Author Archives: Mark

Launch Your Own Affiliate Marketing Campaign with Ebates in Five Minutes or Less

Filed Under 101, Affiliate Marketing, Make Money Online by Mark


You’ve heard about Affiliate Marketing and learned about people making big money online participating in affiliate programs but don’t know where to begin.

In this exercise we will define what Affiliate Marketing is, get our feet wet by becoming an Ebates affiliate and launch our own campaign in under five minutes.
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Should I Run This Campaign? The Number 1 Question Every Affiliate Marketer Should Ask

Filed Under Pay Per Click Affiliate Marketing, PPC, Tools by Mark

A little over a year ago, when I first started doing Pay Per Click Marketing on a serious level I made sure that I was tracking clicks and conversions. Doing so allowed me to split test ad copy and analyze my traffic to determine things like:

  • Which picture attracted the most clicks
  • Which ad was converting best
  • Which demographic I was most successfully reaching

That’s all vital intelligence that allows you to dynamically react to and adjust a campaign, but as I gained experience with PPC advertising I realized there was an important proactive question I should have been asking that I wasn’t (not specifically anyway). That question was, should I be running this campaign in the first place?

In Pay Per Click affiliate marketing (and pretty much every other business) your ultimate goal is to make money. If you make more money then you spend, your golden. Of course, “Me make more money then spend” is how a caveman might describe it. We should aim to be a little more precise when defining our objectives. To do that we have to look at all the variables that impact our ability to have a successful PPC campaign.

For me, that entails understanding the various components that make up a campaign, and then defining what success is.

Anatomy of a PPC Campaign

When you promote a product via Pay Per Click Marketing you create an ad and then use a service like Facebook Ads, Google Adwords, or Microsoft Ad Center to get that ad in front of a target audience. Because of this, you can literally get millions of impressions and thousands of clicks a day without any SEO work. It’s like turning on a fire hose.

Getting traffic this way is not free however, as each of the aforementioned services charge you a certain amount every time a user clicks your ad, hence the name Pay Per Click (PPC). Which leads me to my first variable, Cost Per Click (CPC), and the ultimate question I would like to answer:

How much should I spend per click?

The reason why this question is important to me is because I kind of have a feel for how much Facebook charges per click now. I also know what types of conversion rates I can realistically achieve, and how much money I would like to make overall when running my campaign.

By understanding these variables and how they relate, I can quickly determine the minimum Offer Payout I will need to have a chance at being profitable. This lets me instantly rule out offers that look good but don’t pay what I need to achieve my income goals.

Let’s Take A Closer Look At These Pertinent Variables:

  • Cost Per Click (CPC)

    • This is how much your search network (e.g. facebook) will charge you each time a user clicks your link.

  • Offer Payout

    • How much you will be paid by the advertiser if a user completes the desired action (e.g. provides their email address, downloads a toolbar, makes a purchase, etc.)

  • Conversion Rate

    • This is the percentage of clicks that result in a conversion.

    Example: 10 people click your ad, but only 1 person performs the desired action that results in your getting paid. In this scenario you have a 10% Conversion Rate

  • Return On Investment (ROI)

    • This is the percentage return you would like to see on your investment overall.

    Example: if you spend $100 running your campaign and you make $200, then you made $100 more then what you spent (ROI 100%)

Calculating Max CPC

It’s been famously said that when the great Physicist Stephen Hawking began writing his book A Brief History of Time he was told by his publicist that for each equation he included in his book he would halve the sales. As a result, he only put in one.

With that in mind I will keep things simple by showing you the equation I use to determine Max CPC without taking you through its derivation.

Max CPC = \dfrac{100 * Offer Payout}{ROI + 100}*\dfrac{Conversion Rate}{100}

I apologize for the blurriness of the equation. I am using the plugin (WP LaTeX) to render the math which converts the text to a .jpg image.

As you can see, the Max CPC is effected by the Offer Payout, the ROI, and Conversion Rate. Let’s see it in action.

Example: Maximum Cost Per Click Calculation

Consider an offer that pays $2.00 and converts 5% of the time. If my desired ROI is 30% then the most I can spend per click is $0.08 cents.

Since clicks are costing me around $0.40 cents these days on facebook I can quickly see that this campaign is not going to work out for me.

In fact, for a campaign to work for me within the above specified parameters the Offer Payout would have to be $10.50.

In the above example I used conservative estimates to determine what my Maximum CPC should be. But what if I had an 18% conversion rate? How would that effect my Maximum CPC?

A quick calculation reveals that now my Maximum CPC is $0.28 cents. Still not the $0.40 I need to green light this thing but definitely more doable.

If in addition to this, I also increased my Offer Payout from $2.00 to $2.90 then my Max CPC would be $0.40

Translation: By creating an ad campaign that converts at 18% I can target offers with a payout of $2.90 or more and still achieve a 30% ROI provided I don’t pay more than $0.40 per click.

Of course different campaigns will have different goals, returns, conversion rates, and payouts. Being able to quickly ascertain their viability will help you green light or can a campaign before you waste any time building it.

Maximum Cost Per Click Calculator

For what it’s worth, I slapped the above equation into a quick Javascript application that will allow you to quickly run the numbers here at Maximum Cost Per Click Calculator. Use it at your own peril. Muhahaha!

