Ok so lately my goal has been to get my 2 backends (developerhut.com’s customer system and then my main e-com site that links all the e-com sites together) done before Oct 1st. There is no real reason why I set that date, but I figured that is about how long it will take me to get the final tweaks done so I am now telling myself that I need to get all the stuff below done before that date.

What I have been working on:

Developerhut.com Backend: The backend is almost done and the current version is running so smooth with little errors. The backend’s old outdated php code has almost been 100% replaced, and I am currently just been working on adding statistics and more options to edit customers orders and making it very easy someone with basic computer skills to manage the site. Right now I am still using myphpadmin a lot for looking at orders and sometimes editing them, I hope to be using my own backend 100% before Oct 1st.

Main site: This main site is the website that links all the e-com sites together. Now when I say “links” what I mean is that the site basically pulls up all of the e-commerces sites database info so my drop shippers can easily access that info, and that I can easily view stats and see what needs improving and what not. It has been very helpful for me to set this up, having just 1 place to view all of your e-com stats is great!

Today I went and talked to my accountant, I had him go over my backend and see if he could suggest any changes, well I have a whole new to-do list now, but after thats done then then that backend should be pretty much done.

Getting a building: I have been looking into this for sometime now, but lately I have been researching it even more. The main reason for me wanting to get my own warehouse is because I could then hire someone part time for support, which would take so much work off my hands. I could then move a few of my products in-house, which would literally increase my profit margin by 20% for the products (right now that product is at 70% profit margin after adwords spending). I am also paying one of my drop shippers something like 400-600$ in just drop ship fee’s, some drop shippers charge a fee to ship your goods, but that fee is really starting to add up and I rather use that money to hire my own packager.

My plan is to hire someone for customer support and train them for that. However I would also need them to do packaging and returns until I get enough volume to need someone strictly part time for that. So I would be hiring someone part time, and about 10 hours of the week they would be doing support work and the other 10 would be doing packaging. It would cost me about 800-900$ a month after all of the taxes, workers comp, etc. And if I move the product in-house that required the drop ship fee then that means I would only be spending 400-500$ more for someone part-time (500$ or so in drop ship fee’s – 900$ or so for monthly employee cost), and that would help me out sooo much.

So as you can see I have been researching and going over the numbers a lot lately. The only thing that is holding me back is that my current system/backend is not were I want it to be, but trust me, after Oct 1st everything will be and that is when I will be really looking for a office.

…Ok im done writing for today, I need to get back to support work. I will be writing a post on USPS api soon, hopefully some of you programmers that read this blog will chime in then thanks for reading.

Man what a week! I have been working hard this week, and I have lots more work to come. The last 2 months I have been thinking of taking one of the products I am pushing and start selling the products myself instead of using the drop ship method (which I have been using forever). That has been keeping me motivated to work hard and get shit done so I can move onto that stage of the business.

Right now, as you all know, I use SEO to rank sites and then I sell shit on them. I focus on low traffic and low competition niches. Right now I have 3 main drop ship sites and then like 7 or so little guys (like survivormanfans.com). The 2 products I am looking to move in-house will need at least 1 person part time just for shipping/returns because I probably sell 20-30 units a day, and I am expecting to triple that once I get the term on the first page of google (for the terms I am currently working on).

I will also need to hire someone for support, its getting a little out of hand, right now all I do is support and not enough of the real business stuff. My main problem with this is that I want to micromanage everything, I am a perfectionist and a little OCD and I get frustrated when shit is not going right (happens daily). I did hire someone in-house for support, but she didn’t know SEO so I basically ended up doing all of the support. I then got on freelance and hired a call center company to manage the phone and email support, I then made a script which would let the call center forward me the emails that they didnt know the answer to, well guess what happened…. they forwarded me ALL of the support emails. They did that for 2 weeks so I said fuck it.

So the support work is back to me, what I need to do is hire someone that knows the basics of SEO and have them in-house, that way I can train them on how I want it ran. But to get to that point my backend needs to be working good and the backend needs to be able to manage every aspect of the business. I need it so that I can work just fine from my laptop, but right now I am still using myphpadmin a lot to get certain orders. I have been busy updating that code and getting it all sorted out so I don’t need myphpadmin anymore.

I have also been updating the sites order pages and making it very easy for customers to find information about the products, I had my content writer make up very detailed instructions on each product, you can see that info here. To goal is to cut down on some of the customer support for that site.

I also got my other e-commerce sites PCI compliant and I will now be working on getting developerhuts code all secure this week, its gonna be a lot of work because of all the small mistakes, but after I get that done then I dont need to do it again heh.

