Mashable! has just published an interesting list of Top 10 Template Generators for Blogs and Websites.

If you are not satisfied with ready-made blog and website templates and want to build your own design, having a bare-bone structure might make it easier. We’ve created a list of top ten tools to help you create that basic structure to kick-start your creativity.

Some of them are really able to speed up your process of creating new websites or blogs.

Visit Mashable: Top 10 Template Generators for Blogs and Websites

Each plan includes:

• Disk Space: up to 600 GB – more than enough for your VRE empire.
• Bandwidth: 6,000 GB – that’s a lot of traffic!
• 52 scripts that can be installed with a click of the mouse, including blogs, portals, CMS, customer support scripts, discussion boards and forums, shopping carts, FAQ systems, image galleries, mailing lists, polls and surveys, site builders and other scripts.
• All major features you can find on other hosts are supported, like unlimited MySQL databases, PHP 4&5, Perl, Ruby on Rails, Cron, Frontpage, SSI, and a lot of others.

With superior support and a features like instant backups, 99.9% Uptime plus an all new 45 day money back guarantee you will be glad you chose HostGator as a hosting provider for your Virtual Real Estate empire.

What’s your market? Hire a consultant to help you with your Web-business problems and one of the first questions he or she will ask is, what’s your market? How about eighteen to thirty-four year old, single male college graduates with a dog named Spot; or maybe forty-five to fifty-nine year old married women, who hate their husbands and can’t get their adult children to move out of the house. Maybe, just maybe, they’re asking the wrong question.

The Web isn’t about markets, it’s about audiences. Audiences need to be entertained, enlightened, and engaged, and if your website doesn’t, you’re never going to achieve what you want.

Time to rethink how you’re delivering your marketing message. Start treating Web-visitors like an audience not a market, and you might just find what it takes to be successful on the Web.

2. Think People Not Customers

You know all those visitors you attract to your website with your brilliant search engine optimization schemes, how many actually purchase anything? Stop treating visitors as if they are already customers and start treating them like what they are – people. That’s right, people. You know the two-legged funny creatures with wants, needs, desires, and maybe even a few bucks to spend.

Customers are always looking for a deal and they’re leery of websites that only want to take their hard earned cash. Treat your Web-visitors like people who can satisfy their wants, needs, and desires with your assistance and guess what? Maybe it will make a difference: one small step for Web-credibility, one giant leap for Web-success.

3. Think Experiences Not Features

Bought any good features lately? Didn’t think so. You would think the way business pushes the whole feature-frenzy thing that features are exactly what people are looking for, but nobody buys features, they don’t even buy solutions – boy doesn’t that whole solution provider nonsense really get to you after a while.

What people really buy are experiences, hopefully positive ones. Whether it’s soft ice cream or a new accounting program, what people are paying for is the experience your product or service provides.

Does your website offer an experience? Does it explain the experience your product or service delivers? If it doesn’t, then you really haven’t got anything anybody wants.

4. Think Emotion Not Logic

Think you’re a logical person, always making rational decisions based on practical criteria, and bottom line results. So tell me what was the functional thinking that went into the purchase of those leather pants you bought last year, or that sixty inch plasma television you bought just to watch the big game?

Let’s get real. You make purchasing decisions based on what you want, and then justify them with seemingly sensible rationalizations, just like everybody else. So stop trying to appeal only to the practical, logical, aspects of bean-counter sales, and start pushing the feel good aspects of emotional marketing.

If you’re trying to appeal to an audience that gets its only satisfaction out of acquiring the most features for the least cost, then your marketing to the wrong audience.

5. Think Memories Not Promotions

Most animals live in the moment, whereas human beings live in the past. Our here and now and our plans for the future are based on our experiences, our histories, and our memories.

We take pictures of our kids, holidays, and special events; we commemorate birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, and milestones of all kinds. Even the significance of our prized possessions is centered on the fact that those mere objects represent memories of the people, places, and events that shaped our lives.

Real marketing, the kind that creates long-term clients and customer relationships, is not about coupons, sale promotions, or deep discounts; it’s about delivering memories.

6. Think Marketing Not S.E.O.

Okay, here’s one you’ve heard from us before: think marketing not search engine optimization. Sure you’ve got to drive as many people to your website as possible, but if your marketing message is so confused, unfocused, and hard to comprehend because of all the keyword density and S.E.O. tricks, then what have you really accomplished other than wasting people’s time? And people really get upset when you waste their time.