Foscam FI8918W Wireless/Wired Pan & Tilt IP Camera (Video Review)

Filed Under Technology by Mark

When I built my house 4 years ago I wanted to have a surveillance camera installed at the entrance. Not for nefarious reasons, but because I just like technology and felt pressing my face up to a peep hole was so two thousand and late. The company I was forced to use wanted to charge me an exorbitant amount for the camera so instead I had them home run the requisite wiring so I could purchase and install a more affordable solution at a later date.

There was a lot going on after the construction of my home, and our corresponding move, that it took me at least a year before I revisited the whole external camera project. After doing some research I quickly learned that the clowns that put the wiring in ran a coaxial cable without a corresponding power line, rendering it useless. Over the years I have looked at a variety of solutions but didn’t want to spend $700-$1400 to get this project online.

Then, earlier this year I noticed Logitech had a system (the Logitech Alert 750e) that retailed for $340. It seemed interesting enough, the reviews were decent but the price was a bit high for my liking.

A little more digging and I found this little gem, the Foscam FI8918W Wireless IP Camera for a quarter of the price ($86.68) and comparable reviews.

Now, it’s not like me to go with a non-recognizable brand like Foscam. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a “name brand” guy, but I do like to purchase from a company that I have some familiarity with for support and warranty issues, but the features and price of this $86 bad boy made it difficult for me to say no. So I didn’t.

Last week I received the camera and promptly installed it.

What I Like About It

  • The Price

    • At $86.68 this thing is super cheap.

  • It’s Wireless

    • Although it also has an Ethernet port for physical connectivity, being wireless means that it can connect to your 802.11b/g network even when an Ethernet jack is not close by.

  • It’s an IP Camera

    • This is one of its greatest features and means that it connects directly to your network (translation: you don’t need to connect it to a running computer to have it work.)

    Unlike my printer which is physically connected to my wife’s computer. When I need to print something I need to make sure her computer is on. :(

  • Pan/Tilt support

    • Allows you to change the orientation of the camera 300 degrees horizontally, and 120 degrees vertically.

    The more expensive Logitech camera is a fixed mount.

  • Night Vision

    • Allows you to see in complete darkness (up to 26 feet)

  • Two-Way Audio

    • The embedded microphone and speaker enable you to remotely talk and listen to people by the camera from wherever you are on the planet which is crazy cool.

  • Motion Detection

    • Which can be used to trigger the alarm function that snaps a series of 6 pictures and then emails them off to your gmail account (or other email address). I use it to get notifications when packages are delivered to my front door which is pretty neat.

  • Web Browser Monitoring and Control

    • Since this is an IP Camera it has to be self-sufficient, meaning it can’t rely on software running on a separate computer to function. That’s a good thing!

    Since the device itself does not have a keyboard or display, setup, control, and monitoring are controlled via web browser. Just simply launch a browser on your computer (or iPad, or smart phone) and type in the camera’s IP address (Hence the name IP Camera) to interact with it.

  • Dynamic IP Address Support

    • Allows you to access your feed outside your home network even if your IP address changes.

Real-time Monitoring

The above picture is a snapshot of the browser interface of the Foscam FI8918W Wireless IP Camera. The feed displayed is from my freshly mounted camera. If you click on the picture you will be able to see the actual size of the control panel.

The little blue sphere in the top left allows you to pan and tilt the camera (which happens in real-time). You can adjust the camera’s resolution, turn on/off the Infrared camera, adjust brightness and contrast, and enable auto pan and tilt mode which keeps the cameras eye roving around.

This is another picture taken at night to demonstrate the night-vision capabilities. There is a street light off in the distance which is casting light toward the top of the image so what you are seeing is a bit of a hybrid night-vision shot.

Mobile Phone Support

Since the controls are browser-based you can access them from any web browser. I found a nifty application called IP Cam Viewer which is a bit easier to manage on my phones diminutive screen and allows me to not only see and control my camera from anywhere, but also listen and talk through it, even if I am in another country or state. Above is the feed viewed from my Droid X using IP Cam Viewer.

The program is free, but I loved it so much I splurged and paid the $4.99 to remove the ads and support the developer. This cool little app is also available for iPhone and Blackberry and is a worthwhile download even if you don’t have a camera as it allows you to see feeds from a list of beach and traffic cameras.

Video Demo

This short video I created gives you an idea of what the video stream looks like through the browser interface. I also geek-out a bit and show you how I am able to control and interact with the camera through my phone. Nerd alert!

Note: I intentionally recorded the web browser interface at its original size so you could see the actual size and shape of the view port provided by the browser interface. As a result it only takes up a small portion of the youtube video screen (hence the abundance of grey surrounding the image). To really get a feel for the camera’s image quality the video is best viewed at full screen and at 720p.

Device Settings


Setup and configuration of the Foscam FI8918W is contained in the Device Settings tab. Here you can adjust all elements of the camera. The user interface is similar to what you see when you setup a router or DSL modem. So if you have experience setting one of those up, you will be right at home here.

External Video Stream Access

Getting the camera to work outside your network requires that you to do a little port forwarding magic, and if your IP address is dynamic (that is, a new one is assigned to you every time your DSL modem is reset) then you will also have to configure the DDNS (Dynamic Domain Name Server). Thankfully the FI8918W supports this and Foscam provides step-by-step instructions for setting it up using the free service provided by dyndns.com.

UPDATE: dyndns.com is no longer free. With that said, I have been using them for over a year and am very happy with the service and reliability they have provided me. I don’t get it for free (I’m a paying customer as well).

