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Herding Cats with WordPress Plug-ins

By Karl Walinskas in Featured

Yippee! Open Source Software! We love it!

Really? I’m not a tech guy nor do I play one on TV, but all the hype about how WordPress and other similar stuff makes your life easy is overestimated, at best. My latest escapade into herding cats is trying to manage the zillion plug-ins I have running on my site by myself. Kill me now, but outsourcing is for me.

Plug-in Fever

I’ve developed a website that has plug-ins, those little bolt on attachments all created by various authors and revised at different times, coming out of the wood work! I have plug-ins for…

* affiliate ad postings
* similar blog posts
* social media icons
* e-commerce
* SEO
* form generation
* spam avoidance
* popups
* columns

That’s just to list a few. As you in the web development world laugh at me now, you already know what this does to speed of my web page. No worries! I can resolve that as well with…

ANOTHER PLUGIN!

They all work together and are as much on the same page as the Hatfields and the McCoys, fighting for domination on my site server! Hey web developers, look at this…

GIVE US BACK FRONT PAGE!

Give me software that isn’t unlimited in options and the chance for mistakes and the white paint that Daddy told his little boy found its way onto his hairline would have never figuratively shown up in the first place.

Hire What You Aren’t an Expert At

This whole ordeal made me figure out that my cat herding is a foolish activity. I’m good at assisting companies with their sales, getting natural traffic to small business websites, at making cool videos for service firms, and creating LinkedIn profiles that draw attention. I am a mess at web coding, design, and solving technology. And to be honest, even the stuff I am fairly good at, like writing my own copy, can use work and takes me too freaking long to do!

A cloud descends upon me as I figure out the answer:

OUTSOURCE ALL THE STUFF I CAN NOT DO VERY, VERY WELL!

Have you come to this realization yet? Keep doing what you’re doing do it yourself DIY guy, and you will when you figure out the kid whose diapers you changed yesterday can kick your a&$ and steal your lunch money today, and you didn’t even notice that growth trend.

Need help creatively marketing your business image on YouTube? Find somebody who knows the process who can help with the video creation, editing and placement (Hey, I know one). Can’t ever find time to get those social media profiles doing anything but taking up space? Find a gal or guy who is immersed in that stuff and get ‘er done. You understand.

So now, I am actively getting bids on copy writing, new site design using a custom WordPress theme that has all the stuff that I plug-in to it now (like little acupuncture needles I tell ya), logo and ad design, and I’ll think of a bunch more before it’s all said and done.

Now I just need to get back to rewiring my attic without any electrical training. It will save me money. I promise.

SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR YOUR SMALL BUSINESS THAT YOU SHOULDN’T BE DOING? TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PLUGIN PROBLEMS.

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Why did Inc.com seek expert opinion from Karl Walinskas on the greatest use of Skype for Small Business? Because he provides first-class Video Marketing for small business owners using Skype Video Interviews. Karl also assists white collar professionals leverage LinkedIn for business and put business growth on legal steroids via Virtual Mastermind groups. He owns Smart Company Growth and has been published on business growth and communications in magazines and top blogs for the past decade, and is author of Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership.

5 Quick and Easy Ways to Create High Profit Sales Minisites

By Ian Greenwood in Featured

Building your own sales minisites can be a bit of a chore – no doubt! After creating a product you need a website to sell it from, but for some this step has a steep learning curve. The process of creating a sales minisite is one area that sometimes stops potential internet marketers from profiting on the web.

But, this step is essential if you want to make any money online. You also need a sales site to attract affiliates, get involved in joint ventures or to give your internet marketing business any credibility. It’s obvious though why this step causes many internet marketing novices to stop in their tracks. But there are several ways around this sticking point.

Here are 5 top ways you can immediately use to speed up the process of creating a simple sales site for your next internet marketing project.

1. Use Video

A video sales page usually just has a video, a few bullet points, and a buying link. Once you have shot your sales video then creating the page is the easy part. By using video you immediately do away with most of the problems of web graphics, formatting text, crafting a sales letter, and lots of HTML coding.

