Choosing a CMS

It's been awhile since my last post and a lot has happened so lets catch up with the next step in the process. That step is choosing your content management system(CMS). For those of you who don't know what a content management system is, well then its really simple. A CMS is software that allows you to create a website or blog with requiring program knowledge.

There are many CMS systems out there such as wordpress, joomla, drupal just to name a few. So what do these systems do, well they manage your content. That being your posts, items sold, images, SEO and all things relative to the running of your website.

So which is the best and are they free? Well most of the popular CMS systems are opensource which means they are free and provide great opportunity to experiment. Each has its pro's and cons so deciding on a CMS is really relevant to what your intention is with your site.

Too cut straight to the chase I went with wordpress and I'll tell you why, its easy to use for a novice. My hosting company offers a one click installation, they offer this for many other CMS systems too but just thought I'd note this as you don't want to spend time trying to install software on the server if you don't need to.

From the articles I read it has better SEO than the like of Joomla when you start up, I'm sure this will only be a small advantage but considering that we are in a race to December then its worth noting. The final and probably best part is that it is free.

Once installed you have a host of free and paid for themes to customise your site as well as plug-ins to add further functionality to your site. It may not be the choice for you but it definitely does work for a large community of website creators from your novice to your professional web-developer.

I've installed wordpress and selected a theme and now it's time to learn the theme, add plug-ins and get this site running.

Choosing your hosting

Ok so you've got your idea and it looks like it could work for you, what's the next step? Well its time to select a hosting company, this is the company that will keep your site up and running 24/7. Its the place you'll be uploading your content to. There are a number of hosting companies out there so how do you select the company for you. There are a couple of things you need to consider:

1. Cost
2. Bandwidth allowances 
3. Disk space storage
4. Number of domains that can be managed from account
5. 1 click installation

So looking at the above I need to ascertain the most affordable solution that could provide most or reasonably all of the above services. I would recommend going to a local hosting company as this provides you with support consistent with your local operating hours. It also makes handling any issues easy.

The problem for me it wasn't possible to use a local host as my local hosting company although offering some excellent option with 1 click installations (which is essential) but they only offered a solution for 1 domain. Also disk space storage is limited as are bandwidth allowances.

So I ultimately went with hostgator.com, there baby plan offers exceptional value for money:

1. Monthly cost $7.96 (20% off) (month to month)
2. Unlimited Bandwidth
3. Unlimited Disk Space
4. Unlimited Domains
5. 1 click installation

So it had everything I wanted and in addition I was able to get an additional discount using the coupon "passivecomp" which gives a 25% discount off the normal price of the hosting.

So now to start getting my hands dirty, time has been short the last week as I am busy with other items but that's what I expect most people to be experiencing.

Evaluating your Niche

So how do I evaluate keywords to generate traffic? Well there are a couple of ways to do this and it entails either doing it manually by using Google or another search engine or using a tool. There are a few tools around but I must admit I've found Market Samurai to be extremely effective and provide extremely relevant information. Also a huge plus is that there is only a once off cost with no further subscription fees.

What you need to understand, after deciding on a niche, is that your niche needs to focus on specific keywords. The traffic and competition will determine how many visitors you can anticipate from Google if you can get to the first page or even better to number one.

So as I mentioned in my previous post I am looking at something to do with business, my gut feel was to start out with entrepreneurship. So thinking about a new entrepreneur, I started to think about what I would search for in Google and tried my hand with a couple of searches.

Trying to think like a would be entrepreneur I tried "how to start a business", I inserted this into Market Samurai and began the evaluation process. Market Samurai is a very effective tool its keyword research tool which allows you to generate similar keywords to the ones your looking for and analyse them to establish their viability.

Find below the results of my initial search :

From my initial evaluation you can immediately see that this is a search term with some decent traffic and an even nicer cost per click(what an advertiser would expect to pay and I could possibly earn). It also highlights what a number one ranked site in Google for this term could expect to earn but and there is a large but when you look at SEOC (namely competition) there are 1,280,000 competitors for this term.

So to our next evaluation from Market Samurai analysing your competition, by selecting the SEO Competition you are afforded with an opportunity to analyse the competition.

