This is a post that shows the basic concept of making money online. Offer value and deliver the value. There are many ways of delivering your information, but this method is the best one out there.

Start. The Pressure Will Deliver

Sometimes, all  you need is a kick in the ass to get going. Sometimes you can deliver such kick by just adding a little bit of pressure to your work. Set yourself to deliver something and put yourself on the line. Sometimes the pressure will help you stop procrastinating.

The internet marketing basic sales flowchart

I created this flowchart to help me manage my tasks and my work. As you produce emails, funnels, landing pages and websites, sometimes you get caught up on all the work. Sometimes you forget why you might have created something. This helps me stay on track and keep tabs on the steps I need to complete in order to finish an offer, campaign or product.

It’s official, my new theme is Customizr

I switched themes in August. It's not the best, but it's much better than what I had before. I was using Woothemes' Canvas. But Canvas is a developer's theme, it requires a lot of design and customization that I didn't really want to have to deal with for my own blog. I found Customizr and it's been good so far.

Setting Goals

Setting goals sounds like cliche sometimes, but if you don't do it, then it's really difficult to know when you have accomplished what you set out to do. And it also helps you know when you need to adjust and fix your approach. This blogpost is all about setting goals. I also share with you some of my specific goals.

How to disable or customize the new Gmail tabs

Gmail made some drastic changes to their user interface. They added tabs to try to help you sort email for you. Some people like it, some people hate it. Regardless of how you feel about it, this post shows you how to customize it.

Super Excited, my Free Website Service just launched!

I moved the free website offer from my personal blog to its own space. I launched Real Free Website and this post is to tell you more about it. It also announced the grand opening sale which included three great bonus items when someone got the free website service done.

Excuses people make to not have a website

People tell me all kinds of reasons why they don't need a website. Really, they're just afraid or insecure. But I keep hearing the same excuses over and over so I decided to compile them into a list.

The Real Free Website Grand Opening. A success!

Follow up to the launch of the Real Free Website, I shared some of the success that I achieved. I am still very excited and things are going great with the new venture.

Introducing you to our garden

While I was traveling, I had some downtime so I decided to write about one of my hobbies. Gardening. This time I've been growing some edibles and this shows you a few pictures and explains more. I think I'll do more of these posts to show you the progress and the stuff I'm doing.

20 Reasons to have a website

Follow up to the excuses people make to not have a website, I compiled a list of 20 reasons why you must have a website. These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to good reasons so I should have another list soon. If you want to contribute your own and get credit on the next post, be sure to leave it as a comment on that post.

iPhone trade-in program is an attempt at gaining shares back from Android.

Apple has a program that allows you to trade in your phone for some cash or credit towards a new iPhone. I remove the veil to really show what the trade-in program is all about.

How to Change and Activate a Theme for your Free Website

WordPress is great, one of the biggest strengths of this Open Source gem is the theme system. You can install themes, change them, and customize them. This short tutorial shows you how activate and change themes.

How to setup permalinks

The permalinks on WordPress are easy to setup, but just in case you need assistance, this shows you how to do it. Permalinks is the name of the url system you can use on your wordpress website to avoid using the post id as part of your URL. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you may want to check it out

How to invite people back to your website

A blogpost that covers some of the ways to invite people back into your website. These are all good, but one of them is better than the rest.

Floating Social Bar Plugin for WordPress

This is a review of a new plugin that finally gets the social media sharing right. It works, it's fast and easy to customize. I wrote a review about it and recommend you take a look and try it if you need this sort of thing. It is probably the best one out there.

Are you in an abusive relationship with your web designer?

This was one of my most popular articles so far on Real Free Website. Many people are stuck with their web designer or their web company. The problem is that the web design company, or webmaster takes advantage of your lack of knowledge. This is what you can do about it.

Keep your website lean and agile with smaller images

One of the easiest ways to make your website slow down to a crawl is to load it with big images. Most of the time your images and photos can be optimized so your website stays fast and loads quickly for all your visitors. I cover this on this quick article.

How to update your WordPress website

Updating your WordPress site is quite easy, but just in case you don't know how or you are not used to doing it yourself I made this quick tutorial. Remember you should always keep your WordPress website updated to prevent hackers and bots from taking advantage of any security holes left by out of date software.

