Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Build Your Own Online Forum Community

Build Your Own Online Forum Community  Building Online Communities With Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress



This isn’t one of the most obvious ways to make money online, which is precisely why it is something of an untapped market for generating an income from.
There are plenty of subjects you could tap into for building a worthwhile forum – all you need to do is choose one that you already have a good deal of knowledge in. Alternatively you could add one to a site you have now, which can be an excellent way of monetizing your existing traffic.
A forum or community is also an excellent way of providing more value for your visitors. They have a reason to return to your website because they know there will be regular fresh content on there. That same fact will also mean the search engine spiders will tend to visit your site more often too, which can eventually result in a higher ranking.
Want to know more? Read on!
Building a forum or community can take a bit of effort initially, but there are a lot of rewards to be had. It might also be a lot cheaper than you think, since there are plenty of providers who will let you have the software and hosting you’ll need completely free of charge. Have a good look round the internet to see which ones appeal to you the most before deciding.
That’s all very well, but how do you actually make money from this?
Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards
Well it does depend on the subject of the forum, but you can charge a fee for people to gain access to it if you provide them with decent information and there is something worth gaining for the money. Some news related sites charge a fee for access which encourages people to visit the site on a daily basis, but obviously your site might be on a completely different subject altogether.
You could also think about building a community or forum where basic membership is free, but in order to get access to premium features you would need to pay a small monthly fee. This strategy often gets a better take up rate as people get the chance to sample what the site is like before deciding whether or not to pay the extra money. A good example of this (albeit one on a large scale) is the Second Life virtual reality site, where membership is free but in order to take part on a larger scale and gain access to better features you need to pay the monthly amount stipulated.
You can see that it’s a good idea to do your homework before getting involved with anything like this, because you want to make sure your paid membership options are desirable enough to bring in the customers. If you end up giving your subscribers something they can get elsewhere at no cost whatsoever, then there is no reason for them to carry on subscribing with you. That’s a good point to bear in mind when you get started; if your subscriber drop out rate seems rather high, you might need to reconsider what you are offering.
Some people also offer membership only websites which have a members’ only forum as part of the overall package. These are usually based around a popular subject but go into it in more depth and offer unique content that can’t be found anywhere else.
For example, there is plenty of content out there about writing and selling e-books, but there is at least one person offering a members’ only site that goes into the whole process step by step, sharing their own success of writing and selling e-books in an in-depth fashion. This is the kind of format you want to aim for.
So if you have some ideas on creating a forum, community or members’ only site of your own, why not start making steps towards making them a reality? You might find those ideas hold a monthly income for you that you only need to start tapping into.

But leave us a comment before you go out and make a difference! Let us know your thoughts and how this idea might work for you.

Build Your Own Custom Search Engine

Build Your Own Custom Search Engine  Julie's Gift: Memories of London



It might seem hard to believe that anyone could rival Google with a new search engine. But it could happen if the idea for custom built search engines comes to fruition.
If the idea of building your own search engine appeals to you, remember that the trick is not to try and compete directly with Google itself. Instead of doing that you should take a difference stance altogether – and in fact it is this stance that many people think is going to become the new search engine for the future.
Sounds intriguing? To find out exactly what kind of search engine we’re talking about, click to read more.
The internet is a huge place, almost beyond comprehension, and it’s getting bigger every single day. That makes it incredibly hard to find anything. Unless you happen to know the URL of a site you want to visit, the chances of finding it in the search engines is getting more remote by the day.
While the whole process of search engine optimization allows every website to have a chance of getting onto page one of Google, where it stands the best chance of being discovered by the people who want to find it, there is one thing that it really doesn’t account for – and that’s accuracy.
The truth is that you could create a website that is factually inaccurate and it could still rank very highly in the search engines – so long as it was optimized to do so. Furthermore even the major search engines are becoming more and more unwieldy as time goes by and even more new websites are launched. It’s not uncommon to search for a particular type of website and get hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of results coming back at you.
This means that there is clearly a gap for a new type of search engine. Imagine a whole network of them, with each one concentrating on a different subject. So for example let’s say you wanted to find a website which contains medical information. Instead of going to Google or another large search engine, you would go to a medical search engine which only lists that type of website. Similarly if you wanted to find information on investments, you would go to a search engine that only contained websites which dealt with that subject.
Building & Tuning High-Performance Electronic Fuel Injection
This is an idea which is only just starting to be suggested, but many experts think that this could be a glimpse of what it will be like in the future. So why not be a trailblazer and pick a popular subject that gets a lot of searches every day to build a new search engine around?
When it comes to creating the actual engine there are a few tutorials online that reveal how to do it. Do a search (on a search engine!) to find them, and start to map out your ideas for your particular search engine. Don’t forget that this will be a more targeted engine than anything else that is out there at the moment, so bear that in mind when it comes to choosing a domain name for it. After all, you want your search engine to rank highly in the results in the general search engines, to ensure you get found and people start using you.
You will also need to be able to crawl the relevant websites that are out there on the web today, so you can include them in your own results. Of course it will take some time to build a well established custom search engine, but the fact that you are taking on this kind of focused project in the first place should earn you some free publicity. Make sure you write some press releases as well, to get the right people interested. It’s also worth getting in touch with websites that could be placed in the results, to help spread the word.
You could be the owner of a major targeted search engine in a few months time, so why not get started now? Be sure to leave us a comment below first though! And good luck.


