The bounce rate for this blog is quite high at 74% and I’m not sure why this is the case, or how I can improve it. I would appreciate any suggestions, or reasons for this high bounce rate?

John McNally

Recently  I have been receiving a lot of comments on posts I wrote a couple of years ago. Searching back through old posts in order to answer the comment is very time-consuming. However I have found a short cut which I’d like to share with you;

1) Go to your WordPress Blog Dashboard and click ‘comments‘

2) Click onto the post title where you have a new comment to answer.

When you get to your post go to the right hand side of the page, move to the bottom and in the Publish section click Preview Changes. This takes you to your posts commenting section where you can answer the new comment.

Using this system saves you the hassle of sorting through your categories trying to find a post you may have written two or three years ago!

I hope this short-cut helps save you time.

John McNally

I have been ill recently and have not posted anything new for a month. I watched my Alexa rating deteriorate as expected to 130,000 today. However when I checked my Google Analytics statistics
my visits has improved to 7,000 and my visitors to 6,500. WHY? I’m puzzled.

Can anyone explain the difference in Google Analytics between “Visits” and “Visitors”. Also, does anyone have a theory as to why my traffic has apparently improved with Google, though deteriorated as expected with Alexa.

If the secret is doing nothing for a month, I can easily do this again.

John McNally
Blogging in Leamington Spa, England

I’d like to ask my blog readers if you are earning money online, and if you are, how are you doing it? My instinct is to create niche, or micro niche websites and sell products as an affiliate. Perhaps creating review sites that compare and contrast different products in the niche. 

Are there any successful affiliate sellers reading this? Would you reveal how profitable being an affiliate is for you?

I am currently taking John Thornhill’s Masterclass course which is directed towards creating your own eBook, and selling this to your list, and via an affiliate program with Clickbank.  Has anyone done this and made money?

I don’t want this post to appear negative but I am concerned about the annual costs of being involved with Internet Marketing. Paying for Hosting, Domain names and Aweber List management every year, when I have yet to receive any income.

I realise that I am still an apprentice at this game and most of my peer group are also students, however I would appreciate any hard facts from fellow students, or even better, long-term marketers.

Do you recommend Internet Marketing as a career? How do you make your money? Is it worthwhile?  

John McNally
Uncertain in Leamington Spa, England

2) Zahid Yakoob  If you submit articles to eZine articles (and if you don’t, why not?) you need to read this latest post by Zahid. In it he outlines recent rule changes at eZine Articles and the effects they could have on you.

3) Tristan has a useful checklist of all the blogging resolutions we set ourselves for 2011. He has listed 101 things to do, but cautions against trying them all. As Tristan said that would be insane, but the list is a handy reminder of what we should be doing.

4) Brankica has listed 140 of her favourite blogs, so if you ever get stuck for visiting somewhere new, your prayers have been answered. What I found more interesting than the list itself, is the way Brankica has attached the list to Twitter or Facebook, which I presume gets more traffic generated.

5) Rick LaPoint gives us some SEO basics that we can all follow when blogging. You don’t have to be an expert or understand how this works, just follow Rick’s proven ways to improve page rankings with Google. 

John McNally
Leamington Spa, England

Web Hosting companies I have used include UK2.net, D9 and 1and1, however I’m not sure which is the cheapest?

I moved companies for reasons of convenience. I’m with 1and1 now because my techie friend was also with them, and he was happier working with 1and1.

The Masterclass recommends D9 hosting and for the first year of my course I was paying for two hosting accounts D9 and 1and1.

That was obviously a bad idea, so I had to decide between the two. I already had 10 websites and 20 domain names registered with 1and1, and I only had my blog hosted by D9, so it seemed logical to transfer my blog to 1and1 and close my D9 account.

This was logical, but may have been wrong, I’m not sure. D9 offers a free transfer service so I could have got them to transfer all my sites to D9 for nothing. No hassle, they do everything.

Next comes price. 1and1 charge £15 per month for 100gb of web space, D9 charges $15 for 100gb web space, and Fasthosts have unlimited web space for £15. Providing I stay under 100gb of web space D9 is cheaper, but if I need more memory then Fasthosts is cheapest with unlimited space.

I don’t know about you but I’m confused with all this. There are so many web hosting companies who structure their prices in different ways it becomes very difficult to compare. Have a look at the following chart; 

1and1 is second placed ranking here which I’m pleased about, but they are not the cheapest. Being a fussy consumer I not only want cheap, I want reliability and ease of use.

Can anyone recommend a hosting company and let me know the monthly price? Thanks.

John McNally
Confused in Leamington Spa, England

Once you get the Alexa toolbar installed, watching your traffic rankings can become addictive, especially if the ranking improves every day.

Google and Alexa both measure traffic but in slightly different ways, Google gives a more accurate picture of absolute traffic. Alexa only gives a ranking for sites with their toolbar installed, and compares them to other sites with the toolbar. This can lead to strange effects.

The difference becomes most apparent as you get near the 100,000 Alexa ranking, here the thick end of a long tail gets to work. Blogs have a long tail distribution on the web, with relatively fewer blogs in the sub 100,000 ranking, while there are millions in the long thin tail.

This means that when you start blogging and checking your traffic you are in the thin part of the distribution. You probably have an Alexa ranking of over a million, but only a small effort on your part, perhaps posting more regularly or commenting on other blogs, will have a huge effect on your Alexa rank.

