Blog Tips

Free Tools For Online Marketers Who Are Ready!

Now that you are ready, if you truly are ready, to market online, I have a few free tools, of which I will never make a dime referring you too.

Most if not all of these tools require you to have a personal website that you can add these scripts too.

I've hunted high and low for the past few years, as I am on a tight budget much as many of you probably are as well.

My Dime means My Dime. If I have to spend a dime, it better be the best dime I ever spent to get my online business running. One of the hardest parts of starting an online business is to make that almighty jump to creating your own personal website.
If you have read any of the articles posted on this blog, you should be able to weigh the pros and cons of a paid site vs a free site. I'm referring to wordpress.org, or blogger.com

You may if you choose go with either one of those to gain experience, or just take your beer money, or give up a couple packs of smokes per month, and pay for your own domain name, get some hosting, and make your site personally yours.

Branding is what its all about by the way. Without branding, all the slaving you do, driving traffic to your site, will be so much work that you will give up way before your golden nugget falls.

Free traffic is available all over the internet, all you have to do is dig it up. Make it yours, by that I mean is to register the unique traffic source as your own domain name. The traffic will be free, for as long as people are searching for that particular source of information.

That is your first free nugget of information.
Once and only if you have your research..(Keyworded domain registered) and you have some content, hopefully something original, and in your own words, or combined with other works, you will need some other tools to make it all work to bring even more visitors automatically.

I'm not talking about programs that steal other peoples writings and posting them to your blog.
I'm not talking about reciprocal links.
I'm not talking about automated comment makers.

What I'm talking about is real life traffic.

A lot of it can be done with free traffic tools. The real, Godforsaken, Free, Life changing social tools.

Lets go back about a year. If you go to the waybackmachine.com site, you can view what my site has been up to, and how it looked way baCK. Way when I had no knowledge, but had the money and the brain power to sift thru a lot of the crap thats out there.

It really does come down to this. Find a keyword that has little or no competition. Find out if other people are using that keyword to make money. Find out if you can register a domain name with that keyword in it.

Find out if there are either affiliate programs, or affiliate products you can sell with that keyword/domain site.

Create an attraction article, Create a site that has information to keep them coming back.

Here are a few free tools you can use to do your research:
Get a Gmail account. Its a free account and you can use it for combining all the tools you need for tracking.
Once you have a gmail account, click on the view settings link when your logged in.

Check out the list of tools you have at your disposal.
Webmaster tools.
Analytics
Adwords
Adsense
and the list goes on.

None of these cost money, except for adsense. If you plan on advertising on a large network with keywords, you will have to pay. But if you do your keyword research (use adwords keyword tool to check out the trends and such) you can save yourself a lot of money.

Plugins for wordpress: only good if you have your own domain
I recommend Akismet, which is loaded by default when installing wordpress on your domain.
I also recommend, google privacy policy if your going to run adsense on your site.
Another is Hop press for clickbank advertising.
And yet another which can combine adsense, clickbank, is datafeedr. you can enter the html code or javascript into a plain text option box, and insert it into any part of your site.

Heatmap which is a part of this site is a theme, which has a multitude of configuration options from adding ad codes, whether from google , clickbank, or any other affiliate program to just about any part of your site, from header to footer to sidebars. Left or Right.

You may have to learn a bit about php to customize your theme though in heatmap. I prefer the blue layout myself. My favorite color.

What else could there be that can be free. Hmm.. Oh, I've been experimenting with Amazon as well with all these tools.

This site is my testing ground, and you may have gotten here by some leftover link I left behind, that led you to a page that no longer exists. I will not appologize , but welcome you anyway to learn a bit from my mistakes. It will save you a ton of money.

Are you ready? I have been for quite some time.

WordPress How To – Subdomains and WordPress – ‘How To’

This article resulted from some recent work performed on a new website, and I have written it as a step-by-step solution. It could save you a stack of time. It assumes that you understand the use of FTP.

AIM 1: to create a website and to add a subdomain.

Please note: the domain, subdirectories and files in this article are imaginary, and are for instructional purposes only.

Let's use the example of a fruit grower.

Build a website fruit.com using your FTP client software, and with the files and subdirectories as follows -

fruit.com/index.html

fruit.com/apples/orchard.html

fruit.com/grapes/vineyard.html
Where fruit.com is usually represented by /public_html/ on the server, and index.html is the home page.

SUBDOMAIN

Use the cpanel utility to 'add' a subdomain - citrus.

This means you will be creating a new folder 'citrus' which is a SPECIAL FOLDER.

Using FTP again with the username and password as before (i.e. you don't create a new FTP user for the subdomain), build -

/public_html/citrus/index.html (and this time it's a different index.html)

/public_html/citrus/oranges/grove.html

/public_html/citrus/grapefruit/orchard.html
To access index.html, grove.html, and orchard.html using your browser, the urls are -

citrus.fruit.com/index.html

citrus.fruit.com/oranges/grove.html

citrus.fruit.com/grapefruit/orchard.html
If everything has been set up correctly, the following WILL NOT display the new index.html, or grove.html, nor orchard.html

fruit.com/citrus/index.html

fruit.com/citrus/oranges/grove.html

fruit.com/citrus/grapefruit/orchard.html
Conclusion: designating the folder 'citrus' as a subdomain has made it special. It is special in that you have to access the folder in a special way. It is not special in the way you use FTP to add content.

