Internet Marketing Simplified » Product Reviews

Radically Increase Your Opt In Rate With NO Extra Work

Jackie Lee — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:31:38 +0000

As you know I’ve been working on some goals related to building my list. I’ve added the lightbox from Get response ~ which is totally uncustomizable (and pretty ugly) ~ it’s also given some readers problems of popping up every time they stop by the site, which is not what I want.

I have been actively seeking a solution to this problem.

Here’s what I WANTED. I wanted a gorgeous lightbox, that I could customize, I could easily add my own content, maybe a checklist to. I wanted it to be super easy ~ like a plugin or something ~ upload and go, no messing in the code. I wanted it to work the way I wanted it to work ~ show up once, and not again.

Well, last week I found it. Not even launched yet, but I found it.

Friday I got my hands on it and over the weekend I loaded it on my blog.

I immediately saw my subscriber numbers DOUBLE!! Which is really amazing because my numbers had already jumped greatly just with the ugly get response lightbox. So needless to say I was pretty excited!

So what did I find?

PopUp Domination.

PopUp Domination is a plugin for wordpress. You simply upload it (just like any other plugin) and then go through the 5 simple steps to set it up.

Step 1. Look and Feel

Choose the color options you want to use to best match your site. You can pick from a lot of different colors for the box itself, but also the color of the button. You also choose the template you want to use in this step.

There are currently 4 template options. They are all awesome and one will probably just “speak” to you. You’ll know which one you like best. Choose the number and on to the next step.

Step 2. Email code

This step is where you insert your email code. All you have to do is go grab the html code from a box you’ve created for your site at your autoresponder. Then just paste the code in the box provided. Make sure you grab the html and not the script code.

Step 3. Template Fields

This is where you start filling in your content for the opt in box. You choose the headline, the words to use your name/email field, what you want to say on the submit button.

It’s super easy, and the developer has even outlined the typical length that each of these things should be.

(after each step you can hit the “preview” button and see what the changes you’ve made look like.)

Step 4: List points

This is where you add your bullet point content (if the template you’ve chosen has them). Pull your biggest reasons/benefits for people to opt in (think what’s in it for them) and just add them right there.

Step 5. Schedule

Here’s where you tell the lightbox how often to pop up. You schedule by the day. So if you want it to pop up every 7 days you just put 7 in the box. It’s completely up to you ~ and another thing you can test and see what works best for your site and your audience.

That’s it. Preview, and then turn it on. You’re all set.

Here’s a quick video of my PopUp Domination review. You can see just how easy it is as I create a popup box for my Squidoo blog.

This process literally took me 5 minutes to create the new lightbox for this site. Opt ins are on the rise already. If you aren’t using any kind of lightbox on your site then your opt in increase could be huge. Testimonials are coming in for over 304% increase in opt ins ~ that’s huge. That kind of increase in your list can mean infinitely more connections and lead to a huge increase in sales.

Who is Popup Domination for?

If you have a blog, and you are building a list ~ you need popup domination.

If you have niche sites ~ you should be building lists and popup domination would be perfect!

Who is it not for?

If you’re building micro niche sites I don’t think you will need popup domination.

If you’re building lenses you do not need popup domination.

With that said, it’s time to take your list to the next level. Grab your copy of PopUp Domination. Go ahead and head over now ~ there’s a great video on the sales page. Take a couple minutes and watch it and then get the plugin. It’s totally worth it, and will pay for itself.

If you purchase through my link (yes, that’s an affiliate link in there) I will be glad to help you if you run into any problems getting your light box up and running.

The Big Reveal… Internet Marketing Simplified

Jackie Lee — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:00:30 +0000

Hey! It’s finally come, the big day where I reveal the all new redesign for IntenetMarketingforMommies.com.

I’m really excited about it, and there are some big changes you might notice.

1. The navigation has moved from the sidebar to the top of the page. You’ll find all the categories, and access to all past posts via the KISS IM link.

2. New options for personal consultations are now available as well. There’s 2 new options (and a third to be revealed on Monday)

KISS Consult ~ this is a 30 minute consultation to get you unstuck, and moving forward. Together we’ll create an actionable plan that will work for you.

KISS Keyword Consult ~ if you’re working on niche sites, or a niche blog and need some help with finding the perfect keywords to drive traffic to your site I’ll be glad to help you do that. We’ll start a keyword list on our call, and you’ll leave with a lot more ideas on how you can mine even more great keywords.

The KISS Club will be taking new members on Monday ~ so stop by for more information on that after a fabulous holiday weekend.

3. The theme I’ve chosen is from Elegant Themes. I can’t tell you how happy I am with them. It’s an annual membership, and less than $20 a year. They keep coming out with new themes every month. This is a relatively new theme, and it’s created to work quite well with wordpress 3.0. Support has been fantastic, they helped me so many times to create the tweaks I needed to make the site look just the way I wanted to. I highly recommend them for cool and unusual wordpress themes.

Speaking of wordpress 3.0 I have to say a HUGE thank you to my Tech Goddess Michelle. She updated wordpress and all my plugins for me (in addition to all the fantastic work she’s been doing to get the KISS Club all set up and ready to rock and roll).

4. Wendy Wood of GetEcovers.com ROCKED the header for me. She got it done in a day, and it was exactly what I wanted the very first time. Very easy to work with, and her prices are sooo affordable! She does a wide range of graphics so check her out if you need something done.

We’ve talked over the last couple months about getting clarity around your message, who you are, and who your target audience is. I’ve worked to get really clear about it, and I think now my site actually shows it. I am trying to focus on working more closely with individuals ~ which doesn’t mean much will change here. There will always be fantastic free content on the blog, but I’m ready to really start diving in with people, and helping them get moving. There’s half the year left, more than enough time to make this the best year yet!

