How long does it take for Google to index?

How long does it take for Google to crawl my site?

If there is one question I can’t give a definitive answer to on SEO related matters it’s the how long question. How long will it take for Google to index my site? How long before I’m on the fi…

Which autoresponder service should you use

The under the radar autoresponder service that works

About 12 months ago, I effectively turned my back on affiliate marketing. It just wasn’t any fun anymore. ..and I’d found more rewarding ways to spend my time.

A huge part of my business ha…

How I Can Help You Grow Your Business Presence

Growing your online business alone, unaided is a daunting prospect.
There is so much to learn, so much to do. It’s quite overwhelming.

Why spend countless hours even years trying to figure out all this stuff when you can pay somebody to do it re…

Wordpress comment spam

I don’t really know who keeps teaching people that mindless comments on blogs generate back links but you would think that after five years (at least) of decidedly unproductive effort that the practice would be abandoned.

But it’s worse than ever….

December 14, 2015

Hello America my old friend

It’s time we talked about the Disunited States of America

G’day America – it’s me one of your bastard children from the colonies.

Despite not being legitimate, I grew up loving you – all those movies with John Wayne, Audie Murphy and Gary Cooper teaching me about the history you wanted me to know about – you know – Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Jim Bowie, the Texas Ranges, truth justice and the American way. I devoured it all, so much so that I knew about the history you wanted me to know than I did of my own country, never mind, I got that sorted out eventually and for the last twenty years or so our two countries have been in lock- step, so keeping up with both histories has been pretty easy for me.

Anyway, I think it’s time we had a little chat, because somebody has to talk about the elephant in the room and I hate to say it, but the elephant is you.

There’s no easy way to say this.

You’re dying.

It is the inevitable slow death of empire caused by a cocktail of self delusion, hubris and war for the sake of war.

For a while there I thought you were just going through a bad patch. We all do occasionally, Australia isn’t much better, but at least it’s found one or two good men who might be able to get us back on our feet(Google Nick Xenophon when you get the chance), and it has to be said, that I thought when you put Obama in the big chair that just maybe he could put you on the path to recovery, but no, I’m afraid it isn’t so.

I think you’re situation is terminal and it has nothing or very little to do with your elected representatives.

Your problem lies in the life sucking cancerous parasites that are bleeding you dry.

You can’t see it . You’re too close and scared of the boogie man that Fox News tells you is stalking the corridors. At the moment it’s a combination of Muslim terrorists, Obama stealing your guns and a heap of commie pinko do- gooders who would like to live in peace and harmony with the rest of the world. It’s ridiculous – and all the while you have this silly internal war going on about America’s christian values being eroded.

America I know Christian values and you have no Christian values. Can I get an Amen?

If you could see yourself through the eyes of the rest of the world you would be ashamed at just how silly you look.

So let’s forget about religion for a minute and talk about those cancers that are killing you for a minute shall we?

The big one is fear. One of your great presidents, Franklin D Roosevelt, once said that you have nothing to fear but fear itself. Well, wouldn’t he be disappointed in you as you jump at shadows and talk of banning races and religions? You’re better than that, but somewhere between 11/22/ 1963 and 9/11/2001 you stopped believing that you were. It kind of makes me embarrassed to think that my nation is still your ally. You can fix this if you start to behave as a nation rather than a bully with a lot of destructive toys. Bombing the crap out of civilians in far off countries is like pouring petrol on naked flame. It’s only going to end in tears and you’re going to get more scared unless you break the cycle.

And that’s going to be hard because to break the cycle of fear you are going to have to cut out the really tumorous cancers that are feeding your fear. The media and those silent arms of government that keep on keeping on regardless of which president is in power, or which party controls congress.

Your media is in the hands of way too few and they are not giving you a balanced clear picture of the world. In fact, the CIA is on record as saying that they in effect control what the media tells you.

You need to fix this and you need to do it now.

Which brings us to the CIA.

