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phoenixblast has posted 85 comments with an overall 92.5% helpful rating...
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phoenixblast's comment on No Monkey Business ...
Great guide about money making online
I was interested in this guide because the author speaks from first hand experience in the different money making strategies that he tried. The topic list looked pretty impressive so I ordered the course, I received it the next day.
The guide is divided into many small chapters with each one a different strategy in the online money making business. The chapters are well written and weren't hard to understand, I liked the way that he didn't only write the positive things but a word of caution and negative things as well. I found the tips and pitfall prevention sections were extremely useful to keep in mind.
After reading most chapters I had made a list of questions that I sent to their support and I received a nice reply the next day that
answered almost everything I asked in great detail, he even added his own opinion!
It's a good guide for lots of different money making schemes, about the bad and the good and what to watch out for. I learned a lot from it, I recommend it to everyone who wants to enter the money making online business.
phoenixblast's comment on Easy Tech Videos ...
Great collection of tutorials
I've seen an ad for Easy Tech Videos and clicked on it because it looked interesting. After reading the list of contacts that it provides, I decided to buy it. It wasn't all that expensive, and I like video tutorials. I received a username and password by e-mail the next day to access the videos.
I found the tutorials easy to understand and they build up the content well; starting from aiming at a complete novice marketeer up to more advanced parts at the end. I liked the quizzes at the end of each chapter, it was a test to see if I understood everything.
There are a lot of different subjects explained and there are monthly updates for free, although they mostly contain a sneak preview of other products they offer. I sent some questions to their support, which they encouraged in the videos, and got a great reply back answering them all in great detail.
It's a great collection of tutorials and each one is explained well, I learned quite a lot from it.
phoenixblast's comment on SEOClub ...
Great SEO resources but a little expensive
A while back I had trouble finding good SEO information and I saw an ad of SEOClub. The membership promised a lot of available SEO resources and because of the Non disclosure agreement I thought that most of the information wouldn't be found somewhere else, so I gave it a try.
My membership was validated after a day, and once I logged in I had access to a wide variety of articles, video tutorials, e-books and so on. I liked how each one was rated by the members so I could quickly pick the highest rated articles. The articles I've read were really high quality and they gave me a lot of new tactics to try out. There is some duplicated content though, the e-books all talk about an introduction to SEO, with more advanced topics here and there, but most content was the same.
A thing I also found great is that there are monthly and sometimes bi weekly updates with new articles and books, along with a newsletter that gave me suggestions on what to read. The site also keeps a history of every article or book I downloaded and gives me suggestions based on what other members read that also read the books I read (think 'users that viewed this product also viewed ... ' style).
I had to stop my membership after a few months because it was rather expensive, and while the updates provided enough new material, I had to cut my monthly costs. After contacting their support they agreed and stopped my subscription.
It's a good membership site that provides valuable SEO resources, but it's quite expensive.
phoenixblast's comment on Explosive Cashins ...
Good tool for generating opt-in lists
I've had some problems in the past trying to create an opt-in list for my website, but it didn't work so well. Someone suggested Explosive Cashins could generate that for me, so I checked it out. It looked pretty decent and from the looks of it had enough customizable options to satisfy my needs, so I bought it.
I received the tool after 2 days and installed it immediately, which went without any problem. Configuring was harder to do, so I viewed the training video first. They explain on a step by step basis what I should do and how to integrate it. While I would have liked to see some steps automated, I followed the instructions and I had the opt in list up and running in less than an hour afterward.
I liked they way the tool tries to take the graphical elements from my website and applies it to the opt in list, it saved me a lot of time as I would otherwise had to convert each css to their settings file. Tweaking the list proved much harder than I expected though, the list got messed up several times before I got to what I wanted. Luckily after contacting their support they helped me understand the customization process much better.
It's a good tool for generating opt in lists, but I wouldn't go as far to say that I built my list 800% faster.
phoenixblast's comment on CoverAction Pro ...
Awesome cover generator
After failing pretty bad in creating a decent cover for my new software product, I searched around to see if there were generators where I could put in the parameters and it would generate the cover automatically. I found CoverAction Pro and the feature list looked interesting, I had photoshop installed so it being a plugin for photoshop wasn't a problem for me, so I bought it.
After a day I received my plugin and I installed it, but for some weird reason it didn't show up when I started photoshop. Reinstalling it didn't work either, so I contacted their support. They sent a kind reply back that they'd use Team Viewer to fix my problem for me, so I let them install the software. Everything worked well afterward.
I was surprised by how easy it was to generate different designs, and not just small differences, but totally different. The config panel was divided nicely into categories from color scheme to basic layout. There's a manual included, so I didn't have a problem understanding the options. After 5 minutes of playing with the settings I had a very professional looking cover, something I would never be able to create myself.
I saved a lot of time using this generator. It provides enough randomness to make each cover I generated unique, and it only takes 5 minutes to get a really neat one out of it.
phoenixblast's comment on Attversumption ...
Outrageous price for the content it provides
I had the luck to get my hands on the Attversumption course through my company to see what content it provides, I've heard of this course in the past from other sources and they said it was pretty good so I checked it out.
After reading a few chapters it became pretty clear to me that this is a pretty standard marketing course, I've read much of it's contents in other e-books that were much much cheaper although it's a bit more polished than usual and there are fancy graphs here and there to be found.
The chapters afterwards were more advanced but I still didn't learn many new things, there are a few interesting approaches and thoughts but most of it I've already found in other books or even online. A thing I liked is that there's an extensive glossary at the end, one of the most detailed ones I've encountered so I saved that.
This overpriced course is good for people that don't know anything about marketing and have a lot of money to waste. With a bit more dedication and knowing what to look for you can find books and guides that offer almost the same content for a fraction of the price.
phoenixblast's comment on InstanteStore ...
Great webstore software
I was looking to give my website a more webstore kind of feel to it for my different products, I've encountered a lot of different websites that use this and after some searching I found the InstanteSoftware. It looked pretty well and it claims to be easily customizable so I bought it, I received the software by mail after a few days.
Installing went without any problems and configuring was a breeze to do, everything was well explained and nicely divided into different categories. After selecting a template and the path to my website it integrated automatically, which I found pretty neat as it detected what kind of website I had.
After some tweaking to get the layout right I tested and everything worked as I expected, in less than an hour the entire webstore system was set up, something that would take me weeks if I had to do that manually. I found a rare small glitch where shopping carts were lost after some time and I contacted the support, they replied it was a known issue and I received an update the next week that fixes the problem.
I was surprised by how little work I had to do to integrate this system which makes it great for people that don't want to spend days to build a webstore, the only downside is that it's a bit expensive, but it was absolutely worth it.
phoenixblast's comment on Reviewazon ...
Good plugin to link product ads to a blog
I was looking for a way to combine my blog with different product review from Amazon and I was lucky to find Reviewazon. It offered exactly what I needed, so I ordered it and received the plugin the next day.
It seems it was not so easy to install it, it took me a few hours until it finally wanted to install. Luckily their support answered quickly, I could initiate a support chat session and everything was quickly solved afterward.
Configuring went without much problems because it asks the basic configuration with a wizard, with an option to show more advanced fields (but I skipped that back then). I got to the main screen where I could see a nice overview of which products are linked to my blog, and it even suggests which products could give the best ad income. It bases itself of the keywords provided on the blog itself, but I liked that I could influence the ads myself by adding filters.
Another great function is the statistics it keeps from which visitors visit which ads which is great for optimizing my marketing strategies. The only thing I found disappointing is the lack of customization I could do in the templates, while it's not too bad I wish I had more control over the actual layout.
It's a good plugin to link product ads from various locations to a blog to get more ad income that way, it sure helped for me.
phoenixblast's comment on Guru Assassin ...
Good course for novices and more advanced marketeers alike
My brother told me he had seen a pretty interesting course about marketing and linked me to the Guru Assassin website. It looked pretty interesting and I generally like video tutorials so I decided to purchase it, though I still had my doubts because of the obvious unlikely promises that it made.
After viewing a few guides I was pretty convinced that I did the right thing with buying it, there are a lot of different topics covered and each one is explained in great detail. It wasn't too hard to understand them because they were explained well and there are 'shownotes' for each guide.
There are also a lot of different articles included that act as an example or explain different strategies, most of them are also briefly talked about in the videos. Another thing I liked was that there was a complete summary available, so I didn't have rewatch the entire course, I could just search in the summary.
I had some questions about the different topics that I wrote down while watching and I sent them to their support. They kindly replied to all of them with detailed answers which was pretty helpful.
It's a good course for a variety of topics, and I found it pretty interesting even for more experienced marketeers like myself.
phoenixblast's comment on Secrets of Speed Publicity ...
Good guide about press releases
I wanted to know more about press releases because I thought it would make a valuable asset so I looked some stuff up on google and someone suggested the Secrets of Speed Publicity. It looked pretty interesting so I ordered the guide, after a week I still hadn't received it so I sent them an e-mail wondering what's up. I received a polite apology afterwards along with my guide, turns out they didn't receive my order.
The guide starts off with pretty easy and a bit boring content but afterwards it explains different topics about press releases very well, I had no trouble understanding anything. The tips and pitfall prevention are also a nice addition and there are premade notes available along with the video interview that make a great summary.
