These are important decisions that need to be made in the planning of the project.    Without planning the whole aspect of starting a web-based business, spending too much on the build with no funds left for marketing will mean you’ll have a great site, but no-one will ever know about it.   Likewise, cutting corners on the build an design and ploughing most of the cash into advertising and other marketing might mean lots of people visiting your site, feel it lacks content or ease of use, and never return.

A good mixture of both will comprimise a good site and enough to launch the site and begin the awareness of it’s existance.

Whether your site is a blog, a shop or a self-perpetuating revenue-maker, funding that effectively is a priority to ensure the long-term success.   The costs of starting a web-based business is minimal if you compare it to a non-web-based business – you have no office or shop to rent, no staff (at first) and no utilities to pay eiether, but a good business and development plan is necessary for every web-based projects’ survival.  The most difficult part of starting a web-based business is the time and effort to build the business and continue growing the site.

Think of it like a snowball:

Imagine, you’re at the very peak of a snowy mountain.   You roll a snowball in your hands and place it on the floor.  It will take effort to begin rolling it down the hill as it weighs almost nothing and will take manual pushing to start building it up with more snow, always pushing it towards the slope.   After you’ve been pushing it a while and it has doubled in size, it becomes easier to then give it a tap and it begins to roll on it’s own for a short distance.  You may need a bit of energy to keep it going , guiding it down,  steering it slightly on track and constantly help it build and gain momentum.   Once that snowball is at an appropriate size, the weight accumulated then means that the snowball has it’s own weight to help momentum and begins rolling non-stop down the mountainside on it’s own accord.   As it rolls, it gets faster and faster – gaining more snow and growing in size as it plummets down the slope.  Before long, you couldn’t actually stopped it getting bigger if you tried.

The hardest part of getting your website going, is at the start…. the big push.   See a rough guideline below for simple purchases needing on any website:

Domain Name

Registering a domain name is necessary for any online business.  Once a business name is established, the domain name is registered at websites such as Dotster.com, Register.com and GoDaddy.com.   The cost of a domain name is dependent on the extension (the .com, .co.uk, .net etc).   For most business owners, a .com extension is beneficial because it is the most commonly known extension among people.   A one-year registration service for a .com domain name is around £7-9.   This service needs to be renewed every year.  Buying it for an extended period will save you money.

Hosting Service

Hosting services have a wide range of prices, and prices are determined by the platform the business uses. Programming a website in .NET is usually more expensive, whereas a PHP website can be hosted for as low as £5 to £10 a month.  Free hosting services are available, but free services require ads or popups, which is not professional for business purposes.  Be aware that you will get what you pay for.

Database

Database services are for websites that host dynamic content.  The most common databases for Internet websites are mySQL and SQL Server; the former is usually a free or minimally charged service from the host of the website, and the SQL Server costs slightly more and is used with .NET websites.   SQL Server costs can be as low as £10 per month.

Programming and Design

Unless you as a web-business owner have programming and design experience, it’s necessary to hire a professional programmer and designer to do it for you.  Most design agencies have both services in-house.  The programming and design can be accomplished using separate service providers.  The designer can provide a design that the programmer works with to create the web pages.  The cost of a programmer and a designer is dependent on experience and the complexity of the website.  Some professionals may charge as low as £20 per hour.   More advanced sites may need a highly skilled programmer and designer, which can cost £50 to £75 per hour.   Large, complex sites for this reason can take 100’s of man hours at the higher rates, so negotiate costs up-front.

PC Resources

Owning a web-based business means that you need a computer with high-speed online service.  These costs are also dependent on location and type of service.   High-speed Internet access is necessary for the business owner to communicate with clients, conduct research and upload new pages and images.  The cost for Internet connect can run from £30 to £100 per month.   If your site goes down, your business is down so invest in a decent service to ensure that you remain a happy business-owner.

]]> http://www.theonemanmission.com/featured/your-website-start-up-the-costs/feed/ 0 http://www.theonemanmission.com/marketing/turning-an-idea-into-fortunes/ http://www.theonemanmission.com/marketing/turning-an-idea-into-fortunes/#comments Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:29:36 +0000 Phil http://theonemanmission.com/?p=469 Many entrepreneurs, both new and established, now promote their ideas on a much wider scale thanks to the power of the internet.  Harnessing the world wide web means that even the small business entrepreneur can put their ideas on a huge global market, research their markets and predict the success of their idea on the general population by research, research, research.

