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DuctTapeMarketing.com In this issue: Add your articles to the Duct Tape Marketing Article Directory Featured Resource #1 - Tim Ferris on Coaching Excellence Series
Tim is a serial entrepreneur and ultravagabond and has been featured by dozens of media, including The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, NBC, and MAXIM. Enroll here to get in on this live chat. Featured Resource #2 - Introducing - Marketing Events Calendar
This free service allows you to list your small business marketing related events and receive some extra exposure - or, you can find lots of great marketing and small business related events - workshops, seminars, conferences, teleseminars and webinars. You can subscribe by location or category and add events to your Google, Yahoo or Outlook calendars. Featured Article Using powerful blogging software to create web sites Blogging tools have evolved significantly due to the tremendous popularity of blogging in general. Because of this evolution blog software has actually become one of the best ways for small businesses to easily build feature rich, simple to edit, search engine friendly web sites. I would urge anyone without a web site or with a boring static brochure site to take a good hard look at free piece of software called WordPress. The current version of the software can be downloaded from WordPress.org (They have a hosted blog version at WordPress.com but you want the download from the .org site.) You can use this software to create your entire website whether you have or want a blog or not. (But, of course you need a blog too.) One of the best functions of this set-up is that anyone in your organization with the proper login permission can update and edit the site including adding pages, text and images without any knowledge of HTML or web design software such as Dreamweaver. On of the core elements of WordPress is something called a theme. This is essentially the design template that controls the look and feel of all of the pages throughout the site. There are lots of places you can get pre-designed templates for blogs, but recently designers have started creating themes for the type of web site implementation I’m talking about in this article. Using these themes your web site looks like, well, a web site, instead of a blog. Setting up WordPress Since WordPress is software you install and configure on the server of a host you still need to have a domain name and hosting. Your host needs to support PHP and mySql databases. Now, don’t worry, most do. In fact, a host that I’ve used frequently is Lunar Pages and they not only support these, they can add WordPress to your site with the click of a button. Getting your theme As I mentioned above, the theme is the WordPress name for the design of your site. I’ve discovered the following themes, designed by very talented WordPress designers, to be very suited to overall web site design and use. All the hard work is done for you, you simply install, but you can also do a fair amount of customization if you are a do-it-yourself type.
iThemes - several versions to choose from in multiple color combinations - complete web site look and feel. Remix - very flexible, multi design theme that comes with functions that allow you to create very customized look.
Using one of these themes you can automatically get the look of a web site – with a static homepage and the function of a blog all in one. And, you can add pages using the software to your hearts delight. It really is the best of both worlds Blogs in general fare much better than traditional static web sites so using this tool, particularly if you utilize the blog functions – meaning you write a blog and add fresh content – will allow your site to generate better search engine results. The software automatically optimizes any new pages your create and the RSS feed from the blog makes it much easier for search engines to find your site. Adding functionality There are hundreds of additional plug-ins that you can get for free that take advantage of the WordPress platform and allow you to add powerful functionality to your web site just as easily as you edit new pages. Anyone with a little web site design and set-up knowledge should be able to use one of the themes above to create an entire WordPress blogsite but I am also in the process of creating a series of video tutorials to make it even easier. Related article - Content is a strategy John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award winning blogger and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide published by Thomas Nelson. He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system. You can find more information by visiting www.ducttapemarketing.com You may reprint this article in its entirety if you attribute the article to John Jantsch and include the information about the author above. Featured Resource #3 - Looking for a few great marketers The network of Duct Tape Marketing Authorized Coaches are the recognized brand of small business marketing coach. Duct Tape Marketing Coaches offer personal and phone based marketing coaching based on the Duct Tape Marketing Ultimate Marketing System. Want to become a Duct Tape Marketing Authorized Coach? Attend a live Discovery telesession with John Jantsch - Thursday, Feb 14th at Noon CST. - Enroll Here - Next 2 day intensive training is March 13-14. Find out more here Featured Reading
Ever wonder what place ego plays in growing a successful business? Featured Listening River: the joni letters - Herbie Hancock
It's a fine, mellow album, not Herbie's best, but you got to believe the music industry is trying to find itself when a real jazz player gets best album. Go Miles, TMonk and Coltrane. |
Harness
the Internet - Market Your Small Business More
Effectively - program
includes 3 - 1 hour audio sessions with John Jantsch, workbook, and
transcripts from each session. Visit the Catalog to select the version you would like to receive. The
Lead Generation Machine Could Your Business Stand a Consistent,
Predictable, and Growing Flow of Highly Qualified Leads? Duct Tape Marketing Podcast Named by Fast
Company as a must listen to podcast
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