SeoBlackhat.co.uk » Click Per Access

Legal ClickJacking Code

admin — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 07:49:17 +0000

***REPLACE “SAMPLE” LINK WITH YOUR AFFILIATE LINK***
***YOU MAY NEED TO ADJUST HEIGHT AND WIDTH OF PIXELS DEPENDING ON PLACEMENT***
** PUT THIS BLOCK OF CODE AFTER THE TAGS**

onmouseover=”document.location=’http://www.SAMPLELINK.com‘;”
style=”position:absolute;width:8px;height:7px;background:#FFFFFF;border:1px”>

***PUT THIS BLOCK OF CODE BELOW THIS LINE ON YOUR PAGE WHERE YOU WANT TO HAVE YOUR LINK. CHANGE THE DOMAIN TO THE DESIRED NAME YOU WANT IT TO SHOW AS. CHANGE “Click Here” TO WHATEVER YOU LIKE ***

http://www.SAMPLELINK.com” onclick=”updatebox(event)”> style=”font-family:arial;font-size:16px”>Click Here

How to find an affiliate program to CS

admin — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:37:53 +0000

The best way to get away with cookie stuffing is to find an affiliate program that is not well known (to the blackhatters at least) and target your marketing.

To find a new affiliate program to stuff you will need to get creative. An effective method I have found is to search Google.

forums and affiliate program

The above is a search term to help find a site that has both user forums and an affiliate program. You will have to sort through the results to find good things. Just search in Google and browse the results looking for a gold nugget of information you can use to get rich. You can try different variations of the search term such as

discussion forums and join our affiliate program

forums and join our affiliate program

fitness and affiliate program and forums

It may take some time but in a few hours you could come up with a big list of potential affiliate programs to stuff.

Another method is to look at the advertisers in forums. Click the banner ads and see if the advertiser has an affiliate program. If so you could join it and stuff on the forum with the ad and then move on to finding more forums promoting that affiliate program.

Some of the big affiliate programs people stuff are

ClickBank

CommissionJunction

Ebay Partner Network

Amazon Associates

If you already have traffic to your own website and use an affiliate program on that website try cookie stuffing for that affiliate program on your site to increase your income. If you are buying PPC traffic, why not cookie stuff on your landing page for an extra chance to make your campaign profitable. Be careful when buying PPC clicks as there is always of chance of being banned and losing the amount spent on PPC.

There are a million ways to cookie stuff but the simplest and most effective is to integrate cookie stuffing with your other projects.

I have included a list of affiliate programs in the zip that have worked well for some people.

“Best Method” for Posting Manually on Craigslist

admin — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 10:00:49 +0000

Hey guys just thought I would write up a real quick step by step method to post using the Home Business method manually. I use this exact method and get about a 90% post rate. I only post about 15 ads a day but I usually make around 30-50$ using it. I hope this helps somebody who is new out here.

Step 1) Get a new gmail email account. I usually make a new gmail account everyday just to have a few backups. And remember to use the “+100@gmail.com” trick that was taught.

Step 2) Copy and paste some random famous quotes into a Open Office Writer file. I do this so that all I have to do is copy and paste a random famous quote into my CL post. This helps to keep the post look random to the bots. I use:

Code:

http://www.quotedb.com/

Step 3) Write up your ad and encode it. It doesn’t have to be anything that would make Tolstoy happy but make it look like a real job offer. I Then use the below address to encode the ad because whenever I would open the site that was in the Home Business method in IE my AV would pop up and tell me there was a trojan on the page. Who knows, but I do know this site works just as well.

Code:

http://www.thepcmanwebsite.com/ascii_converter.shtml

Step 4) Connect to a Proxy server using this software below. I change my Proxy server every 2-5 posts. The more the better. But remember to make sure that the proxy is from within your country. I wont go into details about the program but it is really easy to use.

Code:

http://dominateim.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=29&func=view&catid=41&id=3367

Step 5) Post the ad. All you have to do is copy and paste the ASCII encoded ad into the ad posting area and then add one of the random quotes you collected earlier to the bottom of the ad. Make sure to also use a different email ever few posts. A good rule of thumb is to change your email every time you change your proxy.

To make all of our lives easier and because im so freaking awesome I have included a set of direct links to everyone of the ADMIN/OFFICE JOB posting fields in all of the free to post CL cities that have been provided to us in the Resources section. These links bypass all the bullshit you have to agree to on CL. Just copy and paste it into a clickable word file or whatever so you have it all the time.

