Spend Less Time Customizing Your Theme - And More Time Cramming Money Into Your Pocket

A friend of mine told me about Video Blog Dream Theme, a newly released Wordpress, web 2.0 design by Ben Cope (“The Internet Genius”), a couple of days ago. When looking at the Video Blog Dream Theme, I started to quickly realize that it’s more than just a sleek looking showcase for videos.

Not having a ton of HTML or CSS knowledge, it’s been very difficult to find a Wordpress theme or even a design for my regular website that is prefect for me or that I can safely edit to my custom idea without losing everything in the process.

The Video Blog Dream Theme contains a theme options page that empowers users to customize the look-and-feel, header graphics, color options and more. That alone provides people more time to focus on important matters that make them money, rather than editing actual files they have no clue “how to” correct and shouldn’t be messing with in the first place.

It’s about time someone has stepped up to the plate to offer a theme that actually works for the beginner and veteran alike. Especially if you are a beginner and aren’t totally comfortable with the installation process, that’s not a problem. Ben offers free installation and setup with free one year upgrades. It only takes Ben about “one” hour to install and set up the site for those who purchase the Video Blog Dream Theme, that request that help.

One of the main features I love (out of many – and I’ll get to that in a bit) is the Advanced SEO Titles included in this theme. Ben made this easy to predispose your potential customers to your marketing message with this feature. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the importance of SEO, rather Search Engine Optimization, it’s a powerful marketing tool for web based companies and one that every serious entrepreneur should be engaged in.

Ben Cope writes, “Whether you know anything about SEO or not, this theme will help you rank higher in the search engines for your particular keywords because it comes pre-installed with the All-In-One-SEO plugin for WordPress! Several WordPress plugins come pre-installed with your purchase of this theme, including those that are guaranteed to boost your search engine rankings!”

Another feature and one popular with this theme is the Featured Video tool for your home page. Its really easy to just copy and drop the video ID to be featured on your home page, or any page for that matter. No more messing around with configuring the HTML source so Wordpress will recognize and publish it properly.

Some other features that are important for the success of your blog:

• You can select what category is featured on your home page. This is a cool option given that your category will change with each featured article or video. Not to mention that whatever article is getting the most attention will appear on the home page too!
• This is a Widget Ready theme! All you have to do is drag and drop from the widget tools to your sidebar. So this easily changes the look for your sidebar in seconds.
• Fully-funciontal WordPress Blog - but your site is going to look and function at the next level and appear almost like a regular site with a blog behavior. Just take a look at OneMansGoal.com for a prime example.
• Easily embed video from just about anywhere! It doesn’t matter if you are a YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, MySpace, Blip.tv, Windows Media user…etc. This theme graciously accepts them all!

I really like the fact that visitors are going to be able to casually subscribe to your RSS (”Really Simple Syndication”) from the integration with Feedburner. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen blogs with no subscription option. Maybe its because people don’t understand how important it is to know who is interested in what you offer? Or maybe its just as simple as they don’t have a clue how to embed that into their blog too? Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter anymore as it comes built in with the Video Blog Dream Theme as well.

You can also add your own blog RSS to your home page to feature even more content, and I’m not talking just on your sidebar either!

I particularly don’t care if people don’t get how important it is to optimize their sites, or provide valuable content in all the right places of your blog or site. You just provide more prospects for the rest of us! But if you’re serious about making money online and becoming a success, I feel that Ben’s theme is more than a simple tool to create a good looking site. I know many are very stoked to see all the additional features that “really” work for once.

Slam Dunk Ben, on the Video Blog Dream Theme!

If you still don’t get it, check out his free demo yourself. With his 100% money back guarantee, free installation, set-up, telephone support and more, I’m sure that many more video and regular bloggers are going to start a stampede over this very reasonable priced offer.

Which reminds me, last I checked he has an offer for almost half off the normal price for the first 57 people who buy.

You can also enter a drawing to get 100% of your money back!

One Man’s Goal - The Paid Writer Search

One Man’s Goal is looking for paid writers! Since I’ve been a bit limited due to time constraints, and only able to post twice a week or so, I thought I’d fill the gaps with a paid writer or two. If this is something that you’d be interested in… listen up!

If you are…

• A native English speaker
• Able to research, write, and proofread your own posts
• Familiar with the topics we cover here - Web 2.0, Copywriting, Better Blogging, SEO, and marketing
• Dependable, and able to both independently, and under my direction
• Able to write 250+ word articles consistently

Then you might be what I’m looking for. To apply for a paid blogging job at One Man’s Goal, just use the handy-dandy contact tab above, and send me an email telling me more about yourself, and why you would be the best candidate for the job. Also, include at least two writing samples (links are fine, as long as they are yours).

