How To Build A Successful Blog (Interview)

July 23, 2009 By 1 Comment

Meet Alborz Fallah, the owner of the famed owner of Car Advice. In 2008, Alborz’s blog was independently valued at $5.9 MILLION dollars. He now has a team of full time writers producing content and he gets to drive expensive cars, which he then writes about in his blog. And giess what? It all started with a computer in his bedroom.

Alborz was recently interviewed over at Yaro’s blog. Here’s some of the most important points to take away from the interview (in Yaro’s words):

  • You can start a blog and choose top level categories in very competitive markets, if you niche it down based on geographical location. In other words, you can start a car blog and target just your country to differentiate it. There’s big bucks to be made as the leading blog in just one country for mainstream subjects.
  • When you don’t know what topic to blog about, pick what you think might work and just put something out there and see what happens.
  • You can build a significant blog based only on part time labor, if you are dedicated and get things done during the time you have available to work on the project.
  • Sometimes, being controversial can do wonderful things for your traffic. Strong opinions will always stick out and grab attention.
  • Search engine traffic is very powerful if you just do a few things right, like blog post titles in Alborz’s case.
  • Think BIG with your blog, it doesn’t have to be just a small publication – consider taking things to the next level with the help of financial investors.

Download an mp3 of the whole interview, or get the text as PDF.

Filed Under: Case Study Tagged With:

Candy.com

July 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

This past June (last month), www.candy.com was sold for a cool USD 3,000,000/-. That is around 240,000,000 Kenyan shillings. Sweet eh? Guess what he bought it for…

The seller is an individual domainer named Rick bought it in the 90s probably for a few hundred US dollars. Then he sells it from 3M. Sijui if you can get such margins anywhere but on the internet! Rick is a domain name speculator…he buys them cheap and sells them very high. (He is the same guy who sold www.ireport.com to CNN for USD 750,000/-)

The question is, can you make money this way in Kenya? Just think about it, some day .co.ke domain names will be very valuable. The good thing is that you can still get very interesting domain names in the .co.ke range of domains. I wanted to buy www.drink.co.ke and sell it to Coca Cola, but it seems someone beat me to it. I’ll keep on looking though (got a few I’m holding on to till they become valuable enough).

Can you (yes, you) make money this way? Why not? Learn how.

Filed Under: Make Money Tagged With: ,

How To Actually Start A Business

July 22, 2009 By 2 Comments

If you have read a lot about starting a business, you’ve probably seen over and over that it’s not so difficult. It just takes determination, hard work and patience. This is all true. For most people the problem usually comes in actually starting. You know like when you really want to do or say something but you just don’t know how to start? I put together a couple of steps to help starters get past that starting point.

Decide what you want to do – This should be fairly simple. You must have had some idea in order to want to start a business. Something that you are good at and you actually enjoy doing. It can be writing, marketing, advertising, selling, chocolate bunnies, pretty much anything sells these days. Most people have the idea in their heads, how they are going to make millions, start their own ‘apprentice’ show or something like that. You basically need a plan, not many go as far as Scofield by getting it tattooed all over their body but you get the point, decide what you want to do and have a plan.

Do the research – Check out the field you want to join and even better know the ‘who is who’ in it. Who is likely to be your mentor, who is going to be competition, who can help you out, who to look up to, who to aim to beat. All of these different people will come in handy at different points later on. Through this research you also get more insight and maybe new ideas on how to operate that you had not thought of or maybe even discover things that are not already offered that you can bring in.

Get a website – A website is becoming increasingly crucial in running any kind of business today. It is very important to have good stuff on your site, stuff that people will want to know, don’t just copy and paste from some other sites or pick up other people’s articles. I’ve seen many people complain about the state of Kenyan websites and how they are not up to standard, and seen even more people ripped off by cons selling clone sites. To save you any misfortune I recommend Nickel Pro for your website design, management, hosting and all your web needs.

