Packt Joomla Cash Money Making Weapons For Your Joomla Website Oct 2007 ISBN 1847191401 pdf

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Joomla! Cash

Money-making weapons for your Joomla! website

Brandon Dawson

Tom Canavan

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, co-author, Packt Publishing, nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book. Special thanks to Tom Canavan for giving permission to use portions of his book—"Dodging the Bullets— A Disaster Preparation Guide for Joomla! based Websites".

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: October 2007

Production Reference: 1191007

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. 32 Lincoln Road

Olton

Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 978-1-847191-40-3

www.packtpub.com

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Credits

Author

Brandon Dawson

Co-Author

Tom Canavan

Reviewers

Tom Canavan Niko Kotiniemi

Senior Acquisition Editor

David Barnes

Development Editor

Mithil Kulkarni

Technical Editor

Akshara Aware

Editorial Manager

Dipali Chittar

Project Manager

Abhijeet Deobhakta

Project Coordinator

Sagara Naik

Indexer

Hemangini Bari

Proofreader

Chris Smith

Production Coordinator

Manjiri Nadkarni Shantanu Zagade

Cover Designer

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About the Author

Brandon Dawson

is a 29 year old website developer from Lancaster, Ohio in the United States. He has completed Joomla! projects for clients ranging from major corporate clients, such as Apple Incorporated, to small local businesses. He maintains a business website at www.athenainternet.com.

He enjoys building websites, hiking, cycling, and spending time with his fiancée and

their son, Augdin. He is also a huge movie buff and spent his college years operating a small local movie theatre.

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About the Co-author

Tom Canavan has practically grown up with the Computer industry. He started his career out of college doing component-level repair of barcode readers. From there he moved into a computer systems maintenance position supporting proprietary minis,

mainframes, PCs, and networks with a major defense firm.

Later he moved to AST Research and then to Dell Computer Corporation where he worked as a Sr. Systems Consultant working with Fortune-500 customers. He has over twenty-three years of work experience on all facets of computing, networking, and customer problem solving.

He has a degree in Robotics and Numerical control from Grayson County College. He is the co-host of a successful Podcast about Joomla! known as JoomlaJabber.com.

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About the Reviewers

Tom Canavan

has practically grown up with the Computer industry. He started his career out of college doing component-level repair of barcode readers. From there he moved into a computer systems maintenance position supporting proprietary

minis, mainframes, PCs, and networks with a major defense firm.

Later he moved to AST Research and then to Dell Computer Corporation where he worked as a Sr. Systems Consultant working with Fortune-500 customers. He has over twenty-three years of work experience on all facets of computing, networking, and customer problem solving.

He has a degree in Robotics and Numerical control from Grayson County College. He is the co-host of a successful Podcast about Joomla! known as JoomlaJabber.com.

He is the author of "Dodging the Bullets—a disaster preparation guide for Joomla! based websites".

Niko Kotiniemi

has a background service sector, Union and Unemployment Fund related work as well as the travel sector. In 2004 he turned his lifelong computer hobby to into a living, starting with custom web projects and open-source CMS systems. Since the very beginning of his computer related professional career he has worked with Mambo and later with Joomla. In 2006, at the age of 30 he decided to

obtain the academic qualifications and entered the Software Engineering studies at

the Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia, Information Technology department.

During the course of his studies he is constantly working on different web-projects to

both finance his studies as well as out of professional interest. Most of his free time is

spent with his family as well as in studying new trends and technologies and ways in which they can be integrated to real-life situations such as those faced by private entrepreneurs and small companies. Currently his main technological interests lie in Joomla, wiki’s, all of the Google labs products, Ajax, Gadgets/Widgets, databases and specialized websites for niche groups.

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Preface

So you want to be an entrepreneur? Or maybe you already are one. Maybe you want to earn some extra cash, but don't have the time to setup an eBay® store. Whatever the case is, this book is for you.

As a young man, I always dreamed of running my own business and being in control of my business destiny. Well, that dream is not only possible, but with the Internet, it is very easy and lucrative.

Planning to run your own business, brick and mortar or Internet based, isn't easy, and sometimes not fun. However, one thing that I have learnt in life is that the more you know a subject, such as Internet-based businesses, the easier it can be.

The team of volunteer programmers who bring you Joomla! have given you a tool that, when properly applied, will yield great fortunes! Or at least yield a nice return.

Remember the effort you put into this will determine the benefits you receive. If

you aren't ready, then read the book, play around with the software, set it aside and come back in a few weeks. Read it again, and continue. However, if you are ready to jump whole heartedly into your own Joomla! cash stream, use this book as a guide, but keep studying. Read the forums at Joomla.org, read other online business books; study and examine successful sites, don't steal but visualize and make your own, and improve your site.

Make no mistake; this is a full-time effort, which you should not take lightly. Take it on as if your doctor has asked you to. In other words, take all the medicines, eat right, get plenty of sleep, exercise, and you will feel better. This book, will serve the same. Visualize your business, write your marketing plan, learn good layout and optimization techniques, prepare for disaster, market your skills, and learn how to take in money and pay out commissions.

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What This Book Covers

Chapter 1 talks about the hype versus reality aspect of the Internet and clears away the "if I build it, they will come" myth. Also, it tells you that a Joomla! warrior should be disciplined and should learn all the skills to be successful. It explains the four P's

required for efficient marketing: Product, Place, Promotion, and People.

Chapter 2 teaches you how to evaluate, adapt, improvise, and overcome obstacles

that keep you from achieving digital battlefield victory.

Chapter 3covers the basics of SEO or search engine optimization, links and tags, RSS feeds, newsletters, and multimedia marketing.

Chapter 4 explains how to obtain critical data for your website as a basis for action.

You will learn about traffic/log analysis.

Chapter 5 will help you understand how to make your site visually appealing so as to

generate traffic and revenue.

