Anyone who checks back will see that I have not written anything here for some time. I’ve been too busy working on my 2013 strategy in my main priority market niches.

The “Internet Marketing” (IM) niche has never been a major emphasis for me, and I’ve decide that for the moment I’ll back-pedal it even further. I’ve been uncomfortable with it for a long time.

At some point I will probably re-emerge into this field. That will, however, only be when I’ve found enough time and commitment to map out a way forward that enables me to help people without sucking them into the whirlpool of IM promotional emails. I’ve tired of the networks of self-proclaimed experts all selling one another’s “products” on the basis that the world is changing and that without the latest gizmo your business is going to die. Hyped up ebooks, often poorly written and thin in content, and software full of glitches and inadequately supported and/or maintained, are not for me.

Sorry folks, but I’ve had enough of that. I’d rather do honest business in very different markets.

I do know and will continue to follow the activities of a few IM people who try to keep clear of all that, but sadly even some who succeed in doing so for quite a while eventually get drawn into that potentially lucrative vortex.

Bye for now.

- David Murray -

This site, AdMastery.biz, stands for honesty and integrity on the Web. It also stands for common courtesy.

This evening I was scouring the web for some good quality article sites that I’d not previously used. I have a new project coming up and wanted to put together a smallish group of top quality sites, preferably different from those I’ve used before on other projects.

I found a link to an article on a site that I didn’t recall seeing before, and clicked on it. Imagine my surprise when what I got in return was:

“This site uses security measures to help combat hacking!
Your details have been logged and will be sent to the appropriate authorities.”

I’m not going to name the site – at least not yet until I see what kind of response I get (if any) to my message sent via their contact form. This is what I wrote:

Dear Sirs,

I have just been insulted by your site.

I was searching for some new article sites to add to a fresh project and found a link to an article on xyz.com.

On clicking it I was faced with a red text warning accusing me of being a hacker. I profoundly object to this accusation which is totally unjustified and seriously abusive.

Under most advanced countries’ privacy and information freedom legislation I believe that I am entitled to know to which “authorities” you have reported me, along with the nature of the accusation and the evidence.

I am treating this matter extremely seriously as it amounts to slander against my good name, and look forward to hearing from you promptly in reply.

You may be interested in the article about this incident that I posted on my site AdMastery.biz a few minutes ago.

Yours, yet again disappointed at discourtesy on the Web,

- David Murray -
Cumbria, England.

I wonder whether I can realistically expect a reply.

The first of today’s news items for small business on the web comes from the Houston Chronicle and contains basic but often forgotten advice:

Small business Q&A: Keep website simple

“A basic rule of website design is to keep it simple. Make it easy for people to find and navigate your site. Pick an easy-to-remember web address. Think about the keywords people would use to search for you and make sure your website is search engine optimization-friendly. Your goal is to have your website come up on the first page of search results. Then, when prospective customers click on your site, your next goal is to catch their attention quickly …”

http://www.chron.com/business/article/Small-business-Q-amp-A-Keep-website-simple-3706546.php

Next some Facebook news. Opinions on business use of Facebook varies enormously. For myself I can’t quite make up my mind. Maybe I’ve not been sufficiently committed to my Facebook pages (we haven’t yet developed the one for AdMastery.biz but do have others) but up to now I’ve not seen much benefit from them in terms of generating site visitors. Twitter and Tumblr have done far better. However, here’s an update on Facebook’s small business pages.  See what you make of it. I’ll be looking closely at it too.

Facebook Renovates Its Small Business Site

“In an effort to better serve its growing small business clientele, Facebook has revamped its Facebook for Business website. The social network announced the changes, which will provide more in-depth tips and tutorials for smaller and midsized … AllFacebook”

http://allfacebook.com/facebook-for-business-redesign_b94728

 That’s it for now. Back again soon.

ipernity is a photo display and Web 2.0 blogging platform. They’ve been going since 2004 and, to use their own words, allow you to “Share whatever you want with people who matter to you or with the whole world”.

Well, … actually it doesn’t quite work out like that. I recently had my ipernity account closed down without warning.

What had I done wrong? I’m not sure, and they don’t seem to want to tell me. I’d uploaded some nice scenic photos of the North of England, all my own work. People who saw them, and my stats, had been telling me that these were appreciated. I’d put up some short articles about aspects of travel and tourism in England – and yes, they did contain links to two of my self-hosted blogs which are ‘commercial’ to the extent that between them they just about cover their costs. There was nothing highly commercialised. The worst I can think of is that I do some of my blog posting by email and think I might accidentally have sent a couple of items twice with one of them containing an Amazon link. Do they ban for ‘duplicate content’?

So what did I do wrong? I don’t know, because they don’t tell me. They gave no warning. I discovered the situation when I tried to get onto the site to see if there was any tidying of profile or blog layout and design to be done. There had been no courteous email saying, “Dear Sir, we’re unhappy with what you’re putting on our site ….”. Nothing! Everything has simply vanished, and worse!

