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Yep, it’s that time now…time to announce the winner of the Free Custom-Mini Site from Silicon Post. Thanks to all those that entered and for sharing your stories. There are lots of great and many noble ideas out there - it was a pleasure to read them all.

But alas, there can only be one winner and that winner is:

April Jones of Nebraska, USA

April, to claim your prize, email news @ internetmarketingsweetie.com with “Custom Mini Site” in the subject line. You must claim your prize by June 25, 2008 or a new winner will be drawn.

It’s BAAAAACK by popular demand. This is a really SWEET giveaway from one of my readers and accomplished designer, Robert A. Mesa, of Silicon Post - One Stop Internet Shop. He’s once again, kindly donated his time and talents to offer a custom mini-site design to one lucky winner.
Here’s How it Works:

1. Have a look at the mini-site giveaway promo website. You’ll find a portfolio and other information about the giveaway to see if this is something you’d like to have made for you.

2. Write a comment below with your full name, state/province and country stating that you’d like to enter. Please include one sentence (or more) on why you’d like to get your hands on one of these prizes.

3. Deadline for entry is 10 PM PST Tuesday (June 17, 2008 - Click here to see what time it is in PST).

4. By random draw, we’ll pick 1 winner and announce them on Wednesday. You MUST claim your prize within 7 days or we will draw another winner.

Good luck!

It’s been a little quiet here this week and I completely neglected to come back with some ideas on what tool to use to build certain websites as I promised last Friday. I guess that’s what happens when you’re forced to your back (or actually your side, if you can’t lie on your back for fear of crushing your organs…LOL!). Anyway, sorry for the delay and here are some thoughts for you.

Disclaimer: These are simply opinions and obviously based on my preferences. It all comes down to your own preferences, skillset and goal with your own website. If you have questions or preferences of your own, please feel to leave your thoughts in the comments area.

Beginners

As a beginner, you need to make some decisions on your budget and quality of site you can live with. For example, when I got started, I didn’t hire anyone (not really because I was cheap, but because I didn’t know who to hire) and I got right in there with FrontPage and made my own sites - they were pretty ugly, but they did the job.

Of course, you don’t have to live with ugly - you can try a site builder or hire someone to help you (for just design help see FreshNets or for more full-service online business help, consider our Platinum Membership).

Content Sites

If you’re looking to do a content site, you have many options that again come down to your preferences.

A site builder: like Internet Based Family (web-based) works well as a content site and I have a couple that I run myself. It’s a low monthly fee for a site that isn’t ugly, is easy to put together and has some decent features. And from my experience, if you use basic SEO techniques, these sites do quite well in the search engines. No programmer or designer required - except to possibly customize the graphic header.

A CMS (Content Management System): like WordPress, or their are many other choices (I’ve tried a few and WordPress is my favorite amongst them), works well for content sites. Unless you have some basic to advanced programming skill, you’ll likely need to hire help to get it set up and customized (CMSs are web-based).

An HTML/WYSWG Editor: like FrontPage (no longer being made by Microsoft and has been replaced by “Expression Web”) or Dreamweaver can serve you well for creating a site you can have complete control over, without any programming skills. You may or may not want to hire help with these (both are desktop software).

Shopping Cart Sites

As with any type of sites, are tons of options for shopping cart style sites. If you have a very large line of products, you probably want to use a site builder like Internet Based Family (cart included) or a full shopping cart / website management system like OSCommerce or Zen Cart as it makes it easy to dynamically create all your product pages.

For Internet Based Family, there is no developer needed, but for the others where a script is installed, you probably will need a hand. Before choosing any script, make sure you have a developer on your side that is very proficient and has plenty of experience with the cart you choose. Not all developers/programmers have experience or work well with all scripts.

If you have a smaller line of products, you can create your site from scratch using an HTML editor, so you have complete control. Then simply use an add-on cart like Quicksales (1SC) or WAHMCart to manage the product sales. All you do is copy-and-paste code into your website pages.

(All the shopping cart options are web-based - to add products, you need to be logged into your server or a web-based account)

Sales Letter Sites

Use an HTML editor (desktop software)…plain and simple. You will get the most control and no unneeded bells and whistles or distractions that come with site builders and content management systems.

If you’re not good with HTML, get a template. In fact, I’ll be giving out a free sales letter template tomorrow (look for my Sweetie Saturday post). Or you can also use the sales letter builder that comes with my Copywriting Sweetie course (desktop software). That way, you only have the elements you need for your page.

Blogs

There are plenty of blog platforms out there. My personal experience is limited to Blogger and Wordpress (both web-based). Whichever you use, always host the blog on your site, so you have full control and ownership of your site Plus, you have the option of changing at a later date, if you want.

Wordpress is more powerful, has many useful plug-ins available and offers more built-in features. But it requires script installation and at minimum, you’ll need a ready-made theme installed (don’t use the default - it’s HORRID!) and some minor customization (again, check FreshNets for help). If you are in a hurry to get started and want to get your feet wet with very little expense, you can try Blogger. I used it happily for a number of years and was able to customize the look all by myself…but I eventually outgrew it. My programmer was able to move me over to WordPress quite painlessly, thank goodness.

