Internet Home Business Success - An Internet Marketing Blog

$7 Script – A Review

Lesley Johnston — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:34:12 +0000

I’ve been using a $7 script for several smaller projects and I absolutely love the simplicity of it, as well as the results! So what is the $7 script and what can it do for your business?

Basically it provides you with a complete sales system, including product delivery, affiliate program and security, not to mention the option to include a one time offer to your sales process all for the pricely sum of $7! This is a system that you can use over and over again, as many times as you like.

There are various ways you can use the $7 script, this includes using the sales page as a giveaway offer, where you offer a free product, such as a report, audio or video in return for your visitors email address therefore building your mailing list (a huge must for anyone with an internet business).

Then you can add a one time offer (OTO) that relates to the initial offer for a nominal price and increase your profits at the same time.

Another way to use the initial sales page, is by actually selling $7 reports from it. Novel idea I know! Infact, it doesn’t have to be $7, it can be any price you choose. Again you can add a one time offer to this process as well.

One of the great things about the $7 script is the product delivery system. When a customer buys your offer, or signs up for your free offer, the script will also, upon receipt of payment via Paypal, automatically deliver your product to your customer. If they also buy your one time offer, they will also get a link automatically, to download this purchase as well.

Lastly, there is the inbuilt affiliate program. It’s pretty basic in structure but it’s very effective. As you are using this script to primarily build your mailing list, you can offer customers and/or your mailing list the option of earning a commission for promoting your product. The majority of the time you will offer 100% commissions for those promoting your offer, afterall they are driving buying visitors to your mailing list who may very well be interested in other products and services that you sell.

If you have a few digital products that you are looking for a way to sell them, with a very limited budget you can’t go wrong with investing $7 in the $7 script. It’s very simple to set up, complete with page templates.

To get your copy of the $7 script click here.

List of Article Directories

Lesley Johnston — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:06:22 +0000

There is no point having an article marketing challenge if there aren’t any article directories to submit articles to! Here are a list of article directories that may be of use to you. I’ll add to it as I come across other article directories that I’ve missed.

Here are the initial list of 30 article directories.

Submit to each of these directories and find out which ones drive the most traffic to your website for the same keyword.

1888Articles.com

ABCArticleDirectory.com

ArticleCompilation.com

ArticleOnlineDirectory.com

FreeUniqueArticles.com

PLR Articles – What Are PLR Articles and How Can I Use Them

Lesley Johnston — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:25:41 +0000

PLR articles are articles that have been written by an author and instead of keeping the copyright for these articles themselves, they are selling the copyright to the articles, or giving them away with private label rights, allowing others to put their name to the article as the original author, quite legally.

When you buy PLR articles you need to be aware that you are not the only person to have received these articles so you need to edit them in some way before use. The more widespread the articles, the more you should edit them to put your own spin on it. Often business owners find it easier to edit articles than actually write them from scratch and plr gives you this advantage.

You can always outsource the editing of your private label rights articles too.

There are different quality plr content, namely those which have a limited distribution e.g. only 100 packs will ever be sold. These are usually of higher quality and will have less competition for each article as you can bet that many who buy the same plr article pack as yourself will not do anything with it!

Again, you should always edit them to make sure that your article is unique and isn’t an exact duplicate of others who buy the package and use it without doing any editing to it. You will also find that although you can edit the articles in any way you wish and even sell on your edited version, you can not sell on the private label rights to the package you’ve just bought. This is what makes your package more exclusive and therefore more valuable.

The other type are plr content with no restrictions and with mass distribution, where you may find the same bundle of articles on many different plr selling websites, with lots of people editing and using the same content and claiming to be the author. These articles still have value and can be used very successfully, you just need to choose carefully where you use them.

There are lots of different uses for plr content, these include using them for website and blog content, which can save you lots of time without having to think up new topics to write about, you are already half way finished by using plr articles. Many use plr articles for creating Squidoo lens and Hubpage content, or for building up an autoresponder series, you can also add a few plr articles together to create a report that you can either giveaway on your website to new subscribers or to sell for a profit.

Although using plr articles is a great time saving strategy, remember that if you are putting your name to that content, you must think about your online reputation. Don’t put your name to content that hasn’t been edited, nor would tarnish your reputation as a business professional.

There are countless ways to use plr articles to help grow your business and increase your online profits, the only real limitation is with your imagination and time available.

Article Marketing – Jan 2010 Challenge Update

Lesley Johnston — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 10:29:42 +0000

It’s funny how all the best laid plans seem to get changed, almost as soon as they are made! I’ve created a few articles but have held back from publishing them until I get a few more things in place. I’ve decided to create articles in the same niche to submit them to different article directories to see which ones are the most effective. They will all be pointing to the same webpage, to test the effects of article marketing.

