Popularity: 8% [?]

Last week I wrote a little blurb about how I went out of my usual routine and finally took the plunge and bought a website. Yes, call it a crazy moment - but all in all an awesome moment. I’m not really sure how indepth I should go into the whole “who I bought the site from” and all that good stuff - but I have to say THANK YOU FOR MAKING IT THE LEAST STRESSFUL THING EVER!. The person I bought it from was totally awesome, totally upfront, and I have to say really supportive if I had any questions about the site/product. So far - so good!

The site I bought plays into the whole “I like to design sites” sort of deal - and the site looks like fun, so I thought - why not. This also takes me into the world of Ebooks. Never, ever, done an ebook before. So I’m hoping that this will give me the opportunity to spread my wings a little on the Internet and try something different - and spread out my online income.

Now with the site, I had a bit of a dilemma - with the Ebook I needed a way to sell it. One of those digital product download sites. I was thinking maybe I could use PayPal… but I wasn’t sure how that would work, and honestly I wasn’t looking for a lot of hours of work trying to sort it all out. LUCKILY the person I had bought the site from recommended to me to try out Digital Product Delivery. (You may or may not have seen reviews here and here - they offer great feedback on the site… and I won’t go repeating what they said here - read them!).

So I have my handy ebook and I’m wondering if the Digital Product Delivery would be easy to use. I’m all for no-headache technology and software I went to the site and registered. That took me no time at all… you are given 4 choices:

If you look to the right… you’ll see what I always love (when trying something out)… FREE - you can test the Digital Product Delivery for free. You can one product to sell digitally - and you have to have a payment processor already set up… like paypal, paydotcom, etc, because they don’t do the money… you need to get it set up. This wasn’t a problem - I have PayPal, easy-peasy.

As a designer - I have to say it’s not every day I see a site that is this easy to read. I just have to say that

Once I selected “free” I was sent through to the next page which was the form - username, password, email, the usual things you’d do to sign up for an account. Activation was smooth and I was ready to rumble in minutes. Which is so nice, because I hate having to wait to be verified.

Once I accessed my account… um… I was a little worried as to where to start. But the site is well laid out, and they offer:

Start with our Quick-Start Guide to learn how to rapidly create new protected downloads, or watch one of our tutorial videos to see how easy it is to use Secure Delivery.

… the quick start guide saved my butt! Once I got into the site - it was pretty easy to set up - the system takes you step by step - what to call the product, upload the product, and get links to sell the product and I loved that they had so many options - text version, graphic versions (good selection) to fit your site.

I was pleased with myself when I managed to get through it unscathed and happy because I managed to do it all within about 15 minutes. YAAAAA!

So if you’re like me and want to do some ebook selling or any digital product downloads (digital scrapbooking, etc) this would be an super easy way to do it. Also (as an affiilate marketer) this got me pretty happy too… is that they offer affiliate tools - so you can definitely help out the income stream by promoting this product.

Plenty of documentation (which I have yet to really use), help and support guides are available and you can stay up to date with what’s happening on their blog. Which wouldn’t be bad - if you promote it - you can keep your promotions up to date.

So, I’ve got the links on my new site and I’m hoping that this goes well - I’ve been able to track clicks through Google Analytics with Digital Product Delivery - which is super handy and look at the stats on their end as well. I’m hoping once I start marketing the site a bit more I’ll be able to see the numbers a bit higher than they are right now…LOL. So I’m into something new - trying something a little different with this new site I bought and trying out a new payment/delivery system. I’m pretty darn stoked by the new venture.

*fingers crossed*

Popularity: 7% [?]

On my Fansite #1 I put a forum up along with the blog, photos and that was it.  I had no idea how hard it would be to maintain a forum - since I’ve never had a forum before on any site for any amount of time, this was new ground to cover.

I used the free PHP forum script, instead of paying for vBulletin.  I am not making money = not going into the negative for it.   Also I had no idea if the forum idea would fly with this site or not.

I can say - spammers LOVE my forum.  They get as far as registering, then I can nuke ‘em if they are.  They can’t post until I approve them.   I thought that might slow them down.

It didn’t.

As the blog becomes more popular at Fansite #1 so has the forum - for spammers.  I think so far since I started the forum at the beginning of May I’ve had 3 legitimate signups.  How sad is that.  Out of those 3 signups - none have posted.

