In these interviews, Yvette talks about her introduction to “The Renegade Network Marketer” eBook, by Ann Sieg, and Mike Klingler’s “Renegade University”, and how she incorporated the ideas from these great programs into Renegade Marketing Strategies. She also, talks about the process of filming a series of Promotional and Educational videos for the company.

Yvette has been a successful business owner for over a decade, and in these videos, she offers some great insights into what it takes to build a profitable and growing business. She also details some of the tools and technologies she is currently using to promote Renegade Marketing Strategies. This is a great introduction to the world of Attraction Marketing.

If you are currently using video to promote your business, or you are considering trying your hand at producing online video content, these videos are of “must see” importance. While Yvette has great marketing and business experience, she is a beginner in the world of online video, and she shares important insights, learned through this experience, that will make your video productions go much more smoothly.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Garritt’s Sure-Fire Blog Comments System

Step 1 – Pick a single topic for the day. Chose a topic that is relevant to your site. If you have just written a great post on “Social Marketing Using Facebook”, that is a great place to start.

Step 2 – Do a search for blogs on that topic. I will share my four favorite resources for finding blogs on every subject.

• Google – Not just great for finding blogs – great for finding EVERYTHING!
• www.Wordpress.com – Tons of blogs, on every topic, many with VERY high PageRank scores.
• www.Technorati.com – Just blogs, and the newest content. Technorati allows blog owners to “ping” them with new content, so the search results tend to be very recent posts.
• Google Blogsearch – The power of Google search, dedicated to blogs. Nothing more to say – simply the best!

Step 3 – Quickly screen the results, and open anything that looks like it might be a prospect, in a new tab. I commonly open at least ten tabs at a time. Note: This method is not feasible without a browser that supports tabbed browsing. I highly recommend using Firefox or Safari. Both browsers are available for Windows or Macs, and both support speedy tabbed browsing. To open each link in a new tab, Windows users, hold the Control (CTRL) key when you click each link. Mac users, hold the Command (CMD) key when you click each link. Note: on some Mac keyboards, the Command key has an Apple or Cloverleaf symbol on it.

Step 4 – Quickly skim each blog entry. If a blog entry doesn’t meet your requirements (see RULE #2), or isn’t relevant, close the tab and move on. Only leave a tab open if you intend to comment on that blog post.

Step 5 – Once you have screened each blog, start at the last tab, read that blog post and comment on it. As you finish your comments, close each tab and move to the next.

Remember to keep track of how many posts you have commented on. If you need to repeat these steps, then do so (Remember Rule #1).

One last note: Don’t be afraid to subscribe to sites. Chances are, if they have good content, you will be back. Just remember your login info, so you don’t have to create a new profile each time you want to comment on that site. I like to email myself all of my new account information. It is very easy to search your email for the name of the site, and recall your login information.

The Importance of Inbound Links

One of the most important factors in generating a high search engine ranking, is how many inbound links your site has. What the heck is an inbound link? An inbound link, is a link from any other site on the internet, pointing to your site. When your buddy links to your page from his or hers, that is an inbound link. Seems simple, right?

Here’s why inbound links are so important. Search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Ask go out and “spider” the internet. That means that their automated programs surf the internet and collect data about the sites they find. The most common way these spiders find sites, is through inbound links, so without some inbound links from already-indexed sites, your site has a very low chance of being found in the first place. Unless you manually submit a new website to a search engine, if your site has no inbound links, there is a possibility that it could NEVER be indexed. Imagine putting in all the work to build a great site, then NEVER having it show up in Google, Yahoo!, or any other search engine. The good news is, just about every website (with it’s own domain name) has at least one inbound link – from the domain registrar. As soon as you register your domain name with Go Daddy or any other registrar, your registrar publicly lists the registration information for your site. That means, that EVENTUALLY, some search engine spider will find that page and then make it’s way to your website.

While it is a pretty sure bet that your site will eventually be found by the search engines, that is only the first step. Once your site is indexed, you need to make sure that it can be found in the results for relevant searches. The most important factor in “being found” on the search engines, is your page’s rank on those search engines. Google calls their page ranking system “PageRank”, and it is the gold-standard, by which all ranking systems are measured. I encourage you to read the following pages on Google’s own site, describing how they rank pages. Google Corporate Information – Technology Overview is a broad overview of their PageRank technology, and Google Webmaster Guidelines – Webmaster Help Center is a very clear and detailed set of guideline for webmaster, to help in creating a “Google Friendly” website. Take the time to read both pages, and you will have a much better understanding of what it takes to have a highly ranked page on Google, and as a result, a highly ranked page on all the other search engines. Rest assured, if your page is Google friendly, then it is also Yahoo! friendly, and MSN friendly, and AOL friendly, and Ask friendly.

