money for my life

Internet Marketing - Installing a Wordpress Blog On Your Website

This is a lot easier than you would think (after all, I was able to do it). The first thing that you will need to do is log into your Cpanel account by going to www.yourdomainname.com/cpanel. (please substitute the name that you have purchased for your domain in the spot that has “yourdomainname”).  Enter your username and password and click “log in.” Now that you are logged in to your Cpanel, you will need to scroll down to the bottom of the page and find a blue smilie face labeled “Fantastico” or “Fantastico Deluxe”. They are the same thing, it just depends on the hosting service (like HostGator) that you choose to have for your particular website.

You will need to click on the link that says “New Installation” after you read a brief description of what Wordpress is. This will get the process started for you. The click will bring you to another screen that will ask for some information that will be no problem for you to fill out. The first thing that it will ask you is where you want your blog to be installed. Leave it blank. Why? It will default to your root directory, and that is where you want your blog to be located.

This will bring you to the next option of selecting an administrator name. This can be anything  that you want between six and eight characters. The choice is entirely up to you, you can have whatever you like. Then you will need to choose an administator password. It is best if this password is at least eight characters long, but don’t use something too easy like “password”.

Tomorrow: part II.

Have a GREAT day!

Tags: blog installation

Internet Marketing - The Domain Name Server (DNS)

In a nutshell, the DNS is the address of location of the server that holds your website. In order to change that, you will need to log into the account where you set up your domain name that you recently purchased (or will purchase). Choose “Manage Domain” once you are into your account, and then click the link that says “Manage Domain”.

You should have received an email from the hosting service when you set up with them.  Contained within that email you will find your own domain name servers. Copy them from your email into the fields that are asked for in the domain name management account. Once you do that, hit “okay” (you’ll probably have to hit that twice).

You are done.

What seems like it should be more complex than it is really isn’t. You are well on your way to having your own website and enjoying the rewards that Internet Marketing and successful traffic flow will bring.

Have a GREAT day!

Tags: domain name selection

Internet Marketing - The Web-Hosting Is Not All That Scary

The last thing that you need to do when purchasing your domain name (see earlier posts) is to set up the account. Once you have picked a web-hosting service like HostGator,  yhey will ask you to set up a user name. Make sure that you follow the criteria that is set forth for you and be sure to write it down. I have a couple of places that I put it down so that it will not be easily forgotten. Don’t just put it in one place, you need to have other locations available.

You may ask ,”Why do I need to have a web-hosting service?” A web-hosting service is simply a physical place for your website to be stored. Your web-hosting account allows your website to be stored somewhere other than your location and will be much less expensive for you than going out and purchasing servers and expensive equipment. A good web-hosting service like HostGator can also be a lifeline when you are having technical difficulties or possibly any server issues.

Tomorrow we will discuss the DNS, or Domain Name Server, process, a quick and easy process to help you get your very own website up and running.

Have a GREAT day!

Tags: domain name selection, web hosting

Internet Marketing: Actually Purchasing Your Domain Name

Once you have gone through the process of purchasing your domain name and it comes time to pay for it, you will be given a lot of different options for how long you want to have your domain name for. Some advocate getting it for only one year. It may cost a few dollars more that if you were to purchase it for a three-year period. The length of time is up to you, but I tend to lean toward the one year timeframe.

Why one year?

The name may not work out for you. What you thought was cool and catchy for you may be problematic for traffic generation. You don’t want to be stuck with having paid for that name for the three to five years. If the domain name that you purchased did work ou well, you can always go ahead and purchase it for the additional time.

Now that you have purchased your domain name, now what?

You need to have a web hosting account. Basically a web hosting account is where your website will be located. I have used HostGator and have been very pleased with them. Start out small, and as your success grows, you can always add more size and storage to your site. The reason I recommend HostGator is that they have tested a lot of the scripts and programs available to you for your website and their customer service department is well-staffed and knowlegable.

When choosing your options at the web-hosting service, make sure that you choose the option you choose is the existing domain because you have already purchased the domain name.

More later, and have a GREAT day!

Tags: domain name selection

Internet Marketing: Purchase That Name!