The amount of leverage that this gives to even a small home business entrepreneur to brainstorm and act upon big ideas, simply can’t be over-estimated.  The ability to put those ideas into the homes of literally millions worldwide is what it truly amounts to.  That’s the sort of power that was previously only available to large corporations.  But not any more.

Already successful but traditional entrepreneurs can look forward to their ideas creating even bigger pay days by utilising the internet.  Now they can have a voice and sell their products in places that were simply out of reach previously.  No other business medium has had the impact or afforded such opportunity before.

But thats only the beginning.  Slick entrepreneurs know that they can test their ideas whilst cutting their advertising and promotional costs down to virtually zero.  Saying that, they can still reach a bigger target market than ever before.  That market is still growing and is still very sustainable.

In real-life terms, that means that no matter what an entrepreneur is selling - digital or physical products – if its a good idea, it can literally make a fortune in a very short period of time.

Plus there’s so many ways to promote and advertise and a lot of them are free, certainly nearly all are very inexpensive.  So a clever entrepreneur can promote a new idea using free advertising methods and then re-invest the profits to promote a good idea further and generate even more sales and bigger pay days.

If you’re thinking of entering the world of entrepreneur business then just one good idea could truly change your life overnight.  Really, thats not cloud cuckoo-land.  Naturally you need to hit upon the right idea but even small ideas can lead to bigger things, and sometimes, even the daftest idea can be what makes it big.   So for entrepreneurs full of big ideas the world wide web truly is their oyster and there’s a very big pearl in the middle of it.   I advise you all to think hard and reach out for it.

Rats appear capeable of a complex form of thinking - before known to exist only in humans and other primates — the capacity to reflect on what they do or do not know.

“If rats can do it, this capability may be more widespread than imagined,” explained Jonathon Crystal, a comparative psychologist at University of Georgia, US of A.

Humans often are aware of what knowledge they possess or lack and what they are or are not capeable of. 

So the rat-race definition:  ‘An exhausting routine that leaves no time for relaxation’.   Sound all too familiar?

The rat-race nowadays (for me at least), equals waking up too early to get through the traffic on my ride into work.  Once at work, the mundane activities of completing my role see me merely counting down the time I have there.   This blog is my starting journey from the world of employment into full time web entrepreneurship.   My ‘job’ is  pretty dull stuff to be honest and I jump at the chance of doing something different, just to break up several parts of my day in the desperate hope that time actually quickens somehow.   Come 5pm, I’m out the door a few seconds past and beginning my epic rush-hour journey home.  A 20 minute journey takes me over an hour most days… and it generally frustrates me endlessly.  But I LOVE IT.  Am I in love with driving?  No.   Am I insane?  Maybe.  

The reason I actually like the the rat-race, is it has indirectly inspired me from the start of my online business plan and it constantly motivates me every single day to achieve success with my online business and get me out of the rat-race… and soon.   Think about how great a tool it is to drive into work - constantly dreaming of the day I don’t need to do it anymore.   I’m sure that everyone in your workplace hate their job (apart from passionate people who love doing what they do, which is fine)  but everyone wishes they didn’t have to work anymore.   Funny thing is, if they used their energy in a more positive direction, they actually wouldn’t have to. 

 So why do 95% of people stay in the rat-race?   Truth is, most people feel they are stuck in the ‘routine’ for various reasons; security, money, mortgage etc.   Guess what, business owners have the same costs, the same mortgages, the same monthly outgoings (if not more).   They just chose to life live differently.  They took the leap of faith into the unnown and embraced the risk for the chance of freedom.    Success and freedom is simply a choice.    This has been preached millions of times by every motivational speaker you can think of.   Success is just a choice, yet most won’t take the first step.   That’s where you and I differ as people…

By reading my blog, I’m assuming that you’re looking to get off the paycheck-to-paycheck treadmill or to drop out of the rat race altogether.   Here’s what you’ll need: a solid plan for how you’ll spend your time and a way to either earn dramatically more or spend much, much less.

