Bob's Work Site

Author: bobcaine

  • I Need The Internet’s Opinion

    Confusion of a businessman with colorful arrow

    This post is going to be short. I finished my video landing page and I would like to get everyone’s opinion whether or not the landing page I just created is good enough to actually use. I don’t know how many times I remade the video for one reason or another. I finally decided I wasn’t going to get it perfect and this one wasn’t too bad. So please be honest in your comments as to the page’s value. Thank you.

    ==> Affiliate Marketing PhD at ClickTrackProfit <==

    I have of course put the page in CTP’s Gauntlet. Unfortunately, the feedback from the Gauntlet isn’t always that helpful. Say, ‘Nice site’, doesn’t really help me make the page better. That is why I am asking for your honest feedback. I am trying with this LCP to ‘Get Out of my comfort zone’ as so often recommended by @jongolson.

    I am looking forward to your comments,
    Bob Caine
    @rcaine

  • Better at Sunset than I was at Sunrise

    Better at sunset than I was at sunrise. Any of you who have listen to or read posts by @jongolson have probably heard him use that phase. If you could say that everyday of your life, you would die a very wise and knowledgeable person. For me personally, I have had many days when that wasn’t true and there have even been days when the exact opposite is true. Today, while frustrating, qualifies as a day when I do know more tonight than I did this morning.

    I spent the first half of the day becoming more familiar with the Hive. I feel a little more comfortable about using the Hive than I did over the weekend. At least I can find my blog and my wallet but I am still confused CPTTalk.com and whether to use it or not. It is apparently still on Steem and whether it moves or not is still in question. I have enough trouble with one blockchain. Heaven forbid if I have to use 2. So I gained knowledge this morning but I don’t have much to show for it.

    The second half of the day was consumed by video. I needed to make a video and edit for a lead capture page I want to make. To make the video I used a program call OBS. OBS is free and has so much capability it is unbelievable. I can’t image the most expense video creation software having more functionality. It is all this functionality that makes it confusing to a neophyte like me. All I wanted to do is make a video as I scrolled down the ClickTrackProfit Training Lessons. I am sure that it is simple for someone who knows what they are doing but I found more ways to mess it up and start over than you can believe.

    What I finally ended up with is the training lessons scrolling with me in a small window inserted in the corner narrating. This is certainly better than my original plan but took a lot more learning. I would watch a tutorial video and think, ‘Oh, that’s neat I need to do that.’ Finally, I had to cut myself off from watch YouTube videos or I would probably still be adding bells and whistles to that video. What I did learn will help me in the future, if I can remember how to do it, but today it was frustrating because I did not expect it to take as long as it did to create the video.

    Now that I had the video, I needed to edit it. Again free software loaded with features called OpenShot. All I needed to do was trim some of the video off the front and back. This definitely should not be hard. But it took me more than a dozen attempts to succeed. It was not obvious to me how the trim tool worked. I had a heck of time finding a video showing me how to trim. Probably because no one else has a problem. Again, I learned a lot I didn’t need for today but will serve me well in the future. Now I just have to incorporate my 6 hour (effort) video in my lead capture page. I am saving that for tomorrow.

    Once I post this to my blog, I quit for today. I do know more tonight than I did this morning. Hopefully, the same is true tomorrow.

    All Comments Encouraged and Welcomed,
    Bob Caine
    @rcaine

  • Buzzy Day At The Hive

    From everything I read in different posts the flight from Steem to the Hive seemed to be pretty uneventful. I only read about a couple of minor glitches. Of course my knowledge of what was going on is all but non-existent, so they could have been major glitches and I wouldn’t know. But they way they were described in the posts, they were not a big deal

    I stayed away from Steem and the Hive yesterday on purpose. I didn’t even submit a post. (I justified missing a day because of the transition.) After a 40+ year career in data processing, I have been involved in my share of similar type transitions that did not go smoothly and didn’t want to be around if yesterday’s went badly. Who knows. Maybe me staying away is why everything went so well.

