simonbunker dot co dot uk Wordpress, technology and general stuff

Book Challenge – Book #4 Poll

I am rapidly approaching the deadline for the next book in my Book a Fortnight Challenge.  I have had some nice feedback from my readers and great suggestions for future reads.  I have now put the suggestions into a poll, so vote away and pick the next book that you want me to read.  Feel free to leave suggestions for future reads in the comments section, all commentors will be automatically entered into the prize draw for the following prizes.

  1. Book of your choice to the value of £25 (Approx $40)
  2. Amazon Gift Card to the value of £25
  3. iTunes gift card to the value of £25

6 Month prize will be an Amazon Kindle


Shove Your Content Out

Coloured ShovelsOne of the key things when you start blogging is to get your name out into the blogosphere as quickly as possible.  Now at first this seems easy, but when you get going it can be as labour intensive as actually writing the content.  Eventually you may find that you start to slip with the promotion or on the reverse side spend to much time promoting and not enough time writing.  Being somewhat lazy efficient :-) I went looking for ways to streamline the whole content syndication, although I prefer to call it “Shoving your content out”, thing.  So after an extensive amount of googling!  I came across a service called Onlywire

Onlywire is a service that automates the whole shoving of your content, it will automatically post your blog posts to a vast array of social bookmarking sites such as Delicious, Digg and Mister Wong to name but a few.  It does the whole twitter and facebook things as well should you wish to.

How does it work?

Well, the good thing about the Onlywire service is that it is really easy to use.  Once you have registered, it is free but there is a paid service which I will cover later in the post, you can install a Firefox or IE browser plugin or simply drag the “bookmarklets” to the bookmarks area on the browser.  A little note, Onlywire offer two ways of submitting content from the browser.  The first is “No frames” and the second is “With Frames”.  Its not difficult and the easiest way to describe it is as follows:

No Frames – When you bookmark a link it will redirect you to the Onlywire site where you login and add the submission.

With Frames – Does the bookmarking within the page that you are on, without redirecting you to the Onlywire site

Check this blog post for more information and screen shots

You will need to configure from within your Onlywire account the sites/networks that you want to syndicate/shove your content out to, but that is not difficult as they have a full list of the available networks.

The second way is to use the “Bookmark & Share” button.  This button can be installed on your blog or website and presents your visitors with a range of options to share your content. Installation of the button on wordpress is easy, just download and install the Onlywire plugin.  Configure the plugin by entering your Onlywire username and password and you are good to go.  From now on the plug-in will automatically post all your new content to the sites that you have configured in your Onlywire account.  As I have not used the service on non-wordpress platforms, I cannot comment on how easy or difficult it is to set-up, but full instructions are available on the Onlywire website.

Pricing

Use of the Onlywire service is “free”, the reason I have quoted that it because the free version is ad supported and you must install the “Bookmark and Share” button on your website or blog as apparently they check! and will disable your account if they cannot find it.  If you don’t want the ads you can pay for the service which is $2.99 per month or $24.99 if you prepay for 12 month, which is a quite reasonable considering the amount of time it can save you.

So that’s Onlywire, a great little service to help spread your content around, and well worth looking into.

Photo Credit – Yuankuei

Wordpress for Android

To compliment the Blackberry and iPhone apps, Wordpress have now released Wordpress for Android handsets.  So sit back and watch the video below which will explain all you need to know about it

Rant! Why Knock Successful People?

Its been a little while since I had a good old rant.  I felt compelled to write this post after reading this blog post “MegaMac Challenge Winner”  To set the scene Sponsored Tweets ran a competition to see who could generate the most number of referrals, in return the winner would win a load of Apple kit.  Fine, nothing wrong in that.  Anyway sponsored tweets announced that Jeremy Shoemaker won the competition, now too those in the Online marketing business would probably not be hugely shocked that Jeremy won the competition, after all he has a big following and is a very influential character.  Personally I am fine with him winning, fair play and well done.  What got me was the comments left on the blog post, pretty much saying that its not fair that he won, because he has such a big following or if it was not him winning then it would be John Chow. I think these comments miss the point.

Its always going to be difficult to compete with some of these big marketers.  Yes, they have big lists and massive followings but none of it has been given to them on a plate, they have worked damn hard to get to that level and in reality have probably taken a few knocks along the way.  So why knock them for doing what they do and ultimately for being successful?  Why should they be lambasted for winning a competition?  or should companies start censoring who can enter these competitions? and if they do is that really going to help?

Maybe instead of moaning, and believe me I can moan, why not just knuckle down and get on with building the business/following and then maybe start to reap the rewards that these guys get?

Right, rant over and although It may seem that I am a Jeremy Shoemaker or John Chow fanboy, which incidentally I am not, I do admire what they do and have achieved and I don’t see anything wrong with a little bit of admiration.