Get clients- This is the part that needs a lot of hard work and patience. You have everything set, your website running, all that is left is getting clients. You need to let people know that you are out there, what you have to offer and why they should get it from you and not your competitors. There are many ways to do this. You can start a blog of your own, leave comments on other peoples blogs, get into forums, chat rooms, write articles, send emails, do everything. Even the old school African way, tell your family, friends and neighbors and tell them to spread the word.
A big mistake most people make in this part is doing this blindly. Before you start advertising yourself, decide who you want as clients, a target group. After narrowing it down to a specific people advertising is easier and if you do it right most of it will pay back.

Keep clients – Now you have a running business and a bunch of clients yay! It’s not yet time to relax though. In fact, it’s sometimes harder keeping your clients happy than it is just getting them. They came to you because they think you can do the job right. All you have to do is prove to them that you are better than everyone else and make sure they don’t regret picking you. How you treat your clients is very important. Update your website with information they need to know, reply to their comments on your site, answer their emails in time, give them high quality products, timely deliveries and do everything you can to make sure they are comfortable.

Launches – Yes launches, not lunches. One reason why a lot of on line businesses do not succeed is lack of stimulation. If you offer the same thing, over and over, after a while it gets to be kinda boring. To keep your business alive you need to have a launch maybe once every two or three months. Depending on what your business is.
What is a launch? It involves bringing in something new, a fresh idea to your business. For example we had Host a Charity a while back and Biashara30 right now, which is starting soon by the way so sign up if you haven’t yet. These new and different things that you bring in give your business a little spice. Launches also give your clients something to look forward to, makes your duty interesting too since you have to find something new every so often plus it offers an opportunity for you to get new clients due to the new additions to your business can be services or products.

So stop thinking about how you are going to do it and postponing, the sooner you start that business the sooner you start becoming rich :)

Filed Under: Make Money, Small Business Tagged With: , ,

Domain Name Registration

July 22, 2009 By 1 Comment

Alright, we’ve had an introduction to domaining and domain names, domain extensions and how to get good quality domain names. What are we trying to do? We’re learning how to make money from buying and selling (at a profit) domain names. If you aren’t yet aware, selling domain names can earn you thousands (of US dollars) per sale. At what cost? A typical domain names costs 800 bob.

Today, we shall go through the process of buying a domain name. This is called domain registration. Now, I’ll be honest: I have no idea of how registration works from the technical point of view. Honestly, though, you may never need to know how the back end works.

Simply put, you buy domain names from Domain Registrars. They are licensed to sell domain names by ICANN. Once you buy a domain with a registrar, they put it into the registry and mark it as owned by you – so that no one else can register it later. Domain registration fees are paid when you register a domain and are charged annually. Once you buy a domain, it is yours in every way and you can manage it as you like.

Factors To Consider When Buying Domain Names
Registration Cost – Domain costs can range from $10 to $2,000 depending on the extension so it pays to shop around and get the best deal. However, as with everywhere else,you get what you pay for. You may buy a domain at $1.99 and get pue hell. It’s a fine balance of cost and quality that you cant to be looking for.

Domain Management – As I’ve said above, don’t get caught up looking for cheap domain names and forget that a good registrar should offer more than just registration services. Having the ability to manage your domains well is critical and a good registrar should have, at the very least, the following:

  • Ability to set DNS (domain name server)
  • Ability to modify your domain address
  • Ability to setup a URL redirect
  • Private Whois option available
  • Ability to manage multiple domains from a single account
  • Automatic renewal or renewal notification long before the annual registration fee is due

Customer Service – Sometimes you need help in one way or another, especially when you are new to domaining. It would help if your registrar is responsive and helpful. A good way to tell if the registrar has good customer service is to email them before ordering and judge the speed and quality of their responses.

Where Can You Buy Domain Names
Web Host Kenya Ltd – Many people look for good, reliable Kenyan domain registrars (to get those .co.ke domains) with little luck. Web Host Kenya is a diamond in the dust! A bit pricey for international domains, though.

Name.com – I have used this service for a while now and I have absolutely no complaints. They offer everything that you need as well as some extras (like Google Apps for domains integration).

