Some pigs I saw in the forest this weekend

It’s about time to dissect September and move onto October! The month has started off with weather hotter than summer here, so it’s been hard for me to accept that the end of the year is nigh! But it is, and that means I’ve got a lot of work to do to get my business into a manageable state before I go away. (Edit: Since I wrote this draft, it’s turned cold again and feels like winter!)

September 2011 – Continued Success

I posted in July and August that I had continued to beat my monthly earnings each month. September was around the same as August, just slightly less, so I am happy with the results. That said, I need to work hard to bring in a boost in the next few months. I have some plans up my sleeve to do that – namely, seasonal sites, motivating my PLR affiliates, and working out some very good PLR deals for customers. These things alone will pretty much take up all my time (more about my plans below).

Reflecting On My Business

Although the income was going well, I had a bit of a blip in September when I got overwhelmed. That’s largely why I wrote my post about fear. I started to worry whether my business can survive for a long time, whether the things I do won’t be profitable in future, whether I’ll be able to keep up while I’m away and so on.

One thing that really hit me, however, is that I really need to do something I’m more passionate about. So what I’m going to do is try to give up some niche sites (not completely, and I will of course keep them up for the passive earnings). While I travel, I’m planning to spend time writing more creatively, and seeing whether I can turn one of my blogs into something I’m truly proud of. I am also working on a book to accompany that site.

I think it’ll be a while before I’m comfortable enough to move on from my niche sites, but I have gotten over the fear just by knowing I do have plans to move ahead with more passionate projects.

Plans For October

The number one goal has to be to build my savings. I have enough saved now that I know I’ll be safe if I can’t work as much as I hope when I travel, but it won’t hurt to save more and get systems in place now so that they work for me while I’m away. With that in mind, here are my plans.

1) Narrow Down My Focus

If I’m going to keep things under control when I travel, I can’t keep going the way I am. Things have to go. First on my list, I think, will be PLR Deal Guide. I get sales from it but it’s just not worth the time, and I can’t keep up with near-daily blog posts when I’m away.

Next, I need to come up with a strategy for that one blog I want to put my passion and creativity into improving. For months now I’ve been putting it off, just because the money isn’t instant and I’ve got other things to do. But if I want to do what I really love, I have to make the time for that.

Lastly, I am going to try to plan a few months of PLR releases in advance, and get working on them early. I’ll be coming out with a lot of content from now until Christmas to give me a good financial buffer when I start my travels late December/ early January.

2) Work On Tiffany Dow’s Branding Challenge

When Tiffany first shared the idea of her branding challenge I thought it was an excellent one. It was only a dollar to sign up, so I did, but I did question whether I could justify the time when I have so much on my plate. But what she’s sent out so far is excellent, and it’ll actually help me to figure out what I want in my business, and which areas to cut out. I didn’t expect it to go into that area so much, but now it has I know it’s well worth me following through. I will be blogging about it, too.

3) Book The Flights

Skip this if you’re not interested in my personal plans Last month I mentioned I’d have to give notice to my landlady. That’s been done! We’re moving out on December 13 (or thereabouts). Next, I need to book the flights. I imagine this will be done very soon. I’m currently researching – prices in December are probably the worst all year, but that’s just the way it’s worked out. If all else fails, I’ll take advantage of cheap flights on New Year’s Eve and start the new year somewhere new!

What about you? How was your September and what have you got planned for October?

Since my days recently are spent in an emotional state between a mixture of fear and excitement, I thought I’d talk a little about the fears I – and, I believe, all of us – experience on a daily basis.

“Fear is temporary, regret is forever”

“Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.” ~ Mark Twain

“Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

“Fear: False Evidence Appearing Real”

I have to keep telling myself things like this before I back out of what I really want to do.

Those of us who work online are certainly not taking the conventional path in life. Although there’s huge potential for making more money per hour than we would otherwise, and having more time to spend on things we truly love, the opposite is also true.

Many of us have faith that all the hard work we’re putting in now will pay off in future – this is certainly how I’m working at the moment – so we work long days and make many sacrifices.

There’s also the possibility that things can come crashing down completely, and it will all have been a waste of time.

The Worst-Case Scenario

But that really is a worst-case scenario – how likely is it that everything will go wrong? We’ve all personally been hit by changes, seen our friends take massive hits to their income, yet we’ve gone with the flow and changed our business to suit.

Often, if I’m scared of something, I ask myself “what’s the worst that can happen?” It’s usually nothing more than feeling embarrassed, feeling like a failure, or feeling that I’ve wasted my time. It’s not a life-or-death thing.

When I think about it, internet marketers are some of the most adaptable people I know. Many of us got into internet marketing not because we dreamed of this career since we were kids, but because we weren’t happy with our current life circumstances and wanted to improve things. We may not have achieved success right away, but we took action and we continue to take action every day to live the life we love.

Fear: False Evidence Appearing Real

What I’m trying to say is that there’s always a reason not to go for something. No matter whether it’s travelling the world, putting your writing out there, or quitting your job to work online, you’ll probably regret not doing it more than you will the mistakes you make while doing it. And your fears are probably unfounded to begin with.

It’s not easy to do something different to everyone else. But, if it works, it’ll be more than worth it. More freedom, more satisfaction, more happiness, more money.

This is what I keep telling myself as I worry that my business will fall apart as I hit the road, and I’ll end up having to come back with nothing. This is what I’ve been telling myself with every new idea that meant I had to put myself “out there”, and for the whole time I’ve worked online when I’ve worried about paying the bills and whether this is a viable long-term career.

But I won’t let fear hold me back (no matter how often I let it creep into my head)!

I’ve been working on the guide for a number of weeks now (you may remember be mentioning it passing). I realized it’s never going to be perfect, but the following is a guide – more a retelling of my own journey – about selling PLR articles for profit and turning it into a business that earns multiple thousands per month (directly and indirectly). See below if you’re not sure what PLR is yet.

I hope you enjoy the post. I warn you, it’s a long one! It could have actually gone into an eBook instead, but this post is part of my new resolution to share with people. If you find it useful in any way, I’d really appreciate you sharing it with people who might find it useful, or with the social networking links on the left.

A Note About Links

If you really want to say thanks, then I have included my affiliate links and I will receive a payout when you buy through them. That said, this post isn’t designed as a plug for any PLR guides or services that I used – I simply include them to give you the full story of what I’ve done, you may not need them all. I haven’t written this guide to get rich and don’t even expect to make anything from it. This is my own way of giving back to my subscribers – I know many of you are running PLR stores, though some advice will apply to other business models too.

What Is PLR?

PLR stands for Private Label Rights. Sometimes, PLR articles come with the rights for you to use however you want. However, usually, and for the purposes of my own PLR business, PLR articles are those you can edit, use in your personal websites, eBooks, autoresponder series etc and put your name to.

They aren’t unique to one buyer, so the downside of PLR is that many people may end up using the same articles. This is why most (myself included) choose to rewrite, edit, or use PLR as the basis of a new project. The benefit of PLR is that it’s extremely cheap, far cheaper than ghostwriting, and will save you time over writing the content from scratch. I charge $1 per article (or less) for my own PLR.

You can find my PLR sites here:
Net PLR
Product PLR Monthly
Toy PLR Monthly

If you’re interested in buying PLR from the latter two sites, use the code ‘webcareergirl’ (without quotes) in the coupon box when you sign up (it’ll save you 25%).

Introduction To My Guide On How To Sell PLR

Note that, in the title, I said this was “my” ultimate guide. It’s not the ultimate guide for a number of reasons, not least the fact that there are far more successful PLR sellers out there than me, and also because there is more than one way to start a business like this.

That said, I also know there are a lot of people who could learn something from me, so I wanted to create my own “definitive” post on the topic. For those who aren’t in PLR, you’ll also get a very strong idea of how much work is involved and whether it’s a business model for you.

Many people only started to notice my PLR store after Tiffany Dow launched her PLR ATM course and a number of other new sellers started to pop up. The truth is I launched around 6 months before that eBook was released, and saw reasonable success, but left my PLR store on the back burner. Ever since the launch of PLR ATM (from step 7 in this post onwards) I started to treat my PLR store like more of a business, and my success has only grown.

How To Use This Guide

As a framework for laying out the guide, I’ve gone through the steps I took in the order I took them. But I’ve also included extra information. For example, step 4 details my first Warrior Special Offer. It also includes tips I’ve learned from subsequent offers. In this way I’m documenting my whole PLR journey at the same time as including extra relevant tips as I go.

I called it the “ultimate” guide but I have to confess I didn’t go into huge detail about the membership site. I will write a post on that soon, though, so sign up to my newsletter if you’d like to be notified..