Look – they’re a problem. They overthrow governments, cause unrest, create wars, lie to you and create mayhem with a view to increasing their own power and nothing else. If you don’t believe me spend a little time researching operation Northwoods, the Italian bombings in the 1980s, the revolution in Chile, The Iran contra affair and the bloodless coup that resulted in the overthrow of the Whitlam Government. I think you’ll agree that they’re not behaving well. No wonder Kennedy wanted to break them into a thousand pieces, but let’s not go there – you’ll call me a conspiracy theorist and no further arguments will be heard.

You need to bring the CIA to heel.

Maybe a truth commission is what you need.

Maybe a revolution.

I don’t know.

What I do know is this : That unless you reject the crazy ideology and values that value corporate bankers and arms dealers more than first responders to 911 or your own children for God’s sake, you are doomed.

I hope you can turn it around America because the American dream was a noble one and to die without at least trying to live up to it would be a tragedy.

If you like bull free on line marketing advice my online newsletter is for you

October 19, 2015

How long does it take for Google to index?

How long does it take for Google to crawl my site?

What I can and do do is tell you how to give yourself the best chance of being rated highly in the areas that you have the best chance in.

Every business is different. Every market is different.
You can’t plug in a formula and say in 4 days Google will rank you number 3. I wish you could.

What you can do is get the basics right and then concentrate on presenting your site in the best possible light.

Getting the basics right for Google to index your site.

All the fancy SEO strategies in the world won’t help unless you have a site in good working order that is visible and readable for search engines

Check Server responses use a tool like this server response header
Pages should return 200/OK responses.
Have actual readable “content” Images look great and pretty webs ites look cool but a search bot can’t see or read an image.
Use “normal” links – keep it simple a normal link is <a href=”some_URL” title=”optional”> Something here </a>. Using event based functions (no href value, instead using on.click or using select list elements with on.click functions etc.) can cause the bots to not follow.
Submit the site to Google use this URL Submittal tool http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
Build authority and relevance. by trying to get a few quality links from sites that deal with related topics
Sign up for a Google Webmaster Tools account. and get your site verified. This guarantees nothing, but it can help you to discovering and locate problems if they exist.

Present your site in the best possible light for getting your site indexed by Google by doing…

Keyword analysis – find what relevant search terms are highly searched
Competitor analysis – review how much and what quality opposition there is
Optimise your site on page for SEO commensurate with the research you’ve done.
Create quality, relevant and fresh content for your site
Follow a long term strategy to organically build your site’s relevance and authority via backlinks and social media
Concentrate on building value by providing quality outbound links and on site links.

If you concentrate on doing those things, and behaving ethically and responsibly, Google will notice you and they will rank you accordingly.

How long will it take For Google to Index ?

That depends on a number of variables. Google’s own indexing guidelines cannot give a definitive answer.

The best answer is to ensure that your site complies with all of Google’s requirements and to be patient.

The frustrating thing initially, is that even if your site is indexed, it may take some time to rank competitively, particularly if the site is targeted towards a highly competitive niche.

If there are multiple sites all operating in the same niche, all with similar targeted keywords, Google may index your site quite early, but your ranking will almost certainly be very low, particularly if you have fairly standard content that does not make you stand out from the crowd.

Creating your own identity and brand that revolves around specific long tailed key words can help you to rank higher quicker.

Its worth restating -the keys to ranking well are

Define your market and your place in it and create related content.
Research of related keywords.
Research of competition already in the marketplace.
Developing good social media channels and engaging with your audience.
Posting outbound links to quality related content.
Establishing credibility by attracting inbound links from quality websites.

It all takes time and/or money.

In my opinion, legitimate white hat SEO tactics, combined with a coherent social media strategy will give the best results for targeted website traffic in the long term, whereas purchasing advertising, be it via Adwords, media buying, banner traffic or something else, is a constant cost.

October 4, 2015

Does it matter which autoresponder service you use

The under the radar autoresponder service that works

About 12 months ago, I effectively turned my back on affiliate marketing. It just wasn’t any fun anymore. ..and I’d found more rewarding ways to spend my time.

