(CMS’s) Content management system

Blogs are becoming more and more popular. In many quarters it now seems that having a blog is more normal than not having a blog. Blogs are a place where you can rant and rave about things that have effects on your daily life, keep a diary, or talk about your favorite hobby. Now many Web businesses are starting blogs to keep in contact with customers and give customers the heads up on new products and services being considered.

The blog has become a marketing tool. Internet promotion is no longer simply a matter of having a website and advertising its existence on every popular website and in every popular newsletter. Now you can promote your business products and services with blogs.

People who spend a lot of time using the Web have likely read many blog posts whether they realize it or not. Most of the younger generation either has blogs or spends a great deal of time reading friends’ blogs. The young adults of today spend a great deal of time reading blogs such as those put out by their favorite authors or blogs that have product reviews.

One of the most interesting recent developments is that people of all ages have started using blogs as a source for the latest news. Blogs provide up to the minute eye-witness accounts of major events within minutes of their occurrence. On the other hand, blogs don’t have to be approved by any fact-checkers or editors before they are posted. So the reliability of blogs as a news source is questionable.

The main idea is that blog reading is becoming a more and more normal activity, undertaken by average people. For a Web marketer, the prospect of having a blog means more Web traffic if the blog has many readers.

There are a lot of things you can do to improve your blog’s traffic. You can advertise it as a pay-per-click search listing in search engines. You can also swap links with other blogs and websites. But, it is even more important that you provide interesting content in your blog that will keep your blog’s readership levels high.

The Importance of Blog Template Design - Most people know the information I’ve already given you. What most people don’t realize is how much the blog template design plays a roll in the success of a blog. Even whether or not people find your content amusing can be heavily impacted by the surrounding environment your blog provides to your content. Most blog software and blog hosts offer a basic set of templates that you can use to make sure your blog is organized. If you don’t do your own blog template design, you should at least customize one of these blog templates.

Blog Template Customization - Advertisements It may not seem like advertisements are a feature that enhances a blog, but the truth is that pertinent advertisements serve a purpose to those who are interested in your topic. Google AdSense is one of the top advertisement services currently being integrated into blog templates. However, it is also an excellent source of revenue for your blog.

Audio Content While not directly a piece of the template, seamlessly embedding audio into your blogs can make them much more interesting for site visitors. You can also include quick links to audio in your blog template navigation bar.

Banner Customization You should create your own banner for your blog, not use the placeholder banners provided with the basic blot templates. Make it relevant to your blog topic and suitable for your business image.

Favicon for Personalization Use a favicon to further brand your blog. This will give people a personalized feel for your site in their bookmarks and next to the blog address. It should be consistent with your blog and business image.

Page Features Take the time to customize your blog template skins. Make sure the layouts and backgrounds are consistent with the rest of your Web business site. You don’t want a generic blog design to hamper your branding.

Photos for Personalization You ought to not just include photos in your blog entries, but also place them wherever they will supplement your company image in the template. Use borders around your photos to give them a framed look.

RSS Feeds Make sure you enable the RSS feeds option on your blog template setup. Those with newsreaders or using Web RSS feed services will see the headlines and content of your blogs. They can click on headline links to read more from your blog site. This is one of the best ways to get exposure and a constant stream of dedicated readers to your blog.

About the Author
Everybody can blog but not every blogger makes money! If you are serious about wanting to make money blogging , then make sure you pick up the essential guide at http://www.blogforprofits.info and find out how you can get set up your blog correctly and start blogging for profits from the very first day.

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In my last post I introduced you to my personal favorite blogging software, which is WordPress. Also, I showed you where you can download the latest version of WordPress, which was here http://wordpress.org/download/.

And, I explained to you about WordPress themes, and warned you that they can be great for you, then again also for your competitors’ sites that bought the same template theme that you did!

Consequently, I advised you to take full advantage of our template customization services, which start at just $380 a pop (What’s the process?). In this post Mochtar Djoko shows us how to make “blogging” for everyone, everything from installation to adding a plugin etc…

Blogs and blogging are huge topics nowadays. No matter what’s your status or age, people from all over the world are blogging. Housewives, businessman, teenager and even grandmas are blogging. For all those who dont know, a blog is simply a web log or an online journal. Some people are just blogging about their lives or hobbies, but some others are using it as a marketing device or for business purpose.

To start blogging you can go to http://www.blogger.com or http://www.wordpress.com for a more popular ones. Now, I received a lot of emails asking on how to install wordpress or activate plugins on your domain. Don’t worry, once you read this article, you will be able to not only install wordpress, but you will be able to start experimenting on the plugins you have.

First, you need to go to your cpanel menus on your website. For example, if your website is http://www.rudythegreat.com, then you can access the cpanel menus by typing this on your web browser ‘http://www.rudythegreat.com/cpanel’. Once you login, you need to go look for fantastico icon on the menu. Click on it. Then select wordpress and simply clik install. It will ask you some basic information and install wordpress for you.

