I’m finally getting around to upgrading my last few blogs to the Genesis Framework from StudioPress and have decided to spare my readers the ugliness that usually accompanies such a change.

In this video I discuss how to use a plugin that allows you to test drive a new WordPress theme in the background, so that you won’t miss a single click, commission or subscriber signup from your blog’s readers.

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

After sporting the Thesis theme by DIYThemes on RosalindGardner.com for several months, I switched back to using a StudioPress theme on that blog.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like Thesis. I do. It’s an excellent theme and I still highly recommend it to those looking for a professional theme for WordPress.

Once you get past the learning curve (which all themes have), manipulating Thesis is pretty straightforward. I especially liked the number of design and SEO tweaks available within the options. The Thesis OpenHooks plugin turned out to be a big help too.

So, why did I switch back to StudioPress?

Well, after writing “How Many Blogs?“, I realized that working with too many themes was almost the same as working with too many blogs.

With only one exception (AffiliateBloggerPRO),  all my other blogs were sporting StudioPress themes.

So, instead of researching, writing and marketing – activities that are significantly more important (and lucrative) to a professional blogger – I felt I was wasting precious time tweaking every time an update for either theme was released.

Not only that, but moving back and forth from one theme to another always involved having to take time to ‘stop and think’ about how that particular theme worked.

On the other hand, when you use only one theme across all your blogs, there is no transition time. You’re always working with the same theme and SEO options and all the upgrades can be done at once when a theme or framework update becomes available.

So, my suggestion is this.

Unless you work for others installing and tweaking out themes for WordPress, use a single theme framework for each your blogs… whichever theme that might be – StudioPress, Thesis, Woo or Socrates.

P.S. The new theme on RosalindGardner isn’t quite finished yet… I still have to tweak it out a little with a nice header.

Yesterday, I came across Socrates, a new WordPress Theme that has some very newbie-friendly features that decrease the need for hard-coding.

With Socrates, you’ll find:

1. Easy to Manage Navigation Links
2. That you can instantly Monetize Your Site With the Ad Bar
3. Built-in Clickbank monetization
4. 50+ Backgrounds or Upload Your Own
5. That You can Create Custom Headers On The Fly!
6. How To Create Multiple Layouts
7. Three Footer Widgets For Extra Customization

The developer, Dan Nickerson has a special licence deal going on until noon Eastern today – April 15th.
Check out the Socrates demo today.

Awhile back I introduced you to Justin Parr, creator of the Doglirious site (shown below)

Justin built his site on a WordPress blog platforms using the StudioPress themes for WordPress. Doglirious is based on the Lifestyle theme, (as does NPT) and MyEnergyPal uses the StudioPress Church theme. Here is how they appear ‘out of the box’.

As you can see, each theme was modified to the webmaster’s specifications with changes to overall color scheme, the header graphic, bullet list icons, pictures included in the ‘Featured Section’ near the top of the page and other design elements.

Doglirious belongs to Justin and Michelle, and and Justin did all the design work for that one as well as a number of other blogs – all equally as gorgeous. I did the theme customization for MyEnergyPal, and the logo was sourced out to 99Designs by my partner in the project.

Can a Newbie Get Similar Results?

Absolutely! Installing a WordPress blog takes only a minute when you use SimpleScripts (offered by BlueHost hosting) and every StudioPress theme ‘out of the box’ is beautiful.

While it is possible for a new webmaster to to modify these themes by availing themselves of help from the StudioPress forums and/or other online design and blogging support communities, there is a somewhat steep learning curve to the process which can take considerable time to absorb and master.

And you’ll need a few things to make the site your own, including:

1. A Logo (Header Graphic)
2. Featured Content Gallery plugin
3. Pictures/Graphics to put in the Featured Content Gallery
4. Color scheme customization to match your logo

And although I always encourage new webmasters to learn and do as much as they can with their own blogs, learning how to design graphic elements isn’t a compulsory part of that mix — especially not if your mission is to get your site up and making money as fast as possible.

But Paying $5K for a Custom Site is Ludicrous!

