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’t maintain mailing lists, but usually it is a result of an entrepreneur without any marketing experience. Other reasons exist though (and I’m a perpetrator in this regard), even though I’ve been selling, promoting and marketing online for the last 10 years – you’ll still find many of my websites lack a subscription box.

My reasons won’t be yours I assure you! Generally the sites I don’t actively market to via email are sites I’ve created for testing purposes – testing website traffic techniques which I report on, on even more websites. This is truly a case of ‘do what I say, not what I do’.

In the rest of this post we’ll talk about how and why to maintain a mailing list, and the variety of ways you can use an autoresponder account.

Here are a few reasons off the top of my head:

• increases your website’s value should you choose to sell it,
• assists you to make money on demand as you can continue to draw people back to your site with every email you write,
• allows you to ‘automate’ your marketing.

Just mentioning automation of marketing gets me excited about online business.

Why?

Well, once you have a fully automated system of a website in place that turns visitors into income, there’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?)

Automation is the key to any successful online business – a business that doesn’t tie the entrepreneur to his/her computer.

Granted some internet marketers have given automation a nasty connotation. The marketers who teach you to scrape other people’s website content and post spam messages to other people’s blogs.

No, not this kind of automation. This type of automated marketing I’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.

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.

Then, in 2005, I repeated the tests and trials – in a wide variety of price ranges. I had expected different results – after all, so much had changed online in five years – yet I stuck with the same service I’d chosen back in 1999!

There are reasons – which very few people talk about – why one service/software soars above all others tested. Affordability, versatility, deliverability, flexibility – customer support, continuallly upgrading servers and features, continously working in the field to ensure best results for their customers – and on and on. Wait, another big reason – free customer support, fast response.

If you’re lost now and wondering why you’d want to automate your mailing list…

Consider also that you don’t have to stop at a mailing list. Let’s think of some creative uses for automated marketing through auto-responder services.

Your website visitor signs up. Your autoresponder files the email address in your account then:

a) displays a thank you page on your website that could show a special offer for new subscribers. (income)
b) sends out a message to your new subscriber with a special offer… (income)

Also used for:

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.
d) frequently asked questions sent to the customer via email.
e) free reports with affiliate links inside.
f) product lists and descriptions, or price lists

Use your own creativity to uncover and implement similar uses and you’ll begin to see your sales increase.

Owning a mailing list is, without a doubt, the most vital and necessary tool for your business.

Dare to be different. Don’t just put a small text link or graphic on your site that reads “subscribe to my mailing list”. That will get you some subscribers, but not nearly as many as you could get with an autoresponder pop up script or exit script.

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 – as long as it is something of definite value they will subscribe.

Here are some of the ‘enticers’ I’ve used on other websites:

• discount coupons,

• free email course,
• contest entry,
• “Members Only” access to a special area of my website.

Check out my recommended “tried, tested and true” automated marketing, autoresponder service free for 30 days. Get the script for your website and start making money with an email list right away.

Read more about effective mailing list management and email marketing techniques from Smartzville Marketing.

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I’ve heard it a hundred times or more…

Learn How to Start Marketing Your Website – Ask Laura (July 2007)

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’ve built it (or had it built), doesn’t mean they’ll come (the customers).

So now you’re taking the next step which is to learn about marketing and advertising your website or online business…

But let’s just back up here for a minute – so you don’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.

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.

Let’s talk about how to plan and write that strategy then.

It’s dull work if you’ve never thought of marketing before, but once you’ve created a strategy and you see it starting to work and the sales rolling in, you’ll fall in love with marketing strategies.

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’re not in the “service” or “product” business – you’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.

If your marketing, advertising or promotion strategy is netting any results or sales after a few months it’s perfectly acceptable to rework the plan and seek out different avenues for advertising or promotion.

Below you’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 ‘gurus’ will tell you to trade links with other webmasters to gain traffic. This is good advice, old advice, but if you don’t do it right it won’t be one-tenth as effective as it could be.