More Inbound Links = Higher PageRank

Once the search engines have found your site, and begin the process of indexing it, they have to establish a value for your site and information, relative to all the other sites like yours, on the internet. One of the ways they establish that value, is by counting how many times other sites link back to yours. Think of inbound links as “endorsements” from other website owners and content creators, and you can see why this method is effective. In a sense, any time a web designer, or content creator links back to your site, they are recommending your content to their readers, and that sends a very important message to the search engines. It says, “this site has something important to say”. So the logic follows, sites with many inbound links, must have a lot of very important content, otherwise they wouldn’t have so many “endorsements” by other site owners.

In addition to the number of inbound links, the type and quality of those links is very important in establishing your site’s rank on the search engines. Inbound links from very highly ranked sites, are much more valuable than links from sites with very low PageRank scores. This is because the search engines reason that “good” (highly ranked) sites wouldn’t recommend “bad” sites (sites with poor quality content), and “very good” (very highly ranked sites) sites would probably recommend other “very good” content.

The PageRank of the site posting the inbound link is probably the most important measure of the quality of that inbound link, but it isn’t the only thing that matters. Inbound links should be relevant. That means that the keywords and tags in the link should reflect the content of your site, and the link should come from a site or post that has information that is similar to yours. This helps to ensure that your site is properly categorized in the search engines, so people find you when they search for content like yours.

It is important that you don’t compromise when establishing inbound links. Never seek out links from sites that offer “bad” content. You will be judged by the company you keep. If Google finds a links to your site, from sites that it deems as bad or harmful, your PageRank will be negatively effected. Read the Google Webmaster Guidelines – Webmaster Help Center for more information on this topic.

Inbound Links Mean Inbound Traffic

This is a point that can’t be overlooked. Maybe more important than building your PageRank score through inbound links, is DRIVING TRAFFIC to your site.

Here’s the scenario. A dog lover reads an interesting blog post on grooming, on his favorite doggy-related blog. At the end of the post, he sees a well thought out comment, that adds value to the original post, by an obviously intelligent dog groomer. The comment contains a link to that obviously intelligent dog groomer’s website. The dog lover clicks the link to see if the obviously intelligent dog groomer has anything else to say on the subject, and finds a wealth of great information on the obviously intelligent dog groomer’s own blog. The dog lover is now a devoted reader of the obviously intelligent dog groomer’s blog. He subscribes to the mailing list, and buys all his doggy products from the obviously intelligent dog groomer. Ka-ching!

Benchmark Your Website

Before you start optimizing your site, it is a good idea to know where you currently stand on the search engines. Start by searching for your domain name (www.your-domain-name.com) in Google. If your site doesn’t show up, when you search for your domain name, you have a lot of work to do – You are basically invisible – not necessarily un-indexed, but VERY hard to find. If your site does show up, search for a few relevant terms or topics that should definitely show up in your site. Try your name in quotes (“your name”), the name of your company in quotes (“your company name”), or the title of your site in quotes. At this point, if your site is showing up on the first page of the search results, you might be feeling pretty good. Don’t get over-confident. Next, you should try checking your PageRank – www.PRchecker.info offers a free PageRank checker. Chances are, your page rank is much lower than you thought. Compare it with other sites that you visit, and see how you stand.

A Simple Method For Generating TONS Of Relevant Inbound Links

While there are many methods for generating inbound links, from simply asking for them, to establishing multiple sites and cross linking between them, to link exchanges, I am only going to focus on one method in this post. I am going to share my single, favorite method for generating high-quality, relevant inbound links. This method allows you to generate literally THOUSANDS of inbound links in a relatively short amount of time, and lets you control the quality of every one!

My Guaranteed, Slam-Dunk System For Amassing Thousands Of Inbound Links

My Favorite method for generating inbound links, hands-down, is commenting on blogs (weblogs), and I have a really simple system, that guarantees that the links you generate will be relevant, and high-quality.

Most blog authors allow feedback on their blogs. They gather this feedback by allowing readers to comment on specific posts. This benefits them, because it allows them to gauge the effect of posts, and improve their content over time. It also means more content on their site, that they don’t have to write. On a busy blog, it is not uncommon for comments to account for 10% or more of the total content. That is a lot of free creativity, and means a higher PageRank, without the work of content creation. Most blog comments will display the name of the person posting the comment, and normally the name is formatted as a link to that person’s website.

Blog comments are an excellent source of inbound links for many reasons.

First, search engines love blogs. Good blogs tend to have lots of original content and search engines value original content very highly. Blogs tend to be text driven, which means that they are easily indexed by the search engines, and blogs tend to have lots of links to other content, which helps the search engines find other related content.

