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By Topmaker, March 7, 2010 10:54 am

According to Wiki:
“On the Internet, a mirror site is an exact copy of another Internet site. Mirror sites are most commonly used to provide multiple sources of the same information, and are of particular value as a way of providing reliable access to large downloads.

Reasons:

Mirroring of sites occurs for a variety of reasons.

• To preserve a website or page, especially when it is closed or is about to be closed.
• To allow faster downloads for users at a specific geographical location. For example, a U.S. server could be mirrored in Japan, allowing Japanese Internet users to download content faster from the local Japanese server than from the original American one. This may be viewed as caching on a worldwide scale.
• To counteract censorship and promote freedom of information. For example, an activist might post pictures on a website of a company conducting illegal activities or make available information on secret government activity and be litigated for such. Other internet users will make the content in question available on other servers when the legal action results in the cancellation of ISP or DNS services for the original activist.
• To provide access to otherwise unavailable information. For example, when the popular Google search engine was banned in 2002 by the People’s Republic of China, the mirror elgooG was used as a way of effectively circumventing the ban.
• To preserve historic content. Financial constraints and/or bandwidth prevent the maintainers of a server from keeping older and unsupported content available to users who still may desire them – a mirror may be made to prevent this content from disappearing.
• To balance load. If one server is extremely popular a mirror may help relieve this load: for example if a Linux distribution is released as an ISO image onto the distribution developer’s own server, this server may become overloaded with demand. Alternative download points allow the total number of download requests to be spread among several servers, maintaining the availability of the distribution. Metalink is frequently used for automatic load balancing by listing all mirrors.
• As a temporary measure to counterbalance a sudden, temporary increase in traffic. For example, Slashdotted websites will often be mirrored by a few slashdot posters until the article is pushed off the front page.
• To increase a site’s ranking in a search engine by placing hyperlinks from each mirror to every other mirror (a technique known as link farming). This is viewed as unethical by most search engine administrators and websurfers.
• Rarely, as a form of plagiarism; this is, however, usually pointless, as a website popular enough to be worth plagiarizing will quickly discover the copy as soon as one of their many readers stumbles onto the plagiarized site.
• As a form of raising advertising revenue. Wikipedia is probably the best example of material released under the GNU Free Documentation License which is then duplicated by other companies which, unlike Wikipedia, then attempt to generate money from advertising, etc. See Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks.
• To serve as a method of circumventing firewalls.“

I would have put it in my own words; but Wiki gives a simple and clear information!

For Top Marketing Review Blog though; the Mirror Site is a temporary solution to balance Load. No Link Farming, No Rank Improvement and no attempt to raise Ads Revenue…etc.

For us who are facing that Good-Bad situation, WordPress makes is so easy to Export your whole blog and move it in a few clicks, I did that with one of my Joomla sites and spent a quit bit of time repairing it!

So please do not pass judgment if you saw Top Marketing Review.Net showing up on your search results next to Top Marketing Review.Com, it is temporary solution to give you access and a relief of those nasty 500 Error pages!

Comments (2)

By Topmaker, February 20, 2010 5:27 pm

The name is going to sound like a good title for a new web site, but it is to be the title for an …you knew that was coming…. E-Book I am working on.

Some of you would say it is hard to accomplish, but the Almost Perfect WordPress Blog is easier than you think!

You have to go a step by step with an action plan (no not marketing, web design), watch your theme picks and your plugins additions; and you are the proud webmaster of a Unique, healthy and for some profitable WordPress Blog.

I’ll keep you posted on when it is going to be available for download.

Comments (5)

By Topmaker, January 25, 2010 11:53 pm

Once in a while I come across an offer that is so good;  I feel it is my obligation to pass it on to you,  my readers.

SiteGround Web Hosting is offering a whole year of web hosting for Unheard of $ 9.95 !

Some of us pay that much for one month!

