Have you checked out my Entrecard landing page lately?

If you visited through Entrecard before then you’ve realised this is something new I’ve done. I’ve done it for a reason I’ll tell you how doing the same can benefit your site. You don’t have to specifically use this for Entrecard visitors; you could promote your product a lot better with better landing pages. I used it with Entrecard visitors because people mostly drop and leave.

Bounce Rate

That figure is my bounce rate from Entrecard, it’s not to good (but I’m guessing there is worse, tell me yours?) and I wanted to find a way to improve it. The changes below which I’ve done will help bring this statistic down!

Importance of Landing Page
Your landing page is extremely important to your sites success. Your landing page will display what you want your visitors to see. Putting it dominantly in their face will increase on conversions, rss subscriptions, etc. Your landing page is your blogs advertisement; it will help visitors stay if they like what they see.

Giving Visitors the most Important Information
When you create your landing page you need to know what information you want to predominantly display, here’s a list of recommend things:

• Entrecard
• Competitions
• Popular Articles

Everyone will want to display something different so what is displayed on it is your decision. You will want to limit the amount of information that you display on their and maybe rotate what you put on it on a regular basis to show what you want. Your landing page is a spotlight to what you want to show, make sure it’s something that people will be interested in.

Visual
The visual aspect of your landing page doesn’t have to be as complicated as you may think. You can add a design element but it’s not essential, you can be direct with your writing. Make sure you don’t include thousands of images, last thing someone wants is to be waiting for 10 hours loading up a page and it won’t look good. Display the image you need most and think, do you actually need an image?

Choosing your text colour and size is important on your landing page. Different sizes and colours will attract the visitor to different places. Make sure you highlight in bold and do what you can to point out what you want the visitor to see most. Take a look at what things I did in my first landing page I created. The red text draws your attention

Making Sure it’s Above the Fold
The length of your landing page is important. Mines very short and this means that the visit does not have to go scrolling down the page. Try to fit everything above the fold so it’s in direct view of your visitor.

Linking
Make sure to link to the pages that you wish people to see as much as you can and this will give them more chance of clicking to the place you want them to see. Choose your post that you wish to link to as choosing a lot of links will show that you are throwing everything at them!

Making Changes
My landing page is very dull at the moment, but I’m going to be making various changes to see what I can achieve from it! It’s my small page where I can target information I want visitors to see most. Give it a try, it doesn’t take long to create one and you may see better results from it! Don’t be afraid to make changes.

Drop me a line if you need any help with your landing page or you have ideas for improving your landing page! I’d be glad to hear them.

If I mentioned the name Alan Johnson, 9 out of 10 people who blog would know what blog to associate it with. That is of course TheRatingBlog.com a blog about online business, SEO, internet marketing and the that it’s the industry’s fastest growing blog. Alan was able to gain 1000 subscribers within a month and 2000 within 7 weeks, and his statistics that he has earned through his dedication show for everything!

This month I wanted to post an interview on Thatblogsite and I thought about who I could ask. I’ve been following Alan’s blog since it pretty much started and the information I’ve gained from is worth paying $1,000’s for. Alan’s articles will take up hours of your time as they are interesting and hold tons of useful information!

Alan was happy to reply and accept my interview request that I presented to him in an email about a week ago. I posted the questions straight to Alan in the same email and within a couple of days he had replied with answers that were very interesting. I hope I asked the right questions and I hope you enjoy reading the interview.

1) Do you have roughly the day that the idea of starting TheRatingBlog popped into your head and what was the first thing you did?

Basically, the idea behind TheRatingBlog.com came as a result of the
fact that I was sick and tired of seeing all sorts of self-proclaimed
“gurus” trying to trick people into buying their overpriced eBooks
thinking that they can get rich overnight. I was sick and tired of the
hype, I was sick and tired of seeing those long sales letters and
decided to do something about it.

