How To Create Content Based Niche Sites That Are P...

As the internet evolves at breakneck speed, so do the methods used to derive maximum revenue from online websites & internet based businesses. Did you know that some knowledgeable webmasters are creating absolute FORTUNES today, just by setting up relatively simple content based websites? This article aims to give you the foundations required to join them.

Today, we’ll look at how you can yourself create sensational content based niche sites and grab your slice of the hefty profits available to online information publishers. We’ll delve into the methods of creating content sites, which (free) content based software to use and what types of internet business models work best with content publishing. We’ll also touch on the most effective ways of researching which niches are the best to create your content-based sites in.

But first, let’s touch on just WHY having your very own content based sites could return staggering profits for you:

The whole world is coming online. The internet is all about information, and the publishers who know how to implement a successful information based website (in any niche) can extract income from a wide variety of sources. The information based website can yield revenues from contextual (Adsense) advertising, affiliate income for related products and direct revenue from sales of in-house products (such as eBooks, software & courses directly related to the content subject). The right content, in the right niche can have an explosive impact on your bottom line.

Technology has evolved to a point where many internet users have access to broadband & wireless connections and fast PCs. This means that information publishers can offer content through a wide range of media including text on-site, ebooks, audio and even video. Many low-cost tools are now available to create high quality audio/video products and stream them from your own website.

Some niche markets are just beautifully set-up for content sites. For example, take the travel niche – here, website viewers are far more likely to click on to the publishers Adsense displays (as many people do their holiday research online) and affiliate links. If for example you have a website on holidays in the Maldives, how likely are targeted browsers to click on Adsense displays offering quality Maldives vacations? Very. For more information on the travel niche take a look at this Travel Niche Site Creation Kit. The best part is that there are literally thousands of niches and sub-niches for you to create content sites in. Internet marketing, finance, travel, health & beauty…the list is endless.

Now that you’re fully aware of the potency of developing your own content based niche sites lets look at how you can get hold of free software that can have you churning out quality niche sites, again and again.

There are of course different ways to go about creating content based websites. However, if you’re looking to the future then one of the best options is JOOMLA

Why Joomla?

It’s a high quality CMS (content management system). The days of having flat html website pages are numbered. Sure, the majority will still present their content in this way for years to come but the spectacular returns will be made by those using & *understanding* content systems like Joomla.

Joomla is currently available for FREE. It’s also quite simple to install and allows you to create good looking pages that are completely customisable.

Presenting content through blogs became highly popular during the backend of 2004 and is still “in” today. Blogs do offer a lot of advantages compared to standard html pages but the problem now is that it’s possible for certain types of software to create literally thousands of “blogs” at the touch of a button. Many of these blogs contain identical content. These “spam blogs” are spreading through the internet like viruses so you can imagine the problems of using blogs now to present quality content. You’re up against *millions* of sites – all competing for attention. The chances of being spidered & indexed with a good search engine location? Not so good anymore. Joomla is a content presentation platform that is a natural progression from blogs.

Joomla can easily be set-up to create very good looking content pages that also blend in affiliate links (eg via Amazon/Clickbank), adsense displays and your own product offerings. This is the structure that all your content websites should take – no matter what niche they are in. It’s a structure that maximises your revenue from any given number of visitors. Joomla can also be used to implement various successful internet business content-models including membership site, storefront & “magazine” formats.

We’ve now investigated the benefits of owning quality content sites, how to structure them and the most dynamic free CMS software available.

In this last part of the article let’s focus on how to identify niche markets that are ripe for you to penetrate. If you’re struggling on deciding which niche market to enter then here’s a quick checklist that you can use to make sure you’ve chosen a niche that should fit in nicely with a content based site:

Your proposed niche should have a high number of prospects interested in it. What constitutes a high number varies according to circumstances, but in general there should be a potential market of millions, or even billions (for example the travel niche outlined earlier).

Your prospects should be cash-rich. They should be able to afford to buy what you’re pitching. For instance, people interested in the stock market tend to be relatively affluent individuals looking for ways to increase their wealth. Most of them will gladly spend money to get hold of information that will help them develop their stock picking skills.

