Steinar Knutsen

Social Media Starters Guide

Steinar — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 14:18:49 +0000

Following are the essential steps to get you started with social media implementation. This is not intended to be a complete guide but rather a roadmap to identify the initial steps in the implementation process.

This assumes you have already committed to social media as an organization and have mapped out your strategy. If that’s not the case, check out the Social Media Blueprint first.

Required

These are the platforms that establish the essential building blocks of your online marketing and social media presence. At a bare minimum you’ll need a blog. If you’re really tight on time and resources, you could probably choose either Twitter or Facebook, instead of tackling both at once.

YouTube is critical today because of the popularity of video and the fact that Google owns YouTube. Video is a great way to differentiate your business and gain massive traffic. Google Analytics allows you to track everything on the backend and measure your performance for improvement and insights into the market.

1. Start a WordPress Blog at wordpress.com (preferably wordpress.org if you can)

Write 10 blog posts over the course of 60 days
5 questions customers always ask you
5 questions customers should ask you
Include a clear call to action in your sidebar (e.g., call me now, email me, etc)

2. Setup a Facebook Page at facebook.com/pages

Like other local and industry companies and comment; like & share their posts
Post links to your blog posts and other relevant content
Post something new at least 1X per day

3. Setup a Twitter account at twitter.com

Find other local and/or industry people with search.twitter.com; reply to and retweet their posts
Post links to your blog posts and other relevant content
Post something new at least 5X per day

4. Setup a YouTube account at youtube.com

Post a new video 1X per month that teaches your customers something
Post your video to your blog, Facebook and Twitter

5. Setup a Google Analytics account at google.com/analytics

Track traffic sources and keywords to see how people found your site
Track popular pages to see what content people are reading
Use this information to adjust your content distribution strategy

Optional

These are second tie platforms that expand your reach and impact in the market. Google Reader is your goto source for aggregating information within your niche across the web. It’s a huge time saver and will help arm you with the information required to position yourself as a thought leader and knowledgable leader within your niche.

Google Plus is the social media darling at Google and will continue to expand to serve businesses through other Google services. LinkedIn is a great option if you are marketing B2B. Pinterest is terrific for businesses that have a product or service tat lends itself to pictures.

6. Setup a Google Reader account at google.com/reader

Subscribe to popular industry and local blogs to follow what’s new
Save Google News and Google Blog searches to track your brand
Use this content as inspiration for your next post; comment on posts

7. Setup a Google Plus account at plus.google.com (for advanced online users)

Create a personal profile and business page to connect with people
+1 content from your blog; comment, +1 and share other people’s content
Post something new at least 3X per week

8. Setup a LinkedIn Group at linkedin.com (for B2B)

Focus on a subject within your industry to attract partners and customers
Post new questions and helpful resources, such as links to your blog posts
Post something new at least 1X per week

9. Setup a Pinterest account at pinterest.com (for image heavy businesses)

Setup 3 – 5 pin boards in your niche and geography
Post several pictures to your blog and then pin those pictures to Pinterest
Re-Pin, Like and comment on other pins to build community
Post something new at least 1X per day and share on Facebook and Twitter.Social Media Schedule

This is a template of potential activities you might perform in a given day, week or month. Please create your own copy that makes sense for your schedule and business.

Hope you found this helpful!

3 Reasons Blogging Makes Good Business Sense

Steinar — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 20:20:36 +0000

Personally, I love blogging as a means to communicate new strategies to my market. It’ also a great way share tactics I’ve found that can really help companies grow their business online.

One area most businesses are still curious about is the effectiveness of blogging. There are some statistics that suggest blogging is declining, amidst the rise in popularity of social media. This may be true in the short term, but I think those that pursue a blogging strategy will win over the long run.

Here are at least three reasons why blogging is important:

Blogging improves your likelihood of being found on search engines by the right target. Companies that blog receive 55% more visitors than those that don’t because their content is typically full of the keywords searchers are using to find the right site for their needs.

Blogging is a great way to generate links to your site, and companies that blog have 97% more links to their site. Search engines translate inbound links as credibility and legitimacy.

Blogging regularly adds fresh new content to your site, and search engines love that, too. When search engine crawlers go out looking for sites with the content a target is entering in the search bar, they’re attracted to sites that are consistently adding relevant information.

via Why A Blog Needs To Be Part of Your Inbound Marketing Efforts | Business 2 Community.

What’s your experience with blogging as a business. Has it helped drive new traffic and engage your market?

Why Your Business Should Be Marketing Online

Steinar — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:05:56 +0000

In this recent television clip, I discuss the importance of marketing online and why your business should consider social media as a valuable marketing channel.

Create Stunning Image Galleries with the New Media Manager in WordPress 3.5

Steinar — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 23:04:04 +0000

The new media manager in WordPress 3.5 makes it easy to insert images and create galleries, which is traditionally not the most intuitive process.

The new Media Manager features …

Beautiful Interface

Adding media has been streamlined with an all-new experience, making it a breeze to upload files and place them into your posts.

Picturesque Galleries

Creating image galleries is faster with drag and drop reordering, inline caption editing, and simplified controls for layout.

Blog Post Frequency Has Strong Correlation to Customer Acquisition

Steinar — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 23:46:42 +0000

For those of you who do not blog on a regular basis, the following chart will serve as a subtle reminder: there is a strong correlation between blog post frequency and customer acquisition. I can personally tell you that in my experience this is true.

Where Most People Fail with Online Marketing

Here’s how I see it. Most businesses jump on the online marketing bandwagon without a real strategy and/or long term investment. They setup a quick blog, maybe a Twitter and Facebook account and the even an email newsletter list. They tweet for a couple weeks, write 3 blog posts, get 2 subscribers to the email list … and then give up. Successful marketers know that online marketing takes perseverance. Marketing online requires a steady pace of producing helpful content to improve the lives of your customers. In my case, I’m here to help business owners get a handle on online marketing. Who are you trying to reach? How can you help them today? Think about that and start mapping out a blogging plan.

Create a Blogging Plan

What’s a blogging plan? Well, just like any form of exercise it’s best if you have a plan of attack. In my case, I like to map out a series of subjects I can blog about over the course of the next few weeks or months. It helps keep me organized and energized. There’s nothing worse than sitting down in front of the keyboard with nothing to say. Do yourself a favor and get organized first. For example, here’s a quick mindmap I just put together that I’m going to use over the next 10 blog posts on Mobile Marketing. It took me about 5 minutes to create this in MindNode and now I have a plan. Having a plan for your upcoming blog posts also means that you can build anticipation for your reader, just like I did in the last paragraph. Your readers know something is coming; therefore, they’re more likely to stick around and see what’s next. This is similar to a television mini-series. We always come back to see what’s next.

Generate Meaningful Content

So, now you’ve see the stats and you have a plan – all that’s left is actually writing or creating the content. This is by far the most difficult aspect of marketing for most people. Fortunately, in an online world you have several options:

You can just blog – you know with a bunch of text
You can add interesting pictures that add value
You can shoot a quick video and embed that in your blog post
You could record some audio and start a podcast

But … the most important piece is that you truly help others. This is essential no matter what format and style you use, because if you don’t deliver value, it’s really all for nothing. And folks online these days are pretty savvy, so they know when you’re selling something or really trying to help improve their lives.

So, tell it like it, be honest and open … as if we were sitting right across from you. And Good Luck!

Please let me know what you think. I value your feedback.

How To Email Pictures And Audio With Your iPhone

Steinar — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:17:26 +0000

We all like to share pictures with our iPhones and send them to people for a number of different reasons. Some folks like to send pictures of their kids to their parents and lots of us at work use our camera every day to document things we see around us.

Mobile Podcaster is great for podcasting, but it’s also a great tool for snapping a picture and attaching some audio that you can then email to someone. A picture is worth 1,000 words but sometimes a little more description is not only helpful but fun as well.

This podcast was recorded and published using Mobile Podcaster. Mobile Podcaster is an iPhone application that lets you record podcast episodes and automatically publish new blog posts to your WordPress site.

How to Record and Publish a Podcast Episode from Your iPad

Steinar — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 22:05:16 +0000

Mobile Podcaster lets you record and publish podcast episodes from your iPad directly to WordPress and/or FTP, such as Libsyn. This is a huge time saver not only for the novice podcaster, but the experience folks out there as well.

To get started, install Mobile Podcaster from the iTunes Store. When you first open the app, go to the settings tab and fill out the form for a new WordPress site to add your site to Mobile Podcaster. Be sure to activate XML-RPC upload capability on your blog.

Now, go ahead and record your podcast. You can hit Pause if you need to. Feel free to record for as long as you like. When you’re done, click on the little blue arrow to the right of the new recording. Give it a name & description and decide on the publishing status. You should also select an embed code, such as that required to play your audio using the PowerPress plugin.

When you are done filling out the settings for this particular episode, select the share icon in the upper-right hand corner. Select WordPress, then choose your site and hit the Upload button.

Your recording and blog post will now appear on your website. Here’s a video walking you through the process …

How and Why to use Categories with your Podcast

Steinar — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 21:51:45 +0000

One great feature of Mobile Podcaster is the ability to assign a category or multiple categories when posting your podcast to WordPress. Those of your that have been blogging on WordPress for a while know, categories are a great way to organize your content. When it comes to podcasting there is an additional benefit.

You see, with the Blubrry PowerPress plugin you have the ability to create multiple podcast feeds based on categories. Most podcasting plugins don’t have this capability and therefore any audio that is uploaded gets grouped in with the general pool of podcast episodes and sent to iTunes.

To add a category to your podcast episode in Mobile Podcaster, just select the categories screen from either the Default Settings or the Recording Details screen. Check off the Categories you want to tag your episode with and you’re good to go. If you choose to upload your recording to WordPress, your new blog post will be put in that category, assuming that the category selected already exists on your WordPress site.

Here’s how I use categories on the Mobile Podcaster site

I have three major categories on the Mobile Podcaster site: blog, podcast and pictures.

Blog – this category for regular blog posts (like this post). They may contain text, pictures, videos and audio, but I don’t want them sent to iTunes as part of my podcast. They are usually tutorials on a given subject and part of the general reading that makes up my site.
Podcast – this category is strictly for audio posts that I want to send to iTunes. The feed for this category is what I submitted to iTunes and if I post any audio in posts in this category, they show up in iTunes automatically within about 30 minutes.
Pictures – this category is a fun place for me to take pictures and attach audio describing what you see. I mostly talk about products in this category.

You could setup any and as many categories as you want in Mobile Podcaster – these are just mine. One caveat, you must setup the category in WordPress first if you want new podcast episodes you upload to get properly tagged with the right category. If the category does not exist in WordPress when you create your new post, your post will not include that category.

To setup category recognition in PowerPress, check off Category Podcasting in the Advanced Settings within the PowerPress settings tab.

How to Publish Pictures and Audio to WordPress from Your iPhone

Steinar — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 04:43:01 +0000

Uploading pictures and audio from your iPhone to WordPress is very simple with Mobile Podcaster. The app allows you to record audio directly from your iPhone and attach an image. You can then sync your WordPress site and upload these attachments to a new blog post.

How to FTP Upload Your Podcast Episode to Libsyn from Your iPhone with Mobile Podcaster

Steinar — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 04:15:27 +0000

Podcasting with Mobile Podcaster is even better now with version 1.4, which allows you to upload your podcast episodes to Libsyn via FTP. You may also upload via FTP to any other FTP accounts you have access to, but in this post we’ll specifically address Libsyn.

Why Should I Host My Podcast Recordings on Libsyn?

Uploading your podcast episodes to Libsyn is a great choice for several reasons:

Since the audio files are hosting on Libsyn, you don’t have to worry about a surge in playback activity bogging down your server.
Libsyn is specifically dedicated to hosting and streaming podcast audio, so you can depend on them to provide the best listening experience to your listeners.
Libsyn is affordably priced, whereas hosting a podcast on your own web host may get very expensive rather quickly.

How Does Mobile Podcaster Upload to Libsyn Work?

With Mobile Podcaster, you may either upload your recordings to Libsyn and deal with them later, or you can choose to do an FTP / WordPress Combo and create a WordPress post that references your file on Libsyn at the same time. This is a huge timesaver and an extremely efficient way to immediately get your audio online and ready for distribution.

Every Libsyn account comes with FTP upload capability. You can read more about it on the Libsyn Help Desk.

The FTP account server address for uploading new episodes to Libsyn account is ftp://ftp-server.libsyn.com/SHOWNAME/public. The showname is the same as the show slug you chose for your show when setting up your show on Libsyn. For example, The Mobile Podcaster slug and show name is mobilepodcaster.

When you upload your recording to this FTP address, it is publicly available to reference, but does not create an actual podcast episode. Instead, you’ll want to reference it in a new blog post, such as with WordPress. The address for the new file is http://traffic.libsyn.com/SHOWNAME/FILENAME. For example, if I upload my-file.mp3 to the Mobile Podcaster Libsyn account, it can be referenced at http://traffic.libsyn.com/mobilepodcaster/my-file.mp3.

The Mobile Podcaster app takes all of this into consideration when uploading to Libsyn and/or creating your WordPress post to embed your recording hosted on Libsyn.

Steps to Upload Podcast Episode to Libsyn via FTP

To upload to Libsyn, you first need setup your FTP account in Mobile Podcaster. Go to Settings > FTP Accounts and click on the “+” icon in the upper-right corner. You’ll need to provide:

FTP Account Name (this is just for your own records)
FTP Account Server Address
FTP Account Username
FTP Account Password
FTP Public URL Address (required for Libsyn)

Next, proceed to record your episode on Mobile Podcaster as usual. When you are ready to publish, click on the blue arrow to the right of the episode and then click on the share icon in the top-right corner to share.

You have several options when sharing, but the two you want in this case are either Upload via FTP only or FTP / WordPress Combo.

1. Upload via FTP only

To upload your audio via FTP only, select this option. This assumes you have already setup an FTP account in the FTP Account settings section of the main Settings options. Choosing this option just uploads your recording to an FTP destination and nothing else. In our example, it will upload your file to your Libsyn account public folder.

Congratulations, your recording is now on Libsyn. To see your recording, login to your Libsyn account and browse Previous Posts. If you click to view the details of the most recent post, you’ll see the Direct Download Link, which you’re free to reference as you wish, such as in a blog post on your website.

2. FTP / WordPress Combo

To upload your audio via FTP and create a new blog post on your WordPress site at the same time, chose this option. This assumes you have already setup an FTP account in the FTP Account settings section of the main Settings options. Once you choose this option, select a WordPress site in which you would like to create your blog post. If your site is not listed, return to the main Settings page and add your site.

Next, select the FTP Account. Click Upload and wait for the progress indicator to stop. You will receive a popup confirmation that the upload was successfully completed.

Congratulations, your recording is now on Libsyn and you should see your new blog post in your WordPress dashboard referencing the recording on Libsyn.

Mobile Podcaster version 1.4 for iPhone & iPad Now Available

Steinar — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:06:50 +0000

We are pleased to announce the release of Mobile Podcaster version 1.4.

Mobile Podcaster lets you record podcast episodes from your iPhone or iPad and publish directly to WordPress.

This approach saves you significant time vs. traditional forms to podcasting because there is no need to manually edit and move audio files. Mobile Podcaster uploads the audio from your iOS device directly to your WordPress site or the FTP destination of your choice, eliminating the need to manually upload recordings and to your server and create new blog posts.

What’s New in Version 1.4

FTP upload to publish to Libsyn and other servers
FTP / WordPress combination publishing
add image to podcast and embed in WordPress post
include image in email sharing option
headphone/mic recording and playback support

Create iPad xib from iPhone xib for Universal Binary iOS App Development

Steinar — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 20:39:59 +0000

If you are creating a universal binary iOS app in Xcode to run on both the iPhone and iPad, you’ll need xib files for each. In my case, I created the iPhone xibs first and then needed to create the iPad xib files.

