As I turned the last page to MATTERS OF THE HEART, it struck me like a bolt from the blue: I need to start a website dedicated to the works of Danielle Steel. Some of you will applaud me, most of you will jeer. I accept that. I am not perfect, but I am dedicated. Indeed, I defy any of the naysayers to read the 1977 classic, PASSION’S PROMISE and not be moved to tears. To have a heart is to know the Steel Lady. But I digress. The point here is that I had an excellent idea for a website.

Your first step is the deepest: you have to get hosted. Not like Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island, but like getting an address. This means you need a catchy website name, like www.steelladyofletters.com. Now, this will effectively be your domain name. “A what?” you ask. Oh, my poor Tattoo, you will learn shortly how the fantasy of a website will become reality. Cut to commercial.

Once armed with a clever and insightful domain name, you need a host to essentially “carry” it. Think in terms of real estate. You have the plans to your dream home, now you need a piece of land to build on. That piece of land will then be your address. But in this case you will get to actually determine your address. Nifty, no? Yes. This is where a DNS provider makes an entrance like Robert Conrad in THE WILD WILD WEST.

A DNS provider registers your domain name and is responsible for making sure when people type in your URL address your site pops up. So, of course, it stands to reason that you would want to get hosted on a reputable, far-reaching provider. By far-reaching I mean one that has numerous geographical servers located throughout the nation. Worldwide would be even better. This ensures when people in France or Sri Lanka type in your website address, it shows up.

An important note: most DNS providers share servers with other hosting services. Don’t be alarmed. Everything is still cool. Think of it as fractional-reserve banking. You know, what your local bank does when it lends money based on possessing a fraction of the actual loan amount. But DNS servers are far more reliable than your local bank. If it’s still there these days. Anyway, my point is find a good host. And then hail Danielle Steel.

The current global recession had been putting lot of strain on all employed persons, particularly on lower and middle income people and working mothers. Retrenchments and layoffs had resulted in sharp drop in income levels in many families. Even those who are still employed find reduction in salaries due to the loss in company revenues. Hence, earning a livelihood, as well as making some extra money, had assumed importance now. In such a bleak scenario, home business offers a golden opportunity to make ends meet in several households. Here is a list of home business possibilities that you could consider.

1. Selling products on eBay 2. Affiliate marketing business 3. Direct sales business and promotional products business 4. Coaching and childrens tutoring business 5. Web designing and web hosting 6. General transcription, medical transcription, and legal transcription business 7. Virtual assistant business 8. Copy writing, blog writing, and ghost writing business 9. Software programming and computer support business 10. Making products from home, like soap, candle, embroidery, candy wrapping, gift basket supply, catering, party supply, etc. 11. Accounting and bookkeeping business 12. Mystery shopping 13. Home based secretarial business 14. Internet research business

eBay Marketing

One of the best home businesses with a bright future is eBay marketing. Thousands of products are available on eBay through fixed price selling and auction-type trading. It is quite easy to learn how to sell products in eBay. You should start with the products that you are completely familiar with, preferably the ones that you could push to your friends and relatives initially. You could use the message boards and networks of eBay, yahoo and MSN to create publicity to your products. You could also write blogs and reply to blogs related to your products.

Precautions in Products Selling Business

It is also important that the products you sell on eBay or on your own are completely perfect. If at all there is any deficiency in the product like a tear or a stain or a slight damage, be frank enough to reveal the same and reduce your price accordingly. People would appreciate your honesty and buy that product without hesitation, if they are convinced that they could use the same with that deficiency. This would also protect you against any serious damage claims later on.

If you had sent a good product and the buyer makes a defective claim, then you could ask that person either to send a photograph of the present condition or straightaway request an immediate return of the product. If they return the product, then send back the money immediately, even though you might lose money in shipment and packing costs. However, do not yield to false threatening and make payments under duress.

If you wish to sell your own products, you would require a good website and lot of connections. Starting on eBay selling would help you build up a marketing network, which you could use to sell your home made products. If you are patient and diligent, then you would definitely agree that home business is the future of Internet.

Thousands of people make money online with hundreds of different methods. They may do freelance work designing web sites or programming to name a couple.

Buying and flipping websites is one widely used method, but many people think you have to buy expensive sites and flip them for a ton of money to get any real profit. That would require large investments that not everyone has available. This is not so. I will tell you how to flip sites with just a basic HTML knowledge and photo shop ability.

Find websites for sale online and look for a super clean site. You really want one that isn’t cluttered with graphics. You should get something between $10 and $20.

One thing you will need for almost any avenue of online money making is photo editing ability. People like sites that are appealing to the eyes, with unique headers and logos. You want to be pretty fast at editing and put up some custom graphics.

Once you add the logo and custom header, it is mostly marketing. Make sure to bring out all the positive traits of the site you are selling. Mention the fact that the content is unique and hand written. Mention that the logo and header are custom. If the site is a high paying adsense niche like insurance or bank terms, make sure they know that.