Code:

https://post.craigslist.org/alb/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/buf/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/cnj/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/snj/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/cha/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/cin/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/cle/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/det/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/hnl/J/ofc/big
https://post.craigslist.org/ind/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/inl/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/ksc/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/lvg/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/lou/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/mem/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/mem/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/min/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/nsh/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/nor/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/orl/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/pit/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/ral/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/slc/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/sat/J/ofc/none/x
https://post.craigslist.org/tpa/J/ofc/psc

https://post.craigslist.org/tpa/J/ofc/hil

Lightbox CPA – Zango/CPALead Style Protection

admin — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:52:11 +0000

Here’s a method I’ve had some success with on a couple of things…in the example files, I’ve used a dating offer (I’ll admit it, tried my hand at ewhoring) but I’ve also used it for a game release and a couple of other things.

Basically, it simulates the Zango/CPALead Content Protection systems using a lightbox. All the code is taken from these two pages:

particletree.com/features/lightbox-gone-wild/
webfoundation.net/downloads/lightbox_gone_wild_tutorial.html

Here’s the code for the index.php file -

Code:



"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">



Title





















echo"";

?>

I have used this a couple of different ways. In the example above, I’ve taken a screenshot of my CPA offer and used that as a background for the page. You can also just Iframe a page that you want to “protect” – both ways work the same.

Just a note of caution – if you are iframing your offer, you’ll need to make sure that your page isn’t leaking as the referer. If you are using another page in the iframe, you don’t need to worry about it.

If you want to use the example without reworking the code, replacing the bg.jpg file with your own screenshot is the simplest way. Just find an offer that you want to promote and take a screen shot of it.

Couple of suggestions for your screenshot – first, change your screen resolution before taking the screenshot to something large – 1152×864 worked for me. Second, with the offer loaded up, hit the F11 function key and go to “fullscreen”. This will give you a large background picture to be saved as bg.jpg.

Also, in the index.php code you’ll see this -

Code:

echo"";

This code will redirect the page after 10 seconds to the first step in the double meta-refresh, the rd1.php page. We’ll come back to the double metarefresh in just a second.

Next, you’ll want to look at the overlay.php file. Basically, this is your gateway page telling your visitor that they are going to have to do something to gain access. In this example, I’ve just used a picture showing that they are going to have to register to view the profile. If used for something else, just change the picture and text.

If you do decide to change the size of the picture or just use text, you’ll need to edit the lightbox.css file in the css folder to make the overlay position correctly. There are two bits of code that you are concerned with in that file. First, the lightbox css -

Code:


#lightbox{

display:none;

position:absolute;

top:50%;

left:47%;

z-index:9999;

width:500px;

height:300px;

margin:-200px00-250px;

border:0pxsolid#000;

text-align:left;

}

The parts you will want to change are the top, left, width, height, and margin sections. Changing these will alter the position of your image or text on the screen. You will probably have to just fiddle with them until you are happy with the positioning of the overlay.

The second part of the file that you will want to edit is -

Code:


#overlay{

display:none;

position:absolute;

top:0;

left:0;

width:100%;

height:100%;

z-index:5000;

background-color:#000;

-moz-opacity:0.65;

opacity:.65;

filter:alpha(opacity=65);

}

In this part of the code, you would want to edit the background-color and all of the opacity settings.

Now you should have everything looking the way that you want. The next step is dealing with the double meta-refresh. It consists of the two files, rd1.php and randompage.php.

Code for rd1.php -

Code:


";?>

This page is called by the redirect we issue in the index.php code above, and is the first step in the DMR.

Code for randompage.php -

Code:



$page0="AFFILIATE_LINK_HERE";

$referer=$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];

$mypages=array($page0);

$myrandompage=$mypages[mt_rand(0,count($mypages)-1)];

if($referer==""){

echo"";

}else{

echo"";

}

?>

This is the standard DMR code that we all love – it just checks to make sure that the referer is blanked from rd1.php and then redirects to your CPA offer. You’ll need to replace AFFILIATE_LINK_HERE with your link and you will be good to go.

If you are using this as a content protection gateway, you can add additional offers in by adding this code after the $page0 variable -

Code:


$page1="LINK_HERE";

$page2="LINK_HERE";

$page3="LINK_HERE";

$page4="LINK_HERE";

and adding the new variables into the array like this -

Code:


$mypages=array($page0,$page1,$page2,$page3,$page4);

Also, if the referer check fails, this code just sends the user into a loop. You can change the rd1.php reference in the else statement to whatever page you want…

The addon Lightbox script is available in the download section

CraigsList Marketing, Getting 100 gmails in 1 minute

admin — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 12:38:58 +0000

You may or may not know this, but it can save you literally hours of time.

