RoyalRadande.Com

Since its official release, Wordpress 2.5 has already been downloaded 100,000 (as of this writing, it’s only going to increase by the time I finish writing this post). I also downloaded a copy and upgraded this blog to version 2.5. I haven’t really used the new version much, but I can tell you that it looks really nice.

Installing version 2.5 is pretty easy, just make sure you backup your blog before doing so!

Changing Hosts

In addition to upgrading to Wordpress 2.5, I also switched hosting companies. This blog, and some other sites of mine used to be hosted by Westhost. The majority of my sites, including this blog is now hosted over at HostGator . I made the switch to Hostgator for a number of reasons:

• Price - Hosting at Westhost was simply costing me too much; I’m not saying that it was a lot of money (I believe I was paying $12.50 per month), I just think that other hosting companies were offering way more features and services for half the amount. With Hostgator, I’m now on the Baby Croc plan which is costing me $8 per month. I can host unlimited domains, unlimited emails, and unlimited databases. I definitely think it’s worth the move!
• Speed - This is one of the main reasons I’m leaving WestHost. Uploading and downloading data via FTP very slow! Seriously, it takes about 15-20 minutes to upload the entire contents of a wordpress install. With Hostgator, it takes me no more than 6 minutes. On top of the slow transfers, the connection would often break during mid transfer, causing me to start all over or to upload one directory at a time.

Moving the site from Westhost to Hostgator wasn’t hard at all. At first I was worried since I’ve never moved a wordpress installation before, but in the end, it was fairly simple.

The first thing I did was back up the wordpress database. Backing up the database was extremely easy thanks to the detailed instructions provided by the folks at wordpress.org. Once I had the database backed up, I proceeded to back up my entire directory structure. It is important to also backup the directory structure; the wordpress database doesn’t contain any images, themes, or plugins you’ve uploaded.

Once everything was backed up, I created a new mysql database on my hostgator account and also added the domain to my account. When you create the new database, make sure that you update your wp-config.php file to reflect the new mysql database name and connection information (if it changes). Once the database was created, I did an import of the database. Once I did that, I just needed to change the DNS information to point the hostgator name servers instead of westhots’.

So it’s official, I’m running on hostgator servers, and I like it!

BTW, Wordpress 2.5 was downloaded 761 times in the time it took me to write this post. So what are you waiting for, download Wordpress 2.5!

Other hostgator, west host, wordpress

Last night I went to my first meet up for internet marketers in the Lehigh Valley. Although 9 people were scheduled to show up, only 4 of us actually made it. It would’ve been great if everyone who promised to show up actually did; it was still cool.

All of the other guys were either currently selling on eBay or used to sell on ebay. I was the only one doing affiliate marketing. One of the guys, Tony, really impressed me. He spends 60-70 hours per week working on eBay and sells a ton of shit. And Tony is a smart guy. He thinks outside the box and has figured out a lot of ways to get things to sell on eBay. He’s currently a trading assistant. Basically, he charges people 30-35% of the final selling price to list their items on eBay and get it sold. Once their item is sold, he sends them a check.

He gets customers/things to sell by:

1. Purchasing leads of people who would like to sell their items on eBay. He’s currently paying some kid in India $10-15 per lead.
2. Buying things at garage sales. He usually tells the seller to contact him at the end of the day with all the unsold items and makes a deal. Sometimes he gets the items free, and other times, a deal is brokered on the spot.
3. Liquidating used/return merchandise from local retailers. He likes to target small local chains, maybe 5 or 6 stores.
4. Using Amazon.com as a drop shipper. When drop shipping was discussed, Tony said that “the only reliable drop shipper I use is Amazon”. I don’t know if he uses Amazon to send directly to the buyer or if he sends the item to himself first, and then ships it to the buyer.

Nobody at the meeting really did affiliate marketing. A few said they had in the past, and that they no longer did it because it was so time consuming. I thought it was the other way around. Affiliate marketing is less time consuming than selling on eBay. I don’t have to worry about shipping, packaging, and stocking items.

In the end, the meeting was very fun. I got to meet some new people and ate some ok food. I will go a few more meetings to see if any other affiliate marketers join.