CONTENTS:

1. How Much Money Do I Make From My PLR Store?
2. Is PLR Right For You?
3. Step 1 – Doing My Research
4. Step 2 – Preparing PLR Inventory & Getting The Site Ready
   Shopping Cart
5. Step 3 – Launching The Website & Setting Up A New Email List
6. Step 4 – My First Freebie Warrior Special Offer (Getting 100+ Subscribers) & Other List Building Activity
   Results Of My First WSO
   Other Tips For Releasing Freebies
7. Step 5 – Launching My First Paid Special Offer
   Results Of My First Paid WSO
   Something More Important Than Sales Numbers… A Buyers List!
   More Tips For Paid WSOs
8. Step 6 – What Next For My PLR Store? A Lesson In Keeping Momentum
9. Step 7 – Getting Re-Motivated After A Few Months of No Activity – Learning From Tiffany Dow and the PLR Experts
   Watching Other PLR Sellers And Trying New Things
   Top PLR Guides I Recommend For All Levels Of PLR Seller
   A Note On Focus
10. Step 8 - My First $1000+ Month From My PLR Store
11. Step 9 – Starting An Affiliate Program
    Shopping Carts & Affiliate Programs
    Launching The Affiliate Program
    Setting Up An Affiliate Notification List
12. Step 10 – Working With – Not Against – My Fellow PLR Sellers & Building Relationships
    The Added Benefits Of Promoting Other PLR Sellers
    Re-Selling Other People’s PLR
13. Step 11 - Launching My First PLR Membership Site & Preparing For The Future
14. My Top PLR Tips
15. Conclusion
16. Resources Mentioned In This Post

How Much Money Do I Make From My PLR Store?

I’m not going to go into a detailed breakdown of my PLR earnings, suffice to say I’m happy with my progress.

I keep track of all my earnings in a spreadsheet, and can tell you this:

• In the first 6 months of my PLR store, I only earned an average of $85 per month,
• In the 7th month I earned more than the past 6 months put together, as I started to take my PLR store more seriously,
• My bestselling PLR pack has earned me over $1,700 so far,
• My best ever PLR packs earn me over $60 per article,
• But I still have a couple of packs that have only earned me a couple of dollars per article!

When I look at what I made when I first started, I’m surprised I didn’t give up. But it still seemed worth the time I was putting in to the content, and I always felt it would be a good way to diversify my income sources.

These numbers may not be amazing by some standards, but I am very happy. My PLR income has only grown in recent months, and I expect it to keep on growing. My PLR income is more than enough for me to live on, excluding other online income I make from my niche websites.

Is Selling PLR Right For You?

I know a lot of people are getting into PLR lately, especially after seeing people like Tiffany Dow make $10,000 every time she runs a sale. I’m not at her level yet, but I can certainly see the potential (as you can see above).

Just because something is profitable, though, doesn’t mean it’s right for you. PLR isn’t for everyone. I am a firm believer that, although we all need to make money, working online means we should mainly be doing things we enjoy. If your heart’s not in it, then you might want to look somewhere else.

I’ve put a lot of hard work into my PLR business, and I don’t want to skirt around that fact. I now have the benefit of hindsight, and it all seems worthwhile. For example, I’ve put out freebies before and had quite a few sign ups but not much extra business at the time. Then I finally launched my membership site and it surpassed my expectations – I see now that all the effort I put into building my list was worth it.

So, yes, PLR is hard work, but it’s also flexible work. If you’re not willing to put in the hours, or if you truly hate what you’re doing, don’t do it. If you are doing it, though, don’t give up! Every effort you put in might not pay off instantly, but it will pay off eventually. I hope this guide will show you that.

Step 1 – Doing My Research

When I launched my PLR store, the guides PLR ATM and Become A PLR Writer didn’t exist. I wasn’t aware of any others, so I did it all off my own back and my own research. I spent a lot of time on this step, and I still believe to this day that it has served me very well. Peggy Baron does go into this in a lot of detail in Become A PLR Writer (which would have helped save me time!), but I looked into the following areas myself:

• Average cost of PLR packs,
• Average word count,
• Any extras included with PLR packs,
• Payment system different sellers where using,
• Topics people were writing on (I initially tried to release topics I saw nowhere else),
• How the PLR writers presented themselves,
• How different PLR sellers were building their lists,
• And anything else I noticed.

I took PLR very seriously when I started. I scheduled my work so that I could dedicate most of the month of January 2010 to writing and researching for my PLR store. In hindsight, it was quite risky to do that. But I took the project seriously from the start and it definitely helped (unfortunately, I didn’t keep the momentum up).

Note that this research never ends. You can pick up small new ideas from everywhere, not just other PLR sellers but internet marketers in general. You don’t have to do everything that everyone else does, just try things for yourself (more about this in step 7).

Step 2 – Preparing PLR Inventory & Getting The Site Ready

My main priority was to write an initial batch of PLR articles. I didn’t want to launch with just one or two – so I made it a goal to write 10 during that month.

My writing process:

• Research topics in demand but that weren’t covered in the same way by other PLR sellers,
• Look for related affiliate programs for those topics,
• Do some keyword research to create individual article titles,
• Find a few main, reliable sources for researching those topics,
• Writing one pack at a time,
• Proofreading and putting it together into a PLR package.

To keep myself accountable, I let my online colleagues know my plan to launch a PLR website. I set a goal of X words per day (I forget the exact number), and it really motivated me to get it done.

Coming Up With Ideas For PLR Packs

My first suggestion would just be to think about what you’re interested in, and whether you think it’d be a good idea to specialize in a specific topic (i.e. beauty PLR or green PLR).

If you have specific things you know a lot about or have a passion for then it’ll be easier to write the articles and they’ll probably be better quality, too. But the ideas you come up with might not always be viable, so you can use these other tips to think about what’s hot and in demand.

Keyword Tools: Sometimes if you have a broad idea you might want to break it down into something smaller. So if I thought I wanted to do a pack on dogs, for example, but didn’t know what specifically, I’d type it into a keyword tool to see what comes up. When you type “dog” into the Google Keyword Tool, lots of things come up e.g. miniature dogs which could be an interesting idea you’d never thought of.

I also use the keyword tool to check that my ideas are viable. I do a search for the niche I had in mind and find related keywords, and will often use these keywords as a basis for what I come up with for the articles within the pack. If there aren’t enough keywords available then sometimes I will forget a PLR pack idea as it may mean not many people are searching for it, so not many affiliate marketers would be looking for PLR on the topic either.

Warrior Forum: The Warrior Forum is a good place to go because here you’ll see what’s “hot” with marketers at the moment, and these will be a large part of your customer base. For example, at the moment you’ll probably notice there’s a lot of fuss about selling physical products on Amazon though there are also lots of warriors still looking to make money from high paying niches in Adsense. They will also often mention specific niches, like upcoming launches of products or things that seem hot right now. You won’t want to fulfil every one but some ideas will stick out more to you than others, and if you know that marketers there are working on those topics, you know that there is a customer base for you

Amazon Niches: A good way to find hot products is to take a look at bestseller lists. I think warriors are pretty interested in these and quite a few PLR sellers do it. The good thing is, you’re still not in direct competition as the products are usually different. I.e. I did some bestselling electronics reviews, other people have done bestselling cookware reviews etc. Or you could choose one specific sub niche e.g. bestselling GPS systems.

High Paying Adsense Niches: I have not personally used this tactic but it’s on my list. I think marketers would love some high paying Adsense PLR that was related to some of the niches with the highest cost per click. A good place to find these lucrative niches is SpyFu. Again, although I’ve seen other PLR sellers do this, you can be different by choosing a different niche as there are plenty to choose from.

My Own Customer Requests: Obviously this doesn’t help if you’re brand new to selling PLR, but what you can do from the outset is ask your customers what they want. You’ll see I include a form for this on my site at NetPLR.com so when they opt in for updates, they have the option to send their requests. I have so many requests now it’ll take me a long time to catch up, but it’s good to know you’ll have at least one person who is definitely interested if you take them up on their request! Buyers often email me out of the blue too when they have an idea, so in all my emails and website I always say to them that they can feel free to email me whenever they want.

Look At Other PLR Sellers: Like I said above, I do think it’s a good idea to differentiate yourself from what other PLR sellers are doing. But you can still look at what they’re doing and use it to your own advantage to come up with PLR topic ideas. If you see they’re doing product reviews but no PLR seller is yet offering reviews on a specific type of product, for example, you can fill the gap and use it as an idea for your pack.

Sometimes packs will overlap between PLR sellers, and buyers will often buy all of the packs available. But I would still try to differentiate as much as possible.