From the above you can see all the red and that means you're going to have a tough time to pushing your self up to the first page of Google. So this is where you keyword generation provides some amazing alternative options and is a great starting point to research favourable keywords. So after a couple of hours I think I've found the keywords I'm going to try focus "Why start a business".

If you are interested in Market Samurai you can download a free trial here and get a discounted price http://marketsamurai.com/c/webchallenge also if you'd like some more details on how to use Market Samurai let me know in the comments and I'll try post some details.

In my next post I'll be sharing my hosting selection and a little more about my niche.

Choosing your Niche

So it's niche time!! Where do you start and how do you select a domain that will serve some traffic to you? That is the key "traffic", there really isn't any point in creating a site that that serves a very small amount of traffic. The other item to consider is competition having a subject you're passionate about, keywords that are highly trafficked, means nothing if you have stiff competition. So how do you evaluate these criteria after you've found a subject your passionate about?

When your looking for a niche you want to evaluate the following items for the keywords you select and whether they have:
1) Reasonable Traffic
2) Little or weak competition
3) Decent cost per click

So how did I find my niche and evaluate whether it was appropriate well I'll share that with you now. Firstly as I indicated in my last post I looked at what I'm passionate about and formulated some ideas.

1) Business
2) Sports
3) Online Gaming
4) Photography
5) Mountain biking
And so on......

So you can see I formulated some basic passions and then began to start looking for a niche within them. I focused on business as its my bread and butter, my daily work entails advising and consulting small to medium business. So this was a topic I felt I could offer a little more to. Entrepreneurship is something I feel particularly passionate about and having a large number of friends currently in the process of starting a business and regularly asking for advice I thought I could focus on this.

This is where I began my journey.

Where to start?

So you're joining us on the challenge, the big question is where do you start and what exactly does this all entail? As I said in my last post I am no web developer so this is a learning curve. Before I continue let me say upfront if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme look somewhere else. The reason being that this endeavour is probably not going to make you a Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page. What it will do is assist you with the fundamentals of running a small business and monetising your operation and earning some extra income.

So back to the crux of this post where to start? Before you start dabbling in the web development, graphics and plugins you need to get down and dirty and do the bulk of work for this project. Yes the bulk and most important part of this assignment! What may that be? That's is select your niche!!

Selecting your website niche and ultimate content is the decision that will stand you in good or bad stead for the remainder of your project. So taking the time to actively research and analyse your niche and the potential success is imperative. 

As I mentioned earlier as nice as the idea sounds of earning an income from a passive source sounds, you’re not the first person to come up with the idea and you won't be the last. So don't get caught up in something that you’re not willing to commit some time too.

So that brings me to how I will be selecting my niche, firstly you should take a look at what you're passionate about. There is nothing better than working on something that you really take an interest in, something that can keep you focused when you could be doing something else. So take a look at your life and see what you’re passionate about. Write them down and review them. Then comes the interesting part time to spin these passions.

Are you a sporting fanatic, or an undercover physicist, well time to look at your passion and ask what can you take out of this passion? The first thing you know is that whatever you're interested in, chances are someone else is too. So start with this and begin the process of searching for your niche. 

Once you have an idea you can start the next step which is analysing the market demand and traffic namely the income potential. Then you can start with all the technical stuff.

So the list of where we're going:

1) Find a niche

2) Research the viability of the niche

3) Decide on a host and a content management system

4) Design and create your site

5) Begin your SEO

6) Monetise your site

7) Add content and grow your base

In my next post I'll detail how I found a niche that I think could work for me.

The Challenge!

And I was hooked! Yes those 6 words that anyone with a competitive vein in their body can't ignore, "Are you up for a challenge?". Well thanks to +Jevon Coffin-Grey I've taken up the mantle to try the passive income compo. 5 months to build a site that generates $10 of profit a day, sound easy? Well if your up to it give it a go. For all the details you can check out Jev's blog passiveincomecompo.blogspot.com .

So what do I know about building a passive income generating site? Absolutely nothing and thats why this blog might be relevant to you. I am not a developer, IT guru or engineer, what I am is a someone that likes to learn something new(and a little bit of competition). I come from an accounting background and business centric atmosphere, I'm hoping those skills stand me in good stead in the months to come.

So the challenge is simple build a site and make some money, but what does that really entail? I will try detail everything I can as I progress down this path so first things first where to start?