The one criticism of WordPress when compared to its peers (i.e Drupal, Joomla) is the lack of content customization from within the admin panel. If you are a designer it doesn’t really matter, but for others this poses a serious problem to using WordPress as true content management software.

Thankfully, many points of criticism have been addressed in the latest version, WordPress 3.0, which has taken big leaps towards becoming a full fledge CMS. Below are some key new features:

• Custom Post Types – Easily create unique templates for various types of content.
• Menu admin – Now users can easily manage navigation bars directly through the Wp-admin panel – change order, names of links, and easily create advanced drop-downs.
• Background/header admin – Users now have the ability to quickly change the header and background images directly through the admin panel.
• New template files – Templates can easily be created to address specific authors, tags, and single posts.
• Multi-site management – Manage multiple WordPress installs from one admin.

If you already have a build of WordPress installed, then you should be able to easily update from within the admin panel. Others can check out their hosting panel or go directly to wordpress.org.

And like always, if you need help installing WordPress 3 on to your website, then let us help.

While some of the ideas are outdated now, the concepts are still the same. Also, there may be some broken links in these reports.

Report 1 – Site Starter

Report 2 – Banking of Adsense

Report 3 – Building an Email List

Web Hosting – Sounds like a no brainer, but, believe it or not, many people have no idea what web hosting is or how to go about getting it.

Simply put, web hosting is your site’s home. It is where all your files are stored. As technology improves the cost of hosting is quickly getting cheaper and cheaper, and major differences among competitors generally comes in the form of 3rd party services that are offered. See our recommended web hosting services.

Domain Name – Every legitimate business needs their own .com. Without it, the only way to visit your website is by remembering its IP address. Nowadays, many web hosting services offer a free domain with purchase, so be on the lookout for those deals. Why you need an unique business name.

Depending on how big you expect your website to be, consider purchasing .net and .org versions of your domain name as well as any short-forms or alternate representations of your doman name. It could save you from potential copiers down the road.

By ensuring you have these items before meeting with any designers, it could save money and should make the whole web design experience much smoother.

By having a card with your site URL on it, it will not only help people remember what the URL address is, but it will also increase the chance of people actually going to your site.

When it comes to getting your own business cards, it can be somewhat of a tricky process. Not because it is hard, but many of these printing companies usually lure you in with something like “250 cards for free,” but by the end of the process the cards actually come out to $50.

Your business card is a representation of your brand, so if the paper seems flimsy or the design is just awful, then that is a direct hit at your brand.

I, personally, get my cards made by UPrinting. Compared to other printing services they definitely have the most options and the best price. You can choose from a set of already created templates or you can download their size templates and create your cards from scratch if you have some design experience. ASANT Media readers can get 10% OFF All UPrinting Products.

What should go on your business card?

It really depends on what your site is about or how you plan to use your cards. Sometimes all you need is just the site URL address. All other information can be found on the site. Normally, I would recommend your URL, Name, Position, Email, and Phone Number.

Creative ways to use your business cards.

Obviously, most people usually considering using business cards as handing them to somebody else, but there are other ways. If you have a couple extra cards on you, then find strategic locations and “accidentally” leave some behind right there. Is there a bulletin board around? Pin your card up.

Bottom line, people have horrible memories, so make things easier by having some business cards on hand.

You may have also noticed that many marketers are ditching the traditional long drawn out text box for video.

I have been recording videos for sometime now for my various sites and projects, and people have been asking me what equipment I use. So here you go…

1. Video Recording – When I am actually recording myself or some scene I use a Sony video camera that I just happened to have. Many people might recommend to find the best camera out there, but, to be honest, as long as the content of the video is good and people can tell what is going on, then there is no need to rush out and get the best camera yet. Once you start making some money, then you can go out and get a good HD camera.

2. Screen Recording – For my stock trading sites, I usually record videos of me analyzing charts; however, for people to actually see what is going on I need to do screencast. In other words, I am only recording  what is going on with my screen. When I was first recording on my PC I used a program called CamStudio, but the ability to edit was just too complicated; however, if you are just starting out it can still be a solid option. Now that I am using the Mac for all my recording I use a program called IShowU HD. It allows you to record HD screencasts, and for a reasonable price.

3. Microphone – Obviously if you have a Mac, then you could always use the built in microphone, but the quality is not always the best because you cannot block out the background noises. I have also used several headphone/mic combinations, yet they always seem to clunky, and if you are recording yourself, then you don’t want a headset in the picture. That is why I just recently started using the Blue Snowball. It works with both Macs and Windows, and it is a USB microphone. The sound quality is definitely far superior than anything else I have used (trust me I have used a lot).

4. Video Editing – Determining the best editing tools for you is really all about your needs. If you are just doing something simple where you record and post. Then iMovie and Window Movie Maker should be a viable option for their respective operating system. For those looking for some more editing juice I use MAGIX Movie Edit Pro for the PC and FinalCut Express for the Mac.

5. Sharing – You can never have enough video sharing sites, and you should probably upload videos at all of them because you never know who will see them where. Some sites include: YouTube, Vimeo, Blip, and Viddler. They all offer different things, so find the one that meets your needs the best.

