Using Free Blog Themes To Spice Up Your Blog Design
May 3rd, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
It used to be that if you wanted a professional looking site you had to pay big bucks to get a designer to do it. These days all you need to do is a quick Wordpress installation and you’re well on your way to a site that looks like it took thousands of dollars to design. Finding free themes is the fastest way to give your blog the makeover it deserves.
http://www.moneyblogsecrets.com
You might be wondering why people would give away themes for free in the first place. The main reason is because they often include a link to their website in the footer of the theme. This is great for them because they get tons of relevant links to their site from people who install their blogging theme. You can benefit from this because the link is hardly noticeable, and you get the the design for free!
There are many different free blog themes out there so it can be hard to decide which one to go with. The first thing you should do is a search in Google for “your niche WP theme”. If there is a theme out there that is a match you’ll likely run across it that way.
If you’re very stuck and just can’t find a good theme you can search through the database they have at Wordpress.org. That site allows you to sort by color, style, and many other criteria as well.
Hopefully you will have found a great theme that you can put to use right away. If you can’t seem to find that one perfect one — don’t get too hung up! It’s very easy to change the theme down the road. All you need to do is upload the theme folder that you download from the Internet to the wp-content area under themes. Then, you’ll activate the theme in your wp-admin area, and you’re done designing!
While you can certainly choose any theme you prefer, there are some things you should keep in mind when choosing your theme. The first is to make sure your background is white. There are successful sites out there that have a dark background, but studies have shown that people can read darker colors on top of white better than they can the other way around. Always keep your reader at the top of your mind.
You also need to carefully consider how many sidebars you’re going to choose. This is very important as some sidebars will allow for better ad positioning than others. Test different ones and see what you like!
If you can’t find anything you like, browse through other blogs. You’re bound to see something that interests you. When you choose one you can scroll to the very bottom to see which theme they are using. The free themes usually have the name present. You can follow the link through to download it yourself and you’re done!
Using free blog themes is a great, instant, way to make sure your blog has a professional design your visitors will love. Get inspired today!
Technorati Tags: blogging, telecommuting, work at home information, work at home jobs, work from home
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The Best Blogging Platform For Your Site
April 10th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Choosing the right blogging platform is a very important first step. You can liken it to needing to find the perfect car. Sure, they will all get you from point A to point B, but some do it better than others. There are some that are faster, more effective, and more reliable.
The first kinds of blogging platforms are the free versions of popular software. Blogger.com is the one that is owned by Google and it’s very easy to use and completely free. The only issue is that you don’t really own your blog as it is hosted by Blogger. While the software is great, you’re pretty much out of luck if they decide to pull the plug on you.
The other major, free blogging software is Wordpress.com (not to be confused with Wordpress.org, which is self-hosted). This is also very easy to use, and it is hosted by Wordpress. Be extremely careful if you’re going to do a lot of affiliate marketing on your blog. Wordpress.com has been known to shut sites down without warning!
As you can probably tell, it is generally a better idea to self-host your blog so you have total control over it. As you start getting good traffic you’ll definitely want to ensure that there is nothing anyone can do to take your blog away. Setting up a free hosted blog is like putting all your eggs in one basket, and that’s never a smart idea. Of course that doesn’t mean you can’t set one up that is secondary and meant to help you get backlinks.
Technorati Tags: blog software reviews, blogging, blogging software
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Easter
March 29th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
With the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring, consumers will start buying for the new season, including a new wardrobe, new outdoor furniture, and gardening supplies. One holiday that marks the beginning of spring is Easter.
Easter falls on April 12th in 2009, which is nearly a month later than when it fell in 2008. This means consumers will have more time to shop, and we encourage you to take advantage of this increased demand. In addition, spring signals the start of outdoor activities, such as gardening and picnics. Lawn and garden Advertisers and Publishers should focus on pushing out these types of offers to entice consumers to buy!
Total sales during the 2008 Easter Season:
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The Quiet Revolution: Telecommuting
February 20th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
By 2010, 14 million workers will not be driving into the office
Victor Cousins has a pretty good gig working for the human resources department at Sun Microsystems, but he doesn’t have an office, just a locker.
