So, Apple have released their new gadget - the iPad tablet.

Some are claiming that the birth of the Ipad could mean the death of netbooks. Is this just press over reaction, or could the giant Iphone really take the world by storm & take a huge bite out of the netbook market?

By the way, apparently you can get a free apple ipad here

If you don’t see the offer, and see something strange like “win uggboots” it’s because it doesn’t seem to display the offer to UK ip addresses, but - I tried going to it via a proxy server (try kroxy) and it worked fine, and when I entered my UK postal address, it offered me the free ipad in return from filling some stuff in.

I’d certainly accept a free one, looks like a bit of fun! But, is it worth shelling out the cash for?

This isn’t a review, as such - I’ve not used the Apple iPad, in fact most news stations etc., here in the UK are giving a reaction, rather than a review, as it’s not yet available here in the UK, and review units are like rocking horse droppings! So this is just my opinion, I can’t review something I’ve not seen - so feel free to take this with a pinch of salt, I’m probably talking rubbish…

Anyone in the US where the Ipad has now been released, who has got their hands on an Ipad, please reply to this post,  let us know - is it worth the price?

Personally, i’m not all that impressed. I’ve heard reports here that this could take the world by storm, some are predicting it will take a big bite out of the netbook market - I just can’t see it.

To me it looks like a very nice looking reader, great for reading webpages, ebooks, etc -and I’m sure there will be some mega apps released for it, which will increase the appeal of this expensive toy - but it doesn’t have the features of netbooks - I can’t imagine anyone feeling that they need an iPad in the same way that they need a netbook, yeah plenty of people might want one, but how many of us can afford to blow this kind of cash on stuff we wouldn’t mind having?

It’s basically a really big ipod touch, as far as I can make out - and I’m sure having a really big iPod touch, with the iBook ap, and with the other apps that will be made available, will appeal to anyone who likes gadgets, but how many people will talk themselves into spending the money on it remains to be seen.

The great thing about netbooks, as well as being so portable & handy, is you can use them for so many different things at the same time, multi tasking, check your emails, listen to music, browse the web - if the iPad offered the same versatility, then yes, possibly it would take a large bite out of the netbook market, although having said that even then it would be on the pricey side for a netbook.

But, it doesn’t appear that the iPad actually does a huge amount, and despite all the hype, I’ve read through all the features & I’m not actually that wowed, I initially though that this new gadget from Apple would be sure to be a huge evolution in portable entertainment /  communication, but it just looks like an interesting was to blow a few hundred quid - and frankly, I can think of far more interesting ways to do that….

By the way, just to give it another prod, while I’m having a go  it doesn’t support flash - that’s got to be a bit of a cockup hasn’t it?

Looks nice though.

SEO Elite by Brad Callen - is it the best thing since sliced bread - the best SEO software ever invented, a revolution in SEO technology - or is it just a hyped up load of crap?

I’ve spoken here before about pro SEO software -I’ve never bothered to do proper reviews because, well, I couldn’t be bothered, and I didn’t see the need, there are loads of them. BUT, with SEO Elite, I’ve decided I will now write a review here, because there are so many (what at least appear to be) fake reviews about this software, which are written by people who’ve more than likely never even used it.

Then - as a result of these (which are to do with over excited affiliates, not Brad Callen himself) there are people writing negative reviews, stating that the fact that there are so many obvious fake reviews of this software, that the software should be discounted, and I disagree with that also. So, I decided I’d put a bit of time in & write a REAL review of SEO Elite myself.

I’m not going to spend hours writing an Essay on this - but look, if you’re contemplating buying SEO Elite, all you need to know is, is it going to be a useful & effective SEO tool for you - or not. Hopefully this review will answer that question.

Beware a lot of the reviews online for SEO elite, raving about it being the best thing since sliced bread - because you may be shocked to discover that at least some of these reviews are written by people who’ve never even used the software!!  (You won’t be shocked to hear that if you’re involved in affiliate marketing). You at least need to ensure that you’re listening to people who’ve purchased the software & used it.

Just before I continue, I want to make it clear that yes,  I am including my affiliate link in this review, and no - I’m not using any clever tools (which I could) to hide that fact, and if you do not think that I deserve the affiliate commission, then just take my aff code off & go to the site directly.  You will be able to see clearly that I am not over promoting this tool in order to make the affiliate commission, it’s a very honest review.

