The importance of our selling strategy?

OK, VERY important is my answer.

I've been looking at registry problem fixing programs and found a website which is reviewing each of the main programs. It must be the developers of the program at the top of this list who have developed. So thats one thing in their strategy.

All of the programs listed are free to download and all of the websites don't mention that your have to pay for the full version. One site says absolutely free and does a scan and says it will only fix the free items then you have to pay for it to do the rest. The other programs make it more obvious that you have to pay.

But all hide try to hide the fact that they aren't free to some degree.

Maybe its one developer who has slighlty different looking programs, maybe.

But it really makes me think about my approach, I still think my programs need more work to make them work better. But I also need tonnes of work on my strategy.

Comments.

by JM

What questions do customers actually ask?

I'm writing some FAQ pages for my web sites and I've just noticed I've answered mainly technical questions.

Sure, I've said my order form is secure and how to contact me if theres a problem.

Actually I've only done stuff my program sites, haven't got any content for my shop sites.

I guess this content will be useful to all sites ??

Hmmm

Oh my refund / exchange policy.

My money back guarentee stuff.

Erm, oh delivery method, timeline.

But what else?

by
JM

Using allintitle: to measure the competition for a keyword

If you are looking for a rough and ready way of measuring the competitiveness of a set of keywords, there's a number of methods you can user. You can use Google's Adwords keyword  tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal to give relative indications of how much competition there is for a particular search term. I always find the measure provided by the Adwords tool a little confusing though since you never know what the values displayed actually mean. If the competition bar is set at 75% blue what does this mean compared to a bar at 25%? Is it a linear scale for example meaning that 3 times as many sites are optimising for the 75% term compared to the 25% term?

Another way of gauging how much competition a keyword has is by using the Google allintitle: operator. The allintitle operator shows how many web pages have ALL the words in the keyword/ phrase in their title. Since a webpage's title is possibly the biggest SEO factor, this gives a rough measure of how many pages are competing for the term. Checking out some terms which I'd expect to be very commonly used on Google - allinttitle:web design - and - allinttitle:seo - I get the results:

titles containing web design: 10,300,000 results
titles containing seo: 13,600,000 results

Contrast these results with a term that we wouldn't expect to be very commonly used - harpenden decorators

titles containing harpenden decorators: 6 results

Or something middling common - software promotion

titles containing software promotion: 79,800

When looking for keywords for a new website, balancing the keywords to aim at against their competitiveness is tricky. The temptation is to aim for those that have the highest search volumes. However, this may be setting the target too high. Using tools like Google's Adwords Keyword research tool and the allintitle: operator, you can try and find a balance between keywords that have a reasonable search volume and those that are not too competitive.

by ML

Selling CDs online, on eBay and the future of their licensing scheme?

For sometime now Blue and I have been selling crap on CD on eBay.

I've also put my CDs on my maths shop. However about 6 months ago I decided I'd improve the content of my maths program and make it possible for the software to be downloadable instead.

You can sell downloadable software on ebay anymore, so CDs are the only option.

We do still sell a number of CDs each week making it worthwhile to do so. However in the new year eBay are making yet more changes (something they do every few months, it seems) this change will mean less exposure for items. Previously and at present, you can list about 15 items in the "Buy it Now" format for 30 days.

I've always written the users license to the CD and therefore burn a specific CD for each customer. This has been a real pain and I had planned to produce a key code along with the user details, in a box and have the user enter all these details. Thus allowing me to create all my CDs before hand.

However with these forthcoming eBay changes I'm not sure where its going to be worth it.

The fact that people still buy CDs amazes me, but they do, so I am tempted to put the work into this new licensing approach, but I fear it will be a waste of time due to this lack of exposure on eBay.

I may be able to sell these CDs online via my shop, but I'm just not sure. eBay has a niche, where items seem like their cheap and in a jumble sale, but site probably won't come across like that.

I guess I could finish of my downloadable programs, but this will shut the door for me on eBay, apart from selling / burning cds for eBay customers as I do now.

Thoughts?

by
JM

What to put on a FAQ / Customer Help page?

I think I'm missing a vital feature in my marketing machine.

I recently bought some software, in fact when I think about, my last few software purchases, I've had to look around the site to find certain information before I was ready to buy.

So what things should I have on this page.

- Details about the ordering process, what will happen when they pay.

- I guess in my case what to do with your license key when you get it.

- How soon you will get your license key.

- Volume licensing information.

- What to do if theres a problem, I guess this will just be a link to a contact form, unless I'm describing a specific problem.

- How to get support for the program.

- A list of different contact methods or say that you only accept emails etc.

- Another big thing, which may even need to be on a separate page, comparison between versions, trial vs full etc, I can't believe I've never added one of these before :(

- Any licensing restrictions, I guess I would also mention royalties if I had any to mention here.

- I guess I could also have some tips, how to do certain things.

- Mention future updates / upgrades policy.

- Order form is 100% secure etc

I guess I've always been concerned about having pages with hardly any information on them, but if I use this page for sales and support help, including tips, this page could be very informative and useful.

Thoughts?

by
JM

How to schedule / automatically test a contact form?

I've been setting up a scheduled tasks to let me know if I have a large number of transactions to process on Softtester, this is a simple count of the emails in the que, I get an email if its over a certain level.

This test will tell me if I've been spammed or if the pad spider program has failed.

I'd like to test my contact form, maybe once a week.

I'd like to do a true test and no just test the mail script but, test the page.

When I did the email count test, I was able to produce a PHP script which is then added as a schedule in my website control panel.

I'd like to do the same thing with the contact form test.

However, the only way I can think of the test the form, is to write a program which will load the page, populate the fields and click the submit button. And I can't do this in a PHP script.

Any ideas?

by
JM

PS. I have looked for a free service to do this, but I can't find one.

Is it worth seasonalising your site?

I've noticed in the past few days that I've had some orders for a couple of products where I previously had none. One of which has that pack license problem which they haven't got back to me about. I'm convinced that these sales must be people buying presents for others for xmas.

With my KMF program, after the first year in erm, 2005 (I think) I put up some halloween stuff and tried to make a drive towards that event. But I didn't get any / many sales from it.

Since then I've never been bothered about setting anything different up for the seasons / holidays. Obviously this would have to be setup in advance and be dynamic, then hopefully I'd be able to use it through-out the year with zero effort.

I'm talking about slight changes in graphics, with snow or pupkins maybe to text, happy holiday etc. I guess there could be quite a lot of events I could do.

The question here is, is it worth it?

As I say I've not done it in the past as I've not thought my program are good enough, but onee day they will be or may just sell without the download. So is it worth the effort?

Thoughts?

by
JM

Leeching whether we need to worry and what we can do?

Since we discovered that an IP had been leeching from us, Blue discovered that softtester has about lots of IPs doing it.

Blue doesn't think theres anything we can do about it and he's not seen any protection for it.

I'd like to discuss and figure out if its causing us problems, I know its costs resources like bandwidth.

Also, if it is a problem you'd think it would have happened to other people in the past and there would be some sort of protection.

Comments?

Homepage Title Tag: Possible improvements

I've been looking at the title tags on the homepages of both SoftTester and SoftwareLode to see if there's any improvements that can be made to try and get more visitors.

On SoftwareLode, I'm going to shuffle the order of items in the title as the Free Software Downloads phrase isn't attracting any visitors for me. The middle phrase in the title - Free DVD Software - gets me a few visitors though as does the Free Photo Software phrase. The phrase I'm going to try out is "Antivirus Software". This phrase has 550,000 searches a month according to Google's own keyword volume tool. This is much more than either of the other two phrases (DVD/ Photo). I'm also adding an antivirus-software.php page to SoftwareLode to see if that gets visitors.

On SoftTester, two of the phrases in the title might not be doing much to attract traffic - "shareware programs" and "freeware programs". It might be an idea to change these to something else and see if any more visitors arrive. Softtester already has handy links for certain phrases in one of the columns on the homepage. It might be an idea to include these phrases in the homepage title. Here are the search volumes for some of the phrases on the homepage now:

anti virus software: 60, 500

dvd ripper: 90.500

However, these two phrases have higher search volumes:

antivirus software: 550,000

dvd software: 246,000

Note that changing "anti virus" to "antivirus" makes a big difference according to the Google keyword tool.

How about changing the homepage title to:

Free Software Downloads | Antivirus Software | DVD Software

and seeing if any more people hit the homepage?

by ML

PageRank N/A: Why do no inner pages have a rank?

Ever since this blog was assigned a Google pagerank, I've been looking to see if any of the older posts have a rank. As far as I can tell, none of the post pages do. On my software blog, the homepage doesn't have an assigned rank but a smattering of the older posts have a pagerank of 1. I don't  understand this at all - maybe it's just be down to the mysterious way Google operates.

My blog used to have a PageRank of 3. I think this was mainly because I gave it a link from my main site. The link was in place for two or three weeks and I think this was enough to give the PR 3 value. When I removed the link, the PR dropped but for some reason some of the older posts still have a rank.

Any ideas why none of the posts on this blog have a rank? Or are there some that do and I've just missed them?

by ML

Actual Software Trial Period Lengths

On my last software release on 11th November, I changed the product code/ unlock code format to make things easier for my customers. The change also means I don't have to issue new unlock codes when someones buys a new PC. My old system was getting to be a bit of a burden and I was getting 3 or 4 new unlock code requests a day. I took a tip from Dipsys and encoded the customer's postal address and email address into the code. If the code gets handed out to other users, I'll know exactly where it originated.

