Internet Entrepreneurs – Who Do You Want Us to Interview and What Do You Want to Know?

We are getting ready to launch the Business Spotlight section of this site where each week we will be interviewing successful online business owners. Our vision is to interview Internet Entrepreneurs from as many different niches as possible, to give our readers a broad look at the different possibilities that are out there for them.

As we get started we are not sure what the best way to present this to you should be. Should it be all text, audio, video, or any combination of the three? Our goal eventually is to travel to the different locations where our interviewees will be and do one-on-one video interviews, but that will be down the road a bit.

Here are several questions we have come up with (in no particular order).

1. When did you get started making money online?
2. How did you make your first dollar online?
3. What was your first big success?
4. When you first started, did you have a full-time job as well? If so, at what point did you quit your full-time job to focus on your online business?
5. What do you do yourself and what do you outsource?
6. Do you have employees?
7. How much time do you spend each day online?
8. How long did it take you to consistently make money online?
9. What key factors contributed to your success?
10. What were your goals when you started your online business?
11. What key advice would you give to someone just starting out?
12. What niche do you think is still viable?
13. What do you think is the next big thing online?
14. How long do you stay with a product before you move on to the next one?
15. Who are your influences/mentors?
16. Other than yourself, who would you recommend as a great resource?
17. Who do you respect in this business?
18. What is your favorite quote and why?
19. Finish this sentence: I am the best in my field because…
20. What is your favorite book?
21. What is your one “Must Have” piece of software?
22. What is your homepage when you turn on your computer?
23. If you were just starting out today, but know what you know, what would you do to make money online?
24. Do you have a favorite blog, and if so, what is it and why?
25. What do you feel is the lifespan of an online business?

Those are just some of the questions we came up with so far. We will tailor the questions for each particular person we interview. What other questions would you like us to ask? Also, is there any particular Internet Entrepreneur that you would like us to interview? Please leave your answers in the comments section below.

Make a Plan and Hit the Road

The most successful people I know that are making money online had some type plan that they followed to get to where they are today. I never use to as I just went through life plodding along not knowing where life was going to take me.  If you don’t have a plan, now is the time to start.

Planning for your business is no different than the planning I did for my family’s trip to Disneyland. Here’s how it works.

You have to know where you’re starting from. In this case we’d start from our house, but on other trips there might be a different starting point.

For a business your starting point is your current business situation. What’s your competitive situation? Your financial situation? Your staffing situation?

You also need to know where you’re going. In business, this would be your goal. What do you want to be different at the end of your trip? How will you know that you’ve succeeded?

So you’ve got your starting point and your goal. Now you need to figure out how you’re going to make the trip.

What resources will you need?

If I’m driving to Disneyland, I might want to rent a van to carry my family and all our gear. Maybe it would be a good idea to get a GPS system to make sure we don’t get lost. There are two other resources to think about: money and time.

What’s the trip going to cost?

On a real trip you’ll be thinking about gas, food, hotels, park admission and other expenses. For a new web site you should be thinking about the cost to register a domain name, designing a website, hosting the website, marketing, etc…

How long will it take to make the trip?

On a road trip you want to think about how often you’ll stop and what speed you’re going to drive and where you should spend the night. For a business journey, you want to lay out the milestones that will measure your progress and serve as review and decision points.

Here’s another question that I like to ask when I’m planning a trip: What would be fun to do? There may be attractions along the way that we want to stop at. There may be things we want to plan to do at our destination. I like making a list of those as we think of them.

If you’re planning for your business ask the question this way: “What would we do if money and time were not an issue?” You’ll be amazed at how many of the things on your list turn out be possible.

Most books and articles on planning make it seem like a straight-line, one-time-through process. But no trip I’ve ever taken was like that. Neither was any business plan.

The planning process always goes around and around until things jell. That just seems to be the way it is.

And when you do hit the road, a flat tire or road construction can change your plan. So can the sight of a place you want to stop but hadn’t planned for.

