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Content, Content, Content!

Now you know where you'll be setting up your siphons. Spending a good deal of time finding the right places to setup siphons is critically important. But just as important is the kind of content you'll be siphoning traffic from. The role the content plays is the most important aspect of this entire process because if the content is subpar, not only will the blogs be reluctant to post it, the traffic will have no reason to click through to your website. Don't spend all your time getting great leads for siphons and put poor quality content up.

You may be wondering, "Wait I haven't even talked to these blogs? Who says they'll want my content!?"

That's all part of the strategy. I prefer to go to my blog owners WITH content, give them a few headlines to choose from and then bait them that way. It also cuts down on back and forth time in conversation. It means you give them options, they say what they want, you send it to them and that's that.

2 Emails.

But more on that later.

You need to understand HOW important the quality of the content is. There are 2 aspects of content quality you must understand.

#1: The Amazing Title

The title is so important in blogging. It's important to get the blog owners to be interested enough to want the content and it's important to get the readers of the blog to actually click on, read, and ultimately end up on your website. I'm going to give you some title examples in a minute for you to get a good feel for what we're going after.

#2: The Amazing Content

Once you've baited them into reading with a killer title, you need to back that up with killer content. Not only does the content need to back up the title, but it needs to be VALUABLE content. You absolutely CANNOT do generic articles like "How To Pack For Your Next Vacation." You need to do very specific niche related content. If we're talking about travel, instead of writing about how to pack for your next vacation, write specific information about what clothes to pack that can be multiple use or how to roll your clothing to save space, not "hey don't forget the toothpaste." That's not quality content, people know that crap. No one wants to read it. Blog owners don't want it on their websites. Be VERY specific, pick something specific in the niche and write about it, no generalities about the niche.

You need great titles and great content. But you probably don't want to write it do you? Some of you may be on a financial crunch and be writing your own content. That's fine. I used to also. I personally outsource all my content with iWriter - they have a killer system setup, great pricing and you can REJECT articles that are poorly crafted and not up to par. That's huge. Only pay for quality content and on top of that they have a great system for actually managing all your content request, which is good if you're driving traffic in multiple niches or are scaling this up with a lot of siphons. I can't recommend iWriter enough. If you're not a member over at iWriter, check them out.

Some of you may have writers already and that's fine. But remember, they have to be top quality. If you have semi-poor quality writers (which I'm sure a lot of people do, myself included) they're NOT the ones to use for your siphons. This is critically important and can make a difference between getting 5 clicks on your siphon per day and getting 50 clicks . So spend $3-$5 more on your writer - it will pay off IN SPADES down the road.

I ONLY use Elite writers at iWriter - that means they have between 4.6-5 stars ONLY. What that tells me is that they can not only write with perfect English, but they can also craft well written engaging content in multiple niches.

Next I'm going to show you some examples of great content and how you can get that content from a writer easily. I'm going to give you a writer template I've used for years that you can plug into iWriter and get the same sort of quality back without worrying about "hiring" someone or going through a long back and forth process, vetting potential writers. You can hand this entire course over to an outsourcer and they can "hire" your writers as well by using my template.

Since you'll be using Elite level writers, they can generally come up with content ideas themselves, that being said I still give them specific details on the niche and the type of content I'm looking for by showing them some creative content titles. To do that I generate 5-10 great titles of content that I would want to read more about if I was interested in the niche.

How do we do that?

We go over to StumbleUpon and find our niche again! StumbleUpon is a great research tool. Even if you're planning to write the content yourself, use StumbleUpon to come up with some great content titles that will help inspire you in your niche.

Jump over to StumbleUpon and look for some title examples. There are LOTS of great titles, if I was looking to setup an SEO siphon I would use:

How to Use Game Mechanics to Improve Your SEO

Do You Make Any of These 10 Simple SEO Mistakes?

5 Steps to Make WordPress an SEO Beast

3 SEO Success Factors for 2014

How to SEO if You're Not a Guru

Learn The New Google Rules For Author Recognition Before You Get Slapped!

How interesting are those? Don't you want to read more about them? I bet you do. And you can bet that the blog owners will also, as will their readers.

