DKSpeaks Podcast: Internet Marketing, Blogging and Social Media Tips

How to Market on Instagram? I am sure this is one question that anybody who has not seen the potential of Instagram and has never used it for marketing would have. A few others would have tried marketing on Instagram and finally given up because they couldn’t figure out how to market on Instagram. In fact, I too had wondered as to how could you even think of marketing on a platform that is totally unlike any other social media site. A platform with so many limitations like – * you can only post images and videos and no text content * you cannot post any links in your post descriptions * most of the users are selfie takers, who like sharing their photographs with their circles and keep liking and commenting on photographs * and most importantly, can only be managed through a mobile phone. Now, that’s so many of them especially if you are a marketer. It took me almost a month to understand how to market on Instagram. And it took me another couple of months to get a very critical question answered – how do you drive traffic to your websites, from your Instagram posts especially when you cannot even post a link in your post descriptions? How to Market on Instagram In this episode we will be looking at every single step involved in marketing on Instagram. In fact we will be looking at every activity possible on Instagram and how to market on Instagram using these activities. Here are some of the things that we will be discussing in this episode – * What are the four things that you can do on Instagram? * Should you use filters and what are the filters that will generate engagement? * How to find content for your posts? * What is the right time and frequency to post? * What tools to use to automate your Instagram account? In some of the future episodes we will also be discussing strategies that will generate traffic to your websites, from Instagram. Resources mentioned in the Episode All social media strategy has to have automation as a key ingredient. Else you will end up spending a lot of time managing your social media accounts. We spoke about some tools that could automate Instagram management and some other tools that could help you with creating content for Instagram. If you want to know more about all the Instagram Marketing tools, you can check out Episode 36. Here are the resources that we spoke about in this episode – * Instagress – Instagram Automation Tool * Stencil – Image designing tool * Canva – Image designing tool * Buffer – Instagram Posting tool * Hooper – Instagram Posting tool * Grum – Instagram Posting tool Thank You for Joining I would like to thank you all for joining me in today’s episode and I hope you all liked it. If you liked it, please take a few minutes to rate the show on iTunes and also write a genuine review for the show. Your ratings help in the rankings of the show and will help others find the show on iTunes. Don’t forget to subscribe to the show. I have a special guide on “how to find content for your next blog post” and an exclusive episode for everyone who subscribes to the show. You can subscribe to the podcast using any of the below links: Click here to Subscribe via iTunes Click here to Subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes Feed) Click here to Subscr...

  If you are wondering as to what push notifications for WordPress is, then you have not been reading some of the top blogs in the industry. Because it is unlikely that you would have missed that notification on the top-middle of the blog as soon as you browse over to the blog. And these days, pretty much every blogger, rather I should say, website is implementing this. If you are still wondering as to what this is, then let me show something from a blog that I visit and read very frequently. That was Yaro Starak’s Entrepreneurs Journey. Do you see that small popup on top of the website, that is unobtrusive yet attention grabbing? That is an example of push notifications. You will see this being used by pretty much every blogger today. So what are these and why are business owners using these push notifications? In order for us to understand this, we will need to look at what happens after somebody clicks on that “YES” button you see in that popup. Here is an image of a sample notification. Just so that I brush up your memory, you would also have seen these notifications from Facebook, popping up at the bottom left corner of your computer. This is even if you do not have Facebook open on your computer. Now, that would have given you a fair idea of what these push notifications do and why is Facebook and a lot of the bloggers using them on their sites. Push Notifications for WordPress and Email Marketing These push notifications are a good way to stay in touch with your readers and blog visitors. In fact you can send all kind of information to your subscribers as a notification. And because of their unobtrusive nature and the fact that it cannot go unnoticed, it is a perfect replacement for Email Marketing for obvious reasons. In this episode of the DKSPeaks Podcast we will be looking at push notifications for WordPress and an in depth analysis of their benefits. Here are some of the things that we will be discussing in this episode – * How does Push Notifications work? * What are the advantages and disadvantages of Push Notifications? * What are its advantages over Email marketing and is it going to replace email marketing? * Is this the death of Email marketing? * What are the best push notification services? Resources Mentioned in this Episode We spoke about some of the best push notification service providers and their pricing structures in this episode. The below are these service providers – * Push Crew * Push Engage * Let Reach * Almost all of these services come with Free trials and you can take them for a trial before deciding on the one that is right for you. Thank You for Joining I hope you liked this week’s episode and want to thank you all for joining me. If you liked this episode you can help me build the buzz around this show by – * Taking a couple of minutes out and posting a genuine review for the show on iTunes * Rating us on iTunes as that would help in the rankings for the show. Don’t forget to subscribe to the show to download an exclusive guide on “How to find Content ideas for your next blog post” and an exclusive episode of the show that is not available elsewhere. You can subscribe to the podcast using any of the below links: Click here to Subscribe via iTunes Click here to Subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes Feed) Click here to Subscribe via S...