Business is like that, too. You can’t plan to cover all the surprises, good and bad. So plan to be flexible.

Planning really is the key to success whether you’re driving to Disneyland or making money online. And, since you already know how to plan a trip, you won’t need any more of those fancy planning books.

Hey Bloggers, Scratch Our Blog and We’ll Scratch Yours

I was reading an article the other day explaining different ways to get people to leave comments on your blog and one technique that stood out to me was fairly simple (my favorite kind). He said that you should spend a little bit of time each day visiting blogs in your niche and to leave relevant helpful comments on blog posts that interest you. The more helpful you are the better chance you have of raising your profile, which hopefully will drive more traffic to your blog. That totally makes sense.

Well that got me thinking. How can we get people to leave comments on our site even faster? What can we do in exchange for them leaving a comment(s)? I know there are thousands of new blogs started each week and I am sure most of them would love to get comments. One thing I have noticed is… if you take the time and post comments on smaller blogs that don’t get a lot of activity (ones with fewer comments on them), that often the owner of that blog will checkout your blog to see what you have going. Many times he will leave a comment on your blog as gratitude for your comments. This can happen with the Big Boy blogger sites as well, but probably not as often.

So the next thing that popped in my head was a “comment exchange” program, so I did a quick search on Google and saw that there were some that already existed. We looked at a few of them and read different reviews, but we were not too impressed with any of the ones we saw. So we decided not to join any of them.

What we did decide to do is try our own non-formal comment exchange program. Here is how it works… If you leave at least one “helpful and relevant” comment on one of our blog posts (just writing “Great Post!” does not count), Mark and I will do our best to checkout your blog and return the favor with a comment as well. Sound good?

Now we are not guaranteeing anything, as we do not know who will be commenting on our site. But if you have a good blog started with some interesting content, we will definitely do our best to leave you a comment.

Now this is just a test, so we have to have a cutoff date just in case it doesn’t work or if it works too well and we get overwhelmed with comments. So let’s make the cutoff date July 15, 2009 and evaluate how it worked, and then decide if we should extend it.

Here is one more suggestion that will hopefully benefit any of you who decide to participate in our comment exchange. Why not visit the sites of the people commenting on our blog and leave a comment on their site as well? There is a chance that they are participating in this test too and they might leave you a comment back on yours as well. You have nothing to lose and you definitely will get more exposure.

UPDATE JULY 20, 2009 – We just wanted to thank everyone that has been leaving comments on our site and we have tried  to return the favor to each of you. In doing so we have found lots of great sites that we never knew exisited. Since this is working so well, we will continue to visit anyone’s site who leaves a comment on our site. We will also try and return the favor on your site and hopefully we can build lots of longterm friendships in the process.

Advertise Your Business Offline with High Quality Custom Embroidered Apparel

There are tons of ways to draw traffic to your website, but the most effective form of advertising has always been from positive word of mouth. For one thing, it is free and very effective as long as it is sincere and the product lives up to your promise. You never know if someone is being paid to advertise a product (celebrity endorsements) or if they actually use the products they are promoting. I know that when I get my hands on a cool new gadget or product that I love I tell everyone about it. I think it is great to share the wealth, and once you begin doing this, you gain an incredible amount of credibility when the product backs up your promises. The next time you promote an item, your friends or clients are sure to jump on it based on your recommendation alone.

Now it is important from a branding standpoint to get your image, logo, name, etc. out there for the world to see. You know how to get your image out there online, but don’t forget to promote your business offline as well. We searched many online apparel companies to help us promote one of our blogs by using custom embroidery on our work shirts. We compared the quality of the shirts, customization of our logo, speed of processing and shipping, ease of use of their design program, and more importantly the cost of producing a quality product. We also took into consideration their customer service, follow up, and strength of their guarantee policy. We also checked with our local merchants, and compared staying local – vs. outsourcing online. We ended up with one company that stood out above the others, and that is the Queensboro Shirt Company.

