Vinny O'Hare

25 Ways to Improve Your Website is Live

Sometime during the night my new book “25 Ways To Improve Your Website” went live on Amazon. Taking the steps I have outlined in the book you can vastly improve your website in about 2 or 3 hours. What I recommend is read a few chapters and make the changes to your website. In a few sittings you can help get your website up to speed and compete with others in your niche.

The book is currently priced at only $2.99 and if you are part of the new Kindle Unlimited program the book is free.

As you probably know getting book reviews is crucial when you are launching a new book and I would appreciate it if you are planning on getting the book.

You can grab a copy Here.

Finishing Up My Next Book

Vinny O'Hare Book cover I am finally putting the final touches on my next book titled “25 Ways To Improve Your Website”. I have been editing this book for what seems like forever and it is finally time to let it go out and help people.

The book is based on the session I did at Affiliate Summit a few years ago. The more I work on it the more I realized that this book needs to be in the hands of users so they can help fix their websites. The book is based on WordPress websites but the information applies to almost any website or blog.

It will probably go live tomorrow or the next day. I still have to do some quick formatting to make it work across all the ebook platforms. The print book will go live a few days after that. In the book I share a few secrets and some common sense tips that some people seem to forget when making a website.

If you are on my email newsletter list you will be getting an email on how to get the book for free once it goes live. If you are not on my email list what are you waiting for?

Want to help me spread the word about the upcoming book? Click Here To Send A Tweet About It.

When Was The Last Time You Went Out Of Your Comfort Zone

A few weeks ago we took a little vacation, ok a longer than expected vacation. For me a vacation is getting away for 2 or 3 days but Debbie likes longer vacations which as long as I have a computer handy is fine with me.

We headed up towards the mountains in Sedona Arizona which is really beautiful with trees and mountains and I really like it there. After the 3rd or 4th day I was ready to get back to work. The freedom of a few days off really did wonders for me. I had 25 new ideas of things I wanted to do.

Something I did though really made me think about things. I hiked up to the top of Cathedral Rock. This overweight city boy and any sort of hiking do not go hand and hand to say the least. While it wasn't exactly mountain climbing it was a tough hike that took me over an hour and a half to get to the top. They have a little trail and this was the easiest part.

Cathedral Rock Mountain Path

The views were amazing! Half of the trip I hiked with a wedding photographer from LA who kept wishing he could do a bridal shoot up on top of the mountain. He was out of shape like me so it was a battle to see if we could both make it. The video is a little rough since I tripped over a cactus while filming but you can see the view from both sides really well if you watch the whole thing.

While on the top of the mountain I didn't care about work, all the red-tape paperwork that has come with the flood. I was just able to take some time and do something that was out of my comfort zone.

While hiking the mountain I had a question in the back of my mind the whole time. “How was I going to get down?” Instead of listening to the little voice in my head telling me to stop I kept going. Today I am so glad I did otherwise I would be beating myself up for not going to the top.

Taking the hard road doesn't always work but you never know until you step out of your comfort zone and try something new.

Building a Newsletter As Soon As Possible

I always get asked about email newsletters and I am always amazed at the most popular question. “When do I start a newsletter?” My answer is always the same “Now.”

Last month I started a new site and the first thing I did after adding a page of content was log in to Aweber and get a newsletter sign up form for the new site. I put it on the site and didn't think much about it as I was developing a content strategy and doing other things.

Today I log in and see the site has 28 subscribers. Not a large number by any means but it is a starting point to build from once I get the site going in a few weeks.

Since the email is loaded and the auto-responder is set to go out with content every 3 weeks for 9 weeks the people on the list are already interacting with it. I don't have to do anything and the site is getting traffic from the newsletter.

Building a newsletter list should be one of the main to-do's as you are building a site. In a world of “Not Provided” keywords disappearing from Google analytics and Facebook starting to show your page to less and less of your fans you have to get your slice of traffic any way you can.