Unfortunately, I’ve spoken with WAY too many people who have literally spent a fortune having a site designed for them – often to the tune of $5,000 for 3 – 10 page sites – and then they still don’t even know how to change a link.

It drives me nuts to hear these stories, because it is completely unecessary to spend that kind of money, especially on a site that you can’t operate. Learning how to post content to a blog is easy as pie to do, and with continual improvements to WordPress, the process just keeps getting easier.

The WordPress interface is super intuitive, but just in case you want to go deeper into the functionality, there are plenty of blogging instruction videos available that will teach you how to work your blog. So, there’s absolutely NO reason why you should be held hostage by a webmaster on whom you must depend to make all your site changes.

The StudioPress themes are beautifully designed and they’re only $59.95 per template – so why in the world would anyone pay $5000 for a website — not to mention KEEP paying that webmaster to insert content and/or links?

The thought strikes me as preposterous.

There IS a happy medium, however. One that won’t cost you an arm and a leg — and nowhere close to 5,000, or $3,000 or even $1,000.

Justin’s Design Tutorials

Justin Parr has just finished a series of video tutorials that show you EXACTLY how he created Doglirious using the Studio Press lifestyle theme. As our guest blogger DinerDave is quoted saying about Justin’s help..

“I love that I can do this on my own. I’ve learned more working with you than I have in the last 4 years working with my last web developer.”

Debora Humphries, another happy user of Justin’s system, just left the following comment on this blog:

“I do have Justin’s package and I absolutely love it. Best money I have ever invested for training. The man is really talented at clearly explaining and demonstrating a step-by-step method on how to customize the “Lifestyle StudioPress Theme.”

And now you can learn how to create a beautiful blog with Justin’s video tutorials at  WordPress in a Day.

So now I have a hosting service, I’ve done my market research, and I’ve written pertinent content based on that research for DinerDave.com. Now it’s time to design the layout and look of the site. Once again I turn to Ros for recommendations on who could create a professional looking blog.

WHO Will Design DinerDave.com?

I reviewed dozens of WordPress template sites and became frustrated that I could not find the perfect “skin” for DinerDave.com. Then I read a case study on Doglirious.com in the latest revision of the Super Affiliate Handbook (Feb 2009). I was very impressed with the layout and functionality of this particular site and knew right then and there that I wanted the EXACT same layout for DinerDave.com! Well, as fate would have it, one month later Ros recommended Justin Parr, the creator of Doglirious.com, to create these beautiful StudioPress theme sites for her subscribers. After checking out Justin’s portfolio of work on Juscott.com and the templates available on Studiopress.com I was hooked! I made up my mind that I would use Justin to create the Diner Dave website, rather than trying to spend hours trying to learn CSS, basic design and editing templates.

Selecting a Theme and Design Package

That afternoon I purchased the same StudioPress “Lifestyles” theme that Justin used to create Doglirious.com (with the bonus “Streamline” theme for free…I can use that for another website later). I uploaded this theme through NetProfitsToday link and selected the Gold Package from the design services page on NPT. I did so because I wanted a strong foundation for the Diner Dave site and that included all the advanced plug-ins and features included in the Gold Package for email marketing, social bookmarking, tag cloud, etc…

Ros said in her recommendation for Justin’s design services, it is “preposterous to pay $5000 to have someone create a website” and then not know how to change links, upload pics, or perform any other simple updates. I agree! As someone who has actually spent thousands of dollars to create a static website I’m here to tell you that $999 for Justin’s Gold Package I selected is a steal! It is possible to find web designers on Elance.com or Rentacoder.com to create WordPress sites for the same price or maybe a little lower, but I prefer to hire a person that is recommended by someone I trust (Ros) AND that guarantees their work.

Creating the Logo

Creating a logo was the only service offered by Justin that I did not select. I created the logo a few weeks before Ros’ post on Justin’s design services. I reviewed several logo creation sites like 99designs.com before selecting logoloft.com to create the Diner Dave logo. The main reason I selected them was because of their impressive portfolio of work AND they were running a $99 special on logo creation. I contacted them and described exactly what I wanted. After a few revisions, I received the finalized Diner Dave logo. I was very pleased with the results! Now it was time to get started on the site.

