CommerceCubes

Happy Holidays from Lucas of CommerceCubes

December 24, 2006 – 11:36 am
If you are like me than you are probably looking to the coming year with a sense of excitement and wonder about the possibilities that lay ahead. With 2006 ending I interested more than ever to discover the coming year ahead. I am going to University for one which means that it’ll be a great time of learning. I will continue to run CommerceCubes in my free time and look at other business ventures to involve myself with in the coming year. With that being said I’d love to hear from you. What are you looking forward to in the New Year? Talk to you soon and all the best this holiday season, Lucas Arnold CommerceCubes

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Dynamic Sitemapping Made Easy

December 23, 2006 – 8:58 am
I was reading through Peasonified.com yesterday and I came across an interesting article with some tips that I just had to try out. CommerceCubes is quickly becoming a place in which I can hone my skills in all things “web”. Every time that I learn something new I feel as though I must share it because as my knowledge increases I realize that so does anyone who comes across this site gets increased knowledge and value out of it which is the main reason why I started the site in the first place. Sure the first 6 months I’ve tried to find a reason for CommerceCubes existing and only recently I am realizing that reason is simple “To share knowledge and information in an entertaining way”… or at least I hope its entertaining :D Getting back to what I found on Pearsonified I’ve got to say that if ...

Posted in General, Computers, Technology & Programming, web development, SEO, WordPress Tools | No Comments »

Attention PayPal Merchants

December 22, 2006 – 7:19 pm
I came across an interesting offering today by way of Jason Chance’s, jcCommerce Blog. Apparently Jamie over at The Merchant Account Blog is looking for PayPal Merchants to take part in a case study he is putting together. For Serious Consideration you must adhere to Jamie’s Criterion which include… US based business / website Must have use general website tracking / analytic software Must be selling tangible goods (I may try non-tangible / service oriented at a later time) Must be eligible for a US based merchant account Must have $1,000 - $5,000 in non-ebay processing per month If you sell more than $5,000 per month and would like to participate, I will cover fees from the first $5,000 in sales. Must be willing to integrate ...

Posted in General, e-commerce, Payment Gateways, Computers, Technology & Programming, entrepreneurship | No Comments »

WordPress for the Masses - Part 1

December 21, 2006 – 5:49 pm
Ever since I first started building CommerceCubes almost six months ago now I’ve been learning a ton about WordPress. I’ve been learning about everything from themes to Permalinks to plug-ins and everything in between and I’ve really been enjoying myself. Sure maybe it’s the “inter-geek” inside of me or that satisfaction you get when you figure out a problem but man is this ever fun. Anyways I wanted to take the time to highlight a few tools that I’ve come across in my searches and trials over the past 6 months that may help you in the development of your WordPress site. DoFollow Plug-in - I am just trying this plug-in today after reading Cesar’s posting over at Flee the Cube about a few of his favorite plug-ins. What DoFollow does is allows search engines to “follow” comments that your readers leave on your site. ...

Posted in General, Computers, Technology & Programming, web development, WordPress Tools | 2 Comments »

Is all Affiliate Marketing equal?

December 21, 2006 – 3:57 pm
Affiliate Marketing thru an Affiliate Marketing Company or Affiliate Marketing Directly with an end Company, which is better? Is it better to go with dependent affiliate programs or services such as Commission Junction, Linkshare and others? For the past week or so I’ve been looking more in depth at affiliate marketing. I recently heard from Mike with FreshBooks about my dilemma in choosing to go with his company as an affiliate because of the payment period. He was nice enough to respond to my problem and offer a few solutions. Most affiliates have terms that vary a good amount from company to company but with that being said are choosing an individual company instead of working with an affiliate company better, worse or the same? I only raise this question because I’ve noticed that services like linkshare and commission junction don’t publish how much they are paying affiliates ...

