When you’re launching a website, there are a lot of things to balance, whether it be content issues, client issues, coding issues, and so on. It is easy for some things to slip through the gaps.

In order to avoid that, here are a few simple things to keep in mind for every website you design. These are the little things that may slip through the gap:

* The Favicon: The favicon is the little icon that shows up in a web browsers navigation bar when you visit a site. It also is recorded when people bookmark a website. Create a favicon and put it into the root directory of your website as a way to brand your website.

* Title Creation: If you are using a Content Management System (CMS) or are making each individual page yourself, make sure that your page titles and meta data accurately describe your content and are keyword–rich.

* Browsers: Don’t just check your website using one web browser. If you use Internet Explorer, then also check older versions of IE, as well as Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, and mobile devices.

* Validate Your Website: The W3C is an international organization devoted to creating standard coding procedures for internet content. Check out their website (http://validator.w3.org) for an online code validator. Simply enter your web address and it will check to make sure your code is up to standard. This blog (http://www.ColinKlinkert.com/) has over 100 issues, so that is quite high, but its a trade off, making the site have the functions you want, often means it won’t be perfect code.

* Offer RSS: Does your site have regular content updates? If so, offer an RSS news feed so people can check out your website in the RSS application of their choice. If you are using a CMS, most of these have built-in RSS capabilities. If your site doesn’t receive content updates regularly (like a static business page), then don’t bother… Rather use Aweber to capture subscribers that you can then mail offers to

* Tracking: Have a way to track your traffic. Google Analytics provides free tracking services, and there are numerous others like Clicky and Mint. These services give you valuable information like total traffic, page traffic, and time spent at your website.

Just a few pointers there to ensure you have everything on the next site you build – If you can think of any things that I have forgotten on this list that others are likely to overlook, please post them in the comments section below

WordPress is one of the most (if not the most) used blog theme management systems. It’s actually so popular that for a few years now lots of people use it for their sites as well, and not only their blogs. There is now a very large choice of free and paid WordPress themes available on the web. You can find great a free blog theme range: they look great, they seem to perfectly fit your needs… but are they as good as they look? How about search engine-friendliness? How about conversion?

Some of the best looking blog themes are actually not search engine-friendly (enough) and/or have a poor conversion rate… These are very important aspects to take into consideration if you’re in the internet marketing or home business industry. Don’t let your competitors outrank you in search engines because they have a more search engine-friendly blog theme than you. When you get people to visit your site or blog, you also want them to take action: opting in your mailing list, clicking your ads, etc.

This blog post compares two of the most search engine-friendly, high converting WordPress blog themes available on the market at the moment: Squeeze Theme and Thesis Theme. These two themes are used by thousands of internet marketers and home business owners all over the world because they know that they can make a difference. Each blog theme is paid but rather inexpensive if you take into consideration all the benefits of using them.

Blog Theme

Squeeze Theme Review

Squeeze Theme is a great affiliate WordPress theme for marketers. It is search engine-friendly, and most importantly proven to be highly converting. This is great news if you want to squeeze the email addresses out of your visitors. As an internet marketer or home business owner, this is something you should definitely be doing.

Squeeze Theme is actually one of the highest converting WordPress theme available. It was specifically designed to grab people’s attention and make them take action (most importantly by opting in). If you use WordPress and take online marketing seriously, you should definitely consider purchasing Squeeze Theme (or Affiliate Theme, another theme by the same developers).

Squeeze Theme is very easy to install and has an easy-to-use main options panel. You can change the general settings very easily, change all the colors in just a few clicks… Whether you’re a newbie or a developer, if you try Squeeze Theme, you’re quite likely to fall in love with it! If you struggle customizing your current blog theme, make sure you give it a try. You can change almost anything in just a few clicks, no need to change any code!

Blog Theme

Thesis Theme Review

Thesis Theme is more for niche sites and blogs. If you plan to have a lot of content, you should definitely consider purchasing this blog theme. It is one of the most (if not the most) search engine-friendly themes available on the market. It’s actually used by thousands of site and blog owners already. You just can’t ignore all the benefits of using this blog theme.

Thesis Theme is very popular in the internet marketing industry because it’s just perfect for content-based sites and blogs… and we all know how important content is for search engines. It is considered by many as the best blog theme on the market. Customizing this blog theme is a little more complex than customizing Squeeze Theme, but overall it’s still pretty easy. You may have to get your hands a little dirty though (by editing a few lines of code).

