How to Build a Website - Day 30 - Forums

Day 30 A Last Traffic Generation Tip

Generate traffic using forums

Time flies, don't you think? Today I'm going to give you a last tip to generate traffic to your site. Although most of them don't allow external links to be followed (using the "no follow" tag), they are nonetheless useful for traffic matters. 

Forums are very good at attracting readership and potential customers. When I talk about forums, I mean: forums related to your niche, of course.

So if you want to profit from that source of traffic, I suggest joining a few of them - make sure not to join too many of them otherwise you're going to be overwhelmed with too many daily tasks.

Once you are member of 2 or 3 forums, set up your forum signature. Make sure it includes a link to your website (preferably a contextual link) and keep taking part to the community.

Your signature will thus appear in all of the post you'll make in the forum and people will see it, they will visit your site and if they are in a buying mood, they will even buy from you instead of from someone else.

Make up to five posts per week and make sure to not sell anything to your new online friends. Just write your thoughts, add your personal comments into an open thread, answer any question some might ask, etc. Be kind and make useful posts. 

Here you are.

Congratulation! You just created a website in just 30 days!

What's next?

Wash, rince, repeat...

Good luck!


Posted by Holly Day

Affiliate Program Resource

Since you made a decision on getting affiliate commissions for products advertised on your new website you may want to find some of them. Here is a short list of affiliate programs and other sites that will provide you with a little something when you'll work with them.

Which program should you promote?

You don't have to join all affiliate programs out there. Join the programs that offer products, coupons, rebates, discounts, gifts, or whatever that fits within your niche topic.

If your niche is Christmas tree ornaments, then join Amazon and use their products to illustrate your articles, each time someone that comes to your site buys from your page, you'll get a commission.

Of course don't promote unrelated products like crafts on a page that is related to car wires. 

For example, my niches are holiday related. My sites cover a wide range of sub-niches and sub-sub-niches in which are includes crafts. So since I'm not a crafty person - I mean ok I can make some crafts but I'm not that creative and can't do all the kinds of celebration crafts related out there. In addition I'm not the best cook out there, let alone a good baker. Still I love cake decorating and enjoy writing about them. I love hand made bespoke dresses and jewels but can't make them myself. Although I can provide some instructions on how to create them I don't think that knowing how to make ONE dress or ONE necklace allows anyone to make more...

Therefore I found a solution. Along with my craft related products (scissors, glue, craft paper, fabrics, floor, cookie and cupcake sprinkles, etc.) I promote an online craft class that allows my reader to:

1. Get a few free mini-classes to take an eye on what these classes are all about and check their quality,

2. Join these classes that will teach them how to create stunning pieces in a very wide range of categories, from cooking to baking, from food decorating to dress making, from jewelry making to quilting, from drawing figures to knitting, from learning how to take great photos to crochetting and more.

Let's say that - it's one of my favorites - I promote cookie bouquets (or cookie bloom arrangements). These are great gift ideas that perfectly replace flowers when it comes to gifts with a twist. However the stores to sell cookie bouquets through have cancelled their affiliate programs and I don't have that many unique cookie bouquets to feature and promote any more.

So what did I do:

1. I joined the Craftsy affiliate program
2. Featured a few cookie bloom arrangements on my sites
3. Added a section that suggests my readers to create their very own cookie bouquets
4. Suggested my readers to take classes on how to create cookie bloom arrangements on their own after having learned how to do so thanks to Autumn Carpenter's Decorating Essentials: Designer Cookies
5. I can even promote them through ready-made videos...

Once you join an affiliate program, you're done and can promote as many of their products, of course.

Handy Resources to Help you Start Earning Some Money

CJ - A Global Leader in Affiliate Marketing Programs and Online Advertising

Commission Junction, is a ValueClick company that is leader in the online advertising - and an excellent affiliate marketing platform that gathers the big brands out there.

Get paid for your great content. ShareaSale.com

There are currently over 2,500 Merchants plugged in to the ShareASale Network. Each of these merchants has a different type of product that they are selling - and each is ready to commission you on that sale if you bring a customer to them.

All Posters

All Posters is the number 1 online store that provides you with a wide range of posters and other printed arts to illustrate your sites while providing you with commissions on each sale.

Amazon.com

Online shopping from the earth's biggest selection of books, magazines, music, DVDs, videos, electronics, computers, software, apparel & accessories, shoes, jewelry, tools & hardware, housewares, furniture, sporting goods, beauty & personal care, broadband & dsl, gourmet food &am

Dreamstime.com

Dreamstime.com allows you to use free images to illustrate your site for as long as you provide a link to their actual author. You can also buy credits for graphics and photos to use.

Toy PLR Review

PLR articles come in handy when you run out of inspiration. These toy reviews are written by Ruth Pound and are of a high quality. She even offers a free package of toy articles for you to try out. While I don't recommend using PLR on your site, they greatly replace ghostwriters if you are short on budget provided that you rewrite them entirely.

There are even more affiliate marketing programs out there but these are just the major ones I use.

Posted by Holly Day

How to Build a Website - Day 29 - Payment Platforms

Day 29 - How Will you Get Paid?

Define your payment platforms

We reached day 29 and what do we have?

• A domain name
• A web host
• A site template, graphics and content
• A website up and running
• An autoresponder and some subscribers
• The ability to analyze our traffic
• Some social media accounts allowing us to promote our work
• Some affiliate programs that enable us to make money

Wow! What a work! However we're not finished yet. There are two days left... And it is time to go a little further.

