Small Business Resources

Have you ever gone down a list of resources for 'make money', 'investing' and 'business start up' only to find that the good ones are gone? Here are a few friends I've made over the summer. Each one has taught me something.

Learn how to start an email marketing campaign that works - for less than $100. www.waystogetnoticed.com is full of articles to help you build an email list, and market emails. This isn't another email list generating company or an affiliate website. The owner of this site actually owns an email marketing host site. He teaches the 'inside' info on email marketing.

Marc S. is a creative director in a NY advertising agency. He has three websites. If you want a NY ad agency to make your logo, website or help with a marketing campaign then visit www.virtualadagency.com, if you have a new business and want to network
www.scrappyupstarts.com , and if you want the inside scoop on advertising then visit www.madisontomain.com.

Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News. The website was 'down' for the summer but it is back up now.

If you want to learn the 'ins and outs' of investing in Forex, property, or stocks without feeling pressured to buy, then visit www.getrich.net. Ray has a great website with more than 100 articles to help you learn 'how to invest smart.'

These will help you get started. If you want to follow me, I am SmBiz99 at twitter.

We are tearing the walls down on our house. I can look right out the walls in some places. I have no storage. I can't wait until the insulation is done and we have drywall gain. Then I'll feel like I am living in a house.

Logo Design for Small Business

A business can be started free, but it takes money to run a business. In Theory, all successful businesses invest a minimum of 20% of their budget into advertising. The higher this number, the more money is made. But, there are some base elements of advertising that must be considered before starting an ad campaign.

Logo Design

Step #1 is the logo design. Now, this blog helps writers get started for free, and that is okay. But, there are some things you should never do free, and the logo is one.

The logo design speaks to consumers using the same communication styles as body language. It creates an image and list of expectataions that the consumer either needs, or will ignore.

Take a look at this professional logo design company. Take a good look at each of the logos. Some build credibility. Others are friendly. Some ask for the sale. You won't like all of them, but each will cause an emotional response, even if it is to ignore the logo.

Now, go to a free logo design service, and see if you get the same reaction. The thing with a professional logo design is that it doesnt' appeal to everyone - just the company's target Consumer Audience, and potential customers.

Review: Host Gator

I've spent more than five months looking for a new place to put my blogs. I have more than 20 blogs on blogger, wordpress, and drupal. I wanted a place where I could put them all - even the ones with their own domain names.

At siteground I needed a new account for each blog. It wasn't really that I hated paying $300 a year for hosting. I made that back in 2 weeks as a Paid Blogger. The problem was that I had to access 20 different statistic sites, and manage 20 different dashboards.



I moved to hostgator. They allow unlimited domains, so all of my blogs and websites are on one Cpanel for $7.99. That is a $292 savings a year. Plus, I have unlimited sub domains, for improving search engine optimization. And I can also establish more than one PHP list, so I can satisfy all my members.

I have been at siteground, Netfirms, and on a couple of small hosting companies over the last year. I give HOSTGATOR

10/10 on knowledgeable service

10/10 on ease of set up

10/10 on 'keeping site up' (a website needs to hog 25% of the CPU for 90 seconds before they bring it down.)

10/10 on price
10/10 service
10/10 support


Learn more about blogging and making money online at wealthy-writer website.

Avoid Free Domain Name Offers

Almost every web host, forum host, or blog host now offers free domain names. Even other sources such as Paid Post services offer free domain names. I’ve been hit hard 2 or 3 times by these free domain sites.

The deal is great for the first year. After that, you’ll pay much more to review the domain than godaddy.com will charge. I’ve had bills as high as $40 per year to renew.

I learned the second lesson the hard way. When you leave, the domain doesn’t leave with you. I worked hard to promote one domain. The company promised to transfer the domain for months. After a year I gave up trying to get the domain that I’d worked up to PR4 and was now ‘aged.’ I continued to try and buy the domain and watched for it to expire. Eventually, it was sold for $4000 to a company in Italy.

All my link building work was lost. My loyal visitors were going to another site. My friend’s links lead to another website.

There is a saying that nothing is free. This goes for domain names. A website’s entire success can hinge on its domain name. Losing this because you need to change web host, or need a larger host, can cripple a website, or even force a webmaster to start over again.


Learn more about blogging and making money online at wealthy-writer website.

Socialspark: Three Types Advertising

Posts: The posts work in the same way as all posts – sort of. The entire system is designed to balance the number of bloggers looking for a post, and the price offered. The objective here is 100% on the advertiser’s side. The only ‘bonus’ the blogger receives is the ability to sign up to wait for that advertiser’s next campaign or release of posts.

When signing up for SocialSpark, use an email addy that accessed every day. The email states that you have 6 hours to finish the post. Many posters are finding that you have 12. That is fairly tight, and may be designed to give the advantage to pro bloggers.

You’ll still need to ‘haunt’ SocialSpark and catch the new opportunities as soon as they surface. There are not many yet. Hopefully the number will grow.

Sponsored: These are the pop-up boxes that appear when a website is first opened. The price fluctuates, but the blogger is paid daily. This type of format is optional, so no blogger has to stay away from SocialSpark because they fear the pop-ups.

I don’t think that the sponsored ops will cause problems for anyone but bloggers who buy traffic. I know that my traffic generating venue does not allow pop-ups.

Spark: This is one of the biggest bonuses. Sparks create a blogger network.

Bloggers can post their own ops to bring it to the attention of other bloggers. Some of the opportunities are BlogUback, which trades links. Some of them are just typical cyber-spam, but there are some great chances to earn some good back links.

This is a great way to get reviews of your blog in return for reviews of other blogs. The problem? Are these considered posts? Will the Advertisers consider them paid posts? If so, then they kind of lose their value. I have contacted support. I’ll post their answer shortly.

It is important to note that Sparks are unpaid. They are great for people to ‘learn the system’ and get into practice without risking a negative vote.

FREE Place to Advertise Your Business

Everyone knows that building links is one of the hardest parts of ecommerce business management. Anyone who wants their domains to receive traffic need to earn a profit and watch your business grow, knows that web advertising can be impossible. This problem doubled for tens-of-thousands of business owners when Google doubled their price.

Google hates paid linking, but for many websites, the only way to build the thousands of posts necessary for success is to pay bloggers to write a post for your business. It doesn’t really matter if they review your product or service. All that matters is whether they include a keyword anchored link.

Until now, the ad agencies controlled all the campaigns. IZEA recently released a new platform that lets Advertisers control the campaigns. An advertiser may put a campaign out for bloggers to vote on. Or, they may hand pick bloggers. Do you only want bloggers who will write reviews? Do you only have enough money for 50 posts? Do you only want your link on blogs that are in your niche? It doesn’t matter anymore. You can pick and choose. It doesn’t cost anything to sign up for IZEA’s SocialSpark. The system (the evolution of PayPerPost) is one of the best on the net. www.socialspark.com

There is a type of advertising where you can get FREE ADVERTISING by exchanging reviews with bloggers. Take a look