More about Portal Feeder

Yesterday, I posted a rags to nearing-riches story of Jamie Mintum who credited a lot of her success to Portal Feeder.

I also mentioned that I was going to get on the phone with Jason Katzenback who gave me a tour of the whole back end of this pretty impressive system. I've also spent much of today, playing around and getting myself set up with Portal Feeder as well.

Usually when I write about a product, it's easy to write some bullet points, give some of the positives and potential drawbacks and then be done with it. But it's pretty much impossible to keep things "simple" when talking about Portal Feeder. So bare with me...this blog entry is probably going to be on the long side. I'll share what's included in a Portal Feeder membership and what thing you may want to consider before taking the plunge.

Let's Start by Clearing up a Few Misconceptions:

• Portal Feeder is not some kind of unsavory website generation software. With the Portal Feeder software, you create real websites with real content.
• Portal Feeder is not just site building software. It is a complete learning tool, software and more.

Let Me Try to Summarize:

Portal Feeder is a complete software system, with valuable extras, that allows you to easily create content-rich monetized sites. The whole system sets you up to rank your websites on search engines by keeping content fresh, using sound optimization techniques and through the use of the various promotion tools.

In addition to the software element, you get complete step-by-step instruction. If you're a total beginner and don't know HTML from a domain, the training documentation explains everything fully. But don't worry, if you're an intermediate or advanced Internet marketer, you can choose your own learning path without being bogged down in the unnecessary details.

In addition to a complete set of self-guided training materials, the folks at Portal Feeder have a very active discussion area and have a growing collection of recorded training calls. I'll give more details on those in just a bit, so keep reading.

What's Included in Portal Feeder:

• Build Unlimited Websites: You can build and publish as many sites with the software as you want without any extra charges.
• Scheduling Your Content, So It's Always Fresh: Fresh content is great for your visitors and the search engines love to see a site that is continuously updated. The software doesn't allow you to specify publishing dates, like WordPress does, but you can specify intervals at which to publish specific content.
• Import PLR, Reprints and Original Content Easily: You can edit content within the software and place it into "article packs" for specified future publishing. The folks at Portal Feeder have a HUGE database of reprint articles and provide 125 PLR articles to members each month.
  
• Easy Addition of Datafeeds: If you're a tech-moron like me, you may have looked at putting product datafeeds into your website, but quit when it seemed so complicated. The PF Datafeed makes it easy to import datafeeds from different affiliate programs, so you can easily increase your commissions.
• Innovative Blog Functioning: Set up a blog that automatically posts new snippets of your content as it is automatically published on your website according to your specifications.
• Member's Only Interactive Forum: This is a busy forum that is adequately staffed with experienced Portal Feeder users to help answer your questions and help you keep you going.
• Audio Training: I mentioned this earlier and members will find a growing collection of podcast downloads with various strategies, success stories, etc. The library already includes interviews with Perry Marshall, Yanik Silver, Keith Baxter, Joel Comm, Dr. Woo Ming & more.
• HTML Templates: Choose from the W3C compliant templates to make your site building much easier.

Other Software & Tools Included:

• Domain Check Tool: Check your backlinks, pages indexed, PR, Alex ranking (data from DMOZ, Google, Yahoo, MSN & Alexa).
• Directory Submission Tool: Streamline the process of submitting your sites to various directories.
  
• PF Web Page Analyzer: This tool gives you plenty of data to help you analyze your page for search engine rankings. Personally, I think it has too much detail than is usually necessary for ranking well for lower competition keyword phrases...but the accompanying user guides show you exactly how to use the data.
• Easy-to-Install Poll & Comment Scripts: Add some interactivity to your websites with these cool features.
• PF Comment Feeder: This handy piece of software helps you find blogs related to various keywords so you can post your own comments. You can read through the blogs right in the software and post your comments. It saves your results, so you can easily go back and check your comments are approved. The training guide is an educated piece about making good comments and not using it for a lame excuse to spam. It also gives some solid pointers on how to make valuable comments, instead of lame excuse to get your link into a blog.
  

What I Like:

• Portal Feeder is very community-oriented. I've already mentioned the fully-staffed and active message board, but there are also other components that help members work together. It includes a service called Portal Blog Feeder, where users can submit articles to the Portal Feeder blog network. There is organized opportunities to exchange links, share articles and even share keyword lists if you so wish. I think that's very cool!
• It Makes a Lot of Things Really Easy: I love the ability to incorporate datafeeds, schedule content and automatically add to your blogs.
  

What Could Be a Drawback:

• There is a lot going on. If you want to just build a site and run with it, this probably isn't the best tool to do that. Even though there is a learning curve and training stuff to go through, I do like that you can choose your own path through the materials, so if you're beginner, you can take it slow. If you're advanced, you can go a little faster.
• There is a monthly fee. Everything you make with Portal Feeder is yours to take with you if you decide to leave and continue to build your site elsewhere, but to continue with everything and to receive ongoing training, you do have to pay a monthly fee. Still, just looking at what is provided and the support you receive, it can definitely be worth it.

Final Thoughts:

This really is an impressive program and if you decide to venture in when they open the doors again tomorrow, (EDITED: Doors are now officially open) be prepared to take some time to learn and absorb before you jump right in. But don't worry, the learning will not be wasted...it's all about learning solid online marketing techniques, building traffic and really getting your online business going. And the software that is provided to help you build that online business includes what you need to create highly-monetized websites designed to bring in plenty of search engine traffic.

Portal Feeder first opened in 2006 and has been closed for membership for some time. They will be reopening their doors again on Thursday, April 26, 2007 to allow a smaller group in. (EDITED: It's open now, go check it out)

NOTE TO ALL PRIVATE LABEL CONTENT MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP MEMBERS: There's going to be a really cool perk available to you if you decide to try Portal Feeder, so stay-tuned to your email inbox for details tomorrow.