The big benefit of including video as your sales message, is that you can also demonstrate your product right there on the screen. This is powerful marketing.

2. Use Outsourcing

If you decide to outsource your minisite creation you will of course need a budget to pay your freelancer. The good news is that there are thousands of highly talented and creative web developers out there who can help you out. Freelance sites like elance.com or peopleperhour.com have lists of those who can create your minisite.

On many of these freelance sites you don’t need to pay anything until you are satisfied with the result. Also, those interested in taking your project will indicate how much they are willing to take to complete it, so they try to “out bid” each other. These two factors will tend to keep the costs down and get you a great job for a great price.

3. Use Someone Else’s Site

If you don’t have a product yet you can use someone else’s site and sell their product as an affiliate. Although this doesn’t get your site up and running it does give you a chance to earn money, gain experience, and to build a list of your own buyers. This also helps you gain a bit of breathing space while you get your own products up and running.

The another big advantage of this technique is that you can see the type of websites that are converting visitors to buyers, and making money. This can give you big pointers to what you need to include in your own minisite project.

4. Use Templates

Templates are webpage blanks. They have all the features of the completed page like headlines, subheads, testimonial boxes, bullet lists and buying links, but none of the detailed content. This leaves you free to plug in your own information and transform the template into your own sales page.

The big advantage here is that your sales page will be your own. Even although you started off with a common template, your own information will turn it into a sales minisite that no one else has. You can even include your own graphics, video, etc to transform it into something unique.

5. Use PLR Products

Private label rights products (or PLR for short) often come with their own sales sites. You can of course usually edit both the PLR product, and the sales site, and so produce not only a unique product, but also a unique sales minisite. You don’t have to do this of course. At the very least all you have to do is insert your own buying link into the sales page to make the site your own.

Any of these strategies can short circuit the process of creating your own high profit sales minisite. You need to remember that the process of creating web pages is central to internet marketing, but to get up and running you don’t need to spend hours and hours slaving over a hot keyboard.

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There is a free training video to accompany this article. Ian Greenwood reveals just how powerful these techniques are. You can watch live as he creates a fully functional webpage in under 5 minutes. Click through now to http://www.EasyWebpageBuilding.com to claim your free training video. Please note that you will be taken straight through to the training video. You do not need to opt in to receive it. Go now to www.EasyWebpageBuilding.com.

Flashy Websites Can Be Too Hot for Bots

By Michael Cottam in Featured

Website designers often employ technologies like Flash, JavaScript, Ajax, and Silverlight to make their sites attractive, fast, and easy to use.

While there are great reasons to use these technologies, they can create problems when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). Web page content that’s wrapped in a fancy package can be difficult – or impossible – for a search engine to “see.” That means the search engine crawlers may have a hard time understanding what your page is about, and so may not index all your important pages.

The search engines may also find it difficult to follow any links – internal or external – you’ve placed in web page content rendered in Flash, Silverlight, or other technologies. That matters because search engines use your internal links to discover other pages on your site, to understand how pages on your site relate to each other, and to determine which pages on your website are more important than others.

Designers sometimes incorporate the search function for a website into their designs. That can be helpful for people, but it may pose problems for search engines trying to crawl your site. If pages on your site are accessible only from a search box, the search engine won’t be able to see those pages, because search engines don’t type keywords into search boxes to find relevant web pages.

How to Build Winning Web Portals

By Karl Walinskas in Featured

The successful online portals and marketplaces today are well-known; the failures aren’t but are multiples of the winners. Here’s a snapshot look at what it takes to build winning web portals based on real-life lessons.

Ten years ago I was immersed in a meeting of Information Technology professionals and business leaders from the Pennsylvania Industrial Resource Center Network. They were trying to come up with new ways to serve their base constituents, Pennsylvania manufacturers, and get them into the world of e-Business. Lo and behold, one rather entrepreneurial center director brought up the idea of an online business web portal site, targeted to this market. On it a company could showcase itself to the world, access new quoting opportunities and resources such as suppliers and information. The argument was compelling, and the people seated around the table cautiously threw their hats into the ring of support, one by one. So just what were the best methods of how to build web portals?