I learned quite much about press releases and how to use them to advertise products from this guide. It's a little expensive but it was worth it.
phoenixblast's comment on Need to Know ...
High quality book and it's free!
I was browsing in Mr. Myers work and noticed that I overlooked this e-book, I was pretty satisfied with his work that I've read in the past and this book is free, although I had some doubts about the quality, I downloaded and read it.
I was pretty surprised by the interesting content that was provided, it's nicely structured and well written like his other works and on par with other e-books that are sold for a rather high price. The topics are really in depth and there are lots of detailed tips to remember. There's even a summary at the end of each chapter and some exercises to learn the chapter better!
Some things were a little unclear though, so I sent him an e-mail and he responded fast with a helpful explanation. It's great that he provides quality support for things that he offers for free (something I didn't think I would get).
It's a great book, I initially had my doubts because it's offered for free, but it has high quality content and I learned quite a bit from almost all chapters.
phoenixblast's comment on IMTriggers ...
Short but good read
This tutorial peaked my interest because it could come in handy when meeting with different prospects and convincing them that my software is what they need. It wasn't all that expensive, and I've yet to find a negative comment on the tutorial, so I bought it. I received it the next day and started reading it.
The first thing I noticed was how little pages there were compared to other tutorials, but they are well structured and I could easily understand most explanations without reading it twice. There were some spelling and grammar errors that bothered me a bit but not all that much. I had some questions because the last chapter felt a little rushed with less detailed instructions, so I sent the support an e-mail, I received a helpful reply the next day that went deeper into the issue.
After I completely read it I was a little disappointed by the actual amount of content it provided, I would have liked to see more examples. Overall, it's pretty short, but it's good and gave me many tips to keep in mind.
phoenixblast's comment on Dealmaker Report ...
One of the best books I've read
After receiving some partnership requests from fellow marketeers I thought it might be a good idea to research it a bit. I came across the Dealmaker Report e-book that explains just that, it's written by Mr. Myers and I knew his reputation, so I didn't doubt when I purchased it.
The book is nicely structured and easy to read because it's well written. Knowing the topics is one thing, but explaining them well to others is a whole different matter, and Mr. Myers was successful at that. It's one of best books I've read, and I almost read it completely in 1 session.
I jotted down some questions while I was reading and I sent them to his e-mail later, he kindly responded the next day answering my questions in great detail.
I learned a lot about making deals and how to seek partners from this book, it's a topic that I hadn't encountered before but this book did a great job explaining everything.
phoenixblast's comment on Filinet ...
High quality ads and good statistical results, but pricey
A partner from my company has used Filinet before to advertise their products and they were happy about it. So I decided to approach them too for ads for my software. It wasn't for the ads itself that I did, but rather for their long list of affiliates and for the statistics on those ads.
I signed up for a month which was rather pricey, but I thought it would be worth it anyway. They sent me an polite e-mail shortly after to ask me to give details about my software so they could make appropriate ads for it. After a day the final versions of my ads were ready and they published them. I was impressed by the high quality of the ads, they looked very professional and artistic, something I would never be able to make by myself.
After a week I was starting to get a little worried because I had no increase in visitors to my site where my software is on at all, but the next week I got a steady increase and it made big jumps upwards afterward. I got a login on their site where I could track on which sites my ads appeared and how many visitors I got, along with a lot statistical analysis and graphs, which helped me a lot to adjust my marketing techniques.
I had a nice increase in sales after that month, but just barely to cover the cost of the advertisements. Nonetheless, I was pretty happy because my business lives off word of mouth advertising and more customers will spread it faster.
phoenixblast's comment on Tweet Adder ...
Great tool for managing tasks on twitter automatically
I was interested in automating the tedious tasks I did daily on twitter to keep an overview of who I'm following and who uses my products etc. and I ended up at Tweet Adder. From the list of possibilities that I saw on their website it was exactly what I needed, so I bought it.
I received it the next day and installed it. Installing went without much problems and configuring it to work with my twitter account was easy. I was surprised by how well everything is explained, every single function is explained with a tooltip. The main screen provides a helpful overview of the state of my twitter account and who I might be interested in following based on some keywords. It even keeps track of a number of variables and builds a history chart, which I found extremely helpful for adjusting my marketing strategies.
For some reason I had a little glitch the other day where once I viewed the detailed chart the application hung. I sent the error report to their support and they provided a fix (that helped) the next day.
It's a nice little program that's easy to use and it works well, I saved quite a lot of time by this software.
phoenixblast's comment on Video Membership ...
Good tutorials and great community
A friend was telling me about the new video course he was following and that he learned a lot from it so I decided to check it out myself. He was a member of Video Membership for over 2 months and was pretty happy with it so I signed up myself for the trial.
While the videos that you get in the trial version doesn't include much interesting content (it's more self promotion of their site and previews of what you get when you sign up) they provided adequate tips and tricks that were nice to keep in mind. After the trial I signed up as a member and the first batch of videos that I got were rather impressive in terms of content. They explained and introduced many topics, even those who are rarely found on the net.
I learned quite a lot from the videos but the membership also comes with a forum and a chat where I could pose questions that would be explained in the upcoming videos and share ideas with other members. While they might be competition later I was surprised by the warm welcome I got when I first joined, it's a nice community that likes to help others out.
The extra banners and templates that also come with the videos were a little redundant though, they weren't high quality and pretty ugly if you ask me.
phoenixblast's comment on Mini Site Creator ...
Great tool for managing multiple websites
I was looking for a way to quickly make a few sites because I wanted to expand from a single website to a lot of mini sites that each provide a different product. I didn't want to use the same layout over and over again though, because it would look too much like clones. After some searching I ended up purchasing the Mini Site Creator tool.
After installing the software I was greeted with a first run wizard that allowed me to set up everything in a fairly easy way. It wasn't always clear what was asked but there's a nice readme file included that describes each function. The main screen has a nice layout and provides a nice overview of all the different functions that can be done along with the status of each mini site.
I really liked how easy it was to create a new site, I filled in the product and contact details (which can be stored as templates) along with the site layout template (that can be randomly generated and customized) and pressed OK and the site is completely generated!
After a week I had some trouble with the software, with random errors popping up. I contacted their support and they sent a nice reply back that I had a corrupt file, they gave me detailed instructions how to proceed without losing my data.
It's a great tool to manage different sites and generating new sites has never been so easy.
phoenixblast's comment on Sample Secrets ...
Little disappointed, could be better
To use trials on my software seemed logical as people want to try before they buy it. I was looking into expanding this thought to other products so I looked around a bit and came across Sample Secrets. The tutorial comes with nice extras so I thought it might be interesting to have a look at it so I bought it.
One of the first I noticed is the rather inconsistent layout used in the course, it's well written and there aren't many spelling errors but it still feels cluttered. Some of the techniques described were hard to understand, even after reading them a few times so I contacted Ms. Allen and she explained them a little better (but I still didn't fully understand it afterwards).
The tools and resources described are templates and advertisement examples that can be used along with the free samples of my product, but they were nothing I couldn't come up with myself. Another thing included was a list of sites where I can get paid to use samples but it seems that it was just a quick copy from google results.
I didn't learn all that much from the course. There are a few interesting topics covered but the strategies explained were hard to understand (for me at least) and the extras that come with the course are rather useless.
phoenixblast's comment on Powerful Offers ...
Great course for attracting new customers
I was interested to learn more about how I could attract customers and prospects so I searched a bit and found the Powerful Offers course. It looked pretty interesting so I ordered it, I received it a day later.
The course consists of a few chapters with each one building upon the previous one. The structure is consistent and it's well written without any spelling and grammar errors, there are some terms that I had to look up and sometimes I had a little trouble understanding a part or two. I sent them some e-mails regarding those parts and they sent a kind and helpful reply back explaining it in more detail and with real life examples.
The strategies and techniques described are great, I haven't encountered such an approach before and after I followed one and tested it out I was surprised by how easy it was to attract new prospects. I certainly learned a lot from it and the course wasn't all that expensive so I got my money out of it already from my increase in sales.
phoenixblast's comment on Slide Up FX ...
Good little script for a great alternative for pop ups
I've received quite a lot of complaints of visitors from my website because the ads were using a lot of invasive popups. I searched around for an alternative, but I didn't want to remove them because I gained a lot of revenue from it. I came across some other site that used slided ads instead of popups. I liked the idea, so I looked it up and it was Slide Up FX. I decided to buy it and received the script the next day.
It didn't work at first because I didn't add the script to my pages correctly. There aren't many instructions available how to install it, so I had to contact support and I received a polite reply with detailed step by step instructions how to proceed.
I got it working soon afterward and tested it myself. It looked really neat and I noticed that ad blockers are blocking pop ups much faster than they are blocking slide in ads which is good for my revenue. After a week I received a lot of feedback from my visitors that it was a much better system.
It's a good scrip to add ads in a noninvasive way rather than depending on pop ups, my revenue also increased because the pop ups were blocked much more.
phoenixblast's comment on Flip That Lens ...
Great guide for Squigloo
I heard some good things about Squigloo and decided to try it, however I hadn't much luck with it, so I quit. Last month I stumbled on the Flip Than Lens guide that explains how to be successful at Squigloo, so I was pretty interested to know what I was doing wrong the first time. I ordered the guide, which isn't all that expensive, and received it a few hours later.
