Today we have a superb interview with Michael Ayalon

Michael Ayalon is the brains behind PetWebDesigner.com, a website design and SEO company that focuses on the pet niche. Michael is 34 and lives on Long Island in NY.

We asked Michael what motivates him and what inspires him? I think his answers say a lot about the man.

“Helping other people succeed motivates me. I enjoy acting as a mentor to other entrepreneurs, college students, and people looking to build successful businesses for themselves.”

“I’m inspired by other entrepreneurs that develop products and businesses that change the way we use the internet. Great examples are guys like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook or Chad Hurley of YouTube.”

Thanks for a great interview Michael – we appreciate your insights.

Enjoy the interview everyone – I look forward to your comments.

Michael

PS: Nothing is Impossible!

Michael Ayalon Interview

1) You are founder of PetWebDesigner.com,. Tell us a bit more about the site and how you got involved in this market?

Petwebdesigner started seven years ago. My mother in law had a litter of 13 Mastiff puppies, and she needed to find new homes for these dogs that grow to be well over 200 pounds. She knew that I enjoyed creating websites, and she asked if I could build a site with photos of her Mastiffs so she could show it to friends and family.

I built the website, and using some basic search engine optimization techniques, I was able to get her site to the top of Google for the term ‘Mastiff’. She ended up selling all 13 of her puppies within two weeks, and she begged me to help other people in the pet industry. When I created PetWebDesigner.com,, it quickly spread throughout the pet industry, and soon I had hundreds of pet sitters, veterinarians, dog trainers, and new pet products coming to me for website design and search engine optimization specifically for the pet industry. What started out as something I would do at night or on the weekends turned into a full time job, and I finally left the corporate world behind to do something I truly enjoyed. It also gave me the flexibility to work at any time of day, from anywhere in the world, and spend lots of time with my wife and two children.

2) PetWebDesigner.com, is a great example of a Web Design Business that specializes in a Niche — rather than being a webdesigner to lots of different business Niches. That is very smart! What advice could you give young entrepreneurs  – on how to stand out in their own niche?

My advice would be to focus on a particular niche in whatever they do. The best comparison that I have would be to a doctor. If you are a general practitioner, you will earn some money, but there are so many of them – it becomes very difficult to differentiate yourself from all the others. However, if you were to become a brain surgeon, people will pay you significantly more money for your expertise.

Research different industries, look at some of your existing client base, and see what you can do to leverage your past experience and become a specialist in a certain area. Using references from previous customers and a niche that you are familiar with, you can become very successful.

3) Can you share some of the biggest lessons you have learned personally and as a business as
PetWebDesigner.com has grown? If you were to start again, what might you do differently?
As Petwebdesigner has grown, I’ve realized that you have to treat the customers right. Most of my business is from referrals, so I’ve learned that it is critical to continue working on a customer’s project until they are 100% satisfied. By going the extra mile, it separates you from the rest.

If I were to start again, I would hire more help sooner. As an entrepreneur, you sometimes feel that you can do everything. The reality is that you do everything in the beginning, but there reaches a point that you actually harm the business by taking on more than you can possible handle on your own. By finding good employees, you can make the business grow much faster than trying to do it all on your own.

4)I noticed that you have also invested / bought Pet Related domains – eg BuyPups.com — how important in your opinion is having a good domain name?
A good domain name is critical. Since I have been in the industry for so long, there were many domain names available that I felt would have value to a future customer. So, I purchased them many years ago and just kept them until the time was right. Sure enough, many customers see the domains that I have and come up with a business model just from the name alone! Having the keywords that you are targeting in your domain name makes search engine optimization a snap. I would much rather make a small investment in the right name up front, rather than spend thousands on Google Pay Per Click, years on SEO work, and other techniques just to get you to the top.

5) How important in your opinion is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) today and what are your Top SEO tips for people starting out with their first website?
Search Engine Optimization is critical for any business. It means the difference between a successful business and business that ultimately fails. SEO is a commitment, not something that is done once and you forget about it. I am always working on my own SEO, and the results speak for themselves. When you are positioned in the number one spot on Google for your prime keywords, you’ll never have to worry about how your customers will find you.

1. Try to avoid frames or flash on your website. Search engines can’t read photos, so keep lots of text on your page with your keywords spread throughout the page. The content is king!

2. Meta tags are becoming less important now, but it doesn’t hurt to have the right Title, Description, and Keywords listed in your Meta Tags.

3. Use Alt attributes on all your images, and be sure your keywords appear here as well.

4. Link building is so important. Stay away from link exchanges, they don’t work well anymore. Now you are interested in one way links from other websites in your niche pointing to your site, and they should have your keywords in the link text. Make sure to go after sites that have a high Google page rank, that will make it easier to get results. Think about other websites that you could get your link on, such as vendors, customers, affiliates, membership groups, and more.