Shopping Cart

In between writing articles, I also started to get my cart set up. At this time I really only knew of Easy PLR, PLR Mini Mart and All Star PLR. Of those three, two stores used DL Guard, so my choice was made. Although I no longer use DL Guard, I do have some regrets about moving away from it (probably best saved for another post) and I still thoroughly recommend it. Today I use Premium Web Cart – it’s a lot more expensive, but it has a built in affiliate program and a number of extra features.

Make sure you set up enough time to properly learn your new cart. It takes time, unfortunately, but most good carts are more than willing to help make sure everything’s running smoothly.

Step 3 – Launching The Website & Setting Up A New Email List

I am a firm believer that everything does NOT have to be perfect before you launch your PLR store. I have seen a lot of people delaying because they’re not sure everything’s right. Firstly, you’ll never have anything perfect. Secondly, you’ll never know it’s right until you put your PLR site online and people start browsing and buying.

My website wasn’t and still is not perfect. Although I’ve had it on my to-do list for a long time to make changes, I am still making money from it and that’s what counts!

When I first launched, I made sure I had:

1) An “about” page: I can’t tell you how frustrated I am when I visit a PLR seller’s store, want to know their first name and it’s nowhere to be seen! It technically doesn’t make any difference, but it helps you connect with the customer.

2) Basic category pages: Believe it or not, figuring out which categories to split my PLR packs into is the kind of thing that could easily have lead to me wasting time trying to get it perfect. It really doesn’t matter when you only have a few packs, though.

3) Working buy buttons: Simple, but completely necessary to make money I set some products to $0.01, set up a personal account in PayPal (you’re allowed one business and one personal account), and used that to test the links before I went live. Very important! I’ve tried to buy PLR from some sites before and there was no payment link! They were probably wondering why they weren’t making any sales!

Email List Incentives And Opt In Forms

I had already been building a list for my blog, but really didn’t appreciate the importance of doing so until I had my PLR store. My list is now an asset for me. I release new PLR packs, I make sales from my list. It’s so important, which is why you need a list from day 1!

I use Aweber for my email list but there are a few other providers. If you’d like to compare the main contenders, click here to view a PDF where it’s all laid out at a glance.

I created a simple opt in form to put in the sidebar of my website. It has fields for Name, Email and Optional PLR Topic Request. You’d be surprised at how many people enter a topic here: there’s a lot of demand for PLR and I still haven’t been able to fulfil all the requests (nowhere near). I keep track of them in a spreadsheet, though, and refer to the list when I’m trying to come up with a new topic idea.

There is an argument against including the Name and Request fields, and that is the fact that people don’t want to jump through hoops, so it’s up to you to test this.

And try to come up with a free incentive to join the list. In my experience, free PLR packs work a lot better than guides on how to use PLR, though I give away both. The PLR guide was there before I had time to come up with any freebies (click here if you’d like to buy PLR rights to that guide), and then I added a freebie when I got round to it. The freebie has the added bonus of showing people how you write, so they’re not risking their cash on crappy content.

Step 4 – My First Freebie Warrior Special Offer (Getting 100+ Subscribers) & Other List Building Activity

When I first launched Net PLR, I didn’t have any freebie PLR pack or even a sample of my writing available on the site. I did know some people from forums, and they were my first signups. But I wanted to do something to really kickstart my website, so I decided to launch a Warrior Special Offer.

At this point in time I already had 10 PLR packs on the site. I felt it was a good idea to have some inventory there, just in case people wanted to visit my website and buy as a result of the WSO.

The steps for putting together my first freebie:

1) I was already registered on the Warrior Forum, but I didn’t interact much there. I started a thread to introduce myself and I started to leave helpful replies around the forum to help get my post count up. Thankfully post count isn’t so much of an issue with a freebie WSO (people will download anyway), but it helps establish yourself there.

2) At the same time, I was trying to figure out exactly what to release as my freebie offer. I decided right from the start that I was going to get noticed as someone who over-delivers. For that reason, I released a 5-pack on one topic, a 5-pack of hot product reviews, and keyword research.

3) I then read as many WSO guides as I could find for free. The good thing about joining the War Room, which you have to do if you’re ultimately going to launch a WSO, is that there are some free reports about launching WSOs in there. Now, I was pretty naïve back then and have since realized that not all of these reports are as good as they seem. But they were an excellent way to get started.

4) I worked on my WSO sales copy, trying to introduce myself, and linking it to a simple squeeze page on my website where customers would have to enter their email address if they wanted the freebie. I set up a whole new WSO list in Aweber, and the welcome message to that list contained a link to download the zip file.

5) I then submitted the WSO. When you do this, you have to wait for it to get approved and you can’t edit it the meantime. Once it does get approved by admin, you pay through PayPal and, as soon as you do, the WSO goes live. It’s definitely a good idea to be around (awake!) at this time to fix any problems that are bound to crop up.

The Results Of My First WSO

At the time of my first freebie WSO, it cost $20 to list (it’s now $40). I got over 100 subscribers initially, and they continued to trickle in steadily after that. I made my first sales from that WSO but, more importantly, I now had a list of interested potential buyers for future offers.

Other Tips For Releasing Freebies

1) Notify Your Current List: When I launched my first freebie WSO, I didn’t have much of a list. However, now whenever I launch a WSO I always notify my list at the same time. I give them a link to the freebie (I don’t want them to have to opt in again) but I also give them a link to the free WSO if they want to say thanks. This is good for two reasons:
- I’ve gotten some great testimonials this way,
- More replies on the freebie thread helps it get noticed in the WSO section of the forum.

2) Leverage Your Freebies As Much As Possible: I like to release freebies to my list from time to time just to say thanks to my subscribers. But why not make the most out of that freebie pack? Launch it as a WSO at the same time.

3) Use Freebies To Introduce New Content: Before I launched my product PLR membership, I knew I wanted to release a few standalone product review packs. Before I did, I created a free PLR pack full of different product reviews. This not only helped me to build a list before launching paid packs on similar topics, it also helped to make sure there was an interest in this type of content before spending my time writing up big packs.

4) Put The Freebies On Your Site Too: The first thing to note is that a Warrior Special Offer, by definition, has to be something exclusive for the members of the Warrior Forum. This rule isn’t always followed, but I prefer to keep to the rules. So I don’t add the WSO freebie pack to my PLR site right away, but I do eventually add it up there as an additional way to get opt-ins from those who may stumble across my website rather than the WSO.

5) Add The Freebie Link To Your Signature: Don’t forget to add the link to your free WSO to your signature so that other Warriors will see it when you post helpful posts around the forum.

6) Save Some Freebies For Your List Only: I like to make my list feel special, so I do limit some freebies to them only. This includes “Free PLR Friday”, a weekly email that I decided I would send to reward my subscribers. I notice some other PLR sellers have also started to do this since. If you are thinking of something similar (though you want to make sure you’re different!), remember that it is quite a commitment. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to write the freebie every week! It’s also perfectly acceptable to just send freebies every now and again.

Step 5 – Launching My First Paid Special Offer

I am very glad I launched my first paid offer not too long after my first freebie WSO (it was about 3 weeks later). I feel it really helped to keep up momentum, and it gave me that first taste of success that made me think “this really could work!”

I thought long and hard over what I was going to offer for my first WSO. I was very much aware that not every topic is “hot” enough for a WSO, and that there are certain marketing trends PLR providers are able to capitalize on.

After a lot of research, I chose the topic of eBook Readers. There were a lot of marketers creating websites based on physical products, and this was a topic that was under-served in the PLR market.

SIDE NOTE: I see PLR providers launching WSOs on the same topics all the time. Why copy? I know people look at WSOs and want to see the same success, so try to do something similar. That’s not how it works. All PLR providers can happily co-exist as long as we’re creating unique products! And make sure your sales copy is unique too!

In total, I wrote one 10-pack of general eBook reader articles, and 4 reviews of currently “hot” products. And, like I had done for my freebie WSO, I created a number of keyword research sheets and added them as a bonus to my PLR articles.

I decided to charge just $7 for the whole package – a 50% discount from my website price of $1 per article.

Results Of My First Paid WSO

Initially, I remember making 35 sales of this product. I was so happy! I had made almost $250 from a $20 investment. Now, looking at my PLR inventory spreadsheet that helps me keep track of numbers sold, I see that I have sold 87 copies of that PLR pack. Some sold on my main PLR website, too, meaning I got the full price of $1 per page there.

Something More Important Than Sales Numbers… A Buyers List!

Even more important than the exact sales numbers for that first WSO was the fact that I started growing my buyers list.

