Ronald Su dot Com

A Good Domain Is Worth A Million

Domain names have came down in price from $30 2 years ago to now only $10. Almost everyone can afford to own a domain. Most online activists I know own more than 5 domains. I, too, own more than 5 domains but very few of them are good ones. Since everybody can get domain names these days, it is very difficult to see a top quality one still available for grab.

If you plan to open up a few niche stores, you must find some decent domain names that are specific to your niche so you can get some hits from search engines. Let me give you an example. Couple weeks ago I got an Asus Eee PC as a gift. I was actually very interested at buying one for a long time. I knew it is a very hot item but still not a lot of people got their hands it. I used WebCEO to do some research on it and found that the term “buy asus eee” has lots of searches a day but not a lot of competitions. I then went over to Godaddy.com to find a domain that at least contain “buy asus eee” in it. I typed in buyasuseee.com and amazingly it was still available. I bought it instantly. I uploaded Build a Niche Store (aka BANS) on it and left it empty for a few days as I was extremely busy. After those few days, I checked the stats for the empty BANS site and saw Google already visited and brought in 6 hits with the term “buy asus eee”. This is the power of a good domain and basic research.

You can find good domains too. But it requires some forward looking and some researching. Try to see what will be the next hot thing and look for available domains related to it. Another approach is to find a very specific domain. Let me show you how I find a good domain using this approach. I am a long time Nikon camera user and I am only interested in Nikon cameras and lenses. I go to Terapeak (an eBay research tool) and search the term “nikon”. It has many listings but the sell-through rate is only at around 35%. I look at its related keywords and found that the term “nikkor” has a better rate at around 56%. Nikkor is Nikon’s lens division. It is quite specific because most likely only Nikon or camera enthusiasts will know about it. Now that I have this idea in mind, I go to Godaddy.com and see if there’s any good domain left for a Nikkor Lens niche site. I type in “nikkorlens.com” and it is already taken. I type in “nikkorlenses.com” and it is still available! Let’s try another one for a potential niche store. I search “buynikkor.com” and it is available too! This is just one of the ways to find a specific domain and you may find other ways more effective.

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Tags: bans, Build A Niche Store, domain, domain name, godaddy, name, Niche, research, site, store, terapeak

How To Build A Decent PC With $300 Dollars

Since I had my Asus Eee PC at the beginning of the month, I’ve paid more attention to Linux operating systems. From using the Asus Eee PC, i’ve noticed that Xandros (one of the many Linux distributions out there) is a very fast and stable platform. Many reviews had pointed out that Ubuntu is a more superior and user-friendly Linux OS. I would like to eventually move away from Windows but I think buying an Apple isn’t a good idea because Macintosh will become just like Windows in the near future. Setting a Linux box is a more interesting option. Since Ubuntu has most of the features I need for a personal computer, it is quite easy for me to adapt to. To begin my Linux migration movement, I built my first Linux box during the weekend. It only cost $321!

The following is the list of components for my Linux PC. I bought them from Anitec because it offers the most complete computer products at the lowest price. The final cost for this project is $366 after tax. Tax accounts for almost $40. Yes, we have to pay 12% of taxes for almost everything we buy here in Vancouver.

AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+ EE (2.3GHz) Dual-core AM2 Processor - $82
Asus M2A-VM AMD 690G PCI-E AM2 Motherboard - $65
Western Digital Caviar 160GB SATA Hard Drive - $55
LG GSA-H55N 20X DVD-Writer Black - $26
Generic Samsung 1GB PC2-6400 DDR2 DIMM RAM - $29
ACT 5020 Black Mid Tower Case w/ 450W Power Supply - $29
Microsoft Optical Desktop 3000 - $35
Copy of the latest bootable Ubuntu CD - $0
System Total = $321

Building the PC is quite simple as you just put all the parts together. What I do first is mount the motherboard on the case first. Make sure you align all the input and output ports of the motherboard with the holes provided on the back of the computer case. I then install the processor on the CPU tray and install the fan. The reason why I like AMD processors over Intel ones is because it is easier to install and maintain. I know Intel chips are better and are more suitable for hardcore gamers, but we are looking for a a stable and affordable solution here, AMD is the way to go.

 

The next step is to install the RAM on the motherboard. It is quite simple as you just line the RAM stick to the slot and press firmly down till you hear a click for both ends. After that just install the DVD writer and the hard drive to the desire bays. Connect the power cables from the power supply to the motherboard and the drives. Connect the IDE cable (the wide tape shape cable with a red part on one side) from the motherboard (the blue connector) to the DVD writer. Now connect the hard drive with the red SATA cable. Most procedures are very simple and it either fits or it won’t fit at all.

