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Is Buying Links for your Website Safe

By on September 22, 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

Is Buying Links for your Website Safe

Many webmasters frequently get into discussions with one another about whether or not it’s safe to buy links from other webmasters. Now although the search engines frown upon this type of stuff it’s completely safe for you to buy links for your website. As long as you don’t make the links look unnatural then you’ll be completely fine in the search engines, but if you do have unnatural links then you could be looking at getting de-indexed from the search engines.

If you begin buying links in blog networks and other spammy areas of the internet then you’re going to be placing a risk on your website of being punished. I personally wouldn’t recommend buying blog network links that are all associated with each other because they’ll be deemed a link farm and your site will be punished for having a link on them. You should only spend money on links that will help your website increase in the search engines and also page rank. You should be looking for links with high page rank that will move you up for the keyword used as anchor text and also will help increase your sites page rank. You could also buy links with high traffic, but these are harder to find and most of the time the cost outweighs any potential profit you could make which is the point.

There are many forums where you’ll find people selling links on their blogs and websites. Both offer great links and you should try getting both blog and website links. Try to avoid sitewide links when you’re buying links because you don’t want it too appear like a bought link. Ask the owner of the website to place your link on the homepage only. You may also be able to find some webmasters selling links on inner pages of their blogs and websites, which are also great for buying as long as they have page rank. You should be able to pick these inner content links up for cheaper then homepage links as well, and they will send the same amount of link juice so it’s a great way too save some money and purchase more links with. If the page where your link is going doesn’t have page rank then it isn’t even worth looking at too buy because there won’t be any benefits from it.

You’ll also need to make sure that you’re checking out each individual website before you buy a link on it. You’re spending your hard earned money on links so you first want to make sure the person you’re buying the links from is trustworthy. Many people sell links on monthly and yearly terms, but then a week later the link will be taken down by them. Try to avoid these webmasters as there only a huge waste of time and never result in anything good. Things you should look for before buying a link on a website is things such as how many backlinks it has, the page rank of where your link will be, cost, is the domain dropped and what niche it is. Only ever buy links that are relevant with your website because the search engines give far more value to relevant links then links that are opposites of each other.

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How to Make a WordPress Theme – Use the Incredible Artisteer Theme Creator Software

By on September 21, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How to Make a WordPress Theme – Use the Incredible Artisteer Theme Creator Software

How to make a WordPress theme – no this isn’t a tutorial on php programming, or a crash course on HTML or any other technical instruction.

If you are using WordPress, whether it is actually for blogging, a general CMS, an article directory or one of the other type uses that this incredible platform lends itself to, you will inevitably get in the situation that we all arrive in, where to get the ideal theme for your site.

Most people probably have no real desire to learn the tedious scripting necessary to build a WordPress theme from scratch, although most of us have probably cut and copied/pasted blocks of code to try and get a theme to our liking, or at least as far as our skills would permit.

After finding Artisteer a good while back, I now know how to make a WordPress theme. I simply start the program and use the menu-driven interface to setup a theme to look exactly as I want it to. There’s no more paying for custom or premium themes, no more searching for hours on end looking for a decent looking WordPress theme that thousands of other sites aren’t also using. Artisteer is both easy to use, but also very powerful in that it allows the user to change nearly everything in the theme aesthetics that you could possibly want.

If you are not familiar with Artisteer, a detailed look at the company site will give the details of the power of this nifty piece of software, which by the way, won the Software Product of the Year (2008) (
The Red Ferrett Journal). It not only works well with WordPress, but will also export themes/templates in HTML, to Blogger, and also to other CMS-type programs.

For less than what you would pay for a single WordPress premium theme, you will actually own Artisteer and have the capability to create as many themes/templates as you need.

The software is a very good value for the reasonable cost (offered in two versions), is very stable, and the company behind this quality product regularly offers updates.

If you have WordPress working just as you want it to, and the only thing left is to make it look just right, Artisteer WordPress theme generator is just what you need.

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WordPress – Create a New WordPress Theme (1st in a Series)

By on September 19, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

WordPress – Create a New WordPress Theme (1st in a Series)

WordPress is a wonderfully flexible blogging framework.

If you use WordPress much, you will eventually want to make some changes in the appearance of your blog.

Often the best way to give your blog a facelift is to create a new WordPress theme. The developers of WordPress have made this easy to do. This article tells you how to create a new theme. Future articles will tell you how to make visual modifications in your theme.

Note that this article presumes that you are developing on a PC or Mac and uploading your work to your Web site.

