February 2012

The Namecheap Coupon Code February 2012 is DOMAININ.

This Namecheap coupon code is for new domain registrations and transfers for .com .net .org and .biz domains.

That means for example that for a .com domain, the registration fee drops from US$10.69 to only US$ 9.61 for the first year (+18c ICANN fee).

Namecheap offer consistently good prices for domain name registrations and also include a free WhoisGuard option for the first year to protect your privacy details on many domain name endings (.com etc).

As well as great prices they also have an easy to use interface for managing all aspects of your account and the domain names you have registered with them,

To register domains (or transfer them from another registrar) at these great prices click the Namecheap advert or link below it and use the Namecheap Coupon Code DOMAININ at the checkout page.

Namecheap.com – Cheap domain name Registration

Namecheap Coupon Code February 2012

The above post Namecheap Coupon Code February 2012 was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

January 2012

Just a heads up that you can currently get a great discount with the current Anniversary BackupBuddy Coupon Code. 

If you haven’t implemented a WordPress Backup solution yet (and you should!), then our favourite WordPress Backup plugin is on Special Offer at the moment at a HUGELY REDUCED PRICE!!

The plugin is BackupBuddy and it’s established itself as a firm favourite as a comprehensive WordPress backup solution over the last couple of years or so with tens of thousands of sites running it.

Click here to
Get BackupBuddy at 44% Discount
by 31st January 2012
Just use Coupon Code COMMUNITY at the checkout 

What Does BackupBuddy Do?

Many other plugins only backup the WordPress database. That means that only your post and page content is backed up.

Everything else like the theme, its settings and configurations etc, any plugins and their settings, etc etc do not get backed up.

So if you ever lose a site, you can get the content back but not the way the site looked before. You’ll have to rebuild all those other parts as well….

But BackupBuddy is different.

BackupBuddy backs up absolutely everything on the WordPress site – the database, the theme and its configurations, Page layouts, widths, headers, footers, sidebars and widgets along with all the plugins and their settings, etc etc….

That means that if you ever have to restore a site, you actually have the whole site available to restore

And it’s a quick process to do so too!. 

It’s super flexible about where you can save the backup files as well – to the server, ftp or email them, save to DropBox, AmazonS3, Rackspace cloud etc, and of course you can schedule it to run automatically every day or week or month as you wish.

BackupBuddy also allows you to make a backup of a site and then copy it across to a new site. So if you have a template you’d like to use as the basis for new sites, it’s easy!! 

BackupBuddy Special Offer

As mentioned above, BackupBuddy is on a special offer with a HUGE 44% discount available until 31st January 2012.

If you haven’t got backup properly covered at the moment, this is a great opportunity to do so at a great price!!

Click here to find out more about BackupBuddy…. 
and use the Coupon Code
COMMUNITY
at the purchase page to get 44% off the prices shown.

If you need a comprehensive WordPress backup solution this great offer should be of interest to you.

Missed This Offer Deadline?

If you miss this special offer then don’t worry too much, you can still get a juicy discount at any time using our own permanent and exclusive Coupon Code.

Click here for details of our exclusive BackupBuddy Coupon Code.

The above post Super Discount Anniversary BackupBuddy Coupon Code was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

Last year, in September 2010, I decided to attend Fast Web Formula 2 in Sydney, and what a great move that was!

Although it meant traveling to the other side of the world for it, the content was Gold - pure Gold  – and that was just the presentations.

With three days to network and chat to experts in their respective fields too, the value of attending was enormous.

This year’s Fast Web Formula 3 event is being held on the Sunshine Coast in Australia at the end of October 2011 – and I’ve already booked my seat!

If you’ve never heard of Fast Web Formula, it’s a live Internet Marketing workshop run by James Schramko, a well respected Australian Internet Marketer who has grown a multi-million dollar internet business from scratch over the last 5 years.

If you’re an online entrepreneur, internet marketer, small business owner looking to maximise use of the internet, or are otherwise looking to develop and grow an internet marketing based business, be assured that James’s Fast Web Formula events are historic!

Who is James Schramko?

When I first started developing websites for adsense and affiliate marketing, James came to my attention as someone who knew his stuff. Not just regarding things like SEO and generating traffic to websites (although he is phenomenally good at that) but also in the implementation of Internet Marketing in the wider context of business.

One of his earlier videos was called “It’s not about the Website” – which reinforces the core concept that it doesn’t matter how pretty your website is – if it doesn’t address the needs of a market, then it’s not going to be effective.

I’ve been a member of James’s internet coaching forum for a long time now, and gain considerable benefit from that. It’s a paid subscription membership forum where queries on all sorts of topics from newbie (and advanced!) technical issues and “how-to” queries through to internet marketing business models and strategies etc etc are asked.

Stuff like using WordPress, domain name advice, keyword research techniques and advice, local business consulting, SEO, article marketing techniques, traffic generation, RSS, PPC, affiliate marketing, CPA, using social media, offline consulting, converting traffic to buyers, etc etc…

And, more importantly, they get answered by experts who know their stuff. Because it’s paid, you don’t get ignored and you don’t get fluff!

So, back to Fast Web Formula….

Fast Web Formula 1

The first Fast Web Formula event was in March 2010 – and I couldn’t make it!  Just couldn’t – Arrgh!

That was a three day event that covered internet business models and marketing, traffic generation methods, writing effective copy, converting traffic and more.

As well as content from James Schramko, it included guest presenters like Kyle Tully on local business consulting, Peter Parks on affiliate marketing, Dean Hunt on creative marketing techniques, Steve Ovens an SEO specialist and Kerry Finch on writing content for effective SEO.

I missed the event, but I bought the Fast Web Formula 1 DVD set of the recording of the event – and it was full of solid content – great stuff.

Fast Web Formula 2

The second Fast Web Formula event was in September 2010 – that one I did make.

Three days of presentations from around 20 experts.

Each one was superb content in its own right. Not all of them directly applied to my own business model, but many did, and they hit lots of nails right on the head with pure Gold content as far as I was concerned.

The presentations on Affiliate marketing, WordPress, SEO, PPC Adwords, Writing Sales Copy, Keyword Research and website design all provided a constant stream of top quality content, tips, advice and the occasional nugget!

And as much as the content was great, the chance to network and meet with the presenters and other attendees outside of the sessions themselves and discuss methods, techniques and strategies was just invaluable.

Twenty minutes spent talking to someone who has made millions of dollars from affiliate sales, or someone that knows SEO inside out are opportunities not to be missed…. especially when they also happen to be a genuinely nice people too!!

Fast Web Formula 2 Content

Here’s some of the things that were covered in the 3 days:

Superstar Affiliate Marketing Whizz Andy Grand (he’s in the Clickbank top 100 Affiliates) showed how to position yourself in front of the right market using a super effective technique and how to review products the best way for maximum return. Possibly the highlight of the event for me.

Ben Strickland from the developers of the leading keyword research tool Market Samurai showed how to develop a keyword strategy for a site in terms of traffic and competition levels for keywords.

Steve Ovens is an SEO guru and discussed SEO techniques and strategies to overcome competition – invaluable!

Mike Rhodes, an ex-Brit who lives in Australia, is a PPC (Pay-Per-Click) expert and showed how to effectively use the Content (Display) Network. Solid content from a very knowledgeable guy.

James Dyson, another Brit, graphics expert and developer of the impressive OptimizePress WordPress theme talked about what works on sites for better conversions, higher opt-ins and more.

John Carlton, copyrighting legend. An entertaining and highly interactive presentation that isn’t for shrinking violets and the faint-hearted. John cuts to the chase to get you thinking about what you’re actually selling and how to start getting that message across by understanding your customer.

Not my main thing, but Kyle Tully really showed he knows his stuff on local business online and offline consultancy. If you’re interested in providing online services to local business, this was fascinating.

Video is getting bigger and bigger online. Google own YouTube and so guess what powers the YouTube search engine! As well as showing how to produce good video, Steve and Pam Brossman show how to optimise a YouTube channel and video content for great results.

There was content from Dave Jenyns, Kenny Goodman and Simon Johnson on domains and site flipping; from Kerry Finch on writing SEO optimised articles and Press Releases and how to promote them effectively; from Leanne King – the WordPress Queen on building WordPress Authority sites; Peter Parks on Web2.0 properties; Dean Hunt on social media marketing techniques and more….

… and there were some big name presenters too… like Yaro Starek – Entrepreneur Blogging legend, Ed Dale – on market leadership, and Brian Johnson from Strategic Profits

It was a collection of 20 top division experts at the leading edge in their respective fields, in one place, together.

No sales pitches (although some had event special offers available to peruse for the 3 days), no hype, just content, content, content…..

Fast Web Formula 3

So to this year’s event – Fast Web Formula 3 is set to run over 28, 29, 30 October  2011 in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast in Australia (about 1hr north of Brisbane).

Unlike many hyped-up internet marketing events, this one does not cost several thousand dollars and it wont be a pitch-fest that delivers little real value (well the last one wasn’t so I don’t expect this will be either). If it’s anything like Fast Web Formula 1 and 2, it’ll just be good content.

Fast Web Formula Bonuses

Included in the ticket price is:

• 3 day ticket to the Live Fast Web Formula 3 Event in Caloundra – 28, 29, 30 October 2011
  
• Bonus – Entire Fast Web Formula 1 video content
  (streaming video inside a special FWF membership area)
• Bonus – 60 day trial access to James’s internet coaching forum that I mentioned above
  (strictly for new members only).
• Bonus – There is also an early bird discount available until August 31st.
• … and a hoodie !

Once again, the speakers are top-notch and several are back for their second or third time as presenters.

Rather than detail them all here (this post is getting long enough!) I suggest you click below to find out more about FastWebFormula3

There you will find a fascinating introductory video, details of the presenters, the content, cost and lots of other details about the event.

To see if it’s right for you, click here to check out Fast Web Formula 3!

The above post Fast Web Formula – An Internet Marketing Event! was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

I love the Pomodoro Technique!

The Pomodoro Technique^® is free, it’s a fantastic way to make better use of time, and it’s a massive productivity booster!

The Pomodoro Technique is a very simple time management technique that aims to help you boost your productivity and increase personal effectiveness.

Working Against Time and Still Not Finished that Job?

If you’ve ever got to the end of the day and thought “I still haven’t done what I set out to do at the start of the day” you’ll know the feeling of frustration that accompanies it. And so, often it’s not just a day, but a week, a month, or even a year!

Slowly but surely, the clear purpose of what you intended to achieve at the outset gets clouded and lost as time slips away and over-takes you.

