SeoBlackhat.co.uk » Cloaking Techniques

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

Simple way to blank the referrers

admin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:33:55 +0000

Here’s what I’m now using with prosper, because I want to keep the subids that prosper makes. Not just for tracking keywords, but also if you’re doing incentive to keep track of what user made what purchase. (passing some userid as the keyword on your offer page)

Anyway, here’s the php page that goes after prosper:

Code:


$subid=$_GET["kw"];

//$url="http://www.MYAFFILIATELINK.com/r.php?a=A-BUNCH-OF-CODE&s1=".$subid;

//usetheurlbelowfortesting

$url="whoami.php";

if(!isset($HTTP_REFERER))

{

echo"";

}

else

{

echo"
echo"http://www.yahoo.com"/>";

}

?>

Notice that I’m not trying to fix it if there is a referrer present. Just dump that click and forget about it. No sense sweating over trying to squeeze out the maybe 1 or 2 clicks of 1000 that got through prosper un-blanked!
As I’ve written it above, your affiliate URL is commented out so you can test it first with the whoami.php below:

Code:


$referrer=$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];

$browser=$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];

$ipAddress=$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];

echo"referrer:".$referrer;

echo"
browser:".$browser;

echo"
IPAddress:".$ipAddress;

?>

When you’re satisfied that the referrer shows up empty and you’re done testing, comment out the whoami line and uncomment out your url.

So, in prosper set #3 use a link to the first code above as your affiliate url, making sure to add “?kw=” at the end.
www.mydomain.com/makemeskinny.php?kw=
where the first code block you saved as makemeskinny.php
or something like that. Whatever it is, keep in mind that the url for this refresh page will be in the browser history, so try to sound a little bit white hat.

BlackHat New Identity = unlimited resources -

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:39:11 +0000

As some people know im big time black hat.. on the net and off..

There are various ways to either take an identity or create your own with alot of ease.. its just knowing how to do it.. and its good to keep your actual name / identity clean

I call it beating the system

Im from the UK so I will explain where and what entails and what can be gained from changing your personal info:

Years ago I was in the British army, came out with alot of debt, but worked with intelligence officers.. so I know a thing or two..

method 1#
It is legal without using deed poll, you can just resume any name that you think off, its best putting this in your local newspaper and letting resources such as you tax office know that you have done it.. it is that simple:

this is done in stages,

NAMECHANGE = BILLS = BANK ACCOUNT / PASSPORT /

the problems with this is you need ID’S and thru this method it can be hard, because you will need a national insurance number: or bills to get bank details to resume more proof

Method#2
Deed poll, change your name, but this will be tied to you address.. so its always best to use a family or close friend address, BUT do a credit report on the address, make sure the address is not black listed, if it is you cannot get credit, or credit cards.. once your name has changed then you can go for bank accounts, but the low down on this, is that you do actually change your name by law.. so I wouldnt use this method.

Method#3
My favorite, Using fake documents.. There is a site out there, (pm me for the site) which charges 300 for a UK driving license.. they do utility bills, bank statements.. ok all at a price but you can setup a virtual identity..

Ive tried this, the photo id of the driving license was on TV approx 6 months ago, they showed an actual official from dvla a fake license and he couldnt tell the difference.. these have the hologram logo on them, the dogs bollocks.. then there is utility bills, rent statements, landlord agreements.. all with the info on that you choose.. all that is real is the picture of your mug shot..

Once you have all this, you could have real credit cards, real bank accounts, under your fake ID. You then can move to the internet setup your paypal , **** and scam or make a fortune..

problems come accross is national insurance, a freidn of mine changed his last 2 digits on his NI, and after several months, contacted NI, saying his boss told him his NI was wrong and why he didnt have a ni number.. they asked for his birth certificate.. he didnt have one.. told a cock and bull story he lived on a farm, in a remote area..and was brought up by his aunt and didnt know his real family.. he got his NI number 6 weeks later and his NI card came a further 2 weeks later

I personally know a few people making new accounts every 6 weeks, spending like hell, , making shops on **** with virtual stock, making a small mint then closing everything they have..

my brother is setting up a mortgage with a fake ID.. he wants to do property management, to sell and move on..or to let properties..