I had included links to my ipernity-hosted photos in several places. As far as I can tell from my bitly stats there have not been too many clicks on them since the account closure, but as I’m not sure when it was closed I’m not certain about that either. My main concern is that instead of going to a beautiful riverside scene in Northern England people clicking on those links have been faced with a big red X and “This member account is closed or suspended.” What is that other than an attack on my online reputation? Implications of spam? Or porn? I do not take it kindly.

I wrote a polite and restrained email to them but got only a standardised reply with the sense of, “You must have in some way contravened our terms of serve”. If they had been sufficiently polite as to reply meaningfully then probably, depending on the nature of their reply, I would not have written this more public post.

Fortunately I had not been using ipernity for long so I didn’t lose a major investment of time and attention, but please be warned. If you put photos up on ipernity do not use it as a primary photo store. You never know when they might all disappear. Make certain that you have everything safely backed up somewhere else.

….. and if by some miracle someone from ipernity reads this, maybe you’d like to write to me.

Thankfully my main sites have not been hit hard by the various Google algorithm changes over recent months. (But that’s no cause for complacency; I could be next!) Several of my smaller sites have, however, been virtually destroyed. Traffic is down to almost nothing in spite of being well-constructed and personally written on subjects that I know a lot about; in other words, exactly what Google say they want to see. Ha! Ha!

Many have suffered far more than myself, and not only the bulk-generators of trash sites but online businesses built up painstakingly with integrity over years. I suppose the mighty-G considers the destruction of honest businesses as merely collateral damage in their war against what they consider to be money-making “spam” [Interpretation: anyone who designs a web site to make money - as though they themselves went into the office every morning without expecting to be paid!] I’ve fought for a long time to suppress a growing hatred of Google, but it’s becoming very hard to keep it down. They need a serious overhaul of their corporate ethics.

Pushed Below The Fold

This morning, though, I’m equally irritated at what they’re continuing to do even to successfully ranking keywords. One of my best sites has been struggling for traffic recently even though it has several important keywords on page 1. Take the example of one that currently ranks at number 4. Who are the occupants [note the plural] of positions 1 to 3? Well, the answer isn’t in the plural, it’s singular. Every one of those top three slots is taken by … Amazon!

So by the time you’ve allowed for the paid spam (my definition, not Google’s) at the top of the page, followed by three slots given to the same big company, my number 4 ranking is pushed below the fold. By long hard work I’ve managed to get ahead of what I’ve always considered to be my “real” competition, but what’s the point of all the effort? What hope have I of ever beating the combination of Big-G and Big-A?

Clearly it’s time to rethink, and two approaches recommend themselves to me:

• Put increased effort into getting direct non-search traffic
• For search traffic find and focus on keywords that don’t appear to interest Amazon

Will it work? I don’t know but some response to the depredations of the immoral uncaring self-focused G-monster has to be found. Google is so big that it’s almost impossible to do without it, but I’ll certainly be minimising my exposure. One thing I SHALL NOT be doing is paying them any money for Adwords. That really would be surrender. I’m planning to go battling on.

I don’t know about you but without making any conscious decision to do so I find that I’ve been using Google Plus less than I did. I still feel that it is an excellent product so why has this been happening?

Apparently the same has been happening with others but some industry observers feel that the introduction of ‘Google Play’, replacing the old (Old!? It’s nobbut a youngster!) Android Market has been designed to boost sharing on Google Plus. Here’s what Bea Halstead said yesterday:

To date, a few industry analysts have been hinting that Google Plus suffers from a lack of use by the over 10 million registered users. With the implementation of Google Play, and the limited sharing available, it seems like Google is devising a strategy to boost interaction within Google Plus.

What do you think? Are you using Google Plus as much as you did? Will ‘Google Play’ make any difference?

As you no doubt already know, writing articles is probably the most effective way to promote your web site. It’s a very simple principle – publishers want a vast quantity of good quality content that they do not have to pay for; you provide that content, with the proviso that at the bottom of your article, they include your resource box with a link to your web site. It’s a win-win situation. With your article published on heaps of web sites, and in several ezines, it’s enough to set your traffic counter spinning.

However, I see many articles that are simply not written in a way that will maximize the benefits for the author. Minor mistakes can turn an article that would otherwise get published several times and achieve a great deal for the author, into an article that is barely published and discarded by most publishers into the trash.

By avoiding these common mistakes, your article will appeal much more to publishers, and you will see the results from your article submissions vastly improve:

1. Do Not Write A Solo Ad

Many authors make the mistake of submitting articles that are actually little more than solo advertisements for their web sites. Containing little helpful information, they read like a sales letter and then urge the reader to visit their web site – and that’s before you get to the resource box.

The chances of such an article getting published are virtually zero. Publishers are looking for an informative article, a quality piece that they can publish in order to benefit their readership and their visitors.

This means that including a link to your own web site in the article body is generally a no-no, unless for example, you are linking to a helpful article that adds further to the information you have included and is in context.

Your article should not read like a promotional vehicle for a particular product or service.

2. Do Not Include Affiliate Links

The site of an affiliate link within your article is a big turn-off for publishers – unless your article is highly informative and of an extremely high quality, but that is quite rare.