If you decide to go with them this Coupon Code: RFE3ZKBAHP will save you 15% off new non-enterprise DNS/Email Delivery services (New Customers Only) and I will get a 30% voucher to use in the next year on any new/renewed service.

Sounds like a win-win to me! :)

Email Alerts

To take advantage of the motion sensing and alert capabilities you will have to enter your outgoing email credentials into the device and if you want pictures sent you will have to have access to an FTP server. If you have a blog hosted on a provider like Host Gator you will already have access to this so it will be just a matter of entering in the appropriate ftp server address and login credentials to get this working.

Once properly configured you will receive an email with a series of six pictures anytime motion is detected. You can adjust the sensitivity as well as the time (in seconds) between snapshots.

Collecting all the right information and entering it into the requisite fields can be tedious but once you have it properly configured the results are certainly gratifying. Maybe I’m a geek, but I find it super cool to be able to check my porch for packages, or receive an email snapshot of the person ringing my door bell when I am out and about.

Best of all, there are no monthly fees associated with this camera’s use, nor does it require a running computer to work. Once setup, plug it into a power source within your network’s range and rock and roll!

Anyway, that was my latest personal project. I realize it’s a bit off-topic but computers and electronics are a big part of my life. I was really excited about this purchase and thought it would be cool to share. Thanks for indulging me. Now tell me what you’ve been up to.

Update 8/2/2011:

A lot of people have asked how they could embed the live video feed from their Foscam camera into their blog or website. The good news is that it’s not too complicated.

To make it even easier (and eliminate human error), I slapped together a little script that will automatically generate the code you need for your camera feed. Check out the post entitled How to Embed Video from Your Foscam FI8918W Wireless Camera Into Your Web Page.

I have placed this in my new blog where I will focus on technology and other geeky endeavors.

Update 8/12/2011:

Foscam used to have two really important documents on their site that don’t appear to come with the camera (unless I missed it on the installation disk). In any event, I found the FI8918W Quick Installation Guide and FI8918W User Manual before they were removed. I have uploaded them to my site as they are extremely detailed and a great reference.

Update 4/12/2013:

I just added another auto-code generator that will allow you to quickly embed multiple foscam camera video feeds into a single webpage.

How To Map A Remote Server to a Drive in Windows Explorer

Filed Under Productivity Tips by Mark

I manage a lot of internet properties and one of the things I hate the most is having to ftp stuff. Over the years I had used a variety of tools to transfer files between my home PC and my server (like cuteftp and filezilla) but I always wondered why I couldn’t just use Windows Explorer to accomplish this fairly routine task. When I got Windows 7 a couple years back, I revisited this issue to see if the operating system had an intuitive way to accomplish it, and low and behold it did.

I’ve been enjoying the power of this unified file management interface for over two years now, and dragging-and-dropping stuff to my remote server regularly. Because I recently had to migrate my entire work environment to a new computer, I thought it would be good for me to document this process so I can easily recreate it in the future. I also figured that if you have not discovered this trick for yourself, it might be worth noting as it is a HUGE time-saver.

What You Need

  • A PC running Windows 7
  • A web server (like Host Gator for instance) that you have ftp access to

Step 1)

  • Open Windows Explorer

    • This can be accomplished by right-clicking on the Start Button and selecting the Open Windows Explorer option.

Step 2)

  1. Select the computer icon to reveal the Map network drive option.
  2. Select Map network drive

Step 3)

On the What network folder would you like to map? screen:

  • Select Connect to a Web site that you can use to store your documents and pictures.

Step 4)


On the Welcome to the Add Network Location Wizard screen:

  • Click Next

Step 5)

On the Where do you want to create this network location? screen:

  • Select Choose a custom network location
  • Click Next

Step 6)

On the Specify the location of your website screen:

  • Enter the ftp address of your remote server
  • Click Next

Step 7)

On the Specify a Username and Password if Required screen:

  • Un-check Log on anonymously
  • Enter your username in the User name field
  • Click Next

Step 8)

On the What do you want to name this location? screen:

  • Specify the name of this remote location as you would like it to appear in Windows Explorer. Make it something descriptive so it is easy to find.
  • Click Next

Step 9)

On the Completing the Add Network Location Wizard screen:

  • Click Finish
  • Click Next

Step 10)


Log on to your remote server to test new connection

  • Enter your login credentials
  • Check the Save password box if you would like for Windows to automatically log you in everytime you click on this connection.
  • Click the Log On button

If everything was setup correctly you should see your remote files in Windows Explorer as if they were located on a hard drive in your system.

Your remote server will now appear as a drive on your computer through Windows Explorer

How To Predict the Future of Your Page Rank

Filed Under Niche Site Duel, Search Engine Optimization by Mark


One of the biggest challenges when building backlinks to your site is understanding the effectiveness of your efforts. Without some measurable means to determine if your strategy is working you could be spending way too much time doing things that don’t work, or worse yet, take your rank in the opposite direction you intended. Tracking your page rank is one way to evaluate your progress, but what if I told you it was possible to predict the future? Would you do things differently?

Tracking Page Ranks

The most common way to evaluate the effectiveness of your backlinking strategy is to track your Page Rank. This is typically accomplished by performing a search in Google using your keyword phrase and then counting each returned search result until your page appears.

So for example, for the search phrase best juicers my niche site appears on the second page of the SERPs in position 5. Since there are 10 results per page, my site is therefore at position 15 (10 + 5 = 15).

If you perform this same exercise every day and record the results in a spreadsheet you can get a good indication as to whether you are headed in the right direction.