How to Secure Your WordPress Blogs? This is one thing that every blogger on the World’s largest blogging Platform – WordPress, is worried about. Why? Because WordPress is the world’s favorite CMS platform (sarcasm intended). According to a study by the security firm Sucuri, 4 out of 5 hacked websites that they investigated were running WordPress as their content management platform. More precisely, Sucuri reveals that 78 percent of the total number of hacked websites it investigated were WordPress sites, with Joomla in a distant second, taking up only 14 percent of the data sample. Further, six percent were no-CMS websites, 5 percent were running Magento, and 2 percent were using Drupal. If you are still wondering as to what was the “sarcasm” in that earlier comment above, then let me explain. WordPress is indeed the favorite platform of everyone – both bloggers and hackers alike. And hackers don’t have to work hard to break into a WordPress Installation and take the site down. Sucuri, in its investigation found that the primary reason for WordPress sites getting hacked was outdated plugins and not the Core files itself. As for a breakdown of hacked WordPress sites, Sucuri says that a large part can be attributed to outdated plugins. There were minimal attempts to use vulnerabilities in the WordPress core itself, and crooks relied on WordPress’ popularity and its large plugins and themes ecosystem to inflict their damage. If that wasn’t horrifying enough, then let us look at some more reasons why WordPress is the favorite platform of hackers and how to secure your WordPress blogs. How to Secure Your WordPress Blogs Have you ever woken up to a Blank homepage on your WordPress blog? Or, you might have seen a page with a disastrous formatting that left you wondering as to what happened to your WordPress blog overnight. If yes, then welcome to the world of WordPress bloggers. I went through both of the above. Now, imagine if this happens to a blog with over 400 posts and you don’t even have a backup of the files and the database! I am sure you would agree that it is not the best situation to be in. And, I was in that situation too. It was after all of this that I realized how important securing your WordPress blog is. And since then I started spending a lot of time to ensure that I ring-fence my blog enough to prevent this from happening. In this episode we are going to look at why a WordPress Blog gets hacked and how to secure your WordPress blogs from hackers and spammers. Here are some of the things that we are discussing in this episode – * Why is the single most important reason for a blog getting hacked? * 2 things that you should avoid to ensure that your blog is protected * A simple plugin to update all your blogs in a single click * A readily available firewall that is free to use Resources Mentioned in this Episode These are the resources that we spoke about in this episode – * WP Pipeline * Hostgator Managed WordPress Hosting * Bluehost Managed WordPress Hosting * Wordfence

  Single Optin Vs Double Optin! Its the question of “To be or, not to be”. When I first started with SOLO ads, the first seller gave me a piece of advice – “If you want good conversions, then keep your optin settings to a single optin”. I was skeptical at first, because I was always told that optin settings should be at “double optin”. I never questioned the logic and blindly followed the guidance. In due course I figured out the reason why you would choose “double optin”; reduce spam complaints and prevent your autoresponder company from banning you. So when this friend of mine asked me to use “Single optin”, I was a little surprised. But I followed his advice and since that date I never went back to double optin except for running a few tests on what worked well – single optin or, double optin. Single Optin Vs Double Optin – Which one? While a lot of people would recommend going with the obvious, i.e double optin for your list settings, I recommend otherwise. And in this episode of the DKSpeaks Podcast, that is precisely what we will be discussing. Some of the things that we will be discussing in this episode are – * What are the reasons for selecting “double optin” for your list settings? * Single Optin Vs Double Optin – the pros and cons of both! * How to solve for the negatives in “Single Optin”? * How to carry forward the positives of double optin to single optin as well? * Which one to select and why? If you are buying SOLO ads, then it is always single optin that you should choose. Why? Because you are buying cold traffic and that too from an email that is offering something free. They have no clue of who you are and what you do. They were not expecting an email from you. They clicked on the link in the email on impulse and was taken to a page where they saw something free being offered. They entered their email address in the flow. And then they forget you, your offer and everything. This is what happens in SOLO ads. Imagine, if you put a “double optin” to this entire funnel. Only a very less % of people who entered their details in the optin forms, will click on the confirmation link in their emails to verify. And this essentially means, reduced conversions for you which in turn means a lower ROI. This is not something you would want to do, especially when you are paying for clicks. So your next question is – what happens with other forms of traffic? What option to select? Listen to the episode for more details and some handy tips. Resources Mentioned in this Episode The below are some of the recommended resources to build your list. * Autoresponder – Aweber * Landing Page Builder – Thrive Content Builder * Optin Form Builder – Thrive Leads Over to You Thank you everyone for joining me on this week’s podcast. I am hoping you liked this episode of the podcast. If you liked it, please do post a genuine review of the show on iTunes and also do rate the show. Your ratings and reviews will help in the rankings of the show on iTunes and will help others who are looking for similar information find the show. Please do share this post and the show with your friends and social media circles by clicking one of the sharing buttons below.

