January 31, 2010 By

How To Start Your Own Web Hosting Business

Think about it – everyone who wants to start a websites needs web hosting. Once they get a web host, they are likely to stick with it for a very long time, and perhaps start more sites with the same web hosting company.

That will mean it’s the best business to be in on the Internet right?

Well, not exactly. As you may know by now, web hosting is one of the most competitive industries out there. Yet smaller providers continue to exist, and thrive.

In this article, let me give you a brief overview of how to start your own web hosting business, based on my own experiences with Host Commando. Although this is not the exact thing we are doing (cos that’s a secret), it’s pretty close.

Basically, there are 5 steps you need to take:

  1. Create a Unique Selling Proposition or USP
  2. Get a reliable dedicated server, with WHM and cPanel
  3. Get a reliable web hosting automation software
  4. Do some simple SEO and a lot of promotion
  5. Prepare for the worst, but expect the best

[Read more...]

Filed Under: make money online Tagged With: , , , ,
January 25, 2010 By

Beware of Maybank Email Scammers

Phishing scams are nothing new. In fact, if you’re a PayPal user you’re already receiving tons of fake emails that appear to be legitimate messages sent by PayPal. If you’re a Maybank2u user, now you have that same problem as well.

If you’re not sure how to recognize a phishing scam, let me give you an example.

maybank-scam

You will get an email that appears as if it was sent from Maybank themselves. Even the email address it was sent from may appear to be from Maybank themselves.

But if you put your mouse over the link in the email, you can see exactly what website it takes you to – which of course will not be the Maybank website. Do not click on the link, and if you did, do not enter any information or try to login to the site you were taken too.

Same thing applies for phishing emails related to other banks, it’s better ignore these emails altogether and type in the bank website directly in your browser.

Another useful online privacy lesson brought to you by Gobala Krishnan :)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , ,
January 23, 2010 By

Most Affordable Premium WordPress Themes Collection

If you’re looking to get some really awesome Premium WordPress themes for your blog, take a look at Elegant Themes right now.

image

More than 24 themes available in their gallery (plus all future themes) for just $19.95 / year. All the themes are gorgeous in their own right. Plus, these are not like the basic free themes – they come with their own options page and some advanced features depending on the purpose of the theme.

At less that $1 per theme, this is perhaps the best value for money you’ll get if you’re looking for affordable premium WordPress themes. Take a look at their entire collection here: Elegant Themes

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: ,
January 22, 2010 By

Mass Upgrade Your WordPress Plugins

image

One of the better changes I noticed in WordPress 2.9.2 is the mass upgrade feature for plugins. You’ll find that right under the Tools > Upgrade link. Also, in WP2.9.2 you can now “Un-Delete” your deleted comments, post and pages. If you haven’t upgraded, I strongly recommend that you do so right now.

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With:
January 21, 2010 By

Recurring Income From The Aweber Affiliate Program

Aweber1209

I got my biggest check ever from Aweber, for $1,158.71. The truth – it’s my one year total earnings :)

My affiliate commissions were so low, that I decided to set a higher payout limit because I didn’t want to receive checks for amounts lower than $500.

I didn’t really promote Aweber aggressively until mid-2009 as you can see from the earnings below.

image

Promoting services like Aweber is a lot more difficult that promoting a typical ClickBank “make money” e-book, for a few reasons:

  1. Cash-stricken newbies drunk on the idea of instant riches don’t need (or want) Aweber
  2. Anything that requires indefinite recurring payments is usually harder to sell
  3. You make between $5.70 to $44+ in commissions for the first month, so advertising for Aweber can be tricky and unprofitable

However, the BIG advantage of promoting recurring products like Aweber is that when you have a satisfied buyer, you can literally earn from that one referral for years. I can’t remember if I clicked on someone’s affiliate link when I signed up for Aweber, but hey I’ve been using them for more than two years now.

If you’re thinking or promoting recurring products like Aweber etc, here’s my advice:

  1. Don’t promote them up-front – build your own list or sell your own product instead
  2. Don’t expect much in the beginning, commissions can be really small in the early stages
  3. Promote only the winners – although I sent the same amount of traffic to GetResponse, their affiliate program just isn’t working as well, so I dumped them

So what did I do to increase my Aweber commissions since July 2009?

It’s easy – I created a product called RSS To Email and sold it with Master Resell Rights. The product itself explains how to use Aweber to build a big subscriber list from your blog, instead of services like FeedBurner etc.

It worked really well. I made money upfront (more than $6k), resellers made money, and Aweber made money. Win-win-win :)

You can also get Private Label Rights to that product from PLR WordPress Videos and take it to the next level.

Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing Tagged With: , ,
January 20, 2010 By

Gravity Forms for WordPress – Should You Get It?

gravityforms-home-screenshots

A contact form is one of the most basic and most important things you’ll want to have on your new blog. But do you need a contact form badly enough to pay $39 for it – that’s the question!

Gravity Forms is a well-coded, sleek contact forms plugin for WordPress. By looking at the demo site you can clearly see that Gravity Forms will help you create almost any type of form you want. In fact, if you’re in an industry where you need to create lots and lots of forms, this could be a great investment.