I am not a fan of automatically emailing anyone who buys from me, or forcing them to input their email address just to access their download. I do, however, automatically send them just one email requesting they join my buyers list. I try to sweeten the deal with an extra freebie if possible. If they ignore, I won’t email, as my list works only after subscribers confirm they want to opt in.

Most shopping carts can do this – I know for sure that both DL Guard and Premium Web Cart integrate with Aweber and the other most popular autoresponder services.

Don’t leave out this step! Your buyers list is the most important one! I have some people who buy nearly all my PLR. You can’t put a price on that!

More Tips For Paid WSOs/ New PLR Pack Releases

Since that first WSO, I’ve gone on to launch a number of successful WSOs, as well as new PLR packs on my PLR site. Here are a few things I’ve learnt:

1) Get Some Testimonials: If you use the methods listed above on freebie WSOs, then it really shouldn’t be difficult for you to have past customer testimonials all ready for you to go when you launch your paid offer. However, when people do reply with testimonials specifically about the product in your WSO, edit the original post and include quotes for those testimonials to boost sales.

2) Set Up A List: Delivering freebie WSOs depends on people opting in. However, with a paid WSO or product on your site, people simply buy through PayPal and aren’t forced to opt in. As I just mentioned above, it’s very easy to set up a system with your shopping cart. But try to segment your lists for different types of products. For example, I have a general “PLR buyers” list, as well as a Halloween PLR buyers list and a product review buyers list. I haven’t been great at segmenting my lists, but I know it’s worth trying to help create more targeted offers in future.

3) Notify Affiliates: I know that my WSO discounted packs tend to sell better than full-priced PLR on my website, so instead of leaving affiliates to promote the full-priced packs, I make sure I set up an affiliate link that will send their customers directly to their WSO page. I send an email as soon as I release a new WSO so they can promote the discount to their customers (see the affiliate section below for more on this). I also have every single product link to my PLR store available within the affiliate program too.

4) Create More Of What’s Selling: Not every topic is going to be a hit, but if you notice one of your PLR packs going down extremely well then milk it and make more content on that topic!

5) Try Different Things: You never know if something is going to work until you try it. A few techniques I’ve tried include running the WSO for a set period of time, or starting it at a lower price and increasing it after X number of sales. You’ve got to try new things to get a feel for what works. I am still very much experimenting and learning.

6) Give Subscribers A Discount On New Packs: If it’s a WSO, I’ll simply send an email to my current subscribers with the WSO link as soon as it goes live. If it’s a full-priced pack at my PLR store, however, I often give them a special discount, or have the discount available to the general public for the first 48 hours only, to give that pack a kick start.

7) Announce Packs Before You Release Them: I don’t do this every time, but I’ll try to give hints at my next PLR pack in emails before I release it. This is especially true if I know it’s going to be a great deal that I think my subscribers will really want to snap up. A side bonus of announcing packs in advance is that it gives me accountability and forces me to meet the deadlines I set for myself!

Step 6 – What Next For My PLR Store? A Lesson In Keeping Momentum

As a newbie in any online business area, you’d think that $250 from my first WSO would be more than enough to keep me motivated and go on to create additional, more profitable offers.

I am ashamed to say I largely neglected my PLR website at that point. I even had a revelation during this time, which I then went on to foolishly ignore.

I remember writing two 7-article PLR packs at once. I sent out a message to my list (a couple of hundred large at the time) giving them a few dollars off for the first 48 hours after the pack went live. My revelation came as I sat on the beach on my birthday. I checked my iPhone (yes, I am guilty of checking emails even on the beach!) and saw I had sales from a few of the packs on my store. I realised just how important it was to keep up momentum, keep releasing new packs, to remind my list that my PLR store even existed.

But did I keep up momentum? No! I didn’t release any new PLR for months.

Step 7 – Getting Re-Motivated After A Few Months of No Activity – Learning From Tiffany Dow and the PLR Experts

In September 2010 Tiffany Dow started talking about releasing a definitive guide to launching a PLR business. Such a guide may have existed before, but never from someone who I personally saw as a true PLR leader, and from someone I would put my trust in.

When she released PLR ATM, I bought it that day (I can’t say I do that often with an IM product). Even though I already had experience launching my first WSO and my first few packs, I wanted to learn as much as possible. The biggest thing I learned from this guide? That my PLR website wasn’t just a side thing – I needed to treat it as a business.

From that day on I can honestly say my PLR store has gone from strength to strength.

Watching Other PLR Sellers And Trying New Things

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you have to be unique if you’re going to make it in the PLR business. Look at the top PLR sellers: Nicole Dean, Tiffany Dow, Melissa Ingold, Peggy Baron, Alice Seba… they all do things differently! Yet there’s space on the market for them all!

This means I don’t watch other PLR sellers to copy them. I watch them to get ideas that I tweak for my own business. For example, Alice Seba inspired me to create a comparison chart to add to my membership site, Tiffany inspires me to encourage and help other PLR sellers (even though they may be “competition”), and Nicole and others made me wonder whether I should try what they do, and promote other PLR sellers’ stuff too.

So I am subscribed to all of those marketers’ email lists, and more, because I like to watch what they do and try new things. I also like to keep up with PLR sales since I’m a PLR buyer too

Top PLR Guides I Recommend For All Levels Of PLR Seller

As for learning from guides written specifically on the topic of writing and selling PLR, here are the ones I’ve used:

Tiffany Dow’s PLR ATM: As mentioned above, PLR ATM was the first guide I ever read on selling PLR. Up until that point, I’d been doing it all on my own. Tiff has a unique way of doing things, and she encouraged me to treat PLR as a business. If you’re looking for handholding from day one of your business, this is an excellent guide.

Peggy Baron’s Become A PLR Writer: This guide came out a little while after PLR ATM. I didn’t think I would gain anything from it, but I was wrong! Peg and Tiff run their businesses differently, and I liked getting into both of their minds to come up with those ideas I could use and tweak. I still intend to revisit the guide, as there’s so much I haven’t even put into action yet! (Read a comparison of Become A PLR Writer and PLR ATM here)

Melissa Ingold & Nicole Dean’s “Sell PLR Content”: These are two of the biggest PLR sellers on the internet today. This is a brand new course, delivered in the form of teleclasses. I’ll post a full review once I have a chance.

Professional PLR Provider Newsletter: This is also from Peggy, and I love this. It’s always giving me new ideas for my business, whether that means ideas for writing my readme file, ways to profit from competitors, or putting together your PLR sales funnel. Peggy has gone above and beyond whenever I’ve emailed her with questions. This is well worth the $9 a month.

Nicole Dean’s Income CPR: This program isn’t actually specifically about PLR, but she is one of the top PLR providers on the net, and this info can be applied to any sort of online product. I love Nicole’s style, and the way she focuses on very specific elements. Her issue on sales systems made me notice a huge mistake with my cart, and her last month on blogging is worth way more than $10.

A Note On Focus

Following so many PLR providers, and reading a lot of guides, is a sure fire way to get overwhelmed. You need to stay focused, which is why you shouldn’t feel you need to try EVERY single recommendation. For example, I get tons of ideas from Peggy’s newsletter but I may only implement one. That’s ok – I can revisit others in future. If that one idea makes me money, it’s worth it.

And don’t compare yourself to other sellers either! We all do things differently and are at different stages of our career. Don’t make yourself feel like you aren’t doing enough in comparison.

Step 8 - My First $1000+ Month From My PLR Store

Shortly after Tiffany released PLR ATM, and I stepped up my game, I experienced my first $1000+ month from my PLR store. This was around 7 months after I first launched – before this point, I’d been earning an average of $85 per month for the first six months. As you can see, this was a huge jump in income. All because I took things seriously and wrote a lot of content for my store!

Step 9 – Starting An Affiliate Program

I had been thinking about creating a PLR affiliate program for a long time. However, since it wasn’t built into DL Guard, I really put it off. However, after seeing more and more PLR sellers setting up theirs, and listening to the advice of experts like Melissa Ingold, I decided it was about time.

One year after opening my PLR site, I finally set up my new affiliate program.

Shopping Carts & Affiliate Programs

The first thing you need to know is whether you can build an affiliate program with your shopping cart. JROX Jam is one option for those who have DL Guard, and Peggy Baron uses this successfully. Check out this free report that she let Tiffany Dow share with her subscribers for more info. It’s pretty cost effective in the long-term, just requires a bit of cash upfront.

There’s also e-Junkie, which has an affiliate program built right in. It’s easy to set up, but I decided it didn’t give me all the control I wanted over the program.