Here’s the process to create iPad xibs from iPhone xibs:

1) Open Finder and make a copy of the iPhone xib file. Add “~ipad” to the end of the name. For example, if your iPhone xib is myView.xib, duplicate this file in Finder and name it myView~ipad.xib. You might also want to create a folder in Finder called ipad-resources and move the iPad xib there to stay organized.

2) Add the new iPad xib file to your project by dragging it from Finder into the Xcode Project Navigator. You might want to create a new folder in the Project Navigator called iPad Resources to keep everything a bit more organized.

3) In Xcode right click the iPad xib file and Open As > Source Code

4) The 2nd line should look like:

<archive type="com.apple.InterfaceBuilder3.CocoaTouch.XIB" version="8.0">

Replace this line with:

<archive type="com.apple.InterfaceBuilder3.CocoaTouch.iPad.XIB" version="8.0">

5) Search within the source code for “IBCocoaTouchFramework” and replace all occurrences with “IBIPadFramework”

6) Save the file and Open As > Interface Builder – iOS

Initially, the file might still look like a regular iPhone xib. To activate the iPad version, change the Status Bar to “Black” in the Attributes inspector and the xib with change to an iPad version. Change the Status Bar back to none, if you like.

That’s it – you now have an iPad version of your xib. Take some time to modify the layout for iPad use.

Mophie Juice Pack Double My iPhone Battery Life

Steinar — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 22:50:24 +0000

We all know how dreadful the iPhone battery life can be especially if you’re using your device to watch video and listen to podcasts and so forth. I like to use the Mophie Juice Pack, which basically doubles my iPhone battery life.

Check it out!

This is part of a new audio image series I’m doing where I take pictures and talk about what’s going on. I would love your feedback!

Podcasting Audio To Libsyn And WordPress From My iPhone

Steinar — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 02:57:21 +0000

With the latest version of Mobile Podcaster I can publish my audio directly to Libsyn and reference the recording in my WordPress post. How cool is that?

File Sharing iOS Podcast Recordings between Mobile Podcaster and iTunes

Steinar — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 04:04:23 +0000

Mobile Podcaster supports File Sharing, so if you have an iPod touch, iPhone with iOS 4 or later software, or an iPad, you can use iTunes to transfer files between your computer and the Mobile Podcaster app on your device.

A customer recently purchased Mobile Podcaster and sent me this question …

I have the Mobile Podcaster app on my iPad. I’ve recorded some audio that I’d like to just keep on my computer but the files are too big to email. Is there any other way to get these files from my iPad to my computer?

Yes, you can! Here are the steps:

Connect your iPad or iPhone to your computer
Open iTunes
Click on the Devices folder
Go to the Apps tab.
At the bottom you’ll see your recordings, which you can Save/Download

Keep in mind that you don’t need to sync your device to transfer files, but your device needs to be connected to your computer.

7 Free Marketing Plan Templates to Download

Steinar — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 23:18:57 +0000

Time to write your new marketing plan ro update an old version? Here are 7 free marketing plan templates that provide a variety of important factors to consider. Since marketing is not a one-size-fits-all game, check out several of the templates below and craft your own.

Building your marketing plan will take some time – don’t try to rush the process. Instead, break it down into 4-5 major sections and tackle each section over a set period of time. This will help you stay focussed and on schedule.

If you’re a sole entrepreneur, I also encourage you to share your marketing plan with others as you develop it. Bouncing ideas off friends and family members is a great way to keep your assumptions in check and uncover hidden opportunities and challenges.

7 Free Marketing Plan Templates

MPlans Free Marketing Templates and Sample Marketing Plans
Here is a great selection of plans that were created using Sales and Marketing Pro. With MPlans Sales and Marketing Software, you can edit and update these sample plans directly to produce your marketing plan faster and easier, or create your own plans from scratch.
A One Page Marketing Plan Anyone Can Use
Ivana has created really simple, one-page templates that can be used to develop marketing plans … two different marketing plan templates to be exact. They’re designed to get you thinking and planning and making money, not writing lengthy documents.
Detailed Marketing Plan Template
This is one of the most detailed and comprehensive marketing plan templates available on the market, with 39 pages of material designed to guide you through the steps of creating a winning marketing plan. This template will undoubtedly help you prepare an exceptionally strong and complete strategic marketing plan, pushing your business ahead of the competition!

Free Marketing Plan Outline from QuickMBA
The folks at Quick MBA have crafted a very simple outline for your next Marketing Plan. Sometimes less is more.
Free NonProfit Marketing Plan
Nancy has published a great marketing plan template for non-profits. What’s particularly nice about this template is that she includes questions to help guide you through the thought process rather than just a series of bullet points. Much of this outline is also applicable to for-profit businesses as well.
Free Marketing Plan Template with Examples
Engage Marketing published this free PDF marketing plan template download offers: a set plan structure, a list of key topics, and considerations/suggestions on how to maximize each section of your marketing plan. Personally, I love the design of this template and the thoughtful examples use to help you understand key concepts. A must read!

Developing a Marketing Plan Guide
The University of Missouri has a free, 15-page guide that provides an overview of the importance of market research and analysis, product development, pricing, advertising, promotions, publicity, sales and customer service.

Posting Pictures And Audio From My Iphone To WordPress

Steinar — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 12:22:33 +0000

So this is really just a test of the new image upload features that will be available in the next version of Mobile Podcaster.

How to Change Your Navigation Menu Navbar using Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework

Steinar — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:09:03 +0000

There are several ways to change your menu bar or navigation menu in WordPress. The Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework makes it pretty simple to create something very customized.

In this video I demonstrate how to create the custom menu tabs in the first place using the native WordPress menu options. This includes a main nag bar plus some drop-down menus. Amazing this is standard now – it used to require some pretty heavy programming just a couple years ago.

Next I show you how to change the CSS and modify the look and feel of the menu, using simple point and click options in the Catalyst / Dynamik Theme settings. This really is pretty simple, right?

How to Setup Custom Page Layouts using Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework

Steinar — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 18:48:03 +0000

At some point you will want to design a different page layout from some section of your WordPress site. The Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework makes this easy with some special settings, specifically for creating custom layouts.

The great thing about the the layout options in Catalyst is that they can be used very broadly … say as your default layout for example. Or they can be used only for one individual page or post … for an Adwords or online marketing campaign landing page for example.

When you create a custom layout in Catalyst you also get a new WordPress sidebar that you can customize with widget that only display on pages using that particular layout. This provides an unlimited amount of possibilities with the layout of your blog. It’s also great for A/B testing different layout rather than hardcoding, which can be painful to say the least.

How to upload images in Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework (Dynamik)

Steinar — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 00:17:43 +0000

In this video we discuss how to manage images in WordPress and within the Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework.

Images that a generally used in Posts and Pages should be uploaded using the WordPress Media Library. One small feature that most folks don’t recognize is that once an image is uploaded here, it has a unique URL that can be referenced elsewhere throughout your site, such as the sidebar or footer.

Catalyst also has its own Image Uploader which is required if you plan to use any images as background in some of the Catalyst settings, such as your header, body or container.

How To Record Audio on Your iPhone and Publish Directly To WordPress with Mobile Podcaster

Steinar — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:52:11 +0000

Today I’m going to show you how to record audio from your iPhone with Mobile Podcaster and publish directly to WordPress.

How To Publish Audio To WordPress From Your iPhone

Steinar — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 01:35:31 +0000

Today I’m going to show you how to record and publish audio from your iPhone directly to WordPress.

How to Customize WordPress CSS for Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework

Steinar — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 15:13:42 +0000

Customizing WordPress CSS can seem like a daunting task for some website administrators. The process usually involves FTP access, which is not completely comfortable for everyone.

The customizable CSS options in the Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework make it very easy for anyone to change the look of their site with very little effort.

How to Use Custom Hook Boxes with Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework

Steinar — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 20:13:42 +0000

In this video I demonstrate how to use custom hook boxes within the Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework. This is a fantastic feature of Catalyst when you want different pieces of code, such as text, images or links to appear in specific locations throughout your site. The alternative is to either hard code them into your theme or add them to individual pages, posts and sidebar widgets. The Catalyst approach streamlines all of this and makes maintaining these snippets much easier over the long-run.

Fix iPad or iPhone App Stuck on Waiting During Download & Install

Steinar — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 07:55:39 +0000

This is not a common problem, but if you’re trying to install an iOS app and it gets stuck “Waiting…” without any of the progress bars moving, downloading, or installing, you can fix this fairly easily.

Here are a few options to fix this problem …

Tap the app icon so that it says “Paused” and then tap that app icon again to see if it starts downloading.
Reestablish your Internet connection. Go to Settings and turn Airplane mode on and then off.
Do you have enough space on your device to install the new app? You’ll typically get a warning if this is the case, but it’s worth checking. Go to Settings > General > About to see how much space you have left. To free up space, delete some unused apps or remove some pictures or videos from your Photo Library.
You may also try to reboot the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch by holding down the power button for 3 seconds and then swiping to turn off your device. Most of us don’t power down very often, so a reboot might do the trick.
Try deleting the app by holding your finger on the icon for a couple seconds and click the “x”. Then try to install again from the App Store.
It could be that Apple’s servers are just overloaded with downloads from the App Store. Wait a few hours and hopefully the app will actually install.

Personally, I’ve never had an app fail to install altogether, so have some patience and hopefully one of the options above helped resolve your issue.

How to Increase the Maximum File Upload Size in WordPress for Longer Audio Podcast Recordings

Steinar — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 07:29:13 +0000

Depending on the web hosting company you choose and the package you select, each of you will see maximum file upload limit on your Media Uploader page in WordPress. For some it is as low as 2MB which is clearly not enough for longer podcast episode recordings. In this article, we will show you how to increase the maximum file upload size in WordPress.

1. Theme Functions File

There are cases where we have seen that just by adding the following code in the theme function’s file, you can increase the upload size:

[sourcecode language="php"]@ini_set( ‘upload_max_size’ , ’64M’ );
@ini_set( ‘post_max_size’, ’64M’);
@ini_set( ‘max_execution_time’, ’300′ );
[/sourcecode]

2. Create or Edit an existing PHP.INI file

In most cases if you are on a shared host, you will not see a php.ini file in your directory. If you do not see one, then create a file called php.ini and upload it in the root folder and the wp-admin folder. In that file add the following code:

[sourcecode language="php"]upload_max_filesize = 64M
post_max_size = 64M
max_execution_time = 300[/sourcecode]

This method is reported to work for many users. Remember if 64 doesn’t work, try something more reasonable, such as 10MB.

3. htaccess Method

Some people have tried using the htaccess method whereby modifying the .htaccess file in the root directory, you can increase the maximum upload size in WordPress. Open or create the .htaccess file in the root folder and add the following code:

[sourcecode language="php"]php_value upload_max_filesize 64M
php_value post_max_size 64M
php_value max_execution_time 300
php_value max_input_time 300[/sourcecode]

Again, it is important that we emphasize that if you are on a shared hosting package, these techniques may not work. In that case, you would have to contact your web hosting provider to increase the limit for you. Some hosts completely turn down their users. I recommend that you use Bluehost. Their support folks are very helpful in these situations.

How to Fix iOS6 Wi-Fi Network Connection Issues

Steinar — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 23:41:15 +0000

If you’re like millions of other iPhone and iPad users upgrading to iOS6 today, you may have been stung by a nasty bug that basically rendered your wi-fi useless.

Your best bet to fix this problem is to renew the IP address. Here’s how …

Launch Settings app and navigate to Wi-Fi
Tap on the Wi-Fi network that you connect to from the list
Scroll down and tap on the Renew Lease button

How to Enable XML-RPC in WordPress

Steinar — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 00:02:25 +0000

By default XML-RPC is not enabled on self-installed versions of WordPress (XML-RPC is enabled by default on WordPress.com sites).

In order for your WordPress installation to be able to serve XML-RPC requests you have to enable this feature on you website. To enable this feature, login to your WordPress site and go to the admin section. There, under Settings -> Writing you will have to Enable the XML-RPC option as shown below. Put a check next to this option and you’re all set.

Mobile Podcaster Version 1.2 for iPad Now Available

Steinar — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 01:50:48 +0000

We are pleased to announce the release of Mobile Podcaster for iPad. Mobile Podcaster (v1.2) lets you record podcast episodes from your iPad and publish directly to WordPress.

This approach saves you significant time vs. traditional forms to podcasting because there is no need to manually edit and move audio files. Mobile Podcaster uploads the audio from your iOS device directly to your WordPress site, eliminating the need for manual FTP transfer or other forms of uploads to your server.

And because the files are on your WordPress site, you can now use a plugin, such as BluBrry Powerpress to display the media player and publish your podcast to iTunes. No other iOS podcasting apps let you do this because the audio resides on their server. This is very important if you want people to find and listen to your podcast – you really need to find on iTunes and this is the way to do it from your iPad or iPhone.

Get the latest version of Mobile Podcaster . . .

Using Mobile Podcaster is easy to use:

Step 1: Enable XML-RPC on you WordPress.org blog (or purchase the Space Upgrade if you’re using WordPress.com)
Step 2: Record your podcast and give it a name, description, category and more
Step 3: Click Upload to instantly create a new blog post and upload the audio.

In no time, you can podcast from anywhere and anytime without the hassle.

And Mobile Podcaster let’s you load a ton of default settings, so you each time you record, you just give your episode a new name and description. Everything is automated, yet fully customizable when you need to make adjustments.

How to Create a Podcast on Your iPad with Mobile Podcaster

Steinar — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 23:45:37 +0000

There are several ways to podcast on your iPad but only one that let’s you actually upload your recording to your website in a format that is suitable for submission to iTunes. Mobile Podcaster is that app.

In this video I show you how to record and publish your podcast episode to your WordPress site. WordPress is so important because it serves as the home for your podcast on the Internet. You see, a podcast is nothing more than a collection of audio files on the Internet and WordPress is the perfect place to host those files.

Podcast to WordPress Directly from iPad or iPhone

WordPress is one of the most widely used blogging platofrms and content management systems used today. It is extremely popular. Not only does is allow you to blog, but with the right plugins you can do amazing things, like host and play podcast audio files. In this examples I’m demonstrating the use of the Blubrry Powerpress plugin.

Here are some helpful resources:

WordPress.com – setup your own free blog to host your podcast. If you choose this route, you’ll need to purchase the WordPress Space Updgrade for an annual fee of $20. It’s a no brainer if you ask me and Mobile Podcaster supports this approach 100%
WordPress.org – you may also download WordPress and install it on your own domain hosting platform. For example, you could register a domain and get hosting at Bluehost (~$150 total for 2 years) and then install WordPress. Bluehost makes it even easier becuase they have a 1-click install option.
BluBrry PowerPress Podcasting Plugin – if you use WordPress.org, you’ll need this plugin to display your podcast media player and manage the podcast feed to iTunes. It’s a fantastic, very well supported podcasting plugin (I’m using it on this site).

iOS Podcast Publishing with Mobile Podcaster v1.1

Steinar — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 19:28:17 +0000

The latest version of Mobile Podcaster is now available in the iTunes App Store. This version includes a mix of user interface and functionality enhancements to make it easier to record you podcast on your iPhone or iPad and publish directly to WordPress.

1. Stop and Pause Button with Recording and Playback

The audio recording and playback control panel has been improved.You can now stop or pause while recording and playback. This is great should you get interrupted or lose your train of thought while recording.

