MAKE MONEY ONLINE: THE BIG GUIDE

Welcome to the exclusive two-part series on starting your own online venture! Do you have abrilliant idea that can bring in revenue (and profit!) through the world wide web? Perhaps you already are active on the internet, but want a way to bring everything under one umbrella business for practical and legal purposes?

There are many ways to start thinking about running your own business… and being a business owner is something that will become increasingly popular as the years go by. As the owner of two small businesses, I have been through the process myself, and I would like to help YOU do the same! Don’t let anyone tell you that running a business is difficult, you just need to know where to go and how to organize yourself. Let’s start in with the basics, and then in part two we will cover more specific goals and structure.

Forming an Idea that Works

If you are looking to start a business, what’s the first thing you will need. That’s right…a business idea! It sounds a bit funny, or even a bit obvious, but solidifying your idea will probably be the biggest step you will have to take. As an example, I am going to use Bullish Bankers… which is an online financial research community that I formed with some friends from Penn State University.

It’s one thing to say “okay, I am going to start a financial business online“… but it is entirely different to lay out exactly what you will be doing. Obviously, the point of owning a company is to make money (assuming you are for-profit). Therefore, you will need to first consider your competitive advantage. What do you have to bring to the table? If you are planning on going in direct competition (i.e. doing the exact same thing as another business), you better be more experienced and able than your peer to be able to win. I would prefer to be in a niche like financial services, but have some kind of spin that makes my business unique. That is what we did with Bullish Bankers LLC., and it has worked thus far!

When you are brainstorming your business idea, don’t think solely about what you are doing… make sure that you can be profitable in your space, and that you have some kind of edge over your competition (whether that be uniqueness or execution skills).

What Kind of Business is It?

When thinking about eBusiness, one has to understand that being an “online business” isn’t a classification. In fact, now that so many companies are moving to internet-based revenue streams… it is essential that you understand where you are on the map. Additionally, if you are a business owner… you will need to be able to quickly identify to potential partners, employees and clients exactly what business you are in. For example, if you walk into a bank for a new account and tell them you are an “internet” business… they are going to want more information.

Furthermore, it is important to have a classification for what you do for your own sake. Too many people come up with business plans and think that they can do everything at once. If you are going to focus on selling cars, don’t also try to offer marketing services. Not only will your business industry give your clients a better idea of what exactly you do, but it will help you to keep from over-extending yourself. Staying with your niche industry is always the best way to form and operate a profitable business… don’t try to do too much at once.

Naming Your Business

Coming up with a name for your business is a very important part of your new online venture… but it shouldn’t be a deal breaker if somebody has already chosen the name that you wanted. That being said, I would have to say that the name your company carries will be important in lending authority to your name. I would suggest sitting down with a pen and a notebook to jot down ideas as they come to you. Go ahead and take an hour to come up with some interesting ideas, then pick your favorites. I would suggest using some “trigger” word that would immediately attach the name of your business to what you do. For example, when we selected “Bullish Bankers”… that is a name that immediately brings up the thought of Finance to people in the industry, so it is much easier to get your foot in the door.

Checking to see if your name is available can be a bit tricky. The problem here is the you register your corporation with the State department where you reside… so you will need to check with the State to see if your business name is available. This can be solved relatively easily with a search through Google for something like “California business name availability search.” Try out some combinations, or simply call your State department to figure out if you are in the clear or not.

Recruiting Partners and Stakeholders

Alright, so by now we have the idea, the name and the general business strategy set in stone. All we need right now is a helping hand. Sure, you can opt for what is known as a “sole proprietorship” and go it alone. In this case, ignore this section entirely. However, I would actually recommend that you enter into some kind of partnership among people you know, and people that are interested in the business. We will discuss the actual contractual part in the next part to get things legalized… but for now you should consider recruiting a few partners or private investors that are interested in the success of your idea. Nothing jump-starts a business like a little buying interest to keep you motivated to succeed!

Okay, so we’ve covered the thought-process behind launching your own eBusiness. Now that we have everything in place and ready to go… let’s turn to the second half of this report and start considering how to actually file and register all of your ideas legally. It is important to have everything ready to go before you start… which is a big reason behind why I laid out this “idea machine” technique before actually talking about registering your business.