Here comes the problem: this idea was not a new one. In 2011, even less so. There are loads of online web portals out in cyberspace that aren’t working and can barely pay the rent. There are, however, targeted communities or successful web portal sites out there that are getting it done. We read about them in the trade press and marvel at their “instant” success. So what makes a Yahoo or a Hoovers
Online a winner where many other attempts turn out to be losers? The team in State College wanted to find that out – fast.

What Software Do You Need to Build a Super Performance Minisite?

By Ian Greenwood in Featured

Creating your own high performance website is not that hard. Leaning the process might seem a little unfamiliar at first, but it’s really not difficult. If you are new to internet marketing one big question you may have is, “Which software do I need to create a mini sales sites?”

One thing that scares people away from creating their own internet minisite is that you need special software to create the web pages. This is called ‘web design software,’ ‘HTML editors’ or ‘web coding software.’ Just the names sound scary, right? But it’s not that bad really. So, where do you start?

The good news is that if you can use word processing software then you can use modern HTML editors. This modern software is neither hard to use, or difficult to learn. And while it’s true that some HTML software packages are expensive, the good news is that there are free or low cost alternatives!

Here are your choices if you want to build your own minisite, and are looking to get it on the net and selling for you.

1. Industry Standard Software.

The industry standard packages are Microsoft Expression Web (which used to be Frontpage) and Adobe Dreamweaver (formally Macromedia Dreamweaver). These two packages form the software base of the professional web development industry. Many professional web development businesses and educational establishments use these packages.

They are incredibly powerful and full featured programs, with price tags to match. They have extensive knowledge bases online as well as free tutorials and support forums.

So, if you are just starting out to construct your own minisites then something a little more modest would probably be the way to go at the beginning. You can always upgrade later when you are at least making some money online!

2. Middle of the road software.

There are a number of mid priced web development packages out there if you need the reassurance of a paid for product, without having to shell out hundreds at a time.

First up is Web Plus form the UK software developers Serif. This company regularly wins industry awards for their software, and they have good support manuals, technical help and user forums to sort out your problems. The package comes with paper manuals, software on disc and numerous templates.

Another mid priced package is CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer. Don’t confuse this with the other free package from the Coffeecup range – the HTML editor. The Visual Site Designer has a wysiwyg interface that generally lets you drag and drop various elements into your web pages. It also comes with 10 preformatted themes you can adapt, and there are others available to buy in the theme store.

3. Free or Low cost packages.

Some of the best low cost or free packages are Kompozer, HTML-Kit, and Amaya.

There are others, but these are some of the best and most popular. By using software like this you can easily learn all the skills you need to get your minisite up and running. Then when you are ready to upgrade your software to something better your money will be well spent.

Most of the free or low cost solutions have communities online that will help out the newcomer but don’t expect extensive free tutorials or huge support databases. The closest you will come to this is with Kompozer. This is because The Kompozer package is open source software with a big and enthusiastic following on line.

Whichever way you decide to come at developing your sales minisite you should never let the software question stop you. Whatever your experience and budget you will find a solution and with a bit of perseverance you can get your web empire up and running quicker and easier than you imagine.

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Would you like Ian Greenwood to shown every step of creating your own high profit minisite? You can get full details, and save over 35% for a very limited time. Go now to www.BuildWebsitesThatSell.com.

Internet Marketing- Before Going Online – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Nick Stamoulis in Featured

It’s a rarity for businesses to not operate a website these days. Even small mom-and-pop shops that began long before the era of the Internet have gone digital, albeit some were a little more hesitant than others. But while launching a website – whether for a multi-national, billion dollar corporation or the local pizza place – may be easy, to have that website actively help grow the business is another matter all together. Simply having a website (one among the ever-expanding billions) isn’t enough to earn a business any attention, promote its brand or increase its profit margins. Search engine optimization, the practice of making changes in different areas of a website so that search engines can help find and deliver targeted audiences to the site, is practically meaningless unless companies first consider several issues.