Desktop or Web-Based?

You’ll notice, that I made some notations on whether a program was web-based or desktop. I did this for a couple of reasons as it’s an important consideration:

1. Will you be working offline frequently? If so, you might want desktop.
2. Will you be hiring people to work on the site or have contributors adding content? If so, web-based is often the best choice.

Those are just a few things to consider and I hope my thoughts have been helpful. The ultimate decision is yours and it can be perplexing. But please - don’t let the decision on a web-building tool hold you back from getting started. You won’t know your preferences and true skills until you get your feet wet. Besides anything done in cyberspace can be undone, redone and fixed…so go for it!

I have a lot of people ask what type of system, editor, builder, etc. they should use to build their websites. It’s really tough to give a one-size fits all answer to that question. It depends on your own skill set and very importantly, the purpose of your website.

Regardless, I have noticed a lot of people giving the blanket advice, “Just go with Wordpress. You won’t regret it.”

Yes, WordPress is Powerful and Very Functional

I agree that WordPress is highly functional and can be a great solution for many purposes. It is not simply a blogging platform…it is a very powerful content management system. In fact, it’s what we use at Schmoozins.com and although some may recognize the theme used, most wouldn’t know we used WordPress to create it.

That’s one of the many reasons WordPress rocks.

You can make WordPress do just about anything you want - as long as you know what you’re doing and that’s the issue here.

If you want to use WordPress - especially for anything other than a blog, you DO need to have some technical skills and know-how or have a techy on hand to do it for you…otherwise, you may very well be doing damage to your marketing efforts and sacrificing profitability.

(By the way, customizing your blog, writing content and updating your WordPress blog is something we can do at Outsourcing Sweetie in our Platinum Membership)

There Are Many Things to Consider before Jumping in Head First

I see a lot of people taking older sites and moving them to WordPress en masse, but consider a few things…

If you have a product-based or service-based website, throwing a theme on WordPress and letting it roll is probably not in the best interest of your business as your site is not structured to guide people into the sale. WordPress, by it’s nature, includes a lot of distracting links and features that you need to be able to control on a page per page, section to section basis. In addition to the distractions, there are still more finite details you want have control over, but if you don’t know how to modify what happens in the background of WordPress, you lose control over your whole marketing process.

Content Management Systems Drove Me Nuts, But WordPress Has Some Saving Graces

I have tried a lot of content management systems and have always felt stifled by their limitations, even with the help of a programmer. That’s why I’ve largely worked with static sites because even though you may spend more time developing the site, you have easy and complete control over everything. But I have to admit, WordPress impresses me in that I can get it to do MOST of what I want (in my case, with the help of a programmer cuz I ain’t doin’ it myslef).

In fact, I’m in the process of doing a huge overhaul to Internet Marketing Sweetie where most of the site will be put into WordPress. However, it will be highly-customized, navigation will be structured with marketing ends in mind and all kinds of other tweaks with be implemented. And even after all that, my sales pages will always remain static pages OUTSIDE of WordPress, because I will not give up any control when it comes to actual selling of a product.

If You’re Thinking of Moving

If you’re thinking of moving an existing website to WordPress, ensure you redirect all your old pages to their new location. I’ve seen so many people complain that their traffic and sales went down after a move to WordPress, but they didn’t take the steps necessary to ensure that visitors didn’t get lost following old links and hopefully you can retain your search engine rankings. For search engine purposes, a 301 redirect is recommended and you might want to listen to this podcast archive for tips on WordPress and search engines.

I’m Picky, but for Good Reason

When getting ready to use WordPress on any website, I am ultra-picky in how I want things laid out (as Lynette can attest to - I’m sure I drive her crazy). It’s not just because I’m a control freak, but because I want to have complete control of my visitor’s experience and help ensure I get the results I want on each and every page of my website.

Now, I can’t really give a checklist of the what I change because it absolutely varies depending on what I want to get out of a site, a particular site section or a particular page, but to give you some idea about how picky this can get, here’s just a partial laundry list of modifications I’ve insisted on (again, depending on the precise requirements):

1. Removal of dates on posts. For a frequently updated blog, I’d keep the date. But if I’m using WP as a general content management system with evergreen content, I’d remove the dates.

2. Creation of Categories with a different template and not listed in the main categories. For example, we just added a press release/media section to a website, but it needed to be very separate from the rest of the site because the media has different needs than a general website visitor. They want to see previous press releases, get company info and need an RSS/email option for company news only.

3. Wording on links. I change these all the time.

Example - Instead of using the default “No Comments” when nobody has left a comment, why not have a call to action instead? For example, “Leave a comment” or “Be the first to leave a comment”.

Example - If you have a review site, dosn’t it make more sense to have the “Previous Posts” link read “More Reviews” or something like that?

