PIPS 2.0 Joomla Training - onlineworkfromhomejobs.net

Interlinking your Site for Improved Search Engine Rankings

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:14:31 +0100

You probably know by now that getting back links to your pages is the key to getting good rankings in the search engines but did you know that internal links also count as back links? Internal linking is something you should be doing as much as possible, it not only improves your rankings in the search engines but also improves the chances of all of your content being indexed.

The first thing you should do is add a few links in your footer to your main page using your main keywords as anchor text which you are trying to rank for. That will instantly give you a back link to your home page from every internal page with your keyword(s) as the anchor text.

The next thing I am going to show you is a really cool and really simple extension for Joomla which will automatically interlink your pages for you. You may or may not have noticed an extension in your components menu in your Joomla control panel called 'Simply Links'. I have neglected to mention it's purpose up until now because it didn't quite work the way I wanted it to however I had a little play around with it and have managed to get it to work the way I wanted it to.

The way Simply Links works is as the name suggests very simple, you enter a keyword which you would like to have linked to either an internal link to boost rankings or an external link (great for affiliate links) and it will automatically go through every single page on your site and find the first instance of that keyword and hyperlink it to the desired URL, that's it! Simple but powerful little tool.

Some of the changes I made to the original extension...

First of all by default it shows little icons next to the links it inserts to show if the link is external or internal which I didn't like so I removed them. Also for the internal link you have to insert the ID of the article which you want to link to which I thought was a pain so I changed that so you can just paste in the URL instead. One of the major problems it has is that if you had a keyword in a heading tag (which you should do for SEO purposes) it would insert the link in the heading which obviously isn't what you want, so I altered it to ignore content in heading tag and lastly I made external links nofollow so as not to leak PR out to external sites and they open in a new window.

Earlier versions of PIPS 2.0 didn't come with the Simply Links extension so you will need to download these two files and install them if you don't have it - Simply Links Plug-in & Simply Links Component

NOTE: Any PIPS 2.0 sites installed after the 17th July 2008 will already have my changes included.

If you want to include my changes and you already have the Simply Links extension installed then you only need to reinstall the Simply Links Plug-in. To do that just go into your Joomla control panel and in the extensions menu click on install/uninstall, then in the plug-ins section select the Simply Links plug-in and click the uninstall button.

See this article on how to install extensions http://www.onlineworkfromhomejobs.net/training/45-pips-20-how-tos/46-how-to-add-an-extension-in-joomla

How to Use the Simply Links Extension

First of all log in to your Joomla control panel and in the components menu click 'Simly Links'
Click new
In the 'Name' field you want to enter the keyword which you want to convert to a link
Leave published set to 'yes'
For the category select 'internal' if you want the link to open in the same window and 'external' if you want it to open in a new window
In the 'URL' field enter the URL you wish to link to
The description field is optional you can leave it blank if you wish it is what is placed in the title field for the link. The title of a link is the text which is displayed when you hover over the link
Lastly click save and you are done, just repeat the process for each keyword you wish to convert to a link

Taking Advantage of RSS Technology

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:34:15 +0100

If you are not using an RSS reader you are really missing out on having an extremely convenient way of keeping up to date with your favorite blogs, forums, news sites, etc. Virtually every site these days no matter what it is has an RSS feed or multiple RSS feeds, which you can subscribe to to keep up to date with the latest content. All you need is an RSS reader of which there are many, the one I use is Google Reader www.google.com/reader

For a simple overview of RSS check out this video...

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU]

You can subscribe to various feeds on this site including the blog, the training section (in fact you can subscribe to any section by clicking the RSS feed icon in the address bar of your browser) the forum and the article directory.

For PIPS 2.0 members I highly recommend subscribing to the feed for the training section so that you get notifications when I add new material.

Advantages of Using the Firefox 3 Web Browser

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:55:06 +0100

One thing I have noticed is that a lot of people are not only still using IE (Internet Explorer) but they are still using IE6 which means they are missing out on a lot of really useful features which the newer browsers have. As an internet marketer you want to make sure you are keeping up to date with technology and Firefox 3 is a excellent browser for internet marketers.

Watch the following vid to get an idea of the kind of really useful features incorporated into Firefox 3

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g30Xyh6Wqc]

One thing you should notice straight away is that page load times are quite a lot faster which is always a good thing, a second here and a second there can really add up.

You can download the Tab Mix Plus add-on from here http://tmp.garyr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7031 just click the Dev-Build link and then click install as is shown in the video

Another tool I highly recommend for Firefox is Session Manager https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2324

For SEO I recommend http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html which I am going to talk more about in my next video.

You can find a huge array of other add-ons here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

How to Find Long Tail Keywords

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:18:10 +0100

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDuLimsmkjg]

Example of digging into keyword lists for the 'Golf' market to find long tail keywords. Notice with each "dig" the key phrases get longer and longer which usually means less competition.

Keyword Research Using the Google Keyword Tool

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:07:07 +0100

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9ROfj5VX9A]

PIPS 2.0 Website Initial Setup

Sat, 24 May 2008 23:54:47 +0100

Part 1

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyzqxv2xbfo]

NOTE: Your ID's are automatically inserted into your site during installation you do not need to add them yourself. However it is a good idea to go through your site and double check them to ensure they are correct.

Part 2

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pouxcu1myfo]

Feel free to post any questions about this video below

Overview of the Joomla Control Panel

Sat, 24 May 2008 23:54:47 +0100

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX6orxII4CU]

Feel free to post any questions about this video below

How to Add an Article in Joomla 1.5

Sat, 24 May 2008 23:54:47 +0100

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLf7DWD9IN0]

Feel free to post any questions about this video below

How to Add a Google Analytics ID in Joomla 1.5

Sat, 24 May 2008 23:54:47 +0100

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8sipnAjm6M]

Feel free to post any questions about this video below

Adding A Banner to A Custom HTML Module

Sat, 24 May 2008 23:54:47 +0100

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvA679brXug]

NOTE: William mentions that if you don't have the Custom HTML module to use the PHP Module which is actually incorrect. I can see how you can easily get these modules confused as they are all named quite similarly so in the training section I have described some of the different module types.

