In today’s episode of “Alice in WordPress Land”, Alice gets lost and discovers a strange and unusual group of flowers that talk to her.

The flowers tell Alice the Big Secret to having fun while creating websites in WordPress Land.

Come watch and I’ll share the secret of using WordPress with you too…

In the second half of the video, I take you through the process of picking different themes (designs) for your website, and you’ll see how the look and feel of your content changes with different designs.

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Today I have a story for you.

This is the story of a little girl named Alice.

Watch this video, the first in a series, and follow Alice through WordPress Land as she discovers a new, almost magical, way of building websites without that Mad-as-a-Hatter Webmaster…

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When you first get your WordPress website installed, it will come with a standard set of features.  But when you add plugins, then your website becomes unique to you, and gives your site the ‘bells and whistles’ to make it really sing.

Plugins add Fun & Functionality

So what is a ‘Plugin’?

A WordPress plugin is extra software code that you can easily add to your website from within your admin area that give you extra functionality, such

as extra Search Engine Optimization, or a fancy way to print out your web pages.  Many plugins are free, in fact most of the one’s I use are free.  But sometimes you may want to pay for a premium plugin that is more advanced and complex than some simple free ones.

My favorite premium plugin is a fantastic one called WishList Member.  Wishlist member is a plugin that will turn your website into a membership site.  It’s the system I’m using for my Spring Website Creation Workshop Program.

Here are just a few of the Plugins I LOVE:

WishList Member by Stu McLaren and Tracy Childers: http://www.WishListQueen.com (my link for it)

Print This by Lester Chan: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-print/ (thanks to Stu McLaren for telling me about Lester Chan!)

Wp Polls by Lester Chan: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-polls/

Quick Page/Posts Redirect by Don Fisher: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/quick-pagepost-redirect-plugin/

Subscribe to Comments by Mark Jaquith : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/

If you find a plugin that is free, that you really love, then click on their donate button and help support these wonderful plugin authors who give their time to contribute to the world of WordPress.

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What are you passionate about?  What is that dream inside of you that is burning to come out, but is stuck somehow? Or stuck by others?

Today is Valentine’s Day, and I’m asking you not only to think about your  loved ones, but to think about YOU.  Your passion you have inside of you that you want to share with the world.  I got this video clip  from the movie “August Rush”.  It’s a movie about an orphan boy who has a passion for music, and a strong belief that his parents are still alive. He believes that if he can play his music, his parents will “hear”  him and find him.

“Your passion is inside of  you, all you have to do is listen to it!”

So what is your passion?

What is your product, your cause, idea, thing that you want to share with the world?

I’d love to hear about it below….

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Today I had my first in a series of free training webinars for prospective new students of the Website Creation Workshop.  (and it was a pleasure to see my alumni on the call as well)

We talked about getting  a Gravatar.com account and about using WordPress as your own social media platiform.

So, I want to give you more free trainings, but I want to know:

What do you want me to teach you?

What do you need to know before you sign up for my 8 module Website Creation Workshop?

How can I help you get ready to build your website with me?

Enter your requests below in the comments, and I’ll pick which ones are most appropriate to everyone

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These days, pretty much everyone needs a website.  Whether you are an online store, a service based consultant, or any professional person: you need a website.

But the question is: Should You Build it Yourself, Or Should You Outsource it to a Webmaster?

Now I recommend using WordPress as the software that runs your website.  It works if you are doing a blog, or a regular website.  It’s easy to access from any computer, and the search engines love it!

So here are the steps to building a website that you need to get your site online:

1. Installing the WordPress software on Your own Web Hosting
2. Selecting a Design and Layout for your Website
3. Adding Your Initial Content (your web pages) to Your Website
4. Updating Your Website with Fresh Content (more web pages)
5. Maintaining Your Website with software updates

I recommend that you learn to do these things yourself, so that you have total control of your business and website and so that you are not at the mercy of anyone else.   However, the most important part of running your website yourself is adding your content to your site and updating your website with fresh content.

1) If you have the right hosting company I use www.BlueHostNow.com (my affiliate link) as my hosting company.  I love them. They are very helpful, and I can get a WordPress website installed in 5 minutes.

2) The web designs I use for my WordPress websites come from www.iThemes.com (my affiliate link) and my favorite “Theme” is the Flexx Theme. You can find that at www.FlexxQueen.com (my affiliate link).  That is the theme I use for this blog, and for my Christina’s Resources website: www.ChristinasResources.com

3) Adding your content, is just something you need to cut and paste into your WordPress website.  That is the creative part of building your site.  Use your intuition and common sense (plus a little bit of keyword research), when building your webpages.  Does it look good to you?  Does your pages make sense?

4) To update your site with fresh content, just means to add more pages and blog posts.  Easy enough.

