This is the very first post on the Online Business Success blog.  The purpose of this blog is to give something back to the community which has helped me to build a number of successful businesses over the past 6 years.

My name is Billy Deakin and I started building websites in 1999.  In 2002, after a period of travelling, I returned to the UK with the intention of settling down and getting a job.  What I quickly found however was that I was over qualified, lacking in experience and basically unemployable unless I wanted to move to the city, or settle for low-skill, low-pay work.

I started building websites for friends and relatives while I was looking for work and quickly came to realise that what I needed wasn’t a job at all, but an income.  I decided to set up my own business, founded Kernow Web Designs and the rest, as they say, is history!

Since then I’ve dedicated myself to constant learning.  I’ve built a series of businesses, some more successful than others, and all the while I’ve learned most of my knowledge and skills from the online community.  I’ve continually invested into my future by reading blogs, ebooks and manuals, listening to podcasts, attending conferences and soaking up information like a sponge.  I’ve also created a range of content in the form of websites, ebooks, videos and viral games.  I’ve blogged on various sites on a number of topics but I’ve never had a single, consistent outlet for my ideas and information… that is the intention for this blog; to give back to the online community and help people who may be in a similar situation to the one I was in 6 years ago.

My intention is to blog on a regular basis, on a range of topics but all related to a single idea - that the average person, even with little or no computer or Internet skills, is able to build a business online as a real alternative to a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke) which I’ve come to realise is a poor substitute for the income and flexibility available from running your own business.

Whatever level you’re currently at, whether you already have a successful online business, or if you’re just starting out, I hope that you find the site both educational and inspirational.  Do come back, join in, comment and make suggestions.  I want this to be a resource for YOU so let me know what you do/don’t want and I’ll do my best to give you the content you need to be a success.

The last 6 years have been great, but I know that the next 6 will be even better.  Here’s to our online business success, and to enjoying the journey!

Your friend,

Billy Deakin

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One of my primary motivations for starting this blog was to share some of my techniques and favorite tools for creating websites. Recently I’ve been building almost every site in Wordpress, whether it be blog based or not. In a future post, I’ll give my ‘no brainer’ method for quickly setting up a CMS style site in Wordpress, but sometimes you need to break out the HTML editor and get your hands dirty!

I’m a big fan of Dreamweaver and Photoshop and they form the cornerstone of my studio, probably for the simple reason that I’ve been using them for so many years. If you’re new to creating websites though, and don’t want to spend thousands on software tools don’t worry - with these opensource tools you can start building great looking, functional websites in no time.

Nvu HTML Editor

Nvu (pronounced N-View) is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor based on the old Composer editor from the Mozilla Application Suite. It’s actually discontinued now but that doesn’t make it any less useful. Nvu complies with W3C’s web standards and by default pages are created in accordance to HTML 4.01 Transitional and use CSS although these are all user selectable. There’s also a built in validator which uses W3C’s online validation tool to check for compliance.

While Nvu might lack many of the features found in high end products such as Dreamweaver, it’s still a very powerful application, more than capable of creating fully functional and professional looking web pages. It’s also very compact, the Windows installer being just 6.6Mb, and easily carried on a USB pen drive.

While Nvu is no longer supported, Kompozer is a community driven project based on Nvu and freely available from Soundforge. It has a bunch of newer features such as a new auto spell checker and can create slightly cleaner code with less annoying <br> tags. That being said, it’s still Nvu that I carry on my USB stick because it’s so quick and easy to use.

GIMP Image Editor

The GIMP, or Gnu Image Manipulation Program, is the perfect partner for Nvu and a great substitute for Photoshop. This really is a superb package capable of everything from touching up photos and converting file formats to creating animated GIFs.

Photoshop users, especially those used to Microsoft Windows, may take a while to get used to the user interface as each individual window (such as the toolbar or color palette) are displayed in their own, separate window. This can lead to confusion with windows getting hidden behind each other, but once you get used to the interface you’ll soon realise the power of this incredible free software resource.

