There are lots of stats programs out there that tell you how many visitors are going to your website and where they are coming from. But recently I found a blog stats program called MyBlogLog that also tells you what links your readers are clicking on. This is valuable information because you can experiment with what location gives you the highest click-thru rates. It’s very simple to install and there is both a free version and a pro version.
I was anxious to start using PeakClick so I could give it a useful review. However, I came across an obstacle in implementing their feed. My host, Dreamhost, has file() disabled as a safety against hacking. This means that to use the PeakClick feed on Dreamhost, you need to use cURL (a php function).
The problem is that I would imagine many people who use these kinds of PPC feeds don’t know much about php and just copy and paste what PeakClick gives them. That’s certainly what I tried to do at first. Remember that customer service I spoke of that PeakClick prides themselves on so much that they make it a main selling point? Well, their exact reply to my problem was “there is most likely a bug in your script with curl, please try to debug it.” Granted, I understand it’s not their job to teach me php, but I was hoping for many a little snippet of code or atleast a resourceful link. So I decided to look for another solution to my problem.
What I found was SimpleXML. Its a great, easy way to integrate XML without any hard work. You don’t even have to know anything about php. The one requirement is that your server is running php 5. For Dreamhost this is no problem, simply go to “manage domains” and then edit your domain and click the “PHP 5″ option. Then just add the SimpleXML code into your webpage wherever you want the PeakClick feed to appear. Here is the complete code:
################## CONFIGURATION #######################
$_aff = 0000; # Your Affiliate ID
$_subaff = 1; # Your Subaffiliate ID
$_numResults = 5; # Number of search results displayed
$_ip = $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"];
$keyword = "yourkewordhere";
############################################################
// sets the name of XML file
$file = "http://feed.peakclick.com/res.php?aff=$_aff&subaff=$_subaff" . ( $keyword != "" ? "&keyword=" . urlencode( $keyword ) : "" ) . "&num=$_numResults&ip=$_ip&thumbs=1&xml=1";
// loads the file
$xml = simplexml_load_file($file) or die ("Unable to load XML file!");
foreach( $xml->result as $result )
{
foreach($result->record as $record)
{
#### This part determines how the results look ####
echo “<div id=\”record\”>”;
echo “<a href=\”" . $record->click . “\”>”;
echo “<h3> ” . $record->title . “</h3>”;
echo ” <dl ><dt>” . $record->thumbnail . “</dt> <dd>” . $record->description . “</dd></dl>”;
echo “</a>”;
echo “</div>”;
############################################################
}
}
?>
It’s really so easy. The only part you would need to change is the output. You’d probably want to style the way it looks but that can easily be done with style sheets. And you can change anything in the “echo” statements to suite your needs.
I was reading through Work Online From Home and found a link to a very useful tool for niche site builders. If you are looking for a way to get quality backlinks to your niche sites, Backlink Builder can help you find sites in your theme that has a place to add a link. Many of them require links as well, but I think this could still be effective. This site also has a keyword playground to find keywords, a density checker, and lots of other useful tools all in one place.
Recently I stumbled upon Steve Pavlina’s website and began reading a few of his articles. I am amazed that he writes such quality and quantity. He has so many insightful articles that I don’t think I’ll ever read them all, yet each article is truly quality content. He’s also running this Million Dollar Experiment on his site right now. Anyone can participate in the experiment, and all you have to do is intend to gain $1M and daily reinforce that intention. The full intention is as follows.
In an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way, in its own perfect time, for the highest good of all, I intend $1,000,000 to come into my life and into the lives of everyone who holds this intention.
It’s not a chant that magically brings you money. Instead, you are allowing yourself to believe it will happen, thus you are more likely to take steps daily to make it happen. I have noticed that it helps me remain positive and become more aggressive about my goal. Plus the first day I began with the intention I saw a 600% increase in my revenue, so maybe that was a good “sign” that it works.
My fist niche site I built was my Spinning Information site. I got the idea to do it because I take spinning classes, which I love, and in the past I was looking for information and could find no good information online about spinning. So, it’s a topic I actually know about, and care about. I wrote my articles myself, took great care with the site, and was thrilled when google picked it up about 2 weeks after creating it. One of my pages went the front page of google for its keyword, I got great traffic, and great adsense money. But after just a few short days on google’s front page I disappeared. My site was still there when I searched site:mysite.com and my results weren’t showing up as supplemental. So I freaked. I used copyscape and removed any slight possibility of duplicate content. (At first I used 2 pages from wikipedia for the “about spinning” section). I also submited a reclusion request to google, hoping that could fix the problem.
Since then my site still isn’t on google. Its on msn, thankfully, and doing “ok.” I know I’ll make atleast $1 a day on it, and usually more like $2, somedays $6 or so. So I can survive without google, but it was soo sweet to have google traffic. I didn’t have to worry, I always knew that I would have a smiling face when looking at my adsense report. I would really like to be back in the google index, and I’m willing to make any changes to the site that are necessary.