Those took me less than 1 minute to generate from StumbleUpon. Make note of them and if you're writing your own content, GET STARTED! I'm not going to go into detail about how to write content because this course is on traffic generation. I want to keep it on that. There are tons of resources out there on content writing.

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Passive Income From gTLD's

Passive income. One of the most sought after assets in web business. Who doesn't want to build a stream of recurring income that makes money for you while you pursue other passions?

There are a variety of ways you can turn your static domains into passive income, I'm going to focus on two.

Leasing

The same way cable companies and web companies lease you their modem or cable box, you too can (and should) attempt to lease the domains to prospects. The advantage of leasing the domains out is two-fold:

Passive Income. Obviously it would be great to receive anywhere from $500 to $5,000 a month just leasing a domain out while you do absolutely nothing but pay renewal fees.

Speaking of renewal fees, leasing your domains is a great way to offset your renewal costs and bring down expenses across your entire portfolio, from registrations to renewals.

The biggest advantage of leasing domains (aside from the residual passive income stream) is the fact that you will not only be breaking even or making money monthly, but you'll still retain ownership of the domains and be able to hold them in your "long term" portfolio of holdings without them becoming a financial burden.

This mean someone else is paying you to have the value of your domain accrue.

How awesome is that?

Even if you can only lease out a fraction of your domains, if you can apply that income to the overall expense of the portfolio, you're coming out on top.

If you're successful in buying many desirable domains, leasing them may come easier than selling, and is another option you can present to your leads. Many times local businesses may not have the cash at hand to purchase a quality domain outright but are willing to spend $50, $75 or $100, upwards of $500+ (for those higher cost-per-click niches.)

Leasing out 10 domains at $100 a month is an extra $1,000 a month that you can pocket, apply to growing your domain holdings, renewal fee's or just stash for future expenses.

When it comes to leasing the domains, to save yourself the hassle, ensure that you setup automatic payment plans within Paypal so you don't have to deal with invoicing, collecting and tracking payments monthly.

NOTE: Setting up automatic payment plans within Paypal is extremely simple - I'm not going to outline the steps as many of you already know how to do this and the information is readily available on Paypal's website, just make sure when you generate the button code, you create an HTML payment code you can email them if they're signing up via email!

Ensure that you work out terms and (ideally) draw up a contract for the lease. Since you possess ownership of the domain, the burden of trust lies in their hands so to alleviate their concerns offering to have a contract drawn up can go a long way. You can find a plethora of reworkable contracts on the web or if you plan to consistently lease, pay to have a template drawn up that you can reuse.

The process is as simple as having them tell you where to point the nameservers which will take you about 2 minutes. If you're unaware of how to do this, a quick search of DNS Change + Your Host and you'll find a stockpile of resources.

Again, pricing your lease will obviously be dependent on the implied value of the domains. Obviously you cannot charge as much as you would to outright purchase, but taking time to explain to the business how valuable the domain is and what it can mean to their traffic (especially as the popularity of these vanity domains grows) can make the sale easier.

Another option in the leasing department is the ability to lease-to-own. If this is something that interest you (and can guarantee you a certain return on your investment, albeit split up into monthly payments) then you can work out those details with the lead.

Sometimes young and growing businesses can't afford a $7,500 domain. But they can afford $100 a month and possibly more as their business grows. Again, drawing up a contract and potentially even using third party services like Escrow can make things easier.

Parking

There are many strategies regarding domain parking. I'm no master in any of them though, however the concept is simple: If the domain gets a good deal of type in traffic, it can make a good deal of money from ads.

Almost all domain registrars and ad companies allow you to put up parking pages and monetize that traffic.

The best way to go about this is as follows. If you don't have a "buy this domain" page setup (i.e. an entire website with redirects going to a page where businesses can purchase the domain like we talked about earlier) you can easily setup ads on your domains.

Another method is to monitor the traffic of your ecommerce website selling domains to measure which domains are getting significant traffic, and then decide which you want to park and monetize.

Sometimes domains can get hundreds of thousands of visitors from type in traffic every month. Sometimes they'll get none. Experimenting with parking pages and ads is a great way to offset cost associated with buying and renewing domains.

Growth, Expansion & Misc. Tips

I encourage you to focus on selling local domains first and bringing in some cash before expanding.

