Category Archives: Blogging Online Business Ideas

04 Mar

150+ Online Business Ideas and Resources to Help You

There is no shortage of online business ideas in the web community. But to see such creative ideologies is great. When I talk about ideas I am referring to the way or thinking or philosophy behind making your business grow.

So I thought it would be really cool to list some amazing sources for online business ideas. But I must warn you, if your looking for a get rich quick scheme this isn’t it (laughing).

This is broken by Seth Godin will teach you how to spot problems that you could possibly solve thus create a business. His video, humor, pictures, and thinking is amazing.

SEO, Popularity And The Way Forward is a forward thinking post about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) from one of THE most authoritative sites on the web.

My FREE Entrepreneurship Online eBook Volume 1 was downloaded over 5,000 times. The ebook though small contains 21 information packed sources to grow your business.

70+ Web Resources for Entrepreneurs Online was downloaded over 10,000 times.

Online Business Ideas FREE 7 Ways Report Series This is a FREE Case study report on very common and some uncommon issues bloggers have. The great thing is that this in itself was an online business idea I created from shring online business ideas (laughing).

9 Great Conference, Slide Presentation, and Meeting Sites Need to put together a presentation online? This may be the best way to do it.

67 Ways to Get Your Content Into the Cloud is a great checklist to use to make sure your blog is getting “out there”. I am sure the most experienced blogger “slips” on a few of them. And they aren’t things you have to do all the time. Just a checklist to cover yourself.

I have no idea what niche your in or what you do and I guarantee I don’t have the answers to everything. But I know that this listing will at least help you with ONE of your main solutions.

26 Feb

Hidden Money Making Ideas In Your Tweets

Do you have ANY idea how many hidden money making ideas are in your twitter Tweets?! I have heard a entire slew of GURU’s or as Ben Settle calls them “GooRoos” talk about not following back on twitter. That without a doubt in my mind has to be one of THE dumbest things I have heard of on twitter.

So wait everyone should follow you and then you follow back your special “chosen ones” ? And the past excuse was “oh I can’t read that many tweets hard to follow” yeah right like they can’t aggregate with Tweetdeck and Hootsuite available to say the least.

And now they really have no excuse. Because with the invention of lists on twitter you can’t complain any longer. The excuses are officially over for those so called leaders of twitter. So here is where the money making ideas part comes in because these same entrepreneurs are always trying to sell you ways to make money while stepping over the most significant online business ideas of the decade!

Twitter allows you to find out what your customers want without directly asking them. No other social media as I write this has that advantage. Just sit there and watch your twitter stream I almost guarantee you you will see some money making ideas just from watching

1. What others are doing in your field and or niche.

2. You find problems to solve for your market.

Remember the best online business ideas and money making ideas involve solving a problem. Solve the problems and you will NEVER be short of business that I guarantee. But if you constantly talk of your concern for cutting yourself off with your followers then your in trouble. Conversation is the brand but who respects someone who only has a speaker part of the phone? Come on Twitter leaders don’t cut off the follow backs and then wonder (and even tweet) why your mentally stuck for ideas for your blog, products, and marketing online.

26 Feb

21 Online Business Ideas for Pet Owners

21 Online Business Ideas for Pet owners was an idea I thought of when I walked past  national pet chain Petco and some online opportunities hit me. Are you a pet owner? Pet websites are serious business ask the owner of icanhascheezburger who gets major traffic from people who like to see cat pictures. I remember he only had adsense on there now he has a variety of things going on for affiliates. And when hey gets his own product line it will skyrocket.

The following are some good online business ideas for people with (or without) pets.

1. Create a online better business bureau for animals. Doesn’t have to be official like the BBB just credible. In fact you shouldn’t actually accept membership enrollment. Just create products and ebooks and affiliate links for pet owners. You know the saying good news travels but bad news travels fast. That way the pet stores that are mistreating animals can spread.All you would need is a blog.

2. Puppies need love website hey if they can have a site about cats why not one about puppies? Set affiliate links to dog products and create several guides, ebooks, and instructional videos.

3. Something is Fishy could be one of those seldom thought of online business ideas where people share videos of fish tricks online via video and blog.

4. Celebrity Dog: hey they have gossip columns about celebs why not gossip columns about dogs? Especially the top dogs?

5. WOW You Own that? Live interviews with people who own exotic animals and the funny stories behind them i.e. the snake that crawled into the cop car.