I know it’s hard to start a forum.  I know it’s hard to maintain a forum.  I’m thinking with the blog I have - if people want to comment they can and that can replace the forum.  It’s taking up too much of my time - I spend too much time deleting the bogus accounts… too much time.  It’s boring.  I hate it.

I suppose I could try to find a moderator.  Hell, I could even try to buy some forum comments, thoughts, etc, from those companies that specialize in populating forums.

But I don’t. I don’t want to waste my money.  I don’t want to spend more money than I’m making with this site.  It is just something I’m trying to impliment this time around.  I am working on my budget.  What will I spend re-investing in my sites to make them better.

I’m thinking the forum has to go.

Popularity: 18% [?]

I took a few days off to enjoy the sunshine - it’s been lacking the past few weeks out on the west coast and I’ve got to admit that I was really wondering where summer was hiding.  This past weekend, sun = beach.  That was where I was hanging out.  I stepped away from the computer mostly.  Meaning - not so much work, just checking the email once in a while.  It was really nice to come back a little more rejuvenated… a little less battle-worn.

So now I’m back and I’m thinking, thinking, thinking.

1. I’ve got to pull my head out of my butt and start more keyword research.
2. I’ve got to check my stats to see what people are looking for when they hit the fan site.  Start to focus more topics/articles on those searches.
3. Look into contest promotion

I thought of having a contest with my Fan Site #1.  I’m just not too sure how I should go about the prize(s).  I could purchase some items and offer them - but I’m more interested in getting possible prizes for free from merchandisers.  But I’m not sure how I’m going to do that - or how I could do it.  It would be great promotion for them - but maybe it’s still early days - the site isn’t all that old.  They may not see it as benefiting them - yet.

But that’s in the future… have any of you run a contest with  prizes?  How did you get the prizes to offer - did you pay or find a way for merchandisers to send you things to offer out (for a link or something else?).

I would like to run a promotion/contest… I’m just not sure where to start.

So anyhoo - my fan site #2 just got a few more articles - but damn I’ve got to start researching my keywords for it if I’m looking to get things going in the same fashion I did for fan site #1.  So far - things aren’t too bad for Adsense - but it could use a bit more love. Maybe next week I’ll be doing some ad position switching to see if it makes any difference.  Then maybe some colour changes to the ads… we’ll see.  Test, test, test.

Back to the ol’ grind.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I am really starting to love Google Analytics. I installed it on my Fansite #1 and it’s rather interesting to take a peek into the discrepancies between Awstats and Google. Not much of one, but it’s still rather interesting to take a peek into. I love analytics because I can narrow down the visitors to the city that they’re IP is from. I’m finding that my fansite, which would be more geared towards the American market (because it’s an American show) is really rather popular in the UK. I would never have thought that myself. It’s eye-opening when I can get into the nitty gritty of the site and maybe that information will pay off later down the road in regards to what I’m advertising on the site.

FanSite #1 had a bit of an index page facelift - I was finding that the ad promos I’d put there for CPA weren’t doing well at all. Lots of eyeballs - not a lot of clicks and even less conversions. I’m going to keep my eye out for better offers more geared towards the topic or along the same lines, but I stuck more Adsense in their spot and we’ll see how that flies.

I also changed the colours of the Adsense ads on the main page. I’m now back to blending it in. Maybe the change will attract more clicks, or maybe I’ll test this out and go then go back to a more in your face approach. Or try different ad sizes. Ohhh the possibilities.

Help Bear
Now I’m not into giving to just any random charity or “help me I’m broke” type deal, but when I read this over at Mark’s site - I swung by because I’m a big ol’ softie when it comes to cats. I read the story and it hit me on two levels - one I love cats… hate to see a sick cat if it can be helped. Do it. Also Jon (Bear’s owner) had a stroke and is on disability and paying the vet bills isn’t really an option. That too hit really close to home and I guess the story hit all the right heart strings and I sent him $10 via his Buy me a Beer promo.

I’m not going to push it - but if you read the story. Feel it’s the right thing to do - then please do it. The story is over here.

Jon if you read this - I’d love to hear how the donation drive is coming along!

Popularity: 7% [?]