TalkSpot.com – Pre Built and Custom Easy To Use Website Builder

Delivery Confirmations Launched

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

We have launched a new reporting tool that allows you to track your emails, newsletters or blog entries and you can see what happens to virtually everyone of them. Ever wonder how many people actually get it, or open the correspondence you send? The average is between 20% to 40% open rate, so don’t be discouraged if not everyone of them is opened.

To find the new tool go to your TOOLKIT and look under “Message Center”. The new reporting began on January 21, 2011. However, you will still be able to see old legacy incoming and outgoing emails from there also.

You will see a chart that looks like this:

This chart is color coded and shows clearly the number sent, confirmed or opened and the number failed. You can also further break down those to see specific details like what addresses are bad or who did not open. You can then follow up and update your email lists to create good clean ones.

With this tool you can work toward increasing your response rate and get your messages out and opened. The more people you connect with the more your traffic increases and sales could boost!

Start your own blog now! Free!

TalkSpot reinvents itself and offers its powerful widget toolset to EVERYONE to try for FREE!

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

TalkSpot launches a redesign of its website www.Talkspot.com. The new design was created to appeal more to a general customer base and focus on ease of use of its powerful widget base toolset. Talkspot.com, was 100% focused on small business and on finding innovative ways that the internet can be used to help customers raise revenue and lower costs. However, during this past year they felt that not only have they successfully helped all types of small business but they helped empower more than just small businesses. They found thier websites are used by Restaurants to display their menus, Consultants to list their services, Artists to display their paintings, Charities to do fund-raising, Musicians to showcase their latest music, Circumnavigating boaters for blogs, Families to display baby photos. Whatever type of website is needed, TalkSpot has it. They have over 150 pre-built websites to choose from, and if you can’t find the one you are looking for TalkSpot has a great variety of all purpose websites you can use as a starting point to build with.

TalkSpot feels so confident that anyone who uses their system will love it and quickly choose to subscribe, that they are offering a 30 day Free Trial. There are no gimmicks, no obligation, no contracts and they don’t ask for a credit card. You can build one site or as many as you wish, but they just ask that once you have your site built and ready to start attracting business that you subscribe for $10/month. TalkSpot continues to stand by its strong belief that “We don’t nickel-dime our customers with constant harassment for up-sells. We don’t like hard-sell sales tactics, and our customers prefer our all-inclusive pricing.” TalkSpot customer get everything; the domain name (if they don’t already have one), hosting, email, site design, site editing tools, SEO, mailing list management and much more. Any customer can cancel at any time if they aren’t 100% satisfied with the product.

TalkSpot prides itself on ease of use of its tools, ability to get online fast and everything is do-it-yourself, and the vast majority of customers require no hand-holding. However, if customers do want assistance, they have great customer support people, a live chat, and a great new enhanced Online Help Center. They also have in house designers who can tweak their customers websites, or help build one for them for a small set up fee of $99. In addition, if you just want a custom design they offer Custom Services starting at $299. Basically, if you can dream it Talkspot has tools and services to help build the site of your dreams.

Talkspot is widget based, and they are constantly adding new widgets to their our powerful system. Over the past year they went to a drag and drop technology for their content management system, added the ability for customers to have a full retail store, a great scheduler, ability to swap templates and color theme, and upgrades to many other existing widgets. They continue to be innovative and have some great new tools coming in 2011. Look for some great enhancements to thier newsletter system, ability to have delivery confirmations for all types of emails and a great new digital dashboard that will enable people to have one place to use as a communication platform.

So, if you are looking to build a website or even if you already have a website, we’d encourage you to sign up with Talkspot anyhow. We think you’ll be surprised at the great pre-built options, powerful toolset, ease of use of building and Talkspot’s innovative focus on websites, as the hub of communications platform. There is no better website builder out there for the price.

Back up or Restore your Site

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Included in your suite of TalkSpot tools is the ability to back up or restore your website. It's always a good idea to backup different versions and states of your site that you like. You can have as many backups as you would like, and we encourage you to make them often. Before and after any big change is a great time to do it. Habitually creating backups on a monthly basis is also a good idea.

A "backup" is a saved version of your website. It essentially "freezes" a version of your site in time, allowing you to proceed without fear of making a mistake. If you do make a mistake and can't resolve it, then simple "Restore" to the previously backed up version that you liked and start over again. If you proceed and make no mistakes and like the changes, then make another backup!