2. Playback Scrollbar

The scrollbar intuitively appears when playing back a recording and disappears otherwise. You can use your finger to scrub the audio or move the slider to a specific location.

3. WordPress.com Audio Enclosure

The enclosure options now include the standard enclosure required to playback audio on a WordPress.com site. Reminder: You still need to purchase the WordPress.com Space Upgrade to upload audio to your WordPress.com site.

4. Post Status

Two addition options for post status are now available: Private and Pending. This is useful if you have several users contributing to a single site or would like to keep your podcasts private until you’re ready to make public.

5. Share via Email

The option to Send your recording via email is now an available in addition to the ability to Upload to WordPress.

We’re already working on the next update, including Mobile Podcaster for iPad. What other features would you like to see in Mobile Podcaster?

31% of Cell Internet Users Mostly Go Online With Their Cell Phone

Steinar — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 11:49:36 +0000

The following statistics from a recent Pew study are quite telling. It’s no secret that the proliferation of mobile phones and access to wireless Internet connections has driven significant growth in mobile traffic on the web.

17% of cell phone owners do most of their online browsing on their phone, rather than a computer or other device. Most do so for convenience, but for some their phone is their only option for online access.

Some 88% of U.S. adults own a cell phone of some kind as of April 2012, and more than half of these cell owners (55%) use their phone to go online. We call these individuals “cell internet users” throughout this report, and this represents a notable increase from the 31% of cell owners who said that they used their phone to go online as recently as April 2009.

Moreover, 31% of these current cell internet users say that they mostly go online using their cell phone, and not using some other device such as a desktop or laptop computer. That works out to 17% of all adult cell owners who are “cell-mostly internet users”—that is, who use their phone for most of their online browsing.

via Cell Internet Use 2012 | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

As a business owner, I would ask yourself just how important these stats are to the livelihood of your business. Does your product or service cater to those searching for information on their mobile phones? Surely, if you own a retail store or restaurant the answer is yes. But it goes beyond that, since, as the numbers suggest, cell phone users are looking up all kinds of information on their phones.

Critical step #1 to position your business online for success is creating a mobile version of your website. You could just optimize your homepage for starters, depending on your budget and/or depth of content. Ideally, you would have bold links or buttons to the most relevant information, such as address, phone # and product details.

If you’re looking for help, call me at 434-515-2059.

How to Display .m4a audio Player Correctly with BluBrry PowerPress for WordPress

Steinar — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 19:39:41 +0000

Mobile Podcaster publishes audio from your iPhone to WordPress as .m4a files. To display these correctly with BluBrry PowerPress you want to check off the option to “Use Flow Player Classic / HTML5 Audio player”.

Most visited pages on my site year-to-date

Steinar — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 14:47:28 +0000

It’s September 1st and with 2/3 of the year behind us, it’s a good time to look at where we are year-to-date. One metric I like to track is website visitor behavior: most popular pages, bounce rates, goal performance, etc. This data comes from Google Analytics.

The metrics themselves are interesting but it ‘s how they correlate to other broader business goals that’s most intriguing.

How and Why to Schedule Blog Posts in WordPress

Steinar — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:27:34 +0000

In a perfect world, you could easily write a new blog post everyday without trouble. However, that’s unlikely the case. Let’s face it … blogging takes time and inspiration and the time necessary to capture your attention comes in waves.

Fortunately, WordPress is designed to help deal with the timing issues around blogging, through a great feature known as Scheduled Posts. This basically gives you the ability to delay the published date of your posts to suit your needs.

Scheduling posts makes sense in several situations.

1) You’re on a roll and feel the energy to crank out 3 blog posts but don’t necessary want to publish them all at once.

2) Your on a timeline and, for example, rather than log in every few days to publish a new marketing announcement, it’s better to schedule your posts based on your pre-determined marketing calendar

3) You know that your readers are most active on a given day and time, so it’s better to publish then rather than now.

4) You’re going on vacation but want your blog to remain active.

Scheduling posts is easy. Just click on the Edit button off to the right next to Publish Immediately and choose you target date and time. Click OK and you’ll notice the Publish button changed to Schedule.

Hit schedule and you’re done. And don’t worry, you can still edit your posts while they’re in the queue … or even after they’ve published for that matter.

How to submit a new version of your app using XCode 4

Steinar — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 03:53:50 +0000

This week Apple approved my new iPhone app, Mobile Podcaster. The process took 12 days from original submission to final approval and my app is now “Read for Sale.” Of course, I have been improving my app in the meantime so once the app was approved I already had a new version to submit. Sound familiar?

Here’s the process to submit a new version of your iOS app using Xcode 4 and iTunes Connect:

1. Open your iTunes Connect account, click on your product and select Add New Version. Fill out all the details of the new version, particularly the new version number which must match that of your new app submission from Xcode. Here’s your chance to modify your app’s description metadata (description, keywords, etc) and upload new screenshots.

Once you complete this step, your app is now Ready for Upload.

2. Open your project in Xcode and clean your target. Cmd-Option-Shift-K will do the trick. You should also delete the derived data cache, which can be found in Organizer > Projects.

3. Go to the Build Settings and find Code Signing Identity field. Change the Release identity to your iOS Distribution. This is probably already set correctly based on your initial distribution but it’s good to double check.

4. Update the Bundle Version field in your Info.plist to the new version number you used in iTunes Connect.

5. Build > Archive your target. Remember to choose iOS Device in the Active Scheme Setting. The Archive option will be greyed out if you still have one of the Simulators selected.

6. Organizer should pop-up … click Validate.

7. Once your app has validated, click Submit. Your app will now have a status in iTunes Connect of Waiting for Review.

That’s it – you should be good to go!

How to Add Custom Dashboard Video Tutorial Widget in WordPress

Steinar — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:14:35 +0000

I mostly develop WordPress sites for my clients and often create custom video tutorial for them as a way to offer ongoing help. Video is great because, unlike a pdf tutorial, the user can watch and listen to me explain exactly how things work.

In most cases, I upload my videos to YouTube, set them to hidden and then email a link to the client. This works in the short-term, but ultimately the email gets buried and the client calls back asking for more help on the same topics.

To resolve this, I now embed my Youtube video tutorials directly into their WordPress Dashboard. The videos are more accessible and easier for me to update.

How to embed video tutorials into WordPress Dashboard:

1. Upload 1 or more videos to YouTube. I use Screenflow for Mac, Screenr or QuickTime to record my tutorials
2. Create a YouTube Playlist including these videos. Here are some instructions to do that. The trick is to embed a Playlist not individual videos, so as you add more videos from your end, the Playlist is automatically updated in their Dashboard.
3. Now add the following code to your theme’s function file … pen up your site files via FTP and go to wp-content/themes/THEMENAME/functions.php

add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'my_custom_dashboard_widgets');

function my_custom_dashboard_widgets() {
global $wp_meta_boxes;

wp_add_dashboard_widget('custom_help_widget', 'Video Tutorials', 'custom_dashboard_help');
}

function custom_dashboard_help() {
echo 'Need help? Contact the developer here. For WordPress Tutorials visit: WPBeginner

';
}

4. Be sure to change the content and Youtube iframe embed in the echo statement to fit your needs.

5. Save the functions.php file, open the Dashboard and drag your new widget to the top of the Dashboard.

6. One last thing I also like to do is remove some of the clutter from the Client’s Dashboard. From the WordPress Dashboard, click on Screen Options in the upper right hand corner and uncheck any unnecessary widgets.

Hope this helps – I know my clients love it! Thanks to wpbeginner for the inspiration.

Blogging Dictation – Speak Your Next Blog Post with OS X Mountain Lion

Steinar — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 20:23:43 +0000

One of the biggest points of resistance I hear about blogging from business owners is the time commitment. There’s a notion that blogging requires extensive research and preparation; and, therefore, can take several hours away from your day in order to deliver value on a regular basis.

I’ve been blogging for about four years now and can definitely appreciate how someone might be concerned that blogging could take up your time. However, I think the value that blogging delivers far outweighs the time required.

For me, blogging provides many benefits. One, it allows me to share new ideas quickly. Two, it allows me to challenge ideas and come up with my own spin on how to solve problems. And three, it gives my readers a chance to understand who I am and what I have to offer.

And blogging doesn’t have to take a lot of time. This blog post for example is being written with the new dictation features available in Apple OS X Mountain Lion. It’s fantastic, because I can just talk to my computer and it types every word. I’ve been doing this for years with my iPad, but it’s nice to finally have it on my MacBook Pro.

Others prefer to use video, photographs and audio as a means to make blogging easier. A picture or video can speak volumes versus typing out a lengthy blog post. I use all of these methods depending on the subject and find that it’s not only good for me, but also for my readers as well, to mix it up.

So, what’s holding you back from blogging today? What can you do to simplify the process and overcome barriers to publish?

How to Redirect WordPress from Folder to Root Domain

Steinar — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 04:21:34 +0000

When you first install WordPress you are faced with the choice of where exactly to install the files. This decision to some extent will determine the web address for your WordPress site and how users find your content.

By default, I like to install WordPress in the root, such as mysite.com, rather than in a folder or subdomain. Many folks use scripts on their hosting platform to do the installation for them and make the mistake of installing WordPress in a folder, but later decide that they would rather have it in the root.

The reason I like to have WordPress in the root is that most of my sites are comprised of nothing other than WordPress, so there’s no need to put it in a folder or subdomain.

One request I get all the time is to move or point someone’s WordPress site from a subfolder to the root … it makes sense for marketing purposes primarily.

So, here are the instructions from WordPress. This approach works for me and should work for you too.

Using a pre-existing subdirectory install

If you already have WordPress installed in its own folder (i.e. http://example.com/wordpress) then the steps are as follows:

Go to the General panel.

In the box for Site address (URL): change the address to the root directory’s URL. Example: http://example.com

Click Save Changes. (Do not worry about the error message and do not try to see your blog at this point! You will probably get a message about file not found.)

Copy (NOT MOVE!) the index.php and .htaccess files from the WordPress directory into the root directory of your site (Blog address). The .htaccess file is invisible, so you may have to set your FTP client to show hidden files. If you are not usingpretty permalinks, then you may not have a .htaccess file. If you are running WordPress on a Windows (IIS) server and are using pretty permalinks, you’ll have a web.config rather than a .htaccess file in your WordPress directory. As stated above, copy (don’t move) the index.php file to your root directory, but MOVE (DON’T COPY) the web.config file to your root directory.

Open your root directory’s index.php file in a text editor

Change the following and save the file. Change the line that says:
require('./wp-blog-header.php');
to the following, using your directory name for the WordPress core files:
require('./wordpress/wp-blog-header.php');

Login to your site. It should still be http://example.com/wordpress/wp-admin/

If you have set up Permalinks, go to the Permalinks panel and update your Permalink structure. WordPress will automatically update your .htaccess file if it has the appropriate file permissions. If WordPress can’t write to your .htaccess file, it will display the new rewrite rules to you, which you should manually copy into your .htaccess file (in the same directory as the main index.php file.)

You can read more here …

5 Great Inbound Marketing Tactics for Affiliate Marketing

Steinar — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 17:46:49 +0000

Let’s talk about some other great strategies for driving traffic.

Email Marketing

Email is a powerful method of communication because people still feel somewhat obligated to read their email. And if they actually opted-in to hear from you, that’s even better.

The best strategy is to set up an autoresponder series so when someone signs up on your website to learn more, you send them a series of emails to educate them and build trust. When it’s time to ask them to order, you have an established relationship. I use Aweber because it’s easy, reliable and an established industry leading email marketing platform used by top marketers.

eBooks & White Papers

Sometimes it easier for people to consume content on their own terms in a more familiar format that read stuff online. In this case, eBooks and white papers are great for distributing your content. These are nothing more than fancy PDF files.

The beauty is that they are easier to share and you can still include links to your content in the PDF. Just write up your content in a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word or Apple Pages and export as a PDF. The ability to print as PDF is built into the Mac … Windows users will have to use a free program like PDFCreator.

Once you create your ebook or white paper, share it on your website and through social media channels. Maybe offer it for free in exchange for signing up to your email marketing list.

Webinars

Online video is cool, but what’s really great is hosting your own live free video event where people can join in at a specific time to hear you talk about the products your promoting for free. A webinar is basically the online version of sitting face-to-face with a group of people and presenting information to them.

Now let’s be clear – people are not going to sign up for a webinar to be sold to for an hour. They will sign up to get help or learn something new. Make sure to focus on providing value first and selling your product second.

The most popular service for managing webinars is GoToWebinar. It’s great because they provide the sign up forms, registration, email reminders and hosting the actual live event.

Document Sharing

Sometimes is good take one of your blog posts or small section of your ebook and create a one or two page document you would like to share. Or maybe you have a presentation that describes your product well. There are some great sites to help distribute these documents and ultimately get more eyeballs on your affiliate links.

The two most popular document sharing sites are Slideshare and Scribd. In both cases, you create an account and profile, upload your documents and provide as much detail as possible. Then, as people are search around on the Internet or these sites in particular, they stumble across your documents, consume your content and potentially click on your affiliate links.

Podcasting

With the proliferation of smart phones and the popularity of iTunes, podcasting has grown to a powerful channel for marketing online. For example, you could start a podcast about your industry and offer links to your website for more information about the product you’re promoting.

Starting a podcast is not terribly hard:

First, you need to create an MP3. Mac users should use Garageband and Windows users should download a free copy of Audacity.
Upload your MP3 to your WordPress site we created earlier.
Install one of two free WordPress plugins: Podcasting by TSG or Blubrry Powerpress. These plugins format your content to publish on iTunes
Submit your podcast to iTunes and wait a couple days for it to go live.
Continue to publish new episodes and you should see increased traffic to your website if you mention your website address in the podcast.

If your on a Mac, you can watch my complete podcasting course here. Use coupon code affmkt and pay only $9 for this 1.5 hours of hands-on training.

If you have an iPad or iPhone and want to podcast directly from your mobile device to iTunes, you should check out Mobile Podcaster. This iPhone app is the glue that connects your iPad or iPhone recordings to your WordPress blog and iTunes for a complete, on-the-go podcasting solution. I love it!

Video Marketing for Affiliate Program Marketing

Steinar — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 12:44:05 +0000

Online video is everywhere thanks to YouTube, increased bandwidth and the proliferation of smart phones & compact video recorders. It’s succeeding because at the end of the day people prefer to watch content online as a form of entertainment rather than read. It just seems more natural.

To get started, sign up for a YouTube account and get a video camera, like the Flip Mino HD, Kodak zi10 or Sony Bloggie. With a tripod, either speak directly into the camera about your product or focus on the product itself and shoot a demonstration type video. The point is to connect with the viewer, show that you’re a real person and convey the features and benefits on your product.

If you’re not comfortable putting your face on the screen or don’t have a camera, there are some other options. One option is to use Screenr.com to record a screencast video of your product in action. If you don’t have the physical product on hand, you could just shoot and informational video about your product.

For example, you could write a blog post about your product and then record a video of of that blog post with some narration. A one minute video of this type is sufficient. Record a few versions and see which one does best.

Screenr.com is great because 1) it’s free 2) there’s no software to install and 3) it will publish directly to YouTube. It’s limited however because you can only record 5 minutes of video and there are no editing capabilities. If you need something more robust I recommend Screenflow for Mac or Camtasia for Windows.

If your promoting a software product video is really the best choice to show visitors how it works and what it does. In this case, you should do a series of videos covering the most popular features and answering the most obvious questions potential buyers might have. After you upload your video to YouTube, save them to a YouTube Playlist so it’s easier for viewers to watch all the videos and follow your train of thought.

Once you get proficient at shooting & uploading video, use a free service, such as TubeMogul, for mass distribution. This let’s you upload once and distribute to multiple video sites.