Second, you can control what types of links you get, when you are creating the links yourself. If you only ever post links on sites that are related to yours, you are guaranteed to have EXTREMELY relevant inbound links. To put it another way, if you have a “health and wellness” website, and you only ever comment on blog posts on other “health and wellness” sites, you can be sure that when people search for “health and wellness” content, on a search engine, your site will come up. You can also be assured that your site won’t show up when people search for “aquarium maintenance”.

Third, you control how quickly the links are created. If you follow my system, it is totally possible to create 1000 high-quality inbound links, in just 3 months. In a year, you can easily have 3000, and you can sustain that growth as long as you want!

I have a few rules, that I always follow, when I post comments.

Rule #1 (Most Important!!!) - Stick to a schedule.

If you post just 12 comments a day, in just 3 months you will have approximately 1000 inbound links. Here are the numbers. 12 comments per day X 30 days per month = 360 comments in a month. 360 comments per month X 3 Months = 1080 inbound links in just 3 months. Lets take that a step further. 360 comments per month X 12 months = 4320 high-quality inbound links in a year. Any site with 1000 (or 4000) high-quality, relevant, related inbound links is going to have a VERY high PageRank score.

I can just hear the questions – “How can I find that many sites to comment on?”, “How much time do I have to devote to this?”, “Is there any way to automate the process?”. I will answer these questions here, but I will also, happily answer any others that are asked in the comments section of this post. This will give you the change to put this method into practice, and gain valuable knowledge at the same time.

O.k. Here goes. “How can I find that many sites to comment on?” New blogs are started at an astronomical rate. You could comment on literally hundreds of new blogs every day, and not even scratch the surface. If you don’t believe me, just Google any term you think is relevant to your business, then count the results. Chances are, the vast majority of the results are blogs. Chances are good that there are MILLIONS of results. I give you my word, you will NEVER run out of places to comment.

“How much time do I have to devote to this?” I usually spend about an hour per day commenting on blog posts. Some days, I spend significantly less time than that. I almost never spend more time than that, and because I don’t like to work on weekends, I try to do more than 12 per day, to keep my monthly average around 360. At first, you may find that it takes you an hour to do 3 or 4 comments, but I promise, you will get faster. In “My Quick and Efficient System for Screening and Commenting on Blogs”, I share my personal method for quickly finding relevant content, and posting comments on numerous blogs, very quickly. I encourage you to read “My Quick and Efficient System for Screening and Commenting on Blogs” as soon as you are done with this post.

“Is there a way to automate this process?” Yes, but it’s called comment spam. There are robots (automated web programs) that seek out blogs, and post hundreds of comments per day. These programs are used almost exclusively by spammers selling viagra, or pushing pornography. These comments are quickly eliminated by comment spam programs, and the ones that aren’t, are a HUGE nuisance to blog owners. Before I had Akismet installed, I would have to moderate literally hundreds of these spam comments per month. I was eventually forced to turn off the comments on my site. Take the time to read my expert tip post, “Plugin and Supercharge Your Blog”, to find out how I deal with comment spam now. Don’t be tempted to try to automate your comments. Once you learn the system, there is really no need. The time you will spend writing creative comments will be well worth it.

Rule #2 – Only comment on blogs that you would recommend and you want to be associated with.

Here are my guidelines for judging a blog as worthy of my comments. I will let you determine your own. Blogs that I comment on must be well-written (no excessive slang or profanity, reasonably intelligent, no broken english). I don’t comment on adult or off-color blogs. I do not wish to be associated with violence, pornography, drugs, criminal activity, or other off-color content, so I never comment on blogs containing that type of content. I (usually) don’t comment on political or religious blogs. While I have very deep convictions about religion and politics, these things very little to do with my business, and I don’t want to offend a potential reader, by associating myself with the “wrong” political or religious content. Finally, I don’t comment on “re-blogs”. I only comment on original posts, written by an author who has put some thought and work into the content.

Rule #3 – Try to be an “A” Student

I have a system for ranking the value of my blog posts. I use a lettered grading system from A-F, just like in high-school. If you don’t like the idea of letter grades, numbers work just as well. The point of the system, though, is that I NEVER do “D” level work. While I try to do as much “A” level work as I can, sometimes it’s just not possible, and “B” and “C” level work is acceptable, as long as I always strive for the best.

I will explain my grading system, and things will get much clearer.

