Having a unique design for your website is very important. The first look of your website should tell the user what will he find here. Avoid using free themes/templates, but also don’t go for paid/premium themes as they are used by multiple websites. For starters, you could hire a designer to get a unique simple theme for $200-250. There’s no need to spend a bomb to get a jaw dropping design for the start.

2. Content

You need to have good content. By “good content”, I mean easy to understand, free and original. Everything is about information and content on the internet. The whole point of the internet is to find useful, relevant and free information. If you’re content is better than the others in the pool, your website will automatically stand out of the crowd.

3. Basic SEO

You don’t have to be a SEO expert to rank higher in search results nor do you have to hire a SEO expert to do that for you. Just do a bit of basic SEO for your website and you should be good to go.

• optimal and natural usage of keywords
• include meta title tags
• simple navigation through out the site
• provide good link bait article titles
• include sitemap
• proper usage of H1, H2 and H3 tags
• use robots.txt file
• use Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to gain insight on what works and what’s not
• avoid duplicate content (CMS issue)proper permalink structure
• use canonical tags.
• read the Google SEO Starter Guide (PDF).

4. Competitors

Why make enemies when you can make more money by being friends? Your competitors teach you a lot. You can learn from their mistakes and strategies. Win them by making them your mentors, don’t try competing with them while you have just started. Investigate, where is their presence and who is linking to them, etc. They rule your niche right now, learn what they did to  achieve what they are right now.

5. Promotion

Promote your website where ever you can. While meeting people, posting online, comments etc. Just don’t become a spammer.

• comment on other blogs related to your niche,
• use Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or any other social platform popular at the moment,
• guest post frequently on well established blogs,
• be active on forums,
• pay for ads if you really have to (Adwords).

This will surely get you a good exposure on the internet. If you’ve got the first 4 right, you can’t go wrong.

Wrap up

Of course these 5 tips are not the only one’s to build a successful website. You also need to work on speed (of your website), monetization, building RSS subscribers and readers etc. The above 5 are essential tips to get started. Try, make mistakes, learn is the only way to survive on the internet.

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Let’s get back to the contest!  How to participate?

1. Tweet this page out.
2. Google +1 this page.
3. Facebook Share/Like this page.
4. After you’ve done all the above, just leave a comment below. We will find you

That’s how simple it is to win! Contest ends 30th April 2012. Get clicking!  :D

Everyone isn’t an expert in making websites or writing blogs. Maybe websites just isn’t your thing, maybe it is. There are many techniques to make money online, maybe you know most of them or you are here just to learn. What I would recommend is to stick to one technique and excel in it. Focus on the thing you are doing and keep improving. For example, if you are a blogger and have Adsense on your blog, try playing around with the colors and placements to see what works the best for you. There might be a point where it gets saturated, it is time to try doing more to it or switching your technique to a better one.

1) Affiliate Marketing
There are many ways which could be used to do this. The easiest one is called ‘RECOMMENDATION’. Recommend products to people who are looking for them, get paid for it. However, this is one of the most difficult ways to make money online. Not just that, is also requires a lot of patience to wait for the payouts.

2) Advertising
Advertising could be considered as PPC or private advertisers. You could get private advertisers by contacting them (you can get their info through the websites which are linked on to other blog ads). There is always someone looking to advertise on a quality content blog with decent traffic.

3) Selling stuff online (only bought stuff from eBay, never sold anything)
I am sure many of you’ll must have already heard about eBay. That’s the easiest way to buy or sell your stuff online. You could also start your own e-commerce portal and list your products, but it is recommend to practice on eBay first. This is the toughest way to make money online. An example which I personally ordered off eBay was a scratch remover pen. It removed scratches off your car. The reason I ordered it? It was cheaper than available anywhere. Probably the guy who was selling it bought it in bulk. He sold over 1,000 pieces within just a week at Rs 500 a pop (It’s cheaper now).

You may have the best website design, the most impressive product, but if you will not make money online if you do not have that one special ingredient…traffic! Almost any method you take for making money online there needs to be a human visitor that needs to interact with it. To make a sale or to get a click on your ad you need a real human visitor to do this.

Traffic = Money

If you have human visitors on your website there would be more ways that you could use to make money. Depends on the type of traffic that you get and the reason they visit your website could help you in finding those ways.

If they come looking for information –
So you have information listed about  a particular product on your website and you are getting a good amount of hits on it, find an affiliate program or a company who’s willing to tie up with you to sell their product to your audience.

Sell advertising space –
You could sell advertising space on the website. You could use Adsense or get advertisers from the method listed above.

Sell the site –
Don’t know what to do with the website? Sell it. That’s what I did with webhostingoffers.org — amazing content, good traffic, but I didn’t know what to do with it.

Make them sign up –
Offer a newsletter or a RSS subscription on your website. Build a database and maybe you could have an advertiser to blast emails to your subscribers.