And I also launched a new product called “Sales Letter Posting“. Basically, my forum writers will take a sales letter (either written by you or my writer) and post it on related forums to your niche. No one else offers this product, only me. I use this all the time so that is the main reason why I wanted to make it a product, just last week when we did a test run, I had them post a sales letter on 5 niche related forums which cost me like $25 (your price), I made $375 that day from posting the sales letters on only 5 forums. Its a great product and I know a lot of people that can use it, if you are interested in helping us test and get all the tweaks out then let me know.

Throughout this week I will be tweaking that product, along with updating developerhut’s code, adding another e-commerce site, adding 5 new products to an existing e-commerce site, and researching hiring a packager and someone for customer support…. lots of work….. has anyone here set up a warehouse, know any good resources?

Whoa its been a week! I have never been around an accidental discharge of a firearm before till now, luckily it wasn’t me who did it. My roommate came home drunk on Monday night and was showing off one of his guns to his buddy, bad idea when your drunk, and even worse for some reason he kept his .357 S&W revolver loaded.

I am not 100% sure on the details, but apparently my roommate was showing off his gun and it went off when he was showing it. I have no clue why he kept it loaded or why he would pull the hammer back on it. I was downstairs playing Call Of Duty 5 and hear a F’in loud noise, I pretty much knew what it was and ran upstairs, no one was hurt but it did leave a hole in my wall. Thank god he shot the area that has like 3-5 studs right above the window, it hit a stud and didnt hit the neighbors house. For some reason no one called the cops.

So yeah everyone is ok, but I am now down one roommate heh. He now moves out on this coming Monday. Firearm safety isn’t something I fuck with. Learn from his mistakes and don’t keep loaded weapons.

Below is the picture of the bullet hole, he tried to repair it before I woke up the next day (I was to pissed to talk to him that night about it). I have to cut out that and check to see if it hit anything important, and then re-drywall it…. this has been the 6th hole in my drywall caused by friends of mine lol, Im getting better at repairing them

(he used the wrong paint color)

I uploaded my current to-do list I am working on. I thought some of you might be curious on what actually is on my to-do list. I usually have a good idea of what I need to complete in my head, but all of my random tasks that I need done I write in an email and then email it to myself so I can print it off whenever and start working on it. If you can read some of the tasks you can see that I am currently just making updates to my websites, mostly updating bad code or content or updating some feature to be more efficient.

The “P” mean that I sent that off for my writer to re do. Most articles of mine are written by me and then my content writer edits them, and adds lots more content, I just send her a basic outline of what the article needs done. Also, BTW I know my handwriting is horrible haha.

I should have all of the shit done this week, remeber that I do the below while still doing customer support, marketing, and inventory. Busy busy.

This is a blog post to remind all of you that don’t currently have a error log page set up to do so ASAP! My error log is the first thing I check in the mornings, when I first wake up I check my error logs (all 10 of them) and see if there has been any new errors, if there are errors I fix them.

Correcting your errors is very important to keep your website well maintained and on the right track for success (duh). If you have multiple websites like I do I highly suggest setting up some kinda of way to track your errors. I have it set up so all my errors go into one logs folder were I have like 25 different txt files with the errors in them, you can use the code below on your .htaccess file.

# enable PHP error logging

php_value error_log /home/your_folder/public_html/logs/your_website_errors.log

Again, if you have multiple websites and you are not currently tracking your errors then I highly suggest you spend the 10 minutes it will take you to set it up, it will be well worth it in the long run.

Latley I have been adding a ton of updates to the main website I use to link all my projects together (e-com and leads) to one place to better keep track of stats including keywords, conversion rates, adwords spending, product earnings, plus much much more.

Well today I added a feature so I can easily add and track my expenses. Last week I paid someone to build me a efficient script to check my earnings using arrays. After he finished the script I modded it so I can view all of my products and projects by any custom date (you can see the chart in the image below). Now I have a way to track all of my expense in any custom date range I set, which will help me cut costs and keep profit margins up (the profit margin is what I focus my attention on).

I have been using this website and all of these scripts to help me increase my earnings and efficiency, so far it has been working great. Within the last month I have increased my main profit margin (all projects combined) 5% by cutting costs and talking with drop shippers and freelancers to cut costs somehow.

I highly suggest you to make something like this. But I am curious on how everyone else is tracking all of this critical data?

(click image to view full size one silly)

Let me know if you have any suggestions, I’m always down for criticism.