I really liked her approach, she explains in a very detailed way and in step by step instructions what I should do and what to keep in mind. It's well written and there are no obvious spelling or grammar errors, so it was a breeze to read.
I decided to try out her approach on Squigloo and while I was not as successful as her, I did earn a substantial amount of money. I had some questions so I contacted her and she wrote a nice reply back. I'm pretty happy that I found this guide, it helped me a lot.
phoenixblast's comment on Whole Truth ...
Little content and lots of spelling and grammar errors
I bought this book because I heard it contained new strategies that deviate from the usual money making schemes, and the reviews I found were positive overall. After 3 working days I received my book through e-mail and I started reading it.
The first part contains testimonials that gave me some insight in what's to come, but I preferred to read the actual content first and the comments and testimonials afterward, so I skipped to the 'Smart Pages' chapter. It provided nice detailed content, but the grammar and spelling errors are horrible, it really killed the book for me.
I sent some errors to their support, they thanked me for my feedback and they sent me a new copy with the fixes in place, but there were just too many to sum them all up.
I was pretty disappointed in the book, it's like a summary with comments and testimonials built around it, however plentiful errors gave a really sloppy feel to it.
phoenixblast's comment on Google Assassin ...
Useful tools, no support
I was interested in the bundle of software and guides that Google Assassin offers, so I decided to sign up for it. Once I had access to the members page I could download all the software, there weren't any guides on the site at the time, just 'Coming soon'.
I tried out all the software but I had issues with installing some of them, there aren't any manuals included so I had to find out the problem myself. The ones that I could install worked well, but configuring was pretty hard to do. Overall I found that there's a lack of cohesion between the tools, like they were taken from different sites and thrown together in a package.
I sent an e-mail asking for support about my installation problems, but I only received a generic reply to thank me for my feedback, or at least it looked like one, never received anything else afterward.
After spending some time with all the things, I can't help but say that the only thing that this membership offers is software grabbed/bought from different locations, but without any support for them. I don't recommend signing up as you could probably find the same tools from their original authors somewhere else.
phoenixblast's comment on Profit Miracle ...
Works but lacks features
I was interested in this product because it bundles tasks that I previously had to do manually or that I had to do in separate software for each task, and still had to convert stuff between them manually. I lost quite some time with that in the past so if all that was bundled in one, then it would certainly help me. My friend suggested Profit Miracle and out of good faith I signed up for it.
One of the things that I liked was that I didn't have to download software, everything is done through a webbrowser. The control panel is clean and easy to understand and there are a bunch of wizards for each task. The only problem I had was a faulty url that gave me 404 errors on occasion, after contacting their support and they politely let me know they fixed it.
While everything works well, I still have the feeling of missing a lot of features that my old software had. There aren't many options to customize the templates, and the article submission tool came down to just an e-mail with attachment system.
The expression 'Jack of all trades, master of none' applies here well, it's good for basic tasks but more advanced users like me can skip this one and look elsewhere.
phoenixblast's comment on SpaceBankers ...
Good book about social network marketing
A few months back I visited the SpaceBankers review by clicking on an ad of theirs and saw that it was an e-book about making profit on social networking sites. I've read some things about that topic in the past, but I wanted to know more. I looked at the different topics the book covers and most seemed pretty interesting, so I bought it.
The book is well written and contains a lot of examples and screenshots, along with a nice summary at the end of each chapter. While the strategies described were sometimes a little simplistic, they seem to work pretty well after I tried a few of them.
On the site Mr. Moran claimed that there will be bonus content, such as templates and samples included, but I never received those (they were not included with the book either). I sent him an e-mail and received a nice reply with the additional content and an apology that he forgot to include it the first time.
It's a good book and while I knew about half of the topics already, I found the rest pretty interesting.
phoenixblast's comment on Easy Licensing Pro ...
Good and well written course
I was looking into licensing strategies for domains and products and found Easy Licensing Pro. I didn't find any other course that provided me with enough information about licensing and this entire course focuses on that subject, so I bought it. I received the course through e-mail after a few days, apparently they first tried to attach it but the zip file was too big for my mail provider, so I asked if they could upload it somewhere and send me the link. They kindly did so and I downloaded the course without further ado.
The course itself is much broader than I expected it to be, it not only focuses on licensing but on other strategies to encourage users to buy my products. While I would have liked to see more detail on occasion, the course is well written and there aren't many sentences that I had to read multiple times in order to understand it.
The bonus templates and guides are also very nice to have but those deviate a little from the main goal of the course.
I learned quite a bit from it and the course isn't all that expensive, so I'd recommend it if you're interested in licensing strategies.
phoenixblast's comment on Wordpress Easy Ads ...
Great plugin to have more control about your ads
I tried out the plugin for my blog to have a better control over which ads can be shown and when. The Wordpress Easy Ads was the first result I found with google and it looked pretty good and it was free at the time so I downloaded it.
Installing the plugin went without much problems, the first time my blog got corrupted for some reason so be careful. Luckily I had a backup lying around so aside from giving me a scare there was no harm done. I retried it and then it worked perfectly.
Configuring the plugin was easy, the different options are neatly categorized and for each option there's an explanation available, I had the plugin up and running in no time. Another thing that I found extremely helpful was the statistics and logs that it kept when the ads were clicked, I could easily export those to a spreadsheet and see what ads were the most profitable so I could adjust the frequency of the ads in the options. I wished it could do that automatically though, but given that I got my plugin for free I can't really complain at all.
I was very happy to see that my ad income rose by about 20% after a week or 2 and while it might cost a little money now it's still definitely worth it.
phoenixblast's comment on Elite Money Makers ...
Good course for online profit
I was talking with a colleague and he recommended the Elite Money Makers course because he said it was a great course to learn about making profit from different online strategies. He used it himself and gained a lot of money when he used those tactics, so I was interested in checking it out myself. I ordered it when I got home, and I received the course the next day.
I really liked the videos included in the course, I learned a lot from it, the topics discussed are well explained and the exercises that are at the end are also very useful. The e-book itself contains a lot of information that was also in the videos, which makes it a little less useful, but I found it pretty handy if I wanted to look things up quickly.
I sent some questions of some parts of the material that I didn't understand 100% and I received a nice reply with more information and more in depth instructions which helped me greatly.
phoenixblast's comment on Project Archimedes ...
Good read, but it might be too simplistic for advanced marketeers
I was reading about buying and selling domains and websites and stumbled upon Project Archimedes. The topic interested me and I haven't found any other courses or e-books that specifically focuses on this so I bought the e-book. I received it with a rather big delay, a whole week later, but once I had it I started reading it.
The book is divided in a few chapters ranging from the basics of buy low and sell high, which domains could be interesting, what techniques I could use to improve websites and so on. I liked the way everything was structured and how each chapter builds upon the previous one. It was sometimes a little hard to understand because it's not all that easily readable with quirky sentences and missing punctuations.
I learned quite much from the book, but that might be because I was unfamiliar with most of it. Those who have already experience with the topic could probably figure all of the guides and tips out by him/herself. There were some terms that I didn't understand so I build a list and asked the support if they could help me with it and I received a nice and very helpful list that explained each term in detail and in the context of the chapter where it occurred.
phoenixblast's comment on Blogging Equalizer ...
Great software for SEO for blogs
I was looking for ways to attract more visitors to my blog. I already had a decent user base that frequently visited it, but there was little profit from the ads, so I searched a bit and found Blogging Equalizer. The claims that it made were pretty convincing and I've found only positive comments, so I decided to buy it regardless of it being a little expensive.
I received the setup the next day along with a nice manual (which came in handy). I had a little trouble with installing, but after some tinkering with the UAC from vista I got it installed. The configuration went smoothly with a nice wizard, but it wasn't always clear what I had to fill in, that's where the manual with detailed instructions and screenshots came in handy. Once set up I left the software running for a few days, and I was pretty surprised that after a week I had doubled my amount of visitors a day, pretty impressive.
The software manages all the keywords and SEO strategies so I didn't have to do much, there are some tweaks I could configure but it worked well, so I left it alone. I had the occasional crash though so I sent the error report to their support, they politely replied what I had to do to get it fixed. I haven't got a single crash since then.
It's a great software tool to manage SEO strategies on blogs, I saved a lot of time (and money) because of it.
phoenixblast's comment on Shortcut ...
Not unique and quickly thrown together
Someone on IRC referred me to Shortcut and claimed it helped him make at least $1,000 a week. I was bored back then anyway so I checked it out, it looked pretty legit and searching a bit didn't show up anything negative, so decided to buy it with some spare money I had.
I received the 'guide' a day later, I use '' because it's not really a guide but a collection of strategies and hints in a zip file. I didn't really know where to start it wasn't clear, so I checked out a few strategies and while they are good strategies, I've already seen them online for free. This is hardly called unique content.
The tips and pitfall prevention were useful and handy to keep in mind, but without a proper introduction or cohesion between the different parts they are hard to put into context. I contacted their support several times hoping that I was missing some table of contents but I got a reply there was none and that I could request more information through an additional course for a fee.
In the end it was pretty useless to me, I was stuck with a lot of random information but without a decent accompanying explanation.
phoenixblast's comment on Creating Fat Content ...
