Rio and City Dreams Tumblr Themes

In addition to updating the Be Original Tumblr theme, I have also been working on a few other themes as well – Rio Theme and CityDreams, both originally designed by Amy & Pink. These have been a favorite of mine for years, but I never had a good use for them, until now.

The designs were both created for WordPress, but because of their simplicity I thought they would be great options to convert into Tumblr Themes. So stay tuned, They are both about 50% completed and should be done soon.

WordPress Versions: Rio Theme & City Dreams

Below are screenshots of my working designs. They may differ in the final version, but will essentially look just like these.

Rio Tumblr Theme

City Dreams Tumblr Theme

** disclaimer – disregard the nudity in this theme, all images are owned by Amy & Pink **

Be Original Theme Updated

First, I would like to apologize for all the people who have sent me emails about the pagination missing. This was my first theme and although the how to make a Tumblr theme NetTuts tutorial was very good, they did miss a few small features which are required in order to get your Tumblr theme publishing in the Theme Garden, one of which is pagination.

So I finally got around to updating my Be Original Tumblr theme. The pagination is simple, but fits with the design of the theme and the color can be changed within the Customize/Appearance section of you Tumblr’s admin section.

Feel free to comment below if you have any issues, I will try and get back to you as soon as possible! Thanks!

Download Latest Version

View Demo

Theme Information

10 Internet Marketing Strategies for Building Brand Awareness

When deciding to start a website and make money online the first thing people worry about is receiving targeted website traffic. If you search Google for ‘muffin pans’ the only difference between the first site listed and the site listed on page 2,000,135 is that one website site owner has put more attention into brand awareness and internet marketing.

So before I begin, lets make sure we have a clear understanding of what brand awareness means.

Brand awareness is a marketing concept that measures consumers’ knowledge of a brand’s existence. At the aggregate (brand) level, it refers to the proportion of consumers who know of the brand.

This basically means, marketing your product so that it’s recognizable everywhere, like Coke, Mc Donald’s and Walmart. Take into consideration that these multi-million dollar companies (maybe even billions) spend a fortune on advertising every year to maintain their brand awareness in order to build loyalty for their customers. But for the everyday person starting an internet business this may seem almost impossible.

Brand recognition takes time and effort, so I have provided a few internet marketing ideas which will help you create a successful brand.

1. Sell Yourself First. Brand building can be as simple as being yourself. I can’t count how many times I have been undecided about purchasing a product, the final decision was between two very similar choices and I chose a the product based on a the fact I liked one company (or business owner) more than the other. Building a brand isn’t just about the product you’re selling, but it’s about brand perception. Do people like you? Do people speak highly of your business? Because if they do, they are more likely to purchase from you and tell their friends.

2. Use the Product Yourself. As a small business without much start-up capital brand development can start by simply using your own product! You would be amazed at how simple this marketing concept is, but sometimes overlooked.  Every small business should have an online marketing strategy which includes multimedia (videos, images, audio, etc.) of the owner using their products. Allowing a potential customers to see the owner stand behind their products’ quality and is passionate about it’s value will convert into potential sales.

3. Follow Up and Stay Accessible. Brand advertising and development is on going. Most people rarely purchase a product the first time they see it online. Potential customers will bookmark the product, come back, get outside opinions and then make a decision after careful consideration. Your direct marketing strategy should always include following up with a prospect, since it usually takes 6-7 exposures to a product before someone actually buys something. Always take every opportunity to answer questions, respond to emails and phone calls because this can mean the difference between making the sale or not.

4. Article Marketing. Writing articles will help you build credibility and brand visibility on the internet. This marketing strategy is easy, time consuming, but extremely effective in branding your website. By writing short 400-500 hundred word articles and submitting them to the top article directories, your search engine rankings will increase and people will begin to find your site in popular search engines more easily.

5. Smaller Niche Markets. Brand awareness isn’t just for larger companies who can afford to hire top dollar marketing consultants. There are hundreds of thousands of small businesses thriving online by narrowing down their niche to be more specific. So instead of concentrating on building a brand around ‘poodle grooming supplies’, it might be more profitable to concentrate on ‘pink poodle dye and nail polish’. Successful brands realize the importance of starting small while building brand loyalty.

6. Social Media. Since the emergence of social networking websites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, branding experts have come to realize that these free social outlets can greatly contribute to brand development and potential sales. Social media marketing strategies can include building a following for your customers to stay informed, offering coupons and incentives and providing direct one-on-one contact with your customers.  Social media is critical to building brand awareness for small businesses with limited funds and brand experience.

