Like last year when they introduced Page Load Time as a ranking element in Google AdWords ads.

And the more recent launch of a DNS resolving service called Google Public DNS that uses Google’s infrastructure to improve page loading time.

Watch this WebProNews interview: Matt Cutts Talks Caffeine and Site Speed

There are many more discussions going on about this topic, and it is believed that having a slow website may influence your rankings, now or in future. Some seo experts think a slow website may not be penalized (yet), but you also won’t earn extra points.

Do a search on Google about the topic.

I started the week with studying my Google Analytics info. Not blogging for a couple of months due to a heart attack decreased my visitor numbers drastically and I have to do something about that.

I also took a look at my Webmaster tools. There I discovered my incoming links have decreased also.

But what really was hitting me hard was my site performance.

It appeared that over time my site loaded slower and slower. At first I thought it had something do to with hosting capabilities, but I wasn’t sure. I had to find out, because, on top of the earlier mentioned problems, I also had a slow website!

So I installed Page Speed, a Firefox browser add-on to evaluate the performance of website pages and get suggestions on how to improve them. I had installed Yslow before, but hadn’t done anything with it.

Using Page Speed, I discovered several causes of slowing down my site, like insufficient caching and using a lot of redundant info that wasn’t really necessary.

So I went to my fellow countryman Yoast for more advice and took the time to watch his outstanding presentation on SEO Improvements on Wordpress at WordCamp NL.

Strangely enough, despite the topic, he isn’t talking about SEO at all, yet, in the end, it was all about SEO. In hindsight it wasn’t that surprising, because Yoast is more a marketeer than a geek (well, maybe he’s a geek by nature, but he certainly behaves as a marketeer).

Anyway, I was a satisfied user of WP Super Cash for some time, but one of the things I took away from Yoast’s presentation was a new plugin called W3 Total Cache. I researched it as far as I could understand (sometimes it really gets technical) and installed the plugin immediately.

Because W3 Total Cache goes far beyond caching.
It also tries to restore what people should have done in the first place when designing themes. Like compressing files and keep code to a bare minimum.
I must say, pages load much faster now.

Then I went back to Page Speed and let it run. Based on the performance analysis, I managed to add a couple of valuable lines to my .htaccess file to enable caching for images, css and javafiles and to enable compression of files.

Page Speed uses these small red images to represent the largest potential performance wins for relatively little development effort and these issues should be addressed first.

The only thing I haven’t found out yet is how to enable proxy caching for external images. I found a few resources, but I wasn’t able to clearly understand what they were talking about. And I certainly don’t want to make mistakes playing with .htaccess files when I don’t oversee the implications.

So, if anyone has some advice about proxy caching, I’m all ears.
Meanwhile I suggest you check out the links in this post to at least familiarize yourself with the topic.
IF Google will penalize a slow website in future, you at least know what to do about it.

Here’s another resource that you can use to prevent your pages from loading slow: WebPageTest

Don’t let this technical topic scare you. Listen, I’m NOT that technical at all. I only add what I can understand and doing so with the above mentioned I’ve reached my limits. All I’m saying is that when I can do this, almost anyone else can.

I’m still busy investigating and in the near future I may delete a few gimmicks from my blog as a result of that.

In the mean time let me hear what you think about a slow website and long loading times.
Do you think it’s a good idea for Google to use speed as a ranking factor?
Post your reaction below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Slow Website Penalized By Google?

I was about to post a comment there, but it became a bit long, so I turned it into a post.

Of course I use Wordpress sometimes to create websites.
This blog is an obvious one, but I also use them as content management system (CMS) without having them look like a blog. Without comments, because comments kill every attempt for search engine optimization on blogs.
Works great and results are satisfying.

However…

…using Wordpress as a CMS results in overhead here and there. Extra css files, plugins that add extra code and comments to the source, plugins that become redundant because of better alternatives, there’s always something to worry about.

