RosalindGardner.com

Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

Ros Adopts a Lifestyle Change

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After converting my other sites to Brian Gardner's StudioPress Lifestyle theme, I went for broke yesterday and activated the Lifestyle theme for WordPress here on NetProfitsToday.

Lifestyle Theme on NPT

And yes, this is partly in response to the fact that the majority of you said you did NOT like the logo I had designed for NPT at 99Designs — for a whoppin' $375! So, although I'm still using the Libel Suit font, my mug is back on the header. Ugh. And after that major faux pas, I'm loathe to ask what you think of the header graphic change, but comment if you must. 🙂

In addition to the Featured Content Gallery on the homepage, what I'm loving most about the Lifestyle theme is the drop-down horizontal navigation bar — not, so much from the fact that it's trippy, because those have been around forever and I could have coded that myself into the old theme (had I been more energetic) — but because it's making it really easy to see how the older posts and categories can and should be arranged more logically, for a better visitor experience.

OK, go on, tell me what you think – and please let me know if you're finding broken links. What with all that recategorization and renaming – there are bound to be a few! 🙂

All New Blogs Could (and Should) Look this Good

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NOTE: Justin got too busy traveling around the world and writing books to maintain his site — but it's still a great story. 🙂

I found the Doglirious site through a link in our Forum and my first reaction was “WOW!”

SO impressed was I, that I emailed Justin (the webmaster) to find out if I could profile his site in the Super Affiliate Handbook as an example of how an affiliate site SHOULD be fleshed out.

When Justin replied with a little background about the site, I was even MORE impressed. Here's what he had to say:

Michelle (my girlfriend) and I adopted a dog from the Atlanta Humane Society about a year ago and ever since then, had been disappointed with the dog websites that existed. We were interested in reading product reviews from a website other than Amazon.com. Also, we were looking for reliable tips & advice that was fun to read (and sounded like it came from real dog owners). Finally, we wanted a central place to find online dog-product discounts from across the Web – but we just couldn't find a website that offered these elements in a user-friendly manner.

So, about two months ago, we began brainstorming about how to create a dog lover's website. One month ago, I bought your eBook, and with a lot of hard work, this project quickly blossomed due to our enthusiasm for the subject.

BRAVO!

Justin and Michelle started with exactly the right motivation and enthusiasm for building a business website. They saw the demand and went with the topic based on the fact that they're both completely ‘doglirious'.

LOVE that name – Doglirious.

The WordPress Theme

The theme Justin is using for the site is Brian Gardner's (Studio Press) Lifetyle theme. I asked him if they had an Elancer produce the graphics for the template or whether they designed them.

Other than Brian's theme and the WordPress plug-ins, we developed the entire site ourselves – the layout, content, and technical design. Michelle and I had a concept for how we wanted the website to look & feel. I then saw the Revolution Lifestyle theme and thought, “Yep, this is it!“

I thought pretty much the same thing when Brian released his new WordPress theme package — especially about the Lifestyle, Church and Chrome themes — so I bought the StudioPress multi-theme package right away and have it up on a few sites already including 101Date.com (Lifestyle theme) and MyEnergyPal.com (Church Theme), the latter of which was a combined venture with my friend, Ed who wanted to generate leads for his local energy assessment business.

The affiliate in me said “let's make money!” so I started that site on Sunday afternoon and pretty much had it the way it looks now by Monday afternoon — a total of about 12 hours which included time to collect and create some content as well as research and place a few offers. Now it's just waiting for that all-important content from Ed.

Granted, I have a ‘little bit' of experience with WordPress and WordPress themes but I wondered how much experience Justin had when he started working with the Lifestyle theme. Here's what Justin had to say about his own level of expertise prior to starting Doglirious…

I have been tinkering with Web design for years and also obtained a Masters degree in usability & information architecture. So with those skills and the very helpful people at the Revolution community forum I quickly grasped WordPress (which I've never used before). The Revolution forum admins – just like yours on NetProfitsToday – are prompt and extremely helpful with their feedback and advice.

Oh…if you are interested, I've attached our early drafts of the website layout to this email for your reference (see screenshot to the right). A $5 box of Crayola colored pencils was our very first business expense.

