Update to Plugins Page

Posted on November 21st, 2007 in General by Dan

So I realized yesterday that I haven’t updated the plugins page for a long long time. So I figured it was time to do so! I’ve added 7 more WordPress Plugins (read more about them on the Plugins Page):

  • Dagon Design Sitemap Generator
  • Favicon Manager
  • Google Sitemaps
  • Leprakauns Word Count
  • Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam
  • All in One SEO Pack
  • WP-PostRatings

I have also added a couple of FireFox Plugins that I left out before:

  • SEO for FireFox
  • StumbleUpon Toolbar

I hope you find these useful, and I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Ugly Bird!!!

(Ugly birds…but man they’re tasty!!! Happy Thanksgiving :-) )

Update for SiteCreatorPlus (Website Dynamics) Users

Posted on August 23rd, 2007 in General, Website Help by Dan

I know that a good number of the people that read this blog are people that I work with to show them how to setup and advertise their websites. This message is directly mainly towards those people and anyone else that is using a Website Dynamics builder (SiteCreatorPlus.com, CityMax.com, CityMaker.com, AtomicShops.com, etc.).

Website Dynamics has added a new feature to their builder where you can add a custom message on your confirmation page after someone places an order. This is a nice little feature, and I’d recommend you take advantage of it. As a side note, you cannot do this if you are using PayPal Standard as your merchant processor.

Here’s a link to the announcement from Website Dynamics: Customize Your Order Confirmation Page

Why You Should Have a Link Building Strategy

Posted on August 20th, 2007 in General, Offsite SEO by Dan

The way I look at it, you have two ways that you can go about building links to your site: following a plan or doing it haphazardly. Which do you think works better? Speaking from experience, the planned way is a lot more effective!

Why to Have a Plan

Yes, its very cliche, but there’s something about these cliche statements: they is usually some good truth to them! So here’s the cliche statement for today: if you fail to plan you plan to fail.

If you go about your link building very haphazardly you’ll get some work done, but not as much as you would with some sort of a plan. It doesn’t really matter what you plan is, just make sure you have one so that you make the most of your time.

Link building can be a very monotonous exercise (especially for things like directories). So keep the big picture in mind and develop a plan.

What Makes a Good Plan

I don’t believe that there is any one perfect way to do it. So here’s the basic idea of what I do: I just do a different technique each day to give myself variety. For example, Mondays I mainly focus on blogs, Tuesdays I work on an article or two, Wednesday I do directories, etc. I will modify this from time to time, and on some weeks I have to make little adjustments. For the most part though, I will try to stick to this type of a schedule.

When you first get going, any plan is better than no plan. Maybe your plan is that you’re going to spend 3 hours on Saturday. Great! Now decide what you’re going to get done in those 3 hours and you have a plan!

Once you have your plan the next step is simple: work that plan! As you work your plan you may find that it is not as effective as you may have thought. That’s ok, make some adjustments and keep going.

Should You Learn HTML???

Posted on August 17th, 2007 in General by Dan

Every now and then I talk to a person that is just barely getting started with things on the internet and they wonder if it will be necessary to learn HTML. Well, here’s my thoughts on the subject.

If you’re going to really get to know what you’re doing online, you’ll want to at least learn the basics of HTML. This will free you up to be able to do more with your site even if you’re using a template builder.

But do you need to learn HTML before you have a site? No.

You can still build a website using some type of template builder without knowing any HTML at all. This way you can start to learn some of the basic principles of building a site, marketing it, etc. and not have to worry about all of the technical, programming related stuff. I still think it’s worth your time to learn it in the long run, but don’t let your lack of programming knowledge be an excuse for not starting your website.

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

Posted on August 6th, 2007 in General by Dan

For those of you that are getting involved in blogging either as a separate website or as a marketing tool, one of the most popular (and my favorite) blogging platforms is WordPress. But sometimes people get confused about the difference between WordPress.com and Wordpress.org. So here’s a brief description:

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is the version of WordPress that will be hosted by them. Your address for your blog will be somthing like dan.wordpress.com rather than your own domain name. Yes, you can use it and forward it to your own domain, but the other thing about WordPress.com is that you can’t do as much with it in terms of customization like you can with the .org version. Also, last I checked you cannot do any AdSense on the .com version. But, if you’re just getting started in blogging and need a free platform to play around on, the .com version is still great!

WordPress.org

Ah, my favorite! WordPress.org is the full download of the WordPress platform. So, in order to run it you have to have the ability to host it. From there you can pretty much customize your blog however you need to by either changing the code yourself or getting plugins to make changes you need. This is one of the best things about WordPress.org is how customizable it is.

I know this isn’t a great detailed description of the difference between the two, but I hope it’s enough to clarify it a little bit.

Why Choose a Niche Market?

Posted on July 9th, 2007 in General by Dan

One of the hardest things about starting a new internet business is deciding what you’re going to sell. Something that I’ve noticed with a lot of the people that I work with is that they think they have to sell a little bit of everything on one site in order to be successful. This is what I would call the ‘Wal-mart Mentality’, which honestly isn’t the best way to approach your new online venture.

Think of it this way: one of the key ways you should try to market your website is through the search engines. In order to do that, you’ll be doing a lot of SEO work. Can you image doing the SEO work for a site like Wal-mart.com?? Talk about a logistical nightmare! Basically, it’s not going to happen. So what do we do instead? We focus on a more specific niche market that we can work to dominate.

Rather than trying to take over the whole internet at once, try focusing on one small corner of it first. Especially for your first website, don’t try to conquer the world. Find a category or niche that you know enough about and are interested in enough that you can really get caught up in that website. That’s hard to do when you’re selling 50 different categories of products!

Another way to look at it is rather than having one site with 50 different categories, why not have 50 different websites? Now what you’re doing is your using the leveraging power of the internet and getting involved in multiple areas with niche specific websites. Then you can actually target your traffic and reach the right people. Granted, having 50 websites is a lot to handle, so don’t take me too literally here when I’m throwing out numbers. I just hope that you get the point of what I’m trying to say.

The internet is an interesting place. In the real world we’re used to going to the big stores like Best Buy, Wal-mart, Target, etc. to buy things. But online we’re going back to the old, more product specific stores. They say that history repeats itself, and maybe that’s what’s really going on with the internet. Rather than setting up a big-box mart, start with a smaller, more specific site that you can control. That’s niche marketing!

Addition to Helpful Resources Page - Blogging Programs

Posted on July 6th, 2007 in General by Dan

I added another section to the Helpful Resources page. The section is Blogging Programs if you want to check it out. I’ve only listed a few of the more popular blogging platforms there, so be aware that there are other programs available.

I make a special note in the section that I much prefer the WordPress.org program, but I thought that it also deserved some special attention here as well. A lot of people get confused with the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com is the version of WordPress where you are using their servers to host your blog. There are a lot of limitations to doing it this way, and if you want to get more functionality you have to pay.

WordPress.org on the other hand is where you can download the actual WordPress software and upload it to your own host or server, all for free. Then, because it’s an open source program, you can customize it however you need to either on your own or with various plugins. (You can find a list of my favorite plugins on the Plugins page of this blog)

I firmly believe that WordPress.org is the best way to go when it comes to blogging!