What is the Best Way to
Start Earning Money Online? Here’s my Rich Sage Make Money Start up Guide for 2008!

Before getting started you need to think about a few things –Simply setting out to make money online will not suffice. You need to find a passion. If you are going to run an online mall, then I hope shopping is a “passion” –otherwise, sooner or later, you’ll “run against a wall”. If the subject of your online efforts are part of your passion, then you can be like me –just live like the Rich Sage. That’s what I do all day, so, this part of the exercise is a “walk in the park”.

Getting started is not that difficult. Most of the resources you’ll need are either free or you already have it while reading this. So, a passion –what will be your passion? Well, that’s something very personal –good luck. Just dig deep and you’ll feel that’s what you want to work on.

Let Me List Your Start Up Order:

1. Find a niche, a passion
2. Find a domain, or free blog solution
3. If you purchase a domain, get hosting
4. Then research your niche
5. Then start marketing

NEXT STEP: Your next task is to secure a domain name. I’ve had a rather negative situation researching domain names and here is what happened. I went to my favorite discount registrar and researched a domain name that was rather unusual. Then I slept over it. The next day I want back and found out that a few hours after I “researched it” the domain was registered by someone else. Solution? Research in one place and buy in another. Again, don’t research your domain where you plan to buy it. In fact, research it here, at Network Solutions >>. I’ve not had a problem there. Lastly, DO NOT host at the registrar, your web pages.

Resources:
Good places to purchase a cheap domain: GoDaddy and NameCheap. >>

Side Note: When at GoDaddy, note that they have a domain auction place. Often there are very good domains that can be purchased for a very low price. Check it out.

THEN YOU NEED to HOST: Once you have a domain name, you need to host the “.com, .net or .what_ever” at some location. That is a hosting company. You can even host at home, but I don’t recommend it –especially, if you like to sleep at night and go on vacation. Usually, my disasters take place when I am away! It’s guaranteed.

I can recommend the place where I host for one reason: Great service! At the end of your checkout put “Rich Sage” in the comments area and you’ll get the Webmaster Plan, which allows hosting of 5 sites for the Gold Plan price of just $9.95 (this is subject to change, so, take a close look at the price) Anyway, that is a great deal!

I am sure you’ll find a cheaper deal, but calculate just one time *per year* when you need support and a helping hand just once, and I can tell you this is a great deal. WebIntellects has given me peace many times.

If you don’t want to host a website, and just want to express yourself and ‘test’ here and there, I recommend going to a place like blogger.com >> or wordpress.com >> and getting your own blogging space. These ’spaces’ have their limitations, but it’s perfectly “OK” to get started there. As a matter fact, just get started!

Resources:
WebIntellects Hosting >> for great customer care and a valuable product.

So far you’ve decided on the topic, and what to call it. Then found a place to “put your idea” to work. What next? Well, you can get a program such a NVU, which is a free web site development software. It’s out of production but runs well on Windows XP or Vista. Just search it and download it free. Anyway, it produces pretty good web sites without you having to learn HTML.

I recommend another route –the same one I am using, because of it’s versatility and all the “bells and whistles” you cannot live without. What do I use? WordPress. Just a very powerful whisper — WordPress >>

WordPress does everything, but make you breakfast using what are called “plugins”. Plugins are what I use to tell sites that I’ve done an update, that my site map is ready, that search engines are welcome –all of that is done by WordPress. With out it, I would not use my computer and an Internet connection to make a blog. WordPress does so many things that I cannot possibly list them all here. Just go to WordPress.ORG and download it. Then install and you’ll be live online in a few minutes. Oh yeah, one item that I missed –WordPress is free. Yup, unbelieveable. It will run and help you manage your entire online effort, and it’s free.

Resources:
Please see my YouTube Channel as I keep updating it with how to work with WordPress. The videos are slim, but through it you’ll get exposed to a lot more content and help if you need it.

WHAT NEXT? You’re online, you’re kicking, you got started, you’re writing, but what next? You’ll see that there are two elements that you need to focus on: ONE — Content and TWO –Marketing.

How to Find Great Content: The first rule of your niche is that you’re going to help solve a problem for someone. To find where those people are just search on your favorite search engine “Your Niche Name + Blog” or “Your Niche Name + Forum”. Then check the results for resources and the customers you’re looking for. The niche blogs are great places to swap links, get ads and make posts (exchange articles). If you are looking for writers, webmasters, joint ventures, etc., etc., the forums and blogs are great places to find people to work with.

The next item is Marketing: Well, I’ve offered a free membership. Just click the image above or here, and subscribe to my free lessons.

Resources:
I cannot end this conversation without mentioning a place where you can get all the online marketing help you’ll ever need for free. That place is the Warrior Forum –linked is my review. The Warrior Forum can be found here >>, and it’s all free. If you have any type of marketing question, just ask and someone (even me!) will answer it with truth and experience.

To review the process, you’ve picked your passion, your niche. Then you selected a domain for it. It does not matter what the “ending” of the domain is –.com, .net or .something –the *content* of that domain is much more important. If you don’t get a domain, so far, your costs are “zero”. If you purchased a domain and got hosting, the cost for the first month is less than $20! Where else can you start a business for that much money?

I’ll follow up this update with how to turn that $20 into $200 dollars in thirty to sixty-days. The idea that I am presenting to you is to keep your costs at around $10 per month, and keep increasing your income from $100/month to $250/month to $500/month — you get the point.

Success with your plan, and make sure to return here for the rest of the site monetizing story. My goal is to help you maximize your efforts to make money online!

Rich Sage