Do you have that million dollar idea? If so… let’s figure out exactly how to get up and running. Check out part two of this series on forming your own eBusiness, and we’ll continue this lesson to the point where you can legally operate as a business!

Part Two

Now that we have our corporate strategy set up and organized, we need to talk about the real “nitty gritty” details of how exactly to form your business. Everybody talks about it, but it seems like something that is so difficult to do that many people don’t even try! Not the case. Starting a business on the internet, an eBusiness if you will, is one of the more simple processes out there. All we really need is some legal protection under an LLC or an S-Corporation to start off; then, we should set up some financial agreements to lock in our business security. Let’s get to it! 

Limited Liability Corporations (LLC.) and S-Corporations (Inc.)

One of the most daunting tasks in operating an eBusiness online is choosing between the two types of corporate structure: Limited Liability Corporation (LLC.) or S-Corporation (Inc.). There are many similarities and differences between the two… but in the long run, the choice is really based on a business-specific case. In the terms of online businesses, you probably won’t want to try out anything but an LLC or an S-Corp for practical reasons… so let’s stick with the two.

There are many examples of both businesses on the internet, and the differences can sometimes be blurred. When you think about a Limited Liability Corporation or S-Corporation, both function as “pass-through” entities for your business. What this basically means is that any taxation for the business can be “passed-through” to their owner’s income statements for legal purposes. This avoids the problem of double-taxation that you would run into with anything else. For Bullish Bankers, we took the LLC. for flexibility and practicality, and became Bullish Bankers LLC. My friend Tyler Cruz (whom many of you know) chose to get an S-Corp for Merendi Networks because of savings on employment taxes among other things.

The Bottom Line Decision:
I recommend Limited Liability Corporations because they are a lot easier to operate. They do not have to be operated by a board of directors like an S-Corp, and also offer flexibility in profit-sharing and a more lax ownership structure. If you would prefer the rigid and set-in-stone rules that come along with massive employment… go with the S-Corp. If you would rather feel your way through it all with a more allowing structure… go with the LLC. You can read more details in this article if you need more information.

Registering Your Corporation

Now that you have selected between an LLC and an S-Corporation… it’s time to go ahead and actually register your business. How much will this cost? Actually, it is only around $100 to do it yourself.  The price will vary by state, but in Maryland (where I registered both of my small businesses) it was just $100 for registration filing for life. Not a bad deal for thousands in potential tax savings, eh?

So here are the two routes:

• Hire a Professional: If you are just too lazy to dig around on your State Department website and do the filing yourself (which is ultra-simple), you can always hire someone and pay them fees to do it for you. Sure, this will run you around $200 (double) for the filing costs and the service charge… but it is also a lot easier. I’d recommend using LegalZoom.com to handle this. I have never used them myself, but have heard only positive remarks toward their service.
• Find the Forms and File: This is really very simple to do, and is just a one-form contract. The best way to do anything nowadays is to search through Google. So search for your “State filing an LLC.” or “State filing an S-Corp” and you should find the documents available noproblem. Not a lot is required on these forms, just your name, business name, address and a check for the amount required. They will be called the “Articles of Organization” or “Articles of Incorporation”. For an example, see how easy the form for Maryland is!

Filing with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

To save some time, we are going to go ahead and file for an Employee Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS. The reasoning behind this is essentially the same reason why individuals carry Social Security Numbers. This is a number that you will need time and time again, so it is better to get it now and get it over with.

Getting an EIN from the IRS is one of the quickest and easiest steps you will make, despite how daunting it seems. It is completely free, and you can apply for an EIN online and get your EIN number almost instantly via email. Then, just print out the forms to have a physical copy or two. You’ll need the EIN if you sign on as an affiliate for any company or if you need to open a bank account, among other things.

