Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
About 2 weeks ago, I picked up Comment Hut from Paul Forcey, the software developer for Comment Hut as well as a friend I got to know from NicheRockets forum.
Paul was the brain behind many excellent online marketing tools like Blogger Wizard, Widget Secrets, Hubpages Explained, Squid Hub Searcher and Keyword Manipulator. Frankly, I am quite a fan of his products and own quite a number of these.
That said, I am still going to put his tool Comment Hut to the test. At the same time, I am also trying out Comment Kahuna, another product from Jason Potash.
Both software are meant to track down blogs for you to comment on. In terms of features wise, the two tools have a built in feature that allows you to find blogs according to specific keywords and Page Rank.
I tested out both software.
Comment Hut – How It Works
With the Comment Hut (full version), it allows me to find blogs using 7 content management systems or rather platforms like:
1. Wordpress
2. Wordpress.com
3. Drupal
4. LiveJournal
5. Typepad
6. Squidoo
7. Hubpages
Simply enter your keyword and Comment Hut goes hunting down relevant blogs to the keyword. I do observe that the url of each blog post contains the keyword and from the different blog posts I found, the results are laser-targeted to the target keyword.
For each search, I can easily find 100s of such relevant blogs. I decided I have no time to post on every single blog and hence use the PageRank filtering feature of Comment Hut to remove those low PR blogs. The entire process was fast and took me no more than 10 minutes to compile a list of 511 blog posts of PR above 3.
I chose PR 3 because it would seem suspicious to the search engines to only have backlinks coming from PR 7 or 8 blog posts. It is better to cast your “linking” net wide. Also, there are much fewer PR 7 posts around.
All I did was simply to go to each blog post, browse through and make a helpful comment and I have a backlink completely FREE! Very quickly, I managed to get dozens of quality backlinks to my site, transferring PR love to me.
Some of these blogs that I posted to have the “No Follow” tags but many don’t. And in any case, from observations and what users have reported, Yahoo, MSN and the smaller search engines seem to be ignoring the “No Follow” tags. A quick look at the AWStats revealed that the spiders have visited the pages shortly after posting.
Like what I mentioned in my previous posts, spending one or two minutes posting on a blog post that enjoys good traffic can bring in a constant stream of traffic for a long time. Plus, Yahoo, MSN and smaller search engine spiders are following the links anyway. So the impact of the “No Follow” tag seems to be rather exaggerated.
Comment Kahuna – How It Works
Comment Kahuna works somewhat similar to Comment Hut. Simply enter a keyword and it will go searching for blogs related to the target keyword. Notice here that I said “related” and not “relevant”.
The reason why I said that is because, out of the 50 blog posts I found, many are the category pages of the main WordPress.com for related keywords, and not totally relevant as what I hoped for.
Let me explain it clearer. Say the keyword I searched for is “affiliate marketing”, they will return results like:
http://wordpress.com/tags/affiliate-marketing, http://wordpress.com/tags/internet-marketing, http://wordpress.com/tags/make-money-online
Now, not that this is no good, but the blog posts I found do not seem to be completely relevant and specific to the keyword I have targeted. If I target “web traffic” as my keyword, obviously I want to write my comments in a blog post around this topic. So giving a result showing a blog post tagged “make money online” seems to be out of sync.
My conclusion is that Comment Kahuna is useful if you are looking for blog posts that are centered around generalized topics, and not if you are looking for specific narrow niche topics.
But one feature I like about Comment Kahuna is its ability to sieve out the blogs with “No Follow” tag. Another useful feature is its profile creation and storing. If you wish, you can create a profile for each website you are promoting. When you get to each blog post, the software will auto-populate your name, email address and website link for you. So all you need is to comment.
You can also save your project halfway and come back again to continue later.
Comment Hut VS Comment Kahuna
Comment Hut is definitely a more powerful workhorse in terms of finding relevant blog posts to comment on. It can easily track down 100s of blog posts compared to the scaled-down 10s that Comment Kahuna can manage. The search results are also more relevant and targeted using Comment Hut.