Predicting the Future of Your Page Rank

Tracking your page rank as outlined above is certainly a reasonable way to quantify the effectiveness of your backlinking efforts, but it’s a lot like navigating an ocean liner without radar. By the time you see the storm, it’s too late.

What if you could see what lies ahead before actually sailing there? You could then navigate around storms before accidentally driving into them.

Fortunately for us, a type of SEO radar exists that can indicate where our rank is headed prior to our getting there, allowing us to make changes and alter our course as needed well before we are standing in front of a cluster of icebergs.

To do this, we simply record an additional piece of information. That information is the site’s phrase position which can found by performing another Google search using quotes around the keyword phrase. The quotes tell Google that you are looking for matches that have that exact phrase in them. That means the words must appear in the same order as you specified on matching results.

Being a more specific type of search, the phrase match acts like a crystal ball and indicates where your page will be in the near future (next several weeks).

Since my phrase match for the term “best juicers” is 13, that suggests that my rank should be decreasing by two positions shortly (Remember, my current rank is 15). That’s encouraging news and means I am doing the right things.

So Does This Really Work?

Although you can do this by hand as illustrated above, I like to use Market Samurai’s Rank Tracker feature to record this information for me. As you can see on January 21st, 2011 my site ranked 24 for the keyword phrase best juicers. What you can also see, is the phrase match for that keyword phrase was 15 suggesting that my rank would hit position 15 in the near future.

Today, February 8, 2011 (18 days later) my site’s rank is indeed 15.

15 Must Have Computer Software Applications, Services and Utilities For Running Your Online Business

Filed Under Tools by Mark

My wife’s computer has been circling the drain for some time now and finally took a dirt nap two weeks ago. As a result I was forced to purchase a new computer a bit ahead of our normal schedule. In preparations for the new machine I had to do a lot of backing-up and shifting around of hardware throughout the house (I am the resident IT guy after all). As painful as this was, it was a great opportunity for me to take stock of the applications I currently own that are essential for me to perform my online work.

If you work online you probably have your own favorite applications, here are mine:

Google Chrome

There are so many choices when it comes to browsers these days. Like every Windows user, I started with the default, Internet Explorer. Then I grew up and used Firefox. It was a solid choice at the time that allowed me to do things like debug web pages and install compelling add-ons to extend its capabilities. Then Google released Chrome. I tried it for a while and straddled both the Firefox and Chrome world for a while before I finally switched to Chrome as my primary interface to the world wide web.

Firefox is still a very nice web browsing platform, and I still use it on occasion, but Chrome runs significantly faster, allows me to do the debugging I need, supports third party add-ons which extend its functionality, allows me to drag tabs in and out of the browser creating and merging browser instances, and allows me to perform Google searches in the same box where I would normally type a URL.

Kaspersky Internet Security 2011

A good antivirus program is essential for today’s always connected computers. I’ve used Norton and McAfee in the past, but three years ago I switched to Kaspersky. At the time I had never heard of them, but I was looking for a good alternative to the Big Boys (mentioned above) that would not fleece me and my family in the process.

Even though I was unfamiliar with this German-developed anti-virus program my research only returned positive feedback. To sweeten the deal even more, Kaspersky offered three licenses for the price of one, which means I could install it on every computer in my home. I tried them for a year and never looked back. They have a pure antivirus program but I use their Internet Security program which includes some additional features. Most notably a parental control feature which allows me to limit what web pages my 5 year old daughter can access.

Putty

PuTTY is a SSH (Secure Shell) and telnet client that allows you to remotely manage a computer (like your hosting server) via a DOS-like command interface. With it you can run commands as if you were sitting right next to the machine. It’s a bit of an advanced way to interface with your server so if you have no idea what I am talking about you could just skip it.

For those that are curious, I use it when I need to really get under the hood and debug things, examine error logs, move files around, test perl scripts, tweak server settings, etc.

Kimodo Edit

As a software engineer I’ve played with a variety of IDE’s over the course of my career. An IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is essentially an editor like Microsoft Word, except it’s for code development instead of letter writing.

Kimodo Edit is a scaled down, version of Activestates Kimodo IDE. Despite that, it does everything I need it to, all for the amazingly low price of FREE. If you ever have to modify code by hand you won’t want to be without some sort of IDE because they really can make your life a lot easier. If you are currently using Microsoft’s notepad to modify source code then you really need to stop and listen.

The features that make this my tool of choice for editing source code are:

  • Syntax highlighting

    • This means that if you open a file for editing and the file is in one of several known language (HTML 5, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, Perl, XML, and more), the text is color coded. This makes it easier for you to read and detect errors.

  • Remote File Editing

    • Normally I would have to download a file, edit it, and then upload it to see my changes. Remote editing means I can open the file sitting on my HostGator account and modify it directly. When I save, the remote file is updated for me. This has really improved my workflow.

Win Merge

WinMerge is an Open Source differencing and merging tool that allows you to quickly compare two files and locate differences. This is very handy when performing upgrades and tweaks to your site and something goes horribly wrong. Trying to locate that proverbial needle in the haystack has never been easier.

Below you can see an example of this tool in action. Here I have two different versions of identical files displayed. WinMerge instantly shows me the differences.

ALT-↓ allows you to step to the next line that is different.
ALT-↑ allows you to step to the previous line that is different.
ALT-← copies changes from the right pane to the left.
ALT-→ copies changes from the left pane to the right.

