HOME BUSINESS RESOURCES

Brought To You By RANDY'S HOME BUSINESS SOLUTIONS

  Welcome to my home business resources page. Here you will find resources and tips on building your home business. You will also find links to help you advertise your business ventures, tell the world about yourself, your family, your pets, or just about anything else you feel you want the world to know! After all, you're on your way to financial freedom and you can't get there alone. So...get all the free help you can!

BUILDING YOUR OWN WEBSITE

  According to many highly successful Internet marketers having your own website is one of the most important methods of getting your message accross. A well designed website can bring literally hundreds of thousands of prospects directly to you!
 
  Now you may "I already have websites given to me by the Affiliate program I belong to". While that may be true, try getting them listed with the major search engines! Good Luck.
 
  The chances of getting them seen by anyone is slim. It is much better to build yourself a web site and get it listed instead. Even if it is just a one page site directing the prospects to the affiliate site you will have a much better chance of getting it indexed.
 
  There are literally thousands of web sites where you can get free or low cost help to build your own site. I got just about everything I needed at Boogie Jack's Web Depot. There you will find tutorials, graphics, backgrounds, etc to use, and all for free. All the owner, Booj, asks is that you put a link to his site on your page. (As you can see I have done so on this page as well as on my Home page. (I hope he likes it!) Another good spot is HTML Goodies. I will add more links to these types of pages when I find them. You can go to any search engine (YAHOO, GOOGLE, MSN, just to name a few), and do a search for "web resources" or "HTML tutorials" to find more. Also, towards the bottom of this page you will see some titles of books that you should consider purchasing to help you along the way. Actually, I strongly suggest you get yourself a couple of these books to have with you as you can work on your site whenever you want to, even while you are off-line. All you have to do is to create or update a page using whatever program you prefer (I prefer to use html in a text program such at Notepad) then when you get the chance to get back on line, just upload the page to your web host.

  Are you a bit hesitant about building your own website?  Here is an excellent resource I just found out about. If you are a bit hesitant about building a web site, here is a place where you can get everything you need, including templates, photos, shopping carts plus lots of other goodies. It's definitely worth a look: Click Here!

  If you want to build your own site and know a bit about HTML, here are a few places you can visit to download some free text editor software to help you get started. Be sure to give them a visit to see what they have to offer you:

Wolosoft.com

  And if you know enough about writing HTML and just need some assistance to 'tweek' it, here you can get some great software such as HTML editors:

HTML Helper.com

  Once you have your site built, you will want to submit it to the search engines so people can find you. One of the best places to start is DMOZ. Once you get listed with DMOZ you have a much better chance of getting listed with other major search engines such as Google and Yahoo! Here is the link to DMOZ (it is free to submit your site):

ABOUT DOMAIN NAMES

  What is a Domain Name? Basically, it is the NAME of your web site. Simple eh? So, where do I get one? Well, it depends on how much you want to spend on one. You can possibly get a free domain name when you sign up for a free web site with your ISP (Internet Service Provider) or with the search engines such as YAHOO Geocities. Just remember when you get a free web site with a Domain Name your domain name will be part of a longer name, such as ca.geocities.com/randywee007/index.html. Quite long eh, that is why registering your own Domain Name with a company that provides them is well worth the money! And, as the experts tell me, it is much better for your rankings on the major search engines.
 
  It will be much easier to remember a name like "yourname.com" than the one above, don't you think? (Too bad, it's probably gone.) A domain name serves as a unique identifier for your business or personal web site, or for your e-mail. It is low cost and simple to register a domain, and because each domain name is only available to one person, it's important to snatch your name as soon as possible (Good ones are going fast!) to protect your online identity. I hope you get the hint here, if you have a name in mind, register it now! Good names are being taken at a rate of thousands per day! Don't let someone else get the one your want!
 
  I actually was going to register a new one for myself but it's already taken. Now I've got to come up with one that will be easy to remember and not too long. (Don't you just hate coming up with a "killer" name only to find out someone else is already using it?)
 
