Spring is in the air, and with it a lot of rain. Now that March has passed and April is upon us, it’s that time again to do a roundup of last month’s posts. The month was full of guest writers, a nice change (as is having the Spring season finally here) and something I hope you’ve been enjoying. If not, I want to know about it, and why.

I plan to have at least another month of guest posts, as they just keep rolling in. I’m excited at the number of requests I’ve been getting and that other bloggers and writers want to contribute quality and useful content to this blog. That means a lot to me.

With that said, let’s take a look at what these guest authors contributed last month…

March’s Blog Posts on ReplaceYourSalary.com

How Working from Home Can Improve Your Personal Development

Should You Pay for a WordPress Theme?

Starting Your Small Business with a Small Amount of Money

Blog Posts Around the Web

Each month I try to share a few blog posts from other blogs I follow. I think it helps to give you an idea of other types of blogs that are out there that you may not be aware of, as well as other bloggers I look up to. Let’s take a look at some posts that stood out to me, and maybe you’ll find them helpful just as I did.

Andrew discusses 16 must-have WordPress plugins for your blog. Plug-ins are the lifeblood of any blog, and there are certain plugins you don’t want to be without. This is a must read.

TechChunks details the announcement that Google is going social. We all knew this was coming, right? I mean, they couldn’t just sit by and let Facebook dominate the internet. They won’t go without a fight, anyway. Definitely a must read and how this could impact search results and marketing as we know it.

Samuel tells you to stop reading and start doing. I’m all for learning, but there comes a point where you’ve learned enough that you can start putting what you learned into action, even if it’s a small task.

That’s all for now.

Again, please share your thoughts on the idea of showcasing more guest authors for the month of April. Do you think it’s a good idea, or would you rather see more of my own posts mixed within? I want to know, from you, the reader. Thanks!

The following is a guest post by Dan Cawrey. If you would like to write for this blog, please check out the guidelines here.

If you are going to be starting your own blog, WordPress is a great way to go. It’s simple, completely configurable through the web, and is run by a company that knows how to make good, free and open software. But once you’ve decided to use this platform as the back end, you need to start thinking about what the front end might look like.

WordPress’s outward appearance is powered by something called a theme. You have a several options when deciding what theme to choose: paying for one, using a free one or designing your own.

Paying

Shelling out some dollars for a WordPress theme is not a bad idea. With this option, you’re guaranteed a premium theme. You’ll get lots of options in the back end that you can customize, and many companies who design professional WordPress themes offer good support. One thing to be careful about, however, is paying too much for a WordPress theme. Don’t spend more than a couple hundred bucks on one, especially if you are just starting out. Check out FlexSqueeze Theme,  WooThemes, OrganicThemes or ElegantThemes for some good designs.

Going Free

You can also opt to not pay for a theme, which is perfectly acceptable for smaller sites. There are scores of themes that are available for free. Actually, there are almost too many to choose from. You’ll never run out of free themes, but you might just run out of time trying to find just the right one.

There is one problem with free themes however, and that’s the fact that being available for no cost means someone else is using that theme. The internet is a big place, but for some, having a sense of originality is important, which may make or break this option. You can Google some free WordPress themes, and the WordPress folks also have about a thousand on their site.

Do it Yourself

WordPress is a fairly simple platform, and as such you can also design your own theme. If you have any experience using HTML and CSS, you can simply start from scratch and make a theme of your own that fits your design tastes.

You don’t need to have a bunch of programming experience, but WordPress runs on PHP so having some experience with that language is helpful for getting things to run just right. This is a great option for those who like to tinker. Check here for the official WordPress guide.

Middle of the Road

The best option for choosing which route to go here is actually a mix. Depending on how original or authentic-looking you want your site to be, you might want to grab a free theme and customize it yourself. If you think you’ll need more advanced back end features, you might want to pay for a theme and then change the front end. The additional changes could be done yourself, or you could hire someone on a site like Elance to help you make so quick (and cheap) modifications.

