Slow Website Kills Rankings

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Master Agent

Calling-Plans.com got killed in the search engines last week, so I’ve been trying to figure out why. While I’m still getting some traffic from Google, and my traffic from Yahoo and Bing are pretty much unchanged, overall my traffic is down about half.

To see what the problem was, I started at Google’s Webmaster Tools to see if there were any obvious problems. While I did have a few duplicate title tags and a couple of dead links from years ago, the biggest problem looked like speed. Google Labs had me with an average page load time of 3.7 seconds, which was 62% slower that other sites on the web.

After playing around with the site, and using PingDom’s page loading speed testing tool, I figured out what the problems were. For the main site, the problem was that I’d loaded a ton of graphics into the .CSS file, so when it got called, it called all the graphics too. I fixed that by redoing the site so that everything except the header and the search tool button was built with stylesheets, which got my site down to 1.51 seconds of load time. That’s faster than 80% of the websites out there, so hopefully next week we’ll be back in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

The second problem was with the blogs on the site. The blogs all had the Shareaholic WordPress plugin, and that thing was making like 180 calls to the server when it loaded the main page. I played with it a bunch to see if I could make it load faster, but finally just ended up deleting it. I figure if someone want to Facebook it, or Tweet it, their going to have to do it manually.

Now that the main site is loading in under 2 seconds, and the blogs are loading in under 3 seconds, maybe we can get some traffic back. I know this doesn’t really have anything to do with selling , but if you’re sites slow, you’re going to get less traffic, less backlinks and people aren’t going to wait around for it to load. So technically the speed of your website has everything to do with your telecom sales.

In you’ve got any comments, or suggestions, for speeding up my site, please leave them below. (If they’re good, unique, or little known, suggestions, I’ll even leave your backlink in. LOL)

Posted in Telecom Marketing | Leave a comment

VoIPo Affiliate Program

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Master Agent

VoIPo is a VoIP program offered by WhichVoIP.com. They offer a free VoIPo VoIP adapter and unlimited local and long distance for $15 per month, or $149 for 2 years. It’s an in-house managed affiliate program that uses iDevDerect affiliate software to track sales and click-throughs.

I’ve been running it in on the site for the last few days, and it looks like it’s going to fit in nicely with my other VoIP offerings. It’s not as easy to sell as Magicjack, of course, since that’s only $19.95 per year, but it’s selling pretty good. It also has the added advantage of plugging into a modem, instead of a computer, so people don’t have to leave their computers running 24/7 to use it like they do with MagicJack. It also doesn’t pay quite as well as Phonepower, but selling a $15 per month service is easier than selling a $19.95 per month service, so it should even out.

Here’s a link so you can sign up to sell VoIPo if you’d like.

Visit www.calling-plans.com for more news and information about local, long distance, cell phone and VoIP calling plans.

Posted in Affiliate Programs | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Ooma Affiliate Program

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Master Agent

I was looking for an Ooma affiliate program today, but couldn’t find one. According to the forums and blogs I hit up, they’re really good at using social media and their current customers to bring in new customers, so Ooma doesn’t need an affiliate program… Dang it!

Ooma’s website says they are charging $249.99 for their VoIP adapter, but you can get the Telo VoIP adapter much cheaper on eBay. Since you still have to pay your taxes and fees, which come to $3.47 per month, if you bought one off eBay, you’d need to contact Ooma and set up an account. Also, if you want to port your current phone number over to Ooma, it’ll cost you $39.99.

If you want to know a whole bunch more about Ooma’s history, visit our Ooma information page, or the Ooma Wikipedia page. And, if you find out anything about an Ooma affiliate program, make sure you post a comment here so that other can sign up too.

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Agent Training in Seattle by RingCentral

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Master Agent

If you live in the Northwest, and your a telecom agent, then you need to head over to Seattle on Tuesday, August the 30th. RingCentral is holding a half day reseller recruitment and training session, starting at 9:30AM. They’re going to give an overview of their agent reseller program from 9:30 to 10:00, and then, if you’re interested, you can stay for the half day of reseller training.

The training session starts and 10:00, and runs till 1:30, and is open to RingCentral Direct Sales Agents and RS&I Retailers. If you’ve decided to become a reseller, or are already a reseller, here’s some of what the training session will cover:

  • Getting started as a Reseller
  • RingCentral Office Product Training
  • How to Sell RingCentral
  • RingCentral system overview
  • A sneak peek into their next generation 5.x platform.