But in terms of pricing, Comment Kahuna is free, but the full version of Comment Hut costs you $97. There is a Comment Hut Lite version which is free as well. This tool allows you to find WordPress blogs only rather than the 7 platforms that the full version is capable of searching.
Comment Kahuna has a slight edge over Comment Hut in terms of its ability to auto-populate the blog posts with your profile details. I have been bugging Paul to come up with this feature to match Comment Kahuna.
And I am pleased to inform that a companion tool is in the making. And it will be free for existing users of Comment Hut. Cool!
On the overall, Comment Hut earns a well-deserved 8/10 as a blog comment posting tool for its powerful search engine and accuracy. While it does not come with a comment posting feature at the moment unlike Comment Kahuna, such a feature will be added very soon. Comment Kahuna comes in with a 7/10 score since it is free and useful in tracking down blogs without “No Follow”.
Happy Blog Comment Posting!
Posted in Blogging, General, Online Marketing Learning, Product Reviews, SEO, Web Traffic | 33 Comments »
Saturday, February 9th, 2008
You may be wondering if there is any value at all in commenting on others’ blogs. I shall share my experience here as well as discuss why people love to leave blog comments around.
1. Improving Link Popularity
Blogs allow you to post a link in your comments. This is a free backlink to your website. If the blog post is a high PR, eg PR 7 blog post, you are practically getting a PR 7 backlink FREE. And all it takes is a few minutes of your time.
A PR 7 backlink costs anything between $50 and $200, and in most cases, that is a monthly bill you have to pay to the text advertisement networks like TextLinkAds.
2. Indirect Traffic
I love posting comments in popular blogs. The reason is simple. Popular blogs get a lot of attention and visitors. When the visitors read the post, they will find your comment and follow your link.
Highly trafficked blogs can get 10,000’s of visitors daily. Even a fraction of that can be worth a lot to your website.
You may have noticed also that some blog posts rank well in the search engine results. Imagine traffic from the search engines coming to your website. Wow!
3. Gain Better Search Engine Ranking
A blog comment link is also counted as a valid backlink to your website. Like what I mentioned about improving link popularity, having a backlink from a blog which carries the same theme as your website is a thematic backlink which will boost your search engine ranking.
A Case in Point:
I posted a simple comment in http://alokjain.in/affiliates-road-to-financial-freedom/.
The results: 9 subscribers for my free report & 1 sale came in within the next hour.
I have seen such happenings from time to time.
What about the “No Follow” tag?
When blog commenting first got popular one or two years ago, many spammers also got onto the blog comment train. Comment spamming became rife and many legitimate and popular blogs got hit by tons of worthless comment posts. Some are posted manually, others by automated blog comment script.
As a result, many blog platforms, notably WordPress implemented the “No Follow” meta-tag on many blogs. By this, the search engines would not follow the comment links. Hence, each link is not counted as a valid backlink, ie no search engine love.
Should we get overly concerned about this “No Follow” tag issue?
Here’s my take on this.
Firstly, not all blogs use this “No Follow” tag.
Secondly, considering the indirect traffic that still continues to stream from the blogs, there is really no harm in posting even in blogs with the “No Follow” tag.
Thirdly, you are only spending a few minutes to post your comment. That is worth the potential hundreds of visitors that will continue streaming in to your website for a long time to come.
In the next post, I will discuss about 2 blog commenting software, Comment Hut and Comment Kahuna that are able to find high PR blogs that do not have the dreaded “No Follow” tags.
Posted in Blogging, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Web Traffic | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
Blogging to the Bank 2 and its first version – the brainchild of Rob Benwell have been responsible for the success of many online marketing bloggers such as myself.
Prior to making my big break in 2007, I was struggling with making money online. Partly because I was spreading my attention across too many things and getting distracted, and partly because I did not come across any proper guidance or teachings that really mattered and worked…Blogging to the Bank 1 was one of the first ebooks that really taught me how to get started to make money online with blogs. Subsequently, I did figure out other more powerful methods to complement the techniques covered in the report.