The argument that search engines LOVE blogs is an overstatement. Search engines love fresh content and since that is generated on a lot of blogs, their chances to rank well in search engines, on average, are better than those from static sites.

However…

Photo Credit: Andrew Mason

…I’m convinced that frequently adding content to a static site delivers the same results.

Of course Wordpress has other advantages, like feeds. Every time content is added, a fully automated process spreads the word about that through the Net using ping services. Hmhm. True. I’ll get back to that in a moment.

Because I think a static site can do better than a Wordpress site!

The only condition is that it must have clean code and a simple, yet highly effective internal linking structure.

Back in the previous century I learned HTML. You know, tables, fonts, meta tags, the whole shebang. And I experimented a lot with different website designs. Along the way I added CSS to my sites and made them error free, so the source code is clean. A long learning curve.

The most important thing I’ve learned in all these years is that the source code should be clean, because that’s what the search engines are able to read AND that the main content should be on top of the source code.

Most websites, including Wordpress, have too much clutter on top of their source code, including all kind of menu’s. The content is hidden somewhere in that source.

Not in my website template. Content is always as far to the top as possible.

Other features of my template are an XML sitemap that can be used by the search engines. But it also contains an HTML sitemap that can be used by visitors. OR… by the search engines and that’s exactly what I’m using it for.

It even has an RSS feed. Works a bit different than usual, but it does the trick. I told you above I would get back to that Wordpress advantage. My template has it too!

The only thing that doesn’t work automagically is pinging, but there’s an easy solution for that. I just go to PingOMatic, submit my RSS feed to have it pinged and create a bookmark. Next time, one button push will do the trick.

That’s how I create websites Lynn.

Get them up and running in 5 minutes (development of unique graphics excluded).
Then I just put in a title, a good description and the body of the text, upload and presto…
another page ready.
The only difference with blogs is, that I use TextPad or any other text processor.

Here’s an example: Healthy Food.
Created it 2 days ago. Works in 5 minutes, including Adsense.

So how about you dear reader?
What do you use to create websites?
Post your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

What do you use to create websites?

I think that popularity is a result of the increasing demand for Private Label right products. After all, you can by PLR content all over the place, but you still have to design a website for it. Minisite graphics are great tools to achieve just that, since they’re ready to go and simple to use.

Also, most Internet marketers avoid having to deal with graphics, whether it’s promotional banners, ebook covers or website layouts, since it requires specific skills to create them. A real marketer stays with his job, marketing, and doesn’t have time to fiddle around with complex software and to read the bulky tutorials.

When it comes to creating graphics for their authority sites, they will always find a professional graphic designer to do the job.
But when it’s about monetizing niches using their PLR content, minisite graphics are high in demand.

Minisite graphics have another huge advantage. You can easily customize them by changing the text inside. Thus you can profit from great professional designs and customize the text inside the graphics to suit your own needs. That’s a really simple and fast job when you use free graphic software like Gimp.

Or you are able to even build a completely fresh design based on minisite graphics! Thus they serve as a source of inspiration and ideas for a entirely new design. Wich isn’t possible from a blank canvas, right?

So, using minisite graphics, you are really saving a lot of valuable time that you can otherwise spend on more crucial matters like marketing and developing new products. When you buy minisite graphics, all you only need to do is edit a thing or two to apply an identity of your own wich creates more time and flexibility to work on other stuff.

In addition to that, it would be ideal to use some sort of search engine optimized website template, that allows you to quickly use the minisite graphics and create a successful website.
Real good website templates are rare, so if you can get one, don’t miss the opportunity. It will save you tons of time, again.

 
Ok, now let’s talk about this not so unrelated story.

I’m a member of a very special group – The Internet Marketing Inner Circle.

In this supportive community, we share experience and knowledge, network with other marketers and business owners, and have fun.

We also take care of our fellow members.