Use Your Social Media Channels To Build Your List

I am a big fan of getting traffic from Facebook or any social site for that matter and getting them to my email list. Besides interacting with the interesting people on social media for future business I also consider social media to be the wide rim of the sales funnel. Once you get people on your newsletter list you control the way they interact with you. [Tweet “Once you get people on your newsletter list you control the way they interact with you.”]

You can sleep at night and you don't have to worry if Facebook is showing them your post. Actually you shouldn't be worrying about it because they are not showing it. You should be spending the time you are using worrying and build content on your site and build up your newsletter list.

Odds are if you are reading this post you came from a social media channel or my newsletter: )

What Ever Happened To Ben And Dave?

A few years back I did a story on two guys that were not doing the right thing by people. Ben and Dave came on my radar as I was doing affiliate approval applications and saw the same lousy site every day about 20 times. I would decline the affiliate and then send an email telling them what the scam was.

Here is a link to the original story about Ben and Dave and falling for affiliate scams.

I am thinking the FTC was already acting on complaints when I originally published the article. If you lost money to these guys you should Read the update on the FTC website. Maybe you can add your name to the list and get some money back.

From the release:

“According to an FTC complaint filed in November 2012, the defendants sold the “Six Figure Program” to consumers as a purportedly no-risk, money-back guaranteed opportunity to make money via their own website, falsely claiming that, for a $27 fee, they would enable consumers to affiliate with well-known companies’ websites and earn commissions. After purchasing the program, consumers learned that they had to pay $100 or more in additional costs just to set up their websites. The court subsequently halted the allegedly deceptive practices, froze the defendants’ assets, and put the companies into receivership pending a court hearing.

The settlement order announced today permanently prohibits The Online Entrepreneur Inc., Ben and Dave’s Consulting Associates, Inc., and David Clabeaux from selling business and work-at-home opportunities, misrepresenting that consumers are likely to earn money and misrepresenting any material fact about a product or service. They also are barred from failing to clearly disclose the terms of any offer before consumers provide billing information, and making a representation unless it is true and the defendants have competent and reliable evidence to substantiate the claim. In addition, the order prohibits these defendants from selling or otherwise benefitting from consumers’ personal information, and failing to properly dispose of customer information.

The order imposes a judgment of more than $2.9 million, which will be suspended when Clabeaux has surrendered real estate, personal property, and bank and investment accounts. The full judgment will become due immediately if the defendants are found to have misrepresented their financial condition. Litigation continues against the remaining defendant, Benjamin Moskel.”

You can read the whole release here

What Twitter Has Become To Me

This past week I have seen a ton of people going back and seeing their first tweet since it was Twitter's 8th anniversary. Twitter set up a special url for you to go see what your tweet was. If you are curious about it you can check yours out here.

As I was looking through my account I started to think about how much my opinion of Twitter has changed. I was very vocal when it came to them putting “Paid Tweets” on the site. I was even mentioned on the NY Times website. My thoughts have changed since I think Twitter has so many users that have given up on the service that it has just become a broadcast platform to a degree.

Scheduled Tweets

People get so upset over scheduled tweets it cracks me up. Sure sometimes breaking news happens and a scheduled tweet goes out. Does anyone notice? Does anyone care? Isn't there much bigger things in life to worry about? I just got finished scheduling about 2000 tweets. Some are evergreen, some are funny, some are interactive, some are informative, and some are tweets to landing pages that are designed for sales.

I break them up and most go out in the early morning so when I get up I already have interaction to respond to. I also schedule some for my European audience, which has been some of the best interaction I get. Guess being a night owl helps with that.

I am guessing that the 140 characters are too limiting to have a meaningful conversation especially if you are using Twitter on the web. I use Hootsuite where I can filter people into a list. I don't have to see tweets from everyone I follow. I keep a few private list set up and keep track and respond to my @ messages. Between that and the RavenTools social monitor I can keep up and track everything in all the social media accounts I am responsible for.

