Andrea Wilson’s Blog

I recently discovered the Thesis WordPress theme and my dislike of WordPress started to go away. In my experience, most WordPress themes are achingly difficult to customize. And upgrading or changing your theme could blow all your hard-won customizations out the window.

Needless to say, because of this, I didn’t get into using WordPress as a Web design tool for affiliate sites (as recommended by Google Sniper and other affiliate programs) and would always cringe when clients wanted me to create a custom blog for them. Well, let me tell you, all that has changed. The way the Thesis theme works is to keep all your customizations separate from the base WordPress code. So you never have to worry about blowing up your design when you update or when you want to redesign the look of your theme. And it uses hooks to customize your site (hooks are like “positions” or “panels,” if you’re an XSitePro user, to which you can add custom HTML, PHP, JavaScript, etc.).

I’ve created an affiliate site for you to have a look at using Thesis. It intentionally looks more like a Web site than a blog, but it’s built on WordPress. I wish I could say it’s doing really well in the search engines for my keywords “eczema in babies,” but it’s not. I think the topic is too competitive, although I did do my research and it seemed okay at the time. I also did several hours of social bookmarking and put up a YouTube video (which is where I’m getting all my traffic from at the moment).

Now, the other affiliate site I published recently was built in XSitePro… and that one is doing great in the search engines. It’s on P. 2 of Google for my keyword phrase “kids kitchen playsets.” It’s actually on P.1 of Google.ca (the Canadian version of Google)! With this site, I didn’t do any social bookmarking, nor did I put up a YouTube video. All my traffic is coming from the search engines. (I am not using PPC for either site.)

Needless to say, the “kids kitchen playsets” site is the one I’ll be putting all my attention on. Don’t make the mistake of trying to get a dead dog to sit up and beg! Put all your attention on teaching new tricks to that healthy, eager pup who’s already showing star qualities. The only thing I will use the “eczema in babies” site for is to learn more about Thesis… or I might just start a new site for that purpose… and use up some of those domain names I’ve got stashed in the closet.

And you know me… I’m all about tips and tricks! So, I know I’ll be compiling tips for using Thesis once I get a bit more familiar with it. I already figured out how to make one of the menu items bold so it stands out! (When you go to the “eczema in babies” site, notice that the last item on the menu “Articles on Eczema in Babies” is bold. Neat trick, eh?)

The long and short of affiliate marketing is that whether you use XSitePro, Dreamweaver or WordPress, your site can do equally well (or not!) in the search engines. If you think you’ve found a good keyword phrase (do your research!), then all you should need to do is to overwhelm Google with your keywords. I’m not talking about keyword stuffing! I’m talking about making a site totally devoted to one topic! Make your site as close to an authority site as you possibly can. Even my “eczema in babies” site could probably end up doing well if I kept adding content and plugging away at it, but with affiliate marketing you’re going for the low-hanging fruit.

Hi, Folks,

I just published a quick video to show you how to make a curved header in Photoshop.

http://www.xsiteprodesigns.com/curved-header-photoshop.html

You will only ever achieve goals that you believe you can reach. If you have an image of yourself as a certain kind of person with certain skills, abilities and potential, you will always reach that level of skill, ability or potential, but no higher. To get past that barrier, you must change your self-image. You can’t do this by conscious effort. For example, “I will lose weight!” Only if you can truly see yourself as a thin person will you lose weight effectively and for the long term.

Over-thinking and micro-managing the steps towards reaching a goal will stifle your creativity and jam your subconscious. Your subconscious works silently, invisibly and creatively to enable you to reach your goals. Because you can’t see, perceive or understand what your subconscious is doing, you will never know if it will be successful or not; you just have to have faith.

Imagine your surprise when you’re surfing the Internet one day and serendipitously end up on a vegan Web site. You read that vegetarianism is the easiest to maintain of any diet… and a vegan diet has proven to be the easiest way to lose weight! If you had tried to micro-manage your subconscious, you might have forced it into a completely different direction, one that would lead to a much more difficult solution to your weight loss goal (fasting, excessive exercise, fad dieting, etc.). Serendipity is your subconscious at work.