This is not an impossible dream.   Back in 2004, 7.5 million U.S. households had $1 million in assets, not including their homes.   The number of people worth £5 million has quadrupled in the past 10 years and now numbers nearly 1 million.

So how do you get there?

• Set goals and have a long-range plan to reach them.

• Automate deposits to retirement and savings accounts, so you won’t be tempted to spend that money.

• Pay down your debt.  Get them cleared so you can start a business ‘fresh’.

• Figure out ways to build your savings, even if you have to play mental games with yourself.  Small little changes, can have big effects over time.

• Take inspiration from the many who quietly gained wealth by saving religiously and investing wisely, whose homes and cars don’t scream “rich”.  Ther’ll be plenty of opportunity in the future to spend on flash cars and houses etc, but you need to get there first.

• Get some business education. That may mean holding a desk job for several years or taking classes.   Learn how to learn and study your market and how your web business will fit into it.   Become an expert by researching constantly.

• Pick partners who complement and enhance your strengths.

• Get good advice. Alumni networks and sources such as YoungEntrepreneur.com offer plenty of it.

• Write a solid business plan.   Your plan should be able to champion your idea to potential investors in the future.   It is also vital for steering your web business and a great resource to check back regularly to make sure you are still on track to your initial goal.

• Raise money.  Don’t depend on your credit card to carry you in the first six months, when you’re unlikely to be making a profit.   Whatever your budget is at the start, there will be likely a few unexpected costs you didn’t think of initially.   Expect that.   It’s not a bad thing, it’s just part of building a business.

• Don’t immediately quit your day job (like me).   Markets change all the time, so make sure you are hitting a constant income for a good few months consistently before deciding to leave.  It will make leaving your job all the more sweeter when it happens.   Understand what ‘Delayed Gratification’ truly means.

• Develop self-discipline.  It’s a lot harder to meet demands you’ve imposed on yourself than those of a 9-to-5 employer.   Put in plenty of work and energy.  Luckily, with most web companies, the biggest push of energy and time will be at the start as most web businesses will require less once the site is launched.   Think  the mentality:  ’I do today what others don’t, so that in the future I’ll do, what others can’t’.  I love this quote.

To many, ditching the rat race means downshifting to a less demanding and more fulfilling career.  That’s understandable and perfectly OK.  But to me, and hopefully most web entrepreneurs, leaving the rat-race means ending employment alltogether and becoming a self-made success story.

1) Create a website business plan that integrates nicely with your overall marketing objectives; the content should be consistent with any offline materials (leaflets, posters, business cards), the graphics/images should be web friendly and consistent with your overall branding; same colours, fonts, basically, everything that makes your website ‘recognisable’ as a brand.

2) When creating a website, try not to get “geek crazy” – meaning you become so in love with the latest design technology, your web site gets bogged down with heavy graphics, add-on software and components, GIF animated image/tacky crap, etc. But, conversely, check your ego at the door when you work at your design. There are too many sites cramped with meaningless junk they literally turn visitors away.  A decent, clean design is what you typically need.  Keep it ‘fresh’.

3) Pay attention to your website’s “load times,” i,e. how long it takes a web site to load on the worst-case scenario: a 56 kbps modem (this is an industry average and some users will still be using this – even in today’s broadband world).  If its more than 12-18 seconds, you may experience the “click of death” – the site doesn’t load quickly and the surfer is gone… forever.   Of course if you are targeting broadband customers who are reaching your site via ISDN, DSL or Cable modem then you can build a website that incorporates multimedia-ready content that may include streaming audio or video, Shockwave or Flash capabilities.

4) Keep it simple – make a website easy to navigate, build an efficient menu structure that is consistent with industry standards.

5) Your visitors should be able to get to their desired area of your site within one or two mouse clicks; they will quickly get frustrated if they have to click around multiple menus to get to the page that they are seeking.

6) Develop content that is web-friendly.  People don’t read text on websites like they do in any other offline media. Keep paragraphs short ( no more than three or four sentences) and put in white space between your content, include links in your pages as well to other areas of your site as well.  this not only steers people across your site, but also helps with seo.

