Jim Zboran

This thread is producing loads of great insights and tips! Wonderful idea, Shay I'm accepting the challenge too.

Thomas-West

I think there may be a number of participants in this challenge who are totally new to this, but don't want to say so. Then there are those who are quite familiar with the whole concept of IM and are using this as a poke to get going in a bigger way.

I have a problem with this as some of the comments may be a bit daunting to the beginner. I'm not sure how to solve this problem right now. I am able to build the sites, get a product, get a responder running, all that seems simple to me but then I come to a very big halt. Traffic and conversions are my biggest problems, I simply cannot either get the traffic to the site or when I do I cannot convert that traffic, so those are the issues I would like to see covered in more detail.

For those who are just beginning, here is what I do. Once I have found a hungry buying market then it's a matter of looking at free PLR sites to get a matchng product. I then pull it apart and rewrite it to suite and update for todays market. Most of these packs have all the things you need, product, give away, sales and download pages etc. Some even have responder posts and extra articles. It took me a long time to accept that the use of these is simple and your final product takes on a life and face of its own.

Again for those who are just starting out, I found a couple of posts on some forums and from there I am thinkinf of writing a new ebook on WP that covers the assumptions of some marketers, in other words I will tell you what they don't. It annoys the heck out of me to see that these marketers have lost memories of their experiences when they started out. They either tell you too little or too much.

What Shay has done here is in my opinion very brave. To try to help everyone is very hard to do but the majority of people here have learned something, no matter how small. The thing I got most was the ability to overcome the ideas block. I now have a list a mile long for projects where 2 weeks ago I had nothing after several months of frustration and a blank note book.

I use Word Press simply because of its speed and ease of use, I was a HTML fanatic but not today. Now Shay suggested the use of Blogger so for new starters this is based on WP so once you get used to it you will find later that you will be able to quickly adapt to WP on your own hosting and domain. It is not hard to learn, in all reality it is pretty easy, once you have done the first one then the next one is simple.

If you are a first timer here and I mean have never done anything like this before, don't know how to do a simple keyword search, then please let us know so we can get a real idea of how many are having difficulty starting.

Shay, please correct if wrong here. The steps to date so far:

Keyword research to find a hungry buying market.
Find a product to suite this market.
Find a related free report to give away.
Start a Blogger blog
Find or write posts and articles
Begin posting to blogger blog
Locate email responder with free starting period, eg 30days.
Build responder web form and install on blog site.
Continue to post on blog and build out email responder series.

We should now be waiting on info on how to drive traffic to our sites/blog.

Sorry this is a bit long but I do have a concern for those who are having difficulty getting started.

ShayB

Yes, that is perfect.

And thank you so much for your post.

Tiptopcat

My 30 Day Challenge - Day 8

Yesterday I put together a bunch of articles to make up my free ebook so today I selected a collection of images to add to each page to make it look a little prettier.

I also put together a list of headlines to be used as the emails in my auto responder sequence. When I have a bit more time, I can work on writing out each short article. It shouldn't take too long as they only need to be around 250 words each.


I tried working with Gimp again today to try and create a free eBook cover but got frustrated and gave up. I will have to look at alternative ideas.


Shay - Thanks for the update on where you are so far. Now I know that I need to get everything ready so that I can concentrate on the traffic generation part properly.

Hope you feel better soon.


Tiptopcat

CMartin

You can create a free ebook cover here:
ecover design - design it yourself online

You can select one of the 5 free ecovers and the other [locked] ones I presume are for paid/registered users.

I tested it and was able to create a simple ebook cover and downloaded it without the need to sign-up for the service.

...

There is a great (free and no sign-up) online tool from Warrior Mark Hess, that allows to create professional images for: Headline, Buy Now, Belcher Button and Guarantee.

Here's the link:
Free Graphics Creator For Internet Marketers - Create Buy Now Buttons and Graphic Headlines

...

And "Aviary" is a great and advanced online tool for photo, design and audio:
Free online photo editor - Aviary.com



Carlos

angiedc

Great post! I certainly qualify for this one. I've been able to do the majority of these things, but was trying to tweak a few minor things on my blog tonight and ran into what I am sure are simple fixes, but I can't quite figure them out. These are VERY minor, but I would love some insight if someone can help me out.