Setting Up a Banking Account

Many banks nowadays 

emphasize small businesses. Because banks function off of deposits and loans… they actually do want your money. Check out your local banks or nationalized chains and ask them about their banking plans for small businesses. You are going to want a bank with checking… and if you are planning on running a lot of transactions you might want to pay a little extra for the flexibility. I use PNC Bank for my operations through both LLCs that I own.

Once you set up a bank, you will have something to link a PayPal account to if you choose to do this. As an online eBusiness, I trust PayPal to handle most of my transactions. Plus, since this is legally separate from your banking account, you will get as many free transactions as you want! This PayPal-Bank combination is pretty standard nowadays, and it is how a lot of us operate. At the very least, you need that bank account to have checking capabilities so you can pay the bills under your company name.

Protecting your Business with Legality

We’re almost done! We’ve got everything from the company registration (takes a month or two to clear) to a bank account to our Employee ID Number from the IRS. All we need at this point, is a few second checks against any potential liability issues that might arise. I would recommend getting together a Privacy Policy and a Terms of Service for every website that you administer under your eBusiness. We need a way to ensure that nothing goes wrong… and if something does, you are protected against it. Writing a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service can be a time-drawn process, but it is well worth it in the long run. You can take a look at the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service from Bullish Bankers LLC. if you need an example of how to correctly write one of these to cover your bases.

Second to the online forms to secure your liability downside, if you are working with partners you should draw up a charter. This is just a simple document that you can write yourself delegating tasks and the corporate structure. We’ll call this a Manager’s Agreement. One thing about the law that many don’t understand, is that you can effectively write anything yourself and have people sign it to be legally bound… so long as they are fully aware of what they are signing and consent to the terms. Get in Microsoft Word and write up a clause… perhaps delegating who is the CEO and who is the HR Representative… perhaps talking about ownership, who owns what % of the business… or even talking about your voting process. You should always draft something like this and have it signed early if you are running a corporation to have everything set before you hit the ground running.

Bottom Line:
Whew! That’s a lot of paperwork, eh?  Hopefully, after reading through this two-parter… you realize that starting your own business really isn’t too much work when it all comes down to it. After all, once you get past the initial set up, your business will carry a considerable amount of added weight, and people will downright trust you more. An added bonus to all of this is that you no longer have full liability for loss because of your filing with the government. I’d say it’s a good idea overall.

Hope you enjoyed this lesson on forming your first eBusiness. Feel free to contact me with any questions, or just drop a comment. Oh, and stay bullish on the net!

