This guest post is written by Joseph from Debit versus Credit. If you enjoyed what he had to say then please check out his blog!

Becoming an entrepreneur is risky business. The business world is a dangerous place; It’s four times as easy to lose everything, as it is to break even. The risks are huge but the rewards are far too tempting for many people to ignore. Unfortunately the vast majority of these would-be entrepreneurs are unfit. They don’t have the dedication, the patience or the skills needed to be successful.

I’ve had entrepreneurial aspirations at several points in my life. The most success I’ve seen is with my personal finance blog. It’s been around for almost a year now and I’ve just recently (within the past two weeks) produced a small profit. I’ve felt like giving up several times over the past year. It’s not been easy on my pocketbook, my time or my emotions. However it’s been important because I’ve learned several things about entrepreneurship and what is required to be successful. Likewise I’ve learned what makes one fail at entrepreneurship and that most people just aren’t fit to be successful at it.

Dedication is Key

Starting and running your own business is hard work and requires that you put all of your time, money and effort into said business. Without full dedication a would-be entrepreneur and their business are likely to fail. Thomas Edison, arguably one of the world’s greatest inventors and entrepreneurs is famous for his quote about what it takes to be a genius or in our case, a successful entrepreneur.

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

Of course you all know that perspiration actually refers to the process of sweating. This quote then should not be taken literally because genius is not literally one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent sweating. What Mr. Edison means by perspiration is rather working hard (hence the reference to perspiration) towards what you want and what you are trying to achieve.

I’ve attempted the creation of a website (not a blog) with a specific purpose and audience at two points in the past. Unfortunately it went nowhere both times because I did not commit to it. I didn’t prove to myself, or those I was working with, that I was completely dedicated and therefore I set myself up for failure.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

You’ve all heard the phrase success doesn’t happen overnight. Well sometimes it does. Not often, but it has been known to happen. That being said I’d like to talk about the next lesson I’ve learned about entrepreneurship. Sometimes success does happen overnight, but don’t ever expect it to.

By expecting overnight success you are setting yourself up for failure. Essentially you are telling yourself that everything will work out in a very short period of time. Well what happens if it doesn’t? What happens if you set a goal to be successful in your business endeavors within a period of six months but by the end of the six months you are nowhere near that level of success? You’ll quit. You’ll say if it can’t be done in the six months you were expecting then it can’t be done at all. If that is your attitude then you are probably right.

Don’t set yourself up for failure by expecting unrealistic things. Do set goals to achieve, but if you don’t achieve them (within a certain time period) and you put everything you had into it then don’t give up. Be patient. Good things really do come to those who wait.

Have You Got The Skills to Pay The Bills?

Skills are important when it comes to anything that you want to do. You have to know how to play basketball (and very well at that) if you want to play in the NBA. Likewise as an entrepreneur you need to have the skills necessary for whatever line of work that you want to pursue. Skills aren’t something that are just given. I want to make that point clear. They can be learned, and I dare say they must be learned. Six months ago I had no idea what CSS was, let alone how to do something as simple as use it to style a blockquote. Did I let that stop me? Absolutely not. I did everything I could to learn how CSS works and then learn how I could use it to make my blog look the way that I want it to.

Skills are important; it’s true. But just as I’ve learned that patience and dedication are exceptionally important to entrepreneurship I’ve also learned that skills are learned and although they are important they come in second place to dedication and patience. Be dedicated to what you want to do and soon enough you will have the skills to pay the bills.

If you’ve enjoyed this post then please check out my blog: Debit versus Credit. Also don’t forget to subscribe to my feed and for further reading check out what I learned about business negotiations in Mexico!

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I do not need any more guest posts, thanks to all that have put them forward. Along with this, I have enough of them - if you’ve sent one in already, it will go up or I will reply to you with necessary changes; do not send in any more please. I will hopefully be back soon, my Internet is still playing up and I have uni starting in 3-4 days, so just making sure everything’s good.

Post written by Ryan from Ryan Lineker Dot Com.

To get a website onto the Internet you need hosting, this is really space on a server where your domain points to. When you are looking to purchase hosting there are things that you need to look for to make sure you are going to be satisfied and not ripped off.

