Most beginning online business owners think they want the no b.s. version for the secret of success to Internet marketing. If you’ve ever wanted to know what it takes to start up and build, a successful online business, you’ll want to read every word of this short post. And, you’ll discover an entertaining way to remember these success secrets when you watch the three minute video included here. Speaking of secrets in general, there are very few secrets. (If any)

Secrets are merely things you don’t yet know. Things which you can discover with research and by questioning those who already know the answers. Or discovering people and resources pointing to what you’re looking for.

Consider the following as a pointing example for the secret of success.

In a moment I’ll give you a list of actions, and attitudes, I think you need to succeed with your online business.

Don’t be surprised when you realize this list isn’t far different from any other listing of the keys to success you’ve seen many times before. In other words, learning online business is similar to learning how to rebuild the carburetor of a 1985 Chevy Eurosport 2.8. (Which is a project I’m now working on)

Here’s the list:

• Your Idea: Begin with the end in mind. For example: grow your own tomatoes.
• Willingness To Take Action Now: You can’t grow tomatoes unless you plant the seeds.
• Razor-like Focus: Don’t rip out your tomato plants & replace them with bell pepper plants.
• Relentless Persistence: You won’t get many healthy tomatoes unless you cultivate them during the growing season.
• Work Your Idea: Regularly water & dump nutrients around your tomato plants.
• Stroke Your Passion For Your Idea: Visualize picking a sun-ripened tomato off your vine & eating it like an apple with the juice sliding down your chin.
• Most Importantly Is Your Belief: Honestly, if you don’t have a gut-felt knowing you will succeed, at whatever cost, you probably won’t.

Before I get too carried away, here’s a three minute & 33 second video, which is an entertaining look at the secrets of success:

If you’d like more about living a balanced, successful life, click on the following link Secret Of Success

At the end of the day, the secret of ‘success’ is a basket gradually filled with many small victories. Hope this helped you in some way. Don’t forget to leave your comments, suggestions and questions.

Stay casual,
Edward ‘Mr Ed’ Thorpe “He who helps the most people Wins!”

Secret Of Success is a post from: How To Start An Online Internet Home Business...

Secret Of Success http://onlinebeginnersguide.com

The foundation for any effective keyword competition research method must start with the following truism: “We only go after keyword phrases that are already getting traffic…”

No traffic equals little to no potential for making money from your website. O.K. That’s a D-U-H moment and a half.

Conversely, proof of traffic almost always breeds competition for the keyword phrase and within the niche the keyword phrases are associated with.

Put in another way: wherever there’s traffic, there’s probably established businesses already selling to the people driving the traffic. So the question is, can we wiggle our way into that traffic stream?

While there can’t be a definitive answer, methodical keyword competition research methods could help us decide whether to try. Or not…

We can use free online tools like Google’s Adword research tools, Spyfu’s CPC tool, SEOBooks toolbar, SEOQuake’s shake & bake tools and a host of others. (See the ‘Resources’ links at the end.)

These are mostly labor intensive, hands on solutions.

Before get serious, you may want to watch this video showing how you could use Google Keyword Suggestion Tool to do keyword research & competitive keyword research. Although I can’t endorse anything in the video, it’s great for niche research beginners. (I’ll be back with you after the vid

There is a long list of paid products & paid software which supposedly do keyword competition research methods for you. I’ve used many and don’t care to highlight them at this time. So I won’t…

The data many of the paid tools return to the user are scraped from the free tools we’ve already mentioned. They just take much of the manual labor out of the process.

Plus, they should save us time.

The trick here is, of course, pick a promising set of related keywords with traffic and start testing methods to get our links into the top spot of SERP’s. (Search Engine Results Page)

So speedy research coupled with speedy tests is key at this stage of starting an online business. Which brings us full circle to keyword competitiveness.