Justin Works his Magic!

After contacting Justin via email we set up a phone and online meeting (via Yugma.com) to discuss how I would like the design and layout of DinerDave.com to look. I already knew what content I would be adding to the site…it was just a matter of organizing it in a website for ease of use and arranging merchant offers on each of the pages. I started by creating a map of the home page on an Excel spreadsheet (because I couldn’t email him a cocktail napkin!). Here is a copy of that spreadsheet:

After discussing my vision of the layout and design of DinerDave.com, Justin had a checklist of items for us to cover before he started in on the design work. The list included:

• Color scheme – I chose red, a color that invokes passion. Plus, I wanted to make sure the color scheme matched my logo. He matched the primary and secondary colors to those displayed on the site.
• Layout – Obviously, I wanted to place the AWeber email / RSS opt-in collection form at the top right of every page. I know from experience that I will make 100x more money on merchant offers with my email subscribers than random visitors to the site. I also needed to make sure that my revenue producing merchant offers/reviews were featured close to the top of the page (ie the “Diner Dave Daily Deals”). I relied on Justin’s recommendations to determine where to place the remaining content.
• Google ads – There are several locations in the Lifestyles template where you can place Google ads, but I decided I only wanted one area in the right column for these ads. I really want the emphasis of Diner Dave to be content over ads.
• Category and tag selection – Once again I chose the categories I selected based on my market research. The categories are based on what people are looking for on google and other search engines: restaurant coupons, restaurant gift certificates, restaurant reviews, etc… Moreover, I already had content for each of these major categories.
• Navigation menus – I selected a 2 tier navigation menu to give visitors a broad overview of the dining out tips and advice featured on the site. The primary navigation bar contains broad topics: tips and advice, web discounts, the about us page, and contests to win a free lunch (a popular concept I started with DinerDeals.com). The secondary navigation bar lists the most popular categories with my merchant offers – THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT to monetize the site.
• Pictures and graphics – Justin was a huge help when it came to selecting the perfect pictures for the featured article box on the home page! He also taught me how to find and download these pictures myself using sites like Dreamstime, iStockPhoto, and Stockxchange. Plus, he advised me on how to use tools like SnagIt and Picnik.com to capture and edit screen shots, photos, tables, etc..
• Plug-ins – I added the SEO All-in-One pack and Ninja Affiliate Links to my admin section to optimize the site for search engines and to cloak affiliate links.

After my data dump, a few dozen emails back and forth, and a couple more phone conversations, here is the result of our collaberation (drumroll please…..):

I can tell you that one of the great things about dealing with Justin is that he will patiently walk you through how to use WordPress to create and edit posts, create pages, optimize your site for search engines, create categories, and everything you need to know to become a self sufficient blogger. I HIGHLY recommend him to anyone that is looking to create a new website or transfer an existing website to WordPress!

Getting the Word Out

Now it’s time to let my DinerDeals.com subscribers know about the NEW DinerDave.com! Look for the next post that deals with how to motivate existing subscribers to join my new list.

UPDATE as of April 5, 2011: Bizzites has been sold and the new owner will no longer be supporting it. They plan to take the site down in fact.

Please visit Affiliate Datafeed Integration Software and Services for other datafeed solutions.

I’ve been working with a BizZites affiliate store builder for the last couple of days and man, I am truly impressed!

But before I tell you more about BizZites, let me say that I’ve worked with a number of different affiliate datafeed tools including Webmerge, Popshops, Datafeedr, Goldencan and Pepperjam’s Store builder — just to name a few of those that I’ve found useful on my affiliate sites.

Those datafeed tools vary from software that you install on your computer to third-party management tools and plug-n-play code snippet generators. In some cases, use of the service means giving up a portion of your commissions, e.g. the 4th-click merchants at Goldencan.

