Protect Yourself from Spam & Get Email You Want with Mailwasher

email-security

Mailwasher is a software program that you use on your on your desktop. It allows you to quickly sort and filter your email, ensuring that you never miss an email that you want to receive.

It works in conjunction with a variety of email programs including a variety of Window email programs, Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail and more.

Mailwasher is free for up to 1 email address and is reasonably priced if you want to add more addresses. You can download it at http://mailwasher.net.

 

Viewing Your Email

Mailwasher quickly downloads all the email into the software, so you can view senders and subject lines. Here’s an example of an inbox:

 1-view-mail

 As you can see above, Mailwasher automatically marks some email as spam and will set to delete a message when they are blacklisted in Spamhaus or other blacklisting services. You’ll find these statuses are usually accurate, but you should always scan the email to ensure you don’t miss anything.

If you find email is set to automatically be deleted, you can change that senders “Status” to keep it from happening again. If this is a sender you want to receive email from, right click the message and a box will pop-up that looks like this:

 2-add-friends

 If you click “Add to friends list”, the status will now be changed to “Friend” and the email won’t be marked for deletion.

3-friend

 

Manage Your Friends

You can add your friends to your “Friends” list right away or you can train Mailwasher to recognize your friends as emails come in.

Method #1: As shown above, you can right click any message and choose “Add to friends list” and that will add that sender to your friends list.

Method #2: You can add the email address manually. On the far right side, click the green friends icon:

4-friend-icon

A list of your current friends will pop up:

5-friend-list

Click “Add” to a new friend:

You can add an email address:

6-add-email

Or you can use the wildcard option to whitelist emails from a particular domain, for example.

7-wildcard

 

In the above example, all emails from the domain favoritewebsite.com will be marked as coming from a friend.

You can remove users from your friend list anytime by unchecking the box beside the email address:

8-remove-friends

Manage Your Blacklist

You can also add people to your blacklist in a similar way. When you blacklist someone, the email will come into your Mailwasher inbox (in case you change your mind later), but will be marked as “Blacklisted” and will be set to automatically delete when you process your mail.

Method #1: You can blacklist senders as email comes in from them. Just right click on the message from the sender you want to blacklist.

 9-add-blacklist

 Click “Add to Blacklist” and then Status will change to “Blacklisted” and will set to delete when you process your email.

 10-blacklist

 

Method #2: You can add email addresses or wildcards to be blacklisted as well. On the far right side, click the black blacklisted icon:

11-blacklist-icon

That will bring up a screen that includes senders on our blacklist.

12-blacklist-edit

Click “Add” and you can add an email address:

13-add-email-blacklist

Or you can use the wildcard option to blacklist emails from a particular domain, for example.

14-wildcard-blacklist

In the above example, all emails from the domain spamwebsite.com will be marked as blacklisted and will be set to delete when you process your email.

You can remove users from your blacklist anytime by unchecking the box beside the email address:

15-remove-blacklist

 Report Email as “Spam” or “Good”

If you want to report email as spam, you can use the far left column in your email preview that is called “Action”. Messages are reported to “First Alert”, which is the software maker’s own community spam filter.

15-spam-good

“S” is for “Spam” and “G” is for “Good”. You can simply go through the list and click the icon. If you want to report these emails, click “Spam”.

 

Process Your Mail

Once you are finished with marking emails in your blacklist and friend list and you’re sure all the emails you have set for deletion are correct, you can process your email. Just click “Process” at the top and all the emails you set to be deleted, will be removed completely from your server.

 16-process

 Now you’ll only be left with emails that you want to receive and you can open your usual email program to download the emails.

Each time you use the software, the process gets faster and faster. Your friends will be marked as friends and a large part of the spam will already be marked as spam. It’s a handy way to ensure you don’t miss ANY email you want.

How to Hide Your Email Address from Spambots on Your Website

avoid-email-spamIf you’ve ever put your email address on your website (or any website), you probably know that your address is easily picked up by robots designed to collect email address for spammers. This guide shows you a few ways you can protect your email address when you want to allow people to contact you online.

The first two options do not use an email address and your best protection will come through these two options. If you really want to use your email address, options #3 and 4 give you options to protect yourself from some spambots.

