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Yesterday I had cause to rejoice that I have a Linux only computer. I went to HostGator’s forum for clients, and discovered in the announcements that back in September there had been a huge crisis, when it was discovered there was an exploit on our cPanels (where we webmasters do our administrative tasks, and it had cause those with Windows computers to have all kinds of wierd conflicts.

Some could not access their sites, some were re-directed to other sites, some saw popups of sites they had never visited, some had their MySQL databases down, and some had strange new databases entered, (Huh?) Oh my! All kinds of problems!

I can’t say that I was aware of any of this in any way. (Aside from some spamming of my forms, which I don’t think was related).

http://forums.hostgator.com/showthread.php?t=10939 As I read further in this forum, I discovered that those of us who have linux computers were pretty well safe. It was the Windows users who suffered, although some who use Firefox as their browser did not have as much trouble as the ones using Internet Explorer (IE).

Right now I’m trying hard not to gloat, but I feel strangely rewarded for my efforts in switching to SUSE and even the hassle in re-doing my install of version 10.1 this fall.

I also was proud of how the head of HostGator got in there and used his connections to patch things up for his clients. It really is a great host and I’m pleased I choose them back in June. HostGator

Now, how can I tactfully suggest to more Windows users that they would be better off switching to Linux? I need to watch for my opportunities.

Does it happen to you too, that you get so busy with all your work and finding new contacts and new ventures to get into - and then one day you run into the name of an old friend and you wonder, whatever happened to that person?

It did to me this morning. Suddenly I saw something that reminded me of Debbie. She used to have a site, and worked hard at helping others succeed with their affiliate business ventures. I put her site’s name into the search engine, and came across what looked like a new site, not even built yet. Huh? Did she lose it? I did another quick search and came up with a couple of pages that used to be on her site, but without graphics. Just the text.

I’m thinking… “Whoa, I should be looking out for old friends, even while I make new ones.” Unfortunately, with all the crashes I had last year, I’m not sure how hard I’ll have to hunt through old backups to find the contact information. Maybe I can ask another friend who knew her.

So I’m just saying today… let’s keep an eye out for old friends too, and not desert them. We probably can’t keep up with everyone we ever meet, but when they come to mind - let’s make a bit of an effort, okay?

Last week I spend some hours researching article directories. I have read that it is one of THE hottest ways to drive targeted, primed traffic to your site, and to create quality in-bound links, which the search engines love. It appears that it really is the new Wonder Bread of internet marketing.

I used to have as my email signature, that the internet is a writer’s paradise. This just confirms it again. If you can learn to write informative, and easy -to-understand articles, (how-tos are the most popular), then you can write good quality content for your own sites, and offer articles to these directories for others to use - all of which should link back to your site - or you can offer to ghost-write them for others, and charge for your services.

That’s not even touching on the old school of marketing your articles to paying markets as a freelancer, or setting up to do business writing for people who can’t write their own sales letters, brochures, advertising copy, newsletters, etc. (Check out the Well-fed Writer to see how beginnings are charing clients $50/hour for such business writing).

The past year or so I’ve been re-vamping my sites, and slacking off on marketing. Now my business site is now ready to be marketed. I certainly intend to list it with directories and search engines, but I know the SEs will give me a higher ranking if I have some in-bound links first. That’s why I was thinking of submitting articles to those special directories. I’ve saved all the articles since I began my first weekly ezine, the JournalDigest, back in 2000. Some need a bit of a polish and a new resource box, and I can soon get a pattern going to write more, but I wanted to check out the current standards and expectations before I begin.

I’ve gathered a list of nearly 30 article directories right now, and I’m not nearly done! If you put “article directory” into Google or SearchBigDaddy you will get over a million listings. Some of those are for directories of article directories. It actually pays to look for recommendations from experienced submitters for the best directories.

Yes, some are better than others, because their owners care about the authors, and look after you better. Reputations do get around. At the moment, I think I can only safely recommend IdeaMarketeers.com because I’ve submitted there in the past, and I see that others recommend them highly. Once I have been submitting steadily for a while I’m sure I’ll have a list of favourites that I can pass on to you.

ArticleRich.com The article on this page does point out that running a directory is not quite the cash-cow that some make it out to be. It pays to do more diligent research before you plunge in wildly. If you are willing to faithfully screen the submitted articles, and get them into the right categories, and yes, if you have AdSense codes on each and every article’s page, you will soon be seeing an increase in your AdSense income.

There are several software packages for sale to set up such an article directory, but there’s one that is free and it may be the reason they are multiplying so fast. It’s called ArticleDashboard. I know I don’t have the time to take this idea on, but it looks like a good one-person internet business idea.