Custom HTML Module - This is the module which William uses in the video above, it is a built in Joomla module which everyone should have no matter which PIPS 2.0 site or Joomla version they are running. This module has an editor very similar to the one you use to add articles so that you can basically add whatever content you like without having to touch any HTML to positions other than the main content position.

William could have copied the code which was displayed under the banner and in the editor clicked the 'HTML' button and pasted the code directly into the module however if you do not have the code only the banner image then the method used by William in the above video is the best way to achieve the task.

Special HTML Module - This is a 3rd party module which I added after I gave PIPS 2.0 a complete overhaul. It replaces the PHP Module which I used in the very first PIPS 2.0 sites. This is a very simple module which has a large input section on he right labeled 'HTML/Javascript' and is where you can place any code you wish and assign it to a module position.

For example another way of adding the Data Entry Made Easy banner as shown in the video would be to simply copy the code which is supplied beneath the banner in your Traffic Payouts back office and paste it into a Special HTML module. This is a quick and easy way to do it however it does mean you are working directly with HTML and if you need to make any alterations you will need to edit the HTML itself. For example in the video above to center the banner William simply clicks the center button however to center the banner using the special HTML module you would need to wrap the banner with center tags .

PHP Module - As mentioned above this module was replaced by the Special HTML module however both modules are virtually identical therefore if you are working with the PHP Module simply follow the same instructions as the Special HTML module.

Feel free to post any questions about this video below

How to Add a Module

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:56:21 +0100

Joomla comes with several built in modules which you can add to your site. To do this simply go to 'Module Manager' in the extensions menu, click the new button then click on the module you would like to add. Any 3rd party modules which you have added will show up here also.

You will then need to configure the module which will vary depending on which module you chose however every module will need to be assigned to a position. If you have multiple modules in one position you will then need to choose in what order you would like the modules to be displayed. Both tasks can be performed in the modules 'Details' section. For a diagram of the module positions available see the diagram on this page http://www.onlineworkfromhomejobs.net/modules-introduction

In the 'Menu Assignment' section you can then choose which pages you would like the module to show up on.

Another option which you will find in all modules is the field 'Module Class Suffix'. This allows you to choose how you would like the module to appear. Most templates will come with several different preset styles for your modules. Check out this page to view the different options. http://demo.rockettheme.com/apr08/

You now know how to add a module.

Configuring the Page Peel Banner

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:34:34 +0100

The page peel banner module creates the banner in the top right corner which "peels" open when you hover over it with your cursor. It's very unobtrusive but at the same time I believe most people won't be able to resist checking it out.

The module is made up of two images the smaller 'open ads' image and the larger 'dotcomology' animation. You have the option of using a static .jpg image file or a flash animation .swf.

As it's a module, to configure it you need to go into module manager which is found in the extensions menu in your Joomla control panel. You should see a module called 'Page Peel Banner' click on it to configure.

The 'Details' section can be left alone and in the 'Menu Assignment' section you can select which pages you would like the banner to appear on.

The 'Module Parameters' section is where the majority of the configuration is done. I am not sure what the difference is in the 'Adsystem' menu between 'Static Ads' and 'Joomla Ads' both seem to have the same output. I'd just leave it set to 'Static Ads'.

I don't use the Joomla banner system but if you do you can select your banner client and category.

There appears to be a bug in the module which doesn't allow the link to open in a new window so just leave that set to the current window.

With the 'Auto Open' option enabled it allows you to do basically that, have the ad open automatically. You can choose how many times you want it to open, when you want it to open and for how long.

The 'Alternative Link' is the URL you want to load when the ad is clicked on.

And finally you have the two images which you want to display. As you can see the smaller image is set to 100 x 100 therefore that's the size your smaller image will need to be and your larger banner ad will need to be 500 x 500.

As mentioned above you can either create a static jpg image or you can create a flash animation. If you want to use a flash animation you need to rename the .swf file to a .jpg file.

You then need to upload your two .jpg files to the modules/mod_pagepeel_banner/pagepeel_banner folder. Once uploaded you should be able to see the two files in the 'Alternative Big Peel Image' and 'Small Peel Image' drop down menus.

Click apply and you are done.

Google Analytics

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:27:57 +0100

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8sipnAjm6M]

To find your Google Analytics Tracking module go to the extensions drop down menu and select module manager.

Click on the 'Google Analytics Tracking Module' and you will see a field in the 'Module Parameters' section called 'Analytics_uacct code'. All you need to do is add you Analytics ID here and that's it.

Not Sure What Your Google Analytics ID is?

If you have a Google Analytics account but you are not sure what your ID is then log in to your Google Analytics account http://www.google.com/analytics, next to your website under settings click edit. Click status in the top right hand corner.

You will see a block of code under the 'Instructions for adding tracking' header, your ID will look something like 'UA-123456-1'

Don't Have a Google Analytics Account?

If you haven't got a Google Analytics account yet go to http://www.google.com/analytics and sign up for an account.

To set up your site just click 'Add Website Profile' type in your domain and click continue then enter your ID into your Analytics Module in the field mentioned above. Then select finish in Google Analytics.

You will then be taken back to the dashboard where quite often it will say 'Tracking code not detected' just click check status again and it should detect the code. It usually takes about 24 to 48 hours before it starts to display your stats.

Stopping Your Own Visits From Being Included in Your Stats

You may also want to block your own visits to your site from being counted in your stats. You can do this easily by going to www.myipaddress.com and copying your IP address.

NOTE: Some ISP's (internet service providers) do not provide static IP's, which means your IP address will change from time to time. Therefore IP filtering won't work

Then in Google Analytics click edit next to your web site and click add filter in the bottom right hand corner.

Enter any name and in the filter type menu select 'Exclude all traffic from an IP address'

Paste your IP address into the box and click finish.