So…let’s get to some of the promotion techniques for website owners:

• Trade links only other webmasters. (Again, you need to learn how to do this correctly.)
• Offer something of value, for free, on your site. (Read more on viral marketing.)
• Employ an affiliate opportunity. (Amazing how this delivers sales and traffic, but again, learn how to do it inexpensively and correctly first.)
• Add useful content, not just product sales on your site.
• Add interaction to your site. (Learn about forums, comments, help desks – relevant to your offering and target market.)
• Give them a reason and a venue to return – or refer their friends. (Learn about bookmarking, email a friend, subscribers.)
• Run limited-time sales on your offers. (Learn about one time offers and back end selling.)

That’s all for today and enough to get you started in your online marketing and advertising campaign.

Laura Childs

The ‘Ask Laura’ 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.

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In your sales letters…

Show your website visitors a bargain. If your product can save them money, make them money, or if you’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 you are running a special – let them know if they order today they are receiving a discount and that you won’t be holding that price for ever. You want to consider showing them twice – by either a percentage or dollar figure. “Order now and save 30% of our regular price.”

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.

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’ and/or customers’ trust. A fine example seen on another site: “You’ve made a smart business decision by landing here and taking time to investigate this…”

Apart from pricing techniques you may like to try increasing the perceived value of your product by making your offer scarce – 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…

Find your competitors’ products’ 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’t offer exclusive rights, consultations, etc.

Use the ‘fear factor’ 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 ‘fear factor’ motivates people to buy. As a general rule don’t over-emphasize this one; play the card out on the table and let your customers decide if avoiding pain is their motivator.

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One issue that comes to mind when I first started out was the number of people who were promoting ebook formating software progams, ranging in price from $20-$200. I sat with my book written, formated and ready to go for 3 days while I surfed around for the best deal and reading every review on these programs…

Learn Why You Don’t Need An Ebook Software Program – Ask Laura (May 2007)

An email came in to one of my sites today asking about these formating programs which tells me that marketing trainers and affiliate promotions experts are still pushing these programs on unsuspecting newpreneurs.

“Enough!,” I say.

This is a blantant waste of money and a blatant mis-use of a newpreneur’s trust in a mentor. Formating your content into an ebook does not take any extra software – it can be done, for free, online.

*******************
My reader writes:

(Laura)…thank you for being available!

I have written a book & I am trying to get it wrapped up so I can do an e-book & also a hard bound book. the snags I have are:

1. in the resizing of photos to intersperse in the pages,
2. finding a software program that will format the book both in e-book format & also ready for hardbound format
3. how to make the links for affiliates live at the end of the book (yours would be a good one to include)
4. formatting a cover
5. also to get an affiliate link do I have to have a website or can I get an affiliate link if I just have an e-book? and how would I go about getting the affiliate link to include?

I liked your e-book & wondered if you had a specific software that you used to format or if you did that yourself.

Also when you added the photos, did you do the resizing yourself to fit in the appropriate location or did you have a software program that did the resizing for you?

My problem has been that I go off on 20 different tangents & never end up completing one. So I have decided to complete the book first & then get the website up & running to accommodate the selling of the book as well as other products.

…those are a few of my immediate problems.

Thanks for listening!

Karen

**********************

Dear Karen:

Thanks for your note. I’m a little pressed for time for the next week, but wanted to get a quick note out to you today….

My old ebook “Back Road Riches” was one of my first. I bought software to format it as a little piece of software containing the book’s content. I would not suggest following this route. People are wary of downloading software these days. Ebooks are acceptable in PDF format as it has less chance of containing viruses. Plus PDF format allows for easy printing for your end reader.

There’s lots of free software available to create PDF files from your Word document. Actually adobe.com (makers of the PDF format) allows 5 free conversions per email address.

So my modern day advice is write your ebook in Word or WordPerfect, etc. which will also format your photos to fit, convert it to pdf and distribute it as such.

As for hardcover format, you’ll need to follow your publisher’s direction on that as each varies. Generally they would edit then typeset it to their own specs anyway.

