After an extensive development for Razorleaf of a custom CMS based on the WordPress platform, it’s easy to see why WordPress just won the award for “Best Open Source CMS” from Packt Publishing — beating out Joomla, Drupal, MODx and others.
Razorleaf is a B2B company specializing in process analysis, training and implementation of enterprise technologies including Product Lifecycle Management. That’s a mouthful, and as you might imagine, the content marketing strategy called for education of prospects and clients in the form of articles, blog post and whitepapers. Above, the custom designed homepage for Razorleaf.com called for rotating articles, blog posts, whitepapers, success stories and a “business benefit slideshow” at upper left.
Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 lead the Content Marketing Team, with Scott Frangos of WebFadds as the lead developer and landing page optimizer. With a core team of six, including a couple of content managers from the client side, this cabal custom designed the interface (Joe Watson was our graphic designer) and configured a number of key plugins to make the magic happen.
Stray Random Quotes – used to rotate “did you know” items about the corporation on sidebars, with links to related content
MaxRef Widgets to provide a variety of configurations for sidebar links to categories, posts, articles, and child page groups [click to enlarge] – Above, MaxRef widgets, developed by WebFadds.com, helps bring links to groups of “child pages” to the sidebar for this site
cForms II for all forms — the team used the “alternative success page” method to set up thank you pages as trackable Analytics goals
Custom Widgets to manage different widget configurations in different sections
TPC Memory Usage & WordPress System Health to monitor site software performance on the dashboard [click to enlarge] – Above, both Memory Usage, and System Health overview provide key data and reporting for the IT members on the team.
Headspace2 SEO for maximal SEO set-up — we’ve found it does much better than the popular “All in One” SEO plugin.
With over 120 pages in the system, the content managers find the latest WordPress admin editing features, with configurable screen options and quick editing tools, a time saving convenience. [Click to Enlarge} - Above, the convenient quick editing controls in recent versions of WordPress really cut out a lot of time -- note the search filter at upper right... an important feature when you are dealing with hundreds of pages.
Jonathan Scott, of Razorleaf Corp., leads the internal team of content marketers and is responsible for the lively and frequently updated articles and posts, along with some excellent writers on the staff.
While the project has not been without challenges — we moved the project from GoDaddy to a VPS (Virtual Private Server) with Liquid Web because of speed issues — we are all pleased to be working with an excellent CMS system.
The Team continues to focus on business blogging tactics for SEO, informed by a review of Analytics and other search behavior research.
About the Author: Scott Frangos is Managing Editor and Blogger in Chief for WebHelperMagazine.com, and also Managing Partner for WebFadds.com, a modern web development company focused on CMS and business blog solutions based on the WordPress platform. The firm also offers Social Media Marketing and Optimization services.
This is another article in our series — AJAX Help. We hear from a lot of readers who would like more Tutorials to help them learn AJAX. So, we’re pleased to provide an excellent list by Max Keisler. We look forward to hearing from you with comments about the tutorials, and if you know of another good one, or have written one yourself, be sure to leave a link in the comments below. But before we get to the Tutorials that Max has reviewed, we present a video tutorial on using FireBug to debug your AJAX applications — something you’ll soon want to do after learning from the tutorials and writing your own scripts.
Introduction to Debugging AJAX Application with Firebug
Above, watch this video to learn how to debug the applications you’ll create after learning how to write AJAX applications with the tutorials below.
Top AJAX Tutorials
by Max Keisler
With the popularity of AJAX growing every day I’ve had the opportunity to collect and try out many more tutorials in the last several months. These examples and how-to’s represent the best tutorials that I’ve personally used or otherwise had the opportunity to work with out of the overall group. This post is intended for individuals who learn best by example. Most of the listed tutorials come complete with instructions and source code. I’ve also categorized all of the tutorials for easy browsing. Enjoy!
AJAX Getting Started Tutorials
Nitty Gritty Ajax
In the course of this tutorial, we’re going to look at what Ajax can do. Then we’ll use a JavaScript class to simplify your first steps toward the ultimate in speedy user interactivity.
A simple AJAX example
Based on Rasmus’s 30 second AJAX tutorial, I’ve cobbled together a very rudimentary example of one approach to AJAX programming. A “Hello, World” AJAX program, if you will. You can view the demo here on my site, and download the source code (document attachment at the bottom of this article).
A List Apart: Articles: Getting Started with Ajax
The start of 2005 saw the rise of a relatively new technology, dubbed “Ajax” by Jesse James Garrett of Adaptive Path. Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. In a nutshell, it is the use of the nonstandard XMLHttpRequest() object to communicate with server-side scripts.
Introduction to Ajax
When it comes to Ajax, the reality is that it involves a lot of technologies — to get beyond the basics, you need to drill down into several different technologies (which is why I’ll spend the first several articles in this series breaking apart each one of them).
These AJAX tools are presented with working examples under each code sample.
Rasmus’ 30 second AJAX Tutorial
I find a lot of this AJAX stuff a bit of a hype. Lots of people have been using similar things long before it became “AJAX”. And it really isn’t as complicated as a lot of people make it out to be. Here is a simple example from one of my apps.
An Ajax “Hello World” project to Get You Going
Sometimes we all want something very simple to build a thorough understanding of the mechanics of a new technique before we dive into the deeper water beyond. Now, if you are into ASP.NET and not PHP you might like to take a look at my version of this ultra-simple introduction to Ajax with sincere thanks to the original author.