How to Add an Extension in Joomla

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:51:36 +0100

An extension whether it be a component, module, plug-in or template is installed by clicking the 'install/uninstall' link in the 'Extensions' menu in your Joomla control panel.

As you will see there are three different methods for installing extensions however the 'Upload Package File' method is the easiest. All you need to do is click the browse button locate the extension on your computer and click install. DO NOT unzip the extension first, Joomla will unzip the file for you and then copy the contents to the necessary locations on your site.

Unfortunately the 'Upload Package File' method doesn't seem to work well on some Joomla sites hosted with H4P therefore you need to use the 'Install from URL' method. To do this you will need to upload the extensions zip file to your site then insert the URL to the zip file. For example if the extension is called extension.zip and you upload it to the root directory of your site then enter http://www.yoursite.com/extension.zip into the 'Install from URL' field.

You will either get a message saying the installation was successful or an error message. Possible reasons for an error message could be that you need to unzip the extension first. Sometimes an extension is comprised of multiple files such as a plugin.zip and a component.zip which are zipped up into one single zip file. Therefore you first need to unzip the file first and install the individual extension zip files one at a time, make sense?

Another possible reason for an error is because you may be trying to install a component which is compatible with Joomla 1.0 only and not Joomla 1.5. Most extensions should tell you on the download page which version they are for.

Useful Joomla Sites

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:57:50 +0100

Here is a list of sites which you may find useful in regards to getting the most out of your PIPS 2.0 site. The official Joomla site is www.joomla.org

Joomla Tutorials

Joomla Forums
- http://forum.joomla.org

Joomla RSS Feeds
- http://www.joomlafeed.com

SEO
- http://www.alledia.com
- http://www.pathos-seo.com

PIPS 2.0 3rd Party Components

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:57:08 +0100

There are several 3rd party components which are incorporated into PIPS 2.0 which don't come built in to Joomla and these will change over time as Joomla evolves. So to allow you to keep up to date with what is incorporated in the PIPS 2.0 site here is a list of the components and where you can get them.

For instructions on how to install components see this article

Unique Article Wizard - The Unique Article Wizard component provides your site with unique articles automatically and you can get access to the Joomla component by scrolling to the bottom of the sales page and clicking the link titled 'Directories/Webmasters - Receive FREE unique content direct to your site! Click for details'

Fireboard - Forum component

Joomla Pack - This is a great tool for backing up your site and extremely easy to restore if you ever need to.

MyBlog - Blogging component

Jomcomment - Commenting component

Xmap - Sitemap component which helps search engines find your content

Simply Links - Allows you to automatically insert links for chosen keywords. Great for SEO and inserting affiliate links automatically.

Google Analytics - Tracking Module

Google Adsense - Adsense Module

AddThis - Social bookmarking plugin

Special HTML - Allows you to paste code directly into a module to display on your site

How to Add a Menu

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:16:36 +0100

How to Add a Menu

You can add as many menus as you like to your site in most of the module positions. Simply click 'Menu Manager' in the 'Menus' drop down menu in your Joomla control panel and click the 'New' button.

If you wanted to create a menu called 'Free eBook Downloads' for example you would do the following...

In the 'Unique Name' field you would enter something like 'free-ebook-downloads' and enter 'Free eBook Downloads' as the Title and Module Title. The description is optional.

Click the 'Save' button and your menu is now ready to have links added to it.

How to Add a Link

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:36:21 +0100

To add a link to a menu you simply log in to your Joomla control panel and in the 'Menus' drop down menu select the menu you wish to add the link to and click the 'New' button.

NOTE: The 'Main Menu' is the horizontal menu just below the header.

Once you have clicked the 'New' Button you will see a list of options. There are really only two options that you are going to be using regularly and that's the 'Articles' link and the 'External' Link.

Link to an Article

To add a link to an article click the 'Articles' link then click 'Article Layout'

You then need to give the link a title and choose the alias which is what the URL of the page will be. If you leave the alias field blank it will simply add the title as the alias automatically.

The access level allows you to make the article public, meaning any visitor to your site can view it or registered, meaning only registered members on your site can view it. Adding registered content is a good way to encourage people to register to your site.

Then in the 'Parameters - Basic' menu click select and click on the article you wish to link to.

Click save and you are done.

External Link

External links are used to link to anything outside of Joomla. For example if you use Linkmachine or Blogger even though it resides on your site it is still outside of Joomla therefore considered an external link.

Click the 'External' link and follow the instructions above. However this time rather than selecting the article you simply enter the URL you wish to link to in the 'Link' field.

Adding Google Adsense

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 05:34:02 +0100

PIPS 2.0 comes with a Google Adsense module which you can access by logging in to your Joomla control panel and in the 'Extensions' menu click 'Module Manager'. Open the module called 'Google Adsense'.

Show title should be set to no and enabled set to yes. Choose the position you would like the Adsense to be displayed, see this page on module positions http://www.onlineworkfromhomejobs.net/modules-introduction.

Select the pages you would like the Adsense to be displayed on in the 'Menu Assignment' section.

You will need to obtain your Publisher ID by logging in to your Google Adsense account https://www.google.com/adsense. Your publisher ID can be found by clicking the 'My Account' tab and scrolling down to the 'Property Information' section. Your ID will look like pub-1234567890, copy it and paste it into the 'Publisher ID' field.

The rest is self explanatory, if you are not sure which color codes to use check this page http://www.webmonkey.com/reference/color_codes/

I believe the alternative ad URL is where you can place a link which will load instead of the public service announcement which sometimes displays if there are no ads available. Not likely to happen in the "work from home" market.

You can also block your IP address to avoid ads loading when you are browsing your site to avoid accidental clicks on your own ads. Google will close your account if you click on your own ads.

Click 'Apply' or 'Save' to apply your changes and 'Preview' to preview them.