Get a domain name at GoDaddy for under $10 and a year’s hosting from me for $12 (or $24, depending on how large a space you want) and this free software, sign up with Google’s AdSense program, and then you add your wits and your time, and you are in business.

I’ll be grateful to get some good in-bound links from my articles - as I get this new marketing strategy off the ground.

Do words come easy to you? You should be writing-for-the-Net to make money!

You can LIVE WELL off your words - if you learn to use just the Right ones for Net-writing!

Your MOST Important download ever - has become a gift! Make Your Content Pre-Sell Worthwhile Content brings buyers to your site! Sure, we’ll answer Questions.

I’ve discovered there are many hard-working developers in the Linux world, who donate untold hours to developing and refining and polishing their scripts and software that works in our Linux operating systems. It’s something to marvel at such devotion.

Today, while looking for new directories of places to list my sites at, I stumbled across a man who has benefited from all that hard work, and decided to do something to pay those people back - at least a token or honorarium. How he has set this up though, may well end up paying those individuals and groups a more handsome sum than they ever dreamed of.

His name is Bob Mutch, located in Alymer, Ontario, Canada. His press release describes his plan and invites others to take part. Looking at his FAQ too, I discovered that he has deliberately set this up so that no one can accuse him of a scam, meant to just bring him more cash.

In essence, anyone working on such software for a linux environment can apply to be put on a funding list. Other businesses and people with financial resources (apparently Bob has a lot of business connections) can sign up to put a Mass Pay software in with their PayPal, and thus give gifts of $50 or more to all those on the funding list.

I must salute Bob Mutch. I myself have not earned a lot of money yet, and am still a po’ church mouse, but I have benefited this last year or two while dipping into the Linux world and installing first Mandrake 9.1 a few times, and then Suse 9.3, and now this fall, Suse 10.1. I think I’m past the honeymoon stage, and fully committed to continuing my internet life in a Linux OS. I admire your plan, Bob, and your good-hearted motives. May God bless your efforts and encourage a lot of worker-ants.

Meantime, folks, I can add that on Bob’s site I discovered what I had set out to find, some good lists of directories and search engines that it is wise to submit to. He offers a paid service for this, (good for him), and there is even a list of free directories that folks like me can start with while in a do-it-myself mode of site promotion. Check out this list; free-web-directories and read also his thoughts on the importance of inbound links from Yahoo, government and educational sites/directories.

It makes sense, Bob!

As I said last time, I’m shifting gears back to Promo Work, now that my business site is updated and renovated. Last week I realized that my Classifieds page was drawing a lot of the wrong kind of traffic, and probably bringing me to the attention of BAD marketeers - so I deleted it. Amazing what one click can do!

I got my sitemap and new RSS feed to the site to work, and have listed them in the suggested places, at Yahoo, on MyYahoo, at MyMSN, and so forth. I also set up my blogs to be pinged regularly, and guess what; sales of my novel have started up again!

The novel’s site is not fully renovated yet, and I’m still working on secure forms, but I’m taking back one hour a morning for promo work, and because at least one friend is ready to do the same, I thought I’d show you how I’m setting up to streamline my efforts and get the max done that I can in that one hour a day.

I’m sure you are really busy too, but if you can clear and guard one hour as your Promo Work hour, I think you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.

Not sure what to do? Watch me, and follow my footprints.

Now that I have my business site renovated and updated, and the sitemap and RSS feeds completed and listed, I’m ready to start promoting it - and some other sites - in a heavy-duty, throw myself into it kind of way. I’ve done some of this before, but I’ve been taking a break from promotional work to get the site up to speed.

So today I’ll show you how to set up for this kind of gungho approach to promoting your site URLs and product links at all kinds of free places online.

First, you need to get a plain text editor. If you’re in a Windows world you have NotePad, but it can’t handle much more than hasty notes. Get yourself TextPad, which is shareware, but you can use it indefinitely without consequences. If you’re in Linux like me, you can use Kate, or KWord, or GEdit, or many others.

The reason is that you want all your info in the plainest, non-formated way, so you can copy and paste without conflicting coding messing things up. You’ll be doing LOTS of copy and pasting.

Now inside your text editor, create some folders. You may name them what you wish, but just to give you an outline to show you where this is going I’ll give you some sample names.