For the sake of illustration, we’ll list the usual competition benchmarks new marketers are advised to use during their decision making process:

• Number of monthly searches: 1,000 monthly minimum
• Average Google Adword CPC: Proof of money being made
• Number of web pages returned for the keyword phrase: your direct competition
• The average page rank (PR) for the top 10 sites: competitors strength
• The number of backlinks: your target to beat

Any process, or method, has to start somewhere. Yet, there’s no point in limiting ourselves to fit other people’s expectations or biased history. Basing our decision strictly upon the above data would keep us from niches we could possibility profit from targeting.

Which would mean more research for us, of course. Better to investigate now than build a web business upon false assumptions later.

An example of benefiting from more research could be backlinks. A SERP showing 6,588 backlinks looks like a 2,000 pound gorilla to the average new marketer. Not necessarily an accurate image though.

Perhaps 5,776 of those links are from link farms and web pages with over 50 outgoing links? Eventually, most likely sooner, search engine software will discount, or penalize, such links.

Which leaves fewer than a thousand backlinks. Suppose 600 of those 1,000 are links from web pages with PR’s of 1? Or even zero?

How quickly a gorilla can become easy pickings, huh?

All because we didn’t let other people scare us off with their simplistic solutions. Here’s another list of keyword competition research benchmarks that dig deeper:

• Number of web pages returned for the keyword phrase
• Keyword phrase searched within “quotes”
• Keyword phrase searched as intitle:”YourKeyWordPhrase” (KWP)
• Is the keyword used in the title?
• Does meta description include the KWP?
• Main site’s URL: does it include the KWP?
• Is the ranked page’s content optimized for the KWP?
• Are title tags used on the SERP’s content page? <h1> <h2>, etc.
• Are LSI phrases used within the linked page’s content & links?
• How old is the site?
• SERP’s page rank? (PR)
• Number of backlinks for the SERP
• Quality of the web pages back linked to the SERP we’re studying
• Are the keyword phrases used as backlink anchor text?
• Number of backlinks for the main website & their quality
• And so on…

We’re not saying new online marketers are being bamboozled about the nature of, and the rules of judging potential competitor’s power Vs. their vulnerability.

We are saying that commonsense indicates competitors with high PR, lots of relevant anchor text backlinks from web pages also carrying high PR, are formidable competition.

On the other hand, highly ranked SERP’s with low PR and only a few hundred low-quality, non-targeted backlinks, are easy prey for us.

And “Oh Mama, we are looking so diligently for the latter!”

The above is merely an example of my keyword competition research methods. I don’t always use the exact same process each time. Different business models are better used for different target markets. Which often calls for different research qualifications.

Stay casual,
Edward ‘Mr Ed’ Thorpe “He who helps the most people Wins!”

Selected Resources:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
http://spyfu.com/ What different advertisers are paying for CPC
http://seoquake.com Add on for either Firefox or Google Chrome (I prefer Chrome)
http://Seobook.com Extension/add on for Firefox. Get PR, back links & much more
http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/ Unobtrusive rankings for a site’s Alexa traffic & Google Page Rank: Firefox and SeaMonkey

Keyword Competition Research Methods is a post from: How To Start An Online Internet Home Business...

Keyword Competition Research Methods http://onlinebeginnersguide.com

Your online Internet business start up needn’t be a gamble.

Yet, I regularly hear some version of the following lament: “I’ve tried everything the gurus told me, and all I’ve got to show for it is maxed out credit cards…” Admittedly everyone’s Internet marketing story is unique. However, the various paths to success, and to failure, are strikingly similar. For example, in 2000, I paid over $6,000.00 to have a website built. $6,000 for a website may not sound real dumb to you.

But consider this:

_ I didn’t have a product or service to sell.
_ I couldn’t personally edit or control the content.
_ Changes as minor as editing a sentence, required updating by the company’s employees.
_ Every change meant extra fees for me.

Back in 2000, I wasn’t much dumber than the average person coming online. So, why would I pay 6 grand for a website which was essentially a wasteland?

The Answer?

I was new, and ignorant, to the concepts of establishing an online business. Without knowing better, I was sold on the faulty idea that Internet Marketing was built upon a foundation involving the intricacy of online technology.

