Now I don’t want to suggest that the premium plugin is not a good product. On the contrary they are often great products. I just don’t see the sense in paying for something when, with a little creative effort you can accomplish the exact same result, with the same amount of effort, and spend no money.

SEO Smart Links + Redirection = Cloaking + Click Stats

One of the challenges of affiliate marketers is to make sure they are not being cheated out of commission payments by people stripping the affiliate ID from your affiliate URL. The other big challenge is getting accurate statistics about your ads and offers.

This guide will show you how to get creative with your plugins, to do more than was ever intended with them, and save money along the way.

WordPress Plugins That Help Affiliates

SEO Smart Links is a WordPress plugin that takes any keyword or phrase and automatically converts it to a link. It was originally designed to provide a simple method to deep link to posts and pages within your own site. Using any word or phrase you can automatically create a link and point to a related post or page on your blog.

This all happens without the need to write out that url every time the keyword appears in a post. However SEO Smart Links can also be used to create dynamic links in your posts that point to your affiliate offers, using your own unique affiliate url.

Say you were promoting a Twitter ebook and you wanted every post that used the word Twitter to link to your affiliate page, you simply add the keyword, and your affiliate URL. Then each time a post uses the word Twitter, Smart SEO Links will create links to your offer.

As I mentioned there are several premium plugins designed to do this for you. These premium plugins have 2 main advantages over SEO Smart Links;

1. Provide on the fly cloaking of affiliate link URL’s
2. Provide click tracking on each dynamic link it creates.

Using the free WordPress plugin Redirection, you can achieve the same result. In other words, you can cloak and track with just a few mouse clicks. Redirection not only allows you to do the obvious, create a 301, 302, or 307 redirection without a redirect script, it also allows you to cloak your affiliate links as well as track clicks.

Go ahead and install both plugins then come back to this guide for the setup procedure.

Scenario

In this scenario I am going to be targeting the keyword windows and use my (fake) affiliate url http://microsoft.com. I’ll be cloaking the destination url with http://incomesinternational.com/windows.

Each time the word windows appears in a post, SEO Smart Links will create a link that points to http://incomesinternational.com/windows and when a user clicks the link Redirection will take to the Microsoft home page an track the click.

Step 1 – Create a Group

I like to keep things tidy so the first thing to do is to create a new Group in Redirection. Open your WordPress dashboard then click Tools, then Redirection. Once the screen is loaded click on Groups.

Choose a name for your affiliate link group and add the new group to Redirection. Ensure that ‘enable tracking’ is selected. In this example, my new group is called Cloak.

Step 2 – Create Keywords and Links

Now we are going to setup the keywords we want to target and convert to our affiliate links. Open Settings > SEO Smart Links. Take some time to get familiar with this very simple plugin. Be careful how many links you allow to be converted per post or your site could easily end up looking spammy.

Scroll down to the Custom Keyword section. This is where you add your keywords and cloaked URL. Add a new entry for each keyword or phrase you want to create links for. In my example I’ve added the keyword windows and the destination URL of http://incomesinternational.com/windows

Step 3 – Create a Redirection

Now we head back to the Redirection configuration page. From the main page, Redirects, select your group in the drop down list. In my example I’ll select Cloak, then click Go.

At this point you’ll see an empty list. So lets put in a new affiliate link.

In the section Source URL enter the cloak URL. You do not need to add the domain. So for my example /windows is all that’s needed.

Target URL is where you’ll enter your unique affiliate link. In my case it is http://microsoft.com. Once you’ve filled in the values click the Add Redirection button.

And that’s it! Your posts will now be automatically populated with your affiliate links wherever your keywords appear.

Don’t forget that you can review the clicks for each of your links from the Redirection page by selecting the group that you created. Clicking on the number in the Clicks column will show you a complete log of who clicked, and when.

You are now ready to replace all of your html or php redirects with this much simpler method of cloaking and tracking you affiliate URL’s. And why stop there, add the cloaking method to your banner ads or anything else you want.

Did this post help you? Would you like to see more like this? Tell me about it in the comments.

They linked to an older blog on Waltsense called “The 5 Worst Accents in the World”.   At the time it was posted, it maybe received 300-400 views and had little to no comment reaction.

When posted on facebook to a targeted audience of people who love to travel and appreciate accents; all hell broke loose. We received hate-mail calling me a racist, ignorant, and very insensitive.

In the context of the blog, that may be true. But they are completely missing the point of humor.

Chris Rock can say “I’m not saying he should have killed her, but I understand”, because the audience understands his humor and the context of which he says it is to shock and make you laugh. I guarantee you Chris Rock doesn’t really think O.J. was justified!

Here are some the reactions we received from this post:

• “I got hot under the collar at about 10 different posts here”
• “You are a racist!”
• “Accents are one of the many things that make traveling interesting, ya’ll. I like them all. It’s people’s attitudes that stink sometimes”
• “Hopefully in real life we can suspend those biases and assumptions and listen beyond the accents to the real people and their messages”

One of my business partners wanted to post a disclaimer saying we don’t mean to offend, etc. I said no-way, this is great business. We received over 1,200 unique views and we received a bunch of new fans.   Name a comedian who is famous for playing it safe.

From a PC perspective, the angry viewers are correct. But in reality, the foreigner that lives in American should try to speak English. THEY LIVE HERE! I do not live abroad, if I did, I would try and speak the language.

The fans who visit to our site don’t wan to read a PC correct blog on mothering or how to make money on adsense. They wish to be entertained. I blog like I live my life, with humor and fun.

Humor is best used in all types of media. There is one thing that I never understood about television commercials. Why do advertising companies make serious commercial? There should be a law that makes all television commercials funny. It would stop wasting everyone’s time and we would actually not have to flip channels to avoid commercials.

I know I reach for the remote as soon as I see a serious television ad.

Do you know how funny a commercial about erectile dysfunction could be? The possibilities are endless for that topic. You could have a tiny white guy on a packed bus surrounded by large African-American males; each of them laughing at him as he looks around worried and insecure. There doesn’t even need to be dialogue here.  We would all get the point.

People have too much to worry about at home and at work, and they don’t want to waste time reading something serious.

We started this blog as a venue to show my screenwriting and comedy bits I have written over the years. As it started to grow and develop a fanbase, it’s now more of a fun hobby the three of us partake in. We have a write, a coder, and someone who will socialize the site through online networks. Sometimes we have guest writers who are actually our fans.

Along the way I’ve been introduced to some agent types and we even have some sponsors as well. We’ll see where it takes us.

Your blogging habits should mirror your real life.  You should write what you know. It is the only way to be successful.

Walt Haley is the author and publisher of the very comical blog, http://waltsense.com. When you need a break from the mundane and the serious, head over to WaltSense and put a smile on your face.

Anyone who has been blogging for more than a few months will have become accustomed, and possibly relied upon some of the highly valuable service that Technorati has provided over the years.

In fact the site rose to fame in the blogosphere for its ability to provide real time search, and real time access to bloggers of all shapes and sizes. Yet many of those services have been removed in this facelift in what appears to be an effort to no longer syndicate blog posts but rather to garner unique content from guest writers.

Matt Sussman, the executive editor of Technorati provided a very trim explanation of the new site and it would seem that the majority of loyal Technorati members are not happy. And that includes me.

One of the most popular features of Technorati has always been reactions. Reactions are Technorati’s version of user reviews. Reactions were part of the overall formula that made up the Technorati Authority score. And with that part of the site missing, you have to wonder what the hell is going on.

Authority scores are now purely algorithmic. That is that it’s now made up from a series of factors such as visitors, post frequency and a host of others. However user reactions have always been a much clearer and much more authoritative approach to assigning authority to a site.

I am a geek at heart, and I love automation, but there are some things that computers just can’t do. Things like forming and giving an opinion, becoming emotionally involved, in fact having any kind of emotional reaction. However the big wigs at Technorati have clearly decided that we users no longer deserve a voice.

Other surprises that have been poorly planned, and even less welcomed are such things as favorites. Forget about them. They’re gone. I also was unable to find followers and fans. Another area of Technorati that was very popular but has been deemed unworthy of the new approach.

So with the removal of all the things that made the Technorati service so great, I can’t help but wonder…is this the beginning of the end for Technorati.

Tell us what you think of the new site and how you think the future will unfold for Technorati and its users.

Problem: OnlyWire share button is showing on all posts and pages. I only want the button on posts.

Solution:Use HeadSpace2 SEO plugin for WordPress to include the OnlyWire share button on posts, but remove it from pages.

There was a small problem with my mic filter so please excuse the sound quality.

It probably didn’t hurt that I told stories about:

• Hitting myself in the head with an axe
• Accidentally rubbing some very hot muscle cream on my groin
• Sticking an electric razor in my mouth, thinking it was a toothbrush

So:

Why do we get such a kick out of people airing their dirty laundry or being willing to poke fun at themselves? What is it about a confession that draws us in?

Real People

First and foremost, I think it’s easy to forget that there is a real person on the other side of the screen. Someone, another human being with their own thoughts, memories, preconceived notions, and circumstances, is reading the words you write. Someone is sitting there, staring into their computer and probably not blinking as often as they shouldjust for you.

You owe them the best of yourself. The real you, not who you think you should be so you can sell them things.

And with that profound pearl of stolen wisdom, let’s look at three reasons why confessions can be useful to bloggers.

1. You’re not perfect, i.e., you’re like everyone else

First of all, I’m not advocating that you air all of your weaknesses and insecurities to the point where it turns people off. If your blog is about Peace On Earth, don’t feel pressured to talk about your secret need to commit serial murder.

But, there is nothing wrong with admitting mistakes. If you show that you don’t hide your mistakes, you send the message that other people are allowed to make mistakes as well. That makes them feel safe and it makes you seem like a real person.

2. It creates opportunities to learn

My favorite classes in college were the ones where the teacher/student relationship was blurry. Not in that tabloid way. Rather, when I felt like my professors and I were both working on things together.

My least favorite classes were the ones where the professor constantly reminded us of all the reasons why he was behind his desk and we were behind ours.

I can learn something(s) from anyone on earth. And I want to! I find that the more about myself that I reveal to my readers, the more chances I have to learn from them. It is no longer my blog; it feels more like a giant chat room where we all figure out how to be better together.

I want my readers to forget that I write the blog and that they show up to read it.

Guess who I’m not going to ask for advice? The genius that constantly reminds me he is a genius, even though he could certainly answer all of my questions.

3. It (almost) forces people to respond

It’s true!

This seems to be one of the unspoken laws of blogging that I see reinforced almost every day. When you reveal something about yourself, particularly if it paints a picture of you that isn’t perfect, people will respond to you.

They may say, “There there, dearie”, or they may say, “Suck it up, you weenie!”  Either way, it is a response on a personal level. When we talk about getting our readers to do something as a result of our posts, it is usually called the Call to action.

Personally, I don’t want to think in terms of, “Ok, where is my call to action here?” But I may have very different goals than you, so please don’t think that isn’t a valid approach.

Enter the confession. When you tell someone that you hit yourself in the head with an axe, they’re going to have something to say about it. The confessional, revealing things you reveal serve as their own calls to action.

Trust me. No, please trust me, don’t go out and get an axe just to prove me wrong.

And to top this all off, I’ve got a confession for you:

I never learned to read.

Josh Hanagarne

Get Stronger, Get Smarter, Live Better:Every Day

Josh Hanagarne

About the Author: Josh Hanagarne is the twitchy giant behind World’s Strongest Librarian, a blog with advice about living with Tourette’s Syndrome, kettlebells, book recommendations, old-time strongman training, and much more. Please subscribe to Josh’s RSS Updates to stay in touch.

My wife and I have a very large family. In fact we have 3x the number of children than most people. That might sound a bit crazy but we figure, if worse comes to worse, and the world falls to pieces overnight, then we’ll have done our part to repopulate it.