Firstly you need to see what their support is like. You need to get good support from your host because if something goes wrong you need to be able to speak to them and get your website up quickly so you don’t lose traffic and potential earnings.

Secondly you want to find out what current clients think about the host. Are they happy with the host? if not why aren’t they happy, what’s the problem with the host. You can do this by searching the host’s name on Google or by posting a message on Webmaster Forums. There is no point purchasing from a host where their current clients aren’t happy.

Thirdly you need to look what the site’s up time is. They can offer you all the space and bandwidth in the world but if their server is down most of the time your not going to get any visitor’s and not make any money.

Fourthly you would want to see if the host oversells. If you say for example you have purchased a hosting plan with 100gb’s of space would you have all of the space to use or would other people be using it. If the company oversells the likely chance is that when you reach half of what they have said you will get they
will suspend or terminate your account.

Lastly only purchase what you need! When you are looking for hosting only purchase what you need, if you have a small site do go buying a plan with loads of space and bandwidth. By a small plan and when you are running out of space and bandwidth you can upgrade. Doing this means that you make the most out of your money and not wasting it on stuff you don’t need.

If you liked this post and would like to read more like it check out my blog and subscribe to the RSS Feed.

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Want to make money online without having to work hard at it? ShannonLilly of InfectedByBugs.com will show you how if you subscribe to his RSS today! Check it out if you have the guts to learn!

If you are considering the possibility of blogging on a professional level then here are a couple of tips that you will need to follow for the best possible outcome!

Leave WordPress.com / Blogger.com- I am sure you have heard it before but it never hurts to bring back up a subject matter that well “Matters!”. Sites like wordpress.com and blogger.com are great when just starting out but using them for a professional level blog will never work. If you read any of these free blog providers TOS you will see that they are very strict in that you may not sell adverts yourself on the blogs.

You are allowed to list Adsense but forget that until your blog is booming with traffic, your just wasting time! Not only do they have a strict TOS but they actually enforce it, no joke! If you disobey any of the TOS your blog may be taken down and deleted permanently.

The rotten thing about that is “YOU CAN’T GET IT BACK ONCE ITS GONE”, this is why its vital to get off these sites!

Get A Unique Domain Name To Blog On - When it comes to blogging its important to stand out from the crowd. You need to present yourself in a unique way that others will understand and know but one they can differentiate from any other blog on the net.

Here are two great examples of blogs that are doing things right in the make money online niche.

As you can see both have taken a unique approach, TylerCruz.com has taken his already cool name and associated a mascot character along with his name. While on the other hand JohnCow a spin off of JohnChow.

It makes for a interesting read because they keep things fun and laid back. It really comes down to your choice, I went the more laid back routine and it has done fairly well for me but every blog can and should be different.

Learning To Speeel - Yup you guessed it, if you want to become a successful blogger you need to know how to spell words. If you can’t spell or if English is not your first language then you may find it difficult to gain consistent readers. People want to read a blog that presents itself in a professional manner to a certain degree.

Create Engaging Posts & Titles - The final tip I want to share with you is all about your content, I look at blogging as a way of life its not a if I get around to it sort of deal. I try my best to make posts daily and it becomes tougher and tougher the longer you go.

One thing I have learned is that engaging your readers on your blog is the single best thing you can do to get readers and loyal fans! First lets talk about your post titles, the rest will follow…

The title of a post is so vital, if you don’t get the right title you might as well burry the post because nobody will ready any further then the title unless they have a LOT of time on there hands. Here are two examples, the good title and the bad title.

• Bad: My Trip To San Fransisco
• Good: The Golden Gate Bridge Is BIG!

Both accomplish the same thing however the good example is a better way to catch attention.

You may also want to consider breaking up your posts by asking questions with a title something along the lines of “How Big Do You Think The Golden Gate Bridge Is?”. Questions tend to get a great response on a blog, especially if you have a poll plugin installed to go along with the title question and post.

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This post is guest written by Simon from Otooo

Link baiting is the process of publishing any interesting piece of material to your blog, in order to gain 3 main things: traffic, backlinks, and exposure. It can come in a variety of ways, whether through a controversial or interesting article, contests, a compilation of standout items, a top 10 list, a free tool, a free e-book or anything else that will grab the attention of readers.

