Web Dev Notes

Did you know that by moving around your ad placement from time to time or changing the background or border colors of your ads, you will help yourself get more clicks?! If a lot of your traffic is from return visitors, after a while they will subconsciously block the ads out from their mind. By moving them around or changing their appearance, people will suddenly notice them again for a while, increasing the chances of potential clicks!

Give your site a breath mint from time to time by freshening things up with some changes! You’ll see people won’t hide from your ads quite as much!

Looking for Web Development Software or Books? Visit my Web Development Software and Books Store!

Want to Increase your Websites Page Rank and Incoming Traffic? Submit your Articles to WriterDatabase.com. It’s Free!

If you haven’t been paying attention, the internet is an incredibly huge place these days. Millions of people browse the net every day and more and more people are becoming comfortable with shopping online. With the vast amount of customers at your finger tips world-wide, running an internet shop is a good way to make some extra money!

The first thing you need to consider before you jump right into setting up a shopping cart is first deciding if you will be renting a shopping cart system hosted by another company or if you will be purchasing software to set-up your shop yourself.

What are the advantages to renting a shopping cart system with a hosting company? The first obvious advantage is that it is much simpler for those who are not as tech-savvy but who still have a product they think they can sell successfully online. Also, by going with a hosted solution, you will often already have a payment gateway available to you so that you can immediately accept credit card payments on your site.

So why host your shopping cart yourself if the rented solution seems to offer a very easy to use solution? Because hosting the shopping cart yourself is less expensive! Since many shopping cart software systems are available absolutely free, the only cost you will need to worry about is the cost of having your own website! Below are three shopping cart systems recommended by the Web Development Blog as well as two hosted solutions that I like that are actually free!

Three Free Shopping Cart Systems Recommended by Web Development Blog

Zen-Cart
Zen Cart is a well-known provider of a free shopping cart system. While the administration back-end can be confusing because of the amount of options available, once you get the hang of things, Zen Cart can be an asset to your company because of its feature rich interface.

OsCommerce
Much like Zen Cart, Os Commerce is a feature rich shopping cart that also happens to be free. Released as Open Source software, Os Commerce has a solid community of supporters that help with the creation of plugins and modules, making this a feature rich shopping cart solution as well.

Cube Cart
Cube Cart is another free, yet versatile shopping cart system. Requiring only PHP and access to one MySQL database, the minimal requirements for this shopping cart solution are easily met by most paid web hosting accounts online today.

Two Free Hosted Shopping Cart Systems

Amazon Store
Amazon is a great way to setup an online shop at absolutely no cost. Of course, this option has one important restriction that you need to be aware of. By setting up an Amazon store you will be able to sell any of the products on Amazon.com and earn a commission on sales. If you want to sell your own products, this option is not for you. Even if your products are listed in Amazon, you could make more selling them directly than by doing so through Amazon. However, for those who’d just like to sell products related to the topic of their website, an Amazon store is an excellent option.

Paypal
Paypal is another great way to set up a free shopping cart. With Paypal you will be able to sell the products you like securely at no initial up front cost. You will be charged a fee for each transaction, but you do not have to invest any money up front. With Paypal’s shopping cart, you can define items and their prices then simply add an “Add to cart” button on your website. You can see an example at the BattleCity Classic website.

Once you’ve setup your shopping cart, you’ll need to market it! The best way to get free advertising is to take advantage of article directories like Writer Database where you can submit an article about your cart and the products available. This will help send visitors to your site at not cost whom will hopefully be interested in purchasing your product!

If you want to make a living from blogging you can! Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. The good news is that getting started with a blog does not require any monetary investment. You can turn a 0$ initial investment into a million dollar business! The thing to keep in mind though is that this transition will not happen over night! Some assembly is required!

more funny pictures

The main ingredient you will need to invest in you blog is time. By constantly investing time into your blog, you can turn a tiny little website into a huge empire! Doing so requires just a few simple steps. Blog often, do it on a consistent schedule and comment comment comment!

