February 25, 2009 By

Automated Article Posting to WordPress Blogs

Nikola Jankovic recently released a new version of the Automatic Blog Plugin for WordPress, which syndicates free articles from article directories, and posts them to your WordPress blog according to categories.

If you’ve been reading ProfitBlogger for some time now you may have got a similar (but now dysfunctional) plugin called Easy Blogs Pro by Kim Standerline. Automatic Blog Plugin works along the same concept of using free articles as automated blog content, but I think it’s much simpler to use.

While testing, I started receiving my first articles almost immediately. First, upload the plugin to your WP blog’s plugins folder and activate it. Then, you’ll see the main configuration screen, I’ll mention the important parts here:

automatic-blogs

Configuring Your Automatic Blog

Although technically you can choose to receive all articles from all categories, I strongly recommend you find a niche for your blog and only accept related articles.

From the main niche, create sub-categories on your blog and choose to syndicate related articles. You can also select the amount of articles you want to syndicate, and I recommend you keep this to below 10 if you want your blog to appear “organic” to search engines.

If you want to super-target the type of articles you get, you can also enter related keywords. But keep in mind this may result is fewer articles being delivered to your blog.

Monetizing Your Article Blogs

Of course the easiest way to make money from these type of articles blogs is with Google AdSense, but you can also easily use the Ninja Affiliate plugin to automatically convert keywords into affiliate links.

Before you decide to use this plugin, make sure you understand the concept of auto-pilot blogging, and how this differs from other models like niche blogging and authority blogging.

Apart from my own WordPress plugin that has been put on the backburner (perhaps indefinitely), Nikola’s plugins is perhaps the most straightforward and works like a charm.

Get It Here: Automatic Blog Plugin for WordPress

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , ,
February 10, 2009 By

Yes, We Crashed Maybank2u

A lot of marketers like to claim that their server crash during a product launch. Our servers are quite ok. Instead we crashed Maybank2u’s site twice in one day.

image

Too much traffic from Rahsia ClickBank. But it’s ok since they sent out a customized message and apologized for their slack. I wonder what they do with all their servers?

Filed Under: Internet Marketing Malaysia Tagged With: , ,
February 9, 2009 By

My First Video Ever in Bahasa Melayu

Rahsia ClickBank

Earlier this year I decided to launch a few products related to the Malaysia market, something I have not really done since the days of Chapter-M. The first of these projects is Rahsia ClickBank, a fast system to making money from ClickBank designed and developed specifically for Malaysians.

And because of that, a lot of stuff needed to be translated to Bahasa Melayu, including me :)

So today I tried to create a promotional video purely in Bahasa and that’s what I ended up with. Not bad right, but you have no idea how many takes and super-edits I had to do to get just that. It seems I have not really spoken BM in a long time, although I remember it used to be quite good.

Also, it’s pretty difficult to talk about Internet marketing in BM because of all the jargon. I need Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka to attend my internet marketing seminars :)

Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing, Podcast & Videos Tagged With: , , ,
February 6, 2009 By

Overnight Profits from Membership Sites

Membership sites are a great way to make money online, build a “community” of customers, and conquer a niche market. The problem is, there’s a lot of work to be done to retain members, add new content, and reach new customers.

overnight

My friend Kidino’s Overnight Membership Site promises to give you exactly what you want – profitable membership sites minus the hard work. The main idea of this product is how to build membership sites with free/ user-generated content.

It comes in a DVD shipped to your doorstep.

Get more info here: Overnight Membership Site

Filed Under: Ebook Marketing Tagged With: ,
February 3, 2009 By

Turning 29 And How It Feels

180

I just turned 29 this year, on February 1st. One more year to the big 30 and all I can say is WTF!

Time passes by so fast, and the whole of last year I was busy getting engaged and getting married. One significant thing is I did manage to buy an condo unit in PJ, and I expect to move in in the next few months. I also remember a few products I did last year, but the rest is still a blur.

Anyways, I had a small and cute birthday cake this year, thanks to my wife Sheila.

Filed Under: General Tagged With:
February 2, 2009 By

Twitter for Profit Blogging

Twitter says, “Twitter is a service for friends, family and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing”?

twitter

But there also resides a business perspective to it which has to be strategized and to make twitter from just a social networking media to a profit blogging tool. Among a plethora of social networking sites which are used profitably for business, Twitter is one of the most used and successful social media practices today. There has been a remarkable transformation in the marketing environment from owning a website to direct marketing through personalized emails and messages to the current trend of using social media for free publicity and marketing of one’s own blog.

The key analysis lies here in understanding how Twitter can help an individual to promote his services/website/blog and the particular ways of implementing it. Twitter is about sharing your experiences online and helping people gain something from reading it. Sounds simple. Isn’t it? The key lies in a sound understanding of how to twitter.