The solution I chose was Premium Web Cart. This is very similar to 1ShoppingCart, but with some extra features that really swayed my choice. This system is far from perfect, but it gives me a lot of control over my affiliate program and upsells within the shopping cart. It did mean I had to change over all my product links which was a massive hassle, but it was ultimately worth it.

Launching The Affiliate Program

Before I launched my brand new affiliate program, I wanted to make 100% sure that everything was working. I signed up as my own affiliate, paid myself for some test sales, and checked that all the sales had gone through. They did, so I was ready to go!

I didn’t launch to a big fanfare. I believe that I just emailed a short message to my list letting them know they could sign up if they wanted to.

I also created an “affiliates” page on NetPLR.com, including the following info:

• How long the affiliate cookie lasts,
• When affiliates get paid,
• Minimum payout amount (there is none – I don’t believe in minimum payouts),
• Other pertinent information.

Lastly, I helped encourage my affiliates to promote, and my customers to get used to the new shopping cart, by setting up a sale. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but I know it was a certain % discount when they spent $X amount in the store. I must admit, I didn’t really get many affiliates promoting at that time! But the number has been growing steadily since that day.

Setting Up An Affiliate Notification List

I know that, as an affiliate of other people’s sites, I find it very useful to receive new offers directly to my inbox. This is why I decided to set up an affiliate mailing list from day one. I don’t use this list for anything other than notifying affiliates of new packs, coupons and discounts they can promote.

The way my shopping cart works means that I can automatically send a request for affiliates to join the notification list when they sign up as an affiliate. If your cart doesn’t have this, just put an opt in form on your affiliate page instead.

I then have a very short series of emails sent as follow ups including affiliate policies and details on how to login and find links, as well as a couple of free articles affiliates can use to promote my website. It’s on my to-do list to add more to those follow ups eventually!

I try to encourage my affiliates to contact me if they need anything. Some have requested specific page links which I have added. If people are trying to promote me, I definitely believe I should do everything I can to help them.

Step 10 – Working With – Not Against – My Fellow PLR Sellers & Building Relationships

I am not sure when, but after launching my own affiliate program I decided to join the affiliate programs of other PLR sellers. I thought it could be a good idea to promote special offers, and I wasn’t too worried about the competition. The truth is that I can’t write all the PLR on all the topics out there, so why not try to promote different packs to my own?

SIDE NOTE: If you ever want to promote Net PLR or my memberships, see the Net PLR affiliate page here, and the Product PLR Monthly affiliate page here

I am still learning how to strike the balance between useful promotion and too much promotion. I don’t want to use my list as a cash machine, but at the same time I have buyers thanking me for letting them know about huge PLR sales. I make sure I only promote content I know to be high quality.

All I know is, this has added a very nice additional profit to my PLR business. These are what I call my “indirect” PLR earnings. I highly recommend slotting PLR deals into your emails as long as they’re relevant, high quality and a good price.

The Added Benefits Of Promoting Other PLR Sellers

Money isn’t the only reason to promote other PLR sellers. By promoting other sellers, I’ve often gotten in direct touch with them for the first time. I may have emailed a question about their affiliate program, and it opened up the lines of communication. Who knows what will come of that in future? All I know is that some PLR sellers I promote have also ended up promoting me!

Re-Selling Other People’s PLR

I thought I would include a little here about buying PLR to resell. Although most of the PLR content I personally use does NOT come with the rights to pass on PLR, some sellers have created resell packs that mean you can sell the PLR rights to your own customers.

The two places I bought resell PLR from are:

1. All Star PLR
2. All Resell Content

The quality of my PLR website is very important to me, which is why I would only buy resell PLR from high quality sources. The two sites I mentioned are exactly that.

The first PLR I bought was from All Star PLR. Since I say on my site that I write all my own content, I added the packs to my site with an extra note stating that these were not my original articles. I did modify them slightly, though, and added some keywords to the packs.

I have made my investment back with these PLR packs, and I always think it’s a good idea to bulk up your PLR site with as many pages as possible at the beginning (it helps attract more traffic). That said, these packs are not my bestsellers and I probably won’t use any other resell PLR (I haven’t even gotten around to adding the packs from All Resell Content to my site yet!)

I think resell PLR is most useful for those who want to quickly add new pages to their PLR store when first getting started, or as a way to add some high quality bonuses to a PLR bundle pack.

Step 11 - Launching My First PLR Membership Site & Preparing For The Future

I am not sure how long I’d been planning to launch a membership site for, all I can say is that it was a long time. But I’d always been held back by fear that I had nothing truly valuable to offer.

As July approached I was thinking seriously about my finances and how I was going to earn money on the road. I thought it was a good idea to set up some recurring income. Although not guaranteed, a membership site gives me more stability than random PLR releases. That must have been the push I needed, as I finally decided to stop thinking about it and just do it!

I could write a whole new guide on starting a membership site (in fact, I will be do a couple of weeks), so I won’t go into every detail here. Sign up here if you’d like to know when the post goes live…

Here’s a brief overview of the steps I took:

1. Research: I conducted a survey, searched for competing membership sites, and thought about my most successful PLR packs to date in order to come up with my offer.
2. USP: To come up with my unique selling proposition, I thought long and hard about how I could deliver value in a different way to other PLR membership sites.
3. Membership Software: My current cart wouldn’t cut it for what I wanted, so I bought Amember and learnt how to use it.
4. Sales Letter: I’d never written a full sales letter before, so I read a lot on the subject as I put mine together. I used OptimizePress to create the sales letter and members area.
5. Launch: To celebrate the launch, I set up a WSO to give people 50% off the member price. I also send a coupon to my subscribers which went down very well!
6. Adding More Value: I continue to add more value to the membership by uploading new guides, a free PLR pack, and I have more planned.

Like I said, there’s so much to be said about starting a membership site, I’ll write about that in a few weeks. Don’t forget to sign up to the mailing list so you know when the post goes live.

My Top PLR-Selling Tips

* Be Original: I can’t stress this enough. As someone who has had my whole freebie PLR guide ripped off (yes, I now sell legitimate PLR rights to it, but didn’t at this time) and more, I have strong feelings on this one. From the start, I knew I had to be different to be a success. Now there are more new PLR providers than ever, it’s even more crucial you set yourself apart.

This not only means the topics you write, but the way you write, the kind of PLR packs you put together (e.g. some providers do video, some do checklists, some do articles), and even your WSO text. I hate to see people copying my WSO format – it just makes us both look unoriginal. You have to try and test things for yourself, not just assume that what other PLR providers do is the best way. Put some effort into being different and it will pay off – believe me!

* Be Consistent: One of the benefits of having a PLR store is that you don’t have to work to a timetable, like you would with ghostwriting. That said, if you put up five packs on random niches and leave your site, it’s unlikely it’s going to do much for you. Every time I release a new pack, I remind people to browse my PLR store and end up making more related sales as a result. I also try to send my emails consistently so people expect to hear from me.

* Don’t Measure Your Success Against Others: I am always guilty of doing this, whether in the PLR business or otherwise. However, it takes time to build a successful PLR business, time to build a following, and it’s all dependent on how much work you put in. Some people have time to work on their PLR business all day long, others don’t. And don’t worry that other PLR sellers are taking all the customers – as I mentioned in step 10, there’s space for everyone.

* Know It Takes Time: I was amazed at the response I had to my membership site. It may seem as though I instantly added thousands to my monthly income, but nothing about it was instant. I see it as a culmination of all the hard work I’ve put in to build my list, to over-deliver, and to learn as much as I can about what my customers need. This took me over a year but I can now see it was worth it.

* Think Carefully About Your Topics: If you’re writing small packs to stock your store then you’ll likely have a huge variety of niches, which is great for bringing in as much search engine traffic as possible. That said, if you want to launch a special offer, then you’d best make sure the topic is in demand. I always think carefully about what I release, I try to predict what marketers are looking for, and fill a need. Like I said before – don’t just look at what I’m doing and do the same! Look for gaps in the market and fill them.

* Launch Your Affiliate Program: Really, don’t delay on this step. We PLR sellers are the kind of people who like to promote our competition! So make sure you get it set up as soon as possible so that others can start putting in the work to market your website for you!

So, here you have my mammoth post all about writing and selling PLR for profit. I’ve tried to go through every stage of my business, though I admit I may have forgotten something. If you have a question or comment, please leave it below!

I’d also really appreciate it if you could share this post using the links to the left, if you found it useful

Resources Mentioned In This Post

PLR Guides/ Marketing Newsletters:
PLR ATM
Become A PLR Writer
Sell PLR Content
Professional PLR Provider Newsletter
Income CPR

My Own PLR Sites:
Net PLR
Product PLR Monthly
Toy PLR Monthly

If you’re interested in buying PLR from the latter two sites, use the code ‘webcareergirl’ (without quotes) in the coupon box when you sign up (it’ll save you 25%).

