Carlos On Web :: Going techie without going broke

A journey to a thousand miles begins with a single step. You have probably heard about it a couple of times in the past. It makes sense and it’s very well applicable to an online business.

Every serious online venture starts with a domain name. In this article, we’ll discuss more about domain names.

What is A Domain Name?

Put simply, a domain name is your primary identity on the Internet. It is a name that helps people remember you or your online business.

Here are some examples:

• Google.com – By Google Inc., the giant search engine we all have grown to love.
• CarlosOnWeb.com – That’s the domain name of my personal website.
• Facebook.com – The social networking website where I’m hooked every single day — almost.

Of course you are not limited to .com domains. There are a couple of others including:

• .net — usually used by Network providers
• .org — for the non-profit organizations
• .info — websites that usually give out information to the general public

A domain name is unique; no two businesses can have the same domain name.

To get a domain name, you have to register it using a domain registrar (companies like Godaddy.com). But before doing that, first do a research. Make sure that you come up with a domain name that is easy for people to remember.

The Pre-Registration Process

There is really no pre-registration process, but the following tips will save you a lot of time during the registration process. Make sure that you keep these things in mind.

1. Check for the availability of the domain name. Use the DomainSearch.com website to check if your domain name is still available. Nothing can be more frustrating than knowing that someone has already taken the domain name that you have in mind. If it’s already taken, be creative and come up with a different name that is as close to your line of business. It also helps if you can brainstorm with someone when coming up with a domain name that is easy to remember.

2. Have your credit card within reach. These days, when you pay for stuff online, you are most likely to use a credit card. Ours is a Credit Economy and having a credit card becomes more and more important if you go online.

3. Decide on which email address to use. If you are like me, you probably have separate emails for friends, family, and business use. Make sure that you use the one you are using for business purposes and never ever mix it up with emails that you use for other things.

How To Register A Domain Name

There are a lot of companies that you can use to register a domain name. But the best one I have been using over the years is Godaddy.com.

If you are excited to go about it, go to the website site now by clicking on the image link below.

If, however, you want to get a step-by-step overview on how to go about the process, the short YouTube video can be of help.

Register Your Domain Name Now!

How would you respond if someone asks you, “Do you have a website?”

If that question is not yet important to you, you’ll soon find out that it is. As an entrepreneur, having your own business website is one thing you can really be proud of. And the first step — the very step to that direction — is having your own domain name.

Start learning now.

Start earning online now.

Register your domain name now. Follow this link.

The Internet is a goldmine with vast reserves available to anyone for the taking. But unlike the physical goldmine where there is finite amount of resources and works on a zero-sum principle (one’s gain is another’s loss and vice-versa), the wealth available online is virtually unlimited and grows more as the technology advances.

And the best part — the one the I love the most — is that it is a level-playing field.

Almost anyone can possibly succeed online. Rich, poor, well-connected, Mr Unknown, genius or under-schooled, young and old … these things don’t matter. With luck, timing and the right attitude, anyone can make it.

If someone is throwing away money and all you have to do to get some is to learn how to catch, what would you do?

I don’t know about you, but for me, I better learn how to catch and hone that skill to perfection!

The fact that real money can be made through the Internet is nothing new.

But if you are the Johnny-come-lately type, this article is a gentle introduction on how money is made online.

Listed below are three easy ways to make money online, through a website. See if there is a hole you can fit in and hopefully you can begin your online business journey by taking the steps leading to the direction of Internet money.

1. Sell Your Own Products or Services

Most entrepreneurs would perfectly fit here. You have products that you have created and that you are truly proud of? Go online and let the whole world know about it. Who knows? Someone from the other side of the planet is dying to have your product.

Professionals and consultants who are very good at doing their own things would find it very fulfilling if they go online and expand their reach. This is also one way of standing out amongst the crowd.

Go online or die. Someone said it best: “If your business is not on the Internet, your business will soon be out of business.”

2. Sell or Promote Someone Else’s Products or Services

Are you too lazy to create your own product? No problem!

After all, after one has created the product, the next step would be to sell it and eventually put it in the hands of the buying customers. In fact, the vast majority of your business activity will be on marketing and selling the product. It only makes sense. Without sales, your business will die.

Peter Drucker, the man considered by many to be the person who “invented management”, said that any business has only two basic functions: Marketing and Innovation.