 

Option 1: Use a Form Script That Excludes the Email Address in Form Code

Many form scripts include the email address in the coding. Use a form script that hides your address.

You can use one of the options at:

http://www.willmaster.com/software/form-handlers/index.php

http://ostermiller.org/contactform/

The form results will be delivered by email, but the spambot cannot find your email address off of your website.

 

Option 2: Use a Ticket System

You can use a ticket system that requires customers to submit a form that is stored online and also delivered via email.

You can try the ticket systems at:

http://kayako.com

http://www.zendesk.com/

 

Option 3: Use an Obfuscator

An Obfuscator is a program that converts your email address into a code that isn’t readily picked up by simple spambots, but is still clickable for your visitors.

Here is one you can use at: http://www.albionresearch.com/misc/obfuscator.php

 1-obfuscator

The second example, uses Javascript and may provide more protection. However, the code will not work for any of users that do not have javascript enabled.

Just copy and paste the code you want to use above and put it in your website where you want your email address to appear.

 

Option 4: Format Your Email Address in Ascii

You can convert your email address to Ascii format and it may block spambots from getting your address. Here’s an Ascii converter that you can use: http://www.golivecentral.com/pages/txttut/scramble.shtml and it allows your email address to be clickable on your website.

You just enter your email address and then copy and paste the code into your website:

 2-ascii

How to Protect Gmail Inbox from Spammy Emails

email-spamGmail comes with built-in spam filters and they claim to have some of the most accurate spam filtering available. Of course, no system is perfect and there are things you can do to ensure your email goes exactly where you want it to.

If you don’t have a Gmail account, you can get one for free at http://gmail.com

 

If You Get Spam in Your Inbox

If you log into Gmail and have spam in your main inbox, you can move items to spam and you can also report the spam to Gmail.  The first thing we can do is report the email as spam to Gmail by clicking “Report Spam”:

 spam

 Reporting an email a spam alerts Gmail and it also moves the email to your spam folder automatically. (HARO is not a spammer, I just needed a visual example).

 

If You Find Email that is Not Spam in Your Spam Folder

If Gmail puts email in your spam folder that is not spam, you can tell Gmail it is not spam. If you’re not sure where to find your spam folder, you can find the link in the far left menu:

4-left-menu

Now that we’re looking at our spam folder, we see a message that shouldn’t be there, so we can select the email by clicking the check box and then clicking the “Not Spam” button.

 not spam

This will move the email back to your inbox.

 

Make a Safe Senders List

If you want to make sure email from certain individuals NEVER hit your spam folder, you can set up a filter to manage this.

 

On Settings, choose Filter option and then you can see a small link that says “Create Filter”:

 create filter

You can choose a multitude of features, based on your needs and then  Click “Create Filter”:

 create filter2

 

If there are senders you never want to see email from you can choose the “Delete it” option and then you will never see the emails enter your inbox.

How to Install Pretty Link Pro Plugin to WordPress Sites

how_toDon’t want awkward or long links on your website? Using affiliate links and don’t want a dozen strange characters in the URL? Pretty Link Pro allows you to get around the issue. The plugin can be purchased and downloaded at:  http://prettylinkpro.com/

Pretty Link Pro lets you change any link to a short and simple link, hosted on your site as a redirect. You can track how many hits go through the redirect, choose the redirect type and even rotate random pages through the URL. You can even have certain keywords you include in your blog posts automatically become links of your choosing and this is where it becomes a very handy monetization tool.

 

Step 1: Click Add a Pretty Link

 

Start by clicking “Add a Pretty Link.”

1-Click-Add-a-Pretty-Link

Step 2: Enter Your Target URL

 

Copy and paste the URL you want your link to go to into the “Target URL” box.

 2-Enter-Target-URL

Step 3: Choose Your Pretty Link

 

By default, Pretty Link will generate a random snippet of text for your link. You can easily change it by deleting the text and writing your own.

 

Step 4: Write a Title and Description

 

Enter a title and description for this link.

4-Title-and-Description

Step 5: Select a Group

 

Choose a group for your link. You can add groups by clicking “Groups” on the left, in the “Settings” tab.