Time becomes the enemy… with deadlines looming and increased anxiety leading to ineffective working behaviour and results.

How many times have you completed a project against a deadline knowing that just given the chance of a “little while longer” you could have done a better job on it?

In reality though, if the deadline had been twice as long wouldn’t the result have been the same, with the work squeezed into the same small timeframe at the end?

And that’s if you get anything done at all of course!

How easy is it to put it off for just a while longer…?  Find all the “other little things” that somehow seem more important and more preferable to do instead!

… and that’s where the Pomodoro Technique comes in.

Why Pomodoro?

The Pomodoro Technique was developed by an Italian – Francesco Cirillo – and pomodoro is Italian for tomato.

Ok, so Why Tomato Then?

Well, a simple tomato shaped kitchen timer was the basis he used to develop his time management technique and so the name was applied and stuck!

The Pomodoro Technique provides and, more importantly, encourages better focus and concentration of your effort on activities you want to accomplish without adding any complexity to the time management of them (and thereby becoming self defeating).

In the Pomodoro Technique, a Pomodoro is a unit of pre-defined work that lasts a set time (25 minutes is suggested). That task is all that is worked on until the timer ends. You make a note of its completion, take a quick break and repeat. Every four Pomodoros, you take a longer break.

Because each Pomodoro causes you to be focused on one particular task, you do more of it with no distraction or deviation onto other tasks. The correct application of the technique involves a little more than this simple overview, and I recommend you read the full guide to the Pomodoro Technique (follow the link below).

Although it can take a little while to get used to following the principles of the Pomodoro Technique correctly, once you do, there is a kind of self-fulfilling beneficial effect that occurs which leads to an improvement in the working process.

In effect, better use of time makes it easier to make better use of time!

Persist with it to get the Habit and the Benefit

It took me a few days to get into the Pomodoro habit, but then the results started to show. More done, more quickly, more effectively.

I find the using the Pomodoro Technique to be a very effective means of getting more done.

If you often seem to spend time ‘getting nothing done’ then check it out.

You can find the official site for the Pomodoro Technique here which details the entire method and where you can download the Pomodoro Technique book for free.

You might find it the most productive hour you’ve spent recently!

And if you know someone you think might benefit from the Pomodoro Technique, here’s an idea for a little present for them!

The above post Pomodoro Technique – Tomatoes and Time Management! was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

Hopefully you’ve already implemented some kind of WordPress backup solution – and if not, then you should. You never know when disaster might strike, or what form it might take!

But even if you do backup your sites – ask yourself the following to see how effective your WordPress backup strategy really is:

• What is getting backed up?
• Where is it getting backed up to?
• Could you lose the backup too?
• How quickly could it be restored?

There have been a couple of news items recently that prompted this post…..  like some security issues with a couple of popular WordPress plugins and also an Australian based hosting company that suffered a devastating hacker attack causing significant loss of customer data.

The WordPress plugin situation was quickly contained, but many customers of the hosting company lost their sites and their data, including backups stored there too.

Think About Your WordPress Backup Solution

Everyone knows, or should know, that they need to backup their web-site(s). But many people don’t spend the time to think through and implement an effective backup strategy.

A good backup strategy is important whether your website is the basis of how your business trades, is an additional advertising/marketing medium for it, or even a hobby or just for fun.

Developing a website typically involves an investment in time (certainly), money (likely, possibly lots) and effort (again, likely lots), yet it is often the case that insufficient attention is given to how easily and quickly the site could be restored if disaster struck.

What is Getting Backed Up?

Chances are that once you’ve built your site you found one of the very popular WordPress backup plugins like WP-DB-Backup or WP-DBManager, and these can be useful tools for restoring the WordPress database.

But the WordPress database is not the same thing as your site.

Restoring the database will get the posts and pages back – basically the written content and that’s better than nothing. But your site design, page layouts, and infrastructure will be back to square one and you’d have to rebuild and reconfigure all the theme settings, plugin settings etc….  not a painless process!

Where is it Getting Backed Up?

So, you’ve got a load of disk space on your web hosting service and that might seem a handy place to keep the backup files too.

Well, that’s ok, and depending what might have happened, the files needed to restore the site are already in the right place… no locating the files or upload time needed.

But doing this alone means you’re keeping all your eggs in one basket.

Don’t Lose the Backup Too!

If the situation is serious, as in the case of the hosting company mentioned above, any backup copies stored on the same server as the site itself are likely to be just as vulnerable as the site itself.

So backup the backup. Make multiple copies and keep them in different places.

Once the initial backup has been made (and on the same server as the site is fine), download it to your local system. Keep a folder of backups and put it in there.

Email it to yourself (if it’s not too large)- provided that email is not going to sit on the same server as the site itself of course. If you do this method, ensure it goes to a web-based mail service (like Gmail for example).

Copy it to a secure web-based service, like Amazon S3, Dropbox etc.

Recognise that using any one option alone provides a single point of failure that could severely limit your ability to restore the site should the worst happen.

Backup your local system and keep that backup somewhere physically different in case of fire, flood, theft, lightening strike etc (seriously – it happens, and it happened to a business I worked for).

If you backup your local computer to say, an external USB drive, get an additional drive so that you can keep one at a different location. Swap them regularly so that the off-site drive is never too out of date.

WordPress Backup Solutions

Ensuring that the above is taken care of can take some effort but backups are something that can be automated to a large degree. For example, the WP-DB-Backup or WP-DBManager plugins can be scheduled to do their work automatically (but still only backup the database).

Automattic, the company behind WordPress, provide a full site backup solution called VaultPress and being from the makers of WordPress, it is an attractive option. On a per site basis the costs mount up though (currently $15+/m).

There are several other options, including BlogVault which keeps multiple versions of the site from the last 30 days so you can restore to a previous version if required. There is also a monthly fee for this product (currently $9/m for 1 site upto $99/m for 20 sites).

My favourite for ease of use and flexibility of saving backups to multiple locations (e.g. Amazon S3, FTP, Rackspace Cloud, DropBox, email) is BackupBuddy.

The current prices compare favourably at $75 per year (approx $6/month) for 2 sites, $100 per year (approx $8/month) for 10 sites and $150 per year (approx $12.50/month) for unlimited sites.

I need to backup several sites, so the equivalent of $12.50 a month for unlimited sites is a great option.

If you’re tempted to take a deeper look at BackupBuddy there is more info here, together with details of my exclusive BackupBuddy coupon code D10FRIENDS-25 which will get you 25% discount on those prices too at the checkout!

And the proof of the pudding is in the eating as they say. I’ve used it to restore sites when things have gone wrong with a plugin/theme/wordpress update – and it works – simply and easily.

Irrespective of any choice of software solution though, you should ensure that you’re aware of how effective your WordPress backup solution would be in the event that say, all your data is lost from your web host.

While there maybe no such thing as a perfect backup solution, each step that adds resilience will increase the effectiveness of your WordPress backup strategy.

I hope this post either reassures you, or has given you some food for thought about your own WordPress backup strategies.

BackupBuddy Complete WordPress Backup, Restore and Migration

Use coupon code D10FRIENDS-25 to get your 25% discount on BackupBuddy

OR click here to discover more about BackupBuddy and how to backup WordPress sites.

The above post Why Some WordPress Backup Solutions may not be as good as you think! was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

Catalyst Theme for WordPress has only been out for about five months at the time of writing (May 2011) but it’s already making big waves in the world of WordPress themes – attracting positive attention and rave reviews along the way.

While there are several other better known themes with higher profiles and bigger user bases, Catalyst Theme is fast establishing itself as a major premium WordPress Theme.

So what is Catalyst Theme?

Catalyst Theme is a fully customizable and very powerful premium WordPress theme framework that can be configured to get pretty much any design implemented.

It’s a fully fledged design platform - not a take-it-or-leave-it theme template.

It is immensely configurable, but easily so too.

It’s deceptively simple, but powerful too.

And it doesn’t require coding to implement great designs either!!

Catalyst Theme Core Options

The Catalyst Theme framework determines what, and how, functionality is implemented. This is configured using the Catalyst Core options for things like:

• SEO settings
• Header options
• Navbar content and configuration, location etc
• Sidebar configuration – layouts, breadcrumb settings, content display options
• Excerpts configuration – thumbnail settings etc
• Comment Display options
• Footer configuration
• Scripts – for Google Analytics etc

Catalyst Theme Dynamik Child Theme Options

Child themes are then used to provide the design styling options for the site covering things like:

• Fonts, types, colours, size etc
• Border design – including rounded corners and shadows
• Header design – including background images etc
• Navbar styling – fonts, images, borders etc
• Content – heading styles, padding, margins, lists etc etc
• Widget styling
• and much, much more….

The Catalyst Theme  package includes the Dynamik Child Theme which provides over 800 design options, all sensibly organised to enable you to style your site design easily.

Catalyst Theme Features

• Super strong SEO (search engine optimization) options – built in!
• Unlimited custom layouts – design different sections of you site how you like – without restriction.
• Unlimited custom widget areas and hook boxes for total flexibility
• EZ widgets for super fast widget areas and home page design
• Shortcodes for super flexible widget designs
• Drag and Drop CSS code builder. No need to code, just build the functionality for the design element concerned using the drag and drop CSS builder and it generates all the code for you. It’s straightforward and intuitive and removes any obstacles to designing a site how you’d like, not how you’re forced to.
• 22 Dynamik Child Skins included which provide a great starting point form which to customise your own design
• Great pricing – with three licence options (Basic, Personal and Developer) – each of which allows use on unlimited sites, including client sites!!

Using Catalyst Theme means you can develop great looking, professional quality sites more easily, more quickly and with less effort. That means you have more time to concentrate on what the site should really be about – content.

After all, that’s what anyone visiting the site will be interested in.

Catalyst Theme Bonus!

I like Catalyst Theme so much I’ve produced some bonus guides to accompany it.

Catalyst Theme Cheat Sheet

Like the 250+ page Catalyst Theme Cheat Sheet which will help you get the best from using the Theme and covers how to develop an effective site using Catalyst . One that is optimized for SEO, that gets visitor traffic and that helps fulfill your expectations of, and intention behind, the site, whether that’s revenue generation, lead generation, or spreading information to a wider audience.

WPFaceMakerPro guide

Did you know how easy it is to create a Facebook page using WordPress and Catalyst to deliver the content for it?

Starting with how to set up a Facebook Page, through to adding the iFrame WordPress App, to configuring content to suit Facebook, this everything to suit this 60+ page guide WPFaceMakerPro shows how easy it is.

