Below I have listed many of the tools I use in my own Internet businesses. I never suggest products or services unless I am using them now or have used them in past projects and found them to be of great value.

Reliable and Inexpensive Hosting

One of the first steps in becoming an Internet marketer is obtaining a domain and hosting account. If you have not read my post on choosing a domain, be sure to read it before buying your domain. The host is the service which provides and maintains the server where your site resides. Hosting packages range in price from a few dollars per month to $19.99 and higher.

There are few reasons a beginner would need any features that a $5.00 or $6.00 per month plan doesn’t provide. Now days, even the basic accounts supply a LARGE number of features and plenty of bandwidth. Later, if more features are needed or more bandwidth is required (what a great problem to have!) it is a simple matter to upgrade the account.

• Host Gator is a leading host which offers excellent hosting. Their prices are $4.95 per month for one site and $7.95 per month for unlimited domain hosting. They have excellent telephone and chat support. Plus, you will have the conventional cPanel to work with. If I had to choose, I’d prefer a host which uses cPanel.

In no case do I suggest “free” hosting. For example, GoDaddy offers this with each domain purchase. It is a limited account and has THEIR advertising at the top of YOUR page! It simply makes no sense to do this. If you are not committed enough to invest a few dollars per month for your own hosting, I question whether you are committed enough to make Internet marketing work for you.

Your Domain Purchase

I’ve been buying domains from for quite a few years and have always used GoDaddy.com.
They have about the lowest prices AND their support is great! If you have to call them, you are usually on hold for just a few minutes before a very helpful person comes onto the line.

Click here for GoDaddy.com’s home page; they sometimes have special deal going on.

I don’t have one negative thing to say about GoDaddy. They’ve been very good for my business and I like their easy to use domain account interface. I just want to also point out that when you buy a domain with them, they will try to upsell you many “extras”…you don’t need any of those. I run my business just fine without any of them. The only one you might consider is the private registration options. This is used only if you do not want anyone to know who owns the domain. In most cases I don’t suggest using it.

Building Your List

Most Internet marketers will tell you that a list is their number one asset. Building a list should be near the top of every would-be Internet entrepreneur’s “short list” of important things to do.

It is never too early to start building a list. The initial page design of your site should included plans and/or the actual opt-in form used for building your list. If you have a site without an opt-in feature for building a targeted list, stop what you are doing and get this step started today!

Click Here To See The List Building Software I Use In My Business

A list is a group of targeted leads of at least first names and email addresses. With this list you can later market your own or affiliate products. A list of targeted prospects is a very powerful tool!

Steps for Building a List

1. Sign up with an autoresponder service like AWeber.com. (By the way, they are no relation!) DO NOT skimp on this part! DO not buy cheap autoresponder software and try to do it yourself! You will regret this…trust me! AWeber has much experience and is well respected by ISP’s. In today’s times, it is simply not worth the risk of going this part solo and risking spam charges. AWeber’s monthly fee will seem trivial if you get hit with spamming accusations!
Secondly, do not consider starting with a free or cheaper service. At some point you will WANT to move to AWeber. At that time you are not allowed to move an unapproved list over to AWeber at will. They are well respected and do not allow just any list to be used. They insist on forcing every lead on your imported list to RE-OPTIN! This is not good! I use AWeber and I am an affiliate for them. I highly recommend them.

2. Put together a free download you can offer. It can be a PDF file, video, or piece of software you have created or have permission to give away. This is NOT hard to do, so don’t be intimidated by it at all. Use this free online service to create PDF files: http://media-convert.com/convert/. Now upload the file to your host server.

3. Next, create a “Thank You” page which a person who fills out your opt-in form will be directed to once he submits his name and email. On this page thank the visitor and inform him to check his email for the download. Do not give the link on this page; this forces them to provide a valid email address to get the download. You can also have a special offer available on this page if you choose.

4. Now login to your AWeber account. Go through the process of creating a new list. Go ahead and write the first message. This is the message the new lead will receive in their mail with the download link you promised.

5. Create a form now for this list. You will need the URL to the Thank You page you created above. Require the lead’s first name and email address only. Do not ask for more.

6. Get the code for the form and paste it onto your page.

7. Go back to the list in AWeber and start writing more follow-up messages which can be used to keep in touch with the leads and build a trusting relationship with them. Do not try to sell them anything yet. You must build trust first. Set the emails to occur every 5 to 7 days.

List Building Tips

Shopping Carts and Taking Credit Cards

I have quite a bit of experience with various shopping carts and have created this short video for beginning marketers:

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Click Here For The Shopping Cart System I Suggest

How I Finally Learned AdWords

If anyone tells you that profiting with AdWords is easy, they are fibbing to you! Adwords was one of the hardest areas of Internet marketing for me learn. I floundered for a long time; I wasted a LOT of money on worthless clicks.

Finally I found Perry Marshall First and then Glenn Livingston; the light bulbs finally came on. I finally knew what I had been doing wrong and what I needed to begin doing.

If you are struggling with AdWords, do yourself a favor – download AND STUDY the free information which Glenn and Perry offer. There is no way I would be at the level I am now without their guidance.

Discover More About AdWords In These Free Downloads Than ANY eBook You’ve Purchased!

I learned most of what I know about Google AdWords from Perry Marshall and Glenn Livingston. Perry and Glenn both offer excellent material for beginning Adwords advertisers…all for FREE!

Click Here For Perry’s Free AdWords Cheat Sheet

Click Here For Glenn’s Free AdWords Video

Free Images For Your Site

My Friend, Ross Carrel, has put together the best free image package I’ve come across!

You can download the entire image package here at his site. The images are all high quality and can be freely used on any and all of your sites! (By the way, Ross created my banner at the top of this page.)

We always need cool buy buttons, credit card images, download arrows,etc. when building our sites. I’ve used many of these images on my own sales pages!

WordPress On Steroids

I have no problems creating sites with the generic version of WordPress. So why did I choose Blog i360 for StevesClassroom.com?

Click here to read why I use Blog i360.

If you are serious about creating a top-notch site for your business, I can’t speak highly enough about Blog i360 and how using it has helped my business!
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