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	<title>Make Money With Your Ideas &#187; Search Results  &#187;  customers</title>
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		<title>Ask Laura Why You Need A Mailing List</title>
		<link>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/automailing.htm</link>
		<comments>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/automailing.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:28:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Ask Laura]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/automailing.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8230;you&#8217;re leaving way too much money on the table!
Most websites created or maintained by people who are new to online business are missing one important piece of the marketing puzzle. Namely, follow-up!
Of course there are other reasons websites don&#8217;t maintain mailing lists, but usually it is a result of an entrepreneur without any marketing experience. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8230;you&#8217;re leaving way too much money on the table!</p>
<p>Most websites created or maintained by people who are new to online business are missing one important piece of the marketing puzzle. Namely, follow-up!</p>
<p>Of course there are other reasons websites don&#8217;t maintain mailing lists, but usually it is a result of an entrepreneur without any marketing experience. Other reasons exist though (and I&#8217;m a perpetrator in this regard), even though I&#8217;ve been selling, promoting and marketing online for the last 10 years &#8211; you&#8217;ll still find many of my websites lack a subscription box.</p>
<p>My reasons won&#8217;t be yours I assure you! Generally the sites I don&#8217;t actively market to via email are sites I&#8217;ve created for testing purposes &#8211; testing website traffic techniques which I report on, on even more websites. This is truly a case of &#8216;do what I say, not what I do&#8217;.</p>
<p>In the rest of this post we&#8217;ll talk about how and why to maintain a mailing list, and the variety of ways you can use an <a href="http://www.smartzville.com/auto-responder.htm">autoresponder account</a>.</p>
<p>Here are a few reasons off the top of my head:</p>
<ul>
<li>increases your website&#8217;s value should you choose to sell it,</li>
<li>assists you to make money on demand as you can continue to draw people back to your site with every email you write,
<li>allows you to &#8216;automate&#8217; your marketing.
</ul>
<p>Just mentioning automation of marketing gets me excited about online business.</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>Well, once you have a fully automated system of a website in place that turns visitors into income, there&#8217;s little for an online business owner to do other than to keep the new traffic flowing or starting all over again with a second website, a second income stream, a second business. (Sounds good right?)</p>
<p>Automation is the key to any successful online business &#8211; a business that doesn&#8217;t tie the entrepreneur to his/her computer. </p>
<p>Granted some internet marketers have given automation a nasty connotation. The marketers who teach you to scrape other people&#8217;s website content and post spam messages to other people&#8217;s blogs.</p>
<p>No, not this kind of automation. This type of automated marketing I&#8217;m talking about it discontinuing any repetitive action that can be handled by a service or script.  And believe me when I tell you, any online business has areas that would benefit from a little automation. The key is to have the right software or service to manage the task.</p>
<p>When I first started my business online I tried a number of products and signed up for a number of services that assisted in automating my business. One shined above all others.</p>
<p>Then, in 2005, I repeated the tests and trials &#8211; in a wide variety of price ranges. I had expected different results &#8211; after all, so much had changed online in five years &#8211; yet I stuck with the same service I&#8217;d chosen back in 1999!</p>
<p>There are reasons &#8211; which very few people talk about &#8211; why one service/software soars above all others tested. Affordability, versatility, deliverability, flexibility &#8211; customer support, continuallly upgrading servers and features, continously working in the field to ensure best results for their customers &#8211; and on and on. Wait, another big reason &#8211; free customer support, fast response.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re lost now and wondering why you&#8217;d want to automate your mailing list&#8230;</p>
<p>Consider also that you don&#8217;t have to stop at a mailing list. Let&#8217;s think of some creative uses for automated marketing through auto-responder services.</p>
<p>Your website visitor signs up. Your autoresponder files the email address in your account then:</p>
<p>a) displays a thank you page on your website that could show a special offer for new subscribers. (income)<br />
b) sends out a message to your new subscriber with a special offer&#8230; (income)</p>
<p>Also used for:</p>
<p>c) an immediate customer support response. It may take you a day or two to reply personally to a customer, but they will instantly feel as though someone is working on their request for service.<br />
d) frequently asked questions sent to the customer via email.<br />
e) free reports with affiliate links inside.<br />
f) product lists and descriptions, or price lists</p>
<p>Use your own creativity to uncover and implement similar uses and you’ll begin to see your sales increase. </p>
<p>Owning a mailing list is, without a doubt, the most vital and necessary tool for your business.</p>
<p>Dare to be different. Don&#8217;t just put a small text link or graphic on your site that reads &#8220;subscribe to my mailing list&#8221;. That will get you some subscribers, but not nearly as many as you could get with an autoresponder pop up script or exit script. </p>
<p>Be creative to find ways to get potential customers to sign up to your mailing list. Offer a free report, a discount on future offers &#8211; as long as it is something of definite value they will subscribe.</p>
<p>Here are some of the &#8216;enticers&#8217; I&#8217;ve used on other websites:</p>
<ul>
<li>discount coupons,</p>
<li>free email course,
<li>contest entry,
<li>&#8220;Members Only&#8221; access to a special area of my website.
