How to Start a Business In a Week: Day 1

Posted on Mar 03, 2010

0 Comments

Tweet This Post!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur and you want to start a business, some of the biggest challenges you’ll face are: 1) knowing what to do; and 2) keeping your momentum.

This month, we’re outlining a program that lets you start a business in just one week! By just taking a few hours each day (in an evening if you’re currently working), it is possible to start a successful business in just one week. We’ll show you exactly what to do and by doing it in a week, you’ll easily maintain the momentum you need!

We’ll walk you step-by-step through the things you need to do each day and we’ll wrap up the month with some additional advice and pointers to show you how to make your business successful and to turn it into an empire!

START A BUSINESS IN A WEEK: DAY 1

Step 1: Figure out what you want to sell: Obviously a week is too short to set up a factory and start producing products, but in one week you can create a business that can sell some products or services and we’ll give you some ideas below.

The best place to start thinking about your business is with this piece of advice: “figure out what you love to do and then figure out how to make money from it.” To do this, take a piece of paper and fold it in half, listing in one column all of the things you’re interested in or can do well. It could include:

  • Hobbies
  • Interests
  • Passions
  • Activities you like to do
  • A work-related skill
  • Industry certifications you possess
  • A trick you’ve discovered or a technique you’ve developed

Once you have a big list, then move to the other column and list these products or services:

  • Ebooks
  • Coaching
  • Consulting
  • Ad-revenue
  • Outsourcing
  • Subscription-based information
  • Training
  • Help desk

These items are 8 popular and effective ways to monetize products or services.

And now, just mix and match! Perhaps you have a hobby that you can write an ebook about. Maybe you have an industry certification that you can offer pay-per-call help desk services for. Maybe you have a skill that you can train others in.

And that’s just the starting point. There’s no reason why you can’t select more than one monetization method. But at least you have some direction. You may need to narrow it down. If there are several that interest you, choose one and run with it (but keep the others in a safe place because you might want to repeat this process later).

Step 2: Do some research: Now it’s time to see what the marketplace is like.

  1. Go to Google and search for similar products or services. Take note of who is selling what, what the details of the product or service are, and how much they are charging. Record this in a big chart.
  2. Go to the Google Keyword Tool and type in some of the keywords related to your subject matter and industry. You’ll find new ways to search for competitors (so go back to Google and search again and add to your chart). You’ll also see what the comparative global search volume is for the subject (that gives you an approximate number of people who are looking for your product or service) and you’ll see how competitive advertisers are (which tells you how popular your product or service is based on how much advertisers are marketing those keywords). Take note of these keywords because they will play an important role in a few days.
  3. Go to Google Trends and type in some of your keywords to see what search trends are like on the topic. You might find that it is seasonal, or tied to the economy, or getting more popular, or getting less popular. Sometimes Google tags news items in the trend line, so read the news to see what is happening and how it’s affecting the trends. Your research here might prompt you to make adjustments to your product or service
  4. Do some reading, both in the subject matter of your product or service (that is, your hobby or your interest) and on the topic of your monetization method. Google these and see what people are writing about them. Just an hour or so of reading will give you a clearer picture of what’s going on online in these topics.

That’s enough for one day. Check back later to read what to do on day 2!

[photo credit: Joe Lanman]

A problem you’ll face as you grow your business

Posted on Feb 25, 2010

0 Comments

Tweet This Post!

If you run a business, and if you expect it to grow, one of the challenges you will face as you work on business growth is running a website that is easy to manage as your site needs increase.

Let’s say you have a small business and only need 3 or 4 pages, you can easily create them in many different website building programs. No problem.

But as your business grows, it’s easy to lose control of your site. Let’s say that next month you need 8 pages. And the month after that you need a total of 12. With other website building techniques, this can become more complicated and messy and sometimes you might drop a page here or there accidentally. Or, more often, you might end up with a link pointing nowhere.

But with WordPress, that is carefully managed for you. If you need 8 or 12 pages, you can easily build them really fast. If your business has a sudden boom and you need another 50 pages, you can build them really fast, too. And someday, when your business has grown to become an international conglomerate, and you need 1000 pages, you can do it. Still just as fast and still just as stable.