Top folder - PROMO (or something like that, to tell you all your promotional efforts are in here)

Sub-folders inside PROMO;

Places2List/ (where you’ll put any files with notes as to where to list your sites, any new lists of Search engines, etc)

Classifieds/ (where you’ll put your rough drafts and polished ads, and your records of where you’ve placed ads and when - all those details)

One-Pagers/ ( or even MyPages/ this is for info you want to place where you are allowed your own full bio, or like some portals allow you free MyMSN, or MyYahoo, or MyNetscape, whatever. We’ll discuss the advantages another time, but these are fine advertising opportunities!)

IDEAS&Plans/ (whenever you do some brainstorming about your promo efforts, stash those files in here. Some day you’ll be hunting for one idea or plan, and where is it? You can’t remember it all. Or these notes will be triggers for new planning sessions. Copy this article into a plain text file, and save it into this folder).

Now you can make as many folders as you like, but the following ideas can be on single files which can be just under PROMO. It will be less hassle to have one long file for these things than dozens and eventually hundreds of small ones to open and save and close.

Create these Files;

Reciprocals.txt - at the top list all the info you want to give to others when they agree to place a link on their site pointing to yours.
My site name:
My link URL:
Short Description:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draw a line under that, and whenever you agree to reciprocate a link with another webmaster, make these notes, and draw a line.

Date:
Site name: (the other party’s)
Site URL: (again the other’s URL)
Their email:
Short Description: (any words you’ll place with the link to explain or expand on it, usually describing that site).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now simply send copy and paste and send your own info on top, and add their info every time you exchange links with anyone. This means you’ll have ALL your reciprocal links in one file.

SE-submissions.txt - do much the same with this file, recording the date and what you submitted to which search engine, drawing a line between entries.

DIR-submissions.txt - do this again with your submission to directories. Some of these will require more info from you, and even ask you to become a member. In that case, you should record your login and password info too. If you ever want to go back to correct something or to make a new submission, you’ll need that to get in. Warning, some of them will start flooding you with their advertising emails, so choose a separate email for submissions - one you don’t use for your personal or business correspondence. If the time comes that you get fed up with that stuff, you can delete the email, and create a new one.

BLOG-submissions.txt - if you have a blog, you’ll want to track where you submit it to as well.

eBOOK-submissions.txt - got an e-book to sell? There are directories that offer to list them for you. Use the same principle as above.

Whoa, that’s quite a lot for one lesson, isn’t it? I’ll give you a couple of weeks to get it set up and become familiar with your system.

Sometimes your affiliate program people will send you an email with an article in it that they say you are welcome to use to send to your ezine or however you want to promote it. Snap it up, and paste the whole thing into a template of your web site.

Make sure you write up good description and keyword meta tags, as well as a good title for the page, one with keywords to attract the right visitors. Also make very sure your OWN affiliate link or re-direct to your link is in the page. Write over the generic one that might be in the article.

Name the page, and link to it from your other pages. Then upload them to the host server with the rest of your site.

There! Now when the search engines bring visitors to your site or or that particular URL, you have a full-page ad, written by someone who knows that product well, which can take the visitor directly to your affiliate-coded link to buy - and get you a commission.

Databases have long scared me the way algebra did in high school. It just seems way too complicated for me. So I’ve managed to back out of most situations where I was suppose to set up a database. Fortunately, most software these days has that all built in, so it’s possible to live a productive life without knowing how to set up and build a database from scratch.

But when you get into linux you end up learning things you never thought you would.

I’ve known for some time that I really ought to find a suitable database in which to set up all my articles so I could keep track of where and when they were published, submitted, and whether I got paid and how much. I also ought to build one to replace my old card file on my friends and relatives and our letters and cards sent between us. Basically a contacts database, but with my own special fields.

So now in my new SUSE 10.1 I noticed I had some database programs, and I decided a couple of weeks back to check them out and see what they could do. How easily might I use them?

I found four; KFormDesigner, Kexi (KDE family), OpenOffice Base, and Tellico, which is for book collections or other collections. Kexi looked the easiest, so I checked and found a Handbook online, and have been following the directions and learning that it isn’t so hard to create a database after all. You need tables, and forms, and queries to tie the tables and forms together.

My one problem is that if I make a mistake it crashes. I think it’s because I assigned a wrong source for a form field. Now I have to learn how to undo that, or else start with a new database and not make that mistake again.

If it takes me too long to solve this problem, I will just switch to one of the other programs and see if I can catch on as easily there. I guess the important thing is to remember, - as with my larger Linux Learning Curve - to allow time to discover and learn. The worst thing to do is to give up too soon. Just think; once I learn how to do one well-functioning database, I will be able to apply this knowledge to many other things that need to be recorded and set up in such a way that I can pull all kinds of data up with just a well based question.