There are lots of ways you can aggregate content from your various websites, blogs, video hosting channels, and article databases. Here are my 5 top reasons I like this concept and 5 little-known creative ways to use RSS feeds to spice up your writing. There are also any number of reasons you might want to pull in your own conversations and comments from around the world wide web. You can easily do this by importing different types of RSS feeds into your blog posts or website pages. To accomplish this on several of by blogs, I’ve been using the RSS Import WordPress Plugin. I wrote about the handy features of the plugin earlier in Display RSS Feeds on Your WordPress Pages, Posts, or Sidebar.

Syndicating Content On My Personal Blog

You can syndicate information from your own blogs and other websites — all in one place — for your own use. I created two pages over on my personal website just for this reason:

Updates From TaylorWeb Network was created in response to the oft-asked question, “What’cha been up to?” (Often asked by friends, family, and friends of the family!) It’s a compendium of news feeds from my various websites, Squidoo lenses, comment aggregation accounts, etc. The Updates page was created so they would have a place where they could come to quickly see what I’d been doing.

In contrast, the Daily News was created for me — a one-stop shop for headline news from CNN, BBC, Washington Post, and similar. With a sprinkling of ecletic happenings like NPR’s All Things Considered and a smattering of blogs like ReadWriteWeb. This could be accomplished with some of those “homepage”-type services, but I had my own reasons for doing it this way. (Besides, those reasons are the reason for this post!)

My Top 5 Reasons

These five reasons for syndicating different types of content within a page or post on my blog were at the top of my list when I first thought about this …

1. An easy way for family and friends to see my doings online
2. Rather not scroll through all the feeds in Google Newsfeed Reader every day
3. Like having one-stop, one pass to get my daily news, daily podcasts, quick takes
4. Ecstatic to have it automated
5. Works for me!

If you’ve given this concept any thought, you could have even more reasons or different needs.

Creating all-in-one pages like these for family or personal use is not the only reason to syndicate content. Indeed, this post should also give you ideas about the different types of information you can syndicate in a variety of ways at various times. Need help thinking about from where you can pull information using RSS feeds? Read on!

What Are Some Sources of RSS Feeds?

You have numerous sources from where to get RSS newsfeeds. Here are a few I’ve come up with:

• Other sections of your blog (i.e., categories or topics)
• Posts, articles, and pages from your entire network of blogs and websites
• Your ecommerce product pages
• Comments that are aggregated by systems like BackType, Disqus, or Intense Debate
• News feeds from your favorite offline print newspapers or magazines
• Updates from blogs you read on a regular basis but maybe not every day
• Articles you’ve written and submitted to article databases, like EzineArticles
• SquidCasts, which are updates pushed to followers of your Squidoo Lens

That’s a good-sized list!

Keep Your Content Evergreen

Another reason to syndicate your own blog posts is to keep your older content from stagnating, and to find out which topics have evergreen potential.

You’ll know your content has stood the evergreen test of time when old posts continue to show up in your stats and logs, and when you’re still getting fresh comments 2-3 years later!. . . Don’t forget to revisit your own writings to see where your organic content is hiding.

This quote, from How Evergreen Is Your Local Business Content?, captures the essence of keeping the articles and postings on your website before the eyes of your regular visitors and casual passersby. Here’s an example of pulling inm — or syndicating — content that is already on this blog. While these are recent posts, for the purposes of green content, it would be better to grab older posts based on date, category, or some other filter.

• 5 Creative Ways to Use RSS Feeds To Spice Up Your Writing
• Are You Looking for eCommerce Solutions For Your Offline Business?
• Tweets Thru 2010-08-08

And rather than just having the titles of posts, you could give your readers a better idea what your posts are about by using a description:

• 5 Creative Ways to Use RSS Feeds To Spice Up Your Writing
  There are lots of ways you can aggregate content from your various websites, blogs, video hosting channels, and article databases. Here are my 5 top reasons I like this concept and 5 little-known crea …
• Are You Looking for eCommerce Solutions For Your Offline Business?
  E-wallets are not the best choice for online commerce. It takes time for a busy local business owner to research, review, and test the many options available for e-commerce. Your solution should be ba …
• Tweets Thru 2010-08-08
  Here's my "Non-Review of WishList

 

5 Neat Ways To Use RSS Feeds In Your Articles

You can use RSS news feed technology in a lot of different ways to spice up your writings. Syndicating news from other websites is one way; pulling in your own posts from different sections of your blog is another. Let’s take a look at 5 other exciting ways you can use RSS feeds.

