Why I am promoting XSitePro? Because I have it. I use it. And I know that it really is a good software.

And I am going to admit it right here, I am an affiliate (have been since version 1). And I earn commission from the sales. It’s what I do to make a living…

So how do I tell you about XSitePro without appearing like a cheesy salesman?

It’s hard…

Let me tell you what I am going to do. I am going to tell you all the bad things about XSitePro first, before telling you why you should get it.

So here goes…

XSitePro - Who don’t need XSitePro…

It’s a funny place to start. But I want you to know right away if this is for you or not. If this is not for you, then you can steer clear from it.

Who won’t need XSitePro…

It’s those geek web designers and programmers, who only wants to earn by selling their hours. Because for them, they don’t need to make many websites and making money with affiliate programs and Adsense.

They want to really dig into PHP, do custom programming, explore their capabilities with CSS, HTML, and AJAX.

When you are into those kind of things… like…

• programming
• exploring CSS
• building themese for Joomla, WordPress, phpBB, etc
• advanced web design

Then, XSitePro may not please you. As powerful as it is, XSitePro is not a web development tool. When I say “development”, I am referring to more advanced web tech like PHP, AJAX, CSS, XHTML.

XSitePro is not a swiss army knife for the programmers and the designers…

What XSitePro cannot do…

Some people may have a misconception about what XSitePro is.

I’ve heard funny stories about people wanting to use XSitePro for their blog, their shopping cart, their forum, their portal, etc… funny…

While some may argue that you can use XSitePro for blogging, showcasing a product catalog and what not, I don’t think that XSitePro is the best tool to do that.

If you want a blog, a forum or a shopping cart, it’s best if you get one of those PHP scripts like WordPress, phpBB or ZenCart.

Because XSitePro is not built for that.

So should I get or not?

XSitePro is created to simplify the process of building a website. This makes it easy for the newbies, and becomes a powerful tool for the pro marketers.

Many times, as a bum marketer, SEO marketer, affiliate marketer, internet marketer, all that you want is to do is build a website and test out your idea. Of course, your
website needs to be built in a certain way…

That’s where XSitePro comes ahead… way ahead…

XSitePro helps you build websites…

… fast,
… easily,
… that are SE-friendly,
… that are human-friendly,
… that is ready to be monetized

So if you want to build websites, websites like…

… content website for affiliate marketing
… content website for Adsense
… personal website
… company’s website
… squeeze page website to build mailing lists
… search engine friendly website
… virtual real estate
… direct response sales letter website

… then XSitePro is for you.

Even if you don’t build these types of websites everyday, but if at some point of your work you need to build a website like these, then XSitePro is for you.

It’s really easy to build a website with XSitePro that once you use it, you don’t want to use anything else.

The features I like the most in XSitePro…

XSitePro is a powerful website builder. It’s pack with tons of tools to help you with

… website building,
… the marketing,
… monetization

When you have ONE software that helps you with all three of that, what more can you want. I can’t really tell you about all the features in XSitePro. That will take too long. But I can tell you about the features that I like the most…

Multi-Page Creation Wizard

I remember when I was building mini-sites for affiliate programs, I would compile all of the possible search phrases and build web pages for each of them. My aim is to try to get search engine traffic later when my mini-site is ready.

And I remember how tedious and boring it was when I had to copy, paste and rename HTML files for each of the search phrases I found. I would do it over and over again until I have a HTML file for each keyword on my list.

That time, I wished that there would be a software where I can just drop my keyword list and all of the HTML fils will be created, according to my code preference, of course.

And what do you know, XSitePro does just that. Just look it up under the Pages.

Easy Monetization - Adsense, Amazon, Paypal, Oxado…

Putting Adsense code, Amazon code, Paypal button (if you are selling something) has never been easier. These “widgets” are just some of the features you will find in right-click when you are in the page editing tab.

And with Amazon, you have three different types of ads that you can put one your website. I am sure, with what ever topic you chooose, there’ll be books that you can promote on the side. Why not use Amazon…

Easy Page and Navigation Management…

I remember using a normal web design software, updating links and menus is a tedious part. Especially when you want to update breadcrumb links, because they are different in every pages.