How do affiliate platforms pay?

First let's take a look at how affiliate platforms such as Amazon, Commission Junction, Share A Sale and others pay their affiliates - because you want to be paid, eh...

The platforms mentioned above all pay either by check or bank wire. So when you apply for an account, you must provide them with both your physical address and your bank account number (if you want to be paid through bank wire).

For US citizens there it not a lot of problems when it comes to be paid by those platforms. However for anyone living outside of the USA it is another story. Most of the time, they will pay you by check, which implies that you are going to have to pay fees on your earnings and set your minimum withdrawal to a higher rate.

There is a way to avoid this problem. For platforms like Amazon.com, Commission Junction, IStock, ClickBank, and many others - the list is quite wide as ALL American companies can now pay you through this means -  the solution is Payoneer - a payment solution that is meant for those of you that can't get paid through bank wire because of their country isn't the USA. When you apply for a Payoneer account, you are provided with a prepaid debit MasterCard that you can use worldwide.

And even if you are in the US a Payoneer account can come in handy as your Google Adsense earnings can be paid on this account. Note that Google doesn't offer this service to outside of the US residents.

Applying for a Payoneer account is quite easy: you sign up, you fill the form, they send your card and set up your American bank account, once you get the card at home, you activate it and you can start getting paid.

In addition, when you refer people to Payoneer, you can get $25 once they reached $100 in payment while they also get $25. Nice little gift, eh.

Paypal payments

However some other platforms don't work that way. For example, Share A Sale doesn't pay through Payoneer. But they made it easy for those in the European zone to pay through bank wire WITHOUT fees! 

Other platforms will pay you through Paypal. For this you need a Paypal account. This account must be linked to a bank account or a credit card.

Setting a Paypal account can come in handy in the event that you create your very own product that you wish to sell. Your customers will thus be able to buy directly from your site and the comfort from their home.

Isn't life beautiful?

See you later for day 30.

 
 


Posted by Holly Day

How to Build a Website - Day 28 - Monetization

Day 29 Monetize your Website with Affiliate Programs

Apply for some affiliate programs to turn your site into a money making one

Join these affiliate programs

So you built a website. But do you want to earn some money while you enjoy sharing your passion, knowledge, expertise? Besides Google Adsense, there are many different ways to monetize your website.

Platforms like Commission Junction, Share A Sale, and others can help you get some money here and there while managing your site.

How do affiliate programs work?

The way affiliate marketing works is easy as a pie. All you have to do is copy and paste their codes on to your web pages on which you publish related articles. You then drive traffic to these pages. Each time someone will buy a product from your page, you'll earn a commission. Naturally, you're going to make a point in featuring related products only otherwise your readers might wonder what you're trying to do and start questioning your expertise in the topic you cover.

As an example, if you build a site that relates to coffee machines, only feature coffee machines and coffee related products. If the article talks through coffee cups, then, feature coffee cups. If your article covers the last instant espresso machine from brand "Best Coffee Ever", don't feature automatic coffee machine from "Worst Coffee Ever".

When writing articles to be posted to your own site, you can also make use of things called "contextual links". These are links placed in context via a special code; which is an HTML code. Here is an example of a contextual link:

"Welcome to our comprehensive resource about automatic home espresso machines."

When the reader clicks on the underlined pink words (automatic home espresso machines), they are brought to the merchant's online store. That type of contextual links are known for having a very high conversion rate; which implies that you should definitely make use of them. As with everything online, do not abuse of such links.

Here is the way to create contextual links into an article that you plan to upload on to your web site:
<a href="your-link">automatic home espresso machines</a>

You can get pre-made contextual links from your affiliate program provider such as Commission Junction, Amazon.com, Share a Sale, All-Posters, etc.


Posted by Holly Day

How to Build a Website - Day 27 - Keyword Research

Day 27 Keyword Research

Today we are doing a little bit of SEO

WordTracker is a good keyword research tool!

Phew! We worked a lot these past 26 days... And we are not finished! 

Although keywords aren't as important as before - search engines try to make us believe that their robots are clever enough to be able to find out what you talk about without using the word that relates to your topic of choice - it is important to let your READERS know what you talk about!

Indeed, it is not because robots and algorithms are intelligents and can guess out of nothing what you talk about that humans can do so.

Since Google has stopped its old fashioned but sooooooooooo easy to use keyword tool, I rely on WordTracker.com when I look for keywords. It's a free tool that allows me to find out enough information about what I write about for not having to pay for such a service.

So for example, if you have a website that is dedicated to dogs, you are going to search for dog related keywords. Let's keep things simple for now and let's say that you typed "dog" in WordTracker. What happened?

1. The software returned a list of related terms but most are generic terms - you are not ready to compete against those existing marketers...

2. The software offers to continue your research and offers the same batch of terms - they just include more information. Continue the search...

3. WordTracker provides you with a even more interesting analysis. Now you can start thinking... But this is where WordTracker starts to be a paying tool. 

The results you've got till now are good, though. You can use each of those that have the best result to make a search on how they'd perform --> as you can see in the picture, "small dog breeds" does perform well and has low competition, "dog photography" as well. 

After analyzing the results, make a decision on the keyword you're going to use for your next articles.



Posted by Holly Day

How to Build a Website - Day 26 - Build a Subscribers List

Day 26 Build your Subscribers List

This one is a great alternative for traffic generation and affiliate sales

Depending on the competition in the niche you chose, a few or many people are coming to your site now. This is the time you will make a decision on having them to come back over and over again. 