Catalyst Theme FAST Start

And the 160 page FAST Start guide shows you how to develop a WordPress site using Catalyst Theme from start to finish, highlighting most of the main functionality and options along the way.

This guide is designed to complement the Cheat Sheet guide shown above to shorten the learning curve and help you get up and running with Catalyst Theme as fast as possible!

You can find out more about all these bonuses for Catalyst Theme here.

If you found this article interesting why not bookmark it below, or subscribe to the site via RSS feed reader.

The above post Catalyst Theme Review was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

In early 2011, Facebook changed the recommended method for creating Facebook Pages. Previously pages were created using static FBML but that has now been deprecated (dropped in effect) and no longer supported by Facebook.

Now content can be displayed using iFrames on Facebook Page tabs. An iFrame application is a method to take webpage content which is hosted elsewhere and embed that content into a Facebook Page.

For example… the webpage content involved could be on a WordPress site!

Which also makes it nice and easy to design the content!!

So, if you can use WordPress, now you can make Facebook Pages too!

WPFaceMakerPro – WordPress for Facebook Pages

WPFaceMakerPro is a comprehensive guide to using a WordPress powered site to provide the content for a Facebook fan page.

It shows:

• How to establish and set up a Facebook Page in step-by-step detail
• Installing a WordPress site
• Installing the Catalyst Theme for WordPress which is very well suited for this purpose
• Integrating WordPress with the Facebook Page
• Configuring the Catalyst Theme and considerations for design requirements
• Using the WPFBReveal plugin to reveal exclusive content to fans of the page (“Like”s)

This is a 60 page guide with clear step-by-step instructions and images to help you implement your own Facebook Pages more easily using WordPress as the content delivery mechanism.

To see this method in action, visit The FastStepInternetMarketing Facebook Page here.

If you haven’t already “Liked” that Facebook Page yet, you should be landed automatically on the WPFaceMakerPro Tab for the page. You’ll be asked to “Like” the page and then just follow the instructions to download your version of WPFaceMakerPro and find out how to use WordPress for Facebook Pages!

(If you have previously “Liked” the page you will be automatically landed on the Wall for the Facebook Page – to get the download link for the WPFaceMakerPro Guide again, just click on the WPFaceMakerPro tab in the Facebook menu near the top left of the page).

WPFaceMaker SPECIAL OFFER!

Ok, so the WPFaceMakerPro guide is free.

You just have to “Like”
The FastStepInternetMarketing Facebook Page
when you visit it to get hold of the guide
There is no sign up or anything.

Before you Like it, you’ll see different content on the WPFaceMaker Pro Tab
than you do after you’ve Liked it.

When you Like it, details of how to access to the free report is shown.

This uses a WordPress Plugin called WPFBReveal.

Special Offer

The developer of WPFBReveal has provided an offer
exclusively for visitors to this site
and users of WPFaceMakerPro guide.

WPFBReveal is usually $27.00 for a personal licence
(to use on any of your own sites)
You can get it for just $17

The upsell to the Developer Edition (for use on client sites)
is usually an additional $97.00

Instead you can get it for just an
additional $27

Just visit and “Like”
The FastStepInternetMarketing Facebook Page
to see how you can get the WPFBReveal Plugin at these great rates.
(note that to get these special rates, you must use the links provided on that page)

If you found this article interesting why not bookmark it below, or subscribe to the site via RSS feed reader.

The above post Using WordPress for Facebook Pages was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

BackupBuddy is one of my favourite WordPress plugins… and not just for backing up.

Other posts about BackupBuddy on this site explain why I like it and how I use it which are (briefly):

• Total Backup of EVERYTHING – WordPress Database, Theme, Theme Settings, Plugins, Plugin Settings etc etc…
• Scheduled Backups – Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly etc..
• Easy storage to – email address, AmazonS3, webhost etc

and my favourite use of all:

• Duplication and migration of standard ‘template’ sites to use as the starting point for a new site.
• All the links get updated
• Takes a few minutes to have a pre-configured ‘standard’ site to work on instead of a couple of hours

Very easy!

BackupBuddy Version 2

And now the makers have released Version 2 with a special BackupBuddy Version 2 Launch Offer available too.

This is a major new release of the plugin and includes over 75 new features and enhancements, including:

• Streamlined flow & usability – making it even easier to use than ever before (I actually think it was pretty easy anyway!)
• Built-in pop up tutorial videos – right in the plugin so you don’t have to go anywhere to learn.
• Improved performance and compability – so it supports larger sites and slower servers.
• Added support for Rackspace Cloud Storage for remote backups.
• Background manual backups – so you can start the backup, close the page, and the backup continues to run.
• New server tools for viewing status and troubleshooting, including file permissions so you can make sure your most basic security is correct.
• Malware Scanner

BackupBuddy is already in use on over 20,000 sites!

BackupBuddy Version 2 Launch Offer

To celebrate this major release, there is a BackupBuddy Version 2 Launch Offer where you can get 30% off the license cost for purchases made by the end of Friday 29th April 2011

Just use the (affiliate) link below and enter the Coupon Code APRIL30PB at the checkout before the end of Friday for 30% off.

If you miss that time limited offer you can still use my exclusive coupon code D10FRIENDS-25 at the checkout page to still get 25% off the cost at any time!!

In either case, just click the image or link below…..

BackupBuddy Complete WordPress Backup, Restore and Migration

Find out more about how to backup WordPress sites here.

And there’s more!!!

BackupBuddy is part of a larger package called the PluginBuddy Developer Suite

That suite includes:

• BackupBuddy
• DisplayBuddy
• MobilePlugin
• Vidembed
• EmailBuddy
• ThumbsUp

The DisplayBuddy plugin alone is fantastic for image slideshows, image rotation, fading images, carousel, featured posts, rotating text, etc…

The good news is that the same coupon codes will work for the Developer Suite too.

Enter the Coupon Code APRIL30PB at the checkout before the end of Friday for a 30% discount on BackupBuddy Version 2

Or use my exclusive BackupBuddy Coupon Code D10FRIENDS-25 at any time to still get 25% off the cost !!

Click the image above or this link to find out more.

The above post BackupBuddy Version 2 Launch Offer was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

Traffic Grab by James Schramko is his new product that comprehensively covers website visitor traffic generation!

Traffic Grab details the complete traffic grabbing system that James uses to drive more than one million dollars a year through his shopping cart!!

Who Needs Traffic Grab?

Anyone with a website!

Traffic Grab shows how to get traffic – whatever your internet business model is.

So it’s good for:

• affiliates
• ecommerce
• local business marketers
• bloggers
• authors / experts
• info product marketers

What does Traffic Grab Include?

Customers of Traffic Grab get access to a members area with over 20 videos spanning 8 hours of high quality training.

There are also PDF’s MP3 and MP4 versions of the content to suit your preferred style of content delivery.

It’s all about traffic – and everything related to it.

That means:

There’s additional bonus material including using RSS and RSS mashups, how to use Yahoo Pipes, conversion techniques and more.

The Traffic Grab Spaghetti Bowl

It’s very comprehensive. James calls the mind map he includes of all the interconnecting pieces the ‘Spaghetti Bowl’!

That’s a great description of the various traffic generation threads that contribute to a resilient traffic generation model.

It’s the kind of model that doesn’t fall apart when Google change their algorithm, or a forum moderator deletes your best post on a whim and loses you 90% of your traffic!

Commitment Free Traffic Grab Content

There’s a lot of good free content – including 4 complete modules from the course on:

• Research – how to gather great buying terms to target effective traffic
• Content – how to generate and assemble content to attract premium traffic
• Site Structure – how to put together a well structured site for your content

Even better, is that you don’t even have to sign up for this part or commit to buy anything.

No commitment – that means you can just check out the free content first to see what you think – no name or email required.

• There’s also no annoying tricks with the videos – they’re all available immediately
• There is no drip feed over days or weeks
• The video players have full controls so you can view at your own pace (and review, rewind etc)

Check out all the Free Content here to start with – Traffic Grab

What About the Full Product?

Well, that’s pretty good too – The whole product costs less than $80 at the moment.

I believe it’s going to go up a bit later on ($97 was mentioned originally, but could be less or more…).

What Traffic Grab is not

… is an overpriced, overhyped, IM Guru launch costing $1000′s.

If you do decide to get the full content, there are no upsells or downsells  etc during purchase.

There is a further bonus on the launch page (that does require it’s own sign-up) which is to get 30 days free membership of James’ SuperFastResults internet coaching forum.

That’s another excellent product in it’s own right!
I’ve been a member of that forum for 2 years plus now, and have got great value from it.

You can ask away on anything – how to implement WordPress stuff, plugins, RSS, design considerations, etc, all the way to IM business strategies.

Traffic Grab

No email name squeeze…
No video restriction tricks…
No stupid price tag…

Just good content!

But check out the free content first anyway.

Traffic Grab by James Schramko

If you found this article interesting why not bookmark it below, or subscribe to the site via RSS feed reader.

The above post What is Traffic Grab by James Schramko? was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

April 2011

A new month means it’s time for the latest Namecheap Coupon code and so, on cue, the domain name registrar people Namecheap have released a new discount coupon code for April 2011 for new domain registrations.

The Namecheap Coupon Code April 2011

is ELEPHANTS

Why Elephants??

Apparently, they’re running a campaign to try to persuade people to switch to them from GoDaddy, after the CEO of GoDaddy was allegedly filmed shooting elephants in Zimbabwe (they have a press release about it on the Namecheap Press release section).

Using this Namecheap Coupon Code, you will be able to register new .com and .net domains for US$9.10 (+18c ICANN fee) instead of $9.98. You can also get .org and .biz registrations available at US$8.81 instead of $9.69

Free WhoisGuard with Namecheap Domain Registrations

Every new domain registration or domain transfer comes with a free WhoisGuard included for the first year if you prefer to maintain privacy.

Namecheap Permanent Discount Coupon Code

Once you have 50 or more domains registered with Namecheap, you can request a permanent discount coupon code for use on all subsequent domain registrations.

This means that if you have domain names registered elsewhere it maybe worthwhile transferring them to Namecheap to get to this threshold and continue saving on new domain registrations.

Transferring domains to Namecheap is a straightforward and simple process. Even if they’re not about to expire it’s worth doing so as the transfer fee extends the registration by a further 12 months.

So start saving today, just click the Namecheap advert below and remember to use the coupon code ELEPHANTS in the Namecheap Coupon code box on their checkout page to reduce the advertised price from US$9.98 to $9.10 !!

