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What did it take to put together this site?

Lots of head bashing against the wall that's what!  This is our first attempt at using the Expression Web, a complete CSS and XHTML site powered by XML data, with a PHP blog thrown in for good measure.  It's not perfect and we will continue to tweak here and there until we get it to a point which suites our needs....um, or we make millions and can retire to some place warm with lots of nude beaches and tolerance for old, fat, balding, hairy like an ape men....hmm, somewhere here we might have crossed the TMI rule...

Tools Used:

Microsoft Expression Web.  We have used FrontPage ever since it was released and became spoiled by it's ease of use, however, none of our sites were HTML or any other kind of standards compliant.  With the wide spread use of multiple browsers we are trying to learn how to create compliant up to date websites.  It hasn't been easy and as we said before the site is far from perfect, but it is a leap from the sites we were producing...

Andreas Viklund CSS Template.  Both the original CSS template for our site and the blog template where designed by Andreas Viklund.  Using a pre-created CSS template in Expression Web really helped us learn the tool and learn more about CSS.  The template has been customized but at the core it is still the Andreas01 we downloaded oh so long ago.

Expression Web Forum.  We are sure by now they are getting sick and tired of our posts over on the Expression Web board, but that's what you get for changing our sweet sweet FrontPage so much.  :)  If you are an Expression Web user give the board a shot, the best way is through the Google Groups UI (hehehe, image that!)

The GIMP.  For years we used Photoshop for graphic designs, then one day the license ran out and the pocket book ran short so we had to go looking for a new tool and man did we find a winner here!  The GIMP is free and has all the features we used in Photoshop.  If you are searching for a full fledged FREE graphics program check out The GIMP.

WordPress.org not to be confused with WordPress.com, apparently they are the same yet very different?  We haven't figured it all out yet, however our PHP powered blog is up and running with a theme which mirrors our site.  This is an area of we see doing more work on in the future and will use the blog as a daily announcement board for the products featured on Read-How.com

FeedBurner.com provides a tool for managing subscriptions to your blog, as well as scripts which can be used to add a subscription box to any html page.  It took us a while to figure out how to make this one XHTML compliant, but where there was a will there was finally success!

The W3C Markup Validation Service.  Would you like to know if your site is compliant or not?  Even if your WYSIWYG tells you it is, it's worth running it through the Validator.  Hey, that sounds like a wrestlers' name, "The Validator" bum-bum-bum.  Our site has passed and now we can proudly fly the badge of compliance.

Partners:

LowestHosting.com is our hosting company had has been now for a number of years.  They have excellent support response and $4.95 per month hosting for a full fledged site including PHP, MySQL and oh so much more.  If you are looking for a place to plop your site, give them a try.

DynamicDrive.com has sooooo many scripts and tools available!  We love this site and use their stuff all the time.  On this site we are using their RSS feeder (fed by SimplePie.org), scroller, pagination, and daily link scripts.  We poke around and ask for help on the forums there as well.

ClickBank.com is the data behind Read-How.com.  If there wasn't any XML data available through Click Bank then this site wouldn't have been able to be built.  We believe Click Bank offers one of the most powerful money making opportunities on the web today.  If it wasn't for this unique opportunity Read-How.com would have become a site dedicated to providing macramé how to manuals...

Promotion:

Google AdWords is used to bid on particular keywords helping to drive traffic to our site.  It's the leader and Grand Poo-Bah of affiliate marketing tools.  You can easily make a pile of coin using AdWords in combination with Click Bank, but if you try be aware you can just as easily lose your shirt, shorts, heck even your shocks.  Naked and broke, that's how we ended up after our very first attempt.  Use the Peter Parker guide if you tempt the Google AdWords God,  "...with great power, comes great responsibility".

Google AdSense can be found throughout Read-How.com usually in the left hand column (hint...look <- that-a-way) and is helping to generate additional sales from your clicks!  Seems like we spend more in getting the traffic then we do earning it back in clicks, but heck Google has to make it's Billions some how.  What's one more bankruptcy for us so Google might live?

Microsoft AdCenter is the same concept as Google AdWords, they just don't have the tool completely ready for prime time yet.  If you are into affiliate marketing you should give it a try, just keep in mind it is still in development and doesn't have any where near the features AdWords does.  Although, if you enjoy helping to mold new products like this they do read the forums and respond to requests there.

The Goddess Above:

SexyNikki.com is an adult orientated site so don't go there unless you really want to see MORE of Nikki.  You can also find her posting her pics over at the free Voyeurweb.com.  That is where we first discovered her.  Originally, there was also a BMW something or nother in the picture, but it just distracted us from Nikki so we washed it away.  Have you heard of breaking the mold?  Well, with Nikki there was no mold, she was a complete free hand custom job by God sent here to show the people of earth what the definition of beauty really is.

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