Month end reports used to give me ulcers when I worked at an office, but now that I work from home, I really look forward to them. I mean REALLY.

Looking back over all the numbers helps me decide what’s working and what isn’t. It lets me see what parts of my sites need improving, what parts are working really well, and what parts need to be scrapped completely.

It doesn’t take long once everything is set up, and the information gained from it is well worth the time investment.

All you need is OpenOffice or MS Word. I do all my reports in OpenOffice Calc. If you want to get all organize-y, you’ll need a printer, binder and a 3-hole punch as well.

I take all the info from Clickbank, Adsense, Google Analytics, etc. and pile it all into readable reports that I then print out each month.

I keep these reports neatly organized in my super cool binder. I bought myself a cutesy girly binder from Walmart and some funky dividers just to add some fun. As if month end reports aren’t fun enough right?!?

Now I can go through these reports and map out a plan to increase my numbers for next month. Since I’ve started doing these reports, my numbers have steadily increased. It makes such a big difference when you have a really good understanding of everything that goes on with your online business.

Now I’m off to the cabin to roast some wieners and drink beer!

I took the list of posts I published in June and these are the 5 most popular:

1. Creative Ideas for a New Blog Header
   Some ideas that will hopefully inspire you should you happen to be designing a new header for your blog. Changing your header once in awhile is a great way to freshen up the look of your blog.
2. Clickbank Tip – Turning On Instant Notification
   Being emailed each time you make a sale in Clickbank is a nice feature instead of having to log in to your account each time you want to check.
3. Ergonomically correct monitor height
   Working at home, for most of us, means spending long hours sitting at the computer. This can wreak havoc on your body so it’s important to set your desk area up to be as ergonomically correct as you can, including your monitor.
4. Can You Write? Make Money In 5 Days!
   A ridiculously simple idea to write and profit from a short report. Create multiple reports and start earning a nice passive income.
5. Dig my new background?
   I added a background to my blog to spice it up a bit. I’m pretty pleased with the results. You can see the before shot and scoff at how boring it was.

~~~

This isn’t really fair to the poor June posts that were published closer to the end of the month since they didn’t have as much time to generate traffic before I checked the stats – but oh well. Suck it up end-of-june posts. Maybe next month you should think about formulating in my head earlier rather than later.

I know from experience that the tasks on this list are great ways to expand your reach, connect with new people, and solidify relationships. This in turn will mean more exposure to your blog/website and more customers/sales.

Why?

Because doing these things helps you stand out from the rest of the crowd.

A lot of marketers like to complain about social networks like Twitter and say how much of a waste of time they are, but if you manage the time you spend on them wisely, they can increase your business exponentially.

This list of “chores” will help you do that so you can continue to focus on maintaining and improving your site.

If you do, take a look at your stats in your Author’s Area. Under Author Tools, “View My Article Reports” and make a note of your top performing articles.

The articles that have the most views, clicks, comments, etc. are obviously topics that people are interested in.

Now take those articles (providing they’re all related) and bundle them together to create a short report.

Expand on each article to make it unique by adding:

• photos
• screenshots
• a case study
• a worksheet
• a resource list
• an interview

Beef it up with valuable content and badda bing! You have a short report. You can do this all in one day.

Now profit from that sucka!

Q1. What is your Number 1 strategy in generating more Page Views to each of your articles?

A1. I don’t have a #1 strategy to generate more article pageviews cuz I’m a total badass. Occasionally I’ll link to them from a blog post on one of my related blogs or I’ll mention it in a newsletter to my subscribers, but at the moment, that’s it. Let it be known that I suck at that!

Q2. How do you write the Title of your article to get more traffic?

A2. I have a file on my computer of all the article titles that I thought were great. If I can’t think of a compelling headline on my own, I’ll take a look through this swipe file of mine for inspiration. I don’t typically do keyword research when deciding on a title. Another badass move, but oh well. I write for humans. Not robots. Robotic beings don’t rule the world…yet.

Q3. How do you write the body (main content) of the article effectively so that it gets picked up by the publishers?

A3. My first rule of writing content is NOT to write for search engines. I write to ONE person. I define the problem they have, and I write about the solution that I have to offer. I write as myself. I write how I speak. I write in a conversational tone and I inject some humour in there if I can.

Q4. What is your Number 1 strategy behind writing an effective Author Resource Box to get more clickthroughs to the link that you provide?

A4. I write a custom resource box for each article. I continue writing about the topic and offer a link for more info. For example: “To learn more about [good anchor text link], visit my blog at http://myblog.com where author [yours truly] shares her tips and experience.”

I include the anchor text for SEO purposes and my main URL for tracking purposes. (I have a google alert set up for my URLs so I know when an article has been published or someone mentions my site – this is also a good way to catch those sumbitches who don’t make the URLs clickable. Jerks.)

Q5. Got any tips for the newbie article marketers? Please share.