Groups allow you to easily select whole batches of links at once. This is useful for creating reports, as well as just for organization in general.

Step 6: Choose a Redirect Type

 

Choose what type of redirect you want Pretty Link Pro to use.

 6-Choose-a-Redirect-Type

Here’s what each of these types means:

307 Temporary: This tells search engines that the redirect is temporary and the old page should still keep its listings.

301 Permanent: This tells search engines that the new Pretty Link is permanent and that it should index the new link.

Pretty Bar: Puts the page after the link in an iFrame, so that your users see a bar on top of their browser that can quickly take them back to your site.

Cloaked: Makes it so that users see your Pretty Link in the URL bar even after they land on the target page.

Pixel: For users who want to use Pretty Link as a pixel tracker, rather than an actual redirect.

Step 7: Set Parameter Forwarding (Optional)

 

If you’re using additional tracking options in your URLs (i.e. keyword IDs, Clickbank IDs, etc) and you want to make sure those trackers are preserved, then enable parameter forwarding.

7-Parameter-Following

Step 8: Enable Keyword or Link Replacements (Optional)

 

If you want Pretty Link Pro to automatically go through your blog and replace words and/or links with the new pretty links, do so by specifying it here.

 8-Keyword-and-Link-Replacements

Step 9: Rotate URLs

 

If you want Pretty Link Pro to randomly send people to different URLs instead of just one URL, enter those URLs here.

The weight factor is basically what percentage chance someone has of landing on that URL.

9-Rotate-URLs

Step 10: Split Testing (Optional)

 

If you want to use Pretty Link Pro as a split tester, then click the checkbox to enable it.

Make sure you have rotations setup in the previous box, each with a different landing page with different variables.

In the Goal link, select the URL of your “Thank You” page. Pretty Link Pro will track the number of clicks each version of the site gets, along with how many conversions they got and report back.

Step 11: Go to Reports

 

To see how your links are performing, go to the Reports tab.

 11-Go-to-Reports

Step 12: Set Up the Report

 

Click on “Add a Pretty Link Report” to add your first report.

 12-Click-Add-a-Report

First, give it a name. This is only visible to you and is primarily so you can identify which report is which. Then select which links you want to track in the reports. If you want to track conversions, make sure you also select your Goal (i.e. “Thank You” page) links. Once you’ve created your report, click “View” to see the report.

Step 13: Reading the Report

 

In the report, you’ll see the Hits, Uniques, Conversions and Conversion Rate displayed in a table.

You’ll also see all your data displayed in a graph. Hover your mouse over any bar graph to get the exact numbers.
Congratulations! You’ve now learned how to setup a Pretty Link, configure it and view its reports. You can use Pretty Link Pro for anything from split testing to link cloaking to just good old fashioned link tracking.

Top 10 Google AdSense Mistakes

slider-ppc-services

In 2003, Google announced a pretty revolutionary way for website owners to monetize their content easily and automatically. Through snippets of JavaScript code, webmasters could now post ads on their sites and get a share of Google advertising revenues. AdSense took many site owners from earning nothing on their sites to earning thousands of dollars per month. Almost a decade later, AdSense is still a popular choice for monetizing web content.

It’s true that one of the biggest keys to success with AdSense is website traffic. That will never change. If you want to earn from pay-per-click advertising, you need the visitors to make those clicks. But even if you don’t have huge amounts of traffic, you can start earning from AdSense. You can also maximize those earnings by avoiding some of the common mistakes people make with AdSense.

Here are 10 of those mistakes. Avoid them and follow our tips instead to start increasing your AdSense revenues.

 

Mistake #1: Not Using Channels

It’s important to know which websites, which topic categories and which ads are providing the best results. It allows you to see where you should be adding more content, where you should do more testing, and the like.

AdSense automatically separates your reports based on URL, but you need to go further to track your results by using the “Add new custom channel” feature. You can set up as many channels as you’d like and track a variety of different things.

 1-custom-channel

 

Set up channels for different ad positions, categories of your web page, specific pages and different ad sizes. When you know what’s working best, it’s easier to maximize your earning opportunities.

