The Plain Man's Guide to Making Money Online


Open Source applications can bring unique value to business owners. Since the base application development costs of open source applications is free, small and medium business owners are able to leverage previously unobtainable technolgies against their sales objectives, operational costs and customer satisfaction levels.

Most small and medium businesses cannot afford the typical IT infrastructure model - nor does it make sense even if it is within their budget. Consider the following expenses:

  • Hardware Infrastructure (Servers, Routers, etc)

  • Bandwith

  • Software licenses

  • Software maintenance

  • IT Staff

The creation, countinued adoption and proliferation of Linux (Open Source Operating System) in many server installations across the world has changed the way businesses run their IT operations. Although Linux is not yet a viable technolgy in the workstation model, it most certainly has gained a large market share in the server/application world. Companies adopting Linux into their server environment have realized the decreased costs, increased efficiency and increased security associated with this platform. The secret is now out and organizations are jumping the Microsoft ship at an ever increasing rate. This trend has not been lost on the major players in the IT industry, as IBM and Novell have been furiously waving the Linux banner and adopting the Linux penguin into all their marketing efforts over the last 12-24 months.

What does this mean to the typical Small & Medium Business Owner?

Since the proliferation of Linux, many applications have been developed by programmers from around the world to run on this platform. Pretty much any application a business could require, no matter how specialized, can now be found in the Open Source community. By choosing an ASP (Application Service Provider) provider that has experience with these applications, and the necessary infrastructure to host, manage & support these applications for you, a business owner can now leverage core business applications at a fraction of traditional, "expected" costs. Although IBM has never been able to capitalize or deliver on their now famous marketing slogan "Pay like a little guy, Play like a big guy" - Savy business owners are learning how to accomplish this, even if it isn't by calling IBM.

Enterprise level applications such as eCommerce, CRM, Content Management and Portals are now available for 100's of dollars setup, not 10's of thousands or 100's of thousands dollars. Combine this with low, fixed operational monthly hosting and support fees - effectively eliminating infrastructure, IT staff, software and bandwith expenses - and the value statement becomes VERY strong for the typical business owners.

Other advantages with Open Source applications:

  • Real time updates and upgrades. No more waiting for your vendor to release the next version before bugs &/or security holes are patched.

  • Once a bug is identified and validated, the Open Source community is quick to release a fix.

  • Open source means open and available code - unlike various proprietary systems, where source code is not available - application integration is now affordable and possible, even for small business.

    I'm a plain man who uses plain thinking in devising strategies for making money online.

    I do not spend obscene mounts of money attending high ticket web conferences nor do I rush to purchase the latest collection of web casts at outrageous prices.

    What I do instead is dissect what the high fliers do; pick the best; discard the rest; and add my own innovations.

    In the process I create new dimensions to the standard online marketing techniques everyone else employs - and sometimes with spectacular results.

    Search engine optimization for instance?

    Target the wrong keywords and all your efforts at developing that great niche idea will be in vain.

    Net result: you will lose out and you won't be making any money online.

    Target the right keywords and your website visitor traffic will rocket.

    Targeting the correct keywords at the outset resulted in 839 top rankings for the 18 pages of my website http://www.writing-for-profit.com within days of being spidered by the major search engines.

    Here are six of the keyword pairings and initial rankings obtained on the very first day that listings were published - all of three years ago.

    1. Writing for profit - 6 x #1 Spots
    2. Writing - 18 x #2 Spots
    3. Extra income idea - 6 x #3 Spots
    4. Extra income opportunity - 5 x #4 Spots
    5. Residual income opportunity - 7 x #5 Spots
    6. Residual income stream - 5 x #6 Spots

    Now here's kicker ?

    Check out this same website right now and you will find that for the first keyword phrase "writing for profit" it still Ranks at No.1 on Google, Yahoo!, Fast, Inkomi, Jeeves, Altavista, AOL, Teoma, All The Web, MSN - three years later?

    Attracting pre-conditioned traffic for instance?

    Over the years I have devised a unique twist to a basic online marketing strategy used by the majority of enlightened Net workers.

    I've added an innovative dimension that attracts highly targeted, pre-conditioned traffic in droves.

    It has nothing to do with search engine positioning, links, newsletters, list building, smart pages, etc, nor have I re-invented the wheel.

    It has all to do with original, out-of-the box thinking.

    Here's the final for instance?

    A secret strategy you won't find anywhere else, search as you may.

    It empowers me to create and host 1000s of websites for one single very low monthly fee - and rocket my online sales in the process.

    I won't even give you a hint here on how it's done because it is not for public consumption.

    I call my collection of innovations the 'Plain Man's Guide to Making Money Online'.

    It won't deliver instant riches but it will teach you how to thrive in 05 making money online?

    Jim Green is an entrepreneur and bestselling author with an ever-growing string of niche non-fiction titles to his credit.


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