Chapter 6 will provide you with tips for generating revenues for your Joomla! site.

Chapter 7 will provide you with a brief tutorial on disaster preparation for your cash-generating site.

Chapter 8 explains a few more cash-generating weapons: marketing your Joomla! skills and offering commercial templates.

Who This Book is For

is For

For

This book is suitable for business people with a medium level of technical skill who need a good primer on how to implement a cash-generating website. Those

unfamiliar with Joomla! would benefit from reading Building Websites with Joomla! 1.5 Beta 1.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between

different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

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A block of code will be set as follows: <?php

if (file_exists($mosConfig_absolute_path."/components/ com_joomlastats/joomlastats.inc.php"));

New terms and important words are introduced in a bold-type font. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in our text like this: "clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen".

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.

Customer Support

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Errata

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Questions

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Welcome Warriors!

Do you have a product or service you wish to sell on the Internet? Do you possess specialized knowledge that has value? Do you design or implement websites? Do you want to make money?

Chances are good that you fall into one of these categories.

I assume that you've selected this book because you have a vision and you realizeyou've selected this book because you have a vision and you realize that your vision is one that's been held by countless people since time immemorial, or at the very least, since 1995. You may wish to have a site that will promote your unique recipes, something like www.carolsfavorite.com, and depend on small amounts of revenue from Google Adsense ads. Perhaps your vision is to get the

terrific after-market product ideas for automobiles from your mind to the Internet.

You would need to accept credit cards online, be search-engine friendly, and have a shopping cart. Perhaps you fall somewhere in between. In any case, you share the vision of countless entrepreneurs, which is to make money!

If, on the other hand, you've selected this book because it has a misspelled,

westernized, Swahili word in it's title, then let this paragraph serve as notice that this book has nothing to do with the sub-Saharan Bantu languages, and that the author, editors, and publisher of this book have no need to correct the spelling for that entire language family.

Joomla! is Bantoid (Swahili) for is Bantoid (Swahili) for All together now, and as we'll see throughout

this book, the terrific developer community surrounding Joomla!Joomla!, the ContentContent

Management SystemorCMS, has provided an arsenal of components and extensions for people with vision to turn their ideas into reality.

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your site is determined by numerous factors—one of them being the functionality of your site. Joomla! is built to accept add-on software known as accept add-on software known as extensions. These extensions delivered both commercially and under the GNU/GPL licenses offer a wealth of power that will make an average site a good one.

While reading this book, you will get the opportunity to closely examine real-world examples. By reading about others' experiences you will see how websites are used to make cash. Joomla! is a perfect platform to begin your training as a Joomla! cash warrior.

Business is a War—You Must be

Prepared to be a Warrior!

To be a warrior, you must learn a warrior's winning tools and techniques. In this book you will learn valuable, time-tested skills to earn search engine ranking, turn

affiliate website clicks into cash, and track the movement of visitors.

One of the greatest Internet warriors is Bob Parsons of GoDaddy.com, the website host and registrar. He has 16 rules of success, and he swears by them. Rule no. 9 is: measure everything of significance. By learning about tools you will be able to gauge the progress. Lastly, this book will help you to learn how to keep your soon-to-be-generated cash site up and happy.

Hype versus Reality—the Internet

We've all experienced the hype-versus-reality aspect of the Internet; you labor on your website, crossing every virtual T, and dotting every digital I, in the pursuit of providing a rewarding experience to your visitors and getting your intended message across.

You launch your website securely making sure that Google, Yahoo, and the others will bring multitudes of visitors your way, quickly and painlessly. Soon, you'll be on the Internet A-list.

However, you wait and nothing happens.nothing happens. happens.

What went Wrong?

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Today one of the myths is that search engine submission and indexing is the only step needed to build a successful web presence. Yet this represents but one of the

weapons in our arsenal. There are many others and as with the ancient �ushid��ushid�� code, (�ushid�� means �way of the warrior��, mastery of one principle does not make�ushid�� means �way of the warrior��, mastery of one principle does not make means "way of the warrior"), mastery of one principle does not make a person master of the entire discipline. Just like the Bushido of the Samurai of ancient Japan, the code means a code of conduct. You being a Joomla! warrior must be disciplined in several different skills and conduct, to be successful.

Presumably, this book's readership does not reside on the Forbes Magazine list of the world's wealthiest people, so we will assume that we do not have a billion-dollar, near-limitless, pre-dotcom-bust budget, cheerfully funded by breathless, money-showering venture capitalists, who also want to be "in" on the "next big thing".

Instead, we will accept that we must learn and use excellent strategies and tactics to take our ideas and bring them to the rich, spending masses. We will accept thatspending masses. We will accept that masses. We will accept that

we must choose our battlefield carefully, with weapons and tactics suitable to our terrain. �y doing so, we will stand out in the crowded digital battlefield and will

arise victorious.

The Way of the Warrior

The Way of the Joomla! Warrior encompasses all the techniques of successful website production, and recognizes that what works in one situation may not be suitable in another. It further recognizes that what has worked before may or may not necessarily work again. Finally, it recognizes that hard work, virtue, and persistence are the cornerstones of any successful endeavor, digital or otherwise.

Mind Your P's

As any first-year marketing student will quickly recite, the foundational basis of

marketing revolves around four P's: product, place, price, and promotion.

Our first weapon to achieve the four P's is preparation. So we begin by developingpreparation. So we begin by developing. So we begin by developing a comprehensive idea of what we are and what we do, who should be rewarded byare and what we do, who should be rewarded by and what we do, who should be rewarded bydo, who should be rewarded by, who should be rewarded bywho should be rewarded byshould be rewarded by visiting us and howhow.

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Product

Our website's prime product is usually the content and information, which we use toprime product is usually the content and information, which we use to is usually the content and information, which we use to draw our visitors in. We will typically want this content to be fresh and topical, but we can also get away by offering stale, over-exposed information, if we offer a new twist or interpretation by providing fresh, contrasting, analysis or extension of an otherwise tired topic.

