Nowadays it seems that everyone is a blogger. Whether you are a new blogger or a blogging expert, I’m sure you will come to a point when you ask yourself: “What should I write today?”

Today I’m going to show you a fun tool from Google that can help you to think of all kinds of topics to write for your blog. With this tool, you will never run out of ideas again.

This tool is called Google Wonder Wheel.

I’ll show you how to use this tool with an example.

Say you have a blog on the Internet Marketing niche. Now, head to Google.com and type in Internet Marketing in the search box.

On the right hand side of the Google result page, you will see a link that says “More search tools”. Click on that.

Look for a link that says “Wonder wheel”. Click on that.

Voila, you’ve got a powerful visual keyword research tool.

You can click on each of the keywords to spin off another ‘wheel’.

Design Your Blog Or Niche Site Using Google Wonder Wheel

A powerful application of this tool is to design the structure of your website or blog using Google Wonder Wheel.

For example, the main categories of your website will be the 8 keyword phrases return by the Wheel. Further spin-off can be other deep link topics that you can add to your site.

An important part of search engine optimization is content relevance. If you design your website based on what Google thinks is relevant, it’s a no-brainer that your website will get a boost in the search engine ranking, at least in Google.

Have fun playing with this tool.

Should I start a blog or website first? I believe this is a common question many newbies ask nowadays.

To answer this question, you must first ask yourself what is your objective?

Are you trying to:

- sell your own product?
- make money as an affiliate?
- make money from advertising such as Adsense?
- Or you simply want to share your knowledge with the world (and make some money in the process)?

Sell your own product….

If you are trying to sell your own product, the answer is obvious. You should first have your product website.

You should focus your initial effort in getting traffic from joint venture and advertising, and building a list. You should not waste your time blogging to thin air (assuming you are totally new and has no traffic sources).

BUT as soon as you have a substantial list, say 1000 subscribers, you can start blogging, with 2 intentions in mind: 1) to build relationship and sales, and 2) to build search engine traffic “for the future”.

Make money as an affiliate….

With so many ways to make money as an affiliate, it’s impossible for me to cover the details here. But whichever way you use, starting with a blog is definitely not the fast way and certainly not the way I would recommend.

You can start with a presell website, advertise to get targeted traffic and sales. Or you can start with a squeeze page to build a targeted list.

You should start a blog ONLY when you have a list, and you should blog with 2 intentions in mind: 1) to build relationship with your list and make more sales, and 2) to build more traffic from the search engine.

Make money from advertising such as Adsense….

How about building many blogs on different niches, optimizing them for search engine traffic and monetizing them through Adsense?

Compared to static HTML websites, blog indeed offers a better alternative because you can easily make changes to your blog through templates.

But as your empire gets bigger, you may realize that it becomes troublesome to manage so many blogs, with so many different logins, databases and templates. I believe there are software that you can use to mass manage blogs, especially Wordpress self-hosted blogs. (I don’t use such software. If you have any recommendation, feel free to share it below.)

Note: If you want to use blog for this purpose, remember to remove posting date from the template and DO NOT show any post history by date. The reason is obvious. Since you are not going to update the blog very often, disclosing the posting dates will not do you any good.

Besides static HTML website and blog, another alternative is to start with .php websites. (Note: Wordpress blog is also a PHP website, but here I’m talking about simple PHP website without the need to install or create databases.) The advantage of creating website in .php instead of .html is that you can use the PHP INCLUDE function to build simple templates for your website. If you were to make some changes, you just have to change the templates instead of altering every file. If you understand HTML, you can easily pick up simple PHP language and learn to do it.

Share your knowledge….

Lastly, if you simply want to get online and share your knowledge, I advise you to start with a content website instead of a blog.

Before you think I am anti-blogging, read my explanation below:

If you are good at scrapbooking, you probably have some fundamental skills that you want to share. It will be better if you create something like an online learning center for scrapbooking fans, with organized scrapbooking tutorials that your visitors can study.

You can still have a blog, but it’s more for current issues, latest promotions, etc. Yet again, you should always build a list if you want to start a blog.

In response to our discussion last Tuesday, one of our members, Reveuberg, posted a follow-up question.

Here’s his email to us:

Hi Kenneth,

It’s always wonderful to read every one of your blog post. Each of them has a great content rich in values. I truly enjoy reading it.

In the most recent post on April 14, 2009, in response to Ms. Jane you wrote:

“From the look of your website, it seems that you are not too competent in web programming. It’s okay, but you must keep in mind that if you want to grow, you must take one of the 2 paths:
- Master web programming yourself
- Outsource web programming and learn how to manage programmers
That is something you need to keep in mind and work on consistently.”