I have a small tip for some of you that has been useful for me. If you run an e-commerce site or even a community you should be collecting them email address (how many times have I said this before). To be frank, return customers and email marketing is a huge part of my e-commerce revenues. I helped automate the process by creating a simply email that will be sent out on certain time frames.

On my own projects I have a few different emails being sent out, depending your niche it varies. I send out the following emails:

Right after ordering = Email sent with receipt and discount codes

1 day after orders = A Thank you email with customers receipt and more discount codes

5 days after order = I send an email saying thanks again for the order and it has been shipped (or hasn’t) depending on what my database says. The emails are ‘dynamic’ to look customized for the customer.

When order is completed or order sent out = Once an order is sent out the customers get another email.

15 days after ordering = 15 days after the customer first makes there order I send the final email asking for a review of the website.

All of those emails have a professionally written sales letter to try to push more products to the customer. The emails are set up to help create a relationship between me and the customer, since I sent them so many emails then my website will feel more legit (and more trustworthy to buy from). A lot of company’s do this, and I love it.

Its very easy to create these emails, simply go to digitalpoint or sitepoint and hire a content writer to write you up a converting sales letter (a different one for each email) and then have you host set you up a cron page that will send these emails out.

Even if the above method could only make you an extra $100 dollars… well then thats an easy $100 dollars a month, its a set and forget thing (just dont forget to update your sales letters).

I wanted to make a small blog post about some of the important things that are missed on websites. The below were on my mind at the time of writing this.

1. Term/Privacy Policy Pages
I have a good story about this one, I actually had a product that was being kicked from adwords on a weekly basis for some random reason, well I added the terms and privacy policy page along with updating my footer on some of the websites basics terms and I haven’t been kicked since.

It appears to me that adwords requires the terms/contact us/privacy pages along with the footer info on certain niches, I am thinking that they look for these pages also for seo websites. A “terms” or “privacy policy” is always a must when creating a website, not only does it look better for google (looks like a complete trustworthy website) but also for your customer. Dont forget it.

2. Contact Us & Sitemap Pages
A lot of people forget these pages, especially on content websites. However these pages are very important. Having a contact page makes your website look more professional for anyone who looks at it. A sitemap is great for SEO. Don’t forget these pages the next time you set up your niche wordpress site with some basic niche articles. You will regret it.

3. Titles In Da Links
<a href=”" title=”dont forget this, a plus for seo”>
Use the title in your links, like the example above, it helps.

4. Fresh Content
Are you too lazy to set up a content writing schedule were you should write a certain amount of articles a month? Oh wait you are? Well then go to sitepoint.com and/or digitalpoint.com and find yourself a content writer and set up a deal were he or she will write a 250 word article for you every week for a certain website.

So if you have 8 content website that means that you will order 8x 250 word articles every week, which gives your content sites fresh content. I use this method, I just have it automated at developerhut.com (the same feature is available to you, just create a monthly link package and only order content articles).

5. Source Of Revenue
I am not sure if this belongs in here, but screw it… its going in.

I know from experience that you can wonder off and start building a website that will never make money. It might have been a good idea at the time, but I have learned that if I just sit back and think on how I will make money later on, then I wont build so many worthless content websites. Now I focus on making websites on niches at which I can sell something in. I suggest that you take one step back and think about were the revenue will be coming from BEFORE you build the website… not after like I have done a few times.

6. Dont Use “Links”
Having a “links page” is sooo 1998 AD. They are now called “Resources” or “partners” or “sponsors”… get the point? Google does not like link exchanges, that is called “helping your websites placement in google”, and they dont like that. So use different names when naming your link exchange page, because using them is still a good idea.

7. Only Link Related Websites
I have never proven if google de-ranked sites based on in-links. However I do know from experience that they de-rank sites based on links within the website. So having links only related to your websites niche is a must, and also be careful for bad websites such as myspace sites, video sites, funny sites, or any other website that is a dime a dozen.

8. Get Them Emails!
Its simple… if you have a website, you should be collecting email address for it somehow. I prefer to use tools *cough free ping tool. But you can use a simple “enter your email” textbox. Its no big deal as long as you grab that email.

Ehlo mates! Sorry about the lack of updates but boy have I been busy. Lately I have been updating and adding on upgrades to my current scripts to make business go smoother. I have learned in my short time of doing e-commerce (since 2006) that efficiency is what makes you the money, the more efficient you can create sales and ship off orders, the more money you will make. Since last August I have been focuses on creating a system were I can manage all of web projects accurately so I can use those statistics for something useful.

