Ok so I have been working on this for the last week and I still have not found a good customer phone support solution, so maybe someone that reads this blog can help me.

My problem: I have 3 totally different business that we need to answer customer support phone calls for. Right now they are all using the same phone number which is Skype. I need to a way so that all 3 numbers go to just 1 phone (preferably a cell phone). I need to be able to see who is calling the phone and what number they are calling so we can answer them appropriately.

Solutions I have Found:

Below are some solutions I have found.

Normal Lan Line With Multiple Lines: This is a possibility, the only problem is that it would cost like 50-70$ per month because of the different lines and from long distance callers, I get a lot of callers from India, Japan, etc.

SecondVoice.com: This company makes it so you can have 2 numbers on the same phone, I am not sure if they allow 3 phone numbers. That is the only problem with these guys.

3 Different Phones: This is a possibility, but it would be a pain in the ass.

Those are the only good solutions I have found so far. I looked into using Twilio but with that solution I would need to do a bunch of coding… which I don’t have time for

If you know of a better solution then let me know, I’m open for all ideas

A lot of people ask me how I plan a to rank websites on google, yahoo, and bing for certain search terms. So I will explain the process here for everyone that asks.

Before You start

Before you ever start any SEO link building campaign you must have a few things done;

1. Website completed: Your website must be completed and the on-site SEO work is done. Using sitemaps, seo friendly navigations, fresh & unique content, text links within your content, seo friendly meta descriptions, etc etc will help a ton with your off-site link building methods.

2. Domain: Google now relys heavily on the domain trust factor these days. I assume that because of all of the sblogs and websites set up purely for spam which lead Google to now look at the domains past record, domains whois info, other domains that the owner has, nameservers, IP address, etc etc. Before you start your link building you should double check to see if your whois info is correct and double check anything else related to the domain.

Once your website is done and your domains info is all sorted out then you can start planning.

Set Your Goals

The first part is pretty important, before you spend any of your time, effort, or money on the link building then you should have a plan on what exactly you will be doing to achieve your rankings. Your link building plan does not need to be written out, in fact I never write out any of my plans (even business plans), all that info is stored in my head were I can continually tweak the plan. If you would like the write out your plan then go right ahead, just make sure that you have a plan before you start working.

How do I plan? Like I said before I plan everything out in my head, I use Google’s free keyword search tool and find the top 5 keywords that would be decently easy to rank for but has enough volume to make a profit. Finding converting keywords like this is kind of a pain in the ass, I have been doing this for a while and I have started many many different projects on the web that I can usually tell what kind of keywords convert and how to find them, but keyword research is a whole different blog post. If you are new to SEO then I would suggest first making your website and then using Adwords to find converting keywords, that is a really great way to easily find converting keywords, the only downfall is that it costs money to use.

After you find your keywords you are going to need to plan your link building efforts. Most of the time I usually let a domain name sit for 1-3 months before I start a project, the older a domain is the more Google trusts it, so the longer you let a domain sit with some relevant content then the easier it will be to rank it when you start your website. Of course that is a whole different blog post as well (I don’t use Google search when doing research about SEO that specifically targets Google), Google puts a lot of weight on the domain name, but I will go over that later.

When I plan my link building I usually start out targeting 1 or 2 of the 5 search terms that I initially found. I always start out slow with my link building, the more natural it looks the better the results will be. I use a lot of different methods but the ones shown below are the most popular ways to start link building. I always start slow and work my way up with the amount of links I add to the website each month. During the first 1-3 months I dont do much link building at all, at the end of the 3 months I usually only have 100-200 backlinks according to yahoo.