5. Write articles! Google loves fresh content. Why not write about your expertise with a link at the end of the article pointing to your site? There are hundreds of sites just waiting for you to submit your own original articles. If you don’t have the time to write it, hire someone to write the article for you!

6. Take advantage of the online classified sites. This is a real easy way to get free exposure for your business, and some links to your site as well.

7. Start a blog. WordPress allows you to create blogs with great looking templates and even better plug ins. The possibilities are endless, and Google loves blogs with tons of fresh content. Your links can go all over the blog as well.

8. Put out a press release! There are services that will submit your press release with links to your site to the Associated Press, like prweb.com.

9. Go and answer other people’s questions with a link to your site. There are sites like answers.yahoo.com that will allow you to answer people’s questions, and then link to your own site in the answer to those questions. Take advantage of this opportunity to position yourself as an expert in the industry.

6) Does social networking play any role in your business? If so what?
Yes, social networking does play a large role in my business. I’m very devoted to Twitter right now, you can follow me @petwebdesigner to see what I’m up to. I basically tweet about pet related stories, pet videos, and other pet news. Other pet lovers read my links, forward it to their friends, and I get many new customers that way as well. I have almost 6,000 followers now, and it’s been really fun to talk to all the pet lovers out there. I also can give help to others in the pet industry if they have questions about marketing their business online.

7) Do you have any suggestions for coping with set-backs, negative experiences?
You have to learn from your negative experiences so that you don’t repeat the same mistakes. Luckily, I worked alongside some very successful CEOs over the last 12 years. I have learned from some of the mistakes they have made, and now I apply that to my own business. You should always have a mentor to talk to when you have a set back, they typically have experience with similar situations, and what has worked for them to help resolve the situation.

8 ) You have a really neat transparent video on your website. How is that working for you?

The transparent video that I have on my site has been a huge success. Everyone seems to notice it. I always felt that it would be helpful to have a host on the website, someone that introduced you to what you were about to see. It makes people feel comfortable, and to reassure them that they are in the right place. We were able to hire the actress, write the script, shoot the scene, and get it on the website within 1 week. It gets many “ooohs” and “aaahhhs”, so if that makes us stand out, then I’m all for it.

9) Is there anyone that you look up to and model yourself on?

I admire my father for always working hard in life to achieve your goals. There is no doubt in my mind that I get my work ethic from him, and I wouldn’t be as driven without him. I also learned from other CEOs in my corporate career that taught me a great deal in how to run a business from the ground up, even when you didn’t have large funding to make it all happen. That was the training ground for creating my own company.

10) Do you have any favorite business related or web design related books that you can recommend to other entrepreneurs?
My favorite book of all time is “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. If you haven’t read it yet, you need to run out and pick it up today. It’s a great summary of what has happened over the last 25 years with regard to technology, the effects of outsourcing in the world, and it really gives you a different perspective on business. As far as I’m concerned, it’s required reading for every entrepreneur.

11) What is the best advice you have ever been given?
“Nothing is impossible.” At the time, I didn’t believe him, but he was right. We all have the ability to become problem solvers, but sometimes we just get lazy and don’t apply ourselves. It’s important to become problem solvers in everything you do, you’ll be successful and earn a great living!

12) As someone who has achieved success so young, what advice would you give to a Young Entrepreneur starting their first business today?
My advice would be to learn the fundamentals of business first. Either work for a small business or take business courses to understand how a business works. Balance sheet, income statement, and other key metrics are needed to measure your success. You can have a great business idea, but ultimately the business will fail if you don’t understand the fundamentals of business.

13) What do you like best about the Internet?
I love the power of the Internet. I love that anyone can create their own business on the Internet right from their home, and there is no need for costly overhead or big budgets to start a business online. It really gives anyone with a good idea the platform to make lots of money, and there is nothing better than that!

14) What do you like least about the Internet?
Viruses, spam, and people looking to pollute the Internet.

15) Any advice for how young entrepreneurs can bootstrap? (Not spending a ton to get something off the ground)?
Try to get favorable terms from vendors, and get payment in advance from customers. Talk to friends and family about your situation, and perhaps they can help you on an interim basis.

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Previously, Retire@21 has interviewed Alex Melen, founder of T35 FREE Web Hosting.  It was quite an interesting interview, talking about how he started T35 web hosting and has become successful with over 600,000 free hosting customers and a few thousand paid hosting customers, spending only 3 to 4 hours a day to make sure things are running smoothly.

Today, I am going to review Alex’s T35 website, the actual website which sells web hosting services to its customers.  Unlike other web hosting companies’ websites, this website is very personalized with an introduction of their long establishment of being web hosts and their T35 Hosting community.