That’s why, when we heard about Lynn Stivers and her fight to save her home, the members rallied around in support – and came up with a mind-blowing deal about …

Minisite Graphics.

I’ll let Lynn tell her story, but you really should check out the graphics that she offers. I didn’t hesitate for a moment and bought them. They’re great.

And…

I contributed my ACE Website template (don’t buy there before checking out Lynn’s story below) for easy and fast web design. You can get it for free with Lynn’s package!

Willie Crawford, owner of The Internet Marketing Inner Circle, contributed an interesting package too, as did our members Joanne Mason and Justin Brooke. Completely free!

Read Lynn’s story and check out her outstanding offer.
Make sure you get your copy. Will save you tons of time.

After buying them, let me know what you think about these minisite graphics.
Post your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Minisite Graphics And A Not So Unrelated Story

But passwords can be cracked, so if you want to KEEP that information confidential, you’d better use a good and strong password.

And that certainly applies to your most important online accounts like bank or other money accounts. To a certain extent, I can understand (not agree!) why people want to have access to your PayPal or bank account, since there’s money to get. Greed and an easy way to make money is their motive.

Photo Credit: Mel B.

But otherwise, I have NO idea why people would like to crack password for things like blogs and web2.0 sites, other than the morbid delight of destruction.

But it happens!

I had it happen to this very blog last month. Using brute force (see below).
So the lesson here is to defend your Cpanel, blog, bank and all other accounts with strong passwords that are hard to crack.

Now, I’m NOT a security specialist. All I can do is try to explain this matter in my own layman’s words and that’s what I do below.

Suppose I used a ONE character password to protect my site and that one character could only consist of the letters a to z. That would give me 26 possibilities to create my password.

If someone wanted to crack that password, all this person had to do is fill in each letter on my login page and hit submit. Including the response time this requires, this can be done at a pace of 3 times per minute. On average it requires 13 tries to find the password, so that only takes less than 5 minutes.

Now suppose I add another character to my password. Then the total number of possible combination would increase drastically, since for every character in the first position, there are 26 possibilities in the second one. Total number of combinations: 26 x 26 = 676. The average time required to find my password would become 338 / 3 = 112 minutes.

When we allow to have numbers in our password, the possibilities per character would be 36 and the total number of possible combinations when using 2 characters would be 36 x 36 = 1,296. Average time to find my password: 648 / 3 = 216 minutes.

Finally, when we also allow all letters to be in capitals, that adds another 26 options per character. So now the total number of possible combinations for a 2 character password becomes 62 x 62 = 3,844. Average time to find my password: 640 minutes!

If we would allow for more characters to be included in the password, the figures will be:

See how the column at the right increases drastically?
THAT’S all you have to remember from this exercise.

Of course anyone doing this would be a fool, because we have computers to do things like this. And hackers and crackers use computer programs to do this. Their software starts at the left most character with ‘a’ and work their way to the most right character, scanning all combinations possible.
That is called ‘brute force’.

But for computers the same effect applies. The more options per character and the more characters used, the more difficult it becomes to find the right password combination.
Therefore, it’s wise to use at least 8 characters in your password, using a combination of upper and lower letters and numbers.

So the name of your little sister simply won’t do! Nor does the name of anyone else. You also need to include numbers and, if allowed, special characters.

If you use names, then at least don’t use names that are easy to guess. Use at least one capital and also add a number. A great way to combine everything is to replace an ‘a’ by 1 and a 1 by ‘a’. That makes names more difficult to find.

IF it’s allowed, you can also add special characters to your passwords, or even add a space, so you can make your password a phrase. Which, in general, is easier to remember.

But the fewer characters allowed, the longer your password should be!

If you’re really good in math, you can see from the table above that a 15 character password only containing letters is stronger than an 8 character password containing all possible characters on your keyboard, simply because the total possible number of combinations depends on the power of the number of characters in your password.