Ajax Beginners Tutorial
In this tutorial we’ll discuss the basic principles of remote scripting using Ajax, a combination of javascript and XML to allow web pages to be updated with new information from the server, without the user having to wait for a page refresh.
HowTo add Ajax in-progress indicators
Ok, so my little del.icio.us app (click link to read about how I added Ajax functionality to a simple Rails app) is pretty cool, but it was missing one big thing. When the user clicks the “Get Results” link she has no idea that the page is communicating with the server.
AJAX Bookmarklets Tutorial Creating Huge Bookmarklets
A bookmarklet is a special piece of JavaScript code that can be dragged into a user’s link toolbar, and which later can be clicked on to implement cross-site behavior. People have done all sorts of cool stuff with it.
AJAX Chat Tutorials AJAX Chat Sources Code for Download
After a slow start (following the announcement of the XHTML (ajax) Chat) things got finally busy. I had so many requests that I have decided to offer the complete sources for download.
Lace – Ajax Chat
Lace is a free, lightweight Ajaxian communications engine suitable for a shoutbox, chat room or similar. Version 0.1.3 brings with it several bug fixes, a tiny bit of code reorganization and most importantly, an oft-requested User List.
Example of simple AJAX chat script in action -- clean and modern looking interface.
Make asynchronous requests with JavaScript and Ajax
In this article, you’ll begin with the most fundamental and basic of all Ajax-related objects and programming approaches: The XMLHttpRequest object. This object is really the only common thread across all Ajax applications and — as you might expect — you will want to understand it thoroughly to take your programming to the limits of what’s possible.
Advanced requests and responses in Ajax
n this article, I move beyond the basics in the last article and concentrate on more detail about three key parts of this request object, the HTTP ready state, the HTTP status code and the types of requests that you can make
This tutorial (AJAX link below) is a good starting place if you're new to programming with Asynchronous JavaScript And XHTML (AJAX).
AJAX
In this tutorial, you’ll be introduced to Ajax, a technology that allows you to send these requests through small JavaScript calls, meaning the user doesn’t have to wait for the page to refresh.
All Request, All The Time
Let’s build a simple application that accepts input from the user, passes it to some PHP on the server that checks it against a database, and returns the result to the browser. It comes in three parts.
AJAX Drag and Drop Tutorial Drag and Drop Tutorial (with a cool video)
Adding items to a shopping cart in common e-commerce applications isn’t very close to the actual “add to cart” metaphor, since it requires clicking an “add to cart” button, watch a new page (the shopping cart), and then go back to the shop or checkout with buttons. Ajax allows to get closer to the cart metaphor, by enabling drag-and-drop interactions and giving immediate visual feedback, without leaving the shop.
AJAX Dynamically Content Loading Tutorials Dynamically loaded articles
This is a basic example showing you how to use AJAX. In this script, you have a list of article titles at the right side. When you click on one of them, AJAX will be used to request the content of the article from an external file and show it in the main DIV.
Get a free package of AJAX scripts useful for creating your own Content Management System.
Ajax – Dynamic Content
This small generic script makes it easy for you to load content of external files into HTML elements on your page.
AJAX Forms and Autocomplete Tutorials Scriptaculous Lists with PHP
The drag-and-drop effects, most notably the sortables, caught my eye because the look great, they are so easy to implement, and they’re just so much nicer than the standard listbox with up/down arrows that we see in most of today’s applications and administration tools.
Alter data with Ajax forms
Displaying rich formatted questions and lists, even paginated, is not enough to make an application live. And the heart of the askeet concept is to allow any registered user to ask a new question, and any user to answer an existing one. Isn’t it time we get to it?
Dynamic Client Lookup
This script uses AJAX to autofill a form. Open the demo and type in 1001 in the “client ID” text field. AJAX will when you have done this call a script on the server and auto fill the rest of the form with client data.
Chained Select Boxes
This script uses Ajax to popuplate a select box with cities based on which country you choose.
Ajax Dynamic List
This script shows you a list of options based on what you type into a text input. Example: Type in “A” and Ajax will get you a list of all contries starting with “A”.
AJAX Framework and Toolkit Tutorials My-BIC – Tutorials and How To’s
A collection of easy to follow tutorials using the My-Bic Framework including a, hello world – getting your ajax setup, posting comments via AJAX and changing views from a drop down. There are beginner and intermediate tutorials here.
New Echo2 Tutorial Series
Part 1 of a multipart Echo2 tutorial series, entitled “Ajax with Echo2 and Eclipse” is now available from our web site. The related archive with the Echo2 distribution plus the EchopointNG library is available here.
AJAX Design Patterns – Using The Dojo Toolkit
Is this tutorial any different from the others? Well yes and no, it is different in being a tutorial on how to design and build a complete site and not just some fancy little details like how to turn caching in AJAX off or how to create a fancy widget.
Using Dojo and JSON to Build Ajax Applications
In this article, I will show how to build Ajax-enabled applications using Dojo and JSON–two very different but complementary technologies that can significantly enhance the interface and usability of web applications.
Simple Ajax Functions – Snippets
I’ve created a list of very common JavaScript functions for Ajax. They have been created in quick reference fashion and do not contain any fancy stuff. Instead of creating one function which can handle various tasks depending on passed values, they are split into seperate basic task functions. The reason for this is simplicity.