Hootsuite has a bulk upload tool that is simple to use. A simple csv file with 3 rows and hit what social media accounts you want to post to and you are done. I recommend using Google docs to set up the CSV file, for some reason it doesn't play nice in excel.

I use the bulk upload tool to upload to Twitter and also to Facebook and G+. Sometimes I set up different files for each but you can blast the same message out to all 3 if you want. If you hook up some apps in Hootsuite you can blast out to even more places. I concentrate on the big 3 social networks for the most part.

Using the schedule in bulk tool in Hootsuite makes life so much easier. You can sign up for a free account but I use the pro account for the features. It is well worth it for me.

Affiliate Summit East: Why Am I Speaking Again

I know I said I would never do public speaking again. I made it well aware that I was retiring from public speaking after my Affiliate Summit West 2012 session. Well a topic has been bothering me for a few months and I have to flush it out. While I could do an hour (or three) on the topic I decided to do a roundtable instead. I felt it was the best way to be able to field more questions by more people.

My topic is about publishing blog posts. Every day I get someone who tells me they have no time to blog. Every time I hear it I want to scream! In case you didn't know 2013 was one hell of a year for us.

In October 2012 Hurricane Sandy decided she was going to put 6 to 8 feet of water in our single story home. Trying to get back on our feet from Hurricane Sandy was no easy feat and it still isn't over actually. What most people don't know is while there were nights I didn't have walls or a floor or even heat I was still publishing blog posts. In a way I think it was what kept me sane at times.

office One site that I started a few weeks before the storm hit decided it was going to take off and become a major site for me. Just what I needed since we had no electric, clothes, food or good shelter for that matter. In the days that followed I had Debbie's daughter Liz publish the blog post from Arizona until I could find a computer that worked.

The first few days after the storm for me was like the movie “Groundhog Day” I don't remember much which is a good thing. It was the same thing over and over. Wake up under a cold blanket as soon as the sun rises, throw away whatever we owned, find food, and go back to sleep under the same cold blanket.

Anyway while Debbie and our cats went out to Arizona near Liz I stayed back and destroyed the house some more before building it back. My schedule consisted of building the house by day, publish blog post at night. It was exhausting! The picture was taken after I returned from Affiliate Summit West 2013. The milk was in the window because there was no fridge yet. It was the best I could do to keep it cold.

In 2013 there were over 15,000 blog post made either at the house or when I went to Arizona to take breaks from breathing in mold. The point is if I found time to publish 15,000 blog post and build a house you can find time to put blog post on your site. I will be showing the methods that I used and a few new ones that I have discovered.

Looking forward to sharing some of the things that I did last year and continue to do today.

Getting Kids Going In The World of Entrepreneurship

The other day I was riding my bike to the store when I turned the corner and there was a kid standing there with a sign. The sign wasn't well written for me to see as it was in pencil and it was a sunny day. I was on the other side of the street so I couldn't stop without darting into traffic. On my way back I purposely went back on that side of the street to see what the sign said.

As I approached I still couldn't see the sign so I yelled to the kid. “What does your sign say?” He ran towards me like I was the first person to stop and take an interest.

He says “I am selling Crystals!” With that I see a little table set up in the driveway of next house with a few kids sitting around a bunch of rocks. I pull up to the table wondering where these kids parents are since I think they are a little young to be by themselves.

I ask the kid how much and he had them set up in rows of 25 cents, 50 cents or 75 cents, as he is pointing to the “Crystals” which are really rocks from his front yard. I tell him to pick out the prettiest ones because my girlfriend likes “Crystals”. All of a sudden I have 3 kids picking and choosing the best ones to sell me. They pick out 3 of the 25 cent ones. I whip out a dollar and tell them I will take 4 since they are so helpful.

You would of thought I gave them a million dollars! They all had huge smiles on their face. I could tell I was their first sale and probably their only sale. I tell the kid with the sign that he needs a better one. I almost fell over when he told me “We don't have the resources to go to Staples”.