There are so many nit-picky possibilities that you can try to get more clickthroughs and action.

4. Static Information on Your Category Pages: By default, WordPress just posts your content to a category and the top of the category page is the latest post. Instead you might want to include a strategically formatted category description, product promo and/or mailing list offer.

5. Page Headlines & Incoming Links That Differ. On my Administrative-type pages it always drives me crazy that the title/headline I put on the page matches the incoming link to that page. So, if I wanted my affiliate sign up page to have a simple incoming link that said “Affiliates” I was limited to using that as my title for the pge. But you can actually set up templates that won’t show the title of the article on the page and you can put your own headline in the body of the page. That way, I can have a boring administrative link to the page, but the page itself can have an attention-getting headline.

6. Removal of Ads, Comments, etc. from Certain Categories. Some categories just don’t need commentary or to display advertising. You want to be able to remove that from specific pages, categories, etc. where appropriate.

Like I said, those are just a handful of changes I couldn’t manage on my own, but there are very sound marketing reasons to have those changes.

What All This Yammering Means to You

Well, honestly I don’t know what it means to you…it depends on what you hope to get out of your website.

WordPress really is a terrific tool, but is it meant for a beginner blogger/content site owner who isn’t willing to recruit some help in customization? As far as I’m concerned…no.

Is it meant for product-based or service-based websites? As far as I’m concerned…no way…unless you get some heavy customization.

If you’re going to use WordPress and you’re technically-inclined, than it’s probably right up your alley. If you’re techno-challenged like me, get some help to set it up right. And when I say get the help, I don’t mean you need to hire someone full-time to work on your site all the time. Just ensure you get things customized and functioning for your unique business. But do consider that this is a script on your server and it will require occasional updating.

(By the way, if you’re looking for suggestions based on the type of site you’re creating, I’ll be back - hopefully this weekend - with some more guidance on what tools typically work best for which job)

Earlier this week, we talked a bit about the importance of doing back ups and how maybe we’re not all doing what we can to help prevent the loss of data. But man, does it really suck when it happens.

No more excuses because Flavius Saracut of Neobyte Solutions is offering all my readers a free license of Home Solution Titan Backup 2.0.

Titan Backup is an easy-to-use, affordable (well FREE today) and complete solution, designed for secure backups of all important files. You can back up everything from main files to CDs, email, external drives and even remote FTP servers.

How to Get Your Free Download & License:

1. Download the software at this link.

2. Sign up to receive your special unlock code.

3. Get to work and create your back up schedules.

By Sweetie Staff

It’s our pleasure to let you know that new ideas have been added to Business Idea Library. These ideas can be based out of the comfort of your own home or you set up your own commercial space. The choice is yours.

Here are the newest ideas:

Painting Business: Commercial or residential, there are many opportunities in this business.

Pet Sitting: Love pets? Here’s another chance to make them your business.

Photography Business: Sell stock photos or work on contract, you can do this from home or an out-of-home studio.

T-Shirt Business: Sell your own designs or resell wholesale. Here’s what it takes to get started.

Trucking Business: Got a background as trucker? Why not work for yourself instead?

As always, we’ll be back soon with more.

By Sweetie Staff

We’ve added some more ideas to the Business Idea Library that can all be run from inside or outside the home - with a few of them taking you to the great outdoors to serve your clients. Every business needs careful research and a solid business plan to get started, but finding something you love doing is always a bonus.

Here are the new ideas added. Click the links for more information:

Daycare Business: Whether you run your daycare from home or set up a stand-alone, child care center, read this article to find out what it takes to get started.

Dog Walking: Looking for canine clients? Here’s a growing opportunity to take the pooches out for a stroll and play - plus get paid for it.

Jewelry Business: Home-based, internet-based, store-based - the choice is yours.

Landscaping Business: Profits from making lawns and gardens beautiful.

Lawn Maintenance: Got a lawnmower and some hedge trimmers? You can likely get started in this one right away.

See you again soon with some more business ideas.

By Sweetie Staff

New tutorials on the topic of Content / Article Marketing have been added to the Internet Based Family Step-by-Step Training Center.

Of course, the concept is nothing new. People have been talking about and using content marketing for years - but if you haven’t gotten started yet or are looking for a few more tips, these tutorials might just be for you.

Tutorial Main Page: Content Writing & Distribution Tutorial

The main page will give you an overview of the reasoning behind article marketing and it’s tangible business benefits. Then read through the 5 topic-specific tutorials:

Writing Your Own Content: These tips will go a long way, even if you don’t consider yourself a writer.

Using Private Label Rights (PLR) Content: A cost-effective way to have much of the writing done for you.

Hiring a Ghostwriter: If you’re ready for full service writing, here are some tips for finding the right writer for the job.

Content Distribution Tips: Where to publish your content for maximum exposure.

Using Article Directories: Submitting your content to article directories.

We have more tutorials coming and you can view everything we have so far at the training center.