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opinion Archives

How Good Is The FlexSqueeze Theme, Really?

Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 9:15 pm

Comments (118)

Now, don’t you go shaking your head in dismay. Yeah, yeah I know I’ve done posts on Flexsqueeze before, but is it my fault that the FlexSqueeze theme is so good I can’t tell you all about it in just a few posts? For those of you who are not familiar with Flexsqueeze it is the most flexible WordPress theme that you will ever see. One of the biggest features is that unlike themes like Thesis it actually works straight out of the box.

What this means is that you don’t need to know html, php, css or even hooks to get it to do what you want it to do. It’s all done from within the WordPress theme and most of the changes can be done with a click of the mouse. This makes it the theme of choice for newbie bloggers and those who are not technically minded. My About page lists my nine blogs and checking them out will show you that each has its own individual look.

Great For Affiliate Marketers

Newbies aside this theme is great for the affiliate marketer and those bloggers looking to make money online. It’s agreed by many marketers that one of the most important thing to have is a squeeze or sales page and FlexSqueeze have several templates built in to help you design very professional looking sales page. My Become A Lotto Affiliate sales page shows you just how professional a sales page you can produce. Now I’m no web designer but I reckon I did a pretty damn good job with it.

Create Columns In Posts And Pages

Have you ever wanted to create columns of texts in your posts or pages but didn’t know how to do it? I’m not sure whether there are other themes that will do this but as I found out only yesterday FlexSqueeze does. This would be great for those bloggers who want to give their blog a newspaper or magazine feel about it.

This would look really great if you’re intending to have a full width blog without any sidebars. You can actually have two equal columns, three equal columns, four equal columns or an in-between configuration.

I can honestly say that FlexSqueeze has come a long way since I posted this video.

Unique Page Content Slider

Apple iPad is coveted by many users for it’s
versatility and ease of use.The new iPad is
thinner, lighter and faster than ever. People
love it because it makes surfing the web,
checking email, watching movies, and
reading books so natural that you could
almost forget the incredible technology under your fingertips.

Get your iPad now at Amazon!
Apple iPad 2 MC769LL/A Tablet (16GB, Wifi, Black) NEWEST MODEL

You could almost say the iPod Touch
is a small version of the iPad and it kind of is but it may not have all it’s
features. Still, I have one and I love it. Get yours at Amazon
Apple iPod touch 32 GB (4th Generation) NEWEST MODEL (See all MP3 Players)

But the best of all is the MacBook Air!
I’m using one now and I love it!
Apple MacBook Air MC505LL/A 11.6-Inch Laptop (See all Laptop Computers)

That’s pretty neat isn’t it? It works best if you have a blog width of 650, perfect for the built in squeeze page templates, but I have to be truthful I had to play around with it a bit to fit it into this post.

So Many Other Features

You can separate parts of your post by using neat shadow effects.

You can make your testimonials stand out so that it looks a lot more appealing to your reader or potential customer.

John Doe – SomeWebsite.com

Perhaps you have a really important part of your post and you want to make sure it captures your reader’s attention. You could place it in a colored box! You actually have a choice of 4 colors, blue, red, yellow and grey.

If there are parts within the post that you want to highlight, where you would normally use bold or italics you can now highlight the text in bright yellow

There is so much that you can do. While you can use a lot of these features in your sales pages there is no reason why you couldn’t use them in your post occasionally for those very special post. As you can see having FlexSqueeze makes your blog really unique.

Forget your normal indentations

Select from different styles and colors

OK, I think you get the idea, but just in case you’re still a little vague about what this post is all about, all it’s trying to say is FlexSqueeze Rocks!

If you liked this post then don’t you think it deserves a Tweet or something? :drunk_tb:

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011The FlexSqueeze Theme gives my blog that professional look. I loved it so much that I bought the developers license. It's the easiest most customizable theme I've come across. See how easy it is to change your theme's appearance! Compare it to Thesis to see how much better it is! Check out some of the latest Latest Updates

I highly recommend you to get your FlexSqueeze copy today!