Personally - I’m not too bothered about the commission, I mean - if someone buys the software after reading my real, honest review of the software - and I make some cash in commission, then great - but I’m really not that bothered whether or not I make money from it, and I certainly wouldn’t lie in order to make some extra cash, ot write a fake review, it’s not worth it to me.

Anyway - getting on to the review. I’ll start by going through the sales copy, and telling you what I think is true or not, from my use of the software:

Copied from the SEO Elite Website :

“Introducing: The secret tool that tens of thousands of the top ranked Google sites have been quietly using for years…”

Is this true? Actually, probably yes. I do know a lot of decent web marketers &  SEO’s who use SEO Elite, so there is a good chance that SEO Elite is partly responsible for many thousands of websites achieving good Google rankings.

Is this to say that this is JUST due to the software? No. But to be fair, he’s not stating here that it’s SEO Elite that is solely responsible for the rankings, so that’s fine.

“Introducing the ONLY search engine optimization software product that has been 100% PROVEN to dramatically increase your rankings in Google,
Yahoo, and MSN.”

Hmm, I think this is a bit OTT to be perfectly honest.  It appears to make the claim that the use of the software alone, is 100% proven to dramatically increase search engine optimization / search engine placement, and that’s clearly not correct. It all depends on the person using the software - the software DOES have the ability to help, for sure, but it doesn’t actually do anything that you can’t do manually or using other software - yes, a lot of things it does far faster & easier than manually, and it has a lot more combined features than some other software packages, but overall I think this statement is a bit misleading (Sorry Brad!)

It is also 100% proven to do absolutely nothing for you if know absolutely bugger all about SEO, or if you just don’t use it properly, or at all.

It’s sales copy though, to be fair, it needs to be hard hitting ;-), and he’s not telling any lies here - but I feel that it appears to be making claims that it isn’t. In other words, he’s not actually saying here that buying this software will dramatically increase results, but it does give the impression that it is making this claim.

“Above is a real-life screenshot of 1 of my many websites.
The site above gets, on average, 12,783 visitors PER DAY!”

Yes, can’t argue with that, however - what you’ve got to remember - is that this is someone who really knows what they’re doing with SEO, with or without the software, so it’s not exactly a controlled experiment.

“While marketing to that industry, my website achieved
#1 and #2 Google rankings for every single major
keyword related to the weight loss niche!”

Brad continues here to talk about his massive success with his first main website, and with the SEO Elite website itself, BUT, he fails to come out & say clearly whether or not he had already created & was using, SEO Elite…

To show that he’s great at SEO is one thing, to demonstrate that he knows what he’s talking about, that’s fine - but I don’t think he makes it clear enough as to whether or not SEO Elite had anything to do with this success.

Lets face it, Tiger Woods could invent software tomorrow to help improve your swing - would that turn you into a pro golfer with the kinds of results Tiger gets? NO!  Buying this software, is NOT going to turn you into Brad Callen, it isn’t going to turn you overnight into someone who can achieve #1 & #2 Google positions for competitive terms, just through purchasing the software, in the same way that buying a fast car doesn’t turn you into an F1 racing driver…..

“Google pays much less attention to what is actually on your web page itself than what most people think. Yes, you heard me right. You don’t actually even need to mention your keyword anywhere on your website to rank highly for the keyword!”

Well……. yep I think we can all agree that offpage is more important on the whole than onpage, but I find this statement a bit misleading. YES, you can get into the serps with strong offpage with no onpage - you can also get into the serps with no offpage & strong onpage - but this only works with terms that few pages are optimized for.

If you have a site with great offpage but no onpage at all for a given term, you’re going to struggle to compete with a site with great onpage but poor offpage.

“You must know EXACTLY why the top 10 ranked sites in Google are currently ranked where they are. You can’t guess by simply looking at their web page itself.”

I agree with this, competitor analysis is important.

Once you know, and can pinpoint on each of those 3 points mentioned above, I’ll go as far as saying that you can rank in the top 1-5 for ANY keyword you choose.

hmm, again, slightly misleading.

His three points are :

1. Google ranks based on authority

2. Offpage is more important than onpage.

3.You need to do proper competitor analysis to work out exactly what the top ten sites in Google are doing to get there.

I don’t even think this statement makes much sense to be honest, I’m not sure what he means by pinpointing all three of these points, but if he’s saying that you can rank in the top 1-5 (not just page one, but top 5) for ANY keyword, just by understanding these points - then, no - I don’t agree, at all.