If you have any questions or need help during this process we are here to help. Click the "Live Chat" button or give us a call 1-800-237-1450.

A WHOLE NEW TALKSPOT!

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

A note from the Developer’s Desk:

Whoever said building websites can’t be EASY and FUN?!

Season’s Greetings and Happy Holidays to you and your family! We all at TalkSpot hope this newsletter finds you and your family enjoying this holiday season. With all the hustle and bustle that this time of year creates, you’ll be happy to know that our TalkSpot developers have been working hard to make this time of year easier for you. We have just introduced a whole new look and new way to create and maintain your website.

If you can click the button on your mouse, you can use this new system!

Highlights: Our new look includes a new administrator toolbar, with easier to use and understand buttons and menus; a new widget tray that allows you to easily create new widgets or used previously created widgets on your site; and dragging and dropping of widgets around your page, so that you can better achieve the look you desire.

This may all sound very technical and confusing, so let me do my best to break it down and make it easier to understand …. And fun!

New Administrator Toolbar:
- We have introduced a new, clean, fresh look to make navigating the tools that make your website, getting help and using all our cool features easier! As you can see, our new bar is easy to read, simple to understand and allows you to quickly get to where you need to go so that you can create your website and get back to more important things. (Crossed everyone off that shopping list?)
Widget Tray: (What in the world is a “Widget”?)
- I am going to be using the word “Widget” quite a bit, so I will explain what a widget is first. You may not have realized it, but your whole website consists of “widgets”. When you added a “Page Counter” to see how many people are entering your website that was a widget. If you have included a “Blog” to tell people about your adventures that is a widget as well. A widget, in general terms, is a piece of your website that performs a specific function. Examples include: blog, comments, text, pictures, etc. Now that you know what a widget is, let’s look at the new Widget Tray. This new tray has all your widgets and the ability to create new widgets centralized and easy to use. If you want to add a new Photo Gallery to your website, find Photo Gallery in the widget tray, and choose “ADD NEW”. That’s it! You now have a photo gallery on your website. You can add your family photos from your summer vacation and then use this same widget on other pages in your website! This makes creating your website easy and fast!
Drag and Drop: (my personal favorite)
- Our developers have been working extra hard to give you the ability to move your widgets around your webpage and drop them wherever you want them to “live”. Let’s say you created your website 6 months ago and you want to go in and quickly and easily move your widgets around to give your site a new, fresh, updated look. You would simply click (and hold) with your mouse on the bar above your widget that says “Click and Drag To Move” and move your widget to where you want it to go! That’s it! No removing then re-adding! No pain, no fuss! Simply click the bar, move it and drop it to its new home! This is an exciting and powerful feature that allows you to easily create and maintain your website, and it is fun!

With all you have to deal with during this time of year, creating your website or maintaining the one you have already created should not be difficult or hard. With TalkSpot and these new features, you can get your site looking clean and professional and get back to that holiday shopping list!

Check out our new “Swap your Site” Tool.

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Looking to refresh your existing website? Our newest “Swap your site” tool makes it easy to give your site a facelift. Or if you are new to our system this is a great place to try out all our other sites and color themes.

You can swap your site at any time, for any reason. The good news is: you’re safe doing it. Our system will make a backup of your site, prior to your actually performing the swap. If you’re unhappy with your choice, you may feel free to select “Backup and Restore” from within your toolkit and simply roll back to a previous version. From there, you can just pick a new layout and try again!

In four easy steps you will have a new site:
1. Pick your new template’s general look and style.
2. Pick a specific layout, per page, of your existing site.
3. Conduct the actual “swap” process.
4. Drag and drop any misplaced widgets into their new homes, on their new pages.

Change is good, and a fresh look may help increases your business and boost sales.

Support Question - How do I create new pages using my homepage as a template?

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Hi,

I am trying to create new pages using my homepage as a template. It has my heading and menu structure that I want on every page.

However as soon as I change the content on any page, that same content appears on every other page. It is as if I have multiple copies of the same page with different names. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!

Freeman, Garth

Hi Garth-

If I had to guess, I would guess you copied the same page a few times, and then simply renamed the pages ... correct?

What you're doing is creating sort of "magical" copies of the page. First, you need to think in terms of "globally" and "page specific".

