Do you practice Integrity Marketing? Brian Clark of Copyblogger has some very sage advice for you. And some great articles to help you with content. Check it out!
Like this graphic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger.
Did you protest against SOPA and PIPA on the 18th? Or were you just in the dark wondering what all the fuss was about?
I know a lot of people didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It was rather inconvenient to have so many web sites unavailable. But I was concerned enough to join the protest myself (I’m sure you both noticed 8=) even though I’m not in the United States myself.
If you’d like to see a bit of results from the blackout the SOPAStrike website has an informative infographic: The January 18 Blackout / Strike in Numbers and Screenshots.
The fight against SOPA and PIPA is not over, but the enemy has been pushed back. Perhaps we’ll see some serious attempts to solve the problem of piracy while still protecting free speech and the security of the internet.
I had a very disturbing experience yesterday. And it got me to thinking about the state of things on the internet, in particular, marketing on the internet.
And I boiled my concerns down to one basic question:
Is this the Internet that you want?
We think about the internet as being some intricate web of information and entertainment that is out there. But we need to take a step back and realize one very important fact.
We are the internet.
More than any other medium in recent history, individuals like you and me have a say in what goes on in here. We write the news. We create the stories. We build the relationships.
So if the internet is a sorry mess, who do we blame for that? Google? Microsoft? Q?
The experience I referred to in my opening paragraph was a bit disconcerting. It was a site the promised traffic. And we all know that traffic is the life blood of earning a living online. It was recommended by someone who’s list I’ve been on for a long time. Someone who I have a certain level of trust in. Well, had might be a more appropriate way to phrase that.
So I signed up, even though they wanted a phone number. What the heck for? I hate to admit it, but 999-999-9999 is not really my phone number 8=)
Immediately I’m presented with a garishly coloured site. Tiny text crammed everywhere. A chat screen in the middle and two live video feeds — one of which is someone calling out my name. “Watch the video and then come back here” they said.
Very off putting to say the least. I watched the sales presentation for their upgrade. Apparently this presentation was a recording of one of the top guys, but not the founder. I found the presentation to be okay. I felt comfortable with the guy presenting.
But afterwards, the video calling out my name, trying to get me to sign up. I haven’t even seen what the site is about and already they’re pestering me to upgrade. When I was balking at jumping on this fantastic offer, the founder himself (in another video window) jumped in to talk to me.
Things went downhill pretty fast from there. Apparently I’m a loser because I won’t jump in with both feet simply because he says so! Looking around, doing some due diligence on the site (which turned up bad when I did do it) makes me a loser. I don’t know if these guys are a scam (I doubt it) but they are definitely overly hyped. And their tactics could use a breath mint.
Well, I’m pretty happy being a loser if that’s what he thinks I am. But unfortunately, because of sites like this, we’re all losers. We lose the trust of people out there because of charlatans and high pressure hucksters.
I’ve seen this type of sales pressure in the offline world before. Usually with scams masquerading as the next big MLM opportunity.
That’s the next question. I hope that you are with me in wanting to have an internet that you’d be proud to have your kids visit. But the next step is how do we do it?
I don’t have any quick fixes or pat answers for you. I’m hoping that we can all dig together and come up with some ideas. Here are some general ones to think on:
Do we need a way to call the bad guys out on the carpet? I don’t know if that has any affect. There are several sites that have reviews of the offending site, pointing out their flaws. But people are still promoting and signing up to it.
One thing I like to do is send a private email to someone when the do something I think hurts their integrity. I don’t do it every time and many will either ignore you or attack you (I’ve experienced both). But some will realize you’re only trying to help them. And they may even change their tactics.
One way that I have found to support good marketers is through IMTrustWorthy. I don’t know if it will be the answer to the problems of trust and integrity, but it is a step in the right direction.
Becoming a member gives you the right to put a badge on your site, like the one you see in my sidebar (check out the site by clicking my badge if you’re interested in learning more). But it isn’t just a badge. It actually links back to my profile on the site. And other members of the site have the right to rate me and even make comments. It’s kind of like StumbleUpon for marketers.
I’m sure that there will be imitators and those that put up fake badges. And there is always the risk that the site will be gamed by unscrupulous marketers. But it is a start.