The first issue to launching a successful site is determining the purpose of that site. Is a business looking to generate leads or sales? Is the site simply a branding tool, perhaps to promote a new line of products? It’s critical to decide what actions the site is supposed to encourage visitors to take. Say the website’s goal is to encourage visitors to call an office. Are there phones and staff ready to handle the incoming calls when the site delivers them? Having a call to action for website visitors but no follow through on the company side is just as bad as having no call to action in the first place.

Next, a business needs to take a serious look at who its audience is. This should have been decided when first developing a business plan, but maybe the demographic need to be tweaked for online audiences. Different demographics “Millennials vs Boomers for instance” approach the Internet in different ways and businesses should carefully hone in on the best prospects.

Finally, businesses need to realistically determine competition. While the audiences might be the same, the Gap is not necessarily competing with a local boutique in Raleigh, North Carolina. It’s important to consider geographic and business factors when determining true competition. Who is directly competing in the same market space, with the same products and looking to target a similar audience. While both the Gap and the boutique are clothing stores, they cater to different clientele and operate on much different budgets. At the end of the day, that local boutique cannot compete with the advertising budget of the Gap, so it should look to be competing with the other boutique across town.

Many of the aforementioned factors should already exist in a business plan or marketing plan. But it is easy to forget the basics when faced with the daunting task of implementing a successful website and SEO plan to promote it. There are several tools that exist to help a business determine the best keywords for its site, provide the traffic sources of its competitor’s site and grad the site on its content, trust value and more. Once the ground work is in place, successful, long term SEO and SEM strategies can be created.

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Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of Brick Marketing. With over 12 years of experience Nick Stamoulis has worked with hundreds of companies small, large and every size in between. Through his vast and diverse SEO, search engine marketing and internet marketing experience Nick Stamoulis has successfully increased the – online visibility and sales of clients in all industries.

Why Do-It-Yourself Websites Will Not Work For You

By John Carroll in Featured

Website Design is an issue every business confronts. Most businesses address the need either by hiring a freelancer, a college student, friend, or a design company. The process of web design can be expensive and extremely frustrating and lead to a never-ending mound of service fees.

These obstacles have led many companies, such as Intuit, to offer a low-cost, do-it-yourself solution. It seems to get a grasp on all the problems a business is confronted with. “Do-it-yourself” packages claim all a business has to do is “pick a template”, “customize it”, “add content”, and “get found.”

So is the problem finally resolved for a few bucks a month? Let’s take a deeper look into their general marketing claims.

Designing the Website Yourself

In my almost 20 years in marketing and design, I have learned the importance of using the right color scheme, the proper use of imagery, layouts, and creating an overall image that “speaks” to a particular market. In that same time frame, I have worked with some passionate, intelligent, visionary businesses who knew their product and understood their customers. Their staff understood the daily problems and strategic advantages they possess over their competitors, but few knew how to translate their experience to a powerful website. My job was to understand their business, their objectives to having a website, and then create a solution to address those concerns. To say a business owner can adjust a template to “speak” to their typical client-base, grossly underestimates what is truly needed.

Making Your Site Both Consumer And Search Engine Friendly

By Paul Wise in Featured

When selling your own services and products on the net, you should have targeted traffic. The major search engines will start to send you targeted prospects, and lots of it, whenever you adopt specific steps.

The 1st step within your own search engine advertising campaign isn’t SEO. Your first step would be to understand the net and the way to effectively utilize it to market your services. The web can be described as a subject material driven medium. Searchers are searching for information and facts. They really don’t wish to be sold to. They desire value. It is possible to supply this kind of value with the subject material you are writing for use on your Internet site, as well as the particular content material you’re posting for your promotions.