I understand how to outrun a top Olympic runner - all I need to do is train to become faster - does this understanding mean that I can do it??……

“what is on the web page itself has VERY little to do with the reason they’re ranked where they are. It has as little as 2% to do with their ranking…”

This is over simplifying things I think - it all depends on the competitiveness of the terms, and who you’re up against, you can rank highly for the keyword “shnateracki winkidinklerpettles” without any offpage at all just by having the term on the page - I know this is an over simplification too, but…

Overall, yeah offpage is more important than onpage, but I disagree with the unimportance he’s assigning to onpage, content. Content is very important too -  if you focus only on building authority, yet all of your content is duplicate content - how well do you think you’re going to do……

I could go on for quite some time arguing about the 100% accuracy of some of these statements, but look - it’s sales copy, I think most of us are wise enough now to understand that you can take sales copy with a pinch of salt, it’s not going to do very well by saying “OK, SEO Elite is pretty good - it may help you with your SEO if you put in the effort” 

And at least this sales copy isn’t coming out with complete lies, I can disagree with some of the statements & say that they’re possibly a bit misleading - but they’re not lies.

SEO Elite has been around for a number of years now, I first bought it  two or three years ago, and it’s still going strong, this doesn’t happen with strong marketing alone, and it surely wouldn’t happen if it was all done with lies & made up testimonials (which I have seen some people alluding to in other reviews).

FACT: Most SEOs charge upwards
of $4,500 a month!

What!!?!?!?!?!?!

Haha, if only Brad, dream on!!!!!

I am an SEO, and I can tell you, most SEO consultants do NOT charge $4500 per month per client, this is a complete exaggeration in an attempt to qualify the price of the software (and there’s really no need, it’s worth it as long as you use it).

Yes there are some clients out there paying figures like this, for competitive terms, but it’s mainly the bigger firms with bigger pockets who can afford these kinds of monthly SEO spends, and the only people who really bill an average of anywhere near $4500 per client, are the larger SEO companies.

I would hazard a guess that with most independant SEO consultants & people running small SEO businesses, the average monthly bill is closer to $500 - $1000 per month.

So to claim as a fact that most SEO consultants charge $4,500 per client per month, is one of the biggest exaggerations I’ve heard for quite some time!

So - lets now move on to the software itself.

The main question you’re probably wanting to have answered, is:

Is SEO Elite just a load of hyped up rubbish, which will leave me really disappointed….

Is it a load of hyped up rubbish? No - absolutely not - is it hyped up, Yes - is it hyped up rubbish - No!

Really, you can see this answer for yourself just by looking at how long it has been selling for, if this were the case, it wouldn’t have lasted anywhere near as long as it has. There’s no doubt, SEO Elite is a useful SEO tool, it’s not rubbish.

The sales copy is hyped up though, and a lot of the reviews out there appear to be hyped up also, motivated by affiliates keen to get the affiliate commissions, and for because of this, I can understand why some people who have used the software may say less than positive things about it….. The sales copy sets some really high expectations, some people would be led to believe from the website that just installing the software & switching it on will deliver massive results, and if you thought that, about any SEO tool, then you’re likely to be disappointed.

Will it leave you disappointed? That just depends on what you’re expecting. If you’re expecting SEO Elite to allow you to set the world on fire, making every website you touch turn to gold, with little effort required other than running the software - then yeah, you’re going to be disappointed!

But, if your expectations are more realistic - you shouldn’t be disappointed.

Is SEO Elite going to allow me to do things that I could never do with out it?

Actually No.

SEO Elite has great features, for example for analyzing competitors, and looking for potential authority sites to partner with, and has a really nifty tool for finding & emailing potential link partners. It allows you to audit your backlinks to make sure that people you traded a link with are still linking to you, and it allows you to track your rankings.

It gives you potential link partners, and it tells you which potential partners are linking to sites which are at the top of Google - again, this is great info, very powerful, a great tool - but you COULD find this info without SEO Elite. It would take longer, but you can do it.

This is the same for all of the features - they’re great (some are really, really useful) they save time, and it’s really handy to have them all in one application - but does this mean that SEO Elite will give you tools that will make you a Pro SEO, stuff you couldn’t possibly do without it? No.

Do I recommend SEO Elite?

Yes, absolutely!

SEO elite isn’t the only tool I use, I use some of the SEOMoz tools, I use WebCEO, I use the SEOBook SEO for firefox plug-in, and Quirk Search status, and I do a lot of stuff manually too - but is SEO Elite a useful part of my suite of search engine optimization / placement  software? Yes!