Although I never made another $6,000 mistake, this was just one of many mistakes as I struggled to find a reliable method to get my Internet business going.

Some snafu’s were small, and easy to shrug off. Others were spiritually draining because of all the work and trust I’d invested in them.

I wanted to give up more than once…

But, like rubbing a broken tooth with the tip of my tongue, I couldn’t escape the idea of working and making money online from home.

Eventually, I realized I wasn’t making mistakes. Instead of failing, I was learning business lessons. It was up to me to classify them as valuable or as wasted efforts.

It’s said that Thomas Edison tried over 10,000 times before he made a working electric light model.

It’s also said that when a reporter asked Mr. Edison what it felt like to fail thousands of times before succeeding, Mr. Edison replied with something like the following: “There were no failures in my process. I was merely eliminating methods that didn’t work…”

In a small way, my online business experiences have been something like that…

It wasn’t planed, but I had to eliminate a lot of online marketing methods that didn’t work for me. And, in doing so, it took me until 2001 before I began using a simple, and repeatable, method which made me money almost every day.

The curious thing is: This same method still works today, 10 years later!

In practice though, the basic methodology has evolved along with how people use the Internet. Which is both a blessing and a curse.

It’s a curse because now there are more ‘benchmarks’ you have to meet. For example, you should now bring web 2.0 sites, social sites and profile directories, into your personal business web. Because there weren’t any web 2.0 sites, or Facebook type social sites in 2001, this is added work to my original processes.

On the other hand, having powerful linking/traffic sources like Linkedin, YouTube and Facebook is a blessing for Internet marketers.

Plus they’re easy to use: you only have to set up lenses on Squidoo, profiles on Linkedin, and pages on Facebook, to use their heavyweight positioning for links back to your business.

Using them for selling and marketing takes a great deal more work than we want to detail here.

Another change since 2001, is niche selection. Because of the growing number of new Internet business operations, choosing a niche, or picking your target market, is now more exacting and more complicated than it’s ever been. Some days I’ve felt like it’s impossible to unearth a decent niche which doesn’t already have entrenched and fierce competition. Yet, picking a profitable niche to target, is crucial for your online Internet business start up.

On the other hand, there are software tools you can now use to research niches, decipher keywords and evaluate the strength of competition. They’re not failsafe solutions, but I’d not go into a new niche without using them.

Likewise with SEO strategies. Lots of changes since 2001.

The most obvious change, of course, is the increase in the number of websites. It’s my theory that we’re competing against any, and all, websites… not just sites focused upon our particular niche target.

Thus, it’s harder now to get free search engine traffic than it was at the turn of the 21st century.

On the same time, there are more avenues to leverage web page rankings than ever before.

Perhaps the best news about Internet marketing in the 2011 is the ease of building and controlling website properties.

For example, anyone who can write and send an email, is capable of building, uploading, and editing content for a personally owned WordPress blog in less than an hour. That’s totally amazing for someone who started out like I did…

What we have is this: _ Today is the most competitive time in history to start an Internet business. _ Today will be the least competitive time ever to start an online business… Every day sitting on the sidelines is another day for your competition to grow stronger. And every day you spend eliminating marketing methods that don’t work for you, is another day for your competition to gain leverage for their online position over your business.

If you want to start a profitable Internet business, can you afford to hesitate?

You don’t have the luxury of waiting for a more suitable time to start an online business. Your time is now. The faster you start making massive failure lessons, the quicker you’ll fail your way to success. And, the sooner you position your Internet presence within a specific niche, the more leverage you’ll gain within that target market.

Since starting out in 2000, I’ve learned strategies and marketing methods that could help you. From the many lessons I’ve blundered into, I’ve crystallized many of the crucial ones on this website and pass them along to subscribers of my generic business and life principles email newsletter.

