The contest prizes are actually awesome, their listed below

1. A free domain registration ( any domain of your choice ) on go daddy that will be ‘pushed’ to your account
2. 12 months free hosting for a blog including 10 free email addresses on my hosting plan ( estimated to be about $60.00 ), you’re free to transfer the blog and its contents whenever you want to.
3. A free wordpress installation with atleast 30 plugins and 15 different themes.

So thats 3 really cool prizes, read through and find out how everyone still wins. How do you join this contest ?

First fill the form below , you’ll be subscribing to this blog and registering for the contest

Once you’ve registered for the contest, complete your registration by sending me a mail ( send this mail to delsauzo[at]yahoo[dot]com containing ONE internet niche that you believe is full of potential, exciting and with a good audience but is yet to be tapped into or harnessed. This mail must be sent from the email address used to subscribe to this blog. THAT IS ALL YOU NEED TO DO TO BE IN THE CONTEST .

Here’s a sample mail :

Hi Del,

i believe this niche "ankle tattoos" is a really hot niche with a whole lot of potential. So that’s a niche I believe has a lot of potential. …

Thanks.

Jane Riley

So how are the winners going to be picked ?

• Once all entries have been received ( probably in the next 10 days ) I’ll put out a post  "Today’s Hottest Niches - Contest Responses " , suggested niches will be ordered with the same order with which the mails come in
• Since you’ve subscribed to my feed, you should automatically be notified, read the post looking at other niches posted by others and pick any three of your choice that you also believe are awesome finds(i.e excluding yours).
• Post a comment to that post stating these three niches ( and also using the email address used to subscribe ) Here’s a sample comment

Hi guys,

I think "teeth whitening", "gmc vitamins" , "lower back aches" are really cool and they have my vote.

• Comments will be held in moderation until voting ends ( likely within 5 days after the post goes up). I’ll collate the suggested niche with the most votes and whoever suggested that niche gets to be the winner.

EVERYONE GETS A BACK LINK FROM THIS PAGE, JUST ADD IT TO YOUR MAIL WITH THE PREFERRED LINK BACK TEXT

Post questions in the comments section or send me a mail .

Good luck to everyone !!!

You’re actually handicapped because

• Someone else out there has probably seen this niche and ‘dominated’ it

• You’re research isn’t as good as you think and you’re about to  throw money down the drain setting up a doomed site.

• You’ve underestimated the amount of work it will take to get you from start-up to profitable

But taking a look at what’s hot on the internet right now, I’ve made a really simple but insightful discovery. There isn’t a finite set of profitable niches. Niches spring up everyday, and if you catch on to them you’re likely to make a really interesting discovery. There are a whole lot of people who will have you beleive that success on the internet comes with one super idea that will rake in the millions. I tend to disagree because apart from those who’ve made a profit by selling these ‘hot new tips’ there are very few people who can actually prove this.

Thats why I’ve decided to put this up. At the beginning of this year… well, not too many people knew or even cared to know who Sarah Palin was. All of a sudden we have people selling copies and imitations of her glasses ( and earning a good amount of money doing that ). A whole internet market has been built off her and Sarah Palin’s obviously going to be in the news for quite a while ( analysis and counter analysis ) Whether its shoes, glasses, tee-shirts whatever , people are setting up tent in this ‘niche’ and pretty fast . I did a google search on "sarah palin" ( with quotes ) and there are 24 million pages with the name in it .

The point here is this, it isn’t about getting in on what already exists, its about anticipating what might happen and preparing yourself for the kill once the buzz starts . The Sarah Palin ‘niche’ maybe a  bit too obvious, but everyday there are smaller versions of this. News that WILL easily etch out a niche for itself on the internet. Being ahead of others to setup shop in these niches maybe all you need. This obviously comes with practise and I’ll advise that you get used to predicting these niches to a fair degree of accuracy before actually setting up sites basd on them.