The Blogging to the Bank 1 was a classic 37-page report written by Rob about creating an empire of blogs around profitable niches. The first version talked mainly about using Blogger blogs to market products from ClickBank. I need to qualify that it was applicable for all other products though.
It was a report that detailed exact steps of how to target the right keywords and how to create a Blogger blog from scratch including how and where to add your banner to promote the target product.
Click to view a sample blog
Blogging to the Bank 1 focused more on ranking well in MSN, a smaller search engine in comparison to Yahoo and Google. The methods of driving traffic using other smaller feeder blogs could work back then but in today’s context, it is no longer working well.
Firstly, MSN has changed its ranking algorithm, and secondly, Google has also devalued links through black hat linking methods.
It was what fuelled the creation of Blogging to the Bank 2. This time round, Rob focuses on teaching bloggers how to create a WordPress niche blog empire. Once again, ClickBank products take centre stage and in his usual style of writing, he teaches you step by step in building a WordPress blog from scratch that promotes a single product in the 61-page report.
In this full report, he talks about:
5 Secrets that will Make Any Blog Successful and Profitable for a Long Time to come
Step-By-Step Blueprint to Create a Long Lasting Blog Empire
6 Traffic Driving Techniques that Pulls In Over 30,000 Visitors to Just One of His Many Blogs
and more.
Along with the report, you will also get 5 sets of blog content and ready banners for 5 popular niches, article submission software, blog submission software, special tool that hunts for high PR blogger blogs to take over, and 2 other mini reports on whitehat and blackhat blogging techniques. For a price of $47, this is a valuable deal.
But one technique that was mentioned in the ebook about “stealing” high PR blogger blogs is no longer valid. So is the tool provided.
Nevertheless, all in all, this is a report that will help anyone aspiring to be a successful blogger do so in the shortest time possible.
If you purchase this ebook Blogging to the Bank 2 today, post your comments with your receipt number and I will send you a download link to ebook and software gifts worth $3215.
Posted in General, Online Marketing Learning, Product Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, February 4th, 2008
Online marketing forums are excellent places to participate in for a few reasons:
1. Knowledge and Information Sharing
This is a place where online marketers gather to talk about what is going on in the internet marketing world.
When you are there, you can read about the latest product launches, ie what new ebook, membership service or online marketing software have been launched.
A lot of marketers also love to share the tricks they have learnt. Whether it is about affiliate marketing in general or specifically about web design, SEO, website promotion strategies, article marketing or pay per click advertising, you get to learn almost anything and everything.
2. Uncover Under-Served Niches
You will also be able to discover what the commonly asked questions are and what topics are hot. This is important for you to uncover niche markets or guesstimate what products will be sellable.
It is worthwhile to check out those threads that are popular. Read the forum members’ comments. Figure out what problems they are facing. See if you can find a product in the market to meet their needs. Or even create your own product if there isn’t any ready ones in the market.
3. Drive Traffic to Your Websites
Your signature link is powerful. This is where you can be creative and craft an attention-seeking signature that makes people want to click through your link. Rather than going for a signature link that reads as:
“Come to my site and read about how to drive traffic”, come up with something like:
“Discover How I Pulled In 10,000 Visitors Within 1 Week For FREE!”
The second signature will do better to attract visitors, isn’t it?
I also make use of forums to promote my blogs. Here is a trick you might want to learn.
Each time you post to your blog, go to the forum, start a thread and get people talking about your blog post. People will visit your site out of curiosity, and even if they do not, you just earned yourself a backlink with your desired anchor text.
This will help you in your search engine rankings as well as drive direct interested visitors. Expect more traffic and sales.
4. Hire Web Designers, Article Writers, Programmers & General Help
Online marketing forums do have a section dedicated for buying and selling of products and services. These can be excellent places to find affordable website designers, article writers, programmers and just about any kind of help you need.
