At the end of last year, I spent a couple of weeks trying to decide whether or not to move MasonWorld.com from a Sole Proprietorship to a Limited Liability Company. So, I thought it was appropriate to make a blog post describing my findings while researching this topic. I thought it might save you some time in the future.

In the end, I did form an LLC and I used LegalZoom to do it -- but I did not do it for the reasons that you might think.

Having said that, I need to let you know that I’m not an attorney, and in fact I don’t even play one on TV. If you need legal advice, you definitely need to consult an attorney. Don’t do anything based on my opinion. You need to seek professional advice for legal matters and for tax accounting, for that matter.  Also, you should know that LLC laws vary from state to state (and from country to country).  So, you really need to talk to your attorney.

Even though I am not an attorney, I do think it’s useful to understand what kind of questions to ask an attorney. After all, attorneys cost $150, $200, or $250 an hour. It pays to know what you need to ask about before you go in to ask advice from an attorney. There’s no reason to get a background education from an attorney. You need to go in with an education and then leverage that education to get your tasks accomplished as quickly as possible for the lowest attorney fees possible .

Why Form An LLC (Myths Revealed)

I was considering moving the Mason World activity to a Limited Liability Company (LLC) for three basic reasons. I think these are the three basic reasons that most people consider using a Limited Liability Company for.

One, limit liability. Very clearly, if I get sued for something that I do on MasonWorld.com or one of my other websites, I’d like to keep someone from taking my life savings, my house, and my car.  I want to limit my personal liability.  As you can see, the general theme of protection" is the major selling proposition in the ad creative from LegalZoom below:

Two, tax protection. Everybody always says that the right thing to do is to form a Limited Liability Company under tax code sub chapter S. One of the things I wanted to determine was whether or not this would give me any tax savings.

Three, appearances. Hey, it looks cool to have a Limited Liability Company moniker behind the name of your company. So, forming an LLC might give you some additional credibility.

Now, I’m not really going to talk about my tax findings and this issue of credibility in this blog post. We’ll save that for a future blog post. But, I will tell you about my findings on the liability side. I had a long discussion with Lynn Terry in her Private Member forum, which as you know I participate in very heavily. I’ve come to some very definite conclusions after talking to a couple of attorneys, and they may surprise you.

An LLC May Not Protect You From Anything

If you are a Solo Entrepreneur, liability protection is not a good reason to form a Limited Liability Company according to my research.  Again, I am no attorney (you should consult one to confirm my research).  However, consider for a second what you want to be protected from. Limited Liability Companies protect you from the liability of debt, among other things. They separate your business activities from your personal activities and give you the opportunity to be protected against business debts that you may incur.

Now, I’m not borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars to run MasonWorld.com. As you know, one of the great things about internet business is that it costs very little to run one. In fact, I run MasonWorld.com completely on a cash flow positive basis.

So, what I am really interested in is liability protection. If I write something on my blog that insults someone, and they decide to sue me and they win, then those damages could effect my personal assets. Assets that are not in any way related to assets generated by MasonWorld.com. The question is "can a Limited Liability Company protect those assets?"  Will someone who sues me be able to take my home and my car?

My research suggests that in the case of a Limited Liability Company with a single employee, the answer is absolutely not -- the LLC will not protect you. The reason is very simple.   When someone sues a company, they also sue the people in the company that are responsible for actually doing the thing that has caused the suit.  If the company contains only one employee then that employee will always be named in a lawsuit.  In the case of MasonWorld.com, I am the only employee.  There are many virtual assistants, but I am the only employee.  So, any action taken by MasonWorld.com that harms someone would actually be an action taken by me -- so I would be named in a suit.

Of course, if you have employees or a partner then everything changes.  If your partner goes postal and creates liability for the company, a LLC may very well limit your personal liability.  Again, consult your attorney.

An Example Helps Make This More Clear

Consider the example of Bob123Website.com, which is run by Bob.  Note that Bob is not a real person -- so if your name is Bob, please don't sue me. 

Bob writes a blog post and says that a congressman is sleeping with his secretary. It turns out that defames the congressman, and the congressman sues for liable, slander, or defamation, whichever one applies, in this case defamation. Let’s say the congressman wins, Bob loses, and Bob now owes the congressman $250,000.

But wait -- Bob’s got an LLC.   It won't matter because the congressman sued both the LLC as the company who took the action, and Bob as the individual who took the action.  With Solo Entrepreneurs this is almost always true -- Bob takes every action at his LLC because he is the only employee.

Where a Limited Liability Company would protect Bob would be if Bob had seven employees, and employee number five was the one who wrote the blog post. That would protect Bob’s personal assets, because Bob would argue it was the company that did it, not Bob.

So, if you can’t separate yourself from your company (if you’re really a single person inside a company and you’re taking all the actions on behalf of the company) there’s really no way for you to protect yourself from liability. Again, this is my opinion and I am not an attorney -- but this is pretty clear.

Bottom Line:  You are responsible for your own actions. You cannot hide behind a company name.  After all, shouldn’t it be that way? Shouldn’t you be responsible for your actions? That makes sense to me.

I did go ahead and form MasonWorld Enterprises LLC at LegalZoom -- but not for liability protection.  I did it for several other reasons that I may discuss in detail in a future blog post.  I even had a new logo designed.

By the way -- I loved LegalZoom.  I felt like they did a great job and made things really easy.

I’d love to discuss this matter further. If you’d like, please leave a comment at the end of this blog post and we can talk about this as much as you want, as long as you understand that I’m not an attorney, my advice may not apply to you, and you need to seek qualified legal advice before you take any legal action.

Thanks, and have a fantastic day.

• Watching WordWorld on PBS with my little guy. He loves it! #
• @jeremyfrandsen he rocks, but I did not use John Melley. I hear other people copying you, and I am trying not to be that guy. #
• @jasonvo thanks man. Taking it slow. I am trying to make sure I have a podfade-proof plan. #
• @jasonvo Took delivery of my Intro and Outro today for the upcoming MasonWorld.com Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. #
• @lansa Hey, Other Mark Mason. Are you the markmason.com Mark Mason, or is that a third Mark Mason? in reply to lansa #
• @imtw If you never had a list, why would you know where spam filters get their filter data? So some people are just ignorant of impact. #
• @imtw Agree about spam, but I bet there are many ppl that don't realize that marking email as spam auto sends info to spam filters. #
• Hey - this solves the biggest problem Internet Marketers face http://aweber.com/b/1jxMR #
• @peoplepond I would love an invite code, please #

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I got a question by email this weekend that reminded me that a lot of internet marketers don't know much about web servers.  That's OK.  You don't really need to know much.  In case I am describing you, just know that a web server is the program on your host computer that serves web pages.  There are two main flavors -- Apache and MicroSoft IIS.

Apache dominates the market -- althought IIS has a role, especially in enterprise deployments that interface heavily with .NET and Windows.

Apache is available for Unix/Linux and Windows.  Sometimes, bad things happen and you need to restart Apache on your host.  Now, this can be accomplished via CPanel.  However, I prefer to do it at the command line.  Here is the command:


/etc/init.d/httpd restart


Thank you. This concludes our incredibly dry Sunday night Tech tip.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled internet marketing programming.