</ul>
<p>Check out my recommended &#8220;tried, tested and true&#8221; automated marketing, <a href="http://www.smartzville.com/auto-responder.htm">autoresponder service free for 30 days</a>. Get the script for your website and start making money with an email list right away. </p>
<p>Read more about effective mailing list management and email marketing techniques from <a href="http://www.smartzville.com/email-marketing/">Smartzville Marketing</a>.</p>
<p>Find similar: 
<a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/category/ask-laur" rel="tag directory">Ask Laura</a>
</p>
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		<title>Ask Laura About Website Marketing</title>
		<link>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/ask-laura-about-website-marketing.htm</link>
		<comments>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/ask-laura-about-website-marketing.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:52:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Ask Laura]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/ask-laura-about-website-marketing.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;My website is ready and I&#8217;ve spent thousands of dollars on it, but I&#8217;m not making any money!&#8221;
I&#8217;ve heard it a hundred times or more&#8230;
Learn How to Start Marketing Your Website &#8211; Ask Laura (July 2007)
After spending all that money for a custom designed site, or forking over cash for a turnkey website in a [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;My website is ready and I&#8217;ve spent thousands of dollars on it, but I&#8217;m not making any money!&#8221;</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve heard it a hundred times or more&#8230;</p>
<h2>Learn How to Start Marketing Your Website &#8211; Ask Laura (July 2007)</h2>
<p>After spending all that money for a custom designed site, or forking over cash for a turnkey website in a hot market, you realize that just because you&#8217;ve built it (or had it built), doesn&#8217;t mean they&#8217;ll come (the customers). </p>
<p>So now you&#8217;re taking the next step which is to learn about marketing and advertising your website or online business&#8230;</p>
<p>But let&#8217;s just back up here for a minute &#8211; so you don&#8217;t make the same mistake again. A website or online business is not much different than a business you would start up in your home town. And before any business is launched a business plan should have been created, written, and all aspects (such as advertising and marketing) would have been written into such a plan.</p>
<p>So before you launch your first website, or your next website, consider your marketing strategy, your advertising costs, your plan of attack, for gettting your offer in front of your potential customers.</p>
<p><strong>Let&#8217;s talk about how to plan and write that strategy then.</strong></p>
<p>It&#8217;s dull work if you&#8217;ve never thought of marketing before, but once you&#8217;ve created a strategy and you see it starting to work and the sales rolling in, you&#8217;ll fall in love with marketing strategies.</p>
<p>Begin by writing a list of daily, weekly, monthly and long range promotional action steps. Post it directly above your desk and act on it daily. Many business owners will tell you that you&#8217;re not in the &#8220;service&#8221; or &#8220;product&#8221; business &#8211; you&#8217;re in the marketing business when you own your own company. Every day must see some activity to promoting your brand, your website URL, or your offers.</p>
<p>If your marketing, advertising or promotion strategy is netting any results or sales after a few months it&#8217;s perfectly acceptable to rework the plan and seek out different avenues for advertising or promotion.</p>
<p>Below you&#8217;ll find some of the techniques other webmasters have success with. Each technique should be investigated fully by reading the advice of top internet marketing trainers before proceeding. As an example of why you want to delve deeper into understanding any strategic move is because many &#8216;gurus&#8217; will tell you to trade links with other webmasters to gain traffic. This is good advice, old advice, but if you don&#8217;t do it right it won&#8217;t be one-tenth as effective as it could be.</p>
<h2>So&#8230;let&#8217;s get to some of the promotion techniques for website owners:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Trade links only other webmasters. (Again, you need to learn how to do this correctly.)</li>
<li>Offer something of value, for free, on your site. (Read more on viral marketing.)</li>
<li>Employ an affiliate opportunity. (Amazing how this delivers sales and traffic, but again, learn how to do it inexpensively and correctly first.)</li>
<li>Add useful content, not just product sales on your site.</li>
<li>Add interaction to your site. (Learn about forums, comments, help desks &#8211; relevant to your offering and target market.)</li>
<li>Give them a reason and a venue to return &#8211; or refer their friends. (Learn about bookmarking, email a friend, subscribers.)</li>
<li>Run limited-time sales on your offers. (Learn about one time offers and back end selling.)</li>
</ul>
<p>That&#8217;s all for today and enough to get you started in your online marketing and advertising campaign.</p>
<p><img src="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/images/lcsig.jpg" width="162" height="85" alt="Laura Childs mentoring signature"></p>
<p>Laura Childs</p>
<p>The &#8216;Ask Laura&#8217; series is published solely to assist you with questions and resolutions to making your online business profitable. Names are never disclosed on this website unless approved or requested.</p>
<p>Find similar: 
<a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/category/ask-laur" rel="tag directory">Ask Laura</a>
</p>
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		<title>Online Marketing Bag of Tricks &#8211; Sales Letters</title>
		<link>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/sales-letter-tips.htm</link>
		<comments>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/sales-letter-tips.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 02 Jun 2007 05:26:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Ask Laura]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/sales-letter-tips.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m putting together a series of marketing tips for you which will be included only on this website. These are the tips and tricks that online marketers use all the time to make more sales from their one page websites. Later posts will discuss other advanced marketing tips.