7. Think Stickiness Not Hits

It’s not about how many hits you get on your website, it’s about how long people stay. If visitors remain on your site long enough to get your marketing message then you must have said something worth listening to, and if visitors get the message, your site has done its job.

If your website delivers the message, then you can expect the email inquiries and phone calls to start flowing, but it’s still up to you and your sales staff to close the sale: people close sales not websites.

8. Think Stories Not Pitches

Did you hear the one about the farmer’s daughter and the search engine optimizer … Stories, everyone loves stories. In fact before the invention of the Gutenberg press, oral story telling was the way knowledge got passed down from one generation to the next, and how news was sent from one region to another.

Now that we have this multimedia Web-environment, we can continue the tradition of real people delivering creative audio and video presentations that capture the imagination and drive home the marketing message so your audience won’t forget who you are. Nothing informs, engages, and entertains, like a good story: sounds to me like one heck of a way to sell to an audience desperate for meaningful communication.

9. Think Focus Not Confusion

There you go again, telling everyone who will listen all the wonderful things you and your company can do. Trouble is, telling them all those things just confuses them.

What is the product or service that is most important to your company, the one you are determined to sell to your audience? That’s the one you want to talk about. That’s the one you want to devote your marketing effort to promoting. That’s the one you want people to think about when they hear your name or see your logo. Focus your communication or your message will just be a forgettable, incomprehensible blur.

10. Think Campaigns Not Ads

Isolated one-time advertisements are like one-night-stands: exciting for a while but ultimately unfulfilling and devoid of meaning. Your audience is looking to get married, not a short-term fling. Your marketing has to woo your visitors with long-term campaigns that tell your story and deliver your focused message; audiences expect to be courted and counseled with meaningful communication. And that takes time and commitment.

If you’re spending money on just ads, you might as well be throwing that money down the drain. There is a better way. So if you’re looking for a long-term relationship with your audience, think campaigns not ads.

11. Think Message Not Hype

What message are you delivering to your online visitors? Are you telling them you’ve got the best product, at the best price, with the best staff, and world-class customer service? Is that what you saying? Guess what? Nobody cares, because nobody believes you.

There is only one way to show people you’re the best and that is to prove it, but here’s the catch, you can’t prove it until they become customers. Whoops. Okay, so what’s the solution? How about a real marketing message that speaks to what your audience really wants. It’s not about you it’s about them.

12. Think Personality Not Banality

Does your website just lie there like a lox; you know that cold, dead fish that often comes with a bagel? No personality, just more of the same tedious, dull, dreary, mind-numbing, tiresome, lackluster, monotonous, stuff everybody else has. Boring! This is the new Web, so if you can’t get with it, you’d better get out because you’re wasting your time and everybody else’s.

You’re so worried about downloading times that you forgot to put anything on your site worth seeing or hearing. Check your logs. If people are jumping ship faster than rats on a burning ship, it’s time to try something new; like, maybe some compelling content.

13. Think Branding Not Copyrights

Hay, I love the Beatles. I grew up with them, and I have all their records – ya records, like vinyl dude, not CDs. And guess what, I’ve also got a Mac, in fact I’ve got a bunch of them, not to mention iPods and other assorted Apple gizmos and gadgets. And you know something, I’ve never once got John, Paul, George, or Ringo confused with Steve Jobs. Amazing!

Worry just a little less about all that small print stuff and more on building a memorable brand that people will remember, and that nobody will mistake for some johnny-come-lately imposter.

14. Think Positioning Not Slogan

It’s funny how people have a position on almost everything: you name the issue and people will have a definite opinion on what they think, except when it comes to their businesses. Just because you have a cute slogan that you print under your logo, doesn’t mean you own a position in your audience’s minds.

It seems businesses can’t stand to make a definitive statement about who they are and what they do. Why is that? Afraid they’ll lose a customer I guess, but if people don’t understand exactly what you do, and why they should be doing business with you, then they’re never going to be customers anyway.

No company can be all things to all people and companies that try, never go anywhere. Tell people who you are and what you do and forget about all the other stuff, it just gets in the way.

15. Think Sensory Appeal Not Cents Appeal

Do you want people to sit-up and take notice of what you have to say? Do you want people to actually remember what you’re telling them? While if that’s the case, you better appeal to their senses, and we’re talking about sights and sounds.