There should be at least a couple of high-ticket affiliate programs that you can plug in to increase your overall revenues. Many content site owners will not have their own big-ticket product so it’s important to be affiliated with a quality program that can generate hundreds of dollars or more per sale. Again, the travel niche is a great example of this because the site owner can set-up a site about the Maldives as a luxury holiday destination and can link to several travel agents that offer 5% commissions on holidays sold. Given that the average Maldives holiday sells for several thousands of dollars it means very plump commissions for the content site owner.

There should be an active contextual market available. Adsense is fast penetrating just about every niche imaginable, but there remain some areas where the number of contextual advertisers remain small. This can be a problem for the content site owner, as fewer advertisers can mean fewer potential ads and smaller pay per click values.

Determining which niche to enter is an important decision because it’s a long term commitment. Once you enter a niche with a content website, you should be looking to develop it constantly. This means updating the site with fresh information of value to the target prospect so they keep coming back to your site again and again. This will inevitably mean they keep buying more related products from you and keep clicking over your Adsense displays.

The great thing is that it really doesn’t take that long to create an impressive portfolio of content based websites…all pulling in substantial revenues from various sources.

Create a professional looking site in under 30 min...

If you need to create a presence on the Internet and you already have web hosting, then there are a few things that you can do to create a professional looking site in under 30 minutes.

BLOGGING – WordPress

Using a blog is one of the most effective ways to build a following and create a professional web presence with little fuss. The results won’t be immediate, but with continued blogging, you’ll soon start dominating your key search terms. Blog frequently, with no less than 300 words on topics related to the words that you’ve discovered people use when searching for your products or services.

WordPress is software that is completely customisable and can be used for practically anything you need. There is both a downloadable version, suitable for parking at your web host (e.g. www.myblog.com), as well as more limited online version (e.g. myblog.wordpress.com).

Due to the flexibility of Wordpress, you can tailor the look of your blog according by downloading hundreds of free WordPress themes, or buy purchasing one that better suits your needs. You can also engage WordPress designers to create bespoke themes at a later stage if you wish to add to the unique nature of your blog.

These days, it’s possible to use specially designed software to convert or transform your WordPress blog into a Joomla Site, so that if later, you want to give your blog greater functionality and potential, then it’s possible.

CMS – Joomla

Joomla is a powerful Content Management System, or CMS, which easily allows you to build your own website. Many successful businesses that do not want to spend a fortune on designers fees and wish to retain complete control of their website choose Joomla software. Joomla is easy to use, flexible and can be tailored to your precise needs. It’s completely free to download and there’s a great deal of help and support both on Joomla’s website and across the Internet.

A content management system will help you to get found on the Internet. The CMS organises and maintains all of the different content on your website and presents it to you in a way that makes it very easy for you to create, edit and publish your content to the website. With Joomla you can add music, text, photos, video – whatever you need, it’s all very simple. The main advantage of using Joomla is that CMS systems like this do not require you to have any programming skills, so once you’ve mastered the basics of Joomla, you can quickly create great looking pages without the need for technical expertise or experience.

Forums/Community Site – SimpleMachines

A great way to create interest in your site, build online credibility and drive traffic towards your products or services is to create a forum or community site. A great way to add an online community to your website can be found at Simple Machines Forum. They offer a professional software that’s completely free and only takes a few minutes to setup and get running. It has a completely customisable layout and unique technology allowing your website and the forum software to work together seamlessly.

A forum is the perfect tool for bringing people to your site. There they can express their opinions on a range of subjects, all under your watchful eye, and every comment or question they add helps you to attract more people to your site.

So what are you waiting for? Do you want to create a professional looking website quickly and with no fuss? Try WordPress, Joomla or SimpleMachines, but when you need a place to host your new website, then go to Gradwell, our Internet services are designed specifically for business, so visit www.gradwell.com/email-web/web for more details.

Software to Create a Website...

There is an ever growing list of software to create a website and the challenge is working out which is best for your needs.

They range from the super cheap and super simple up to the top end where you will spend several hundred dollars on a complicated yet very powerful piece of software to create a website.

Having been building websites for over a decde now, I’m going to take a look at some of these pieces of software to enable you to have a better idea of the best solution for you.

1) NVU

Nvu is freeware – which means you can download it safely and legally off the internet without paying a penny making this the cheapest software to create a website (though there are a few other free options we will be discussing here).