For such a purpose, you are going to build a subscribers list. 

A subscribers list is a list of people that you can mail to. It is not really hard to build such a list. Here are a few step to take for doing so.

1. People love nothing as much as getting gifts. Therefore, think about a little something that you can give away in order to collect email addresses. It can be a short report related to your niche, it can be a collection of images if your niche is more visual, it can be a coupon that you collected online and for which you have giveaway rights, etc.

Once you have set up your gift, go find an autoresponder service. There are many different out there. From Aweber to GetResponse and more. Most of them require a fee to be paid for the use of their service. However, there is a free one that has a good online reputation and it is List Wire. This service is entirely free and it's probably better for a start. However, since it might be tedious to move an existing list to another autoresponder, you may prefer going with provides like the others I spoke about.

Once you joined the autoresponder service you like the most, create your "squeeze" page. For this, create a page that you can name "free gift" and let your visitors know that they can get their hands on this extremely interesting report or on a collection of free graphics or even on some coupons provided that they fill the form with their name and other information. 

Then copy and paste the code provided by your autoresponder provider, save the page and upload on your site. Because the Web is more visual than ever, it is recommended to use a big picture of the gift - a big ebook cover, a big collage with tiny graphics or a drawing of a coupon. Next, reduce this big picture and save it with its new size and add it to the navigation bar of each page of your website along with a short note letting your readership know about this gift. 

Then create a newsletter or keep your subscribers addresses for future emails related to new articles uploaded to the site or products that are available for sale and that would allow you to earn an affiliate commission.

As a matter of fact, although some Internet marketers pretend that a subscribers list is meant to be sent sales emails, personally I rather like sending emails letting them know that I added an article or a blog post... They will then come to the site and if they are in a buying mood, they will do so from the site. 

See you tomorrow for a day 27...


Posted by Holly Day

How to Build a Website - Day 22 to 25 - Search, Traffic and Backlinks

Day 22 Add an Adsense Search Box or Two to your Website

Make more money, track your stats and write more articles

Google's Search Box

Although this step is not mandatory you might want your readers to easily find the article they look for on your site. So you can add a search box. And since Google Adsense allows you to earn money from searches run through their box installed on your website, well you can give it a try...

Here's how to proceed: log into your Google Adsense account, select "search settings" and follow the instructions on how to create a search box. Copy the code and paste it on each of your web pages. I usually put large search box at the bottom of my pages and a small box on the top of the navigation menu. If your visitors make a search on your site and click on the result, you will earn money (no, you won't get rich overnight).

Site Counter

You certainly want to keep track of the traffic that is generated from your website. There are several ways to do so, but that the time I wrote this course, I didn't use the most popular one, which is Google Analytics - I'm not even sure it would exist.

Google Analytics is a service that is provided by Google and that offers a wide overview and a detailed view of how your website is doing. Using your gmail.com login you can join Google Analytics (its name and the platform are currently changing, though) and set up your account. Once you have the code generated by Google, you can paste it on all your webpages. After a few days, you will be provided by your site stats.

But for less analytical people, there is a nice shortcut that is named "Site Counter" (sitecounter.com). If you want to use this one, go to their site, apply for an account. Configure your new counter and copy/paste its code at the bottom of each of your web pages. 

You may choose to create a visible or an invisible counter (I usually use an invisible counter). You will then be able to track the number of visitors your site receives, its keywords activity and some other interesting information.

Day 23 and 24 Write Another Batch of Articles

Articles Submission

On the 23rd day you are going to write even more articles. You can write one, two or how many as you like. However, make sure to write one generic article that you can submit to article directories.

This article is meant to drive more visitors to your site and establish your reputation online. If you wish your article to be unique for each article directory you submit it, then I recommend using SpinRewriter service so as to make 100s of different articles out of just one.

Day 25 Build Backlinks for your New Website

You're going to edit the website page created on day 7

Do you recall what you did on the 7th day ? Yes, it is time to use that webpage and the information you gathered! We are going to build links back to your site. Remember: they aren't meant to provide your site with authority since nowadays most site owners make these links "no follow" - which tells search engines not to follow or keep track of these links. They are meant to provide you with more visitors and help people getting to know you.

For example, if your website is weight loss related, search for weight loss, weight loss surgery, weight loss programs, etc. websites.

Log into your mail box and open the document where you saved all those potential partner sites' email addresses. 

Open your "partner" page and select 5 potential partner's links, site name and description. Type them on your partner page, upload the page on your server, ensure that it works fine. All is ok with the new web page?

Now check each of these 5 sites' partner pages. Do they have a "link to us" option? Is it an automated process? Yes? Submit your site, your site title, a short description and a link to your very own partner page.

The site doesn't have this feature? No problem. Get the potential partner's email address that you collected previously and write them a short note ("Hi, I have a website with a subject similar to yours - short description of your site - and added a link to your site - your links page URL - and would appreciate a link back to mine, etc.") asking for a link back to your site from their own partner page.

Wait for two weeks and if you don't get any answer, delete the link.

See you soon for day 26 ;)

Posted by Holly Day

How to Build a Website - Day 16 to 21 - Sitemap and Writing Articles

Days 16 and 17 Write Even More

Write more articles and upload them on your site, blog about them as well

When you create a website, you need to constantly add articles to it. Today and tomorrow, you are going to spend the day looking for information, pictures, videos, etc. This will come in handy for writing the two new articles that your site needs. 

