Your Hardest Working Employee

February 27, 2008 | 1 Comment

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By Nelson Bates, Author Best Website: Simple Steps to Successful Websites

When it comes to making money online, you have the best opportunity of making the most money with a product that you own the rights to. My recommendation is to create a product that can be completely delivered online, preferably without your involvement as this is probably your best bet at making a consistent and significant profit online.

For instance, BuySellWebsite.com is a great example of a service product delivered online since among other things, BuySellWebsite.com sold classified ad listings to people wanting to sell their website businesses. Just to give you an idea of how powerful this can be, I’ll walk you through the steps of creating this database from scratch, with no programming knowledge.

To start, I need to give a brief explanation of how BuySellWebsite.com operates. The website accepts classified listings and then displays them on its website for users to search. The pages are set up similarly to eBay’s with a number of listings on each page where you can click the hyperlink to read more about each business for sale.

The database for BuySellWebsite.com ran most of this site. This is fantastic because it’s like having an additional employee for free. After successful payment, the database took the listings, inserted them into the database, rotated the ads properly, deleted old listings, processed renewals, retrieved lost passwords and allowed users to update their listings.

The classified listings we sold were sold for $99 and cost essentially nothing to provide. Whether we sold one or one thousand, it still cost the same small amount of time and money. Since the database basically ran the website, this is why having one is so valuable. Note: I sold BuySellWebsite.com in 2006.

How did I do this? Employ a database.
When a person wanted to place a classified ad, they clicked on a payment button to start the process. We used PayPal as our merchant account provider (more on PayPal later). Once payment was made through PayPal, they were redirected back to our site where they could fill out the ad listing form that was then automatically uploaded to the site and rotated into the active listings through the database I created.

The database also allowed users to retrieve lost passwords, delete old ads, update their listings and track how many times each ad was viewed. A database can be your best friend and hardest working employee. It might sound like a complicated process to set up, and it can be, but I built it entirely by myself using my web design software’s Database Wizards. (I use Microsoft Expression Web; there will be more on web design software in Chapter 4.)

What does this mean? It means I built the entire database by going through a ‘wizard’ that asked me questions about how I wanted my database to operate, then Expression Web wrote the database code for me! This is an incredibly powerful tool. By learning the Database Wizard, you can eliminate having to pay for a database designer.

Virtually all people who work with Web developers find the process very expensive and incredibly difficult to get what they want. Most people fail to make it beyond trying to design their site because it becomes too difficult to continually explain what they want and then they run out of money. The more you are in control of your website, the better off you’ll be.

Please visit BestWebsite.com for step-by-step instructions to building profitable websites.

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Posted by Kristen | Filed Under Tips & Advice, Work at Home MOM

BOX4BLOX

February 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment

LEGO Bricks and LEGO Blocks clogging your vacuum?

Tired of stepping on those little LEGO Bricks in the middle of the night?

I am creating a new step by step Case Study on how to use Squidoo to build a Lens for an affiliate program. I chose the BOX4BLOX toy box as my affiliate program.

While the payout is not as high with traditional Internet Marketing Affiliate programs, this is a product that I believe all families that have the LEGO pieces in every nook and cranie of a the house will find as useful as we do.

Go Ahead, the Squidoo Squid won’t bite, Give it a Click and Let me know what you think of my latest lens!

Like my Post? Maybe you would like to Buy Mama A Java! It will help to keep me reading, writing and scooping out the info

Posted by Kristen | Filed Under Chaos of Life, Squidoo, Tips & Advice, Toys

A Night Out without Leaving Home

February 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment

For those of us that are home with kids and either don’t want to spend the money on a babysitter, or are just plain too tired to put the energy into going out for a night, or maybe you just want to take a spin and see if you can win some quick cash check out an online casino.

The website Online Casino Bluebook takes the legwork of searching the internet for you and compiled an easy to read, straight forward look into the various online casino games available.

The Online Casino Bluebook will give you a selection of sites then for each site will give you a rating, game summary, review area, and if they offer any bonuses.

Don’t want to drop a $200.00 deposit down? They will even give you a list of casino websites that don’t require a deposit and will give you a starting bonus. What do you have to lose?