 

Mistake #2: Not Testing Different Ad Positions

To understand the best positioning for your ads, you can certainly use Google’s heat map as a starting point. The darker colors show you the most clicked areas of a web page. Looking at the screenshot below, logic would say that the top and left side of your content, your top left menu and bottom of your content are likely to be your best performers.

 2-ad-positions

However, remember that this heat map is based on a large amount of data. It’s what’s typical for most websites, but it’s not specific to your unique website and design. Use the heat map as a starting point, but always do your own testing to see what ad positions work best.

You can also use services like CrazyEgg.com or Google Analytics’ “In Page Analytics” to do heat map testing of your own pages.

Note that as you test your ads, you should also experiment with the number of ads you show. While you can show up to 3 ad units per page, that may not be your optimal number.

If you want a simple solution for split testing your ads, you can find free code that will allow you to split test your ads right here.

 

Mistake #3: Not Testing Different Ad Sizes and Types

Just as you should never rest with the placement of your ads until you find the optimum positioning, you should also take the time to test different ad sizes and ad types. To start with, AdSense has its list of “Recommended” ad sizes which include the medium rectangle, large rectangle, leaderboard, wide skyscraper and mobile banner.

 3-ad-sizes

 

Again, these are a good starting point, but you should do your own testing as well. In addition to ad sizes, AdSense gives you the option of showing only text ads, only image/media rich ads or doing a combination of both. We all have assumptions about what will work best, but we can often be surprised when we test those assumptions.

 

Mistake #4: Not Testing Different Colors and Fonts

Should your ads blend in with your content? Or should they stand out? Common advice is to use the same font family and color scheme as your website. In many cases, this may be the appropriate option, but you won’t know until you test it.

If you are placing ads in the middle of content, blending in seems to make sense. But if you’re putting ads in side bars or outside of the content, standing out might be more appropriate. Test it and find out.

You can even create your own ad unit templates and save them for later use.

 4-colors-fonts

Mistake #5: Not Bothering to Set Up Backup Ads

There will be times when AdSense cannot display ads for you. If their system cannot find ads relevant to your page or if there is some other technical difficulty, they will show a blank space by default. However, you can set up an ad on another HTML page and have that show whenever there are no ads available.

 5-backup-ads

 

By having a backup ad (formerly called an “alternate ad”) in place, you ensure that your pages are always displaying relevant ads to your website visitors.

 

Mistake #6: Only Using Google AdSense

For many, Google AdSense is the biggest contextual ad earner. However, this isn’t the case straight across the board. Other contextual ad services like Chitika produce good results for their publishers.

The key is to get out there and experiment, finding the best solution for your needs.

 

Mistake #7: Not Understanding the Rules

Just like in everyday life, ignorance of the rules is never an excuse. If you don’t understand the Terms and Conditions for Google AdSense, you risk losing your account and earnings.

Some common violations that people aren’t always aware of include:

  • Clicking on your own ads: Google WILL find out.
  • Asking anyone to click on your ads for you.
  • Drawing attention to ads by using images like arrows or thumbnails that appear to be part of the advertisement.
  • Not having a privacy policy on your website that complies with data and privacy protection laws.
  • Sharing specific details of your AdSense statistics outside of your gross earnings.
  • Publishing content that violates their terms. For example, pornography, violence, hacking, excessive profanity and a whole bunch more.

Be safe and do read the fine print to avoid any unpleasant surprises. It’s a long document, but it’s definitely worth a read.

Mistake #8: Not Trying a Search Box

Google AdSense allows you to create a custom search box for your website. You can allow people to search the web, your website only or any website(s) you choose. Google ads will appear alongside the search results and will be marked as ads.

 8-search

While the average site may not have a lot of searches, it is an opportunity to increase revenues through those searches. It’s also very easy to put on your website with no scripts to install. It’s just the same type of copy and paste code as the rest of AdSense ads.

 

Mistake #9: Not Trying Link Units

Another underutilized link format is link units (formerly called “ad link units”). Link units are a way to display topics related to your particular website page.

 9-link-unit

When a user clicks one of the topics, they will be taken to a page with ads they can click to get more information. You get paid when a user clicks one of those ads. For that reason, many people shy away from link units because they think they are less likely to get paid because 2 clicks are required. However, keep in mind that someone who is already interested in one of the topic areas is likely to make a click or two to find out more information.