Testing Mobile Podcaster on my iPhone

Steinar — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 14:19:19 +0000

This is just a quick recording on my iPhone to record a podcast episode. The ability to record podcasts on the go is great if you have something to say and are looking for something other than text, images and video.

The proliferation of the iPhone, iPad and iPod make audio a fantastic choice for communicating with your audience in a new and exciting way. Plus, it’s much more engaging.

Listen or Download

This was recorded and posted to my blog and iTunes using Mobile Podcaster.

Social Media Marketing for Affiliate Marketing

Steinar — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:40:26 +0000

Social media has taken the online world by storm. I don’t need to explain the popularity of Facebook and Twitter. We know that these platforms are the goto place to consume content, connect with others and build relationships. It’s also where we go to get others’ opinions and learn about what’s new. As such, social media a great marketing channel.

Not only are people tuning into social media, search engines are too. For example, Google aggressively indexes content from Google+, Linkedin and YouTube. On Bing, you’ll see search results that include content from Twitter and Facebook, among other social media platforms.

As a marketer, it’s important to understand how you can leverage these social media networks to connect with your audience and promote your affiliate product. Here are a few ways to make this happen:

Run a Twitter search at search.twitter.com to find people talking about your product or industry. Join the conversation, answer their questions, & point them to helpful resources.
Login to Facebook and search for Pages that have to do with your topic. Create your own Page and comment on other Pages. Add value to the conversation and help people. Link to your products as needed but don’t be pushy.
Post questions on LinkedIn to get user feedback related to your industry or product. Answer other people’s questions and provide support for those looking for help. Join a few groups and jump into the conversation. Share links to your website and other resources as needed.
Join Google+ and post links to your content pages. Search to find people talking about your product or industry. Add them to your circles to build a network of influential friends. Start a Google+ Page for your product and add several links to your content.

The point with all of this is to get your content on the most popular social networks, connect with potential buyers, promote your content and get indexed by the search engines. Overtime you can continue to use these platforms to further grow your network and build your influence online.

Search Engine Optimization for Affiliate Marketing

Steinar — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:14:21 +0000

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of leveraging search engines to help drive traffic to website. The goal is to have your content rank higher in search results for phrases that are 1) directly related to your content and 2) highly relevant to those conducting the search.

There are two major forms of search engine optimization:

1) On-page search engine optimization – this includes anything you do on your site to draw the attention of search engines. For example, using keywords in your blog title and meta tags, embedding images and videos that add visual appeal to your con- tent and publishing new, original content on a regular basis.

2) Off-page search engine optimization – this is everything you do off of your website to help search engines better index your content. For example, submitting your site to Google, commenting on another blog with a link to your site and creating a YouTube video with a link in the description to your site.

The key to effective SEO is to pick the right keywords and long-tail keyword phrases before you get started. There are a few steps to determine the right keywords for your product:

1) What words or phrases would you use to search for your product? It’s likely that other people will use similar keywords and phrases as well. This is a good place to start.

2) What keywords are being used on the merchant’s website for this product? Tip: in your browser, you can right-click and choose to View Source. Look and the keyword meta tags to see what keywords they’re using.

3) Enter these keywords into the Google Keyword Tool for a quick look at how much traffic and competition these keywords have. You want keywords with higher traffic and lower competition.

4) Get a copy of Market Samurai and run a complete analysis.

The Don’t get fooled into thinking more traffic is all good. It’s not terribly difficult to start getting traffic to your website, but if it’s from search phrases that have little to do with the products you’re trying to promote then that traffic is essentially useless.

Fast pace of technology

Steinar — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 01:34:04 +0000

Amazing how fast technology changes over time. Remember when this was all the rage?

Introduction to Driving Web Traffic to Your Affiliate Marketing Blog

Steinar — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 14:50:46 +0000

Driving traffic to your website is critical to effective affiliate marketing. The key is get traffic from people that are interested in potentially purchasing the product you’re promoting.

There are several methods of driving traffic to your website. Some of these include blogging, search engine optimization, social media, video marketing, podcasting and a number of other inbound marketing tactics.

Blogging is a great way to drive traffic for several reasons. First, you can easily write several blog posts about your product with very little technical know-how. Second, search engines love to index original content from blogs. Third, blogs typically include the ability for visitors to comment on or share your content.

Search engine optimization is the practice of applying on page and off page techniques so that your website ranks higher a major search engine such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Search engine optimization is important so that when people search for your content they find it more easily. It is not necessary but it will definitely help drive more traffic to your website.

Social media marketing is about leveraging popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterst to drive traffic to your site. You can do this by building meaningful relationships with key influencers within your market and sharing helpful information to build trust and credibility within the community.

Video marketing allows you to put a face to your business by publishing short videos to communicate with your target market in a new and highly engaging format. YouTube is the #2 search engine so it’s in your best interest to consider how people may be searching to the products and how-to support you can provide as an affiliate.

Other traffic getting tactics include:

email marketing
white papers
infographics
webinars
document sharing
podcasting
social bookmarking
forums
comment marketing

How to Make Money Online with the ClickBank Affiliate Marketing Program

Steinar — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:02:37 +0000

What is ClickBank?

Clickbank is an affiliate program network that offers products from individual developers, like you and me. You can find software, ebooks, or video and audio courses on Clickbank. Clickbank commission rates are much higher than other affiliate programs … usually in the 40% – 60% range and up to 75% in some cases.

Clickbank is based on a system where merchants create sales pages that affiliates link to. Because most merchants only have one product, you don’t have the standard plethora of creative links and banner ads to choose from. That’s OK though because you’re only linking to one page.

To find products to sell on Clickbank you want to search the Marketplace by category or keyword. Products with a higher Gravity score are the best selling / highest paying products.

How do I setup ClickBank?

Visit Clickbank to setup your affiliate account.

How do I display ClickBank links?

Displaying Clickbank links on your website is a little different than other programs. Clickbank uses what they call a HopLink referral tracking URL. For example, once you find a product you want to promote, you create a link with this format:

http://AFFILIATE.VENDOR.hop.clickbank.net

This approach is simple enough but the one caveat is that you have to create your own graphics if you want to display any banner ads.

Some merchants provide banner ads, but it’s not handled through Clickbank and it’s pretty rare that they’ll go the extra mile to do so. For banner ads I recommend you take a screen shot of the sales page and crop it accordingly. Mac users should use Skitch and Windows users should use Snagit.

How do I get paid?

Clickbank installs a 60 days tracking cookie on browsers for those people that click on your links. If they purchase the product you’re promoting within that window of time, you get credit for the sale. Clickbank notifies you immediately. Once your balance exceeds the $25 minimum, you get paid.

How to Make Money Online with the ShareASale Affiliate Marketing Program

Steinar — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:56:54 +0000

What is ShareASale?

Much like LinkShare, ShareASale is an online affiliate program network that includes over 2,500 individual company affiliate programs across numerous industries. ShareASale is unique in that they provide real time stats on performance, which is helpful if you want to see how your sales are doing today.

How do I setup ShareASale?

Visit ShareASale.com to sign up now. All you need is a website and an email address. If you don’t have a website yet head over the Bluehost and register a domain name now (email is included with hosting).

How do I display ShareASale links?

ShareASale provides a variety of linking options which really separate it from the pack.

Link / Banner – You can get a standard link or banner, which depends on the creatives provided by the merchant.

Datafeeds – this is comma separated file you can download one time or ongoing via FTP for direct access to bulk list of links

Coupons and Deals – here’s a great way to weed out the special offers and provide incentives for customers to buy now

Videos – for a truly unique spin on affiliate marketing, ShareASale has a video creation tool that embeds your links into video footage

Widgets – these are pre-configured html blocks that showcase a product with something more than a simple image and link

Custom Links – most merchants allow you to link to any page on their site with this fantastic little time saver of a tool.

Gift Cards – here’s a unique tool in ShareASale that allows you to sell digital gift card for participating merchants.

How do I get paid?

ShareASale tracks all your affiliate earnings and pays out on a monthly basis with a $50 minimum balance. Payments are sent via check or direct deposit.

How to Make Money Online with the Linkshare Affiliate Marketing Program

Steinar — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:55:14 +0000

What is LinkShare?

LinkShare is a fantastic affiliate program directory that includes 1,000’s of affiliate programs from companies in 100’s of different industries and markets. It’s a very easy system to use and because each program is managed by an individual affiliate program manager, there are some unique opportunities to build relationships with these companies and offer even greater value to your customers.

This is really a great solution if there are specific brand name products that you want to promote and they happen to be in their network. For example, if you’re in the candy and flower gifts market, you can apply to promote products from The Popcorn Factory, 1-800 Flowers, Chocolate.com, GourmetGiftBaskets.com and dozens of other online retailers.

LinkShare is also great because they make it easy to create and share a variety of different links. You can choose from banner images, individual product image links, text links and special rotating links depending on how the affiliate programs have setup their offering. As a marketer, this is nice because you can serve a variety of ads that add visual interest to your readers.

How do I setup LinkShare?

Visit LinkShare to get started. In the application process you’ll be asked to indicate your website domain name and the methods of advertising you will employ. You’ll also have a chance to explain what your site is about. Take some time to provide as much detail as you can so that when you apply for individual company affiliate programs, they have the best possible understanding of who you are and why they should approve your application.

How do I display LinkShare links?

Creating links in LinkShare is easy. Once you’ve been approved for a specific affiliate program, you’ll have a plethora of options to choose from including banner ads and images, individual products, text / email links and a set of promotional links based on coupons, hot products, logos, free shipping and best converting products. What’s included in these categories depends entirely on how the affiliate manager setup their programs and what they’ve chosen to make available to affiliates.

LinkShare also has what they call Easy Links. This is a widget in which you select the dimensions, colors and product display options and the widget automatically decides which products to display based on the content on your webpage.

For example, if you have a home and garden information website covering a variety of topics and you have an affiliate relationship with Burpee Garden, your ads will show different products on different pages. this is a great feature if you don’t have the time to create custom ads with every page in your site.

If you have a targeted page on your website for a specific product, I recommend you include a few different links. First, you definitely want a picture of the product – one that links to the merchant’s product page through an affiliate link. You’ll also want 1 or two more links in the body of your text. This maximizes the opportunity for someone to click on your link.

How do I get paid?

LinkShare tracks links from your affiliate links and earnings associated with any purchases made as a result of the traffic to a merchant’s online store. This is all communicated with you from the Account dashboard. Payments to affiliates are made at the end of the month. LinkShare has a $1 minimum threshold, which means that even if you only make $17, you get paid rather quickly unlike other programs which have a much higher minimum threshold.

How the Amazon Associates Affiliate Marketing Program Works

Steinar — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:07:38 +0000

What is Amazon Associates?

Amazon.com is one of the leading online stores for all kinds of products, including books, magazine, music, movies and a plethora of other tangible home and office products. It’s amazing just how many different products are on amazon when you start researching products for your affiliate program.

Amazon Associates is Amazon’s affiliate program that let’s you earn commission on the sale of products from their catalog of goods. It’s a great program for several reasons.

First, because Amazon has been around for so long, most people who buy products online are already familiar with amazon and have a certain level of trust in the quality of products and the ability to make returns. Most people also have an Amazon account as well, so there is a low barrier to entry when it comes time to make a purchase.

Second, Amazon Associates allows you to setup multiple tracking ID’s. You might have multiple tracking ID’s for different niches or markets, or in some cases you might setup different ID’s for various marketing channels, such as social media, email or web marketing. This is very helpful when it comes time to measure results and track performance back to a specific strategy for driving affiliate traffic.

Third, Amazon Associates has a 90 day cookie, which means that if you send someone to Amazon through an affiliate link, you can potentially earn commission on anything they buy for 90 days. For example, you might send them there with a link to a $10 book and they end up buying a $200 Kindle. You just increased your earnings from $.40 to $8.00. Not bad, huh? This is especially nice around the holidays as more people shop online for gifts.

How do I setup Amazon Associates?

Visit Amazon Associates to sign up for an account and get started right away!

How do I display Amazon Associates links?

One of the features I love most about this program is the variety of display options available. This is great because you can create a much more customized presentation of your links that looks good and speaks more effectively to your market vs. just text links or static images.

Some of the links, banners and widget options include:

Product Links
These are text and/or image based links that link to a specific product. you can customize the text in your link and choose how the price is displayed if at all. These are probably the most popular types on links you’ll use in your marketing campaigns, because the are so targeted.
Banners
These are pre-defined graphic images created by Amazon that help you promote some of Amazon’s most popular content. For example, you might want a banner in the header of your website that invites people to check out the latest electronics items on sale for 50% off or more. There are banners in nearly every category across multiple different promotional types. I love banners!
Site Stripe
This is very cool – the site stripe is a toolbar that shows up in your browser window as you navigate through Amazon. If you find a product you want to promote with an affiliate link, you just use the buttons in the Site Stripe to quickly create affiliate links to those products. It really helps speed up the link building process and makes it way more fun. Plus, you can easily share affiliate links on Twitter using the Site Strip as well.
Search Widget
This bit of code allows you to put an Amazon search box on your website. You can target specific product categories and change the color and dimensions to match your site.
Carousel Widget
This allows you to display a visually appealing and interactive, rotating list of products from a category of your choice. You could also select specific product to include in the carousel if you wish.
Deals Widget
As implied, this widget features products from any given category that are on sale. Of course, lower cost products mean lower commissions so use with caution. On the upside, this widget is great as a means to get users into Amazon and begin tracking with the 90 day cookie. They might order something at half price day and something else at full price next month.
MP3 Clips Widget
This is a great little widget for the music lover. It allows users to preview music and buy on the spot. Songs are on the less expensive side but tend to pay a higher commission rate.
aStore Widget
This is a unique widget that allows you to create an entire mini-version of Amazon right within your website. You can have multiple pages of content across different categories that you either hand pick or let Amazon choose for you based on a number of variables. This is a great solution if you want to have a dedicated “Products” page within your site.

This is only a sample of the different options you have for displaying Amazon links and I’m sure you’ll have fun exploring the many other options available.

How do I get paid?

You earn commissions from Amazon Associates when people purchase products on Amazon.com through your affiliate links.

Your referral rates are based on the the volume of purchases people make through your links in a given month. For example, if you sell 1-6 products, you earn 4% on those sales, 7-30 products you make 6%, 31-110 gets you 6.5% and so on. The max percentage payout is 8.5% if you sell 3,131 products in a given month. I hope you achieve that!!!

You get paid once your earnings reach a minimum threshold, such as $10 for direct deposit or gift certificate or $100 if you want them to write you a physical check. If you earn less than the minimum in a given month, those earnings are added to your rolling balance. Once the balance reaching the minimum, you get paid.

Anything special I should know about Amazon Associates?

Most people agree that Amazon Associates is a great affiliate program for all the reasons I’ve mentioned here. Others however find it tough to justify marketing a product if the commission is only 4-6%. For comparison sake, most products on other programs, such as LinkShare, Commission Junction or ShareASale payout at a much higher, usually starting at 6% on the low end.

What this means is that you have to be realistic about the volume of traffic you can send to Amazon and the conversion rate of that traffic to determine a reasonable earnings potential. Compare that same traffic and conversation rate to other programs that offer a higher referral rate, but also keep in mind the nice 90 day cookie and brand recognition that comes with Amazon.

Definitely test out Amazon Associates to see if it’s right for you.

Podcasting on my iPad with the Samson CO1U USB Condenser Microphone and Camera Connection Kit

Steinar — Fri, 11 May 2012 03:18:36 +0000

http://www.mobilepodcaster.com Podcasting directly into your iPad mic is great but some people may prefer better quality audio. In this episode I demonstrate podcasting with the Samson CO1U Condenser Microphone and the iPad Camera Connection Kit via Mobile Podcaster.