As BlogForProfit writes, “Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (or tweets; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (SMS), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or twhirl”.

The most obvious question to ask here would be the reasons for someone opening a twitter account. The reasons are aplenty.

Micro-blogging tool is the most effective use of twitter where in you can post anything within 140 characters and increase the interest levels about the topic giving in a link to the original article. It is being used effectively to promote one’s own blog posts by broadcasting it in a ‘micro blogging platform’. There are WordPress plugins which do this for you as soon as you hit the publish button on your WP blog! This short medium can be used by the followers and get broadcasted, subscribed and shared by people by getting involved in a conversation. It also enables people to vividly discuss and opine with the topics that you post on our blog giving them a platform to communicate and converse with each other in their own network. Though twitter is a self-policing site; some would prefer calling it a ‘decentralized social network’ with no formal rules, but there are a few rules of engagement which everyone should know and implement accordingly.

The marketing benefits a blogger can achieve by using twitter are –

  1. Linking your blog to your twitter profile. All great and successful bloggers have it.
  2. Use Twitter Tools to post your tweets from your blog. It increases visibility and traffic onto your blog.
  3. Promote twitter on your blogs and vice versa.
  4. dding plug-ins which enable automatic tweet every time you post on your blog.
  5. Tweets can also be done if you do not post on your blog. The motive is to let your followers know anything interesting that you are doing.
  6. Reply to tweets you receive and build a network of your own.
  7. Basic Mantra for all marketers – Try and maintain long lasting relationships.

There are also a few basic strategies that companies/organizations/individuals can adopt to make their businesses successful by having an in-depth knowledge about the do’s and don’ts of Twitter. The specific strategies that need to be worked upon are;

  • Establishing professional repute
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Implementing promotional tools and generating sales
  • Achieving Advocacy
  • Efficient Event management and coverage

With the exponential increase in social networking sites and their immensely successful contribution to the business blogosphere, Twitter has already made its mark among them. And the question about its sustainability to business blogging and profit generation, I am sure that Twitter will keep tweeting. You may follow me @praval :)

If you’re looking for a better Twitter marketing solution do check out Viral Twitter Profits.

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , , , , ,
February 1, 2009 By

The need of a Corporate blog

What is a corporate blog?

Corporate blogs are published by companies to confer and share their views with the netizens. Off late, there has been a plethora of corporate blogs on the web, some of which are extremely successful. For sure, this trend has definitely caught up in the blogosphere.

Corporate blogging has its share of detractors too. Many people would opine with the view that corporate blogs are just a PR exercise and only aimed at promotion of the company, creating goodwill and maintaining a good brand image. Few others would feel that these corporate blogs lack transparency and thus do not show the real snapshot of the working in the company.

But a majority of people find corporate blogs helpful in more than just one way. To cite a few reasons;

  1. There is a lot of intrinsic information accessible on these blogs which enable us to understand the scene behind the curtains. It adds on to our knowledge about the particular work culture in an organization and the implementation of its policies with other details.
  2. There are times when a corporate blog aims at creating a conversation with the readers and helps in initiating a discussion which is beneficial for both the parties involved. These discussions enhance interest and knowledge while explaining their own issues. Google, Twitter, Garmin and Zillow are some of the best examples.

twitter-blog

Google’s blog is one of the most read blogs and ranks itself in the Top 50 at Technorati.

google-blog

  1. These blogs often give a company a personality to interact with the readers which is indeed a commendable achievement.
  2. Most of the times corporate blogs are ethical because they understand that the stakes involved are too high. Not only does it act as good platform for external marketing to clients and customers, the internal marketing to employees are also well implemented. As a result two things improve by leaps and bounds, employee relations and client relations.
  3. Corporate blogs are also aimed at creating awareness about a new product or a service, sustains long lasting relationships with employees and clients, spread word of mouth and thus it tries to create a good business strategy on the whole.
  4. It does all good to the stakeholders as well when a corporate blog is able to develop thought leadership and spread the message the company’s board wants to.
  5. It has become one of the most important tools for an internet marketing strategy. It integrates it function with website marketing and offline campaigns which further help in increasing the rankings through good search engine visibility.

On the other hand a study ( To download the free report, click here) says that corporate blogs are nothing much but extensions of a company’s marketing efforts. Another study showed that the corporate blogs are the least trusted source of information.

study

Thus an ideal corporate blog should basically act as a dialogue with its customers. It is necessary to understand the nuances of corporate blogging and know the tips to create a winning corporate blog. As every coin has two sides and so does corporate blogging. For us to better understand a company’s vision, objectives, strategies, activities etc. it is absolutely essential to show the thumbs up to the corporate bloggers. It’s all about unleashing of an idea virus about turning “The Corporation” into a human being. Difficult, but lets give it an honest try.

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , , ,