The reasons for adding subtitles to your video are many.

If your video is properly closed captioned, more people can watch it. Closed captions are used by people that can't listen to a video to be able to read or interpret the message from the video.

Youtube creates automatic closed captions, but they're not always accurate.

One more benefit for the closed captions is that you can describe sounds and activity that the automatic captions won't ever do.

You can even add an introduction text where you plug your company. I do this at the beginning of the introduction and I say something like "closed captioning by notagrouch.com".

I think it looks pro and it looks like the captions you see on movies and TV. You can see that in the video below if you have CC turned on.

I also decided to spend more time on my own captions because I noticed an increase in youtube views recently after I started following best practices recommended both by Youtube and other Youtube experts.

So I made a video on how to do it. This is when you want to do them from scratch. There are two other methods that are more suitable for making adjustments to existing transcripts.

I also have a feeling that closed captions can or may affect search engine rankings. It makes sense to me that they would, but I'm not sure yet. Here's that tutorial for now:

How To Create Subtitles or Closed Captions on Youtube

The post Youtube Tutorial. How to Create Close Captions for Your Videos appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

But we often fool ourselves into thinking that we can multi-task. Really, mostly, we can't multi-task.

If you want to really multitask, one of the two tasks you're doing must be so ingrained in you, that it's almost second nature. Like walking, or maybe driving.

But if you need to concentrate in a task, like writing a blog post, there are few other things you can do at the same time.

One of these things you can do is listen to music, but even that can be problematic at times.

What's wrong with regular music?

Music, or the ritual of finding the right song can be distracting and time-consuming.

Then, once you find the right song, you end up singing along to it, or you get distracted by it, and lose track of your actual task.

Focus @ Will is here to change that. I recently signed up and I took the product tour so I thought I'd show it to you since I recorded the whole thing. I really like how it's made and how it works.

I hope my video doesn't scare you away from this app, you really should try it I highly recommend you check it out. It will make you wonder how you ever lived without it and it facilitates a great productivity life-hack.

I actually talked about Focus at Will before when I told you why I quit Spotify and you should too, on this blog post over here.

What's focus@will for?

The whole purpose of the Focus@will service is to provide you with the right music to put you in focus of whatever task you need to complete.

I am listening to the uptempo channel on the high-energy mode as I write this blog post.

Focus@will is supposed to help increase your productivity.

So far, it is working for me. I like having sounds in the background while I work, but I can easily get distracted if it's a podcast, a video or even a music playlist I made.

But this is working great so far. This is one new tool in my arsenal of productivity, along with TimeDoctor.

Focus@will Product Tour

But anyway, I took the product tour and I thought I'd share it with you. I made a short video about it so you can see it.

In Conclusion:

I really liked the product tour of this app and I'm really like the app itself. I thought I would show you and recommend it for you.

The purpose of the app is to provide music that you can play to help you focus, it's good for reading, or getting more work done. I use it to write blog posts, or when I'm doing something that needs my attention 100%.

It's worth checking it out and trying out the channel recommender quiz they have to see which music would be best for you. Try it free for 14 days here.

The post Focus at Will, Music to Improve your Productivity appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Eventually, she wants to quit her job.

She heard about affiliate marketing and decided that it sounded like just the right opportunity for her. She found that she could work a few hours each day and by all accounts, she could make really good money.

So she did some research on Google, and on Youtube and started learning about making money from home using affiliate marketing methods.

Everything was going great until she realized that several weeks had gone by. She came to the realization as many beginners do, that all the different gurus and tutorial videos she found were pulling her in all different directions.

So she asked:

I'm overwhelmed with all this, what should I do? What should I do next to start my business and grow it?

The answer to that is simple and many people will overcomplicate it. It's a very short bullet list to work on to get results. I've narrowed down the answer to three simple steps.

If you feel like Susie, overwhelmed, a little bit lost and just kind of searching for direction on what to do next, then this is for you.

Assuming you have a product to promote...

Assuming you already picked a product or offer you want to promote, then the next few steps are your immediate tasks.

If you don't have a product to promote or an offer that you'd like to then let me know what your interests are, or what you are good at in the comments and I'll give you a few tips.

Finding out the right niche for people is one of my superpowers. But let's get on with the three tips:

I also created a video if you want to check that out:

Step 1: Create a landing page for your offer.

Keep it simple and without fluff. To start, I recommend you take the assets provided to you by the offer manager and use them. Use similar copy, similar colors and make it easy to understand.

The landing page must contain the benefits of the product, enough information about it for the viewer to become interested, and a call to action.

For your first landing page, I suggest that you ask the visitor to join an email list as the call to action. Using the email list, you will provide the reader with more information and an opportunity to buy the product.

Step 2: Create at least three emails to be sent automatically

Use your autoresponder to send at least three emails to those that subscribe via your landing page.

Each email should be captivating and engaging and ask the reader to take action. Ideally, the action is to visit the official offer page (using your affiliate link) and then let that page close the sale for you.

After you have the three emails in place, test them with a test email account of yours to make sure it's working and all your links are clickable as they should.

Set your autoresponder to send out one email each day. First, a welcome message to introduce yourself; include a short story explaining the most compelling benefits of the product.

Then the other messages should help develop and establish you as an authority and trustworthy source of information about the product, its benefits and the problems it will help solve. Think about including engaging stories, customer testimonials, use cases, case studies and similar information that will help convince the reader to buy the product.

If you need specific direction with this, look in your affiliate dashboard or contact your affiliate manager for some guidance. It is my experience that the affiliate managers will be really helpful with this.

Step 3: Send people to visit the landing page. 

This could be challenging if you're not familiar with traffic generation techniques. But you can do it if you set some time aside and focus.

Your goal is to put the landing page in front of as many people as possible. You can do this with free advertising, or with paid advertising.

I'm a big proponent of paid traffic for online businesses because it is highly targeted, easy to quantify, and generally provides better results than free traffic.

However, paying for traffic can be an overwhelming task on its own.

I suggest you try getting a little bit of free traffic first, just to double-check your landing page, your emails and to get you into the flow of things. Get free traffic for a few days, maybe up to a couple weeks.

There will be a few changes you want to make as you run these small tests. Maybe you made a typo, maybe you forgot an image, maybe you want to change the color of the background on your landing page.

With free traffic, you can easily work through those minor mistakes and other than your time, you really haven't lost much.

I would run that test for about a week, maximum 2 weeks. No more than this. After your landing page has been tested, and your emails are delivering properly, then buy some traffic.

That's it. This is a cycle and so long as you keep bringing the offer to people then some of those people will join your email list, and some will buy.

Later on, you can work on getting better, more targeted traffic, optimizing your sales copy on your landing page, improving your open and click rates from your emails and even going back to some of that sweet, sweet free traffic.

But first, revenue!

You can even develop a strategy to generate sales without spending a lot on paid traffic, but if you want to get started, and generate results quickly these are the three steps you must take.

Additional notes

Where to get traffic? You can buy traffic from Facebook, Twitter, Bing, Google, Instagram, Pinterest, and many other places. Set a budget aside to do this every week, and check your stats every day so you can make adjustments.

Make sure you keep adding new emails to your autoresponder series, and when you have ten or twenty, you should then send an email manually every day to your list.

For your landing page, I recommend that you use Leadpages or Clickfunnels, both of those links will give you a free trial to start. But if you're cheap or budget conscious, then you can use Aweber or even your WordPress website.

If you use WordPress, just make sure you use one of the page templates for your theme which remove the sidebars and footers so the reader doesn't get distracted by those. You could also use something like OptimizePress.

Conclusion

Don't let the firehose of advice on Google, Youtube or emails from gurus overwhelm you. When starting out, there are only three things you have to do to generate revenue and start growing your business.

Later on, you can learn more, you can adjust things, you can add more ingredients to the mix but if your business isn't generating revenue quickly, you'll be discouraged and possibly go broke. Complete the three tasks outlined above to start getting results as soon as possible.

These are basic cornerstone strategies to start generating revenue for your online business.

Before you get caught up on my own simple advice and start overcomplicating it, make sure that you do all this quickly. Remember that you don't need to know everything and how everything works.

I have made the big mistake of studying and learning one thing relentlessly until I became an expert at it. I studied it and reviewed it and asked questions to satisfy my fearful curiosity.

This is a mistake if you want to be an entrepreneur and it's understandable. It comes from a place of fear, fear of failure, and fear of making a mistake. I talked about failing recently, you can see that here.

You will make mistakes, and you will fail, but the important part is to fail as you're trying to do something and not just learning about it. Get started now.

The post What Should I Do Next to Start Making Money Online As An Affiliate appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Today, Twitter is vastly different. Most people come to Twitter to absorb information about their favorite topics. The other majority is looking for information curated by the people they consider experts or knowledgeable about a specific topic.

The landscape of the Twitter world has changed dramatically due to technical changes and shifts in internet culture. That's not to say that you can't make personal connections and grow your business using Twitter.

One of the notable things that has changed for businesses is the fact that it's almost required for a business to have a Twitter account.

Having an account isn't enough though. It's like a muscle, you have to use it and exercise it if you want it to grow and give you results.

You, as a spokesperson for the business, must nurture and work on the account regularly. It's great to talk to your prospects, existing customers and anyone that might be friendly to you or your cause.

But if you have that covered, what else can you do to leverage Twitter?

If you want more Twitter traffic, share your content on Twitter

Sharing your own content on social media must be a part of your plan to grow your business and influence. This sentiment is shared by most of the top online business people and influencers. Even if they don't tell you that they're doing this, their actions usually reflect this.

But some of the helpful social media and online marketing experts, like Neil Patel, actually teach these techniques. Neil suggests that we share 10+ articles which go back to our content, each day.

He also talks about how to grow your audience on Twitter fast on this video:

But Twitter can be exhausting, after you talk to people, and respond to conversations pertinent to your interests and objectives, you may feel too tired or overwhelmed to share your own content. And didn't Neil say to share your posts 10 times each day IF you already have a lot of followers?

What if you don't have 200,000 followers or more like Neil does?

The actual number of times you should share your own articles each day may vary by a number of factors, like how many articles you have and how many followers you have.

If you have a few hundred followers, you may annoy them really fast if you share 10 or more articles about your own stuff every day; this could hinder your growth and hurt existing or budding relationships.

But you can determine the right number of articles for yourself by experimenting. Maybe you share 10 articles total, four that are yours, and six about the industry by other influencers or media outlets. Maybe you can switch that ratio.

Play with those numbers, but remember that if you want more Twitter traffic, share more stuff on Twitter. BTW, if you agree with that by now, do me a favor and hit the following Tweetable quote just by clicking on it.

If you are skeptical or hesitant to share a lot of your own stuff, I totally understand, in fact, I had a question about sharing other articles instead of mine and how I should split that ratio. I didn't expect it, but Neil actually answered my question right away:

By the way, my traffic did go up, significantly.

But even if you could magically determine the exact number of times you should share your own content, the problem remains the same for you. If you don't schedule all these articles at once, you have to consciously share the articles every day at random times throughout the day.

This is exhausting, and time-consuming. Add to that the fact that you are also trying to respond to people on Twitter or initiate conversations, and run a business, you may feel like giving up quickly.

I get it, it's a lot of work.

But technology and tools are here to make our lives easier, don't overcomplicate things.

Use the right techniques and tools, as Neil suggests and as I show you in the video below, you can schedule all your own content to be shared in advance, on a set schedule. You can set this up once a week, or once a month and schedule all of your content.

On a future blog post, I'll show you how to weave your own content with niche content by other influencers in your industry so that you can keep a healthy and interesting balance of content. Make sure you subscribe, or follow me so you don't miss it if you want to see that.

But here's the video I made explaining how to use Buffer's power scheduler feature to accomplish what we've been talking about.

This is one of the strategies that has helped me triple my Twitter followers. By the way, if you aren't following me, you can right here: @Notagrouch.

TL;DR

In conclusion, you should have a Twitter account to help you grow your business. One of the strategies to grow on Twitter and get more traffic from Twitter to feed your business is to share relevant content that you've created on top of the regular, one-to-one interactions with your followers.

The easiest way to do this is to schedule all your own content in advance using a tool like Buffer coupled with the technique I demonstrated in the video.

I'm in the draft mode for another post that will simplify this process even further, and will make you a Twitter powerhouse without breaking the bank. Make sure you stick around or subscribe to my list to get notified when that comes out. Of course, you can also get notified if you follow me on Twitter.

Have you tried this before? Are you hesitant? I love teaching and sharing my expertise, but I also want to hear back from you about this and would love to know if you've done this, or not. If yes, what kind of results have you seen and if you haven't done this, why not?

The post How To Schedule Your Content on Twitter Once a Month appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

It’s essential that you get your business prepared for 2018 by learning the strategies that are going to take place. This will help you to stand out from the rest of your competition and get a great start when it comes to sales and promotion throughout the year. If you start the year great, you’ve got the best chance ending the year great.

Here to give you a head start in the digital marketing game, here are eight key advertising trends that are going to shape our every move in the upcoming year.

Continuous Ad-Blocking

Back in 2017, the number of users who installed ad-blockers on their mobile devices nearly doubled with an increase of 90%. As of December 2016, over 236 million internet users had one of the most popular ad blockers installed on their computer browsers. This has been continuing year or year and looks set for 2018 to be the biggest yet. This means it’s vital that you don’t just rely on ad-marketing by rather use a balance of techniques.

Instead of just using paid advertisements on publisher websites, in 2018, you’re going to need to start thinking outside the box. Try to think of new, industry-relevant ways that you can get your message and brand in front of your customers.

Of course, the main way to do this will through content marketing, but more on that later. However, there are ways that you can get around ad blockers. One of the most popular ad blockers, known as Ad Blocker Plus, is free for users and allows them to navigate the web, speeding up their browser experience and hiding those pesky ads.

However, Ad Blocker Plus doesn’t block every single ad. It does, in fact, operate what is known as an ‘acceptable ad policy. Ads can be whitelisted to this service and places are accepted on the basis of the size, distinction and placement of the ad itself. If it’s not the in the way of the user’s experience, you can still get your ads shown.

Bear this in mind when spending your budget on paid advertising campaigns. Here’s the link for how to get your ads whitelisted.

However, there will be some restrictions, and obviously, not all ads will be able to be shown at all times. This means that the ads you do use need to be clever and of the high-quality, such as the ones you can manage and create using Adobe Experience or AdRoll.

Bigger and Better Than Ever

As we all know, Google and Facebook have been the dominating force in the ad industry over the last few years. However, with all the implementations and features that the tech-giants are adding over this year and next year, the race is on to be bigger and better than ever before!

You’ll also want to consider other marketing giants that are taking the world by storm. In particular, you’ll want to draw your focus to Instagram and Snapchat. Although somewhat similar and each platform being each other’s rivals, both are extremely popular and if you haven’t already got an account on either platform, you need to do so now!

“Of course, this means you’re going to need to adapt and add to your existing content marketing strategy which takes time and budget, but the return and interaction you’ll get back from your customers are unparalleled” – explains Maria Williams, a Content Marketer at Write my essay company.

Stricter SEO Guidelines

SEO has changed in recent years from being based on the keywords that user’s use when trying to search for something to websites and businesses having to give their users the best experience possible. This means all businesses will have to up their game in 2018, giving users the most fluid and best possible experience.

With this in mind, as the year starts to draw to a close, you’ll need to start considering how you can improve your user experience. Your website needs to be extremely easy to navigate and well laid-out. One of the most important factors you’ll need to consider is the overall speed of your website.

You’ll lose about 30% of your users if your website takes over two-seconds to load and you’ll be ranked lower in the Google search bar. Bear this in mind when it comes to uploading high-quality images and data-heavy pages.

You’ll also want to consider whether or not your website works well on mobile devices and there are no dead links!

High-Quality Content

Content marketing is still taking off bigger and better than it has ever been before. However, instead of spammy articles, users are looking for really high-quality and valuable posts that can change their lives. This means businesses and marketers will have to proofread and edit their content (for example, by using Big Assignments or State of Writing online editing tool) to absolutely perfect or risk their hard-earned follower counts.

As mentioned in the first point, content marketing is, and has proven to be, the way forward, and it’s essential that you strive for absolute perfection. This means instead of spending your time creating 20 or so average articles to put out, instead focusing on putting 3 or 4 amazing articles that provide real information and value to your reader.

For advice and guidance on creating this kind of high-quality, engagement-creating content pieces, you can check out online writing resources such as Coursework service and Australian Help, two sites that are home to professional writers that have been keeping up with these trends.

Programmatic Advertising Boom

This industry and technique have been building up momentum all year, and it’s predicted that programmatic advertising is really going to come to the forefront of marketing early next year.

This means you’ll be able to bid for advertising space, all while receiving valuable information on your users that can help you define and target your audience much more effectively.

If you haven’t got started with programmatic advertising, now is the time to do so. You can start using online services, such as the Rubicon Project or Google’s own DoubleClick program.

Valuable Information

We’ve seen this consideration increasingly becoming important throughout 2017, but the value of your copywriting online will be one of the things that define you as a business.

Whether it’s your content marketing campaign, your website copy, your product descriptions, your contact page or the content of your email marketing strategy, you must consider the quality of your work.

This is because, as mentioned above, users are looking for the best experience possible and Google is looking out for high-quality pieces, website and content to put at the top of their search engine results page.

This means you’ll need to invest a serious amount of time and money into your content, rather than sitting down trying to cram as many keywords into an article as possible.

If, as you’re trying to run a business, you don’t have time to write the content for your website, your articles, blog posts etc. don’t risk uploading poor-quality content. 2017/2018 has also brought around a wealth of writing services, such as Custom essay or Academadvisor, who can create the high-quality content on your behalf.

It’s All About Video Media

This has been a reoccurring theme for many years but, what is known as outstream videos, are becoming more and more popular every single day and 2018 is going to be huge for them. It’s predicted it could even be as much as 77%!

An outstream video is a video that’s played on a computer or mobile device and means that advertisers can play videos outside the players, such as following a user as they scroll. This makes for a better ad experience for the user while still giving you the opportunity to advertise your business.

Hand in hand with the consideration on social media, you need to make sure that you’re taking full advantage of the features that are available to you.

Going back to Instagram and Snapchat, both are extremely heavy when it comes to visuals and, if you think creatively, you’ll be able to create your own niche and community of followers based on the content that you implement.

This means using the ‘story mode’ on Instagram and especially using live videos. It’s worth noting that only 29% of businesses have considered using the Live Video feature on Instagram, but it’s predicted that this will skyrocket over the coming year. Make sure your business is ahead of the game.

Chatbots are Taking Over!

Okay, so they’re not taking over, but 2017 saw a huge increase in chatbots, especially for companies. In fact, there’s over 100,000 of them already, and this number will only increase in 2018. Predominantly, on websites such as Facebook, although 2017 was a year of ups and down as the service didn’t quite take off as expected.

However, 2018 will be a lot different and chatbots are expected to be a huge driving force when it comes customer experience and interaction with a business. Once again, this all about building up this customer experience and making it as perfect as possible. Not everybody who has a question for a business has the ability or time to phone, nor wants to. Sometimes, international borders mean a phone call simply isn’t feasible, but they still don’t want to wait for an email reply.

“Many people would rather sit at their computers while chatting every few minutes to a representative from your business. Chatbot software and platforms are now readily available for businesses to implement and it’s well worth looking into as a business, especially if you have, or want, a lot of interaction from your customers” – explains Rosemarie Janssen, a Marketing Manager at Essayroo.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, many of the trends that are coming up in 2018 could potentially define the marketing industry forever, so it’s vital that you pay attention to what’s going on, allowing you to be one step ahead of the game and one step ahead of your competition.

Remember to think creatively and explore all the options, features and platforms that are currently available to you to find the best way to promote, advertising and spread the word when it comes to your business.

About Gloria Kopp.

Gloria Knopp is an advertising manager and a content writer for Paper Fellows. She also regularly contributes her articles to The Tab and PhD Thesis Writers blogs. Gloria is an author of Studydemic blog where she writes her guides and tips for students and educators.

The post 8 Key Digital Advertising Trends That Will Take Place in 2018 appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Maybe this sounds like you: A blogger has been blogging for months, maybe even over a year and hasn't made any money.

Perhaps they've made a few dollars here and there. But the reality is that most bloggers, and chances are that includes you, don't make enough to even cover basic costs.

It's not for lack of trying or for lack of skill, generally.

Keep in mind most successful bloggers didn't make money until months after starting their blog.

What do affiliates need to start making money online?

There are many things that comprise the recipe for profits online, but I'm going to cover two important factors that would help you make money if you haven't made enough money from your blog yet.

I know it can be frustrating.

Making money online is more than just posting content and sharing it. You can have a huge following and still fail to make a decent income. In this video, I dive into one of the main reasons why you're not making money despite all your efforts.

Check out the video and take action. If you're not profiting from your blog, maybe it's time you try something new, or time to upgrade your methods or products.

And if you don't think that these are the missing ingredients for your blog to start making money, let me know more about your situation in the comments and we can figure it out together.

https://youtu.be/t9ZgNvtSB2s

If you didn't want to wait for the entire video. The key of one of the messages is to start working with higher-end products which in turn pay out a higher level commission.

If you're interested in learning how to do that and start earning more money than ever before, check out the 21 step training I talk about in the video right here.

The post Affiliates: This Is Why You’re Not Making Money Online (Video) appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

As I've been working on optimizing WordPress, I decided to take a look at the server side of things. If you're looking to improve the performance of your website, this may be useful for you. Please keep in mind the things in here are exclusive for VPS or Dedicated type of servers, they will not work with shared hosting or managed hosting, but may work for other hosts besides Inmotion Hosting.

If you haven't done so yet, you may need to configure SSH first so you can access your server from the command line and do the stuff I talk about here. Check if your host allows you to do that, and how to set it up. If you have a VPS with InmotionHosting, you can setup SSH as explained here.

Most web hosts allow you to ssh into your VPS.

As a quick disclaimer, I run all the commands listed here as root. This can be risky so be careful when you're running this on your server; you should always run commands with your own username and use sudo to run commands as root when needed. But I'm awesome, and I live dangerously, so I run as root, deal with it.

Turning off unnecessary services.

The first thing you should do with any server if you're going to optimize it for performance is to turn off unnecessary services. There are usually a half dozen or more services that run on every server but aren't needed, they're there for your convenience and just in case.

Conversely, you should know and remember that if you turn these services off and you need them later, you'll need to turn them back on.

How to find out what services are running.

Depending on the operating system your server is running, you'll need to run some commands to see what services are running. In my case, my server is running CentOS which is a spinoff from RedHat. To find out what's running on a RedHat server, you can  run these commands:

service --status-all

To narrow down to a much smaller and useful list of stuff you can run this command:

chkconfig

And to eliminate even more noise, we can filter the output of the chkconfig command to just the stuff that is running right now at our runlevel, like this:

root@servername [~]# chkconfig |grep 3\:on

That command shows only what's running right now under runlevel 3. Let's take a look:

root@servername [~]# chkconfig |grep 3\:on
apf            	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
atd            	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
cpanel         	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
crond          	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
exim           	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
fastmail       	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
filelimits     	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
httpd          	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
ip6tables      	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
ipaliases      	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
iptables       	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
mailman        	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
messagebus     	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
modules_dep    	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
mysql          	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
named          	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
netfs          	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
network        	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
nscd           	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
psacct         	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
pure-ftpd      	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
ror            	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
rpcbind        	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
rsyslog        	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
saslauthd      	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:on	4:off	5:off	6:off
sshd           	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
sysstat        	0:off	1:on	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
udev-post      	0:off	1:on	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
vzquota        	0:on	1:on	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:on

From the services listed (notice the 3:0n column) that are running, most of them are necessary for the proper operation of the server. The ones I am questioning are exim, fastmail, mailman and ror.

My server doesn't work as an email server and I don't want it to be a relay, the first 3 services I listed are related to mailserver stuff. If I know my stuff, then I'm willing to bet that those services aren't needed for my WordPress site to operate properly.

But what about email sending from WordPress? WordPress sends email out sometimes, like when there are updates, or sometimes certain plugins send updates and alerts. I believe that the sendmail script is all that's needed for that, but I decided to test this theory.

Then the 4th service I found suspect is ror which is the Ruby on Rails service. I don't have any ROR apps running so I don't know why that would even be active.

Turning services on and off

You can turn a service off and on with a simple command:

root@servername [~]# chkconfig servicename off

That turns off a service named servicename. Changing "off" to "on" turns it back on. Note that this command is temporary until the server restarts, so if you make a mistake or shut down a service that you shouldn't have turned off, you may need to reboot the server and the service will restart automatically.

This is how I test to see if I need a service. I first turn it off and then check the site, then if all works fine, I make the service permanently turned off, so it stays that way even after the server restarts. You can see more information on how to use the chkconfig utility here.

To make a service stay turned off permanently, I use this command:

root@servername [~]# chkconfig --level 3 servicename off

Testing services before making permanent changes

To verify that the services I want to disable will not affect my WordPress site and prevent it from sending email, I'll turn off each one at a time and then test my site's ability to send an email. In this case, I'm using a basic contact form from WP Forms to make sure sending email still works.

So I run this command to turn off exim:

root@servername [~]# chkconfig exim off

I then use the test contact form to confirm the site can still send email, I also check the inbox to make sure I received the message. If you're going to follow my steps, I also recommend you test all this before you make any changes to the services running to make sure it's all working fine to begin with.

After I turned off exim, I could send messages just fine. Next up fastmail.

root@servername [~]# chkconfig fastmail off

This also resulted in being able to send emails fine. Next is mailman.

root@servername [~]# mailman mailman off

I turned off all four services, fastmail, mailman, exim, and ror without any adverse side effects. So the next step is to permanently turn off each of those services, like this:

root@servername [~]# chkconfig --level 3 fastmail off
root@servername [~]# chkconfig --level 3 exim off
root@servername [~]# chkconfig --level 3 mailman off
root@servername [~]# chkconfig --level 3 ror off

To confirm that all the changes are permanent, I rebooted my VPS using the restart server button from my Inmotion account dashboard. I don't use the built in reboot or shutdown command from the command line because the server never seems to come back up if I do that. There must be a routine that happens when the server is rebooted from the dashboard instead of the command line so keep that in mind if you feel like restarting your server from the command line.

I confirm one more time with the chkconfig command to list what is running on runlevel 3:

root@servername [~]# chkconfig |grep 3\:on
apf            	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
atd            	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
cpanel         	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
crond          	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
filelimits     	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
httpd          	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
ip6tables      	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
ipaliases      	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
iptables       	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
messagebus     	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
modules_dep    	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
mysql          	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
named          	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
netfs          	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
network        	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
nscd           	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
psacct         	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
pure-ftpd      	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
rpcbind        	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
rsyslog        	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
saslauthd      	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:on	4:off	5:off	6:off
sshd           	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
sysstat        	0:off	1:on	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
udev-post      	0:off	1:on	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
vzquota        	0:on	1:on	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:on

Notice the services are not listed as being "on" for runlevel 3, success! There are a few other services that other sysadmins would question, like named. In my case, I'm pretty sure that I need everything else listed here for now.

While the active resources that these services may not be very significant, I don't need any mail services running. I also noticed in my mail logs that spammers have been trying to use my server as an email relay, turning off all mail related services should help minimize this activity. To be sure that gets shut down as well, I should turn off all ports that aren't needed. I will tackle that in another post soon.

Conclusion

If you want to start squeezing every bit of performance out of your VPS server, this is an example of some of the things you can do. In this case, I showed you how I turned off 4 services that were running but not being utilized. They may not impact your server significantly, but every bit counts and this is easy to do so why not start with this. You may have other unused services running, but this should be a good guide to show you how to find said services, test them and then turn it off if they're not needed.

The post Server Performance Improvements for WordPress – Turning off Services appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

But Youtube has some flaws, and one of those is the subscription system. If you use Youtube on a regular basis, you know that most channels encourage you to subscribe to them so you can stay up to date with their videos.

Obviously, after a while, you may end up being subscribed to hundreds or even thousands of Youtube channels.  What happens then is that Youtube can't notify you of all the updates. It wouldn't be practical.

Youtube came up with a solution for this, and they introduced the "subscription bell," a little icon that is available next to the subscription button on each channel. This bell icon lets you tell YouTube that you want "all notifications" from this channel. You can think of it as a priority status for that subscription compared to the other subscriptions.

But this doesn't solve the problem of too many notifications. You may have a thousand subscriptions and clicked the bell on 300 of those to receive all their alerts. But if those 300 channels are very active, then this is not a solution either.

I got sick of this notification mayhem and decided to unsubscribe from all Youtube channels so I could start from a blank slate. I went to the Youtube settings to look for a way to unsubscribe from all channels. No luck! Youtube wouldn't want me to unsubscribe from all channels because it would go against their goal to keep me on their site for a longer period of time.

So I went to use one of my favorite tools to make an unsubscribe script for Youtube. This tool is called iMacros, it's free. Even though it works with Firefox or Chrome, I think it works much better with Firefox, so that's what I used.

The following video shows you how it works and some of the basics. After the video, there are a few notes and also a download option for the script so you can just start using it yourself right away.

How to unsubscribe from all youtube channels, notes.

You need to install iMacros as an extension for Firefox.

If you want to subscribe to some channels after you have unsubscribed from all, I recommend that you back up your subscriptions first. You'll find the backup option on the bottom right of your Subscription management page. This option will let you download an OPML file which you can read with an RSS reader like Feedly.

Use this unsubscribe method at your own risk! Youtube doesn't have an interest in making it easy to mass-unsubscribe from all channels; they have an interest in selling advertising. One of their goals is to keep you on the site as long as possible, and they accomplish this by trying to show you content you would be interested in based on your previous watch history and subscriptions.

Using a script to unsubscribe is probably not something Youtube would endorse or encourage so use it your own risk. It's for this reason that I deliberately made the script with lots of pauses and time delays. The script is intended to be convenient, not to be fast.

If you are pushing the boundaries and Youtube decides to prevent you from unsubscribing quickly, you'll see a screen like this when running the script:

All you have to do at that point is wait a minute or two and then start the script again.

You can run the script manually, and it will unsubscribe you from 25 channels. Just use the "Play" button.

To run the script mostly automatically you should use the "Play (Loop)" option and specify the "Max" number of loops to run through. I ran the script ten times at a time, and this made it so that I unsubscribed from about 250 channels at a time. See screenshot below:

You'll notice that the script has a screenshot command, this is to take a screenshot of your subscriptions before it unsubscribes you from the first 25 listed on that page. If you don't want to keep screenshots, you can just delete that entire line. Screenshots are saved to the designated "Downloads" folder for iMacros.

If you want to remove the time delays (not recommended), you can delete the lines that say this:

SET !VAR1 EVAL("var randomNumber=Math.floor(Math.random()*4 + 2); randomNumber;")
WAIT SECONDS={{!VAR1}}

I recommend if you're going to "loop" the script to do a few hundred unsubscriptions at a time, you leave the last time delay so that there's a pause each time that the loop starts over. This delay may prevent Youtube from flagging your account or limiting you and showing you the 504 error I described above.

I was able to run the script on ten loops, and it only gave me the 504 error twice, depending on your Youtube usage and other factors you may not see it at all or you may see it more frequently. If you see the error every time it loops, you should log out of Youtube, clear your cache and log back in.

For more documentation and information on iMacros, you may want to take a look at the extensive documentation they offer in their Wiki here.

The script is here. Download it to your computer, put it into one of the iMacro folders, then play it through Firefox using the iMacro commands.

The script is herehttps://notagrouch.com/wp-content/uploads/youtube-unsubscribe.zip. Download it to your computer, put it into one of the iMacro folders, then play it through Firefox using the iMacro commands.

The post How To Reset Your Youtube Subscriptions appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

But once the blog is started and you have a couple articles posted you will certainly face the dreaded writer's block. Maybe it will happen on your fourth blog post, or maybe on your 12th blog post. But every blogger faces writer's block sometimes.

Maybe because we're lacking creativity at that moment, maybe because we are distracted, or maybe we're just not in the mood to write. But maybe you're out of ideas.

This is where I have some help for you today. Having ideas to write about is important, so how do you get new ideas flowing? I have a few tips and five sources for new ideas that should help you get unstuck from that annoying writer's block.

Conclusion

Getting new ideas for blog posts isn't too difficult, you just have to think of the stuff you already know and try to use some of the sources I suggest. Try not to overcomplicate your posts and keep them focused on one topic at a time.

Once you come up with an idea for a blog post using the tips I gave you in the video, you may get a few more ideas right away so make sure you write those down for future blog posts.

The post 5 Tips to Help you Kill Writer’s Block appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

On this day (May 20) pretend to be a millionaire or start working on your plans that you think will make you a millionaire.

Word on the street is that everybody would like to be a millionaire. That means you, right? And in jest, timeanddate.com suggests you should pretend to be a millionaire today, or start working on your plans to become one.

Let's not pretend

I want to talk about the second part of that. Being a millionaire can give you security. But it's difficult to make a million dollars, or so it seems. Here are some ideas:

Some people will tell you that all you have to do is visualize it, think about it, project it and it will become so. That's a bunch of baloney if you ask me.

Other people will tell you to invest in the stock market, or in options or commodities. I'd say that you have a chance of making a million dollars or more with that, but you have an equal or greater chance of going broke as well if you don't know what you're doing.

Maybe you want to find a new hot startup and invest some money into it, wait and hope that they become the next Uber, or Snapchat or Blue Apron; well, maybe not Uber right now, but you get the idea.

Instead of talking hypotheticals, I'm going to give you two practical ways of getting closer to being a millionaire, starting today.

Spend less than you make

Here's the first method to help you become a millionaire. It's not always about how much you make, but how much you get to keep so be thrifty and wise with your money. Will Rogers, the highest paid Hollywood actor of his time said this:

And it's true. The best way to accumulate wealth is to not spend your money. So next time you go out, next time you go shopping, next time you are browsing Amazon, remember this: spend less than you make.

If you're going to use credit cards, make sure you can pay the full amount all the time, so that if you're using a credit card, you're using it to accumulate rewards, get a better deal, or get some consumer protection. Do NOT use a credit card because you don't have cash in the bank.

From first-hand experience, I can tell you that using credit cards to purchase things for which you don't have the funds in the bank, is a recipe for disaster and financial enslavement.

Add multiple streams of income

The second way I'll suggest to becoming wealthy is to add another revenue stream. Most people make money from a single source; their job. You are probably in this group, and you may even have a good job that pays you well. You feel secure, don't you?

But the bottom line is that your job is the only source of income, if you become disabled, or if you get laid off, or if your employer goes out of business, you're shit out of luck. There goes your security!

Even with a job, you should have other streams of income. Not only will this help you generate money faster, but it will also give you real security and freedom. You'll feel less stressed, and you'll be happier overall.

Sell something online, start a blog, become a consultant, become a reseller, learn to invest, work on ways to get more money for the same amount of time and effort you spend every day!

Living proof

What I describe above is exactly how I work and live, my blog generates part of my income, I also consult and coach people on how to start businesses and how to improve their businesses.

The results are great because they allow me to spend time with my kids and wife and friends and still my blog makes money. I earn money while I'm at the park with my kids, out with my wife or having dinner with friends.

Sometimes one of my sources of income may dry up, as I talked about with Coco Jack, but I don't need to worry about it because I still make money with all the sources of income I have working for me.

You can see in the screenshot below, that I get paid various amounts from different sources, I also receive physical checks from a few companies, and as of the writing of this post, I am waiting for 3 checks adding another $1500 or so.

There are also about half a dozen other companies that owe me between 230 to 1000 for this month.

The post Be a Millionaire Day appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Unique domains are becoming increasingly scarce commodities as hundreds of thousands of new sites come online each year. With millions of websites already competing for real estate on the Internet and each with a distinct domain name, finding the perfect thing to call your site is now more important than ever.

Basic Concepts

Understanding what to consider when choosing a domain requires that you know what a domain really is. In simplest terms, the domain name is made up of two parts: the part you create from scratch (like “notagrouch”) and the part after the dot, known as the “Top Level Domain” or “TLD” (such as “.com,” “.biz,” “.org,” etc.).

You officially buy or lease your domain and register it on the web through a registrar. The registrar ensures that you are the only one who can use that domain while you own it and notifies computers all over the world that when a visitor types in your domain name into its browser it is your site they should reach.

Get a free domain from Inmotion when purchasing any web hosting plan here

5 Considerations for Choosing the Perfect Domain Name

Now that you understand what a domain is, what the parts of the domain name are called, and how to purchase one, it is time to make your choice.

You need to do more than just pick the first name that comes to mind and happens to be available. After all, this domain will have a huge impact on website moving forward. Let's answer the question: What should you think about when choosing your domain name?

1. Target Audience

Who will you be trying to convince to visit your website? Will you sell a product or service? Are the potential visitors young? Old? Male? Female? Do they live in a certain area?

When people use a search engine to find you, what sort of search terms will they use? Is your business online only or does it have a physical presence in the real world, too? All of these considerations should factor into your final decision.

You also need to think about the terms people will use when they search for your type of product or service. If you can incorporate one or more of those terms directly into your domain name, you may get a direct boost to your search ratings. For example, if someone searches for “teddy bears,” a company with a domain like “FluffyTeddyBears.com” will probably rank higher than something with a generic name like “JimsToys.com.”

Similarly, if your business has a physical location, and you want people in your area to find you, consider including your city or state name in your domain. If someone in your vicinity is searching for a place near them offering your type of product or service, they will likely start their search with the name of your city. So, “DetroitCarCareExperts” or “BestPizzaOrlando” will be more likely to show up in their results than just “A1Mechanics” or “MariosItalian.”

2. Don’t Use Your Own Personal Name

You may be very proud of your company or organization’s web presence, but you should probably avoid labeling it with your own name. While it might be a good idea to own and control the domain of your name for personal purposes, for business purposes, there is really no benefit. It is highly unlikely that you share a name with whatever it is your company does, so anybody who is not searching specifically for you may miss you in search results or not understand what they are seeing.

Of course, there are two notable exceptions to this suggestion. The first is if your name is your brand, such as a celebrity or famous athlete. In that case, it makes total sense to use your name for your domain name, because that is what people will be trying to find.

The other exception is for a business that already shares your name. Many industries like to use the proprietor’s name, like fashion designers, hairstylists, realtors, and others. In those cases, it might make sense to have a domain with your name in it.

But, for an added boost, if your business has your name in it, but you want to appeal to a broader audience, you could have a domain that describes your business, like “RockportHairDesigns,” but then incorporates the actual owner/business name in the content throughout the site.

3. Spelling Counts

Some may find it fun to include obscure words or intentional misspellings in their domain name as a way to set themselves apart. But, be careful doing so. This could exclude or reduce your site in the search results for common words, and it could confuse visitors.

For example, a company selling low-rider truck customization may rank lower in search results if they call their site something like “LowRyderz.” It may also make it difficult for users to find your site if they only hear the name and try to type it directly into the browser, not knowing how to spell it.

Go with something easy to spell for your domain name, and save the tricky and artistic misspelling or obscure naming ideas for individual products or accent points on your site.

4. Brevity is the Soul of Wit

It was true in Shakespeare’s day, and it is still true in our modern, digital age. What seems more likely for someone to remember: “DetroitCornerBakery” or “DanAndGlendasBestLittleDetroitCornerBakery?” The more words you add to your domain name, the harder it is to read and remember. Keep it as short as possible.

The perfect length domain name is a careful balancing act between brand identity and search engine optimization.  Great online brands like Google, Ebay, Yelp, and others have learned how to mix a strong brand presence in the marketplace with a very short domain name that people can easily remember. They have also spent millions in search engine marketing and optimization to make sure they rank highly in search results.

On the other hand, smaller businesses may need the boost of adding things like a product name and location in order to boost search results but have to avoid getting too wordy. A possible compromise may be using widely accepted abbreviations, like “auto” instead of “automobile,” “SoCal” instead of “Southern California,” or “NY” in place of “New York.”

Also, avoid using articles, like “a,” “an,” and “the,” such as “TheDenverRealtyCo.” People are likely to forget about these words when typing in your domain and may end up on a competitor’s website that has a similar but shorter name.

5. Avoid Mimicking Another (More Popular) Brand

Speaking of similarly named sites, many find it a pretty tempting pitfall to try to use a domain name that closely resembles someone else’s site name. Many have thought if they could use a major brand name in part of their domain, it might trick customers into visiting their site, driving up traffic.

This was actually a favorite trick of unscrupulous web developers in the early days of the Internet. But, with a deluge of trademark and copyright infringement lawsuits, and the purchase of many variations of popular brand names as domains, the practice has almost entirely fallen out of favor.

It is much more likely that using a variation of a more well-known brand in your domain will not generate any more business for you, but could anger site visitors looking for the other company, attract lawsuits, and create a number of other headaches you would probably prefer to avoid.

Use the Goldilocks Approach

Finding the right domain name may be tricky. But, keeping these ideas in mind should put you on the right path. Take your time, think it through, and find a domain that is just right for your business or organization. Want to try out more than one variation? Buy them all and see which generates the best results. In the end, choosing the right domain name will be a mix of careful strategy, intuition, and a dash of your own personality.

And remember, purchase a web hosting plan from InMotion Hosting and your domain is FREE for the first year. Click here for more info.

If you want to run your domain idea by me, feel free to get in touch with me. I'd be happy to hear your idea and give you feedback.

The post How to Pick a Good Domain Name. 5 Quick Tips to Consider. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I found a few ways to do it and here I have listed them for you.

Option 1. Using Instatray.

This service offers a 3-day free trial. It's $29/month after that. Yeah, I think the pricing is crazy. I mean c'mon guys, $30.00 per month to chat on Instagram? Give me a break. But it may be worth it to you if you have hundreds of direct messages coming in. You can get access to Instatray here.

Sign up,  and after you confirm your email address, you'll need to enter your username and password for Instagram.

When you submit this information, you'll see an error that says "checkpoint required."

This checkpoint alert means that Instagram will check with you via the mobile app to make sure it was you trying to access your account. You'll need to go to your mobile device and authorize this.

After you authorize the access from the mobile app, go back to Instatray and try the authentication again. This time it should work, and you will now have an inbox where you can send messages from and receive messages. From here on now, it works pretty much as you would expect.

The downsides?

• There seems to be a slight delay on the incoming messages; it's minimal, but if you're going back and forth quickly with somebody, you might end up  "talking over" the other person.
• You can't seem to be able to click on the icon or profile of the person you're chatting with to look at their IG profile directly.

Instatray is so far, the only reliable method I found, without having to mess around with installing programs or modifying stuff on my computer.

In Quora and a couple of other places, you'll find some guy posting about an Instagram chat enabler. But I checked it out, and it seems sketchy. It's not an app, and it's only available for download as a zip file (for Windows only) from a weird file-sharing website. I recommend you don't use that.

Option 2. Using Bluestacks Player

Bluestacks is an Android device emulator; that means it's a program that makes it seem like you have an Android device on your computer. It works for Windows, and they have recently added a version for OSX.

The reason I said the previous method (using Instatray) was the only reliable method is because installing, configuring and using Bluestacks may be a bit too technical for some people. Nonetheless, it works fine if you roll up your sleeves a little bit and get it all setup.

If you want to give it a try, read on!

You'll need to install Bluestacks on your computer, Bluestacks installs just like another app. Just pick the right version for Windows or Mac.

After you install it, an emulated device will start up. You can then search for the Instagram app as if you were using an Android device. Type in Instagram in the search, then click on "search Play for Instagram."

This action will prompt a "one-time setup" screen to connect your Gmail account and to connect to the Google App store. Click continue to Enable the AppStore the Google play store.

Then you'll be prompted to use an existing account or to create a new one. If you have a Gmail account you want to use to access the Google Play store, use that. Else you can create one.

Most people have a Gmail account, so we'll go with that option and click on Existing. Remember, this is just for the Android device simulator, not for Instagram.

You'll be prompted to sign in to the Gmail/Google account.

If you're familiar with Android devices, the next option should be easy. If you're not sure what to do when you're prompted about "Backup & Restore" maybe you should leave it unchecked.

In my case, I left the Backup and Restore option checked because that way I should be able to restore all my apps into this simulator and have a full Android environment available for me if I use it somewhere else.

This part completes the AppStore enable function and the second part of the one-time setup is to allow App Sync. I want it enabled so I clicked on Continue.

This will prompt another authentication with Google services based on the account you put in earlier.

It may seem like you can't log in at this point because your password could be rejected a few times (even if you are sure it's correct).

Then Gmail may prompt you to send an alert to your existing Android device to authorize this. Of course, you'll need to allow that to happen. Then you'll need to enter the password again, and things should continue as planned.

Then enter the password again, and find out it will take a lifetime to complete the next step.

After all that is set up, you can then search for Instagram again and install it. Don't be weirded out that the Instagram title is cut off or anything; Bluestacks is an emulator, and it probably won't be perfect all the time.

Yes, all this just to be able to send direct messages on Instagram from my computer.

The usual permissions pop-up will come up. Sign away your life, accept that the NSA may be looking at, hearing you and pretty much spying on everything you do by using this app, then click on Accept.

For a brief moment, you'll see the app downloading and installing, and then the Open button will become available; click it. Dammit, click it!

Then marvel as your room fills with heavenly light and sound because you can use Instagram "natively" from your desktop.

Yes, that's Instagram in a window, in Bluestacks in my OSX desktop.

Click on Login with Facebook, or at the bottom to use your username and password; then proceed to login to Instagram. On. Your. Desktop.

The result should be both fascinating, and intriguing, but nonetheless functional and you should have the ability to send direct messages from your desktop.

If you go to try to message somebody on Instagram and the app just sends you back to the homepage in Instagram, you need to go into the Bluestacks settings and change the settings to simulate a tablet.

After you change the settings to reflect Tablet, then you'll be able to send direct messages to other Instagram users from the computer.

The display may be a little wider than you expect but typing with all your fingers on your full-sized keyboard beats typing with just two thumbs in a screen that's only 3 inches wide if you ask me.

Conclusion

As an honorable mention, there is also the Pushbullet app which allows for your mobile notifications to show up in your browser so at least you can tell when someone sent you a DM on Instagram. Maybe that's all you need.

I wish that Instagram would just give us direct messaging options from the web version. If they did that then we wouldn't have to jump through all these hoops just to be able to message our friends and contact each other.

Seriously, Instagram? #WTF.

But in any case, these two options worked fine for me. Feel free to give them a try if you want and let me know how they worked out for you.

The post Instagram – How to Send and Receive Direct Messages from Your Computer. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I want to integrate Instagram into my blogging and monetization strategy, so I need to grow the numbers. That's just how social media works. Numbers and engagement rule the social media world. When I started this new experiment, 11 days ago, I had 890 followers. Today I just broke past 1300. THANK YOU, everyone, that has joined me so far!

That's approximately 36 new followers per day, so that's pretty good I think. I'm sure it could be better, but I don't have boobs, fancy supercars, and I don't travel to exotic destinations every other day. My Instagram account is about my experiences as an entrepreneur, blogger, and vlogger. I teach how to use WordPress, how to do affiliate marketing, how to monetize your blog and all the stuff that comes with it so I'll post about that from time to time.

I'm learning to post better photos, to use hashtags and to create more engagement through engagement with other accounts. I knew what to do, but doing it consistently and effectively is totally different.

I have some ideas of what I need to do, and I've seen how other people do what I'm trying to accomplish. I like some of the techniques that people suggest and I loathe some of the other methods that some people use. The worst technique of all is when a "big account" follows you and you get excited, you like their posts, leave some comments and then follow back, just for them to immediately unfollow you.

This is a shitty trick and I'm already sick of it and I'm only 11 days into my growth spurt. I guess it's part of the game, but it's still a total asshole move #sorrynotsorry. Yeah if you do that, I'm calling you out. You're not a celebrity, you don't have to keep your following number at 71 and doing so deliberately just makes you look like a douche, not to mention that you ruin the experience for other accounts trying to grow and trying to engage with you. And I'm not the only one that feels this way.

I follow people whose content I like regardless of the niche they're in because I have many interests. The only reason I unfollow you is if you post a ton of pictures back to back and clutter my feed, or if your posts turn out to be really low quality. This rarely happens because I spend time looking at the accounts before I decide to follow so I know that I will most likely be interested in future content.

With that said, I'm using a number of tools to help me achieve the goal of 5000 followers. At this pace, I might reach that goal in 4 - 5 months, but as with most social media, I think that once I build more momentum the numbers may accelerate. Or I might crash and burn, We'll see.

The Tools & Resources

Here's a quick list of the tools and resources I'm using. I will be doing a review of some of these on their own blog post.

FotoJet (link)- Image creation app to help with quotes, photo editing and stuff like that. I normally use Photoshop and I know it well, but sometimes it's overkill. Fotojet so far seems like a great alternative.

FollowCop (link)- App for Android, helps me find out who is doing that ass*hole move I mentioned above, and also tells me who are the most engaged followers, who is leaving me comments, liking my stuff, and all that stuff so that I can stay on top of it. Instagram only shows about 24 hours of activity history so it's easy to miss some interaction; this helps a lot so my followers and new followers don't feel neglected. Don't worry, I'll get back to you sooner than later!

SocialRunner (link) - A service that helps you find engaged users in your niche. I would recommend you check it out if you want to try what I'm doing. They have a 3-day trial, 1-month or 3-month plan. If you want to save 15%, use this coupon: OSCAR20. You fill out an extensive questionnaire, they'll get in touch with you and then they help you find users and help you grow the account. I like this because they don't follow others on my behalf; I want to do that myself. A full review of this coming in the next week or two.

Buffer  (link)- I use this to schedule posts in advance for Instagram. Also, I'm using the term "schedule" loosely because, with Instagram, you can't really schedule posts automatically like you can do for Twitter or Facebook; heck Facebook lets you schedule posts within their own service! For Instagram, Buffer takes the photos and your caption and then sends you a notification on your mobile device when it's time to post. Buffer adds the photo to Instagram and copies the caption to your clipboard so you can finish up the Instagram post before publishing.

InstaWealth Growth System by @Wolfmillionaire (link) - An extensive course to help you use an Instagram account to make money. Walks you through everything you need to accomplish this; I've just finished reviewing Chapter 1; it has 12 modules, and it's pretty good. I'll share my thoughts in a post within a couple days.

Notegraphy (link)- An app to help you create stylish quotes which you can then repost on Instagram. I'm not thrilled with this one but I've used it a couple times with various results. Android version linked, not sure if they have iOS.

Quoter (link) - Another app to help with quotes, this one comes with a database of quotes you can use. I've only used it to make my own, but unfortunately, I'm not thrilled with the results either. Android version linked, not sure if they have iOS.

Grow Your Blog FB Group (link) - A great group of bloggers that help each other with growth and engagement. Use sparingly and follow the rules, or you'll get banned.

And of course, I use the Instagram app a lot. I do most of my commenting, liking and following from the app on my phone or from the Instagram website on my desktop. I also have an IFTTT recipe that posts my Instagram photos to Twitter, but I'm thinking that's not the best strategy if I want to grow my IG account. The way I have that setup right now makes it so I post the actual photo to Twitter, so then people that see it on Twitter don't really need to go to Instagram to see it. This is a double-edged sword; on one hand, I'm giving the content to my Twitter followers exactly where they are, right then and now; on the other hand, they have no reason to follow through with the link to go to my Instagram account. I'll have to decide on that one.

Talk soon!

The post Instagram Growth Journey, Thoughts Tips & Resources. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

That's why I do it to save you time and effort. I like to give you options, but I also like to show you the best of the best and save you the headache of using junk. Some people like to give you round-ups of 97 tools that all do the same thing.

That's not me; I'll give you a couple of options and tell you which one works the best. In this case, this is the best tool in its class.

Today I want to show you a tool every single blogger needs. It's called Grammarly. I know it has made me a better blogger and will probably help you as well.

I included it on my Must Have Tools for Bloggers in 2017. And it has become even more ingrained in my daily work-flow.

Grammarly is like a spell checker and grammar checker but on steroids. It is excellent, and it will help you fix your common spelling mistakes, but it will also help you write with more style.

The best part about it? It's free, check it out here. Yes, I upgraded to their premium service because it is that good and it was on sale recently. As you know I don't pay for most of the services for this blog, I usually get them for free, so I can try them out and tell you about them.

Grammarly is one of the few that I paid without a second thought.

Then I was pleasantly surprised to receive my first set of statistics via email. That email is in fact what prompted me to tell you more about it in this blog post. Let's go over those stats for fun:

First, I used it to check a lot of text recently...

You may not need to check that many words, but apparently, I did. And I'm glad I had them checked with Grammarly.

Grammarly tells me about my accuracy.

Ah, but of course Grammarly also likes to stroke my ego. And why not?

But before I get too hung up on that, it takes me back to reality to remind me of the things that I need to work on.

Why do you need Grammarly?

Grammarly because context is everything!

You may think you don't need it. But that's the thing with writing. It's mostly dependent on our bias. Unless you have a professional editor going over all your blog posts and making sure you are using proper grammar and not mistakenly typing "too" for "to" or "their" for "there," you need Grammarly.

Grammarly knows your writing context and will remind you that maybe using "too" is the wrong word this time and it really should be "to" or "two." It also tells you when you use certain words too much and brings in the thesaurus to give you a broader set of options you hadn't thought about.

Because it will save you embarrassment

Grammarly is great for multi-author bloggers. Another reason you need this as a blogger is when you manage other authors, or you accept guest posts. Grammarly has a built-in anti-plagiarism checker, so it saves you the embarrassment of publishing someone else's work disguised as a guest post.

Because it gives you confidence

Many bloggers are hesitant to blog a lot because they feel like they can't write well. Some have English as their second, or even third language and they're not very confident with it yet. Grammarly takes that anxiety out of the question because it will help you with everything I mentioned above.

So far it has been incredibly accurate and useful for me and I've been writing in English for over 20 years.

Go ahead, give it a try, it's free. You'll thank me later.

The post Grammarly Makes Me a Better Blogger, Let Me Tell You Why appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The issues are similar to picking a domain, or a username in a social media site.

If you're an experienced affiliate then you automatically know what to do, but if you aren't too familiar with the industry then this could be a daunting step.

Your subid, or subdomain, or affiliate id is something that you should think about when you sign up to be an affiliate for a product or even if you're just going to use a product.

Sometimes when you sign up for an affiliate program or an affiliate network, you are automatically assigned an alpha-numeric affiliate id. In those cases, this blog post will not do diddly squat for you. Head over to the home page and read another one of my recent articles.

In other cases, you'll be asked to pick an id when you join the program and this id or username will be used as part of your affiliate links.

I'll use Leadpages as an example.

When I signed up for Leadpages, I knew I would be using the service for many different types of promotional campaigns.

I didn't want to tie my name down. Leadpages requires you to pick a name that will be used in your custom URL when you join and activate an account. Once you pick that, you cannot change it.

Some people would automatically pick their usual name or their brand name for something like this, but I didn't and let me tell you why.

I  use Leadpages to promote all sorts of products so I picked a versatile name, instead of "oscargonzalez" or "notagrouch" or something like that. Instead, I picked "websystem." It's generic but sounds official.

If I were planning to use the Leadpages account just for one purpose and never deviate from that, then maybe I would have picked a different name, or my usual name like notagrouch, something more branded perhaps.

This is the dilemma of picking our username or userid, or subdomain, or subid when we join a site. If you're going to use the link in various scenarios, you should consider a balanced approach.

If you're going to use your affiliate link in different websites that you own, you should also consider the name of your user id or affiliate name and try to make it flexible to fit the different websites.

Case in point, the Amazon associates program allows you to create different user ids for your links, not just for tracking, but for perception and branding.

You have to consider branding and perception.

Some people will make a judgment on the name that is visible. Some people look for your affiliate id in links that you provide for them and will actively remove it sometimes.

If you use a generic name like I mentioned above then it's a little more difficult to discern, and I could use that same URL on my personal blog, on a business blog, on a totally new niche blog and the name will still be fine.

In fact, I would say that marketing is the art of manipulating perception.  Just like you spend time coming up with a name for your next project, or website, spend some time thinking of the different names you could use when joining a new affiliate network and consider the different type of applications for your affiliate links.

The post Affiliate Setup Tip: How to Pick your Affiliate ID. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

One of the struggles I went through was thinking less of myself and forgetting that I knew more than other people about certain topics.

Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I take for granted what I know and think that everybody else must already know it so I wonder why would anybody care to hear what I have to say about it.

I take it back, I think many people struggle with this, not just me. Don't let self-doubt take over and prevent you from sharing what you know with people that want to learn more!

On a previous blog post where I explained what is a sales funnel, I suggested that a way to build part of the sales funnel is to offer exclusive information or content to your prospects or leads, if the words "prospects" or "leads" concern you, just think about your readers instead.

When you offer information on your blog, this information will attract new prospects, and help you develop your leads. This information will attract more readers and make casual readers into loyal fans.

If you're looking to get started with your blog, or you're looking for a way to start a home business, you may be wondering how you can offer anything valuable to your readers on your blog. Especially when you are just getting started and when it seems like everything is already in Google.

Why wouldn't they just search for it on Google? I answer that question with a question... Who is going to provide that information for Google to

I have two examples you can use to offer insightful valuable information that your audience will be happy to receive from you.

Curate information from your sources

As you become proficient in online marketing, and running your own business, you will certainly be learning from various sources. These sources will be books, blogs, videos and people.

Share the things you've learned with your audience and practice teaching them. Give credit to the source and feel free to quote an idea, or a passage, then explain it in your own words.

I did this exact thing in a recent post that was really popular where I shared a technique to sell more girl scout cookies, check it out to see a practical example.

Translate how the lesson applies to your own entrepreneurial journey and how it may help others achieve their goals.

As a bonus to get even more readers, share tidbits from the articles in social media and invite them back to your website to read the rest.

Share your process, failures, and progress

One of the most popular ways that big bloggers and online marketers become successful is by sharing what they did, how they did it and the lessons they picked up from trying things out.

Harsh Agrawal from Shoutmeloud considers himself a "blog scientist" and when he was just learning and getting started, he would blog about the different things that worked and the things that didn't work. He still shares the stuff he learns as he continues to improve.

Matthew Woodward is known for sharing intricate details about his experiments and tests, and he shares how he worked in a campaign, why he picked that campaign, what the results were and ultimately how much money he earned or invested into that.

Don't be afraid!

Don't be afraid of sharing what you have learned and sharing your success as well as your failures. Even if you are sharing information you feel is available elsewhere, you can explain it in your own words and perspective to provide unique value.

Not only will you attract new readers, but you will build trust and authority by sharing your experiences with your readers.

Over time, you can turn a series of these blog posts into a lead magnet or even a paid product to help you build a stronger sales funnel. But we'll leave the details of that for another blog post in the future.

Thank you so much for reading this! I hope it was valuable to you and if you think it would be useful to your friends, family or colleagues please share it with one of the social media buttons available below.

The post How Can I Offer Exclusive Information to my Readers appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I talk about my thoughts on the Superbowl here.

The mom and daughter approached us steadily with a pull-cart behind them. I quickly noticed that it was full of Girl Scout Cookie boxes. The girl was all dressed up in her uniform and she lead the charge as the mom-daughter team went door to door.

They went through four houses quickly before getting to us. I guess they got turned down on each house.

They made it to us and sheepishly both of them asked if we would buy some cookies. One of us said, "I already bought from 3 other girls" and the rest of us said "no thank you."

With their basket full of boxes, they moved on to the next house to face defeat once more.

That sparked the conversation amongst us if girl scouts are allowed to sell cookies online. Nobody knew definitively, and the conversation died there. I kept thinking that if my daughter was in the girl scouts, I'd help her sell online. A good online marketing strategy is sure to bring a boost of sales, right!?

But then I thought... if it were that easy, then everybody would be doing it. There has to be more to it and there has to be an easier way to get that sale.

In perfect timing, my buddy Jeremy from Shoemoney.com posted a sales technique that is sure to close more sales than ever.

This same method would work for so many other products and services and it reminds me of Zig Ziglar's approach. Sell without selling, make conversation and ask for the sale in a way that is almost impossible to refuse.

Jeremy, being one of the top online marketers shared this:

Feel free to share if you know someone selling girl Scout Cookies.

Taught my daughter this last year while she was working a booth for 4 hours at a hardware store. Just off the top of my head. This technique drastically increased sales.

At first, her friends and her were going up to people and saying "Would you like to buy some girl scout cookies?" course the natural reaction is "no". No.... such an easy out for a consumer.

Then I took them to school. I told them you have to sell without selling and never give them the chance to say "NO".

I told them to now approach people and ask them "What is your favorite girl scout cookie?" to which gave them no out but to name one. After all who the hell doesn't have a favorite?

After all who the hell doesn't have a favorite?

After they say their kind then, simply say "Oh how many boxes of those can I get for you?"
They now feel uncomfortable and the easy way out for them now went from "NO" to "I'll take 2".

You're welcome Girl Scouts.

And so you see, that's almost fail-proof method of making a sale. Ask an engaging question, LISTEN, then follow up with a closing pitch.

It would be hard to say no at this point and had the mom or daughter opened up their conversation to us with a question like that, I bet one of us probably would have bought one box.

Something to think about next time you need to make a sale.

The post How to Sell More Girl Scout Cookies appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Keep in mind most of these tools are free or have a free version, but some are paid only or only have a free trial. I personally use every single tool listed here and in most cases, I have the paid version. I consider them essential to my business and as a professional blogger, I think of them as part of the cost of doing business.

If you want to become a professional blogger or want to take your blogging to the next level, then check out the list of tools, sign up for them and start using them, learn them, improve your workflow but I would also love your feedback and any tips about your favorite tools to use when blogging.

So without further ado, here's the list.

1. Self-Hosted WordPress

You can start a blog with various different tools, Medium, Blogger, Tumblr, but hands down, the best blogging platform when it comes to a balance of features, reliability, and customizability is a self-hosted WordPress blog. A blogger that is using one of the free services like blogger is usually considered a casual blogger or hobbyist. There's nothing wrong with these services, but they are limited and hard to customize when you need to grow and expand.

Some of the services I mentioned allow you to upgrade from the free version to a paid service which will give you more options, but ultimately they still restrict your ability to fully customize your readers' experience. If you want to be a serious blogger in 2017 and for the foreseeable future, start your blog on WordPress.org or move to a WordPress.org blog.

There are many companies that offer web hosting and will help you setup a self-hosted WordPress blog. You can find some of my recommended web hosts on this blog post about web hosting, and you can read more about self-hosted WordPress here.

2. Grammarly

Spell check is so 2005. As a blogger, you need Grammarly before you hit publish on your next blog post. Grammarly is the world's best proofreader according to them. It extends beyond the basic grammar and spell check and intelligently corrects your text so you can put your best work in front of your readers. It's easy to use and works with all major browsers, and did I mention that it's free?

Your readers will appreciate that you can write well. Just by using Grammarly and following the suggestions provided on-screen, you will start writing better posts which will make your writing more professional. Get started with Grammarly for free here.

3. Capitalize my title

This little online service helps you correctly capitalize your titles. It works no matter what style you want to follow, AP, APA, Chicago or MLA. Just visit the website, paste in your title and click the style you want to use and it will automatically take care of capitalizing the words properly. Completely free to use here: capitalizemytitle.com.

4. Canva

Graphics play an important role in every blog post. But you don't have to possess great Photoshop skills to create great graphics for your blog posts. Canva is a free online service that helps you make title graphics, infographics, and other graphical elements to make your blog posts stand out. Get a canva account for free right here.

5. Imageinject / WP-Inject*

This is a plugin made for WordPress (self-hosted) bloggers. It helps to find images that are licensed under the Creative Commons license and are free to use in a blog post. It also takes care of inserting the relevant attribution information.The plugin is available for

I recommend it to almost all new and established bloggers. Using images in your blog posts helps improve reader engagement, shareability, SEO and ultimately makes your blog posts more complete.

The plugin is available for free in the official WordPress repository.

6. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the gold standard for measuring the number of visitors your blog receives and learning more about the audience of your blog. It should be one of the first things that you install on your blog and you should spend time learning how to use it and how to use its information to help you improve your blog.

You can install Google Analytics on your WordPress blog easily by using a plugin like Monster Insights. You'll need a Google or Gmail account, and you can sign up for free for a Google Analytics account here.

7. Social Media Accounts

Every blogger should have at least a basic presence on all the major social networks. Having an account on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Pinterest, and Youtube helps reach a wider audience and facilitates the engagement with the audience for the blog where they like to hang out. Sign up for each network and develop a profile. Learn to search each platform and understand how your audience is using each of the networks so that you can participate in relevant conversations when necessary without having to start from scratch.

8. Buffer

Buffer is a social media share service that helps bloggers distribute their content across many of the major social networks. The basic plans are free, and the paid version provides access to some really powerful features like the power editor and access to share in more than five networks in one action. I find it

Buffer works the best in a browser, but it's also available for iOS and Android, just go to their main website here to get started.

9. Plagium

This is particularly useful when you have multiple authors contributing stories and blog posts to your blog. The main purpose is to check if the blog post as been published somewhere else before and helps you avoid plagiarism. Nobody likes a content thief so this will save you hours of headaches and prevent many problems and even legal hassles. Of course, the best thing is to find writers and contributors that don't steal other people's content but just in case, you can use

Of course, the best thing is to find writers and contributors that don't steal other people's content but just in case, you can use Plagium for free by visiting the website here.

10. Evernote

Evernote is the swiss army knife of research and note keeping. It's a very powerful tool that helps you gather your thoughts when you're researching a topic. The browser plugin helps you make connections to stuff you might have researched before.

If you use it in conjunction with Skitch, then you can also save screenshots and photos and recall them with OCR (optical character recognition) which means that you just have to type in a word that appears in the screenshot or picture to bring up the note, even if you saved it months or weeks ago. The free version is very powerful, but the paid version is very inexpensive, you can start using Evernote by visiting their site here.

11. Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud storage service that lets you easily save files and documents so that they're available from any of your devices almost instantly. You can also use it to share access to a file or document with other bloggers or contributors.

Dropbox, like Evernote, is free for a limited edition of their service, but you can sign up and invite others to use it to get more free space. If you want to sign up and receive an additional 500mb of free space, then sign up for Dropbox here using my link.

12. Aweber

Aweber is an autoresponder email system that helps you send your blog posts out to your subscribers on a regular basis. It is a powerful tool that should really be at the very top of this list. The only reason I didn't put it up there is because it only has a free month trial and after that, you'll need to pay for the service.

I use it and I highly recommend it, you can use it to build your email list and send your blog posts manually or set it to automatically send the blog post automatically after you publish it. You can also create a newsletter or digest to stay in touch with your readers. Get started with a free 30 day trial with Aweber here.

13. Optinmonster

I have blogged about Optinmonster in the past, so maybe you already use it because of my suggestion. It's one of my favorite tools and I make it a requirement for any of my students or clients. That's how much I like it and believe in its capabilities. If you're trying to grow your audience and exposure on your blog, you must use Optinmonster.

It's not free and it's not cheap, but it can really take your email subscriptions to the next level. Another good thing about Optinmonster is that even if you refuse to use a WordPress self-hosted blog, you can still use Optinmonster. It is also under heavy development and constantly adds new features that benefits all bloggers, like custom code, analytics, content lockers, conditional triggering and much more. If you're ready to elevate your blog, then

It is under heavy development and the team constantly adds new features that benefits all bloggers, like custom code, analytics, content lockers, conditional triggering and much more. If you're ready to elevate your blog, then check out Optinmonster here.

Wrapping Up

As I reviewed this post, I realized I am missing a number of apps and services that I use on a daily basis, but I also understand that your time is valuable and if you're new to blogging this list should keep you busy for a while so I'm going to stop at 13. I would love to hear your thoughts on this list, and I want to know if you interested in learning about the other tools. Let me know in the comments or on social media.

The post Must Have Tools for Bloggers appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

He said it was the best tip he's gotten all month, so I thought I pass it on to you as well.Sometimes you press the little X on a browser tab too fast and you close your browser tab. But you did it accidentally, and now you want it back. Maybe it was an accident, but you NEED it back, that long form you have been filling out is there, fifteen minutes of typing gone!

Sometimes you press the little close button (x) on a browser tab too fast and you close your browser tab. But you did it accidentally, and now you want it back. Maybe it was an accident, but you NEED it back, that long form you have been filling out is there, fifteen minutes of typing gone!

Not so fast, if this happens to you again, pause for a second, then remember that this keyboard combination will re-open the last tab you closed. If you press the combination several times, each time you do it, the next last-closed tab will re-open up.

It's like undo for closing a tab. Works on all major browsers on your desktop.

This is very useful every once in a while, or if you are like me, you are close-tab-happy with the "command + W" keyboard shortcut to make the current tab close.

The shortcut to re-open the tab is shift+command+t on OSX or shift+control+t on Windows. Just press those keys in a combination sequence and your tab should re-open. In some cases, it will even have a partially filled out form, like a blog post or a survey.

This works on all major browsers, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Opera. If you are on a mobile device, when you close a tab, the browser usually prompts you to "undo" briefly at the bottom of the screen.

The post How to Reopen a Browser Tab You Closed? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

James Spader plays the role of Raymond Redington, a criminal mastermind. Ray's counterpart is FBI special agent Elizabeth Keen, played by Megan Boone. They have great chemistry and the stories on each episode are thrilling and exciting. But I'm getting ahead of myself, and I wish I could tell you more, but anything I tell you about the show would include spoilers.

I don't like to spoil things.

Instead I want to share with you lessons I've picked up from the show that can be easily applied to online marketing and making money online. Today's lesson comes from the first episode, the pilot.

The lesson is straight forward but it escapes almost every marketer I've ever met. That's why most online marketers suck.

Think Like a Criminal

That's the lesson that Raymond Redington gives Elizabeth Keen. Of course, the lesson is metaphoric to online marketing. I don't want you to actually think like a criminal, unless you're trying to sell products to convicted felons.

In this episode, Elizabeth is struggling to crack her first case in the big leagues and for reasons I won't disclose here Ray is assisting her. She's looking for an abducted child.

She's struggling to find clues and make sense of the whole thing. Much like you may be struggling to make your first dollar online, much like you may be struggling to make your first marketing campaign stick.

So Ray tells her she needs to look at this in a different way. She needs to look at this like a criminal. What is in it for the criminal? Why is he doing this? What's in it for him?

Redington operates in the high level criminal world, so it is obvious that the girl that was abducted isn't the goal. The goal is something bigger, she's just leverage, a way to get something else. And this is what Ray is trying to get Elizabeth to see.

Think Like your Customer

Just like in this episode, the lesson is that you have to think like your customer, what does your customer want? why does your customer want that? You have to understand what motivates him or her and why. And then you have to speak their language.

Seems simple enough, but most online marketers struggle with this and instead they try to sell the customer in the features and specs of the product and services. Then the customer just glazes over and gets bored or is left confused with all the sales lingo.

Instead, you have to sell the benefits, you have to fulfill an emotional desire. Purchases are mostly made with an emotional decision, so you have to understand what makes your customer's heart beat.

Imagine you sell websites, consider these two sentences:

Does the website you sell have the latest PHP code, powered by the fastest MySQL database, with a lean load balanced front end?

Or is the website state of the art, provides customers information faster than the competition and will never crash?

The first sentence is trying to sell a website by selling specs and features. The second sentence comes from somebody selling the feeling, the results, the fix to the pain.

So next time you want to sell something, think like a criminal... I mean, like your customer.

The post Think Like a Criminal appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

How do you get people to subscribe to you, leave comments and like your videos. Maybe even share them out to their friends. This video focuses on establishing relationships with other youtubers.

This will help you increase youtube engagement. Just keep in mind that the method and tips described in this video are meant to be a medium to long term play.

Youtube is one of the most trafficked websites in the planet, and many people use it as a search engine to find tutorials, instructions, entertainment and all kinds of other content. I'm sure you've heard this before: Youtube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world.

So how can you leverage Youtube for your business or cause?

As far as Internet marketers, bloggers and social media professionals go, I feel that Youtube is underutilized. Not very many people are using it with successful results. I decided to make a short video to help out with some of the basics.

In addition to this video, I also recommend that you take a look at my 7 Power User Tips for Youtube. Soon I'll make new videos explaining other aspects of Youtube and how you can leverage it to make money, promote your brand or help get your message out.

If you have any suggestions for new videos or blogpsots, please leave me a comment with your idea.

Here is the video: Tips to Increase Youtube Engagement

If you have any questions, please leave them below and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. I would also appreciate if you could rate this post using the stars at the end of the article, Thank you!

The post Tips To Increase Youtube Engagement appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The answer is the same for all.

You have to provide valuable content for the readers and you have to promote the forum to the people that will benefit from that content.

Just because you build it, doesn't mean they will come.

If you have loads of cash, you can do what Neil Patel did with his forum when he launched it. Send $5000 cash to each of your friends and ask them to join and participate.

But chances are that paying would not work.

Neil has built some heavy duty social capital by providing huge value. He's built trust and a brand so when it came time to promote his new endeavor it was easy.

That's why he was able to pay for this. He basically paid for his friend's time to help him launch and multiply the trust and recognition on the forum.

But you don't have $50,000 or $100,000 to spend

So you have to go to the basics. The basics will always help you. Provide value. After you think you have provided good valuable content, then do it some more.

Then again. You do this by answering questions and letting the people that asked the questions know you've answered them.

Pay attention!

This isn't rocket science nor is my prescription something that involves a lot of research. It's almost common sense. Look at how people are doing it, do some googling. Ask questions and then follow a guide or tutorial or the steps of someone that has done what you want to do.

Another friend, Matthew Woodward built his reputation this way and now he's got one of the most popular internet marketing blogs and forums.

Matthew simply looked for the people that would be his audience. He found what questions they had by understanding what problems they were facing. Then he would go to his website and answer the question in excruciating detail.

Of course, there are technical steps to doing things correctly, but these are technical, they're methodical and almost trivial. You can just follow best practices, but you have to have value. You have to provide content, solutions, entertainment.

Matthew's answers have been some of the best and people recognize this so they always go back for more. Matthew reportedly spends over 20 hours writing one of his legendary blogposts, sometimes twice that.

He once told me that he simply needs to outwork everyone else and the rest just happens, in other words...

Get off your ass and start working

It doesn't take rocket science, but it takes a lot of effort and consistency to achieve the trust you need to make a website property stand out. You have to do the legwork, you have to put in the time.

If you don't, you simply become like one more website or forum from the billions out there.

Get great content online and then show it to the people that need to see it. Do this and you will be ahead of the curve.

Installing a forum is trivial, starting a blog takes 5 minutes, running updates and changing settings can be done without any real thought.

Creating valuable content is the art and science that will help your forum succeed. As the saying goes content is king.

Oh yeah, and don't forget to promote what you write. Share it in social media, use your email list, tell people about it. You do have an email list right?

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The post How Do I Get Visitors and Traction to my New Forum? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

If you want to work from home then you gotta take the leap. There is no reason to continue dealing with a soul-sucking job that takes up so much of your time and gives you a minimal reward.

Working from home is awesome and I highly recommend it. But there are risks, and pitfalls and things you'll learn along the way.

This is another great video that will save you YEARS of experience with a barrage of excellent tips. It's like a compilation of things you forgot about and things you never knew could be a problem.

They also cover some of the best tools you could use to get your work done at home and some of the best productivity tips I've seen.

The post Working at Home. Tips, Hacks and Q&A appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I talk about list building and how it is similar to dating. I also talk about the infamous "free, just pay shipping and handling" method.

List building is essential to any business, the tactics change over time, but the goal doesn't. You need a list and at least two segments, buyers and leads. You can always segment more beyond that and you should, but you need at least two main groups.

For the lead generation part I use two programs. But at the very basic level, you need just the second one.

#1 Optinmonster, because it integrates with WordPress beautifully. It creates intelligent lead generation boxes and helps you retain more traffic on your WordPress blog. Rumor has it that it will soon be platform agnostic so I highly recommend it. You can get Optinmonster here.

#2 LeadPages is the other app I use. This has entire websites that you can build as landing pages and they are some of the best out there. They are mobile friendly, easy to use, and will work with any website you already have or will host them for you in their blazing fast hosting service (included in the price).

They are the leaders in creating squeeze pages and I highly recommend them. You can check out Leadpages here.

#2.5 ClickFunnels. Since I first wrote this post, I've added ClickFunnels to my daily toolbox and I recommend it as well. This is a more robust platform than most other SAAS. You can create squeeze pages or landing pages, or entire funnels with A/B split testing plus they have Actionetics and Backpack. The closest to an "all-in-one" solution. Watch the webinar here.

And of course, as I have mentioned before, I use Aweber to maintain my list. Both Optinmonster and Leadpages connect with Aweber seamlessly to make my life easier. Aweber is available now with a totally free 30 day trial and you can check that out here in this link.

If you can't afford Optinmonster or Leadpages, you can still use Aweber on its own.

Aweber has built-in lead capture forms and you can even create simple squeeze pages with it. I just prefer to use better tools for that, but if you just need to start somewhere, start with Aweber for free.

The post Driving with Oscar – Episode 3 – List Building Tips appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

This is a question that I get from newbies, maybe just like you. I get the Now What question when they arrive to Affiliate Summit, and I get the Now what? question when they get home after the event.

Funny thing is that most people won't do what I tell them, then they'll look back and tell me  the next time around that they should have listened to me. Usually, the second time around they know what's up.

So I wrote this with two people in mind. I made some new awesome friends during this Affiliate Summit, but this is dedicated to two of them that are total newbs to the scene. Just like you may be a newb right now. And don't worry, we don't judge and it's not bad to be a newb. Everyone is one at some point.

So Now what?

After you arrive to the Affiliate Summit location

The first things you should do when you arrive to the hotel is settle down. Seriously, go to your room and put your shit down. You're not going to need anything except for your wallet, ID and phone. No need to be lugging your stuff around, bumping into people's ankles and making a fool out of yourself carrying your luggage, a backpack, your purse, your hair styling stuff and a bag of shoes (true story!).

While you're at it, freshen up and brush your teeth, you've been flying for 2 - 16 hours, seriously (another true story).

You're now ready to check-in to the event and get your registration badge. Depending on when you arrived there may be an early check-in schedule. Before you leave home make sure you know the schedule, once there you should see signs all over the hotel indicating where you should go.

At the checkin registration area make sure you check your badge for accuracy and if there are any problems just go to the separate section for badge corrections. But don't loose your badge, ever. It is your pass to go anywhere related to Affiliate Summit and it costs quite a bit to replace. Even when we go out, I usually just tuck it under my shirt and keep it with me. You never know what club or bar will be hosting an Affiliate Summit party and they use the badge as a way to get in sometimes, this is especially true when Affiliate Summit is in Las Vegas.

Of course, the basics of any conference apply next. Make sure you know where the events you want to go to are taking place. Find out the layout of the floor and learn the basics like: Restrooms & Water. Next, find the food rooms, this is where breakfast, snacks and lunch will be provided and find where the Meet Market and Exhibit Halls will be. Two places you should visit at least once during the event.

Now this is where I have to switch from the classic advice on the mechanics of attending a conference, specifically the best  internet marketing conference in the planet and dig deeper. I want to tell you about the questions that my buddies were asking me. These are the things you can easily miss. Your first Affilaite Summit attendance can make or break your entire experience and perception of the event and even the industry so if I were  you Id' follow my advice. In fact I did, and I've been back to every Affiliate summit since my first one because I love attending and I love how much I learn and grow there and for the months after.

While you are there, if I had to sum it up in one short paragraph, this would be it:

Meet people. Learn. Eat. Attend cocktail hours & parties. Rinse and repeat.

When you are a new attendee you may also be new to the industry. If this is you then you may even wonder why you're here. What can you do as a newbie? Why would any of these people care about you if they've been doing this for two years, four years or even 20 years. How can you possibly be of use or interest to them? -- Don't worry, this feeling is normal. You feel like you don't belong, and that's normal, because until yesterday you didn't belong.

You belong here. There's a reason why you're here, your sacrifice is the reminder of that. And these people you see walking around they also belong and  they want to talk to you.

In case you haven't noticed, you're cut out of a different cloth. You are different from your everyday peers. So are all these people. Affiliate Summit is when we all come together to talk shop. This is when our inner geek takes over and we want to talk to everybody. This is the one chance you have to meet some of the biggest players in the industry and everybody is okay talking to each other. So take advantage of that, get your geek on.

So Now What?

So now go out and meet somebody

Really meet them, get to know them, ask them why they're here, learn about them. Make a friend, not a lead.

By the way, DO NOT offer up your business card unless asked for. Feel free to ask for theirs first.

2-IMG_6812 3-IMG_6833 4-IMG_6854

One thing you should know in advance is who the big attendees are and identify several that you would like to meet. It's easy to do this, just look them up on their blogs or Twitter or Instagram, maybe join their newsletter. Most of them will tell you what they're up to while they're at the event so mosey on over to where they are and introduce yourself.

If you totally don't know who is who, you can start by reading visiting the Affiliate Summit website, or Feedfront, Affiliate Summit's official magazine. Start by finding out more about the authors of the articles and go from there. From there, you'll find blogs, social media, and you'll be able to find people that resonate with you and that you'd like to meet.

I almost forced one of my new friends that was facing this paralyzing question of  "so now what?" to go and meet Sugar Hoffman from sugarrae.com. He wanted to know why, who is she? what does she care about meeting me? I told him to shut the f*ck up and go meet her, she's one person that has overcome huge difficulties and is an icon in the industry. Grudgingly, probably more because he wanted me to shut up, my buddy went to meet her. She was giving a talk and was about to finish.

Several hours later, I ran into my friend and he thanked me for making him go out to meet her.

See, my buddy didn't have anything to offer and didn't need anything from Sugar. This is the best time to meet people, and even better when you're at a conference like this. People want to meet people and we are all under the understanding that we're here to do business and grow; that is a given so don't rush to it.

The fatal mistake I see all the time can best be represented with a few lines of dialogue:

Hi, I'm Mike from Mike's Amazing Marketing Solutions for Everyone but Especially People just Like yourself,  How are you?

... other person responds...

Awesome, let me tell you about me and how I can help you because you need me, clearly you've been missing out in all that I have to offer you today. (very sly, extends his business card...)

... other person looses interest...

So what do you do?

... other person is desperately seeking a way out of this or already left. 

So don't do that. Be human and get to know somebody. In contrast to my friend meeting Sugar, I went to a cocktail party with one of the big sponsors and there was this guy floating around the tables pitching his shit. I mingle, and so I talked to several people in the room. As you mingle in a party, you move around, but this guy could not help himself from pitching and telling his god-awful story to everybody that was either too naive or too busy chewing their food to interrupt him. If you could have heard the comments from other attendees each time he finished his pitch and left.

Believe me, very few people if any will be calling that guy back. He forever will be remembered as "that guy."

You don't want to be "that guy."

Go and Learn Something

There is so much to learn that even if you could attend every session, you would not be able to retain or apply all of it. After the event you'll have access to the videos of all the sessions (select passes only). So you can always go back and review a session you really liked or one that you missed.

I say this because I don't want you to make the mistake of going to ALL the sessions you possibly can. There are several tracks and levels of sessions. Some are panels between experts, some are live reviews of your product/site/email etc, some are success stories. But all of them are announced in advance in the website. They are also listed in your welcome package in the schedule.

Take some time to identify the tracks that most can benefit your business a few days after you come back home, or the track that is most interesting to you. Then pick the sessions you want to attend but leave yourself a break between each one or every couple ones.

It's good to have breaks to catch up with yourself, maybe meet somebody new or just touch base back home. You can always review your notes and videos later after the event. Stay alert and fresh and ready for a full day of activity. I really can't emphasize this enough, don't burn yourself out attending sessions and stressing about rushing to each one. You'll miss out on half the fun.

I know that ideally this would require a few days of planning, but if you're there now and are asking "what now?" Grab the schedule and do the best you can for the rest of the event. Identify 2 sessions per day then network and mingle. Find out where the parties are and attend as many as you can.

The best time to network is at the parties. Why? because there are many people like "that guy" on the floor and usually they don't attend the parties. It is a lot easier and nicer to network at a human level than with the pressure of making a lead or closing a sale.

And last, after you got all these tips down... make sure you

Rest and Hydrate

You'll need as much rest as you can so catch a few naps when you can and always keep water with you at all times --but never sacrifice an opportunity for networking for a nap. Trust me is not worth it. Staying hydrated is one of the keys to surviving any conference.

Continue reading the second part: Your First Affiliate Summit. Back Home. So Now What?

I hope these help. Would love to hear your feedback too!

The post Your First Affiliate Summit. You are There. So Now What? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

And As the days go by and time passes, your daily blogging drops to once a week, then once a month and next thing you know the last time you blogged was almost a year ago. Yikes! that's happened to many of us but it doesn't have to be that way. In a future blogpost, I'll tell you how to manage your time so you can blog consistently. I will show you what has worked for me and what hasn't. But this post is about the other side of blogging woes. Ideas on what to write about.

If I were a blogging snob, I'd probably ask you: Why'd you start a blog and then don't have anything to say? I thought you had a lot to say! But I'm not a blog snob, and in fact I want to help you get your blog up and running. But having been a blogger for almost a decade now, I know how it feels to be stuck. Many people will give you very practical advice, like write down a list of stuff, or set a schedule, or make it a habit, yadda yadda yadda, but many time that advice isn't what you need. Writer's block is based on the fear that what you will write won't be any good. First, don't worry about that. Write from your heart and use at least basic spelling and grammar rules and your writing will get better each time. But if you don't write... it will never improve. -- With that said, don't force it. Sometimes you just aren't meant to write at that particular time --  So here are some unusual tips to help you get through those dry spells.

Read lots of stuff. All the time, everywhere.

Read. You know that the best writers are readers first right? Maybe you didn't know but in order to be good at something, you have to practice the end result. So if you want to be good at writing, you must read other people's writings. This will help you hone in your style and language. It will show you how it's supposed to look and sound. In addition to finding your voice through the reading of other people, you'll also be inspired to write. It's one of those things where it builds upon itself.

If you read something good, you want to then go and write something good. Don't limit yourself, read anything and everything you can get your hands on. Magazines, classic books, new books, fiction, non-fiction, even brochures have sparked ideas on how to craft a title or develop my story. Most important of all, read other blogs. Remember? No man is an island! Reading will hone your writing skills, don't take it from me. Take it from one of the master writers of our time if you must...

Break the monotony and habits.

Do something completely different today. We often get into the monotony of our habits and it's very easy to fall into the comfort of them without realizing that this could be killing your creativity. Take a different road home, eat a new food, call an old friend. Skip your usual coffee shop and try the new one a couple blocks away. Make your lunch instead of eating out, or eat out if you always make your food. I know it doesn't sound like blogging advice, but I can't tell you how many times I've been inspired to write something because I did something different that day that sparked a new idea. To add to the previous tip, read something completely new or out of the norm for you.

Give your opinion or expert advice.

Respond to a question. You'll hear at least a dozen questions today. You'll hear it on the radio, on TV, at work, at the market. You may read them on a magazine. You can even click over to Quora and see what people are asking about. Digest those questions and answer them, on your blog. As a bonus to getting more readers to your blog, when you answer a question on your blog, try to let the source of the question know that you answered their question on your blog.

Encourage the various aspects of creativity.

Develop other creative outlets. Writing is one of many ways of expressing your thoughts, emotions, and outlook. Try going outside and taking some photographs, even with your phone. Or pull out a piece of paper and pen or pencil and doodle for a little while. If you're into art and actually can do some cool paintings or sketches like my buddy Sam Carter, then take a break from your blog for a day and work on that. Breaking the stress of writing by doing another creative activity will sort of refuel your writing juices, or you may just get inspired by something completely new.

After you've done some or all of the above, get to writing. If you're still stuck, try a few of these:

Brainstorm.

Take a piece of paper, or your notebook or your journal and just write down ideas for new posts. Look for topics within your previous writings, current events happening, or important dates coming up. Holidays and historic days are great ways to re-ignite your blogging because when you write about something that is known or expected, writing tends to flow more easily. Keep a running notebook for ideas when you have a brainstorming session. I use evernote, getpocket, and a couple other tools to remind me of ideas I've thought about and other inspiration I've found during brainstorming sessions.

Revive and old topic.

Browse through your old blogposts and see if there is one that could use an updated version or some expansion. If you don't have a lot of blogposts or you are just starting out, find some of your favorite blogposts by other people and use them as your topic. Write your own perspective on the topic. Respond, agree, or add more information to what they've said. I'm currently doing a mix of all this on Notagrouch and on Oscarstech.

If you're just not inspired to write, even though you have ideas, maybe begin a writing plan or editorial calendar. Actually, that is what I'm doing now, and it leads me to my next and final tip.

Set a writing plan in motion.

Create an editorial calendar and stick to it. An editorial calendar is a fancy way of saying to plan out the next few weeks, or months of writing. You can use Google Calendar, or any other calendar application you're comfortable with. You could even use excel. Write down the date of when you want to publish your next blogpost, write down the title for the blogpost and next to it or in the description (if using a calendar app) write down 3 to 5 key points or ideas you want to touch on when you write your blogpost. You could also use something like Evernote so you always have your ideas on the go and can update them, change them, or heck! even write a blogpost while you're waiting in line or dozing off in that boring accounting meeting. A WordPress Blog comes in really handy for this too. You can create these ideas as posts in advance and save them as drafts, then come back to develop them on your own schedule.

Practice time management.

Another way to help you with writer's block is to manage your time wisely. A blogpost should not take you more than 20 - 45 minutes to write and about 10 - 20 minutes to polish it up. Not counting research and resource gathering, the actual writing part should be fairly quick. I often know that I'm not ready to write a particular post if I've been stuck on the first paragraph or two for more than 30 minutes. That means that I still need to let it stew in my head some more, or I need to read more about the topic or find more resources to help me support or deny my viewpoints. I will elaborate more on this soon when I tell you how I actually write a blogpost from start to finish.

If these ideas aren't helping you, tell me, what is keeping you from writing? How can I help you blog better and more consistently?

The post Writer’s Block be Gone! 8 Unusual Tips for bloggers appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Comment, Share & Like

When you read blogposts, take a few seconds to leave a comment and maybe even share that blogpost in Twitter or Facebook or Google+. Leaving comments shows interest for the topic and helps you develop a relationship with that blogger. Sharing the article on your favorite social networks exposes that blog and the article to your audience. Both of these things, sharing and commenting, help you understand the topic better, and develop newer ideas and continue the global discussion of your niche. Not to mention that leaving comments with your URL will attract new readers to your own blog.

Remember Your Purpose

You'll run into obstacles when blogging, everyone does. Writer's block, burn-out, technical difficulties, discouraging feedback and other negative elements will creep up from time to time. You must remember why you're blogging. Revisit your purpose and remind yourself what you set out to do with your blog. If this issue you're having right now isn't directly related to you living up to your purpose then it doesn't matter. Put it aside and get back to blogging. Have you held off on publishing your blogpost because the font of your titles isn't perfect? Are you worried that you aren't using grammar correctly? These are just minor issues that you can address later or one little bit at a time. Your main focus is to write valuable content.

The Pursuit of Perfection is a Blog Killer

Waiting until you've had more time to review your draft just one more time will only delay you and frustrate you. Trying to get that one picture perfectly lined up the way you want could set you back several hours if you don't know what you're doing. Making sure all your widgets on your sidebar are just perfect with matching titles and colors is neat, but does it help you blog? Leave the perfectionism at the door when you start blogging. Don't confuse this with being sloppy! You still have to produce good quality, valuable content, but you don't need the perfection that something like a college thesis requires. This is blogging, it's loose, relaxed, get it done and out of the way. After your post is published, you can always go back and make edits.

Register With All Major Commenting Systems

Gravatar, WordPress.com, Blogger, Typepad, Disqus, Livefyre, and a few other systems out there allow you identify yourself easily when leaving comments. The mechanics of joining one of these networks at the time you're making a comment might detract you from leaving an insightful comment so get accounts setup and ready to go as soon as possible before you need them. Don't wait until you want to leave a comment somewhere, it is much easier if these accounts are ready to go. Another reason you'll want these accounts is because some blogs only accept comments from users within their own network. If you have ready access to all these accounts (you can use something like Lastpass to manage them), then leaving comments will be a breeze.

Have Fun!

(all images by shutterstock)

In case you missed it, here's part 1. Blogging Tips Part 1

The post Blogging Tips Part Two – Day 15 #30DBC appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Read Blogposts Everyday

Use Google Reader to subscribe to a variety of blogs and visit your Google Reader page to catch up on your daily reading. Reading new blogposts keeps you up to date in your niche and keeps you in your favorite bloggers. Reading daily also helps you stay sharp and very often helps you inspire and polish your upcoming blogposts.

Write Everyday

Even if your blogging schedule and editorial calendar don't call for daily writing, you should write every day. When you write, you practice. Writing develops the creative part of writing as well as other important skills, like using your blog, typing faster, searching better in Google and more.

(notice the previous two items both say: EVERYDAY, not whenever you're up for it)

Observe Things With a New Lens

As you go about your day, when you become a blogger you will notice new things. You'll notice something about your granddaughter that you never noticed before; maybe you'll pay more attention to the different restaurants in your city because you want to blog about food. Take time to notice these subtle differences about your daily life, your hobbies, your family, your friends, your work. As you blog more, you'll observe more, develop an insightful eye. Everything is bloggable (yes, I think I just made that word up).

Talk to People About Your Ideas or Discoveries

When you write a blogpost, or you have an idea or discovery, share it with friends or family. Try to find friends and family that you trust with this information AND that will be supportive of you and your efforts to develop your blogging voice. Tell them how you're coming up to your current train of thought and see if you make any new discoveries. Sometimes it isn't the feedback that they'll give you that will be important here, instead the clarification of your own thoughts as you try to put them into words will be refreshing.

Find Other People That Like Your Topic

Once you have a few blogposts published under your belt, you need to find other bloggers that write about similar topics and that may be interested in what you have to say. Go out and search for them, sometimes you'll need to go beyond the traditional search engines. Look in forums, social networks and even amongst your friends, family or even co-workers. I've discovered that people I've known for months or even years have a blog and they just don't talk about it much, but once I bring up the topic, they open up. Instant blogging friend!

 
(all images by shutterstock)

Go on, you know you wanna read part two: Blogging Tips Part II

The post Blogging Tips – Day 11 #30DBC appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

You know how to deploy jars and wars on tomcact, you can hack .htaccess for apache and even speed up performance with nginx or lighttpd, but guess who doesn't know or care about any of this? Your customer. They care about their bottom line and whether you can do the work or not.

Customers just want you to fix their stuff, they need you to get in and fix or update or change things around. To them these kind of changes are always "quick" and "should be really easy for you". But before you commit to any hard numbers on your quote or proposal, be sure you understand exactly what technologies you're working with.

This is where wappalyzer comes in. Wappalyzer identifies software running on websites. It runs as a Firefox addon, and it does one thing and it does it well. Wappalyzer tells you all the different technologies running on a website. This is crucial for webmasters, webdesigners and even systems administrators that run their own businesses because it allows them to identify the type of work and skills that will be required to complete the job.

A really skilled systems administrator or webservice company might be able to obscure some of these technologies (and you should for security), but most people don't, and even if they knew how, they won't. So you can run this addon on against a website and find out what's going on before you commit to the work or come up with your estimate.

In addition to the webserver, it also finds the type of traffic analytics software being used, supporting javascript technologies, additional sharing functionality and much more. It identifies: CMS, Widgets, Database managers, frameworks, caching tools, even the operating system!

It's easy to install, just find Wappalyzer on the Firefox addon directory and install it, reboot and then Wappalyzer just works.

Take a look at these examples of websites and what technologies they're using. The red dots indicate the system being used.

The one thing that it doesn't do is find the hosting company. But there's another tool for that, that will be another topic soon.

The post Wappalyzer Helps Webmasters Identify Software appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

If you use both of these apps, you might want to synchronize your Skitch screen captures with your Dropbox files. It is rather simple to do this but you need to do this from the command line. Full instructions are available at the Tips and Tricks wiki from the Dropbox guys.

The trick is to create a Skitch folder in your Dropbox directory, then you move all the necessary files and folders from their original location to this newly created folder. After you do this, you then create symlinks (shortcuts) from the original location of the files and folders to the new location in Dropbox.

On your second computer, you just need to copy your .skitch files into the new Dropbox location, delete the other locations (because they are in Dropbox), and then symlink the original locations to the Dropbox counterparts.

After you do this, each time you save a Skitch to your history, it will automatically be available in your other computer.

The post Synchronize Skitch with Dropbox and keep your screenshots everywhere appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Tumblr - http://webgineer.tumblr.com (Subscribe)
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Please Follow me and subscribe. It's all going to be really geeky stuff. Mainly information for technology professionals and information workers. The main topics you can expect over there are Linux Related Tips and Tricks, Apps and Webapps, stuff related to running your own website, and stuff like that.

The post Another Alter Ego appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I explained the system to a couple of buddies over lunch, after one asked me what was that about. I'm not the greatest teacher or presenter so I decided to find someone else to explain it for me. Who better than David Allen himself.

Check out this video from the Google Channel. It's a bit long, about 45:00. Its informative if you want to get an overview of the process. If you're already a seasoned GTDer then its just a review of what you already know.

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Whether you use the GTD system for every aspect of your life, or just pick some of the favorite tips and tricks, this can seriously help you manage anything.

I like the neutral definition of work: Anything that needs to be done and it isn't.

The post Getting things done, Google Video. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.