    First, on an unrelated topic. The last 2 days, the Angry Crab surfing badges replaced the normal Turtle ones. As I have told you before, I need to surf 1000 sites with the Angry Crabs as the surfing badges 10 times to complete the ‘Surf More’ task of the SeaLifeHits Mastery Challenge on ClickTrackProfit, Today, made number 7 so I only have 3 more to go. Unfortunately, it will probably take 2 more weeks to finish since the Angry Crabs tend to show up only a couple of times a week.

    Back to the hive. So everything seemed to transition easily accord to the posts I read. But not for me. I have used ‘key chain’ for my Steem logon basically as long as I had been on Steem. When I first went on the Hive going to CTPtalk.com, my login via keychain seemed to work fine. I read several posts. Itried to upvote and that seemed to work. when I tried to reply to a post the first problem occurred because my reply won’t post. I tried to go to my wallet and received ‘Access Denied’ followed by my key.

    Searching to see if anyone else had had this problem. No Luck. I tried re-enter the keys. Didn’t help. Finally, I removed the ‘keychain’ extention from FireFox and reinstalled it. That worked. At least on everything I have tried so far. Hopefully that is true for posting this as well. We will find out very shortly.

    So my ‘keychain’ problem was no big deal, thank goodness. But because of my limited knowledge of how all this work, I had visions of having to get a whole new account and who knows what else. Sometimes technology is our friend.

    As Usual, All Comments Appreciated As They Will Help Me Improve,
    Bob Caine

    PS – I apologize for the images in my last 2 posts. I didn’t mean to throw those big images in your face. I sized them in WordPress within the post. That functionality obviously doesn’t translate in Steem and I am not giving the Hive a chance. I resized the images.

  • A or B? Who Better than the World to Decide.

    A or B? Who Better than the World to Decide.

    I am sure you have guesses already what this post is all about already.

    If you guessed split testing, your right!

    A few posts ago I wrote about the realization that if I used rotators in traffic exchanges, I could change the link on all the te’s by just changing the link in the rotator. I also can use those rotators for split testing.

    I have read many posts and articles about split testing. They talk about testing variations of

    • Headings
    • Content
    • Color combinations
    • Calls to Action
    • Button color
    • Backgrounds
    • Images
    • Anything and everything else on the page

    I totally understand that it would be great to test all these things. I also understand that it takes a budget to test. It doesn’t matter whether the budget is monetary or the amount of time you have to earn credits, you have to have a budget. If you are like me that but has limits. I have to choose what is most for me to split test. For example, I am not going to test different button colors. Why? Because Russell Brunson did extensive button color testing and determined green works best. I believe him. He does more testing than will ever be able to do. I using green.

    For months, I have occasionally wondered, “What have I done to make everyone on the internet dislike me?” I have this thought when I have received very poor or no results from my advertising. Well, a couple of mornings ago I woke wondering if I would have better results if I used an an actual photo instead of a caricature. Is the use of the caricature hurting my credibility? I needed to find out. What better way to find out than split testing?

    Image I have been using for branding

    Above is the caricature I have been using for several years as branding. I started using it because I thought it would make me stand out. I guess it might have been the ClickTrackProfit training and the number of times I was reminded ‘people buy from those that they know, like and trust’. Also, I don’t see anyone else using a caricature so I probably should have taken a hint from that. Below is the image I am switching to. I am running 2 identical ads except for the brand and I will see what the internet has to say.

    Real photo for branding

    What are your thoughts about caricature vs photo? Please leave a comment with your views. Thank you.

    Please help me improve with your comments,
    Bob Caine

  • Results Are In

    I would like to thank everyone who used their time to provide their thoughts on yesterday’s post. I ask whether people thought a HitsConnect tracking link, software for tracking advertising results, should work in CTP’s Gauntlet, a feature designed to provide feedback on web page design, should work or not. Well, the results are in and I want to share them with everyone.

