4 Tips For Laser-Targeting Search Conversions
An argument that with Affiliate marketing not all search is created equal. Instead, you have to match your offerings to exactly fit what the searcher wants.

SEO Quality Indicators & The Heap Paradox
An argument that to create a quality site you need to add up lots and lots of quality indicators.

5 Reasons Why Design Matters To SEO
Explanation of why design is more important to search rankings than ever.

Hey Ryan,

Thanks for the great info,
-Darek

If you’re interested in building up your resume by doing a killer design for a high-profile website, please do get in touch with me. I have a budget for this, so I’m not asking for pro bono work… I am going to be ultra critical in choosing the designer though.

Some Personal Website Benefits

1. Identity control – By owning yourname.com, you’ll have control over what information about you is available to friends, family, colleagues, and potential partners in the search engines. John Chow and evidently many other Americans are going so far as to choose baby names based on domain names available. So I’d be sure to get your available .com while you still can to take control of your identity.

2. Professional Contacts – With your friends, Facebook is enough to stay in touch, but you may not want to refer professional contacts to your Facebook profile for a variety of reasons. Instead, using your personal homepage as a contact reference point is a good idea. While networking, include your homepage in your contact info along with your phone number and email. If your site is set up well, it will make a good impression.

3. Resume/Portfolio – If you want to put a resume online, it wouldn’t be a bad idea. Keeping an up to date resume or portfolio of your current projects/businesses might impress a few people.

If you’re itching for a rough example, check out my site: Nick.

I Want a Website. So how do I set one up?

You will need hosting, a domain, and a design. Simple enough. Hosting and a domain can both be purchased from GoDaddy. I’ve had good experiences with them, and they’re cheap. A domain costs $9/year, and hosting will cost $4/month. Money can be saved if you purchase hosting and domains for a longer period of time up front, which I recommend doing anyways to avoid the hassle.

For a design a simple static site will suffice. If you have no html/css experience, setting up a Wordpess blog may be a better option since absolutely no experience is necessary. Godaddy has a one-click install option for a WordPress blog as well, so they can guide you through the necessary steps to get online.
Setting up a personal website is a small investment into your future that is worth it. It may not land you your dream business partnership or job, but it will be sure not to lose it for you if done correctly.

And finally, I’d love to help out anyone interested in setting up their own site. If you need a simple design or have hosting and domain questions, I can give you a few pointers. To get in touch, just refer to my own personal site, Nick Ochsner dot com. See how handy it can be? But on my site, I have yet to create a real resume, so don’t think what I have will suffice. It’s just there for example.

All of these opportunities have the real potential of turning into full time jobs after college … working out of your home … as your own boss. Or, if you prefer working as part of a team, you can develop these skills in college, make some extra money, while simultaneously making yourself attractive to the millions of online companies out there.

Some of these Net Professional (aka web worker) careers are higher-paying then others, but there are pros and cons for all of them. Here’s a quick overview for those of you considering online careers. The benefits are that these can all be freelance or consulting type gigs, so you control how much work you want to take on – which is ideal if you’re still in college. Don’t be deterred by being in college – you can still win clients. This may or may not mean offering services for barter instead of cash.

1. Blogger for hire.
If you’ve got reasonable writing skills (most college students do!), regardless of what you’re studying, blogging for hire is a nice way to earn a bit of extra cash.

• Pros: Writing for someone else for pay means that you probably don’t have to worry about a lot of the non-writing tasks. Start small, build a name for yourself and you just might earn a nice income.
• Cons: Your earnings are limited by how many articles you can write per day. Quality creative output can’t be turned on like a machine. (You could, however, start earning a bit of money by selling links from your college blog – just be sure you’re allowed.)
• Links: For a few great places to learn from and hone your skills, start at Daily Blog Tips, Chris Garrett, Xfep and Bloggers for Hire. For gigs, check out Freelance Writing Jobs, Performancing Job Board, Problogger Jobs, Blogger Jobs.

2. Designer.
If you’re studying print design or something related, or otherwise have the necessary skills, what better way to start than online.

• Pros: If you’re a capable designer than can offer not only logo design and general graphic design but also website templates, there is potential for a healthy online career. There’s also the standard print-based work such as business cards, flyers, posters, etc., much of which can be sourced online if you can prove your skills with an online portfolio.
• Cons: Much of the template market relates to the WordPress blogging platform. This not only means you’d have to learn to code templates in WP but also compete with all the literally thousands of free templates.
• Links: Daily Blog Tips lists their choice of top 25 web design blogs, though a shortlist is A List Apart, Smashing Magazine, Pearsonified, Dev Lounge, CSS Zen Garden, Randa Clay, Brian Gardner, Daivd Airey.

