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How To Make A WordPress Website

By on December 6, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How To Make A WordPress Website

There are tons of software programs out there now that will help you; learning how to make a WordPress website is fairly easy and quick. This program is designed to be simple, and it lives up to that.

There are no HTML codes to learn, and no confusing software to use for getting your pages online. WordPress is set up to have hundreds of templates for you to choose from. Once you get the one you like, it may take a couple minutes for it to be on the web. After it is up, you can then go back and customize your site. It’s a simple matter of pasting the information you want into the spots open in your template. There is no confusion about it. You simply put what you want where.

There are other aspects to learning how to make a WordPress website. You can add in pages and posts. You can also create your follow-up sequence. The most important step though, is using the keyword tool. This is not part of the software packages, but it’s a step you should take, and there are free keyword tools out there that you can use. You are going to want to do this before you create the site.

Why keyword? You are going to want to target your website to the best phrase for your niche. Please remember that the most searched word phrase is not always the best. If you do that, chances are you page will end up somewhere at the back of the list. You want to pick something with 5000 searches or less. This allows you to have a better chance for placing on the first page when your phrase is searched through a search engine. You will want to use the same keyword phrase for the home page content of your website, as well as at least one article. This will allow you to tie everything in together and get the traffic you want.

Let’s face it, traffic means nothing if they don’t buy anything. With the targeted keyword phrase you are appealing to people already looking for your type of product, and because of that are more likely to buy something.

After you get the keyword, use it for buying your domain name. You will need this to set up the site. You may also need web hosting, though that depends on whether you are set up as a member where you have unlimited hosting services. Entering in your domain name and pointing to your web hosting server are the first couple steps in learning how to make a WordPress website. You can save yourself some time in actual set up if you get these before you open the program.

Then all you need to do is pick your stuff. Choose a template, review your choices, and create. The last page will give you all your site information including domain name and web hosting information. You would be wise to either save this information or print it out for your records.

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About Woo Themes – A Premium WordPress Themes Developer

By on December 4, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

About Woo Themes – A Premium WordPress Themes Developer

Overview of Woo Themes

Woo Themes is a premium WordPress theme developer offering dozens of themes that function on self-hosted WordPress websites (not wordpress.com sites). All themes are guaranteed to function correctly with WordPress 2.8 and all versions that came out after that. Earlier versions of WP may not work properly with all Woo Themes.

There are currently 77 themes offered by the site and all of them are professional quality and well designed. Of course, you get what you pay for, so this is one of the best but also one of the most expensive premium WordPress theme developer services in operation today. They are probably more suited to professionals rather than hobbyists or personal bloggers.Most Popular Themes

The top 3 all-time downloaded Woo Theme themes are (at the time this article was published):

Fresh News: offers a variety of color schemes and can be used as a blog page or a homepage. 3 homepage layouts come with the package.
Gazette: professional, upscale theme with some unique features, layout options, and color choices.
Busy Bee: supports ad space and tons of multimedia features right out of the box and offers a super stylish, sleek appearance.

Woo Themes are easy to customize and offer great features:

Custom Sidebars: You can create new custom sidebars for placement throughout your website using an easy-to-use panel.
Shortcodes for creating buttons and columns within a page or post (this is very cool):
Create custom navigation menus with a very easy-to-use panel (no coding knowledge required).
Built-in SEO panel: You can configure the search engine optimization for your site easily in themes developed by Woo Themes (without knowing any coding).

Pricing & License Model for Woo Themes (at time this article was published)

This is one of the more complicated things about Woo Themes as a premium WordPress theme developer. You can opt to purchase a single theme or a club membership which gives access to all themes. There are several options no matter which way you go.

The options for purchasing a single theme include:

Standard Package: your chosen theme plus 2 bonus themes. The license permits you to use the theme on as many websites as you want and you receive lifetime access to updates for all three themes. One-time fee is $70.
Developer Package: your chosen theme plus 3 bonus themes and PSD file. The license permits you to use the theme on as many websites as you want and you receive lifetime access to updates for all four themes. You can make any changes you like using the PSD file. One-time fee is $150.
Enterprise Package: select themes are Enterprise themes which include advanced features not found on other themes. No bonus themes are given but you do receive everything else that comes with the Developer Package, including the PSD files. One-time fee is $200.
The options for joining the club include:
Standard Subscription: unlimited access to all the themes plus at least 2 new theme releases every month. Access to support services and all theme updates is included. No PSD files for themes used. One-time start-up fee is $125, then the monthly club fee is $15.
Developer Club: the same terms as the Standard option, but you have access to PSD files for all themes. One-time start-up fee is $200 and monthly club fee is $20.