It’s also very wise to periodically change your password using the information above. Doing so avoids all possible hacks or cracks of your passwords since anyone on their way to compromise your passwords would have to start all over again.

Here’s an online password checker where you can see how strong your password is. There are more available, just google the phrase ‘password checker’.

Remember this:
- the more variety in possible characters, the better and
- the longer your password, the harder to crack.

Don’t let it happen to you. Avoid having your passwords cracked.

Had a similar experience or want to react to this post?
Leave your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

How To Avoid Your Passwords Being Cracked

It also reports more than 85 percent of the world’s online population has used the Internet to make a purchase—increasing the market for online shopping by 40 percent in the past two years.

That’s impressive!

Are you prepared for this? Do you have your own online shop?

If you haven’t, why not?

There are many advantages.

And there’s an opportunity to have your own online shop within minutes, featuring over 28 MILLION products from over 1,300 merchants who offer their products through Commission Junction, LinkShare, LinkConnector and ShareASale (plus a few others).

All these products are put in a huge database from where you can select on keyword or brand, generate some code to put on your site and presto… you have an online shop, updated in real time.

Or …

… you can have little snippets with a few products displayed in the sidebar of your blog or site. Or use them instead or in conjunction with Adsense ads.

Many options available.

More info is at Your Online Store In Minutes!

Check it out and let me know what you’re thinking about this development.
Do you have your own online shop already?
Do you think it will be valuable to have one in the near future?

Post your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

875+ Million Online Shoppers – Time For Your Own Free Online Shop!

Last Saturday John left a comment on my ‘About’ page. My bio reminded him about … him. Hmmm, very flattering.

But he also asked my opinion about his site and since John was smart enough to mention he came to this blog via Copyblogger – thus positioning himself as quite smart in my opinion – I immediately went over to eVentureBiz.

Mind you, this is not to bash anyone or anyone’s site.
It’s just an example from someone who asked my opinion and I only use his site to make the point, mentioned in the title of this post.

So…

I see a nice design. It’s not too cluttered, nice colors, easy to read.
Same applies to the navigation panes on top and at the left.
So far, so good.

But then I noticed something that I wonder about on many sites: why should I buy here? In other words, how is this site different from others and how is it unique. What’s the USP?

In the header it says: eVentureBiz, which is branding his website. Great, but what does it tell us? I’m still in the dark.
And below that it says Social Entrepreneurial Web Hosting. Huh? What’s that?

I mean, the majority of people coming along will have some idea about web hosting, but what the heck is Social Entrepreneurial Web Hosting?
The term may be a great USP, but in my opinion needs to be explained immediately at the beginning of the page.

Now, the page starts with: Welcome to eVentureBiz.
That’s nice, but all visitors at this specific point want to know is “What’s In It For Me (WIIFM)”! If you don’t tell them here and right now, they’re gone!
Stating ‘a Web Hosting and Entrepreneurial Development Company’ isn’t going to do the trick.

Then the page continues with ‘Purpose of this Site’. Which is great, because now we can learn what this site is about, try to discover what’s in it for us and investigate further or click away.
(Always remember that you can’t please everyone, so people, even in your target group, still will click away. No time, to confused, not appealed to your site, whatever reason, you can’t please them all.)

Ok, on.
Reading the purpose of this site, I would say that it targets the product (web hosting) to beginning online entrepreneurs. But the product, if I understand correctly, is not just web hosting, it comes with tons of extra and even personal help.
If that is the case, don’t let them hanging.

In general, the first halve minute some stranger spend on your site, she has to see three things:

1. Who is it for.
2. What exactly is offered.
3. Why is it offered.

Number one and two are clear, number three is ‘reason why’ marketing (see Michel Fortin’s Your Reader Wants To Know These 5 Things). It binds your visitor with you… or not (that’s why some, despite a good offer, will not buy from you).