After about 3 months or so your website should be pretty established in Google and your current rankings should not fluctuate** that much. But that is about to change. On the 3rd month of your link building effort you should start to increase your link building efforts pretty heavily. instead of just 50-100 links a month you will now need to start building up 200 or so links a month, and also start targeting the long tailed URL. Below is an example of a long tailed URL:

Buy white ice cream
domain.com/buy-white-ice-cream.html

** Fluctuating On Google SERP’s

I can tell how far a long a website is in the ranking process by how much the website fluctuates on Google. If the website fluctuates a lot then that means that Google does not think that the website is the best match for the search term (in other words… you need more links and/or better on-site seo). After a while the fluctuating will slow down, that is when you can really get the link building going because Google now feels like the website is a decent match for the search term (this doesn’t mean you are on page 1, you can be in this phase even on page 4 etc). Then after some time your website will almost never fluctuate, this is when you must take a look at your on-site seo work to see what you need to do to improve it and also work on getting good long lasting one-way links to your website (you can be on this phase on page 2-3, if you are then look at your on-site seo).

How long does it typically take me to rank?

The amount of time it takes me to rank a website depends a lot on the search term and the website. I normally start out with a website that has been sitting idle for 3 or so month, it would probably take me 1 year and 6 months before I get on page 1 for the good keywords I usually go for (IE: keywords that make me more then 3-4k a month from). One such example is a keyword that my buddy that is in the same niche is making 10-15k a month from being ranked #6, I just barley got onto page 2 for the keyword after about 1 year and 1 month, I bet it will take me another 5 or so month before I am on page 1 and my website isn’t fluctuating a lot between page 1 and 2.

I just barley ranked on page 1 for a very high traffic keyword that is making good money, that took me 1 year and 2 months to get on page 1. SEO is not a quick way to make money, but I use adwords/email marketing/forums etc to help. An example of a keyword like this would be “buy baby chicks” (just a random keyword).. it would probably take me 1 year and 5-8 months to get on page 1, and I would spend a lot of money to get there, but I bet you that the people on page one are making 10k plus a month from that term.

However, small terms like “bantams baby chicks” or “buy bantams baby chicks” would only take 4-6 months or so to rank a new site for the term, but that term wont make to much money, maybe a few hundred dollars a month, but if you add those terms up then you can make some good money

After I Have Started

After I start my link building campaign I am always checking my stats to see what needs improvement and what else I need to do to rank. I use Authority Labs to track my keywords stats, its a great program that has a free trial version if you are interested. I check that Authority Labs stats everyday to see how my search terms are doing and what tweaks I need to make for the day. Since SEO is a slow way to do your marketing you kinda have to target a whole lot of terms to make any good money, so keeping track of all your terms is a must.

After I first start my link building I break my efforts down to 3 different phases;

Phase One:

This phase should only be started after your website is done and the on-site SEO work is done. You should do some simple link building such as a small amount of blog comments, directory submissions, and some social bookmarkings. If you are interested in a recurring plan then this is the one I always use (Use that plan for 3-4 months then upgrade).

During the same time you will want to start hitting up other webmasters in your niche about link exchanges, try to get a few link exchanges on very related websites, dont go over board with this, and also do your research and make sure you are not linking bad neighborhood websites or else that will hurt your efforts.

During this time I ussally just do a small amount of link building and then wait for a little while, then after about 3-4 months I move onto the second phase.

Phase Two:

After about 3-4 months of only building up a few links I then put my link building in overdrive and get my site up to page 2-3 in Google before I start my next phase (I can tell which phase I am on by the fluctuating). Below are some different ways to build links during the second phase:

Article Sumissions
Directory Submissions
Blog Commenting
Social Bookmarking
Squidoo Lens/Wordpress Blogs
Review websites
Paid Text Links (only on relevant websites, and not site wide)
Wordpress blog sponsoring
Press Releases
Blog Post Sponsoring

This is the plan I usually use on a recurring basis for 4-5 months.

There are lots of different ways to build links, but the above are some of the popular ones. You will probably need to do the second phase for a little while, I usually spend at least 5+ months on this phase for my bigger keywords. During that time you will want to build as much relevant links as you can while continuously tweaking your on-site seo work to get the best effect. I also watch my visitors closely to see what exactly they do on the website when they come from the keywords I am targeting, I use the average pageviews per visitor to set goals that I work on (like set a goal of 3 pageviews per visitor).