But it gets even better:

” The special offer is suitable for people planning to start a new website as the annual price of $9.95 includes a free domain registration too. People that are hosted elsewhere can also take advantage of this offer as we will transfer their websites for free! “

I have been with them for a few years now, and their service and Tech Support is next to none, so this is not a softSell attempt either!

I used the same offer to start a couple of new sites already and was waitng for their OK to pass it on. So if I were you I would take advantage of this one, here is the link:

SiteGround Friends Special

And if you decided to stay with them after that year, their monthly rate is great too.

BTW

I get free months added to my own plan for every sign up through this link, Christmas for everybody all over again!

Comments (11)

By Roger Smith, January 16, 2010 9:56 am

Have you heard of Conversion Rate Optimization before?

No? According to Wikipedia: Conversion rate optimization is the science and art of creating an experience for a website visitor with the goal of converting the visitor into a customer. It is the process of increasing the percentage of website visitors converting it to your customers.

Why is it Important?

 PPC campaigns are becoming more expensive day by day due to increase in competition and because increasing bids for keyword is not possible for most of the online advertisers. This is the time to focus on Conversion Rate Optimization. But before jumping to the tips, let me share some of the advantages you would get by Conversion Rate Optimization.
Overall Spend of Your PPC Campaign would reduce and ROI of your campaign would increase.

It would improve the Quality of your landing pages making life of your visitors easier and Search engines happy.
Your Customer acquisition cost would reduce.

You don’t have to increase bids for your keywords, because good landing pages mean high Quality Score and low bid for a keyword.

And, Did I mention High Conversion Rate? You can bid on high competitive keywords with more confidence because your landing pages have more power to sell than your competitors.

As you know; the great benefits especially the MONEY which you can earn easily by doing some work on improving the conversion rate of your website now, I am going to cover some of the tips (should I say the changes to make on website) which can help you to improve the conversion rate of your website.

 Do a detailed analysis of your website. Ask your family members, colleagues, current customers or even you can hire persons online and ask them to review your website. Make them to try processes like buying a product or sign up for a form and ask what they liked or disliked about your website. How easy it was for them to finish the process and if you found out some problems which are common in all reviews, then try to solve them.

Don’t fill your landing page with content which is not so useful and important for customers. Your customers want to know what makes you different from your competitors and why they should buy from you. Make sure you know the intentions of your visitors when they visit your page and content on your page can answer the questions which are in the mind of your visitors. For e.g. – If you are asking for personal information from your visitor, your page should contain a link to your company policies on personal information about their clients

 Fill your landing pages with Social proofs and testimonials from your old clients. Adding logos of credible sources like BBC or images of awards your product had won is also a very effective way to build credibility. Adding reassurance logos as shown in image is also a good way to build some credibility.

Improve usability of your website by overhauling your website architecture and its navigational structure. Make the process which you want your visitor to complete as easy as possible. Avoid the use of elements like Flash, Pop-ups etc which increase the loading time of your website can irritate your users. Make sure your website is compatible and works well in all major browsers.

 Make your own Test Scenario and design your own A/B or Multivariate tests. A/B testing (Split Testing) is simple and great if you are looking to test single element on your Website Whereas, Multivariate testing helps you to test multiple elements of the page at the same time. Google Website Optimizer is a great free tool to do multivariate testing but you are looking for more accurate results you can go with paid tools like SiteTuners and Omniture.

Theoretically, you can test every single thing on your website. But testing random things just for the sake of testing does not make any sense. There are no rules on what to test first, but start with the pages which you feel more important for you. Test them, make changes on the basis of the results and then iterate the process.

Roger Smith is a freelance writer and mainly writes on Conversion Rate Optimization, Landing Pages, Web 2.0, SEO and affiliate marketing.

Comments (4)

By Topmaker, January 8, 2010 6:56 pm

One important factor in the new and improved Google criteria for web sites ranking is : Faster Page Loading Time. The time between the click on your site link on some page (including Google Search results) or a web address window on some browser and the Done! Remark on the browser taskbar. Those precious seconds that you are working hard to make smaller and smaller!