Anyway, the interesting thing about changing the format is that when I get a purchase I can now tell whether someone started the trial before or after the change. I'd read advice on the web saying that if someone was going to purchase shareware they more or less did so immediately. In my case though, this isn't true. Three weeks after the code change, I'd say 90% of purchasers still use the old format code.

I don't know whether to be worried by this or not. With the credit crunch and all that I could be paranoid that I'm not getting any new customers and I'm just exhausting the supply of people who downloaded a trial a month ago. However Google Analytics shows an increase in traffic lately not a drop-off so I must still be getting a fair number of new trial users. This is a bit complicated to work out though since I sometimes get bursts of visitors spread over a day or two when my free SliQ Submitter program gets posted on a forum or on someone's SEO blog. Someone wrote up a complimentary report on SliQ Submitter a week or two ago and called it the GrandDaddy of all free directory submitters. I got about 60 visitors referred from that blog post over the next couple of days.

If my recent experience shows that most people take advantage of the trial period then I'm glad. I want people to use the full trial period to make sure they are happy to purchase. Hopefully it reduces the support overhead in the long-term.

by ML

Types of PadFile marketing Programs?

I'd like to discuss, in more detail, the different types of programs which could be used with pad file marketing. Also gather together enough information / ideas to simple be able to write the program, all from this posting / comments.

Of course it would be easy just to develop lots of screen savers, but I think I could get tagged as a spammer and be rejected by shareware sites.

A) Screen Savers
The easiest / quickest type of program to develop, especailly as I have some software to do 90% of the task. We can also say in our pad files that the screen saver is a demo of our main program, in my case I had a CD, which i couldn't normally use with a pad file. However, I have used a screen saver for my sheep jewellery item.

B) Catalogues
I've seen people submitting this type of program to softtester. They have produced a sort of mini site as a program. However, in my case I'm doing several program / pad file for my site, for my sub pages. So a catalogue is a little difficult. Especially as I don't have a lot of information on each item. And I can only scrape together a couple of unique photos per item. In my screen savers I've had a couple of pages with my site logo and a couple of sentences. So I'm not really sure how I can do a catalogue for one item?

C) Toolbars
Mike has seen these ans said he gets loads submitted to SoftwareLode.com and most have little functionality and just sit in IE or FF and direct the browser to the target website and therefore they aren't useful software. I guess these are going to be more time consuming to develop. Also naming the program, erm, what jewellery toolbar? I guess thats not so bad.

D) Pricing calculators
I've just downloaded one and had a look, it was fr your personal budget with some of the costs put towards jewellery. I was 4 screens and seemed quite complicated for a program on this type. I think if I was writing the program it would take me a day or two as I like to test things. Something like this seems a bit over the top to me. But I guess basic totalling would do. Although I can't think how I'd do that. The good this about this type is that it couldn't be called spam, it did seem like a genuine program.

E) Online Product Selection Tool or Online Jewellery Selection Tool
This is something mike suggested in another posting. I'm can only think that he meant that it would be some sort of catalogue with a fancy name? If so I guess the same comments that were made about catalogues stand here. Apart from the name, I doubt I'd reject it based on the name.

Any other type ideas? I'm hoping so, can't say I like anything other than the screen saver unless I can come up with something quick.

Other comments?

by
JM

Getting started with the eBay API?

Blues mentioned the eBay API a few times, when he showed me the developers page a year or so ago and I took a look at the code it really put me off. Especially as I'm not that familiar with XMP and my definition of soap is slightly different to his :)

I thought I'd try and write something for my ordering system which would get the fee information. So ultimately I can work out my business level of profit.

So what do I know so far, had a conversation with Blue earlier and he said "its free now and allows 5,000 calls a day and my developer id is currently talking to my live account".

Heres some sample XML.

<?xml version="1.0"
encoding="utf-8"?>

<GetMyMessagesRequest
xmlns="urn:ebay:apis:eBLBaseComponents">

<!-- Standard Input Fields -->

<RequesterCredentials>

<eBayAuthToken>xyz</eBayAuthToken>

</RequesterCredentials>

<DetailLevel>ReturnMessages</DetailLevel>

<!-- ... more DetailLevel nodes here ... -->

<ErrorLanguage>en_GB</ErrorLanguage>



<!-- ... more OutputSelector nodes here ..

And "in my app ive created copies of xml files on the docs, then insert my values in vb and make the call".

So I think my first task is to try to get hold of some example code which nearly does what I need. Hopefully I won't have to read through tonnes of documentation to get me going.

by
JM

How to caluculate whether your in profit with your ebay sellings?

Ideally I'm trying to come up with a quick and easy way to calculate whether my ebay sellings are earning me any profit. However, to do this accurately I'm going to have to include the amount I spend on packaging and stock.

From that I'll have to take in to count stock / packaging I haven't sold.

So that starts sounding complicated already.

Then theres ebay fees, where there is a monthly statement. The paypal where these fees as well as payments.

by
JM

Sitewide links from Unrelated Sites - pros and cons

Over the years, SoftTester has handed out site-wide links to lots of sites - some to Dipsy's sites, some to others. Sometimes the other sites weren't well related - although they often had a connection with software.

I was wondering how getting a sitewide link from a site as big as SoftTester affected the target site's rank and traffic? For example, for a link with text something like "earrings", did the linked page do a lot better in SERPs even though SoftTester has nothing to do with jewellery?

I've got someone who would like a link from softwarelode for an unrelated topic - web design. would it be a waste of a link or would it actually give them benefits?

by ML

The benefits of long term customer feedback

For one of my programs which isn't doing hugley well, I haven't got many long term customers. However theres one whose well out of his refund period and he regularly asks me for bug fixes.

I find this feedback extremely useful (I'm pleased to do his fixes as it improves the program) and beats all other methods I've got of finding out about bugs.

For a long time I've thought about providing a limited free version of my program as a way for getting this information. For this particular program I intend to produce a PRO version which uses MYSQL. And therefore give it a new name.

So I'm thinking of a new name / site for a free version and a new name / site for a pro version.
And keep my existing site as-is for the in between version.

Hmm although I guess to get a true test I will need a MYSQL free version...

I know mike has said in the past he doesn't think a free version is a good idea.
I know I don't get the traffic I should for the product.
I also know I have lots of bugs and lacking functionality in this program.

So I think these ideas have merit, just need to iron out the issues.

Comments?
PS. Maybe a free version of your prog, Mike, might be good from this angle?

More duplicates

Well, I had to setup my google webmaster tools account today as I had to change the email address it was using. So I had a bit of a look round at the stats and discovered more duplicate pages.

When I add a record program / pad record I already do a check on the pad url, the number of programs an author has in the category and the number of the same program home pages the author has in the same category.

Now I find I'm going to have to do a check on the program name, looks like auhors are using different pad files for different revisions of the same program :(

What other checks do I need to do?

by
JM

Windows Vista - program has stopped working problems

I've decided I hate Windows Vista as a development platform.

In the past year I've had 3 people who got strange crashes running one of my programs on Vista. I've had no weird problems reported on Windows XP at all. In the last week I've had someone move from XP to Vista and their program doesn't run. As soon as they click on the desktop icon, Vista shows a message saying "... program has stopped working" and the program ends.

I did a search on Google for the reported error message and came across hundreds if not thousands of similar error reports for umpteen different programs. There doesn't seem to be a similar cause or remedy for any of them. The suggestions range from turning off Data Execution Protection, to moving files around in the My Documents folder, to uninstalling Java when the customer is using a .Net program.

What I need is advice on how to debug programs remotely when the poor old user/ customer isn't always technically aware - at least in software - and in any case simply wants the damn program to run. The only thing I can think of doing is asking the customer to download SysInternal's Process Monitor, get a log file and send it to me. This isn't a simple thing to do though for the average user.

Any ideas on how to go about or improve remote debugging?

by ML

Shareware Site Refresh - Bartering for Graphics

Over at www.resourcefill.com, I've been trying to promote the site to the likes of RoboSoft for a few weeks in an attempt to get submissions. I've failed miserably.  The site is getting only a handful of visitors a day and no submissions at all.

The original idea behind ResourceFill was that it was a low-cost way of setting up a new shareware/ freeware site that would attract links and grow in rank and popularity over time. In a year or so I was hoping for some Adsense income. The only costs involved were the price of the domain name and then 2 or 3 hours to modify the free PHP script I'd found to suit my purposes. All I was then planning to do was let the site take care of itself and see how it grew over time. After a few weeks, I've decided that this just isn't going to work.

On reflection, the site looks old and cheap compared to newer shareware sites that have more time spent on them - like SoftTester and SoftwareLode. I've decided that I'm going to set up another site using the SoftwareLode script. This means I'm going to have to spend money. The first cost is purchasing the license for another site to use the script. The second thing I'll need to do is get some good-looking award graphics. I've decided to exchange a few hundred submissions using SliQ Submitter for some graphics from a friendly graphic designer I know. I'll use my new, faster SliQ Submitter to do a ton of submissions so I'll end up putting in a few hours work in exchange for the graphics. It'll also be an opportunity to give the new SliQ Submitter another test run.