Scalability is the ability for your website to grow appropriately with your business while remaining stable for your users and easy for you to manage.

It’s not easy to find scalable solutions that can grow with your business from the earliest stages to your universal domination. But WordPress is such a option. If you run a business and if you expect it to grow, WordPress is the scalable tool you need.

Understanding the pieces of the website puzzle

Posted on Feb 23, 2010

0 Comments

Tweet This Post!

From time to time people ask us about how they can “put a website online”. For us, it’s a piece of cake because we’ve done it a million times. But for someone who has never created a website before and put it online, it can be confusing. What does it mean to “put a website online” anyway?

Consider this to be a primer on moving a site online. Sort of a “website basics for Dummies” kind of blog post.

You basically need 3 things:
•    Hosting
•    Code
•    A URL (or “domain name” or “website address”)

Think of it like a neighborhood: Hosting is the property that you will build your house on and the code is the house itself. But how do you get people to find you? You get an address from the post office and you put your address near your front door or on the mailbox so people can see it.
In a really basic way, it’s the same for websites. You buy hosting, which is basically a big empty piece of virtual land that you can do something with. Then you add files of code (html, php, css, etc.), very much like the framework of a house. And, you buy a URL from a domain seller. Then, you put them all together.

Usually you’ll get the domain and point it to the hosting (how you do that is for another lesson). Then, you gather the code (how you build that code is for another lesson, too) and you upload it to the hosting.

The result? When someone types your domain into their browser, their browser takes them to your host and it interprets your code and shows them your website. Easy!

Of course, if this were a real life example, they’d just be looking at an empty house. Once you have those hosting/code/URL elements in place, you need to add content (text, graphics, video, etc.) to your website so that people have something to look at when they get there.

And how does WordPress and WordPressInASecond fit in?

WordPress itself is the code you can upload to some hosting. Add a domain and voila, you have a website!

And WordPressInASecond shows you how to get the hosting, WordPress code, and domain name all working together really, really fast. (Oh, and we even have some hosting solutions to make it even more convenient for you!)

Why WordPress is perfect for… Business owners

Posted on Feb 11, 2010

0 Comments

Tweet This Post!

We’re running a series of blogs this month called “Why WordPress is perfect for…” and we’ll be looking at various professions or business models and talking about how WordPress solves challenges and enhances opportunities for that group.

Today’s highlighted business model: Business owners

Businesses need to turn a profit. To do that, they need to reduce expenses and increase income. It sounds easy, but it isn’t. There is a lot to consider. Reducing expenses can mean cut-backs or diminished resources. Increasing income sometimes necessitates higher expenses in order to provide greater value.

But there is one place where business owners can reduce expenses and even provide greater value at a lower cost and that is through a WordPress website. A regular website can take months of development time and can cost thousands of dollars as the business owner and the developer go back and forth with tweaks. And any bug in the code (accidentally left there by the developer) may cost the owner extra in order to have it repaired!

On the other hand, a WordPress website is free. It only costs money to host (but that’s an expense that would have been paid even with a site developed in the method described above). And WordPress is extremely stable because it’s an open source system with a passionate ecosystem of developers. And, WordPress requires no design or knowledge of code or a web development team on speed dial. That’s because WordPress has thousands of available themes for users to choose from so they can configure their site the way they want.

For business owners who want to get a site up fast, at a low cost, and entrust it to be stable, WordPress is the best and most profitable choice.

Why WordPress is perfect for… Coaches

Posted on Feb 10, 2010

0 Comments

Tweet This Post!

We’re running a series of blogs this month called “Why WordPress is perfect for…” and we’ll be looking at various professions or business models and talking about how WordPress solves challenges and enhances opportunities for that group.

Today’s highlighted business model: Coaches

While some coaching services can be sold online, a majority of a coach’s work is based on the time they spend with their client. That could be over the phone, it could be in person, it could be one-on-one, it could be in groups. The bottom line is, most coaching is person-to-person.

So what’s their website for? A coaches’ website needs to start out as a place to demonstrate their skill-set in order to show potential clients their thought leadership and how they might help them. An organizational coach might want to blog about organizational tips; a productivity coach might want to blog about how to improve efficiency; a career coach might want to blog about how to get that next promotion.

