The Open Source Marketer

Here are a few notes from John Pozadzides at OneMansBlog.com. He’s giving the presentation on 45 Ways to Power Up Your Blog at WordCamp Dallas 2008.

I’m not going to list all 45 tips in this update, but here are a few interesting ones for you.

1. Use English Names for Images
2. Descriptive and accurate titles are essential
3. Use title elements on every hypertext link
4. Pick the right theme (SEO over Eye Candy)
5. Web hosting affects your traffic - google traffic is affected by site performance (google could flood a slow server). StumbeUpon stops sending traffic to slow sites
6. Serve images from your own server and not Flickr or risk sending traffic to Flickr and not your own site. Images searches will go to where the site is stored.
7. Use a sitemap to tell Google where everything is on your site. Get the WordPress Site Map Plugin.
8. Post regularly, no less than 2-3 days. Post in advance. Keep 2-3 post buffer at all times, a week or two is even better if you can.
9. Always show related posts.
10. Use Print style sheets to make it easy for people to print your content.
11. Use deep linking by using keywords in the link text.
12. Have your own domain name. Don’t use typepad, blogger, or other sub-domain.
13. Create a podcast and/or publish a video to connect with your audience and make yourself real.
14. Pick a theme that loads quickly
15. Use wp super cache plugin to survive a digg front page appearance.
16. Use the link attraction factors plugin to find out if your post title is digg worthy.
17. Always include at least one image per post, period.

These are all great tips, but the grand finale was the best tickler and that was the Layered Technologies real-time analytics reporting tool from Woopra.com. I’m getting a beta account today as part of being an attendee of WordCamp Dallas 2008, so I’ll update you on all the yummy coolness once I have a chance to get in and use the tool.

Updating from WordCamp Dallas 2008

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Here is a short list of items that I took to WordCamp Dallas 2008 to document the event and post updates to the web. Of course, the list doesn’t include cables and adapters, but for the most part every thing I carried fit into a single school size backpack, including the 160 GB external mobile hard drive I carry for video editing.

Here’s the list:

1. iPhone for taking pictures, emailing, twittering, and uploading images.
2. MacBook for everything and it’s cool.
3. Wireless Device for a backup Internet connection (open WiFi was provided).
4. JVC Everio Digital Camcorder for live video capture and picture taking.
5. Twitterific for posting updates.
6. WordPress Blog for posting updates.
7. Jott.com for short mobile updates when typing is too much of a hassle.
8. Open Source Marketer Ning Community for image posting and keeping the community up to date.

You might be thinking, why in the world does he need all of these things and how could he possibly use all of them. The short answer is I didn’t use them all at the same time and maybe it was overkill, but what I planned for was to be over prepared. Bloggers and the average joe have become the reporters and press of this generation and if you want to be serious you have to take things seriously.

Updating from WordCamp Dallas 2008

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Next Speaker is:

John Pozadzides from
OneMansBlog.com

Here are some of the new announcements from the WordCamp Dallas 2008 event here in Frisco Texas.

Not only is WordPress.org getting a refresh, but WordPress 2.5 was also released today.

Media Management:

Media upload is totally redesigned with the ability to upload multiple items at one time.

Image Handling:

You can tag your images on your desktop and then upload them to WordPress and it will pull out the image information automatically so you don’t have to re-enter the information.

Plugins:

Plugins can be automatically updated without the need to manually download the files and upload them to your server. Whether this works or not will depend on your server settings.

Pluggable Features:

WordPress 2.5 has several interesting new pluggable features. Everything from color schemes to post creation tool bar buttons is pluggable in WP 2.5.

Hacking Prevention:

All WordPress 2.5 passwords are now salted and stretched to prevent hacking. Before the security was a straight MD5 Hash. What hackers used to do was to hack an old WordPress blog and then download the user database so that even if the blogger updated their WordPress instance, the hackers could still get back in. So, update to WP 2.5, keep your blog updated, and just for good measure, always always change your username and password if you get hacked. Hopefully the new WP security will help prevent hacking.

WordPress 2.6 Future Vision:

The growth of WordPress since 2006 has been virtually exponential. Both the user community and the develop community continues to grow and as it does we can only expect for it to become more entrenched in the lexicon of publishing online. WorPress is being used as The blogging platform of choice and it’s being used as the foundation for CMS systems.

Updating from WordCamp Dallas 2008,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Would anyone visit your website if they could see it first? There are widgets today that will let you see a site before you visit them. But, they don’t easily let you compare sites side by side in full view.

Well, there is a new visual search engine on the horizon that lets you pick through thousands of websites without actually visiting any of them and it does it in an iTunes album over sort of way. I came across the search engine a few days ago and I signed up for their beta program.

They just opened up the beta program tonight to the public and accounts are going fast. As I type this 100 accounts have already been claimed. If you’re interested in trying it out you should go there now before all the accounts are gone.

I have mine and I plan to do a series of videos on the service in the coming days. It’s totally awesome and I already have a few ideas of how you can use it in beta. I’m off to WordCamp for the weekend so it will be next week before I can create them.

In the meantime you can play with the tool.

Have fun,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

P.S. I’m going to WordCamp in Frisco Texas this weekend and I’ll be posting updates
to the Open Source Marketer Community, so be sure to look for those.

- C

You may have heard about the South By SouthWest event down in Austin Texas. It was a week long event that has historically been a music related event, but has added topics around blogging and media.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend, but I heard a lot of popular blogging names were there. It would have been a great chance to mix it up with other motivated people because getting to know people face to face will always be a great way to build solid long term relationships.