Namecheap – They have a fantastic reputation and a huge amount of satisfied customers. They make transferring domains a breeze which is important to consider since domainers are constantly buying and selling new domains.

GoDaddy – GoDaddy is a popular registrar. They also have a good domain management system and fantastic customer support.

Other recommended places that you can buy domain names:
Dotster.com
Network Solutions

How To Save Money When Registering Domains
A little-known way of saving money during domain name registration is using coupons. When buying a domain name, there is usually a place where they ask for a coupon code – if you put one in, you get a discount!

Here’s a few places you can get coupons:
DNCoupons
Happy Coupons
Coupon Cache
Daily eDeals

Don’t Have A Credit Card?
If you don’t have a credit card or debit card, your domaining career is going to be difficult to start as almost all the above registrars accept payment only online. We can help, though (and cheap too). Basically, we have a credit card so if you do not have one, we can register the domain name of your choice for you after you pay us in cash, cheque or by MPESA.

Our charges:
International domain names – $10 (Kshs 800) per year
Local domain names – Kshs 4,000/- per year

Contact us.

This article is part one of a series of articles that will fully explore making money online from domain names. The other articles in this series are:

1. Introduction
2. Domain Extensions
3. Researching Keywords
4. Domain Name Registration
5. Domain Name Parking
6. Selling Your Domain

Be sure not to miss any of these articles by subscribing to Like Chapaa (free) or signing up to receive free updates by email.

Filed Under: Make Money, Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With:

Safaricom

July 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

There’s no doubt that Safaricom is one of the very best companies in Kenya. I’m proud that such an innovative and, simply amazing company is Kenyan! God bless all that is good in Safaricom.

Sometimes they make me wonder, though. Actually, they make me wonder a lot. Their customer care is not the worst but it is worse than most. I’m sure many of you are familiar with the term “Sufferingcom” – there’s even a Facebook group! Not to mention that many of my friends and family have “sworn” that they will vuka to another mobile phone service the minute we get mobile number portability in Kenya. (Mobile number portability allows you to move to Orange, for example, but keep your Safaricom number.) What if you could move to Zain, YU, or Orange and keep your Safaricom number, would you vuka too?

I recently won a prize (imagine that) in the ongoing Safaricom “Activate your drive” competition/promotion. I have never won any prize ever before so I was thrilled! Alas, I no longer am thrilled. Collecting the prize has turned out to be harder than I thought it should be. If I won it, why not just give it to me? It’s gone as far as someone from “marketing” being shockingly rude about this. Considering that the “Activate your drive” promotion is supposed to be marketing Safaricom, I find how Safaricom have handled me quite shocking. I suppose sometimes you get too big to care about the little guy.

Marketing is not just the adverts and other promotional gimmicks. It is how ‘customer care’ answer the phone; it is the way you speak to customers; it is the quality of your products or services; it is being honest and genuine. Marketing isn’t what you do when you want to make a sale. It is an ongoing process that starts even before you create your products.

Safaricom, you disappoint me.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Tagged With: ,

Don’t Let This Be You – How Twitter Was Violated

July 20, 2009 By 2 Comments

Twitter is probably the world’s hottest technology company in the world at this time. If you follow the world technology industry, you’ll no doubt see Twitter in the news at least once a week, every week. Well, this past week, Twitter was in the news again – for all the wrong reasons. A cracker from France (named “Hacker Croll”) managed to single-handedly break down Twitter’s security system and gain access to confidential company information, employee records, calendars, phone logs, credit card numbers and other information.