Adding a Banner

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 03:33:57 +0100

There are two different ways you can add a banner, one is by using the Custom HTML Module and one is using the Special HTML module. Some affiliate sites will provide you with the code for your banner which you simply need to paste into your site, in that situation it's best to use the Special HTML module. If you have the banner image itself but not the code then it's better to use the Custom HTML module.

Special HTML module

To add the Special HTML module log in to your Joomla control panel, in the extensions menu click module manager. Click the 'New' button and select 'Special HTML Module'.

In the title field use a name which relates to your banner, switch show title to 'No'. Choose the position where you would like the banner to appear. For more information on changing module positions go to this page http://www.onlineworkfromhomejobs.net/modules-introduction

In the module assignment section this is where you choose which pages you want the banner to appear on.

In the 'HTML/JavaScript' section this is where you paste your code.

Click save and you are done.

Custom HTML Module

Firstly you need to upload the banner image to your site. You can do that several ways, upload it using WEBePanel, using an FTP client such as Filezilla or using the upload image function inside Joomla. It's a good idea to upload all of your images to the 'images' folder.

Follow the same instructions above however select the 'Custom HTML Module'.

In the 'Custom Output' section click the 'insert/edit image' button and in the 'Image URL' field enter the URL of your image. For example if you image was named 'banner.jpg' you would enter '/images/banner.jpg'

If you have entered the URL correctly it should load in the 'Preview' section. You can add an alt tag in the image description field. You can apply further optional functionality to the image in the 'Appearance' and 'Advanced' sections. Click the 'Insert' button once you are done.

To add a link to the banner image simply click on the image then click the 'insert/edit link' button. Add the link to the 'Link URL' field and again you can also add extra functionality if you wish. Click insert and then click the 'Save' or 'Apply' button to publish the module. You can click the 'Preview' button to preview your changes.

Adding a New Page

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:39:14 +0100

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLf7DWD9IN0]

Adding a new page to your site is really easy, if you log in to your Joomla control panel in the drop down menu called 'content' click the 'article manager' link. The article manager oddly enough is where you can manage all of the articles on your site. To make it easier to find the article you are looking for you can narrow the results by section and category.

Every page has at least one article therefore by creating a new article you are essentially creating a new page. The article can consist of anything you want, it can be one sentence, it can be one hundred sentences, it can contain images, video basically anything you want. You can create the article within Joomla or you can create the content in an HTML editor and copy and paste the code in to Joomla. I recommend using the Joomla editor for adding basic content but if you plan on doing something a little more technical I have found it easier to create the content in Dreamweaver or NVU and then paste the code in to Joomla.

To create a new article simply click the 'New' button, you will then add a title. Hopefully for those who have read the SEO article you will remember to add the keyword you are targeting in the title.

The alias field will be added automatically so need to enter anything there.

Choose the section you want to place the article into, if you haven't created a section you can simply select uncategorized. Sections and categories are mainly for

keeping your content organized.

You probably want to publish the site straight away unless you do not want it to show up on your site till a later date so leave it set at 'yes'.

The 'Front Page' option set to yes will place that article on the front page. If you have multiple articles showing on the front page you can choose how you want them to be displayed in the front page manager section.

Each section must have one or more categories therefore if you have selected a section then you need to also select the category also, otherwise leave it set to uncategorized.

Now it is time to create the content. I am not going to go over every one of the functions in the editor because most are self explanatory and if you hover over the icon it will tell you what it does. The best way to learn to use the editor is simply to play around with all of the options and see what they do.

If you have created the content in an HTML editor simply click the HTML button and paste your code there and click update.

In the right sidebar you have further options, the access level allows you to block content to the public so that only registered users can view it. This is a great way to encourage people to register to your site. You can also set when you want the site to be published and unpublished.

The settings in the 'Parameters - Advanced' section are set in the global article settings however you can overwrite them on each article here if you wish.

And in the last menu you can enter meta data for the page.

Click the 'Save' or 'Apply' icon and the article is now published however you will probably want to add a link to it in your menu. To do this in the 'Menus' menu select the menu you would like to add the link to and then click 'new'.

Then select 'Articles' and 'Article Layout'. In the title field enter the link or anchor text and in the alias field enter the URL you would like the new page to be, leave the alias field blank and Joomla will simply use the title as you should know by now.

In the 'Parameters - Basic' menu click select, locate and select the article you would like to link to.

Click save and you are done.

Changing Color

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:24:17 +0100

The latest PIPS 2.0 site has a really cool feature to allow you to create whatever color combination you like on your site as well as change the background design. Here are step by step instructions on how to use it.

First of all click the 'color chooser' button in the top right hand corner of your site to open the menu.

The first drop down menu contains a bunch of preset color and background combinations and the second drop down menu changes the background design only.

The following fields are for you to create your own color combination, simply click in the field and use the color picker to find the color you wish to use. You can then see what the output will look like in the preview screen. To view the changes on your site click the 'apply colors' button (NOTE: this will not change the current color theme it simply shows you how it will look).

Once you have come up with a design you are happy with, to make it your default color scheme you need to log in to your Joomla control panel and in the 'extensions' drop down menu click 'Template Manager'. You will see three different versions of the template rt_chromatophore, a one, two and three column version and you will need to apply your color changes to each one. Or if you like you can use a different color combination for each one.

Once you have opened the template you will see the first field in the parameters section labeled 'Style Variation' and the contents will look like this

Business Causual:overlay-gradient2,#263248,#d1d4de,#95ad2a,
#ffffff,#6e7791,#e1e3f0

Color Theme:background-type,#primary-color,#primary-text,
#secondary-color,#secondary-text,#tertiary-color,#tertiary-text

Each of those sections applies to each of the fields in the color chooser.

Color Theme - This is the value of the first drop down menu, it can actually be anything you like.

background-type - This is where you place the type of background you wish to use, the value is obtained from the second drop down menu.

#primary-color,#primary-text,#secondary-color,#secondary-text,
#tertiary-color,#tertiary-text - Simply copy and paste the color code from the fields in the color chooser into the corresponding spaces as in the example above.