7) Make your site User-friendly.   Don’t use white backgrounds with yellow text, don’t have tiny, tiny writing.  This page is about the limit (I personally love this size, but the majority of people don’t).  Also bear in mind people who are colour-blind or visually impaired – can they still use your site efficiently?   Will they be able to actually see anything on your site?

8. Optimise your website for Search Engines by researching about 8-12 keywords that people will use to find your site from Google etc, then incorporate these keywords actually within your site content (to drive relevancy with search engine spiders/bots) and then get lots of links to your site (also known as ‘backlinks’.  It is estimated as much as 70% of all traffic to most web site comes through a search engine of some sort – mainly Google, Yahoo and Aol.

9) Check  into your log server files regularly to uncover “tracking” made through your website – your log files are raw data that show how and from, where people located  your website, where they went within your web site, how long they stayed there for, etc.  There are many products on the market that can achieve such purpose, such as Google Analytics.   With Google, you would simply sign up with Google for free, they then give you some god to add into the pages and it does all the reportig for you.

10) Think global, not local - in your overall site design.  Always think that the greatest Internet growth is occurring outside where you live, so it is essential to build a site that can be accessed easily by people anywhere around the world – assuming that the content can be useful for anyone.   You may also want to make your web site content readily available in diverse languages as well (especially if e-commerce), so your website can be utilized by all.

Hope you find this as useful as I did.   It may seem common sense, but it’s easy to forget one or more of the important factors.

1 – ‘Network’ with other web-business owners whose websites you like the look and feel of, and get the contact information for the companies that created those sites – normally a development or webmaster team.  Ask the site owners if they were satisfied with all aspects of the work and service, ask if they wold recommend them, and what they paid to have their site built.  Make comparisons between the size and functionality of their site compared to your idea and then work out how much yours could likely cost in a comparison.

2 – Look around the web and make a list of websites that you find attractive.  Make notes of layouts, colours and flash-based applications.  Be sure to copy the complete url for each site you like so you can easily refer back to it and send to the development team to show them what you mean.  Along with that list, make note of exactly what it is about the sites you like.  from what I found, developers can do anything you want, but it’s better to show something than to describe it yourself: after all, a picture tells a thousand words.  You might find one that has a color scheme you like, another that is easy to navigate.  

3 – Normally, the bottom of the page in question will have a link to the design/development team who created it.  If so, contact the companies whose work you like and ask them for a quote – mentioning you love the look of one of their sites.

4 – List all the keywords and phrases for your business.  This will be used for the meta information when the developer and designers work on your website and it’s a good idea to also have different titles for each page as well (this is used for the search engines and means better seo for your site).  If you buy search engine advertising, use the tools provided by the search engines to help you discover important keywords.

5 – Decide whether you’ll sell directly on the website, or just use the website to get leads.  This needs to be decided early no as changing half-way through a project will delay things considerably and more than likely add cost.

6 – Decide on and prepare all the editorial information and marketing copy your website will contain.   Basically, write all the content and text your site will have so when the design team are ready, you can simply forward it on instead of starting to do it at that moment.  At minimum, you’ll want a homepage (the main page for your site), a page or pages describing your products and services, an “about us” page and a “contact us” page. 

7 – Write or have a professional writer create the editorial content as soon as you decide what you want on the site.  The purpose of your website is to represent and market your business, and bear in mind web developers usually just design and program sites – they are not salespeople and (especially) if you’re using an off-shore development team like me, english may not be their first language.   Remember, the web developer can’t finish the job until you give them the copy that goes on the website, so save yourself time and do it in advance.

8 - Don’t cut corners by simply forwarding a brochure or flyer for your business to add text onto your site.  A websites aim is very different from a flyer.  A website’s job is to get attention AND get the prospect to take action. In other words, to sell.  The flyer will just be generating interest.

9 – Decide which photos, graphics and drawings you want on your site, and make it clear whether you’ll provide the graphics or whether the web developer will need to do it.  Nowadays, there are some great sites to buy royalty-free photo’s, images and videos at a small cost – but means you won’t infringe copyright.  Main player in this field is iStockphoto, which I have used countless times and is dead easy to use.  Graphics you may need to provide yourself would include photos of products, people and other graphics for use on your site.  Most stock photo sites have buttons users can click on, and all are almost always customisable as well.

