This Is So Cool!

I was in a lazy mood today and not wanting to do any writing or creating.  I decided to do some reading instead and headed over to InfoGoRound to finally check out one of the features that looked promising.

I like InfoGoRound because, even though it costs $24.95 per month, you can write an (approved) article each month and not have to pay anything except the 2-3% Paypal service charge.   What a clever way to build up their inventory of PLR articles – by having the people who use the site also contribute to the site.

There’s lots to explore on this site but what I wanted to try was their Instant Training Course Generator.  This nifty little piece allows you to instantly create an ecourse, up to 5 parts, using their articles.  You then cut and paste them into your autoresponder.  Sounds interesting, but does it work?

This is what I did and how long it took me to do it:

1.  I put in the keyword “dogs” for one of my niches.  This gave me 94 articles with the word “dog” in them so I decided to narrow my search to the word “puppy”.  From here I quickly skimmed 8 of the articles that sounded promising and wrote down their article numbers.  20 minutes

2.  Next I looked over the articles more carefully and chose 5 to use.  I then decided on the order they were to go in and plopped the article numbers in at the appropriate spots.  Very simple.   20 minutes   Oh, and I flagged 2 more to use later on to promote some affiliate products via email.

3.  On that same page they show you your intro paragraph, signature line, resource box, and optional P.S.  All of these I reworded to suit me.  No problem with that.  10 minutes

4.  This is interesting – they encourage you to put in an ad and even give you different ad wordings.  You can use their ad (naturally) or chose one of your own.  I chose my own and simply put in the wording I wanted to use.  I just happen to have an affiliate product I want to promote!   5 minutes

5.  I pushed the button to generate the ecourse.  Very cool!  Done?  Not quite.  I tweaked the set up a little; took out the “In Today’s issue” because that made it sound like a newsletter instead of an ecourse, and moved the ad to the bottom.  I then made my ad a live link.  30 minutes

I’m not totally done because I still want to lightly rewrite the ecourse and change the titles.  I’m estimating this should take me about 1 hour, depending on how fresh and focused I am.  After that I will just cut and paste each part of the ecourse into my autoresponder, set up for maybe 7 days apart.  That should be about a 30 minute job.

I put what I did so far on this page so you could see what the heck I’m talking about.  Keep in mind I’m still going to do some light rewriting.  I put each part (each email)  in a different color so you could tell what was what.

My conclusion – doing a 5 part ecourse this way is much faster than doing all the researching and writing from scratch!  I know because I wrote Resale Rights 101 and it took a heck of a lot longer.  Doing it this way with InfoGoRound took me about 3 hours total, including loading it into the autoresponder.  All in all, I would prefer not to have to change the order of things after the Instant Training Course Generator spits the ecourse out, but it isn’t a huge deal.  I thought this thing made my life easier, and I’m all for that!

Not bad for a lazy day, huh? [Pat on back]

Maybe I should check out the Instant Niche Site Builder on InfoGoRound next…  I’ll report back after I do.

My Website, My Baby

How many of you, like me, get really attached to your first website? 

It’s wrong, I tell ya!  When we fall in love with our website we become awed by what we’ve created.  Not bad, we tell ourselves with pride.  Our glasses become fogged with our new-found, perfect love.  I’ve created a website!  I’m a new mom of a beautiful bouncing baby website!

Then eventually the realization sets in that maybe it could use some tweeking.  Oh, who am I kidding?  It needs a major overhaul, but it took me so gosh darn long to do it in the first place that I’m not going to change it – ever.  Whether it’s working for me or not, I’ve put too much time into this baby already.  There’s no changing it.

A website should not be a stagnant thing.  It needs to change with you.  You set it up, test it, modify a few things,  add content, change from your homemade graphics to professionally-done graphics, put in some Adsense, add a blog, attach a store, keep testing it and change what doesn’t work, etc.  You rethink your website when you rethink and refocus your business. 

Take a long hard look at your website through your customer’s eyes.  Is it appealing?  Does it serve a purpose?  Is it easy to navigate?  Then ask yourself, am I making a lot of money?  If your answers are no, you know what you need to do next.

I’ve been totally redoing my www.cookinkids.com website.  I’m almost done, I just need to go back and put the footer on.  I also have plans to add a blog as a vehicle for product reviews and more interaction with my readers.  After that, I’ll change my home page (again).  Right now it’s a sales page/home page.  I’m pleased with the graphics by Planet Divinity and they didn’t cost an arm and a leg.  Those guys rock!

I’m also starting to redo my www.peggybaron.com website.  I have evolved from a brand new newbie and it’s time my website reflects that.  So stay tuned…

And please let me know what you think of the www.cookinkids.com website.

ADDENDUM 1/24/08 – Check out the new look of my home page now at www.peggybaron.com!  More professional?  Easy to navigate?

How To Go From Scattered To Focused

Wow, here’s one of those “coincidences” or Law of Attraction things.  We were just talking about the new year and trying to stay focused in the last post, and what lands in my in bin?  Alice Seba’s Operation Internet Marketing Spring Clean Up.  Here’s what spoke to me:

“Do you ever feel like you’re working so hard in your online business, but the outcome isn’t changing to match all that effort?”    YES

“It might just be time for some serious clean up. It happens to all of us. We build and build and build, and then suddenly we’ve got all this virtual real estate out there. Problem is, we aren’t quite sure what to do with it all or how to leverage our hard work for maximum profitability. ”    YES

This sounds good.  Spring Cleaning to Maximize the Profitability of Your Online Business.  Her plan is to help you to:

1. Clean out all the extra stuff that you’ve accumulated.
2.  Identify and make the most of what’s working in your business.
3.  Plan for long-term success.

Anway, it’s a coaching program and you can read more here if you’re interested.   She’s only accepting 50 students and registration closes on January 11th, – whichever comes first.

She’s giving away the first lesson free.  You don’t have to opt-in either, just pick it up from her blog!  I downloaded mine and I’m going to get to work taking inventory even though my inventory isn’t that big yet.  If it can help my go from scattered to focused, I’m all for it!

A Tiny But Huge New Years Resolution

Here’s a small New Year’s resolution that’s going to pay off big!

I vow that 1 day per week I will not look at my emails or my stats or play spider solitaire or read blogs or read ebooks or opt-in to anything the whole day.  Why?  These are huge time wasters.  Just think how focused I can be and how much I can accomplish!  So… don’t email me tomorrow because I won’t read it. 

Here’s something I’ve managed to accomplish over the holidays: 

An ecourse about resale rights.  Since I’m so impressed with John Thornhill’s resale rights program, I thought I’d learn more about resale rights.  I like to do research (I know, I’m weird that way) so off I went learning everything I could and packed it into an ecourse for anyone else who wants it too.  It’s free with your opt-in:  Resale Rights 101.

P.S.  Don’t ever put your AWeber form for an opt-in ecourse on your website until you have your ecourse fully written because people will sign up for it and you will become very stressed trying to get each day written before it’s supposed to go out.  Sheesh.  Lesson learned the hard way.