Robert J F Kennedy

School is going great. I absolutely love it. I feel like I am falling a bit behind and hope to catch up this weekend. I have a market survey to complete and that should be interesting. I expect I will be picking up some work as I go along so it looks like I am going to be really busy. Being that I am a one man show in the business of website design, content creation, and seo I will have to outsource some of my work. I would really like to find a offshore php programmer with good english. I will likely outsource alot of link building as well.

I am looking for an affordable PHP programmer who speaks reasonably good english. I hear the Russian programmers are the best so that would be my ideal choice. India is also suppose to have good programmers. The work would be as I get it but could certainly turn into a good source of cash in the future. If you think you might fit the bill or know of someone who does leave a comment and I will get back to you.

School has been going great. Working on writing our business plans. Started out with business concept which includes key facts such as name and type of business and its location. The form of business ownership. Who the owner is. Contact information. First years sales projections, and whether a loan is required. Then the business overview which is more details of the key facts.

Mission Statement

The next step of business concept is the mission statement, which is what we worked on today. A mission statement defines the purpose and function of the business. This is why our business exists, how it will operate and whom it will serve. A mission statement should answer the questions Why we do it? How we do it? and Who do we do it for?

In the beginning stages of creating a companies mission statement it will change and evolve until it is an accurate statement of the businesses strategy.

My mission statement is “To increase web presence, brand awareness, and sales for small to medium sized businesses through higher search engine rankings, internet marketing, and website design.” I’ll let that one simmer for a while and it will likely change over the next few weeks.

Company Core Values

Next is company core values. I am still working this one out, as there are many values but I want to focus on three. My main ones so far are: Knowledgeable, Creative, and Innovative .

Knowledgeable

Providing cutting edge service by staying up to date with new developments and current web standards.

Creative

To add creativity to each project making them unique.

Innovative

Continuous education to provide innovative new ways to promote our clients companies.

I have a group of guys who wanted some tshirts. I designed them, had them printed, and when they arrived I took them to the post office to price the shipping. Turns out the shipping will cost more than the tshirts themselves. When doing business online I am finding out that postal rates are the greatest expense and almost always cost more than the products. Throw in taxes and it simply is not economical to sell physical products online in Canada. I could sell my tshirts at cost to try to absorb the cost, but why would I want to lose money just to make Canada Post rich? Of course I wouldn’t. So much to everyones disappointment another small business bites the dust. Thanks Canada!

I have five weeks of school on starting your own business. We put together a business plan and then start the business. My business is getting websites to rate higher in the search engines, website design, and graphic design. I will be posting updates and who knows I might even do a vlog. Being on video makes me nervous, but I want to give it a shot. I bought a $200 olympus camera to shoot some video with. Not sure what kind of sound that camera will have but I will cross my fingers. I have been using the macro setting on it quite a bit to take pictures of jewelry for my new site Canadian Jewelers. The pictures are not too bad for a point and shoot. So class starts on monday; I’ll let you know how it goes.

Rob

Well this has been a rough week for shipping costs for me. I mailed a package through Canada Post and they returned it to me saying the address was incomplete. If they had turned it over they would of seen the complete address on the front of the envelope. I guess the woman at the post office was suppose to put the slip on the back of the envelope. Either way the complete address was their if they looked. So I had to re-mail it. This cost me $60 out of my pocket.

Then I ordered some products from the United States. It was shipped through UPS. The total value of the product was $100. UPS charged me a brokerage fee of $56.44 - That is nearly 60% of the value of the product. I had already ordered again from the same company so in a few days I will once again get burned by UPS. Total amount of shipping charges I was burned on is now about $180.00. All of this was unexpected charges. I had looked into the the cost of duties and it was only 5% plus HST. That is a total of 18%. 18% compared to 56% is a big difference.

I will NEVER use UPS again. UPS Sucks big time. If you order from the United States to Canada get them to send it through the US postal system. Chances are you will not have to pay a single penny for duties or HST. If you do it will be way less.

Lesson learned the hard way.

The first dollar I made online was on ebay, but I never was really fond of ebay.  

Recently I looked into selling on ebay again and came to the conclusion that it is nearly impossible to make any money through ebay. OK, its not impossible but if you are selling new items ebay makes it really difficult to make a profit.  Once you add on shipping there is very little money to be made.

The thing I hate about ebay the most is that you pay to list an item.  You pay that listing fee whether the item sells or not.  If you cruise ebay listings you will see lots of items that are not selling.