So it’s Friday today, and one of the things we like to do is make Friday our fun day.

It’s part of our plan to help our kids to deal with day to day rigors of living in such a busy household. Of course we don’t just make it fun for the kids, my wife and I try to make Friday’s fun for each other as well.

So while I’m sitting here working away, she decided to start early by sending me a video that I just had to share. Not only is this video bloody hilarious, it clearly demonstrates why planning everything you do is so vitally important if you don’t want to fall flat on your face.

Watch the video and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

And make it a fun Friday!

I’ve been very busy over the past week. Some of my work has included researching the most popular, valuable and effective bookmarking sites that drive real, quality traffic to blogs and websites.

Let me tell you that it hasn’t been an easy task. With more than 200 notable social bookmarking sites being talked about across the interwebs, none, other than Digg, StumbleUpon, Technorati and a couple of others seems to stand out.

It seems that, while millions of people are very actively using the many social bookmarking sites to promote their own and other sites content, there is no real quantifiable data on which sites outside of the top 5 are the clear winners when it comes to driving top quality traffic.

I’d like to ask you to help out by voting on this poll. We are simply asking you to answer which of the listed sites brings you the most traffic. Choose up to 3 answers.

If you know of a site that is not listed but should be on the list, leave us a comment and let us know about it.

Once I have gathered enough useful data, I’ll write a post and discuss the findings.

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Not the greatest look when you have visitors over, a business presentation, or if you want to make a video. So what is the solution?

That’s simple! As usual it’s a plugin for WordPress call Post Ideas. It’s a very lightweight plugin that has proven to be my savior when it comes to ideas for blog posts, and here’s 5 great reasons for you to use it as well.

1. Never Forget The Big Topics

Almost every blogger has had times, usually at the very beginning of their blogging career, when you have a flood of ideas. You work so hard to get them all written, but often will only get a small amount of them published. Then one day, out of nowhere, your mind goes blank.

Post Ideas is an easy way to save all those ideas right inside your WordPress blog. No matter if you’re in the middle of writing a post, or even if you’ve just popped in to check your stats, in just a minute or 2 you can write a brief summary of your idea and write about it later.

2. Build A Cache

As time goes on, you write new posts, and read other blogs and websites that you’re interested in. You’ll no doubt get some new ideas.

How often do you keep track of them?

Most likely they’re gone by the time you’ve finished reading. Keep the Post Ideas page open while you read your favorite blogs and websites and as those ideas come to mind, record them, and write about them later. In fact you could spend a day just building up ideas so that you never run out.

3. Eliminate Writers Block

That’s right – no more writers block. Ever!

It happens to us all. No matter how hard we try, there are times when we couldn’t even buy an idea. And sometimes it seems that the harder we try the more difficult it is to come up with a great new post idea.

When you start to build a cache of ideas, you’ll never have to worry about writers block ever again. Just sift through all those post ideas you’ve been saving and start writing. The more often you record your ideas, the less often you’ll find yourself with a lack of them.

4. Prioritize Your Ideas

Some ideas are better than others. On this I am certain we agree. Using the good old fashioned notebook and pen is the age old method of recording ideas. But once you have 3 or 4 notebooks filled with ideas, how do you keep track of the best ideas so that you can use them later on?

Post Ideas allows you to set a priority on the idea as you record it. Simply assign a priority based on how good or bad you think your idea is. Then when you need to find your best ideas for a blog topic, forget wading through pages in notebooks. Sort your ideas by priority and pick one of your top 5. Simple!

5. Use Keywords and Link

If you’re anything like me then you visit a lot of web sites and blogs each week. You want to write a post that compiles a bunch of information from some of them and you want to give a point of reference or maybe attribution to that web site. But, do you remember which site you saw that information on?

What about those times you read a post at some obscure blog and thought, that would be a great post idea and I could easily target these great keywords. A week later you decide to write the post. Do you remember the keywords?

