Blog

  • Backlink Checker Tool

    The backlink checker tool shows you backlinks to your website, meaning other websites that are linking to yours. The more backlinks you have, the better your Google Pagerank will be. Try it at:

    http://donnaknight.com/backlink-checker-tool

  • Link Popularity Tool

    The link popularity tool tells you how many listings you have on the major search engines, including Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista and AskJeeves. Try it at:

    http://www.donnaknight.com/link-popularity-tool/ 

  • The No-Work, Money-Making Website

    by Willie Crawford
    May 26, 2005
    The No-Work, Money-Making WebsiteCopyright 2005 by Willie Crawford
    While growing up on the farm in North Carolina, I loved gardening. There was something magical about planting a dollar’s worth of seeds, watching them germinate, and then feeding the family for a entire season with my efforts.The only part I didn’t enjoy was the weeding andcultivating. That was the WORK! So I was thrilledwhen I discovered “The Ruth Stout No Work Garden Book.” That book taught me how to get all of those great vegetables with no weeding, very little cultivating, and little watering. It really did teach you how to gardenwith literally no work.Twenty year later, I discovered just as fertile agarden on the Internet. With practically no investment other than my time, I could put up awebsite, nurture it, build traffic to it, and in time, harvest lots of sales from it.

    Just like with the vegetable garden, there was a lot of maintenance required if you wanted a good harvest.The site needed to be constantly updated so thatthe search engines “learned” that they should visitthis “fresh” site often. The site needed to have lots of keyword rich webpages so that it would rank high for relevantkeywords, and attract organic search engine traffic.Since I was taught that “content is king” that meantthe more content-rich, tightly-focused webpages youhad, the better. The content-rich pages meant youcould make sales, get new subscribers, and even earnpay-per-click revenue from programs such as GoogleAdSense.The only problem with the above model is… it’s a lot of WORK.Then I discovered, “The No-work, Money-making Website.It wasn’t completely no work, but it was probably1/10th the work that I had been doing. The no-work website encompasses building a content-rich website using automated tools.

    These tools allow you to gather relevant content (articles, RSS feeds, etc.) from all over the Internet and then instantly generate hundreds… even thousands of content rich webpages in minutes. The no-work website encompasses using other toolsto automatically update your site, so that each timethe search engine spiders visit, they notice newcontent. Noticing new content on each visit, thesearch engine spiders make a note to visit moreoften. Now here’s where this gets really powerful…As these search engine spiders visit more often,they don’t just crawl your current no-work, money-making site.

    They also follow links to other sitesyou want to get indexed. So now you can put up yourno-work site, teach the search engines to come backoften, and then go on to build other sites knowingthat getting them indexed is as simple as linking to them from your old sites. It really is that easy :-)By now you’re probably asking what are some of thesemagic tools I use to build these amazing, no-work sites that literally takes on a life of their own. Here’s are just a few of the tools I personally use:1) Blogs. Blogs hosted on Blogger.com get noticedvery quickly by Google because Google owns Blogger.comBy pinging blog directories (and Yahoo using your “My Yahoo” page) lots of other sites take notice ofyour blog.

    They visit your blog and follow links toother target sites.2) I’m a charter member of Content Desk. ContentDesk has a tool that allows me to query databasescontaining tens of thousands of articles (based upon keywords). I can automatically sort the list of articles that is returned based upon keyword density,or a number of other criteria. Then, I can havethe software itself create webpages for me usinga template I’ve designed using the template toolbuilt right into Content Desk.Content Desk is probably my favorite tool because I can, quite literally, add hundreds of article pages to my sites in minutes. My templates also include ads fora “pet” product and/or Google AdSense.

    I can add content-rich, relevant, very nice-looking pages to my sites in minute, and then move on to the next project, knowing that these pages WILL make me money.Content Desk limited its charter membership to atotal of only 400 members, and that quickly sold out.However, since it’s a monthly membership, not allmembers renew and there are probably some openings.To check on openings, simply visit:http://WillieCrawford.com/content-desk.htmlAfter arriving at the site, click on the “CharterMembership” link in the upper left menu bar. Thiswill tell you if there are any current openings.3) RSS Feeds. By incorporating RSS feeds into yourwebpages, you can set them up so that the content isconstantly updated. This gives your visitors somethingfresh to read each time they visit. This gives thesearch engines fresh content each time that they visit…

    and trains them to visit often.Content Desk incorporates a feature that works verysimilar to regular RSS feeds EXCEPT that it doesn’tsend your website traffic away. With a normal RSSfeed, the content automatically added to your sitecontains links inviting your visitors to click away.It allows you to automatically update your pages, butit also siphons off traffic. Content Desk does this ina way that automatically updates your site withoutsending your visitors away.4) Traffic On Steroids. This is another systemfor automatically updating/changing content on yoursite. Traffic On Steroids actually takes a coredatabase of articles/content that you set up and then rotates it in your target webpages.