From this blog, new clients will call coaches and book appointments and a coach’s schedule will fill up.

And that will work for many coaches as the primary way to earn their living. But there will come a point in many coaches’ careers when they realize that they are only working for the short-term and every client brings in a temporary cash flow but doesn’t do much for the long term health of the business.

At this point, the coach then looks at their site and how they might be able to develop more sales out of it. And two distinct ways they can do that include:

  • Selling information
    Offering a password-protected “membership” site

Offering these necessitates some basic rearranging of the coach’s site, perhaps bringing in a home page (instead of using the blog as a home page). Perhaps adding more resources and making their site a destination site.

These changes require flexibility. And a coach who buys a website that is designed and maintained by a web developer is at the mercy of the high priced web developer to transform the site and turn it from a blog into a website.

This is why WordPress is ideal: The coach whose practice is growing no longer has to rely on a web development team to do the job. The coach can do it themselves in an evening! With just some simple clicks on an easy-to-navigate dashboard, the coach can go from “small time” to “big time”!

Series: Why WordPress is perfect for… Entrepreneurs

Posted on Feb 04, 2010

0 Comments

Tweet This Post!

We’re starting a series of blogs this month called “Why WordPress is perfect for…” and we’ll be looking at various professions or business models and talking about how WordPress solves challenges and enhances opportunities for that group.

Today’s highlighted business model: Entrepreneurs

Ask any entrepreneur and they will tell you that starting a business is like traveling on a journey to an new place: You know what your destination is, and you might even have a map (a business plan) but you’ve never actually BEEN there until now. There could be wrong terms, the map might not always be right, or detours may force you off of your planned route. Being an entrepreneur is about more than just having a good idea; it’s about flexibility and scalability.

That’s why entrepreneurs love WordPress. WordPress is so flexible. If you’re selling blue widgets today but realize that your market demands red gadgets instead, you can switch easily without the help of a high priced web development team.

And, WordPress is scalable. You can start a small business in your spare time today and grow it into a massive enterprise over the years without needing anything other than a WordPress website. It grows with you, all while helping you maintain tight control over your site’s pages and posts. And, should you need to scale back, it’s easy to do: The edit function in the dashboard gives you power over every single page on your site.

Let’s not forget budgets! Entrepreneurs need to watch their expenses closely and WordPress – which is free – is a low-cost-but-incredibly-powerful way to create a web presence.

If you’re an entrepreneur, a serial entrepreneur, or an aspiring entrepreneur, a WordPress website is the perfect tool to grow your business.

Series: Why WordPress is perfect for… Freelancers

Posted on Feb 02, 2010

0 Comments

Tweet This Post!

We’re starting a series of blogs this month called “Why WordPress is perfect for…” and we’ll be looking at various professions or business models and talking about how WordPress solves challenges and enhances opportunities for that group.

Today’s highlighted business model: Freelancers

Freelancing is a great business model because it often costs relatively little to get into business and the longer you’re in business, the better. (Compare this to a manufacturer who has a high up-front cost to build a factory and prototypes and then has to continually innovate in order to stay competitive). As well, all you need to get started is usually the right software and a double-serving of talent. (Some courage and sales ability don’t hurt, either).

Freelancers don’t need a lot to get started, but the do need some kind of web presence. And, depending on their business, they may need a blog or a more conventional website, or both. And likely, they need to start with one and grow. One common way for freelancers to become more successful is to start with a blog, expand into a website, and then slowly grow passive income with the addition of products or commoditized services. This could take months. This could take years. This could be just one additional product. This could be hundreds of additional products.

While a flexible web presence is important, freelancers need to keep costs down; and since so much of freelancing is time-dependent, they also need to keep their non-revenue-generating time

For this continual scaling up of a web presence, WordPress is the perfect solution. It offers freelancers the opportunity to build whatever kind of web presence they need to start effectively, and then it gives them the ability to add to their web presence as their business grows.

And WordPress is fast. You can get a site online in no time and make changes as often as necessary with just a few clicks and absolutely no coding.

Not only that, but the variety of WordPress themes and plug-ins give freelancers an automatic credibility-building look with plenty of automated business-building tools. If you’re looking at getting into freelancing, or if you’re thinking about improving your web presence, WordPress is a choice to consider.

