The Feather Light theme from ThemeLab.com is really well designed and easy to modify. It is probably the best WordPress theme for a beginning designer to use as a reference. The theme doesn’t include images and all the CSS is well outlined so it is easy to find where certain elements are.

There are quite a few nice templates that can be downloaded for free on ThemeLab. Check it out:

Links:

ThemeLab

FeatherLight Theme

In short, Mini-Site Creator might be an awesome program, but it is not a break through, life altering, money making machine. In fact, if you purchase any version of Mini-Site Creator, you’ll probably never make a dime on the internet and I’ll explain why later.

So, what is the “Mini-Site Creator (MSC)”?

“Mini-Site Creator is the gold standard training for anyone who wants to painlessly put up money-making mini websites without having to be a computer geek, buying expensive software or paying crazy fees to a webmaster.

“MSC v1.0″ has been a best-seller for the last four years, with over 4,000 satisfied students. And now, I’m revamping the entire program to include my never-before-released pushbutton proprietary software that does 95% of the hard work FOR YOU!

From selling products to providing services, for total newbies and advanced marketers - it’s all included in my new “Mini-Site Creator v2.0″ LIVE e-class. If you can turn on your computer and “copy and paste”, you can use my system with success!

Plus, for a limited time, you can pick up 7 extra bonuses, ranging from “how to get traffic” training to FREE publicity from me to free website hosting professionally designed, 60+ exclusive software templates - and even an entire new $2,995.00 video training program I’ve never released before!

In short, over $5,261.00 of bonuses included just for saying “maybe” to my totally proven system.”

(Quoted From Jim Edwards Blog)

Now before I jump into the crash and bash, I will say Jim Edwards is wildly successful and his webinars are beyond awesome and very informative. If you haven’t attended one, do so. They are definitely worth the time. I haven’t evaluated Jim’s other products, but I have confidence he could easily produce quite an excellent product worth a hefty price.

On with the real stuff…

First off, there is NO program that can possibly do 95% of the work for you. Shame on Jim Edwards for making that ridiculous claim. Now when Jim Edwards says this program will do 95% of the work for you, he actually means your site is going to be 95% the same as every other person who uses Mini-Site Creator (MSC). Essentially this software program has you fill in the blanks and it spits out a prepackaged crap landing page. Now the landing page MSC creates is probably based on a “proven to work” landing page, but no successful landing page can be packaged up and distributed to a million viewers in a thousand different niches. There are way too many variables in the mix that just don’t transfer. Chances are, any page created with Mini-Site Creator will just cost you a ridiculous amount of money. A template landing page just won’t convert. It’s as simple as that. Now if your smart and modify it to your liking, using Jim Edwards concepts you might end up with an excellent landing page but those talented enough to do that, wont be purchasing MSC because there would be no reason to.

So if Jim Edwards isn’t selling to internet savvy people, who is he selling to?

Jim is targeting those who who know nothing about the ways of the internet. He makes big claims that can’t be delivered. I would be willing to bet that less than 1% of his MSC customers see profits that cover their costs and compensate them for their time. Why haven’t any of these hype guys shown the percentage of customers that succeed? The answer is simple: Their customers don’t succeed.

Jim Edwards is essentially the opposite of Robin Hood. He steals from the ignorant and keeps the money for himself and then he does it again. Shameful.

Frankly I’m sick of products like this polluting the internet. I seriously doubt there is a digitally delivered program that is worth more than $5,261. I’m sick and tired of seeing internet marketers throw random numbers out there because they are proven to convert ignorant people into customers. Products like these are built on ignorance and those who become prosperous are rare.

The internet is a gold mind that will never run out of gold, but there is no program that lets you build amazing amounts of money in just a few short months. Those who purchase products like this are being fooled. Making money on the internet is a grind. Period. There may be systems that work and create unimaginable profits, but those systems aren’t being given away and are built from hard work and careful analysis. Profitable systems are intricate and don’t just transfer niche to niche.

I think my biggest problem with this Mini-Site program is the sales page on MiniSiteCreator2.com. It is stuffed with hype and makes so many claims it makes me want to throw up on my monitor.

Shame on Jim Edwards for creating such a overly hyped software targeted at those who are least likely to succeed.

