SUBSCRIBER QUESTIONS PART 1
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Dear Detlev ,
I have made an e-book but do not know how to get it onto a download page or how to put a paypal button on my sales page, and where in cpanel do I upload them too. Plus if I want to buy another domain name how and where do I put it in my cpanel it says I have unlimited addons and sub domain space but I don’t understand the information page they supply its all geeky to me.
I have also read that everyone should have a list but what do I write to them all the info on this subject is for marketing but I have a self hosted wordpress blog on craft, www.findacraft.com
Thank you for caring enough to ask what we your subscribers need and yes you may use my name and question if you would like.
Sandra
ANSWERS:
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Hi Sandra,
Thanks for submitting your questions. I will answer them one by one so it is easier to follow.
Question 1.) I have made an e-book but how to get it onto a download page?
If your ebook is ready to be sold, all you have to do is upload it to your server. So if the filename is something like funwithcrafts.pdf, you should upload the pdf file using a FTP software. If you don”t know how to use such a FTP software, you can have a look at my video which I have done for members of my Nichecontentwebsites.com. Just sign up for free at www.nichecontentwebsites.com/ and go to the download page. There you will find it.
Files are not uploaded to a CPanel but to your server. A CPanel just helps you to organize and create some things like email addresses, stats, databases or execute some scripts using Fantastico which is nothing more than a collection of different scripts under one roof so to speak. There also is a section called “web upload” or “web FTP” in your CPanel but you should always do it with an FTP software as it is much easier to handle. Most of these FTP programs like CoreFTP or WS_FTP are completely free to use. Just do a search for these program names on Download.com.
You should try to make the download location or filename very hard to guess so people cannot get the file for free. In other words, don”t just upload the file with the same name as your domain name and then put it into the root folder. You need to protect it. Give either the file name itself a weird name like 4746funwithcrafts.pdf or upload it to a folder which is hard to guess.
Something like /public_html/4747thanks88/ on your main server.
With regards to the download page: After you are done uploading, you need to create the download page itself from where people can access the ebook which they”ve purchased. This means, on your download page, you need to create a link which leads to your exact download location. Taking the example from above, you would be writing something like:
“Thank you for your purchase. Please find below the download link for Fun with crafts”:
Fun with crafts – Click here to download
which would be linked to:
www.yourdomain.com/4747thanks88/funwithcrafts.pdf
The whole download page with the above link should be saved as index.htm and uploaded to your download location /public_html/4747thanks88/ and this also is the return URL for customers who have paid for your product (e.g. in Clickbank it is the so called “thankyou page” – in this case www.yourdomain.com/4747thanks88/index.htm).
The download page should always come second, though. It is much more important that you have a good salesletter which convinces people to buy…
Question 2: how to put a paypal button on my sales page?
This used to a be a question which was quite easy to answer. But with the recent changes Paypal has made to their interface, it”s hard to locate the section where you are supposed to create the payment buttons. They are almost completely hidden somewhere in the “Merchant tools” area and that”s why I am not creating the buttons in their own interface anymore. In the German Paypal version, you cannot even locate the section anymore where the buttons can be created. You click from one link to the next only to be led into a circle of descriptions about the process but no link to the actual creation page.
To make a long story short: I am using a software for creating my buttons. It”s called “Paylock Generator”. You can get this for around $1 on Ebay if you don”t have it yet. This software also allows you to encrypt the code which is used for processing the sale. In order to protect your download location, it is important to activate the encryption or people can just view the source code and see the URL where you have placed your file into.
Paypal also needs to know what the “thankyou page” (download page) is in order to redirect the customer to this page after the payment has been processed. This is usually the page which is linked to the button “Return to merchant” when having completed the payment. Often, people forget to click that button, though. Then they”ll be asking you for the download location via email. In this case, you need to send them the link to your thankyou page manually after having checked that they really have made a payment.
Question 3: where in cpanel do I upload the Paypal button to?
The button will not be uploaded to your CPanel. As I”ve explained above, you use a software to create the HTML code for your Paypal payment button. This code, which is produced by the software, needs to be pasted into the HTML code for the page you want to use as your salesletter. In other words, instead of just being in “normal view” within your HTML editor (like Frontpage), you switch to “HTML code view”. There, you need to locate the section which should contain your payment button.