Phase Three

After sometime you will be able to tell that your website isn’t fluctuating as much as it used to, and hopefully by this time you are on page 2 or even 1. Phase 3 is the last phase and this time I usually try to keep my ranking (not make it fluctuate so much) by doing some special link building.

I first downgrade my developerhut campaign to this one. I then also start trying to find different special ways to get links on very related web pages. I simply search google and find web pages that are very related to mine that I am trying to rank, I would then find a way to get my link on those pages somehow.. either by buying them, trading for something (like writing a guest post), email them asking for a free link, or anything else I can do to get more high quality one way links.

The last phase is all about the quality links, and not the quantity of the links. Since your website is on page 2 you just need to focus on the relevant one-way links and your on-site SEO.

Well I am done writing for today, I hope you enjoy this post. If you have any questions then leave a comment, and if you have any suggestions then leave a comment, I am interested in what you have to say.

I used to use sub-domains a ton for my websites, since Google used to treat a sub-domain like its own website it was pretty easy to rank sub-domains for small terms. I would do the link building work for each subdomain ( keyword.domain.com ) and then rank the sub-domains for long tailed keywords. Well Google recently changed something to make it harder to rank sub-domains for search terms, so 2 weeks ago I switched 3 of my websites over from the sub-domain way to a normal link structure like domain.com/keyword.php.

It took me 1 whole day per website to get everything changed over including the 301 redirect work, server dns changes, updating the links within the site, etc. I then did a bunch of link building work after making the changes and as of today I have doubled my traffic for those 3 websites and also double my revenue (Jan is killing Dec revenue wise ). I am still not even half way done with the link building work, so that is good news

But anyways I am not sure why Google changed how they look at sub-domains, but I suggest that you change over any website that rely on sub-domains for SEO, I would switch over to the normal link structure way, it has doubled my traffic.

Anyone have any experience with your sub-domains losing there SERP’s ranking recently?

I am always testing new link building methods to see what works and what does not work. I never ever get my information from forums, blog, word of mouth, or anything else like that. I learn from doing, not by reading, and because of that I am always testing out SEO myths myself. Below are a few myths that I am currently testing.

1. Google not only looks at your domains whois info (and past history, etc), but Google also looks at other domains that are owned by you to see how trust worthy you/your domains are.

I kinda of found this myth myself. In case you did not know, back in 2008 Google banned all of my websites that were on the same IP because I was selling text links (they even banned the websites that were not selling text links but were on the same IP). That was a huge pain in the ass so I broke my websites up and made them harder to find (however I know that if google wanted to find them… google can find them haha). Because of this reason I break my domains down into different whois names, either personal names or company names.

Now because I break my domains down like that, I have found out that google DOES track ALL of your websites (no matter the niche). I am not sure exactly how they track your websites however, it is either by the name on your whois, or the IP on your websites, or a combination of both, or maybe even something completely different… all I know is what Google knows a lot about you and ALL of your websites you have online.

So how do I know this for sure? Well I use fake names for my godaddy info when registering a new domain, I have at least 25 different godaddy accounts with all different whois info. Lately I have become lazy and I have started to register other domains using the existing godaddy accounts, instead of creating a whole new godaddy account. Well I have found out that it is a lot easier to rank websites when you have other existing websites already ranked that are using the godaddy account. So how could that be….. because Google looks at your other websites info to see how trustworthy you are.

Now this is just a myth, but I am researching it so see if it is true, and if it is true… how can I use it to my advantage? But if you disagree with me then please leave a comment because I am definably interested in what you have to say.

2. Subdomains

I used to love sub domains because Google treats them like they are there own domain. So I used to use sub domains for smaller niches and ranked each sub domain for the search term. Now google did something to make them harder to rank for, ever since July my sub domains have been slipping in the SERPs even though my link building plans have been the same. I am currently switching my sites over to a better link structure way, but I would like to know what google now does to sub domains? Does anyone have any ideas on what google is doing with sub domains in there index?