I look forward to working with you soon, enjoy the site and let me know if you run into anything funky. I’m pretty sure it’s been tested, but… you never know!

What’s holding you back?

Jackie Lee — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:36:54 +0000

No matter who you are, or where you are in your life there’s something… something that’s not quite right. There’s something you wish was a little more or a little better. It may be your income. It may be your weight. Hell, you may want to ride 100 miles on your bicycle and you just can’t quite do it yet.

I bet you… really I bet you… that the only thing standing in the way of getting whatever it is you want is … YOU.

I know, I fought it. I didn’t believe it. I thought it was bull. I thought up a lot of excuses so I could blame my lack of century riding ability, my lack of a 6 figure income, my extra weight on somebody else.

But when it comes down to it ~ it is all me baby. (which probably means it’s all you too)

While that sucks big in one way ~ it’s hugely AWESOME in many more ways. If I’m the only thing standing in my way ~ I have complete and utter control and power to change it! (and so do you!)

What’s holding you back?

My guess is you don’t know. I know I didn’t know what it was, until this weekend.

Upon the recommendation of a trusted friend I picked up an ebook this weekend. It’s called “What’s Holding You Back” written by Dave Navarro. I thought it might do a little something, maybe motivate me to get done what I know I need to do but just can’t seem to force myself to do (like stop drinking pop and eating doritoes and build some dang links for my niche sites).

Well… let me tell you. It did that and so much frickin’ more I can’t even tell you.

I literally spent my entire weekend glued to this book. It’s not just a book. You don’t just read it. It’s a workbook ~ with pages to fill in, questions to answer, and plans to make. It is genius.

Dave goes through the 7 Success Killers. Now, if you’ve done a lot of “self improvement” stuff you may think you know it all… I think I thought I did. I have not heard of even ONE of the success killers Dave talks about in this book.

However… every single one made me stop and think, and 2 or 3 of them gave me some serious AHA moments. #2 was seriously where I’ve been falling down, it was the Success Killer that I was succumbing to the most, and I bet some of you are as well.

What I particularly loved about this book is once I read it I was like ~ holy crap. That’s exactly what my problem is. Then a few pages later come the worksheets. Not only is Dave helping me identify what’s holding me back. He’s giving me exercises, worksheets, questions to help me figure my way OUT of it too.

This Monday morning I came to my work with an entirely different frame of mind. I’m ready to go. I’m ready to do what needs to be done. I’m ready to make my goals a reality.

I know this sounds super gung ho and ra ra, but I’m telling you… as a person who’s been in this business of making money online for many years this is one book that has changed my game. Completely.

If you aren’t where you want to be ~ in your business, in your life, in your love, in your weight ~ anywhere ~ I highly recommend you pick up and find out “What’s Holding You Back”. If you read and work the book it will make a huge difference.

When you read the book and do the exercises and you realize what was holding you back and what you need to do now ~ please send me an email. I want to know.

I very rarely say things are a must have ~ but this is one of them. Find a way to get together the $27 bucks for this book and get it. Take the week and read it. Do the exercises. Then let me know how you feel. I bet you are just as JAZZED as I am right now. I can’t wait to hear!

Commission Ritual ~ Your Best Bet For Micro Niche Sites

Jackie Lee — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:13:12 +0000

Last week I asked people what they wanted to learn next. I got a lot of responses for how to build micro niche sites. I’m always telling you to pick things to write about/do sites about that interest you. I’m going to have to take my own advice on this one.

Here’s my deal.

I totally get micro niche sites, why they work, how they work, how to build them and all that, but they just aren’t for me. I can’t get past buying a new domain for every single keyword I want to target. It just doesn’t seem like enough leveraging for me.

I’m not saying they don’t work ~ they do. There are plenty of people making them work, and making plenty of money doing them, I’m just not one of them.

Instead of me half heartedly trying to teach you how to make micro niche sites I’m going to encourage you to go to a teacher who is as enthusiastic, passionate and accomplished in this area as I am in others.

I’m going to suggest you get Commission Ritual.

This product is done by Brian Johnson. He is currently making scads of money creating these micro niche sites. He walks you through each and every step of creating these micro niche sites, both in pdf and video format.

The product is set up very well, and is very organized. You get a lot of things with this package so let’s start at the beginning.

1. PDF ~ this is the main guide where he explains the whole concept, the theory behind them, how to research them, how to build them, how to promote them. Everything is in here.

2. The site ~ on the site he has created videos for every piece of the puzzle. They follow along with the pdf, so each piece of the pdf has a video that goes with it to not explain the piece ~ but show you exactly how it works. He gives plenty of real life examples so you can see how it works in real life. This is not a bunch of theory. He gives you real sites that are making money to learn from.

3. Extras: there are a few extra pdfs in the pack. One shows you different words you can use to target buying keywords for your sites. One is an update he did recently called the 3 hour profit plan. He goes through and gives you an exact method of how to do this quickly and consistently. There is a desktop reference that is fantastic. It’s like an outline of the process, so you can easily follow along step by step without having to dig back through the books and videos.

4. Makes it easy. There are certain pages every site will have ~ the about/disclaimer etc pages. He has given you awesome templates you can use to copy/paste right into your site. Just make some simple adjustments (change the names to your site name) and you’ve got your pages done.

5. Super checklist to stay on track: One of the best things he gives you is a “site setup” checklist. This checklist will help you go from start to profit for each site, keeping all the information you need for every site all in one place. This checklist is thorough and done in a format you can fill out over and over again. (and he explains exactly how to do it ~ which is really nice) It covers everything from targeted keywords to how many links you’ve created and where. It’s not just a checklist either ~ he gives quick little instructions in it so you can easily remember what you’re doing and what information you need to be clear to move to the next step of the process.