Deliver all your juicy, got-to-have content in an audio and video presentation that will stick in people’s heads.

If all you’re doing is appealing to their desire to spend less, then maybe they aren’t the customers you’re looking for anyway. Nobody can afford to sell for less all the time, every time.

16. Think Identity Not Logos

Is your company the equivalent of the invisible man? You’re on the Web, but nobody cares because you’re not saying anything worth listening to, and if they do see you, you are instantly forgettable.

You’ve got to have an identity, a personality, an image, and there is no better way to create that identity than with a video of a real person delivering your marketing message in an entertaining, memorable manner.

17. Think Entertainment Not Biz-speak

Speaking of entertaining, you cannot engage, enlighten, or entertain if everything you present sounds and looks like it came from some b-school text book, or from one of those self-help courses on direct marketing guaranteed to make you a millionaire in only three weeks.

Every business has a story to tell and they can all be presented in a compelling way with a little imagination and creativity. And yes, even b-to-b businesses can rise above the mundane and deadly boring, if only they take the time and make the effort.

18. Think Communication Not Copy

Last but not least, let’s all remember, that websites are about communication. If you’ve got nothing to say, nothing to offer, or are afraid to say what you can do for your audience, then how do you expect to be successful.

Filling your Web pages with keyword density prose and instantly forgettable sale’s copy is not going to win the day.

Whether you are presenting your case in text, audio, or video, it better be interesting and enlightening – even text can be entertaining if written with style and attitude.

When websites fail, they fail because they do not communicate a realistic, believable, convincing marketing message.

- – -
About the Author: Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Tel. (905) 764-1246.

The toolbar was started as a convenient way to organize my efforts of building and promoting my VRE websites. I wanted a tool that would be able to guide me through the entire process:

• from picking the idea for the new website >>
• to creating a list of related keywords, >>
• to choosing a domain name and hosting, >>
• to designing the website and filling it with related content, >>
• …and finally, to driving traffic, over and over, and over again.

Many people liked the tool, and I made it semi-public, for The Reese Report subscribers only. That version was for Internet Explorer only, and I started getting requests to create a Firefox version.

After a short period of time, the FF version has been launched, and both versions became public.

Over 20,000 webmasters and online entrepreneurs have downloaded the VRE Toolbar since July 2006. Thousands of them are using it daily.

I would like to thank all contributors and users of Virtual Real Estate Toolbar for your help and suggestions to make it even better.

Andrei Mikrukov

When you publish a post with a title like this:

“What You Can Do Immediately For Higher Rankings”,

WordPress automatically assigns a long filename to your post, called a post slug:

/what-you-can-do-immediately-for-higher-rankings

SEO Slugs plugin strips common words like “what”, “you” or “can” out of your post slug to make it more search engine friendly. With SEO Slugs plugin activated, the slug for our example blog post would look like this:

/immediately-higher-rankings

The slug is generated on saving a post (so you get a chance to look at it before publishing, and change it), or on publish. It won’t overwrite an existing slug. You can force a new slug generation by deleting the existing one.

Installation: Unzip the downloaded file, and save seo-slugs.php file to the plugins folder of your blog, usually /wp-content/plugins.

Activation: Log into your WordPress Admin, go to Plugins, find SEO Slugs plugin and click Activate.

Now, when editing a post, give it a title and press Save and Continue Editing. The SEO Slugs plugin will generate a slug. If you edit it, the plugin will honor your slug and won’t change it.

If you find this plug useful, please, link to this page (http://www.vretoolbar.com/news/seo-slugs-wordpress-plugin).

SEO Elite

Brad Callen of Bryxen Software, Inc., the author, reported today that they’ve added a brand new project type to allow you to submit your articles to article directories easily.

There are entire programs that are made to ONLY submit your articles to article directories, and they cost well over a hundred dollars. Now you can use SEO Elite to perform this task.

Also, with this update, they’ve added a new skin to give SEO Elite a more professional feel to it, and I really like this new version.

Lastly, they’ve just created a free, 7 day trial version of SEO Elite, so you can download a fully functional, 7 day trial version of this powerful SEO software for free!

If you’re not familiar with SEO Elite, it’s main feature is to help analyze your competitor’s websites, so that you can copy what they’re doing to succeed in search engine optimization, and improve on it to grab a coveted top 10 search engine spot.