Yesterday we looked at the domain name selection process, which is fairly easy and painless. Now that you have found a domain name that is available, you can easily purchase it. This process can usually be done in a short amount of time. Here are some things to think about that will come up during your domain name purchasing process:

* Privacy - once you register a domain name, by law, the information goes into a “whois” directory. For a fee of about $10 a year, you can make that private. If you don’t make it private, anybody can have access to your name, address, and phone number. That will be a decision that only YOU can make.

* Avoid the add-ons - Securing a domain name is a pretty cheap prospect, and it can be for as little as $4.95 a year. At this early stage, it is recommended that you just purchase your domain for one year. I have purchased multiple names that sounded good at the time, but now I no longer need them. Companies are good at selling you the extras because that is where they make more of their profits (think: “Do you want fries with that?”)

* The extra domain names - The easy part is now that you just have to fill out a few fields that will take you about five minutes or so. Some of the sites that sell domain names will offer you variations of your site name with .org or .net endings. You will be better off by just getting the .com domain because most websites are of the .com variety.

Tomorrow: Getting a Hosting Site

Have a GREAT day!

Tags: domain name selection, internet marketing

Internet Marketing: Let’s Get it Going!!

A lot has been said about driving traffic to your website lately. That is all good and well, but I had somebody ask me the other day, “how do you get a website?” My fault. I assumed that everybody already had a website. It wasn’t too long ago that I hadn’t a clue on securing a website. So, let’s take some time to do just that.

One of the first steps that you can take is to secure a good website name. In retrospect, www.money-for-my-life.com is alright, but it can be a bit cumbersome to type in all of the dashes. You will want to go to a site like GoDaddy and get your website name. They have a great tool that allows you to check the availability of the name, and, if it is available, you can easily add it to your shopping cart. Personally, I have about 10 different names, but I have only developed three of them, but as time goes on, the others will have actual sites. The names are just reserved at this point.

Choose names that will go along with the target audience and will be one that they will easily remember. You can try several words run together, and even use an online thesaurus to find words that mean the same as others that people will still use to find your site. It is always a good idea to have a list of ten or more when you try to find your domain name. The reason is that some of the best ones may already be taken so you want to have a backup plan.

Tomorrow:  Actually purchasing your domain name.

Have a GREAT day!

Tags: domain name selection

Internet Marketing Success - What Product Are You Going To Offer?

What I love about Internet Marketing is that you don’t need to get a large inventory and storage space for selling things on the Internet. The beauty is that you can often find a company that will joint venture with you and, if you bring them the customers, they will drop ship the items to you. The reason that a joint venture may be the thing for you is that it is a win-win situation. The vendor wins because more of their product has now sold. You win because you are getting a commission for bringing the customer to them. If the item has real perceived value for the customer, they will win as well.

In the old days of brick-and-mortar sales, you had to have a lot of capital up front: There was storage to pay for, advertising, overhead, shipping, etc. that often meant that you could go years before you saw a profit. The Internet is full of opportunities for you.

Perhaps you want to sell physical products. Great! Nearly every manufacturer has affiliate possibilities within their structure. Simply go to the home page of the manufacturer of the product that you want to sell, and search for the affiliate link. Usually that link is found at the bottom of their home page. Check them out because they will often allow you to joint-venture with them because, when you bring them a customer, that is less money that they have to spend on advertising to attract that same customer.

If you sell a non-physical item like music downloads, movie downloads, or even book down loads, there is a greater opportunity for profit because there is not a physical product that has to be created and stored. All you need is a server that houses the product. If you write the ebook, you can store it on your site. Good sources for e-products are places like Clickbank or PayDotCom. As a matter of fact, I have an ebook call Never Surrender!! that I sell on my own, or people can earn a 75% commission through PayDotCom. That is a high commission for something that you don’t even have to put too much effort into.

Whatever you offer, make sure that you are setting up the value for the niche that you are marketing to. Do this, and you success will be there!

Have a GREAT day!

Tags: internet marketing, making money on the internet

Internet Marketing - Are You Taking Inventory?

By now, you should be seeing what it is going to take to succeed in the world of Internet Marketing. It isn’t enough to have a website. It isn’t enough to paste a product on the site. If you do that and watch your bank account, you will be sorely disappointed. A lot of places that promise you the world with little or no effort don’t tell you the whole story. 