In your sales letters&#8230;
Show your website visitors a [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;m putting together a series of marketing tips for you which will be included only on this website. These are the tips and tricks that online marketers use all the time to make more sales from their one page websites. Later posts will discuss other advanced marketing tips.</p>
<p>In your sales letters&#8230;</p>
<p>Show your website visitors a bargain. If your product can save them money, make them money, or if you&#8217;re currently running tests on price points be sure to tell your visitors that with a tangible and honest dollar figure. This is especially true if <span id="more-37"></span> you are running a special &#8211; let them know if they order today they are receiving a discount and that you won&#8217;t be holding that price for ever. You want to consider showing them twice &#8211; by either a percentage or dollar figure. &#8220;Order now and save 30% of our regular price.&#8221;</p>
<p>Using bullets is a common practice in both online sales letters and printed pitches. They work in our busy lives as most readers are skimmers. Use bullets (dashes, dots or circles preceeding short sentences) to highlight benefits, features or a list of bonus products of your main product. Benefits are the key to selling anything.</p>
<p>Compliment your reader in your ad copy and on your thank you page. We all love a compliment and this helps to earn your readers&#8217; and/or customers&#8217; trust. A fine example seen on another site: &#8220;You&#8217;ve made a smart business decision by landing here and taking time to investigate this&#8230;&#8221;</p>
<p>Apart from pricing techniques you may like to try increasing the perceived value of your product by making your offer scarce &#8211; in quantity sold or through bonus products. Although this adds stress to the reader it does help to let them know your offer may not be on the table for long&#8230;</p>
<p>Find your competitors&#8217; products&#8217; weakness and use it as your USP (unique selling proposition). Let your readers know that your product has been recommended, written about, or given more success to your customers for specific reasons that your competitions products are missing. As an example: your USP could be that your competition doesn&#8217;t offer exclusive rights, consultations, etc. </p>
<p>Use the &#8216;fear factor&#8217; in your sales letter copy. By owning, knowing, or using your product or information your customers can avoid pain, wasted time, loss of sales, etc. Sad but true, this &#8216;fear factor&#8217; motivates people to buy. As a general rule don&#8217;t over-emphasize this one; play the card out on the table and let your customers decide if avoiding pain is their motivator.</p>
<p>Find similar: 
<a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/category/ask-laur" rel="tag directory">Ask Laura</a>
</p>
<p><small>Search by: <a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/search/online+sales+letters" rel="tag">online sales letters</a></small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Contact</title>
		<link>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/contact</link>
		<comments>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/contact#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jul 2006 21:31:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura</dc:creator>
		
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/contact/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As you likely can tell, this site is still in infancy. I&#8217;ll be compiling segments for each learning module individually and releasing them as such.
This all begins with a few interactive quiz segments, some surveys and reader polls. Your interaction assists me to serve you. The outcome is that both of us will fully understand [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>As you likely can tell, this site is still in infancy. I&#8217;ll be compiling segments for each learning module individually and releasing them as such.</p>
<p>This all begins with a few interactive quiz segments, some surveys and reader polls. Your interaction assists me to serve you. The outcome is that both of us will fully understand where you currently stand in your business or marketing strategy.</p>
<p>Course modules will be developed and released based on the majority rule. The most urgent needs from user feedback and participation will be addressed first.</p>
<p>While all this is being prepared and created for you, if you need to contact me personally, without addressing any specific post on the site in a public manner, you can use this contact form. It shoots directly to my email inbox.</p>
<p>Please allow 24-48 hours for a response, I have many projects, many customers and many websites to maintain.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<div class="contactform">
<form action="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/contact" method="post">
<div class="contactleft"><label for="wpcf_your_name">Your Name: </label></div>
<div class="contactright">
<input type="text" name="wpcf_your_name" id="wpcf_your_name" size="30" maxlength="50" value="" /> (required)</div>
<div class="contactleft"><label for="wpcf_email">Your Email:</label></div>
<div class="contactright">
<input type="text" name="wpcf_email" id="wpcf_email" size="30" maxlength="50" value="" /> (required)</div>
<div class="contactleft"><label for="wpcf_website">Your Website:</label></div>
<div class="contactright">
<input type="text" name="wpcf_website" id="wpcf_website" size="30" maxlength="100" value="" /></div>
<div class="contactleft"><label for="wpcf_msg">Your Message: </label></div>
<div class="contactright"><textarea name="wpcf_msg" id="wpcf_msg" cols="35" rows="8" ></textarea></div>
<div class="contactright">
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit" id="contactsubmit" />
<input type="hidden" name="wpcf_stage" value="process" /></div>
</p></form>
</p></div>
<div style="clear:both; height:1px;">&nbsp;</div>
<p>Thanks, I can&#8217;t wait to hear from you!</p>
<p>Laura Childs</p>
<p>Find similar
</p>
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		<title>Ask Laura About Web Rage</title>
		<link>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/ask-laura-about-web-rage.htm</link>
		<comments>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/ask-laura-about-web-rage.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jul 2006 15:17:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Ask Laura]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/ask-laura-about-web-rage.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In September of 2004 I had hooked up with famous copywriter, author and internet marketer Joe Vitale. We launched a site with a report and tools on using RSS and Blogs to gain subscribers and website traffic.
