eAction

This is not a GREAT find, meaning this lesson has not got me all excited, but I guess it’s a valuable lesson. Because I had to hunt quite a bit for it, i thought I’d mention it here in case someone else is searching for just this info.

Background.
I’ve been trying to set up a Google sitemap - because then apparently they visit your site more often and list it better. The instructions for their sitemap generator involve a python script. First you have to change a bit of info in the config file, and then upload both it and the python script to your site, using SSH.

Oh? What’s that?

So off I went on a search over several days.

I’ve now learned that it is a means of securely accessing another computer however far away, via your shell or commandline. However, the other computer has to be set up to allow you to do that. If it is not SSH enabled, you’re stuck. Blindly assuming my web host would have that, even though I couldn’t find a reference to it in the CPanel, I checked my SuSE 9.3’s Yast, and sure enough. with a click and a few minutes wait, I had SSH enabled, and even something called KSSH, which is by KDE.

A little window popped open when I clicked on it in the menu where it was added, and I tried to figure that out. Which meant going back online and Googling some more for how-tos.

During that stage I discovered that Konqueror has a little feature added that allows you to do this in a graphical way, using fish://username@yourhostordomain.com . Well, I’ll be…! So I tried that. It tried and tried for minutes on end, but each time I got an error message, apologizing but it could not connect.

Then I went to the forums of HostGator to see if anyone else had asked about this. Soon I learned that it wasn’t offered on any but the dedicated servers. Simply because when a server is shared with other clients, there is a chance of people using it to hack into other sites. Otherwise, it is definitely considered more secure than ftp.

So, I guess I’ll be making my sitemap manually as an .xml file for all 100+ pages. But I do have a much better grasp now of SSH, and fish too!

Have you ever stopped to make a list of all the things you’ve learned since you first went online to the brave new world of the I n t e r n e t?

I really can’t do that any more. My list is so long, and I know I’m forgetting to mention things I’ve learned. But just to try it for a few minutes is a big booster shot.

Okay, maybe a better list for you is all the friends you’ve made online. Can you count them on one hand? And to think - you would never have met them if it weren’t for the Net!

Did you notice? Probably not. I just made the article in the last issue of eAction go another money-making mile. In fact, it is likely to bring me more income than it did the first time when you saw it.

Now you want to know that secret, eh?

First of all I must ask, do you write articles at all? Do you have an ezine or blog in which you write something new regularly?

You may think when you send out your ezine, or post that blog, you’ve done with that, and you promptly forget it and push on ahead. But if you wrote that small mini-article, you have full rights to it. You can reuse it as often as you like. You can publish it in many different formats. Hey, you can even put together a collection of them, and create an e-book to sell!

Yes, your blog entries can be polished into articles, or if you’re smart, you’ll write them as articles from the beginning to save yourself a step. Whatever you do, don’t throw them out. That’s your intellectual property, and you can make money from it for years to come. In fact, you can leave intellectual property to your heirs and they can make money from it all of their lives.

Organize your writings on your computer, so you can quickly find anything you want. If you haven’t got a website, get one! (Remember, I offer sweet deals for beginner’s sites now).

Place your articles (or previous blogs) as separate web pages on your site. Make sure you include the three meta tags at the top. The general public won’t see them, but the search engines do. So if you have a good title, description and keywords in those meta tags, the search engines will bring visitors to your site, and while they are there, they can ‘notice’ the ads for your affiliate programs in your side columns. They can ‘notice’ your Google AdSense ad units too. If they click on any of those links, your account grows at Google, and whenever it reaches $100 they mail you a check.

You can also post your article on various directly sites that collect articles for others to use. You include the credit lines that everyone who borrows your article MUST include to have the right to use it. Those credit lines should include a link to your site thus ensuring you will get more visitors and possible purchases of your products or services.

Do you get the picture? Even if your article is a mere 100 words in about three short paragraphs, if it has something worthwhile to say, and a good title, you can use it over and over in many ways, and keep profiting from it.

That’s how I’m getting more mileage out of my review article last time on AdlandPro’s services. I just popped it into a template on my business site, added some line returns between paragraphs, wrote up the three meta tags, named the page, and added a link on the index page to the eAction Articles section. Then I opened my FTP to the site, and slide those two pages over. Presto. More mileage. More profit potential.

Where do I get my best marketing and promotional ideas? From reading the ezines I’ve subscribed to over the years.

I confess, I’ve been so busy for so many months that the folder where I filter them to, has got very full, but I went to have a look last Friday, and only got one ezine read, but oh what a treat. I floated on the good things I learned from the links in it that I followed up and checked out. Now I am determined, I MUST make more time for reading those ezines. I’m the one that is going to benefit the MOST!

Perhaps ezines are not your bag. Do you have a list of good forums to visit regularly? Or do you read up stuff on your favourite topics in an RSS reader? Then schedule oh, just half an hour a day to go read there, and check out recommended links. You will be astonished at the helpful stuff you learn for your web business.

While researching for info about backing up to DVDs (my 3 CD method is getting too crowded), I happened upon an interesting human interest story. I thought I’d just focus on that today.

The program that works best and is included on most distros for burning CDs or DVDs is that nifty K3B program. On the home page of www.k3b.org, Sebastian Trueg, the original writer of that program mentions how his computer was getting old (senile, he called it), and he needed a new computer, so he posted on his site and at SourceForge.org that he was putting on a fundraiser over the month of March 2006.