Globally is something like a company logo, or a menu. It's the kind of thing that you want on every page, and to be the same, for the purpose of consistency. It's on every page, likely even in the same spot on every page. Thus, it is "global" to your website.

A good website has many many global elements to it, and it has many "page specific" elements to it, as well.

A "page specific" element is something like a form collecting information about your website's visitors. This is something you'd only want on one page, and not on all the others.

So, a good thing to do is to build a page, with logos, maybe a phone number, menus, etc. Get all the "global" things onto the first page. Then, copy the page over and over. This will give you several pages with single instances of a widget.

Imagine a hall of mirrors. There is only "one" you, but there are 10 reflections. If "you" make a move, so do all the reflections! This is what the single instance of a widget is. It's you! All the pages are little more than the mirrored reflections of the original widget (you). This is why when you make a change, that change is "mirrored", through all your other pages. Your page copies were copied with mirrors in place. You need to remove the mirrors on the areas of the page where you want "page specific" content and add a brand new widget.

So, let's say you have two pages, and when you make a changes to one text widget, page 2 also reflects the change. You want to remove the text widget from the second page. Just get rid of it. It'll still be on the first page, where you want it. Now, on the second page, click the little green circle, where the old mirrored widget used to be, and add a new text widget. Now, add something to that. You'll see that this only changes the second page, leaving the first page untouched.

It may sound a little odd, for now. It's not really a "real world" concept, making it a little difficult to explain. With some time and practice, you should get the hang of it.

You can also create new mirrors of your created widget and add them later. Click a greenie and the first widget type is the option to add something previously created. This will allow you to add mirror reflections of previously created widgets!

So, you can copy pages, creating mirrors of full pages, you can create mirrors of just single widget, you can remove mirrors of single widgets, and you can add fresh widgets, without any reflections elsewhere on the site.

TalkSpot Support

Are you looking to offer text on your website in a different language?

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Part of Google’s free tools include Google Translate. It is a free translation service that provides instant translations between 57 different languages. It can translate words, sentences and web pages between any combination of our supported languages. They hope to make information universally accessible and useful, regardless of the language in which it’s written.

When Google Translate generates a translation, it looks for patterns in hundreds of millions of documents to help decide on the best translation for you. By detecting patterns in documents that have already been translated by human translators, Google Translate can make intelligent guesses as to what an appropriate translation should be.

Let’s say you are an Indian or Italian restaurant and want to offer your menu in two languages. Or you have lots of Spanish speaking visitors to your site and you want to offer a page or two in Spanish. Just go to http://translate.google.com/# and type in the text or page of the website address you want translated, choose the language you want it converted to and they will provide you back text you can paste into your TalkSpot website.

Enjoy! Godetivi! Disfrute! Nyt!

Support Question: "Post a Comment - Register for Email"

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Hi-

Can I get the above line added to the end of each of my Entries?
Does the general public (who has just finished reading my entry) need to click on the Title of that entry to get to the "Post a Comment" line?

Thanks!

Phil H

Phil-

Please see the below to help answer your question:

The post a comment and register lines are automatically attached to the base of every single blog entry.
Also at the base of every entry is a small navigation, allowing people to move FORWARD or BACKWARD in time, through all your entries.
Any comment made on any entry will be displayed with that entry.
The only way to access the post a comment link, the register link and to see comments is to see the full entry, which requires clicking the entry title or the "More ..." link at the end of the summary on the blog's home page.

I hope this helps clear up some confusion.

TalkSpot Support

Two Free SEO Tools Everyone Should Use

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

TalkSpot makes it easy to use some of Google’s free tools for your SEO efforts. I’m talking about Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics.

You might have installed some analytics code or loaded webmaster tools, then went on your way and forgot all about it. I’d encourage you to have a second look, especially if you’re working on your SEO campaign and struggling to get more traction, as these tools might help you find out what you’re doing wrong.

What Is Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster tools is an application that allows webmasters to see what Google’s spiders see. It’s easy to get started with; the tool will give you a META tag that you’ll need to place onto the site to verify you are the owner, and then once that’s been picked up you will have access to information about your website. What to look for:

Crawl Errors: Did Google have any problems when searching your site? Major problems here can be disastrous, so be sure to investigate and remedy any issues here.
Links to Your Site: This is a great snapshot of what pages in your site the most external links. You can drill down and see which sites are linking as well.
Internal Links: Google also shows you its view of what pages inside your site are linked internally and how often. Similar to the external view, you can also drill down and click through to see the details.