You are also going to write introduction post on your blog so as to drive more traffic to your main website. Don't forget to ping your blog posts and to promote your articles using social medias.



 

Day 18 Create your Site Sitemap

A sitemap is like a virtual picture of your website

Now that you wrote a few articles, you will create a sitemap. A sitemap is essential for any website and indexes all your links pages. You will thus create a new web page and add all the links of your sites on it (homepage, article 1, article 2, etc). Do not add Adsense ads on your sitemap!!! 

All your webpages should include a link to your sitemap. However, it is not mandatory. You might wonder why... Well actually search engines are going to need an .xml sitemap and not an .html one. The sitemap that you are going to create is going to be useful for your readers. However they can get access to your articles through your navigation bar...

But you need a second sitemap for search engines.

Go to: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com and create a ".xml" sitemap.

Upload the ".xml" sitemap on your computer and go to: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ (Google Webmaster Tools); register or login with your gmail identifier. Add the URL of your site, upload the sitemap and follow Google's instructions in order to verify your site. Your site is now ready to be indexed by Google.

At this moment, your site contains a homepage, some articles and a sitemap. You already received a certain number of visitors thanks to the articles you submitted to the articles directories and your blog posts.

Days 19 to 21 Writing More, Blog Posting, Promotion

Article writing is definitely the best traffic generator to your online business!

Now that you have created your sitemap you will focus on your website content. Write two new articles. Once the first article is finished, upload it on your server, and write a blog post about it. Promote this post. Repeat the steps for the second article. Update your navigation bar and sitemap with the links to these articles.



Posted by Holly Day

Another Locked Squidoo Lens Quickly Unlocked

Two days ago I've got another locked lens email from HQ. I don't know what they're after but they seem to have refined their filters for them to catch lenses that weren't locked in the past and that never violated any of their policies.

Maybe they make room for the new clubs they implemented? Maybe they make room for the new Valentine lenses that are created from their constant and multiple quests?

I don't know but one thing is sure is that they're after lensmasters, giants or not.


I'm not a follower. If you are not my employer, you shouldn't force me doing anything. Forcing me is the best way to have me stop loving you and working for you. Locking lenses is forcing us to work. At the current rate, it's wasting our precious time. And mine is currently devoted my health.

And Squidoo, believe it or not: my health is more important than you.

From the generic email I've received I couldn't say what was wrong with the lenses they locked and that also keeps me away from modifying them.

So as claimed in the email, Squidoo does love me? No, you don't love me nor any other of your oldest and most faithful lensmasters. If you did you wouldn't suggest to take or leave...

You locked my lens? I unlocked it a few minutes ago.

I've already read your policies at the time you wrote them. But I have to admit that I don't believe these policies will help Squidoo. They would have had some impact if they would as they entered into action one year ago and that Squidoo's traffic is still dropping like a stone, even more now that the Christmas season is over. Let alone your authority.


What did I wrong with my lenses?

• I didn't use the year in my titles.
• They weren't thin lenses.
• It didn't include too many keywords.

I have a special passion for history and if a locked lens was a history one, I couldn't include your 3 required elements to it:

1. Yes I know my topic
2. Yes I have a passion for the topic
3. No, I can't provide personal photos since all historical characters I write about are dead!
4. No, I couldn't provide a personal review. History is NOT a product, it is made out of facts and events that happened in the past.
5. No I can't personally recommend these people or their stuff since they're dead. No, they don't design shower curtains, they don't use Apple products, they don't mind the Internet and they never heard about Squidoo as they're all dead for centuries!

No I didn't built coloring page related lenses.

No, I'm not responsible for inbound links. It is highly unfair penalizing lensmasters for things they didn't do and have no control over!

I never use images without proper citation - and still nothing in the copyright laws force me to cite my own images. That is something you don't seem to know and that you should know...

Maybe I would have worked a bit on these locked lenses if my earnings weren't that poor. But to say the truth I'm not sure that Squidoo will still be online by next year, at least not under the same scheme. I'd rather see them stop paying tiers and have all lensmasters earning money only if they make sales out of their lenses. I'm not ready to forfeit my precious time working in the hopes of... I'd rather keep that time to work on my own sites.

Squidoo lost their best assets (lensmasters who drove traffic and whose lenses converted into sales). They also lost human touch with lensmasters. It was once a fantastic community, it is now close to become a memory...

Posted by Holly Day

How to Build a Website - Day 15 - Google Adsense

Day 15 Apply for a Google Adsense Account to Monetize your Income Earning Website

Google Adsense will be your first site monetization option

This step is NOT mandatory as while having Google Adsense ads on your website may keep you off of getting your affiliate commissions - but we'll cover the topic later on. Still keep in mind that if you don't want to bother with the setting of a Google Adsense account, you don't have to.

Google Adsense was in the past the fastest and simplest way to make money online. For this reason I used to recommend applying for such an account. So let's talk through it.

In order to be approved for Google Adsense, you will apply with your new website link. Normally you should be able to apply using your Blogger blog but Google has made clear that they prefer a self hosted website over a platform for their applications.

Once your application is approved, you can log into your account and create your first Adsense blocks. These will be displayed on your main website.

Tips to maximise your Adsense revenue:

• Embed your Adsense codes IN your content area (for example, let it float to the right or to the left of your text),
• Preferabilly use 250x250 or 336x280 sizes,
• Use colors that match your site or simply use black and white ads (I recommend removing the border, though).

