The next tactic most people focus on is the use of rich media, including catchy images and interesting videos. Even these, however, are fighting against the ever-increasing tide of photos, animated gifs, memes, and videos that assault us from every social network and blog post we visit.

How, then, can we make users notice us? The key is in finding NEW WAYS to engage readers. Of course, at some point, if a new methodology catches on, it too will get lost in the swirl as everyone else uses it. Today, I’m going to show you a very cool way to engage readers that is still fresh and new. Make use of it while you can and you’ll be engaging readers in ways that you never imagined was possible.

Create Interactive Images To Fully Engage Readers

Images are great, right? So are videos and other rich media, but what if you can take images to a completely new level, enabling users to interact with your images in various ways? That’s an enticing concept to think about, but once you see it in action, you’ll really GET IT! Ok, enough lead-up, right? Check out the image below (hover over it at any time as well) to see just a few ways you can create interactive images. Now here’s the kicker. You can create these images EASILY and FOR FREE. Oh yeah!

Louisiana bayou

Now, you may not want to use quite so many interactive elements on your images as I have on this one, but I wanted to show a wide selection of things that can engage your audience. As you can see, a simple image has been turned into one that allows users to get more information, purchase a product, watch a video, listen to a song on Spotify, see other images, and connect with you on your various social networks. There are many other elements that can be added as well including:

• Link and sell products from Amazon, Best Buy and eBay
• Promote your event with Eventbrite
• Display Etsy products
• Set up an email campaign with Mailchimp
• OpenGraph tags (Wikipedia, Amazon, Etsy, iTunes, Twitter, Facebook)
• Link to practically anything

Spill The Beans, Already! How Are These Amazing Interactive Images Created?

Ok, now that I’ve really got your interest piqued, here’s the trick to creating these images for yourself. The key is to sign up for a service called ThingLink. I chose the free Business account, and it should be more than sufficient for many business needs. In case you aren’t completely clear on what ThingLink is, this is how the service describes itself.

ThingLink helps you create and discover rich images.

Be creative! Make your images come alive with music, video, text, images, shops and more!

Every image contains a story and ThingLink helps you tell your stories.

Your images can be easily shared or embedded, making it even easier to get your images to go viral. Share the image on all of your own social networks to encourage your friends and audience to share it as well.

Does It Take An Engineering Degree To Create These Interactive Images?

If you can copy and paste a URL from your browser’s address bar, and you can click on your image, you have all the skills you need to make these eye-catching images. It took me about 3 minutes to create the one above, and most of that time involved opening up the various sites I wanted to link to.

Can These Interactive Images Be Published On Facebook?

Yes! Simply paste the ThingLink URL to your timeline and your engagement stats will very likely skyrocket!

One Other Thing

Have you been wondering how to increase conversions on your Calls To Action? Include your CTA in an interactive image and see what happens.

Wait, There’s More!

Custom Retail Solutions — And because top brands know that one size does not fit all, ThingLink offers brands an enterprise level account that lets you customize shoppable images with unique shopping apps and branded tag icons. Build and upload your own shopping apps with product previews, prices, preference, and shopping carts — and drive higher conversion. Use ThingLink to make your images uniquely yours with branded icons that speak directly to your customers.

I hope I’ve managed to get you excited about using a new way to really stand out from the crowd and engage your audience in ways you’ve never imagined. Start engaging your audience now!

Advantages To Creating Online Training Courses

• Demonstrate your expertise in a subject – Great for showing your authority (Authority is a positive Google algo signal)
• Keep visitors engaged; Gives them a reason to stay on your site longer and come back often. (Another positive signal to Google)
• This is the type of content that is extremely sharable and linkable. (Say it with me: another positive signal!)
• If you’re looking for a new way to monetize your site or blog, this is something visitors will gladly pay for, assuming you create a rockin’ training course!

The name of this plugin is WP Courseware. It is extremely well-priced at only $39.99 for a single site license, which allows you to create unlimited courses, modules, and units, or just $99 to use it on as many sites as you wish.

Here is a list of features.

The plugin also integrates with several popular WordPress membership programs, such as WishList Member, so your ability to create an outstanding training site without having to hire an expensive developer just landed in your lap.

My idea list just expanded! What about yours?

