This is fine if all your products have weights in proportion to the selling price, but what if you have very light expensive products, or heavy cheap products? The Paypal postage scale becomes unworkable, and I haven’t even mentioned the problem of UK, European and Worldwide postage differences!

Enough about problems! Here is the solution. Set up a separate Paypal account for the products that don’t fit into your normal postage scale.  

My problem products were American superhero comics. They are very light but old ones can also be very expensive.  Setting individual postage prices doesn’t work, because collectors often buy
multiple comics and they would end up with a ridiculous postage cost. 

I needed a Paypal shopping cart system for the comics, with a separate postage scale that took into account how light the comics are. This is now done and you can  see the resulting effect here;

To set up a separate Paypal account, you need to submit different bank details for verification. I was lucky, I already had a business account for my main Paypal products, and I used my personal account to sell the comics. My comics are my personal collection anyway, so they need to be separate for tax purposes as well.

If you have been stuck with this postage price conundrum I hope this helps.

John McNally

But somehow, they do.  In fact, some artists have become extremely affluent just from the sale of their artwork and art  merchandise.  Do you think they were just lucky?  You know… in the right place at the right time?

I’m not saying that sheer luck doesn’t have a part to play in this and for a select few that’s all it took to succeed and  become leaders in the art market niche.  But what about the rest of the artists out there pouring their hearts and souls  into their creations, shouldn’t they have a shot at the golden ring?

Well if you weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth and a pocket full of “Lucky Charms” then you’re just going to  have to come up to speed on leading-edge internet marketing skills. 

That’s where “Art Marketing Success” comes into play.

Professional artist and internet marketer Joelle Rene’ Hughes has developed a brand new product that will demystify the  process of becoming a financially successful artist.  She can teach you how to get started selling your art online with  little or no initial investment, or transform your existing art business into an income generating sales machine.

Is this a get-rich-quick scheme?  Nope.  You are going to have to work hard and implement these marketing strategies. 

Will you achieve overnight success?  Not likely, but if you follow her guidelines  then you will possess the skills  you need to become one of the Art Sales SUPERSTARS!  “Art Marketing Success” comes with a no-questions-asked money back guarantee.  So what have you got to lose? 

Aren’t you tired of being a “Starving Artist”?  It doesn’t have to be that way.  You just need to learn the skills that  will put you in a league with the big players.

Are you ready to get serious about your art business and catapult your sales into the stratosphere?

If so – then you might want to check this out:
To your success!

John McNally

The only reason I still have this paperback is because I find it impossible to throw books away. But unknown to me this bit of pulp fiction I bought in a junk shop in the 1970s is out of print, and I suppose because of Dan Brown and the popularity of “The Da Vince Code”, conspiracy theories are back in fashion.

This made me wonder what other hidden gems I might have lurking on my bookshelves. Here’s a random selection of books I thought might also be valuable with the Amazon sale price:

£15-  ’Behind the Flying Saucer Mystery’ by George Adamaski (1967)
£20- ‘Fischer-Spassky Move by Move’ by Larry Evans (1973)
£35 – ‘ The Silver Surfer’ by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby (1978)
£44 -  ‘The Jesus Scroll’ by Donavon Joyce (1972 – out of print)
£78 – ‘Secrets Behind the Comics’ by Stan Lee (1994 – Limited edition)

Take a look around your attic, or on your bookshelves, you never know what hidden gems may be lurking there.  One person’s bit of junk is another persons antique or collectible item.

I haven’t sold anything on eBay yet, but I’ve suddenly realised I have a house full of stock.

John McNally

I was slightly disappointed when I discovered this, but then smiled to myself – what a great motivational gesture by Ezine Articles, and it didn’t cost them a penny.

My article was “Why do you want to Run Marathons?” - the best thing about it was, the only new part was the title.

All I did was combine two old blog posts ‘London Marathon 26th April 2009′  and ‘You can compete with World Champions’.  I always intended to use old blog posts for my articles, but it’s nice when a plan comes together.