AJAX Using ASP.NET 1.1
You’ve heard of it. It is the latest buzz term for web programmers these days. AJAX is an acronym that stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. AJAX gains its popularity by allowing data on a page to be dynamically updated without having to make the browser reload the page. I will describe more about how AJAX works, and then go into some sample code to try out.
Speed up Your AJAX Based Webapps
It sets the expiry of the JavaScript to years and not days. Once the JavaScript file is downloaded it is never downloaded again, ofcourse unless you force it by removing the file in the cache. If you visit the site often the JavaScript will not be removed from the cache.
Kick-start your Java apps, Part 2
This tutorial guides you through the development of a small human-resources application, first using conventional JavaServer Pages (JSP) based technology, and then migrating it to a highly interactive solution using Ajax.
Create Your Own Ajax Effects
Why let script.aculo.us have all the fun? Start building your own Ajax-driven visual effects today. The basic and prebuilt effects in script.aculo.us are nice, but if you really want to build something great why not investigate doing your own, homegrown, do-it-yourself effects. We’re going to show you how to take basic effects and build on them to create your own.
AJAX Image and Gallery Tutorials Image crop – DHTML user interface
This script gives you an Image crop/resize DHTML user interface. Drag a rectangle around the area you want to crop. Click the “Crop” button and let Ajax send crop data to the server and the cropped image back to you. PHP uses ImageMagick on the server to crop and convert the image.
Prototype Javascript Lightboxes
This class is based on Prototype 1.5. The code is inspired of the powerful script.aculo.us library. You can even use all script.aculo.us effects to show and hide windows if you include effects.js file.
AJAX Sortable List Tutorial
Learn to make sortable lists with AJAX -- an excellent tutorial for interface designers.
How to Make Sortable Lists
Many web applications need to offer an interface to order items – think about categories in a weblog, articles in a CMS, wishes in an e-commerce website… The old fashion way of doing it is to offer arrows to move one item up or down in the list. The AJAX way of doing it is to allow direct drag-and-drop ordering with server support.
AJAX RSS Tutorials Simple Ajax RSS ticker script
This very small and simple script reads RSS data from an external source and shows them inside a predefined box DIV or other tag) on your page. What you have to do is to specify the url to the RSS feed, how many items you want to show, and for how many seconds you want the script to display each item.
Dragable RSS boxes
This is is a script that uses Ajax to read data from external RSS sources and display them inside dragable boxes. You can also create new boxes dynamically directly from the page. This is the first version of this script. New functionality will be added to this script during the following weeks and months.
Slide In RSS items
This scripts reads RSS feeds from an external source and displays them on your page. Each items appears after a predefined number of seconds by sliding in from the right side.
RSS Ticker with AJAX
Well, with this powerful RSS ticker script, you can now easily display any RSS content on your site in a ticker fashion! This script uses a simple PHP based RSS parser called LastRSS for retrieving a RSS feed, then Ajax and DHTML to display the feed dynamically and with flare. As a pre-requisite then, your site itself must support PHP, though the page using this ticker can be any regular HTML file.
AJAX Shopping Cart Tutorials Fly to basket (Shopping cart)
This is a DHTML shopping cart module. The products will fly to the shopping basket when you click on the “Add to basket” button. Ajax is used to dynamically update the content of the basket.
Flexstore on Rails Tutorial
Flexstore is a traditional Shopping Cart application that you can write in Ruby on Rails. Very comprehensive and cool.
AJAX Sorting Tutorial Sorttable: Make all your tables sortable
While the web design community gradually moves away from using tables to lay out the structure of a page, tables really do have a vital use, their original use; they’re for laying out tabular data.
AJAX Trees Tutorials Update a tree with AJAX
his scripts adds an AJAX extension to my static folder tree. Open the demo and press down your mouse button on one of the nodes in thee tree. This will make a text box appear which makes it possible for you to rename nodes. AJAX is used to send this value to the server without reloading the page.
Static list based folder tree
This is a list based folder tree. What you have to do is to create a UL LI list. The script will then create the tree based on this list. The script uses cookies to remember state of nodes. It also includes functions for expanding/collapsing all nodes.
AJAX Username Availability Tutorial AJAX username availability checking
The goal of this AJAX example is to allow a user who is registering for your site to see if the username they want to use is taken already or not, without having to submit a form and reload the page.
AJAX Voting Tutorial Digg-like AJAX Vote On
This tutorial will show you how to add AJAX-enhanced interactions to askeet. The objective is to allow a registered user to declare its interest about a question.
Ajax Poller
A poller script that uses Ajax to send vote to the server and receives vote results from the server. The results are displayed in some animated graphs.
About the Author: Max Kiesler is an award-winning strategic designer and co-founder and principal of Ideacodes.com, a web consultancy in San Francisco focused on next generation websites. This article is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
This is another post in our series on Preparing Web Videos in which we examine the trend, a new WordPress plugin from Kaltura, and cover some thoughts on why people resist the inevitable. You may wish to compare the Kaltura service with four other onlne video services from an earlier article: Four New Services for Online Videos
How will video be used at your Business Blog? It’s not a matter of “if” — it’s a matter of “when”. I know, there are naysayers… and those folks remind me of the people who used to say there’s no need for graphics on your website. Remember them? I also remember folks — smart people — claiming that the personal computer would never — NEVER replace professional typesetting machines. Seen any $80,000 typesetting machines lately? And, I could mention photographers who said digital would never overtake film… but you get my drift.