What does SEO Elite do?

I’m not going to go into all of the features of the software, these are all covered on the on the website, but basically it’s a suite of really helpful SEO tools which help with the most important parts of SEO, backlink generation, competitor analysis & ranking (although I tend to prefer to use WebCEO for ranking reports, I just find it a bit easier to use)

With SEO Elite, not only can you find potential sources for backlinks - but you can discover which sources are worthwhile walking over broken glass to get - and which ones are not worth bothering with.

So - if your expectations are more realistic - and you know that SEO software in & of itself is not going to get you ranking top 5 on Google for hundreds of competitive terms  - then you’ll find SEO Elite a really useful addition to your SEO arsenal.

If you’ve decided you will give it a try, go & get it here & I’ll make some commission - sweet. If you don’t want me to earn a commission (doesn’t make a difference to the cost) just type the address in manually, or type SEO Elite into Google.

With the weather as cold as it is in the UK at the moment, you may be contemplating a last minute holiday to a warmer climate - or booking a holiday for later on in 2010,  to give you something to look forward to, though all this freezing weather!

So, I went to the TravelJunky website, a low cost travel website which is reputed to be able to offer cheap high quality holidays,  usually cheaper than any other website.   (By the way, I’ll just state now that I’ve had absolutely nothing to do with the design of the Travel Junky website, so I’m not reviewing a site that I had a hand in designing.)

Obviously we can’t expect any provider to be cheapest all of the time, but I was told that Travel Junky is set up to be able to offer the best available prices for holidays to a wide number of locations.

So - I decided to give it a go.

I’m fed up of the freezing cold, so we’re going for an Easter break to  Cyprus.  I searched for flights only to Cyprus, on the British airways website, on the easy jet website   a number of other well known & highly rated websites - I then checked on travel junky, and saved a couple of hundred quid! Very impressed!

Not just that, but the site is great to use, really fast, lots of info - I found it a far better experience on the whole.

So, my brother is booking a holiday to Rome, I gave him the details - he texted me earlier to say that he thought he had found the cheapest deal on the the lastminute .com website,  including flights & hotel to the center of Rome, he went to the Travel Junky website - and was amazed to find that travel junky was cheaper - by quite a margin, for the exact same flights & hotel!

Then this eve, my brother-in-law & his partner came for dinner, and mentioned they were going to Turkey, Turkey, in summer. They had already booked a Villa so they just needed flights. They had previously found it difficult to find flights at convenient times, and from the airport they wanted to travel from. They were amazed to find that they were able to save £80 per person on the flights, and that was with much more convenient flight times, and from the airport they wanted to fly to (whereas previously they couldn’t find flights from this airport).

So, very very impressed!

Not just the prices - the prices appear to be of the lowest available, but it’s not only that - it’s the whole package, I love the look & feel of the site - it’s easier to use than any of the other holiday websites I’ve used, it appears to contain a lot more useful information than the other travel sites, they’re ABTA members so nothing to worry about there,  and they’re really friendly & helpful. When my brother was looking for flights & hotels in Spain, he emailed with a question - and they replied literally straight away with a personal answer.

I decided to do a few sample holiday searches from the UK to various resorts & countries, and tell you where you could go with Travel Junky, and how much it would cost you (Based on 2 adults).

Lets try searching for a holiday in Tenerife in easter.  Prices from just over £200 per person, including flights & hotel / apartments!

Egypt - a week in Sharm El Sheikh, easter , from £395 per person.

Cyprus - a week in Paphos in Feb, from £130 per person!

New York, a week at the beginning of Feb, from £440 per person including flights & hotel.

Florida, at the beginning of March , from £365 per person for a week including flights & accommodation - or from £493 per person for 2 weeks.

Dubai, 1 week at the beginning of March from £420 per person for a week, or £490 per person,

Lets do a search for holidays to las vegas

A week in Las Vegas, at the beginning of Feb,  from £488 per person.

Or a week in Las Vegas in summer, Sep 2010, from just short of £500 per person!

Just over £500 per person for a week in Vegas in may - or 2 weeks for just under £600.

Check out the special offer holidays:

A week in Costa Brava in May, £84 per person, a week in Algarve in May from £93 per person, a week in Paphos in towards the end of Feb. from £97 per person, a skiing package at the end of March to the French Alps from £185 per person. Even a week in New York in Mid Jan (next week) last minute special offer at Radisson Lexington Hotel (4 star) from just £559 per person.