As a result, you should create a complete, content managing technique. Your own content managing technique needs to be customer focused, content material driven, in addition to being optimized regarding the major search engines. Your current content managing method must look into both in page and off page optimization points. In page elements consist of optimizing your web page regarding keywords and phrases relevant to your site, titles, as well as website descriptions. Off page aspects incorporate link swapping in addition to one way link creation.

Once you’ve selected the subject for the web page, you’ll want to create your Internet site. Come to a decision on just what subject material you will come up with. Your content have to consist of articles, press announcements, and product or service review articles. It’s also possible to generate totally free e books, reports and news letters, provided the information you include is going to be useful to your site customer. Ahead of working on your content, you need to do your investigation. Discover what Internet users are trying to find. There are many free resources and software on the net to help you complete this particular undertaking. Basically, search for a keyword phrase similar to “key phrase recommendation software.”

The moment you’re all ready to write your sites subject material, select 2 to 3 keywords and phrases to make use of all the way through the actual text for the page. Write your own content material after which optimize your page for all these keyword phrases. Though on page optimization can help you when you don’t have lots of competition for the keywords you picked, it is not enough should you be targeting large competition keywords. To raise your websites search positions, you will need to get as many links as you can from high traffic web pages with high Google page rank. Establishing one way links from other web pages can even make it easier to boost your search positions.

Perform a search in your favorite search engine to find Internet sites you’ll be able to link to. Examine these websites. Check to see just what key phrases they use in order to enhance their web pages. Find out if they swap hyperlinks, and if that’s the case, ask for a link exchange.

The way to succeed when you find yourself using search engine marketing techniques is always to do your homework before you generate your site. The bottom line is that no matter the amount of links you have got pointing back to your Internet site, or how effectively you enhance your web page for the various search engines, you will not gain a high position for key phrases that are way too competitive without having a long time along with lots of energy put in, even up to a year or more.

You should also understand that you will not reach your goals in any kind of home business that you aren’t going to be enthusiastic about. Choose a subject you prefer, which has its own marketplace and then develop a articles and other content rich, search engine friendly web page. Get your name out there and constantly keep advertising your product or service. You will be successful in the end.

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Need traffic? It’s no secret that in order to bring in traffic you should utilize the power of Article Marketing. Article Marketing Services such as www.articlecontentengine.com will help you to do exactly that without taking up all of your valuable time.

4 Website Suicide Tactics to Avoid!

By Derek Jansen in Featured

Your website is your online ambassador which provides an information portal to all of your prospective customers. As with anything, there is always a right and a wrong way to do things, and doing the wrong things when it comes to the design of your website can mean online suicide! Here are some of the key mistakes to avoid:

Flash Overkill

When flash first hit the scene, it was hugely popular, and to be honest, it looked really good. But, as with many new inventions, it became overused. Whilst flash is still acceptable on a website, try to refrain your use to purely graphical elements (slideshows, product images, etc). Flash is unreadable by Google, and so the impact on your search rankings could be devastating if you’re placing all your beloved content into a flash element. Approach with caution and use in moderation…

Pop Ups / New Windows

One of the favorite marketing tools of “adult” sites are those annoying little things called pop ups. Whilst most browsers have now eradicated this problem in terms of unprompted pop ups, some websites still insist on opening new content in new windows (pop ups), generally with good intentions. This is a bad idea for two reasons:

1. It’s annoying – no one likes them because they cause clutter and remind us of spam

2. It breaks the “back button chain” – think of how many times a day you use the back button on your browser. Quite often I’m sure. Using pop ups or new windows makes using the back button impossible, and will most likely result in the visitor leaving your site. No good.

Introductions & Music

I’ve grouped these two together because they generally appear together, but they are just as “evil” in isolation. Introductions are generally just plain annoying. In today’s fast paced life, users want to get to the most relevant information as quickly as possible. Don’t annoy them with delay tactics for the purpose of looking “cool.” If you absolutely must use an introduction page, be sure to include a visible “Skip Intro” button.