And what does it mean to you? A lot, I hope!

This means that if you can effectively market, promote, or sell someone else’s products you smell good to the company. Because of competition, many companies are on the look-out for the best marketers out there.

If that’s you, here’s good news: you can earn by becoming an affiliate of the company.

In simple terms, here’s how it works:

1. You put up a website and sign-up as an affiliate of the company.
2. The company gives you the code that you can use in promoting their product.
3. When the visitor that you referred buys the products, you can you get a referral fee.

Sounds good? A lot of online companies are following this business model. There should be something for you. Start exploring now.

3. Selling Ad Spaces

This one is the lazy man’s monetization model.

It is easy and it is also hard. Am I crazy?

No… I mean, not yet. Let me explain.

If you happen to have created a high-trafficked website — everyone who owns a website should strive to have high-traffic — and you don’t know how to monetize it, they is the way to go.

Remember: Traffic means people and people equals money. There are a lot of online businesses out there that are dying to have people visiting them. And if you can direct some of the traffic from your website to theirs, you can earn that way.

Remember: Traffic means people and people equals money. There are a lot of online businesses out there that are dying to have people visiting them. And if you can direct some of the traffic from your website to theirs, you can earn that way.

What you will do is put some ads on strategic places on your website. Do it in a way that helps your website visitors. Those ads should complement your content. If your website is all about Yoga, for instance, some ads related to meditation and yogic exercises (called asanas) would be very helpful to your website visitor.

You help your web visitors by giving other resources via your ads, the company that uses your ads space pays you in return for giving them the favor of driving traffic to their business.

That’s another example of a Win-Win business partnership.

Getting those ads is quite simple, or easy if you may. There are companies that will directly rent a space on your website. And there are other companies like Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and others that provide you with HTML code to put on your website and do everything else programmatically.

The hard part is getting the traffic in the first place.

Do you consider it scary running an online business, or even just a simple website, simply because you lack the technical knowledge to go about it?

If you say “yes” to that question, well guess what, you are not alone. I’ve met a lot of offline, brick-and-mortar type of entrepreneurs who would not even entertain the thought of going online.

And while they are forever buried in their fears, there are a different breed of entrepreneurs who are so hungry for action and so eager to go online with only below the minimum skills and who are succeeding anyway.

I can only guess that there must be something else at work here that I can’t explain yet. But apparently, it’s not the lack of technical know-how that is the hindrance to one’s success in an online business.

Personally, I think, not going online is just fine if you are contented with mediocrity and as long as your competitors are also not bent on doing it online. But once they do it ahead of you, you could be eating their left-over pies.

My background is on the technical aspects of Web Technologies. And when it comes to running an online business, I can say that having a technical knowledge is certainly an advantage. But it is not even a requirement just to get started.

It’s true… if you know how to use an email, you are ready to go. And if you can Facebook, you are more than capable.

Are you eager to learn how easy it is to have your website up and running in no time?

I can show you how. But I guess, let’s postpone that for a moment and discuss it in the next up-coming article.

(So if you just bumped into this website, I suggest that you get a free subscription so that you will be notified when that article comes up any time.)

The Non-Technical Work Involved In Running An Online Business

I believe it’s very important to emphasize the non-technical aspects of running an online business. They consist of the majority of the work required to make your website valuable from the visitor’s point of view.

To be honest, it’s not enough just to have your website up.

It’s a common mistake repeatedly done by small businesses: They hire a guy to make them a website. The website is done. And then that’s it…end of the story.

This is the kind of online business that is doomed to fail right from the start. You don’t want this to happen to you. What you want is a website that your customers will love; something that makes them want to buy from you or use your service.

You need to realize that after the web design is done and the website is up and running, your online business is just beginning to take off. As I always said, treat their a new website as you would a newborn baby.

Here are some of the most important tasks involved in running your website:

• Copywriting
• Marketing and Sales
• Promos, Special Offers and Updates
• Special Reports, Newsletter, Blog

There are a lot more.

The point I’m trying to convey is that these things are non-technical, but are nevertheless important components of your online presence.

During the course of running your online business, you’ll discover that these activities are more and more important and that they are in fact the very activities drawing the clients to you, affecting your bottom line.

And as for the technical side of things, here’s the shocker: your clients just don’t care at all about that. What they are after is you give them what they are looking for.