You’ve probably read this post:

Took my advice to heart and made the necessary changes; but now what?  You would ask:

• How do I test my page load time in Real-Time?
• How fast would my theme load on my readers PC, what if they have not-so-fast web connections?

The answer is:
Full Page load test tool at Pingdom.com!

Image Copyright pingdom.com

A Free,  simple: Enter your URL here!
 And you get a detailed second by second graph on how your WordPress blog is loading in Real-Time and where are those weak spots that are dragging your Page Load Time down into ( and I saw it happen)… Gasp…half minutes!

This test will open your eyes and make you see your blog in a new prospective. Starting from your Style Sheet and your HTML and not ending with those lovely images that you have on your blog or that widget that is living in your sidebar, almost everything is there, with a brief legend that shows:

• Total loading time: in seconds, the smaller the better, there, I said it again!
• Total objects: in KB, Aim for less
• External objects: in KB, Less is better.
• (X)HTML: in KB, your page code.
• RSS/XML: if you are displaying Any feed from another web site or blog. 
• CSS: SyleSheet count in KB, some Plugin stylesheets are included here.
• Scripts: in KB, including External Java Scripts, , try to combine them if possible.
• Images: in KB, should be the largest portion of Load Time; Optimize them for less KB’s.
• Plugins count
• And even Redirected links!

You will see a Measurement Bar with: Yellow, Green and Blue sections:

Image Copyright pingdom.com

• Yellow  is Pingdom.com part of the test.
• Green is connection time and it is up to your web hosting server and how fast it is,
• Blue is your main focus because it measures the time between loading of the first byte in your page and the last,
 needless to say:  If that blue section is long; you have a candidate to work on.
 
As for the Red notes:
Those are to draw your attention to entry(s) that are hurting your Page Load Time and a sign for you to slash or at least find a work-around them, and finally Timed out note means you really have to work on that entry!

So if you are still working on improving your readers experience when they visit your blog, Shave those seconds away and keep testing till you see them get smaller and smaller; your readers will appreciate it and will be back for seconds…visits that is!

Comments (3)

By Topmaker, December 24, 2009 5:17 pm

“May your Heart stay warm with Love,

May your Soul stay bright with Hope,

And may the Coming Days be your Dreams coming True!”

Topmaker 

Comments (3)

By Topmaker, December 19, 2009 11:13 am

As Internet Marketing grow everyday and the figures for Online Shopping sales climbs into billions of dollars; the marketing and sales processes had to work harder to catch up and they became more in demand. For WordPress those processes come in the shape of plugins!

WordPress Affiliates Tools Plugins is a growing collection of plugins that provide help for any blogger who wants to market and promote products Physical or Digital by inserting Affiliate Links and ads throughout his/her WordPress blog.  they range from the simple to the expert level.

The key features I was looking for when researching affiliate Tools Plugins were:

• Control: More options to control Where, How many and How your affiliates links will show in your blog.
• Tracking: Robust reports about how your affiliate marketing efforts are doing;  preferably in real-time.
• Compatiability: With WordPress plugins and other forms of advertisment such as Google AdSense.
• Support: Quality and response time.

Those are some of those plugins that made it:

WPMarketer Plugin

Author Description

“WPMarketer is a powerful suite of tools that extend the WordPress platform, enabling you to manage and track all of your online marketing and advertising efforts directly from your WordPress admin panel. “

Features:

• Build a Performance Marketing category and link hierarchy using HTML text, HTML image and JavaScript “Link Types”
• Easily add any kind of link or Ad to your WordPress posts and pages from Adsense to HTML or JavaScript Affiliate links/ads/banners, etc.
• Auto Link or insert our simple tags in your posts and pages
• Build your own “In Links”, which lets you auto link keywords on your posts and pages to earn money
• Affiliate Link masking/cloaking option with “pretty” internal URLs feature
• Follow/Nofollow option for text and image links
• Google Adwords conversion tracking
• Link/Ad click tracking

MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate

Author Description

“What makes MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate so powerful? Not only it keeps track of all your affilaite links and helps you manage them, it offers you a smart range of features full of ease and flexibility in use and control.”

