Posts Tagged ‘how to’

First of all I am not promoting any automated giddy gadget and this will not cost you one red cent.  This post is straight up as to how I added 5,000 plus followers on Twitter in two months.

I wrote a post last month about how I had started to build my Twitter followers list from a paltry 200 to 300 followers using @ALLTOP for locating quality tweeple to follow.  You can read the previous post here:
How to Get Targeted Quality Followers on Twitter

Well I still do that because ALLTOP.com is a directory of high quality websites in all fields of interest and once your site is accepted into their directory they grab your RSS feed and keep updating every time you post.  They do not accept everyone but if you want good ranking and to see your site improving with more subscribers you should submit to ALLTOP if you think you have what it takes.  They are looking for a few good Blogs.  Because an actual human being goes out and verifies each website for content quality you can be assured that these sites are the best in their field.  So find their Twitter name, follow them, retweet some of their posts and then most important, follow their followers.

So lately I am using another well known resource to find things to tweet about.  I use StumbleUpon regularly to find things that interest me and then I copy the title of an article from the Stumbled website and paste it into the Twitter message box, go back and make a tinyURL from the address line and copy that in to Twitter and there you have it.  You have just tweeted something of interest to your followers and very often many of them will retweet that post to their followers and suddenly you will have new tweeple following you.  Not to mention that you often get a thank you from the original article poster when they get a message that you tweeted about them.

Now how to break through some of the Twitter built in stumbling blocks.  Twitter likes to see your twitter messages as being of value.  Following the above they will be.  Then they do not want to see automated programs trying to game the system, though many of these do work you stand the chance of doing one wrong move and suddenly you will be banned.  Not worth the chance to me, so I use manual tried and true methods.

I usually follow anywhere from 50 to 200 new tweeps a day, selected with care from other followers lists.  If they are using the default image I usually do not follow them, not that I am elite or anything it is just that they are not likely to be a sophisticated Twitter user yet.  If they do not bother to upload an image than I usually pass them by unless I know them.

By selecting your followers manually you can avoid “some” of the spammers and porn idiots.  If you use an automated follower tool they will be in your list and then your followers might be apt to place you in the ranks of the crappy tweeples and you do not want that.

When you get up near 2,000 followers you want to go in and drop your list of people that you are following down below your followers count.  That way Twitter will not hold you back from going beyond 2,000.

Once you have over 2,000 and less than 4,000 followers you will do best to keep the ratio of following to followers to about + 10% or less.  Then once you are over 4,000 it seems as though Twitter will let you follow as many as you want every day, but I still keep to my 50 to 200 and my list just keep growing and growing.  I am now over 5,500 and many of them come in organically on their own.

Please Stumble this post:

Oh and with the StumbleUpon trick your followers will think you are a genius.  So go for it.

I’m Rich

If you have been struggling to learn the answer to the question, “How do I put an RSS feed on my web page?” This post will explain the RSS Data Feed, and how to install it on your WordPress Blog web site.

For months I have been trying many different methods to try and learn how to make the RSS Subscribe button work properly, and then would get exasperated and move on to something else. I now “get it.”

RSS Explained in Steps:

Dave Winer, a software developer and entrepreneur in Berkeley, California is referred to as the pioneer of RSS (Really Simple Syndication.) There are other common terms for RSS but this is the official one.

RSS Data Feed:

Typically a publisher inserts some code in the website, usually behind the various forms of RSS feed buttons that you see on almost all websites, and the users of the website can register with an aggregator program that is commonly called a “News Reader.”

There are dozens of different types of News Readers and for this example we will discuss the one that is provided for free by Google, called the “Google News Reader.” Go figure.

When someone reads a web post that they are interested in and want to follow the author in future posts, the user subscribes by clicking on the “RSS Subscribe” button and then selects which News Reader they want to use.

Then in the future every time the publisher puts out new content the post is sent right directly to the subscribers News Reader. You may unsubscribe at any time.

How do I Put an RSS Feed on My Web Page?

For the purpose of this article we will discuss Feedburner, which is a company that is now owned by Google, (go figure again,) and the publisher has to sign up for a free account, and then “Burn a Feed.” What that means is that there is a box to type the url of your blog into, and then Feedburner will return a unique identifier feed for that website that can be used in the HTML code for subscribing.

For instance; for this website at LinkMoney.org the unique identifier returned is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/linkmoney/mvZE.
You should copy your new feedburner feed code to a file somewhere for future use. I mean your new code, not the example above.