    The neteffect is that each time a visitor (or searchengine) visits a page, the page is different. This isvery effective at training the search engines tocome back often… and increasing your pages’ ranking.Incorporate Google AdSense into these pages andyou have another hands-off money magnet.You can also incorporate a product data-feed intoyour page using Secret Money Generator and have pages that are constantly updates AND have a catalog of products built in that all pay you anaffiliate commission. Secret Money Generator is at: http://WillieCrawford.com/money-secret.htmlYou can check out Traffic On Steroids at http://WillieCrawford.com/traffic-on-steroids.htmlI’ve just shared with you a few of the dozens oftools I use to create nearly-hands-off websites. Ido still look at some of them from time to time tosee if I can make them perform better.

    However, youcould LITERALLY never touch many of your sitescreated with these tools for years… and you’d still have a nice revenue stream from them. It’s all about working smarter, not harder. It’s allabout using technology to leverage your time.
    ———————————————–
    Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author,seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host,retired military officer, karate black belt, master networkmarketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. Heshows people how to actually generate substantial incomeon-line using very simple, easily implemented systems.

    Anexample of such a system that you can study and utilizeis at: http://WillieCrawford.com/TheSystem.html.

  • Should You Use a Free Blog?

    By Donna Knight

    If you are a beginner at blogging, the easiest way to get started in blogging is to use free blogging services.  Popular blogging web sites like Blogger.com ( http://www.blogger.com ) and TypePad ( http://www.typepad.com ) allow people the convenience of setting up and hosting a blog without paying monthly fees. This allows you to get started with a blog with all the easy-to-use tools you need. The fact that it’s so easy to get started without having to learn HTML is why so many people who were never inclined to have a website now are avid bloggers. Blogging has truly brought web publishing to the masses.

    By signing up with a free blogging web site, you may find it easier to get listed in search engines than you would if you had to install your own blog from scratch. You don’t have to know how to register a domain, find a host or install a blog script. If you can write, you can blog. Because Google owns its’ own free blog hosting site, Blogger.com, it also crawls its’ own pages frequently for updates. If you have a Blogger blog, you’re almost guaranteed to be listed in Google’s blog search engine. This easy listing in search engines can take some of the work out of promoting your blog, and can help you gain more visitors with less marketing effort.

    If your blog attracts a lot of visitors, that is when you might want to consider hosting your blog on your own website. Just like with free hosting, free blog hosting can give an unprofessional appearance to your visitors. But the fact is there are successful businesses who use blogspot because they would rather concentrate on running their business and marketing their website than hosting their own blog. In many cases, it doesn’t seem to damage their reputation at all.

    Having your own domain helps give you a professional appearance. It may be scary to register a domain and find hosting if you’ve never done it before, but it is not rocket science. You can register a domain for a yearly fee of under $10. You can find decent hosting also for less than $10 per month.

    One benefit of having your blog on your own domain is that you can sell advertising space to cover the cost of the hosting and make a profit. However, it may not make sense to invest in these luxuries until you have enough traffic to your blog to generate revenue.

    Some people might worry that if they switch their blog to their own web site, they might lose visitors. If you build up enough of a following, people will follow you to your new domain. Also, you can do a lot more with a blog on your own domain than you can on a free blog host. You can add other traffic building and money generating features to your website or pay someone to add them for you. Likewise seperate blog scripts for a website are just as easy to post to as a free blog is, once it is set up. Getting someone to install the blog script for you can be relatively cheap if you hire someone from a site such as http://Scriptlance.com.

    In the end, if you want to dip your toes in the blogging pool, there is nothing wrong with starting with a free blog site. That is how I got started, and despite the fact that I did virtually no promotion, and didn’t even have much on my blog yet, I did get traffic. Free blog hosts are very easy to use and can help you decide once and for all if blogging is for you. Sign up now. Go to http://blogger.com and get started today.

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    Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 250 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com. Copyright (c) 2006 Donna Knight. Permission granted to reprint this article as long as the article and resource box remain intact.

  • DonnaKnight.com Upgrades to WordPress 2.0.2

    We’ve upgraded from WordPress 1.5 to 2.0.2. After testing the upgrade process on another blog and finding it was rather simple, I ran it on this site. I spent more time worrying than actually doing the upgrade.

    Keep in mind things can always go wrong whenever you upgrade anything, but for me it was relatively painless. Here are the steps I took:

    1. Back up your blog/site, including the MySQL database (If you’re using CPanel hosting, this is easy with the Back up feature).

