My Affiliate Marketing Guide

The Top Three Ways To Secure Your WordPress Blog

Herschel Lawhorn — Wed, 30 May 2012 20:05:28 +0000

Can You Have More Sales, Too?
Helping over 102,000+ businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

If you have a WordPress blog or a website, you may be wondering how am I supposed to keep it safe from hackers and from accidental changes or deletions?

In addition to any kind of fancy modifications or security plugins, there are a few easy steps you can take right now within the next few minutes to make sure your WordPress website is secure.

The first thing you can do is only connect to WordPress on a secure WiFi connection, only use trusted plugins, and keep WordPress up to date.

Do you know that when you connect to a website using unsecure WiFi, which means airport WiFi, Starbuck’s WiFi, public WiFi, that anyone can see your username and password. That means when you connect via FTP or simply log into your WordPress dashboard anyone can see exactly what your username and password is and join for themselves.

That’s why it’s very important to only connect to your WordPress site and only connect to FTP if you have an SSL connection or you’re connecting a cellular 3G network instead of WiFi. If you don’t know what any of those things are, then simply make it a point to only connect to your FTP website and WordPress from home instead of in public.

Next, only use plugins that you trust. Are you aware that any WordPress plugin, if it so chooses, can have access to your entire WordPress site? All of your users, all of your content, most of the time, to every single file on your website.

That is the reason why it’s very important that you only use WordPress plugins that you trust. Don’t go out and install 200, 300 plugins just because they all seem like they have cool features. If a plugin is brand new, if no one seems to be using it, that is not a good sign, and it may be a Trojan Horse kind of plugin where someone had simply put it out onto the internet in the hopes that someone else will install it on their website, and now you have given the hacker complete access to your files and your content.

Finally, a very easy way to secure your WordPress blog is to keep WordPress up to date. People find security holes all the time, and WordPress is quick to fix those holes, but it does you no good unless you update your blog to the current version which is safeguarded against most attacks.

Luckily the most current versions of WordPress have a single button you can click to update it, which means it downloads and installs the most recent version so you are now protected.

Backup your blog quickly and easily at

http://backupcreator.com/bc/?e=nicheguy

What Could Happen If Someone Gains Entry Into Your WordPress Blog?

Herschel Lawhorn — Sun, 27 May 2012 19:51:59 +0000

Can You Have More Sales, Too?
Helping over 102,000+ businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

I don’t want to scare you but I want you to be aware of the reasons why you should backup your WordPress blog, and even better protect it against someone getting access to that site.

Someone getting into your WordPress blog can delete anything that is there, can replace it with something else, redirect it and in fact access every single file in that WordPress site, sometimes other websites on the same server. That is why it’s really important to keep people out and backup your site just in case something goes wrong.

Something that is very easy to do if someone gets into your WordPress blog is delete it.

There is in fact a plugin called Bulk Delete that can delete all plugins within that blog, kind of a scary thought. But if you keep your blog backed up, then no one can really hurt you, even if you just use something once per month or once per week.

Let’s say in the worst case you back up your site on a Monday, and someone gets into your site and deletes it on a Friday, at least you have only lost the past five days of work. You haven’t lost the past two years, if not more.

What is even scarier is that someone who gets into your WordPress site might replace it with something else. Many terrorists, religious and activist groups have in fact used hackers to gain entrance to weakly protected WordPress sites and replace it with their own images and content.

What also might happen is someone might set up your site to redirect to a new site, or display some ads. And even worse, if your site gets flagged as an attack site, as a problem site other people will not be able to see it.

That is something that might happen, is if you load your WordPress site and it seems to be redirecting to some far off place on the internet, it might have been hacked and you should investigate that.

One of the scariest things about someone getting into your WordPress site is that they will probably be able to get access to all files in your site using the using the file manager plugin in WordPress. And even if you don’t have this file plugin installed, they can easily install it from the WordPress dashboard. And depending on how your server is configured, they might be able to see every single website and account on that server. Kind of a scary thought.

If someone gets into your WordPress blog, it’s not just about them changing content or redirecting to a new place, they now can see all your files, all your blogs, all your videos, all of your information. And all this is a reason for you to lock down WordPress.

Use a hard to guess password and be very careful about where you log into your blog from. And above all, backup your site, so just in case the worst happens you are still protected and you can still get your stuff back.

