I love WordPress. I’ve tried nearly every CMS and blogging platforms out there and I always come back to WordPress. I just like how extendible and configurable it is. You can do just about anything you wish to do online with it. Including creating your very own online store!

Two themes I’ve tried that make it easy to create an online shop are:

• Crafty Cart – This is a pretty looking theme that enables you to have an online store using your WordPress installation. It’s perfect for crafters, artists, and other creative type online businesses. You can come up with individual shopping pages and there’s a shopping cart where buyers can easily view their purchases. The best part of this theme: It’s completely FREE!

• Market Theme – This is a fully functional eCommerce WordPress theme that integrates with a variety of functions – including Paypal, Google Check-out and e-Junkie. It comes with all the plugins that you need to get it working. Individuals can buy it for $55 standard license (you can use it on one or more of your own site – but not for other people). Developers can buy the $150 developer license to use for client work.

Do you have a WordPress-enabled eCommerce website? What theme and plugins do you use to make money online with your WP-powered online shop?

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

eCommerce WordPress Themes

One of the questions that I received recently from a JMMO reader/visitor is:

“Do you use Joomla to run any of your websites?”

My quick answer: Yes.

To expound on that, here’s my longer answer: I actually have two sites right now that are running on Joomla. I used to have three. But, I decided that they were too difficult to maintain on the run, so I shifted one site over to WordPress.

WordPress is my preferred content management system at this time. That’s why for one of my projects right now, I decided to venture with WordPress MU. (Special note: Even though there are a lot of similarities, they are not at all the same!)

So, what’s wrong with Joomla? Nothing, really. I do love it. It has a great interface, very extendible, and plenty of features.

But, I feel as though I need a lot more skills, time, and money in order to make Joomla work the way I want it to work. Since I am unable to extend those resources, I find that it’s best to use a CMS that can help me to make me job easier.

Joomla just doesn’t have a huge “mainstream” community. From my experience, most of its users are web developers (or those who can hire them). So, there are not as many free themes, plugins, tutorials, and other resources. Everything costs money. That’s why I ended up spending hundreds of dollars just to make some of my Joomla sites look and act the way I want. Even then, sometimes, I still encounter issues – and there’s no one around to help out. Unless I’m willing to spend more money, that is.

So yes, to summarise, I do use Joomla to run a couple of websites that I own. I believe it’s a great CMS. It can do a lot of things that WordPress can’t do. But, there are also a lot of barriers to its use.

Will I recommend it? It depends on what you wish to do. For basic blogging and content management, probably not. But, if you wish to run a powerful CMS and you have the resources to do it, then yes, definitely.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Money Chat: So, what about Joomla?

Image details: Portrait of a woman internet shopping with a credit card served by picapp.com

If you’re looking for a WordPress-integrated shopping cart, you can try checking out QuickShop. It’s a plugin you can download and install in your WordPress-enabled weblog. Once installed, you can also integrate it with your Paypal account. The plugin is currently available for free, but donations are highly encouraged for further development.

Some limitations of this plugin includes: 1) It only uses Paypal as a payment system; 2) Default of AU$ currency may only be changed in the code; and 3) There’s no easy admin system for the shop.

But then, this is not designed to be a comprehensive online shopping cart. Just a simple solution for casual sellers who wish to offer their products/services through their WordPress sites.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

QuickShop: WP Plugin Shopping Cart

If you own a WordPress blog and you want a more professional-looking theme, then you might want to check PremiumThemes*. They have over 25 themes available – a handful are for free, while others are for sale (licensing fees for personal or developer use).

I haven’t bought a theme from them yet, but I’m seriously eyeing a couple that I’m considering for my personal blog. And, right now, the owner of PremiumThemes is currently running a contest, where one lucky winner can get a free copy of any premium theme. The contest runs until 30th of June.

Also, if you’re keen to sell some of these WordPress themes on your blog or site, you might also consider signing up with their affiliate programme. The owner is offering 20% commission per sale. Payout is once a month, with minimum of 2 sales.