Woo Themes uses a private service for payment processing which accepts all major credit cards plus Paypal as long as you are paying in U.S. dollars. If you are signing up for a subscription service you will not be able to cancel the subscription on your own. You have to contact the company before the subscription is set to renew in order to have it cancelled.

PSD Files with Woo Themes Purchase

PSD files are included with select membership packages. See the information under Pricing & Licensing Model above to see what packages include these files.

All image logos are intended to be samples and there is a simple process on the site where you can replace this with your own logo. You don’t need Photoshop or any other program to do this!

Technical Support with Woo Themes

All support is handled through an open support forum where Woo staff answers questions and help resolve problems with installation or functioning of all themes. Like most other premium WordPress theme developer services, Woo Themes will not answer questions or resolve problems through email or telephone.

Access to the support forum and basic technical support continues even if you cancel your subscription. You also receive updated versions and corrections to your purchased themes, even if you are not a current club member.

History of Woo Themes

Learning about Woo Themes as a premium WordPress theme developer service is a study in how technology has changed the modern world. This is a true international company that started up with three passionate web designers all living in different countries. Today, their service has expanded some and many of their themes are designed by some of the top professionals in the industry.

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Offering Certificates Coupons Discounts and Sales Through Your Shopping Cart

By on December 3, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, article directory, article plugin, article themes, Blog Business, Blog Platform, Blog Posting, blogging, Blogs, Conversion, Domains, Free Reports, Google Adsense, Membership sites, Mobil Blogging, New Blogging, SEO, Themes, Traffic, Web Design, Websites, widgets, wordpress, World Internet Summit, Wp Headers, Wp Themes, Youtube Video

Offering Certificates, Coupons, Discounts and Sales Through Your Shopping Cart

Driving sales to your Website through use of promotions such as sales, discounts, coupons and certificates is what make for a successful online store. Your shopping cart can help you to drive sales if it has the right features.

Some shopping carts that have more of a storefront system contain many of the advanced features that are useful for driving traffic to the store and we all know that traffic equates to sales. Most any basic shopping cart will allow you to change prices when you want to have a sale but you usually have to do it manually, one at a time. Then, after the sale you have to change them all back again. Some shopping cart systems allow owners to set up pre-set timed sales, where the program sets the beginning time of the sale and the ending time automatically.

Another useful promotion feature of some store-front shopping carts is the ability to feature an item or items on the homepage of the store so that it can be prominently seen by customers as the enter your store. Some even have the capability of placing sale products or new products on the front page to drive sales that way.

Shopping cart software that has the capability to email customers can be set up to email customers about coupons offers or discounts. Not all shopping carts can do this and when they can what they can offer may differ such as some being able to offer a percentage or a dollar amount coupon, and others can offer either specific product coupons versus all-store coupons. Some times you can program the shopping cart to kick-in a discount when the dollar amount of the purchase reaches a certain dollar amount.

Another useful feature is when the software has the capability to offer free shipping when orders reach over $50.00. This type of offer really helps to boost sales.

Customer pricing is another type of discount that kicks in when the customer logs into the Website. The private login password identifies the customer and the customer’s assigned percentage of discount that appears on the order form at checkout.

Just as offline brick and mortar stores offer sales, discounts, certificates and coupons to entice customers into the store. The ability of shopping carts to send out emails enticing customers to visit an online store is crucial for driving sales. An online store is dead without a constant flow of interested buyers. Sales, discounts, certificates and coupons are promotional tactics that a shopping cart can be programmed to handle saving a storeowner time and money. When making a shopping cart decision don’t ignore the power of advanced features to generate greater sales, features such as the ones discussed in this article.