Of course, there is always a catch. The above will get you started but it won’t help you make any money! To make money even more assembly is required! First you’ll need to sign up for one or more of the following advertising services.

Get Reviewed At ReviewMe!

Earn $$ with WidgetBucks

AuctionAds: Increase the bid on your site’s income!

Once you are signed up to one of these services they will give you some code that you can copy/paste into the theme of your blog or website in order to display advertisements. If your website has many daily visitors, you’ll start converting that traffic into income! Now you’re not only blogging which is hopefully something you enjoy, but you’re also making money from it!

Another great way to make money online from your website is to use Amazon! Read this article to find out how to create an online store and make money with Amazon.

Of course, once you slap on some ads or start using Amazon, you still need to continue posting quality content! Quality content is the best way to ensure your visitors return to your site again in the future!

Once your site has a lot of traffic, a good Alexa ranking and a good Google Page Rank, you should also consider direct advertising. Direct advertising is when you sell advertising space on your website yourself. You always make more profit this way because you no longer have a middle-person taking a cut! You only want to offer direct advertising once your website will offer something of value to your advertisers because you definitely want them to be repeat customers. The more repeat customers you have, the less you need to worry about finding new partners each month and the more stable your income becomes!

If you enjoyed this post, why not check out some other websites I’ve been working on!

• BattleCity Classic
• Looble Network
• Software Engineer Training
• WriterDatabase
• Tamra Maew

Ever since Darren Rowse from ProBlogger published his first book, many bloggers have been wondering, can they get published too? Bloggers have a lot to say and if you never thought about publishing your own book before, you probably have now. Of course, not everyone will be approached by a publisher, but don’t let that stop you because there are a lot of self-publishing services available online that can help get you started! If you have good advice to share and the motivation to write it all down, self-publishing could be right for you.

Wordclay’s Online Publishing offers a user-friendly service that will help guide you through the process of publishing your own book. With Wordclay you can choose your book size, design the cover, and make other design choices to customize the look of your book. The best part is that their self-publishing service is free! They will only make money when you sell your book so they are focussed on helping you become successful.

In addition to helping you through the steps required to publish your book, Wordclay also offers additional marketing services to help bring your book into contact with as many potential buyers as possible. Remember, their success is reliant on your success, so once again they offer a high quality service that will help increase your sales and revenues. For more detailed information regarding how the whole self-publishing process works, visit their FAQ section for answers to most of the questions you may have.

This Post Brought to you by Wordclay! If you are interested in self-publishing but are not sure if Wordclay is for you, take the time to compare them with some other online publishers like AuthorHouse or Lulu! You’ll then be able to decide which service is best for your particular needs.

Self-publishing is one great way to make money online. For more tips and suggestions regarding how to make money online, check out the Web Dev Notes Make Money section.

One of the great things about doing freelance work or running your own blog is that you get to be your own boss. When you are your own boss, you don’t have to worry about finding yourself in situations as show below…

Of course, being your own boss isn’t easy because then you have to figure out how the heck your are going to make some money to live off of! Is is possible to make a living from blogging? Obviously the answer is yes. There are many examples of people earning above average salaries just by running a website or a blog. However, even though it is possible, it is definitely not easy.

The hardest part of earning a living from the web is going through all the steps and work that must be done before earning a single cent. You have to start somewhere, and usually that means working hard on your website for up to a year before you start to see any actual returns for all that work.

Is it worth the effort? That depends, are you the chicken or the cat?

Are you a student who is using blogging as a means of earning a little extra cash? If so, chances are you are very hard working and dedicated! Making money from blogging is no easy task as we’ve already explained many times here at Web Dev Notes. In order to become a successful blogger you need to make quality posts often as well as survive the rough times when visiting traffic is low. In fact, there are many factors you need to manage in order to become a successful blogger which you can read more about in our Blogging Tips section.