I will be using my ‘running’ posts to submit articles, but I don’t expect them all to fit together so easily.  Hopefully I will just have to write one new paragraph, to knit together two different posts and make it flow. 

This article writing plan seems to be working, and I’m now confident that I shall be starting my eBook sooner than I expected. All I’m going to do is submit loads of marathon running articles, then when I’ve got enough, I will use them as the basis of my eBook. Simple.

It’s really great when plans work out.

John McNally

Although my ’sticky’ post lists the top 10 traffic blogs of Sally Neill who got over 4,000 visits in a month, I never thought about how Sally knew which blogs they were.  But Igor pointed out that everything is in Google Analytics, and it’s important to focus on the blogs that give you traffic in  return for the time you spend commentating.

Good idea I thought, let’s have a look at Google Analytics a bit more deeply than the cursory glance I usually give it. You too can find the traffic sources for your own website or blog, have a look at the screen shot if you’re not sure how.

OK , so for anyone looking to increase visitor numbers to their blog, here are my top 10 traffic sources:

1)  www.barry-wells.com
2) www.creatingmybusinessonline.com 
3)  www.billmurney.com
4)  www.barrywilliams.com
5) www.alexwhalley.com
6) www.mike-j-shepherd.com
7) www.steveking.biz
8 ) www.mandyallen.com
9) www.mikewalshblog.com
10) www.randolfsmith.com

Enjoy your blog-hopping, and really enjoy looking up your increased traffic on Google Analytics.

John McNallyPS. I just checked Google Analytics,  and I now have 1,945 visitors in a month;     2,000  + here I come.

Louise Woof is obviously a prime candidate for my ’Unethical Sales’ category. She started off with her outright lies, showing forged examples of her days trading. Now she is more careful and only shows possible earnings.

Quoting from Trade2win.com “……don’t touch with a bargepole or waste a penny of your hard-earned cash. She developed a ’system’ (The Earlybird System) that broke all her clients’ compounding banks late last year. Then suddenly, these losses ‘disappeared’ from her results table early in 2008. She has now unscrupulously ‘tweaked’ her results table so that her results no longer show actual results but ‘results that are attainable’………”

I accept that a “fool and his money are soon parted”, and Louise Woof does offer 30 day money-back guarantees. However it would take longer than 30 days to learn her “system” and evaluate it. Her first ‘Foolproof Forex and Foolproof Earlybird’ systems were sold for £297, which is not a throw-away figure like most ‘get rich quick’ schemes.

The reason Louise Woof  is featured here however, as a warning to all my blog readers, is that she deals in trading systems that don’t work. If you believe her hype, you could potentially lose thousands of pounds on the financial markets………Don’t touch, even with a bargepole.

John McNally

PS. Customer losses have now become too hot to handle, and the first two ’systems’ have been withdrawn. However Louise Woof is now selling “Foolproof Evening Trading Package” for £197 – DON’T BOTHER!

What you need to Implement the 5 Day plan:

1) Web Design Software (XSite Pro)
2) Hosting Company with unlimited domain space (1&1)
3) Keyword Analysis Software (Market Samurai)
4) Affiliate accounts with Clickbank and Amazon
5) A Profitable Niche

This plan won’t work by ‘outsourcing’. If you have to pay people to create your website, the cost/profit ratio will not be in your favour.  I persevered with Dreamweaver web design for 18 months, but found it to be too complicated and clumsy.

Purchasing Xsite Pro for around £150 was the best thing I have done since starting Internet Marketing. It’s a really easy WYSIWYG programme that you can learn to use in just a few hours. I can now create a website in a day.

Every time I uploaded a new website, I waited for my hosting company to send a bill for the extra charge, but nothing ever came. It said “unlimited domains” on their website, but I didn’t really believe it. Now I do.

Creating websites is now easy, but it’s only worth doing if they have the potential to make money. You need to do keyword research for this, and there are free tools to use.

However a comprehensive analysis of both keywords AND profitability can be completed with Market Samurai. For a profitability checklist have a look at the excellent post by Bill Murney.

