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Even a Cave Man Could Customize This WordPress Theme

June 29, 2011 Leave a Comment

I searched a long time to find a new WordPress theme for my blog.  After a couple of bad experiences with free themes, I was more than happy to buy one this time to make sure it would keep up with WordPress’ many updates and offer good support on those rare occasions I needed it.

Bottom line, I wanted a theme that was…

  • Simple and uncluttered, so it’s easy to surf and read
  • Versatile enough to use for regular websites, blogs, and landing pages
  • Super easy to customize so each site looks very different

The last was particularly important after buying a theme that required you to edit image files just to change the background and other color elements on the site. (Ugh!)

The good news is I found everything I wanted and more with StudioPress’ Genesis Framework and Prose Child Theme.

Basically, Genesis is the main theme and you can use it alone or with “skins” (which they call child themes).  There are many cool things about this set-up…such as being able to get a totally new look in just a few minutes. Simply upload a new child theme–your content will automatically move into the new design!

While Studiopress offers a bunch of child themes, a friend had recommended Prose because it gives you a menu to customize almost anything–colors, fonts, navigation bars, number of columns, etc–without having to muck around in the code. So you have an infinite number of ways to make your site truly yours!

I love it and constantly recommend it (even when I don’t have an affiliate link handy–LOL). So if you’re looking to create a new website or revamp your current one, check it out:

http://bit.ly/mu3gUH

And if you decide to take the Genesis WordPress Theme for a spin, let me know how you like it!

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Track Your Productivity & Your Marketing–Free!

April 8, 2011 Leave a Comment
Track To-Dones with OhLife

You can review previous to-done lists in your account

Today, I thought I’d share a totally free tool called OhLife that I’ve been using for the past month to keep track of my to-dones.

Making a daily to-done list is great for 3 reasons…

1. It’s a nice boost on those days when you feel like you didn’t get anything at all done.

2. It’s a good productivity kick in the butt when you realize you spent all day on stupid, unimportant stuff.

3. But it’s also a nice little business journal–great for tracking the marketing you’ve done. And this can be REALLY important when things suddenly go really well or or really wrong and you’re trying to figure out why…

Perfect example…

A friend of mine was upset after looking over his Google analytics report and seeing his website traffic had suddenly bombed a few weeks before. (This was before big article-farm killing Google algorithm change.)

So, he was racking his brains to figure out what he might have changed or done to cause it–which is not easy to do several weeks after the fact.

But if he’d been using OhLife, he could have saved himself a TON of time by looking up what he’d done the days leading up to the big drop, instead of spending hours backtracking through files trying to figure it out.

Here’s why I’m so high on OhLife…

I’ve tried keeping spreadsheets and notebooks, or using to-do list sites before. Problem is I quickly start forgetting to do it. Or the notebook’s in the other room. Or I don’t feel like adding a 42nd open tab to my Firefox at that moment.

But OhLife makes it super easy…they email you every night asking, “How did your day go?”

You just reply with your to-done list and it automatically imports it into your account. When you want to go through your lists, simply log into the site and scroll through them.

You can also…

  • Add one photo a day–just attach it to the email–which could be fun if you went to an event that day or want to save a screenshot of a great testimonial email you received
  • Export all your entries to a text file (hopefully, they’ll add Excel as an option soon)
  • Choose what time you want your emails–so you’ll still be at your computer when it comes in

Anyway, it’s the first thing that’s gotten me to regularly start tracking my to-dones so I thought I’d share in case anyone else might want to give it a go too!

Like I said, there’s absolutely no cost to use it at this point. Check it out for yourself at:

www.ohlife.com

Enjoy!

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The Best Online Back-Up You’ve Never Heard Of

September 30, 2010 Leave a Comment

Online Backup for small businessesI’ve been meaning to do it for years–especially after a plumbing leak flooded my house a few years back and I realized what could have happened to all my files if my external hard drive had been on the floor.

But it wasn’t until I accidentally gave my laptop a bath two months ago that I was scared into finally making the leap.

As usual, I did a ton of research before settling on SpiderOak. They’re not the cheapest out there (although they do offer 2GB free storage) but they’re great for small businesses because they offer far more than online back-up. What convinced me to choose them was being able to…

  • Back-up as many computers as you want to one account
  • Use it on a PC, Mac and external drives as well
  • Access your stored files from anywhere with an Internet connection
  • Get any previous version of your document (when you accidentally delete something)
  • Easily share stored files with clients
  • Quickly access your stored files via their desktop client
  • Sync documents that you use on multiple computers

I also liked that:

  • Back-ups would be faster with SpiderOak because after the initial back-up, they only back-up the parts of files that have changed
  • Their program does intensive de-duplication, so you’re not paying to store multiple copies of the same file–and all the historical versions of a file take up about the same amount of space as a single copy
  • They put a premium on security. They can explain it better than I can, but one example is they never even know your password.