What if you dont have a hosting account or your hosting account does not have fantastico. This is my recommendation. Go to http://www.wordpress.org and download the files to your computer. Then what you need to do is outsource the installation to somebody else. You can get someone to install the wordpress for only $20. Usually a programmer only needs 10 - 15 minutes to install it. For outsourcing, you can try http://www.rentacoder.com

Next, you might want to install some plugins into your wordpress to optimize your pages for search engine optimization purposes. To search for a free wordpress plugins, you can try http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/.

After you find, download and extract your plugins, open up a ftp program or download a free ftp program Filezilla (http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/). Open up your ftp program, and put your website address on the address box, then fill in the username and password. Then click on quick connect. Once you are connected, double click on www -> wp-content-> plugins.

Simply upload your plugins into his remote site. Next, you will need to login into your wordpress account, then go to plugins link. Over here, you can click on ‘activate’ for any plugins you see fit. Simply click on the name of the plugin, it will send you to the author’s website. You can look for guides over there. Every plugins will have different installation guide. Some are easy and some others are harder.

A few plugin that I recommend are: SEO Title Tag, Sociable, Social Auto Poster, Google Sitemap, Related Post, and feedburner. Search for these plugins on google, and try to download and activate it.

About the Author
Mochtar Djoko has been making money through the internet for the past five years. He specializes in selling on ebay and doing internet marketing. You can learn more about selling on ebay and internet marketing on http://www.mochtardjoko.com

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Secondly we talked about the decentralized web and making sure your content gets the visibility it deserves through RSS (Really Simple Syndication) which lets you tap into a wealth of opportunity by offering your readers the ability to subscribe to your feed and receive regularly updated content automatically.

In addition I said your site had to be search engine and users friendly. Search engine and users friendly is as much a step back as a step forward; it means returning to the earliest ethics of the web while adhering to a few basic principles.

For example, the navigation should be easily decipherable establishing an easy to follow hierarchical layout. Meaning that there has to be a specific order of precedence among each individual element. Consequently that same order must be constant following that same pattern through every page.

Also we talked about what in my opinion, is the most important aspects of Web 2.0 and that is interactivity and collaboration. Why? Because nobody likes to be on the receiving end of a one-way conversation, good communication is a two way street. Similarly whether you are an internet entrepreneur selling a product, a small business owner providing a service or just a publisher of information you want to be sure to get your point across.

The best way to get your point across is by getting to know your audience. How? By providing some interaction or means of communication in other words, open a dialog. Consequently this type of feedback is invaluable in determining not so much what you want to say but rather, what your audience wants to hear. And hence enabling you to better market your brand and make the right decisions concerning your business.

Now that we’ve talked about some of the fundamental features of Web 2.0 let’s talk a little bit about how you can create or implement your very own web 2.0 ready site. One way to add all of the Web 2.0 elements I just mentioned instantly is to use a blogging platform to run your site.

Generally speaking, a blog is just a website usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or whatever the case may be. Moreover if you have been surfing the Internet for any length of time, then chances are you’ve read many blog posts whether you realize it or not. Even if you don’t think of your site as a blog, or maybe you just don’t feel your brand constitutes the bases for a blog or doesn’t fall under that heading; think of it as a Content Management System.

My personal favorite blogging platform or blogging software is WordPress. WordPress is both free and priceless all at the same time and you can download the latest version of WordPress (Version 2.5.1) right here http://wordpress.org/download/

Basically WordPress is what my site is run off of, likewise it is what I recommend my customers to use whenever they want a website that is search engine friendly, easy to use, interactive and relatively simple to customize.

The reason why is WordPress has a very easy to use administrative back-end that allows you update your site regularly; you just login and its almost like sending an email or using Microsoft Word you just hit publish and whoomp there it is! As apposed to having to learn some programming language or worse having to hire a web master again, and again even for the smallest modification.

Typically, WordPress is organized in reverse chronological order - that is, the newest, freshest content is presented first. Similarly all the content is linked and fitly joined together with a unique web address so that people can bookmark or link to any page and so the search engine can easily index each individual page.

In addition WordPress is instantly interactive because at the bottom of every post there is a comment box where people can talk to you and you can reply back to them and that opens up that line of communication or medium that as I’ve already mentioned it’s so important for getting that feedback.

Besides that, every time you add a post WordPress automatically notifies all of major directories (see Technorati, Bloglines, or any other feed-based aggregator) or at least most of them, likewise WordPress also automatically notifies anybody that is coming to you via their preferred feed aggregator.

So there you have it, all of the characteristics of Web 2.0 I just talked about and many more are made available by using WordPress and best of all its totally free. The last thing I want to mention also is to do with customizing your WordPress template commonly know as themes.

A huge factor weighing heavily on whether or not people who visits your site will remain there for any reasonable amount of time, or whether or not they may decide to make other return visits to your site depends upon the esthetic characteristics of your design or over all look and feel of the site.

To clarify this concept further, think of this comparison. Generally speaking, a person who wears clothes that fit properly, are clean and wrinkle free is said to be a well-dressed individual. Moreover their appearance may make us feel or act more comfortable or amicable towards then some might even see this as a clear indication of someone who is apt to be more fun to hang around with. Similarly, a website that has a neat and friendly surrounding environment will be more likely to retain its visitor.

