Master Your Destiny With a
Master Your Destiny With a Successful Home Based Business …
You Can Master Your Destiny
A few months ago one of my readers contacted me asking for advice. Linda (not her real name) wrote that she wanted to build a home based business, but felt pretty bogged down and completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available to her.
Someone who obviously didn’t have a clue told her she just needed to put up a website and people would come. Great idea… but how is that going to attract the traffic you need?
Linda understands enough to know the importance of niche marketing, but most of the topics that interest her are broad, popular, and millions of sites already exist.
Besides, she has absolutely ZERO knowledge about how to actually get a website up!
Her frustration was evident and I understood it… because once upon a time I remember feeling exactly the same way — TOTALLY FRUSTRATED!
Like millions of others, over 10 years ago I developed Internet Fever. The idea of starting a small business through a website online was enormously appealing.
So, I bought every e-book from every so-called ‘expert’ I could get my hands on, and I spent thousands of dollars and just as many hours trying to figure out this Internet thing.
I gave it everything I had… set goals… educated myself… created a plan… worked everyday with purpose and intense focus. I was a true-blue believer that my online business was going to start raking in the big bucks any minute!
Can you guess what happened instead? Yep. I crashed and burned… more than once. I was one of those hard learners.
With numerous failures under my hat, disillusionment and despair didn’t begin to describe my mood. I had hit rock-bottom.
Funny thing was, even though my efforts hadn’t worked out quite the way I planned, the deep burning desire that drove me in the first place was still lukewarm. I didn’t want to give up.
That’s when I started paying attention to a guy named Ken Evoy.
Back in the late ’90s I had come across his website and thought what he had to say made a lot of sense. Problem was… I didn’t want to take more time to learn and follow his process, especially because it was (and is) vastly different than all the other methods.
No… no… I thought I already knew enough after studying all of the other so-called experts.
But after making so many mistakes and finally sick and tired of beating my head against the wall, I thought maybe it was time to take another look at what Dr. Evoy had to say.
I won’t bore you with all the details. I’ll just tell you I bought all of his e-books and eventually invested in his flagship product called Site Build It (SBI).
That decision turned out to be the key to my success on the Internet. Everything turned around once I decided to do things the SBI way. I was amazed at the difference it made it my results!
That was six or seven years ago and in spite of the hundreds and hundreds of pseudo-experts that continue to make outrageous claims about how to achieve success as an home based business entrepreneur, I have stayed with the SBI method of building … because it works.
So when Linda approached me with her dilemma, I knew just what to offer her.
“Here’s the deal, Linda. First you need to understand that the primary reason people use the Internet is to find information. That means your primary task is to provide the information they’re searching for, and do it so that the search engines like your site.
The information you place on your website that attracts visitors also needs to convert your visitors into customers who are willing-to-buy.
By the way, the process of targeting and attracting visitors and converting them into paying customers needs to be done without spending any money on advertising.”
Linda was skeptical. She said that sounded unrealistic. I asked her to just stay with me and hear me out …
“As with any small business, only a small percentage — about 2% — succeed. That’s just the reality. You can improve your chances greatly, though, by applying sound business principles and following a proven process.
You start by researching a topic you love or have a strong interest in so you can find a niche and decide on your business intention and model. Be creative here… think outside the box. If you’re interested in dogs, which are a broad topic, narrow it down to something specific such as a breed or an issue that relates specifically to the dog world.
Site Build It has, without a doubt, the BEST brainstorming and research tools there is to help you find your niche. In fact, this feature alone is worth 10 times the price of SBI, in my opinion.
Be sure to take your time in this area because no matter how profitable a niche may look on paper, if you don’t have a real interest in it, an interest you can sustain over a long period of time, it’s unlikely you’ll be successful.
Why? Because you’re going to be creating content to attract traffic that will convert to warm, willing-to-buy customers. If your niche isn’t especially interesting to you, creating content will become drudgery, and eventually you’ll stop doing it because it’s too hard.
What will happen if you don’t keep adding new content?
No fresh content… no traffic. No traffic… no business.
Another thing you want to do is create multiple streams of income rather than dependence on a single income source. A single income strategy is risky… it’s like putting all your eggs in one basket. Business done smartly includes diversification. It’s how you become the master of your destiny.
Remember, you want to create a successful small business that gains equity over time through sustainability and diversity. That kind of business will have measurable value and potentially be immensely attractive to larger companies one day.”
Today, Linda has gained some assurance that she might actually be able to build the home based business she wants so badly.
And I’m confident she can if she employs the right approach and sticks with it.
You may be interested to know she took her first step toward her dream a week ago. I couldn’t be happier for her!
Developing and growing a successful home based small business is DO-able if you start with a simple, step-by-step, proven process. After that you need lots of practice… you need to make a few mistakes… and you need to experience some successes. There isn’t any one thing that will make you successful. It’s a collection of things.
Bottom line?
If you want to become a successful entrepreneur small business owner, just start. Then practice. Do whatever you can each day. Take one step at a time. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. That’s how you’ll learn.
It’s okay to have dreams — just be realistic and don’t set your expectations so high that you make it impossible to attain those dreams.
I can tell you from my own experience that building a home based business takes work, it requires patience, it can be incredibly frustrating, and it is immensely rewarding on so many levels.
I highly recommend you give it a try.
