Darshana Makavita › Comments

Thanks for that link. It is a pretty awesome. This can add so much relevant content to a conversation. Must try it out soon. - Darshana Makavita

This is Fricken AWWWWWesome. I see this as a big thing to start being on blogs everywhere. Thanks for the link Ritesh :))) Just signed up and got the code. - Colossal Marketing™

I remember seeing a demo not too long ago from another site that was doing word recognition of all important words ont he page, like it would give all countries, all names, all place names, and link to them appropriately, forgot which site it as and cant seem to find it in my bookmarks - TrafficBug

Can't find it either - Darshana Makavita

http://www.kikabink.com/news/ check this link you will see there are no comments - Darshana Makavita

Comment waiting for approval? - Buff Toast

yer I couldnt see it either? it must be pending.... - FRAK

Hi Chris - a very warm welcome to you! - Isha (Marysia)

Welcome Chris, This is a great place to be:) - Colossal Marketing™

Welcome, have a super time - Darshana Makavita

Hello Frak. Have a great challenge! - Buff Toast

Aloha Frak - welcome to the best room in FriendFeed! - Isha (Marysia)

Yeah, me too. Aloha back and good luck on the race to the 1st $10 - Bora Wiemann

Hi Ya Frak, Glad to see you here :~) - Colossal Marketing™

Thats great! I still havent made a sale yet, but starting to get some adsense clicks. - Joe Cooley

Good to hear, but how about traffic did you get the magic number 200 - Darshana Makavita

nope....i mean i hit 200 uniques...but not 200 per day..i get about 30 per day, and about 70 when i make a new post. the good thing is i am starting to get more search engine traffic than referral traffic - Joe Cooley

I can use it for off page(i.e links) but how to check keyword in title,header, desc. The SEOxray feature can do it to a certain extent but that is one page at time. It would be nice if the data is available at once for the top 10 websites at least. - Darshana Makavita

SEO can really only be done on a page by page basis because that's how the search engines index...by page, not by site. iBusiness Promoter has a free version that will do an analysis for you and give your page a ranking against the top five to ten sites for a keyword. If you can get your score to about 80 - 85% then that's fine. After that you need to address off-page factors. - Lance Carr

Thanks, I am going to check it out now - Darshana Makavita

have u tried w3optimizer.com for this? - TrafficBug

I reccommend SEO for Firefox Toolbar - Mitja MG

Yes Mark, I have my files backed up but not the programs and frankly it would take me weeks to upload them all again (assuming I still could). Also, now I am computerless (managed to fight my son off his for a while to do some stuff) and I have stuff on websites I cannot access because my passwords are all set up on the browser on my old computer ? - Greg

Greg - use Roboform which has a database of all the passwords on your 'My Documents' folder called 'My Roboform Data' which would be automatically backed up with the rest. You could then quickly reinstall the application and configure it to use the backup database of passwords. - Mark McGimpsey

As for the applications - I keep a DVD with a list of all the applications as folders. Inside the folder is a single install application and password. These I copy across at the first install stage. Unfortunately, yes, it can take quite a few hours putting them all back in again especially if there are updates too. - Mark McGimpsey

I think the cheapest way to ensure you have got everything saved is to buy one of those portable hard drives - I saw one here in the UK recently that had 1500TB of space - that is way more than my computer has, and it cost about £120. Just copy and paste your hard drive once a week - if you do the back up over night then you wont have any wasted time hanging around waiting, and you should have a copy of your computer safley tucked away. - san

As for passwords... Why not write each one down as you go along as the ultimate back up? Pen and paper will never crash! - san

I have a Linux script that copies my documents, browser, & mail to my laptop, & I run it every day. I run another script that backs everything up on both computers. So I've 4 copies of everything. But my Windows browser (Flock) which I use a lot is not backed up. I need to spend 2 days sometime getting all my browsers' bookmarks the same so that I can use an online bookmarking backup tool (like Foxmarks). I also don't have my Windows desktop backed up which I need to take care of. Thanks for the tips Mark. - Isha (Marysia)