WordPress templates
A WordPress template theme is a skin (theme or template) for this popular blogging platform – if you are not already a professional web designer I suggest you invest a little money on one of these. The cool thing about WordPress templates is that a professional web designer using the latest technology designs them.

In other words, as you can see here, people who have a real passion for and really understand typography, white space, layout things like that do all of the labor; skills you could only wish to achieve after years of practice as a graphic designer and or developer.

Be that as it may, don’t be misled – Yes WordPress templates are great for your site, nonetheless also for your competitors’ sites that bought the same template you did! On that note, I entreat you to consider the benefits of having professional template customization.

Our template customization are only $380 a pop, and they’ll allow you change the templates color scheme, font style, add your own logo and if need be, we will even installing WordPress on the server for you. What is more, we will customize any theme to fit your individual business needs.

The result is a unique interactive website that works intuitively to help your customers find everything they need (read more about our template customization process).

In the upcoming months I will introduce you to WordPress plugins and show you how to install then on your blog, we’ll definitely talk about the sites new redesign, give you more tips on customizing your template and I’ll also show you ways to start monetizing your blog.

Resources:
How to Analyze, Optimize, Publicize, Monetize and Troubleshotize the Ideal Web 2.0 Site in a Nutshell.
Is Your Site Search Engine and Users Friendly?
How Can Interactivity Increase Conversions & Make You Money?
Essential Web2.0 Skills

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Intro: Two of our most popular products are osCommerce templates and CRE Loaded templates. Both are actually a combination of osCommerce 2.2 (ready built online store) provided by osCommerce.com and a unique template design from Foamers.net. Likewise we also offer professional osCommerce, CRE Loaded and or ZenCart templates customizations at affordable prices. In this article Tan Thomas offers as tips on how to customize your shopping cart as well as market your product.

Article: When you decide to go with osCommerce for your e-commerce site, you can simply take their stock layout and insert your information and voila! you have a completely functional e-commerce site ready for customers and sales.
If you’re like most e-commerce sites, however, you’ll want to go a step further than that and customize your “storefront” to make it better fit your product. If you are savvy in both the technical and marketing fields, this will probably be a no-brainer. If, however, you are an expert in your product, but not necessarily how to sell your product, this article is for you. It’s filled with tips to help you both design your site and well as market your product.

Design Your Site

1.Change your colors. You can go into your stylesheet.css file (in your catalog root folder) and simply change the colors from the stock layout. It’s amazing what a difference something as simple as a custom color layout can do for your website!

2.Choose a template. If you don’t want to start your website design from scratch, you can use a template that has everything you need for your site except the information.

3.Or, go even simpler. If you don’t want to change the complete template you can opt to change just one thing on the site. This could be the background, buttons or logo. Whatever you choose, just do something to make the site your own!

4. Improve your images. Spend some time learning image editing programs so that you can save your pictures in high quality with the smallest file size so that they both look great and load quickly. With the high speed of the Internet, most people don’t have the patience to wait for slow loading pictures and they may leave your site rather than waiting for the image to load completely.

5.Change the page titles. Make sure that you give each page a descriptive title so that when the page appears in the search engines it gives people enough information to get them to want to click on your link.

6.Put your self in your customer’s shoes. Customers do not like long drawn out checkouts. If you can get the information you need in two to three pages (including the confirmation of information page), your site will have an advantage over those sites that draw it out. The osCommerce forum has information on how to do this.

7. Get a design expert who is experienced with osCommerce. By installing STS Template system or some other equivalent, they can customize your shopping cart to anything. This website lists a series of osCommerce website which had gone through a serious make-over. http://www.efusiontech.com/E-Commerce-Projects.html
Market Your Product:

1.Make your site unique. This is a basic marketing technique and is sometimes referred to as creating a Unique Selling Proposition. Basically, this is a simple statement that tells people what makes your site and your business unique from other businesses, especially those in the same niche. Whether you always offer free shipping or guarantee the lowest prices, your unique selling proposition is what sets you apart from the rest.

2.Don’t forget to sell your product! Getting people to your site and getting them to stay on the site are important, but once they are there you need to SELL the product. You won’t be there to tell them about the items and they aren’t in a bricks and mortar store to examine the product themselves, so your descriptions need to do these jobs for you and the customer. Be detailed, be specific and be honest. Include who would likely enjoy the product and why they would need it. Instead of focusing on the details of the product or service, put some emphasis n the benefits.

3.Make your store more than an online entity. Give your customers a way to contact you. This includes a name, address, email and phone number. If they have no way to get into contact with you, your credibility with the customer declines.

4.Offer more than just the product or service. Don’t be afraid to add articles, tips and information related to your product for customers coming to your site. It will increase your credibility as well as give them reasons to return to your site even if they don’t have an immediate need for your product or service. Related to this is sending out a periodic newsletter that gives useful information, announces specials and sales and highlights specific products.
With just a few customizations your osCommerce store can be a unique site that fits your philosophy, product and needs. You can view samples of some oscommerce website from eFusiontech.com who has done over a hundred osCommerce implementation with customized skin and layout.

About the Author
The author is a designer working in Singapore

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