“C” level comments - The lowest level of blog comment I will post, is a “C” level comment. A “C” level comment meets the following criteria. First, it meets the requirement for “Rule #2″ it is placed on a blog that I don’t mind being associated with. Although I receive an inbound link from the comment, the post isn’t specifically related to my blog’s content. Therefore, it doesn’t really contribute to relevancy in search engine results. The body of a “C” level comment contains no links to specific content on my site, and finally, it really doesn’t add any value to the original post. An example of this type of comment would be, “Great post, I had never really looked at dog grooming that way before. The world needs more great groomers like you. Thanks for your hard work”. While the comment doesn’t really add value, it is still a nice recognition of the authors work and contribution, and is totally acceptable. The only real value gained from a “C” level comment, is the inbound link.

“B” level comments - “B” level comments add value. If you read a great post, and can offer some additional input, you have the makings of a “B” level comment. a good example of a “B” level comment would be, “Great post on Wordpress Plugins. While you didn’t mention it in your post, I have found Akismet to be a very good plugin as well. It is a very powerful comment spam filter, and since I installed it, I have gotten no comment spam at all”. This comment adds value to the original post, and while it may not be directly related to your specific content, there is a decent chance that comments like this will drive traffic to your site.

“A” level comments - “A” level comments are what I strive for whenever I post blog comments. Not only does an “A” level comment add value to the original post, it also is directly related to specific content on your site. An “A” level comment should cast you as an expert in your field, and should add some new perspective to the original post. It doesn’t necessarily have to be long, but your comment should definitely be well thought out, and clearly written. Additionally, an “A” level comment should link directly to specifically related content on your site. Here is an example. I will expand on the “B” level comment above, so you can see the difference. “Thank you for the great post on WordPress Plugins. While you didn’t mention it in your post, I have found Akismet to be a very good plugin as well. It is a very powerful comment spam filter, and since I installed it, I have gotten no comment spam at all. It was easy to install and configure, and it does exactly what it is supposed to do. I have written a full review of Akismet here.” Notice the link to specific content at the end of the comment. This type of comment accomplishes all of the things I have talked about in this post. It contributes a high-quality, relevant inbound link, which the search engines love, and it is very likely to drive traffic to your site.

Rule #4 – Only one RELEVANT link per comment

Only some blogs allow you to place links within the body of a comment. Many specifically forbid the use of any HTML within the comment. When you can place a link in the body of a comment, it is important to make it relevant. I ALWAYS delete comments with irrelevant links, as I see this as a cheap tactic to generate low-quality traffic. Placing more than one link within the body of a comment is a sure way to get flagged by spam filters. As a rule, I never place more than one RELEVANT link within a comment, and if there is not a good reason for me to add one, I don’t. I would rather have my comment posted, with just my name formatted as a link to my site, than try to overdo it, and be marked as a spammer.

Rule #5 – Start now!

Procrastination never benefited anyone. Put these rules into effect now, and see the results for yourself. Take five minutes to comment on this post, or another post on this site. Ask a question. I will answer, or add some value. Show me what you have learned!

If you follow these simple rules, you will quickly gather LOADS of high-quality inbound links, and your search engine ranking, and inbound traffic will EXPLODE.

Good Luck,
Garritt

The great thing about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is that when it’s done right, it doesn’t cost you extra time or effort. In fact, if you find yourself spending extra time tweaking your site for the search engines, or thinking about ways to game the system, you are probably undoing all of the good work you have done in the past. SEO is simple. The most important aspect of SEO is, “search engines love unique content”. Write new, original posts often, and you will have a well ranked site.

The following video is an excellent presentation called “Is SEO Evil?”, by Scott Gledhill. It was originally presented at Web Directions South 2007, in Sydney, Australia. In this video, Scott explains why SEO is a basic discipline that every blogger should consciously incorporate into daily practice. View the transcript, and all the slide text HERE, or view the author’s original post at Slideshare.net.

For more on this topic, please read “Vital Blog Search Engine Optimization Elements to Focus On”. This excellent post is from Haiming Jiang’s Internet Marketing and Personal Development Blog.

Between the video above, and “Vital Blog Search Engine Optimization Elements to Focus On” you should have an excellent grasp on what you should be doing as you build your online business, but here are a few more quick tips.

Use Keywords in your blog posts. Search engines rank the words in your titles more highly than the body text on your page. Put the words that you think people should find you by in the
titles of your blog posts, and they will be more likely to show up in search engine results.

Don’t copy content. Search engine spiders compare your content to everything else that the search engine has indexed. If your content is very similar to that of another site, or if your site contains lots of copied content, the search engines will give you a very low ranking (and it can hurt the original content creator, as well).

