I bet you can find at least five things that your website should be doing or doing better. Odds are you have built a site and you are getting some traffic but things are not exactly how you thought they would go. Well lets take a look at five things that may help you get better results. Some are so simple it may surprise you that you haven’t thought of them on your own.

1) Does your site help the user solve a problem? This is either a yes or no. In this day and age the consumer is looking for an answer for their problem, if your product does that then explain it any way you can. This may be a video or a white paper or something of the sort. Give away the information so that the user remembers how helpful you were, they will end up telling people through word of mouth.

2) Do you know what your visitors are doing on your site? Odds are you think you do but you could be wrong. You need to get some sort of analytics set up and see how a user is navigating through your site. You may not even know what your most popular pages are,or even what your worst pages are. You may be focusing on the wrong things and wasting time.You also need to know how people are finding your site. Get a neighbor to sit down in front of a computer and put them on your site and see how they navigate it, it will not be what you thought. get a pen and paper and tell them to give you the honest truth.

3) Do you have an email newsletter? Getting traffic is hard enough so once you get a customer you should try and make them a returning customer. This saves you the worry of trying to rank in search engines and also decreases your advertising cost as you already have that customer. A lifetime customer is the best investment you can make for your site.

4) Do you have a FAQ page? Whenever you get an email asking questions about your site or product make that question into a line on your FAQ page as it will be looked for again on your site. Your answer will help others find you and use your services. It will also end up being keyword rich content that will attract the search engines and get you good long tail keywords.

5) Do you have trust pages? Every website needs to develop trust with the potential customer. Your site needs a page for privacy policy, contact us, terms of use, disclaimer, and let the customer know what you are doing with their information and what they can expect from your site.

I bet if you are not doing these things your site is not doing what you want it to do.

I got my new Droid phone two days ago and I am just loving it so far. I was one of the holdouts that was still using a regular cell phone with Verizon, this phone came along at the right time. My contract was up on October 25th and I was in a debate with myself about what to do. Did I want to stay with Verizon or jump to an IPhone.

My town is well know for cell phone dropped calls and everyone I spoke to hated the service they had with AT&T so I was on the fence about what to do. With Verizon I rarely had a dropped call so I was very happy with the service, I just didn’t want to go through the hassle of testing another cell phone carrier. I really needed the service that an IPhone delivers to run my vast network of websites. I was in a catch 22 so to speak.

When Verizon announced that they were coming out with the Droid (Hate the name) I decided that I would just go and get one and hope for the best. It has been two days and I am more then thrilled with it. Although I am still finding useful apps an such I am finding it easier to be connected by using my Gmail and Facebook and especially Twitter.  I am now in contact with the world almost 24/7.

While I have not done so just yet I am planning on writing my webpages using the Droid when I am traveling or just  heading into the city by train. The battery life is good except when you have the GPS turned on. That is a huge drain on the battery. The app that I like the best is Cardio Trainer as it acts as a pedometer and tracks your steps. I have been walking about 8 miles a day with it. It updates to my workout plan and I am just loving it.

Some things I don’t like are the glass, I am not use to having that so a screen protector is a must have. I have it in a nice rugged case that clips to my belt. I didn’t like the choices Verizon has for the cover as I got two of them so I improvised.

All in all I am very happy that I didn’t get an IPhone, this came about at the perfect time for me. I am sure you can see me twittering happily about out it on Twitter.

2009 was not the year of the elephant or year of the chicken it was the year of  “Trust”.  After getting Chris Brogans book “Trust Agents” I started to read it and as I was going along I felt as if he was talking about me and my websites. In a way he was, as most of my content websites are built around the readers and providing them with information that they can use.

By doing this I have built a trust over about 8 years on one of my better sites. I have an automotive site that was built over the years where people are sending me questions about their car and I answer it. I will Google for the answers (if I don’t already know the answer) and then write a page so others that have the same problem don’t have to send me an email.

Between all of this I ended up with a website that helps people with older models to get those hard to find parts. I have become an authority on this topic and usually when I send someone to an auto parts site they usually buy the parts as I am a trusted source.

If you are not building trust on your websites you are missing out big time. Now I get emails from readers saying thanks for the info and that they are forwarding my sites to others. Some of these readers belong to car clubs for my brand and they tell people by the hundreds about my site. Oops scratch that I meant OUR site. The website is all about them and their car.

