WordPress is an amazing CMS and publishing platform especially if your are into blogging. No Content Management Solution is as smooth and easy to use as WordPress and add to it the numerous functionality that WordPress offers and you have a killer tool to publish.

But it is not uncommon for any tool to get stuck up at times and that too at silly things and you then have a recipe for frustration. Most of the responses  for any such small issues and snags with WordPress can be found at their support center, but there are still some issues that you will not find an answer to.

If you are not a high investment blogger, you might not want to spend money on hiring a web developer just to resolve such issues. I have come across numerous such instances and that is where the thought of delving into troubleshooting steps and solutions to problems with WordPress came to my mind.

One such common problem that people encounter with their newly installed or, just upgraded blog is a problem with “image upload”. You might come across an error saying “Unable to create directory /wp-content/uploads”/ The last line in this error will ask you to check the permissions of the parent folder in which you are uploading the image.

This is how you can resolve the problem.

First of all check if the uploads folder in your WordPress installation has a write permission. This is normally called as CHMOD in the Linux language. Your “upload” folder should have a permission 777. In order to do this just login to your ftp client and right click on your “upload” folder. Select “permissions” and enter 777 under CHMOD. Don’t forget to check the “recurse into sub-directories option” as well.

Once you have set the permissions for your “upload” directory, login to your WordPress blog’s dashboard. Go to “Miscellaneous” under the “settings” tab. Against the field saying, “Store uploads in this folder” enter “wp-content/uploads”. Note that there is “/” before “wp-content”. It is extremely important to remove this “slash”.

Now try uploading your images and things should be alright.

Don’t forget to tell me if this worked for you.

What is ‘Bing’?

From what the email that I received today,

Put simply, Bing is a decision engine that offers consumers a way to make informed choices fast. From shopping and travel to healthcare, local and more, Bing delivers great results in a rich, well-organized experience to help consumers easily accomplish key tasks.

Why should I be bothered about ‘Bing’?

I have been suing PPC ads since the beginnning of my Internet  Marketing days. In the first few days I had lost so much to Google Adwords that the sight of it was a terror for me. I was badly bruised by the experience with Google Adwords, most of which was because of my ignorance and PPC-Illiteracy.

But I learnt one thing from this experience and after so many am sure of the fact that a small-time affiliate marketer cannot use Google Adwords or, withstand the competition offered by the established and bigger advertisers, advertising their products on Google. Else what is required is huge amount of time spent on Keyword Research specific to Google, so that you can dig throught those thousands of keywords and come up with one low competition-low cost keyword.

This is when I switched to Microsoft Adcenter, because I felt the competition there was far lesser. The results were amazing! I could advertise on Adcenter for 10% of the cost for the same keyword on Google Adwords. My ROI was much, much better that Adwords and I knew I could make a living using Adcenter for my ads.

SO, when I heard that Microsoft is launching, “Bing” as a competition to Google, I am overwhelmed becauseI know taht now my ads will reach even more audience. No doubt I would be seeing some competition in the days to come, but my ads and keywords have been so refined since the past year or, so that the competition would not be too much to take for me.

So “Bing” is a breath of fresh air for everyone who is hurt with Google and its Adwords PPC marketing.

Try out Microsoft Adcenter for your ads and Bing for your searches.

“The Money is in the List” – How many times have you heard this? Innumerable times! Is there frustration in your voice when you answered? You sound like me. It is the same frustration that I saw months ago when I was reading some good blog post on list-building, like you are doing today.

Read any blog authored by the gurus, buy any e-book on affiliate marketing tips or, Internet marketing, there is one common statement that you will find in all of those – THE LIST. That is where you start getting frustrated because you know that a list is important but, how would you build a list? When I first started my affiliate marketing business, I was so frustrated with the results that I almost quit. The reason – My sales were so low that my PPC expenses were also not being recovered. In fact I was spending almost 3 times of what I was earning.

If you are facing a problem with building your list, then don’t panic. You are not the only one. Everybody starting off on the internet marketing arena faces the same problem. So let’s understand the ways in which you can build a huge list.