If you’re having trouble with your recording volume, I recommend you install Garageband for iPad ($5) and boost the microphone input level. Then when you switch to other recording apps, the mic is noticeably louder. This worked for me.

Here’s a screenshot from Garageband that shows the Input Level slider. Turn it all the way up if necessary.

This podcast episode was recorded on my iPad and automatically uploaded to this website and iTunes using Mobile Podcaster. For more information visit http://www.mobilepodcaster.com

How the Google Adsense Affiliate Marketing Program Works

Steinar — Tue, 08 May 2012 17:47:50 +0000

What is Adsense?

Adsense is a pay-per-click advertising program owned by Google and is by far one of the most popular affiliate programs out there. Advertisers setup and pay for ads using Google Adwords, and marketers or publishers such as yourself use Adsense to display these ads. Every time someone clicks on one of your Adsense links, you get paid.

What makes Adsense a good choice?

Adsense is a great choice as an affiliate program for beginners because Google does most of the work. When setting up Adsense you only need to really select size and color of the Adsense block and Google will determine based on the content on your site, which specific ads to display. With other affiliate programs, you normally have to specify the exact products you want to promote.

Adsense is also a great choice because the application process is fairly simple using your Google account. There are a few questions you need to answer, including the website on which you’ll use to display ads.

Some other affiliate programs require you to apply to certain programs based on the products you want to promote, the content you have on your website, and the promotional methods you plan to use. Adsense is not as particular on these issues, though they will reject your application if you don’t meet accept the policies outlined in the application process.

How do I set up Adsense?

To apply to Adsense and begin the setup process, visit http://www.google.com/adsense.

How do I display Adsense links?

Adsense links are typically displayed in one of two formats: text or image banners. Text links include 4 or 5 links to participating Adwords merchants including a title, description and link. A banner add is a single image that links to the merchant’s website.

With both text and banner ads, there are several options, including size, # of ads to display, and color. These are required options you must select – pretty much everything beyond that is optional.

Choosing the right format and layout for your marketing will require some trial and error mixed with good taste and good luck. Some experts suggest that you should design your Adsense ads to blend in with your text because people psychologically ignore anything that looks like an advertisement. Other folks suggest that image banner ads in the header and footer perform best.

How you design and implement your ads requires testing. Choose the right combination of format and design that makes sense to you and monitor results closely. Overtime, you will learn what is working best and have some performance benchmarks with which to make some education guesses on to change.

How do I get paid?

You earn money every time someone clicks on one of your Adsense links. Adsense pays affiliates based on the earnings on a monthly basis … 30 days after your balance reaches a minimum of $100. There are two payment method options, check or electronic funds transfer.

Anything special about Adsense?

Because Adsense only pays a few sense per click depending on your industry, it can take a lot of clicks to earn your first $100. Of course, you getting paid just for clicks – the people who clicked on your ad never has to actually buy anything. Hence, Pay-Per-Click. Other programs potentially pay more per click, but in most cases require a purchase to take place.

Introduction to the Most Popular Affiliate Programs

Steinar — Sun, 06 May 2012 12:44:04 +0000

As an affiliate you will promote another company’s products by joining their affiliate program. The affiliate program includes guidelines for promoting their products and the links you’ll use to drive traffic to their product to earn your commission.

Some companies have their own affiliate programs but most companies use an affiliate program network, such as LinkShare, Commission Junction or ShareASale. There are dozens of other networks … these are just three of the most popular networks. They are free to join.

When you apply to become an affiliate, you usually fill out a brief application. Not all networks require this but it’s pretty standard. Once accepted, you get access to an affiliate dashboard where you can find all the links, banner ads, and other forms of link creation services the program offers.

Most affiliate programs track activity and transactions your affiliate links produce. Once you embed some the links on your website and drive traffic to a merchants website through these links, you’ll have access to the details surrounding such activity. For example, what page on your site they came from, what product they clicked on, what they eventually purchased and how much they spent. This information is used to calculate your commissions.

Most affiliate programs track returns or cancelled sales so you can expect a small percentage of commissions to be retracted within a predetermined window of time – 60 days, for example. This varies by program is usually covered in the affiliate agreement when you sign up. It’s normal procedure.

I encourage you to join multiple affiliate program networks, so that you can familiarize yourself with the various programs and have everything setup should you find a product in their catalog to promote in the future. In most cases, affiliates promote products from multiple programs at once based on commission rates, promotions and the functionality of tools within the network to easily deploy new links.

Using affiliate programs to create links is pretty straightforward. They provide with a line or two of html code or a script that you then copy and paste into your website. This may be a banner advertisement in the header section of your site or an individual text link within a blog post. It’s really up to you and the possibilities are seemingly endless. There’s plenty of room to get creative.

Keyword Research for Affiliate Marketing

Steinar — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:38:10 +0000

When you search on Google (or any search engine), the phrase you put into the search form is called a keyword phrase. If you search for something very specific, we call that a long-tail keyword phrase. The search results you see have been indexed by Google because Google thinks they are relevant to your query.

As an online marketer, it is your goal is to find keyword phrases that are related to your product and highly relevant to people searching for your product. This is called keyword research. You want your website and your products to show up in the search engine results when people search for specific keyword phrases … which millions of people do all day long.

The challenge is to find out what these keywords are. It’s pretty easy to rank in search results for random phrases, but the key is to rank for phrases that will drive potential customers seeking your help.

More specifically, you want to find keyword phrases that have relatively high traffic and relatively low competition. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to compete on major phrases within your industry. In most cases that will lead to disappointment because your competing for search engine rankings against major businesses and well-established websites. It’s easier and more effective to go after the lower competition phrases to drive traffic to your website.

There are a number of free tools to conduct keyword research. Unfortunately, they don’t speak to one another and you’ll spend a great deal of time jumping from one tool to the next.

Instead, I recommend you use Market Samurai. I’ve been using Market Samurai since 2008 and it’s highly regarded as the best keyword research tool.

Download a free trial of Market Samurai.
Create a new project with a keyword phrase you think people would use to search online for your product.
Use the Keyword Research tab to generate 100’s of keywords and filter out those that don’t meet your minimum criteria.
Use the SEO Competition tab to uncover search engine ranking opportunities.

Brainstorming a Niche Market for Affiliate Marketing

Steinar — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:52:59 +0000

There are several ways to brainstorm potential markets for affiliate marketing. I highly recommend you keep a notebook with you at all times as you go through this stage, because once your mind starts rolling, you’ll have plenty of ideas. Here are a few sources for market ideas:

Personal Hobbies & Interests

Think about what hobbies and interests you and your friends or family have. Are there any particular products or product categories in those hobbies that stand out as potentially interesting to pursue for affiliate marketing?

For example, maybe you’re a golfer. Every golfer needs a glove, shoes, balls, tees, a bag and of course new gloves. Plus they want to learn new strategies, improve their skills and play great courses. Each of these is an affiliate marketing opportunity and I guarantee you there are companies with affiliate programs for each of these products or services.

Choosing a product or market that you already know something about and has already proven itself interesting is a great path to explore. Affiliate marketing is hard work, but if you find the subject interesting, it will seem more like fun than anything else.

Google Trends

Another great way to explore potential markets is with the use of Google Trends. Visit google.com/trends to get started.

With Google Trends you can enter any search phrase and see a graphical representation of the traffic for that phrase over time. This is especially meaningful if you suspect that your market may be cyclical or likely to fluctuate based on current events.

If there’s enough historical data, Google Trends also provides links to relevant news stories for the given phrase to provide some context the the search trends graph. You can also compare two searches phrases to see how they differ and to what degree one search term is more popular than another.

For, example, do a search for golf shirt and you see that the phrase is rather cyclical with traffic spikes in late Spring and early Summer. You’ll also notice that a majority of the traffic is in South Carolina and Alabama – not surprising since these are big golf states.

Now add a comma to your search and include a comparison with polo shirts. The most obvious take-away is that searches for polo shirts are twice and much as those for golf shirts. You will also see that there is a second spike for polo shirts in late Summer, when weather is still hot yet golf season is definitely waning.

This type of analysis is a fun exercise to get your head around the relative traffic volume for a given phrase. It’s also great to help you brainstorm other variations on that phrase or product as a result of the information Google Trends provides.

Amazon.com

With one of the largest collections of products for sale online, Amazon is a great place to research potential products to promote. Yes, Amazon has it’s own affiliate marketing program, Amazon Associates, but more than that, it has a ratings system and product reviews.

These ratings and reviews can help you justify promoting one product over another based on actual customer feedback. They can also help you learn what’s important to customers when they are buying that product or buying anything with the broader category … both tangible and intangible.

Of course, the simplest way to see what’s selling on Amazon is to search for a product or category and order the results by Best Selling or Most Popular. This is a dead giveaway, right?

Take note, that other affiliate marketers will also be attracted to the top product. It may make sense for you to focus on the 2nd or 3rd products and sell them as an alternative to the #1 product. People often like to buy alternatives if you can spell out why it’s equal to or better than the competition.

Major Affiliate Networks

LinkShare, Commission Junction or ShareASale all have there own list products available for affiliate marketers. Products searchable by category and you can also sort programs by performance.

This is a really great advantage over Amazon, because you can see which products perform well from an affiliate’s perspective. Also, an individual product’s performance can be measured across all categories, so you know if it performs well within it’s category and how it compares to products in different categories.

Again, because everything is so well organized and easy to navigate, these affiliate networks are a great place to brainstorm ideas.

How Do I Get Started with Affiliate Marketing?

Steinar — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:47:52 +0000

As with any new initiative or project, you’ll need a certain level of commitment to get going with affiliate marketing. This is not a sprint … it’s more of a marathon. Spend a few minutes right now and decide how much time per week you can dedicate to affiliate marketing. I recommend an hour every few days to get started.

If you spend 3-4 hours per week on affiliate marketing on a regular basis you can really accomplish a lot. I understand you’ll be excited at first and want to spend more time up front so let’s take a look at what the entire process includes.

Define your marketing niche. In this exercise you will explore which products you want to promote. It may be something you love or already have a website for … or it may be something completely new.
Find products to sell. Now that you have a market in mind, it’s time to find products that have affiliate program so you can make some money. Don’t worry, there are tons of options out there!
Setup your website. Now we take a moment to register your domain and purchase a web hosting package. It’s not as scary as it sounds and I’ll explain exactly what to do and why you need to do it.
Drive traffic. You have products on your website and now it’s time to learn how to actually get people to visit your site. We don’t want just any old random people though. We want people who might be interested in buying your affiliate products.
Track results. In an ongoing effort to improve your affiliate marketing performance, you’ll learn how to track visitor behavior and measure results within specific affiliate marketing programs.

This 5-step process is outlined in detail in my book … you can download that below! Don’t feel too overwhelmed.

So, I’m curious … how many hours a week did you decide to dedicate to affiliate marketing?

Can I Really Make Money Online?

Steinar — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:42:35 +0000

The fact is that 100,000’s of purchases take place online everyday. Many companies, both big & small are competing for that business and need help driving traffic to their online stores. They use offline promotions, search engine optimization, email marketing, social media and affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is great for online merchants because for only a fraction of their overall cost they can have an entire army of affiliate marketers on the web promoting their products day and night.

Major corporations, such as Discover, WalMart, Apple, Target and Dell all have affiliate programs. They understand that it’s easier to pay affiliates to reach their target audience rather than try to do this themselves. In a sea of competition, they rely on us to drive targeted traffic to their products and are willing to pay for it.

The degree at which you wish to participate in and earn commission from these e-commerce transactions is entirely up to you. There is no guarantee that you will make any money. You may make no money at all. There is no get rich angle when it comes to affiliate marketing. It takes time and patience to study your market, learn the tools, pick the right products and build out your strategy.

If you do these things well, however, then there is potential to earn money online. Some folks start earning money right away. Some people takes weeks or months to earn their first dollar and then leverage their newfound knowledge to increase their earnings on a regular basis. There are ways to improve your odds for success but no one can predict for sure how much money you will make with affiliate marketing.

Here’s something to consider …

Think about your favorite hobby for a minute. Do you think there are other people who are passionate about that same hobby? Do you think they buy products so they can enjoy or participate in that hobby? Is there a new product in that market that everyone is talking about? Could you write about that hobby and those products on a website? Do you think you could sell those people a product that reflects their interest in that hobby?

If you answered yes to those questions, then there is likely a product available to sell to these people through affiliate marketing. Later, I’ll show you how to do just that!

Do I Need to be a Expert?

Because you are promoting another company’s product, it is not necessary for you to be an expert in that industry or product. Personally, I think it’s good if you know more than the average person about these products, but you may, in fact, know nothing about the products you’re promoting.

How much you need to know about the products you promote will depend on a few circumstances.

If you’re promoting highly technical product, it’s important to at least convey in your web copy the critical information a potential buyer would need in order to make an informed decision.

For example, if you comparing two $2,500 DSLR cameras, you‘ll want to share as many specs about the competing products so the buyer can make the best choice to meet their needs. But … you don’t have to be an expert on the subject. You just need to be reasonably good at writing web copy.

Some products require a bit of information but not nearly the level of detail we see in the camera example. A t-shirt for example, is a product that could practically sell itself based on the image alone. You might need to add a couple lines of text about fabric and washing instructions, but that about it.

… and yes, there is a huge market for t-shirt affiliate marketing.

A couple companies include CafePress and TeamFanShop. T-shirts are great because there is such a low barrier to entry. Everyone wants a t-shirt for something. Find out what gets you excited and find a t-shirt to promote. Like I said, they pretty much sell themselves. Easy, huh?

The other big question most new affiliates have is about technical expertise. I understand that some of you may not understand HTML, URL forwarding or some of the more technical subjects and I’m here to tell you that this will not be a problem.

Everything from building a website to embedding product links and driving traffic can be done with very little technical skill. Most of the affiliate programs understand this potential challenge and have created a wonderful set of user friendly applications and tools to make life easy as an affiliate.

What’s holding you back?

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Steinar — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:28:48 +0000

Welcome to the exciting world of affiliate marketing!

Affiliate marketing is the practice of promoting a company’s products to earn a commission either on the act of someone clicking on your link and/or of making a purchase. The beauty of affiliate marketing is that no inventory is required, no product development is necessary and you can get started very quickly with very little investment.

For example, you might have a link on your website to a book that is for sale on Amazon.com. Using Amazon Associates, if someone clicks on your link and purchases that book, you earn a commission based on a percentage of the sale price. This ranges from 4% – 6% and beyond depending on many factors.

Moreover, if that person buys anything else on Amazon over the course of the next 90 days, you may potentially earn a commission on those sales as well. In some cases, such as with Amazon, the more sales you produce in a given month through your affiliate links, the higher your commission rates.

Affiliate marketing is great for people that do not have a product of their own but still want to make money online. Furthermore, it’s a great way for you to learn more about the market potential within a given market niche to determine if it may be worth your time to eventually create your own product to sell online.

Affiliate marketing is not terribly difficult if you invest the necessary time and effort required to research your market, find good affiliate products, setup a website to promote products. Most affiliate programs are free to join and relatively intuitive to use with a bit of guidance.

8 Step Social Media Blueprint

Steinar — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 14:11:09 +0000

Something that’s been on my mind lately is the number of questions I get about social media … specifically, how to build and execute an effective social media strategy.

I can definitely relate – social media is not “easy” and, like most initiatives, it takes time, resources and commitment to execute well.

I assume by now most businesses know or at least think there is value in social media, but when it comes to actually doing the work, running campaigns & measuring results things seem to fall apart.