You can place up to 3 link units on each page, but remember to test different positions and sizes too.

 

Mistake #10: Modifying the Google AdSense Code

This is a violation of the Terms and Conditions, but it’s important to mention on its own. AdSense provides with plenty of opportunities to tweak the size of your ads, the type, color and fonts, so use those available options.

Some people have attempted to change the ad code to hide the “Ads by Google” text or to make the links open in a new window.  Any tweaking could cause you to lose your AdSense account permanently, so simply put…don’t do it.

AdSense is a hands-free way of accepting advertising on your website and it can be a pretty impressive revenue booster, so treat it with care and do the work needed to optimize your performance. Avoid these 10 mistakes and you’ll be well on the way to improve your results. 

How to Add Videos for Your Facebook Followers

media

Facebook makes it incredibly easy for both individuals and business to share videos. You can share videos recorded on your webcam, videos recorded from your iPhone or videos recorded from just about anywhere else.

Here’s how to add video to Facebook.

 

Step 1: Select “Video” in the Status Update

Choose “Video,” right above the status update bar.

1-Choose-Video

Step 2: Select Video Source

Select whether you want to upload a video or shoot a new one from your webcam.

2-Select-Video-Source

Step 3: Recording from Webcam

If you choose the “Record a Video” option, you’ll be taken to a webcam capture screen.

First, click “Allow” to give Facebook access to your webcam.

3-Allow-Webcam

Then click the big red button to record your video. Once you’re finished recording, enter a comment and click “Share.”

5-Enter-a-Comment

Step 4: Uploading an Existing Video

If you clicked the “Upload a Video” option, you’ll be shown a page that’ll allow you to upload your video.

Click “Choose File” to find your video file.

6-Select-a-File

Your file browser will open. Select the file to upload. Once you’ve chosen your file, enter a status update and click “Share” to upload your video.

Step 5: Upload from iPhone

It’s easy to upload a video taken on your iPhone to Facebook. Unfortunately, this can’t be done in the Facebook app itself on the iPhone. You’ll first have to connect your iPhone to your computer via USB cable.

When you make the connection, first make sure that your phone is not locked. If it has a password on it, Windows won’t be able to read the files. If you have a password lock on your phone, just type the password into your iPhone and leave the screen on while you make the connection.

Once your iPhone is connected to your computer, you’ll be able to browse the files on your iPhone just like any other external hard drive. Your video files will be labeled numerically and chronologically by when the videos were taken.

Once you have a proper connection, uploading a video from your iPhone is exactly the same as uploading it from any other file on your computer. Just follow the steps outlined above.

Congratulations! You’ve now learned how to upload a file to Facebook from your computer, how to upload a file from your iPhone and how to record a brand new video from your webcam. As you can tell, the process isn’t overly difficult and can get you a lot of exposure in the long run.

How to Create & Share a YouTube Playlist in 7 Easy Steps

Nicole Munoz Youtube

A YouTube playlist is a great way to sort your favorite videos. For example, you can save all your favorite music videos in one playlist, your favorite funny videos in another and your favorite inspiring videos in yet another playlists.

Playlists can also be shared. If you want to share a playlist of 15 videos to your friends, it’s as simple as sending a link.

Here’s how to create and share a YouTube Playlist.

Step 1: Go to a Video You Like

Find a video you like that you’d like to add to your playlist.

 

Step 2: Click the Dropdown Arrow by “Add To”

Under each video are a series of options. Click the drop down arrow by the “Add To” button to access the playlist menu. Click the “New playlist…” button to create a new playlist.

  youtube-playlist-add-to

Step 3: Name Your Playlist

A naming box will appear. Type the name of your new playlist in and press enter. YouTube will confirm that your new video has been added to the playlist.

Keep going through your favorite videos and adding them to your playlist. Add as many as you want in as many playlists as you want.