This week, I had a client that concepted their business blog and website with a video at top right in feature position. That’s great. They’ll be ahead of their competition if their video is created from a business benefit perspective and tells their prospects what they have, how it helps them, and what they should do next (remember those three points).
You should note that Katura provides “moderation” so you can choose what changes get displayed, and that your new WordPress plugin integrates with some important controls at the Kalturawebsite including stats that show viewing of your videos.
So, why do people resist the coming of video? Well, some don’t see how it will help them in business (it will), some just don’t like the learning curve, and some don’t want to invest in the tools and software. But what if the what if there was a plugin for WordPress BlogMasters that made the process easy and invited collaboration (if you choose)? There is. It’s from Katura…
New WordPress Video Plugin offers Impressive Features
At right is a video on producing video for the web (seemed appropriate) I found at YouTube and inserted using the easy click and point interface with the Katura plugin (see screenshot below). Let’s take a look at what you can do with the new Kaltura plugin (it works with WP 2.5 and up… so upgrade soon):
Upload, and import videos directly to your blog posts
Edit and remix videos using Kaltura’s online full-featured video editor
Easily import video and other forms of rich-media from other sites and social networks
Allow readers and subscribers to add video and audio comments, and to participate in collaborative videos
Wow. So you not only get a way to post videos, but you can edit and remix them with an online editor. Then… if you wish you can invite others to participate. What are you waiting for? To help you get started, I’ve downloaded and installed for a test run, and here are some notes and screenshots.
Using the Katura “Interactive Video” Plugin
Choose if your videos are to be interactive:
Katura Interactive Video settings let you decide just how "interactive" you want videos on your business blog to be.
Note that your settings in the Admin. area of WordPress allow you to choose the level of interactivity for the videos you place on your site. Above, only Blog Editors/Contributors and Authors could change videos. You probably don’t want people to be able to change videos you’ve produced to represent your business. Right? Wait a minute… what if there was a fun promotion where people could change your videos and you shot them with that end in mind? Could be an attention grabber. For now, you have to choose to enable interaction or not — for your whole site. You should note that Katura provides “moderation” so you can choose what changes get displayed, and that your new WordPress plugin integrates with some important controls at the Kaltura website including stats that show viewing of your videos.
Adding a web video is easy -- click the new button that shows up in your WordPress post editing area, choose a video, and insert it. There's another step you need to do before it automatically inserts a video. Once you find a video you want to insert, Katura stores it for you. You can then edit or add to it before you insert it. You need to click "Brows Interactive Videos", then choose insert (as I did with the video above).
So, I found a video on producing web video (the one you see above), and inserted it here in this post. The interface worked real nice and is in keeping with WordPress 2.5 and up interface standards. The only note of caution I would add, is that if you intend to add to a video, then use it for commercial purposes… be very careful. Like still images and articles on the web certain or all copyrights are retained by the original author/producer.
Here comes video BlogMasters. Ready for something new? The only thing constant here is change. Hey, I loved my old manual typewriter — the one with the “S” key that stuck — but do I miss it? Not on your life.
This article appears in our “Online Business” department, but also ties in nicely with a recent article on how “Website Goals Increase Online Success” . Here, we look at a step by step formula to increase the business results at your websites.
How would you convert team play into points in hocky if you couldn't see the goal?
There’s an old saying, popularized by author Stephen Covey: “Begin with the end in mind”. Quick… ask a web designer, what’s the “end” (goal) for a website design? A great design. Next, ask the marketing manager the same question. New business, is a common reply. Great. But what specific goal do you want to reach (or better, your visitors to do) at your website? And how will you monitor, and make adjustments to improve results?
Answer those questions, and you have a way to focus your redesign team on real business goals, and your online business mission. Fail to answer them, and it’s like sending your football, soccer, or hockey team out onto a field with no goal posts. I’m talking R.O.I. people. If you don’t know what that is, or don’t care about it… then just go throw some money at a designer who’ll make you a good looking website. If you’re in the group of people who care about getting results — business leads, PR, sales — then read on.
Ask your team if they are studying the expected and actual route through your site to reach those conversion pages — sometimes called the “funnel”.
I’m going to give you a simple way to think through the process of what I call “Conversion Missioning”, and point out two key steps many of your competitors simply don’t use.
Let’s make it simple. There’s an old 3-step copywriter formula that goes like this (with my notes for our purpose here):
Tell them what you have (this is where the “Great Design” usually begins and ends)
Tell them what it will do for them (Good copywriters and marketing managers will insist on this… features AND benefits)
Tell them what you want them to do — make a conversion (many old-school, “brochure-style” websites fail here)
{smartads}
Make sense? Good. This is really what a great Yellow Pages ad does — tell them about your service or product, tell them how it helps them, and ask for the “conversion” — a phone call to you “converts” them from phone book readers to interested prospects.
But there are two more items we can add to this list. Shsssss. Most of your competitors aren’t even thinking of these, and they surely weren’t thinking about them when they created their site (remember, “begin with the end in mind.”):
4. Quantify the value of a conversion so you can review R.O.I. (Return On Investment)
5. Track visitor actions and make adjustments to your site so you can improve your conversion rate
The yellow pages can’t help you with these steps — there’s no automatic way to track calls and calculate ROI from a phone page ad.
But a computer can do this for you — that’s the power and beauty of using your website with analytics. Think carefully about point 4 and 5, and ask yourself if the site map you used to design your site, or your current site map shows the locations on your site where you expect to make key conversions — a contact form to convert leads, a downloadable whitepaper, a newsletter signup. Why not? Ask your team if they are studying the expected and actual route through your site to reach those conversion pages — sometimes called the “funnel”. Why would you not do this?