4. Continual updates. Brian does a fantastic job of providing updates to the product, and new techniques he’s using to get ranked and make money. In fact, the most recent update was as recently as Feb. 3 of this year.

5. Forum. This used to be an additional charge for “inner circle” people, however, he has now opened it up to all of his customers. The forum is quite active and you can ask all kinds of questions and get answers pretty quickly.

Pros of Commission Ritual

Tons of content
Great step by step information
Excellent customer service
Ability to ask questions and get answers
A community to get support

Cons of Commission Ritual:

Lots and lots of video ~ if you have a slow computer or don’t learn well from video this will probably not be the best product for you. Although most of the videos are under 5 minutes ~ there are a LOT of videos.

Do I recommend Commission Ritual?

If you just wanna see what it is, you’re still debating on whether or not you want to do micro niche sites for real, you’re still jumping from thing 1 to thing 2 to thing 3 ~ then no. Keep your money in your pocket. I don’t want to see another great piece of content sitting on your hard drive collecting dust.

Have you chosen micro niche sites as the internet marketing strategy you’re going to focus on for at least the next 6 months?

If you can say yes to that question. I mean really YES. Then I absolutely recommend this product. There’s nothing better out there to teach you how to build and profit from micro niche sites.

Have you made a decision? Are you ready to build micro niche sites? Then get started with Commission Ritual. (I bet you can have your first site up and running today!)

I can’t wait to hear how you do! Please come back and tell me!!

Super Affiliate Handbook Review

Jackie Lee — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:51:18 +0000

Let me just start off by saying I didn’t buy this ebook for many years. The title alone made me think it was going to be a hype filled book with nothing of substance. I mean really ~ super affililiate? Who really attains super affiliate status? Is there really such a thing?

Well YES. There is, and Rosalind Gardner is one of them and has written this book to show how she did it. A super affiliate is a person who is the top earner for a company they promote. Rosalind carries that title along with Lynn Terry who is the reason I bought this book to begin with. Her review was really good and I realized this book was not just another quickly put together book that would only clutter up my computer.

Rosalind Gardner wrote this book over 5 years ago. Amazing huh? How many ebooks on internet marketing do you know of that are still around and just as pertinent 5 years later? Not many for sure. Rosalind has updated this book a few times, the most recent being just last year. She has incorporated a lot of new things that have come up and this book is very current.

So let me tell you the story.

A while ago I had an incident that really made me stop and look at my business model and look at how I was doing business on the internet. Yeah, I make a decent living, but what would happen if this … what would happen if that… Those questions starting freaking me out a little and I decided to buy this book to see if I could increase my revenue not just from this blog, but create some other income streams as well.

When I bought the book I wasn’t sure what techniques Rosalind was going to teach, but I really felt like I had to diversify a little bit ~ beyond the Squidoo lenses, and beyond the sites I already had pulling in income. I wanted to move my business to the next level ~ I wanted to reach the bigger income goals I have set for myself. What I’m doing works great, but I wanted something more!

Super Affiliate Handbook

This book is huge. I mean huge. It’s over 200 pages. It took me an entire afternoon to read, and really soak in the information. (which is amazing since most ebooks I spend only a short time with), and I’ve been back to review it a number of times since then.

Is it for beginners?

This book is designed for beginners (she walks you through an entire section on the benefits of affiliate marketing, as well as what it is and how it works for you, an affiliate) as well as people who are already making money with affiliate marketing, but want to ramp up their earnings. There are plenty of screen shots in the book to help you walk through the steps to get going.

I particularly like how she walks through the entire process, giving you the information in the order you need it so you can follow along and take action as you go. It worked well for the way my mind works.

Checklists ~ ohhh, I love checklists, and this book has them. She has checklists throughout the book to help you come up with ideas, implement tasks, problems to watch out for, things to avoid. The lists are very clear and concise and help you implement the ideas she’s discussing. They are definitely worth printing out.

What kind of affiliate marketing is this?

There are a lot of ways to do affiliate marketing for sure, the way she teaches happens to align very well with my values and the way I like to do business. She’s not about building a million sites with minimal content that will make you a dollar a day. She’s about building quality sites that will pay dividends over the long haul. She’s about giving your reader great content ~ and combining that content with products and services that fit in seamlessly. When I looked at her sites I had clicked through to a product page before I’d even realized she was selling the product. It was just so seamless.She can teach you that.

See live active super affiliate sites

Yes ~ I said I looked at her sites. This is really cool and isn’t done very often. She actually shows you some of her working and in operation sites. It was fantastic to be able to go to the sites and look at them, study what she’s doing, how she’s doing it, what I like about it, what I could use from it, how I could make it work for me. It completely changed how I look at my affiliate sites for sure.

Get started exercises while you read

She has exercises where you actually write things down, brainstorm get ideas. These exercises really helped me get clear about what I wanted to do and how I could do it.

My biggest takeaway

I’ve been doing internet and affiliate marketing for years now. I have made more sites than I can count. I’ve left more sites than I’d like to admit half done. Through my entire internet marketing career I have never really treated it like a business.

This is the biggest AHA moment I took from this book.

Planning a site ~ before you start. That means planning all the different elements that make up a site ahead of time. This kind of planning has revolutionized the way I think about sites! It is really remarkable. A business owner doesn’t just go racing in and build stuff without a full plan of what it’s going to do, how it’s going to it and when.