You may add up to three Adsense blocks on your page PLUS 1 Adsense Themed Unit.

Check your page title and meta description in order to have relevant ads on your page and change your page title to reflect exactly the topic of your page. Check your Adsense account to make sure your impressions count is greater than zero.

One thing that has changed since the day I wrote this course is that you now also should go to your Adsense account and look for the user history part, then disable all "use history" fields. This should be done as otherwise Google will display your readers' past search history related ads on your site. And you don't want them think you aren't professional or serious. Nor do you want your coffee machine site feature travel ads... 

If you don't plan on adding such ads to your site, then you can skip this step and write a few additional articles instead.

Posted by Holly Day

How to Build a Website - Day 8 to 14 - Writing More Articles

Day 8 to 14 Drive More Traffic to your Money Making Site Writing More Articles

The more articles you publish, the more you establish your presence online

Now the boring part takes place - I say boring because when I have a schedule and MUST write articles, I find it boring while when I write articles when I am inspired I find it exciting. Today you are going to start writing articles for a few days. These will be useful to generate interest from search engines and start establishing your reputation in your niche.

Day 8

Because the articles you're going to post on your site must be unique, useful and human written, you have to gather information. Therefore, spend the day finding five subjects (Brand X model ABC espresso coffee machine, Brand Y model XYZ espresso coffee machine, etc.) to write about and then look for information about these five subjects. Type the information on a notepad and save on your computer. Brainstorm a bit as you're also going to write a sixth article; which will be a general article related to your site.

If you have hard times finding inspiration for writing your articles, you can always hire ghostwriters that would do the job for you. This will allow you to do something else while someone is writing. When I need such services, I use The Content Authority (mostly for expert level articles) and Article Writing Etc. (for 800 words min. product reviews whenever I need some).

Day 9 to day 11

Start writing your five articles plus the sixth, don't rush, write useful and detailed articles. The best are your articles, the more people will like them. You have three days to write your five articles. If you're an experienced writer, you can, obviously, write more articles.

Day 12 and 13

Upload two of the articles you just wrote on your server. Make a post on your blog that introduces the articles - one blog post per article. Ping these blog posts at Pingoat. Pin the pictures at Pinterest. Facebook and Twitter your blog posts. If you have a Google+ account, let your circles know that you've just posted a new article.

Day 14

Upload the last article, make a blog post, ping the post. Then, go to article directories such as ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, isnare.com, etc. and join them. Once you verified your new accounts, submit the sixth article you wrote about your new site. Remember to include a link to your new niche site in the resource box. 

One service I rather like to use when I write for article directories is SpinRewriter - it is an online article spinning service that allows me to make 100s of articles out of just one! This saves me time and allows all my articles to be ranked for the same type keyword. So when I write 1 article for 10 article directories, I actually distribute 10 different ones. 

The SpinRewriter is a smart software that understands what you write so when it rewrites your articles, they make sense when you read them. They offer a 5-day test drive for free so you don't have anything to lose when giving it a try. If you don't like, don't buy...

Never, ever distribute articles that are on your site to article directories: people can copy and paste them on their own sites and you don't want them to rank higher in search engine result pages for the exact same articles!

Posted by Holly Day

How to Build a Website - Day 7 - Building Backlinks

Day 7 Building Links Back to your Site

A link page, also known as partner page will help

Although I'm not sure that nowadays backlinks matter when it comes to traffic generation and looking good in search engines eyes (or robots), they come in handy when it comes to reference.

And that is why you can - but you can choose not to do so - build a partner page that would be dedicated to closely related sites. 

Let's take an example. 

If you create a website that is dedicated to "electric home coffee machines", you will want to find partners in the same market - although not exactly in the same niche.

Actually these partners will complement your niche with theirs. So if you only exploit the electric home coffee machine niche, then you are going to want to link to sites that exploit "electric coffee grinders",  "coffee beans", "coffee cups" and other coffee related things.

For such a purpose, you are going to run a search on your favorite search engine and look for these sites. Open a notepad document on your computer and copy and paste each link along with the site title, a description and their contact email.

Save the document on your computer and create a new webpage to which you provide the accurate name and extension such as "partners.html" or "friends.html" or even "links.html". The page title must however be more descriptive, so you can title it "More coffee friends" or whatever you like.

Keep these files on your computer, you will use them later... 

Remember to write articles today. 2 or 3 should be enough for a start.

Posted by Holly Day

10 Valentine's Day Gifts Got Locked Today

Hohoho... No I'm not Santa Claus... I'm just finished laughing out loud as for the very first time since the locking madness, a lens of mine was locked.

It happened less than one hour ago and I've got that generic email that tells nothing - now I can have an opinion since I know how it works, you know. And I dislike the way you're told that your lens got locked. And I dislike the fact that there's no explanation as to why it got locked. It is a blatant lack of respect to lensmasters.

I don't really mind that lens was locked, actually it didn't perform well apart the very first year I built it so it can be locked, it won't affect my earnings nor my morale... However I think of other lensmasters: how on Earth could they work towards unlocking their lenses if they're clueless what's the matter? 

I've read the mail three times and couldn't help my self but laughing out of loud. What a silly situation. Well what to do now? Working hard to unlock the lens of course.

And since I'm pretty good at finding quick and easy ways to... along with writing tutorials, here's how I unlocked the lens. Beware: there is a twist...