Once you are done click apply and test the change on your site. Here are some of the different preset color variations available.

Keyword Research

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:24:19 +0100

Your search marketing efforts start with finding the right keywords to target, if you don't target the right keywords the rest of your search marketing will be a complete waste of time. The most common mistake people make is to target keywords which are far to competitive so I am going to show you exactly how you can find long tail or low competition keywords.

There are several keyword research tools which make it easier to build your keyword lists my favorite is http://www.wealthontap.com/go/nichebot.php however to start off with you can get by perfectly doing the your research manually.

You first step is to start at the very top of your market and dig your way down. Think of a few main keywords which you think would get large amounts of traffic and go along to http://www.google.com/trends

Here is a comparison of the three main keywords in the work from home market. The more traffic a main keyword gets the greater the number of long tail keywords is likely to be found drilling down into that market.

As you can see the keyword "home business" and "work from home" have a similar number of searches. So I am going to pick the keyword "home Business" and dig a little deeper. To do this I am going to use the Google Keyword Tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and simply enter "home business".

This will return a long list of keywords with the phrase "home business", sort them into highest traffic keywords first and going through the list click the add button to add them to your list. Save the list as a .csv file if you have excel or you can use Google spreadsheets http://docs.google.com. I have uploaded my keyword list here for you to view http://spreadsheets.google.com/home-business

You then want to do the search again with each one of those phrases to dig even deeper and create another list for each keyword. I am just going to pick one at random and I decided to look more at "start home business". So again I enter that into the Google Keyword tool.

Now I am into the real long tail keywords and amongst these I should be able to find some with very little competition. So again go through the list and click add next to the keywords you wish to add to your list and export the list. This time order the list highest search volume to lowest and ignore any keywords with very low search volume. Here is my list http://spreadsheets.google.com/start-home-business

Now it's time to check the competition so we can find out which of those keywords are going to easy to rank for and which aren't.

To check competition for each keyword type this into Google intitle:"keyword" inanchor:"keyword". This will output all sites which have the exact keyword phrase in the title tags as well as at least one link pointing to the site with the exact phrase in the anchor text. So to check the first keyword in my list which is "easy to start home business" I would enter this into Google Search.

intitle:"easy to start home business" = 13
inanchor:"easy to start home business" = 2
intitle:"easy to start home business" inanchor:"easy to start home business" = 0 results

So what these results tell me is that there are very few sites optimized for the phrase "easy to start home business" which means I have a very good chance of ranking in the top 10 without too much effort.

Keyword Elite http://www.wealthontap.com/go/keyword-elite.php is the only tool I know of which can obtain this data for you automatically.

SEO

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 04:29:31 +0100

Search engine optimization is pointless if you are not optimizing your site for the right keywords. So check the article on keyword research before starting any SEO work.

SEO is a widely discussed topic on the internet. It has to be said that there is a lot of misconception when it comes to SEO in what is important and what isn't. On-page optimization is where you modify your pages around certain keywords in order to achieve search engine rankings for those keywords. Off-page optimization is mainly about obtaining links pointing back to your site which is by far the most important aspect of SEO for any site.

On-page Optimization

A lot of people in PIPS seem to be spending a lot of time on on-page optimization and putting far to much emphasis on things like meta tags and alt tags. It is frustrating to see people mislead into thinking that in order for your site to rank well you need to have it optimized in a certain way, this is simply not true and I am going to do my best to try and put a stop to it for once and for all! Fat chance!

Here is the truth, your site can rank at the top of the search engines for any keyword with no on-page optimization at all, plain and simple. If your site has enough back links it will rank well and get traffic and that is extremely important to know. You should be focusing the majority of your time building back links not fiddling around with keywords on your site. Without enough back links pointing to your site any on-page optimization is totally worthless and a complete waste of time.

One thing to be be aware of is that you can't manipulate search engines with on-page optimization. Search engines can tell a lot more about your site by the sites that are linking to it rather than looking at the actually content which is on it. You can however assist the search engines by letting them know what keywords are the most important on a particular page by placing them in certain places.

Right so now that we have sorted that out here is a break down of what is important when it comes to on-page optimization, I think you will be surprised at how simple it actually is.

Interlinking your Pages - One the most important things you can do on your site to help improve it's rankings. Each page on your site is treated individually therefore a link form one page to the next counts as a back link. So by using keywords throughout your site to link to other related pages you will greatly improve your rankings.

Title Tags - When you create an article in Joomla you should always place the keyword which that article is optimized for in the title. Once the article is published Joomla will then automatically place the title of the article in the tags of the page. The title tags are found inside the tags of the HTML and show in the title bar of your browser once the page is loaded.

Body Text - It's also a good idea to use the keyword(s) you are targeting throughout the content on your page. There is a lot of talk about what keyword density to use however once or twice per paragraph is fine. Some people suggest using the same keyword density as the top ranked pages for the keyword you are targeting however there are so many factors that come into why that page is number one that there is no guarantee that matching the keyword density is going to improve your rankings at all. It also makes no sense to me that optimum keyword density would differ from keyword to keyword.

Heading Tags - By default Joomla also adds the title of the article on to the page itself and it helps to add further importance by wrapping it in heading tags which by default Joomla doesn't do.

It's easy to achieve though, when creating your article put the title into the page itself, highlight the text and select 'heading 1' in the paragraph drop down menu. Then in the 'Parameters - Advanced' menu on the right change 'Show Title' to no.

Alt Tags - An alt tag is text applied to an image in case the image doesn't load the text is displayed instead. Inserting your keyword as the alt tag is believed to help rankings, how much is debatable though and something which I don't believe is worth spending too much time on. It is worth adding your main keyword(s) to your header image though if you have one and try to make it a habit to add an alt tag to every image you add to your site.