In XSitePro, this has become a lot easier.

What if you can just organize your web pages in any way you want and the nagivations will follow. You can create a directory, pages with sub-pages, and even more sub-pages.

You can move pages up and down the list, in and out of the hierarchy, or even delete.

All the links on the menus, on the footer, the sidebar, the sitemap, and even on the breadcrumb, all will follow how you organize your pages.

And love the breadcrumb the most. You can turn it off and on if you want. But I like using the breadcrumb links on my website because it makes it human-friendly.

This is why I feel that XSitePro is more like a content management rather than just a simple website builder. The only thing is, while many content management are scripts that you need to install on your server, XSitePro is an application that resides on your computer.

Search Engine Optimization Tools…

It’s important that you build your website so that it gets high rankings in the search engines. And I don’t know of any other website building software that is so packed with SEO tools.

Let me just list them out for you. Their names will tell you what they can do.

• Google Map Generator
• Site Map Generator
• Robot.txt Generator
• Website SEO Analysis
• RSS Feed Generator
• Social Networking Links
• XML Syndication
• Website Siloing Tool *awesomely cool*

With all these tool, you know that your website is prepared for the search engine robots. When you use all these tools, you don’t have to worry about the on-site optimization.

What you need to do next is focus on your off-site efforts like link building, distributing articles and others.

And a lot of other tools…

And there are more. But I just can’t tell you all. Let me just list a few things…

• create a version of your website for mobile devices
• built-in FTP for website upload and updating
• content scheduling
• easily include audio and videos in your website
• flexible template and layout system
• easily put in graphical boxes, buttons, etc
• graphical menus
• *awesome* pre-write content and schedule publishing
• easily create forms
• create a site-wide search form
• built-in spell checker
• built-in thesaurus
• source code editing — for advanced users
• website preview tool
• website import and export capabilities
• change website template and design at anytime
• import web pages from Dreamweaver and Frontpage
• save projects as templates, sell templates or for own use
• easy backup and restore
• token or parameter settings during multi-page creation
• stored code snippet (like favorite affiliate links, etc)
• image library
• easy integration with GetResponse, Aweber, XMailPro
• *cool* scripts like banner rotator, image gallery, more
• easily create tab menus
• easily create pop-up windows, with styles and effects
• file/resource manager
• page settings like file name, meta, etc…
• and many more…

So What Now??

Well, here’s what I think…

Since you are on my list, I am sure that at a certain point you will need to build websites. And you want to do it fast, yet it has to be at least good enough for the search engines and the human visitors.

XSitePro is the best shortcut to that — period!

And in my honest opinion, you should get it… unless you are one of those geeky web developers who’d rather earn from trading your hours then developing some passive income streams from the Internet.

OK, OK… there’s nothing wrong from earning from the skills that you have. But there’s no harm in building a passive income stream on the side. Who knows, your passive income can exceed your freelancing gig…

Alright, on with the next part…

The Limited Time $100 Discount

XSitePro is selling for $297. But right now, you can get it for $100 less. So it’s only $197. But I am sure, with all the new enhancement, this price is only going to last for a month or so.

I really do believe that is a great software. And I believe you must get this now.

If you want to get it, then get it now.

Check out XSitePro right now.

Watch a video on what you can do with XSitePro.

But anyway, I want to share with you about how to increase your online sales. So I sat down and started tapping the keyboard on my notebook. I thought it was going to be a 10-page report, but it turned into a 30-page ebook.

In the ebook, I shared a few tips and strategies on how you can increase your online sales. I talked about copywriting, crafting offers, PPC, web design… oh yea, also the Biggest Open Secret to increasing online sales.

I managed to put in some examples in there. The good ones, the bad ones, and the stupid ones.

I think you can finish this in 10 minutes. And I hope it’s going to be enjoyable read.

When you are done, please leave me a comment, send trackbacks from your blog and refer others to download it too.

One last thing, a shout out to Stephanie Trahd - thank you for editing this report for me.