Build A Website Selling Custom Animal ID Tags

Build A Website Selling Custom Animal ID Tags   Cabelas Big Game Hunt


There are some items that will simply never go out of fashion and there will always be a need for them – and animal ID tags are one of those items.
This is a solid business that may take a while to get set up properly, but it is well worth the effort – and there are two ways you can do it depending on how much work you actually want to get involved with.
The main thing to remember here is that you need a decent website to be taken seriously, so either get one designed for you or go for the best do it yourself website builder you can find: one that allows you to take secure payments online too, if you are going all out to do the whole thing yourself.
Cats and dogs are the most popular pets around, and a lot of households have one, other or sometimes both – and often more than one animal too. That means there is a huge market out there for animal ID tags, to ensure that if a moggy or pooch goes missing they will be returned to their owner in double quick time, thanks to the information on the tag.
It doesn’t take much to work out that if you can supply people with these tags you will have a ready market to make money from for years to come. There is some outlay to this business if you want to make the tags yourself, since you will need to buy the machine to make them with and the blanks that form the finished tags. But once you have the main equipment the only real outlay you will have is replenishing your stocks of tags once you have used up the ones you have – by which time you will be well into profit.
If the idea of making the tags yourself seems like too much hard work, look for websites that are already around that offer an affiliate scheme. A lot of people are happy to give a proportion of their revenue for each sale to the person who gave it to them in the first place, so bear this in mind.
You can also look on a website such as Commission Junction to find larger companies who offer commission on selling pet products, so you could also populate your website with other associated items as well such as collars for cats and dogs.
If you look on Google or any other major search engine you will see that there are plenty of websites already out there selling animal tags, so you will need to position yourself strongly in order to capture a part of the market. You will probably notice though that most of the sites concentrate on selling the tags and nothing else, so if you were to put some other valuable content on your site you might just gain an advantage over the competition.
For example, why not put a live link to some news items that feature cats and dogs? Or perhaps some of the more amusing videos from YouTube that feature them? Strong articles that are unique to your website will also capture more attention and encourage people to visit again and again, so even if they don’t buy an animal ID tag the first time around they may well do so in the future.
The key here is a good design though. Give people a professional looking site with simple and secure ordering facilities and plenty of information, and the orders will soon start rolling in.
Like the idea? Then leave us a comment below before you get started on that website.