GIMP saves to it’s own native XCF format but is also compatible with a wide range of useful formats including JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF and Photoshop PSD making it perfect for web authoring and editing templates.

FileZilla FTP Client

While uploading files is pretty straight forward from within Windows these days, a dedicated FTP client still comes in handy and makes many jobs a lot easier. There are plenty to choose from, both free and commercial, but FileZilla is a great starting point and will cope with pretty much anything you ask it to do - and of course it’s opensource so it won’t cost you a penny!

Audacity Audio Editor

We’ve looked at tools to create HTML web pages, create/edit and add images and upload everything to your server but there’s one thing missing… Audio! Audacity is a fully functional recorder and image editor, great for podcasting or adding music and voice to your projects. Capable of importing and exporting WAV, AIFF and MP3 among others it’s the ideal partner to the other opensource web authoring tools mentioned here. It’s also very intuitive to use and although I have a commercial editor installed on my desktop computer, I very often open Audacity to do a quick job because I find it so quick and easy to use.

Build sites for free

Of course, some of the top end packages have more features and are more powerful than the applications discussed above, but they come with a price tag to match. In my 1 Day Webmaster seminars I teach my students using these packages exclusively and they create some astounding sites. If you’re just getting started online, if you’re wanting to learn how to create websites, or if you just want to save your hard earned cash then these packages will serve you well. You can always move to commercial packages later if the need arises but to be honest, you’ll probably find you can do everything you want with these!

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This is a question I get asked all the time, and since I’m in the process of setting up this new site it seemed like an ideal case study to show you how to do it properly.

Many times I have a client who wants to register more than one domain, and have them all point to the same site. Often done to protect the domain from possible abuse (hijacking by someone else taking a very similar domain to ’steal’ your traffic) or simply to catch mis-typed type-in traffic (where a user keys your domain into their browser address bar).

For this site I registered both the hyphenated, and non-hyphenated versions of the domain, primarily since in my experience the double S will often get mis-typed in the non-hyphenated version, while in the hyphenated version it’s easier to spot the mistake!

Now, the problem comes from Google’s penalisation of duplicate content. Google, and the other search engines, are in the business of offering quality and unique search results to their users. Therefore multiple sites with the same content are penalised and don’t rank well. The way to get around this is to use a 301 Redirect on all but the primary domain. In this example, online-business-logic.com is the primary domain and actually hosts the site while onlinebusinesslogic.com has a 301 redirect which ‘points’ the domain to this site while being ignored by the search engine spiders. The code 301 is interpreted as ‘page permanently moved’ and is also used if, for some reason, you have to move content on a site, perhaps if you move from a static site to a CMS and the structure changes, or you change file extensions from .html to .php in order to add dynamic content.

Here’s how to accomplish this…

In PHP

<?php
// Permanent redirection
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: http://www.your-domain-here.com/");
exit();
?>

In ASP

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location","http://www.your-domain-here.com/”
%>

In CGI Perl

$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect("http://www.your-domain-here.com/");

In JSP

<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( "Location", "http://www.your-domain-here<.com/" );
response.setHeader( "Connection", "close" );
%>

Simply create a new page using the code for the method of your choosing and save it as the index file on the domain you want to redirect, changing http://www.your-domain-here.com to the URL of the page you want to redirect to.

The redirect can also be done using a .htaccess file (on Linux servers which have mod-rewrite enabled) with the following code:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^your-domain-here.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.your-new-domain-here.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

Create a plain text file with the above code, save it as .htaccess (That is the entire filename, ‘.htaccess’, with nothing before the period.) and upload it to the root directory of the domain you want to redirect.

Et voilà, clean redirects and no duplicate content penalty!

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I get comments all the time from friends and associates - “You’re so lucky to be able to work from home, I wish I could do that”. Well there’s a good reason I can work from home - that’s how I’ve set my life up, but it’s not always as great as it may seem.

