Timothy Ferriss - The 4-Hour Workweek - Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich - Expanded and Updated

Provides integrated access to affiliates willing to sell your product for a percentage of sales.

Introduction to Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising and Testing

Google Adwords (www.google.com/adwords)

Market Sizing and Keyword Suggestion Tools

Brainstorm additional PPC search terms and determine the number of people who are searching for them.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool (http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)

Enter the potential search terms to find search volume and alternative terms with more search traffic. Click on the “Approx Avg Search Volume” column to sort results from most to least searched.

SEOBook Keyword Tool, SEO for Firefox Extension (http://tools.seobook.com/)

Outstanding resource page with searches powered by Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com).

Low-Cost Domain Registration

Domains in Seconds (www.domainsinseconds.com)I have registered more than 100 domains through this service.

Joker (www.joker.com)

GoDaddy (www.godaddy.com)

Inexpensive but Dependable Hosting Services

Shared hosting solutions, where your site is hosted alongside other sites on a single server, are so cheap that I recommend using two providers, one as a primary and one as a backup. Put your site pages on each host and sign up with www.no-ip.com, which can redirect traffic (DNS) to the backup in five minutes instead of the usual 24 to 48 hours.

1and1 (www.1and1.com)

BlueHost (www.bluehost.com)

RackSpace (www.rackspace.com;known for dedicated and managed servers )

Hosting.com (www.hosting.com;known for dedicated and managed servers )

Royalty-Free Photos and Materials

iStockphoto (www.istockphoto.com)

iStockphoto is the Internet’s original member-generated image and design site, which has more than 4 million photographs, vector illustrations, videos, audio tracks, and Flash files available for use.

Getty Images (www.gettyimages.com)

This is where the pros go. Stock photos and film of anything for a price. I pay $150–400 for most images I use in national print campaigns and the quality is outstanding.

E-mail Sign-up Tracking and Scheduled Autoresponders

Both of these programs can be used to embed e-mail address sign-up forms on your site.

AWeber (www.aweber.com)

MailChimp (www.mailchimp.com)

End-to-End Site Solutions with Payment Processing

Shopify (www.shopify.com)

This is a reader favorite that, in addition to beautiful design, offers full SEO (search-engine optimization), drag-and-drop use, statistics, and product fulfillment through one of their certified partners such as Fulfillment by Amazon.com. Clients range from small-business owners to Tesla Motors. Unlike with Yahoo and eBay, however, you will need to set up a payment-processing service to accept payments from customers. (See below—PayPal is the easiest to integrate.)

Yahoo! Store (http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce) (866–781–9246)

This is what Doug of Pro Sound Effects used. As little as $40 a month with 1.5% per transaction.

eBay Store (http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/start.html)

From $15–500 per month, plus eBay fees.

Simple Payment Processing for Testing Pages, from Least to Most Involved

PayPal Cart (www.paypal.com;see “merchant” )

Accept credit card payments in minutes. No monthly fees, 1.9–2.9% of each transaction (called “discount rate”) and $0.30 per transaction.

Google Checkout (http://checkout.google.com/sell)

Get $10 in free processing for each $1 spent on AdWords; 2% and $0.20 per transaction thereafter. Requires that customers have a Google ID, and is thus most useful as a supplement to one of the aforementioned payment solutions. Be sure to link your Checkout account to your AdWords account to receive credit. Important note: free transaction processing for nonprofits.

Authorize.net (www.authorize.net)

The Authorize.Net Payment Gateway can help you accept credit card and electronic check payments quickly and affordably. More than 230,000 merchants trust Authorize.net to manage their transactions, help prevent fraud, and grow their business. The fees per transaction are lower than PayPal or Google Checkout, but setup will require a merchant account, covered in the next chapter, and other time-consuming applications. I suggest setting up Authorize.net only after a product has tested successfully through one of the other two options above.

Software for Understanding Web Traffic (Web Analytics)

How are people finding, browsing, and leaving your site? How many prospective customers are being delivered by each PPC ad, and which pages are most popular? These programs tell you all this and more. Google is free for most low-volume sites—and better than a lot of paid software-and the others cost $30 and upward per month.

Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics)

CrazyEgg (www.crazyegg.com)

I use CrazyEgg to see exactly where people are clicking most and least on homepages and landing pages. It is particularly helpful for repositioning the most important links or buttons to help prompt visitors to take specific next actions. Don’t guess what’s working or not—measure it.

Clicktracks (www.clicktracks.com)

WebTrends (www.webtrends.com)

A/B Testing Software

Testing is, as you know, the name of the game, but testing all the variables can be confusing. How do you know which combination of headlines, text, and images on your homepage results in the most sales? Instead of using one version for a bit, then alternating, which is time-consuming, use software that serves up different versions to prospects at random, then does the math for you.

Google Website Optimizer (WO) (http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer)

This is a free tool that, like Google Analytics, is better than most paid services. I used Google WO to test three potential homepages for www.dailyburn.com and increased sign-ups 19%, then again by more than 16%.

Offermatica (www.offermatica.com)

Vertster.com (www.vertster.com)

Optimost (www.optimost.com)

Low-Cost Toll-free Numbers

TollFreeMAX (www.tollfreemax.com) (877–888–8MAX)and Kall8 (www.kall8.com)

TollFreeMAX and Kall8 both allow you to set up toll-free numbers in 2–5 minutes. Calls can then be forwarded to any other numbers, and voicemail and statistics can be managed online or via e-mail.

Checking Competitive Site Traffic

Want to see how much traffic your competition is getting and who is linking to them?

Compete (www.compete.com)

Quantcast (www.quantcast.com)

Alexa (www.alexa.com)

Freelance Designers and Programmers

99Designs (www.99designs.com)and Crowdspring (www.crowdspring.com)

I used 99Designs to get an excellent logo for www.litliberation.org in 24 hours for less than $150. I submitted the concept, more than 50 designers worldwide uploaded their best attempts, which I could browse, and I chose the best after suggesting a few improvements. From Crowdspring’s site: “Name your price, name your deadline, see entries within hours and be done in just days. The average project gets a whopping 68 entries. 25 entries or your money back.”