As an example, the popular retro-culture site �-Entertainment (�-Entertainment ( ( http://www.x-entertainment.com) quite successfully manages to retread old content by providing a nostalgic, retro spin on cultural icons of the 1980s and 1990s. In contrast to this, are the political commentary sites, many of which manage to not only provide a primary product of fresh analysis and commentary on current events, but also physical secondary products related to the current socio-political zeitgeist.

Our secondary products are the products we actually sellsecondary products are the products we actually sell are the products we actually sellsell. These could be our own products, ranging from exclusive, subscriber-only content that extends, or is related to our free content, to branded merchandise or actual consumer products. In this case, we must not only provide the content, but also a compelling presentation with plenty of reasons to scratch the itch and buy the product.

In an e-commerce storefront, our prime products are the ones we intend to sell, and our secondary products are free value-adds, often free user's guides, user forums, or FAQs; this requires that we plan the design of the site's layout appropriately.

The astute reader will realize that what we're really discussing here is how to commoditize our visitors: are they consumers of information, or consumers of physicalare they consumers of information, or consumers of physical products? Will they generate revenue for us by simply visiting the site, or help spread the word? Or, is their main contribution to our bottom line to be found in products they buy?

Proper consideration of the true nature of our product is imperative for answeringtrue nature of our product is imperative for answering is imperative for answering the question of how our product will be presented in our website's design.

Place

Our place, obviously, is the Internet, and, specifically, our Joomla! site. If weplace, obviously, is the Internet, and, specifically, our Joomla! site. If we, obviously, is the Internet, and, specifically, our Joomla! site. If we

consider our website as we would a store front, then certain operational concerns become evident.

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Having the Internet as our place confers certain advantages and disadvantages. Takeplace confers certain advantages and disadvantages. Takeconfers certain advantages and disadvantages. Take a brief look at our primary assets and liabilities on the topic of place:

Some Advantages

A website is a lower-cost medium in terms of cost-per-customer than other mediums.

Our Joomla! site is available 24/7/365 to visitors the world over.

The Internet permits more than merely the old-school, two-way interactivity of a typical physical retailer. For example, allowing visitors to rate or review content or products allows for a collaborative, multi-dimensional presentation of what is most relevant to our consumers.

Some Disadvantages

Websites lose direct control over their interaction with customers, instead relying on

a passive, customer-driven experience wherein the consumer has the final say over

how the information presented is interpreted and acted upon.

Dissatisfied customers often have no direct, person-to-person capacity to resolve

their disputes and obtain satisfaction from an initial unsatisfying experience. Remember, your competition is only a click away.

Websites have little-to-no control over the fulfilment process, which is to say, what

happens with a customer's product after the checkout process is completed, and the product shipped. Unsatisfactory product-return arrangements from Internet retailers are commonly a major cause of dissent against e-commerce in general. Make sure you consider your customers' experience in the design and operation of the site. Make returns easy. Make sure your HELP number or HELP e-mail address is clearly labeled. Your visitors are not someone simply "passing by" like cars on a freeway.

Price

The old maxim There is no such thing as a free lunch, provides a good basis for our brief discussion of price.price..

If our prime product is free information, then the user often provides restitution for the value our content provides by considering or acting upon our advertising.

If our prime products are physical inventories, users often make their decisions

based on either the cost, or the features or benefits. In that sense, then, we would

want to pitch our free informational resources on a product as a value-add to the

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Running an e-commerce site, armed with the right components, can enhance your

sales. Consider for instance, how your e-commerce site could offer high profit, high

impulse products at checkout time to enhance your loss-leader product. An example is a car-charger for your mobile phone, which, offered attractively and at the right strategic time, would clearly increase your bottom line. In the retail world this is would clearly increase your bottom line. In the retail world this is done all the time in the form of "end-caps" and checkout kiosks offering gum, candy, batteries, glass cleaner and all sorts of items that have very high margin.

Promotion

Promotion is the subset of marketing where a website can really shine, but also the is the subset of marketing where a website can really shine, but also the area in which some of the old mythologies of the Internet can really interfere with proper implementation of a promotional strategy.

On one hand, a properly designed Joomla! website can make promotion a breeze by offering the capacity to promote based on word-of-mouth, referrals, optimized search-engine indexing, banner advertising, RSS feeds, email blasts, document downloads, forums, and more.

On the other hand, one problem intrinsic to any website is the problem of cutting through the Internet's natural noise level, and providing our consumers a quick,

concise way to drill into our content and obtain their desired benefits.

The "build it, they will come" problem we've already considered is part and parcel of promotion. Visitors will come, once it's built, but they must know its there. Having a promotional plan and executing it is another weapon in your arsenal of success. Heed the words of advertising genius, David Ogilvy, I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. Promotion is your advertisement.

The Forgotten P—People

Many aspiring webmasters tend to forget that their visitors are not numbers, but living, breathing people, whose individual needs must be addressed. We should have a clear understanding of our intended audience and design our site accordingly. For example, if our site is targeted towards senior citizens, then we could make certain changes, to make their reading easier, as many older users keep their desktop settings at lower resolutions for increased readability.We could increase the font size,We could increase the font size, increase the font size,

consider a fixed-width and a smaller layout.

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Analyzing user behavior and psychology is crucial for successful designing. Studies have proven that different genders, age groups, and economic segments respond differently to different color schemes and layouts.

More importantly, analysis of a visitors' behavior while visiting your website can reveal trends and patterns that can alter your perception of how your website's information is being received, as opposed to how that information is actually beingreceived, as opposed to how that information is actually being as opposed to how that information is actually being presented. We'll discuss tracking visitors to the site later in the book.. We'll discuss tracking visitors to the site later in the book.