 

Step 4: Go to Playlists

To change or share your playlist, click on your name in the upper right corner and select “Playlists”.

 youtube-playlist

Step 5: Select the Playlist You Want to Edit or Share

On the left of the Playlists screen, select which playlist you want to edit or share.

youtube-playlist-edit

Step 6: Edit Your Playlist

Change the order of videos on by moving them up or down. Click the checkbox next to any video and click remove to delete a video.

youtube-playlist-move-remove

Step 7: Share Your Playlist

To share your playlist, click “Share” along the top of your playlist. Copy and paste the playlist URL that appears to share your playlist with your friends!

youtube-playlist-access

That’s all there is to it. You now know how to create playlists, add videos to playlists, re-order your playlists, remove videos from playlists and share your playlists.

How to Create a Tweet This Button for Any Web Page

twitter-bird-blue-on-whiteMake it easy for people to share your content on Twitter. You can create a “Tweet This” button for any page of your website and this guide will show you how to do it.

To get started, navigate to: https://twitter.com/about/resources/buttons

 Tweet-this-button

Choose Your Button and Customize

The first thing to do is choose your button. You can choose buttons with a count of tweets or no count, if you prefer.

Now you can customize the text of the tweet, by clicking “Tweet text”. You can have the button pick up the title of the page or you can enter your own custom text. Once you have decided on your tweet text, enter the URL of the page you want people to tweet about. You can have the widget pick up the URL from the page you place the code on OR if you want people to tweet another page, specify the URL below.

Finally, you can choose your language. The default is English, so you only need to customize this if you are using another language. Choosing a language will modify the language that appears on the tweet button.

 

Recommend People to Follow

You can also optionally include up to two Twitter users in the tweet. Their username will appear as @username in the tweet.

 

Preview & Get Code

You can preview what your button will look like at the bottom of the button creation page. You can also click it to preview the resulting tweet. And finally, you can grab the code for your website.

How to Track Page Stats with CrazyEgg

analyze_crazyeggCrazyEgg is an easy-to-use tool that allows you to get a snapshot of what your page viewers are doing on any particular page. This is handy when you want to test page designs, text variations, and placement of ads, sign-up boxes and images.

With the free account, you can track up to 3 snapshots at a time. If you need to track more, you can upgrade to a paid account.

Step 1: Create Snapshot

When you log into your account at crazyegg.com, you’ll see the image below. Click the Create a Snapshot button.

 1-create-snapshot

 

Step 2: Enter Page information

Page Name: Name the page something you’ll remember. It might be the page name or maybe a site you’re testing.

URL:  Enter the URL of the page you wish to track

The following three options are optional and may not be necessary if you’re only tracking your home page or just a few pages on your site.

Customize URL:  This option gives you more control over your URLs such as when you want to track subdomains, https pages and so forth.

WildCard:  Use this option when you want to track multiple similar pages. For example, if you and 4 other bloggers all write for one site and each of you have a ‘bio’ page housed within a folder named “authors” on the site (http//:yoursite.com/authors/). You can use the wildcard and enter the URL as http//:yoursite.com/authors/* and it will track all of the pages with the same snapshot.

Regular Expression:  Similar to the WildCard, this allows you to track multiple similar pages, but it offers more control over which URLs are being tracked than the wildcard option.

 2-page-info

Step 3: Set Snapshot Expiration

How long do you want to track these pages? You can track a snapshot for up to one year or 50,000 visits. Make your selection and add a description or reason for the snapshot for your reference.

Click Save when you’re finished.

 3-snapshot-info

 

Step 4: Confirm Your Page Details

Check that your information is correct and select [this is correct] if it is. You can select [this is the wrong address] if you need to make edits (you can also edit the information later if you need to).

 

Step 5: Copy & Paste the Java script to your site

You should now have the script code to add to your website page(s). Copy this code. Do not close this page!

 5-copy-code

Open the page you want to add the code to and go to the html version of the page. Paste the code right before the </body> tag at the bottom of your page. Save your page.

 6-paste-code

 

Note: Although the instructions say you can put the code in the site footer rather than on each individual page, we could not get it to pull data when doing this illustration so we had to put the code in the page.

 

Step 6: Check Your Page

Once you’ve added the code and saved your page online, you need to check the page to ensure it is working.  From Step 5’s page, click the link at the bottom that says “Check Installation Page”. Enter the URL of the page you’re trying to track, then click the Check URL button.

