iPhone-experience.com update

Posted on April 24, 2011 by JPM

On 01/01/11 I launched my iPhone help website iPhone-experience.com
Since that date the site has had 53 articles added with 3,612 visitors making 4,724 visits to the site and reading 6,562 pages between them.

The 3 most popular posts on the site are:
1) How to use your Wifi as a Wifi Hotspot
2) How to watch BBC WebSite Videos on your iPhone
3) How to watch Flash Videos on the iPhone

The Top 4 Referring Sites sending traffic to my site are:
1) Twitter or Twitter Clients
2) Google
3) Facebook
4) Reddit.com

Over the past 30 days iPhone-experience has received 1,446 visits with 1833 page views.
These figures will provide a baseline for future tracking.

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Turn Your Social Media into a Magazine with Flipboard on the iPad

Posted on March 24, 2011 by JPM

Unlike traditional Laptops and Desktops computers, the iPad has a size and form factor which makes it ideal for Magazine style content, the touch driven interface is ideal for flicking between articles and pages.

Flipboard is a fantastic application for the iPad which in addition to providing a number of quality news streams, can turn your Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader feeds into a virtual Magazine. The end results are fantastic, well presented articles with associated media that is 100% relivent to you as it uses your own Social Media Feeds to produce the articles.

This also opens up another avenue of providing content to your readers. If you readers follow you on RSS then you articles will appear in their Flipboard articles, also if you Tweet the links to your posts then any Flipboard users who follow you on Twitter will also see your articles. This is definitly a facility that you can promote to your readers, most Flipboard users will check their articles regularly, so this is a great way to reach them.

A Cost Free Strategy for Increasing Traffic to your Blog – Part 5 Social Bookmarking

Posted on February 24, 2011 by JPM

Part 1 Using Twitter can be found here.

Part 2 Using Discussion forums can be found here.

Part 3 Face Book can be found here.

Part 4 Article Directories can be found here.

Part 5 Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking Sites offer the facility for users to share web based articles that interest them with other users of the Social Bookmarking sites.

If they see an article on a web site that they like, then they post the URL of the site onto the Social Bookmarking site for all to see, many Social Bookmarking sites then allow site users to rate the article that’s been linked too.

Many of these sites get large amounts of traffic and therefore any links to your site on there are shared with many potential readers.

Popular Social Bookmarking Sites include:

There is nothing to stop you posting your own links on Social Bookmarking Sites, but you should make it as easy as possible for visitors to your blog to share links to your articles. Many Social Bookmarking Sites provide their own widgets or tools to put on your site, put there are also several very good WordPress Plugins which you can place on your blog post to make too easy for your articles to be shared, like the tool under this post.

There are many good tools for social bookmarking

As well as providing visibility of your site to thousands of potential readers, the top Social Bookmarking Sites also carry high Google Page Rank scores, so putting links to your blog on these sites may help you index higher in Google.

A Cost Free Strategy for Increasing Traffic to your Blog – Part 4 Article Directories

Posted on February 14, 2011 by JPM

A Cost Free Strategy for Increasing Traffic to your Blog – Part 4 Article Directories

Part 1 Using Twitter can be found here.

Part 2 Using Discussion forums can be found here.

Part 3 Face Book can be found here.

Part 4 Article Directories.

Article Directories are websites that catalogue and host large numbers of articles on various topics. A good source of information for readers search on specific topics, the main Article Directories try and guarantee good quality in documents by setting various rules on submission and checking each article manually.

The top Article Directories are very popular and receive thousands of hits per day, and because Article Authors tend to link back to the directories they have a high Google Page Rank.

There are 2 potential ways to use Article Directories to increase the amount of traffic to your site, but both require you to write a high quality article on the same\similar topic to your site.

I can recommend these articles Directory Sites:

After you identify which sites you are going to submit articles too, check out the sites rules and policies carefully to make sure that your document stays within their guidelines, and write a unique article for each site, making sure to check your spelling and the sites minimum number of words per article.