Unlimited resources

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

Blackhat – Link Building

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:24:30 +0000

Community Hacking – 96 Baiting Strategies You Can Employ

This was a near repeat of the session from last year. This is a classic example of marketing hype. They didn’t go over 96 Link Baiting strategies. How did they come up with 96? Well, there are 12 types of links and eight types of link bait. 12 x 8 = 96. Yeah, I know, I thought it was lame too. Basically they covered only 8 strategies, and sadly, not all 8 were not worthy of covering.

“Link Bait” isn’t without controversy. If you aren’t familiar with the term,

1. Bill Hartzer, Search Engine Optimization Manager, Vizion Interactive

Regularly create Link Bait on your site and encourage everyone to participate. JW: This is called a Blog. I would reserve for Link Bait in a “conversational” mode to be placed in your Blog.

Respond to breaking news immediately, post quickly and submit to social sites. This will help you boost your organic rankings, as more pages are created and you have a better shot at getting links if you get in the conversation early.

JW: And in “classic fashion” of using the same presentation as last year and not verifying the links, Hartzer recommends using Blogstorm Tracker, which offered the service last year to track a Blog’s most important posts based on incoming links. The problem is, they don’t offer the service anymore. I am checking into the possibility of adding a tool like it to our tool set.

2. Jane Copland, Search Marketing Consultant, SEOMoz

It is always a good idea to enable comments as readers comments add value to your site and make your site more interesting. You should only disable comments when comments are inappropriate. JW: And this was the only decent piece of advice given. I highly advise using the Spam Karma plugin for WordPress. It has greatly reduced the amount of Spam comments to my Blogs.

3. Todd Malicoat, Independent Marketing Consultant, Meta4creations, LLC

Focused a lot on Digg and how you need a strong network of “friends” or “buddies” to “Digg” your stories.JW: Things are more complex than that now. That may have been easy to do a year ago, but not today. I will have more information in the Social Media write-up.

4. Ian Ring, Application Developer, IGLOO Inc.

Measure all page elements: clicks, purchases, subscriptions, sales leads, registration and duplicate those that thrive.

Real-World Low-Risk, High-Reward Link Building Strategies

1. Eric Enge, President, Stone Temple Consulting

Social News sites give opportunities for links if you keep the audience interested and create valuable content.JW: “Valuable Content” is oversold at these conferences. It is MARKETABLE content. There is a difference.

Always build content that will build your reputation. Be authoritative and make sure you exude the right image. JW: Examples of this would includes: always check your resources for accuracy, make sure you look at the “other side” of the story, admit when you are wrong, downplay when you are right, give credit to others when possible, etc.

Pay special attention to your title. Your title must be compelling and interesting. Your keyword needs to be in the title and in the Digg submission title.

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.

How To: Moving Your Domain to a New Server

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:08:24 +0000

Many people ask me on a regular basis what is one of the best methods for taking a domain to a new server without loosing anything. Ive taken the time to develop a list of things you should do, and trust me I figured this out the hard way.

Since you will be moving your domain you will be also getting a new IP address. Dont go ahead and assume that its actually a brand new IP address. It may be new to you, but it could be someones old IP address. Ensure that you do a check to verify that this is a clean IP address. I use the service known as Black List Monitor. This is one thing you will not want to mess around with, spend a few extra dollars and avoid cheap services, you want to ensure its clean or you may run into problems in the future. There are other IP monitors out there, but I prefer to use the Black List Monitor myself.

This will not check to see if the IP address been banned from the search engines, since they dont actually publish a list, but I do know that search engines dont have a permanent ban on IP addresses. Some search engines like Ask tend to be the ones that do long period bans, but the big guys tend to only do a ban for approximately 72 hours, since the bad guys can easily just get another IP address to do what they want to do.

For those that are still a small business dont worry too much as they will check four IP addresses. We actually use Pro Plus to check 25 different IP addresses against the 66 spam lists. Beware though AOL seems to ban just about anyone if they receive a complaint, without even checking things.