Then comes the fun part. Depending upon which theme you are using for your WordPress Blog, you may already have a widget that is all set up to just place your feedburner feed code into, or you may have to build the HTML code yourself and install it in a “Text Box Widget.”

By now you no doubt know what a widget is for your WordPress Blog and you use them to insert nicely formatted sections of data for your readers enjoyment, such as Recent Posts, Archives, Blogroll, advertising block ads, etc.

If you see a widget box in your theme that is marked RSS Feeds, do NOT use that one to build your RSS Subscribe button. That one is used for publishers that want to automatically receive generated content from other publishers to be displayed on their own Blog.

So here is what you do. Select a “Text Box” widget, and click on the edit for that widget. Here is where you will paste some HTML code that includes an image of your RSS Subscribe button and a piece of code that actullay does the subscribing to the feed.

Now we shall discuss how to build the proper HTML code for this button. This is very similar to the post that we presented previously about “How to Make a 125 Banner Ad.”

The following example has a piece of bold text that says “Subscribe Here” within the display box. You do not have to do it exactly the same way, for instance you can use the title bar of the text box widget to say something like “Subscribe via RSS.”

The code <center> and </center> just positions the button image within the center of the text box on the final web page area.

<b> RSS Subscribe Here: </b> <br>
<center><a href=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/linkmoney/mvZE”>
<img src=”http://[***note this is the url where your image is hosted]” alt=”subscribe via rss” />
</a></center>
<br>

[***Note: the above note is where you insert your own unique url to the image.]

Then the second main part of the code shown, <img src=, is where the image is located. You may elect to host the image any where you wish. Just remember that wherever it is hosted it should be a reliable website or server that is on all of the time, otherwise your image might not display at all if that server is down for some reason or other.

As I explained how to host an image on Photobucket in the previous article about How to Make a 125 Banner Ad, I would suggest you go there to read the procedure. You will probably do better by parking the image on the same hosting server that your WordPress Blog is hosted on, but I have not done that yet.

Now when a reader wants to subscribe, all they do is hit the Subscribe Button and they will have your new posts directed to their News Reader. Really Simple Syndication indeed! I trust this helps you to understand RSS Data Feeds.

To those of you that might read this and say it is elementary, I say that is exactly what most of the new Bloggers need. All of this crud does not come easy to me and I think I am in the majority. So when I make a new discovery and learn how to do something after countless hours of trial and error, I try to simplify the description and write it up for the readers of LinkMoney.

From emails and comments I know that many people do appreciate this information and that is good enough for me.

Now if you find this post of interest you want to SUBSCRIBE with my nice big RSS Subscribe button at the top right of this page.

If you want to subscribe by email, go ahead and then in a future post I will explain how to set your email subscribe box up using feedburner also.

I’m Rich !

Here is how you can set up a no-cost 125X125 Banner Ad on 5,000 websites very quickly. ( No-cost as in FREE ! )

Just set up a free account with 125exchange.com

Then you upload your own 125X125 banner ad for your website and it gets immediately posted on 5,000 websites.

Then you create a place on your website for a 125X125 banner ad, and insert their code and you get revolving ads that you can make relevant to your website topic and everything is a free trade.

If you don’t know how to make your own 125 banner ad, I wrote a Blog post about it a while back on my LinkMoney dot org website.

Here is the link: How to Make a 125 Banner Ad

This is an excellent way to cross-promote your Blog with other like-minded Bloggers.

Rich Hill

You use keyword linkbait in comments and in Blog posts to encourage the search engines to keep moving you to the front to the pack, right?

You hear about keyword search tools and they do work, but then you hear where the Big G is going to punish users of these special tools. I personally think most of the scuttlebut is all crap, but here is a way to search for your keywords or keyword phrases to see where they rank in the serps without using any special tools, just the Google search box.

[ SERPS = Search Engine Results Page (s) ]

I use Firefox, but this probably works with any type of browser.

1 – Go to the Google search page and click on “preferences.” Change the number of search returns from 10 to 100.

2 – Search for your keywords or phrase.

3 – On the first 100 returns, go to the top of the Firefox tool bar and click on “Edit,” then “Find in this Page,” and type in your url that you are hoping to gain search rank for, or enough of the url line so that it would be a unique word.

4 – If your url is within the first 100 pages, the search will take you right to the serps listing. Just count your position number, log it and then re-check it once a week or so.

5 – If it does not show up in the first 100 returns, then scroll all the way down to the bottom of the screen and click on the next group of 100. You will have to click on the “Find again” tab to see if it pops up there or not. If not, continue to the next 100. I never bother to go beyond 500 because you just don’t exist at that point.