One online casino had the following review:

Rushmore Casino offers new players a bonus of 100% up to $888 free.

Rushmore casino is a top choice of players for online gambling entertainment.

Here’s what players Keri and Michael Lewis had to say about Rushmore:

“This one really blew our socks off. We first visted Rushmore Casino about six months ago, and we haven’t played anywhere else since. Not only are the games really great (with amazing graphics and gameplay) their customer service is second to none!
They also gave us an amazing sign up bonus of $888(!!!), just for signing up.

In short, Rushmore Casino is where we play, and where anyone who’s serious should play.

Enjoy your bonus, and good luck!”

Utilizing RTG’s world famous RealTimeGaming Software, they offer over 90 games, uncluding all of the great Reel Series slots games.

*Rushmore’s payout is 97.8%, one of the industry’s highest.
*24/7 world class customer support.
*Speedy payouts.

Like my Post? Maybe you would like to Buy Mama A Java! It will help to keep me reading, writing and scooping out the info

Posted by Kristen | Filed Under Reviews

New Version of Keyword Research from Google?

February 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment

TOOL SUGGESTION OF THE DAY:

The Google Experimental site allows you to opt into one of several experiments that Google is researching- they include, keyword search, different views of search results, and keyboard shortcuts.

I generally use Google Sandbox, Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker, or Yahoo and several more methods when researching a new word or phrase. I find this can often takes a great deal of time and like life, you can over analyze and never get anything actually accomplished. I relate it to sitting at a slot machine, you may find that perfect Keyword that is going to magically bring you a niche with tons of traffic/money with the next pull.

I opted for the Keyword Search Results experiment, clicked one easy button and it brought me to a search box that is shown in the screen shot.

Notice that as I started to type in words for my search, the tool offered suggstions. Then the best part is they offer the actual results number before you even leave the screen. I know off the bat that I’m not going to try “Senior Move Management” with over 2 million results, but “Senior Move Manager” is in the 600,o00’s - that’s a much better start to work into a niche.

Google states the following about the details:

That’s pretty cool. How does it do that?
Our algorithms use a wide range of information to predict the queries users are most likely to want to see. For example, Google Suggest uses data about the overall popularity of various searches to help rank the refinements it offers. An example of this type of popularity information can be found in the Google Zeitgeist. Google Suggest does not base its suggestions on your personal search history.

Google works well as is. Why should I use Google Suggest?
By suggesting more refined searches up front, Google Suggest can make your searches more convenient and efficient by keeping you from having to reformulate your query. Google Suggest might offer suggestions that you will find novel or intriguing.

Go ahead, give it a try. Due to the fact it’s in Experimental, I don’t know how accurate the information is but it’s better then starting from scratch.

Like my Post? Maybe you would like to Buy Mama A Java! It will help to keep me reading, writing and scooping out the info

Posted by Kristen | Filed Under Keyword Research, Tips & Advice, Web 2.0

Matt Cutts from Google

February 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment

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Posted by Kristen | Filed Under Small Business Blogging, Work at Home MOM

What Type of Website to Start

February 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment

By Nelson Bates, Author Best Website: Simple Steps to Successful Websites

I want first to mention the structure of a successful website. I’ll define a successful website as the website that makes the most money, takes the least amount of time to run, and provides the most flexibility. The most successful website structure I have encountered is managed by a single owner who hires out some of the duties of his or her website business, like graphic design and database design, and then manages the Internet marketing campaign and any website updates alone.

There are certainly many ways to build a successful website. For instance, if you have the Internet marketing knowledge, and someone else has the website design knowledge, you can partner to build a great website. Of course, this means you lose some control, and you have to split your profits. I will show in Chapter 4 how to get all the work done by either doing it yourself or hiring it out.

Deciding what “type” of product to sell is pretty simple. You’ll have the best opportunity of making the most money with a product to which you own the rights, whether it is a physical product, an information product, or a service.

If you have a product that can be delivered completely online, preferably without your involvement, this is probably your best bet at making a consistent and significant profit online.

