Diary of an Online Business

I just arrived home from a trip around the world (and yes it was fabulous and yes, I will be sharing some pictures with you) to receive a very blunt letter from Google – they had disabled my Adwords account! What does that mean? It means that I can never advertise on Google Adwords again.

Now if I was you, the first question I would be asking is why? Well that’s exactly what I also asked Google and to date (10 days later) I have not had any sort of answer.

Google Adwords have told me that I have broken some unforgivable rule but I really do not know what.  Since learning of this we have:

• audited all our websites

• talked with Hostgater to see if any nasties had been put on there that we weren’t aware of

• talked with our email service to make sure we are receiving all messages
• contacted a number of people in the business including the adwords expert Mike Rhodes
• read other people’s stories who have had the same thing happen to them -and there seems to be a few
• reread Googles rules and regulations to see if we could identify any rule we may have unknowingly broken – and couldn’t identify anything

And at the moment we are no further advanced on why this has happened to us and how to fix it.

As you can imagine this is time costly.

The thing that I am really having trouble with is that Google Adwords is telling me that I have not acted ethically (my interpretation).  My whole professional life has been governed by the ethics of caring for others so I not only see this banning by Google as a very large threat to my business but also to my reputation.

I am an optimist and definitely believe that when one door closes another opens. We’ll just have to work out other ways of driving traffic and certainly people are telling me not to worry about this as there are other ways to do it.

I think though I’ll give it a few more tries appealing to Google as I really want to believe in the good Corporate culture and spirit that we hear so much about today. I will choose to believe it is alive and well

I’m really needing some support, advice and information with regards to this one so please leave your comments about anything you feel would be helpful to me and others like me in this difficult situation.

My advice for my readers – check your websites against the Google Adwords regulations. Obviously, this has not been enough to save me a lot of confusion and distress but I really hope that it will be for you

Until next time

Julie

Google Adwords, internet business, internet businesses, motivation, online business, online businesses Google Adwords, health and wellbeing, internet business, online business, online business; internet business; success; learning;

You may be asking where I have been all this time? Well I’ve been very busy getting my new membership site ready and it is now launched and ready for viewing – www.secretstoemotionalhealth.com.

I’d like to give you the first instalment in “The 6 Vital Steps to Emotional Health” Hope you enjoy.

How To Be Free Of Emotional Baggage and Finally Live a Life of Health, Vitality and Abundance

Did you know that research shows that 90% of all illnesses are stress related?

Did you know that stress is caused by negative emotions such as fear, worry, frustration, powerlessness, resentment, bitterness, sadness and many other feelings?

If you control your emotional health, you control your overall health and well being!

Here are Six vital steps that if you take action with, will help you get started on a more energetic, healthy, happy, content and fulfilled life.

Let’s get healthy:

Step One – Establishing Self Care as an Integral Part of Emotional, Mental and Physical Health

“What you are is God’s gift to you. What

you do with yourself is your gift to God.”

Danish Proverb

Human beings are a complete system made up of the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and social. Each part of our system impacts on the other. To have good emotional health we must have good physical health. To have good physical health, we must have good emotional health. So let’s start at the being with how to care for our body and reap the rewards of strong emotional health.

On any given day, we have a certain amount of energy to spend to accomplish the necessary tasks for the day. If life is going well and we are fit, healthy and happy, then we will have a larger amount of energy to spend than if we are going through some form of life crisis. When faced with life’s problems, our precious resource of energy can be very quickly used up.

Digestion uses more energy than any other activity we engage in. However, negative painful emotions are the second greatest user of our finite stores of energy. In other words, personal disaster will cause us to feel many painful emotions such as, fear, hurt, frustration, confusion and powerlessness and these emotions will use up a very large proportion of our daily energy allowance.

Without an adequate source of energy, we will find it very difficult to successfully navigate the challenges we may face as we move forward to a healthier life. Not only will our body feel exhausted but our brain function will also be diminished and we may find it difficult to make decisions and remember things.

Just like a car requires not only petrol to run, but the right sort of petrol – our bodies also require the correct fuel and proper care to perform at a time when we are most challenged.