Become A Virtual Assistant

Become A Virtual Assistant  Virtual Office Assistant


If you have any administrative skills that you feel you could be putting to better use, why not find some work via your home computer?
The beauty of the internet is that you can actually work for people in lots of different countries without leaving your own home. Work is sent via email and so long as you are quick and efficient you will have a deluge of clients who are desperate to find someone who can do the job they need doing.
Why work in a stuffy office when you can work from home doing exactly the same kind of thing for a wide range of people, choosing when you want to work and taking control of your own life?
Virtual assistants are everywhere nowadays. The combination of email, online messaging systems and telephones has made it easy to keep in touch with people from all over the world. You don’t need to be able to hand someone a solid document anymore – you simply attach it to an email and off it goes, arriving in the inbox of your recipient in just a few seconds.
Virtual assistants have a wide range of skills so it doesn’t matter if you don’t have all of them; in fact it can often work in your favor if you can demonstrate that you have extensive experience in one area. For example it may be that you are an exceedingly fast typist, or a good researcher, or you have passed all your bookkeeping exams and you are qualified to help people with keeping their own records.
But how do you find the work in the first place?
The best thing to do is to visit one of the many online job sites that invite freelancers to sign up and look for work. Employers (often self employed freelancers themselves) post the work they have available and if you like the look of the job and you want to bid on it you do so, making sure you post a realistic bid and you are happy to do the work for that amount should you win the job.
Be persistent to begin with, since it may take a short while to get that first contract, but once you are off and running you will soon start winning other assignments. Most sites offer a feedback rating tool and once your feedback starts going up more people will give you the chance to work for them.
It is a good idea to join more than one site since there are a number of them around and you may find you like one more than another, or you get more work from one as compared to another. Make sure you keep accurate records of everything you do and take the time to develop a good personal profile, listing your talents, achievements and skills so that other people can read them and make a decision on whether or not to hire you.
You will often find that once you get a few paying clients they will come back to you for more work in the future. While these websites take a small commission for essentially matching clients with freelancers, in the future you will be able to work for them directly, which will make a difference to your profits.
So think about all the skills you could offer to people from home. No matter what they are, you are certain to find someone somewhere who is in dire need of them.
Before you rush off in search of those freelance sites, leave a comment below to tell us what you think of this idea. It could change your life!

Become A Sales Agent For An Offline Product And Take It Online

Become A Sales Agent For An Offline Product And Take It Online  Offline Assassin


Have you ever come across a product that really caught your eye that you have never seen online before?
If you have and you still know where to find it, why not consider trying to market it online? There are really countless ways of doing this, depending on the nature of the product and where you get hold of it from, but in general if you come across something that hasn’t really taken off online yet you have a great chance of beating everyone else to the punch.
Becoming a sales agent usually means you get a percentage from every sale you make, so the way to approach this opportunity depends on how many products you can get access to. Some businesses allow you to join as a sales agent and sell a range of products, in which case you could set up a website (with their agreement of course) promoting all of them in turn. You would then receive orders via your site and process them via your supplier directly.
It does depend a lot on how you get hold of the product or products in the first place though. Some businesses may agree to let you promote their product on a sale or return basis, or alternatively you may have to buy a quantity of the product first and take a chance on whether it would sell well online or not.
Whichever way you approach this opportunity, it’s clear that you should get stuck into some research before you agree to anything. Find out as much about the product as you can – who it would appeal to, what price it retails for, and how much your profit margin would be on each unit.
It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of finding a product that you love and you think you could make money with, but you need to be certain that a lot of other people will like it just as much as well! By finding out as much as you can in the first place you stand a better chance of making a good profit.
If you haven’t seen any particular product which grabs your interest the best place to start looking – ironically – is online. Search for companies that have offline sales agents already and think about approaching the best ones (the ones that appeal to you the most) with your proposition. As hard as it may be to believe there are still some businesses that don’t have any kind of online presence at all – and you could be just what they are looking for.
One final point – you should try looking in your local area to see what businesses are there, before you look any further afield. Quite often they will be the ones who haven’t got online yet.
It might take some work to find a product you like that has great potential for taking online, but the end result can be well worth it. Let us know your thoughts by leaving a message below before you start hunting.

Become A Paid Premium Blogger On Other People’s Sites

Become A Paid Premium Blogger On Other People’s Sites


There is always a lot of talk about writing your own blog but what about the opportunities that exist for writing blogs for other people?
There are a number of ways you can do this and you could pick the one that appeals most to you or even do a combination of all of them if you wish. There are some people around who really do blog for a living, and not all of the money they earn is from their own monetized blogs.
All you need to know is how to do it and where to look for opportunities…
First off, there are a number of sites that allow you to write for their own network of blogs. A typical example of this is Creative Weblogging. This site has a number of blogs that it manages, and subject to opportunities being available you can apply to manage and write for one of their blogs in return for an agreed payment every month.
You do need to show that you have some experience so you’ll need to set up a blog if you don’t already have one and keep it up to date for a month or two before you apply. Alternatively they do sometimes elect to add new blogs to their network so you can always contact them if you have one you think they would like.
Another option is to write for other companies on your own blog. Websites such as Pay U 2 Blog use this kind of system and it works very well if you want to add another income stream to your own blog.
But if you would rather write for an existing blog – or at least one that is run by someone else – then you can also look for existing job opportunities. More people than you might think are willing to get someone else to write their blog for them. You would be ghostwriting it as each entry would appear under their name, but you will usually get paid per entry for a fixed number of entries per week or per month.
If you market yourself as a premium blogger in this way, there is no reason why you can’t eventually take on several blogs and start doing it full time. Blogging for a living like this is a great job to do as there will always be success stories online that are looking for someone else to write their blog for them. You can have lots of jobs on the go and even if you should lose one or two you won’t notice a significant dip in your income.
The best places to look for work writing other peoples’ blogs are the sites where you bid on work offered by other people, and also in the writing websites job boards. Craigslist is also worth a look, and there are also some ghostwriting teams that have websites advertising for people to write blogs for clients.
Once you get started it doesn’t actually take that long to find work – you just need to keep at it. And with a combination of finding work yourself, working for a site like Creative Weblogging and working for a ghostwriting outfit you could soon be blogging for a living.
One final point – just as Creative Weblogging advises, if you want to become a professional blogger for other people it helps to have plenty of blogging experience. So it’s worth setting up at least one blog of your own if you haven’t already got one.
Time to get started! But leave a comment by using the form below first.

