This is a quick post to highlight some of the things we’ve been teaching and telling people over the years regarding Internet marketing. When it comes to any search engine, you want your listing to be first, second… or TENTH! That’s right, the last spot on the first page.

It’s a hard spot to get since Google does not sell or market that spot in search results, but if you are lucky enough to be placed there, it could pay off!

A couple of weeks ago, our article on Google Maps vs Bing Maps was suddenly getting about 5 times the hits it normally gets. Not that it raised any bad flags, but it did make us curious as to why the sudden spike occurred. The reason was that the article in question was listed at the tenth (last) position on the page. It is our belief that more people click on that spot because it’s the last one they see as they pause for a moment before clicking to page 2. If your tenth spot description and link are good enough, people will notice it almost as much as if you were in the top 2.

A few days later we were elevated to the 9th spot, and as expected our hits to that page went down again, despite the higher ranking. So in the case of search engine placement, sometimes last can be best!

Part Three

The Naming Game
Our Internet Marketing blog is called "eSource Development" and the domain is at esourcedevelopment.com. We thought long and hard regarding a name - We were trying to think of something relating to making money
online but couldn't think of anything that didn't sound cheesy so we took our store name, eSource, and made it a development site since a majority of our business was web and software.

Topic Selection
When we first started our development / marketing blog we were already a successful web and software development company operating under the name eSource, and that's what we initially blogged about. However as the months passed we found ourselves learning and blogging about topics I didn't know about at the start, like niche marketing, social media, javascript, list building and so on.

Whether you are starting a blog from scratch or you have an existing one, use what you thought about in the previous lesson to think about what direction you are going to take your blog and sketch out some of the specific topics you can cover.

When it comes to writing your posts you will be able to organize them into categories which makes it much easier for new readers to find your posts and its easy for them to see at a glance what your blog is about. When you just post a mish-mash of posts on all sorts of topics that are not really related then it can be more difficult to turn a one-off visitor into a regular subscriber.

Posting Schedule
Many people advise you to blog every day when launching a new blog with the theory being that the more you post the more people will come to your blog, and the more often Google will index your site. However as a blog reader I find that blogs that post every day or even multiple times a day are simply too much - I can't keep up with them. We try to post about 2 times a week which seems to be the right balance for our type of site.

When we say "schedule", we don't really mean that literally. As long as you post at least twice a week, the exact day and time of the postings do not matter. Sometimes, we'll write 2 posts and schedule the second one to post the next day so there is a gap between postings. Most popular blog sites will have this feature.

I know your anxious, but starting out with an every day posting blog then settling in to a twice a week blog might look bad to some. It is much better to start out with a gentler blog schedule and see how it goes for a few months rather than over-commit yourself at the beginning and then burn out a few months down the line.

Posting Style
Some people suggest that you alter your blogging style to fit your target audience but in our experience we find that it never works to try to blog in a style that is not uniquely you. Your blog is a reflection of you - your thoughts, your findings, your interests and passions.

I used to teach at the University of Phoenix... Not so much by choice but by necessity. I had written a course for them on Data Communications and Protocols. I was then told there were no teachers for it, so I signed the contract to teach the 10 week course. I had never taught before so I read a couple of books real quick and tried to find a "style." Guess what? It was a complete waste of time! Do you know why? Because the best teaching style is your own style, not someone else's. As soon as I did that the teaching was easy. I was comfortable and coherent because I was talking and acting like me!

The moral of the story is simply to blog in your own style, whatever that means! Some people are very conservative, some people use very colorful language, others like to be controversial, others are very dry and matter-of-fact. Whatever you are, simply be who you are and write as yourself.

Similarly, I see people asking questions such as, how long should my posts be? This again is down to personal style. I find that when you are blogging about something you are passionate or knowledgeable about, the words just flow. Some of my posts here (and my other blogs) can get a little wordy, but hey, that's my style!

It really doesn't matter what your style is because the readers who like your style will stick around and subscribe and the ones who don't, wont! Simple as that really! There is no way that any single style is going to appeal to everybody so don't try! No matter what your posting style is, there will be people who like it and some who don't, but it never pays to try and be something that you are not.

Here at eSource, we use blogengine.NET to run our blog. There are many other platforms out there for IIS that offer the same functionality, and they all offer the same basic bells and whistles.

