Digitalquill

I have today released a new version of my Datafeed plugin  (also known as Multifeed plugin) for WordPress. This version includes link masking or link cloaking that makes affiliate links more search engine friendly and click tracking to allow you to monitor the click son your links, which are performing well and which are not.

If you are interested in more information about the plugin please go to the Datafeed Import Plugins website.

I have learnt one lesson from this release, that is never do a release when it is late in the day and you are tired. I accidentally uploaded the wrong file to the server and invited thousands of users to come and download it! Soon realised and rectified the mistake but still lesson learned!

You may also be interested to know that I am about to launch a new version of the Amazon Import Plugin for WordPress, this has been a major re-write of the plugin which is now packed with features and functionality.

I am also putting out another call for beta testers for my WordPress Advertiser plugin, if you feel that you can help please do contact me either by email or post a comment on this blog.

I have made great progress with my new software for selling digital goods online. I have now finished the development process and am starting testing it before I launch it. I am therefore looking for volunteers to try the software and give me feedback. If you are willing to do this for me you will get a free copy of the software and both my wordpress plugins.

I have also created a basic site for the new software and bought two domain names selldownloads.co.uk which will be the main one and selldigitaldownloads.co.uk which points to the main site. I am in the process of creating a site on there to demo the software and show what it does. Time is very limited at present due to some DIY work at home, but I hope to be able to sit down for a few hours this weekend to get some testing done and some content written for the website.

Over the last few weeks I have been working on some exciting new software to add to my portfolio, it is slightly different to the other two products I have as it is not a WordPress plugin but it is a stand alone piece of software.

During the time that i have been selling the datafeed import and amazon import plugins for WordPress I have been using some software that I bought to manage the sale of those digital download products. Although good, this did not do exactly what I wanted.

The main problem with the software I use is that it only managed digital downloads automatically via Paypal, I wanted software that would use both Paypal and Google checkout. In addition the interface for this software was not ideal, and managing updates to products was a little tricky.

I have therefore designed a product that does everything I require. It is currently in development and following that I will be testing it myself for my own products, however, I hope to get it launched as a product soon after that.

What will the new product do?

In simple terms it will manage the process of selling digital downloads via paypal or google checkout. It will allow you to create a product, upload the digital download and automatically create buy now buttons for paypal and google checkout.

When someone buys your product it will automatically check that the sale has been completed before emailing the buyer login details to download the digital download that they have purchased.

It will ensure that the correct downloads are given tot he correct people and that they have paid the correct amount for that product.

It will also give you statistics on the sales of your products so that you can monitor their performance.

When you update a product, rather than having to FTP that file to your server like the software that I use, all you need to do is upload a new file via the interface.

Also if you change a product price or description, rather than having the manually change the code for the buy now buttons like you do with the software I use, which becomes a real pain when you have buy now buttons on many different pages on your site, all you need to do is change the details in the interface and the software will update the buttons automatically its self.

There is still allot of work that I need to do on the software, and indeed there is allot of testing that I need to do. I will also be looking for some other people to test it, so if you are involved with selling digital downloads please do contact me telling me what you do and what software you currently use, in return for your testing I will give you a free copy of my software including free updates to new features when I create them.

I hope that I will be launching the new software within the next month, but I will keep you updated on its progress.

As a little side, if you have any ideas for a name for the product please do post a comment, if I choose your name for my product I will give you a free copy of either this software or one of my plugins.

I also intend to change my Digitalquill site to reflect more the work I am doing now which is more Internet software rather than websites and multimedia. Not that I will not do that work but the website has not been updated for over 5 years and as such it really does need an overhaul and quite possibly a website redesign.

Over the last 9 months I have been developing two plug-ins for WordPress plug ins. These plugins have been universally praised and far more successful than I had ever imagined they could have been. This has been one of the reasons why I took a break from blogging to dedicate the extra time required to developing these plugins.

As you will be aware I do affiliate marketing in my ‘spare’ time, one of the main issues with affiliate marketing and really the holy grail of affiliate marketing is the ability to rapidly create sites for your to be able to market other peoples products.

Until recently, I have been hand coding sites, and making custom designs for each, this took a great deal of time, time which I did not have, and time which I tended to get bogged down with making my affiliate projects stall before they were really launched.

I decided that there must be a solution so I employed my programming skills into developing a solution for wordpress whcih I could then use as a framework for all my affiliate sites.

The first plugin that I created was the Datafeed import plugin. Initially it was very basic, the ability to have oneaffiliate  datafeed and one template, the plugin then created a post in wordpress for each row in the affiliate datafeed.  Perfect, it allowed me to rapidly create sites in a matter of minutes rather than days.

I could also use other WordPress plugins such as the All in one SEO plugin and use the WordPress themes to make the sites suitable for the products which they contained. They were also fully search-able, menus and categories automatically created, functionality given by WordPress.

I then gave the plugin to another affiliate marketer friend who also found that it was a very useful tool so I decided to put the plugin out on to the open market or people to buy.

Since then I have made the plugin far more advanced, it can handle many datafeeds, each with their own templates, custom fields, advanced filters and automatic updates.

I have created a website for the datafeed import plugin where you can find more details

I then wanted to be able to easily import Amazon products as they are always very high converting affiliate products, so I have created a similar plugin that allows you to import and create posts from Amazon products based on a search term. This works very well and again as with the datafeed plugin I am working on more and more advanced versions of the plugin, the next of which is due to be released in the coming weeks.

Again I have created a website for the Amazon Import Plugin so if you are interested have a look.

I am currently looking at developing a wordpress plug-in, really for nothing more than my own interest. I have an idea for a plugin that monitors keyword density, which would therefore be a useful tool in SEO. The formula for working this out is relatively simple, however having never attempted creating a plug-in I really have no idea where to start… google and some tutorials I guess!

I have been working with Google Maps API to develop various things, so when a friends band asked for some help with an idea that involved allowinging visitors to their site to place markers on a map, I came up with this code:

<script type=”text/javascript”>
//<![CDATA[

<form method="POST" action="script.php">
<table>
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" ID="latbox" NAME="lat" value="" >
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" ID="lonbox" NAME="lon" value="" >
<input name="Submit" type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>

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