If you’re not a graphical person I’d suggest paying someone over at elance.com $20-40 to create a cover for you. Books are certainly judged by their covers. Again, your publisher for hardcover will have their own version of a cover created in-house (generally without your say or control).

As for affiliate links every network is different. You’ll have to check with network of products you want to promote (i.e. http://www.smartzville.com/clickbank.htm). To make them active in Word you just type the url in.

As for your last trouble – going off on tangents and never completing anything – I want you to know we all have this problem. The good thing is that you are aware of it! Now that you know how you ‘operate’ you can force yourself to stay on track and complete one task at a time. Believe me saying it is easier than actually doing it!

Have a great day, write anytime….

Laura Childs

The ‘Ask Laura’ 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. Proof of all email communication between Laura Childs and her contacts can be provided upon request.

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This gentleman wrote me because he wanted to start a side business online and return to a rural lifestyle away from the city. However, he couldn’t think of an idea for his online business!

Although this email is quite old (2004) and has focus on info-products and ebay selling (two areas which are harder to make money at now), the premise still stands. You must have a passion and an interest in your business to really make it online.

‘Making it online’ could be making money, making a name for yourself, or making a website that grows to huge proportion and has an exit strategy.

The conversation begins with defining yourself, your hobbies, your interests and ends with an idea for an online business.

Ideas for Online Business – Ask Laura (August 30, 2004)

Hello Laura:

I am 48 and my wife is 38. We have no kids living with us. My wife is from a town of about 15,000 in Indiana, and I grew up in a town about the same size in California. We have lived in *edited* for the last 12 years. The income here is good, and housing can be had for a reasonable percent of your wages.

Unfortunately, there is no time to enjoy much.

Work hours and commutes are long and any recreation you think of to do, there is already a crowd there with the same idea.

My wife is an administrative assistant and I have spent the last 30 some years working in the parts department at Chrysler dealerships. We both enjoy being creative and crafty. I also enjoy wood working and building something out of salvage or scrap pieces, and enjoy home improvement projects (I’m a HGTV junkie).

Anything where I can be creative would be interesting to me. My wife likes to crochet and also has recently gotten into candle making. Anyhow, we both crave a simpler, less harried lifestyle.

Thanks again for your consultation.

Blane

*****************

Blane:

Some of the more obvious ways to make money online is ebay selling and info product creation.

Now I don’t know much about ebay selling (other than I first started this way as well). I used to buy junk chandeliers for $1-5, paint them, repair the wiring, etc. and sell them for $150-200 each. It was fun to do, satisfied my artistic side and made me some quick cash. But it wasn’t a lucrative use of my time (dollar/hour) – I had to find these vintage chandeliers, then do repair and decoration work, then post them on ebay, then package them for postal delivery, etc.

I am aware however that many people make huge dollars on ebay with less work. I can’t say for sure, but I believe they use drop-shippers to handle all the packaging and shipping. You choose the product line, promote it, send them the orders, and they handle the rest. As I said, I’m not sure if that’s how the ‘big’ money is being made on ebay, but I do know that many people are making a killing on ebay…

Now here is something that may interest you, to capitalize on the eBay brand, deliver value to people and make money online too. Lots of people make money simply by promoting the use of ebay! For every new person you can get to sign up to use eBay, eBay pays you a minimum of $12 USD! I make over $100 month on one of my sites just from people registering new accounts with eBay.

The other way to make money online is info products (which is one of my ‘things’). Talk about awesome! You put together a little book, set up a pay page, and away you go… this is probably what you’ve already read of mine.

With your crafty talents I’d suggest something like this…do you have a piece that you have made, or that you know is being made and is selling like hotcakes somewhere?

I’ll give you an example:

My husband makes these twig lights when he was laid off for the winter he made a pile of them, and sold them at my friend’s shop for $85 (she added her percentage in, which made them $170). People bought these like crazy.

Some people said “I can make these myself…” and went home and tried. Reporting back to the store they said they could make them, and they looked alright but it took a long time, and they didnt’ look as nice as Eric’s.