While I write about profitable niches, I define ‘profitable’ within the context that such niches help you achieve your goals ( not necessarily make money ), so whether you’re just trying to build a readership, make new friends, earn money, share your thoughts with a large audience or whatever you’ve st as your goal a profitable niche should give you this.

Imagine setting up a blog just after the announcement of her nomination, and  providing all the information you could lay your hands on about her, her family etc You’d probably have gathered a healthy following with little marketing effort. You could then monetize the site by offering amazon books on her, selling all the stuff thats suddenly got her ‘tag’ on them, or you could simply let the blog evolve over time into something not focused on Sarah Palin ( after gathering an easy readership ). The options and possibilities are really numerous.

Here are a few ideas and lessons :

• Where else is there going to be an election? who are the contenders ? and what’s your competition like? ( other sites that offer targeted information ), check the UK, Canada etc. This ais a direct one, but you’d be surprised it may still work.
• What news seems to be getting all the buzz now? what information are people looking for? How can I provide this information. Here you’re looking for break out news stories that are likely to hold sway for a while. Sign up to some news alerts on google or somewhere and stay abreast of available information
• Sports is also a great place. Football stars, basketball stars, these guys already have a following, how can you tap into that fan base ? Who’s the latest star to get in the news and how long does it seem he/she will be in the news ?

The possibilities are there. You actually just need to keep your ears to the ground and be ready to move once you notice one of these. Hope you try this out and tap into some of these niches.

Don’t forget to subscribe to this feed

I’ve never offered a quick path to riches and this is certainly not one, but if used properly you could actually build an effective web presence and eventually earn through it. I’ll basically be using the google trends page and results but the ideas I’ll be sharing with you can be applied to Yahoo buzz and any other such service online.

So we’ll get started using google trends. Let’s take a look at the google trends page for today, I’ll only focus on the first ten results, but these are usually tougher to nail ( who says you aren’t up to it though ).

Here’s the link for today’s ( october 7 ) google  trends page click here . Here’s how to pick out celebrity powered niches with potential.

1.  Picking celebrity names : Pick out all the name’s on the list, as far as you’re willing to research ( I’m only dealing with the first 10 here, to give a basic idea of this method ). So from that page we see paris benett, jerome corsi , sara evans , skylar deleon, debarge family  ( picked this because it might have some prospects ), hope orwick . There’s already six there. Like I said you can go further down. We’re gunning for a result that will have long term effects and not just fade away.

2. Getting needed Information : The next step is to go to the specific trends pages, The links are paris bennett ,  jerome corsi , sara evans ,  skylar deleon , debarge family , hope orwick  . The graphs are interesting but that won’t be your primary focus for now. Check out the news surrounding these celebrities under "news articles" and "blog posts". You need to know what has made these people suddenly hot.

3. Determine most prospective niche : This is where you have to apply some intelligence and I will do my best to walk you through this. If you go through each of the pages, paris benett had a child ( the hype won’t last, and it’ll be difficult to build something sustainable on this ), jerome corsi ,now this seems really good, its related to the american presidential elections which will be hot for quite a while, the guy wrote a book thats available on amazon ( monetization of your site ), and is controversial, sara evans, musician but doesn’t seem like she’ll be in the spotlight, same goes for the others on the list. Well going from our list , I’ll place a bet on a site around jerome corsi. Here’s a bit of the story on Jerome Corsi and why he may be popular for a bit

4. Spreading your niche-net : As tempting as it is to run-off and build an entire site on this guy, remember that your goal is to create a website that has the potential to last and grow. One way of doing this is to look at the sub themes. Like I’ve said this guy’s related to the US presidential elections, there’ll be a tinge of race in there and the controversy will probably go on long after the elections. So while you’re setting up a site to tap into this niche , build in ( to a smaller but  scalable extent ) these other sub themes. As your site grows or as attention shifts over time you can easily tap into the newer buzz by simply enhancing the already present sub themes.