To help things along, you MUST take action though. Your subconscious reacts to what is happening at the moment. It can’t work in a vacuum. You need to act as though your goal were achievable and the “way” to achieve it will open up in front of you.

Use your imagination; it’s what sets you apart from the animals. You can imagine your goal, so imagine it in full colour and minute detail. This is the flip side to worrying. When you worry, you imagine a negative scenario in all its gory detail. So, if you can worry, you can imagine positive scenarios. It’s just as easy and much more pleasant and rewarding!

Seeing is believing: the subconscious can’t tell the difference between real and imagined events. But remember, don’t stifle your subconscious by imagining all the little steps to reaching your goal. Let your subconscious use its creativity to find the way to achieving your goal.

Happy New Year!

XSiteProDesigns.com slipped back to #2 in Google. Oh well, I had a few days of glee. Maybe it will bounce back up again. Maybe it doesn’t matter! There is the theory that the number one spot isn’t always where the money is, but I do enjoy saying I’m #1 in Google. I hope I can get back up there and STAY there, so I can say I’m #1 again!

Yesterday when I was on a consulting call with a client I was using Mikogo.com to show her how to get started with her new XSitePro template. We were looking at the Description section for her Home page. To show her where the search engines used the description, I flipped Mikogo over to my own desktop and typed “xsitepro templates” into Google to show her my site’s description. Imagine my thrill to see that I have reached my goal of being #1 in Google for my best keyword phrase: xsitepro templates. I am very happy, as this has been my goal since August 2007!

If you’re interested in building an online advertising network Web site for your niche market, keep in touch with me. I’ve been working with a U.S. businessman to put together a turnkey ad network solution that can be used for virtually any vertical market. It comes with an easy-to-use system that manages publishers’ campaigns and advertisers’ inventory. It will also alert you when advertisers’ funds are getting low, as well as automatically pay publishers for clicks and impressions. We guarantee exclusivity for your chosen market vertical. We also offer business plan writing and funding assistance for your new business!

All you need in addition to our back end system is a marketing plan and Web site that I will build for you in XSitePro. This Web site will allow publishers and advertisers to sign up for your ad network and to log in if they are already members. It will consist of a home page, contact page, about us page, advertisers and publishers pages, resources page, privacy policy, etc. The design will be customized to your niche (vertical) market. http://www.verticalmarketadnetwork.com

When I was in management in corporate life, one thing I learned was to work with my staff’s strengths and not try to get them to improve in areas they weren’t good at or cared about. My star customer service rep had a desk piled high with papers and made grammatical faux pas that made me cringe… but customers adored her. Did I insist she keep a tidy desk? Did I send her to grammar school? No, I gave her the most difficult, demanding customers we had… and she flourished and so did they.

I applied this thinking to my own work recently. I was totally stuck and stressed out trying to put out a Camtasia video on “how to create a simple template in XSitePro” (something my clients have been clamoring for). Then it struck me, my forte is writing, not speaking. So I wrote a step-by-step report, added dozens of screen shots, created a nice little bonus report… and in a few days the job was done. No more stress!

The Web is evolving and audio and video seem to be “the thing” right now, but they aren’t “my thing”? If the thought of having to use audio and video to create products holds me back, then they aren’t effective at all… for me! Maybe I’ll work on mastering Camtasia. Maybe I’ll do small videos first so I don’t become overwhelmed and stuck. Or maybe I’ll stick to what I know. I don’t think the written word is dead… not just yet anyway!

I was planning to make my next tutorial a Camtasia video, but I was feeling rather stressed by that as video is not a natural medium for me. Writing is my strength, so I decided to do what I know and write a report instead. However, I did include numerous screen shots in the report so it’s very easy to follow.