Nasty Emails in Your Inbox &#8211; Ask Laura ( October 11/04)
Now there are a lot of people who have [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In September of 2004 I had hooked up with famous copywriter, author and internet marketer Joe Vitale. We launched a site with a report and tools on using RSS and Blogs to gain subscribers and website traffic.</p>
<h2>Nasty Emails in Your Inbox &#8211; Ask Laura ( October 11/04)</h2>
<p>Now there are a lot of people who have &#8216;issues&#8217; with internet marketers. They think the all the gurus are scam artists and money grubbers. I&#8217;m not about to tell you that those types of gurus don&#8217;t exist (there are a number of them I keep at arm&#8217;s length), but I will promise you that Joe Vitale does not fit into that category.</p>
<p>In the last 4 years I have listened to, taken the advice of, worked on promotions, and co-written two books with Joe. I can completely vouch for his products, tools, methods of teaching, and writing. My current income and following is a testament to what I&#8217;ve learned from Joe and a handful of other marketers with integrity.</p>
<p><b>But, back to the web rage issue.</b></p>
<p>Repeatedly over the years I have received angry, frustrated, <span id="more-17"></span>nasty, mean emails from complete strangers who aren&#8217;t even my customers! Usually I try to respond to them on a personal level &#8211; help them sort out where their frustration with their online business stems from and how to remedy the situation &#8211; as in the case below.</p>
<p>On other days I just can&#8217;t do it. I just can&#8217;t play the punching bag game and take the abuse. On those days I just delete the offending email, unsubscribe the person if they&#8217;re on my list &#8211; and yes, I&#8217;ve been known to send a nasty quip or two back &#8211; of course never quite as personal and cutting as the one I received.</p>
<p>Through the years in this business I&#8217;ve discovered one thing. Those nasty emails only come from the entrepreneur crowd. The ones struggling to make a living online and not having much success. People who buy my country living ebooks and products never send me nasty emails &#8211; as a matter of fact one customer sent me a gorgeous bouquet of flowers! Others have sent thank you cards, paypal donations, and even a few amazon gift certificates.</p>
<p><b>So what&#8217;s going on with the entrepreneur sect?</b></p>
<p>It&#8217;s frustration. It&#8217;s jealousy. It&#8217;s mis-directed anger.</p>
<p>Mad at themselves for their own inadequacies, poor buying decisions, time wasted chasing foolish dreams or creating businesses on sand. If you ever get into the internet marketing business publicly you&#8217;re going to get messages like the one below, some a lot meaner&#8230;</p>
<h2>Nasty Email #1</h2>
<p>Nothing I have tried has worked. I&#8217;m tired of being ripped-off. These so-called Internet Gurus are the only one getting rich, and on my hard earned money. I don&#8217;t trust the internet or the people who market in this bad neighborhood!</p>
<p>Greg</p>
<p>************</p>
<p>Greg:</p>
<p>Usually I don&#8217;t respond to this type of negativity, but something in your email (perhaps your frustration) cries out for help.</p>
<p>I am not an Internet Marketing guru so I feel I can respond to your message without you mistrusting me.</p>
<p>Just FYI, I have followed many of the gurus advice and most of it has worked. I find it odd that it hasn&#8217;t worked for you. I wonder what element of marketing you are missing and if there is something I can do to help.</p>
<p>True, there are a lot of scams out there (read email and make money!, etc.) but hard work and perseverance and an ethical business will earn you a sizeable income. If you&#8217;re looking for the easy way out, an unethical or immoral way to make money &#8211; you&#8217;re sunk.</p>
<p>Listen if I can make enough money to pay my bills selling an ebook on raising chickens, then anyone can make money online.</p>
<p>You&#8217;re just giving up too quickly. Don&#8217;t blame others, or bash marketers for it, that&#8217;s no way to success.</p>
<p>Life is a state of mind. Operate in a state of distrust, frustration, anxiety, anger and blame and that&#8217;s what you&#8217;ll get back. It&#8217;s not up to &#8216;them&#8217; &#8211; it&#8217;s up to you.</p>
<p><img src="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/images/lcsig.jpg" width="162" height="85" alt="Laura Childs mentoring signature"></p>
<p>Laura Childs</p>
<p>p.s. If you have a website and you want me to look at it and help you, I&#8217;ll do what I can to help you, but I ask that you first place yourself in a kinder mindset.</p>
<p>**********</p>
<p>Greg actually wrote back, which was very much appreciated:</p>
<p>Laura,</p>
<p>Thank you for writing back. I apologize to you for my rude comments. I won&#8217;t detail or justify my frustration and anger. I am very sorry.</p>
<p>Greg</p>
<p>************</p>
<p>This email sequence is a mild version of some of the emails I&#8217;ve seen from complete strangers over the years. Please just remember that each one of us, whether we&#8217;re in the public eye or not, you or I, we all have feelings. And no one, absolutely no one deserves to be attacked by another. Besides, sugar goes much further than salt.</p>
<p>Find similar: 
<a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/category/ask-laur" rel="tag directory">Ask Laura</a>
</p>
<p><small>Search by: <a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/search/customers" rel="tag">customers</a>, <a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/search/online+business" rel="tag">online business</a>, <a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/search/entrepreneur" rel="tag">entrepreneur</a></small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Ask Laura About Buying Sites on eBay</title>
		<link>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/laura-ebay-sites.htm</link>
