Creating more alcoholics

[Tengen]

Created this thread, then found this section that seems perfect to keep track of things and remain accountable.

To elaborate on what I wrote in the above thread, I've sent out links on Twitter, Facebook, a few forums and have reloaded my AdWords account which should be ready soon. Also been nervously clicking and refreshing all my analytics pages to see how many more people are checking my site out.

Current goal - Get at least 10 people to sign up for a free consult to determine market interest.

 

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[Tengen]

Adwords has bee running for a few days, impressions are happening but not many clickthroughs. It's only been a few days though, so will continue passive observation.

Also looking at a few wine sites that allow guest post submissions, planning to write up a few articles to get more eyeballs.

 

[Gale4rc]

Dammit... I was hoping for something about alcohol

 

[Cruor Vult]

Adwords can be real hard to get to work. Split testing, keyword research and all that. Make sure you keep track of the details, even if you're in the research phase. Get the most out of your money.

 

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[Tengen]

Just got an email saying some of my ads were disapproved due to punctuation and symbols and what not. Going to have to quickly edit and get them back up fast.

If anyone's interested in the details:

[Editorial Standards] Punctuation and symbols: Ads aren't allowed to have excessive or unnecessary punctuation or symbols such as the following:
- Exclamation mark in the ad's headline or more than one per ad
- Repeated punctuation or symbols (such as "!!!!free!!!")
- Characters that don't adhere to their true meaning (such as "4 sale" or "for $@le")
- Non-standard symbols (such as ~, *, and |) except in a company name or standard industry use (such as "5* hotel")

For more information and examples, visit https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/176095

https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/176095

 

[Cruor Vult]

Yep, just one of the many pitfalls and delays when using Adwords

 

[Tengen]

Got another request for consultation today, woot.

Adwords has also sent me a message about new "opportunities" to increase impressions and CTR, but after reading this thread about Google shenanigans, I think i'll just sit back and watch for the time being - I only just updated my ads to meet their grammatical standards.

 

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[Tengen]

My Adwords stats page seems to only update every 24 hours or something. Did some research and supposedly it should be more up to date, but maybe it's because of time zone differences.

EDIT - just noticed the small print at the bottom of the screen:

Reporting is not real-time. Clicks and impressions received in the last three hours may not be included here.
There is a 24-hour delay in conversion tracking reporting.

Impressions increasing pretty quickly, one campaign group seems to get more clicks than the other, but don't think the sample size is large enough yet to be statistically significant.

Submitted an article pitch to another pretty big wine website, waiting for a response. If they reject it I have another website in mind and have a good feeling they'll accept it because I submitted another article successfully there before.

Other than that, just trying to mentally chill and not be impatient. Went out, stocked up on beets and made some juice. Reading a few books on my Kobo to keep my mind buzzing.

 

[Tengen]

Not really a progress thing, but came across an article that makes me feel more justified in the path i'm taking despite the slow results

Men Fear Ridicule Over Ordering Wine

 

[Tengen]

After signing up to IMGrind (Thanks to Silverhawk for the heads-up) i've revamped my landing page according according to the tips i found.

I've got three Adwords campaigns going, each with around 10 ads with various keyword groups. Impressions are rising, CTRs are happening, but not many people actually going through with completing the questionnaire and emailing. Going to see if the revamp will have any effect.

A close friend of mine contacted me recently and we met up for drinks, he asked me more about what I was offering, so it was great to get potential customer feedback. Was also treated to his collection of Johnnie Walker and Caol Ila, always to have good friends who appreciate the finer things in life.

24-hour refresh time for Adwords stats is really annoying but nothing i can do, so have been spending more time at my local library reading and researching various things.

 

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[Tengen]

It could be my impatience getting to me, but so far i'm not getting the response I was expecting. Is it my landing page? Is it my adwords? is it my horrible contact form? I endeavoured to research about all of these today.

IMGrind has some really good info about adwords, especially by a guy there named andyblack. I've subscribed to his blog and newsletter, and if you want to check it out, it's here (specifically this is a post illustrating how adwords can be used)- http://www.andyblack.net/the-biggest-benefit-of-adwords/

After reading more into landing pages and exploring Wordpress a little more i discovered a technique where i could possibly set up multiple landing pages without them all appearing in the top menu bar. Yes, i'm a noob, but a guy's gotta start somewhere.