Summary

Just as there are a myriad of options when building a website, there are a myriad of

options for defining and refining our marketing concepts and how they relate to our

overall plans for our Joomla! website. This book will dive into these topics as well as look at the commercially available and GNU/GPL freely available extensions to make your site shine.

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Creating a Marketing Plan

We will cover the following topics in this chapter:

Why have marketing plans? Creating marketing plans

Objectives for attaining a revenue-generating Joomla! site

Why have Marketing Plans?

This is a question that many business people struggle with. You would not build

a house without first checking your finance, finding land, and getting a blueprint

for the house. The purpose of the blueprint is to tell the building crew how to build it and what it should look like. It includes a plan for all the necessary items such

as plumbing, floors, electrical wiring, roof, and more. Without the blueprint you

wouldn't be able to describe your house.

Marketing plans are just like that, they describe your offerings, detail your plans for

the features, functions, and benefits of your website. In short, without one you would not be able to accurately identify and sell your products at the highest profit margin.

As a Joomla! warrior, you may want to go to battle with your marketing plan.

Creating a Marketing Plan

The marketing plan is easy to put together; however, the difficulty comes in knowing what questions to ask, where to find the answers, and factors that constitute a

strategy or a tactic. However, let's establish a simple way to remember this.

You have a vision of what the end result of your site would be. This can bevision of what the end result of your site would be. This can be of what the end result of your site would be. This can be

considered as your goal. For example, you say that you want to earn $25,000 in the

first year of operation.

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This is a simple goal that requires a good strategy supported by tactical objectives. As we move into the objectives, you will see how they complement each other, yet change forms, all for the purpose of achieving the goal of $25,000.

An excellent tool to help craft a marketing plan is Marketing Plan Pro from Palo Alto software (see(seehttp://www.paloalto.com/ps/mpfor more information).This package helps you craft your message and plan by asking you the hard questions.

However, for us fellow warriors, let's examine some of the elements that go into a good marketing plan and how to craft them.

Elements of Your Marketing Plan

Your battle plan, i.e. your marketing plan, should at least contain the following elements:

A solid description of the buyer or the end user of your product or service What segments of the market will you compete in for your product

Each product or service should have a clearly defined statement that discusses

your unique value proposition. In other words, why are you different and notnot a commodity.

Never compete solely on price. You will lose. Compete on value, by defining

your value strategy as opposed to your competitors. If I were the buyer, and were comparing your product, against the competitor's product, I would likely buy the competitor's product even though it may be more expensive, if you have not communicated strategically with me throughout the experience.

Communications—What advertising should you do? What will it cost? What is your budget? What will it say to the reader or target? Develop an advertising plan within your marketing plan.

In your plan, describe your business—what is it? Why is it?—Ask yourself, why doesWhy is it?—Ask yourself, why does my business exist? A powerful warrior will answer these questions with ease. Know your enemy, know yourself, and you will be victorious in all the battles.

As you can see a marketing plan is a complex document. It should change as your terrain changes. Should you run into a river (metaphorically speaking) what in your plan guides you around it, or through it? A river may be a rushing torrent, such as a competitor, offering the same products at a lower cost. Be prepared to address these things in your marketing plan.

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The Warrior's Strategic Objectives

In our marketing plan, we have milestones or objectives. These are built to gauge how we perform to reach our goal. For example, the overall goal of this book is to teach you, the reader, how to use Joomla! to develop a site and sell or provide content,

products, or services to make money. With that, there are specific objectives, such as traffic generation, that must be planned. Once we plan for these, we need a way to

measure and adapt to the changes.

The remainder of this chapter covers these objectives in detail. Take the time to

absorb these key concepts as they will prove to fill your quiver with arrows to fire at

your target.

Evaluate, Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome

We begin crafting our battle plan by considering our strategic objectives. Once we

have determined our overall objectives, we can evaluate and select the specificevaluate and select the specific and select the specific

tactics necessary to achieve each objective, adapt to emerging trends, improvise,adapt to emerging trends, improvise, to emerging trends, improvise,improvise, and capitalize those trends and other operating conditions. We will overcome ourcapitalize those trends and other operating conditions. We will overcome our those trends and other operating conditions. We will overcome ourovercome our our

competition by virtue of our enlightened warrior's understanding of the battlefield

in question.

Objective 1—Direct Revenue Generation

Our direct revenue generators are the primary means of beginning a revenue stream for our Joomla! site. They provide cash directly—by means of some activity by the visitors, who visit the website, which might range from simply visiting the page to a deeper participation like the visitor taking some kind of action like completing a survey, getting a quote for a product, or even outright buying the product. Here are our weapons for direct revenue generation:

CPM advertising: CPM costs are priced per thousand. The M in the acronym is the Roman numeral for one thousand. Advertisers pay for each thousand impressions the ad receives.

CPC advertising: Advertisers pay every time a user clicks on their listing and is redirected to their website.

CPA advertising: The advertiser pays only for the number of users who complete a transaction, such as a purchase or sign-up.

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Sale of instant, branded merchandise.

Exclusive multimedia content—subscription access to video, podcasts, etc.subscription access to video, podcasts, etc. Exclusive editorial content (subscription access to content).

Newsletter marketing.

Donations: This is not a high yield method for revenue, but can work ifThis is not a high yield method for revenue, but can work if prompted properly.

Objective 2—Traffic Generation

Generally speaking, more traffic equals more business, equals more money. More More

importantly, increasing traffic is the most important aspect for converting your

Joomla! website from a minor hobby to a major asset for your future. Here are our

weapons for traffic generation:

Well-tuned, keyword-rich copy writing: In a nutshell there are rules to beIn a nutshell there are rules to be followed to get search engines' attention. This area is one of the most critical areas around.

SEO: Search engine optimization, is the tool you will use to prepare your siteSearch engine optimization, is the tool you will use to prepare your site to move up in rankings.