6. Cool animal blogs. I am currently working with someone who wants to do a blog for a very famous pet. In fact one of the most famous pets in the world.

7. Stupid pet tricks gone wrong: you could add videos and blog them and affiliate link professional training courses. Plus and sell ebooks on animal traning i.e. dogs.

Emergency Online Business Ideas Pet Owners

8. Help my cat is dying: emergency ti[s on saving your pets life in extreme situations. Sell emergency videos and guides to them at say $24.99 a pop. If you think its cruel to charge think about what the vet is charging them. Plus you are saving a life.

9. My dog was hit by a vehicle what should I do: emergency instructions. Also affiliate link to pet products don’t charge for the emergency help in this one as time is of the essence. Another one of the smarter online business ideas is to have a forum online as well for this one.

Mobile Online Business Ideas for Pet Owners

10. A Online Pet apps store. Like Apple says “We got an app for that” well you could be the app king or queen of pet stores. Create catnip apps that make the cats purr and training tricks that makes the dogs sit and rollover. Pablo dog them into thinking every time they hear a certain song they should behave or sit or fetch. Now there might not be apps for this but I guarantee you that that there could be!

11. Create the ULTIMATE animal passport blog for animal rules when traveling to ANY country in the world from any country in the world.

12. Create a website design for the family Dog that has passed: hey we do it for people why not for their pets with pics and video and music ?

13. Create the greatest animal away care facility advice blog ever! This is sort of like the better business bureau for animals but specifically for every dog and cat hotel or away care area in your country. Have pet owners review the facility like they do hotels by stars and blog about it like crazy and find every pet owner and human rights group you can find.

14. Create a a Craigslist for Animals (no no real animals LOL): there are tons of templates and clones to pull this off via open source and is frankly one THE best online business ideas I listed here. think about it its easy and needed. Some one better go for this one!

15. Create a cool funky CafePress for a specific animal: for instance a Bush dog brand or Obama dog brand or atomic dog brand (Geroge Clinton the godfather of Funky). My point here is that the right snappy logo and words on a T-Shirt and the right pet owner crowd could spell money. i.e. the celeb dog idea gone viral.

16. How to Care for (name your specific exotic pet): there is a guy that sells over 00 ebooks a month in betta fish I have talked about him all year cause he owns like 100+ sites in little niches.

17. Flip this animal site: Could be a micro niche site for people who have for profit blogs and sites that want to sell them. Like the popular blog Flippa.com.

18. An Exercise Pet Blog: for people who exercise everyday with their pets. This is also one of those easy online business ideas because you can instantly connect with this group and sell human and pet health products.

19. A pet food super critique blog. This would be the ONE place in nation to go to to judge the food of all pets.

20. A membership site for premium care, tips, and celebrity trainers could guest blog etc.

21. Geo – target 1-20 for all of the previous site online business ideas mentioned. The idea is that a micro niche is much more powerful than a macro niche. So instead of a exercise pet blog make a exercise NYC Dog blog. Or target a specific type of dog for the membership site i.. the online exclusive Pitbull society.

23 Feb

Online Business Ideas for Developing a Lifetime Customer

Here are several online business ideas for developing a lifetime customer.

The fact though is if you don’t have them your business is in trouble. I have discussed this in the past.

Remember great business idea’s create, market, and over deliver value: No matter what marketing systems, tactics, and strategies (GURUs?) used to sell. It’s all about value. Value is the essence and foundation of any sale. No value no maximization of shareholder wealth. And that is the purpose of any for profit business. Simply put no value no business.

Begin with the 4 Pillars of value before creating any product and or service etc because the 4 pillars of value will help discover whether you are helping a potential customer do any or all of the following:

1. Solve a problem: what problems are you solving for your readers? Not what you “think” your solving but actual problem are you solving? Do you realize that the number one reason people visit a website is to solve a problem? You can write what you believe to be the greatest post in the world. And you can also get traffic. But the longevity and business from that traffic come from solving a problem. One of the greatest online business ideas to me was and still is Google. That is because they allow you to discover who your audience is and what they are searching for with the use of a small little tool. Their free keyword tool allows you to get an idea of what people are searching for.

2. Help them either grow, save, and/or enhance

their (11+) resources: Are you helping them save money or time? these are the biggest two. Are you helping them enhance their learning experience?  Some of the greatest online business ideas involves saving money and time while enhancing their customers experience. This is why twitter is killing CNN in this area. You don’t have to wait right after these messages you can log onto to twitter and see the big announcements. And the only thing that trumps twitter is Google.

