Ugly Theme: Making Money with Wordpress

Recent News and Posts:

Wordpress SEO Blueprint is available in Beta!

I’m very excited to announce that I’ve released the Beta copy of Wordpress SEO Blueprint to Wordpress Insiders (like yourself).

This books is going to blow people away.  I’ve literally given away my play-by-play on how to make a Wordpress Blog skyrocket through the SERPS.

While the guide is in beta, the price is only $9.95.  Seriously.  You heard it.  Only $9.95.

Do all of us a favor and go check out some more info and buy this ebook ASAP.  Your wallet will thank you!

-Brad

Entourage’s 5 Rules to Becoming an In-Demand Blogger

If you’ve ever seen HBO’s Entourage, you know that there is a lot of hype and Drama (no pun intended) to make the show great. But, there is also quite a bit of wisdom in these guys’ moves.

Now that Entourage is HBO’s most popular show, and since they just got another season geared up for the fall, let’s take a look at what we can learn from the 5 Entourage dudes about how to become an In-Demand blogger.

Entourage’s 5 Rules to Becoming an In-Demand Blogger:

Rule #1: Use the phone and your pearly-whites to make connections.

You’ve got to get out from behind the keyboard sometimes to make real connections. Real connections get backlinks, mentions, and get in on the ground level of new projects. So, get some phone numbers and make some personal friends with other bloggers. If there are local bloggers, then by all means make some facetime.

And, if you can’t do that, at least put a big picture of your mug right at the top of your blog, that way people know who they are talking to.

Rule #2: Do one thing right, leave the rest to the other 6 billion people on the planet.

Everybody on Entourage has their own unique job. One’s a driver, agent, manager, actor, and a cook. You don’t see each of the guys trying to make it doing each job. If they did, they’d be moderately successful- just like the rest of us Jack-Of-All-Trades.

Make your blog stand out. Do what you are good at. Visitors are going to remember your blog about “30 Days to Moving My Technorati Ranking from 467,982 to 10,000 or I’m selling my Wetsuit” than a blog like “Internet Musings”. Get special, get direct, get a driver to get your laundry so you can focus.

Rule #3: Negotiate.

I don’t know about you, but the part of Entourage I love is seeing Ari negotiate. These guys are ballsy and… completely unrealistic.But, their over-the-top attitude can point to a truth about blogging. After you follow Rule #1 and become a person instead of a number, you can now negotiate price, time, and energy.

Negotiating means you can get more of what you want then the run-of-the-mill blogger. So, use your negotiation power to make your blogging worth while.

Rule #4: Act successful from the get-go.

You don’t see Vince driving himself around in a ‘86 Accord to save on money. Nor do you see the guys living in an apartment, even when they have NO money.

Take a clue from these guys and buy yourself a good logo, and pay someone (if you can’t do a GREAT job yourself) to design you a blog. Don’t use a theme that everybody has seen before, and don’t use one that looks like s***.

Spend $100 now and make $1,000 back this year.

Rule #5: Work- but not so much that you don’t have anything to blog about.

Life is out there waiting. The guys from Entourage know how to have a great time, and so should you. Get out there and do something interesting that you can blog about. Don’t just recycle the same garbage that everyone else is talking about. Make some stories, create memes, and think outside the web.

So that’s that. Get started tonight, and make sure to keep us updated on how it goes.

Autopost to Onlywire from Wordpress Without Spending a Dime

Hey Everybody-

To make the sales, you’ve got to focus on getting traffic.  (World’s biggest understatement, I know).

Although most of this blog is focused on making the MOST of the visitors you ALREADY have, I’m going to make a point to give you this great tip for getting more traffic.

We all know that social bookmarking is a great way to get backlinks, inmprove your site’s rankings, and get more traffic.

So how do you submit all of your posts to 16 different sites automatically when you post each and every one?  It’s easy- you sign up for an onlywire account (free) and then download this plugin.

It takes about 10 minutes to set everything up, and you’ll start getting 16 backlinks each time you post.

I’m not sure how long this will be a worthwhile endeavor… I mean how long Google will give you an edge for this type of “cheat” but it’s an edge now, so why not enjoy it?

-Brad

5 Steps to Make a Great Wordpress Sales Page

Making a great sales page can be difficult. There is so much to consider and test. And there are many rumors and fables about the “magical” sales page that will make money almost flow from the wallets of others into your home mail box.

Like most things, creating a great sales pagetakes common sense and some time.

I saw the need for a way to use Wordpress as a CMS (or content management system) more than two years ago. Wordpress just works.

The problem with Wordpress is that most blogs have soooooo much STUFF around. Stuff like linkrolls, recent posts, most popular posts, and all of this GOOK that gets users confused, disoriented, or takes their attention away from where they are headed- to the sales part of your sales letter or sales page.

So anyways, I sat down and designed the “theme” (the theme is the layout that Wordpress uses to display and synthesize your website) and I came up with exactly what you are looking at right now.

Noiw, this site isn’t going to win any beauty pageants. That’s why it’s called the Ugly Wordpress Theme. ‘Cause it’s pretty ugly, but DAMN does it sell.

For instance, this site gets a great Pageviews-Per-Visitor average number. That’s because it’s simple to read what you want, and move onto something else you want to read.

So, without further ado, what you came for….

5 Steps to Make a Great Wordpress Sales Page:

1. Make the design one column: Like this site, you’ve got to keep the users attention. Help by making your design one column.

2. Make the text easy to read: Don’t get fancy, people want to read something that their eyes are used to.

3. Cut down on fancy headers: Get to the juicy stuff and cut the crap.

4. Put action points at the bottom of the page, where they should be: People are ready to take action once there is nothing more to read- give them some choices at that point.

5. Use the Ugly Theme: I’ve done all this thinkin (and lots more) already, and am offering beta testers free versions of this for the rest of 2007, so email me at RawWebDesign at gmail dot com and ask for a free copy and see just how this theme can change your life.

Thanks- Brad

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