While those tools spit out merchant product feeds in an attractive format (some more customizable than others) none of those datafeed tools actually builds the site for you. You still have to have a website / blog into which to import the merchant product data.

If you dread the thought of having to set up your own blog or static website or if you’re just tired of working your way through site setups and tweaking out a theme before you can get down to the meat and potatoes business of incorporating products and reviews, that’s where…

BizZites Reduces Your Workload

BizZites is a COMPLETE website building, datafeed integrating, content management system.

When you login, you immediately see how many departments, categories, products, and articles you have running on your Bizzite site, and the number of clicks you’ve received at the top of the store builder interface. It also specifies the theme in use.

The store building process is all laid out for you step-by-step by realistic step. I say ‘realistic’ because beside each step is an estimate of the time it should take you to complete the step — although I think some of the estimates are perhaps a little over-guesstimated, i.e. it estimates 15 minutes to change / edit the default video code if your template includes video. I say 2 minutes tops once you’ve got the embed code.

Themes, Videos & Pics Built Right In

You start by selecting a theme from over 50 beautifully designed ecommerce, blog-style and landing page themes with a choice of left and right navigation, as well as 3-column sytles (one demo sample shown to the right). Next, upload your logo. Don’t have one? No problem, their design team will create one for you for a very reasonable fee.

Then you set your default store options including the store’s name, tagline, description and so on… just like you’d do with any other site. Experienced WordPress users will note the structural similarities and also appreciate that the BizZites setup is more intuitive, not to mention guided.

Many features that currently require separate plugins or hand-coding in WordPress are built right into the BizZites interface such as rotating pictures and Adsense setup.

I LOVE the little warning messages such as “Don’t Change Until you know what you are doing” that I found beside Space Delimiter in URLs in the Video Code section. Good advice!!

On the other hand, if you’re an experienced designer / developer / webmaster, BizZites permits full-scale theme modifications.

Join Networks, Add Your Products

You can apply to the Affiliate Networks directly through the BizZites interface if you’re not already a member. Along with plans to add eBay and Amazon soon, affiliate networks in the interace currently include:

1. Commission Junction
2. Performics
3. ShareASale
4. Pepperjam
5. LinkShare
6. Link Connector
7. ClickBank

Once you join, you simple plunk your ID into a form blank beside the appropriate network’s name and you can start building out your feeds.

Vendor names are listed with the number of products in the feed alongside in brackets. Click on the vendor name and it opens up a list of categories. You can choose the whole feed or just a category. Alternatively, you can search for products from all vendors or just one specific vendor by keyword using either broad or exact match.

The screenshot below shows the products in the Small Appliances > Food Processors category at Best Buy.

And if you have product feeds from other vendors not listed within the BizZites interface, you have to option to upload those feeds and work with them.

Overview of BizZites Features & Benefits

• 40+ Million Affiliate Products to Choose from
• Powerful and simple ajax enhanced admin
• 3 Membership Levels
• Proprietary Keyword Tools
• Content Creation Services
• Exclusive Back Linking Services
• Built in Pinging and RSS Feeds just like a Blog
• Custom Site Building Services
• Vertical Market Analysis Services
• Membership, Forum and 24/7 support
• And much more . . .

Is BizZites the Right Affiliate Store-Building Solution for You?

I would HIGHLY recommended BizZites to you if:

• You’re completely new to affiliate marketing, don’t yet have a website and are committed to building a full scale affiliate site that looks great and incorporated merchant datafeeds, or;
• You’re a more advanced affiliate marketer who just wants an easier way to build out a great-looking datafeed site in less time.

Visit BizZites now and take them up on their 30-day FREE Trial.

Or, watch the BizZites video.

In the Forum, shalisha42 noted:

Hi everyone. I’ve been following SAH and I put up my first real blog!!! I’m so psyched. I have one problem though… when I put my links in, they are grey instead of blue, so you really can’t tell that they are links. I use wordpress 2.7. Ros, you were right, it is much easier to build an affiliate site than to build a website. I am so proud of myself.

