First of all a quick apology to my regular readers, I’ve been rather ill recently but getting back to full health now so you can expect regular posts again from this week…

…now on to this amazing offer from 1&1 who are currently offering .biz domain names 100% free of charge for the first year.  They will try to upsell you a licence for the Norton Security suite, but you can simply click to decline the offer, and get a .biz domain completely free of charge for the first year!

There is a limit of 1 free domain per customer, and if you keep the domain longer than a year you’ll have to pay their standard rate of $6.99 per year but otherwise this really is a 100% free offer - it doesn’t get much better than that!

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OK, if you’ve been following this series then you already have your blog online - congratulations, you’ve just started on the path to having an online business and financial independence!  However, a blog is of no use whatsoever unless it gets visitors!

Traffic literally means visitors. There are stacks of different ways of driving traffic, and they are certainly not all created equal! Some take lots of time but very little money, while others can be virtually instant but cost a lot.

Now, if you’re just getting started online you probably want to a) keep your costs down and b) learn about different techniques. As your knowledge and income grows, you can start to use paid techniques, while still keeping the risks low since you’ll have enough experience under your belt so avoid throwing your money away on PPC!

There is no such thing as FREE traffic!

One very important point to consider is the simple fact that ALL traffic costs something. PPC might cost money, but so called ‘free’ ways of driving traffic tend to cost something far more valuable – time!  As a blogger you want your content to be the major draw for your traffic, but until people know where you are how do they know if your content is worth a look?

Over time, if you are writing good posts on a regular basis, and following some basic SEO practices, you will start to attract regular readers and linkbacks from other sites and bloggers.  However, there are a few things we can do in order to give that process a kickstart.  Tasks such as writing and submitting articles, leaving comments on other blogs and participating in forum discussions are all ways of getting your blog noticed and I’ll cover each of them in the next part of this series, but today I wanted to talk about Social Bookmarking.

Submitting a blog post to social media and social bookmarking sites is not only a great way to get a rush of traffic, but it’s also one of the best ways to get a new site noticed by the search engines.  In fact, I’ve had new blogs indexed within a couple of hours using this method!

Getting indexed via social media

What you need to do is create a pillar article, a great blog post.  It could be an in depth opintion piece, a tutorial, a review or maybe a list of resources.  It doesn’t need to be an epic masterpiece, but it should be a reasonable length (think 1000 words plus) and it needs to be good!  If at all possible it would also help it it was topical so check out the latest news on sites like Digg, Reddit and Technorati before writing your post.

When you’re done, and you’ve proof read and spell checked, submit your post (not your site, but that actual post page) to a handful of social media sites.  You can find quite a list of popular sites at Social Marker and I suggest submitting to 3 or 4 main ones, and any smaller ones specific to your niche.

If you’ve done a good job of writing a suitable pillar article you’ll start to get some traffic from these sites, but more importantly the search engines like Google will follow those links and index your site.

You can now repeat this exercise on a regular basis. DO NOT submit every post that you write, that would be spammy.  Instead, submit only your best posts - ones that you honestly think would add value to these social media sites.  Join in with the communities too - you don’t want to simply submit your own pages then leave the site, they are called social sites for a reason!  Join in, vote on and submit other people’s pages and become part of the community… that way you won’t seem like you’re only interested in self promotion and will be more likely to get submissions and votes on your own pages!

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If you’ve been following this series then you have done your market research, picked your niche, setup your blog and now you’re ready to start blogging… but what do you write about?

Well, if you picked a subject that you know well and are passionate about you should have no problems coming up with inspiration, especially for the first few weeks, but you really want to be a little more organised than simply sitting down at your keyboard and starting to type!

In the words of Alan Lakein, “Failing to plan is planning to fail” so what we want is a system where we can plan our posts logically. Luckily there are a couple of great methods which you can implement freely and easily which will mean you are never short of something to write!

RSS feeds and Google Reader

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it’s a way of sharing your data.  Many sites, and virtually all blogs have an RSS feed which we can subscribe to and consume all that information, from many sites, quickly and efficiently in one place.  The first thing we’ll need is an RSS reader and the one I suggest is Google Reader.  It’s free and easy to use so head over to Google Reader and set up a free account.

Now every time you’re at a site with an RSS feed you can choose to subscribe to it by clicking on the (usually) orange button.  Give it a try right now - click here or on the RSS button for this site.  In fact there are several on this page - the Entries RSS at the top of the sidebar, the Subscribe button at the bottom of this post, and your browser will probably have a subscribe button on or near the address bar.

When you’ve clicked on the button choose ‘Subscribe with Google Reader’ and now each time you open your Google Reader you’ll be able to keep up to date with this blog.  Now all you need to do is visit all the blogs which interest you in the same niche as your own, and subscribe to their RSS feeds.  See how powerful this is?  Once you’ve done that you just go to Google Reader and you’ll have a constant stream of fresh on-topic information to inspire you!

