RosalindGardner.com

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.

Cool Keyboard Trick

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I just learned this cool keyboard trick from Jeff Mulligan of CBMall that will save you a lot of typing when you surf the web.

Intead of typing in the http://www. before the domain name, and the .com after it, just type in the site's domain name into the address bar. Then hit CTRL and ENTER keys together. This adds both the http://www. and the .com and works in both Internet Explorer and Firefox browser.

Go ahead, try it. Copy SuperAffiliateHandbook into your address bar now, then hit CTRL and ENTER together. Good stuff, eh? 🙂

Forget the Fancy Site Gizmos

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Are site ‘gizmos' detracting from your sales messages?

Then forget the 3D logo. Toss the animated graphics and pictures of pretty women. Cool scripts don't help you much , and music will kill the deal.

Unless your objective is to showcase your talent as a web designer, those elements contribute almost nothing to your bottom line. In fact, they often clutter and detract from your real objective which should be to sell products!

Use Words, Not Gizmos

To get the message out about your product, you use words, not gizmos. Your words persuade people to visit your site, subscribe to your newsletter and buy your or your merchants' products. How you use your words makes the difference between your site's success or failure.

Here are two examples of how words are used to sell real estate:

  1. Lakefront home on 60 feet of beach in Kelowna. View.
  2. Once in a lifetime opportunity to own one of Kelowna's premier lakefront homes with approximately 60 ft of soft sandy beachfront. Awesome view down lake.

Which listing would persuade you to to call your realtor?

If you are like most of us, you respond emotionally to the words ‘premier', ‘sandy' and ‘awesome view'. The ‘opportunity' to live a ‘premier' lifestyle, and feel the sand between your toes as you enjoy your awesome view appeals to your senses in a pleasurable way. Appealing to your readers' emotions is critical, and just a few choice words can skyrocket your conversion rates.

You don't need to be a seasoned writer or an established author to make your words sell more of your products. Writing is a skill that can be learned like any other. When you combine your desire to improve your writing skill with experts' books, courses, and seminars – copywriting becomes easier and much more fun.

Best of all, just a little effort to improve your writing will reap huge financial rewards. Just ‘tweaking' one paragraph can double or even quadruple your current conversion rates.

Try it – The rewards you gain by learning to write copy well are worth much more than a few bucks and a couple hours of your time.

Halloween Treat… Do You Dare?

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BOO! If YOU've been thinking of getting SBI!, now is the time to get a move on, while Ken is doing one of his rare ‘specials'… buy one, get the next for just $100. Think you don't need or want 2 sites? Well, here's a stat for you. Half of SBI! owners own more than one SBI! site. Then again, if you're feeling generous, you could also give it to a friend or a loved one.

Stay-At-Home-Moms and Webmasters should also take note…

BTW, this offer lasts only until the stroke of midnight on Halloween.

Irritating Advertising

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Take a look at the picture to the left and notice how the advertising graphic totally obliterates the text that I was reading.

I had inadvertently cursored over the Nokia ad and when I tried to close it – by clicking “Close” button – the darned thing wouldn't close. Only by carefully cursoring to a section of the page that wasn't filled with irritating advertising graphic pop images was I finally able to read the rest of the article.

Really – is this necessary or just another way for advertisers to irritate web users? Your thoughts?

Beware of Some Site Builder Packages

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PLEASE NOTE: Since this article was first written, I've added BizZites to my list of recommended Site Builders, especially for affiliate marketers who want to easily incorporate datafeeds into their sites. Read my BizZites review here.

During a recent telephone consultation, my client mentioned that she was having a problem changing the background color of her site, so I offered to show her how to change the color on the cascading stylesheet (CSS) that I saw referenced on her pages.

Well, that was easier said than done, as my client was using GoDaddy's “WebSite Tonight® Site Builder” package, which does not permit FTP access.

Furthermore, the stylesheet wasn't accessible through the online interface, so I couldn't amend the code.

Delving a little deeper, I saw that WebSite Tonight® offers a limited number of template choices. If none of those is to your liking, or if you want to get a little more creative with your design, there is no option other than to upgrade to another hosting package or change hosting companies.

Most site builder packages are similarly limited in scope and functionality.

They are perhaps best suited to those who want to build a ‘business card' site consisting of only a few pages; but as an an affiliate who wants to build a big content site that includes a blog, a newsletter signup form and other – what I call ‘basic' features – you'd be out of luck.

I do recommend one site builder in the Super Affiliate Handbook, and that is SBI!, or SiteBuildiT!

Regarding SBI!, David, who recently read the handbook, asked:

“I have never delved into the realms of HTML and now find I have a good excuse to do so. SiteBuildiT! looks like a very good option, however my only concern is further done the track would I have control over the development of the site(s) or otherwise, in respect to alterations using my own HTML experience?”

That is such a great question, as we should always be anticipating future expansion of our sites and businesses.

In a previous version of the Super Affiliate Handbook I made the comment, “As a webmaster with reasonably good knowledge of HTML and graphic design, I found the SBI! interface a little clunky and frustrating to use.”

That was because SiteBuildiT! sites historically had an “SBI! look-and-feel” about them. Each had the same two-column, left-side navigation format, and like many site builders there were a limited number of styles from which to choose. Because I believe that affiliate sites should be as unique as the individuals creating them, I saw this as a drawback.

Why was I still recommending SBI! if I thought it had limitations?

Well, first of all, nothing is ever perfect.

Secondly, as I also mention in the SAH, “I can overlook this downside to take advantage of the amazing topic research and search engine optimization tools that SBI! offers”. Total newbies are able to do research from within the SBI! interface and then build sites in profitable niche markets.