Samples:

_ Your Idea/Niche Selection
_ Competition: The Good and The Bad
_ Keyword Research & Keyword Selection Process
_ Choosing & Registering Domain Name
_ Requirements Of The Right Web Host
_ Designing a Website Vs Content Management System
_ Content Creation Rules
_ Article Marketing Guidelines
_ Lead Capture Solutions
_ Relationship Building Strategies
_ Strategies To Survive While You’re Learning How To Make Money Online…

From a recent subscriber:

Dear ED
You are a ray of sunshine in a Dark Dark world, I have been trying to make money on the net for just over 2 years now, & the BS i have had to dig through is unbeliverable that i gave up But now i am back & i have come accross your site i feel that there is hope for me, thanks ED for your wonderful service. Blessings Paul

Stay casual,
Edward ‘Mr Ed’ Thorpe “He who helps the most people Wins!”

P.S. Online business marketing is like a popularity contest wherein your Internet business is competing against all other web entities for the attention of a finite number of eyeballs. Click This Link To Get More Eyeballs

Online Internet Business Start Up Guide is a post from: How To Start An Online Internet Home Business...

Online Internet Business Start Up Guide http://onlinebeginnersguide.com

How to pick an online niche is a huge hurdle when we’re starting out, isn’t it? The most common advice to is “go with your passions” when we’re trying to figure out a target market.

Following your interests is good advice for some people. But me? Every time I decide to make a ‘what I like to do’ list, I kinda freeze up. Usually I can’t get past eating, sleeping and sex. And who would want to hear how I’m pretty good at two of those and mediocre at the other?

The short of it is that after years of online experience, I still struggle with the art of targeting. The process is just too intangible for a literal minded dude like me. (Or is it ‘myself/?)

I’m interested in just about everything I don’t know a lot about. Yet, my threshold of boredom is slightly lower than the morals of  a drunk college freshman.

What I’ve done to overcome my lack of imagination is a haphazardly concocted set of niche research steps. They work for me. On the same time, I’m always open to learning how other successful Internet marketers go about their research.

For example, earlier today I watched a three year old YouTude video about using Amazon & Google alerts when researching niche ideas. I often use these two resources during my discovery process. But I haven’t made a video showing how I do it.

Now I don’t have to because this ‘Ed’ dude did. And he posted it on YouTude as a pimp for his 30 Day Challenge offer. Well, the offer is no longer running. But the video is. Although the video was posted way back in ’08, the techniques shown are still current.

Watch it out if you’re interested:

Anyways, this is one research method that I know works because I’ve used it. If you’re having trouble figuring out how to pick an online niche, the resources and ideas in the video should help you.

Also, you may want to check out my ‘Money Niche Research Report” at: Profitable Niches

Stay casual,
Edward ‘Mr Ed’ Thorpe

How To Pick An Online Niche is a post from: How To Start An Online Internet Home Business...

How To Pick An Online Niche http://onlinebeginnersguide.com

Online Internet Business Mistakes I’ve made would fill a good-sized book. To help you avoid some of them, it’s probably better to talk in depth about one of the crucial online Internet business mistake here, instead of writing the book, don’t you think?

Although it’s been over a decade, I still remember how confusing starting an online Internet business was for a Newbie like I was back then.

True to my nature, I made about every classic mistake possible. But, I’m stubborn as an Eastern Kentucky mule and I was convinced I could make money online. (Oh, If only I had the ‘smarts’ of those legendary mules!)

Anyway, I was worldly enough to understand making money online would require work on my part. After growing up on a small farm, I’m no stranger to hard work. So I dug in and started working. Most days I worked late into the darkness of night.

Not being exactly sure of ah-hem, what work I should be doing, I mostly followed a strategy of trying a little of this Internet marketer’s expert’s advice & and mixed in a smidgen of that other expert’s surefire plan, and just to be on the safe side, I topped the whole thing off with a tasteful dollop of yet some other expert’s coaching…

Basically, I was hoping to luck out on any kind of method that would make me money. (Uh yeah, I do this stuff for money.)

About the time I realized I wasn’t getting the results promised, (oftentimes before that realization) I’d stop doing what may have worked if I’d stayed with it awhile longer. Understandable action. When we don’t believe what we’re doing will eventually work, we’re always looking for a better deal, aren’t we?

