Looking for a favour

unnameable · 30th Sep 2009, 05:43 AM

Hi All,

well here's the (grim) situation. It's getting closer to Christmas, and no matter how hard I try to think positive, I keep going back to the worry that we won't have much of one. I work full time, but my wife is unable to find part time work at the moment as it's all dried up here it seems. I don't want to depress anyone further, so I'll leave it there!

On to the favour - I am spending any spare minute I can to promote the site in my signature below, and things are gradually increasing, but what I'd like to do is attract some more interactive visitors, those that will leave comments etc for our current members and take part in discussion. Would anyone be willing to help me out by giving the site a mention, or even taking a browse themselves and using the 'share' AddThis links on each page to StumbleUpon or Digg the page etc?
As you know, any increase in visitors will lead to an increase in ad revenue etc, so that would be a massive boost for me

Thanks for reading,

Marc

unnameable · 30th Sep 2009, 06:06 AM

Thanks for that Dave!

Julie Fletcher · 30th Sep 2009, 06:20 AM

just 'dugg' it for you! or should that be 'digged"!

unnameable · 30th Sep 2009, 06:38 AM

Thanks for that!

Kevin Williams · 30th Sep 2009, 06:41 AM

I stumbled a few pages for you, hope it helps

LynnM · 30th Sep 2009, 06:46 AM

Submitted to Propeller for you.

Lynn

Adam Carn · 30th Sep 2009, 06:57 AM

Just Twitterd your link.

Adam

unnameable · 30th Sep 2009, 07:02 AM

Thanks everyone, hugely appreciated!

Dino F · 30th Sep 2009, 07:30 AM

I did also sumit it to propeller. Anything to help a fellow warrior

Greetings
D.

Jason_V · 30th Sep 2009, 07:38 AM

I'd like to make a suggestion that can help you.

You should craft a nice email.

Then you should look up the chairperson of the literature departments for as many colleges and universities that you can. Send them an email telling them about your site and that you would really appreciate it if they would pass the site on to their students or post it on their department bulletin board.

In fact, you should create a flyer about your site and put it on your site. Give the link to the faculty member in your email so they can go there and print it off. You could include it as an attachment, but it may get flagged as spam by the university email system.

Most college students majoring in literature write short stories and poetry and would appreciate the opportunity to post to a site such as yours. Even if they don't write they would probably enjoy engaging in the forum you have to discuss literature and writing.

I forgot this the first time, something else you can do.

Go to Facebook and find people who are Literature majors or want to be writers. Make friends with them and put a link to your site in your Facebook profile.

I just want to mention, that I don't Facebook market so what I'm telling you here is more of a "parrot" technique. Meaning, I've seen it mentioned several times. Never did it myself, but see it given as advice for people to do in order to get traffic and am just repeating it to you. You'd have to find more specific advice about it on the forum if you wanted to pursue it.

pearsonbrown · 30th Sep 2009, 07:40 AM

Sticling your Adsense ads into the bottom right hand corner like that is hardly going to generate much income. You want them above the fold and in the main area of vision.

Have a look in the SEO forum at a couple of the long threads about making money using Adsense. Lots of good ideas.

Pearson

unnameable · 30th Sep 2009, 07:43 AM

Thanks for the submission Dean, much appreciated.

Jason, that sounds like a great idea! Actually, a fair amount of my current traffic comes via English as a Second Language sites, as well as a few recommended reading lists for literate courses as you mention. I'll look at putting something together and see how it goes.

unnameable · 30th Sep 2009, 07:45 AM

Originally Posted by pearsonbrown

Sticling your Adsense ads into the bottom right hand corner like that is hardly going to generate much income. You want them above the fold and in the main area of vision.

Have a look in the SEO forum at a couple of the long threads about making money using Adsense. Lots of good ideas.

Pearson

Hi, thanks for taking a look. I tried to keep the adsense towards the top of the page, in the right hand column (to keep the centre free for story text etc). Do you think I should move the site search and amazon search below the adsense section?

