gainfully unemployed

4 Ways to Create Awesome Website Content

chris — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:09:04 +0000

This is a guest post by Josh Haynam, who is the entrepreneur behind Entrepreneur-Stories.com, a website that adheres to Josh’s own 4 rules of creating awesome website content. Josh has run companies in a variety of fields including landscaping, selling certified used laptops, and overseeing a ranch full of Arabian horses.

1. Interview people

Did you create the world’s largest video game company? Did you build the music genome? Odds are the answer is no (actually the answer definitely is no).

Good news though, people like the founder of Activision and the VP of marketing at Pandora are accessible and willing to share their wisdom. Whatever niche your site fits into, there’s probably someone who knows much more about the subject than you…so interview them!

This can be a tough thing to start. If your site is young and has no readership why would anyone want to be interviewed by you? The answer is that perseverance is the key to your success. For your first interview you’ll email 30 people asking to talk and only one might email you back, but stick with it and things will get easier.

I know this because that’s exactly what I did with Entrepreneur Stories and today nearly 100% of the people we contact agree to be interviewed by us.

2. Be Helpful

Do you know how to solve a problem that everyone has? Got a solution to a nagging issue? Write about it. Solve that problem or negate that issue and you’ve got a great article. The last thing readers want is fluffy content that doesn’t help them in any way, so helping them is a good idea. Remember that with a blog or website your articles are your product, so make that product worth “buying.”

Ask the people in your niche what their biggest pain points are and then make an attempt to solve them, this is a win-win because you’ll get to know your market and aggregate some good ideas at the same time.

3. “Top” Lists

It seems like there’s already a “top” everything article out there. From “The 10 most successful people of 2012” to “The 15 most viewed cat pictures”, there are a plethora of pieces on this theme. Don’t despair, there are an infinite number of options for articles like this, and even if a particular subject has been covered, wait six months and it will be time to write an updated version.

Warning, don’t do this too much, fill up your site with “Top ten this” and “25 most awesome that’s” and you’ll end up with a lack of depth on your site and readers will look elsewhere for their fill of deep content.

4. Talk about others’ achievements

Cross-examine 5 social media experts, analyze 10 successful people, assess the marketing strategies of 7 entrepreneurs. These are a few articles I’ve written that have gotten good response, but the options are endless for this kind of writing.

There’s nowhere better to look than the awesome people who have “been there, done that” and come out on top. Whatever your market is, there are people who have had success in it, and by analyzing their actions you’ll create some killer content.

No related posts.

GoDaddy Deluxe Hosting for Price of Economy Plan: Web Hosting Deal

chris — Sat, 19 May 2012 18:40:44 +0000

Update 5/22 – This week’s Godaddy deal is for a savings of 15% on your entire order. Make sure to use the coupon code to get the savings: CJCWD15

GoDaddy is one of the most well-known internet service companies out there. You may have purchased a domain name or another website related service from GoDaddy. That wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve bought several domain names from GoDaddy, which has some really good weekly deals. Currently, there is a special offer going on over at GoDaddy for its website hosting service, which can save you some money.

If you’re looking for web hosting, now might be a good time to start comparing offers. One that you should consider is GoDaddy’s offer for Deluxe web hosting discounted to the price of its Economy web hosting plan on 12 months or more of service. All web hosts require that you pay up front for 12 months, so the time frame isn’t really unusual. This could be a good opportunity for web masters out there to get a good deal on GoDaddy web hosting. There is always a way to save with Godaddy whether it be on a domain name, website security, web hosting, or just a savings on your entire order, so bookmark this page and come back every week to see what the deal is as I will update this post every week.

See the deal in all its glory at GoDaddy.com (this link goes directly to the offer page!)

iPage Web Hosting: $3.50 a Month

chris — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:26:59 +0000

iPage Web Hosting Get the Job Done Super Cheap: Get a Free Domain for Life

There is a lot of competition among the hundreds of web hosting companies out there. IPage wins the battle on price. I mean, the pricing is really really low for what you get, which is a complete web hosting package complete with unlimited add-on domains, unlimited bandwidth, and even a free domain name for life. All that for $3.50 (about the cost of a latte at Starbucks) is a pretty good deal to be able to host unlimited web sites. See all of the details at iPage.com

What does unlimited sites mean?