THE PROBLEM WITH EBOOK COVER SOFTWARE

eBook cover software that I have seen in the past, the graphics that they generate were never up to par. Though claiming to use a 3D rendering engine, graphics created by ebook cover software are always very flat in color, very poor in lighting effects, and also very rough around the edges.

Your product graphic deosn’t look real at all. So you never really get to have that nice, photo-realistic ebook cover graphic.

I can name a few names, but I think you can easily do a few Google search and find them.

That is why I have always used Photoshop for my ebook covers. With Photoshop, you can apply filters, styles, effects and you will have a nicer, more real looking ebook covers.

AN EBOOK COVER SOFTWARE AS GOOD AS PHOTOHOP?

But in the past two weeks, I have been checking out another ebook cover software. I make it appoint to check the sample output graphics before I check out the software more thoroughly. What I saw surprised me. It is nothing like what I have seen from any other ebook cover software.

My first thought was, “No way! They must have use Photoshop, GIMP and Paintshop Pro for this.”

But that was just my thought. I still don’t know the truth. So I thought I’d check it out. I downloaded the trial version and tried it out. And what do you know, they do generate nicer ebook cover graphics. I am so happy with their e-covers that I upgraded from a trial version to a full version.

And the software is called Box Shot 3D.

With Box Shot 3D, you can create graphics like DVD, CD, boxes (four variations), book, magazine, brochure and also stand up images (like membership card, website screen shot, photo, etc). By the way, I was also told that current version users will get a free upgrade to 4.9 2.9 (correction), which will include a spiral bound e-cover.

Unlike other 3D ebook cover software, Box Shot 3D has a much more superior rendering engine. That means, the developers spent a lot of time perfecting the final output graphics of your e-covers. When editing the ebook cover in the software, it may not look so nice. That is to make it lightweight so that you doesn’t encounter hiccups when editing your e-cover. But when you are done and it’s time to render the final output, you will get a polished, photo-realistic, 3D-looking ebook cover.

To really put this to the test, I just had to compare ebook covers created by Box Shot 3D with a solution based on Photoshop Action scripts.

So I created two ebook covers using the two methods, Box Shot 3D and Photoshop Action. I try to make them as close as possible. Both of them uses the same ebook cover design, both of them are the same size and both are facing the same angle (almost - I did my best).

I don’t know about you, but Box Shot 3D looks better to me. See the spine, it looks more of a curve. The shape, it also looks more real with better perspective. The one using Photoshop Action script does look a bit distorted.

And the shadow, it falls and fades away much nicer in Box Shot 3D. Sure does look like a real shadow. The one generated with a Photoshop Action, the shadows seems flat and not so real.

CREATING A 360-DEGREE ROTATING PRODUCT VIEW

Here’s another thing that I like about Box Shot 3D - being a 3D rendering software.

What’s good about a 3D engine is that you can create e-covers from any angle or view. You can create a graphic of your product from any 360 degree angle, and even any 90 degree vertical view. In layman’s term, you can view your product from the top, back, front or side, any side.

Using a command line feature (which means I can run software using the C: prompt), I was able to create 36 different images and arrange them into an animation. Now I have a turning product animation.

Now, the image below was created using Image Ready and only uses the GIF graphic format. And on top of that, I only generated 36 graphics, a view for every 10 degree. You can create a much smoother animation if you use Flash together with a full 360 images.

A PACKAGED PRODUCT IMAGE GRAPHIC

I am sure you have seen an image of a packaged product. To tell you the truth, I don’t really like the ones created with Photoshop. Clearly, everything is out of angle and perspective and doesn’t really look real at all.

With Box Shot 3D, you can really create product images one after the other, all with the right angle and perspective. And later, you can bring them together in one single image.

Of course this may require advance graphic editing skills and may take some time. But with some determination, you can have the perfect packaged product.

IT’S NOT ALL GOOD - SOME CONS…

Now, here’s the downside though. Because Box Shot 3D uses 3D rendering to generate the graphics, it may take a few minutes to get your ebook cover created. I mean, first you choose styles, designs, lightings, shadows, view angles, special effects, quality and the rest. And when you are done and happy with the settings, you hit the Render button.