Very shortly you will move from over a million to 700,000. This is because Alexa compares your site against other sites of similar ranking. If those sites are doing nothing for traffic but you are, then your ranking jumps in big steps, you are in the long thin tail and small changes have big effects.

This is great because it encourages you to do more work on your site, you are rewarded every day with big changes, and watching the Alexa toolbar can become addictive. Unfortunately this doesn’t last forever. As your traffic improves, you gradually get nearer and nearer to the thick end of the traffic distribution (pictured red here).

I’ve noticed that since getting a ranking of 120,000, my site only improves by 1,000 per day or even less. I am in the thick end of the graph and competing with other blogs who are working hard to get more traffic. The competition is more intense here, there are no easy ‘dead blogs’ to beat as there were when I first started.

My site is being compared to other blogs with owners who are actively working to get more traffic. Other bloggers who are working hard just like me, so the rate of improvement slows down. Looking on the bright side however it also means my ranking won’t get worse in big jumps either.

John McNally

2) Bill Murney gets a second showing in the Fabulous Five because he has written a post about my favourite comedy double act; Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Half the humour is produced by watching Pete and Dud trying, and failing, to keep a straight face while telling their tall stories.

3) Hansi muses on link farms, and has tried to start his own by setting up another blog he links to. This must be the smallest link farm in the blogosphere, but Hans might just have stumbled upon something that could improve your blog SEO.

4) Nick Truman has a new Android phone and he loves it. I couldn’t understand why, but Nick does love the Android. I have a mobile phone that I don’t use, and my main house phone usually gets answered by a machine. Phone calls miss out a large part of human communication – body language. That’s my view, but find out why Nick loves his Android here……..

5) Mandy Allen has been missing from the blogosphere for a while, but here Mandy explains why. It involves Facebook and an extended family. Whatever the reason, we are all glad to have Mandy back in blog land.

John McNally
Leamington Spa, England

I must have bought around 25 different schemes over a period of 40 years, so I feel I have restrained my urge to buy. But nevertheless some people are a little bit better off due to my gullibility. I don’t mind, the sales letter must have been good, and the get rich quick scheme kept me out of mischief for a while.

Now I’m retired I’m a bit more careful with my money, something has to be really good for me to dip into my beer money. Just recently a ‘blind’ sales letter arrived that piqued my interest.

‘Blind’ letters are those sales messages that outline all the things the product isn’t. Blind letters are often used for get rich quick schemes, because if you knew what the scheme was in advance, you wouldn’t buy.

Having read a great deal of get rich quick schemes, I like to use blind copies as my free puzzle, I try and work out what it is. Here’s a list I recently received.

The Product is not:
Gambling
Stock Trading
Multi Level Marketing
eBay or similar auction sites
Face to face selling or phone selling
Forex
Selling to friends of family
Import /Export
Selling Kleeneze or any household catalogue
Affiliate Marketing
Small advert trading
Party Selling
Product Creation
eMail Marketing
Envelope Stuffing

Even this long list leaves some gaps, however the letter also gave some plus points that stumped me:

Everyone has a good time
A charity benefits
I get paid handsomely

That stumped me, I had to send off £39 for the answer. It was Pig Racing! There was no way I could have guessed that.

I shall write another post with the details, but if you want to know more now, my pig website is: http://www.Warwickpigraces.co.uk

John McNally
Racing pigs in Leamington Spa, England

1) Bill Murney  The best way to achieve visitors to your website is obtain a page one listing in Google. Unfortunately only 10 listings are featured on the first page for each keyword phrase and of course there are many websites competing for this front page position.

The number one reason why people fail in an online business is that they fail to assess the strength of the competition. They blindly jump into a niche and start creating content on their site and just hope that Google will magically list the site on the front page. Click Here for More…

2) Steve Scott

I’ve Quit Blogging…

… For one day

I hope you’ll excuse my little trickery with the headline.  I wrote it to get your attention and talk about an important change on this site.

Today marks one whole year of a blogging streak.  February 15^th, 2010 was the last time I missed a day of posting.  I don’t know how I managed to maintain this streak.  Especially since I lived out of a backpack for seven months.

Tomorrow marks another special occasion.  I’ll wake up, log into my computer, and for the first time in a year, I won’t read the responses to my latest post.

That’s because there won’t BE a post!

Yup, I’ve decided to take a day off.

Why? To find out WHY? Click Here.

3) John Thornhill

Today I have something to share with you I think you will enjoy, especially if you still haven’t got started online. It’s an audio consultation I recorded with Craig Stout, Craig is currently going through my Masterclass Program and asked if he could interview me.

I agreed and decided we shared so much valuable content that I simply had you let you have a listen. I mostly talk about getting started but I also go into a lot of other things. To listen to the audio click here for John’s Blog.

4) Ralph Carlson

Dancing with yourself.  What’s fun about that?

I never got the  dances of the 60?s. You know, the ones where you don’t touch your partner.  For me, dancing was all about holding your partner close and feeling her head on your chest. Even with the fast dances you held hands and swung her into your arms from time to time. These new dances were different. You never touched. You hardly even acknowledged that you have a partner. It made no sense.  But it was all the rage. Click Here for more Nostalgia.

5) Jimi Jones
Every blogger wants to increase their lot in life by being an industry leader. There are examples everywhere of successful marketers and entrepreneurs who are just killing it on the internet.

To reach such a level of success requires a tremendous amount of hard work and dedication, but above all, it requires a laser-like focus. Without focus, many wasted hours, days and months will pass with little progress toward your goal………..Click Here to Read More.
John McNally
Blogging in Leamington Spa, England