Investing in any domain?

Risky.

Speculating in domains that haven't even been released?

Even more risky.

The way to mitigate that risk is to start making some local sales then move into more risky ventures (i.e. the long term domain investing game.)

First point of expansion: Finding someone else to sell the domains for you.

This is going to be the most obvious place to improve upon your workflow. Get someone else to contact the leads for you. Generating the leads is pretty easy, but finding someone to talk with and close those deals is a completely different story, and can take much more time.

BUT !

Make sure you find someone who is VERY competent in your native language and is familiar with sales and has some general web experience. Yes you will have to pay a bit more, but consider the amount of time these people are working.

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Part 4) Building Your List

There is 1 tried and true method I've consistently used, FOR YEARS to drive laser targeted, real human eyeballs to my websites, and successfully scale that up no matter the niche.

And it's all based around leeching traffic off of other more successful websites.

Sounds dirty or black hat doesn't it?

It isn't.

No you're going to be giving out high quality clicky content which will encourage people to find out more on your blog. You'll be pulling down TONS of traffic from other established websites traffic to your already built quality website.

What I like to do is first get my content together that I'll be allowing blog owners to post, then "selling" them on that content (don't worry it's not hard, blog owners LOVE free quality content ! )

You want compelling interesting pieces of content because frankly, that's what gets clicks and eyeballs, and the more eyeballs on the content on their website, the more traffic YOU'LL receive.

How do you know what good clicky content to get? Borrow some ideas from Buzzfeed and other content networks.

Buzzfeed is the king of clickbaiting (or getting people to click on links.) While they typically cater to more fun and goofy content, other networks like Taboola and Outbrain are a marketing haven and jackpot of content ideas.

I'm sure you've seen them on some of them being used on some of the biggest sites on the web, you'll see things like "Similar Content" or "Related Content" on the sidebar or at the end of articles:

Look at the above examples, see how much they entice you to click? Or you can go on Buzzfeed and find similar examples - or notice the type of shared content going out on Facebook. That's the kind of content titles you want to have for your content because it will entice people to click and read that content, which then gets them to your site, which then captures their email, which then brings you MONEY.

The breakdown goes like this:

Reader Enjoys Favorite Blog -> Reader See's Your Content On That Blog -> Reader Loves Your Content -> Reader Goes To Your Blog -> Reader Subscribes To Your List Because Of All The Great Content And Incentives -> You Profit From Subscriber Over & Over

And once it's setup, it's all on autopilot and every piece of content you add to other blogs means more traffic (and money) for you. It telescopes indefinitely.

Now that you have an idea of the type of content you want title wise head back to iWriter and outsource !

If you're particularly interested in the niche you can write the content yourself. I leverage my time with writers though.

This content doesn't need to be as long as the content on your webpage, I recommend around 800 words.

BUT IT DOES...

Have to be just as high quality.

No rubbish poorly written content here.

It needs to be 100% quality, engaging content a blog owner would be proud to display.

And now you've got a list of clickbait type titles, you can use those as examples in your iWriter listing, or even come up with a few pieces of content you want written and use those as your keywords (I prefer the later as it ensures you get what you want.)

At this point I try and get at least 5 pieces of content together. Frankly when I do this I usually get around 30 but if this is your first go-around, get 5 or so, build and test your particular system, then scale accordingly. More content means more subscribers.

Now that you have 5 pieces of high quality, engaging content it's time to figure out where to pull traffic from by finding other sites in your niche.

There are some very important factors to keep in mind in regards to which sites you want to be giving content. If you give content to the wrong type of site then you'll be wasting time energy and money as you won't get anything in return (targeted traffic to your site.)

If the site doesn't have traffic, there won't be any traffic for you. Seems obvious but people mess this up constantly.

Aside from traffic, you also want to ensure that the site is in your niche and the visitors of thatr site will be interested in your content, otherwise, why would they opt-in to your list?

They wouldn't.

Here are some clear signs that a site gets consistent quality traffic:

Comments - Do people leave comments on the content? If so this is an excellent sign as it means people actually care about and engage with the content and its creators.