Rendering an e-cover graphic can take from 1 minute to even 10 minutes, depending on your settings and the quality you choose. Being able to generate graphics up to 4000 by 4000 pixels, obviously it takes longer to generate higher quality ebook covers.

DON’T THROW AWAY YOUR PHOTOSHOP ACTIONS JUST YET…

If you already have ebook cover solution based on Photoshop Action scripts, don’t throw them out just yet. I am sure some readers are crying out, “Kidino, I already have DIY eBook Cover (or product ABC or product DEF, etc). Why should I get Box Shot 3D?”

Well, that is entirely up to you. I don’t want to force you into making decisions you feel unnecessary.

But if you ask me, I take both. Using Photoshop Action scripts, you get a wider range of e-covers to create. My DIY eBook Cover has 51 different designs, including soda cans, memory cards, iPod, PDA and a few others. At the moment Box Shot 3D has 21 different e-covers you can create.

And also, using Phototshop Actions, it’s a lot faster too. What takes 3 minutes in Box Shot 3D may only take 5 seconds in Photoshop.

But on the other hand, with Box Shot 3D, you get the flexibility of the 3D rendering engine. With a number of variables to control (shadow, light, angle, etc) you can create ebook covers from any view you want. With the superior 3D rendering, you also get a better looking, more real e-cover graphic.

And I think those are really the cool factors.

THE ANSWER FOR NON-PHOTOSHOP USERS (gimp, paintshop, photoplus, pixia, paint.net, etc)

But if you don’t have Photoshop, or you are the user of other graphic manipulation software, you may want to consider this. My readers have been writing to me asking about an e-cover solution for non-Photoshop users. Some of them asked if DIY eBook Cover would work with their graphic software, which is not Photoshop. And I hate to disappoint them, but in DIY eBook Cover, Photoshop is a requirement.

But I can’t deny the fact that there are hundreds of other image manipulation software out there other than Photoshop. And they are just as good, maybe better. And these software has thousands or loyal users.

There’s GIMP, Paint Shop Pro, Paint.Net, PhotoPlus, and many more. If users of these software have been left in the dark with Photoshop-only e-cover solutions, or even with poor graphics from ebook cover software, then they can be glad that there’s Box Shot 3D now.

So as my final answer, I give Box Shot Pro a 4-star (out of 5) rating.

Click Here To Get Box Shot 3D

MiniSiteGallery.com is powered by WordPress, both the gallery and the blog. And recently WordPress released another new version, the 2.5.

There a lot of new improvements in WordPress 2.5, including nicer, more intuitive interface. But that’s not why I upgraded. You see, you need to follow with the currently supported version, with any software you use, especially if your business depends on it.

Upgrading to a new version can be a hassle. I was worried about plug-in compatibility. I have a few plug-ins that I use right now that is critical to make MiniSiteGallery to what it is right now. You may recognize some of them like the submission form, the ratings,etc… But I thought I had to give it a go to really know what could go wrong.

After looking around for awhile, I remember that I installed my WordPress at MiniSiteGallery.com using DreamHost’s One-Click Install. Yep, we are one DreamHost, an excellent web hosting if you ask me. So I looked back at my control panel if there anything like a One-Click Upgrade…

What do you know? They do!

It’s not really called One-Click Upgrade though.. I just came up with that. It’s an option you have under the One-Click Install. Just to let you know, the upgrade service will not work if you installed the software yourself. If you installed things yourself, you can’t use upgrade service.

All that I had to do was click the upgrade button, and my WordPress was upgraded. I even got an email saying that my WordPress was upgraded, with a little instruction about a one-time database upgrade that I need to do. Even that was dead simple. All that I had to do to make sure the database is upgraded for the new 2.5 version is to run the Admin panel once and it’s all done.

And now, I am glad to announce that MiniSiteGallery.com is upgraded to WordPress 2.5.

So if you are planning on putting up a WordPress blog, then consider DreamHost. It’s WordPress-friendly. Even the one-click install is fun. Your WordPress comes pre-installed with a number of themes and necessary plugins. I can recall when I was installing one for MiniSiteGallery.com.