Impressive prices or what??

So - if you don’t hear from me for a while, you know where I’ve gone!!

This is a really quick review of The Affiliate Code by Michael Jones – for those who just want a very fast breakdown (if you want a much longer review, just search Google for Affiliate Code Review, you’ll see dozens.

The affiliate code is a step by step affiliate training system made up of 39 training video’s.

Michael Jones is the guy who produced “The Clickbank Code” which made history with record sales.

The main difference between the clickbank code, and the affiliate code, is that as well as some difference in the content (focusing on a wider range of affiliate networks) TAF is aimed more at beginner affiliates, where as CBC was better suited for people who already had some experience & some cash to invest.

(For the website, see : http://www.theaffiliatecode.com)

The 39 video’s are broken down into 8 modules:

1: Picking A Profitable Niche

2: Choosing The Right Product

3: Affiliate Website Setup

4: Using an Autoresponder

5: Copywriting Secrets

6: Get Free Traffic

7: Tracking Results

8: Scaling Up

Should you buy the Affiliate Code?

Well, if you’re a fairly experienced affiliate already – then you may well still pick up some decent nuggets, but overall you probably won’t find a great deal that you weren’t already aware of (although being aware of something doesn’t mean you’ll benefit from it – you have to take action on that knowledge to see any results) .

But if you’re relatively new to affiliate marketing – then the affiliate code is a pretty darn good set of training videos, and as someone who learned about affiliate marketing by trial & error, I really do wish I’d found something like this when I was starting out. It’ll save you making a lot of beginner errors, and it may well get you onto the fast track to being a successful affiliate marketer.

Plus, relatively speaking – at the current price of $77, it’s really not a great deal of money, I have personally paid thousands in the past for training programs – and been disappointed. $77 isn’t a lot to spend, in comparison to the money that can be made in affiliate marketing – you could make this back in one or two affiliate sales!

Plus, if you buy it & you are disappointed for whatever reason, just exercise your right to request a refund.

For more info, visit: http://www.theaffiliatecode.com

Good Luck!

Which premium search engine optimization software do I use?

I’m asked this quite a bit - and the answer, it depends on what I’m doing - sometimes a mixture of free & premium SEO software,  sometimes none at all.

If you were to ask “which premium SEO software do you own”  then, my reply would be “most of them”

I’ve used SEO elite, Web CEO, Web position Gold, and quite a few others - and although they all have nice features that speed up certain parts of search engine optimization, I’ve got to the point now where I can do most of the things I need to do, relatively quickly, manually.

I do use both SEO elite & Web CEO still, but it’s not as if I’m constantly using them, I do prefer to do a lot of things manually, I’ll just turn to these if I need to, but when I was starting out I would use SEO software a lot more.

Even when it comes to checking positions, I prefer to do it manually if possible, because I just prefer it, and I get information when searching manually that I wouldn’t get with using SEO software - But, it’s just not possible when you’re doing ranking reports for dozens, or even hundreds of keywords.

When this is the case I use WebCEO mainly - SEO Elite can do this too, I just prefer WebCEO when it comes to ranking reports.

Which SEO software would I recommend?

I can only go by my own experience & opinion, but personally I would say try SEO elite & Web CEO (I think they both do free trials still) and see which you prefer. If you’re developing a career as a pro SEO consultant, then you should have the tools there for when you need them, If you’re just SEOing your own sites it’s a bit different, but still it’s handy to have some decent tools, even if you don’t use then all of the time.

Make sure you can also do everything manually though, if you’re developing your skills as a professional SEO consultant, it’s good to develop the ability to go it alone without the use of any premium SEO software - you’ll find that sometimes it’s actually more fun & interesting to do it manually. Having said that - if my PC was eaten by a giant squirrel tomorrow - I would go out & buy SEO Elite & WebCEO again.

I’m talking about premium SEO software packages here - I do recommend handy browser plugins such as SEO for firefox Ranquest, and Quirk Searchstatus.

If you want more info on SEO Elite, I’ve written an honest SEO Elite review , I’ve not written a Web CEO review yet, maybe I will do when I get the time, but basically - it’s good. I’ve used other SEO tools such as web position gold, and lots of others I’ve forgotten the names of, I found that WebCEO is the best full SEO suite - and combined with the really powerful link building & analysis features in SEO Elite, I reckon you’ve got just about as much as any Pro SEO need - in combination with the free browser plugins, and of course a decent amount of trial & error, and shouting at the monitor