Once you know your number you can then work on promoting it with other means and keep checking later.

I have seen several of my own keyword phrases start out in the high 300′s and eventually work their way up to the first page, and even have a few that are now on page 1, number 1, so it pays to promote your keywords!

This post was inspired by a similar one on Jarret Cade dot net .

I’m Rich

Read our previous most popular Blog Post: How to Make a 125X125 Banner Ad.

Normally when you leave a comment on a Blog they ask you for your name, your email address (never shared…) and your website url. Then you write your message and hit “Post Comment.”

Regardless of whether or not the Blog uses the no-follow or the do-follow command you will get a link to your website, but the keyword used is your name. That is not what you want to do. You want the link to have some meaning in order to gain some additional ranking.

If all goes well and the Blog allows comments as entered, that is all you have to do. Some Blogs, certainly not all, and probably not even a high percentage of Blogs, allow you to use a minimal amount of HTML code in your comment.

These codes are good for emphasis, italics, bold, etc. Then there is the Link Code.

This instruction is similar in nature to the one I posted about How to Make a 125X125 Banner Ad

Now these are very simple procedures to anyone who has even a rudimentary knowledge of HTML, but these little details I had to learn by trial and error. Programming does not come easy to me, as a matter of fact, I STILL hate programming.

However… Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. So I learned how to do this and I want to share it with you in case it might help you to understand this magic a little better too.

So as you are surfing and find a Blog that you feel you can make a contribution to the discussion on, here is a way to add a link within the content of the comment message. Mind you not all Blogs will let you do this. Some just will not accept it and some await moderation and then you get the heave ho.

So what I like to do is look at some of the other comments on each Blog and see if anyone else has posted any HTML links. If they did, then chances are yours will work too.

Here is the simple code with some various examples:

First the href command instructs which website url to go to, then the second part describes the words the viewer sees in the link.

<a href=”http://linkmoney.org”>LinkMoney.org</a> LinkMoney.org (This one will take you to this website and the keyword that the viewer will see is “LinkMoney.org”.)

Now if you want to use some keywords that you are trying to rank for, then you can change the last part of the line to something like this: <a href=”http://linkmoney.org”>Link Money</a> Link Money (Now what the viewer sees is just the two words “Link Money”.) This also happens to be a keyword phrase that I like to see advancing in the serps ranking.

Here is another case, of one that I use for a client:

<a href=”http://edgecustom.com”>Handgun Hunting Holster</a> EdgeCustom.com

But my friend Dan wants to become ranked for the keywords “Handgun Hunting Holster” so all I have to do is change the code to: <a href=”http://edgecustom.com”>Handgun Hunting Holster</a> Handgun Hunting Holster

This way any time someone clicks on the link keywords, that is the phrase that the search engines rank you on.

Another of my friends, Ol’ Squeeze at Hunting With a Handgun said he did not want to be left out of this Blog post, so here ya go Squeeze.

Whatever you do, please use this with care and only make a comment that is relative to the discussion. If you just say some crap like Nice Post, thanks, well then you will get the toss. Some people get really really pissed at others trying to take advantage of their hard work and good reputation.

Keep it relative.

Try it out. Soon you’ll be wearing diamonds in your naval.

Rich Hill
Link Money

You want to create a logo for free!

How to Create a 125 Banner

Ok, no big deal you say right? Making little button ads that link out to a website somewhere is a piece of cake. Easy stuff, no big deal. Well it is a big deal to me because as I have said before I HATE programming!

It was only nine months ago that I decided to veer life’s course toward learning how to make a little moohlah off the Internet. I had been hearing all these fantastic claims of millionaires being created from nothing more than putting ads on their websites. I had been publishing stuff for free on the web for over ten years. It’s my turn dammit!

Well that’s a joke. There are many people that do make a lot of money, but it is not by slapping a couple of AdSense groups of ads on your favorite website and then sitting back to light up a stogie. It’s a Hell of a lot of hard work.

I put in at least 10 14 to 14 18 hours per day, EVERY day of the week, trying this, tweaking that, reading mmo Blogs, learning the domaining game, writing, writing and writing. If it wasn’t fun, I would NEVER work this hard at a real job.

A few months ago I couldn’t have told you the difference between a and a
in HTML code. Not because it was that difficult to learn, I just never wanted to, or had a need to…

So here’s the deal. When I first started reading Garry Conn’s Blog about six months ago, I was struck with how common sense this game could be. That’s if you don’t let it overwhelm you. Those of you who know Garry, and if you are reading this I can’t believe any of you don’t know him, well he is occasionally a tiny teensie weensie bit opinionated. That’s just part of his charm.

