Friday, January 28, 2005

Sales Went Up Dramatically!

Well, the facts are in... sales on the home page where I removed the AdSense code went up - within 24 hours of removing the code!

In fact, within 16 hours of removing the code we had 2 new people sign up for our online newsletter, and sold 1 full case of our hottest product - Goji Juice (which is absolutely FLYING off the shelves, by the way). After a full 24 hours - 2 cases in total were sold.

Now ...if you are selling any products online, based on this little test, I recommend you remove ads to other products from your home page and focus all your content on your own products. If you have articles within your site, that's a better place to put your revenue generating ads... however, if the articles relate specifically to any of your bread and butter cash-cow products, I wouldn't do that if I were you.

By the way, if you own a website in the field of health and wellness, you might want to take a really close look at the Goji opportunity. We've been averaging 20 to 30 cases in Retail Sales per month, just through FREE traffic to our website. I can't wait to test some of the new ads I've done up for it to see what paid advertising will produce. This product is HOT!

That's it for now... I'll be back later!






Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Adding AdSense Slashed Our Profits

You know... running tests is something copywriters tend to do a LOT of... and the last 3 weeks I've been testing out the AdSense cash generation machine.

Things were getting pretty exciting as I watched our extra income from my little test climbing to more than $5.00 a day ... and that was only with the ad code place on about 4% of all our pages.

Not bad, I thought to myself... until I checked my stats for conversions on a very important page. Sales dropped by a whopping 80%!!! And worse... ranking on some important engines started sliding downhill (although it went up on a few ... you can guess which ones).

So, tonight in a panic, I flipped the switch off on that one page.

I'll be back to report the results next month on how all of this turns out.

Until then, my thoughts? Don't sacrifice conversions for a little extra income. Although, you probably already knew that, didn't you?

Not much of a PowerTip ...but thought I'd share it anyway. Have a super day!

PS: I guess I should give you the page that I'm testing. It's nutrition products at Best Liquid Vitamins. Hey... while you're there, check out the Goji Juice. Man-oh-man that's one of the hottest sizzle products I've seen come along in a very long time. If you haven't checked it out yet, you're missing some massive potential income!!!

Until next time... go forth and prosper!

Friday, January 21, 2005

Reading My Spam Saved Me 14 Hours

I'm racing against the clock.

The 2 emergency writing jobs from one long-term client that blew apart my week have put me 2 full days behind schedule on a looming deadline for another $2000-dollar writing project.

My deadline is Monday, yet I was only half-way there as of yesterday afternoon.

What to do?

Read my spam!

Now some of you might be scratching your head right now and possibly thinking ... "This lady is nuts!! What a time waster! Reading her spam???"

Yeppers! Call me nuts if you like ... as the saying goes in MLM, you be right --- and I'll be rich.

You see, as a ghostwriter for many 6- and 7-figure income earners, I'm often hired to write their follow-up sequential autoresponder sets ... and my job is to write them so they DON'T sound like spam... Which is EXACTLY WHY I sometimes read through all that junk piling up in my Spam folder.

I steal the GEMS and trash the rest.

Spammers beware --- you're good stuff that could be making you thousands of dollars is being ripped off, and you're lousy stuff (and lousy practices) are simply costing you in money and reputation.

I set my spam filter pretty high so all that spammy material lands into one big giant folder. After stripping out the rediculous and obvious porn and pharmaceuticals ... oh, and the equally dumb Nigerian scam look-alikes, I go to work opening all those get-rich-quick and "you can make a fortune too" emails stripping out the good parts.

A little tweaking, a LOT of polishing, and presto ... I sometimes get 10 to 20 really good final messages that look like your next door neighbor just came over to chat over a great cup of coffee.

Not only does the final copy sound warm, cozy, and interesting ... it converts well!

That's my PowerTip for the day, folks.

I've been working for the last 72 hours on only 8 hours total in sleep, so maybe it's not my best tip, but hopefully it's given you something to think about.

Have a SUPER day ... make it worth living!


Tuesday, January 18, 2005

These hours will kill you if you let them

Here it is, almost 1:30 a.m. and I'm only half-way complete on one deadline for a client project due this Friday --- a two week project, I might add --- and I'm exhausted.

Our little boy has finally drifted off to sleep (he only sleeps 6 to 8 hours a day... no naps ...and high energy... sometimes I get tired just watching him). I'm too tired to even think, let alone write copy, after having to drop everything for two "emergency jobs" for another client.

On the bright side, I made some extra money without even trying through Google AdSense posted on some pages on some of our domains. That's a nice little bonus that comes in everyday, now that I've figured out the secret to get them serving the right ads on my sites.

On the brighter side, another new customer and another new prospect (a serious banker) looking at our MLM business ... he'll add a lot to the team with his financial background. Nice.

I didn't have to do anything for the bright and brighter sides. My husband took the prospect call and our websites did the rest of the work. Once we've reached our goal of $20,000 a month steady and stable walk-away income through these various projects I won't be taking on any new copywriting clients ...and my time will be my own except for the special clients I'll be keeping.

Here's a little tip: if you find a good copywriter, be sure you keep him/her happy.

Some people never learn that lesson. I say --- don't tick off the writer because it can effect the results, if you know what I mean?

It's like the music business when you're in a start up band. Whatever you do, don't tick off the sound and lights crew. You have no idea how good - or how terrible - they can make you sound on the other side of the stage ... and I'm speaking from years of former experience in the music biz, folks :-)

That's it for today. I'll be back again tomorrow!

Monday, January 17, 2005

Steady Flow Of Constant Interruptions

Here it is, almost 9:30 a.m. ...I've been up since 6:00 a.m. trying to get a jump on things today, and already I've had 12 interruptions from my DH, whom also works full time from home.

Our son is not yet awake, but soon will be, and that's when the major interruptions will begin...

For those who don't know it, I'm a copywriter.

And right now, I have 10 major projects sitting on my desk, all of which have deadlines for completion coming up within days and weeks. Everything has to be completed for my clients by the end of the month.

Those of you who make a living writing for others know how frustrating even one interruption can be ... especially when you're doing sequential message sets for clients. Your flow gets slammed each time someone asks a question, or even says hello.

Tuning out the interruptions only makes things worse, sometimes... because they get even more demanding.

What to do?

Well, I have a few tricks I use --- have to --- consider them survival tools :-)

I'll be back later to post a few of them.

Right now, I have to dash off to work!

Have a super day!


Crazy Days Working At Home

Some people think working at home is a breeze. You hear the stories... wake up when you want, work when you want, do whatever you want.

Uh... yeah, right. Maybe for singles or couples who do not have pre-school children living at home.

For a snapshot of some of my days, things I've learned trying to create a solid work at home schedule, and to read about many of the antics that go on around here while I do my best to meet deadlines, schedules, and most important --- make money --- you may find this blog amusing.

Tune in if you like. Pass on by if you're not interested.

Either way, thanks for stopping in to read my Diary of A Work At Home Mom!

Oh... and when you get a chance, be sure to bookmark my latest pet project online over at PowerTips. That's where some of the meat for making money will appear. Although, you'll probably see a few hot tips in here now and then, too!

Have a super day!