Do you have more tech questions? Be sure to let me know -- I am a certified geek.

Regards,
Mark

This is a little off topic for this blog, but I love cool tech stuff, and this is really cool.  I know a lot of you out there are geeks a heart, and we all love to get the best price when we shop.

If this describes you too, you gotta check this out.

Some graduates from my Alma Mater (Texas A&M University) are up for a neat award, and I was hoping some of you would take a minute to vote.

This guy (Rylan Barnes) started up a company that makes software for your mobile phone (think iPhone, Android/G1 etc).  Their first application is out, and it is a killer app!  Totally practical and useful (and really cool).

The app is called ShopSavvy and it uses the camera in your phone to scan the barcode of any product and finds the best prices online and at nearby, local stores!

Check out the company here: biggu.com

Anyway, they've been nominated for the 2008 Crunchies! This is a big deal. It's like winning an Oscar but for a tech startup company. This is only a nomination, though, so they need your vote!

Vote here: http://crunchies2008.techcrunch.com/votes/?nominee_id=85&category_id=16

They are up against some big Silicon Valley competition (like Google) so please spread the word. Blog it, twitter it, tell your facebook friends! Vote every day! They'll take all the help they can get.

Thanks!

Regards,

Mark

Just a quick note to let you know that I talked to Andrew Hansen of Firepow today.  You'll recall that Andrew previously authorized a $300 Firepow discount coupon for MasonWorld subscribers.  Yesterday, I asked him if I could offer you an even better and more special discount, and today has agreed!

So, now the special discount for MasonWorld readers is $30/month ($360/year).  As far as I know, this is the best discount available (let me know if you see a better offer).

EDIT -- Since this was first posted, Andrew has reduced the price of Firepow. The discount has changed, but as far as I can tell my coupon code still gets the lowest price available.

I have a special Firepow bonus announcement planed for Monday (and it is sweet) -- but if you buy Firepow before then using my affiliate link, you will still be eligible to get the bonus (I promise).  That will allow you to get started this weekend!

For now, if you sign up for FirePow using my link, you can get a whopping $30/month off of your bill.

Use FirePow discount coupon code "mason".

Andrew did not say how long he would be able to offer that deal, and I have not finished my promotion materials for Monday -- but I did not want to wait to offer you the discount.  If you were considering FirePow anyway, I wanted you to have the discount now.

Be sure to check out the no-risk guarantee Andrew is offering.  There really is no risk to giving Firepow a try today.  In fact I am told that lots of people actually sign up with the intention of cancelling the service, only to find out that the Firepow system is worth way more than the cost.  They happily keep it, laughing all the way to the bank.  Pretty cool.

Regards,
Mark

P.S.  I am still very impressed with FirePow so far.  If you have questions about FirePow, feel free to ask them here.

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means. It's time for another weekly Internet Business Fortune Cookie.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I am actually at my parents home in Houston, TX at this very moment. I have a lot to be thankful for -- so much so that it is hard to make a list. I was thinking about that today and I suddenly realized that I have never had any turkey-based Chinese Food. Why is that?

A quick trip to Google to search for "turkey Chinese food" reveals information about Chinese food in the country of Turkey, but little information about Chinese food containing turkey. Naturally, my next thought was to dominate the "turkey Chinese food" niche, but I don't see any AdSense ads on that page. Guess I'll hold off on that site for the time being.

This week The Cookie has come out on the side of the value of Joint Ventures in Internet Marketing.

Hear The Cookie:

"Take a trip with a friend."

Of course, the fortune cookie is obviously referring to the fact that some of the most successful Internet businesses these days rely on joint ventures. Joint Ventures (or JVs as they are called) are business arrangements where two or more parties get together to deliver a product and share the profits.

Why Do Joint Ventures?

The best reason to do a joint venture is to leverage unique talents of individuals. Let's say you know how to write killer code, but you are not sure what to write. Another guy has a great idea but neither one of you has any marketing savvy. The two of you team up and find a marketing guru with a list of 100,000 hungry buyers. That's a joint venture. You share the profits according to some prearranged split.

The awesome thing about JVs is that you can often achieve something much greater than the sum of the contributions by leveraging each others talents. That can mean more profit all of the participants.

Three Tips For A Successful Joint Venture

Here are three things to keep in mind when doing a JV.

• Communicate clearly.  Everything from financial arrangements to schedule and quality expectations.  Misunderstands and arguments are a leading cause of JV failure and disappointment.
• Know the law.  I am not a lawyer, and I do not play one on TV.  However, I do know that you need to be very careful to understand the difference between a Joint Venture, a partnership and other business arrangements.  If you do it wrong, you could be held liable for goofy stuff that your JV partners do without your permission.  Consult your attorney.
• Be honest and fair.   Treat your JV partners the way you want to be treated.  Expect a long-term business relationship, and behave accordingly.  Care what they think, and listen to what they have to say.

Bottom line as always is listen to the cookie.  A JV can be a great way to jump-start your business.

Have a great day.
Mark

Be sure and check out our previous Internet Business Fortune Cookies.

Photo credit: Uploaded on July 17, 2006 by headcase

I have written a lot recently about the importance of mailing lists. Last Friday, in fact, I explained about how I had been working on a lightbox solution for optins using the You Can't Block This script. The only problem is that I have been worried about bugging my normal readers and tarnishing my brand.

Sure enough, I got this thoughtful comment from a loyal reader (Alex The Big Blogger):

I’m not a fan of Popups, I consider them a little bit spammy, although I’ve tested them out on my own blog and I too have seen good results. I’ve made them with Aweber and set a delay to the apparence. On this way the visitor fisrt starts reading the post and then he gets the popup. Getting a popup as the first thing when i come to a site sets me up and makes me walk away.

That is exactly what I am worried about -- but I like the idea of a delay.

Then it occurred to me that I could just put some php code around the JavaScript based on the referrer to determine if the lightbox appeared.  For my initial experiment, I am only showing the opt-in box to users from StumbleUpon, Google search, Yahoo search and MSN search.  That way, I should not be offending my regular readers. (I know I am not the first person to have this idea, by the way).

In addition to that, I have the popup set to display once per browser session. That should allow for minimum annoyance.

I will let you know how it goes. I have added some Google Analytics code to the popup box html, so I should be able to get some decent stats on the performance.

One issue -- not all browsers are configured to report the referring website. For our current experiment, those visitors will not see the box. I may change this behavior later.

In case you are interested, here is the trivial php code to manage who sees the popup:

(Special thanks to Josh Spaulding for help with troubleshooting)

Have a great day!
Mark

Hey -- It's Free Stuff Friday again, and time for the Friday Freebie.

Affiliate marketing is an important revenue stream for a lot of marketers on line today.

The Friday Freebie today is a mediocre report on affiliate marketing that is completely loaded with affiliate links. If you are new to affiliate marketing, then you can skim this report to get a decent introduction to affiliate marketing. If you know what affiliate marketing is and are looking for advanced strategies, this is not the report for you.