Great Idea San - I just got one when my computer crashed and I have it plugged into my laptop. Also I had the "computer hospital" download all my old data onto the portable hard drive and I can easily access all the info. Haven't thought to back up to it -so thanks for that headsmacking revelation LOL - Elizabeth

Having a RAID system with double cloned hard drives is not expensive, it can be done under $300 (+ the hdds) Some setups do it automatically at hardware level so you just have to flip a switch :) As for the programs and OS, I like Norton Ghost and the like for making perfect images of my OS and programs. I can practically reinstall windows under 15 min ;) - Jorge Blanco

Brill tips in this thread. Thanks Jorge. Greg, every time I have a new account of some kind with username, password etc, I add the info to a running email that I have - from myself to myself. In Thunderbird email client I just drag it to the Drafts folder every time I want to update the email then drag it back into a folder where I keep all sorts of notes to myself in email form. I don't actually ever send it over the internet - it's just a way of keeping text where it's handy. - Isha (Marysia)

I have use a place called http://mozy.com/ the free version does the job for me - Mark South

Nice recommendation - thanks for that one Mark. I notice the free version only covers 2G and "MozyHome Free is for personal, non-commercial use only. Business users check out MozyPro". The MozyPro fee is "Desktop Licenses: $3.95 + $0.50/GB per month" which seems quite reasonable. I believe Google has something similar which I'll look it up later. - Isha (Marysia)

Your not the only one having computer woes, mine got stuck with lightning and still not repaired. Now using my old p3 after putting up a new power supply. I have realized the hard way the need for backup, Thanks for all the info. - Darshana Makavita

Thanks guys for all the great advice - Greg

For the Bookmarks solution. Just install Foxmarks in each one, when you get prompted, you can choose how to manage them. You can choose to Merge them, which would effectively put them together and eliminate duplicates (hopefully). Just start with the best organized and use the prioritize server bookmarks on the other browsers. - Jorge Blanco

I was wondering the same thing, Groobers. Should I sign up before finishing? - Mark Strickland

I am still going through the challenge, about half way and I signed up. I will finish, I love it, Ed and Dan and the team are the best, so for $20 you can't go wrong. It won't always be that price, if you get in at all, I think it was open for 24 hours - JayP

That's the thing, do you think a thirty day extension will be available for Market Samurai for further study? - Groobers

Maybe a room is required for the trying to do two things at once tribe? - Groobers

I've heard that trying to do too many things at once is a sure way to do nothing right, but in this case, I tip my virtual hat to those who are really working at their online businesses. you will succeed. BTW did you see Frank Kern's video how to get rich. It is gooooood - Jorge Blanco from twhirl

Not me. I succeed in 30dc but unfortunately I didn't go on with working on sites because of not having enough time :( Hope this time goes better and I get more inspiration to work on sites. - Mitja MG

I did the pre-season stuff and the first few days of 30DC. I stopped at day 6 -setting up a blog - as I already have one but I will be going back just to get familiar with the info. - DaleK

Guilty. I got too busy. Fell down on the market research. Set up a blog then reanalyzed and decided it was not a good niche after all. Kinda got stuck on the whole Market Samurai analysis stuff... I never got to the automated content, which really piqued my curiousity. But 30DC+ is too good a deal to not do, at least for a few months. Gotta risk it... - Cass

Exactly the same for me as Cass. Exactly. - Paul

Not a big fan of the autopost features. Yes, they're easy, but they produce too low quality content sometimes and you kind of get comfortable after a while ad could forget to check them frequently enough to moderate them. And yeah, finding a new niche can be hard. - Jorge Blanco from twhirl

Yup I am still working my way through 30DC and have signed up for 30DC+, I am on Day 11 of 30DC - Kittie Walker

I haven't finished 30DC either, but there are clearly things I want to find out about in the 30DC+ program. Also, I knew what I wanted to sell on line (like my books) before I began 30DC - Sig - Sig Lonegren

Just been reading The Awesome again, a quick question before Beer O'Clock (hey it is Freedy Neet) could an Apple iTouch be used instead of an iPhone? - Groobers