In fact, over the past 7 years I’ve gone from commuting to a J.O.B. to working from home, to renting an office and commuting there, and back to working from home again. I now love working from home, but there are still days when I’m tempted to get an office again and to be honest, it’s always going to be a bit of a compromise. For every advantage to working from home, and it’s not for everyone, but with some careful planning it can be the best move ever and most days I feel like the luckiest guy in the world!

Pros of working from home

No commute - This is a big one… While other people take an hour or longer, driving through traffic or sitting on the train to arrive at the office it takes me 3 steps, literally, from the bedroom to the office. No wasted time, energy or fuel and no chance of getting delayed in traffic or rail strikes!

No dress code - Ever rushed to get ready for work only to remember you forgot to iron your shirt, or that your jacket’s still at the cleaners? Ever wished you could just turn up in your jeans, or even your boxers? I can! In fact, unless I have a meeting with an important client or I’m running a seminar I never have to think about what I’m wearing.

Flexibility of timing - I like mornings. Now I know many people won’t share my enthusiasm for pre-6am work but I often get my best work done early, before anyone else is up. Other times I’ll be on a roll and work way past midnight on a project. If you work in an office that’s just not possible. At some point you have to go home for dinner, and by the time you’ve commuted for an hour the next morning you’re not in the zone anymore… Working from home means you can work when you’re most productive and when YOU want to.

Tax benefits - This blog is not the place to give legal or tax advice but suffice to say that a home office gives you tax benefits. You need to do your homework and speak to an accountant but you’d be surprised at what you can legitimately claim for if you work from home!

Better health - It’s a well known fact that stress is a killer. Without doubt, getting yourself out of the office ‘cubical’ environment and into a comfy leather chair in a home office can do wonders for your stress levels. If I’m having a bad day I can stop for a cup of tea in the garden, take the dog for a walk or play a few chords on the old guitar - whatever it takes to calm down and ready myself for the next project… Try turning up to the office with a garden chair, guitar and a rottweiler and see what sort of a reception you’ll get!

More control - This ties in with several of the above, but simply working from home allows you to take more control of your life. You’re not clocking in and out at set times. There’s no boss breathing down your neck, watching your every move. If you need time out you can take it and make it up later… You are the master of your own destiny.

More time with family - Another massive one! Coupled with not having a boss on your back, and avoiding the commute, this is the one that non-homeworkers are most jealous of. Instead of leaving the house at 7am and not getting back until way after dark in the winter months, I’m at home all day. You can always make more money, but you can never get back lost time!

Wow, so it sounds like working from home is ideal… well not so fast. Like I said there are pros and cons so lets take a quick look at the downsides to turning your back bedroom into your office.

Cons of working from home

Distractions - For me this was the biggest problem when I first began working from home. In the home there’s always something to do. You pop into the kitchen to make a coffee and while you’re there you notice that last nights washing up needs doing. The dog walks in and demands a walk. The postman turns up with your new Playstation game and you decide to test it out ‘just for 5 minutes. Or the big one for me, uninvited guests. In fact, you can help prepare for this one by speaking to your friends and family. You need to make them realise that just because you’re not “going to work” anymore, you’re still working and that interruptions are detrimental to your business. Let people know what times you normally work and ask them to try and keep social visits to non-work times.

Lack of contact - In an office environment there are always other people around. People to bounce ideas off, to compete with, or just to interact with on a social level. Working from home can leave you without that contact so you need to replace it. IM and forums can be great tools for bouncing ideas, and networking events and conferences are even better. If you’re the type of person who needs people around you could try taking your laptop and working at a local cafe or library from time to time.