I’d like to use BuySellWebsite.com as a great example of a service product. Among other things, BuySellWebsite.com sold classified ad listings to people wanting to sell their website businesses. The classified listings we sold were $99 and cost essentially nothing to provide. Whether we sold one or one thousand, it still cost the same small amount of time and money. Note: I sold BuySellWebsite.com in 2006.

The classified ad listing is a great example of a product that can be delivered online. If you have a product or service that is delivered online without your involvement, your profit margin will be much greater than with a traditional product. You’ll see, later on, that you’ll probably need this extra profit margin and any extra time to survive the startup process and pay for your marketing campaign.

By choosing a product that is delivered online, you are starting out on the right foot. I don’t want to make it sound like you cannot succeed with a traditional physical product. I’m just saying that, in general, on online product is probably the most effective and profitable option.

A few more examples of products delivered online are e-books or membership sites where users pay a monthly fee to access information. Another example is Website Appraisals. This is a service that we sold on BuySellWebsite.com and the appraisals were then delivered through e-mail in an Adobe PDF document.

Please visit BestWebsite.com for step-by-step instructions to building profitable websites.

Like my Post? Maybe you would like to Buy Mama A Java! It will help to keep me reading, writing and scooping out the info

Posted by Kristen | Filed Under Tips & Advice, Work at Home MOM

Success Means a Profitable Website (and Profitable Doesn’t Require Perfection!)

February 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment

By Nelson Bates, Author Best Website: Simple Steps to Successful Websites

I believe people lose money online for two reasons. The first reason is because they get bogged down in the details of building their business. Things like server platforms, coding choices, graphic design, layout options, entity formation, and search engine optimization, among others. It’s very easy to get confused and lose track of where you need to go.

The second reason is that they don’t allow enough time for their business to succeed. Most people will not continue past three months if their business does not start to make money. They become frustrated with the process and give up.

In my opinion, you’ll need at least 3 to 6 months to establish a solid website and start generating enough traffic to become profitable. It just takes that long to refine your website and gain search engine traffic. But, as long as you know what the right path is, you’ll know to keep going.

Success Means a Profitable Website - The 100% Rule
There is one key difference between those who make money online, and those who lose money online. Those who make money online know about the 100% rule, which is that they don’t need things to be 100% correct before they move on. I’ll give an example:

When a friend was designing a website in the past, he needed a login function to check for a user ID and password to be able to view a membership section of the website. There wasn’t any sensitive information located in the membership section, so security was not high priority. Instead of hiring out the database design he needed to be able to validate logins, he just used a submission form where people entered their username and password, and it took them directly to the members’ section without checking to see if the entered information was correct.

Since he knew that the vast majority of people, probably 99% or more, would fill out the new user form first and then attempt to login, he knew it was fine not to have it 100% correct.

There were several reasons to do this. The most important is that he still had control over his website because he could easily create a login function himself using the tools provided by the Web design software. He also saved money that he would have needed to spend on the designer.

Having as much control as possible over your own website is essential. Also, saving time and money is critically important. Most of the time this advice is met with aversion, and I can understand the criticism. However, I am merely stating one of the differences between people who make money online and people who don’t. Those who do know how to build the function they need quickly without involving an outside designer or spending a lot of money.

Profitable Doesn’t Require Perfection!
Most people who start an online business will spend far too much time just getting things set up and won’t have enough time or money to spend on the things that will actually make him or her money. Whether it is dealing with web design, database design or internet marketing, the key is to not try and make things 100% right.

I have seen many websites never get off the ground, mostly because they were trying too hard to make things 100% right at the beginning. Think about the aspects of your website that can be solved the easy way first. Then, once your website is up and running and you understand how people use your website, you can come back to that aspect and correct it or possibly realize that nothing more needs to be done.

My intention with the Best Website book is not to describe the Utopian way to build a website; it is to describe how successful business owners build and run their websites to earn significant money online.

Please visit BestWebsite.com for step-by-step instructions to building profitable websites.