Check it out. They even have a demo course that you can take, which teaches how to use the plugin itself, so you get the advantage of seeing it in action, and learning how to use it all at the same time. Pretty cool.

First, I wanted to create a beautiful Call to Action button for my novel, The Grave Blogger. Here is the button I created with MaxButtons Pro in about 20 seconds. Notice that it changes color when you hover over it.

After installing the plugin, I went to the plugin’s admin area and clicked the Add New button.

I filled out a few fields until the button was just the way I wanted it.

Finally, I clicked the Save button and was given the shortcode to use, which is how you are seeing the button above.

Of course, there are lots of options making it easy to change the buttons colors, and you can even add optional icons to your buttons as well! Check out some buttons that can be created with button packs.

How cool is that! Check out MaxButtons Pro if you need the ability to quickly and easily make cool buttons. It’s only ten bucks, and the optional pre-designed icon packs are only five bucks each.

So what’s my novel all about?

The Grave Blogger is a suspense novel about a young true crime blogger, Raya Landry, who suddenly has flashes of memories – or hallucinations – of an unsolved brutal murder that happened 20 years earlier when she was just five years old. Raya’s investigation into the crime – and her mysterious past – leads her into danger as she gets too close for a killer’s comfort.

The Kindle version, which has been available for a week, has already begun to get some interesting reviews. Here are a few:

Totally Engaging – I have read many of Donna’s blogs for a number of years, so when I heard she had written a novel, and a crime thriller at that, I wanted to be one of the first to read it. Her fiction surpasses her blog writing (I wouldn’t have thought it possible) and I raced through the grave blogger in record time.

The story line was gripping, the characters well rounded, and I had to keep reminding myself that this was indeed a first novel, as I would never have guessed it to be

I’m hoping and waiting for a sequel!

A Must Read – This book has great architecture for becoming a movie! The author has great talent for telling a story that captivates and stirs the imagination. You will not want to put it down..

Ms Fontenot is a highly skilled storyteller! The Grave Blogger is a cracking good yarn – I’m not a great one for fiction, and when I do pick up a book I often throw it aside after a chapter-or-two. When I purchased The Grave Blogger on Amazon.com though, it had me spellbound to the last page. Couldn’t put it down. I missed appointments and had the family wondering what happened–I wasn’t planning to read but once I had those pages open I had to keep reading right to the end. I love Fontenot’s style, and I think we might have a new genre here: Blogger Fiction. The story centers around a talented young crime blogger and her mysterious past. I’m not saying any more though–read it for yourself. The Grave Blogger is highly recommended. I love that it comes in my favorite Kindle format too.

I enjoyed writing The Grave Blogger and I hope people enjoy reading it. Yes, there will be more! An entire series is planned and in the works.

Get for Kindle

Get for Nook

Get for iPad / iPhone

Get in Paperback

Recently, on a forum I frequent, an old acquaintance asked how to convert one of his old Dreamweaver sites to WordPress, with the least amount of effort involved. At first, I thought it would be impossible to make it an easy task, but after seeing some other responses, I realized I was wrong. Although the process isn’t completely trivial, it can be done with a lot less effort than I’d originally imagined. And it’s not just limited to Dreamweaver. Nearly any site could conceivably be converted to WordPress this way. (Note that I’ve included some reasons at this end of this post as to why you might want to carefully consider the ramifications of this).

Convert Websites To WordPress

If you have an old non-CMS site lying around that you wish you could convert to WordPress, without too much hassle, this is the guide for you. Essentially, it boils down to 2 main steps, which involves moving your static content into WordPress’s database as pages or posts. STEP ONE: Get your static HTML pages gathered together in one place, using HTTrack to build those static pages, if necessary. STEP TWO: Import those pages using an easy WordPress plugin.

Let’s start with some basics. No matter how your site is coded, once a visitor loads a page on your site, the browser takes all the bits and pieces (server-side includes, images from another directory, etc.) and puts them all together in what amounts to a final static HTML page. Even if some elements on the page are still dynamic, the code itself is all together in one spot that can be moved into a WordPress page that would still work. There may be some exceptions to that which I’m not considering, but for most of the sites out there, that would be true. So, even if your site consists of somepage.php, which calls a file named header.inc, and a file named footer.php, once the user views somepage.php in her browser, the resulting source code is all in one place, as though it were hand-coded as a static HTML page. This is the type of code that is needed to convert a site to WordPress using the method I’m outlining here.