Nvu has proven very popular because whilst free it is quite a powerful piece of software and the learning curve going from never having used it before to creating quite a nice website is quite short.

2) FrontPage

FrontPage is Microsoft’s attenpt at web design software and whilst it can be simple to use and comes with a range of features to make attractuve (if basic) websites, you must have a special web host in order to use this software.

In that way, while some people swear by it, others still try to avoid this software to create a website wherever possible as it limits your options when it comes to your web hosting account.

3) Dreamweaver

Dreamwevaer is the top of the range option as used by professional web designers the world over. I have to admit that I myself have a copy of this software and it is *amazing* to use. It’s a case of being to do pretty much anything you like without limitations. You come up with a concept and next thing you know you’re making it a reality.

On the flipside, even as an experienced web designer I found it quite a challenge to get comfortable using, and for the average website you may well be paying for features you never use.

So unless you’re looking for software to build a website of the very highest quality I would consider the other options first.

4) Site Build It

Site Build It is a package deal of software and services which icnludes not just the facility to create a website but also to register a website address, make a logo, insert forms and sell products.

It is an ideal beginners solution as it offers everything you need in one handy place together with plenty of handy tutorials in video and text format to help teahc you everything you need to know.

However, as your skills and experience grow, you may find the limitations of this system too great as you try to add extra features just not allowed with Site Build It. It’s also one of the most expensive options going.

5) Joomla

Joomla is just one example of what is known as Content Management Software for CMS. Generally this software to create a website is used in addition to one of the other pieces of software here like Front Page.

Pleasantly Joomla is free software and controls how your website functions. So you can use your other web design software to make an attractive template so your site *looks* how you want (or just download one of the free templates for Joomla) then use Joomla to make your site *do* what you want it to.

Joomla makes it reasonably easy to add advanced features like discussion forums, link directories, guest books and contact forms to your site with little technical knowledge. You can even automatically translate your website into dozens of other languages!

6) Blogger

The last piece of software to create a website that I want to look at today is Blogger, a free service from Google.

Blogger let’s you choose from a range of different templates and sets you up with a free blog. You can go to nothing to having your own blog in a matter of minutes so it’s another free, beginner option to consider.

How to Create A Free Website Template...

For me, I do not have any Joomla or Photoshop or CSS knowledge. I have a business and it needs a website, but I do not want to spend money on hiring a programmer to do it as it is way out of my budget.

Therefore, I go online, goggled for software that allow me to create my own website without having any technical skills. And I found it!

Artisteer is the software that I have been using and recommend to all my friends. It’s simple, easy to handle and the templates they created are nice. More importantly, I do not find my template anywhere else so its unique!

So I am here to share this good news with all of you who are in the same situation as me. Seriously, you won’t want to spend tons of money on a programmer when you can save that and invest on something else. Trust me, it’s no harm trying this software.

You can go to this website (http://www.artisteers.net) to read more information and I have also attached a demo video where you can create the templates within a few minutes.

Just to share with you some reasons why you should use Artisteer:

- INSTANTLY GENERATE cool Web design ideas.

- You don’t need to learn Photoshop, CSS, HTML and other Web technologies to create great looking designs, including images and buttons.

- SAVE MONEY on Wordpress Themes, Joomla Templates and Web design templates.

Do share with me your views as I hope to exchange more information with all of you.

Tips to Create an Adsense Niche Website...

Earning money with Adsense means: building niche websites.

Talking about Adsense is fine… but earning money by working Adsense is better

And in order to earn money, you have to create a website.

I think that the best way to create a website is by using Joomla or php.Nuke. The advantage of these scripts is that they allow you to create an interactive site, a membership site, a community, a forum, etc. but it would be too difficult to use these scripts for the Internet marketer newbie ; so we will talk through creating your new website with a simple .html or .php template.

First of all, be organized: create a file in your computer called “weight loss” and add sub-files where you will store your files: images, articles, etc. This way you will find your documents when you will need some of them.

Select the subject of your niche site. It is recommended to focus on a subject that you know very well: a hobby or a passion. Choose the name of your new website – which will be also become your domain name. For example, if you plan to create a site dedicated to weight loss, choose a name like “weight loss guide” or something related.