		<comments>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/laura-ebay-sites.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 01:29:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Ask Laura]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/laura-ebay-sites.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A Reader Buys Ebay Websites &#8211; Ask Laura (May 2006)
Dear Laura,
Good Morning! I&#8217;ve been reading through www.smartzville.com, and keep running into new ideas on new pages. And I&#8217;ve found out that I&#8217;ve made what may be a definate beginners mistake. Without doing enough research, and going on what I thought was a really good idea [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2>A Reader Buys Ebay Websites &#8211; Ask Laura (May 2006)</h2>
<p>Dear Laura,</p>
<p>Good Morning! I&#8217;ve been reading through www.smartzville.com, and keep running into new ideas on new pages. And I&#8217;ve found out that I&#8217;ve made what may be a definate beginners mistake. Without doing enough research, and going on what I thought was a really good idea (since I loved it), I went out and <span id="more-9"></span>plopped down $45 for a domain name and hosting account. Then I went back and started reading the sites of people like yourself, Brooks Owen (big in mail order), Jim Edwards, Michael Campbell, Joe Garris, and such and went &#8220;oh crap, bad move&#8221;.</p>
<p>So, after a day of &#8220;oh well&#8221;, I read some more, and I found a really good idea. And honestly this idea was so simple and so much of a zebra in a herd of milking cows that I just wondered why I didn&#8217;t think about it before. What&#8217;s the idea? Simple, find an already running site, grab it, and do a little remodling to make it better.</p>
<p>After doing more research on words and searches (like I should have done first), going on eBay was like going into a supermarket looking for just the right brand. Mind you, there are alot of junk sites, half baked ideas, and domains that you would never think of trying, on eBay. But, after two days and about four hours each day, I found two good brands. And what&#8217;s really sad, is I only paid about $48 for both, hosting and all. All set up, and one even comes with a product in hand.</p>
<p>The one with the product is &#8230;url removed&#8230;, and is not all the way transfered and up yet. It comes with a credit repair guide for $14.95 that you can download. The other site, &#8230;url removed&#8230;, is a site designed for downloadable scripts, ebooks, tools, and software. This site is up and running, but has no product yet. Both sites come with blog, newsletters, chat rooms, and multiple subdomains. Both sites can have individual sales letters within their own subdomains and the purchase button going to a Paypal account. Both sites can also have affiliate links and banner ads so I can get more income off the main pages.</p>
<p>Anyhow, I was thinking of putting some of your items on the second site, as well as content from Jim Edwards and some others. Eventually I will put my own ebooks (when they get written) up as well. I&#8217;m trying not to spend too much more since I&#8217;ve already gone $100 into this without one sale yet (and half of that was a misstep). And sadly, all I need is $900 a month to replace my current income. Do you know of any other good programs or affiliates to look into? Is there a way to research to find more? Are there any more costs that I need to be aware of?</p>
<p>Well, thanks for the help.</p>
<p>William</p>
<p>**********</p>
<p>Dear William:</p>
<p>By the way, it&#8217;s great to hear from you again!</p>
<p>My friend to be honest, I liked your first idea. It was original. I&#8217;m not sure where you&#8217;re going with it, but I envision it to be personable, interesting and has the potential to grow quite a following. Please don&#8217;t give up on it just yet &#8211; a lot of times a first inspiration (especially when you started with a love for it) is one of the best ideas ever!</p>
<p>And don&#8217;t bemoan spending $50 for start up. A few years ago we all had to pay $45 year just to register our domain names! And hosting used to be out of this world. I once worked for my hosting &#8211; exchanging hours in lieu of a hosting fee each month!</p>
<p>Now I can&#8217;t say much about your new credit site, because all I can see is a parked page, but I urge you to not buy any more sites off ebay without dropping me a line first. For instance some of those existing sites may be blacklisted, been used for spam in the past, and/or are cookie cutter sites. There are ways of checking first, before you bid.</p>
<p>A download site and a credit repair site may seem perfect at first blush, but it may be some work gaining the traffic and clientelle to make them lucrative. There&#8217;s just so much competition and only so many things to write about much less originality to set yourself apart.</p>
<p>For instance look at this http://www.digitalshelf .net/ and this http://www.lmphotonics .com/dlstore/index.php and this http://wizzworldwide .net/ and this http://eworldcenter .net/downloadstore and http://wubs-hub.tripod .com/ and http://www.marketandpromote .com</p>
<p>All copycats of the site you bought. There are many more. As I suspect, the same is true with credit repair.</p>
<p>I am not trying to burst your bubble, I&#8217;m just making sure you don&#8217;t buy more sites on ebay, and that you know that you must rewrite every bit of text on those new sites or you&#8217;ll never get any search engine traffic.</p>
<p>Google in particular does not like duplicate content or cookie cutter sites.</p>
<p>The only other expense I could alert you to is an autoresponder account for website subscriptions (once you start getting traffic you&#8217;ll want to start getting that traffic to subscribe so you can continue to keep them updated and promote products that will help them).</p>
<p>Drop me back a note if you want to talk more about any of this.</p>
<p><img src="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/images/lcsig.jpg" width="162" height="85" alt="Laura Childs mentoring signature"></p>