To add a keyword(s) to an alt tag you simply need to open the module or article where the image resides, select the image and click the image icon in the tool bar (it's the icon with the picture of the tree on it) then in the 'Image Description' field add your keyword(s). I wouldn't add more than 10 words to the alt tag otherwise it appears spammy. Also do not use the same keyword in multiple alt tags on the same page as that is also spammy.

Meta Tags - Meta keywords were abused by spammers therefore are believed to be overlooked by SE's now and most SEO professionals ignore them altogether. Meta descriptions are what SE's often use in their results and should be used to entice people into your site.

Both meta keywords and meta descriptions can be easily added to your site. You can set the global meta description and keywords in the global configuration section found in the 'Site' drop down menu. Global means that every page will use that meta description and keyword unless a page has one specifically assigned. You can assign meta data to each article by selecting the article in article manager and opening the 'Metadata Information' menu on the right.

That's all there is to it! The most important places for your keyword(s) is in the title and throughout your content, thats all you really need to worry about. If you want to go a step further then use the heading and alt tags and meta content as explained, however it's not essential. My main point here is that I don't want people to expect to achieve major improvements in their search engine rankings by making these changes the real improvements are achieved with off-page optimization i.e. getting more back links.

Introduction

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 03:33:53 +0100

For the Joomla marketing section of this site I am going to cover all of the marketing techniques and tools I use to generate targeted traffic to my sites. There are a lot of different ways to generate traffic however I am going to focus on the methods which I believe are the most effective through my own experience. The main methods I am going to focus on are blogging, article marketing, social marketing, PPC advertising and general advertising.

I know most PIPS members are on a tight budget and most are probably going to be relying on organic (free) search engine traffic to get the ball rolling so I have created a guide on how to optimize your site in order to get the most out of your marketing efforts.

[Return to Training Section]

How to Change your Header

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:11:51 +0100

One of the first things you are going to want to do once your PIPS 2.0 site is up and running is change the header. To access the header you need to log in to your Joomla control panel and in the extensions drop down menu click 'Module Manager'. You will find in time that the two places you spend most of your time are in the Module and Article management sections as that is where the majority of the content on your site is managed.

Once in the module manager locate and click on the header module. I have created the header module using the built-in custom module which allows you to add pretty much anything you want.

If you scroll down to the Output section you will see the PIPS 2.0 header image and underneath that is the text 'Plug-in Profit Site - Taking PIPS to the Next Level!' however you probably can't see it as the text is white.

Like I mentioned you can add anything you like to your header, you can simply add text, an image or a combination of both like I have done. For SEO purposes it's not a bad idea to have some text with your main keyword(s) in the header somewhere.

You can also create your header in an HTML editor such as NVU and then paste the output into Joomla.

Adding Text

If you would just like to add text to your header then you simply type the text into the output screen. You can then adjust the size by selecting a header size in the paragraph drop down menu, header 1 being the largest and header 6 the smallest. You can also change the color by clicking the down arrow next to the 'A' button. The header sizes are set in the templates CSS file but can be overridden however this would require using an HTML editor.

Adding a Graphic

If you would like to add an image to your header the first thing you need to do is upload it to your site. The best place to put it is in the images folder which you can access by FTP or by using the File Manager in WEBePanel. You can also upload images using the image button at the bottom of the output window however for that function to work your Joomla FTP system needs to be working or the images folder needs to have permissions set to 777.

Once the image is uploaded to your site simply click the picture icon with the image of a tree on it in the tool bar and enter the URL of the image in the 'Image URL' field. For example if your image was labeled header.jpg and you uploaded it to the images folder all you need to enter is '/images/header.jpg'

The 'Image Description' field is what will be placed in the alt tag of the image so for SEO purposes you should enter your main keyword there.

All you need to do now is click the 'Insert' button.

Adding a HTML

Although the built in Joomla editor does allow you to create HTML I find it much easier to create the HTML in an HTML editor. I personally use Dreamweaver which is the industry leader when it comes to HTML editors and comes with a hefty price tag. However unless you are doing advanced web development there is really no need in forking out that much money when you can get a free HTML editor such as NVU which will do everything you need it to.

Don't be put off by the term HTML editor as you can create pages both in NVU and Dreamweaver without touching any code whatsoever and then pasting that code straight into Joomla. However it does help to have a basic understanding of HTML.

Once you have created your header in your HTML editor copy the code between the tags, do not include the or the content. We are not creating an entire page we simply want the code for the header, Joomla automatically adds the rest for us.

Now in the output window in Joomla click the HTML button and paste your code into that window replacing any existing code.

Testing your Header

To see how your header looks click the 'Apply' button in the top tool bar and then click the preview button. The preview button at the very top will open your site in a new window the preview button just below it will show a preview of your changes in the current window.

Article Marketing

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:02:15 +0100

Article marketing is still in my opinion one of the best ways to get one way back links (which are the most valuable links) to your site to improve it's rankings. There are literally thousands of article directories which you can submit your articles to which allow you to place a short description of yourself and your business plus a back link to your site.

Benefits of Submitting Articles to Article Directories

Article directories also receive a lot of traffic and if you create quality articles with a catchy head line and effective resource box at the end of your article you can also generate a lot of direct traffic from the article directories.

Another benefit of article marketing is that other people are always looking for new content for their own sites, ebooks or to send to their mailing lists and will often take articles from article directories. This is of course perfectly fine the only policy being that the resource box must stay in tact along with any link(s) which can also generate a lot of direct traffic.

Article marketing also gives you the opportunity to brand yourself as an expert in your field, if you write quality articles which people find useful then they are likely to build trust with you and become more receptive to what it is you have to offer.

Article Marketing Strategy

Before you get started you really need to start with a strategy to maximise the full potential of article marketing.

First of all don't write poor quality articles thinking that the only purpose of the article is to get a back link, if you put in the time and effort to create good quality articles which have value then you will get a lot more back as a result.