WORDPRESS (abbrev. 'WP')

AIM 2: to install WP on the site fruit.com, and then on the subdomain 'citrus'.

(See WordPress.org for the installation method)

On your main site -

Using cpanel's utility for managing MySql databases, create a database, say, 'wp'. It's actual full name you will see will turn out to be 'yourusername_wp'.

Create a new user, say, 'wpu'. His actual full name will turn out to be 'yourusername_wpu'.

Connect the new user to the new database.

The actual names will be the ones to use in your WP installation when you edit your wp_config file (the 'wp_' here has nothing to do with the name you gave to your database).

Using FTP, install WP, following the installation method, on your main site fruit.com. You will probably install it in /public_html/, or in something like /public_html/blog/

Now for WP in your subdomain -

Using cpanel's utility for managing MySql databases, create a database, say, 'ws'. It's actual name will turn out to be 'yourusername_ws'.

Create a new user, say, 'wsu'. His actual name will turn out to be 'yourusername_wsu'.

Connect the new user to the new database.

The actual names will be the ones to use in your WP installation when you edit your wp_config file.

Using FTP install WP, following the installation method, in your folder 'citrus'. You will probably install it in /public_html/citrus/, or in something like /public_html/citrus/blog/

Well done! You now have a working subdomain with WordPress installed on the main domain and in the subdomain.

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By Anonymous

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WordPress How To – WordPress – How to Securely Back Up Your WordPress Blog

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging software applications that is currently being used for blogs and also as a content management system for websites. Just like any other software, with popularity comes troublesome security issues as people try to hack the program and cause problems for the users. In addition to doing frequent updates, backing up your installation is one of the best ways of making sure that you are secure in case your blog is taken down by a hacker.

There are two things that need to be backed up to have a complete backup of your WordPress installation. The first one is the database. You can manually use a tool to download your database and remember to do this week after week. There is also a tool that will do this for you automatically.

Get the plugin WP-DB-Backup. Install this into your WordPress blog under the plugin folder and activate it. Under 'Tools' there will be a Backup button that you can press. This is the area where you can set up an option to have this database emailed to you on a daily basis or at least once each week. Make sure you use an email that is not connected to your current hosting account in case the whole host gets attacked. Now you have your database automatically backed up.

The second piece you need is anything that you upload to your account like your plugins, themes, images, videos, and other things. To do this, simply use a FTP client software application to access the hosting account and copy all the contents of the public_html folder. This will get everything that you need. If you don't upload items too often, this might only have to be done maybe once a month.

It is important to get into the habit of performing these two backups on a regular basis. By backing up on a regular schedule, if the blog or the host has some sort of security issue, you have the option of installing the blog again on that host or a new one without having to worry about losing any information, posts, pages, comments, or any changes that you have made to the account.

WordPress makes maintaining a blog or website simple and convenient. By taking steps to ensure your site's security takes the simplicity and convenience to the next level and allows you to have peace of mind as well.

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Cecil Flynn - Cecil Flynn is always looking for ways to save money and energy. He researches fervently - it is a hobby of his! When he finds ...

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WordPress How To – WordPress – How to Install Plugins in WordPress

You have made the decision to begin blogging, have chosen WordPress as your blogging platform. You have chosen a domain name, intstalled WordPress on your hosting account. You have chosen a theme and of course know which niche your blog will be about. Now what to do to make it a more friendly as well as professional site.

Install some plugins. Using plugins in WordPress is going to make your site more professional. Plugins will also help your site be found by the search engines.

Many plugins are available. Some are standard or "needed." Others are the preference of individuals.

The needed plugins are Askimet, All In One SEO Pack, and Google XML Sitemap. Others that will help your site are Contact Form, Ping Optimizer, Adsense Ads, Privacy Policy, and so many more.

The question becomes, how do I install these plugins? That is very simple.

Begin by signing in to your admin or Dashboard. On the left you will see an option to click for Plugins. Once you click that, all of your plugins will be visible. Now you can click the "add new" and a screen will come up for you to search for a plugin.

If you know the exact name of the plugin you are searching, you can type that into the search box and WordPress will find it for you. If it is a WordPress plugin, it will be found immediately. You may also find some additional choices. For example, if your type in Privacy Policy, you may find several options. Pick the one you want and then click on "Install" on the right side of the page.

WordPress will automatically install this plugin on your blog. You are then given the option of activating that plugin or returning to the install page again. See how easy that is?

Other pluging are also available. These are created by others outside of WordPress. Sometimes there is a charge for these - sometimes not. If you are looking for some particular addition to your blog, you can Google what you are looking for. Once you find it, you download it to your computer - saving it on the desktop is the simplest. Keep it in the Zip format. Then, when you are on the add new page for the plugins, simply click the "upload" button at the top, then browse, find your file and finish with "Install Now."

All newly installed plugins need to be activated, so be sure to do that. All you need do is click "activate" and it is done for you. Most plugins just begin working but some will need to have settings adjusted. This will be visible under the plugin on the plugin page. However, for some you will have to look under "settings" or "tools" in order to be able to set them up before they are activated.

Plugins make a huge difference in your site. They make you site safe from spam, create a searchable environment for the search engines, and give a very professional look to your WordPress blog. The best part of all? You can do it yourself!

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Jeanene Fisher - Jeanene is a marketer of online niche products. As an affiliate niche marketer, she includes article and e-book writing as well as filming YouTube videos ...

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