Tools I Use:
Aweber
DL Guard
e-Junkie (use this code for 4 months free: MEVIO)
Premium Web Cart
Amember
OptimizePress

PLR You Can Resell:
All Star PLR Resell Content
All Resell Content

Here we are at the start of another month and I can’t quite believe we’re two thirds through 2011! September is going to be a busy month for me, there’s no doubt about that! I thought I would post about what’s been going well for me lately, what I’ve been struggling with, and what I have planned for this month (both business and personal).

August 2011 – My Biggest Earnings To Date

Last month I was very happy to report that my July earnings were the best they have been since starting online. This was largely thanks to the launch of my PLR membership site.

With an increase in affiliate commissions in August, alongside a further boost in PLR sales, I’m extremely happy to say that August was even better. I earned just over 30% more profit in August than I did in July – a fantastic jump that I really wasn’t expecting (especially since I significantly increased my outsourcing expenses).

Where did this extra income come from?

• My affiliate earnings have been really picking up (although Adsense is infuriatingly dropping in recent months),
• I am making more affiliate commissions from PLR products (although I’m still unsure as to whether my website PLR Deal Guide is a good idea in the long term),
• I had some very successful PLR packs this month that earned me over $3000 in themselves.

What I Struggled With In August

1) Not Enough Time For Niche Sites

My number one goal is always to make a semi-passive income from niche sites. As you might be able to tell from the above, PLR has somewhat taken over my time. I have been reinvesting money back into writers for my niche sites, and I’ve found that traffic is increasing thanks to daily posting. That said, I need to scale things up. I am making consistent monthly income from my niche sites but still have the same old problem of not having the time to focus. I need to build more sites/ build bigger sites than I currently have.

2) Poor Time Management

When does the struggle of working for yourself ever end? Even after three years (I first started ghostwriting back in August 2008!) I still struggle to keep a balance. In fact, I hate to say I’ve probably been worse than ever this last month! Some days I do next to nothing, others I cram in so much work that I am completely burned out. This is not good and I certainly can’t stay like this if I want to travel and work (fewer hours) from the road.

The only good thing to come out of all this procrastination is the realisation that I can make a good income with few hours of active work. That is if I ever learn to properly limit my work hours!

3) Not Enough Creativity

What I enjoy best about working online is the creative outlet. Even this blog is creative for me. I enjoy writing here, the only problem is I don’t have time. Yes, I can churn out quick, short blog posts. But what I’d really like to do is spend whole afternoons crafting just one blog post. I really want to write something worthwhile. Ahhh, if only I had the time (see my problem in number 2).

One of my niche sites is in a personal development topic. It has good traffic but a lot of the content is poor. I’m slowly improving it and I want to be proud if it, because it’s a topic I have very close personal experience with. My email newsletter is getting a very good response and generating email conversations, but I haven’t set aside enough time to really make this site the way I want it to be. It may not be earning much right now (any ideas on how to monetize personal development – please share right now I promote hypnosis MP3s), but it’s something I can see as a long term creative blog that could really help people.

Plans For September – An Important Month!

Right now, I feel like every month is crucial to making things happen. The fact that I earned 30% more than I expected last month gives me a massive boost to my travel savings. These savings are essentially a buffer should my plan of working and travelling not go to plan. But the pressure is really on now!

1) Release More PLR – At Least 1 PLR Pack Per Week

I don’t do any ghostwriting any more – I enjoy PLR so much more for the fact that I can write what I want, when I want. The business is very up and down, though, in the sense that some packs can earn me a paltry couple of dollars per 500 word article, where my best packs have earned me around $70 for every article. Thankfully my average across all my articles is now climbing all the time.

The thing is, I do continue to make sales of older packs all the time. My plan is to get as many out there as possible in the next few months. A bigger inventory means I can satisfy a bigger portion of my visitors and hopefully attract more browsers in general. It also fulfils requests that existing customers have made.

2) Work On My Holiday Sites

I am already very happy with the traffic I’m getting to my Halloween site each day, which I imagine will only grow this month and next, and I’ve had my first Halloween costume sales.

But Christmas is also fast approaching, so I’m going to be working on my main Christmas site at the same time. It seems to have been hit with some Google penalty but not de-indexed. It had been doing nicely until a few weeks ago. I stopped adding new content – so my plan is to start doing what I’ve done with my Halloween site. Adding one post a day there has made a huge impact on its own, so I’ll see whether this works for my holiday site too.

Whatever happens, I’m just so glad I have some sites with age this Christmas. Last year I left it very late and didn’t have the time to put much of worth together. This year is different (hopefully!)

3) Set A Leaving Date (!!!)

My heart is pretty much starting to race as I write this. In all honesty I’m scared of giving notice on my flat, not having my own place in England and going off to somewhere completely foreign, doing something I’ve never done before. But the landlady has been in touch and wants to know whether we’ll be renewing. I’m hoping she’ll let us stay either for one extra month (’til November) or two (’til December) and then we’ll be gone!

I know many others in our situation would have set the date long ago – but it’s been difficult. The other half is finishing his MA and has enough to think about without quitting his job and thinking about travel just yet (I’m doing all the planning). But as soon as that’s done (end of the month) he can quit (scary!) and we’ll book the tickets. It’s very much in the spirit of what we want to do anyway: much will be left unplanned. We’ll book a one-way ticket to Bangkok, spend a few nights in a guesthouse and see where life takes us.

By the end of the month, I should be able to say when we’re going, and hopefully be clued up on all the visas and vaccinations we’re going to need. I’m also planning to document the whole planning process, and maybe turn it into a guide/blog presuming I can figure it out!

How was August for you? I’d love to hear your goals for September too!

When I first started writing on the internet I didn’t do it because it was what I “wanted to do” in life. I just fell into it. I was blogging already, as a hobby (I didn’t know anything about making money from it apart from sponsored posts), and found my first paid work after a bit of Googling. I was honestly amazed that I had money in my account that very same day. It wasn’t much but I guess I got the “bug” for being my own boss. Even if the work was tough I was still free to do what I wanted!

Looking at the date on the calendar, I see it’s almost three years to the day that I started working online. I can’t quite believe how fast the time has gone and how I’ve changed my feelings about life and “jobs” in that time period. What started off as a way to pay the bills, little more than a hobby, has become a whole way of life.

I certainly make a lot of mistakes, and have a lot of flaws. My inability to stick to anything being the most notable. I am sure I would have seen more success had I worked harder on some of my first niche blogs, but I can’t change the past and I’ve certainly learnt from my mistakes. I know I can’t change the path I’ve taken and I’m happy with the direction it’s heading in.

My Big Goal

This post isn’t about my specific goal in particular, rather the way in which entrepreneurship can help you meet goals you didn’t think possible. That said, I think it’s worth mentioning (as if I haven’t already mentioned it enough in the past ) Since the end of 2010, I made it a goal to travel for an extended period of time. I still don’t know how long this will be, but I’ll keep going as long as it’s feasible.

I don’t know when I got the idea in my head. But I think it’s a lot to do with who I read online. Nobody I know “in real life” has a job like I do that you can do from anywhere with an internet connection. Nobody else has the freedom to travel and keep running their business at the same time. I’m so grateful that I do, and have been inspired others who have done it.

Travel isn’t the only goal that working online is helping me to achieve, though. I also know that someday, when I have kids, I’ll be able to spend more time with them, doing things more important than working. And I also have a creative platform (blogging) from which to, hopefully, make some kind of impact on this world (however small that may be).

Working Online Can Make Big Things Happen

Whether you’re interested in travelling or not isn’t the point – the point is building a career that allows you to do what you want to. I feel I’m getting a little too sentimental in my post, but I’ve decided just to let it happen. This is my chance to show my gratitude for everything I’ve learnt, the people who’ve helped or encouraged me along the way, and the seemingly negative circumstances that have led to my current situation.

The truth is that working online is hard, and it’s stressful. In these three years my income has yo-yod from great months to months where I barely earned a penny. My friends and family have wondered when I’d quit in favor of a “real job”, but for some reason I’ve kept going.

Success in this business is about focus and determination. Sometimes all the signals seem to be telling you to give up, but for some reason you find a way to continue. Even more so if you have a goal in mind and you’ve made the decision to make it happen, no matter what. Although I’ve made mistakes, nobody can deny that I have been determined to make things happen. I’m proud of that.

Success also comes down to taking action. We hear it so many times, but action alone is not enough. It has to be action in the right places. And, unfortunately, you’ll never really know what’s right or what’s wrong for you until you try.