With this software, within seconds, you can find out your competitor’s entire linking strategy, and any significant data about their search engine optimization methods, including…

• the page titles of the webpages their links reside on,
• the anchor text surrounding incoming links,
• the email address of their websites,
• the total number of times a specified keyword appears within their anchor text,
• the number of PR0-10 websites linking to their websites,
• the average Page Rank of all the websites pointing to their websites,
• whether the website is in the Yahoo Directory, DMOZ.org and Wikipedia.

You’ll know exactly how you should create your own web pages for top search engine rankings. By analyzing your competitor’s pages you’ll find out the exact numbers for the following variables to optimize your website:

• Link Prominence
• Link Density
• Keyword Density (How many times you should repeat your keywords on your pages)
• Keyword Prominence (Where you should place your keywords on your pages)
• Whether or not they’re using meta keywords AND what they are
• Whether or not they’re using h1 and h2 tags AND what they are
• The number of external links on their web page
• The number of internal links on their web page
• The age of their website
• And much more!

Plus, with this free trial, you can get access to a free 58 week SEO course to learn proven optimization strategies.

Download SEO Elite fully functional, 7 day trial version for free!

The Tutorial Blog published an interesting tutorial yesterday. It’s a step-by-step how-to article on creating a fake software box similar to this one:

They use Adobe Photoshop editor for that purpose and illustrate the process with screenshots.

Here’s the link: Create a software box

If you like their article, don’t forget to reward them with your digg vote (look for the digg button at the post’s end, before comments.)

What Is Pay Per Lead (PPL)?

The two monetization models that you are most probably already familiar with are:

• Pay Per Click
• Pay Per Sale (affiliate sale)

What Is Pay Per Click (PPC)?

You display PPC ads on your web pages. A visitor clicks on an ad. You make money per click. This is usually a small amount, mostly in cents.

The visitor’s action is clicking.

What is Pay Per Sale (PPS or Affiliate Sale)?

You display an affiliate ad/link for Product ABC on your website. A visitor clicks on the ad/link and is taken to Product ABC website. If the visitor buys Product ABC, you make an affiliate commission.

The visitor’s action is buying. It’s a cash-conversion action. The visitor has to buy in order for you to make money.

What about Pay Per Lead?

It is somewhere between these two monetization models:

PPC – PPL – PPS

Here’s how it works… very simple:

You display Pay Per Lead ads on your website. Visitors click on the ads and
are taken to the merchants/advertisers’ websites.

The merchant usually offers the visitor something valuable for free, in return for taking some form of action, which does not include buying anything. Pay-per-lead programs are generally designed to promote some type of free product or service.

You make commissions for every person who performs the non-cash conversion action.

Again, people do not have to buy anything in order for you to make money!

What Types Of Action Are Visitors Required To Take?

Here are some:

• Signing up for a newsletter or opt-in list. Visitor signs up, you make money/pay-per-lead commissions.
• Taking a poll or filling out a survey. Visitor participates in a survey, you make money/pay-per-lead commissions.
• Supplying contact information like a name or email address. Visitor fills in his/her contact info, you make money/pay-per-lead commissions.
• Filling a form. Visitor fills in a form, you make money/pay-per-lead commissions.
• Joining a free program. Visitor joins a free program, you make money/pay-per-lead commissions.

Pay Per Lead Examples

Read my previous post about PPL for some Pay Per Lead Examples: #1 Alternative To AdSense And Affiliate Marketing

Pay Per Lead Power Ads System™ is the quickest and easiest solution for creating, managing and maximizing your revenues from Pay Per Lead ads!

Pay Per Lead Power Ads System™ is made up of three heavy-weight software solutions:

1. Pay Per Lead Networks/Programs Research Center
2. Pay Per Lead Ad-Units Creator
3. Pay Per Lead Keyword Ads Generator

No software to download, upload, install, update.

Manage everything from an easy browser interface. Complete, 24/7 control over your own account, via an online control panel.

Read more: Pay Per Lead Power Ads System

If you’re not familiar with SEO Elite, it’s main feature is to help analyze your competitor’s websites, so that you can copy what they’re doing to succeed in search engine optimization, and improve on it to grab a coveted top-10 search engine spot.