The second part of the business piece I learned was record keeping and organization. OMG. I know I suck at this ~ my husband tells me this every time he does our taxes. But what I didn’t realize is how much money I’m losing out on. When you keep records ~ monthly income/expenditure records you can ask for a raise ~ you know exactly how much you’re worth and so do affiliate managers.

Keeping track of the numbers and doing regularly with diligence was the missing piece for me. Rosalind walks you through her entire process for tracking every number you could want or need. I hate math, I hate numbers ~ but this was actually interesting to me, and it felt like something I could totally do, in fact, I’ve started doing it.

Don’t worry if you haven’t made your first money yet ~ you will be so much better off to start implementing these “business” activities and mindset right from the beginning. I swear it will change your business. (you are in business right?)

What didn’t I like?

She talks a bit about PPC (although it is not her only way to drive traffic), as someone who has never dove into PPC (and is thinking I might like to put my toe in the water) I didn’t feel like there was enough information to really get started on that.

That’s about it. The book is really good but it’s not a PPC training guide.

This book would be great for people who…

need a real business model they can stick with.

prefer to focus on one or two topics long term

have a passion for a topic

need some help getting their business organized

need to learn to look at their business AS a business

want to increase their income

want to become a super affiliate

Is it right for you?

Only you can say. Learn more about what Rosiland has to say about the Super Affiliate Handbook. If you’re thinking about getting it, know that it is a quality book and will give you a ton of information to move your business forward. I have to say I wish I had bought this book a few years ago. I think it would have made a big difference in the speed of which I made it to a full time income.

Are You an Impulse Shopper?

Jackie Lee — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:52:31 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

Marketers know a little bit about the human mind and the human psyche. They’ve done testing and experiments to see how it all works. Why do you think all the artificially colored, favorite cartoon character cereal boxes are at kid level? Why are there magazines and chocolate at the check out? All of these things are done to get us to buy on impulse.

It works too. There are many times when I go to the store with a list. I get everything on the list. We get to the check out with a cart full of healthy food and then my husband ends up throwing in a ton of candy and crap. He’s a terrible impulse shopper. Me… I know their tricks and I’m not going to give them the satisfaction.

The same techniques that work in the grocery store work online as well. Can you say one time offer? Not only is this impulse buying, it’s fear of something being taken away, fear of not buying something that can change your life, fear of missing out… these tactics are used because they work. They increase sales and increase profits for marketers.

But they suck.

I’m sure you’ve seen on a sales page where it says we’re offering it at this low price… but we could raise the price ANY MINUTE!! This tactic is rarely true ~ rarely do people come back in and change their price from $47 to $97. (although we actually did that at Learnit lol ~ it went up incrementally as more people came ~ but that was for a launch and now the price is steady and has been for months) That tactic is used to get you to buy NOW. They don’t want you to think about your decision, they want you to be moved by their amazing sales page and then feel compelled to buy NOW.

So how do you keep from being sucked in to good sales copy and impulse shopper techniques? I’ve come up with a 5 things to think about before you buy(because the price changing thing used to get me a LOT ~ and I’ve got a 1/2 ton of pdfs on my computer to prove it!).

1. Be clear in your business model.

When you are clear on what you’re doing and doing one strategy at a time it is much easier to see if a product is or isn’t needed.

2. Identify places you are having trouble making the business model work for you.

I’m not saying don’t buy anything ever (although it might be interesting to see how life changes with a 6 month buying freeze lol), I’m saying only buy things that you need to improve your business. What YOU are doing RIGHT NOW. (not stuff you think you might need 6 months from now, when this does that or the other thing does the other thing)

3. Be clear about what you need from a product.

If you need help with keyword research ~ that’s where you’re having trouble in your business then find a product that addresses THAT need. Don’t get sucked into a whole different internet marketing strategy product because you’re having trouble with kw research in what you’re already doing.

What I’m saying is if you’re building squidoo lenses and you’re having trouble with keyword research ~ look at micro niche finder ~ not Commission Ritual. Stick with products that will help you overcome whatever obstacle is currently in your way ~ not products that lead you down a whole new path.

4. Identify how much you’re willing/can afford to spend.

Another product is probably never going to change you business so much that it’s worth not paying your rent over. Set your budget and stick to it. If you can’t afford something you really want/need then save up until you can, or find a cheaper alternative you can afford until you can get what you really want.

5. Make sure you know about the product BEFORE you buy it.

This is a key one. You can NOT just google “product name review” for internet marketing products because every affiliate and their brother has created a page that looks like a review but you don’t know if they’ve actually used the product, if they actually liked the product or if they have just slapped up a review the product owner gave them in the affiliate tools section. Do some research before you buy the product. Make sure it fits the top 4 requirements I listed here. It’s important to know about the product before you buy because there’s a lot of junk out there ~ and there’s no sense wasting good money on something that’s not going to move your business forward.

How do I find out if the product is really good or not?

I feel in some ways I’ve been doing you a disservice here. I have a lot of products on my hard drive. I’ve read them, used them mostly and I haven’t told you about most any of them.

I’m going to start regularly writing product reviews so if you’re thinking about a product you can get a feel for what I thought of it, and if it will fit the top 5 requirements for purchasing a product.

Please know I do NOT expect you to buy everything I review, but I do want to provide a place where you can find real reviews on a variety of products.

If you are looking to buy something you will be able to check out the product review category here. If I haven’t reviewed the product you’re thinking about buying I suggest you try Rosiland Carter’s Review section. I trust her implicitly and you will find a lot of things I haven’t and probably won’t use there. The other place you can try is Lynn Terry’s Clicknewz (you’ll probably have to use the search box and look for whatever you’re looking for). I would also suggest you ask at The SSWT forum, you’re likely to get an honest answer there.