In case you are wondering what I am talking about, launching MiniSiteGallery.com about one and half month ago, I announced a mini-site design contest. It’s a way for me to get more mini-site templates into the gallery. The contest attracted 12 new mini-site templates from 11 designers. Not bad to start a gallery. Together with my own templates, there are 14 mini-site templates that you can download and use for free.

For the contest, I leave it all to the website visitors to decide the winner. And Luvlee is the clear winner.

I also would like to take this opportunity to thank…

• my sponsors
  • Viral Sales Generator (from Peter Koning)
  • WP Affiliate Guide (from Teli Adlams)
  • 30-Minute Backlinks (from 30-Minute Backlinks)
• all the participants
• all the voters
• all MiniSiteGallery.com’s members
• all the template downloaders
• all the commenters
• webmasters and bloggers who mentioned and blogged about MiniSiteGallery.com
• …and you

By the way, I also would like to mention a few mini-site templates, that are in my opinion, also very awesome. Do check out:

• Frame by Zaizen
• Go Blue by Renee
• Go Green by Renee
• iPod 2.0 by Apple-Man (includes e-cover action script)
• Biz Blue by TonyChel

Many have been asking me if there’s another contest. This contest that I did was a special launch event. I don’t know about the future. I have been thinking doing a smaller prize monthly contest. But as of now, it’s in the plan. I will definitely let you know about any changes. As for now, there’s no contest.

But if you have a talent in web design, I hope you will still submit your mini-site templates for others to use. I am sure you will get good exposure and traffic from your submission. And also, consider it as your generous action in giving back to the community.

If you would like to check out the winner’s website:

Luvlee
Her website - http://www.cheapest-design.com/
Her template - Blue Wave

If you don’t know about this, FreelanceSwitch.com is website for freelancers. They have a forum, a blog with awesome content, resources and recently, they released a book about freelancing. The title is How To Be A Rockstar Freelancer. If you are web designer, web developer, graphic designer, etc, you may want to check this website out.

But anyway, back to the book, I am sure the book is great. Honestly, I haven’t read it yet, but this post is not about that… It’s about how well they are selling it from their website. Before I get on with my comments and critiques, I don’t know how well (or how bad) they are selling the book, but at any level, I am sure they can improve.

Let me show you what I mean…

As you can see, I have highlighted four areas (five, one more at a screen shot below).

Let me take you through each part.

Number 1. That is supposed to be the headline. But all that you see is “Book”. That is not good enough. In fact, that’s bad because. You can have a poor headline, and I will say it’s not good enough. This is not even a headline. I am not a copywriting guru, but a headline is supposed to attract readers to read more of your content. “Book” doesn’t really tell you anything, and it sure doesn’t attract you to read more. When they don’t read more, they leave… no sale.

I think the book title is good enough for a headline. They should at least use the book’s title as the headline. If it reads, “How To Be A Rockstar Freelancer”, it’ll be a lot better.

Number 2. Here’s the opening line. It starts with “Covering everything from getting started to expanding your business…” Here’s my comment - can you be specific? Everything is not specific.

You may not think so. You assume that many things are self-explanatory and you don’t need to explain everything. You are wrong. People like to know the details, especially if it helps in making decisions.

Think about the benefits of the book to freelancers. When I say specific and benefits, I mean something like, “be more efficient”, “get more work done”, “get more clients”, “get your clients to happily pay more for your work”, “make more money with no extra work”, etc…

And Freelance Switch can at least start by identifying their website visitors with something like, “If you are freelancer…” or maybe “If you are web designer, web developer or a graphic artist…” You see, when you are identifying and qualifying your prospect, they open up to you for the person you address them as. You see, a person can be a lot of things, a designers, a spouse, a car driver, a father, a man, a woman… which one are you talking to?

Number 3. They have a great design for their book cover. But it doesn’t look like a book. What is that? Is that a DVD? Is that a chocolate box? Is that an audio CD? Is that a video tutorial? What they should have is an image of the physical book. They can easily do this with an ebook cover software. With an image of the physical product, visitors immediately understand that the product is a book.

