Archive for the ‘Traffic’ Category
Posted on January 1, 2009 - by Kelly Verge
81% of Online Shoppers Read Reviews Before Buying
If you’re not using review sites, you might be missing the boat.
Nielsen released some new poll results showing that 81% of online shoppers read reviews before making a purchase.
This explains why review sites are so powerful and work so well.
New internet marketers often have a difficult time figuring out how to do a credible product review. They often sound like an extended sales pitch rather than an objective review. Obviously there are several different styles of reviews, and you’ll have to decide which style fits your needs and your market.
I prefer to use a “reporter” style of review. This way, even if I don’t love the product, I can be honest about it which lends credibility to my other reviews.
If you’d like to give review sites a try, but don’t know where to start, take a look at Chris Rempel’s Conduit Method. He details a type of review site that performs very, very well. Not only do they boast great conversions, Conduit sites also naturally drive long-tail organic traffic.
For those who struggle with HTML or CSS/Wordpress Template design, Chris also offers a set of website templates, including a Wordpress theme that work perfectly with his Conduit Method.
If you’ve been having less-than-great result with your niche sites, follow Nielsen’s advice and try review sites. 81% of your customers think you should.
Posted on December 18, 2008 - by Kelly Verge
7 Posts + Minimal Backlinks = 3 Sales
To continue detailing the results of my neglected conduit site, I am now up to 7 posts/reviews. I’ve done a bit of social bookmarking for each of the reviews. I still haven’t worked on any other manual backlinks.
I dropped this site’s feed into my RSS pipe, and I’m already seeing some small traffic from that as well as some backlinks.
Since my last post about this site, I’ve made two more sales - both of which are for a membership site.
I moved this project up towards the top of my list after seeing the results it was getting. Now I’m putting even more effort into it. Quite obviously, the Conduit Method works, and while the theme I’m using looks a little sparse to me, it’s driving sales. Who am I to judge?
Posted on December 5, 2008 - by Kelly Verge
Comprehensive List of the Top RSS Directories - Submit Your Feeds For Links and Traffic
One way to put your blog content in front of a lot of eyes is to submit your blog’s RSS feed to RSS directories. Every time you submit your feed, you increase the chance that it will be picked up by someone who’s looking for content - and you’ll get backlinks and traffic in exchange. Also note that you can do the same thing for any site with a feed, such as a lens, hub, Blogger blog, etc.
Below is a fairly comprehensive list of RSS directories to which you can submit your feed for maximum exposure. This list should be current, and I’ve tried to trim away any niche-specific or paid directories. While there are some automated solutions for submitting your feeds to a handful of directories, I will post a follow-up to this article tomorrow detailing how you can add every new feed-enabled website you create to all of these sites with very little effort and zero cost.
List of RSS Directories:
2Rss
4guysfromrolla
9rules.com
Allheadlinenews
Blogcensus
Blogdigger
Blo.gs
Bulkfeeds
Chordata
Crayon
Daytimenews
Devasp
Feed24
Feedage
Feedagg
Feedbase
Feedbees
Feed Burner
Feedboy
Feedcat
Feedfury
Feedplex
Feeds4all
Feedmailer
Feedooyoo
FeedsFarm
Feedsee
Feedshark
Feeds2read
Feedza
Findrss
Free-rss
Gabbr
Goldenfeed
Itsmynews
Jordomedia
Millionrss
Mobispine
News-feeds
NewsGator
Newsknowledge
Newsnow
NGOID News Network
Octora
Plazoo
Pressradar
Purerss
RDFTicker
ReadAblog
Readburner
Redtram
RocketInfo
Rssbuffet
Rssfeeds
Rsshugger
Rssmicro
Rssmountain
Rssmotron
Search4Rss
Solarwarp
Strategic Board
Swoogle
Syndic8
Tailrank
Technorati
Topix
Twingly
Weblogalot
Wingee
YahooRss
Xmeta
Zimbo
If you know of a generic non-niche-specific RSS directory that’s not on this list, please leave it in a comment and I’ll make an addition to the list.
Posted on December 1, 2008 - by Kelly Verge
Streamlined, No-Duplicate List of Ping Servers
One of the benefits of using Wordpress as a platform is its ability to automatically notify “the world” when you’ve made a new post. It does this by sending a small bit of XML to a ping server letting it know that there’s new content. These ping servers are used by aggregators and search engines to determine when a site has changed so that they can more efficiently crawl for new content.
By default, Wordpress is set up to use rpc.pingomatic.com, which in turn relays your ping out to a list of other ping servers.
The problem with using ping relays like pingomatic is that if a server starts using their service and you already have that server on your ping list, they might consider the duplicate pings as spam and stop announcing your blog’s changes. This happens even more frequently if you just grab a big list of ping servers from the web since pingomatic isn’t the only relayer (pingoat is another, for example).
If you leave the default setting alone, you’ll be safe, but you’ll also miss out on a handful of ping servers which in turn could cause delays in getting your new posts crawled by some sites.
I’ve begun using a streamlined list of ping servers which doesn’t include any relay services. This should eliminate any chances of getting flagged for ping spam while maximizing my exposure when I make new posts.
Here’s the list:
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
Please note that some of these servers require you to manually visit the site and initiate the first ping for your site. It’s fast and easy, but that step keeps their services from being abused.
If you know of a ping server that you think should be on the list, comment below and I’ll do some research to see if it is a relay server.
Posted on November 30, 2008 - by Kelly Verge
Conduit Site with Unexpected Results
Like many Internet Marketers, I often find myself going in too many directions at the same time. When I catch myself doing this, sometimes projects get shoved to the back burner for a few weeks so that I can refocus on my primary stuff.
About five weeks ago I had a little time, so I thought I would try to set up a review site as suggested in Chris Rempel’s “Conduit” method. I played with some templates myself, but finally picked up his package of conduit-style templates, which included a Wordpress theme.
I picked a niche with lots of affiliate products, and after setting up Wordpress and the theme, I spent a few minutes entering the information for the first product. This is right about when I put this project on the back burner.
I didn’t set up analytics.
I didn’t bookmark my post (I did have the Wordpress pings turned on).
In fact, I didn’t do anything other than create a single page/post using the methods Chris teaches.
This afternoon I pulled up my ClickBank tracking code summary and noticed the code from that single link on the lone page has had 17 hops this month and one $70 sale! Obviously the number is statistically insignificant, but it proves that Conduit style review pages do in fact pull in long-tail traffic - buying traffic.
I’m going to move this project up in the queue so that I can see what it will do with 20, 30, or even 60 pages.