    I didn’t have to spend much time analyzing the results. The were unanimous. 100% of the responses thought that a HitsConnect tracking link did not have to work in the Gauntlet since the Gauntlet is not suppose to be an advertising platform. I yield to the unanimous opinion. I will never bring it up again.

    The other question that occurred several times in the responses was, “Why would anyone use a HitsConnect tracking link in a non-advertising environment?”

    My answer to that question is, “I consider the Gauntlet as part of my testing of a new page and I want test my page exactly as it will run live.” I am sure I can attribute that philosophy to my 40+ years of delivering software to clients who expect perfect results. And, believe me, no matter how much we thought every scenario had been tested, the client would find one we never imagined.

    My favorite example of this is a system where the user entered the quantity of a product to be shipped to a store. There was a limited number of stores on a page and the user expected to complete 1 page at a time. We delivered the software after extensive testing. In less than 4 hours I get a call that says it doesn’t work. I talked with the user and the problem was that they could enter data past the end of the page. We test more and could not produce the result the user was describing. I went back to the user and ask them to show me. I watched and they were right and I saw the problem. They knew how to type and were not looking at the screen while entering data. None of the programmers knew how to type so they watched the screen as they entered data. The programmers saw they were ate the end of the screen and the users didn’t. We made a very small change that stopped the user after the last store and made a noise to let them know. Problem solved.

    Enough said, I am moving on in search of my next windmill. Thank you all again for your input.

    I look forward to your feedback to help me improve,
    Bob Caine

    PS – I switched pictures because It dawned on me that a real photo is probably more credible than a caricature.

  • Need Your Opinion Please

    This should be a fairly short post. I am writing it to get as many opinions as I can on a point of view as I can. But before I ask your opinion, I have a discovery to share. I write my posts in WordPress and let WordSteem send it Steemit for me. I learned yesterday that the ‘Featured Image’ option in WordPress does not transfer to Steemit. Those of you that use WordPress and WordSteem probably already knew this but I learned yesterday when the image I used with the post did not show up in Steem. Live and learn, keeps life interesting.

    OK, now for the point of view that Needs your opinion. (I wish there was a poll option for posts in Steem but if there is I can’t find a reference to it.)

    ClickTrackProfit has a feature called the Gauntlet. The purpose of the Gauntlet is to get other CTP members criticism of personally developed pages for use on the internet in one’s business. The Gauntlet provides a great way to perfect internet pages in a somewhat controlled environment. The Gauntlet is not intend to be an advertising platform.

    HitsConnect is an ad tracking and rotator system which provides detailed statistics. HitsConnects is used to track your traffic and results by generating a tracking url to use for advertising. In general, it used to help improve your online advertising efforts. HitsConnect is the recommended tracking system for ClickTrackProfit members to use.

    Your Opinion Please

    HitsConnect urls do not work in the CTP Gauntlet. With which of the following to you agree.

    1. HitsConnect should work in the Gauntlet since it is the recommended tracking software
    2. HitsConnect doesn’t have to work in the Gauntlet since the Gauntlet isn’t intended for advertising
    3. Another option I haven’t thought of

    Please leave a comment expressing your opinion. Thank You.

    I look forward, as always, to your comments,
    Bob Caine

  • Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock…

    Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock…

    It is late at night. You really need to go to bed. But you have to finish your marketing emails. You have text and html versions of the email written. Now it is just have to send them. Tick, tock,tick, tock … Open the mailer, go to send, paste the your email into the mailer, oops needed the html email, copy the html email, paste it in the mailer, get the link, paste it, assign credits, send email, exit – next mailer only 20 to go. Sound familiar.