Social Engagement - Check out their social profiles, do they have lots of likes and, more importantly, do lots of people comments and share their content?

Alexa Ranking - This is a ranking based on people who use the Alexa toolbar. It skews more heavily to tech sites but is still a good baseline, anything under 100k and the site gets decent traffic. Not the greatest baseline as it can be skewed and manipulated BUT still a decent metric.

So first harvest plenty of sites to choose from then narrow them down to sites to submit to.

I use a variety of tools to harvest sites. If you purchased the upsell, you will have a my rolodex of sites to tap into directly.

I've been building out my list for quite some time and recommend you starting or adding to mine as well. Having a quality reference sheet for your niche will allow you to easily tap into and grow your traffic with ease.

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DAY 6 Metrics of Success; Knowing When to Sell and How to Do It

Now you play a bit of a waiting game and then there is a delicate balance when it comes to selling. You want to ensure that the traffic sources are consistently delivering traffic to your site and growing daily/weekly. Some sites will grow quicker than others but showing solid traffic growth is key. Knowing when to sell is just as important as knowing how to sell. Sometimes sites can get to these levels in a week, sometimes in 8, but this is why I am constantly building new sites and always have a few sites that CAN be sold, they don't necessarily HAVE to be sold but they could definitely sell well. Your first site you'll experience some lead time between setting it up and flipping it if you want to maximize your return. While you can sell it immediately, I recommend getting a bit of traffic coming in, it will make all the difference in the world and set you apart from 90% of the other auctions. I know you'll be impatient to sell the site and make some money, but WAIT!!! You can make significantly more cash.

This is why in day 7 we go over scaling, but at this time it would be great to start getting your next few sites together and once they're ready, your first site will be ready (or close to ready) to be sold.

When it comes to the sale and deciding your next step you have 3 options. You either monetize the site, you sell the site outright or you continue to grow the site. There are pros and cons to each and only you will be able to decide what's best to maximize your profits. I've sold some sites too early and some too late. Let's go over the pros and cons of each.

1. Monetize The Site

If you choose to monetize the site you're going to know just about exactly what you'll get for the site. This can be good or bad. Sometimes sites will do well when you monetize them and return significant value per visitor which then will give you a sale price of around 8x-16x monthly revenue. This is great to know if you monetize the site and it starts making $500 a month. You could easily get $4,000 on the low end, up to $8,000 on the high end. But what if the site only earns $10 a month. You don't want to sell all your time and effort for $100. In those cases you want to keep monetization OFF the site and let someone buy the site on potential. Long Story Short: If you can make decent money on it, then monetize it, but you can expect an established return multiplier so keep that in mind. The premise of this course is selling unmonetized sites on potential so I recommend not monetizing unless you're positive the returns are going to be worth it.

In some cases this is very true. I had an interior design site with photo inspirations which I decided to monetize because after just 4 weeks it was receiving around 7,500 pageviews a day. I used Comission Junction (CJ.com) and had offers up for furniture companies. The site did excellent and started making around $150-$350 a day (very high EPC in these niches as average orders were well over $1500!)

In that case it was a solid idea to monetize and sell the site as it was proving to earn top dollar. In another case I made a cooking related site. Cooking, it turns out, is an awful niche to be in. I put adsense on the site and it would usually get under $.10 per click. It takes a lot of traffic to make anything remotely decent for $.10 a click. So I removed the monetization and sold the site on its other strong points, solid growth and large social following.

2. Sell The Site

Your next option is obviously to sell the site. When you sell the site without monetization you can expect rather volatile results. That's what this entire course is about though, making that volatility stay low, instead of radically high swings. I have been giving you the keys to providing real value to your buyers and will give you details shortly on what to include in sales pages and how to structure them. This option and the next option are the 2 you will do the most. Selling the site is a good play for quick returns on your investment so you can reinvest and build more websites and grow your business much quicker.