If you already have an old static HTML site with no server-side includes, then you have everything you need to get your content right into WordPress. If that’s the case, you can skip the next section, and head straight to the section titled “Import Your Content Into WordPress”.

Convert Your Dynamic Pages To Static Pages Easily

HTTrack Website Copier lets you download an entire website onto your computer. If your pages are dynamically put together, using server-side includes to automatically insert chunks of content into each page (like the header, footer, and menu), then you’re going to want to have HTTrack mirror the site – with all content already inserted – and recreate it on your computer. It doesn’t take very long, but of course, how long it will take depends upon the size of your site. Luckily, you just run it and go do something else, and eventually, the entire site will be recreated and waiting for you. There are lots of options for how you can run this. Most of you will simply use the graphical interface instead, and if so, then you should be able to determine what to do pretty easily. The manual has lots of screenshots to help.

Personally, I like running this from the command line on my Linux computer, and I like using the -K option to use absolute urls in the links. When I run this from the command line, I use something like this:

httrack http://www.yoursite.com -O /home/you/somefolder -K

But I can’t guess at what your exact code should be, if you decide to use the command line instead of the graphical interface. You’ll need to read through the documentation to determine what’s right for you.

Regardless of how you run HTTrack, or what options you choose, once you have a folder that contains your entire site, all in a static HTML format, you’re ready to move it into WordPress.

Import Your Content Into WordPress

Start by installing a fresh copy of WordPress. Then add the following plugin and activate it.

Import HTML Pages WordPress Plugin

Once activated, open up its options page and make a few choices there. You can choose either to create pages or posts (not both). When I used it, I chose pages. Now you need to tell it how to recognize “just the content” (without all the surrounding template code, sidebar, footer, etc.). My content was surrounded by a div with an id of “content” (<div id=”content”>all my content was here on each page</div>), so that was easy, but as long as your content is surrounded by some sort of consistent, unique HTML tag, you can just specify that.

Once you’ve set all the options, you’re ready to run it. Very quickly, you’ll have a new WordPress blog with all the pages of content that match the content of your old site.

At this point, you may need to either recreate the template as a WordPress theme or use a new design. Personally, I think using a new design at this point is a good idea. It’s probably time for your old site to get a fresh new design facelift, right? In any case, converting an HTML template to a WordPress theme is beyond the scope of this post. There are tons of tutorials on how to do that on the web, so I won’t try to reinvent that wheel here. easy! Ten seconds is all you need. See how I did it in 10 seconds flat.

You may also need to make a few tweaks including possibly some redirects if needed, but all in all, in probably just a few minutes, you’ve converted your old static HTML site to a new, easy to maintain WordPress site.

Final notes: Before you attempt this, you should carefully consider all the possible ramifications of making this change.

1. While WordPress makes maintaining a site very easy, and comes with some powerful modern advantages, there are some possible reasons to reconsider. For one thing, a static site is almost always going to load faster than a dynamic one, especially one that involves a database. If your site receives tons of traffic, a less-than-great server can probably handle the load if it’s serving static pages much better than it can handle serving a highly-traffic’d WordPress site. If this sounds like it may affect you, you might need to consider also upgrading to a better server and/or hosting company.

2. There may be some issues with URLs changing. There’s a good chance that you’ll need to adjust every page’s slug to match your old page URLs, or you’ll need to deal with redirecting all the old URLs to the new ones.

3. Some things may not work. It’s impossible to really guess at what those things might be, but maybe you have some pages on your site that use some sort of script to output some sort of crazy whatchamacallit. That script or whatchamacallit may not play well with WordPress.

The best idea is to do this conversion first as a test on a development site to see what gotchas might crop up. Since it’s fairly quick and easy to do, running a test first might save some headaches later on.

UPDATE: Since I first wrote this post, a lot of people have hired me to do this process for them. I hadn’t originally planned to offer that as a service, but since it seems to be something that people need and want, I may as well just officially offer it. It’s difficult to give a price because each circumstance is different. For small, straightforward sites, I’ve charged $200. For large, complex sites, I’ve charged $1500. For sites that are so large and so complex that it would make a T-Rex run in fear, I’d probably charge $5000+. But the best way to know how much I’d charge for your site is to just ask. I always give fair prices and I always over-deliver.