Don’t feel sorry for him. He’s not one of those types who measure his career success by the size of his office. In fact, he’s proud to be office-less, and he’s the quintessential telecommuter. He works anywhere he wants – his home in Oakland, the local coffee shop, and at any Sun location throughout the country. When his mother had knee surgery in May he was able to spend time with her, working out of a Sun office in St. Louis.
Welcome to the workplace of the future. Cousins is an example of the mobile worker that will become much more pervasive in the next 10 years.
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15 Cool Tools and Tasty Tags
February 11th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
(Guaranteed to Come in Handy Sooner or Later.)
YuuGuu.com is a screen sharing service that allows
anyone anywhere to view your screen and share
control of your computer, using a web only app.
Glance.net is another desktop sharing utility, for
web demos, presentations and webinars.
GetHuman.com is a listing of over 500 companies
with instructions on how to bypass their automation
systems (phone hell) and get to a human operator
using their customer service numbers.
SocialMarker.com is a social bookmarking tool for
Wordpress and regular web pages, that allows you to
submit more easily to several popular bookmarking
services, by pre-populating the submission form with
selected information.
SocialPoster.com is a multi bookmark posting
service that allows one-click submissions to social
bookmarking services and community websites.
OnlyWire.com is a popular multi posting service for
social bookmarking sites. Social news sites are -
wisely - not included in the automated submissions.
Twitter.com which most people have heard about, is
a useful micro blogging utility, which is handy if you
need to “talk at” a number of people, with the same
message, all at the same time.
PleasantSoftware.com has Ubercaster, which looks
like a viable alternative to Apple’s Garageband for
assembling podcasts.
Click2Sell.eu is an alternative to Clickbank and
Paydotcom, offering services for both advertisers
and publishers.
FindNot.com is a proxy service for anonymous surfing
and private IP addresses. Handy if you do a lot of
social posting using pen names.
SpyFU.com is a market research tool for PPC,(Guaranteed to Come in Handy Sooner or Later.)
YuuGuu.com is a screen sharing service that allows
anyone anywhere to view your screen and share
control of your computer, using a web only app.
Glance.net is another desktop sharing utility, for
web demos, presentations and webinars.
GetHuman.com is a listing of over 500 companies
with instructions on how to bypass their automation
systems (phone hell) and get to a human operator
using their customer service numbers.
SocialMarker.com is a social bookmarking tool for
Wordpress and regular web pages, that allows you to
submit more easily to several popular bookmarking
services, by pre-populating the submission form with
selected information.
SocialPoster.com is a multi bookmark posting
service that allows one-click submissions to social
bookmarking services and community websites.
OnlyWire.com is a popular multi posting service for
social bookmarking sites. Social news sites are -
wisely - not included in the automated submissions.
Twitter.com which most people have heard about, is
a useful micro blogging utility, which is handy if you
need to “talk at” a number of people, with the same
message, all at the same time.
PleasantSoftware.com has Ubercaster, which looks
like a viable alternative to Apple’s Garageband for
assembling podcasts.
Click2Sell.eu is an alternative to Clickbank and
Paydotcom, offering services for both advertisers
and publishers.
FindNot.com is a proxy service for anonymous surfing
and private IP addresses. Handy if you do a lot of
social posting using pen names.
SpyFU.com is a market research tool for PPC. SpyFU.com
shows how much your competitors are spending per
day, the number of clicks they get, position of
their ads, and average cost per click.
Libsyn.com offers unlimited bandwidth for your
multimedia files. You only pay a small fee for
storage, and can show your movies as often as
they get clicked, without worrying about gigabytes
transfered or bandwidth considerations.
Apple.com/itunes/tutorials/#podcasts shows how to
subscribe to podcasts, get them organized, and sync
them with your iPod using iTunes.
TubeTape.com offers affordable green screens for
chroma key video effects, plus backdrops, stands
and editing software.
YouTube.com/video_toolbox is YouTube’s very
own video school, which will help your videos tell
a compelling story and look their best online.
Apple.com/quicktime/pro/ is a audio video recorder
and converter for Mac and Windows. After producing
your media file, import it into QuickTime Pro and
choose “export to ipod.” The result is a perfectly
compressed video that will play on all video iPods,
iPhones, iTunes, Apple TVs and ALL MPEG-4 compatible
media players.
shows how much your competitors are spending per
day, the number of clicks they get, position of
their ads, and average cost per click.