One really neat feature is the sitemap.axd file. It actually doesn’t exist in hard form, it is created on the fly (as requested) and returns the latest list of all pages within the blog library. The problem with blogengine.NET and other major IIS blog providers is that they don’t let you add additional sites to the sitemap.axd file unless they are part of the overall blog database. For eSource (and other blogs) it is necessary to have a sitemap that is created in real time to ensure the latest pages are added, but also include some pages that are outside of the administration page listings in the control panel.

Download the .EXE and config sile: Sitemap2XML.zip (3.91 kb) 

(requires IIS7 or greater with .NET Framework 2.0 or greater).

This is not a big deal when submitting your sitemaps to Google, but Yahoo and Bing only allow one sitemap to be assigned to each site. In Google’s case, you would simply specify sitemap.axd as the main sitemap, then add a manually created .XML file to include all of your otherwise non indexed pages. But for the other two, the task needed a little more creativity.

We created Sitemap2XML for IIS 7 and above. It is comprised of 2 files, an .EXE (Sitemap2XML.exe) and a configuration file (Sitemap2XML_Config.txt). The program connects to the website’s sitemap.axd file specified in the configuration file and appends a list of additional URL’s to the end, then writes that out to a specified file, usually sitemap.xml.

Here is a sample of the configuration file:

   1: ; URL is the actual URL of the sitemap file (usually axd)

   2: url=http://mysite.com/sitemap.axd

   3: ; outputfile (optional) determines where the results of this program are written

   4: ; Default is Sitemap2XML_OUT.xml

   5: outputfile=c:\inetpub\wwwroot\mysite\sitemap.xml

   6: ; changefreq (optional) determines how often you want to specify changes to the page

   7: changefreq=monthly

   8: ; lastmod (optional) specify a date or use "_Today" to use today's date 

   9: lastmod=_Today

  10: ; addpage: include all additional pages that will be added to the output file

  11: addpage=http://mysite.com/page1.html

  12: addpage=http://mysite.com/page2.html

To install the program on your IIS server:

• Unzip the contents to any directory.
• Modify the Sitemap2XML_Config.txt file. Be sure your output file is in your website’s path
• Run the program in a DOS window to test. the program creates a log in the running directory.

Now the sitemap.xml file includes BOTH sitemap.axd results plus our additional sites.

The best way to keep this file up to date is to add it to the scheduled tasks on your server. Now, when you add your site to the webmaster tools of Yahoo or Bing, specify the sitemap.xml file that the program creates. This file will include the output from sitemap.axd and the additional URL’s you specify in the configuration file.

It’s time once again, young-ins, to gather around the campfire and I, an eSource tribal elder, will once again mesmerize you with tales passed down from Sysadmin to Sysadmin. For these are the continuing tales of the life force we call Internet spoken by those who were there to experience it many moons ago… (cue howling wolf).

This hack had a good run in the early to mid 90’s and is seen occasionally in this day and age in the dial up world. It had to do with luring someone to a page that interested them and getting them to click on a particular script… Not for a mere few cents in booty like Google AdWords pays today, I’m talking 99 cents per minute level booty!

During the heyday of dial up internet, people got accustomed to hearing that familiar dial tone, beeping, and subsequent squeal of the answering modem as they connected to the Internet via their local ISP. Hearing that sequence of events squawk through the speakers meant we were connected and ready to surf. Some users, though, elected to silence their modems and rely on the primitive Windows 95 icon to tell them they were connected.

Now, in the early days of Windows 95, Winsock Dialer was the method used to connect to dial up ISP’s. It was not initially part of Windows and had to be installed via a floppy disk (which ISP’s provided free of charge). These disks usually included the dialer and modem script with commands that were sent to the modem telling it what to do. It is in this script that astute users could send commands to the modem to tell it to dial quietly. Other commands in the modem initialization string could serve other functions, but the speaker and sound related ones were usually limited to:

M0  Speaker always off
M1  Speaker on during connection
M2  Speaker always on (very noisy)
L0  Lowest volume
L1  Lowest volume (redundant)
L2  Medium volume
L3  Maximum volume

And so on. The point is that a text based initialization file was all that was needed by Winsock (and other dialers) to get your modem to connect to your ISP. And it was this security hole that nefarious Internet underlings exploited to rake in millions from unsuspecting dupes. Here’s how…

Two VERY popular (and still popular) niches of the Internet are pornography and free (illegally) software. Newsgroups were the method of the day, but websites were starting to appear that offered “FREE” content and thousands of pictures, software, etc.. When people would visit these sites, they were told that in order to access their “FREE” content, they had to download some files or even download and run a program that would “set up” their computer to get the free material anonymously, faster, whatever it took to get the person to agree.

