Website Automation is Important

Are you Automating your content and site upkeep?

While there are so many things that must be taken care of with an online business, Internet based businesses need to analyze their processes and procedures to see what can be taken care of in a more efficient and/or automatic manner.

It really doesn't matter what kind of business you have. Whether you are a blogger or a merchant selling tangible goods or perhaps you're somewhere in between like a blogger, you need to see where you can improve.  An investment of a week or two now could save you much more time in the coming months or years.

Check for repetition

If you're like me you probably don't know where to start and you probably started your web site as a hobby or as a supplement to your regular brick-n-mortar physical store.  That's ok, just start with where you are at now.  Ask yourself what tasks have to be done regularly. It might be a good idea to make a list of activities that you have to do every day, every week, and every month.

See which activities are very repetitive. Those activities are good candidates for automation.

Automation Examples

Consider using a CMS

Are you writing your web pages in plain HTML and copy/pasting product information in?  Parts of your website creation process can be automated. You could save the time spent on adding HTML, page layout, and menus, by installing a CMS such as Wordpress, Drupal, or Joomla or a forum like bbpress, or Simple Machines Forum.  By installing a CMS or Forum on your website, you preset the design and categories, and entries get added to menus. You'd just work on adding the content to entries such as blog posts or forum threads.

Automate your product displays

If you are an affiliate marketer or a merchant, you'll want to look into automating your display of products using a database.  In affiliate marketing, many merchants make datafeeds available which are electronic spreadsheets with a list of available products and other relevant information.  Affiliates can use PHP and MySQL to integrate those datafeeds into dynamic pages that visitors can browse or search.

HTML Make-a-Page creators are a short-term solution

While some affiliate networks offer HTML page creation with code ready to copy/paste into a website or blog entry, that static page information will soon become out-of-date and will require updating.

Don't rely on static HTML pages

I had made the mistake of relying too much on static and other difficult-to-update displays on my sites and found myself caught between spending half my time updating existing pages or creating new content. It was very frustrating because it worked, but I didn't know how to progress. I was so busy updating product information that I didn't have time to write original content!

Learn PHP and MySQL or hire a programmer

In this case you'll most likely want to hire a programmer or learn PHP and MySQL yourself.  I know it sounds complicated, and yes, PHP is a programming language unlike HTML which is just simple coding, but once you finish your first couple scripts, you'll find that it isn't too difficult with a little planning and patience.  If you are an affiliate marketer you'll need at least a couple scripts. You'll need one to import datafeeds into your MySQL database and another for displaying products. You can then expand your ability by allowing user search or by displaying products by keyword, category, or really any other feature you can think of.

Automate your XML Sitemap

Another great option for automation is your XML Sitemap, also called your Google Sitemap.  You can write your Sitemap in PHP and submit your php script to Google Webmasters.  If you have dynamic content this is crucial otherwise you'd have to do it manually!  That could take weeks for a large website.

If you have a small website, you might not think it matters, but what about when your site is larger in a year or two? Your Sitemap was easy to update manually when you had only 30 pages, but it won't be so easy-to-update when it has 200.  If you later delete a page from your site, you'll have to look through 200 pages to find it while a well written sitemap script will include all pages that currently exist.

Standardize your website design

If you have multiple websites, consider what goes into maintaining and updating them.  Are you customizing each site, or are you making different aspects modular?  If you need to update your CMS or your custom scripts, could you copy the files over to the other site and have them just work?   By standardizing things like page width, and locations where your scripts and software are installed, updating could just be a matter of uploading everything to the same place on each site.   There are tricks you can do in PHP that let you get the IP address and website name which you might need in the script, so instead of having to open and configure your configuration file, you could tell your script to look up the domain and IP it is running on and do different things based on that information.   By autoconfiguring your scripts, you'll save plenty of time when you need to upgrade. I only wish CMS designers would do the same thing!

