I just came across this awesome tool for building your lists!  It’s best explained in the video that I’ve attached below.

(You’ll need to view the full post to see it, otherwise it messes up my homepage!)

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Frequent visitors to John’s Tech Blog will no doubt notice that the Entrecard widget from the right-hand sidebar has gone.  I’ve been monitoring my traffic for some time and noticed that the worst quality traffic that I was receiving came from Entrecard.  Clearly, the majority of users are simply using this as a mechanism to get traffic (which it does deliver) but when the average visitor looks at 1.12 pages and stays for less than 20 seconds, clearly I’m wasting my screen space.

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As both a Christian and a member of the Warrior Forum, it always warms my heart to see how fellow Internet Marketers can get behind a cause to help people in real need.  Today, a particular story really touched me and I wanted to share it with you.

A little girl called Macy Johns in Florida has been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease which has been found early enough that treatment is possible.  However, since her family lack the necessary medical insurance, they can’t afford the treatment.  Several high-profile Internet Marketers have got behind Macy to try to get the community to help to raise the funds necessary to save her life.

I’m not going to go into the full sstory here (you can read much of it on the Warrior Forum in this thread) however what I will say is that I personally believe this to be a genuine case where a small donation at Macy’s site can make a huge difference to this little girl.

Please visit http://macyjohns.com/ and make a donation.  Whilst you’re there, why not sign her guest book so that she knows just how many people in the world are thinking of here.

If you’re not able to make a financial donation, then how about the following:

• Tweet about it
• Blog about it
• Pray about it

Whatever you can do, just take some time to do SOMETHING for Macy.

Please.

In Internet Marketing, one of the most common tasks that we all perform is Keyword Research.  There are a whole host of tools available to help you with this (such as the excellent Keyword Elite) but for those operating on a budget, these tools can appear expensive!

This article will arm you with 7 great keyword research tools that you can access for free to help you to build your online business to a point where the professional tools are within your reach.

1. Google AdWords Keyword Tool - This should be your first port of call for keyword research.  Think about it, who knows more about search volume on Google than Google themselves?  The great thing about this tool is that not only does it suggest synonyms to expand your list of potential keywords, it also lets you download the results into a spreadsheet.  I always start out here then update the spreadsheet as I go.

2. Wordtracker Free Keyword Tool - Another great tool that you’ve probably come across already!  The full subscription to Wordtracker is worth every penny that they charge, but when starting out, the free version is great for finding related keywords.

3. SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool - This is one of my favorites - despite owning some professional tools!  The SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool effectively gives you everything that you’d get from the AdWords tool and from Wordtracker (plus more) all combined in one easy to use page.  The only reason to use the other tools is that I find them a little quicker, plus only Google has access to “actual” search data…!

4. KwMap.com - I already wrote a post on this yesterday as I was so impressed with this new tool!  It performs in a similar manner to the Wordtracker free keyword tool, but presents the related terms visually along two differing threads.  This allows you to see two sets of related terms which slowly converge in their meanings.  To be honest, it’s hard to describe - check it out to see what great potential it has!

5. SpyFu - Want to know how your biggest competitors are getting ranked well in the search engines?  SpyFu can help you!  OK, to be fair, you still need to do the work, but it can give you great insight.  And that’s just the free version….!

6. Quantcast - Using Quantcast is like having Google analytics on your competitors domains!  It gives you the ability to dig into not only their traffic, but also their demographics, giving you an indication if the traffic that you’re going after fits the profile that you’re looking for.  For example, if you have a product that will sell well to young professionals and your research indicates that for your chosen keywords your main competitors are getting traffic from mainly over 50’s, then I would suggest that you need new keywords!

7. SEO Chat PageRank Search - SEO Chat has a whole goodie bag of free SEO related tools and I’d recommend you spend some time exploring them.  For keyword research, you can use their excellent PageRank Search to get an idea of the strength of your competition for your chosen keywords.  (Note that SEO Book mentioned above offers a great add-in for Firefox called SEO for Firefox that offers the same, plus much more, but is ONLY for Firefox, which is why it’s not one of my top 7!)

This list is not meant to be exhaustive, just to get you started.  If you’re serious about SEO, I would recommend that you read The SEO Mindset by Brad Callen which is one of the best, most comprehensive introductions that I’ve come across.

