Long ago in the blog world, blogs were limited in their style to a simple format – a header, footer and pages upon pages of blog posts. But with the release of new versions of Wordpress there also came a new feature to customize your blog with different “skins” called Themes. These themes were custom designed to work behind the scenes of your Wordpress blog to control the display of your site with style, color and flair.

Over the years, Themes have become more robust and now offer so many new and unique features that sites built using Wordpress now have the ability to look and feel like a “real” website and site owners are staring to embrace the usability of Wordpress to control their entire online business.

With the new trend emerging to use Wordpress to create a business website, there is still a lot of confusion as to what a Theme is, how it works and what using Wordpress can offer you. Here’s a brief rundown of what Themes are and how a Wordpress site can work for you.

Your Wordpress Site vs. Your Theme

In the past, a business owner might have a blog and a static website that were separate from each other. The downside of that is two-fold. For one, your content is separated for visitors to search out on multiple sites. For two, you lose out on the SEO benefits of the ever-changing, content-rich blog posts for your main website. Combining the two makes it easy for your visitors to find what they need in one place AND boosts your SEO by having a lot of content for the search engines to crawl.

Many people have come to me worried that all the work and time they have put into their blog will be lost if they switch to a new theme that will display their site as more of a website then a blog. That is not the case, since the site content and the theme are two separate entities (for the most part). Think of it this way – Your Wordpress site is like your dinner. Your content (posts, pages, images, etc…) is the meat and potatoes of your site. Your theme is like the plate you serve it on. You can move your meat and potatoes to a different plate and you won’t loose any of the food – just change the way your dinner is displayed. In Wordpress, you can change the theme as much as you want, and your content will still remain the same – albeit displayed differently.

Some Themes require custom coding to set up the end result – like uploading images for your header, background and footer, or adding pages to your navigation. This is where a web designer would step in. Rather then building a static (standard) website from scratch, a designer can take a pre-built Theme and customize it to look and feel like a static website that showcases your businesses brand. Depending on your needs, some Themes will look perfect straight out of the box while other will need tweaking to look and feel the right way. When a designer customizes a Theme, many times you as a visitor can not even tell the site is a Wordpress site. But, then, what’s the point?

The Point of Using Wordpress.

Here’s one of the biggest reasons for the trend: usability. I can’t tell you the number of times I have had a new client come to me, exasperated because they spent XXX dollars on a beautiful, custom static site only to find out that they either could not update their site at all, could not find the original designer to help them update the site, or were charged insane fees by the designer to make updates. With the fast paced world of internet marketing, you have to be able to update your site with new, fresh content to keep your visitors coming back. Introduce Wordpress – a content management system that allows anyone with a little bit of computer knowledge (i.e. using Microsoft Word) to control their website, update pages and post new, fresh articles and resources to their own site without needed a web designer. Yay! With a little bit of practice and some training, anyone can operate a robust website with ease. (That’s not to say that some changes and edits may need the help of a web designer – but for the most part – you have control!!)

Choosing a Theme.

There are thousands of Theme options out there – in my experience, the style of a Theme is not as important as the way the Theme is built – clear, uncluttered coding makes a world of difference and a well built Theme offers more then just style. SEO is important (ok, REALLY important) and a well built Theme will keep in line with industry standards for SEO, making it easy for you to increase your traffic. Another benefit of a well-built Theme is the ease of customization – even someone with very little coding knowledge can make sense out of the custom coding and tweak things to make their website perfect for them. Take caution when choosing a theme that just looks good – you may find that in the backend, its pure chaos.

When searching for a Theme, some of the key things to look at are header/footer size & style, navigation menu style and home page style. Some Themes do not offer much in the way of customizing the header and navigation menu – some offer unlimited options. Home page style is also a big determining factor since your home page is the first thing your visitor will see. When looking at Themes check out their demo home page. Many will limit your home page to either feature blog posts or a static page (like Thesis), while others will have “modules” that display multiple sections of information, combining blog posts, static content and other media (like the StudioPress Themes).