In that case, you might check out the Secret Affiliate Code, which I bought myself and recommend.  Also, there is a new version of Secret Affiliate Code out -- Secret Affiliate Code 2, which I have not looked at yet.

Note that this "60 Minute Affiliate" report is loaded with affiliate links (that is why it is free). Some of the products recommended in the report are OK -- but I do not necessarily endorse the products mentioned in the report.

If you have specific questions about products mentioned, please drop me a comment.

Hey, you get what you pay for. As usual, if you are interested in downloading the report, just opt in to my email list in the right sidebar, and download instructions will be yours.

Have a great day.
Mark

60 Minutes To Affiliate Marketing

OK -- here is the coolest marketing creative material I have seen in a while.  The below flash game allows you to "shoot the guru" in an arcade-style game format.  Sorry about the violence.

At the end of the game, you get a link to a sales page.  I don't know anything about the product (I'd love to hear about it if you know something about it).  However, I think this is an amazingly cool marketing strategy.

Note that there is an affiliate program behind it. If you buy the product, the person who displayed the game gets a commission. I don't know anything about the product, and I do not endorse it. I do endorse the viral marketing approach. (If you are interested in the affiliate program, the link is at the bottom of the sales page.)

What do you think about this clever approach? Any idea what something like this costs to develop?

Regards,
Mark

As I mentioned yesterday, I have been looking at FirePow as I work on building out my niche sites.

One of the things that I immediately started hearing from people was concern about the price of the FirePow subscription.

I talked to Andrew Hanson about the cost, and he immediately reminded me that it was about return on investment (ROI).  His argument is, quite simply, that you can make your money back many times over by using the tools in FirePow to create a blog empire.

"I get that," I said.  "But money is money." It's fine to say that in the near future, FirePow will pay for itself, but it is still expensive.  It still costs money RIGHT NOW.

So, Andrew responded by offering a discount coupon for MasonWorld.com readers.  For now, if you sign up for FirePow using my link, you can get a whopping $25/month off of your bill.  That's right -- I am offering you a $300/year discount on Firepow.

Use FirePow discount coupon code "mason".

Andrew did not say how long he would be able to offer that deal, and I have not finished my evaluation -- but I did not want to wait.  If you were considering FirePow anyway, I wanted you to have the discount now.

Regards,
Mark

P.S.  I am very impressed with FirePow so far.  If you have questions about FirePow, feel free to ask them here.

A few months ago, I wrote about how to cloak an affiliate link and why you might want to cloak links for affiliate products that you promote. Since that time I have gotten a lot of questions and requests for help regarding that post. That's great because it means that people read the article and decided to give cloaking a try. I love that.  Helping people is the best part of this gig.

The Next Level Of Cloaking

Today I wanted to mention a more aggressive technique for cloaking - cloak an entire page. I was re-reading the Secret Affiliate Code (note the cool cloaked affiliate link) on the airplane on the way home from Singapore, and I was reminded about this method. This is a nice trick of the trade that I forgot about until I re-read this excellent eBook.

Let's say that you want to promote an affiliate product that is available on a service like ClickBank. Let's use Secret Affiliate Code as mentioned above as a great example for this case. It has a great landing page that converts really well. Let's also say that you want to link to the landing page as you promote the product as part of your promotion strategy. Now you could use a cloaked link like I taught in my previous post on cloaking (just like I did above). That would take the user away from your site to the sales page of the affiliate product. That's a perfectly normal and fine thing to do, and you can make money doing that.

Keep The Prospect "On Your Site"

But what if you want the visitor to have a more seamless experience, and you want the landing page to look like it lives on your domain, not the domain of the seller. Deciding to do this could help reinforce the message to the buyer that you are fully endorsing the product, not just slinging traffic to an affiliate link. Here is an example of the Secret Affiliate Code sales page showing up as if it were on MasonWorld.com.

So, How Can You Cloak A Page?

The answer is by creating a simple HTML file on your site that places the sales page inside a frame. The code shown below, but I recommend you download it from the attached zip file.

Save the zip file to your disk, edit the four things mentioned below, and ftp it to your site. To make the file work, you need to change the following:

WEB PAGE TITLE: Give the page a title that matches your keyword strategy for the promotion. This is especially important for a good quality score if you are driving Adwords to the page.

KEYWORDS: Put your keywords in here. You want to have these there, but it is not as critical as it used to be. Google pays very little attention to these.

DESCRIPTION: This will show up in your listing on Google. Make sure your keywords are here as well as a call to action for the Googler that makes them want to click on your search engine listing.

GA CODE: Be sure to turn on Google Analytics for the page. This is another major advantage of this technique. You can get Google Analytic data for the visitors that you send to the sales page.

Be sure and save your "cloaking file" file with a file name that includes your keywords and ends with the .html extension (like secret-affiliate-code-discount.html or whatever).  Alternatively, you can rename this file index.html and put it in a directory called secret-affiliate-code under the public_html directory.  That gives you a URL like this:

http://www.masonworld.com/secret-affiliate-code-discount.

I hope that you find this cloaking method useful. Thanks to Craig Beckta of Secret Affiliate Code for reminding me about it.

Best regards,
Mark

P.S. Here is the code (see also the zip file):

<body>

GA CODE GOES HERE

</body>

From my point of view, when I promote products, I assume some risk. After all, I am essentially vouching for someone's work.  I am basically telling you that I have checked something out, so you don't need to worry about it as much.

So, I am pretty choosy about stuff that I promote.  Clearly, if I promoted junk all the time, people would stop listening to my advice. In fact, I usually only promote things that I have actually paid my own money for.

A while ago I paid my own money for  Article Post Robot. As you know, I use Article Post Robot for semi-automation of article publishing tasks. After looking around quite a bit, this was the best software that I could find.

Recently, however, I was checking up on the product and realized that it had not been updated for a while. I contacted the developer, and he told me a few months ago that an update was planned, but there was no firm date.  Not knowing what the future was for the product, I was thinking about pulling my ads down until the developer came through with new code.

Introducing Article Post Robot Version 1.7

Well, thankfully, there is need to do that. David from SRTSoft really cam through for me and just released a much needed update this morning. Announcing Article Post Robot 1.7. The update includes:

• A cleaned-up site list, with some new sites added.  As of this version, APR includes about 460 article directories and 54 mail lists.
• Added the option of "ArticleMS" script powered sites to the list of customized sites.  So, now when you are manually adding new sites, there are 4 kinds of sites can be added as customized sites.
• There is now a "Check Virus" checkbox option. Users can turn the software's virus checker On/Off.  No thanks -- I am voting for "ON."
• Added "Update Page Rank" feature in Article Sites table's popup menu.  This is cool, and a nice companion to my Article Directory List.
• Added "Summary" in preview window.
• Fixed a bug in spinning subtitle.
• Fixed some other bugs reported from users.

If you already own APR, you can log into your account and find the new update in the download area.  For existing users, it is free to download.

