Nota Bene Consulting

As part of my extra curricular activity, I have been learning all about the finer points of internet marketing. One such guru I have been following for a while now is ‘Viral Video Genius’, Kevin Nalts.

I see video blogging as the way forward and, while I have not yet experiemented myself, I think it is unavoidable that you will see me in a video soon. For now though, I will continue to learn how to harness the power of the viral video and you can expect to see some in the not too distant future.

This is Nalts’ latest video, on why he became a marketer!

For more from Kevin, you can find him on his youtube channel…just search ‘Nalts’.

Now get out there and vlog!

PR Update - September 2008

I have just had some great news regarding page rank, and am please to announce that my hard work behind the scenes has paid off; we are less than a week into the site going live and have just been given a PR2. The news gets even better, as some of the sites I have been preparing to flip have also gained page rank!

If you have been readying some sites for sale it might now be a good time to check your page rank. I know how excited people get around this time so I will make it easy for you.

Check Your Page Rank Here

Did you have any luck? Let me know below…

Entrecard Is For Sale!

Thats right, Entrecard is for sale! Personally I have not used Entrecard for sometime now but I am sure that each and every one of you knows what it is. The work of young internet entrepreneur, Graham Langdon, is now being listed for auction and I want this to be an example to you all. Here is a guy that had a great idea and really put thought, time, effort and no doubt blood, sweat and tears into his site. Going the extra mile and driving for levels of success unimaginable to the average joe blogs site flipper or mmo blogger of today.

Putting aside the fact that Entrecard is - or is not - a good website to purchase, I want to draw your attention to the sales page for this site. Graham proves himself, to me, as a young lad with great ambition and has proven himself down to the very last. The level of detail in this sales page is far and above anything I have seen on sitepoint recently and, were it not for the asking price, I would buy it myself based on that alone.

Can you see the difference it makes to go that extra mile?

I wish Graham every success in both the sale of Entrecard and whatever his next venture may be. I only wish that more of you out there would strive for such levels of excellence and success. Take some pride in your work, don’t cut corners and start looking for more than your next quick buck!

My Question To You…

Do you have what it takes? Are you passionate about blogging, site flipping or whatever it is you are doing to try and turn a profit online? I often wonder about the owners of a lot of blogs I read and question whether it is a hobby that they hope might pay, or a business being built; do they have the vision and drive to take it to the levels required to actually quit that day job, or are they just another pipe dreamer that the mmo world is so full of?

I know which one Graham Langdon is….which one are you?

With a reported 80,000 new blogs starting everyday, and a number of well known bloggers earning substantial amounts of cash every month, you are no doubt wanting a piece of the action for yourselves?! But where do you start?

The good news is that starting your own self-hosted wordpress blog has been made both cheap and very easy to do; there is also untold amounts of information on this subject available online.

What we aim to do here is give you a simple, step by step instruction to get your wordpress blog up and running. In doing so, I also want to cover a few pointers that, as a new starter, you will be forgiven for not knowing.

Don’t Rush Into Anything At This Stage!

The first point I would like to make you aware of is not to rush into anything at this stage. By putting some effort into the intial stages of the process, you will eliminate problems further down the line. Contrary to poular belief, the first step is not to buy your domain name!

Step One To Starting A New Blog - Research

What you need to do before buying anything is to DO YOUR RESEARCH!

Of the 80,000 or so blogs that are starting everyday, amongst other things, a great majority of them fail through lack of planning! You need to do some ground work, and by that I mean that you will need to have a good idea as to why you are blogging and what you are going to blog about.

Starting A New Blog - Things to consider!

1. What are you intentions? - Is this going to be a personal blog, a  make money online blog or a blog focussed on a specific niche?
2. Have you done your research? - Is there a big enough market and is it already saturated by millions of other bloggers? Is there enough interest in your subject matter?
3. What competition will you be facing? - Too much competion will lead to you starting on the back foot, giving you LOTS of extra work to do in order to be successful.

Do some initial brainstorming and then try doing some research on your proposed ideas using the wordtracker keyword tool - you can find this in our free resources. This will give you a rough idea as to how many people are searching for your subject matter; be creative and try a number of related words and phrases! As you progress, you will come to learn that keyword research is an essential part of being successful online and, while most overlook it, I find it quite addicitive.

In doing thorough research you will have already put yourself ahead of about 90% of new bloggers who have simly chosen to jump right into things. So, moving onto the next step, it is time to get your new site.

Step Two To Starting A New Blog - Buying Your Domain Name

Now that you have a good idea as to what you are going to blog about, the next thing you need to do is secure your own domain name.  A common mistake to make here would be to do a random google search for cheap domains and buy from the one you thing offers the best deal- this will again lead to problems further down the line if you are not getting the service you require.