32paul52 · 30th Sep 2009, 08:45 PM

Hit 10 social bookmarking sites for you -
Delicious
Spurl
Simpy
Blinklist
Faves
Diigo
BookmarkSync
Connotea
Ask
Reddit
Digg
Stumbleupon
Propeller
Mixx
Mister Wong

sakto · 30th Sep 2009, 11:58 PM

I have just visited your site and will definitely recommend it to my friends since it is somehow related to filmmaking.

unnameable · 1st Oct 2009, 02:26 AM

Thanks for that guys!

TommyG · 1st Oct 2009, 01:13 PM

I noticed that your clickbank affiliate links are small and almost un-noticeable. They seem to blend in too much. Blending in is great for adsense as it will get you those "oops" clicks to make you money but your clickbank links are things you want people to notice and click on. I think you can make more money from clickbank products than you can with adsense so make your clickbank links stand out.

I read through a couple of stories and noticed that you are not monetizing inside any of them.

You could place some adsense ads in the middle of the story. Ezinearticles does this with each article. At the bottom you can post a link to one of the clickbank products you are promoting.

You could even find a product that is related to the story itself and promote it. If someone writes a story about meditation or spirituality you could provide a link to a clickbank product that relates to that. Doing a couple of things like this will go well and not look like your overdoing it either.

I spent some time and read some stories and I think your site is really well done and you have a PR4 so Google likes it too. I bookmarked it also.

unnameable · 1st Oct 2009, 01:49 PM

Thanks for taking a look and the great comments!

I agree with the comments about the clickbank links. I've only recently added those, and am still deciding the best way to make use of them. Maybe I'm thinking to linearly with the creative writing focussed products? Also, would it be worthwhile maybe adding a sentence or two about the product being linked to if I keep the links in the left column?

I'm not sure if adding adsense in amongst the story itself would be easy to do as the story text itself is held externally and brought in to the php page in one. I'll have to try with css placement etc and see if I can wrap text etc?

TommyG · 1st Oct 2009, 08:46 PM

Originally Posted by unnameable

Thanks for taking a look and the great comments!

I agree with the comments about the clickbank links. I've only recently added those, and am still deciding the best way to make use of them. Maybe I'm thinking to linearly with the creative writing focussed products? Also, would it be worthwhile maybe adding a sentence or two about the product being linked to if I keep the links in the left column?

I'm not sure if adding adsense in amongst the story itself would be easy to do as the story text itself is held externally and brought in to the php page in one. I'll have to try with css placement etc and see if I can wrap text etc?

Your clickbank product descriptions don't have to be long but they do need to be visible. The description should get the users attention. One of your products is for novel writing software. You could create a link like "Write your own novel with easy to use software" or something to that nature. I like to take something from the sales page about the product and think what would get someone interested in looking at it. Use that as your anchor text.

I am not up on using php and how to add adsense into it.

One more thing you may want to consider is hiding your clickbank links. Google doesn't like affiliate links and it looks better as a straight link. You can get a free account at prosper202, use tinyurl or use your own redirect. If you're not sure how to set up your own redirect let me know.

unnameable · 2nd Oct 2009, 02:33 AM

Originally Posted by TommyG

Your clickbank product descriptions don't have to be long but they do need to be visible. The description should get the users attention. One of your products is for novel writing software. You could create a link like "Write your own novel with easy to use software" or something to that nature. I like to take something from the sales page about the product and think what would get someone interested in looking at it. Use that as your anchor text.

I am not up on using php and how to add adsense into it.

One more thing you may want to consider is hiding your clickbank links. Google doesn't like affiliate links and it looks better as a straight link. You can get a free account at prosper202, use tinyurl or use your own redirect. If you're not sure how to set up your own redirect let me know.

Thanks for the advice. I suppose I was thinking of them more as a simple external link, as opposed to something needing a bit more description? Of the Clickbank links that are there, one is getting more clicks than the others put together (storycraft if I remember correctly)...

Thanks for the offer of help, I'll take a look at redirects and get back to you if I get in a jam!