SEO Tip:

Here is a SEO tip for newbies… Google loves websites that have been around for a long time. So if you want to rank a website for a hard term then the best way is to buy an existing domain from 10+ years ago and build a site using that domain instead of a new one. Google loves old trustworthy domains!

I rather do SEO work for a website with 100 backlinks from 1998 then a website with 5k backlinks that is 8 months old… any day of the week.

But anyways, leave a comment if you have something to say… whether its good or bad I want to hear it

I thought it would be a good idea for both you and I if I were to recap 2009 on this blog. 2009 was a very crazy year for me… business model change, recession, coding, and stress are a few words that come up when I think of 2009.

Instead of writing a bunch of BS like “I had a great year because…” or “2009 was a bad year because..” I will post my company earnings for the year and then explain some big changes that happen during the year.

Overview of My Career

When I first started my company I made content based websites that used SEO to gain free traffic, and then I monetize the websites using advertising. As time went on content based websites started making me less and less money every month. In 2007 I launched by first real e-commerce site which was BuyBlogComments.com (I had other smaller sites, but I consider that one my first real one because the backend is custom coded.). Then during the years of 2007-2008 I slowly moved my business model from advertising revenues to e-commerce sales. In 2008 I got really focused and learned php along with making better business decisions. I focused my attention on 3 aspects of my business which are;

1. Backend Reporting: I created a backend that gives me up-to-date reporting on all of my main projects. It has been very very useful.

2. DeveloperHut: I focused a lot of my attention on building up DeveloperHut to make it so I can use my own services. I want to be able to use my own services to market my other e-commerce websites.

3. Network Of E-Commerce Websites: I found out that diversity is my safety net. Not only do I run DeveloperHut but I have my own network of e-commerce websites that make 50% of my revenues (or so… keep reading).

I really didn’t get to focused on those 3 aspects until August of 2008, since that time I have devoted 110% of my attention to those 3 aspects so I can build up a proper company.

Overview Of 2009

During the year of 2009 I got a few things done;

1. Changed Business Models: I dont make much money at all from YPN, Google Adsense, or anything else like that now. I now make my money from e-commerce stores.

2. DeveloperHut Completed: I still have a bunch of work left to do on this website, however I feel that I have developerhut right were I want it, all I need to do now is increase efficiency, increase marketing, increase quality on products, and add new products. In 2009 I build the whole backend from scratch, added like 10 new products, and got the current system down to a science… in other words I got the website infrastructure finished.

3. Network Of E-Com Sites Done: As of now I have a small network of online stores that are 100% done. It took me all of 2009 to get them set up and turning a profit. I still have lots of work to do, but now I get to focus my attention into marketing them and making more money from them.

The Chart

The chart below is the gross revenue for all of my projects combined. I started this February and some of the chart is wrong, but it is close enough for now (when I get some time I will update the bad code that produces the chart). So the chart below is the months February-December.

Small Recap Of 2009

March: From March – June it was rough. That was the time that rev was low because I was switching from content-based websites to e-commerce stores. March was the month that I first started setting up my network of e-commerce websites. At that time DeveloperHut was still a new company and the backend wasn’t that advanced at all. During that time I spent most of my days working my ass off on coding and building up products, along with diversifying ways that profit comes in.

May: If you haven’t noticed…May was my worst month! The reason is because I was having trouble with a merchant, which made earnings go way down. It took me 3 weeks to find a merchant and get business going again. I have learned a valuable lesson there and I now diversify my merchant accounts.

June – July: I got the merchant problem sorted and started using adwords and SEO to rank my e-commerce stores… thus traffic and sales go up.

August: This was one of my most stressful months, besides the first 5 months of 2009 haha. During this time I diversified my e-commerce stores and broken them down to smaller websites that focus on certain niches within the niche (if that makes sense). During this time I had a small problem with one of my adwords campaign which hurt sales for 2 weeks, which accounts for the slight downside, which also goes into Sept a little. Also during this time I launched most of the major products on DeveloperHut, which meant a LOT of coding.

