The first plugin I found was the Link Cloaking Plugin for WordPress which you can read more about here:

http://w-shadow.com/blog/2007/07/28/link-cloaking-plugin-for-wordpress/

It seems that this will allow you to redirect your affiliate links with ease.

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Most people and I’m no different find it really hard to break out of the cycle of doing it myself.

I’ve started ‘to break free’ now, I’ve been helped by Gavin Allinson. He shared with me his own
‘Blueprint’ of the tasks that his Virtual team do for him.

It was eye-opening to say the least and you can access it at no charge by visiting

Outsourcers Blueprint

If you’ve read the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss or Michael Gerber’s e-myth then I highly
recommend you check out Gavin’s BluePrint.

It will open your eyes up to the possibilities. Using Gavin’s blueprint, it has us to take on more clients and we can do the stuff we enjoy and outsource the other stuff. If you are not outsourcing as yet, you may want to have a look at Gavin’s Materials. I highly recommend Gavin and his team. They have allowed us to grow much quicker than we would have done.

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It works with any datafeed from ANY Affiliate Network! It is only available as part of the “Pro” package.

This really does add significant value for saving you lots of time and effort! I might have to put the price up!

Only kidding.

If you are looking to add datafeeds to your wordpress blogs, why not do the quick thing and get the plugin!

http://www.speedieconsulting.co.uk/importcsv/

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I will include a seperate PDF to explain how it works when you purchase . It is simple using the advanced Custom fields options in the plugin. If you are using the free version, this might be a good excuse to “upgrade!” (hey you can’t blame a guy for trying!)

Find out more about the Import CSV Pro Script here

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For example, if you have 4 categories in your blog, you could create four lens on Squidoo, or four hubs on Hubpages, or even add 4 pages to your FaceBook profile! Then add in the category RSS feed and you will have automatically added on theme content without diluting your page content.

So the search engines will love it too. So stop adding your main rss feeds everywhere and submit your category rss feeds to relevant created pages. Need to find your category feeds?

Where are my category feeds?

Anyone can subscribe to a feed for a category on any WordPress blog—even if they do not appear on your site. All you need to know is the category number. The format is as follows:

http://mywebsite.com/blogfolder/?feed=rss2&cat=n

Substitute the actual domain name for mywebsite.com, include the blogfolder if necessary, and replace n with the category number.

If custom permalinks are used, you need the complete path to the category folder. The format will be something like this:

http://mywebsite.com/category/maincategory/subcategory/feed

That’s the entire URL path followed by a slash (/) and the word feed.

Now isn’t that another reason to be using Wordpress!

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I like secret agent films or TV shows. Bond, Bourne, even Chuck (We bought the US Box Set and just finished Season 1) It’s good.

Anyway I was sat bored out of my mind yesterday with link building. Yes a necessary evil but man does it get tedious. Posting on forums, writing articles, it can be exciting when it is new but 12 years in, it’s getting pretty long in the tooth.

Anyway I was watching the Bourne Ultimatum on DVD the other day and for some reason while link building yesterday, the action sequence music started in my head (If you have seen it you will know what I mean – the music when he is walking around all purposefully!) I couldn’t get rid of it. In fact it is going off again right now. Bugger!

Anyway, all of a sudden, the link building became something else, it became exciting and dangerous (yes I know! – Link Building). It reminded me when I was younger the Rocky theme was always good for lifting weights too.

Is there something that you can listen to, that makes the tedious stuff a bit more bearable. I’m sure there is something. Maybe not – maybe it’s a guy thing?

Share your thoughts.

Anyway, the series of blog posts that are coming are around another secret agent show that is very popular. I’m not going to give the game away just yet, as I am only half way through preparing the content. If you need a kick start to get your site or blog moving then this article series will be right up your street.

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You can check out the video here:Information Marketing Association

When I saw this, I wanted to bring it to your attention because I’m a member of the Information Marketing Association, and I get a lot out of the newsletters and monthly teleseminars they do. I thought you could benefit as well.

On this site you have the opportunity to grab a copy of “Entrepreneur Magazine’s Startup Guide to Information Marketing.” It’s a great book that gives you an overview of creating a successful business selling info-products, delivering coaching and/or offering monthly subscription programs. The book is only $9.95, which is even cheaper than Amazon.com. Plus when you invest in the book through the Information Marketing Association, they’ll give you a free 2-month trial membership so you can experience membership for yourself. All of the bonuses and info you’ll receive is worth over $682.57. So, it’s a great value for your $9.95 investment.