How to quickly and easily unlock a Squidoo lens that was locked for whatever reason:

1. Open your browser - doesn't matter which one you use IExplorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, whatever.
2. Type the link to Squidoo in your navigation bar.
3. Wait for a few minutes for the site to load.
4. Click on "Login" on top left of the page.
5. Type your email address and password and then click on the big orange button that says "LOGIN".
6. Now you're in your lensmaster dashboard.
7. Look for the lens that was locked.
8. Do you see the four tiny links beneath the lens title? --> edit, stats, labels and delete
9. Click on the "delete" link.
10. Now you are brought to a white page on which you can see a rectangle.
11. Click on this rectangle using the left button of your mouse.
12. Type in your password.
13. Now click on "OK" - it is written on a big orange button.
14. The system is going to ask you if you really want to delete the lens and lets you know that it is irreversible - make sure you really understand that if you click "ok" you won't be able to access the lens any more.
15. Click on "OK".

Voila. Quick, easy, and effective! Now you have unlocked your lens.

Luckily this lens was one that didn't perform well as said above. But what if they'd lock my best performing ones? Well I think I would be angry and probably wouldn't unlock them that way - though with me you're never sure about what I'd do or react...

But in the end, I loved the way I unlocked this one. I didn't want to waste my precious time trying to figure out what I did wrong to have it locked, nor did I want to jump in any of HQ's hoops... I'm currently quite sick (just back from the hospital once again) and don't want to increase my health problems. Squidoo isn't important enough for me to get into even worse health troubles.




Posted by Holly Day

How to Build a Website - Day 6 - Traffic Generation

Day 6 Generate Traffic Using Social Medias

Social medias help generating traffic to your new site

In the past, it was recommended to blog in order to drive quick and easy traffic to your new website. However this is not true any more. Well, you can still blog to generate traffic but you must do much more.

A first option for traffic generation is the setting of a blog. Whether you already have one - if you chose to use WordPress as your new site CMS - or not, you can always create a blog at Blogger.com, which is Google's blogging platform. Google indexes Blogger blogs quickly as long as you don't violate any of their rules and provide actual content. And you should since the trick when blogging is sending your blog readership to your actual site (where you can do almost whatever you want including affiliate marketing) while at the same time build links back to your site.

Your new blog's name should relate to your new site, of course. 

Once everything's set up, write your very first post and introduce both you and your new site. Let your future readership know what your blog is all about. Include a link back to your site at the end of your first post.

Here's a shorcut that will enable you to automatically include your site link to your blog posts: log into your Blogger blog and go to "settings", then click on "posts and comments" and look for "Post Template". Type your site anchored link into the box and save your settings.

Then go to Feedburner.com and set up an account. Syndicate your blog feeds with this medium. Feedburner was acquired by Google, therefore, I recommend to open a Gmail.com email address so that you can open all your next Google accounts with this very same email address and have all your info stored in one place.

Once your Feedburner account is set up and that you created your blog feeds, go to Pingoat.net, type your blog name, blog link and copy/paste your Feedburner feed link, then check all the boxes and click on "submit". Other sites will be informed about the existence of your new blog.

Each time you'll make a blog post, you'll go to Pingoat to submit your new blog post link.

If you have a Facebook account, post your new blog post link to your profile. Do the same if you have a Twitter account. If you use pictures, then I recommend heading to Pinterest.com and sign up. Then create several boards and pin your very first blog post favorite picture to the related board. 

You can also set up a Paper.li account that will allow you to create an online newspaper style page that is going to help you promoting your new site.  

The number of online social media is quite wide and I can't go through all of them here - especially since I don't use all of them. But Instagram, for example can also work wonders if your niche is more visual.

Well, that's it for today. See you soon for day 7.

Posted by Holly Day

How to Build a Website - Day 4 & 5 - Writing Articles

Days 4 and 5 Write the First Article to Be Uploaded on your Money Making Site

Article writing is indispensable for website indexation and traffic generation

Now that your server is ready to start working, you're going to add your first batch of content to your new web page. It is crucial that your web page includes content before you jump on any further step in this course. 

So, you're gong to write an article that includes a minimum of 400/500 words. This article can be the presentation of your new site.

Search engines nowadays hardly index homeworking people's stuff because of a huge change the way they work. In the past they were useful tools; today they are money makers. So they have to favorite paying brands in their search results and people like you and me won't get their pages on their first search results since we are free traffic seekers.

In order to please the search engines you'll have to write articles that are unique, nowhere else to be found. They also must be attractive and detailed. This is also useful when it comes to your readership: whenever someone comes to read your articles, they want to come back to learn more. 

In this article, present yourself as a person having such a passion for the site topic that people will want to listen to you and nobody else. Always be honest, there's no need to pretend that you know things of which you're clueless about.

On day 4 you will gather the necessary information if you don't have it on hand and will write the article. On day 5, you will polish your very first article. If you are experienced and write like a pro, you can, of course, write more than one article.

One thing I often do is writing 10 articles on Monday and far less on other days, sometimes I don't even write a single article from Wednesday till Sunday. Writing when I'm inspired allows me to focus on other things the other days.

I hope to see you soon for Day 6.



Posted by Holly Day

Find Free HTML Templates

Where to Find Free CSS and HTML Website Templates

Some resources that allow to download site templates for free

You might just not want to create your first webpages yourself. You aren't wrong. And because it might be sometimes hard to know where to look for website templates, here are a few links that will help you get going.

