Angela Hoy, Writers Weekly There are writers newsletters aplenty. And then there’s Writers Weekly. What does site and owner have to do with web design, specifically? They are proactive protectors of writers and creative people, in general. Hoy stands up for rights of freelancers by refusing requests of tightwads who solicit her to recommend writers to work for 3 bucks an hour on copy for them so they can make millions while writers starve. Hoy encourages ethics of hard work by way of informative how-tos. And Angela Hoy, with husband and co-owner, Richard Hoy, pours an acid tongue on plague that is scamming POD publisher or conniving money-charging agent—in a section of her [their] site called “Whispers and Warnings.” For newbie, novice, wannabe freelancer, or even for work at home woman or man creating a website she/he wants safe from scummy scammers, www.writersweekly.com is an advisory imperative.

Robert Woodhead of Self Promotion.com Finding www.selfpromotion.com shaved centuries off of not only my design and development but my publishing and promoting site. With uncluttered pages and cutting-edge (constantly updated) information, Woodhead (who even makes self-effacing jokes about his name) walks a web wannabe through every stage of process, and then provides [shareware] support by helping you submit your site to hundreds of search engines and indexes that you need to have crawl your site for rankings—the latest (2004) must-have for any online business.

Of course, if you were to look at my Favorite Files, at 900+ categories, subcategories, and links, you would find that many others pulled my smart ass up by seat of pants. I name a few of these helpful gurus here, too:

Andrew Starling’s Top Ten Sites Compared, in Web Developer’s Virtual Library at www.wdvl.internet.com

Jill Whalen’s www.highrankings.com

Jim Heath at www.viacorp.com

Keith Instone’s www.usableweb.com, 970 Links about Web Usability

Kevin Lee’s Free Keyword research Tools and Keywords revisited at Click Z Network, www.clickz.com

The PSP Interactive Zone, www.pspiz.net

www.smallbusiness.sbc.yahoo.com

Assistant Professor Stan Ketterer’s Design Fundamentals Newswriting/ Newsletter coursework at www.cas.okstate.edu

Stephanie Hetu at www.stephaniehetu.com

Sumantra Roy’s SEO course, Choosing Correct Keywords for a Site, at www.thejunglemarketer.com

Karen Zoldan of www.bridgemarketing.com

As you might have figured out, I write this not to share any of my own personal technological truths—which are wanting. I write this not to embellish careers of any affiliates. I don’t have an affiliation with nor do I know people in Top Five—who do not need my small time embellishment or exposure. I write this not to show off how hard I worked to create an entity I had no previous knowledge of creating—though how I do like to brag.

I compose this guide to humble myself to fact that I was flying by seat of my pants in most cases—except where I was lucky enough to intuit some strategies.

I compose this guide to honor those who put in way more than 300 piddly hours of research, study, and practice to find out what works to make it work even better.

And I compose this guide to help you avoid even 300 (not so piddling when you are doing it yourself) hours of stitching and tearing out stitches of britches of a tailoring project. Smarty pants just had to do it hard way. May your way be easier.

There are some things that I do to sell my products, and to get other people to sell my things. I don't like to sell, so I get others to sell for me without hiring them. So following gives people an incentive to sell for me, and it gives customers an incentive to buy. * 10% finders fee - Refer a client to me and you get 10% of my fee. Since it's not uncommon for me to charge $1,500 to $2,000 for a website, people are happy to say, "Use Jeff" and get a check for $150 to $200. Now that's easy money. * 10% discount to nonprofits - Nonprofits like discounts (okay, so everyone likes discounts) and I like to help nonprofits, so it's a win-win situation. * 30-day money back guarantee - This give clients a good feeling of security, which makes them more likely to buy. Besides, if you sell a good product or service, you will get very few requests for refunds.

What To Sell

If you do decide to sell your own stuff question is, "What do you sell?"

Actually, possibilities are endless. On my site I sell many things, such as: * Ebooks * Reports * Website design * Website evaluation

What can you sell? Any product or service you have to offer, or other peoples' products, including: * E-books and merchandise * Advertising in your newsletter or on your website - You should charge $.007 for a prime ad, $.006 for a standard ad and $.005 for a basic ad per visitor or subscriber. Multiply number of unique visitors to page you're selling ad on by ad rate (or number of subscribers to your monthly newsletter per month. If your newsletter comes out biweekly, then multiply your subscribers by 2.15, or times 4.3 if weekly.) So if you have 1,000 visitors to a page, and someone pays $.007 per ad, then total is $7.00 per month. * Banner and other ads on your site * Website templates, graphics and fonts that you create * Sell things on e-bay and show more details on your site and use it as a source of info for your specialty

This information will give you a good springboard for making money on your website, now let your imagination run free and come up with some great money making ideas.

http://www.CreativeCauldron.com Jeff Colburn is a website designer and writer. His goal is to make the process of creating or updating your website easy and simple for you, while creating a website that meets all your needs and expectations. Jeff can also create all of the copy for your website.