I've modded the original softwarelode script quite a bit since I purchased it in order to make management, and especially rejection of spammy PADs, much easier than with the original. I can work through about 200 submissions in 5 minutes or less - mainly since I automatically mark updated PADs as OK to be accepted. SoftwareLode is now doing quite well - about 4 to 500 visitors a day and I'm hoping resourcefill can get to the same level in about 6 months.

by ML

Giving Authors more from your download site

I've been using a submitting program (which I bought the other day) and got an email back from one site, with SEO information about my site. Most of which was only available if I paid for it.

This gave me an idea.

Those emails authors get are in most cases a real wasted opportunity.
I'm not going to rabbit on about engaging the customer, like Blue :)

However, I think if we could perform an analysis of the their pad file, which would encourage them to visit the site, this could lead to further revenue / traffic.

The obvious analysis, I'm thinking, is to check keywords appear in the description.

I was going to start a posting on optimizing pad files anyway, but I don't think I'm equipped to to say I'm and expert on this. Far from it I believe I need to learn and make a lot of changes.

Thoughts?

by
JM

Link Marketing with pad files

I think the title of this post quite well describes the process of using a pad file to get links.

However, I have a few questions to answer.

I'm putting together my pad file.
I have my screen saver type program developed.
So this program is going to be attached to my pad file.

However the page I'm trying to get links for and actually sell via my pad file isn't the program attached to my pad file. I'm trying to sell a CD and get links to that page.

I know this is a little more complicated than the idea of just using the pad file to get links to my web page.

So I have some puzzles, I mean my program type has to be commercial, even though the screen saver is a demo, right?

And my screen shot that has to be of my cd program?

Confusing :)

by
JM

Pad file guidance

While writing the last post I thought I might share my experiences and what I've learnt about pad files.

Never use an email address you want to hang on to unless you have very good spam protection. I always use a gmail type account.

Never use your own name, split your company name into first name and surname.
You'll end up with your name plastered all over the web if you don't.

Your company website url, my home page has always been the product page, however I guess this doesn't matter so much what you put here.

Make sure you always put a cost in dollars, even if you don't provide the option to buy in dollars, then include your main currency.

Theres been much discussion about program type, I've always used shareware, but I guess commercial would be better.

Forget the filename versioned, previous, generic and long, use the same file name for all of them. Don't include a version number in your file name. Its better to have a generic name e.g. MyProg.exe.

Some sites don't poll pad files and rely on your submitting updates, therefore you will have broken links if you change your file name. Think about sites which could be years out of date. I have this :(

I think your category is quite important, you should spend some time picking it.
Afterall, when your program listing appears in a category pages, it stands a better chance of being found if its got a lot of similar content on the same page.

I think the keywords and different length of description are the most important part. Unfortunately the most difficult. I don't think I've ever got this right. I need to work on mine.

If you provide your program in more than one language add the extra language text.

However, I would setup another pad file and url, for specific languages. Also, in countries like Germany the pad spec is a little different as everyone uses a different program to create their pad files. Theres also an association which is best to subscribe to, which gives you an number to add to your pad file.

Make your application URLs short, some sites don't like long file names.

Make your screen shot a GIF file and when you update your GIF file keep your image the same size, even if you have to resize it.

Your XML file url must be the same as your current URL. Some sites download your pad files and process them. However this is also good if you move your website.

In my opionin and that of my web stats ZIP files are by far more popular that EXE files. Also, in windows XP if you download a ZIP file you don't get a nasty security warning.

There are various pad file extensions, I've always like the idea of the pad ring, as it save you submitting all your pad files, however, this is when I used to spend all day saturday submitting by hand.

The affiliates extension is also a good idea, as it give sites the option to sell your software and gain commission.

Comments?

by
JM

Pad file email addresses

I know this topic will be useful to us all, some of us are well versed and others are about to setup their first file.

My question here is which email address to use.
I've got that many email addresses I hate the thought of having another. But from a download site owners, point of view, I think it might be best. I mean, I'm about to create maybe 20 pad files.

The programs will all be screen savers.

This is going to look like I'm spamming.

I guess the whole idea is a bit spammy.

I've learnt my lesson from the past and I know to always use a account like gmail. To handle the spam etc.

My options are to use the address I generally use.

Or I could use a different address for different shop sites.

Thoughts?

by
JM

How to make free screensavers into valuable marketing tools?

Mike mentioned the idea of developing a screen saver as a way simply producing a program for use with a pad file to create links / PR to your website.

Tonight, i've had a look around softtester and found this is quite a popular idea.

However I want to take this one stage further.

I thought for my maths progs, I could do some maths stuff on screen, then I'd like to make it possible for the user to act on some event and be brought to my product page.

Since screen savers seem to cancel when you move your mouse, I'm puzzled what to do.

I just wondered if anyone had any ideas about how I could trigger this event?

by
JM

New Directory Submission Tool Release

Over at SliQTools, I've made a new release of my free directory submission software, SliQ Submitter.

Functionally, it's not a major release but a lot of effort, over many days, has gone in to checking and tidying up the supported list of web directories. In version 1.0.X, SliQ supported over 2100 web directories. However, in the 3 or 4 months since it was last release a lot of the directories had switched to requiring payment for a listing. A fair number had gone to the wall too or their domains had expired.

In version 1.1, there are now 1250 free web directories supported. This is still a pretty big list and if a good percentage of the directories accept your site, you should get a good kick in SERPs performance and visitors.

by ML

Google products base file updates

When I first discovered how great google base files were I spent about two weeks trying to find advice on how to make the most out of them. I found that almost anyone who sells things on the web can use them and you can create them and forget about them.

During these time I made refinements and was happy in the end that I'd done a good job.

I sat back and waited to see what would happen, on one of my sites I got sales and still get a trickle of sales. But I never got my google checkout buttons, that still a mystery.

Anyways, I now need to update my files as I've change almost everything about the products they include.

Last time I did an output from the database using the rather basic froogle export, from then on I played with my spreadsheet and produced a good file.

I did wonder at the time how I could improve this process so I wouldn't have to do that each time, but I thought, until I get it right these no point in doing anything fancy.

However at the time it did seem to make sense to have everything in the cubecart database then I could maybe produce a feature which I could sell at a later date.

This time round I'm thinking, I want to do something quick that I can re-use and will give me a good file, I doubt if anyone would buy a cube cart mod anyways (even if they did I wouldn't make much money out of it).

So I've decided to write a program in VB.Net, I'll have it access my cube_cart database or I'll figure out a way to dump data for my program to access. Then I'll have some data in a small database or text files which I can use to add data to my base files.

Then I can still access updates in my products and have a great file.

Thoughts?

by
JM

How to build links for your websites - Link Building

When this thread is finished the meat of this thread will be compiled into this page Link Building Guide.

I guess the obvious method I've been using is submitting to link directories using mikes submitter program. However you can't submit sub pages and you can't be certain which pages you'll end up on or what PR that page will have.

The next method, where I've been able to cheat a little, is posting on forums and blogs. I've been able to cheat by modifying my global signature for my posts on the Real Basic Forum. Also theres blog posting here. But I think I need to work harder on this, by submitting to a lot more different themed blogs and forums.

I always think that those link directories seem very small time, I guess more established directories and listings sites would be a good place to submit too, although none come to mind at the moment.

I guess becoming a blogger would help to.

Another method is press releases, not something I've heard mentioned for a long time. And not for the purposes on link building even then. But I guess lots of sites use these on their sites too. But its a one off sort of thing, also I've not sure what I do for my jewellery site.

As part of this mike has offered to let me make some postings for his own blog.

The biggest problem with these method is that time that it takes to post and you only benefit from one link, but as I can hear mike saying, you can get people visiting your site from these posts. I guess another problem is finding blogs / forums on the topic relevant to your site.

Another popular and new method (I believe) is to create a pad file for your site and a program which can be a catalogue of your site. I intend to produce a demo, maybe a video for my maths programs on my shop site. However, on softtester I've seen listings for a hand bag site, where the program is a mini catalogue of your site. I haven't deleted it yet, I guess I should.

Reciprocal links, when I started submitting to links directories I asked mike if I should provide RLs and he said no and your giving away PR to these sites. But I guess there must be some value in RLs as we've got links to each others sites on your sites?

Hmmm can't think of any more and I don't really have a plan to move forward on this :(

by
JM

How to sell some PHP code?

I've been developing a modification for my shop site.

Mod's are quite common for cube cart shopping carts.
However due to the fact that code relies on an existing script the user has to insert bits of code etc, again this is common.

I'd like to provide a working version for people to try.

But I'm going to have difficulty adding any sort of protection to the code as its bits here and there.

I can't provide full files as I'm re-using (copying) a script provided in cube cart and its not open source.

Any suggestions?

Also, if I overcome this obsticle I've got to figure out how to provide licenses etc, if needed. And how to accept payment, alothough a paypal button might do.

I've developed add-ons for software etc in the past and I've never made much money from it so I'm not really able to put much effort into the process, so things will have to be simple.

by JM

Picking good keywords for your home page

I'm currently trying to get to a certain level of completion with my shop site(s) before I start to do some serious link building (although I haven't figured that bit out yet).

I've optimized my sub pages with carefully chosen keywords that I think should produce visitors which will buy that item. Although the keywords haven't been my first choice keywords, they have a good projected traffic level, look to be achievable from the results shown on google and the competition level looks good too.