Side note – I also have a green screen, but I can’t remember where I bought it. I know a lot of people who just use green blankets, and that works fine as well too.

Well it is possible, and it has drastically enhanced the way people monetize from search engines.

A free pay per click ad network, Chitika, allows you to place ads on your site that will only show up to people who have reached your site via search engine. Moreover, the ads displayed are geared not towards your site, but the keywords the user was searching.

Confused? Here is a quick example. Say you want to know what stocks were good to buy in 2009, so in Google you search for the term, “stocks to buy in 2009.” Now lets say you click on a link that takes you to my financial site. A Chitika ad will now show to you including links related to “stocks to buy in 2009.” You can see an example below:

There are many different sizes and places you can display these ad campaigns. Obviously, the placement depends on what works on your site. You also can edit font and color as well as decide whether to show nothing or have a replacement ad for people who visit your site from something other than a search engine. Finally, these ads are compliant and do work well with Adsense.

These Chitika PPC ad units will work well for anybody experiencing any search engine traffic, and completely free and easy to use.

Take a look at some other recommended online money makers.

There are only 2 things you need to run a website: a doman name and web hosting; however, as demand as increased more and more hosting companies are popping up everyday. With so many choices how do you know which hosting to use?

The truth is, unless you signed some contract, you are never attached to a single hosting. If your hosting is really not cutting it, then you can always easily change and transfer to another.

That being said, there are usually a few things to consider when determining the right web hosting (If you are just starting out, you don’t necessarily need all the bells and whistles yet. Start basic and you can add on later:

• Space - These days it should be unlimited.
• Domain Names – Do you get 1 free domain name (.com). Does the hosting company offer domain name management? How much?
• Email – Does the hosting give you email management? How much?
• Simple Install – Does your hosting have one-click install for popular web apps (i.e. WordPress)
• Price – The cheapest is not always the best, especially for what you may need. Maybe you don’t need unlimited email address. Maybe you don’t mind installing WordPress on your own.

The key is to look for what you’ll need 1-2 years out. Remember you can always start low and add-on more as needed.

Web Hosting Comparison Chart

The following is a list of some of the more popular and stable hosting companies out there. You can’t go wrong with any of them. ASANT Media uses HostMonster for all its hosting needs.

Most hosting companies pay for any transfer fees.

If you want good hosting, any of the above will do. While GoDaddy is one of the most widely known web hosting companies, we feel for what it offers, their service is more costly and outdated, and DO NOT recommend it.

If you have more questions on selecting the right web hosting, then feel free to contact us.

By url cloaking, I mean websites showing up as different URL’s than what they really are:

i.e. http://youraffiliate.com/yourtrackingid turns into http://tinyurl.com/jkdhfs

For the most part, Twitter automatically coverts most URL’s into TinyURL format. The beauty of this is that, you are given the ability to easy cover your affiliate links and ids, which allows for higher conversion rates. Also people must rely more on your brief description than to know what they are clicking on by the URL address.

People are curious. If they can’t tell what something is by the address, then, at the very least, they will at least click on the link and see what it is. That is all you can ask for.

While you can’t go wrong with just using the default of TinyURL, there are better options. The key to online success is to track everything you do. Track clicks, where people are coming from, what they are seeing, and so on. Yes, TinyURL cloaks your URL, but it doesn’t track it.

A very useful service I came across called Bit.ly allows you to easily, cloak, share, and track your url from anywhere. So if you post the link on some other site than yours, you can still track the link. If you are really lazy, then you can also share your links to various social networks straight from the site.

Free to sign up and easy to manage. Check out Bit.ly.

GoCodes – A great solution to cloak and track affiliate links. Turns your long affiliate link into yoursite.com/go/affiliate Download.

Wishlist Member – A simple plugin that will instantly turn your WordPress website into a full on membership site – easily syncs up with several different payment gateways and a host of other 3rd party scripts. Download

Feedburner – A simple plugin that automatically redirects all feed slots on your site to the one you really want to share (ie your Feedburner feed). Download

All in One SEO – Allows you to easily optimize each individual post and page for search engines. Download

SEO Smart Links – Automatically links keywords. A good practice to increase your SEO is to link to pages wihin your sites. This plugin allows you to set keywords of your choice to be automatically linked when they are written.

You can make it link to any pages and/or articles you may refer to in a post. Also, you can see that HostMonster is a link, but what you don’t know is that it did it automatically because I already set what I wanted it to link to in the settings. Download

Subscribe to Comments – Gives commentators the option to subscribe to comments for a specific page. Helps keep conversation flowing because people may leave comments and then never come back. If they are given an email when somebody responds to their comment, then they will most likely revisit your site. Download

Post Views - Enables you to easily show most popular post and such. A great way for new users to see what your website is about. Download

Yet Another Related Post - Automatically grabs related posts based on your criteria. Also has a function, so you can add it to your RSS feed too. Also comes with convenient tags so you can customize it and put it wherever you want. Download