First, I am seeing the following text at the bottom of all of my pages:

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

I've seen this on other people's sites before and wondered why they never cleaned that up. Now I know why! I can't figure out for the life of me how to get that to go away (total newb, I know, but you won't know if you don't ask). I'm using Wordpress on an existing domain that I own.

Second, how do I change the text in the header? The name of the theme I am using is currently there and I have tinkered with this trying to figure out how to edit this text. I'm not looking to do anything more than remove the theme title and place my own text there.

**Totally not trying to focus on the minutia, but these things have been driving me crazy.**

RickAllen

I'm feeling pretty miserable with allergies today. However no rest for the wicked. I made several blog post today and completed the upcoming ones (6 total for now). I still need to complete the blog itself as it is still pretty plain vanila at this piont. I've got a few other projects that need done this week and need to make some extra money offline for higher then expected bills so may get slowed up some. Otherwise doing well so far.

I to am curious about how far in the blog postings I should start driving to the auto-responder sequence for opt-in.

"I can get you more sales without spending a dime more on advertising!" http://ThePRexpert.com Free video course, whitepapers and more.

RickAllen

I've used these, might work for you:

ecover design - design it yourself online

3D-box maker » 3d-box & package on-line for free

Hope it helps.

"I can get you more sales without spending a dime more on advertising!" http://ThePRexpert.com Free video course, whitepapers and more.

Thomas-West

@angiedc,
SOme themes can be a bit of a bug bear for sure. Regarding the code, it could be in a couple of places, can you be a little more specific as to where it appears?

You should be able to change the text in the header by entering your text in the "General" - "settings" of your dashbord., hope that helps.

@Rick,
This is my slant on the auto responder question and I stand to be corected if some one has a better explaination. I have my responder up as soon as I begin a blog/site. If I supply good quality info right from the start then I feel that readers will be influenced to sign into the responder sooner than later, but that's just my idea. I am open to learning if there is a better explaination.

angiedc

Back with one more technical question. I have my auto responder set up, but not sure how to install this on my blog????

Thomas-West, thanks for the info, I'll try your suggestion with the header. The code is appearing at the bottom of every page under what would be posts. The only page it isn't showing on is the "sample page" - go figure.

Thomas-West

Ok Angiedc,
Can you tell me the name of the theme you are using, not your domain name, you may want to keep that quiet for now.

prashawn

I made 3000 USD without any investment.

Buy Clickbank mini-blogs content optimized 100 USD per blog check http://clickbankitems.blogspot.com for example.

angiedc

It's the Cherry Truffle theme from Elegant Themes. Looking more closely, this code is under what would be the "comments" section on each page.

Thomas-West

Yeah that's ok, it's directions for those who want to make a comment, they are being told that they can use basic HTML code in their comments. Turning off Comments will delete that from your page/post.

A bit complicated but I often do code stripping inside themes to get them the way I want them, but it can get veeery complicated, way beyond many people.

sethdrebitko

Elaboration?

jezbiz

Day 8

I'm kinda slow in doing this whole process.. but so far here is what I've accomplished.

*setup a blogger blog
*loaded 12 articles: 4 articles posted first then the rest will be posted in intervals
*created my free e-book give away
*now i'm on the process of finishing my autoresponder (get response as per shay's recommendation) hopefully done with in the next few hours
* **Next would be to create my paid product.

Need Articles? chek my gig @ http://fiverr.com/markwilson

jezbiz

quick questions:
*Which format would be best for the autoresponder series? the plain text or html format?
*Where do you store your free e-book giveaway so that it can be downloaded by your new subscribers?

thanks

Need Articles? chek my gig @ http://fiverr.com/markwilson

Thomas-West

jezbiz,

Again, this is what I did for the challenge, I used plain text in the responder because not every one is able to receive HTML formats.

I attached my freebie to the first email which was my welcome email.

As I said that's what I have done but others may have a better idea.

jezbiz

@thomas west

thanks for the insight, I used the plain text format then.. I included the download link also on the welcome email..