3. Blog overlord.
If you don’t want to blog for hire, you could always try launching and monetizing your own blogs, one at a time, then hire writers to carry on the work while you later promote. (Either that or partner up with SEOs or SMMs)

• Pros: You can launch multiple sites and hire writers for each – either on a flat-fee or revenue share basis. Try different payment models and see what works – replace unmotivated writers.
• Cons: Blogging for hire is still a relatively new profession and while bloggers abound, many are still learning the necessary skills. There’s a shortage of skilled bloggers for hire, so you might be writing your own content for a while.
• Links: Start with Problogger, Performancing, and Dosh Dosh to get a sense of what it takes to build more than one blog.

4. Copywriter.
Good copywriters earn more than most other types of professional writers, and the blogosphere is an ideal place for promoting these services.

• Pros: You don’t have to be a literary genius to be a successful copywriter, but you do need to learn the proper techniques. Also, one good gig per year that pays royalties could be enough to build enough supplementary income to pull of a 4-hour work week.
• Cons: Dry, unsexy niches might get boring after a while (but if you’re good, you can pick and choose).
• Links: Start building your repertoire of techniques by reading Copywriting, Copyblogger, Copywriter Underground, American Copywriter, Copywriting Maven, Writing White Papers.

5. Domainer.
Domaining efforts can be a good starting pointing into moving towards being a blog overlord (above).

• Pros: Of all of the above online professions, this one has the highest potential. Complete portfolios of thousands of domain names have sold for as much as US$300M. The top domainers are said to work an hour or two each day, and some literally sit on the beach sipping drinks.
• Cons: You need to keep up with trend studies and pop culture, to have a sense of what domain names might be worth purchasing and when to let them go. Also, the best domains are all gone and can be costly to buy. Cracking into the market at the bottom is not going to make you millions. You have to buy and flip lesser names and bootstrap your way to buying the expensive domains. Or partner up. Furthermore, domainers are often despised especially because they squat on domains.
• Links: There are a lot of domain blogs all of a sudden, but several seem inactive. Start at Domain News and Domain Name Wire, and read Aviva Directory’s How to Get Started as a Domainer.

6. SEO/ SEM
The Search Engine Optimization/ Search Engine Marketing niche is huge and is really perfect for college students because it can be done in short bursts of time between classes, etc.

• Pros: There is a large market for SEO/ SEM services, and some the top firms are commanding $100K/mth in billable work. There’s enough spillover work for those newer to to the niche.
• Cons: To get to the top levels, you really need to network and either know what you’re talking about or hire the appropriate parties. Outsourcing is one option, though marking up their services limits your margin, unless you can provide some value-added service not available elsewhere. The biggest drawback is being reviled by others who think SEO/SEMs are spam marketers.
• Links: Get part of your education reading SEOmoz, Search Engine Journal, Graywolf, SEObook, Tropical SEO, Scoreboard Media, Single Grain, Stuntdubl, Pronet Advertising, Cornwall SEO, Search Engine Land and loads of other great sites.

7. SMM.
Social Media Marketing (SMM) is becoming a crucial aspect of online promotions.

• Pros: People with “power accounts” are always in high demand with SEO firms, and these services can be offered as a supplement to other work as listed above.
• Cons: Because social sites are, well, social, paid SMM work is always frowned on. You have to not only build your credibility but maintain it without being overly commercial. You really need to leverage your networking skills. If you’re shy by nature, forget about this niche.
• Links: Build your profile on facebook, myspace, digg, sphinn, delicious, stumbleupon, shoutwire and any other social media sites you can manage.

Choosing one of these paths is not something to do lightly, if you’re just starting out. But if you already have skills in a certain area and feel you can promote yourself online or otherwise find the clients you’ll need, then all of these Net Professional careers have potential for providing you a nice income. There are other services you can offer such as writing business plans, resumes, copyediting, etc. However, I think that the ones listed above have the highest potential for college and beyond.   And even if you’re clueless about how to get started in any of these fields, there are plenty of people (me included) who are willing to train you for free.

Custom designs are always the best option, but they are not practical for resource deprived online entrepreneurs. A more affordable option that I employ is tweaking one well made WordPress theme. With some basic HTML and CSS know how, it’s really not that difficult to customize your own themes. It is also really important to use a theme made by a trusted designer, so a lot of the SEO work is already done for you. If you use a theme found in the WordPress directory you may have some SEO problems, so it’s easier to just avoid those potential pitfalls now than to try to fix them later. (the list of good themes is below)

I personally found one good theme from Brian Gardner that I customized to my liking. Then, every time I need to launch a site I just change the header, logo, and color scheme, and then I’m good to go with a theme that could be mistaken for a custom theme. This streamlines the launch process and saves a lot of development time.