Well, today I get an email back from google about my reclusion request. Here is what it said:
Your page has been blocked from our index because it does not meet the qualitystandards necessary to assign accurate PageRank. We cannot comment on the individual reasons your page was removed. However, certain actions such as cloaking, writing text in such a way that it can be seen by search engines but not by users, or setting up pages/links with the sole purpose of fooling search engines may result in permanent removal from our index.
Atleast they responded and now I know what I’m dealing with. But now my problem is - what’s wrong with my site? From the beginning I wanted it to be a truely informational site that is “quality.” I have looked at it and looked at it. No cloaking. I don’t even know how to cloak. All my text is visible. I checked this because sometimes I will do image replacement for my titles or logos, but I didn’t do that here. This is the site in question and more specifcally this page. If anyone else can find anything about my site that they believe would get it blocked from google I would be eternally thankful. Any ideas?
So far I have not paid a single penny for any niche site building products. I have a total of 9 sites right now, and they were all hand coded lovingly by me. However, now I’m tired and frustrated, and not feeling quite so lovingly about the whole thing. Google penalized me, my server went down yesterday, and thus I’m in a rather cynical bout. So I figured that if I bought software that made the process easier, maybe I could create sites faster, see more profits, and feel less cynical in general. I want something that can create large sites fast. And I want it to be customizable. I know php, so I’ll probably want to tinker under the hood. I don’t want a program that’ll blow up if i try to change something. Also, I just can’t see spending over $100 for software, no matter how much you convince me I’ll gain it all back. So far I’m looking at Content Creator Pro but I’m not sure I like the fact that it’s browser based. I’ve looked into XSite Pro too, but it seemed like it was little to basic for my tastes. Does anyone have any other ideas or suggestions? Any php coders out there who have a favorite?
I have found more evidence that appears to prove my narrow column over full screen design theory found in my design that sells post. Eyetools Research of CSS Zen Garden shows the difference in how users read web pages based on design. The content of the two sites are exactly the same. Only the CSS has changed, which makes it a perfect experiment! You can see in the picture below that the original layout(left) gets much less attention than the version 145(right). I would hypothesize that Version 145’s use of the fixed width column has a lot to do with its increased attention. In the picture below you can see how the narrow column seems to guide the eye toward the content and thus focus the user’s attention. 
One example of a narrow column layout I used can be seen on my Wholesale Silk Fabric Site. I got the layout from OSWD and it is getting a really high CTR so far.
The aspect of niche marketing that I am most interested in is how the design of a size correlates to its ability to sell, or in my case it’s CTR (Click Through Rate). Since I have a heavy background in science (I’m a biochem dork), I love experiments. That’s how I think of my niche sites, as experiments. I do something, I wait and watch. I take notes on a spread sheet of every little detail. Then I try to change ONE thing based on my observations. I wait more, take more notes. If that change was a success I bask in glory for 5 seconds only to start the process over. If it didn’t work, I scratch it and go back to the previous version. I’m sure lots of niche marketers do this. From what I see, it’s the only way to survive.
My Results so far:
One of the most important business strategies is to diversify. Thats why I have been looking for an alternative to Google Adsense. Don’t get me wrong, I like adsense, and it’s probably the best. But just in case, I want to have income streams from different places. While searching for an alternative I found PeakClick. I couldn’t find much info about it or reviews, but I figured I’d give it a try. They give 70% and they pay every 15 days. They immediately approved me (and I think they immediately approve everyone- so this is a good option if your starting out) but then I also have to get in touch with them by email and explain where my traffic comes from before getting paid. I’m not exactly sure what that’s about, but they seem eager for you to email them about questions, problems, advice, anything. Customer service is always nice, and I’m assuming they are small so can handle responding personally to their members. Another thing I like about them is there stats. Take a look at a piece of their stats program:
I’d say their stats are a step above Adsese. Plus their user interface is pretty, which is always nice. I’m going to add it to a site or 2 to experiment and then I’ll post a full review once I have enough data to give an intelligent opinion of PeakClick.
p.s. They give you lots of options to earn money. I’m not sure how much you can make off of them (for instance I’d question if the toolbar actually generates money). One of those options is to refer other webmasters to the program. Once you do, you get 5% of their income every month. So, the links in this post go to my referall code as a disclaimer. If you do choose to sign up with my referall, then I would be greatly appreciative.
Since this is my first post, I will share a little bit about myself and what I hope to achieve with this blog. My name is Kelli, and I am a “designer” for lack of a better, ubiquiously understood term. Currently I work for a company making lots of designs for niche sites. Now I am starting to do a few on my own and I hope that I can one day stay home with my boyfriend and my dachshund and have a viable online empire.
I have learned quite a bit about design in relation to niche marketing sites/blogs and I hope to learn more about the non-design issues. As I began making these sites on my own I discovered that the community among webmasters who do this is remarkable. I hope that I can share with you what I have learned and thus further advance the community.