Here is another great online business idea.  Look at your online competitor in a niche and what they are selling. For instance if they are selling  an ebook on a subject in your field for say $19.95. Then maybe you should sell a ebook, video instruction, and some weekly online audio tips for just 24.99. You may cost $5 more but the video and audio tips would enhance the prospective customers sense of value and their actual learning experience.

3. Helps them increase productivity with their time: Can you help your prospective and current customers do more in a day? Remember whether your a millionaire (and not all of them have a massive staff) or a do it yourself blogger you both have the same amount of  time.

In the previous example of competitors I mentioned your ebook, video, and audio. Well you could clarify how the audio is going to save them time. Listening to a short message while focusing on a project can help. Especially if they are reading your ebook at the same time because it hits several senses at once. The more online business ideas you can come up with to increase their productivity the better chances of keeping them as lifetime customers.

4. Peaks their Interest (curiosity, emotional, holistic, concern): You must grab their attention and keep it in a way that educates your readers (prospective customers and customers). If your boring your dead.

Magazines are one of the greatest sources for online business ideas. Why? cause they are the masters of attention.

The Sweet Spot: Great companies provide 3 consistently but legendary business provide all 4 constantly. Wondering why you are not getting enough customers to your site or why you are not keeping them?

Solve their problems, help them grow while showing them how to be productive and you will never be short of new or old customers. And peaking their interest? The right headline and opening paragraph will do that.

20 Feb

3 Online Business Ideas for Women

Here are a few online business ideas to help women entrepreneurs. Everyone is in search of small business ideas. Little do they know there  are a ton of ideas out there. Well this is only the beginning. Ladies without a doubt you are greatly discounting your knowledge. What you think everyone knows or care little about actually could be a calling for you to build an online business.

  1. Create an advice blog and or forum for new mothers in “name your city here”. Geo targeting is BIG and if you focused on your local area you would be surprised how much you could increase your online traffic even if you lived in a small town. You don’t need to be a 10 year super expert to use these online business ideas. All you need is some sort of experience and a micro niche. Whats a micro niche? that is a more detailed version of a niche. For instance I mentioned above that a great online business idea would be to create a website focused on a specific geo targeted market right? Well you would for instance create a site that is focused on the teen niche say a online teen crisis site for dealing with Teens and drug issues. Thats a niche but a micro niche would be focusing on a specific location like Denver or Seattle or Boston.
  2. Get into niche marketing the right way. Create a small line of website niches. My company has built an armada of online business this way. The advantage according to my wife Cara is that unlike men you will pay more  attention to detail. Whether thats true or not I can’t confirm but a an opportunity plus detail in niche marketing is a recipe for success, that I guarantee.
  3. Help your local brick and mortar business get a web presence by consulting with them and helping them get a blog, marketing, and online store.

Get started ladies your money is waiting for you and here is the interesting part.

02 Feb

Simple Hacks for Business Blogging

Making Money with a Blog the Right WayFunny story to share. I was at a Greek place and wanted a United States version of a Gyro. But to my disappointment the Gyro they brought me did not have lamb in it and tasted nothing like what I was used to eating.

They explained that it was higher quality beef and lamb authentic Greek. I have eaten Greek made Gyros before. This didn’t taste like my expectation. But instead of complaining I paid and left. Will I go back? HELL NO!

Now take out the Gyro and replace it with info products sold across the web. The idea is to give you what your searching for instead of what they think your you are searching for.

I wanted to provide a simple guide for launching a blog that incorporated both the WHY as well as the HOW. I wanted to give people what they wanted and needed. Now the HOW I have some really world class guys showing you in detail. But that’s been the problem in the past. We always covered the HOW pretty well. The instruction part is simple and in fact the other stuff once you get your head wrapped around it is pretty simple also. Where it gets crazy is that thousands try to launch a blog and fail. What makes this interactive ebook (video, audio, written) so powerful is that I cover the WHY in a very passionate way.This is for anyone who doesn’t have a blog OR isn’t making money with their blog.

Be honest with yourself you don’t need information you need aggregation.

There is no shortage of information only clarity. The age of information has DIED. In its place is the aggregation age. The new era is about clarity no massive info. All of the directions in the world mean nothing if you don’t understand WHY you are doing it. I wanted to promote something I would be proud to tell my grandmother and mother I created. Something I would be more than proud to defend in the infamous online Warriors forum.