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How to Install WordPress Widgets

By on December 2, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How to Install WordPress Widgets

One of the things that makes WordPress so easy to use is widgets. What is a widget? I will try and explain them the easiest way possible. Basically, a widget is an area of a website or blog where you can control the location by dragging and dropping it. In WordPress, widgets are usually found in the sidebar section. As far as what can be places in them, there are really no limits. There are literally hundreds of different ways to utilize widgets within WordPress.

However, before you get started you should probably learn how to install WordPress widgets. The good news is that a lot of widgets come preinstalled with the WordPress package. The common ones include things like recent posts, categories, tags, and a search function.

However, if you want to add any functionality to your blog or website then you will want to know how to install WordPress widgets from plugins. Many WordPress plugins come with widgets built in so all you have to do is install the plugin and then browse to the widgets section in WordPress.

If the plugin comes with a widget, you should automatically see it listed under the available widgets. If for some reason you do not see any new widgets, then you should make sure the plugin is activated. If for some reason it is not, it will not show up under widgets. The other possibility is that the plugin does not come with a built in widget. If this is the case, you may have to find the short code that works with the plugin and add it to a text widget.

So there you have it, a quick lesson in how to install WordPress widgets.

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Why Have a Professional Build Your WordPress Website

By on November 30, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Why Have a Professional Build Your WordPress Website?

Once upon a time the WordPress CMS (content management system) was designed for blogging sites, which could be created easily by the bloggers themselves. As the platform became more robust over the last few years, WordPress has come to be considered as the basis for traditional and e-commerce web-sites as well as just for blogs. It can be the perfect way to go for
your business if you use a professional web developer.

The Advantages of a Professionally Built WordPress Website

For a simple personal blog site, where graphic design and flexibility are not so important, you may be able to get by with a do-it-yourself site that is hosted by WordPress. However, such a hosted site (“”yourbusiness””.wordpress.com) is not recommended for your business. Your business should have a professional set up a
self-hosted web-site, with its own domain (like “”yourbusiness””.com). You will be able to display ads, have more control of SEO (search engine optimization) and have all the flexibility you need into the future.

While the WordPress development platform is fairly easy to learn for someone with web programming experience, a do-it-yourselfer, with no programming experience is very likely to have trouble tackling this endeavor. The professional who is familiar with web development, can navigate the nuances and get you a better, sharper result in far less time. And, if you do attempt to build this website, and you get stuck, then a professional can generally come to the rescue.

Your Site Can be Up and Running Quickly

The beauty of this type of web site, that is based on a CMS, is that a professional web developer can build your site in a straightforward manner from a starting theme and customize it for your needs. Then you, the not-so-programming-savvy site owner, can add content and post updates with relative ease.

Your web developer can get the job done generally much more quickly than with traditional programming in HTML or php or JavaScript. Yet, this professional will have those web languages at their disposal, if needed, to make customizations not supported by WordPress or your starting theme. Also, if you want to have your existing traditional web-site ported to WordPress, then knowledge of traditional web development languages and techniques is a must.

You get so many advantages right off the bat via the myriad plug-ins written for WordPress by independent programmers. Your web professional will know how to utilize these plug-ins to the fullest for your company’s site. The following, can be done very quickly:

– Adding protective backup support- Great web metrics like Google Analytics- Traffic enhancers like SEO- Photo and media galleries- Being able to easily print your web-pages in print-friendly format

What is the Cost to Create Your WordPress Website?

The cost of creating your site will depend primarily on five things:

1. The number and size of the web-pages2. Does your content exist in publishable form3. How fancy you want your graphics, photos and other media4. Whether you will have an e-commerce site (i.e. be selling things)5. Is this a brand new web-site or will it be created from an existing site

Say a website for a small law office has a few pages of credentials and biographies of the counsels plus contact information, with 15 total web pages. This site would typically cost a lot less than a website that is a virtual store with a two hundred page catalog, a shopping cart, etc.

Making Your Site Better Over Time

One of the great advantages of a WordPress site is that it is fairly straightforward for a web professional to take your simple website and add the latest features over time. After a while, you may want to change aspects of the site, such as how it looks, its navigation or to add e-commerce (if not already there). The original designer/developer or another professional can get the job done much more quickly than if the web-site were built with traditional programming methods.

What Are You Waiting For?

So if you want a new website for your business, then you should consider having a web professional build one that’s polished and maintainable. This will help to attract and keep your customers’ attention.