Dreamweaver CS5

I use WordPress to build a lot of my websites these days because of its power and expandability. However, when I really need to create something unique I turn to Dreamweaver. This Adobe product has been a staple icon on my desktop for the last eight years. It’s an extremely powerful website editor that not only allows you to build web pages using a variety of web technologies (like html, php, javascript, etc.) but manage them through templates. So design changes you make are probagated to the rest of your site instantly. Also if a link changes somewhere you don’t have to go hunting all over your site to change every other place it is mentioned. A huge timesaver when you are working on any project. In addition, built-in ftp support allows you to upload individual pages or your entire site to your server when you are done. I currently own Dreamweaver CS3 but CS5 is the most current version. It’s not a free program but one I personally can’t live without.

Fireworks CS5

When it comes to editing graphics and images, Adobe’s Photoshop is the standard. I have it, and try to use it but it’s a powerful beast that can be complicated for non Graphic Designers (like me). Fireworks is a competing product created by Macromedia and aquired by Adobe in 2005. Adobe continues to support it and sell it as part of the many software packages they offer. Because I learned on it first, and it does a lot of what Photoshop does, I still tend to use it for all my graphic editing needs as I find it a bit more approachable.

InDesign CS5

For professional quality document designing I use InDesign. In my opinion it is the Photoshop of book design tools. Microsoft Word is cute if you are putting together a fax or a letter, but if you really need complete control over a document’s design and layout, InDesign is the tool of choice. There is a steep learning curve, this isn’t your Father’s text editor after all, but its insane power made me a believer. I still use a combination of Microsoft’s Word 2003 and Google Docs for everyday stuff, but for hardcore document layouts I put away those toys and pull out the BIG guns – InDesign.

Adobe Design Premium

Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop and Indesign can be purchased separately, but you can save a bunch of money if you buy them as part of a collection AND are upgrading from a previous version or competing product. I have Adobe Design Premium which includes all of them plus a bunch of other full featured programs like: Illustrator CS5, Flash Catalyst CS5, Flash Professional CS5, Acrobat 9 Pro, Bridge CS5, Device Central CS5″. Also, if you are a student or teacher you can get this package for about 80% off the retail price!

Camtasia Studio

Last year I purchased Camtasia Studio to record instructional videos that I could upload to YouTube and I must say, I am very happy with that purchase. The tool is very well designed and makes recording and editing as simple and approachable as possible while still providing you with a good feature set to create extremely compelling videos. It ain’t cheap, but then again, nothing good in life is.

Market Samurai

Since creating successful web properties is my business, it’s important that I am able to gain visibility into what people are actually searching for, determine the level of competition for a particular search phrase, track a sites ranking over time, and find good long-tailed keywords. That’s a tall order. Fortunately I have Market Samurai which does all that and more.

I was reluctant to add this to my list for fear of coming-off sales-pitchy (because I am an affiliate of theirs) but I literally use this tool 3-5 times a week (which is more then some of the other good tools I have on this list). Because of that, and the fact that I sincerely feel this is an indispensable tool for anyone who has or manages a website online, I am adding it here. Plus you could try it free (no credit card required) for 14 days which allows you to put both it and me to the test. If you think it sucks then don’t listen to anything I say again.

Cloud-Based Services

I have been a long time user of Microsoft Office, though I have to admit, my reliance on them has started to wane over the last three years. Google’s competing offering of free online tools accessible from my web browser, coupled with high speed internet, and the ability to access (and share) my information from any computer (or device) has weakened Microsoft Office’s value proposition and made me question why I would ever pay someone for an application that allows me to do the same things I can do for free. Not to be cheap, but I like having my documents available online and instantly accessible.

In any event, here are my Microsoft Office replacements that I currently use more and more:

GMail

I was a devout Microsoft Outlook user, but three years ago I started using GMail to send and receive emails and have never looked back. In fact, I don’t even install Outlook on my computer anymore. Here are the Gmail features I covet most:

  • Find old emails Fast

    • With the same speed we have come to expect from a Google search

  • Globally accessible email

    • even from my Droid X

  • Emails arranged into conversations

    • Click one email and all the replies are listed together so you can easily follow the conversation thread

  • Virtually unlimited storage capacity

    • While not exactly unlimited, you do get a lot of space. I think it’s something like 7.5 GB of storage at the moment

  • Spam guard

    • Every mail client claims to block spam but Google does it best because Google users can instantly flag a message as spam. When enough people report it, the Google network stops sending messages from that recipient

  • Manage multiple accounts

    • I have several email accounts on a variety of networks. Gmail lets me read and respond to emails sent to any of them from a single centralized location.

  • Clean interface

    • Google is known for being sparse in their designs. Type www.google.com to see what I mean. Not a whole lot their to distract you. Gmail is the same. The buttons and links on your gmail account are primarily relevant and non-distracting. I have a yahoo mail account and I don’t visit it because their interface is a cluttered mess.

These are some of my reasons for using Gmail, there are a lot more you can read about here.

Google Docs

I still have a version of Microsoft Word 2003, primarily to look at old documents I have lying around my hard drive. But for new documents, I create them all with Google Docs. Google Docs doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of Microsoft Office 2003 but to be completely honest, I probably only used a small fraction of its features in the first place. For the types of documents I write, Google Docs is more than sufficient. In addition, it pretty much has the same look and feel of the Microsoft’s 2003 version of Word and I’m OK with that.