I am a natural writer so I get to write my own content.

Salisha – you SHOULD be proud of yourself! Congratulations!

Here’s the answer to your question about link colors.

In your WordPress theme files (i.e. Default, Lifestyle or whatever theme you are using under Appearance > Themes) you’ll find a cascading stylesheet called either style.css or styles.css.

Look for the code in the file that looks something like this:

a {
color: #275D89;
text-decoration: none;
}

a:visited {
color: #3774A7;
text-decoration: none;
}

a:hover {
color: #ff0000;
text-decoration: underline;
}

This example comes from the StudioPress Lifestyle Theme used on NetProfitsToday.com.

‘a’ is the stylesheet code for a link and to make the regular link the standard bright blue you would want to code that

a {
color: #0000ff;
}

If you are interested in getting the ‘hex codes’ for other colors besides that standard blue, you can find a really nice color chart here.

After converting my other sites to Brian Gardner’s StudioPress Lifestyle theme, I went for broke yesterday and activated the Lifestyle theme for WordPress here on NetProfitsToday.

And yes, this is partly in response to the fact that the majority of you said you did NOT like the logo I had designed for NPT at 99Designs — for a whoppin’ $375! So, although I’m still using the Libel Suit font, my mug is back on the header. Ugh. And after that major faux pas, I’m loathe to ask what you think of the header graphic change, but comment if you must.

In addition to the Featured Content Gallery on the homepage, what I’m loving most about the Lifestyle theme is the drop-down horizontal navigation bar — not, so much from the fact that it’s trippy, because those have been around forever and I could have coded that myself into the old theme (had I been more energetic) — but because it’s making it really easy to see how the older posts and categories can and should be arranged more logically, for a better visitor experience.

OK, go on, tell me what you think – and please let me know if you’re finding broken links. What with all that recategorization and renaming – there are bound to be a few!

Flexibility and ease-of-use are what struck me first about the WP Remix theme for WordPress – especially regarding the ability to choose and change page and sidebar designs directly from the WYSIWYG editor. Trust me, after doing the work to create my own category pages and related sidebars, this feature alone sets WP Remix apart from other WordPress themes.

WP Remix also offers over 50 pre-structured, strategically built page templates that covers almost every layout possibility. Moreover, you can insert and edit page templates directly from the visual editor.

There are 10 different Home Page style options from which to choose. Shown below are just 2 of the 10 options.

You can also create a Product Gallery that renders in a number of different ways…

Horizontal navigation consists of drop-down menus with fly-outs for category children. You can choose the number of fly-out (child category) levels that you want to display.

Other features / benefits of the WP Remix theme for WordPress include:

7 Different Color Schemes and more to be added.

PHP and Javascript Coding – Unlike other themes that require an additional plugin to make PHP coding work within posts and pages, you can insert and execute PHP and Java script codes from visual editor in WP Remix. (Watch the video demo accessible from the homepage to see this in action).

Add-on modules – WP Remix offers optional add-on modules that you can use to empower the WP Remix theme such as a shopping cart, portfolio and dynamic gallery.

Famous Plugins Compatible – WP Remix is pre-configured and pre-formatted for the more popular plugins such as Contact-Form, Page Navi, Gravatar, Flickrss, Post Rating, Author Highlight and more.

Support – The theme is bundled with detailed documentation that explains basic to advanced modifications. There’s also a Support Forum should you need help with one of the theme’s features.

The only possible ‘downside’ (if you can call it that) is that you may not use the footer credit link to wpremix as affiliate link if you buy a single use licence. And to remove the footer credit link, you must purchase a multi-use licence… however this requirement is pretty much standard with WordPress theme developers and merchants.

I haven’t listed all the WP Remix features here – there are too many to list – so I recommend that you visit the WP Remix site, view the demo and check out its ease of use and flexibility.

I found the Doglirious site through a link in our Forum and my first reaction was “WOW!”

SO impressed was I, that I emailed Justin (the webmaster) to find out if I could profile his site in the Super Affiliate Handbook as an example of how an affiliate site SHOULD be fleshed out.