The first way to increase traffic to your site is to put a link to your site in the articles, each site will have different rules about placing links but most will allow a link in an information box at the end of the article.

In the information box place a sentence about where to find more information about the subject and a link to your site. Readers will find your article within the directory and then follow the link back to your site.

The second way to increase traffic to your site is through improved Google Authority, if you link back to your site within the article using key words that you want to rank highly for, then you have a better chance of ranking higher for those key words in Google. For example if you ran a website on Dog Coats and you wanted to rank highly for the search term “Dog Coats” then use that term as a hyperlink to your site.

Make sure you submit a different article to each site and submit several articles to each site for your keywords and you should notice that you start ranking higher in Google.

A Cost Free Strategy for Increasing Traffic to your Blog – Part 3 Using FaceBook

Posted on February 1, 2011 by JPM

This is the second part of my series of guides to help you increase traffic to your Blog.

Part 1 Using Twitter can be found here.

Part 2 Using Discussion forums can be found here.

Part 3 Face Book

FaceBook has rapidly become a World Wide phenomenon on the Internet with Many Millions of users frequently logging onto the Social Networking Site to communicate with their family, friends & colleagues, and to take part with discussions with other Facebook users with shared interests. It’s certainly a very powerful and user friendly facility and well deserving of its position as most popular Social Networking Site.

FaceBook offers a number of ways for you to promote your Blog or Website.

1) Status Updates.
Simply tell your FaceBook Friends about your Blog updates. If you post a URL in your status update, Facebook will publish a hyperlink and a brief preview, including a thumbnail image, of the webpage in your Status. This is a quick and easy way to share your updates with a group of people who might be interested in the topic.

Click to Enlarge

2) Groups.
FaceBook lets you create Discussion Groups based on the topic of your choice, so you could create a group to match the subject of your Blog, and allow other Facebook users join in the discussion. Groups allow you to build keen discussion forums, increase your authority on a subject and also to network with other interested in your subject matter, and by posting links in your groups you can drive readers to your Blog.

Other users will be able to find your Group by using the FaceBook search tool, and you can link to your group Status updates and posts on other groups.

Before you start your own Group, it’s worthwhile checking to see if any existing groups covering your subject matter already exists. If an active and vibrate Group already exists you might be better contributing to and posting in that group rather than trying to build your own group from start.

3) Pages.
Facebook provides pages for you to provide information of your interest, Website or business. Working very much in the same to personal profiles, pages allow you to post updates, including URL’s to your Blog or Posts in a dedicated area that is visible to all Facebook users.
Users can opt to like your page and each time you post on your Page everyone who likes your Page will see the updates, allowing you to potentially reach many users and driving traffic to your site.

A Cost Free Strategy for Increasing Traffic to your Blog – Part 2 Discussion Forums

Posted on January 25, 2011 by JPM

This is the second part of my series of guides to help you increase traffic to your Blog.

Part 1 Using Twitter can be found here.

Part 2 Using Discussion forums

Discussion Forums have been around on the Internet for a long time now, and provide users with a dedicated space on the Internet to discuss specific topics. There are many Forums on the Internet so finding\joining one which covers the same topic as your site shouldn’t be a problem. Try and join one with lots of active users and lots of new posts, as an active Forum will be more interesting for you to be a member of.

Well used and supported Discussion Forums give a sense of community well beyond that provided by Facebook, but this means that there is a high sense of pride from its other users. A golden rule for Forums is that you need to contribute positively to the discussions, don’t sign up and post links to your site and never go back as this won’t work, and you are likely to get your posts deleted.

If the forum covers a topic you are interested in then you will enjoy contributing to discussions, this will also increase the sense of authority that other Forum users will have for you, making them more likely to check out any other posts you have made as well as your Blog.

There are 3 main ways that Internet Discussion Forums might be used to increase the traffic to your Blog:

1) Make sure your profile information on your Forum account contains a link to your site.

This is a quick win, and although it won’t generate high levels of traffic it’s a must do. If you contribute well to forums then other forum users may look at your account profile and click on the link to your blog.