30th Sep 2009, 05:43 AM	#1
unnameable Active Warrior Join Date: 2004 Location: Renfrewshire, United Kingdom. Posts: 32 Thanks: 8 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Looking for a favour Share on: Hi All, well here's the (grim) situation. It's getting closer to Christmas, and no matter how hard I try to think positive, I keep going back to the worry that we won't have much of one. I work full time, but my wife is unable to find part time work at the moment as it's all dried up here it seems. I don't want to depress anyone further, so I'll leave it there! On to the favour - I am spending any spare minute I can to promote the site in my signature below, and things are gradually increasing, but what I'd like to do is attract some more interactive visitors, those that will leave comments etc for our current members and take part in discussion. Would anyone be willing to help me out by giving the site a mention, or even taking a browse themselves and using the 'share' AddThis links on each page to StumbleUpon or Digg the page etc? As you know, any increase in visitors will lead to an increase in ad revenue etc, so that would be a massive boost for me Thanks for reading, Marc
	Marc Timberlake Read Short Stories \| Short Story Forum

30th Sep 2009, 06:06 AM	#2
unnameable Active Warrior Join Date: 2004 Location: Renfrewshire, United Kingdom. Posts: 32 Thanks: 8 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: Thanks for that Dave!
	Marc Timberlake Read Short Stories \| Short Story Forum

30th Sep 2009, 06:20 AM	#3
Julie Fletcher Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2007 Location: UK Posts: 78 Thanks: 14 Thanked 17 Times in 14 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: just 'dugg' it for you! or should that be 'digged"!
	Get 1,000 New Subscribers In 30 Days - Free Report

30th Sep 2009, 06:38 AM	#4
unnameable Active Warrior Join Date: 2004 Location: Renfrewshire, United Kingdom. Posts: 32 Thanks: 8 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: Thanks for that!
	Marc Timberlake Read Short Stories \| Short Story Forum

30th Sep 2009, 06:41 AM	#5
Kevin Williams Copywriter/Programmer War Room Member Join Date: 2009 Location: Eugene, OR Posts: 637 Thanks: 81 Thanked 118 Times in 91 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: I stumbled a few pages for you, hope it helps

30th Sep 2009, 06:46 AM	#6
LynnM Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2005 Location: NE Scotland Posts: 554 Thanks: 569 Thanked 463 Times in 319 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: Submitted to Propeller for you. Lynn

30th Sep 2009, 06:57 AM	#7
Adam Carn Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2007 Location: London, United Kingdom Posts: 634 Thanks: 301 Thanked 124 Times in 53 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: Just Twitterd your link. Adam
	Taking a break...

30th Sep 2009, 07:02 AM	#8
unnameable Active Warrior Join Date: 2004 Location: Renfrewshire, United Kingdom. Posts: 32 Thanks: 8 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: Thanks everyone, hugely appreciated!
	Marc Timberlake Read Short Stories \| Short Story Forum

30th Sep 2009, 07:30 AM	#9
Dino F HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2009 Location: Germany Posts: 163 Thanks: 27 Thanked 11 Times in 9 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: I did also sumit it to propeller. Anything to help a fellow warrior Greetings D.
	Hey don't look at me... I'm just cleaning here.

30th Sep 2009, 07:38 AM	#10
Jason_V Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2007 Location: USA Posts: 708 Thanks: 400 Thanked 395 Times in 190 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: I'd like to make a suggestion that can help you. You should craft a nice email. Then you should look up the chairperson of the literature departments for as many colleges and universities that you can. Send them an email telling them about your site and that you would really appreciate it if they would pass the site on to their students or post it on their department bulletin board. In fact, you should create a flyer about your site and put it on your site. Give the link to the faculty member in your email so they can go there and print it off. You could include it as an attachment, but it may get flagged as spam by the university email system. Most college students majoring in literature write short stories and poetry and would appreciate the opportunity to post to a site such as yours. Even if they don't write they would probably enjoy engaging in the forum you have to discuss literature and writing. I forgot this the first time, something else you can do. Go to Facebook and find people who are Literature majors or want to be writers. Make friends with them and put a link to your site in your Facebook profile. I just want to mention, that I don't Facebook market so what I'm telling you here is more of a "parrot" technique. Meaning, I've seen it mentioned several times. Never did it myself, but see it given as advice for people to do in order to get traffic and am just repeating it to you. You'd have to find more specific advice about it on the forum if you wanted to pursue it.
	"When you do something exactly wrong, you always turn up something." -Andy Warhol