Special Discount For MasonWorld Readers

Article Post Robot normally retails for $127.  I contacted David, and he has offered a special deal for MasonWorld.com subscribers. For a limited time (I am not actually sure how long), my affiliate link is associated with a special discount.  The special MasonWorld.com price is $97 (limited time, act now, operators are standing by, blah, blah, blah).  Seriously, David tells me that the discount link only works if you come from MasonWorld.com (you have to click through from my site with my affiliate link).  If you have trouble finding the discount page, let me know.

If you do not yet own  Article Post Robot, I recommend it. The software is still not perfect in every way, but I use it and it does a great job for me.

Thanks,
Mark

Hey;

As many of you know, I am traveling to Asia this week. No, I am not going to the Olympics to compete in Diving, as has been rumored.  So, I will be posting from there and trying to add in a few pictures as well this week.

Before I get on the plane, I wanted to tell you about a phone call I got from a reader.  The reader was asking me about the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.  He was frustrated becuase he had a WordPress.com blog and could not monetize it the way he wanted to.  He was not aware of WordPress.org.

The Difference Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

What's the difference?  Well, WordPress.com is a hosted platform that allows you to have a free blog.  You can register and WordPress.com and they will host your blog on their servers and you have to follow their rules.  Your blog is hosted on the wordpress.com domain, and will have a name like momsblog.wordpress.com.   This is great for a lot of people that just want to try blogging for the first time to see what all the buzz is about.  It is not great for people who want to make money blogging.  It is very hard to take a business seriously that is hosted on a free platform.

WordPress.org, by contrast, refers to the site that hosts the free WordPress platform software (note that free software is not like free beer -- there is a license, but you do not pay a penny for WordPress).  You can take WordPress and modify it however you want.  You can even package it as a product and sell it (with certain restrictions).  You can certainly do things like add AdSense ads and other monetization strategies (thing that are restricted on WordPress.com).

What's The Catch?

The catch (if you want to call it that) is that you need to provide your own domain and hosting for your WordPress.org blog.  WordPress.com takes care of that for you (and hands you some restrictions in exchange).  With WordPress.org, you are on your own.  This is overwhelming for a lot of people that "just want to blog."

The Solution -- Free Professional WordPress Installation

For a limited time, my buddy Garry Conn is running a special deal.  If you sign up for your hosting through Garry's special relationship with HostGator, Garry will personally help you install your blog and get up and running.  How cool is that.  HostGator is already really inexpensive, but Garry has even arranged for a special coupon code that will get you your first month hosting for a penny.

So, head on over to Garry's blog an read all about it.  I gotta catch a plane.

Regards,
Mark

Last week I said the I was planning on writing several posts on lessons learned in creating my Niche Adsense Themes for WordPress project.  Well, here is a really important one -- don't try to do everything.  Some stuff you should simply hire out.

But I Can't Afford That!

I know what you are saying.  You cannot afford to hire someone.  You are not making any money right now, and until you do, you have to do everything yourself.  I know the feeling, but I am going to argue that you cannot afford not to hire stuff out.

What Is Your Time Worth?

See, you are making the assumption that your time is not worth anything -- that it is cheaper to do it yourself (whatever it is).  Well, what is your time worth?  Let's say you normally make $50,000 per year.  If you do, your time is worth about $25/hour.  Seriously, when you spend an hour on your business, your business, you are essentially investing $25.

Let's say that you had an employee named Joe that you were paying $25/hour, and that Joe was very busy.  So busy, in fact, that really important stuff was not getting done.  If everything does not get done, your business does not make money.  Problem is, some of the stuff that Joe is doing can easily be done by a $10 high school student.  But you are paying Joe $25/hour to do that work, and not getting other stuff done at the same time.  You are paying Joe too much for non-critical work, and more important stuff is not getting done.

You are Joe

Guess what.  You are Joe.  So am I.  There were a couple of things that I needed done for Niche Adsense Themes that I could have done if I wanted to, but it would cost me more to do them myself than have them done.   And, I did not want to do them.  I did not want to do the theme graphics, and I did not want to do the HTML version of the templates.  I also needed some CSS help.  Cost to me was under $200.  The Themes generated $1000 of revenue in the first 10 days (and it was a simple narrow product with a bad sales letter -- more on this later).  And, the time saved was measured in DAYS (or maybe weeks).

How to Outsource

I recommend that you try outsourcing right away with something (anything) simple.  Give it a try, and you can get a feeling about what is possible.  I personally perfer ScriptLance.com, but there are tons of services out there, including eLance.com and RentaCoder.com.

Software is a really good thing to outsource.  I outsourced the creation of www.thebigworldproject.com, for example.  I knew how to code that project, but I did not have the time.  Likewise, anything that sounds like WordPress maintenance is easily outsourced.

Just go to scriptlance.com, sign up, post your project and see who bids and how much.  Read their qualifications, talk to them on the private message board, make sure they understand the requirements (good specs are critical to outsourcing) and let it fly.  You will enjoy the freedom of having some guy in Malaysia work for you while you sleep for $5/hour.  He will be thrilled to have the work, and you will be thrilled to have the work done -- win/win.

If there is interest, I will post a "how to use scriptlance" video to the Free Stuff area.

What are your experiences with outsourcing?  Let me know by dropping a comment.

Regards,
Mark
photo credit: Aaron Escobar

Well, it has been about two weeks since I did a trial launch of my first product, Niche Adsense Themes for WordPress.  As you may know from reading my about page, I started working on internet marketing in November of 2007 as a part time hobby.  The goal of this blog is to tell people about my experience.  So, I think that it is important to let you know what I learned launching this first product, and how it went.

There is a lot to say, so this will be delivered in several parts.  This is Part 1.

Where Digital Products Fit In MY Plan

The first important question to address is why I am interested in digital products.  So far, my internet-marketing strategy has been to work on four things:

• Passive AdSense mini-sites following Josh Spaulding's $5 Formula
• Affiliate mini-sites using phpBay and other affiliate offers through CJ and Pepperjam, etc
• Building email lists for direct marketing
• Creation of digital products.

As a part time internet entrepreneur, I am very interested in creating streams of income where I can scale revenue without significantly increasing the time needed to support that income.  That why passive income streams like AdSense sites and think affiliate site are so attractive.

Once the sites are set up and marketed, the only remaining issue is traffic and some low-touch maintainence.  For traffic, long-term strategies like SEO and article marketing can be used in combination to drive traffic over the long haul relatively easily.

If you work hard at AdSense sites, for example, you can earn high four (even five) figures per month just like Tim Gorman.  It is reasonable to expect to make a few dollars per day from a passive AdSense site - so you can do the math.