I need your feedback on this post. Please post it in the comments or tweet to me @sensonize. If you liked the post do share it with your friends.

I guess Facebook is trying really hard to compete with Google+ but this is nothing compared to Google+ in the long run.  Honestly, EXTREMELY ANNOYING. Let’s not compare both the platforms, because if we do, Google+ wins hands down. Facebook sidebar on the other hand is something which I do not want to see on my Facebook home page. It’s just an addition to my home page which was already clutter, Facebook just added to the mess! Also, let us not forget that Google+ launched recently and has only 10 million users, which is a very small number compared to Facebook’s 750 million. Also, I’m sure Google isn’t looking at numbers in the first month itself. We could expect some big numbers and features rolling out on Google+ by Thanks Giving.

Until the Facebook and G+ war goes on, I shall take some popcorn and sit back to watch the fireworks. Let me know what you think about the Facebook sidebar in the comments.

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 Do share your DreamHost.com feedback in the comments and let me know what you think about this offer. I have much more in store for you guys! Maybe this offer isn’t much useful to you, but could be useful to your friend – do share it! 

The trick is simple. As some of us who are already on G+ know that we can insert an email id or circle whom we want to share a particular update with. So that’s what we do here, we share the update with our Facebook email address and it gets posted.

Step 1:

Visit https://www.facebook.com/mobile/ and copy the email address under “Upload via Email”. It would be something like xyz123abc@m.facebook.com . (NOTE: Do not give this email id out to anybody, it is an unique email id given to you by Facebook. If anyone gets this email id, that person could update your Facebook status)

Step 2:

Now paste the email address in the space where you need to add ‘Circle’ or Email id in the Google+ update box. It would look something like this…

That’s it! Hit the share button! The update would be posted to Facebook. You could also add the email address to one of your circles whom you share most of your updates with and it would be shared on Facebook as well. You could also create another circle just for Facebook updates with the email id.

Also, if you still aren’t on Google+, I’m giving out invites here.

Steps to get a Google Plus invite:

1) Retweet this post.
Tweet
2) Tweet to me on Twitter (@sensonize) with your email address or you could also leave a comment below with the tweeted link.
That’s it! I will verify your Retweet and send you an invite.

Also note, this is not a guaranteed invite. I will be sending an invite from my end after verification, but if you do not receive it, you will have to wait for sometime as Google allows me to invite only a limited number of people per hour. And yes, this is purely based on first come first served bases! Hurry, before the invites run out!  

You can also follow me on Twitter if you still aren’t
Follow @sensonize

How does +1 affect search results?

I’ve been playing around with Google+ lately. What I have noticed is that it is the cleaner version of Facebook which is much more lighter and faster. Facebook on the other hand got really clutter after it’s redesign. Also, if you still don’t know, Facebook has tied up with Skype and will be launching video chat on Facebook shortly – i.e more clutter on the design part. Google Plus Beta comes with in built Google Talk which already has the video calling! which is again, very neat!

Are you on Google+ yet? If yes, let me know about what you think about it. Also, if you would like an invite or want to connect on G+, you can contact me!

This contest is hosted by @Samsung_Mobiles. This is the second contest and this time they are giving out a brand new Samsung Galaxy S ( worth 31,500 INR / $650). Your chance to win a Samsung Galaxy S just by tweeting out a simple answer and retweeting a simple tweet.

Check out the video review of the Galaxy S and below that are details on how to participate:

Whoaaa! Now that’s one smart phone! It’s got everything you need and way better than the iPhone. Reasons it is better than the iPhone or any other touch phone?

• Daily Briefing: Get stocks, news etc on your phone
• Social Hub:  Integrates your social profiles into your Phonebook.
• Layar:  Augmented location based reality browser
• Aidiko e-book:  Read e-books for free
• Mosaic Video Search
• Sensitive Touch
• World’s First Super AMOLED screen: Unbeatable Touch Screen Experience
• 1GHZ Processor
• Swype

My personal favorite is the screen. Super AMOLED Screen (Notice the last 3 letters? L-E-D!). The touch is really crisp and fast, very accurate.

Let’s get back to the contest!  How to participate?

1. RT my tweet by clicking the following link: http://www.sensonize.com/galaxy
2. Answer the following question: What makes ‘Samsung Galaxy S’ a classic example of #FutureBeyond thinking? (you need to answer this on twitter)
3. Get your friends to RT your answer tweet.

That’s it, 3 simple tasks to win a Galaxy S! For further details and rules about the contest,  please check the following link: Galaxy S contest.

Also, I would appreciate your feedback on the phone. I think it is the perfect phone for bloggers and social media users, what are your views about the phone and would you buy one for your blogging/social media needs? Share it in the comments!

Please share/like/tweet this post. Would appreciate it. Cheers!