Thesis Theme was created by DIYthemes. The best news is… they just released a new version: Thesis 1.7. The 1.6 version was already a great, very advanced version but the 1.7 version seems to be even better! They keep improving it, and this is a major upside because only few developers keep significantly improving their blog themes… and let’s not talk about free themes!

Blog Theme

Final words

Squeeze Theme: 9/10
Click here to get Squeeze Theme
Squeeze Theme is ideal if you want to capture your visitors’ email addresses. It’s a very high converting, easy-to-customize blog theme, and as an internet marketer or home business owner with a product to promote, you should definitely consider purchasing it. Ease of use, high conversion… this blog theme is a must-have!

Thesis Theme: 8/10
Click here to get Thesis Theme
As previously mentioned, Thesis Theme is ideal for niche sites and blogs. Many consider it as the best blog theme. It’s search engine-friendly and fairly easy to customize (not as easy as Squeeze Theme though). Thesis Theme will help you set up and run a killer site or blog in no time. It’s a rather minimal design, so your visitors focus on your content… which is actually a great thing!

Whether you’re a beginner or a guru, Squeeze Theme and Thesis Theme are very good, long-term investment that will help you make your sites and blogs work. If you’re on a tight budget, visit the Free Themes Directory or sites like WordPress Themes Base and Top WP Themes. Make a few bucks and invest in one of these proper, premium themes. Get yourself the best blog theme for your needs.

This blog post is part of a series of hot topics for making money online. Stay tuned for more and feel free to share your own experience on blog themes with us!

This was Hot Topic #4. Wondering where the first three are?
Hot Topic #1: Keyword Research Tips and Tools
Hot Topic #2: Choosing a Web Host: ViralHosts vs HostGator
Hot Topic #3: Autoresponder Marketing Strategy

WordPress Ping List – Just a short blog post to share my recommended WordPress ping list (also known as update services) with you. I gathered this information from both personal experience and external resources and you may use it for your own WordPress blog(s) of course.

Ping services are tools that you can use to let other people know that you have updated your blog. Every time you publish a new blog post or update an existing one, WordPress notifies these update services, so people visiting sites like Technorati can find your most recent posts.

If you aren’t too sure where to add these, log into WordPress and go to the ‘Writing Settings’ section. Click ‘Writing’ under ‘Settings’. Then simply add the WordPress ping list to the dedicated text box, so when you publish a new blog post, WordPress automatically notifies these sites and you get more exposure.

WordPress Ping List

Simply select all the links (below) and copy and paste them into the text box (above).

WordPress Ping List

http://rpc.pingomatic.com

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://www.feedsubmitter.com

http://blo.gs/ping.php

http://www.pingerati.net

http://www.pingmyblog.com

http://geourl.org/ping

http://ipings.com

http://www.weblogalot.com/ping

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping

WordPress Ping List

If you have any suggestions of sites to add to this WordPress ping list, feel free to leave a comment. We would actually love to hear from you! On a side note, make sure you start reading my series of hot topics, starting with keyword research tips and tools. Stay tuned for more!

A few weeks ago I was searching for a great affiliate WordPress theme for future squeeze pages and sites of mine. I just couldn’t find anything I really liked until I found a great affiliate WordPress theme called Squeeze Theme. As you can imagine, this theme was developed to help internet marketers and alike easily set up squeeze pages, sites and even blogs with WordPress.

Squeeze Theme was specifically designed to grab visitors’ attention and make them opt in, which is of course a must in our industry. As they say, if you aren’t squeezing the email addresses out of your visitors with your affiliate WordPress theme, you’re missing out on new customers… and profits! I couldn’t agree more. Your site may receive lots of traffic but if it doesn’t convert well (if visitors don’t opt in) all your traffic generation efforts are pretty useless…

Now you may think that this is just sales text after all… but if you test drive the actual theme and take a close look at how it is built, you will certainly understand why I picked this one and not another. This affiliate WordPress theme is considered as being one of the best converting themes in the industry, and when you remember how popular WordPress is… this is quite a fact!

This very professional looking theme is also very easy to customize. I’m not surprised Frank Kern and John Reese themselves recommend it too! It has an easy-to-use interface to customize your online presence almost as much as you want. The best part is that you don’t need to know anything about coding. If you already have a site or blog, you may simply want to use this theme for a single page of your site. Well, that’s possible!