Start Your Own Informational Membership Site

Start Your Own Informational Membership Site


There is big money to be made from websites as we have seen, but there is one type of website in particular that is a bit different from the rest. What makes it so interesting is that it actually limits the number of people who can get into it and make use of what it has to offer.
This might sound like a strange way to earn money but in actual fact it is well worth doing if you have a good subject to start from.
Informational membership sites are websites which charge people to gain access to them. Everyone will be able to see the main home page (and sometimes certain other pages as well) but the bulk of the website cannot be seen until each person pays their money to gain access.
The key to designing a membership site that works is to pick your subject carefully. It should be something that you know a lot about, and which other people will also find interesting. More than that however, it should include information that people will be willing to pay for. If the information you include could be found by any other means then your site will not work. What’s more, it could damage your reputation too.
So this obviously calls for some research. You need a subject that will always be popular and has brought in a lot of money for other people already. One of the best examples will be working from home – there are always people wanting to know how they can do this and earn plenty of money without the drudge of going out to work every day.
Let’s that that as an example. The key here is to approach that broad subject from an angle which may not have been done before, and which will form the basis of a membership site which provides people with information they cannot get elsewhere. If you don’t have a specific focus and you don’t have some exclusive information to provide your members with every month, then you don’t have a site. It’s that simple.
As far as the website itself is concerned, you will need to make sure your web host can handle a site in which people can log in and log out of their own accounts as and when they wish. You can set up monthly payment schedules online with certain providers; once you have integrated the relevant payment buttons into your website it should automatically take the payment from the customer every month. To get an idea of how much to charge, the best thing to do is to research similar sites to see what they are offering and how much they are charging for it.
When it comes to designing your website, make sure your home page is welcoming for your members, but also make it enticing enough to encourage more people to join. By doing this – and by driving plenty of traffic to your site – you should soon build up a respectable membership base that will hopefully grow into a nice monthly income for you.
Got some ideas on how to make your own informational membership site work? Leave us a comment below and then start brainstorming! Good luck

Make Money Writing Articles Or Web Content

Make Money Writing Articles Or Web Content


What is the one thing that everyone is looking for when they go online? You’ve got it – information. And if you can supply it in all kinds of shapes and forms then you will be paid for doing so, which could lead to a whole new career as a web writer.
Of course it isn’t just online markets that need content; there are hundreds of other markets you could break into as well, including magazines, but overall it is the internet which offers the best opportunities, especially for the beginning writer.
So why should you start online when you want to earn money writing? The reason is simple – it isn’t just editors that need your work. Website owners, people with newsletters that need writing and countless others all have writing jobs that they can’t or won’t do or don’t have the time to do themselves.