Now I need to choose the keywords for my home page, I have spent time looking for keywords and time thinking what to do for the best, over several days. I haven't been able to find achievable, relevant keywords. Unlike my sub pages I feel the home page needs to use keywords which are really quite relevant and that users will use.

After much thought I've come to the conclusion that I have to use keywords that people will use, even if these keywords look unachievable.

I'm hoping PR will seep through from my sub pages and raise the PR of my main page.

I looked, with surprise, the other day and found that I hadn't used mike submitter tool on my jewellery site (the site I'm talking about in this post). However, as the url of my site is http://www.mcls4u.com/shop I'm worried that as this is a sub page I might not be able to use mike program and maybe a couple of months ago, this is the reason why I didn't use mikes prog in the first place. For those of you that don't know, must directory sites don't accept sub pages.

I just wanted to get that off my chest as I've had this issue bouncing round my head for several days and I keep changing my mind. My main worry was that I'd be using keywords which would never get visitors, like the keywords I've used on my older sites in the past.

But as I say I don't think I have any choice. This decision does worry me though. :(

by
JM

Differences between AWStats and Google Analytics

For a while now I've been scratching my head as to why Google Analytics always shows less visitors to my sites than AWStats. On a couple of sites, I've also got Adsense running and this reports less page views too.

I posted a thread about this on DP a few months ago but didn't get any definitive answers. The most sensible answer I got was that since the Analytics code was at the bottom of the page, if people don't wait for an entire page to load, the Analytics code doesn't run though AWStats still counts the page as loaded. I'm prepared to accept this as a reason why some pages don't count but on one of my shareware sites, AWStats is showing around 2500 page views a day while Adsense shows a measly 450 or so. I don't show ads on the submit page but since I'm only getting 80 submissions a day or so, these should only account for about 200 on top of the 450 Adsense tells me I'm getting.

Am I reading the AWStats figures incorrectly? The way I read the figures, robot visits (like Googlebot or Slurp) aren't included in the headline visitor/ page views. Is this correct?

by ML

More shareware site spam filters

I've now got in place a limit of submissions per author by category.

I've also noticed that some authors are using the same home page for a lot of programs.

To me this says, that there trying to sub-promote other people programs.

So I've also put into a place a limit on authors, program home page by category.

Also, I discovered that I was producing broken links and therefore getting a lot of extra search engine bot visits. Previously I was showing the correct page but with a different URL and therefore producing duplicates for google. So instead, I'm now doing a search on the page name instead. Which is producing a list which will include the correct url and any other matching records.

Gutted that I was producing bad links :(

by JM
by JM

Support for customers in non-English speaking countries

This might be a strange post since we have a German contributor but I'd like to see if anyone has expxerience of providing support to people in non-English speaking countries.

At the moment, I sell software in English only via a .co.uk site. This allows me to target the UK, US, Australia, India etc. but there is an untapped market in France, Germany, Spain, Italy and so on. The thing that's put me off for now is providing support or even answering simple queries. My wife was (once) fluent in German and lived in Germany for a couple of years. The trouble is that her German is now rusty and neither of us speak anything else but English.

Does anyone have experience of providing support in this way? How do you cope? Is it a problem or are customers happy to switch to English?

by ML

Speaking Times Table Tutor CD Review

Have you just been spending hours with your child to get her to learn her times tables? Most of the day can go by and don't feel as if your child has learnt anything.

As with anything which is hard to do, you have you make it fun.

Check out the our 'Speaking Times Tables Tutor CD' its a program which allows your child to learn and be tested on their times table. You select which table you want to work on or choose random for a mixture of tables.

It make times table fun!

At the moment, its available on eBay!

MSI Files

In our series of discussion about software installation we shall be discussing the different installation methods provided by shareware and software developers.

MSI stands for Microsoft Installer file, which is a file format which is recognised by Microsoft Windows by Microsoft Windows Installer technology.

When you run an MSI file it gets copied into a sub folder of your windows folder and is then available when you go into add and remove programs. You can then use the options provided e.g. repair or remove.

MSI files tend to be quite small as they don't need any of the functionality to setup your program. Instead it just has a small list of things for Windows Installer to do.

Great Shareware and Freeware Software Downloads

Finding backlinks to a website

There are a number of ways of finding the backlinks to a website but each has pros and cons. The two simplest ways are to use Google Webmasters or the link: command.

You can only use Google Webmasters if you control a website and can verify ownership. In terms of Google PageRank, Google's Webmaster interface is the most accurate way of determining which backlinks to your website Google actually takes any notice of. The problem is that Google Webmasters often lags behind the real world situation. If you've added lots of links to a site they will often not show up in webmasters for some weeks or months. Usually there's a jump in the number of backlinks reported at the same time Google exports PageRank values to the Google toolbar.

An alternative method is to use the link: command. To use this, type the following into any search engine:

link:www.domainname.com

for example: link:www.resourcefill.com to find backlinks to the domain www.resourcefill.com.

The problem with the link: command is that some search engines don't return all the backlinks. Google in particular only returns a sample - usually far less than it returns via Google webmasters. The best search engines to use for the link: command are Yahoo and all the web (www.alltheweb.com).

by ML

I've just shelved my To Do list...

For the last couple of weeks I've been lacking motivation, I've had so many things going on in my life and I've been getting quite stressed.

Theres things which have needed doing for ages.

Well they will all have to wait a bit longer.

I've decided that since I spent an afternoon a couple of weeks ago doing keyword research with the adwords tool, that I need to do this for all my websites / products.

I've had my To Do (21 page) document open several times over the past couple of weeks, I've had some notes on this blog pinned open in Fire Fox, but none of them mean anything unless people can find me / my products.

I really feel this time that this method of finding good keywords will work.
The only difficulty is deciding whether people will buy if they use a certain keyword.

At this point since that first afternoon I've got 5 sale pitch content pages finished and I've commissioned 11 more today. I know this will take a week maybe 2, so I can do some other research for other products now.

by
JM

A marketing tip

This doesn't have as much SEO value as for marketing, but it does have a little SEO value.

I was told to pretend you are your customers and post of forums saying how good your products were, providing links etc.

I guess from an SEO point of view you'd have to be picking about the PR value of the sites you choose.

Also from a marketing point of view you would have to post on a popular forum.

It does seem a lot of work when you consider the benefits.

by
JM

PR Update Again

Google has exported the latest PR values to the toolbar today. Both Access Database Security and SliQTools are winners with PR increases from 0 to 2 and from 3 to 4 respectively but again this blog didn't get assigned a PR.

Have you noticed changes on any other sites?

by ML

Whats an unreasonable amount of programs on a download site for an author?

I did a keep clean up job a few months back and deleted authors who had lots of programs on softtester. I can't remember the figure I deleted from.

However I've noticed a lot of credit site listings etc again.

So I plan to limit the amount of programs an author can have on one email address.
I know that the author could then have more that one email address, but I figure since some sites require listings to be activated, its probably too much hassle for a spammer to have lots of email addresses. But I may be wrong.

At the moment I have 50 authors with over 100 programs some with a lot more than that.

I'm thinking 50 or 25 sounds about reasonable?

I guess I could limit things further and say they can only have x number of programs in a category.

My first C# program

Well I've now read 3 hours of my teach yourself C# book.
I've found it really hard to keep awake, not learnt that much so far.
Taken me ages to motivate myself to keep going.

Anyways, I thought I'd try and write a small program to see how far I could go.
I'm stuck already, having difficulty creating a function, or what I'd think of as a function in vb.

I googled and found someone saying that you can't do functions in C#.

That seems weird.
So, I guess I'm a bit more motivated to read further in my book.
Otherwise I'll not be able to finish my program :(

by
JM

Free article sites

At least a year ago, I read about free article sites and added some article pages to my kids mask factory site. Aaron just emailed me, he'd done a personal search and found one of my articles.

I guess there is some value is having these pages, but I'm not sure whether such pages lead to sales. But are these pages valuable for an SEO / Google point of view?

Maybe I should add some free articles to my other sites?

I guess I know the answer to this question, these articles haven't led to a massive raise in sales, although I can't really tell.

by
JM

Adwords Tool, competition indication, whats good ?

We've been using the adwords keyword tool to try and find good keywords. My initial thoughts where that I should avoid ANYTHING with any competition but have at least a thousand search volume.

However, Aaron found a video on how to use the tool and this changed our / my understanding of it.

Heres the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDB6T_L-mqs.

In the video it says you should have around 100,000 search volume and the guy ignored the competition indicator.

Mike, whats your understanding / thoughts?

I'm not thinking I should have waited with my directory submission until I'd found good keywords to use in the links, however I can now change them I guess, so it doesn't look like I've got lots of the same.

by
JM
EDIT: I've also learned from the video, that you REALLY need to know your keywords and near keywords, I mean, I did realise this to a certain extent, but this guy knows numbers too. I think I'm going to have to keep records, I just don't know what. Although, I guess keyword / phrase and search volume, would be start.

Well done to BlueSkiMoney

Well done to BlueSkiMoney aka Aaron, We've been chatting about SEO and using the adwords tool and watching some howto videos from youtube and last night hes, produced what I think is a well SEO page.

http://www.burnyourvinyls.com/audio-adaptors/2-5-to-3-5-adaptor-headphones-adaptor-mobile-phone-adapter/prod_11.php

Having said this there is always room improvement, he could do with more content and some internal links and of course some incoming links to that page or more probable his home page.