Namecheap.com – Cheap domain name Registration

Namecheap Coupon Code April 2011

Bookmark this page, or better still subscribe to it using RSS or Email feed above, and you will get notification of future Namecheap coupon codes.

The above post Namecheap Coupon Code April 2011 was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

I’ve obtained the best Hostgator Coupon Code I’ve seen available for a while!

If you’re looking for a good deal on web hosting, then Hostgator is well worth looking at.

In my experience, they provide excellent service, (their online Chat support is very fast and efficient I’ve found), and good hosting packages at good rates.

And now you can get a whopping 25% discount off your first order with them when you use the best

Hostgator coupon code

LoveGator25

Who Are Hostgator?

Here’s the official spiel…..

HostGator is one of the world’s top 10 largest web hosting companies with more than 5,000,000 hosted domains and over 600 employees to provide around the clock support.

Hostgator is privately held and based in Houston, Texas. Founded in 2002, HostGator has grown into a world leading and industry recognized hosting provider with more than 12,000 servers under management. The five million plus domains hosted by HostGator make up approximately 1% of the world’s Internet traffic.

Every web hosting plan comes with a 45 day money back guarantee and 99.9% uptime guarantee.

And Here’s My HostGator Experience!

I’ve used HostGator (and a couple of other hosting companies) for about 4 years now… with dozens of sites hosted with them.

Hostgator is my favourite. It’s just easy!

They use cPanel for their admin interface – that’s not unique maybe, but why doesn’t everyone offer it? (and if you’ve ever tried some of the proprietary interfaces that some hosts offer, you might know what I mean!)

Their prices are reasonable – and you can get a discount on your initial order using the Hostgator Coupon Code above

In fact my biggest regret was not buying a longer initial plan with the coupon code available at the time so I’d have got a better longer term deal! Ah well!

I’ve had occasion to contact them for support by email and got prompt and effective answers which is good, but what I’ve found even better is their live chat. Generally I’ve had between 0 and say 2 minutes to wait to get connected and then had someone who could actually resolve my queries promptly.

Simply, I’ve just found their support to be good! Big Tick!

Functionality – for what I want, it’s all there… and easy to set up. SQL Databases, Email, Forwarders, Redirects, PHP, Easy file management…. etc etc. More Ticks!!!

And their prices are competitive… another Tick!

HostGator just makes it easy!

You can get an overview of the different type of web hosting services commonly available here

What Services Does This Hostgator Coupon Code Apply to?

This Hostgator coupon code applies to ALL Hostgator hosting services – i.e. shared hosting, reseller hosting, along with vps and dedicated hosting solutions.

The coupon applies to your first order placed with Hostgator, so if you purchase one month of say, the Hostgator Baby plan at $9.95, you’ll save $2.48.

But if you buy the same plan but for 3 years up front, you’ll not only get the better per month rate for buying up front ($7.95/month), you’ll save 25% on the whole lot – so instead of paying $286.20 for 3 years of hosting, you’ll save $71.55 and only pay $214.65…

The same principle for getting most benefit from this 25% discount coupon code for Hostgator applies to their Hatchling, Baby and Business shared hosting plans as well as Reseller plans.

You can also get 25% off Hostgator’s VPS and Dedicated hosting too, but as these are only available on a monthly basis anyway, the discount will only apply for the initial first month’s purchase.

That Hostgator Coupon Code Again

So, if you’re thinking about a new hosting plan, check out Hostgator, and remember to use the coupon code

LoveGator25

Not only do you get great web hosting, you can get it at 25% off by using the
best Hostgator Coupon Code.

The above post Best Hostgator Coupon Code was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

This post provides an overview of how people, organizations and businesses can use social media as a useful methodology to build and enhance customer relationships. Other posts will discuss how to use social media for search engine optimization purposes such as link building etc.

Use Social Media to Engage

Whether you like social media or not (and some people don’t), in general, people increasingly expect companies and brands they use, or are interested in using, to have an online social media presence.

The number of businesses that use social media as a means of building and maintaining brand recognition and customer loyalty continues to increase. And many of these are large businesses too, who can see the real and potential benefits that using social media can bring them.

These businesses have recognised that using social media provides a means to help their prospects better engage with them and interact with them positively.

If the prospect is not yet a customer, it warms them up and helps turn them into one. If they are a customer, it helps maintain their interest in the business, encourages brand loyalty and repeat business and encourage recommendation of the business to their social network.

Social Media is Not a Direct Sales Channel

Using social media effectively is not about trying to make instant sales. Doing that will likely have the opposite effect and drive people away from you altogether.

It’s about building relationships and engaging with your client base; turning an anonymous business relationship into a more interactive one that is ultimately more rewarding for both parties.

From the companies point of view, using social media involves giving to users, and continuing to do so over time.

The benefit (over time again) is that it is a means to reinforce awareness of your other online properties where you can sell/promote/market and with less resistance – i.e. your website.

In future posts, we’ll look at how to implement use of social media, including Facebook fan pages etc.

The above post Do I need to Use Social Media? was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

Anchor text is the text that appears as the wording of a web link.

Anchor text also provides a context for the link itself which search engines use to build up their picture of what the page being linked to is all about.

So instead of having something that looks like:

Visit http://www.smithandjones.com/product-range/exclusive-product/special-offer.html to see our special offer on waterproof umbrellas.

You could instead have:

Find out more about our range of cheap waterproof umbrellas here.

Clicking either link would take you to the same place, but the anchor text in the second option is both nicer to look at and says exactly what the link is about.

Better Anchor Text For Better SEO

When the search engine spiders find and follow this link which says it is about cheap waterproof umbrellas, it will help increase the association of that phrase with the page concerned in the search engines analysis.

So it can be helpful for search engine purposes to have anchor text related to the keyword phrase that the page being linked to is focussed on and otherwise optimized for.

If several links from different pages and other sites have similar anchor text, then this further bolsters the association of that phrase with the page involved by the search engines.

Similar not Identical Anchor Text

Note the word similar in that last sentence though. It would look somewhat unnatural if say 100 out 100 links back to a page all had exactly the same anchor text. It would be more natural to see a mix of closely related terms, along with some plain links for the url itself rather like the first example above.

Relevant Anchor Text

It would also look odd if the link with anchor text was itself on a page with content that was totally unrelated to the anchor text and the page being linked to.

Using the ‘cheap waterproof umbrellas’ example again, if this link was on a page about motorbikes, then this might look unusual to the search engines.

You can use the insert html link button in WordPress to define the anchor text for a link, or use the html code for a weblink and anchor text which is :

<a href="http://www.webpagedestination.com/page-file-path">anchor text goes here</a>

Sensible use of keyword optimized anchor text for links to the page, both from other pages and posts on the same site and even more so from related external sites, is a key part of effective SEO (search engine optimization).

So, a good link building strategy will pay attention to the correct use of anchor text.

The above post What is Anchor Text? was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

Ok, the first post in this somewhat ‘tongue in cheek’ titled post about the most important thing for effective SEO dealt with laying good foundations for a site to be optimized successfully.

If anything, that one thing is to realise that there is no one single most important thing for SEO, but that it’s a developmental process of several component parts.

Without good foundations, subsequent optimization efforts will be less effective.

Laying those good foundations means that the structure and layout of the site has been determined, the (initial) keyword research has been done, the site has been made easily accessible for humans and search engines and the on page elements for title, headings, anchor text and tags etc have all been effectively targeted.

That’s equivalent to building a nice sailing boat.

Like a nice yacht, it should now get noticed in the marina.

But to make it perform, it needs the wind in its sails. And that’s the next part of effective search engine optimization.

Link Building!

Without going into the nuances of why some links are more valuable than others (and why some have no value at all), in general, search engines tend view a site that is referenced (linked to) from lots of other internet locations more favourably than a site which is not linked to from anywhere else at all (or less often anyway).

A link to a site can be thought of as a vote for that site. And the more votes a site gets the better….. (not quite true, but that’s for another post).

Rather like keyword research, link building is another aspect of SEO that often generates a “groan” when faced with the task.

It can be a very challenging aspect of SEO, but a good backlinking strategy is important to achieving success.

The elements previously discussed that help make good foundations for a site can be largely replicated by the webmaster of another competing site without any great deal of difficulty. When that happens, your site has no advantage left and if your site is in anything like a competitive marketplace, it will happen.

If however, your site has a significant number of quality backlinks pointing to it, it starts to build a competitive advantage that other sites have to work harder at to match and overcome.

You will be building barriers that protect against new sites encroaching into the territory you want to occupy.

In business speak – building barriers to entry, barriers that make it harder and therefore less rewarding (because of the cost and effort involved) for others to enter that market.

Of course, you may be faced with the same issue when launching a new site which is why it pays to perform some thorough keyword research in the first place to determine the likely levels of competition you are facing.

You may well need to take a short, medium and long term approach regarding gaining seo results for different keywords.

By focussing on relevant and related keywords with acceptable levels of competition (that still get traffic) initially, you can then gain traction over a longer time frame for more competitive keywords in your market.

There are many recognised methods for link building including:

Article submission
Blog commenting
Forum posts
Requesting 1-way links
Press releases
etc…

Ideally of course, the content you post on your site should be good enough that other webmasters want to link to it and do so from their own sites.

Good content, and a site that engages the user, provides value, provides interest etc, helps lead to a beneficial social marketing effect.

Effective use of social media can then leverage that and be very effective for SEO purposes.

So There is NO Single Most Important Thing for Effective SEO ?

Pretty much, that’s correct. No shortcuts, no magic bullet.

The good news though, is that if each of the component parts is well implemented, the overall result is more effective seo than can be achieved by doing any one thing alone.

A site with good structure, containing good content based on well chosen keywords, with good on page optimization, sitemaps etc, will only go so far for so long without a link building and social media strategy.

Similarly, trying to put the wind in the sails of poorly built boat will be less effective than for one well designed and built for the purpose required.

And of course, it’s a continuing process of monitoring and reviewing results until the desired result, a number 1 ranking, is achieved. That may require more backlinking, or may require more on page optimization, additional content, alternative keyword selection etc.

Even when the site has been successfully optimized and achieved number 1 status for a keyword, it needs monitoring to ensure it stays ahead of competition that will be trying to do the same. And you’ll also likely want similar results for additional keywords too.

Both parts of this post cover Search Engine Optimization with a broad brush, but it is an important point to note that there is no single most important thing for effective SEO.