Work to get inbound links. An inbound link is a link from another site to yours. Sites with many inbound links look more important to search engines, than sites that have few inbound links. While you might think that there are few things you can do to get many inbound links, there are a few things you can do to easily begin to gather many inbound links. The first, and most simple, is to ask! Contact other website owners, with sites like yours, and ask if they would be willing to exchange a link with you. It is good form to always give a link when you get a link, consequently, you only want to seek out sites that you would be proud to promote.

The second way to gather tons of inbound links, is to comment on other blogs. Usually when you place a comment on a blog, you have the opportunity to enter your website address. Usually the blog will display your name or nickname as a link to your site. I have a few rules about this, and I encourage you to read my post on this subject, but as long as you follow a few simple rules, this is a great way to gather a ton of inbound links.

Don’t game the system. Search engines can and will block sites that they deem to be “gaming the system”. While placing hidden text in your site may seem clever while you are doing it, you will really be sorry when you don’t exist in the Googlesphere any more. Learn the rules, then follow them.

I encourage you to spend the next 1 1/2 hours or so, and watch the video and read the linked post. I guarantee you will see an increase in your website traffic as you implement these practices.

I was a computer wiz, could process my reports faster than most of the other assistants, and loved to organize the office, but on days when I was bombarded with responsibilities, I would go into a frenzy trying to figure out just how to get it all done.

After several weeks of my boss watching this go on, he explained to me that the one thing I was missing was making a list, prioritizing it, and then setting goals for myself at the beginning of each day.  The light finally went on and I realized that though I knew where I was supposed to be going, without a clear map of how to get there, I would continue to run around like a chicken with my head cut off.

So began my life of lists and Goal Setting.

Setting goals for yourself and your business is one of the most effective and efficient ways to make use of your time.  Through the years, I’ve learned that when goal setting, there are a few steps you absolutely must take in order to succeed.

Step 1: Be Realistic.  We all have big dreams, and dreams are good.  They are what drive us.  However, be honest with yourself and know what your abilities, time, and limitations will allow you to do.

Step 2: Be Passionate.  If you don’t enjoy what you are doing, chances are you won’t be very good at it.

Step 3: Plan Ahead.  Know where you want to end up and then work your way backwards.  Figure out what specific steps need to be taken in order to succeed and take things one-step at a time.  This will also help you to see the picture more clearly and be more realistic.  Also, set specific dates for when each step needs to be completed.

Step 4: Be Accountable.  Find someone you trust who will be willing to hold you accountable for the goals you set.  Give them your written list of goals and have them hold you to it.

Step 5: WRITE THEM DOWN.  This one is the most important.  If you hide them in your head, most likely that’s where they’ll stay.  Write them down and keep them in a location where you will see them. Refer to them often and don’t be afraid to revise them when necessary.

One of the best feelings in the world is crossing off your goals as you achieve them.  This might sound strange, and it’s probably more of a “girl thing”, but I also like to write my goals down on pretty paper.  It’s just a little more pleasing to my eye and gets me just a little more excited to look at the goals I’ve set for myself.

Well, now that I can cross this article off my list.  On I move to the next goal…

Happy Goal Setting!

If you don’t take time to listen to them, chances are they won’t take time to listen to you.  Your product by itself won’t make your business successful.

A hundred years ago, if you owned the only hardware store in town, you probably would have been extremely successful.  You could have been the rudest, grumpiest, greediest store owner in town, but if your store was the only place within fifty miles to buy a hammer or saw, that’s where everyone would shop.

In today’s market, however, you face tremendous competition.  Customers are no longer just shopping for a product or service; they are shopping for a total experience.

In her book, The Renegade Network Marketer, Ann Sieg states, “It’s not about the product.  It’s about how you communicate the idea of the product.  …A marketing-centered business is an entirely different kind of operation than a product-centered business.  The ability to sell, and more importantly, understand how and why people do what they do, is by far the most potent moneymaking skill you can ever acquire.  It’s the beginning and end of all business success.”

One of the most efficient ways to learn about your customer is through what is called Social Marketing.  Social marketing is exactly what the name implies, and is not only effective, it’s also fun.  Social marketing can be used through websites such as www.facebook.com, www.myspace.com, and www.youtube.com, just to name a few.  Each of these sites gives you a chance to communicate one-on-one with literally thousands of people who you would otherwise not have the opportunity to communicate with.

Mike Klingler, founder of the Renegade University, offers a great advice on how to effectively use Social Marketing to take your business to levels you didn’t even know existed.  Go to www.marketingmerge.com.

The Professional side of Renegade University also offers step-by-step tutorials on how to take advantage of Social Marketing, and by the way, you can test out the Professional side for $1 for the first 7 days!  I guarantee, you will not regret it.