Number 4. Here they have a little section about other titles that they have. Here’s my opinion - it’s distracting. And worse, that other book is not even out yet. Imagine this, you own a showroom selling BMWs and you put ads about Mercs in your showroom together with all the cars. You are not Amazon here. You don’t need to make recommendations. And even if you want to, make the recommendation when customers are checking out… it’ll be something like, “By the way, do you want to get this book too…”

That area on the right can be used to display technical details about the book. You know, how many pages, weight, size, ISBN number, price…

Now here’s about Number 5. Another distracting factor…

It’s all these affiliate information and banners. When it comes to direct response marketing, a single web page should have only one objective. In this case, which are you trying to achieve? Do you want to sell your book or do you want to recruit affiliates?

I think it should be the objective of this particular page to sell. What they should have is a button that clearly says, “Get This Book Now”. So they should remove information about the affiliate program. If you want to get affiliates, just have a link saying, “Become An Affiliate” and put all the info on another page.

FURTHER COMMENT…

I pity their affiliates. I don’t think that their affiliates can sell the ebook well with this website. Unless the affiliate is doing a really good job at reviewing the book or providing extra bonuses, I don’t think s/he will get much sale. Especially if they just slap the banner on their sites.

Provide More Information

The website also needs to have more information about the content of the book. That one paragraph below “Book” (my Number 2 comment) is the only information they can get about the book from that website. They didn’t sell on the benefits, no bullet points, they didn’t sell the on the authors, no testimonials, they could’ve done a lot more things. They could have provided more information…

With more information, visitors can make a better decision. It’s OK if a visitor decides no. When you get a visitor to decide no, you get a lot more to decide yes. But when you send your visitors to an “undecided” situation… guess what? Yes - no sales. In fact, sales lost.

No Call To Action

A call to action is critical. Visitors need to be told what to do. All that I see is two images with the word “Purchase”. Each image represents two different format of the book, PDF and physical. I said about this earlier, my recommendation is to have a banner which says something like “Get The Book Now”. And below that banner, you can have the format options. But instead of putting the format options one on top of the other, they should put it side by side.

Affiliate Program - What About The Physical Version?

Here’s a thought. I look at their format options, you can buy the PDF or the physical book. But their affiliate program is managed by e-Junkie.com (which manages the PDF sales and affiliate program) while their physical version is being sold via Lulu.com.

Here’s the million dollar question - If you, as an affiliate, send over a visitor and the visitor buys the physical version, do you still get credited? I think not. It’s not really fair to affiliates. I remember one time ago, before ClickBank starts accepting Paypal payments, some vendors put both the Paypal link and the ClickBank link on their website, which upsets quite a number of affiliates because they won’t be credited when customers pay using Paypal.

Where’s The Reviews, Testimonials?

It would be a better web page if they have some reviews or testimonials. Being a very well-known blog/website for freelancers, I am sure it’s not that difficult to get some really good reviews for the book. If it was me, I’d contact some really well-known authors, designers and programmers out there and get them to give a review.

They can even start contacting their customers (advertisers) and give them a free copy for a good review. I am sure they’ll get really good reviews from those. From the top of my head, I am also thinking Steve Krug (author for Don’t Make Me Think), Matt Mullenweg (lead developer of WordPress.org), etc…

Good reviews and testimonials can definitely persuade visitors to get the book.

WHAT FREELANCESWITCH.COM DID RIGHT…

They do have a good design. Not the common mini-sites that you normally see from ClickBank vendors. I am sure the team at Freelance Switch consists of a number really talented designers. So I give them credit for the good design.

Another good thing is that they are using the same theme from their website to sell the book. Same design, same theme. This is good because existing followers, readers, subscribers, members will immediately be sold on Freelance Switch’s brand and reputation. It’s just that new visitors who are not familiar with Freelance Switch, may not get it. Again, pity the affiliates.

Another good thing they did is that they give away a few chapters for visitors to download for free. At least visitors can check them out.

SOME GOOD EXAMPLES…

Before I end this, let’s take a look at how other people sell books online. Examples from those I like. No, I am not going to take any examples from ClickBank. Let’s see how programmers, web designers sell books.