Anyway, instead of staying focused, I’d run across a different Internet Marketing expert swearing to Kingdom Come that you couldn’t succeed if you didn’t do what he/she was doing. (But oh golly and gee whiz, you could buy their secret marketing blueprint from them…)

Usually, I was already tired of working blisters into my flat a** without getting positive results. Thus, being already frustrated, such sales pitches oftentimes looked like a ray of sunshine after a long month of cloudy days.

Oh, I’d think about the sensibility of just giving up and jumping on the new thing. Yet, I’d usually end talking myself into getting the new stuff and start out from scratch, yep, once again…

Which is the crucial number one online Internet business mistake made by many new marketers.

As you know, we don’t get very far down the road to any specific destination if we’re forever starting, stopping, changing directions and starting over. That’s kinda like selling your car for gas money, isn’t it?

Likewise with our Internet business. Starting, stopping, starting over in a different direction, won’t make us enough money to pay our operating expenses. And, we do understand it’s a dumb move. But it’s hard to resist the selling techniques of world class online marketers…

After all, it’s our nature to want a sure thing that’s easy, fast and fun. Which is too bad, because…

The key to online business success is exactly the key to any other kinda success. We should pick one reasonable set of strategies with a series of action steps to test and evaluate the results coming back to us.

If we’re determined to succeed, we’ll tinker around with the specific strategies until they begin to work for our unique business. (Tinker = test + evaluate results + adjust the tactic tested + retest + re-evaluate + readjust + so  on and so forth…)

At this point, we’d be remiss if we didn’t present an example of a strategy with a set of steps that I have used for years.

Three Step Business Plan:

_ Identify a niche market of people who buy related stuff online…

_ Trade something they’d value for their contact information…

_ Repeatedly contact them and educate them into becoming savvy consumers of your products and services.

Admittedly this is a simple start up plan with a foundational set of strategies. Yet, I personally know offline, and online millionaires, who used that exact plan to become wealthy. And, not all of them are what you’d call real smart people. But they were brilliant enough to stay with this one simple business plan and eventually tweaked it into a strategy which brought them reliable profits.

Anyway, like most people, they probably made a buncha business mistakes before they succeeded. Yet their focus and their persistence finally overcame their natural tendency to make the number one online Internet business mistake we’ve talked about here.

Couldn’t you do the same?

Stay casual,

Mr Ed “He who helps the most people Wins!”

Crucial Online Internet Business Mistake is a post from: How To Start An Online Internet Home Business...

Crucial Online Internet Business Mistake http://onlinebeginnersguide.com

The domain name for your website could help you rank higher in search engine traffic results. (SERP) Yet, you could decide making your site’s moniker simple, so people can remember it, if it’s more important to your intended audience.

Or, you could go ‘catchy’ like Google.com and use it as a portal to enslave the electronic universe.

Stick to your pc and we’ll examine when & why you might want to choose one of the above strategies for your particular web site calling card.

Using your domain name for higher SERP placement is SOP (standard operating procedure) within niche marketing circles. For example, a new niche I’ve started working on is in the digestive niche.

The digestive niche is competitive, so I chose to concentrate on the bloating & constipation segment.

Because I’m looking for all the organic search engine traffic possible, I included my main keywords within my site’s URL.

Admittedly, this is only step one in the total process of getting search traffic to the site. But, to travel a thousand miles begins with the first step, etc, etc and so on.

If your promotion plans include doing a lot of cross promoting on TV, radio, and print media, it’s crucial your site’s handle is memorable.

Naturally, you could use a doorway landing page as a filter, or a redirect to the actual selling presentation site.

(Hey, old-timers, remember how those slick marketer’s sold all the suckers ‘doorway page’ spinners? LOL.. Now they’ll selling ‘auto blogging’ junk. Ain’t history fun?)

Finally, the catchy google.com approach. What else it there to say? IF you can give enough people what they want, when they want it, name your website any damn thing you want!

What’s in a domain name? I guess that depends on what you do with your website, doesn’t it?

That’s all for today,
“Mr Ed” “He who helps the most people Wins!”

