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XFactor's Adsense Course: Site Builder Alternatives

by CurtisSWN
37 replies
Okay I think mini-niche sites are a pretty good way to go. But I've spent so much money, I don't to to "invest" any more on a wysiwyg site builder like XSitePro.

There's a couple alternatives, even Wordpress (which I've used), but I think what the point is is to make no-nonsense sites with little in the way of distracting dohickies to keep people from clicking on the Adsense links.

Any good, cheap ways to create Adsense sites without having to cough up the $197 for XSite?

Wysiwyg Web Builder 6 looks pretty good...

Curtis
#adsense #alternatives #builder #site #xfactor
  • Profile picture of the author Oscar D
    Hello,

    You have a good question here, but I am sure that you have answered your question in your question :confused:

    You mentioned Wordpress and I think that is the answer. What you need to do is get a Wordpress theme that is clean not no crowed with widgets and other distracting things. Your objective should be to find a Wordpress theme that looks like a normal static page.

    Hope that helps
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    • Profile picture of the author XFactor
      Next week I am going to do my best to learn a free site-builder
      that may work just fine (not only is it free, but it works on Mac
      computers too).

      It's called NVU Nvu Web Authoring Software

      I'll do my best to make a template that I feel is close to my
      best converting template, and if it works - I'll update all of
      members of my course.

      - John
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    • Profile picture of the author kristinecpa
      I purchased XFactor's Adsense Course and I am considering using the Clean & Simple Blog by ThemeForest.net to create my adsense sites. I love Wordpress and would prefer to use a clean theme if possible. I think I found a good alternative with the Clean & Simple Blog pack and it's very reasonably priced as well.

      Hope this helps...
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      • Profile picture of the author sridhar
        Originally Posted by kristinecpa View Post

        I purchased XFactor's Adsense Course and I am considering using the Clean & Simple Blog by ThemeForest.net to create my adsense sites. I love Wordpress and would prefer to use a clean theme if possible. I think I found a good alternative with the Clean & Simple Blog pack and it's very reasonably priced as well.

        Hope this helps...
        What is the URL of this theme?
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  • Profile picture of the author bigbyte
    Wordpress still needs to be maintained and can pose a security risk. Imagine you have to update and maintain 50-100 WP sites with patches, etc ...! XSitePro might be an option, but you can also use a Dreamweaver template. The DW template function is easy to use and you can transfer the template from domain to domain as needed.
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  • Profile picture of the author raymagnetic
    Artisteer sells their website builder for 49 bucks IIRC. It's pretty easy to use and u can create HTML Templates and Wordpress templates.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Calvert
      Originally Posted by raymagnetic View Post

      Artisteer sells their website builder for 49 bucks IIRC. It's pretty easy to use and u can create HTML Templates and Wordpress templates.
      I agree with raymagnetic. Artisteer is pretty cool for creating templates. Although, you still need to use some type of HTML editor to turn your HTML template into a website.

      Anybody ever use Trellian Webpage? It's a free download at Trellian.com. I downloaded and installed it the other day, but have yet to give it much of a test drive.

      It looks fairly powerful and seems to be well supported. Based on the short time that I've spent with NVU and Trellian WebPage, I would venture a guess that it is potentially a better free option than NVU/Kompozer.

      The TW also seems to be functioning properly thus far on Windows Vista Home Edition (64-bit), but time will tell, I guess.

      Thanks John for devoting the effort to your new Adsense course. I'm just taking a break from reading the manual. It's been said many times on this forum already, but thanks for the simple, no-fluff, to-the-point instruction with actual examples of profitable campaigns. Good stuff.

      All the Best,

      Mike
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  • Profile picture of the author kevin campbelle
    Originally Posted by CurtisSWN View Post


    Wysiwyg Web Builder 6 looks pretty good...

    Curtis

    I was just going to tell you to check out WYSIWYG as I had asked this question a long time ago. You can see the thread below.

    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...wordpress.html


    Kevin.
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  • Profile picture of the author Canada
    While wysiwyg editors certainly have their place (especially for people that don't have any coding background), I prefer hand coding. It took me about an hour to convert the XSitePro template John uses into straight html/css with includes for menus, headers and footers, and now I figure I can whip sites out in just a couple minutes, once I've got the content ready.
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    • Profile picture of the author WareTime
      Originally Posted by John McEachern View Post

      It's a piece of crap looking Blogger blog, but then check out the keywords he's ranking for.
      It's all about the links as far as why he's ranking. The technology is moot. The one reason I'd stay away from WP is the security nightmare. For John's method, static sits rule. Either use XSP or use NVU, Frontpage, DW, Expression Web. Blogger might be alright too, but you'll need to play around with the template.