Like my Post? Maybe you would like to Buy Mama A Java! It will help to keep me reading, writing and scooping out the info

Posted by Kristen | Filed Under Tips & Advice, Work at Home MOM

Look Out Mike Rowe, Lunch can be a Dirty Job

February 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Dylan wanted to make his own lunch today, so I let him take the butter knife and go at it. This 3 year old wanted no help from mom, and look at this tasty creation.

Hmmm… you ask, WHAT is that?? Well, it is Peanut Butter, Raspberry Marshmellow and Pickles on wheat bread. yummm….. The new fad for lunches everywhere

Look at that proud face!

New Sandwich Trend

Can you just taste it??

Like my Post? Maybe you would like to Buy Mama A Java! It will help to keep me reading, writing and scooping out the info

Posted by Kristen | Filed Under Chaos of Life

Interested in a Free Personal Assistant?

February 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I registered with Twitter today. For those that have not heard about Twitter, in a nutshell, it is a way to quickly send out a short broadcast message to a group of your friends, your “following” or be a “follower”.

Understanding the Simplicity of Twitter

You can send out public or private messages and you set up your account for your email, IM, and cell phone. Sorry, while the account set up is free, standard texting charges apply.

I’ve been reading about Twitter for a few weeks now, but I have to admit, being home with four kids all day…. well, it doesn’t really lead one to have a ton of “friends” to network with and need to update besides something that may go like this:

“making breakfast for the kids”

“cleaning the kitchen while starting laundry and checking emails- yes, I’m doing them all at the same time”

“making a second round of breakfast”

“changing diaper while shouting out directions to stop fighting”

Not very exciting is it??? Don’t worry, I’m not offended that you really don’t care that I’m making four rounds of breakfast today. I’m not young and single and out scooting around the city and need to get in touch with my friends about the latest and greatest cool things… I don’t even know what that would be considered “cool” anymore.

Maybe I should just Twitter one whole day of my life so people can gain see how crazy a day is when you run a couple businesses, balance a house, four kids, multiple animals and the other wonderful tasks life throw at us during a day.

Get on with it… FREE Personal Assistant you ak??

What I do find “cool” is a little add on to Twitter and that is a virtual assistant, Sandy, that can be useful in managing my own chaos.

You can register for Twitter - it’s free, and Sandy, she’s free too, and then introduce your Twitter self to Sandy.

What would you do with Sandy?

She is your personal assistant and is great at sending reminders or to gather quicker notes to yourself. Sandy is good for both Professionals and for Families and I find it better then trying to keep track of 10 sticky notes of reminders.

Perfect for those of us that NEVER forget anything (was I convincing?)… like you were supposed to drop off a shoebox with your preschooler to decorate for Valentine’s Day? Or you need to schedule a follow up call with that retailer on Friday at 10.

For those that are tecnophobic…there is no coding, css or html…just pop an email or text from your cell phone and you can even shorthand it. Check out Sandys website for more real life examples of how you can use this free virtual assistant.

I really like the simple website and find the character view of real life examples a hoot.

Like my Post? Maybe you would like to Buy Mama A Java! It will help to keep me reading, writing and scooping out the info

Posted by Kristen | Filed Under Twitter

Getting Techie with Technorati

February 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Technorati Profile

I’m getting “techie” today- I’m putting the pieces together and finally working to complete all my profiles with Technorarti, Digg, Stumble Upon and setting up the list of urls to PING with each blog post.

I don’t know why I waited so long to join Technorati. I had it in my thoughts that as a “non-techie” joining would be a difficult process, so procrastination kicked in. Once again, I ask myself why I took so long.

For anyone that does not know what Technorati is, let me give a brief overview.

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Technorati is a search engine searching blogs and competing with Google and Yahoo. As of December 2007, Technorati indexes over 112 million weblogs.

Visit the home page and create a free account, select your username and password, then you can choose and your email.

Then you have the offer to include your blog address. You will be prompted to “claim” your blog. They give you two easy ways.

You can claim it by making a post with a line of html code that looks like the one I did above. You publish it then tell them to set the spiders free.

You can pass them the user name and password to your blog. I’ll be honest, I tried this the first time and my password didn’t work… oops, got a little used to that bookmark for posting and didn’t really feel like searching for the piece of paper with my hundreds of passwords.