How To Select Your Domain Name is a post from: How To Start An Online Internet Home Business...

How To Select Your Domain Name http://onlinebeginnersguide.com

If you were to read all the content residing on different websites about how to choose a domain name for your web site, you’d finish about the time you reached my age. Which is pretty old.

While it’s way past dumb starting this missive out by indirectly saying there’s no need for more verbiage on the subject being addressed, I pride myself for rarely being accused of doing the ‘smart’ thing.

Occasionally I’m credited with doing the ‘right’ thing, but that’s possibility another story…

So, and against my better judgment, and despite the real possibility of you clicking away because I’ve already suggested you ignore more information about choosing your site’s domain name, I will now proceed to share with you the benefits of my experience & my observations about naming websites.

Depending on your target market and your business model, naming your domain could lead to serious repercussions.

For example, I’ve a website named, onlinebeginnersguide.com. Wait, you probably knew that, because you’re now setting smack dab in the middle of it…

Anyway, the rationale for choosing such a limiting domain name as onlinebeginnersguide.com was, well I figured it was better than the URL it replaced, which was: the-home-grown-biz-advocate.com. Can you imagine people typing into a browser such an messed up domain name/URL address like that one?

Seriously, what was I thinking back in 2000?

Pretty dumb domain name choice, if you ask me. Yet, at one time, the-home-grown-biz, etc, etc, and etc, website had an ‘Alexa.com’ popularity rating between 53,000 and 54,000. That’s almost unbelievable for such a messed up url, isn’t it?

Especially for what was a one man operation…

Along about 2004 I got too sick to continue maintaining and updating the afore mentioned web site. By 2005 it was quickly fading into obscurity. When I started feeling better, I added much of its content a new site that I called, you guessed it: onlinebeginnersguide.com, which is a better site name, don’t you think?

Yeah, I thought so too. Then why does this damn site have a dismal 2 million in popularity rating? Again, according to ‘Alexa.com’.

Both sites serve almost the same niche. Both site’s rely upon lead capture, email marketing, content publishing, off page and on page SEO techniques to get targeted traffic.  So why the big difference in popularity rankings?

Was I just a better marketer back then? No way.

I suspect the primary reasons the-home-grown-biz-advocate.com outperformed the seemingly better named onlinebeginnersguide.com lies in how web 2.0 and social sites have completely changed the Internet landscape.

I wasn’t marketing online when web 2.0 and social media started and became popular. And, ten months ago when I started working my Internet business again, I was totally ignorant of these changes.

Instead of taking advantage of these new marketing channels, I’ve been setting up and using the same online marketing strategies that worked well before I got sick. And, they still do work.

Yet, they’d work better if  I’d incorporate some of the new Internet media channels along with the old strategies. I’m not there yet. But I’m studying and doing small tests to find out what works for me.

I realize we didn’t talk a lot about choosing your site’s domain name. Why should we have? I told you from the start that there was too much information floating around already. If you think about it, it’s not the domain name, anyway. Instead it’s who you target and what you do to get targeted traffic.

Stay casual,
Mr Ed

Choosing Your Site’s Domain Name is a post from: How To Start An Online Internet Home Business...

Choosing Your Site’s Domain Name http://onlinebeginnersguide.com

Another day and another OBG Family member emailed wanting to end her confusion about the differences between domain names, domain hosting & domain hosting names. In particular, she wanted to get tips on choosing affiliate domain hosting services.

She was also trying to figure out how to promote a landing page that leads to a sales page, where to put them and what she should name them.

Her biggest issue though, was whether she needed two domain names, or two separate domain hosting accounts, or one and not the other. Or two and not the one, or the best 2 outta 3…

I’m most definitely not poking fun here!

I very well recall how confused I was about these kind of issues. It’s frustrating feeling like a fish out of water when you’re also trying to learn how to walk instead of swimming everywhere you wanna go.

We both know it’s not easy getting an online business started. While we’re at it, let’s set up the lady’s situation in more detail:

Our heroine had joined an online network marketing type program. You know, monthly fee for a product/service. To make money, you bring in new members and get paid, etc.