Servers are good workers

Servers once set up and running can save you plenty of time once everything is set up. Servers don't get tired, sick, or bored. They don't limit themselves to business hours either. Any activity that you can give them is going to be much cheaper than paying someone or spending the time to a task by yourself. Even with shared hosting, you just go to your webserver's control panel and add a "Cron job". Cron jobs just tell a server to run a script using the frequency that you set. So if you want it to run a backup, or a datafeed import at 2:00 am, just set it up. If you can write or pay for a script to do a task, you can later set it up as a Cron job, your script will run, and the task will be done, rain or shine, or even when you're on vacation!

WordPress 2.6 First Impressions

I already mentioned my opinion of the theme selection in my previous post about WordPress 2.6, so I'm going to leave that out of this entry.

I just updated one of my WordPress 2.5.1 sites to WordPress 2.6. I used the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade Plugin which saves you the steps of a manual upgrade.  I didn't get any errors, and I've been using this plugin since upgrading to Wordpress 2.5.  This plugin is not yet for use with Wordpress-MU, so don't try it until the plugin's webpage says otherwise.

I mention this because Wordpress Multi User is changing its next release from 1.6 to 2.6 to help reduce upgrading confusion. I personally think it will cause as much confusion as it will remove, but I digress.

The automatic upgrade plugin never reenables my plugins after upgrading Wordpress, but now it isn't a big deal since Wordpress 2.6 lets you activate or deactivate more than one plugin at a time.  No more one at a time change drudgery.

After upgrading I reactivated my plugins and used the plugin updating feature that was added in Wordpress 2.5 to update my plugins that had notices.  You'll want to check every week for plugin updates. A few plugins seem to break or act funny after every Wordpress version revision.

I do not see any of my current plugins breaking with this version. My page loaded no problem.  I didn't get any strange PHP errors either.

WordPress 2.6 was released on July 15 2008

WordPress 2.6 is out

If you are using WordPress, and you probably should be if you are not, you'll want to know that WordPress 2.6 has been released.

Widget Bug Fix

First of all, it fixed the Javascript bug that came with 2.5 that made moving widgets a pain.

Plugin Management Improvements

It also separates active and inactive plugins on the plugin page so it is easier to manage them instead of one big list like before.

If you upgrade your install or WordPress, you can finally enable and disable more than one plugin at the time.  That takes a lot of the work out of updating!

If you decide to replace a plugin with a new one, you still need to upload the new one via FTP,  If you forget to delete the plugin being replaced, you can now select it from the deactivated plugins and select delete.  That will also save some time.

Remove and Auto Blogging Setting Change

If you use any remote or autoblogging software, you'll now have to enable it on the Write page since it will be disabled on any new installations.

Theme Selection Pain

The theme selection page is now more work than ever! You now have to go through a theme preview page which appears in an iframe, so it is two clicks instead of one.  I like having previews. I don't like being forced to see a preview!   They could have added a button or link for switching to one, but they didn't.

If you keep people from framing your site via Javascript as a security measure, you'll now have to remove that code before you'll be able to switch to your theme otherwise you'll see a preview page with no switch to theme link. What a bummer!

Post Revisions

Wordpress 2.6 includes the ability to go back and see previous versions of a post. It will inflate your database a bit, but it will help with those oops I didn't-mean-to-make-those-changes moments.

Image Captions

With WordPress you can add captions to your images, so now you can actually tell people what is in an image and have it appear together.

Google Gears

Google Gears is a caching system for administration files, it is supposed to speed up the process. You have to click on Turbo to enable it. You also have to install Gears in your web browsers.

There are more changes, but they are pretty minor.

Should you upgrade now?  It is normally best to wait a couple weeks before upgrading Wordpress because there is the risk that a plugin you use will be broken.

WordPress 2.5 is out

I have been testing Wordpress 2.5 for about a week since it was released and it is pretty nice. I just wanted to mention a couple things.

1. You will save time with its plugin updating feature however if you have your plugin folder's permissings set to a restrictive level it won't work.