5. Simple content formula : Content is quite important. It has to be interesting. An easy way to come up with content is to look at what other people are saying and give an opinion. i.e site A says "…." site B says "……" but while I agree with A on "….." i tend to beleive that B’s point of view "…….." is more accurate. That’s just a template but I’m sure you get the idea.

6. Buzzing it up : As much as search engine traffic is the holy grail for successful sites, the fact that people are searching for this in search engines tells you that they’ll be searching for it elsewhere - forums and community sites. So to start up the buzz about your site, join a related forum or a group on facebook, send polite messages inviting people to your site and watch it grow.

While you may be tempted to do this with a couple of names, I’ll advise that you simply pick one and then stick to it, seriously. Build it up get the buzz up , and when it can fairly stand on it’s own then you can go after the next one. Putting in minimal effort into 20 sites will not yield as much as focusing all that effort on 1 site ( and is definitely cheaper ) .

Hope you’ve found this post interesting. Remember to sign up for My RSS feed     

As I blogged I discovered that while a lot of people wanted to start businesses online, they basically had two categories of challenges :

• They were either jumping head first into already saturated niches, little hope of any success or
• They practically had no idea how to go about it.

So I’ve come up with a pretty simple idea. I don’t see myself as an Internet Marketer even though I could write a book on this, but over the last month I’ve come up with an easy way to find some really good keyword phrases, that could lead to niches with little competition.

I make no boast that these keyword phrases will lead you to internet millions, no one can truly guarantee that to even the slightest degree. But they’ll increase your chances by a mile, and with a bit of work will definitely bring in some income.

So I’m structuring my site a bit. I’ll make sure that I put up atleast 15 such keyword phrases every week , with images and links showing stats.

If you haven’t subscribed to my blog yet, this will definitely be a good time. So here are the phrases with high search rates and a low number of results

“blackberry free themes”

Here are links to the relevant stats :

• wordtracker keyword tool
• seobook keyword tool
• Google Insights ( you may need a google account to see details )
  
• Google search with quotes i.e “blackberry free themes” , ONLY 16000 PAGES WITH THIS PHRASE

“watch free movies online”

Here are links to the relevant stats :

• wordtracker keyword tool
• seobook keyword tool
• Google Insights
• Google search with quotes

“ankle tattoos”

Here are links to the relevant stats :

• wordtracker keyword tool
• seobook keyword tool
• Google Insights
• Google search with quotes

“funny voice mail messages”

Here are links to the relevant stats :

• wordtracker keyword tool
• seobook keyword tool
• Google Insights
• Google search with quotes ONLY 5090 SITES WITH THIS PHRASE !!!

“free pc download games”

Here are links to the relevant stats :

• wordtracker keyword tool
• seobook keyword tool
• Google Insights
• Google search with quotes

So those are the keyword phrases, check them out do your own investigations, put your own spin on them and build your niche site.

To subscribe to my RSS click here

It’s been a bit amusing to see how the internet world has become so ‘googlified’ (definition:  trance-like behaviour pattern where individual build’s his entire internet experience around Google ) . Everything somehow seems to be built around google’s mysterious page ranking and search engine mechanism. Somehow google seems to have become … all encompassing ( Adsense, Checkout, Gmail, Blogspot, Feedburner, Youtube, the list goes on and on) , seemingly having the power of life and death as far as the internet is concerned.

First off, I’d like to say that I have NO problem whatsoever with google. I run adsense ads on this site and a couple of others I own and love using their tools . I think the underlying concepts behind google are extraordinary in a sense, and it goes to show how far simple ideas can go.

BUT I just can’t help thinking - what if you wake up tomorrow, type in ‘www.google.com’ into your web browser and get a ’server cannot be found’ error … repeatedly ?  Don’t just read through that last sentence, REALLY REALLY THINK ABOUT IT. Would you suddenly become severely ‘handicapped’ ? Some of us have been visiting different web sites for over a year, we know what it looks like, what services are offered and are even registered, but we couldn’t type out the URL to save our lives. How have we coped - get to google, type in something close enough and google does the rest for us .