Google Alerts

I set up this Google Alert to keep me updated on breaking news around this particular topic, FTC Guidelines. Notice the image … This is how Alerts look in my email. I can also view Google Alerts in my Google RSS reader. Both of those require me to log in, but take a look below. Voila! Just the headlines (or I can add descriptions with another setting in the import plugin).

The headlines change daily, sometimes hourly. Now that I’ve pulled the RSS feed into this blog, I get the same freshness, without having to log into my news reader or my email account. Pretty neat, right?

• Third Circuit Revives the In re Insurance Brokerage Antitrust LitigationGoogle Alerts – FTC AND guidelines
• WebucationAustralia.com » Blog Archive » New FTC GuidelinesGoogle Alerts – FTC AND guidelines
• Make Money: ** Updates from the FTC (please read – important. From …Google Alerts – FTC AND guidelines
• Critique of the Unique: Mystery P.I. (TM) Stolen in San Francisco …Google Alerts – FTC AND guidelines

Curated, Aggregated Video Channels (Magnify.net)
Are you familiar with Magnify.net, the video solution that allows you to grab videos from most of the popular video hosting sites, and display it all in one place? If not, take a look at it when you have an opportunity.

I use Magnify to manage a large number of training videos for my clients and website visitors. Since they also make the videos available as a news feed, I am able to let clients know when I add new ones to the line-up if they have subscribed to the feed. If I’m writing an article about a specific topic, for instance, how to use social media, I can grab my playlist of training videos that teach the concept, and drop it right into the article for the reader’s convenience. An example of video titles is below.

• How to Embed a Video in a WordPress Post
  This is as simple as it gets: Embedding a video into a WordPress post in plain English. (by remarkablogger)
• Uploading Video in Powerpoint
  Shows how to upload video in Powerpoint. (by capricesmith)
• Embed YouTube Movie into PowerPoint 2007
  Embed YouTube Video into PowerPoint 2007
• How to Embed YouTube Videos in WordPress
  Video covers how to add video to WordPress. Author: "Embedding video in a Wordpress blog post or page is easy with the later versions of Wordpress. This video shows how to do it without breaking …

Articles You’ve Submitted To Article Directories

This year, I started earnestly writing articles for submission to the popular article directories. What about you? Are you submitting articles for syndication? If so, most of them give authors multiple ways to syndicate their content. Maybe you’re using one of the widgets they provide. I have one in my sidebar, too.

But another excellent way to call attention to your articles (so other webmasters might read them and pick them up for use on their blogs or websites) is to simply make blatant reference to them. I like to show mine with a mini-blurb that hints at what it’s about, like those below:

• Secret Weapon For Offline Business – An Online Customer Referral System
  Sometimes a customer or a friend just wants an easy way to share your great products or services with others. If you have added an ecommerce component to your offline business, an online customer refe …
• Trim The Time It Takes To Select An E-Commerce Solution – Ask The Right Questions
  It takes time for a busy local business owner to research, review, and test some of the many options available for e-commerce. Because of the time required, and a lack of knowledge about how to go abo …
• Are You Writing in Green Ink? How to Create Content That Stands the Evergreen Test of Time
  When a topic is evergreen, people don't even notice that the original posting was "2 years ago." Writing in a "green ink" frame of mind ensures that your content stands the te …
• Autoresponse – The New Smart System For Your Brick and Mortar's Online Business Activities
  Are you really up to spending half a day sending out the same information over and over and over again? It's better to put an autoresponse system into place and let it do the heavy lifting for yo …

What About Your Squid-rific Squidoo Lenses?

Got Squidoo? Sometimes you want to display newsfeeds and blog posts on your Squidoo lens, especially if you’re trying to earn Brownie points for freshness of your content. I wrote about my learning experience in BackType In Motion on My Funkalicious Squidoo Lens.

Once you know your way around the many Squidoo modules, you’ll realize you can also export your Squidoo content for use in other places. Since Squidoo provides opportunities for revenue sharing — without you, as a Lensmaster, having to spend too much extra effort to get a slice of the pie — it is always a good idea to send traffic to your lenses. I recently wrote an article on the Linux Operating System. While I included a link to my Squidoo lens that was written for Linux newcomers, I could have pulled in the RSS feed that showcases several of my lenses because readers might find more than one interesting.