Forums that are related to online marketing and make money online:
1. Niche Rockets
Niche Rockets is an active online marketing forum that provides tons of powerful tools and eBooks, and has a large database of educational material for online marketers.
This is a paid forum so you will not see worthless posts or comments. Members are all serious marketers who are friendly and helpful and there are nuggets of gold that can be found here. Ask any question concerning affiliate marketing or other methods of internet marketing and you are likely to be greeted with tons of effective, workable answers by the successful marketers.
2. Digital Point Forum
This is one of the oldest and largest online marketing forums around. At any point of time, there are hundreds to thousands of members posting and commenting. This is a great place for newbies to hang around and pick up some tips. Since it is free, you will be deluged also with content that is totally crappy!
3. Warrior Forum
A favorite haunt of many famous online marketing gurus. The Warrior Forum offers a great place to learn and discover more about online marketing. Many of the members are successful marketers. You can also get some great deals WSO for eBooks, software etc.
Other forums related to online marketing and making money online are:
www.im4newbies.com/forum/
www.v7n.com
A quick way to find a list of forums to participate in is to Google the search term “online marketing + forum”, “affiliate marketing + forum” or “internet marketing + forum”
Posted in Forum Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
After marketing for over a year now, I have come to realize that having a proper online marketing education is necessary. No, I am not talking about getting a degree in online marketing or internet marketing.
I am referring to investing in continual learning from successful internet marketers. The internet marketing world changes quickly and it is a challenge to keep track of changes unless you are in the midst of them.
“No one loves changes but it is necessary for your income to grow!”
Some methods you learn today can become obsolete within months. But certain principles of online marketing always remain unchanged. Things like SEO, list building and article marketing are very much alive as they were a decade again!
The good thing I have learnt though is that once you cultivate the habit to adapt to changes, it becomes your second nature.
Well, you can get a proper online marketing education through a few simple ways.
1. Subscribe to successful marketers’ newsletters.
Currently, I am on the newsletter of famous and successful internet marketers like Ewen Chia, Cody Moya, Derek Gehl, Jonathan Leger and many others.
Read what they are saying, learn from them, duplicate their methods, ditch what doesn’t work for you, modify and apply what you have learnt and get your thinking cap running.
2. Read Ebooks & Reports
Ebooks or reports are often written in digestible format. The standard Ebook length is probably 20 to 50 pages. A report such as a mini report can be as short as 5 or 6 pages only. It normally does not take anyone more than a few hours to finish reading a report or Ebook.
Sometimes, you get to download them for free. But I would encourage you to invest some money in good Ebooks that can help to boost your income.
It is all about returns. If what you learn from an EBook can increase your earnings by $1000 every month, spending a one-time $50 on it becomes insignificant.
For example, here are some EBooks that have helped me greatly in my business.
Blogging to the Bank 1 & 2, Google Pay Load, Secret Article Profits, Auto Pilot Profits
3. Participate in Forums
I used to think that forums are a waste of time. Why would anyone want to spend hours in a forum chatting away? There is no value in doing so!
But when I soon discovered that top internet marketers are participating in forums, it got me thinking really hard. Surely if these guys who are ultra busy are spending time at the forums, it must be worth the effort.
True enough, forums are great places to rub shoulders with other successful internet marketers. You get to learn some new tricks of the online marketing trade, know what the products are genuine and helpful, and read about scams so you can avoid them.
Some forums I participate actively are DP Forums, NicheRockets & Warrior Forum.
4. Online Marketing Seminars
Seminars are great places to go. I must confess that till now, I have yet to attend one. Perhaps I should go for one this year.
Even though I have not been to one, I gather from my friends that some of the seminars can be real eye-openers! That is also where people get to hear from the horses’ mouth – the gurus and the like who share their secrets of success.
Live demonstrations can be expected as well.