I have yet to have an issue with the use of static and dynamic sites, so by going through to following information you should find yourself in good shape throughout your move. I recommend that you attempt to do the move on a weekend if you can have support from your host. If not do it during the time where you can get support from your host. Dont let yourself get stressed out waiting for an email reply, do it when they are available for you. You should try getting a host that does work weekends, just because its a weekend doesnt mean everyone should be off, youre working why arent they.

Step One: This is one of the most important steps and needs to be done. Check the IP address to ensure its clean. You dont want an IP address that has been blacklisted or you will find yourself running into many problems. Make sure you do this step or youll regret it.

Step Two: Get yourself a web host that can meet your technical and financial needs. Avoid companies that make you go through those annoying phone prompts before you reach someone. Setup your account with them. One host provider that I would is pugmarks.com. They happen to be the parent company for our admins.

Step Three: Create a physical backup of your website. You want to avoid any risks of losing your website and by having backup you can rest easy knowing its there.

Important note: Do not rely on the server admin to have backup for you. When you hit this critical moment that last thing you want to hear is that they forgot.

Step Four: Now you will begin creating the domain account in your new server configuring it to match your needs.

Step Five: Now is the time to upload your site onto the new server. Static pages are much easier, all you need to do is click upload and go for some lunch. Now dynamic sites are different, there is database work involved with them. Blogs are even more complicated due to the MySQL components. If you arent familiar with what to do, get someone who is. Dont lose money because your website is down for a few days, pay the extra cash and get things rolling much faster having someone experienced doing it. One of the major pains is ensuring that you have the databases synchronized through the transition.

Step Six: You will now want to go to your IP address and check to see if things are loading correctly. Go through and check the links to make sure that the databases are responding, eCommerce, forms, and everything else. This is the best time to ensure that there isnt anything broken, not after youve gone through mking the DNS change. It is recommended to leave the site in the new server for approximately a week so you and your team can go through verifying everything is functioning correctly. You never want to make a switch until everything is working properly.

Step Seven: Now you will be changing your DNS to point to the new host. Just to clarify what the DNS is, its a system that makes sense of your domain and sends to the IP address. There is also a setting known as the TTL (Time to Live) that you need to be aware of. This will be the setting that informs the browser how many seconds the DNS setting is correct. This will give the browser the freedom to see everything something hasnt moved. Usually the average TTL is going to be set for six hours, but this can vary. This is great for when you make changes you can see it but someone else cant for the timeframe that has been set.

To check your TTL setting you can use the dig command. For more information on this command you can contact your server admin and they will give you further details. When you have a shorter TTL the process will be smoother and the reason why it will be smoother is when you have people navigating your site on the old server and then the change to the new server occurs you could see some problems arise and confuse people greatly.

Things can get worse since the DNS is a hierarchical so if someone is using a large ISP such as Comcast and they go to your website before things switch, the users of that ISP will see the old site until the TTL expires. This is why you need to attempt getting a TTL that is an hour or less and is possible if you ask really nicely. Just avoid telling them that you are going to be moving your website to a new server that is probably their competition. A company isnt going to go the extra mile for you when youre leaving their company.

For those that have their own server you can simply register your domain as a server. If you do have your own server you will want to make sure that youve made the MX records for email have been set properly. For those with more then one server you may want to make additional MX records that point to your other servers. This is a precautionary step so if anything does happen you will still be able to receive all your emails from the other server. This is one superb backup method. You can easily ask your server admin to give you more information and how you can set this up. It isnt too hard to do and you will surely get more sleep knowing everything is secure. Just make sure that you havent hosted the servers in the same location, so if something does happen that crashes your server you still have backup to receive your emails.

Step Eight: Now its time to be patient for your DNS to change propagate into the web. Note: Even though things may be working on your computer doesnt mean it will be working on other peoples computers. You will be waiting for the old TTLs to expire and then for your new IP address to be accessed. Everything deals with the Registrar and if the nameservers are well known. If this happens to be the case the switch should only take a few hours instead of days. You can see if the switch has took place by using the following command: dig+trace domain.

Step Nine: Check your log files and verify that GoogleBot and any other spiders are able to access your IP. You can ping your domain as well and if your new IP is resolving you will know that you are getting close. One good thing at this point is that now your new visitors will be able to see your new site, but the old ones will be awaiting the TTL refresh.