Because of this, my whole philosophy on niche site building has completely changed, and I’m focused on a very small network of sites. I’m also firmly focused on my PLR business, and have faced many fears in order to start a membership site and push my business further forward.

This is what has finally let my dream stop being just a dream. I’m not just dreaming and thinking about doing it now, I’m taking the steps to make it happen! I’m planning itineraries, budgets, visa applications, packing lists and everything else. I am going to do what I planned. And my focus and simplification means I’ll still be able to run my business while I’m gone.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of the journey so far!

I hope you’ll forgive me for what has become a rather self-indulgent and sentimental post, but I just wanted to share my happiness and pride. I’d love to hear about your goals or what working online means to you.

Ok, I admit I am a little late with this one. In fact, this post has been sitting in my drafts since the beginning of the month, so it’s high time I posted the update. I wanted to post about what I did in July, including new business projects as well as completing my personal goals.

Main Tasks For July:

1. Start my first membership website
2. Exercise five days a week

First – My July Activity Challenge

On the first of July I posted about my intention to start being more active. Working at the computer all day every day is certainly not conducive to fitness and good health. I also know that I need to get fit if I’m going to be travelling on a budget (this means a lot of walking and carrying a backpack).

I got off to a good start in the first half of the month. I exercised every day and I quickly got over the muscle aches (which shows I must have been improving). Sadly, it all went downhill after I went to visit family on the 18th. I didn’t keep it up at all!

While this challenge was technically a failure, I have been more active in general. It’s easy to get lazy when you sit down all day. Even though I haven’t exercised properly in the second half of the month, I’ve been walking almost every day. I really need to get back into doing more, though!

Second – Launching My First Membership Site

For months and months now I’ve been thinking about launching a membership site, but I always had the idea that there wasn’t anything I could offer. I finally did launch a site in July!

If you’ve read some of my posts before then you may remember that I want to travel before the end of the year. I’ll keep working on my online business as I go, but it helps if I have recurring income. This is why I made the decision that I just needed to do it and stop putting it off.

I’m glad I did it – it’s added a good amount of money to my monthly income. In fact, July 2011 was my best ever month. What’s important, though, is that it’s regular income – even though it’s not guaranteed, it is somewhat regular and the work is flexible.

I’ll get into more about the process of starting the site in another post (probably a long one!) but for now my point is that I’m so glad I took action to do something I’d been putting off for so long! When I decided to do it I worked so hard to make it happen within a matter of weeks. Although it presented some challenges, it really wasn’t so bad!

What’s Next For Me

Although it doesn’t show yet, I have plans to start offering way more in the way of useful, free content here. I may not be perfect, and have made a lot of mistakes, but I’m trying to build my confidence in the fact that I do have something valuable to share.

One post I have planned is to share everything I know about selling PLR, and I want to make it a free post much in the style of bloggers I admire such as Zen Duck Dave. I know this post won’t be directly relevant to many of you, but I’m hoping there’ll be something useful you can take away even if you’re not into PLR.

Why do I want to head in this direction? In truth, because I enjoy it. I’ve started to realize just how much I’ve been procrastinating on certain tasks. They all have one thing in common – I don’t enjoy them. The problem is that it’s hard to make money from what I do enjoy, but I’m going to try and spend time on both if possible.

Since I launched my latest product review PLR membership site (part of which includes a comparison table for top-selling products) I have decided to put together a guide on creating and using comparison charts on review blogs. Since I’m giving it away for free to members there, I thought why not include a post here too?

NOTE: This is going to be a long tutorial post, so if you want to have it on hand for future reference just click here to download the PDF guide (no opt-in required).

Creating comparison charts will help your readers see, at-a-glance, which product might be right for them by comparing the key specs of various products in a category.

You can also use price comparison charts on individual product review pages to help your visitors find the best price, and help yourself secure an affiliate commission.

Both are known to massively increase conversions if you do it properly, so here’s a method I’ve found for doing it (for free!)

Key Elements Of A WordPress Comparison Chart

Before putting together my first chart I did a bit of research into what other top sites were doing. Key elements include:

• A list of most common specifications for the product (obviously),
• A small image of each product,
• A star rating or a ranked order of products,
• An affiliate link to “buy now”,
• A link to read the full review on some other page on the blog.

Best FREE Plugin For Product Comparison Charts – WP-Table Reloaded

Although you could create a table within a page/ post using HTML code, I am not the kind of person to bother with that! Instead I search for a free plugin and found a great one.

>> WP-Table Reloaded <<

This plugin is fabulous. Here are a few of the features I like:

• Ability to reorder columns or rows after you’ve already completed the table,
• Allows users to sort, search and filter the information,
• The end result just looks good without fiddling around (important for busy people!)

STEP 1: Install The Plugin

If you’re already familiar with installing plugins this should be quick. If not, just follow these simple steps…

1. Click “Add New” on the plugins menu…
   
2. Search for “WP-Table Reloaded” and click “Install Now”
   
3. Wait for it to install then click “Activate” 

STEP 2: Compile Your Data

Personally I compiled my data before I even went into WordPress. I saved it all into an Excel Spreadsheet that I had to copy and paste over later. But you could do it on the fly and enter it into the table plugin as you go. Just make sure you keep saving it, you wouldn’t want to lose all that hard work!

(I’ve also looked into outsourcing this step of the process and can recommend oDesk as there’s a wide range of different price/ skill levels on there to suit most budgets).

STEP 3: Create Your Comparison Table

Now it’s time to put that information into your first comparison table. This is pretty easy…

1. Find WP-Table Reloaded under the tools menu in your WordPress dashboard…
   
2. First click “Add New Table” and then it’ll bring you to the table settings screen. Don’t worry if you’re not sure how many rows and columns you want yet, you can always alter this later…
   
3. Now it’s time to fill in each field. You can use HTML in these fields (more on adding your images and links below) or just enter the text, for example…
   
   

The best thing about using this plugin is you can go back and change the data at any time (for example if you originally made a mistake, or if the details later changed). All you do is select the table from the WP-Table Reloaded menu and edit it instead of creating a new one.

STEP 4: Adding Product Images, Buy Buttons and Links

1. Upload your product image or a buy now button image (click here for some Amazon.com buy buttons) to the WordPress media library (you may want to resize any image you use on your computer first before you upload, to help make the images in your table roughly the same size)…
   
2. Copy the link to the uploaded image…
   
3.  Use HTML code to insert the image into the required table cell e.g. <img src=”http://imagelinkgoeshere.com”>
   
4. To add a hyperlink to your image or to any text in the table, just add standard HTML code e.g. <a href=”http://youraffiliatelinkhere.com”>anchor text or image code goes here</a>
   

TIP: Use the Pretty Link plugin to create links for your products so that if you ever need to change the links, you don’t need to edit all your posts and tables, just change the link within the Pretty Link plugin settings and it’ll update them all.

STEP 5: Insert the Table Into A Post/ Page

1. From the WP-Table Reloaded plugin menu, select “List Tables” then click “Get Shortcode”…
   
2. Copy that shortcode and paste it where you want it to go in your page or post…
   
3. Publish your post and you’ll see your table. You can edit the post or table at any time. Here’s a sample of how it looks:
   
   

TIP: I recommend playing around with and tweaking the various settings in WP-Table Reloaded to change the way the table is displayed. If you want, you can turn off user sorting of columns, get rid of the search bar and so on.

IMPORTANT: How To Make Sure Your Table Displays Correctly

Sometimes product comparison tables can be pretty big, so I recommend breaking them up to make sure they fit smoothly on a page within your blog’s theme. Here are a few ideas for separating products:

• One table for budget options, one for high end options,
• Different tables for different types of product e.g. Android smartphones vs other operating systems,
• Different tables for products that were released in different years/ months,
• Use the “full width” page template option if your theme has one. This means your table post/ page won’t have a sidebar and your table will fit in better.

How To Make Price Comparison Tables On Your Product Review Websites

If you want to compare prices for one product from different retailers, you can still do this using the method I wrote about above. The only downside is that prices change pretty often and you will have to keep updating them. I looked for a while trying to find a way to do this, and I’m pretty sure some people have managed to do it for free by accessing price data feeds and setting it up themselves, but it was all above my head.

I found a plugin that’ll do it all for you. It doesn’t look particularly fancy but it does the job well, especially since it makes it quite easy to sign up for affiliate programs for any prices it has found where you’re not already a member (it works with Amazon, Commission Junction, Affiliate Window and some other affiliate networks).

