I attended Erin Blaskie’s Blog Design Bootcamp last year and I am still utilizing the skills I learned in her class with my clients and I built this site shortly after attending her class.  Erin’s teaching techniques make learning blog design easy because she shares her desktop screen and is on the phone with the students.

She takes the time to answer questions in a way that make it easy to understand. Purchasing a seat in her class was the best investment I made in my business.  She is once again offering this fantastic class live from February 1-8, 2010 — 7-9PM EST. The Blog Design Bootcamp is an intense 10-hour course of webinar / virtual training.

Here are some of the topics she will be covering, see the full list on Erin’s event site.

Understanding the Basics
* Installing the blog platform with the one-click install feature
* Using an FTP client to upload files – themes, plug-ins, etc.

Customizing a Theme — Part I
* Working with the CSS to make changes to colors, etc.
* Setting up Google Analytics on the blog from day one

Customizing a Theme — Part II
* Working with sidebar widgets
* Looking at more advanced plug-ins. (Sociable, WP-Video, Technorati Tags, etc.)
* Working with external services ie: Feedburner

Other House-Keeping Functions
* Creating and managing pages
* Creating and managing posts
* Setting up permissions / privacy / allowances for the blog

How to Deliver Blog Design to Your Clients
* How to charge for your blog design
* Setting boundaries – how to draw the line at the number of on-going changes to the blog design

If you are in need of creating a website or blog for your business or your clients then this is the class that you need to invest your money in.  I highly recommend Erin’s classes, she is very knowledgeable and a great teacher.  To sign up for the course you can visit Erin’s event site or email me at dawn@SunriseVirtualServices.com if you have any questions about her class.

The idea of affiliate marketing isn’t a new concept but if you are unfamiliar with it the idea is simple.  I have a product and if you tell your friend about it and the buy it then I will give you 20% of the sales price.  Sounds great right?  But how is this accomplished in the virtual world?

This is done via affiliate URL’s that are tracked using your internet cookies. When you click on a promotional affiliate link it stays in your cookies and if you make a purchase on that website it then tracks who the affiliate member is.  You can click the link today, but then go back months later to the site to make the purchase and the affiliate can still be tracked and make their commission.

In my affiliate marketing I focus on Internet Businesses (Business Coaches and other Virtual Assistants) as well as promoting products that I use in my own business such as Mozy, StudioPress and GoDaddy.  There are plenty of Entrepreneurs out there who have affiliate marketing programs that work really well because they have proven products that work and the Entrepreneur is well liked and trusted.  When looking for an affiliate program to join ( and joining is free ) you will want to join one that gives you the tools to easily promote that Entrepreneurs product.  These types of tools are things like product graphics, pre-written email messages and Tweets.  If they don’t provide those types of items then you are going to need to create them on your own and that can take some time to do on your end.  How do you know if someone has an affiliate program?  If they have a program this will be listed right on their website and you can check it out before joining.  Here is a link to Ali Brown’s affiliate program, and I highly recommend joining her first because she has a great program.

An example of some really great programs ( that I am a member of ) are Ali Brown, David Neagle and Katrina Sawa and Erin Blaskie. These are higher end Entrepreneurs who have teams of people who create their affiliate promotion products for them, have proven products that work and often have new items to promote.  They also have specific websites called Affiliate Resource Centers where you can see how many clicks and sales you have generated.

Most affiliate programs will pay you one to two months after the sale is made once your sales amount reaches $50.  The money can be transferred right into your PayPal account or you can opt to be paid via check.

I have made money with these affiliate programs and you can to, here’s how.

• Utilize the pre-written email messages, why?  Because a professional Affiliate Manager or the Entrepreneur has written them and they are the ones who know ‘how’ to sell their products.  These message can be sent out to your email marketing list or made into a blog post on your blog.
• Utilize the pre-written Tweets provided and create automated Tweets to be sent at specific times to promote a specific product, service or upcoming event.  I currently use HootSuite to automate my Tweets and Status updates.  You can also use Social Oomph (previously known as Tweetlater) to automate your tweets as well.
• Add a graphic to your web site or blog site promoting the Entreprenur, one of their products or an upcoming event.

Affiliate marketing can be fun, espeically when making money!!  What are your favorite affiliate marketing programs?

Resources mentioned in this blog posting were:

1. Ali Brown’s Affiliate Program – Join this affiliate program 1st!
2. Katrina Sawa - Affiliate Program
3. David Neagle - Affiliate Program
4. Erin Blaskie - Affiliate Program
5. HootSuite – Automate your status updates & promotional Tweets
6. Social Oomph – Automate your promotional Tweets

Do you want to start your own Virtual Assisting company? Are you wondering where to start?

About six months ago I was was wondering the same thing.  My questions didn’t go unanswered very long because I found Erin Blaskie who is a VA Coach.

She is a super fantastic VA Coach because she is on top of the latest in Internet Marketing techniques and tools and she has had her own successful VA Company since 2004 and has served over 300 clients.