Our Back to School special offer is in full effect

To promote September, and back-to-school, I launched a special for Real Free Website. This is a limited time special and if you or anyone you know could use a new web host then you should check this post out.

Skroll – Responsive HTML5 One page WordPress template

This was a really cool find. A free responsive HTML5 one page template theme for WordPress. I believe it is a limited time offer and if you check it out, you may still be able to download it for free. So far, the theme looks really cool.

Evergreen Post Tweeter – Twitter WordPress Plugin

I took a look at this newer plugin for WordPress. It's a replacement for Tweet old post, but I like it much better. It has a nice scheduling system and seems a little less buggy. Check it out if you want to promote your past blogposts on twitter.

Widget Visibility now available in Jetpack

This is the last review for the month of August. The WordPress folks released the Widget Visibility plugin which integrates really nicely into Jetpack. Widget Visibility replaces about a half dozen plugins and methods of customizing the widgets on your sidebars.

The post August Blogging Recap appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Real Free Website was born out of the desire and need to help other people be found online. If you've been following me for a while, then you know that I actually started setting up free websites for people from my Notagrouch.com blog.

Many people read my blog and I often get questions on how to setup a blog or website. Most people don't need anything fancy. But they need to be online. Whether you are a business owner, a musician, a hobbyist, an athlete or even a student, you need to have a presence online.

I was spending a lot of time answering questions. Educating people about how the internet works, how websites work, what they should do next, where they should go for help. How to market themselves using a website. All in the hopes of getting new business to design another custom built website. But there was a disconnect. Most people that are looking for free advice, direction and the like, can't afford a professional web designer. Or they think they can't afford a professional web designer, but that's fodder for another blogpost.

Normally I build custom designed websites starting at about $3000.00 USD and going up to $25,000. That's a lot for most people. And so their next option is to hire someone cheap from Craigslist for like $450 or have a family member, friend, neighbor, or someone else "do their site." Their other option is to roll up their sleeves and do it themselves.

I usually think that the best option is to pay a professional to fully take care of your website. From design, to implementation, to support and maintenance and this comes out to a pretty penny. Believe me, even at $3000 or $5000, I'm very inexpensive compared to other "design agencies" out there. Many  design agencies outsource their work to me. So I know what it costs to build a site and I know how to do it right.

I still wanted to help people so I decided to streamline my process and give them a new option, I just couldn't keep spending hours and hours giving away my knowledge and time for free. So the option became this: Get a free quality website setup as I would set it up for my clients, for free. The same security settings, same best-practices, same plugins, and same quality.  Then give them the tools to design something great upon that foundation.

This gives people the tools and know-how needed to make their website stand out.  So I did this. I got really good at setting up sites quickly and with minimal expense for me. Then I found a hosting company that took pride in their support and provided very reasonable prices. I moved a few of my sites over to them to test them out, they passed all my tests. Then I found their affiliate program and joined it.

A match made in heaven. Combine my expertise at setting up websites with the web hosting services by Inmotion Hosting and Real Free Website was born. I took the same offering I had on my personal blog but I made it available to the public by branding it on its own.

So I decided to launch the service recently and I had a special offer at launch. Sign up to get a free website setup and you'd get three amazing bonus items. Free coaching or training from me, Free Email autoresponder setup and Free SEO evaluation and setup.

The grand opening went really well. It passed all my expectations, and it makes sense. I've never seen an offer like that or anything like that and that is what most of the people that made the choice to get a free website told me too.

So the next steps to continue to grow that business is to produce new training videos, more blogposts and I will also be publicizing specials on a regular basis so that the value continues to be unsurpassed.

Thank you for everyone that supported my venture online!

The post The Real Free Website Grand Opening. A success! appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

And today I also launched Real Free Website. It's official and ready to go, in fact I'm so excited to tell you about it. I'm offering three unprecedented bonuses for anybody that signs up for it. But hurry, the bonuses are only good for 72 hours or so.

Check it out at Real Free Website.

The bonuses are amazing if you ask me. You get this on top of the already awesome free website:

1. 3 30 minute sessions of coaching or consulting with me, one on one via Skype.
2. You also get your email list setup and configured for your website
3. And the 3rd bonus is free SEO configuration and advice for your new site.