What’s Your Biggest reason to HATE Instagram, if at all you are? I seem to have started loving this picture sharing social media site. If you had asked me the above question about 6 months back, I would have had at least 12 different reasons for hating Instagram. And most of the reasons would have been around the flexibility to use the tool, the usability, lack of automation, dearth of content to post etc. I am sure, your reason for hating them would also be something similar to these. Then one day I came across this tool, that solved one of my biggest problems with Instagram – Automation. And that was the day when everything changed. It is true. It is just a matter of searching online and you are sure to find a lot many people who have the same problem. And where there are a lot of people who have the same problem, there is bound to be a tool, a way, a method or, a service that will simplify it or, provide a resolution to it. 20 Instagram Marketing Tools to Fall in Love With With Instagram gaining on popularity both because of the high levels on engagement and the many options available to market and with Instagram introducing Business Profiles, it was just a matter of time that you started seeing marketing tools that could simplify marketing on Instagram. There are hundreds of services that can automate or, simplify most of the activities that we do on Instagram. But most have a similar limitation. And this limitation has nothing to do with how they operate. In fact these limitations are driven by the way Instagram works, more so because of the fact that Instagram is an app-only social media site. It is here that my quest started to find tools that did not require a lot of intervention and could work on autopilot to some extent. And for that to happen, these tools needed to be a PC based tool. And you would see that most of the Instagram Marketing tools that we are going to discuss today are Computer based tools. I am sure you would fall in love with them, at least some of them for sure, if not all. If you have any other Instagram marketing tools that you would like to recommend, feel free to let us know about it by commenting below. Resources Mentioned in this Episode We discussed a lot of tools in this episode. You will find links to all of those below. While some of these are paid tools, some have a basic version that is available for FREE. So if you are an individual marketer, you can always use the basic version and if you like the tool enough to want to upgrade, then you can take up that option. So here are the 20 Instagram Marketing Tools we discussed in today’s episode. * Grum * Simply Measured * Iconosquare * Instagress * Repost for Instagram * Crowdfire * Social Insight * Stencil – The guys at Appsumo keeps running promotions on this tool. You can join them and watch out for some promos to save some money. * Quick – Quick is an app available both for the iOS and Android. You can download them from the respective app stores.

How much money did you make on Instagram, in the last month? I know that is a slightly tricky question to ask and if you are anything like me, then the answer would be – “ZERO”. But with the growing popularity of Instagram (check out some of these Instagram statistics at expanded ramblings), if you are not using it then you are leaving a lot of money on the table. Instagram is still an unsolved puzzle for quite a lot of people. The fact that this is a phone only app make it even worse and if you are not a mobile phone whiz, then Instagram is going to be the most difficult thing you would have ever dealt with. It was the same with me until about a month back and while it is still too early for me to call myself a success on Instagram, I still wanted to share these Instagram tips with you. What do people do on Instagram, according to you? The answer is, “Share photos”. So the obvious question is, “How do you make money by sharing photos and what photos would you share?” Instagram was one of the most difficult social media tools for me because of the way it worked – * It was a phone only app and you had to share photos using your phone. So if I had a photograph on my computer that I wanted to share, then I had to first transfer it to my phone. * I do not click a lot of photos and even if I do click some, they are primarily my private family photos which I do not like sharing on social media sites, especially if it is a business account. * Instagram only allows a single link and that is in your profile. You cannot add a link to the caption for your photographs. So how do I build my Instagram account and more importantly use it to build my business? 2 Simple Ways to Make Money with Instagram In this episode we will be discussing about 2 simple ways you could be making money with Instagram even if you do not have a real business. I have seen a lot of people who run online stores posting pictures of their products and also using Instagram to sell them. There are a few apps that help you do it. But what if you do not have a store? I spent a lot of time trying to find out how to make money with Instagram. And it was by sheer coincidence that I came across a profile where I saw the person mentioning, “for a shoutout and pricing for shoutouts, please send me a message“. I quickly browsed through the photographs that she had posted and found a lot of photos, where she had given a shoutout to another Instagram user. I realized that these were paid shoutouts and that the user was charging money for this shoutout. I reached out to her for a shoutout to see how much she was charging. I was shocked to see her response. She was charging around $200 for a shoutout. She would send one post out, everyday for a week. And guess the number of followers she had. It was about 8,000. You would by now have realized the potential of Instagram and how you could make money with Instagram. Here are the things you will learn in this episode – * Why you should be on Instagram today? * 2 ways in which you could make money with Instagram * How to use Instagram on a PC? * Tools that will help you build you Instagram Business. Resources mentioned in this Episode Managing Instagram is slightly difficult in comparison to a lot of the other social media channels. You require some handy tools in order to ensure that you are leveraging time and automating some of the tasks. Here are some of the tools that I use to manage Instagram.