Starting your own site takes a lot of decisions, but one of the best ones you can make is to choose WordPress and to get yourself a design that fits your audience. Hopefully this guide helps to make your site the best it can be!

About the Author: Daniel Cawrey is a freelance writer. In addition to blogging about credit cards, he also runs his own site (powered by WordPress) on Google Chrome and Chrome OS.

I know I promised a series of posts about backlinks, keywords, etc., but before I get into that I wanted to post my income from July and also update you on some new projects. First, let’s get to the earnings…

Income from ReplaceYourSalary.com

• ClickBank: $69.14
• PayDotCom – $140.85
• Angela’s Backlinks: $45
• Paul’s Backlinks: $12
• Yarie: $16.18
• Google Adsense: $33.61
• SFI: $17.54
• Project Payday: $13.50 (commissions earned from promoting the program, not actually using it)
• AdFish – $29.40
• ResponsiveData – $24
• Ads – $90
• FlexSqueeze WordPress Theme – $38.10

Total = $529.32

Income from Internet Marketing Services

It’s been a pleasure to be able to work for a highly successful internet marketer. I’m able to learn from and apply the same strategies to my online business, all of which I’ve blogged about here at one time or another.

Total = $120

Income from Proofreading/Re-writing/Editing Services

As I said previously, I’ve gotten a decent amount of freelancing work last month. It’s great to be able to provide a high quality and much needed service, and it’s been an honor serving my clients. You can learn more by visiting the link below.

• Proofreading – $63

Total = $63

Income from Re-writing Service via David Hurley’s PLR Article Service Membership

It has been an honor to be able to partner with David, a good online friend of mine, and provide the re-writing portion of his article membership. To learn more about his PLR article service, visit the link above.

Total = $75

Total online income from all sources…

$787.32

July is my best month yet. Getting closer to my goal of $1,000 in a month. I know that if I spend more time marketing that I could get there quicker, but I’ll admit, I’m sometimes lazy. It happens.

Anyway, I have some updates for you on some new projects I’m working on.

I have entered into the niche Adsense site arena and got my first site up. I won’t link to it here for multiple reasons, but it’s a niche that has potential to bring in some decent money from Adsense. I’ve only begun building backlinks to it, but it’s already on the first page of Google in the #4 position.

I hope to get it to the top spot shortly so that it will get more traffic and start to get clicks. Testing and tweaking will most likely be necessary. I’ll keep you updated on the performance of that site each month.

Also, I’m planning on entering another niche once my micro niche site starts bringing in some revenue. This niche won’t be micro and I won’t be using Adsense to earn money, but it’s a niche with barely any competition and a lot of hungry buyers. I’ll promote a single Clickbank product and create a funnel for visitors to get them to the order page.

That’s about it for now. As always, feel free to leave your comments below…

Creating an internet business website is just the first step to a long road of making money online. Once your website is up and you’re ready to do business (regardless of what business you’re engaging in), it is then time to market your online business.

The first part of marketing effectively on the internet is making sure your website looks professional. There’s no sense in spending time driving traffic to your site if it’s not appealing and people just leave right away. I recommend using WordPress as your website platform and then buying a professional WordPress Theme that you can customize.

Once your website is squared away, it’s time to get the word out. I’m a huge advocate of article marketing and is the primary marketing method that I use. The simple reason is that it works, and it works well on many levels. Articles bring in direct traffic, but they also add backlinks to your site and can be syndicated across the web by others providing even more backlinks and direct traffic.

Another effective marketing method is using videos. Now, I must admit that I don’t use this method near as much as I should, but I’ve noticed in the past that it has brought in traffic. If used correctly, video marketing can be used to generate leads for your business and bring in sales. Plus, videos can also provide backlinks to your content.

One thing you need to understand if you hope to rank well in search engines, specifically Google (which should be your ultimately goal), is that Google is looking for new and relevant content. What this means for your website is that it should be updated with new and relevant content on a regular basis. And, if you took my advice about using WordPress, you’re ready to use your website as a blog, which makes it exceptionally easy to keep updated with fresh content.