The most important step: Finally, are you tweaking your site to improve your conversion success rate? A simple headline or graphic change has been known to boost conversions by dramatic amounts. C’mon. This is the mission critical, job one, Lee Iococa jump in your face, primary purpose of your business website… that you should begin with in your mind. Or, at least address it now.
As you think through this Conversion Mission process for your site, join in the conversation here with questions and comments below. I will continue this series with more tips on how to work out this process at your site, and in particular focus on Google Analytics, and something called the Google Optimizer as a way to address Conversion Missioning. And, you may like to go read the first article in the series on using Google Goals.
About the Author: Scott Frangos develops dynamic, automated WebSites at WebFadds.com, based on the WordPress platform. He always recommends a focus on the Conversion Mission of your websites. He is also a college instructor for CSS, XHTML and Photoshop courses and enjoys martial arts and digital photography.
About WebHelperMagazine: WebHelperMagazine is a digest of tutorials and helpful articles for WebMasters, BlogMasters & Social Marketers.
FROM: Scott Frangos, Managing Editor for WebHelperMagazine.com
Hello BlogMasters & Social Marketers -
We’re continuing to grow and develop our helpful content and advertising options here at WebHelperMagazine.com (thanks to all of our advertisers). Our circulation is up too — from over 3000 unique visitors 3 months ago, to close to 4800 per month. Thanks. Below is a list of Popular Series we’re featuring (we’ve added a navigation link to the sidebar), and we’d love to hear from you with any comments and suggestions. Write to editors [at] WebHelperMagazine.com.
Advertising Opportunities: There are three ways to advertise with a 125 x 125 banner — contact us about the top spot (currently just $50 mo.), or order position #2 or #3 direct from Performancing. There’s a current special on them (just $10.50 mo. ea.), and if you’re new to Performancing, you save $25 off your first purchase of $100 on any ads in their network. And, those of you that are Publishers might like to consider earning money with PerformancingAds.
Popular Series at WebHelperMagazine.com
AJAX Help: A lot of you are interested in learning about how you can use AJAX in your Web 2.0 development work, see some visual examples, and find ways to speed up the development process with AJAX toolkits. This series for is for you. You’ll find some tutorials, and a ton of helpful tools and examples. And “AJAX” stands for Asynchronous Javascript And XHTML. Not “clear” yet… it’s time you dig into the series.
Copywriting Matters: Quick… why does copywriting matter? Because in this game of BlogMastering… content is everything. And, there’s a reason that a good college writing degree is composed of several intense courses — there are quite a few useful techniques to learn and develop. In this series, some pro’s tell you about copywriting methods to help you stand out. Oh… that machine we use for the icon for the series (right) is called a manual typewriter — Dude, there were ways to write before the web and computers.
Preparing Web Videos: Most of the public is learning that we’re on a fast track for convergence of Web, Cellphones, and Video. The savvy Social Marketer wants to stay on top of it because that’s where the game is going, so we’re continuing a series of articles with overviews and tutorials on how to make it video on your Business Blogs and CMS websites.
SEO Matters: I don’t have to ask why SEO matters, do I? Good. Now what are the best practices for Search Engine Optimization? There are some well tested techniques and emerging strategies coming at us as fast as Google can change their algorithms, so stay tuned to this series for the help you need to stay up on SEO.
WordPress CMS Reviews: I think most will agree that WordPress is now the major open source platform used for modern Business Blogs — and more. Since the design vision for the product has moved way beyond blogs into Content Management Systems in the past year or so, we’re covering good examples of WordPress as a CMS solution in this series. Do you know of a particular example — contact me direct at Scott [at] WebHelperMagazine.com
Stay tuned for more series as we develop helpful articles based on your feedback. Thanks again readers, and advertisers! Remember to join the conversation.
Many people are wondering if they can make any money with a blog online. Brandon Cornett says you can — and that you can make a living at it. I think he’s right, but you have to think like a publisher, become a pro at SEO, and be disciplined. Here, Mr. Cornett presents an excellent list of what you must do to succeed. — Editor
Is it possible to turn your hobby website into a livelihood? Can you actually earn a living from something that interests you? Sure you can, and I’ll show you how in this article.
For the last few years, I have made a comfortable living through a network of hobby-related websites that are mostly educational in scope. When combined, the revenue produced by these sites covers most of my expenses, such as mortgage, car payment, groceries, vacations, etc.
Repurpose your content. Create an alternate version of each article you write and publish it online through article distribution sites.
Now I don’t say all this to boast, but only to get your attention. If you are taking the time to read this article, then you and I have something in common. We both have an interest in publishing websites around topics that interest us — and we both have the desire to earn a living while doing so!
How to Make Money From Your Site
So without further ado, here is everything I wish I knew five years ago, when I began building hobby websites for fun and profit. Here is your list of timesaving and profit-boosting tips and techniques.
Choose topics that interest you. You’ll need passion to grow your websites over time, but you won’t get passion from a topic that bores you.
Before writing articles and web pages, do a thorough round of keyword / key phrase research. Build your content around phrases and topics that people are actually searching. WordTracker has a free version of their tool you can use to get started.
At first, you will probably write most of the content yourself. But as your website begins to make money you can outsource some of the writing through freelance services such as Elance.