October: October was a good month, I got everything sorted and sales were pretty steady. However I maxed out Adwords spending for ALL of my stores. I focus on small niches that dont get to much traffic, so its easy for me to max out the traffic I can get from adwords. I have had the same campaigns running since March, so during the time from March – October I was continuously editing my campaigns to increase traffic and decrease the costs, and at the same time making sure that I am profiting.

November – December: Both of these months were pretty good, however I would have liked to have a steady increase in revenue during that time… so I guess I failed there. During this time I was focused on finishing up the DeveloperHut backend so I can hire someone for customer support. I also started getting really heavily into the SEO work for all of my websites, I am guessing that it will take 2-3 months before that work starts to pay off, so sadly revenue didn’t go up that month from all of that work

So looking at the chart you can say that I had a good year.. well I had a fine year, but I have a lot of work to do before I am happy with my online work. During the months of June – Now I would focus my attention on just one aspect of the business instead of all of the aspects, in other words I was spreading myself to thin. I worked my ass of during that time to automate as much as I can so I can focus on everything else. Because of that problem my revenues from each aspect would fluctuate each month. An example; lets say the DeveloperHut part makes $10,000 per month and the e-commerce stores make $10,000 per month which means that my company makes $20,000 per month. That means that each aspect was making 50% of the total revenue.

Right now each aspect fluctuates every month, I am currently spread to thin and I need to hire someone for customer support so I can focus on the big picture. If I can focus my attention to both aspect equally I know that my business will increase revenue by 40-50% this year. I know this because each aspect fluctuates so much each month. An example is instead of each aspect making $10,000 each which is 50% of the total revenue, but instead of each aspect making 50% of the total revenue every month, it is something like 70/30 one month, and then the very next month it would be like 40/60. The 70 part of the 70/30 of $20,000 is $14000… and the 60 part of the 40/60 is $12000.

So because of each aspect fluctuating (and developing a pattern) I can get a good idea of how much I can make on each aspect if I could focus my attention solely on marketing and building the business. From the above example we have 2 numbers, which are $14000 and $12000. Lets say that I am making $20,000 per month now, and if I max out the marketing for each aspect (and also focus my attention on them) I would be making $26000 per month, which is a 30% increase.

So as I move into the year 2010 I know that I can increase my revenues easily, but I have lots and lots of work to do before I get there. 2009 was a good year because I got my businesses infrastructure completed, now I get to focus my attention to the marketing aspect. However, 2009 was one of the most stressfully years of my life, I worked all the time and was always stressed about something. But as you can see I got everything going well…. now I can relax and have some fun by focusing my attention on the marketing part of the business… which is what I love to do.

So there you go, a recap of last year. Let me know your thoughts, I read all comments posted here

A lot of people are blogging there goals for 2010 and then looking back at 2009 to see how those goals worked out. A lot of the same people figure out that they failed a lot of 2009’s goals. Wonder why? Its because short term goals work better then long term goals. I have always made very very short term goals, along with having long term goals. I have a to-do list that I make every 3-4 days, on the to-do list I have tasks such as “redo social bookmarking sales letter”, “update writers interface”, “do link building for X website” plus much more. I usually write 2 to-do lists a week, depending on the size of the work.

I find that a lot of people are blogging about there 2010 goals and how they are going to accomplish them. I guarantee that 80% of people that set goals like that will not be on the right track to accomplishing there goals by April.

I have been working for myself since 2006 (I must be doing something right) and during that time I have learned a lot about making goals. I plan my goals in 2 ways;

1. Long Term Goal: I set a long term goal, but I do not attach a date or time frame to it. An example of one of my long term goals is to hire someone for customer support and sales (it actually has been for 2+ year now haha).

2. To-Do Lists: I use to-do lists to set my short term goals (in other words, to get shit done). I believe that I should work smart and not hard, to do so I sit back before I work and think what exactly I should devote my time to. An example; instead of spending 3 hours a day to reply to 50 support emails a day, I rather spend 15 hours one time creating a system that will make it so I would only need to spend 30 mins a day replying to those 50 support emails. That is working smart and not hard. An example of one of my to-do list jobs is to finish updating the order editing system (which is a step I need to take to hire a customer support person)

Having a weekly to-do list will make sure you are on the correct track to accomplishing your long term goal. Instead of spending the time to make detailed long term goals, the energy is better spent in planning short term goals.