I haven't really finished 30dc yet - didn't do the pay-per-click becs can't afford risking that much dosh - Isha (Marysia)

Hope I can keep up with them both, only got to day 6 of 30dc - Pete

Let's hope we can ALL keep up. I wonder if the new Blackberry Storm will suffice instead of iPhone. - Janice

I'm just about finished 30DC but have started 30DC+ and am finding it the BEST way to understand and really use some of the things I didn't understand (despite watching the vids and reading the text) in 30DC. Expecting to start feeling pretty awesome any day now ;-) - Kim Baillie

I've heard some bad comments about the Storm, something like its the Vista of the Blackberries - Jorge Blanco

I've not gotten thru 30DC b4 signing up for 30DC+ , seems to work just as well, now I'm going back to 30DC vids I didn't watch when I pause 30DC+ vids to 'catch up' on what Ed is conveying - gave the whole process new life for me! - Bob Miller

Getting through 30DC is a target I've set for Dec '08... - Justus van der Merwe from twhirl

Am currently on my 6th attempt. So far I haven't made it past day 18. 30DC+ is a great boost to my productivity. - Tim Brennan

I am now doing basic 30D for third time! (It worked ! Ed's teaching is something else!) - Inspired Writing Research

I learned a lot fro the 30 dc but never finished it completely. So, I'll pay for it this time and make it work. Go figure - Rich_Glass

I did do the 30DC, but I think that doing the 30DC one lesson at time should be do-able. You can do it! - Frank Dobner

I made it thru and then heard about 30DC+ the week after. Good timing. I'm still putting 30DC into practice... - Gus

I agree on the previous comment about the themes, they have created a few problems - Darshana Makavita

Yes, most of them don't even work and you have to scroll through (and test) hundreds of them to find one that does. I am not bashing the program, I think it is a great idea and it launches wordpress blogs lightning fast -- however, if they have that many paid subscribers, I would expect some improvements to the software plus more features. I haven't seen any new features and most of the content modules don't work -- but I could be wrong. - Kelly Johns

I'm hopefully going find a microniche this week and going to try wordpress direct the free version, can anyone tell what themes they have used without problems, as this will save a lot of time,thanks. - Frank Donnelly

What sort of problems are you having? I have several themes in use, (granted I tweaked the graphics), but any issues such as duplicate widgets in the sidebar were quickly fixed by support mostly within 24 hours. I'm using Cosmo, Calm-breeze, Holidaez, and Gardener. You can see cosmo here: http://www.ultimatehealthandfitness.com also at http://www.healthyfoodsandeatinghealthy.com (both tweaked). These are old blogs re-themed with WPD. - Mark McGimpsey

The gardener theme I used to make a site yesterday for a local firm in Northern Ireland: http://www.flowerpotgardenersbelfast.com - Mark McGimpsey

Great question Frank. Rambling Soul 3 is working well for me, but it's a bit girly. Also, there's one thing to really be aware of - this one is only 2 columns wide and the text column has a fluid width (as opposed to a fixed width). I thought at first that would be good, but it ain't, because the lines of text are so e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y long that they have to be artificially shortened. So I'd recommend a 3-column theme if you can find a good one that fits your topic, or a 2-column theme with fixed width. - Isha (Marysia)

I've just suggested in the WPD forum that they start a sticky thread on themes that work, and themes that are broken http://forum.wordpressdirect.com/forumdi... - Isha (Marysia)

Hey Mark, great job on those sites, they look great. Some of the themes work great, others don't and you only really find out after you have been using the theme for awhile...my gripe is that every time I login to WPD to manage my blogs, I have to submit a ticket for something. They are WAY better now at helping out, but still, with 10,000 paid users, I would think a lot of these bugs would be sorted out, not to mention the interface has usability issues, especially if you are trying to manage 20+ blogs. - Kelly Johns

Themes that have worked for me are Wave Surfers 1.0, Blue Ace 1.0, WP Beautiful World, and Vintage Style. - Kelly Johns