Once you have your new site and domain name, select a template, some pictures, a header… in order to personalize your site.

As soon as you will have uploaded these files – template, images, header – write your first article which will be an introduction to your site. Introduce yourself, talk about your passion and inform your potential visitors that your site will be regularly updated.

Create a blog dedicated to your website. Each time you will add an article to your niche site, you will also post a description on your blog, include a link to the new article and ping your post.

Now that you have content on your site, you may add your Adsense blocks.

Here are some tips to maximise your Adsense earnings:

* Don’t use the Adsense 486×60 sized ad as it is generally ignored.

* Embed your Adsense codes IN your content area (for example, let it fload on the right or on the left of your text).

* Preferabilly use Adsense 300×250 or 250×250 sized ads.

* Use colors that match with your site or simply use black Adense ads (they must not look as a simple block of ads).

* If you have written a very large article, put up to three Adsense blocks on your page.

* Check your page title and meta description in order to have relevant Adsense ads on your page.

* Change your page title to reflect exactly your page’s subject.

* Track the number of clicks on your Google Adsense blocks and change their design if necessary.

It is recommended that you write your articles yourself but If you have difficulties to write an article yourself, you can write the principal lines of your article and then make a search to find similar websites. Select some articles that talk about the same subject than yours and pick up some ideas or sentences that you will rewrite with your own words and add to your own article.

If you are a very bad writer, you may choose to buy private label rights articles or reprint articles from article directories such as ezinearticles.com or goarticles.com.

Stay tuned for more infos about Adsense.

Tips to Create an Adsense Niche Website...

Earning money with Adsense means: building niche websites.

Talking about Adsense is fine… but earning money by working Adsense is better

And in order to earn money, you have to create a website.

I think that the best way to create a website is by using Joomla or php.Nuke. The advantage of these scripts is that they allow you to create an interactive site, a membership site, a community, a forum, etc. but it would be too difficult to use these scripts for the Internet marketer newbie ; so we will talk through creating your new website with a simple .html or .php template.

First of all, be organized: create a file in your computer called “weight loss” and add sub-files where you will store your files: images, articles, etc. This way you will find your documents when you will need some of them.

Select the subject of your niche site. It is recommended to focus on a subject that you know very well: a hobby or a passion. Choose the name of your new website – which will be also become your domain name. For example, if you plan to create a site dedicated to weight loss, choose a name like “weight loss guide” or something related.

Once you have your new site and domain name, select a template, some pictures, a header… in order to personalize your site.

As soon as you will have uploaded these files – template, images, header – write your first article which will be an introduction to your site. Introduce yourself, talk about your passion and inform your potential visitors that your site will be regularly updated.

Create a blog dedicated to your website. Each time you will add an article to your niche site, you will also post a description on your blog, include a link to the new article and ping your post.

Now that you have content on your site, you may add your Adsense blocks.

Here are some tips to maximise your Adsense earnings:

* Don’t use the Adsense 486×60 sized ad as it is generally ignored.

* Embed your Adsense codes IN your content area (for example, let it fload on the right or on the left of your text).

* Preferabilly use Adsense 300×250 or 250×250 sized ads.

* Use colors that match with your site or simply use black Adense ads (they must not look as a simple block of ads).

* If you have written a very large article, put up to three Adsense blocks on your page.

* Check your page title and meta description in order to have relevant Adsense ads on your page.

* Change your page title to reflect exactly your page’s subject.

* Track the number of clicks on your Google Adsense blocks and change their design if necessary.

It is recommended that you write your articles yourself but If you have difficulties to write an article yourself, you can write the principal lines of your article and then make a search to find similar websites. Select some articles that talk about the same subject than yours and pick up some ideas or sentences that you will rewrite with your own words and add to your own article.

If you are a very bad writer, you may choose to buy private label rights articles or reprint articles from article directories such as ezinearticles.com or goarticles.com.

Stay tuned for more infos about Adsense.

How to create forums in Joomla?...

First you must know that you can’t create any forum website in joomla. Joomla is just a free, open source content management system for publishing content on the world wide web.