Great course about content writing and SEO
When I was looking for ways to increase my site page rank using SEO I found this course. I've seen a lot of SEO courses but this one is a little different with it's focus on site and content building which I found pretty intriguing. I ordered the course and received it after a few days.
I started reading it and one of the things that I noticed was how easy it was to understand it. I didn't have to stand still at some sentences at all to think things through, which is great because it kept me hooked. It's nicely written and it has a great structure making it one of the least cluttered courses I've seen.
The course provided a lot of interesting things that I knew little of, ranging from different content strategies to which meta tags to use. A great bonus that I liked very much was that there's actually a chapter on how to write articles well, not only for search engines but for the readers.
At the end of each chapter there are a few open questions to think about and Mr. Williams encouraged me in the course to send the answers I thought was right to him so he could give feedback. I sent a few answers and he kindly replied with detailed feedback and suggestions!
The course was a great way to learn more about content writing and SEO strategies and the feedback I got along the way with the Q&A e-mails I sent was a great addition.
phoenixblast's comment on Membernaire ...
Expensive and not much content each week
I've read that membership sites make a good income once a decent userbase has been established, so I searched for more info how to build such a site. One of the suggestions I found was Membernaire. It's a training program with weekly installments, which I thought was handier than just receiving an e-book, so I signed up for it.
At the end of the week I received my first installment that included an introduction, a global overview of what's to come and some reading material. I was a little disappointed because I thought there would be more content provided, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt and waited for the next issue. In that one there was more content and while it was interesting and well written, I still found it a little lacking for it's price that I had to pay each month, so I opted out.
Opting out proved to be more difficult than I expected, I had to send a few (!) e-mails to their support before they finally agreed to stop my subscription.
I think there are better resources elsewhere on membership sites that have a better content-cost ratio.
phoenixblast's comment on Ready.Aim.Wired ...
Good book and nice extras
I've encountered a brief topic that involved targeting social networks for marketing and advertisements and I could see how much potential that has. I have a facebook account and know from friends that they are on facebook a lot, making a great user base for advertisements. I was looking for a more detailed course how to proceed and I found Ready. Aim. Wired. I found the different topics that were handled in the book pretty interesting so I ordered it.
I received the e-book the next day along with a lot of extras. The book itself is nicely structured and well written. There are summaries at the end of the chapter which I found a great resource to print and occasionally check when I was hesitating. I've also sent some questions and he replied the same day with a well detailed answer. There aren't many terms that were hard to understand so it's a good book for novices (like me).
The extras included are also a nice bonus, they include strategies, more tips & tricks and a few templates that I found pretty useful.
There's even a tool that manages potential customers and friends of those customers. Installing and setting up that software went without any problems because one of the chapters in the book is dedicated to using this tool.
I find it a good book for novices and more experienced marketeers alike, and the management software is a nice bonus, it might be a little expensive overall but it was worth it.
phoenixblast's comment on OptIn Comments ...
Works, but back fires quickly
I've stumbled upon OptIn Comments when I was looking for ways to increase my blog's usefulness. It looked pretty good and I was interested in getting more subscriptions to advertisements however I was quite wary of the legal issue this plugin poses.
I decided to go for it anyway and ordered the plugin. I received it the next day and installed it in my wordpress system without any problem. Configuring was a little harder to do because there is no GUI that explains what is required, there's only an ini file that needs editing and without any manual or instructions whatsoever it wasn't all that straightforward to set it up correctly. After some trial and error I tested by making a comment with a valid e-mail address that was not on my mailing list and sure it enough the e-mail has been added.
I've also informed myself of the legal issue here and apparently these masked opt in practices are illegal in most countries. I've also received some very negative feedback from customers afterwards so I had to remove the plugin in order to prevent more damage to my customer base.
While it works it's unethical and makes your customer base pretty angry which in turn made me lose a lot visitors to my blog. It might be good to spread more info but it back fires pretty quickly.
phoenixblast's comment on MyLinkGuard ...
It works, it's free and it's very useful
I've had my share of stolen affiliates in the past so I was looking for a way to protect them. After some googling I found MyLinkGuard which masks the links you enter and that's just what I needed. I didn't hesitate to try it because it's free, the only thing I had to do was sign up and download the program.
After installing and configuring it I could see the main screen where an overview of all redirected links are. Adding links is easy and intuitive, though it was a bit annoying to create folders for each link. I wished they could do that automatically so I sent them some feedback and they appreciated it and said they would look into it.
A very nice extra that I found very useful is that it tracks how many times a redirect on a link has occurred, with an option to export it to excel for better statistical analysis.
It does what it says, it's free and it's handy, it has helped me a lot.
phoenixblast's comment on Replace Myself ...
Tutorials are good, but that's all there is to it
My company had several calls from outsourcing companies that offer their services to do a part of the implementation of software, and I was looking more into outsourcing in general when I found Replace Myself. I listened to the free audio provided, and he gives a nice overview of all the things that outsourcing stands for and how to make it profitable. I was intrigued, so I decided to become a member for a month to see what all the fuzz was about.
Once I signed up I gained access to all the other audio material and his software to manage outsourcing projects. The tutorials are well explained and are easy to understand, though sometimes I wondered what he was talking about. I learned much from listening to them all.
The preselected employees are a disappointment however, there were almost none available and those who were were involved in what it looked like dubious schemes to rip off companies. I certainly didn't want anything to do with that, and I searched my own employees without much success.
I installed the software after requesting help from their helpdesk to do so because it did nothing at first. Apparently some files were missing from the package at the time I downloaded it and that was the reason, which gave me the feeling that their service isn't all that professional.
The tutorials are well made, and I found them pretty interesting. But that's about it, so I opted out after a month. I suggest you do the same if you consider joining.
phoenixblast's comment on Bum Power ...
The book has amateur written all over it
I came across this book and it looked interesting because I knew little of affiliate marketing. It was pretty cheap and I found positive feedback when I searched on the name, so I ordered it.
The book itself has a pretty bad structure, most of the texts are not paragraphed and the fonts used are inconsistent, which made it harder to read. I felt like it was quickly thrown together from separate files without reviewing it.
The content itself was (besides tedious to read) interesting and provided ways that most other (more professional) e-book writers might have skipped because it might be too amateurish.
I contacted Mr. Steve because I had some questions, and he tried to answer me the best he could, but I still had the impression he either didn't know much about the subject himself or he's bad at explaining things.
It's a cheap book so I didn't think the quality would be high, I think it's better to look for some other book.
phoenixblast's comment on Power-RSS ...
Great software that works as expected
While I've been using RSS To Blog for a while, I found that a lot of rss feeds provide information that's relevant for my own site. So I was looking for a software tool that could integrate rss feeds inside my website but randomize them based on keywords gathered from my pages. I found Power-RSS and it does just that, so I downloaded the trial version to check it out.
I installed it without any significant problems and configuring the software was easy. Linking it to my website however proved to be a much more daunting task than I anticipated. The software generates html as a seperate file, and I had some trouble finding how I could integrate that in my PHP site. Luckily their support was a great aid, they helped me out and provided me with detailed instructions how to proceed.
Once that was working I configured which pages to scan for keywords and which RSS feeds to crawl. I was impressed by how many options you have to do this: prioritizing rss feeds and shuffling based on pageranks of those feeds. It also keeps in mind how many visitors have actually clicked on that feed and generates detailed statistics on that.
It's a great way to provide more content on my site, to attract visitors and have a higher pagerank at the same time.
phoenixblast's comment on RSS To Blog ...
Great script, works well
I was reading up on how to make a profit out of a blog and one of the tools suggested was RSS To Blog. It sounded very interesting because it crawls RSS feeds and automatically posts relevant stories on a blog. I haven't encountered any similar software that does this and it had me convinced, so I purchased the script and installed it on my secondary blog. I had already set up Adsense on it, so the only thing I had to do was increase my visitors.
Installing it went smoothly, in less than 5 minutes it was up and running. The configuration screen also has a pretty clean layout and for each option there were detailed descriptions available, so I had no problem configuring the script. I added some keywords that I gathered that were popular and let the script run on some of the RSS feeds I frequently visit. After a day or two, I saw a pretty noticeable increase in visitors to my blog, and more visitors meant more Adsense income.
Another idea I had was combining a SEO software that gave me suggestions for keywords that are effective for increasing my pagerank and added those into the RSS To Blog script, and I was impressed by how well that worked. After 2 weeks I had already gained as much money as the cost of the script.
I could export those keywords generated to a file so I wanted to know if the script could read that file so I wouldn't have to type all the keywords 1 by 1; so I contacted their support and I received a very friendly reply the same day with a small modified version attached to include that functionality!
It's a great script for getting some side income through automated blogging, and it's especially effective when combining it with other software.
phoenixblast's comment on Google Goggles ...
Lots of problems, buggy and possibly containing spyware
In order to get more out of my campaigns and get ahead of the competition, I had to find a better way than searching for my keywords on google and see how well they perform against other companies. I found Google Goggles by chanche and it was just what I needed. There was a trial available, so I decided to try it out and see how it affected my sales.
Installing the software was a pain, there were little to no instructions on how to proceed and the few wizards that were in place left me pretty clueless. I had to contact their support to ask how I could continue, but they replied that they only help customers who bought the software, which surely annoyed me a lot.