I have decided to approach the market with something far better than
anything they could come up with and offer everything absolutely free
of charge. We can take “The Online Business Handbook” as an example.
You have all sorts of clowns trying to sell an eBook containing a few
pages of useless information and, as such, I have written a 200-page
moneymaking guide which puts such products to shame and I’m offering
it for free.

2) You seem to have never ending knowledge with the quality articles that you produce, where did you learn it all?

I had the best possible teacher - life. I have worked hard for
everything I have ever had and that way of thinking has helped me
secure the lifestyle my family deserves. I’ve also been running a
brick&mortar business (and, until my children are ready to take over
the family business, I will still be running it) for quite some time,
and that has definitely helped as well.

Life has taught me never to rely on luck and that hard work is always
the way to go. My attitude towards blogging has reflected that right
from day one and the results have indeed proven to be more than
worthwhile.

3) I wondered if you’d be to kind to share what methods do you currently use to monetize your website with my readers?

Since, as far as this niche is concerned, there are more than a few
great options to choose from, I have been promoting products as an
affiliate right from the beginning and, recently, I have started to
accept private ads as well.

4) How many hours a day do you spend writing?

Maximizing results is the name of the game. Since I am also running a
business, being productive is a must and that’s why I decide what
tasks I spend my time on at a certain point based on how I am feeling.
Since we are only human, it’s impossible to always be able to maximize
results with a certain task. For example, if I feel creative then I
write as many articles as possible in advance, if I feel in the mood
for tasks related to managing my brick&mortar business, I take care of
them.

Assuming that I am in a great writing mood, let’s say that I can write
x words per hour but, if that is not the case, I will only be able to
write three times less. Or in other words, when I am not feeling
creative, I have to spend far more time in order to write a certain
number of articles and, since the day only has 24 hours, that is
simply not an option.

Again, if you are serious about being productive, maximizing results
is simply a must.

5) Once you’ve finished writing, what do you usually do?

I try to spend as much time with my family as possible because, as a
father or husband, you are far more than just a walking paycheck and
yes, there are always things money can’t buy.

6) The amount of blogs you guest post on it amazing, how many posts do you write daily just to do this?

I always write posts in advance and, whenever I feel that I am able to
maximize results, I do just that, as previously mentioned.

7) I hope you don’t mind me asking, how are your earnings going since you’ve started your blog?

I have earned money right from day one, and as traffic has increased
(for example, I have received over 50k unique visits and 200k
impressions last month, and I’m sure these figures speak for
themselves), so have my earnings. I am currently earning 4 figures per
month, and that is definitely impressive given then fact that
TheRatingBlog.com is only three months old.

My blog has received some impressive exposure right from day one (I
have, for example, been able to hit the Digg frontpage on the very day
of the launch) and I have managed to build upon a solid foundation,
with the results being more than worthwhile.

8 ) Finally, do you have any blogging tips for the readers?

One of the most important principles by which I am guided as a blogger
(I have also shared this on my blog): “when doing something, do it in
style and stand out”.

Be passionate about what you’re doing and make sure your attitude
reflects that. Believe in yourself and in your ability to provide
value, add hard work to the equation and you are on the right track.
As far as your journey is concerned, the road will, rest assured, get
bumpy every once in a while, being successful can never be a piece of
cake but, as far as I am concerned, I am loving every minute of it.

Best wishes,

Alan Johnson

Thank you very much for doing the interview.

I’ve just come in from Ice skating so I’m very tired. This week I’ve been up to quite a lot blogging and trying to launch some new websites. I have a few projects that I am working on to try and earn from them so that’s taking up a lot of time. This week I have my theory test for driving and I’ve been hard at revising for that to!

This week I launched my campaign to collect Entrecard credits for my huge Entrecard credit giveaway at the end of April, I’ll be including all donators with a link in a post to help create links back to your blog. I managed to ask Alan Johnson for an Interview and he responded so I will be posting that sometime this week.

As always there have been excellent posts around the blogosphere and as I normally do weekly, I put them all in a post for you to visit.