If you’re an actual telecom agent, and already have a base of customers, RingCentral’s cloud based phone services can be used as an add-on, up-sell, or upgrade to some of your current product and services. Hooking up with RingCentral will let you tap into new markets with the leading cloud-based business phone system, which will let you offer your customers:

  • A low-cost and hassle-free alternative to traditional on-premise PBXs
  • Reliable phone and Internet fax service
  • Advanced PBX functionality for multiple locations, and virtual employees
  • Instantly provisioned service & phones—set up customers online in minutes
  • No setup fees or installation, low monthly service costs

RingCentral can help you increase your monthly business revenues.

  • Make upfront commission, PLUS long-term residuals
  • Plus, generate additional revenue on: Setup and installation, ongoing system management, hardware sales

Visit the RingCentral Training Page for more information, and to sign up for this training session.

Visit www.calling-plans.com for more information about local phone service, cable phone service packages, virtual phone service and voice over IP.

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Calling All Agents

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Master Agent

Megapath is having a sales video competition, with $30,000 in prizes, to highlight the fact that they speak “TECH” better than anyone else. Their “Lights, Camera, Technology” video competition is already looking like a ton of fun, with agents and marketers sending in some pretty funny, high quality, technobabble videos.

There are multiple ways that agents can enter the contest and win prizes:

  1. Submit your favorite tech words to their “Jargon” contest.
  2. Create an original video for their “Video” contest.
  3. And the last way, is what I’m doing here, I’m voting for my favorite tech video in the competition so far. If I can get 3 people to go view the video, then I get entered to win $500.

If you get the Channel Partner’s Magazine, you can read more about the contest on page 2.

Visit www.calling-plans.com for more information about VoIP phone service, bundled cable and phone services, local telephone service or no credit check cell phones.

Posted in Marketing Competitions, MegaPath | Comments Off

RapidScale IaaS, DRaaS, DaaS Agent Program

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Master Agent

RapidScale is a company that offers (), Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) and Desktops as a Service (). These services are all cloud based, and are managed off site by RapidScale’s team of experts. The value of moving a business’s services off site are fourfold:

  1. IT costs go way down, since there is no longer a need for on-site IT staff, other than someone to keep the internet network running.
  2. Software updates, patches and other fixes, along with software licenses, are kept up to date and secure. Instead of having a team of IT personnel on-site running around and disrupting the work cycle while updating machines and dealing with paperwork, everything is done behind the scenes at the data center.
  3. Adding and subtracting employees is a breeze. Just log into the interface, build them an account and they’re on their way to being productive.
  4. Hurricanes, floods, fires etc… all keep you from getting to your machines, and your business information, if they’re not in the cloud. Cloud based employees can work from anywhere in the world, even Starbucks, while they’re waiting for the disaster to end.

If you’re interested in seeing if selling the cloud to your business customers makes sense, give RapidScale a call at 877-8872743.

For more information on web hosting, VoIP, business conferencing and more, visit www.calling-plans.com today!

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CareConnect Telecom Agent Affiliate Program

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Master Agent

I picked up a flier at the Channel Partners Conference in Vegas for a company called CareConnect. After reading their flier and looking over their website, I they’ve got to tell you, as an agent, this looks like the proverbial pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. What these guys have to offer an agent reminds me of the “Good Old Days” in telecom, when an agent could make a living.

CareConnect is in a growing niche of the communications market, and it’s a niche that’s got crazy potential. What CareConnect offers is a suite of services to companies who own nursing homes, senior housing and assisted living type businesses. From what I gathered from their website, this is really a win/win/win system for the telecom agent, the owner of the business that is using their services, and the people living in the facilities served by CareConnect.

Here’s a list of the wins:

  1. Agent: This is a long term, residual commission based, product that goes into facilities with 100′s of customers per facility. If you sell one corporation that owns 20 facilities, with 100 beds each, you could pick up sales for high speed internet service, telephone service and television service for 2000 people in one deal!
  2. Residents: They get to keep their old phone numbers, they get a product that comes with unlimited local and long distance calling at reduced rates, including reduced rates on international calls, and they can pick and choose from a whole list of other communication services.
  3. Company: Companies who opt for services from CareConnect can save hundreds of thousands of dollars on infrastructure costs. CareConnect offers deals that include free e-call systems that cover whole senior housing communities worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and also offer free business phone systems for the companies running those facilities.