Below, is a simple but effective prescription for self care that if followed, will help you perform at your optimum:

· Be careful about the types of food you eat. When under pressure, we often turn to the fast foods that are easy to reach for and give us a quick burst of sugar. In very simple terms:

o The best food to eat is unprocessed. Try to stay away from processed foods such as, fast food, cakes, chocolates, sugar drink.

o Replace these with vegetables, fruits, nuts and protein such as meat and fish. Complex carbohydrates such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains help increase our levels of serotonin. Serotonin is a brain chemical or neurotransmitter that helps us feel calm. Of course, this is very important in times of crisis.

o Protein taken three times a day, at about the size of the palm of your hand, will help you to not feel as tired.

o Try to eat something no more than one to two hours after waking as this will help keep your blood sugar levels up for the day

o Eat frequently, that is every three to four hours, the types of foods I have mentioned, as this also will help keep your blood sugar levels up, thereby helping you to not feel tired and confused.

· What you drink is also important. Remember to drink a minimum of two litres of water per day. Reduce or cut out alcohol as it acts as both a stimulate and depressant. During times of stress our adrenals are working overtime and it is a good idea to avoid anything that will further stimulate them. Caffeine and sugar also stimulate the adrenals so it is important to reduce or cut out drinks such as cola, coffee and soft drinks.

· Try to get some form of cardiovascular exercise 4 – 5 times a week for between 30 – 45 minutes each session. This form of exercise includes walking, swimming, cycling, running and dancing. Cardiovascular exercise helps us produce many good chemicals such as, serotonin, already mentioned and endorphins which are a natural opiate or feel good chemical. This form of exercise also helps us get rid of the stress chemicals such as, cortisol and adrenaline that are produced in times of adversity and stress.

· Try to get adequate rest, sleep and relaxation. During periods of stress, the body produces high levels of toxins. It is when we relax and sleep that the body has an opportunity to repair and restore itself. Denying yourself rest will affect your ability to continue to reach your full potential.

· Tap into every form of support possible.

Although this information may be a bit technical I have found that if people understand why they need to keep up these basic self care practices they are more motivated. Keeping your body in good shape, will be one of the most powerful things you do to help keep your mind and emotions in peek condition to help you bring about the changes needed to live your best life.

I’ll send part two very soon but to learn more why not come to one of my seminars:

Talk soon

Julie

PS the website again is www.secretstoemotionalhealth.com and I’ll be sending out lots of free products to change your life

Rick Warren - The Purpose Driven Life, achieving your goals, health and wellbeing, internet businesses, membership sites, motivation, online businesses, success Add new tag, building membership sites, health and wellbeing, internet business, online business, Rick Warren - The Purpose Driven Life, success; secrets to success; motivation; online business; internet business

Step six—Monitor and fine-tune to maximize results

Activate your sales campaign by going to Google adwords and reactivating your ads. The campaign is generally up and running in under 30 minutes. You can check that it’s working by doing a Google search on one of your key words, and clicking on the ad. It should go straight to your home page with your sales letter.

Every day for the first few weeks (or until the campaign is consistently profitable) you need to monitor two things:

• Number of sales—You can check how many books you are selling by logging onto Clickbank and looking at the Daily Sales graph. You generally expect about a 1 % buy rate, that is, for every 100 people that click on your site, you should be selling 1-2 books. If you are selling less than this, you may need to:
  • Make some changes to your sales letter
  • Increase your advertising budget, as your ad may be stopped (if it hits your budget) before your market is “awake”.

If you are making changes, it’s important to change only one thing at a time, so you can see what’s working.

You will also need to monitor the number of refunds. This is also done via Clickbank.

• Effectiveness of your advertising—You can monitor this on Google adwords. The things you need to watch and improve on are:
  • Number of impressions—this is the number of people who see your ad. You can increase this by adding more key words. You will also find that the number builds up naturally over time as other people pick up your ad and place it on their own websites.
  • Number of clicks—this is the number of people who’ve seen your ad and clicked on it. You are aiming for a few hundred clicks a day, but the more the better. You can improve this by adding more key words.
  • Click through rate—this is the proportion of people who see your ad, who actually click on it. You can increase this by changing the wording of your ads, or deleting the ads that are not performing well. You can also increase the price per click, which will put your ad further up the list. You should be aiming for about 5% on your top key words.
  • Conversion rate—this is the proportion of people who click on your ad, who actually buy the product. This will also tell you how much it costs you in advertising to get each sale. Expect it to cost about $8-$10 per book, for a $27 e-book.