List the site on ebay for $1. That seems super low since you may have spent $20 on it, but that isn’t where you get the money from. Their are tons of new guys looking to buy sites on Ebay. If they are new they will need hosting. You can offer the $1 price if they sign up for hosting under your affiliate link.

Hostgator pays a min. of $50 for each sign up you bring them. The customer only pays you $1, but you make $50 from the transaction. That is double your investment.

One of the things that I have learned is the more the merrier.  If I have one website that makes one dollar per day, wouldn’t it make sense to have a thousand sites making a dollar a day?

Well, that is the way I run my business - I feel that spreading my earnings over a large number of sites keeps me from being in the position of having too many eggs in one basket, but at the same time, it creates a daunting task for me.

How do I make one thousand sites?

Well, the trick is not doing everything myself.  I outsource the content, I get the logo design online, and all I do is put the pieces together.  This way, I can focus on putting the sites up as quickly as possible, and I even outsource the marketing.

And that is my secret on how to create websites quickly.

With my abysmal success that I had trying to find a date in the "real" world, I decided to turn my attentions online.  It was a last ditch effort on my part, as I didn’t want to end up alone.  I knew that if I just posted a profile, maybe people were looking to find local singles might find me.

But I really didn’t know where to start.  When I did a search for free online dating sites I was overwhelmed by the number of sites that were out there.  There were more than a hundred sites and I didn’t really know what I should do.

So, I signed up for a couple that were directed towards people in my locale, filled out my profile, and just waited to see if anyone was interested.  The sad thing is that it took a couple of weeks before I heard anything, but eventually I did have some bites.  Sure, none of them turned into anything much, but I did make a friend or two out of the deal.

If you’re unfamiliar with how to get started online, here are the bare bones of the process. There are many intermediate and advanced steps, but this will give you an overview.

1. Determine a topic you’re interested in and do an online search for it plus “forum”

2. Visit the forums that came up in your search. Find a topic people are asking about that you have knowledge in. Offer useful tidbits without giving away everything you know.

3. Purchase a domain name based on your topic.

4. Find a web host. There are lots of free web hosting companies out there.

5. Start a free blog using your domain name.

6. Create a page on where people can sign up to get your report free.

7. Go back to the forum thread and mention that you have a free report that answers the question.

You are now on your way to building a list and about ready to start monetizing your blog. But that’s another topic for another day.

Since I am a bit of a computer geek (don’t tell anyone), I have been asked by the church choir to create a MySpace page for them.  I thought that this was a bit odd, on the other hand, the choir performs for many groups, so a central location that speaks of their performances does make sense.

The reason that they decided to go with MySpace is that it is a perfect opportunity for them to create a fan base for their music.  Not only does it give them an easy medium to connect with their fans, but they can easily notify everyone of their upcoming performances.

Instead of creating the template from scratch, I have been looking at a number of Christian MySpace layouts to find one that would work perfectly for them.  So far, I have found a couple of potential ones and I will present them to the choir at the next practice.

Years ago, when I started to market my first website, I felt overwhelmed.  You see, I really didn’t know what I was doing, and it was a lot of trial and error.  But, after a number of tests, I finally figured out a marketing system that was going to work for me.

Many years later, I still have a marketing system, but I do things differently now.  You see, instead of doing everything by hand like the “olden” days, instead I depend on Internet marketing software tools to help automate some of my tasks.

Not only does the software help make the tasks easier, but with the number of sites that I am marketing at the moment, it also helps me to remember the marketing tasks that I have already completed.  I can also see at a glance the progress that I have made in my marketing efforts.  It definitely makes my job - and life - easier.

One of the things that I find that takes up lots of my time as a webmaster is all the website designs that I do.  I have the content for the sites outsourced already, but the web design is another story.  Unfortunately, I don’t have the budget to outsource everything, so I still have to do some of the work myself.

In an effort to make my life easier, I did a search on “quick and easy web design software” to see if there was a tool available to help me out.  After wading through the search results, I found some software that would be a perfect fit for what I wanted to accomplish.

I found a DHTML menu builder that would allow me to make menus with ease.  All I do is fill in the blanks and the code is generated automatically for me.

Now that I will have some free time, I think it will give me more time to focus on promoting my sites which should increase my income - something that I wouldn’t mind at all.

A very exciting thing happened to me last week. I won fifty thousand dollars in a hospital lottery. People have been asking me what I was going to do with the money and I think many of them assume I am crazy when I tell them that I am going to buy web domain names.

Most people do not look at the Internet from the same point of view as I do. I look at it as my greatest resource for making money. The more web domain names that I own, the more web pages I will have that could potentially be making me a profit.

To me, it is an investment and I think that this money will go a long way in making my business a success. So, if you do not understand, that is alright. I decided that it was my money and I was going to put it to good use.