Yeah, me either. I always forget these things unless I have a simple way to record them, but more importantly (to me at least) a simple way to retrieve them.

You can do all that with Post Ideas. As you surf the web, you get a new idea about a post it’s not enough to just record the topic idea. You need to record those sites you want to refer to and you want to record the keywords to target as well. Just add them in as you write your post idea and the plugin will save it all for you. As soon as you’re ready to write it, the information will be there as fresh as if it were just yesterday.

Discussion

How do you deal with writers block and what methods do you use to make sure you never run out of fresh ideas to write about? Let us know by leaving your comments.

Image courtesy of incessantflux.

In a recent discussion I had with some fellow bloggers, we asked one another that very question: “Why do you blog?” As you could imagine, our answers were very diverse! We found that some of us blog simply because we enjoy the experience. Others blog as a platform to provide to provide information about their business. Yet others are purely making an attempt to make money blogging.

Whatever your reason is for blogging, understanding why you blog can often lead you to success, or can at least help spell out the reasons why things may not working out as you’d planned.  Here are some tips to help you really discover why you blog, and how you can achieve massive success just by knowing your real answer.

Focus on Desire and Purpose Can Lead to Massive Traffic

Most, maybe not all, bloggers have some level of desire for their blog to be a hit. Would you be one who wants to be a hit with the masses?  Or are you doing this merely for yourself as a creative outlet? Either way, there’s nothing more rewarding as a blogger than to see continual traffic growth, and seeing that those visitors are moved enough by your content to leave a comment on your work.

The reasons you have for blogging are not going to be the same for everyone. Whatever that reason is though, you thought it was a great idea at some point. After all this is what motivated you to write that first post, to find that perfect theme, and to spend all that time setting it all up.  Take some time, and isolate yourself from your blog.  Take a day, a week, even a month if necessary.  Really take the time to focus on your true desire for wanting to blog

Some questions you can ask yourself are:

• What message did I want to convey to others?
• What can someone learn from my experience that I’m sharing with my blog?
• How can I add value to my readers’ lives by writing in my blog?

If you’ve lost sight of why you blog, you may find it very difficult to not only attract readers, but more importantly, to attract people to leave comments. Without that interaction a bloggers life is an extremely lonely existence. Yet it’s easy to forget just why we started out on this path to begin with. It’s important to keep focusing on what your purpose was when you first decided to blog.

They key here is not to panic.  By taking time out for you, putting focus on your purpose for blogging, you can breathe new life into your blog, and your readers will both benefit and reward you for it.  That can lead to a rekindling of desire, as well as connection with your readers!

Look In The Mirror To Discover A Hidden Success

Another way to discover why you blog is to look in the mirror and take off the masks that are keeping you from success.  In other words, being brutally honest with yourself can lead to liberating creativity!

A great example of this was during that discussion I had with my fellow bloggers.  I had explained that I wasn’t a very fluid writer. I also shared how I felt that some of the reasons that I wasn’t getting the results I expected, was probably due to my lack of training and knowledge as a writer. I then asked if they would take a look at my posts and tell me what they thought I could do to improve the experience not only for myself, but for my readers as well.

No one likes to be criticized but some times it’s the best thing that you could ever experience. Particularly if you felt the way I did. I felt as though I was doing all the right things, putting in all the right ingredients. Yet no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t get the results that I had anticipated.

What I was told about my blog, my content, and my writing, has had such a profound effect on me, that it has totally changed the way I look at the whole process! In one sentence, just one comment from this blogging buddy, I realised that I could revitalize how I write and connect with my readers. I took a hard look in the mirror and discovered that I needed to be honest with myself and use this feedback for the benefit of my readers!  Most of all, I found the opportunity to learn and grow.

Right then it occurred to me that I was not alone. The more I thought about some of the blogs I visit, the evidence of that same classical err was evident in their writing as well. If you’re struggling to keep the momentum up, I have discovered that looking in the mirror can show me the path to motivation in some amazing ways.

Rediscover Your Passion, Soar To New Heights

Image courtesy of marcobellucci.

