Homework Assignment for our next meeting

Hey everyone. We had a great meeting tonight at The Fish Market. Nate Monet did a great presentation teaching us about finding domain names, web hosting; tips and tricks. We really appreciate all the work that he put into it and we appreciate him sharing with us all that he has learned. Many thanks to Nate!

Although, we may have jumped the gun a bit in asking Nate to share his tips with us just now. We really need to back up a step or two and learn how to search for a product. You can't get a domain name and set up a website without picking the right product.

So...we are going to start at Step One! This is going to be a little elementary for some, but hopefully helpful to others. I am going to give you some simple steps to follow. I want you to actually practice this process...over and over. When you come to the next meeting bring with you one product that you have researched.

Step 1.  Go to amazon.com.  This is an easy place to look at products and find out information about products that are selling well. That's what you ... a BIG seller. Amazon is not consistent about where they post the links for "Best Sellers". Look around the page. Learn how to use Amazon.

Step 2.  Once you pick a good selling product, go to adwords.google.com. Scroll down the page a bit and click on "Get keyword ideas". Enter your product name and evaluate the results. You want a product with over 25,000 hits a month and less that 2,500 competitors. Look at the different options here and enter your product different ways. Enter your product name in " ". If the product results aren't favorable, go back to Step 1.

Step 3.  Do a search for a domain name at a domain name site of your choosing. Here are a few to choose from: 
      cheapcheapdomainnames.com
      domaindiscover.com (I have used this site; very reputable)
      godaddy.com
Practice entering different domain names and look at the results. It may show that the domain is available to purchase or may show that it is NOT available. If you cannot get the domain name that you want, make slight changes in it. It is best to only use .com, .net or .org. If you are not sure about moving forward and actually purchasing a domain, at least go to one of the sites and practice entering names. We will talk more about matching your domain name with your product at the next meeting.

At least practice doing Step 1 and Step 2 with several products. This is a process that you need to learn. If you don't pick a good selling product you won't have good sells.

Doing Step 1 and Step 2 won't cost you anything, so spend time on these sites. Play around, learn different ways to search, learn the options on the sites and get comfortable looking around them.

I hope this is helpful to you. It was good to see and visit with you tonight and hope to see you again. Thanks to Maggie for getting the meeting site for us.