Anyways I think this first good attempt.

by
JM

Going along with the traffic

I may be imagining things, but I've noticed something funny with the traffic to my main site in the last few weeks. For most of the last 6 months, visitors to my main site followed the same pattern - up on specific days of the week, down on certain others, up at certain times of day and so on. This pattern was as reliable as clockwork.

In the last 5 to 6 weeks however, the pattern has changed. Days which had lots of visitors no longer do - at least as a porportion of overall traffic, whereas other days now have proportionally more. I also notice that Softtester's traffic goes up and down inline with my main site's traffic - a bit like US and UK shares!

The only thing I can put this down to is that I've done a whole load more PAD file submissions in the past couple of months and I'm tapping into the same type of traffic visiting Softtester. Also Softtester is an old site in comparison with mine. In non-UK countries I've only begun to do well really since the end of July so perhaps now my visitor profile is beginning to match Softtester's more global audience.

by ML

Shop Sites, should they be like normal sites too?

At the moment my shop sites are my top priority, well my kids maths site is and anything I can transfer into the jewellery site I do that too.

I've been using the adwords keyword tool to try and add some further keywords into my product pages.

Then I started thinking, it difficult to add content to shop sites without ruining your product pages. So what about genuine content pages?

I suppose the difficultly is what content do people who are searching to buy your product want to see?

by JM

Freeware version as a selling strategy?

In the past few years I've seen many of my competitors and other software where theres a freeware or free version, which is a cut down version of the real thing. The real thing not being free.

Up till now I've considered other factors but not the SEO factor.

There would be more traffic, downloads and people using your software.
All of which have got to be good things.

The only down side I can think of is that people using a freeware program are possibly less likely to pay money for more features. Although I guess when I search for software I don't start out just searching for freeware.

Apart from attracting extra sales, I've always considered then next biggest benefit to be, that your program gets tested more.

Has anyone else got anything to say on this subject?

by JM

Sitemaps and big sites

I'm just thinking I really need sitemaps for softtester but theres 60,000 urls / dynamic pages.

Even if I have a-z pages, the sitemap files are going to be huge.

What should I do ?

by JM

Sales Growth Factors

It would be interesting to find out what factors people think have been successful in gaining or growing sales for their products. One factor might be time, another advertising and so on.

For me, my sales have grown almost directly in line with the number of visitors I get via search engines. I usually find there is a step change in the number of visitors and a corresponding rise in the number of sales every 3 months at around the time Google exports its PR values.

In the early days I used Google Adwords. This did attract traffic and some sales but only enough to break even - organic traffic has proved much more profitable.

In more recent months - say the last 3 - I have also begun to see a rise in repeat sales, i.e. people wanting more than one copy, and also word of mouth sales. I've put this down to achieving a certain critical mass of sales, i.e. enough sales for personal recommendations to be sufficient to encourage a few more sales.

One thing that did slightly dent the rise in sales was the UK school summer holidays, particularly the last 3 weeks before children went back to school. During this period, website traffic was slightly down, though it seems to have recovered this week.

by ML

Some selling strategies

Last days I stumbled upon some smart product selling strategies which I want to share with you.

I was searching for concurrent products from other vendors. As you would expect - time recording software. I found a guy who pretented to be an expert for time recording issues. But instead of selling software on his webpage he offered free handouts which would describe the advantage of time recording and strategies for implementing time recording in companies. At a total different web page and URL, the same guy, offers time recording software .... So, what do you think does he praise in his free handouts on that total different URL?

Advantage: You are collecting addresses of potential buyers.

Another company, another software ... This company announced a contest where the first three winner, gets a free software license of their software. What the people needed to do was writing why they are absolutely wanting to get the software. So the people who wrote the best answers got the free software license. I think that's smart ...

Advantage: You are collecting reasons why people need your software.

By GS

WOW, WOW, Google webmaster tools and top searches ?

Mike, I'm guessing you haven't seen this, or haven't noticed it or well at least you don't use it.
As you do searches on google and look at your position.

Google webmaster tools, has a top searches feature which shows the keyword used and the postion you are for that page on google.

So if we use word tracker to check that term gets lots a of hits...

Then surely this is all we need to do to find googd keywords, well that and some common sense to make sure people will use the keyword in the right way. And obviously we have to be getting some of those hots in the first place to see the term in google tools.

Seems like the holy grail to me ?

by JM

SEo'ing for German

Well I've been looking for a German keyword suggestion tool.

I translated keyword suggestion tool which translates as Keyword Vorschlags Tool.

I searched for this on google.de and found this.

http://www.ranking-check.de/keyword-datenbank.php

I did a quick search on Informationsverwaltung (which means
Information management) and found it had 259..

Geschätzte mtl. Abfragen bei Google
Which means..
Estimated monthly. Queries on Google.

So I guess this is a good keyword to have, but I'm not sure if people would use it to buy my software.
I'm currently position 19 on google.de.

Maybe I just need to figure out what keywords sell in english and translate to german...
Hmmm

Thoughts?

by JM

Brainstorming: Right Keywords for time keeping software?

What are the right keywords to get people to buy time keeping software, e.g. clocking in out etc?
I thought it would be a good idea if we all make a comment about all of our products, where we trying to improve the website.

To make it fair I'm putting a posting for each of our main products.
The aim is to just add comments to the first thing and the last thing which pops into your head.

This is for Gerhard.

by JM
EDIT: Feel free to add other posts like this, I'd like too.

Brainstorming: Right Keywords for kids maths software etc?

What are the right keywords to get people to buy kids maths software, exercise books etc?
I thought it would be a good idea if we all make a comment about all of our products, where we trying to improve the website.

To make it fair I'm putting a posting for each of our main products.
The aim is to just add comments to the first thing and the last thing which pops into your head.

This is for me.

by JM
EDIT: Feel free to add other posts like this, I'd like too.

Brainstorming: Right Keywords for invoice / billing software?

What are the right keywords to get people to buy invoice / billing software?
I thought it would be a good idea if we all make a comment about all of our products, where we trying to improve the website.

To make it fair I'm putting a posting for each of our main products.
The aim is to just add comments to the first thing and the last thing which pops into your head.

This is for Mike.

by JM
EDIT: Feel free to add other posts like this, I'd like too.

Brainstorming: Right Keywords for transfer vinyl to mp3 / cd bundle?

What are the right keywords to get people to buy a bundle of cables and software to transfer vinyl to mp3 or CD?
I thought it would be a good idea if we all make a comment about all of our products, where we trying to improve the website.

To make it fair I'm putting a posting for each of our main products.
The aim is to just add comments to the first thing and the last thing which pops into your head.

This is for Aaron.

by JM
EDIT: Feel free to add other posts like this, I'd like too.

The end of the pad file?

I found this article and it got me thinking.

http://blog.tech-pro.net/entry/61/The_end_of_the_PAD_file

Having read this I don't think its as bad as it sounds.
I mean sure, we will get less in bound links, but I think theres something to be said for people looking at shareware sites and perhaps buying your software.

by JM

Welcome Blueskimonkey

I'd just like to welcome Aaron aka user id Blueskimonkey

I know Mike knows of aaron, from all the back stabbing I do, ;) joke.

Aaron, has some web sites in a similar position as us. He's also an ISP and a vb.net programmer.
Also does tech support as a day job.

by JM

Wordpress SEO Plugins

Last days I found a wonderful posting about some SEO Plugins for Wordpress.

Here's a link to it: http://www.vinnylingham.com/wordpress-seo-plugins.html

by GS

An interesting post on how to double your traffic

http://marketingmachinetactics.com/internetmarketing/how-to-use-google-base-to-double-traffic-the-video/

Discuss ?

And heres something else...
http://www.3d-box-shot.com/3d-box-shot-adshots/3d-box-shot-adshots.htm
by JM

Unexpected PageRank update

Google has done something unexpected and exported new PageRank values only 4 weeks after a major export of values to the Google toolbar. Over on DigitalPoint there's threads talking about how people have noticed new PR values for inner pages on their sites and the odd homepage rank change too.

I don't get the impression this has happened before, or at least not very often. Usually there 3 months between exports.

This export has cleared up one thing that had been confusing me. My Software Product Development blog was saying PR N/A but now it's PR 3. I was expecting it to have a non 0 PR as it turns up in Google searches quite a bit. PR 3 is more than I thought though. I'd kind of given up on this blog after the last PR toolbar export and started removing links from SliQTools. I removed the links 4 weeks ago. I'm not sure whether this means the PR will fall back over the next few weeks.

Unfortunately there are losers too. J's new site has dropped back to PR0 - why this has happened is anyone's guess. I was very surprised that it achieved PR1 at the end of July as it was a new domain. I expected it to take up to 5 months to get a non-0 PR.

by ML

Number 1 on Google - for a while at least

For the first time, one of my sites is number 1 on google.co.uk for a generic search term - billing software. This is a moderately competitive term - 1 in 5.3M. It's been number 1 for a couple of days. I know I won't stay in this position for long as another site will cycle into the position over the next few days but I though I'd make a record here.

The only thing I can put this down to is that I've been using my directory submission software to submit the site to a few more directories. I've used billing software in the site title/ anchor text and I'm guessing this has helped.

Category matchings with pad file categories

Since I did the improvements to softtester earlier this year, I deciced to create a categories table with an ID.