<p>Laura</p>
<p>***************</p>
<p>Back and forth our conversation went. Eventually William decided (on his own) to rewrite the content on the cookie cutter sites he bought on ebay and continue on with his original idea &#8211; which was really quite good and I hope one day I can link to it to show you. He&#8217;s an original person with an original idea, just like you are, and that is where the potential to make money online lies!</p>
<p>William did write back again shortly after and said this: </p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;&#8230;and now the stupid news. The person who sold me the credit repair site still has yet to send me a copy of the site so that I can make changes. I cannot change the contact info nor the paypal info pages. I don&#8217;t even know what the downloadable product looks like due to I can&#8217;t seem to find it, but it&#8217;s for sale for $19.95.  I should have seen this coming I guess.  I&#8217;m sure this would make a good lesson for your readers. Thanks again, William&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Friends the big lesson of this story is be careful of what you buy on ebay websites. Although there are some smokin&#8217; deals and some good sites available for just the right person to take to the next level, there are also some real duds, just selling a dream. Remember too that some of the auction sellers are as brilliant at copywriting as my good friend Joe Vitale! The only difference is that Joe serves up value with integrity to his customers&#8230;</p>
<p><img src="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/images/lcsig.jpg" width="162" height="85" alt="Laura Childs mentoring signature"></p>
<p>Laura Childs<br />
www.makemoneywithyourideas.com</p>
<p>******</p>
<p>Parts of this correspondence have been edited to protect the identity of the email author. I will not publish last names, urls or email addresses (unless given express permission by the owner). Each letter has been stored on my private files however to supply to the authorites if need be. I urge you to follow a similar practice whenever you you publish, sell, or reference another online.</p>
<p>Find similar: 
<a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/category/ask-laur" rel="tag directory">Ask Laura</a>
</p>
<p><small>Search by: <a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/search/cookie+cutter+sites" rel="tag">cookie cutter sites</a>, <a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/search/make+money+online" rel="tag">make money online</a>, <a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/search/ebay+websites" rel="tag">ebay websites</a></small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Ask Laura About WordPress Storefronts</title>
		<link>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/wordpress-store.htm</link>
		<comments>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/wordpress-store.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Jul 2006 23:46:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Ask Laura]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/wordpress-store.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Not Making Money Online &#8211; Ask Laura (06/06)
Gerry is asking about a WordPress script that I promoted a few months back over at Smartzville &#8211; see the free how-to set up an online store with WordPress and merchant datafeed videos here &#8211; although I&#8217;ve had decent success with my online stores, a few others have [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2>Not Making Money Online &#8211; Ask Laura (06/06)</h2>
<p>Gerry is asking about a WordPress script that I promoted a few months back over at Smartzville &#8211; see the free how-to <a href="http://www.smartzville.com/marketing-help/wordpress-datafeed-videos">set up an online store with WordPress and merchant datafeed videos here</a> &#8211; although I&#8217;ve had decent success with my online stores, a few others have not. The clues to the differences lie below&#8230;</p>
<p>*********</p>
<p>Hi Laura</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve had some WordPress Datafeed stores set up for over 2 months now and they haven&#8217;t been indexed by any search engines (although they have been visited).</p>
<p>I thought these blogs were search engine friendly!!</p>
<p>Seriously, is there anything I can do or do I just wait.</p>
<p>Also have you any info on how to implement <span id="more-8"></span>the Jerome keywords plug in, I can&#8217;t understand how to implement it.</p>
<p>I hope you can help me make some sales.</p>
<p>Gerry</p>
<p>*********</p>
<p>Hi Gerry:</p>
<p>Please excuse me, lots going on online and in my personal life &#8211; I&#8217;ve totally forgotten where your sites were, can you send me urls? I&#8217;ve got so many people I&#8217;m working with now, that if our past messages to each other aren&#8217;t in the return mail you send me I don&#8217;t know what I&#8217;ve already suggested, where your site is, or what you need to do next to take it up a notch.</p>
<p>My new stores are making decent sales with no promotion other than submitting my RSS Feed to the directories a few months back. I&#8217;ve just implemented the tag process into the store blogs so we&#8217;ll see how that  goes. Using that method I instantly picked up and got PR2-5 backlinks  and some foot traffic. We&#8217;ll see if it results in more sales. Have you  heard about tagging? There&#8217;s a <a href="http://www.smartzville.com/tagping.htm">tag and ping course here</a>, and a free download pdf of the <a href="http://www.smartzville.com/pdf/socialtag.pdf">basic tag and ping concept here</a>.</p>
<p>The WordPress Datafeed stores are SE friendly. At last google update (about 2 months ago) I got two PR4s and lots of indexed pages on two brand new sites. I wonder what I&#8217;ve done that you haven&#8217;t? Send me your urls and any information on what you&#8217;ve done to optimize traffic. The other side of this is that google is due for an update soon &#8211; I&#8217;m waiting on it &#8211; and you may find better results at that time.</p>