BTW, Google Docs also grants you host of other document creation tools that sharply take aim at Microsoft’s Office product line. One of which, that I also use with some regularity, is a spreadsheet program that is essentially an Excel killer.

To access “Google Spreadsheet” go to Google Docs and select “Create New->Spreadsheet”. That’s it.

Remember the Milk

Google has a calendar program as well, appropriately named Google Calendar. I used it for a while but since I struggle sticking to a schedule (because my plate is always extremely overfull) I recently switched to Remember the Milk which is a fantastic online task management application.

It’s free to use and allows me to record things that I need to do without committing to a date on everything. This is important for me because I am most productive when I work on what I am feeling that day. Also, having a place to record ideas or tasks allows me to free up precious memory resources that would otherwise be spent trying to remember the litany of tasks I need to get done. Now I record them and move on.

Google Voice

If you have a home-based business and don’t want to give Ma-Bell more crazy money to install a second land line in your home Google Voice is the way to go. I discovered Google Voice several years ago when it was called Grand Central (Before Google bought it). It was great then, and continues to be a fantastic free service that allows you to create a virtual phone line (number and all).

This tool has a mad feature set that makes what the phone company gives you look like a pair of paper cups connected by string in comparison. Its a real, solid service that gives you total control over how and where calls are delivered.

1-Click Answers

1-Click Answers is a little application that runs in the background that allows you to ALT-Left Click your way to definitions of words on any website or local document you have open. I use it all the time to check my spelling or get a quick definition.

Quick Tip

By default, Answers Bar will show a windows called “Today’s Highlights” every day right smack in the middle of your screen and an annoying “Answer Bar” at the lower right. Both of these can be turned off by going into the options screen and un-ticking their corresponding check boxes. Disabling them will not effect your ability to to use the 1-Click Answers feature

That’s it! That’s my list of 15 must-have essential software tools, apps, utilities, and online services. These are the ones that I install and setup on my computer first before all else because quite frankly, I can’t live without them. Do you have a tool or service you find indispensable? I am certainly open to suggestions. Leave me a comment. I would love to hear it.

Bookmarking Demon – Blessing or Curse? (Review)

Filed Under Tools by Mark

Bookmarking Demon is a downloadable tool that automates the whole social bookmarking process for a limitless number of different sites. It automatically creates accounts, validates verification emails, posts links to your social bookmarking accounts, and fills in captchas (for an additional charge).

It supports Bookmarking Camouflage which allows you to bookmark pages pulled from a variety of RSS feeds, in addition to your niche sites, so that your bookmarks appear more organic (i.e. don’t all point to one website).

In addition, you can drip-bookmark submissions (say 50-100 links a day) through scheduling so that you don’t have 1,000 backlinks to your site appear overnight, which can raise a red flag with search engines and get you sandboxed.

What is Sandboxing?

Though not officially confirmed, it is widely believed that sites (especially new ones) which receive a high volume of backlinks in a short period of time are penalized by the search engines by having their ranking frozen for a short period of time.

This tool employs a lot of neat solutions to automate every step in the social bookmarking process. One of the coolest features is the automatic captcha filling that is available via a third party service for a small additional fee (something like $2 for 1,000 solved captchas).

Because many social bookmarking sites require you to fill in a captcha when creating accounts and again when bookmarking pages, I totally splurged and paid for the captcha filling service in order to completely automate my social bookmarking submissions. If you don’t use this service you have to sit in front of your computer and fill in captchas for sites that require it when you do a bulk submission.

How are Captcha’s Automatically Filled?

It appears as though this work is outsourced overseas. When a captcha is required the pop-up you would normally get is displayed on a remote terminal in Bangladesh, China or India where it is filled by a human and submitted on your behalf in real-time.

So Did Bookmarking Demon Live Up To The Hype?

I really wanted to like Bookmarking Demon. It is a real and legit program that is constantly being updated and supported by its developer. In fact I received 4 new updates during the two months that I played with it. In addition, the tool comes with videos to help you setup and configure every aspect of it. With it, you can literally submit to thousands of social bookmarking sites, both old and new ones as they appear.

The only problem is that social bookmarking sites don’t like spam (and therefore automation). Because of that, they are constantly implementing countermeasures to block tools like this from working. In my experience I generally found that if I chose 100 sites to submit to, the tool would only successfully create accounts for 50. And then when I submitted to those 50 remaining sites, only 25 would successfully complete the bookmarking process. So basically I had like a 25% success rate.

To make matters worse, successfully submitting to a site one day did not guarantee success the next, so there was no real effective way to corral a list of “working” sites for future submissions.

The tool does provide an error log at the conclusion of a submission run so you can attempt to resolve each issue on a site-by-site basis, but I found myself reaching my frustration level as I spent way too much time wrestling with these messages and attempting resubmits.

On the bright side, Bookmarking Demon has a 60 day no questions asked Money Back Guarantee which I am happy to report was completely honored. I kept my copy for about 58 days because I really wanted to give this tool a fair shot, and hoped that an update would make the consistency and reliability issues I had experienced go away.

If they can solve those problems I would re-purchase Bookmarking Demon in a heartbeat because overall it is a very well designed and thought-out tool. At the moment however, I don’t have the intestinal fortitude required to include this software as a part of my workflow. I also don’t have a better solution at the moment so I will continue my search for the holy social bookmarking grail.