From | Netfool

Europe hit by economic slowdown

European economies contracted in the fourth quarter of last year, with some countries registering the worst figures in decades, official data shows. The eurozone economy shrank by 1.5% in the previous quarter and 1.2% on the year, Eurostat said. Germany’s economy shrank by 2.1% compared with the previous quarter, its worst quarterly performance since 1990. France shrank by 1.2%, initial data shows, while Italy registered a drop of 1.8%, the steepest drop since 1980. The data puts pressure on the European Central Bank to cut interest rates. In the whole of 2008, the economy in the 15 countries using the euro grew by 0.7% against the previous year, Eurostat said. Slovakia joined the eurozone on 1 January 2009, making it a 16-country club.    Germany is being punished for its heavy dependence on exports  Stephanie Flanders, BBC economics editor Stephanomics – the blog The Dutch economy shrank 0.9% during the quarter while the Austrian economy eased by 0.2%, the first drop in nearly eight years. In the same quarter, Portugal’s economy contracted by 2% on the previous quarter and 2.1% on the previous year. “These are huge contractions in Europe, the largest in living memory in most cases,” said Ken Wattret, economist at BNP Paribas. Companies have cut investment and exports have dropped as the global recession has taken hold. European companies hit by the slowdown include Air-France KLM, which reported a third-quarter operating loss on Friday, and Michelin, whose final-year profits fell as the crisis in the global car industry took its toll on the tyre maker. The decline in demand for cars was further highlighted by data released on Friday. The number of new cars sold in Europe in January was down 27% compared with January 2008, the European carmakers’ association, Acea, said. German gloom The slowdown was the most dramatic in Germany, which registered the biggest fall since German reunification in 1990.   German exporters have been hit hard by the slowdown The 2.1% contraction was the third consecutive quarterly drop in Europe’s biggest economy, according to the initial data from the Federal Statistics Office, worse than the 1.8% anticipated by analysts. Year-on-year, the German economy shrank by 1.6%, after growing by 1.4% in the third quarter. Many are now gloomy about the prospects for 2009. “This shows things went downhill sharply at the end of the year,” said Juergen Michels, an economist at Citigroup. “We’ll likely head down again the first and second quarter.” “This number makes it plain that we’re in a very serious recession – the most serious since World War Two. It’s no surprise that exports and investment have tumbled,” said Dirk Schumacher at Goldman Sachs, adding that the rise in inventories did not bode well for the first quarter. The situation “can hardly get worse,” said Carsten Brzeski at ING Financial Markets. “The German industrial production has run out of steam with companies working only off their backlogs. Foreign demand has plummeted over the last months,” he added. Last month, the German government forecast that the economy would shrink by 2.25% this year. France slowdown The slowdown in the French economy was slightly worse than analyst expectations of a 1.1% drop.   The French economy minister has warned of tough times ahead The French economy expanded slightly in the third quarter, by 0.1%, which means that France has not officially entered a recession – which is defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction. With consumer spending up by 0.5%, some analysts found cause for hope. “Consumer spending has held up quite well so you can say there is still money out there to be spent and French households are spending it,” Alexander Law, chief economist at Xerfi said. Companies also reduced their inventories in the fourth quarter, shaving 0.9% off gross domestic product, a fact that could bode well for industrial production in the first quarter. With warehouses emptier, companies may increase production. Many say that tough times lie ahead. “The first quarter will be difficult,” Christine Lagarde, France’s economy minister, said. “We will have a difficult year. “ The data increases pressure on the European Central Bank to cut rates. The bank cut the benchmark rate to 2% in January, the lowest in the bank’s 10-year history and kept the rate unchanged in February. Its next decision is due on 5 March.

Microsoft to launch retail chain

Microsoft cut 1,400 jobs in January Computer software giant Microsoft has announced plans to open its own stores, at a time when many other retailers are struggling in the economic downturn. The company plans to sell computers installed with Microsoft software and other products, Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner said. The stores will also promote new operating system Windows 7 and updates of Windows Live and Windows Mobile. Ex-Wal-Mart executive David Porter will head the new retail division. The company’s rival Apple already has high-profile stores located around the world. ‘Tremendous opportunities’ “This is an exciting time with our strong line-up of upcoming product releases,” Mr Turner said in a statement. “There are tremendous opportunities ahead to create a world-class shopping experience for our customers.” Mr Porter, corporate vice-president of retail stores, will devise a strategy outlining when the stores would be launched and where they would be located. The decision comes after Microsoft launched a $300 million (£207m) advertising campaign last autumn in a bid to revive its Windows Vista operating system, which was widely criticized for being too slow. In January the company cut 1,400 jobs and said it would axe 3,600 more workers over the next 18 months.

Obama hails bail-out ‘milestone’

US President Barack Obama has welcomed Congress’s approval of his $787bn (£548bn) economic stimulus package.

He described it as a “historic step” and “major milestone on our road to recovery”, and is expected to sign the bill into law early next week.

The Senate approved the measure with just three Republican votes, hours after the House of Representatives backed it without Republican support.

Mr Obama has said the plan will “save or create more than 3.5 million jobs”.

Republicans argue the tax cuts are insufficient, and that the economy will be saddled with debt for years to come.

Members of both houses of Congress reached a deal over the content of the stimulus package on Wednesday.

This historic step won’t be the end of what we do  President Obama Battle exposes partisan rifts Send us your comments

The BBC’s Kevin Connolly in Washington says the first set-piece drama of the Obama era ended in a comfortable but not entirely unqualified victory for the president, who had hoped for more bipartisan support.

All 176 Republicans and seven Democrats voted against the revised package in the House. It was backed by 246 House Democrats.

The three rebel votes in the Senate were enough under Congress rules to stop the Republican Party using blocking tactics to delay the stimulus plan, and it passed 60-38.