<p>Also, when you say &#8220;haven&#8217;t been indexed &#8211; although have been visited&#8221; &#8211; please clarify&#8230;</p>
<p>- visited by whom? the bots and spiders or actual visitors?<br />
- indexed by whom? all or just google?</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re having trouble with the Jerome plugin the best thing you can do is hit the plugin author&#8217;s site, read the comments from others and leave your questions there. Really, no one knows their code better than the author.</p>
<p>Looking forward to your answers.</p>
<p><img src="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/images/lcsig.jpg" width="162" height="85" alt="Laura Childs mentoring signature"></p>
<p>Laura</p>
<p>************<br />
Hi Laura</p>
<p>I guess you&#8217;re the type of person who thrives on &#8220;lots going on&#8221;. Anyway you&#8217;re great for finding some time to help other people succeed.</p>
<p>I&#8217;d be proud to show you my sites &#8211; some of them are quite cool! I&#8217;ve got 8 stores but I&#8217;ve stopped doing them now until I figure how to make them work.</p>
<p>&#8230;list of sites edited&#8230;</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve got technorati tags on all posts &#8211; have done that from the beginning&#8230;and I&#8217;ve phased the posting so that new posts are  continually added.</p>
<p>The sites have been visited by spiders and bots but none of the sites are indexed by google, msn, or yahoo. I&#8217;ve also got them on Traffic Swarm. The &#8230;url removed&#8230; has got a few clicks into the merchant, maybe about 50 since the beginning but no sales resulted, but I can&#8217;t see what&#8217;s different about that site (I think it&#8217;s the ugliest of the lot).</p>
<p>I shall follow your links to find out about tagging but in the meantime if you spot anything I&#8217;m not doing, I&#8217;d be really grateful for your advice, being a newbie, I&#8217;m not always sure where to turn.</p>
<p>Information is not hard to get &#8211; I&#8217;m constantly bombarded by it, but good, practical advice is a different thing altogether!</p>
<p>Gerry</p>
<p>*************</p>
<p>Hmmm&#8230;</p>
<p>Gerry, did you submit your rss feed to the rss directories?</p>
<p>On a side note &#8211; and not sure you did this, but you should never ad adsense ads to a site until a few weeks after google has indexed and included the site in their search results. Doing it before hand is a big red flag to google &#8220;this site exists only for the ad click income&#8221;.</p>
<p>I know that google, specifically, isn&#8217;t wild about sites that are 100% duplicated content. You might like to add a few articles into your blogs &#8211; keyword rich of course.</p>
<p>Another important thought &#8211; if your code doesn&#8217;t validate, you lose points in the search engines. Now this is a pain in the butt, and doesn&#8217;t have to be adherred to 100% but I&#8217;ve found that when I have more than 40 code errors on a page I lose rank &#8211; sometimes even being delisted.</p>
<p>If the code is sloppy and has lots of errors, this alone could be your trouble. Usually it&#8217;s in the php template. I&#8217;m not convinced this is why none of your sites are included in the SEs because you have a few different themes in your various sites.</p>
<p>But I do want you to consider changing or fixing your themes &#8211; for instance, go to this page:</p>
<p>&#8230;url removed&#8230;</p>
<p>If you were an online shopper, and perchance you landed here, would you want to buy any product from this page? Would you stay on the site and search for something you did want to buy?</p>
<p>I&#8217;m not trying to be mean to you, I just want you to think about this from a visitor&#8217;s perspective, as well as coding perspective, as well as the search engines. Search engines don&#8217;t like sending their searchers to pages with errors, pages that have little visitor value, etc.</p>
<p>Now when I checked that page on <a href="http://validator.w3.org/" target="_blank">validator.w3.org</a> it reported back 55 code errors.</p>
<p>Now, while I&#8217;m dumping all that on your lap, I also want you to consider that when the potential customers do come &#8211; it&#8217;s just too easy to lose them with all those technorati tags. If they decide they don&#8217;t like what you&#8217;re offering, they&#8217;re just goign to click a tag and be gone. And you don&#8217;t even make a cent off the transaction!</p>
<p>Anyway, just a few thoughts to consider&#8230;write me back if you have more questions &#8211; I realize I&#8217;ve gone off track here when you really wanted to know about search engine indexing.</p>
<p><img src="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/images/lcsig.jpg" width="162" height="85" alt="Laura Childs mentoring signature"></p>
<p>Laura</p>
<p>**************</p>
<p>Laura:</p>
<p>Hmmm&#8230; (I like that &#8211; it&#8217;s the calm before the storm)</p>
<p>Thanks for all that advice &#8211; don&#8217;t mind criticism one bit.</p>
<p>Yes I submitted the rss feeds &#8211; it&#8217;s part of my procedure &#8211; (when these sites are profitable, I might publish it).</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll take out all advertising now (no point if there aren&#8217;t any visitors!!)</p>
<p>Keyword Rich Articles? I&#8217;ll try that. Do you mean extra posts or editing existing posts?</p>
<p>Can&#8217;t understand why I have so many code errors, could it be changes I&#8217;ve made or could it be the themes themselves are buggy? I think the furniture site theme is a bit ugly anyway, I think I&#8217;ll search for a brighter theme.</p>
<p>Technorati tags? Hmmm&#8230; When I bought the software, I remember reading &#8220;Never underestimate the power of technorati tags&#8221; Didn&#8217;t understand what it meant but I thought I was doing something clever by implementing them. Not sure what to do about them they&#8217;re in every post. Do I start again from scratch? hmmm&#8230; (I like that hmmm&#8230;)</p>