I’m looking for writers so that I can take the time to focus on what I do best… promotion. OMG has been mostly a back-burner project for me since I bought it back from Austin. I’m looking to change that, and hiring paid writers just seems like the best way to focus my time. But, I’ll still be writing here once or twice a week.

The pay schedule will be as follows…

• $5 - $10 per post, pay will increase when writers shows he/she is dependable and able to do what I require
• A superb bonus structure that includes bonuses for social bookmarking traffic (i.e. Digg front page)
• Bonuses for being picked up on bigger sites (problogger, shoemoney, etc.)

So, if you are interested… send me an email!

FREE Offer For My Newsletter Subscribers

Here’s the deal folks. Not only did I write an ebook that is a wealth of information, and then decide to give it out free, but I also have something else up my sleeve. I hope for your sake that you are signed up for my Bigshot Blogging newsletter so that you can take advantage of this free offer that I’ll be sending out Monday.

I’m not going to give too much information in a blog post, as this offer is only going to be for my newsletter subscribers. But I will tell you this… it’ll be a FREE offer that will help you to build a TON of traffic to your blog. And the best part? Well, besides it being absolutely FREE, it’ll take you less than 2 minutes to use this resource a few times a week so that you can start building more traffic. And when I say more traffic, I’m not talking about 40-50 more visitors a day… I’m talking about the potential to bring THOUSANDS of people to your website on any given day. All for free!

So if you aren’t on my email list, the only way to get there is to use the form on the right to download my book, Bigshot Blogging. I promise you that this offer is worth the effort of signing up. There are no hidden offers, and no catches… well, except that you have to be a part of my email list and get the great tips and tricks that don’t get posted on One Man’s Goal. Terrible huh? I limit how many newsletters I send out so that you don’t have to weed through senseless babble, or spam in order to get a great tip or two. I only send out messages with wonderful tips that will make you money, or improve your blog.

So, get on the subscriber list, and prepare for a great traffic building method to be announced Monday. It won’t be announced here though… it’s just for my newsletter subscribers.

Have a great weekend!

Google PageRank Update In Progress?

According to several popular forums, there are site reporting some PageRank fluctuations as of this morning. After checking the Google Datacenters, I am able to confirm that something is indeed going on. Some datacenters have OMG ranked at a 0, some say 4, and there are 3 that say it is a PageRank 7.

So does anyone know whats going on? Or have you noticed any changes in PageRank for any of your sites?

Make sure to report anything you find here at OMG. I’m curious to see if we are going to get a full update, or a partial one like we did in January. I’m kinda getting frustrated at Google for doing partial updates… just get ‘em done already!

Premium Themes And Digital Copyright Leeching

With the explosive growth of premium Wordpress themes, this was bound to come up sooner or later. I was forwarded a link yesterday that had a pretty interesting take on Premium Themes, and their lack of Copyright protection.

In the article, the author mentions that Premium Themes can be freely distributed with no fear of legal action, due to the fact that they are based on an Open Source platform.

Here is the link. Make sure to check out what Matt (the creator of Wordpress) has to say in the second comment from the bottom.

For those of you that have never bought a Premium Theme, let me get you up to speed on how they work. When you buy the theme, you aren’t actually “buying the theme”. You are buying a license to use the theme, and dependent on the authors terms, you can usually only use the theme on one site. There are other versions of the license, such as the developers package that allows you to use it on multiple sites, but this is always more expensive. Whether you buy the single usage license, or the developers package, you have absolutely no resale rights to the theme. You can sell a site with the theme on it, but you can’t re-use the theme on your next site without purchasing a new license.

Well, according to this article, you can throw all that out the window. Apparently, you can’t copyright a Theme, a Plugin, or any other development for an Open Source platform. So these authors have the right to sell the theme, but they have no power over how it’s distributed after that.

I’m not sure if this is 100% correct, as I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not sure that I understand digital copyright laws anyway. I can tell you this… if the author isn’t allowed to set usage restrictions on how their product is distributed, it’s bad news for all of us. Eventually these themes are going to be so expensive, due to pirating, that they won’t be affordable to the masses. I cant tell you right now, that their is a well known developer that’s being screwed out of hundreds of dollars right now, as his theme is being sold on Digital Point for around $6 rather than the $100 he charges for it. It’s really not fair to these developers who put 100+ hours into the creation of a single theme.

But I’m not sure that there is much they can do about it.

Anyone want to weigh in on this topic?

The Top 10 Blogging Stories Of 2007

As 2007 comes to a close in just a few short hours, it’s time to celebrate 2008, and to look back on the best of 2007. The following stories brought about the biggest buzz in the blogging community for 2007. As we look forward to 2008, let’s not forget about these stories as we drive forward and continue to strive for success.