It’s not the fancy, graphics-filled website that they want. And the music that load when they are at the home page… please turn it off.

Most customers are self-centered. In fact, most of them are coming from a place called hell. All they want is for you to take away their pains. That’s essentially what your business is in the first place — to solve your clients’ problems.

And for real entrepreneurs, for every problem solved, there is a reward.

Now, which would rather spend your online activity? On the technical side or the non-technical, business aspects?

Non-techies, this is for you. I’m starting a series of articles geared towards non-technical folks who want to find their way around the intricacies of running an Internet-based business. This one is the first in the series.

Call this Web Development 101 or whatever. This article is for non-techies who want to have a website but somehow doesn’t know how to begin.

No, I won’t turn you into Web Development Rock Star overnight. That would take a million lines of programming code and a lot of sleepless nights to go with it. Better leave it up to your techie brother.

However, unlike other technical folks in my circle, I don’t believe that you need to go back to technical school to be able to run a successful online business or even simply own a website.

Knowing the basics, especially the technical jargons, will get you on the right footing. After all, in any business, there are aspects that you need to be aware of so that you will not be at the mercy of someone else.

Of course, it helps to recognize where your knowledge ends where the services of a qualified expert begins. As a non-technie website owner, it is better to concentrate on improving your business (that’s already a full-time job, mind you) and learning how to delegate or outsource the technical details.

Okay… I know that was so mouthful for an introduction.

Get yourself ready…Here are the Seven Important Jargons that I believe should sink into your Web Vocabulary.

1. Domain Name

Simply stated, it is the address of your website on the Internet in human-readable, text format. The domain name of Google Incorporated is google.com; The domain name of Facebook is facebook.com. It’s no-brainer, really.

Don’t underestimate it. A domain name is the single most important resource you can have! It is your online identify. Before you even think of how your website should look like, you should spend a lot of time brainstorming about what domain name to use.

2. Web Hosting

Your website will take up some space where you will put your files: text, audio, video, images, etc. These files should be stocked somewhere or nothing will appear on your website. This is where web hosting comes in. You upload those files to your web host.

A Web Hosting Service usually comes with the following bundle of services:

1. Web Server – makes it possible to run your server-side script.
2. FTP Server – allows you to upload and download files to and from your server
3. Email Server – allows you to send and receive email messages based on your domain.

There are a couple of other services, but these are the basic ones you need at this point.

3. FTP

FTP stands for File Transmission Protocol. Basically, it is needed to move files from your local computer to the Server and vice-versa. As a user, you would normally be using an FTP Client to transfer files to and from the server.

4. Scripting Language

Have you heard about PHP, Perl, C# and Java? Well, these are Programming Languages used by web developers to code things up so that your website can have a seemingly intelligent personality behind it.

Among other things, Scripting Language executes codes

• in response to user requests
• when processing database operations
• to render the final web page

…And others. I hope you get it.

5. Database Server

If you need a way to organize information in an intelligent fashion, store and retrieve it, or manipulate it programmatically, then you will need a database server.

6. Content Management System

A Content Management System (CMS) is a software bundle that allows you to maintain the contents (articles, pages, etc) of your website without having to bother much about the technical details like HTML and CSS. Gone are the days when every webpage is saved on a separate file. Thanks to the emergence of FREE and open-source CMS. Maintaining a website is easier than ever.

7. Search Engine Optimization

As soon as you have your website up and running, the next best thing to do is to let the world know that it exists. Since the most users use search engines to find something on the Internet, you stand a good chance of having someone stumble on your website if you optimize the pages for search results. That’s how Search Engine Optimization comes into play.

Essentially, it involves a process of gathering back links, placing keywords in the right places and having enough content that visitors and search engines would love to consume.

Notes on Web Hosting, Scripting Language and Database Server: When looking for a Web Hosting service, always check for their support of a particular Scripting Language and Database Server that you will be needing on your website. As a small business or professional, you would probably be at home with a web host that supports PHP and MySQL — two of the most popular, open-source technologies. When it comes to price, functionality and user-support, the combination of PHP and MySQL is simply outstanding.

Your Website, Your Baby

Treat your new website as you would a new baby. If at first it doesn’t look very impressive, as does anything in the early phase, don’t get discouraged. Having a business website requires a series of improvements along the way.

And remember, there is no such thing as a perfect website.