See more, if you’re interested.*

Note: Affiliate links included

Image source: PremiumThemes.net

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

PremiumThemes: WordPress Themes

It seems like it has been a while since I shared a round-up of online business-related links that I’ve enjoyed reading lately. So, here you go…

• eBay Australia Moves to Single Payment System – ZDnet talks about eBay Australia’s attempt to get all its users to make use of Paypal as its payment system. Interesting discussions from different readers follow.
• WordPress Plugin Contest – About $3,500 worth of prizes for people who can develop good plugins.
• Monetizing WordPress Plugins – Just found this old post by Lorelle and thought I’d share it here.
• eShopOwner – Here’s another b5 biz blog. Written by Suzanne, it’s all about making money online through selling.

I was planning on sharing more, but my Internet connection’s really acting up right now. So perhaps, you can fill in here and share some of YOUR favourite links of the week in the comments section? Really great links may be featured in the future!

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Link Love Tuesday

Since publishing Top WordPress Plugins to Help You To Make Money Online, I found four more interesting WordPress plugins for folks looking to monetize their blogs:

Quick Shop – A sidebar widget that enables you to add a Paypal button, either for donations or for selling an item or two. Has a mini shopping cart feature.

All in One AdSense and YPN – Enables you to add Adsense or Yahoo Publishing Network ads in to your posts.

Ad-minister – Helps you to manage your blog’s ads, including ad rotation.

AdServe – A plugin that helps you to manage direct advertising on your blog. It comes various options (how many impressions available, types of banners, etc.)

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

More WP Plugins to Help You to Make Money with Blogging

To celebrate the long-awaited move back to WordPress of my personal blog, I thought I’d highlight some of my favourite WP plugins that can help you to make money online.

1) All-in-One SEO Pack – Great for auto-adding of meta tags, optimizing titles, etc. Simple to install.

2) AdSense Manager – Makes it easier for you to post your Adsense ads within your WordPress blogs (even within posts). You can change different types of ads. And, it’s widget-enabled. You can also optionally ‘donate’ part of your ad space to the creator of this plugin.

3) Ad Rotator – If you plan to run different affiliate links or your own direct ads, then this might be a good way to show the different ads you’ve got without overcrowding your blog with too many ads.

4) Amazon Simple Admin – Enables you to insert Amazon products within your blog posts.

5) Amazon Smartlinks Widget – Another way to make money off your Amazon affiliate links. It can post your Wish List, Amazon Bestsellers, etc. with your affiliate ID linked to the displays. Also widgetized.

6) Text Link Ads – If you wish to run text link ads, then you gotta have the plugin that comes when you set up your TLA account. It’s also now widget-enabled.

7) WP Directory – Looking to start directories, but don’t want to handle a massive directory software or application? Try this simple solution that you can manage via WordPress. You can create paid listings, sponsored links, marketplace, etc. Really useful!

textLink Adder – A good little plugin that enables you to sell direct text links or run your own affiliate links.

9) Quick Shop – A sidebar widget that enables you to add a Paypal button, either for donations or for selling an item or two. Has a mini shopping cart feature.

10) All in One AdSense and YPN – Enables you to add Adsense or Yahoo Publishing Network ads in to your posts.

11) Ad-minister – Helps you to manage your blog’s ads, including ad rotation.

12) AdServe – A plugin that helps you to manage direct advertising on your blog. It comes various options (how many impressions available, types of banners, etc.)

* Please note that these plugins may or may not work on your particular WordPress installation, as it will depend on your version of WP and the latest plugin upate.

** I’ll be updating this page from time to time, when appropriate – adding new useful plugins or removing ones that no longer work. So, if you want to check this again, I recommend bookmarking this page in some way (StumbleUpon, Digg, del.icio.us, or just your good ol’ browser’s bookmark. Thanks.)

*** Thanks again to Aaron Brazell, for helping with the move from EE back to WordPress.

**** If you’re a WordPress plugin developer, you might want to check out the $5,000 offer to anyone who can develop a specific plugin based on Calais’ bounty programme.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Top WordPress Plugins to Help You To Make Money Online