We all know that Google Adsense generates a small income and that Clickbank pays affiliates a percentage of any products that are sold via our affiliate links. I decided that of the two, I would rather have the Clickbank ads displayed on my blog, as it has the potential to earn me far more than Google Adsense.

I had noticed that some of the Masterclass students had Clickbank ads instead of Google Adsense. So yesterday I got in touch with Michael Haught of michaelhaught.com and asked him about the Clickbank ads on his blog, as I was very impressed by them. He replied, telling me that it’s a free tool from Clickbank.

So this morning I looked into it, and have now set it up on my blog, it took about 30 minutes to complete and I was amazed at just how simple it was to do.

This is how I done it:

I logged into my Clickbank account and clicked on the Account settings tab, from there I selected HopAd Builder (far right).

From the next window I selected Text Ads Builder and filled it in accordingly.

Now that I had my eBook website completely set up with my newsletter opt-in forms in place, as mentioned in my last blog post. It was to time to start trying to attract visitors to my site.

As I have previously said, as I had bought the website from PlanetSMS I was automatically made a lifetime member, and, obviously, allowed into the members area where I found out about Brandable and PLR (Private Label Rights) products, (eBooks).

A Brandable eBook is an eBook written by somebody else that contains links that can be branded with your details. Some are affiliate links, which can earn you an affiliate commission; however the majority of Brandable eBooks allow you to add a link to a website. That website can be your own site or your eBay shop, and on occasion you may be able to place both your website and your eBay shop URLs.

Please look down the Column on the far right for Categories and then click Getting Started for the previous entries leading upto this subject.

Following on from those earlier blog posts:

Ok, I had my 1st professional website and had uploaded it to my web host. I had the staff at MyDD (My Digital Dispatch) load the software onto my site and I had loaded it up with my inventory and items for sale.

I knew that my next step was to create a newsletter and place an opt-in form on my website. An opt-in form being the little box on websites that asks for your name and email address so as to join their newsletter.

Why did I need a newsletter? As I have said before I was selling on eBay, and once I had sent the eBook, received and left feedback; not only was that transaction over but so was my contact with the customer.

By having my own newsletter I was able to:

Stay in touch with my previous customers,

Attract new prospects that visit my website,

Offer them new products,

Promote other peoples products.

As I’ve been looking through the other blogs of my fellow Masterclass students I noticed that some have uploaded videos. This got me thinking about how to make my own.

So today I visited www.camstudio.org where I was able to download the software free of charge, many thanks to CamStudio for that.

Having downloaded it, I was eager to check it out. So I made a short video on how to set up an auto-reply email with Outlook Express, so that when a customer contacts you, via your customer support email address, they’re automatically sent an email confirming that you’ve received their email and will get back to them within 24 hours.

I was truly amazed at just how simple CamStudio is to use. You simply click the start button, do your work and click stop, that’s it….. Simple!

Then you need to set up an account on YouTube and upload your video.

Once your video is on YouTube you can load it onto your blog. Masterclass students: Please see week 5 for details of how to load YouTube videos onto your blogs.

Please watch the video and see what you think, feel free to leave your comments.

New fee structure for private sellers

Later this week, on the 12th March, eBay are introducing a new fee structure for private sellers, (not full time Business sellers), on eBay.co.uk and eBay.ie.

From that date, private sellers who list in the Auction style format with a starting price of 99 pence, (or below), will not be charged a listing fee. The final value fee will be 10% of the final price.

So if you’re a private seller in the U.K. or Ireland why not take advantage of the new pricing fees and get your old books listed. Used books normally have some good results on eBay, but in times of recession they sell that much better, and every little income helps in these troubled times.

Retirement of Multiple Item Auction (Dutch Auction) format

From 6th May 2009 you will no longer be able to use the Multiple Item Auction format, also known as A Dutch Auction.

You don’t have to remove your Dutch Auction listings if they go over the cut off date as they’ll run out of time in due course. Any Dutch Auctions scheduled to start on or after the 6th May will automatically be cancelled. However to renew your listings for multiple items they must be listed in the fixed price format.

In my last blog post I told you about my 1st eBook website that I bought from PlanetSMS. This automatically made me a lifetime member. As a member I’m allowed to update my website as and when they produce a new version, which they do quiet often. They always improve on the last one and have now designed them with the beginner in mind. Honestly they’re so simple to set up that a child could do it.

I was amazed with just how simple they’d made it. All I had to do was download one folder and then simply upload it to my web host. As part of the new site they included an admin control panel, where all the editing is done to personalise it to your taste and add your own details for Google adsense, PayPal, Clickbank and Aweber.

Once uploaded you simply log into your admin control panel with the username and password supplied. From there you have a list of settings that you can edit with ease.

Admin settings; where you change your username and password so that only you can access your admin area.

In an earlier blog post (The 1^st eBook I ever Bought), I mentioned setting up a free website, which I did. The only thing was that the website was only to store my eBooks, so that they could be downloaded by my eBay customers. The website itself didn’t have any sales pages, which at the time was ok as I didn’t have to pay for hosting it.

As my eBay sales increased I wanted my own professional website that I could make sales from. The only trouble was I didn’t have any knowledge in this field. Sure I had learned how to put an index page on my free site and a folder to store my eBooks, ready to download. But multiple sales pages, all with payment buttons? I don’t mind telling you that it was daunting.