Many other factors play a roll in Theme choice – like the type of content you will have (heavy on static content or blog posts, media heavy or graphics heavy). It’s best to decide prior to your Theme search what the most important information is on your site and what types of things you want to feature. Tell your web designer what your priorities are and they can help you find a Theme to build onto that will work best for you. Themes to me are a lot like a puzzle – the Theme developer has provided the puzzle pieces and your web designer can put those together to create the perfect end-result for your needs.

Using Wordpress Like a Website.

Using a robust Theme, you can position your Wordpress website to work like a static site while keeping the blog feature active. Many Themes have developed navigation menus that allow you to feature your static pages and allow your visitors to locate pertinent blog posts by using category listings. If you take a look at the LynnRaeDesigns.com site, you can see how the main, top navigation menu displays all the main pages of the site – like our services and FAQ’s. The submenu (the menu bar underneath the main menu) lists our categories for blog posts. You may not even realize this site operates using Wordpress – since the static content is at the forefront of the site.

Your Sidebar.

Siderbars of the past were used to help a visitor navigate through the blog, with lists upon lists of categories, recent posts and links to other blogs (i.e. blogroll). When positioning your site as a static site using Wordpress, you can take the sidebar area and use it to display important content that you don’t want your visitors to miss – like your newsletter sign up, a feature product or our most recent video. The options are endless for your sidebars (save width restrictions) and it offers a great way to get content in front of your visitor fast. You also have the option to remove the sidebar feature from your site and make every page a simple, full page of content. One of the best ways to use this feature is for sales pages and thank you pages – you can create new programs quickly by creating pages within your site that do not appear in the navigation menu, but can be accessed by typing in the full page address.

Wrapping it Up.

I’ve tried to touch on the major points in using Wordpress as your website – by far not passing along everything (there’s just too much info to include in one article!!) The key thing to remember is – the line between static websites and blogs is so blurred now, the options are really endless. You can have the best of both worlds -the usability of a blog and the professional look of a static site – and it won’t take months or thousands of dollars to create – -and the end result gets you better SEO, a cleaner, user-friendly website and control over your own site.

©2009 Victoria Potts Keale

About the Author: Victoria Potts Keale is a website and graphic designer, rock star photographer and the co-founder of Lynn Rae Designs. Victoria works primarily with female solopreneurs helping them create a consistent brand throughout their online products. Get Victoria’s Free Special Report: Twenty Quick Things You Can Do to Boost Your Online Presence at www.LynnRaeDesigns.com

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I remember seven years ago making a decision that would change my life and business forever. I decided to travel across the country to attend a marketing seminar. A few things about this were completely new to me.

1) The fact that I was going to spend over a thousand dollars of my own money to invest in myself. (And also maxing out one of my credit cards to do so – yes, things were pretty tight back then!)

2) Traveling across the country alone and paying for my own flight, hotel, ground transport, meals, etc.

3) Throwing myself into a new environment where I didn’t know anyone else.

I’m so glad I made that decision. Not only did I learn amazing information to help my online business (which was brand new at the time), but I met some folks who remain my friends to this day. And my investing in myself in that manner also sent a message to the universe that I was stepping up and “ready to play big.”

Today, I spend a minimum of $30,000.00 each year on continuing education, including home study courses, coaching, and especially… attending live events. I’d say the latter is the most important, and it pays off TENFOLD!

Here are 5 reasons attending live events is one of the BEST ways to leapfrog your business forward:

1) Complete Immersion in Your Subject.

When my friend Jen was in college, she wanted to learn French, so she took the opportunity to spend a semester in France. She shared with me that by doing that she made progress faster than she’d ever thought possible. They call that learning by immersion, and it’s proven to be one of the BEST ways to learn fast.

Hey, I’m a big fan of home study – books, CDs, and courses – and learning in “bits”. But NOTHING compares to getting away from your office or home, spending a few days with teachers and other “students”, and completely focusing on learning new strategies to improve your business.

2) People Who “Get” What You Do.

When I first started my online business, I really didn’t have anyone else to talk with about it. My friends, while supportive and sweet, didn’t “get” what I was trying to do and of course couldn’t offer advice.

I remember walking into that first seminar and within five minutes realized I had hundreds of people to talk with who “GOT” what I was doing! We could exchange ideas, share resources, coach each other, and even cross promote. It was a whole new world and I could never go back.