Posted in General, e-commerce, Computers, Technology & Programming, web development, entrepreneurship, Marketing | No Comments »

Update: FreshBooks Referral Program

December 19, 2006 – 6:23 pm
I’ve finally had a chance to sit down and go thru FreshBooks Referral Program that they offer prospective affiliates of their software. As you can tell from my previous posting I was greatly considering them until I read the terms of payment for their service, especially the highlighted one below… The Terms Are Easy to Use and Easy to Understand You must be an active Freshbooks service user in good standing to be an Affiliate. You must adhere strictly to our Terms of Service (TOS) Agreement and Anti-Spamming Policies. Payouts made twice a year (Jan 31 and July 31) providing your own Freshbooks system is active and in good standing. Referrals must have cookies enabled. Your Affiliate ID cookies expire after 15 days. What this means ...

Posted in General, e-commerce, Computers, Technology & Programming, web development, entrepreneurship, Marketing | 3 Comments »

Choosing an Affiliate Program

December 19, 2006 – 5:45 pm
As I wrote about a few days ago, I had decided to get some affiliate links on CommerceCubes.  Now comes the question which to choose?  Naturally I am interested in promoting Secure Delivery as an affiliate but I am also having a look at a few others. Things I need to think about… Naturally there are a ton of affiliates out there as I am finding out but having a little criterion before looking at these companies helps.  I came up with the following for myself with respect to CommerceCubes. Is this something that would benefit my audience?  Sounds like a pretty basic question but really if you are trying to sell snow in the Arctic or worse services to people who don’t want them then your returns will more then likely be less then taking the time ...

Posted in General, e-commerce, Computers, Technology & Programming, web development, entrepreneurship, Marketing, Business Tools | 1 Comment »

Secure Delivery Review Part 2: Signing up and using Secure Delivery

December 18, 2006 – 4:21 pm
In my original posting about Secure Delivery I talked a bit about the team behind Secure Delivery and the technology that makes it a good service for people who produce and sell their own digital content. I also talked about the pricing structure that is currently in place for this service. In this article I am going to take you through the setup of a Secure Delivery account and some of the basic things that you can do with this service. I will throw in some screen shots because words alone cannot do it justice and discuss some of the finer points of this technology. Sit back, relax and get ready for it! Step 1 – Sign up to Secure Delivery with a Payment Gateway Clarification by Jason Chance: you say during sign up for SD (Secure Delivery) that you have to select your payment processor. For SD, ...

Posted in General, e-commerce, Payment Gateways, Computers, Technology & Programming, web development, entrepreneurship | 1 Comment »

What is Affiliate Marketing?

December 17, 2006 – 11:50 pm
If you are fairly new to the web then I am sure that you’ve possibly heard the term “Affiliate Marketing”.  What does this mean on the web?  Well for one thing if you run a site that is content based you can incorporate ads into the articles or the site itself, Direct interested parties to the affiliate's website to buy the product and you in turn recieve a percentage of the sale.  If your audience is large enough you can begin to create another stream of income this way from your website. In the past I’ve thought about keeping CommerceCubes as an ad free resource but as my site is starting to see more traffic and I am becoming more focused in my approach towards my goals with CommerceCubes I am also becoming interested in turning this into a long term stream of revenue (at least enough to pay the server ...

Posted in General, Computers, Technology & Programming, web development, entrepreneurship, Marketing | 1 Comment »

Business a Building Progressively is a Chess Game

December 16, 2006 – 7:48 am
Most people who first start in business fail at least once. After that some experiment to find businesses that they are truly good at (which is what I’ve been doing) while other people simply progress taking the things that they liked from working in the last venture to the next on. David Askaripour of MindPetals, CashCampus and Flush the Toilet recently wrote an interesting article about Freud, Business and using the example of a porn site to illustrate his point about business as a continuation of the last business you create. As a business owner I think this is an important rule to learn. You do not want to keep starting businesses where you are on the bottom every time… you need to learn how to play “chess” in business. Some of the best poker players are the best for but one reason “they take calculated risks to raise ...

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