The coaching is approximately $225 at my current consulting rate. The Email list setup starts at $150 and the SEO configuration normally costs $250. This is a pretty amazing deal, unheard of in fact.

So yeah, I've been talking about my business, automation, creating systems and all that. So this is my very first one and I hope you like it. More importantly I hope you take advantage of it and if you can't use it or don't need it, tell a friend that needs it. Be their hero!

The post Super Excited, my Free Website Service just launched! appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

But menus are special because they can be organized very differently based on the website owner's vision or the needs of the company or product. Thankfully, WordPress makes it very easy to customize the menus on the themes. At least the order and naming of each menu tab, or menu item. Things like colors or font or other design-type of cusomizations may or may not be available on your particular theme. You could always customize a lot of those elements using CSS, but we're not going into CSS today.

So the menus on WordPress can be arranged in whatever order you want, simply by clicking and dragging. If you want a menu that has other sub-menus that appear only when you move your mouse over them, then you just click and drag that menu so it is indented in the menu structure. If you want to change the "About us" Page, to "Learn About Us" or simply "About" you just click on the name and edit it. It's that simple.

Go ahead and give it a try, or watch this video and see how it's done.

The post How to Customize the Menus on your WordPress website appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

For this month, if you check out my free website deal and take advantage of it, I'll build your website or blog, or transfer an existing one, for FREE and I'll transfer your site like last month too.

[box]If you didn't know about this, just check out free website the deal here. But on with the post to tell you about the special.[/box]

So just like the deal says, if you buy hosting plan I recommend, I will install and setup your website, then you design it. But for May's special, I'll throw in the content transfer from your website to a wordpress website. So if you have a static website with about 20 pages or less, I will convert it to WordPress for free in adition to installing just like the deal says. This is only for May.

Seriously, this is a good deal

Yes, you read that right, I will convert your existing website from any platform into WordPress. Keep in mind, you still have to find a theme that you like. But I will take care of moving the content from each page over to the new website. With the free website I offer, you save time and headaches. Most of the work is done for you. You won't don't have to worry about all the technical stuff like DNS, and hosting, databases and FTP or even Permalinks. I setup all the aspects of WordPRess for you. Backups, best security practices, essential plugins, and more.

The special for May is unheard of. I will save you even more time and trouble because I'll copy your content over. I'll even include a contact form and one additional data collection form if you need it or have one already.

Once the blog or website is up and ready, you'll be able to use any theme you want to use and customize it further just the way you'd like. Just like the original free offer.

The benefits of the free website & May's special

Remember the amount of themes available for WordPress is in the thousands, and I give you over 20 of the top free themes and access to my private collection of premium themes for you to pick one. I can also recommend a few paid themes that I really like. Ultimately you can do whatever you wan to your website and make it look any way you want, but I will have taken care of the most technical part of the whole thing. Moving your content and setting up WordPress for you. And did you see that all this service is free?

Here are some of the sites I've built for free recently:

• SmilingThroughTearz - http://smilingthroughtearz.com/
• Seal Beach Tutoring Academy - http://sealbeachgetsmartacademy.com/
• Surf City Family - http://surfcityfamily.com/

These are being transferred now and we're either waiting for the design to be finalized or we're waiting for a specific date to release the new site to the public:

• Estilofamiliar.com (This is a transfer and Mayra from Eslito Familiar is having her theme designed so it is still in transition)
• Health Care Today - http://healthcaretoday.info/ this hasn't been designed, but it's ready and the owner is working on the design.
• Urdigitalmedia - http://urdigitalmedia.com/ - Also in transition. I'll update you guys when we're finished.

I'm also helping a few other people in their transition, and they're still deciding what theme to use, but they took advantage of April's offer. Smart folks.

So that's what's unique about my service. If your site is already live somewhere but you want to transfer it, I'll take care of everything related to the transfer so you don't disrupt your visitors. When you are satisfied with your design after I install the website and transfer your content, I'll "flip the switch on to your new website" so your visitors never have to see a  "maintenance" or "under construction" notice.

