Gravity Forms for Wordpress is absolutely the last Contact Form you’ll ever need. It can truly transform your blog into a lead generation machine. Get a free ebook and up to $10 in rebate when you use the link here.
Just about every blog needs a way for your readers to contact you. And prior to Gravity Forms, there was no clear winner.
Gravity Forms is a wordpress plugin that claims to be a contact form. But it is a great deal more than that. I’m going to give you a review of some of the extraordinary extra features it has, but for a full rundown you should click here.
Why Gravity Forms Kicks Butt
- Dynamic Field Population: Speed up how long it takes for users to fill out forms by automatically filling in the fields that can be filled in.
- Scheduling: Running a contest from 9am to 2pm? Easy- schedule your form to only show up during those times.
- Limit Entries: Want to give away 3 ipods but afraid you’ll get 150 submissions? Automatically remove the form when you have reached a certain amount of submissions!
- Make The Forms Look Good: No need to know code here, there is a built in visual editor.
- Forget leaving Wordpress to respond: If you want to write your emails from within Wordpress, now you can.
For a full list of features, click here. [click to continue…]
Last night the new Blog Services and Rates page went live.
My hope is that it will be helpful to you bloggers and small businesses because you can see everything we offer and exactly how much it costs. Total transparency…
So head on over and see how amazing your blog can be for just a few bucks.
-Brad
It’s official. I drank The Thesis Theme Kool-Aid. And damn does it taste good.
It only seemed right that since I’m writing ebooks on how to make Thesis better, making Thesis Theme skins for internet marketers, and pimping Thesis Theme coupons, that I should at least practice what I preach and run the theme here.
Now of course there are thousands of Wordpress themes out there and maybe Thesis isn’t for you. There are plenty of reasons why many sensible people wouldn’t want the Thesis Theme. (For one thing, it’s freaking HARD to modify Thesis to do some simple tasks if they aren’t common practice) But for a TON of wordpressers, Thesis is simply the bomb.
And I’m going to show you why… [click to continue…]
Why using Google Analytics is making your site a sitting duck for your competitors & erasing your chances of growth.
A lot of bloggers and website owner use Google Analytics. It is free, has the Google Rubber Stamp of Approval, and looks pretty cool. So what could be so wrong with it?
Google Analytics is killing your site because it isn’t actually analytics. Or it isn’t used the way Analytics should be used.
Let’s step back a moment and ask a zen question… “What is the point of Analytics?”
A lot of people would answer that question this way… “Analytics tells you how many hits you get, where they come from, and what is popular on your site at any time. It also makes me very happy to see the line go up over time!”
Now that is all fine and good and important to know. Hell, I LOVE checking my analytics and seeing that “+26%” of whatever. It makes my day! But what is the real point of analytics? Isn’t there something more to it than just feeling good when you get lots of hits or feeling bad when you don’t? [click to continue…]
Keeping your Wordpress Plugins up-to-date is a good idea for many reasons, not the least of which is keeping your blog secure. Good plugin developers will track and fix known security probelms with their plugins, but if you aren’t upgrading then it isn’t going to do you much good, is it?!?!
The last few releases of Wordpress have made it very easy to upgrade your plugins with one click per plugin. But when you are installing a new blog, sometimes you have to upgrade twenty different plugins. And this can take a few minutes to do.
So for those of us who are too lazy to upgrade each plugin, there is a savior:
One Click Plugin Upgrader
This free wordpress plugin will give you something like this:
Click on the image above to see a larger version.
Anyways, I really suggest adding this plugin to your arsenal of Wordpress plugins. If it helps you to keep all of your plugins up-to-date, then you are going to be very happy to have it.
Best,
Brad
Are you Looking for ways to make your blog better?
Do you want your blog to stand out from the crowd?
Are You Wondering why your Blog doesn’t get the search engine traffic it should?
If you answered yes to any of those questions then we need to talk.
By taking a close look at your site before our hour-long consultation, I can offer you custom tailored advice for maximizing your blog or website’s traffic. Together we will create and define a long-term blueprint for your blog, and I can offer you the tools and troubleshooting to get you on the right path!
[click to continue…]
Link Builder's Pro "Service"
I know a lot of you out there may eventually decide to hire a link builder, so I want to tell you a bit about my experience with Link Builders Pro.
In the 4th quarter of last year, I hired Link Builders Pro to develop links for a website I promote. At the time, they were offering essentially the same package as they still offer, albeit for $1800 instead of their new price of $2500. (Why they raised the price I’ll never know).