What is your single biggest worry about online assets – your blog, your websites and your money-sites? If your response was anything other than “Security”, then you need to rethink. But if you answered in “Security”, then let me tell you that you are in the same league as thousands of other website owners. But the worst part in all of this is the fact that there is no real solution to it. You can use one of the many security solutions like Sucuri, Wordfence etc. to secure your websites, but you still need to be aware that these tools can only protect you to a certain extent. The rest is onto you to ensure that you are prepared to deal with a dire situation. You might have noticed that my last post was almost about 2 and a half months back and also that I have never taken such an extended break from blogging. As for my podcasts, I had always ensured that I maintain consistency. But all that went for a toss over the last couple of months. And all this thanks to a hacker. This was not the first time that my sites were hacked. In fact, after the last time this happened I had ensured that I secure my sites with some of the best plugins I could find, but I still couldn’t prevent another attack. And the reason was an old WordPress installation that I forgot to delete from my hosting. Since most of the files in this installation was outdated, it was easy for the hacker to get into the files and then use them to get into the other WordPress sites. To sum it all up, I spent almost a month and a half restoring all my websites, about 40 of them and 3 of my niche blogs. While it should have been a couple of week’s job, it was only because of some of my mistakes that it took me so long. Nevertheless, all of my sites are back up and the experience I gained following this hacking instance has made me a little more wiser and given me some extra knowledge. I am putting together a complete guide on how to save your WordPress sites, in which I will be detailing everything about prevent hacker attacks and tips on restoring your WordPress installations. You might see a slight inconsistency in my posts and podcasts for some time until things stabilize, but I should be back up and running in another couple of weeks. Ways to Generate Free Traffic to Your Blogs In this episode of the DKSpeaks Podcast, I will be discussing about 2 simple methods using which you can drive FREE traffic to your blogs. These traffic methods have helped me through the situations that we discussed a little while back, when you sites get hacked. Since these are FREE traffic generation methods, I am not impacted financially with the loss of traffic. Also the traffic just doesn’t get impacted unless the website is down for a long time. You need to keep one thing in mind, when you include these traffic generation methods in your strategy. These methods are long term methods and will help you in the long run. You will have to be patient and consistent with these methods. Do it the right way and don’t let it go in between. It also means that if you are looking for immediate traffic, then these methods will simply not help you. You will have to look at paid traffic generation methods like PPC. In this episode, we will be looking at the following – * How to use your existing content to generate traffic * How to establish yourself as an authority in your niche * A strategy that generates traffic and also helps build your list Resources mentioned in this Episode The below are some of the resources that were mentioned in this episode – * WP Site Guardian – I read a few comments here and there where people had written negatively abo...