Stay tuned! In a future post, I will talk about two other great methods for listening to your customers, learning their needs, and refining your business to better serve your customers. Bookmark this page, and look for posts on “Customer Surveys” and “Web Forms”, coming soon.

I was going for the longest title and subtitle in blogging history.

Since the first “dotcom boom”, a web page has been a necessity for any serious business. While this is especially true for online businesses, it is equally true for brick-and-mortar, and home-based businesses. It is not even acceptable for a business to not have a website, and in fact, I would propose that it is not even acceptable for a business to have a mediocre website. When our kids can put together a highly trafficked MySpace or Facebook page in their spare time, we just have no excuse as business owners not to devote a portion of our resources to putting together a GREAT website. Customers make immediate judgments about a business the second they land on it’s website. In many cases, these are subtle, subconscious judgments, but they impact the business/customer relationship powerfully.

Luckily, since the “dotcom boom” and “dotcom bust” things have gotten much easier. There are so many powerful tools available that enable every business owner to produce a really professional looking site, with only a moderate amount of work. These tools truly negate any excuse that these businesses might have, for not having a website. Additionally, with the advent of “Web 2.0″, the proliferation of social networking sites has spurred the creation and refinement of many of the most powerful of these tools.

Without a doubt, my favorite tool for web design is Wordpress. Wordpress, has definitely benefited from the improvements in technology, brought about by the social networking craze. On the surface, Wordpress is just blogging software, but at the core, Wordpress is a Content Management System (CMS).

What the heck is a CMS, and why should you care? The purpose of a Content Management System is to collect data, organize it, and present it over the internet. It allows massive amounts of data to be presented in an orderly, and easily searched and navigated manner. It combines a server-level database, like MySQL, with a browser-displayed front end (a web page). In short, it makes designing a data heavy website a breeze. By data, I mean words, links, numbers, pictures, video, audio, customer accounts, passwords, code, or any combination of these: basically, the meat of a website. For a good example of data, managed by a CMS, take a good look at this site. It is filled with words, pictures, video, links, and on the back end, administrator, editor, author, and subscriber account information. It is also, very typical. If you can imagine having a site like this, or already do, you need to know about CMS.

While Wordpress isn’t the only CMS tool out there – in fact, there are countless others – It is my favorite, and if you have read this blog for any length of time, you know I recommend it all the time. I first used Wordpress in 2005 when I had to do a ground-up redesign of a real estate website, for one of my consulting clients. I had been designing web pages for about 9 years, and up until then, mostly edited HTML by hand, in TextEdit, or Notepad. I used to design every page of a site, verify it in multiple browsers, fix any problems, then upload all of the files to the host, using Fetch, Cyberduck, WS FTP, or another FTP program. I had used a couple of WYSIWYG HTML editors, but found them to be more of a hindrance or crutch, than a real benefit. Keep in mind, I designed HUNDREDS of pages this way. I had built several, highly complex sites like this: everything from a personal sites, band sites, record company recording studio sites, to the site for our high-end stationery store. It was a very tedious process, but it yielded great results for the time.

When I started the site redesign, I felt like my designs were starting to look a little dated, and I knew I needed to find a faster way to work. I had heard about Wordpress on Leo Laporte’s radio show, and thought I would give it a try. I installed version 1.5 (I think) and never looked back. I was able to create a great looking site with tons of content (50+ pages, MLS search, home value tools, mapping, lead capture forms, and more), in a very short time. It was a “Eureka!” moment.

Since then, Wordpress has only improved. I am currently running version 2.6.3, and it is excellent. It is highly customizable, and gives very professional results without a lot of work. Plus, if you are willing and able to dig in and do some real under-the-hood work, Wordpress can yield amazing personalized results. Because of the excellent Wordpress support forums, with a little searching, you can usually find great ideas for making your blog work exactly like you want it to, and usually there are clear examples of code that you can use or adapt, to make the needed changes.

I don’t expect you to know how to administer a MySQL database, or even install Wordpress. The good news is, you don’t have to, and if you do, all the better! Most web hosting services offer guided installation of CMS systems, in fact, Go Daddy has a one-click Wordpress Setup that I have used many times. It makes setting up a Wordpress blog take just minutes.

Take the time to dive in to the world of CMS. You will find that managing your website becomes much easier, and your site will look and perform much better as a result.

Wordpress Resources:

You can download Wordpress for free at Wordpress.org

You can cut your teeth on Wordpress, with a free blog, at Wordpress.com

My personal blog at www.GarrittHampton.com has tons of Wordpress tips: everything from Installation, to Themes, to Plugins, to the truly geeky stuff like editing CSS and php.

Check out the Wordpress Support Forums for expert help.

Check out http://wordpress.org/extend/ for great Wordpress Themes, Plugins and ideas.

