Are Free WordPress Themes Really Free?

StudioPress Theme of the MonthWith all the free themes available, it might be hard to imagine a situation in which you’d be willing to spend $25 or $50 or even $100 on a so-called premium theme.

Certainly there are some beautifully designed free themes available, and with a little knowledge of CSS, even a beginner can tweak a theme to make it unique.

But free themes aren’t really free. They all have a price tag; it just isn’t expressed in dollars and cents. Instead, the price of a free theme is usually in backlinks. And they’re not always the good kind so you need to inspect your free theme carefully. [Read more...]

Should You Use Clickbank for Your Info Products?

It’s a common debate in the affiliate world – to use Clickbank or not to use Clickbank. While it is probably the largest marketplace of information products on the web all with built in affiliate programs, you will often hear chatter about the dark side of Clickbank and a million reasons why you should avoid it. Most commonly is their “easy refund” process and the instant chronic refund seekers of the web coupled with the affiliate link theft that many people feel the need to avoid the Clickbank marketplace, both as affiliates and for their own products.

I’m not going to sugar coat it, the refund process at Clickbank is really dead simple easy, I think it’s a case of a few bad apples spoiled the whole darn bunch in the case of instant refund seekers. Occassionally those people will show up, buy your product, and immediately request a refund through Clickbank’s marketplace – sometimes within minutes. It does happen, but I don’t think it’s the norm. And when it does happen…. Well, did you really want that rotten person in your space anyway? Probably not. [Read more...]

Deciding Whether or Not to Keep a Project

Nicole Dean asks industry experts questions about topics ranging from fun to serious business tips and marketing advice and shares the conversation on her blog each week in the form of what she affectionately calls Expert Briefs.

This week she asked a question that really resonated with me as it was something I was thinking about doing.

How do you know when to cut a project, client, or program … even if it’s a profitable one?

What a fantastic question and lots of great answers all around. [Read more...]

Niche Site Q&A – Products Pages

A little more email Q&A going on here. I would actually like to get some varying opinions on this one, so please chime in with comments on how you handle product page creation as well.

How did you handle the “products” page? My site is geared toward new parents. I will have a lot of product reviews and want to have a product page so they can purchase these things.

I think it ends up varying by site. It can be blog style or ecommerce style if you want. Just do what makes the most sense at the time and tweak later if needed.

When I’m not sure if I laid something out right I usually just ask on Twitter or in the forum (The MyNAMS forum will be good for that kind of feedback) then people can look at it from a visitor/shopper perspective. That second/third/fourth set of eyes looking at something is helpful, especially when you’re very close to a project. [Read more...]

Niche Site Q&A – Paypal Accounts

I’ve had some email Q&A with a few folks and received their permission to share with the blog readers.

Q: Do you have a separate PayPal account for each niche website that you create?

I only use one Paypal account, but I know quite a few people that maintain multiple Paypal accounts. You do have to link each account to a separate bank account though, so it would require another, perhaps a business account separate from your personal expenses.

You can add multiple email addresses to your main Paypal account of you want to use custom email addresses though. I have 4 different email addresses that people can pay me with and it all goes into one Paypal account. [Read more...]

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