Look inside Textpattern on www.weloverestaurants.ie and how you can customise this cms for almost any use! Part 2 is here www.youtube.com

In order to increase your chances of having a successful internet business, you must consider the following things:

Your chances to be successful are much greater if you have:

1. A well defined ‘Niche’ or Target Market

2. A well defined Marketing Strategy

3. A well designed Website

When you conclude that you need a website to expand and advertise your business, a web designer will be better prepared to offer you the best available options for your budget if you check yes to all of the above.

Many people, especially those just starting on the internet business road might be concerned that the investment they are about to make might not have a significant impact on their business. You might think that you will only be wasting your time and your money. Well, let me tell you that if you pay serious consideration to those three aspects, your chances to have a successful business website increase at least three times. One “kudos” for each yes.

Even if you already own an established business and know the basics about how to sell over the internet, you probably don’t understand what’s a database, or an OSCommerce site, (shopping cart CMS system) or why, or when, you should use any of these tools, or if you even need them. So…

What do you really need to know as the owner of a website?

How much time do you really need to invest?

Is this an experience for everyone?

I have been using the internet to sell my services as web designer, developer, programmer, and Search Engine Optimization consultant for almost ten years now, and here’s my grain of salt for the interested reader:

1. You need a well defined ‘Niche’ or ‘Target Market’:

The Question is where can you find this niche? Well, your niche is your target audience. Having a clearly defined target is a key step toward building a successful coaching practice, or any business for that matter.

But once you’ve identified your target or niche, you must also be able to find and market to them. The first step in doing that is to define them more specifically. For example, a niche can be women’s hand made jewelry; professional, work-from-home women, hey! professional grandmas! but this can still be more clearly defined.

Our suggestion is to ask yourself the 10 questions you can find here: www.creativewebselling.com in their entirety, to help develop a very clear description of your target market. Then it will become much clearer where you can find your niche.

1. What is their primary problem you can help solve?

2. Are they primarily male or female?

3. How old are they?

4. Where do they live?

5. What type of work do they do?

6. What is their socio-economic status or annual household income?

7. How do they spend their leisure time?

8. What is their family structure or home environment?

9. Do they belong to any associations or professional organizations?

10. What are their media habits?

2. You need a well defined ‘Marketing Strategy’

Your marketing strategy is your site’s bloodline

In order to have a successful business website, you must have a well defined marketing strategy. Using e-mail marketing for example is known as the “grandfather” of internet marketing. It still works, provided you follow the rules, and the same can be said about publishing content related to your expertise. I use ‘eHow’ and ‘Bukisa’, for example, it’s the best thing after whole wheat bread.

Can you answer ‘yes’ to all of the following statements?

• I am aware and know the kind of strategies that will be followed to bring targeted traffic to my website

• I am aware and understand the system that will be used to capture visitor’s contact information, and how that information will be later used to advertise my sales and services, send newsletters, etc

• I am aware and understand the basics of SEO (search Engine Optimization) and how this is tied to my marketing strategy.

If you already have a marketing strategy you are ahead of the pack. When you meet with your web designer know and have the following ready:

1. Your site’s goals and intentions clearly stated in a short paragraph or two. (Personal, educational, business…?)

2. Your text and pictures (Saves times to you and the designer)

3. A ballpark cost you are willing to pay for this investment, including advertising, SEO, Marketing and and Webmaster services.

4. Your expected time frame to have the site ready

3. You need a well Designed and Defined Website

Because content and usability are the two basic rules of engagement for web design and development, the more clear and objective your purpose is, the more clear and objective your site will be. I cannot stress this enough.

Web design and development has changed fundamentally in more than one way over the last ten years. One obvious way is in the cost. It’s true that a custom designed website can still cost some money, but if you consider that ten years ago a website with a content management system (CMS) included was thousands of dollars, you are probably not going to believe that website CMS’s are now free and open for all. Of course, it helps if you know what to do with them.

I am a WordPress and Joomla programmer/developer. I customize websites using those systems for all my clients because it gives them the best of all worlds. It’s cost effective (the systems are free, the customization is not), and there’s no end to the type’s of things you can customize the sites to do for you, when you use any of these two systems. My two main websites are built using WordPress (www.sandiego-webmaster.com/cms/) and Joomla (www.creativewebselling.com) I will be writing more about them, and how you can use the same technology for yours, and your visitor’s benefit.

How much time you need to Invest? Just as much as with any business in which you want to succeed.

Is this an experience for everyone? Definitevely not. Most of my clients will always be far better sellers than web designers, that’s why they come to see me. Use your time to sell your business, and call us to do the rest.