My motto towards my online marketing education is
“Learn, Innovate, Apply & Master”
Treat your learning seriously and put feet to your knowledge and the returns will be great!
Posted in General, Online Marketing Learning | No Comments »
Monday, January 28th, 2008
I promised in my previous post to share about some online marketing Ebooks and reports that I have read that have benefited me greatly. I picked up the principles, applied some of the concepts and techniques, created my own methods and seen quantum leaps in my earnings.
I read quite a lot of online marketing Ebooks and reports written by other online marketers like myself. There are probably a thousand over of such Ebooks in my private collection. Some are free. Others are all bought over time.
One Tip For You:
Whenever there is a free Giveaway Event, join it as you can find dozens of quality Ebooks and freebies inside!
You can also download a copy of my free report “Secrets of Affiliate Marketing” and learn some powerful tips on affiliate marketing.
Among the hundreds of ebooks I have read so far, some are plain trash and only a few Ebooks are really worth reading. Most recent examples are:
1. Blogging to the Bank 1 & 2
2. Google Pay Load
3. Secret Article Profits
4. Auto Pilot Profits
So did I apply all the methods and tips inside? Nope!
Each time I complete an Ebook, I will only digest the concepts that are taught inside. Not that the content is no good, but rather I am someone who does not like to follow everything to the “T” strictly.
I LOVE to improvise, innovate and come up with my own methods! Moreover, if thousands of people use the exact method, the cutting edge may be lost.
Very often, I will then toy around with the methods, see how I can make it better, and combine them with other online marketing techniques I already know.
Experiment! Experiment! & Experiment!
This is what you can do using what you learnt from online marketing Ebooks and reports.
Posted in General, Online Marketing Learning | No Comments »
Friday, January 25th, 2008
Hi,
Since this is my first blog post, I will take some time to introduce myself and share a little more about my marketing insights, achievements and vision.
My Vision:
1. Set up an Online Marketing Academy
2. Hit US$5000 Per Day Income
By 2012
My Background:
I am Davion Wong. I started online marketing towards end 2005. But for the entire 2006, it was a year of discovery and hard knocks. Mostly Hard Knocks!
After spending thousands of dollars and getting them washed down the drain in scams, MLM blah blah blah, I finally picked up a few ebooks I have bought, read them thoroughly, modified the techniques learnt and applied.
And not forgetting powerful techniques that I picked up from an online marketing forum called NicheRockets.
BAM! I finally hit the target right on…and for the whole of 2007, I was able to build my income from close to ZERO to a 5-figure monthly income. See one of my ClickBank statements below. All earnings are in US Dollars.
This may not be impressive to the gurus, but to me, it is quite an achievement! And I did it without Pay Per Click Advertising….I will disclose more in my subsequent posts.
Anyway, throughout this 1 year, I really learnt a lot about online marketing, especially affiliate marketing.
It is also in 2007 that I launched my first affiliate marketing ebook called “Secrets of Affiliate Marketing”. It is FREE so I encourage you to download it.
My Marketing Insights:
In the year of 2008, a lot of limelight would be on Web 2.0 aka Social Bookmarking/Networking and Video. To be specific, the online marketing world would be paying a lot of attention to news as well as product announcements related to this.
While the buzz is going on, it does not mean that content publishing or SEO is going to be phased out. Article marketing and BUM marketing would still be very much alive but transformed with a twist.
People still love to read and this trend has gone on for centuries. My view is that this will not change in 2008, except that web pages have to be built differently, and linking strategies have to change in order for your websites to rank well in the search engines.
I will be conducting a series of trials and experiments. All will be circled around making money online with internet marketing.
So, you shall hear more and more from me about new ways to drive traffic for free, pull more sales and subscribers faster, tricks to rank well in the search engines, tools to make your work easier and earn more profits for you and so on, so forth.
That’s all for today.
In my next post, I shall share with you some ebooks that I personally have benefited greatly from that made it possible for me to reach my level of income with affiliate marketing.
Posted in General | No Comments »