If you want to get a forum online at your own domain you will need a web host providing one of the forum softwares; vBulletin, phpBB or SMF. Some of the web hosts offer an installing service called “Fantastico”. By using this service, you can create your forum without difficulty, even if you are not skilled in using any software.

To set up a forum website, there are six steps you will need to take:

Step 1: Register a domain name. A domain name is a name you want to call your website. For example, yahoo.com, articlesbase.com, threehosts.com or wikipedia.org.

Step 2: Buy a web hosting package providing phpBB, vBulletin or SMF to host your website online. A web hosting service provides you with online space and needed softwares. This enables you to get your forum online at your registered domain name. We recommend getting your domain and web hosting plan from the same company. This way, it is often possible to get your domain for free, due to some web hosting services offering a domain as a free gift today.

Step3: Install your favorite forum software. To do this automatically, install the forum software using Fantastico. Currently most web hosts have phpBB, vBulletin and SMF forum softwares available in their Fantastico. To install, you must first log into your web hosting account. Then choose the blue smiley face (called Fantastico) viewable on cpanel. Click on the desired forum software; they all look nearly the same. While phpBB is great for a new forum and has some great features, vBulletin is easier to use and maintain and is nicer to use. Select the domain name you would like to install the board to. The “Install in directory” box can be left empty in case you want to have your forum as the starting page for your website (http://www.yourdomain.com). You can specify a directory, e.g forum, in case you want to have your forum installed at http://www.yourdomain.com/forum.

Step4: Select the username and the password for the forum administrator.

Step5: Fill in the Site Name and the Short Description fields which will be appeared in the header of each page of your forum. Proceed by clicking Finish installation. You will be taken to a page with the administrative panel of the board.

Step6: Now, you can easily define the categories/sub-categories of the forum and manage them as the administrator.

Create A Website With Joomla Cms...

Anyone that wants a professional looking site that can be created with all the bells and whistles should look into creating a website with joomla cms. If you want to get off on the right foot from the very beginning with your website this is what you need. If you already have a site then you can easily change your old site to one with joomla. It is the best open source software to use for this purpose.

Before you do anything you need to plan out what you want on your site and the features that you would like to have. How many pages will your site consist of? Are you putting any videos, audio, forums, or blogs on your site? If so you’ll need to know exactly what is needed to create each one. At the very least if you outsource this you should have a detailed list of what should be done included in their contract.

After the site is created by you or someone else you need to add articles to your site or the old information should have been transferred to the new site with joomla. Next you will need fresh content on the site and a menu link. Test it out to see if it contains everything required that you planned out on your list. If not go back and adjust anything that doesn’t mesh well.

If you have any questions you can go directly to joomla’s website and get customer support. They are knowledgeable and helpful. They will be able to help you on many of your basic questions that you encounter such as: how to install, how to configure, how to do module add-ons, and how to get around and navigate your site. If that isn’t enough for you there are also plenty of video tutorials on youtube and other online sites that literally walk you through step by step on each phase of creation. The first site you create is always going to take the longest as you are unfamiliar with how everything works. After that it will be a breeze to create one. You might even get so good that you can advertise your services.

The many features that come with the site include templates, support of international languages, and easy web creation through one click installation. Because of the reputation that joomla has your site will have a better appeal since it provides a professional look. This will have an added monetary value to your website if you should decide to sell it in the future.

You won’t have to worry about the cost of this as it is absolutely free. If you create a website with joomla cms on your own the only cost will be the time you have involved to make it. You will join the ranks of others that are using joomla for every site that they create. There are many to consider but for optimum value, ease of maintenance, setup and installation you won’t get a better value.

Build Websites That are Easy Way to Create...