Here is that link: Information Marketing Association

I think this is something you’ll enjoy.

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In BYS, Michael talks about the 7 core self promotion strategies. The book is aimed at consultants and service professionals, I am looking to move more into consultancy and really focus on that for next year.

I have not put the book down yet and I am now on my third read. The first thing I did was set up folders on my PC for each element and now working on filling each one with the marketing materials needed.

The more I re read this stuff, the better I feel. It really is feel good marketing and for the first time I think I have found a single source of techiques that gel together to make a comprehensive strategy.

It is not just about referral marketing or networking, or web based stuff but all of it. Meshed together, in a complete branded solution, each strategy is complementary and supportive. It also makes you look good as you are consistent in your message and approach. (Something I haven’t been up to this point with my marketing)

If you are looking for a complete process to market your business on-line and off-line I suggest you pick-up Michaels Books. I have read the second one too and it shares the same level of information to expand your business.

With most business books you tend to try and adapt things from the book to fit your business, I think when you read this book, you will try to adapt your business to fit the book!

I’ll be reporting back on that Beyond Book Solid book once I have finished implementing all the strategies from this one!

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But what does the search engine think? If you have been in affiliate marketing for any length of time you may have heard the terms thin and fat affiliate sites. Basically a thin affiliate site is a site, that has nothing but outgoing links to other sites. If you pulled out all the links, what’s left is pretty thin.
The search engine looks at a site to see if it adds value. After all the functionality your site may have via third parties, will be available in 500 other places too. What makes your site different?

Currently I would argue nothing. Therefore search engines will not rank it, why should they?

This is where I would like to introduce the idea of “content offsetting”. In essence, the idea is that for every outgoing link you have on your site, you “offset” them with a given number of unique content pages ON your site.

Here a small number of things you could add to your website to offset your outbound links. The more unique content you have the more likely it is that the major search engines will come and visit. Think of it this way, the more unique pages you have, the more virtual salesmen you have out there attracting new clients and new opportunities to your business.

• Article Archive
• Press Release Articles
• Tip Sheets and Downloadable Guides
• Product Pages
• Latest News both about your Company and about your Industry
• Examples and Testimonials - Written, Video or Audio
• Product legislation Information

In this way, if you strip out all the outgoing links, yes even the ones that are branded in your look and feel, you still have something of value to offer a search engine that is unique.

As an example, for each outgoing link, you could have 5 pages of content relating to that topic before users get to the outgoing link. It is way you are giving the search engine something to get its teeth into.

Diagram One – No content offsetting

Diagram Two – Content offsetting

Do you see the advantages of doing this? Content offsetting should help you to build a deep rich content site. If you are planning on adding any further third party solutions, and I am not saying you shouldn’t. After all why reinvent the wheel. Make sure you offset these new services with content on your own site.

In this way, your site will appeal more to the major search engines, and you will also attract more page views as you educate and provide your visitors with information. The knock on effect of this is that you will make more sales. People buy from people they trust and if you help your visitors to make buying decisions they will use you.

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If you are a one man band this is not good. You have other fires to fight and things to do. So how can you automate part of the researching and thinking elements of the process? Here are a couple of ideas that we use to help us with ideas:

Google Alerts.

Signup with Google alerts and have then send you a daily email relating to news and blog post around your major keywords. You won’t get every bit of news under the sun but it will give you some ideas, I’m sure. You can do the same with yahoo too but I have not found them to be especially different so stick with one or the other, after all you don’t need to bombard yourself with email.

RSS Feeds

Visit blogs or sites in your target niche, even competitors and signup to as many of the RSS Feeds as you can. Choose an RSS aggregator such as Google Reader or Bloglines so you can search through the various feeds if you have an idea and see what others are saying.

Twitter

Yes Twitter, I have found twitter to be an excellent source of links and resources that others in my niche are sharing. If you use FireFox , install TwitterFox and tweets appear on your desktop as they happen. Signup to “follow” anyone in your industry. Use www.twellow.com to search out people and follow them, then take it one stage further and look to see who they are following and follow some of them too! You will be amazed at the stuff some people share.

Well there are three simple ideas you can implement in the next 10 minutes to start automatically researching your niche and having technology give you ideas for your content writing

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