I sincerely hope you’ve had tremendous success using social media to engage your market and grow your business. Regardless, at some point it may be well worth your time to take a step back and evaluate your strategy moving forward.

For this reason, I’ve created the Social Media Blueprint … take some time to explore this with your team. Let me know how it goes!

1. Commitment

Social media is a long-term strategy and as such you need commitment within your organization to succeed. You need folks that have the initiative to actively engage users online and the perseverance required to consistently add value over time.

Do not take this lightly – companies that are not 100% committed will not succeed at social media … and the remains are not pretty.

2. Purpose

As with any marketing initiative, it’s important to understand your goals or desired outcomes ahead of time so that everything you do around that campaign contributes to its overall success. Purpose provides meaning to the people you engage online, value to the content your share and life to the personality you bring to the table.

Spend a good hour with your team brainstorming why and how social media will help you achieve your goals and you’ll be off to a running start.

3. People

Obviously, because this is social media, people are a key ingredient. Identifying the right people internally and externally to target in your campaign can have dramatic impact on your success. You may want to engage key influencers in the market; maybe you want to include exiting customers or strategic partners in mix. Who internally will represent your brand online? Is this an individual or team effort and what role does each person play?

4. Content

One of the most common questions you’ll ask yourself is “What do I say?” Some folks have no problem with this and share anything that crosses their mind. Others are more conservative and share very little. Both strategies are fine, as long as you’re adding value to the conversation.

It may be better to only share one, really amazing piece of content per day, rather than 20 comments that add nothing to the conversation. This will depend greatly on your purpose and personality.

Ideally, the majority of content you share should be content or information that you have created. A successful approach is to setup a blog or YouTube channel to produce this content and share it on your social media platform of choice.

Specifically, I recommend you share three types of content about …

your company / products / services
your community or industry at large
yourself as a person or the people and customers that make up your business

This balanced approach positions your company as a complete entity in social media networks and allows people to engage with you on a business and personal level as a member of the community.

5. Personality

Finding your voice online is a process that may take some time. It’s most important to discuss personality upfront if you’re part of a team. You may be part of a larger organization that includes sales, marketing and customer support. What are the roles each of you will assume and how will you speak with and engage customers? Will you take a casual approach or more professional or rigid stance. Will you answer questions online directly or move conversations offline?

One piece of advice I’ll share is that people want to connect with people. This may seem obvious but many companies simply slap up a logo on most social media platforms and assume that people will feel comfortable or motivated to engage with them. In some cases this can work, if people know the person behind the logo or feel some personal connection with the brand itself, but in most cases it just doesn’t work.

6. Tools

Each social media platform has its own set of tools and native applications. Twitter.com allows you to setup an account, follow people, engage with users, retweet, and so. Facebook.com has a similar set of capabilities that are unique to its platform that provide all the functionality necessary to participate in the network.

It’s important to understand how the native applications operate to build confidence and competence with each network. It takes time depending or your aptitude and dedication, but is worth the effort prior to considering 3rd party applications to manage your social media.

After the initial honeymoon period, you’ll want to find new tools to make social media marketing more effective and efficient, depending on your strategy and resources.

Some popular tools include:

Tweetdeck and Hootsuite – two free, desktop and mobile applications to manage Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in one place
Osfoora, Echofon, TweetBot – popular mobile applications for Twitter
BufferApp and SocialFlow – drip feed content through the day
Smart phones – web and geo enabled phones that provide a range of capabilities to make the most out of social media on the run. Popular options include iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices

7. Process

Managing social media profiles and relationships can seem like a daunting task and some people simply become overwhelmed. Finding the right process can make a world of difference. You should expect to develop the right process over the course of several months; unfortunately, it’s not something that can be easily prescribed prior to diving in.

Here’s a simple template you could modify to help your team stay on top of things.

8. Measurement

At the end of the day, you need to measure results to evaluate the success of social media. There is no standard formula. It depends entirely on your objectives and the meaning derived from the complex array of data you can potentially collect.

At a minimum you’ll want to track links with Bitly.com and analyze user behavior with web stats software such as Google Reader. The key is to see what’s working and adjust your social media mix accordingly.

That’s it. Hope you found this helpful!

Affiliate Marketing Field Guide by Steinar M. Knutsen (Free iPad Download from iTunes)

Steinar — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:35:53 +0000

I’m super excited to announce my 2nd book, Affiliate Marketing Field Guide, is now available for download on the Apple iBookstore. If you have an iPad and are at all interested in learning strategies and specific tactics to make money online, you should download your copy now!

About Affiliate Marketing Field Guide

Affiliate marketing is the practice of promoting someone else’s products to earn a commission. How you make money depends on the individual affiliate program.

The Affiliate Marketing Field Guide is packed with practical and actionable best practices to help you get a running start as an affiliate marketer. This includes strategy, process and a sample of some of the most popular tools and tactics to get you started on the right foot.

Specific topics we’ll cover include:

Introduction to Affiliate Marketing
Choosing a Niche Market
Overview of Major Affiliate Programs
Domain Registration and Website Design
Driving Traffic to Your Website
Tracking Results and Measurement

Specifically we’ll discuss LinkShare, ShareASale, Commission Junction, Google WebMaster Tools, Google Analytics, Search Engine Optimization, Aweber, WordPress, Amazon Associates and more!

via iTunes – Books – Affiliate Marketing Field Guide by Steinar M. Knutsen.

Video Playlist: Apple iPad & iPhone Screencasts Demo & Tutorials

Steinar — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:24:52 +0000

Here’s a nice collection of demo and tutorial videos of iPad and iPhone apps you might like …

HINT: click on the little square icon in the toolbar next to the CC to see the entire collection.

Can I Really Make Money Online with Affiliate Marketing?

Steinar — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 23:47:49 +0000

Here’s something to consider …

If you answered yes to those questions, then there is likely a product available to sell to these people through affiliate marketing.

Demo of Apple iPhoto for iPad using Photo Stream and Tiltshift

Steinar — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 22:47:24 +0000

The new Apple iPhoto for iPad and iPhone was released this week. It’s really pretty awesome. Here’s a screencast demo on my iPad for your enjoyment.

Here’s Apple’s take on the new iPhoto …

It’s everything you love about viewing, editing, and sharing photos — but with the power and simplicity of Multi-Touch. You can quickly organize and compare photos. Brush adjustments onto an image with your finger. Apply professional-quality effects in a single tap. And create beautiful photo journals to share with family and friends. It’s creative control like you’ve never experienced before.

via Apple – The new iPad – Browse featured apps made by Apple..

Why I like iPhoto for iPad

Having only use iPhoto for a couple days there are some reasons I like this app as a great photo editing tool.

Simplicity – much like iPhoto for Mac, this app makes it very simple to crop, edit and share photos without much skill. Even better, iPhoto adds a new set of editing tools, such as tilt shift, that bring it up to speed with other mobile editing apps, such as Instagram and Snapseed.
Integration – as part of the iLife suite, iPhoto plays nice with advanced iOS features such as iCloud, making it easy to automatically import from your Photo Stream and push final images back out.
Beaming – this is a great new feature that allows you to send pictures to other iPhoto users without the hassle of emailing files back and forth.

You can download a copy of iPhoto here.

New iPad Screencast Video – Flipboard for iPad

Steinar — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:20:57 +0000

Flipboard for iPad is a fantastic app for consuming content across Facebook, Twitter, Google Readers, Instagram, and a host of other predefined content partners. The beauty of Flipboard is the visual experience it brings to otherwise pretty bland text based content we see on the web. Links in Twitter are transformed into captivating articles that scrape images and excerpts from their target source. Its my preferred method for reading online and I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a fantastic app.

New iPad Screencast: Muting Twitter Clients with TweetBot for iPad

Steinar — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:11:30 +0000

TweetBot for iPad is great because you can apply a Mute Filter to weed out specific individuals, hashtags and Twitter clients.

11 Free Business, Marketing and Sales Goal Setting Templates and Worksheets

Steinar — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:52:19 +0000

My previous post on 7 Free Goal Setting Templates has been wildly popular. This post provides a list of resources specifically for business owners, marketing managers and sales professionals.

As I’ve stated before, writing down your goals is the single most powerful thing you can do to achieve your goals.

Here are some goal setting templates and worksheets you might find helpful:

1. Business Goals Template

This template will assist you to determine your business boundaries, identify the business goal, agree the necessary conditions to achieve the goal and the measures you will use to navigate your progress towards the goal.

2. Annual Business Goals Template

In this template we define the goals as annual goals; however, you can choose any time period which suits your needs. You may choose to define yearly, quarterly or monthly goals. Or you may choose to define two different timeframes for your goals such as five year goals and annual goals, or annual goals and quarterly goals.

3. Zig Ziglar Goal Worksheet

This is a straightforward goal setting template from one of the most repeated sales people, Zig Ziglar. This template includes: stating your goal, deadlines, obstacles, people and organization that can assist, benefits, and skills required.

4. Goal Setting Forms for Starting Your Own Business

This template includes an interesting series of questions you might ask yourself if you’re considering starting your own business. The idea is to compare the benefits and opportunities between working for yourself and working for someone else.

5. Goal Setting Worksheet

Another terrific goals setting worksheet that walks you through all the basics: goals, reasons, obstacles, barriers, sacrifices, information & help required, next steps and more.

6. Marketing Calendar Map Template

This template allows you to map out your key marketing initiatives month-by-month over the course of the year.

7. Marketing Mix Goals Template

This is a great set of guidelines and questions to help you define the key information to identify your goals for the next year.

8. Email Marketing Goals Worksheet

Here’s a great email marketing planning worksheet from Aweber that forces you to answer the tough questions about email marketing: why are you running the campaign, how will you measure success, how often will you communicate with them, and more …

9. Your Marketing Goals

This worksheet helps you outline your website and social media goals, conversation rates and resulting traffic and sales.

10. Marketing Worksheet

This is a nice marketing goal setting worksheet that takes several factors into consideration, including budget, target market, roadblocks, opportunities, competitors, clients and social media.

11. Sales Goals Worksheet

Successful salespeople understand that, to a degree, sales is a numbers game. This worksheet helps you calculate the level of activities required to your achieve desired outcome.

Which template(s) did you find most helpful?

Q&A: Why I follow brands on Social Media platforms

Steinar — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:40:46 +0000

If your company is considering social media as a platform to connect with you market, you should take some time to examine the opportunity from your customers’ perspective.

It may seem natural to categorize your readers as either customers or prospects but in many cases your brand may mean something more based on a number of factors or circumstances.

Q: In Social Media, do you only follow brands you use?

My question has to deal with loyalty. As a consumer, do you only Follow/Like/etc only those brands that you use yourself? Or do you Follow/Like brands in social media regardless of whether you use them yourself? And if so, why do you Follow/Like them if you don’t actually use them?

A: I follow brands that are interesting to me at some given time for a variety of reasons, whether I have purchased from them or not. I’m not afraid to unfollow brands that no longer provide value to me and/or those that have unapealling social media habits. In fact, your question just prompted me to unLike nearly 30 Facebook Pages and unFollow a couple dozen Twitter users.

Some brand categories I follow:

1) Brands that have products or services that I use, like or want to learn more about, such as Aviiq. Usually, if I just purchased from them I’m either already following them or just started following because I’m interested in what value they offer, specifically related to their product.

2) Brands I’m interested in based on my hobbies, sports and general interests, such as InsideLacrosse. I may never buy from them and, in fact, they may not even have something to sell. The information they share provides a healthy dose of distraction that might otherwise take much longer to consume with other forms of media.

3) Brands that are key influencers, trendsetters, and doing exciting things regardless of their industry, such as Zappos. These are brands I like to learn from because of their business sense and go-to-market strategies. They may be in completely different industries but because they are successful I may be interested and follow them … usually for a shorter period of time.

4) People as Brands – those I find interesting, knowledgable, influential, important to my success, market leaders, etc. Social media has facilitated the rise of some very influential branded individuals, such as Eric Qualman. I follow them not only because I may purchase their products, but also to study their technique and learn from them on an ongoing basis.

Thanks,
Steinar

via In Social Media, do you only follow brands you use? | LinkedIn Answers | LinkedIn.

How to manage social media with a simple schedule of activities

Steinar — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 04:49:03 +0000

For any business, managing social media can easily turn into a full-time job. Fortunately, with practice comes efficiency and a certain flow of regular activities starts to emerge over time.

If your business is looking for a simple schedule of necessary activities to follow, let me recommend you start with the example I’ve outlined below. In this case, I’ve broken down a set of reasonably critical tasks into daily, weekly and monthly categories.

Daily activities center around building relationships and fostering a bond with your market through regular interaction. Weekly activities provide you with a chance to check performance and maintain a certain level of momentum. Monthly tasks focus on extending your reach in new directions and reinforcing your presence where it makes most sense.

Feel free to use this example as a guide and fill in the appropriate activities for your organization.

What activities are most important to the success of your business’ social media strategy?

How to properly use Facebook as a business and network with other businesses

Steinar — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:40:19 +0000

By now your business probably has a business Facebook Page. The question is “what do I do with my Facebook Page?”, “how will my Facebook Page help me grow my business?” and “how can I network with other businesses on Facebook?”

The key for most businesses is that you need to login to Facebook as a business and use your business page like you would use your personal profile to communicate and network with friends. Social media is about socializing afterall – not just broadcasting an endless stream of information without interaction.

Once you login as your business on Facebook, you have several opportunities to engage with others and network with other businesses. In the following video, I illustrate exactly how this is done …

How does your business use Facebook? How has your Facebook Page helped grow your business online?

How I use bitly to create links and track performance

Steinar — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:05:37 +0000

If you’re marketing anything online, it’s good practice to track the links you share so you can ultimately measure performance and see what’s driving the right kind of traffic, what visitors are looking for and what they do once they land on your site. Obviously, Google Analytics can help you understand much of this, but customizing your links on the front end is also a valuable practice to help you understand as much as possible about people engaging with your content no matter where it is online.

For example, if you embed a link in a PDF that folks can download from your site, it’s a good idea to use a service, such as Bitly.com to create a custom, trackable shortened link. Then, when anyone clicks on your link, you’ll know about it rather than be completely blind to the fact that people are using your content.

Another example is a link that you include in a book you publish to the Apple iBookstore. Trackable links let you know exactly which content people are clicking on.

The benefit is that you can learn from your users’ behavior and adjust your content delivery accordingly. If I discover that a lot of folks are interested in affiliate marketing based on their click behavior, I’ll probably post more content on that topic. Likewise, if no one has ever clicked on one of my sidebar banner ads, I might consider replacing that content with something more attractive or valuable to my readers.

How I use Google Analytics on a Daily Basis

Steinar — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:12:04 +0000

Google Analytics is a fantastic tool that I use pretty much everyday to track visitor activity and behavior.

Specifically, I’m looking at # of visitors, bounce rate, popular content and traffic source. My goal is to discover:

What content is driving traffic and how are visitors finding this content
What keywords are driving the “best” traffic
What channels are delivering traffic – search, social media, comments and other 3rd party sites

Understanding these metrics provides me with insight to create more useful information for my audience. If they seem really interested in social media tools and processes, then I’ll produce more content around those topics.

How are you using Google Analytics or other web analysis tools to understand your market?

How to Build a Website to Host Your Podcast

Steinar — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:42:31 +0000

In most cases, you will need a website to host your podcast. I recommend you use WordPress. WordPress is one of the leading blogging platforms available that supports podcasting through the use of plugins that allow you to post your episodes and make them available on iTunes if you want.

Download the PDF version of this article:

Step 1: Register your Domain and Signup for Hosting

First thing you’ll need to do is register you domain name or URL. This is the web address where your new WordPress blog and podcast will live. I recommend Bluehost to register your domain. Specifically, because they offer great products, support and uptime. Furthermore, their Control Panel is very intuitive vs. other registrars and you’ll thank me later for this!