Personal

if you’re interested in meeting other internet marketers in your area, I highly suggest that you check out www.meetup.com. I never thought about meeting locals who were trying to make money online until Wes Mahler posted an entry on his blog about a meet up for ppc marketers in the Bay Area.

After reading that post, I decided to see if there were any such meet ups taking place in my area. Sure enough, there is a meeting on March 25. This meet up is all about making money online, although from the looks of previous meetings, many people are interested in making money via ebay.

If you’re in a bigger city, I’m pretty sure that there is a meetup taking place in your area. Check out meetup.com and see if there’s something related to making money online and go out and meet other like-minded people.

This meeting is taking place in the Lehigh Valley on March 25. For more information, visit the Internet Money Strategies Session information page on meetup.com

Online Marketing, Other

I’ve decided to try marketing online dating sites. If everyone else is making money with online dating, I want a piece of it, too! The more competitive a niche is, the better the possibilities of earning money from in it. If others weren’t making money from it, there wouldn’t be so much competition. So if you’re looking for a niche, try ringtones, credit cards, loans, insurance, online dating, and travel. You’re going to make money, if you play it right.

I will write as much information as I can about this online dating campaign I’m going to start. I’m currently in the process of putting a small site together and hope to have the site complete by Friday, March 14. Once the site is complete and online, I will start campaigns in Adcenter, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Google Adwords. I might even give the second tier ppc engines a try, even though I’ve never really worked with them.

Affiliate Marketing

Paul of UberAffiliate.com is starting something new on Tuesdays. It’s called Charity Check Tuesday, and I think that it’s a brilliant idea. It’s kind of similar to Shoemoney’s Free Shirt Friday, except you send in a check, and in return, you benefit by getting some link love and a charity also benefits at the end of the month.

For more information, read the post on Charity Check Tuesday

I will definitely take part of this for two reasons:

1. I will get some exposure.
2. The money I send will be put to good use.

Expect a check from me!

Other

It’s time for me to optimize my ebay campaign. I have been testing it for a month, and I know that I can definitely make a lot of money from ebay. There are still millions of people out there who do not have ebay accounts, and at $25 per new user, it’s definitely worth pursuing.

The ebay affiliate program pays $25-$30 per new user who buys an item or simply bids on one. On top of new registrations, you are also paid half of what ebay charges its sellers to list an item. The more money an item sells for, the more you get as an affiliate.

The cool thing about ebay’s affiliate program is that they provide you with so many tools to help you make money.

The ebay API is the number one tool that they provide to their affiliates, or anyone. The ebay API allows you to retrieve listing data directly from ebay. The data is returned in xml format, instantly! I use the api to get listings of what ever I’m promoting.

At first, I was a little intimidated by the API; I’m not really a programmer. But with the help of google and some PHP related queries, I was able to understand the ebay API have it output the data I sought.

Optimizing My Ebay Campaigns

Although I didn’t make a lot of money with the program this month (advertising ate most of my profits), I’m determined to increase my earnings this month.

Last month, I had a 45% CTR and earned $4,796.78. My goal for this month is to increase my CTR to 75% or higher. With a higher CTR, I will be able keep more of that $4,796.78 :-).

I will do the following to increase my CTR:

1. I will get a domain name for each product I’m promoting and build a mini site around it. Right now, I have one general domain and simply create a page for each product that I’m promoting. For example, If I’m marketing Dyson Vacuums, I would create a Dyson Vacuum and place it at www.domainname.com/DysonVacuum.What I will do is create brand new sites revolving around the product. So instead of www.domainname.com/DysonVacuum, I will create www.DysonVacuumOnSale.Com (just an example, I don’t own that site if it does exist).
2. I will go over the keyword data that I’ve collected over the past month and eliminate the ones that didn’t convert so well. By eliminating the duds, I will increase my overall conversion rate.
3. I will redesign my landing pages. I’m not really much of a designer. I will probably get someone to design some pages for me.
4. I will expand to MSN Adcenter. I tried Adcenter before, but it seems like they simply take forever to get anything done over there. I don’t know, maybe I’m doing something wrong.

Next month I will post the outcomes! Enjoy the rest of your day. Peace out!

Affiliate Marketing, Ebay