Hosting unlimited websites means that you can host–you guessed it–unlimited web sites on the iPage plan. It’s not called the unlimited plan for no reason. You can host ten blogs on your account, a massive ecommerce site, or your portfolio site or sites. It’s a pretty all encompassing plan that certainly will not hit your budget at all really. $3.50 per month is a solid deal on web hosting. Get this plan today while the $3.50 price point lasts at iPage.com

Free Domain Name?

Yes, you get a free domain name for life with your purchase of the iPage unlimited hosting plan. When you sign up for the plan, you have the option to either add a current domain/url you have or the option to add another one, which is the free one you can add to the account. You don’t have to pay the yearly registration fee on this domain. It’s a pretty nice bonus.

If you’re looking for a web hosting service so you can start your blog/web content business/or ecommerce store, iPage is a great company to work with. Learn more at iPage.com

You get full web hosting service for $3.50 a month. That’s it. See all the details at iPage.com or read more in this iPage review.

iPage Web Hosting $2.95 Easter Deal

chris — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 20:02:19 +0000

iPage has a special Easter deal running right now for its unlimited web hosting plan. For only $2.95 per month, you can host unlimited web sites with unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space, and unlimited email accounts. All of this for only $2.95 per month.

See the current iPage deal buy clicking through the keyword EASTER

Get a Free Domain Name

In addition, you get a free domain name for life. This is a solid deal and you can’t really find a web hosting provider that can beat this rate. If you’re starting a website for your business, an ecommerce site, or just want to create a blog or two, see this current Easter deal at iPage.com

Free Site Building Tools and WordPress

In case you don’t know how to program–like me–iPage provides a free suite of site-building tools that will help you get your website up in minutes. The program I like to use on my websites, and in fact that program I used to build this site, is called WordPress. It’s a blogging program that can help you build any kind of site from a blog to an ecommerce store. With one-click WordPress setup, iPage makes it easy to set up a WordPress site. Learn more about how to set up a site with iPage.

Deal is Still Running…

5/10/12 – This discounted deal, which is probably the lowest legitimate web hosting deal around, is still running as far as I can see. If you’re in the market for an unlimited web host to host one website, a few websites, or whatever kind of site or sites you want, have a look at the new and improved unlimited offer on the iPage web hosting plan.

5/15/2012 – It looks like this deal has been ended for the time being. The price has skyrocketed from $2.95 all the way up to $3.50 (just kidding, that’s only 55 cents). The $3.50 price is still pretty darned good. Make sure to add iPage to your shortlist of web hosting companies to consider for your business.

iPage Free Domain for Life

chris — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:13:39 +0000

iPage web hosting is doing something pretty interesting right now. If you buy web hosting from this company at the very low rate of $3.50 per month, you will get a Free Domain Name for Life. This is a huge deal because you will not have to pay the yearly Domain Name Registration fee for that name. In case you didn’t know, domain name charges will be going up early 2012, so you may be saving even more money with your free iPage domain.

Learn more at iPage.com

Do I Get to Choose My Domain Name?

The domain name you get from iPage hosting can be anything of your choosing as long as it is available. For example, you could choose your name and have something like, JohnSmith.com or LisaSmith.org. If you can’t get a name like this, you might consider adding a dash to the name because this version might be available. In this case, it would be something like John-Smith.com or Lisa-Smith.net. The most popular domain name extension are .com, .org, and .net and I definitely recommend you try for the .com first and then the .org then the .net. Get your free domain name today.

What iPage Offers: Unlimited Plan

iPage is offering a pretty cool way to save a little bit of money with your web hosting purchase. And in case you didn’t know, iPage offers a basic plan that gives you the ability to host Unlimited Web sites and Unlimited domain names on one hosting account. Instead of having to pay a fee every month for each and every site you want to create, you can host them all on the one iPage hosting account. If you are planning on starting several websites, then iPage makes a lot of sense for you. It will be a lot more affordable to use this unlimited hosting account rather than opening (and paying for) a new account for each site you want to create.