Hosting provides server space for you to store all your WordPress blog files and podcast episodes. This includes the php and css files that drive WordPress plus the MySQL database and other applications required to actually make WordPress operate.

Again, I recommend Bluehost for WordPress hosting because the service and products are top of the line for the price. When you register, sign up for a 2-year hosting package and you’ll get tons of extra products that other hosting companies try to charge extra for such as email account and extra storage space.

Step 2: Install WordPress

Next you need to install WordPress. The simplest way to do this is to use the self-install scripts that come with Bluehost. From your control panel just click on the WordPress Icon in the SimpleScripts section and follow the step-by-step instructions. It’s really pretty straightforward.

Bluehost provides a program which makes it very easy to install WordPress to the root of your site or to a subdirectory.

1. Navigate to the Software / Services section inside cPanel. Click the Simple Scripts icon. This will display the page where the third party scripts can be installed from.

2. Click on WordPress.

3. Click the Install Now button.

4. Select the version to install and the domain name to install it to. You can enter a subfolder such as ‘blog’ or leave it blank if you want the site’s main page to be the blog.

5. Click on the Advanced Options.

6. Give your site a name or tagline, describing the site. Uncheck the box which says ‘Generate a random Administrator Username and password’. Enter a username and a password which are different that your cPanel login information.

7. Read through the license and service agreements and check the boxes. Select the ‘Complete’ button.

Step 3: Get a WordPress Theme

WordPress comes with one standard theme but you can import new themes to give your site a more custom look and feel to your blog. It could be something fancy or maybe you prefer something more minimalist. In any case there are 1,000 of themes to choose from – both free and premium.

I have two favorite themes right now for someone who has limited programming skills but wants a theme that is dynamic and easy to customize.

You can also find plenty of WordPress themes available to choose from for free directly within the WordPress Admin section in the Appearance > Themes tab.

Step 4: Install a Podcasting Plugin

You’ll need a podcasting plugin to properly display your podcast episodes so visitors can play the MP3 files you attach to your blog posts.

BluBrry PowerPress Plugin

Follow the instructions provided by these the plugins and you’ll be good to go.

I also use Mobile Podcaster as a means to record and publish my podcast directly to iTunes from my iPad or iPhone.

Congratulations!

Why podcasting is such a valuable marketing channel

Steinar — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:02:37 +0000

Podcasting is a wonderful marketing channel that is widely misunderstood. I love the fact that for free you can basically have your message heard by potentially tens and even hundreds of millions of people.

I think most people shy away from podcasting because they don’t understand the potential reach. The tools are not as well understood as blogging, so that is probably another reason that it’s not as widely used by marketers.

Listen or Download

This podcast episode was recorded on my iPhone and automatically uploaded to this website and iTunes using Mobile Podcaster. For more information visit http://www.mobilepodcaster.com

How to Podcast with Garageband and Publish on iTunes

Steinar — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:02:39 +0000

In this course, I show you exactly How to Podcast with Garageband and Publish on iTunes. This is great because listeners may now listen to your podcast on your WordPress blog and subscribe to your podcast on iTunes.

The lectures are recorded with professional video screen capture software, so it feels like you’re sitting right next to me. Customers have responded very well to this over the years.

First, you’ll learn how to use Garageband to make your recordings. I’ll show you how to edit your file, apply various equilizer settings, and trim your recording. Then we’ll add a musical introduction to the recording and save it as an MP3. Next you’ll learn how to install WordPress, setup WordPress for podcasting, upload your podcast and submit it to iTunes so others may enjoy!

How to Podcast with Garageband and Publish on iTunes

Please Don’t Complain to Me About Facebook’s Data Use Policy

Steinar — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:05:38 +0000

I got an email today from a visitor on my site who was concerned about my Aweber email newsletter sign up form. Aweber uses the Facebook API to detect if you are signed into Facebook, and if you are it preloads the form with your email address. It also indicates your number of friends.

Facebook’s integration into Aweber provides no additional information to me about you. In fact, there’s really no benefit to me other than it makes it easier for you to fill out my newsletter signup form.

The Facebook API is used by millions of sites to access your Facebook information in one way or another. Facebook has a bunch of Social Plugins to facilitate this and they are free to use by anyone.

I understand that it may seem like an invasion of privacy to see your Facebook information and stats on 3rd party sites, but Facebook has made the details of how they can use your data pretty clear.

It’s not my job to justify their platform or defend their policies. As a member of Facebook it’s your responsibility to understand that stuff. If you want to learn more about how Facebook uses your data you can contact Facebook with your Privacy Concern or read the Facebook Data Use Policy.

Facebook Data Use Policy

Information we receive and how it is used. Learn about the types of information we receive, and how that information is used.

via Data Use Policy.

First Impressions of Apple iBooks Author

Steinar — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:16:29 +0000

Apple launched iBooks Author this week and it’s pretty amazing. Basically, it’s free software that allows you to create media-rich, interactive ebooks. It’s available for download on the Mac App Store.

Typically, this has been a pretty difficult task, but iBooks Author is so simple because it plays nice with Pages, Keynote and several other forms of media available on your Mac.

I spent a couple hours working in iBook Author and after importing some existing content from Pages, I had an ebook ready to publish rather easily and quickly.

What do you think about iBooks Author? Let me know when your book is online!

GoToWebinar: #12 Essential Online Marketing Tool for 2012

Steinar — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:50:48 +0000

What is GoToWebinar?

Reach your target audience quickly and affordably. Use the GoToWebinar self-service interface to plan, present, record and analyze unlimited Webinars with up to 1,000 attendees each – all for one flat fee. Create and host your own professional Webinars from day one – no experience required

Reach hundreds of people – right from your PC or Mac®
Save with built-in VoIP and phone conferencing at no extra charge
Includes GoToMeeting® for smaller meetings

Key Features

Download an audience list ranked by interest level to focus follow-up efforts on your hottest prospects, lowering your overall cost per lead.
Present online to anyone, anywhere, reducing your costs by decreasing travel and customer acquisition expenses.
GoToWebinar flat fee pricing structure lets you conduct unlimited Webinars without raising your costs – achieving faster and higher ROI.

Try it FREE for 30 Days!

Why do I need GoToWebinar?

GoToWebinar® features make it simple for you to set up, conduct and analyze Webinars yourself – no need to pay for additional event-management services. Increase your audience size while reducing your overall presentation costs with easy-to-use GoToWebinar. Make presentations in real time to hundreds of customers, prospects and employees — wherever they are. Plus, GoToWebinar comes with GoToMeeting, for smaller, more collaborative online meetings.

Download the complete list of 12 Essential Online Marketing Tools for 2012!

Grasshopper: #11 Essential Online Marketing Tool for 2012

Steinar — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:34:55 +0000

What is Grasshopper?

The Grasshopper virtual phone system helps entrepreneurs sound more professional and stay connected from anywhere. Features include toll free and local numbers, custom greetings, multiple extensions for employees, call forwarding to any phone anywhere in the world, voicemail to email and more!

Get a Toll Free or Local Number With Multiple Extensions – Add department & employee extensions easily.
Get Voicemails and Faxes via Email – No more calling in to check messages. Just open the attachment.
Know Who’s Calling Before Accepting the Call – Hear the caller’s phone number or name, the choice is yours.
Read Voicemails – A transcription of voicemail is included with emails.

Key Features

Toll free or local number – local or national presence
Unlimited extensions – for departments & employees
Call forwarding - work from anywhere
Voicemails via email – play online or on cell phone
Manage online or by phone – no hardware to purchase
No Long Term Contracts

Get Started Today!

Why do I need Grasshopper?Unlike a traditional phone system, Grasshopper is managed all online and in the cloud – there’s no hardware to purchase and no software to install. It’s really so easy to setup a new phone number or extension and expand your company’s footprint. Plus, since it’s month-to-month with no long term contracts, it’s also a popular solution for short-term marketing campaigns or temporary contact requirements.

Download the complete list of 12 Essential Online Marketing Tools for 2012!

2011 YouTube Video Traffic Review

Steinar — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 00:13:45 +0000

As many of your know I like to shoot a lot of video. In fact, I published 61 videos on Youtube in 2011 – you can see them here on my YouTube channel. I have several other YouTube channels too, but I’m not going to refer to those in this post.

I like video as a communications channel for several reasons:

sometimes it’s better to illustrate a point show & tell style
shooting video or screencasts are so easy it’s almost irresistible for me
search engines love video (Google owns YouTube)
video keeps the reader’s attention longer than text
video is mobile friendly

Of course, if you’re not comfortable putting your face in front of the camera, the prospect of doing video isn’t really going to sounds very apealling. It won’t be terribly fun and your viewers will probably sense your lack of confidence or enthusiasm.

A good remedy is to record a quick video every day for 30 days and keep them private – this helps you find your voice, learn the tools & process and gain some confidence. Also, spend some time on YouTube watching others. Explore their styles and consider what might work best for you.

My video stats from 2011

Here’s a snapshot of my YouTube channel performance in 2011. Overall, I’m pretty pleased, but there are areas for improvement.

Performance – # of views at 33,441 is OK. This represents a 10% increase over last year and really could have been a lot higher. My most popular videos had to do with iPads and Podcasting, so those seem like a popular subjects to build on. I’m in the process of building a podcasting app and service for podcasting on the iPad so this is a no brainer.

I’m pretty happy to see 57 new subscribers; this gives me some sense of value. Unfortunately, it’s less than the net number of new subscribers in 2010 of 90, but I think I know the answer.

You see, in 2010 I did a series of videos on podcasting from your Mac using Screenflow. I worked really hard on them and people took note. I’ve gotten tons of comments and the reaction has been nothing but positive.

In 2011, I published a similar series on Facebook Pages for Business, but recorded the videos with Screenr in more of a rapid fire mode. Because Screenr videos are limited to 5 minutes and do not provide any editing capabilities they weren’t nearly as impressive as the 10 minute, finely tuned videos from 2010. Don’t get me wrong – the content was great, but the presentation was not as memorable and thus fewer people subscribed to my Channel.

YouTube Activity Impact on Website Traffic

I often preach that video is critical to driving traffic an retaining visitors once they reach your site. Let’s take a look at how this unfolded in 2011.

This first snapshot shows that I received 311 visits, with 1.95 pages per visit, average time of 1:50 and bounce rate of 63.3%. All of these metrics perform better than my entire site on average.

I also see 75% new visits, which is 12% less than my site on average, but this is OK because it tells me that I have loyal viewers on YouTube.

Key Takeaways for 2012

I’m going to keep publishing video in 2012. It drives great traffic and pages on my site that have videos embedded have better visitor stats than average. I also really enjoy producing and publishing video and feel like it’s going to continue to develop as the preferred media for online communication.

This year, I’m also going to use Screenflow more strategically as my main video production tool. The quality of output is just so much better than any other screen capture process I’ve used. Sure, it takes a bit longer to use Screenflow vs Screenr, Jing or Quicktime, but it’s time well spent.

How’s video working for you and your business? Do you get much traffic from YouTube? What are you doing to leverage video in 2012?

My New Video Introduction for New Site Media

Steinar — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:38:02 +0000

I do a lot of video – some for this blog and some for my company at New Site Media. I’ve tried a variety of video introductions using some of the preconfigured transitions in iMovie but thought it was time to get a little creative and make my own from scratch. I considered using Fiverr for a minute, but knew I could create my own in about 30 minutes.

To create my intro I used a combination of Photoshop, Keynote and iMovie.

First, I separated the elements of my logo in Photoshop. Specifically, I created a standalone image of the red box portion of my logo.

Next, I recreated the text portion of my logo in Keynote and imported the red box as an image. I also created the black line as a separate image in Keynote. When I was finished, I had four distinct elements.

Using the Build Inspector in Keynote I created a series of Build-in effects for the four components.

“New Site” is set to Move In
The line is set to Pop
“Media” is set to Typewriter
Red Box is set to Anvil

Each Build element is set at 1 second intervals to automatically transition through the series to complete the entire build.

Next, I recorded the presentation in Keynote using the builds, and exported the presentation as a Quicktime Movie including the recorded transitions.

Then started a new project in iMovie and dragged the .mov file into the new project. I added a couple sounds and that’s it!

Now I have a unique video intro I can use on all my future videos.

What do you think? Let me know if you need help doing something similar.

OptimizePress: #10 Essential Online Marketing Tool for 2012

Steinar — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 16:44:13 +0000

What is OptimizePress?

Many of the world’s top Internet Marketers, Experts, Speakers and Coaches use OptimizePress to build their sales pages, launch funnels, membership sites or squeeze pages. It’s simply the easiest way to create an online sales funnel fast. It’s packed with customization options and built-in graphics that would take hours or days to replicate.

OptimizePress Theme – Utilize the power of this theme on as many of your OWN domains as you want, and start creating amazing pages in minutes!
Complete Page Building Solution – Now you no longer need to mess around with HTML, CSS, just use OptimizePress to build all your sales pages, squeeze pages, launch pages, bonus pages and more …
Unique Shortcode Sales Letter Building System – No longer do you have to worry about paying designers to clean up your sales letters – simply use our own super-powerful shortcode system to add in all the elements you want on your pages, just point and click!

Key Features

Build High Converting Squeeze Pages with over 10 tested and proven designs for your squeeze pages or landing pages to increase your optin rate and build your list fast
Create Powerful Product Launches with a custom launch sequence inside OptimizePress and use our advanced features to increase your visitor response.
Build Sales Letters, Bonus Pages, One-Time Offer Pages based on proven & tested designs, so you can give your pages a boost before you even start writing your sales copy!

Get Started Today!

Why do I need OptimizePress?

OptimizePress has been designed to make everything super easy. This includes integrating with your chosen autoresponder, which can usually be a real pain. Simply copy and paste the main form code your autoresponder provider gives you into OptimizePress, and our system will do the rest, including integrating the form with our custom styled input boxes and your optin button!

Download the complete list of 12 Essential Online Marketing Tools for 2012!

LinkedIn is Top Social Media Channel for B2B Marketers

Steinar — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 01:27:30 +0000

LinkedIn is the smallest and oldest of the big 5 social media platforms, yet is surprisingly the preferred social media marketing channel among B2B marketers according to a recent study by Safefrog Marketing Greoup.

Survey respondents often cite LinkedIn as the top social media site for B2B marketers, but others put Facebook and Twitter above the business-minded social network. According to Sagefrog Marketing Group, in summer 2011, 58% of US B2B marketers that used social media used LinkedIn, compared to 50% for Facebook and 43% for Twitter.

via More B2B Marketers Embrace Social Media Efforts – eMarketer

LinkedIn is great for B2B Marketers for several reasons:

1) LinkedIn is based on your professional business resume, so folks on LinkedIn are in a business frame of mind. Facebook and Twitter, on the other hand, are more personal in nature.

2) LinkedIn puts business in the forefront with robust business profile pages. Businesses can upload their logo and fill out a thorough description of their product or service. Employees can link their individual LinkedIn profiles to the corporate profile, providing a great system to network B2B relationships.

3) LinkedIn Groups offer a great environment to share ideas and resources among your peers, customers, prospects and other parties that either currently do business with you or would like to engage in some level of business related discussion.

This is just three reasons, but the list goes on. Are you using LinkedIn as a marketing channel for your business? What’s working for you?

DropBox: #9 Essential Online Marketing Tool for 2012

Steinar — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 16:22:13 +0000

What is Dropbox?

Dropbox allows you to easily store and share files online in either a private or public setting. Dropbox works hard to make sure that all your files are the same no matter where you’re working from. This means that you can start working on a computer at school or the office, and finish from your home computer.

Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere.
Invite your friends, family and teammates to any folder in your Dropbox, and it’ll be as if you saved that folder straight to their computers.
Dropbox is like a time machine that lets you undo mistakes and even undelete files you accidentally trash!

Key Features

2GB of Dropbox for free, with subscriptions up to 100GB available.
Your files are always available from the secure Dropbox website.
Dropbox works with Windows, Max, Linux, iPad, iPhone, Android and Blackberry.
Works even when offline. You always have your files, whether or not you have a connection.
Send people links to specific files in your Dropbox rather than emailing huge files back and forth.

Get Started Today!

Why do I need Dropbox?

People around the world rely on Dropbox to help them design buildings, compose music, run businesses, write books and even coordinate disaster relief. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a teacher, a photographer or an astronomer, an artist or an activist, Dropbox simplifies your life. Dropbox also makes it super easy to share with others, whether you’re a student or professional, parent or grandparent. Even if you accidentally spill a latte on your laptop, have no fear! You can relax knowing that Dropbox always has you covered, and none of your stuff will ever be lost.

Download the complete list of 12 Essential Online Marketing Tools for 2012!

Commenting on Blogs for Knowledge, Brand Building and Market Leadership

Steinar — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:54:22 +0000

Commenting on other blogs is a fantastic strategy for building your brand online. So few people leave comments these days that you can easily differentiate yourself with this simple tactic. Not only does commenting get your name out there, it also gives you a chance to learn something new and connect with other thought leaders within your industry.

In my daily routine, I scan all of the blogs that I subscribe to in Google Reader. My goal is to choose three blog posts that I find interesting and leave my comment. I find that this gives me exposure to readers on that website, and often drives traffic back my website.

Do you comment on blogs on a regular basis? I’d love to hear your feedback.

Listen or Download

MindNode: #8 Essential Online Marketing Tool for 2012

Steinar — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 15:45:37 +0000

What is MindNode?

MindNode Pro and MindNode are elegant and simple-to-use mind mapping applications for the Macintosh that help to 1) visually collect, classify and structure ideas and 2) organize, study and solve problems.

Available for Mac, iPad, & iPhone
Visually Appealing Mind Maps. There is no need to spend hours playing with the visual attributes to create an appealing mind map. The default values are suitable for most uses.

Key Features

Constrain node width and resize nodes. Automatically constrain the width of a node and to resize the node directly on the canvas.
Node Well. New nodes are created by simply dragging them out of the node wells. There is no need to access the toolbar or the application menu.
Multiple Mind Maps. The ability to create multiple mind maps on one canvas makes MindNode Pro an ideal tool for brainstorming sessions.

Why do I need MinNode?

Get Started Today!

Mind maps can be used for many different tasks – including to-do lists, brainstorming, holiday planning, research, writing, project management – and in many different environments – school, meetings, workspace. Personally, I like to use mind maps to outline blog posts and podcast episodes among other tasks. MindNode Pro includes the same features as the free MindNode version, and adds several new features that help improve your productivity.

Download the complete list of 12 Essential Online Marketing Tools for 2012!

Skitch Image Capture: #7 Essential Online Marketing Tool for 2012

Steinar — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:25:33 +0000

What is Skitch?

Skitch is Mac desktop and Android mobile image editing tool that lets you grab, annotate, edit and share your screenshots and images fast. Skitch revolutionizes basic image editing tasks, delivering a quick and easy tool that offers most image editing features you’ll use day to day.

Screenshots are easy: Skitch makes grabbing a screenshot a mouse click or keyboard command away. Crosshairs Snap, Fullscreen Snap or a Frame Snap made easy
Image indexing: every image you edit in Skitch is saved within the program so you can easily browse through anything you’ve previously created.
Upload to your own site: using Skitch, you can also directly upload any picture to any web server via FTP.

Key Features

Image resizing: Open an image or drag one directly into Skitch.
Image cropping: drag any point of the image in the direction you want for a quick crop.
Text or drawings: type, use your mouse or even a graphics tablet to quickly add anything to an image.
Webcam shot: if you’ve got a webcam, you can use Skitch to take shots with it.
Share on Twitter: any image hosted on Skitch is a shortcut away from a Twitter post.

Get Started Today!

Why do I need Skitch?
Besides being completely free, it’s the range of features Skitch offers quickly and simply. It’s not a Photoshop replacement (I still use Photoshop on occasion) nor does it pretend to be. What Skitch offers is 95% of every image editing function I use on a daily basis without the bloat of Photoshop so image handling is that much quicker.

Download the complete list of 12 Essential Online Marketing Tools for 2012!

Catalyst Theme for WordPress: #6 Essential Online Marketing Tool for 2012

Steinar — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:00:52 +0000

What is the Catalyst Theme?

Catalyst isn’t your typical WordPress Theme. It’s not just a cookie-cutter template to slap on the face of your site. Catalyst is more of a design platform. It gives you the flexibility to create a site that’s unique. With over 800 custom options at your fingertips, what you can create with Catalyst is only limited by imagination.

Search Engine Optimization – Catalyst is built from the ground up with SEO in mind, so that your site has a fighting chance to rank among competing sites on search engines.
Ideal for Developers & Non-Developers – A beautiful user dashboard makes Catalyst stand out from the crowd with over 800 custom options. Great for both the seasoned WordPress developer and novice alike.
Unlimited Custom Layouts – Unlike the majority of WordPress Themes and Frameworks, Catalyst has unlimited custom layout development capabilities.

Key Features

Unlimited Custom Layouts, Widgets & Hook Boxes Provide Amazing Flexibility
The Dynamik Child Theme Provides Over 800 No-Coding Design Options
Create Your Own Custom Child Themes With A Single Mouse Click
A Custom CSS Building Tool That Writes Custom Code For You!
The Most Comprehensive Font Control Offered In A WordPress Theme!

Get Started Today!

Why do I need the Catalyst theme?
Catalyst makes WordPress website design easy! No need to purchase a new theme every time you want to change the look and feel of your site – just create a new child theme in Catalyst and let your imagination go wild!

Download the complete list of 12 Essential Online Marketing Tools for 2012!

WishList Member: #5 Essential Online Marketing Tool for 2012

Steinar — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:35:28 +0000

What is Wishlist Member?
Trusted by over 31,102 online communities and membership sites worldwide, WishList Member is a powerful, yet easy to use membership solution that can turn any WordPress blog into a full-blown membership site.

Integrates With Your WordPress Site – Whether you’re building a new site or integrating with an existing WordPress site, installing WishList Member is a breeze.
Multi-Level Access – Give your members access to multiple levels within your membership. For example, create a central download location with access granted to members of all levels.
Control Viewed Content – Just click the “Hide” button to protect exclusive content for members of a particular level. Create “modular” memberships and hide content from other levels.

Key Features

Just unzip and upload the plugin, and within minutes you’ll have your own membership site up and running.
Unlimited Membership Levels
Protected, members-only content, integrated payments, member management, and so much more!
Seamlessly integrates with the most popular shopping cart systems.
Graduate your members from one level to the next for sequential content delivery

Get Started Today!

Why do I need Wishlist Member?
WishList Member makes the process of building a membership site as easy as possible, so you can start creating a powerful online community of your own right away. No other system makes it so simple to sign up new members and deliver content behind a series of flexible membership levels. Charge for access if you wish or create an open membership. It’s up to you and WishList Member makes it easy!

Download the complete list of 12 Essential Online Marketing Tools for 2012!

Hootsuite: #4 Essential Online Marketing Tool for 2012

Steinar — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 18:41:51 +0000

What is Hootsuite?

Hootsuite is the leading social media dashboard to manage and measure your social networks. Hootsuite is an online application – no software to install!

Save your time and your sanity. Monitor and post to multiple social networks, including Facebook and Twitter using the HootSuite dashboard.
Show off your social media success. Create custom reports from over 30 individual report modules to share with clients and colleagues. Track brand sentiment, follower growth, plus incorporate Facebook Insights and Google analytics all without leaving the dashboard.
HootSuite’s Pro and Enterprise plans allow you to have multiple contributors to your social profiles without sharing passwords. Assign messages for follow-up and track responses.

Key Features

Manage multiple social profiles
Schedule messages and tweets
Track brand mentions
Analyze social media traffic
Mobile apps for those on the go
Direct feed from you blog to Twitter
Upload images and links
Popular browser extensions

Why do I need Hootsuite?
HootSuite helps organizations use the social web to launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audience, and distribute targeted messages across multiple channels.

Using HootSuite’s unique social media dashboard, teams can collaboratively schedule updates to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, WordPress and other social networks via web, desktop or mobile platforms plus track campaign results and industry trends to rapidly adjust tactics.

Download the complete list of 12 Essential Online Marketing Tools for 2012!

Bluehost: #3 Essential Online Marketing Tool for 2012

Steinar — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:28:59 +0000

What is Bluehost?

From the business owner to the individual who desires full functionality on a small budget, Bluehost provides your complete web hosting solution.

BlueHost has WordPress hosting built in. Their one-click installs with SimpleScripts make it super fast to spin up test sites or new blogs quickly.
Bluehost has been providing quality web hosting solutions since 1996 and provides a consistent experience for your website without all the ups and downs normally associated with every other shared hosting provider.
$6.95/month is a killer deal. Sure you can save a couple of bucks if you hunt around, but is it worth it? Trust me, I’ve tried and it’s NOT.

Key Features

UNLIMITED Disk Storage
UNLIMITED Domain Hosting
Free Domain Name
Secure Email Support
UNLIMITED GB of Site Transfer
Add-on Domains, Subdomains and Parked Domains
cPanel Account Control Panel
FTP Access
Web File Manager
Secure Shell (SSH) Access
Spam Assasin Protection
MySQL Databases
PHP 5 and more!

Reserve your domain!

Why do I need Bluehost?
Bluehost technology is really what sets them apart from other companies. They have their own datacenter, their build their own servers, they have their own nationwide fiber network, they build their own custom linux kernel. In short, because they handle every aspect of your hosting you can feel confident that if there is a problem that you won’t have to deal with 5 different companies to get your problem solved.

Download the complete list of 12 Essential Online Marketing Tools for 2012!

Aweber: #2 Essential Online Marketing Tool for 2012

Steinar — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:13:28 +0000

Aweber is my #2 essential online marketing tool for 2012. I’ve been using this service since 2007 and absolutely love it to this day.

What is Aweber?

Aweber offers industry leading, affordable opt-in email marketing that enables you to boost your website’s traffic and convert more sales.

Industry-Leading Deliverability: Get your emails to the inbox, not junk folders, with deliverability rates exceeding 99 percent.
Email Newsletters and Autoresponders: You set the date and time you want your newsletter to be sent, and they’ll get it delivered. Autoresponders will be automatically delivered at the intervals you specify.
Analytics: Find out who is (and isn’t) opening, clicking, downloading and buying from your emails. You can use this information to improve future sends, create new targeted groups of subscribers and find ways to improve your results.

Key Features

Collect, manage and segment your subscribers across multiple lists.
Use email autoresponders to deliver a sequence of messages automatically.
Over 150 ready-to-use, customizable HTML email templates and forms
12+ years experience delivering email marketing campaigns help you reach the inbox.
RSS to email tool turns your latest blog post in an email newsletter.

Why do I need Aweber?
For the highest ROI, AWeber provides the tools to create, manage, analyze and optimize your email marketing. If you don’t have a full team of copywriters, designers and developers, AWeber makes it easy to do it yourself. We also make it easy for agencies and freelancers to use our service, so whichever route you take, you’re covered.

Download the complete list of 12 Essential Online Marketing Tools for 2012!

Market Samurai: #1 Essential Online Marketing Tool for 2012

Steinar — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:08:20 +0000

What is Market Samurai?

Market Samurai is software for your Mac or PC that streamlines all critical search engine marketing tasks, puts complete market intelligence at your finger-tips, takes away uncertainty, and gives you focus, direction and confidence in your internet marketing.

It slashes time wasted on tasks that don’t directly create results – allowing you to put your focus into the areas where you will receive the best returns for your unique online business;
It tells you exactly what you need to do next – by using decision-making data that is specific to your unique market – meaning you don’t get lost, confused or sidetracked – and every ounce of energy is effective;
AND it helps you complete critical internet marketing tasks faster, more easily and, efficiently, and achieve better results than ever before

Key Features

Find out how to uncover “gold-nugget” keywords – each of these keywords can send hundreds, even thousands of free visitors to your site each day.
Stop attracting time-wasting tire-kickers to your web-site, and target the keywords in your market that real buyers are using right now.
Discover exactly how to beat the competition, and get front-page rankings in Google for high-traffic keywords in weeks or days – not months or years.

Download Your Free Copy!

Why do I need Market Samurai?
Every web-site needs traffic if it’s going to succeed – and the most reliable, consistent, profitable, high-volume source of traffic comes from search engines. All it takes is getting 4 SIMPLE things right! – the 4 Golden Rules … but 99% of sites get these 4 things wrong (without even realizing it at the time). As a result, the odds of success are stacked against them, making good profits (not even big profits) becomes a massive struggle and, as a result, 99% of sites fail!

Download the complete list of 12 Essential Online Marketing Tools for 2012!

12 Essential Online Marketing Tools for 2012

Steinar — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:04:01 +0000

The list of products and services chosen for this year’s list are products that I use on a regular basis. Some of them are free and others are paid services. In my experience, the combination of these products provides a platform to execute online marketing campaigns more efficiently & effectively.

… thus, I am sharing them with you!

Listen as I explain this year’s lineup …

Listen or Download

This year’s list covers a broad range of leading products and services, including keyword research, email newsletter management, file storage, website hosting, contact management, image capture, video capture, mind mapping, social media, WordPress custom themes, online lead generation, membership site management and webinar hosting.

After 15 years of marketing online, it is clear to me that there is more than one way to get things accomplished. In the early days, I relied heavily on free tools and my own programming & marketing skills to make things happen. In almost every case, there is an alternative route, tool, application or service that is equally capable of getting the job done. Trust me, I’ve tried a lot of tools over the years!

How to add a Search Form in Navigation Bar for Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework

Steinar — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 22:10:16 +0000

The ability to add a search form in the main navigation menu bar of your WordPress blog is an awesome feature of the Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework. This really makes it so easy without any coding. I also like the ability to change the search form language and button text.

Click here to get your copy of the Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework now!

Adjust header tagline width in Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework

Steinar — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:41:38 +0000

This video shows you how to adjust the width of the header tagline in WordPress with the Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework. Sometimes your tagline is too long and this is one option to prevent your tagline from wrapping into two lines. This is pretty painful to accomplish on regular WordPress themes, but Catalyst makes it pretty easy.

Click here to get your copy of the Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework now!

How to add Google Webmaster Tools to Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework

Steinar — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:58:02 +0000

How to add Google Webmaster Tools to Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework. In this video I show you how easy it is to add the webmaster tools script. With other themes this process is not so obvious.

Click here to get your copy of the Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework now!

How to add sidebar content Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework

Steinar — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:51:16 +0000

Adding content to the sidebar of your WordPress site is a common task. Here I demonstrate how to add an image in the Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework.

Click here to get your copy of the Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework now!

Review of SEO options for Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework

Steinar — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:32:18 +0000

The Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework has a great set of built-in SEO options. In this video I show you some of the settings I use and how you might set up your site as well.

Learn more about Catalyst here!

How to install Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework

Steinar — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:51:35 +0000

The Catalyst WordPress Theme Framework is the best WordPress theme in my opinion. In this video, you’ll learn how to install Catalyst and start creating a highly customized website built on a WordPress blog.

Get a copy of Catalyst now!