Now, had we been smart we could have also supplied the shop with an info product (make your own twig lamp). And, if we had the time or the interest we could probably sell an info product on making twig lamps for other crafters.

My point is, if you can take something you love to do, that has a following or interest online (for instance my goat book – who would have thought that an info book on goats would be a good seller?), you’ll be off and running.

And if it only manages to replace part of your current income, then make another info book, and another, until you have more than one stream of income. I have 4 info products, plus multiple other streams. They replace my old income of designing sites online and I do little through the work week to support or promote these items. Now (2004) I’m in a position where I can (a) help others, and (b) work towards replacing my husband’s income.

I’ve been rambling here…but I hope some of it helps to move you forward…think on all this, what your talents and interests are, etc. and feel free to write me back – collaboration is a wonderful thing!

Laura

************

The 2007 Way to Make Money Partnering with EBAY

As I mentioned above, eBay pays website owners to send them traffic. New account setups will net you a minimum of $12 per person, but eBay also pays you for any sale you help them make. Their affiliate program is on a sliding scale, often with incentives and bonuses (which we can talk about another day). In the final months of 2006 I’ve been experimenting with a script that builds websites loaded with eBay products, all embedded with your referral link.

You can build custom websites with no html or php experience, that have serious potential to make you money online in less than an hour – start to finish. Instead of getting into how this works or how easy it is, I’m providing a free report that explains how to do this for all my online website visitors. Click: learn how to set up a website that makes money from eBay sales without having to sell a product! It’s a quick 4 pages and has a link within to a demo site where you can see and try it out for yourself.

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Last names and email addresses are never disclosed on this website, but proof of all email communication can be provided upon request. These emails are published solely to help and assist others with similar questions, situations and problems with getting their online business started or making their website business more successful.

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Of course it was also a lot more expensive to get started back then as well. Domain names were $35/year and hosting costs were out of this world. Back then I traded my website designer hours in exchange for hosting fees. Today however you can start your online business for less than $13! An $8 domain name and a $5/month hosting account and you’re set to go, get some content up and start selling!

But with the lower cost comes stronger competition and a lot more of it!

It barely matters what your interest, target market, or niche is – there are hundreds of sites, owners, and products clamoring for your attention. And your wallet.

The answers to making it online are no longer a petty mix of having a product to sell, getting traffic to a website, a little search engine optimization, and building a list.

No. The secrets to success online (and I mean real success, not just $1000 a month success), are now buried underneath a higher learning curve, powerful alliances, resonating with your market, letting your personality shine through, and staying on top of the newest and hottest techniques in online marketing, promotion. You’ve got to have your hand on the pulse at all times – in fact, you have to be the pulse in your marketplace!

This site has been designed to help you through all that. I’m still in ‘build’ mode, so the high end knowledge is not here yet, but it is coming. First we must get the basics out of the way and that is what the Ask Laura section aims to do. Real questions, from real people, with real answers. If you don’t ‘get it’ then leave a comment on the post or article that doesn’t make sense to you and I’ll reply shortly.

If you already have the basics down, it is time to head into the online learning tutorials. The very first has begun at profiting from the public domain. More will be following shortly.

As always if you need me, use the contact form – linked from every page in either the top bar or the extreme right sidebar.

Laura Childs
www.makemoneywithyourideas.com

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You’ll find an introduction to the concept there, screenshots of some of the pages, a table of contents and some preliminary information to get you started with these techniques.

One of the easiest ways to make money online. Links to the full course, which include bonus videos on how to set up your own website, examples of other online entrepreneurs who have profited greatly from these techniques and much more are found within the course.

Enjoy!

Laura Childs

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Learn to Market and Promote in 40 Pages or Less – Ask Laura (July 20/06)

“Ha!,” I say!

Internet marketing, website promotion, online business building is indeed very easy – to those that know the game or have already established a presence. But to the un-initiated, the un-taught, and sadly the opportunists who believe it can happen overnight – well, that’s a different story.

Just yesterday I received an email from a very smart and university educated friend of mine. He’s been relying, for the past two months, on someone else to create, maintain, and manage his new dream business for him and it’s not going as quickly as planned.

(Odd about that.)

But my friend has integrity and strengths and he’s wondering how he can learn what he needs to know so that he can step in and help out. The only trouble is, he thinks that one product, ebook, or training series is going to give him the online marketing education required…

Here we go. Laura, again, bursting bubbles of belief.

*******************

Dear Laura:

Do you or anyone you can recommend sell any reports or ebooks on the A to Z of internet marketing – particularly with a product and service (editor note: hardcover book and professional consultation service) such as what I have?

The reason I’m asking is that *edited* has been quite busy lately and, frankly, we thought it would be helpful for him if we had a better over all understanding of what he needs to do and how we should be assisting him from our end. The *url deleted* website project we will be developing is large and we’d like to help him as much as possible. We have a general idea but would like to get more specifics on what needs to be done from day to day…

********

My recommendation is, and likely always would be, if you’re going to run a business online then run it.

Know what it takes, make the decisions, learn how to manage it, promote it, repair it, brand it, sell it. You can’t have a business – without any knowledge of the business – and just farm out all the tasks.

Let’s be clear: You can own a business and not work it personally, hiring others to do all the grunt work. But you must know first what is involved so that you can choose and hire the best, as well as provide direction to, staff or associates performing that grunt work.

Plus, learning the business isn’t going to happen in any A to Z – I know, I’ve read a pile of them. Internet business management, promotion and techniques are in nuggets and on bread crumb trails scattered all around the web. And, what works for one business may not work for another. Each online business needs a leader at the helm that has a marketing strategy in mind.

At any rate, here’s my reply…

**********

A little pressed for time but wanted to send you a quick note…

Any A-Z won’t help you, only confuse and slow you down in your efforts.

Online business is a series of steps.

Create the site, get the traffic, brand your business/self, monetize the traffic, grow a subscriber list so that you can lather/rinse/repeat the process.

You are in site creation stage. *Name edited* is a traffic master (among other things).

If you want to learn the things that will help him in his efforts to help you, then you need to learn about getting your own content (so that the site is created), and the ways to get traffic to your site (#1 way is to have content for the search engines).

Now, since *name edited* is at the helm, your questions are better posed to him and his recommendations followed. His methods and strategy for your site may differ from the methods and strategy I use. You don’t want to follow my recommendations in case it clashes with the current marketing method and strategy he has planned for your site.

At this stage, it’s all about focus, taking one step at a time, and a targeted approach. Too many cooks…

So drop *edited* a note. Ask him what you could and should be doing.

If it was my ‘place’ to offer a suggestion I’d tell you to save your money on marketing products and ebooks right now. Invest in a satellite hookup or high speed connection (ed. n.b.: my friend is currently surfing at 28.8) and make the effort to learn site creation as *edited* teaches it. You could easily spend $1,000 in marketing products or ebooks (the extensive ones anyway) or $1,000 on a satellite system which would serve you well to gain the knowledge required; as well as moving quicker online after the learning process.

Laura Childs

The ‘Ask Laura’ 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. Proof of all email communication between Laura Childs and her contacts can be provided upon request.

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Sometimes the creators or developers send me pre-launch products to assess as well. (If you’re a developer or programmer you can contact me for this service via the contact form.)

This post in no way is meant to say these tools aren’t useful or helpful to your online business. Except when you are buying tools left and right, solutions and products in the hundreds of dollars monthly, and you haven’t made your first cent online yet.

Stop the Madness! – Ask Laura (July 18/06)

One of my mentoring clients – who is yet to get his business represented online and making any money, but who has spent plenty of money on marketing tools and resources sent me an email about a new, hot marketing software product that automates website content creation, gets top search engine ranks, helps you make money with adsense, and so much more!

Yeah, right.

My reply is below. I hope it helps you make your own sound, educated decisions about where to spend money for your online business success.

************

After assessing the software in the email link I can only say this:

“When you are making money online and have the time and resources to play with tools like this, then and only then, is the time to buy stuff like this.