10. John Cow

Ahh, the loveable bovine rip off of the evil genius John Chow. Whoa, confusing eh? What started off as an admirable attempt to imitate (albeit humorously) and steal traffic from John Chow has actually turned into a well-rounded and super profitable story. John Cow may even give John Chow a run for his money in 2008, leading us to ask - Will the real John please step forward?

9. Blog Mastermind

Yaro Starak has been a mainstay in the blogging community for some time now. It was only a matter of time before he developed a product to secure his place in blogging history. Well, mission accomplished. It all started with the tremendous viral success of Yaro’s free ebook - “The Blog Profits Blueprint”, which transitioned smoothly into his own teaching ground dubbed as the Blog Mastermind program. For a moderate fee, you can cash in on all of Yaro’s knowledge and start plugging away at internet profits for your own blog.

8. The Birthplace of the Premium Theme Market

Wordpress themes are free right? Yes… and no… Well you can still find free themes but 2007 was ultimately the year of the Premium Theme. It seems that bloggers are no longer content with mediocre free themes that offer little to no features, and even less in the way of being visually appealing. It all started with two of the biggest blogs in the make money online niche - Problogger.Net and JohnChow.Com going the “new” theme route. Custom theme designs made all of us realize that our free theme’s just weren’t up to par any longer. Theme superstars like Adii, Brian Gardner, and newcomer Ben Cope have really made their mark on this hot new marketplace. Just one question… Adii, can I borrow some cash?

7. Blog Sales

This was a hot trend for all of ummm… a month? The market came and went faster than the Miami Dolphins playoff hopes in 2007. If you got in while the market was hot, you got a big payday. If not, then you just missed making some serious cash before this market started to freeze. It all started a week or two after the PageRank updates, and it ended with no less than 3-5 blogs being sold in the 10k range. This blog was actually one of them, but I was lucky enough to buy it back.

6. Wordpress For Dummies

Well it was a long time coming, but Wordpress for Dummies was officially released on November 12, 2007. Authors Lisa Sabin-Wilson and Matt Mullenweg provide an outstanding resource on all that is Wordpress. If you don’t have this book, you must pick it up. Check out the link above to order your copy.

5. Casey Serin - IAmFacingForeclosure.com

2007 also saw the rise (and fall) of Casey Serin. Casey started off with a bang by getting some huge exposure when he was dubbed “The World’s Most Hated Blogger” in a widely read story by MSN. For those of you that don’t know the entire Casey Serin saga, you can check out a summary here. Casey may have been “The World’s Most Hated Blogger”, but he sure was huge for a few months. During the height of the Serin saga, Casey was getting 10k+ pageviews a day, and over 200 comments (mostly negative), and making 5k or so a month from his popular blog - iamfacingforeclosure.com. The saga was brought to an abrupt end when Casey sold IAFF and gave up blogging in an attempt to repair a damaged relationship with his wife which was caused by the personal details that Casey shared on IAFF. He hasn’t been heard from since.

4. The Rise & Fall Of - “The Next Big Thing”

2007 also saw an explosion in products that were supposed to be the next big thing, but fell far short of expectations. This hall of shame list includes Agloco, TNX, and Blog Rush along with many others that didn’t receive the press of these three. It was a good push for Agloco, TNX, and Blog Rush - but that’s over now. Welcome to mediocrity.

3. Perez Hilton

The true success story of 2007 goes to Perez Hilton, from PerezHilton.Com. This super-blogger blogged his way to d-list celebrity status this year. He now makes regular appearances on Vh1 and Mtv, as well as running his super popular celebrity gossip blog. In a recent study, PerezHilton.Com was the number one blog in the world amongst college aged students. Not bad for someone who could easily be compared to your 13-year-old sister. With his crush on High School Musical star - Zack Efron, and his endless array of tropical fruit colored hair, it’s easy to make the comparison.

2. The Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferris

Although this one technically has nothing to do with blogging, it’s writer - Tim Ferris, runs a very successful blog, so I thought I’d include it. You’d be hard-pressed to find a book that got more buzz in 2007 than The Four Hour Work Week. Having read the book cover to cover no less than 3 times myself… It’s a must-have! Tim discusses how to join the ranks of the “new rich” and jet set around the world living it up on far less money than you may think. It also has some fantastic business plans to get you started on your quest to make thousands of dollars a month online. Get your copy by clicking the link above.

1. Google

Not a single topic in the blogging world caused more of a stir than Google this year. Whether it be their reported Pimp Slapping of several sites with a drop in PageRank, the punishment of John Chow, or the long overdue PageRank update, Google definitely made their share of blogging news in 2007. After punishing John Chow for black-hat SEO and marketing techniques, you couldn’t (can’t) even find Mr. Chow on the first few pages of Google when you search for his own name. It’s pretty surprising since his domain name is JohnChow.Com. Well, after this Google also made a stir by dropping the PageRank of several blogs, including - Problogger (albeit temporary), JohnChow.Com, Entrepreneurs-Journey.Com, and AndyBeard.Eu. If this wasn’t enough to make them newsworthy, the thing that got everyone talking was the delay in the PageRank updates. We waited for months until Google finally started the process, albeit quite late. PageRank updates normally happen every three months. Will the next one be tardy as well? We’ll see.