The above post The Most Important Thing for SEO (part 2) was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

It can be very tempting to believe there is (or hope there is) a single most important thing for effective SEO – one magic shortcut to effectively optimize a site for the search engines.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was one thing that will have more effect on SEO than anything else, and wouldn’t it be even better if that involved less effort than all the other options so that they could be conveniently swept under a mental carpet…

Bad news… there ain’t!

Let’s look at what is really required for effective SEO….

First, you need a good fundamentally sound base on which to build.

This means you will need good, well structured content that can be easily accessed and indexed by the search engine bots that crawl the internet.

So you should be looking to provide unique, good quality content on a focused subject. Google et al, like the same kind of thing your potential visitors do.

Think about how the subject breaks down into categories and then topics within each of them. The site should have a good internal link structure between categories. On a WordPress site, this includes implementing the permalink structure accordingly.

Construct the site structure sensibly for human visitors and then it’s also likely to be indexed well by the search engines.

As part of this, in addition to a helpful sitemap for real visitors, you should also provide accessible xml sitemaps that the search engine bots will use to crawl and index the relevant pages of the site.

Next, think about the keywords that are relevant to the site – what is the site about, what will your potential visitors be searching for, are there related search terms etc.

Here is where you can use tools like the Google Keyword tool and MarketSamurai for keyword research and brainstorming. You’ll be looking to find keyword phrases that are relevant to your subject and that enough people actually search on.

If your site is commercially orientated in some way or another, then you’re also likely to be looking for search terms that have some degree of commerciality and reasonable degree of competition (no competition is likely to imply there is no commercial marketplace around that phrase).

Keyword research and search term selection is a fundamental part of any successful site optimization. There are no short cuts here – just methods and tools which can help you brainstorm, find, analyze and refine your keyword selection to aid your tactics for effective SEO and increase their impact in the short, medium and long term.

Once you have done sufficient keyword research for the basis of a site, you’ll be looking at implementing on-page SEO for the selected keyword terms.

This is where you look to ensure that things like page titles, meta tags, heading tags, images etc are all optimized for the keyword search term phrases around which each page or post is based.

At this stage, you will hopefully have established a good platform on which to continue the process of effective SEO which is link building!

We’ll look at that in another post….

The above post What is the Most Important Thing for Effective SEO? was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

When people first look at WordPress as a website platform, they usually notice that are two different versions of WordPress available – WordPress.com and WordPress.org – which can cause some confusion.

Both are developed by the same organization, and both are free. Both are platforms which allow you to develop a blog or webpage based sites.

There are significant differences though which we’ll look at here.

The Difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com

The WordPress.org version was first out of the blocks in May 2003.

It is a self hosted platform meaning that it has to be downloaded and installed on a web host server – whether that’s your own, or on a web hosting solution from a company like Hostgator. It also requires a SQL database and ftp account to be set up for it to operate (they’re usually easy to set up with functionality provided by the admin panel at the web host).

The WordPress.com version was subsequently developed to provide a platform without these technical necessities. There is no software to download, hosting is taken care of by WordPress.com, along with backups, security, updates etc. You do not have to manage or control the platform software at all. Your site is managed for you and you just have to supply the content.

WordPress.com provides a platform for you to get a website or blog site up and running quickly and easily. Just go to WordPress.com, register and you’re away.

So What’s the Downside of WordPress.com?

If the .com version sounds so good, then you might wonder why there’s still the other version!

Well, WordPress.com is pretty restricted and limited in many ways compared to WordPress.org.

For example, with WordPress.com there are dozens of themes to choose from, but you cannot use a customised theme of your own choice. You also cannot upload and use plugins to obtain additional functionality.

It’s also much more difficult to monetize a WordPress.com site. You can’t normally include adverts from programs like Google Adsense that might earn you revenue. Indeed, you may have adverts placed on your site by WordPress and from which you get no income. You’re also very limited in any affiliate links you can include.

So, WordPress.com is extremely well suited to people who want a blog or website without needing any degree of technical expertise and is good for developing personal, family and private sites. It can even be used for business websites that just want a basic presence on the internet that they can refer people to.

But it’s not a great basis to build any kind of online business on.

… and What’s With WordPress.org?

WordPress.org sites require a little more effort to set up and maintain, although you don’t have to be a technical whizz to do so.

You have to have somewhere to host a WordPress.org site, which involves a small cost, and install them (although walk through guides will help most people accomplish this without too much difficulty).

You’ll have to update the software from time to time (usually just a couple of clicks), approve any comments (or not), and it’ll be you that’s responsible backing up the site etc.

However, you also have a far greater degree of control over the site as a result. Design options are greatly enhanced with a wide choice of free and premium themes. A huge range of plugins allow for extending functionality in all sorts of directions.

You also have a far greater degree of control over factors that influence search engine optimization with premium themes like Catalyst Theme and plugins like WordPress SEO allowing page titles, headings and permalinks to be set as desired and to help optimize the site for search engines.

As a result, sites developed with WordPress.org are much easier to rank for in search engines compared to WordPress.com sites.

You can also run advertising, link to affiliate programs and generally have a much greater ability to monetize a WordPress.org site.

So, if you want a site that’s really yours, your asset, that you control, that has design flexibility, that you can optimize for search engines, and that you can monetize more effectively, you’re going to want to use WordPress.org.

The above post What’s the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com? was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

When I’m talking to people about what I do one of the questions that crops up from time to time is “How much does it cost to set up an internet business?”.

Now, the answer to that particular question is “how long is a piece of string”, because it depends to a large degree on what that Internet Business actually does, and of course at what stage the business is considered to be “set up”.

Facebook probably didn’t cost much to get going, but subsequently required investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars to get to a significant stage in its development (I believe that buying the domain name facebook.com for example cost around $200,000 in 2005!).

Other well known internet businesses, auction sites, online dating sites etc, will all have significant levels of initial expense and investment requirements.

The Real Question Though

What he was really asking was – can you set up and run a viable internet business for next to nothing as many people think?

Well, my answer was that it might not cost zero, but that it is possible to get underway for relatively little outlay and make a profit. The caveat is that it will cost you time.

Minimum Costs to Establish an OnLine Business

Let’s look at the basic requirements though.

Basic Hardware

We’ll assume that because you’re reading this, you already have a computer, modem and internet access. Strictly speaking though, you ought to add those costs, so say $500+ for a computer and $300p.a. for internet access.

Website Name

Although you can establish a presence on the internet for free using a blogging platform like WordPress.com or Blogger, these services are really aimed at people who want to blog about their thoughts and experiences, not run a business.

So you’ll need a domain name – a website name (there are ways and means to run an internet business without, but that’s another story).

You don’t actually ‘purchase’ a domain name – you just register it, meaning you own the rights to use it for a given length of time and you purchase it through a domain name registrar such as Namecheap.

This will cost about $10 per annum for a .com name. Costs for other domain types may vary.

Website Hosting

You’ll then need somewhere to keep all the files that make up your website. This is called a web host server.

There are several levels of options for web hosting, ranging from a shared web host, where you share the same web server with several (often hundreds) other sites, to having your own dedicated server (much more expensive).

Typically you might pay about $60 – $100 a year for shared hosting which is fine while you’re getting established (the more expensive options will let you host more than one website which is likely to be a good idea).

If you’re going to want to run several sites (for example if you have many affiliate sites for different market niches) then a reseller account is likely to be more useful and will cost about $300p.a. Different Web hosting options are discussed in another post on what is web hosting.

So, if you’ve got a computer, internet access, a website name and somewhere to host it, then you’re ready to start and you don’t actually need to spend any more money than this, although it’s probably a good idea to do so!

Internet Business Models

After that the costs will depend to a large extent on what type of online business you want to run; what you intend doing for yourself, and what you intend paying others to get done for you.

There are many different models for an internet based business such as:

• adding an online store for an existing physical business,
• reselling another company’s goods online,
• referring people to make purchases at another company’s site in return for a commission or referral fee (called affiliate sales)
• referring people to request information for another company’s services in return for a referral fee (called CPA or Cost Per Action)
• selling your own goods online
• generating revenue from advertising on your site(s)

In most cases, they involve building one or more websites.

That means paying someone to develop them for you – or developing them yourself. We’ll look at the do-it-yourself options and costs.

WordPress and WordPress Themes

Unless you both know how to, and want to, program a site yourself using a full-on website development product like Dreamweaver, you’re likely to be better using something like WordPress as a platform for building sites around. It’s relatively straightforward to use and helps you build search engine friendly sites!

WordPress has two options, both free.

The shared hosted option at WordPress.com is for people without their own web-hosting and is really designed for diary style personal blogs.

The ‘host-it-yourself’ option, WordPress.org, allows you to develop and manage a site on your own web host server as detailed above. That’s the one you’re going to want.

WordPress allows you to have pages, like any normal website, and  blog pages containing posts – updated information etc. This is what makes it powerful for the search engines as each post is treated as an additional page, and it allows Google to build up a good picture of what your site is all about especially if the posts are on the same general or related topics.

Blog style pages are where you’d put ‘news’ style or additional new content in the form of ‘posts’. Google loves fresh, original and unique content, so will reward you for that too.

You can have as many ‘normal’ pages as you like – most sites include them for things like “About” “Contact” etc…

You can have your homepage as a normal ‘static’ page, or as a blog page.

Some WordPress sites only contain static pages, some only blog type pages.

It’s easy to add photos and videos to WordPress posts and pages. There are also a gazillion (often free) plug-ins to help you do virtually anything with it too.

WordPress Themes

WordPress provides the framework that links pages together and produces the code. It then requires the use of a ‘theme’ to display how your site looks – the layout, colours, graphics, content etc.

Different themes allow for different ease of customising. Some often require coding to achieve an effect while others use simple selection boxes etc. Some allow you greater control over page and post titles, keywords and so on which all help for better SEO (search engine optimization).

There are many free themes and premium (paid for) themes.

My favourite theme is CatalystTheme for WordPress. It’s flexible, easy to use and powerful for SEO. It’s one of the best premium WordPress themes there. There is a choice fo three licensing options – all of which allow it to be installed on unlimited sites.

Building a List and a Business Asset

As part of your business plan, it’s likely that you’ll want to develop a client mailing list, both customers and potential customers, as a means of keeping in touch and maintaining their awareness of what you have to offer.

To manage this properly you will need email list management (autoresponder) software such as AWeber which currently costs less than $20/month or $200/yr (for unto 500 email names)

Building a list like this is a great asset for your business.