I do not recommend you just go to any internet marketing forum and ask ~ chances are you won’t get an honest or knowledgeable answer ~ make sure if you ask in a forum it’s one you’re familiar with and have built a relationship with some people there.

If you are thinking of buying a product and I haven’t done a review yet, just ask me. I’ll let you know if I have it and what I thought of it to help you decide if it will be a good fit for you and your business.

Don’t Have Support System? Create One Yourself!

Jackie Lee — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:30:17 +0000

Sometimes… some days you just need a little extra support. You need someone to talk to when everyone else you know is giving you grief over this whole make money online thing, or when you’re trying to get this site up but you’re suddenly getting some crazy error message, or when you are doubting whether the internet marketing strategy you’ve chosen is going to work… you get the point. There are many times and many days when you could use some support in this business.

How much support do you have?

Many times family members are not supportive. I know there’s not one person locally who would know what I was talking about if I said my maxblogpress optin adder plugin is giving me an error at the database, or even if I said I couldn’t find the address to use FTP.

How about you?

It’s hard to be out there in front of your computer, by yourself day after day, finding the strength to keep going and the determination to stick with it when you don’t get a little positive feedback, a little encouragement, a place to get the answers to the nit picky little things that can grind a thus far productive day to a perfect standstill.

Where do you find support?

Forums.

Plain and simple it’s always been the place I’ve been able to meet and connect with like minded people and find support. When I look for a “forum” I really am looking for a community. A community of like minded individuals who are friendly and welcoming and don’t get exasperated by “newbie” questions ~ no matter what the topic.

When I first started out online the first community I found was TheGreatestNetworker.com. It was owned by John Milton Fogg ~ it was a fantastic community. At the time I was doing network marketing and there were a lot of network marketers there. What I really loved about that community was it wasn’t really about the work ~ it was about law of attraction, personal development, making myself a better person, and the people. That’s where I met my dearest online friend Mary K. We’ve known one another going on 8 or 9 years now, we’ve met in person and talk daily. I don’t even have “real life” friends like that!

That community led me to Powerful Intentions where I continued to grow and learn and build all the pieces in me that needed building. It’s also where I met some other fantastic people that I still call my friends ~ you can meet a lot of them if you run through my friends list over at Facebook!

Who cares?

I get it … what the heck does this have to do with building sites, and internet marketing? Let me tell you.

Those communities and the people I’ve met within them have helped me create my business, my way. If I hadn’t had the support from the people there, I would have quit many times I’m quite sure. They help me look at what’s working in my business instead of letting me wallow in “oh man this is never gonna work”, they give me a good kick in the pants when necessary and help me get back on the right track.

While I don’t spend much time in those forums anymore the relationships I created there have come with me. I have since started spending more time in forums that will help me directly with my business. That’s right internet marketing forums.

I tell you it’s really HARD to find a place that feels like a community out there in the internet marketing world. I have spent time in the Warrior forum, but it’s pretty intimidating ~ you can get your head chewed off and handed to you on a platter if you’re not careful there. There is also so much misinformation that I just never knew what to believe and if someone knew something worked or they had heard it from a blog who heard it from another forum that they thought it might work. Believe me, the WF is somewhere I really wish I could spend more time ~ it would probably be great for my traffic numbers if I could get in there and duke it out ~ I mean that place is HUGE! It’s just not something I can do though.

I’ve spent time over at Wealthy Affiliate too. The forum over there is pretty big and active and I found myself getting lost in all of it. Spending hours and hours searching and conversing without really getting any work done. I don’t know, that was a couple years ago so maybe I am in a different mental state now ~ and it could work for me, but information overload is still something I struggle with.

There are many other forums and I’ve been to most of them I tell you. I opted in to the Problogger.com forum. YIKES. I was expecting a pretty friendly community but that is not what I found. I paid for a month but only stayed around a day.

So where do I hang out to get support and information for internet marketing? Only one place these days.

Lynn Terry’s Self Starter’s Weekly Tips forum.

I found it a few months ago and started hanging out there off and on. I found some really friendly people there. People who were supportive and friendly and willing to help out.

Lynn offers many cool things within the forum. Here’s just a few things:

Weekly brainstorming webinars ~ brainstorm with some very successful marketers each Tuesday at noon.

Freelance job board ~ whether you’re looking to work or to hire someone

An active and helpful forum ~ whether you have a quick question or need support you’ll find it in the SSWT forum.

That all comes for free!

The other thing that Lynn offers is the Elite Membership. This membership allows you to enter the private forum area where there is some really great brainstorming going on. There are case studies people are working on, people asking questions about just about every part of internet marketing ~ and getting real help and feedback.

Lynn also gives Elite members a monthly “challenge” which has ALREADY helped me move my business forward and tackle some of the goals I had for this year.

I love being able to be open about my business ~ which is more difficult on other forums. I like to be able to ask specific questions about what I’m doing, and how I could do it better. I love being able to partner with people ~ whether it’s for guest posts or product launches ~ I find all of that in the Elite forum.

The Elite Forum is a monthly fee of $27. It has paid for itself already time and time again for me. But it’s an add on ~ if you don’t want to do the elite forum, don’t worry ~ you’ll find TONS and TONS of helpful stuff in the free forum.

Lynn is there quite often and takes an active roll in answering people’s questions as well as the other members of the forum are there to help as well.

That’s one other thing I particularly like about this forum as apposed to some others is this:

It’s run by Lynn Terry. I like her. I trust her. I know she walks the walk, and doesn’t just talk the talk. She monitors the forum, so you know the people and information are going to be up to Lynn Terry standards, and that means something to me.