Okay, there are a few downsides. But to me, these were more tolerable than the drawbacks of other online back-up services:

The first back-up can take a long time. Backing-up 50 GB of stuff on my ancient desktop via a molasses-speed Internet connection took about two days. But my laptop was much quicker and I have a ton of files on there as well. And yes, you can still use the computer during back-up.

You can’t currently schedule back-ups with SpiderOak, but that feature should be included in the next version.  For the moment, I embedded it in my start-up directory (easy to do and directions are on the site) so it automatically turns on and runs when I boot up the computer.

Overall, I love and highly recommend it. If you want to give it a whirl, check out SpiderOak online back-up and more.

Disclosing the Obvious Disclaimer

Yes, the links in this article are affiliate links. If you click them and sign-up I will supposedly be paid a small commission–most likely a whopping 25 cents. However, you can rest assured that everything I recommend is something I strongly believe IS the best, whether it offers an affiliate commission or not. Because to me, a reputation is a terrible thing to waste–especially over a quarter or two.

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Outsourcing & Humor for Just $5

July 12, 2010 2 Comments

Monday’s Mental Minute

Hope everyone in the U.S. had a good holiday last Monday–sometimes there’s no better stress relief than a day off!

Today’s MMM resource does double duty–it gives you a place to outsource small admin or marketing tasks inexpensively and it’s sure to make you laugh!

Fiverr is a site where people list what they’re willing to do for–you guessed it!–five dollars. The more helpful offers run the gamut from virtual assistance to making audio recordings to creating an iPhone app for your website…pretty much anything you can imagine needing done.

Although, like anything, going the bottom-of-the-barrel price route means you may get what you pay for.  But then again, if you’re unhappy, you’re only out $5!

In categories such as Fun & Bizarre or Silly Stuff, you’ll also find quite a few offers  from some of the more creative community members–such as the one below…

Hey, you never know when that might come in handy, right?!

At any rate, whether you have a small project to get off your plate or just need a stress-reducing laugh, Fiverr is a fun site to check!

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Website Traffic — How Well is Your Copy Performing?

March 26, 2010 Leave a Comment

Measure your copywriting conversionsMy friend Teddy Garcia recently spoke about website testing at his Raleigh Internet Mastermind Meetup and shared some cool tools to evaluate how well your sales pages and other web pages are faring.

Google Analytics — Everyone probably knows this one but even many of the big name Internet marketers who could well afford other programs rely on Google Analytics for ongoing monitoring of their site traffic. Free

Crazy Egg – Gives you heat maps showing how much time visitors spend on each area of your web page and a “treasure map” graphic to show where they clicked. This is a great way of seeing what was read most often (i.e. most important to your visitor) and which links are getting clicked. Starts at $9 a month and up.

Clicktale – Even more Big Brotherish is Clicktale, which records visitors’ movements on your web page and provides you the videos! Now you can see what they looked at and in what order and how fast they scrolled down the page (i.e. are they reading, scanning or just looking for the price?),.

You can also see where they might have gotten hung up and where they were when they decided to buy or leave your website. Clicktale offers a free basic plan.

Woopra – This was the first I’d heard of Woopra, which lets you see in real-time what visitors are doing. You can also send a chat message directly to the person while they’re still on the page!

Granted, that might freak them out a bit. But it can also be invaluable if you notice they’re having trouble with something. This way you can save the sale and have a better idea of what needs to be changed and how. Woopra also offers a free basic plan.

One affliliate link is included above. Feel free to go directly to the site if you have a problem with that. photo courtesy of Oskay @ Flickr / CC BY 2.0

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Create an Online Swipe File with Delicious

January 20, 2010 2 Comments

One way to make writing your own marketing materials easier to start creating a “swipe” file of things you like as you see them.

Often people talk about using a swipe file to save examples of copy they can “borrow” ideas or words from later. (Of course, there’s is an art to swiping copy effectively–especially for sales letters–you can’t just willy nilly cut and paste sentences and paragraphs you like together.)

But as a marketing savvy small business owner, you should include other items in your swipe file as well, such as…

  • Layouts and graphics you like
  • Clever promotions and marketing ideas
  • Sales pages for competing products and services
  • Ideas for new products and services
  • Even research and stats related to what you sell

Sure, you can put these web pages in your browser’s bookmarks, but I’ve found using the Delicious social bookmarking site works even better because you can make notes, tag items and access them wherever you have an Internet connection.