2) Put a link to your Blog in your Signature.

Most forums provide the ability to add a signature to your profile, and your signature is displayed underneath every post you make. You can use your signature to provide information about yourself including a link to your site, you will need to check with the forum rules about the use of signatures, as some forums won’t allow links to be placed in a signature, either at all or until you have made a certain number of posts.

The use of links within Signatures is very powerful because your direct link appears under every post you make, making it more likely that other forum users will click on the link and visit your site.

3) Posting links to Blog articles within Posts.

If someone starts a Topic on a Forum or asks a question and you have already covered that topic in a blog post then post a link to the article in a reply to the post. Make sure you explain why you are providing a link and explain that the article you are linking to covers the same topic.

This shouldn’t be abused but will attract visitors with a genuine interest in your Blogs subject matter to your site.

A Cost Free Strategy for Increasing Traffic to your Blog – Part 1 Using Twitter

Posted on January 24, 2011 by JPM

There are many strategies out there on the web which try and guide you to increase traffic to your Blog, but many of them involve purchasing tool or services to help you.

I thought I would publish a series of cost free options which could form a strategy for bringing in extra traffic.

Part 1 Using Twitter

Twitter is a fantastic free Social Networking Tool for reaching new people, and can be used in a number of ways the reach new readers, and allows you to announce new blog posts to your followers.

Get into the habit of tweeting with a link everytime you write an article on your blog to let your followers know that the article is online. The more followers you have the more chance you have of increased traffic reaching your Blog.

Firstly (and perhaps most importantly) Twitter can be used to form genuine relationships with other Twitter users, as the relationships\friendships are formed you will find yourself retweeting and being retweeted and therefore reaching new readers. Your number of followers may grow slowly, but each one will be a genuine contact and much more likely to visit any links you post.

Secondly you can ask a Tweeter with a large amount of followers to re-tweet one of your Tweets, and if they find your tweet interesting, its relevant to them or the article is about them then they might retweet. They don’t have to, they are doing you a favour, but if they do Retweet then you might see a huge spike in Traffic. I noticed this recently when I launched iphone-experience.com and a couple of TV presenters re-tweeted the link.

You will notice that the traffic will quickly fade away again, and most of these visitors will never visit your site again but some will start following your tweets, or bookmark your site. Others will also retweet your message and your followers might start growing organically.

Finally you can try and grow the number of followers you have as quickly as possible and there is a strategy for this. Try and find a user of Twitter who has a large number of followers and tweets about similar topics as your site. Then start following their followers.

Their followers will see that you tweet and post about a topic that interests them and might start following you, a word of warning though, don’t try this from your personal Twitter account otherwise your twitter time line will become too busy and unmanageable, instead set up a twitter account just for announcements about your site. More information about the Follow Followers Stragety can be found here.

iPhone-Experience.com recieved 983 hits in first two days

Posted on January 3, 2011 by JPM

As mentioned in this post my iPhone help site, iPhone-experience.com went live on the the 01/01/11, it’s purpose – to help iPhone users get the best out of their handsets by sharing hints and tips. Keen for the site to get off to a flying start I wanted to reach as many readers as possible.

I ‘m really keen that the site is genuinely helpful so I’m putting a lot of hard work into making sure that information on the site is of high quality and well written so that readers will want to come back. Maren Kate – a successful blogger herself, has often said that the most popular sites on the Web are those that make it a better place.

The site went live with 5 articles live on the 01/01/11 so that there were a few articles to read and I’ve continued to add at least 1 article a day, and I chose to use Twitter to try and reach readers.

I sent a message to 2 famous technology journalists, the Gadget Show’s Poly and Kate Russell from BBC’s Click TV show, letting them know about the site and asked them to re-tweet my message to their followers, which they both did, which was very kind of them.