Google Webmaster tools is just one slice of the pie when it comes to SEO knowledge. But considering that you can quickly and easily troubleshoot indexing problems and look at other high level reports, this might be the perfect tool for you if you’re looking for an overview report.

What Is Google Analytics
Google Analytics shows you how people found your site, how they explored it, and how you can enhance their visitor experience. With this information, you can improve your website return on investment, increase conversions, and make more money on the web. It is simply a tool that offers graphs and charts that explain the statistics that are pulled off of your website. What to look for:

Visitors: who is coming to your website
Traffic Souces: where are those people coming from
Content: what content are they reading when they arrive
Goals: how are your conversion rates?

From the SEO perspective, the traffic sources are an important area, as well as the content. Take the time to come back to these tools and install them correctly. We would be happy to talk to you if you are having any troubles. Just use our Live Chat or call us at 1-800-237-1450.

Support Question: Anchor Tags

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Hi,

Would it be possible to get some tips for hyperlinking a word to a different point on the same page, either in the same text widget or a different one? I can't figure out how to hyperlink to a point in a different widget. Help!

Thanks in advance!

M, G

Hi G,

Here's a good example of where I build a support page, entirely around this concept.

Example, here:
http://www.talkspot.com/aspx/m/403393

To do this, let's imagine you're telling a fishing story.

You want to write your story, first. In order to link to another part of the page, that "part of the page", needs to exist. The page can grow and evolve, even after the link is created, provided that one very specific "part of the page" never changes.

So, let's imagine that you are at a point where you're talking about tuna, and you have a photo of a tuna at the bottom of the page.

Highlight the image of the tuna at the bottom of the page.
Click the link for the "hyperlink manager" in the menu of the text editor. (The button looks like a little blue-green ball with 3 chain links in front of it: )
Click the "Anchor" tab. (It's the middle tab).
In the text box under the "Anchor" tab, type something like "MyBigTuna" (one word, no spaces, no funny characters), then press the "OK" button.
Now, go to the beginning of the story, where "Tuna" is first referenced in the story. Highlight the word "Tuna" and, again, click the button for the "hyperlink manager".
Now, on the first tab, you'll see a dropdown reading "Existing Anchor". Drop this down, and you should see "MyBigTuna" populating this list. This is because you've created an "Anchor", named "MyBigTuna". Select it and then press the "OK" button.
That's it! You've now created a link from text, to an image of tuna, somewhere else, on the page.

Something else I'll do is put another anchor (with the anchor tab) at the top of the page, and call it "PageTop". Then, I'll create links throughout the page, that allow people to jump back to the top of the page, by taking advantage of the existing "PageTop" anchor.

I hope this helps.

Please let me know if there is anything else we can do for you.

Thanks!

DJ

Hi, and thanks for your response.

I'm having trouble getting an anchor in one text widget to be recognized in another widget. For instance, if I set a "PageTop" anchor in one widget of text, "PageTop" does not show up in the Existing Anchor drop-down menu if I try to create a hyperlink in a separate widget.

"PageTop" DOES appear if the anchor and the hyperlink are within the same text widget.

Hi G,

Yes! You can anchor across widgets!

However, a widget has no real knowledge of a seperate, unrelated widget. Because of this, you won't see the named anchor in your dropdown within the hyperlink manager. You'll be forced to edit HTML. Don't worry, though, it's pretty easy to do.

Let's imagine you're telling a story about an apple orchard, and you have a paragraph describing apple farming.

Then, perhaps you have a map widget, with a pointers to 3 different apple farms in your region.

Then, maybe you have 3 photos of the apple orchards, in another text widget.

To cross-widget anchor them, you want to write your paragraph in the first text widget. When you're happy with the paragraph, enter the HTML mode of the text widget's editor (the blue box, that looks like a word processor).

To do this, click the button reading "< > HTML", in the bottom left corner of the editor. This will put the editor into HTML mode.
- You should see your paragraph, and potentially with some funny codes called "Tags". They look like this: <strong><br /></strong>, or at least, along these lines.
Now, search through the text and find the words "Apple Orchards", or whatever it is you want to link.
Then, to the left of "Apple", type: <a href="#AppleOrchards">
Then, to the right of "Orchards", type: </a>
This should look like: <a href="#AppleOrchards">Apple Orchards</a>
Then, press submit!
Now, go to your OTHER text widget, with the pictures.
Now, enter HTML mode, again.
Now, find where you want the page to jump to, within the HTML (most likely, right before the first picture).
Type in: <a name="AppleOrchards"></a>
Then, if you haven't added your images, or whatever you'd like to add, add it after this little piece of code.
Press Submit.
That's it!