If you see kids selling rocks or lemonade or whatever give them a little boost. For all we know that kid will be the next president of a rock mine or the president of Staples.

I came home and gave Debbie the rocks and told her the story. The look on her face was priceless when I came in announcing I bought something for her and took rocks out of my pocket.

Beyonce is The Ultimate Email Marketer

Every once in a while something happens across the entertainment industry that makes me think. Yesterday was that kind of day as Beyonce, out of nowhere released a new album. Usually there is a press tour and press releases before an artist drops an album but not this time. As it was reported in USA Today Beyonce just dropped the album without any of that. Most people that follow the music industry didn't even know she was making an album or 17 videos to go along with it. I am sure there were some serious NDA disclosures going on.

knowles1 — Photo from Beyonce on Facebook

The lesson that I took from it was that Beyonce will have millions of downloads this weekend because she has an extensive email list and a huge social media following. From what I have read she uses email and Tumblr very well to keep her fan base up to date with what she is doing. Her fan base is extremely loyal and it shows. Without her asking her fans Beyonce fans generated more than 1.2 million Tweets in just 12 hours. I am sure it would have been more if she had tweeted out to her 13 million followers on Twitter what she was doing. She didn't have to as her fans saw a video for the album on Facebook from Beyonce and it just took a life of it's own across all social media channels.

How To Make Millions With Email

Needless to say her album shot to the top of iTunes within hours on Friday the 13th. The lack of publicity made the press eat up the story even more than if she would of did a press tour and talked about the album. Saturday morning in my inbox was the email from iTunes which I am sure generated a few million more in downloads.

As I am writing this it is late Saturday night and Billboard magazine has said that she has sold 430,000 albums at $15.99. If my math is correct that is about 6.8 million dollars in sales without spending a penny on advertising. Whoever said the money is in the list wasn't kidding!

Another thing she did by accident is create such a buzz I am sure all the people at the morning television shows would kill to have her on. At this point she can stay home and have them come to her, on her time schedule.

It is Almost 2014 It Is Time To Do Something Different

As an affiliate manager I see tons of websites as they are applying to the affiliate programs that we manage. I must say that lately the applications we are seeing are all kind of the same thing. Between the cash-back sites that you have to use a social media plug in for or the 100's of coupon sites that are all using the same “Click to Reveal” coupon code setting it is quite disturbing.

Where is the ingenuity? What makes your site different? I am not here to bash these type of sites but to make any money in affiliate marking you have to have some sort of POD (Point of difference) to make your site the “Go To” site where users will flock to. Odds are the click to reveal websites can all be knocked off in a Google algorithm change.

To be honest with you I am not seeing any new coupon sites getting any search engine traffic at all. If you are thinking about starting the next big “Click to Reveal Website” I suggest you rethink that plan. The market you think you can capture using social media is already to crowded for your best-coupons-ever-in-the-world.com website. A new site having the word coupon or coupons in your domain is a red flag to begin with. The Google search results already have enough coupon sites and Google knows it. Google knows who the big branded coupon sites are and trying to start the next big one is a mistake in my opinion.

I am sure at the next Affiliate Summit I will be introduced to a newbie starting a new coupon site. It is bound to happen, it happens to me at every Summit and the person always thinks it is a unique idea they have. Save yourself some time and don't order your LeftHandedElephantCoupon.com business cards just yet. Come and meet with me and I will give you 5 better ideas for a website. Like I said I am not bashing coupon sites I just want to see someone come up with an idea that knocks it out of the park.

There is a lot of affiliate programs that are lowering commissions to coupon sites. There are companies that don't want to have their brand on coupon sites at all. Does this sound like a good long term idea for your next website? I don't think so.