What started out with a small order of a dozen polo shirts in several different colors, we were so impressed with the quality of the shirts and the value of their competitive pricing that we have since ordered t-shirts, long sleeved shirts, many different styles of polos, and the warmest fleece pullover all featuring our logo. We are walking billboards promoting our business everywhere we go. Competition is tough and you need to do everything you can to promote your business. Having a great logo is a start, but don’t be afraid to get your image everyplace you can. Hats, shirts, briefcases, notebooks, coffee mugs, water bottles and more. The more you get your image in the public’s eye, the more likely you are to get noticed.

Imagine you are at a convention, and no one knows who you are. Unless you like those “Hello, My Name Is” stickers that you write your name in with a sharpie, you are less likely to do business with any prospective clients. Now imagine you have your custom logo professionally embroidered on a stylish polo shirt, and everyone in the room knows that you are the Head Honcho from your company. Suddenly, the room is buzzing with excitement and you are at the center of that buzz. Now I am not promising that a custom logo on a shirt will make you the center of attention, but it works for me. I can tell you first hand that it is a great icebreaker when someone walks up to me in a crowd and asks me what my company is all about. That opens the door, and a great salesman will follow through until the sale is made. If I was just wearing a dress shirt and tie, would I have made that contact? I would say not.

There are a lot of online merchants that offer low cost printing or embroidery. I would compare not only the price they offer, but the quality of their work, their testimonials or customer reviews, and how long they have been in business to see if they are a worthy company or a flash in the pan business. We have ordered frequently through Queensboro (as evident by the picture of me above) and have also referred them to our business associates as well. Some orders take a while to produce, but that is a reflection of the volume of business they do. They do offer faster turnover for an additional fee, but if you are cost conscious you would be better served to plan ahead and save a little money by waiting for them to arrive through the normal production process. They stand by their work, and even after the product has been delivered, they continue to offer specials to their valued clients. They will keep you informed of new items, discontinued item deals, and more. They are a company that is in it for the long term. Stack the odds in your favor, and contact the Queensboro Shirt Company for all of your custom embroidery and printing needs. They are simply the best.

Don’t be a Victim of Perfectionism

When it comes to making money online, there is one thing that has slowed me down more than any other thing that I can think of. Not only has it slowed me down, but it has probably cost me tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of unearned potential income over the past 11 years of my Internet business career. The “evil thing” I am referring to is PERFECTIONISM!

Here are the two biggest things that perfectionism can do to stop you from making more money online.

1) WASTE YOUR VALUABLE TIME

I am actually writing this post because I fell victim to this monster again over the last two days. What happened was I decided to create my first screen capture video to add to my last post which shows people how easy it is to create an Ultimate Footer Ad. I just purchased Camtasia last week, so there was a little bit of a learning curve, but I figured it out pretty fast.

Looking back, the very first video I created yesterday actually turned out pretty good. But the perfectionist in me would not let me use it. You may find this hard to believe, but I probably spent more than 8 hours yesterday working on that basic 3 minute “screen-capture” video and another 3 to 4 hours today. I just kept redoing it over and over again, as I wanted it PERFECT!

Then to top it off, I actually ended up using the video and audio from one of my first takes that I made. Is it perfect? Not even close, but it works fine for this site.

How much time should it have really taken me create the video? I am thinking maybe 2 or 3 hours, as there was little bit of a learning curve, but 12 hours… that was ridiculous! If I wasn’t such a perfectionist, I could have gotten 4 times as much work done yesterday.

The same thing happened when creating this blog. It should have been live weeks ago, but I just kept tweaking the layout, as I never thought is was perfect enough to go live, but I finally said, “screw it” and opened it up to the world.

2) STOPS YOU FROM EVER PULLING THE TRIGGER

What I am talking about here is being such a perfectionist that you never complete your project or open your website. I have done this many times over the years and it can be a killer. You create this awesome product or service that is extremely relevant at the time, but you never release it to the public because it is never perfect enough for you. Next thing you know time has passed and your product or service has missed its opportune window or other people have released similar products, so you just shelve the project.