One thing that any successful CL marketer must have is the ability to create a lot of email addresses and forward all of them to one main account.

This is done to make publishing the ads very simple, all from one central account.

There are a lot of account creators out there, and the one that I use allows me to do about 10 emails every 5 minutes or so.

You could spend nearly an hour of your day just creating 100 email addresses.

Well, there’s a much easier way, and it works the exact same as spending countless hours creating useless emails that forward to your main account.

This will allow you to create those same 100 emails, forwarded to the one central account, in 1 minute or less.

This is to be used with gmail, but I have not tried it with any others, so I can’t say it won’t work.

All you have to do is simply add a plus sign and a number to the end of your main gmail username.

For example, if you choose craigslistmarketer @ gmail.com as your main email address, then you would just need to add a +1 to the end of the username to make it look like this: craigslistmarketer+1 @ gmail.com.

This email forwards to craigslistmarketer @ gmail.com.

If you need 10 emails that are forwarded, you would use craigslistmarketer+1 @ gmail.com through craigslistmarketer+10 @ gmail.com.

Although there is no real email address there with that username, it is set up to forward to the main account.

This will save you a ton of time and works just fine on CL as each gmail is actually viewed as unique.

Eventually, your emails may get blocked by CL, so just use the next set of 10, craigslistmarketer+11 @ gmail.com through craigslistmarketer+20 @ gmail.com.

It is possible that CL would eventually block the root gmail, but it’s really no big deal.

Just take a minute to create a new gmail, and then start over.

It’s that simple, and will save you hours of time in the long run that can be used to actually work on getting your posts to stick.

Adsense Behind Image

admin — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:01:08 +0000

Ive currently seen old posts regarding Images with adsense cloaked behind, so the image looks very discrete, when in fact is your adsense image. There is a probalem doing this with wordpress, because you need I frame plugins for this to work, unless if you do it on the template directly.

Click the picture below

Please upgrade your browser

Now we know this works, we add our own adsense to pages like our main page so it looks as if it is getting clicked correctly

This works UNDER the radar, I share my adsense code with other blogs, and target 1 site with image / adsense so my ctr is always less than 1%

More Info coming soon

20 Tips for Lowering Shopping Cart Abandonment

admin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:11:10 +0000

In a recent survey, the following were the top reasons why Internet shoppers abandoned their shopping carts. Note: they could pick more than one reason. I will cover the main issues at the top, and then get into the 20 Tips.

- High shipping prices (72%) – This is a biggie and all shipping charges need to be presented to the buyer before they have to type in their info and see the shipping rates.

- Comparison shopping or browsing (61%) – This is beyond your control, dont worry about it.

- Changed mind (56%) – While this is also beyond your control you can test your cart steps to see if this may be a cause of the mind change.

- Saving items for later purchase (51%) – If you offer this feature, but you dont collect their name and email address to contact them with a reminder drop it. Data shows shoppers who choose this option rarely, if ever, come back to purchase.

- Total cost of items is too high (43%) – How do you rank compared to other similar products in the market? Do you have sufficient Points of Difference to justify the higher cost?

- Checkout process is too long (41%) – Very important to have as few steps in this process.

- Site requires registration before purchase (34%) – I think people didnt understand this option, as it should be at least double this figure. Unless I REALLY want the item, I never buy if I have to register first, and I know Im not the only one who feels this way.

- Site is unstable or unreliable (31%) – If this is your site, then fix it!

- Checkout process is confusing (27%) – How do you know if this is a problem for you? Easy. You are getting calls with people saying, Your site was too confusing so I called. Your staff needs to be giving you this feedback so it can be corrected. They should also be mindful to ask, Would you mind telling me briefly what you found confusing so we can fix it? Ill give you free shipping on your order for helping us. Reward your customer for helping you. It is just good business.

These tips are taken from the book, Call To Action. It is part of our Recommended Books section.

I like to think of sales as the ability to gracefully persuade, not manipulate, a person or persons into a win-win situation. – Bo Bennett

Shopping cart abandonment is a significant problem for any website owner or affiliate. In some market verticals between 65% and 75% of online shoppers abandon their shopping carts before completing the checkout process.

What is amazing is the numbers are basically the same as they were in the late 90s. We have come a long way in terms of technology, but there are still key mistakes being made that lend to that high rate of abandonment.

Here are 20 tips to help you reduce the abandon rate on your online shopping cart.