Generally, if you want to maximize your chances of publication, avoid including affiliate links in your article. You can sometimes get away with it, if for example you include a link to a straight domain that actually forwards via your affiliate link to another web site. The publisher might not notice, as it appears to be a straightforward web site link, but I find it quite sneaky and dishonest, and I would not generally recommend it.

3. Avoid Spelling Mistakes

The sight of a spelling mistake in an article is another big turn-off for publishers. It turns what could otherwise be an acceptable article with good chances of publication, into a poor quality article that will end up in the trash. Publishers are busy people – they don’t have time to edit out your mistakes. But the main point is that spelling mistakes leave a Very Bad Impression – it points to a lack of care on your part, and reduces the credibility of the information provided in the article.

Take a minute to run your article through a spell checker – there’s a free one online at http://www.spellcheck.net/ – before you submit it. You may be surprised at what you failed to spot.

4. Do Not Include Hype In Your Resource Box

While your resource box can include a link to your web site, it should not read like an advert. I see many resource boxes that read like over-hyped promotional material more at home on a classified ad page. Your resource box should contain some brief information about you as an author, with a link to your web page – nothing more.

A badly written, overly-promotional resource box can cause a publisher to reject your article, even if your article would otherwise have been accepted – the simple reason is that such a hyped-up resource box would ‘lower the tone’ of their publication, and turn off their readership. That’s obviously not what they want to do.

Just respect your potential publishers, and keep your resource box brief and to the point.

As long as you avoid these common mistakes, you are on the right track, and you should see the results from your article submissions greatly improve.

Source: http://www.submityourarticle.com

Permalink: http://www.submityourarticle.com/a.php?a=963

Article spinning. The title here should most certainly not be interpreted as my saying that I don’t “spin” articles. I do! Some years back, though, I tried several spinners to produce new variants of existing articles and was always dissatisfied with the output. Since then I’ve always written my article then rewritten it in “spyntax” by hand.

Using this method I consistently get meaningful output. Yes, it takes a little longer. In fact at first it used to take a lot longer, but with practice became quite easy. The search engines like to see unique content and they’ve never grumbled at my work.

This evening, however, I decide to look again at current spinners and to see whether they have improved. One was an obvious no-no; the web site seemed to date from Noah’s day. The next triggered a severe threat warning from my protection software. The third looked more reputable, offered a free trial and what I felt was a realistic but not too suspiciously low cost if I liked it. So on I went.

My original paragraph: “The rise of mass tourism and the development of the railway network both happened in the late 19th century. In some areas it was the former that facilitated the latter but in the case of the Lake District it was the other way round.”

Granted these were not the easiest sentences in the world but I wanted the test to be realistic. Here were three outputs:

Spin 1. “The rise regarding muscle size tourist plus the development of the railway multilevel the two occurred in the late nineteenth one hundred year. In a few locations it was your past that triggerred your second item yet in the matter of your Body of water Area it was the opposite approach spherical.”

Spin 2. “The actual go up associated with bulk tourism plus the growth with the railway network the two happened inside overdue nineteenth century. In some places it had been your ex – which caused your second item however in the matter of your Pond Region it had been the other means rounded.”

Spin 3. “The particular rise regarding size vacation as well as the improvement in the train community equally happened inside the late 19th hundred years. In a few areas it turned out your ex – that triggerred your latter nevertheless in the case of your River District it turned out the other method circular.”

Maybe I’m giving up too easily, but I’m returning to my hand spinning!

It was announced yesterday that “Posterous is joing the flock at Twitter”. Should I be pleased? Should I be uneasy? Or should I be downright worried?

My own use of the two services has clearly separated them into very different categories, in three respects:

• Message Size: In my language here at AdMastery.biz, Twitter is a “micro-blog” and Posterous is a “midi-blog”. The 140-character limitation of Twitter is for the punchy message whereas Posterous allows longer, more blog-like length.
• Headline: Posterous allows a headline, Twitter does not
• Hub Distribution: Twitter is on the receiving end of social hub distribution (in my case usually from Ping.fm – which is also under a cloud of uncertainty at present) whereas Posterous acts as a distribution hub.

It is important that these distinctives be maintained.

This needs watching closely. The social distribution strategy of many small-scale online operators is geared strongly to the present mix of characteristics.

WordPress 3.3 was released yesterday and includes some useful enhancements. I just now updated one of my blogs and at least up to this point I’ve found no incompatibilities with any of my theme or plugin additions. After that first test on a less important blog I updated AdMastery.biz here and equally have found no problem.

Details of the update are available from the WordPress site, and it’s a long list. To me, so far, the main highlight is the new media drag-and-drop facility for uploading photos, videos, graphics, etc.; in fact you can upload several simultaneously.

Another improvement is the lefthand navigation sidebar, Where previously you had to click on a link to get a vertically expanded menu, now you simply hover and get a popup menu.

Not only as blogging software but in my opinion as a general content management platform WordPress, especially when combined with the Thesis theme, continues to stand out as the user-friendly option.

Once again, here is the link for the list of enhancements.