What is your Optin Form Conversion rates? If you have been into any form of online business, I am sure you know the importance of capturing your visitor’s email address. The single biggest reason for most internet marketers’ failing is not capturing emails. Visitor memory is short and if you are pitching something to a visitor who is not in a “buying” frame of mind, then you need to understand that the chances of them buying in the first instance itself is less than 5%. And the chances of them coming back to your website or, blog is even lesser. Why? Because there are thousands of other websites similar to that of yours who are doing the exact same thing that you are doing – pitching the exact same product or, service. It is not until you knock a door at least 3 times that they buy something from you. And in order to do this “knocking” in an online business, you need to capture email addresses. But the problem question is – why would somebody give you your email address? And it is this question that ultimately leads to the metric called as “Conversion rates“, meaning the number of visitors out of all of who came to your website, who gave you their email address. 7 Factors Impacting Optin Form Conversion Rates In this episode, we will be discussing about 7 such factors that impact your optin form conversion rates to a great extent. It is important that you keep each of these in mind and optimize your optin forms, in order to get the best conversions. Here are some of the things that we will discuss in this episode: * How to find a good link bait for your Optin form? * Why you might just be driving away you visitors forever * The 4 types of optin forms that work the best * How some optin forms play better on human psychology * A technique that almost always gives you a confirmed optin Some of the factors are dependent on the amount of flexibility you have in testing your optin forms. Most optin form generator plugins limit the amount of things you can do to your optin forms. It is important that you use a good optin form builder plugin that you have enough flexibility and features to experiment and find the aspects that works best when it comes to conversions. And it is hence that we recommend Thrive Leads, which is the most feature rich optin form generator plugin, but with an absolutely light weight code. In order to deliver your freebie to your visitors, store their email address  and to continuously market to them, you will need a reliable autoresponder. We recommend aweber which is the best autoresponder amongst all the ones that we have used. And the latest “Campaigns” feature in aweber, helps you automate a lot of the things that you need to use with your email marketing. Resources from this Episode Here are some of the resources from this episode: * Thrive Leads * Thrive Content Builder * Popup Domination * Aweber Disclaimer: Some of the above links are affiliate links.

Whenever I talk about SOLO ads, the first thing that I get asked is – What is right for an email list – relationship marketing or, selling solo ads? I had read this on one of the blogs where a well know internet marketer had mentioned that if you could make $1.00 per subscriber in your email list pretty much every time you email them, then you would never want to sell solo ads to the list. It’s true. But in order for you to build your list and prep them to a point where you are able to make $1.00 per subscriber is not an easy task. It involves a lot of effort to build that relationship and then nurture it so that they never lose confidence in you. What is the best for your List – Selling Solo Ads or, Relationship marketing? The core principle of relationship marketing is to build relationship with a cold subscriber list. The list that you are building primarily consists of people who don’t even know you well. Hence it becomes important that you build a relationship with these subscribers, so that they confide in you and believe in your recommendations. While a lot of well know internet marketers teach relationship marketing, the biggest challenge is the learning curve until you are able to master the technique of building that relationship. It can take a lot of time and if you are willing to spend time learning that technique, then you should be good with it. But if you are looking to make money immediately and that through a sustainable business model, then selling SOLO ads is the best amongst those. In this episode of the DKSpeaks Podcast, we will be discussing the pros and cons of both these strategies, so that you could decide on which one works the best for you. Here is what we will be discussing in today’s episode: * The one big negative of relationship marketing * Why you need to exercise caution while selling SOLO Ads * What is the best way to ensure a balance between these 2 strategies * Is selling SOLO ads a legal business? Resources mentioned in this episode We didn’t talk about a lot of resources in this episode. But I recommend 2 products that were launched recently. These are as below: * Socifunnel Pro * Broad Targeting Formula If you wish to learn about relationship marketing, then there are a lot of courses that can teach that to you. The best amongst all of these is Andre Chaperon’s list building courses – Autoresponder Madness and Lucrative Email List Building. Thank you for Joining Thank you all for joining me on today’s episode. I hope you liked this episode. If you did, then please do rate the show on iTunes and also post a genuine review about the show. Your ratings will help in the rankings of the show on iTunes and will also help other find the show. You can subscribe to the show to stay updated with the latest releases. Don’t forget to share it with your friends and social media circles using one of the sharing buttons below. You can post your questions, feedback and suggestions in the comment box below. You can also record them using the recording option here. You can subscribe to the podcast using any of the below links: Click here to Subscribe via iTunes Click here to Subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes Feed) Click here to Subscribe via Stitcher  