  • Understand Business Blogging in 90 SECONDS
  • Understand how Professional Blogger’s  Make Money
  • Understand how YOU make money blogging the RIGHT way
  • Understand the if Your Blog Will Make Money Before You Launch it
  • How to get started ASAP and have Your Blog up in 24 hours!

Who is going to tell you the truth? The internet marketing people aren’t. The super in crowd bloggers won’t or can’t. So that leaves you with me. The guy who is going to share a simple idea with you. If I had a ebook like this years back when I started I would have saved over 5 figures in mistakes.

28 Jan

Making Money with a Blog the Right Way

Making Money with a Blog the Right Way

Seems like there are a ton of ways to make money with a blog the wrong way.  Lets talk about making money with a blog the right way. I saw a great blog post about alternative ideas for making money with your blog. And I liked the way it was written and know I couldn’t do any justice to the great writing of this post so I created a video about it to illustrate some key idea’s to help you and also highlight some interesting point’s from my Simple Hacks for Business Blogging interactive eBook.

10 Aug

The Get a Blog Sale is BACK!

OK August is here!

The sale ends right before midnight pacific time on Monday August 17th 2009. Need a blog? I have a great solution!

blogvideo

  • Your Own WordPress Blog

  • FREE 1 year hosting

  • Step by Step instructions via a variety of sources

  • How to Make Money with Your Blog

  • Your blog is on a private dedicated server

  • BONUS: A Video on How to Generate Traffic

  • 30 Day Money Back Guarantee

05 Aug

Excellent Online Blog Writing Video

If you ever want to achieve excellent writing online with your blog this is a excellent video to watch and bookmark. I highly considered keeping it to myself (he he) but the laws of the universe dictate that sharing this will return my blessings (prosperity?) ten fold.

This is excellent for online blog writing because we all get stumped for idea’s. I love the fact that Terry is  really breaking down how to generate idea’s for blogs. Plus he is sharing an effective system for writing articles in detail. I always love idea generation! Great job Terry!

22 Jul

I am Looking for Guest Writers!

writing-2I m looking for guest writers to submit stories every week!

Advantages : Even though its a non paid position it works like this in return for writing here:

  1. The top of each of your stories will be a quick blurb about you as a guest writer and a link to your site. Also a picture of you.
  2. Also I will promote all postings across my network of thousands around the world. I currently have a Alexa rank of 65,000, 45,000 twitter followers specifically (most anyways) in the Entrepreneurship niche, 2,000 Facebook friends and over 12000 Linkedin friends. So it’s an excellent way to promote your blog for FREE (**however see the subject matter half**).

Requirements (no exceptions):

  1. Your site must be in at least the top 300,000 in Alexa Rank or less.
  2. Must be willing to post an announcement on your site that you wrote an article here.
  3. Must be in English and spell checked.

How often: That depends on what we agree to can be once a week, bi week, monthly etc.

Subject matter: Of course regarding entrepreneurship in some way. Whatever your specialty is be specific organic marketing, social media etc.But PS this is NOT a promotion of your products and services. Plus no self promotion of your site throughout the article. Write about something that is genuine to you and what you are passionate about. And also submit an idea before writing about it.

Pictures: You can email any pics to me for each article.

How long: roughly 300 words or more.

If interested and fit the requirements contact me and be sure to leave your site and idea for a story.

20 Jul

How to Create a HOT Gravatar to Use Around the World!

gravatarHey you psst come here. Why don’t you have a Gravatar on your blog?? Gravatars are FREE and are globally recognized avatars. They are FREE and an excellent way to personalize your brand. You ever been to a blog where some people have personalized pics? Yeah of course you have! Here is your chance to add your brand! No excuses!Funny side note wordpress needs to update their spell checker. Gravatars

Now you will need a image editor if not adobe photoshop you can try the same or similar instructions with Gimp which is open source (FREE) you can download here. Also you can find out more about Gimp (screenshots etc) by going to their main page. May take some extra work since the video below is for Photoshop but hey it’s FREE.

Show off your newly made Gravatar

gravitardotcom

10 Jul

Blog Sale Ends at Midnight Saturday July 11th 2009

Ends today at Midnight Saturday.