Now I am not saying you shouldn’t want to put out a great product, you absolutely should. What I am saying is you shouldn’t be such a perfectionist that it stops you from actually finishing a project or opening your first website.

What you need to do is set yourself a timetable for completion and stick to it. Just get it out there and make tweaks after it is live. I guarantee you that almost every successful marketer out there is not 100% happy with their products when they first release them.

Please don’t let perfectionism keep you from following your dreams.

How to Choose a Domain Name

Are thinking about putting up your first website? Well the first thing (and one of the most important things) is getting a domain name. Not just any domain name, but a domain name that is perfect for your particular business.

A domain name is what you type-in to take you to a particular website that follows the http:// or the www in your browser address bar. The domain name for our website is “makingmoneyonline.com”. In my opinion it is perfect for this particular niche blog. As you will see it fits in all the requirements for choosing a great domain name below. The only negative thing is, it might be a little too long, but there is really no way to get around that.

One of the main things in choosing a domain name is you want register one that is memorable, as you don’t want people to have to look it up each time to find you. If they have to search through their giant list of bookmarks to find your website, it could cause you to lose a lot of repeat visitors, and it most definitely will hurt you with word-of-mouth advertising.

Below is a list of the things that I believe are important in choosing a good domain name:

Always Try and Get a .com
Domain names are available with all sorts of extensions, not just .com’s. You can register domains with; .net, org, info, .biz, etc… the list is quite large and it is much easier to find available domains in those other extensions. Some people will tell you that the extension is not that important, but I would tend to disagree. Sure there are many businesses out there that are successful using other extensions, but I am pretty sure if the dotcom version was available when they first registered their domain, they would have chosen it first. There is an exception with the extension .org, as it was created to be used for nonprofit websites, even though it is not always used in that way.

People just associate domain names with .com’s, just like they associate Google for searching the web. In the United State especially .com would be considered the Beverly Hills zip code of virtual real estate, so if you can, always try and get a domain with a .com extension.

Register a Domain that is Meaningful and Easy-to-Remember
Make sure that the domain you choose is memorable. You don’t want people to have to lookup your web address each time they want to visit your site. If you already have a business name the first thing you should check is if it is available. So if your business is named “Big Crazy Tattoos”, you should first do a search to see if “BigCrazyTattoos.com” is available. If that is taken, you might want to try something like “BigCrazyTattoosOnline.com” or something similar.

Some search engine experts say that you should register your domain with hyphens in it, for example “Big-Crazy-Tattoos.com”. They say you can get better search engine results with the hyphens. That might be true (I am not positive it is), but I don’t think the positives outweigh the negatives when it comes to hyphens. Any time you verbally tell someone the name of your site, you have to tell them to make sure that they put the hyphens between each word. Now seriously, how many times do you think someone is going to remember to do that? Plus, any time you mention the domain in audio books, commercials, teleseminars, etc… you have to tell them not to forget the hyphens. To me, it is just not worth the extra hassle.

Now, if you don’t have a business name yet, picking out a name gets much more fun, as you can name your business after your domain name if you like. I could literally write pages and pages of different ways to picking a good domain name, but I don’t have the time or space here. Probably the most important thing here is to not rush out and grab the first domain name that is available, unless it is PERFECT for your business. Play around with different keywords that relate to your business and see what you come up with. A cool website that has software for helping you come up with unique domain names is called NameBoy.com. Years ago when it first was created, I spent hours and hours searching for domains on that site. I personally would not register domains on that site, as they are a little expensive, but there is not charge to use their search functions.

Make Sure the Domain Name is Spelled Correctly
This is really important, as you can lose a ton of potential traffic if you do not spell your domain correctly. I know a couple guys who advertise on one of our other sites, and when they started their company, they went online to see if their two-word business name was available, and it wasn’t. But they REALLY liked the name, so they thought it would be cute to change the spelling of both the words, so the started their business under that name and registered the matching domain.