I purchased one of her products and it really helped me to get my business started, the product (Build Your VA Business) is now a self study program.  However, Erin is now doing a LIVE updated version of this program.  This is a 10 week live program and you can jump on board now.   Here is a link to Build Your VA Business 2.0 where you can get all the information about the program and to register.  Training with Erin live is the best option because she give so much information during her training classes.  Also, once you buy one of her products if she releases an update you get access to the new information so I’ll see you on the calls!

I have been using TinyURL for quite some time to shorten my long links while using Twitter, however my colleague Erin Blaskie showed me an even better way to shorten long URL’s.  The service is called bit.ly and you can not only shorten your URL but you can also view the analytic for the link.

Once you have shorten your link and use it you can immediately start to see the analytic information.  Below is a recent one I used for a promotion on my Mommy Blogging site.

There are other features about this service that make it fantastic.

History

Bit.ly will keep a history of your links, this is a great feature if you do affiliate marketing and you want to shorten your links and track them.

Sidebar Bookmarks

Shorten URLs from anywhere with either one of bit.ly’s bookmarklets.  They have made available either a sidebar widget or a standard tool bar bookmark then share your bit.ly link in your Email, on Twitter, Facebook or anywhere!

Blog

To keep up on all things bit.ly check out their bit.ly blog.

Tell me what you think about bit.ly or what service do you use to shorten your URL’s?

Technorati Tags: bit.ly, Dawn Cullo, Erin Blaskie, Sunrise Virtual Services

Top Referrers ?

Referring Site	Click(s) On bit.ly Link
Email Clients, IM, AIR Apps, and Direct	65
Direct Traffic includes people clicking a bit.ly link from: - Desktop email clients like Microsoft Outlook or Apple mail - AIR applications like Twirhl - Mobile apps like Twitterific or Blackberry Mail - Chat apps like AIM - SMS/MMS messages It also includes people who typed a bit.ly link directly into their browser
twur.li	6
	6
twitter.com	4
/	1
/DawnCullo	1
/home	2
Registered Applications	2
TweetDeck	2
bit.ly	1
/	1
powertwitter.me	1
/	1
sunrisevirtualservices.com	1
/	1
www.tweetlater.com	1
/tweets/add/	1

Locations ?

Conversations

Do you want to learn how to create a WordPress Blog site that looks like mine?  Almost a year ago I took an awesome class offered online by Erin Blaskie.  I learned so much from Erin that I have gone on to create two WordPress sites for my self and helped countless of other clients create and update their blog sites as well.

She will teach you how to install, setup and customize the blog as well as show you how to use it for yourself and for your clients.

The training is a 10 hour, 5 day program which takes place June 22 – 26 from 5-7pm Eastern Standard Time.

The cost of this program is $197 and you’ll have full access to high quality video and audio recordings for safekeeping (or if you need to miss any classes).  This is a great resource as I have even gone back to refer to her lessons from time to time.

Register for the class or learn more about Erin Blaskie, she’s fabulous.

Here’s what you will learn:

Class #1 – Understanding the Basics (2 Hours)

* What is a blog?
* Installing the blog platform with the one-click install feature
* Using an FTP client to upload files – themes, plug-ins, etc.
* Choosing and installing a theme
* General overview of the dashboard – all the features, settings, etc.
* The basic plug-ins that come pre-installed with WordPress and how to set them up

Class #2 – Customizing a Theme — Part I (2 Hours)

* Understanding the different design files inside of the Design — Theme Editor
* Working with the CSS to make changes to colors, etc.
* Setting up Google Analytics on the blog from day one
* Looking at the settings and users menus

Class #3 – Customizing a Theme — Part II (2 Hours)

* Creating a custom header for your blog
* Changing out some of the base graphics that come with the theme.
* Working with sidebar widgets
* Looking at more advanced plug-ins. (Sociable, WP-Video, Technorati Tags, etc.)
* Working with external services ie: Feedburner

Class #4 – Other House-Keeping Functions (2 Hours)

* Creating and managing categories
* Creating and managing pages
* Creating and managing posts
* Setting up permissions / privacy / allowances for the blog
* Using e-mail to blog
* Backing up the blog

Class #5 – How to Deliver Blog Design to Your Clients (2 Hours)

* How to listen to their needs and honor their vision
* How to work with a design brief (your blog design blueprint)
* How to charge for your blog design
* Setting boundaries – how to draw the line at the number of on-going changes to the blog design

Technorati Tags: Erin Blaskie, BSETC, Blog Design Bootcamp, Dawn Cullo, Sunrise Virtual Services

Do You Want to Learn Industry Secrets and Business Savvy from Top Entrepreneurs & Internet Marketers?

Join Business Services Etc for their 2nd annual Summer Speaker Series May 18 – June 19!

Last years event was such a smashing success so they are doing it again.  This time the lineup is jam packed with a diverse group of speakers.  There will be 30+ speakers, all live.

The list includes so many fantastic speakers.  You can check out their speaker bios and their topics.

But don’t wait to sign up because they are offering Special pricing of $97 until May 15, 2009.  Then once the program starts on May 18th price will increase to $147.

As a special bonus they are also going to give you all of the downloads from last year’s event.  You can only get this when you register before Friday, May 8.

So don’t wait or you will miss out on these great bonus items.