The most difficult part for the installation is properbly the step when you connect the case cables to the motherboard. It includes the power switch, reset switch, hard drive LED, and power LED. Different cases and motherboards have different cables and connectors. You should read the motherboard user manual as to which slot is for which cable. Close the case and put back the screws and the installation should be finished. Next step is boot up the computer and enter the BIOS settings by pressing the “Delete” key on your keyboard when the Asus logo flashes. Go to “System Boot” and set the first boot priority to DVD drive and the second priority to hard disk. Save and restart the computer. The next step is to install the Ubuntu operating system and it will be covered in a later post. Stay tuned!

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Tags: AMD, build, build computer, cheap computer, computer, decent computer, DIY, OS, pc, ubuntu

Inspiration Monday - John Chow (Part 2)

Last week I wrote about how John Chow inspired my blogging and Internet life. Originally for this week, I wanted to have a post on how other bloggers think of John Chow and how they see him inspirational. I emailed some well known and some fairly new bloggers to gather some information on how they think of John. Unfortunately, only a handful of them have responded. Most of them who responded had not given useful content for my post. Ken from KenSavage.com had replied this “Can I focus on … the fact that he doesn’t really teach anything?” I mean… Sure! However, I disagreed on his comment. Because it is tax season here in Canada, John Chow had posted a series on running a blog as a corporation and its tax advantages. In his posts you can easily find knowledge and I think he does teach you something (except when he talks about fine dining and cars).

I think because I am just a tiny anonymous blogger in the blogospher, most bloggers out there won’t take me seriously. However, I totally give my respect to Tyler Cruz from TylerCruz.com. I know he is a pretty well-known and uprising blogger. He is the only person replied my email with information I was looking for. He actually took the time to modify one of his earlier interviews to suit my needs. Now I am why his name is way brighter than others. If you want other bloggers to give you respect, you first have to respect them, no matter how small they are. This is what Tyler wrote in his response:

Hi Ronald,

You can take an answer I wrote in an interview for: http://www.winningtheweb.com/tyler-cruz-interview.php. I modified it slightly to work for your post.

John Chow deserves the recognition he receives. I saw him build his blog up from when it was fairly new to what it is today, and he’s now making over $30,000 a month from it.John is just a very smart guy and understands how to make a buck. He’s not just a successful blogger; he ran, and still runs, TheTechZone.com which is a very successful technology review site, and employs a number of people. And he’s had his hand in countless online projects and endeavors that most JC fans don’t even know about.And his knowledge with money doesn’t just apply to the Internet; he’s very good with finances, investing, and real estate. John is now a superstar of blogging, has been on TV several times, on the front cover of major newspapers, and best of all has fun doing it. This is why John inspires me.

Cheers,
Tyler Cruz

Thank you Tyler for treating me as a fellow blogger and took the time to reply my email. I know it isn’t something special to you, but it is quite special to me.

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Tags: blogging, community, inspiration, john chow, ronald su, tyler cruz

Vancouver Lunar Eclipse and Night Scene

As mentioned in the earlier post, I am now sharing my photos for the Vancouver lunar eclipse night in Stanley Park. There is actually only one photo of the moon that turned out to be OK. Most of the decent pictures are night scenes of downtown Vancouver looking from the Stanley Park sea walk. If you have never been to Vancouver, I am sure it will be your favorite destination once you have visited here. I am going to post a few good ones here. If you want to view more pictures I took, please go to my photo gallery. (Click here) Hope you will enjoy. Click photo to enlarge.

Full lunar eclipse in Vancouver. Next time you can see this will be December 2010.

 

View of downtown Vancouver from Stanley Park.

 

Along the Stanley Park sea walk. Can you see the shooting star?

 

View of the Lions Gate Bridge. Never knew it looks that nice at night.

 

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Tags: lunar eclipse, night scene, photo, Photography, picture, sea walk, stanley park, vancouver

Buy Asus Eee dot Com Niche Store Update

Been busy with school work and midterms, I haven’t have much time lately for my blog and niche stores. As soon as midterms are done and my school work load is back on track, I will resume my efforts for my niche stores and pumping out posts. About a week ago I bought the domain BuyAsusEee.com for my upcoming niche store to focus on the hot and trendy Asus Eee PC. I uploaded the Build A Niche Store software on the domain folder and created a custom logo and that’s it. The niche store is empty and I will resume the development as soon as this weekend.

What amazes me is that with an empty page that has no SEO or whatsoever, the store got 7 hits from Google with related keywords. “Buy asus eee” has 6. “Asus eee” has 1. This tells me that the niche store is going to be a killer! I must get it up and running as soon as possible.