Can’t escape work - This was a big problem for me at first. When your home becomes your office you can get in the habit of always being in work mode and never switching off. The first thing you do when you wake is check your email, you’re at the computer until well after midnight, and you’re taking work calls 24/7. Stop. One of the main reasons for working from home is to gain some control in your life, not to let your business take over. Schedule your time and set boundaries for work and home. If possible set your office up in a separate room from the rest of the house, or at the very least not in the same room your sleep in. Set up your voicemail to take calls out of hours and don’t give in to clients who know you work from home - they wouldn’t expect an answer at 10pm if you still worked at the office so they shouldn’t now!

Pro image to clients - This very much depends on the nature of your business. Working from home can give an unprofessional image but it needn’t be a problem in most instances. If you need a professional looking address get a PO box, or a virtual office. If you have to meet a client suggest you go to them (great customer service) or meet out for lunch.

No regular paycheck - OK so this is really about running your own business, whether from home or from an office. Some people just aren’t suited to it as they need the so called security of a J.O.B. but I realised a long time ago that the only real security was in working for yourself and being in control… you will never sack or downsize yourself! There are really only 2 solutions to this - either build your business part time until you’re earning enough to quit your job, or bite the bullet, burn your bridges and go full steam ahead… Quitting your job will certainly give you the motivation you need to get things moving fast!

It’s all down to you - If it’s your business then you’re the one who’s accountable. It also means you need to be a jack of all trades from marketing to accounts and everything in between. To scale a traditional business normally means taking on employees which wouldn’t really work for a home based business, but there are alternatives. Outsourcing using sites such as GetaFreelancer.com and RentaCoder.com can be easy and very cost effective, taking the load of you and freeing your time away from the nitty gritty task, allowing you to concentrate on building your business.

So what’s the answer?

The decision to work from home shouldn’t be taken lightly. As you read above, I’ve switched back and forth from office to home and finally found that working from home gives me the best lifestyle but take some time to plan and organise yourself if you decide to set up a home office. As for running your own business, that in my opinion is a no brainer - you’ll never get rich working for someone else and it’s the only way to take control of your life.

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About 18 months ago I was listening to an interview with Russell Brunson. At the time it was a name I had never heard before but within minutes of starting to listen to the podcast I was totally engrossed. Here was a young guy, with very little computing or business experience, who had quickly built a multi-million dollar business online in just a couple of years.

Russell was being interviewed by Armand Morin for the upcoming Big Seminar event and was starting to describe his unique business model. He had loads of great ideas and the best part was, he wasn’t shy about sharing them. In fact, he was offering a free DVD of a trianing seminar he gave, where he discussed his entire business in a step by step format. Needless to say, I quickly went and got myself a copy of the free DVD (I just had to pay a few dollars shipping) and waited eagerly for it to arrive.

I can honestly say that the day I received my free Dot Com Secrets DVD from Russell is when I started looking at my business in a new light. The concepts ge discussed, and the simplicity of the methods just blew me away. I started making changes right there and then. If it wasn’t for watching that DVD I would never have started teaching web design seminars, I wouldn’t have been producing tutorial videos, and you probably wouldn’t be reading this post as I wouldn’t have started this blog!

Well, Russell and his team of staff at DotComSecrets have stopped giving away the free DVD now but here’s the great news… instead they are giving away what they call their Wealth Building System and it really is some amazing content. If you’re new to online business it is a fantastic starting block for creating a solid business. If you already have a business, on or offline, it will almost certainly make you think again about how you run your business and will certainly help you increase your profits over the next 12 months.

The portfolio includes the same seminar that was on the original free DVD, plus 2 bonus CDs packed with great information and a free sample of the amazing DotComSecrets magazine. It’s a really superb package, great content and well put together. It really is free, you just cover the shipping costs. Of course, Russell’s not stupid and he is really hoping that you’ll be so impressed with his free content that you’ll go back and pay pay for one of his home study courses afterwards, but there is absolutely no obligation to do so and to be honest, there’s so much free information in the package, that will keep you busy for a long while yet!