When I first got started I bought domains willy nilly and, as my online presence grew, I ended up with domains registered here, there and everywhere. I have since tried and tested a number of different companies and settled on one as my favourite by far. I spent a lot of money transferring all my domains to this firm and now have complete control of all my domain names under one reliable account.

Buying Your Domain

1. Go to Go Daddy.com and search to see if your domain is available. You may find it is already taken and will therefore have to try alternatives.
2. Find the domain you want and purchase it - you will be required to complete your details and set up an account.
3. You will be asked if you want additional extras but at this stage you do not have to add anything else, though I do recomend you pay a little extra for domain privacy.
4. Look out for your confirmation email containing your login details - you will need these later.

Congratulations, you now own your very own domain name!

Step Three To Starting A New Blog - Website Hosting

So, you have secured your brand spanking new domain name and are now ready to share it with the world wide web. The next step is to actually host your account!

This is quite a talking point amongst those of us already online and I for one have had to learn by way of making my own mistakes. Having jumped into a hosting offer in my rushed attempt to get blogging, I suffered a whole host of problems with one company and was plunged ever closer to despair by an apparent lack of customer service and technical support. These are problems that you just don’t need!

Having spent a lot of money testing a number of hosting companies, I have again found one that I can whole heartedly recommend. It is cheap, reliable and thanks to a superb support team you will not suffer as I did.

Get Hosting

1. Go to Hostagator.com and order the hosting package to suit your requirements. We recommend the ‘Baby’ Package for new starters. This will give you ample server space and, with their unlimited domain hosting, room for growth.
2. On clicking ‘order now’ you will be asked if you want to register a new domain. You DO NOT want to, as we have already secured our domain name; instead select ‘I will use my existing domain’.
3. Enter your domain name and continue.
4. Select your biling cycle and then proceed to enter your billing details.
5. When you have checked out you will receive an email with your login and server details.

Step Four To Starting A New Blog - Hosting Your Domain

If you are anything like me, you will be impatiently waiting to get your site up and running at this point, and I assure you we are getting close. You have you domain name and you have your hosting account so the all we need to do is put them together.

For this next step you will need the information that you have been sent from both GoDaddy and Hostgator.

Setting Your Domain Name Servers

1. Go back to your GoDaddy Account and Login.
2. Once logged in, hover your cursor over the ‘domains’ option (top left on the green menu bar and select ‘my domains’.
3. Check the box next to you domain name (which you should now see in your control panel) and you will see a list of options becoming active on the menu bar just above.
4. Click on the option ‘Nameservers’ and then check the option ‘Custom Nameservers’.
5. Using the Domain Name Server information you received from Hostgator, enter the details into the first two nameserver boxes and click ‘ok’.

Your GoDaddy domain name will now be hosted on your Hostgator server space. Do allow up to 24hrs for the domain to propagate to your new server, though it is usually done much quicker. Your patience will be rewarded and, while you are waiting, I recommend you download an FTP program, which you will need soon. We use FileZilla which is available for free.

Do bookmark this page as a reference guide if you want to come back and follow this step by step. If you have reached this point already then you are ready to get started with installing wordpress on your site.

Nota Bene Consulting Is Going Live…..Sort Of!

I have had a tough month working behind the scenes to get this site ready, and while we are not 100% finished, public demand has driven me to ‘go live’ a little earlier than I had intended. So here we go!

The aim of this post is to give you a little taster of what is to come, a chance to familiarise yourself with the new site and also to gather your opinions and suggestions! It is important for us to know that our readers are happy and that they are getting what they want, but that being said, please do bear in mind the fact that the site is not entirely finished. Your suggestions will be noted and implemented wherever possible to fit with our own ideas.

Please also take the time to sign up for our RSS feed as we will shortly be posting our featured articles and case studies….I assure you, you do not want to miss them!

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Nota Bene…What’s that all about?

I’ve already had numerous comments about this, so I’ll address that for you now. Nota Bene is latin for ‘Note Well’, or a more fitting interpretation ’Take Note’. With that in mind we aim to give you information with which you should do exactly that.

I have been out of action on the blogging front for some time now and am really looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. For those of you who know me already,  I am all settled into the new apartment and life is returning to normal again. I am now ready to grow this site and help all you budding Internet Entrepreneurs along the way.

What’s The Plan?

This site was created with the good intentions of assisting Internet Entrepreneurs of all levels. After a good assessment of the current market I was somewhat perturbed by the fact that there are so very many blogs (especially in the ‘make money online’ sector) that were nothing more than copycat blogs, re-hashing the same information over and over in the same fashion.

After reading some great information on how 80% of traffic normally goes to 20% of your posts, I wanted to present all the really useful feature articles separately, saving you time in fishing through the blog to find what you want. In doing so, I hope to open the blog up as a communication channel which will cover a whole lot more than just ‘MMO’.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments section!

Thank You.