When internet marketing first surfaced I truly didn’t understand the money that could be made and the success that could be found. If I am correct it was Amazon that was one of the first to believe it could work. The thought of using a force of people driving traffic to their website would result in having an increase in their overall sales. The results were phenomenal and absolutely blew them out of the water. They couldn’t believe what was taking place.

It probably doesn’t need to be said that hundreds and thousands of people have found success since it’s inception. Internet marketing has become a real force and it has never been easier to make an exceptional income right from your home. I started my own home-based internet business and limited my commute to walking from the kitchen or bedroom to the computer in my office. My office is our son’s former bedroom that we converted into my work area. The stress that was eliminated there is just one of the benefits of working from home. No more long periods of time in traffic that used to be spent commuting back and forth. I now have more time to spend with family and friends doing some of the things I have always wanted to do.

There are some downsides to making money on the web. One of the main problems is finding that legitimate program that offers not only the product to sell but it offers the support needed for their members to succeed. Many companies out there have taken advantage of a lot of people because they know one thing. People have a tendency to not complete the tasks at hand unless they have a solid written plan that will help them succeed. Many programs lack the follow through providing the support one needs to be successful. I like many others have purchased programs that sound great and promise great wealth but we have never received the support needed to succeed.

Many of the programs out there offer websites but then they advise you that you need to find a product to sell and then proceed to sell it. Other programs want you to make your website, like I had any clue on how to do that, and then they will let you sell their products but they stop short in telling you how to do that. These programs talk about support for you but then they don’t follow through in their offer. They lack the followup in offering a plan to do so or it is so expensive that it is not affordable.

It is difficult, in today’s marketing world, to find a legitimate program that offers you that complete package to find success. After testing several programs and an extensive search I was able to find a program that does offer everything you need to find success with your own home-based internet business. The website is set up for you and the product is a quailty product that is totally transferrable. The benefits are for a wide range of prospects but better yet there is the total support needed for even the newbie to find success with their own home-based internet business.

Yes you can make money on the web. It does take a total commitment to reaching your goals. It takes a willingness to put forth the effort and time needed to be a success. Let me assure you that the benefits of owning your own home-based internet business totally outweigh the risk and work that it takes to be successful. For the serious entrepeneur seeker there is a program out there that offers the total package and with commitment to your goals you can find success. I recommend it to anyone looking for an internet business.

To purchase Wealthy Affiliate can be a life altering decision but it’s one you have to make on your own.

Wealthy Affiliate is a vast group of online marketers that go out of their way to help others succeed at getting their business to the next level.

Even though the support you get from the forum at WA is well worth the monthly membership fee, they also give you everything else you will need to be successful at Internet Marketing. From top of the line training to free domain hosting.

If you decide to purchase Wealthy Affiliate you will have access to an eight week training program that will take you from a newbie at Internet marketing to an experienced marketer.

The eight week course allows you to build a solid foundation in both free and paid methods of marketing. When you are just starting out it is advisable to use free methods of marketing but as you get more comfortable with Internet marketing you should incorporate both in your business.

This is a small sample of what you will learn in Wealthy Affiliate 8 week course:

How to find niches that are profitable

How to find profitable keywords that are targeted to a buying audience

How to use SEO to get higher listings in the search engines

How to get the most out of your articles

What you need to do to make Squidoo len’s work for you

From the beginning to the end, how to set up a winning PPC campaign

How to set up your landing page so that you can spend less per click with PPC

How to set up squeeze page

Plus much more

The eight week course is designed to get you making money quickly while building a solid foundation for your Internet business so you can achieve success for many years to come.

Wealthy Affiliate is aware that the Internet is always changing. They give you all of the tools you will need, the best forum online and the insight as to what is working on the internet right now, not what worked last year.

You have two options in regards to using your own hosting account which allows you to have your own domain name such as yourdomainname.com or using the hosting provided by The 30 Day Challenge which would look something like yourkeyword.topicster.com

Registering a Domain

If you are serious about starting an online business it is highly recommended to purchase your own domain. It only costs around $10 a year to register a domain so it isn’t going to break the bank and over time that domain will increase in value providing you continue to promote it. You also have full control over what content you add to your site and don’t have to be concerned with having your account deleted and losing all of your content if it is hosted elsewhere.

It is recommended that you add your main keyword to your domain. For example if the niche you are targeting is ‘titanium golf clubs’ then your domain name should be something like titaniumgolfclubs.com. If the domain you are after is taken do not add numbers i.e. titaniumgolfclubs123.com or dashes titanium-golf-clubs.com because that looks spammy to the search engines. Try something like titaniumgolfclubreviews.com or toptitaniumgolfclubs.com. Lastly don’t try and stuff too many keywords into your domain because that also appears spammy.

www.namecheap.com is the service I use to register my domains.

Hosting Your Site

Once you have your own domain you will also need to find somewhere to host your site. Hosting varies greatly in price depending on how much information you wish to store and how much bandwidth your site is going to use. Fortunately to run a blog you do not need a lot of space or bandwidth therefore a basic plan is perfectly OK. You can also upgrade your account at any time if you need to.

The hosting service which Ed recommends is www.hostgator.com which I also have used and highly recommend. The $7.95 a month plan is the recommended plan as it allows you to host as many domains as you wish however like I just mentioned you can go for the $4.95 plan if you only wish to have one site and upgrade at any time to add additional sites.

Installing and Configuring WordPress

Now that you have your domain and host set up you will want to install WordPress. You can install WordPress yourself by using Fantastico which you will find in cPanel or you can use the service which Ed recommends called WordPress Direct. The advantage of using WordPress Direct is that it installs several plug-ins and makes optimizations to WordPress which would otherwise have to be done manually. It also comes with 1,500 themes which you can choose from which again saves you from having to find and install it yourself.

The free subscription of WordPress Direct allows you to install up to 3 blogs and the paid service allows you to install up to 15. Most 30 Day Challengers wouldn’t require more than 3 blogs as you only need one per niche market therefore the free service is perfectly fine.

Today’s Videos

Awesome Software And Domains

A video showing you how to register your own domain name.

How To Setup Your Own Hosting

Dan goes through the process of setting up your hosting account at Hostgator.

Install A Blog With WordPressdirect

Ed shows how to set up a WordPress Blog using WordPress Direct.

Add Content And Publish Blog

GuruBob shows how to add content to your WordPress site installed with WordPress Direct.

Summary of Day 6

WordPress is a great blogging platform and has been pretty much the industry standard system for affiliate marketers due to how well they perform in the search engines and the ease of use. If you are serious about starting an online business then I highly recommend getting your own domain and hosting account.

See you on day 7!