What You Need To Do To Make Your Blog A Success

Thursday, June 16th, 2011 at 9:27 am

Comments (85)

Most people who become bloggers do so with high expectations of striking it rich. You can’t even blame them because the net is full of people promising they can show them how to make a whole lot of money online, saying that all they need is a blog or a set of websites. A few have actually done it and they get a whole lot of traffic because people think if they stick around long enough some of that fortune will rub off on them. Others haven’t come anywhere near making a decent online income but they write as if they hold the key to financial freedom. Unfortunately they manage to fool a lot of people, all those newcomers who come online to hopefully improve their financial status.

Many who fail to reach their dream of financial freedom continue the online life because they’ve come to love blogging. After all it has so much to offer, you get to express yourself, to share your knowledge with others and the interaction with your commentators is truly sublime. Unfortunately the rest will give up in disgust once they’ve come to realise it wasn’t as easy as they were made to believe.

Now, I’m not here to tell you that I have the secret because I haven’t and saying any different would make me as dishonest as all the rest. However, over the years I have discovered certain things that every blogger needs to know if they want to make their blog a success.

Traffic

This is the most important part of making money online and yet most of those people selling their ‘secret to success’ fail to mention it. All they tell you is get your niche online and the money will start to flow in. Start up another ten and you will increase your income tenfold. Unfortunately no traffic means no customers which means no money and ten times nothing is still nothing.

Getting traffic is possible though but it takes a lot of work and a fair bit of time to drive traffic to your site. What makes things worse is you don’t want just any traffic, you want targeted traffic. This means if you have a blog that is selling computers you don’t want people coming over who are looking to buy dog collars.

The way to get targeted traffic is all tied into the keywords you use in your domain name, your headings, blog titles and posts. Even that is not going to work unless the search engines think you have something of value, and the way to do that is by getting backlinks via blog commenting, forums, writing articles but most importantly by writing brilliant content so other will link to it. My post How I Am Marketing My Online Lottery Niche highlights some of the strategy I’m using to market my latest blog.

A Product To Sell

Most everyone will tell you to make money online you need something that you can sell, preferably your own. Unfortunately most of us don’t have that and so we do the best we can by placing Adsense ads on our sites or by promoting other peoples products as an affiliate. I’ve had a bit of success selling products like FlexSqueeze (a brilliant blog theme), Market Samurai, web hosts and a few others. The problem with those products is once you sell someone a product they’re no longer a potential customer, at least not for that product, which means you’re forever looking for new customers.

In my post The Secret To Online Success Is Passive Income I outlined a few methods I used that were making me money on a regular basis. I also spoke about my latest venture, one that I am confident will be my biggest earner because I am now selling a product that people buy on a regular basis, lottery tickets. I am now in the process of driving traffic to Buy Online Lottery Tickets with the knowledge that every time I gain a customer I will make money whenever they purchase a lottery ticket online. I’m also offering others the opportunity to become a MyLotto affiliate giving them the same opportunity to make money online, knowing that I also make a percentage of their sales.

Building Your Brand

At the beginning of the post I said the most important facet of making money online was driving targeted traffic to your blog, well that’s not quite true, there is something way more important. The most important part of your online businesses is YOU! You are the face of your business as everything you do online affects the way others perceive you. That being the case it doesn’t matter how much traffic you drive to your blog because if your online profile is suspect you’re screwed.

By everything I’m including blog commenting as this is by far the most popular method used by bloggers to market their blog. I’ve known this from the beginning and I am constantly surprised by the amount of people who fail to use commenting to their advantage. This is probably because done properly it takes time and many prefer quantity over quality failing to see that a lot of poor comments only serves to hurt their brant. If you’re not sure what constitutes a good comment I suggest you read Teaching People The Proper Way To Comment as I used this post to grade people on the quality of their comment.

