Upload Report So You Can Share It!

Hopefully you’ve made some progress with your free report. Heck, maybe you’ve even finished it! Now it’s time to figure out how to share it with your readers.

How to Upload Your Free Report

If you are using your free report to build your list you’ll be sharing it via your autoresponder. However, before you can do that you’ll need to have it hosted somewhere.

This means you’ll need to upload it to your hosting account. When you upload it to your server you will then get a url that points to your report. It’s the url you’ll share in your email to your readers. They will be able to go to that address and see the report ~ as well as download it to their machine.

It’s a pretty simple process. You’ll need to open your ftp client (fireftp or whatever you’re using). You’ll have to find the domain the report goes with. (if you have more than one domain on your hosting account.)

For example, the Blog 2 hours report I did I wanted associated with this site, so I had to go in and find the folder for THIS site (as apposed to all my other sites).

Once you find the appropriate domain folder open it up.

** Alternatively you can create a new folder/directory in your root domain where you keep free reports and other things like it. I have a “loves” folder. That way when I put things in that folder it will look like www.internetmarketingformommies.com/loves/freereport.pdf

It makes it easier to stay organized and find things when you get a lot of things going.

To create a new directory log in to your ftp client. Find the domain name folder you want it to be associated with. Right click  and choose create directory. A box will show up for you to name it. You can then open that directory/folder and follow the rest of the directions below.

Find your report on the left hand side (your computer files) and click it to highlight it, and then click the arrow to move it over to the server side.

That’s it.

It will now have an address you can use in your email. It will be www.yourdomainname.com/yourreportname.pdf or if you put it in a folder it will be www.yourdomain.com/foldername/reportname.pdf

** Tip**
When you are naming your report don’t put any spaces in the name. It will make your url much easier to deal with. When you have spaces in your report name they will be filled in with symbols that will make the url very tough to remember.

Sharing your report with your readers:

Once you’ve uploaded your free report you can share it with your readers in a number of ways. You can also use it to drive traffic.

• If you’re going to use it to build a list you’ll want to go into your autoresponder and create a campaign. You’ll put the url to the report in the first message of your new campaign. (we’re going to go over this piece in detail next week)

• You can share it in a blog post as a freebie bonus for your readers.

• You can upload it to sites like Scribd where people will find it and share it.

• You can tweet the link and give it away on twitter.

• You can link to it and give it away on facebook.

• You could have a contest and give copies away for people tweeting about it. (www.twiveaway.com)

Free reports are an excellent way to create value and drive traffic, so consider creating free reports regularly. You don’t really want to do ALL of the above with the same report ~ you want to have a free report for each of these activities.

Get your free reports uploaded ~ next week we’re going to learn how to add an opt in box, set up your autoresponder and how to do a squeeze page. Busy week!!

Don’t forget to go back to the blog challenge post and leave a comment when you get your report done and uploaded!

If you have any questions about uploading your report feel free to ask in the comments section, and I’ll do what I can to help you.