Backup your WordPress blog so you can get your stuff back later at

http://backupcreator.com/bc/?e=nicheguy

The Wording of A Text Messaging Marketing Campaign

Herschel Lawhorn — Fri, 18 May 2012 21:20:40 +0000

Can You Have More Sales, Too?
Helping over 102,000+ businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

The actual words in any text messaging marketing campaign are the most important part. After all, it doesn’t really matter how well you execute a campaign if, in the end, the finished ad is confusing or irrelevant to the readers. Of course it’s important that you use dynamic wording that motivates the reader to take action and either contact your company, buy your product, or take advantage of a coupon. But in addition to all of that, there are a few more things to keep in mind.

SMS Dominator

The first is that you have only have 160 characters that’s characters, not words. And while this may sound like a lot, it’s really not. That means that you have a very short amount of time to get a very important message across to your customers. This is not the time to delve into your company’s history, it’s the time to tell your customers why you are there and what you have to offer them. It’s the time to make them want to find out more, and to become interested in your product.

Get in any of the most important information first such as your phone number, the promotion code they need, or when a sale is running. Then include your call to action. You’ll probably be surprised that by the time that is done, you’re almost at your character limit and you might even have to cut what you have down to size!

Always remember to include the word Exclusive on it somewhere, whether it be an exclusive text offer? Or our exclusive customers, or something else along those lines. Although people might learn that they’ll receive exclusive offers when they first sign up for your program, they may forget this somewhere along the way, and it’s always a good thing to remind them of it.

This one may sound obvious, but include the name of your company somewhere within that 160 characters. Often times a text message will be sent out and only your ad appears, without your company’s name or a link to your website. If your name isn’t mentioned somewhere within the ad, your customers will receive an ad, but they won’t know where to go, who to call, or what to do. And then it doesn’t matter how well you planned your marketing campaign, how well it was executed, or how powerful the rest of the words are. If your customer doesn’t know what to do after all of that, your ad is entirely useless.

If you are interested in learning more about Text Messages and how they can be used for advertising your business, then Click Here.

Article Marketer And Your Questions!

Herschel Lawhorn — Sun, 13 May 2012 11:07:03 +0000

Can You Have More Sales, Too?
Helping over 102,000+ businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

John asks…

Can I place the same article on ezine and idea marketers? And will it be good for me as far as page Rank? no?

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

Google has been very aware of article marketing. In the last webmasters conference they had, someone asked this question and below is the response of Matt Cutts, head of the Google web spam team:

———————————————–
“Until recently (the last six months or so) a high ranking was achievable by submitting articles to article directories (providing they were 40%-60% unique), it no longer seems to be the case. Have links from article sites been de-valued at all?”

ANSWER By Matt Cutts:

In my experience, not every article directory site is high-quality. Sometimes you see a ton of articles copied all over the place, and it’s hard to even find original content on the site. The user experience for a lot of those article directory sites can be pretty bad too. So you’d see users landing on those sorts of pages have a bad experience. If you’re thinking of boosting your reputation and getting to be well-known, I might not start as the very first thing with an article directory. Sometimes it’s nice to get to be known a little better before jumping in and submitting a ton of articles as the first thing.
———————————————–

They did not answer the question directly. But if you want your efforts to pay off, be sure that you are not submitting to every single article directory out there. Choose the high quality ones — high quality meaning human reviewed and very particular as to what articles they post.

If you want page rank benefit, look for those that do not have a “rel=nofollow” tag as that means they’re not going to pass some link juice

Sandy asks…

how often should an internet marketer be producing new content?

A full time freelancer who writes new articles , uses affiliate marketing etc

can someone give me an example of a good schedule with tasks

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

Every single day is a good strategy but to be honest as long as it is 2 or 3 times a week then it should be ok. I recently didn’t blog for 2 weeks and my ranking went from 38 to 850+ for my keyword and then when I started posting 2 or 3 times a week it went back to around 40.

Interestingly a period of daily posting made no difference to my ranking so I would say 2 to 3 times a week is the minimum.

Mandy asks…

How do marketers identify a target audience?

I want to write a short article, where I pick an advertisement from a magazine or newspaper and then describe the target audience is for the ad, and also describe one activity marketers might have done to identify the target audience for the product or service. How would I go about writing a concise and informative essay that is less than 100 words long? Any good ideas for the kind of ad I should choose?