  If you intend to buy domains for speculation (or to keep while your site is still being prepared), then it is not necessary to purchase web hosting immediately. Many domain registrars will offer a "domain parking" service (often free) allowing you to keep the domain ready but "on hold".
 
  I recently registered a Domain Name for my wife's craft business (www.WalnutWonders.com) even though I havn't yet built a web site for her. Actually, because of the power of the internet today, she doesn't feel she is ready to "Go Big" yet so we'll just keep the name 'parked' until she is. I registered with this Domain Registration company. It has excellent service and the price isn't bad either.

  And here is another excellent website where I just registered another Domain Name (and soon will be migrating from this site to the new one) and where you can get web hosting and domain name registration for unbelievably low prices:

ABOUT WEB HOSTING

  Your domain name will not point at a web site until you find a web host. A web hosting company provides storage space for your web pages, and the admin facilities to run a web site using those files. Once again, there are free and paid hosting services. You can start with a free one if you wish (like Bizhosting.com). Some have both free and fee based hosting. Do your research before committing a lot of your hard earned money for web hosting!

  Some of the things you should look for when considering a Hosting Service are:

• Cost:
Setup Fee
Monthly Fees
• Contract Term:
Understand the Term before your sign up!
• Server Space:
Measured in Megabytes. You won't need much to start out.
• Server Usage:
Measured by how much data is transferred during a given time period. Should be at least Gigabytes or unlimited. Be sure to read the terms of service carefully!
• Technical Support (You need this.)
• Quality of Internet Connection
• Reliability:
Little or no downtime.
• Server backup
• Secure Server for taking orders
• CGI bin access
• FTP access
• Script availability
• Availability of autoresponders
• Mailing List programs
• Number of POP accounts
• Traffic Analysis

  To find a suitable host just go to a search engine and type in "Web Host", you will find thousands. The choice is yours.
 

  Here is an excellent company with outstanding prices and service all of which is designed to get you up and running your web site as quickly and as inexpensively as possible. Act now and get over $500 worth of free software.

 ' Here is an excellent site where you can see reviews of several web hosting companies:

FindMyHost.com

INSTANT SUBMISSIONYour Web Site On DIRECTORIES
FREE	CLICK HERE

A LITTLE ABOUT ADVERTISING

  Advertising is another area where there are thousands of sites that offer free or paid advertising. When just starting out and your budget is small, or non-existant like mine, you may want to try some free advertising. I'll list a few places that I use however be sure to search for your own as we don't want to saturate these sites:

Free-World-Classifieds.com
Free Classified Ads.com
Classifieds 1000.com
FFA Net.com
No More Hits.com
Click Thru.com
1 Second.com/1americamall
Classifieds For Free
Small Business FFA
Onelineads.com

  All of the links above are free so you'll have to do some ad tracking to see if they are working for you. As I want to get this site up and running as soon as possible, I won't get into ad tracking right now. If you join this free program, they have some great training and a discussion board where every question you could possibly have about advertising has been or will be answered. (Did I mention they have great training!)

  Banner Advertising still works and is probably one of the most used forms of advertising on the net. It is also one of the easiest forms of advertising new marketers can use. The main problem with Banner Advertising is that new affiliates most often do not have their own web sites on which to place their banners in order to link to them. The affiliate site won't let you link to their banners and even if you have a web page hosted on a free hosting site, you probably can't link to them. (I know, I was there.)

  There are some free sites you can find on the web by searching for "banner hosting" in your favorite search engine where you can "park" your banners. But, remember, free often means that you get what you pay for! Don't be surprised if your banners don't show up all the time.

  There are also some places you can host your banner for an extremely low cost (pennies per day). Here is a link to a new one (yes it's mine but as I'm paying for a professional web host with lots of traffic why not use it for a good purpose) where you can host your banners for a very low cost: www.mlmwonders.com/banners.html .