Need Articles? chek my gig @ http://fiverr.com/markwilson

TheGetStartedExpert

This is one of those its-so-simple-its-brilliant concepts: "Find out what people want to buy, and give it to them."

You can pay a market analyst hundreds if not thousands of dollars, or use the free resources listed below to find out the latest trends by looking at what people are talking about on social media.

1. 48ers - Realtime Social Search
Just type in a word or prase that you want to look up and 48ers will list where in Facebook and other social media that term has been mentioned. It's a good way to "spy" on the market.

2. BackType
Find out how many times a url is mentioned in a tweet

3. YouTube - Build Your Query
A great tool that searches YouTube videos and describes what type of videos your demographic likes to watch and the terms they used to find the videos.

RickAllen

From Thomas-West, "I have a problem with this as some of the comments may be a bit daunting to the beginner. I'm not sure how to solve this problem right now. I am able to build the sites, get a product, get a responder running, all that seems simple to me but then I come to a very big halt. Traffic and conversions are my biggest problems, I simply cannot either get the traffic to the site or when I do I cannot convert that traffic, so those are the issues I would like to see covered in more detail."

This is about the same position I am in. I have been doing direct marketing/selling for some time. I have had a few "hits" in a very small niche, based largely on my "celebrity" in that niche, but never been able to branch out with a wider market reach. Looking forward to learning more in the coming days of how to reach the list building process and of course the bottom line making the sell.

Thank you for posting such a concise summery.

"I can get you more sales without spending a dime more on advertising!" http://ThePRexpert.com Free video course, whitepapers and more.

RickAllen

I like the idea of the "Double Your Money" for those doing this challenge it would make for a great carry over for the next month.

Already posted my biggest stopping block in a reply to Thomas-West, to recap, Building the list and sell the the list are my two biggest "how to" questions.

Hope your feeling better and getting your voice back Shay. :-)

"I can get you more sales without spending a dime more on advertising!" http://ThePRexpert.com Free video course, whitepapers and more.

adahahmad

Genius.... Am late for the challange but read the whole posts here. Am a newbie and indeed will follow thru this incredible thread... :p. AM sure this will help me to kick start my IM biz

sethdrebitko

Another thing for traffic that I was not 100% sure had been mentioned would be adwords. If you are just starting you probably don’t have an adwords account which means you should pop around on a few adsense related marketing sites until google handy sign up get $75 to use free ad pops up.

jimmynastic

the challenge is great, i wish i was there to start with the group. Is it too late to pickup.

RickAllen

It's never too late. You can get up to speed pretty quick if you just follow the posts that have been made. Thomas-West made a handy little check list of what needs to be done so far.

"I can get you more sales without spending a dime more on advertising!" http://ThePRexpert.com Free video course, whitepapers and more.

The Herm

Ok, I'm totally late to the party here but this looks like an awesome challenge and I can't pass it up. This looks like a great opportunity to learn a little bit more about IM and to possibly help me overcome my biggest obstacles so far with a) generating traffic and b) conversions.

I accept the challenge and will be doing my keyword research and setting up my blogger site today.

Not sure if I should use this to work on the site I already have (it is in the weight loss niche) or go for something new as I'm kinda looking to get a new project started too.

ShayB

With Getresponse, you can attach a file to an email. I attach the file to the first email (the Welcome one).

I use plain text, for the same reasons that Thomas West mentioned - not everyone can view HTML emails.

We'll be talking about list building and also selling to your list during the challenge.

I think I'm going to go with the "Double Your Money" challenge.

You can still join in!

I mentioned a while back (not sure which post) that if you have a coupon for Adwords you can use it for the challenge. Thank you for the tip.

Not too late! Join us!

Glad to have you join in!

WriterWahm

Wow! I am totally saturated!

First of all Shay, I hope you are better. Being sick is no fun

I signed up for this challenge then forgot all about it. So now I'm late to start but start I will!

Right now I am doing some research. I know I want to work with the work at home niche but I need to find a sub-niche. I'll probably do something with online marketing for work at home businesses. I already have one or two related domains that have been lying dormant and several PLR packs. I also have hosting so I will be using that. I am not spending a dime though.

