Starting a Home Based Internet Business

For a lot of people the daily grind of working 9 to 5 wears on you after a few years. The tell tale signs of burn out are extended lunches, clocking in five minutes late, leaving five minutes early and a notable lack in work quality. When you begin to show all these signs it is time for a change. The problem comes in that you have bills, you have a family, and you have a life to maintain. This is where so many people get stuck in the daily rut of 9 to 5 and never seem to get out.

Well the Internet is a great way to make changes in your life and your income. The Internet offers a world of opportunity to anyone who is willing to work hard and put in extra time to build a home based Internet business.

One of the hallmarks of the Internet is it is traditionally less expensive to start a home based business than it is to set up a shop in your local town. You are able to work from your home with the computer you already own and slowly add new websites. The cost is minimal and the rewards are limitless.

To start with you will need to sign up as an affiliate marketer. Affiliate marketing is where you sell other peoples merchandise on your website and you earn a commission for each sale.
You will then need to find a hosting company to host your new websites. The cost for hosting can vary a great deal so look around and do not go for the first bargain you find.

Next you will need to purchase a domain name (such luxdomain.com). Shop around most domain names will cost around $7.00 per year. If you are finding a domain name purchase that is a great deal more than other companies you may be spending too much.

Then you will need to find software to build your website. You can use simple text pad types of software that are free on the Internet (such Wordpress)or more elaborate software that costs several hundred dollars. You will need to search around and find software that matches both your budget and skill level.

Finally you will need to purchase FTP software or find free FTP software on the Internet. Then simply build your website with the products you want to sell and start blogging and pinging. The traffic to your website may take a few months to build but if you keep at it you will quickly begin to make money online so you can leave the daily 9 to 5 grind.

Popularity: 26%

Giving Your Online Business Powerful Domain Presence

What’s the one make-it-or-break-it item that your online business needs to stand out from the crowd and become a huge success?

The right domain name!

The domain name is what people type in when they want to get to your site; the part that comes after the http:// or the www. It’s your virtual real estate address. Having something they can remember without looking it up each time or keeping it in their bookmarks to be lost among the others is the best thing you can do to get repeat visitors and word-of-mouth free traffic.

People say that all the good names are gone, but that’s about as far from the truth as you can get. Here are some simple guidelines that will make your domain name — and your business — popular and memorable web destinations.

1. Choose a Dot-Com

The number one rule is, go for the dot-com ending, which is typed as .com. This is the Main St. of the virtual real estate world, and the one that most people will type in regardless of what your domain extension actually is. While .net and .org were popular for awhile, and then .us, .biz and .name took the stage, people always revert back to .com — no matter how many fancy country code top level domains are launched into the mainstream, like .cc, .ws, .to, .cn and others.

2. Choose something memorable

You want your business name to be your domain name too, if possible. So if your flower shop is called Suzette’s Flowers, you want to get suzettesflowers.com, assuming it’s available. If not, try adding a dash, like suzettes-flowers.com or a secondary descriptive word like suzettesflowersonline.com or prettysuzettesflowers.com. If you’re creative, you’ll definitely be able to come up with something that works with your business name and is memorable for your customer.

Keep in mind that if you use a dash in your domain name, which some Search Engine Optimization experts say attracts more free traffic to your site, you have to say the dashes if you use your domain name in an audio product or commercial; so it would be “suzettes dash flowers dot com”.
Most people typing in your domain name later will not type the dashes.

3. Get another variation

If you’re lucky enough to grab a great domain name without the dashes, then you might want to get the same name with dashes between the words as well. You can put both of them up on your server as mirror sites to get the benefits of SEO as well as the ease of typing without the dashes.

You may also want to consider getting the .net or .org or even another extension to use as a sister site for your main dot com site… perhaps you put your forum on the .net, or use your .com for your main product and .net for your business background information site.

Even if you’re looking for a domain name that you don’t really think will be available, using your creativity and trying a variety of combinations should allow you to lock down a memorable domain name that will attract people to your website.

Popularity: 20%