By the way, tonight is the night that we can see a full lunar eclipse in Vancouver. I drove to Stanley Park and took some pictures. Very luckily, the sky was very clear. However, it was bloody cold and the wind started to pick up as I got there. It was still a good experience though. I will upload those pictures later on and post them up, stay tuned.

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Inspiration Monday - John Chow (Part 1)

Sorry for the late inspiration Monday post everybody. Because both me and my girlfriend are workaholics, we barely have the same day off together. Yesterday my school was having a reading break and I wasn’t scheduled for work. My girlfriend was also able to book the day off so we took the time to do what we wanted to do in a long time. We went to shopping on Granville street and Broadway, and we washed the car together, and went shopping again in Richmond. Enough of this, lets get back to inspiration Monday.

Picture taken from JohnChow.com

This week I am going to talk about how John Chow inspired me and other bloggers around the world. John Chow is truly an amazing guy. Even though I’ve never met him in person and have never had a conversation with him, I find him to be really inspiring. We are actually living in the same City but I have never spotted him. I guess he is a very busy guy and he usually works at home so the chance of seeing him around is quite small.

He plays a large role in my effort to start this blog and my niche projects. Who wouldn’t want to be like him? Working at home, being your own boss, and making good money from it. The first time I got to know about John is from a local Chinese weekly magazine couple months ago. (View here) That time I was very inactive online and wasn’t blogging, but after the article about John’s success, I started to pay more attention on blogging. From then on, I built this blog and realized there is really money to be made online.

If you don’t know who John Chow is, you should definitely head over to his blog. (Click here) You will see why he is the idol for most bloggers and affiliate marketers.  I’ve learned many things from his writing, and this week I am going to talking about only one of them. It is to try and test things out constantly and never settle for the best. How can he make tens of thousands a month simply by writing posts on his blog? He is very good at monetizing it. When most websites were still making money only from Google Adsense, he went on to try other ways of advertising platforms. He has no fear on decreasing revenue from switching advertising venues, because he know not to put all the eggs in one basket. When a new services rolls out, he is always the first guy who tries it. Then he will share his experience to other bloggers and let them know which is the best money maker. By always trying new things, John turns his blog into a reader magnet.

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Tags: inspiration, john chow

Blogging About Making Money With Niche Stores

As many of you can see, I am changing the focus of this blog from general business to niche stores. I started to pay attention to the whole niche store business model soon after I started this blog. After reading Shoemoney’s build a niche store tutorial last month (view here), I bought my first niche store domain and bought the BANS script. I began to realize how interesting and amazing the whole BANS concept is. Because I was once a seller on eBay, the build a niche store eBay affiliate business model reminds me of how easy it is to make a profit online.

I started my first BANS project with CellPhoneJet.com. It was fun and easy to set up with the BANS script. The store is currently making some very small profits but it lets me see the real potential of this whole thing. If I build a store with careful research and very specific and targeted niche ideas, it is going to be very profitable.

I also noticed a growing community of BANS owners seeking advices and knowledge from each other. Mark from TheNicheStoreBuilder.com is among the top for providing and sharing valuable information for the community. I hope to use this blog to share my experiences on building my niche store empire. The blog will also help me stay focused and on track on how to effectively make money online.

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Tags: affiliate, bans, Build A Niche Store, ebay, make money online, Niche

How Much It Costs to Build A Niche Store

If you have been active on the make money online blog world, you must heard of the script called “Build A Niche Store“. If you don’t know what it is, please read my post about it here. If you are interested in getting started in setting up your own niche store empire, you must start with planning. Without careful planning and analyzing, you will fail sooner or later. The first thing you might have to think of is the cost of starting up. The saying “you have to spend money to make money” is true if you are serious about making money off your niche stores. Today I am going to tell you in detail of how much it will cost you to build a niche store.

Build A Niche Store Script - there are 2 things that you have to have for building a successful niche store empire, the Build A Niche Store script is one of them. The script helps you spit out niche stores in minutes. It is also very good at SEO and customizing. There are other scripts for such work but BANS is the only I would recommend because it is the easiest and most user-friendly. Your goal is to have more stores in less time. The script is $97.

Web hosting - the other thing that you must have is web hosting. You need a home for your niche stores. Since having a niche store empire is like having a real business, you want your business to be hosted in a safe and reliable place. When your hosting provider is down, your business is down. You need to have a host that is always up and always fast. Most other niche store experts recommend using Hostgator, but I think BlueFur is better. Hostgator is quite fast and reliable but it is a bit crowded. From the months I’ve been using BlueFur I have never experienced downtime and it was always fast from end to end. One hosting is good for many niche stores so you only have to get one. Start with the most basic package and upgrade when needed. Their Mini UNIX package is $6.95 per month.