What about your theme do you like the most? If you answer was “look and feel”, then let me tell you that about 95% of the blog owners are with you. They also chose the theme for that exact same reason. But is that the only thing that you should look for in a theme? Today, WordPress is the most used content management platform. In addition to the fact that WordPress is an open source, this popularity can also be attributed to many other reasons like the flexibility of the platform, the options to enhance it using one of the many plugins, the availability of thousands of themes to customize the look and feel of the website etc. But the fact is that all of these options and features comes with a caveat – the fact that anybody can break into the code and hack a website in minutes. This answers the question on why there are so many regular updates that we see to this platform. Now imagine you have a WordPress installation that is up to date, but you are running a theme that has an outdated code which can easily be hacked into. It will not take more than a few seconds for a hacker to hack into your website and all you hard work can be gone in minutes. Selecting a WordPress Theme – What to look for? In this episode, we will be discussing some of the basic things that you need to keep in mind when you are selecting a WordPress theme. Keep in mind that themes are more than just designs or, frontend for your website. In fact a lot of other things depend upon the theme of your website. The loading speed of your site, the functionalities, the aesthetics etc. We will discuss about 14 such aspects that you need to look for in the minute prints that accompany with a WordPress theme. Some of the things that we will be discussing are – * How does a theme impact the site load speed? * What is the one thing that you absolutely need, when you buy a theme? * Why I don’t recommend the themes that are sold on a “SALE” at warrior forum? * Why you shouldn’t be spending all the dollars on hiring a developer to design a theme? The points that we discussed today should help you decide on a theme for your WordPress blog. Resources discussed in this Episode Here are some of the resources that we discussed in the episode today. * Thrive themes – Our most recommended theme * Genesis from Studiopress – This is a framework and you will need a skin for this one * Thesis themes – This is also a framework and you will need a skin for this one * Profit Builder theme – This is more of a sales page and landing page builder but also comes with a blog theme * Optimizepress – Another sales page and landing page builder but comes with a decent blog theme Thanks for Joining in I want to thank you all for joining in with me on today’s episode. I hope you liked the episode. If you did, then please take a few minutes to post a genuine review about the show because that will help others who are looking for similar information. Also please do rate the show on iTunes and Stitcher. If you have any questions or,

What is the best business model for 2016? The year 2015 is gone and it is time to look back at the year that went and evaluate all the goods and the bads. At the same time it is also the right time to put some concrete plans in place for 2016. For us, it was a mixed year with some accomplishments and some failures. The failures have given us the learnings to build a better plan for the next year and the successes have prompted us to attempt to better it in the coming year. And in all of this we will ensure that we provide better and practical business tips and advices to you, so that you too can build a better business and make money online with it. Once of the questions that I very frequently get from a lot of my readers is, “If I am starting off with internet marketing and I want to make money online, then where should I start and what is the best business to start off with“. So in this first episode in the new year, I will be answering this question. In face we will be discussing about the best business for making money online in 2016. Making Money Online in 2016 – The Business Model One very important thing to keep in mind when you enter the internet marketing business is to change your perspective. If you get onto the internet with the sole intention of making money, then you might just not be able to take off. Instead think of how you would setup your business and expand it – the business mindset. There are a lot of different business models in internet marketing. But which one would suit you will depend upon a lot of things. Some of these are – * the amount of time you can put into the business * the amount of money you are ready to invest * your level of expertise etc. In this episode we will be discussing about the various online business models, how they function and some of the aspects which will tell you if that specific model is the right one for you or, not. Here is what we will be discussing in today’s episode – * Types of Online Business Models * Who does each of these models suit the most? * How to know if one of these business models is suitable for you? * What factors should decide the best business model for you. Resources discussed in this episode We didn’t discuss a lot of resources in this episode. But some of the resources, especially the freelancing sites are as below: * Freelancer * Elance * Design Crowd * Upwork * Fiverr * Amazon * Clickbank You can listen to our earlier episodes in the affiliate marketing series to learn more about affiliate marketing. Thank You for Joining Thank you all for joining me in today’s episode. I hope you liked the episode. If you did, then please do not forget to leave a genuine review for the show and also rate the show. It helps in the rankings of the show and will help people find it. Do share it with your social media circles using the share buttons below. Subscribe to the show to stay updated with the latest. In case you have any questions that you want me to answer in our show, then you can send it to me using the contact button or, the recording option on the right hand sidebar. You can subscribe to the podcast using any of the below links: Click here to Subscribe via iTunes Click here to Subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes Feed) Click here to Subscribe via Stitcher