      Ranking and getting traffic is one thing. You need to get the people to click and that is what the right template will do.
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    • Profile picture of the author BinderGang
      Originally Posted by John McEachern View Post

      Why don't you just use a Blogger blog? You'll get ranked with those ridiculous things and they won't cost you a cent. I know people say they suck because you don't own the name, they look unprofessional, and blah, blah, blah.

      But I'd have no problem with them and they get ranked, so WTF...especially of you're tight on cash. Go check out that Grizzly Brear's site. It's a piece of crap looking Blogger blog, but then check out the keywords he's ranking for.

      And than what happens when you build up that adsense empire of yours with your Blogger blog, only for Google to decide to one day pull your blogs or end the Blogger service?

      Always run your websites on your own space.
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  • Profile picture of the author mrizos
    I'm using the SimpleX wordpress theme for my first "John" experiement.

    It seams to be doing OK (10 visits, 5 clicks), but I'm gonna fire up Dreamweaver and copy John's design tonight.

    If you decide to use the SimpleX theme just add a few links on the side bar and that's it. Not a bad theme with a consistant 50% CTR.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kael41
    Not to shoot my wad to early, (and i need to talk to john first), but i'm 99% done with a full wordpress conversion of the xsitepro theme...here's a teaser



    It will NOT be offered as an WSO, but to people who have already purchased john's course. I'll offer different color versions, etc and a full build out list of plugin's, etc to make it simple.
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    • Profile picture of the author mrizos
      Originally Posted by Kael41 View Post

      Not to shoot my wad to early, (and i need to talk to john first), but i'm 99% done with a full wordpress conversion of the xsitepro theme...here's a teaser



      It will NOT be offered as an WSO, but to people who have already purchased john's course. I'll offer different color versions, etc and a full build out list of plugin's, etc to make it simple.

      Sweet man, that looks great!
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Calvert
      Originally Posted by Kael41 View Post

      Not to shoot my wad to early, (and i need to talk to john first), but i'm 99% done with a full wordpress conversion of the xsitepro theme...here's a teaser

      (template image)

      It will NOT be offered as an WSO, but to people who have already purchased john's course. I'll offer different color versions, etc and a full build out list of plugin's, etc to make it simple.
      Please forgive me, as I don't want to seem like the forum police. In fact, I am looking forward to the possibility of implementing your new blog theme myself as one of John's customers.

      However, you may want to be careful posting images of the template without John's permission. Following is a quote from the second paragraph of the Legal Terms & Conditions as published on page five of the course.

      "If anyone is caught sharing my template information or any other tips from this
      course outside of customers of the Micro Niche AdSense Course, the fullest extent
      of the law will be used for recourse."

      All the Best,

      Mike
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      • Profile picture of the author Kael41
        Good call, i'll take this down until further notice..

        Originally Posted by Mike Calvert View Post

        Please forgive me, as I don't want to seem like the forum police. In fact, I am looking forward to the possibility of implementing your new blog theme myself as one of John's customers.

        However, you may want to be careful posting images of the template without John's permission. Following is a quote from the second paragraph of the Legal Terms & Conditions as published on page five of the course.

        "If anyone is caught sharing my template information or any other tips from this
        course outside of customers of the Micro Niche AdSense Course, the fullest extent
        of the law will be used for recourse."

        All the Best,

        Mike
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    • Profile picture of the author XFactor
      Originally Posted by Kael41 View Post

      Not to shoot my wad to early, (and i need to talk to john first), but i'm 99% done with a full wordpress conversion of the xsitepro theme...here's a teaser



      It will NOT be offered as an WSO, but to people who have already purchased john's course. I'll offer different color versions, etc and a full build out list of plugin's, etc to make it simple.
      Hi Kael,

      Please make sure you discuss this with me. I'm already getting LOADS of
      PMs of customers who saw this and want to keep things the way my rules
      stated when you purchased the course, and told me about this thread.