These stories generated the most buzz in the blogging world in 2007. What will you remember about this year in blogging? If you enjoyed this post please share the love by linking to it and/or clicking the “thumbs up” (I like it) button on your StumbleUpon toolbar so that others may enjoy it.

Selling Blogs Is Reaching Epidemic Level

As most of you have noticed, there have been no lack of blogs for sale lately. Why is this? Is it in the water? I have a few ideas.

• PageRank Update - Some sites (like myself) have just received their first PageRank update. Google doing something that actually helps you has been known to lead to mass hysteria including, but not limited to; selling blogs.
• Lure of Easy Money - Pretty straight forward huh? When thousands of dollars are there for the taking, how can you pass it up? It’s not hard to start a blog, or build it up to be pretty popular. With the lure of easy cash… it’s no wonder people are wanting their piece of the pie.
• Hot Market - The first rule of investing is “buy low, sell high”. I think that rule is pretty easily explained by saying that I have a few hundred dollars wrapped up into this blog, and I’m cashing out for a few thousand. Investing 101 courtesy of Bryan Clark.
• Funding Another Project - This is my reason for selling. I have big plans and it takes a bit of money to get started. I’ll keep you posted as I go!
• Found Out That Blogging Isn’t For You - This isn’t me. I still love blogging and all of the cool stuff that comes along with it. But some people burn out after a bit, and it’s smarter to make a little cash for your blog rather than just leave it sleeping in cyber-space.

I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the Blog Sale phenomenon. Look for many more in the coming weeks.

Yep, It’s For Sale

Some of you have already seen the listings on Sitepoint, but for those of you that haven’t, here is my official announcement. One Man’s Goal is for sale!

Yeah before the overwhelming “I told you so” people start weighing in, things change!

I’m not, by any means… done with blogging. I’ve got a big plan, and I may be teaming up with another recent ex-blog owner to bring forth something pretty huge. It’s not a decision based on my dislike for blogging… that’s not the case at all. I still absolutely love to blog, and I love interacting with all of you. But big plans, require a bit of money it seems. And the money will further extend my goal by giving me investment capital in my new endeavor.

This is actually the second listing that I have put up on sitepoint… the first one actually finished with a sale price of $8,500. Pretty good, but a far cry from the 18k I was offered a while ago (kicking myself). The person who bid $8,500 though decided to wait until the auction was over to let me know that he couldn’t pay until mid-December. Nice…

So anyways, it’s re-listed now. If you want to give it a look, check out the link above.

I’ll be sure to keep in touch with all of you and keep you informed of my progress.

I’ll keep posting until a sale is finalized so that all of you know how this works out. Thanks to all of you for making a 4 month old blog worth so much!

Traffic/Revenue Details

Traffic (October 2 thru November 2)

Referring Traffic

Commission Junction Revenue (October… the $30 is from November so far)

Paypal (October)

I’ve Got A PageRank!

Yep, I’m the proud new owner of a PageRank 4! It predicted me to be a PR5, but I’m definitely happy with a 4.

This just goes to show you… If you want a better PageRank… Change your theme! Alright, maybe not, but it’s a nice thought.

I don’t think that all of the Google drama is over yet though. I don’t think that they’ve let the cat out of the bag just yet. Look for more PR news in the near future. I guess we were all wrong about Google hating text link sellers. It looks like they may have just changed the algorithm and now some links are worth more than others. Guess we’ll see!

Awesome News!

I’m happy to report that I’ve been asked by Yaro Starak to write for his popular blog Entrepreneurs Journey!

I had been searching for a paid blogging position for some time now, and when Yaro offered me this opportunity it was a perfect match. For those that don’t know, Entrepreneurs Journey is one of the biggest money blogs on the internet. It’s rated in the top 10 of 45n5’s top 100 money blogs and it has about 5k daily RSS readers. It really is a wonderful opportunity for me, and I get to learn from one of bloggings biggest names… Yaro.

So in addition to checking out One Man’s Goal everyday, make sure to take some time to check out Entrepreneurs Journey for my articles there. I’ll be posting daily with all of the most current news from the blogging and internet business world. I hope that you can check it out!

Or you can subscribe to Yaro’s RSS feed so that you can get my articles in your reader. Make sure and leave some feedback for Yaro via comment. It’s a trial run, but hopefully with some excellent writing, and good reader feedback I can stick around for the long haul. Go tell him what you think by checking out my introduction to the Entrepreneurs Journey readers. Or you can read my first article at EJ.