In a thriller of an article, Techcrunch lays bare the riveting story of how Hacker Croll violated Twitter. Here is a summary of how he did it:

1. HC accessed Gmail for a Twitter employee by using the password recovery feature that sends a reset link to a secondary email. In this case the secondary email was an expired Hotmail account, he simply registered it, clicked the link and reset the password. Gmail was then owned.
2. HC then read emails to guess what the original Gmail password was successfully and reset the password so the Twitter employee would not notice the account had changed.
3. HC then used the same password to access the employee’s Twitter email on Google Apps for your domain, getting access to a gold mine of sensitive company information from emails and, particularly, email attachments.
4. HC then used this information along with additional password guesses and resets to take control of other Twitter employee personal and work emails.
5. HC then used the same username/password combinations and password reset features to access AT&T, MobileMe, Amazon and iTunes, among other services. A security hole in iTunes gave HC access to full credit card information in clear text. HC now also had control of Twitter’s domain names at GoDaddy.
6. Even at this point, Twitter had absolutely no idea they had been compromised.

Read about the whole thrilling account here.

In computer security circles, they say that a computer system can never be 100% secure – there’s always a hole somewhere that can be exploited by someone who is determined to do so. However, most organisations and individuals (probably even you) are very very poor when it comes to security in the computer systems (especially online) that they use.

As seen in the Twitter cracking, a single Gmail account fell and this opened the door for the whole company to be compromised. Could this happen to you? No, really, could it? Rethink your approach to computer security, reset those passwords and do not use a single password for all the services and systems that you use. Change your passwords regularly and do not use passwords that can be easily guessed.

Always be on your guard. Otherwise, You may come to regret it.

Filed Under: Case Study, Internet Culture Tagged With:

Work At Home Today – Jobs!

July 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment

More Freelance Jobs

Rails developer – Agathon Group is in need of an experienced Ruby on Rails Developer to help us finish off a mix of internal and external projects. This is a 100% telecommuting, full-time, three month contract position.

Data entry for online magazine site – Looking for someone to type in information from a printed magazine into an online spreadsheet. The magazine is a listing of businesses. Your job is to enter the business listings into a spreadsheet. The magazine is 65 pages with about 10 listings per page. We need the project done in 7 days. After that we have many more projects just like this one. We’re looking for honest, reliable people who we can work with online and depend upon.

Online copy editors – Demand Studios is recruiting experienced freelance line editors and copy editors to edit our growing library of informative articles. Demand Studios publishes thousands of articles a day and we rely on our community of copy editors to ensure accuracy and quality. We are looking for dedicated editors who can deliver quality work in a timely manner and are comfortable occasionally communicating with writers. Some fact checking is also required. Our articles cover a variety of categories and you can set preferences to edit the topics you are most comfortable with.

Web designer – Keele UX is a close-knit team of creative thinkers with a focus on the design and planning of web apps and community driven sites. We’re looking for full-time freelancers only, who can correspond between the reg. business hours.

Article writer (paid weekly) – We are currently seeking individual writers to write articles/stories about a wide range of topics. Our company is rapidly expanding and we need individuals like your self to become part our team.

Personal technology columnist – Mshale Newspaper, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota is looking for a personal technology columnist to comment and write on latest technology trends of interest to its readers. Mshale caters to the African immigrant in the United States through its print edition as well as its online version at Mshale.com.

Web UI designer – Appfrica Labs (appfrica.org) is looking to hire a part-time Web UI Designer for a number of our forthcoming web apps and a number of data visualizations. The position will pay based on experience and may turn into a full-time offering in a few months.

Freelance writing jobs – At Suite101, our focus is our commitment to supporting freelance writers. Whether your goal is to publish articles, earn more income, hone your writing skills or create new career opportunities, Suite101 is here to assist you every step of the way.

Remote web designer – Are you a passionate, multi-talented designer with a desire to help be involved in an exciting new organization dedicated to entrepreneurial innovation? Are you that rare type of professional who possesses an equal ability to design incredible websites and brand identities? Do you want creative freedom as well as the chance to collaborate? If so, Grasshopper Labs wants you.

Finally, Some Hot Freelance Jobs


Need help?
How to get an online job.
How to avoid online scams.

This post is a weekly feature – we post a list of online, work-from-anywhere, jobs every single week. Be sure not to miss the next list of jobs. Subscribe to Like Chapaa today, or sign up to receive free email updates.

Filed Under: Online Jobs Tagged With: , ,