Stay sharp,

Brenden Wilson

P.S. Watch the video on the bottom of MiniSiteCreator2.com. The lady in the video looks like one of those know it all soccer moms who thinks she is about to make a fortune on the internet but has actually maxed out all of credit cards buying worthless crap online. Perfect example of Jim Edwards audience. Ignorant web hard moms.

P.P.S Jim Edwards does have a fair return policy so those who sign up and still fail to get a refund after learning they wont succeed online probably deserve to get ripped off.

Here is a link to one of Jim Edwards posts:

http://www.igottatellyou.com/blog/mini-site-creator-v20-answers-to-your-questions/

I will disagree with one thing the SwapW guys says….

He says link bating isn’t ethical and I just can’t agree.  LinkBating is good for everybody involved.  The source blog will have an incoming link from another website and you’ll drive traffic to your blog.  It’s a two way street.  An article that is simply controversial is very different from a slanderous article.  I think a slanderous article would be bad for both blogs but the blogosphere is filled with controversy and link bating simply takes advantage of that.  I find it difficult to understand why link bating would be unethical.

If you want to read the SwapW post, here is the link:

http://swapw.blogspot.com/2008/03/power-of-link-baiting.html

John Carlton is a fantastic blogger, but I question his products. Are his info products really worth the price? John’s entry level product found at TheMarketingRebel.com starts off at $299 and essentially comes with some audio CDs, a DVD and apparently a manual.

It’s hard to tell what he is actually selling because his sales page is smeared with a disguating amount of hype. The actual product description at the bottom of his MarketingRebel sales page is skimpy to say the least. After looking at his page for ten minutes or so, I’ve decide that he is basically selling a truck load of awesomeness that comes with a multi-million dollar salary. Other than that, I have no idea what I would actually get after sending him a sack of money.

I think his “Swipe File” would probably be worth the most, but to get that you have to purchase a package that costs $999. His email newsletter is basically a free swipe file. If you analyze his email campaigns and his blog posts, you’ll get a good idea of how he continually drives traffics and keeps readers entertained.

I think John is a master of sales, but I seriously doubt his products are worth the price. Now I say this having never purchased a product from him, but I still feel strongly. If you have a good experience with his stuff, I encourage you to leave a comment.

While his products seem worthless, I think his coaching club might be helpful if you have the money and your looking for advice that will rock your world. Check it out:

http://www.john-carlton.com/2008/03/06/something-to-chew-on-while-you-suffer/

Naturally when you first open your Google AdWords account you create a campaign, an ad group and an ad. Then you input some keywords and start it up. Then you add more and more keywords. Most of the keywords end up being irrelevant to your ad. If you design your campaign that way, you’ll fail. Google will increase your minimum bid and prevent you from bidding on a lot of your keywords. The campaign may get a few clicks and maybe a few sales conversions but it will be expensive and slow.

To avoid this it is important to setup several campaigns. I recommend using 10-20 AdWords campaigns each with 20-100 keywords and two ads.

I rarely endorse products, but Perry Marshall’s Google AdWords guide is amazing. If your new to Google AdWords, I would seriously recommend picking up a copy and reading it cover to cover. It explains everything you need to know about getting started with Google AdWords.

Make sure all of your images in your email are hosted and not embedded.  Hosting your images on your website will increase your email open rate.  I’ve noticed when I embed the images in the message as an attachment, my email open rate drops quite a bit.

If your interested in how I layout my HTML emails, I will upload code to this post. Just leave a comment.

Before you send a mass email always send a test to Gmail, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft Outlook. If your email shows up correctly in those email clients, you will be good to go. If your using SendStudio, it has a nice feature that will let you preview your email as if it were being viewed by a certain email program.

Thats all for today.

Brenden

The nicest feature of all is the keyword research tool. It allows you to start with a single keyword or key phrase and build a large list of extremely relevant keywords. Yahoo takes the first keyword and brings back a group of related keywords. Most of the time half are related and half aren’t but the awesome thing about the Yahoo Keyword Tool is that it allows you to refine your search. Each keyword can be marked as good or bad and Yahoo will adjust its recommended keywords based on your input. After refining your search a couple times you end up with a very nice list of keywords. See the picture below.

I particularly like this because I can use it with Google AdWords. When I’m adding ad campaigns or ad groups I do almost all of my keyword research through Yahoo Search Marketing.