My Home Office Setup (The Hardware)

Filed Under Hardware by Mark

I was reading Pat’s Smart Passive Income blog today where he posted the hardware he uses in his home office. When you work from home, as both he and I do, you take for granted the cross pollination of ideas that occurs when people congregate around the water cooler. I’m an introverted tech geek and happily get my information from sites like engadget and lifehacker, but it is nice to see what other people whom you admire are rocking. Here’s what my core setup looks like.

Computer

I’ve been purchasing Dell’s exclusively since 1992. My first PC computer with them was a 486DX-50 (my phone is way more powerful). I am currently rocking a Dell Dimension XPS 730 with a 3.00 GHz Intel Quad Core 2 Extreme processor and 4GB of RAM. This is all running on Windows 7 64 bit.

I’ve played with PC’s, Unix Workstations, and Linux installs and prefer Windows because of its hardware versatility and vast software support. Plus I’m a gamer. ‘Nuff said.

Mouse

As a gamer I prefer mice with lots of buttons, a good build quality, and something that fits comfortably in my hand. It’s been a while since I purchase a new mouse and there are options with more buttons these days but for now my trusty Logitech G5 Laser Mouse will do.

Screen Capture

Like Pat, I use Camtasia to create video captures of my screen. It’s a solid software package with great video tutorials and pretty straight forward to use.

Audio Recording

To kick up the production quality I use an Audio-Technica AT2020 USB Condenser Mic. I found this to be a fantastic microphone at a reasonable price point. A good mic makes all the difference when recording on the web as it can reduce background noise and provide fuller, richer, studio quality sound.

I also slapped a Pop Filter (Nady MPF-6) on this bad boy to prevent P’s and T’s from clipping. I picked it up right after I made this video which illustrates why one is needed (Listen to the first 8 seconds to see what I mean).

Finally, the whole thing is mounted on a desktop stand (Samson SAMD5 MD5). I’ve been looking for a good and reasonably priced table mount stand but for now this will do.

Video

Microsoft LifeCam Studio 1080p HD Webcam which I typically use for Skype.

To create youtube videos for a niche site idea I am playing with, I use the Canon VIXIA HF S200. One of the requirements of this project is that videos are in high definition. The quality of the footage this thing produces is breathtaking.

Mobile Phone

In my previous life I worked in the telecommunications industry (10 years). During that time cell phone technology made nominal improvements every year or so. Apple changed all that when it released its iPhone and Google gave away it’s competing Android Operating System. The cell phone market is now in its renaissance and really lives up to the “Smart Phone” name Marketers have been trying to push on us for the last decade.

My last phone was a Blackberry Curve and I was super excited when I got it. Today I run with a Droid X from Motorola and I have to say, looking back the Blackberry Curve was crap in comparison. That’s how much the technology has changed within the last couple of years. That’s how disruptive the technology is right now.

What makes these devices uber compelling is the ability to download applications (many of them free) to enhance the functionality and usefulness of the device. No joke, it’s like having the internet attached to your hip. I’m not going to get into any more detail then that because I don’t want to hijack this post, but suffice it to say phones today are digital swiss army knives. If you are thinking about getting one of these devices know that Apple and any phone running Google’s Android are the ones you should pay special attention to as they are the market leaders in this space. RIM and Microsoft? Stick a fork in them, they’re done!

Scanner

As part our initiative to reduce paper clutter we recently picked up the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300. This little number makes quick work of paper allowing you to scan it and convert it to pdf instantly. We have an all-in-one printer but the lamp’s slow warm-up time makes scanning documents a tedious chore and achieving our goal of a paperless workplace unrealistic (without the proper tools).

Postage

Part of my business requires that I ship packages every now and again. Over the years I have learned that printing postage from home not only saves me time standing in line at the post office, but saves me money, as discounts are provided for such things as delivery confirmation when shipping via USPS. To fulfill this need I use Pitney Bowes Ship Stream Manager and a Dymo LabelWriter Twin Turbo (which I love). We used to buy 8.5″ x 11″ sheets of labels to print from our normal printer but if you didn’t print a full sheet you would lose blocks of labels. The Dymo spits out the exact quantity you need one at a time and prints thermally so you don’t have to waste money on ink or toner.

That’s my setup. Would love to hear yours.

Bulk Upload Facebook Ads with Social Ads Tool

Filed Under Facebook Ads, Social Ads Tool, Tools by Mark

Facebook is a magnificent traffic source and in March of 2010 became the most popular site on the internet, surpassing both Google and Yahoo. Facebook attracts 540 million unique visitors each month and receives a whopping 570 billion monthly views! Their reach extends to 35.2% of the Internet population.

Despite their massive growth and HUGE potential, their ad platform lacks a fundamental feature – the ability for advertisers to upload ads in bulk, which is essential for split testing and optimizing an ads performance. That’s why I was ecstatic when Will Haimerl, the creator of PPC-Coach announced in December that he had made a deal with Social Ads Tool and would immediately grant access to all PPC-Coach members.

I have been playing with it for the last couple of weeks and I must say, as a previous owner of FB Ad Manager (another bulk uploader that was decommissioned back in October of 2010 and is no longer available) the Social Ads Tool is awesome! I loved FB Ad Manager, but the Social Ads Tool is faster and orders of magnitude more powerful. On top of that, the Social Ads Tool is a Facebook preferred developer consultant and a Facebook Ads API partner so their tool has the full blessing of facebook which means you can create ads in bulk without living in fear that you are breaking any of facebooks Terms of Service.