Getting your site reviewed or featured in other media, such as newspapers and television.

Sitemap submissions: This provides a "roadmap" for search engines to: This provides a "roadmap" for search engines to catalogue and document your particular website in their indexes.

RSS: RSS is an �M�-based vocabulary that specifies a means of describingRSS is an �M�-based vocabulary that specifies a means of describing

news or other web content that is available for "feeding" (distribution or syndication) from an online publisher to web users.

Website invitation and referral mechanisms. Cross-promotion with other websites. Use of news-aggregation sites and blog sites. Giving away valuable, free stuff.

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Objective 3—Visitor and Traffic Analysis

Within a few months of your website's launch, new trends and traffic patterns will

emerge. The wise webmaster uses this intelligence in the metrics through careful analysis to adapt to the changes and improvise. Through this the webmaster can

make changes and updates to the site as needed to improve the traffic and increase

the revenue. The following could be used:

Website log analysis Clickmaps

User surveys

Product sales versus advertising or promotion

Objective 4—Behavior or Conversion Analysis

After careful analysis of our logs, the webmaster, becoming the Joomla! warrior, can begin to tailor the site to meet the visitors' needs with greater accuracy; turning an eye toward converting the visitors into buyers or consumers of the product or service. The following could be used:

Prioritizing your content's presentation based on user popularity Determining what features, components, and articles are used Altering the color scheme, or adding additional navigational options Streamlining the e-commerce checkout processes

Adding compelling high profit, value-add items

Creating a sense of urgency in the customer's mind to adopt or purchase the product rather than delaying the decision

Objective 5—Competitive Analysis—"Know Thy

—Competitive Analysis—"Know Thy

Competitive Analysis—"Know Thy

Enemy"

Arming yourself with knowledge is one of the keys to victory. Gather as much information as possible about your competitors and use this knowledge to improve your site's offering and your interaction with the customers.

Analyze your competitor's strengths and weaknesses: Also known asAlso known as SWOT analysis.

Identify under-served niches, topics, and products.

Analyze the relative search engine positioning of the competitor, to determine how to gain ground on them.

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Analyze the link popularity and referrers for your competitors, so that you may know who they are aligned with and how these alignments would

benefit you.

Tailor content, products, and offers to address the weaknesses in the competitor.

Objective 6—Bringing it All back Home—"Winning

Hearts and Minds"

The most successful websites encourage user loyalty by recognizing the user's contribution to the website's overall success. This recognition has the ancillary

benefit of introducing the �rising tide� factor to �lift all boats�, that is, it encourages

other users to play a more active role in the site. For e-commerce sites, recognizing and rewarding ongoing loyalty can serve as a powerful inducement for users remaining loyal in their buying decisions. Finally, donating some of your site's revenue to charity increases your popularity as a good citizen of the Internet.

We can win hearts and minds by:

Returning value to your visitors (running a points program for free product) Donating some earnings to charity, or donating time by being a supporting member of a technical forum for your favorite open-source software project Featuring user contributions and highlighting individual users

Highlighting user's websites and sharing traffic

The Warrior's Tactics

Now that we've established the broad brushstrokes of our master strategy, it is time to move on to the tactical realization of our strategy, identify our individual weapons, and put them to use.

Successful Joomla! warriors will rely on a shrewd mix of tactics, techniques towards the competition in their pursuit of the website's strategic plan. These tactics

incorporate a thorough understanding of the terrain of our chosen niche, coupled with a full understanding of the tools and practices appropriate to all situations. In the following sections, we'll look at each of these objectives in greater detail.

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Objective 1—Direct Revenue Generation

As a Joomla! warrior, the sole purpose of your site is to generate revenue or "cash".

This cash you generate should represent profit. In other words, after all expenses both hard and soft are accounted for, all you should be left is profit.

Hard expenses include advertising, affiliate marketing payouts, cost of goods (COG�

which is what it costs you to purchase raw product or material and turn it into product, and then sell it.

Soft expenses, often overlooked, are things like time, hosting costs, minor expenses

for office supplies or for security certificates. All these have monetary value and should be accounted for in the profit scenario.

Let's review ad-based revenue generation in general by considering the Google AdSense model.

According to Wikipedia AdSense is:

… an ad serving program run by Google. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image and, more recently, video advertisements on their sites. These ads are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a per-click or per-thousand-impressions basis. Google is also currently beta-testing a cost-per-action based service. Google utilizes its search technology to serve ads based on website content, the user's geographical location, and other factors. Those wanting to advertise with Google's targeted ad system may sign up through AdWords. AdSense has become a popular method of placing advertising on a website because the ads are less intrusive than most banners, and the content of the ads is often relevant to the website.

The Adwords charge is measured in either cost per thousand impressionscost per thousand impressions(1 impression = 1 person looking at the ad)or cost per click. The cost per click can getcost per click. The cost per click can get. The cost per click can get very pricey and should be chosen against an appropriate budget.

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Affiliate Marketing

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, the online bookstore, is one of the early pioneers

of the affiliate marketing program. In fact, he launched one of the earliest affiliate

marketing programs way back in July 1996 after having a conversation with a woman

at a cocktail party. Since then many sites offer an affiliate marketing program. This affiliate marketing program is typically a passive sales force on the Internet. Someone will �sign up on your site� and request to be an affiliate. After they meet

all the requirements set out by the site, they receive some code-scripts to place on their site. Visitors click-through and visit your site, either purchasing or moving along. Either way, they leave a digital footprint, a mile wide and two miles deep. The Joomla! warrior, will follow these tracks in search of their target. If for example a visitor clicks through and buys, one of the more popular methods is to pay a small

percentage of the profit. Typically this is accumulated until a certain dollar value is

attained at which payout will occur.