10 – If your website is ’selling’ or at least taking payments for your products or services, be aware that you will need to get a ‘merchant account’ that can be used on the web to handle taking payments from users.  PayPal is probably the best one to use and handles any card that the customer may have.   You will be charged for using such a service, but I found Paypal has some of the lowest charges with the highest flexibility.   Paypal also have a great way of integrating their payment system directly into your site, so users won’t have to leave your site to make their purchase. 

11 - Ensure you sign a contract with the developer that highlights all the features and details you have discussed with the developer.  Leave nothing out.  This should include a breakdown of the price and milestones.  Milestones are key parts of the project that you can check you’r happy with and move on to the next (also known as ‘deliverables’.  I do this with my own web design clients, and expect nothing less when I’m the ‘customer’.  By setting milestones, you can check whether the overall project is on time for completion deadline.   Google ‘web development contract templates‘, and find one suitable to your requirements.

12 - Make sure you stipulate that you have full copyright ownership of your site.  This is important in the case you decide to change web developers or hosting companies at any time in the future, you will be able to do so without having to have your site recreated.  The copyright ownership must be written into the contract.  Otherwise, under copyright law, the developer may own the work they created for you.   ‘Source code’ is different, as if the development team are writing components or code from scratch they usually have the right keep that component in it’s basic form, but any content, trademarks, logos, text and features that are specific for your site – remain yours.

Make sure that you keep on top of the development team throughout the project and answer any queries they have promptly.  Remember, if they need to know something important, they may not be able to proceed any further without that bit of info.   Follow all the above steps and your website will turn out exactly as you want it, and more importantly, when you want it completed.

Ever wondered how you can make money from adverts on a website?  What is Google Adsense and why is everyone raving about it?  How it can help not only create revenue, but market your site?.  Here’s an explanation to yield a little light on it all…

Google Adsense and other banner advertising methods run on a method called Pay-Per-Click programs (PPC) and it is the new buzz in internet marketing. The growth in web traffic generated by pay per click services is growing and a marketing option to be seriously considered when starting or maintaining popularity on your website.

With PPC, the way it works is: you pay each time a web viewer chooses your ad listing link and clicks into your website.  It doesn’t cost anything to actually show adverts on a website as it only costs you when they click on the ad, hence the name.

Pay per click targets a very specific audience reaching up to 85% of all internet users in a cost effective and immediate way.  There can be as much as a $20 return of investment for each $1 spent.  Sounds pretty good doesn’t it?

Exactly How Does Pay Per Click (PPC) Work?

The first step is to select which ad agent to use.

The biggestt PPC agent on the web is Yahoo! Sponsored Search.  Yahoo! Sponsored Search has traffic of approx 200 million searches per month reaching about 80% of all the web users.  They have the largest reach on the Web.  Yahoo! Sponsored Search’s pay per click listings appear on Yahoo Search, Yahoo Directory, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, Lycos, InfoSpace, and other search engines and directories, so plenty of streams all across the web to reach your markets.

Although Yahoo has more overall visitors statistically than the mighty Google, Google AdWords is the most productive PPC platform and the place you should start with when you decide to advertise with PPC ads.

Reasons for this, firstly – it is simple to use on the basic level, you sign up, write your ads and manage campaigns with set budgets of what you are prepared to spend per day.  Secondly, in the U.S of A alone, over 80% of all Internet searches will be Google.  With Google AdWords, you can see your ads within a few hours, and you have the ability to start and stop campaigns easily.  You will show your products and services to literally millions of viewers and active shoppers using the massive reach of Google.  Additionally Google AdWords will typically out-perform Yahoo and MSN adCenter when it comes to generating conversions and return on investment.  On Google’s main search results pages?  The ‘Sponsored links’ on the very top and the column on the right are all PPC ads generated by the companies advertising them.  They have paid to be there – some, have paid lots.

The second step is to select your targeted keyword or phrases.