Make sure you do your keyword research before submitting your articles. All articles you submit should be optimized around long tail keywords, if you are not sure what long tail keywords are see this article http://www.onlineworkfromhomejobs.net/training/46-pips-20-joomla-video-tutorials/268-how-to-find-long-tail-keywords

The reason picking long tail keywords is important is because it gives your articles a better chance of ranking in the search engines which increases your chance of receiving direct traffic from the article directories. Some article directories such as EzineArticles.com rank extremely well in Google.

Here is a diagram of how to go about your article marketing campaign, remember that the more content you create the more traffic you can generate whether that content be on your site or on external sites linking to yours.

This diagram may look complicated at first glance but it is actually rather simple. First of all as you can see the process starts with keyword research and finding long tail keywords. You then create an article for each of your long tail keywords and upload the articles to your site. You can upload the article to your blog if you have one or add a new page.

The next step is to rewrite your article to submit to article directories, I would highly recommend at least rewriting the article once however the more versions you can create the better. Because EzineArticles content ranks so well in the search engines it is definitely worthwhile taking the time to submit a unique article to them, the remaining directories you can use the same article.

Article Marketing Tips

The reason why article marketing is so effective at improving your search engine rankings is because they allow you to add what is called a "resource box" at the foot of your article. You can place anything you like in the resource box including usually 2 or 3 links to your own site. You should try and make the resource box as enticing as possible in order to get a good click through rate. One way to do this is to only provide part of the information (a teaser) in your article then link to your site where you provide more detailed information.

IMPORTANT: You must use the keywords you want to improve your rankings for as your anchor text do not use your domain name. For example any links in your resource box should look like this keyword goes here

Add one link to your home page using your main keyword Main Keyword then add one link to the original article on your site Long Tail Keyword

Internal links are important and it is believed you should have at least 1 internal link to every 3 links pointing to your home page. A lot of people when building back links only link to their home page and always use the same keyword, this is unnatural and will hurt your rankings so make sure you mix up your keywords you use in your anchor text pointing to your home page and make sure you link to your internal pages as well.

You can find out more about deep linking here http://www.seobook.com/archives/001470.shtml

Here is a list of article directories http://www.arcanaweb.com/resources/article-directories.html

Get Your Articles Indexed

If you articles aren't indexed in Google then your back links don't count and there are a few things you can do to ensure that they are. The main reason pages don't get indexed is because they don't have enough PR therefore you need to get some links to your articles to help boost their PR, the higher the PR of those articles the more valuable the links are which are pointing to your site too.

DO NOT link to your articles from your site because your links then change from one way to reciprocal which aren't as effective. The best way to get links is to social bookmark your articles at as many different social bookmarking sites as possible.

A lot of the article directories will give you a profile which has a list of all of your articles therefore building the PR of your profile page is a good way to get your articles indexed. Link to your profile pages from external blogs and pages like Squidoo to boost PR.

Some article directories provide you with an RSS feed of your articles which can also be added to sites like Squidoo. You can also submit your feed to blog and RSS feed directories which again will help get those articles indexed.

RSS Submit is a tool which automatically submits all of your RSS feeds to about 120 directories.

Recycle Your Content

The next step is to go along to Squidoo and create a lens using a mixture of content you have just written and rewritten content from other blogs, articles, news sites basically any content you can find related to your keyword. A really useful tool for this is Google Alerts http://www.google.com/alerts. To use the tool you just enter a keyword which you want to find out more info on and Google will email you any new content that they have recently indexed with that keyword. This is an extremely useful tool for getting up to date info which you can post to your blogs or create articles and press releases on.

The list of sites displayed in the diagram above are hosted blog and web sites and are a great way to get one way back links to your main site. The reason these sites are so effective is because most are PR5 - PR8 which means Google highly values these sites therefore any links coming from them are going to hold a lot of weight. However some of these sites are extremely strict on spam so whatever you do don't use them as an advertising service for your site because your account will be deleted in the blink of an eye. Create good content which teaches, informs or tells a story and keep the back links to your site a minimum. If you look around at how others are using the site you will get an idea of whats acceptable and what isn't.

Press releases are similar to articles however they need to be written in 3rd person and be a news story of some kind. They don't need to be very long and can generate a lot of back links and traffic. There is a good list of press release sites on the the Warrior Forum http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=259438

Bookmark Everything

The last step of course is to social bookmark everything. This strategy works very well with social bookmarking because you are bookmarking content from several different sites therefore you don't have to worry about getting your accounts banned. It's still highly recommended to bookmark other sites rather than just your own which are highly valuable to your niche. You are more likely to build a network of friends if you bookmark good content, lot's of friends means more links and more traffic. Having multiple accounts at each site is also not a bad idea to avoid your account looking spammy. Remember that social bookmarking sites are not for self promotion which is why you need to bookmark sites other than your own.

www.posttoaster.com has a large list of social bookmarking sites and semi-automates the submission process.

Automation and Outsourcing

Distributing Content

I am a big fan of automating or outsourcing everything I possibly can and as you probably have already discovered creating and distributing content can be a time consuming process.

Two services I recommend for distributing your articles are

Unique Article Wizard (UAW) - Not only submits to article directories but also to any sites which have the UAW plug-in installed. UAW has a system which submits a different version of your article as well as allows you to have multiple resource boxes which increases the chances of your articles being indexed as well increases the value of your back links. Another nice feature of UAW is that is it automatically adds your UAW affiliate link at the foot of your articles.

Article Marketer (AM) - Like UAW, AM also not only submits to article directories but any sites which have the AM plug-in installed. Article marketer has a limited free service which submits to 29 sites, the paid service submits to almost 6,000 sites. A number of those sites will be niche sites or directories and others may not be accepting new articles however even if 10% of those sites do accept your article that's 600 potential back links.

SEO Elite - Another tool from Brad Callen creator of Keyword Elite which has a built in article submitter which submits your articles to all of the top article directories automatically. Checks to see if your reciprocal linking partners are still lniking back to you and analyze your competition. Extremely useful at tracking your rankings in the search engines. It is important to see that your efforts are paying off and as you will more than likely be targetting a lot of keywords SEO Elite makes it quick and easy to monitor their progress. It also has a feature which automatically sends an email out to other sites in your niche requesting a reciprocal link exchange.

