On the Countdown To Creating My Website

Lately I've been spending my time writing articles. I have set a goal to write and publish 1 article a week, and so far, 2 weeks running, I've achieved my goal. From a course I am reading (yes, more education!), the underlying lesson is to do well you must be able to create excellent content when working online. People come to the internet seeking something. Not to be sold, but to learn about something. If I want to be a success online, to be able to provide my visitors good, informative content, rich with keywords, I have to develop this skill.

The goal of writing also allows me to continue to put into practice some of the skills I learned from Honest Riches, such as article directory submission, linking to the articles from my signatures in forums and re-writing then submitting the articles to EzineArticles.

Another benefit to this goal is I am creating the good habit of having to brainstorm for article ideas, researching for keywords, creating story outlines and then actually producing the finished article and publishing it to my HubPages account.

If you have been reading some of my prior posts, you may remember that I did a lot of "learning by trial and error". During this phase I felt it was important to register a domain name for a review I was planning to write. After doing my research (you can find the results in the sidebar), GoDaddy.com was the least expensive/best reviewed site for registering my domain. Now, keep in mind that I was not planning to build a website with this domain, but to "re-direct" the address of one of my reviews so the URL would look more professional. Well, since I have begun writing regularly, I have been able to use both of my domains with articles.

Since beginning to experiment with all the facets I could from Holly's book, I feel like I've covered a lot of ground and benefited with a lot of experience. My thoughts keep returning to the ideas I have for my niche website, so that is where I am headed.

Before I begin my website, I've 3 courses to finish. A while ago I began a writing course, mostly geared towards writing a book, but some of the exercises are universal for any type of writing. With daily study this course will be completed this week. Next, I will complete my Affiliate Masters Course from SBI! From what I have read, there are a lot of research tools that are offered and by the end I will have a blueprint for my website! After that I want to do one more free e-book course, also from SBI! called Make Your Content Pre-Sell. Since websites are mostly about good content, I don't want to waste my time writing the site pages before I take advantage of what this course will teach me. Since the SBI e-books are totally free, I figure I have nothing to loose by studying them.

The timeline I imagine for beginning my website will be by May. It actually feels great to have a clear cut goal and timeline laid out. No more running around wondering what I will do. And since I have decided that I will be using SBI! (Site Build It!) to build my website, I'm not even stressing about whether or not I'll know how how to build it and bring in traffic. It's all part of what they offer.

Well, I just wanted to bring the blog up to date and note that other than a lot of reading and article writing, I'm expecting some quiet time ahead, little to no frustration, and no more feeling like I'm running behind. Since I have my own plan, I no longer feel like I'm behind the "crowd". No longer am I following, but I'm finally walking on my own path.

How Seeking Honesty Led Me To Honest Riches

Have you ever sat down to do a Google search on your computer, and when you finished and got up, were shocked to see how much time had passed? That's what happened to me when I started my search for a program that would teach me how to build an online business. It seemed to take forever. My results gave me a lot of sites that were close to what I was looking for, but usually they felt all hyped up and fake. A lot of my results led me to several blog sites and things called Ezine articles that promoted online courses. One such site even said that it was set up almost like a college course, which I liked. But then, when it said that it also gave you 15 personalized, hosted websites to help you make money online, I said "good-bye". In my mind if they are giving me 15 sites, then who says my sites are going to be any different from the other 15 sites another "student" has? And another. And, so on. This sounded like they were not really teaching how to build an online business, but more giving some basic information then supplying you with an online vehicle pre-destined to make THEM money, via you, the student. All said and done, I spent about 2 hours typing in variations on the phrase "course on how to build an online business". In doing all of this I learned something that I now use quite a lot. In one of my results I saw that a course was being reviewed, so I clicked on the link and was able to read a more refreshing perspective of the course I was considering, as compared to only what I had read on the courses product information page. I liked that. Getting an individuals thought's on the product. Just when I was about to head over to Amazon.com to try and find a book to order on this, I thought about adding the word "honest" to my search terms. When I hit enter and my new page of results appeared, I nearly could not believe my eyes. An official site called HONEST RICHES. The summary text below the main titled link read (this is a direct cut and paste of the text):

"How to Make Money Online. Resources, information, recommendations & HONEST legit advice and methods. What it takes, what is involved and how to do it"

Once I followed the link and read some of the product review, I was so excited. Everything I read sounded exactly like what I was seeking…a book that would teach me what I needed to learn, and how to apply it. Because of my earlier disappointments that I've written about in prior posts, I didn't buy right away. Using my handy little "review" trick, I searched all different ways to check out Honest Riches. I tried to find something bad about it, looking for a negative review, searching RipOffReport.com, even searching for some sites that rank and compare online products and programs. (I'd love to post links to some of the places I did my research, but in all my excitement, it never dawned on me to save any sites to My Favorites folder for later use.) After another couple of hours, I was convinced that Holly Mann's book was legit, popular and well received. It took all my discipline to hold off on buying the book right then. In fact, I made a vow to myself that I would actually wait 7 days before making any decision that would cost money. This was on August 3rd, 2008.

You might be wondering that if this book was so wonderful and exactly what I was looking for, then why on earth, after all the time and effort I had put in on everything, would I wait to buy the book and get started studying? Well, everything about the book felt right, to the point that I wasn't having to convince myself of anything just to feel ok about ordering the book. However, by waiting 7 days to give myself a "cooling off" period, I wanted to see if my excitement and commitment to wanting to start this learning process and then follow through with it, would be as high and determined at the end of the week.

During the self-imposed 7 day waiting period, I decided to challenge myself a little. First of all, I wanted to do as much reading online to get a better understanding of what might be involved in building an internet business, sort of like my own "introductory course" to what I expected Holly's book to be about. Second, I wanted to try and make some money, either online or offline, that I could put towards paying any of my "start-up" expenses I incurred with this new endeavor. Between all of these projects, I was hoping that the 7 days would fly by!

By Sunday night, still the same date of August 3rd, I knew that I was definitely going to purchase Holly's book, but, I had made a commitment to myself that I intended to keep. So for the next 7 days I would keep myself busy and see what all I could learn on my own and see how much money I could make to put towards building my new business!