3. Continue To Grow the Website

Your third and final option you have for your website is not selling or monetizing, but continuing to grow the website. While you always want to show solid growth AND growth potential in your sales, sometimes it's a wise move to hold onto the site and see where it goes. For many of you, especially if this is your first site, this won't be an option as you want to see a return on your investment of time and money. If that's the case go with option 2. If you have some time and are seeing the site growing at a significant pace, I recommend holding onto it as it can fetch a much larger return in the long run. Imagine selling a site that gets 15,000 monthly page views in one month only for the new owner to keep stoking that growth and 2 months down the road get 100,000 pageviews. In essence they've more than quintupled the value of the site. Your timeframe will vary, and on your first flip it's nice to get that cash in your pocket to grow your business, however if you're seeing very rapid growth, try to wait until it plateaus before selling for maximum return on your investment.

The Sale

Since this course is focused primarily on building quality websites without monetization and flipping them, let's focus on the sale. I'm going to assume you haven't monetized the site yet it is getting steady traffic coming in and you're ready to see a return on your investment.

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Aesthetics

Now make sure your blog looks like a blog and not like a sales page. This shouldn't be hard to do because you're NOT making sales pages, you're NOT hard selling anything. The purpose of your site is to entertain first and foremost.

Make your blog look like a blog. I'm not going to get into the details of Wordpress or blogs or finding themes that work.

I'm also NOT going to give you theme examples or blog examples for how you should style your blog.

Why Not You Scream!?

Because if I do everyone will have the exact same blog.

It happens every time I tell people to be original and use my examples as inspiration or some example themes.

They always copy the site or theme to a tee - then we get thousands of people out there trying to submit the exact same type of blog and content.

It just doesn't work when you do it like that. Outbrain will start to see all these same submissions and the overall quality of this course goes in the toilet.

If you're visually challenged - Google some Wordpress themes, find a magazine type of theme and make sure your blog looks and feels established with great images throughout, social sharing options, a filled out sidebar and so on.

A couple critically important things your blog needs:

To look great.

A way to socially share your content (I like a floating sidebar on the left)

"Related Content" - I generally put this at the end of my content, so when they reach the end of my content they will hopefully click through to more content or subscribe.

There are plugins for #2 and #3. There's no plugin for #1 as you're just going to have to make the blog look good on your own (try using StumbleUpon to look through lots of blogs to get aesthetics ideas - but generally speaking if you find a great looking theme it won't be tough.)

For #2 & #3 plugins like Sociable as well as nrelate Related Content will make your life easier. These things not only encourage social sharing (viral anyone?) but also encourage people to spend time on your website.

Tracking, Capturing & Monetization

By this point I want you to have a good looking website because we're DONE with the site aesthetics and content setup. If you're site looks like garbage or your content is low quality? Go back and fix it. If you have a great looking website and engaging content you're ready for the next step.

So obviously you're here to make money.

I monetize my blogs in a variety of ways, but my primary means of monetization is by capturing emails and making money from the list. When you have a list you'll make money from your website long after people have left.

You can setup long autoresponder chains with loads of informative content as well as promotional content. While I won't get into the ins and outs of building a list and promoting - I will say that should be your number 1 objective.

If you don't have an autoresponder it's time to step up to the big leagues and get one. Aweber is the natural choice for most, it's easy to setup and integrate into your website and has a feature rich email builder.

Not only do you need an autoresponder but you also need to setup some signup forms on your site. I always setup a right hand sidebar sign up form but if you REALLY want to get subscribers and fast, you want a popup at the end of your content. The reason is it's intrusive, it's annoying, it's in your face and it WORKS.

So what happens is you pay for only the visitors that click your link, and those that get to the end of your content then are hit with an option to sign up for your email list.

Services like Pippity are great as you can setup timers OR determine areas on the page the visitors must scroll to before the popup shows. I almost always set mine to popup as the user is reaching the end of the content.

Why?

These are the most engaged users.

Timers don't always work as well because people read at different speeds and also may get distracted and move away from the page, then if they return later and just see a popup? They'll bounce.

Now Pippity is a paid service, there are other services out there that are free but don't offer as many rich features. If you're serious you're going to need one with a few features and I'd recommend Pippity first and foremost as I've used them extensively on all my websites where I capture emails.

The great thing about Pippity is you get analytics on your form submissions.

What's that mean?

It means you can test and tweak your submission form for optimal opt-in performance. You can even track how long popups are up -which will allow you to measure if your readers are looking at it or dismissing it.