If you approach your studies with the same enthusiasm and dedication as you do blogging then you may very well find yourself in a position to qualify for a scholarship. Visit Scholarships.com and fill out a scholarship application today! You have nothing to lose by filling out an application and possibly much to gain.

Scholarships.com gives you free access to an extensive list of grants & college scholarship opportunities. They have been around since 1998 and have already helped award 2.7 million scholarships & grants worth over $19 billion. Their search functionality will help you find scholarships that match your interests and qualifications. Apply and see what happens! If you’ve been working hard you deserve to be rewarded. Remember, your chances of receiving a scholarship are significantly improved when you take the time to apply for one

This post brought to you by Scholarships.com. Where else can you find information about scholarships or financial support for academics? Check with an academic adviser at your educational institution. They may be able to guide you towards other resources and services available to you to help ensure you receive the education you deserve! Also, read more about how you can make money online without spending a dime in our Web Dev Notes Make Money section.

Amazon is a great way to monetize a highly trafficed website. Amazon is one of the worlds leading e-commerce websites which allows people to buy just about anything online. Joining Amazon as an associate allows you to earn a commission on any sales you generate from your website.

I’ve never used Amazon before because I never had enough traffic to make it worthwhile. However, thanks to the growth of BattleCity, I’ve decided to experiment with Amazon as a possible income stream which could help support the costs of running the game.

Many websites like to use affiliate links directly in their articles to specific items they may currently be writing about. For example, if I was writing an article about how awesome my Canon PowerShot A550 7.1MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoomis, I might use a link to Amazon where people could buy the camera like so! However, for BattleCity, there is no good way of doing this while remaining on topic unless Amazon begins selling tanks, land mines, etc… =p

For the above reason, I instead decided to create an Amazon store! Take a look at the BattleCity Amazon Store to see what it looks like. If you have visited the BattleCity Classic website, you will notice that it is even possible to customize the look of the store to match your website!

When you create an Amazon store, you can even specify exactly what you would like to display in it. For example, you will notice that in the BattleCity Amazon Store, the first items you are presented with are Video Games and Video Game Consoles. I felt this would be the best landing page considering this is a store for BattleCity which is a computer game! On the right-hand side, there are other categories users can browse as well.

Will this store actually generate any income for the game? If there are players who do shop online, some may be persuaded to use the Amazon store in order to help the game. I’ll post about the stores success or failure in a few months! I expect that the store would generally remain a very small income stream given the nature of the BattleCity website, but any little bit helps!

So how do you setup your own store? Visit Amazon.com and click the Join Associates link to sign up with Amazon. Once your account is created, login and click aStore. Then select, Add an aStore. To show you how it’s done, I’ll create an aStore for Web Dev Notes!

At this point, I am assuming you were able to create an Amazon Associates account and have found the aStore button. Click the Add an aStore button as shown below! As you can see in the screenshot, I already have two Amazon aStores! You are allowed to create up to 100 which should be more than you will ever need!

Next you will be presented with the “Create aStore Pages” area which will allow you to setup your different store categories and select the items to display. You can select specific items, or specific Amazon categories. Since I want something related to Web Dev Notes, I’ll add Web Development Software and Books to my store! The screenshots below show how I have done this! If any of the screenshots are unclear, click them to see the full-size view.

First we want to “Add a Category Page”

Next, select the category to begin editing it. I will select the “Add products by Amazon.com category” option so that I can include the entire Web Development section. Click “Select an Amazon Category” to browse the categories and to select the one you want in your store.

Since I am looking for Web Development Software, I will first select the Software category. I will then specify that I only want to display Web Development software.

After saving all these selections and changes and giving my category an appropriate name, I am taken back to the beginning where I can add another category, or continue to the next step. I’ll add one more category for books then show a preview of what the Web Dev Notes Store looks like so far!

First, a look at the Category Pages screen which now has two categories! Before going on, I’ll hit that up arrow to move the Books category above the Software category because I believe books are more popular with my readers than software. The category shown at the top of this list will be the default one displayed first.