Even though it’s well said, It cannot be well done by a debutant…

Would you please elaborate more in providing free or paid reputable resources that you could recommend to the reader to learn it online? We may have tons of them on line, but to know what’s good or not require not only your take but your expertise.

Also when it comes to outsourcing that web programming job could you recommend some reputable free or paid sites online that are useful for achieving growth or success in web programming?

I’ll answer his question in 2 parts:

1) How to start learning web programming from scratch

For beginners, it can be pretty boring to learn web programming. I believe no one enjoys reading programming books or tutorials.

My way of learning web programming, such as html, is “purposeful learning”. The idea of “purposeful learning” is to set a goal to create a particular website and then simply ‘learn ENOUGH’ to serve that purpose.

It will be more fun if you do so.

For example, if you have not created any website before, you set a goal to create your first content website with an aim to make money from Google Adsense.

With this goal in mind, your next job is to start asking questions.

After all these years, I slowly believe that Google has all the answers, as long as you know how to ask the right question.

Some of the question you may start asking may include:

- step by step website building guide
- how to build a content website
- html tutorial for beginners

As you start learning and building your first website bit by bit, your question will become more specific and technical. Soon, you will be asking more technical question such as:

- how to add an opt-in form
- how to create dynamic navigation
- how to add a hyperlink

“Purposeful learning” can be fun, challenging and addictive! The more you know, the more you realize that you don’t know. The more you learn, the more you need to learn.

Besides googling for an answer, if your question is too specific, you may also get help from other programmers. One website where I frequently post question to is stackoverflow.com.

2) Where to outsource web programming

There are several freelancing websites where you can engage programmers to work for you. Some of them are guru.com, elance.com, scriptlance.com and getafreelancer.com (my preferred site, no particular reason, just get used to it).

Engaging web programmers is easy, so long as you have money. The tough part is in managing them.

That’s why I said you need to learn how to manage programmers.

Most freelance programmers are “GIGA” programmers. GIGA stands for Garbage In Garbage Out.

What I mean is if you are not specific in the result that you expect to see, you’ll end up getting garbage from them.

Many marketers are disappointed by freelance programmers because these marketers have a vague idea of the final product that they want and they expect the programmers to think for them and magically create something that they desire.

Here are some tips you can use to better manage freelance programmers:

- Learn programming yourself!

This is how you can speak their language and communicate your needs effectively. You may ask “why outsource when you already know how to do it?” My answer is “because you can use your time to do other more profitable tasks or tasks that cannot be easily outsourced.”

- Use existing website as an example and for comparison

You can say “I would like to create the same effect as blar blar blar website, except that ….”

- Be specific and avoid creative work

Remember, don’t expect magic. Your instruction to programmers should be as specific as possible. You should leave as little room as possible for their creativity. Most programmers are poor marketers. If you give them too much room for creativity, your end product may not be marketable.

- Frequently ask for progress report

Programmers like to show you the product ONLY when it’s completed. It’s dangerous because they may misunderstand your requirement. In order to save everyone’s time, do your best to pester your programmer to show you any thing he has completed so far. This is especially important for big projects.

This is another episode of Tuesday With Kenneth where I help our members with their challenges. Today we have Jane, who shared with us her interesting business idea.

We are living in an economy right now where we are all short of money. I started a site where you can get books for $1.00 and I will buy them back for $.25 and pay the media postage. The site is http://janes-dollar.com. Please let me know what you think? - Jane

Hi Jane,

It’s an interesting concept, though I’m not too sure how profitable it will be.

From the look of your website, it seems that you are not too competent in web programming. It’s okay, but you must keep in mind that if you want to grow, you must take one of the 2 paths:

- Master web programming yourself
- Outsource web programming and learn how to manage programmers

That is something you need to keep in mind and work on consistently. For now, you just need to promote your website and measure the response.

Promoting your website is pretty straight forward. You can go to various book forums to spread the words out. At this stage, you need to know what is the market response to your service.

Bear in mind that market response depends on 3 factors:

- The effectiveness of your sales letter (in this case, your homepage)
- The source of your traffic (whether it’s targeted)
- The business model

If you are not getting response from your promotion effort, it must be due to one of these 3.

About your sales letter / homepage

My assessment is that your homepage is weak and it needs some major improvement.

You need to ask yourself an important question, “What do you expect your visitor to do when they visit your website?”

If you want them “to buy a book from you for $1″, then you need to show them what book you’re selling.

If your objective is to get them to sign up your newsletter, you should include the signup form on the same page and give them a good reason why they should opt-in.

Remember, when people visit your website, it’s your job to arouse their interest and give them a clear instruction on what to do next. If not, they will just do one thing - leave!

About your business model

As I said in my earlier post on How To Start An Online Business, never reinvent the wheel.