Other Recommended Website Hosts: HostGator

HostGator might be the most recommended web hosts that I’ve noticed over the past two years. Just sitting here right now, I can think of at least 5 or 6 big time Internet marketers or website creators who use Hostgator’s Unlimited Plan to host their websites. And these are people who do very well and make a very good living online. If you are going to be creating a huge flagship website that you plan to get a lot of traffic to (who doesn’t plan this right) then you might want to use a dedicated server, but if you want to start 1 to 20 niche sites or just normal sized websites or blogs, HostGator or iPage are good options. A lot of people swear by HostGator.

There are many many other web hosts out there that have unlimited plans and other benefits. Most of them, however, tend to be more expensive. The thing that iPage really brings you is affordability. If you need to host two, three, four, or five blogs or basic websites, iPage is a good choice for you. If you have a more technically complicated ecommerce site or higher load site, you may want to go with a dedicated server, which iPage and other web hosts are able to provide.

HostGator Web Hosting Cyber Monday Deal

chris — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 07:38:12 +0000

Update: You can currently save 20% on your purchase of web hosting services from HostGator.com. Another web hosting company called iPage also has a very enticing deal going on right now. For $2.95 per month, you can get the unlimited iPage web hosting plan. On top of that special low price, you also get a Free Domain Name registration. See all details here.

Hostgator is one of the most trusted web hosts in the business. There are countless bloggers and internet marketers I know who use this company to host multiple sites on the unlimited plans. These guys are secure and they can handle your sites for you and help you build a solid business.

Save 50% on any HostGator web hosting plan all day on Cyber Monday. This deal will only be available for one day, so if you think you are interested in a web hosting account, it might be a good time to move on this. Get all details at HostGator.com

What Do You Get from HostGator?

You get hosting for unlimited websites. I know a lot of affiliate marketers and bloggers who swear by HostGator. If you know about the guys from The Keyword Academy, they tend to recommend and use HostGator web hosting services because it makes it easy to start new websites and host them all on the same unlimited account.

What do You Save?

You save 50% off of any hostgator hosting plan that you choose. This is a good deal for anyone looking for a good basic web hosting plan. This company is well known and has a lot of happy clients. I’m sure there are a few unhappy ones, but that’s always the case. The fact of the matter is most people I know who use Hostgator are happy with the service.

See the plans at HostGator.com

GoDaddy Web Hosting Solutions

GoDaddy has some good weekly deals that pop up every week. You never know exactly what the deal is going to be, but this week it is for the Deluxe GoDaddy web hosting service sold to you at the price of the Economy web hosting plan. See the GoDaddy web hosting coupon.

iPage Web Hosting Cyber Monday Deal

chris — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 07:22:04 +0000

Update: 4/13/12 – The cyber Monday deal may be gone since we’re pretty far into the year, but there is a current Easter deal still running for the unlimited iPage web hosting plan. For only $2.95 per month, you can host unlimited sites with iPage. You also get a free domain name for life when you sign up–not a bad deal at all. Learn more.

iPage currently has a deal running for Thanksgiving/Black Friday/Cyber Monday and whatever other special occasion you can think of that occurs before November 30, when the promotion finally ends. Right now, you can get iPage web hosting for only $2.95 per month. See all iPage deal details at iPage.com

One Time Low Price

This low price is for the unlimited web hosting plan that’s great for bloggers, people who own multiple websites, people who want to host a bunch of domains, people who own ecommerce stores, and basically anyone else who wants to do anything with a website online.

This Plan is Unlimited

This unlimited iPage plan will work for the occasional blogger who gets three readers a day to the affiliate marketer who owns ten sites and gets up to thousands of people a day visiting his or her sites.

Let’s Talk Price

The cost is only $2.95 per month to host unlimited sites, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited site visits.