Certain terms over the years have gone on to define entire internet businesses. A few of these include Search Engine Optimization(SEO), Keyword Research, Search Engine Marketing etc but everyone who seriously is involved in any of these knows that the focus here is Google, doubt it and you wont know what hit you. No one could seriously question that. In otherwords, SEO is actually GSEO ( Google SEO ) actually that should be written as ‘Gseo’, since the focus is more on the ‘G’ than the ’seo’. Literally speaking, if google overturned every sensible rule for writing content websites, we’d all follow without any questions, atleast at the beginning.

How many websites have been torn apart, re-written and overhauled just to get into Google’s good books ? How many businesses rely to a considerably scary degree on organic traffic sent by google ? What exactly will be the effect on online businesses and internet commerce as a whole if Google ‘dies’ ? While we all seem to revel in Google’s efficiency, and continually improved algorithm, what if this soothing ’spell’ is lifted ? And we suddenly have to ‘grow up’ and find our way around the internet ?

The obvious answer is to suddenly flock on droves to yahoo amd msn search engines. The problem with this is

• as I write this I don’t even have the faintest idea how thier algorithm works except assuming it’s not exactly like google’s

• Very few sites if any have been optimized in the barest way for these search engines

So having thought of this I’ve compiled a list of 5 things that would happen if google died

• Confused internet Users : There’ll be an incredible number of internet users, stuck in front of their browsers with no idea where to go ( think granny at the centre of a busy airport with no directions, electronic boards or helpful attendants )

• Stunned Internet businesses : There’ll be a whole lot of online shops, internet businesses etc with such a drop in traffic, every panic alarm will go off ( think shopping mall with no customers, clients or even window shoppers ), suddenly everyone will wonder “what we’re we thinking”

• Entire businesses will be wiped out : Don’t get me wrong, definitely not all of them ( the few who can quickly put up new solutions and re brand  themselves ), but a lot of SEO and SEM experts may go down with google especially those who somehow have figured out strategies for gaming google and have no idea how to do basic SEO

• The Adsense Incentive : Before adsense, people were happy to see growing traffic and derived -maybe- a sense of acheivement just fro that. Then adsense came along with contextual ads, and traffic suddenly became equivalent to profits. Free to setup, easy to customize, easier to cash. What would happen to all the blogs and forums who have lived off adsense checks ? Not like everyone makes money off Adsense, but seeing your account up by a dollar, has a really stimulating effect ( I should know a thing or two about that ), What would happen to these guys ?

• The reign of Social Media networks : Apart from google, luckily a good number of people can remember the url to their favourite social media networks. So if google goes down, social media will be the next stop. Whether its facebook, digg, stumbleupon etc more people are going to be turning to discussion groups within these sites, friends, fans etc there may even be a strong distrust for search engines, giving social media sites as good a chance as the other search engines

I’m sure you get the picture. So , what do you think ? What else is likely to go down with google? and what should we all be doing to stay afloat if the ‘titanic’ sinks ?

REMEMBER TO SUBSCRIBE, RIGHT NOW !!!

The guys siphoning most of this money will have you believe that its rocket science to even make a dime online, IT IS NOT. Is this a make money online super tip or super secret post ? NOT ON YOUR LIFE. Its just a practical and realistic explanation of the obvious. Google is worth a mind boggling,tongue twisting sum, maybe more, 15 years ago google didn’t even exist, okay maybe it did - as some electric pulses in the brains of its founders. The only reason you wont tap into this market is because YOU choose not to. Does it take genius to strike gold ? NO. Take a look at twitter, first time I saw the site, and the “tell us what you’re doing” concept I literally burst out laughing wondering how anyone would be minutely interested in tattling about what they’re doing, I didn’t give it the chance of day, guess what, I WAS WRONG, atleast their 1 million strong user base says so.