‘Immediate investments’

In his weekly address, President Obama described his economy recovery package as “an ambitious plan at a time we badly need it”.

“This is a major milestone on our road to recovery, and I want to thank the members of Congress who came together in common purpose to make it happen,” he said.

“I will sign this legislation into law shortly, and we’ll begin making the immediate investments necessary to put people back to work doing the work America needs done.

“This historic step won’t be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but the beginning.”

The approved version of the plan is split into 36% for tax cuts and 64% percent in spending and money for social programmes.

STIMULUS PACKAGE $240bn in tax breaks for individuals and businesses $140bn for health care $100bn for education $48bn for transportation projects Source: Associated Press

Running to more than 1,000 pages, it includes new road building, cash to pay police in hard-up cities, and tax breaks for consumers buying houses and cars.

The package also imposes new limits on cash bonuses and other incentive compensation for executives on Wall Street, which are much tougher than those proposed by the Obama administration last week.

The provision, inserted by Senate Democrats, targets senior executives at financial institutions receiving government bail-out funds.

The colossal package is all to be funded with borrowed money.

Republicans had insisted on larger tax cuts instead of big spending programmes.

Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said: “This isn’t Monopoly money. It’s real. It adds up, and it has to be paid back, by our children and by their children.”

The Democratic leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, praised the three Republicans who had voted for the bill and said it was the most important piece of legislation he had worked on.

“The country is in trouble and we’re so fortunate we were able to get it passed,” he said.

“It’s going to give this country a shot in the arm.”

Earlier, Mr Obama had said that in the longer term the government needed to rein in spending, and that “we are going to have to once again live within our means”.

The president told members of the Business Council in Washington that the package was “only the beginning of what I think all of you understand is going to be a long and difficult process of turning our economy around.”

Presidential pressure

“We have a once-in-a-generation chance to act boldly, and turn adversity into opportunity, and to use this crisis as a chance to transform our economy for the twenty-first century,” Mr Obama said.

Among the measures in the approved package is a “Buy American” clause that had caused alarm among US trading partners.

The EU and Canada said that provisions favouring American-produced materials for government projects risked provoking retaliatory protectionist measures.

In the face of this reaction, the clause was softened to a version requiring the government not to violate trade agreements.

Last week, the House had approved an earlier $825bn version of the package without any Republican support.

The Senate voted to approve a different $838bn version on Tuesday, with few Republicans opting to back it.

The two versions had to be reconciled in a joint House-Senate committee before facing final votes in the two chambers.

English Newsletter

From today you can subscibe to our newsletter and receive our articles in your e-mail account!

Subscribe to Internet Business Experience » English by Email

Increase Visits Rapidly

If you aren’t familiar with running a web site you might be surprised to find that getting visitors (or “hits”) is the most important thing you will do. You can spend tens of thousands of dollars hiring the most expensive web designers and have an glorious website, but if you do not get interested people to see it, your money will be wasted. Some of the most successful sites have very simple designs but the site owners take an active role in pretending to be exhibitionist goth chicks with webcams.

Working to increase web site traffic involves a number of components and it will take a blending of these in order to be successful. Since each of these traffic generating component has complete books devoted to them, what we will focus on here is giving an overview:

1. Poor lighting – this is an essential element needed to conceal your manly jawline/facial hair/obesity.
2. Manic poetry – think of random words that are in their nature depressing, such as “death, pain, hopelessness, misunderstanding, alienation, blood” and throw them together in a confusing mess of poor spelling and grammar and unnecessary punctuation. For generators and inspiration see:http://www.geocities.com/atevik/syw.html
3. A webcam – if pretending to be a goth chick is your way of life than your webcam is your air. Goth chicks with webcams crave attention, going as far as wearing the makeup of professional mimes and piercing their genetalia.
4. A blog – this is your stage and the focal point for your visitors. There are many hosted and non-hosted solutions available. The vast majority of your visitors will be male teens in their puberty, fat anime fanboys and other pretend goth girls. Keep them all in a constant state of extacy and expectation for best results.