I'm not sure I'll have up to 30 days as I'll be going into labour in a week or two But I will start work and continue wherever I leave off.

Thanks again Shay for this challenge! I'm up for the next too and I like your first idea better (doubling the money).

PM me if you want a romantic fiction ghostwriter.

Thomas-West

@WriterWahm
Good luck at your upcoming delivery, it will all go well. I can just see you now siting up there tapping away on your laptop, not letting any thing distract you LOL.

Gee I sleep at the wrong time it seems. I just woke up to find this thread has so many replies in the last few hours, great.

Those who have just joined or forgot about it, never too late to join. Some of you have experience and will catch up quickly, those who are beginners, you guys will eventually catch up, just a bit latter that's all.

Shay, I have been taking some parts of this thread and saving them in a file, there is a good chance for a free product here. Some really good hints in there.

I finally got my third site ready for the next stage of this challenge. I have reactivated two sites that have been inactive for about a year, still gathering age, just haven't been able to get them to produce. The other site is one I have built using this thread, a blogger site.

Since all sites have their pages/posts listed for publishing over the next few weeks as do my responder lists and means I am sitting waiting, yep, I am planning a couple more blogger site outlines. As I said before I have a number of ideas in my notebook so might as well work on them when time permits.

joekyut

I have worked on my post count in the forum together with commenting of other sites to increase my links.
This needs to be done daily

Tiptopcat

Firstly, I would like to say a massive thank you to those who offered suggestions for the ebook cover. I will definitely go and take a look at all of them so that I can see if I can use one of them to make the cover for my final paid product.

In the meantime:

MY 30 Day Challenge - Day 9
I am proud to announce that my free eBook is now complete. It has been converted into a PDF file, uploaded to my website and is ready for the onslaught of traffic to arrive and come and download it.

OK, well not quite. I abandoned trying to figure out how to create my own eBook cover with Gimp’s free software. I was still able to mock up a nice and simple cover in Word and that will do just fine.

I have also done the first email post of my auto responder series. I am using MailChimp which is free.

The next thing on my list is to edit my first article and post it on Ezinesarticles. This is where I hope that my first trickle of traffic and visitors will come from.

That’s all for today.

Hope you all have had a productive day.


Tiptopcat

Tiptopcat

Oh my goodness - I have just checked out a couple of these sites and it is amazing. Thanks for sharing these websites. This is just what I needed.

Brilliant - Am now off to create more eBook covers:p

Carlos - Many thanks.

Tiptopcat

sleblanc

I haven't got started in this challenge yet, lagging behind, but I have been following along with the thread and all the advice. I also plan to follow along at my own pace once I get my first site up and start to post some content.

I'm currently in the keyword research phase, and although I have a huge list of potential keywords to start researching with, I'm having a tough time narrowing down a good sub-nice/keyword that might be profitable. I have some Google Keyword Tool search results to share and was hoping someone could help me determine if they are keywords worth persuing?

Keyword 1 - 33k exact global monthly searches, 138k actual searches (in quotes) and low competition

Keyword 2 - 27k exact global monthly searches, 384k actual searches (in quotes), medium competition

Keyword 3 - 5400 exact global monthly searches, 144k actual searches (in quotes) and medium competition

Keyword 4 - 5400 exact global monthly searches, 15k actual searches (in quotes) low competition

Keyword 5 - 5400 exact global monthly searches, 135k actual searches (in quotes) low competition


I'm still trying to figure out what I'm looking for when using Google Keyword Tool and I also haven't considered any other tools yet, but from my understanding Market Samurai can be a godsend when doing keyword research.

I also feel like the keywords I've been looking at may be too informational, do you think that this should be a real consideration, or with good quality content and proper product placement, it could still be profitable?

Thanks so much for this wonderful post and all the amazing advice!

"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing -that's why we recommend it daily." - Zig Ziglar

ShayB

I have my posts in a document and it's already 10 pages! (I can't give away anyone else's posts in a freebie without permission.) I do think it'll be a great freebie once it's done.

Thank you for the well-wishes.