Check how many steps are in your checkout process. This is usually a prime knee jerk target for results, but we have found that whether you have one step or seven steps in the checkout process is not all that critical (which goes against conventional advice by having as few steps as possible from experts).The authors of Call To Action state that they had a client that they were able to bring the checkout process from six steps down to one, but there was no reduction of the abandonment rate. In the testing that I have performed I also found this to be true. There was not a significant reduction in abandonment rate by decreasing the steps to checkout that can be consistently measured. Surveying revealed that once people found what they came to buy, they are going to buy, regardless of the steps involved. In other words, the customer is going to buy the product, regardless of how hard your site works to make it so that they cant!Suggestion: Look at the steps of your check out process. You may consider a group of independent people to look at the process and give honest feedback. Look for consistency in complaint or praise. While my advice is not to reduce the steps right now, if your checkout process is very lengthy, consider a reduction to make it as smooth and painless as possible. As that is just good customer service and that is something we all need to focus on more.
Include a Progress Indicator (e.g. Step 2 of 5) on each checkout page. No matter how many steps you have in your checkout process, it is highly advised to keep shoppers oriented by letting them know exactly where they are in the checkout process. This is best done by showing a step number. Be sure to clearly label the task to be completed at each step. Always give them an opportunity to review what they did in the previous steps and a way to return to their current step if they do go back. Make it as easy as possible for them.Suggestion: This is only necessary if you have three or more steps in your checkout process.
Provide a link back to the product. When an item is placed in the shopping cart, include a link back to the product page, so shoppers can easily jump back to make sure they have selected the right item. Your own experience probably parallels ours. Recently, shopping for a CD/DVD printer, we wanted to know what color cartridges came with the printer. It wasnt obvious where we should click to review what came with the printer so we had to navigate using our back button till we were able to get our questions answered. Not all consumers are willing to take on this navigational challenge and choose to abandon their carts instead.Suggestion: According to my testing, having a link BACK to the product page and then relying on the customer to know what to do to get BACK to the shopping cart is just a bad idea. They can do it, sure, but at what cost? In fact, only 4% of users who clicked on the product link were able to get back to the shopping cart without causing a system error or adding a duplicate item to the cart. That highly escalates abandonment. Instead, use a pop-up system to allow users to see more detail on the product without leaving the page.Key Point: You may want to instruct them to press Ctrl as they click to override pop-up blockers.
Add Pictures inside the basket. Just adding a link back to the product details page inside the checkout process reduces abandonment rate. By just placing a thumbnail image of the product inside the basket can increase conversions by as much as 11%.Suggestion: If you are going to include a link back to the product details page, take some time and create a pop-up instead (as mentioned above), so the product details hovers over the shopping cart page so the customer can make the review and not get lost. I tested the link back and it does not reduce abandonment.
Provide shipping costs as early in the process as possible. If you can, provide an estimated cost while the prospect browses your site. Your visitors want to buy; they just want the answers to all their questions when they want it; and total cost is one of those critical questions. Also, if the shipping information is the same as the billing information, include a box that shoppers can check to automatically fill in the same information. Dont waste their time while testing their keyboard skills.Suggestion: Free Shipping or Low Cost Flat-Rate Shipping test the same. Because of this, you may wish to offer a Flat Rate Shipping over Free Shipping as you will get the same results in terms of conversions, but your margins will be better with getting at least something for the shipping charges.
Show stock availability on the product page. Shoppers should not have to wait until checkout to find out that a product is out of stock. One thing that I like to see, Estimated Delivery Date or this product usually ships in x days. Deal with the I want it now! mentality, and let them know when they should expect to get their product.Note: Amazon.com does an excellent job at this.
Make it obvious what to click next. A prominent Next Step or Continue with Checkout button on each checkout page is a great idea. If possible give the shopper a visual cue as to where they are in the process. Make the button you want them to click next obvious. Dont bury it. One top 50 e-tailer mistakenly placed visually similar remove from cart and checkout buttons right next to each other. As you can imagine many people click before they read. At this site they ended up clearing their cart, and when they went to checkout found nothing in their shopping cart and immediately abandoned the site in frustration.Suggestion: Different colored buttons test out the best in this situation.
Make it easy for the shopper to edit their shopping cart. If a product comes in multiple sizes or colors, make it easy to select or change values in the shopping cart. How many times have you bought a pair of slacks online and wanted the same pants in two different colors? Make it easy for your customers to add to and edit the contents of their shopping carts. It should be simple to change quantities or options, or delete an item from the shopping cart.Suggestion: Not every cart needs this functionality. If you arent sure, survey your customers before you end up investing a lot of time and money into a system that your customers may never use. Surveying is a powerful tool that many companies dont use enough.
Make it Your Fault. If information is missing or filled out incorrectly during checkout, give a meaningful error message that is distinctly visible. It should clearly tell your visitor what needs to be corrected. The tone should state that the system was unable to understand what they entered, not that the customer made a foolish mistake.Suggestion: Not every system allows for custom error messages. Check with your provider. If they dont allow it, request it.
Make Shoppers Aware that you are a Real Entity. Checkout is the time when customers concerns start to flare up. Let them know you are a real company by giving full contact information during the checkout process.Suggestion: Testing also shows that a strong testimonial (appropriately placed) shown at checkout can boost customer confidence.