Early on I asked Garry how to learn enough HTML to learn how to make some slight code changes in WordPress themes or plugins, when needed. He gave me a very positive reassurance that learning that crap was EASY! He he he. Needless to say he got me. It isn’t easy, it’s a damned struggle.

Well today I am a Ninja coder ready to do battle. Not really but I always wanted to be a Ninja something or other. So you know those little 125X125 pixel button banner ads that are all over everyones websites? I HAD to know how to make one.

So for those of you that want to create a logo for free, here is how I did it. Maybe some of you will laugh and call me an idiot for doing it this way, but it worked for me, and if you need to learn how to create a logo for free, then it will work for you also.

First you have to find an image you want to use and then you have to crop it to some size that is workable. I have an old version of Adobe Photoshop that still works good enough for me, so I took part of my banner at the top of this Blog site, the lovely Carribean beach, and I cropped a chunk of it to about 400X400 px so I could see what I was doing with it.

Then I was going to use WORD to just type out the visible label that you can see which says LinkMoney dot org, and then paste it over the image as a layer. Well I decided I had absolutely NO idea how to do that, so I used the “T” text tool on photoshop to type that label in the cloudy sky of my image area. OK, so now I have an image, with a visible label.

Now how the Hell can I insert the magic code that makes your mouse pointer turn to a little hand and then allows you to click on the image to go to somewhere else? Well I used a search on Google which was something like “how to create 125 banner ads.” None of the sites gave me the exact info but I started to get the picture that hey, why not go and look at some and see how they are already set up on your own sites?

Great, now I’m getting somewhere… Er, sort of.

Well I realized that there were two parts to the code. One was for locating the image itself, and one for where the link should take you to. Now when I looked at some of the buttons using the mouse right click and “properties” I have on my own websites, it really was not very clear because the codes all seemed to be very long and like CRAZY stuff. I can tell you now, that is because those images and links are on the advertisers own websites or sites that they have designated to keep track of some very specific stats.

The easiest way is to make it work on your own website first. I have about a dozen sites that are doing nothing, nothing at all because I just don’t have enough time to write content or to do any promotions with them yet. I’ll get a Round Tuit soon enough.

courtesy mundoo/flickr

So I uploaded my image as a post on one of these dormant sites and then started playing with the link code.

You have to use the href command first. That’s the sound my Dad used to make when he would come into the dark room where my date and I were on the couch. So that little command is the one that is going to take you to another location. Here is what I ended up using for the first command line:
<a href=”http://linkmoney.org”> (Which will bring you to this website.)

Then I had to decide where to park my image because that would be permanently in the code and must always be available. You could just park it on your own computer somewhere, and call it up, but then your computer would have to be on all the time. No good. Your web hosting company probably has some storage space for files or images that comes with your hosting package, but I didn’t want to bother to dig into how to do that.

(Note: Since I wrote this post several months ago it has become my most popular of all, thanks to you readers. I did learn that it is very easy to go into your WordPress root and create a folder named “images” then upload all images to that folder and when you want to use them just link to them in the html code.)

So I said to myself, self ! Why not one of the photo hosting websites? They’re all over the place. I had an old account at HELLO which was part of Picassa/Google, but too late. Google has shut HELLO down. So I set up a quick account at photobucket.com and resized my image now to 125X125 and uploaded it to photobucket.

Below each image in photobucket there are some little pieces of html code that allow you to copy and paste images into your posts or emails at will, and I also was able to doctor that code up a little to be able to work with my new 125 ad.

So here is the secod part of this code.
<img border=”0″ src=”http://i457.photobucket.com/albums/qq295/LMDO_photo/125copy.jpg” width=”125″ height=”125″
</a>

What that all means is the img (image) src (source) is located at photobucket with their identifier and jpg extension. Then just for good measure I stuck a couple of dimension commands on there. Not sure I had to do that or not, but I don’t argue with success!

It worked, the damned thing worked, woo hoo ! (Ninja speak)

So now boys and girls, you are going to see that little ocean beach scene all over the place.

125X125 Linkmoney dot org Banner Ad

Now you can learn how to do simple HTML coding with an excellent HTML Video Tutorial.   You can get instant access to this group of downloadable videos by clicking on this link: Click Here!

You can do it too!

Now if you have any questions, you have my permission to ask Garry and he will very politely tell you that “that crap is EASY !”

I’m Rich !

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pss: 125 Exchange free traffic.

psss: Create a logo for free!

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