One thing to remember while online is that unlike the offline world you have time to think before responding to any negative comment, or feedback on one of your products, that you may receive. Never, ever, let anger cloud your replies because once you blow up online you reveal to everyone your loss of control and lack of professionalism. Two posts taking about this subject that you may find interesting ate Kristi’s 3 Questions To Ask About Offensive Content On Your Blog, although you can apply this to a lot more than just blogging.

Social Media

Social media is an important facet of your online business and one that I still have a long way to go as far as online promotions go. It’s also very important as far as branding goes and so you have to be very careful how you conduct yourself when using them. Something that many people fail to realise is that almost everything you do online is open to public scrutiny and that being the case acting in a manner that can be seen as untoward by others can cost you business. So be very careful what you say online or even what you link to. You may think that something you saw online was extremely funny and so you tweet the link to all your followers not thinking that many of them may find it very offensive.

When it comes to social media it’s my opinion that ChingYa would have to be the online social media guru, blog posts like her 7+ Major Tips In Enhancing Your Upgraded FaceBook Page just goes to show the wealth of her knowledge. You could do a lot worse than going over there and learning from what ChingYa has to say.

Phew, I don’t normally rave on like this but I reckon I just had a lot to say, and even so there is probably so much that I left out. This is where you guys come in by using the comment section. What are you doing to make your blog a success? What have I missed out and how can we help each other to attain our goals.

What Is The Best Comment System For WordPress Blogs

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011 at 3:48 am

Comments (98)

Yes, the argument for the best comment system for WordPress blogs is continuing but I’m here to tell you, no matter what you read on other blogs, the best comment system for your WordPress blog is the default one. Don’t be like all those sheep out there who install third party comment systems like Livefyre, Intense Debate and Disqus just because others are doing it. Why, because if you do, you will get fewer comments.

I proved that when I wrote my post on how Disqus is costing people comments. Out of 183 people who took part in the poll, 54% said they would not comment on a blog that used Disqus. It would have been higher but some said they would comment if the blogger was someone they knew. So, if you’re a newbie I definitely would stick with the default system. Why the heck would you change when it has all the benefits a commentator would want, not to mention the added benefits from those bloggers who have installed commentluv and keywordluv?

Sure some of those comment systems might have bells and whistles but are they worth it when you consider that it could well cost you valuable comments? Then there’s also the possibility if your third party comment system bites the dust that it would take all your comments with it! Now there is a horrible thought. I’ve had people using Disqus email me asking for help because they were scared of losing their comments knowing that their comments were held off site. Unfortunately I couldn’t help them because I was never silly enough to install it and so I didn’t know much about it.

You may be wondering why I dislike those commenting systems so much. It’s because I refuse to go through any extra hoops when leaving a comment, which my previous post proved to be the most popular reason for not commenting on those blogs. What’s that, I can register for free and then it’s easy to leave a comment? True, but there’s the rub, there is the extra hoop I have to jump through, and then if I delete my cookies, which I do a lot, I have to sign in again when wanting to comment on those blogs. Those damn hoops, I have enough crap to put up with without having more spoiling my blogging experience.

As far as I’m concerned I believe that old saying, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’. But hey, don’t listen to me, you go ahead and install it, that’s just one less blog that I need to comment on. :drunk_tb:

Your Guest Poster Breaks The Rules! Now What?

Sunday, June 12th, 2011 at 6:55 pm

Comments (52)

Its time for another poll but before we can start a new one we need to discuss the results of the last one. I started that poll on April the 15th and what I was trying to work out was whether or not it was ethical for bloggers to do paid posts? A total of 46 people took part in the poll, 43 saying yes it was ethical and only three saying that it wasn’t.

From the comments left by my readers it was obvious that even though most agreed it was ethical it all depended on how the blogger conducted the paid post. Was he being honest and not intentionally misleading his readers? Did the blogger disclose that he was being paid to write the post? As long as he adhered to these and certain other criteria then doing paid posts was not a problem.