When you first set out to start a blog you had a passion. A desire. Something specific that motivated you. Do you remember what that was? Can you clearly and specifically write it down?

Take a step back for a moment and think back to what that motivation was. Now write it down, or better still print it out, in a large font, and stick it right in front of your monitor. This may seem like a fairly trivial thing to do, but it will ensure that you never forget what it is that you are doing, what your purpose is, and what it was that you wanted to achieve.

If you’re not getting the success from you’re blog that you’d expected, if you’re struggling to get traffic, or if your blog seems like you’re alone on a deserted island, take some time out today, right now, and think about your motivation, your passion, and your goals.

By going through this process you’ll not only rediscover yourself and your passion but you’ll also find that you’re able to once again connect with your readers.  And that, my friends, can lead to massive success!

Did you lose sight of what made you start to write your blog? Did you find your way back to your desire, purpose, and passion?  Feel free to share your own experiences by posting a comment below!

Are you trying to connect with like minded people, who are completely open to sharing ideas about how to get more from life, make money online, and even make money blogging?

That’s exactly what Incomes International is all about.

My name is Andrew and I write this blog as a way to connect with, and to assist people just like you and me, to find the answers we’re looking for that most people just don’t want to share. In the massive ocean of internet marketing there are a lot of sharks circling, watching, and waiting to take your money with a promise of untold, overnight riches.

I should know, I’ve spent a lot of money, tried a lot of programs, and received very little benefit from it all. I’ve decided that it doesn’t need to be that way.

People can make a lot of money online without selling their soul and without stooping to the lowest of lows.

I can hear you asking yourself “why would he want to help me and why should I trust him?”

It’s very simple. All my life I have enjoyed nothing more than helping people to achieve their goals. I really can’t describe it, but it gives me a great sense of fulfillment knowing that I have been an instrumental part of creating something special.

But I won’t deny that I have an ulterior motive. It’s not quite as bad as it might sound. Let me explain. One of my favorite guru’s is a man by the name of Zig Ziglar. I first discovered Zig way back in 1993 when I was studying for my Diploma in Marketing and Sales Management.

While reading his books and listening to his audio tapes there was one thing that Zig would say over and over again. This quote has stuck with me my entire life and is one of the principles I live by.

You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. Zig Ziglar

Today I make my living from internet marketing, making money online. My blog is also another avenue for my marketing. But it’s also much more than that. It’s a place where I share what I’ve learned. The successes and the failures.

I’m using this blog to show how you too can make a very good living making money online from internet marketing, or through a blog like this one.

To get you started, I have created a free membership group where each month, subscribers receive a free product of some type that they can rebrand and resell as their own. These products range from ebooks to websites and even software packages.

I provide this absolutely free so that you have your own product to start your online business, without the risk of spending your hard earned dollars on another program or product that was never going to help you get anywhere.

You can become a member and get access to these monthly product releases by filling out the form at the top of this page. Once you enter you name and email address, you’ll receive a welcome email from me that you should immediately white list so that you can be sure you’ll receive all of the future product downloads.

You might also benefit from subscribing to my RSS feed so that you can stay up to date with all the latest information that I provide through my blog. This way you will always know what’s going on, and you’ll also have a place to ask those questions that you might have been too embarrassed or intimidated to ask anywhere else. If you’re not sure what a RSS feed is, don’t worry. I didn’t either at first. Just bookmark this site and you’ll always be able to find me whenever you need to.

Together we can help each other grow and develop to reach new heights of success and begin living a life of design rather than necessity.

If you have a specific topic or question that you’d like to ask or you’d like more information about you can either contact me directly through the contact page, or simply leave a comment on any of the posts that you read on my blog.

In the coming weeks and months you’re going to learn what it takes and exactly how to build your own successful online business. My articles will guide and teach anyone from the beginner to the veteran, how to leverage the power of the internet and take full advantage of that so that you can fire your boss someday soon.

I’m very excited about the future and I’m looking forward to getting to know you better and working with you in the future.

Here’s To Your Online Success!

Andrew