Here are some of the other Wordpress posts on this site: http://RenegadeMarketingStrategies.com/?s=wordpress. Notice that some of these posts are for subscribers only. To access all of the VIP content on this site, subscribe to our newsletter.

In this subscribers-only “Expert Tips” post, I will give an overview of the plugins I am currently using in my own blogs, explain how they work, and tell you how to install them on your own blog to give it power and flexibility you won’t believe. Keep in mind that although this post is specific to wordpress, most blogging software offers the use of some plugins, and while you may be using another blogging tool, you can take the suggestions in this post, and use them as a jumping-off point to search for similar plugins for your blog. Also, don’t feel constrained to using the plugins I have suggested. There are usually some great competing plugins for each of the ones I am using. For example, visit the plugin page at wordpress.org, wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ and search for plugins to allow you to add a Digg link to your posts. Just enter “Digg” in the search box. You will be amazed at how many plugins allow you to do this one thing. The same is true for almost all of my plugins.

While all of these plugins are available for free download at wordpress.org/extend/plugins/, wherever possible, in this post, I will link to the homepage for the plugin or designer. To install them, download them from either the Wordpress.org plugins page, or the designer’s page, then unzip them and copy them into your wp-content/plugins file using an FTP program, or your webhost’s control panel, file management software. Once you have placed the plugin in your wp-content/plugins folder, log in to your Wordpress dashboard, and click the plugins button at the top right of the page. From there, follow the instructions on the page to activate and set up the plugin.

Akismet

Akismet is, without a doubt, my favorite Wordpress plugin. like most great tools, It does one thing and does it very well. Akismet is a comment spam filter.

If you have ever had to deal with comment spam, you know that it can quickly eat up your time, frustrate you, and cause you to lose faith in humanity. Before I found Akismet, I used to have to moderate approximately 200 spam comments a week. After a few times, spending 10 minutes deleting spam comments, and finding that I couldn’t even weed the spam comments out of my blog, without losing the good ones as well, I turned off the comments on my blog. I hated to lose the power of allowing comments on my blog, but I couldn’t stand the trouble that they brought.

Akismet has fixed this problem, for good. Now, I allow comments on all of my blogs, and never have to deal with comment spam. Akismet is such a great plugin, it is now included with every installation of Wordpress. I encourage you to activate it immediately when you install wordress.

Google XML Sitemaps

One of the most powerful SEO tools I have found, is Google Sitemaps. Sitemaps are XML or HTML documents that tell search engines what, and how many pages are on a website. They also tell search engines when these pages were created, and how often they are edited, and how to find them. The idea behind Sitemaps is, “why wait for search engine spiders to find pages on your site, when you can just tell them where they are”. I have found Sitemaps to be a very quick way to get ranked on Google, and like I have said before, If you can get found on Google, you can get found anywhere.

You can visit Google’s Sitemaps page here. While you are there, take a look at the rest of Google’s Webmaster tools. They are very powerful.

With small sites, it is possible to build XML and HTML sitemaps by hand. But if you have more than a few pages, or if you update your site often, it gets VERY time consuming to keep your sitemap up to date. If you regularly post to your blog, say weekly, it is nearly impossible!

This is where Google XML Sitemaps comes in. This plugin will automatically update your XML sitemap every time you update your site, then it will automatically notify Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask.com about the changes. Very Handy!

I Love Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking sites allow users to submit links to sites, pages, videos, blog posts, or other content that they like, and then, allow other users to vote on the the submitted links. Links with more votes move further up the list. While this is a somewhat obscure concept, it is simple to understand the effect of these sites. Digg is the most popular social bookmarking site, right now. If you have a blog post that gets voted to the top of Digg, you will get literally thousands, and maybe tens of thousands of hits to your site. It is not uncommon for sites to be knocked offline, due to high traffic, when they hit the front page of Digg.

In order to benefit from the HUGE amount of traffic that these sites provide, you have to actually get people to link to you (Digg you). If you have a really great site or post, they might do this manually, but it is much easier to get people to Digg you, if give them an easy way to do it, then encourage them. This is what the
“I Love Social Bookmarking” plugin does. It places a link at the bottom of every blog post that allows people to Digg that post, or submit it to any of several other social bookmarking sites, in a few easy steps. To see it in action, Purple heart and “Social Bookmarking (Digg This)” link at the bottom of this post, then DIGG THIS POST. I’d do it for you!

SEO Friendly Images

SEO Friendly Images automatically sets the proper ALT and TITLE attributes for images you put on your blog, and if you haven’t added these tags, it adds them according to criteria you set. SEO Friendly Images also validates the xHTML in the post, to W3C standards. That’s a lot of technical gibberish to say that this plugin cleans up your posts and tags images, so they are easily indexed by search engines.