3) More Business, More Leads, and more High-Level Opportunities.

It wasn’t unusual — even in the beginning of my attending live events — to come home with on-the-spot sales, more subscribers to my ezine, a few joint venture partners, and speaking invitations.

Another tip I’ll give you: The quality of the people at an event often correlates with the price tag of the event. I’ve found I generally meet more successful people at the events that cost more.

Case in point: In 2003 I attended a very expensive training (the deposit alone was $5,000.00) and for the four days there I sat next to a very successful marketer from Australia whom I got to know well during that time. Well, a few weeks later, he invited me to come speak overseas in Australia, all expenses paid and including a business-class flight! (I doubt that opportunity would have manifested so soon, had it not been for my being there live.)

4) Deals on Continuing Education and Coaching.

Many of the speakers at these events also offer home study courses or some type of continuing education. So it’s a great place to check everyone out and decide whose stuff you want to get and who you want to continue learning from. Plus there are usually special offers given there to encourage buying on the spot.

This is a smart move, and you should plan to invest in at least one speaker’s package while you’re there. I recently attended a seminar in Dallas where I happily dropped $10,000.00 on three different programs while I was there, because their content had just what I was looking for to help skyrocket my sales for the coming year.

5) Visit New Places and Have FUN – in a Tax Deductible Way!

Talk with your accountant about this one, but in most cases these events and trips are completely tax deductible. After all, you’re traveling there to learn, network, and increase your business.

And for many of us who work alone a lot, these trips are a great way to let off some steam and enjoy the company of others who are in the same types of businesses we are! Tip: Even if you don’t imbibe, hang around the hotel bar. You’ll find that’s where everyone congregates and deals happen. But be sure to get OUT of the hotel at least one night to enjoy the city you’re visiting!

BONUS: Access to the “Gurus” – in Person.

One more thing I forgot to add is that the speakers at these events are usually very accessible. You’ll find them hanging out in the hallways, in the lobby, and in the bar. You can catch a few minutes of their time to ask them a quick question or discuss a point they made in their presentation. This is an extremely rare opportunity – you can’t just call these guys and gals up and get them on the phone! This type of access is priceless and will also get you more exposure and credibility.

And When All Is Said and Done…

And when it’s all over, you’ll be dead tired, but you’ll have more energy and enthusiasm toward your business than ever before. Plus you’ll have new, powerful connections with people and proven strategies ready to implement!

© 2003-2009 Alexandria Brown International Inc.

About the Author: Online entrepreneur Ali Brown publishes the award-winning ‘Highlights on Marketing & Success’ weekly ezine with 36,000+ subscribers. If you’re ready to jump-start your marketing, make more money, and have more fun in your small business, get your FREE tips now at www.AliBrown.com

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Guest post by Melanie Benson Strick.

The last few weeks I’ve been testing a new high performance technique. Having been trained in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, I’m always fascinated by how when you give your brain a new directive how it responds.

It all started on a phone call with a client of mine who was planning out a teleconference where the goal was to get 10 people on it. Now, that could be an excellent outcome, but I felt he had set the bar too low. And rather than challenging him on attendance, I decided to focus on another more powerful angle.

So I asked him this question:

“What if you HAD to generate 10 times more revenue in the next six months? Imagine that your wife is sick and the cure is going to cost $100,000 and insurance won’t cover it. You have to come up with this additional income. What would you do differently than you are doing now?”

Light bulb goes off.

His response, “Wow, I’d focus on getting 100 people in my program so that means I have to get 500 on the free call.”

Bingo. Now he was thinking bigger.

By setting a goal so outrageously high, your mind starts to attack the challenge very differently. It’s like you engage a whole new set of muscles. Kind of like when you switch from weight lifting to yoga. You are challenging yourself to be “fit” from a totally different approach.

Want to take on this challenge for yourself? Here are the steps I took my clients through these last few weeks.

Will the Business Model Deliver?

One of the biggest a-ha moments that the members of our Fast Track to 6 Figure Lifestyle Masterminds groups experience is when we have them evaluate the revenue generating models from our program against what they are doing now. Nine out of ten times the model will NEVER be able to generate that much revenue quickly.

