Services
How To Pause The Aweber Autoresponder
My readers know that I am a big proponent of Aweber for mailing list management. Out of the many things that you can do with Aweber, one of them is an autoresponder.
If you’re not already familiar, an autoresponder is simply a pre-scheduled series of emails that get sent out to a new subscriber on automatic after they subscribe to your list.
For many months, I was using an autoresponder sequence. I still am a supporter of the idea, however I’m currently in the process of re-evaluating the idea. That said, there is certainly an issue with an autoresponder when you’re engaging in a structured marketing campaign.
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PowerPay Review – Why I Like These Guys
If you’re going to set up a real business online, you’re going to need a merchant account. You can sell things via Paypal, Clickbank or E-junkie, sure, but as far as I’m concerned, the BEST way to process sales is using your own merchant account.
In short, a merchant account allows you to process your own credit cards. So, you might ask, “Why bother? I can do that easily with those other services.” Yes, that is true. Here’s my view, however…
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Using Google Voice To Give Your Blog A Phone Number
I am a self-proclaimed Google whore. I use many of their free services and there is rarely a time when I don’t have at least one of my browser tabs open to a Google property.
This last week, I was reminded of Google Voice. I was reading the revised edition of the 4-Hour Work Week and he mentioned Grand Central. Since that was written, Grand Central has been terminated and it is now Google Voice.
Essentially, you can get a phone number for free from Google. Here is why I dig the service so much:
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69 Services & Resources For ProBloggers
Today, I thought I would do something a little different – a big frickin’ list. 
Of links, that is.
What I’ve tossed together here is just a list of resources and services that you might want to check out for various demands of an online business. They are not in any particular order, nor are they all-inclusive. They just happen to be stuff I’ve come across or personally used myself (where noted).
If you find anything useful, rock on. So, here we go… Click Here To Continue Reading »
The Search For A Good Shopping Cart System
I have been spending some time looking into different hosted shopping carts. This is something every internet entrepreneur will need to do eventually.
I wouldn’t say that my evaluations are over, however I will discuss where I am now for the benefit of you guys. Plus, perhaps by writing this post, I’ll have some others with good experience with any of these carts chime in.
Why Hosted?
Certainly, there are a lot of decent cart solutions out there which I could host locally. In fact, I already own a license to X-Cart.
I’m at a point in my business, however, where I would rather pay somebody to deal with stuff for me than have to worry about it myself. For this reason, hosted solutions work best for me.
Plus, most shopping cart solutions which are self-hosted seem to be your classic catalog-style carts. This isn’t what I need. I tend to sell via sales pages, not catalogs.
Scoping Out Options
There are a lot of different solutions out there. There are equally as many opinions. It makes evaluating all the options pretty frustrating.
All of this is a move away from Clickbank, too. The last 2 products I’ve launched, I ran them through Clickbank. The problem is that Clickbank exerts too much control over me (price caps for one). Plus, they take an average of 8% of every order. I have had a merchant account for years. I use it already for my other website. For my 2010 plans, I need something far more robust than Clickbank – something I have control over.
The features I need most are:
- Ability to integrate with Aweber
- Ability to integrate with the software I wish to use. (Amember, Wishlist Member, etc.)
- Ability to do upsells, downsells, 1-click
- Built in affiliate program
The ones I looked closest at were:
Let me discuss my view on each of these…
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Split Testing 101 [Increasing Conversions]
It isn’t a secret that when we want to make money on the Internet, we do things like make sales pages and opt-in forms to collect leads. But, just putting up these things is only the start. It takes a continual process of optimization to increase the percentage of your visitors that actually DO what you want them to do. This is where split testing comes to play.
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Traffic Geyser Responds [More Coming Later]
I have written a few posts here about online video and I talked about Traffic Geyser and TubeMogul. In my write-ups, I have been quite clear about the fact that I prefer TubeMogul.
As I said, though, in my original article, I am willing to be wrong. It is in that light that I want to give a fair shake to Traffic Geyser. Now, as I write this post, I am about to go on vacation. So, I don’t have time to give full attention to this matter quite yet. I will, however, give a full response from Traffic Geyser when I return.
Yes, Mike Koenigs from Traffic Geyser contacted me privately in response to my post. He gave me a very well-written response and, I must say, I was very impressed. Here is a small snippet from Mike:
One is that you suggest our user base is “probably internet marketers”.
That is simply not true. We have thousands of customers worldwide – in virtually every business imaginable.
They’re not spammers.
They’re small businesses, big businesses and everything in between.
They’re people like you and me who are doing their best to get noticed and survive in a challenging economy where it’s increasingly difficult to get noticed.
They’re work at home moms and dads, big international companies, celebrities and more.
They’re distributing all sorts of content. And believe it or not, it’s not just a bunch of spam.
Please don’t take it from this snippet that Mike was being argumentative with me. Most definitely not! But, he was certainly refuting a claim I made on this site.
So, time is short here. I wanted to put this out there so that my readers are aware that there is another side to my argument and I’d like to allow Mike to make that argument here on David Risley dot com.
No, I am not making a switch to Traffic Geyser right now. I am very happy with TubeMogul.
However, I want to provide a fair shake and not give unfair criticism without a chance to respond in full. So, Mike, I appreciate your reply. We’ll be in touch when I get back, and I will provide more insight into Traffic Geyser at that time.
Don’t Be a Video Spammer – Here’s Why
We all know spam is bad. However, it is possible that you might get lumped in with spammers and not even mean to do it. You might ask – how would that happen and why does it matter?
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Using Your TubeMogul Account Strategically to Upload Videos
Several days ago, I compared Traffic Geyser to TubeMogul and threw my wholehearted support behind TubeMogul. I stand by that totally, but there is a caveat here that TubeMogul users have to know if they are doing high-volume video content.
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Traffic Geyser vs. TubeMogul: The REAL Truth
Chances are, if you’re reading this blog, you probably already realize the power of video on the Internet. OK, great. Next logical step is to get that video out all over the Internet on as many different video sites as possible. But, how?
I'm David Risley. I've been making my living as a blogger for over a decade. Blogging is my business and how I support my family. With this blog, I'm just gettin' REAL and telling you how this business works. 