<p>I wasn&#8217;t just asking about se optimisation. I want to know anything and everything that will turn these into profitable sites.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve shown you mine &#8211; how about showing me a good example of how it should be done!!</p>
<p>Thanks again for all your help and your precious time.</p>
<p>God bless (&#8230;I never say that!)</p>
<p>Gerry</p>
<p>*************</p>
<p>Gerry&#8230;</p>
<p>Code errors are likely the template stuff. Don&#8217;t stress about them too much, I&#8217;ve got a PR4 site here with 219 code errors &#8211; it&#8217;s a factor, but not the largest one &#8211; <a href="http://www.primitivecountrydecor.com" target="_blank">www.PrimitiveCountryDecor.com</a></p>
<p>Plus on that site you&#8217;ll see the most recent posts are keyword rich articles&#8230;most everything else is standard datafeed store.</p>
<p>Teli said &#8220;Never underestimate the power or Technorati tags&#8221; ! I guess we all, whomever is writing, needs to be really careful with our words. If you look at Teli&#8217;s blogs she&#8217;s got one or two highly targeted tags per post. Yes TTs are awesome, but (a) they need to be targeted and (b) used minimalisticly &#8211; that&#8217;s one of the things Sean teaches in that course.</p>
<p>As for all the existing tags you&#8217;ve got going on&#8230;do you own a laptop and watch television in the evenings? When I&#8217;ve gone and messed up I take my laptop upstairs and just pick away at the mundane tasks as I watch my favorite shows. (Sometimes I wish I had more shows I liked to watch just so I had more time to fix my mistakes!)</p>
<p><img src="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/images/lcsig.jpg" width="162" height="85" alt="Laura Childs mentoring signature"></p>
<p>Laura Childs<br />
www.makemoneywithyourideas.com</p>
<p>**********</p>
<p>Some parts of this letter have been edited to protect the integrity and identity of the email author. Although I will not post last names (unless given express permission), I can prove the validity of each letter written including email addresses, dates, and headers to the authorites if need be. I suggest that everything you publish online, sell online, or reference online, have a similar back up system in place. The FTC is always watching&#8230;</p>
<p>Find similar: 
<a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/category/ask-laur" rel="tag directory">Ask Laura</a>
</p>
<p><small>Search by: <a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/search/sales" rel="tag">sales</a>, <a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/search/RSS+Feed" rel="tag">RSS Feed</a>, <a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/search/store+blogs" rel="tag">store blogs</a>, <a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/search/tag+and+ping+course" rel="tag">tag and ping course</a>, <a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/search/WordPress+Datafeed+stores" rel="tag">WordPress Datafeed stores</a>, <a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/search/search+engines" rel="tag">search engines</a></small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Welcome Visitors!</title>
		<link>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/welcome-visitors.htm</link>
		<comments>http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/welcome-visitors.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jul 2006 18:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Welcome to makemoneywithyourideas.com
Today is the first day of the website, so book mark it and come back will you?
This site will be released in segments, learning modules for lack of a better name. Dependant on reader response collected from a variety of my mailing lists and websites, I will be releasing each segment individually over [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to makemoneywithyourideas.com</p>
<p>Today is the first day of the website, so book mark it and come back will you?</p>
<p>This site will be released in segments, learning modules for lack of a better name. Dependant on reader response collected from a variety of my mailing lists and websites, I will be releasing each segment individually over time.</p>
<p>This site is a new beginning for me. I&#8217;m branching out on my own, away from the mass mailing marketing crowd that promotes anything and everything to turn a buck. If I&#8217;ve tested a method or tool and I think it&#8217;s worthy of a legitimate online presence and business I will tell you about it. If I haven&#8217;t tested a method or tool you won&#8217;t hear a peep out of me.</p>
<p>What you will get, is sound business advice. Techniques that build relationships with customers (even before they become your customer) and help you market and grow your online presence to the pinnacles of success.</p>
<p>If you own your own website, you&#8217;ll love what I&#8217;m going to show you about traffic, subscribers, earnings and a whole lot more! </p>
<p>If you&#8217;re band new to the web and ready to start your first business, but don&#8217;t know how to get going, I&#8217;ll be ready to help you get set up with your own ideas, your own .com, and your own product.</p>
<h2>How will we accomplish this together? Hang in there, you&#8217;ll soon find out&#8230;</h2>
<p><img src="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/images/lcsig.jpg" width="162" height="85" alt="Laura Childs mentoring signature"></p>
<p>Laura Childs<br />
www.makemoneywithyourideas.com</p>
<p>p.s. If you need to reach me, don&#8217;t be shy, use the contact form linked from above. If you just want to find out what I&#8217;m working on or recommending to some of my older and established subscribers and clients, visit my <a href="http://www.smartzville.com/marketing-help">marketing blog</a>.</p>
<p>Find similar: 
<a href="http://www.makemoneywithyourideas.com/category/announcement" rel="tag directory">Announcements</a>
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