The results were very impressive, not only did they re-tweet my message but their followers started to re-tweet my message too. The traffic to my site was incredible within 2 days the site had received almost 1000 hits, and as importantly I had picked up a number of new Twitter Followers, this gives me a platform to adertise new site updates. It’s still early days but I’ve very happy with the lauch of iPhone-Experience.com

iPhone-Experience.com to launch on 01/01/11

Posted on December 28, 2010 by JPM

One of the projects I’ve been working on is iPhone-Experience.com, the natural successor to my most popular website netbook-experience.com which is now reaching the end of it’s natural life and is now just sitting online as a library of hints and tips for netbook users.

For iphone-experience I’ve chosen a slightly different approach then for my previous site launches, where the site goes live with it’s first post, this time I’m writing a number of articles which are all scheduled to be published on the 01/01/11, in affect the site will golive with several posts. This will mean that early visitors to the site will have a number of articles to read and this should set a better impression.

I’ll report back on how the launch goes here.

An easy way to create backlinks with Article Directories

Posted on November 11, 2010 by JPM

I’ve recently started to create a Niche Website and I’m on a mission to bring traffic to the site and the natural starting point for this is Google.

Google is the worlds most popular search engine and source of most directed traffic on the net, so it’s important to make sure that Google knows your site exists and considers your site to be relevant for your topics keywords, as the higher your site ranks the more traffic Google is likely to send it.

One way to do this is to make sure that your site has backlinks. Backlinks are incoming links to your site and generally the more you have the higher your site will rank on Google, but also the higher the linking site ranks in Google the higher Google rates your site. So there is an advantage in getting high ranking sites to link to you.

There is an relatively easy way to get Banklinks from High Ranking Sites and that’s by submitting articles to Article Directories, where you write an article and include a link to your own site in the article, before submitting it the directory.

As long as you follow the Article Directory rules your article will be published, along with your link to a relatively high ranking site.

Pat Flynn over at smartpassiveincome.com has had great success recently with Niche Website and he recommends the following Article submission sites, and these are the ones that I’m submitting too:

There are some basic rules and guidelines for article submission, you can’t submit the same article to each site, and there is a limit to the number of links you can include, but Article submission is an easy way to get high ranking backlinks to your site.

Investigating methods to increase traffic

Posted on November 7, 2010 by JPM

As part of my Niche website project, I’ve been looking at ways to increase traffic to blogs, starting with Articles and Article submission.

There are many websites out there that act as a library where authors can submit articles, this provides 2 possible advantages, firstly anyone who reads and enjoys your article will be able to follow a link to your sight. Secondly by adding links to your site in the article you increase the number of banklinks to your site and the importance that Google gives to your site, the higher Google values your site the closer to the top of Googles first page you will appear on searches.

As part of my investigation I’m using a tool which will let me write an article and then will re-spin it into several variations and will then automatically submit a variation to many Article reprositories, this should provide a very efficient way of performing the routine.

I’ll test this method out and report the results back here.

The Power of Twitter – The Theo Paphitis Effect

Posted on November 5, 2010 by JPM

Yesterday I wrote this article on how Theo Paphitis used Twitter to promote his new business Boux Avenue. Theo was good enough to re-tweet the link to his followers and the effect was incredible. Within 5 mins the traffic to my blog had spiked to such an extent that my blog was using more then 10% of the CPU power of the server farm and my account was temporarily suspended. Using Google Analytics it’s possible to see this effect visualised.

The graph below shows the sudden spike in Traffic after Theo’s re-tweet and then the much slower decline during the day after.

What this shows is the power of Twitter, people that have a large number of dedicated followers can really create traffic towards their own sites or the sites that interest them, for example this could really help support businesses generate leads or generate interest in charities.

I’m sure that this will only work if your followers respect your tweets, and pay attention to your entries. So keep your Tweets interesting and informative, and you may be able to create your very own Theo Paphitis Effect, as you grow your following.

Investigating Niche Websites

Posted on November 2, 2010 by JPM

I’ve been following a series of articles on the excellent http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/ with interest recently, the articles are about a competition between some of the top bloggers to create the most successful Niche Website.