    Referral Frenzy

    For the mailers you are a member, Referral Frenzy

    • Keeps your login information for dozens of emailers
    • Create and save text and html versions of your email
    • Assigns max credits possible to each mailer
    • Allows you to select email to send
    • Send emails to all text mailers you are a member with a single click
    • Send emails to all html mailers you are a member with a single click
    • Can schedule emails for multiple future dates (great for vacation)
    • Keeps stats for all emails

    I can email the 50+ mailers in well under 5 minutes once the emails are done. This is at least a a 60 minute savings for me. Referral Frenzy has many more features as well. I just listed what I use the most. Oh, I almost forgot, every month you automatically receive bonus credits, up to as many as 5000. Referral Frenzy is an absolute must for affiliate marketing in my option and I would highly recommend it.

    The bad news is Referral Frenzy is not free. The subscription is $15/month or $97/year. I was fortunate to get a lifetime subscription years ago. I don’t remember what I paid for my subscription but it has been worth every penny. Also, Referral Frenzy has a limited number of mailers (approximately 70 of the top mailers).

    An alternative to Referral Frenzy is Viral Mail Profits. VMP takes time to set up because you have to enter each mailer and its information. Of course this is only a one time set up and it allows you to enter any emailer you want. Like RF, you can save a text and html version of the email and send the appropriate one. The biggest difference is that you send 1 email at a time in Viral Mail Profits. You still save time because VMP does most of the switch between programs for you and can automatically walk through a selected list of mailers. I actually use VMP as a supplement to Referral Frenzy for the mailers that aren’t in RF.

    You can use Viral Mail Profit as a free member with limitations but the full capability requires an upgrade. Right now, 3/15/20, there is a lifetime upgrade available for $77. A great value . Marty Petrizza recently purchase VMP so I am sure there are great changes coming. VMP is another time saver that I a very glad I have.

    Until Next Time,
    Bob Caine

  • I Have to DE-CLUTTER First

    I have to de-clutter first.

    Yesterday, I was so befuddled about how to put a marketing plan together, it woke me up early. After thinking about it most of the day, I finally came up with a starting point at least. What I came up with is not a full blown marketing plan. It is more a plan for what I need to do to advertise more efficiently. If I am more efficient, I should be able to put a plan together.

    So I thought about where does all my time go when I want to start marketing something new. Most of it goes to entering urls into traffic exchanges and sending emails. I can spend hours going from one traffic exchange to another enter the new urls. It dawned on me I have the solution to this – ROTATORS.

    I use HitsConnect as my tracking software and it has rotators. Why don’t I put HitsConnect rotator URLs in the traffic exchanges instead of the direct links. I am sure many others have thought of this but it was an original idea to me today. If I use rotator urls then I can change what link I am showing in multiple sites by just changing it in HitsConnect. Also, this sets me up for split testing. Just add the urls to be split tested in the rotator, drive the traffic to the rotator and, poof, I am split testing. The only other thing I need to do is reset the counters.

    How easy is that? I don’t even have to type what is entered into the rotator. HitsConnect provides a list of all the urls entered and I just have to check the ones I want in the rotator. There is a couple of complications with this method.

    1. There are some traffic exchanges that don’t allow rotators. I assume this is because only one site is verified when a link is added. So a rotator could ‘hide’ a site that does not meet the te’s rules. But I am going to give it a try. The traffic exchange will let me know if I do something wrong. I will just have to keep a list of those TE’s that reject my rotators.
    2. To me the bigger problem is the HitsConnect urls. I have run into several sites that when I use HitsConnects tracking urls, they won’t verify when checked or they verify but don’t display. The original url displays fine, the tracking url displays fine outside the traffic exchange but do not display in the TE. (HitsConnect says this is because the traffic exchange hasn’t updated something.) So I will just have to use a different rotator. I will add these to the list too.

    Hopefully, the list doesn’t of problem TE’s doesn’t get to long or this idea won’t work as well as I think. So, tomorrow I will start changing the sites displayed in the TE’s to rotators. That will easily take all day, maybe more.

