Entries from October 2007 ↓

Today I have very special present for all of you from Ken Evoy of Site Build It fame. Below you will find not one, not three, but five of his free Internet business ebooks. They cover different types of online business you might be interested in starting. Quite frankly they do a far better job than I could ever do explaining exactly how to go about starting an online business. Please enjoy!

Affiliate Masters Course – The Affiliate Masters Course will help you build a Web site that will pull in targeted traffic. You will learn how to make themed content pages that earn money from Affiliate programs and from Google AdSense.

Netwriting Masters Course – The Netwriting Masters Course will show you how to “write for success” and build a profitable, stable, online business. (Perfect companion to the Affiliate Masters Course)

Service Sellers Masters Course – In order to sell a service successfully online, you need to attract and establish a credible relationship with potential clients. This guide explains exactly how to do it.

Make Your Price Sell – Selling something on the Internet but not sure how much to charge? Read this guide to find out how to price your products and/or services properly.

Make Your Net Auctions Sell – Thinking about starting an auction or eBay business? Then you need to read this guide to find out how you can profit from eBay and not the other way around.

Since it is Sunday I want to keep this post short. However, I came across this article on the New York times site called, After Succeeding, Young Tycoons Try, Try Again. I though it was interesting because it illustrated how hard people have to work to make billion dollar internet companies. Fortunately, if you have more modest goals you won’t have to work nearly so hard.

Still, I think it is a good reminder of what is possible if you stick to your internet business dreams.

If you want to have a successful Internet business you have to mange your time effectively. You have to set aside time to devote exclusively to your business and not to other pursuits. It can be very easy when starting an online business to get side-tracked (I know I certainly do from time to time) by other things on the Internet. But your aim should be to keep these distractions to a minimum.

I have found that there are three keys for my own time management success. I don’t know if these will work for you but at least they should get you thinking.

1. Set a clear goals and write them down

I do this in two ways. First, when I start a new project I write down exactly what it is I want to get accomplished from this project. Second, I take the main goal and break it down into smaller daily goals and create a to do list.

For example, say I want to create a new website about golf. My main goal is to build a site with 50 pages of content which make me $10/day profit. My daily goals could be writing 5 pages of new content or getting 5 new links pointed to my site. The key is to break down big tasks and make them simple.

2. Make ‘business only’ time

I work from home so it can be very easy to get distracted by other household chores that need to be done. However, it is important that you have ‘business only’ time, which means you only work on your business during this time period. Essentially, you are treating the time like you would if you are at work, which is how successful entrepreneurs approach their businesses.

3. Do something you like

Now not everybody can do what they love and still make money. Moreover, some things you have to do as an Internet business owner will be less fun than others. The key though is to focus most of your efforts on things you like or prefer doing rather than those you don’t. That way working on your Internet business will not seem like work at all.

OK so those are my personal ideas. But you should probably stop reading them and get back to work.

Last week I posted an article about ‘How To Start An Internet Business From Home‘. In it, I talked about some of the easiest and most common types of online businesses you could start from home. However, most of the ideas I presented cost more than $100 to start. So, today I decided that I would present two Internet business ideas for the extremely fiscally challenged.

Now it is possible to start an Internet business for free. Yet, I do not recommend always looking to use free resources for your online business. I have found that you often get what you pay for, so “free” often ends up being a false economy. That being said, there is one type of business that you can start free that works well.

Starting an eBay Auction Business

Now I have already explained what you need to start an eBay business so I won’t repeat it here. (If you missed it please check out the link to last week’s article above). It’s free to get an eBay account and the only real start-up cost is paying for the things you are going to sell. eBay even gives you tons of free advice at their eBay University Learning Center.

Still, to be successful in this type of business you need to have something to sell, that people want to buy. Personally, I have never had much success from eBay mainly because I don’t really know what people want to buy. Nevertheless, many people have been extremely successful from it, so if you are looking at starting an Internet business for free it is hard to beat eBay.

However, there is one type of online business I have been successful with, that can also be started for free. This is setting up content blogs. But, if you want to be really successful with them I don’t recommend using the free options. Instead, I recommend a solution that costs just under $100.

The reason I recommend blogs and not building an actual website is that blogs are much more user friendly. For a beginner you pretty much just have to write and post and the blog software does everything else for you. This gives you more time to focus on your business instead of wasting it learning HTML, PHP, CGI etc.

Starting Your Own Content Blog

There are many popular places where you can start a blog for free. Two of the most popular are blogger and wordpress. These resources are fine if all you want to do is set up a hobby or personal blog, but in my opinion they don’t quite cut it for starting a business. If you have absolutely no money though these can be a good option.

If you have about $100 to spend though I have an option I think is a million times better. First you need to get a basic web hosting account (My favorite by far is BlueHost). Then you set-up your own custom wordpress blogs with your own domain. So instead of myblog.blogger.com you get www.myblog.com. The reason why I like bluehost so much is that they give you your first domain name ‘free’ (well it is included with hosting cost) and they make it really easy to install your first blog. The cost for a full year of hosting is about $95, but I think well worth it.

Before you start though you should pick a niche for your blog. I highly recommend niche inspector but this does cost over $100 just on its own. The good news is that Myleena Phan has a free guide on the site that allows you to do everything the software does just not nearly as quickly.

Finally, if you are setting up a blog you will want to make money from it. The easiest way is to just put up Google AdSense ads on it (like the ones on this blog). Other options included using affiliate programs (I recommend Associateprograms.com to find them) and getting paid to write content, such as payperpost.com. My recommendation is to use some combination of these methods as you will make more money that way.

So there you have it, two very different types of online businesses you can start for less than $100. You own personality and goals will determine which one you choose. Now who ever said starting an Internet business had to be expensive?

Important Update: I no longer recommend the 3waylinks.net program.  To  find out why please  read My 3waylinks.net Re-Evaluation. I am going to keep this review simply for reference purposes.

I have to say that I love 3WayLinks.net. It is one of, if not the, best ways to get links to your website that will help improve your ranking in Google and other search engines.

OK, now I know what some of you may be thinking. Ian, you only seem to be giving good reviews to products. Well, the fact is that, so far I have really only reviewed products I have used successfully. Plus, it is more fun to write about products that are really useful than those that are just blatantly trying to rip you off.

So let me explain why I think 3waylinks.net is a great product and who should be looking at using it. Again it is a product that will only really help certain types of online businesses.

Why I Like It

One of the ways I personally earn a lot of money online is through content based websites. However, the problem with building any new site is getting it a good search engine ranking. 3WayLinks.net makes getting a good ranking in the search engines, especially Google, easy and quick. This means I can make more money in less time.

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