There is work involved.

It takes concentrated, tireless effort to generate traffic. Sites like Google or America Online are established and don’t have to worry so much about promotion to get traffic. They did in the beginning. But once established, getting new people in the door was not as important as getting the old people to stay. You have to provide value to the customer/visitor to earn their trust and earn their business.

Take an Inventory.

You should keep a list of things that work. After a while you will notice by tracking your visitors (usually through webmaster tools or the cpanel) that there are certain days of the week that you attract more visitors. My site usually attracts about 19-20% more on Saturdays than it does on Fridays. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I notice that the content that I post on Fridays and Saturdays matters to visitors. You start to notice that the use of long keyword phrases tend to increase your visitor rate as well. Keep in mind that what may work for you may spell disaster for others. Keep trying until you find the perfect mix for you.

When I first began, I didn’t have any affiliate sites linked on my homepage. But after experimenting a bit, I am discovering those that work well. You can experiment with your sites as well. Just keep an open mind and the goal in focus.

Have a GREAT day!

Tags: goals, internet marketing

When Are You Going To Be Serious About What It Takes To Succeed In Your Internet Business?

Hopefully the answer to that question is NOW! Or ALWAYS! Sometimes Internet entrepreneurs start out and continue to be casual about the whole prospect. They read the stories that them them how easy it is to make boatloads of cash with a minimal of effort. So, that is what they do: Put forth minimal effort. Little do they realize (until too late sometimes) that making a living of the Internet, which can be done, takes honest time and effort. It is the old adage of what effort you put into something will greatly affect the outcome. 

Keep a positive mental attitude and put the effort into your venture, and you will get some positive results. Be sour and negative, and your chances of achieving success are greatly diminished. It’s up to you. When I first started with a website and a blog, I put my heart into it and saw quite a bit of traffic to my sites. I was regularly updating my sites and pinging on a daily basis. I also visited many related sites and left comments (with my website as a contact point) and saw a bit of traffic there. But after a few months, I hadn’t seen a vast increase in traffic because I was only posting twice a week and not visiting other sites and leaving my name and mark there.

I began to seriously look at some of the social networking sites to increase the traffic, and that has helped tremendously. I reconnected with some of my friends and former students to which I have been a silent mystery for years. I got a profile on Facebook and Twitter and spent some effort making my website known there.

Traffic has increased dramatically. I also realize that the attention span of many is shortening as time goes on, so more of an effort is being put on short, information-filled messages. You just have to be open to try new things and stick with the things that are working and find changes to make to get other things working as well. 

Just keep at it and working at it until you find what works for you. It may happen overnight because you might stumble across what is working for you immediately, but it make take longer. Just be patient.

Have a GREAT day!

Tags: internet marketing, making money on the internet, success

A Positive Mental Attitude, You Don’t Have to Wait

Nobody likes to wait anymore. I work as a cashier and if some customers can’t walk right up to the cashier, pay their money and be gone, they get frustrated and angry. And that is if they don’t have a customer in line in from of them. Well, there is good news: when it comes to a positive mental attitude, you do not have to wait. You don’t have to wait until you win the lottery, you don’t have to wait until you have 1,000 visitors to your website, you don’t have to have your 100th sale. You can have a positive mental attitude immediately.

The choice is yours.

I find it helpful to reframe things. If, there is 10% fewer visits to my website, I will look at it as an opportunity to make improvements so that those visitors come back. Maybe I need to revamp my title and have it include more keyword phrases. Perhaps the advertising for the site is in the wrong area or has the keyword for the pay-per-click ad wrong. Instead of kicking myself with the negatives, I will look for the positive aspects.

This helps in Internet Marketing success. Too often people will quit when they have only tried one approach, and that approach was only tried half-heartedly. You will find that your energy level and your success will grow when you focus on all of the things that you have done right, and if some efforts haven’t been successful, then move one to a different activity: no where does it say that there is only one way to win at this business. While some have succeeded using their own method, you may not have enjoyed that same level of success.

You got to find your own path.

Have a GREAT day!

Tags: positive mental attitude