Web Hosting
A lot of things on the web can be had for free but there are some things that you do want to pay for. Among your top priorities would be your domain name. It costs just $10 per year so there really is no excuse for you not to get one. It is your piece of real estate on the web and cannot be taken away. It represents you, your business and whatever else you are trying to do on the web.
All along I have used Verio for registering my domain names. They charge about $10 per year for a .com name. Another popular domain registrar is GoDaddy. As of this writing, their domain names go for $6.99 per year for a .com domain while a .info domain will cost you as low as $0.99 per year.
Next on the list of must-haves is your own web host. You could host your domain on a free web host but most of the time, they will put their ads on your web pages. As for those that are completely ad-free, it is likely that they will not remain so for too long. The law of the Internet is that sooner or later, they will have to find a source of income.
So it is a matter of time before you get ads on your web pages, or they close their doors. You could move on to the next web host, but I would rather spend the time building my business. And since the service is free, its reliability is definitely in question.
For my sites, including this site, I use a host called HostGator. They have been around for some time and I have found their service to be reliable. For $7.95 per month ($9.95 per month if you pay monthly), I get the following features:
- Unmetered bandwidth and disk space.
- Unlimited domains and subdomains.
- Unlimited email accounts.
- Unlimited ftp accounts.
- 24/7 live chat support.
They have lots of other stuff but that will be the basic that I will first look at. The rest of their features like support for various software languages, free website builder, free scripts, etc are pretty much standard and I won’t bother too much about those unless you have special needs.
You know what? Don’t take my word for it, you can try them out yourself for just 1 cent! Just use this coupon code “hgc25″ when ordering and you be charged 1 cent for the first month. If you order other plans other than the monthly plan, you will get a discount of $9.94.
Anyway, whether you go with HostGator or some other host, I look at a domain name and your own web host as something you must have, something like a fee you pay to register your company. It says I’m serious and I’m going to make this work. Don’t go without it.
Niche Marketing
Introduction
Niche marketing is simply identifying a small market segment or niche where the competition is weak, and entering that market with the intention to dominate it. Normally, when this term is applied online, it is with reference to the search engine rankings in Google.
In other words, niche marketing in the online world involve the following steps:
- Identifying the keywords which has the weakest competition in Google. Keywords are phrases that surfers use to search.
- Build a website that targets those keywords.
- Optimize the website for those keywords.
- Build links from other sites to the website by the usual link building techniques such as link exchanges, article submission, directory submission, etc.
- Keep building links until the website ranks at number one place in Google for the targeted keyword.
There are many possible variations to the above but listed above are the basic steps.
Cost
It is possible to do everything completely free but if your intention is to set up a business or an enduring income stream, there are some things well worth paying for.
The very first thing that you want to pay for is web hosting and domain registration. You can get a web host for about $10 per month. Make sure you get one that allows you to host multiple domains. Each domain that you register will cost you less than $1 per month.
So, if you have 1 domain, it will cost about $11 per month, while 10 domains will cost you about $20 per month.
Other services that you might want to pay for include the following:
- Writers to generate content for your sites and articles.
- Article submitter to automate your submission of articles.
- Link exchange services to reduce the time it takes to get backlinks to your sites.
Skills Needed
A good command of English would be recommended, especially if you are writing the content yourself. In addition, as you will be configuring your hosting package, installing software, and performing other computer related stuff, you have to be computer literate. You are not expected to know how to do everything as instructions will be provided, but you do need to know enough to be able to follow them.
I would also add that a spirit of entrepreneurship would also help. In this business, each keyword and each niche presents unique challenges. While you would approach each in the same standard way, a tweak in your approach as the situation unfolds would usually yield better results.