   The FFA (Free For All) sites have varying degrees of success. Posting to these pages will probably get you nothing more than lots of email ads in return (you may want to get yourself a couple of free email addresses such as Hotmail, Lycos or Yahoo). However on the upside, if you sign up for one of their free pages, you have the ability to automatically send out your ad to everyone who posts an ad to your FFA site! You can also upgrade to paid member and more resources are available, such as the ability to collect email addresses of those who post. Why not give it a try, sign up for your own FFA site Here and put your ad out to the thousands who will post their ads to it.

  Places like "No More Hits" and "Click Thru" are good places to join as they let you surf the net for points which can be used to buy hits to your site. They are well worth your while to check out, even if you just surf to find more resources!

  I mentioned above about collecting email addresses. You will soon discover that the best advertising you can do is to email lots of people. BEWARE, lots of people don't like to get unsolicited email (SPAM) and they could, and probably will, report you! You could lose your internet service, or worse, be liable to legal action.
 
  So, how do you get these names? Simple, offer them something! You could offer them your own newsletter, or access to free ebooks, or anything else that they must provide you with their email address to get. Once you have their address, you can email them until they tell you to stop (always give them a way to remove themselves from your list).
 
  You can also buy names from so-called SAFELISTS. Also be careful here, you don't always know where the names come from, how many times they have been sold or whether they are even looking for a business opportunity! Do your research! There are tons of legitimate sites out there who have excellent, targeted names for sale.
 
  You can also build your own safelist by joining programs that are designed just for that purpose. Basically, you sign up and get as many people as you can to sign up under you. They in turn will get people to sign under them, and so on...you get to email to the whole list. These are excellent programs. Here is one that I highly recommend: "List Fire". It is free to join and you can get literally thousands of people building your list for you!

  And don't forget about offline advertising! There are hundreds of places in YOUR town where you can put up some advertisements. Here are just a few:

  Mall Bulletin Boards - I use this one quite often as it brings results. If your affiliate program has offline ads for you to use (this one does) then put them up. I tape an envelope to the bottom of the flyer and print out some one or two line "tear offs" with your affiliate link on them and put them in the envelope, that way people can grab one and take it home with them so they won't forget your web address. I put something like this on them: WORK AT HOME - www.ezinfocenter.com/7591931.100/free.

  Laundrymats - These are boring places, put you flyers up there and make sure you keep replenishing your tear offs. Also, keep the flyers up high enough so they are out of reach of children!

  Parking lots are a source of prospects. Make sure you check with the mall owners before you put flyers on vehicles as some don't want you to do this.

  Business Cards - probably the most often used form of offline advertising! If you have a colorful, professionally done business card then people will hang on to it much longer than they would those plain white cards. Here is a place I found recently where you can get 250 professional, high quality business cards for FREE:

Here is a copy of my business card (sorry about the quality of the scan, I'm still struggling with a new scanner!) which I got for free through the above banner:

I hope to put some more addresses here in the near future, so come back often for a look.

REQUIRED READING

  Although there are lots of free resources on the Internet where you can find tons of good information about html and web page building, it is always a good idea to have a hard copy of an up-to-date book open beside you as you work on your site. With that in mind, why not take a look at these books, its a good idea to start your library early so you will have the book when you need it!!

HTML For Dummies®

HTML 4 for the World Wide Web, Fourth...

Web Site Design Goodies

Web Design For Dummies®

Mining Gold On The Internet

  I’ve been fortunate to enjoy considerable success online. The key method I used to get profitable was keeping costs down, especially advertising costs. I didn’t understand how to do this until I read Shawn Casey’s book, Mining Gold On the Internet.
 
  Shawn has developed several very successful Websites that bring in a ton of money. More importantly, he’s built them all without spending a lot of money on marketing. He specializes in no-cost and low-cost strategies that anyone can use. Obviously, if you can get people to visit your Website without spending a lot of money, you definitely should be making money quickly.
 
  I downloaded Shawn's book, printed it, and keep it open on my desk for easy reference. I consider it an invaluable reference. I highly recommend Mining Gold On the Internet. You can get your own copy of it here.

Here is a site which all small business owners should check out: Internal Revenue Service

For more information
or to become a
member of the IAHBE,
click here.