When starting a new online venture, a beginning entrepreneur would probably do three things first:

1. Buy A Domain Name
2. Get a Web Designer and craft the collest web design on earth
3. Create five pages or so containing an overview of his products and services, his business, mission and vision, some photos here and there, etc.

After a few days, he could be laughing already confident in his ability in getting a cheap web designer after dumping the high-profile professional aside.

A week or two later, he begins to invite his friends to take a look at his latest business innovation. He would even tell his friends to tell their friends about the website — an experiment on word-of-mouth marketing. But will they do it? Heck, no!

Months past, he is wondering already why his website has only three constant visitors daily: he, his wife and his web designer (who would probably be still doing a few tweaks here and there).

Sounds familiar?

Small businesses still don’t get it. Like other professionals in any field, not all web designers or web developers are equal. If they are, they would all be probably long-haired by now.

When it comes to having a website, small businesses still don’t get it. A website is not just an online business card or electronic company brochure that you only update once in a decade.

A website is (or should be):

• A money-making machine minus the friction of the moving parts real machines have.
• A salesman who never sleeps and best of all never complains about it.
• A PR Officer that invites the visitors and sells them the benefits of doing business with you.
• An electronic catalog that visitors can use to find the products that interest them – not you.

The list could go on, but you get the picture. If you want to get the best of what your website can do for your business, there are basic things that you need to grasp so you can be on the right track.

You can do it right the time if you carefully follow the 5 Steps to Website Success below.

Five Steps To Success For Any New Website

1. Get A Domain Name That Sells

At the minimum, your domain should reflect what you are offering to your clients. It must be easy to remember and even easier to type on the keyboard. If you are a professional and your name is quite popular, get domain name that is based on your first and last names. If you are a company, your domain name should be based on the brand that your company is known for or a brand that you want to promote on the market.

2. Perform A Keyword Research and Analysis

Many small businesses have no idea about this.

When a web user wants to get information on something, he relies, almost always, on the search results generated by the search engines after typing some words and phrases on the search box.

There are millions of searches performed every single minute. It’s mind-boggling to know each one of them. But you don’t have to. You are only after the keywords that are related to your services or the products you are offering.

Think about those phrases. Do you have them on your pages? How about your competitors, are they doing a good job on placing the right keywords on their pages?

In essence, that is what keyword research and analysis is all about. It’s getting a snapshot of what the visitors are searching for when they needed information; hopefully, your information.

There are tools on how to perform this very important task. Don’t ever launch another website without having an idea of the keywords relevant to your business.

3. Prepare Your Killer Content

Content is the king. A good content is educational and information-rich. They should be related to your business or products and services. The content must be in an easy-to-read text format. Use graphics sparingly and only when they help convey the point of you text. Video and Audio may be good, but remember search engines can’t index the information contained in your video and audio streams.

One more thing on content: Never promote your website if it lacks the basic content that the visitors would expect. Putting the sign that says, “This website is under construction,” is a fastest way of telling your visitors, “Don’t come back here anymore.“

4. Get A Top-notch Web Design

One of the biggest mistakes small businesses make when deciding to get a Web developer is to award the contract to the lowest-bidding web designer who knocks on their door. Don’t do it. Cheap, even free, can be even more expensive than you originally imagined. You should understand that anything worth having always comes with a price and if you are dead serious about getting it, you should be ready to pay the price. Are you ready to pay the price in exchange for the things that you wanted the most?

Another mistake is to get the one with the cutest web design. Cute maybe nice, but it doesn’t always translate into positive cash flow or business savings. Worst, the graphic design could turn out to be just an expression of the designer’s artistic talent, which is totally unrelated (even hurtful) to your marketing campaign.

Tip: A lot of Web Designers out there are frustrated artists and painters experimenting their way into the digital media. Sure, they can come up with really creative and out-of-this-world designs. But would you rather run an online digital art gallery or a business website? It’s your call.

5. Promote the Website

I can’t emphasize this highly enough. Promote your website or it will die a natural death. Web Promotion is everything.

There are many ways of doing it: forums, email campaigns, newsletters, RSS, etc. The advent of social networking sites makes web promotion a snap.

If all you wanted to have is just a website, it’s ok not to promote it. But if you want the benefits of owning a popular website, positive user feedback, money from traffic, then web promotion should be a consistent activity of your business.