It is important to note a few things about Link Builder’s Pro before paying them anything- as it is tricky to get concrete expectations after you have paid. Please keep in mind that this is just my experience, and yours may differ.
- Link Builders Pro uses blog farms. An example of which is here: (http://www.generaldir.net/business_and_economy/law/). Sadly, this is actually a “good” example of their offerings. Other examples from their final link report are here:
http://www.patonchessstore.com/business_and_economy/law/
http://www.uighuralp.com/business_and_economy/law/
http://www.051163.com/business_and_economy/law/
http://www.faddy.info/business_and_economy/law/
- Link Builders Pro uses low-quality blogs without established Pagerank. Of the initial meager bump in links the site saw, only a handful actually had even a pagerank of one. Yes, less than 1% of the pages with links pointed at us had any pagerank whatsoever. OK, maybe the homepage of the website had a pagerank of 1 (on rare occasions), but that certainly doesn’t mean the page you are linked from has any link value at all. These links pass almost no value at all. They may even hurt you in the long run.
- Link Builders Pro doesn’t meet deadlines. In our case, they ran almost double the estimated 6 weeks.
The closest thing to a "Statement of Work" we received.
- Link Builders Pro does not deliver what they claim. As my screenshot attached shows, Link Builders Pro claims to deliver “thousands of links from hundreds of websites with established PR [Pagerank].” They simply do not even come close. If you ask them why not, they’ll tell you to wait 90 days. Well, after 90 days there are even less links in the Yahoo Site Explorer then were there when I started the dispute. Currently, three months after ending our contract with Link Builders Pro, there are less than 400 links (of almost negligable value) that were developed by Link Builders Pro. That isn’t thousands, and I would be surprised if even one of the links was on a page with a PR of one or greater.
- Link Builders Pro will not work to your satisfaction. I’ve made all of these statement to Greg at linkbuilders pro (the owner) and he couldn’t offer any sort of resolution. His main argument was that to get what we wanted (we eventually asked to receive even the most modest interpretation of his website’s claims… and we never received it) would cost much more than the $1800 we paid. I haven’t heard such an asinine argument since the last season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. (God I love that show.) So if you want to get what you paid for, you are going to have to pay a lot more than you paid. Does this sound like a Zen Koan to anyone else?
I could go on for days and days explaining why you shouldn’t use Link Builders Pro, but I think we’ve covered the basics. Why would you pay $2500 (the cost of a nice vacation for you and your family) for what in my experience turned out to have absolutely no effect on a website’s rankings? It doesn’t seem prudent to me.
My suggestion to anyone considering a linkbuilding firm would be:
- Know what you are buying. Read up on Linkbuilding from Eric Ward, the master of Linkbuilding, so you can spot a fake.
- Get promises in writing.
- Understand SEO , or hire an SEO, so you can call them on their bullshit.
I hope this is helpful to you guys. And if Greg or anyone at Link Builders Pro comes across this site, please feel free to contact me with your response and I will happily post it right here.
Gotta Love Tanisha
If you are a frequent visitor, you may have noticed the new homepage copy.
The new copy is all thanks to Tanisha Robinson (check out her rant on english here). T, as we call her, is a true mix between scientist and artist. She has a masters in linguistics and has been doing empirical testing (thanks to Adwords) for long enough to know what makes people tick.
I can’t recommend her enough. Really.
So if you or anyone you know is looking for copy that grabs your readers attention, check out T’s website and give her a holler.
-Brad
PS: If you are local to Columbus, look for T and Myself at Wordcamp Columbus.
Wordcamp Columbus! Yay!
If you haven’t heard about Wordcamp Columbus, sit down. Are you sitting down? OK- There is going to be a Wordcamp Columbus. (Crowd cheers…)
Yes, this officially puts Columbus on the Wordpress Map. You can check out the rolling guest list and buy your tickets here. Or read more about it here. (Or here, here, or here.)
And if you want to meet up before to grab some coffee or afterward to drink some beer, just contact me. There is a great bar very close to Columbus State…
Hey everybody. Since there are occasionally some really hot SEO tips that I just can’t bring myself to put on this blog, I’ve started a private email newsletter to pass the tips along.
The newsletter is brand new, and you can sign up to be on the private list here.
If SEO, Wordpress, or Wordpress Development interests you, I really recommend you get on the newsletter list!
Thanks, Brad
My name is Brad and I love to help people drive traffic and make great blogs. Thanks for coming by. If you like what you see here then check me out on 