Why Sell Digital Products

Digtal products are different, and a lot more exciting.  If you can create something digital that someone might want (an eBook or software for example), you can then create a sales page and sells that product and start taking orders.   In some sense, this is similar to AdSense sites and thin affiliate sites:  you are converting traffic to dollars.  However, there are some critical differences:

• Revenue per action can be very high with digital products.  While an AdSense click might get you a dollar, the price of digital products can range from free to thousands of dollars.  A typical price for an ebook might be $27.
• You can have an army of affiliates.  This is not actually unique to digital products, but it is different from AdSense and affiliate sites.  With those business models, you are the affiliate.  When you own your own digital products, you can have affiliates working for you.
• You can upsell.  There is no better time to sell someone something than when they already have their credit card out and have decided to trust you with it.
• You can capture email addresses and sell on the "back end".  This is perhaps the most powerful idea.  Once someone has purchased from you once (and has given you permission to contact them), you can sell to them again.  In this case, they already know that you provide quality products, so trust as high.  This relationship can last a very long time.

Most of the truly rich internet entrepreneurs have digital products as a central part of their business strategy.

Selecting The Product

There are lots of things to consider when selecting a digital product.  Most guru's will tell you identify a market first, and then build a product.  You need to do market research and lots of other things prior to launch.  Honestly, I was much more random about my product selection.

During my work on AdSense sites I heard a lot of people say that WordPress was not a good choice for AdSense mini-sites because of two issues:

• The resulting sites looked like blogs and not "information sites"
• It was hard to control the placement of AdSense ads

I wanted to use WordPress, however, for lots of good reasons

• Speed of deployment (easy to crank up a new WordPress mini-site
• Lots of good plugins for things like sitemaps, SEO, analytics, etc.
• Easy to update with fresh content
• Support for pinging, etc.

So, I did the obvious thing -- I worked with an AdSense min-site guru to understand a perfect site, and I built a WordPress theme that copied the layout of that exactly.  In fact, I actually hired out some of the theme code and the graphics.   More on this later this week.

Then, I put myself in the place of the customer.  What would I want in a package if I was trying to get started with AdSense and WordPress?  I settled on the following five things

• Several themes -- not just one -- with good generic graphics that could apply to lots of different niches.  For example, a medical graphic could apply to any mini-site on any medical topic.  I thought that these "specific" graphical templates look more authoratative than generic templates like ProSense, for example (I love ProSense, by the way -- I just think my stuff is better).
• The same templates in HTML. I wanted to get past the "what if I don't like WordPress" objection that people might have.  Many gurus recommended static sites.  I think WordPress is a better answer.  Including a static HTML version of the templates reduces the risk of trying WordPress for the customer.  If they don't like WordPress, they could still use the HTML templates.
• Some free reports about how to make money with AdSense.  For the complete new person, I wanted to include instructions on how to use the themes to make money.
• Some free content. Again, for someone getting started, having some PLR content that they could "slap" into their site allowed them to get going quickly.

So, I now had a digital product.  I needed a mini-site to promote it, a price, affiliates, a way to take money, a way to handle support, etc.  More on all this later this week.

Best regards,
Mark

Internet marketing is certainly an interesting part of the internet, but it is clearly only one tiny part. One of the things that I like about Garry Conn is that he is willing to divert his attention away from internet marketing for a moment and try to help someone. He does this even when he is locked in a death match with the Cow. See, the cool thing about internet is that you can do amazing stuff with it to help people.

So, I am reprinting this post at Garry's request. For the record, I also sent a donation (although I had never heard of Brennan before Garry's post).

Regards,
Mark

A Blogger We All Know And Adore Has Fallen Sick

Written by, Garry Conn on May 30th, 2008.

On April 16th, 2008 my good online friend, Brennan Kingsland, feel ill with acute kidney failure due to chronic kidney disease. This really isn't a very good thing. For those that might have forgotten, the main function of the kidneys is to remove waste products and excess water from the blood. Kidney failure occurs when the kidneys partly or completely lose their ability to carry out normal functions. This is dangerous because water, waste, and toxic substances build up that normally are removed from the body by the kidneys.

Chronic kidney disease is when one suffers from gradual and usually permanent loss of kidney function over time. This happens gradually over time, usually months to years. Chronic kidney disease is divided into five stages of increasing severity:

I am unsure where Brennan is at with her battle for recovery, I know that she has been visiting her doctor very often as they have been attempting to treat her with medication. She has been updating me via email with progress updates and overall this has been a very touch and go situation for her. Unfortunately, just this morning, Brennan sent me a very brief email stating that things have started to go in the wrong direction again.

Brennan Kingsland is a determined woman who wants to improve education for our children. She loves animals and has owned and maintained a volunteer animal shelter for many years. She is a very free spirited, gifted and intelligent writer and publisher.

Brennan Kindsland is an amazing individual who values life. In fact, a little over 20 years ago when her best friend and loving husband suffered from a major heart attack, she immediately made a career change to be come a Critical Care Registered Nurse just so that she could make sure that her loving husband was going to be receiving the best care over the years. Quite a few years later and after things were going much better for her husband, she decided it was safe to go back to her career in publishing.

After witnessing how Brennan was willing to make major changes in her life just to help someone that she cared dearly about, today it is your turn. While I am not asking you to become a nurse or a doctor, I am asking that you provide a donation of money that will greatly support and help Brennan in a time of need.

For everyone who reads this announcement, please understand that any amount you are willing to donate will help and her in her journey towards having the best quality of life while enabling her to build strength to fight her illness. With your help, I have no doubt in my mind that Brennan Kingland will push through this challenging time in her life.

Please send a direct money donation safely and securely using www.paypal.com. Simply visit www.paypal.com, log into your account and send your money donation to: healthnet@wctel.net.

To help Brennann Kingland even further, please download a copy of this article and publish it on your blog or web site. Simply download and extract the zip file and copy the html code found on the text file and paste it on your blog.

On Monday I wrote about several reasons to cloak links. Basically, I argued that cloaking links for the right reasons (managing link destinations and click tracking) meant that link cloaking was a great idea.

Of course, the idea that link cloaking is useful is supported by the number of link cloaking software solutions out there. While you can certainly go out and purchase a link cloaking solution, you can do it for free. In this article, I show you how to cloak your links for free.

How Cloak Links

Basically, the trick to link cloaking is to use your .htaccess file to redirect links targeted at a special subdirectory to a simple php program. That php program parses the link text to grab a keyword, and redirects the link based on that. For example, in the link "http://www.masonworld.com/recommends/google", the word "recommends" represents the special subdirectory and the word google is the keyword that will determine the actual destination link.

To implement this strategy, you need to complete 2 simple steps:

1. edit your .htaccess file
2. create a simple php program called cloak.php in you web directory.

Editing .htaccess

The .htaccess file is a file at the Apache web server reads to determine things like access permissions. You can also use this tile to "rewrite" incoming URLs. In our case, we will use the "modrewrite" function of apache to change our URL.

Edit your .htacces and add the following code near the top of the file:


# cloak affiliate links
RewriteRule ^recommends/([^\./]+)$ cloak.php?req=$1 [L]


This code says to take all incoming URLs containing the word recommends, strip off and save the end of the URL, and pass that value to a program called cloak.php. In our above google example, this directive sees the word "recommends" in the URL and strips off "google", passing the word "google" to cloak.php.