Now, if you click the first widget, it should jump to the other widget, on the page.

I hope this helps.

Thanks!

Set Schedules with TalkSpot.com

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

TalkSpot has just introduced a new Scheduler Widget!

Just like all of TalkSpot's versatile widgets, you can place this one on any page, at any time. Each one has a variety of looks and styles. You can also set recurring events such as meetings, classes, etc. The tool is incredibly easy to use and is very attractive.

First things, first. Like all TalkSpot widgets, you need to first add it to the page. So, log in, enter edit mode, then click a "" in the spot you'd like to add your scheduler (hint: it's pretty big, so pick a fairly wide spot).

Then, click the scheduler icon from the list of widget types.

It looks like this image, to the right:

Next, you'll see what we call the "Configuration" screen. With it, you can change it's appearance, from the colors used to the height. You can also change the day the schedule starts, as well as the time period shown.

The configuration screen looks like this:

Once you've determined how you want your scheduler to look on the page, simply hit "SUBMIT" and you're off!

From there, simply double click a time, fill in the blanks and that's it! If you're a health spa or gym and just want show classes for your customers, you can quickly create an easy to navigate schedule, like the one shown below:

You can use this tool for a wide variety of things, whether it's for staff schedules on a hidden page within your company's intranet, or for the general public to know when you'll be hosting a class, event, speech, etc. Such a versatile tool and so easy to use.

Don't miss out on it!

Custom Reporting with Google Analytics

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Custom Reporting is one of the most useful features in Google Analytics for generating reports for any kind of information you want to see. You don’t have to dig deep into Analytics interface to find information or associate some attributes with others. For e.g., if you want to know the source or medium of the visits converting in goals, or average time a visitor from a particular city/country spends on your site, custom reporting is the way to go. The custom reporting has two main factors.

Dimensions – Visitors or campaign attributes which you want to measure

Metrics – The value or number you select from your report to measure the dimensions

Dimensions mostly have text values where as the Metrics have numeric values. The list of valid metric-dimension combinations are mentioned here by Google. A report once saved can be viewed any number of time and for different time period by simply changing the date range. It can also be downloaded or scheduled to be sent to the client after regular intervals. Therefore, Custom Reporting feature can make the tracking and tweaking of your SEO campaign quite simple.

Bells on Toes: Jewelry and Accessories

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Company Name:
Bells on Toes Jewelry & Accessories

Website Address:
http://www.bellsontoes.com

TalkSpot Widgets Used:

Shopping Widget - inlcudes payment processing, shopping cart, SSL certificate, taxes, multiple product views, multiple product categories
Custom website template integrated with TalkSpot Tools
Menu Widget
Flash Photo Gallery
Newsletter Registration / Email Marketing Widget
Search Engine Optimization Tools
Blog Widget

Here is what Pat (owner/webmaster) has to say:
"In setting up our online store, we spent considerable time searching for a website designer but received quotes which were simply too expensive for a start-up business. While we appreciated that e-commerce sites required more work than the average site, it was our view that good templates should be available that could keep the costs down. We researched a number of template sites before finding Talkspot. Working with a great website designer, Chad Parent at Design Edge, we were able to choose a concept for our website from the many Talkspot templates available, customize it for our needs and quickly build our site, all at a cost which was much less than the estimates we received.

Our requirements were that the website had to be inviting and professional, have a full e-commerce facility and be easy to navigate. Further, as we have no experience with html or website design, it was especially important that the site be very user-friendly so that we could do our own maintenance and updates. Talkspot has met all these requirements and on quick turnaround also provided changes to their platform to meet our needs. We are very pleased with our new Bells On Toes website and the feedback from our friends and customers has been universally positive."

-- Patricia Sandberg

TalkSpot Introduces Scheduling Tools!

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

TalkSpot has recently introduced a new scheduling tool!

If it has a date, you can add it!