Map out the structure / organization of your websites before building them. Plan for expansion and flexibility down the road. It will prevent future headaches and redesigns.
Resource pages (such as glossaries, tutorials, and subject guides) typically attract a lot of citations and links from other webmasters, and therefore have traffic-building potential. They take time to create, but they are worth the effort.
Be extremely thorough and “encyclopedic” with your content. The more in-depth and useful your website is, the more people will visit it (and revisit, and recommend it to others, and link to it, etc.).
Begin a link-building program to steadily increase the number of websites that link to yours, which will in turn increase your search engine ranking. Start by submitting your site to appropriate web directories.
Repurpose your content. Create an alternate version of each article you write and publish it online through article distribution sites. Each article you distribute should have a link back to your own site for traffic-building purposes.
Find online publications (blogs and websites) related to your hobby topic and submit articles to those as well, in exchange for a link to your site.
Focus on building a great web resource before trying to make money from it. Revenue comes with traffic, and the best way to grow your traffic levels it to have a great site to begin with.
When you are ready, implement different monetization techniques in order to make money from the website. These techniques include (but are certainly not limited to) Google’s AdSense program for publishers, affiliate programs such as Commission Junction, selling e-books online, etc. Try new things on a regular basis.
Combine multiple revenue streams. Experiment with the ones listed above (and others) to find out what works best for your audience. Then seek to add extra revenue sources. It’s a concept of layers.
Be flexible. Focus your energy on those efforts that produce the best results. Some techniques will be profitable, and others will not. The important thing is to learn something from everything you do.
When your website is built (phase one, at least), send a press release out through the online PR sites. Write the release to your intended reader / audience, and explain the usefulness and uniqueness of your hobby site.
After sending your press release, you should also tap into blog networks to promote your site. Make a list of popular blogs within your subject / niche area, and contact the authors to share the new (and extremely useful) online resource you’ve created.
When your first site is up and running (and making money consistently), start the next one. It’s rare to make a living from just one hobby / information website. I personally publish a dozen. One of them is getting close to being a livelihood by itself, but it’s nice to have the others for extra “cushion.”
Set clear goals for your website.Examples: I want to have X number of articles by month #2. I want to have 200 visitors per day by month #3. And so on. Sometimes you’ll hit your goals, sometimes you’ll exceed them, and other times you’ll fall short. But you need something to aim for.
Create a schedule of tasks to help you reach those goals we talked about above. Examples: One hour of content creation each day. Thirty minutes of SEO work each day. One press release distributed each month. And so on. Your goals will dictate your schedule.
Conclusion and Summary
I’m sure you already have the desire to earn a living with hobby websites. Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this article. So let me close simply by offering you a little motivation.
Focus on building a great web resource before trying to make money from it.
Whenever I meet new people, we usually go through the “what do you do for a living” routine at some point. Who doesn’t, right? A lot of the time, people talk about their own jobs with a hint of disgust, as if going to work each day is torture.
When I am asked what I do for a living, I honestly state that I publish a few hobby websites. As you might imagine, this leads to some raised eyebrows and a long line of questioning. Why are people so intrigued with this concept? Because it’s a great way to make a living! So what are you waiting for?
This is another article from our SEO Matters series, where we’ll consider setting Goals using Google Analytics and how that can really take your game up a notch. Note carefully that setting goals not only helps you increase “conversions” (get visitors to take a certain action at your site), but also helps you learn and adjust your general SEO strategies.
What measurable goals have you set for your website’s performance? How many visitors are you converting each month? If you answered, “Huh?” — you’re not alone. In my experience, business blog owners, and businesses with websites seldom even look at their stats that come with their hosting program, let alone Google Analytics. Even BlogMasters and WebMasters I know seem to ignore the power of “goals” and “conversions” as key metrics for your site’s performance.
You can study keywords visitors use to find your site, and which ones result in the highest goal conversions
So, let’s learn about it. And, I think you’ll find that you benefit not only from analyzing the results of your goal setting, but perhaps even more from the new way you think about organizing activity at your site and making site design adjustments.
Quick — does your website have a purpose? If you can’t answer that, you need to set goals. How well is your site reaching those goals? If you can’t answer that… Google Analytics comes to the rescue. Let’s consider some typical goals:
Getting a visitor to purchase something on your site (a “conversion”, as in converting a visitor into a paying customer)
Getting a visitor to download a free white paper
Getting a visitor to go to a “contact us” page and fill out the form
Are you following? Don’t worry… we’re going to watch a video in a moment that will help you understand goals. For now, think of goal setting and tracking as a way to “funnel” visitors to your site to take a desired action. And while the word “funnel” is used by marketers and in Google Analytics bear in mind the difference between a real funnel (the liquid can’t get out), and an online website funnel (the visitor can go somewhere else). That’s why you want to track visitor behavior and make adjustments accordingly.
Here’s a screenshot of an analytics goal I have set up for WebFadds.com:
Above (click to enlarge) you can see that I have set a goal to track visitors who fill out and send (the page tracked only appears after a message is sent) at our site. I have also defined a “Funnel” (bottom three stepped links) to watch if these visitors go from the home page to the services overview page, and then to the contact page.