At this point you may want to consider increasing the density of your selected keywords in your website’s HTML code, your site’s description, and title.  However, we have found that you can still experience great returns using PPC without revising your website, as your PPC ads are triggered by the keywords you selected that are tied to your ad and not your web site’s content.  My advice is to spend time thinking of the market you are in and the best keywords to use in your ad campaigns.

The third step is to select your monthly budget.

You basically have to select the very maximum amount that you will pay each month (or day) for click-throughs to your website. How much do you want to appear on users pages?  The higher the budget, the more time you appear.  Simple as. Once the maximum amount is reached, Google will halt click-throughs to your site automatically – basically, they will stop your ad appearing. Additionally, you will select how much you are willing to pay by keyword as well, so you can break it down to £5 per day on the ‘decorating’, £2 per day on ‘painting’, etc.

With Yahoo! Sponsored Search, it’s a little different. With these guys, you will be charged your budget amount on a monthly basis in advance of the ads appearing and then the clicks.  Clicks are then deducted from your account balance on a daily basis as and when people click on them.  Much like a deposit you make, any clicks get deducted form the balance.

With Google AdWords, you can easily ‘pause’ a campaign or change your settings at any time.  There are no minimum monthly spending limits and no contracts or long term commitments, which makes life a lot easier when starting out a new website or company.

Bids and Keywords

There are different costs for PPC between markets and industries.  If you have a popular keyword, in a very competitive market,  be prepared to pay higher than the minimum click amount to get top listing within your category.  The big main players (aka your competition) will have a high budget, so it will be difficult to stand a chance against them.  My advice is to choose keywords that are still within your market, but more of a niche.   Do some keyword researcht to see what’s popular but with less competition.  With both Google AdWords, Yahoo, and Microsoft adCenter, the client with the highest quality score will have their ad shown first.

Google AdWords, Yahoo! Sponsored Search, and Microsoft adCenter have great programs that automatically allow you to manage your budget and to plan your bids effectively.  Check them all out and decide which (if not all) are the best suited for your requirements.

Ad Placement on the Page

With Google AdWords, Yahoo! Sponsored Search, and Microsoft adCenter, an advertiser who pay less per click than another may have their ads in the top position if the ad content is crafted well and receives more clicks per impressions versus than another and has a closely matched landing page to their ad’s theme and keyword list. The ad rank position on all three platforms is determined by quality score and the keyword bid.

Conclusion

Pay per click programs can pay off in increased website traffic, brand identification through impressions, and most importantly in increased leads, prospects, and sales. In addition to exposing your website to a wide qualified audience, targeted click throughs can turn in to sales, generating more profit for your business.

If you are looking for a great way to drive traffic to your website, you should consider adding a PPC program to your advertising plan.

]]> http://www.theonemanmission.com/marketing/pay-per-click-marketing/feed/ 0 http://www.theonemanmission.com/blog/why-start-an-online-business/ http://www.theonemanmission.com/blog/why-start-an-online-business/#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:55:17 +0000 Phil http://www.TheOneManMission.com/?p=359 Okay, so you’ve decided you want to start a business of some sort, and escape the rat-race.  You’ve made the hardest decision of all. Now comes the easier part – What sort of business should you start?

Obviously there are so many different types of business to get going with – but for the purposes of this post, let’s divide this simply into 2 sections: an online business and an offline business.

Offline Business

This is the normal route most people would consider firstly when they think “I’ll start my own company”.  Maybe that means starting a retail shop, maybe a call centre, or maybe a trade service like an electrician, engineer etc.  Either way, you will have plenty of overheads whether that be from renting office space, shop space, or buying stock or equipment, hiring staff (if required) and stationary.

If you deal B2C (business to customer), your hours will be sporadic, maybe daytime hours, maybe evenings and weekends.  If you work B2B (Business to business) then you’ll typically work 9-5 monday to friday.