Your business is actually buying and selling cheap books. A simple search for “buy cheap books” and “sell books” returns several established websites that are already doing that.

As an entrepreneur, your job is to think of how to make your service better and different from other competitors.

For now, it’s apparent that you can’t win them in terms of popularity. You also can’t beat them in terms of website features and design. But there is one thing you can be better now - you can have a better business model, since you have the advantage of evaluating and improving their business models.

Do not be intimidated by these established sites. Start with whatever resources you have now. As long as you keep upgrading your skills and keep moving towards the vision of a better business model, your business must grow and prosper.

Do you have a huge online business but have no idea how to make your BIG online business idea work? This is the problem that one of our members, Ken, is facing.

Here’s the gist of his long question to me:

“I always felt it was best to market a store-front (that has within it all the “items” I want to sell/offer/promote) versus trying to (futilely) promote a multitude of sites individually. That’s a noble idea, perhaps. How do I make it work?” Ken

I shook my head when I read Ken’s problem.

If you try to create a website that sells everything, as what Ken is doing, you are not likely to succeed. (Ken, I hope you’re reading this.)

No, it’s not another “niche marketing” theory, where you are told to create tons of sites for different niche. Niche marketing works and it’s what I’m doing. But our discussion today is how to make your BIG online business work.

The problem with BIG online business idea is that it’s too big for a new website that has no traffic and no content.

It’s like trying to build a mega shopping mall with only 2-3 tenants selling things.

The best way to show you how to make your big online business idea work is to share with you a couple of case studies.

I’m sure you’ve heard of Amazon.com. It sells many things from laptops to shoes. But when Amazon first started, it simply focused on selling one thing: Books!

There is nothing wrong with having a vision that one day your website will sell everything. But when you first started, you must focus on one niche and that niche is your knife!

Let me repeat. Your first niche to building a BIG website is your knife. It needs to be sharp enough for you to cut through a cake and get your first pie from the market.

I hope you get the analogy.

When your traffic grows, you can then diversity into other things.

Let’s look at another example, Ebay.com.

When Ebay first started, it focused a lot on auctioning collectibles. Why? Because at that time, people were not used to buying and selling anything online. But there was a growing trend that people were trading collectibles online.

Ebay was smart enough to capture this trend and grew its popularity and member base from there.

Focus and then diversify. That’s the simple strategy to make your big online business idea work.

Recently I’m getting more friends and relatives asking me how to start an online business. It’s not rocket science, but it’s not easy maths too.

Starting an online business is pretty much the same as starting a brick and mortar business, except that the cost is much lower and so is the risk.

When I say it’s pretty much the same as a brick and mortar business, I also mean that you need to be entrepreneurial, to be able to ’smell’ the needs in a market and to have a vision. Are entrepreneurs born or breed? I don’t know. What I believe is, if you think you are, you are.

So, if you are entrepreneurial and want to learn how to start an online business, read on……

Step 1: Never reinvent the wheel

Believe me. Almost all the smart and innovative ideas you can think of are already done by someone else online, in one way or another. If you think you’ve a unique online business idea, it just means that you’ve not done enough research.

So, if you have any online business idea, the first thing you need to do is head over to Google and type in some keywords related to your business idea. Thoroughly check out all the top websites that provide similar product or service. This means you may have to try out their products/services and find out their pros and cons.

Next, you have to evaluate those pros and cons and come out with a BETTER idea.

Remember, the job of an entrepreneur is not to invent things. His job is to seek proven business ideas, improve on those ideas and get a piece of the pie out of the market, preferably a bigger piece.

Step 2: Think of the marketing system

Most newbie entrepreneurs have one problem. They spend too much time trying to perfect their products.

Having a good product is important. But what’s more important is the marketing system.

Without a good marketing system, no matter how good your product is, it’s going to be hard for your online business to grow.

Regardless of what you sell, your marketing system should answer 3 important questions:

- How can the system attract and capture a list of potential users and/or customers?
- How can you make the system viral, such that users will refer more users?
- How to convert prospects into customers?

For example, recently I developed a great online tool (I think) that can help me to manage all my stocks (I’m talking about the stock market). I believe if I roll this service out to the market, someone will be willing to pay for it. But before I even think of developing the tool for the multiple users, I first have to think of the 3 questions above.

Here’s my thinking process:

I probably have to develop an online system where stock traders can subscribe for free and manage limited number of stocks. This will answer question #1. If they find the service useful and want to manage more stocks, they will upgrade their account for a monthly fee. That will answer question #3. The tough part is question #2 - how to make it viral. I’m thinking of developing a system where users can allow the public to view their portfolios or their watch list and sign up followers to their watch list. It’s something like the Twitter effect. This will make the website viral.

That’s how I apply my theory in practice.