When Justin replied with a little background about the site, I was even MORE impressed. Here’s what he had to say:

Michelle (my girlfriend) and I adopted a dog from the Atlanta Humane Society about a year ago and ever since then, had been disappointed with the dog websites that existed. We were interested in reading product reviews from a website other than Amazon.com. Also, we were looking for reliable tips & advice that was fun to read (and sounded like it came from real dog owners). Finally, we wanted a central place to find online dog-product discounts from across the Web – but we just couldn’t find a website that offered these elements in a user-friendly manner.

So, about two months ago, we began brainstorming about how to create a dog lover’s website. One month ago, I bought your eBook, and with a lot of hard work, this project quickly blossomed due to our enthusiasm for the subject.

BRAVO!

Justin and Michelle started with exactly the right motivation and enthusiasm for building a business website. They saw the demand and went with the topic based on the fact that they’re both completely ‘doglirious’.

LOVE that name – Doglirious.

The WordPress Theme

The theme Justin is using for the site is Brian Gardner’s (Studio Press) Lifetyle theme. I asked him if they had an Elancer produce the graphics for the template or whether they designed them.

Other than Brian’s theme and the WordPress plug-ins, we developed the entire site ourselves – the layout, content, and technical design. Michelle and I had a concept for how we wanted the website to look & feel. I then saw the Revolution Lifestyle theme and thought, “Yep, this is it!“

I thought pretty much the same thing when Brian released his new WordPress theme package — especially about the Lifestyle, Church and Chrome themes — so I bought the StudioPress multi-theme package right away and have it up on a few sites already including 101Date.com (Lifestyle theme) and MyEnergyPal.com (Church Theme), the latter of which is a combined venture with my friend, Ed who wanted to generate leads for his local energy assessment business.

The affiliate in me said “let’s make money!” so I started that site on Sunday afternoon and pretty much had it the way it looks now by Monday afternoon — a total of about 12 hours which included time to collect and create some content as well as research and place a few offers. Now it’s just waiting for that all-important content from Ed.

Granted, I have a ‘little bit’ of experience with WordPress and WordPress themes but I wondered how much experience Justin had when he started working with the Lifestyle theme. Here’s what Justin had to say about his own level of expertise prior to starting Doglirious…

I have been tinkering with Web design for years and also obtained a Masters degree in usability & information architecture. So with those skills and the very helpful people at the Revolution community forum I quickly grasped WordPress (which I’ve never used before). The Revolution forum admins – just like yours on NetProfitsToday – are prompt and extremely helpful with their feedback and advice.

Oh…if you are interested, I’ve attached our early drafts of the website layout to this email for your reference (see screenshot to the right). A $5 box of Crayola colored pencils was our very first business expense.

In addition to aesthetic appeal, Justin’s educational background is likely what caused him to jump at the chance to work with this beautiful theme. The section layouts lead visitors down a natural path from Featured articles / posts near the top of the page to various sections of featured categories, and lastly to the sidebar navigation.

What sets the latest StudioPress themes apart however is the Featured Content Gallery plugin which allows you to attach those large pictures at the top of the page to specific articles, and add thumbnail pictures to the category sections — all of which increases the likelihood that a visitor will click a link and go deeper into the site.

For example, according to the Google Analytics report for MyEnergyPal (which hasn’t even officially launched ’cause I still have tweaking to do), of the 40 unique visitors we’ve had so far, the landing page has a 0.00% bounce rate. Bounce rate is the average percentage of initial visitors who “bounce” to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.

Pretty phenomenal!

But better yet, the average Pages/Visit is 16.50 and average time on the site is almost 24 minutes. Granted, that could have something to do with the fact that I count as one visitor and I had the site open in a browser for many, many, MANY hours.

Needless to say, when a theme makes a site that ‘sticky’, I plan to covert each of my sites to one of the StudioPress themes as soon as possible.

Interested in a LifeStyle Change?

Join us at Rosalind Gardner’s Academy which features the use of StudioPress themes.