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

Marketers take focus groups of all races, ages, sex’s, and orientations. They show the product and find out which type of person it appeals to most. Depending on which type of person it appeals to, is how they decide to market it. If it appeals to male children, then they will probably advertise it with action a fantastical things. If it is older women, then they will advertise it as a sensible, practical, product. Marketers custom advertise to whichever group they think will buy their product more.
I would choose and ad that blatenly show’s which group they are focused on. Get a catolog from Wal-Mart. Even the colors on the page change depending on what they are selling.
Good Luck with your project

Google Calendar And Your Questions!

Herschel Lawhorn — Sun, 06 May 2012 11:07:05 +0000

Can You Have More Sales, Too?
Helping over 102,000+ businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

Steven asks…

How does one convert a Google calendar into one of the following types of files?

Does anyone know how to convert a Google calendar file to a .dba or .vcs? I am trying to upload my google calendar to my Palm Desktop.

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

You need to export the calendar – the easiest way to do this is to sync it with Outlook and then export it -

Linda asks…

Can I transfer a Google Calendar to a different Google Account?

I want to transfer a calendar from my a Google Account (account 1) to a different one (account 2)

I’ve shared the calendar with the account 2, now I want to make the ‘master owner’ the calendar account 2 instead of account 1.

Is this possible without deleting any events?

If I delete the calendar from account 1, will it still be available for account 2?

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

The easiest way to do this is to export your first calendar and then import into the second.

The links below will give you a detailed walk through of the process.

Mary asks…

How do I import my iPhone calendar into Google Calendars?

I have an empty Google calendar and I want to sync my iPhone calendar with my Google one. If I choose to simply sync them it erases all my iPhone events to begin with. I need to import my iPhone calendar to Google Calendars before I sync them.

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

You can use the MobileMe software within iTunes to do this, although I would highly recommend installing the Google app from the App Store, onto your iPhone and using that. It syncs immediately with your google calendar just the same, however it is free.

I use it constantly as I work shifts and need to know what I’m working each day. It’s great!

Good luck!

How Did Penguin Affect You?

Herschel — Fri, 04 May 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Can You Have More Sales, Too?
Helping over 102,000+ businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

I found this post on “The Daily SEO Blog” and thought it was relative to all the things that are going on today.

Google’s war on lovable critters escalated on April 24th with the release of the “Penguin” update (originally dubbed the “webspam update” by Google). While every major algorithm update causes some protest, post-Penguin panic seems to be at near record levels, worsened by weeks of speculation about an “over-optimization” penalty. Webmasters and SEOs are understandably worried, and many have legitimately lost traffic and revenue. Before you go out and burn your website to the ground for fear of a penguin in the pantry, I want to offer some advice on how to handle life after an algorithm update.

1. What We Know

First, let’s review what we know. I’m going to break the rules of blogging and recommend that you stop and read this level-headed Penguin post by Danny Sullivan. It covers some of the basics and is the most speculation-free post I’ve read on the subject so far. Glenn Gabe also had a good post on potential Penguin factors. There’s still a lot of speculation, but likely culprits include:

Aggressive exact-match anchor text

Overuse of exact-match domains

Low-quality article marketing & blog spam

Keyword stuffing in internal/outbound links

Many people have suggested low-quality link profiles in general, but analysis of Panda has been complicated by Google’s recent attack on link networks, which seems to have been manual and has probably been going on for weeks. The overlap has made analysis difficult, so let’s take a quick look at the timeline.

What’s the Timeline?

The official roll-out date for Penguin was April 24th, and it seems to have rolled out, for the most part, in a single day. Unfortunately, it came on the heels of other events. On April 19th, Panda 3.5 rolled out (most likely a data update). On April 16th, a data glitch caused a number of sites to be mistakenly tagged as parked domains. Throughout April (and weeks before Penguin), Google started sending out a large number of unnatural link notices via Google Webmaster Tools. Sadly, it seems that April really was the cruelest month.

How Bad Was It?

Google officially claimed that Penguin impacted about 3.1% of English queries, compared to Panda 1.0’s 12%. Since rankings change daily – even hourly – even with no updates, these numbers are nearly impossible to confirm, but it does appear that the impact of Penguin was immediate and substantial. This is an internal SEOmoz graph of Top 10 ranking changes around April 24th (please note that the Y-axis is scaled to accentuate changes):

Pardon the slightly cryptic nature of this graph – it’s for an upcoming project – but the core point is that the impact of Penguin dwarfed either Panda 3.5 or Google’s 4/16 glitch.

Is It Going Away?