Another way that we can support one another is to speak up for one another. If you see someone doing something impressive, tweet it, plus it, blog about it.
So here’s a challenge. How are you making the web a better place? How are you setting the example of an integrity marketer?
Share your story in the comments or write a post at your blog and let me know. I’ll add links to this post as they come in.
No, it’s not a new online game. But I recently decided to run W3 Total Cache here at LoneWolf’s LMA.
And it didn’t play well with SexyBookmarks (is it just me, or is that kind of delicious name for a plugin 8=)
I installed the cache shortly after upgrading to WP 3.3, so at first I thought it was a problem with that. But my other sites that run both SexyBookmarks and WP 3.3 weren’t having any problems, so I turned back to the caching plugin.
The problem was that the icons for the bookmarking weren’t showing up on my posts. I did some digging and found that people using CDN with W3 Total Cache were having similar problems with their SexyBookmarks. But since I’m not using a CDN yet, the solutions that they presented didn’t solve my problem.
I looked at the source that was being served and it appeared that all the html and javascript for the SexyBookmarks was in the HTML received by the browser, but it wasn’t displaying. So there was something interfering with the javascript that displays the icons somehow.
So, here’s the conundrum. I want to run the cache to speed up response time of the site. This is good for SEO and user experience. It also saves the load on the server (so when I become incredibly popular my site won’t crash 8=)
But, the sharing icons are very important as well. In fact, it is critical to make sharing easy to build SEO in today’s world. So I need something there. And I really like SexyBookmarks. Not just the name, but the look of it as well. It is flexible and integrates well into my sites. But I was looking at the possibility that it would have to be replaced.
I decided it was time to contact support. I figured that the people at Shareaholic must have dealt with this before, so I left a support ticket there. Unfortunately, with the holiday season in full swing it kind of slipped through the cracks. But I finally heard back from them today (and we got it sorted out when they pointed me in the right direction).
In the short term, I added the ShareBar plugin to get the big social media names up there. I like it so much that I plan on keeping it up in addition to SexyBookmarks. I think they compliment one another quite well.
Anyway, back to the battle.
The Shareaholic rep reported that they were unable to find any reported problems with W3 Total Cache and SexyBookmarks other than those relating to the CDN. She tested on a test machine and couldn’t see the same problem.
But she was pretty sure that it had something to do with the minify options for W3 since Shareaholic already minifies the code that they use. She gave me a few things to try out (including going back to the Twenty Ten theme to see if there was a theme conflict).
The first thing I did was to tell W3 to leave the SexyBookmarks code alone when minifying. I went to the Minify tab of the W3 Total Cache plugin admin and added “wp-content/plugins/sexybookmarks/*” to the Never minify these pages list. Clear the cache, reload the page and voila — still no bookmarks 8=(
Dang! I was sure that was it.
So I went back to make sure I typed it right. It was fine.
More head scratching. Clear the caches again — selected Clear All Caches this time. Still no joy.
Scrolling through the General tab of the W3 settings and there it was! Minify mode! There is a line beside this option (which can be set to Auto (the default) or Manual).
Select manual mode to use fields on the minify settings tab to specify files to be minified, otherwise files will be minified automatically, but will not use the CDN.
Basically, this is telling me that if I have the mode set to Auto it will ignore everything on the Minify tab and just try to minify everything!
Sure enough, I changed this setting to Manual, cleared the cache and I was back in business!
Now, I did have another entry in the Never minify these pages list which may have been what is needed. The contents of that field are now:
wp-content/uploads/shareaholic/*
wp-content/plugins/sexybookmarks/*
So you might get by with just the first entry in that list, provided the Minify mode on the General tab is set to Manual.
But I don’t mind having the extra line in there. Shareaholic has everything minified already so that isn’t going to hurt anything.
Maybe you’re still a bit leery. You think that PLR might be good for your business. But you need to know how to find PLR that will suit your needs.
Given the amount of products that are floating around the internet with reuse rights of some kind, you’d think it would be easy.
But it isn’t.
That’s because there is a lot of low quality PLR that is promoted out there.
If you’re a writer, then the low quality stuff still has some use as fodder for your creativity (provided it’s readable, which isn’t always the case). But if you want to be able to use the product with minor adjustments then you need something that is well written and researched as a starting point. And if you’re dealing with MRR, RR or similar rights, you can’t change it so it has to be good out of the box.