This is a pretty good guest post. If you have an ecommerce website I suggest that you look into targeting other languages to increase your sales.

The fundamentals of launching a simple, useful and user-friendly business web portal don’t take a great deal of time to master.

Some budding business owners may be naturals at it, whilst others may opt to farm out specific elements of the setting-up process, especially with aspects requiring some coding knowledge or significant insight into complex technical Web applications.

Regardless of what route a business takes towards developing its website, it’s essential to remember that the design part is just a small element of the process…the maintenance and management of the site is crucial too,

Moreover, there’s little point having a beautiful website that meticulously reflects all your business offerings, if nobody in the online community can find your site. And this is why you also have to market your website accordingly, to ensure your key target audience can find your site among the millions of other websites on the World Wide Web: identifying how to maximize your visibility on a very crowded internet should be a key consideration.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most effective internet marketing tools available to 21st century businesses and is an art worth mastering. There are a number of key steps that business owners can take to make sure their company’s website ranks highly on search engines for their industry’s most relevant key search terms, which are: on-page optimization (include keywords on your company website), link-building (get links to your website from ‘trusted’ websites) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

This would make for a full-on article in itself. From an international standpoint, however, there are a few factors you must consider in addition to the above.

Firstly, you must buy a locally hosted domain name in the target country. It may just be your company name with a local domain extension, for example .at in Austria or .nl in the Netherlands. From an SEO perspective, the location of your web hosting company is crucial as search engines use this data along with other factors such as domain extensions when determining overall search engine rankings in a specific country. Your web host’s server should be located in your target country, so be sure to ask this before committing.
This lays the foundation for you to translate your website into the desired language; however, there is a strong argument that says you shouldn’t translate the keywords. And here’s why.

A correct translation of a keyword isn’t necessarily what people use to search for services/products locally; they may use abbreviations, colloquialisms or a different word that means the same thing. So in the same way as you identify your industry’s highest ranking keywords for the English market, such as via Google’s free keyword finder, you have to research the keywords for each target country, to ensure your foreign language website is properly optimized.

Once you have your keywords identified for each country, you can then incorporate these into a professionally translated website. It’s important that native speakers are used to translate your website as it must exude professionalism in all your target markets.

English may still be the dominant language in terms of content on the Web, but the majority of the world’s internet users’ first language isn’t English. And this disparity creates a rather lucrative opportunity for those seeking to enter new markets: the competition for key search terms is much less on the non-English language internet, therefore it’s possible to achieve high search engine rankings far easier than in English.

So there’s a lot to consider when looking to market yourself to the international community. Building a quality website is one thing; but managing, maintaining and marketing it is another thing altogether and should be factored into any enterprise’s online strategy.

About the author

Christian Arno is founder and Managing Director of Lingo24, a global translation company that specializes in website localization.

With over a hundred full-time members of staff working across four continents, and a network of 4,000 translators across the globe, Lingo24 has clients in over sixty countries and translated over 33 million words in the past twelve months. They are on course for a turnover of $6m USD in 2009.

Wow I didn’t notice that my last blog post was on the 6th, time is flying bye!

First off, congrats to Wes for the acquisition of tracking202 to bloosky (I think its pronounces blue sky). Read techcrunch article here. Wes was one of the first people to help teach me php, he focuses on the security part of php more then anyone else I know. Congrats to him and I cant wait to see what he will be working on next

Now second… I have been working a ton. This month I added Wordpress blog and squidoo lens creation to Developer Hut. A few weeks back we also added our All-In-One packages which seem to be a hit. And I am currently working on a product called “Forum Marketing” at which my writers will go into niche related forums and leave your websites in the body of forum threads somehow. We have been working on that product for months now, hopefully we will get it launched this week. Getting all the testing and instructions writing is what takes the most time, and with that product we have been testing new ways to get pasted mods and spam filters. Which is a pain in the ass.