You really have to get a feel for the tool yourself. If you are using Google AdWords I recommend signing up for Yahoo Search Marketing even if you are only planning on using their keyword tool.

I won’t go through what I like about Kayako because there are too many great features to list in this short review. Here is what I don’t like about Kayako:

Kayako live chat is difficult to customize. You basically design one variation and include that on all the pages of your site. It isn’t easy to include different “chat now” buttons on different pages of your website. There is a way, but its kind of hackish.

I don’t like their template system in general. It similar to Invision Power Board template system if your familiar with that. The thing I like least about it, is in order to see changes you have to clear the Kayako cache which requires going to a private link you can only get by asking Kayako support to give you. This makes it a little difficult to go through and test your templates immediately after modifying them. Customization is a pain the ass. The end.

The product support isn’t amazing either. It isn’t bad, its just not amazing. I would think a company selling a support system would have awesome customer support but it has taken them about 48 hours on average to get back to my questions. Like I said, not bad, but not good either.

Kayako has an administrative learning curve. The admin panel isn’t easy to figure out and you can expect to chase your tail for the first few days. The staff panel is pretty straight forward for a computer savvy person, but a little complicated for your average staff member. The great features Kayako offers outweigh the complexity of the control panels.

The default Live Chat setup isn’t very responsive. Compared to LivePerson it’s quite a bit slower. If you are planning on using the LiveChat feature, I would recommend speeding up the refresh rate in the settings so the chat conversations don’t take forever. Customers are easily frustrated with slow chat. The only down side to turning up the refresh rate is it increases the load on the server but it’s worth it.

I’ve checked out a couple alternatives, including LivePerson, which my company used for several months and Kayako is the best solution available. Overall it’s a great support system and I couldn’t recommend it more.

Double Opt-In:

Most online services like Aweber require all users to double opt-in.  Requiring users to double opt-in ensures your email list is completely clean and there aren’t any bogus emails in your database.  Email servers that send large quantities of emails that bounce back have a more difficult time avoiding Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and Gmail spam filters.  Single opt-in can result in users submitting email address with typos in them.  Requiring double opt-in basically eliminates this problem.  Virtually all double opt-in emails will be delivered to a valid email address.

Double opt-in is ideal for very large websites where manually removing invalid address is impossible. 

If you require double opt-in, expect to lose at least 30% or more of your subscribers right off the bat.  I have found on average I lose approximately 40% of my subscribers when I force double opt-in.  Email marketers will say there are ways to virtually eliminate this problem, but there are no two ways about it.  If you require double opt-in, a significant percentage of subscribers will not confirm their email address.  To compensate for this loss you’re going to have to almost double your marketing efforts. On the other hand, when you email your subscribers, almost all of them will receive your email. 

Single Opt-In:

I personally believe in most circumstances, most email marketers should collect emails on their website and assume the user wanted to submit their email.  There is no reason to require confirmation.  This will guarantee 100% of the leads who subscribe will be added to your mailing list.  Unfortunately a single opt-in will decrease your deliverability rate.  Some subscribers will accidently misspell their email address and without a double opt-in process, you’ll be emailing a non-existent address or somebody who didn’t subscribe.  Both situations are equally bad and they will definitely lead to problems.  The best way to avoid this problem is to send a thank you email immediately after the user subscribes with a clear unsubscribe link.  Include an unsubscribe link on all the email you send out.  Don’t hide the unsubscribe link because if it’s hard to fine, the user will just mark the message as spam which is much worse. 

Almost all self-hosted scripts and programs allow you to choose between double and single opt-in.  Likewise, almost all services require double opt-in.  If you’re a skilled email marketer and you understand why people would report your messages as spam, I highly recommend using a single opt-in. It will work better in the long-run and the short-run.  
 

It might be possible to drive a significant amount of traffic to your website if you continually submit a large amount of high quality articles. Unfortunately that takes a lot of work and in most cases there are probably better ways to drive traffic.

If you want to submit a few articles and test my opinion out for yourself, go for it. Here are the biggest article submission websites.

1. EzineArticles.com
2. ArticleCity.com
3. GoArticles.com
4. EzineArticles.com
5. ArticleTrader.com
6. ArticleDragon.com