Redirecting URLs via PHP

"<?php" <== without the quotes


$request_id = $_GET ['req'];
$myFile = "/your-www-directory/cloak.log";
$refData = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'a') or die("can't open log file");
$stringData = date("m/d/y").",".$request_id.",".$refData."\n";

fwrite($fh, $stringData );
fclose($fh);

if (strcasecmp ($request_id, "search") == 0)
header( 'Location: http://www.google.com/' ) ;

if (strcasecmp ($request_id, "find") == 0)
header( 'Location: http://www.yahoo.com/' ) ;

?>

The above code takes the request ID ("google" in our example) and tests it against possible matches "search" and "find". Each time you want to add a new redirect, just add another if statement.

There are definitely sexier ways to write this code, but this is simple and easier to maintain.

You will note that cloak.php makes a not of all the redirects ir performs in cloak.log. We'll discuss that in the next post.

By the way, make sure that cloak.php has world execute permission, as apache usually has really limited permission to execute files.

(If you have questions about getting this to work, please post them in the comments. I'll do my best to respond).

Thanks,
Mark

I think most of you are probably aware of the contest that Garry Conn is running against John Cow. Basically, the two of them are in a death match to build and sell the best blog in one month. The winner is the site that sells for the most on SitePoint.com.  Participation in this contest is a great way to learn about internet marketing strategy.

As it turns out, some heavy hitters are in Garry's corner.  Joel Comm has contributed a copy of his highly acclaimed Secret Classroom course.  You can win a copy of the course (so read on below).

And now, a message from the Cow Slayer, Garry Conn

Hey everyone, this is Garry Conn here and you have probably heard the news that John Cow and I are going head to head in a make money online competition to see who can build a blog and sell it for the most money in SitePoint after 30 days. I just unveiled my niche blog titled, Debt Consolidation Book and I want to briefly tell you about the blog and how you can win some really amazing prizes by contributing and telling people about it.

Debt Consolidation Book is a web site where you can read articles written by people who provide their opinions and tips on how to get out of debt. Additionally, you can get 13 high quality debt consolidation books for free. These 13 free debt consolidation books will teach you some amazing debt consolidation, debt elimination and debt reduction strategies. Many people have all kinds of debts and one of the most common is credit card debt. Debt Consolidation Book is geared towards helping people who have credit card debt as well as most all forms of debt.

In this competition against John Cow, you have a huge opportunity to win the Secret Classroom DVD Box Set from Joel Comm. This is an educational make money online study course worth over $520 dollars.

How Do I Win Secret Classroom

Winning Joel Comm's Secret Classroom worth over $520 dollars is very simple. As you probably already know, I am not a very complicated individual. When I run contests, participating in them are very easy to do and take very little amount of your time. Your time is one of many things I respect and I don't want to take up a lot of it. It will literally take you all of five minutes to participate in the contest. Simple, quick and easy.

If you would like to have a chance to win the Secret Classroom DVD Box Set from Joel Comm here is what you need to do. It's very simple.

1. Download a copy of this article that you are reading here and then publish it on your blog. This is a Zip File. Simply extract it and copy and paste the HTML code into your blog post.
2. Join the Debt Consolidation Book mailing list and score your free copies of the 13 free eBooks! You will get over 275 pages of high quality material for free!
3. Subscribe to the Debt Consolidation Book RSS Feed by Email.
4. Drop a comment on this post to let me know that you have entered the contest by doing the above three steps.

Optionally, I would really appreciate it if I could get some votes:

1. Click Here to vote on Digg.com.
2. Click Here to add to StumbleUpon.
3. Click Here to add to your Google Bookmarks.
4. Click Here to add to your Technorati Faves.
5. Click Here to add to FaceBook.
6. Click Here to add to Del.icio.us.
7. Click Here to add to your Yahoo Bookmarks.
8. Click Here to add to Propeller.
9. Click Here to add to Mixx.

Remember the first four steps above are not optional and you have to complete step four by dropping a comment on my post which will let me know that you have officially entered the contest to win Secret Classroom. The second steps 1 thru 9 are totally optional but will literally take you less than a minute to complete.

Join My Make Money Online Newsletter

I invite you to join my make money online mailing list and you'll receive a free copy of the AFFAdMax WordPress theme. This is the same high quality and professionally designed WordPress theme I designed from scratch that I am using on Debt Consolidation Book! You'll be the first to score a copy as soon as I release it in the next week or two.

Good Luck Winning Joel Comm's Secret Classroom

Good luck with winning Secret Classroom. I will be assigning each participant in the contest a number and on Monday June 2nd, I will use Randomizer to generate the winning number. It's a very simple random draw contest that could potentially win you a prize worth over $520 dollars. Also be sure to join my free make money online classroom so that you can learn more about how to make money online and stay in the loop with future events in the competition against John Cow.

Earlier this week, I talked about Lead Blogging and I proclaimed that "Lead Blogging is the Answer." In that post, I introduced you to Aaron Abber over at the make money blogging site FullTiltBlogging, and promised a reprint of one of his posts on Lead Blogging. In this post, Aaron show you a screen shot of his 60,000 subscriber list over at Aweber.

Lead Blogging: Turning Opportunity into Leads

Luck and leadblogging favor the prepared.

Last week I noticed a new blog post over at Aweber.com. Nothing earth shattering, but it dealt with a topic I am intimately acquainted with—getting people to subscribe to email lists then confirm their subscription. In fact, before I sold my online business last year I had captured almost 60,000 double opt-in subscribers (click here for screen shot of my account.)

So I went over and left a comment about how I get over 15% of first time visitors to subscribe and over 90% of those people to confirm their subscription.

I figured making that comment would generate some visitors and subscribers.

But then I had a brainstorm—why not put the actual codes into an eBook and offer it for download? I figured I could capture more subscribers.

So that’s what I did. I created this “subscriber trap” to capture email address from my visitors:

http://www.FullTiltBlogging.com/submagic

All in all it took about two hours to set up and has resulted in 183
email submissions (so far) on 312 visits—for a whopping 58.7%
conversion rate from visitor to subscriber.

That’s pretty cool.

In next week’s leadblogging
post I will tell you about how I got a 95.2% confirmation rate from
those visitors, and how I will turn those into $4,209.00 in cash. That
means it it paid me about $2,104.50 an hour. Stay tuned.

This post is by Aaron Abber. Aaron is the owner of http://www.FullTiltBlogging.com where he teaches bloggers just like you how to make money blogging. Go there now to pick up his latest book “How to Retire on 200 Blog Visitors a Day” free.

I hear a lot of the Internet Marketing gurus brag about how they cannot even write their own landing pages. They argue that most (or all) of the technical stuff should be outsourced so you can spend time on marketing instead of hacking. There is no money in hacking, they proclaim. I see their point, and who am I to argue? After all, the number of "million dollar launches" that I have been involved in is exactly zero.

I do wonder sometimes how you know if outsourced technical jobs are being done correctly if you don't understand the underlying technology, but that is a subject for another blog post. This post is about code. And one thing you can say about internet marketing specifically, and the internet in general -- there is a lot of code out there. Code makes things work, and the quality of code can make or break a project (or an application).