To get your free Wealth Building System click here now!

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In order to make money online you need to sell products or services - either your own, or someone elses. No matter whether you’re developing and marketing your own products (ebooks, DVDs, membership sites, whatever…) or promoting as an affiliate, you need to be marketing to the right audience.

One of the first, and most important steps in starting an online business is researching the market and developing your niche. It’s no good trying to sell golf equipment to an audience whose primary interest is computing. Sure, there will be visitors who come to your site looking for computer information who also happen to play golf, and you’ll probably make a few sales, but you would do MUCH better offering those visitors a computer related product, or marketing your golf product to an audience of golf enthusiasts.

There are many different ways to choose and develop your niche market. The first thing you should do is think about yourself. What are your hobbies and interests? What are you passionate about? This is probably the niche you’ll do best with for 2 reasons. Firstly, if you’re passionate about it then you will put your heart and sole into it. You won’t mind the early mornings and the late nights to get your business off the ground if you’re working in an area that really interests you. Secondly, if you have a true interest in a subject then you have a head start in developing a product for that niche.

Let’s take our golf example. If you are an enthusiastic golfer you probably know many of the frustrations that golfers have. You know what sort of product or information YOU would be likely to buy that might help you improve your swing, or get better at putting. That ‘inside’ information might not seem like much to you, but it will give you a great starting point for developing content.

Once you’ve decided on what subjects you’re interested in and passionate about you need to know if there is a market. It’s all very well being passionate about building theramins if there are only 10 other people in the world with the same hobby - your target audience is just too small.

Luckily, on the Internet it’s very quick and easy to see at a glance how popular a topic is. For a start, do a quick search on Google. If there are only a handful of sites about your chosen subject you may have chosen too narrow a niche, and may need to expand it. Try searching for variations of the keywords (for the golf niche you might try ‘golf’, ‘golfers’, ‘how to improve my golf swing’, ‘how to play golf’ etc.) and see what turns up. See what content is already available - is it free or commercial? Is it of high quality? Are there gaps in the information that you might be able to fill? Is it fresh and topical content which is being updated regularly, or is most of it stale and out of date?

It’s worth mentioning at this point that you want to be writing all this down. Write down the URLs of sites you find, products about your niche, ideas for possible sub-niches. Keep all the information you gather together so that you can refer back to it when you’re done.

Amazon is a great tool for researching your niche. Not only can you see which are the most popular titles for any subject, you can even read the table of contents for many books and get a break-down of exactly what is covered. Look at the ‘For Dummies’ titles and see if your niche is covered there… The ‘For Dummies’ publishers are anythig but dummies, they know what sells and if they have published a book then there is obviously a market for that niche. Can you expand on it? Can you find a profitable sub-niche - a niche within the niche?

My other favorite way of researching a niche is to use keyword tools. There are a number of great ones but Wordtracker and Google Adwords are my favorites. Both are free (WordTracker have a paid upgrade) and both will give you statistics on how popular keywords are, how much competition they have and give alternative keyword suggestions. Enter a couple of words relating to your niche into WordTracker and you can drill down through lists of related keywords to your heart’s content. Sometimes you’ll hit a dead end and realise that a niche is either too small (no market) or too crowded (too much competition), other times you’ll hit the nail on the head and decide that you have stumbled upon a perfect niche, a goldmine waiting to be dug! More often than not however, you’ll find that there are related niches and sub-niches that demand further investigation.

Don’t rush this vital stage in setting up your business. To be successful you are going to be spending a lot of time dealing with this niche which is what I said right at the beginning that it’s best to choose something that you are both interested in and passionate about. You will be blogging about it, writing articles about it, maybe producing videos about it, doing teleseminars, wraiting ebooks and so much more. You will be totally absorbed by your niche and your market if you’re going to be truely successful and the last thing you want is to be spending all that time working in an area that bores or frustrates you - if you wanted that you could get a J.O.B!

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