7. Make a Bang with Multimedia. Every day start-ups are looking for the biggest bang for their buck and the best way to create a buzz around your brand is with multimedia – specifically video. One of the biggest explosions of internet marketing is online video. Once a company starts creating real videos, with real people along with unique content, they become more accessible to the consumer. Because know matter how many brand development techniques you implement, the reality is, people want to deal with real people. Not companies.

8. Build an Email List. List building is one of the most important online marketing strategies available today. An email list is when you offer visitors to your website something free (coupons, discounts or exclusive content) by having them sign up for your weekly newsletter or mailing list. If you have an email list, then you will essentially have direct marketing access to people who are interested in your products. So when there are new additions to the website or a special insider sale, you can reach your customers directly and potentially make more sales.

9. Send Regular Emails. Brand creation doesn’t end once you have captured a long list of names and emails. Brand loyalty occurs whens when you keep in constant contact with your subscribers. As an entrepreneur, you should be sending emails regularly, around once a week (you don’t want to be annoying). These emails should include additional information about your products, news and articles during the week they may have missed.

10. Research Keywords. Keywords are the specific words people input into Google (yes, or BING or Yahoo) search in order to locate information on the internet. For example, if I am looking for Karate classes in Richmond Virginia, I may go to Google and type in ‘Karate class Richmond Virginia’ and the most popular options will show up first. If you are the owner of a karate class in Richmond Virgina you would make sure you use the keywords ‘Karate’, ‘class’, ‘Richmond’ and ‘Virginia’ were appear on your website (within the page title and body text) and perhaps even in some article titles for article marketing.

The brand building process is on-going. Even after you have implemented these internet marketing strategies, there is always more that can be done. Becoming successful online is a lot easier that most people think. All you need is time, energy and knowledge while keeping people’s best interests in mind.

Best Free Hostgator Discount Coupon Code

Are you still undecided about registering a domain and purchasing a hosting plan? Well wait no more! If you haven’t already noticed I LOVE HOSTGATOR! They host all of my websites and have the best customer service available online. Learning how to make a website can be a huge task, but the best way to get started is by securing an awesome hosting plan.

Sign up TODAY by using the ‘brandbuild‘ coupon and get a discount of $9.94 off the package price. With plans starting for as little as $4.95 a month, Hostgator is practically GIVING their hosting services away!

There aren’t many hosting that have a FREE online chat customer service 24 hours a day. I don’t know how many times I’ve have issues with my sites and have had to contact someone at Hostgator in the middle of the night to fix the problem. It doesn’t matter what time of day or night you need the, they are there.

But don’t let me convince you. You can go over to Hostgator right now and ask them any question you have WITHOUT even being a customer. Try them out or you can read more about why I love Hostgator.

Well What if I Hate Them After I Sign Up?

Yeah, I’ve been there. You sign up for a service thinking it’s gonna be great and it turns out to be a bunch of crap. Well Hostgator is different, plus if you don’t like their hosting service EVERY web hosting plan comes with a 45 day money back guarantee, 99.9% uptime guarantee, and is fully guaranteed by the owner, Brent Oxley. Click here to sign up today!

How to Setup Google Adsense

What is Google Adsense?

Google AdSense is Google’s online advertising program in which advertisers agree to have their ads placed on websites and blogs that contain content that’s relevant to the advertiser’s business. For example, if you had a blog on cars, those who were advertising items related to cars, such as accessories and car parts would want to advertise on your blog.  Read more

Posterous vs. Tumblr

I have been spending time recently becoming familiar with Tumblr and I’m finding out that I really like it. It has easily become one of my favorite free blog hosting services. But Tumblr is far from being the only option available online. Today I would like to highlight another option that has become popular within the past year, Posterous.

What is Posterous?

Posterous is the dead simple way to put anything online using email. If you can use email, you can create your own website instantly. Simply compose an email using your preferred email service (i.e. Gmail, yahoo, AOL, etc.). Attach photos, music, videos or documents and send an email to post@posterous.com. The folks at Posterous will do all the rest for you!

Posterous includes a unique FREE service which will autopost your posted emails to all the other services you use, like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr and much more.

It’s also great for group or family related blogs. You can add multiple contributors to a site by using their email address. Once the invites are sent, those users don’t have to register – they can email photos directly to your group blog.

Posterous is NOT a micro blog. There’s nothing micro about it! There are no limits to what you can post. There’s nothing Posterous can’t do.

You can try it now by emailing post@posterous.com without even setting up an account! How awesome is that!

My Posterous Review

Posterous is a great option for individuals and groups who want an easy to use interface for blogging. Although the available free Posterous themes are limited (compared to Tumblr), I’m optimistic about the growth and expansion of this feature. Below is a list of popular features you might be looking for with choosing a free blogging service.

