Ask Melvin Ng

 

What an eventful way to start off the Chinese New Year. I was using a small knife to cut some plastic strap yesterday when the knife slipped and went straight past my thumb. The wound was more than an inch long and probably a few millimeters deep.

As a result, I needed 4 stitches, and a huge bandage over it. The doc said I was lucky not to have hit my tendons as that would mean sending me to the hospital instead of getting it done at the local clinic.

There goes my badminton sessions for at least a few weeks. I’ll probably take a few days off as well because it hurts to type.

Great excuse to lay back and be a couch potato at least for a few more days.

Hopefully by the weekend, it’s ok enough for at least some typing and what nots.

To those of you who celebrated Chinese New Year, a belated wish for all of you!

Tagged with: chinese new year • thumb

If you’ve noticed, most info-products in the past year hit the scene with a bang, and then slipped back into obscurity as the product itself died a slow and painful death.

But this product, from Gobala Krishnan, has been selling consistently since August 2006! It’s called the “Wordpress Adsense System” and it has been selling so well that Gobala recently increased the price!

I guess it shows that a quality product is always in demand..

Wordpress Adsense System is about creating Adsense sites with a blogging software called Wordpress (sounds familiar?) - but Gobala goes way beyond just providing an ebook.

In his guide you’ll also get:

  1) 30 Adsense-ready niche Wordpress themes
  2) 12 Step-by-Step “Screen Cam” Tutorials
  3) 180 Google Adsense niche keywords database
  4) A basic (but good) keyword research software
  5) Unlimited One-Way links from his high-ranking site

I made a deal with Gobala to offer $30 off the listed price for a limited time only:
Wordpress Adsense System Special Discount Page

You will not get this special discount anywhere else, and the only reason Gobala is prepared to offer such a discount is because he’s getting engaged in a few days time and pretty soon he’ll be buying a new home..

A little extra cash would help him sleep better at night

Here’s your special link, get $30 off from it for a limited time:
Wordpress Adsense System Special Discount Page

Make full use of it the limited time discount.

Tagged with: gobala • gobala krishnan • wordpress • wordpress adsense system

What Is Keyword Explorer?

Keyword Explorer provides a simple method of analyzing the keyword phrases you want to use in your web pages. Just type in the keyword phrase you want to use in your web page title or heading and click Analyze. You will soon get a snapshot view of how that keyword phrase is used by different web pages that are listed in Google. You will also see a list of all the competing URLs and the titles used by these web pages.

The snapshot competition count view

The top panel in the software interface displays the keyword phrase along with the result counts in Google for various searches.

• InTitle #: Shows the total number of pages that have used the same keyword phrase in web page title (allintitle search).
• InAnchor #: Shows the total number of web pages that have in-coming links with the keyword phrase used as anchor text (allinanchor search).
• Phrase #: Shows the total number of web page results in Google when you search for the keyword phrase (phrase search).
• Search #: Shows the total number of web page results in Google when you search for the words in the keyword phrase (normal search).

These numbers give you a quick snapshot view of what the competition is for your keyword. The InTitle # is very important because it tell you the number of pages that have the exact same keyword phrase in the web page title.

How To Use Keyword Explorer

The URL and Title View

The lower panel contains a tab with multiple lists. These show the top ranking URLs and the titles for each keyword phrase in the four different search modes. Use it to check the actual listings.

You can right click within the lists to copy the data to clipboard (and then to other applications) . You can also visit the web pages in your browser.

• Start Keyword Explorer. If you don’t have it you can get it here. It is free to download and use.
• If you want to start fresh, you can use the Wipe [1] button and clear the existing data.
• Select the market region [2] you are interested in. If you change it from your current setting the software will ask you if you want to clear the existing data. it is a good idea to clear the data if you change the market region.
• Otherwise you will have a mix of data based on different regions.
• Type in the keyword phrase [3] you want to check and click Analyze [4]
• The status bar [5] will display the status of the lookup and the data will be retrieved. You will start seeing the results on the top panel [6].
• Since the software requires 4 different lookups these will be done one after another in sequence (because we don’t want to sent multiple automated queries to Google). After each lookup the software will wait for a while before doing the next lookup. The status bar will show [http connection wait] when it is waiting.

Checking out the competition

• The lower panel in Keyword Explorer contains four lists within a tabbed view [7]. Each of these will show you the search results for your lookup [8]. The URL and the web page title are displayed.
• Right click within the list and use the Copy All > Titles menu option to copy the titles to the clipboard. Open your Windows NotePad and then use the Edit > Paste menu option to paste the titles into notepad. If required take a hard copy print out.
• Study the titles used by your competition. Is there an interesting idea or angle you missed? Are there keywords in there you had not thought of? Take a paper and write down any new idea, keyword or phrase you may want to research again.
• Create a few more headings and titles based on your new found ideas and thoughts. Go back to Keyword Explorer and check out the new phrases.
• You may also want to redo the keyword research at this point. Use a software like Good Keywords to do this.