The first feed below is static; it only changes when I create more lens on Squidoo. However, the SquidCasts have the potential to change often because they are updates pushed to followers of your Squidoo Lens.

• Soul Train Video Showcase
  Soul Train Revisited :: Tribute To Don Cornelius Plus Video Showcase Are you a music lover? Did you dig the 70s as much as I did? Groovy! This lens is for me and you. I danced my share of Soul Train L …
• Vernessa Taylor, Computer Geek
  All Things Computer and Internet: Technical Support, Website Tools, Linux, and Business Productivity Hi there and welcome to my lens. I'm a self-professed computer geek, sometimes guru, offering …
• Try Linux – You're Ready: That's Why You're Here
  Have you ever wanted to try Linux? Linux is a free-to-use and free-to-modify computer operating system. Linux can be a replacement for Windows on desktop computers or you can use it in addition to Win …
• Lensography: Vernessa Taylor
  This is my first Squidoo Lensography. I'm Vernessa Taylor and this lens is a compilation of the lenses I've created since joining Squidom. I've spent the last 25 years in and around com …

… and Squidcasts?

• Two New Pictorials: Latest Behind-The-Scenes Techie Challenges + Spotl
  Just discovered a new use for the photo module.  I created two picture-stories — pictorials – for two topics that might otherwise be a bit boring.Techie Challenges Pictorial – Snapshots of some of th …

Sharing Feeds From Internet TV and Online Radio

Are you producing your own internet TV or internet radio show? Encourage your visitors to sign up for your newsfeed.

Ustream.tv – TaylorThyme Channel

While learning how to use Ustream, I’ve monitored any chatter on Twitter about it. Shortly after I recorded my very first video, I saw a tweet in which someone indicated a concern about doing a live broadcast (or recording a video) on Ustream; another person was proud to have participated in a Ustream broadcast via Skype. Ustream.tv is definitely a hot topic!

I’ve only created a few Ustream.tv broadcasts but I’m planning to create many more. I wrote about video tools not long ago. I dropped in a copy of the video that resulted from my UStream broadcast. It would have been really neat to pull in my feed that also gave quick access to the rest of the broadcasts. (But I hadn’t even considered the importance of the feed from UStream at that time!)

This is how the feed looks.

• It's TaylorThyme Episode #1
  Tech Commentary on Oops Video (Pirillo) and YouTube; Love of Words, Vocabulary Building, Dictionary.com; Grandaddy of Article Directories: EzineArticles.com, first article accepted. Length: 24:58 View …
• Test Using Ustream Producer Free Version for It's TaylorThyme
  TEST: WARNING ==> TURN SOUND ALL THE WAY DOWN! Recorded with the free Ustream Producer. Producer adds an awful watermark overlay that makes video almost impossible to view. Sound does not work prop …

BlogTalk Radio – TaylorThyme Channel

You can apply the same ideas for BlogTalkRadio or other internet radio shows. It’s easy to place a radio player on your website with the code BTR provides. But they have also given us the additional tool in the form of an RSS news feed that we can use in anyway our imagination allows.

• Saturday Show Scheduled for May 8th Moved To Sunday May 9th (Mother's Day) – May 08,2010
  The Saturday Edition of TaylorThyme scheduled for May 8, 2010 has been moved to Sunday, May 9, 2010 at 1:30 pm.  Topic and Guest to be announced.Happy Mother's Day!
• Local Business 2-0-10 – Apr 10,2010
  Interviews with Local Business Owners who are incorporating the current internet technologies, social media, and web apps into their mix in 2010.interview | local business owner | entrepreneur | socia …
• Saturday Edition: Local Business 2-0-1-0 :: Interview with Mr. Rodney McNeil of Greenville, NC – Apr 10,2010
  TaylorThyme on BlogTalkRadio :: Saturday EditionLocal Business 2-0-1-0 :: Interview with Mr. Rodney McNeil of Greenville, NCToday is Saturday, April 10, 2010Listener dial-in number:    …

Get Creative With Traditional “News” Newsfeeds

Using newsfeeds from authoritative news sites is where this RSS stuff all got started. As you can see from above, the number and types of sources of feed content has changed dramatically, making it so much more exciting.

News Related To What You’re Writing About . . .