2. Any plugin that adds a button to the visual editor will need to be updated to work.

How to Upgrade WordPress

How to upgrade WordPress introduction

Sometimes it seems that by the time I get my websites upgraded there is a new version or minor update to WordPress. After a while, upgrading WordPress seems as easy as brushing my teeth or tying my shoes. I do understand that for a beginner, this process can be frightening. In reality, WordPress is probably the easiest and simplest CMS or Blog software available. I have personally tried Joomla (which I like) and Drupal (which I don't like). I also tried Google's Blogger which has obviously been dumbed down to the least common denominator so that you can't customize it.

I do not accept liability for your ability to follow these steps, nor to I accept liability for any changes that may occur to Wordpress or its upgrade methods. Essentially, I'm saying that these steps have worked for me for upgrading the last few versions of Wordpress and they probably won't change in the near future. This article/post assumes that you know how to use FTP and how to download a file from Wordpress.org.

Short version - Steps for upgrading WordPress blog/CMS software

1. To be safe, backup your database via your webhost's control panel via PHPMyAdmin (ask your webhosting company how)


2. Disable all plugins


3. Download the newest version of Wordpress from wordpress.org.


4. Extract all of the files to your copy of Wordpress on your computer (your backup, you do have one right?) overwriting the older files with the same name.


5. Upload your Wordpress directory or your website via FTP to your server overwriting files with the same name.


6. go to http://yourdomain.com/wordpressdirectory/wp-admin/upgrade.php or http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php and follow the steps until it says it is finished.


7. Re-enable your plugins

If you never installed any plugins, then you can skip steps 2 and 7. The options in step 6 depend on whether you have Wordpress installed in your main directory or subdirectory. When uploading your updated files you could omit the wp-content/plugins and wp-content/themes directories. The default theme might have been updated, but your custom themes and plugins are not updated with Wordpress. Plugins and custom themes are maintained by their authors.

Don't forget to update your plugins!

Sometimes a plugin stops working due to a change in Wordpress's API. After you upgrade, be sure to check for new plugin versions. The most recent versions of Wordpress will warn you when your Plugins are out-of-date. You'll need to replace the plugin with the same name in your wp-content/plugins directory and upload the plugin via FTP. It is recommended to disable a plugin before uploading a new version and reenable it afterwards. A plugin will sometimes break otherwise. If you don't and you find errors just disable and reenable the plugin and that will take care of most issues.

Selecting a color scheme for your website or blog website

Color preferences by age and gender for web pages and website color schemes.

Color preference tendencies by gender

Women tend to dislike dark or black web page backgrounds. I am commenting out of my personal experience. When I went through multiple color schemes on my first website in 2006. I started with bolder colors with a dark background. All of my friends who are men told me it looked fine and some of them liked it a lot. Almost all of my friends who are women said that it was too dark and that the background had to be white or very pale. Of course once I switched to a light background, my other colors no longer matched. After several color scheme changes I got stuck with white background and not-very-bold colors for everything else. The women I know don't complain and the men I know don't either.

Color preferences by age

Children prefer bolder and brighter colors, so a site with beige, light blue, and gray would probably lose their attention extremely fast. As we get older we start to prefer fewer warmer and bold colors and start to prefer cooler, paler, and more neutral colors so beige, white, black, pale blue, pale green, and pale yellow are great for websites for those over 55.

Choose your website's theme colors or color scheme according to demographics and other criteria.

Now when I design a new website, I try to imagine the largest demographic as a combination of young, old, men, or women, and I try to make it more appropriate for them without alienating the other groups.

• A site for children will have bolder colors. A site for 55+ will have mostly beige and other pale colors.
• A site for women will have lighter colors with a touch of either pink, or purple.
• A site for men will have gray, blue, or red added.
• A site with Very mixed demographics will have a mix of colors that are not too strong and typically cool like green and blue. I might add one neutral color for balance.
• If a site is about a holiday, I might use that holiday's colors in my design o help put the visitor in a holiday mood.

General color scheme considerations

Light on dark or dark on light?

In general, you should stick to darker text on a lighter background like black text on a white background. Many people say it is hard for them to read light text on a dark background like white text on a black background. Artists and more creative types are less likely to have this complaint.

The colors should allow the visitor to read the website without squinting or getting a headache.