For a visual, here is the original theme screenshot side by side with a tweaked version that I made in a few hours for my new Cancun Travel blog:

The list of some of the best themes available to tweak follows:

• Performancing Themes
• Copyblogger Theme
• Cutline Theme
• Brian Gardner Themes (I use his)
  
• Rockin Themes

Then a few links for my design process:

• Colour Lovers – You’ll never have to worry if your colors match
• Urban Fonts – Free downloadable fonts that make logos unique.

I’m sure I’m one of many developers doing this. It’s really not too complicated, but it is a valuable process that can save a lot of time and resources in the long run.

http://www.spellbrand.com/clients1/college/college-1.jpg

Keep in mind that this logo will be going with a modified version of the estranged theme.

Oh, and btw, I’m getting this logo designed for free by Logo Design Works.

As you may know, I’ve been pimping out my car blog RideLust lately. Besides finding solid writers, I corked out over $1000 for the theme redesign. That might seem like a lot to you, but with the potential of making that much every few days, it seemed like a worthwhile investment.

The visual appeal of your site is critical to your ultimate success. Does the site come off as being clean, cohesive and professional? If you want to make it big, you need a design that fits your niche, so be ready to invest some money towards a solid design if you’re serious about hitting the five figures ($10,000+) per month mark.

Well, part and parcel of a great blog design is a great blog header/logo. And the good news is that Randa Clay, a premier graphic designer, is giving you the chance to get the most critical part of your design done for free.

Don’t need a logo? Well, you can still learn a lesson or two from Randa’s contest. Notice her “entry” conditions:

There are multiple ways to enter:

3 entries: write about this contest on your site (at least a paragraph or so) with a link back to this post and one other post that you like from this site. You can use the graphic above if you like.

2 entries: add Randa Clay Design to your blogroll

1 entry: subscribe to my feed (see links in the sidebar or at the bottom of this post)

Enough said. Randa has crafted a nice contest that is sure to roll in dozens of high quality links, and maybe a few new subscribers. Take this as a hint for your own online business. If you’ve got something valuable to give away for free, drop me a line and more than likely, I’ll let people know about it on this blog.

I’d like to invite College Startup readers to help BETA test the directory by registering and submitting blogs. If you run into any bugs/quirks, please report them back here.

We’ll be running BETA through the end of May and hope to launch in June. Your help and feedback are appreciated.

The fact is that the web creates virtually unlimited possibilities and rewards those who have good ideas and work hard to implement them. So if you’re struggling to find a summer job, or just don’t like the idea of an 8-5 job all summer, why not work for yourself? Why not put the infrastructure in place for a job that allows you to go down to the beach any day of the week?

Here’s what you need to do. First take a gut check. Are you self-motivated? Or do you need people watching over your shoulder to get things done? If you’re self-motivated, then you’re off to a good start.

The next step is to ask what you want out of your summer job. What’s your time horizon for seeing profit? If you’d like some quick cash, then follow Ben’s strategies for buying, building and flipping websites. If you think you’d like to see your summer job turn into a full time job after college, in other words, if you’re really determined to be self-employed, then map out a three year plan. Determine what you’re going to do to get to a certain place three years later.

The next step is to ask yourself what you do well. Not everyone is a blog designer like Ben. You might have fabulous ideas, but not have the skill set to implement them. This is where you have to start networking with people. Some skills you can easily learn (like how to setup a new blog, how to backup a blog database, etc.). But some skills are hard to come buy (a great eye for blog design). If you meet the right people you might be able to barter for services. Or, you may need to be ready to shell out some cash. Running auctions at SitePoint for logo and design services can be some of the best money spent.

But site design isn’t the only profitable skill on the web. Let’s say you’re an expert at classical guitar and have this brilliant idea for teaching people how to learn classical guitar. Start a blog on classical guitar, but only give teaser information. Don’t give your best stuff away. Instead, work behind the scenes developing an e-book or even an e-video series. As you build a readership with your blog, start charging for the e-book or videos, and maybe even offer webcam lessons!

Or, let’s say you’ve grown up with dogs your whole life and plan to become a veterinarian. If you have access to lots of dogs, it would be an awesome idea to develop a site with video of dog training and various breeds of dogs. Everyone and their grandmother has a dog in the US. If you execute properly you could have a hugely popular site.

The bottom line is this: when choosing a summer job you’re making a critical career decision. There are virtues and benefits to both types of summer job. But if you have a true passion and a true entrepreneurial spirit, then why slave through your summer working for someone else on poorly defined tasks, when you can have total creative control and set a precise path to become your own boss down the road.