A huge part of my business had been email marketing using a tool called an autoresponder and at the height of my affiliate marketing business, I was running 4 autoresponders. That’s right….four.

Part of it was necessity, part of it stupidity, part lack of focus.

I could have gotten away with two…but no I had four.

Just so that we’re all on the same page here – an autoresponder is a program that delivers follow up emails and broadcast messages to opt in subscribers.

The benefits of using an autoresponder are many when properly managed

An autoresponder can keep an audience engaged with useful tips and advice.
An autoresponder can save time and money. A well written broadcast message to opt in subscribers always arrives on time, and costs nothing to send
An autoresponder builds rapport – follow up emails can help build your brand and image in the subscriber’s eye. They can get to know you and are more likely to trust your recommendations and advice.
An autoresponder allows a connection with customers and gives you the opportunity to follow up on sales
An autoresponder provides value to customers. Regular emails that offer more than an invitation buy something create credibility and value in the subscribers mind

Any way back to my four email services…..

They weren’t tin pot fly by night spam services either – they had all the bells and whistles and a couple were costing me over $5o a month to run. And email marketing is profitable, providing you stay engaged and you enjoy what you’re doing. The trouble for me was that I simply lost all will to stay involved. I sold a couple of lists off and wound down everything else.

One day I just stopped paying for my autoresponder and the service went kaput.

My opt in subscriber lists disappeared into cyberspace and for all intents and purposes my affiliate marketing career was over.

But it wasn’t really. Even though I’d shut and locked the door, I never could get to throw away the key. So I’ve been working diligently away building my business in the freelance writing/seo/email marketing/copywriting space and I love what I do. But it is very labour intensive and there are opportunities within it to leverage my work with an autoresponder, so a couple of weeks back I thought that it was time to think about putting a newsletter together.

In the past I’ve worked with Get Response, AWeber, Contact Manager, GVO, Mail Chimp, ARP and a couple of others, so I know what I like and what works and what doesn’t.

Some of the autoresponder services I’ve listed above are in the elite category and I could easily have chosen any of them.

I decided to use Traffic Wave.

Yep that’s right the Traffic Wave autoresponder.

It does most things that the big boys do, has excellent deliver-ability rates and and a fixed cost regardless of the size of the list. I know CEO Brian Rooney pretty well and trust him to over deliver on service…but Traffic Wave has some bug bears.

The one that used to annoy me the most was their insistence on only allowing double opt-in leads. When I was big into affiliate marketing, double opt in could be a pain because so many subscribers elected never to opt in, which made buying and converting traffic a real logistical nightmare. The sales funnel had to be outstanding to turn a profit and it was a constant battle to get subscribers to that double opt in point.

I’ve grown to realize that the stress over double opt in is a total waste of energy. People either want to opt in and get the information that I’m providing or they don’t. If they can’t be bothered double optin in, then in all likelihood they really don’t care about what I’m offering. So Traffic Wave in my mind is as good as but no better than anything else out there that is running a legitimate autoresponder service.

So why did I opt to use them?

In the end it came down to loyalty.

Remember that concept?

The truth is that somebody I know, like and trust introduced me to Traffic Wave eons ago.

I felt bad about shutting down the account for his sake, never mind the subscriber list I’d built..so when push came to shove I decided to go with him.

Which is a real valuable marketing lesson in itself.

It doesn’t matter how glittery, new or fancy a product is. People still buy from people that they know trust and like.

It’s just a fact.

May 28, 2015

Sports journalism is an oxymoron

I love sport. It is a crying shame that it is reported on and commentated on by a group of people who have the analytical capacity of twelve year olds.

There are exceptions to the rule.