InternetBabel.com
How to Run a Good Competition - Part 1: Planning - Launching a competition soon? Let Nick of InternetBabel provide you with the information that he followed when he gained over 100 RSS subscribers from a contest. This is the first part of how to run a good competition.

JasonBoom.com
Creating Stop Signs for Site Traffic - A very interesting post by Jason on how to get your visitors to stop and look at your site by using different techniques. It’s complete with case studies on how other sites do it!

JohnChow.com
With Better Health Comes More Money Online - This is something that I read very well because some of this I don’t do and it affects my health! Remember your health is important!

ProBlogger.com
How to Breathe Life Back into Your Blog - Need ideas to get your blog going again? A nice post here will give you some tips.
Create a Video Tutorial and Help Others - Something that I want to try in the future and this is a very helpful post that will help you do it to!

ZacJohnson.com
FireFox, Google’s Super Affiliate! - Very interesting information on Mozilla’s relationship with Google! Let’s just say the sum $66,840,850, a very nice sum!
How to Effectively Sell Private Advertising on Your Blog - Want to sell those spaces on your advert spaces? Zac Johnson writes how!

TheRatingBlog.com
How I Turned My Blog Into the Industry’s Fastest Growing Resource - Alan has put together all his blog has done, all the resources that will help you blog better and how Alan got to where he is. It’s a long read but compiles great information!

TylerCruz.com
Getting Creative With Keywords - Choosing great keywords will generate a lot of traffic for your website. This post provides great tips on how to make your keywords work for you.

Happy Easter and have a great week!

TNX.net is a unique text link advertising service that I was introduced to only a week ago and with the title the Text Link Revolution, that was something I definitely had to try out. Initial reactions to what I saw on their homepage were very good. Let’s take at their current network statistics what I’m currently seeing whilst writing this review:

• Users: 49,498
• Daily Growth: +0.26% (currently)
• Text link ads sold: 23 906 059
• Sale speed: 15 693 Links/Hour

Other stats I saw once I logged in:

• Links created in last hour: 12703
• Number of pages indexed by TNX: 27147715

Other:
Alexa ranking: 11,022

That’s a very healthy network for one that has only been open since September last year and one hell of a lot of text links sold. I signed up to TNX.net to have a poke around and see what I can find interesting for you guys.

Website
The TNX homepage is certainly nice to look at with a nice blend of light blue, white and orange but I’m sure you’re interested in the usability of the website.

Signing up to TNX.net is extremely easy and quick. The sign-up process only asks for simple information and your account is set up within seconds. Once you’re set up all your options are outlined simply at your control panel homepage.

You only have to input your username you wish, password, name and email and away you go! It’s very simple and does not waste any of your time. When submitting your website to their system, it must be individually approved by their team.

Navigation

The navigation is very simple to use outlining all the options clearly for the webmaster and for the advertiser as well as their affiliate program and support link so you won’t be getting lost anytime soon.

Publishers
TNX has a very different way of operating things compared to other text link advertising companies. With TNX you’re able to sell links on every page of your website, this means that you are able generate up to 10 times more profit than if you were offering sidewide links.

As a webmaster you have the option to choose which advertisers you wish to accept links letting you place only relevant links to your page. Once your blog has been approved, with a simple install of a code on your website you’re ready to start using the service. TNX runs on a points system that allows the publisher to trade in the points to TNX for cash (keeping them and waiting for the price to increase for credits is an option), sell them to other TNX users or there is the option of keeping them to buy advertising for yourself.

The value that you sell your links for in TNX-points is calculated by TNX depending on statistics like PR, link popularity, website category and outbound link numbers. TNX take a 12.5% from each person involved in the transaction that’ll be 25% of the transaction amount.

Advertisers
Being an advertiser, you’re in for a real bargain in thousands of links for an extremely reasonable price! You purchase a certain number of points for a price. Prices can be only $11 for 10,000 static links directly to your website which is extremely cheap. In a few clicks you could be promoting keywords directed to your website.