“Right now you are in learning mode. Learning how to provide useful content, learning how to create a business online, learning how to brand yourself as the expert in your field. Anything and everything you spend money on right now should only be on learning what you need to know at this present time.

“Blowing money on tools and software, automated this and that, is a trap almost everyone falls into. The tools sound so exciting, the offer so enticing, but the fundamentals must be in place first.

“Please pardon my gruffness in this matter but I see so many people spending thousands of dollars on tools/software/techniques – the same people who can’t even get a page of text online and then they start yelling “internet marketing doesn’t work!”

“Yes, you have to spend money to make money, but only for a presence (domain, hosting, learning). Next comes sweat equity. Then comes financial freedom and playing with tools.”

Laura Childs

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Names are never disclosed on this website unless approved or requested. Proof of all email communication between Laura Childs and her contacts can be provided upon request. The ‘Ask Laura’ series is published solely to assist you with similar questions and resolutions to making your online business profitable.

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As you’ll see, there are many ways to build and promote a business online, even more ways to make money from your efforts.

Your First Website – Ask Laura (August 24, 2005)

Laura,

I have been researching all the guru’s on the net trying to decide how I should go about starting a web project I have in mind.

What bothers me is so many experts that give out different “solutions”. I guess in reality, there really are many different ways to skin a cat.

Well, I still don’t have a web site or a product even though I have lots of ideas for products, etc. I have decided that when I get a site I will use your materials as best I can.

You seem very sincere and I feel that I can trust you and not go down the wrong path. My whole purpose for doing this is to raise monies for Christian missionaries around the globe. But I can’t quite decide where to start; sometimes I think I should just start an affiliate site and develop my own stuff later.

Would RSS and blogs be good for that type of venture? Sooner or later I need to stop studying and pick a path and get on with it.

Thanks and God Bless,
Gene

************

Hi Gene thanks for writing!

And thanks for your kind words. You came along just when I needed to hear it!

You need to do whatever it is going to take to get you moving forward. If it is easiest to set up an affiliate site, then go down that road. If you want to start grabbing subscribers to a newsletter (so you can tell them about your own product later) then start right away. If you’re nearly completed with a product offering then finish that and get selling!

I guess what I’m trying to say is the hardest part of this all is actually getting started!

Once you’ve got some momentum there isn’t much that can hold you back.

To become successful you will need all three – a mailing list, your own product, and other people’s products that you believe in.

You can start with either of the three, pick which one you are most comfortable with and begin.

It is easier for many to set up a mini-site, write a small product, sell it at clickbank (that way other affiliates will send you traffic), and start collecting email addresses. Then you grow your business from there…

Let me know more about you and maybe I can provide you with something better than general information…

Laura

p.s. by the way I was in ’study mode’ myself for quite a few years before I got busy and started implementing some of the stuff I had learned.

************

Last names and email addresses are never disclosed on this website, but proof of all email communication can be provided upon request. These emails are published solely to help and assist others with similar questions, situations and problems with getting their online business started or making their website business more successful.

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Earning With Adsense and Free Articles – Ask Laura (May 22, 2006)

Hi Laura,

I have a question that never has been answered clearly by others so I thought maybe you might be able to enlighten me.

My daughter and I are working together …edited location… and we’re getting ready to use the RSS. Here’s my question. We’re still basically “newbies” so I hope this question will make sense to you.

We’re getting all this content information from the free article directories and adding them to our website. Each article has a resource box with a URL at the bottom. When I do a feed and showcase a particular article and people decide to go there, when they read the article they will come to the resource box at the bottom – isn’t it human nature then to click on that URL – which will take them away from our site to someone else’s?

It just seems like the chances of them clicking on Google Adsense Ads, or an affiliate link or coming back to our home page (if we were selling a specific product) is very slim.

How do people make money when it seems to me they are basically advertising for someone else (whoever is listed in that resource box) when they use the free articles?

My daughter’s question: Can we put RSS on content pages which are being used specifically for Google Adsense?