I used to love Peter Roebuck‘s commentaries on a day’s play in the cricket. Roebuck was a very good journalist who went beyond painting a picture of the battle between bat and ball and his appreciation of the guile of Shane Warne, the lethal threat of Curtly Ambrose and Malcolm Marshall, the brutal power of Viv Richards and the sublime grace of Tendulkar, Gower and Mark Waugh. Roebuck’s deep love for and understanding of the game and its players allowed him to combine his technical appreciation for the finer points with the very real humanity of the players playing the game. It made for some wonderful copy. Some of Roebuck’s finest work was done in relation to the political machinations done behind the scenes – particularly in India and Zimbabwe and it’s fair to say that his articles made him a few enemies over the years.

Roebuck loved the game but he never became a sycophant that could be easily manipulated. I often wonder about his premature death…but that’s another story.

The truth is that there are precious few sports journalists in print or on screen or radio that deserve to be called such.

The late Richie Benaud, Johnathon Agnew, Gerard Whateley and Alf Brown are four that I can confidently say deserve the title. After that there isn’t much (Possibly Tim Lane and his daughter, Samantha).

Here in this country, we have witnessed the ongoing ASADA investigation into the Essendon Football Club’s use of performance enhancing substances that to this day we do not know were illegal or otherwise.

AFL football in this State particularly is a very emotive subject. Lots of people define themselves by the football team that they follow. “Journalists” are no exception. The reporting of the situation quickly dissolved into cheerleading for either Asada or Essendon. Mark Robinson – the Herald Sun’s “man of the people” (I mustn’t be a person) was appalling in his near crazed sycophantic defense of Essendon and their golden boy coach James Hird. While, at the other end of the spectrum Caroline Wilson at the Age couldn’t restrain herself from crucifying Hird and Essendon on a cocktail of rumour, innuendo, gossip and facts that didn’t actually prove anything.

It was a feeding frenzy. I guess it sold a lot of papers, but there wasn’t one objective analysis of what remains a complex sordid affair that cuts to the very soul of a sport loved by many.

I loved Sam Lane’s little piece in The Age today saying why WADA’s appeal is a good thing for clean sport. It’s the first piece of objective analysis that I’ve read on the entire subject.

A little beacon of hope in an otherwise murky field of shoddy, lazy reporting which at its worst is brazen barracking.

Australian Rules Football journalism is plumbing depths only reached previously by Channel Nine’s hopelessly biased cricket commentary that has descended into blokey nudge nudge wink wink double entendre that might amuse Year nine schoolboys.
It’s time that more sport’s people – the people who play or coach the game called sports journalists out for being what they by and large are – lazy sycophantic hacks that are far too easily manipulated by interests (sporting bodies or clubs) that want their own spin put on situations.

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April 22, 2015

Mars anomalies

Mars anomalies – what does it mean? There are a heap of YouTube video channels, social media groups and forums and UFO conspiracy theorist sites out there all making hay out of the term and thousands of people are poring over images beamed down from the Curiosity Rover and earlier missions in search of :anomalies” – things that don’t quite fit the official version of what has been found on Mars.

Sometimes these findings make mainstream media – the walking man of Mars and the “Mars rat” are two examples that caused quite a stir.

Mostly though, the anomalies are too inconclusive or too mundane to capture the community at large’s attention. As Will Farrell at What’s Up In the Sky says “You see what you see – I see what I see.” A lot of what is seen can be tricks of light and shadow and to some extent is hampered by what has to be said is pretty ordinary picture quality.

That said, there are a lot of things up there that get you wondering. Two years ago, I got right into this and was fascinated by an area called Rocks Nest which may have suffered from some massive calamity in the past. It could be just a barren wasteland full of odd shaped rocks or it could be the ruins of something else. Who knows?

Certainly the people at NASA aren’t going to indulge in speculations and they seem to have an interest in carefully managing the dialogue around Mars. That could be simply because there’s nothing much to see there really other than a bunch of rocks, or it could be that they have serious reservations about acknowledging that Mars once supported intelligent life. When you open that can of worms, it challenges many of our social and cultural beliefs.

Many of us still stick to the belief that we (despite all our own self produced evidence to the contrary) are the highest form of intelligent life in the Universe. To produce conclusive evidence that intelligent life once existed on our galactic doorstep would shake the foundations of our entire system.