It’s still okay to create a page on your website that does nothing but regurgitate the headlines of all the most popular newspapers and magazines. But why not be a bit more creative? For example, are you writing about public broadcasting, like public television or public radio? This would be a great time to include sample headlines from a broadcast like NPR’s All Things Considered.

• Gaza Youth Yearn For Normalcy, Haunted By War
  Almost three-quarters of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are younger than 30. Most have never left the tiny, Hamas-ruled coastal territory, have never met an Israeli, and have never known a time when t …
• Why We've Given Less To Pakistan's Flood Victims
  Americans have given $25 million so far to help victims of Pakistan's flood disaster — far less than the U.S. donations made in the immediate aftermath of other major disasters. Experts cite the …
• California Sen. Boxer, Fiorina Face Off In Debate
  In blue, blue California, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer is in the fight of her political life. Her challenger: Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO. The two met in a debate Wednesday night.
• Pakistani Flood Victims Cope Without Bridges, Aid
  Twenty-five percent of Swat's rich croplands were lost to floods. Five weeks into the disaster — and with no government official in sight — farmers say their faith in the government's prom …

How About Headlines From A Revenue Sharing Site?

Have you considered displaying news headlines from sites with which you have an affiliate or revenue-sharing relationship? Not all of those you are associated with will have this capability. When creating this example for you, I logged into the control panel of one of my favorite ecommerce affiliates to grab the code. To my chagrin, they didn’t have the functionality to monetize their newsfeed. Too bad! So I went over to another affiliate, and lo and behold, they had the capability I needed to make this example work.

You can see below that I’m pulling in the newsfeed from their blog. If you click any of the links, you head over to the article and I’ll get credit for sending you their way. I appreciate the fact that this email marketing service has found another method for monetizing content, which ensures their affiliates have as many avenues as possible to send quality traffic their way, thereby increasing the potential for earnings. I used this technique in Autoresponse Not Optional For Local Business as a resource at the end of the article.

Anything Else?

There are lots of ways you can aggregate content from your various websites, blogs, video hosting channels, and article databases. You can probably think of many other sources and uses that I didn’t cover here. Why not share it in the comments section below?

Image Credits: Newspaper/RSS Coffee Cup Computer Squid

Hey Webmasters! Content For Your Blogs and Newsletters …
I wrote an article about the RSS Import plugin that you can use in newsletters, blog postings, and ezines. Get it at Breaking Away From the Sidebar – Aggregate and Display RSS Feeds on Your WordPress Pages and Posts.

E-wallets are simply not the best choice for online commerce.

It takes time for a busy local business owner to research, review, and test some of the many options available for e-commerce. Because of the time required, and a lack of knowledge about how to go about the selection process, many online merchants continue using what are better known as “e-wallets” to create invoices, accept credit card payments, and make their own payments to others. These e-wallet services include AlertPay, MoneyBookers, and PayPal to name a few. To be fair, they often include features for invoicing and rudimentary reporting features, but they fall short — way short — of giving business owners a comprehensive set of tools for managing the financial lifeblood of their online business endeavors.

E-wallets are simply not the best choice for online commerce. Certainly, they fill a need. When you first get started with accepting payments online, you need a quick and somewhat easy way to get going. The e-wallet services make the difference between your customers being able to “click and pay” versus drop a check in the mail. If they can’t pay quickly, securely, and without hassle, they might just leave and take their business elsewhere. So setting up an account with a service like PayPal or AlertPay seems like the only way to go.

A case in point is how almost every online marketer, e-preneur, and eBay seller uses PayPal to process payments. At a time when anyone with something to sell online needed a way to send a request for payment and a way to collect their money when the buyer whipped out his credit card, PayPal was almost the only game in a U.S. town. No need for a bank merchant account, credit card terminal, or credit hassles — just jump through a few PayPal-selected hoops — and you were on your way to accepting VISA, MasterCard, Discover Card . . . all from the comfort of your home office or traditional office.

But you can only do so much with a payment broker like PayPal. (You still need one of these types of accounts if you don’t have a merchant account.)

When you outgrow your free, business, premier or whatever other type account you have at one of the money broker services, it’s time to get a serious e-commerce application to do your heavy lifting and fill in the gaps you no doubt have been noticing more and more.

Beginners: Do Your Research

Your solution should be based on what you’re selling, your target market, and the management tools you need.