• Documents – Emailing documents to Posterous is easy. Create and email and attach the file you would like to post. Posterous accepts doc, ppt, pdf, jpg, gif, png and much more! Posterous will host everything and publish it online immediately.
• Photos – You can attach one photo (of any size) and Posterous will resize to a web friendly and post it. If you attach more than one photo in the same message, they will automatically create a good looking image gallery.
• Music - Attach a mp3 and Posterous will drop your file into a web mp3 player so that your readers can listen to it right there in their web browsers.
• Video – This is one of the best features of Posterous. No more uploading videos! Email your video directly to Posterous and they will transcode your video so that you can see it in a flash player right there in your browser. It will even play on an iPhone without flash.
• Links - Any links emails to Posterous will be posted as direct links. If you post a link to a Youtube Video, Posterous will automatically turn it into a YouTube embedded player for your new post. As well as embed players for the following sites: YouTube, Google Video, Hulu, Funny Or Die, Omnisio, MixWit, Justin.TV, Fliggo, Vimeo, motionbox, TED Talks, Viddler, Dailymotion, Blip.tv, Revver, TeacherTube, GodTube, seesmic, and Brightcove.
• Autoposting - If you also have accounts on Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, or other networks – with Posterous you no longer need to post to them manually! Post to Posterous by email and we’ll update all the other communities you are a part of. Posterous supports Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, Typepad, Movable Type, LiveJournal and Xanga.
• Privacy – Sure your site can be private, which is especially useful for family related websites/blogs. By using Posterous, you can set a password on your site so only the readers you want can see it. They don’t need to create an account to see your site, just enter the password you give them. You can also make a single post private by emailing it to private@posterous.com. We’ll send you back a secret URL to that post. (see more on privacy)
• Groups – Posterous can be used for group sites. You can add your friends or Family’s addresses to any Posterous site you control. Posterous groups are useful for families, sports teams, etc. to share photos and video. No registration required, no software to learn, no hoops to jump through.
• Tags – To tag and organize your posts, simply create them in the subject of your email, by using the syntax ((tag: apple, gadgets)).
• Bookmarklet - Posterous has a bookmarklet that is very intuitive. It automatically extracts photos, video, music, and text from the sites you are on. Get started and install it now.
• Custom Domain Names – If you have already registered a domain name (they are only $1.99 at RocketFireHosting.com) and would like to use Posterous for hosting your blog, it’s no problem with Posterous. Just set up the DNS and run with it. More info is here.
• Mobile Access – Just like many other free blogging services, Posteruos offers the ability to post on the go using their mobile service. Whether you have an iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, or Windows Mobile device, you have an internet enabled camera in the palm of your hand.
• Storage Space – With Posterous you get up to 1 GB of space for personal use, which is more than enough to get you started. However if you need more, you can always email them. However they will be rolling out more space and unlimited premium accounts in the months ahead.
• Google Analytics – Posterous offers a quick and easy Google Analytics integration in order to monitor who is viewing your website. They have 5 easy steps to get you started.

Posterous vs. Tumblr

Tumblr and Posterous are very similar free blog hosting services. They have many of the same overlapping features, but the two that stand out are:

1. The ability to email posts directly to your account.
2. Autoposting to various social networks. (Tumblr does offer something similar, but the list of supported sites is limited).

Posterous Themes and Customization

Now out of all the wonderful features I mentioned about Posterous, this is the one that is the most lacking, but I’m sure we will see a surge in free Posterous themes soon. I tried to Google “free Posterous themes” but wasn’t able to locate relevant results. In this case Tumblr is the clear winner. You can free Tumblr themes almost anywhere and more are being added to their Tumblr Theme Garden every week.

I plan on learning to make a few Posterous templates myself and adding them to my free templates section, but in the meantime you also get some from Obox-Designs. They were the only place I found that had quality Posterous Themes.

Posterous is FREE!

Like Tumblr, Posterous is a free service. Later, they will be adding premium features, but there will always be a useful free version you can use. In addition, Posterous is working hard to make their service better every single day. But if you need something that they don’t have yet? Just send them an email at help@posterous.com.

How to Delete a Posterous Account

This is probably the biggest downside of using Posterous. Posterous doesn’t make it easy for you to delete your account. They are currently working on adding a delete button inside you account, but until then feel free to email Vincent Chu directly vince [at] posterous [dot] com or help [at] posterous [dot] com and they’ll remove your account of it ASAP.