What is it about? It’s a step-by-step guide to creating a basic, simple, but professional-looking template in XSitePro V.1. There is a need for simple XSitePro templates for all kinds of purposes: AdSense sites, affiliate sites, product review sites, landing pages, sales letters, practice sites, and so on. And it serves to teach concepts like simple rollover navigation, double borders, adding a table to the header section, setting up a template from scratch, etc.

I know V.2 is coming out May 20/08, but it’s going to be more complex to use than V.1 and the templates, while lovely, are not customized to your business. You will still have to customize them or have a custom template made. You will quickly start seeing the default XSP 2.0 templates all over the Web and soon realize that even a simple template customized to your business is preferable to looking like every other XSitePro user out there. And certainly preferable to — shudder! — typing your business name over a generic template header… no matter how pretty the design!

I just have the bonus report to do now and I’ll be offering this tutorial for sale. Not sure of the price yet, but it will be very affordable, for sure.

I still plan to tackle a project in Camtasia. Maybe I’ll use it to capture some tips for V2.0. I know I can help everyone with V2.0 as I was one of the beta testers so I already have a very good handle on how everything works. I will also be able to create custom templates and QuickPages for you.

A cheap off-the-shelf template or one that comes free with XSitePro can be useful for throw-away sites and for practice using XSitePro, but other than that you need a custom template for your business. Why? A custom header will include graphics that reflect your business, not graphics that could reflect any business even vaguely associated with your market. If you’re a peewee soccer coach, having a soccer ball on your header doesn’t differentiate you from a company selling soccer balls! A header with a photo of little kids charging down the soccer field and a picture of you and your team holding up a winning trophy tells a much more accurate — and compelling — story. No generic XSitePro template will do that for you.

In addition, on a custom header your Web site name will be beautiful and crisp because it will be incorporated into the header graphic itself, not just typed over it. You’ve seen those ugly, jagged titles on headers. Think cheap. Think generic. Is that what you want associated with your business? If not, you know where to find me!

A couple of days ago, the beta testers had a sneak peak at the pre-launch version of XSitePro 2. What can I say? Is every single thing we wanted included in the release? No, of course not. Are there features included that we hadn’t even thought of? Oh, yeah! Is it going to make our lives easier? Well, it’s going to make YOUR life easier! As a designer, I’m personally going to have to work harder because the templates included in the new version are more complex than in the current version. None of the new templates are personal to your business, of course, so likely you will find a nice one as your jumping off point and want me to personalize it for you. This means that I quickly have to come up to speed on how to customize the existing templates (something I never had to do before because no one wanted those templates as their starting point!). I also have to quickly learn how to create more complex XSitePro templates for you! The pressure is on…

Meanwhile, I recently thought of a kind of template that my clients can easily create themselves and that gives them an unlimited set of unique, fast-loading templates for launching quick and dirty (well, more like attractive and professional) Web sites for affiliate products, sales letters, Google AdSense sites, Pay-Per-Click landing pages, etc. I am going to create a video to show you how to do that. It will be my first Camtasia video ever, so here’s hoping it will be good since I’ll be selling it for a whopping $7.00! I guess it would be like one of those $7 Warrior Forum Offers (WFO) except it’s an XSPDO (XSite Pro Designs Offer) or maybe an AWO (Andrea Wilson Offer or Able Webs Offer, take your pick). Now don’t look for this tomorrow, as I’m just starting a week-long project for a client. But once that’s delivered, I’ll dust off Camtasia and have a go at putting this together for you.

And, yes, it will work in XSite Pro 2. And while you may be tempted with all the new eye-candy in XSite Pro 2, there will always be a place for simple sites that you can knock out in minutes, without using graphics-heavy, complex, and hard-to-maintain templates. My biggest fear about the pretty new templates is how much more difficult they will be to maintain for the average user. I somehow think the support side of my XSitePro Designs business is going to increase many fold.