I then updated my little bio- I need to find a way to be more creative like everyone else and find a way to stand out.. but really, I’m just too tired all the time to be REALLY creative. Maybe when the baby starts sleeping thru the night?

Be prepared- you will need to create a 250 character summary- I’ll admit, this is my biggest downfall. I include my URL’s.. but, after browsing the site again I see noone else does this… I’ll go back and re-do my profile.

Have that picture ready! I need to actually find a picture of me that does not have me displaying my product… sad, but true, all my pictures are of my kids..the dogs…the cats..crazy things like the hawk that wouldn’t leave my driveway… I’m always taking the pictures. Put that on the To Do list.

Okay, check back.

I created a username/password
I claimed my blog
I did a search and found some of my favorite blogs like, 5 minutes for mom, and added them to my profile.s is something that has been lingering on my To Do list for some time, but hey, as a one women show with a business, a husband working 7 days a week at 12 hours a day, four kids and a house… it seems to slip to the bottom of my list….just above sleeping.

Ok, I’ll finish this post later, must start dinner first….

UPDATE: Dinner is done, here goes the rest of my Techie Post.

I’ll make a very simple and visual introduction to Technorati and hopefully it will save you a little time when you create your own account. Ready?

Step 1: Using my Profile as an example, you can see I have already created my account and claimed my blog. Sorry my lovely picture isn’t showing up in the profile..server must be busy. shucks.

Welcome to Technorati

Since my profile rank is shows that I almost don’t exist

Step 2: A view of the Favorites page. Notice the “Add a Favorite” option box allowing you to add a blog manually. To create a fresh selection of new blogs you can browse under the headers - Front Page-Business-Entertainment. When a blog catches your intesest simply

Technorati Favorites

Step 3: Under your Favorite page you will have access to these tools that make Technorati fun and easy to work with. Drag a

Technorati Options

You will be able to add a button to your toolbar to make bookmarking easy and fast while browsing.
Ping Technorati and let them know you have some hot new content and they can come get it while it’s hot.
Grab a button to add to your blog or site to encourage readers to tag you
More fun options to play with and see what works for your objectives and site

Step 4: Explore Bloggers Central - This is an easy place to get a feel for what the hot topics are by browsing top blogs and watchlist. Depending on your own techie savy, perhaps you want to take a spin in the developers area to see what you can use.

Blogging Central

Step 5: Expand Your Reach. Easy point, click and copy code to help combine your blogging world and your Technorati world.

Options

Entice readers with a couple options that can be easily added to your blog- my personal favorites are the widget and tag cloud.

Blog Widget Tag Cloud

The Tag Cloud is a good example of why it is important to Tag your posts, videos, pictures on Flickr, podcasts. When you ping your blog, these tags will be picked up. Easy way to share a topic of interest!

One last point I want to make. As I mentioned before there are millions of blogs on the intenet today and thousands moving thru systems like Technorati every minute of day.

Before your next post is “pinged” stop and think about how your going to make your post stand out from the rest. Is your headline catchy enough? Are you nichy enough?

Standing Out From the Crowd

and second. When you create your account create a good blog summary. Here is an example of a blog that took time to create a good description and another without one.

Notice that each blog has the options to [add tags]. I can add my own tags in my favorites to help me catagorize for easy reading. Cool!

Good Descriptions

You will also see the word “Authority” under each blog. What is Authority and How do you increase your Authority?

“Technorati Authority is the number of blogs linking to a website in the last six months. The higher the number, the more Technorati Authority the blog has,” explains Technorati’s blog.

Your Authority increases by 1 for every link to your blog. So far my Authority is a four.. OUCH! Quick, post a little link to me :)

Process Simplified if you want to be on the tag page; Create an account, claim your blog, tag your post, ping your blog (manually or automatically depending on your blog set up). Ta Da! Hope this simplified introduction helps. I’ll be posting a more in depth look soon.

Like my Post? Maybe you would like to Buy Mama A Java! It will help to keep me reading, writing and scooping out the info

Posted by Kristen | Filed Under Social Bookmarking, Web 2.0