Again - I'm no sales rep for them, but finding a service like this is crucial and will pay for itself very quickly - and if you want to build a business you need to invest in the necessary tools.

Also keep the following in mind: If you want your users to sign up, you need to give them a reason to sign up. You need to incentivize them.

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ection 3: Flipping And Scaling

Alas the payoff. It's time for you to make your money back and then some. In this section we're going to cover listing your site, which includes what to put in the sales page as well as how to treat your auction when it's live, what to do after the sale and scaling up into a full fledged business.

First things first do another once over on your site and make sure everything is looking good. Check sidebars, inner post pages, menus and categories. If you need a site as a reference take a look at BlueTidalWave.com or our case study wherein we go over aesthetics and cover why the site sold.

Once you're ready to sell your site it's time to focus on your listing. I've included a sample listing PDF which you can use as a SAMPLE.

Please DO NOT copy the listing exactly for your own sake. If everyone and their mother starts making identical looking websites and sells them with identical sales pages, it's not good for anyone. Paraphrase the listing, hell pay an outsourcer to rewrite it for $5 but don't straight COPY it. You can see the included listing sample PDF but we'll be going over what you MUST include in your listing below and WHY.

Writing Your Listing

Before you can list your site you have to write the listing. Don't rush through writing your listing as it's the connection between your site and your potential buyers and you don't want to turn any potential bidders away with poor grammar or because you left something out.

Below are things to include in your listing, review them then jump over to the listing sample PDF and read through the example listing and start working on your own.

Introduction - In the introduction you want to give a brief 1-2 paragraph synopsis of the site, the PR, the authority in the domain and the potential value to the new owner. This will be just enough to get casual browsers baited into reading more about the auction. Talk briefly about the niche, the page rank, the backlinks, the growth potential and the monetization options.

Quick Stats - In the quick stats section you will essentially be reiterating many of the stats that Flippa provides in bullet points while also putting in some of the vital value added statistics we spent so much time hunting for in our domains. This includes domain age, Page Rank, backlinks, Domain Authority,
Page Authority, amount of content on the site, uniqueness of content and any other vital stats related to the domain (which could be Alexa rank, DMOZ listing or anything else of value.)

Aesthetics, Content And Images - In the content and Images section you want to stress the quality of the content and images you've spent time putting together for the site. Talk about the perfect grammar and high quality engaging content in the niche. Encourage browsers to visit the site and read the content. Include some title examples from the site. Talk about how unique the site is appearance wise and how much it stands out from the crowd in terms of quality. You spent the time putting together a killer looking website, it's time to show off.

Monetization Options - This part is huge. You want to get people excited about the prospects of owning the site and show them how they could benefit financially from ownership. Since the site has page rank, one of the best ways to make money on the site regardless of traffic is to sell guest post with links to websites. This is one of the huge selling points for these quick flips and is something you need to tout here. Talk about how the new owner can sell guest post for SEO purposes to other websites in the niche and how much revenue can be pulled in. Talk about how large the niche is and the possibility for guest post sales.

Who Can Run The Site - Many of your bidders may be completely new to the website buying world. This is the case for any website being sold on Flippa. Many people on Flippa are browsing and have money to invest to start or grow a website portfolio. Talk about how this site would be a great addition to their portfolio based on the niche, the quality of the content, the age of the domain, the Page Rank and so on. Mention how the site is easy to run with Wordpress and your willingness to help the new owner learn and get used to the site.

What's Included With The Auction - Here you want to talk about everything included in the sale such as the domain, all rights to content on the website and any other bonuses you wish to include. I always include an excel spreadsheet detailing urls and titles for all content on the site as well as writer contact information to the new owner. I also include support for life, free hosting for a few months as well as additional queued content.

Potential And Growth - In this section talk about the entire niche in general and how the site is positioned to be an authority in the niche with a bit of effort put into the content and promotion. Mention how the opportunity is there for people to jump in to an already built site in a desirable niche without the need to start from scratch.

Transfer - In the transfer section I always mention my willingness to transfer the site for the client.

Many times they'll transfer it themselves, sometimes they'll need some help. If you're uncomfortable doing this you can pay someone (usually around $10) to do the transfer for you or take a peak on YouTube and find videos detailing every step of the transfer. With your profits it's worth spending a few dollars to have the transfer done for you. It's all about speed and automation.