Libsyn.com offers unlimited bandwidth for your
multimedia files. You only pay a small fee for
storage, and can show your movies as often as
they get clicked, without worrying about gigabytes
transfered or bandwidth considerations.
Apple.com/itunes/tutorials/#podcasts shows how to
subscribe to podcasts, get them organized, and sync
them with your iPod using iTunes.
TubeTape.com offers affordable green screens for
chroma key video effects, plus backdrops, stands
and editing software.
YouTube.com/video_toolbox is YouTube’s very
own video school, which will help your videos tell
a compelling story and look their best online.
Apple.com/quicktime/pro/ is a audio video recorder
and converter for Mac and Windows. After producing
your media file, import it into QuickTime Pro and
choose “export to ipod.” The result is a perfectly
compressed video that will play on all video iPods,
iPhones, iTunes, Apple TVs and ALL MPEG-4 compatible
media players.
Technorati Tags: free work at home jobs, legitimate work at home jobs, work at home, work at home jobs, work at home moms, work at home opportunities, work at home scams
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Telecommuting
January 7th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Tips to Find Your Perfect Balance Between Work & Family
As a telecommuter of over 12 years, I am frequently asked for advice and help on working from home. It’s a time consuming, but by no means impossible, task.
Patience, tenacity, commitment and some “inside” advice from this author will help you in your search for “the perfect balance between work and family”. With four children ages 6-12, I can vouch that I would never work at outside employment again. My schedule allows me the freedom and flexibility to drive my kids back and forth to school, volunteer in their classrooms, attend daytime functions and generally “be there” for them. Relinquishing my company-paid health insurance and 401K seemed a small price to pay in exchange for the rewards reaped.
Since the onset of working from home in 1987, I have worked both as an offsite employee and most recently, a self-employed webmistress and newsletter publisher.
My 12-year Marketing Coder position was obtained from a small three-line classified ad in our local paper. I called, interviewed with the Operations Manager and, as they say, “the rest is history”. Do not discount newspaper ads even if they don’t mention the possibility of working offsite. Were companies to print that in their ads, they would be deluged with responses. Study the classifieds and respond to those that would lend themselves to telecommuting: data entry, administrative assistant, desktop publishing, graphic design, sales, customer service. Apply, get your foot in the door and when you’ve proved your capabilty and efficiency, present your employer with a telecommuting proposal. If currently employed in a potential work-at-home position, approach your company. Worst-case scenario is that you’ll have to stay put in the office while continuing your WAH job hunt. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Vitally important is that your skills are up to date and polished. Most companies will require a working knowledge of Microsoft applications, databases, FTP, Internet experience. A wonderful
www.freeskills.com . They provide online training in Microsoft, Unix, Lotus, Novell, Mac, Corel, Desktop, databases, Internet, graphics and more. Take advantage of this resource and ensure that your resume outshines all other applicants.
Are you a frustrated writer? Employ search engines to locate online sites that will publish your articles for exposure, and in many cases, pay for your knowledge. Choose a subject that you’re passionate about, whether it’s web design or showing dogs. There is a market and audience for every topic imaginable.
Start off with:www.powerprose.com, www.themestream.com, and www.ideamarketers.com .
Subscribe to newsletters that will provide you with updated work-at-home jobs. I publish Moms @ Home Working, a free daily newsletter that mails telecommuting jobs every day to my readers. To subscribe, send a blank email to: subscribe@moms-home-work.com. I hear weekly from my subscribers who have succeeded in finding a position through the newsletter.
Search for hundreds of WAH jobs at my site: www.moms-home-work.com . We link to online job banks and other sites for telecommuting. Listed under our WAH link is a list of “telecommute friendly” companies across
Stay focused and you will find your “perfect balance”. Just with the online jobs that I have secured in my daily search for listings, my income is equal to what the average women earns working outside the home. Consider the cost of child care, gas, career wardrobe, and lunches, and my net salary is in most cases more. The most important “perk” of all, though, is that I am able to be a hands-on mom; isn’t that the goal we’re all striving to achieve?
Barb Niehaus,
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