I have always like SitePoint.com. SitePoint.com has a number of books and they always get it right with every title. Let’s take a look at one of their earliest book/kit.

The Web Design Business Kit by SitePoint.com
http://www.sitepoint.com/kits/freelance2/

First of all, you see the kit. You see how it looks like. And you immediately understand that this is home study kit.

Further down, you get all the information you need to make a decision. They sell on the author, there are testimonials, there are technical infos (pages, ISBN, price, etc), free preview with sample chapter download, overview of content while selling on the benefits, bullet points, the gist of the guide (see philosophy), money-back guarantee, etc…

And you also see that they don’t cross-promote any of their other books on this page. There’s no info about other books and no affiliate information.

Let’s look at another…

Getting Real by 37signals
http://gettingreal.37signals.com

As you can see, 37 Signal immediately identify with their visitors in the headline. The headline reads, “Discover the smarter, faster, easier way to build web-based application. A book by 37signals.” You immediately get it, this is for those who build web-based applications. It’s not for designers, it’s not for freelancers, etc… And there’s a photo of a book on the right, you know that it’s a book.

Though being short, you get a good amount of information whether to get it or not. You learn about who 37signals are, you get to know what the book is about, you read about some buzz (media exposure) and also some information on who should and should not get the book…

There you… I think with all three websites I should you (yes, including Rockstar Freelancer), you will start to see a better design for selling books (or ebooks), more suitable for the Web 2.0 age.

All the best…

Hmm … is Freelance Switch gonna take notice of this?

DIYeBookCover.com is the first sales letter mini-site. It’s a great example how I use mini-sites to make money online - by selling products.

My first actual website is a content mini-site about computer cases. Then, I tried my hands on list building by putting together a long sales letter squeeze page. Yep, a sales letter just to get people into my mailing list. That was MoneyClicking.net, which is now my blog.

Then later, I created my first product - DIYeBookCover.com.

Back then, DIYeBookCover.com was a set of videos on how to create your own ebook cover using Photoshop Elements 2. And not too long after that, Adobe came up with Elements 3, and then 4. That’s when I stop selling DIYeBookCover.com. I felt that my videos were too outdated.

Anyway, a few months back, I thought I’d repackage DIY eBook Cover with some Photoshop Action scripts and start selling them again. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a set of instructions and commands that you can install in your Photoshop. I recorded all the steps needed to create a bunch of e-cover graphics, and now I am selling them as Photoshop Action scripts.

You can use this script and with just a few mouse clicks, you’ll a nice looking e-cover to represent your product. It’s just a simple 3-step process. Step 1, open the template layout file. Step 2, run the render action script to create your e-cover. Step 3, save it as web graphic.

It’s that easy.

With the new DIY eBook Cover, you can choose to represent your product online in 51 different ways. You can choose e-cover designs ranging from CDs, DVDs, books, ring binders, software box, even iPod and PDA and more…

Apart from that, I also maintain a few of the components from the original DIY eBook Cover. Customers will also get the eBook Layout Strategy Videos and also 51 eBook Cover Templates to get them started.

If you need great looking e-covers, you better check it out now…

[+] http://www.DIYeBookCover.com

In general, I consider mini-site as a website that is easy and simple in structure and very narrow (probably deep) in topic.

1 - Sales Letter Mini-Site

This is normally a simple 1-page website (not including download page, support page, etc). It contains a direct response sales copy convincing the website visitors to buy a product.

I am sure you’ve seen a lot of these. You can go to any websites from the ClickBank Marketplace and 99% of them are Sales Letter Mini Sites.

Whatever you do online, ultimately you want to have your own product. You make more money that way. And when you do, this is the type of website you want to have.

2 - Content Mini-Site

Some people build website to generate income from advertising programs like AdSense. These are the type of people that are very good and fast at writing articles. If you are somebody like that, you can consider building Content Mini-Sites.

A Content Mini-Site is a website that is very simple in structure and contain information on a very tight niche topic. I have always pictured Content Mini-Sites as a site with 10 to 50 articles. But I have seen marketers building a 200-page Content Mini-Site.