Color schemes that have colors that don't match will cause frustration or sometimes a headache. If the text color and background colors don't contrast sufficiently, it makes it difficult to read. For example: Dark brown background with light brown text. It can be done but there has to be a significant difference between the two shades of brown or it will tire his or her eyes.

A color scheme should not have garish colors.

Another way to annoy your visitors is to have garish color combinations. I remember one fascinating site with pink text over a vomit-green background and purple header text. I couldn't concentrate on the content. All I could think of was how hideous and repulsive that site was.

A website's theme shouldn't have too many colors

While having just back and white is boring, having too many colors in your site's color scheme will be distracting. Try to have between 2 and 5 colors. This includes tonal variations. A site with light blue, medium blue, dark blue with a white background has four colors.

Who should an affiliate marketer promote Famous well-known brands or smaller companies?

You probably have noticed as an affiliate that there are thousands of different affiliate programs available to promote in 4 large affiliate marketing networks and many smaller networks and of course the many in-house programs for individual merchants.

One of my first questions as a new affiliate was "Which merchants or which affiliate programs should I join?". It can be very baffling.  How do you decide when you are still green?  The answer is really not that complicated.

First of all, you must consider the website you are working on. Instead of joining every program under the sun, pick the topic of your website and look for programs for that topic or issue.  Don't worry about the name of the company yet.

Secondly, Look at those merchants/affiliate programs and check the cookie duration and the commission percent.  The cookie duration is the time from when the website visitor clicks on an affiliate link during which the affiliate will get credit for a sale. If the cookie duration is 30 days then if a visitor makes a purchase before the 30 days are over, the affiliate earns the commission. If the visitor returns to the merchant site on day 31 and makes a purchase, no commission is paid.

You should avoid promoting affiliate programs with short cookies because most visitors don't really buy on the first day unless the products are very cheap consumables. The more expensive a product is, the more likely that it will not be purchased on the first day.  The merchant should offer a cookie of at least 30 days. 60 days or more is ideal.

The commission percent  is the percent of the sale not including shipping or handling that is paid to the affiliate. The percent will vary greatly, but in general you'll get around 10% for most tangible products and you should expect at least 20% for digital products since no manufacturing was involved and digital products can be e-mailed or downloaded automatically so no human was involved in processing the order.

You'll find many, probably, hundreds or thousands of websites telling you to only sell digital products that offer 50% commission or higher. I completely disagree. Most of those programs (typically offered on Clickbank) are crap,  yes worthless junk.  Not only that but those products are expensive crap.  Charging the same price or more than a print book would cost.  You might make a sale, but the visitor will not be very likely to come back to your site for products, advice, etc.  Can you sleep well at night knowing that you indirectly sold someone expensive junk?  I cannot.

I am not saying that digital products are bad. Many digital products are very nice. It is just that the ones offering 50% or more in commission are typically crap.  I have successfully promoted quality digital products (that were also much cheaper than the crappy ones) and best of all I can sleep well at night knowing that I let visitors know about products that meet their needs.  Electronics, computers, and books typically give the lowest commission of around 4%.

After you review merchants in the same category as your website, apply to those that have a decent cookie and commission.  Many will reject you. Wait a couple days and see who has accepted you. During your wait, work on your website design and add some non-affiliate content.

Look at your list of approved affiliate programs. You'll see a mix of famous well-known brands and others that you've never heard of. Here is the simple answer.

Do tests and see what works.  Some offer lower commissions and shorter cookies, but their websites have fewer leaks and great products with good prices. Others will offer high commissions but have few products or the products are much more expensive.

Promote each program separately and in the same way. After a month, check your conversions and total earnings for each one and compare them.  If the famous brand didn't convert into enough sales to make up for its lower commission percent then drop them.  At the end of the day the important thing is that you make money and that you can pay your bills.  Programs that don't convert should be dropped if you have competitor products on the same site that do convert. You need to remove the non-performing merchant's products because they are taking away clicks to the program that is working.

If none of your programs convert to any sales in a month then check your website and change the way that you are promoting them. Not every marketing method will work for everyone or every website.