Anchor Links

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

TalkSpot Support:

Hi,

Would it be possible to get some tips for hyperlinking a word to a different point on the same page, either in the same text blob or a different one? I can't figure out how to hyperlink to a point in a different blob. Within the same blob, my hyperlink returns the error "Directory Listing Denied". Help!

Thanks in advance!

M, G

-

Highlight the image of the tuna at the bottom of the page.
Click the link for the "hyperlink manager" in the menu of the text editor. (The button looks like a little blue-green ball with 3 chain links in front of it: )
Click the "Anchor" tab. (It's the middle tab).
In the text box under the "Anchor" tab, type something like "MyBigTuna" (one word, no spaces, no funny characters), then press the "OK" button.
Now, go to the beginning of the story, where "Tuna" is first referenced in the story. Highlight the word "Tuna" and, again, click the button for the "hyperlink manager".
Now, on the first tab, you'll see a dropdown reading "Existing Anchor". Drop this down, and you should see "MyBigTuna" populating this list. This is because you've created an "Anchor", named "MyBigTuna". Select it and then press the "OK" button.
That's it! You've now created a link from text, to an image of tuna, somewhere else, on the page.

Tell us how we're doing!

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Tell us what you think!
Once complete we will enter you to win $25 Amazon Gift Certificate.

Make a difference and let us know your thoughts!

Please go to www.poll.talkspot.com

How do I make money with my website? Can I make money?

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

How do you make money with your website? We wish we knew!!! We'd do it, too!

In all seriousness, there are many ways. Most people sell things on the internet and make money from this.

Ultimately, a website is promotional. It's a way to be seen 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even websites that "do stuff" are promotional. The fact that they additionally "do stuff" is a bonus! So, if you think about it in terms of promotion, the actual money comes from that which you intend to promote! This could be anything from catering services, to weed whacking, consulting services, etc. It can be used to promote a business of any kind.

There are two fairly common ways to make direct money from a website. Again, one is selling things. The other is selling ad space. If you think of your website as a stop along the information super highway, and yours is a particularly highly trafficked spot, then putting up some billboards for people to rent makes some sense; especially if it's something that complements the topics on your website!

For example, let's imagine you travel a lot and your particular method of travel involves a lot of outdoor travel, from hiking and camping to river rafting and spelunking. You could have a travel blog on your website. Now, initially, your website’s traffic may not come from much more than you, close friends and family. This isn't enough traffic to make any money, but it’s a start!

If youre an upgraded member of TalkSpot's services, you can tap into our SEO Tools (Search Engine Optimization Tools). This is a full suite of suggestions, tips, built in functions for adding keywords, page descriptions, and more. There are also extensions into two different tracking and traffic refining tools, through Google.com. Using these tools and concepts, you can really begin to drive traffic to your website.

HOWEVER, this only works if your blog is interesting and well written. You can't have a poorly written blog (or website) with sporadic and meager content and expect to make money. A good blog (or website) has fresh and compelling content on a regular basis.

If your blog is compelling, well written and has begun to attract an audience, then you can begin to sell ad space to other people. Try contacting companies selling things like hiking boots, tents and dehydrated water! Now, youre making money. It may not be a lot to start, but if your blog continues to attract repeat readers and you dont offend your guests with too many billboards, then you will begin to make real money. Try reading into Google AdSense, for example. You might find this to be a service that works with your future idea.

From there, perhaps you've generated enough content on your blog to package it into a book! Now, you've got your blog, which generates the traffic, plus a book for sale and increasing revenue from selling ad space!

Now, maybe consider selling something else from your website. Perhaps you make a nature video. Perhaps you sell green-painted-pine-cones as car interior decorations.

Really, where you take it from here is up to you and what feels right.

None of this will be easy, but if you take advantage of the SEO tools, newsletter options, the shopping system, etc. you can really begin to generate some money.

Now, if you step back and really look around, you'll see there are also many ways to sell things online.

What are your hobbies? What moves you? Lets imagine that you have a fondness for grilling. You really enjoy to cook. Why not set up an online store based on nothing but spice rubs and BBQ sauces? There are ways to set up a store where you never even need to touch the products. You make a connection with your purveyors, have them ship to a fulfillment center (Amazon has some great fulfillment services), and then you take orders for your Indonesian Spice Rub and Chinese 5-Spice Duck Sauce, pass the information along to the fulfillment center and begin cashing checks!

