Newbie - Starting online presence

in case your online methode is blogging then :
1. You must know the audience first, so do little research about your audience
2. After that you'll easy to create a content to your blog because you've know what your audience need
3. this is just my imho :-) ... start your blog with you're passion with.

about domain name...i thought that's no important thing what domain name based. as far as your blog give your audience more value then they'll enjoyed to visit your blog.

1. Granting you already know how to approach your future audience, if you have the funds, by all means create your own wordpress site. I highly recommend that. However, the domain name is not necessarily your name unless you want to make yourself as an authority of certain niche in the near future. As of the moment, better create a website name that is related to the niche you want to promote.

2. You can create a name based on the keyword of the niche you are going to promote. Just make sure your future contents are wrapped to the topic related to that keyword otherwise, you can have a more of a general name from that niche.

3. You can incorporate to both of your sites. In the future, you can test some affiliate products or offers in your niche site. Promoting niche related affiliate products seems to convert more than adsense. If your website has a general topic, adsense is preferred.

4. Depending on what topic you want to talk about. Example, if you want to talk about basketball, publish contents about recent NBA stats, start players, team updates, and anything that are on the buzz about basketball.

5. I recommend that you will create a separate one.

Creating a website is one of the easiest and one of the LAST things you should do.

I don't mean you shouldn't do it...I mean there are other, more important things to do first.

Think about what AUDIENCE you want to visit your site.

Think about what CONTENT you want on your site, to attract and interest that audience.

Think about how you are going to line up that content (interview? studies? quizzes? opinion pieces?).

Think about how you are going to approach your audience wherever they gather now online, and draw them over to your site.

THEN, after you have figured this process flow out and have some content ready, you can build the site.

Otherwise you are rushing out there to build a house without a builder's plan.

Just thought I would throw in a few thoughts, in addition to some of the great advice already given...

When you are starting out, it is hard to know where to start, that's for sure, but I think you need to make sure you know where you want to end up, at least to some degree... As the saying goes... Start with the End in mind (even if it turns out not to be where you end up... you can always review and revise things as you go along).

To elaborate a bit more...

Are you looking at establishing a long term business? - if so then you will want to make sure your foundations are solid and you treat it like a business and not a hobby.

Do you have some money put aside to invest into your business (doesn't have to be a lot) - if so your plan will be a little different than if you are really strapped for cash.

Have you decided on your niche? Are you able to make a decision about a niche, and be prepared to stick with it long term... even if it takes a while to see returns (how long depends on what sort of approaches you go for, even if you start with Affiliate marketing, which is usually the best way to get started. Choosing a niche that you are passionate about, even if you are still learning about it, is going to be key to being able to stick with it for the long term.

At some point you will definitely want your own website; not one of those 'free' ones, but one that you host on your own hosting account... how soon you do that, depends on what sort of a business plan you are going to follow. Buying your own name as a domain is really a great idea, if it is available (even if you don't use it straight away).

To answer your question about having a different domain to promote affiliate products, that is not necessary, but you might want to do that, it all depends again on your medium to long term plan and how you want to structure your business.

As for having a domain name that is niche specific... again this is all relevant to your overall business model. This can be a good thing to do if you are building Amazon Affiliate sites as an example, but it can also be good to do if you are looking at creating an Authority site in a particular niche. No reason why you can't have a niche specific domain and your own name domain, but one word of warning... Don't spread yourself too thin. Websites take up time, not just to build, but also to maintain, aside from keeping them going with regular content.

If you are setting up a site in your own name, then the content will depend on what you are going to be specializing in... Your content needs to be relevant to your niche. It needs to be what your niche is looking for (not just what you think is ok). For example if it is about Affiliate marketing or making money online, then you would make the content about that, if it's about Dog training, then the content would be about that but always looking for what your audience is looking for in that niche.

Using your own name for a domain as far as content is concerned, is pretty much the same as you would do for a niche name specific website. The one exception to this might be, if the site is in your own name, you would not target just one particular Amazon product to sell for example... like lawn mowers, because that would be a bit random and unrelated to your personal name... but if you were a lawn specialist, then of course your content would be all about how to grow great lawns, and you might also incorporate reviews of related products from Amazon as a part of the content.

Primarily setting up a site in your own name you are going to want to become an Authority in whatever niche it is that you want to build your business around.

As soon as possible you should also focus on building a subscriber list - that will mean having at the very least an Autoresponder service, but is usually something you do once you have your website setup... and you really should incorporate this into any venture you are undertaking online, even if it is Affiliate marketing. One of my biggest mistakes was not focusing on this aspect soon enough...

With regards to Adsense... that really is only useful when you have a lot of traffic... plus it can sort of 'devalue' your site in the early stages if you are trying to build an Authority site, or build up an audience. Personally, my opinion is, that I would not worry too much at all about using it, and you could review that later on if you wanted to.

Hope you can find some helpful tips in that lot... Wishing you all the best with your online efforts

Focus on a domain name you can brand.

Forget about exact match domain names.

Forget about adsense since Adblockers will dry up your income.

Focus on building a list and selling your products to your list.

To do this right, you need to target the RIGHT NICHE. Thankfully, it only costs $50 to hire a VA to find the BEST NICHE for you. Focus on the right NICHE

Wrong niche = FAILURE.

1. if you want to brand your name. Yes
2. No. This used to work well years ago. Now it's all about building a brand.
3. No
4. What niche are you in? As a general rule, find what people are looking for, having issues with in your niche and give them a solution
5. No

Cheers,

C.G.

Some good advice already, my five cents worth would be once you know who your audience are, what they want, I'd ask yourself how you are going to attract them?

Are your keywords for SEO, paid traffic, article marketing or you going to go where your target market is such as a forum, in which case keywords are arguably less important, your content at the end of the day should be king.

Building a band long term is deciding how you are going to position yourself in that niche and that may well determine your domain name and affect your keywords.

As Lynne Carey says know where you are going before you set out or you may get lost on the road.

Yes, if you want to.

Yes. Make it easy for people to "get it" immediately.

No.

Good content. Then use outside traffic sources and email marketing to drive traffic.

Not necessary, but sure. Promote 1 affiliate product at a time. Thanks a lot.[/QUOTE]

If I were you I would be thinking about building one site first not many sites.

As some other posters have said don't worry too much about a keyword domain. I may be wrong but I'd imagine most decent keyword domains for .com have already gone. And you don't want a hugelongdomainteviewsite.com in my opinion they don't look good.

Get your one blog going, focus on giving good content, giving value and helping people. Start from there.

I would start getting familiar with as many sites as possible to start plugging in and establishing an online presence. Namely, LinkedIn, Google+, Wordpress, Facebook (if you haven't created an account already)

Just be active my friend and think community

I think a lot of people have already touched on the other topics, but I'd like to add something.

If you build a site around 'you' and not the topic, and the domain name is simply your name, you're pretty limited in terms of exit strategies. Nobody is going to buy a website that completely requires 'you' to operate and remain profitable, and this also makes it harder to outsource work later down the road if everything is channeled through you rather than the brand.

I know many people don't think about their exit just as they are starting their business, but who knows what your plans will be later down the line.

Something to think about, anyway...

Not necessarily your name