Google Alerts is your friend

My other favorite way of keeping my finger on the pulse is with Google Alerts.  Head over to Google Blogsearch and do a search on your keyword.  Now scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll see a link called “Create an email alert for [keyword]“.  Now just enter your email address and how often you want to be alerted (daily, weekly etc.) and now you’ll get emails telling you about who is blogging about your keyword!

So there you go, two very powerful ways to keep up to date with what’s going on online, and get inspiration about what to blog about.  Tomorrow we’ll take a look at how you promote your blog and start getting traffic!

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Finally, part three of this series on blogging and we’re ready to start our blog.  In part one we looked at what a blog is, why they are so popular, and why they are a great way to start an online business.  Yesterday in part two we discussed what to blog about, and we looked at some methods for researching niches.  Today we are ready to set up our blog and make our first posts.

Free or self hosted blog?

There are a number of decisions to make when starting a new blog, but the biggest and most important is whether to go for a free blog from a provider such as Blogger or Wordpress.com or whether to get your own domain and hosting account, and install your own blog.

Since we’re looking at our blog as a business tool, my opinion is that you should always host your own blog.  You can get a domain name and hosting account from GoDaddy so cheaply these days that the few dollars you’ll save by going the free route is hardly worth it.  With your own hosted account you’re in complete control and can do exactly what you want with the blog, monetise it properly, and give a professional image.

What blogging platform?

My preferred blogging platform is Wordpress.  The reasons for that are that it’s free, very powerful, easy to use, is well supported with plugins, and can also be used as a CMS system.  So to get started you need to do three things:

1. Choose a domain name
2. Register your domain and purchase hosting
3. Download and install Wordpress

Choosing a domain name is a matter of brainstorming and using a few helper tools to find something suitable.  You can watch a video I created for my 1 Day Webmaster course here which will help you find and choose a suitable domain.

Hosting is very cheap now and there are plenty of companies and plans to choose from.  The one I recommend is GoDaddy.  If you just want hosting for this one blog their economy plan will be fine, but if you’re planning on building more sites in the future you’ll save money by getting a reseller account.

Wordpress can be downloaded for free from wordpress.org - and then you’re good to go!

Here’s a video I created a while ago that will take you through the entire process of setting up your Wordpress blog step by step.  Once you’ve gone through this video tutorial you’ll have your own blog up and running, ready to start building content and driving traffic.

Now your blog is up and running, the next part of this series will discuss methods for getting inspiration on what to blog about, and starting to build up your content.

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Choosing the right topic to blog about can make or break your blog - literally!  Now it may be that you already have a good idea for your blog.  It could be that you already have an existing business that you want to expand, you are very passionate about a subject, know loads about it, and know that a market exists.

Even if you do think you know what you’re going to blog about, it’s still worth spending some time thinking over this and making sure you’ve chosen the right subject.  You’re going to be investing a lot of time into your blog over the coming months, and a little time now spent researching your potential niche will pay massive dividends.

Deciding on, and defining your niche has to be the first step in building any blog.  With hundreds of millions of websites, there is no way any one person, or company, could ever hope to compete with them all.  The key to succeeding online however is not to try.  Rather, you want to find a narrow niche market where you can stand out from the crowd.  It needs to be a niche where there is a market (people who are spending money), preferably (at least for your first time) a topic you are passionate about, and narrow enough that you can compete for visitors attention.

Let’s take a look at those three criteria one at a time…

For a niche to be profitable, there must be a significant number of people interested in the topic, and willing and able to spend money to learn more.  

You might know a lot about a specific method of wheel building for example, but if only 6 other people around the world are interested in it, there simply is no market.  Similarly, targeting children, or the unemployed probably isn’t a good choice since they don’t have money to spend on your products.  A sport like golf however is massively popular, AND tends to be played by people with money to spend!

Being passionate and knowledgeable about a topic will make writing content so much quicker and easier.  I could write for hours on network marketing, or mountain biking, as they are topics I’m passionate about and have lots of experience with.  However, if I wanted to blog about a subject I know little about, like real estate investing or golf, I’d need to spend lots of time researching each post.  

Finally, you need to pick a niche which is narrow enough.  As I’ve already mentioned, the Internet is a big place, and if you want any chance of standing out you need to offer content that is unique and high quality.  Try and target a niche that is too wide and you won’t be able to do it justice.  You’ll be offering a diluted glossary of information at best, and competing with too many others.

Define a very narrow, targeted niche however and you can brand yourself as an authority.  Offer a smaller number of potential visitors exactly what they are looking for, as opposed to offering more generic information to a wider audience, and you’re much more likely to succeed.

Do not rush, or skip this part!

Choosing the right niche really is key to your future success so don’t rush.  Take some time to think about it, and do some research.  Here are a few tips to get you started.

Using Amazon.com as a market research tool

Amazon is a great tool for market research.  Go to the magazines section and have a browse around.  At time of writing, there are over 93,000 titles so there are plenty to choose from.  Start with a more generic topic, such as golf, or computing, then look for narrower sub-niche publications.  If a publisher is producing a magazine about a topic then you know that at the very least there are a few thousand people out there willing to spend a few dollars on the price of a magazine for their hobby or interest in that niche!

Over 90,000 magazine titles should give you some ideas!