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And, a preview of the store so far!

Wow, that was all pretty easy so far! Next step is to customize the look to match your website better! There are some themes you can select from or you can define your own colors and edit the CSS file.

How did I match up the colors to resemble my website? First, I took a screenshot of my website and then pasted it in Paint. Then using the color selector tool, you can get the exact RGB value for the colors. Since you need the hexadecimal value of the color, I used this RBG to Hex Converter.

First, I define my new theme.

Here is a new preview of the store with the updated theme.

Before you continue, give your store a name!

The next step is to check a bunch of configuration options such as whether you want to display the sidebar menu on the right or left, if you want to show similar items or not, etc… I put my sidebar on the right and then checked every box! Once you’re done that, click finish and you are done!

Want to see the final product? Visit my Web Dev Notes Store!

As you can see creating an Amazon store is very simple. You can also now easily browse your store to find products you think your readers might be interested or which you own and highlight them with links to your store in future articles!

Have you ever thought of publishing your own book? Selling millions of copies of your very own book is probably just as exciting as the thought of getting Stumbled and experiencing a huge traffic surge to your website. In fact, it’s probably even a better feeling! Besides, who is more qualified to have their very own book than an experienced blogger who knows his/her niche well and who has plenty of worthy advice to share!

AuthorHouse Book Publishing is a self-publishing service that could help you get your very first book published. By using AuthorHouse, you’ll be working with professionals who are serious about both writing and publishing and who will be able to help you with all aspects of the process.

What does AuthorHouse do exactly?

AuthorHouse unfortunately will not write your book for you, but that’s about the only step you will have to take care of all on your own. Once done writing your book, AuthorHouse can have an editor review your content or you can take advantage of their illustrations package and have their artists find artwork for your book.

When it comes to actually publishing your book, AuthorHouse will have tons of options available to you such as the format, size and cover for your book. You can also choose to have a hardcover or paperback, color or black and white, etc… Basically, anything you would expect a publishing company to do, you will have the power to do while working with AuthorHouse.

Lastly, you will also have the additional option to select a promotional or book selling service in order to help increase sales of your book. This is an option that may or may not be useful to you depending on your personal goals and reasons for publishing a book.

All in all, if you are interested in getting published, self-publishing is a more and more popular way to do so. Definitely check out AuthorHouse and the services they have to offer to see if they are providing just what you are looking for!

This Post Brought to you by AuthorHouse! If you are interested in self-publishing but are not sure if AuthorHouse is for you, compare them with one of their biggest competitors Lulu.com! You’ll then be able to decide which service is best for your particular needs.

Remember back in April when I became the new writer for Web Dev Notes? I started off by introducing Joomla, PHP-Nuke, phpBB and PHP. I even recommended some cool software like the ALT-Tab Replacer, Virtual Desktop Manager and the Firebug plugin for Firefox. After a slow start, I finally got my big break when my article Formatting Text in Wordpress started to bring in steady traffic!

In my early Web Dev Notes days I stuck to covering more technical topics such as how to insert CSS on your website or how to create your first PHP page. However, after testing out the use of humor in posts like the Top Ten Stupidest Joomla! Administrator Tricks and When will GoogleBot index my Brain I discovered that this unique approach was actually quite well received! I also realized website marketing and SEO was a very popular aspect of web development so I decided to venture into this area with posts like The Battle for Traffic - SEO vs Content, No Contacts, No Money and Validate Your Website for Better SEO!

Of course, even though I would later discover that marketing and SEO would be a very popular topic on my blog, at the time I had no idea yet! Looking at my stats, the posts about PHP were the most trafficked so I decided to cover this area more extensively! In May I introduced some great web development resources and then discussed the relationship between PHP and a Web Server/Browser in order to build a solid foundation before diving right into PHP for the rest of the month. I then covered how to comment PHP code, the debate over using Print or Echo, how to use variables, how to use concatenation with variables and variable naming conventions. Using this introductory material, I was then able to go even deeper and cover topics like using arrays, if/else programming logic, nested IF/ELSE conditional statements, and PHP Loops. Since the topic of loops is already an extensively covered subject, I decided to make my articles sound unique by naming them, “The magic of WHILE Loops“, “The incredible FOR Loop Multi-Tasker“, and “The FOREACH Loop Love Affair with Mr. Array“.