Once you have found a profitable Keyword, get a domain name that has the keyword in it, create a website optimised to the keyword and load your website with affiliate products from Clickbank and Amazon. Sit back and wait for income.

What’s the Catch? This all sounds too easy, and I assume the hard bit is getting enough traffic to make money. However as the cost is minimal, I will try this plan with 10 different websites and let you know how I get on.

John McNally

After a  few hours I am finished with a version I am happy with, and will be updating it later. I have 3 Squeeze pages. “Hot Products” looks like this:
The links to each Squeeze Page are at the top, though I don’t expect these to be used much. Each prospect will have been pre-sold the idea of a freebie, and will land on their individual Squeeze Page to enter their name and email address.

Marketing Secrets squeeze page looks like this:
Google downgrades pages with little content, but Squeeze Pages work best when they are simple. To get around this I have added links at the bottom of the website, which contain the full sales page for each product. Using links I have kept the landing page really simple, but there is plenty of information on the website, so Google will hopefully not penalise my page ranking.

The Squeeze Page for “Lazy way to Riches” looks like this:

I shall add something about “ANTI-SPAM” and “unsubscribe links” later.

The opt-in boxes were created by Aweber, and I will show how in another post. In the meantime I am quite pleased with myself. Not a bad days work, even if I do say so myself.

John McNally

Jacinta Dean, a Masterclass Student has come up with a good idea to encourage blog-hopping, the 100 Comment Challenge. This post is ’sticky’, it will stay at the top of my page in an attempt to get 100 comments.

My problem with blog-hopping, is that it can be a waste of time.   I don’t like visiting blogs that haven’t been updated for months, or even worse, blogs that don’t reply to your comments.

To make blog hopping more efficient, I have used my own blog roll as a visiting list, and only link to blogs who update regularly and reply to comments.

Blog hopping can connect you to a much wider community of like-minded people. I seem to visit quite a few blogs in Australia, and I think that is via my friend Jacinta in Melbourne. Interestingly, I also seem to be visiting blogs from people on different courses, with different mentors.

Sally Neil is on a Course run by Alex Jeffrey and recently won a competition by getting over 4,000 visitors to her blog in one month. She revealed her top 10 blogs for getting traffic, and has given me permission to list them here (thanks Sally).

If you want traffic and a chance to get 100 comments visit these blogs:

1) www.vancesova.com
2) www.scottbarrononline.com
3) www.kathydobson.com
4) www.darrenlcarter.com/blog
5) www.alexwhalley.com
6) www.rooniehernandez.com
7) www.clifftruss.com
8 ) www.nathanrufus.com
9) www.theimquest.com

Unfortunately the 10th blog from Mike Roosa has been hacked and is currently unavailable.

This post is my entry to the 100 comment challenge, so if you’ve read this far please leave a comment. I will return the compliment on your blog.

John McNally

First Rule of Blogging

Post something regularly. Google loves fresh content and writing new posts will improve your page ranking.

Write regularly? What about? 

My solution was to turn my blog into a PERSONAL diary, so I write about anything I’m interested in.

The last book I read, a film I enjoyed, a concert worth mentioning, oh yeah, and also what I’m up to with Internet Marketing.  

Second Rule of Blogging

Leave comments on other blogs with a back-link on your signature. Google regards sites with loads of back-links as having quality content, and will rank your blog accordingly.

Blog hopping can take longer than writing posts. Unfortunately many blogs are dead ends – there hasn’t been a new post for months, so visiting was a waste of time. Also some blog owners don’t bother to reply to your comment and you may as well talk to a brick wall.

I use my own blog roll as a visiting list. To save myself time and the frustration of visiting dead blogs, I have only listed the sites which are live and reply to comments.

However after reading Barry Wells blog I’ve realised this isn’t fair to the struggling Masterclass students, so I will also list random Masterclass Blogs.

Next blogging post will be about getting traffic, with 10 sites that will improve your Google page ranking.

John McNally