Give the Visitor the Option to Call. If visitors have a problem during checkout or just feel uncomfortable using their credit card online, give them a phone number to call. Use a separate telephone number that is different from the one you use for the rest of your site. This will help you track, evaluate and understand shoppers needs and behaviors. While youre at it, give them a fax-order form so they can complete their order by fax if they prefer.Suggestion: We have tested pop-up warnings that occur if the back button is clicked on the order page. The pop-up basically states that if they do not feel secure about giving their credit card information online, they can call and then list the toll-free number to order. This is very effective, but make sure you use a separate phone number so you can track the customers that you gained through this measure. You always want to track.
Make it Always About Your New Customer. Make the focus of the checkout process easier for your new visitor with whom you do not yet have a relationship than for your registered customer. It is much harder to acquire a new customer than to keep selling to loyal customers. Registered customers will find a way to sign in (if they dont already have a cookie), but dont make the registration and log-on a barrier in the way of new visitors finding their way to check out.Suggestion: I hate, hate, hate sites that make me register before buying. I usually always abandon the cart. Im not alone. Testing shows that this process is the leading cause for high abandonment rates.
Add 3rd Party Reinforcement Messages. Verisign, HackerSafe, BBB, or logos of credit cards have either greatly boosted conversions rate or kept them neutral. In other words, they never hurt. Hacker Safe certification seems to be helping clients all across the board especially in sites with larger average order size. They claim a 15.7% average increase in orders – directly attributable to earning the HACKER SAFE certification.Follow-up: My testing doesnt show numbers as strong (more in line with 9% increase) as Hacker Safe is claiming, but that is still a number high enough that should attract your attention.
Present Coupon Codes Carefully. Be careful how you handle these, you dont want to decrease your conversion rate. You might want to think carefully about where you present this option and how you label it. Coupons should add to the experience not create doubt for those who may not be shopping with a coupon.
Deal with Pricing Issues Head-on. If you sell name brand products and your store is price competitive or truly provides better value, why not try a Lower Price Match guarantee.
GTC: Get the Cash. Offer more payment options and add other ways to collect the cash. You can offer visitors an option to pay by credit card, check, eCheck, PayPal, Google Checkout, or any other means you can to get the cash.Suggestion: One of the worst mistakes that you can make is not giving all options, especially American Express. Many companies do not take American Express because of the high fees. I ran into this AGAIN recently. I was about to perform a transaction with a company but they didnt take American Express. I asked to speak with the owner. Sorry, we dont take that card, the fees are too high, was her reply. I politely informed her that while she feels she is saving 1% by not accepting American Express (that is how much more AMEX charges over Visa and MasterCard typically), she was actually losing$400.00 because I was turning around and walking out the door.
Not taking American Express is just plain stupid. There are many business owners just like me that only carry one credit card. Dont turn your back on them.
Offer Point of Action Reassurance. Check how often information critical to your customers buying decision gets buried in tiny type at the bottom of the page. When a customer wants to know something, they want an answer. If you walk into a store, its fairly easy to find out product warranty information. You can read the box or ask a salesperson. You should give your customer the same option online. At the Point of Action (POA), when hed figuratively be examining that box link right there to product warranties, your companys specific policies, testimonials, even optional extended service plans. At the exact point when your customer has to start filling in a form with personal information, reassure the customer that privacy is sacred to you. You may also consider having that page secured. At the point the customer might be curious about your companys shipping costs, make them concretely available. Just when the customer is wondering whether or not it is possible to return the item, if it doesnt meet their needs, make it clear that you have a no-questions-asked return policy. Make the best use of your assurances at the right time and place.
Track Your Mistakes. Develop a system that keeps you notified of errors during your checkout process. One client noticed a portion of their visitors had cookies turned off. He developed a Cookie-less checkout option and his conversion rate and sales jumped.Suggestions: Check your web logs for exact numbers of visitors who have Cookies Disabled. This month, 10.1% of visitors to our sites have cookies turned off. Looking at the data since June of 2005, the numbers are 12.1%. So the news here is that fewer surfers have Cookies Disabled. This is good news since most shopping cart systems require cookies. But before you invest in a cookie-less system, make sure that the ROI of going to the new system makes sense. How do you find out? Look at your web stats!
Save it for them. We know customers often leave a shopping cart with items in it, but they do return sometimes. Dont be overly concerned if visitors leave items behind. Just plan on doing your best to give them a reason and reminder to return and complete the sale. You may have the ability to save the cart for them or email them that they left items in the cart and can complete their order when they are ready. This can be done online at your website or through the telephone with IVR (Interactive Voice Response). Remember, if theyve gotten to the shopping cart, they are most likely considering the purchase.
When all else fails, Survey. Try an Exit survey (think of it as an objectionator) if people abandon your checkout. Try offering them an incentive to complete your survey or even save their cart. They may just tell you why they didnt complete their order.Suggestion: Offering an incentive to fill out a survey is a good idea. However, offering an incentive for those who abandoned the cart to come back is not a good idea. According to my testing, the rate of abandonment increases after about 45 days of putting in the process. The numbers indicate that users will abandon the cart on purpose to get the incentive and an additional savings. That isnt why you wanted to offer the incentive in the first place. You may want to look at other incentives instead of a percentage off the sale.

