Living in a small town in the middle of nowhere (aka hickville), not many locals understand exactly what I do for a living, other than I sit at home on my arse all day in front of the computer. Some people think I sell stuff on ebay. Other people think I make porn in my basement.

Those people that actually own a computer and are exploring the world wide web often think I do website design. Thus why I get various inquiries from people and businesses asking if I’ll design a website for them.  Sorry, can’t do it. Sure I do some of my own design work, but I myself outsource most of it.

So if you are looking to have a website designed, here’s some options for you (in alphabetical order as to not be biased)…

AlexBet.com – Alexander Betinski has done great work for many of my colleagues.

iGroupStudios – Interactive design studio owned by my uncle with top named clients such as Suze Orman.

Gleames Creative Design – Local to my area (Northeast Nebraska).

Lutz Creative – My classmate is a partner there, so thought I’d give them a plug.

netGURUS – They created my Key Internet Marketing logo.

Synner Design -  My brother has created almost all of of my website logos & graphics.

Wildfire Marketing Group – They have an impressive portfolio.

Any more I should add to the list?

Whenever I get a message from someone – be it an email, phone call, Facebook friend request, even a fax - thanking me for inspiring them to create a website and earn money from affiliate marketing, it makes my day. Those messages motivate me to continue to keep at it more than anyone knows! 

This past weekend, though, I think I got the best compliment ever in person from my Uncle Lee, who I haven’t seen in several years as he’s been in the military.  He came “home” with my other two uncles, who I do get to see a couple times a year.  We all laughed so hard that I cried reminiscing the “old days” of growing up together.

Uncle Lee took me aside and told me thank you for inspiring him to create his website GTO Alley six years ago. He took my advice to pick a passion and run with it, and his website has been profitable since its inception.  Sure, one site alone usually doesn’t allow one to quit their day job, but it’s some nice extra ”fun money” as my first site was over a decade ago.

Since looking over his site today, I’m going to email and offer him some tips that I think could earn him even more revenue. The top five tips being…

1. Convert to a Wordpress site complete with recommended Wordpress plugins.  Wordpress just isn’t for blogs anymore.  I use Wordpress for 90% of my websites (including this very one).  Sure, it may be a hassle to convert all your HTML pages, but it’ll be worth it in the end.

2. Change Google Adsense ads from “Link units” to Ad units” – the reason being that you don’t get paid for the first click on Link units, just if they click on an ad on the second page, whereas you get paid on the first click of Ad units.  Plus I personally think the Ad units are more appealing to the visitors to click on.

3. Add Chitika | Premium Ads to cash in on your search engine traffic.  Only traffic arriving from Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc will see the ads, and the ads will highlight the keywords they used to get there, thus increasing click-throughs.  I added Chitika Premium to one of my sites a few months ago (just on the “Single Post” pages of a Wordpress site), and it’s been making over $100 per month. Not too shabby for simply adding a few lines of code, eh?

4. Create a XML Sitemap – you can do this for free at XML-Sitemaps.com. Then submit that Sitemap using Google’s webmaster tools.

5. Remove ”function disableRightClick(btnClick)” script. If people really want to steal your images, all they have to do is look at your source code (as I did to get the banner image below). If you have your own copyrighted images, add a watermark with your site URL right on the picture for free advertising.

I hope Uncle Lee doesn’t mind me constructively criticizing his site publicly!?! But my hope is that my suggestions may help someone else. Gotta pay it forward.

And I suppose I should give a shoutout to my other uncles’ websites so they don’t feel left out…

My Uncle Brian’s website (he is actually younger than me – yes my mom and grandma were knocked up at the same time…) is American Muscle Authority for his car restoration business.

And my Uncle David actually designs and develops websites at iGroupStudios. His clients - surely, you’re heard of them – include Suze Orman and Omaha Steaks. If not, you live under a rock, and please don’t call me Shirley.

Last week, when I met Suze Orman at the 2008 Women’s Leadership Conference (is she inspirational or what?!), I received a copy of the latest Pink Magazine, a magazine dedicated to successful (or wanna-be successful) women. 

So not only did the concept of the magazine spark my interest, but PINK is my favorite color (nobody has sent me any pink tshirts yet), so the magazine was doubly appealing. So, of course, I wanted to subscribe! 

And being the thrifty shopper that I am, I found the best subscription price online at BestDealMagazines.com ($4.69 – 15% Code: SHOPBOOK15 = $3.99/yr!).

I ordered mine. Now it’s your turn!