This can be a powerful weapon for you for many reasons. The first of these is free

advertising and the second is to improve the search engine rankings. Many search engines give importance to the number of inbound links coming to your site, in other words, how many places you are listed on other sites. It is an indication of the popularity of your site and can help you gain higher rankings.

Goods, Goods, Goods

Other means of direct revenue generation are sales of physical products, such as

apparel, fishing gear, books, or practically anything else. These typically require

shipping, which offers another indirect method of revenue by adding markup to the shipping and handling.

Instant branded merchandise such as e-books, software downloads, and more

provide a Joomla! warrior's site with impulse purchases and of course high profit.

Information is Power

In his groundbreaking book, Membership site bible, Perry Lawrence describes in detail how and why you should offer a subscription service and how to convert it to cash. One item a Joomla! warrior should be versed is turning knowledge into cash. Various tactical methods exist such as:

Exclusive multimedia content by subscription only, which can include training, special messages, or more

News or information that is highly valuable and that consumers will pay for

•

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Do not ignore these niche areas as you certainly are a specialist in your hobby or area

of expertise. Turning this hobby into dollars is easy and profitable.

Objective 2—Traffic Generation

Generating traffic discussions often revolve around the idea of creating a complex

and expensive "ad campaign", which usually delivers less than stellar results.

Ad campaigns are great for maintaining brand awareness, but difficult if you

are unknown.

The warrior must use guerrilla tactics to achieve his or her aim. In that arsenal you

will find that saying the right things, being in the right place at the right time, and

complying with the search engines' rules of order are some of the most powerful tactics a warrior can employ. Let's dive into them and learn more about each.

Keyword-Rich Copywriting

Keywordsare somewhat like categories in which there are mini-categories. For

instance, you would not look for a specific automobile part for your classic 1964 Ford

Mustang by typing "car parts" in the Google search engine. Rather you would type

in specifically �tie-rods 1964 ford mustang�. This gives the search engine a way to

determine the target site. If your site sold car parts, but only had a sparse mention of tie-rods and does not state that they are for a 1964 mustang, your site might show up in the search results but not likely at the top. When you craft your keywords, think

very hard about what you would search for to find your website. This is what likely will be searched for by others to find you. Keywords should be scattered throughout.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEOis a procedure to prepare your site, its content, your Meta data and Meta tags, your images, and more. The better your site is optimized for the various search engines, the more likely it is that your site will attain high rankings. One excellent resource for learning about SEO is at: http://www.searchenginehelp.com.

Sitemap Submission

Quite simply, a sitemap submission is an �M� (extended mark-up language� file

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RSS Syndication or Really Simple Syndication

Turning again to Wikipedia we learn the definition of RSS:

RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel", contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that's easier than checking them manually.

This very popular tool offers the Joomla! warrior a clever method to keep their clients and prospective clients informed using a "push-pull" methodology. Where current levels of spam are nearly crippling to email systems and have certainly rendered email marketing a mediocre effort RSS shines bright. However with RSS, the consumer of the information determines if they wish to receive it. After that you are given a direct conversation with them. For instance, if you publish a monthly

news article on dogs and specifically dog shows, then those who have subscribedsubscribed via RSS, using an RSS reader, will receive the updated copy of My Dog Show Monthly News as soon as you post it. Then you need not worry about email and spam filters and whether they checked the site for an update. This is a powerful weapon in the marketing efforts of a Joomla! warrior.

Another way to take advantage of RSS feeds is through news aggregation sites and blogs. Spend time and become a contributor to blogsites that relate to your product. Provide news articles to news outlets, and as they push out your news, others will learn of you.

Free! Free! Free!

Other items to generate traffic and sales are to give away something. It may be just

a coffee cup, but it's amazing how much someone will give up in terms of personal information to win something. If you can tie up with another site, such as holding a contest to win a prize or promote an online club, it is a great method to draw in visitors, and thus dollars.

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Our first stop is to learn what our log files say. Every website host has statistical data

about visitors, which they collect and often store in the root directory. This information can be very powerful and should be used extensively to promote your site.

Some of the items we can expect to get are:

Which pages get the most and the least traffic on your site.

What is the URL of the site that referred a visitor to you (known as the "Referrer").

If there is a popular browser for your audience. The log files will tell you

what browser and OS that are being used by the client and other information. The log reveals if a search engine has visited and if so which one.

What part of the world a visitor came from. What is their IP address.

If they searched for you, what keyword or phrase they used.

While this information is abundant, it is often not easily readable without the addition of a "stat package" of which several are available on the Joomla! extensions site.

Other important data points to be considered are:

Clickmaps: Also called as "heat maps", these are a visual track of where theAlso called as "heat maps", these are a visual track of where the visitors clicked. Typically a clickmap will show you more intensive hot-spots indicating several clicks. It's a great tool to show you where to move the content that may be of value, but is ignored.

Survey says!:: User surveys are tricky, but can provide some great analysis. Keep in mind that unless users are rewarded somehow, they probably won't take your survey and if so the data may be 'iffy' at best. For a great book on surveys, I recommend—How customers think: Essential Insights into the mind of the market, by Gerald Zaltman. This book will show you how to conduct a successful survey. Once you conduct a survey be sure to carefully consider the data and if appropriate, then by all means use it to improve.

Product sales versus advertising/promotion:: This is a key metric in

determining if a promotion has increased traffic, increased sales or the

inverse is true. Has it hurt sales? This is a powerful and easy-to-measure metric to gauge visitor activity.

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Objective 4—Behavior and Conversion

Analysis

Our fourth objective is one of calculated action based on careful measurement. In other words, we want to convert the window shoppers into buyers. There are several ways to do that and some of the most important points are covered here.

Prioritize your content's presentation based on user popularity. Using the concepts presented in objective 4, we see that by watching our log files, using heat maps, and so forth, we can determine what items are the hot favorites. By capitalizing on those and linking to other pages in your site, you can catch a few more set of eyes.