Step 3: Work

Once the idea is formed and the marketing system is well thought out, the last step to start an online business is to work.

This is the overwhelming part because there are so many things to be done, yet you can only move one step at a time.

First you have to build the website. You can buy a ready script if it’s available, use the free MYOB script that I’ve developed for our members or get a freelancer to develop the website for you, either from scratch or by modifying existing scripts.

When the website is ready, you have to promote it and keep promoting it. And that’s only the beginning……

That’s how to start an online business. After it’s started, to maintain it is another challenge. But if you start off on the right foot, things will be a lot simpler in the future.

By the way, I recently came across a good article on getting clients for your business. It’s worth reading. You may get a few ideas for your business.

What is the best website structure that is ideal for search engine optimization?

To answer this question, let’s look at the 2 types of website structures.

1) Flat website structure

In a flat structure, all the files are in the root folder.

For example,

yourwebsite.com/article1.htm
yourwebsite.com/article2.htm
yourwebsite.com/article3.htm
yourwebsite.com/article4.htm
yourwebsite.com/article5.htm
yourwebsite.com/article6.htm

2) Directory website structure

In a directory structure, the files are categorized into different folders/directory.

For example,

yourwebsite.com/cause/article1.htm
yourwebsite.com/cause/article2.htm
yourwebsite.com/treatment/article3.htm
yourwebsite.com/treatment/article4.htm
yourwebsite.com/prevention/article5.htm
yourwebsite.com/prevention/article6.htm

where article 1 and 2 are related to the cause of the illness (say we’re building a website about headache), article 3 and 4 are related to the treatment methods and article 5 and 6 are related to the prevention measures.

The question is, which website structure is better? Is it the flat website structure? Or the directory website structure?

Some SEO gurus say that directory structure is better. But from experience, I don’t see much difference.

On the contrary, I realize that flat website structure seems to be indexed faster by the search engines.

Another Aspect Of Website Structure

There is another aspect of website structure that is worth discussing. It is the way you link your articles.

If you have 5 articles on headache treatment, you should link all the 5 articles together. This will increase the relevancy of the webpage and thus improve its search engine ranking.

But good internal linking can be practised regardless of which website structure you use.

My Preferred Website Structure

I’ve built content websites using both flat and directory site structure. Personally, I prefer to use a flat website structure.

Reason? There are less potential problems.

For example,

1) I don’t have to worry about whether to use /, ./ or ../ when doing internal linking.

2) When promoting the website, I don’t have to worry that I may make a mistake in the url, since in a flat structure, all the urls have the same format of website.com/articleXX.htm.

My Advice On Website Structure

In conclusion, my advice is to use a flat website structure and link related articles together. This combination should be enough for search engine optimization. After all, website structure is just a small part in the entire SEO puzzle. What’s more important is backlinks and keyword analysis.

“My question is about how to make websites work in different languages. As I operate my business with customers throughout Europe I need to present my website in several languages. How does this work? Once I have the text translated, do I have to make separate sub domains for each version or is there some software that magically changes it when visitors click on the appropriate flag?” - Gaynor

Hi Gaynor, there is a software that can magically change your website content into 34 languages when visitors click on the appropriate flag. You can check out the product here.

Two years ago, translating websites into different languages was touted as a way to increase your website traffic from the search engines.

This is because of the lower search engine competition in other languages as compared to English.

This may still be true today. (I have not tried playing with different languages, so I can’t speak from experience.) But thanks to your reminder, I’ve just purchased a copy of the translator. I will apply it to my websites to see if it can really increase my web traffic. I’ll report the result in the blog once I get some results.

There are 3 scenarios I can think of when considering the possible website translation solutions:

1. For more search engine traffic

If your objective is to get more search engine traffic to your website, I think the paid translator is worth considering.

All the translated pages will be indexed in the search engines and you can potentially get search engine traffic from those translated pages.

2. For better visitors’ experience

If your objective is solely to enhance visitors’ experience, there is no need to waste money. You can use the free Google translation tool.

Your translated pages will not be indexed by the search engines. So you won’t get any extra traffic from the translated pages. But existing visitors to your website will be able to view your website in other languages.

To add Google translation tool to your website, you can either use javascript or PHP script.

For javascript solution, you can refer to

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/11/add-google-translation-flags-to-your.html

For PHP solution, you can refer to

http://www.donutey.com/translation.php

3. For more sales

If your intention is to provide different versions of your salescopy to visitors from different countries, I think it’s better to manually translate the English salescopy into different languages. This is the most tedious alternative, but it’s the best option for sales conversion.

There is no need to arrange the translated pages into different subdomains, unless you are translating the entire website. If you are only manually translating a few important pages, you can simply keep all the pages at the root domain level.