MiniSiteGallery.com

Alright, so I am adding a forum to MiniSiteGallery.com.

After giving it some thought, I really feel that we need a forum that talks all about mini-sites. I hope you feel that same way, and help me out with this. A forum is not a forum when it doesn’t have members participating, discussing, debating about topics.

I started one thread, asking members about what they think with me adding this forum. Why don’t you step in and tell me what you think.

You know what, I remember a book I need to read. It’s by Patrick O’keefe (who is a *really* accomplished entrepreneur and webmaster). It’s all about starting, marketing, running a forum. I’ll be reviewing this book soon (plus reading it for my own projects). Just thought I’d share this for now.

So here comes March 2008. A few designers have submitted their designs to be judged by you.

In the month of March 2008, I want you to rate the designs you see in this gallery. Because by 1 April 2008, one of these designers will walk away with $500 cash prize. Not only that, but also a copy of Viral Sales Generator, a copy of 30-Minute Backlinks and a copy of WP Affiliate Guide.

So, I want you to be honest and rate as many design templates as you can. There are about 15 designs right now. I do hope you can rate all 15…

Who wins … it depends on you…

Teli Adlam is a friend I know from way back when I was in TurningIdeasIntoDollars.com. She really is a WordPress pro. I can bet that you can ask her anything about WordPress and she’ll have a solid answer for you…

Teli just contacted me that she’s contributing WP Affiliate Guide to the Contest prizes. WP Affiliate Guide consists of guide, videos, private site access to information on how to use wordpress to build affiliate sites.

WordPress really is a great tool and a powerful content management. Of course it requires a little learning curve. But if you can tame this beast, you can really have a great tool to build optimized affiliate sites faster than ever. And the best thing, WordPress can also help you with traffic.

So, the winner of the Mini-Site Design Contest will also get this. On top of that, there’s also the $500 cash prize, 30-Minute Backlinks and Viral Sales Generator.

Well, it seems like the designers like to wait till the very last minute…

As the dateline approaches for the Mini-Site Design Contest, I am seeing more and more mini site templates being submitted. Apart from my two mini site templates, as of now, you can also see eight others which are

• Secrets
• Elegant Blue
• Dogger
• Simple Red
• Night Sky
• Ipod 2.0
• Hour Glass
• Frame

I expect to see a few more before the dateline closes.

What happens after the dateline closes? Well, you can still submit your designs to be showcased in MiniSiteGallery.com. In fact, I welcome them. But it won’t be running for the contest. I am sorry, I laid out the rules clearly. If you want to submit your design, you better be quick.

Oh yeah, and I will also activate the voting and rating plugin. And I need your help to be the judge.

So … who do you think will win?

Here’s good news.

As you know, I am doing all that I can to promote MiniSiteGallery.com Mini-Site Design Contest. And along that line, I have secured two more prizes from sponsors. These prizes came from Michelle MacPhearson and Peter Koning.

Michelle MacPhearson has contributed her latest product, 30-Minute Backlinks. Selling at $100, this product will show you how to build a massive network of one-way links from high Pagerank sites. All that you need is just 30 minutes. And no technical knowledge is required.

Peter Koning has contributed Viral Sales Generator. Viral Sales Generator is a web software to power the creation and maintenance of a viral membership site. With Viral Sales Generator, you can create a website that offers free memberships, offers one-time offer and reward members for more referrals. What’s great about Viral Sales Generator is its in-depth reporting tool, administration panel and user-friendly member’s panel. Viral Sales Generator is what I use to power my OptinDesign.com.

Alright, I need to get more mini-site templates into this gallery. So I am doing a mini-site design contest. And the late entry date is on 29 February 2008. Mini-site templates submitted after that date will still be included in the gallery, but not for the contest.

After that, I will activate the voting plugin for website visitors to vote for the winner. Last voting date is 31 March 2008. And on 1 April 2008, I will announce the winner.

Recently, I just emailed my list and invited them to join this contest. And I am trying to get more exposure from friends and colleagues too. I also mentioned about sponsorship if anybody is interested. And just this morning, my friend Peter Koning from Viral Sales Generator is contributing a copy of that famous software.

In case you don’t know, VSG is what I use for my OptinDesign.com.

Oh yeah, on top of that, I am also putting aside my own $500 for cash prize.

You can read more about the contest at the gallery.

You can also learn about mini site template submission guideline at my submission page.

Oh yeah… I am still open for sponsors… write in if you’d like to be like Peter Koning to know about that.

