WordPress Multi User

• Basics About WordPress MU
  
• Basics About our eBook: WordPress MU
  
• WordPress MU is Live Now!
  
• How you Transform a FREE eBook on a PAID Product (the RoadMap which is Valid for all Digital Products.)
  
• The Flowchart Of Selling DP On-line
  
• Google Blogs about WordPress MU
  
• WordPress wins
  
• Alex and Michey's Crabbysbeach MU
  
• FTC Rules and Testimonials
  
• Featured Related Lenses by Michey
  
• Your Opinion counts, Use it!
  
• WordPress MU on Twitter
  
• Who is Michey
  

How we pronounce MU:

• The popular pronunciation is to say the letters separately: EM-YEW
• The original intention was for the name to include the µ symbol and pronounce "MEW"
• But if you say "WordPress Mooooo" it is OK, nobody is offended

What is essential to know about the new platform (WPMU)

I need a color. Hm! One day I asked Alex to give me 2-3 of his favorite colors as I was prepared to do some graphics. He gave me 3 choices: blue, blue, and blue... but when I gave him 4-5 examples for eBook's templates - he chose the red one, I am not kidding, this is how our eBook is looking:

I confessed now that I was a little confused, but I decided to keep going. Hey! Excessive democracy is confusing - isn't it?

Let's come back to WPMU essentials:

* You can have unlimited blogs, with unlimited authors on them, and users can have different functions: editor, admin, author on different blogs. The possibilities are only limited by our imagination

* What kind of hardware MU does need depends on how many blogs you expect to host, and how many page views you expect to get. A single box running both a web server and MySQL server will get you the luxury to have around 15-20 thousand blogs. If you get a bottleneck split MySQL and Apache each one in a different box

* Plug-Ins work just like in regular WordPress but nobody tests 7,000 Plug-ins, we advise to test them, they can be activated and deactivated per-blog. We also have "MU-Plug-Ins" which auto-executes any PHP file in that directory

* I was told, themes could work with WordPress but not in MU, but we've never run into one which doesn't. So yes, all themes work

* MU supports both domains and sub-domains

We also call the eBook: How To Guide On Using WordPress MU for a reason.

You find out:

• How to install MU platform
• How to create a blog on WPMU
• General consideration about the WordPress functionality
• The best Resources, we use and recommend

The Crabbysbeach was an exercise for a large niche - Squidoo, you can continue to create as many blogs as you want, but we advise to separate your business, or practice in very small niche and create a WPMU environment per each niche. Doing so you will create a very targeted community per each niche and this is the reason why you must know how to download and set up your MUs.

We give you the launch date, time, but it is more, if you are interested in our eBook you have to get it in the first week, between 23rd Nov. 12 PM and 29th Nov 12 PM when we have the lowest price possible, it is like 2 Starbucks Coffees, after so many long evenings which put us in the next day, we are selfish and think that we really deserve a good coffee!

After this week, we will increase the price gradually until we reach the real price of this product.

Those considerations are applicable for any Digital Product you create, not just eBooks. It is not very hard to do it, but you need a different set of skill for this typical Internet Marketing subject.

To help you further we introduce the resources chapter in our eBook. It is not an arbitrary list, it is a place where you find recommendations of software, host, autoresponders, and ebooks to learn from, we use and know.

This is what we create for our product:

A Squeeze Page

This is a page in which we have a title, a sub title, a bulleted list with benefits, we announce a Bonus, an Opt-in Box where a potential customer fill in First Name and a valid address. Always verify your e-mail address, If it is not valid we don't have a way to communicate with you, not even to know that you intend to get the eBook and bonuses.
For more info read the lens: http://www.squidoo.com/Squeeze-page

A Confirmation Page

It is a page where we remind the potential customer that he/she must confirm the email we send to them after he/she sign it in Squeeze page. The aweber autoresponder has a default email for confirmation, but it look more professional to have a HTML page In the same page we put more information about confirmation, as easy as you make for customer to follow the procedure as much chance you have to transform a potential customer in a customer.

A Sale Page or Landing page
(Both names are used, and I want to eliminate any confusion when you read different publications.

After the potential customer confirm the request of information, he/she is redirected to the sale page where we tell a little more about the product and we have a PayPal button to order the product. At this point the potential customer can became a customer clicking on the PayPal button, to pay for the product.
.

A Download Page, or Thank You Page
(Again, both names are equally used)

If the customer paid, he is redirected to download page from where he can download the eBook, the announced bonus and the unadvertised bonus if any. We also send 2 email to the customer with the link of download page, just in case, we want to minimize the risk of having complains and we want to make as easy and friendly the entire process.

A Disclaimer Page and A Privacy Page

Disclaimer and Privacy are pages which reside on each other page. They don't have an active roll in the selling process.

Graphics

We both created a lot of graphics for HTML Pages (header, footer), eBook eCovers, and all king of advertising graphics: 125 x125 for Blogs, banners etc.

Note: For this eBook, we don't use affiliates (because we sell it too cheap), this is the reason why we rely on just us driving traffic, and we both work very hard to prepare the traffic part.
For the next project we have in mind, we will use affiliates and Joint Ventures (JV), as that one will be a heavy duty one.