Thanks,
Therese

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Therese:

You asked: “How do people make money when it seems to me they are basically advertising for someone else (whoever is listed in that resource box) when they use the free articles?”

To be honest, I truly don’t know. Your comments and thoughts are right on the money – and your skepticism. This truly isn’t the best or easiest way to make money online. Yes, a lot of people click the author’s website link at the bottom of the article. One way to overcome this is to place an adsense block part way into the article – if they get bored with the author’s writing, your site visitor will click an adsense ad. Depending on the market, your readers may also recognize Adsense blocks and ignore them just as they ignore big flashing banner advertisements.

I do believe the ’secret’ to making money with adsense by generating free article content sites is volume and targeting. A finely defined target market with a mega site (thousands of articles) and a lot of traffic. Still, if you’re using the same articles that thousands others are using, you won’t get much traffic because the search engines (google especially) dislike duplicated content as a rule. Original content is truly the only way to go for traffic.

I’m happy to answer other questions if you have them so feel free to email again.

You also asked if using RSS on Adsense pages is okay. It’s a little gray at the moment. Google’s TOS says no scraped content, but it all depends where you’re getting that scraped RSS content from. If you’re getting it from Google Search results, that’s a no no, but you’re not likely to be ‘caught’ unless someone alerts Google to the activity. On the other hand, if you’re grabbing articles through RSS that the author or site feed owner specifically created for webmasters to use, you’re okay. Again though, this is duplicate content that likely thousands of other websites are using.

These are tough questions to answer fully, without knowing your market, your content source, your site’s url, etc. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more specific, but write back anytime.

Laura Childs
www.makemoneywithyourideas.com

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Parts of this correspondence have been edited to protect the identity of the querant. Last names, locations, urls or email addresses are never published. Each letter has been stored in my private files to supply to web authorites if need be. You should follow similar practices whenever you publish, sell, or reference an outside source.

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Dear Laura,

Good Morning! I’ve been reading through www.smartzville.com, and keep running into new ideas on new pages. And I’ve found out that I’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 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 “oh crap, bad move”.

So, after a day of “oh well”, 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’t think about it before. What’s the idea? Simple, find an already running site, grab it, and do a little remodling to make it better.

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’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.

The one with the product is …url removed…, 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, …url removed…, 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.

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’m trying not to spend too much more since I’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?

Well, thanks for the help.

William

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Dear William:

By the way, it’s great to hear from you again!

My friend to be honest, I liked your first idea. It was original. I’m not sure where you’re going with it, but I envision it to be personable, interesting and has the potential to grow quite a following. Please don’t give up on it just yet – a lot of times a first inspiration (especially when you started with a love for it) is one of the best ideas ever!

And don’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 – exchanging hours in lieu of a hosting fee each month!

Now I can’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.

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’s just so much competition and only so many things to write about much less originality to set yourself apart.

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

All copycats of the site you bought. There are many more. As I suspect, the same is true with credit repair.

I am not trying to burst your bubble, I’m just making sure you don’t buy more sites on ebay, and that you know that you must rewrite every bit of text on those new sites or you’ll never get any search engine traffic.

Google in particular does not like duplicate content or cookie cutter sites.

The only other expense I could alert you to is an autoresponder account for website subscriptions (once you start getting traffic you’ll want to start getting that traffic to subscribe so you can continue to keep them updated and promote products that will help them).

Drop me back a note if you want to talk more about any of this.

Laura

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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 – which was really quite good and I hope one day I can link to it to show you. He’s an original person with an original idea, just like you are, and that is where the potential to make money online lies!

William did write back again shortly after and said this:

“…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’t even know what the downloadable product looks like due to I can’t seem to find it, but it’s for sale for $19.95. I should have seen this coming I guess. I’m sure this would make a good lesson for your readers. Thanks again, William”

Friends the big lesson of this story is be careful of what you buy on ebay websites. Although there are some smokin’ 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…

Laura Childs
www.makemoneywithyourideas.com

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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.

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