The part that is taking the most time with adding those products is integrating it into the backend, such as making it work with the all-in-one plans and our recurring plans. For every product I add I need to create a backend for the particular product so the customer can view and update their orders, and also a backend for the writers to view the orders. It also has to be integrated to work with the recurring and all-in-one plans. I also need to create a paypal ipn and also update the credit card and google checkout apis for every product I add. I also need to write up the instructions for the writers to follow, and add information about the products so customers can get info about the products. And thats not all, after all that is done I still have to do all the testing, which takes time.

After we launch the forum marketing product then I will be done creating and adding new products to the website, I am tired of all that work (getting burnt out). I will now be focused on updating existing products, making the backend more efficient, hiring sales and customer support people, and also focusing on the marketing part of the business. I will be waiting to see how these products work out before I start adding new ones.

I have also been very busy finishing up the resellers accounts. It is all done expect for the approving orders part and some images for the reseller accounts page. As soon as the writer gets done with the sales letter we will be launching it, at this point I am thinking it will be 100% live on Tues. We will be sending an email out when it is, if you would like to subscribe to the newsletter then use the free seo tool on the sidebar (the email will prob be sent after the holidays)

I still need to start and finish a order washing system to make it so I have to manually review all international orders, to help reduce on the fraud orders. I will also be updating the list of country’s I sell to, I will now only be selling to country’s that are approved by ebay/paypal (on their list). That should not take to long, maybe a few hours of work. I will probably be going that tonight if COD 6 doesn’t take up my time haha.

It is also the holidays months, this is the best time of the year for most people. Just this month I can tell business has picked up a ton (Im talkin a 10% increase from last month baby), I cant wait until black Friday! A few of the websites I built over the summer are starting to turn a profit, last months the websites I made probably only made 200$ total for the whole month, now this month some of the websites are pulling 60$ a day. The websites all target smaller items that are great for little presents, and I market them that way, and they seem to be doing good. I will probably make more for next year to, the only problem is that during the non-holiday months their income is shitty.

I don’t really have to much to blog about today, I wanted to throw something up because I haven’t blogged in a long ass time. I hope everyone has a fun holiday season, and if your on COD6 add me on xbox live its “jonwaraas” you cant miss it haha.

As some of you might know I was having problems with some hackers getting pasted my current API’s and somehow making orders for pennies (just last week someone made a $200 order for $0.01, of course I refunded and canceled the order, but its still a pain). So the other day I coded up a simple validation script, all the script does is check to see if the product_id was filled out and if so then it will check which product_id got submitted and then grab the price from that.

The code:

}elseif($_POST['product_id'] == ‘PRODUCTID’) {

if($size >= 1 && $size <= 3) {
$price_pre = '19.99';
}elseif($size >= 4) {
$price_pre = ‘18.99′;
}else{
$price_pre = ‘0′;
}

$product = ‘Product Name Here’;
$product_id = ‘PRODUCTID’;

}

Like I said before, the code is simple. But it is A LOT more secure then before. I will also be updating the code even more to make it even more secure. The code above simply checks which product_id is being purchased, and then it will grab the variables such as the price, product name, and even the real product_id from it.

Paypal also has a feature that lets you check if it is actually paypals server sending you the variables, the coder I outsource to is working on this and also looking to see if there is anything like this for my other 2 merchants. Which would be very helpful.

Fraud is a huge pain in the ass (even though I only ship the the customers billing address, I am still not sure how they get pass that). Just yesterday I got a charge back for an order which was fraud. I sent it to Belarus, so it was 100% my fault for not checking the order. So this weekend I have to code up a “sale washing” system which will help me validate my sales before my drop shippers send them out.

I am now getting about 1 fraud order a day, just today I got another fraud order for $140 to some Russian satellite country, I obviously will be refund it and taking the order out the system, its just a pain in the ass because I have to notify my drop shipper for the particular order before its sent off, or else I loose the cost for the product, the money from the order, and then they also tack on a $30 chargeback fee haha (which I can get removed for fraud orders).