WordPress is a great example of a situation where coding quality is absolutely critical. Apart from the core engine, there are hundreds upon hundreds of plugins that depend on the quality of the core code. Those plugins, if improperly written, can crash other plugins or even crash WordPress itself. In addition to that, there are themes which are really just code. If your theme is not written well, it can break too.

Last week, I was working with an excellent WordPress theme developer on a new theme. We were doing all of our testing on a site that was recently upgraded to WordPress 2.5, and were using some stock WordPress 2.5 template files. During our testing we found that some of the stock WordPress 2.5 theme files did not run on a WordPress 2.3 install. Now this is understandable -- after all, why would anybody expect something designed specifically for WordPress 2.3 to run in WordPress 2.5. (Note that he was doing all the work -- I was just along for the ride).

As it happens, the theme test we were working on crashed in WordPress 2.3 because it depended on the new gravatars function called in comments.php. Gravatars is the cool function now native to WordPress 2.5 that puts the author's picture next to their comment. The code in the them looks like this:

echo get_avatar( $comment, 32 );

See the problem? The theme called get_avatar without checking the return status (if available) or at least whether or not the function existed. Luckily, php provides for situations like this. The "function_exists" function lets you test to make sure that a function is there before you call it. So, a better way to call a function like this is:

if( function_exists('get_avatar')) { echo get_avatar( $comment, 32 );

This tests to make sure that there is a function called get_avatar available to be called. It does not say anything about whether or not the call is successful. Now, you can reasonably make the argument that there is no need to test for get_avatar in a WordPress 2.5 theme since only a knuckle head would run WordPress 2.5 code under WordPress 2.3. I get that. But I also believe that it is always good practice to design code so that it is robust against unexpected circumstances.

Always use protection.

Regards,
Mark

P.S. The theme that I was working on is called SEOAdMax by Garry Conn. It is available for free.

One of the biggest challenges for me personally working on Internet Marketing part time is focus. As a part time Internet Marketer, I have a very limited amount of time to spend on tasks related to my new hobby. In fact, I try not to spend more than a couple of hours a day on Internet Marketing related activities. When I started out, my goal was to demonstrate that I could make some money on the Internet -- inspired by a segment I saw on the Today Show.

Since that time, I have started several blogs, a link directory, a couple of niche sites, some forums, switched blogging platforms, switched hosting companies, done some business/administrative tasks, read books, listened to podcasts, read and commented on blogs, studied marketing, joined countless affiliate programs, hired writers, won contests, built a mailing list, made friends, hired programmers, purchased software, written php code, changed blog themes many times, chatted on GTalk, and hung out on forums. The one thing that I have not done much of is make money. Go figure.

Speaking of distractions, I am writing this post on a plane bound for Hong Kong using ecto, which I mentioned earlier this week. I think this software is a keeper -- but I have not quite made up my mind. (Too bad they don't have an affiliate program). It does have some limitations that are annoying, however, For example, you cannot add a category or contol the post slug.  My friend Garry Conn likes Blogdesk.  I need to check that out.

Back to my story.  Don't get me wrong. I am having a blast, and I have learned a ton. The problems are that I haven't really finished anything - and the learning is not well documented. As it happens, my wife will tell you that this "unfinished project thing" also happens around the house. Great at starting projects; less great at finishing them. So, I thought it would be interesting to list all the current projects that I have underway or in my mind and see if I could prioritize them. Once again taking a page out of Caroline Middlebrook's book, I going to create a Projects page to document all of this so I can keep it straight in my own mind.

Another thing that I plan to do is increase my post frequency on this blog by making sure that I document what I did that day. After all, the value that I am trying to provide is an account of my experience. I am not trying to claim that I can teach people how to make $4B on the Internet this week. I'll categorize the posts by project. So watch for the post count to go up in the coming weeks.

So, what are all these current projects about? I'll work on a list tonight and post it tomorrow.

Best regards,

Mark

So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

• Definition of the Niche Super-Site case study
• List of Niche Super-Site design goals
• How to select your niche
• Choosing your keywords
• Choosing a domain name
• Setting up your niche site
• Making things look nice
• Installing Plugins
• Getting listed in Google
• Making Money with phpBay
• Adding PopShops to your site
• Adding Adsense
• Adding Amazon Omakase Widget

As I mentioned, I had Lasik (PRK, actually) last week, so I am just getting back to where I can see the computer screen. I am excited about the end result of 20/20 vision promised in 4-6 weeks, but the transition is a challenge for blogging.

Today, we'll talk about adding a favicon to your niche site. That silly icon beside the url at the browser address bar is called a favicon. Why bother? Well, I think that often times in blogging, as in life, it is the small things that matter. Favicons suggest a professionally maintained site, and a favicon can remind people to bookmark your site when they see that quite little icon at the top of their browser. Anything that adds that extra bit of trust that can help us monetize a click should be taken care of. Finally, adding a favicon is EASY, so we should do it for completeness.

Adding a favicon to WordPress is really easy, but it involves editing your theme.

• Pick a picture for your favicon. Something simple is most appropriate since the final image is going to be only 16x16 pixels. Not a lot of detail will be possible. Obviously, it needs to be a square image.
• There are free tools for drawing your own favicon, but I never use them as I cannot draw (and I have never tried the previously mentioned tool).
• There are free favicon libraries too. I never use them either, and I have never tried the previously mentioned site.
• There are free tools for reducing a pic you like to 16x16 for use as a favicon. That is what I usually do. For the Elvis site, I have located a jpg of the letter E and used a free site to reduce that to 16x16. That free site results in the creation of a favicon.ico file.
• Next, you need to upload the favicon.ico file to your WordPress site. I like to put the icon into ./wp-includes/images/, but you can put it anywhere you like as long as WordPress can find it.
• Next, find your theme header file. It should be in ./wp-content/themes/ in a directory named for yout theme (i.e. Prosense or K2, etc.).
• I like to take this moment to copy my current header file to a safe location for later retrieval in case disaster strikes.
• Using your favorite editor, open up your header.php file and locate the <head> tag.
• Add the following code just after the <head> tag but before the </head> tag: <link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”<?php echo get_settings(’siteurl’).’/wp-includes/images/’;?>favicon.ico” />
• Save the header.php file and reload your home page. You should see your favicon.
• If you do not (or if you get an error), check closely the path to the favicon file and the quotation marks above. Some editors will munge the quotation marks during cut and paste operations.

Thanks!

Topics remaining on my list for this niche super-site series include the following:

• Traffic strategy
• Really long tail keyword test
• eZineArticles Content
• Write your own content
• Set up AA404 plugin
• Set up a pseudo-link-directory as pillar content
• Remember to back up your data.
• Comment Kahuna
• Secure WordPress
• Blog by email
• Great podcasts
• Running adwords ads
• eBooks
• Other marketing ideas
• The 50 site checklist
• Others…

If you have a topic that you would like to see added to my list, please feel free to leave a comment. Thanks!