I decided to find alternatives to ebay.  One solution is to sell items on your own site.  I love that. Wordpress has a shopping cart plugin that works awesome.  

Another alternative to ebay that I found is Bonanzle.com. What I like most about Bonanzle is that you only pay a fee when your item sells. You can list as many items as you want and your not going to lose money doing it.  Fees at Bonanzle are also far more reasonable than ebay.

If you are tired of ebays fees take a look around for alternative venues.  There are many out there.  If you know of some leave a comment on your favorite ebay alternatives.

I listed some items for my girlfriend on my Bonanzle booth.  You can check it out here —> Quality New and Used Products

The quest for the best social networking script continues. I take back what I said about dolphin. It just isn’t that great. I had high hopes for it but it does not offer what I want. The absolute bare requirement I have is to have a proper forum within groups. The way dolphin is set up everything is separate; Videos are one section, music another. If I built this software I would have those features inside of groups.

So far the script I am happiest with is buddypress. It is a wordpress product so you know that more themes and plugins will be developed as time goes by. As it stands now buddypress isn’t exactly what I want but it is the closest I have found so far. It is also free.

Here is my list of information on social networking scripts:

DZOIC :: Video Sharing Script and Social Networking Script - Youtube Clone - Myspace Clone - Youtube Script - Myspace Script

JomSocial - Social Networking for Joomla!

exo

tog

GROU.PS :: Create your own Social Network.

socialabc

Barnraiser

Lovd By Less — Open Source Social Network — Who loves you, baby?

The 5 Best Open-Source Social Networking Software

Powered by You! :: XOOPS CMS (Content Management System)

PHPizabi - Create Worlds

PeopleAggregator Update

The Elgg Community

Any recommendations for Social Networking Scripts (a la MySpace)? - SitePoint Forums

PHPizabi - Create Worlds

I am going into the SEO business full-time come mid Sept. My focus is on doing internet marketing for Okanagan Tourism. Being born in Kelowna and raised in Penticton I know what the Okanagan Valley is all about. The wine industry has exploded here and has created a tourism industry around it. I will be getting the word out about the Okanagan and everything it has to offer. We have beautiful lakes with gorgeous beaches. We host the Ironman each summer and have plenty of events such as the Show And Shine, The Beach Cruise. There are cozy, fun hostels for international travelers, as well as a variety of bed and breakfasts. It really is an amazing place and I am looking forward to promoting it online. My specialty will be promoting tourist related businesses and events. The Okanagan has lots to offer and it is going to be a blast sharing that with the world.

I started a basic social networking site where people can create groups and start forums. I used buddypress. It isnt the best setup, but it has actually been popular. We are at 98 members so far, and 8 groups have been started on topics from fitness, website design, to general discussions and a sound off board where you just let loose on what is bothering you.

As a website owner looking for traffic starting a social networking site is a very positive experience. People are constantly posting and discussing things. The search engines love this because it is fresh content being created all of the time. Already my site is ending up in first place on google in various places. Also this content is created by other people. I don’t have to site there and write and write all day long, it just happens all by itself.

You can create this kind of user generated content through various venues. You could have a forum. A blog can do the same thing with people commenting on your posts. The social networking site is really a blast because your members have more control over how they want to set up their own groups. This is why sites like myspace, face book and all the rest are so popular. It ends up being a win win situation for everybody involved.

I am going to create another social networking site just because it is so fun seeing people talk about different things. A niche specific forum is also in the works due to popular demand , and requests by those who have gotten alot out of the group.

One thing that is absolutely necessary is a captcha or something to stop the spam bots. If you start up a forum without one you might wake up the next day with your forum filled with spam posts. It can really damage a forum, and even bring them to a complete halt. I have had to close several forums due to spammers. Same thing with blogs make sure you get the askimet plugin installed. It works really well.

Captchas do get cracked, and bypassed. Also a captcha will not keep out the human spammers. You have to stay on top of posts and delete any that are inappropriate. Turn your most active members into moderators. These members are invaluable to your success. Most of them love what they do so they do it for free, but they really deserve some sort of compensation. Show them your appreciation as much as you can. If you can think of ways to reward them that is even better. Rewards could be allowing them extra privileges like promoting there products, maby giving them ad space. You could give them free enhanced content like ebooks, videos or podcasts. Use your imagination and you will come up with more ways to show your mods how much you appreciate what they do for your forums.