    2. Deactivate all plugins.

    3. Upload the new WordPress, but do not overwrite wpconfig.php or .htaccess.

    4. Run /wp-admin/upgrade.php.

    5. Update your Permalinks. I actually did not need to do this. It saved my previous custom permalinks just fine.

    6. Reactivate plugins one by one to see if they work. Some may not be compatible with the newer version.

    Voila!

    You can find WordPress’ upgrade instructions at http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress .

    On the outside, there is no difference. The real difference and the reason I upgraded is in the admin panel.

    • It makes adding categories very easy. It used to be that if I wanted to post something to a category that didn’t exist, I would have to leave the Write Post screen, go to the list of categories and add the category. Then go back to the Write Post screen. Now you can add a category right from the Write post screen.
    • You can password protect posts easily (if you have a membership site based on a blog. Lots of people do these days).
    • Nicer Wysiwyg editor.
    • Nicer preview

    In general, it makes the process of posting much easier, and ease of updating is the whole reason people use blogs over traditional websites.

    Donna Knight

     

  • Essential Ingredients To Make Your Blogging Site Succeed

    By Donna Knight

    Because there are so many blogs and web sites about blogs on the internet, it’s more important than ever before to make your blog stand out from all the others. Whether you are starting up a new web site that benefits bloggers or you’re trying to make your existing blog more unique, the key to building and maintaining a site that will capture the attention of a group of bloggers is to find a profitable niche. If you can fill a unique need in a way that no other blog does, you’ll receive a steady stream of visitors to your blog. Always remember, though, that finding a target market is only the first step.

    Every great blogging web site starts with a great idea. You can’t build a site that will become successful without a firm foundation. There are already plenty of great sites aimed at today’s bloggers, and competition for the attention of this constantly increasing group is vicious. To make your blogging web site stand out from the rest, you will have to offer something completely unique  that can’t be easily imitated. An alternative is to mimic an already popular site but do something to make your site more valuable in some way.

    One way to find the best model for your blogging site is to look at the sites that have already successfully captured an audience and them decide if you can use some of the same strategies to create your own site to draw a captivated audience. The site you are imitating does not have to be a blog. Because search engines seem to prefer blogs over traditional websites, you are better off finding a niche where there isn’t much blog-based competition. The important part is that you will have to add your own unique spin on it so that you will stand out from the competition.

    In most cases, the sites that stand out the most on the internet today are those that have their own memorable personality. All kinds of web surfers from different backgrounds respond well to a site with a strong personality. The web is very impersonal so if you can add a face and a voice to your site, you will attract people who will keep coming back to read what you have to say.

    Once you’ve decided on the right niche and have a brilliant idea for your blog, you then add your personality and determine how to get your site in front of an audience who might be interested in the subject of your blogging site.

    The right target and a great idea alone won’t make your site successful. You need one last ingredient to guarantee your success. Like most businesses you need to develop a marketing plan in order to promote your site and get traffic from intersted viewers, who might then become buyers of whatever you’re selling.  Once you’ve sinked your teeth into avid bloggers, if you give them something good to chew on, they’ll keep coming back for more.

    The great benefit of having a marketing plan that works for your blogging site, is that you can use this same plan to start another blogging site and drive it to success.

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    Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 250 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com. Copyright (c) 2006 Donna Knight. Permission granted to reprint this article as long as the article and resource box remain intact.

  • Keyword Density Checker

    Use this tool to make sure your web page is targeting the right keywords:

    http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-density-checker.php

  • Keyword Building Tool

    Find out how many search for a keyword on Overture & Wordtracker

    This tool will help you decide if there is a profit potential for a niche.

    Type in your keyword or keyword phrase below:

    Get Suggestions For Phrase:

    Brought to you by Digital Point Solutions
  • Yahoo Rank Tool

    Find out your Yahoo web rank

    Enter the URL below:

    Get Yahoo! WebRank For:

    Brought to you by Digital Point Solutions
  • Buy Me A Coffee Launches

    Buy-me-a-coffee.com officially launched today. This a site where you can show your appreciation for any of my articles or any articles I’ve posted that have helped you. Or learn about all the benefits of drinking coffee. I don’t know about you, but I love coffee as much as I love cake. In fact, they go great together. Thank goodness for Starbuck’s!

    While doing research on coffee, I learned about some surprising health benefits of coffee that I didn’t know about before. This is all based on medical studies. Most of the articles I had seen previously talked about negative benefits, especially in pregnant women. Now we know there are two sides to the story. Check out some of the articles here and you’ll see what I mean. Go to:

    http://www.buy-me-a-coffee.com/articles/