Unfortunately this is a paid plugin but you can get a $7 30-day trial if you want to test

>> Comparipress Price Comparison WordPress Plugin <<
25% discount coupon code: 25OFF

I have bought it and can verify that it works very well and does most things automatically, including finding all the networks you’re signed up to and updating the prices every day, but I haven’t been using it for very long yet.

Conclusion

As you can see, you really don’t need fancy plugins or expensive themes to put together an extra element that’ll really help give your product review websites a boost. I haven’t used these nearly as much as I should have – a while ago I created a site with a comparison chart and barely any content (or traffic!) and I still made some sales from it! I think they have huge potential which is why I’ve incorporated it into my PLR and my own websites.

Links Mentioned In This Post

I know this post has turned out to be pretty long, so here are the links again:

• Product PLR Monthly (25% discount coupon code: warrior)
• WP-Table Reloaded Plugin
• Pretty Link Plugin
• Amazon Add To Cart Buttons
• Comparipress Plugin (25% discount coupon code: 25OFF)

DOWNLOAD THE PDF: Just click here to download the PDF file if you want it for future reference (no opt-in required).

I am by no means an expert on product comparison tables, this is just a way I found of creating them. If you have any other tips or ideas about boosting conversions please share them below

I know my title isn’t exactly the best or most exciting for a blog post, but I thought it was about time for an update on my July exercise challenge, and I also wanted to tell you about a new challenge I’m taking part in.

The Activity Challenge

To recap, I planned to exercise 30 minutes a day at least 5 days a week this month. Being active at this stage does include going for walks, but also working out on my Wii Fit. I have to start small as I’m going from virtually no activity! I haven’t missed a day so far, and most days I’ve completed my workout and gone for a short walk on top of that.

How The Exercise Has Made Me Feel

For a few days I was aching BADLY but this seems to have passed a little. I am probably going to step things up this week or next, as I get used to the level of activity I’ve been doing.

I’m also very tired, in both a good and a bad way. Now I know I’m not doing much according to many people’s definition of exercise, but for me I’ve basically gone from nearly every day of sitting around to doing things every day. I really like feeling properly tired when I go to bed each night. This is something I wasn’t getting so much recently due to too much time spent on the computer.

In short, the exercise plan is going well so far, and I feel good physically and mentally for having started it. I just need to push myself and keep it up every day.

Joining In On A New Writing Challenge

Yesterday Tiffany Dow launched a new challenge for PLR writers, and she also discounted the cost of her PLR ATM course to mark the occasion. The challenge is to write PLR every day (you decide how much).

NOTE: If you do want to take advantage of the PLR ATM discount, I am giving a bonus when you buy through my link. Read more by clicking here.

Personally, I know I can complete at least 30 PLR articles in the next month since I have to for my new membership site and other things I have planned. But I decided to take part in the challenge to make sure I write at least 1 article every day – this will help me spread it out over the month and perhaps write a little more than I had planned.

If you’re interested in my product review PLR membership site, you can click here to take a look and use the coupon code ‘newmember’ to save 50% off the monthly price.

I know that most of my readers don’t necessarily write PLR, but whatever you’re up to, let me know your progress (especially those who were keen to join my in my activity challenge )

So it’s a new month which means time for a new goal I have done quite a few “challenges” here on Web Career Girl in the past. Basically it’s just the best way to keep me accountable to make sure I meet my goals. This month the challenge I’ve chosen isn’t something directly related to IM – it’s about getting active!

I don’t know about you, but I sit down far too much. When I’m not sitting down at my computer, I’m usually sitting down doing something else lazy. I’ve never been as inactive as I have been for the last couple of years working on my IM business. Thankfully I am not overweight but I feel it’s only a matter of time. And I know that I am definitely not fit!

So my challenge is to be ative every day in July! OK, not quite every day, I am allowed two rest days per week. When I’m exercising, I’m going to aim for a period of 30 minutes a day. There’s no excuse for not doing it then!

Why Have I Chosen This Challenge?

1. I work so hard to improve my life, but my life is nothing without my health (and exercise will help my mental as well as physical health by de-stressing me and helping me focus).
2. I need to go fit if I’m going to go travelling.
3. So many successful entrepreneurs have put their success and productivity down to regular exercise.

Here are the ways I’m going to get active…

• Going for a walk: for a period I walked every day at lunch time and felt so good for it. I saw the progress really quickly.
• Fitness games: yes I am a geek who likes to get fit by playing games I have a Wii Fit balance board and quite a few fitness games that haven’t been used nearly as much as they should have been!
• Standing up to work: this one won’t actually count as my “activity” for the day, but I am going to make an effort to stand up to work at my computer for a small amount of time each day and see how much it helps. I don’t have a stand up desk but I do have a counter that’s pretty much the perfect height.

Now I know my plan may not be the best according to fitness experts out there, but for me any activity is better than nothing right now!

This is going to be hard for me to achieve. I’ve attempted this challenge before and failed, usually because I get so achey (yes even from just using the Wii Fit!) that I can’t bring myself to exercise the next day, and just fall out of the habit. So I hope that by posting here I really will create a real habit for myself this time!

What about you? Do you find your fitness lacking since you’ve been working online? And are you going to join me in my challenge ?

I can’t quite believe 2011 is half over. I say it every month, like a broken record, but honestly – where has June disappeared to? Now it’s almost July I thought it was time to do some honest reflection on how things are going for me in 2011. (I was going to post this on July 1, but I’ve decided to post about my new “challenge” that day instead, so watch out for that).

The First Half of 2011 Has Been Rocky

I am not going to lie. After a very strong end to 2010 (my best ever in my IM career), the first few months of 2011 were very rocky. I made what I thought was the right decision to go away to the Caribbean for two and half weeks. I had a great time, and a two and a half week holiday shouldn’t bee too disruptive except for the fact that the flat I was renting got sold while I was away, and I had to find a new place to live (my third place in the space of a year), then move, by April.

After I moved here it took me perhaps another couple of weeks to settle into my routine. During this period of a few months from mid-January to May my business suffered a lot. But some good things came out of it too. My “active” income was down for a while, but my affiliate income was higher than ever, and has continued to grow since then. I also continued to move forward by starting an affiliate program for my PLR – a huge milestone for me! Since May, and through June, things have been picking up speed again.

Did I Stick To My New Year Goals?

I posted my goals for 2011 back in January, so I thought it’d be interesting to compare them to what I’m up to now. Surprisingly, I’ve stuck to many of my resolutions…

Niche Websites: I said I would work on three sites, and I still am! Although the sites changed. Only one site was one of the three I mentioned in January. The other two are older sites that I’m trying to revamp (makes sense since these have the benefit of age, some content and some traffic). I am also pleased to say I am far more patient with these sites now and am not rushing at the expense of quality, or moving on too quickly. Things that have changed or still need changing:

• I don’t work on building backlinks like I used to, though this isn’t to say I’ve stopped completely. But this month and last month I’ve been focusing on building traffic without Google (more on that to come maybe next week).
• And despite cutting down my focus, I still find it difficult to put in the effort I need to. I definitely haven’t stuck to my 5,000 word writing goal!

PLR: I’m still trying to release regular PLR packs, and am actually launching my PLR membership site in July (if you’re interested in a very big discount, sign up to my newsletter before next week!) This takes up a huge amount of time and I really need to start outsourcing marketing sites. I am pleased to say I have grown my list a lot this year already, and launched my affiliate program PLR earnings are still up and down, though.

Managing My Time: This one I haven’t been great at. I still find it hard to manage all my different projects, which suggests I may need to cut down (and hire help!) I’m thinking of cutting back my internet marketing blogs. I have this site, my How to Sell PLR site, and PLR Deal Guide. I may combine this site with how to sell PLR (and I also want to completely change this site around), and continue posting on the deal site this month and re-evaluate whether it’s worth my time after that.

Personal Goals: It’s a good thing that things are looking up the last couple of months as I still want to try and travel before the end of the year. This is looking pretty difficult at the moment, but I refuse to believe it’s not possible. That’s something that working in IM has taught me

My General Outlook

I kind of feel like my IM career is maturing. I started out like a child trying everything and anything, not thinking about the future just what was working right now. My career is now going through its adolescence and my general outlook, both for PLR and niche sites, is this:

To genuinely help people achieve what they want to achieve, and what my websites promise to help them achieve. And to do this in line with my core ethical values.

In fact, what I really want to do is give away information for free. I know people will think I’m crazy but I just genuinely want to provide some value without hyping it up or charging for it. Problem is, will people see the value if it’s free? And how do I make a living off that? I guess I’ll be trying to figure that out in the next few months

As you can see, my 2011 has been a mixed bag, full of ups and downs. How has 2011 been going for you? I would really love to hear in the comments!