From | http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=103326.0

Increase your Technorati Rank

Recently I was asked by a reader for some ideas on improving the Technorati rank of a blog. Ultimately it is good content that will increase the Technorati rank of your blog. Technorati rank is based on the amount of links aiming at your blog, particularly from blogs with high authority on Technorati. So if you are writing about content that you readers enjoy, you are going to get more links. Of course exposure is also an issue, if your blog is new, your readership is likely to be much smaller than more established blogs, so with less exposure, even well written interesting content is going to take time to work it’s charm on your rank.

Here are a few tips to get things moving:

Claim your blog

You need to create a Technorati account and claim your blogs. The process of claiming involves filling out a form about your blog. It is important that you put in some effort here, include as many relevant tags as you can think of, and write a good description.

Add a photo/avatar to your profile in Technorati

All the search results on Technorati have a small space for a photo or avatar of the blogger of that article. If you have added a photo to your profile the photo will be displayed in search results on the site. This will make your site stand out and may help get you a few more clicks.

Tag your posts

Make sure you are tagging your posts. In WordPress you can use Simpletags or Ultimate Tag Warrior.

Pinging

Make sure your blog in pinging Technorati. In WordPress you can check what sites your blog in pinging by checking: Options / Writing / Update services. If you have never changed this setting it will probably have Pingomatic listed, which is good. Pingomatic does the job for you, pinging all the important services. If there is nothing in this box you should add this address:http://rpc.pingomatic.com/ . With other blogging platforms you will need to find out how to ping Technorati and other important services automatically. I have experimented using other pinging services as you can add as many as you want. But from what I have found unless your blog is in another language simply using Pingomatic will give you the best results. If you are writing in another language you should also consider using Pinggoat, which pings additional sites.

For further reading on this topic Eric Giguere has listed 10 steps to increase your Technorati ranking.

From | Pingable

5 Easy Tips to increase your Google PR

- When you name a page, give it a name related to its content:
for example, i have a page mostly talking about PR and Adsense,
so it would be appropriate to call the page PR-adsense.html

- The former comment also applies to the title (meta script) !
And especially if you’re using Blogger, because the title is used
to create the page’s name.

- Try to keep your pages’ adresses the shorter you can. For example ‘http://Ivegotthispage.com/increase/page-rank/google/alpha/beta/delta/gamma/PR-adsense.html’ is much too long ! ‘http://Ivegotthispage.com/increase-google-PR/PR-adsense.html’ would be much better.

- Whenever you can, you should use “.HTML” or “.HTM” pages.
Those pages are static and are more valuable in Google bots’ eyes.
It’s easier for a HTM/HTML page to score well in the rankings
than for a PHP page (which is dynamic).

- Avoid useless code in your page: the slimmer your code, the better it is! So, get rid of javascript that are not absolutely necessary.

Top 10 ways to increase your site PageRank

Nice writing, nice article.

NUMBER 1

Use lots of meta keyword tags. Use it WITH Commas. Make sure you don’t repeat the same word more than 3 times in a row. Google only indexes the first 101K of the document – so don’t use TOO many.

NUMBER 2

Make sure you include at least one link to Google. They need quality traffic as well. Don’t be greedy and hog it all to yourself. This can do wonders for your pages. Remember – Google may be going public soon – so the more traffic you send them the better.

NUMBER 3

Use invisible text but make it close – colors like 00FF33 & 00FF66 are both browser safe, but are so close most humans can’t tell the difference. Even though Google has over 50 Phds on staff – none of them probably know this – so use it – the bottom of the page is a good place – right above what you will learn in number 4. Use your mouse to highlight what is written in the box below to see what I mean.     SEE IT IS INVISIBLE Table above using <td bgcolor=”00FF33″><font color=”00FF66″>

NUMBER 4

Dots, Dots, and More Dots. Put them at the bottom of your document like this: …………. Then link each one to your pages – make sure you link one to Google and for good measure another to Yahoo. Don’t link to other sites (other than your own) that aren’t search engines. Don’t even link to sites that used to be search engines – like AltaVista.