5) Updating your WordPress software consists of clicking a few buttons each time there is an update.  (we do this together in my classes)

So if you are interested in taking control of your online business, I can help you in my Website Creation Workshop!  It’s an 8 module online course where I take you through the process of building your website yourself (without the need for a webmaster).  It’s an interactive class, and we have a lot of fun in it.  Just take a look at some of the testimonials and example case study websites from my students)

The next Website Creation Workshop will begin in March! Watch your email for updates.  (if you are not on the email list, you can sign up in the yellow box on the right sidebar)

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Many people are setting goals for themselves for the New Year. But I ask you, “What are the goals for your website?”

To have a successful website, you want the site to achieve it’s goals:

• Is the goal to sell a product?
• Is the goal to give out information as in a ‘brochure site’ ?
• Is the goal to get opt-in signups, i.e. email subscribers?
• Is the goal for the visitor to call your company?
• Is the goal to be a private members area?

The reason why I like using WordPress as a platiform to build a site is because WordPress makes it easy to achieve ANY kind of website you want. And you, or your assistants, can do this from ANY computer!

So the sooner you can clarify in your mind the goals of your site, the sooner you can achieve those goals.

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Today I want to talk about a technique called ‘Forwarding URLs’.  If you have a Facebook Fan page, you are going to want to create a ‘Forwarding URL’ for that.  What is a ‘Forwarding URL’ you ask?  Well it’s a domain name that you purchase, that forwards to another domain.  It’s the easy way to tell people about your websites!

My Facebook Page Photo

I have a forwarding URL for my Fan Page on Facebook.  If you go to http://www.ChristinaHillsOnFacebook.com you will then be redirected to http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christina-Hills/67923647824 which is my Facebook Fan Page.

I have many other forwarding URLs in my biz.  I use them on teleseminars and webinars because it’s much easier to say a simple URL on a teleseminar, than give a long URL with lots of slashes and numbers.

Here is how you do it:

1. Go to Godaddy or BlueHostNow.com (my link for Blue Host)  any other domain registrar, and buy a domain name
   as in http://www.ChristinaHillsOnFacebook.com
   
2. Inside your registrar account find where to set up domain forwarding (you can usually call on the phone and have Godaddy or BlueHost walk you through it)
3. Forward your domain to the page you want people to go to.  as in http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christina-Hills/67923647824
   
4. Now just tell people about your new domain http://www.ChristinaHillsOnFacebook.com !

Oh and while you are there, Click the link to become a fan!

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Are you a Twitter person or a FaceBook Person (or neither) ? I’m taking a poll of my readers to see which camp you fall into.  Twitter and Facebook are the two largest social media platforms.  Some people LOVE Twitter, and some HATE it.  Same goes with Facebook. Using Social Media is a great way to connect with your audience and friends.  And it’s a great way to drive traffic to your WordPress Website.

So the Question is Which do personally YOU Prefer?

Which is more FUN for you!

(not which works best for your business)

So what are you?

Are you a Twitter person?

Are you a Facebook person?

(or neither!)

Please take this short poll:

And…

if you’d like to connect with me on Twitter or Facebook with me, just follow these 2 links
http://www.Twitter.com/christinahills
http://www.ChristinaHillsonFacebook.com

See my Page on Facebook Below

I’ll give my opinions after I get some poll results…

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Tomorrow the December 1st deadline for online marketers goes into affect.  This new guidelines is going to apply to pretty much anyone who has an online business.  This includes bloggers as well as small business owners and entrepreneurs. It basically defines what kind of testimonials you can have on your site, and what kind of endorsements you can give.

While I’m not a lawyer and cannot give you legal advice, I can point you to the government’s website where you can read up on this new rule.

Go here: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm and

go to this page for the endorsement guides

http://www.ftc.gov/multimedia/video/business/endorsement-guides.shtm

Now on my site, sell my Website Creation Workshop program.  I also give lots of endorsements for other people’s programs, and when I do, I sometimes get a commission for those endorsements.  However, I only endorse products/services/ or program that I have personally used, or have a personal relationship with the 3rd party.  So I ONLY endorse people I believe in.

In fact, there is one  course that I have taken that has been the basis of my entire business!

The course is Teleseminar Secrets by Alex Mandossian (that links to my affiliate link)

And this  Thursday December 3rd Alex Mandossian is doing a preview call that I will be promoting.  Alex is the leader in teleseminar marketing, and I have been personally trained by him.

His course called Teleseminar Secrets (that’s my affiliate link) , that I have not only taken, but I have been through it 5 times!

It is such a powerful course, and I have learned so much from Alex, that I have built my whole business around Teleseminars.  That is how I run the Website Creation Workshop – with  Teleseminars/Webinars .

If you’d like to learn more from Alex, and how Teleseminars might be success for you as it has for me, then…

Just go to www.TeleseminarSecretsTonight.com to get registered for this Call

(and yes, if you sign up for the $20 call, I will get a compensation for the recommendation. )

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