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What is Involved in Shopping Cart Software

By on November 29, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, article directory, article plugin, article themes, Blog Business, Blog Platform, Blog Posting, blogging, Blogs, Conversion, Domains, Free Reports, Google Adsense, Membership sites, Mobil Blogging, New Blogging, SEO, Themes, Traffic, Web Design, Websites, widgets, wordpress, World Internet Summit, Wp Headers, Wp Themes, Youtube Video

What is Involved in Shopping Cart Software

There are many things that go on within a shopping cart. There are many different features and management systems, so many that it can be mind-boggling. When deciding on which shopping cart program to purchase you should know what the basic parts of a shopping cart system entails so that you can make a smart buying decision.

All shopping carts have some kind of ordering system whether it is a simple online ordering system that includes buttons that have HTML attached to them such as is done with the Paypal shopping cart or a store-front ordering system where everything is done on site.

All shopping carts also have the ability for customers to add items to the cart, delete items from the cart, and input quantity desired. All shopping carts collect data such as the customer’s name, address and phone number. All shopping carts have to include shipping modules unless the products are all digital in nature in that case there would be a download manager.

Advanced shopping carts would allow customers to have several options per item such as color, size, weight, shape, height or width. Some carts even have choices between bulk or single item orders.

Shopping carts normally have shipping options with common ones being USPS, UPS and FedEx, DHL, CanadaPost, and also AustraliaPost. Not only do you have the different carriers but you also have other shipping options such as delivery time: next day, second day, ground, and air.

Tax calculation are also a part of what shopping carts need to offer when the customer has a physical address that is in the same state or city as the merchant. Tax calculations are done by zip code. Merchants who have stores in multiple rates would have a hair-pulling experience if not for advanced software plug-ins such as TaxWare’s Sales/Use Tax System or CertiTax which can calculate for the customer in real time the exact taxes.

Buyers insist on secure transactions before they hand over their credit cards so it is important for the shopping cart to integrate a payment gateway that is secure, protection for credit card numbers that are stored on the Website, an SSL secure connection certificate between the customer and the Website to discourage hackers from stealing sensitive financial information from the customers. It is also important to have a secure Sockets Layer (SSL) between the customer and the Website. If your Website server is not secure customer won’t buy. It is also important to have secure order retrieval.

Not all payment gateways are compatible with all shopping carts so you need to verify that the payment gateway is compatible before making your purchase. The most common U.S. based shopping cart compatible payment gateways are Authorize.net, LinkPoint, veriSign PayFlow Pro, and WorldPay. PayPal is another alternative payment system for most shopping carts but PayPal’s proprietary Instant Payment Notification (IPN) is not always available so you have to check before deciding to use PayPal.

Most shopping carts nowadays provide email confirmation of order placement and a few provide email confirmation of shipment.

Cookies, temporary IP number assignment and randomly generated cart numbers are all ways that shopping carts have to help keep customer orders straight. Because some shoppers turn off cookies it is important that shopping carts be set up with other methods alongside cookies just in case.

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How to Install WordPress Theme2

By on November 28, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How to Install WordPress Theme

So you have hunted high and low and found the perfect WordPress theme. Now you need to know how to install WordPress theme or it will just be a pretty file collecting dust on your hard drive.

Installing a WordPress theme is not as complicated as many people think it is. The thing that tends to confuse people is that there are two different methods you can use when trying to figure out how to install WordPress theme.

Manually install WordPress theme

First I will go over how to install WordPress theme manually to help you get familiar with the WordPress structure.

To install a WordPress theme manually you will need to download the theme, which I am assuming you have done by now.
You will also need to unzip the WordPress theme to a folder on your hard drive (try not to forget where you put it).
Now you will need to fire up your FTP program and FTP to your site.
At this point you will want to navigate to the themes folder by going to the ‘wp-content’ folder and then the ‘themes’ folder.
Once you are in the themes folder on your web site, you will want to navigate to the theme you unzipped on your hard drive (you did remember where you put it, didn’t you?).
You will then need to upload the theme on your hard drive (folder and all) to the themes folder on your web site.
After your all FTP’d out you will want to go back to your browser and log into your WordPress blog on your site.
You will then go to the ‘Appearance’ option on the left side menu and select the ‘Themes’ option.
At this point you should be able to see your theme listed as an option. If not then you probably uploaded it as a folder within a folder and will need to double check it.
You should now be able to preview and then activate your theme by selecting the appropriate options listed under your theme.