Costs to Run an Internet Business

Let’s look at the costs so far:

• Website domain name – $10p.a.
• Web hosting – $100 – $300p.a.
• WordPress – free
• WordPress Theme – $100
• List Management – $200

So, even allowing that you might have several sites (if you’re an affiliate internet marketer say) and need a more expensive hosting option, the cost involved is less than $1000 or so (plus computer and internet plan).

These are the basic costs that would enable an internet based business to get established and operate with some degree of effectiveness.

In reality, there are likely to be some additional costs depending on your business model.

You may decide to rely on free visitor traffic from search engines like Google. That requires that you spend time and effort optimising your site to be better than the those of the competition. Or you can outsource it for a cost.

Alternatively (or as well as), you can generate traffic through advertising – again at a cost.

There are several tools and solutions to assist with things like keyword research that help you focus on the target market for your site more effectively. This helps drive more free traffic through search engines as well as benefiting costs involved in Pay-Per-Click advertising.

And, of course this all assumes that you do virtually everything yourself! Much of what is required may be better outsourced or you may want to hire staff, depending. But that probably counts as the next stage of business development.

Invest in Yourself!

It is also worthwhile considering investing in yourself. So books, training, forum memberships, courses, workshops, coaching and mentoring services etc may all be additional costs, but also a means to understand more and expand the horizons of both you and your business.

And as with any business, there will also be costs for accountancy, legal, company incorporation, banking etc.

So, although it is unlikely you can claim to start an internet business for (almost) nothing, the financial costs involved can be very small compared to many other markets.

While that can be a good thing, in that it allows you to start a business more easily, it also means it is possible for others to do the same too!

You just have to do it better!!

The above post How much does it cost to set up an Internet business? was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

March 2011

The good folks at domain registrar Namecheap have a coupon code for new Namecheap domain name registrations in March 2011.

To get a nice discount on .com/.org/.net/.info or .biz domains use the namecheap coupon code SPRINGLIGHT

For example, .com domain names normally cost only $9.98 per year to register from Namecheap anyway, but use the Namecheap coupon code SPRINGLIGHT in March 2011 and that $9.98 .com domain name becomes yours for only $9.10 !!

Just click the Namecheap advert below and remember to use SPRINGLIGHT in the Namecheap Coupon code box on their checkout page.

Bbookmark this page, or better still subscribe to it using RSS or Email feed above, and you will get notification of future Namecheap coupon codes.

Namecheap.com – Cheap domain name Registration

Namecheap Coupon Code March 2011

The above post Namecheap Domain Names Coupon Code March 2011 was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

Those of you who have read my previous post on how to backup your WordPress site will know that I am a big fan of the BackupBuddy Plugin.

BackupBuddy Coupon Code

Because I like it and recommend it so much, I have now got a super discount BackupBuddy coupon code available for anyone who would like to buy this handy plugin too.

Just click the image below to buy BackupBuddy and then
use the Coupon Code D10FRIENDS-25 at the checkout.

Brief overview of BackupBuddy

Backup Functionality

Other WordPress database backup tools like WP-DB-Backup and WP-DBManager are great but they only backup the content of the core database tables. They don’t backup the other components of the site like plugins, themes and their settings etc.

The BackupBuddy WordPress Plugin is a much more powerful and flexible solution that backs up all of the files for a site not just the database files.

It will backup all the SQL database, all the plugins, all the files, themes, scripts, widgets, and anything else in the WordPress database and directories for the site. Everything!

If (when!) you need to restore, it’s a straightforward process to do so. Just upload a script and the backup file to the host  and the whole content is restored as it was configured.

As you’d maybe expect you can schedule backups on a daily/weekly/monthly basis etc. Or you can fire one off manually.

You can save backups on, and off, the host server.

You can also download the backup files to your own system and/or send them to Amazon S3, or FTP them, or email them elsewhere for maximum safety.

Migration Function

You can also use BackupBuddy to backup one template site and then restore it onto a new site – all ready to go!

I regularly create new sites, so I use BackupBuddy to speed up the process of all setting them up.

Create and configure a template site by installing the theme and plugins you use as standard, customised and configured to your regular set of preferences more or less up to the point where the site starts to become unique each time (e.g. when you start creating new pages and posts etc). Any standard pages, like privacy and disclaimers etc, can all be included too.

At that point – back it up with BackupBuddy.

You now use this backup as a “standard WordPress install”  for any new site you want to use it on.

Using the migration feature in BackupBuddy let you restore this template site onto any number of new domains in future with all the internal links being updated as part of the restore.

You’re left with a new site set up and configured that just needs the content adding and any design changes you want to make. But all the tedious work of installing and configuring plugins and doing the same stuff you do every time you create a new site is pretty much taken care of by BackupBuddy!

Here’s the BackupBuddy Coupon Code Again

BackupBuddy
Complete WordPress Backup, Restore and Migration

Click here to go to the BackupBuddy site

Remember to use the BackupBuddy Coupon Code
D10FRIENDS-25
to get a 25% discount on BackupBuddy!

If you found this article interesting why not bookmark it below, or subscribe to the site via RSS feed reader.

The above post BackupBuddy Coupon Code was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

Catalyst Theme for WordPress is my favorite theme for developing SEO friendly WordPress sites quickly and effectively.

It’s a very design friendly theme which allows a H-U-G-E degree of flexibility that means you can do almost anything with it to get a site looking just how you like. In addition, almost anything you want to change can be done without coding.

If you’ve been put off some themes by the need to tweak and hack around at CSS coding to make even apparently minor changes, then you’ll be pleasantly surprised by Catalyst Theme.

It even provides a ‘click and build’ custom CSS builder for those times that your requirements aren’t met by the standard interface. This means you still don’t have to know how to code… the Catalyst Custom CSS builder does it for you!

Click, Build, Drag and Done!! Very simple, very fast.

Catalyst Theme Benefits

The Catalyst Theme provides several major benefits for making WordPress sites including:

• It’s really easy to use…
• It’s very powerful and produces clean, fast efficient code
• It’s flexibility allows almost any design to be implemented
• It’s very SEO friendly
• It makes site design simple
• Customization is easy
• There’s no need to understand coding (unless you want to)
• It’s great for making business sites, personal sites, affiliate sites, quickly and effectively

Using Catalyst Theme means you can develop great looking, professional quality sites more easily, more quickly and with less effort.

And really importantly, all this lets you concentrate on adding great content! Because that’s the real purpose of a site – your good content is what you want people to find and is what they want to see!!

A Very Flexible WordPress Theme

Unlike many WordPress Themes (and other web design systems) that leave you struggling to implement your ideas and thoughts for a site, Catalyst Theme makes almost anything possible in a simple, easy, fast, effective way.

• For example, you can have unlimited custom page layouts – different page layouts for different purposes – sales pages, product pages etc
• You can specify what appears where on a page using custom widgets and hooks.
• Making design choices and changes is straightforward using intuitive selection boxes.
• Catalyst Theme has a full set of built in SEO options for rock solid SEO that search engines love.

Talking of SEO – Catalyst does nice SEO friendly things like loading the page content first (before the sidebars etc). It also has  In-Post / In-Page & Homepage Title, Description, Keyword & Meta control along with nice clean code that Search Engines love. Catalyst provides all the SEO refinement necessary for a serious, professional website that will naturally rise in the rankings.

I liked the Catalyst Theme so much, I wrote the Catalyst Theme Cheat Sheet to go with it.

For more details of the Catalyst Theme Cheat Sheet click here, or you can get it as a free bonus when you buy Catalyst Theme here.

Catalyst Theme Cheat Sheet

The Catalyst Theme Cheat Sheet is over 200 pages of great content designed to help you maximize the results you can obtain from using Catalyst Theme.

It will show you how to build more effective, better performing websites with the Catalyst Theme, guiding you through:

•    Market Research
•    Keyword Research
•    Site Purpose
•    Site Layout and Design
•    Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
•    Traffic Generation and Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

It also provides an overview of the main functionality of the theme, including where to find and adjust various settings to get the most from it for your sites.

Most importantly though, the Cheat Sheet covers how to develop an effective site using Catalyst; one that is optimized for SEO, that gets visitor traffic and that helps fulfill your expectations of, and intention behind, the site, be it revenue generation, lead generation, or spreading information to a wider audience.

Remember that when you buy Catalyst Theme here you will get the Cheat Sheet free of charge.

If you found this article interesting why not bookmark it below, or subscribe to the site via RSS feed reader.

The above post Catalyst Theme Bonuses was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

When using tools for keyword research, it’s important to remember the differences between the keyword match types of Exact Match, Phrase Match and Broad Match, when determining search volumes and competition levels.

When you use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, or the excellent Market Samurai keyword research product, you can get an indication of monthly or daily search volumes for a keyword term based on the three keyword match types as follows:

Keyword Match Types

Broad Match – indicates the number of searches made where all the words in the keyword term are present in the search query. They can be in any order, and may have any other words included.

For example: The number of broad match searches shown for ‘keywords research’ would include searches made for the terms ‘keywords research’, ‘research keywords’, ‘how to research keywords’, ‘keywords research tool’ etc…

Phrase Match – this indicates the number of searches made where all the words in the keyword term are present in the search query. Unlike broad match, they must be together and in the right order, although they can have other words before and after.

Using the same example above, the number of phrase match searches shown for ‘keywords research’ would include searches on ‘keywords research’ and ‘keywords research tool’ but not ’research keywords’, ‘how to research keywords’.

Exact Match – indicates the number of searches made that only include the words shown and in the right order. This time, only searches specifically for ‘keywords research’ would be included in these results.

Notation for Keyword Match Types

The standard notation for the different match types is:

Exact Match uses [square brackets] around the search term – e.g. [keywords research]

Phrase Match uses “parentheses” around the search term – e.g. “keywords research”

Broad Match uses nothing around the search term – e.g. keywords research

Different Search Volumes by Match Type

For relatively short keyword search terms (e.g. 2-3 words), as shown in the image above, the total of all the searches made on the phrase match variations will be higher than those for just the exact match. The total number of searches on all the broad match variations will usually be higher still.

As the length of a keyword phrase increases, you may notice these differences reducing as the number of alternative options for broad and phrase matches variations of a phrase also reduces.

The ”Phrase to Broad Ratio” or PBR, is the percentage of Phrase match searches out of Broad match services made for a keyword and is a useful indicator to the degree of focus a keyword has. A keyword with a high PBR suggests that most searches are made on close variations to the keyword, while a low PBR suggests a much wider variation in actual search terms involving the keyword.

Keyword Match Types and Keyword Research

Typically, as the length of a keyword phrase increases, so the number of searches made for it decreases. The flip side is that there are also likely to be fewer sites competing for the phrase.