If this sounds like a good deal, go ahead and follow the five easy steps. If you can't or don't want to use this, perhaps you know someone else I can help? I'd hate for someone to see this post in June and wish they had seen it earlier. It's a great opportunity, I don't think anyone else out there can offer you something like this so if you like this deal even if you can't use it, please share it!

The post Free Transfer – Blog & Website Special for May – Amazing appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

You can do anything.

Not like zombo com, but really. Once you have a website, you can share anything you want regardless of what the social network says you can or cannot do. It is the ultimate freedom of speech tool. Often times, Facebook or Twitter and other networks censor your content or downplay it in favor of something else. On your website, you are the master of your domain, literally. If you want to talk about puppies, rainbows and unicorns you can. Normally nice little topics like this aren't in danger of getting scruitinized or deleted by the networks, but if you want to write controversial essays, or even promote  product or sell something, chances are you can't do it on a hosted network or website.

You have control and ownership.

If you are a creative type or simply would like to maintain control over what you write, the photos you create, videos you produce or any creative endeavor, but you still want to share these with the world, a website you own is the best channel. Nobody else can claim ownership to your content or pictures like FB and Instagram have done in the past.

It isn't that difficult.

Lucy recently went off on an ad she saw about 9 year olds doing wordpress websites, and while maintaining your website or blog isn't as easy as chewing bubble gum, it isn't difficult either. It is very similar to using a text editor like microsoft word. But your friends and family will be impressed when you show them the latest viral video, or showcase your photography or videos.

You owe it to Gutenberg.

A long time ago, Johannes Gutenberg came up with the printing press and changed the world. With the printing press, we could preserve our history, tell stories, teach and generally disseminate information better, faster and more effectively than ever before. A blog and a website are the new printing press, but better. You can just type away what you want to say and hit publish, then your content and ideas are available for millions of people to read. Instantly. No editors, no gate-keepers, no expensive prints and re-prints. Just hit publish.

Find a community, or build a community.

It is the best way to meet other like-minded individuals. When you start a blog, you tend to write about a central topic, or a group of topics, as you write and share more information about the topic, you'll meet other people that have similar interests. This is a phenomenon that doesn't happen in the physical world. If you are into carpentry for example, you could go out to your garage, open the door and start building stuff... You could do this for a year or two and never ever meet another carpenter that shares the passion for woodworking like you do, because you are limited by your geography. But put your work on your website, share your build plans and showcase your finished products and you'll attract carpenters and woodworking aficionados from all over the world.

You have something to share.

Your ideas matter. Many people say that ideas are a dime a dozen, and as our population grows, people throw around the notion that there are no new ideas. That may be true, but your perspective on a concept could inspire a breakthrough. I often get this response: "Who would want to read what I have to say?" and after I'm done rolling my eyes I explain...

You may be looking at things from  your own angle and by sharing this perspective, you are adding to a global conversation that wouldn't happen anywhere else but online and can't catch fire without that perspective being on your website first. Plus there's that thing about finding and building the community I just covered.

Earn a living.

With a website or a blog, you have the opportunity to make money. Yes, you can start a real business just with a website. You can turn your expertise into a valuable service or product that people can buy directly from you, no middle man. You could write educational or how-to books, you could develop a product that saves people time or solves a problem and then sell this online. Having a business from your website, is the best way to work from home while giving you a chance to spend more time with kids and away from the tedious 9

But it doesn't stop there, if you can't come up with a product or service that you would like to build from scratch, you can always re-sell other people's products and services. This works much like a retail store that sells many different brands, or a franchise that borrows an already established brand and sells a product that people like and recognize.

Find a new job.

You can use a website as your living, interactive resume. A traditional resume is boring and one-dimensional. When you put your skills abilities and desires into a well structured website, you give a potential employer a great insight into you. Show a video of your work, write an essay of how you acomplished all that great stuff at your last position. Include testimonials and references from people.

Let people find you!

When you need something, you often have to go out and find it. Like if you need money you need to go out and work for it. If you need a job, you need to find it and apply for it. But with a website you can attract money and people that you need in your life. When you have a website, particularly a wordpress website, your chances of being found via the search engines increases tremendously. Let the internet, your website and search engines bring what you need to your doorstep instead of you having to go chase it.