Now until midnight tonight Saturday July 11th 2009. I have launched a great opportunity for less than now (8) (was 20) people to build a business blog in 48 hours time! Not just any blog but a money making blog (start making money within 2 weeks). The idea is to take the tech stuff out the hands of beginners and slowly walk you through the process. After all there are plenty of well build blogs NOT making money. There has to be a balance. Check it out

http://darrenmonroe.com/blogs/wp-content/themes/Blank_Sales_Page_Theme_With_Header/images/Header.jpg

This is designed to teach you:

  • How to pinpoint the niche your blog will cover

  • I will show you how to register & control your domain

  • I Personally walk you through templates and plugin options

  • I will handle the backend upgrading

  • How to create content

  • How to add Video and Audio to your blog

  • How to make Money with your blog!

  • Bonus how to create a variety of traffic to your blog

06 Jul

Blog Sale Extended Until Saturday July 11th 2009

OK so I received friendly threats (LOL)  demanding that I extend the offer to next weekend because they thought it unfair to release during a major holiday LOL!So now extending until Midnight Saturday.

Now until midnight Saturday July 11th 2009. I have launched a great opportunity for less than (20) people to build a business blog in 48 hours time! Not just any blog but a money making blog (start making money within 2 weeks). The idea is to take the tech stuff out the hands of beginners and slowly walk you through the process. After all there are plenty of well build blogs NOT making money. There has to be a balance. Check it out

http://darrenmonroe.com/blogs/wp-content/themes/Blank_Sales_Page_Theme_With_Header/images/Header.jpg

This is designed to teach you:

  • How to pinpoint the niche your blog will cover

  • I will show you how to register & control your domain

  • I Personally walk you through templates and plugin options

  • I will handle the backend upgrading

  • How to create content

  • How to add Video and Audio to your blog

  • How to make Money with your blog!

  • Bonus how to create a variety of traffic to your blog

03 Jul

Blogs for Business Limited Number More Than 50% Half Off

Now until midnight Tuesday July 7th 2009. I have launched a great opportunity for less than (20) people to build a business blog in 48 hours time! Not just any blog but a money making blog (start making money within 2 weeks). The idea is to take the tech stuff out the hands of beginners and slowly walk you through the process. After all there are plenty of well build blogs NOT making money. There has to be a balance. Check it out

http://darrenmonroe.com/blogs/wp-content/themes/Blank_Sales_Page_Theme_With_Header/images/Header.jpg

This is designed to teach you:

  • How to pinpoint the niche your blog will cover

  • I will show you how to register & control your domain

  • I Personally walk you through templates and plugin options

  • I will handle the backend upgrading

  • How to create content

  • How to add Video and Audio to your blog

  • How to make Money with your blog!

  • Bonus how to create a variety of traffic to your blog

28 Jun

How to Balance Content, Sales, and Networking

balancing-act-0011I first had the idea for this post sometime ago but decided to hold on until I actually launched a few products on this site so as to not look like a hypocrite (laughing)! I want to discuss the importance of balancing content, sales, and networking. So many entrepreneurs are racing to build networks online that few are actually thinking about WHY they are building these networks. I mean how many friends online can you have? How many people can join you and connect? I know the answer is infinite but when does your sales opportunities equal that or at the very least begin?

At what point do you CHANGE your earning potential? I have openly attacked the idea that the generic term Affiliate Marketer is actually a brand. In fact I still attack that concept. I am not against affiliate marketing. In fact you will see several affiliate marketing opportunities on this site. The reason I am against a site that’s 80% affiliate marketing is because your brand doesn’t stand out with that formula.

Creating balanced sales opportunities with an ongoing network is key. So now lets talk about content. That is the third part of our marketing trilogy. You want to make a sale. Yes you want to build your network but are you sending them to anything? That’s like gathering a audience of thousands in front of your business then doing nothing. Give them a reason to visit your business besides selling them something. If not sales items offer FREE material as well! Content is king and FREE content us valuable!

Try this equation

    • Every (1) item for sell offer 5 free pieces of value (free content to your site)
    • For every 20 friend connections on a network promote 75% the free content and 25% sales content.
    • If you have a launch or a sale feel free to be a little more aggressive in that manner.

    ———————————————————————————————————————-

      27 Jun

      Survey Results for Blogger Traffic Sources June 27 2009

      Hey the results are in and 634 respondents filled out the survey (thanks guys). The way this is going to work is that I am going to make this a ongoing survey where I update by date. Traffic strategies change all constantly on the Internet so this way the survey will always be fresh.

      So what does all of this mean? Roughly from the results that many bloggers need to invest more time into diversifying marketing campaigns. But again this will change in time as I am updating every few weeks.