Automatically install WordPress theme

If you are lazy like me you will want to let WordPress do all the work for you. So now we will learn how to install WordPress theme by letting WordPress get down and dirty.

To put WordPress to work you will need to first log into your blog.
You will navigate to the ‘Appearance’ option on the left side of the menu.
Next you are going to click on the ‘Themes’ option located under the ‘Appearance’ tab.
Once you are under the ‘Themes’ section, you will see ‘Manage Themes’ at the top of the page. Next to the ‘Manage Themes’ tab you will see the ‘Install Themes’ tab which will probably be grayed out. You will want to click on the ‘Install Themes’ tab to make it the active tab.
Now you have a couple options here.
Option one is that you don’t have a theme in mind yet and want to search for one. In this case you will select the options you are looking for and click Search. Once you have the results up on screen you can scroll through until you find one that you like and want to use. At this point it is only a matter of previewing the theme to make sure it is what you are looking for and if it is, then you can click Install and let WordPress do its magic.
Option two assumes that you have already downloaded the theme you want to use. In this case you will want to select the Upload option that you will find available under the ‘Install Themes’ tab. Once you have selected the Upload option you will want to browse to the theme file you downloaded and select it. (Yes WordPress will even unzip the file for you. How’s that for service!) Then it is just a matter of clicking ‘Install Now’ and let WordPress go to town.

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A Very Slick Photo Gallery WordPress Theme

By on November 26, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

A Very Slick Photo Gallery WordPress Theme

Without a doubt, the Manhattan theme by StudioPress is a very slick photo gallery WordPress theme.

Why is the Manhattan theme such a slick photo Gallery WordPress theme?

Keep in mind, this is my opinion. I’m not basing this proclamation on any official WordPress theme rating organization. My reasons for liking this gallery WordPress theme so much are twofold:

It has my preferred photo gallery layout on the home page, and
It’s a theme that operates on the Genesis Framework.

My Reasons Explained

1. Photo gallery layout and Design of this theme

The home page is what makes the design so fantastic. I like the large above-the-fold image slide show for featuring your best photographs.

Under the large photo space on the home page you have space to create a gallery. The Manhattan gallery demo features only 4 photos, but you can add many more if you like. You can create a large scrolling gallery of photographs on the home page. This is easily done in the WordPress Widgets panel.

What you do is drag the Featured Posts feature built into the theme on the Genesis Framework and drag it to the home page widget section. The Featured Posts widget pulls your images from the specific posts you place your images. You can also manually insert source image code in the Widgets to display any number of photos.

The point is you can create a huge or small photo gallery on the home page. Those photos can link to a post or not. It’s up to you.

Moreover, because the Manhattan home page is configured with widgets, you can add article titles and/or excerpts as well or in place of photos.

Essentially, you have many options for designing your home page with the Manhattan theme.

2. I like the Genesis Framework

There is much to say about the Genesis Framework.

If you go with the Manhattan theme, you gain the benefits and features of Genesis. That is a fundamental advantage of the Manhattan photo gallery WordPress theme. In other words, Manhattan is not a stand-alone WordPress photo theme. Instead, it’s driven by Genesis which gives you the tools for building a fantastic photo gallery website.

Just so you know, I use the Genesis Framework for many websites, including my offline business website. When Genesis was released, I fairly quickly migrated most of my websites onto Genesis. I’ve been very happy with that decision ever since.

Why pay for a photo gallery theme when there are many free gallery themes available?

Good question. In fact, before I used paid themes, I used free themes as well. I became frustrated with free themes. Then I read something about some free themes being encoded with links and perhaps even poor code. I became a concerned and dug a little deeper.

I wish to emphasize not all free themes are compromised. The trouble for me then was I couldn’t tell whether a free theme was okay or not.

A few words about StudioPress

When you buy a theme from StudioPress (such as Manhattan), you can use it on as many domains as you like. This is important. Some premium themes restrict the number of uses. Not so with StudioPress.

You also have access to a good support forum with senior moderators who know A LOT about WordPress themes and StudioPress themes specifically. They answer questions generally within 24 hours.

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