Online business

An online presence for business is a very powerful marketing and communication tool.  It is also an incredible source of cost-efficiency, an environmentally friendly way to work and a sign of professionalism which is pretty much a requirement today.  Powerful, fast and efficient make this a marketing and communication tool medium.  Here are a few reasons why I (and you) should consider an online business:

• Minimal startup time & investment. Search engine optimized websites pay themselves off very quickly as long as they provide customers with valuable products or services
• The most environmentally friendly way to run a business. Telecommuting reduces the number of cars and car miles. You can test your sales strategies and offerings without wasting precious paper and other valuable resources. Put your invoices, newsletters and catalogues online and save numerous little green trees.  Plus, you can run your business in your pyjamas if you want.  Who doesn’t want to work everyday in the pj’s?
• Very inexpensive – A great way to reach new markets and interact with them on numerous platforms.
• Office & transportation cost savings – no office space, no staff and no stocktaking.  Your bedroom is your office.
• Unlimited possibilities for automation of your business – You can automate your orders and payment processes, inventory management, your customer support tasks and more.  Lazy? Love spending time with friends and family?  This is a HUGE plus (one for me was not having to commute anymore in gridlocked traffic)
• Freedom to live and work where you like – You can be travelling while running your online business and run multiple businesses simultaneously!  Take your laptop on holiday and run your business on the beach if you want.  Sweet.
• Global presence 24/7.  Your business is making you money while you sleep.
• A sign of professionalism – AND the fact that you can appear as a huge multi-national company – even though it’s just you.

There are so many benefits of an online business compared to a normal business blueprit.  For freedom, ease of use and low costs and overheads, make an online business plan to seriously think about.

I don’t actually have ads on this site anymore, as I want this particular blog to be nice and clean.    Saying that, I do have other blogs and sites across the web that do have ads to generate revenue though.

Now I have a lot of friends and even family members who often ask me how to start their own blog, and I always enjoy explaining the advantages of using a blog over a traditional XHTML/CSS or CMS website.    I thought I would highlight  the process to make it easier to understand:

1. What’s your blog about?

There are a huge amount of blogs on the web already.  If you want to attract readers, you are going to need to establish your credibility as someone who has useful information, or someone who is an expert on the topic at hand.   Don’t just blog about anything and nothing – there’s nothing more infuriating than reading about some kid who went to the dentist or someone who just rants about attention from girls.   Dull, dull, dull.   Pick a topic you are are passionate about.   Something that you have lots of experience with, chances are, someone will also take interest and subscribe to your site, or start following it via RSS.

2. Decide on Hosting Method

When it comes to starting a blog, your biggest decision will be whether you want to host the blog yourself through a hosting account, or use a free blogging service that is hosted for you.   Pro’s and cons for each I’m afraid:  Self-hosting is great (what I do), as you get a true domain (www.) set up specifically for the blog so each page will be linked to the root directory.  You also have acces to more of the files associated with the blog so you have far more control to style and set it up to your exact requirements.  Downside to this is it can be a bitch to set up if you have no experience of ftp and permissions (there is a counter-plus to this though which I’ll mention in a minute).   Free hosting is good as it is set up for you already but you have limited access to change specific files and your domain will have the blogging company in it as well as their ads within your pages which you can’t change.  Yes, it’s free, (but nothing is really free is it?).  When you start a blog with a free blogging service, you don’t get your own domain.  You get something like mygreatblog.blogspot.com (where there are a million other blogs at blogspot.com) and you don’t actually ‘own’ the blog yourself.   So if you ever do decide to move to your own domain, you have no way to take your readers with you, because you have no control over the site.

3. Use Wordpress

This is by far the best – not an understatement – blogging program out there.   If you are going to use this and want to host your own – i highly, highly, highly advise checking out hosting companies that offer a 1-click setup for it:  GoDaddy.com, MediaTemple  etc, for your domain and hosting.   Reason why?  Once your domain and hosting are bought, GoDaddy have an add-on that you have available for free.  Fill in the blog name and description, click setup, and Bang! it does everything for you.  I mean EVERYTHING.  Within 24 hours, your blog is on the net waiting for your first post.   The first time I noticed this, I couldn’t believe it.   Now every blog I start, I use this, as it saves you loads of time – even if experienced with setting it up.   Consequently, I have recently noticed that a few advanced features are blocked with GoDaddy, such as mod_rewrite ability, so if your setting up a feature-packed blog full of javascript, jQuery or other advanced features, use someone like Mediatemple.   For a simple but standard blog, GoDaddy will do the job. 

4. Find a Domain Name

This is the most fun part – picking the name of the whole blogging process.   You know what your theme is already maybe, so now you have to find a good domain name.