The list could go on and on, and remember, THESE ARE THE BIG GUYS. Not everyone likes a loud noisy party. Some people don’t mind a close knit get-together. In otherwords, there are literally thousands of smaller ideas like twitter, making decent money for their owners with little or no maintenance effort. Actually looking at a lot of sites I realized that with a good idea and proper planning, you’re only going to need investment when it explodes, and raising that capital won’t be difficult, your online business will sell itself. The product of the 21st century will be information, the ideas and concepts of people like you will sell this product one way or the other and make millions . Do you still think you can’t ?

There are over probably over 25 billion pages on the internet. Every ‘thinkable’ service is available on the internet, there is information on every existing thing online. You literally can be a middle man taking a 100% commission on all your sales. There’s nothing you want to know, that isn’t a few clicks away.

The steps are simple, the timeframe is reasonable ( and there is a timeframe ), the profits will come, the investment is minimal . WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR ?

The questions are where , how and what do I sell ? I don’t know a thing about running an online business, how can I get in on this ?

Everyone talks about internet niches and how they’re simply waiting for online businesses to spring up in them. But I discovered NO ONE is sharing these niches.

So I’m dedicating AN EXTREMELY INFORMATIVE SERIES TO FINDING WEB NICHES FOR YOU, each post will contain niche and keyword research, a step by step guide to setting up a profitable online business within that niche and clear instructions on how to build traffic and earn real money.

Subscribe to my RSS feed if you haven’t yet, a good number of you already have. Hang on for some of the best posts you’ve ever read.

I’m looking at online businesses that one way or the other have  either introduced a new paradigm or have added a new twist to an already established concept. As with all such posts and lists there is no guarantee that these one’s will make it over the others. But since I’ve been around for quite a while, and I’ve done a lot to keep my eye open to things that will attract the average internet user, I’m sure these sites really stand a good chance.  So here comes my list …

At the top of my list is Page Flakes. I’ve got one word - Amazing. Its nice attractive, and I simply like the concept behind this web site. Its got a whole lot of tools and ‘pageflakes’ to make it a breeze, and it loads pretty fast. Its been around for a bit, and has taken its own fair share of criticism . But its basically pulled ahead of the usual one-hit, start-up wonders on the internet.

Alexa Rank : 30, 461

Next up is Eye Spot . So what’s so special about EyeSpot ? In my opinion as bandwidth supply increases, especially with the huge attention online videos are getting , services like this will continue to grow. Providing platforms that allow users to carry out work on the internet rather than on their desktops is the way to go. As a matter of fact I believe that eventually most software companies will need to host their own software themselves, allowing users to work on the web most of the time.

Alexa Rank : 32 208

Then Popurl . The web is quickly becoming clogged with websites offering the ‘hottest’ , ‘latest’ , ‘newest’ information, pictures, video clips etc. Sometimes everyone gets a bit tired of having to drop by all these different sites to get this information. Popurl puts everything in one place for you allowing you to get all your information from the various social media sites on one page. As more social media sites pop up, with interesting diversity and strong appeal to web surfers , web sites like popurl may not just be useful , but may become a necessity.

Alexa Rank : 61 548

Stumpedia - the Human powered search engine.  So Google rules the search world, no one’s arguing with that. A while ago I had this bright flash, to build a search engine thats based on user submissions, and then I discovered that I was a bit late. Stumpedia had already developed it and so I went over and joined. It isn’t so big now, but as user generated content increases, and it becomes a source of traffic, no matter how small, it’s bound to explode at some point. Yes I’ve got another idea for better searches but that will wait for some other day

Alexa Rank : 83 707

So why have I chosen to show just the alexa ranks? simply to indicate growing popularity and the fact that these websites are actually on their way up.

The purpose of this type of agreement especially for online businesses is to ensure that information disclosed to other people, businesses, partners or parties remains protected, with legal consequences if the agreement is breached. To basically encapsulate the ideas behind this agreement , its intent is to ensure that information given in confidence is not shared with any other party.