_ Members are given an unique affiliate link for a lead capture page.

_ The lead capture’s auto redirect function sends the captured lead to another unique affiliate link which is usually the program’s sales page.

_ The sales page pimps out the program’s benefits and entices captured leads to a ‘join’ – ‘sign up’ form/page.

In other words, this program’s affiliates are given  a ready-made, tried & proven, 3-step marketing plan. Actually, I think you could get away with calling this particular set up a system.

Whatever you wanna call it, I’ve always had success using different versions of this simple, yet effective marketing method. Yeah, that’s what we’ll call it: “A Method…”

Because our OBG Family member is a Newbie & I suspect isn’t yet making regular money, I suggested she tested Google’s URL Shortener at: http://goo.gl

This is a free service provided & maintained by Google that allows you to paste your long-ass affiliate links into a text box, click a button and in seconds you’re given a short redirect url that redirects to your personal affiliate site.

(Assuming your affiliate link was the URL entered into the text box

For example, let’s say I enter the following URL into the text box at http:goo.gl:

http://onlinebeginnersguide.com/?this-is-an-example/

I click the button at http://goo.gl & the above example URL is changed to: http://goo.gl/TzRrq

When a lead/prospect clicks on the Google shortened link, they are taken to your affiliate url. But, (and wouldn’t you just know it?) there’s a small ‘catch’ with using the service.

The catch is: when your prospect gets to your affiliate url linked web page, the web browser’s address defaults to your original affiliate link URL that you’d shortened at http://goo.gl.

In other words, using the above example, http://goo.gl/TzRrq when clicked on the browser address window would show: http://onlinebeginnersguide.com/?this-is-an-example/ and not: http://goo.gl/TzRrq

This isn’t a deal breaker under most conditions. But, you’d surely lose your commissions if you used it to cloak any IM ‘how-to’ affiliate URLs.

Overall, it could be a good solution for new online business start ups and new marketers who are cash poor.

Yet, I’d only consider it as a temporary fix. Once you’ve decided upon a business model,iIt’s always better to have your own affiliate domain hosting account, one which you control.

Because of SEO and other issues, I personally host sites with a variety of different web hosting companies.

If you’re still in the learning mode, (we all are, or we all should be) I suggest you use a good web host company who will let you host unlimited domains and subdomains.

Unlimited domains, without added hosting costs for each one, gives you the opportunity to test a lot of different niches and ideas.

If you’re in this position, and you can afford to, I recommend you get Host Gator’s ‘unlimited domains’ package. I’ve used them for quite some time and haven’t any complaints.

You can check them out at my gator affiliate url: (when you’re ready for your own site) http://onlinebeginnersguide.com/gator.htm

Yup. That certainly is an affiliate link & I would make a commission if you bought through it. But, you’d still get the same service you’d get if it wasn’t my affiliate link.

Unlike ‘ClickBank’ affiliate products, you’re not allowed to join gator’s affiliate program and then make a commission if you buy hosting through your own affiliate link.

Until you need web hosting though, check out Google’s http://goo.gl It may work for what you’re doing now. But, do get your own affiliate domain hosting website soon.

P.S. If you also have a question, request or suggestion, I’m a dude who will respond. Don’t believe me? Try me!

Stay casual,
Edward ‘Mr Ed’ Thorpe  “He who helps the most people Wins!”

Affiliate Domain Hosting is a post from: How To Start An Online Internet Home Business...

Affiliate Domain Hosting http://onlinebeginnersguide.com

How would you market online affiliate programs without owning a website? May I suggest Google’s URL link shortening service at: http://goo.gl This is basically a redirect service operation.

Here’s how it works:

_ Enter your affiliate link into the text box at http://goo.gl

_ Click the ‘Shorten’ button _ Copy your shortened affiliate URL

_ Use the shortened link in your advertising and emails, or wherever…

Yep. That’s all there is to it. No website. No problem. Use http://goo.gl

Because the shortened URL defaults back to your original affiliate link URL, I don’t reccomend you use it for affiliate links in the Internet marketing niche.