These 20 tips can help you reduce your shopping cart abandonment. Of course, every site is different and has its own environment and issues. Dont overly obsess about abandonment rates, since many people simply use the shopping cart as a placeholder for considering purchases of interest to them. Another issue to consider is competitors will go through your site to find out how you operate. They will abandon their carts too.

These tips help you focus on those whose intent it is to check out and purchase, but may have questions, doubts or obstacles holding them back. Some of these tips will result in dramatic improvements and others might not do much. The only way to find out is to test each.

Remember, the only way to improve your conversion rate is one step at a time. The best way to reduce the shopping cart abandonment is not by changing the ordering process, but changing the message on the product page. Prospects that have a higher level of trust with the merchant, are more compelled to buy the product, and who can see a real need for the product and/or service have a lower rate of cart abandonment.

Protect Your Assets – Protect Your Seo Business

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:11:58 +0000

I once had an idiot webmaster who hijacked my website and passed it off as his design. All in the hope of landing him a good account. Now I know I should be flattered but it really just pisses me off. The way I have caught these people in the past shows how stupid they are. But then again, what can I expect? If they were smart, then they could have just created their own design.

So how did I catch them? Simple. Log files. I know I have previously discussed this but I will say it again. Analyze your log files. You will discover a lot more about your site from this than through any other ranking report. Reviewing your ranking reports without analyzing your log files is like running your business with blinders on. Look at the details of your log files and regularly stress its importance to your best people on a weekly basis.

One of the most important detail on your log files that you should always review are the page views. This indicates which pages have been viewed. If you are going to be stupid enough to hijack someones code, at least be smart enough to strip out the web log code. Those who hijacked my site apparently arent smart enough to do that. They didnt strip it off and it led me right to them.

When reviewing your page views, always look for strange sites. Check out your referral logs too. You can also catch those who hijack your images and references your site that way. It is important to protect your brand on the internet. Now, how would I shut them down? Simple. Call their web host.

However, before I call their web host, I scrutinize their site first and check if I can gain something from them. As the saying goes, Dont get mad, get even. I checked DomainTools.com and found that there are 188 sites on the IP their domain is assigned to. Now, it doesnt matter whether these are all their domains or whether they are virtual hosting. The important thing is to find at least one piece of information that would introduce me to a niche that I didnt know existed. And that is key in this business. Let others do the research for you so you wont have to do the hard work all the time. All you need to do is to connect the dots.

As I have previously said, always protect yourself from prying eyes and have your own IP address assigned to your domains. I will now share something with you that I have never shared before. Like all other information that I give to you, I ask that you do not share this information outside this circle.

If I am researching and I find a power affiliates website, I will use various tools such as DomainTools.com to find out all the domains assigned to it. Now, if I see that there is only one domain assigned to it, then I know that you are hiding domains. Why? Because no one owns just one domain in this market. This will prompt me to search and search until I find them. And you can bet that I will find them. You will be found out and I will know what markets you are in.

So what do you do? How will you protect yourself? Leave a trail. Leave a trail that you dont mind others to find. For example, on one IP, I have my main site, webmarketingnow.com, a sister eCommerce Consulting site, a web design site, and a handful of others. Nothing of significance to me. But, if a competitor looks and they see some good sites, theyll think that is all that I have. They will be content with what they find because they think they have found something and will search no more.