This agreement ensures that your online business is protected from any harm that may be caused by the use or misuse of information given to an outside party. A Non-disclosure agreement will mean that were there is a breach of the agreement you will be able to seek monetary damages from the other party. I guess at this point the question is “with whom should I sign an NDA ?”

This agreement can and should be used on projects where there are third parties, for example

• Web designers - because of sensitive information that may have to be given to your web designers it will be wise to protect yourself by using a non-disclosure agreement
• Graphic designers - with this group just as with web designers , it is important that you protect the information that must be passed on to this group
• SEM and SEO operators - Sometimes you may choose to bring in an outside party to do some search engine marketing and optimization,especially with this group a lot of information must be passed to them . It is of extreme importance that you protect yourself. As a matter of fact, most of these companies already have templates of this agreement and signing such an agreement is ussually a prerequisite for going ahead with the deal

I’m sure that there are other parties that are usually involved in various aspects of online businesses but I hope that the three above at least give a basic idea of parties with which such an agreement should be signed.

Some important areas that are usually a part of a standard confidentiality agreement include

• The definition of ‘confidential information
• Care of confidential information
• A clear description and definition of liability for disclosure of any confidential information
• Use of confidential information by recipient
• An essential definition of the business relationship between all the parties involved
• Obligations to third parties
• Implied license about confidential information
• he process and procedure for the returning of all confidentail information ( where necessary and possible )at the end of the contract
• Governing law
• Terms of agreement

An example of a non-disclosure agreement is given here and there’s another here . PLEASE READ ALL THE WARNINGS AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS SERIES HERE, THIS SERIES ACTS AS A GUIDELINE AND A STARTING POINT FOR YOUR RESEARCH, IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU USE AN ATTORNEY ATLEAST TO REVIEW YOUR DOCUMENT.

Hope you enjoyed reading this post, third in this series dealing with the legal side to running online businesses .

Obviously for different online businesses the “Terms of Use” document will differ to a reasonable extent. So in this piece I am simply going to give a general framework and some advice on how to come up with one as well as good places to get proper reviews of your document.

After spending hours on end looking for useful information on writing this document , I’ve been able to come up with a framework that will suit a good variety of online businesses. To achieve this I employed a simple technique. I basically have gone through “Terms of Use/Services” documents for big corporations on the internet. Why did I choose to do this ?

I have chosen to do this because these companies spend a fortune on legal advice from legal professionals for the simple reason that mistakes would be extremely costly - literally speaking - for them. Even though you may not be able to shell out huge bucks for these lawyers , by reading these documents ( not copying them verbatim ) you can have a basic understanding of what a good “Terms of Use” document should contain, and what it should protect you from.

The list below is not in any specific order and can be altered, after this list I’ll give a few tips on how best to ‘customise’ it to your needs.

• Introduction : Your introduction can basically give your site’s users, members, clients or customers information about the site as well as the operators or administrators. As much as it should be brief, it should contain enough information to give your users/members/clients or customers a clear picture of those that run the web site and its purpose. Members should also understand that the responsibility to be aware of any changes to the document lies solely with them. You can also go ahead to state that any use in any sense of your site (at whatever point in time) constitutes a total acceptance of all the terms of use/service.

• Restrictions, Signing Up, and Registrations : If your site requires or accepts membership , you should clearly state that you reserve the right to decline membership, that registration information should be true and accurate ( obviously to the best of their ability ). To protect yourself depending on your website, you can add an age restriction clause or ask for parental consent for members below a certain age ie a responsibility for minors clause. If impersonation can become an issue (again this depends on the type of online business you run ) it is also important to add a clause warning against this.

• Availability of the Web Site : To protect your web site from any legal problems if there’s a down time, server crash etc. Simply make it plain that the site can ‘go down’ at any time and you won’t be liable in any form. That you make no guarantees whatsoever, inferred or otherwise, of the suitability, availability , compatibility of the web site for any purpose and that the user is responsible for ensuring that he/she has whatsoever may be needed to use your site.

