Wordpress 3.0 was released recently, and let me tell you, it’s full of great new features and tweaks. The development team listened to their users, and put a lot of features in the new version that the community has been asking for for some time now.

The first (and one of the biggest) changes you’ll notice after installing the latest version of Wordpress is that the old default theme has been replaced with a new, feature rich theme called Twenty Ten. The new theme makes it easy to switch the background color, change the header image, or even set a different header image for each different page on your site. It even comes with a good selection of header images for you to use if you don’t have one of your own. The new theme also includes the ability to add different post types, such as products or real estate listings. There’s even a built in link shortener!

The latest version of Wordpress also has some long awaited upgrades revolving around plug ins and themes. Users can now do a bulk update of plug ins instead of having to upgrade each one individually. You can even upgrade your theme as part of the bulk upgrade. You’re probably thinking the same thing I was when I first heard about the bulk updates, “but what if there’s an issue with one (or more) of the updates?” Wordpress 3.0 puts your site into maintenance mode during the upgrades to allow for thorough testing of the new updates before they go live on your site. That way, you don’t have to worry about two updated plug ins disagreeing with each other – if there’s a problem, you can fix it before the changes go live.

The old help system is gone too. In it’s place is a contextual, per page help system that allows for easy access to the information you need to solve your problem. If you hit a snag, you won’t be digging through the extensive help section, skimming by topics that have nothing to do with the issue you’re trying to solve.

With all of this new functionality, Wordpress 3.0 is really growing into a powerful content management system. Over 25 million blogs currently use Wordpress, and I’m guessing a lot of them will be using this new version in no time.

So you have your e-mail list all set up, but you don’t have the first clue about how to get people to subscribe to it. I can help. There are a few simple things you can do that will yield a large list in no time.

Be sure your list’s opt in form appears before the fold on your website. The fold is the point at which a reader has to scroll down in order to keep reading the page, and if your opt in form appears below that point, the odds odds that someone is going to see it go down dramatically.

One sure fire way to build up your list  is to set up an exchange with another list owner in your niche. You send out a few of their offers to your subscribers, and they do the same for you. It’s a simple concept, but there are a few things to be careful of. Make sure you know who you’re dealing with. If you connected with them through an ad swap service, check out their feedback and their profile to make sure they’re legit. I strongly recommend establishing a professional relationship of some sort with the other person before running their offers. Get to know them and their business, and make sure it’s a good fit with you and yours. Don’t do anything in the exchange that might violate your subscribers’ trust. Never, and I mean NEVER give out your subscribers’ email addresses to anyone you have set up an exchange with. Stick to swapping offers, and leave it at that.

You can also get your subscribers to do some of the leg work for you. Offer them a coupon or other special promotion that they can pass on to a friend, and you’ll see an increase in subscribers in no time. If you can give them some added incentive to pass the offer along, I recommend doing so. For example, give your subscribers five coupons for 10% off the first purchase a new subscriber makes. Then, offer the subscriber you gave the coupon codes to a 10% discount on their next purchase if they successfully give out all five codes to new subscribers. Now the original subscriber has incentive to make sure five of their friends sign up for your list.

If you follow these steps, I promise you’ll see your list grow more quickly than you expected. Remember, as your list grows, your profits grow with it.

That’s why I am going to be shifting my MAIN focus for now. Think I will lay off of doing affiliate marketing and SEO since it is extremely hard to do while sitting in the middle of the ocean with an internet connection that rarely works. Then when it does work it takes 5 minutes to load a page.

Anyways if you still want to follow along then I will be making posts again!

Im planning on launching the site on September 1st. Main reason is because I will be off of work for 2 weeks so I will have nothing better to do during that time.

When the site launches there will be a forum / referral contest that starts. There is currently around $2,000 worth of prizes but I’m still looking for more sponsors. I’m being very careful about who I get to sponsor this contest because the last thing I want is someone backing out.

Here is the list of prizes and you can sign up to receive updates on the launch if you want. I wont send you an email for anything but about the contest. As all of you know that are registered here, I don’t spam.

Now I decided to start April 2008 with brand new sites and post exactly what I am doing to make build them up and make money with them. As I hope you would know it takes awhile to start making money with websites, there are no get rich quick methods that work. For that reason I will also be posting results of a website I already had built but just haven’t monetized yet. This way you can see the money coming in already so the first few weeks wont be extremely dull.

There will be one catch though with this blog. Due to posting websites and keywords I am going to use a plugin that will remove some content to unregistered members so spiders wont pick them up. Which means if you want the full effect of whats going on in my world you will need to register as a subscriber. Small price to pay for valuable information if you ask me.

Anyways, back to work.