And you're welcome! I think next month's challenge will definitely be a "Double Your Money" challenge. Seems to be the clear favorite.

Thank you to EVERYONE who has been chiming in on this thread and offering encouragement and support! This is exactly what I'd hoped would happen - a group effort!

DAY NINE

*cough, hack, wheeze*

Yeah, I sound pretty bad right now. I'm sure I'll sound lovely for my show tonight. Good thing have a guest to interview. Hopefully she can do most of the talking.

Okay. So by now you should have the following:

1. Your site
2. Your autorespnder set up
3. Your content
4. Your product (or at least getting close)
5. Autoresponder messages (or getting them set up)

If you don't have all of these things, they are at least in progress.

I'm still working on my stuff, but I am behind schedule because I am sick. I don't want to keep people behind that I've already gotten their other stuff in place.

So let's talk about two things today.

Selling Your Product

You need to have a way to sell whatever it is you've created. I use e-junkie.com. (Not an affiliate link.) I have found them to be very reliable and very good service.

If you use the code MYEASYE-JUNKIE, you should get a free 67-day trial.

E-junkie will take PayPal, Google Checkout and a variety of other payment options for you to use. They have excellent step-by-step instructions to walk you through things.

Once you have uploaded a product, they will give you the code that you need for your buy buttons.

Traffic

One of the things that I want you to get out of this exercise is that you have a huge resource that is free right here in the Warrior Forum.

Here is one of the best threads I've seen about traffic:

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...c-sources.html

(You can also opt in to get Kim's free report in her sig. It's a good report.)

Also:

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...e-traffic.html

We'll talk about individual methods and such during the challenge.

Edited to add:

I'm going to update the original post to indicate my "Day Updates" and to reflect the great resources shared in this thread.

ShayB

Hard to say with such vague info. (NOT saying to post the info here. Just saying.)

Are any of the keywords "buying" keywords? Example: I'd choose "buy fishing gear" or "fishing gear prices" or "fishing gear info" any day.

Thomas-West

I better clear something up here.

Shay posted:
"I have my posts in a document and it's already 10 pages! (I can't give away anyone else's posts in a freebie without permission.) I do think it'll be a great freebie once it's done. "

The bits I have been saving are the links to various products that are of help. Many of them I already have but some I didn't. Now these could be used in a free "resources" report. I'll leave it at that for now.

Here's a little tip for those struggling with their word research, remember you need to get free traffic for this challenge.

Question: Who do need to beat to get to page 1 on Google???
Answer: ONLY those occupying the first page of Google, not the second page or any other.

Way too much emphasis is placed on how to build your site and put good content on it. Fantastic? Have you ever looked at building a site on "How to train a Galapagos dragon"???

So you need to look for a couple of things in the sites on page 1. First their page rank. Firefox has an addon to help there "SeoQuake".

. If they rank above 4 move on to the next keyword you have.

Next look at the site title, header title,article titles etc to see just how good their SEO is. To date I have not found anyone talking about this but I do stand to be corrected if you have seen this info before.

I also use a neat tool called "Wordtracker SEO Blogger", a free addon for "FireFox".

bellsong

Just saw this challenge today, so I am getting a late start. Oh, well. Better late than never, right?

I am choosing the baby products niche.

Thanks for this challenge.

ShayB

Oooh. I see.

sleblanc

I've been doing research on a subject that has 'guidelines' + 'restrictions' for products that I am interested in promoting. I am wondering if I can target to lower competition exact searches, and provide information about the restrictions and guidelines and what not, and also populate my site with products that are relevant to the guidelines.

The keywords and the results I listed above are based on this same subject, I hope I'm not being TOO vague :S.. but I'm wondering targeting people who are looking for information on restrictions for a particular product, would be inclined to purchase as well? Or if they are there strictly to find the information/guides needed?

Sigh!

I think I'm doing too much overanalyzing and not enough 'putting-into-action' and seeing what happens.

"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing -that's why we recommend it daily." - Zig Ziglar

imarketstuff

hello

to everyone participating in the challenge, have fun and work hard!

I'm subscribing to the thread, and will be working the challenge another time.. this will be a blueprint to "rinse and repeat" any month.

peace

ShayB

I agree.