Better yet, these SBI! sites get traffic very, very quickly.

Furthermore, Ken Evoy (the founder of SiteBuildiT!, SiteSell and a host of other online services and infoproducts) changed the SBI! structure to allow webmasters with HTML knowledge to use their creativity on their SBI! sites.

If you visit the SBI site, go to the bottom of the homepage and click on “Client Sites” to see a variety of sample sites. Some use the SBI templates, while others obviously create their own designs.

And although I've been recommending hosts that use a CPanel interface with Fantastico for the ease of WordPress Blog and CMS (content management system) installations; I see that SBI! has also built Easy Blogging capabilities into their ecommerce package.

More than any other site builder of which I am aware, SBI! has a features list that could choke an elephant.

Best of all, the price is SO reasonable.

The regular price is $299/year – which works out to $24.92 per month. Ken has figured out that if you were to purchase all the tools included included in the SBI! package separately, it would cost you more than 5 grand a year.

Even if you only wanted just the basics – such as domain registration, web hosting, an autoresponder service and web site statistics – it would cost much more than the $24.92 a month that SBI! costs.

Lastly, Ken doesn't charge a set-up fee.

(I was appalled to learn that some site builder web hosts charge 1500 bucks to ‘set-up' their clients' accounts. Seriously, all it takes to set up a new web hosting account is about five form blanks and 2 minutes of their time. There's absolutely no excuse for that sort of gouging.)

In summary, most site builders are limited in scope and don't allow for future site expansion. If you are looking for a web host that has an site builder interface, review all the features thoroughly before you purchase an account.

SBI! is still a good option for new webmasters and affiliates who are looking for an easy site builder.

Cheers,

Ros

Get Your Blog Archives Under Control!

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Most blog archives are structured to be a total waste of web real estate. They just go on and on and on and on and on.

For example, a blog started in July 2004 which has been posted to every month typically now has a list of 24 links in the navigation bar.

Next year there will be 36 links. In 2008, there will be 48 of the little devils, and in 2010 …. well, you get the picture.

Do yourself, and more importantly – your visitors – a favor.

Have your blog archives converted into a drop-down menu. I had my blog archives re-structured by a web designer through Freelancer.

It took him all of ten minutes and the work only cost me a few bucks.

Of course, in a few years that drop-down is going to become pretty unwieldy too.

So, better yet, get an Freelancer web designer/programmer to stop the insanity completely, by listing only the last 3 months then include both a link to “Recent” and “Older” posts.

The “Older” link will direct your visitors to a page that lists individual post titles under the name of the month in which it was entered.

That makes it easier for your visitors to search your blog, which encourages them to stay longer.

The longer they stay, the more opportunity you have to turn them into customers.

Search engines will notice your increased ‘stickiness' and reward you with MORE free traffic… and all for a couple of bucks paid to a deserving designer at Freelancer.

Cheers,

sig-ros

Are You Losing Visitors to Your Newsletter Signup Process?

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Hey All!

Did you know that you may be losing site visitors – and therefore potential customers – when people sign up for your newsletter?

A very kind NPT reader let me know (and then I learned about the same problem later at the Underground) and now I'm sharing the info with you.

Dear Rosalind,

I am in a position to help you with a problem you have on your web page.

Currently, a reader scrolls halfway down the page, sees the email subscription, and submits it, but when they submit it, the entire page reloads, which can be very disorienting, especially for people with slow connections who have to wait to get back to where they were.

I can, however, provide you with the HTML and Javascript code that will enable readers to submit the form, see that they've submitted the form while it's being processed, and see the results, right there in that box, so that they can just keep on reading without reloading the page.

Nick Chase
Backstop Media
http://www.backstopmedia.com

Although I had coded the page so that visitors ended up in the very place where they had left off, I really appreciated Nick's suggestion and assistance.

Here is the code that Nick supplied to avoid the page reload, and how you can do it too.

1) Visit Google Maps API and get a ‘key'.

2) Substitute YOURGOOGLEKEY in the script below and place the script within the metatags on your page.

<script
src=”http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=1&key=YOURGOOGLEKEY”
type=”text/javascript”></script>

3) Place the following code below your Aweber Autoresponder signup form code on the page.

<script type=”text/javascript”>

function addLead(theForm){

  //First, let the user know something's happening so they don't submit again.
  document.getElementById(“addLeadText”).innerHTML = “Adding you
to the mailing list…”;

  //Now create the actual request.
  var request = GXmlHttp.create();

  //You'll likely want to change “test.php” to “http://aweber.com/scripts/addlead.pl
  request.open(‘post', ‘http://aweber.com/scripts/addlead.pl',
true);

  //This part watches for the response to come back, then drops the text into the page
  request.onreadystatechange = function() {
    if (request.readyState == 4) {
     
document.getElementById(“addLeadText”).innerHTML = request.responseText;
    }
  };

  //Now we build the data from the form into the request itself.
  var postString = “”;
  for (i = 0; i < theForm.elements.length; i++){
     postString = postString +
theForm.elements[i].name + “=” + URLencode(theForm.elements[i].value) +
“&”;
  }
 
  //Then we tell the request how to let the server know what we're doing.
  request.setRequestHeader(“Content-Length”, postString.length);
  request.setRequestHeader(“Content-Type”,
“application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8”);

  //Finally, we send the request.
  request.send(postString);
}

   function URLencode(sStr) {
     return escape(sStr).replace(/\+/g,
‘%2B').replace(/\”/g,'%22′).replace(/\'/g, ‘%27′).replace(/\//g,'%2F');
  }

</script>

Voila! No more reloading.

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