Do let me know what you think of my thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Quick & Easy Affiliate Sites Using Wordpress

If you are new to the Affiliate marketing business, you will probably be overwhelmed with the sheer volume of information that is available.  Affiliate marketing can be a daunting business, on the one hand you have to grasp the setting up wesbites/landing pages and on the other you have to deal with all the traffic generation strategies and selecting the right offers.
Thankfully you don’t need to panic.  Here is where Wordpress can help get you up and running in no time at all and at least remove some of the headaches related with setting up Affiliate sites
There are a few of things that you will need to get your affiliate sites up and running, they are as follows:
  • Web Hosting account – This will need to meet the following technical requirements – PHP and MySQL (Database) – I personally recommend either Justhost or Bluehost for wordpress hosting.  They are cheap, but do provide a good level of service and support
  • Domain name for your site. Domain Sale! $7.49* .com at GoDaddy.com
  • Account with an Affiliate Network or a merchant that provides an affiliate scheme
Once you have got all the above sorted out, you will need to install Wordpress on your web hosting account.  You can either do this manually or some hosts provide a simple 1-Click install system that does all the hard work for you.  Once you have installed Wordpress you then need to find a suitable theme for your site.  A theme is basically a “skin” for your website. Themes come in both free and paid for versions the choice is really down to you on whether you want to pay for a theme or stick with a free theme.  In the early days its probably best to stick with a free theme to keep the costs down.  Most of the reputable theme designers provide a demo site so you can actually see the theme in action.  Along with a theme you will need to install some plugins to help with managing your site and helping you get indexed with the search engines.  I wrote a post recently on 5 must have plugins for Wordpress so take a read of that and make a note of them.  Ok, moving on…
So, you now have Wordpress running and it looks just how you want it.
The next stage is to load up the relevant content onto your site.  Because Wordpress has an inbuilt CMS (Content Management System) it is really easy to add text, images and video to your site.  Wordpress offers you the choice to add content to “Posts” which is a blog format or to “pages” which is very much like a normal website.  Its really down to you as to which format you use.  Finally you can add any particular Affiliate offers to the post or pages by pasting in the relevant code provided by your Affiliate network.
If you plan to build a list (and if you are not you really should be!) from your affiliate site and you use Aweber for email list management and marketing, then you will be able to easily add the email signup form either by using the Aweber plugin or by pasting in the code provided by Aweber.  NB – If you are using a different email list system then please refer to them for instructions on integrating with Wordpress, or drop me a line and I will help you out.
So there we are, that is a very brief overview of using Wordpress to setup quick and easy affiliate sites.  You will find that after you have done a couple, you will be able to set sites up in no time at all.
Hopefully you will start to make money with you affiliate sites and at that point you may want to  invest in some of the Wordpress Themes that are designed specifically for Affiliate Marketing,  I would personally recommend Affiliate Theme by Unique Blog Designs Its a very flexible and customisable theme and I really rate it for affiliate wordpress based sites.  Check out my review of affiliate theme.

Simon’s Awesome Blog Update #1

Well I think it will be awesome :-)

Personal

What a month for me, 2 books read for my book reading challenge which has been a fantastic experience, I am so pleased that I set myself this challenge PS – If you want top join the challenge do let me know. Some 40 articles have been uploaded to Ezinearticles as part of my 100 articles in 100 days challenge. This challenge has been a real eye opener, I never really figured how much of a benefit article marketing can be. The boost in traffic has been worth it alone. Lastly I have been trying my very best to keep my posting frequency to 1 post per day which I have pretty much managed to do over the last couple of weeks.  Blogging frequency is a major discipline, however once you get into the swing of things then it does become a lot easier.

Content

In terms of content, I am happiest writing about Wordpress, Blogging and Outsourcing tips and they  seem to generate the most interest from my readers, so I shall be sticking to that.  Of course I will be charting the course of my various challenges over the coming year – so stay tuned.

Techie, Bloggy Stuff

Some minor developments on the technical side with the blog.  Firstly, I added a google custom search facility to the sidebar this makes searching for content on the blog so much easier.  Secondly I have added an archives page to the top navigation to make getting to my old stuff a lot easier.

If anyone of you have any further suggestions that would make this blog easier to follow etc then please do let me know.

Thats my weekly update for this week (yes this will be a regular feature now – so go on, subscribe to my RSS feed its Free!)   Have a good week ahead

No Time To Blog?

One of the most common resistance that I come across when talking to small businesses about blogs and blogging is “I do not have any time to blog”

I can sympathise with this, as blogging can be a time consuming exercise and its bloody hard work to keep the content coming.  Anyway in this post I will highlight some tools that allow you to quickly and easily get blogging without it be a major time suck.

Micro-blogging

I am not going to discuss Twitter in this post as it gets enough coverage elsewhere.  However if you want to have a richer micro blogging experience there are some very interesting alternatives.

Microblogging is a form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically much smaller, in both actual size and aggregate file size. A microblog entry could consist of nothing but a short sentence fragment, or an image or embedded video.

As with traditional blogging, microbloggers post about topics ranging from the simple, such as “what I’m doing right now,” to the thematic, such as “sports cars.” Commercial microblogs also exist, to promote websites, services and/or products.