Squeeze Theme design

As you can see the design is pretty neat, and you can of course change the appearance. You can for example change the colors, add your own background as well as widgets, ads, etc. Added to the regular WordPress features… This affiliate WordPress theme simply has it all! There is not much else you really need to start making money online!

Squeeze Theme interface

Another great advantage is the resource center. The members area is indeed full of videos, tutorials, etc. on how to set up your squeeze page, site or blog and most importantly make the most out of it. It also has a support forum, which is great if you’re a beginner as you will be able to find help very easily. They even offer a 12-week training course to learn how to set up an affiliate site and build a list.

To be honest with you, I really regret I only found out about this affiliate WordPress theme recently… This is certainly the best affiliate WordPress theme I have ever used. Period. And with all the support that comes with it, even total beginners can have a professional looking squeeze page, site or blog in no time! The most important aspect is actually the fact that the theme was designed to convert visits into opt ins. That’s truly priceless.

The people who developed Squeeze Theme also developed another theme called Affiliate Theme. While you can use Squeeze Theme for almost any type of make money online page, site or blog, Affiliate Theme is more specifically targeted at affiliate marketers. Both themes are available on Squeeze Theme‘s site.

If you aren’t really familiar with WordPress, I suggest you to sign up to ViralHosts and take the one-time offer, so you can install WordPress in just a few clicks (with Fantastico De Luxe). For more information, check out why ViralHosts web hosting is so good for internet marketers!

With HubPages, Squidoo, Tumblr, Posterous… and ViralHosts!

Inbounds links are useful for two main reasons: they can generate additional traffic to your website and, most importantly, influence search engines in the ranking of your pages. There are plenty of ways to get inbound links to your website. One of them is becoming increasingly popular: through user generated content websites and micro blogging platforms.

HubPages is certainly the most popular user generated content website. It has been designed around sharing advertising revenue for high quality, user generated content. Some of the pages – all built by web users – are very popular and generate a significant amount of traffic. Just so you know, some people are making heaps of money with these kinds of websites. I’m not explaining you how to make money with them though, but how to get more quality inbound to your website. Anyway, HubPages is the first website you want to look at.

Squidoo was founded about a year before HubPages and is also very popular. It doesn’t generate as much traffic as HubPages but is still a big player. Squidoo was designed to help web users easily find useful overview pages – called lenses – written by real people. With Squidoo, you have the option to give your earnings to charity, which is a good thing if you’re not really interested in monetizing your page.

Tumblr is a micro blogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos and other types of content to their micro blog. Tumblr is popular for its customizability and ease of use. This is not the ultimate blogging platform, but if you’re not too familiar with blogging, or just want a simple but effective blog, then you should consider Tumblr. Signing up on Tumblr only takes a few seconds, and everything has been done to make you publish your content in the most simple way possible.

Posterous is another micro blogging platform but is slightly different from Tumblr. With Posterous, you can publish blog posts by simply emailing your content to a dedicated email address. If you’re confused about blogging, well this might be the best option. I just cannot think of a more simple way to publish content. You email your content and… that’s it. Your blog has been created. You don’t even need to log into the system to publish your content. You can do so though, if you really want to, to edit your existing blog posts for example… It is not as big as Tumblr but I really like the concept. Give it a try, it is definitely worth it.

ViralHosts is also a great way to get more quality inbound links to your site. This all-in-one cPanel hosting, list builder and mailer system allows you to host and build a site in no time. With ViralHosts, you can link to your main site, squeeze pages or any other pages you want. You know how much value search engines give to inbound links… ViralHosts is your chance to get quality ones! To be honest with you, I just can’t stop finding new benefits to using ViralHosts, so make sure you join free today and see how this system can help you build a strong online presence!

Otherwise, you may want to look at alternatives like Google’s Knol, SpongeFish or LaunchTags. Browse around and choose the ones you like. If you’re really after inbound links, then create a page on each of these websites. Keep in mind that not all will allow you to post links without a rel=nofollow attribute (which basically remove the value of the link for search engines), or only allow you to do so once your page is considered as a high quality page. Focus on quality and don’t insert too many links, one or two (to different landing pages) are usually enough. There is no use linking twice to the same address on the same page.

“The collapse of the economy has led me to drastically restructure my own retirement plan,” says Dr. Richard Besdine, the 69-year-old director of the Brown University Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research. “It’s a lot simpler now — I’m just going to die in the office.” – CNN Money

Funny… but unfortunatly, due to events taking place over the last two years, potentially true. The retirement age of Average Americans is likely to increase by 10 years due to the setbacks being seen right now. Not sure about you, but the though of working until 75 doesn’t sound too appealing to me.