Niche Websites focus on a very specific subject, this means that there is less potential traffic for your website to catch but there is potentially less competition for that traffic, so the goal is to become a big fish in a small pond.

By using tools like Market Samurai it’s possible to identify low competition keywords which can then help you choose a niche market to create a website for.

I believe I’ve identified a potential niche and I’ve purchased a domain name to use for a niche blog so that I can experiment to see if I can get any success.

How to create a Blog – part 4 Managing Posts

Posted on October 29, 2010 by JPM

This is the 4th part in my ‘how to create a Blog’ series. Part 1 discussed how to buy some web space and choose a domain name. Part 2 discussed how to create a WordPress Blog in your web space. Part 3 then discussed how to alter the appearance of your Blog using Themes.

Is this Article I’ll be looking at how to manage your blog posts.

When you created your WordPress blog a number of example entries were created automatically, we’ll take the opportunity to delete them to give you a completely blank blog to work with.

Firstly log into your WordPress Dashboard with your administrator credentials, and when your dashboard appears look down the sections along the left hand side and click on the word ‘Posts’ to open up the posts section.

This Section provides all the functionality you need to manage your posts. If you look at the main window you will see that it’s changed to the Posts Window, showing all the posts currently published on your blog.

You can see that at the moment there’s only the default post ‘Hello World!’ published. Underneath the post are 4 options, and you can use these options to either Edit, Quick Edit, Trash or View the post. Click on the word Trash and the post will be deleted.

This also deleted the default comment so you now have a completely blank Blog to work with

How TV can lead to increased Google Traffic

Posted on October 28, 2010 by JPM

Over the last few weeks I’ve been looking at Trends in Google Traffic in relation to the Current Series of the X-Factor

The Graph below show the amount of Google Searches for 4 contestants on this years X-Factor, John Adeleye, Paije Richardson, Matt Cardle & Storm Lee.

What the graph shows is that for the contestants still in the competition they had a massive spike in Google Traffic following an appearance on TV. I’ve included Storm Lee as a control as he’s already been eliminated from the contest do didn’t appear on this weeks live shows, and his amount of Google searches didn’t increase as a result of being on TV.

What is interesting is that John Adeleye’s spike started 24 hours later then the other contestants, so only after he left the contest, even the previous nights appearance on TV hadn’t had much of an impact.

If a Blogger was looking for a very short term niche topic I think John Adeleye would be a good choice, low interest and then a sudden unexpected spike in interest.

How to create a Blog – part 3 Choosing a theme

Posted on October 26, 2010 by JPM

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series I discussed how to purchase a Domain name with Web Space and then how to create a Word Press Blog.

In Part 3 I’ll look at changing the Theme of your Blog to alter it’s appearance.

First log into your Dashboard by going to the following address http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin where yourdomain.com is replaced by the domain name you purchased. This will take you to the log in page for your blog, enter your admin details and click on Log in.

Your Dash Board will now load and will look similar to the Dashboard Shown below.

Along the left hand side of of the Dashboard you will see the menu’s that are available to you, these provide the tools that you will use to configure your blog.

Click on the Appearance Button to expand the Appearance options, these provide you with the tools to alter the way that your Blog looks to your readers.

Themes provide your blog with colour schemes, font style, Widget options, & appearance settings and provide a very quick way to make your blog look stylish and attractive. Click on the Themes option and the Themes Pain will load in the main screen of your Dashboard. Click on the Install Themes Tab.

This is where you can search for an appropriate theme for your site, for example perhaps you wanted a nature theme for you blog, you would enter the word nature into the search box and click on the Search button. All the nature themes will now be displayed on screen.

You can get a quick preview of each theme by clicking on the preview link. When you are happy with a theme click on the install option for that theme. You will be shown another preview of the theme and click on install now.

The Theme will now download and automatically install, to make the Theme active click on Activate.

The theme will now be active on your blog. Go to your Blog in your browser to see the end result.