In a word: no. Penguin wasn’t accidental, and Google is clearly serious about combatting spam tactics that have been lingering for too long. As you can see from the graph, it doesn’t appear that there were any major reversals in the few days since Penguin rolled out. Does that mean Google won’t make ANY adjustments? Of course not – it’s entirely likely that they’ll continue to tweak Penguin.

For comparison’s sake, remember that Panda 3.5 came 14 months after the initial launch of Panda 1.0. We’ve come a long way since the monthly “Google Dances” of 2003. Keep in mind, though, that Panda was somewhat unique – we believe that it feeds multiple variables into a single ranking factor that gets updated outside of the real-time index. There’s currently no compelling evidence to suggest that Penguin works in the same way. The Penguin update appears to be integrated directly into the main algorithm, like a more traditional Google update….

More at Penguins, Pandas, and Panic at the Zoo

I hope you read the complete post and will make a comment on what you think about Penguin or any of the other items covered in the post.

Google Images And Your Questions!

Herschel Lawhorn — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 11:07:24 +0000

Can You Have More Sales, Too?
Helping over 102,000+ businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

Carol asks…

Google Images?!?!?!?!?

Ok so i have a blogger..where you make a blog.
and you know how on google images tehre are always pics of peoples things and stuff and then it gives a link to their website.
well I was wondering how do they get theirs up there and how can i make it where some of my pictures make it on google images?
and also if one of your images from your blog is on google images do you get to pick the one that goes up on there?

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

I, myself has my pictures in my blogs available at Google Images

It is already automatic that if you have a blog and you have images on it, the images are already part of Google Images…

If your pictures are not in Google Images then check if your picture has a name, then if it has a name, try putting in that name in the Google Images Search Engine. Surely, you will find you’re images because all pictures from around the world are in Google Images…

John asks…

google IMAGES?

On google images, How do you paste your own picture?? And another question, which one was more of a nightmare : Middle school, or high school

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

Cant put your own pic sorry =/
when you search the words it picks out thepictures from a page that has those words on it.
If itsa more popular page, like profile.myspace.com then it will have better results and will more than likely come up first.

And highschool even tho i havent finished its already worse than middle.

Sandra asks…

google images?

i was looking to make a video to put on youtube or metacafe, but need some photos. can i use google images or does this goagainst the copyright law? Also how can i tell if an image is under the copyright law?

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

You are supposed to ask them (the host of the image should be displayed when you first click the image on your search page), but the owners of it have no way of tracking you, nor does the administration of the website ever enforce such strict rules.

Not saying you should do it, but the odds of any type of “infingement” charges against you are slim to zero.

Affiliate Marketing Guidelines And Your Questions!

Herschel Lawhorn — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:07:03 +0000

Can You Have More Sales, Too?
Helping over 102,000+ businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

Paul asks…

EMBED AFFILIATE LINKS IN DOMAIN NAME?

Hello friends, I am a newbie in the field of internet marketing. I intent to initiate article marketing with affiliate links embedded in the resource box. But article directories do not permit to put direct affiliate links in their resource box. For instance ezinearticle says:
EzineArticles.com Editorial Guidelines: (AFFILIATE PROGRAMS):

Affiliate links will be allowed if the link is a domain name you own which forward/redirects to the affiliate link from the top-level of the domain name. For example, it is permissible to forward to an affiliate link from:

http://your-company-name.com/

…but it would not be permissible to forward to an affiliate link from:

http://your-company-name.com/page.html

http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/

http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/page.html

http://sub-domain.your-company-name.com/

Any article with an affiliate link that does not adhere to this guideline will cause the article to be rejected.
Now my questions are: 1.would a free domain name from blogger.com do?
2. Is it possible to embed affiliate links in my domain, so that each time one clicks the domain name would be send directly to the vendor’s website instead of my blog. I want to use my domain name as a bridge between my articles and the vendor’s websites. If it is possible how can I do it?
3.Do article directories allow it?
4. Is it legit?
THANKS FOR YOUR ANSWER.
N.B. ANSWER IF YOU KNOW IT VERY WELL.

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

I remember getting away with signing up for a free blog on blogger and editing the html so it redirects to your affiliate link when you type in your site (http://www.XXXXX.blogspot.com)

You’ll have to search around for the redirect code.