I really enjoy talking with focused like minded people so, you can imagine how excited I am about attending WordCamp this weekend in Frisco, Texas. The blogging event has been on my calendar for a couple of months now and at last glance, 130 bloggers are registered to attend.

In case you haven’t heard of the event, it is a two day WordPress blogging event that focuses on blog reader and developer topics.

Over the two days we are scheduled to talk about topics like WordPress 2.5, how to handle content theft, building blogging influence, seo for bloggers, the business of blogging, and testing with WordPress.

Lorelle VanFossen is scheduled to deliver some of the material related to WordPress Power Tips. Her blog has been a great source of information for me as I’ve tweaked my WordPress blog from it’s original template to what you see today.

Her blog was especially helpful when I upgraded to WordPress 2.3, so I’m hoping for an opportunity to personally thank her for the great information she provides on her blog.

Overall it promises to be a great two days. I plan to report live from the event and I’ll be posting pictures to the Open Source Marketer Community. So be sure to look for those starting this Saturday.

If there is an event in your area or a major event that you can plan to attend, then I highly recommend that you plan to be there. I’ve had the opportunity to meet and make friends with people that I wouldn’t have had access to otherwise by attending events. Even free events have been a good source for making contacts.

For the most part people are very open at these events because they are there to meet other people and share information too. So, if you’ve ever wondered how you can meet people within your industry, attending events is a great way to make those connections.

If you’re in the Dallas area this weekend and would like to attend a blogging event, then there’s still time to register. If you already plan to attend, then look me up while you’re there and we can sit and have a coffee together. I hope to see you there.

Going to camp,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Recently, while I was buying a Private Labels Rights (PLR) package from one of my favorite freelance writers, I had a self-proclaimed creative idea for advertising online businesses.

I originally posted the idea in the Open Source Marketer Community Forum, but I thought it was worth posting on the blog as well. Basically, the idea is to put your product offer or advertisement at the end of someone’s autoresponder signup process.

If your not familiar with the autoresponder signup process, let me explain. A professional autoresponder service provides the ability to create mailing list signup forms that can be copied onto blogs, webpages and the like.

The form is often used in combination with a free offer to entice visitors to join a mailing list. When someone enters their name and email address into the form, they are presented with a webpage telling them to check their email for a confirmation link.

The visitor checks their email, clicks the confirmation link, and they are presented with another webpage that confirms that they have completed the opt-in process.

This is what’s known as a double opt-in signup because it requires the interested visitor to hand over their name and email address (opt-in number one) and then click a link in their email to confirm they want to receive email from the list owner (opt-in number two).

When you sign up for a newsletter or mailing list you usually see these standard set of notices. After completing the signup form, you see a page that tells you to check your email, and you get a page that confirms your opt-in status when you click the confirmation link in your email. It happens like clock work.

However, most new marketers (heck even experienced ones) leave money on the table by not customizing these notification pages. They just use the default pages that are provided by the autoresponder service and they miss out on opportunities to further promote their own or related products and services.

What they should be doing is putting a one time offer on that final confirmation page to capture a sale from someone who was interested enough to double opt-in to their mailing list.

Here’s where you come in. Since that list owner is not fully using their autoresponder series to it’s fullest potentional, why not contact that list owner and ask to put your custom offer or message on that confirmation page?

Then your message will be seen by every person who double opts in to their list. Depending on the offer and the message you provide you might be able to get in front of a lot of people and not directly complete with the list owner.

If the list owner is interested in affiliate marketing, then you could offer them a percentage of sale. Or you might do well to negotiate a flat monthly fee or a per visitor fee. The right mix will depend on their past opt-in numbers and the conversion rate on your product or service.

This is just an idea and worth a think about, considering how many people don’t use that space today. Who knows, you might be able to get advertising space that is cheaper per visitor than Pay Per Click advertising.

Looking for an edge,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Today I’m opening up a brand new web 2.0 social networking piece for Open Source Marketer. I am totally excited about it and I want you to be a part of it too.

The social networking site is geared at connecting Internet Entrepreneurs to help everyone learn how to market online as quickly as possible. There is so much going on these days that it just doesn’t make sense to try and do everything alone.

Go there now and sign up and you’ll see everything I’m about to write about:

http://opensourcemarketer.com/go/social

Hopefully you’ve been watching how social networking and video have exploded. Well, they’re about to get even bigger. If the blog killed the website, then social networking and rich media are going to kill the blog, or at least change the way you think about content creation.

Social networking sites are huge and growing in popularity every day. One report I read said that a social networking site like Facebook draws more site visitors per day than Google! Now that’s saying a lot and with the maturing of technologies like Open Social, social sites are going to continue to dominate much of the Internet’s attention.

Since last year when Facebook announced that they were allowing people to create applications that could be displayed inside Facebook I’ve been listening to the social networking buzz. And now, as MySpace launches social applications, I’m seeing that the next step is to jump in and be an active part of the social networking scene.

That’s exactly why I decided it was time to start the Open Source Marketer Social Networking Community. Make sure you understand what I am saying here. This IS the time to get involved and learn what you need to do to grow a strong online business while everyone is trying to learn how to use the tools. If you think the wave has already passed and you missed it, your wrong.

Now is the time.

The doors are open so come join us. I’ve posted videos to the community and a lot more will be posted in the coming days and weeks. Be sure to post your own audio, videos, blog posts, and pictures after you get logged in. Everything you need to set up camp is available on your profile page, so let me know if you have questions.

Also, be sure to start a conversation in the community forum to start learning and sharing with other Internet Entrepreneurs right away.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Rock On!

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

PS. The 100th person to sign up for the community gets a 1 hour conference call with me where I will answer your questions, or I’ll tell you personally how I’ve been using niche stores to make money online.

- Charles