I hope you stop by and say hi ~ feel free to ask questions and participate in the conversation. (Don’t forget to add a signature to your profile so people can take a look at your site! I get quite a bit of good traffic this way ~ but make sure you are contributing to the conversation!)

Head on over now and say hi!

Posting to WordPress ~ Using Your WordPress Text Editor

Jackie Lee — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:59:22 +0000

Before we get started with our content creation series on Monday I wanted to just cover some information about posting to wordpress and using your wordpress text editor. Let’s take a look step by step at what you have available to you!

How to add a new post to your blog:

1. Log in to your site.

2. In the dashboard you’ll see the category options, choose Posts/add new.

3. This will open a text editor where you can write your post.

Text editor ~ it does a lot of fun things so you want to be able to use them!

At the top of your editor you have the “upload/insert” area. This area allows you to upload and insert different types of media to your site. The first one is images, the next is video, music. While I don’t use music much, you might want to try it out if it would be a nice supplement on your site.

Add an image:

When you click the add image icon

You will be able to browse through the files on your computer and upload any image you have on your computer to your blog. When you find the image you want on your computer and click on it you will need to hit the upload button. Once you do that it will show up in the window.

If you want to make it a clickable link you just add the link where you want it to go.

Once you’ve got your link in the right spot you want to pick where the image is going to go in your post, and the size you want it to be.

When you’ve done those things you click the insert into post button and your image should appear!

Adding Video

It’s the same process adding video ~ however I usually just grab the embed code from youtube and put it in myself. (I’ve read with the newest version of wordpress there are some added media features like resizing your images, and easier video uploading but I haven’t upgraded yet to know).

If you want to add videos using the embed code you will need to copy the embed code from wherever you’re getting it. This is the embed code ~ not just the url. When you come back to wordpress you will have to click the “html” tab so you are working in the html area.

Once in the html tab just scroll down to where you want the video to show up and paste the code there.

The text editor buttons ~ what are all those buttons for??

B ~ bold. Highlight the words you want bold and then click the B button.

I ~ Italics. Highlight the words you want italicized and click the I

ABC ~ strike out. Highlight the words you want to cross out and click the ABC button.

bullet points ~ if you want to make a bullet point list click the bullet list button and it will automatically give you bullet points each time you hit enter. To make it stop hit enter twice or click the button again.

numbered list ~ same thing as bullets but it will give you a numbered list.

alignment buttons ~ the next three align your text ~ left, center and right.

chain buttons ~ the first is to create an achor text link. You have to highlight words on the page before this will be lit so you can click it. Once you click it a pop up window will appear and ask you to put in the link you want people to go to. The next chain button will break a link if you don’t want it anymore. Just highlight the linked text and then click the unlink button and the link will go away.

add more button ~ I don’t use this one at all ~ but it will make it so only part of your content shows up, then there’ll be a line that says read more that people can click on to see the whole post ~ there are plugins that will do this automatically that make it much easier.

spell check ~ haven’t used this one either, but it’s spell check.

The first one on the second row let’s you choose size of font/tag. Paragraph is your normal font, if you want to have a subheading you can pick heading 2 or heading 1. Heading 2 will be slightly larger ~ and may be a different color depending on how your theme manages that tag. Heading one will be the same as your title and look the same as well. Best to stick with heading 2 for subheads in your post.

U ~ underline ~ highlight text and then click U to make them underlined.

Align full ~ I never use this, it will make your pages aligned on both sides.

Big A ~ color. You can choose to change you font color with this button. Don’t get crazy with the colors on your blog. Maybe if you want to make a big point you can do a word or two in red, but you want your posts to be as easy to read as possible and adding a bunch of red makes that difficult.

The only other one I have ever used is the undo button ~ which is the little arrow. It is a useful button if you’ve done something you hate and you have no idea how to fix it. Hit the undo button and see if it will go back to how it was before you did what you did.

So that’s the editor buttons.

The right hand sidebar ~ finishing up your post

If you are using Zemanta (which I love) you will have it in the right sidebar. Here’s my full review of Zemanta. It will give you image options for your posts that you can insert with one click (the image credit will show up as well).

You will also want to choose tags for your posts. Those will be on the right hand side too. Just a few tags is wise. Make sure they are very relevant to the post you’ve written.

Category ~ also on the right hand side, choose a category you want your post to go into. Just FYI, if you create categories ahead of time they will not show up on your site until there is a post in them.

That’s about it.

I like to hit the “preview” button so I can see what the post will really look like. I do a quick proofread for flagrant spelling/grammar/my mind went faster than my hands errors and then click “publish”. At this point I feel compelled to say something about obsession. Don’t obsess over your posts ~ this is not high school english class. You are not being graded. As long as you’re writing like you would talk to a friend you’ll be fine. Check for basic mistakes and publish! You don’t make any money if you don’t hit publish.

If you want to schedule your posts to go out at a later date (if you’re batch processing posts) you can click the edit button next to “publish immediately” and it will let you set a date you want the post to publish. Doing this you can write as many posts as you have time for and then have them come out one day at a time on your blog. If you do that the “publish” button will say “schedule” instead of publish, just so you know.

That’s about all there is to posting to your blog. If you have any questions please feel free to ask in the comment section. I’ll do my best to answer them. I look forward to working on creating content with you on Monday ~ take some to read the articles on content creation I posted yesterday. You will get some great ideas about content creation from them and be ready to get started!

Getting Yourself Organized to Start Content Creation

Jackie Lee — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 15:09:07 +0000

: Image by John-Morgan via Flickr

Happy New Year! It’s the first day of the new year, we’ve accomplished a lot to get our blogs ready to roll. Today we are just about ready to start with our content creation. I know it can be difficult to stay focused, and know what needs to be done on any given day so I’ve got some tools for you to help you get your content creation organized. These tools will make getting started creating your blog posts much easier.

