Ricky’s Online Business Blog

I met up with an existing hosting customer on a potential Internet marketing project for their business.  As we discussed, we discovered unexpectedly a new Internet business idea that we could start in joint venture.  It’s good to meet new people to get stimulated on new ideas!

Anyway, I was asked how to rank their web site higher in search engines.  These three areas below are what was shared:

Targeted keywords – Determine first what keywords you want your customers to search on to find you.  Expand your list of potential keywords to include all possibilities.  Use a keywording tool to find out the popularity and competitiveness of these keywords.  Then choose your keywords depending on your targeted positioning in the market.

Search engine friendly web site – Develop your web site in a way that is search engine friendly, one which can be easily included by Google and other search engines.  For example, your web site should not make excessive use of Flash, graphics, animations and frames.  Add meta tags like the important page title tags.  The use of Google Sitemap is also recommended.

Content is still the king – Don’t try to cheat Google with fancy tactics.  Their engineers are much more sophisticated than us and we can get banned doing that.  Instead, work on developing excellent content around your selected keywords.  Even create articles and resources so interesting that other sites want to link to you voluntarily.  The more incoming links you have, the better off you are.  This is link-baiting.

These tips are by no means exhaustive.  How do you position yours in search engines?  Do correct me or add in your own opinion.

Over the recent years, social networking web sites have fast become major going places for Internet users. Ten years ago there were not many people using email as yet. But now if you pick ten youngsters, chances are nine of them are on Friendster! By the way, many adults must be wondering why the younger generation nowadays like to express and publish themselves so much on the Internet!

I joined Friendster rather late in 2004 after being invited by others. Then I joined a couple of others including Facebook. But I tended to brush off these sites as those through which we can get to know friends, boys and girls.  Young people with a lot of free time may enjoy it.  But not so much for those who are busy with work and business.

But my perception started to change after I read about and subsequently joined LinkedIn. It is not for dating boys and girls but for serious professionals and businesspeople to meet one another online. It is one of the best effective networking tools available on the Internet. I find it quite useful to:

• Get to know others in business and profession, even from other industries.
• Meet real people, not those fake profiles on many other social networking web sites.
• Learn about others’ background before meeting up in person.
• Expand your social and professional networks.
• Get to know whom to contact when I want to start a new venture, find out about one company, or enquire for one product or service.
• Get referrals and recommendations from others on you.
• Keep in touch and follow up with those you have met offline.
• Build credibility and reputation online.

Please pay a visit my LinkedIn page at http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickysoo. Million thanks also to those who recommended me on LinkedIn!

I definitely recommend LinkedIn to any serious professional and businesspeople.  Are you not on LinkedIn too?  Why not?

In view of rising fuel and living costs nowadays, do you earn enough to maintain your current lifestyle? A fixed income job will not be able to catch up with the inflation.

Instead of thinking how to save on this and that to reduce expenses, why not think how to earn more income?

And instead of thinking of taking a second or part-time job, why not build your multiple sources of income by Internet business?

A successful Internet business can potentially earn you very good income. Let’s forget our beloved Facebook’s 24-year old billionaire founder Mark Zuckerberg for now. It may be too far-fetched.

How about just a modest RM10,000 or RM20,000 income per month? There are already many technopreneurs and bloggers earning five figure income in Malaysia. It is doable!

The good news is, once you put in place the system (business, marketing and technical), some parts of the business can be automated by software! Some Internet businesses can even run by itself! Thus freeing your time to build other Internet businesses, or just enjoy!

The problem is, is Internet business for everyone? Frankly, no. Some of us will not make through the initial stage of learning and experimenting. Some also do not possess the business acumen (Internet business is still a business!), unless we resolve to learn.

But there are still many of us who can make a small fortune on the Internet but are not doing so. Why?

Besides our own choice (not willing to learn etc.) and excuses (no time etc.), there is just a lack of resources. Where to learn how to do business on Internet?

No it’s not right. There are lots of resources out there especially on the Internet where we can educate ourselves. But for a total beginner, where to start? There is too much information!

And reading alone is not sufficient. Building Internet businesses is faster by learning from and leveraging upon others’ experiences. So here comes coaching.

However, Internet coaching can cost us a bomb! RM10,000 to teach me how to build online business? Some may be able to pay that price. But how about the rest of us?

Why not we help ourselves? Why not organize ourselves in group so that we can learn from one another? It is to be a peer learning network of like-minded people who want to make it big on the Internet.

Each learning and sharing session can focus on one topic. We may invite a speaker. But even without a speaker, we still can share among ourselves. We will be coaches to one another. We don’t have to be alone in building our Internet dreams.

No, we won’t have to pay much to get together for a sharing session. Maybe we just share the costs of the meeting place rental and food refreshment. Is this not OK?

And who knows we might strike some deal or enlist a business partner through such networking session among peers?

Let’s not suffer in such inflationary times. Let’s do something together! Let’s start a self-help Internet business peer learning club. What do you think?