Key Features I Love

  • Bulk Ad Creation – Create and edit ads in bulk which is key to split testing. Try different pictures, titles, ad copy. Target different ages, sexes, regions, likes, etc.
  • Self Optimizing – Allows you to increase/decrease individual ad spend dynamically based on criteria you set. If an ad is doing well, automatically increase spend. If it performs poorly, decrease and/or pause. Brilliant!
  • Built-in Conversion Tracking – Records when an offer converts and which ad caused the conversion. This allows the system to do all the dynamic bidding and optimization.
  • Integrated Reporting – Allows you to determine your campaigns profitability at-a-glance through charts and graphs. Also allows you to quickly determine your most profitable ads and campaigns.
  • Day Parting – Schedule your ads to run during certain times and/or days of the week. You know… when they convert best!

Interestingly enough, the Social Ads Tool is not available to everyone. To get an account you have to be a BIG spender ($160,000/month facebook Ads spend). They want to minimize their support costs by offering their service to a few big customers.

How You Can Get Access to the Social Ads Tool

Will (from PPC-Coach) cleverly negotiated a licensing deal with them that makes him the point of contact for all support requests and shoulder all the training burden of his members. It’s a move that creates another value ad for him and PPC-Coach members and a natural extension of the type of service he offers.

If you have been looking for a way to streamline your facebook ad creation process, or a replacement for the now defunct FB Ad Manager tool then hop on over to PPC-Coach and get some!

Niche Site Duel Part 6 – My High Level Backlinking Strategy

Filed Under Niche Site Duel, Off Page, Search Engine Optimization, SEO by Mark

There are several components to a successful campaign. Keyword research alone, though important, will not get you to rank high in the search engines. To climb to the top of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) you need to feed your blog a healthy diet of quality backlinks from a variety of sources. We will look at some here. Let’s go!

Backlinking Goals

Before I create my strategy it is important to set some goals. There are so many ways to approach backlinking that I have to think about what I am looking for with regard to an acceptable end result.

  • Achieve a first page top five ranking for the keyword phrase I am targeting
  • Do this within a reasonable time frame (<60 days)
  • Accomplish this with minimal effort

Building backlinks takes time. A lot of time. As a result, one of my goals is to minimize the effort required to accomplish my ultimate objective. The reason why this is important to me is because I would like to create a repeatable process that I can apply to multiple niche sites. If the process takes too much time it is doubtful I will want (or have the capacity) to apply it over and over again.

Backlinking Strategies

Here is a quick overview of several popular bookmarking strategies.

Market Samurai Approach

Market Samurai suggests one way to achieve a number one rank for a keyword phrase you are interested in is to analyze your competitors’ backlinks and then copy them (if you can). Market Samurai provides a great facility for this through the SEO Competition module where you can not only see where the backlinks of a competitor come from, but what the page rank and anchor text is which allows you to focus on grabbing backlinks from the best sites.

Link Wheel

Another extremely common approach is to create a link wheel using an assortment of free web 2.0 properties, article marketing sites and free online blogs. Since getting someone to link back to your site naturally can take time, the idea of a link wheel is to create backlinks for yourself by leveraging the numerous (high page rank) services that exist to link back to your main site.

The free properties you create form the wheel that point back to your main site (which acts like a hub).

If you would like to see an example of a link wheel in action check out Pat Flynn’s epic post The Backlinking Strategy That Works.

Directory Submissions

Another approach is to submit your site to the thousands of directory sites that exist on the Internet. You might have heard of the two most popular like DMOZ and Yahoo but it can take years for your site to get through the DMOZ approval process and the Yahoo directory will set you back $299 per year. Ouch!

The good news is that there are plenty of free directory services out there to submit your site to.

Social Bookmarking

Regardless of which technique you use, you can always apply a little social bookmarking love to the mix. If you are not familiar with social bookmarking it refers to sites that allow you to store your bookmarks online and share them with other users.  Delicious was the first site I remember that provided this kind of service (or at least the first one I ever heard about five or six years ago). Since then, literally thousands have sprung up.

Since they are web-based services they are crawlable by the search engines, and that’s precisely how they can help you get backlinks to your site. The more people that socially bookmark your site the more backlinks (votes) you have.

Like the other services, the idea here is to create an account and bookmark your own site. You will also want to bookmark other sites as well so your account doesn’t just have the one bookmark.

My Strategy


OK, so those are some of the options available. Which one am I choosing?

Answer: All of them… None of them… :)

Seriously! It all depends on what I can automate. There will be certain things that I will have to perform manually like writing content and spinning it. But a strategy that gets me a top five first page ranking on Google is virtually useless to me if I don’t have the time to repeat it. So my focus is going to be on finding tools to help me get the job done as efficiently as possible. I’m talking bang for the buck!

I have already started my tool evaluation process which is why it has taken me some time to get this post out. There is certainly a lot of crap out there that prays on the hopes and dreams of affiliate marketers and web site owners. I want to give them all a fair chance before I weigh in on them. If I can’t find a suitable tool or service to implement a technique I will probably abandon that component altogether (hence the “none of them” answer to my previous question).

Sites of Interest

For what it’s worth these are the sites (broken down by category) that  I would like to target based on research I have performed. I am listing them here as a reference for myself. As you can see, there are a lot of sites there which illustrates my need to automate.

Article Marketing Sites

Free Blogs

Web 2.0 Sites

Social Networking Sites

Social Bookmarking Sites

Directory Submissions

  • None in particular. Need to find a reasonable submission service. TBD.
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