A5. My #1 tip is to focus on really great content. Don’t rehash all the other articles that have already been published. Come up with a really unique idea and cash in on it. It’s hard and a bit time consuming, and you may not end up with as many articles, but it’s worth it because people actually read and publish those types of articles. They also get a lot of clicks. Most importantly, they establish you as an expert which solidifies your brand and garners trust in your readers.

How about you? Do you have any article tips of your own to share?

Can you wait 5 days?

Sure, some quick cash would be nice, but wouldn’t a steadily increasing paycheck be even better?

How about writing a small report, and setting up a short ecourse to promote it?

This post will tell you how so listen up! (This post is also full of free goodies, FYI.)

This method is easy. Yeah, I said easy. It requires work and some of your time, but it doesn’t require a degree to get it right.

This method will also generate as much income as you want it to. The more you promote it, test it and tweak it, the more money it will make. The more you repeat this method, the more your income will grow.

So let’s begin.

Summary:

1. Write a short report
2. Promote that short report with an ecourse (If you think ecourses are old school and overdone, think again!)
3. Build your list

So three steps.

Let’s dive into step 1 – Writing a short report.

If you already have a website in a certain niche, then chances are you already have an idea or two for a short report topic. If not, it’s brainstorming time! Here are a few ways you can drum up some ideas:

• Dig through your website statistics and find out what people are searching for to reach your site. Any “how to” key phrases should provide some ideas. Pay attention to this information because it tells you EXACTLY what your readers are looking for.
• Poll or survey your readers. You can set up a form on your website or send out a request to your email list. Preferably both. If you don’t already have a list, get one!
• Hang around in related forums and find out what people are talking about. This works every time.

Now that you have an idea, you need to make sure it’s a profitable one. The “how to” and “tips” reports are usually winners. People are always wanting to know how to do stuff. They want tips to help them become more successful at whatever they’re doing.

For example:

“How To Create a Profitable Ecourse in 3 Hours”

or

“Copywriting Tips That Will Double Your Sales”

or

“7 Things You Must Do to Save Hundreds On Your Next Vehicle Purchase”

Just make sure that the title of your short report isn’t so far fetched that it’s unbelievable. It has to be compelling, but not ridiculously over the top.

Now write the report!

You can write it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. If you can’t hire someone and you can’t write worth a shit, trade services with someone who can.

Writing a short report doesn’t have to be a huge deal. I can sometimes sit down with my ancient laptop and whip one up in an hour. If what I’m writing about requires a lot of research, it can take days. There are also a crapload of short reports sitting on my hard drive that were started but never finished.

Don’t be like me.

Finish what you start!

Create an outline then fill in the blank spots. And read this book. It’s free and it’s good. If your head isn’t spewing out awesome ideas by the time you’re done it, I will eat my own shorts.

When your report is finished, you need to figure out a price. Each market is different, and you may be surprised at what price point works best, so this is definitely something to test. If it’s fairly short – 5 to 10 pages – start out with $7 and test from there.

Ok, on to step 2 – Writing an ecourse.

Typically, ecourses – or email mini-courses – are about 7 days long. Or 7 issues. They don’t HAVE to be though. They can be as long or short as you want. There is no “right” answer, but you have to take your readers into consideration.

If you send out an ecourse about gardening, your readers may want some longer, more detailed messages. If you’re targeting internet marketers who are already inundated with emails, you may want to keep them short and sweet, and no more than 7 in a row.

Decide on your topic for each email, then write about it! It doesn’t have to take a lot of time and it doesn’t have to be an award-winning masterpiece. But you do need to make it really good. Make it informative, useful, interesting, entertaining. Make it worth the time it took for your readers to sign up and read it.

If you already have a lot of content for your topic, consider re-purposing it for your ecourse. Break up some articles into smaller lessons for each email, or rewrite them and add a few more exclusive tips or info. You can even add some interviews, worksheets, resource lists, videos, audio, etc. to add to the value of your ecourse.

(I wrote up a more detailed report about creating profitable ecourses for my subscribers. Signup with the form to the right at the top and you’ll have instant access after you confirm your subscription.)

Throw your newly created ecourse into an autoresponder and send the test emails to yourself to read over. Better yet, send them to someone who will proofread them for you. When everything is looking good, it’s on to….

Step 3 – Building your list.

Now this is a gigantic topic and I could write about it for days, but instead, I’m going to point you to some awesome resources that talk about building lists much better than I could.

List Marketing Tips – This is a free 20 page report that is chock full of tips that will not only help you promote your list, but profit from it as you build it.

Triple Opt-In Requests – Another free 20 page report with tips that will help you increase your optins without increasing traffic. (One thing that I did to increase my own optins was to add an arrow with the optin form. Something bright and eye-catching will do the trick.)

Basically, create a really great ecourse that people will want to sign up for, then promote the frick outta that there link!

• twitter it
• put it on every page of your site
• put it in forum signatures
• blog about it frequently
• include it in your email signature
• submit articles to article directories with the link in your author bio
• create a free report to entice people and make it viral
• contact other site owners and offer them a large cut of your profits if they help you promote it
• etc.