Here is the procedure for creating a new WordPress theme, in a nutshell:

1. Start with an existing theme that you want to modify.2. Copy that theme folder to a new theme folder.3. Edit the “”style”” css file in the new theme folder.4. Upload the theme folder to your Web site.5. From the WordPress Admin console, activate the new theme.

That is all you have to do.

The following sections provide detailed descriptions for implementing the above steps.

Start with an Existing Theme

Pick a theme that is already installed in your blog. It does not need to be activated, just installed. Pick one you like.

Copy the Them to a New Theme Folder

Both the old theme (the one you start with) and the new theme (the one you are creating) should be located in the themes folder of the wp-content folder.

Here is the hierarchy: main WordPress folder / wp-content / themes

If for example, you are copying the “”WordPress Default”” them to the “”John Doe”” theme, you will copy the “”default”” folder to the “”john-doe”” folder.

Edit the “”style”” css file in the new theme folder

Now that you have copied the old theme to your new theme folder, you need to edit the “”style”” css file.

Every theme has a “”style”” css file. That file starts out with some information that WordPress uses to display information about the style in the admin console. You will need to change this information. A skeletal version of this information looks like the following:

Theme Name: Theme name hereDescription: Description of theme here

Version:
Version number

Author:
Your Name

Author URI:
Your Web Site (if you have one)

Licensing Information

A filled in version would look something like the following:

Theme Name:
John Doe

Description:
This is a theme that John Doe created to for his personal Web site.

Version:
1.00

Author:
John Doe

This theme is offered under the GPL License.

Upload the Theme Folder to Your Web site

Using FTP or whatever system is in your editor/Web design software, upload the new theme folder to your Web site.

Activate the New Theme

(i) Log into your WordPress management console.(ii) On the left side of the console, about 1/2 way down, click on the “”Appearance”” link.(iii) Your theme should show up under “”Available Themes””, in the lower right hand side of the page.(iv) Click on the “”Activate”” link for your theme.

WordPress should now be using your theme.

Check the New Theme

If you want to check that you are actually using the new theme, do “”view page source”” and search for wp-content/themes/xxxxxxx where xxxxxxx is your theme name.

Summary

Creating a new WordPress theme is easy. Future articles will tell you how to change the appearance of your new theme.

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How to Install WordPress Plugins

By on September 17, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How to Install WordPress Plugins

When it comes to WordPress plugins, there are hundreds… if not thousands to choose from. Trying to decide what’s best for you and your site can be a bit tricky.

Before we get into a lot of the “”supplementary”” plugins there are a few “”core”” plugins that EVERY WordPress site should have. These plugins are critical to ensure the success of your site AND leveraging the power of WordPress with internet marketing.

I will briefly discuss each plugin and why they are so critical:

#1 –
All in One SEO Pack – WordPress itself isn’t very SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly. There are a LOT of improvements that could be made to each and every page and post that is created. All in One SEO Pack does a fantastic job of allowing you to update the title tags, meta description, and meta keyword to ensure your page/post is SEO friendly.

#2 –
Google Analytics for WordPress – It doesn’t matter how good you THINK your site is … without Google analytics you will never actually KNOW how visitors interact with your site AND how you can make it better. If you seriously want a site to succeed online and you do not have Google Analytics, or some kind of statistic tracking code installed on your site, you will NOT succeed. Simple as that.

#3 –
Google XML Sitemaps – This is a very powerful plugin for Search Engine Optimization. It ensures all your pages, even recent ones, can get indexed quickly and efficiently. Google themselves have stated that have a “”sitemap”” WILL help for indexing purposes.

#4 –
Add to Any: Share/Bookmark/eMail – This one may not be quite a critical as the above plugins but lends itself nicely to viral marketing. Giving your visitors the ability to “”share”” your website/page with others can tremendously help your SEO and traffic initiatives. This plugin will vary in importance depending on your site however I strongly recommend have this installed … just in case …

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of plugins. There are other plugins that could arguably make this list however I wanted to keep it fairly short and sweet and focus on two of the most important elements of a site TRAFFIC and TESTING.

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9 Great WordPress Plugins For Your WordPress Blog

By on September 15, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

9 Great WordPress Plugins For Your WordPress Blog

WordPress itself is a great platform to run your own blogs but WordPress plugins make it a lot easier to control spam comments, SEO, check for broken links, place revenue generating ads and to back up your WordPress database to name a few. Without these plugins you would require technical expertise way beyond the average blogger, not to mention the time plugins save in doing things like creating a “”Contact Us”” page and sorting out all those spam blog comments.