See all details at iPage.com

Just Bought My First Website

chris — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:13:21 +0000

I own a few blogs/websites/properties–whatever you want to call them. But so far, all the ones I own were started by me. In other words, I bought the domain, installed WordPress, and just started banging out articles and doing link building and all that good stuff we do to try to get people to visit our websites.

I had never bought a website until now. I found someone selling a website through a list that used to be on the keyword academy website, which is a subscription site that is basically all about building WordPress sites. I haven’t been that active there (even though I’ve been a subscriber for a while), but the times I’ve been there it’s been pretty interesting and often useful.

Anyways, I found someone selling a website that had really good traffic numbers and not very good earnings. He was willing to sell the site for a reasonable price. I liked the stats and my interest was piqued. I ended up purchasing the site from the owner (who was actually the second owner of the site) for $1000.

I did it the old fashioned way (if you can call Paypal old fashioned) by sending half of the payment to the gentleman up front and the second half after the site was installed on my web host, the domain was transferred to my Godaddy account, and the twitter and facebook accounts (not to mention the 5000 RSS subscribers) were transferred to me.

It involved a little bit of trust and it worked out extremely well. The seller has been awesome. Long story short, I’ve very happy with my new website.

No related posts.

Goodbye Amazon Affiliate Links

chris — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 20:43:31 +0000

Goodbye Amazon Associates affiliate program! Sayonara. Adios. I must bid you adieu.

It’s sort of a bummer that Amazon has discontinued its associates program (the program that allows web publishers like me to earn money from product referrals to Amazon.com). I say “sort of” because I never really did that well with the Associates program. I sent considerable traffic Amazon’s way, but I never earned significant commissions. Part of the reason is that Amazon’s commission percentage is so darn low.

The low commission percentage should be offset buy Amazon’s inherent trust and supposed ability to convert sales, but I never experienced any of this. I could truly never get over the fact that selling a $100 cell phone would only net me 6 bucks.

While it is a shame that Amazon has cancelled its affiliate program in California (in other words, won’t work with website owners in CA) due to a recent ridiculous law being passed as part of the Jerry Brown’s budget, it really is not hurting my bottom line at all.

I feel very sorry for those people who make significant income from Amazon, but I also know that if they are making significant income from Amazon, these same people will be able to make potentially more with other companies. Good luck!

Image Attribution: Hey Riverfront Times, I hope it’s cool I used your image in this post. It works so well for this post.

JustHost Web Hosting Plans Only $3.45 Per Month

chris — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 08:08:55 +0000

JustHost makes it incredibly easy to get your website, blog, or ecommerce store up and running in no time. They offer great service at bargain basement prices. $3.75 per month is a very affordable monthly rate for all the cool things you get from JustHost’s unlimited web hosting plan. Go directly to the source and see what you get with the the current deal. Or read on…

Here’s what you get…

Let’s start with unlimited GB’s of space. This is a crucial element to look for in any web hosting plan. If a plan doesn’t offer this, move on.

Unlimited GB’s of transfer. Another huge plus.

Unlimited domain hosting. Want to host or park a bunch of domain names at no additional cost? You can with a hosting plan from JustHost.com.

Unlimited email accounts. Not bad. Want to hire a writer or give your mom her own email account? Now you can at no additional cost.

In addition to unlimited MySQL databases, you also get to use a free site builder to make your site and you also get one more thing…

A Free Domain Name just for good measure.

Oh yeah, and there’s an anytime money back guarantee. Huge!

If you’re looking for web hosting that won’t cost an arm on a leg, jump on this deal from JustHost and start your web empire. It won’t last forever, since it’s a special rate. Go get it.

iPage, another web hosting company, is currently offering it’s unlimited hosting plan for $2.99 per month. In addition, you get entered into a drawing for a free iPad.

JustHost is a serious web host and will help you run your business efficiently and effectively. You can rest assured that your websites are in good hands whether you have one blog, ten blogs, or a monster ecommerce site. See why JustHost is one of the best web hosting providers out there here.