Free Web Templates Resource - Free Templates Online

Free Web Templates Resource with a constantly growing collection of web design layouts for personal and commercial use. Instant download. Trendy web design ideas for inspiration.

 

Free Website Templates

Website templates are pre-designed websites all you need to do is add your own personal content and you're ready to jump start your own website. You can customize the website templates any way you like.

 

Free Web Templates - Free website templates, web templates, page layouts, flash templates, business templates, css templates, wordpress themes, joomla templates

Welcome to FreeWebTemplates.com! We have a collection of 4491 Free Templates available for download created by designers from around the globe. Our collection is growing daily so be sure to check back often for more Free Templates. If you cant find a Free Template that suits your needs, we have links to many professional web templates and flash web templates.

 

Website Templates, Generators, Tips, Tricks and More @ FreeSiteTemplates.com

A Web Template is a ready-made website design created to use it as a basis for fast and high-quality website development.

 

Free Layouts.com | Free Web Templates, Website Templates

Free Web Templates, CSS Templates, and Site Templates. Our mission is to provide free website templates to the online community. Since the creation of the site in January 2000, our web template collection has grown to exceed 500 templates, with more and more submitted daily.

 



Posted by Holly Day

How to Build a Website - Day 3 - Web Design

Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 *

Day 3 Creating a Website Requires a Good Web Development Application

CSS and HTML knowledge will also allow the building of your new site

Although there are many scripts available from your Webhosting provider that will allow you to set up your new sites with the push of a button, I couldn't overlook this essential step. 

It's important, when one manages a website to know all the different options that are offered. Here are a few of them:

1. Using your web host, you will set up a site using scripts like Concrete5, Weebly, Wix, Joomla, Nuke, etc. In my humble opinion, the easiest to start with are Weebly and Wix,however they might not provide you with all the features you need. In this case, Concrete5 is pretty well conceived.

Concrete5 is a CMS that is built on PHP. It is far more secure than many scripts I've already tried. To say the truth, the only site I own that's never been attacked by hackers was my Concrete5 site. 

When you create a page, you're prompted with a pop up window that allow you to add all the information about your page, then you click on "ok" and you're brought to a blank page where you'll add your article, pictures, videos, etc.

The script works like Web 2.0 platforms: with the addition of modules. Edit each module, fill it with your content, save and, once you're happy with the whole page, you publish it. You can edit your page as many times as you want, you can decide on where the page must appear, you can create categories, sub-categories, and more...

2. You can use a blogging script like WordPress for example. Once again, it's automatically installed on your server and, once you found the template of which design suits your needs, you're ready to work with it.

3. Old fashioned way is to create your site using an editor like NotePad++ or NVU ("what you see is what you get" style editor). It's time consuming and you must be familiar with HTML coding.

4. You can use a tool like Dreamweaver and create your very own personalized website that can't be found nowhere else on the Internet just by getting more familiar with Dreamweaver and design your site yourself.

Dreamweaver CS6 can be installed on your computer provided that you still use Windows XP, Vista or 7. You must know that this version of the software won't be updated any more.

Provided that you're using Windows 7 service pack 1, Windows 8 or 8.1, you will have to make use of Dreamweaver CC (CC stands for "creative cloud"), which is the brand new version of this great software.

Once you decided the tool you're going to use, you will think about your site title as it will become the name of the file where you will upload all your pages.

For example, if your first website covers the dog-care category and if your website title is "Dog Care", then the folder name or subdomain where you'll upload your files will be "dog-care" or "dogcare" or "dog_care". Personally I prefer to use dashes or no space in file extensions.

Ready for stepping in your very first website?

What did you choose as a way to create your site ? WordPress? Any other automatic script? Ok you can skip this step.

However if you work the more traditional way, then this is for you! Now that you're ready, you can make the next step: run a search online and find a good FTP software that will allow you to upload your files to your server. Personally I use CoffeeCup Direct FTP. It comes with a free version but also has a paying one that lets you edit your files while connected to your host. 

Create your first web page and upload it in the main public_html directory of your hosting account. This page needs to be named "index.html", "index.htm" or "index.php" (depending on if you want to create .html or .php pages). 

See you later for day 4.

Posted by Holly Day

How to Build your Site - Day 2 - Choosing a Domain Name

Day 2 Your New Money Making Site Needs a Good Domain Name

Choose a domain name, web host and select a website template

Today is your second day towards the creation of your website. Today we're going to walk through the process of finding a good web host as well as a perfect domain name.

First, run a search on Google for web hosting services and compare some different ones. For the same service some will be quite pricey while others will be quite cheap. However, for less service, some may require a huge investment while others for a huge service won't cost you an arm and a leg.

My web host is HostMonster, it provided me with a free domain name for life (actually for as long as I remain one of their clients). Along with this gift, I have the benefit of unlimited almost everything (bandwidth, space, domain names, email addresses, support, and many other services, most of them being for free...) But you're free to choose the web host that makes you feel comfortable. 

How to choose your domain name? 

Your domain name depends on the niche you choose. There are different options for you to decide on a name for your new website.

1. Do you plan on creating only one site about your topic? Then choose a domain name that is related to your niche market, it works pretty well. But you might be limited in the number of sites or related niches you work.
2. Do you want to work a wide range of niches that aren't all related to each other? Then I'd suggest to choose a generic domain name or your very own name. This way you'll create your first site on a subdomain of this domain and will be able to add even more subdomains related to other specific niches afterwards.