Affiliate Marketers Are Smart People

Affiliate marketers are some of the smartest people I know. Where is that ingenuity? I think it has been lacking of late. There needs to be more websites out there that offer a great service first and the affiliate products second. I have seen this model creep into affiliate marketing lately. I have seen more affiliates adapting by making videos, that is great. I am seeing more get into mobile or at least making their sites mobile friendly.

There use to be a time when having a proper SEO'd article on like “saving money on gas” on your automotive site would get you traffic and make you some money. Now if you had an automotive site a free “find cheap gas” service lookup app would probably be a better idea. Be helpful and think outside the box. In my example you would have users on your site while they are in their car and not necessarily on their computer at home. Stop thinking about how you can get a user on your website, think how can I get my website/product into their pocket.

If you haven't seen Google Now you are already behind the 8 ball. It should be scaring affiliate marketers like there is no tomorrow. Yesterday I was in Scottsdale Arizona and pulled up my Google Now which btw is just pulling up Google at this point since it is in my phone. In an instant I had the nearest restaurant, the weather, reviews, things to do etc. All with directions on how to get to each place. Under all these things on the phone I had the url to check out these things but I really didn't need to as I was just playing around.

What it showed me is I would be wasting my time if I was going to try and build the next best new local site about Scottsdale as my site wouldn't get on Google Now as it isn't actually located in Scottsdale. You could get a PO box in Scottsdale but doing that would only give people directions to your P.O. box. Doesn't sound like a long term win either.

I could go on all day with examples of Google Now but that is for another day. Thinking outside the box may be the best way to get your site into the users pocket.

Learn From Listening To Podcasts

We are all very busy while we work on the computer but that doesn't mean you can't learn while you work. I have improved a few of my websites by listening to podcast. Here are a few podcasts that I listen to while I am working that I learn a lot from and so can you. These are listed in no particular order. I also left out any affiliate marketing podcast because I know my friends will chime in with those in the comments.

Lately I have been listening to a podcast about public speaking. (iTunes) While I have no plans to ever do that again I like the way the speaker talks and if I ever do speak in public again at least I will have these tips in the back of my mind. I know a lot of my friends are doing Affiliate Summit sessions in a few months and can benefit from Lisa B. Marshall and her insightful tips.

Pat Flynn has a very successful podcast over at Smartpassiveincome.com. (iTunes) He has industry leaders on that tell listeners how they are doing things to grow their income. Friendly format and Pat is one of the most generous guys when it comes to sharing what is working right now.

Amy Porterfield (iTunes) has a great podcast covering social media and what you should be doing to engage with fans to get more sales. Her common sense approach to getting more traffic and sales is worth it's weight in gold. Getting social fans to your email list is something that I agree with 100% and Amy's tips show you how to do that and more.

Social Media Examiner's Michael Stelzner has a great podcast on social media (iTunes) that I listen to all the time. He has insightful tips from people doing social media successfully. The guest normally give good points and advice you can use right away.

If you want to learn how to influence your audience and get into the psychology of selling then you have to listen to my friend Derek Halpern's podcast Social Triggers (iTunes). Derek tells it the way it is and backs up his words with proof.

Corbett Barr, Chase Reeves, and Caleb Wojcik have a great podcast about getting traffic to your site and get them coming back. The Fizzle show (iTunes) is one of my favorites because I like their common sense approach to building a successful website.

What podcast do you listen to on a regular basis? What podcast topic would you like to hear more about?

25 Ways To Improve Your Website Video

Last year I had the honor to speak at Affiliate Summit West. My presentation on 25 ways to improve your website was very well received. Affiliate Summit has just made the videos live on YouTube so I thought I would share it so more people can improve their website. Under the video is the slide deck from the session. You can use that as a guide. Sure some things have changed in a year but the information is still relevant.

The only information that has really changed is the Google purchase of the Picnik photo re-size tool which is now part of Google+.

25 Ways to Improve Your Website from Vinny Ohare

Reviews of my Session at Affiliate Summit

Click here to see a more detailed writeup of my 25 ways to improve your website

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