Oh and for everyone that does not know, merchants do chargebacks to recoup the customers money for fraud orders. So anyways, I have a busy weekend, I have to finish the product_id validation script along with start on a sales washing script to help me with all the fraud orders. You know I am down for any criticism on the above code, if you see something wrong in my code let me know I wont feel bad haha.

Ok you all, since last month was my best month in the last year I feel like sharing a great marketing tip that I currently use and it converts like a mofo. Its not really a secret either, but a lot of people either dont know about it or are to lazy to do it, so here we go.

Now when I say “review site”, I mean a website that is set up to review certain products, companys, or services within a particular niche. Review sites convert like mofo’s because people assume that the review sites are unbiased… haha. The trick with the review website is to make it look as unbiased as you can.

What I usually do is have my writer make up 7-10x 500 word articles about the particular product I am promoting. Lets say “directory submissions” to make things easier. If I wanted to promote my directory submissions then I would buy a domain like directorysubsreviews.com or something similar. I would then throw on a free wordpress site using a premade wordpress template… keep things simple.

On your wordpress review website you will want to focus your attention 150% on grabbing peoples email address. You heard me right… you need to focus on that email address, that is what makes the sales. I usually have 2 lead generation forms above the fold of the website, usually one within the content and another on the sidebar.

You do not want to add your affiliate/store links on the website just yet. You need to get your website ranked before you start promoting your shit, do not be greedy, remeber we need to make the site look as unbiased as we can. You can make a site look unbiased with a bunch of affiliate links.

So after you get done building your website and adding your quality content you will need to build the backlinks for the website to rank it for the SEO terms you are shooting for. With the example I have, I would take the directory submission review website and rank it for all the terms that would be searched for by someone looking to buy directory submissions. The review website would be full of reviews of other directory submission companys, or articles about different ways to do directory submissions, or anything else that would be relevant content, you get the idea.

What you are trying to do is grab peoples email addresses, and then set up a system to market niche related products to them. With the lead generation form you will want to offer people something in return for there email address (just asking people for there email address is so 1998 and does not work these days). You can offer people information such as ebooks or video tutorials (or something similar), or offer some sort of tool (like developerhut.com free seo tool), or use your creativeness. Remember asking people for there email address will not work, you need to offer them something such as information or free shit, that is what will get you the most email addresses.

Ok now you have a simple wordpress site with 10 quality review articles, you are also grabbing prospects email addresses, now focus your attention in ranking the website for the SEO terms that would convert for you. You may also use adwords to pay to be ranked for the same terms (I do). I actually use adwords before I start my SEO link building campaigns, with adwords I can track which keywords are converting the best, and then I can focus my attention on ranking for the best converting terms. With adwords your website will be promoted instantly, with SEO it will take time, so that is the benefit for using adwords first, just make sure that you research your keywords before you start spending money.

After you have your websites marketing down, such as the seo link campaign, adwords marketing, forum marketing, etc you will want to start converting those emails. The best way to do this is to use aweber and set up a email marketing campaign that will email each customer a particular offer after a number of predetermined days.

I have my own custom made email backend, as soon as someone ads there email they will be sent a auto reply email with niche related products. Then after about 7 days another email will be sent out, and then after another 7 days another email will be sent out, this will happen until they either make a purchase or unsubscribe from the list. Just make it so that your email marketing campaign does not annoy the prospect, you must walk a thin line with that.

Ok so you now have a wordpress site set up grabbing email address for prospects interested in your niche. You must use SEO, adwords, forum marketing, or any other marketing method to gain as many email address as you can. Then you market to the email addresses rather then marketing directly on the website, this makes the website look unbiased, thus gaining you targeted email prospects. It usually takes me 3 months to build a website, have the content produced, and then rank it for the SEO terms I am after. I am producing a few of these types of sites for all the niches I am in, and they are converting like mofos I tell you what. So go out and try this yourself, and if you come up with any new ideas then you must contact me and tell me some of your secrets for telling you this one