I didn’t know php that well back then so I had to start from scratch basically, I first worked on developerhut.com making managing orders very easy for the customers, writers, and me. During that time I have added a TON of add-on’s which include a very detailed statistics page, a integrated support ticket and support note system, added Google Checkout and Credit Cards, and even have about 20 crons running every night that manage all of the orders and accounting. That website is just now starting to look like it will be getting done soon, but I still have a lot more work to do on it.

Since I leaned most of the basics of php from coding developerhut.com backend I have working my way up by making a whole e-commerce website in my own code. That includes the order system and order managing system, automated customer notifications, and even some automated marketing scripts. I want to use this set up for all of my other e-commerce websites and all of my future e-commerce websites, since I would only need to make one backend system and make it link into one main website (which I will get to later) and then I can easily make more niche e-commerce websites decently easy. Right now I am still finishing off the code so I can start the backend system on another website soon (like in the next day or two), the only big thing I am working on now is the PCI compliant tests (surprise surprise I didnt pass, need to fix my code).

Now on to my favourite project… the last 2-3 month I have been working on a main website that links all of web projects together. I made the site so that all of my drop shippers and private lead offer people can easily login and do there shit. I then added a system that shows me all of my stats for all of my web projects. This website has already been extremely valuable because of the information it has given me so I can tweak marketing campaigns. At this time I only have 3 of my projects linked on that website, but someday I will have them all linked up and that will make things very easy to manage, but there is a lot of work ahead of my to get there.

Lately I have been finishing up the e-commerce backend along with updating a lot of bad code on developerhut.com. I have also just barley started a private lead offer, and I am using my own affiliate backend for that, I created a backend that tracks all of the basic info you need for adwords campaigns, it tracks the keywords, ip, and refer page. I can view all of that info on the main website thingy I was talking about. Lately I can add on more shit as I get better at php, but this new system gives me a good platform to work on and improve for later projects. In about a week I hope to have this system on the only 2 lead offers I am running, and then after that move it on to my e-commerce websites. Since I dont make my money from my lead offers I can test it out on them haha.

For some reason I love building systems to make things easier, too much Civilization 3 maybe? But anyways, here is another small blog update with horrible grammar, thanks for reading

Optimizing a website so it’s found in the search engines is a challenging task. For most website owners, it’s useful to look into hiring SEO specialists to help your site get indexed quickly. Provided your site converts into sales or advertising revenues, the cost of an SEO company will pay for itself when your site starts receiving some traffic. If you’re more of the do-it-yourself type, however, there are a number of ways to use online content to improve your site’s positioning in the search engines.

The key to using content for search engine optimization is to use the strategies consistently. They simply will not be effectively if you try them once or twice and then sit back and wait for traffic to come to your site (you’ll be waiting a really long time!) Instead, make it a point to incorporate these strategies into your routine in order to receive good results.

Let Other People Reprint Articles You Write

Have you heard of article directories? These are websites that allow people to submit their articles to be published on their “directory”; and that allow other website owners and newsletter publishers to browse the submitted articles for content they would like to reprint. If you run a website about starting a small business, you might write articles having to do with starting a business or business organization. People who browse the article directories where you submit the articles who also run websites on business topics may decide you wrote a great article and they may want to reprint it. When other websites reprint your articles, they are required to include your author byline – which you would create when you submit your articles to the directories, and include a link or two to your website.

Having a link on these articles that point to your main website offers a number of SEO advantages. First of all, most search engines consider the number of incoming links a website has in their formula for positioning sites in the search results. When you publish an article to an article directory – you receive your first incoming link for that article. Each time another website reprints the article online, you receive another incoming links.

The other benefit of incoming links from article directories and websites that reprint your content is that they are coming from websites that are catering to the same target market that you are. Only websites that are in the same industry would want to reprint your articles, and therefore you have an increased potential of readers clicking your link to visit your site and learn more about the topic.

Provide Content for Other Websites, Blogs, and Newsletters

Another method of getting your website link in front of the people most likely to click it and be interested in what you have to offer is to write articles for websites, blogs and newsletters that have readers in the same target market. Contact a few sites in your industry and offer to write an article on a topic you know their readers would be interested in, in exchange for a link back to your site in the author byline. You might be surprised how many people will jump at the chance for free, quality content and won’t mind giving you a link back.

Both of these strategies involve making use of online content to improve your search engine optimization. It won’t cost you anything other than your time (unless you outsource the writing to a freelance writer), but with consistent effort – the results are more than worth it!

Debbie Dragon is a freelance writer providing articles for Trace Media – an SEO New York company specializing in getting websites up, and making sure they perform to their full potential through the use of .