    I didn’t intend for this to be a review of HitsConnect but it did. I really believe rotators are the way to go and once I get all the traffic exchanges converted I will save time. At least, I won’t have to wonder about what is being displayed on what traffic exchange reducing elminating that clutter from my mind.

    Until Next Time,
    Bob Caine

  • One of Those Totally Befuddling Days

    I woke up this morning with my mind racing. Running through my mind was all the different things I have learned from the ClickTrackProfit training about building my business and how do I put them together. How do I use content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, blogging and build my list. How do I combine them all into a cohesive marketing plan?

    I have spent the day trying to figure out a marketing plan. For example, I want to put together a plan to recruit referrals for ClickTrackProfit and build my list. I have sent 1000’s of emails and what happens. I get a referral every now and then. Luck of who opens the email when. I have similar results with trying to build my list.

    I need a plan. An organized approach of what to do when. I realize a plan like can be different for every person but there must be some guidelines. I can throw out a bunch of buzz words but I don’t know how to arrange them to work best.

    • Split Testing
    • Content Marketing
    • Blogging
    • Autoresponder
    • Email Marketing
    • Etc, etc …

    Of course, then there is my impatience. I send emails for a week or so about a program. No results. This impatience I can fix. I can force myself to stick with a program and figure out a way to stay motivated. I will do this. I want to get to the magic $2.74/day. (If you don’t know why $2.74/day is important you need to join ClickTrackProfit.)

    I joined ClickTrackProfits many years ago. For reasons long forgotten, I started looking for another training hub. I tried this one and that one. Some that I tried cost $!000’s and had high monthly fees. Every one I joined had the same advice – advertise on Facebook. Finally, I had anther one of my morning epiphanies. I already belong to the best training available. Why did I abandon it? I don’t know but I am back and not leaving again.

    Does anyone know any books, blogs or post that could help me put a marketing plan together? I would really appreciate your knowledge on this topic. Thanks

    Until Next Time,
    Bob Caine

    PS – No Angry Crab Surfing badges today.

    The best training available at any price!
  • Get More emails Opened

    Get More emails Opened

    I finally took the time to consolidate various notes I had regarding email subject lines do’s and dont’s. I have been collecting expert suggestions about creating good emails subject lines for a long time. These notes were in all kind of places; in notebooks, random notepad entries, even post-it notes. Since I have this consolidated now, I thought I would share it and see what others thought of these little nuggets of knowledge.

    Do’s and Dont’s for email Subject Lines

    • Don’t use ALL CAPS – this can trigger spam filters which will send your emails to the spam folder
    • Do keep your subject line between 50 and 65 characters – definitely no more than 71 characters. Sometime shorter subjects can be effective but you should test these.
    • Do review your subject on a mobile phone – A mobile phone can cut off a subject line and leave awkward or inappropriate phrases. Send yourself a test email and review it on your phone.
    • Don’t mislead – you might be tempted to say something wild or even irrelevant in the subject – don’t do it. More people may open the email but more are likely to mark
    • your email as spam.

    Try these techniques to increase your open rates

    • Ask a question – use a question that people are asking about your content. This does require a little research
    • Mention pain points – use difficulties or problems common to your target audience or subscribers. Again a little research may be neede4d.
    • Talk about benefits – write about the benefits related to your content instead of features
    • Create curiosity – one way to do this is to hint at the content in the email. For example, “The answer to [________] is inside this email”.
    • Include first name – this is only for subscribers of course.

    Also, I have another note that says you should repeat your subject line at the beginning of your email. I wasn’t sure where to put that piece of information.

    I hope you find this collection of information useful. Please leave me a comment on any tips you have to increase open rates.

    Thank you in advance for your comments,
    Bob Caine

    PS – The Angry Crab surfing badges were available again today. I am at 5 of the 10 1000 site surfing days with the Angry Crab surfing badges I need. Crabs will probably disappear tomorrow. But there is always hope.