One of the reasons I’ve been kicked off course slightly (ok I was sidetracked!) was with the thought about using plr articles. I began wondering if, when I was writing so many articles, whether I could monetize them in another way, other than just using them for traffic generation. Therefore, I am going to be packaging up a few of the articles I’ve already written and putting them into plr packages to sell, rather than use them to submit to article directories.

I’m just wondering how many income streams I can create during 2010 and if it’s only taking me a day or 2 to create new ones for my business then there could be quite a few!

New article directories are appearing every day and different people have different preferences to which article directory is their favourite, so I’ll be listing a list of all the article directories I could find, as well as my top 5.

As with everything online, things are taking longer than I would like and I’m sure outsourcing many of these steps would both save me time and money in the long run, however, until I have my own article marketing strategy that works, I’ll be doing things myself. Perhaps it’s the wrong call but I won’t know until I actually put it into practise and then test both.

Many of the article sections in any article directory have huge competition so how does a newbie to article marketing make a splash? Does keyword research play a part? Does marketing the article really matter?

I’m almost ready to start submitting articles, as well as releasing my special report – which now is a free plr article package that I’ll be giving away. In my research into plr articles, I’ve found there is a huge difference between those which are sold with resell rights (you can then sell the plr articles to others) and those with limited distribution, which are obviously more expensive.

As well as taking part in this article marketing challenge, I’m still running my internet home business and building different income streams, therefore I’m sure my results will be different from those who solely focus on article marketing for a month. However, if you are like me and wearing many hats and juggling home, business and motherhood then there is hope!

Article Marketing – January 2010 Monthly Challenge

Lesley Johnston — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:30:48 +0000

Yes, Article Marketing is going to be my first challenge of 2010. I’ve used article marketing before, for a variety of my sites in the past to differing degrees of success. What I’ve started to realise is that there is no point writing an article and submitting it to an article directory if you don’t have a strategy behind your article. Yes, even if you have a nice little resource box at the bottom of your article, with a link back to the home page of your domain, this does not mean you have a strategy!

Not only do I want to test out how effective different article directories are for submissions, but also a few other strategies as well.

1. Does keywords really matter in an article?

2. Does marketing your article with web 2.0 properties work better than keyword marketing?

3. Does having really focused niche articles work better? As I wasn’t quite clear in what I meant by this I thought I should explain it – is it better to write 30 articles on a variety of subjects or is it better to write 30 articles on one subject? Which would bring the most amount of traffic and ultimately conversions? Does it matter?

4. How effective is article spinning software? Should it be used?

5. What about plr articles? Is it worth paying a few dollars for plr articles or should you write them yourself?

6. Is there a system to article marketing? If so, what is the most effective system.

As you can see I do have quite a few questions about article marketing that I want to answer. There are lots of people out there who say – article marketing is great, and I would agree – however in 2010, I want to know exactly WHY it’s so great, and if I can create an article marketing system for my business so that I can then use that system to both automate and increase my online profits then I want to figure this out asap.

The whole point of running a business is to make money. If the activities we do within our business don’t make us money, what’s the point of doing these activities. They should be either directly or indirectly putting money into our bank account.

With article marketing it will be indirectly, as you either direct those who read your article to either a free report you’ve written, related to the article and capture their email address so that you can then repeatedly contact them at later dates, or you can send them directly to your sales page. Which do you think works best? Me too, a free report!

So day 1, I’m creating my free report to give away in my chosen niche and setting up the capture page and autoresponder on my website (for this purpose I am going to be using this website). I’m using GetResponse for this, although you can use Aweber. These seem to be the most popular email marketing softwares available. I’m also finding 5 to 10 article directories to submit my articles to, that I’ll add here tomorrow.

Accountability

Lesley Johnston — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:16:12 +0000

There is nothing like being held publicly accountable for making me take the extra steps and really push myself forward to achieving the goals I set myself. I’m determined to make 2010 my best year yet, for all aspects of my life. Yes, I am dragging myself away from being a workaholic to having a more balanced life. What that looks like at the moment, I haven’t a clue, but I’m sure my daughter will have some shopping plans in there somewhere with me!

I’m all for working smarter and multi-tasking so I’ll be taking a marketing tactic each month and focusing purely on that tactic for the entire month. The fine details still need to be figured out, but there is no point giving something a half hearted effort or having a scattered approached (looks sheepishly at the floor) so I want to see what effect 12 months of focused effort to ONE marketing tactic can make to my business, as well as to see which marketing tactics work the best.

Although I’ve picked up lots of different tips and strategies over the years, I still have a huge yearning to learn more, and more, and more about internet marketing and what strategies you can use to improve your chances of running a successful online business. However, now I am learning then APPLYING. This makes a huge difference to your results – sounds simple but how many tactics do you learn about, think how great they would be for your business then NOT apply it? Unfortunately lots of the theory I had learned, turned out not to be so great in implementation while others I loosely tested turned out to give a great result, so focused more on those.