What I did is ask people to send in pictures of their car and any info they want and I make them a web page.  They bookmark it and send it to their friends. Why its all about “Trust”. You may hear webmasters say they want the consumer off their site asap and on to the merchants site but that doesn’t always apply. I would rather get return visitors over and over again. My site visitor on average goes through 10-20 pages on my site.  These visitors get to see the ads a lot more and take action. They come back and buy over and over. They enjoy the site and “Trust” me that I would never place any type of crap on the site just to make a buck.

I am now getting emails asking for when my next newsletter is coming out, I get 10 a week asking this and another 25-50 signing up for my newsletter every week. Why because I am a trusted source.

This past week OUR site was added to the main website for this car by the manufacturer. They linked up to us on their resources page as a trusted authority for people with older models. That doesn’t happen without having a trust factor.

The other day I had a little conversation about newsletters, it amazes me that some people just don’t want to connect to their web audience. They think the days of making a good website and relying on search engine rankings will make them money especially if they are making money this way now.

Sure you can rank well and make money but you need to look at the long term results. In this day and age you need to connect to your niche audience in any way you can. If you can connect to them on their chosen platform that is a home run. My chosen method is newsletters and Twitter.

On all my sites I have it set up where there is a newsletter sign up usually on the top of every page.  Once a user signs up they usually get a newsletter to welcome them and then a few newsletters with helpful tips spread out for the first two weeks. Not a lot just a few so I am a reminder in their inbox. I cannot tell you how many times I get emails thanking me for these tips. After that every time I have a new post it also goes out as a newsletter.

You may be thinking this is a lot of work but it really isn’t. I use Aweber to set it all up and that’s it. A few auto responders and then the live blog broadcast tool makes it all come together. The thing that makes this all come together is passion. I know what you are thinking “Vinny what does passion have to do with it?” If you have a passion and convey that passion to your audience they will want to follow you and come back to your site often.

On one of my sites I have an amazing newsletter open rate. Every time I send out a newsletter I get about 140% open rate. That is off the hook and it took me a while to figure out what was happening. Not only do most of the readers on the list open the email when I send it out they also go back a few days later and open it again. Both times they end up on my site.

This has been going on for a few years and people are still signing up for the newsletters where I control how they come back to my site. No search engines involved with them coming back to my site. Sure they may be finding me initially using search engines but after that I control my site visitors. It takes time to build up a newsletter but it builds up over time. Slow and steady wins the race.

Once again I attended Affiliate Summit where I was on the Geekcast.fm Live session. It was a good way to wrap up the show. There was a lot of people on the discussion and it went rather well once we get started.

The cast was fun and it was a blast doing this.

* Michael Buechele, Owner, MikeBuechele.com (Twitter @mikebuechele)
* Deborah Carney, CEO, Team Loxly (Twitter @loxly)
* Trisha Lyn Fawver, Affiliate Manager, Paulson Management Group (Twitter @trishalyn)
* Jim Kukral, Owner, TheBizWebCoach.com (Twitter @jimkukral)
* Vinny O’Hare, President, Vincent O’Hare Consulting (Twitter @vinnyohare)
* Scott Parent, Vice President of Emerging Media & Strategy, MediaTrust (Twitter @americancliche)
* Lisa Picarille, Online Marketing Consultant, LisaPicarille.com (Twitter @lisap)
* Lisa Riolo, Consultant, LisaRiolo.com (Twitter @lisariolo)

Looking forward to Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas in January.

Just checking a few of my Wordpress sites and it seemed that two were hacked into. Didn’t lose any data like other people have been reporting but working on upgrading them all.

You will notice the hack as it leaves a bunch of code in the permalinks. You can read more about it here as well as a solution. Journeyetc.com.

I discovered it as I went to make a new post and filled in the title of the post in the draft and it had a bunch of code added in the permalink structure. Just follow the instructions on the link above and hopefully all will be ok.

Do You Try To Fool Google?

I am often asked about my secrets to ranking on Google, actually I don’t have a secret at all I just do many things right for the search engines. There is no sense in trying to fool Google or any search engine as odds are your page will eventually be found and stop ranking. Worse then that your site will not be considered as relevant for the topic you are wishing to cover.

When I first started out I tried all the spammy stuff and that stuff worked for a while but when I started to make serious sites about passions of mine the sites ranked very well. I copied what worked and did more of it and what didn’t work dropped from my “Must Do List”.