Afterall I only have a set number of categories so it makes sense to have an ID instead of values in my pads table.

I have a pattern matchings function which takes my catgories and trys to match them with the pad file categories for each submission. I try removing spaces, odd symbols etc. However, its not till this week that I'm noticed how different sites use completely different categories from those shown in the pad spec.

I guess I should strictly just reject these pad files.
However up till now, I've thought my function wasn't working and that somehow the submissions were correct and my function was flawed. I'm still not 100% convinced.

However, I'd like to create a complete list of categories which I can match with my categories.

Thoughts?

by JM

EDIT: I did some work yesterday on my function and I think my function is now much improved. Had 28 fails over night from friday to saturday and 3 last night / morning.

How to make good money via google base?

I wish I knew the answer to that question. But I hope to add comments to the post to help me do so.

I first tried google base when it was froogle.
If you don't know what either is, let me explain.
Its basically a service provided by google to allow you to submit your products to googles products directory, you know when you click products on the google home page.

I think there must be some strategies to selling well.

Since I set up my shops sites I've had a handful of sales on one site. So this has given me confidence that I can sell well on both.

Using google analytics I've seen that people are using keywords to access product pages on my site.

I've tonight improved my datafeed used by google base to include some extra keywords.
Also I didn't realise I was doing this already, but I've lifted my product description and put that in the feed a month ago I guess.

by JM

Joy another softtester bug and cleanup for me :(

While soubmitted my new pad file I've obviouly been examining it on softtester.

Although I do look at pad file addition submissions and convert them to update submissions if they are re-submitted. Somehow I've now got 3 copies of mdbsecure on softtester. One from my old site and 2 from the new.

Although the 2 new ones are using the same author record.

Joy, just wonder how many duplicates other authors have :(

by JM

Can't see wood for trees, a bug fix

G, thats an expression we use in the UK "Can't see wood for trees" meaning erm, well that were too close to something to see it. Hidden in plain sight.

Well I got denise (my wife) to test MDBSecure for me at the weekend.

I was looking through her notes at the start of the week and making some small fixes.
When I noticed what seemed to be a file permissions problem on a shared folder.

When I looked into the problem further I discovered the permissions were fine.

However, I wasn't deleting the file, this occured after the file save dialog was shown.

I guess when i firt wrote the code I figured that the OS dialog would delete the file for me.

So the moral of the story is don't assume bug reports are due to the user machines or conifguration.

I just wonder how many sales I've lost through this :(

by JM

Wordpress PAD File Plugin

I thought that you maybe interessted in a new wordpress plugin that can be used for showing Pad File content in your blog. I implemented that plugin the last days, because I make a complete re-design of my website using wordpress.

You can download and test it at my technical blog: http://jachman.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/wordpress-padfile-plugin/

by GS
EDIT: Heres your pad file [padfile:http://www.timepunch.de/download/TimePunch.xml]

My comments about that software submission program

I'm not going to name the submissions software here, but its the one we've been talking about.
I bought it today as I finished my latest changes to my program.

I guess I should have installed the trial version and used it for a bit first, however I don't regret to decision to buy it.

However I think the program is far from perfect.
I've seen several error messages and I've had to close the program.
Also theres one thing which is an obvious bug which should have been spotted in testing.

I've found that I still have to use padgen, the online validator and trial and error to get my pad file perfect. I had hoped the program would be a comprehensive solution, as it does create the pad file for you. But theres some simple things which is causing my pad file to be rejected. Now that I have tried submitting I find that several sites say that you have to wait 25 days before you can re-submit.

I still haven't got my pad file perfect, but theres a couple of sites at the top of the list which allow me to re-submit and modify.

So overall I guess the program is OK.
If the pad file creation stuff was taken out it would be better.
That functionality seems quite lacking, if it creates a pad file it should be valid.

However, I'll post more comments as I progress.

I guess the pad files for my old program, I was just lucky or the spec has changed and sites are less tolerant.

by JM

Tracking positions in SERPs automatically

A few days ago Dipsy made a post asking if there was any software available to track/ graph the position of domains and URLs in Google SERPs for specific keywords.

I wasn't aware of any at the time so I did a bit of Googling and found a tool called WebPosition Gold (WPG). Problem is that Google's terms of service specifically say that that using WPG or any similar program is deeply frowned upon. In the past I think 10s of 1000s of webmasters have used tools like WPG to track URLs and have placed a significant overload on Google. There are stories that running such tools causing the searcher's IP address to be banned by Google.

At one time Google used to provide a SOAP search API that could be used to run Google searches programmatically via a web service. You had to register for an API key with Google. About 2 or so years ago Google stopped issuing new API keys although they preserved the service for existing keys. WPG requires an API key to work. Apparently people who had purchased WPG (for about $150) are now finding that Google is blocking searches made by WPG using the old API keys so it sounds like the tool is dead in the water.

It's a  strange situation in some ways - the WPG site is PR 6 and Google shows sitelinks in the SERPS as though the site is an authority site but still specifically says in their terms of service that people shouldn't use the tool.

by ML

Programs which use web browser controls

Yesterday my pc died, the software I mean. In the end all the devices had become corrupted.
Luckily I had an image from a year ago and have now got everything I want on and have done another image.

I do have norton 360 installed.

I problem I got was the Antivirus XP 2008 malware program.
Which pretends to be a virus scanner, but says you have lots of viruses and encourages you to buy the program to remove them. The program changes your windows pack drop and your background colour. In can also display a picture of a program screen with virus warnings. The dialogs the program uses only have one choice, e.g. buy etc.

The worse thing is it adds itself to your start menu as if you installed it yourself.

It does all this slighlty, Norton 360 did detect a vb script operation, but didn't handle to problem. I did find some help on the web and did remove the program, but I must have missed something.

At this point, when I thought i'd removed it, I installed the free upgrade of norton 360 v2. Then I tried to install the add-on pack, but this required XP service pack 3.

Unfortunertly I started the SP3 late at night and had to leave it going over night. It remained at the same screen the next morning. So I had to cancel it. The program then popped up at this point. Had blue screens and tried uninstalling SP3.

Here I had the device drivers missing etc.

So I went back the image.
I've installed adaware and think I might buy a copy.

However, I was wondering when I got the problem. I think it was mikes directory submitter program, well I don't mean his program has a virus in it, but that I must have visited a directory and that my security settings were not set to monitor the submitter in the same was an internet browser, I think. In fact I don't think I can set any other settings.

So is there anything else i can do to protect myself from browser based programs?

by JM

First thoughts about hiring a coder to do website work

A few days ago I said I wanted to code a backend/ customer management interface for my site. I've decided I need to do this fairly quickly as I'm getting more and more customer requests for lock codes, custom templates etc. I also need to quickly find out who's purchased when I get a query. I get lots of similar questions that could potentially be answered by a semi-automated reply. Also, some questions would be better answered by a website than a more personal email.

The key to this is keeping a database of purchasers on the site. I did do this in the early days but it mysteriously broke after a few weeks and I simply by-passed it since someone wanted to purchase ASAP. I need to resurrect the database and redo the sales page and Paypal IPN to register attempts at purchasing as well as successful purchases. I'll also want a protected admin area and also a user area where they can log in and ask for new codes etc.

I've decided I simply don't have the time to code this myself so I'm going to put together a spec. and place a project on RAC as you've suggested in the past.

by ML

Neat free SEO tools of the trade?

When I was looking at the screen dumps for IBusinessPromoter there was a screen which showed you your position for keywords on search engine. Also percentage improvement.

I think a tool which could show this, maybe a graph showing the position as it improves over a time.

Although simple the current position and the last position would do.

I've been searching for a free tool to do this, but haven't found one.
I guess I could write one easily enough, but I don't want to have yet another project :(

Have you got any neat tools?

by JM

If you ran a web directory, what would you do?

In a earlier post, the idea was floated about running a web directory. If you did start a web directory, what differences would you make to the directories you've recently been submitting sites too?

For example, what categories would you choose? My natural instinct would be to choose software related categories. Most directories bundle all software into one category, e.g.

[top] -> Computers -> Software

Do you think a finer categorisation would work? For example:

[top] -> Software -> Development Companies

[top] -> Software -> Development Blogs

[top] -> Software -> PHP Scripts

Of course, even if the categories were different to a lot of other directories, would submitters use them and do you think you'd have time to review submissions to check they are appropriate to the categories?

by ML

Directory Sites

I've been using Mikes wonderful submitter program http://www.sliqtools.co.uk/directory-submission-tool.aspx. Although I've been using his beta.

While I've been submitting I've been wondering about the benefits of having such a site?

I mean I guess you can put links / adverts to your own sites / products.
But what are the other potential benefits?

I was thinking if I did setup a site, other sites, well some of them, only accept sites of a certain type. I was thinking I could setup a site which is in the same area as some of my own products. I could then have content which is similar to my own and therefore my links (at the top of the pages) could get better get impressions because theres a better range of keywords and content shown on google.

However, I would also be promoting my competitors products at the same time.

So I'm not sure whether its worth the effort.

I'm guessing you must be able to download the software which you will pretty much just have to upload to a domain and your up and running?

Thoughts?

by JM

Customer analysis and goodies

I need to do something for sure. After the last PR update I seem to have moved up the ranking in other countries, South Africa, Australia etc. - probably just because my site is that bit older. I'm getting more downloads as a result.