But re-examine the fundamental question here – how often do you need to create new forms?

If all you need is a simple contact form on your blog, there are several free WordPress plugins like WP Contact Form and Contact Form 7 that will do the job just fine. And from my experience, once your basic contact form is up and running there is no real need for you to mess around with other solutions.

Here’s how much Gravity Forms will cost you:

  • $39 for single site license
  • $99 for multi-site license
  • $199 for developer license

So, do you really need it? It would be interesting to hear what you have to say..

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , ,
January 10, 2010 By

Email Marketing Is Still My Number One Marketing Tool in 2010

Since my Twitter account got suspended, I came to realize that social media marketing is just not my cup of tea. I’m just not genetically designed to chat and talk about everything under the sun.

I’m not alone – even Seth Godin says it’s not for him.

But that does not mean that I don’t communicate with my subscribers and customers. If you’re on my list, then you’ll know that the easiest way to reach me (or my support team) is by clicking on “Reply”.

Let me share something interesting with you:

email marketing

The stats above are taken from my link tracking campaign for Host Commando. As you can see, the conversion rates I get from email marketing are way higher than from my blogs, affiliates.

You cannot get that type of conversion from Twitter or most other social media sites. Sure, you can get a lot of traffic, but the conversions usually suck.

Even by putting the link in email signatures, I got a conversion of 6.67%. And that took me like 1 minute.

Of course, the data may be a little premature, but it’s still a big difference from the affiliate results.

I’ve been telling people for years that they need to create their own email list, and build a relationship with their subscribers first. Twitter, FaceBook or whatever else you use, should only be driving traffic to a page where you can build your subscriber list.

I use Aweber, and I highly recommend that you do too. Or, you can check out the top autoresponders comparison and choose the one that fits your purpose. I also wrote an article that directly compares Aweber Vs GetResponse.

Either way, build a list now. Twitter may be gone tomorrow, but a list is forever :)

Filed Under: Email Marketing Tagged With: , ,
January 7, 2010 By

2010 – My New Direction

I’ve been developing content sites since 2001. I’ve been making money from affiliate commissions since 2002. I’ve been making money from AdSense since 2004. I’ve been selling information products since 2006. I’ve been speaking at seminars since 2008.

Now I’m going to quit it all. Everything has to go.

Why? Because I’m going to turn THIRTY soon and I feel like my life is going to end in a flash, so I want to enjoy every single day and spend all the hard earned money to experience life to it’s fullest.

(Ok, you didn’t really believe that, did you?)

31-1 But yes, I’m doing a complete u-turn for the sake of future business growth. If I can give you one reason why, it’s because of the book Good to Great.

I highly recommend that you read it too. It will reveal the truth about why some companies experience dramatic growth, and others don’t. As I was reading it, I began  to realize how related it was to what I want to achieve in life.

Money, for me, is not important. Sure, it was important in the beginning when I was dead broke, but after I started making a steady five-figure income every month, making MORE money just wasn’t that exciting anymore.

What I really want to do is make a difference. I want to make a change in people’s lives, and get a small mention for myself in history books.

“Gobala Krishnan, the guy who…”

The guy who what? Made a lot of money on the Internet? Quit his job at 25 with $30k in debt and never looked back?

No I want history to remember me for how I helped others, not myself. After reading Good to Great, I realized the only way to achieve it is by being the best in the world at something.

But what? What can I be the best in the world at?

I will tell you what I discovered in the next post.

Filed Under: Entrepreneurship, My Journey Tagged With: , ,
January 5, 2010 By

How Some Internet Marketers Create Products

myeasybutton A lot of Internet marketers out there use a very simple formula to come out with new products. This is it:

  1. Search for a catchy domain name, and register it
  2. Screenshot as many ClickBank earning reports as possible
  3. Create a long and boring salespage, add more screenshots
  4. If it sounds and looks good, create the product

Sounds silly?

Think about it – how many products can you find on ClickBank today that seem to follow this formula? There’s othing really new about the information in the product itself. Just a different “spin” on things, and it all starts with the domain name.

Who am I to day what’s right and what’s wrong, when the formula works for them?

What do you think?

Filed Under: Ebook Marketing Tagged With: ,
January 2, 2010 By

Internet Marketing Malaysia – The Big Problem

1malaysia Our colonial fathers, a.k.a the British, implemented a “Divide and Rule” policy to ensure obedience and disunity among the pre-independence inhabitants of Malaysia. It worked spectacularly well for them, but the implications of that policy can be felt even till today. When it comes to Internet marketing, I find that the same rules apply.

Instead of having one big market (26+ million people), we now have many different (and fragmented markets):

  • Those who predominantly read and speak in English
  • Those who predominantly read and speak in Malay
  • Those who predominantly read and speak in Chinese
  • Those who predominantly read and speak in Tamil

It’s funny that I should list the markets according to the language that they use to communicate most often, but there’s a reason for that.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: make money online, Malaysia Boleh Tagged With: ,