Download Keyword Explorer Now! (Keyword Explorer will work on Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2K, XP and Vista.)

Tagged with: free keyword tool • keyword analysis • keyword explorer • keyword research

What Is KeywordPad?

KeywordPad is a Windows software for managing large keyword lists used in your Internet marketing campaigns (organic search engine optimization, PPC advertisement campaigns, etc).

What Does KeywordPad Do?

• Remove duplicate keyword phrases from large lists
• Sort keyword lists alphabetically or based on word count (ascending and descending)
• Clean keyword phrases by removing words at start, end, in the middle or any where in the keyword phrase.
• Clean keyword phrases by removing unwanted characters (even based on where they occur)
• Search and replace words in a large keyword list.
• Find and remove unwanted terms (at the start, end, middle, etc.) from each keyword phrase in your list.
• Create and add common misspellings of existing keyword phrases in list.
• Create large keyword lists by replacing a term with another and then duplicating the list. Perfect for creating long tail keywords!
• Merge keyword lists.
• Remove leading, trailing characters (punctuation, spaces or any other)
• Remove repeated characters (for example, spaces)
• Create larger keyword lists by recombining the words in the existing phrases.
• Convert the keywords to upper, lower, First letters to upper, etc.
• Create Google phrase, exact matched keyword phrases.
• Add prefix and suffix words to every keyword phrase in your list.
• Copy and move keywords between multiple keyword lists. The software supports loading up to 6 different keyword lists.
• Export the keyword lists to text files.
• Import large keyword lists from text files.

Download KeywordPad Now! (KeywordPad will work on Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2K, XP and Vista.)

Tagged with: free keyword tool • keyword management • keyword pad • keyword research • keywordpad

I’ve been a fan of centralizing your support system using a helpdesk type of platform instead of relying on plain old email.

Regardless of the number of support issues that you’re facing, I would recommend setting up your own system as soon as possible.

WHY?

- if you’re still using email, chances are you or your customers will have some of the emails being filtered in the bulk folder, and they will never see the light of it. You’ll have angry customers because they won’t be receiving your reply even though it was no fault of yours.

- by using a helpdesk system, you’re streamlining your operations for future expansion. You’re able to start outsourcing your support issues as soon as it becomes viable, without any extra work involved. Just create a user ID or them and voila, they can start taking over those tasks from you.

- through a helpdesk platform, you can start building a knowledge base of typical replies to common support questions. This way, you speed up the response time by just using those templated replies which you’ve created. Also, your outsourced employees will be able to use those templated response as well with minimal training.

- by using a centralized system, you’re projecting a more professional image of yourself and your business.

These are enough reasons to start your own helpdesk center.

Easier said than done because I was one of those that procrastinated initially due to the impression that it’s complicated and difficult to setup.

When I finally took the leap of faith and installed one, I was almost right. I started using LogicNow’s helpdesk system and it was a nightmare for me to configure it because I’m pretty slow when it comes to technical stuff. Furthermore, it is a pretty robust platform with lots of other functions which I don’t require and will probably never use.

When I finally got everything to work, it went on smoothly for a while. Then suddenly I realized that there seems to be a lack of support ticket for the last 3 months, which is a good thing. But something was niggling behind my head and I decided to login to check the system. Low and behold there were quite a number of tickets which went unanswered.

I was shocked! I contacted LogicNow’s support and was told that it was a bug, and that it was patched in the latest release. However, I would have to pay for it since it was more than 6 months since I bought from them.

Oh boy, was I pissed. While I don’t expect the latest version’s bells and whistles, I do EXPECT that my current version to work as it was intended to be, without any problem. Furthermore, it was less than a year since I bought it. To have to pay more than 50% of the purchase price again for a patch …in my humble opinion that’s BAD customer service!

I them remembered Willie Crawford recommending a simple platform for Internet Marketers, and I decided to check it out.

Without hesitation, I bought it.

I saw the demo, and it was simple enough and fulfills my requirement. It provides free lifetime upgrades. What more can I say…

Yes, I’ve switched over to the Three Pillars system now and I would recommend them as well. You can check them out yourself: Three Pillars Support System

There are dozens of systems out there and if you’re looking for something more complex and robust, then this is not for you. But if you want a simple, easy to use system, Three Pillars gets my thumbs up!

Tagged with: 3pillars • helpdesk • helpdesk system • three pillars • willie crawford