I also need to program a part of the website where people who have purchased can login, get special offers, subscribe to newsletters, ask for keycodes etc.

by ML

Strategy for reducing download quota

My monthly download has exceeded 20Gb for the first time. I'm having to pay £2 for every extra Gb above 18Gb so it's starting to get costly. I need some ideas for reducing the download amounts without making things more complicated and confusing for my visitors.

With my main programs I bundle the .Net runtime. This makes them twice as big as they need to be. I could offer smaller downloads which download the .Net runtime separately if it is needed when installing on a PC. I'd still carry on providing the big downloads though as testing has shown they are less confusing for people.

An alternative might be to host the downloadables on a different server, e.g. I have a second hosting account with HostGator  and they have essentially unlimited download quotas. Would this be confusing or lead to mistrust though if people see they are downloading from a different site? One thing I could do I suppose is host sliqtools.com on HostGator so people see the download from sliqtools.com (not .co.uk) which might be more understandable from their point of view.

by ML

Firewall and Anti-Virus Software

Why?

Why should you bother with Firewall and Anti-Virus software?
Whose going to be interested in what I have on my PC?

Well theres lots of valueable information on a PC even one you just bought and switched on. Whether its license keys for your software, credit card, bank statements, your postal address, your email address or passwords.

This information has value to someone else.

Treat your computer like your home or your money.

What is a firewall?
There are two types hardware and software. Firewall hardware, is a box of tricks which sits in between your PC and your internet connection. Both try to put a wall in between your pc and potential harm.

Whats Anti-Virus Software?
If you haven't heard of a computer virus, its much the same as a human virus it attacks your PC and causes harm, viruses range in severity.

You can get FREE software.

Zone Alaram
AVG


Great Shareware and Freeware Software Downloads

Google Adwords

Today I started a Google Adwords campaign for TimePunch. I'm really interessted to see on how much this changes the amount of visitors and hopefully my sellings ;)

For the first time I spend 100EUR with a limit of 5EUR a day and three keywords "Zeiterfassung", "Arbeitszeit" and "Projektzeit".

I'll keep you up to date ...

by GS

Did you ever run Windows with 120 dpi?

Last days an user mailed me an application failure where some text boxes haven't been displayed and some content had been cut and other strange things.

It came out, that he ran Windows in 120dpi mode.

It was kind of strange to me, that my application looks that ugly with this setting. But it was true. I had to adjust some dialogs and controls to fit that mode. What I discovered is, that you have to change your application only in 96dpi mode - otherwise all controls will look ugly when you change windows back to 96dpi mode.

The problem was that I used fixed pixel settings (e.g. 455px left side) for my application. Now I changed everything to use floating grids or table layouts, so that it will adjust automatically.

Only for fun - switch windows to 120 dpi mode, and I'm sure you'll see "unexpected" results.

by GS

Roundup of current SERPs for MDBSecure Old Site

Out of interest I thought I'd take a look on Google to see how the old Mindwarp mdbsecure-free-trial-download page was doing in the search results. We tweaked it a couple of months ago and I was interested to see how it might be doing more recently. It's not doing badly at all. Here are some results for different searches:

"access database security"   12
"ms access database security"   10
"ms access security"    8
"ms database security"    12
"secure ms access databases"   3
"secure access databases"   6
"how to make an access database secure"  6

The new site is doing well for this phrase:

"ms database security"    3

but I didn't find it in the results for the other phrases.

This sort of indicates the old, tweaked page is pretty good in terms of SERPs, i.e. it's on page 1 for lots of search terms and with a few more tweaks within the mindwarp site could do even better.

by ML

Which software submission software?

After many years of submitting my software by hand to shareware sites, well I haven't done it for well over a year now. I just update my pad file.

Whats the best software in your opinion, whats your experiences?

Heres what I've found to be contenders :-

Submit It 2000 - http://www.gregorybraun.com/SubmitIt.html
SoftSubmit - http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/program/ssubmit.htm
SharewareTracker - http://www.accusolve.biz/strack.html
Software-Promoter - http://www.softilium.com/sp/index.htm
RoboSoft - http://robosoft.rudenko.com/

Or are there any I've missed which you rate?

Idea for naming landing pages

Inspired of the last blog entry I was thinking about valueable landing pages for my own product. The problem is to find names that fits to what the customer searches. There's my idea.

I have monthly statistics of my web page for the most used search phrases. What about taking these search phrases for buying new domain names?

by GS

When you've got 2 product sites for the same product?

Now that I've got a new website for MDBSecure, I'd like to ditch my old site.

Change my pad file and set the new location in the old file.

I can hear you saying already, "you don't want to do that" you have an existing / established site, with inbound links and is already on a lot of software download sites. Also got several alternative keyword pages.

Or maybe I'm just giving you to much credit ;)

I do appreciate these points and I'm not 100% sold on the idea of ditching the old site.

I think the idea of promoting the new site with a pad file is a good idea and I think I'll struggle is I don't do this.

I guess another idea is to re-brand the product and give it a new name.
Although I think this is a bit of a shame as I like the name.

From a cost point of view I would like to get rid of the old site eventually.
Although I'm not sure how I could add my keyword pages from the old site into the new site without making the new site look unprofessional.

So lots to talk about there and lots of crucial decisions to make for me.

HELP!

by JM

Getting Quality Inbound links

In a comment on an earlier post there was a question about getting inbound links. Well, getting links to a website is one of the most time-consuming and difficult activities when first trying to make a site rank well in SERPs. Although web directories are not as useful in this regard as they were a few years ago, they can still be a good way of getting backlinks. I've come across websites that have a PR of 3 and don't appear to have backlinks from anything other than web directories.

When it comes to submitting your website to a directory, you soon find the process a bit laborious if you do things totally by hand. There's a lot of copying and pasting and selecting of categories - it takes a long time. The alternative is to pay someone to do the job for you. The problem with this is that you can never be sure they put your sites into the best categories. You might also want to be in control of the sites you submit to. For example if you hire someone to submit to 500 directories and you only get accepted in 10% of them then you need to avoid submitting to the same directories in the future.

SliQTools now offer a free directory submission tool that combines the best of both worlds. The tool greatly speeds the process of submitting to directories. You set up your website details with a number of alternative descriptions and titles (anchor text) then start loading directories one by one. All you need to do is enter any required CAPTCHA to complete the submission process. Sometimes there isn't even a CAPTCHA to enter.  The directory submission software will also help you select categories. You can specify up to 6 possible categories that SliQ Submitter will try and match when loading a directory page. Currently the tool support 450 directories but will support up to 2500 in a release later this month.

by ML

Does traffic drop in the summer months?

In the last 2 or 3 weeks I've noticed a significant (20 or 30%) drop in traffic on my websites. At the same time I seem to be moving up in the SERPs for my keywords.

The only thing I can think is happening is that people are going on holiday now that summer is here and spending less time online. I can also imagine that with the kids off school, there's less time available to spend at the computer. Do you have any experience of a drop in traffic in summer in previous years?

by ML

Top link taking an unfair proportion of PR?

On SoftTester, one of the highest PR inner pages is http://www.softtester.com/keywords-a.shtml. Strangely this page is almost the first link on every page, i.e. the link nearest the top of the page. I remember reading a while ago that the position of links on pages can influence PR pass through. I wonder if this is happening on SoftTester?

The second highest link is the KMF ad. Does this get an unfair kick of PR?

I wonder if SERPs would improve if the "Search by Keyword" phrase wasn't a link? could it be changed to a radio button or checkbox that is actioned only when the Search button is pressed? Alternatively, could the Search group of controls, or even just the Search by Keywords link, be moved below the main category links?

Unless the blog is drawing a significant amount of traffic I'd be tempted to move that lower down the page too - perhaps to the footer.

I'd also nofollow the Advanced link in the Search group of controls. The page it links to is a bit of a dead end in terms of spreading PR back through Softtester.

by ML

MS Access Database Security site design complete :)

I've only got a couple of small fixes to do then I'm ready to start doing some SEO.

I've also got to do my white paper.

Suggestions?

by JM

Affliates Setup

I've been logging into my affiliate accounts and having a look around to see what we have to do to add buy now links to our sites and if we have to do anything in the accounts themselves.

SWReg.org seems a bit odd, but it makes sense from their point of you, you have a basic url and you added an afliate id you make up yourself, when you get your first sale, they create and account for you with that id. The password is the same too.

More info here.

http://www.swreg.org/affiliate_system.htm

Heres some example urls

https://gbp.swreg.org/cgi-bin/sitm35.cgi?s=51509&c=GBP&x=1

First implementation of Shareware Site Improvements

I've implemented an Editor's Picks section listing recommended software downloads on the homepage of SoftwareLode. The list is populated with programs I personally recommend after review. I've coloured the background of the Editor's Pick section to make them stand out a bit.

I'll probably choose the programs to list based on whether authors ask to be listed and/ or they give SoftwareLode a backlink. I won't automatically list a program just because someone asked - I'll review the programs first. I'll also list programs I come across that I think are neat. I'm reviewing titles as they get submitted by authors so I can decide whether to linger on a review after getting a first impression of a submitted title.

To manage the Editor's Pick section, I've written an extra page in the admin section of the site. This lets me nominate a software title based on its program number and either set or clear its featured status. I can also choose to add my own comments about the program or just use the PAD file description. I've allowed the comments to include HTML tags so I can make my own comments on the program stand out a bit.