Tell-a-Friend

Tell-a-Friend adds a button to the end of every blog post, that allows readers to email the post to a friend, or group of friends. To see this plugin in action, click the “SHARE THIS POST” button at the bottom of this post. In marketing, “calls to action” are very important. While you might expect that your readers, clients, or customers should know exactly what you want them to do, you can be reasonably assured that you will have a much better response, if you just ask them to do something specific. That’s what this plugin does. It asks your readers to spread the word about your great content.

Ultimate Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a very powerful website statistics service provided by Google. The Ultimate Google Analytics plugin adds JavaScript to each post, page, and link on your blog, that allows Google Analytics to generate statistics on what your visitors are doing while they are on your site. Additionally, Google Analytics can tell you how visitors arrived at your site (did they enter a search term in a search engine, or click on an inbound link on another site), and how they left your site (did they click on an outbound link, or did they close the window or browser).

I have found Google Analytics to be an irreplaceable tool, in that it allows me to very effectively, guage the effectiveness of certain aspects of my sites. It allows me to work to increase the “stickiness” of my site, by adding more of the features that my readers like, and it allows me to track the effectiveness of different advertising campaigns, because I can see which landing pages people are entering through, then what they are doing once they are on my site.

For anyone who is serious about conducting business on the web, I highly recommend a good statistics program, and Google Analytics is by far the best that I have used.

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade does just what it’s name implies. It automatically upgrades your wordpress installation to the newest version. This is a great time saver for me, because I have multiple Wordpress blogs that I manage, and manually upgrading all of them would be a real hassle.

yaCAPTCHA

yaCAPTCHA adds a CAPTCHA field to the end of forms. CAPTCHA is the technology that creates distorted text images, to ensure that the person filling out a form is an actual person. In concert with Akismet, yaCAPTCHA insures that the only comments I get on my blog, are from real people. I also use CAPTCHA technology on my subscription form. To see this plugin in action, comment on any post on this blog.

Maybe you have seen or heard of a little known ad campaign called “got milk?” which originated in 1993 by the California Milk Processor Board.  This group of milk processors agreed to allocate 3-cents of each gallon sold to fund efforts to promote the consumption of milk through marketing, advertising, promotion and public relations.1

Whoever came up with that catch phrase for the CMPB was clearly a marketing genius.  However, our country has gorged itself so much on the overuse of “got (fill in the blank)” that it has become a running joke in our household for the past several years.  I continue to be amazed at how many businesses use this marketing technique thinking themselves clever.  got bugs? got teeth? got carpet?  got windows? You get the point.  It has become nothing more than marketing noise in the ear of the customer.

Ann Sieg states it well in her book The Renegade Network Marketer, “Nothing Else In A Business Matters If Good Sales And Marketing Aren’t Being Used”.

The World Wide Web has become so central to today’s household that there are a huge variety of options you can use to effectively market your business.  Some are free, others cost a little, and of course, others cost a lot.  Where you fit in depends on your business, your marketing budget and your know-how (and if you don’t know how to do it, you can learn, or pay someone who does).

Stay tuned, because in the next few articles we will provide you with ways to effectively and creatively market your business.  In the mean time, may I suggest that you visit the Renegade University at www.renegadeuniversity.com.  Once there, type in your information to gain free access to the university and begin learning how to get your customers to come to you before having to plead for for their business.

I remember as a child my parents teaching me to have a good work ethic.  My mom always told me that even if I was having the worst day of my life, never let the customer, or my boss know it.  Have integrity and always put my best foot forward.

I continue to be amazed at the poor work ethic and lack of professionalism many businesses display.  If you want to succeed in business, you have to give your customer the respect and value they deserve.  After you gain their trust enough for them to provide you with their contact information (as addressed in part 1), be responsible with it.  Don’t use it to send out spam or other junk that will annoy them or waste their time, and certainly don’t sell their information or give it away.  Continue to provide them with valuable resources, products and information on how they can better their business or their lives.

Essentially, your customers will shop your business because they are in search of a solution to a particular problem.  Maybe your customer’s problem is that they need to find an all-natural approach to weight loss.  If you have a good quality, affordable resource for them, you can direct them to your website, through effective marketing, educate them on how to eat right, take proper supplements, and direct them in an effective exercise routine to help them lose weight.  Problem solved equals a happy customer, and a happy customer equals a return customer.

On the flip side, if your customer comes to you with the need to lose weight and you provide them with nothing but a little white pill, chances of them shopping with you again in the future are slim (no pun intended).  You have to gain their trust, keep their trust, and continue building the relationship.