In addition to aesthetic appeal, Justin's educational background is likely what caused him to jump at the chance to work with this beautiful theme. The section layouts lead visitors down a natural path from Featured articles / posts near the top of the page to various sections of featured categories, and lastly to the sidebar navigation.

What sets the latest StudioPress themes apart however is the Featured Content Gallery plugin which allows you to attach those large pictures at the top of the page to specific articles, and add thumbnail pictures to the category sections — all of which increases the likelihood that a visitor will click a link and go deeper into the site.

For example, according to the Google Analytics report for MyEnergyPal (which hasn't even officially launched 'cause I still have tweaking to do), of the 40 unique visitors we've had so far, the landing page has a 0.00% bounce rate. Bounce rate is the average percentage of initial visitors who “bounce” to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.

Pretty phenomenal!

But better yet, the average Pages/Visit is 16.50 and average time on the site is almost 24 minutes. Granted, that could have something to do with the fact that I count as one visitor and I had the site open in a browser for many, many, MANY hours. 🙂

Needless to say, when a theme makes a site that ‘sticky', I plan to covert each of my sites to one of the StudioPress themes as soon as possible.

Interested in a LifeStyle Change?

Join us at Affiliate Blogger PRO which features the use of StudioPress themes.

Where to Find Professional WordPress Themes

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Give your WordPress blog a professional look…

You can get free themes for your WordPress blog but truth be told, only a few of the free WordPress themes that I see are attractive, and none of them have any SEO components built into them.

So, I've resorted to buying themes for each of my WordPress blogs. Listed below are the design services where I've bought themes and templates.

  1. StudioPress

    StudioPress WordPress Themes

    I use Brian Gardner's StudioPress themes on this site, 101Date.com, RosalindGardner.com and my personal site at RosalindGardner.me.

    I started using his themes back in 2007 when he came out with Revolution News. You can read about how my average visitor duration increased after I started using his themes.

    The theme currently used on this site is called Eleven40Pro a theme that I've modified to my own liking.

    Studiopress ‘child' themes work on the Genesis framework, a powerful and flexible base upon which to create beautifully designed WordPress sites quickly. The themes are fast, lean, and SEO-optimized and come with lifetime updates and support. I like the fact that there is a StudioPress community to which I can refer any time I have a question that I need to be answered quickly.

    Visit Studiopress.

  2. Elegant Themes

    elegant-themes

    Elegant Themes has served more than a quarter million customers! Buy just one theme and get access to the entire collection of 87 beautiful themes.

    Visit Elegant Themes.

  3. Theme Forest

    Theme Forest WordPress Themes

    Visit Theme Forest.

Keep checking back as I add more professional themes for WordPress when I find them.

Basic Services for Your Affiliate Marketing Business

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“These are services that I wouldn't be without as an Internet marketer…”

Here is a list of basic services that I wouldn't be without as an Internet marketer.

Please note that the services I use and recommend are listed in alphabetical order – not in order of importance. If you are just starting out, the “must-haves” are marked with ***, although in time you will likely discover that they are all “must-haves”. 🙂

  1. Autoresponder ***
  2. Blog Templates and Themes ***
  3. Graphics / Stock Photography
  4. Hosting Service***
  5. Market Research Services
  6. Marketing & Advertising Services
  7. Outsourcing Services (Find Programmers, Designers and Writers)
  8. Webinar & Meeting Services


 
 

1. Autoresponder Service ***

If you don't build a list, you're not building a business — pure and simple. Your list will become your most important business asset.

And don't even consider building that list without the services of a third-party autoresponder service. My autoresponder of choice is Aweber — no holds barred. I've been doing business with them for almost 10 years (at the time of writing) and they've never lost a lead and their service is fabulous. And yes, I have sampled a number of the other services, but always came back to Aweber. Sign up for Aweber Autoresponder now or read my review. More autoresponder service options are listed here.


 

2. Blog Template / Theme Suppliers

Make your website beautiful the easy way by getting a Professional WordPress theme for your blog. This blog uses the eleven-40 theme by StudioPress.


 

3. Graphics and Photos

You can add visual interest to your blog posts as well as give your readers clues about content by adding clipart, graphics and photos. Don't be tempted however to copy and use any image that you find online. Most images often are copyright protected, and you need permission before you can use them on your site, and many webmasters will not give you permission to use their images.