This reminds me of the movie Quick Change starring Bill Murray, Geena Davis and Randy Quaid. They hold up a bank and then, got lost trying to find the freeway in New York during their getaway. They chanced upon a tourist and decided to stop to ask him for directions. The thing is, he isnt a tourist and ends up holding them up at gunpoint. He cleans out their wallets, but misses the bank money strapped around Bill Murrays waist. As the robber drives away, Bill Murray yells, Excuse me sir, you forgot your map, and my million dollars.

Classic.

They pacified the robber with some spare change when the real money was right there, but just out of sight. This holds true on the web. To protect yourself, I would advise that you take your key URL, assign it a unique IP and then grab four to five other domains. Build them out as dummy sites to throw off the dogs. This is what I do and it is very, very effective. You can see my ten domains, but you will never find my 300+ test domains. Protect your assets and protect your business.

Half All Queries Are Unique? How Concerned Should You Be?

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:25:48 +0000

Amit Singhal, from Google, did a 50 slide presentation back in 2004, regarding the Challenges in Running a Commercial Web Search Engine.

Why am I covering it now? First, a member sent this to me to comment on, and I think it is rather interesting to see where things were then compared to five years later. Heres a hint: Not much has changed.

Question: How many queries are unique?
Answer: Over half

At first glance, you would look at that and think I have to do a better job of getting more keywords since users search patterns are not consistent.

Wait. After looking at the data from about 60 sites, here is an example from one of my typical sites.

108k visits from 28k keyword queries. Looking at it this way, it looks quite diverse, however, looking at the Top 100 queries, 56,656 visits came through. Which means about 52,000 visits came through the remaining 27,900 queries.

Am I optimizing for 28,000 keywords? Not even close. So how do you improve your chances of coming up for many of the phrases which may never come up on an analytics report or during keyword research.

If I can quote Dan Thies, Use modifiers aggressively.

What are modifiers? You already know them, but probably by a different name.

Examples of common modifiers are:

best
buy
cheap
discount
wholesale
online
accessories

Modifiers allow you to expand your keyword set. So instead of having just blue widgets, you would have discount blue widgets, blue widget accessories etc. Geo Targeted (San Francisco, bay area, Chicago, etc.) would also be classified as a modifier.

Having modifiers, even not next to your keyword phrase can allow you to rank for phrases that you never dreamed of which may lead to sales. So use them throughout your page, or even at the bottom of the page. I often use the method of putting Related Search Terms at the bottom of an article and listing additional targeted phrases with modifiers and it works quite well since the modifiers and keywords are within the body of the document instead of in the navigation, gutter or footer.

Here is an example from one of my sites of keywords I am getting traffic from, not great traffic mind you, but it is traffic that converts. None of the keywords listed were phrases I targeted with SEO, the page just ranked for those terms based on modifiers.

Of course, modifiers are different from industry to industry. In the above example, I targeted review and ratings as modifiers. The rest just naturally ranked well based on the content on the page. You should see the same evidence on your sites as well. Make sure you go one step further and check your conversions. Chances are, you are converting for some of these long tail or unknown phrases, and you may not be #1 for the term. Some fast SEO on the term can land you a top spot, or an indented listing and more sales.

Other tidbits:
- Users give a 2-4 word query
TRUTH: Of my test domains, an average of just one query of the Top 100 over a one year time period is 5+ words.

- Most users click only the first few results
TRUTH: This is more and more true as paid search takes up more and more real estate.

- Few users go below the fold (what is actually visible without scrolling down)
TRUTH: My click through data is showing that less than 4% of click throughs occur BELOW the fold, which is usually spot 7 or lower. Being in the Top Ten isnt good enough anymore and it is getting worse.

- Far fewer users ask for the next ten results than before
TRUTH: If this was true in 2004, it is far more true today. Less than 2% of clicks occur from Page 2+.

Q&A with Google at SES

admin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:50:05 +0000

Q: Tell me more about Google SiteLinks. How do they determine which links are used?

I have tested SiteLinks algo pretty hard and the one thing I have learned is that the algo is NOT easily influenced. In other words, attempts to “steer” Google to the links you want included doesn’t work on a consistent basis.

As far as getting certain keywords to appear as SiteLinks for your domain, it has mostly to do with your site being “the” landing spot for that search. It isn’t as easy as you might think. For example, I am getting a Mac this weekend. It is my ritual, a new laptop every Labor Day, and this year, I’m going Mac … let’s see if it sticks this time.

If I do a search for “Apple” … apple.com has SiteLinks. However, it does NOT have SiteLinks for the following phrases: iPhone, iTunes, iPod, Mac. The only phrase I could get to come up for Apple.com with SiteLinks was “macintosh”, and that was really one of my “last gasp” phrases to try.

