The Internet As Your Personal Warm Market (Part 2)

If you haven’t read Part 1, please do yourself a favor and do so before digging into this article.

In part 1, we discussed the 10,000-foot overview of how to convert the Internet into your personal warm market. Remember, I told you it takes a little work, some consistent action and a plan. It also takes either some personal skills such as HTML and copywriting or “out-sourcing”. Out-sourcing is by far, the easiest way to get a lot of this stuff done and each point we discuss, I will cover both the do-it-yourselfer method and the out-sourced method.

Before we begin though, you need to understand a few terms. In fact, I will be introducing new terminology throughout these lessons. Don’t worry, we will take it slow. Get out your business journal or notebook and let’s get started¦

Some Terms You Need To Know

If you already know these terms, skip on ahead. This section is for the web newbie or a refresher for people who haven’t done anything on the web in a while.

Capture Page: A single page website whose purpose is to capture a web surfer’s contact info such as first name and email address. It can be a free eBook you are giving away or a request for more information about your business or a sign up for a teleseminar or webinar. There will be a ‘form’ on the web page that the web surfer completes and sends to you with the ’submit’ button. This type of web page is also called a Landing Page, Gateway Page or Squeeze Page.

Teleseminar: A phone conference call whose purpose is to teach something or inform the callers. It allows 2 - 999 different callers to call into the same conversation.

Webinar: A web based conference, very similar to a teleseminar with the added benefit of being able to share a desktop on the moderator’s computer. In other words, people on the webinar, can see the moderator’s computer as he or she surfs the web or uses some type of software.

HTML: The computer language or code used to produce a website. It instructs the client machines (the computer the web surfer is using) how to ‘render’ the text in their browser. In other words, what words to make bold, what the bullet points look like, what color to make the fonts and background and basically the appearance of the content on your web page. This part can be out-sourced to someone who knows the language to save you time. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, I will show you everything you need to know. If you plan to out-source it, I will show you the specifications you can just hand off to the person who will be doing it.

Domain: This sounds a little intimidating, but it is really just a fancy name of the ‘web address’ you will host your web site on. There are services like GoDaddy.com and Register.com where you can find and buy a domain name. Some examples of domain names are IBM.com, Google.com, Blogger.com and NowYouAreTalking.com. Although the web surfer can just type the ‘name’ in the address bar, it resolves to an actual IP address.

IP Address: An IP address is a series of 4 sets of numbers that represent the physical address of someone on the world wide web. My IP address, for example, is 71.218.34.210. Since a series of numbers is hard to remember, technology evolved to allow the Domain names to be resolved into these numbers. This makes it easy to ‘give out’ a web address. Can you imagine trying to tell someone your web address like this… “To visit my site, go to 71 dot 218 dot 34 dot 210.  Only the super geeks would ever find their way there. It is much easier to say “To visit my site, go to www.MySite.com”.

DNS Server: Another term that sounds worse than it is, DNS Servers are the computers that “resolve” the domain name into a physical address or IP. When you register your domain name, they will provide you with the DNS Named Servers you should use so you won’t have to do too much with this. This is the tool that allows your IP address to be reached by typing something a non-geek can remember.

Okay, I realize that some of these terms are quite technical and maybe a little scary. Trust me, you don’t really need to understand them intimately. I introduce them here in case I say one of them during the course of these lessons. I want you to be able to follow along the conversation without stubbing your toe on a term.

Okay, let’s get started, shall we?

You already know that 80,000 people are surfing the Internet monthly for some type of work from home business. Since network marketing is such a good fit, you want to ‘position’ yourself so that when they search for a business opportunity, your web page is one of the options presented. But first, you have to build the web page for them to find. You also have to get a domain name and a hosting account. A hosting account is you — buying some ’space’ on the Internet where you can ’store’ your web page. Let’s cover each of these in more detail.

Your Domain Name

First and foremost, you need to pick a domain name. Remember, this is what the web surfer types to get to your web page directly, or what is displayed when they arrive from some other method, like a link from a Google Ad (more on this later). Before I show you exactly how to get a domain name, we need to give some thought to what that name should be. The web is a big place, full of existing web sites that have domain names.

A good domain name should tell the web surfer what to expect, before they read the first word of your site. It should compliment your mission of explaining what you have to offer. It should be short and/or easy to remember. And it should make sense. What you don’t want to do it have a domain name like FredsAutoService.com when you are offering a business opportunity for direct sales of nutritional products. It doesn’t match. It will ruin your credibility before you even have a chance to speak to them. So, don’t reuse a domain name you already have, get one that tells the surfer what you are offering.

I mentioned earlier that there are a lot of good domain names already in use, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find one that works for you. Register.com has a feature that will help you locate a good name or at least give you ideas. Also plan to use a thesaurus to help you find other words that mean the same thing in the event the domain name you really really want is taken. Here is a supplemental video showing you exactly how to use this service.

I created a full-size video here video showing you how to use Register.com’s advanced domain search feature.

Hosting Account

Once you have a domain name selected, it’s time to get a hosting account. There are lots of options available, but I prefer IX Web Hosting. It’s not expensive, they have live support both by phone and online chat (immediate, I love that feature), they offer plans that allow you to have unlimited sub domains, email accounts and they also support Wordpress blogs (which we will cover later). I pay about $6.95 a month, but they offer a discount if you purchase the year in advance.

Now, what the hell is a hosting account?

I knew you were gonna ask that. This part is simple to explain, but might be hard to understand. A hosting account rents you space on a dedicated server where you can store your web pages. It also gives you email accounts that match your domain name. For example, the NussentialsSuccessSecrets.com domain also comes with unlimited email accounts so I can setup Cenay@NussentialsSuccessSecrets.com or Articles@NussentialsSuccessSecrets.com. Although I don’t have to use the domain specific email account, it does add a bit of professionalism for me. It also gives me some free traffic from everyone who receives an email from me and then types in the domain name in their web browser just to see what is going on. And believe me, a lot of people do that. You probably have yourself. A hosting account comes with a lot of things like databases built in, web site generators (for some hosting providers), a FTP panel that allows you to send your files up to their server and a lot that we won’t cover here today. (FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and is the method you use to send and receive files from your “web site”). Suffice to say, you need a hosting account and IX Web Hosting is one of the best.

Once you get to their site, look around some to see what your options are. I recommend the Business Plus plan. This is the one I have used for years. I did recently upgrade to the Unlimited Pro plan, but the number of domain’s I am managing have taken a big jump recently. The Business Plan offers everything you will need and then some. If you only need one or two domains, you can get the Expert Plan.

There are other hosting companies out there, but I would stay away from any located overseas such as M6. I used them for a while, but after they lost all my data and web pages for the third time, I shopped around and found IX. With M6, there was a language barrier, different time zones and a lack of help when things went wrong. I have been with IX for 3 years now and not a single problem. If you trust me enough to just go with IX Web Hosting, you won’t be sorry.

Now that you have your very own hosting account, what do you do with it? We will cover that in Part 3.

Continue with Part 3