Finally, i fixed up my contact form - previously I had instructions to copy/paste a segment of text and then have the potential reader manually email it to me. Initially I thought this would be good enough for testing purposes, but after getting no response for a few days i wondered if this was too high a barrier - it's all about making the contact/ordering/buying experience as easy as possible, right? So I signed up for a free Wufoo account and cooked up a few forms, integrated it to Wordpress, and now it looks snazzy. I had to be creative because they only allow a maximum of 10 fields, but i think i got the important details there.

Also been reading through this thread, lots of great responses - https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/help-my-landing-page-is-not-converting

I've been warned before about "self-promoting" but if anyone is reading this i would appreciate any feedback on my landing page, contact form or whatever. You can find it here - http://www.rationalwine.com/personal-wine-consult/ (mods - if this is inappropriate please go ahead and remove)

On another note, getting damn chilly Down Under, probably a good time to pop open a nice Shiraz...

 

[mayana]

I'm no expert on landing pages, but I do have a couple quick suggestions.

* I'd rather not see the sidebar on your landing page. You don't want people to get distracted by all of the other stuff. You should be able to pick a full size template for your page in Wordpress, which wouldn't show the sidebar.

* Don't allow comments on this page (also a quick fix on your page options)

* Try to find a wine-related picture instead of the lady with the question marks. (As long as you give credit, you can find a lot of stuff on Flickr creative commons, among other websites. Or you could buy a picture.)

* It's probably best if you can shrink some of the whitespace at the top and move everything (header, etc) a little closer together.

* It seems like a darker font color, and maybe a bigger size would be in order.

These are just my suggestions, I'm sure someone else might have some more ideas for you.

Is this just for list building, or are you planning on offering some sort of premium service?

 

[Tengen]

I'm no expert on landing pages, but I do have a couple quick suggestions.

* I'd rather not see the sidebar on your landing page. You don't want people to get distracted by all of the other stuff. You should be able to pick a full size template for your page in Wordpress, which wouldn't show the sidebar.

* Don't allow comments on this page (also a quick fix on your page options)

* Try to find a wine-related picture instead of the lady with the question marks. (As long as you give credit, you can find a lot of stuff on Flickr creative commons, among other websites. Or you could buy a picture.)

* It's probably best if you can shrink some of the whitespace at the top and move everything (header, etc) a little closer together.

* It seems like a darker font color, and maybe a bigger size would be in order.

These are just my suggestions, I'm sure someone else might have some more ideas for you.

Is this just for list building, or are you planning on offering some sort of premium service?

Thank you for the feedback mayana, i was able to fix most of that in a few minutes. Just seem to have an issue with font sizing as it's dependent on the theme one uses. Also regarding the whitespace, that may necessitate a redesign of the header image, so will look into that.

To answer your question, i am both building a list and planning on offering a premium service in the future, just need to work out the viability and interest with further testing, but also offering an MVP to anyone who comes through. Definitely not my intention to use adwords just to buy traffic!

 

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[mayana]

Just seem to have an issue with font sizing as it's dependent on the theme one uses

You can change this in your CSS stylesheet. Some themes have a designated spot for custom css.

 

[Tengen]

You can change this in your CSS stylesheet. Some themes have a designated spot for custom css.

I don't want to mess with the backend stuff unless i really have to but i'll definitely look into it.

In the meantime, looks like there's a landing page plugin that could prove useful - http://wordpress.org/plugins/landing-pages/ [UPDATE: just tried installing this thing and almost crashed my site. Managed to delete it with an FTP tool, thank god]

Ultimately I want to create something similar in style to this - http://30daysofdiscipline.com/

Other than further tinkering and research, i've also submitted a guest post to a website which should be published within the week, hopefully driving some traffic to my site. Also touched base with a sommelier based in Japan of all places to perhaps write some articles for my blog. Guess we'll see what happens.

 

[Tengen]

Wordpress updated to 3.9.1 today, so decided to give the site-crashing landing page plugin another try (see above). Lo and behold it installs properly. I spend the next few hours tinkering and tailoring to see how everything fits together. I can't tell you how many hours i spend googling really specific crap when things didn't look 100% perfect (e.g. nRelate widgets in odd places, contact form formatting...)