Features:

•  A link that looks original and distinct.
•  Manage Links by Groups.
•  Convert ordinary keywords into money making affiliate links.
•  Avoid commission theft.
•  Insert Affiliate Links Directly.

WP Affiliate Pro

Author Description

“Instantly Identify, Manage & Track Your Highest Performing Affiliate Links Over Your Entire WordPress Blog In no time at all. Make it easy to insert blended, highly effective affiliate links all over your blogs.”

Features:

• Earn more by promoting your high paying links more than the lesser paying ones.
• advanced tracking reports.
• control how many affiliate links you want on each page of your blog.
• Add 1000′s of affiliate links straight into your blog content with no editing and no HTML knowledge.
  customize the color and style of your affiliate links.
• Dynamic link rendering
• Integrates seamlessly into any blog
• compatible with AdSense and other forms of contextual advertising

Needless to say that there are more Affiiate Tools Plugins out there; but they are Product or Vendor specific for Amazon, EBay…etc, and they are a snap to find if you searched for” Affiliates “ in your Add New feature on your WordPress Plugins dashborad!

Comments (2)

By Topmaker, December 12, 2009 4:57 pm

If you have been on the web for a while; you’ve probably signed up for a couple of affiliate programs to make an additional income from your site. Now it is a different story: It is your turn, you have a good, in demand product and you need to get your own Affiliates System up and running:

• You can go the Script way

Upload an Affiliates Script to your web hosting account, install it, configure it, administer it 24/7 and keep it in good shape (You know; PHP conflicts, Tech Support headache…), OR

• Install a simple WordPress Affiliates Plugin and be done with it

Turn Key solution;  No script, no messy code and you can administer it from your WordPress dashboard!

 Your choice should be obvious!

If you do a research on “Affiliates Plugins” you will end up with plugins that are geared for WordPress bloggers who wants to be affiliates for some product or another,  and hardly any for Affiliates Management. I found a lone Affiliates Management Plugin:

WordPress Affiliate Platform Plugin

Author Description

“The ‘WordPress Affiliate Platform’ is an easy to use WordPress plugin for affiliate recruitment, management and tracking that can be used on any WordPress blog/site. This plugin lets you run your own affiliate campaign/program and allows you to reward (pay commission) your affiliates for referred sales. The admin can upload/configure banners/links which the affiliates can use on their blog/site to drive traffic to your site. All the clicks, leads, sales etc are tracked by this plugin.”

Features:

• Easy Installation
• Real Time Reporting: All data (clicks, sales, commissions) are tracked, computed and displayed in real-time
• Two Tier Affiliate Structure
• Can be integrated with a Number of Shopping Carts
• Unlimited Affiliates

Home Page

This plugin is simple, easy to install, activate and use, with right to the point clean interface and no fluff!

Word of advice:

Your affiliates are your Sales Force; be genirous with the commision your offer them and reward them for good referrals, supply them with the necessary tools to promote your products (Banners, Text Links, Videos, Audio, E-mail templates…etc) and the support if they needed it, and watch your sales grow!

Comments (1)

By Topmaker, December 7, 2009 5:40 pm

The last but not least part of Shopping Cart Plugins for WordPress is all about adding Widgets to your Sidebar, or snippits of code to your blog pages or posts. The end result is still a way for you to sell your products, but not as a full BlogShop:

Widget Based Shopping Cart Plugins

QuickShop

Author Description:

“QuickShop supports any WordPress that has the Sidebar Widgets installed, really. It adds a SideBar widget that shows the user what they currently have in the cart and allows them to remove the items, not to mention a TinyMCE button to easily allow you to add products to your posts/pages.”