I was recently asked by a potential client why I recommended Joomla! to be used for building their website.
Let me explain the benefits of using Joomla versus using anything else, and by anything else I mean comparing building a website using some type of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, such as Frontpage or Dreamweaver, or building a website with a comparative type of software package.
1. Joomla! is a Content Management system, which means that it is built to ensure that website pages can easily be maintained and updated. more visit to :-www.instant-website-security.com This includes for example, adding new pages or removing pages. This is the main advantage above building a website in straight forward HTML that would normally be the end product of using some type of HTML editor.
2. But why Joomla? Why not something else like a Microsoft based product or another commercial product?
- Joomla is Open Source, which means that there are no licensing fees payable, that you have often pay for a Microsoft product or a commercial product
- Because Joomla is Open Source, there is a huge pool of community resources available to provide support. The Joomla community is huge worldwide as well as in local countries, there are often local user groups which are very well supported often even in small countries such as South Africa. There is an enormous pool of people supporting the product. The forum on the Joomla.org site has over 200 000 members all providing support and input into making Joomla! a better product.
- There are millions of sites worldwide (about 10 Million if you do a guestimate using Google) that runs on Joomla. It is therefore extremely popular and widely used which also means that it will never be difficult to find developers and people to support it.
- Because it is so popular, more visite to :-www.instant-squeeze-page-mastery.com it also means that by now there have been quite a few books written about Joomla! from various perspectives to assist both the developer as well as the end-user.
3. Some other good reasons to use Joomla!
One of the most attractive features of using Joomla! is the fact that is so very easy to extend its functionality. You can build anything from a brochure website to a full-featured shopping cart or interactive membership site. This is because there are over 3500 add-ons and plugins available to extend its functionality. This ranges from shopping carts, image galleries, video plugins, forums, blogs, project management tools, etc etc
The Joomla templating system also makes it easy to change the look and feel of your site without having to redo the whole site from scratch. You can literally change the whole graphic design/look of the site in a matter of seconds while retaining the content. There are also over 2000 templates, most of them free, available to change the look and feel of your site.
4. But again, why Joomla! Why not Wordpress, for example?
I have to admit, Wordpress is also extremely popular and Wordpress also makes it extremely easy to add new pages. Wordpress also has numerous free templates available and it makes Wordpress an extremely attractive option to build websites quickly and easily but it must always be kept in mind that Wordpress is essentially a blogging platform. Although it also has numerous plugins available to extend its functionality, it just does not have the raw power with regards to its underlying infrastructure to allow it to easily plug in something like a shopping cart, for example.
So what is the catch? It can’t be all roses?
Having worked with Joomla! for a couple of years (and before that, with its predecessor, Mambo) I can tell you exactly what the shortcomings are:
1.    Joomla’s membership capabilities fall far short of what they could be. There is very limited support for various access groups and access levels.
2.    Because it is so popular, it attracts a lot of attention and Joomla! sites get hacked quite often. The only solution for this is to be aware of your server security settings and to upgrade regularly to stay abreast of the latest Joomla! security updates.
3.    Joomla! might be a bit top-heavy for smaller sites, although it still remains the tool of choice for even my smaller sites – it does leave room for expansion later without having to upgrade to a different tool or product!
4.    Joomla!’s native search engine friendliness in the older versions leave a lot to be desired, although this has received attention in the latest upgrade. Despite this drawback, most of my Joomla! sites perform well in the search engines due to judicious use of various plugins to rectify this shortcoming.
Altogether, Joomla! is an excellent tool to easy on the eye and easily extendable.

Wordpress Technology – the Best Way to Create a ...

Wordpress is the best tool for Blogging. Moreover it has become popular as Content Management System. As its functionality can be enhanced by using pluggins .Content Management is total content control. With a content management system, or CMS, you can maintain consistency across your site with a few clicks. Whether brand messaging, news, or even look and feel, a CMS makes site wide maintenance simple and quick. But there’s more to it than that.

With the many capabilities of a Wordpress, businesses can leverage this technology to meet business goals, drive demand, and create deeper user engagement.

By immediately posting news, comments, and other information, a company can respond almost instantaneously to changes in the digital marketplace. Whether this means adding, deleting, or editing live content, a wordpress is a tool that should be carried in every webmaster’s toolbox.

Wordpress is easy to customize

Pick a theme that vaguely resembles what you would like i.e. 2 column, 3 column etc. I’ve chosen to use the default template for this example.

If choosing other than one of the defaults, download and extract the file to the your wordpresswp-contentthemes directory

Either extract the same downloaded file to the same place giving it a different name or simply navigate to the themes folder and copy/paste it into same directory giving it a different name.

You now have 2 identical themes one with the correct name and one with the name you gave.