If you have put a “contact us” button on the home page, you will also have to reply to email questions and comments regularly.

We found that Perry Marshall’s “Definitive Guide to Google Adwords” improved our income enormously. Go to www.PerryMarshall.com for his manual.

Don’t forget to have a look at this link if you are interested in building either a ebook or membership site business. This is what we have been using and found it truly fabulous

http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/2009/lookinside/opt2.html

I hope you have enjoyed this series on building a ebook website and it has inspired you to have a go. It is never easy but can be very rewarding.

Until next time

Julie

Andrew and Daryl Grant, ebooks, internet businesses, online business Add new tag, Andrew and Daryl Grant, ebooks, online business, success; secrets to success; motivation; online business; internet business

The Grants speak of step 4 as probably being the most difficult part of the whole process and from my own experience I agree. It is really worth learning about copy writing and Brett McFall’s book “How To Make Money While You Sleep” is really worth a look. Who knows, you may be a budding sales copy writer. Personally, I have found this is not one of my strengths and for me it has become essential to at least have my sales copy edited by a professional.

Step four—Write the sales letter

This is probably the trickiest bit. However, you do have a couple of options:

Your first option is to learn the skill of copywriting and write it yourself. Most sales letters follow the formula:

• Problem—what are the buyer’s biggest fears, frustrations and needs?
• Aggravate—how does the problem get worse if they don’t do anything about it?
• Solve—what can you do to help?
• Prove—substantiate your claim with testimonials, research, etc, and give a money back guarantee
• Call to action—ask them to buy and make a special offer.

There are plenty of examples around that follow this formula. Look at any of our sites mentioned above to see how this works.

There are also plenty of training programs or materials that can help you with your copywriting technique. Some of them come with vouchers which enable you to get feedback on what you’ve written. The training programs that we think are the best are:

• Mal Emery’s Gold Pack from www.malemery.com
• Yanik Silver’s Copywriting Pack, the Ultimate “at-Home” Internet Copywriting Workshop from www.surefiremarketing.com
• Brett McFall’s AdPack from www.brettmcfall.com

The other thing you need is a good headline. Headline generator is software that is an easy, automated way to generate hundreds of headlines in just 5-10 minutes. You can get it from www.headline-creator-pro.com

Alternatively you can pay someone else to write the sales letter. This can be a bit expensive in the short term (up to $10,000 per letter), but a good copywriter will more than pay for themselves in the long run. The copywriter we use is Pete Godfrey. You can contact him at petergodfrey@iprimus.com.au and please mention our names!

Don’t forget if you want to learn more about the Grant’s internet business just follow this link or the banner on the right hand side:

http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/aff/?w=4dayws197&p=jspain

Until next time

Julie

Andrew and Daryl Grant, ebooks, internet businesses, online business Andrew and Daryl Grant, ebooks, online business, success; secrets to success; motivation; online business; internet business

How did you go with Step one of Andrew and Daryl Grants how to build an ebook website?

They have used these steps to be very successful online and these are the same steps I have followed.

Step Two—Test the idea to see if it will be profitable

We generally find that we test about 10 ideas to find one that is profitable. Here are the steps to do that testing:

• Find a good domain name. You can do this at www.godaddy.com You are looking for a name which is descriptive, eg www.skin-cancer-advice.com . Always get a “.com” domain name if you are selling an information product world-wide. You then need to buy the domain name using a credit card or Paypal account. Domain names cost about $10.
• You can also get Godaddy to host your site, for a cost of about US$4 per month. Initially it’s a good idea to only buy one month of hosting, since you don’t yet know if the topic is going to be a goer. You can extend or change the hosting later.
• The other company we use for hosting is HostGator . Their “Baby” option costs US$9.95 to host an unlimited number of sites per month. If you are setting up a lot of sites, this one is the best value that we’ve found. You only need to pay for one month initially. It takes about 24 hours for a new site to start up.
• Build a “survey” site like the one we had for Practical Report Writing. You will need a data gathering tool such as the one at www.aweber.com to be able to gather people’s email address and feedback. If you need help building this site, you can go to www.youreasywebsolutions.com.
• Set up a Google ad campaign. To do this you will need to register for Google adwords at www.google.com.au/ads/. This costs about $7. Google AdWords allows you to advertise on a “Pay Per Click” basis, in other words, you place your ad for free on Google, and you only pay if someone clicks on your ad and goes to your website.