Again, this isn't as easy as my little mini-paragraph may make it seem. First, you need to have the idea, then you need to make the connections. Then, you need to research costs, processes, etc. Then, establish pricing. Then, set up the store. Then, begin selling!

Then, promote, promote, promote!

Send newsletters containing recipes and cooking tips. Make sure to mention how people can save time by using Bill and Ted's Organic Grease Cutter for Grills (50% off for the month of June!)

Write to a farm that sells their unique and high grade product online, and ask them to put a link to your website on their links page. Work with them!

These are all just seeds. Nothing more than thoughts and ideas for you to chew.

However, none of this matters without a good idea or topic to begin with; something you know and something you'd like to work with. If you have any good ideas, let me know! I need one, myself!

Good luck with it all!

DJ

Can I make my pages private? Yes! Yes you can!

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I'm frequently asked if some pages can be made private.

Yes. Yes, they can!

Let’s imagine you have a page called “My Photos” and you want to only share them with your family …

There is one thing you need to do, and then some other things you “could” do, but are totally optional.

Log into your website and go to the toolkit.
Pick “Visitor Control Panel”.
Option 6 is “6. Choose Secure/Public Pages”. Click “Click Here” to the right of this option.
Click the little pencil to the right of “My Photos” (or whatever page you want to keep private).
Click the little check box next to “Restrict this webpage”.
Press “Submit”.
Press “Done”.

That’s it! Now this page is private.

However, what’s “private”? Private to whom? How can you be sure that only your family sees your private page?

This is where it gets a little trickier. The good news is, you also have control over this!

Currently, with a “Private” page, like the one you have, all that needs to happen is someone needs to register. As a result, “anyone” can still see your “private” page, but they’re forced to register, before they can see it. This is ok for sites that want to collect information from their visitors, but it doesn’t really make the page “private”.

So, let’s make sure that only your family can see your page …

Go back to the Visitor Control Panel in the toolkit.
Click the first option, “1. Preferences”
In the first section of the Preferences page, click the option reading, “Locked down. I will approve every new member.”
- This means that you get to choose who is allowed in and who isn’t. People you don’t want in will never see your private pages.
2. Require email address verification?
- This is up to you. If it’s just your family, then chances are, you know their email. This sends an email to the people asking them to verify they can get emails from your website. It won’t let them in, until they respond to the email. This is optional.
You can upload a picture to put onto the front of the “Private” page, if you want to.
- Remember, we’re talking about a page called “My Photos”. I imagine it’s a page of your photos. Most people will go to the page and see a log in page, rather than your photos. Using this tool, you can add a “single” photo, if you want to. It will add it to the log in page.
You can also offer a welcome message of some kind. Something like, “Welcome to my website! This is for my family. If you are not my family, I’m sorry, there is nothing here for you to see. If you ARE my family, please register or log in! Thank you!”.
You can skip 5 and 6, but feel free to experiment with them, later.
Click “Save Preferences”.
Click “Done”.

That’s it! Now you’ve set it up so that you can control who get’s in! Let’s experiment with it …

Log out (sign out) of your website.
Go to the “My Photos” page.
Type in the big box, “This is a test. Let me into this website, please”. Then click “Email Administrator”.
Click “Join Group”.
Enter the log in information for someone like your father.
Press Submit.
At this point, you should see a message reading “*** You may not sign in until your account is activated by the website administrator ***”. This is good! That means it’s working!
Now, log back into the website as yourself.
Go back to the “Visitor Control Panel”.
Now, the 3rd option should show that you have at least 1 person waiting on activation. Click “Activate Now”.
You should, at minimum, see your father’s log in information. Click “Activate User” on his line.

That’s it! Now, email your father his log in information. He can now go see your photos, but no one else can!

It may seem like a lot, but it’s really pretty easy. Once you do it a few times, it’ll be pretty easy for you.

Good luck with it!

What can TalkSpot's Customization Services do for you?

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

TalkSpot puts a lot of time and effort into creating a wide variety of website templates for you. We’ve really tried to consider most all possible uses for a website, and to have a visual and technical solution for it. We’re proud of our accomplishments and believe that any of our existing website templates can greatly serve your needs.

However, sometimes one’s needs can outgrow what is currently available. The need to be truly unique takes a more meaningful role than it once did. Sometimes there comes a need to rise above.