Here are the 9 plugins that I now use on all my blogs.

Akismet is a popular plugin that checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You can review the spam it catches under “”Comments.”” Without such a plugin your blog could easily become full of undesirable comments that you certainly do not want your readers to read.

All in One SEO Pack is Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog. You can use this plugin to tweak the default options for title, description, keywords and duplicate content.

Broken Link Checker checks your posts for broken links and missing images and notifies you on the dashboard if any are found. There is nothing worse getting traffic to your blog and then sending them to a web page that no longer exists. Without this plugin it would takes quite some time to regularly check all the links on all your blog posts and pages.

Google AdSense, Chitika and Kontera plugins allow you to monetize your blog and make an income from an information blog.

Contact Form 7 allows you to create a “”Contact Us”” page with a form people can fill in for further information or questions about your products.

Google XML Site maps plugin will generate a special XML site map which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog. Another time saving plugin.

Pretty Link will shrink, track and share any URL on the Internet from your WordPress website. No more ugly affiliate links that you have to hide under hyper-linked text.

StatPress gives real time stats for your WordPress blog. This is my preference for displaying my blog stats.

WP-DBManager manages your WordPress database. Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database, drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of the database. This is probably one of the most overlooked plugins for WordPress as a backup is only needed when your blog has been hacked or has failed due to technical issues. Relying on your hosting account for backups may not be a good as you think because blogs need to be backed up regularly as they are constantly changing with new posts being added regularly.

These are only a few of the many plugins available to use on your blogs. You need to consider the nature of your blog,the niche you are blogging in and other things like are you using you WordPress blog as a blog, a sales page or just a website?

You must also be aware that some plugins for WordPress can conflict with one another and cause problems with your blog. From my experience I have had I am yet to have a problem using the above combination of plugins but one must remember that plugins are always being updated and conflicts may arise with future updates.

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Information about Pay-Per-Click Advertising

By on September 14, 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

Information about Pay-Per-Click Advertising

If you run a website or blog that sells products then you might want too consider using pay-per-click advertising too increase your revenue. Whether you sell your own products or products for affiliates doesn’t matter, although you would obviously make more if it’s your own products. Many affiliates make thousands of dollars each month though using pay-per-click advertising and it’s possible for you too as well if you know what you’re doing.

Nowadays there are lots of different pay-per-click advertising mediums available to you, but the most popular is still Google Adwords by a long shot. Of course if you want too use Adwords though then you better be prepared too pay more for your keywords then you would on other pay-per-click mediums. Some other options available too you are MSN Adcenter and Yahoo.

Basically pay-per-click advertising is where you pay for your search engine rankings. As you probably already know many keywords in the search engines have millions of results and many have been around for years. This means that getting a first page ranking on Google would take years of link building which for a company isn’t something you want too hear. Now if you use Google Adwords then you’ll be able too buy rankings for your site which appear on the first page of Google. The rankings on the left side of Google search results are all the ones who are ranking for the keyword from their SEO, and the listings on the right on the search results are the pay-per-click advertisements.

Pay-per-click search engines aren’t for new webmasters and you shouldn’t attempt using these services unless you know what you’re getting into. They can cost you a lot of money and if you’re not getting conversions then you could be in big trouble. Many keywords nowadays also cost a lot of money per click so you could be spending upwards of $100 daily depending on what you’re promoting.

The goal you should focus on when using Adwords is too find long-tail keywords that get good search traffic that you can buy for cheap. Long-tail keywords are always cheaper too purchase and you may only need to spend $10 daily for top rankings. Make sure when you buy keywords you look for keywords that are generally people looking too buy something. You don’t want keywords of people looking for free things coming too your site because they’ll leave when they see it’s not free. There are millions of keywords and it can take hours to set-up a good Adwords campaign and even then you’ll need to do a lot of tweaking.

There is definitely money too be made in pay-per-click advertising, but for newer webmasters without the huge budgets you need to focus on smaller keywords and niched products. You’ll do a lot of testing, but once you find the right combination of keywords and products then you’ll be well on your way too cashing in on the pay-per-click craze that is going on right now.

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How to Install a WordPress Theme

By on September 13, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How to Install a WordPress Theme

One of the cool features of using a self-hosted WordPress website is the ability to very quickly and easily change the layout of your site. There are tens of thousands of free WordPress themes available to choose from. Many can be found on the WordPress website in the Theme Directory and many more can be found on various WordPress related sites as well. A quick Google for “”free WordPress themes”” will present you with all the themes you could possible want to choose from. In addition there are thousands of Premium (aka you pay for them) as well that offer even more advanced functionality and layouts for specific website types.