It is important to keep in mind that your domain name and your site name are going to become your brand, they're going to represent the person behind this site. So if you want to go very personal, choosing your name as your new domain makes sense.

Examples:

http://all-about-everything.com

(for all kinds of sub-niches) 

http://www.all-about-pets.com

(for all kinds of pet related niches)

http://my-favorite-dogs.com

(for all kinds of dog niches)

OR
 
http://www.yourname.com

and
http://home-improvement.yourname.com
(for all kinds of home improvement related subdomains to which you'll add directories or subcategories)

and

http://my-favorite-butterlies.yourname.com
http://the-best-pools-ever.yourname.com
http://yourname-the-unknown-singer.yourname.com
(for all kinds of additional niches you plan to work later)

When using subdomains, there is one thing that webmasters sometimes forget about: always make sure to add an index.html or index.php file to the main domain as otherwise Internet pirates are allowed to take an eye to your files. This might put your site in danger.



Earlier today I spoke about "directories". They work the same way as subdomains apart that they aren't domains and that they come at the end of your main domain link.


Example: http://www.yourname.com/home-improvement


Once you have the domain name and the web host, you're ready to start building your first money making site. Beware: this can be addictive ;)






See you later for day 3.


Posted by Holly Day

How To Build a Website in 30 Days

As said in a previous post, I'm moving my marketing related Squidoo lenses to this site. The first reason for such a move is that these were copied in so many different places that my lenses have become useless. A second motive to do so is because money making and marketing lenses aren't very welcome on the site any more. The third reason is that many lensmasters are currently sitting on the fence: should I stay or should I go? I'd go if I only knew how to create a website of my own in a short amount of time.

Here you are. So from now on and for some weeks, we're going to walk through the process of creating a site of your own. It's not that hard as long as you have a plan and a schedule that you stick to.

It won't take 30 days to write down how to do so as some days I won't have enough content to post because of the repetitive tasks. But I'll try to keep it at 1 post per day.

Day 1 - Learn what's a Niche Market Before Building your Site

 

Select the niche market that best suits you

 

Most of us know what a niche market is, however some don't know although they already built "niche" lenses... There was a time when one learned a lot on Squidoo, when there were teams that would help you get started and make the most of your online endeavours (I think about the Fresh Wonders group for example). Nowadays these groups closed their doors and the high quality of their helpful reviews and suggestions disappeared.

You're going to spend your very first day thinking about the niche market you want to work with.

How to select your niche market.

First thing to make sure is that you're not going to choose a niche you have no knowledge about. Some might say that I often pretend that you don't have to be an expert to write about things and that I contradict myself here but it is not the case. 

Actually I think that you don't have to be an expert about anything to write about it. But you absolutely need to know your subject. Is it something you do often? Is it a hobby? Is is something you've done in the past but don't any more? This doesn't always provide you expertise but it enables you to share your personal experience about it.

Why should you know your subject very well? Because you're goint to have to write a lot of articles. Yes, welcome to the writing heaven... Creating a site isn't just a matter of building it, it's a matter of constistently writing for it.

What is a niche market?

So, a niche market is a small part of a bigger market. The market is the broad category. The niche is a specific category into this broad market. Here are a few niche market examples:

• Celebrities
• Cats
• Dogs
• Weight loss
• Cars
• Finances
• Fashion
• And many more

Here is a first obstacle: these markets are quite wide and the competition is huge. And you're not ready to compete with the big guys yet. So, you are going to ease the process of launching your website and narrow the market you target.

For such a purpose we're going to define a target market and, therefore, a niche to work. Let's take the example of the "home" market. It's so huge but you've just bought a new house and are renovating it.

Another example of a niche

But there is another obstacle: this niche covers a lot of different categories that we call "sub-niches". Here are a few examples:

• Kitchen remodeling
• Bedroom remodeling
• Bathroom remodeling
• Attic remodeling
• Etc.

You may find one niche market to exploit in those I listed above. However, once again, they are quite wide and you may have to narrow the niche even more. It's doable: last summer you replaced the kitchen tiles and next summer you're going to change the kitchen cabinets and organize the pantry. 

So, you decide on choosing the kitchen remodeling niche because you can talk about the subject and that you've even taken a lot of pictures. Let's take the example of "kitchen remodeling" niche:

• Kitchen paintings
• Kitchen floors
• Kitchen cabinets
• Kitchen tables
• Etc.

There's even room to narrow these sub-niches if you want! 

There was a time when I would have say that the narrower is the niche you choose, the best it is going to work. However, these times are over. But the examples above are here to help you learn what a niche is (I skipped some steps, though). 

But if you narrow the last niche mentioned above you'll eventually find a "micro-niche". A micro-niche is the kind of website these 30 next days aren't related to. It is the kind of niche that doesn't require more than a one page website, a squeeze page and a free gift (an ebook for example). All you have to do is get an autoresponder provider, set up your messages and build your subscribers list. From time to time you'll send them special home improvement related "micro-niche" offers that some of them will buy and on which you'll earn commissions.

But that is not the purpose of this course.

Carefully select your niche as you don't want to work hard on something that won't attract anyone. 

Now that you've understood what a niche is, think about it, write down some different niches you could work on. Given the direction the Internet is taking, I'd say that if you have extensive knowledge about your niche, go for one of the first steps. For example you can choose "home improvement" or "home remodeling" and create all related categories and subcategories the niche covers. This will allow you to create some kind of authority site based on the things you know pretty well.

See you later for day 2.

Posted by Holly Day