Decide Who Do You Need to Be

Often when we make a big leap forward, we have to face who we are being – is our mindset, attitude, behaviors and habits aligned with the desired outcome? If you truly want to get a 10x increase in revenue in the next 6 months, what would you have to be willing to do differently? Trust me, if you haven’t done it yet, you have to be willing to do things different now.

Release What’s In the Way

One of the habits of a high 6 to 7 figure earner is they stop doing anything that isn’t getting the results they want. If you have programs, opportunities or projects that can’t deliver 10 times increase in revenue – why are you doing them? Thinking in this very powerful and strategic way can cause you to actually HAVE the time to get this kind of result. For instance, a while back I was working with the CEO of a service-based business on growth opportunities when we discovered she was spending about 35% of her time launching a program that would net less than 10% of her income. Needless to say, she stopped working on it.

Same goes for releasing toxic situations. Be willing to minimize your exposure to anything that is not in alignment with where you are going.

Accept Results in the Middle

The point of this exercise is to get you bigger results than you’ve been getting up to now. It’s not meant to make you crazy, to stress you out or to cause you to feel like a failure because you didn’t get to 10 times your current revenue. By falling somewhere between today’s results and the bigger opportunity, you will have a huge win!

I hope you’ll take this challenge on for yourself. I’d love to hear what you’ll be doing differently below in the blog comments.

About the Author:  Melanie Benson Strick, The Million Dollar Lifestyle Business Coach, teaches entrepreneurs how to stop feeling overwhelmed so they can create more money, more freedom and more prestige. To find out how close (or how far) you are from the ultimate lifestyle business, take the Free Ultimate Lifestyle Business Quiz.

© Copyright 2009, Melanie Benson Strick and Success Connections Inc.

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Guest post by Sophfronia Scott.

It happens all the time. An aspiring author will send me an email asking “What do you think of this self-publishing company?” or “What have you heard about that one?” I will respond if I do know the company in question, but there’s no way I can have had experience with all self-publishing companies. Of course there’s no replacing you doing your own research on the company, but what questions should you ask?

Fortunately, Mark Levine did all the research for us. He’s the author of The Fine Print of Self-Publishing, in which he presents the results of his research on the top 39 self-publishing companies. I had the opportunity to hear Mr. Levine speak at the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop last year. What follows are his tips on what makes a good self-publishing company. By the way, I highly recommend you order the latest version of Mr. Levine’s book. In this update he includes an analysis of the actual profits made by each self-publishing company in printing markups and royalties. You can order it by going to www.BestSelfPublishingCompanies.com.

A Good Reputation Among Writers

Of course, the best way to do this is by speaking to other authors who have published with the company. You can find these authors on the company’s website, but you should also do a search for the company on Amazon.com and try to contact authors who are NOT mentioned on the company website. After all, a disgruntled author would not be featured as a glowing testimonial! You can also check out the company’s reputation by consulting the Better Business Bureau and self-publishing sites such as “Preditors & Editors” at http://anotherealm.com/prededitors.

Fair Publishing Fees

Mr. Levine says the following: “Fees [for self-publishing] can range from $299 to $30,000. It’s impossible to get a custom designed cover and professional layout plus the other basics you need for less than $1,000. If you can’t afford to pay at least that, wait until you can.” I agree. Unfortunately in self-publishing, the phrase “you get what you pay for” is highly accurate. Furthermore, you should acquire samples of the company’s past work to ensure their product is up to your standards.

Low Printing Markups

Of course, you should expect some markup in what the self-publishing company pays for printing the book, but the markup should be within reason. “A 15%-20% markup is acceptable,” Mr. Levine noted in his presentation. “Inflated printing mark ups result in an artificially high retail price being set which can hurt sales.”

Generous Royalties Without Any Fuzzy Math

Royalties should be at least 30% of the retail price of the book less actual print costs. You can consult Mr. Levine’s book for sample calculations on this, but the idea is that your royalty set up should not have the publisher “double-dipping” and making money on both ends of each book you sell.