Whether you choose Posterous or Tumblr for your free blogging service I don’t think you will disappointed. I think both services has their pros and cons. However, not being able to remove an account always gives me an uneasy feeling, so I’m hoping this is resolved soon.

Happy Blogging!

How to Make a Tumblr Theme

I can’t lie. I have often searched Google for tutorials on how to make a Tumblr theme. I have made a few small themes in the past, but I never really knew what I was doing. Until now.

About a week ago  NetTuts posted a FULL video series called Tumblr Theme Design: Start to Finish. I can’t tell you how excited I was! This is what I’ve been looking for.

What is NetTuts?

Before I give you details on the video series, let me give you a little background on NetTuts. NetTuts is a membership website which costs only $9 (and I am a very proud and satisfied member). They offer some of the most detailed and easy to follow video tutorials available online.

I initially signed up because I wanted more tutorials on building WordPress Themes from scratch and was delightfully surprised when I saw the Tumblr Theme Design video series appear in my Google Reader feed.

NetTuts not only gives you tutorials for the web, but also includes a membership to Psd Plus (cool Photoshop tutorials), Ae Plus (Illustrator tutorials), Audio Plus (audio editing and effects tutorials) and Vector Plus (vector based tutorials).

NetTuts has over 5,000 happy and loyal customers. As a member of NetTuts each week  brand new videos are posted to help expand you skills as a developer. The Plus tutorials is an investment in your skills as a web developer and they want to make sure it pays off. Because of this, each Plus tutorial teaches skills that professional web developers can use to add extra value for clients (or personal projects) and, in doing so, add extra value to your business.

What does it Cost?

Plus membership is $9 a month, or $22 for three months, or $78 for one year. For the cost of a magazine subscription you can get access to all of the following:

• Weekly video lessons by industry leaders;
• Access to all past and future video lessons;
• Sought-after techniques in web development across a range of common coding languages and frameworks;
• Access to our Tuts+ Dashboard, bonus content and features.
• Full access to Net Plus, Audio Plus, Ae Plus and Vector Plus.

Is it Worth it?

Well heck yeah NetTuts is worth it! And if you’re not satisfied, you can get your money back, in full. It’s their 100% money back guarantee. They even offer easy to follow instructions on how to cancel your subscription.

What’s included in the Tumblr Video Series?

• A downloadable zip file containing all the associated files
• 8 excellent quality video screencasts
  • Intro
  • Slicing
  • Markup and Tumblr Tags
  • Coding the CSS
  • Configuration Options
  • Custom Fonts
  • Slideout Panel Html and CSS
  • jQuery and Complete Project
• Associated Fonts
• All images

From the NetTuts Website:

Tumblr’s popularity, over the last year, has increased exponentially. The reason why is quite simple: Tumblr is flexible, powerful, and – most importantly, a pleasure to work with. Unfortunately, there aren’t many training resources available for the platform yet. In this video series, we’ll go through the process of taking a Tumblr theme, designed in Photoshop, and converting it into a fully working theme. Download this mammoth video training series!

Why should you pay for the membership?

Well there are two reasons:

1. There is NO OTHER TUTORIAL available online like this. Sure Tumblr offers a free help page for building custom themes, but honestly it was just too hard for me to follow.
2. If you don’t want to continue. Pay NetTuts the measly $9, download the tutorial and cancel your membership. Simple right?

Who is this video tutorial is good for?

• You have a good (but minimal) general knowledge of CSS/Xhtml
• You already have a psd ready for slicing
• You are familiar with Tumblr themes but would like detailed information on how to customize it
• You are a beginner, but have the desire to broaden your skillset

If none of these reasons apply you to, consider downloading a free Tumblr theme.

My First Tumblr Theme

I blew past the first few NetTuts videos in just a few hours. Whats’ great about the video is that I was able to pause or rewind when the Jeffery (the host) was going too fast.  The instructions were organized and well planned that even a beginner keep up. I am a web designer but my coding experience is limited. I am comfortable editing CSS, but building a website on my own is another story.

I was so inspired by what I learn I decided to jump in and create my own Tumblr theme. It has taken me a little more than a week, but it’s about 95% finished and I will be submitting it to the Tumblr Gallery when it’s complete. It’s called Be Original and was inspired by my favorite desktop wallpaper designed by Adam Betts.

What do you think? The tutorial even teaches you how to create this cool sliding panel on the left (where the See More button is) that gives a visitor access to additional information.

So what are you waiting for, sign up at NetTuts and getting started!

** Update: The Be Original Tumblr theme is now complete as has been submitted to Tumblr. I am hoping it will be added to the theme garden soon.  But in the meantime you can get it here –> Be Original Tumblr Theme .