I retried it the next day (otherwise I think I would have smashed my computer against the wall), and it appeared to work then. Once I was in the main screen I could enter keywords and it would analyze the competitors on google, but it crashed half way through. Furthermore, my antivirus scanned and detected spyware in a few files from Google goggles, whether it was a false positive or not I don't know, but that and all other problems combined was reason for me enough not to use it ever again.
phoenixblast's comment on Red Factor ...
Good course and it helped me a lot
My company is producing goods in a flooded market, so there's little room for error, and there is little profit made. I decided to look for a market analysis course so I could pinpoint the opportunities more effectively, so we could act on those and stand out from the competition. I heard from people that I've been to school with that they had similar problems, and after they followed the Red Factor course they could find new opportunities with ease.
I checked it out, and it looked pretty good. I browsed through the notes he took, and I was impressed, so I ordered it. It seemed that I ordered it at a wrong time because I never received a confirmation, so I asked their support if something was wrong. They replied in about 2 work days that their servers had issues and fixed my order. They even gave me a little discount, so I'm not complaining.
Once I received the course, I read it almost completely in under a week, it's very readable and most of the more difficult terms are explained in glossaries at the end of each chapter. There are a lot of tips included that I found very handy and some exercises to test what I've learned so far.
There's also a lot of extras coming with the course, a lot of success stories and other strategies provided from people that followed the course.
It's a pretty good course and I do find myself discovering opportunities more easily.
phoenixblast's comment on Online Business School ...
Recommended course for business management
I was looking for some guides where I could learn more about managing a business and how to make a small but profitable company from the ground up. I've read a lot of books and followed courses that focus on marketing but they don't speak of the business aspect. Online Business school is the first course that I found and it looked pretty good, so I decided to go for it and purchase it.
The course consists of a lot of small chapters divided in 3 volumes, all of them are well written and gave me a lot of insight and knowledge on how a business could be run. The 6 different ways to make income are nicely explained in step by step instructions, and each of them have a pro and con section which I found very helpful to keep in mind (to know which strategy is best for my situation).
I noticed that Ms. Dunford also provided valuable feedback. I sent her an e-mail with some questions, and she kindly replied with well explained answers, she even gave me links to other material that might be useful for me.
It's a great course if you're new to business management, it's a bit expensive, but it's worth it. I recommend checking it out.
phoenixblast's comment on CB Protect ...
Good tool for protecting your software against hackers
Once software gets popular one of the first things that happens is that it attracts hackers who crack the software. I've encountered the same problem with my programs that I sell and it was frustrating to see how many sites offered a pirate version. I calculated the loss of income and I was shocked how much it was, so I decided to do something about it and look for software that prevents piracy. I didn't want to use DRM or any other kind of rootkit because there are a lot of problems with it for legit users too. After some searching I came across CB Protect. It looked good and the technique described was sound, they also update their software regularly to prevent hackers from exploiting one version.
Before I ordered it I tried the trial version to see how it affected my software and it's performance, and everything still worked well. I tried it out on different systems (windows XP, vista, 7) and it all worked without any problems. The interface to manage your software wasn't all that intuitive, I had to search a while until I found how to add new software to protect, but once I got used to it it wasn't much of a problem (though an included manual would be nice).
I had some problems with the license generator though, it kept crashing when I wanted to generate a new key for someone who purchased my software. After sending the details to the support they kindly replied that it was a bug and they sent me a new update immediately.
It's a good tool to protect software in a non invasive way and I most likely gained more money by protecting my software than it's price.
phoenixblast's comment on How To Get From Where You Are to Where You Want To Be ...
Valuable detailed course for all kinds of marketeers
I've followed Mr. Abraham for a while now, and when he announced his training course I was happy that I was able to order it. His explanations are usually of high quality, so I expected nothing less from this course. Once I subscribed to the course I received the schedule when he will be giving a new part of the course (which was almost always Saturday).
What I really liked was that every start of a chapter involved having some exercises of the previous chapter to quickly remind what I learned before. It's very useful to see how the different parts of marketing are connected. The course itself is nicely explained with an eye for detail, and at the end of the chapter there's always a glossary and exercises that can be done. He advises to do them too, as they will be corrected at the next meeting. There are also plenty of tips & tricks that taught me a lot of different aspects.
After the course was finished I kept in contact, and he kept me informed of new interesting stuff such as new techniques, new strategies that were not handled in the course itself.
The only downside is the rather steep price, especially for beginners that are new to marketing, but it's definitely worth it.
phoenixblast's comment on Profit Loophole ...
Content is good but too pricy
One of my first courses that I followed was Profit Loophole and while I learned a lot from it, it was because I was a total novice back then and I've encountered much of the same content for free after searching for more specific terms.
There's nothing wrong with the quality however, the book is well written and gave me valuable insight in the mechanics behind marketing. The video tutorials also helped me a lot to understand all the different strategies to use websites as a source of money income.
Mr. Kelly also personally keeps in contact with everyone who purchases his package and gives tips occasionally through e-mail. I sent him some questions and he always replied in a friendly helpful way.
With the things I know now I wouldn't buy it, if you know what to look for you can easily find the same guides and tutorials online and they are much cheaper (or usually free) than the price of this package, but it might be useful for novices that haven't got a clue where to start and are willing to spend quite some money.
phoenixblast's comment on ViewTracker ...
Great asset for ebay marketing
My dad is an avid ebay buyer and seller and he has asked me several times to write software that manages his auctions, displays an overview, calculate trends and statistics and so on. I had little time to develop such a complex program but I searched a bit and found ViewTracker. From the looks of it, it was exactly what my dad needed so I decided to download and try the trial version.
Once installed and set up with my account it got to the main screen where everything is nicely structured in categories. A list of current auctions and a history panel are very useful to keep an eye on but there are a lot more functions in the menu. So many in fact that I had to search a bit to find what I needed. The interface also provides help buttons on each window which could come in handy as my dad is less tech savvy than me.
There wasn't a manual included that explained all features and how to use them so I contacted their helpdesk hoping that there would be one. I got a polite reply that they were working on one and they sent me a draft version!
The only downside I see is that it's subscription based, I find paying once for software for personal use enough but their support is free of charge and the fees are acceptable so I can live with it. I suggested the program to my dad and he's been using it for the past 4 months now and he's very happy with it, he even says got his money back already from more sales and quicker bidding on auctions (with the automated bidding tool included).
phoenixblast's comment on PDF Domination ...
The content doesn't justify the price
I was doing some research to learn more about writing e-books and articles: what the best advertising method is, how to get readers hooked, what other profits there can be made from it etc.. I found PDF Domination and it looked very interesting as I find video tutorials much better than reading a guide or book. There are a few trial videos on the site and after watching those I decided to purchase the entire course.
Once I received the course, I viewed a few videos but was rather disappointed by the lack of content and details that are explained. Though it's well explained, it's mostly stuff that you can find for free online.
The extras that come with the package are a nice touch, but I had the impression that they were quickly thrown together to provide something more. Don't expect their support to be helpful either. I asked them some questions, but all I got back was a generic reply to thank me for my feedback.
phoenixblast's comment on Article Drip Robot ...
Good tool for article management
I was looking for an article management tool to have a better overview on which articles I have posted where and which ones are still unpublished. After some searching I came across Article Drip Robot. I was hesitant to try it because it comes with a monthly fee, something that I prefer to use for services and not for software. However, the positive reviews and the fact that I was frustrated by my current way of managing my articles led to my order.
I received the software package the next day and installed it. That didn't go very smooth, I had some weird errors without any description, just an error number. I sent them an e-mail asking what I should do and received a kind reply the next day. They told me in detailed instructions how to proceed, and I got it up and running in no time.
The main screen is a bit cluttered, and I had to read the help file several times before I knew how to post articles and manage them in general. It's not much of a problem once you know where everything is, but it doesn't give a clean finished look. Every function that I tried works well, so it makes up for that.
It's a good tool for article management, but it lacks the finishing touch.
phoenixblast's comment on Pockets Filler ...
Great read, overwhelmingly much extra content
I ordered the Pockets Filler e-book because it looked pretty interesting and promised techniques that I didn't know about before, it's also pretty cheap compared to other books, so I thought why not.
I received my copy the same day (I guess they are using some automated process which really sped up things) and the first thing I noticed was the nice layout of the pages. It's not just endless lines of text, but it's neatly structured and has a few graphical components in the header and footer to give it a more professional look.
After I read the first 2 chapters I was a bit disappointed because most methods I already knew or were rather easy to figure out by myself. The remaining chapters were however interesting to read and contained a lot more information for more experienced readers. The chapters are generally well written and well structured, though on occasion I came across some grammar and spelling errors.
What's really a nice bonus is all the extra content you get with the book. I was impressed with all the extras, almost all the methods described in the book had a reference to the included content, varying from software to templates.
Some references seemed to be broken though, but after an I sent the support an e-mail they quickly fixed it and thanked me for my feedback.
I find it a good book for novices and more advanced marketeers alike, and it provides an enormous amount of extra content. The only small hiccup that bothered me were the spelling errors here and there.
phoenixblast's comment on SBI! eLearning ...
A must for all novice website builders
When I first started making my website and horribly failing at it, I looked up some courses and SBI! eLearning looked very interesting. It's completely interactive like going to school and following a class, and that's a big plus for me because I read guides often and learned a bit overall, but in a class session I learn things much faster.