Press Equalizer - Submits your press release to many of the top sites which are then scraped by news sites which could result in hundreds of one way back links from authority sites.

Content Creation

Instant Article Wizard Pro - A great programme for creating content quickly. It pulls content from sites related to whatever keyword you enter then all you have to do is rewrite it in your own words.

Outsourcing content creation is another option and there are some really good services available. Pricing for articles can range from anywhere between $5 - $30 per article and obviously the more you pay the better the quality. I use a service which charges $10 an article and $5 for a rewrite and I am very happy with the quality of the articles. I recommend paying a few extra dollars per article as the better the articles the more effective your article marketing campaign will be.

You can find freelance writers (also known as "ghostwriters") and writing services at www.guru.com and www.elance.com

Keyword Research

Keyword Elite - A desktop keyword tool which builds keyword lists, analyzes the bid amounts on Google Adword's so you can target the high paying keywords for maximum Adsense revenue, automatically builds pages for each keyword you enter which can be uploaded to your site, analyzes the top ranking web sites for a keyword to see how competitive it is, monitor Adwords campaigns to see which ones are working then simply copy them and much more.

NicheBot - NichBot pulls data from Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery and Google and is very fast at building our lists. There is also a lot of material teaching you how to use the service to get the best results and the owner Jim Morris is very passionate about keyword research and SEO and is always looking at ways to improve NicheBot. I can gurantee he will have the new Google Keyword search data incorporated into his service as soon as humanly possible.

Modules Introduction

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:12:37 +0100

When logging in to your Joomla control panel it may look complicated and overwhelming at first however it is far from it once you have a basic idea of how Joomla works.

First of all to manage all aspects of your site you need to log in to your Joomla control panel which is accessed by appending administrator to your domain name i.e. yoursite.com/administrator

Your Joomla site is simply a collection of modules which surround your main content. Your main content is managed in the article manager section of your Joomla control panel and you modules are managed in the module manager section. All of the content on your site is either stored in a module or is stored as an article.

Some people get confused by the term "article" however an article is basically a new page, so if you want to add a new page to your site you create it in the article manager. The article can be anything you want, you can create the content in the built in Joomla editor or you can create the content in an HTML editor.

Modules

Joomla comes with it's own modules such as the search, member login and feed display modules however there are three modules in particular that you are likely to use the most and thats the menu, custom, and special HTML modules.

Menu Module

Managing menus on your site can be a little confusing at first as certain tasks you do in the menu manager and others you do in the module manager. This is because menu's are in fact modules but in order to make them easier to manage Joomla has a menu manager section as well.

If you add a new menu by clicking the 'new' button in the menu manager this creates a new menu module. You can also add a new menu by doing the same thing in module manager and selecting the menu module however I have found it works better adding new menus in the menu manager.

The menu managers sole purpose is to manage the links in your menu(s) whereas the module manager is where you choose the location and appearance of your menu(s) among other things.

The two most common links you will want to add to your menu are external links to other sites such as affiliate links and internal links to your articles. Both of these are achieved by either selecting the menu you wish to add the link to in the 'Menus" drop down menu or by clicking the icon adjacent to the menu in the menu manager.

Now to add an external link click the 'New' icon and click 'External'. The title is what the link or anchor text will be, the alias is what will show in the URL of the link (if you leave this blank it will automatically add the title, recommended for beginners!), then add the link in the 'Link' field. It's best to make external links open in a new window so as to keep traffic on your site so you can do that by selecting 'New Window with Browser Navigation'. Without browser navigation means the new window will not have the menus, navigation bar, etc.

To add a link to an article simply do the same as above however instead of selecting 'External' select 'Article'. You will notice there are several different options, you can link directly to an article, a category or a section and you can choose between different layouts. I recommend you simply try out each one to see what they do I will explain more about each one later but for now we just want to link directly to an article so select 'Article Layout'. As above you can enter the title and alias, the link is added for you. To select the article you wish to link to click select in the 'Parameters Basic' section and select the article.

Hidden Menu

Occasionally you may want to create a page on your site however you don't want to add it to a menu. Unfortunately as far as I know an article is not linkable until it is added to a menu. The way I have gotten around this is to create a menu and assign it to a position which doesn't show up on the site. You can access it in menu manager it's named 'Hidden Manager'. If you open it you will notice three links in there including the newsletter thank you page, the dotcomology page and sitemap.

Custom Module

The custom module is used to add content which you don't want in the main content section. For example if you want to add some content to the side bar such as a banner or some text you would use the custom module. The header and footer module's have been created using the custom module which allows you to easily add whatever content you like. You can add new custom modules by clicking the 'new' button in module manager and selecting the custom module.

Special HTML Module

The special HTML module is a third party module which I have included which allows you to paste code directly into a module. This is ideal if you have been supplied some code and want to paste it straight into your site. You can actually add HTML to the custom module however it may not always work.

Module Positions

Each Joomla template is made up of a number of positions where you can display your modules. If a certain position contains no modules then the template will stretch to accommodate the empty position allowing you to have a lot of flexibility over how your page appears. Each page can be configured differently than the others. To make life easier I have created two separate versions of this template, a 1 and 2 column version. So instead of switching the modules off to remove the sidebars you simply need to apply the template you wish to use to whichever pages you like. That is done in the template manager section.

The template I have decided to use for the new PIPS 2.0 site is the Chromatophore template by Rockettheme. You can actually find out everything you need to know about the template on their site http://demo.rockettheme.com/apr08_j15/

Here is a diagram of the positions available. NOTE: I have changed the banner position to 'Header' and have added a 'Footer' position to the bottom of the site.

To change the position of a module simply go to module manager select the module and in the 'Details' section you will see a drop down menu labeled 'position', the positions in that menu will match the positions in the diagram. Please note that I have made a few modifications to the template such as adding the header and footer positions.