The only prize would be that he’d continue to work on the program until he had version 1.0 ready. Currently K3B is at 0.12.16.

Sebastian was hoping for 1000 Euros, and was astonished to receive that much within two days! Mandrake and Linspire jumped in to make donations, and a number of other individuals did too. By the end of March he had raised nearly 5000 Euros.

This young university grad, now working for his professor full-time, was able to purchase a very nice computer from Deltatronic who gave him a 15% discount as their contribution. The Open Source Community has really shown him their appreciation and this confidence has given him a huge boost. He is now focused on producing that promised version 1.0 of K3B.

There’s a nice interview and photo of him on this blog; itreviews.blogspot.com/2006/05/sebastian-trueg-k3b-interview.html I wish Sebastian Trueg much more success!

“If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it!”
(comedian Jonathan Winters).

And,

“I firmly believe that in every situation, no matter how difficult, God extends grace greater than the hardship, and strength and peace of mind that can lead us to a place higher than we were before.”

(Andy Griffith on his struggles battling Guillain-Barre syndrome).

AdlandPro has really expanded since I joined in June of 2001. At that time I saw it mainly as a chance to place classified ads, and a newsletter where members writing in were quoted quite liberally. Sometimes I learned from those exchanges. It was like a forum by email. But then I got busy with my web design projects, and slacked off on promotion, and sort of forgot. Although I did hear of and try out various features as they came up.

Like, the classifieds page script I could put on my site, and the traffic exchange start up page (I gave up that whole genre of promotion when I switched to Linux and don’t miss them at all). Sometime last year they started an active community where you can post all kinds of things about yourself, your links that you want to market, and forums were set up, and the place just got very busy. I looked at what came through and deleted it.

Then the other week they added a line of photos of those who were currently online at the site. Well, my photo gets turns too, and whoosh, suddenly my inbox was flooded with invitations to “Be their Friend.” I would go check out their profile and click approval, because of course I’m not likely to turn down a friend, am I?

However, I decided it was time I went to look over what the site offers, and what exactly it takes to benefit from all this.

There are six folder tabs across the top and each one is like a complete sub-set of the site;
Classifieds, Advertisers, Affiliate$, Networking, Learning, My Account.

CLASSIFIEDS:

You can do following at no cost to you:
1. Place your free ads in our classifieds and community pages ($2.50 value)
2. Place your free ads in our Free Traffic Exchange (120,000 users) ($2.50 value )
3. Free subscription to our “Adland Digest” Newsletter ($5.00 per month value)
4. Obtain free leads for your business using our community system ($5-$10 per lead value)
5. Earn big money with our affiliate program (up to $10,000/month)
6. Participate in discussions to learn more about marketing and promotions through the Adland Digest ($5.00 per month value)

ADVERTISERS:
Free members can use, free class ads, traffic exchange, community advertising, text/banner ads can be earned or paid for, and there are additional paid services available.

Free Affiliates get;
Unlimited number of ads per month to everybody who joins our affiliate program.
It is fast, easy and totally free to become an affiliate. As a member of our program you will have all the benefits of a free member, and get additional benefits.
* Get paid up to 25% commissions
* Earn traffic credits
* Get your ad displayed on the top of our pages
* Get statistics on performance of your ads
* Free promotional tools
* Earn up to $1 from one click from displaying our pay per click results.

As a gold member, you will get all adlandpro services for Free contained in one easily manageable package. (see the site for that long list!)

AFFILIATE$:
Be one of 44746 affiliates and get paid for your link to AdlandPro, Earn up to $1 from a click by displaying results of our Pay-Per Click Advertisers. You can earn 20%-25% commission on each service sold at AdlandPro and get an extra exposure for your ad, when you place link to us with your special id. For each 1000 credits earned from traffic to AdlandPro, you will be paid bonus of $5 US and $2 US for each 1000 credits generated by affiliates you sponsored.

NETWORKING:
This is where all that community and inviting and accepting friends happens. The forums too. I’m getting the impression that really getting involved here could fill up any lonely or bored person’s day! Since I’m plenty busy already, I’m proceeding here with great caution. I see that a weak person could easily get drawn into all kinds of programs because every friend you make or person who approaches you has the right to advertise to you their links and programs that they want to market. If you work this like a level-headed business person, this could all work to your advantage. I just know that I can’t quickly cancel everything else I’ve got going to hang out here, tempting though it might be..

LEARNING:
Under this tab you can subscribe or unsubscribe to the ezines, and find 6 tutorial courses with lessons right online there. You read what you need and want to use.

MyACCOUNT:
this brings up another row of nine tabs where you can set what you wish for your ads, how you want them displayed, and where, and when, get access to your profile, free email, choose the marketing tools you want to use - and yes, pay for some.

My conclusion?

I don’t need to take the WHOLE AdlandPro package. I can pick and choose, and change as my needs and interests change. But it does have stability and the prices are reasonable, especially considering that there are close to 33,000 members already, and Bogdan Fiedur the Founder/CEO has been doing this since 1996.

Now you’re looking for these, right?

Here’s your Invitation to come be one of : MY Friends at AdlandPro

Here’s my Adlandpro Classifieds page

To become an Affiliate with extra privileges, you’ll need this link; Be an AdlandPro Affiliate