In today’s post I’m going to tell you about my experiences with Aweber’s autoresponder/email marketing service.

What is Aweber?

Aweber is a popular email list management and autoresponder tool used by bloggers, business owners, and internet marketers. It allows you to build a list of subscribers, send out an email newsletter, and create an unlimited number of email marketing campaigns using autoresponders so you can send out a series of messages automatically while you lay in the sun sipping cocktails.

I use Aweber on this blog and on another site I own, and I have several ideas on how I can make money with Aweber in the future (I smell a new series of posts in the near future).

Why did I choose Aweber?

I first signed up with Aweber a couple of years ago when I was running a site selling Private Label Rights articles with a little ghostwriting mixed in.  I needed a way to keep in touch with customers and prospects…to announce new article packs were available, to offer discounts, and to just to remind them I existed.

When I first realized I need a list management/email newsletter tool I went to various online marketing forums and dug through old threads to see what users had to say. I posted questions asking which was the best option available and why. And then I signed up to a bunch of newsletters to see which service people were actually using.

It didn’t take me long to realize Aweber was the way to go…

• Delivery rates are higher than other providers. What’s the point of having a list of subscribers if they never get your emails?
• Aweber’s double opt-in requirement offers protection against CAN-SPAM complaints.
• Tons of features and templates to customize your newsletter.
• Awesome training tools including a knowledge base system and live webinar tutorials.
• Killer support including real people by phone, email, and live chat.
• Integration with Twitter and Facebook so all blog posts can be automatically posted on both sites.

How I’ve used Aweber so far

As I mentioned above, I first signed up with Aweber so I can keep in touch with people who purchased my PLR article packages. I haven’t updated that site in ages and it has suffered mightily from lack of attention. I might go back and start releasing new packs and building it up again, but right now I just don’t have the time.

I also created a new Aweber list so I can build a database of subsribers to this blog.  Notice the big box on top of my navbars asking for your name and email?  That’s an Aweber web form designed to attract subscribers. Actually, you might see 2 different boxes if you visit often. I’m split-testing (one of the cool features I told you about) a couple of different options to see which gets better results.

When you subscribe using that box you’ll automatically receive email updates whenever I post a new article on this blog.

Now I know what you bloggers are thinking…why not just use Feedburner? They offer email subscriptions and they are free.

Well actually I DO offer Feedburner email subscriptions as an option. But emailing new blog posts is about all Feedburner is good at and I need more than that. With Aweber I can also send off “broadcast messages” which are basically one off emails to subscribers only. In the future I plan to hold contests, giveaways, and other cool stuff strictly for email subscribers.  I can also offer premium content and free reports to subscribers so they know how much I value them.  (I also need to create some kind of free report to entice people to subscribe.)

What do I plan to do with Aweber next?

The same thing we do every night Pinky…try to take over the world!

Just kidding…right now I want to concentrate on building up this blog and making it a “go to” place for people looking for personal finance advice. Along with that I want to build up a list of loyal subscribers. So that’s number one on my list.

But I have other plans to make money with Aweber…

1. I’m thinking of offering a series of short reports for sale. They would be priced cheap so everyone could afford them but contain enough useful information that they’d be worth many times what I’d charge. By overdelivering I could build a customer base and use Aweber to announce new reports.

2. I’m going to create a couple of short email courses where the main site would basically be a signup page for the free course. In addition to lots of great content there would be some affiliate links mixed in so I could cover the costs of hosting and hopefully make a little profit. The course would be delivered via email autoresponder so once I set it up it would be on autopilot. That’s passive income baby!

To learn more about how YOU can make money with Aweber click here right now.

I mentioned the other day that I was having problems with commenting…readers were getting a 404 error (page not found) when they tried to leave a comment. 

Well it looks like that is ok now (am I wrong?) but now I don’t seem able to leave replies through my Admin screen. 

I use a plugin that lets me leave threaded replies, and I’m able to see the replies on my Admin screens but they’re not showing up on the individual posts. 

They must be caught in limbo somewhere because if you look at my post saying Facebook is a waste of time I can’t see any of the replies that I have written.   On the home page it says there are 17 comments but they aren’t all showing up on the post itself.

Weird stuff.  If anyone has an idea please let me know.  In the meantime I might have to reply the old-fashioned way from each individual post, but there’s no way I can keep doing that.

This article is for those of you with your own blogs…if you’re not a blogger you can just skip this post and wait for the next one where we’ll be back to talking about personal finance.

I’ve been participating in the Yakezie challenge which is basically a friendly competition among personal finance bloggers to see how high we can increase our alexa web rankings. 