Three Basic Steps to a ?Successful Website

I’ve written several articles(click here) detailing just how blogging can increase your PVs by 100 to even 1000%. I mentioned several useful internet services that have increased my page views and blogging hits. Here is a free online internet website that has generated over 150 new subscribers to my blogs. www.feedburner.com is a free website which helps you create RSS feeds from your blogs. Feed Burner offers dozens of free tools and resources that will drive real traffic to your blog and hence your articles on Associated Content.

Follow the steps I’ve written in these articles to create blogs if you have never blogged before. I use www.blogger.com and www.wordpress.com for my blogs. From your Blogger or Blogsot blog (the two sites are synonymous) select the ‘Settings’ button. To allow Feed Burner to burn the RSS of your blog, you must do two things. First, under the ‘Archiving’ tab, be sure that ‘yes’ and ‘monthly’ are selected. These are the default settings, but if for some reason they’ve been changed, you will not be able to burn your feed with Feed Burner. Next, register at www.feedburner.com if you have not done so.

Feed Burner will direct you on how to burn your feed. It’s very simple. After you’ve burned your feed, copy and paste the new feed URL you are given into your settings on Blogger. To do this, from the settings tab, select feed. There is a bar to paste your new blog feed URL. After setting the new URL, you will be given a host of tools to use for blog promotion.

I use several of the tools. First, enable Feed Flare by copying and pasting a portion of html into the html of your blog. On the Layout menu, select edit html. Feed Flare gives you easy instructions to perform this simple task. Doing this will enable you to place ads and generate revenue from Google Adsense on your blog. It will also enable you to use the Feed Burner tools. I also activate the Smart Feed tool on the left side of the Optimize tab.

The tool I’ve found most useful is the Email Subscription option. This tool is listed on the left under the Publicize tab on Feed Burner. Selecting this tool adds a box to your blog that offers readers email subscription and updates. Everytime you publish on your blog, an email is sent to your subscribers. They open the link, read your blog post and generally click to read the Associated Content article that you have linked to your blog click here for instructions on linking articles to your blog posts). I also activate Ping Shot which pings services when I post on my Blogs. When a reader subscribes to my blog, it is listed on my dashboard at Feed Burner. In the few months that I have been using Feed Burner, over 200 people have subscribed to my blogs. One blog has over 80 subscribers alone.

Give Feed Burner a try; I think that you will find it as useful for generating blog and article traffic as I have. For more online writing advice and blogging tips, visit me at www.thewritersgarden.blogspot.com.

Free Advertising for Bloggers From FeedBurner

Whether you are a blogger or freelance writer, there are always people looking for quality writers to create new content posts, keep blogs updated and write articles. One of the best ways to find out about the latest job posting, is to use online blogger job boards. In this article we will cover three of the major job boards out there and how they can help bring your blog more business and fill a writing job, or if you are a writer, they will help you find new work.

- ProBlogger Job Board

The first and most recommended source for finding blogger and writing jobs, is at ProBlogger. There is a listing fee which will keep your job listing active for 30 days and will allow you to communicate with an unlimited amount of job proposals. All contact is made through email or can be sent to a url of your choice. Your listing on the job board will also be tweeted out to the 135,000 followers of @problogger on twitter. Depending on the job description and pay out, you can expect to receive around 10-25 job requests.

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- Blogging Pro Job Board

Another popular place to find writing jobs in the blogging space is at BloggingPro. The site has a really nice design and setup, and is free to list. If you would like to upgrade to a featured listing, the cost is for 30 days. Upgraded listings will be sent out to the 17k blogging pro subscriber list. I’ve

- WordPress.net Job Board

If you are on the look out for jobs outside of just writer, the WordPress job board is a great place to start looking. From writing jobs to WordPress specific tasks like programming and designing, this job board has it all. There is no cost to post a job listing on jobs.WordPress.net, and your listing will stay active on the site for 21 days.

As a web site owner, article marketer or blogger, utilizing blogger job boards is an excellent way to outsource your business, while also bringing in talented writers that may be looking for work. Through blogger and writer boards, you can find dedicated and passionate writers that you may not be able to find elsewhere, and they may only be a fraction of the cost of a full time or part time writer.

When posting a blogging or writing job on any freelance market place or job board, it’s important to include information such as the topic the user will be writing about, payment (if there is one), and the platform the web site or writing system is managed with. As important as it is to make a great listing for your job posting, it’s also very important to follow up with each application and let them know the status of your job opening.

It is recommended that you look through the current listings of jobs on the sites above to see how each job listing is written and what information is included in each. You can use existing listings as a template or reference for creating your own.

Blogger Job Boards – Where to Find Blog Writers

This video looks at the method in which Textpattern CMS can evolve your static HTML and CSS based web pages into a dynamic website. The content management system functions by using “forms” to serve your written articles to your page templates, this incredibly flexible method allows you to decide how the CMS works for your site. Textpattern is a free, open source CMS which allows web designers to maintain their workflow while enjoying the powers of content management. textpattern.com