by Shannon on March 8, 2010
In all the years that I have been working in affiliate marketing, I have never really considered myself a web designer. Sure all the sites that I own were built by me. I took an online html course way back when. Until recently though I had never designed a site for someone else though. Not sure why that is part of the criteria for me, but it is.
Anyway my daughter attends a private school. Not the snooty upper crust kind (not that there is anything wrong with that), but one that uses one of the best education styles out there and doesn’t have a lot of money. She started going there about 2 years ago and from the first moment that I saw their website, I have been itching to revamp it.
Okay revamp is a bit of an understatement. I wanted to completely overhaul it from top to bottom and give it a fresh new look and better usability. They finally took me up on my offer at the beginning of the school year and we started talking about what kind of changes we could make to it.
This past weekend all of the stars finally lined up just right and I was able to change it over. I am using Wordpress as a CMS (content management system) for it, so that the school staff can make changes easily without having any coding knowledge. I learned a few things while setting it up and hope to share some of the tidbits with you soon.
Really the best part was being able to give back to a group that needed it. I encourage you to do the same. I’m not sure that I would ever want to work with clients on a full time basis, but I learned much from this project. It still has a ways to go, but is a huge improvement over what was there. Still not quite ready to call myself a web designer, but getting closer.
by Shannon on March 5, 2010
As we wrap up the work week (do you keep Monday through Friday working hours?) it is time for another Freebie Friday. Here are the ones that I have rounded up for this week:
- Free Computer Programming Training – Alice is a visual based learning environment that shows students both children and adults how to use computer programming languages such as Java and C++.
- Store Ideas & Resources – Are you constantly finding things that you would like to keep track of such as recipes, snippets of code, or an idea for a new website? Spring Pad is a free tool that lets you store and organize all of these ideas. Definitely better than trying to keep track of pieces of paper.
- Free Celtic Music
– St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner and these Celtic songs can be downloaded from Amazon for free.
- St. Patrick’s Day Printable – Print out this color by numbers printable for your kids to work on while you write out one more article. It features a leprechaun, rainbow, and a pot of gold of course.
That wraps up another week of freebies. Please let me know what you think of them in the comments below.
*Freebies may expire or become unavailable at any time. While I do my best to research the validity of each offer, some bad ones may sneak through. Thank you for understanding.*
by Shannon on March 3, 2010
Recently I made the decision to change an old website over completely to Wordpress. It had wordpress installed in a /blog directory and I wanted to move it into the main domain. I knew that it would be good for this old site that had been cobbled together with a combination of hand coding & Frontpage. It was badly in need of an update.
I asked around for some recommendations on how to do it and did some reading. I think the best resource that I came across was from the Wordpress Codex on moving wordpress within your site. The other great resource was my computer savvy hubby that said “let’s just do it!”
All in all it went much better than I expected. I am still in the process of changing over some old pages to the new format. It is really important to remember to 301 redirect all the old pages to the new ones. Plus I need to have a new header & logo designed, pick out colors, you know make it pretty. For now though it is so much better than the old site and my traffic from the search engines is already increasing.
by Shannon on March 2, 2010
Just a heads up that the Jeremy Schoemaker has reopening his Shoemoney System to new members. Based on early feedback from current members they have rearranged the training materials so that members can make their first $100 within the first 30 days and $500 within the first 60 days of belonging.
I am not a member, so I did some digging for reviews. It sounds like many people feel the system was built for the very beginner. It also sounds like Shoe may have been listening and that is why he has revamped things.
Fortunately if you are interested you can check it out risk free for 60 days with his money back guarantee. I’m not sure how long he will be reopened for, so check it out today.
by Shannon on February 27, 2010
I have been feeling rather direction-less lately. I don’t want to say unmotivated, more like being pulled in many different directions. Sort of like a compass that spins because it is too close to a magnetic field. There are so many things that I want to do, so many good teachers out there, that it can be difficult to find which way to go. Until I read this blog post on Thursday.
I sort of glanced at it on Thursday and then reread it yesterday. And reread it again. I started clicking on the links in the article and reading those too. Then I started taking notes. Brainstorming ideas that I can apply to my own business. Things that I am doing wrong, things that I am not doing, some things that I need to be doing right now.
The article is by Rae Hoffman, also known as Sugarrae. I have known her for a long time now and she is the person that I credit for encouraging me to go into affiliate marketing. She is also one of the most successful people that I know and her advice is stellar.
This comes at such a good time for me, as I am revamping what I consider my biggest website. And a time when I am ready to make some changes to move forward. I encourage you to read it too. I’ve already ordered the The E-Myth Revisited
based on her recommendation and it will go to the top of my reading queue. Tomorrow I will reread her post again and start to put the steps into action. Success lies at the end of this compass direction.