There is a lot of material that is available for free if you hang out at giveaway events and sign up to email lists. I get tons of the stuff that way. But it takes a lot of effort to sort through it all and figure out what will be useful.
The best material will usually be behind the money curtain — that’s right, you’ll have to pay for it.
So the question becomes “Who do I trust?” If you’re paying for a ghostwriter, you can see the end result before you finalize the payment. But with PLR you have to pay up front and many providers have a “no returns” policy (for obvious reasons).
That means you need to do some homework. You’ll be putting your hard earned cash on the line so you want to be sure about it.
You’ll need to find a couple of trusted sources that you can go to. People with a track record for creating well researched, well written articles, eBooks, etc. Once you’ve found a few good sources you can go back to them for more when needed.
Your due diligence involves several different approaches.
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Most of the providers of PLR will also provide a lot of solid information about marketing online in their newsletters. You can learn a lot from them.[/stextbox]Once you’ve found a good source of content, you’ll want to make sure that you sign up for their newsletter so that you can be advised when new stuff is ready. That way you won’t have to be checking back all the time.
Once you’ve found a couple of great providers you can build up a fairly steady stream of content for your business. But remember that not every PLR provider has the same level of output. Some will produce new content every week or so. Others will be sporadic, with new content coming out with no pattern.
You also need to keep in mind that a content provider may work in several different niches. You are not always going to see PLR content that matches your needs.
With these 2 caveats in mind, you may want to expand your list of sources to minimize the possibility of running out of material to work with.
Now that you know how to find PLR for your project, the job is to get out there and look! Remember that you can check my PLR Sources page for a starting point if you need to.
And if you know of a great PLR source or tip on finding one then, by all means, share it with us in the comments!
Backups are very important. And I’m sure that you have a backup for your blog. You need a WordPress backup plugin of some sort — don’t rely on your hosting provider’s backups although they’re great in a pinch.
For a long time I’ve been using a good plugin for my blog backups. It is called WP DB Backup. It backed up the blog tables on a schedule that I set (usually daily) and emailed me the backup file. I could even go in and request a backup right now if I wanted (e.g. before an upgrade).
But I discovered another plugin that I like even better. WP DB Manager steps things up a notch or two. It will also allow me to schedule backups and have them mailed to me. But in addition, it allows me the opportunity to optimize and repair the database amongst other things.
But the really special difference for me is that WP DB Manager will default to backing up all tables in the database while WP DB Backup does not. So, if a plugin or theme creates a new table it will automatically become part of the backup scheme.
There are a couple of things to watch out for when you install the plugin.
First, it may ask you to copy the htaccess.txt file from the plugin directory into your backup-db directory.
Click for a larger image if needed
This is easily done using an ftp client or the file manager from your hosting provider. But keep in mind that the file should be renamed to .htaccess if your hosting is on a UNIX or Linux system. This will protect your backups from being accessed by the public.
Secondly, it may have trouble finding the path to some of the mysql utilities and give you a warning that looks like this (the error messages are in red):
If it is having trouble finding the MYSQL paths, you can just try running a backup. If it works then you don’t need to worry about this message.
The first thing that you’ll want to do is schedule your backups. This is done on the DB Options page. You can leave the settings on the top half of the page alone and scroll down. Simply enter the frequency of backups, whether or not to use Gzip to compress them and make sure your email address is correct.
That’s all it takes!
You’ll also notice that you have options to automatically optimize and repair the db. You can change those if you want, but I left them as is. You may find that they slow things down when they’re running but for most blogs it shouldn’t be a big hit.
A savvy user will have noticed that something is missing from this backup scheme — the WordPress files and all your downloaded files are not backed up. Both of these plugins focus solely on your database.
You will need to ensure that the file structure of your blog is also regularly backed up. Your hosting provider may have backups that you can access, but you don’t necessarily want to trust them.
For me, I usually keep an ftp copy of my themes, etc. on my development computer. But it isn’t the best way to approach this. So I’m going to be looking around at plugins and other options for backing up the filesystem as well. Stay tuned for a report on that soon.
Oh, yeah. If you have any suggestions or comments you know where they belong! Share your experience and knowledge with us all below.
