Behind the Scenes – Mobile Friendly Project
Published September 8, 2010 | 
- Image via Wikipedia
I’ve been blogging on the steps that I have been taking in the launch of the new Mobile Friendly blog but have failed to let you in on all of the activity in leading up to the actual site launch (i.e. promotion). In past articles I have touched on finding a keyword inclusive domain, the theme and plugins, monetization, and content. What I have failed to report to you is the list building activity going on behind the scenes.
Many of the links that I have created so far do not lead directly to the blog, but instead to a lead capture (squeeze) page where I am giving away a report “Why You Need Mobile Ready Websites”. As an added incentive to subscribe, I am also giving away a new iPod Touch around the middle of October to one of the lucky subscribers. Yes… You can register and be in the drawing. 
Beside the links leading to the squeeze page, I have been using a couple of social sites and some free traffic sources like traffic exchanges, safelists, text ad exchanges and such to get a test of the squeeze page’s effectiveness. So far it has done fairly well, even with the largely untargeted traffic from some of these sites.
When the new subscriber confirms their email account, they are then sent a mobile web crash course over the next few days full of great content via my autoresponder service. This content is designed to get them opening my emails so that when I begin promoting the blog in earnest, they will open the email and click the link to one of my new, outstanding, blog articles. 
Giving away great content is always a win-win situation.
The autoresponder articles eventually lead into some of the monetization streams that I have set up for the site. The articles provide great content for the reader and make a low pressure sales pitch at the same time. If they buy one of the products, or later click one of the banners on the site, the chain of: Visitor, to Reader, to Subscriber, to Customer comes full circle. Hopefully the products that I have picked to promote will provide some great value and they will later become repeat customers.
Some may feel that building the list before officially launching the site is like putting the cart before the horse. Just like in launching a new product, having a list to mail to before the launch can be one of the most important factors in whether the site is a success or not. The marketing of products related to your niche, to your mailing list is just another way of monetizing the site and increasing your profits.
List building has always been an important part of my marketing strategy for both online and offline businesses. When you prepare to launch your new blog, be sure and build a list for your niche so that you can take advantage of the ready-made traffic that comes from having a mailing list.
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- The Mobile Friendly Project (wpblogmaster.com)
- Mobile Friendly Project – Content (wpblogmaster.com)
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The Mobile Friendly Project
Published September 2, 2010 | 
- Image via Wikipedia
You may have noticed that I have been… maybe obsessing is too strong of a word… paying a lot of attention to mobile web developments lately. There is a good reason for this, plus its led me to build a new site… Which is good news for you. Here’s the story…
I was doing some research for a new article a few days back (August 30th to be precise) and was looking at keywords and what domains were available for them when I happened upon an excellent top level domain name for the mobile market. The keyword “mobile friendly” gets more than twice as many searches as “mobile ready” and the dot net name was available for it. Being a good marketer, I snatched it up and quickly put up a new site.
OK… This where it gets good for you.
Basically, I am going to outline from start to finish over the next thirty days the processes that I go through to make this site successful. You will be looking over my shoulder, so to speak, as I build this site into a money maker and receive step by step updates (and a bunch of other goodies) so that you can create your own.
So, let’s get started…
Why did I choose the mobile web niche?
It was a bit of luck, really. I know this niche is just starting to get hot, so I was already doing research and writing articles about it. When I discovered there was an excellent name with not much competition, I had to create the site. It was an AHA! moment… Plus the niche will be exploding in the next 12 months… guaranteed.
After registering the domain and adding it to one of my hosting accounts, I installed WordPress. To WordPress I added the Suffusion theme and an assortment of plugins including the WordPress Mobile Pack… Kind of pointless to have a blog about mobile friendly web sites and not being mobile friendly yourself.
I created a header and background image, it was the middle of the night and I wanted it done quickly so I did it myself instead of waiting for someone else to do it the next day. I then customized the Suffusion theme and added the header and background images.
I next added an article to the site and added my main keywords and meta description to the Suffusion theme. Another reason that I like this theme is that it is SEO friendly and doesn’t require you to add in a plugin for SEO purposes. A big plus there.
I did a little looking around on Clickbank and found some suitable items to promote through the banner ad zones that I had set up on the site earlier during my customization. I then went to a couple of my CPA networks and browsed for some additional items to promote. Affiliate monetization done.
Since that time I have added a few more articles and did some tweeking to make the site more productive. I’ve added in a special report as an enticement to join the sites mailing list, set up the autoresponder and created a few backlinks. I also added a product of my own to the monetization process for those 100% paychecks.
Today I added a couple of backlinks from a some of my Blogger blogs after adding a new article. I then created an article for a social networking site that includes backlinks to the Mobile Friendly site and to the sign-up page for the free report.
Tonight, I’m going to rest… Its been a long four days and I need to get busy on my next steps in building traffic for the Mobile Friendly site tomorrow. Also tomorrow, I will give you a link to a PDF file that shows all of the plugins that I am using on the site and what purpose each of them serves. Until then… Just about forgot…
Check the new Mobile Friendly dot net site to see what I have done so far.
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- Create a Mobile Version of your WordPress Blog with MobilePress (tipsblogger.com)
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I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting with different WordPress plugins recently and have found three free ones that you need to be using. The first makes your site mobile-ready for people browsing the web on their iphone, android or whatever. The second adds the ability for people to comment on your blog using their Facebook account. The third one is more of a specialty plugin for people who are charging for content or want to build a membership site with WordPress. The good news is… They are all free!
More and more people are browsing the web with their cell phones and mobile devices these days. Is your blog mobile ready? If its not, you could be missing out on tons of readers and comments. There is a very handy plugin that will make your WordPress site mobile ready, automatically. Basically, you just load up the plugin from your admin dashboard or FTP program and configure it and your site is ready for mobile traffic.
The WordPress Mobile Pack is very easy to use. I installed and configured it to ten sites in under an hour… When installed, the plugin will automatically detect your users browser and customize your WordPress site for their mobile phone. If for some reason it doesn’t switch, there is a link where they can manually change it over.
The other cool thing about the developers of this plugin is that they are also creating a mobile-ready web directory. When you configure the plugin, you can also add your site to their mobile directory. Its still in the beta stage at this point, but it is still giving you backlinks to your site from another source! A couple of mouse clicks and you are automatically added to the directory.
How would you like to have a constant stream of backlinks from Facebook (PR 10, Alexa #2) and at the same time make it where more people are commenting on your posts? With the Facebook Comments for WordPress plugin, you can.
This handy little plugin allows your readers to comment on your blog without having to enter their email address. If they are signed into Facebook they can leave a comment and even post that comment to their page… complete with a link directly back to your article!
This one takes a bit more time to set up because you do have to register a Facebook app. Its free and easy to do, but it is one more step that you don’t normally have to go through for some other WordPress plugins. I believe its well worth it. Besides, after you have it registered, you can use it on any number of sites using the same App number assigned to you by Facebook.
The last plugin is by far the best free membership plugin out there. The S2Member plugin does many things that membership plugins costing $100 and up do and even more than some of the other paid plugins. To quote from their site:
Besides being able to sell memberships, you can also use this to sell access to specific pages with “buy now” buttons. By doing this, you could make a virtual shopping cart with protected downloads. If you develop a product to sell, you could set up a sales page with a “buy now” button and when they paid they were given access to the download page. The page cannot be accessed any other way, so your download is secured from hackers and thieves.
You can also integrate the S2Member plugin to work with PayDotCom. Use PayDotCom’s affiliate program to generate sales to your memberships or for the products that you have set up using S2Member.
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