It is a form of traffic generation that can drive huge amounts of traffic to the page, especially because link bait has a much easier time making it to the front page of social bookmarking sites such as Digg than other regular articles or pieces of information do.

Did I mention that the other great thing about link bait traffic and links is that they are also very well targeted?

Many bloggers know how powerful good link bait can be, but many struggle to find ideas or get their link bait noticed by the blogging world. Without exposing link bait to other bloggers, it is virtually impossible for
them to tell their readers about it and drive you traffic.

To find good ideas for some successful link bait, we can do a few things. The first is to regularly check the front page of popular social bookmarking sites and analyse the stories that make it to the front pages, and then create something similar. I have found that humor, fresh industry news and odd stuff have the most success with social bookmarks, so you can give that a shot. The other way to gain ideas is to read a lot of the other top blogs in your niche and try to find any patterns or trends in their posts. Once you see this, write something controversial about this topic or propose a challege on this. For example, site flipping has been talked about a lot lately, which has brought about many site flipping contests and challenges.

A few examples of link bait I have written are the contest I am currently holding and a controversial article called, Is It Worth Submitting To Link Directories Anymore?

Once you have created your link bait, you have to get it noticed. There are a few ways in which this can be achieved, with the first being social bookmarking. If you can make it to the front page, expect a lot of links and visitors.

The second way is to make regular comments on others blogs. Chances are that they give some link love, and if you are a regular commenter, than the owner / writer of the blog will preference linking to you rather than others that he has never seen before.

The third way is by emailing other bloggers in your niche and telling them about that great article you wrote, or the contest you are having, or that free tool you now have on your site. Mention how it would benefit their readers (also make sure to compliment them :)). Chances are they won’t be offended by your email and will consider posting about it, or including a link in their post.

Please, don’t wimp out on doing that one. If you want to be big, you have to communicate with the top bloggers in your niche.

Remember to check out my blog at otooo.com

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This post was submitted by Richard @ No More Compromise.

It’s easy to see the similarities between blogging and content sites. After all, they are both content heavy, tend to attract plenty of visitors from the search engines and make money from affiliate links and private advertising sales.

The only difference, you could be forgiven for thinking, is that blogs require more frequent updating than content sites.

But this similarity subtly hides a huge chasm of difference between the two models.

And here is the biggest one - succeeding with a content site can be largely a selfish act, while blogging tends to be quite the opposite.

How come?

Content site publishers, attracting the vast majority of their visitors from the search engines, jealously guard their PageRank like their life depends on it. Try asking one of these sites for a link if you don’t believe me - you can be in for quite a ride.

Stipulations may include that you must link back to them, that you must use the exact code they specify, that you must not have more than x links on your page, that you must have a certain PageRank yourself (often equal to or even higher than their own site), that your links page is no more than 1 click from your homepage and on and on.

Content site publishers make it *hard* to get links.

Basically, content site owners (myself included) are loathe to “waste” a link out of their sites that may devalue our own rankings. We expect something in return for a link - such as a link back from an equally good quality site, a fee in the form of paid advertising or the chance of a commission in the form of an
affiliate link.

But you ain’t gettin’ nuttin’ for free.

Nor am I knocking it. That’s the nature of the game. A fact of life. People who give out links left, right and center really *can* suffer - and why risk that?

Blogging, on the other hand, is far more “community based” and “link happy”. The very nature of blogging is being able to share your ideas with a community of likeminded individuals.

Even most blogging platforms like Blogger or Wordpress are free.

Wrote a great post? It’s likely you’ll find a number of other bloggers linking to you - drawing attention to you. Why? Because that’s what blogging is all about - and they know you’ll likely link back to them anyway because that’s what (polite) bloggers do.

This “linkability” factor can make quite a difference to your business results when you think about it. These days it’s easier to generate links from blogs than content sites - and to do so simply create fantastic content and network with bloggers in the same field as you.

Also, you can build PR to your own site - and hence benefit in terms of SEO by starting a separate blog, getting involved with the community and then linking back to your main site.

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