Learn a skill for the future.

I know that sounds cliche and more like it belongs in a mid-day tv commercial for a technical vocational school, but really, let me explain. Running a blog helps you develop valuable skills. Marketing, writing, and media distribution, search engine optimization, photo editing, video publishing, and the list goes on. Not to mention that you'll learn one more piece of software to add to your resume or personal abilities list. If you want to make money, or get a better job, sometimes knowing how to work WordPress can make the difference between you and the next person. People charge $35 - $750 USD to write blogposts, and anywhere from $50 to $500 per month or more to maintain a blog.

The post Get a Website, 10 Reasons Nobody Told You Before #31DBBB appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

There are many places online that will provide you with a free website, but let's get something clear. Not all free websites are the same, and to be honest, there aren't any truly Free websites out there. They all have a catch or simple requirement you must fulfill before you can get the free website. By the way, I tell you right now my offer is the best one out there, just in case you were wondering. But it isn't free either, after all, nothing is really free. Except maybe Free Lunch Friday.

Some free services offer you a free website in exchange for your information. You give them your name, email, address, all that stuff, and they let you have a free website. They might use that information to send you promotional items or promotions that may or may not be interesting to you.

Other systems give you a free website, but you have to pay for upgrades or to have your name in the domain name instead of their name. Of course, a website with your own domain name is highly recommended because it shows more commitment from you towards having a presence online. These examples are also known as hosted solutions because they are "hosted" by someone else. like WordPress.com Blogger, Typepad.

In my case, I build you a free website because if you buy from the recommended hosting service, then they pay me a small commission. The commission allows me to then give you the best WordPress installation you'll find anywhere.  Really. But So What? 

What can you actually do with a free website like the one that you can get from me?

Here are some examples of ideas you can do and after that there are some links to some live examples of free websites built with my free website service.

1. Start a store online. Sell your stuff, products or digital downloads.
2. Start a Blog. Have something to share with the world, start a blog and share it already!
3. Create a photo blog. With the right plugins, you can start your very own photoblog. And yes, you can sell your photos online too!
4. Start a Social Network. You could start your very own social network to support a specific cause or movement that you want to share online.
5. Put your brick and mortar business online. Give it online prescence and let it be found when people need you.
6. Create a video channel. take a look at my Notagrouch TV. You can see all the latest youtube episodes from my channel.
7. Have your own SEO Control Panel. Instead of WordPress I can install a SEO Dashboard for you to manage your keywords and websites. Great for SEO agencies.
8. Start a Baby Blog. Check out Claire Elise's Baby Blog, this is how all the relatives and friends stay in touch with Claire's life.
9. Build a community Blog. Keep your members abreast of the changes happening in your organization with a blog and allow other members to contribute as well.
10. Create a curation center. See 30DBC.com, part of the 30 day challenge aggregation for #30DBC
11. Advertise your band's concert tour dates and locations.
12. Build your resume online. What a better way to find your next dream job than by making your own online resume!
13. Imagine your own use for a website, especially if it's free!

Examples of sites started with my free website service:

Some of these have had custom logos, or customization to the themes to make them stand out even more.

• Ptosis Resources - Comprehensive resource center and blog for the Ptosis condition.
• Suburban Mamas - Mommy Blogger sharing suburban adventures.
• Social Hospitality - Social Hospitality high-tech blog.
• Forever Flowers Now - Artificial flowers blog and online retail front.
• Smilin Through Tearz - A heart-felt blog journey by Seth.
• Cradle to Career: Kenya - Non-profit organization bringing education to Kenyan Children.
• 30DBC.com - An aggregator for participants of the #30DBC.

Ultimately, the free website is a platform for you to grow and do whatever you want. If you use a premium theme, or a really cool theme that you find on WordPress.org, or even one of the themes I install for you then it's all up to you. What kind of stories are you going to tell, or how are you going to interact with other websites and communities. The huge world of plugins and themes available really help you get almost anything started and it saves you time and money. The sky is really the limit when it comes to the options you have when you have a website.

If you'd like to check out the offer, visit the page with all the information about my free website offer.

The post What Can I do with a your Free Website? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.