Step Ten: Now you are finally done! Shut down your old site/server and begin your new road!

How to Test a Market Quickly – ‘Testing the Waters’

admin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:07:32 +0000

I shared this recently with a colleague and he suggested I pass it on. Often, when you are looking to get into a market, you get in without doing some quick math in your head and a few searches to determine if you should do that $500.00 ad spend in AdWords as a test. When you find a potential market, spend ten minutes to determine if it can be profitable. If it can be, then turn on the PPC test to see if it can convert well for you. Sometimes, a great market just wont convert well for you it happens and it is best to know as soon as possible if the market is a dud. But make sure you do these steps first:

In this example, I will use ClickBank, which sells mostly eBooks. You can apply these steps to any affiliate program or network.

Step One: Write down the industry, exact eBook name and author.

Step Two: Write down the commission per sale.

Step Three: Based on a conversion ratio of 3%, project revenue. (while I realize that 3% seems high, it is what you should expect with the right targeted keywords, the right product and the right landing page).

Step Four: Write down your break even point in terms of Cost Per Click (CPC).

Step Five: Open the Keyword Tool in Google AdWords

Step Six: Enter the main keyword or the merchants site

Step Seven: Show Estimated CPC, Search Volume Trends and Highest Volume Occurred In (drop down Choose Columns to Display)

Step Eight: Change Match Type to Exact (we dont want non-qualified clicks)

Step Nine: Sort by Estimated CPC (highest first)

Step Ten: Scroll down to the range of the break even point you wrote down in Step Four. You must have at least 300 in Search Volume from the month prior to consider using the keyword phrase. This will give you ten potential searchers per day.

Step Eleven: Verify that at least 100 clicks per day can be had with the keywords which match the above criteria.

Step Twelve: Re-run Traffic Estimator and target the actual product name and the authors name and look for traffic estimates of ten clicks or more.

Lets do an example together:

1. Dog Training. Kingdom of Pets: SitStayFetch by Daniel Stevens

2. $31.23

3. $93.69 ($31.23 x 3) 3 sales is based on 100 visitors at 3% conversion (most will state that this conversion ratio is too high, but because we will focus on the keywords that sell, this is the minimum that you should expect).

4. $0.94 ($93.69/100) Paying $0.94 per click would break even on the campaign.

5. N/A

6. I prefer to target the merchants site, as it often gives me a faster pull of effective keywords. I can also use SpyFu as outlined in yesterdays edition. So I put in: http://www.kingdomofpets.com/

7-9. N/A

10. The first section are keywords related to how to train which is the focus of the site and the keywords we want to focus on to sell the guide. Here are the ones that I selected:

how to train dog ($0.96) 74,000. Yes, this is above the range, but just barely and it is highly focused.
how to train my dog ($.90) 3,600
how to train a puppy ($0.80) 27,100
how to train puppies ($0.56) 3,600

The other sections? You can target them, but you will need to create a new landing page for each because each has a different market and we want to keep our conversions as high as possible.Here are some ideas:

dog training collar – this would be an eCommerce product sale rather than an informational eBook.

dog trainer – with the slumping economy, many could be looking to moonlight to help make ends meet. This could spur you to create your own product on how to make a career out of being a dog trainer. There is plenty of information to pull from on the web and being the merchant often is the ticket you have been looking for.

dog bark – this is a problem. By targeting your landing page to show how the problem can be solved quickly, easily and affordably is what the prospect is seeking.

This is where out of the box thinking comes in. Business opportunities can come anytime and anywhere, but you must seize the opportunity.

11. Verified. On the conservative side, 3,000 searches per day should result in at least 100 clicks.

12. Searching for kingdom of pets, sitstayfetch, sit stay fetch and daniel stevens did not return results which were usable.

With the above, it can be assumed since we can get over 100 clicks per day at around the break even point that this would be a product worth pursuing. A $50-$300.00 PPC test would be worthwhile.

PPC Tip: I learned this one from Dan Thies over at SEOFastStart.com and StomperNet Faculty member. Make your bids half of what the top bid is, so if you do this, then you can target keywords at DOUBLE your break-even point to gain more qualified click throughs.