I was lucky that my brother had already signed up for SBI! in the past so I could follow the course at a pretty big discount. I followed all 12 sessions and I've learned a lot. The basics in the first 2 sessions are perhaps a little too basic for some, but it was pretty remarkable that the boring basics were given in such a way that it still kept my attention all the way, great instructing there!
The instructor kept track of my personal progress and adjusted his course to keep me interested. The training has helped me a lot on all topics covered, and the personal tips and tricks are great to keep in mind. We've exchanged some e-mails after I finished the course, so it doesn't mean that once the course is finished you get zero feedback.
phoenixblast's comment on Campaign Blasts Method ...
Great info about adwords
A year ago I was still using Google Adwords on my website and I didn't get much profit out of it. After searching a bit to improve my ad income I came across Campaign Blasts Method, it says it's aimed at novices and includes a nice amount of extras so I ordered it. After a little struggle to receive my copy (I had to e-mail them a few times to resolve my issue, but they were very friendly and helped me through it).
The main guide is nicely divided in chapters about the different aspects that are necessary to make more profit out of adwords. I found that reading the guide was a breeze. It's well written and has a good structure. The plentyful examples and screenshots are also a very nice addition.
The extra spreadsheets didn't help me much however, I had to download OpenOffice first to open them and there were a lot of numbers in it without much explanation where those numbers came from. There's also no reference to those sheets in the guide.
The book helped me understand much more how adwords work and how to 'exploit' them in order to get more profit out of them.
phoenixblast's comment on Active Safelist ...
Not very effective in increasing sales
I've used Active Safelist in the past to promote my website. My brother told me about it and said it might be a good way to reach all kind of potential customers, so I signed up. With the start funds I received I could send the members 1 e-mail and got a pretty positive visitor increase in the following few days. Afterward I had the choice to pay for extra credits or I could also earn credits reading e-mails from other promoters and clicking ads. While the latter was a pretty slow way to accumulate credits, there's also a referral system where I received a percentage of the credits gained by my referrals.
After a week I got about 5000 extra credits so it builds up pretty slow, too slow for my liking so I ordered some extra credits. After 2 days I still had not received my credits, so I sent them an e-mail asking what the problem was. Their reply was rather rude that they were very busy and would look into it later, but after a few hours I received my credits. I sent another promo e-mail for my website and got another increase, but most visitors were just interested in receiving credits from visiting my site and not actually looking at the content.
While it might be a good way to send more visitors to my site, I was pretty disappointed with the lack of interest of those visitors. You might want to give it a try with the start credits and see how things work out, but don't expect any miracles.
phoenixblast's comment on Omnistar Mailer ...
Does what it says and does it well
I was looking for a way to distribute e-mails and a page where users can add or remove their e-mail address. After some searching I found that Omnistart Mailer does just that and even more. I was already using PHP for my website and MySQL as backing database, so I figured it would take very little effort to set up, so I decided to order it. I received my package the next day and installed it right away. Installing and configuring went without much problems, although I had to look up some things to integrate the template into my existing website. After not finding how, I contacted them with my problem and details of my website and the next day I got a nice detailed reply that provided me with step by step instructions how to proceed.
The program itself has a very nice self explaining interface with all features divided into categories. I haven't tested all of them but the ones that I use seem to work very well. There's even a nice statistics page with a trend graph that I found extremely useful to see how well my site was doing.
It's a good program that works well, it might be a little difficult to set up for novices (like me) but the support can help you there.
phoenixblast's comment on Affiliate PDF Dispenser ...
Reporting services of . NET are much better
I used Affiliate PDF Dispenser a few months back to have a quick generator for my brochures of my different products. It was pretty expensive, but I knew no alternative so I purchased it. I received my copy the next day.
Installing the software went without much problems, but the program itself had some graphical glitches here and there. It was also quite sluggish and unorganized, I sent them an e-mail describing my issue, but I never received a reply.
I made the report template, it was a quick and effective tool to generate a pdf to distribute, updating some descriptions and texts and regenerating the report was a breeze.
The sad part is that I recently found out I could do exactly the same thing with the reporting services that are built-in in Visual Studio, for free. Layouting the reports are far easier to do and I have a lot more control over what I want to put where and how (as it is backed by a programming language).
It's a good tool (once set up) if you're not a developer and you're willing to accept the abysmal performance to set up your template, otherwise use Visual studio or look for some other report generator.
phoenixblast's comment on Plus Minisites ...
Great for easy website building
I found Plus Minisites from frequently visiting a site that was built using their package, and I was wondering about the nice layout. I looked them up, found their site and promptly ordered the standard package. It was pretty cheap and I've already seen the results, so I was convinced.
The package arrived in my inbox after 2 work days, so I checked it and I was impressed by their layout of their main guide. They've put a lot of effort in it and made their guide with their own package. They even explain things in the guide as to how the guide itself was made, which I found very neat as I could see the result immediately.
The provided template and graphic components were handy to have as they are easily customizable to have a completely different look (which is very useful because I find it pretty important to distinguish myself from the competition). I was able to use the template with little effort as everything was explained in detail where the content should be added.
I sent them an e-mail to ask if it was possible to upgrade to the deluxe package and they replied a few days afterward that they would happily send me the deluxe package at an upgrade price.
I find it a great package that contains great templates and easy to use controls.
phoenixblast's comment on How To Create Knock Out Information Products ...
Good read for people making the finishing touch of a product
As a programmer, I know how to analyze and implement software, but I had no idea of the actual packaging & deployment part of the development process. I needed to learn more about it so I searched and found the How To Create Knock Information Products course.
Despite it's bad and lengthy name, the content it described sounded interesting so I decided to order it and waited to receive my copy. After a week of waiting and still not hearing any confirmation, I sent them an e-mail asking if they received my order. I received a polite reply shortly afterward that it might have gotten lost and that they will process my order immediately. The next day I received my copy.
I enjoyed reading the course because it was nicely structured and well written. Even for the more novice users it shouldn't be a problem to understand everything. The tips were pretty handy to keep in mind and the step by step instructions of creating attractive packages helped me greatly. They even included some templates to get started.
I don't know if the strategies described are useful because my software hasn't been released yet, but they look pretty convincing and it's always explained why they work so, I'm pretty sure they will.
phoenixblast's comment on Competition Dominator ...
Very impressive results
I encountered Competition Dominator by luck, I was searching for some SEO articles and found this little gem. It sounded very interesting to use at my company so I suggested it and my boss approved. I ordered it and received it the day afterward. I contacted their support because they automatically subscribed me to their newsletter which I didn't want and there was no opt out link provided, and they kindly replied that they had fixed it.
Installing went without much problems and before I knew it I was in the main menu. The interface looks a little cluttered, but once I knew where everything was it wasn't much of a problem. The included help file is also very useful (in comparison to some other software packages that fail to provide a good manual).
Once I gave my company category it searched all the keywords the high rated companies used and also their most frequent ads. I was very impressed by how quickly I got those results from different search engines. It even suggested which keywords I could use to get the most optimal result (and those are not only the least frequently used, but synonyms are also used)!
I find it one of the most powerful SEO engines I've ever seen, most search only in general terms, but this one looks specifically for competitors.
phoenixblast's comment on PortalFeeder ...
Good once set up
At work I was given the task to optimize our company's portal website to receive a higher rating. I've heard lots of customers say when asked why they chose for us, they replied 'because you were the first hit on google'. So it was pretty important and I started looking if there was a software bundle that can create portal websites but still have the necessary marketing tools like SEO. I found PortalFeeder that way and after reading some positive things about it I asked my boss to order it.
After he approved and we got the bundle I installed it without much problems (Vista users, use administrator!). I was greeted with the main menu and I noticed how clean the interface was, everything is nicely ordered into categories and there's a description panel that neatly explains every function (which came in handy as the manual that was included was of much less quality).
I had some trouble creating a portal though, because the wizards aren't really all that intuitive and it requires quite a bit of prerequisite knowledge to set the whole thing up. I had to contact their support several times because I couldn't find some configuration settings. They were friendly and gave me step by step instructions how to proceed but I still lost quite some time waiting for a reply.
Once the portal was set up, I looked at the marketing tools and they're pretty much what you'd expect from them. The SEO settings and statistics are integrated in the software and they seem to work well. I found the history chart very useful to keep track of how popular the portal is (great to show to my boss!).
It's a good software bundle once set up, but the configuring is a pain.
phoenixblast's comment on Operation eBook ...
Good for novice authors
I was interested in Operation eBook because it covers a lot about writing e-books and articles. I didn't want to start writing e-books but I wanted to write decent articles on my blog that might have some e-booky feel to them, so I ordered this book. I received my copy after 3 work days (which was a bit long). I had to contact their support because I was worried my order got lost, but they were very polite and helped me instantly. Once that was cleared up I started reading it.
One thing I noticed is how the techniques described in the book actually apply to the e-book itself. There's a saying "Don't buy anything that the author doesn't want to use him or herself" and while it might not be true, it still applies here. It's well written and the different topics are nicely put into different chapters. I found that I was reading it with little effort, there are little to no difficult words inside and the ones that are are explained in the glossary at the end of each chapter.
The book gave me a lot of insight in the different aspects in writing overall and I find it a good book for those who have little to no experience in writing anything professionally.
phoenixblast's comment on Tru Guru ...