So, rather than spend time emailing other webmasters and then waiting for permission, I highly recommend using iStockPhoto where you can pick up images for as little as $1 a piece.


 

4. Hosting Service ***

You've taken the plunge and decided to get your own website. Excellent!!! Find out which hosting services I currently recommend for having top-notch features and services.

If you're still debating whether or not you actually need a web site, please read Free Hosting is NOT for Affiliate Marketers and “Do I Really Need My Own Web Site?“.


 

5. Keyword & Niche Market Research

Which keyword phrase is more popular? “Dog training collar” or the more generic “dog obedience training“? Don't know? Knowing which keyword phrase gets the most searches is very important if you want to reach the largest possible audience and hence, increase your sales.

I use and recommend a service called Wordtracker, which lets you optimize your website content by finding the most popular keywords. You can also use Wordtracker to generate thousands of relevant keywords to improve your organic and PPC search campaigns. Last but not least, most marketers use Wordtracker to research online markets and find niche opportunities before they spend valuable time and money building a site around a niche market that may be too small to be worthwhile, or worse not even exist.

Wordtracker offers a FREE trial service, which for starters, may be all you need.


 

7. Outsourcing Work to Programmers, Designers and Writers

Having trouble getting that plugin work? Do you want to tweak your site but don't know where to begin – or are scared that you might break something?

Every so often there will probably be something you want to accomplish with your site that you just don't know how to do — or don't have time for. For example, although I like to do basic design changes to my own websites, I will not even attempt to design an ebook or report cover. For that work, I prefer to use professionals such as Vaughan Davidson of Killer Covers Design Service.

If the company that sold you the script offers only installation services but leaves ‘tweaking' up to the individual webmaster, it's time to hire a professional programmer. I've had good luck hiring programmers and other freelancers through Freelancer and Fiverr.

Here are a few of the categories under which you can post jobs for freelancers:

  • CSS
  • Data Entry
  • Graphic Design
  • Handheld
  • Links
  • Marketing
  • Multimedia Script Installation
  • SEO
  • Security
  • System Admin
  • Translation
  • Website Design
  • Writing

As you can see, the freelancers' skills aren't limited to programming. So, for example, if you wanted to have 25 articles ghost-written for one of your sites, you can post jobs for that type of work as well.


 
 

8. Webinar and Online Meeting Services

GoToMeeting - Online Meetings Made EasyHave you ever wished that you could see what someone else was doing on their computer, rather than try to figure out their explanation of the process?

My partners and I have been using GoToMeeting for exactly that purpose for a few years now — and it has proven to be another huge time-saving tool.

You can perform live demos in real-time to multiple customers, collaborate on projects with your colleagues and host meetings on-the-fly with sales prospects. You can also have up to 10 attendees per meeting. We also use GotoWebinar to hold online seminars and demonstrations – with up to 1,000 people at once.

Both services offer a Free Trial.

Affiliate Summit West 09 Highlights

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Crowded Meet Market

Going to the January Las Vegas Affiliate Summit's is always a highlight in the year, but each one has its own particular high points. Here are some of my highlights from Affiliate Summit West 09 held January 11 – 13, 2009.

Negotiating commission increases with some of my favorite merchants.

Learning about new products to promote and brand-new commissionable products that are coming to market.

Speaking with affiliates, merchants and managers during our Super Affiliate PPC Marketing Strategies session. I was also happy to hear Amit say that although arbitrage can be a highly profitable strategy, that he recognizes the need to build real review sites if affiliates want sustainable businesses over the long-term. 🙂

Exchanging copious business-enhancing tips with other Super Affiliates.

Consulting with numerous merchants and affiliate managers to help them improve their service to affiliates. Hopefully, they'll take my advice. 🙂

Finally meeting my favorite affiliate manager, Chris Reynolds (Internet Marketing Center) in person.

Having a good chat with Kris Jones (Pepperjam) shortly after arriving at the hotel.

Finally getting to meet long-time NPT readers and helpful contributors, Jake Becker and Peter Koning.

Seeing Clickbank at Affiliate Summit for the first time ever. Pretty sad however when a long-time Clickbank affiliate and merchant whose book ranked #1 in the business-to-business education category page for YEARS and is still listed on the 1st page, stops by to say hello and draws a big blank stare from the booth attendant.