Let’s take a look at the video on Goals in Analytics, then we’ll do a review for this article in the series:
To wrap up — here are some points from the video, and general points about setting goals for your site:
Set up goals using Google Analytics
You can enter a page that a visitor only hits after they reach a goal (like a “thank you” page)
You can also “benchmark” your site using Analytics to compare similar business websites online (we’ll talk about that more in a future article in this series)
You can study keywords visitors use to find your site, and which ones result in the highest goal conversions (then use them in your other SEO efforts)
When you learn to watch visitor behavior at your site, you can make adjustments that will increase conversions
That last point is really what it’s all about. If you’re in business with an online presence you need to convert visitors to customers. Smart goal setting with Google Analytics will help you do that, and find ways to make the process more efficient, and effective.
About the Author: Scott Frangos develops dynamic, automated WebSites at WebFadds.com, based on the WordPress platform. He also advocates smart use of Google Analytics to help clients reach their business goals. He lives with his wife, Pepper, and three dogs (Wisdom, Spirit and Steggman) in the Pacific Northwest.
About WebHelperMagazine: WebHelperMagazine is a digest of tutorials and helpful articles for WebMasters, BlogMasters & Social Marketers.
This is another article in our Video Marketing series. Written by video ad professional, Bernie Day, it does a good job of explaining what you should do with a video to get a good result. Ever see poorly produced videos online? Yup. Ever see nice looking videos without a clear, well developed message? Sure — all the time. But that shouldn’t stop you from using this excellent method to advertise your business. Just make sure you do it the right way — Ms. Day is going to tell you how. – Editor.
I have been in the online video ad business for four years now and have produced many commercials – and often am intrigued how many people want one and then upon contemplation get bogged down in the details of it. This article discusses the real goal of an ad, who should have one, and how much should you expect to pay for it!
Your goal in any web video ad should be to “hook” and “cause them to act, based upon your call to action.”
To start off, video ads will not turn your business into an overnight success. It is part of the overall marketing mix you should be employing. Video has become hot on the Internet and yes, you really do need one to stay current with this trend. But, staying current, at what price and for what goal?
Think of it this way – online video advertising can range from a 15-second music composition accompanied with images to a $50,000.00 extreme production. I’m sure that most of you reading this fall in between these two and that is who I am speaking to.
Retailers of any kind, either web-based or a bricks and mortar establishment need a way to communicate faster and more vividly. Undoubtedly, video is the medium to do it. The components of that video to advertise your product or service consist of a script, a professional voice to speak the words in the script, some background music that compliments the message and then video and/or images that enhance it. This package is called a video ad. Online, “branding” messages or TV commercials are not what work. What works are direct statements about what you have to offer and how to get it. That is all you need. Your goal in any web video ad should be to “hook” and “cause them to act, based upon your call to action.”
So, with those parameters stated, a clear message, presented in an appealing way, how much should it cost you? All of these components have dropped in price significantly. What took editors hours to assemble now takes one and voice specialists often work from home, recording right at their computers in their “home voice studio.” The visuals and music can be had from royalty-free stock content very readily – so the fact is – it is REALLY LOW cost!
Now, how do you find the right ad producer? Search the Web for terms like: “low cost video ads” and always ask to see the quality of the production company’s work. Contact me for referrals – the companies I work with guarantee satisfaction and produce ads for many clients, including online directories that offer production to their clients. Expect to pay less than $500 for a custom ad which can also include images or video you already have. I have some producers that charge only $150. Live shoot can be had at your place of business for as little as $800 – in HD even!
And if you want to get your video found, you should also look into, “video SEO services,” so that your video ad is completely leveraged, by getting it tagged and placed strategically across the Internet, driving traffic back to your website, since the research shows that most video viewers respond to your call to action with 47% sharing it with others. That alone is a pretty good reason to have a video!
Get yourself a video and use it to drive more business your way!
About the Author: Bernie Day, Managing Partner of Video SEO Studio, helps clients with Video SEO Services including the production of videos and the distribution of videos – saturating the web with the client’s presence. Contact Ms. Day at: 360.348.2107 or visit the website at: VideoSeoStudio.com Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.
Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog.
It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called “traction”, which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.
Top 10 Blog Traffic Tips…
10. Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.
9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.
You don”t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.
8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need a easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that’’s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!).
7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.
Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.
6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger’’s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry – it’’s sort of like your blog telling someone else’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.
This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important – it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.
5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.
4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.
To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at blogcarnival.com.
3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it’’s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it’’s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!
2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it’’s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have – your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.
How you benefit is through what is called your “Resource Box”. You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.
1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I’ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won’t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.
I hope you enjoyed my list of traffic tips. Everything listed above are techniques I’ve put into place myself for my blogs and have worked for me, however it’’s certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many more things you can do. Finding readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your audience and I have no doubt if you put your mind to it you will find a balance that works for you.
About the Author: This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.
Have you ever noticed how many Open Source Content Management programs there are out there? CMSMatrix.org that tracks and compare them, currently lists over 750. But of that number, only a handful have risen to the top of the heap, and a new study, The Open Source CMS Market Share report from Water & Stone names WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal as the winners.
The report author, Ric Shreves, states: “WordPress enjoys great brand strength courtesy of two complimentary offerings: the WordPress CMS and the WordPress hosted blogging service. Nonetheless Joomla! is positioned to challenge for the lead in brand awareness.” He added, “Though it might be surprising to some, Drupal is not far behind.”
This is pretty much what I’ve discovered in my work and why we (at WebFadds.com) have determined to focus on WordPress as a CMS development platform. Most people who have compared the three find WordPress easiest to use, from the clients’ perspective. A key to the game, I think. Take a look at this portion of a comparison chart for the three systems (from CMSMatrix.org):
The portion of the comparison chart, above, is from CMSMatrix.org, showing ease of use features for Drupal, Joomla, and Wordpress.