Installing a new theme is amazingly easy. From within your WordPress Administrative Dashboard, on the left hand side, click on “”Appearance”” and then on “”Themes.”” On this page you’ll see the current theme you have installed. If you are looking at a brand new WordPress install you’ll probably just see the standard default theme. At the top of this page you’ll see two tabs; one for “”Manage Themes”” and another for “”Install Themes.”” You guessed it – click on the “”Install Themes”” tab.

What you’ll see is a search page that lets you quickly search through all the free WordPress themes currently on the WordPress website. Choose a few parameters, such as color, width, number of columns or click on one of the quick tags like Featured or Newest. You’ll see the themes that match your search displayed for you with links for “”Install”” and “”Preview”” at the bottom of each thumbnail.

The Preview feature is pretty neat as it allows you to see how the new theme will look on your website. Keep in mind, however, that once in a while things will look a bit messed up. The new theme your are previewing many have different settings and parameters than you current theme so some things may look a bit out of place at first and require a bit of massaging.

Once you’ve found a theme you like simply click on the “”Install”” link and the theme will be installed into your site. You can then activate the theme to make it live online. Easy, right?

In the case you find a theme on a 3rd party website, not on the WordPress Theme Directory, you will simply need to download the file. Typically you’ll download the file in.zip format and need to extract it (right click, extract all). Once it’s extracted use a FTP program like Filezilla to upload the new theme files to your website. You’ll need to place the folder containing the new files into the wp-content/theme folder. Then visit your admin panel and activate the theme. Easy enough!

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Two Free WordPress Themes That Can Reduce Your Blog Setup Time by Half

By on September 11, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Two Free WordPress Themes That Can Reduce Your Blog Setup Time by Half

WordPress themes are also known as layouts or templates. These are files that create the look and feel of your blog content. WordPress themes can be very simple, like the one that comes standard with every install, to the complex. Bloggers can choose from free and paid versions of templates. When choosing a template, you should choose one that will give you a lot of ability to easily customize the template to fit your branding needs. This article discusses 2 templates (or themes) that have a lot of customization features which are relatively easy to a create unique brand.

All WordPress templates allow you to customize them by going into the Edit page of the Appearance tab. If you are not comfortable with PHP and HTML code, then you may have some trouble in customizing your appearance. One benefit of the themes mentioned in this article is they are customizable through a special theme options page, which means you can get your WordPress site up and running much more quickly.

1) Atahualpa Theme

This theme is a free theme that was created by ‘Bytes for All’ and can be found on their web site where you can ask questions and get community support for this theme. Once this theme is installed, you can customize the theme in the Appearance >> Atahualpa Theme Options page. Once here, you will find a host of options to highly customize your theme. Webmasters can configure special CSS styles for things such as the header, the layout, and page features such as headings, links and menu bars. Users can easily upload header graphics that can rotate through the header graphic.

Other options that can be customized include the number of columns you want on your blog (technically you can have from 1 to 5 columns), which side you want you sidebars to be on, or what you want your widget boxes to look like. The look and feel is highly customizable and is a great start to quickly getting a professional look to your blog.

2) News Magazine Theme

The free News Magazine theme was created by Anti Social Media LLC. This theme gives you several easily customizable options that can be set in the Appearance >> News Magazine Theme 640 Options page. The News Magazine theme doesn’t have quite as many options to set up as the Atahualpa theme, but you can add code for site tracking (can be done through the use of plugins), ad rotating and just adding text or java script code to parts of your template.

One nice feature of this template is that you can easily take featured categories and spotlight them on your blog through simple dropdown selections. One very nice feature is that you can control the excerpt length of your blog postings on the index page. On 99.9% of the WordPress blogs out there, the home (or index) page prints the entire text of the blog post. A better format for visitors is to have a post excerpt and they can click a link to read the entire blog. Currently there is no function in WordPress that allows you to display excerpts of your blog postings. This blog theme allows you to display excerpts with their ‘Blog Mode Excerpt Length’ setting.

These two WordPress themes are varied enough to get you started and well on your way with your first (or second) WordPress blog. The ease of these customizable settings should greatly reduce your setup time while creating a fairly well customized blog. To make the most advantage of setting up your blog for more traffic and more automation, taking a WordPress training class will speed up creating a decent blog following.

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