Questions - In this section I try and stress my willingness to help people out when it comes to the site and how I'm here to answer any questions they have about the site, the content or anything else in between. Make yourself personable and be there for their questions, it will read well and boost their confidence in you as a seller, especially if you're new to Flippa.

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There is a multitude of software out there designed to make working easier and more efficient. In this chapter we'll go over some of the most widely praised programs, some free and some paid, that can help you boost your productivity and make working from home a breeze.
Instant Communication: Skype

In the last few years, Skype has become to #1 instant communication tool for online workers. Whether you prefer instant messaging, phone calls or video chat, Skype offers it all for free (or, in some situations, for a low fee). It's available for most platforms, and you can even take it with you in your phone or tablet.

Office Suite: Microsoft Office (or similar)

There's no way around it: if you're going to work from home you need an office suite. Microsoft Office remains industry standard, but there are lots of alternatives available if you're feeling experimental. There are cloud-based solutions like Google Docs (free) as well as locally installed software such as Open Office (free) and Apple Productivity Apps/iWork (commercial). All of the alternatives are file-format compatible with Microsoft Office, but not all formatting features are supported by them.

Cloud Storage: Dropbox

Dropbox is cloud-based storage that lets you store your work files online and reach them wherever you are. You can install it on all your computers, phones and tablets, ensuring your important documents are always with you (assuming you have an Internet connection at least sporadically so it can sync). It's also great when you're collaborating with others, as you can share folders and files with them and see whenever a file is changed.

Project Management: Basecamp

There's no shortage of great project management tools on the web, but Basecamp is perhaps the most well known of the bunch. It's designed to be fast loading and simple to use, and the clean, clutter-free interface is held in high regard by many. Keep in mind though that the simplicity and ease of use comes at a price: Basecamp doesn't have as many features as some of the more advanced project management systems.

If you don't like Basecamp, give Asana a go - it's becoming more and more popular and has some features that Basecamp lacks.

To-do List: Wunderlist

There might actually be even more to-do list services than project management services out there. It's a popular service to build apparently, most likely because it's a deceptively simple idea. It's not easy to get it exactly right though, and there are many poor implementations out there. Wunderlist is one of the best, with pleasing aesthetics and all the functionality you could ask for. It's also free to use, and multiplatform so you can use it on all your devices.

(Bonus tip: Some people actually find it better to use a plain old pen & paper for to-do lists. If you've tried software and online services but can't seem to stick with any of them, give the old-fashioned method a go!)

Time Tracking: Toggl

Whatever your profession is, you may sooner or later find yourself requiring time tracking of some kind. Some project management tools have it built-in, but if you prefer a light-weight, standalone alternative you should check out Toggl. It doesn't get any easier to use, and in many situations it's completely free to use.

Time Management: RescueTime

If you find yourself easily distracted while working, or just want to see how you really spend all those hours in front of the computer, check out RescueTime. It lets you track everything you do on your computer, and create reports showing exactly how you spend your time. This can be a real wake-up call!

Block Unproductive Websites: LeechBlock

LeechBlock is a browser add-on for Chrome and Firefox that lets you block time-wasting websites during working hours. If you regularly find yourself wasting time on Facebook and Youtube when you really should be working, installing a tool like that can really help you become more productive. Keep in mind though that you will need at least some willpower to ensure you don't just disable it when you feel your Facebook addiction calling!

Note Taking/Management: Evernote

If your computer is overflowing with notes and documents that "could be useful someday", you may want to check out Evernote. It lets you store all the little bits and pieces of information you collect throughout your day in an easily searched repository. You'll have everything in the same place, accessible from all your devices. This is especially useful for information hoarders, but most of us are probably guilty of not organizing our documents in the best way.

Dictation: Dragon NaturallySpeaking

For those who spend much of their day typing, it may be worth checking out Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Many people find dictating much faster and easier than typing things out, meaning productivity will increase with a tool like this. It's also great if you're suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome or anything else that prevents you from working long hours on a keyboard. It may not be the best choice if you're not a native English speaker though, as it requires good pronunciation to work as intended.