WordPress is designed to be simple to use, however it is also “feature-full”, so utilizing or even understanding all that WordPress is capable of can be a large and daunting task. In other words, the rich features of WordPress can sometimes mask its underlying simplicity. This guide is meant to reinforce the basics of using WordPress, push the complexities into the background, and enable beginners to focus solely on the simple task at hand – creating content. Much of this post will be a visual guide using screenshots of a brand new, self-hosted WordPress installation. Ready? Let’s go.

The Dashboard

When you first log into your blog’s admin (http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/), you are presented with your Dashboard. Unfortunately, there is so much on the Dashboard that a first-timer becomes immediately overwhelmed. So feel free to explore it later but for now, just concentrate on the key areas, and ignore the rest, as the screenshot shows below. Note that the upper section is intended as a newbie Help section. Once you’re comfortable, you can hide that section by clicking the “Dismiss this message” link.

Because a brand new install of WordPress comes with an example post and an example page already installed, you’ll notice that you have 1 post (with 1 sample comment) and 1 page listed in the Right Now section. You’ll also see that you have a menu in the left sidebar of things you can do here in your admin area. In that menu, you’ll see the word Posts. That’s the area you’ll use the most from now on, so let’s start there.

Hover your mouse over the Posts section of the menu. Notice that a flyout menu appears showing additional choices.

Here’s a quick look at what all the menus look like when expanded.

Posts

You’ll notice that the first two items listed under Posts are “Posts” and “Add New”. We’ll look at each one in turn. First, click on the Posts submenu item to open up the screen that lists all the posts that exist on your blog. Since this is a new installation, you’ll see only one listed: the Hello World! post. This screen shows a summary of the posts, listing the titles, authors, categories, tags, number of comments, and the date published or scheduled to be published.

If you hover your mouse over any post listing, a new set of links appear just under the post listing. These links let you either Edit a post, Quick Edit a post (which just lets you edit the data that shows here on this screen, such as author, category and tags, but not the post content itself), Trash (delete) the post, or View the post as a normal user sees it once published.

If you click the Edit link, you’ll see the entire Edit Post screen, which allows you to make whatever changes you want. Here’s a screenshot of the Edit Post screen. We’ll just glance at it and then move on to adding a new post, instead of studying the Edit Post screen in detail. (The Add New Post screen and Edit Post screens are basically identical).

Adding A New Post

Now, looking back at your menu to the left, instead of choosing Posts under the Posts menu, choose Add New instead. This will open up the Add New Post screen, which as you’ll see, looks just like the Edit Post screen, except that everything is blank, waiting for you to fill in the blanks.

In the screenshot below, I’ve numbered the main steps, from 1-7, to show you the areas you’ll be primarily concerned with when you create a new blog post. Each step is numbered approximately in the order that most people would normally fill out the areas of the screen, and is summarized at the bottom of the screenshot. I recommend printing this screenshot out and keeping it handy when you write your first few blog posts.

Now, let’s look at each step in more detail.

Step 1: Enter the title of your new blog post here. Your title should be interesting enough to make readers want to know more. Your title should also contain the most relevant phrase that you’d like this post to rank well for in the search engines, when that phrase is searched by users. Once you enter a title, your post gets assigned its permalink (the permanent URL link for this particular post and also known as the post “slug”), and is shown to you just under the title you typed. If you’ve chosen to use pretty permalinks, rather than the default ones, you’ll have the option to edit the permalink now or later if you wish.

I know I’ve just lost many of you, so bear with me for a second. You see, the default URL (also called a permalink) that WordPress assigns to a post is something like, “http://yoursite.com/?p=2938″. That’s not “pretty”, nor is it very helpful to a reader or a search engine to know what this URL is about. So WordPress allows you to use “pretty permalinks” if your host supports them (and most do). This would enable you to have a permalink such as “http://yoursite.com/hello-world/” instead of “http://yoursite.com/?p=2938″ for your Hello World! post. To tell WordPress to use pretty permalinks, and what kind to use, you’ll need to take a one-time-only extra step.