Another component that your online business should have is a newsletter. This allows you to keep your visitors and potential customers up to date with what’s going on. This also allows you to market products and services that are relevant to your site and newsletter.

As you probably noticed when I covered article and video marketing, I mentioned about getting backlinks. Once everything is in place and you’re ready to get traffic to your internet business website, backlinks are the glue that will hold everything together.

Search engine rankings… Traffic… Sales…

Backlinks are the key to everything. I can’t stress it enough. Article and video marketing are just two of the many ways to build backlinks to your site. AND… building backlinks through many varying marketing methods is the key to marketing your online business effectively.

My next posts (I don’t know how many yet) are going to cover backlinks in much detail. Everything is going to be broken down into segments, starting with what exactly backlinks are and the proper use of them… all the way to how to get them and much more.

This was spurred due to an influx of questions in my email inbox from people reading my blog and asking about backlinks, Page Rank, keywords, etc. I figured there is a good change that maybe some of you have similar questions or concerns, so I want to address everything publicly so that you’re all aware about this stuff so you can apply it to your own internet business website.

Be on the lookout for the first installment coming soon.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below…

I can barely hold my excitement in as I’ve been looking forward to this for quite some time now. For about the last week or so, I’ve been playing around with a new blog theme, completely in the background and undetectable to anyone.

Thanks to the plug-in Theme Test Drive, I’ve been able to install a new theme and customize a good portion of it behind the scenes. You’ve all been seeing the current theme while this was going on.

Missing the old theme already? Here’s a farewell snapshot…

In my excitement to roll out the new theme, I forgot to get the snapshot before enabling the new theme, so I had to find a cached version with the old theme… LOL.

As you may notice with the new theme, there is still a lot that needs to be done, most notably the footer area. I’ll get to that in a minute.

This new theme is a customized version of the FlexSqueeze WordPress Theme, which is a completely customizable theme that allows you to create your own unique blog theme. I bought this theme on a recommendation from Dennis Edell, and I couldn’t be happier.

This theme had everything I wanted, and then some. The main thing I wanted was better navigation, and if you’ll notice, the page links are now below the header and to the left, rather than above the header and to the right.

The next thing I wanted was a feature area, which is right below the navigation. I can add whatever I want here, and I may be changing some of the offers over time. The newsletter opt-in will most likely be permanent.

You’ll also notice I now only have one sidebar (a big one at that) on the right-hand side. I also have two sub-sidebars below the main sidebar to add additional content.

Within the next week you’ll see changes being made to the sidebar. I already have plans for it, and once I get everything finalized and the way I want it, it shouldn’t change much after that. So, don’t be alarmed if you see random stuff disappear or appear over the course of this week.

At some point, I’ll be adding a custom header to replace the plain, boring one you currently see. It’s okay as-is, but I think I can make something that stands out a little better.

I’ll also be adding additional pages to the blog as well. Not sure when this will happen, but I know for sure that I’ll be adding a Comment Policy, Disclaimer of some kind, a Write For Us page, and a Resources page that contains tools that I use and recommend.

I Need Your Help

As with any new theme installation, etc., there is always the chance for some bugs/errors to occur. I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary yet, but if you come across anything, please make me aware of it so that I can get it fixed.

And lastly, as mentioned above, there is a feature section at the footer. I had played around with this, but I couldn’t come to a conclusion as to exactly what I wanted there.

So, I’m asking for you to recommend what I should do with that space.

What should I include in the footer area? Should I remove it altogether? Should I add the newsletter opt-in form there also?

I’m open to any and all suggestions.

I’m very excited about the new theme, and I think it looks more professional than the old one. I look forward to the new changes to come, as I hope you are too.

I appreciate and thank you for sticking with me and helping to make this blog what it is. I couldn’t have done it without all of you!