If you find topics that you think might interest you, it’s worth getting hold of a copy of the magazines and taking a look at the type of content, what products are being advertised in it, how technical the editorial is, and anything else you can glean.

While you’re at Amazon, another great thing to browse is the ‘For Dummies’ books.  Again, you know that if there is a ‘For Dummies’ book, there has to be a market… they don’t make these books if nobody is buying them!

Using Clickbank as a market research tool

OK, I’m sure you know about Clickbank and selling affiliate products from their marketplace but did you realise it’s also a great tool for researching your niche?

Here’s what to do.  Go to Clickbank.com and click on the marketplace link at the top right of the screen.  You’ll see a search form which allows you to filter and search through all the products available through Clickbank.  The reason this is so cool, is that these are all information products, like ebooks, downloadable audio or video etc.  That means, if there is a product (or even better, several products) in the niche you’re interested in listed here, you know that there are people buying products in this niche on the Internet… and products you could promote via your blog!

The Clickbank marketplace lets you search for info products in your niche

Google as a market research tool

So you found a potential niche, using Amazon or Clickbank, but there’s one more piece of the puzzle.  Ideally, you want to find a niche where other people are spending money (cold hard cash!) to reach their target audience.  If you found any suitable magazines on Amazon and bought one you can tell instantly – are there lots of adverts in the magazine, offering products to this market?

Well if you didn’t find a magazine, or you want more proof, then Google comes to the rescue.  When you do a search on Google, you’ve probably noticed that there are a group of listings that show up on the right hand side of the screen (and sometimes at the top) separate from the main listings.  These are what Google calls sponsored links, or paid listings.  Essentially, someone has paid Google for these links to show their whenever someone searches on specific phrases.  For example, do a search for ‘guitar’ on Google and you’ll see a results page something like this:

Google results page showing sponsored links on the right

Again, if you see a fair few adverts here when you search for keywords related to your niche, you know that people are paying to attract customers.  Take a moment to click on each link and see what they are selling, but the important thing is, are there adverts here, and especially are the same adverts showing up day after day.  You know that since these adverts cost money, people must be buying products in this niche, otherwise companies wouldn’t be advertising!  That means a potential market for your blog which should be profitable.

So there you go, more than enough information for you to choose and define your niche.  Of all the criteria, I would suggest that being knowledgable and passionate about a subject is possibly the most important, especially if it’s your first blog.  Next we’ll look at getting your blog online!

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This mini series is going to cover blogging.  Today I’m going to cover exactly what a blog is, how they work, why they are so popular and powerful, and why i strongly recommend you use one as the springboard for any online business.

What is a blog, and why should I care?

Well I’ll assume that since you’re reading this on my blog right now (or via my RSS feed) then you at least have a rough idea of what a blog is, but I always think it’s best to start with the basics.  Essentially, a blog is a series of articles known as posts organised in chronological order starting with the most recent.  The reason they are so popular, is exactly the same reason that they are so powerful and rank well with the search engines - they tend to be heavy on content, are regularly updated, and are very sociable (you can leave comments on a blog and become part of the conversation!)

Content

We want content on our blog for 2 reasons.  Firstly we want to offer great content to our readers, so they keep coming back and think of us as an authority on our niche.  Secondly we want content because it helps to attract visitors (traffic) in the first place.  Search engines, like Google, love sites with lots of (text based) content and so a blog which is updated regularly with high quality content tends to rank well.  Also, very high quality content (often known as ‘pillar articles’ or ‘link bait’) will attract links from other bloggers and websites.

Link bait is just what it sounds like: content that is created specifically with the intention of attracting links. Create a really great post, whether it’s a tutorial, an opinion piece, or a ‘top ten’ style list of tools or resources, and you will attract the attention of other bloggers. If you follow good SEO practices (using good keywords in your titles and headings etc.) then your blog post will appear in searches at Google BlogSearch and Technorati. Once other bloggers see your post, with luck some of them will link to you… Rise and repeat!

The key here is to produce high quality content, on a regular basis. Not every post you write will be great link bait, but you should focus on creating at least one or two really solid posts each week. As you get known for producing high quality posts you’ll get more and more regular readers, and you’ll start to attract links.

Don’t forget, the content needs to be high quality, and regularly updated (at the very least a couple of times per week - probably more in the early months!).  If you follow that recipe (and have picked a niche topic which interests people) you will attract traffic, and regular readers.  If you then add good marketing into the equation you have the start of an online business.

Finally, the best part about creating great content for your blog is that you can re-purpose it.  That means taking a post, or more likely a series of great posts, and re-using them by turning them into a product like an ebook, or an MP3 audio.  That means you can use the work you’ve already done once, to produce more results in the future!

Blogging to launch a business

If you’re looking to start an online business, or enter a new market, my recommendation is to start a blog.  Over the rest of this series I’m going to cover everything you need to know in order to launch your first blog successfully.  I’ll be covering:

• Choosing what to blog about
• How to create your own blog
• Getting inspiration for content
• Promoting your blog
• Building a list from your blog
• Monetising your traffic

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