Cloud Accounting/lnvoicing: Freshbooks

Financial software is rarely easy to use, but Freshbooks is a notable exception. It's perhaps the most popular solution for simple accounting and invoicing today, and it's quite affordable too. Unless your business has very specific requirements and need an advanced accounting solution, Freshbooks will most likely be more than enough.

Password Management: LastPass

You probably already know that you should have a unique password on every website you have an account with. The question is, how on earth are you supposed to keep track of all these passwords? Easy! Use a password manager like LastPass. With a tool like this, all your passwords will be stored in an encrypted database accessible through one single master password. It's very convenient, secure and it works on most platforms. If you prefer a noncommercial solution and hosting your password database yourself, check out KeePass which is a decent alternative.

Ebook Sample Content Preview:

Creating The Ultimate Sales Funnel

First off, let me acknowledge that things are probably taking longer than you expected. I know you were hoping that you’d be able to setup everything in just 5 minutes and be ready to start driving traffic.

But don’t worry, we’ll get there! The first few steps in listbuilding lay the foundation for your business. Once you have these things in place, you can focus 100% on driving traffic and making edits to your copywriting to improve your conversion rates.

Now let’s take a look at what the ultimate sales funnel should look like:

The first thing it all starts with is the squeeze page on the left. This is where you’re going to be giving away your free offer in exchange for the visitor’s email address.

So they have to signup with their email in order to get your free offer.

As soon as people enter their email address on the squeeze page and submit their information, they’re going to be taken to the Free Gift Download page. The reason you want to take them here immediately is so they can get what they just signed up for!

Some people will say to take them to the OTO, but here’s the problem with that- the subscriber won’t trust you yet.

Instead, it’s better to let them see the free gift so they trust you a bit more.

Once they’ve done that, then you take them to the OTO. This is a special sales page just for these subscribers that is going to offer them a special discount of some sort. It should be closely related to your free offer, but a lot more comprehensive.

For example, if you have a free report that offers five tips to lose belly fat quickly, your one-time offer might be about how to lose 20 pounds in 3 weeks, or something like that. It builds on what the free offer provides, and provides even more information and more value. So it might be a video product that explains different diets and different exercise plans, if you’re in the weight loss niche.

As far as pricing goes, you can go with any price point you want. Some people recommend a low price to get more sales, but some of the greatest marketers out there recommend going with a high price point, like $97. You’ll get fewer sales, but (probably) make more money in the long run.

If they decide to purchase your OTO, great! You can even send them to an upsell offer after that if you want, so now you may put a $197 product or service in front of them. Perhaps it’s a coaching offer, or a service that’s related to your OTO.

Or you can choose not to, it’s up to you. One rule to always keep in mind is that the more upsells (and downsells, which is the complete opposite) that you put in front of a new subscriber; the more likely you are to make them frustrated. After all, they came to you wanting a free gift, NOT to get bombarded by a dozen different products and services.

And if you want to kill your business fast, a good way to do that is to throw offer after offer in front of your subscribers. Sure, you may make more money short-term, but you’ll lose out long-term.

So they download the report, but also, and more importantly, they’re now on your email list. That was the whole point, so you can continue building the relationship you already started with them with your free offer.

The best way to do that is to share a lot of great information for free, and sprinkle in some stories about yourself. Your subscribers want to know that you’re a real person- one who is very helpful and is helping them to solve their problems.

You want the people on your list to get to the point that they’re excited to see your emails. You want them to read these emails like he’s reading them from a good friend or mentor.

This allows you to continue to provide more great information for free, as well as to continue to promote more offers in the future. These might be memberships, services, personal coaching, physical products, etc.

Remember that most people need multiple tools and sources of information to solve all of their problems, so someone building a business may be willing to buy a computer, WordPress class and service through your affiliate links.

And at the end of the day, promoting these other, higher-priced offers is what will make or break your business. You can make decent money promoting low-end offers, but it’s easier to make good money quickly when you get $1,000 per sale rather than $7!

So again- that’s just an introduction to the sales funnel. It’s showing you the big picture, so you have an idea of where we’re going. The first step to all of this is the download page, since we need to have something to send the visitor to once they subscribe.