The The Open Source CMS Market Share report analyzed metrics including downloads, installations, third party support, development service provider volume (number of freelancers providing development and support), books in print (about the programs), rate of adoption, and “mind share”, a metric combining search engine visibility, popularity metrics and evidence showing reputation for the programs reviewed.
While WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal lead across a wide range of measures, the survey also identified Elgg and MODx as rising stars. In addition to naming the market leaders, the survey also identifies projects whose market share indicates they are at risk.
One of the analysis measures involved a Google Trends chart showing search volumes for each of the systems. This is an excellent tool for BlogMasters and WebMasters to use for strategic research. So, here’s a chart, fromm Google Trends comparing WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and the two new up and comers, Elgg and MODx:
The top chart from Google Trends show Joomla leading WordPress (second) and Drupal (third) in searches. The lower chart, tracking news coverage, shows WordPress with a big recent spike in "news buzz".
Ever wonder how the developers of Open Source (freely distributed) software plan to recoup their investment? Well, WordPress developers formed a for-profit company called Automattic that offers paid services related to WordPress, and continues to develop other projects. Neither Joomla or Drupal appear to have one large commercial company backing it, but both do a good job providing links to support professionals, and both have a robust developer community. And WordPress, with over 2500 “plugins” also fields a growing group of support and development professionals in addition to that provided by Automattic. Distribute free. Earn on related services. A model for which, I for one, am grateful.
Speaking of “games”, there’s a new Search Engine in town that promises to be faster and more extensive, indexing 120 billion web pages to Google’s estimated 20 billion. Called “Cuil” (pronounced “cool”), the engine was developed by three former Google engineers, and is backed by 33 million in venture capital.
I tried a search there, and noticed that in addition to a different, magazine-style layout for search returns, Cuil also returns related links within a category — which in this case is “Open Source Content Management.” When you search on “WordPress” at Cuil, related open source CMS returned are: DotClear, Sakai Project, and LifeType. A search on “Drupal” there returned Silverstripe, MediaWiki, and DotNetNuke as related CMS. While a search on “Joomla” returned DotNetNuke, SilverStripe, MediaWiki, TYPO3, Nucleus CMS, SOBI2, and Drupal. Interesting. And the Open Source CMS game continues.
About the Author: Scott Frangos develops dynamic, automated WebSites at WebFadds.com, based on the WordPress platform. He is also a college instructor for CSS, XHTML and Photoshop courses and enjoys martial arts and digital photography. He lives with his wife, Pepper, and three dogs (Wisdom, Spirit and Steggman) in the Pacific Northwest.
About WebHelperMagazine: WebHelperMagazine is a digest of tutorials and helpful articles for WebMasters, BlogMasters & Social Marketers.
What is a “Title Tag”, and why are they important? Let’s find out, and learn how to write them better. They’re an important part of the SEO puzzle. Plus, for you WordPress Blog and Content Managers, I have a tip on how to automate some smart Title Tags using the excellent, fully-featured HeadSpace plugin for SEO. And there’s a video, prepared by Gareth Davies of GSINC, that gives a nice overview with some SEO insights.
Summary from video (watch it below):
Summarize what’s on your page using your Title Tag
Title Tags appear in top bar of your browser
A good CMS like WordPress allows you to edit Title Tags
Keep your Titles to 63 Characters or less
Write Unique Title Tags for every page
Write your Title Tags with a particular, researched, SEO phrase
Here’s a link to the video, in case you need to review it at YouTube.
There you have it — a great little overview on Title Tags. Now let’s take a look on an intermediate level BlogMaster technique to automatically create Title Tags in WordPress.
Title Tags on Auto-Pilot in your WordPress Websites…
I do a lot of “Max-SEO” configurations in my work at WebFadds.com, and I like to use the excellent WordPress plugin, HeadSpace, to make my SEO life easier, and one big advantage is having the program automatically generate custom Title and other tags from the copy for every article and page.
For example, below are global settings which would be applied to all pages and posts “unless otherwise specified:”
This global setting (top of list) in HeadSpace applies to all pages and posts. The plugin author provides a convenient list of special tags to insert in global settings fields at bottom of that page.
Since you don’t want the exact same title tag throughout your site, the next setting shows how every Post and Page is given a unique title, description and tags. What you see in those fields now are variables the plugin author has set up to that when you enter %%title%%, for example, the HeadSpace plugin gets the specific title you write for a post and places it in the meta-title tag (so it is read by search engines and appears at the top of the browser).
After you set the overall global titles and tags (first example above), then you use this setting to provide automatic and unique titles, descriptions, and tags for each post and page.
There are a couple of other plugins for WordPress that provide similar help with SEO functions (“All in one SEO” is another), but I prefer HeadSpace because of its comprehensive approach. When you use it, you will find lots of other ways to boost the performance of your site. You can read a longer, two article series on using HeadSpace here.
About the Author: Scott Frangos develops dynamic, automated WebSites at WebFadds.com, based on the WordPress platform. He is also a college instructor for CSS, XHTML and Photoshop courses and enjoys martial arts and digital photography. He lives with his wife, Pepper, and three dogs (Wisdom, Spirit and Steggman) in the Pacific Northwest.
About WebHelperMagazine: WebHelperMagazine is a digest of tutorials and helpful articles for WebMasters, BlogMasters & Social Marketers.
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