      So if done right, this could be a really good thing for you, so let's keep
      each other on the same page.

      - John
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  • Profile picture of the author Rajul kaushik
    Hello Everyone,
    I found this product that's a collection of 12 niche WP themes primarily to create adsense sites. The theme more or less follows Xfactor / John's suggested template design. Click on the following link ( removed )

    It is Mark Mason actually who developed these themes and u may search for his themes. John's concept and these wordpress themes from Mark would work very well ( they work for me ! that's right )
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Dolman
    Use Wordpress.

    Don't bother investing money in a web editor when you can have everything you could ever need with Wordpress.

    Use Wordpress.

    Don't bother investing money in a web editor when you can have everything you could ever need with Wordpress.

    Use Wordpress.

    Don't bother investing money in a web editor when you can have everything you could ever need with Wordpress.

    Don't mean to repeat myself, but some smart person once said it takes multiple exposures to a message to buy into it... just doing my part to sway you towards WP.



    Jason
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    • Profile picture of the author Cosmo Demopoulos
      Originally Posted by Jason Dolman View Post

      Use Wordpress.
      ...
      Use Wordpress.
      ...
      Use Wordpress.
      Jason
      Jason,
      No offense dude, I know Wordpress is a religion, but are you frigggin insane?
      If anyone gets up to $1000+ a day and has say 50+ sites to maintain, you DO NOT want WordPress. Active content - needs to be constantly updated for security reasons if nothing else.

      Simple scales. Dumb-ass HTML sites. Nothing active.

      I love blogs, I'm quite fond of WordPress. Hell I've even written a couple of books on blogging. But NOT for microsites. Not for lots of them.

      The underlying technology (XBuilder, WordPress, Dreamweaver, etc) doesn't matter in terms of Google and clicks, but in terms of upkeep? In terms of time better spent building more sites, backlinks, playing with your kids or drinking Scotch? Oh yeah!
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      • Profile picture of the author ZorroCat
        Originally Posted by Ted Demopoulos View Post

        If anyone gets up to $1000+ a day and has say 50+ sites to maintain, you DO NOT want WordPress.
        Not necessarily. You can run multiple sites off of ONE Wordpress installation (I'm talking WP MU or WP-Hive here). If set up correctly, this takes all the pain out of upgrading when a new version comes out. Bam, 50+ sites running on current version all at once.

        Kind regards,
        Zorro
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        • Profile picture of the author Martin Luxton
          Why do people keep harping on about security issues with Wordpress?

          Many of the threads where people complain about their WP sites being hacked it turns out they had a trojan keylogger on their computer or they added unsafe plugins.

          If you change the default "admin" login to a different username, use a more difficult password and stick to just a few tried, tested and trusted plugins you cut the risk way down.

          Oh yeah, and get a decent anti malware suite.

          Martin
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          • Profile picture of the author WareTime
            Originally Posted by Martin Luxton View Post

            Why do people keep harping on about security issues with Wordpress?
            umm, because there are so damn many? Issues introduced by themes, by plugins and by the vendor themselves. Those have nothing to do with an end user having a trojan on their pc. The more plugins you run, the more vulnerable you are. The people creating plugins are about 99% after functionality and the last 1% will go to security IF they know anything about secure php at all, many don't.
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            • Profile picture of the author Martin Luxton
              Originally Posted by WareTime View Post

              umm, because there are so damn many? Issues introduced by themes, by plugins and by the vendor themselves. Those have nothing to do with an end user having a trojan on their pc. The more plugins you run, the more vulnerable you are. The people creating plugins are about 99% after functionality and the last 1% will go to security IF they know anything about secure php at all, many don't.
              That's what, in essence, I said in the other part of my reply.

              Martin
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          • Profile picture of the author Cosmo Demopoulos
            Originally Posted by Martin Luxton View Post

            Why do people keep harping on about security issues with Wordpress?

            Many of the threads where people complain about their WP sites being hacked it turns out they had a trojan keylogger on their computer or they added unsafe plugins.

            If you change the default "admin" login to a different username, use a more difficult password and stick to just a few tried, tested and trusted plugins you cut the risk way down.

            Oh yeah, and get a decent anti malware suite.

            Martin
            Martin, Security pays most of the bills for me - it's my day job and something I'm passionate about. IM makes a good deal of money too.