Favorable Contract Terms

Before you sign any publishing contract, Mr. Levine says, you need to make sure the contract contains: 1.) a way for you to terminate the contract within 30-90 days without any penalty, 2.) a clause that states that you own all the rights to your work and any derivatives of your work, and…

A Fair Policy Regarding the Return of Original Production Files

This means your contract contains a clause that requires the publisher, upon termination of the contract, to provide you with all original production files that contain the cover art, formatted version of your book, and any other material you paid to have created. Mr. Levine notes, “You want these files so you can publish the book on your own or with another company and not have the entire book formatted again. You can just swap out the copyright page, bar code, old publisher’s ISBN and such.” This is only right. After all, you’ve already paid for this work, it should be yours.

One Last Note

The best way for you to choose the right company is to start by knowing exactly what you want out of the publishing process. Write it all out if necessary and use it as a checklist when researching self-publishing companies. You can have all the facts and figures in the world, but no one can give you what you want if you don’t know what you want. Good luck, and good publishing!

© 2009 Sophfronia Scott

About the Author: Sophfronia Scott is Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company. Learn what a difference being a published author can make for your business. Get your FREE audio CD, “How to Succeed in Business By Becoming a Bestselling Author” and your FREE online writing and book publishing tips at www.DoneForYouWriting.com.

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Guest post by Sandra P. Martini.

A former client recently contacted me about working together again and, in asking a few questions about what she’s been up to, etc., I realized that for all the work she’s been doing (and she works a lot), she hasn’t been “done-ing” anything.

Now while “done-ing” certainly isn’t a word (yet), it does speak to the difference between working on a project so that you’re forever “doing” it and actually getting it “done”.

As small business owners and entrepreneurs dedicated to making our businesses a success, we need to be focused a lot more on the “done-ing” than the doing.

I was discussing this concept with a team member the other day and described it as the difference between “activity” and “accomplishment”:

Activity is where you’re busily doing things all day, doing, doing, doing, busy as a bee, flitting from one project to another.

Accomplishment, however, is where you’re laser-focused on a task or project either until it’s done or until you’ve spent your allotted time on it for that day (as in writing a book where it’s not your intent to finish it in one day).

You see “activity” everywhere in the corporate world: meetings, for example, are a hive of activity.

“Accomplishment” is a little more rare — those who accomplish stand head and shoulders above the crowd and, in the world of small businesses, to put it frankly, those who accomplish succeed.

Those who work a lot in their businesses and yet never seem to finish anything are destined for failure or, at best, mediocrity.

And even worse, what truly makes my heart break, are those who are trying and actually accomplishing things, but are done-ing the wrong things at the wrong time and so see no forward momentum, no increase in profits in their business.

Make It Real: My Request to You

While “done-ing” sounds as simple as “doing”, it actually takes several support mechanisms to keep it happening again and again.

Here are a few things I do to ensure more “done-ing” (and of the right things) and less continuous doing (which is essentially a version of procrastination):

1. Start off by creating a strategic marketing plan which is designed to take me to my goal (do in the timeframe which makes sense for you — for me, it’s an annual goal broken into quarterly mini-goals broken into monthly objectives broken into weekly targets broken into daily success actions).
2. Select a few items (actual number depends on size of project/task) and put them on my “Success Action List” for the day, then schedule a time to do them on my calendar — this allows for coaching calls and other appointments and ensures I don’t over schedule myself.
3. At the end of each day, prepare for the next day and review what actually got done versus what was planned to be completed — I run around 85% of plan depending on the day.
4. Each month, compare the number of “Done” items with the previous month and then compare the profit for both months — an increase in the “Dones” usually results in an increase in the profit.

And for those who think, I don’t have time to do this. . .truth is you don’t have time to NOT do it. The success of your business is at stake. What’s it worth to you?

Copyright 2009 Sandra P. Martini.

About the Author, Sandra P. Martini: If you chunk it down to its barest essence, you must take strategic action in your business in order to succeed. Many entrepreneurs keep attending events, signing up for programs and investing in products without ever seeming to get their online marketing implemented. To learn more about our Done 4 You service where we totally take all the online marketing stuff off your plate or our Done With You service where I work with you on creating a strategic plan and implementing things like teleseminars, newsletters and social networking and receive access to “5 Simple & Easy Steps to Putting Your Marketing on Autopilot”, please visit www.SandraMartini.com

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