Is there a Secret Formula to Succeeding at Selling SOLO ads? That was a question that I received from one of my listeners after the series that I did on SOLO ads sometime back. And I think, it was very normal for him to ask this question, at least after what he went through. He had started his solo ads business in late October. He had a list of about 5700 subscribers. He had listened to the episodes on SOLO ads that I had done a little while back and also read a few of my blog posts. For all of November he struggled posting ads on every Facebook group that he could. He had even joined about 8 or, 9 odd Skype groups and he was posting ads there as well. He could only get about 4 or, 5 odd orders of an average of about 100 clicks. That’s it. And finally by the beginning of December he had given up. He spoke to a few folks on some of these Facebook groups who told him that the SOLO ads market was saturated and that he should get out of it. Which is what he finally did. And then he wrote to me asking if there was a secret formula to selling solo ads. The Formula to Succeeding at Selling SOLO ads If you ask me, if there really is a formula to succeeding at selling solo ads, then there isn’t any. Just like in any other market, the competition in the SOLO ads industry have multiplied manifold. But if you do the right things and in the right way, you will be able to succeed in this industry as well, just as in any other industry. Now, since the competition has multiplied manifold, you obviously cannot go the dis-organized way. Remember about 6-7 years back, how you could pick any keywords and get them ranked on Google. Or, for that matter Google Adwords. How easy it was to run an adwords campaign and you could get clicks for pennies. All of that has changed over the last few years. You now need to be more organized, calculated and planned if you want to achieve even 10% of what you could do 5 years back, without any of these. So in this episode I will be discussing all of those aspects which are the real problems in the SOLO ads industry. These are things that are ignored the most and it is hence that most people struggle. And then I will be discussing how to go about addressing each of these problems, so that you stand out from the rest of the competition. Keep in mind that this is the only way to succeed. Resources Mentioned in this Episode These are some of the resources that we spoke about in this episode. * Thrive Leads – Optin form creator * Thrive Content Builder * Profit Builder Theme * Skype * Bluehost – Hosting Service * iPage – Our preferred and affordable hosting Service * Aweber Disclaimer: Some of the above links are affiliate links. If you choose to buy any of these recommended products from the above links, I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks for Joining Me I want to thank you all for joining me in this episode. I hope you liked it and if you did, then please do take a few minutes out to rate the show on iTunes and also post a genuine review for it. It helps in the rankings of the show.

How to setup a WordPress Blog? This is one of the most common tutorials that you will find on Blogging. Search Google and you will find hundreds of tutorials that will teach you how to setup a wordpress blog. But the biggest problem with most of these tutorials is that these are generic tutorials. When it comes to building WordPress websites for affiliate marketing, you need to follow a slightly different method. You don’t want to spend hours doing things that would otherwise take only a few minutes. In fact websites that are specifically created for affiliate marketing has its set of requirements. Inserting affiliate links, easy link cloaking, inserting banner ads are just some of the things in addition to an easy to access site structure. In this episode of “The DKSpeaks Podcast”, we will be discussing “How to Setup a WordPress Blog”, especially focused on Affiliate Marketing. This is part-6 of our series on “How to make money with affiliate marketing”. How to Setup a WordPress Blog for Affiliate Marketing Till about 4 years back, you could create a one pager website promoting a product and easily get it ranked on the first page of Google. I still remember this one page review website that I had setup in the “Tattoo” niche, which was ranked in less than 15 days and kept making money every month for about 10 months before it dropped off the rankings. Affiliate marketing has since changed. It is no more just a matter of putting up a one page review website and making money. These day you need to have enough information in your arsenal to convince a visitor of why a specific product is good and why it is the exact same thing that he was looking for. It is hence that the WordPress Blog that we will be setting up for our affiliate marketing business has some very specific needs. There are some important plugins that simplify the work involved in managing your affiliate marketing website. Similarly even the theme that you are using is very critical in order for your website to function correctly. You need a theme that is SEO optimized, loads fast, is mobile friendly and is as per Google’s requirements. Because you don’t want to end up in a situation where your blog is not ranking just because it does not have an search engine optimized theme. Here are the things we will be discussing in this episode: * How to Choose the right Domain for your website * A nice tip to rank your website with little effort * Common metrics that you need to keep in mind when choosing a domain name * The best WordPress theme when it comes to affiliate marketing * 7 absolutely essential plugins for your affiliate marketing website We will be discussing the above and some handy little tips that can help you in your efforts to get your website ranked on Google. Resources mentioned in this Episode We spoke about a good image creation application in this episode. The featured image that you are seeing here is also created using this particular software. This is called “Youzign” and people are already calling it the “Photoshop Killer”. Here are some of the other tools and resources that we spoke about in this episode: * Youzign image creator * Socrates theme for Affiliate Marketers * Thrive Leads – Optin form creator...