Dining with the new Offeratti affiliate network team that includes Jim Lillig, Shawn Casey and his sister, Sharon. Super affiliates in attendance were Colin McDougall, Andrew Wee and Brad Waller. Nobu is my new favorite restaurant in Vegas. The food is a complete party in your mouth from the first to the last bite and everywhere in between. Thanks SO much for choosing the restaurant, Shawn!!

Enjoying a beer with my favorite Canadian affiliate network guys, JP and Steve Sauve of MaxBounty. Not only do they have great offers, but they understand the special circumstances faced by Canadian affiliates.

Hanging with industry pals Anik Singal (Affiliate Classroom), Chris Reynolds and others at the Voodoo Lounge. The music doesn't do much for me, but the view from the rooftop of the Rio at night is awesome.

Watching Lisa Picarille pedal her heart out on a tricycle during the Affiliate Triathlon.

Calling Joel Comm “Fart Man“.

Looking at Brian Littleton of (Shareasale). (I'm just old, not dead.)

Being party to Colin McDougall's first experience with Hugo Boss.

Enjoying recession deals at the Forum Shops.

Getting a chair massage at Shutter's.

Doubling my money on a penny slot and walking away 20 bucks richer.

Checking OUT of the Rio.

Of course, hearing “Thank You, Ros! Yours was the first book I bought and I'm doing great business” over and over and over again from Super Affiliate Handbook readers is always the biggest highlight of any conference.

Thank YOU to all those who stopped by to chat.

A Busy Blogging Week

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Hmm… there's nothing quite like being scheduled for surgery to remove a mass of unknown origin to propel one into action. In other words, I blogged a LOT this week. 🙂

After reviewing notes and listening Affiliate Summit recordings via the web, I blogged about how Jason Calacanis offended affiliates during his keynote speech. I personally thought his point was excellent – when you got past the arrogance.

I reported on Chitika's new Related Product Unit (RPU) and that Yahoo Search Marketing changed it's minimum bid policy on Sponsored Search keywords.

At that point, I noticed that Brian Gardner was having an contest for affiliates who promote his Revolution WordPress themes — which then got me thinking about working on RosalindGardner.com where I ended up installing a new Premium WordPress Themes (which I blogged about at NPT).

I stopped just long enough to read success stories about sites that sell fitness, tea & gas station equipment and then started blogging again.

I blogged about how much I enjoyed using my Flip Video Ultra Camcorder and embedded some new videos along with my 3-month old godson's first YouTube video taken at Sun Peaks Resort where we cross country skied last week.

I took a little poke at some U.S. based online merchants who really need to start thinking beyond their borders, and at the discourteous jerk in seat 12F. Of course, I won't have to worry about rude passengers as my March and April conference plans and appearances have been cancelled.

From now until I go under the knife, I'll be drafting a series of helpful posts to be regularly delivered during the first part of my recovery.

But I really hope that that there will be an Internet connection in the room so that I can just keep on bloggin'…

Brian Gardner’s Revolution Affiliate Contest

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Brian Gardner, developer of the Revolution themes for WordPress is holding a contest for his affiliates in March.

If you're not familiar with Brian's work, I run his Revolution News theme on my travel blog and it was the theme chosen for a blog coaching club that we're doing now.

Other themes include the original Revolution, as well as Revolution Pro Business, Magazine, Tech and Sports. Most of the themes sell for between $79.95 for a single user licence and $199.95 for a developer's license and affiliates earn 25%.

The most expensive product he sells is the Revolution All-Inclusive Developer Package for $399.95. It is for webmasters who want to create sites using any of Brians 6 Revolution themes. You will also receive any future Revolution themes as well. With the purchase of this package, you can use any of the themes as many times as you wish.

The March Revolution Affiliate Contest has some pretty nifty prizes including:

  1. A 4-night Bahama cruise for two plus $500 cash
  2. Samsung 19″ Flat-Panel HDTV, Revolution All-Inclusive Package or $500 cash
  3. $250 cash or a Gift Certificate to your favorite online retailer

The contest began on March 1st and goes until midnight on March 31st. To qualify you must
be one of the top 3 sales generating Revolution affiliates during that timeframe and link to contest details from your blog — which, take note, is a very smart traffic generation strategy on Brian's part! 🙂

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