Now if you know anything about me I don’t listen to rumors on what works and what doesn’t I try it for myself and learn. I love hearing stuff from Google itself instead of trying to beat them I join them in their quest to find and index better sites.

I just got done watching Matt Cutts from Google discuss some things about websites and what can help you rank. It is under an hour long and I suggest you watch it.

Feel free to discuss what you have learned over on NyFalcon Forum

Still trying to digest all the information I picked up from this years Affiliate Summit in New York City. Besides seeing old friends I met a lot of people that I never had the chance to meet before even though I had been chatting with them online for years.

We arrived on Saturday just in time to make it to the www.buy.at party. Those people over there are some of my favorites in affiliate marketing. Their party was on the roof of the Empire Hotel near Lincoln Center. Good time was had by all. Below is Charlie Calabrese explaining about the Buy.at merchants. Lucky for us he is a better speaker then a RC helicopter pilot but we won’t go there.

My favorite sessions was the site reviews as I love it when they break down a site and explain what is wrong with them. I could sit in those sessions all day long. The session with @streko and @sugarrae @graywolf was my favorite one, can’t wait for the video.

Speaking of videos here is one from my friend Joe Sousa of all the parties. Warning there is singing and dancing involved.

The best part of Affiliate Summit for me was the Peter Shankman keynote. I met Peter last year at Affiliate Summit but  that was only a panel, this year he had over an hour and it was great. If you want to know anything about Using media Peter is your guy.

There are a few others that have recaps. Adrants and my favorite OutSpokenMedia who reviewed the session I was on the panel for Geekcast Live.

Just had to delete someone from my Twitterstream as they decided to use sponsored tweets. As much as the next guy I like to monetize what I am doing but sponsored tweets will not be happening in my neck of the woods. Here is why.

By sponsoring tweets I feel that you are using your twitter stream as a way of making yourself look spammy. All you want to do is get my followers to see your sponsored tweet. I will not let that happen, my twitterstream is as important as my opt-in email newsletter list and I will not subject the people that follow me to think that you are someone I would think is follow worthy. (thanks Seinfeld)

Here is the real kicker when it comes to unfollowing you for having sponsored tweets. I will no longer buy any product you are pitching on your website, you have become a spammer in my mind. Not worth my time to see what you are up to since you violated the confidence that I had in you to follow smart people that I could actually learn from or have my twitter stream learn from.

There is also no way I would sign up for any newsletter that you run as how do I know you wouldn’t sell that list to someone, heck if you sold out your Twitter odds are you would sell your opt-in list also.

My Time Is Valuable

You are only on this planet for a little bit of time and if I have to look at your twitter sponsored tweets it is time I could be doing something else, like follow someone that will add to the conversation and not be running adds in my face and the people that follow me.

Most of the time I use my cell phone to receive text messages from people I follow. Not only does your tweet become useless as I cannot click on a link from a text message on my phone but you have wasted my time tweeting about some product odds are you don’t use in the first place.

So you are making pennies on your sponsored tweet but if you were ever to put out an actual product that I may be interested in telling my twitter follows about it is not going to happen. So is it really worth the peanuts you are going to make when you use a service like that.  I also like to spread the word about good people and their products if someone ask me for a referral odds are your name is not going to come up, odds are it isn’t going to come to my mind anyway as I am not following you any longer.

The big picture far outweighs any money you could make by running sponsored tweets. I have stopped following a few people I had respect for in the online world and I am sure some friends will be mad but they chose to make the choice to become an unfollow.

Affiliate Summit is only a few weeks away and it usually takes me a few weeks to get everything together for it but this year is slightly different. This year I will be recruiting affiliates for the affiliate programs that I am managing with Team Loxly.

In past years it was simple I just grab a stack or two of business cards and hand them out all over the place and just show up. Now I have to get prepared for questions about the Team Loxly managed programs as well as change my mindset from affiliate to affiliate managing.

Back in the day I learned very quickly that if you wanted to succeed  online you have to be a student of the game, study every possible angle and ways you can make money online. Becoming an affiliate manager was just a natural step. One of the first niches I got involved with was in the automotive sector so when Team Loxly decided to take on Drop Stop I jumped at the chance to become an affiliate manager. It is very tough to take a new affiliate program and get sales at the start but Drop Stop is a unique product that sells itself.

Affiliate Summit is in my hometown of New York City this year.  Debbie and I have made a podcast about places you must see in New York as well as some tips about summit. Enjoy it and if you see me at Summit say hello.