When you register with Google Adwords you will also need to give them a credit card number that they can charge advertising costs to. Just follow the prompts to put in the details of your campaign. Things you need to add are:

• Key words—get these from the search you did on keyworddiscovery.
• Advertisement—think of a good catchy headline and content. You can have up to 25 characters in the headline, and 35 in each line of text. You can have as many ads as you like. Three is good to start with.
• Price per click—you can experiment with different prices in the set up. The more you pay, the higher up the list of ads you’ll be. You really want to be in the top 4 or 5. We aim to get into the top 5 for around 10c per click.
• Daily budget—this tells Google when to stop running the ad. Usually $10 or $20 a day is enough to start with, but you need to monitor it to see if it “maxes out” during the day. If it does, you will need to increase it.

 Watch it run for 3 days. You are looking for two things:

• Number of clicks. You want at least 100 clicks a day to start with. Ideally you want 500 a day.
• Number of responses. People will answer the survey question about what they want to see on the site. The more responses the better. Ten or more over three days is good. Ideally you want a 5% response rate or higher.

Pause the ad campaign. This means that, although your website is still there, it is not being advertised, so it is unlikely that anyone will get to see it. This means that you’re not paying advertising costs while you continue to develop your product and sales letter. You can easily reactivate your ad campaign at any time.

Put the results into the Excel spreadsheet to see how profitable it will be. If you have tested 10 ideas, pick the one with the highest results.

Don’t forget to check out their membership site at:

http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/aff/?p=jspain&w=mp09-4

and their 4 day workshop which is the best course I have ever done at:

http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/aff/?w=4dayws197&p=jspain

Until next time

Julie

Andrew and Daryl Grant, ebooks, internet businesses, online business Andrew and Daryl Grant, ebooks, online business, success; secrets to success; motivation; online business; internet business

Just arrived back from our holiday in beautiful Coffs Harbour (that’s in New South Wales Australia for those not local). We had a great time but unfortunately I probably had a better time than Will as he had the flu, so he is happy to be safe and sound in his own bed.

This post begins a six part series from Andrew and Daryl Grant on how to sell your ebook online. We originally started in their ebook mentoring program – see the banner on the right hand side or simply click this link to have a look at this website:

http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/aff/?p=jspain&w=mp09-4

We then progressed into their Our Internet Secrets program. I will be writing a review of this program later on but if you cannot wait to find out more just follow this link to find out about their amazing 4 day workshop. It truly was the best workshop I have ever been to:

http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/aff/?w=4dayws197&p=jspain

These are the steps that we followed to write our first two ebooks. If you want to look at our ebooks them go to:

www.copingwithlifecrisis.com

www.guidetoonlinedatingtips.com

Step One – Identify A Potential Topic

You are after a topic which lots of people are looking for, and where people “must have” (rather than “need”) the product.

You also want a “niche”, ie a topic which is not too general. For example, “health” is far too general, but “melanoma” is specific enough.

You don’t necessarily need to know anything about the topic, but it helps if it’s something you are interested in.

The tool we use to determine how popular ideas are is http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html.

Click here for a list of the 204 best selling topics on line.

Once you have come up with some ideas, search for the key words you think people interested in a topic might look for. You are looking for words or phrases which total more than 30,000 hits per month on keyworddiscovery for your topic. For example if you type in “skin cancer” you get over 53,000 hits per month.

Next do a search on Google for the same words. You are looking for:

• The number of websites on the topic (you want this to be in the millions)
• Existing ads. You don’t want a topic where someone is already using a good sales letter and selling an e-book. You also don’t want heaps of ads, otherwise you end up paying too much per click to get in the top three.

 

The Grants talk about using the keyword discovery tool but there is a much easier way now with the Google Keyword Tool. Just go to: https://adwords.google.com.au/select/KeywordToolExternal

This is only the first step. Stay posted for the next 5 steps. I cannot stress how useful this information has been to us in getting started with our online business and I hope it helps you also.