The time required can be extensive. Over the years, I’ve had to conduct research more than once to find an e-commerce solution for various reasons. So I have had the opportunity to use several different platforms based on what I was selling, the target market, and the features I’ve needed most at that time.

Personally, I’ve felt the pinch more than once. For example, it wasn’t the best standalone source for fulfilling my eBay orders. Collecting the payments via PayPal went without a hitch, but managing customer relationships and follow-up suffered. Handling inventory was another bummer. In order to add these missing features, I initially paid for an online hosted solution, then bought a specialized piece of software. But even to get to those solutions, I embarked on a research project that took a chunk of time out of my week. (That whole story is detailed in my Top Secret Swipe File.)

Let’s skip some of the hassle by conducting some smart research.

How Do You Go About Researching E-Commerce Systems?

There are so many online ecommerce systems for your local business, it would be helpful to have the perfect one just appear, set itself up, and teach you how to use it! That idea stretches wishful thinking a little far, doesn’t it? But still, easier is better than hard, so here’s a heads-up on how to get started.

1. Start with your thought process . . .
2. Figure out what features you really need . . .
3. Ask some pertinent questions before you short-list the available options . . .
4. Test a few systems by working through the free trials . . .
5. Refine your questions, making them specific to systems you like . . .

The excerpt below — from You Can’t Lose With the Tools I Use: How Christian Business Owners Ensure Online Success — gives you some context for thinking about ecommerce solutions for your business.

What kinds of research does the owner of a local offline business want and need?
Undoubtedly, the same kinds of research that were undertaken when selecting the business systems to be used in the offline enterprise. Things like billing customers and collecting payments, managing email, writing documents and keeping them organized, creating profit centers, adding partners, incentivizing and providing customer discounts, and managing customer referrals.
Of course, offline activities have to be somewhat translated into their online equivalents. For example:

• billing customers and collecting payments equates to ecommerce
• managing email likely translates in email marketing and autoresponse systems
• writing documents and keeping them organized equates to a content management system (CMS)
• creating profit centers equates to monetizing content
• adding partners might be the same as securing affiliates
• providing customer discounts, and managing customer referrals could be part of ecommerce or a dedicated customer referral system

Once you understand the online equivalents of your offline business processes, it will be easier to conduct research and find the answers that contribute to you building a successful toolkit of systems and services.

Questions To Ask About An E-Commerce System

You will want to ask some pertinent questions about any ecommerce application you are considering, whether it is hosted or installed on your own servers.

The questions you ask yourself and potential vendors fall into a narrow set of categories. They might include questions about:

(1) Key Requirements
(2) Industry or Geography
(3) How The eCommerce System Manages Tasks
(4) How The eCommerce System Gives You The Help You Need

The time it takes for a busy local business owner to research, review, and test some of the many options available for e-commerce can initially depend on the quality of the questions asked at the beginning of the process. Further refinement of those questions during the testing phase will also weed out ecommerce applications that will not give you the best set of comprehensive tools.

Two great questions to start with are: Do the testimonials sound genuine, and appear to be from real people working in real businesses? and Is there a free trial period so I can try this on for size to see if it fits with my business goals?

Questions About Your KEY Requirements

These questions primarily have to do with your own ideas about what Key Requirements you must have in an online ecommerce system in order for it to fit with the flow of your business model. Requirements might be inspired by your current accounting system or offline customer management processes. Absence of features that reflect key requirements during this stage could very well be a deal-breaker, causing you to immediately strike an application from the running before you accept a trial offer and take it through its paces.

You can immediately answer these questions for yourself by visiting the “Features” section of an ecommerce application. If any of the features are confusing or ambivalent, call up the company for clarification.

Some questions that might fall in this category are:

• Can it connect to and transfer transactions to my offline QuickBooks (or PeachTree or other accounting program)
• Is my data stored in a format that I can work with in other programs if I want to, for example, Excel?
• Does this system allow exports (see above) and importing of data that I might already have (for example, customer or vendor lists)?
• Can I get backups of my data for offline use in case I need to restore it at a future date?

Questions Related to Industry or Geography

Another set of questions that could have a bearing on the ecommerce applications you initially select for review might be industry
related, geography based, or hinge on the quality of interaction with your customers. For example,

• Are foreign currencies and exchanges supported? Can my client in London pay me in Euros or British Pounds?
• Does it handle refunds, credits, and charge-backs efficiently and easily (God forbid you should have any!)
• Do the testimonials sound genuine, and appear to be from real people working in real businesses?
• Does it allow me to create coupons and manage a customer referral program?