Determine what features, components, and articles are used:Focusing on the things that matter the most will make you successful in family, personal, and business life and on the web! Spend time to review what items are not being time to review what items are not being used, viewed, or otherwise may be a detriment. Remove them, hide them or

recycle them into something else. Don't make it difficult to use or view your

site. Doing so will chase people away.

Refine your copy in under-utilized areas:Is your copy as stale as a bachelor's refrigerator? Take time to review it and see if it makes sense. Numerous examples of poorly written copy are seen on websites. This simply tells the visitor that you don't care about them. It says, I'm not smart enough to run a spell check. Sure very few of us are well known authors, but there are some basic things you can do to improve; here are some tips:

Ask people who know nothing about your copy to read it, and see if they understand it.

Buy a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style to check if you have written properly.

Get a thesaurus.

Alter the color scheme, or add additional navigational options:Do your colors scream or make people scream! How does it appear to your visitors? Sure there are culture issues to consider, but unless you are targeting a

specific ethnicity, that's a secondary concern. Primary concern is no plaid

with stripes! No yellows with a color that clashes, unless that is the aim of your site. Visit the Pantone®_{color site and learn about what colors mean.}

What feelings they invoke in the visitors. But what if your colors are perfect but the navigation is lacking? Your visitors will not stay around. Have someone you trust drive through your site while you watch over their shoulder to see how they get from point a to point b. Take notice of it and if necessary repeat it with a few other friends. The information you will gain

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Streamline the e-commerce checkout processes:Here's a test. Go through your own e-commerce process as a customer. Buy something with your credit card, *THINK* how is this working? Is it easy? Could I shave steps off? Should the customers enter their information twice? If so why? The most powerful tool in your arsenal is the question "why". Why am I doing this? You might answer and say, "My shopping cart makes me to do it. I have no choice". Bunk! You have a choice. There are thousands of shopping carts, many, many good ones! Find one that makes it easiest for your customers toyour customers to customers to give you their money. Here are a few tips to help you with this process:

Remove any unnecessary steps; again change shopping carts if need arises.

Put your shopping cart in test mode and run a few test orders with friends. Seek their feed back. Watch how they go through it. Use the power of post-purchase survey. Be thick skinned about it. Read reviews of shopping carts.

Spend time at your local grocery store and see how theythey streamline the check-out process. See if there is anything you can learn.

Adding compelling high profit, value-add items: These are

better known as impulse items. The Add-on sale. Are you doing add-ons? Are you offering say, a high-margin car charger with the purchase of an electronic device you are selling? If you offer services, have you offered an additional perk at check-out time?

These can dramatically increase your profit by recognizing the

human behavior of buying impulse items.

Create a sense of urgency in the customer's mind to adopt or purchase the product rather than delaying decision. You will recognize this tactic in the form of a "limited time" offer. One way to direct the behavior in the direction you want is to put a time-limit on it. For instance, maybe a pop-up that says, buy in the

next 20 minutes and get 10% off! This has the benefit of creating a

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Objective 5—Competitive Analysis

"Know Thy Enemy"

One of the tenets of the book The Art of War by Sun Tzu is to "know your enemy, is to "know your enemy, know yourself." The underlying thinking here is that you must know yourself very well and your enemy better than yourself. This enables you to think with the enemy's mind. Think what you would do if you were them.

Analyze your competitors' strengths and weakness—conducing SWOT analysis. This strategic exercise is conducted by winning companies large and small.

Conversely, it is not practiced as often or as much in losing or declining companies.

Why conduct a SWOT? This should be your first question. Why are we doing it? AskAsk yourself, if the objective is attainable, does it serve the purpose of your company? If you can answer these questions, then you can move onto the question of Strength: What are your strengths? What will this strength provide you? How will this help your competition?

Strengths are the attributes of the organization that help in achieving the objective.

Once you have this knowledge, take a strong and honest look at your processes and yourself, your staff, your products, in essence everything. Look for Weaknesses. Do not sugar-coat them, review them for what the are. Do not put yourself under condemnation; rather, look at it as a way to turn them into strengths..

Weaknesses are the attributes of the organization that are harmful to achieving the objective.

As you move through your planning, you will find Opportunities external to you. These may be in the form of a unique product you offer. It may be a unique service you offer. Whatever it is, an opportunity is something to be exploited. Note these in your planning and note how they can help you achieve victory over your competitor. Remember, they may have the same opportunity as you.

Opportunities are external conditions that are helpful in achieving the objective.

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Threats are external conditions that are harmful to achieving the objective.

Identify under-served niches, topics, and products. In many cases, a product that. In many cases, a product that

fills this need is worth any price you name. Your product or service can be obtained

practically anywhere; its value is driven solely by price. The value of the productsolely by price. The value of the product would be determined by need if the product or service is available only at a few places. In such a case one could charge a heavy premium.

Analyze the relative search-engine position of competitors to determine how to gain ground on them. Let's imagine you sell widgets and your closest competitor isLet's imagine you sell widgets and your closest competitor is widgetworldwebsite.com. Further imagine that they have a fairly high ranking

and show up in the first search page for �widgets�. Your widget site shows up on

page seven. Who do you think the clients will pick? Surely not you, unless they are explicitly looking for you. By examining your competitor rankings, you can move your site up through various means. Ask yourself, why do they rank sowhy do they rank so they rank so high? Possible answers could be that they have better search engines optimization, or perhaps they have been on the Internet longer. Other possibilities could be that they might have purchased AdWords®_{from Google, which helped their rankings,}

or maybe several sites link to them. Examine the reasons and change your site accordingly.

Analyze the link popularity and referrers for your competitors so that you know who

they are associated with and how these would benefit you. In other words, who doIn other words, who do they know that you should know? Are you in the same industry? Would link referrals

from those high-traffic sites help you? Maybe, maybe not. However, if your competitor is gaining benefit from it, the chances are good you will as well.

