Domestic and overseas company formation.
Services for Selling Downloadable Products (e-books, videos, audio, etc., in descending order of reader preference)
E-Junkie (www.e-junkie.com)
Lulu (www.lulu.com)
Lulu will also do print-on-demand and other forms of manufacture and fulfillment. Like Lightning Source (www.lightningsource.com), it offers distribution through Amazon, Barnes & Noble online, and other major outlets.
CreateSpace (www.createspace.com)
A subsidiary of Amazon.com that offers inventory-free, physical distribution of books, CD and DVDs on Demand, as well as video downloads through Amazon Video On Demand(tm).
Clickbank (www.clickbank.com)
Provides integrated access to affiliates willing to sell your product for a percentage of sales.
Introduction to Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising and Testing
Google Adwords (www.google.com/adwords)
Market Sizing and Keyword Suggestion Tools
Brainstorm additional PPC search terms and determine the number of people who are searching for them.
Google Adwords Keyword Tool (http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)
Enter the potential search terms to find search volume and alternative terms with more search traffic. Click on the “Approx Avg Search Volume” column to sort results from most to least searched.
SEOBook Keyword Tool, SEO for Firefox Extension (http://tools.seobook.com/)
Outstanding resource page with searches powered by Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com).
Low-Cost Domain Registration
Domains in Seconds (www.domainsinseconds.com) I have registered more than 100 domains through this service.
Joker (www.joker.com)
GoDaddy (www.godaddy.com)
Inexpensive but Dependable Hosting Services
Shared hosting solutions, where your site is hosted alongside other sites on a single server, are so cheap that I recommend using two providers, one as a primary and one as a backup. Put your site pages on each host and sign up with www.no-ip.com, which can redirect traffic (DNS) to the backup in five minutes instead of the usual 24 to 48 hours.
1and1 (www.1and1.com)
BlueHost (www.bluehost.com)
RackSpace (www.rackspace.com; known for dedicated and managed servers)
Hosting.com (www.hosting.com; known for dedicated and managed servers)
Royalty-Free Photos and Materials
iStockphoto (www.istockphoto.com)
iStockphoto is the Internet’s original member-generated image and design site, which has more than 4 million photographs, vector illustrations, videos, audio tracks, and Flash files available for use.
Getty Images (www.gettyimages.com)
This is where the pros go. Stock photos and film of anything for a price. I pay $150–400 for most images I use in national print campaigns and the quality is outstanding.
E-mail Sign-up Tracking and Scheduled Autoresponders
Both of these programs can be used to embed e-mail address sign-up forms on your site.
AWeber (www.aweber.com)
MailChimp (www.mailchimp.com)
End-to-End Site Solutions with Payment Processing
Shopify (www.shopify.com)
This is a reader favorite that, in addition to beautiful design, offers full SEO (search-engine optimization), drag-and-drop use, statistics, and product fulfillment through one of their certified partners such as Fulfillment by Amazon.com. Clients range from small-business owners to Tesla Motors. Unlike with Yahoo and eBay, however, you will need to set up a payment-processing service to accept payments from customers. (See below—PayPal is the easiest to integrate.)
Yahoo! Store (http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce) (866–781–9246)
This is what Doug of Pro Sound Effects used. As little as $40 a month with 1.5% per transaction.
eBay Store (http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/start.html)
From $15–500 per month, plus eBay fees.
Simple Payment Processing for Testing Pages, from Least to Most Involved
PayPal Cart (www.paypal.com; see “merchant”)
Accept credit card payments in minutes. No monthly fees, 1.9–2.9% of each transaction (called “discount rate”) and $0.30 per transaction.
Google Checkout (http://checkout.google.com/sell)
Get $10 in free processing for each $1 spent on AdWords; 2% and $0.20 per transaction thereafter. Requires that customers have a Google ID, and is thus most useful as a supplement to one of the aforementioned payment solutions. Be sure to link your Checkout account to your AdWords account to receive credit. Important note: free transaction processing for nonprofits.
Authorize.net (www.authorize.net)
The Authorize.Net Payment Gateway can help you accept credit card and electronic check payments quickly and affordably. More than 230,000 merchants trust Authorize.net to manage their transactions, help prevent fraud, and grow their business. The fees per transaction are lower than PayPal or Google Checkout, but setup will require a merchant account, covered in the next chapter, and other time-consuming applications. I suggest setting up Authorize.net only after a product has tested successfully through one of the other two options above.
Software for Understanding Web Traffic (Web Analytics)