Now I know the Alexa ranking system is flawed and in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t mean much.  But despite its flaws, a high Alexa ranking can open doors that are otherwise closed to bloggers.  Achieving a ranking in the top 100,000 or so can go a long way toward building your credibility.  Top bloggers may actually notice you and welcome you into their secret societies, and advertisers will be more likely to place ads on your site. 

In other words a high Alexa rank may help you increase your revenue substantially. 

How to Increase Your Alexa Ranking

Obviously, the best way to increase your Alexa rank, Google Page Rank, and web traffic in general is to provide high-quality content that is unique and useful to your readers.  If you provide valuable content then people will keep coming back for more. 

But creating quality content takes time.  I’ve only been blogging for a few months so it’s difficult for me to compete with bloggers that already have hundreds or even thousands of posts in the can.  (Don’t worry…I’ll get there, but it will take a little time to catch up )

So while I plug away like the little engine that could, it’s helpful to look for a few shortcuts to help speed my journey.  The tips listed below are simple ways to improve Alexa rankings quickly.  (In just 2 weeks I’ve leapfrogged over 1 million sites and continue to improve daily.)

1.  Install the Alexa toolbar and visit your site daily.  This is pretty obvious really.

2.  Get together with a few friends and form an informal network of bloggers that visits each other’s sites each day.

3.  Encourage others to download and install the Alexa toolbar.  The more people visiting your site with the toolbar installed the higher your rankings will go.

4.  Participate in webmaster forums like WarriorForum, SitePoint, and DigitalPoint.  A high percentage of users there will have the Alexa toolbar installed so if they visit your site you’ll get a boost.

5.  Write articles that teach how to improve Alexa ranking.  People searching for that topic will likely have the toolbar installed so you’ll get another boost when they visit your site.

6.  Take advantage of social media sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.  These sites can send a boatload of traffic to your blog and improve your Alexa ranking. 

7.  Pay for it.  If you create a page targeting webmasters you can drive traffic to it via PPC and get loads of traffic. 

Now I don’t think it’s a very smart idea to pay for Alexa rankings when you can do it yourself for free, but it is an option. 

Well there you have it.  Seven easy tips for quickly increasing Alexa rankings. 

What are your thoughts?  Do you have any tips to share?

Financial Samurai recently launched the Yakezie Challenge…a challenge for bloggers to improve their Alexa ranking while also helping to promote other members of the challenge so they can improve their own ranking.

I can’t believe I missed out on it for this long…but many thank yous to Mrs Accountability and FFB for posting about the challenge because now I’m going to jump in head first!

My goals for this challenge are as follow…

• Achieve an Alexa ranking of under 200,000
• Increase my readership and traffic
• Write some guest posts on other blogs to build my reputation
• And most importantly…network with other bloggers and make some friends.

Now I’ve never really paid much attention to Alexa rankings because I think they are flawed.  But I have to admit that they hold a lot of sway in the blogosphere and having a high ranking site can open a lot of doors that would otherwise be slammed in your face.

As I start this challenge on March 8, 2010 my Alexa ranking is 1,615,590 so I have a loooong way to go to reach the top 200,000.  But I’ll get there one step at a time.

I really think the Yakezie challenge is an fantastic idea.  The key is for everyone involved to help each other as much as possible so we can all pull ourselves to the top together.

So you’ll be seeing lots of fellow Yakezie challenge blogs in my link roundups and posts.  And if you have your own blog why not step up and join the challenge?

Just a quick post to say thanks to Pete Anderson from Logos for Websites for designing a snazzy new logo for SMT.   He did a great job and I’m really happy with it.  It’s almost like he reached into my brain and knew exactly what I was looking for!

If you need a logo or any other kind of graphic work done I highly recommend Pete’s service.

PS – I’d also like to thank FFB from FreeFromBroke.com for recommending Pete.

So what do you think of the new logo? 

This blog is only a few months old and yet I’ve already changed themes 3 times. I just couldn’t find one that gave me all of the options I wanted in terms of style, customization, and functionality.

I ‘ve taught myself some basic html coding so I can play around with things a bit but whenever you start delving into source code you run the risk of screwing things up royally.  And frankly I’m not good good enough at coding to make a basic theme do everything I want.

So I decided to splurge and download the Thesis theme. I see Thesis all over the place and everyone raves about how easy it is to work with.   Plus it’s highly customizable so two blogs using Thesis could actually look nothing alike.

I’ve been playing around with it a bit and I must say that I’m pretty impressed so far.   So far I haven’t done much customization at all.  What you see is pretty much Thesis right out of the box…but you can expect to see some changes here and there while I play around a bit.

But the best news for both me and you is that I won’t have to waste so much time searching for themes and trying to tweak them to suit my needs.  I can actually spend time writing and creating helpful content for you!

Now all I need to do is get a nice logo to make the site really stand out and I’ll be all set.