So, as you can see, even the large companies have issues when it comes to getting the right keywords tagged with SiteLinks for their domains.

Q: Does the geographic location of the web host matter for search? Organic? Local?

A: I had a great discussion about this with three Google engineers. The actual location of the server does not matter. Even though there is some “chatter” that it does matter, the choice where to host is clearly yours as a business owner. However, where people tend to get into trouble is the TLD (Top Level Domain). For example, if you had a web business in Portland, Oregon, it wouldn’t make too much sense to have a co.uk domain would it? And the same is true the other way around. If you want localized traffic, and you’re in the UK, get both the .com and .co.uk domains. Build out the .co.uk and 301 redirect the .com to your localized domain. This way you keep your brand, but you are far more likely to get localized traffic with the proper TLD than without it.

Tip: If you are in the US, you don’t need a local host to rank well locally. Your “dot com” doesn’t need to be hosted in Portland if you are also in Portland. You can host in Miami and rank just as well in the local search.

Q: What changes is Google working on right now?

A: I was able to get some info when a group of Googlers thought I was an employee by accident. The biggest issues was a new filter they are working on which would “kill half the businesses here tonight.” The individual who said that was pretty young, and I have learned over the years in this industry that young people like to talk and say bold things in order to get attention and have a feeling of “betterment”.

I don’t believe that statement for many reasons, first, he has no clue about the level of people at the party … as SES attracts mainly newbies. And I followed this comment up with a few Google engineers that I am good friends with and they basically laughed it off. I was on the Organic SEO panel with Aaron (he’s on Matt Cutts’ team) and there are no big filters being worked on currently.

So what is being worked on?

1) They just launched some new features with Website Optimizer which now allows you to remove criteria without having to create a new campaign.
2) Webmaster Tools will be adding a function in the next 30 days to allow you to view the domains which are linking to you and their “order” of importance. Note: I would be VERY surprised if they really did order them by importance as Google is very protective of their data and ranking algorithm.
3) “Universal Search” will continue to be a priority.
4) Ridding the index of Search Spam is one of the top priorities and will continue to be.

Q: Why does a page bounce from #5 to #20 and back to #5? Is this an algorithm alteration?

A: This can either be different datacenters being hit based on traffic levels or your ISP (if it is a national ISP) connecting to different datacenters. It could also be caused by either the domain or the page not having enough authority and getting small “bursts” of links but they aren’t enough to sustain it at #5, therefore it slides back to #20. Due to the complexities of the algorithm, it is too difficult for us (Google) to make a determination of ranking changes for just one keyword phrase.

Q: How should video be SEO’d? If they were going to put video on their own personal site, what would they do to ensure it ranks well for the targeted keyword phrases?

A: Google is adding by this weekend (according to talk at SES) about 70+ pieces to their algorithm. Most of the additions are in the video / Web 2.0 space. I talked to A LOT of engineers about this and you know that glazed look in people’s eye when they have NO CLUE how to answer a question, but they keep talking? This is what happened when I asked this one. They knew all about video, but wouldn’t give any specifics. I am testing this right now, so when I have some solid data, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, if you use YouTube (owned by Google) to post your video and then embed them in your site it gives you some of the best tags for video right now.

Q: What gives with Froogle showing up in the #3 spot?

A: The engineer I spoke with was obviously new, as the name “Froogle” threw her off … as it no longer goes by that name. Instead, it is known as “Google Products” and including these results in the SERPs is based on the Universal Search process which has been implemented inside of Google for some time now.

Their plan is to continue to test and to see how the SERPs are reacted by the users. That is one thing Google does very well. Instead of trying to guess what people want, they present it, test the reaction and then they make changes accordingly. There have been many changes Google has implemented over the years, that were quietly removed because they were negatives in the user experience.

Know this: Google is NOT going to sit still, they will continue to change things, test and see what makes for a better experience for the end user.

Q: Why does Google show a different number of indexed pages? For example, doing the “site” command returns 1,600 pages, however, scrolling to the end the number is 350.

A: This is a mix of both pages in the Supplemental Index and duplicate content pages. Mostly, the issue is duplicate content. While Google has removed the ability to actually see “only” pages in the Supplemental index, it does still exist.

It is recommended that if you have a high range as given in this example that you analyze the information in your Google Webmaster Tools account. Chances are good there are issues with duplicate Titles and/or Descriptions which are the main reasons for duplicate content.

Know that when you see discrepancies like this the issue is with your site and not a reporting problem by Google.