If it takes you 2 days to write the report itself, another 2 days to create the ecourse, and 1 day to set it all up (autoresponder, optin page, etc.) then you can start profiting from it in 5 days from now.

Rinse and repeat once a month (or whenever you have the energy for it) and you’ll be creating a profitable little empire for yourself.

And don’t just sit there thinking about doing it, just friggin’ DO IT! I know you can!

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I still thought it was a little bland so yesterday I decided to add a background to it.

Here is the “before” theme:

And here is the new and improved (I think) “after” theme:

I love me some textured backgrounds, and I made this one at bgpatterns which I found via TutorialBlog. Very cool.

So yeah…I hope you like it. I think it’s a vast improvement. I had to tinker with some code for awhile to get everything to line up so if you’re using the Copyblogger theme and you’d like to add a background, let me know if you’re having trouble.

Working from home usually means some pretty long hours in front of the computer so if your desk isn’t set up to be as ergonomically correct as possible, your neck and back might pay the price like mine are at the moment.

I’ve talked about making your desk ergonomically correct before, but since my only problem is my monitor height, this post will list some of the ways to correct it without using some scrap pieces of wood (or even a saucepan like an ex boyfriend did) to adjust the height.

Your monitor should be at a height where you don’t have to tilt you head up or down to look at it. When looking at the screen, your eyes should be level with the top half of the monitor.

You should never have to lean forward to see your monitor. My monitor used to sit so far back on my desk that I was leaning forward the entire time I sat at the computer. I didn’t realize it until my daughter took a picture of me while I was working. It looked awful. I looked like Igor’s girlfriend. Moving the monitor closer to the front of my desk fixed that up in a jiffy.

If you can’t move your monitor closer, change the resolution of your screen to something smaller so it’s easier to see and read.

You could also adjust the height of your chair so you’re viewing your monitor at the right height, but you may have to adjust the height of your keyboard and mouse to stay all ergonomic-like. Your feet should be able to sit flat on the floor. If not, raising your chair might not be the solution.

I sniffed around on Amazon for some ergonomic monitor stands and found a few that I’d like to try but in the end, the Ergotron LX Desk Mount Arm won me over.

Not only can you adjust the height, but you can turn that puppy any which way you want. This is especially nice if you watch movies or TV on your computer. Plus it just looks cool.

Setting up your desk so it’s at the maximum comfy level will make sure you’re working more efficiently. Interrupting that masterpiece blog post you’re writing by rubbing your neck and back every 2 minutes isn’t all that productive.

If you do a bit of digging around though, you’ll find that you CAN set up a notification system – but only if you want to get your hands a tad dirty.

It took me a few tries to get it right, and I had to splice a bit of code together from a few different websites to come up with what seemed to be the right stuff – so I’m just going to post it for you here along with a step-by-step guide to turning on Clickbank notifications.

(Note: You’ll need access to your server to do this, otherwise you would have to contact your web host to upload the file for you.)

1. Log in to your Clickbank account. That’s kind of a “duh” one, but you never know.

2. Click the “Account Settings” tab and go to “My Site“.

3. At the bottom of the My Site page is an “Advanced Tools” bar with an empty field beside “Secret Key” and “Instant Notification URL“. Click “Edit“.

4. You’ll need to request access to Instant Notification, so click that URL.

5. Read over the terms and agree to them. Submit the form.

6. Enter a Secret Key in the Secret Key field. The secret key can be up to 16 letters or digits and must be ALL CAPS.

7. Copy this code into a plain text file, (I use Notepad) and save it to your desktop as a php file. For example, I saved mine as cb.php so it was easy to remember. Make sure to change your email address in the code to your own before saving it as well as the secret key you came up with in the previous step.

<?php

?>

8. Put that file on your server using an FTP program. I chose to upload the file right to my root directly so the URL ends up being:

http://www.mydomain.com/cb.php

(Hopefully you already have one and know how to use it. If not, leave a comment and I’ll help you out.)

9. Back in the Clickbank site, enter that URL (http://www.mydomain.com/cb.php) – after replacing “mydomain” with your own of course – into the Instant Notification URL 1: field. I left the second field blank.

10. Before saving changes, click on “Test” to make sure everything is hunky dory. You should receive a test email to the email address you put in the php file.

11. A window should pop up to notify you that the test was a success. Hooray! Now you can save changes.

Now you’ll receive an email each time you make a Clickbank sale. Sweet, hey?

Time Sensitive Note: I’ve got another Clickbank tip coming up in Monday’s MamasOnTheWeb Newsletter (June 15th, 2009) – one that I just implemented and increased my sales – so make sure you sign up! It’s the form to the right –>>

1. You can’t use Skype and WampServer at the same time.

I like to use WampServer when customizing Wordpress themes. It allows me to create a “server” on my computer so I can make changes without anybody seeing. I also like to use Skype to connect with clients.

Sometimes I need to use Skype at the same time I’m running WampServer. Unfortunately, WampServer won’t connect if Skype is open. Bummer.

2. Google Gears makes Firefox crash when uploading images in Wordpress

For a week straight, my browser would crash every time I tried to upload an image in my blog. Since I do this multiple times a day for multiple blogs, you can imagine how freaking frustrated I was getting! After doing a Google search, I found out that the Google Gears add-on for Firefox was the culprit. After disabling it, everything worked fine.

So if you’re having either of these issues, you know how to fix them now!