1. Squeeze Page – When I started affiliate marketing, I had no method of capturing email addresses on my landing page. In the beginning there was no landing page at all and all the traffic from my PPC ads were being re-directed directly to the seller’s website. So I got a lot of clicks on my PPC ads but they would all got directly to the seller’s website who would then capture these emails. So it is important that you have a good squeeze page in place where you can capture the details of visitors to your website.
2. Optin on Blog – A blog is one the best ways to capture subscribers. Yaro, quite authoritatively emphasizes the need for a subscriber optin form above the fold in his Blog Profit Blueprint e-book. This works wonders if done right. I saw a jump in susbcriber optins by almost 35% after I put my optin form above the fold.
3. Autoresponder – I used to get at least 10 emails on a daily basis recommending one or, the other autoresponder. Cost-effectiveness was something that I was bothered about. Consequently, I joined at autoresponder that would only charge me about a $10.00 a month. I built a list of about 700 subscribers with the help of this autoresponder and one find day, when I try to login to my account, I find that the company is gone. No autoresponder and no website. I had a backup of the list, so I thought I would use it with a new autoresponder. I joined AWEBER and imported this list into it. But I could only get about 10% of the subscribers to confirm their subscription. I lost the rest 90%. So it is important that you choose the best autoresponder around. Go for Aweber, who has a known presence in the market. Their reputation itself speaks for them.
4. Valuable Content – Provide value to your visitors and they will become subscribers. Buy a good and valuable MRR product, which you can giveaway to your visitors in return for them subscribing to your list. Spending $39 – $40 will not hurt you when you see your list growing by thousands. So don’t compromise on the quality for the price of the product.
5. Treat with respect – Treat your subscribers with respect. I was so annoyyed with the mails that I used to get that I stopped opening the emails after some time and I would delete them, unread. Treat your subscribers with the same respect that you expect from anybody. They would then stay as subscribers and would look upto your advices and would buy from you.

I still remember the days when I read posts full of ideas and suggestions like the one above. After reading through the post I would wonder – All said and done, where would I get the traffic from?

The difficult part in all of these is actually getting a few people to visit your website. How will your build your list, if there are not enough visitors to your website?

You can still build a huge list. Wondering how? The following are a few of them, which if followed judisciously can help you build your list.

1. Giveaways – Giveaways are an effective method to build your list. Sign up for as many giveaways as possible and upgrade your subscriptions whereever possible so that you can about 3-4 gifts. You will get quite a few subscriptions. I built almost 75% of my list from giveaways. There are a lot of people who feel that the list built through giveaways are not worthy of it because it is made of peopel expecting things for free. I  disagree with this, because people who look for something for free are actually people who are on the lookout for something. If you can sell well to such people, you would be able to sell a few products. You can sign up in the form in the top-right corner to keep up on the latest giveaways.
2. Traffic Exchanges – This is again another controversial method of traffic generation. The debate here is that people using traffic exchanges normally surf websites for getting credits and hence their stay is for only a few seconds. But I still prefer this form of traffic generation. Even if a visitor spends about 10-12 seconds on your website and if you website or, squeeze page is catchy enough to hold attention, there would be some action that the visitor would take when he visits your page. Also when there is some traffic flowing to your website, it helps your website in generating more traffic because of the reputation it builds.

Two very good traffic exchanges are Clickthru and Hitsafari. You can join one or, both of them and upgrade as per your plans, in order to get a good amount of traffic.

A little bit of effort is all that is required and these simple techniques can help you generate a good amount of traffic and can help you build a huge list.

Photograph courtesy morgantepsic used under Creatives Common License

Do you remember the day when you stood up on your feet in an attempt to walk? I do not remember mine. But my parents do. Even today when I ask them about the first day I walked, I can see the enthusiasm in their eyes and how they hand-held me to teach me how to walk.

Ever wondered as to how many times after that and how many people after those first steps, did ever help you in anything, the way your parents helped you walk! I had no experiences that I could recollect. In every jucture in life it was either my parents or, there were none to hold me by my hands and guide me to doing things the right way. There were many who gave directions and it was my choice which directions to follow.

The first step, rather learning to walk is a choice today. Even enthusiastic parents at times do not find themselves at home when their kid makes the first attempt to walk because they are in their offices, earning to pay somebody else to teach their children how to walk. And like most of the choices that are available today, we always either pick the wrong choice or, do not pick at all only to regret after some time on the lost opportunity.

Learning to blogging – make money blogging, is also a choice. You could choose to be earning for your kids working a crazy 13-14 hour shift and letting him learn to walk from somebody else, or you may stay at home and teach him yourself. The choice of making money blogging would depend upon the above said choice.

If you have chosen to learn to make money online blogging, then why shouldn’t you be learning it from somebody who has learnt it the hard way and is willing to hand hold y0u and teach you how to walk. That should be the ideal choice, right? Then be it. Decide today by when you want to start making money online blogging and follow the footsteps of the one of the most prolific and knowledgeable blogger in the Blogosphere – Yaro Starak.

I have admired Yaro and am a regular reader of his blogs. His archives are full of information that come in handy anyday, anytime. These archives are never obsolete and is worthy of a read every now and then. The same Yaro extends his hands and is ready to hand hold you to teach you how to make money online blogging through his online course – Blog Mastermind.

Go ahead and join his course and learn how to make money online blogging. Check out his course here.

Photograph courtesy telachhe used under Creatives Common License