Picmeleo – A Free Online Image Editor

Another interesting find from my daily blog stroll via Google Reader. I found this post from SmashingApps and couldn’t resist highlighting it on my site – Picmeleo, a new free online image editor. Coincidentally I had an article planned on free online image editors, so now I can forgo that post. This is the coolest image editor I’ve seen and I’ll be definitely adding it to my site as a permanent feature, I just need to figure out where.

Try It Here and let me know how you like it.

More About Picmeleo

Picmeleo is a free online photo editor that any third-party developers can integrate to their website. They offer the smartest way to let  users upload and edit images.

Picmeleo was created in order to provide a better tool for online photo editing. Third-party developers can easily add Picmeleo to their web service and launch the light-weight yet powerful photo editor whenever their users need to to upload or to edit an image. By adding Picmeleo to your web service, you can now engage your users with even richer content. Unlike other photo editors, Picmeleo opens within your site and your users never leave your service.

Custom Tools – Unlike other photo editors, you can customize the tools of Picmeleo any time you want in the online admin interface. Sometimes photo editors can be overwhelming. Picmeleo allows you to pick the tools your users really need. Choose from a growing list of tools including Crop, Scale, Rotate, Auto-fix, Filters and many more.

Multilanguage Support- Picmeleo has built-in multilanguage support and you can easily set the language in the online admin interface. We are still working on different language options at the moment, stay tuned for more.

Picmeleo can be utilized in numerous places. Think of these examples:

How to Make a Favicon

Have you ever noticed those little icons next to the address bar while visitng your favorite website? Well thats a favicon. This is mine.

Wikipedia definition:

A favicon (short for favorites icon), also known as a website icon, shortcut icon, url icon, or bookmark icon is a 16×16, 32×32 or 64×64 pixel square icon associated with a particular website or webpage. A web designer can create such an icon and install it into a website (or webpage) by several means, and most graphical web browsers will then make use of it. Browsers that provide favicon support typically display a page’s favicon in the browser’s address bar and next to the page’s name in a list of bookmarks. Browsers that support a tabbed document interface typically show a page’s favicon next to the page’s title on the tab. Some programs allow the user to select an icon of his own from the hard drive and associate it with a website.

I typically make my favicons using a Photoshop plugin, but I wanted to show you guys how to make a favicon if you have no graphic experience. It’s super easy, online and FREE at Favicon Generator.

Here are the steps make your first favicon.

Step 1. Locate the image that you would like to use as your Favicon and make sure that the dimensions are perfectly square (ie. 100 Pixels x 100 Pixels). This image should typically be your logo or another image directly associated with your website.

Step 2. Browse to the file’s location on your computer and select the image at Favicon Generator.

Step 3. Press the Generate Favicon and DOWNLOAD!

Easy right? Well jump on over to Favicon Generator and make your first favicon.

TIP: If by chance you are unable to find a suitable graphic to use as a favicon, go to Iconfinder.net. They have the best free icons online!

AddThis Labs presents the Sharebar

So I’m trying something new. The AddThis Sharebar (located at the bottom of the page). If you have visited my site in the past then you know I’m not really into this kind of trendy website gimics like these. I like to add content and functionality that I feel will add value to my readers.

I’m not interested in building a huge list of Facebook fans, a ton of Twitter followers or an unbelievable amount of RSS readers. I like new visitors from sent to me directly from Google, Yahoo or Bing (MSN). If this site somehow grows into a community, that’s great. But that’s not my ultimate goal.

My only goal for this site is to finally give people a honest answer about how to make a website, with little to no fluff. Just truth.

With that being said. I liked this AddThis Sharebar. Why? It’s unobtrusive and it took me only about 3 minutes to install. So why not try it?

Trust me if I see that it becomes annoying, I’ll delete it just as fast as I added it on.

Now about the bar.

The AddThis Sharebar is a different way of making your content shareable using the AddThis platform. As a persistent utility at the bottom of your pages, the Sharebar keeps your users’ favorite services front and center to help increase sharing.

It’s a handy little bar that has irect links to Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Tumblr and many more social networking sites to allow users to share your content with their audience. The Sharebar is a AddThis labs project so they is no support for it and they suggest you submit any technical question to their forum.

Add Sharebar to your Site in 3 Minutes

To install Sharebar, copy and paste the following Javascript and DHTML code into your page – it can go anywhere in your page template. An AddThis username is only needed if you want tracking/analytics. You can use your current AddThis username, create a new account, or ignore the username setting.

If you feel this will add value to your site grab one here, then feel free to send me a link to your site if you are using it and or give me a feedback if your like it.

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