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Michael Cheney is launching a new product called Start Your Profits Today. This is a step by step process that will take you from nothing to having a fully functional, high profit potential site.

I have watched the videos and he really does take you from nothing no site, no list, absolutely nothing to getting your own site up and running. If you have been struggling, trying to decide what to do to get started then this is an ideal product for you. It truly aimed at the beginner. Which is why I am posting it here at Starting Steps, this is a good way to get started.

When I saw the videos I thought to myself that there is some stuff that I can add to this product to make it worth much, much more.

I decided to provide this information as a bonus when any one purchased Start Your Profits Today through my affiliate link and I started making videos and one thing lead to another and all of the sudden I ended up with 18 videos that cover such topics as:

• Comment Spam
• Ping Spam
• Search Engine Optimization
• Widgets
• Plugins
• Etc.

My bonus actually became a product of its own and it was created specifically as a followup to Michael’s product. It is not something I just happen to have laying around. It was created just for this bonus but the information provide is so valuable this will be it’s own product in the future.

If you would like to know more about my bonus for Michael Cheney’s Start Your Profits Today go to the site I set up for the bonus at:

Start Your Profits Today Plus!

If you already have a blog up and running then Michael’s new product isn’t for you but my bonus just might be. My bonus will become a product of it’s own in the near future with a price of either $67 or $97 but for right now you can only get it as a bonus for purchasing Start Your Profits Today through my affiliate link.

Before I tell you the secret of the proper layout for a squeeze page let me define squeeze page.

A squeeze page is a page that is designed for only one purpose and that is to “squeeze” a person into signing up to your list, usually with the promise of something of value in exchange like information or a gift. I have also heard them call capture pages, fly catcher pages and opt in pages.

Now if you have been around for awhile you have probably heard a number of things about squeeze pages, like:

• Keep them short – you want it all to fit in above the fold (where you see it all without scrolling)
• Make sure you use audio on your squeeze page
• You must have video on your squeeze page
• You need to have custom graphics on your squeeze page.

I will cover all these things in a minute but first I will tell you the most important thing you need to remember for your squeeze page. The only option the reader of the page will have on your squeeze page is to sign up to your list. That’s it! Remember a squeeze page only has one purpose and that is to get people on your list.

Now about all the things I listed above that you might have heard in your marketing education, forget all of them.

Yes, that is right I said forget all of them.

As far as keeping short the entry page to my Marketing Beginners site is basically a squeeze page and it is anything but short. I average about a 26% conversion ratio with that page that means one out of every four people that come to the page sign up.

If you want to put video on your squeeze page then put video on your squeeze page but test it with and without the video to see which converts better.

If you want audio or custom graphics on your squeeze page then put them on but again test it without and see which does better for you.

Just because a 10 page sales letter works as a squeeze page for me doesn’t mean it will for you.

Just because video works for Marketer X doesn’t mean it will work for you.

Hopefully you are seeing what I am getting at, if you aren’t then here it is for you:

TEST, TEST, TEST

That’s right test everything. For a squeeze page it isn’t that hard to create an account with Google Adwords and set up the analytics so that you can see how many people are coming to your squeeze page, where they are coming from and how many signed up to your list.

Once you are in there you can actually set up your squeeze page with the website optimizer and you will be able to run tests with and without audio, video, graphics or you can test different copy and it will do the analysis for you. Yes, you can do all of this for free.

The proper layout for a squeeze page is what ever works the best for you after you have tested your options!

It is as simple as that.

This has recently become a personal pet peeve of mine.

If you are selling something or providing a service you need to provide a way for a potential customer to contact you if they have a problem or question.

More important is that you need to have a responsive support system for your customers.

I had two incidents recently that I will recap for you and you tell me if this is the way you want a business you are thinking about becoming involved with to work.

I recently was told about a URL tracking service that was supposed to be the new best thing of free tracking services. So, I decided to check it out. I went and signed up and as I expected I was told I had to confirm my email address before I was provided access to the site. This is all normal and I don’t mind this one bit, I went and checked my email and the confirmation had not arrived yet. So, I spent a little while working on another site and came back to my email about an hour later, still no confirmation email. It was late so I said forget it and went to bed.

The next morning when I got up I did my usual routine of checking my email and still no confirmation email so I went to the site and tried to login. The response I got was, “Username/Password are incorrect. Please try again. Or your member status is waiting for approval”

OK, maybe I made a typo entering my email address, not very likely since I usually use saved data and an auto-filler to enter my information so I signed up again and it told me, “Please correct the following error: Your Email is already registered in our site.”

Since there wasn’t a typo in my signup and I had not received my confirmation email I looked for a link to send the confirmation email and I couldn’t find one.

Then I looked for a contact page or a link to support and guess what I couldn’t find one.

This is a site I was looking at to promote if the quality of the service was good but since I couldn’t test its service I just said forget it because I had already wasted enough time on the site.

But then in my email, later that day, I received an email from them that said this:

You are receiving this message because you are a valued member of (Removed by me). Removal instructions are below.

Hi Randy,

Congratulations and welcome to (Removed by me).

We know you’ve already received your login info when you joined yesterday, but we wanted to personally let you know that you’ve made a very, very wise decision by becoming a (Removed by me) client.

Then it went on some more finally ending in this:

To remove yourself from this list - you must delete your(Removed by me) account.

So, they are telling me that they are going to keep sending me email unless I log into an account that I can’t log into because I never received the confirmation email from their site and they have no contact information on the site. Plus they are telling me, “They know” I received information that I never received. At least this email gave me a way to maybe contact them by sending to the email address it came from but I haven’t received a response yet.

Remember this is a company that is supposed to be able to handle the technological needs of my tracking but they can’t even figure out how to set up a resend on the confirmation link or set up a support desk.

Would you want to do business with them?

Now on to number two. This is a product that I purchased but my access didn’t work to the product. Not an extremely expensive product but it was $197.00 and I couldn’t get to the download. They did have a support desk and I submitted a ticket, make that a number of tickets and I never did get access to the download so I requested a refund for the product I never received.

Guess what, I never received the refund and I never received the product. They kept telling me that it was a problem on my end. Now anybody that has know me for any length of time will tell you that if the problem is on my end I will fix it. I know for a fact the problem wasn’t on my end because I tried to get to the product from a number of different computers (Windows and Macs) with a number of different browsers and I never got to it. I wrote this off as another internet marketer that is more interested in their wallet then they are in their product or their customers.

But guess what that wasn’t the end of it just recently I was billed for annual support on the same product that I never received! Now this is just insulting. They did refund the support payment and gave me access to a downgraded version of what I purchased but so far I haven’t received access to the actual product I purchased.

So what is the major take away from this?

For me it is never do business with these two companies again.

For you it should be:

Make sure that prospective customers can contact you either through a contact form or a support site. If you don’t you might be losing customers and you could also be creating a bad reputation for yourself.

If a customer asks for a refund give it to them. What would you rather have another couple of bucks in your pocket with someone calling you names and blogging about how bad you are, or a customer that just might purchase from you again?