OK for novices, but advanced users can skip this one
I ordered the Tru Guru book a few months ago after a friend recommended it. It looked pretty interesting, and it covered topics that I still knew little about, so I bought it.
The chapters are well written and nicely structured, there's no prerequisite knowledge required, so it's perfect for novices. The jargon is nicely summarized in a glossary that I used as a cheat sheet from time to time.
The content is a bit of a letdown. However, the eCommerce chapter is quite boring because if you used ebay before you pretty much know the entire chapter. Even the tips that are included are pretty logical. The blogging for pay was more interesting, but there are other guides online that I find are much better to follow.
The other chapters were new to me so they were more interesting (and thus I couldn't compare those to other resources online). I spoke with the author (sending e-mails back and forth) because some parts weren't entirely clear for me and he did his best explaining them to me.
It's a good book for beginners, but it might be boring for advanced users because they might know all of it already.
phoenixblast's comment on PHP Powerhouse ...
Great resource for PHP beginners
My website was at it limits with HTML. I have made quite a lot of pages now and one interface change meant copy-pasting that change on all those pages. I was looking for an alternative, and I know PHP is a scripting language that's very well known and useful for websites. So I did a search for a tutorial and found PHP Powerhouse. It looked very interesting because it not only provides basic PHP tutorials, but it's also aimed at marketeers.
I ordered the package and received it the day afterward. It contains a nice overview of all included things, which was especially handy for me as I was looking to find where to start. After I completed the basic tutorials I wanted to try using one of the templates that came with the package, but I couldn't figure out how to configure my website to allow PHP sites. So I contacted the support hoping they would know more about that. I got a quick reply explaining, in well detailed, step by step instructions how to get it to work and before I knew it I had my basic template up in no time.
The included PHP scripts are also a nice touch and aimed at marketeers to promote their website. I tried a few and they seem to work well.
I found it a great and easy way to get to know PHP and do more with my website than I could with basic HTML.
phoenixblast's comment on Sites That Soar ...
Great for marketeers that want to make a blog
I thought it might be a good idea to integrate a blog into my website to give more information about my products and a more personal feel to my site overall, (which I find important to be closer to your customers). I read a lot of things about wordpress online and I saw lots of sites use it, so I thought it was a good choice for my blog platform. While I was searching I stumbled on the e-book Sites That Soar which explains how to use wordpress effectively.
I ordered the book and I enjoyed reading it. It's aimed at beginners, which was perfect for me, and it's well written. The step by step instructions contain lots of details and I found the plenty amount of tips and pitfall prevention sections very helpful.
After I finished the book I had some questions so I sent an e-mail and received a friendly and helpful reply after an hour or 2. I was amazed by how fast she replied!
While other sites offer instructions how to install and use wordpress, this book is aimed at marketeers to get the most out of it and it was exactly what I needed.
phoenixblast's comment on Project Green Button ...
Expensive but good
My site grew bigger and bigger and it was a tedious job to manage all HTML pages without a content management system so I was searching a bit and I found Project Green Button. It peeked my interest because not only it's a CMS, but it also provides traffic management and search engine optimization tools. I decided to try it and signed up for it and I got access to my control panel in no time.
I had to read some guides because with all the features it offered it was a bit overwhelming just where to start. After some reading I customized my site and uploaded some content. I had some specific questions about configuring the layout and what may be included in the content, so I contacted them. I got a polite reply the day afterward listing the different possibilities along with quicklinks to the various section I needed (which was very helpful).
The SEO and other marketing tools included are pretty basic but they work, although I might have gotten more out of it if I used some other marketing tool.
For it's price it's pretty expensive for what it offers, but the quality and support are good and there a lot of extras included.
phoenixblast's comment on Real Simple Syndicator ...
It's a great tool to stay on top of things
I was looking for such a program for a while, one that can manage all my rss feeds. Before I found Real Simple Syndicator, I used to manage them on iGoogle and while that sufficed for a while, it became increasingly cluttered.
So it was time to move on and order Real Simple Syndicator. I heard some good things about the tool and it's really cheaply priced. Installing and configuring went without much problems and I was greeted by the main screen in no time. I found the overview in the main screen very handy because you can switch between views and sorting methods of the latest updated feeds.
It has some nifty features that I find extremely useful, the monitoring service pops up a balloon whenever a new entry on a rss feed is made, which allows me to rapidly act (before this I had to constantly refresh my iGoogle page which was really frustrating to do).
Another thing that I like is when I search for certain keywords it immediately highlights all the matching feeds.
The compatibility for certain feeds was a bit problematic at first, giving me odd xml parsing errors. I contacted them and they kindly explained to me what I had to do to fix the issue.
phoenixblast's comment on Auto-Launch End ...
Great if you have a lot of products
I was gathering some information about releasing products & software with preorders and found the Auto-Launch End software. I used to manually adapt the database to change the prices after a certain discount or preorder had expired but it was difficult to keep track of all products and their individual promotions.
I ordered this software to manage all my discounts and I must say it does it's job very well. The main screen consists of a nice overview of all your products as well as a timeline where all the discounts can be viewed. Not only do I find this very helpful, it made things a lot easier to see how much money I was giving away as a discount.
Setting up the software was rather tedious and I had to contact their helpdesk a few times in order to let it work the way I wanted it to. They were very polite and helpful and with their remote desktop service my copy was set up in no time.
I find it a good time saver and helpful tool to see keep track of all discounts and preorder products (which helped me a lot in my marketing strategy).
phoenixblast's comment on Amazing Formula ...
Some parts are good, some are too simplistic or free available online
In my never ending quest to become a better marketeer I stumbled on the Amazing Formula e-book, it looked interesting so I bought it. While my order didn't go without some problems, I managed to straighten it out by contacting their support. They were friendly and helpful and said they were looking into the issue, they sent me a copy not so long afterward.
As for the book itself, I noticed that it's well structured in chapters, but sometimes it's hard to read. Most guides and strategies for increasing traffic to your website are also freely available on the internet if google a bit. The guides about developing new products were interesting for me though, as I knew little about that topic.
I find the tips a nice extra touch but they are sometimes overly simplistic, I skipped most of them after reading a few.
While the book has some interesting things to offer, I wouldn't buy it, but rent it (if that option becomes available).
phoenixblast's comment on Mailloop ...
Great tool for various mail applications
The primary reason that I use Mailloop is to distribute my licenses of my software automatically to my subscribers (trials) and clients (full version). I found some good reviews of it and decided to buy it.
The first thing that I noticed is that it looks very professional and it has a clean interface, with still all features available with one click. This is great because I've used other software where I had to plow through various menus to get the feature I wanted. The main screen of Mailloop also has a nice detailed history list which is very useful for marketing strategies.
Setting it up was easy as it came with a pretty detailed manual and it features step by step setup wizards. Once that's done, I tested it and it works as expected.
Sending automated newsletters was also a breeze to configure and I had a newsletter service in no time.
I'm surprised how much it offers and how ease of use this tool is, I find myself constantly amazed how well it works!
I jotted some suggestions (some small details here and there) and sent them to their helpdesk. They highly appreciated my feedback and told me in a friendly reply they'd consider it for future releases.
I find it's a great tool to use and I don't think I can work without it anymore.
phoenixblast's comment on Jeremy Palmer ...
Nice and helpful with various problems
I've been following Mr. Palmer ever since I've studied his 'Quit Your Day Job' course. I was intrigued by his writing style and the levels of detail he would explain in order to get his point across.
I'm reading his twitter updates occasionally which give a good insight in a number of different problems that involve marketing techniques. On a number occasions I had some trouble understanding different aspects of his strategies, so I contacted him and I always got a nice and helpful reply explaining what I could try or how I should approach my problems. If he goes to great lengths for every reply like he does for me, I wonder if he still has time to sleep.
Overall I find him a great guy that writes good readable courses.
phoenixblast's comment on OutRankSmart ...
Works as expected
I tested this software because I was tired of submitting links manually that link back to my website. When I googled to find out if there was a program that could do that automatically I found OutRankSmart.
I ordered it at a discount price and received my license the day after. I had some problems getting the software to work on my vista PC so I contacted their support and they guided me through my problems to fix it. They were friendly and helpful, listing me a number of things to try.
Once it was working I was greeted by the main screen where I could see which links were automatically filled in and which sites those links were posted to. Another thing that I found helpful was that I could update to receive a new set of sites to post links to! I inserted some links and let it run and after 5 minutes all links were sent.
While I question the legal issues of this program and how it avoids captcha's it works as expected and my ranking really did rise after a while.
phoenixblast's comment on Success Chef ...
Very good guides for novices
I wanted to know more about how I could use different marketing techniques to sell my software and I came across Success Chef and decided to give it a try.
The guides on the site are really in depth and easy to read without much complex jargon, and those words that are present are explained well in a side bar. I found it a pleasure to read and I understood everything from the first read.
The tips & secrets that they offer also gave me more insight how to be a successful marketeer but don't offer as much value as the guides do.
It's aimed at novices so it might be a bit too easy for more experienced users but I started as a novice marketeer and I must say I learned very much from reading all those guides.
Their support also does an excellent job answering all of my questions that I asked them within a work day and the answers were very detailed and structured.
The only downside I can think of is the pretty steep price (well at least for me) but in the end it was worth it.
phoenixblast's comment on More Monthly ...