Now if you actually look at the two words of their business and sound them out, it sounds correct. But if they told you the name of their company, you would have NO IDEA how to spell it. I just did a search on Google for their website with the correct dictionary spelling of the words in their business and searched through the first 10 pages of results and they were nowhere to be found. I did find 2 companies with the same company name however, and they spelled their business correctly and they were both on the first page of my search. Now I am not positive, but I am sure there is a good chance that they are losing some business to their competitors just because they chose to spell their name that way. So, make sure not to get cute with your spelling.

Where Should You Register Your Domain Name?
There are lots and lots of different places to register domain names and they all have their good points and bad. We actually have our domains registered at a few different registrars and there are things that I like about each. But if I were starting out today, I would probably registrar my domains at Godaddy.com, as they are one of the least expensive places to register domains, and they offer some good free addons. But when you register a domain with them you need to make sure not to choose all the other services that they try to sell you during the registration process. All you really need is your domain registered, nothing else.

So registering a great domain name is the first thing you need to do to get your business online. In a future post I will talk about buying domains that someone already owns and some different ways to approach the owner to get a good deal.

Buy, Test, Review, Earn Your Money Back, Profit, Use Forever, Keep Making Money… Sound Good?

Over the years we have spent literally thousands and thousands of dollars purchasing products and services online. Quite a bit of it was absolutely wasted money, as we never used many of the products for one reason or another. Sometimes it was because the product sucked, and we were too lazy to ask for our money back. Other times we were lured into purchasing products that we really didn’t need because of great copywriting.

Fortunately for us and our wallets we have learned to be much better about spending, but more importantly… we have learned 2 great lessons that will not only save you a TON OF MONEY, but you will also (hopefully) end up getting your product for free, and then start making you some money.

LESSON 1: Don’t Be Afraid or Too Lazy to Ask for a Refund –

I can’t tell you how many times I have been a victim of both those mistakes. Just looking around my office and closet, I see lots of things that I purchased over the years, that I have never even taken out of the box. Also, on my computer’s backup hard-drive there are lots of ebooks and reports that are just terribly written, and taught me nothing, but I still paid for them. Fortunately, in the last couple of years I have made a conscious effort to cure myself of both those money wasting bad habits. Here are some steps that will help you cure them as well:

First thing… make sure when you purchase something, that it comes with a Money Back Guarantee. Also, READ what the requirements are to get your money back. Most of the time merchants will state that they have a “No Questions Asked” guarantee, but other will make you jump through hoops to get a refund. If you really want to buy something and they have one of those guarantees (that takes some work for you to get a refund), make sure to print out their return requirements. That way, if you end up wanting to return it… at least you will know exactly what you need to do to get your money back.

Secondly… don’t be afraid to ask! If you don’t like a product, ASK FOR YOUR MONEY BACK. Merchants offer a Money Back Guarantee for a reason, and if you are not happy, take advantage of it. Money is money, and in this economy especially, you do not want to be throwing money away at something you are not going to use. There are many unscrupulous merchants out there as well, that prey on the lazy and fearful, by offering money back guarantees on products they know are crap, because they know in general most people won’t ask for refunds. Don’t be one of those victims.

LESSON 2: If You Like the Product or Service, Let the World Know About It –

What about when you purchase a product and you LOVE it? Then you need to let the world know! Since you are going to be telling everyone you know, why not make some money at the same time? MANY (if not most) merchants nowadays offer some type of Affiliate Program for the products and services they offer. Some pay small percentages like 5 to 10%, while other pay up to 75% and even some pay 100%.

An Affiliate Program is basically a program setup to reward you (the affiliate) for referring new customers to their products or service. It makes sense that if you like a product or service, why not take advantage of the merchants affiliate program and make some money with it.

What I try to do when I have purchased something I really like is… I go straight to the merchant’s website and see if they offer an Affiliate Program, and if they do, I sign right up. It is best to do this right away, as you are still feeling that “new toy” joy you get, and you want to use that feeling when you promote it.