Almost 90% of people who get into affiliate marketing never make a single dollar from it! That might sound demotivating and alarming but let me put that in slightly clearer terms. 90% of the people do not make any money with affiliate marketing because – * They take a lot of training but never follow everything that is being taught * They are looking for a shortcut to making money * They prefer skipping the basics in affiliate marketing and quickly move over to the advanced part. Consequently their foundation is very weak and they fail. * They do not take action. Procrastination doesn’t help! To put that into perspective; “If you take action and follow the steps that you learn, there is no way you will fail“. We are into part-5 of our series on “Building an affiliate marketing business”. If you haven’t listened to the earlier episodes and if you want to guarantee your success with affiliate marketing, I will recommend that you start from the beginning ad not jump the line. It will be easier for your to understand and you will have clear cut actionables that you can straight away start working on. One of the most difficult part in affiliate marketing is researching your keywords. And in this episode that is what we are primarily going to cover. How to Research Keywords in Affiliate Marketing We are going to follow the FREE method to building our affiliate marketing business. Since there is little money that in involved in terms of the investment, there will be a lot more work and efforts required from your end. “Keyword Research” is easily one of the biggest things that people skip ahead. While they might quote a 100 different reasons for it, the actual reason is that it is very difficult. Rather, it is portrayed as very difficult. But you don’t have to be overwhelmed with Keyword research. There are simple methods to do it and that too without any expensive software. You can do that with Google Adwords Keyword Planner tool. If you want to partially automate the entire process, then I would recommend “Long Tail Keyword Pro” which is handy and cool software to have in your arsenal. Here is what we are going to cover in today’s episode: * How to research keywords using Keyword Planner tool * Finding long tail keyword to get your article written * How to find seed keywords * Why there is no need to evaluate the sales page of the product that you are promoting. Resources discussed in the show Here are the resources that we discussed in today’s show: * Mario Brown’s Video Ads Formula * Long Tail Pro Keyword Research Tool * Google Keyword Planner Disclaimer: Some of these links are affiliate links and if you choose to buy any of these products from these links, then I might earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Thank You for Joining I wanted to thank you all for joining today’s show and I sincerely appreciate it. In case you liked today’s episode, I would recommend that you subscribe to the show so that you are informed about our latest episodes and you stay updated. Do rate the show at iTunes and Stitcher and do take some time out to review the show. It really helps in the rankings of the show.

How do you analyze your affiliate marketing competition? Affiliate marketing is extremely competitive. And with more and more people jumping into the affiliate marketing bandwagon, it will only increase further. The success of an affiliate marketer lies in evaluating and analyzing the competition and then planning your strategy according to that. In this episode of The DKSpeaks Podcast, as part of the Affiliate Marketing Training series, that is precisely what we will be discussing about. How to Analyze Your Affiliate Marketing Competition? Analysis doesn’t always need to be too statistical. It can be deriving a conclusion based on a simple number that was otherwise easily ignored because it was something that was obvious. When it comes to analyzing your affiliate marketing competition, you don’t actually need a lot of tools to do your analysis. In fact most affiliate networks would already have done most part of it. You can use some of the basic and freely available tools and do the rest. For me, I don’t really need anything other than Google for most of my analysis. And that is precisely what I will be sharing in today’s episode. From this episode onward we will be getting into the practical aspect of affiliate marketing. So you might see some detailed actionables in this episode and the ones to come. If you have been following the series, you would already have done some of the homework that we had discussed about finding the best affiliate offers. So here is what we will be discussing in detail in this episode: * The 2 different strategies that we will be following * The 3 absolutely essential things you need before you start * The one thing that a lot of affiliate marketers miss on * A tip for immediate success * Analyzing the competition Resources and Notes Here are some of the resources that we discussed about in today’s episode. * Bluehost * iPage * Stores4Domains – Don’t forget to use the coupon code I told you in the episode to claim your discounted domain name. * Pretty Link * Thirsty Affiliate * Gocodes If you prefer using the “refresh and redirect” page that I spoke about in the show, then you can download it from the below link. [sociallocker id=”8437″] Click here to Download! [/sociallocker] Thank You for Joining Thank you all for joining me in this episode. I hope you enjoyed this episode on affiliate marketing. If you did, then do rate us on iTunes and Stitcher. Also do leave us a genuine review. Please don’t forget to share it with your friends on social media using one of the social media buttons below. In order to stay updated, I would recommend that you subscribe to the show. You can subscribe to the podcast using any of the below links: Click here to Subscribe via iTunes Click here to Subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes Feed) Click here to Subscribe via Stitcher