Additionally longer tail keywords are also likely to have a higher PBR and so are likely to be more focused keywords. That is to say, people searching on them are more likely to be looking for the same information. For example, people searching on ‘blue extendable dog leads’ are searching for something very specific and more particular than just ‘dog leads’ or ‘lead’ or ‘dog’.

A page or post that is optimized around the the keyword ‘blue extendable dog leads’ is likely to be easier to rank for initially than ‘dog leads’.

As more content is added to a site over time, using other related keywords on additional pages and posts, the number of closely related keywords for which Google will rank the site grows. So a site will be generating more traffic based on “Phrase” match queries as well as [Exact] matches.

Again, as more pages and posts are added using more related keywords, and the site gains more authority, it will rank better for broader search terms based around the keyword selections and start generating more traffic from Broad match queries.

One way of thinking of this is that:

• [Exact] match is the short term traffic potential for the keyword
• “Phrase” match is the medium term traffic potential
• Broad match is the longer term traffic potential

Keyword research is vital to the success of a site.

Two great tools to assist with keyword research are the free Google Adwords Keyword Tool and the commercial product Market Samurai which greatly automates the process and includes a whole raft of additional functionality to make keyword research much more effective.

You can access the Google Keyword Tool here

You can access Market Samurai here.

It’s well worth a visit to check out their fantastic training Dojo on keyword research alone.

In addition, unlike many other products, Market Samurai is a one off licence fee and here’s a tip (valid at the time of writing) – take the free trial first. If you then buy it within 7 days you’ll get 35% discount on the regular price!

The above post Exact, Phrase and Broad Keyword Match Types for Keyword Research was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

At its top-most level, ‘what is search engine optimization’ seems a pretty straightforward question to answer.

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO for short) is the process of optimizing a website to appear higher in search engine results for given keywords (search terms).

But notice the word “process” in that last sentence.

In many cases a a newly created web-site is claimed to be “search engine optimized” meaning that the content of each page has been optimized around one or more keyword terms.

Whilst this is a good start (assuming it’s been done well), a site will likely need to have an on-going optimization program in place in order to rank well in search engines, particularly for competitive keywords.

Search Engine Optimization can be broadly split into two main areas; On Page and Off Page optimization.

On Page SEO

On-page optimization seeks to optimize the code of the website’s pages for chosen keyword terms and is something that should be done as part of the website design itself.

The aim of on-page SEO is to address the various factors that it is believed search engines attach importance to, such as the Page Title meta tags, Header tags etc.

Even where a factor has relatively little importance in its own right, the cumulative effect of reinforcing from many different angles what the web page is about serves to increase the search engines’ ability and willingness to index and rank the page for the desired keywords.

Many websites get designed with little attention paid to optimization the content – often because the content itself is not sufficiently focused.

Many sites fail to address many of the on-page SEO factors available. It is not uncommon for professionally designed sites, costing thousands, to concentrate on glitzy design at the expense of  SEO.

By deciding what each page of a web site is about, and optimizing the on-page SEO factors for it, it is possible to significantly enhance its search engine rankings.

That is a good start.

Off Page SEO

Search engines like Google don’t just base the importance of a website page on what it finds there. They take into account how the rest of the web sees the site and its pages too.

At its simplest, the more links there are back to a site from elsewhere, the more Google takes notice of it and the greater the degree of importance it will attach to the site being linked to.

It’s like when a text book makes references to another work. If lots of textbooks reference the same other piece of work, then that is typically seen as an authoritative work on the subject.

Google does much the same. Typically, a page with lots of links coming into it from elsewhere on the web will be seen as having more importance and authority by Google.

If those links are on web pages deemed as having more importance in themselves, then they carry more weight than links from sites with no perceived importance.

The aim of off-page SEO therefore is to increase the volume of links pointing from elsewhere to the site, particularly from pages of greater importance.

Google gives each page it indexes a measure of importance based on its Page Rank (PR) scale. The more important a page is seen as being, the higher its Page Rank.

SEO Overview

I can’t recall where I saw this, so apologies to whoever said it first, but it’s a good description of the difference between on-page and off-page SEO:

“SEO is like flying a kite.
On Page optimization helps get the kite off the ground.
Off Page optimization keeps it flying high”

To find out more about Search Engine Optimization and the factors that influence successful rankings, download the Free Fast Step Guide to SEO from the guides section on the right.

If you found this article interesting why not bookmark it below, or subscribe to the site via RSS feed reader.

The above post What is Search Engine Optimization? was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

This question should really be separated into ‘What is a Redirect’ and ‘How to set up a Redirect’.

What is a Redirect?

A redirect is a method to ensure that when a link to a given URL (e.g. http://www.sitename.com/folder/page.html ) is clicked on, the visitor is redirected to an alternative target.

This can be useful in a number of situations, such as when the original URL has been deleted, but you want visitors who have it bookmarked (or search engines that have it indexed) to end up at a good alternative or replacement page instead of getting an ugly “404 Page Not Found” error.

When you want to implement a redirection like this permanently, it is likely to make sense to implement what is called a 301 Redirect.

A 301 redirect is an efficient method for redirecting one URL to another. It’s also search engine friendly as it should help preserve most of the ‘link-juice’ that benefits the page being redirected.

Another form of redirect is to replace an ugly long affiliate link with a nicer looking alternative which encourages more visitors to click through.

For example, say you have a site called www.TopSellingGizmo.com and the Gizmo maker you are affiliated to has given you an affiliate link to use like:

http://www.GizmoMakers.com/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=abc123

Instead of that appearing at the bottom of the browser window (or as a link in your email) you can create a simple redirect to get to the same place using a much neater link.

Let’s have a look at both types of Redirect.

How to Set Up a Redirect

The 301 Redirect is very simple to set up and just requires a line of code be added in the .htaccess file for the site. 

The easiest way to do this is from within your web host’s Cpanel interface which includes a Redirects function that takes care of all this for you.

To implement a neater link for an ugly url is also pretty simple.

Use your website file manager (such as File Manager in cPanel for many web hosts), or FileZilla FTP manager and create a new folder at the root level of the site.

The folder should be the name that you want visitors to see at the end of your websitename.

For example, create a folder called Gizmos.

In that folder create a file called index.php

We’d use the following code for the content of that file:

Now use the link http://www.TopSellingGizmo.com/Gizmos wherever you want the affiliate link to appear on your site (i.e. instead of the ugly affiliate link)

When visitors click on it, they will be redirected to the merchants site using your affiliate link code.

You can take this a step further and use a technique called a Link Hub to implement and manage several such redirects.

This involves using a dedicated domain name to use as the link hub.

You then create a folder for each redirect you want to implement:

e.g.

http://www.TopSellingGizmo.com/BlueGizmos
http://www.TopSellingGizmo.com/RedGizmos
http://www.TopSellingGizmo.com/GreenGizmos
etc

In each folder create an index.php file as above, replacing the affiliate link with the appropriate one for the BlueGizmo link, RedGizmo link, GreenGizmo link etc…

Then wherever you want a link to appear for Red Gizmos, you just use http://www.TopSellingGizmo.com/RedGizmos instead of the normal affiliate link.

This technique has the advantage that if you change the merchant you are affiliated to, you can just change the redirect code in the appropriate index.php file to point to the new merchant using the new affiliate link they give you.

If you have many such links scattered around your site, or even over several sites, then they effectively all get updated to point to the new merchant when you edit just the one line of code in the index.php file.

This very site uses a redirect link hub for many of its links. Hover over one in the “Products” or “Services” pages and you’ll likely see http://www.SecureDirectFastLink.com/ be displayed.

This means all the links throughout this site can be easily managed form one location. If any links need to be updated one simple change will effectively make them all current again, redirecting the visitor somewhere useful instead of to an out of date or dead page.

The above post What is a Redirect? was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

February 2011

Namecheap, my favourite domain name registrar, are running a special Namecheap Domain Name Transfer Promotion for 48 hours from 12AM EST Sunday February 6th through to 12AM on Tuesday 8th Feb 2011.

You can transfer upto 10 .com/ .org/ .net/ .info/ .biz domain names to Namecheap for only $3.99 each.

Just use the Namecheap coupon code BYEBYEGD in the Namecheap store.

I moved several domains over to Namecheap the last time they offered this. It’s a pretty painless process and a good way to extend the domain for a year quite cheaply.

I had been using Namecheap for a year or two and liked that they are cheap, but also provide excellent support when I had the occasional query. I still had some domains previously registered with two other domain name registrars, so decided to consolidate all of them with Namecheap.

Now I have them all with one registrar it’s much easier to keep track of them. Namecheap are also excellent at reminding you when a domain is about to expire (they give you about 30 days notice). The Namecheap administration panel is also excellent for managing all your domains, very fast and easy to navigate around.

Use the Namecheap Coupon Code BYEBYEGD and transfer upto 10 domain names to Namecheap for only $3.99 each !!

Just click the Namecheap advert below and remember to use BYEBYEGD in the Namecheap Coupon code box on their checkout page.

Remember to bookmark this site, or better still subscribe to it using RSS or Email feed above and you will get notification of future Namecheap coupon codes.

Namecheap.com – Cheap domain name Registration

The above post Namecheap Domain Name Transfer Promotion was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

February 2011

As usual, Namecheap, the domain name registrar, are running a monthly Namecheap coupon code for all new domain names registered in February.

Namecheap maintain consistently cheap prices on domain names as their own name suggests.

Typically a .com domain name costs only $9.98 per year to register from Namecheap

This Month’s Namecheap Coupon Code

But you can get a further discount using the Namecheap coupon code NCSMILES for domain name registrations made in February 2011.

Use the Namecheap Coupon Code NCSMILES and a $9.98 .com domain name becomes yours for only $9.10 !!

Just click the Namecheap advert below and remember to use NCSMILES in the Namecheap Coupon code box on their checkout page.

Remember to bookmark this page, or better still subscribe to it using RSS or Email feed above and you will get notification of future Namecheap coupon codes.

Namecheap.com – Cheap domain name Registration

 Namecheap Coupon Code February 2011

The above post Namecheap Coupon Code February 2011 was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

Many people mistakenly think they are doing more than they really are when they backup WordPress sites.  

So, let’s just check..

You do backup your WordPress sites, right??

Although there are couple of very useful WordPress database backup tools available such WP-DB-Backup and WP-DBManager, they do just that – they only backup the content of the core database tables.

They don’t backup WordPress site components like plugins, themes and their settings etc.