Tumblr

To quote Wikipedia

Tumblr is a blogging platform that allows users to post text, images, video, links, quotes, and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users are able to “follow” other users and see their posts together on their dashboard. Users can like or reblog other blogs on the site. The service emphasizes customizability and ease of use

Tumblr is a great platform, it has a variety of good looking themes to customise the look and feel of your tumblelog.  Its a piece of cake to use, in fact you will be up and running in less than 5 minutes.

The biggest time saver is the ease of posting.  You can create posts directly on the Tumblr website, via text message or email, using the bookmarklet, over the phone! and if you have an iphone you can use the free app, which I have to say is a great little application.  Tumblr allows you to add images, text, video and links so you are not restricted as to what you can post.

I think Tumblr is awesome and a great way to get blogging quickly and to build a community around your content.

Posterous

Posterous takes quick and simple blogging to a whole new level.  Forget signing up, simply send an email to post@posterous.com and you will get a reply with your posterous at yourname.posterous.com, simple!  Once setup you simply email the content that you want to appear on your posterous blog.  You can email text, photos,video,mp3’s and file attachments.

It is the most simple way to get up and running with a blog and is ideal if you are short on time or just want to post casually.

So, if you are short on time but want to have a go at blogging then these are useful tools that keep it all nice and simple.

You can follow me on my tumbleblog or my Posterous

The Hidden Benefits of Sponsored Tweeting

Before I dive into the crux of this post. I wanted to be clear that I am not about to discuss the ethics of sponsored tweeting, I think enough has been written about that over the past months.  I guess you either like it or you don’t, anyway back to my point.

Quick overview of sponsored tweeting – Its a simple concept whereby advertisers pay tweeters to push tweets advertising products, I told you it was simple!  Its becoming a popular way of generating additional revenue and a number of platforms are available to use such as SponsoredTweets and Ad.Ly.  So aside from the obvious financial benefits, which in reality are not huge for most of us, I have found another, in my mind, more tangible benefit.

I for one am completely useless when it comes to writing sales copy, I don’t know what it is but I always struggle to come up with the right words and heres where  tweets bit comes in.  I use the sponsored tweets platform from Izea and you get the choice to write the ad for the advertiser which is fine, however  when you are a bit of a numpty when it comes to writing sales messages, trying to shoe horn ad copy into less than 140 characters is not easy,  Herein lies the benefit, because of the restrictions in text, it actively encourages you to be more creative with your words and  strip out unnecessary words and phrases  therefore making your writing more concise and clear.

If your a seasoned marketer then you probably do not have this problem, but if you are new to the online marketing game then this can help improve your writing and you might make a few quid as well!!!!

Next Book Announced & Latest Winner

I’m slightly ahead of schedule with my Book a Fortnight Challenge so I am announcing my next book a few days early to keep the momentum going.

The next book is:
Free: The Future of a Radical Price: The Economics of Abundance and Why Zero Pricing Is Changing the Face of Business by Chris Anderson @chr1sa

I have heard some great things about it, so It should be a good read.

Finally I would like to congratulate Liobov for winning the second week prize, which will be a choice of one of the following:

  1. Book of your choice to the value of £25 (Approx $40)
  2. Amazon Gift Card to the value of £25
  3. Itunes gift card to the value of £25

I will be in contact with you to shortly to make the neccesary arrangements.  To read more about my challenge and to get involved and win some prizes please check out my opening book challenge post

Book Review – Crush IT by Gary Vaynerchuck

Yay, just finished the second book in my “Book a Fortnight Challenge” (cue big round of applause :-) )

So lets get on with the review.  First of all to those who don’t know or have never heard of Gary Vaynerchuck here is what Wikipedia says:

Gary Vaynerchuk was born in Babruysk, U.S.S.R. (today Belarus) on November 14, 1975 and emigrated to the U.S. in 1978. He graduated from Mount Ida College in Newton, MA.[1] From a platform as co-owner and Director of Operations of Wine Library, a wine retail shop inSpringfield, New Jersey, Vaynerchuk gained fame as the host of Wine Library TV, a daily internet webcast on the subject of wine.

Crush IT is a raw and appealing read for anyone interested in pursuing their passion in the online world, something that Gary has done to huge aplomb with his Wine Library TV site.  It starts with a bit of a history of Gary and his formative years and how he developed his business skills at an early age and took this through to the position he now finds himself in.  This may seem like a typical rags to riches type story, but it really does not come across like that and sets the scene for the rest of the book.

The key message throughout is that if you have a passion, now is very much the time to get out and use it to your advantage.  Gary highlights that the  barriers to entry for content creation are so low and the ability to monetize this content  so readily available that now more than ever is the time to cash in and Crush It!

A comprehensive section on the tools that are available is included and he also offers up a tried and tested marketing plan to get you on the right tracks.  I liked the fact that he does not dumb down that to make a living online, takes an awful lot of hard work and commitment

The book is well written, raw in its approach and easy to follow and if I were to draw a parallel to other business books it would sit very nicely with Get Off Your Arse by Brad Burton.  Both have similar approaches.

Its a very enjoyable read and a valuable edition to any budding online entrepreneurs library

Simons Rating – 4 out 0f 5, Its great so go buy it !

Crush It!: Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion

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