That doesn’t mean that there is a conspiracy to shield people from the truth, but it does mean that there is a probable reason to do so if in fact Mars had once supported life.

When you start searching for this stuff you find all sorts of rubbish and wild conspiracy theories. There are people and YouTube channels that will state that they have conclusive evidence of humanoid characters on Mars, there is one guy who will go frame by frame through images showing you how the real image has been Photoshopped out, there are other channels that will take you into realms of cheap science fiction. But there are some really interesting and sincere people doing meticulous work.

One guy who’s work I’ve been following is the aforementioned Will Farrar at What’s Up In the Sky. Will tries his darnedest to present objective analysis of some of the images that are freely available from NASA’s website and by and large he does a good job.

He has pretty much convinced me that Mars was inhabited at one time and was hit by a meteorite sometime in the distant past. His website and YouTube channel are well worth visiting.

The video below analysing the image supplied by Nasa was done with limited resources and its a little rambling but hopefully it will encourage you to do some investigation yourself.

March 15, 2015

New Creative Forum

I just came across this little site dedicated to helping creative people – (writers, artists and the like) help each other. The site is small for now – but quite active. PLaces like this are great places to build professional networks and friendships.

If you are looking to network with like minded creative people then, I suggest that you take a look at notebook in hand

The site is free to join and open to new members from the age of thirteen and up.

March 6, 2015

How I Can Help You Grow Your Business Presence

Growing your online business alone, unaided is a daunting prospect.
There is so much to learn, so much to do. It’s quite overwhelming.

Why spend countless hours even years trying to figure out all this stuff when you can pay somebody to do it reliably and well on day one?

I’ve spent over ten years figuring most of this stuff out and I can deliver quality work for you in the key areas of SEO, articles, sales copy, email marketing, lead capture pages, adwords management, social media engagement, WordPress, site design, video management and creation, banner advertising…. you name it, I’ve done it or know somebody who does it well.

I can deliver – and here is the proof

If you want professionally delivered web copy at very reasonable rates I will deliver engaging SEO friendly writing for you

Expert sales copy — Sales writing for business

If you need help with WordPress and on ongoing support check out these bona fide testimonials

Worked with slam music theme to fix Slider problems

If you like bull free on line marketing advice my online newsletter is for you

February 19, 2015

Why I quit Internet Marketing (and why I haven’t really)

Internet Marketing – simply put is the buying and selling of good and services on the Internet.
Any other definition is not correct, although there is a common misconception that the term Internet Marketing relates solely to the Make Money Online or Network marketing niches.
I’ve been involved in the Make Money Online niche for nearly ten years.
I’ve learned an awful lot. Made some good money and taken a few baths along the way….but I’m not getting any enjoyment from it. If I’m honest I haven’t been for well over two years. I get impatient with people looking for the magic money button. I get viciously nasty towards the people selling the magic make money button and I find that those of us in the middle – reasonable people trying to make an honest dollar are ridiculed by the shysters and ignored by the vast majority of starry eyed wannabe hopefuls who find it easier to believe a slick video produced by a convicted insurance scammer, or a couple of outright liars who think its cool to pressure people into “going all in” on the false premise that you can blog about anything to make money.
I’m sick of fighting the good fight.
There’s easier ways to make money online then to compete in shark infested waters bloodied by the slaughter of innocent hopes and dreams of thousands.
My good friend and mentor Graham Hamer, quit the “industry” a couple of years ago, stating that it had become infiltrated with an egotistical unethical “elite” group.
I guess Graham got tired too.
I have some good friends in the business who I have spent quite of bit of time with on Skype over the years. Everyone of them, I consider to be ethical, smart and very good at what they do.
They will always be my friends and I wish them every success in the future but…there comes a time when the grass not only looks greener on the other side of the fence…it is greener.
It’s greener because Internet Marketing has taught me skills that are in huge demand.