I'm still thinking of other improvements, e.g. a Recommended List on the home page. The Editor's Pick section will never contain more than a handful of titles but I may want to add a list - say up to 10 - of other titles I recommend.

On the program listing page itself, I can distinguish programs by giving them a 3, 4 or 5 star rating.

by ML

First Thoughts on Shareware Site Improvements

On SoftwareLode at the moment, the home page has a Featured program at the top. The script for this is a bit wonky though. It selects a program at random but the random number range is very small (1 to 10) and doesn't cover the full range of programs on the site.

In any case, I was considering changing the Featured feature to be a series of 2 or 3 panels that give:

A pick of the day

I would pick a set of good programs on the site and display these randomly for one day at a time. The programs might be those where the authors supplied backlinks for example.

A personal recommendation

This would be a program that I personally recommend after review. The wording for the description would be my own - not the author's. These programs might be those with which I have affiliation.

I'm still thinking these things through. One thing I might do is drop Google Ads from the right column on the homepage and use that for a list of table cells containing further recommended software.

by ML

The importance of good site design

When i setup my first websites, I knew that it was important to use light colours and make the users feel comfortable and not scare them off with nasty colours and horrid text colours or styles.

I then progressed a bit further and realised that those stock site design were a great idea and made your site look professional, I have a site with a smiling business woman at the top and office type images and the name of my web site / company.

Then I discovered it was important to have good content at the top of your page for search engine positioning.

Now, I've just thought that the most important thing is to consider that small window area using the most popular screen resolution size aka that first area that a customer will see when they find your site from a search engine.

If this area is full of graphics, your company name and doesn't give the customer the answer he seeks, without scrolling down, hes probably going to click back and look at the next search engine listing.

So not only do we have to worry about the SEO of our page, but site design, the list is never ending.

by JM

Kids Math Shop - An Idea?

One suggestion I've read about encouraging visitors to come back to your site says that you should have games or puzzles on the site.

I wonder if the kids mask and math software sites could do this? If you think some of your software has gone a full cycle then perhaps the software has a future in a different form. You could use mask drawing as an online game to keep children visiting a site.

Perhaps you could have simple online versions of the software - not enough to discourage a download or purchase of course - but perhaps enough to occupy a 5 or 6 year old for a while and encourage repeat visits over a few weeks. I know my kids get fascinated by the simplest of drawing or word games online.

The other thing that might be missing from the site is Adsense. If you did encourage people to visit again they might be tempted to click on ads.

I'm not sure this idea fits exactly with an online shop but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

by ML

New Children's Maths Education Shop Site - First SEO Tips

I've just taken a quick look at the new kids math store - looks nice and clean. I see you also modded the older shop site to match.

First thing I noticed in terms of textual content was that the homepage title was a bit short. Try to fit 3 keywords in if you can. Use WordTracker to check out good phrases. Off the top of my head I'd start looking at:

1. Maths Software for Younger Children


2. Preschool Maths Software


3. Math Games for Kids


4. Math for Kids

and so on ...

The homepage description meta tag is also a bit light on keywords. The sentence:

"We also supply a range of products which compliment our software."

is very non-specific and takes up too many words in the title. Also "compliment" should be "complement".

by ML

Keyword dense page names which are no longer relavant

Last week I setup a new shop site and copied over my existing product from my old site, as the new site had a better domain name. So I then decided to put some different products on my old site.

So I now have an old site with PR2 on the front page (which is obviously a good start and extremely useful), but I also have several pages which have keyword dense page names, have PR1 etc, which hold no relevance to the products I'm now going to add.

At the moment this "lost pages" just show a link to a missing product. I guess when I add the new products this will show a new / unrelated product.

Is this OK?

is it the best use of such a lost page?

And ideas?

by JM

Keep Nagging For a Purchase

When I first thought about selling shareware I read all sorts of different advice about how to encourage people to purchase. The problem was that lots of advice conflicted.

One piece of advice I got was never to stop people using the software package, i.e. don't have a trial period. Let them use it forever - maybe one day they'll decide to buy! This is a Winzip kind of scheme - but it hasn't made me purchase Winzip after 3 1/2 years of seeing the nag screen.

The same people who made me paranoid about unlock codes made me paranoid about the Winzip scheme.

In the end I went for a trial period with a nag dialog showing when the package starts. The nag dialog serves 2 purposes - it lets people know I'd like them to purchase and it also lets them know how long they've got left on the free trial.

I've since read that the best strategy is to nag more often, e.g. when the package is closed as well as when it starts. I've also read that long trial periods are useless - if people buy they usually do so within a day or two. I did have a trial period of 60 days initially and found that a fair few people - 50%? - actually waited the whole 60 days before buying so I'm not sure this advice is good.

Any thoughts?

by ML

Improving Shareware Unlock Code Mechanisms

On my software I initially had an unlock code scheme where the user's email address was used to generate an unlock code. The user entered their email address and unlock code into the software's registration dialog and bingo they were up and running.

I then became a bit paranoid about people sharing unlock codes. The situation really is that other people became paranoid for me and thought I should tighten things up. In the second version of the software I switched to a code that was generated using specific features of the user's PC. A different unlock code was then used for each PC. I knew this was unadvisable but went ahead and did it.

The inevitable has now happened of course: when users change PCs they need a new code and email me. As the user base grows this is getting somewhat tiresome.

The other aspect that make this scheme undesirable is that whenever anyone asks for a new unlock code, I almost always give them one. There's no way I can distinguish between a genuine PC change and the user wanting to run a second copy. In any case, if someone wants to run a second copy I've no problem giving them a code - I just don't want them sharing codes with their friends.

I can easily change the software unlock mechanism in a future release and make it backward compatible with the present method. Question is: what's the best thing to do?

by ML

Examples of Searchworthy Categories

Back in the post Searchworthy Categories I talked about having other categories that had a better chance of matching keywords people actually search for on Google etc.

A lot of shareware sites these days seem to have moved past the top level Business, Audio & Multimedia, Desktop categories and they now include other major categories that reflect what people tend to look for online.

To illustrate what I mean, I've added 3 new categories over at SoftwareLode - Free DVD Software, Free Photo Software and Free MP3 Software. Clicking on these links lists all related software with those keywords in the PAD file. The titles of the pages also match the search term, as do the page URLs. Hopefully, in time, these pages will do well in searches.

To see what I mean about search volumes for these terms, try looking at "Free DVD Software" etc. using Wordtracker.

by ML

MySQL Query Performance Improvements

SoftTester uses a program written in VB.Net to perform all of the transactions. At the moment.t this runs during the night. In the last few months is undergone some big changes moving from MS Access offline with My SQL, to completely with MySQL.

Obviously when I did this conversion I had to do it in stages and leave tweaks till last after things settled down.

The next thing I need to do is query tweaks to improve the performance of the program and the MySQL process on the web server. Then I can do more with the program and hopefully convince my ISP that the program is fast enough to run during the day OR as he prefers in realtime.

Following a conversation with my ISP about the queries the program uses, I thought i'd share the I'd share the bigger picture.

Try to avoid text searches, use number / indexes fields.
When you have to use text searches try to include another clause to cut down that amount of records that the database has to look at to provide results.

This is a problem for me as I search on pad url as it is unique. I don't have any other data which is unique.

Next, instead of having big update queires which update fields which are already up-to-date, store the data in variables or some sort of structure and produce a smaller update query.

Then I have in my main table what I call a locking flag. This allows me to gain the key value after the record is added. Instead I can do a Max on key field plus one, then I have the record key id. Oh of course I use auto num.

Its a start but I'm hopeful these will make a big difference

by JM

Writing Help files for software products

For help, I've stuck with the CHM format. It does what I need and is easy to integrate with a .Net application. I must admit though I haven't spent time investigating alternatives and I've just gone with what I know about.

I used to find the process of developing a CHM a bit laborious. I'd use Microsoft FrontPage to generate HTML pages and then use the Microsoft Help Compiler to turn them into a CHM. There were always index files etc. to edit in Notepad. The process wasn't really diffcult, just a bit lengthy. I tend to put pictures into my help files too and maintaining help pictures with overlayed text and pointers in something like Paint .Net is a bit tedious.

Nowadays I use a package called Help & Manual (www.helpandmanual.com). This is a superb, well-rounded package that allows you to write WYSIWYG help in a Microsoft Word like way. Help & Manual also invokes the Help Compiler for you behind the scenes and there are no independent text files with weird formats to edit.

Help & Manual also includes its own image editor that allows you to easily write text and pointers/ arrows in different layers. When screenshots change, all you need do is update the background image and the text and pointers can be reused. This saves me hours and hours of time.

The other thing I like about Help & Manual is that you can generate output in different formats just by making a simple selection from a dropdown.

For example you can generate a PDF document of your help file. This can then be placed on your website for download or made available to users in printed form.

The other output format I use Help & Manual to generate is HTML help. I upload this to my website and it adds about 90 pages to my site - all full of good keywords relating to my applications. Google is also meant to prefer bigger sites so the extra pages might help me look bigger and more information heavy.

Within Help & Manual you can specify common headers for different output formats. For the HTML help I make sure each page links back to the homepage of my site. I also add links in the footer of each help page so that if the help pages are landing pages, a visitor can find their way to the main part of my site.

by ML