Turning It Into a Successful
Starting a Home Based Business,
Turning It Into a Successful, PROFITABLE Enterprise You LOVE,
and Taking It WAY Beyond “I Quit My Day Job!”…
…Is Totally DO-able and Easier Than You Might Think
Starting a home based business takes an investment of time, energy and money. If you aren’t willing to commit any of these, it’s highly unlikely you’ll have much success as an entrepreneur or home business professional.
If you are overly cynical or suspicious of everyone, this may not be the place for you, either. You need to be open-minded, receptive to new ideas and realistic practices, and to believe in yourself. Everything discussed here comes from my own experience running a home based small business, and the collective experiences of a few others — and they work.
Learning what your server has operational
This whole info file which you can just copy and paste into note pad and save as phpinfo.php
Copy “Â <? phpinfo(); ?> ” and paste into notepad then save as “phpinfo.php” then upload to your public_html folder
Then call http://yourdomain.xxc/phpinfo.php and you will now see a large page full of information that you are not really sure what they mean, but at least now when trying to seek help you will have any needed replies to questions, which will also help the person out trying to find a problem with some script you are dealing with. You should also just pass along the link to http://yourdomain.xxc/phpinfo.php the tech working with you to resolve all concerns it sure does save alot of time in playing email tag…
“Theme Options†Problems With
Since the release of ElegantBlue in October of 2007, I’ve seen quite a few free and premium themes using the “theme options†code Nathan Rice included in that theme. But with the widespread adoption of “theme options†has come a tidal wave of complicated and unmanageable themes.
Theme Options are great! They let you give editing power to your users without making them modify code. For the vast majority of bloggers, the code that runs their blog (or theme) is completely unintelligible, and therefore, themes that include options on the backend for doing things like integrating feedburner, inserting contact information, choosing a color scheme, etc., are in high demand.
But in order to cater to another equally important audience, Nathan Rice has been reconsidering his position on theme options.
Many bloggers, including myself, are extremely comfortable with things like XHTML and CSS. We don’t mind cracking open a theme and changing a few things here and there. But many of those same bloggers look on in dismay when the theme files are riddled with PHP code (other than basic, and highly understandable, WordPress functions). And for good reason! PHP can be intimidating for the average Web Designer.
In places where they were used to seeing
<a href=â€http://feeds.feedburner.com/nathanricenetâ€>Read my feed</a>,
they instead are greeted with an onslaught of PHP conditional statements, checking for variables stored in the database in the form of, you guessed it, Theme Options.
And thus, you have just alienated a potential customer or user, because in your attempt to make things easier on the average user, you’ve ignored the guy who actually knows how to do a thing or two.
Theme Options should first and foremost be used in moderation. Theme Option pages that are 3-4 screens long scream
“If you don’t edit me via the theme options, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to edit me at allâ€.
7 Must-Have Plugins !
I run at least 5 WordPress powered websites, and every time I add a new site to that list, I have a checklist of plugins that I absolutely HAVE to get installed ASAP! Some of them are simply aesthetic plugins, making the dashboard look pretty or more functional, and others are workhorse plugins, absolutely necessary for the site to run smoothly.
I generally don’t recommend plugins, but everybody has to use them sooner or later. So I wanted to share with you the 7 plugins that I install every time I begin or upgrade a WordPress installation.
1. Akismet
It should go without saying that if you use comments on your WordPress site, you MUST activate the Akismet plugin. Without it, I would have spent countless hours deleting spam comments, time that could have been spent much more efficiently. Darren Rowse says Akismet has saved him 46 days of work!
2. Subscribe to Comments
I remember the days before this plugin. If you commented on a blog, there was no way of knowing when someone replied to you, outside of hitting refresh all day or subscribing to the comment RSS feed. But when Subscribe to Comments was released, all of that changed. Now visitors could continue the conversation for days, no problem. I even have comment threads months old that are still somewhat active, all because of this plugin.
3. Google Sitemap Generator
I won’t go into too much detail on this post (I have a WordPress and SEO series planned for the near future), but suffice it to say that this plugin gets your site indexed by Google in no time. And you definitely want to be indexed by Google.
4. Absolute Comments
Lorelle made a great point about how unnecessarily difficult it is for the blog author to respond to comments, in her session at WordCamp Dallas, and she is right on the money. Absolute Comments lets you reply to comments from the Comment Management screen in the WordPress Admin panel. It’s a time saving Godsend! (now 2.5 compatible)
5. Admin Drop-Down Menu
If you hate, like I do, the fact that you had to click on a top-level link to get its sublinks in the WordPress Admin, then this plugin will be your best friend. It uses simple suckerfish dropdowns to display subnav links in the Admin UI for WordPress. It’s hard to explain, but believe me, it is worth your while to download and install this plugin. (now 2.5 compatible)
6. Feedburner Feedsmith
If you care anything about stats, you’ll want to be using Feedburner to track your feed subscription numbers. But in order to get an accurate count, you need to be forwarding all of your feeds to your feedburner account. Feedsmith does this for you. If anyone visits your site and finds their way to your WordPress generated feed url, it will automatically be forwarded to your Feedburner address. Genious!
7. cforms II
THE MOST FLEXIBLE contact form plugin available. I don’t much like the included styles, but the features make up for that 5 times over. Add fields, delete fields, multiple forms, too many features to name. This is the only contact form plugin you’ll ever need.
(if cforms II is too complicated for you, the Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form is a nice, more simple alternative).
With these 7 plugins, my blogs are optimized just the way I want them. Do you have any plugins that you can’t live without? Do you have a list of plugins you install every time you create a new WordPress site? Let me know which plugins you think are indispensable in the comments below!