SEO
Site design
WordPress
Copy writing
Video management
Social media engagement
Email marketing
Adwords management
Banner design

Need I go on?
The point is this . Over the past six months I’ve progressively established a business profile on a number of freelancing sites offering services in most of those categories.
I find the work interesting, challenging, engaging AND rewarding.
The more rewarding I found it the more tiresome the Make Money On line niche looked.
Which is kind of a pain in the bum, because I’ve been working away at creating a legitimate membvership site that was aimed at really helping average people make money online.
The site is almost built and has been almost built for three months. It needs a couple of one time offers added and some pro member content (already written added)
I need a reason to finish it.
Accordingly I’m offering the site for sale – either as is, completed, or on a partnership basis.
I know with the right amounts of energy and enthusiasm, the site could make a tidy income.
All serious offers will be considered and I’m happy to give anyone a tour and some honest appraisals of what the site could deliver.
If you’re interested – there is a contact form that should be accessible via this page – give me a shout at – let’s see if teh site is a right fit for you.
As for me, I’m going to ply my skills in the freelance market.
Cheers

January 30, 2015

WordPress comment spam

But it’s worse than ever.

Most of the comments are generated by insidious bot software that either injects unintelligible gibberish into comments or in the more cunning examples largely irrelevant bland comments that could be mistaken as being made by regular viewers.

It’s a pain in the bum.

I just did some work on a site that was infected with 23000 such comments. Twenty three thousand just in case you thought that my typing finger had developed a nervous twitch.

On this site, while I was getting my ducks in a row on other projects, I turned off comments on all posts because I could not spend half an hour deleting comments on a daily basis. Unbelievably, I was still getting attacked through my pages and media attachments (images – go figure).

It wasn’t a big deal but it was annoying.

So while cleaning up the site that had been almost totally overwhelmed by comment spam, I found a couple of handy plugins.

The first was a plugin called delete all comments.
I plugged it in activated it and pressed a button and voila! 23000 spam comments disappeared into the void. Handy in such an extreme case.

Within half an hour I could see that the comments were mounting on the site again even though I’d turned off all comments on pages and posts. The comments were being directed to media attachments – how utterly bizarre, stupid and annoying.

So I did a little research and found a plug in called disable comments – this nifty little tool allows me to selectively turn off comments in particular areas – posts, pages and media. You beauty – problem solved.

If you’re having problems with comment spam this plugin will help its free and can be easily added by searching for disable comments in the add new plugin section of your WordPress back office.
If you’re looking for detailed help with WordPress look no further than the package below

June 24, 2014

Free energy generator using Tesla’s theories

Sky for energy review

Around a century ago Nikola Tesla proved that radiant energy which is all around us could be harnessed and used to power electric devices. Tesla was undoubtedly a genius, but power companies weren’t too keen on the idea of free power and they ensured that Tesla’s theories and products were ridiculed and that Tesla himself was pushed to the point of ruin.

Now, one hundred years later we’re still burning fossil fuels and paying through the nose for power that can be accessed for free.

Sky for energy is a an easy to read eBook that has been accessed by over 100000 readers. The eBook gives simple straightforward instructions on how to build your own energy generator that will literally take radiant energy from the air and generate power to power your electrical goods around the home.

When you purchase Sky for energy here is what you will get

The kit itself, which lists all the items you need to generate your own free energy, by using an energy receiver that costs very little to install.
Step-by-step easy to follow diagrams, showing how to create your own system.
Where to get the materials you need at a low cost.
How to have an even more powerful energy project.
Full assembly instructions.

The sky 4 energy project can be set up in a matter of hours (even handyman challenged dunces like me can make this work), is very affordable, comes with a 60 day money back guarantee and provides a free forum for enthusiastic members.

This is one essential energy saving strategy that is clean, green and very affordable.

I highly recommend that if you’re looking to build a low cost energy transmitter that is energy efficient and environmentally friendly that you purchase Sky For Energy today

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE SKY FOR ENERGY