Google Analytics Code into WordPress Blogs
Google Analytics provides a superb set of information that tracks traffic coming and leaving your webpages. You can also see how long they stay, where they come from and study a whole bunch of other statistics. If you are already entrenched as an Internet Marketer, you will already know the value of this transparency. Otherwise, maybe I’ll write more about Analytics in a different post.
To get Analytics working, you have to get the code into a specific point in your webpage. Same for WordPress, except here, you put the code into your theme’s footer.php.
WPquickstart.com
A nifty little website by Sarah Lewis, a veteran blogger and blog design consultant.
Through a series of videos, she will guide you through the process of installing WordPress, configuring it and getting you started in your blogging environment. A very good step-by-step suite, peppered with lots of tips and ideas that you might want to implement for yourself. You might also notice that the whole webiste has been designed using WordPress too..
The videos show a slightly older version of WordPress but between the cosmetic re-arrangements in the latest version, all basic functionalities are there.
In a nutshell, start your WordPress journey here: www.WPquickstart.com
WordPress, why use this?
Probably a no-brainer review but these are my observations below:
Benefit #1: Free
Yes, free is usually a good reason. Not the best reason, but a rather compelling one. However, when you consider that this is one of THE Standard Blogging Engines out there, you probably ask what’s the catch? No, I’ve not found the catch yet, but the other benefits following add to the overall experience.
Benefit #2: WordPress Support
There is a whole team of people at WordPress constantly upgrading the engine and keeping the bugs out. Sure, they may not support you directly since you are not on their paid service, but the simplicity of this is that WordPress is a quality product maintained at a quality standard. So where does one go for the actual day-to-day support? Read on.
Benefit #3: WordPress Community
Do a Google search on any problem you encounter on WordPress and you would find a whole long list of websites offering you help; free or otherwise. You will find tons of articles from how to install WordPress, to changing themes, adding plug-ins, to more advanced topics like writing code. You are never alone.
Benefit #4: Commercial Blogs
One major advantage of having your own domain for blogging versus WordPress.com is that you now have the option of monetizing your blogs. Why not? If you have a strong readership following your content, it is too easy to add plug-ins or widgets from Amazon and Google Adsense to earn a little residual income. Or if like me, you intend to make your blog a form of an information portal or marketplace, you have the technical ability to do so with this engine.
Benefit #5: Availability by Domain Hosts
Most domain hosting companies will sell you hosting packages that include the WordPress-friendly environment. This means that you get the SQL backend (the database backend that WordPress uses to store your blogs), the WordPress installation programs and Fantasico (the cpanel tool that eases the installation of all server-end programs). You do not even have to read an installation manual - it’s just a 3 (yes, three!) step process via Fantasico. Try doing that with your VCR.
Don’t hesitate further. Install WordPress today.
Amazon aStore review
Every Associate of Amazon has probably seen this on their member pages when checking on their successful sales. But what’s this about really?
Well, Amazon provides a snazzy FREE tool for associates to build a simple amazon store with a decent interface. Simple for two reasons:
1. It really is simple to drag and drop categories/sub-categories or specific Amazon-listed items into the storefront.
2. Simple too, because there isn’t too much finesse you can put into that.
The store exists as a link from the Amazon site, identified by a Tracking ID that you assign. You can apply some SEO technique into the naming of this ID, but that’s about as far as it goes. What do I mean about the limitation of applying SEO techniques?
Let’s say that you build a thematic store. Although you have the ease-of-use to pull in related Amazon products, that’s about all you can do - pull in products. Even if the products are popular within Amazon and they gather a lot of reviewers’ comments, these appear to be linked and pulled together via a bunch of code. There is therefore nothing that you can optimize for, to attract the standard search engines out there.
Furthermore for the aStore, you can only include Amazon-listed products. This means that your thematic store is limited by what Amazon carries. Yes, Amazon already has millions of products, but when you begin to build your own theme, you will comprehend the limitations faced.
Payment methods and product delivery are still taken care of by Amazon, making it a strong thumbs-up risk-free endeavour.
So what does this mean for the Internet Marketer? In my opinion, the aStore is a quick-and-easy means of putting together a focused store that you can INCLUDE within your EXISTING niche domain. This also means that you already have OTHER traffic generation methods to your webpages and hence this becomes a secondary revenue stream, along the flavour of Google Adsense and other widgets.
I’ve put an aStore along the theme of my current favourite TV-Series, LOST. Check it out here:
http://astore.amazon.com/lost-tv-series-collection-20
World Internet Academy review
A fabulous idea by Fabian Lim and a fantastic opportunity for ANYBODY who wants to get into Internet Marketing.
The World Internet Academy (WIA) offers the online version of ALL the materials provided during the instructor-led course held by Asia Internet Academy. The structure of the materials is exactly the same and in the same depth of information. This means that everything that I learned during the 3-day course is now available to anyone around the world at a small membership fee.
It sounds totally unfair. Actually, it is unfair - especially to someone like me who does personal research and reading, generally without the need for a human instructor.
I’m so disappointed that I’m not going to write further. World Internet Academy is still in the pre-launch stage, so I can only direct you to the sales page.
Click here : www.WorldInternetAcademy.com