      If you want to contribute to the survey you still can here.

      Whats Your Number One Source for Traffic?

      33%  Social Media
      27%  Search Engines
      27% Other
      13%  email marketing
      0%    Pay Per Click (PPC)

      sources-of-traffic-pie-chart

      —————————————————————-

      What is Your Percentage of Traffic from Search Engines?

      40% said they gained 0 – 10% of their traffic from Search Engines

      20% said they gained 10 – 20% of their traffic from Search Engines

      20% said they gained 20 – 50% of their traffic from Search Engines

      13% said they gained 80% or more of their traffic from Search Engines

      7% said they gained 50 – 80% of their traffic from Search Engines

      —————————————————————————————————————–

      What is Your Percentage of Traffic from Social Media? (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace etc.)

      33% said they gained 0 – 10% of their traffic from Social Media

      20% said they gained 10 – 20% of their traffic from Social Media

      20% said they gained 20 – 50% of their traffic from Social Media

      13% said they gained 50 – 80% of their traffic from Social Media

      13% said they gained 80% or more of their traffic from Social Media

      —————————————————————————————————————–

      What is Your Percentage of Traffic from email marketing?

      Now this was interesting because it split into 2 different groups.

      13% said they gained 80% or more of their traffic from email marketing

      87% said they gained 0 – 10% of their traffic from email marketing

      —————————————————————————————————————–

      What is Your Percentage of Traffic from Other Sources? **If Applicable

      47% said they gained 0 – 10% of their traffic from Other Sources

      20% said they gained 10 – 20% of their traffic from Other Sources

      20% said they gained 50 – 80% of their traffic from Other Sources

      13% said they gained 20 – 50% of their traffic from Other Sources

      —————————————————————————————————————–

      Majority of the respondents said their other sources for traffic are

      • Flickr
      • Forums
      • Promotional items
      • Word of mouth through friends
      • Doing LIVE presentations
      • Public speaking at various locals.
      • Links from blogs in my niche
      • Link exchanges
      • Old comments from Blogs
      • Yahoo Answers
      11 Jun

      Is Tweetmeme the New Comment Section for Blogs?

      tweetmemeHave you noticed that tweetmeme.com is on most blogs including this one? I read a lot of blogs daily and have noticed that bloggers comments have lowered but the tweetmeme are increasing. Is this the new way (or at least one of them) of legitimizing a blogs authority or article popularity? Could be. This is not a endorsement per-se for tweetmeme but it does seem like a great way to legitimately see who from twitter is retweeting your messages. Especially when you get more tweets than you do any other bookmark.

      26 May

      Whats the 4 Most Favorite words to an Online Entrepreneur?

      The answer though simple is not often respected. The answer is……. (drum-roll please).

      “Notification of Payment Received”

      Its one thing to create, market, and over deliver value. But how can you do that if you cannot get people to transition from visitors to customers? They are why the lights are on and your business is healthy (or at the very least not dead).

      Anyone that creates this type of email RULES. Don’t get me wrong, obviously it’s not all about the money. If it were (instead of creating, marketing, and over delivering value) you wouldn’t be in business long.

      But the social networking, blogging, emailing, bookmarking, YouTube videos should mean nothing if your end result is not a sale. That is of course if you are in a for profit business.

      These words mean I MATTER, these words mean my business matters! And they are one of most exhilarating words to see in your inbox! Pay Pal must have a 99% open rate LOL!

      Want to see those words everyday?

      My next article will be titled

      “Blogs to Pay Pal”

      Got a blog? Now I am going to show you how to get a business!

      07 Apr

      Shhh The 3 Most Powerful Blog Creating Secrets!

      larel-and-hardy

      I am smiling while I write this article because I wrote a funny little post about secrets some months ago. It’s my on going joke. See there are no secrets only information that is either widely or not widely known.

      What I am about to share with you is widely known by professionals but not widely known by beginners or intermediate bloggers. .

      This is really an instructional post to counter the article I mistakenly placed on twitter the other day. That article is called The 4 Basic Steps of Creating a Blog – Domain Name Selection, Hosting, Software and Systems. Once I reread this article in detail. I found myself in disagreement with key areas. And instead of pointing out the many issues I decided to write a better post that gives you correct and detailed information to consider before ever launching a blog.

      The below areas are broken into (3) parts. Domain Registration, Content Management Systems, Hosting and a Bonus subject. This information is only the tip of the iceberg of information. I would have to write in much more detail to cover the issue. And in the future I will.