Either of those backup plugins will allow you to backup and restore your database content and email the backup to you. This is a minimal WordPress Backup requirement. Do not avoid implementing a good backup system. Even a minimal one is better than none!

Maybe your WordPress theme also allows you to export its settings so you can save all those somewhere too.

And of course you’ll remember to do it regularly wont you?

It’s a good start and certainly better than nothing. But when the ‘you-know-what’ hits the fan, and you get that horrible feeling of hours of restoration work ahead, ask yourself if you really want all the hassle that lies ahead…

Like they often require that you know how to use things like phpMyAdmin in order to restore the database….. such fun!

And of course, good though these plugins are, many of them are only maintained and supported on a goodwill, best efforts, basis.

So free… But!

Consider the value of your WordPress site(s) to you.

I like free, but some things are worth paying for. This is one of them.

Using BackupBuddy to Backup WordPress Sites

A more powerful and flexible solution for backup of all files for a site is BackupBuddy. This will backup and restore a whole WordPress site, not just the database files.

That means all the SQL database, plugins, files, themes, scripts, widgets, and everything else in the WordPress database and directories.

The whole caboodle!

If or when you need to do a restore, it’s a relatively straightforward process. Just upload a script and the backup file to the host  and the whole content is restored – WordPress, your plugins as configured, widgets, themes – the lot!

• Schedule backups on a daily/weekly/monthly basis etc, or trigger them manually
• Save backups on as well as off the server
• Download the backups to your computer or send them to Amazon S3, Dropbox, or FTP them, or email them

Backup One WordPress Site, Migrate it to Many

If like me you regularly launch new sites, the BackupBuddy plugin provides an invaluable time saving feature.

Create a template site that will be the basis for many similar sites. Configure it how you like. Install the plugins and configure them with your standard preferences. Install your preferred WordPress Theme, customize and configure it as you like. Basically do everything you would to a site to get it how you’d like every time such that all you’d have to do is start adding content.

Back it up with BackupBuddy.

You now have a “standard WordPress install” available for any new site you want to use it on.

Then use the migrate feature in BackupBuddy to effectively restore this template site onto any number of new domains in future. All the internal links will get updated as it does so, leaving you with a site that is ready to roll.

This is such a productivity booster. It probably saves 2 to 3 hours per site set up compared to doing it manually and ensures that nothing gets missed.

Using this same principle, you can build out an individual test site more completely if you wish, then when you’re happy with it, migrate the entire site to the proper live site – content and all. All updated and ready to go.

BackupBuddy – it’s a no-brainer!

And to help even more – if you click the image or link below and then use the
exclusive coupon code D10FRIENDS-25 at the checkout page, you’ll
get 25% off the cost!!

BackupBuddy
Complete WordPress Backup, Restore and Migration

Find out more about how to backup WordPress sites here.

If you found this article interesting why not bookmark it below, or subscribe to the site via RSS feed reader.

The above post How to Backup WordPress Sites was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

You can search for and buy cheap domain names from a domain name registration company.

There are many such companies whose prices and service vary, as do the administration interfaces they offer users and through which you manage the settings and configuration of the domain names.

Domain Name Registration is not Ownership

Note that you do not own the domain name outright.

You have merely paid to have it registered to you for a set period of time. This is the way that all domain name registrations work.

The minimum period of time is usually one year, although some domain endings may be longer. For example .co.uk domain extensions have a minimum of two years registration period.

You can usually transfer domain names you have registered to a new registrar in future if you wish.

There are some restrictions regarding timing such as having to wait a set period of time before being able to transfer a newly registered name to another registrar, and if a domain name is due for renewal shortly, there is a cut-off point beforehand.

What’s a Good Registrar to Buy Cheap Domain Names?

Having used several domain registrars over the last few years, Namecheap seem to offer consistently low prices.

They also have a long running offer of a year’s free whoisguard for each .com purchase which is useful.

The Whois database maintains publicly available information records about the domain name owner including contact details for the registrant, admin, technical and billing contacts. Whoisguard allows you to shield these contact details via the registrar and maintain your privacy.

Get a Domain Registrar with a Good Management Interface

If you register several domain names, an easy management interface becomes more and more crucial.

The Namecheap interface is excellent. It’s clear and easy to use.

It makes selecting and purchasing domain names an easy process (some don’t!). Management of each, and multiple, domains is pretty straightforward to with good help where needed.

Get a Domain Registrar with Good Support

On the few occasions where support has been requested, it has been excellent in both speed and quality.

Buy Cheap Domain Names for Even Less!

Namecheap regularly offer discount coupon codes that enable you to get domain names registered for an even lower cost than normal!

Their offers usually apply to  .com  .org  .net  .info or  .biz domains with occasional specials on other extensions.

To get details of the latest offers from Namecheap check out our Offers Page.

If you found this article interesting why not bookmark it below, or subscribe to the site via RSS feed reader.

The above post Where Can I Buy Cheap Domain Names? was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

Many people and business owners spend a lot of time trying to decide what domain name (website name) they should get, when perhaps they should instead be asking “Should I get more than one version of my website name?”

The answer in most cases is…

Absolutely!

There are several outstanding reasons for doing this.

Own More Virtual Real Estate with More Website Names 

First, if you have a sound basis for wanting a website name in the first place such as good product name, business name, business idea, brand or even your own personal name, then why not own as much of the virtual real estate associated with it yourself. It prevents anyone else confusing the marketplace for you.

Many website owners that have bought only a .com variation of their product or business name have subsequently found themselves out-ranked in the search engines for their own name by resellers, affiliates and even competitors using a different variation of their domain name.

Although you might not object if they are promoting your business and products, it can be confusing for visitors and dilute the effectiveness of your own branding message.

Capture More Traffic with More Website Name Variations

Secondly, many people also type a website name straight into their browser. Often they will add .com or their local country domain – for example .co.uk at the end.

If you own both, or several , you’re making sure you don’t miss out on that kind of traffic.

Get Multiple Search Engine Rankings

Thirdly, you can develop a web-site for each one of the domain names. This could result in getting more than one, and possibly several, entries in the search engines for the same search term if the sites follow a similar theme and are all appropriately optimised for search engines.

If you choose this method, you need to be aware of avoiding duplicating content though as Google can penalize web pages and sites that it deems to be duplicating existing content from elsewhere.

Buying and Using Multiple Website Names Effectively

Obviously there is additional cost in purchasing more than one domain website name, and you may not be bothered about some of the variations available.

It can make sense to purchase the .com, .org and .country version of a particular website name though if you want to safeguard or maximise use of a name.

If you wish, you can automatically redirect visitors from most of the sites to your main site, or develop individual sites for each domain name, or use a technique with iframes to ‘replicate’ one site within another, adding a little extra content behind the scenes to give it a little individuality to the search engines.

You can check out our recommended Domain Name Registrar where you can buy cheap domain names here.

If you found this article interesting why not bookmark it below, or subscribe to the site via RSS feed reader.

The above post Should I Get More Than One Version of my Website Name? was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

There are two main aspects when considering the best domain name to get for a website which are the domain ending (.com, .org etc) and the purpose of the website. Let’s have a look at these in greater detail.

What is the Best Domain Name Ending for a Site

First, you might want to give a little consideration to what type of Top Level Domain (TLD) you purchase.

For example, if you intend your website content to be aimed at a worldwide audience, you will probably want a .com ending (for a commercial site), with .org and .net domain name endings as the next best alternative options.

If your site is aimed at a specific local market, then a Top Level Domain name ending for that locality may provide benefits.

For example, you may find that a domain name ending of .uk (for the UK) may well rank higher in local Google.co.uk search results (but is less likely to show up in other territories).

Additionally, UK based residents may just type in what they’re looking for, followed by .co.uk directly into their browser. It can also help reinforce your site as being UK based in the eyes of your intended market which might also be an advantage to you.

If you want to aim your site at a local market in a different country, be aware that some countries have strict rules on who can register domain names with their country code. Canada, for example has Canadian Presence Requirements that must be met by registrants of the .ca ccTLD.

Conversely, some country codes for which their are no, or few, registration restrictions are used for branding and marketing purposes – such as .mu (for Mauritius), which is often used by the music industry, and .ly (for Libya) which is often appended to other words such as possib.ly and definite.ly etc.

In general though (leaving the local marketing considerations mentioned above aside for now), for commercial purposes a .com domain name is usually considered preferable. If the .com version is unavailable, then .org and .net versions can also often be good options for search engine rankings, but you may miss the other visitor traffic that being a .com site sometimes brings.

Domain Names for Branding

Often a domain name is bought as part of the branding for a business. If your business is intended to have a global online audience, then the .com version will likely be a preferred option.

Again if you are looking to address a country specific market – perhaps you are a UK based plumber or restaurant, or an Australian based pest control service, then a specific country code domain ending can be a good option for you. Potential visitors to your site will search for the business name and probably add .com or .com.au or .co.uk etc to find you.

They are less likely to add .org though. Think about the way you search for particular businesses yourself, especially if they don’t readily appear in search engine results.

Domain Names for a Business Activity

Another alternative is to use a domain name that says what you do. Say if you’re a plumber in a town then the domain name www.PlumberTownName.com may be a good domain name to purchase (likewise www.PlumberTownName.co.uk for a UK town etc).

It says what you do and where, and when it appears in conjunction with other branding such as letterheads, advertising, van and truck logo’s etc it will help associate your business service with that term.

It is also likely to help your site rank well in search engine results for the term (assuming the site is otherwise well optimised for the term concerned)

If that domain name has already been taken, consider a variation like www.BestPlumberTownName.com (or .co.uk etc as appropriate).

Domain Names for Search Terms

Taking the last scenario a little further, you may want a website that just addresses a particular topic or product with a view to generating revenue from it in some way. In this instance you would perform some keyword research to discover what search terms people are looking for in relation to the topic and then see if some of the more popular terms are available as domain names for purchase.

For example, you may want to make a website about repairing dead widgets because you have written and sell an ebook on this topic. Or you want to refer visitors to another company that specialises in this and who give you a commission for each sale you generate for them (affiliate marketing). Or you plan to generate revenue from advertising on your site.

After some keyword research you find that Repair Dead Widgets is a good search term to work with. In this case www.RepairDeadWidgets.com or .org, or .net are all likely to be good options that also help with optimising the site for search engine results.

Be aware that using other companies names and product trademarks in domain names may result in legal action by the companies concerned. If in doubt, you should seek approval from them first.

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The above post What is the Best Domain Name to Get for a Website? was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing

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The above post BackupBuddy WordPress Plugin Coupon Code was originally published by Fast Step Internet Marketing