The fastest way to accomplish this is to put that in head- and sublines, like:

Now, I’m not saying this is the ultimate headline. It’s just a quickie. Can be improved, thousand times. Go back to Copyblogger and read Magnetic Headlines.

But it does the job! It answers the first three questions.

In the intro paragraphs, you build on these headlines. Since you understand where these newbies are coming from, tell them about the problems they have, right now!
Briefly make it clear you’ve been there too, so you can relate and they can begin trusting you.
And then tell them about the solutions you’ve found for these problems they have and how you can help them.

Then, take down that blue logo at the right and replace it with a small picture of yourself, so they can SEE who they’re dealing with.
By now it’s time to introduce yourself (briefly, you only have to show that you’re the expert, they don’t care about you personally).

After that, expand on the solution you are offering and make it so, that it blends in with your USP. Remember, social?

That’s how you differentiate yourself in 30 seconds.
Work your USP!

So…. marketers and copywriters, did I leave anything out?
Can you help John with an excellent headline?
Leave your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

USP: Differentiate Your Site In 30 Seconds.

I’ve always implemented these optimization tips myself, because they worked like charm and there was no adequate plugin available that suited my needs.

Until now.

Because I’ve implemented the All in One SEO Pack.

Easy to install and an easy to use Option page, where you can set the values that this plugin has to add to different pages.

But it also provides an extra information on your Write Post/Page pages where you can override default values and fill in the Meta Tags per post/page.

While it is said by many SEO experts, that the keyword meta tag isn’t that important right now (but could be in future?), the description tag is often used by search engines to further inform the searcher about your page. So that may be an important one, if you succeed to give your pages a description that entices searchers to click through.

Of course the Title tag is the most important one. This plugin let’s you handle it well.

Doesn’t get easier than this. Highly recommended.

As is a new plugin from again – sorry, can’t help it; the guy is just that good! – Joost de Valk.

For a long time, my RSS feed information is used on different scraper sites (which I will not name here) without proper acknowledgment.
They DO use my name, but for other people’s posts, not mine. That’s intentional malicious use of RSS feeds, just for the sake of loading their scraper sites with valuable content.

That’s where Joost’s new plugin comes in handy: it makes the scrapers work for you!

This very simple plugin adds a link back to your site or even to the post in your RSS feed.

Joost wrote this little gem based on a request of Jeremy Schoemaker, who was fed up with scraper sites using his content to rank above him in the search engines. He wanted to get some value out of these scrapers.

There. Two excellent reasons to install this great plugin. If your content is scraped, it will get you back links.

What more do you want from Wordpress SEO. Huh?
Post your experiences below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Wordpress SEO

Let me explain.

Last week, I wrote about your best Internet business opportunities.
This post lets you decide about the business topics you can select. If you’re still indecisive, read on, because I have a great resource below.

And a few weeks before, I showed you 4 simple steps to create a successful small business website.

The steps 3 and 4 in this post can be easily implemented using the outstanding Rapid Action Profits script that I recommended in there.

Only leaves you with steps 1 and 2: Get a Product and Create a Sales Site.

Create a sales site is partially done using Rapid Action Profits, as it already contains a general sales page.

But you want a more specific one. And you want your product, right?

What if I told you that you can have …

Would that help?

I mean, with such a resource at your fingertips you will have plenty of choices to decide upon your business topic, as you can check out for yourself below.

Believe me, you can’t do them all.
If you only pick three (3) of them right now and turn them into great selling websites, one each month, you’re in business before this first quarter is over!

All you need to do is read the ready-to-go private label product, add an introduction and your remarks, insert a few affiliate programs maybe and use my system to create info products in a flash.

Including the necessary research on your part, this can easily be done within a month. Even two weeks is very well possible, but let’s just stick to one product a month. And that’s because the first one may take some more time as you have to gain some experience in setting up the system, RAP and find affiliate programs.

Now, let’s just assume, that for each product that you launch, you will only sell two per day. Let’s say the profit per sale is only $20.
That’s 40 bucks a day after only one month.