      Domain Registration: Your domain registration is separate from your hosting (always) and you can register with a domain registration site I recommend only two. GoDaddy and my own co owned Hugahost.com are the best places to register your domains. I however ironically don’t recommend hosting on either. I helped to create HugaHost really to get people into registering their domains more so than hosting. The most important web rule is: She or he that controls the domain thus controls the website and thus the business. DO NOT let your designers (if you have one) register your domain. Always register your domain and point to whatever hosting you want. There are always instructional videos and support. Hugahost has 24/7 support number you can call (and NO thank God it’s not me LOL). As far as price anything under $10 US dollars is fine. I don’t suggest paying more (no need with competition). Focus on DOT COM over anything else right now. that is the most powerful and most think (for now) in .com vs .net etc. “Do you need to get my site/blog in net, org or other extensions?” simple answer no. Again keep it low cost and simple. in the future if you want a mobile or non profit section of your site/blog you can get those extensions.

      Content Management Systems (CMS): Who has the best structure and templates? One simple answer: WordPress. WordPress is the largest CMS in the world. Google loves to send instant traffic to them (without you hardly ever having to register your website). They have the largest selection of free and premium (pay) templates in the world. And the largest knowledge database across millions of websites. A Google search for WordPress revealed over 200 million searches. The largest of any content management system for websites.. WordPress is also the easiest (when combined with setup software) to setup. I have setup sites/blogs (domain registration>hosting>site setup>basic customization of template) inside of (5) hours. The only delay is getting the domain working which can take up to 24 hours. But in my experience they have it working in 3 hours tops. Once you have your initial host setup it is easy to make as many blogs as you like. I will explain that more in the hosting part.

      Hosting do you control your availability on the web?:

      In my professional experience UNIX/Linux servers are best vs. Windows. Some may argue this but when ever you are trying to run programs/scripts say a email script or almost anything with the extension .php. Most run easily on Linux (trust me I know this from first hand). Trust me save yourself time and headache.

      Did you know that price is the least of your worries? I may have to do a separate post about this to go into detail. I will simply say that with the heavy competition out there are literally thousands of low price hosting plans available. Therefore driving the price down.

      Who do you trust? The truth is overall with hosting you will have to go through trial and error. Your hosting plan is like a good relationship. You have to work and rework things out.

      BONUS: Making Money with your blogs: I know this is the so called important part but you know what? If your foundation (domain registration>CMS>hosting)) is shaky it is hard to make money consistently without issues.

      Here is one of the biggest secrets/ advantages to making money with blogging: And instead of keeping this in some $27 -$47 ebook I will actually share this for FREE. Did you know that the way hosting plans are structured that for less than $15 a month you can start as many websites/blogs as you want under (1) hosting plan? What this means is that you could have (5) money making blogs running under the same $15 dollar plan. The days of the one host, one site plans are long gone!

      Want to learn more? I highly suggest you signup for my ebook which contains some fantastic info on blogging by experts.

      22 Jan

      Online Business Ideas for Locating Great Hosting

      OK here are some online business ideas for locating great hosting. But this is by far not the most comprehensive on this subject. Since I launched (through my company) a web hosting site I felt obligated to share some information. Especially those who are trying to find a way to make money blogging. I am not going to point out my current nor past hosts because of course my option of each would be biased.

      Top Ten Online Business Ideas for Finding Great Hosting

      I don’t care what they offer. Low costs, a lot of bandwidth money back guarantee. If their servers are down more than 90 percent of the time then your business on the web is losing money. You only have a second to pull a customer in when trying to make money blogging. If your down your dead.

      How do you check if their 99.9% up-time is true?

      I have four great ways to check.

      First find out if the hosting service in question has a forum because they tell all. Irate customers will definitely air out any issues they have with the hosting. I remember looking at a host and reading the-negative comments on their forum. This initially discouraged me but when I read how the host moderators answered I was really impressed. No matter how mad the clients were they were always professional and prompt in their response. Hosting companies that have forums and that are willing to address the issue’s professionally and publicly should be respected.

      Second type negative statements in Google using the hosts name i.e. “I Hate Go Daddy” and read. This may lead you to a lot of personal opinions but the key links you are looking for are in forums across the web where the discussions will be hot and heavy. Then Google positive comments excluding the ones posted on the host you are investigating.