Also installed their sister-plugins, call-to-action and leads, apparently they're supposed to work in synergy but I still haven't the faintest how all the pieces fit together - it's like giving a kid a lego set without the instructions. Just have to smash the pieces together and see what works.

Also reading more into Adwords advertising on IMGrind, holy crap those guys do not joke around. Here I am staring at my Adwords and Analytics stats like a stunned fish wondering what to make of everything, and there is all this gold information waiting for someone to use and put into action. I can only put my best foot forward and hope i'm up to the task.

 

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[Coriolis]

Hello Tengen

I did a little experiment. I am a web designer, but I've never had the opportunity to make a landing page, so I practiced with your site on photoshop. I think a page like this one may have to be more likely to convert.

I do it quickly so it is not perfect (colors, lines ...) but it can perhaps give you ideas.

 

[Tengen]

Hello Tengen

I did a little experiment. I am a web designer, but I've never had the opportunity to make a landing page, so I practiced with your site on photoshop. I think a page like this one may have to be more likely to convert.

I do it quickly so it is not perfect (colors, lines ...) but it can perhaps give you ideas.

View attachment 7353

Gosh that looks great, much better than what I have at the moment

I'm still playing around with the WP Landing Pages plugin and getting it to look like something similar, except that it's one column at the moment. The two-column design looks great, will definitely have another look.

This is what it looks like at the moment:



Got another consultation request, but if my analytics programs are right it came from this forum rather than from my Adwords campaigns so will need to factor it into the calculations later on.

Crap, just found out Wufoo is undergoing maintenance so my online form isn't showing at the moment

 

[Tengen]

Having a LOT of trouble with these WP plugins in regard to building landing pages and forms and whatnot, but i guess you get what you pay for (free/nothing).

Seriously considering getting some more domain names and using a tool like OptimizePress to make some landing pages, seems that was the tool used for the 30-days-of-discipline link i shared about (thank you Right-click + Inspect Element). One-time fee of $200-300 depending on your choice though.

Of course I am hesitant to throw more money into unexplored territory, but the consensus seems to be that it's part of the learning process (especially after reading this thread - I lost 70 Thousand in Advertising... )

Downloaded and will go through some videos regarding optimising AdWords campaigns.

Oh yea, and whoever it was that ordered a free consult, I sent you a reply earlier today. Hope you like what you see, and any feedback appreciated!

 

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[Tengen]

How the HELL have I not heard about Adwords Editor before now?

Was checking AndyBlack's video (specifically here) and was like watching a silent drama - for some reason the video has no audio but you can see the clicks and stuff in excel, and then magic happens when he uploads it via Adwords Editor. And to think i spent the best part of a day manually typing and copy/pasting links XD

It took me a while to figure out how to make things work because i'm on a Linux machine, and the program is designed for Windows/Mac, but managed to make it work using WINE, an emulator program not the beverage. I'm clicking through the program and i feel like i'm inside of a spaceship - no idea how to steer this thing, but very aware of the power it potentially has.

On a less dramatic note, added another testimonial to my landing pages after getting some positive feedback.

 

[Tengen]

Just popped up on my Twitter feed, more motivation to get this thing done.

 

[Tengen]

Had my call with JackEdwards and have a better idea of what to do:

• Fix up my landing pages/copywriting, make it longer and offer more value
• Prove myself in the local market first before thinking of expanding
• Keep an eye on key performance metrics in adwords
  
• Stop offering the MVP for free, get some cashflow to help pay for ads
• I have not spent a lot of money on this idea yet.

I'm appreciate Jack's endorsement/approval for what i'm aiming to do, that it's not just a drug-induced fantasy or impossible dream. Just need to consider all facets of the idea in detail and take action, make the right mistakes and learn from them.

 

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[Tengen]

Doing more research into landing page builders and tools, OptimizePress i mentioned a few posts back now seem to be offering a $97 option for 3 websites. I'll probably get right onto this very soon, but if anyone reading this is interested -> http://www.optimizepress.com/co-1/

My landing pages were sucking hard, and this was reaffirmed by my call with JackEdwards, so i figure it's best to get a pro option to clean things up.

As for stopping the "free" offer, seriously considering buying an annual plan with Wufoo, with payment integration included with their form builder. Looks like i'm reaching the stage where the costs are starting to add up the more seriously I'm taking this, but I haven't really spent much anyway (just AdWords for the time being). The time to take a leap of faith is coming soon...