Not worth signing up for
I signed up for More Monthly because I heard some good things about it in the past and I've visited other membership sites that were not worth it, so I decided to try my luck with this one.
After I signed up there was a list of products and services that I could choose from that had a significant discount or were offered for free. I like the way they have been categorized and I found the comments from other members who used it pretty helpful, but most software products were obsolete and overpriced. For each one I know at least 1 free alternative, which makes this software list pretty pointless.
As for services, there were some interesting services listed but again nothing that can't be found somewhere else for a cheaper price.
I was wondering about the new set of products & services each month (to see if it was actually still worth waiting) so I contacted them but they didn't help me at all, they sent me a short (generic?) reply that there will be new products each month and that was all.
I was pretty disappointed, it's not worth your subscription fee at all.
phoenixblast's comment on MakeMeTop ...
Worth it after a while
I tried out MakeMeTop to get a better rating on search engines and get visitors from advertisements at the same time. Once I signed up and logged in I was greeted with a standard dashboard where I could manage all my keywords and ads, along with what site they would be put on and how often they would be used.
One thing that I liked was the history panel that shows how much visitors you got from those ads and how effective the keywords were in the SEO process, I found that a great way to improve and refine my website and marketing to get more visitors.
After a month I steadily received more visitors and most of them were also interested in my products (not just 1 click to home page and gone again). My sales increased about 10% the first month and they were growing each month afterward.
The downside is that you have to pay a monthly fee which was a bit discouraging for me at first, but after seeing the results, I got my money back by increased sales after 2 months.
Their customer support also works well, I had issues with their site and it turned out to be my browser was the cause. They were very friendly and helped me in any way they could.
phoenixblast's comment on Quantcast ...
Great and in depth analyses
I've been using Google Analytics in the past and I was looking for other similar services that did about the same thing but were a bit more customizable and provide more features. QuantCast is such a service and I must say that I'm pretty happy that I switched to their service.
When you create an account you are greeted with a dashboard that lists various statistics and shortcuts to the various tools available. I found it a real pleasure to see and use, as little to no knowledge is required to understand everything and everything is quickly accessable.
After it gathered statistics automatic reports are generated that show which pages have been viewed most and what keywords would likely be used to get to that page. I'm amazed that it even suggests other keywords to increase the pagerank in search engines!
I was wondering if I could export some of that data to excel sheets so I contacted the support. They were very friendly but they couldn't help me with that at the moment, they said they would consider adding that in the future.
phoenixblast's comment on Marketing Rebel ...
Great course for novices
I ordered my copy of the Marketing Rebel course a few months ago and I found it very helpful to learn more details about writing articles in general, but also to keep my user base interested in revisiting my site more often.
The 'hooks' described in the review are great tips and something to keep in mind whenever something has to be written. I used some of the techniques described on my articles on my website and I was impressed that I received a lot more positive feedback. Because of that I also got more (frequent) visitors, which in turn increased my sales of my software.
The support is also very good, after I ordered my copy there was some delay until I received my course so I sent them an e-mail. They kindly replied that they would look into it and an hour later I received my copy.
I find it a very good course for novice writers (like myself) to quickly learn techniques that may otherwise be overlooked
phoenixblast's comment on DupeCop ...
One of the best tools that I've used
I was looking into better search engine optimization techniques and came across Dupe Cop. I decided to give it a spin to verify if my articles are more unique compared to others and it made a very nice report that compares my article to a number of different sites along with the unique percentages for each of them.
One thing I found extremely helpful is that for each comparison you can view the details about which parts are similar and what keywords should be changed. It even made a summary of all the sites it compared to which keywords were the most frequent!
I contacted their support because initially I had some problems uploading articles and I received a friendly reply answering my problems (turns out Opera had some issues with the site).
It's an awesome tool to use and it made my life a lot easier!
phoenixblast's comment on Enhance Interactive ...
Try and see before you buy
I tried the trial a few months back to distribute pay per click ads on different websites and have more visitors to my site as a result.
Once I signed up I was greeted with a nice overview where I could see what keywords and ads I could have and on which sites, as well as which ads are currently being distributed. I found it one of the better overviews that I've encountered.
As for my visitor increase, I got a bit more visitors but most were not interested in what my site had to offer (which made my ads a bit pointless). The helpdesk was helpful but I got the feeling that they didn't care about their customers much (took a long time to answer and were a bit abrupt).
I don't think it's worth your money as the benefits aren't all that good. You could try the trial and see for yourself, at least that's free of charge.
phoenixblast's comment on Traffic Sage ...
Monthly free outweighs benefits
Before I tried HubSpot, I signed up for Traffic Sage to increase visitors to my site. After 2 months and thus paying their monthly service twice I got a bit of a visitor increase but not that much and most of the visitors were not interested in what my site has to offer (while that is not their fault directly, most of the visitors only visited my home page and not any other page which led me to believe the keywords to my site were not matching my actual content and that is indirectly their fault).
I sent them an e-mail asking me what the problem could be and they replied after 2 work days that they would investigate the problem, but I never heard anything from them afterwards.
Needless to say I was pretty disappointed because the sum of the monthly fees do not outweigh the benefits of having slightly more visitors.
phoenixblast's comment on Dynamite Covers ...
Awesome service
I was thinking of selling hard copies of my software so I was looking for a cover that fit with it and a friend suggested Dynamite Covers.
While I was a bit skeptical at first and turned off by the high price. I decided to go for it and sent a request for a cover. They replied the next day asking me what the cover should be for so I gave them my description along with a few of my preferences that I would like. I received a preview of a draft cover the day afterwards and I was quite impressed with it. They took note of my suggestions and my description and made a very fitting cover for it. I can tell you it was not some dirty photoshop job but a high quality 3D cover that exceeded my expectations!
I ordered the full version afterwards and all went very smoothly. They were very friendly and gave me a lot of feedback on their progress.
phoenixblast's comment on HubSpot ...
Worth checking out!
I've been using HubSpot for over a year now and I'm very satisfied with all the different tools it offers. Hubspot owner has helped my amount of visits to my site boom in less than a month.
The HubSpot Search Engine Optimization tool is one of the most effective SEO tools I've encountered and the marketing analyzer is also very helpful for me, as I can easily see where my visitors are from and how they got to my site.
It's a bit pricey but I've already earned my money back by the increase in visitors and sales. They also feature a large helpdesk that works well (they gave me a lot of extra information and detailed answers).
phoenixblast's comment on Newsletter Promote ...
It works, kind of
I recently tried Newsletter Promote to promote the software that I sell and to gain more visitors on my website. The welcome screen features a dashboard that gives a nice overview of all the sites your newsletters will be posted on and a list of recently posted newsletters.
The automated message seems to be broken however as none of my subscribers (myself included for testing purposes) received any e-mail (I checked my spam folder and still nothing).
It works and it does a good job keeping you up to date, but I received a significant amount of complaints about the additional spam people received. The newsletters themselves also seem to be flagged as spam losing the more novice users that never check their spam folder.
As for their support, it seems OK, they were friendly but not very helpful.
phoenixblast's comment on Export 202 ...
A must for expanding to other search engines
I heard a lot of good things coming for this tool and decided to try it out. I had a few campaigns running on google and I wanted to expand my ads to other search sites. This tool does exactly that and I'm very happy to have found it.
I was surprised how easy it was to manage the keywords from one site to another, with 2 or 3 clicks I had added Bing and Yahoo to my list while doing that manually would have taken me several days!
Initially I had some issues running it on my Vista computer but I contacted Mr. Mahler and he gave me some advice that was very helpful and detailed how to fix my problem. I was up and running very shortly afterwards.
This is THE tool to use if you want to expand your ads to other search engines, I definitely recommend it!
phoenixblast's comment on IncomeWay ...
Might be a scam, avoid!
I signed up for IncomeWay a month ago and I find it total garbage. You can create a website where you can add ads and while that works (if you have a lot of patience) most of the advertisements contain a lot of malware and other kinds of spyware and viruses you'd rather avoid. For my visitors this was a very bad experience and I received a lot of complaints because of it. I also tried the affiliate system, but it appeared to be broken at the time; it gave me some cryptic error.
I demanded an explanation from their support but they never even bothered to reply. I think this is a total scam.
phoenixblast's comment on MemberFire ...
Hard to use and bad support
I decided to try out MemberFire to build an online community for my software that I'm selling and to attract more people that might be interested. Building a membersite is a difficult task to do manually so I was lucky to stumble over some software that generates the site automatically. However MemberFire is not the kind of software that's suited for the job. It's filled with bugs, glitches, it's unintuitive and hard to understand the basic concept.
I contacted support because I couldn't make heads or tails at some point but they never replied, making me wonder about the quality of this service overall.
There are better alternatives to find online; skip this one.
phoenixblast's comment on Quigo ...
Great for more visitors!
To get more visitors to my site I decided to use Quigo to promote my website and I'm happy that I did. After I paid 100$ I had a dashboard where I could choose my keywords and the pages that refer to them, all in a very user friendly way.
After a day or 2 I saw an increase in visitors (by about 20%) and it went up even more afterwards so the ads really worked. Though it might not be as effective as Google Ads it's definitely equally good to attract visitors for a lower price.
The support was also helpful and they answered the questions that I asked in great detail.