If you will use them, these tools will also help you use your time very wisely because you will know at a glance exactly what topic and what keywords you are writing about immediately when you sit down to write. No more wasting time trying to figure out what you should be doing!

1. You have a list of niche kewyords ~ right? Whether you bought your keyword list or created your own make sure you have it handy ~ this is where we’re going to start using it!

2. The next step is to go through your list and create a blog post about each topic on the list. You will want your chosen targeted keyword in your title, as well as once or so in your blog post.

Remember now, if you can think about this blog as a way to help people, provide value to your reader, and give them what they are looking for instead of a blog to make money the process will be easier, and in the end you will end up doing better ~ both with the writing and the making money!

3. Blogging tool: Blogging Planner This planner gives you two sheets. One is a monthly sheet and one is a weekly sheet. The monthly sheet is great for plannning out a whole month’s worth of posts and keeping track of them. The weekly one though, is the one that will be super beneficial if you are doing more than one blog at a time. There is room for 5 different sites across the top (hey ~ this could also be used to keep track of Squidoo campaigns ~ put the campaign at the top and write in what you want to do for each every day during that week) On the lines for each day write in what keyword you are targeting so all you have to do is look at the sheet and know what to start writing about.

I got this blog planner from Blog Energizer. It’s a VERY helpful resource if you are a blogger ~ they give tons of free blogging ideas and lots of other goodies. It’s worth taking a look at, if only for the free tools. That is my affiliate link, there is a LOT of free resources, but there is also an option to upgrade and get blog ideas for every day of the month. This will be good for some, but they are really targeting “mommy bloggers” building an authority site, so make sure it’s going to be right for YOU if you think about subscribing.

4. Download and print your blog planner and begin to fill it in. Go down your list of keywords and fill in the month and/or the week. Think about the order you want your keywords to go in. Also think about any holidays or promotions that might be popular around the time you’re going to post the article.

Now you’re all organized to get started. I know content creation can be a sticky point for a lot of people so I’m going to give you some articles to read over the weekend about content creation and I will be starting a series on content writing on Monday.

Here ya go:

Lynn Terry:

7 Elements of a Great Blog Post

5 Types of Web Content Readers Love

That should get you started at Lynn’s site ~ Feel free to check out more of her site, it’s all great stuff. You can click on the tag links at the top of the pages, click the links within the posts, and check out the entire web content development category for more information on creating content.

Copy Blogger

You could spend the weekend reading this entire site and be better for it, but here is a couple places to get started:

Content Marketing 101 There’s a few links at the bottom of the page ~ check them all out.

Mental blocks to Creative thinking

4 Pillars of Great Writing The points in this article are fantastic ~ just remember he is teaching people to build an authority blog so you may need to temper some of this advice to fit the purpose of your blog.

Yaro Starak

As you may know I’m taking (this month I will finish) Yaro’s Blog Mastermind Program . (disclosure: aff link) I think Yaro is great, and is a great teacher. Taking his course has really helped me get a handle on this blog and build it into something I’m really proud of. With that said… this is the first report I ever read of Yaro’s. It’s been around for while, so if you’ve read it, cool. Read it again. If you haven’t read it yet, then please take some time and read it this weekend. It’s a free report, but easily worth $97. Again, this focuses on building an authority blog ~ but it will work much the same for your niche blogs as well. The idea of creating “pillar content” is universal. You can get the report by clicking the link below.

Blog Profits Blueprint

Well that should get you started, and I’ll be continuing this series on content creation next week. If you have specific areas of content creation you would like me to cover ~ PLEASE ~ let me know in the comments. I’ll be glad to cover it in a post.

Christmas is Over ~ Now What?!?

Jackie Lee — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:12:51 +0000

Christmas is over. Some may be relieved, some may be bummed, and yet others of you, I’m sure, are wondering what the heck happens now?!

Let’s talk about it!

You’ve spent some time (hopefully) over the last few months putting together some product lenses on Squidoo. Your target was Christmas shoppers, so now what are you going to do now that the holiday shopping frenzy is over? Is all that hard work going to go to waste?

Heck no.

I wouldn’t do that to you!! Even though the blueprint is called Christmas cash, and you targeted Christmas shoppers your lenses will continue to work throughout the year.

When doing your keyword research you identified your search volume from the “global search” number. This number is an average of the last 12 months worth of searches. So unless you targeted products specifically related to Christmas itself your lenses will keep making sales (provided you’ve gotten them ranked in the search engines) all year. It may or may not be at the same rate you saw at Christmas, but it should happen.

What about the Christmas references in my lenses?

If you put in content about these being great Christmas gifts you can do one of two things, and both will probably work.

1. You can just leave them. I personally do not go back in and change my lenses. I don’t have the time quite frankly.

2. You can go in and take out the Christmas references, but leave in the gift reference. These things WILL continue to make great gifts whether it’s for Valentine’s day, birthdays, anniversaries etc.

Keep your eye on next Christmas

Even if you started the Christmas cash blueprint the day I published it, that still didn’t give you a lot of time to get your lenses built, indexed and ranking. Now is the time to keep your eye on the prize ~ next Christmas.

This could go one of two ways. Without the pressure of impending Christmas you can relax a little and build lenses without so much pressure.

Or you can say oh, Christmas is a year away and blow off building lenses.

Which are you going to do? Whether you decide to go with another long term strategy, building product lenses is always a wise move. If you build 1 lens a week for the next year you’ll have 52 more lenses in your arsenal, ready and waiting to not only earn you money during the year but ready for Christmas shopping next year.

The longer you can give your lenses to simmer, and build “age” the better.