My biggest passion is learning something and then passing that knowledge on to others, well the bits that work anyway! So each month I will be producing a case study on each internet marketing strategy. You can try this yourself. Pick a strategy, monitor and document your progress then sell the product (if/when you are successful).

2010 is a year for focused action and big thinking. What can you achieve during 2010?

Creating A REAL Online Business

Lesley Johnston — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:17:59 +0000

As you may have read already on The Business Mum website that I’ve been online for too many years without making a profit and unfortunately there are probably more people in that situation at the moment than there are, who are making a really good living. So what makes the difference? What differentiates those who are failing online with those who are succeeding?

For years I kidded myself that because I had a website and some traffic to my site, joined a few business networking groups that I was running a business. I was focused on discussing business with people, helping them out and I figured once I’d build a reputation I’d maybe sell them something later on. Does this sound like a real business to you? No, but at the time I would have argued til I was blue in the face that I was a business woman and I was running a real business.

One giveaway that I was kidding myself was when I was doing my financial accounts. I used to do them at the last minute, so they were always at least a year behind. Why bother, when I wasn’t making any money or doing many sales – just create them at the last minute to the tax office and I’d be ok. Again, does this sound like a real business to you? Does this sound familiar?

Can you imagine Microsoft or any of the so-called online gurus behaving this way? Not on your life! They know up to date figures, they know that every day they are going to get x new subscribers and when they release a new product or push an affiliate product they will receive $x within a certain period of time. They know exactly what their profits are, what their actual sales and expenses to date are. Sound boring to you? Well it did to me too as I wanted to focus on the fun stuff, chatting with friends on Skype or Yahoo Messenger about business, and because I was chatting about business, I was busy in my business right? Or I would be revamping a website, or creating an ebook that never seemed to get finished.

What I realised was that if I wanted others to take me and my business seriously and start making money, then I had to start taking my business seriously and acting as though it was successful. Rather than thinking, well when I start making money then I will track and measure my results, I’ll get my accounts up to date, I’ll create a business plan that can tell me what I need to do to get to where I want to be in my business.

When I took off my rose coloured glasses, I realised things weren’t quite so rosy. It’s a bit like the film The Matrix. Do you take the blue pill or the red pill?

Taking off those glasses was the best thing I’ve done for my business. 2010 is going to be my best year yet because I’ve planned for it. Can you say the same? If you want help, then I’m here. I’ve been there, not done that and can help!

Reflection Over 2009

Lesley Johnston — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:22:01 +0000

2009 has been a very interesting year for me, one where I can honestly say my business started to take shape in a way that I was finally happy with, as well as generate an income for myself. The penny finally dropped in 2009 for me and I’m so relieved and so was my bank manager!

After being online for so many years I’ve picked up some great tips and skills that I started to teach others during 2009 and I think I found my forte – teaching! Which makes me think about the old saying – those who can, do, those who can’t teach, so I’d like to think that I’m an exception to that phrase as I am teaching what HAS worked for me, to save those who wish to follow a similar path the extra long route I took.

The growth of Social Networking for Business Woman has been amazing during 2009 and I plan on building on that success during 2010. Relationship marketing is going to be so huge in 2010 that this group is going to play a major part in many business women’s strategies for 2010.

Internet Growth Systems started off being the major focus of my attentions, spreading it’s name locally as well as internationally. I do believe that making money has a system and hence the name Internet Growth Systems, which focused on existing businesses growing their business online.

As I had many people asking me for help getting started online, Internet Growth Systems didn’t quite seem to fit the bill, so wanting to put everything for newbies in one place, I realised I had an old domain I’d registered that I could use – Business Startup Courses. I won’t mention all the other “useless” domains I’ve registered when I had another money making brain-wave!

Finally The Joomla Chick, I love Joomla and wanted to put all my most asked Joomla questions into blog posts and answer them here. I didn’t quite give it the attention I wanted to but it’s still there, getting traffic and earning an income each month. Something I need to look at in 2010.

2009 has been a hugely valuable learning year for me as I took massive action in different areas and found out some things worked while others didn’t – they failed miserably! However, this has been far more valuable for me, knowing why things haven’t worked so I can amend my strategy until they do work. For too many years I wasted time in theory land, I believed something would work but didn’t test it. 2009 has been a testing year and if I take anything from 2009 that I can pass on, is TAKE ACTION. Do something and measure the results and focus on what IS working and build on that.

There are some things you will need.

A Website

A Mailing List

Products – Either your own or affiliate products

Traffic

and a plan on growing each of these parts of your business.

Let’s make 2010 our best year yet.