In addition to simply creating a website template and design, TalkSpot truly can be a one-stop-shop for all your design needs. With TalkSpot, we cover the following:

Website Templates & Development
Layout and Content Suggestions
Rich Media
TalkSpot Tools Training
Flash Demos
Logos and Branding
Online Marketing
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Print Design
E-Commerce (product placement)

Point being, with TalkSpot’s one-stop-shop approach to design, you can go from nothing, to a beautiful, meaningful feature rich website design, complete with print materials, increased search engine rankings and a plethora of ideas for future online marketing strategies.

To learn more about our customization services, contact our administrator (admin@talkspot.com), or contact Chad, the head of our design department (chad@talkspot.com).

Some Custom TalkSpot Examples

www.khaoskustoms.ca	www.thecoholodge.com	www.bajafire.com

www.nitetourslasvegas.com	www.bossashows.com	www.coastglobalsolutions.com

www.exposureclothing.ca	www.herveybay-whalewatching.com.au	www.threesixtyfg.ca

Why TalkSpot email is so great and what it can do for you!

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

TalkSpot’s email is much more than a “hotmail” account. There’s nothing wrong with a hotmail account, and I have one myself, but it’s a weird, hard-to-remember email address. Yes, everyone knows the name “HoTMaiL” (the name comes from HTML – the main programming language used to hold the internet together), but at this point, most email addresses look like this: Name-My-98279@hotmail.com

There’s no longer any personalization that makes a lot of sense. The amount of creative stressing that goes into a free, public email address isn’t really worth it. Plus, you’re missing out on some slick features!

First, let’s discuss the benefits of a domain name and customized email address.

The primary reasons for the domain name and email addresses were addressed in this post, but let’s discuss some hypothetical situations:

Situation 1: You don’t want to change your existing email address, and quite frankly, you don’t want to change anything about your email.

No problem! With email aliasing, you can create a customized email address for business, or just for fun, and then when any email is emailed to it, using forwarding, you can simply have all emails forwarded to your existing email account! This way, you still get the professional look of a customized email address, but have no need to tell everyone else you’ve changed your email.

Situation 2: You’re a small company, but you want to keep separate email addresses, but forward them all to the same email address.

No problem! With email forwarding, you can have something like the following:

You can simply forward all email addresses to the same email address. It appears as if there are many, but to you, it’s all just one!

Situation 3: You want incoming emails to go to a variety of places, so they are seen by many.

No problem! You can create groups within your email’s admin area. Imagine you have an Info@YourDomain.com email address, but you have a fairly large company. You can create a group that contains Sales, Marketing, Support and all Administrative Staff. A single email sent to that one address will be sent to everyone within the group!

Let’s say you have a family, and you want a single address to give all other family members. You could have a “Family” group. When anyone emails Family@YourFamily.com, Mom, Dad, Kids and the Family Dog will all get a copy!

In your admin area, you can set up individual email addresses, with our without aliases. Then, you can also set up a single email addresses intended to be the “group” email. Then, you create the group. Then, you set up an alias for the group, and forward all emails from the “group” email, to all the members of the group! A great, simple way to keep everyone on the same page. You could also have Parents@YourFamily.com and Kids@YourFamily.com.

You can make changes to any group, at any time, easily!

Email is a great way to market yourself, your business, and/or your cause or topic to be shared. Through newsletters and blogging, you’re effectively spreading information in “word-of-mouth” type fashion. The more prepared you appear, the more weight your “word” carries!

Look and be the part, and the results will take care of themselves!

Ok, now the technical stuff:

TalkSpot uses a company called MaximumASP to host our websites, including our email.

For more than six years, MaximumASP has provided Windows-based hosting solutions focused on security, reliability, scalability and quality support from a staff of Microsoft-certified engineers and developers. They currently host more than 44,000 domain names and were doing business in the hosting segment before it even was a segment.

MaximumASP has since become known as one of the premier Windows-based hosting providers in the world by providing customers top-notch support, reliable Dell servers, a scale-on-demand infrastructure and comprehensive network security protection.

They know their stuff, too.

MaximumASP provides reliable, protected shared e-mail services using the Hmail platform. With ample mailbox storage allocations, and the ability to grow from one to hundreds of users, the MaximumASP shared e-mail package provides an easy-to-use mail solution that is a great value to all of our Gold Members.

Tune in next time, where we'll discuss the benefits of our customized websites!