Thanks Kelly. Everyone who blogs should if possible at least change their header graphic to something their own. All you have to do is keep to the same size, use exactly the same name and just replace it. (Found in the img or images folder in wp-content/themes/yourtheme/). - Mark McGimpsey

Yes I agree, that is a good idea especially when using these types of templates good tip. Question for you Mark, how long have you been using WPD and have you ever seen any noticeable upgrades to the system? - Kelly Johns

Since September. There have been requests for features to be added and to the best of my knowledge these are being worked on. The system only returns what is available (including poor quality home made videos people have put up on YouTube), so never auto post. You need to spend a bit of time and check what is being pulled in. I guess this is what people mean by it not working. You can spend easily an hour sorting through rubbish. - Mark McGimpsey

Turns out that the figures are 10,000 total users, 1000 paid users. See Marty Rozmanith's first comment here: http://mashable.com/2008... - Isha (Marysia)

Not to shabby when you realise the basic membership fee per month is around $97 if I remember correctly - (and I'm a paid member too lol). - Mark McGimpsey

I'm paying a helluvalot less than that, as someone who bought early. I think $37 - Isha (Marysia)

When was it that cheap? - Jorge Blanco

I bought on 1st September. - Isha (Marysia)

Just remembered - I think I was the last person to grab it at that special 30dc offer price - silver membership. - Isha (Marysia)

With mentions all over the web, ie TechCrunch, it could be 10k paid users. - ZoekmachineGuru

No, it's 1000 paid users. It's in WPD's email to us of No 23rd. And also in that mashable comment of Marty's. - Isha (Marysia)

In regards to word presssdirect themes I found the best thing to do is just pick a theme any theme then when it is all set up just ftp your preferred theme very simple and quick - Russell James

James, when you do that does it pull in all the WPD add-ons & SEO stuff? - Isha (Marysia)

are you tweaking your site right now? i keep running into messages about your domain being parked - Joe Cooley

Nope working fine www.wirelessoutdoorspeaker.net - Darshana Makavita

I understand you can do what you want with them (unless the designer expressly forbids it), since I think all of them were obtained for free. For example, if you put Ferrari Red Wordpress theme into Google then the top site is http://wordpress2u.com/2008... - "Download wordpress themes for free at "Wordpress2u.com". You just need to keep the designer's... more... - Isha (Marysia)

Lots of people have modified their themes -- especially if there were links in the footer that led to sites considered "bad neighborhoods" by Google. There are a lot of posts about it in the 30DC forum -- you might want to have a search there (hint:put your search term in quotes). - LJF Wolffe

Thanks everyone for the comments - Darshana Makavita

So we test a niche by using our money with a domain and hosting? I don't get it, you make a site about the niche before you try joining amazon? I'm going over earlier videos right now...I must have missed this. Sorry to bother everyone w/ all the questions when maybe I should just pay more attention! lol - nic

Im not sure. I just know amazon needs a url when you register. Regardless, though, if you decide to pursue this you have to get hosting and a domain anyways. It's not too expensive. Hosting is about 5 bucks a month and a domain can be had for under $10 for a year. I think this will be discussed on Day 6. - Joe Cooley

Yeah I intended on getting the domain/hosting later on just wanted to know how soon we should be thinking about it. Ok, so another question ...when researching on Google about your keywords, do we only worry about the results when we have the quotations around them? How important are the keyword results when we don't add them? Only because some of my keyword results have a huge differential when adding the quotations and when I don't add them. - nic

Thats one of the things I'm unsure about. One of the key phrases I looked up had 8 sites come up with quotes, without was somewhere in the millions. I think one of the things mentioned is that google gives preference to sites optimized for the exact match opposed to sites that mention the keywords scattered on the page. Thus, "trout fishing" will be given preference over "look at all that trout in that fishing spot." - Joe Cooley

I am thinking of getting a domain for at least one niche, because I already have hosting for a blog I started but got neglected.Also regarding the keywords it is best to stick to there criteria of using quotes. Most of the time if there is a huge difference then one word is very popular by itself, but as a group they are not used much. But if you are seen traffic(above 80) then it could be a good phrase. - Darshana Makavita