How to Install Wordpress – without a 1-click install through GoDaddy.

Instalation Overview If you have experience with installing web applications that use mySQL, this could take as little as 5 minutes to do, and the 5 steps below may be all you need, however, I have further explained each step below for beginners.

1. Make sure your host meets the requirements.
2. Make sure you have a database ready with proper username and password.
3. Download and unzip wordpress.
4. In the wordpress folder, find and make a copy of wp-config-sample.php. Rename the copy to wp-config.php and fill in your database details. Save the new file. details
5. Upload all the files to the directory in your webhost where you want the blog to live – details
6. Run the installation file. install-folder/wp-admin/install.php. details

To run WordPress, your host just needs a couple of things:

• PHP version 4.2 or greater
• MySQL version 4.0 or greater

You can usually do this in your hosting control panel. If you aren’t sure how to do this, ask your hosting company. After you have set it up, you should have 4 pieces of information about the database.
1. Database Name – The name of your database.
2. Username – your databse user name.
3. Password – Your database password.
4. Host name – This is going to be a host name. It might be something like mysql.mydomain.com, or just localhost.

Without these 4 things, you won’t be able to set up Wordpress period. Again, contact your hosting company’s tech support if you have any trouble with this. It’s one of those things: once you’ve done it, you’ll know how to do it again, but the first time (as mentioned before) can be a bitch.  If I remember correctly, I spent hours trying to do it, and just about cancelled the whole thing when miraculously it started working.   Get used to that when it comes to websites.
This bit is easy:  Just go to wordpress.org/download/, and download the current version. You have a choice between the ZIP file or the TAR.GZ file. I think the TAR.GZ file may be smaller, but I have always downloaded the ZIP.
Uncompress the Wordpress ZIP file – Again this is easy.
Open the Wordpress folder and rename the file wp-config-sample.php to just wp-config.php. Now open it and insert the 4 pieces of information about your database into the 4 fields below.

Change:

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress’); // The name of the database
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘username’); // Your MySQL username
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password’); // … and password
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value

to

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘yourDatabaseName’); // The name of the database
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘your-username’); // Your MySQL username
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘your-password’); // … and password
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘your-hostname’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value

If you want your wordpress blog in a separate directory of your website, like “yourdomain.com/blog”, then rename the “wordpress” folder to “blog” and upload it to the root directory with an ftp program.

If you want your blog to be in the root directory of your site, meaning the blog will be located at “yourdomain.com”, then just open the wordpress folder and upload all the files and folders into your web root. If you already have a file called index.html, or index.php, you’ll need to rename it or get rid of it before you uploading everything.

In a browser, go to the domain where you uploaded wordpress, and then to /wp-admin/install.php, and follow the simple directions there.

You will be given a username and password. Save it in a safe place.  Don’t lose it like I did.  If you do, watch a few hours of your life go missing like a sock in the washing machine.

That’s it. You now have a new blog. You can now log in with your username and password, and start writing.

Download a Wordpress theme
This is the fun part. Picking a wordpress theme. There are millions of places to find Wordpress Themes . When you find one you like, just download it and unzip it just like you did with the Wordpress ZIP file.

Add Your Theme
You can do this after you upload, but it’s probably easier to just do it now.

Look for the themes folder. It’s in the wordpress => wp-content => themes.

There should already be 2 theme folders in the themes folder, “classic” and “default”.  These are pretty dull to be honest so you’re gonna want to change to a better, more normal-looking one.

Simple yeah?  Honestly though, it’s pretty straight-foward.  My best advice, do the Go-Daddy route (and no – i’m not an affiliate for them).  Before long – you’ll be a blogger too.

Features and usability have been completed and finalised and the project is now sitting with my development team who are busy deep in coding the site.

Putting the actual site away for a second, I am now beginning to plan for the marketing launch of the site, which will be due in a month or so (longer after full testing).   I have scnaned the web looking for secrets of marketing and advertising on a bootstrap.

There’s plenty of information out there, some conflicting with each other as to the best way to do this, but overall, the direction is good and there are some excellent articles from people who have succeeded at this already so that’s who I’ll follow.