TNX offers a free tool to make paid links natural to Google, which I’m not entirely sure about myself because we never know what Google is up to and how they change and moderate things but it helps to modify your links to look more natural. TNX also offer some very good advice to advertisers on how to rank number 1 in Google for highly competitive keywords.

Support
After looking at the support that they offer, I see they give live support and forum support. Live support can’t be online 24/7 so I’d like to see a few different alternatives in the future like phone support or a ticket system. People who need support really appreciate talking directly to a member of staff and increased means of support will definitely keep users at TNX.

Affiliate Program & Special Offer
TNX also offer a referral program and with which you earn 13.3% of all TNX-points that are generated by the webmaster you refer. If you refer an advertiser then you gain 5% of all payments that the advertiser makes.

You can click below to sign-up for saying thanks for this review.

TNX.net are currently have a limited offer running where they are giving away up to 5,000 points that you can use to buy links from up to 5,000 websites!

Overall
If you use TNX, the price for links on your website is most likely very little. To use it to it’s fullest having a website with hundreds of pages, even thousands the amount of adverts you place on individual pages can all add up to a nice tidy sum each month! The growth at which this company is growing is very reassuring for the visitor. Head on over to TNX.net and try it out.

This post is part of the ‘Start Blogging Now!‘ series for new bloggers!

By coincidence before you read this post, you can enter to win yourself a free domain and a YouTube niche video site by clicking here!

What is a Domain Name?
Well it’s that thing you type in to go to a website. Like www.Thatblogsite.com, that’s my domain name.

Why do I want a Domain Name?
Let’s think about how it looks www.yourblog.blogspot.com or www.yourblog.com. Which looks better? That’s what you’re visitors think about it. Having your own domain will make the website yours. The domain doesn’t belong to anyone else and the domain will create a professional feel around your presence on the web. Having your own domain name will help with your branding (the way people perceive you) and help with your search engine ranking as Google recognises that many free sub-domain blogs are neglected and never to be posted on again.

How can I Register a Domain?
I register all my domains with GoDaddy and way back in December I wrote a review about them that you can read to give a bit more of an insight to what I think. I’ve registered many domains since and the service is still 110%. There are many other registrars out there but I’m not going to give false impressions because I haven’t used their services. It’s up to you to decide which one you go for.

Price
The price of a domain is extremely cheap and the small investment is worth it in the long run. A .COM domain name from GoDaddy is only $9.99 and .INFO domains are only $2.99! Doing research with other companies is in order for this one. The prices don’t differ that much so going with a reputable company will be your best option.

Choosing Your TLD Extension
The TLD is the bit at the end of the domain, the .COM, .ORG for example. When registering your domain there is a choice between many. It’s entirely up to you which one you want to use and take into account the domain name you want might not actually be available. Here are a few descriptions and what their really meant to be used for:

.COM
.COM is the most popular TLD extension and one that most people go with. .COM is used for commercial purposes so it will definitely be relevant to your blog seeing as you wish to be raking it in!

.NET
.NET is meant for networks but it can still be used for your website and is a great alternative if .COM is not available.

.ORG
.ORG is normally associated with non-profit organisations and using one with your blog is probably not the best route although it is available to you.

.NET

Which .TLD you use don’t really affect your search engine ranking, the way you promote your blog and build your brand does.

Keywords in Your Domain
Have a look at my domain name, I chose it around keywords with the keyword being ‘blog’. Doing this I let the reader know before they visit exactly what type of website this is. I said that which TLD doesn’t affect your SEO ranking but choosing your domain around keywords definitely does. Having specific keywords can help your site be found by easier and hopefully your website is something that people are looking for. Imagine a day when I’m listed for the keyword ‘blog’.

Resell Domain Names
Once you’ve registered your domain you’ll begin to learn that registering very good domain names and reselling them can earn you a nice profit. Look out for domains will keywords in and buy them. If someone is looking for a specific domain they can sometimes pay thousands of dollars to get it off you! Easy money!

Remember a small investment in a domain will benefit you in the future.

Sorry this post hasn’t been sooner, I have had so much to do I couldn’t find time to finish it.