With this software, within seconds, you can find out your competitor’s entire linking strategy, and any significant data about their search engine optimization methods, including…

• the anchor text surrounding incoming links,
• the page titles of the webpages their links reside on,
• the total number of times a specified keyword appears within their anchor text,
• the email address of their websites,
• the average Page Rank of all the websites pointing to their websites,
• the number of PR0-10 websites linking to their websites,
• whether the website is in the Yahoo Directory, DMOZ.org and Wikipedia.

You’ll know exactly how you should create your own web pages for top search engine rankings. By analyzing your competitor’s pages you’ll find out the exact numbers for the following variables to optimize your website:

• Link Density
• Link Prominence
• Keyword Density (How many times you should repeat your keywords on your pages)
• Keyword Prominence (Where you should place your keywords on your pages)
• Whether or not they’re using h1 and h2 tags AND what they are
• Whether or not they’re using meta keywords AND what they are
• The number of internal links on their web page
• The number of external links on their web page
• The age of their website
• And much more!

The list of SEO Elite’s features is huge! But what impresses me even more is their list of verifiable success stories of online entrepreneurs who have achived top rankings in Google, Yahoo! and MSN with the help of SEO Elite.

Visit SEO Elite homepage to check this out!

Here’s the email:

Hi Andrei,

This is the #1 alternative to AdSense/PPC and Affiliate marketing.

This is revolutionary and breakthrough software!

I have a quick question to ask you.

Why should you accept making cents per click on your website and blog when you could ‘sell your clicks for dollars’ — $5, $10, even $50 or more per lead, by giving your visitors free niche products and services?

Big companies are already paying people like you large sums of CASH for sending them visitors to get free stuff!

What am I talking about? I’m talking about the #1 Alternative to AdSense and Affiliate Marketing!

(If you’re in a hurry, just go ahead and take a look at this web page to see what I’m talking about.)

I’m talking about Pay Per Lead!

Pay Per Lead Examples

The following are a tiny sample of Pay Per Lead programs.

Remember: There are Pay Per Lead programs for just about every imaginable niche!

$18.75 Per Lead: ____________.net will pay you $18.75 every time you send it a lead that requests a FREE sample of its health/diet product!
That’s right! You don’t have to sell anything nor do your leads have to buy anything! They request a free sample and you get paid $18.75 per lead!

$08.00 Per Lead: ____________.com will pay you $8 for every lead you send it that signs up and downloads FREE ringtones!

$50.00 Per Lead: ____________.com, a leading finance company, will pay you $50 per lead that fills out a form!

$01.75 Per Lead: ____________.com bookstore will pay you $1.75 per FREE online registration!

$25.00 Per Lead: ____________.com, a mortgage company, will pay you $25 per lead that fills out a FREE quote form!

$02.75 Per Lead: ____________.com will pay you $2.75 per lead that enters a photo contest.

$60.00 Per Lead: ____________.com will pay you $60 per lead that fills out a FREE credit card application.

$01.20 Per Lead: ____________.com will pay you $1.20 every time a visitor you send it enters his/her email to get free Health samples!

$01.10 Per Lead: ____________ will pay you $1.10 for sending “user to participate in optional surveys and product promotions to get a free iPod Nano.”

$03.00 Per Lead: ____________ will pay you $3.00 for every lead you send that “fills in this form and have your case evaluated by a lawyer. Most, but not all cases are evaluated. This is a free service.”

$12.00 Per Lead: ____________.com will pay you $12.00 for every lead you send that signs up and gets 10 prints.

$04.50 Per Lead: ____________ will pay you $4.50 for every lead that fills out a Free car quote.

And that’s just a tiny sample of Pay Per Lead programs!

Remember: These are by no means the highest paying Pay Per Lead programs for these niches!

Find out:

1. What is Pay Per Lead, and why it is so profitable!

2. In What Ways Is Pay Per Lead Better Than Pay Per Click & Pay Per Sale (Affiliate Sales)?

3. Pay Per Lead Versus Pay Per Sale (Affiliate Sales) Comparison Table

4. AdSense Is Alive/Dead – The one thing you can learn from this raging debate, and what you can do!

5. How you can add the highest paying Pay Per Lead ads targeting your niche to your website(s) and blog(s)… in minutes!

Check it out now!

Wishing you all the best.

Mike

After a quick research of the software and the Pay Per Lead opportunity itself, I decided to give it a try. I’ll keep you posted on the results.

– Andrei