBook? Lastly, do you find Google Buzz to be useful or somewhat annoying?

The Ultimate HostGator Signup Package

Garry Conn — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:12:28 +0000

I think HostGator pretty much sells itself; however, if you’re not sold just on their services alone then take a look at all the things I’ll give you FREE when you sign up as a NEW HostGator customer: (If You’re Already a HostGator Customer… Don’t Worry, Keep Reading!!!)

Premium Blog / Web Design Service

Free Web Server & Hosting Configuration
Free WordPress Installation and Setup
Custom WordPress Theme Consultation and Design
Custom Header / Graphics / Logo Consultation and Design
Free Search Engine Optimization Service
Free WordPress Plugin Setup and Configuration
Free Content Writing: About Me and Contact Me Page (Includes Contact Form)

Premium Quality Video Tutorials:

Google AdWords Keyword Tool Part One
Google Adwords Keyword Tool Part Two
How Bloggers Can Help Increase Your Backlinks
How To Build a Niche Blog
How To Burn Your RSS Feed With FeedBurner
How To Decide To Create a Blog or a Site
How To Register a WordPress Blog In Google Webmaster Tools
How To Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Titles
How To Use Google AdSense Channels
How To Wrap Text Around Google AdSense Ads In WordPress
Keyword Density and Keyword Targeting
How To Install Google Analytics on Wordpress
How To Install Google Sitemap XML on WordPress

Premium Quality eBooks

The Secret Sauce of Search Engine Marketing
The Affiliate Marketer’s HandBook

Premium Grade WordPress Theme

SeoAdMaxPRO

All you have to do is signup for HostGator as a NEW customer using my referral link.

http://www.garryconn.com/recommends/hostgator.php

(PLEASE CLEAR YOUR COOKIES BEFORE CLICKING MY LINK)

After you signup then contact me. It’s really that simple. No gimmicks, no hidden fees… everything I do for you is totally 100% free. All I want in exchange is you to sign up as a new customer with HostGator.com

If you’re already a HostGator customer or have a web hosting account with another company, you may be interested in purchasing my package deal outright. The all of the above could easily sell for two thousand dollars or more. However, for a very limited time, I can sell you all this listed above (including the web design work) for $125 via paypal.com.

If you should have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly. I welcome your comments below. If there is something specific that you need from me in exchange for signing up, let me know.

Announcement: Newsletter Reply To Email Address Was Not Configured

Garry Conn — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:07:52 +0000

For the last six months my default reply to email address assigned to my newsletters was not configured. Basically for the last six months I have assumed that I have not received responses from my subscribers. As it turns out, I have received a lot of responses… in the area of 150 unread emails.

At any rate I just configured my reply to email address and at this point, If you are subscribed to any or all of my mailing lists, I WILL be able to reply back a little quicker than before. In the meantime, don’t be surprised to receive a response from me on an older email you sent.

If you need a quicker response, it’s probably best that you go ahead and contact me again.

HostGator Takes a Big Bite Out of Garry Conn

Garry Conn — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:51:23 +0000

As many of you know, I have been using HostGator for a couple of years now. I am very pleased with them, and they have helped me in more ways than I would have ever expected. In the past two years HostGator has offered me amazing web hosting services, friendly and caring technical support, and even a killer writing job during hard economic times. 2009 was probably the most bitter sweet year in my life. It was one of the worst years but equally one of the best. The staff at HostGator was there for me the entire time (specifically, Chad, Jay, and Brian).

Over Christmas Brian wanted to mail out a special gift to me, a stuffed Gator doll. They have been on limited supply, so it took awhile to get it. But the amazing part was that Brian constantly followed up with me on FaceBook regarding the status of the Gator. If people, such as Brian Modansky, are willing to spend time following up about a stuffed animal through FaceBook, think of the level of service and support these people provide for their web hosting services. In my past experiences, HostGator is literally one of the most amazing companies I have worked with, and by far the best web hosting company I have dealt with.

Special thanks to Chad Bean, Jay Weissman, Brian Modansky, and of course Brent Oxley. You guys are great.

To learn more about HostGator.com, last year I published an article titled, The History of HostGator.com – Information From Past To Present. You should check it out. Their story about how they all got started the business is very inspiring. If you need more reasons than what I have given you in this post to sign up with them, I am willing to give you a free blog and web design services in exchange for sign-ups. You can literally get started with HostGator.com for one cent (USE COUPON CODE: GARRYCONN) That also includes all of my professional design work, free video downloads, and eBooks. Check out my free blog and web design section and also check out my blog and web design portfolio. I want you to sign up for HostGator.com, and I am willing to work for free to make it happen.

B5media Fires 50 Entertainment Bloggers

Garry Conn — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 02:17:03 +0000

Just in from an employee of B5media, 50 entertainment bloggers got fired. (#b5media) According to my source in — friend in FaceBook — apparently B5media fired these employees and then announced that they will be opening a new site Crushable.com and will be seeking out new writers. It seems strange that the existing 50 writers who kicked the bucket couldn’t transfer to the new project. No other writers from other sections within B5media have been terminated. It’s explained that their entertainment section brings in a large amount of their traffic. You can read more here. What’s your opinion on this? Why do you think 50 B5media freelance writers lost their jobs?