Open a new browser window, go into your admin in that new window, go to Settings in your menu, choose Permalinks, and select Post Name. This automatically fills in /%postname%/ in the blank space, causing WordPress to automatically use your post’s title as the permalink. You could choose other possible ways of making pretty permalinks, but that’s my favorite, so that’s what I recommend. Once you save that, you can close the window, and return to your post in the browser window you were working in before.

Now…back to our Add New Post screen…

Step 2: Notice that there are two tabs to the right of this area: Visual and HTML. Unless you are proficient in using HTML (the basic language of web pages), you’ll probably want to keep the Visual tab highlighted. The Visual editor lets you write in the way you’re used to writing in programs like Microsoft Word – using toolbar buttons to bold and italicize, for instance, and moving images and text around by dragging and dropping. If, however, you’d prefer to have stricter control by using HTML and you’re comfortable doing so, then choose the HTML tab instead.

Step 3: Regardless of which editor you choose, Visual or HTML, you’ll simply start typing the content of your post in the large blank area underneath. Use the toolbar buttons to bold, italicize, etc. as you go along.

Of course, most people like to include images within their posts, and you can do that in this same area. Notice just above the toolbar is an area that says Upload/Insert and is followed by a small icon.

Clicking that icon opens a popup window (which darkens the screen you’re using now underneath the popup window), allowing you to choose the image(s) you want to use in this post. The following screenshots will lead you through the process of choosing a file from your hard drive to upload and insert into your post, showing you the main sections you would see and manipulate when doing so.

Before you click the Insert Into Post button, you can decide if you want to change the title of the image, include a caption for the image, align the image to the left, right, or center of the paragraph, and whether you want to insert the full size image, or a smaller version (which WordPress creates automatically for you). Once you’ve decided on all that, just click the Insert Into Post button to insert the image where your cursor was in the post you were writing. (Alternately, you could just save the image by clicking Save All Changes so you could insert it later, or use it in a gallery later, but for now, let’s just assume you want to insert it right now into your post, so choose the Insert Into Post button to do so).

Once you’ve inserted an image, if you are using the Visual Editor, it will look something like this:

If you’re using the HTML editor, you’ll see the image code inserted like this:

Great! Now you can continue writing more of your post, or if you’re done, you can move on to the next step.

Step 4: Assign your post to a category. In a new WordPress install, only one category exists which is called “Uncategorized”. You’ll likely want to create your own categories and assign this post to something better than “Uncategorized”, so just click on the Add New Category link to create a new category. Once you’ve created it, this post will automatically be assigned to it. As time goes on, categories that you create will automatically appear in the list of Categories here, so in many cases, you won’t have to take the extra step of adding a new category. Instead, you’ll be able to simply check a box next to whichever category already exists that you want to assign a post to.

Step 5: Assign tags to your post. This step is definitely optional, but many people like to tag posts, so I show it here. Whereas posts belong to broad categories, there are many specific ways you might want to describe posts as well, and tags are a good way to do that. Think of it this way. If your post is about making chocolate chip cookies, the post might be in a broad category called Cookies, or Baking, but you might want to assign narrower tags to this particular post such as “chocolate chip”, “easy”, “yummy”, etc. You can either choose from tags you’ve created previously, which will be listed if there are any, or just type a list of tags, separated by commas, into the blank space, and click the Add button.

Step 6: At this point, it’s a good idea to click the Save Draft button, which will save your post, but not publish it yet. Once the save process is complete, click on the Preview button to see what it would look like if you published it.

If it doesn’t look quite right, or you decide to make any changes, you can continue making changes, clicking the Save Draft button, and clicking the Preview button until you’re happy with the result.

Step 7: Now that you’re happy with your post, it’s time to either Publish it right now, or Schedule it to be published at a later date and time.

If you want to publish it right now, just hit the Publish button and you’re done! If you want to schedule it to automatically publish itself at a later date/time, however, you’ll need to take an extra step.

Click the “Edit” link next to “Publish immediately”, to open a schedule form to input a date and time. Choose whatever date/time you wish to schedule the post to publish, and once you’ve done so, you’ll notice that the Publish button now says Schedule instead.

