In previous articles we've looked at different forms of ecommerce for
the web. Many of these have dealt with shopping carts designed for
multiple products. In this case we're going to look at a different
approach, that of using sales letters as a way of selling products. And
to be effective a sales letter is best focused on one product at a time.
It is possible to do more than that, though you need an experienced
copywriter on hand to make sure your message doesn't become diluted.
One product that covers all the above bases is OptimizePress, which
is also a theme for WordPress. Here are some of the features of this
theme: • Choose from over 10 tested designs • Build Your Blog • Simple
Autoresponder Integration • Add Video To Your Pages In Seconds •
Facebook Comments & Sharing • Social Sharing Built-in • Integrated
SEO Features
To get started, you'll need to have WordPress installed on your server. In general, a recommended installation of WordPress is to use a service like Hostgator, which will allow you to install WordPress with cPanel. cPanel is also easy to use for making database backups. In my case, I use GoDaddy. The system isn't quite as user-friendly, especially when it comes to making database backups, though it's fine otherwise.
To get started, you'll need to have WordPress installed on your server. In general, a recommended installation of WordPress is to use a service like Hostgator, which will allow you to install WordPress with cPanel. cPanel is also easy to use for making database backups. In my case, I use GoDaddy. The system isn't quite as user-friendly, especially when it comes to making database backups, though it's fine otherwise.
To get started, you'll need to download the OptimizePress file from the members area on OptimizePress.
Next, you need to launch WordPress.
In the Dashboard, this is where we'll load the theme. Note that the
OptimizePress file is roughly 4.5MB. The next step is to make sure that
your WordPress installation will allow you to load a file of that size.
To find out, go to Media: Add New and look at the Maximum Upload. The
Maximum Upload is 32MB so there's no problem. If this setting is too
low, you'll get an error when you load OptimizPress. If this happens,
you'll have to contact your hosting provider to give you a larger
upload. If the installation returns an error, you'll need to use FTP to
install the OptimzePress file.
Next, go to the Appearance header and click on Themes. In the Themes
panel, click on the Install Themes tab and then click on the Upload
heading, browse for the OptimizePress.zip file and click on the Install
Now button.
After a short while you'll get the message that theme installed successfully. Once it has, click on the Activate link.
This brings up the OptimizePress panel and our next step is to
license this site. To do that, you need to go back to the License Your
Sites tab on OptimizePress.com and copy and paste your site URL exactly
as it appears in the browser. Once you click on Submit, this will
generate a license key.
Next, you go back to the dashboard and paste in your license key.
Once you've done so, you'll see the message in the screen shot above.
One thing I've noticed about OptimizePress. If you notice that you're on
the OptimizePress pane and it seems "stuck" on that page, click on
Dashboard. This will take you out of OptimizePress and you'll be able to
move around the site freely.
There are few more settings to take care before using OptimizePress.
First. go to Settings: Permalinks. WordPress is set to the default
setting which isn't SEO friendly. To solve that problem, choose enable
the Custom Structure radio button and in the parameters box, enter
/%postname%/. Once you've entered that, click on the Save Changes
button.