That generally sends them scurrying to websites like Elance and Get A Freelancer to find people who will write the articles and content they need for them. There are plus points and negative points to writing for the internet; you won’t often see your work published under your own name as you will usually be ghostwriting it for someone else, but you will get a lot of work since jobs quite often come in batches. You won’t often get just a single article to write for instance – you might get a half dozen, ten, twenty or even more, so the money can soon mount up.
The best places for finding work are the aforementioned sites, but you should also look on classified ad sites such as Craigslist for jobs in your own country and in other places around the world. There are also plenty of writing related websites that can easily be found via the search engines if you look for ‘online writing jobs’ or something similar. Don’t forget blogging jobs as well; if you have your own blog then you already have experience in blogging, so apply for as many as you can. Ongoing blogging jobs are great for bringing in a regular stream of income.
Getting started and building contacts is the hardest part. Go for jobs you feel confident in doing to begin with; after a while you will pick up speed and complete them faster and much more easily. You will soon learn to juggle your work as well in order to meet all your deadlines before they fall due – this is an essential skill you will need to develop in order to position yourself as one of the best in the business.
You could also work for a ghostwriting team if you prefer; these can also be found via the search engines and a simple email should reveal whether they are accepting new writers at any time. This can make life easier since you don’t have to go looking for work all the time – it is generally supplied by the team leader, depending on how that particular team works.
But can you really make a full time income by doing this? The answer is yes you can, but speed and quality are of the essence. If you produce good work then people will naturally come back to you for more of the same. They will also pay more for work of a better standard, so make sure you don’t put yourself down with the $2 an article crowd.
It will take time to build up enough work to be able to leave your current job and start a brand new career as a web writer, but there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to do this if you persevere and keep checking the classified ad sites and job boards every single day. Don’t wait to apply for jobs either – do it as soon as you see them appear. Getting in early can make all the difference in some cases.
So do you think you have it in you to be a writer? If you do there is a huge market out there just waiting for you to dive in. Just remember where you came from, and leave us a comment by using the form below before you go and begin your new career!

Make Money in Network Marketing or MLM

Make Money in Network Marketing or MLM


It has been said that 10% of new millionaires in the US over the past ten years have done it by building businesses through network marketing.
Even well known authors and business people such as Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad), Donald Trump (Trump University) and Tony Robbins (Robbins Institute)  have all stated that Home Based Businesses and particularly network marketing, direct sales and MLMs will be the biggest growth industry of the next decade.
The highly respected Forbes Magazine forecast that an incredible 79,000,000 new home based businesses would start over the next three years.  That’s over 500,000 a week – and just in the U.S.
Now that’s certainly not to say that the MLM business model suits everybody. There is always a rather large drop out or failure rate, but then that holds true for pretty much any business, online, offline, MLM or whatever. Most Businesses do tend to fail in their first 4 years, but out of the tens of millions that are started each year, there are plenty that do succeed.
Entrepreneur Magazine estimates that the US home-based business industry may be worth over $420 billion a year; that’s more than pharmacy; food; and consumer goods combined; with an average home office household earning of 65,000 US dollars a year.
With increasing financial uncertainty; job lay-offs and a shift in thinking to create a better lifestyle, home based businesses as either an additional part-time income or replacement of primary income can only grow massively over the coming years.
So exactly what does it take to succeed with a network marketing business. Most experts tend to agree on the following attributes:
  1. You must be prepared to “network” with likeminded people. People who join network marketing companies and do nothing never get anywhere. The only way to succeed is to get involved and build your business. Now this doesn’t mean you have to become a leech to your friends and family and sell them stuff, or join them up. On the contrary, most successful MLMs run proper businesses, they learn the value and develop the skills needed to generate quality leads to their business. People who are already looking for the products or services they are selling and offer their products.
  2. You must have some marketing knowledge, or be prepared to learn some. The internet has been a godsend for people looking to generate leads to any type of business. Gone are the days when you had to run newspaper, classifieds, radio ads or letter box drops in order to generate leads. Nowadays anyone looking for pretty much anything is looking online. So all you need to do is know how to get your message in front of the people who are already looking for it. Most good network marketing companies offer some kind of basic level marketing support, but it’s always a good idea to seek out those who are willing to go the extra mile and teach you everything you need to succeed.
  3. You must be prepared to do some real work. A lot of people join network marketing companies looking to “get rich quick”. But the reality is, most of them are not prepared to do the work it takes to be successful. Yes there is a lot of money to be made in network marketing, but it’s not a sure thing, you still have to work hard, especially at the beginning if you want your business to take off. (just like you do in any business venture, or anything else worth doing for that matter)
  4. Building Your Network Marketing Business
  5. Believe in the products you are selling. This should be obvious, but needs to be said anyway, make sure you choose a company who sell products that you actually believe in, use and are happy to recommend other people use. To be success in your business you are going to be spending quite a bit of time talking about your products, so make sure it is something you can relate to and get excited about selling.
So if that sounds like you, then perhaps you have what it takes to build a successful network marketing business.
So the only question you have to ask yourself now, is which company will you join…
Here is a list of some of the more popular network marketing companies running today:
If you think network marketing might be for you, don’t forget the points above and make sure you find a company with a good support network that can help you get started.
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