You can install as many Themes as you want, and after you have installed a theme you can make it active whenever you like, so don’t be afraid to experiment

How to create a Blog – Part 2 How to create a WordPress Blog

Posted on October 23, 2010 by JPM

In this previous post I discussed how to purchase a Domain Name and Web Space using JustHost.com , but now it’s time to install WordPress in your Web Space so that you can start to put some content on line.

When you joined Just Host they will have sent you your Log in details for your Control Panel, so using your Username and Password log in.

After you have successfully logged in you will see your control panel which offers you a large number of tools and utilities. Scroll down until you see the Popular Choices section which will look something like the box below.

Click on WordPress and the WordPress management tool will load. Click on the New Installation Link to start the WordPress creation Process

A new Web Page will now load and you will be presented with a number of preferences to complete. These are shown in the Window below:

In the top pull down box choose the domain name which you have purchased to host your Blog.

Leave the Install in directory box blank.

Choose an Admin username and enter it into the Administrator user name box, and choose a Password to go with it and enter it into the Password box. These are your Administrator details which you will use to access your WordPress Blog Dashboard.

Think of a nickname for the administrator – this is the name which appears when ever the admin writes a blog post – and enter it into Admin Nickname Box, make a note of your Admin log on details and keep them safe.

Enter your contact E-Mail address into the Admin e-mail box.

Enter the name of your Blog in the Site Name box, and enter a brief description of your Blog into the description box.

When you are happy with all the above details click on the Install WordPress Button.

A summary window (Shown below) will now appear and click on the Finish installation button. Your Blog will now be created.

To check that the process has worked enter your Blogs domain name into your Web Browser and a demo blog with your Blogs Name should appear.

How to create a Blog – Part One Web Hosting and choosing Domain Names

Posted on October 20, 2010 by JPM

Your Blog is your space on the Web where you can write about what ever is on your mind, whether it’s your personal thoughts, a diary, a method of writing about your hobby or a medium to run your own news site, Blogs provide a quick and easy way for publishing information on the Internet.

The good news is that they are very easy to set up. This series of articles will help you get started and set up and publishing to your blog.

Before you can create a Blog you need to find space for it on the World Wide Web. You could setup your own server but it’s much easier if you use a Web hosting service to host your Blog for you.

I use JustHost.com and have found them to be great value for money providing unlimited web space and bandwidth for a low fee. When signing up to their service the first thing you will need to do is choose a domain name for your Blog.

Your Domain name is the address for your Blog, It’s how your readers find you, so it needs to be memorable, logical and appropriate for the content of your Blog, for example if your Blog is a personal blog about yourself then try and get a domain name that has your name in it, or if you are blogging about iPhones then try and get a domain name with the word iPhone in it. If your preferred domain name is already taken, be adventurous, and try variations or insert hyphens between words in your Domain name. For example I have chosen iphone-experience.com for my new iPhone blog.

When signing up with JustHost.com the first step is to identify the Domain name that you require, and they have systems which check to see if that domain name is available or not, if the Domain is already taken they will suggest appropriate alternatives, although you will probably want to try and find your own.

After you have found an appropriate available Domain Name you will need to enter your contact and payment details, following which your account will be created, you will have unlimited webspace and the domain registration process will automatically be started and then managed for you.

How to create a logo for your Webpage or Blog

Posted on October 19, 2010 by JPM

A unique logo can help brand your site and attract the attention of visitors

If you want a logo for your Webpage or blog then there are many ways to create one, but if you want a very quick, easy and free tool to help you then check out CoolText.com.

I’ve used CoolText.com to create the logo for my site.

To create a free logo in CoolText:

Goto CoolText.com with your Web browser.
There are several Logo Styles to Choose from, select the one that fits your site the best by clicking on it and the site will automatically move onto the next stage.
Enter the name of your site (or your preferred text) into Logo Text box.
Click on the Font box to change the Font.
Alter the Text size to fit your Site
There are now several options available which will alter the appearance of the text, experiment with the options until you are happy with the results.
Choose the file format your require (the default is fine for most blogs)
Click on Render Logo
Click on Download Image to save the Logo to your computer

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