Questions Related To How The System Manages Tasks

What good is an ecommerce system that is difficult to navigate and makes using it more of a chore than a joy? You’ll want to ask questions of the systems you test that rule out unnecessary difficulties and make it fun to set up and use. Here are a few to get you going …

• How easy is it to find the tasks you want to complete?
• Is the layout simple to navigate?
• Do the category of tasks make sense?
• Can you add graphics and product descriptions without a rocket science degree?
• Are the reports and graphs easy to understand? Can you create your own?
• Is the backend aesthetically pleasing, easy on the eyes while you’re doing your administrative and marketing tasks?

How The System Gives You The Help You Need

• How responsive is the Technical Support personnel?
• Are there tutorials, video show-and-tell, help bubbles?
• Is the written documentation easy to follow? Not too technical?
• Do video tutorials present information clearly and show you how to do something?
• Can you actually find the help you need? Do you have to search for help?

Testing Your Selected Options

After the shortlisting process comes the testing phase.

Further refinement of those questions during the testing phase will also weed out ecommerce applications that will not give you the best set of comprehensive tools.

One of the best ways to answer some of these questions is to take advantage of the free trials that are offered by the ecommerce system providers who are not afraid to let you shake it until you break it. Granted, the trials are usually for 2-weeks or 15 days, which isn’t a lot of time.

But, if you choose to do your testing when you know you can commit an hour a day for a 2-week period, you will likely get a good feel for the system and come up with a list of questions you can ask the support people.

Try to incorporate each of these activities into your review as you put an e-commerce system through its paces:

1. Take the tour
2. Ask questions as soon as they pop in your head
3. Add 5 or 6 of your products, including description, pricing, and associated info
4. Create the customer documents, like emails
5. Try importing and exporting, if these features are supported
6. Perform a backup of the data you’ve entered

During your tour, look for obvious reasons and ways customers can abandon the shopping cart as they move towards completing a purchase from you. Not sure what to look for? Review the Essential Tips to Improve E-commerce Shopping Cart Abandonment to help you along.

A test mode is a great way to perform a walk-thru your customer’s experience if you decide to use a particular system.

I Like More Than One!

Shake it until you break it!

If you shake it up real good, and it withstands all you throw at it, you’ve come up with a real winner. When you come up with more than one winner, the tie-breaker is usually one of these features: help, workflow, speed, trust, aesthetics.

How good, responsive, supportive is Customer Support?

Does it look good?

Yes, you might have to break a tie before you financially commit to one system or the other. But, hey, a little competition is what gives us choices, isn’t it?

Take These 5 E-Commerce Systems For A No-Cost Test Drive

These 5 ecommerce systems all have features that will satisfy most needs.

In case you haven’t yet selected the systems you want to give a whirl, look below for several systems I think cut the mustard. They all offer a free test drive and don’t try to tie up your credit card while you are testing their systems.Take them for a test drive and see how they work out.

• Big Commerce gives you a free 15-day trial. You won’t need your credit card in order to get started. Two things I like about BigCommerce going in: (1) they have a live showcase of customer stores so you can see their system in action before you even sign up for your own free trial; and (2) their “About Us” page takes you to a listing of the company owners which includes email contact information.
• CoreCommerce makes sure you can test its core features by providing a free trial for fifteen days. They have an extensive video help library and lots of documentation.
• JEM offers a free trial that is not limited by days. Instead, it is limited only by the number of customers or affiliates you can add to your system. (Currently, the number is 50.) Once you reach you limit, you’ll need to purchase a license. This way, you have ample time to try all the features (and if you reach your customer limit, that means you really like it,right?).
• 3D Cart includes cart in its name, but it much more comprehensive than a mere shopping cart. Use their 15-day free trial (no credit card required) to dive in and see if this is the solution that meets your needs.
• FastSpring handles things a bit differently. It doesn’t give you a free trial; instead, you get an entirely free account from which you can all the ecommerce tools free. You pay a per-transaction fee every time you make a sale. I like the “test mode” so you can see how everthing looks before going live.

While these are all hosted systems — meaning they are hosted on the websites of the creators — at least one of them is also a standalone web application that you can install on your website, if you prefer. Only JEM, by JROX, offers this convenience. (Of course, it is only convenient, if you know how to install software on your own server or have someone who can do this for you.)