I don't sweat keyword research too much. You can drive traffic a lot of ways.

Besides, SEO isn't really "scalable." Once you get to the top of the search engines, that's all you can do.

RickAllen

It's easy to get bogged down in the details. Keywords do play a part I suppose but I use them more to find niches of interest. In fact just today did I get around to doing a keyword search, simply because it was on the list of things to do. I knew my product had a high interest so I moved on with it. If I thought it might be "iffy" I may have bumped the search up higher in importance.

"I can get you more sales without spending a dime more on advertising!" http://ThePRexpert.com Free video course, whitepapers and more.

ShayB

Yep, I use keywords to see what kind of interest level there is. I don't obsess over them.

RickAllen

Here's my update for today. It's nearly 7:30pm my time.

I found a really great Opt-In template in my PLR stuff so I used that, already have a Opt-In list and autoresponder creator so I'm using that.

Spent a little time with entering the HTML form in the Opt-In template, it was being a little buggy for some reason.

As mentioned earlier I spent a few minutes looking at Keywords. I also realized the free report I was going to use would not work for this so I searched on some sources and will compile a small "case studies" report.

Wrote another short blog posting and realized I need something for the autoreponder (nice to have a step by step check off plan) So I also found a mini PLR course I can offer. It's amazing how much PLR I have accumulated over the last couple years and have done nothing with.

I may come back latter tonight and do some more work, but thinking about kicking back and letting the allergy meds do their thing. :>)

"I can get you more sales without spending a dime more on advertising!" http://ThePRexpert.com Free video course, whitepapers and more.

jezbiz

day Nine...

I guess I can consider myself like a lazy marketer.**
so what I did was just look for free plr articles, make some little changes on the ones I used so it won't look completely the same, then loaded it for my blog content and autoresponder series. -DONE

Now I will use some of the other plr articles for submissions *to be completed today*
then I'm going to focus on the actual paid product creation...

Need Articles? chek my gig @ http://fiverr.com/markwilson

sethdrebitko

I'm tapping out I made a bit of money through unloading some useless stuff I had laying around planned out 2 projects, and began creating them. Unfortunately I'll be without internet for a whole week so I think I'll keep beefing things up offline and hold out for next months contest.

Overall I'm glad the thread got me kickstarted to start getting things done. Can't wait to see how everything turns out for people good luck!

sleblanc

I have decided to go with a more broad niche/market, as it turns out the competition and monthly search results on Google's Keyword tool for the keywords I'm looking at SEEM to indicate I could potentially get some decent traffic. Although I still don't fully understand how to use that tool yet.

Anyways, I plan to work on a blog in the travel market but I want to really start writing some quality articles first and getting content posted - as this is an area I'm extremely interested in. The goal will then be to monetize later with more specific products, but ideally to create a helpful travel resource filled with useful tips and whatnot related to my targeted niche!

I hope to have an actual website update in my next post, as I have narrowed down a domain name to two possibilities that are both available!

I did have one more question for the group for this post.. I've read in different threads about making Wordpress blogs with pages, compared to posting new articles/posts for each update. My idea was to post pages for a lot of my informational base - and post more specific reviews and articles later for (obviously) more specific areas within my niche. Are there pros or cons to this approach or should I seriously just try it and see if it works? Lol.

"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing -that's why we recommend it daily." - Zig Ziglar

The Herm

Ok, so I just got in on this today - but thought I'd update. So far, I've done some keyword research and decided to go with a few keywords in the weight loss/diet niche since I already have a stand alone blog site that is about 3 months old in that niche already.

I intend to use the site on blogger that I am creating for this contest as part of a link pyramid going into my main site.

As of this point I've set up my blog, written my about me page and am writing post #2, just trying to do a little quick catch up in the mean time.

I will set up my autoresponder using aweber since I already use that service for my other site and will be doing that this evening as well

I know that my real challenge on this will be driving traffic and I'm looking forward to it!

angiedc

I'm primarily working on content at this point. Made it pass my technical hurdles! Thanks Thomas-West!

Looking forward to hearing more about generating traffic.