• Member Conduct : Depending on the online business you run (again), especially if it involves member input in some form , you need to define member conduct. Features that members will have access to as well as the type of content that may be submitted ( non-racist/vulgar/abusive/adult content/ illegal etc ). You should also state the penalty for disobeying these rules and make it clear that the site administrators solely determine who should be penalized and what contents can be said to have flouted the rules.

• Copyright Policy : Your copyright policy should clearly state how and under what circumstances copyright material may be used on your site ( usually written consent for copyright owners will do as a prerequisite). Another important clause I found online is that “Members agree that site operators get non-exclusive, royalty-free, non-terminable right to copy, modify, distribute, show in public and create derivative works in any form, anywhere, from content submitted by members”. This clause permits you to do a lot with content on your site and can protect you from mischievous suits on copyright infringement.

• Suspension and termination of service : This clause should be written in such a manner to entirely reserve the right to suspend or terminate services to any user, and place this decision at your sole discretion. If there’s a membership fee , you should also clearly state that there will be no refunds or rebates if membership is suspended or terminated.

• Liability : This part of the document should exclude you entirely and totally from any form of liability including conduct of members, failure to perform any of your obligations caused by matters beyond your control etc.

• Jurisdiction : You can clearly state that the “Terms of Use” document is governed by the laws of your country or region , and that if any portion of the agreement is invalid or unenforceable by law, the remainder of the agreement remains valid and enforceable

Other clauses that may be added to this type of document/agreement include clauses that define your relationship with business partners and affiliates, Indemnity, Miscellaneous, a disclaimer ( usually all CAPS and bold font ) etc

At some point you’ll need to get real professional advice so please don’t assume that your DIY “Terms of Use” document will be good forever. Actually as time goes on, you probably will need to do a frequent review of it. A good place to do a bit of research and get some information is at this law/legal website or you can go straight to the forums here.

Following my own advice i think its important to state that THIS IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR AN ATTORNEY AND IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. ALWAYS CONSULT AN ATTORNEY BEFORE USE OF LEGAL DOCUMENTS AS THE LAW CHANGES WITH TIME AND JURISDICTION. THIS IS MERELY A STARTING PLACE FOR YOUR LEGAL INQUIRIES.

Phew. I guess I’m safe here. I’ll soon have the next post in this series up. Remember to subscribe here.

If you intend to grow any number of successful online businesses you must develop the right legal framework, primarily to protect yourself. Having to do this with a legal hurricane on its way can be really disconcerting and practically speaking, you’ll  probably just be trying to save scraps at the end of the day.

As technical as protecting yourself with/from the law , there are simple steps you can take to ensure that you do not find yourself in a legal quagmire, sinking into the quicksand of a muddled  online business .

Basically there are a good number of issues that you should deal with if you’re thinking of running profitable online businesses. As an example , who owns the copyright to your site, and what does that mean for all the content you’ve unwittingly put on it? Can you be held liable for all the promises you make on your site? How responsible are you for the decisions people make based on the content on your site ?

You may get away with a lot of stuff when the money is coming in trickles, but once you start making it big (and if you keep reading this blog you should ) the sharks will come. Its better to view your  online businesses as what you believe they will eventually become , and guard them with a very strong sense of ownership.

This is just the opening post and we’ll be looking at some legal documents , what they mean and why your online businesses need to be protected with them.

Some of the documents we’ll be looking at include domain transfer agreement, copyright assignment agreement, pre-contract agreement, content license for text, non-disclosure agreement (NDA), photo, or video material, web site terms & conditions of use, web site development contract, web site development, Internet advertising contract, internet use policy, maintenance agreement, graphic design contract, domain name/site transfer contract, search engine optimization contract, advertising agreement, terms of use, advertising and marketing services agreement, affiliate agreement, contract dissolution agreement,  and a few others.

I’m not an expert in Legal matters - and thats good, because I’ll be sharing information from my personal research in language that’s as simple as possible, so everyone can follow