Next you want write an honest review of the product or service, with your affiliate link attached. I find that the longer and more detailed you can write about the product, the better conversion rates you will have. Also, if you can show that you actually use the product(s) that makes a TREMENDOUS difference in conversions as well. And for even better conversions, if you can make a video of you using the product or showing how it works, you can really turn up the sales.

Once you create the review, you can post it on your Website or Blog, you can add it to your Review Site (I love those), or you can send it to your subscriber list. Even better, add it to all of them. If you really like the product, it will show in your review and there is a GREAT chance that others will like it just as much and purchase the product through your affiliate link.

Once a couple people purchase the product through your affiliate link, it will probably have paid for your original purchase, and then all the rest of the money is profit in your pocket. Not only did the product end up not really costing you anything, you get to use it forever, and you will hopefully keep earning money from the referrals for months and years to come.

The Ultimate Footer Ad

I am guessing many of you have already seen the Ultimate Footer Ad that many websites have installed on their websites lately, and we are using on this site as well. It is the form that popped up from the bottom of our website when you first came to our site. It looks like this…

Now I am not here to tell you how great it is, as we have just started using it and I have no stats to give you on whether it works or not, but so far I think it is a very cool product. We do plan to test it out very thoroughly and I will get back to you and let you know how it works for us. Not only are we going to test it out on this site, but we are going to test it out on a couple of our more established sites and see if we can get our opt-in subscriber conversions up. I will update you in a month or so and let you know the results for each site.

As for the product itself, it is not a Wordpress plug-in, but a standalone script that (I believe) will work on any website. It does takes a little bit of technical skills to install, as you need to create a database for it, but the scripts designer has created very simple “walk-you-through-it” instructions that make it very easy to get it up and running. He also included some great video tutorials to show you different ways you can use the script to help build your business.

Another really cool thing is you can choose from 2 different ad types; it can be used as a standard “clickable” ad, or it can be set-up as an opt-in form that works with most of the major autoresponders. We use Aweber and it was SUPER EASY to setup!

It also comes with 72 pre-installed graphic templates that allow you to change the look of the ad with a push of a button. If you would like to add your own custom graphics, you can simply add them to your own template folder and upload it to your server and the script automatically recognizes it. That’s what we did for this site and it worked flawlessly.

There are several other features, but you can read all that information on their website. As for the cost, at this time it is priced at $47 and it comes with “unlimited domain usage”, which means you can use it on all your websites. I REALLY like that, as many scripts you purchase nowadays only allow you to use it on one site, and you have to pay more to put it on multiple sites.

Below is a video I created showing how  easy it is to actually create a footer ad. It is my first video, so try not to be too critical on the quality.

Again, I will get back to you in a month or so and let you know if we see some higher conversions.

How about you guys, are any of you using the Ultimate Footer Ad? I am curious to hear the results of people who have actually used the script for a while, and to know if any of the templates work better than the rest. Please let us know in the comment section below.

How to Come Up with Blog Post Ideas

There are lots and lots of ways to come up with blog posts and everyone has their own. I am going to share some of the methods and tools we use to create posts.

First let’s talk about the tools we use. I am the sort of person who can think of a great idea and 5 minutes later, totally forget what it was. We use the following tools so that doesn’t happen (as often).

1.    A simple notepad, notebook or post-it-notes. I actually use all 3 depending on where I am at. I have a big yellow notepad on my desk, plus some post-it-notes that I stick to my computer screen, when I want to remember something that I want to use right away. I also carry a small spiral notebook in my car in case I come up with something good while I am driving.

2.    A small voice recorder. A few years ago when I was at a JV Alert Seminar, I purchased a small Sony voice recorder so I would miss anything at the event. Now I try to keep it in my pocket most of the time, so I can record ideas easily when I am away from my desk.

3.    My cell phone. Even though I try and keep my voice recorder with me most of the time, inevitably when I come up with a really good idea I don’t have it on me and there is not a pen or paper to be found anywhere. Fortunately, I almost always have my cell phone with me. I just call my office phone and leave a message to myself with my ideas, or to remind me to do something.