Music on your website is simply a no-no. Not only does it slow down your website and provide no real benefit to the user, but it is also quite likely to annoy them. Browsers often have their own music playing in the background, which will simply be interrupted by your website’s music. Once again, if you absolutely must use this feature, be sure to offer a “Music Off” button.

No Display of Price

This is always a tricky one, but very important nonetheless. Whilst displaying pricing online is completely normal (and required) for consumer type websites, business to business (B2B) websites seem to avoid it, and cover up by mentioning something along the lines of “customized solutions.” Whilst this may be true for some business, you should always aim for the greatest level of transparency possible.

The benefits of listing pricing on your website (even if only in the form of “From $ X.99″) include, but are not limited to:

• Increased trustworthiness (you obviously have nothing to hide, and charge all customers equally)
• Fewer inquiries from unqualified prospects (bargain seekers, etc.)
• The ability to create an online ordering process (such as a checkout cart)
• Differentiation from your competitors (if they’re hiding their pricing)

As you can see, having a website is much more than just uploading an online brochure to the web. To really get the most out of your site, you need to follow the “rules.” Marketing online has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, but implementing the best practices and avoiding the “suicidal” mistakes will ensure that you get the most out of your website.

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Do you need a helping hand when it comes to marketing online? Derek Jansen is an www.internet marketing and SEO consultant who has helped numerous businesses get their websites into tip-top shape, ranking well and generating profits. Contact Derek today for a free consultation!

Learn More About Website Planning

By Jack Collins in Featured

Successful projects start with careful planning. No matter what type of project(whether building bridges or organizing world peace), ample thought needs to be given to the task. This is especially true for web development. Engineering the strategy for the site is an absolutely essential phase for both the website developer and the client.

Thorough website planning helps streamline the process for the developer while helping the client gain clarity on their vision and an understanding on the processes to come. A number of questions should be addressed and fully thought about before starting.

Here is a sampling of things to consider:

What needs to be achieved with the website?

Who is the target audience?

What “feelings” should the website design evoke?

How can we express the websites vision?

And this is just the beginning.

No need to get overwhelmed before we start – this is where the fun begins: Planning a website can be a very enjoyable and eye-opening experience when you get to think of all the ways to bring your brand to your space on the web.

Generally, there are 2 perspectives to keep in balance while in the planning stages of the website:

1.) what is your brand and how will it come across on the web to fit with the larger vision of the site? and

2.) how will your users experience the site?

It’s best to keep the original goals of the website in mind as you consider the user’s perspective and how they will use the site. All too often, websites are built entirely around the client’s goals and visions with little consideration about the end user (the customer). Often this creates a disconnect in the site’s purpose and intended function if the user isn’t quite sure how to use the website.

For example, filling the website with industry specific jargon can help build trust in the website visitor, but over doing it can leave the user confused and could ultimately push them to the competition who may talk a bit more “with” the user versus “at” them. Everyone involved in the planning phase must always keep the end user in mind. When a visitor comes to a site, they come with questions and are seeking answers:

Can I trust this company?

Do they do good work?

Are their products affordable?

Can they get my job done?

How to reserve, buy or get more info?

Through careful website planning and design, you want to have all of these bases covered. The website needs to answer these questions with haste and provide an easy way for them to take action – a purchase, filing out a contact form, signing up for your newsletter, etc.

Since the attention span and patience of a typical user is very short, this interaction process needs to be clearly called out so as to not leave them guessing. Some intrigue is OK on a site if that is part of the fun of your brand and the experience of your site, but the user should never stare quizzically at your site for more than a couple minutes asking themselves questions like this: “I just want to do X, but I don’t know how or where to go.” By the time a user has to ask that question, odds are good that they will start looking elsewhere – like a competitor’s site. Just sayin.

A well thought out website plan keeps everyone’s expectations inline and ensures that the developer, the client and the end user all walk away with a positive experience.

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Connective Web Design offers affordable web design and website development services specializing in WordPress, Ecommerce, Social Media and Search Engine Optimization. Visit www.connectivewebdesign.com to learn more!

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