Just click the Schedule button, and your post will be scheduled to automatically publish at the date and time you specified. You’ll know it scheduled it because you’ll see something like this:

At this point, you’ve learned probably 90% of what you’ll be doing from now on. Here are a few other things you probably should know about, however.

On all of the admin screens, you’ll notice a little light gray tab in the upper right that says Screen Options. If you click that tab, it expands to show you other options you can utilize on that particular screen. Usually this consists of areas you can hide or show.

For example, on the Add New Post screen, if you open the Screen Options tab and uncheck Format, you’ll see that the Format section of the Add New Post screen disappears. Checking it again makes it reappear. These Screen Options give you more control over what you see in your admin area, so you might want to play with them a bit.

Finally, I thought it would be a good idea to just quickly go over some of the terminology used so you can quickly understand what people are talking about.

The Lingo of Blogging with WordPress

1. What is a blog? WordPress defines a blog as “an abbreviated version of ‘weblog,’ which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog features diary-type commentary and links to articles on other Web sites, usually presented as a list of entries in reverse chronological order. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.” Articles are usually listed chronologically, with the newest on top, and are usually organized into categories.
2. Am I writing a blog or am I writing a post? Though you’ll see people say it both ways, I think it’s most appropriate to say, “I’m writing a post”, when you are referring to adding a new post, rather than saying, “I’m writing a blog”. Technically, you’re writing a “blog post” (same as just “post”), which will be published to your blog. So the blog is the whole collection of individual posts, therefore, it’s more appropriate to say, “I’m writing a post” when you are creating an individual blog post.
3. What’s the difference between a page and a post? Pages are for more static, “timeless” content such as your About Page, your Contact Me page, and other information that is unlikely to change very often. Adding pages is very similar to adding posts because you’ll give them titles, and content, insert images if appropriate, etc. But pages do not get included in the chronological listing of posts, nor are they associated with categories or tags. See WordPress’s explanation for more info.
4. What is a widget? A widget allows you to add content to sidebars easily, and move them around by dragging and dropping them in your sidebar’s widget admin area.
5. What is a plugin? Plugins are bits of code that allow us to do more with WordPress than allowed by an “out of the box” installation. There are thousands of plugins that let us do all sorts of great things with WordPress. For more information, see WordPress’s guide.
6. What is a sidebar? A sidebar is typically a narrow vertical column to the left or right of your blog’s main content area which lists things such as your menu, blog categories, etc. Widgets are often used to easily add and manage content within your sidebar(s).

Summary

Of course, there is a lot more you can and should learn about WordPress and blogging, but sometimes it’s best to have a place to start, without trying to fill your head with a thousand and one different things. Once you’re comfortable with this “starting place”, you can move on to explore all the great things WordPress is capable of. When you’re ready for that next step, you may want to read the sections of Getting Started With WordPress on the WordPress.org site. Some of the information will be things you’ve already learned here. Much of it will be new and interesting, so have fun learning it.

I hope you’ve found this first-step guide helpful. If so, please share it with others who are just learning how to blog with WordPress.

How To Convert Your Existing HTML Site Design or Template To A WordPress Theme in 10 Seconds Flat – For Free

There’s a new tool out there folks, and it works really well. I’ve tested it and I’m going to show you step by step screenshots of the design conversion I just did for one of my old HTML, hand-coded, non-WordPress sites. Now remember, this is just the DESIGN portion. I wanted to convert the design to a WordPress theme, and the Themematcher tool worked amazingly well. Take a look for yourself. I’ll show you what my old site looks like, then show you each step I took to convert it to a WordPress theme, and how it looks afterwards. Let’s begin.

Screenshot Of My Old Site Design

Enter The URL Of Site Design You Want To Match

Step 1: Select The Content Area Of The Design – The Tool Makes This Easy By Outlining Blocks Automatically As You Move The Mouse

Step 2: Select the Sidebar Area Or Choose To Have No Sidebar – I Chose None

Step 3: Remove Any Unwanted Elements (Optional), Then Click Done

Last Step: Choose Free or Pro Version – I Chose Free

Download Your Theme

Install and Activate Your Theme and Change Theme Options If You’d Like

The Result: What My Theme Looks Like

How amazing is that??!! Go ahead, compare it to the first screenshot. It even handles the menu rollovers perfectly. Now, you’ll notice that because I chose the free version, it automatically includes a link back to the tool, by putting the phrase “This theme was automatically generated with Theme Matcher“. And yes, since I know everyone will attempt to get rid of that link via the options, I attempted it too, just to see what would happen. The link won’t go away; instead, you’ll see a message that to remove the link, you’ll need the Pro version. So obviously, nearly everyone will want to get the Pro version to get rid of that link. But the really cool thing is that you can try it out to make sure it will work well for you before you have to make that decision to pay.