After three months, you’re generating $120 a day, 30 days in a month! Doesn’t that make a nice monthly income?

I thought so. Now, what’s this great resource with so many PLR product?

It’s Nicheology.

Normally this great membership site is closed and has a long waiting list. But right now there’s a small opening in the door.
That’s why you have to act fast.

Check it out and let me know what you think about it.
Don’t procrastinate, as these free spots always are filled very quick.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

How To Become Successful Fast In 2008

These are my five most valuable add-ons:

1. Webdeveloper
Absolutely stunning add-on. Among a lot of other things, this add-on allows you to:

• test CSS and HTML ‘on the fly’ without really changing anything,
• outline frames, headings, links, tables and block elements
• handle cookies
• manage forms
• find missing graphics, display graphic file sizes and dimensions, paths, in short handle all kind of image information
• display detailed page info
• validate all kind of information
• and much more

This is the add-on I use most.
Of course, after creating pages or a full site, I always check if other browsers display the data well. But if there are any errors, I’ll find them with this one.

2. SEOQuake
This one shows all kind of information about the site/pages listed in search engine result pages.
No need to click through to see what Pagerank a certain page has, or the number of indexed pages in Google, Yahoo or Live Search, whether the page has already been submitted to the main social networks and things like that.
Comes with an option toolbar and settings can be adjusted to your wished.
Makes search engine research a lot easier.

3. HTML Validator
Admitted, I’m a freak when it comes to writing clean code. And although sometimes it’s not possible to write error-free code, this Belgian add-on makes it easy to eliminate most of them.
Errors and warnings are generated by Tidy, originally developed by the W3C.

4. DownThemAll
This add-on lets you download all the links or images contained in a webpage and much more: you can refine your downloads by fully customizable criteria to get only what you really want.
It features an advanced accelerator that increases speed up to 400%, it allows you to pause and resume downloads at any time.

5. KeyScrambler
Protects your logins on all websites.
KeyScrambler defeats keyloggers by encrypting your keystrokes at the keyboard driver level, deep within the operating system. When the encrypted keystrokes reach your browser, KeyScrambler then decrypts them so you see exactly the keys you’ve typed. Keyloggers can only record the encrypted keys, which are completely indecipherable.

Ok, since there are so many valuable add-ons, here’s an extra one:

6. Stumble Upon
Stumble Upon is fighting with Google to be my number one traffic source. I use this add-on frequently whenever I search the Net for interesting information. Thus I can add favorites very quickly.
Try it and if you log in at Stumble Upon, come and say ‘hello’, add me as a friend and review my site.

As said above, there are many valuable add-ons.
Use the comments to tell me which ones you use or are important to you.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

My 5 Most Valuable FireFox Add-Ons

To do so, find this line:

<?php the_content() ?>

and replace it by

<?php the_excerpt() ?>

Now, you duplicate content is limited to the excerpts.
Still, a copy.
You may want to consider not having this content indexed. That’s what I do anyway.

Until now, I added the following lines to the header.php page:

<?php
if ((is_home() && ($paged < 2 )) || is_single() || is_page()) {
   echo ‘<meta name=”robots” content=”index,follow” />’;
}
else {
   echo ‘<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,follow” />’;
}
?>

This few lines put a ‘noindex’ attribute in the robots meta tag of pages I don’t want to be indexed, but leaves the ‘follow’ in there, so the links are followed.

This code works like charm, but has one big disadvantage: you always have to update the header.php file whenever you install a new version.

Well, these days are over now.

I was browsing the blog of country fellowman Joost de Valk for Wordpress SEO tips and found a great Meta Robots plugin.

Super easy to install and use and seems to do the job very well.

It’s not the first time I encourage you to check out Joost’s blog. Quite a few of my plugins are Dutch now!

Check it out and let me know what you think about it.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Wordpress Search Engine Optimization