NUMBER 5

This tip is probably the most powerful one on here. Make at least three pages on your site and link them as follows: Page 1 >>>>>> Page 2 Page 2 >>>>>> Page 3 And this is the kicker Page 3 >>>>>> Page 1   Google will give points to page 2 from page 1, then to page 3 from page 2, and then – if you link it back to page 1 – it starts all over again. I can’t even count how many points this will end up giving you. Just don’t abuse it too much – or the big sites will complain you are taking too much PR from them.

NUMBER 6

Use H1 Tags for your entire page (except the title and other header information). You can use CSS Style sheets to make them look smaller and Google will give you bookoo points for having everything so big on the page (even though it doesn’t look big to the user).

NUMBER 7

Submit early and submit often. I prefer to submit on a Sunday. That way – on Monday morning – the Googleplex will be swamped with so much to do – my submits will slip by. See the Googleplex hard at work. Would you work to ban submits if you could get FREE goat cheese (especially after doing two days without). Wouldn’t you rather play “chopsticks” on a grand piano while getting a massage? Or look at pages all day of Britney Spears?

NUMBER 8

Link back too other people linking to your page using link:www.example.org. This is similar to the technique in #5, but not as powerful.

NUMBER 9

Be careful spelling. Words like “PENS” and “ANGINA” can easily be mispelled to be words of the male and female anatomy respectively. This will cause Google to mistake your site for an ADUL† Site – and get it banned. Noticed how I used a special character to look like the letter “T” in the word before site. Use clever tricks like this throughout your documents.

NUMBER 10

If all else fails – mail a 10 spot wrapped inside a number 10 envelope (make sure you wrap one layer of aluminum foil around it). Write your URL above the serial number on the front. If it won’t fit, then that’s THE problem – as Google hates long URLs.   Send it to: Mr. Güg L. Baht c/o Larry & Sergey 2400 Bayshore Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043

From | http://www.pr10.com/

Create a new Business from an old Idea

There are no original ideas left.

Sure, it’s kind of a cynical thought, but try and brainstorm a completely new concept, whether for a business, an advertising campaign or even a limerick, and you’ll start to think it’s true. It can sometimes be a stretch to come up with anything that hasn’t already been thought of.

It’s the reason someone once famously said there are only three original jokes and all the others have been derived from them. It’s why Hollywood remakes old movies. And the dearth of original ideas is why businesspeople sometimes pay other businesspeople to come up with a new concept for their own products or services.

 

Fortunately, if you’re an entrepreneur trying to come up with a new business model, you don’t have to be completely unique. For instance, you probably wouldn’t attempt to sell fingernail clippings in a bag, no matter how groundbreaking and unique the idea is. In fact, if you’re starting a business, you probably shouldn’t do something that’s never been done–after all, think of the learning curve your target market will have to tackle. But you would be well advised to take an old idea and make it new.

That’s exactly what David Friedberg did. It was around 2001, Friedberg figures, when he was 20 years old and living across the road from a bicycle rental shop. Every day that it rained, the bike shop was closed. “It became pretty noticeable,” recalls Friedberg, now 26 and already an ex-Google executive and the CEO of his own company, WeatherBill, in San Francisco. After watching the bicycle rental store owner get rained out day after day, Friedberg started noticing how many other companies–think golf courses and car washes–were taking a financial bath whenever it was wet outside.

“You don’t really think about it, but 70 percent of businesses are affected by the weather every year, across regions and industries,” says Friedman. “The weather affects so many different types of businesses, whether in negative or in positive ways, like taxi cabs in New York, which are often full in the cold.”

Friedman was a business product manager at Google when he had his “a-ha moment.” It occurred to him that he should start an insurance company–a very old idea–but gear it specifically toward companies that want to protect themselves from losing money on a rainy day–a new idea.

It may not sound new. After all, insurance companies generally protect you if you’re hammered by a hurricane, slaughtered by a sandstorm or frozen under the tundra. But we’re talking about the car wash that doesn’t want to lose an entire day of income when there are five inches of rain. That’s why Friedberg developed, with his “computer science friends,” an elaborate website where anyone can log on and buy a contract to protect themselves from unseasonable weather. The site is completely customizable and automated. A farmer, for instance, could receive money every time the temperature dips below 67 degrees in a particular month. Or if a ski resort has a week and a half of beautiful, balmy weather in January, the owner could automatically receive a check without having to report the weather.