I have to assume that there will be some designs that will be really complex that might not completely convert well with this tool, but I’d bet it would still be incredibly useful even for those sites. Why? Because even if the resulting theme needs some tweaking, the head start it will provide you will be a huge time-saver. Starting from scratch is tough. Starting with a design that is close to perfect, but needs some tweaking, is an unimaginable relief.

What can I say? The screenshots above tell the story better than I can. Wow. I’m blown away. I love this tool! Try it out for yourself.

If you want to convert an old site design to a WordPress theme, prepare to get excited.

“It does not matter how much traffic you receive if those visitors do not take the desired action. … Investing in increasing your conversion rate will pay off much faster and better than increasing your traffic.”

Use Effective Landing Pages To Increase Conversions

If your goal is to increase conversions of any kind – sales or giveaways of your own product(s) or affiliate product(s), lead generations, newsletter signups, etc., then you need a page that is designed specifically to convert that traffic. Traditionally, that meant spending considerable time becoming an expert or considerable money hiring an expert in landing page conversions. Those days are gone. If you aren’t a landing page expert, and would rather not spend a lot of time or tons of money, you can still create an effective landing page on your own (self-hosted) WordPress blog by simply installing a landing page plugin.

Max Foundry created this landing page plugin that saves tons of time (and lots of misguided mistakes) by providing you with 6 landing page templates that you can use for any of your WordPress pages. The landing page templates look great, but more importantly, they focus on designs that are proven to increase conversion rates and sales. Since each template is completely customizable, you can create variations of each and then test them to find out which ones perform the best with your visitors. Here’s a quick look at the templates with the default options.

Easy To Use!

And just like premium themes that let you make adjustments via easy admin options, this plugin does the same. All the adjustments, such as background colors, seo metas, logos, screenshots, headlines and subheadlines, forms, call-to-action buttons, testimonials, etc. can be changed right in the options panel. Below is a screenshot of just a few of the options you can edit from your plugin admin panel, to give you an idea of how easy it will be.

“Each landing page template is highly customizable – fonts, sizes, colors – it’s all there, and easy to use. There are 9 different backgrounds for the call-to-action button, the 6 most web-friendly fonts, over 30 font sizes, and an unlimited number of colors to choose from, just to name a few customizable options.”

But how do you use it? That’s what I love the most. After installing and activating the plugin, you simply create a page, and choose one of your new landing page templates in the Page Attributes dropdown. Save as draft and suddenly, voila!, all the new landing page options will appear below the main edit box. Fill out the options to customize, publish, and pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

Oh, and one more thing. Not only does it come with 6 landing page templates, but it also comes with one of those long-form sales pages, and it works exactly the same way as the landing pages do. Sweet!

I can’t imagine anything could be easier than this.

My hope is that by giving you a mix of ideas and explanations, you can find the monetization methods that work best for you, your site, and your niche market. Generally speaking, it’s usually best to diversify, using a mix of methods, so if one revenue stream dries up for any reason, your other methods are still bringing in some income. Watch the video, or read the text below the video.

1. Sell access to premium content.

This works best when it is in the form of a membership site, in which members pay a monthly fee to access exclusive content. If you’ve got premium content, you can quickly make a lot from a membership site.

2. Review products, earning affiliate commissions from referrals.

When done well, review sites can attract lots of search engine based traffic, and can be one of the best earners out there.

3. Sell your own info products such as ebooks, videos, and audio “how-to” information.

Absolutely everyone has the ability to create their own high-quality ebooks and video products these days. And with services such as eJunkie to handle the orders and delivery of the downloads, it doesn’t get much easier.