Great Wordpress sites

Posted on Jan 28, 2010

0 Comments

Tweet This Post!

Hey, we love Wordpress! And so do lots of other people. It’s a versatile platform for all kinds of formats.

Here are some of our favorite Wordpress sites. Check them out to see how other people are using them, and to see some of the design and format options that are possible.

Copyblogger.com

ChrisBrogan.com

WordsForHireLLC.com

FreelanceWeekly.com

KomodoMedia.com

Fadtastic.net

TheMusicNinja.com

Hey, while you’re checking out their sites, why not check out our sites, too?

Mine: HeatherVilla.com

Aaron’s: AaronHoos.com

With Wordpress, the possibilities are endless!

Should I have a website or blog or both?

Posted on Jan 26, 2010

0 Comments

Tweet This Post!

This is a question that we get asked from time to time. “Which one should I have — a website or a blog?”

Blogs are easy to create once and then can be left alone. They are static and they help to inform customers consistently. Blogs are dynamic, changing over time.

Static content can be indexed but Google favors constantly changing dynamic content. On the other hand, dynamic content can be time consuming.

With Wordpress, you don’t have to decide. You can have both. Every easily. Not sure where to start? Here’s what we would advise:

If you run a service-selling business, start with a blog to generate some search engine optimization and then slow add in other website-style pages (such as “About”, “Services”, “Contact”, etc.)

If you run a product-selling business, start with a website with an initial, compelling landing page and individual pages for each product. Later, add a blog to talk more about your products and how your customers are using them.

(This advice might not work for every business in every situation, but we find it to to be a good rule of thumb if you’re not sure and need to do something… and there are companies that break this “rule” and do very well). Eventually, a combination of a blog and a website is ideal. The website helps to sell products and the blog helps to engage customers and offers more SEO benefits.

The most important thing? Don’t let not knowing hold you back. The unknown can cause inaction and inaction is the biggest disruptor to business success. It’s better to start your business’ site and  go back to make adjustments than to wait until you’ve got the “perfect” plan.

One entrepreneur’s story on switching to Wordpress

Posted on Jan 21, 2010

0 Comments

Tweet This Post!

This is my story: When I started my freelance writing/consulting business years ago, I started with a fairly traditional html-based website. Over time, the site became bloated and unwieldy and I sometimes had a hard time making sure links were live and went to the right place. (This was before any really good content management systems were invented; heck, I was hand-coding my site in Notepad!)

Then Blogger came onto the scene and I bought into blogging big time. I loved the idea of posting regularly. It was a great way for me to build my online presence but it also looked good and the links were fairly easy to manage. On the other hand, I gave up the ability to create website-style content (which was appropriate for selling ebooks and such). Still, I stuck with Blogger for a while. Then my site stopped being indexed. I’m not sure why, and with all due respect to the good folks at Blogger, I think it was because they changed a template and it just fell apart. I ran some diagnostics and got back HUNDREDS of errors. Yikes! A few attempts at making hand-coding repairs failed miserably. I loved a blog but couldn’t have a site that didn’t index!

Then I switched to a hosted solution — and back to static html. It was an admittedly temporary fix until I could figure out what to do with my blog. Once again, I found the same problems to those that I had encountered the first time: Dead links, constant updating to make changes on every page, etc. The need for a content management system — which I had temporarily forgotten while using Blogger — became a reality again.

Then I decided enough was enough. I had to fix the problem! So I listed my needs:

  • I preferred to blog as my primary content model
  • I wanted some conventional “page-based” website functionality
  • I wanted some control over SEO
  • I wanted a content management system.

Once I knew my primary needs (and there were a few secondary ones, too), I went out in search of a solution. I was willing to pay and, because it was my business, I was willing to pay thousands.

However, the solution I found cost nothing. And it provided me with a solution to the needs I had outlined… plus a lot more:

  • Once set up, Wordpress is extremely easy to use
  • I can choose page-based sites, blogs, or a combination
  • There is a HUGE universe of talented people who create themes, plug-ins, and support for Wordpress

I jumped on the Wordpress bandwagon and haven’t looked back!

Powered by: WordpressInASecond