There simply has to be a better way to earn an income then ‘working for the man’! This is where the internet puts it’s hand up and yells: “Pick Me… Pick Me!”

Truly, anyone can do it, provided you think about each action you take. The saying “Every action has a reaction” wasn’t made up purely because it ryhmes. Don’t do any action without thinking about it first. Why go and post a spam link on other peoples blogs promoting a ponzi scheme? How long will it take before that comment is deleted, if it is approved at all? How many people reading that comment are likely to think “Wow, this sounds good?” I would go as far as to say none will, but everyone else will think of you as just another spammer. That really is NOT the way to do it. Rather, eductate yourself on what successful people do, and think about each action you take. Ensure there is purpose behind it.

I thought about this post before writing it. The reason for me making this post is because I know I can help you to take actions that produce the positive kinds of results. So drumming it in that you can do it, if you do it the right way, should, lead to you signing up to my mailing list and following my posts.

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.TwitterColin.com/ – i’ll follow you back

Blogging has become an incredibly popular way to distribute content in the past few years.  Though subjects may vary, all successful blogs have two certain things in common:  regular content updates and content that is valuable to the reader.

While many who are looking to start a career in online marketing may use a blog as an occasional medium for releasing content, many underestimate just how powerful a good blog can be for developing a “hub” presence for online marketing.

Why spend your time developing a blog instead of working on other aspects of online marketing?  There are a few reasons.

First of all, a blog helps to put a personal face to your online business.  If people are able to regularly read things you are writing, and have access to an About or Contact page where they can learn about you or get in touch with you, that makes you an actual person in their minds, instead of a faceless internet entity.  People are more likely to want to do business with “Bill Jones” instead of “productnameplus.com.”

Second, if you provide quality content on your blog, you are able to attract more customers.  For example, if you build a blog about pet training that provides solid resources for web users, then when you use the blog as a platform for promoting a related product, people will value you as person knows what they’re talking about and who has provided a lot of free information to them already.  Having established this credibility, they will be more inclined to try it if it is recommended by you.

You can also add an “opt-in” box where people can sign up for a newsletter or email updates.  This allows you to set up a customer list and have people ask to be on it!  A strong blog with quality content can provide a central hub for all of your online marketing ventures, and can attract quality customers.

A Good Tip:

You can signup to my Optin Box top left to see the process I use. Another good Idea would be to follow me on Twitter. Doing so will trigger a DM sent to you on Twitter from me and you can see how I handle my new twitter followers with the video I send them to and the incentive I give to optin

A Short Video Into To This Post Can Be Found: http://ViralNetworks.com/view/XPuSc

If you’ve ever read a blog’s comments section, then you’ve probably come across a comment that was submitted for the sole purpose of generating a backlink. The comment usually reads like gibberish, but has a whole bunch of keywords and links peppered within it.

In order to neutralize these sorts of comments, there are all sorts of spam blockers for blogs (with Akismet being one of the most used) and there are NoFollow HTML codes that prevent search engines from giving any credit for these comments.

That being said, commenting on blogs can still be a great way to build buzz and traffic for your site.

Add Value

The idea of blog commenting is to some sort of valuable contribution. For example, if you read a popular blog in your niche and you have an opinion or idea related to a post, then comment on it and feel free to leave a link to your website. When the administrator of the blog sees your comment, the value of what you wrote in advancing the blog’s community far outweighs the small favor of providing a backlink, so they will likely keep the comment live.

If you comment regularly on a certain blog (or series of blogs), then you can begin to develop a relationship with other people in your niche. These people will visit your site and may even link to you or reference you in their posts if the content you provide is worthwhile.

Commenting in this manner, helps out both parties. The blogger builds his community and makes it more likely that other readers will engage in a conversation and keep coming back, and you get a valuable backlink to your site from a blog that focuses on your niche, ensuring targeted traffic.

Another Place Worth Adding Value

Social Networks that have a target audence is a good place to use to add value. It is for this reason I built ViralNetworks! The idea is that you build a reputation among your peers and make those million $ ventures you hear about, as well as getting people to like and trust you. (These are the only reasons people will buy your products, if they know, like and trust you or of course, your product).

Come join me on the online Business Social Network today!