Here’s how:

  • If you don’t already, get a free account and install the Delicious button or toolbar in your browser. (Which usually involves just clicking a link and possibly restarting your browser afterward.)
  • Then, just click on the icon to bookmark a site when you find something you want to save
  • It’ll bring up a small page with where it’s already filled in the URL address and page title. Use the Notes text box to jot down information such as what you particularly liked about it, any performance information you may know, or what project you want to use it for later. (If you’ve ever tried to remember why you bookmarked a site later, you’ll realize just how handy this is!)
  • In the Tags box, add keywords like “swipe,” “productidea,” “ebookproject” or whatever you might want to search for later. Company or product names may be helpful too. (Note, these should be space separated–no commas–so two or more words in a single phrase will be typed as all one word.)
  • If you don’t want others to see what you’re saving for your swipe file (I usually don’t) then click to check the box next to “Mark as Private.” You’ll be the only one who will see it listed in your account.
  • You can also email the page to, say, your web designer by clicking in the Send box and entering the appropriate information. Twitter’s available there too if you should want to tweet it.

And there you have it–an annotated swipe file full of marketing and copy ideas you can access anytime, any place!

One note: if you don’t expect the page you’re saving to stay up long (perhaps it’s a limited time offer) you may want to take a screenshot and save that on your computer as well. I use the free version of FireShot to do that.

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Marketing Lists You Can’t Miss — 3 Killer Posts from Around the Web

October 2, 2009 2 Comments

Today, I thought I’d share some of the best posts of links I’ve come across in the last week or so–full of great and resources for your marketing pleasure…

The Internet Marketing List: 59 Things You Should Be Doing But Probably Aren’t gives you even more things for your to-do list–courtesy of @portentint. My personal favorite has to be the first one…

If you have a Flash introduction on your web site, delete it. If you don’t agree, try this: Shove your head into a bucket of water. Stay in there, not breathing, for 10 seconds longer than is comfortable. That’s what you’re doing to your customers. Delete it, please. (I second that!)

I bet you’ll find at least one new strategy to attract visitors (and probably more!) in this post on 21 Untapped Traffic Sources from @buzzblogger. I’ve already started implementing the video responses and article site bookmarking ones…the tutorials tip is a great one too.

4.6 Million WordPress Tools and Training Resources from @bendtheweb has links to, well, a heck of a lot of WordPress plug-ins, plug-in best of lists and more. (Don’t go overboard though, or your blog will load as slow as molasses.)

Any killer list posts you’d like to share?

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It’s Easy to Make Audio for Your Info Products

September 24, 2009 1 Comment

Audacity audio software can be a bit overwhelming the first time you open it. But you can create good quality mp3 audio for your website or info product in a snap if you just stick with the basics.

This 8-minute video from my new info products made easy virtual workshop shows you how easy it is to…

  • Record yourself
  • Take out ums, ahs, etc.
  • Recover from a stumble during the recording to make it a cinch to fix afterward
  • Combine two pieces of audio (in case you hit stop instead of pause during the recording)
  • Add in an introduction or other elements you might have forgotten to a teleseminar
  • Convert the recording to the standard mp3 format

Nothing fancy here–just the down & dirty of what you need to know to make simple audio recordings for your website, blog or info product!

P.S. This was both my first Camtasia and first YouTube video so go easy on the A/V critiques!

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Want to Know How to Make More Money with Ebooks?

July 7, 2009 2 Comments

Discover how to maximize your time & income by creating ebooks that sell…minimal writing required…in my FREE audio 9 Secrets to Ebook Success.

Here’s just a taste of what I’ll share…

  • 4 ways an ebook can boost your bottom-line even when you’re not working
  • A quick and painless way to create first-rate content that showcases your expertise…even if you hate to write!
  • How to identify your market’s hot buttons so you choose topics they’re hungry for
  • The one element that can make or break your ebook–and tips for making it irresistible
  • Strategies for pricing your ebook…as well as how to easily boost the value (and the price!)
  • And more!

Visit www.myebooksecrets.com to claim your free audio now!

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WordPress 2.8 Upgrade Error with Google Analytics

June 12, 2009 Leave a Comment

Just a note to others who upgrade and find themselves unable to access their dashboard because of a fatal error with the Google Analytics plug-in…

Menoob has posted a solution to the problem which saved me from much insanity this morning. For others on Bluehost, I thought it’d be helpful to clarify that you go to File Manager, then choose Home Directory from the hover box that comes up. Then wp-content is the file that contains the plug-ins folder.

And once the plug-ins folder is displayed in the box on the right (not in the left hierarchical diagram), just put a check next to sem-google-analytics, click Rename above and you can change it like the post says.

Refresh your error page and you should be back in business!

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