From Your Theme directory, Open up the style.css file in your favourite text editor and edit the first few lines to suit e.g. Theme Name, Theme Description, version and urls. I made the changes shown below:

That’s it, save and close the style.css file. Then, if you haven’t already, upload those two theme directories (default and MY Theme) to the themes directory online.

Login and Open up your WordPress dashboard under Presentation > Themes you should see both themes, with the correct names beside them, activate the one with your name.

 

At this point this theme is exactly the same as the original (default), and if any edits you make to your theme do not do as expected, then you can do real-time switching back to the default.

Wordpress as a E-commerce Website

The lite version of this plugin allows you to sell products via PayPal only. Whilst it’s called ‘lite’ it’s not that simple as such. You can have your products in categories, there’s a shopping basket and it uses the PayPal IPN for instant notification. I’ve not gone through the whole process but I would assume that if you’re selling a digital product it will also then provide a download link to the buyer to download the product, as I’ve had the option to set how many times the product can be downloaded by the buyer.

WP e-Commerce is just like any other plugin for the installation. Just unzip the files and upload the directory to your plugins directory, and activate it in the WordPress admin. You then get an extra menu for it, where you can set your shop settings, other preferences, and start adding categories, brands and product information. It can deal with physical products or digital products, the latter was what I was interested in. You can also easily select which fields to have in the form on the front end, and which of these fields to send PayPal so that they’re prefilled. As I’m only looking to sell digital products I took the address details out as these are not needed.

Marketers need to remember that a wordpress gives them the ability to leverage unique pieces of content across multiple sites while providing multi-lingual support and content, a critical factor for companies with an international reach and online presence.

Wordpress as a Forum Website

WP-Forum is a WordPress plugin that enables you to have a forum directly attached to your WordPress installation. As one of the more popular forum software available today, SMF would be a good choice if you have no particular preference towards any forum solution. It’s still pretty bloated/bulky and can be difficult at times to customise (though less than many alternatives really), so I can’t say it’s my first choice solution at the moment. And while its backend integration with WordPress just requires the installation of a single WP plugin, I can’t seem to find a proper guide on layout integration yet. Here’s how you do it:

1.Install either one of two “bridge” plugins, i.e. WP SMF Bridge Plugin 1.0 or the CMS & SMF Plugin. While both provide user account integration (log into/register via WP = log into SMF/register into SMF), listing recent forum topics/messages on your blog, and etc., the latter plugin hooks WP to SMF via a portal CMS known as Enigma. This results in a more powerful setup, but also a more complicated one. So, for those who just want a forum to use with WP, I suggest using the former plugin.

2.Now that we have our backends integrated, layout is next. It’s a pity, however, that there doesn’t seem to be a step-by-step guide on how to do this. So, for now, you’re on your own on this. SMF does have documentation on how to create/edit its themes though.

More SEO For Wordpress

The Meta-Description is used by Google and other search engines to provide the description of a page. This is quite important – particularly since Wordpress by default does absolutely nothing about it. wpSEO can generate post descriptions in a variety of ways, however in most cases it makes sense to cite the actual postings – automatically. If you’d like to be more precise, you can also provide a brief summary for Meta-Description manually. The definition of used Meta-Keywords offers you more flexibility. If you are already using the plugins UT’W or STP, wpSEO can use your tags as keywords. Otherwise the keywords will be automatically generated from the article, which is not always a sound solution for efficient SEO. By default wpSEO generates keywords fully automatically, however you can let it extract text passages marked in bold or italics or in -tags. You can also use filters to ensure that only relevant data is being used

To install the plugin, it’s enough to upload it to the plugins directory (wp-content/plugins) and activate it in the Wordpress engine. You should avoid using two or more plugins (as mentioned before) at the same time. Previously installed plugins can cause conflicts, just like manual entries in your header.php file. To make sure the wpSEO is working properly, you should at least deactivate similar tools; better – delete them.

A last useful feature you might never use, but would be happy to have available once you need it: you may export all your settings as an XML-file and use them for another blogs. Therefore it’s very easy to maintain the optimal configuration and adjust it to a number of blogs.

At it’s very core, Wordpress content management is about reaching the right person, at the right time, with the right CONTENT. This creates an engaging user experience that drives demand. The dynamism of content management, and the re-purposing of relevant and engaging content, is an evolution in online strategy that will drive strong results for any organization.