Richard asks…

PUTTING AFFILIATE LINKS IN SUB-DOMAIN NAME?

http://your-company-name.com/

…but it would not be permissible to forward to an affiliate link from:

http://your-company-name.com/page.html

http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/

http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/page.html

http://sub-domain.your-company-name.com/

Any article with an affiliate link that does not adhere to this guideline will cause the article to be rejected.
Now my questions are: 1.would a free sub-domain name from blogger.com do?
2. Is it possible to embed affiliate links in my domain, so that each time one clicks the domain name would be send directly to the vendor’s website instead of my blog. I want to use my domain name as a bridge between my articles and the vendor’s websites. If it is possible how can I do it?
3.Do article directories allow it?
4. Is it legit?
THANKS FOR YOUR ANSWER.
N.B. ANSWER IF YOU KNOW IT VERY WELL.

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

With Ezine I would just put the link to your blog and forward from there. You can try a redirect with them but a lot of times if the page isn’t a top level page then they won’t accept it. Although, I have seen people use redirects and get away with it. I never have though. They must be kissing some ass or something. Other article directories will allow it but read the guidelines first to avoid a lot of rejection.

Another thing you can do is buy a cheap domain name from godaddy and ‘mask’ your affiliate link with your new domain name. This will force your new domain url to stay in view instead of the vendors url. Some companies do not allow this though but it will be stated in their ‘affiliate contract’. Godaddy makes it easy to mask the url. For instance my http://enlightenment-course.com is my masked url…and http://enlightenmentcourse.com is the actual vendors url. I just added a dash between the words.

I wouldn’t use blogger because you could lose those domain names down the road and then your ‘bridge’ would be lost. It would work for right now though.

I own my own websites and this is the page redirect I use:

optional text here

Good luck!

Mary asks…

Winner-promote your ads(here the right place)?

more guideline for advertisements earn per click, affiliate,marketing and for the publishers who create individual strength…

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question. What IS your question, please?

Affiliate Marketing Guidelines And Your Questions!

Herschel Lawhorn — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 11:07:03 +0000

Can You Have More Sales, Too?
Helping over 102,000+ businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

Betty asks…

EMBED AFFILIATE LINKS IN DOMAIN NAME?

http://your-company-name.com/

…but it would not be permissible to forward to an affiliate link from:

http://your-company-name.com/page.html

http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/

http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/page.html

http://sub-domain.your-company-name.com/

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

I remember getting away with signing up for a free blog on blogger and editing the html so it redirects to your affiliate link when you type in your site (http://www.XXXXX.blogspot.com)

You’ll have to search around for the redirect code.

Helen asks…

PUTTING AFFILIATE LINKS IN SUB-DOMAIN NAME?

http://your-company-name.com/

…but it would not be permissible to forward to an affiliate link from:

http://your-company-name.com/page.html

http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/

http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/page.html

http://sub-domain.your-company-name.com/

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

I wouldn’t use blogger because you could lose those domain names down the road and then your ‘bridge’ would be lost. It would work for right now though.

I own my own websites and this is the page redirect I use:

optional text here

Good luck!

Chris asks…

Winner-promote your ads(here the right place)?

more guideline for advertisements earn per click, affiliate,marketing and for the publishers who create individual strength…

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question. What IS your question, please?

Affiliate Marketing Guidelines And Your Questions!

Herschel Lawhorn — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 11:07:02 +0000

Can You Have More Sales, Too?
Helping over 102,000+ businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

Sandra asks…

EMBED AFFILIATE LINKS IN DOMAIN NAME?

http://your-company-name.com/

…but it would not be permissible to forward to an affiliate link from:

http://your-company-name.com/page.html

http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/

http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/page.html

http://sub-domain.your-company-name.com/

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

I remember getting away with signing up for a free blog on blogger and editing the html so it redirects to your affiliate link when you type in your site (http://www.XXXXX.blogspot.com)

You’ll have to search around for the redirect code.

Mary asks…

PUTTING AFFILIATE LINKS IN SUB-DOMAIN NAME?

http://your-company-name.com/

…but it would not be permissible to forward to an affiliate link from:

http://your-company-name.com/page.html

http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/

http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/page.html

http://sub-domain.your-company-name.com/

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

I wouldn’t use blogger because you could lose those domain names down the road and then your ‘bridge’ would be lost. It would work for right now though.

I own my own websites and this is the page redirect I use:

optional text here

Good luck!

David asks…

Winner-promote your ads(here the right place)?

more guideline for advertisements earn per click, affiliate,marketing and for the publishers who create individual strength…

Herschel Lawhorn answers:

I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question. What IS your question, please?