Given the chance most people in the IM niche will change your affiliate id into theirs and steal your commission. Right or wrong, it’s a stone cold fact…

There are quite a few other free URL shortening/redirect services online. Personally, I wouldn’t use them. Here’s a short story of why I wouldn’t use others:

Dependning on your knowledge of online marketing history, you may know these kind of link shortening, or redirect services have been around for at least 9 years.

You’d also know that these service providers are known to go out of business at a blink of an eye.

_ Usually they don’t bother informing service users they’re no longer supporting the redirects.

_ Usually, the service user continue sending leads to those link redirects.

_ And, usually they ain’t turning leads into prospects or customers.

Which is bad enough. But, to add insult to injury, you’ve got all these dead links that you have no record of what the original affiliate links were.

If you’re not reading between the lines, let me break it down. Typically, when we’re new online, we’ll join a lot of ‘money-for-nothing’ programs. We haven’t yet learned the wisdom of keeping an offline journal of important links, URLs, passwords, user names and id’s.

Someone, probably our sponsor, tells us about such & such URL redirects which we can use to have a unique affiliate link to promote.

In other words, knowingly or not, the sponsor is actually using the redirect services to get people who don’t have a website to join the program.

Nothing wrong with that. You can make money without a website. Yet, sooner of later you’re going to need a website of your own.

“Pardon me while I clear my throat…ah hemm”

Which was a prelude for me to talk plainly about a web hosting company I use and am an affiliate for. The company: Host Gator. I’ve used them for years. No complaints, either.

If you get their unlimited domain hosting service deal, you can host, well…you can host unlimited domains on the one hosting account. In my experience, it’s the way to go. Most Im’ers will try a lot of different niches and business models until they get something clicking for them.

No shame in this. It’s how we all start out, failing time and time again until we get a hit. Usually the hit’s not a home run, but a weak single puts you on base…

When you’re ready I’m asking you to check Host Gator out at my gator affiliate URL:
http://onlinebeginnersguide.com/gator.htm

Yup. That is most definitely an affiliate link & I would make a commission if you bought through it. So what? You’d still get the same service you’d get if it wasn’t my affiliate link.

Unlike ‘ClickBank’ affiliate products, you’re not allowed to join gator’s affiliate program and then make a commission if you buy hosting through your own affiliate link. Besides, I’m old, befuddled and need the money for sex, drugs & rock N roll…

Until you need web hosting though, check out Google’s http://goo.gl It may work for what you’re doing now. But, do get your own website soon.

Stay casual,
Edward ‘Mr Ed’ Thorpe “He helps the most people Wins!”

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Hi fellow Entrepreneur, If you’re new to Internet marketing, I can help you. For example: Subscribe to my free online newsletter and get 31 free Online Marketing Business ‘How-To’ videos. These videos show you shortcuts to doing just about everything you need to know about getting started online. You’ll learn things like: How to set-up and compose autoresponder email series Squeeze pages Re-directs Installing & using PayPal order buttons How to up load files to your website How to brand videos How & when to use audio files How to set up ‘secure’ space on your sites How to set up ‘help-desks’ How to find & us long-tailed keywords And of course, much, much more… By subscribing you understand I will be sending you other email messages. I have no set sending sequence. When I feel like sharing, I do. Otherwise, we’ll go about our businesses like two friends do. I’m not all that inventive. So, the messages I do send you, will be about IM tactics and strategies used in my personal online business. One thing you’ll never, ever, get from me is anything about any of those irritating IM pre-launch rip-offs.  Truth is, I think you could throw 99.9% of the online marketing ‘how-to’ products into a black hole and we’d all be better off. But, that’s just me… BTW: It’s OK with me if you only subscribe to get the free videos. Yet, you may discover you like my way of seeing Internet marketing. Then again, you can easily unsubscribe whenever you want. To your good health, Edward ‘Mr Ed’ Thorpe “He who helps the most people Wins!” Your First Name: Preferred Email:

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