Domain names - you don’t have to register a domain name for your niche store but it is highly recommended to do so. Your visitors will most likely buy something through your store if it has a related and a well-thought-out domain name. It helps build you a brand and a strong image. A domain costs $9.99 per year through Godaddy. If you use this couple code during your checkout “OYH3″, it is only $6.99 per year.

Keyword research tool - if you want to build a rock star niche store empire, you should invest in a paid keyword tool. You can get by with the free WordTracker trial during the initial stage but when you start to build more and more stores, a good keyword tool will help you big time. Depending on your development style, you can get different tools at different prices. You can spend $329 for an annual subscription of WordTracker but I think that is not the best way to invest your money. I recommend doing keyword research one day per week. That way you only have to spend $7.95 for a daily subscription of Wordze, also a very good research tool. The total amount you will spend per year is $95.40.

These are the basic requirements for starting up your niche store empire. Of course you might spend more on other tools and resources down the road but it is a good idea for planning your budget. If you add everything up, the total cost for the first year of operation is $345.7, assuming you will have 10 stores. That translate to $28.81 per month per store. When you divide it by 10, it is only around $3 per month. Believe me you can easily make that back plus more.

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Tags: bans, Build A Niche Store, costs, domain, fee, godaddy, hosting, Niche, store, Web Hosting, wordtracker, wordze

Inspiration Monday - Tyler Dikman

At first I didn’t even know who Tyler Dikman was. After reading a post called “How to make millions fast” on Johnchow.com, I found out that his story and his success can truly inspire us young entrepreneurs. He has been on The Big Idea twice, teaching people the essential mindset for becoming successful. I’ve watched the 2 videos of his appearances on The Big Idea on YouTube. (Click here to view them) He made 3 points in his appearances that are really inspiring.

Take the extra effort. At the age of 5, Tyler Dikman was already making $20 per hour by selling lemonade. He said that all it took was the extra effort to differentiated himself. He build a cool stand to attract customers, he used a real cash register to look more professional, and he promoted his business by setting up signs as far as 5 km away.

Under-promise, over-deliver. When he started his own tech consulting company Cooltronics, he built his reputation by under-promising and over-delivering to clients. He told them the project would take 3 months to complete but he would finish it in 1 month. He would over-estimate the cost to have his clients allocate a bigger budget. When the project had only used half of the budget, clients would buy more equipment from him with the leftover cash.

Ideas don’t make you successful, execution does. This is the biggest reason for his success. Anyone can come up with million dollar ideas, but not anyone can end up making millions. What makes a millionaire is the ability to act on his or her ideas or goals continuously and constantly.

It’s time to cross out the word “giving up” in your mental dictionary and start planning and executing or else more folks like Tyler will take away all the cash in the world.

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Tags: entrepreneur, ideas, tyler dikman

Selling On eBay VS. Starting a Build A Niche Store

I was once an eBay power seller about a year ago selling silver jewelry and computer parts. It was quite profitable but it was for sure time consuming. From listing to controlling inventory and shipping, I could sit in front of my computer all day. I was also attending school full time, working on an eBay business was not the best way to make a profit. If you are a young entrepreneur and trying to make some fast cash online, start a niche store with Build A Niche Store BANS instead.

Build A Niche Store is actually a script that help you build an eBay affiliate website in 10 minutes.  Of course, if you want your website to make you money constantly, you will spend more than 10 minutes building it. I’ve started my niche store last month and the script is a very user friendly tool that you and me can use with little training. In short, all you have to do is design your store and state what kind of eBay listings to display. You then wait there for someone to buy something from eBay through your store. You will get commission from every sale that eBay gets. It is the tool I recommend for building an eBay affiliate store. There are other tools and scripts for setting up a store but most of them are less user-friendly and require more prior web development knowledge.

Why build a niche store? The answer is very simple. You make money from a sale without actually selling. You don’t have to worry about buying inventory, listing items, writing up descriptions, taking photographs, asking for payments, shipping products, and answering customer complains. The sellers do all those, we are just the middlemen, taking a piece of the pie. There are millions of sellers on eBay and billions of items on sale, think of the potential for being the middlemen. After you’ve finish building your niche store, all you have to do is wait for your piece of pie and move on to another niche store. The most difficult part though, is finding that niche idea. I will be providing more tips on niche ideas and building a niche store in later posts. Stay tuned!

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Tags: affiliate, bans, Build A Niche Store, commision, ebay