4. Sell your own non-info digital products such as templates, graphics, and photos.

If you have talent in these types of areas, you can sell your work not only on your own site, but also on sites like the Envato marketplaces and Fotolia.

5. Sell your own physical products, such as t-shirts, hand-made items and published books.

With services such as Etsy, CafePress, Zazzle, and Lulu to host your products, you can easily sell and ship real physical goods.

6. Run a marketplace/auction that allows others to list items for sale

You let others list items for sale on your site, and in return, you either receive a listing fee, a portion of the sale, or both. Running a classified listing service is similar to running marketplaces or auctions, but it is more generic, and with less interactivity. Classifieds would consist of simple listings, with a fee charged for each. And of course, with easy to use WordPress themes, like this classifieds theme, it’s just plain easy.

7. Host or share sponsored content

You are paid to post sponsored content (such as a blog post that an advertiser pays for), or you are paid to share sponsored content, such as a paid tweet. The best place to start with this type of monetization is at Izea, where you can sign up for SocialSpark, Sponzai, or Sponsored Tweets. Technically speaking, sponsored tweets aren’t exactly monetizing your “site”, but if your Twitter account is tied to your site’s brand, then in effect, it is a method of site monetization.

8. Sell your own services.

Some service examples include consulting, designing, programming, freelance writing, marketing, etc.

9. Run a job board in your niche

Running a job board is a great add-on to any site, and with WordPress themes such as Job Board and Job Press, it couldn’t get much easier. Basically, you charge a fee for each job posted. Job seekers search for free, but you could charge for premium services such as hosting resumes, helping job seekers create resumes, selling access to premium content such as guides to successful interviews, etc. A good way to know what you can offer is to run through some of the popular job boards as if you were looking for a job. What’s missing? What do you wish they had for you but they don’t? Can you supply that others in your niche?

10. Sell banner ad space.

This could be through ad networks such as buysellads.com or via one-on-one sales negotiated directly with advertisers.

11. Serve Google Adsense ads or any automated ad network ads.

The easiest, but not always most lucrative, method is of course, slapping Google Adsense on your site (or some equivalent, though there’s not much in the way of equivalent choices).

Get Creative!

The bottom line here is that you can increase the bottom line of your site’s income, just by getting creative. Most of the pain has been taken out of the equation over the years, as there are services, products, and vast quantities of information to help you handle almost any aspect of monetizing your site using these ideas. Stop limiting yourself with just the occasional banner ad, and move towards an increased level of freedom. Freedom? Oh yeah, freedom. Freedom is what comes with that extra bit of security, known as a bank account that isn’t teetering on the edge of emptiness. So start thinking, and start working towards that extra level of freedom. Good luck!

Themeforest

Themeforest offers a dizzying array of themes to choose from, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one I didn’t like. This one might just be my favorite of them all.

iThemes

iThemes has some very nice themes, with two that are different, in that they have the ability to be extremely flexible (Flexx and Builder).

Woo Themes

Woo Themes are a favorite amongst many WordPress aficionados because it offers monthly membership to get new themes each month. You can still opt to just buy a theme without membership, however, and they are always giving free themes with each purchase, so good deals abound here.

Kadom

Kadom Themes hit my radar because I was trying out one of their plugins. They don’t have a lot of themes, but the ones they have are crisp and clean.

Templatic

Templatic changed its name recently but that didn’t distract from the quality of the themes. I like the wide array of “types” of themes that will work for many niches and business models.

Elegant Themes

Elegant Themes are not only outstanding, but the yearly price for complete access to all themes is ridiculously awesome.

Solostream

SoloStream has a more “classic” array of theme choices than most, but sometimes classic is just what someone is searching for.

WPRemix

WPRemix is really just one premium theme, but it comes bundled with over 50 layouts to choose from, so it’s an interesting and useful package.

Headway

Headway is less of a theme and more of a framework. This is for the do-it-yourself’er or designer who wants to create their own designs, but with an awesome place to start, and options designed to make the process easy.

Thesis

Thesis, like Headway, is a framework, that lets you create whatever design you want, while still starting from a powerful base. It also is designed to make the creation process easy, with options built in.

Those are my favorites. If you’re looking for a special theme, or like me, just like to browse for inspiration on rainy days, these are great places to find extreme themes and incredible inspiration.