            Your points are well taken and everyone should follow them. But let's go further, as many people who follow that advice still can and do get hacked.

            Simple is secure. Less attack surface. Less that can go wrong. HTML is Simple.

            WordPress is less simple. Active Content. Code from multiple sources (think plugins). A need to update (and most people don't, leaving older known security vulnerabilities lying around waiting for hackers to harvest them).

            I love Wordpress. One of my top blogging choices easily.

            WordPress for a 5-10 page static minisite?

            That would be like owning a Ferrari, driving only in Manhattan rush hour traffic, and parking on the street. The Ferrari performance wouldn't matter, you'd still have expensive and frequent Ferrari maintenance, and parking it on the street just might be a security nightmare!
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        • Profile picture of the author WareTime
          Originally Posted by ZorroCat View Post

          Not necessarily. You can run multiple sites off of ONE Wordpress installation (I'm talking WP MU or WP-Hive here). If set up correctly, this takes all the pain out of upgrading when a new version comes out. Bam, 50+ sites running on current version all at once.

          Kind regards,
          Zorro
          True, but very few people do, it's a fantastico automated install for most. For updating you can use subversion too. Most aren't that saavy.
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        • Profile picture of the author Cosmo Demopoulos
          Originally Posted by ZorroCat View Post

          Not necessarily. You can run multiple sites off of ONE Wordpress installation (I'm talking WP MU or WP-Hive here). If set up correctly, this takes all the pain out of upgrading when a new version comes out. Bam, 50+ sites running on current version all at once.

          Kind regards,
          Zorro
          Zorro,

          Good point! Yes, possible and probably a good idea (although I've never played with them myself, just used them.) I'm assuming you can map different Domains to different Wordpress Mu blogs.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kael41
    John,
    Just shot you an email. I finished up on my end and sent you a link to a live site utilizing my conversion for wordpress. A bunch of plugins and editing later, and i think we have a winner
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  • Profile picture of the author Joseph Then
    I don't know about you guys, but 95% of all my adsense sites runs on XSitePro.

    That's at least 50+ websites for me!

    No need to 'upgrade', no login. XSitePro even offers scheduled posting of webpages.

    That's one reason why I didn't use Wordpress much.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kael41
    The benefits of utilizing wordpress as a platform for "mini-siting" is the seo'ability of it. From "tags", to sitemaps, to optimizing for keyword/description, etc, it's a great way to get out there and rank well. I was a static html guy for YEARS. Autobooking posts, rss feed manipulation, and other features make it very very flexible.

    Made most of my upfront seed money with adsense and static html pages on small and large sites. So i don't really denounce the usage of html at all. I just like supercharging my adsense income
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  • Profile picture of the author fthomas137
    I'd like to throw my 10cents into this 'discussion'. I've looked at getting xsitepro for some time, but what I do like about wordpress is that many many things can be automated that I'm not sure you can do with xsitepro. Here's my shortlist on what I've automated with wordpress and if you can tell me the like for xsitepro, I'd be interested in investigating that route too:

    1. Timed postings - seems from a post earlier, that this is very possible with xsitepro.
    2. sitemap and robots file handling.
    3. pinging new posts to ping services.
    4. posting to social networks when a new post is posted.

    so, I'd really like to hear you 10cents on how xsitepro can handle these tasks. I like simplicity, so if it can be done simply with xsite, I'll pick up a copy.

    Thanks!

    Frank
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  • Profile picture of the author gabbydeb
    I use Wordpress for my main website's blog, however I can see the wisdom in using a wysiwyg for these websites. Blogs do have to be tended to on a constant basis and not only that things can get really crazy with a blog, especially with the widgets that can go haywire, or your blog stops working the way it is supposed to and if you are not really able to troubleshoot your Wordpress blog you spend the time you need to be marketing over at Wordpress trying to figure out how to fix a problem with your blog! I know because I have done it many times.

    I think a static website in terms of simplicity will be easier for those who are less technically inclined, and will help them feel more successful because they will be marketing instead of fixing their website. Just my humble opinion.

    Regards,
    Debbie
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  • Profile picture of the author Biggy Fat
    This is the exact same query I had earlier today haha. I'd like a freely available theme that CAN work with XFactor's method with Wordpress. I can't build a template manually for the life of me nor do I have the cash to outsource it.
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