With Content Mini-Site, your objective is to achieve a steady stream of traffic from the search engine. With traffic like that, you can easily monetize with Adsense or maybe related affiliate programs. You can also try putting advertisement to small reports you own, those you write yourself or even from private label rights.

3 - Squeeze Page Mini-Site

A Squeeze Page Mini-Site has one clear objective - to generate leads.

What do you do with leads? Sell to them of course. If you are not very familiar with the concept, you may be wondering why you want to do this. Some products may require further convincing. Therefore, with a squeeze page, you can put your prospects into a sequential email system (autoresponder) and keep contacting them automatically day after day.

Plus, when you save your prospects’ contact details, you can contact them again when you have other products to sell. Those other products can be your own or other people’s where you have set a commission arrangement with. The simplest form of such arrangement is an affiliate program.

The structure of a squeeze page is simple. It contains information about your offer and a sign-up form for website visitors to take up on your offer.

And the offer could be in the form of information (reports, ebooks, CDs, etc) or sign-up for a newsletter or ezine.

Putting up a squeeze page is good way to get started online. You can create a simple report about something, and then start offering it for free. They would have to sign-up to your autoresponder first, of course.

And then, you can work on making your first sale in the email you send to your subscribers.

4 - Landing Page Mini-Site

Unlike Content Mini-Sites, a landing page Mini-Site does not have as many pages. The objective of a Landing Page mini-site is to pre-sell and then redirect the traffic to the website that you are promoting.

Both affiliates and merchants use this. If you are a merchant and you sell mobile phones, you may need to create different landing page for different models and brands. You do this because when you drive traffic, especially using pay-per-click advertising, you segment your traffic effort in models and brand.

You don’t want people who are searching for a Nokia N95 to just arrive at a general Nokia product page. Even worse, just a Nokia page. You want those who search for Nokia N95 to arrive at a page about Nokia N95. And those searching for a Motorola MotoRazr to arrive at a page specifically about that model. Once they are the, you can later redirect them to the actual product page.

As an affiliate, you may also use this technique. But there’s also a technique where you review and recommend products to your website visitors. As an example, you may create a landing page where you write your personal experience using an anti-virus software. And later down your story you can compare the software with 3 other similar products. You can strongly recommend one product, or you can recommend all three. Of course you are affiliated with all three.

Remember that I said Landing Page Mini-Site is about redirecting traffic. With a landing page, you always want to see how many traffic you get versus how many really proceed to the next page you want them to go to.

When creating mini-sites, most of the times your mini-site is just a static HTML web page (no fancy content management or dynamically update content). In some mini-sites, you may not be selling something at all.

You could be creating a landing page for affiliate programs, a special web page with video, a special ebook download page, etc…

In the past few days, I created a mini-site, with only a few pages. Each page has a video that I created with Camtasia. And I wanted to know what people think of the video. So I thought that I should add a commenting system to the pages.

When you run a blog, you have the commenting system built-in. But with a static page, how do you add a commenting system to it.

I needed that. So I search around looking for a commenting system.

And I found a great one by GentleSource.com

Check it out - http://www.gentlesource.com/comment-script/

What I like about it is that it’s packed with features. You can set it up with Akismet (Wordpress’ anti-spam system), Captcha image, IP blocking, flood protection, Text Link Ads integration, word filter and many more.

One feature that I hope they add later is AJAX commenting. With AJAX, perhaps the page doesn’t have to load everytime you add a comment. AJAX commenting is something that you see at YouTube.com. You see that you can add a comment, but the video does not reload.

Perhaps I will do another post later explaining what AJAX is all about and how you can use them in your online marketing.

After giving it some thought, I really feel that we need a forum that talks all about mini-sites. I hope you feel that same way, and help me out with this. A forum is not a forum when it doesn’t have members participating, discussing, debating about topics.

I started one thread, asking members about what they think with me adding this forum. Why don’t you step in and tell me what you think.

You know what, I remember a book I need to read. It’s by Patrick O’keefe (who is a *really* accomplished entrepreneur and webmaster). It’s all about starting, marketing, running a forum. I’ll be reviewing this book soon (plus reading it for my own projects). Just thought I’d share this for now.