%RELATEDPOSTS%

So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

• Definition of the Niche Super-Site case study
• List of Niche Super-Site design goals
• How to select your niche
• Choosing your keywords
• Choosing a domain name
• Setting up your niche site
• Making things look nice
• Installing Plugins
• Getting listed in Google
• Making Money with phpBay

Yesterday, we talked about how you could diversify your niche income by taking advantage of the eBay affiliate sales program by taking advantage of phpBay Pro. Today, we'll look at our second method of nich store diversification -- PopShops.

PopShops provides tools for setting up an affiliate store inside your website. PopShops claims to be the largest searchable collection of affiliate products (said to be currently over 28 million and growing). They work with the major affiliate networks, including Commission Junction, LinkShare, ShareASale, and Performics. With the PopShops program, you keep all of your commissions. ProShops offers a Free Basic account where users can add affiliate products one page at a time using JavaScript. I use the Pro account ($5/month) because that allows you to use php instead of JavaScript. This is important because the php is SEO friendly and the JavaScript is not. This is because with the Pro account shops, the product descriptions are actually in your page, and can be inded by Google (similar to phpBay Pro). PopShops also offers an Enterprise account (at $30/month). The latter account offers better sales tracking, supporting multiple commission junction PIDs (among other things). If I am making so much money at some point that I am confused about where it is coming from, I plan to upgrade. You can read more about PopShops in PC World (good description of what they do).

To make this work really well on our nice site, we need the PopShops plugin for WordPress. As of this writing, it is still in Alpha release, but it works quite well for me. Features include (from their website):

• Add products to your WP blog from any of the major affiliate networks.
• Click the POP button on your WYSIWYG post editor to add affiliate product links directly into your posts.
• Build affiliate stores for your sidebar, footer, static pages, under a post, or randomly after posts.
• As always, keep 100% of your commissions

So, for HistoryofElvis.com, we want to add shops that Elvis fans will enjoy. You can use your imagination. For this demonstration, I have added shop pages targeted at Elvis Apparel, Elvis Auto Accessories, Elvis Pins, etc. I also created a sample Elvis t-Shirt PopShop at the end of this post for your viewing pleasure.

One thing that you have to watch out for with PopShops is adding products for merchants in commission junction for which you have no relationship. As far as I know, there is no way to tell PopShops what merchants have accepted you on Commission Junction. So, if you accidentally add a CafePress shirt to your PopShop page and you are not a member of the CafePress affiliate program through Comission Junction, you will not get any commission for the sale of that item.

One great thing about PopShops is the AutoFeed feature (available on Pro and Enterprise accounts). With AutoFeed you can automatically display additional pages of products similar to the ones you originally selected for your shop. The technology uses the same shop keywords and merchants you originally chose to decide what items to add. AutoFeed pages are SEO friendly when using the php code option.

So, that's about it for PopShops. Man, this blogging stuff is hard work. Phew.

Tomorrow we need to talk about Adsense. That will complete our three-pronged monetization attach (Adsense, niche store and niche auction). In the mean time, don't forget to check out the cool PopShop store below. Neat, huh?

So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

• Definition of the Niche Super-Site case study
• List of Niche Super-Site design goals
• How to select your niche
• Choosing your keywords
• Choosing a domain name
• Setting up your niche site
• Making things look nice
• Installing Plugins
• Getting listed in Google

You'll recall from our List of Niche Super-Site Design Goals that we are striving to create a niche site that generates $2 per day in residual income. We said that we did not want to rely only on Adsense alone to accomplish that. So, one thing that we can do to diversify our niche site income is add affiliate sales. One great affiliate program to look at is the eBay affiliate sales program.

As I reported previously, phpBay Pro is the way to go when you want to add eBay auctions to WordPress.  According to the Wired Studio’s website, phpBay Pro enables web publishers to quickly and easily add keyword rich eBay auction listings to WordPress or php driven sites to generate serious affiliate revenue in a matter of minutes!  Boy, can I confirm that claim personally.  In our case, we need to focus on the feature rich phpBay WordPress Plugin (for more information on why, see Build Niche Sites with WordPress). There are at least two great ways to use this plugin. You can embed auction items in posts, or you can created entire pages of auction listings.

Wired Studios’ product boasts several important features:

• Simple installation takes minutes to get up and going
• Keyword rich results adds SEO value to your content
• List auctions from specific categories
• List auctions from specific vendors
• Mask outgoing Ebay links
• First Class support in case you have a question or need help

From my point of view phpBay Pro delivers all of this and more. Specifically, the support is over the top - outstanding.  In fact, since I was new to WordPress, I had a couple of newbie questions that were answered by the developer himself (Wade) the same day.

You will recall that our niche site (www.historyofelvis.com) is up and running in WordPress.   When people visit there, we would like them to buy things (thus helping us make our $2/day).  The great thing about  phpBay Pro is that we can install the plugin and have a page up and running in just a few minutes after becoming an eBay affiliate.  Generally speaking, the steps are as follows:

• Sign up with Commission Junction (www.cj.com)
• Apply to become an eBay affiliate.
• Install the phpBay Pro plugin for WordPress
• Set your affiliate sales ID in the software
• Insert one line of code in any WordPress page and see your auction come alive.

You can see an example on HistoryofElvis.com implemented in the Elvis Autographs page.  The cool thing is that phpBay content is indexed by Google.  If you mix in some ad copy, this can have a dramatic impact on your page SEO for your search keywords.

So, that's it for today.  Tomorrow, we'll talk about PopShops.

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I know we are making some progress, because we were mentioned on Caroline's blog and our site HistoryOfElvis.com is up and running. So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

• Definition of the Niche Super-Site case study
• List of Niche Super-Site design goals
• How to select your niche
• Choosing your keywords
• Choosing a domain name
• Getting your site up
• Making things look nice

Today we need to spend some time installing some important plugins. If you have not done this before, I recommend that you spend a moment looking at this post about installing plugins in WordPress.

Here are the plugins I recommend for the Niche Super-Site and why I recommend them:

• Adsense Manager. We will be using Adsense ads, and I like this manager. There are other managers, and you are free to choose the one that you really like. In a niche site that relies solely on Adsense, this is the bread and butter. As we discussed in our design goals, we will be trying to diversify HistoryOfElvis.com to build income streams in addition to Adsense. Still, we want a good ad manager.
• Akismet. Kills blog spam. Standard with WordPress 2.3
• All in One SEO Pack. Allows us to optimize on-page SEO for our blog. We will need to get organic search engine traffic on our blog, and this tool will help.
• Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress. It is really important that Google knows about all our pages and how often to visit them for fresh content. This tool will build a map for Google. I'll have another post later about how to tell Google about our map and verify our site on Google.
• phpBay Pro Plugin for WordPress. This plugin will let us make money from eBAy auctions on our site. It cost $49, but you can use it on as many sites as you want (as long as they are your sites).
• PopShops Plugin for WordPress. Like phpBay, this plugin lets you sell Commission Junction stuff from your blog.

That's about it to get started. This will allow us to end up with a nice looking blog with SEO potential where we can sell Adsense ads and niche merchandise.

Tomorrow we'll go get an article from eZineArticles as our very first piece of content.

Have a great day.