I’ve been incredibly busy the past few weeks, but I stumbled onto a guy that I think you need to meet — Eric Ward (aka LinkMoses).
I just read a couple posts from his blog and already I am impressed. The one that really stood out to me is When Cheaters Win. I especially like what he said at the end of the post:
But I also understand business. I just choose not to participate in tactics that make the web uglier. — Eric Ward
That sums up my feelings about being an Integrity Marketer. I hope that you can relate.
One of the cornerstones of any traffic generation strategy is getting backlinks to your site. When you have other sites that link to your site the search engines will take notice — at least that is the theory.
But it isn’t as simple as it should be, at least not for an Integrity Marketer.
The basic strategy is straight forward:
The problems arise when you try to follow these steps without putting on a black (or even grey) hat.
You see the work of the black hats all the time:
Most of the black hat techniques involve very little work, generate a lot of content, backlinks and, unfortunately, traffic. Because of the extreme automation you can just set it and it will create hundreds of posts and backlinks out the wazoo.
The question is, do you want wazoo backlinks and content to match?
I’m trusting that your answer is “No!” Perhaps even with some expletives that might need to be deleted 8=)
But how do you compete with the sheer volume that the black hat techniques bring?
I think this is where so many people slide into their grey hats — especially when it comes to backlinks but I do see it in content as well.
I’ve heard of people outsourcing their backlink creation. Hiring someone to create 1,000 links by commenting on blogs, forums and social media sites. These comments are rarely relevant to the article in question and are often done by bots anyway. So they’re just spam comments.
Or people will create dozens of alternate accounts and post their links several times to generate some buzz on sites like StumbleUpon or Twitter.
But it’s wrong! Completely wrong!
I know that sounds harsh, and we all need to do something to get our quality content seen. I mean, the stuff that we create is much better than the spun garbage the black hats push that still seems to climb to the #1 spot in the search engines.
But the problem is that it is dishonest. Social media sites don’t like it. Bloggers and forum moderators don’t like it. Face it — when you get spam comments on your blog, how do you feel about it?
So why would you do that to someone else?
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When you’re building your backlinks keep the following tips in mind:
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As far as I’m concerned, white hat techniques are the only way to go.
That doesn’t mean you can’t be aggressive with your backlink campaign. Just be honest.
When you post a comment on a blog or forum, do it within the bounds of their comment policy. If you don’t know what it is, then assume that they want a real name, not keywords in the Name field. Some will accept a name and keyword combination. But more and more blogs are just canning the comments that have keywords in the name field.
Make sure that you’ve actually contributed to the conversation. “Amen sister” is fine if you’re a regular and people know you there. But for your first few posts actually say something meaningful, even if it is a contrary opinion. And make sure that you regularly contribute meaningful comments.
Don’t include links back to your article unless it relates to the post — and I mean it is really relevant, not just in the same niche. You’re getting a link to your home page for free so don’t get greedy.
On social media sites, don’t create multiple accounts unless it is allowed. Twitter allows it. Facebook doesn’t. Read the terms of use if you’re not sure.
Even if multiple accounts are allowed, don’t pretend to be someone completely different in order to promote yourself. I have multiple Twitter accounts so that I can deal with multiple niches, but they all have my name on them. I do some cross promotion when it’s appropriate, but I’m up front about it. At some point I may decide to use pseudonyms. But if I do, I won’t use one to promote the other.
There’s the rub. Keeping the white hat on will require much more effort. But in the long run I trust that it will lead to greater exposure and trust for those who put in the effort.
I like what it says in Psalm 1:1-3:
1 Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers. (NIV)
There is always the chance that the white hats will not prevail, but I’d rather be a poor white hat than a successful grey.
Running a blog with comments results in a never ending battle with spammers and spam bots.
Joost de Valk at Yoast – Tweaking Websites shares how he is dealing with comment spam. He recommends a few plugins that may help.
And if you’re interested in my take on comment spam, check out the Battling Comment Spam series I wrote for Ramblings (someday they’ll be here as a Ramblings Classic).
Update: There have been lots of comments on Keith Purkiss’ blog about the giveaway event described below. It seems that much of the fuss is about a miscommunication — see the update in that section for more info…
The more I try to learn about integrity marketing, especially with respect to online marketing, the more discouraged I get. It seems that integrity and morals are a thing of the past. The world seems to be full of lies. Deceit is the order of the day.