In order to stay informed, I subscribed to many RSS feeds relating to my topic. In so doing I noticed that Digg and Google were two very popular topics. I decided to explore these subjects a bit with articles like, “List of Google Hoaxes“, “Who’s Digging You?“, “Google’s PageRank Explained by Phil Craven“, “Declare Warr on Digg Doondles!“, “I Hacked Google and Stole Their Robot lolol“, and “Are Your Archives Burying You Worse Than Digg“. These articles continue to bring in traffic to this day!

During the month of June I was taking a course on Interface Design so decided to cover similar topics on Web Dev Notes. I began by discussing the advantages of using personas during development and then decided to list nine causes of software error before discussing software quality and the three general principles of quality assurance. I introduced the subject of human/computer interaction and demonstrated how good design can help us better interact with computers. In fact, making the interaction between humans and computers as easy as possible is an important goal of improved user interface design. I also mentioned that building the right product is even more important than building a product right.

It was around mid-June when I also began to notice how well my SEO, blogging and marketing tips posts were doing! I therefore decided to write about the guaranteed way to generate incoming links and conquering the crowded niche! I also wrote about some issues I was having with trying to follow my own advice when I noticed my trackbacks were being kidnapped and asked if it were possible if my bullets were killing them! Not wanting to stray too far from the very roots of web development, I also introduced the Pixel Groovy website, discussed how to created animated favicons and threw in 21 CSS tutorials answering frequently asked questions.

During the month of July I continued to cover a lot of marketing topics. I created a new Top 11 Posts section and asked if people thought linking to other sites increases incoming traffic. I also started to learn a great deal about blogging and realized that my very own archives contained in itself the power to help WebDevNotes succeed. I therefore stopped considering old posts like dirty socks thrown into a laundry bin, and instead began viewing them as cornerstone content that should be linked back to frequently so that new visitors could access my best content easily.

Upon making this realization, I began offering my visitors some blogging advice with the help of Lolcats to make the posts more fun and easy to read. For example:

Don’t let Chihuahua’s hold back your website! Start working with the purrrrfect partners and plot your plan for success. Make sure you plant the seeds for success early and listen to feedback so you can feed your readers a happy meal. Make good use of article directories and other marketing techniques and never forget the secrets to writing a successful blog!

In conclusion, to those who say linking to old content is difficult, I beg to differ! Don’t let those archives go to waste

One way bloggers can make some extra money from their blog is by joining a website like PayPerPost. In order to get paid for blogging all you need to do is write about web sites, products, services, and companies that are related to your blog. In so doing you earn cash for providing your opinion and feedback which is useful for your readers and for advertisers.

The great thing about PayPerPost is that disclosure is required, meaning you must make sure your readers know when you are writing a sponsored post. You can read more word of mouth ethics on the PayPerPost website which explain how and why this is done.

Writing a paid post does not take away from your content at all because you are not required to write a positive review. In fact, its important for both your readers and advertisers that you write an honest review such that all parties benefit from the agreement. By making sure you only write paid posts for topics related to your blog you are in fact writing posts you may have written anyways for free with the hopes of making money from ads displayed on your site. That’s what I love most about PayPerPost, making money writing articles I would have written anyways.

One thing that I’ve learned since I’ve started using PayPerPost is that many people have mixed feelings towards the opportunity it provides. Therefore, if you want to avoid backlash from your readers, don’t overdo it! Make sure you only accept those opportunities that fit the topic of your blog and make sure you avoid spamming your own website with paid posts. PayPerPost won’t make you rich, but its a great extra way to monetize your blog a little more and to expand your income streams!