Before we get to the other poll I want to talk about guests posts and the obligation of the person writing the post. Just over a week ago I was approached by someone wanting to do a guest post on this blog. I told him it would be fine as long as he adhered to the following conditions;

Hi Guest Poster,

Firstly I would like to see a guest post that you’ve already done. Secondly the post has to be of original content and related to blogging, SEO or something that is of use to my readers. Thirdly, if I accept your post you will be expected to monitor the comments so that you can reply to the commentators keeping in mind the quality of your replies will reflect on your image.

Other things to keep mind include.

Minimum of 400 words

No affiliate links. You can link to your site from your bio.

I may ask you to edit it if I feel it is needed rather than having to do it myself.
Naturally I expect a pretty good standard, no less than what I expect of myself.
That’s about it. Good luck.

Needless to say I accepted the post but even though I expressly told him that he needed to reply to all comments left on his post I haven’t heard from him since and yes, I notified him immediately once the post went live. So the question now is what do I do about it? That’s where you guys come in. All you have to do is take part in the poll and leave a comment as to why you feel the way you do.

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Will Google Penalise You For Using Zaparena

Thursday, May 19th, 2011 at 6:52 am

Comments (54)

It’s been almost three months since using the Zaparena Traffic Network on my blogs and I am very happy with it. Having said that this post isn’t about telling you how great Zaparena is, rather it’s about dispelling some of the issues people seem to have with it, issues that have come to my attention via the comments.

I Don’t Want Near Naked Women On My Blog

This is an easy one because if you don’t like seeing beautiful near naked women on you blog you make sure you don’t select that option.

It’s Against Adsense TOS

This seems to be the main issue people have. Unfortunately I can’t give you an iron clad guarantee that Google won’t penalise your blog for running Zaparena because no-one ever know how Google will react to anything. Something that may be perfectly acceptable today could be totally unacceptable tomorrow. Still, after doing some extensive research I have yet to find one site using Zaparena who has lost their Adsense account.

Image via Wikipedia

Most of the results turned up blog posts warning people against using sites such as Zaparena saying that Google did not like traffic exchange programs. Klaus from TechPatio echoed their concern siting the following Google Adsense article,, Can I use traffic exchange programs? which states the following.

While traffic exchange services may help bring traffic to your site, we don’t recommend using them, as they may lead to invalid clicks or impressions and result in your account being disabled.

As you may already know, our program policies strictly prohibit any means of artificially generating ad impressions or clicks, including third-party services such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, auto-surf, and click-exchange programs. These programs offer incentives for users to view webpages or click on ads, resulting in activity that is harmful to our advertisers.

We also advise against using third-party tools or services to increase your site traffic, as they may also result in similar invalid activity and your account being disabled. We realize that you may have questions about a specific service and whether it could potentially create invalid impressions or clicks. However, please understand that we’re unable to comment on any particular third-party service.

Let’s look at the part highlighted in red. I can safely say there’s no way that Zaparena generates clicks, artificially or otherwise. Ad impressions, well that’s something else, but if they are going to penalise you for that then what’s stopping them from including things like Stumble, Digg, Twitter and the myriads of other forms of traffic generation.

Now, let’s consider the section highlighted in orange. They advise against using third party tools that increase traffic because it may result in similar invalid activity and your account being disabled. Again, Zaparena does not result in people clicking on your adsense ads, no more so than any other method you’re currently using to generate traffic to your blog.

It seems that the only way we would know for sure as to whether it is against their TOS is by asking Google but they kindly advise us against that because they can’t comment on any third party service. Typical of them isn’t it?

I would also like to point out that Zaparena isn’t your typical traffic exchange program which requires that you surf their sites in order that they do the same for you. There is no such requirement for Zaparena, in fact there is no incentive at all for people to click on a Zaparena ad.

As I said at the beginning I am more than happy with the performance of the Zaparena Traffic Network. I would love to say I was certain that Google doesn’t have a problem with them but like I said at the beginning no-one can know how Google feels about anything. Ask anyone who’s been penalised and is still scratching their head as to why.

If anyone knows of someone who have been penalised because they were using Zaparena I would love to know about it.