Here are a few recent examples.
I received a couple emails promoting a new giveaway, the Everyone Wins event. It looked pretty interesting when I saw the list of names that were involved. It seemed that either this giveaway was standing out somehow, or giveaways in general must be making a comeback. There were a couple big names on the list that I don’t recall ever seeing in a giveaway before.
But there was a problem. The mechanism that the event was using is one I’d seen before. It was a violation of Aweber’s terms of use since the members would sign up for the event, but they wouldn’t sign up for each individual list — the event software takes care of that. Aweber doesn’t like that since it breaks the chain of events and they can’t fight a spam complaint.
So I mentioned it to Keith Purkiss, who is one of the guys who emailed me about the event. And guess what he found out? He contacted one of his buddies that was listed as being part of the event. He didn’t have a clue what Keith was talking about! Keith wrote about it in his article Is 2011 Really The Year Of Ethical Marketers? Great question Keith.
Now that I’ve had some time to reflect on it, I never got an email about this event from the big names I recognized. Do you think they’d sign up for an event and not mail their lists? Pretty sad.
Anyway, I’m glad that Keith had the guts to email his list afterwards to warn them and write that post.
Update – November 2, 2011: There have been a lot of comments on Keith’s blog about this event by the organizers and some of the big names that were listed there. A couple of things that have come to light:
- One of the marketers listed was not supposed to be there — it was a miscommunication over similar sounding names.
- Keith has taken a lot of flak over his post although he was pointing out his concerns to his list and they were not addressed in a timely fashion by the organizers.
- The big names shown on the sign up page are not necessarily joining the event as JV partners (some are, some aren’t). Rather, they have contributed prizes for the contest portion of the event. This was not clearly outlined and has probably led to much of the confusion. It’s probable that this was not intended to deceive people.
- There is still the issue that one of the people on the list was contacted directly by Keith and said that they didn’t know about the event (he doesn’t name that person).
Then there is the WSO I was emailed about the other day. This was for a WordPress plugin that was designed to increase your blogs attractiveness to Google and the other search engines.
Sounds great, until you read what it is doing. The premise is that Google loves to see comment activity on a blog. Makes sense. So you want to increase the interaction, right?
But how can a plugin do that? It’s simple. It creates fake comments. You read that right — fake comments.
In other words, you end up spamming your own blog with fake comments by fake user names with links to your own properties and/or affiliate links.
You have the option of adding your own comments or just reusing the spam that naturally comes into your blog.
Super honest technique (that is sarcasm for anyone who missed it). But people love it. There were tons of comments on the thread from people gushing with praise and others complaining that the server went down and they couldn’t get their copy quick enough.
Another article that popped up in the past few days that caught my attention was Fake Online Hotel Reviews and Other Demons by Rodney Perez. He outlines some of the fiascoes in the hotel review industry, like employees writing fake reviews of their own hotel (positive ones of course) as well as fake reviews of their competitors (negative reviews known as negging).
He also talks about Craigslist ads for positive reviews. I’ve seen similar things on Fiverr.
The same kind of stuff happens on Amazon and other sites that allow users to review a product.
It is pretty sad that many of the techniques that we use to get traffic and promote our products are based on lies.
I’ve seen advice that tells you to create multiple accounts at social media and bookmarking sites to promote your posts. Others that tell you to hand craft testimonials (note that this is different than encouraging testimonials from actual customers). Fake earnings “screenshots”. Fake comments (automated or not). Spamming blogs and forums. Deceptive email headlines. The list of deceptive techniques seems to grow daily.
So how do we deal with it? The sad fact is that it often works — at least short term. But it leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths. And that colours all of us. One bad apple does spoil the whole bunch, no matter what Michael said.
I have a site that has some quality articles about a topic that I know about first hand. But HubPages won’t let me link to that site. I have a link in the sidebar that links to eBooks being sold on Clickbank. Also, it is in a subdomain and the main domain has an eStore that sells eBooks.
Fear of Panda has HubPages rejecting my well written articles because of one or the other of these reasons (they still haven’t clarified which — it could be both).
Let’s have some ideas. How can we do better? How can we stand up against the bad apples and show the world that there really is integrity left online?