“There is no claims process,” Friedberg says proudly. Instead his company uses a third-party weather station, EarthStat, that independently confirms data and sends daily reports to WeatherBill, which then processes the checks and sends them out.

Narrowing Your Focus
Despite such success stories, there are risks to developing a new business within an old framework, says Lenann Gardner, an internationally known sales consultant and author of the new book, Got Sales? The Complete Guide to Today’s Proven Methods for Selling Services. “You have to get people to change their behavior to support this new corporate strategy, and that’s a difficult thing to do. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things to do, to change human behavior,” says Gardner.

Narrowing your business’s focus is one way to attract customers to your new take on an old concept. “Nobody wants to do business with a business that tries to be something for everybody,” asserts Gardner. Granted, tell Wal-Mart that, but she’s right. Stores known for having a little bit of everything thrive because the stakes aren’t too high for customers shopping for soap, cat food or a lawn chair. But as a general rule, the more someone is spending on an item, the more likely they are to seek out a specialized business.

Take buying a house, for example. Garry Aloia is an owner and managing partner of My First Home, a business that caters specifically to first-time homebuyers. Aloia, who also co-owns parent company New State Mortgage, came up with the idea when he realized that because agents are driven by commissions, “human nature takes over. If there’s a bigger commission involved, that customer gets more attention,” he says.

First-time home buyers–who make up about 40 percent of the home buying market–are often purchasing smaller residences and are likely getting less attention, reasons Aloia. To remedy the situation, Aloia’s My First Home, based in Merrilville, Indiana, near Indianapolis, employs real estate agents who are paid higher salaries–25 percent more than the average agent–but who don’t receive commissions. Aloia doesn’t see his business as a traditional real estate office, but rather as a home-buying educational and assistance center. The office is even set up to look like a home, complete with a fireplace and coffee. The company offers seminars to first-home buyers, as well as advice and tools to help them figure out what their monthly budget should be after they move in.

What Aloia’s business is doing is what all entrepreneurs, whether veteran or novice, ultimately should be doing. “I try to put my feet in the shoes of the customer,” says Aloia. “I ask myself, ‘How can I make their life better and simpler?’”

Modernizing the Wheel
Some business models only need to be slightly tweaked to appeal to the modern consumer. Want to update the traditional dentist office? Put it on wheels. While cleaning teeth is an industry almost as old as, well, teeth, putting an office in a van that can travel anywhere from giant corporate campuses to nursing homes is a much more recent concept. The rise of mobile dentist offices in the last few years shows that catering to people’s busy and complicated lives is a nearly surefire way to improve upon an old concept.

Then there’s the Pearson Ford Fuel Depot in San Diego, which has received a lot of attention for its one-of-a-kind gas station that offers a full range of clean-burning alternative fuels from ethanol to BioWillie, a type of biodiesel made from soybeans and promoted by singer Willie Nelson. Gas stations may be becoming synonymous with global warming, but by offering an alternative, this fueling station has managed to drum up publicity while serving an emerging niche market.    

Capitalizing on consumers’ nostalgia is yet another potential approach. In true throwback fashion, State Street Barbers, located in Chicago and Boston, gives modern hair cuts to men in an environment decked out to look like a ritzy salon in the 1920s. Patrons are given a cold beverage when they walk in and can get a hot lather shave with a classic straight razor and hot towels.

In the end, it’s easier to be original and unique in an established industry like home selling or insurance when you have plenty of capital funding behind you; it’s another story if you’re running a fledgling startup in your parents’ basement, and you feel you have to take any client with a pulse and a wallet. But whether you’re a big fish in the ocean or a small one in the pond, the principles are always the same. If you’re going to tweak a formula, “throw out the way things have been done before,” advises Friedberg. “Figure out your end goal, and then forget about what all of the other people have done, and come up with a new way to do it.”

From | http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/businessideas/article174972.html