 

[Coriolis]

You're right to build a page with OptmizePress, it will save time for a quality result!

 

[Tengen]

Three main things happening today. Firstly i bought OptimizePress and have integrated it into my site. Still going through the instructional videos and need to work with my webhost to fix a few things in order to get some templates working, but from what I've seen so far things are going to get awesome.

Second - my guest article finally hit on the website i submitted to and i got a record number of views on my blog. Bit of a ego/confidence boost.

Finally, i was privileged to have an informal Google hangouts session with andyblack, the google adwords maestro from IMGrind. He was gracious enough to take a look at my campaigns, walk me through what could be improved, and showed me a project he was working on that was infinitely better executed than mine.

I feel i'm starting to mount on the fast track, looking forward to the next few days...

 

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[Tengen]

My website was down for a few hours this morning, didn't get much of a response through official channels. Then I send a casual remark via Twitter and I get a response within 5 minutes and all is right again

To be honest I don't really approve of using social media as a complaint outlet, but with so many similar examples reported in the media that's the kind of message that's being sent - complain loudly enough and you'll be taken care of.

Still having trouble loading extra themes in OptimizePress, so sent them a ticket and hoping for a positive response soon.

In the meantime i've paused all my AdWords campaigns - I think i've gotten enough data to see where my leaks are, and my online chat session with AndyBlack helped immensely. I've created some test files to practice the various excel techniques he goes through in his videos and it's feels exciting to learn a new skill with so much potential.

Still mentally weighing up if i should cook up a new adwords campaign first, or set up a new landing page. I can do the former and lead them to my old shitty page and expect a high bounce rate, or take time to properly design a new one through OP (despite the current lack of templates) and activate adwords later... actually, reading through all that the choice seems simple...

 

[Tengen]

Unfortunately the support staff at OptimizePress and DreamHost haven't been too helpful so I'm left to my own devices. However despite the lack of preloaded templates, the OP plugin is still a seriously powerful tool and i'm having fun adding, editing, dragging and dropping elements like a kid in grade school.

Also reading through the copywriting thread for inspiration to clean up my pages. Some links below:

https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...ong-copy-will-probably-get-you-nowhere.50497/
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/write-copy-like-apple/

I noticed there was a collective "get better at writing copy in 30 days" thread, but does not look like my kind of thing for the time being.

Also got another request for a wine consultation, but noticed they didn't fill out the form quite how I expected. I can still work with it, but highlights to me something that needs to be fixed.

On a lighter note, drinking and reviewing a Portuguese white wine, should be posting it in a few days.

 

[Tengen]

Scheduled a review to be published on my blog for tomorrow. Will be spending the next week working hard on writing some good copy from my landing page to funnel traffic.

After some thinking i think i'll be following the procedure outlined in this post, especially within the example link given. I've got an idea to post up a landing page posing as an article with "7 things you need to know about wine" or something similar, then leading them to a second page with my product, and perhaps a third page with a signup option to get their details - If i have a good signup rate, then I know i've got a solid model that can be reinforced.

OptimizePress is a lot of fun, but coming to terms with the eventuality of having to put my face up on it to build a brand people can trust. I'm typically a reserved kinda guy, but what has to be done needs to get done. Going to get in touch with some photography-saavy friends to see if they can help me out.

 

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[Andy Black]

Hi Tengen,

This thread is how I found this forum, and this is my first post here. I was looking at my Google Analytics stats and saw a referral from thefastlaneforum. I was curious to find out what it was, and lo-and-behold, it's a Xenforo forum for entrepreneurs.

Thanks for the kind words. I hope you're new campaigns are running better, and you can see the wood for the trees now.

I'm building a paid Xenforo forum myself, so this has been a great find for me.

Right, I'll do a bit more reading and then go introduce myself.

Speak soon,
Andy

 

[Tengen]

Good to have you onboard Andy.

At the moment I've paused Adwords in order to focus on improving my landing pages and copy writing. It's going to be a long process, but I have a few templates to work on which is helping. I have however created a draft list of key terms to utilise once that's ready.

Still need to figure out how to integrate the url-param plugin with OP and WP, but will leave that for a later date.