Once downloaded and run, the script would actually change the dialer settings of the Winsock script to dial an ISP with a 900 number, and also change the speaker settings on the modem. Once loaded, the script was executed which basically told the modem to hang up and reconnect. The sound of the modem disconnecting is usually a very faint clicking noise. If unnoticed, the unsuspecting web surfer’s connection was disabled and re-established using this silent pay-by-minute 900 number instead of their usual ISP. Some astute people would hear the disconnect click and suspect foul play, others though were a trustworthy bunch that, since the modem dialed silently, had no idea they were connecting to high priced dial in service.

The user was then taken to the site which, as promised, delivered endless hours of viewing pleasure to the unsuspecting client… until the phone bill came! In those days, disputes on the bills were not usually tolerated by the phone companies, so the client paid the phone bill, in turn paying the hackers. If they were not clever enough to figure the time frames, the blame sometimes fell on unsuspecting teenagers in the family that were blamed for countless hours on Corey Feldman party lines.

Now, off to bed ya go! The Elder’s will regale you with tales of Internet old some other time!

It’s finally here! After months of testing and development, our eMail Scraper product is ready for release! It’s a fantastic way for internet marketers to focus their email campaigns to specific target audiences rather than just blasting emails to tens of thousands of random people who may have little or no interest in your product.

Here’s How It Works

Say you have a reseller product or clickbank™ eBook that deals with health foods and diet. Open email Scraper, select the search provider (Google or Yahoo), enter a search term like "diet clinic retail in Seattle WA email contact" and click the "Create Site List" button.

Now review the results and click "Scrape." It's that simple. email Scraper then scans the search results for inner pages and begins scraping the email addresses off the pages. It even captures most hidden, embedded, and coded address links.

When the process is complete, you can export the results of the scrape to a text file for easy loading and / or importing. Addresses are written in a CR/LF formatted file for easy importing to your email blast program.

You can read more about this amazing product HERE!

Don't pay hundreds of dollars a month on some generic opt-in mailing list whose members probably don't have anything to do with your product or service. Why not create specific and detailed emailing lists that cater directly to your niche market? email Scraper is the definitive automatic email address generator! Get detailed email lists covering any and all combinations. The only real limitation is your imagination.

So what are you waiting for? Get started creating specific lists containing quality email leads with just  few clicks of the mouse. Focus your email strategy to get quality leads and start Making Money! email scraper is the fast track success marketing tool that will turbo-charge your conversion rates!

We’ve had our Sudoku PRO software available for a couple of years now, so we felt it was time for an upgrade. The new version has more features and a significant price reduction!

You can download a FREE 3 day trial version HERE!

Or register the product for only $5.

Sudoku PRO installs on your PC and generates random puzzles with user selectable levels of difficulty (easy, medium, and hard). Since the software generates the puzzles on the fly, each puzzle is unique and different. The combinations are virtually endless! This means that Sudoku PRO will continue providing fresh, quality puzzles every time your ready to play.

Sudoku definition:

Sudoku is a logic-based number placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 boxes (also called blocks or regions) contains the digits from 1 to 9 only one time each. The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid.

The modern puzzle was invented by an American architect, Howard Garns, in 1979 and published by Dell Magazines under the name “Number Place". It became popular in Japan in 1986, after it was published by Nikoli and given the name Sudoku, meaning single number. It became an international hit in 2005.

Now, SudokuPRO allows you a quick, easy to use interface to play the game the way you want. It features advanced options and games can be saved for later enjoyment. Some of the enhancements to Sudoku PRO for this release include:

Three difficulty levels Easy: Get your Sudoku feet wet Medium: More difficult Sudoku puzzles Hard: Sudoku puzzles with minimal starting numbers

Reveal Square key: Shows the value in a selected square

Ability to save and load games

Real-time checking of your progress

"Solve Game" feature so you can see the solution to the current puzzle

Print the current puzzle so you can take it with you when you go

Number Pen to place the same number in multiple squares

Start Over button allows the current puzzle to be restarted

New - Solver Mode allows you to enter an existing Sudoku and reveal the answer

New - Print Pages prints 4 puzzles on a page to take with and enjoy

 

Remember, you can play our FREE online version of Sudoku HERE!