Until next time

Julie

Andrew and Daryl Grant, ebooks, internet business, internet businesses, online business, online businesses Andrew and Daryl Grant, ebooks, online business, online business; internet business; success; learning;, success; secrets to success; motivation; online business; internet business

Ok, am I the only one who at times suffers from self doubt?  Am I the only one who sometimes thinks this is all too much for me and I’ll never be as successful as all those other people out there who are running successful online businesses?

I didn’t think so! What human being has not suffered from some form of self doubt in their lives? Will she accept my offer of a date?  I don’t think that I’m going to be offered the job. Why is it that everyone else in the world is smarter, prettier and more successful? Or, here’s the big doozie: “Why does everything have to be so hard for me and so easy for everyone else?”

Come on now, be honest, surely I am not the only one who goes through this painful experience of self doubt?  The question here could be why write about this on a blog designed for online business success? For one reason only: self doubt could rob you of any opportunity to be successful with your online business – hey, even with me and my online business.

Most success coaches (that’s me believe it or not) would tell you that success is determined 90% by what we think and only 10% by what we do. There was an interesting experiment some time ago that looked at coaching success for basketballers. They took three groups: the first group was only allowed to think about shooting hoops, the second group was only allowed to practice shooting hoops and the third group was coached in both mental and practical basketball skills. Which group did the best? Group one and three both succeeded to the same level. In other words, the actual action of shooting hoops made litttle difference. It was all about training the mind.

Occassionally this self defeating blockage of self doubt pops into my head so what do I do about it? This is what I do and maybe it will help you:

1. Remember the dream. We have a dream book and I like to remind myself of exactly why I started this online business in the first place. It is a powerful motivator.
2. Allow myself a little pity party but after a short time of feeling the feelings and feeling sorry for myself, I take a deep breath and tell myself to get back on with the job.
3. I recall all the things in my life that I have already been successful with eg. raising three daughters and for part of that time on my own, completing two degrees, having  a  private practice for 15 years, managing a 140 staff successfully in the program that I run currently, surviving a terrible divorce and best of all finding the love of my life later in life. If I can do these things then I can continue to face life’s challenges and win
4. Mix with people who will pull you up, not pull you down. We all need encouragement. I truly hope that my blog is an encouragement to you and that in some ways I can be a mentor to others in need.

Let me know what you do to deal with an attack of the self doubts. I know that it will be of help to others who are reading this.

I’m off for a weeks holiday to beautiful Coffs Harbour tomorrow so no post for a week. I really am a firm believer in the need for self care and nurturing.

Until next time

Julie

achieving your goals, internet business, internet businesses, motivation, online business, online businesses, success Add new tag, mental blockages, online business, online business; internet business; success; learning;, success; secrets to success; motivation; online business; internet business

Yaro Starak over delivers again.
This time he has made available to us a free report on how to develop a membership site. We are currently in the process of building two new membership sites and of course as the time gets closer I’ll be letting you know all about them but for now, a quick review of Yaro’s Membership Site Masterplan.
Yaro is a big believer in the need to establish yourself well and truly within your niche. To do this end he gives away amazing information written in a professional manner yet in a way that the adverage non technical person can understand. The latter would of course be me and so I always appreciate it when someone can tone down the techie stuff to such a level that I can get my head around it.
His current free report: Membership Site Masterplan once again establishes him as an expert in the area of blogging and now building on that success to show us how to be successful with membership sites. The big plus with a membership site is that it is not a once off purchase. The customer usually receives their information weekly over a period of time. This helps the customer to digest large amounts of information in more bit sizes and even more importantly the opportunity to practice what they have learnt. For the seller it of course gives on going income which is always better than a once off sale.
In his free report Yaro covers many important topics inclucing:
* The technology needed for a membership site
* Getting the prelaunch and launch of the site just right
* How to put the membership site on autopilot which of course is the whole idea of creating passive income and the lifestyle that goes with it
* The all important “How to sell”
and many other things.
To get hold of Yaro’s free report on building membership sites, simply click on this link:
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

If the report is not enough then Yaro also offers that extra added boast of a membership site to provide some hand holding while you are in the important process of getting up and going. To find out more about his membership site simply click on this link:
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

In my research I have come up with two distinct models for membership sites:

(1) The community type based model. With this model there is no step by step process that the customer goes through rather it is about role models and offering information on a topic in such form as interviewing experts in a particular area. The members themselves often contribute to the community based models and alot of ownership can be generated in this manner.
(2) This is a step by step outcome membership model on a particular topic eg “How to Build a Membership Site”. Members learn something extra each week until they have finally achieved their outcome.
When deciding which model you want to use it will really depend on the topic you have chosen. Ask yourself “which of these two models fits best with my topic and with what I am trying to achieve”
Don’t forget to check out the banners to Yaro’s free reports and products, particularly the new one Membership Site Masterplan.
Until next time
Julie
PS. Please let me know what you would like me to be writing on. I really want all this to be relevant and to help people build their online business as others have helped us.

blogging, blogs, internet business, internet businesses, online business Add new tag, blogging, building membership sites, online business, success; secrets to success; motivation; online business; internet business

Education is the greatest key for unlocking the secrets to success.

With this in mind I started a purposeful journey to source the information I needed to develop a successful internet business.

Books were what I knew so this is where I started. As mentioned in Entry 1, my first book in this area was the “One Minute Millionaire” by Mark Victor Hansen which was actually responsible for giving me the idea to start an online business. The basic idea was – write a book, sell it online and make a $million. Sounded good to me so off I went.

“How to Make Money While You Sleep” gave me the “meat” I needed or in other words, the “how to”. Brett McFall takes you through 7 steps to build an online business. It was through subscribing to Brett’s newsletter (www.brettmcfall.com) that I found out about a seminar being held in Brisbane over the weekend. We managed to get free tickets which was really important as we had very little money to spend.

This seminar was a turning point for us and although each speaker only gave a brief information session we still learnt heaps, formed the direction that we wanted to move in and was inspired to commit to this. Just a suggestion: be careful not to commit too much money up front as it is useful to understand exactly what you want to do before you commit to specialized help. There are lots of these sorts of generalized seminars around and they will help you make up your mind.

Dale Beaumonts “Secrets of Internet Entrepreneurs Exposed” blew me away (see our banner ad for heaps of free information from Dale on how to become a publisher). Here was story after story of people who were doing what I wanted to do and doing very well at it. I didn’t understand any of the technical stuff they were talking about but I was able to narrow down the sorts of systems that I thought would work for us. It was in this book that I had my first introduction to the people who were to be my main model for developing our business – Daryl and Andrew Grant – see our banner ad for their mentoring program to which I belong.

So begins my journey of learning and I have a funny feeling this journey is never going to end.

I soooo love learning!

Until next time
Julie

Uncategorized internet business, learning, online business, online business; internet business; success; learning;, secrets to success, success

It all started at the beginning of August 2008. At least that is when I actually started to do something about developing an online business. Prior to this time I had been busy reading whatever I could lay my hands on that might give me a clue how to go about all of this. Of particular use were:
“Secrets of Internet Entrepreneurs Exposed” Dale Beaumont
“How To Make Money While You Sleep” Brett McFall
But the one that actually first got my husband and I fired up with ideas was Mark Victor Hansen’s “One Minute Millionaire”. I can remember running downstairs to Will, jumping up and down shouting and trying to tell him that this was the answer to our prayers and the means of achieving many of the dreams that we had written down together on our dream book in January 2006.

At this time we knew absolutely nothing about internet businesses.  The books and people we listened to gave the distinct impression that this was all really easy and we would be making tons of money within a few days.

Well, I’ve found both to be untrue although I am sure for a lucky few it seemingly happens overnight.  To build an online business, like any business, actually takes lots of hard work and lots of time.  Maybe we are just slow learners ?   Or maybe we are really trying to learn about this business thoroughly.

Anyway, I had this idea about creating a website dedicated to me discussing the trials, tribulations and hopefully the successes of our journey to building a successful online business.  My aims are to help others but to also help myself.  I’ve always used journaling to deal with my emotions, clarify my thoughts and ultimately to give me direction. So for me writing this diary on line is quite a natural extension of something I have always done, I’m just using a different format. I suppose the teacher in me is also itching to get out

I’m hoping that as I learn from my mistakes, so will others

Until next time

Julie

online business, online businesses online business