The prerequisites are:
1) We use OpenOffice Writer to create the eBook as it is so easy to transform the document in a PDF, just a click of a button ( it is free)

2) We bought a domain for our product which suggest what it is in it, and also provide good keywords.

3) We need a host (no need to buy as both of us have hosts, we just use one host we already have)

4) We need an autoresponder, I have aweber, we use it

5) We bought a package with templates for eBooks, we have more then we can use, (this is optional), but we want our eBook to look nice, and is part of our branding - very important

6) Both of us have packages to create graphics, and both use them until the screen turned red

7) I have xSitePro, and we use it to create all the above HTML pages, all of them have same pattern. Long term it will make your life easier if instead to use only a WYSIWYG HTML Editor you use a package to create Websites, pages. But it is optional.

The Saga of selling Digital Products on-line.

• We have a product, and we do our best to drive traffic to our Squeeze Page.


• On Squeeze Page there is an Opt-in Form and the potential customer needs to make his mind to fill in his first name and e-mail


• If he decides not to fill in the form, the process ends.


• If he is filling in the form and press the action button, he is going forward in this process


• A confirmation page is presented to him. In this page we remind him that he will get an email and he must confirm the request for info, we also explain how to do it. NOTE 1: This page doesn't have other link, he must wait the email, and click the confirmation link presented in email. If he email is not valid, the process will end.

• The potential customer gets an confirmation email we create on aweber


• If he is not confirming clicking on the URL which we provide, the process ends.


• If he confirms, he gets follow-up message number 1 and he is redirected to Sale Page


• The SalePage gives more info about the product we sell and the potential customer must make his mind if he want or not the product


• He doesn't want to buy the product, he get out and the process ends


• THIS IS THE POINT WHERE A POTENTIAL CUSTOMER BECOMES A CUSTOMER!


• He wants our product, he clicks on the PayPal button, he is redirected to a PayPal form, he pays and he is redirected to Download Page


• But we also send him a follow-up number 2 email with the download link to be sure he is not missing something.


• The Download Page contains: the download link for our product in PDF format, a link for the Advertised Bonus, and link(s) to Unadvertised Bonus(es)


• END OF THE PROCESS

NOTE 2: Please keep in mind, your interest is not just to sell a product from time to time, your interest is to create a big list, you want to make your customers happy, and you want customers to come back to you and buy from you again.

You will see in our case that:

• We sell a 41 pages product at very low price
• We advertise a bonus
• But in our download page we generously added 3 other unadvertised bonuses
• YES, we over deliver, why? We want our loyal supporters to come back and continue to do business.
• It is ethical? YES IT IS!

I know that there are a lot of misconceptions about being an affiliate and do affiliate marketing and I want to clarify the legitimacy of this business.

Affiliate Marketing is a business as any other.

Let's say you need a shoe repair, and you have 3 shoe makers on Main Street. You go in one of them and the shoe maker strives to do a perfect job for you and even tries to over deliver, he tries to sell you shoe laces at 1/2 prices. It is ethical? Sure, why not? He is trying to be nice and keep you as a customer forever.

Let's say you invite a good friend on your house for a coffee. But you also give him a croissant or some cookies with the coffee.

In nut shell! There are some bad apples among marketers, but this is not a reason to sink the entire industry! Why? Well not all shoe makers will give you something at 1/2 price, and will be enough friends who will give you just a coffee!

NOTE 3: What you just read here, is part of the training to start thinking as a marketer, if you don't make this effort, if you never get to the level in which you see a lot of opportunities around you all day long, you will never be a successful MARKETER.
In Summary - please, keep some cookies in refrigerator for your friends! IT IS ETHICAL!

As much Alex and myself love to have testimonials, we don't want to produce troubles for our Squidoo friends and I try to explain here the new FTC restrictions rule of living testimonials (FTC new rules will start at 1 st Dec. 2009).

The new FTC restriction is:
1) To live a testimonial, a person must be the owner of that product
2) The owner must know that we publish his/her testimonial on our Sale Page

It is not hard, but no more testimonials coming from just friends, testimonials must come from people who buy the product. And the person must prove that he/she bought the eBook, just in case somebody from FTC ask.
We can help with this product, as we always have the PayPal list with all the buyers.

In general, if you buy something, please keep the document which proves your ownership.

At this point we don't know the methods FTC will use to enforce the rules, but is better to be proactive.

I keep an open eye on this, already collected information about the new FTC rules, I am waiting a response from some open questions (hope they come in 2-3 day, it is Thanksgiving Holiday in US now).
As soon as I have their response I'll write a lens about FTC Rules.

Until then, if somebody who bought the eBook want to live us a testimonial, please use our support email:

support@wordpress-mu.net

to live testimonials, questions, suggestions.

For Squidoo, at this point in time, the note at the bottom of each lens, it is enough.

What I am saying here is for products outside the Squidoo - like our eBook.

Again, until we know exactly how the rules will be enforced, keep the prof of ownership for all the products you buy.