Next Steps

Have you been searching for an online ecommerce system to enhance your offline business operations? Take a few of the ones presented here for a thorough test drive. Let me know which one you select and how it works out.

Do our fellow business owners a favor by sharing your experiences in the comment section below.

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Actually, I have many more questions than answers.

I own two membership site softwares, but I’m considering adding a third. While both allow you to incorporate blogs created with WordPress or any other Content Management System into your membership site, neither one was created specifically for WordPress. When you have as many blogs as I have, and love working with WordPress as much as I do, using software plugins created especially for it is a real plus — almost a must-have.

You’ll notice a trend in my recommendations: I own and use almost every tool, service, plugin, and desktop software I ever encourage you to use. However, in this case, I must admit I haven’t tried the WishList Member Site Plugin for WordPress.

About all I can really say about it is it looks good, the developers have created an informative and attractive website, and the testimonials touting the merits of the software look genuine. To their credit, they provide plenty of video tutorials that show how to use the software and how to integrate the most popular applications a business owner might need to make the whole deal flow smoothly.

The creators even give away some really neat stuff.

For example, they’re giving away copies of a new book Rockstar Business (haven’t read it) and they allow you to watch a free video on membership models that outlines 10 of the most popular kinds of membership sites. (The video is 9 minutes long, but I think it’s worth your time.) For your convenience, you can watch it below.

Then why am I not using WishList Member for my sites?

Truthfully, I’m not sure it’s worth the price tag. That’s the first thing.

The second thing is I haven’t decided I really want to use WordPress as the basis of a membership site. Remember, I already own two membership site scripts. Like I said, they weren’t created specifically for the blogging platform, but they get the job done.

If I had a third concern of importance, it would be security. Is it really secure? Does it protect your content, files, and premium videos from prying eyes and outright theft?

Hey, I’m not tossing WishList off the cliff. I can be persuaded to give it a try but I’d like some real-case info from somebody (bodies!) who use it.

Here are some other questions I’d really like answers to …

• How simple is it to use, really?
• Can you really just unzip it, upload it, and go to work in it?
• Does it really work with any WordPress theme? Did it work with your’s or did you have to make major modifications to get it going?

Are You Considering A WordPress + Membership Website?

Have you been wondering how to continue using WP while creating a dynamic membership-type website? You certainly don’t have to abandon one for the other!

Which software solutions did you review? Did you consider WishList Members for WordPress? Is it working for you?

I would love to have your opinion and hear about your experiences with making a membership site using WordPress become a reality. Whatever you’re currently using (or strongly considering), let me know.

Comments are open, so give me a holler.

P.S. This might interest you if you’re into pulling down some affiliate income. Check out the WishList Affiliate Center. It’s not 2-tiered, but you get some thoughtful sales tools to help move things along, like preformatted emails and tweets, and useful video tutorials.

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This is a great time to create a website for your local business endeavor! Whether you want to write a blog for your customers, develop a pseudo online newsletter, or just share an ocassional tidbit for your target market — it just gets easier and easier!

WordPress is one of my favorite all-in-one platforms for getting information online fast and painlessly. Now they’ve released version 3.0, with hundreds of enhancements, bug fixes, and just plain cool thingies. I’m using WordPress on several of my sites; today I will upgrade at least one of them so I can share any gotchas with you.

What’s New in WordPress 3.0? (Video)

Meanwhile, you can find out what’s in store for your own WordPress 3.0 upgrade by viewing the official WordPress.org video below.

Smooth Upgrade: Shared Experiences, Advice

Numerous bloggers, hackers, and WP-lovers have already shared their comments, insights, and what to look out for. Here’s a list of some of the most useful ones I’ve come across. Whether you do a manual or fully automated upgrade to WordPress 3.0, don’t neglect to follow the most prevailing advice: B-A-C-K-U-P.

• Info about the Thelonious release in the WordPress Blog
• Should You Upgrade WordPress? 4 Guides to WordPress 3.0
• How To Upgrade WordPress In 3 Easy Steps (video)
• Upgraded to WordPress 3 – includes other experiences with the upgrade plus a tutorial on manually backing up your database

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Let me know how it goes for you. I’ll do the same.

@astewart Appreciate the mention on your latest post re social media [ http://bit.ly/dDpx2E ] #

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