I've taken a brief break from the payment aspect of my business to look at how to convert the lessons in my 'How to Make Money Writing Books for Children' course to a downloadable format.
I had some pretty large files (over 30MB just for the front cover of 1 lesson!). With a little trial and error and experimentation, I have managed to reduce these down to less than 0.5MB for an entire lesson, including the front cover. I've also found a great tool to merge a number of PDF files together.
At the moment I'm working on a way to secure the downloadable lessons to block the free distribution of links to my products. After all, I don't want to give my products away after all this hard work! The secure links will integrate with PayPal. As soon as I've worked out how to set this up, I'll return to this Blog and provide a link to a demonstration where you'll be able to securely download a file from my BiziLizi website and read about how I developed the solution.
Thanks for following my Blog.
BiziLizi
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Friday, 20 January 2012
PayPal Buttons and Testing Payments
It's taken a bit more than the 'few days' I thought it would to update my Blog but I guess that's the nature of this work. As planned I've investigated using PayPal as a payment mechanism for my online business. There's so much to read but when I got started it wasn't so bad.
I've started a new part of the BiziLizi website for the extra things I'll need to be able to do for my online business and that includes a page on how to set up a PayPal business account and add some simple buttons to a website. There are some buttons on my PayPal page that you can use. They are actually connected to my PayPal business account and will accept payments. I've even created a 'Donate' button for anyone to use if they're finding the site helpful or just want to give me a bit of financial encouragement. It would be absolutely great if I were to receive some donations.
I've also learnt about and put into practice a tool that PayPal provides to help test the whole PayPal purchasing process. It lets you set up test accounts for buyers and sellers. You can create buttons, add these to a website and simulate transactions without any money actually changing hands. You can also see the emails that are created for both buyers and sellers. This tool is called Sandbox and I have added a page to the BiziLizi website that explains how to set it up and how to create buttons. It all looked a bit daunting at first but made sense after spending some time on it.
Having created some PayPal hosted buttons, my next move is to look at what's involved with non-hosted buttons. Apparently this is the sort I will need to use with the software I have decided to use to secure links to the digital downloads of my 'Writing books for children' course.
My next post to this Blog will look at how I use this software with PayPal to create my own shopping cart and link this to providing customers with digital downloads.
It will definitely be more than a 'few days' before I figure out how to do all of this and can update this Blog. But until then, please keep checking my BiziLizi website for updates.
BiziLizi
I've started a new part of the BiziLizi website for the extra things I'll need to be able to do for my online business and that includes a page on how to set up a PayPal business account and add some simple buttons to a website. There are some buttons on my PayPal page that you can use. They are actually connected to my PayPal business account and will accept payments. I've even created a 'Donate' button for anyone to use if they're finding the site helpful or just want to give me a bit of financial encouragement. It would be absolutely great if I were to receive some donations.
I've also learnt about and put into practice a tool that PayPal provides to help test the whole PayPal purchasing process. It lets you set up test accounts for buyers and sellers. You can create buttons, add these to a website and simulate transactions without any money actually changing hands. You can also see the emails that are created for both buyers and sellers. This tool is called Sandbox and I have added a page to the BiziLizi website that explains how to set it up and how to create buttons. It all looked a bit daunting at first but made sense after spending some time on it.
Having created some PayPal hosted buttons, my next move is to look at what's involved with non-hosted buttons. Apparently this is the sort I will need to use with the software I have decided to use to secure links to the digital downloads of my 'Writing books for children' course.
My next post to this Blog will look at how I use this software with PayPal to create my own shopping cart and link this to providing customers with digital downloads.
It will definitely be more than a 'few days' before I figure out how to do all of this and can update this Blog. But until then, please keep checking my BiziLizi website for updates.
BiziLizi
Monday, 2 January 2012
Search Engines and Website Analysis
Phew, that was a bit of a marathon update to my BiziLizi website. I've tidied up the site organisation and carried out research into the most suitable search engines to use for URL (web address) submission. It was quite interesting work and I've updated my site with the findings. I've also followed my own advice and submitted BiziLizi.co.uk to the recommended search engines. It's now a bit of a waiting game to see how long it takes for my pages to start getting noticed.
In the meantime, I've also started work on the tools you can use to analyse a website to help improve it for both human visitors and search engines. Most of my site has now been checked for errors and broken links, so if you find something that doesn't work please email me and let me know.
It's now time to refocus on some of the essential aspects required by my new business website. How to handle online payments is the next big subject to investigate.
I'll update this Blog with progress in a few days.
Hope you're enjoying my Blog.
BiziLizi
In the meantime, I've also started work on the tools you can use to analyse a website to help improve it for both human visitors and search engines. Most of my site has now been checked for errors and broken links, so if you find something that doesn't work please email me and let me know.
It's now time to refocus on some of the essential aspects required by my new business website. How to handle online payments is the next big subject to investigate.
I'll update this Blog with progress in a few days.
Hope you're enjoying my Blog.
BiziLizi
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