After about 10 seconds, you should see a confirmation like the one below. If you get an error, you’ll need to check the page to see if you copied the script code correct and put it right before the </body> tag.

 9-check-results

 It will take at least 2 hours for stats to start showing up. If your site has little traffic it could take much longer.

 

Step 7: Options

If you click the Options tab at the top of your page, you can set additional options for your stats.

Sharing: Here you can create multiple logins for your CrazyEgg account. This is good if you partner with someone else on a site or if you have an assistant that needs to be able to view the reports.

Blocking: If you don’t want to track certain visitors (like yourself), you can block these by IP address.

Notifications: If you want to receive emails when stats are updated, enter it here.

Page Camera: If you’d like to track certain non-public pages (like a private members-only area), you can download this desktop application to watch your stats. Be aware that this requires the latest version of AdobeAir to be installed for it to work.

 11-options-page

Step 8: Check Stats

When you’re ready to check the stats, log into your account and click the snapshop you want to view from the list.

 12-snapshot-list

 

Quick Overview:  You can get a quick overview of your visitors and clicks in the dropdown. To get more results, click the View Results button.

 13-stats-overview

Once the page loads, on the top, right side of your screen, you’ll see your stats navigation.

Overlay View: When you view the overlay results, you’ll see several small button markers showing you which areas have been clicked. These markers are color coded to make it easier to tell which areas are most popular – red is the most popular.

Mouse over (or click) the button marker to see how many clicks each area received.

List View:  Clicking the List view will give you a full list of the links and objects that have been clicked on the page. With the three tabs, you can see visible data that is shown on the page, invisible data that isn’t viewable on the page and both. The list feature makes it easy to see all the elements that have received clicks. The element name and type are pulled from your page, so you can easily identify them.

Heatmap View:  The heatmap view will give you a visualization of where people have clicked on your page. It tells you which areas are “hot” and which are not. The brighter the area is, the more popular it is so you can quickly see what areas are doing well and which may need a little help.  

Confetti View: This will show you where people click based upon the things like what operating system they use, what browser they use, where they came from (search engines, affiliate site, etc) and also what the search terms were.

When you first open the Confetti View, you’ll see the referrer box at the top as shown here, to the right.

Export Data

If you’d like, you can export a PDF copy of the Lists, Heatmap and Confetti pages for your records.

When you’re viewing a one of the three results pages, directly above the page, you’ll see the Export to PDF button. The wording is a little hard to see but here’s what it looks like…

Simply click it and then choose download.

Using Google Keywords Tool

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When making decisions about marketing campaigns, PPC campaigns and general business strategies, it is wise to utilize any and all tools available to you. The more the merrier definitely applies here. One of the best tools around is Google keyword tool. Using this free application, you can learn much about the direction your business can and should go for maximum growth.

Here are the steps to using Google’s keyword tool for research:

  • Choose the country or countries in which you make marketing efforts. You can also choose languages in this field as well. For those businesses that target more than one country or language, multiple options can be chosen by performing a “Control + Click”.

  • Enter Keywords in one of two ways: by choosing your own keywords, or by entering a specific URL from which to pull words. By using a URL, Google will pull keywords off of the site you input and generate a list of related keywords. When choosing your own keywords, you can import words from your Adwords campaign or use a list from a team brainstorming meeting.

Once your words are entered into the search field, click to use synonyms or not to use them. Sometimes using synonyms can return irrelevant keywords, but it is recommended to try it when looking for new keywords. Click “Get Keyword Ideas”.

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Using a URL to obtain keywords can result in new words you may not have thought of previously. Here’s how: perform a Google search for your general niche. For example, if you sell patio chairs, perform a search for “patio chairs” and use the top ranking search result as the URL for your keyword search. Using your competitors URLs for keyword research is a very wise move.

  • To get the most relevant results for your keyword search, use Exact Match keywords. Once your keywords are displayed, look through columns and remove any columns that do not contain relevant information. This will simplify your search process. Also, sort your results based on relevance to save time.

  • Once you have simplified your keyword list online, you can download the list into spreadsheet form so you can work with it offline. This is where you can remove keywords that are not completely relevant to your site.

If your site sells a variety of products, performing a search based on specific lines within your inventory will return the best keywords for you to use in marketing your business.