I don’t have a complete rundown of everything that CareConnect offers, but from what I’ve seen so far, it’s a really good deal for everyone involved. If  any of you agents already sell for them, feel free to drop me a note.

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Software As A Service Webinar For Telecom Agents

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Master Agent

If you’ve been wondering about Cloud Based Computing, and how you, as an agent, can make money on it, here’s your chance to learn all about it. Janine Soika, from Verio, is giving a Free SaaS Webinar on Thursday, Apr 28, 2011 at 2:00 PM EST. The webinar is part of a free continuing education program for telecom agents, run by Channel Partners.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn at the Webinar:

  • Review cloud hosting and SaaS solutions.
  • Understand the market opportunity for cloud services.
  • Identify top prospects.
  • Learn How to add cloud services to your portfolio with no upfront investment.
  • Discover ways to add value for your customers and maximize profit.

When I went to the Channel Partner’s Conference in Vegas in March, lots of vendors were pushing SaaS solutions that could really save your customers time and money, as well as making you more money with less time spent in the sales and installation process. There are now vendors out there that can Host all of a company’s desktops, software and applications in the cloud, letting a company add and subtract employees at the push of a button. These types of services keep all software’s user licenses and software upgrades current; and up and running, while at the same time removing the need for large IT departments. Also, employees can access their desktops from anywhere in the world that their employer grants access.

Here is the link to sign up for the SaaS Webinar.

For more news and updates, please visit http://www.calling-plans.com

Posted in Cloud, Software As A Service, Webinars | Tagged | Comments Off

EarthLink Agent Program

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Master Agent

Here’s some information about the EarthLink’s Agent Program that EarthLink put out at the Channel Partner’s Show in Vegas last month.  They are currently looking for agents who have customers that would like to tap into their huge broadband and private MPLS network. There product offerings include:

  • Private MPLS Network
  • Secure Public Networks
    • IPsec
    • Remote Access Solutions
  • Vallue-Added Services
    • Managed Network Services
    • Professional Installation
  • Broadband Internet Access
    • DSL
    • T1
    • DS3+
    • Ethernet
    • EVDO

For more information, call EathLink at 877-689-5755 and ask about their Business Channel Programs, or visit them on the web at http://newedgenetworks.com/partners.

Visit http://www.calling-plans.com/agents for more information about telecom sales agent, master agent and affiliate programs.

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ComVoice is Looking For Telecom Agents & Master Agents

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Master Agent

ComVoice was at the Channel Partner’s Show in Vegas last month, and they are looking for agents to sell their High Definition Telephone service. ComVoice uses Cisco phones, with their own software loaded, and those phones can do anything and everything I’ve ever seen in telecom. Since the system is basically a hosted PBX system, you can do everything a traditional phone system can do, plus it comes with virtual phone service features like auto attendant, find-me-follow-me and the ability to work anywhere in the world with a high speed internet service.

Each handset comes with the ability to make and recieve calls on 4 lines at once, so if you had 10 of these phones, you would have the ability to make 40 phone calls at once. Since the phones recognize calls to individual numbers, this feature would work great for internet businesses that have multiple companies/brands sitting in once location. So, if your customer has an online company with one name, but sells products wholesale under another, while dropshipping under a third name, he/she could run their whole business empire from one phone. Nothing like having the ability to talk to your supplier, customer and the shipping company from one phone, while only paying for one line.

If you’re an agent, or master agent, who works with actual customers, then you should contact ComVoice and add their products to your portfolio. From what I can gather from their site, they aren’t currently offering online sales tracking, so only “Real” need apply. LOL

PS. I watched their sales video demo, and the whole system looks like any easy sale to any small and medium business, but the music on their sales video sucked. By the time the video was over, and started again automatically, I wanted to rip my ears off my head and  beat the person who made the video to death with them. (Hmm, that seamed a little aggressive, I might need to up my meds…)

Posted in Business Services, Channel Partners, VoIP Companies | Tagged | Comments Off