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Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

Blogging with Wordpress

Blogging with Wordpress is the simplest way for a beginner to start a blog, aka website. Rosalind Gardner has been using Wordpress since before it's inception and knows all the ins and outs of how to create a blog and use the best themes and SEO tactics to attract visitors to your new blog. Learn how to start a Wordpress blog here.

Javascript Plugin for WordPress

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I was keen to use Kasamba's javascript code to promote their live professional relationship coaching and counselling services on my Sage-Hearts.com blog but the javascript wouldn't work, so I wrote up a small endorsement and plugged in a standard HTML banner.

When I mentioned the ‘problem' to Debbie Shapiro, Kasamba's Affiliate Program Manager, she responded quickly and suggested that I upload the Inline Javascript Plugin to my blog.

Installation and getting it to work was Sooo easy. Download the plug, unzip it, upload it to your plugins folder and then activate it under the Plugins tab. Then, when you want to add a javascript to a post or a page, simply encase the script between [inline][/inline] tags.

Here's what the new post on the dating blog looks like.

Wow, gotta love an affiliate manager who is not only helpful, but geeky too. 🙂

About Kasamba: With thousands of experts in over 600 categories, and with over 5 years of experience in the Expert Advice industry, Kasamba provides a user-friendly platform for customers to find experts for consultations in real time, via email, and chat.

Affiliate payouts are good. They pay you a one-time referral fee in the amount of $50 for each new customer in the fields of Spirituality, Professional Counseling, Coaching & Personal Development, Computers, and Tutoring. Generate more than 10 new customers in any month and the fee goes up to $75, and if you generate more than 100 new customers in any month and the referal fees goes up to $100.

Well worth a look.

The Jury is Out on BlogRush

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I decided to give John Reese's new Blogrush widget a try here at NPT and on my Roamsters.com travel blog this morning.

The picture to the left shows how the widget is supposed to display on your site. However, just a few minutes after I installed it, the display was replaced with text that read, “We are currently experiencing some technical issues and the site will be back online shortly. Please come back in a few minutes“.

HUH?

That strikes me as really odd text to use in a placeholder on someone else's site. MY site IS online, my visitors are already here, so why would I want to show text that reads ‘come back in a few minutes'?

Wouldn't it make more sense to display nothing at all than an error message?

Anyway, I trust that John will get the technical difficulties sorted out quickly and Blogrush widgets will soon be displayed all over the net… or at least on Internet marketer's blogs.

So, what's Blogrush?

BlogRush is a free blog syndication service intended to help bloggers increase traffic to their blogs. When you sign up for the service, place the widget on your site, you earn credits based on the number of impressions of the widget as well as the number of referrals you send. In return, your latest blog post titles are distributed on related blogs also using the Blogrush widget.

All well and good in theory – but as of now, you can't see your stats. When I clicked ‘Reports' within the Blogrush interface, I saw “Under Construction – We're hard at work creating some cool custom reporting features for you! Please check back soon.”

I was surprised to say the least. Coming from an uber Internet Marketer / uber affiliate, I would have expected John to have everything solidly in place prior to launch.

Anyway, let's just say that the jury is out on Blogrush for now. I may leave the widget up on Roamsters for a day – but I really really hate to waste good traffic.

Anyone Else Seeing a ‘Gap’?

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I just got a report from Jess, an NPT subscriber, that the top portion of the NPT newsletter appears blank until you scroll down the page.

Jess is using Internet Explorer and is displaying a screen resolution of 800 x 600.

Is anyone else having this problem? If so, please do leave a comment and let me know! Thanks!

Avoid Mountains of Work – Get a CMS Sooner than Later

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Peyto Lake on the Icefields Parkway in AlbertaIf you arrived here via NPT's homepage today, you've already seen the site's ‘new look'.

Granted, I didn't change the design very much, but the ArticleLive back-end is absolutely b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l! Now I won't have to revise and upload 100's of HTML pages every time I make a change to the basic template – yee-ha!

When I told Anik Singal that I was going to a new CMS, he mentioned that he really liked the original NPT layout because it was ‘so easy to find what you're looking for'. Well, finding the information you want should now be even easier with well-defined categories, featured articles with links to related articles and reviews.

The only downside to changing over to ArticleLive was that I made it a D-I-Y project. Duh.

Ergo, not all of my 100's of articles are in the database yet, and there may be linking problems from within some of the older articles (if you find an error, please be kind and let me know), but the essential articles are all there and I'll go through them with a fine-tooth comb to make sure they're up-to-date and linked to the most helpful resources.

So, words to the wise. Get a great CMS when when you start your site (not 5 years into it) and avoid a HUGE mountain of work later.

Anyway, now that I've scaled that mountain, it's time for some R&R in the Rockies. Yee-HAAAAAA!

Technorati Tagging Made Simple

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I've noticed that a lot of WordPress bloggers code each of their tags (keywords) for Technorati individually using the [tag][/tag] code – which takes more time than is necessary.

If you use the free Broobles » SimpleTags WordPress Plugin, you can save time by placing your comma-separated keywords and keyword phrases in one line at the bottom of your post in between the following code (without the quotes) – “[tags][/tags]“. Notice that you'll use the word ‘tags' instead of the singular ‘tag'.

Alternatively, if you're code-confident, you can modify the quicktags.js file to tag selected words using your QuickTags. The tutorial is located here.

[tags]Technorati, tagging, blogging, WordPress, simpletags, plugin[/tags]

Free Hosting is BAD for Business

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Don't even think about using a free hosting service to host your professional affiliate site!

Not unless you don't mind someone else's ads plastered all over your site and a domain that looks like:

‘http://freewebhost4u.com/~yourname/yourfiles/‘

e-YUK! That's just cheesy and it doesn't give your visitors a good first impression.

You want your site to look professional, and the first way to give a professional appearance is to register own top-level domain name, ie. ‘http://yournichesite.com'.

Another good reason to have your own top-level domains is that many merchants don't allow affiliates who use free sites to join their affiliate programs.

Once you've registered your domain, you'll need a hosting service in order to store your site's files.

I've run the gamut of hosts from good to bad. ‘Bad' is when they go out of business without any forewarning and your sites just disappear – which is a good case for keeping all your files carefully stored on your computer for quick upload.

My sites are hosted on an Enterprise VPS server at WebSite Managers.

A dedicated server would be overkill for your first website, so I recommend that you sign up with BlueHost.

The reason I like both those services is that they use the Cpanel interface with Fantastico.

Fantastico allows you to install a large number of different programs with the click of your mouse.

At the time of writing, there are over 50 scripts loaded into Fantastico for quick installation on my server.

Program types include blogs, content management, customer relationship, discussion boards, e-commerce, FAQ, guestbooks, discussion boards (forums), hosting, billing, image galleries, mailing lists, polls, surveys, project management, and site builders.

Installing blogs, forums and other software is easy with Fantastico!

Installing a WordPress blog takes under a minute. I just type in the name of the folder (directory) in which I want to place WordPress and the software creates a new folder. Then you choose a name for your blog, as well as a username and password for administrative functions.

Click on ‘Finish' and presto! your blog is online.

Love it!

Start your business right with a GREAT web hosting service like  BlueHost.

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