I know this sounds very basic, but I can’t tell you how many times those tools have saved me from forgetting something important and I am sure if you tried implementing them in your daily life, it will help you tremendously.

Okay, so those are the tools you should be using so you don’t forget the ideas you come up with. Now how do you get the ideas? I see that question asked all the time, “How do bloggers come up with new blog post topics?”

I can’t speak for everyone else, but these are a few of the methods that we use:

Read, Read, Read, and Read Some More – By far the best way to come up with ideas for your particular blog is to stay on top of what is going on in your industry and related industries. Read books, trade magazines, news sites, blogs, anything you can find that is related to your niche. The more that you know and learn about your niche, the easier it is to come up with new ideas.

One thing I like to do is when reading is to take notes of things that I find interesting, and that I think other people would like to read about. Many times writers will write on very broad categories and address the sub-categories with only a few lines of text. I like to take one of the individual sub-categories and expand them to full blown posts.

Ask Your Readers What They Want You to Write About – Once your blog is established enough that people are actually leaving comments on it, it is time to start asking your readers what they want you to write about. For example, if you run a blog on Landscaping, simply create a post titled, “What do you want to know about Landscaping?” Then have your readers tell you what they want to know about in the comments section.

Search Your Comments for Ideas – A great way to come up with new topics for your blog is to read your blog’s comments and see what your readers are saying. I like to ask open-ended questions at the end of posts to encourage readers to leave comments… and as long as people are responding, it makes a great way to find new topics for future posts.

Mining Other Blog’s Comment Section – But what if your blog is new, or people are just not leaving comments? Then go and check out the comments on other blogs in your niche and see what their readers want to know. This is a great way to come up with new ideas, especially when your blog is just starting out.

Again, these are just a few ideas on ways to come up with ideas for posts. How about your blog? Where do you come up with new ideas for posts?

Ready-to-Go Making Money Online Wordpress Theme

I am a BIG FAN of Wordpress for creating websites. I love the fact that you can literally have your site up and running in less than 5 minutes and then change the entire look of the site in a matter of seconds with custom theme templates.

Now I have purchased many themes over the last couple of years and have joined several “Template Clubs” to have access to their entire collection of themes. But of all themes I have purchased in the past, there was no perfect one that I had found that really looked great and was already setup to monetize the entire site. Well I finally found one!

Carl Ocab (also known as the Kidblogger) has come out with one of the best Wordpress themes I have seen so far. Not only is the look very clean and professional, but it also comes with 6 different color layouts that you can change with one click of your mouse. He did an outstanding job with his ad placements throughout the site as well. You can tell he took a lot of time and consideration figuring out where the best places would be to get the most ad visibility and click throughs.

I am also a huge fan of the 3 box widgets at the top of the site and the subscription boxes he designed. They look great and it is easy for visitors to sign-up for your newsletter and/or RSS feed. He set the entire theme up so it is extremely easy to customize as well.

As for the pricing, it is pretty reasonable. You can purchase the theme for $67 for a single-use license, meaning you can only use it on 1 blog. That’s a “Just OK” price in my opinion. But you can purchase an unlimited-use license for only $97 which allows you to put it on an unlimited amount of blogs that you own. Now that’s a much better deal. That is the option we chose, as we plan on using the theme on several blogs we have in the works.

As for this site, I had the basic layout done before we purchased Carl’s theme, otherwise I probably would have used that one right out of the box. So, what I did was I kept the same theme I had already purchased from Revolution Two and took some of my favorite sections of the Ultimate Blogging Theme and combined them to create Making Money Online Dot Com. I also added a few of my favorite plugins, and that was basically it.

Another cool thing that Carl gives you with the purchase of his theme is a complete video tutorial on how to set your entire blog up. It makes setting up a site super simple. I wish everything came with video tutorials, as it would make like much easier.

If any of you out there have purchased the Ultimate Blogging Theme already and are using it for your blog… please submit your site’s URL in the comments box below so we can take a peek at it, and hopefully send you some additional traffic.

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