Enjoy!

I’ve just come across an interesting new tool for Keyword Research that presents everything in a cool visual display.  Hop on over to KwMap and try it out for yourself and I’m sure you’ll agree that it has great potential.

In essence, when you query on a specific keyword, it returns a visual display of the keyword with two strands of related keywords associated with it.  You can navigate through these related keywords to follow the relations and identify some interesting phrases that you might otherwise never have thought of.

It’s early days in terms of predicting whether or not this will take off, but I for one will certainly be including it in my keyword research sessions!

I was browsing through the Warrior Forum today when I came across a post from John Taylor.  It was a warning not to buy a product called Email Marketing Dynamo, which is available with resale rights.  I won’t steal John’s thunder - instead, I’ll just refer you to his blog.

You can also see his original Warrior Forum post here.

Oh, and if you’re not already a member of the Warrior Forum, you should be!  Sign up for your free membership here.

Sorry everyone - updates are a little thin on the ground at the moment! Not only am I stuck out in Poland on a project, where Internet access can be a little patchy, I’m also working on a great new product which is taking most of my free time! More details will be published as soon as appropriate….

I’m often asked to recommend blogs that people should be following to learn more about making money online, so to kick off 2009, I decided to list my top 7 recommendations of blogs that you should be following.

All of these bloggers are making a significant income from the Internet.  Some purely from blogging, and others from related activities.  They will all inspire you and I would suggest that following them is highly desirable!

Please note that these are in no particular order (I don’t want to get on the bad side of any of these guys!) other than the order that appear in my RSS reader!

The Top 7 Most Successful Blogs to Follow

1. ProBlogger - Darren Rowse (a.k.a ProBlogger) has been making a living on the Internet since 2004.  He’s well known in blogging circles as being a 6-figure earner and he has a great writing style.  He’s also written (in conjunction with Chris Garrett) a fantastic book on blogging your way to a 6-figure income, called ProBlogger, which is available on Amazon.com (or Amazon.co.uk).
2. ShoeMoney - Jeremy Schoemaker (a.k.a “ShoeMoney”) is also another big-money earner.  He’s something of a ‘character’, as you’ll see from the Superman-like logo that he uses (even in his swimming pool!).  ShoeMoney is an avid poster and everything he writes will educate and inspire you!
3. John Chow - John Chow is another great ‘character’!  He famously tells people that he “makes money online telling people how much money he makes online!”  He describes himself as a “Dot Com Mogul” and earns BIG money from his blogging!  As well as the great content that John produces, I can also guarantee that you’ll find his blog highly entertaining!
4. Copyblogger - Successful blogging is all about producing great content.  This is an area that I’m constantly working on, and Copyblogger is a great source of inspiration and education for me.  Copywriting is a crucial skill for any Internet Marketer, and Brian Clark (the man behind Copyblogger) is a great teacher!
5. Zac Johnson - This site is a relatively new find for me!  Zac is considered a ‘Super Affiliate’, which pretty much means that he makes great money promoting other people’s products!  He’s got a vast wealth of experience, having done this for over 10 years and I would highly recommend you check him out!
6. Chris Garrett - Chris, with Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) is the co-author of the ProBlogger book (see above).  According to Chris’ blog, he’s a “professional blogger, Internet Marketing Consultant, new media industry commentator, writer, coach, speaker, trainer and web geek”.  He was also one of the founders of Performancing.com (another interesting site for professional bloggers.  Consider it a bonus!!!)
7. Jim Kukral - Jim is an expert at monetizing blogs!  He’s not only an avid blogger himself - he also teaches this stuff!  As well as writing for renowned blogs such as clickz.com, he’s also a respected speaker and authority in Internet Marketing.  If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, don’t miss it!

That’s your 7 recommendations (plus a bonus!).  Check them out and subscribe to their RSS feeds.

You can thank me later!

Have your say!

As we move into 2009, I’m looking to be more focused with my blogging in order to cover topics that YOU want to read!  With this in mind, I’m conducting a poll on the existing topics that I cover, and looking for key topics that you *wish* I was covering!

Please complete the poll below and I’ll publish the results in a few days:

Read more…

Well that was even easier than I expected!  The whole process (backups and all) took about 25 minutes!

If anyone else is thinking of doing this, don’t worry!  As long as you follow the instructions, it should be plain sailing!