30th Sep 2009, 07:40 AM	#11
pearsonbrown Grumpy Old Man War Room Member Join Date: 2003 Location: Two miles from Spain Posts: 826 Thanks: 728 Thanked 409 Times in 167 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: Sticling your Adsense ads into the bottom right hand corner like that is hardly going to generate much income. You want them above the fold and in the main area of vision. Have a look in the SEO forum at a couple of the long threads about making money using Adsense. Lots of good ideas. Pearson
	http://www.englishgrammarsecrets.com http://www.effective-public-speaking.com

30th Sep 2009, 07:43 AM	#12
unnameable Active Warrior Join Date: 2004 Location: Renfrewshire, United Kingdom. Posts: 32 Thanks: 8 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: Thanks for the submission Dean, much appreciated. Jason, that sounds like a great idea! Actually, a fair amount of my current traffic comes via English as a Second Language sites, as well as a few recommended reading lists for literate courses as you mention. I'll look at putting something together and see how it goes.
	Marc Timberlake Read Short Stories \| Short Story Forum

30th Sep 2009, 08:45 PM	#14
32paul52 HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2004 Location: , , New Zealand. Posts: 425 Thanks: 9 Thanked 32 Times in 30 Posts Blog Entries: 4	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: Hit 10 social bookmarking sites for you - Delicious Spurl Simpy Blinklist Faves Diigo BookmarkSync Connotea Ask Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Propeller Mixx Mister Wong
	Butterfly Pendant Necklaces

30th Sep 2009, 11:58 PM	#15
sakto Active Warrior Join Date: 2007 Location: , , . Posts: 36 Thanks: 2 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: I have just visited your site and will definitely recommend it to my friends since it is somehow related to filmmaking.

1st Oct 2009, 02:26 AM	#16
unnameable Active Warrior Join Date: 2004 Location: Renfrewshire, United Kingdom. Posts: 32 Thanks: 8 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: Thanks for that guys!
	Marc Timberlake Read Short Stories \| Short Story Forum

1st Oct 2009, 01:13 PM	#17
TommyG Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2007 Location: Tampa, Florida, USA. Posts: 91 Thanks: 66 Thanked 11 Times in 11 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: I noticed that your clickbank affiliate links are small and almost un-noticeable. They seem to blend in too much. Blending in is great for adsense as it will get you those "oops" clicks to make you money but your clickbank links are things you want people to notice and click on. I think you can make more money from clickbank products than you can with adsense so make your clickbank links stand out. I read through a couple of stories and noticed that you are not monetizing inside any of them. You could place some adsense ads in the middle of the story. Ezinearticles does this with each article. At the bottom you can post a link to one of the clickbank products you are promoting. You could even find a product that is related to the story itself and promote it. If someone writes a story about meditation or spirituality you could provide a link to a clickbank product that relates to that. Doing a couple of things like this will go well and not look like your overdoing it either. I spent some time and read some stories and I think your site is really well done and you have a PR4 so Google likes it too. I bookmarked it also.

1st Oct 2009, 01:49 PM	#18
unnameable Active Warrior Join Date: 2004 Location: Renfrewshire, United Kingdom. Posts: 32 Thanks: 8 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Looking for a favour Share on: Thanks for taking a look and the great comments! I agree with the comments about the clickbank links. I've only recently added those, and am still deciding the best way to make use of them. Maybe I'm thinking to linearly with the creative writing focussed products? Also, would it be worthwhile maybe adding a sentence or two about the product being linked to if I keep the links in the left column? I'm not sure if adding adsense in amongst the story itself would be easy to do as the story text itself is held externally and brought in to the php page in one. I'll have to try with css placement etc and see if I can wrap text etc?
	Marc Timberlake Read Short Stories \| Short Story Forum