Bob's Work Site

Tag: bobcaine

  • 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

  • Let’s Try SteemPress

    Let’s Try SteemPress

    Okay, I have copied the posts I already had on Steem. Now it is time to see how it works so this particular post will be short. What I hope to learn is

    • Did I set up everything correctly and this post gets to Steem
    • How long does it take for the post to get to Steem
    • Do pictures transfer
    • Do tags transfer
    • More questions I am sure once I see what happens.

    Angry CrabBefore I try this I do have to let everyone know the Angry Crabs are back today. YEAH! Personally, I hope they stay for a week but I know they won’t. I just have to take them as they come. After I surf 1000 sites today I will have 3 of 10 1000 site surfs with Angry Crab surf badges I need.

    Ok, lets see how SteemPress works. Hopefully I will have time this afternoon for another post.

  • The Angry Crabs Are Here

    angrycrab.png

    Yeah! The Angry Crab surf badges showed up today at SeaLifeHits. I thought maybe they showed up because I found the Angry Crab badge yesterday. But I had a comment from @crusin that says they just randomly appear and only last for a day. It is going to take a long time to finish each of the Mastery’s in ClickTrackProfits. Getting the referrals and commissions I need to complete the SeaLifeHits will probably take me even longer than the Angry Crab surf badges. 
    The good news is the the Angry Crab surf badges showed up. The bad news was that I had to surf 1000 sites and that takes time. I chose to forego the time I have allocated for training modules at ClickTrackProfit (CTP) for surfing. I hate not doing any training in a day because there is so much training and I am only 34% done. Maybe I can double up on training modules tomorrow.

    Another thing I am planning on doing tomorrow is start using Steempress. As I understand it, Steempress provides a bridge between my WordPress blog and my Steem blog. From what I have learned so far about Steempress, my post should show up here, Steemit, but I won’t know for sure until I try it. I am hoping that images get copied as well but noting I have read so far says that they get copied or not. I will just have to try it and see.

    Using Steempress is going to create more work because my WordPress blog is not in good shape. I am going to have to get it up to date with what I am doing now. I started the blog years ago when I was pursuing very different programs. I am going to have to change a lot.

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    By the way, the WordPress blog is http://moreincome4u.com. Please understand that I need some time to get it cleaned up

    PS – All constructive comments, good and bad, are not only welcome but encouraged. I can’t get any better without your help. Thanks in advance for your comments.#steempress#ctp#bobcaine#sealifehits

  • Side Tracked

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     Still no Angry Crab surf badges yesterday or today. But I did find the Angry Crab badge. Maybe that will turn on surf badges I need.

    Boy, did I get myself side tracked yesterday. I have been working my way through the training on ClickTrackProfit. (Any of you who are CTP members know there is a LOT of training.) I’m in section of the training called ‘Profit’. One of the modules is ‘Color Theory’. I got fascinated learning about color theory in advertising. It is one of those things I never gave a thought before.

    When I do splash pages, I have always just used the colors that looked good to me. I like a splash of color on the pages I create without going crazy. Black and white by itself would be boring. I almost always make “call to action buttons green but there was no thought be hind it. It turns out green is the best color for a ‘SUBMIT’ button. Split tests have shown over and over that green buttons get more clicks. Here is a list of colors and what they represent.

    • Red – exciting, bold
    • Orange – friendly, cheerful
    • Yellow – optimistic, warm
    • Green – healthy, peaceful, growth
    • Blue – dependable, strong
    • Purple – creative, imaginative, royal
    • Gray – neutrality, calm
    • Black – sophistication, simplicity

    Red headlines, black text, green button on a white back ground make very effective pages.

    If you are interested in learning more about color in advertising, just Google “Color in Marketing”. Here is on page I found particularly interesting.

    Color Psychology in Marketing: The Ultimate Guide

    So I spent a lot of time yesterday learning about color. So much time there wasn’t any time left for anything else.

    Thank You for Reading,
    Bob Caine

    paintcolor.webp

    PS – As always your constructive comments are not only welcome but encourage. I can’t get better without your help. Thank you in advance.#ctp#bobcaine#colorinadvertising

  • Splash Page for SLH Mastery

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    First, the SeaLifeHits surf badges are the usual Turtles today not Angry Crabs.  Maybe tomorrow.

    Yesterday, I told you I was going to work on the splash pages I needed to qualify for SeaLifeHits Mastery challenge in ClickTrackProfits. I got one done. Here is what I came up with.

    Attacking Fish

    I would love to know what you think about it. The more feedback I can get the better. So, please, take a few seconds, view the page and let me know what you think – good and bad. I really appreciate your time and efforts to provide feedback.

    Also, as predicted yesterday, creating this squeeze page took me a lot longer than it should. As you probably noticed, I used Adkreator to create the page. It made creating the page fairly easy. The thing that slowed me down the most was picking a template to use. There is almost 200 squeeze page templates and I looked at every one before I picked one. Then, I had to figure out a workaround for an Adkreator limitation. It doesn’t provide a way to assign a URL to the button. I got around this by making the whole page a link. You got to do what you got to do.

    I call it a limitation but I think it actually is an advantage for many part-time affiliate marketers. Adkreator is designed to produce very professional looking graphics for those of us who have no desire to become graphic artists. It is not uncommon to reduce functionality in order to make use easier. I think Adkreator has done an outstanding job combining ease of use with functionality. I am sure you have used software that has so much functionality that it becomes very difficult to use.

    This was very true of the video editor I used called VideoPad by NCH Software. This software lets you combine videos, add images, modify sound tracks and I am sure much, much more. All I needed to do was create a short clip from a longer video. Creating the short clip was no problem but saving it. I found another one of my workarounds to save the clip. I exported it and that seems to have saved it but I still don’t know how to just save an edited video even after reading and watching all the tutorials. Maybe I will figure it out next time I use the software.

    Now I need to move on to the second splash page I need (no guarantee it will be done tomorrow) and continue my quest for Angry Crabs.

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    PS – As always your constructive comments are not only welcome but encourage. I can’t get better without your help. Thank you in advance.#ctp#clicktrackprofit#bobcaine#sealifehits

  • A Productive Day at CTP

    I missed a few days of posting on Steem regretfully. But what is did for me is give me a direction for this and my Steem blogs. I am going focus on my ClickTrackProfit experiences. Lord knows there are many, many things to write about. Below is my first post along those lines.

    I swore I was going to post here everyday. Well, that didn’t work out. I absolutely have to make this a priority. I will never get better at creating posts if I don’t work at it. Hopefully, today’s accomplishments made time available.

    I have been working on the various Mastery tasks in ClickTrackProfits. In particular, I have been working on the mastery tasks for SeaLifeHits Traffic Exchange. One of the tasks to obtain Mastery of SeaLifeHits is titled ‘Surf Badges’. Completing this task requires claiming all the turtle badges 50-1000 15 times. I finished that task today. It takes a long time to surf 1000 sites. I don’t have to do that any more – YEAH!

    I do still have to complete the ‘Surf More’ tasks which requires claiming all the Angry Crab badges 50-1000 10 times and I only have 1. The problem with this task is I never know when the Angry Crab badges are going to be used instead of the Turtle badges. I just have to login everyday and surf 50 sites to see if it is a Turtle or Angry Crab badge day. (And there are days with no badges.) It doesn’t take that long to surf 50 sites so that isn’t a big deal. It is just a matter of them showing up. I will get there.

    SLHturtles.png

    PS – As always your constructive comments are not only welcome but encourage. I can’t get better without your help. Thank you in advance.#clicktrackprofit#sealife#hits#bobcaine