      Third Google the words “hosting reviews” and see if you can find some forums. Unlike the forums on the hosting companies website, these are specific forums that webmasters visit to talk about great and not so great hosting companies. Search these forums to see if the hosting companies you are considering are mentioned. Here are a few suggested forums WebHostingTalk (aka WHT) and HostHideout, Hostingdiscussion.com, Resellerboard.com and SitepointForums.com. But there are tons of them. And if you know of any good forums please feel free to comment.

      2. Got Support?

      Imagine signing up for hosting only to discover that “rickyretardohosting.net” can find their a** from a hole in-the wall. As your laughing I am sure someone isn’t. Remember three tactics to expose this challenge.

      Response time. Email them some questions initially and see how long it takes. If they are delaying to answers to  sales questions then you know what to expect as a customer. One of the worst online business ideas to me was to create a barrier between your prospects and yourself.

      Quality of the response: Did they give you the answers you needed or again did you discover another relative of George Bush?

      Personable (politeness): How personable were they?

      3. Are their servers Linux or Windows based?

      Though windows has the brand names. But if you want script heavy hardware then know that Linux rules! Youtube, Facebook and Google use Linux. I started out on windows but when I began developing more web intense apps and I noticed that most were made for Linux. Initially this may mean nothing to you but as you develop your website(s) you may want to look into Linux. If you want to make money blogging you will heed my advice and use the correct server.

      4. How many clients are using each of their servers?

      Yeah that 2500 gigs and 300 disk space for 10 dollars may seem like a deal but not if they have 300 people using one server on a shared hosting plan. Your site (s) will be slow and you dont always get what you pay for.

      5. What are the Sales, Billing, and support hours?

      Sale usually keeps business hours but some really smart companies have 24 hour sales available via chat. I love these options for all three billing, sales and it is a must for support. If a company is flaky with their chat support don’t use them.

      6. How many people are on their staff?

      24 hour chat support means nothing if you are always waiting 4 customers behind. That should never happen. Though it does. One of the poorest strategies is to shorten your staff. If you really like the company and this is their only issue then check to see if they have a support ticket system / forum and then follow suggestions from #1 and #2. Actual live chat with little or no wait is by far one of the most powerful business ideas for sales conversion and retention.

      7. How much of a knowledge base do they provide?

      Can you answer your own questions from their knowledge base? Is it detailed? comprehensive? Offer links?

      8. What kind of operational panel do you use?

      OK I been pretty good so far not to bad mouth any companies but I must say this. PLESK SUCKS!! Horrible panel and I have yet to find ONE developer that likes it (I have roughly about 3700 plus developers and programmers in my network). Of course plesk was on Windows servers making Linux definitely more attractive with their Cpanel model. As I write this I have been using them for a short time so far so great.

      9. Are there any services that are not displayed on your site?

      You will be amazed what you find NOT listed. Sales, extra packages, server brands not listed. Just ask and see what they say you may be surprised. Plus always ask what extra they can throw in. The worst they can say is no. Hey the only way you are going to make money blogging is bybeing bold. And I see no better time to start than with your hosting.

      10. Are there any bonus scripts or training services you provide?

      The smartest thing I think any company can do is educate their customers. the more they learn the better they respect and support you. Most people are looking for hosting are novices just trying to start a site. But any company that offers free beginner’s or intermediate training in MySQL, PHP, Open Source, HTML, basic SEO, web marketing, and retail services are worth their weight in gold. And again it certainly doesn’t hurt to ask.

      Honorable Mentions

      I had to mention these. you might think some should be on the top ten but I will explain why they are not.

      How much Do They Cost? This is the first question and a given. Price is always a factor whether its a company or individual. Price must be balanced with the top ten factors.

      What is the bandwidth? Again another given. the only thing to remember if your starting out you will probably use less than 100 gigs so don’t go over board. In fact the average blogger uses rougly less than 5 gigs if that much.

      What are the storage capacities? Remember if your starting a website for the first time whether you want to make money blogging or not the capacity shouldn’t be more than 5 -10 gigs or less.

      How many Domain’s do they Allow? Remember its not just one site that matters. Look at it like this, the web is the largest intellectual property in history! Did Donald Trump become a billionaire with one building or several? Keep your options open and see the future. A hosting company with unlimited sites could be the option for you. Most now offer that option.

      What are your goals? As a website? How do you intend to grow whether you are a new upstart or a 5+ year company. Keeping abreast of the latest design and goals can save you time and money.