Features:

Home Page

Copy&Paste Shopping Cart Plugins

WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart

Author Description:

“WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart allows you to add an ‘Add to Cart’ button on any posts or pages. It also allows you to add/display the shopping cart on any post or page or sidebar easily. The shopping cart shows the user what they currently have in the cart and allows them to remove the items. It can be easily integrated with the NextGen Photo Gallery plugin too.”

Home Page

Ecwid Plugin

Author Description:

“Ecwid is free full-fledged shopping cart that can be easily add to any blog. It offers the performance and flexibility you need, with none of the hassles you don’t.”

Features:

Home Page

The SimpleAAWS

Author Description:

“The SimpleAAWS framework makes it very simple to integrate the Amazon Associates Webservice (AAWS) into your PHP-Site. You can build a complete online shop with all Amazon articles, a shopping cart, product details, customer reviews etc. and of course you can earn money using the Amazon Assiciates Program. It is an official Amazon Webservices Solution.

Features:

 Home Page

Wishads Cafepress Store Plugin

Author Description:

“This plugin replicates a cafepress store section. Enter a full section url in the shortcode and let it do the rest. Fully CSS’d and able to display normal, CP affiliate or Commission Juntion affiliate links.”

Features:

Home Page

FatFreeCart Plugin

Author Description:

“FatFreeCart Plugin allows you to add “Add to Cart” and “View Cart” buttons on your blog posts so that you can sell your products straight through your blog post. The shopping cart plugin is designed to work within your WordPress post editor. With FatFreeCart you can create your own e-commerce store. FatFreeCart plugin has all the features of FatFreeCart such as easy integration with PayPal and Google Checkout, product variations, Shipping handling, and Sales Tax.”

Home Page

MiniCart

Author Description:

“MiniCart will implement a mini-shopping-cart. The users will be able to buy one item at a time. You can embed the items into posts. This can also be used as a donation plugin.”

Home Page

There you have it; You want a BlogShop…you can have it in so many ways and flavores!

The Shopping Cart Plugins list is growing with new plugins added and updated. WordPress is now a CMS  (Content Management System) and have the 2009 CMS Award to prove it so beware Drupal and OScomm…where else can you blog about your passion and Sell it at the same time?

Comments (9)

By Topmaker, December 5, 2009 11:20 pm

And you thought that was it for WordPress and Shopping Cart Plugins… not so fast!

To say that WordPress is evolving by the day is an understatment for sure:  It gets Better by the day is more like it. Give me a solid Codex to build on and you get more Plugins that give you the tools to do anything that you or  your blog readers want. So expect to see more of those plugins in the near future.

Here are some more Shopping Cart Plugins for WordPress:

Shopp Plugin

Author Description

“Shopp is an e-commerce plugin that adds a feature-rich online store to your WordPress-powered website or blog. Get your store up and running in minutes. Then, take it to the next level with the flexibility of Shopp’s customization tools that allow production studios and power users to tailor every aspect of the shopping experience.”

Features

YAK for WordPress

Author Description

“YAK is an open source shopping cart plugin for WordPress. It associates products with weblog entries, so the post ID also becomes the product code. It supports both pages and posts as products, handles different types of product through categories, and provides customisable purchase options (cheque or deposit, basic credit card form, basic Google Checkout integration, standard PayPal integration, PayPal Payments Pro, and Authorize.net)”

Features

PHPurchase Plugin

Author Description

“The goal of PHPurchase is to be extremely easy to configure and use allowing you to turn your WordPress site into a money generating machine. WordPress excels at allowing users to easily manage the content of their website, display photo galleries, run blogs, etc. PHPurchase is designed to allow WordPress to keep control of all the things that it does well while adding the ability to process credit card transactions.”

Features

While it is easy to convert your existing blog into a BlogShop; it makes things much smoother if you start with a fresh install of WordPress , Add your Basic Plugins and then install any of those Shopping Carts. The downside is working harder to get your traffic up and running.

If you are not shooting for a full BlogShop, there are always : Widget Based and Copy & Paste Shopping Carts, but that is the making of yet another post !