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Objective 6—Bringing it All back Home

The entire thought process behind the idea of brining it home is to create a sense of community and belonging. Giving a higher degree of value to the consumer gives them a sense of pride of belonging. Do you sell a repeat-purchase product? Give points toward a free or discounted product. Give it to charity or an open-source author. Look at featuring users' contributions that have added value to your site or

highlight other websites and share traffic.

It is the law of reaping and sowing: if you sow generously into your visitors and

partner sites, you will reap traffic abundantly.

Summary

In this whirlwind view of crafting a marketing plan for your site, we learned that

there are several elements to a plan. The first is the plan itself and the tools needed.

The plan itself is "why", why are you in business? What is your purpose? How will you serve your customers needs?

As you craft, those several objectives become apparent and we covered those in detail,

the important ones being traffic generation, products that give you an advantage,

revenue generation, and knowing your competitor. The most important point in this chapter is toto plan. Plan to succeed, plan for problems, and plan for opportunities.

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Generating Traffic

We will cover the following topics in this chapter:

Search-engine optimization

Website structure and organization Promotional optimization

Boosting inbound links by playing tag Link baiting

Using RSS feeds and services Permission marketing

Affiliate programs

What is SEO?

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Selecting proper keywords Testing your optimizations Promoting link popularity

Using standards-compliant HTML Optimizing image ALT tags Using a logical website structure Validating your content

Excessive content or site duplication Paying for questionable links

Structural Optimization

Optimizing your site's actual structure and presentation is the most immediate approach to SEO. Since these factors are under the immediate control of the webmaster, they represent a foundational approach to the SEO problem. Once you've optimized your site's structural components, you can optimize the promotional aspects of SEO, which we'll discuss momentarily.

Items That Search Engines Look for in Your Site's

Content

It's important to remember that today's search engine rankings are determined by highly sophisticated algorithms. Trying to stay one step ahead of the major engines with bad tactics is not only a very bad idea, but also a waste of time. Well written content will win repeatedly. Giving the search engine robots a well prepared site page contributes in promoting your site.

Three items that many search engine robots look for are:

Relevant page titles to your content

Relevant keywords and descriptions (META tags)

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Take a note of the recurring theme—"relevancy". If your site is relevant in terms of what the user is looking for, you will achieve respectable search engine rankings without any additional promotion. However, this is not a place to stop, as search engines correlate your site's standings among your peers and competitors by evaluating certain external factors.

External Views of Your Site by Search Engines

Search giant, Google, likes to describe its proprietary algorithm, known as PageRankTM, by discussing how the external factors can accurately define your

site's relevancy, when considered along with your site's actual content. Most search engines today follow this formula in determining link popularity. Some popular items that are used to measure are:

How many websites link to yours Where they link in your content

What words are used in the actual link text (i.e. the description of the page) The topical relevancy of the sites that link to your site.

The power of web search lies in the search engine's ability to provide accurate and

relevant results that someone can quickly use to find the information they seek. More

importantly, the other end of the search process guarantees that the visitors we draw from search engines are truly after the information or services we provide. Another way to look at it would be it's the right message, but the wrong person.

Thus we see that our interests, the interests of the search engines, and the interests of web surfers actually coincide! If we tune our content properly, and connect our content with similarly relevant content, we can expect to be rewarded with targeted

traffic eager to devour our information and buy our services. If we try to deceive the

search engines, or common people, we deceive ourselves. It's that simple.

Optimizing META Data

Metadata is the data about the data. It's the section where you define what a search engine should expect to find on your page. If you've never taken note of META

tags before, then take a brief tour of the Web and view the source code of several websites. You'll see how this data is organized, primarily into descriptions and keyword listings.

Joomla! provides functionality for modifying and dynamically generating META tags, in the Site | Global Configuration | Metadata dialog, as well as within individual articles via the META tab on the right-hand panel.

Packt Joomla Cash Money Making Weapons For Your Joomla Website Oct 2007 ISBN 1847191401 pdf

Joomla! Cash

Money-making weapons for your Joomla! website

Brandon Dawson

Tom Canavan

Credits

About the Author

Brandon Dawson

About the Co-author

About the Reviewers

Tom Canavan

Niko Kotiniemi

Table of Contents

Preface

1

Chapter 1: Welcome Warriors!

5

Chapter 2: Creating a Marketing Plan

13

Chapter 3: Generating Traffic

29

Chapter 4: Traffic or Log Analysis

59

Chapter 5: Site Layout and Optimization

67

Chapter 6: Generating Revenue

87

Chapter 7: Disaster Recovery

141

Chapter 8: Small Change

153

Preface

What This Book Covers

Who This Book is For

is For

For

Conventions

Reader Feedback

Customer Support

Errata

Questions

Welcome Warriors!

Business is a War—You Must be

Prepared to be a Warrior!

Hype versus Reality—the Internet

What went Wrong?

The Way of the Warrior

Mind Your P's

Product

Place

Some Advantages

Some Disadvantages

Price

Promotion

The Forgotten P—People

Summary

Creating a Marketing Plan

Why have Marketing Plans?

Creating a Marketing Plan

Elements of Your Marketing Plan

The Warrior's Strategic Objectives

Evaluate, Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome

Objective 1—Direct Revenue Generation

Objective 2—Traffic Generation

Objective 3—Visitor and Traffic Analysis

Objective 4—Behavior or Conversion Analysis

Objective 5—Competitive Analysis—"Know Thy

—Competitive Analysis—"Know Thy

Competitive Analysis—"Know Thy

Enemy"

Objective 6—Bringing it All back Home—"Winning

Hearts and Minds"

The Warrior's Tactics

Objective 1—Direct Revenue Generation

Affiliate Marketing

Goods, Goods, Goods

Information is Power

Objective 2—Traffic Generation

Keyword-Rich Copywriting

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)