This is done by comparing the visible “normal view” part from your HTML page with the HTML code. e.g. you have a sentence like “Click the Paypal button below to make your payment” on your page. Then you do a search for this sentence in your HTML code and paste the code from Paylock Generator directly below this sentence. Then, you save the page. When viewing the page in “normal view” again, the Paypal button should come up. Last but not least, you simply upload the whole salesletter (e.g. index.htm to the root folder /public_html/) of your server and then the whole process is completed.
Question 4: Plus if I want to buy another domain name how and where do I put it in my cpanel?
The way addon domains work is like this: You have an existing main domain which uses 1 IP address (a domain name written in digits like 202.757.28.123). Addon domains are added to the same IP address and use the same FTP details like the main domain. You would have to add the domain name within your CPanel where it says “Addon Domains” and in the field “New Domain Name:”, you add the name of the domain you want to add. Usually, it is without the www. part. It will then take the first letters of that domain name and create your username from this. This username will also be the addon directory name on your server for your main domain. In order to make your subdomain work, you will have to upload your files exactly into this directory.
e.g. your addon domain is: bizbuilder.com. You would enter this as addon domain in your CPanel. At the same time, a directory called “bizbuilder” will be created on your server. You can access this folder by using your FTP software again. In order to have content show up when pointing your browser to your www.bizbuilder.com/ domain, you need to upload all the pages for this domain to the folder “bizbuilder” on the server of the main domain. This is the case for all addon domains you are adding. They will all be using the FTP details from your main domain and you upload their contents into the folders which have been automatically created when adding a new addon domain.
It is important, though, that you also add the DNS or nameservers from your hosting provider into the DNS fields at your domain registrar for the new domains you are adding. You will get these DNS server details from your hosting provider when you sign up with them. The DNS servers are usually something like ns1.slhost.com and ns2.slhost.com so you have to add 2 servers. In Namecheap.com, you have to select the domain name by checking it and then clicking on the “Edit selected” button at the bottom. On the next screen, under “General”, you will find a link which says “Domain Name Server Setup”. Enter your 2 nameservers there and click on “Save changes”. That”s it. Your domain name should be resolved worldwide within 24 hours.
Question 5: what do I write to them?
First of all, after having viewed your blog, I would suggest you take one of the better ready made WordPress templates for this. I don”t want to hurt your feelings but the blog simply doesn”t look professional enough. An extensive list of WordPress themes can be found here (it”s the biggest list of WordPress themes that I know of):
Emily Robbins” list of 980+ WordPress themes
Moreover, you should get rid of the unrelated links. Why are you mentioning something about SEO there? Do you really think someone interested in crafts would click on these links? Remove them! The same goes for the link to the free ebook about Google Adsense…
If you want to give away a free ebook then use one which is on topic or create a free report yourself which you can give away to your visitors. Use it as an incentive for getting an opt-in. Also get rid of the SEO link at the bottom. This is completely distracting from your main purpose which is to attract people interested in crafts. Your site should always keep its” focus and not be a supermarket where everything under the sun should be available.
Back to your question. What to write about…? You have chosen the topic of “crafts” so people visiting your site will be interested in what you have to say about the topic of crafts, of course. Not SEO, not Adsense but crafts. If you have always loved crafts like you are saying on your blog then tell them why you love it so much.
Tell them how they can make their own crafts – in all possible details (take pictures of you doing crafts, create a video showing them how to create crafts etc.). Tell them where they can buy ready made crafts. Give them all the info on crafts they could be interested in. If you were coming to a site about crafts yourself, what would you like to see on such a site…?
Put yourself in your visitor”s shoes and then write about the things that could be interesting for them from your personal perspective. Inject your personality and write to them as if you”re explaining something to a friend. If you don”t know what to write about, have a look at other people”s crafts websites by doing a search on Google.
Visit craft forums to find out what people want to hear about. And if you absolutely have no idea, go to Ezinearticles.com and read some articles about crafts and then write your own or use the best ones which you can find there and put them on your blog. I recommend writing your own content, though. You will have more success in the search engines and your visitors also will appreciate it, if your content is original and cannot be read on hundreds of other websites. Then they would have no reason to stay on YOUR site!
P.S.: You can still submit your own questions here:
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