I suggest you make it a habit to build and promote, at the very least, 1 lens a week for the next year. You can do these lenses in your spare time ~ don’t spend a ton of time on them, build them, do the basics of promotion and then just let them simmer. When I say simmer I mean leave them alone and just let them be. Don’t touch them, don’t mess with them, move on to something else. Just to be clear.

If you can find a way to learn how to let go of the attachment of any given lens being your best seller you will put yourself at a great advantage. It is our attachment to the outcome/production of any one piece of online real estate that leads to disappointment and frustration. When you focus all your effort on one thing and then it doesn’t work it’s very easy to get discouraged. When you get discouraged it’s really easy to quit.

I don’t want you to quit.

When you can let go of your attachment you will find that you just keep building and building. Then instead of disappointed one day you open your account and see 500 hits to a lens and then you check your stats and find a bunch of commissions in your account you feel excited and SURPRISED!! That is a wonderful feeling. It will make you want to build more, just to see what happens, to see which will take off, which will surprise you.

I can almost guarantee working in internet marketing from the framework of looking for surprises is going to keep you going long past watching one site and being disappointed. Please, please, please ~ if you can do one thing this year, learn to let go.

No matter how much time and effort you put into keyword research, writing content, promotion, there are going to be lenses/sites/blogs that just don’t fly. It’s gonna SUCK, but it’s gonna happen. I promise. If you have all your hopes and dreams invested in that one property you are going to be sorely disappointed, and it’s going to be hard to keep taking action with that nasty little voice in the back of your head saying

See I told you this wasn’t going to work. See I told you you wouldn’t be able to do this. See I told you this was too hard, you’re not smart enough, good enough … whatever it is the ugly voice says to you.

Don’t let the ugly voice win. Spread out your hopes and dreams and look for the surprise.

Here’s one of the surprises from my year. I put up one lens. It was just a test lens. I saw a very cool product while I was searching for a way to do something for my family for Christmas. I did a cursory bit of keyword research and found some keywords that had some search volume. Quite frankly I didn’t think they were buying keywords and I didn’t think they would take off.

I did a quick lens ~ really quick ~ 30 minutes. I just put something together that told the story of how I found this thing, what I wanted to do with it, and how it worked. I happened to think it was super cool so I said that too.

I did a couple posts on free ad blogs, and added it to a couple blogs I have. The RSS feed for my lensmaster account had already been submitted. I just left it.

That was about 6 months ago. I didn’t touch it.

A month or two later I realized it was getting a trickle of traffic. I added the keywords people were using to find it to the tags and that’s it.

I forgot all about it. In fact, I forgot the name of the product I was promoting. I only went back to the lens because I wanted to go to the product and use it lol. When I got to the lens I clicked through to the product and checked my stats. I’d been making a few sales. Well that’s cool.

Then this month I checked my stats again, and as of last night I had made over $870 from that one product, one lens.

Do you think I was motivated to get my ass to squidoo and build some more lenses?

YOU BETCHA!

Here’s the thing though ~ while that lens was over there doing it’s thing I’ve been hanging out with you all, I’ve been building niche sites, I’ve been building more lenses ~ and all of (well some of) those endeavors are making money. So not only did I rock it from that lens this month I’ve made some other money as well.

I don’t tell this story to brag or to make you feel bad. I want to really really really get my point across that you have to LET GO of the attachment to your stuff. Do it, promote it, let it go. Check in on it a month later and see what it’s up to. Really. The more obsessive you get about how your stuff is doing I’m convinced the less it’s going to do. If you know/believe in the law of attraction it says “That which is like unto itself is drawn”. What the…? What that means to me is if you sit there saying “dang, my lens doesn’t have any traffic what the… ” You are going to draw even more of that to you and your lens. The more you focus on what isn’t working, why it’s not working, you’re going to pull more “not working” to you.

So just let it go and have FUN. Do more lenses, have fun doing lenses. Find things to write about that you are excited to share with people. Share things that make you smile. The better you feel while you’re doing this, the better the results. Yes, that’s just my personal experience ~ but its’ what I see over and over again in my business. When I go out and put stuff up just to make money bleck… nada. When I write because I’m loving something and want someone else to experience the fun/joy/love I have then magical things happen.

Passion vs. profit is an ongoing and long debate in the marketing world ~ but that’s my take on it.

ANYWAY ~ there was my ramble for Tuesday.

Now what?

If you want to keep building more lenses as your primary or secondary internet marketing strategy I suggest you build, build, build as many as you possibly can. Be consistent, build and promote regularly. Follow the Christmas Cash blueprint (which will have a new name and look shortly, but will be the same information don’t worry).

Go to the articles page of this blog and follow the steps outlined in the product lens process section.

Many of you mentioned, in the survey, you wish there was a checklist. Something you could print out to keep you on track and help you see which steps you’ve taken and what still needs to be done.

Your wish is my pleasure to create!

I have put together a checklist in pdf format. You can download it and then print it out for each lens. It will walk you through all the steps needed to research, create and promote a product lens. There’s a place to mark off each step when you’ve completed it.

While I’d like to give it away for free I want people to really use it. It seems people think things are really useful and helpful when they have to pay for it. Don’t worry, I’m keeping it really affordable, but if you pay for it, make me one promise. USE IT!!

If you want the Squidoo Lens Creation Checklist just click the buy now button below. You will receive an email with your download link in it. Once you’ve downloaded it make sure you save it to your computer so you can use it over and over again for each of your lenses.

Squidoo Lens Creation Checklist: $7

I hope that answers the question of what’s next for your christmas cash lenses ~ if you have any questions please feel free to ask in the comment section and I’ll do my best to answer them.