If you are an existing ClickBank vendor, you must realize that you can define more than one products in your account. The problem is, ClickBank only allows one Hoplink Target URL. If you want to showcase your products like a shopping cart, then that’s fine. But if you want each product to have its own website and sales letter, then you may have a problem.

Fortunately, there’s a way to work around that. By informing your affiliates to add extra data in their hoplink, you can redirect visitors to the right product pages.

Let me elaborate. When you put extra information at the back of your hoplink, ClickBank will also send that information back to your site.

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Recently I talked about protecting your digital products with Paypal IPN. Using Paypal IPN is the simplest way to protect your digital products that you sell online. Without something like Paypal IPN, you are exposing your product to unauthorized downloads.

Towards the end of that article, it seems that I talked very highly of DLGuard.

I started using DLGuard starting with my second product in 2006. Ever since, every product that I rolled out, I use DL Guard. Of course, that is with the exception of my viral list building projects, where I use a membership site script.

I started using DL Guard from version 2. And now they are at version 4 already. At first Sam Stephens (the creator) used his own data storage system. So no MySQL database is required. There are pros and cons to that. The good thing is you don’t have to mess with difficult MySQL settings. But the bad thing is his own data system is not the best solution to the problem.

That is why now, Sam has started using MySQL in DLGuard, starting from version 3. And you thought that it’ll be difficult. Actually no. With the MySQL version, Sams also took some drastic steps by using better software development tools, IonCube. With IonCube, you Sams is able to deliver DLGuard with an easy to use installer software. All you need to do is run that EXE software, define a few settings and you are done.

Ever since having installed DLGuard, life has been easy… at least in this one area.

Let me tell you about the life before DLGuard…

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HOW IT WORKS

If you sell ebooks or software, you need a way to protect your download page from prying eyes. Many of us use Paypal. It’s easy and it’s convenient. I use them too. And the easiest way to use start using Paypal to accept payment is to create a Buy Now Button from within your Paypal account.

But to protect your digital product, you need to do something extra.

The sad truth is, Paypal’s Buy Now Button doesn’t actually protect your downloadable products. By viewing the HTML source code of your website, people can see where they will be redirected after making a payment using Paypal. And knowing this information, people can just type that address in the browser, skipping the part where they make the payment.

But Paypal has implemented (since years ago) a mechanism that you can use to verify and approve orders before allowing access to your download page. And all that can be automated, so you don’t have to do it manually.

This is known as the Paypal IPN (Instant Payment Notification). You can get a manual at Paypal at Paypal’s IPN page.

Before I tell you about how to implement this with your product, let me first tell you how it works.

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Welcome to MiniSiteGallery.com.

Actually I have been sitting on this for too long already. I registered this domain name sometime last month (December 07). At first I thought it was going to be an easy project. Something that will take no more than a week.

It turns out, it’s been weeks. In case you are wondering, yes, MiniSiteGallery.com is powered by Wordpress. And I got the template from Small Potato, Showcase. Actually, it’s meant to showcase websites, but I turned into a mini template download gallery.

Alright, let’s talk more about what MiniSiteGallery.com is.

Sometime last month, I started to have this idea where I wanted to gather and showcase the talents of our mini site designers. There are just so many good designers when it comes to mini sites and ebook covers. I thought that it’ll be a great idea to come to one place and see what these designers can do.

And I was also thinking that there are a number of free download galleries for Wordpress, for normal website templates, and the rest, but I have yet to see one that only does mini-sites.

It would be a great place, wouldn’t it?

For mini site designers, now there’s a place to showcase your talent and get exposure. I don’t know of a place where you can do that before. If you are a mini site designers, I know the type of clients that you are looking for. You can submit your designs to other types of gallery, but those galleries gather a different type of audience, which may not be suitable for your business model. No now you can submit your designs here at MiniSiteGallery.com.

And if you are a mini site marketer, somebody who creates and sell ebooks, perhaps you can start looking for your mini site design right here. I encourage designers to submit designs with the e-covers, complete with Photoshop PSD source file. That way, the marketers can just download a design and it will be ready with an ebook cover. All you have to do is just edit a few things and you are almost done.

Along the way, I am hoping to gather some useful marketing strategies for netrepeneurs like you and I. This could be about info product creation, copywriting, list building… what ever that applies.

This is an exciting journey for me. And I hope where ever this leads me, it will be an interesting ride for you too.