My first impression

My first impression of T35 is that it is providing free web hosting to its customers.  Seeing how long this website has claimed to be around (since 1997), it gives me mixed feelings of its establishment because the website presentation looks like one of the many resellers selling shared hostings that I have seen out there.  However, it is more personalized with an introduction of themselves right from the front page.

A typical web hosting company usually displays their products and services right at the front page, tagged with a starting price of x amount of dollars every month.  T35 is no exception to this, but they start by introducing themselves as the older and most established web hosts in the world!

Recognized and endorsed by well-known publications

There are quite a couple of awards that T35 has won over the years of hosting business.  They are as follows:

• Business Week 101 Best Web Freebies (Nov. 2007)
• Business Week The Best Entrepreneurs of ’06 Today (Oct. 2007)
• Babson College Business Initiative Award (June 2006)
• Business Week Best Entrepreneurs Under 25 (Oct. 2006)
• YougBiz Magazine Top 100 ‘Treps – #19 (2001)

T35 are one of the first free web hosting providers, and the first to offer its members unlimited space and bandwidth until today.  They have evolved over the years, and their focus is to help their customers to succeed and establish their online presences.   It’s no wonder they continue to be ranked amongst the top 5000 web properties in the world.

Free web hosting plan for you

Giving you unlimted space, unlimtied bandwidth and a free sub-domain, T35 is allowing you to expand your web business for as big as you want with this package called “Free Hosting Package”.  The limitation is that you will have no MySQL database, no CGI, no email accounts, and a 1mb file size limit.  And your website must contain a footer text link “Hosted by T35”.  Good news is that you will have unlimited space and bandwidth.  Bad news to me is that the only uncomfortable limitation is with the file size limit.  That’s where your website will have limitation to store anything dynamically.  But given that you can store unlimited space compromised for limited file size, it’s still a pretty good deal because we will still want to limit our own file size to be less than 1mb so as to enable a smoother browsing from our web visitors.  And best of all, it’s free!

For better understanding, bandwidth is the limitation of the amount of information you are allowed to transfer.  Space or Disk Space means the amount of hard disk space you are allocated to store your files on the server.

Take a look at the demo account of the Free Web Hosting Control Panel.  It provides the usual option of uploading your files as soon as you log into the free account.

There are two packages namely “Personal Package” and “Business Package”.  The differences between the two packages are with their disk space and bandwidth.  “Personal Package” has 1GB of space and 20GB of bandwidth, whereas “Business Package” has 4GB of space and 80GB of bandwidth.  Typically, 1GB space is very good enough for your personal usage or for the usage of a small medium enterprises.  4GB space is used for those with heavy usage, hosting large files for certain purposes.

Of course the limitation of file size is lifted, you don’t have to show the link “Hosted by T35”, and you will have unlimited usage to MySQL databases, email accounts, FTP accounts, and you get to use Ruby on Rails.  On top of that, there’s a $25 Yahoo Search Marketing credit for you to use too.  Sounds a good deal!

No screenshots are provided for their paid hosting plan.  But they are using CPanel to administer their many domains and hosting of websites.  CPanel is a very friendly control panel, widely used by many web hosting companies selling shared hosting plans.

By the way, shared hosting is a service provided by hosting companies to allow many websites accomodate within a server.  Thus, serving several customers in a single server at a very affordable price.  In fact, many websites and blogs are using shared hosting plans.

Conclusion

Free web hosting business has been around for many years.  They encouraged many people to start their own website without incuring any cost of hosting the pages.  Customers merely show advertisements on their websites so as to maintain their accounts with the web hosting companies.  It’s a win-win situation for sure.  Giving away free things definitely provide brand awareness very quickly, and paid customers will eventually show up if the support service is good.

Find out more from T35 about providing you with free web hosting with unlimited space and bandwidth today!

To our success,

Charles Lau,

PS. What is your top tip for T35.com?

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1 – Not Launching

Ok, so for the past 6 months you have been meaning to launch your blog, but you never got around to actually doing it. Listen, it is action that defines success, talking about doing something is as useful as an inflatable dart board.

2 – Being Cheap

Do not host your blog on blogger, typepad etc… e.g yourblog.blogspot.com – this will make you look cheap, and if you do become successful, it will mean that your blog is almost impossible to sell, as you don’t legally own it. You can get your own domain for as little as $7.

3 – Giving up

All good things in life take time. Don’t give up after a few weeks. Most successful sites are very quiet for as much as the first 12 months, so be patient.

4 – Early ads

It always amazes me when people plaster their blogs with ads, despite the fact that 2 people per day are reading it. What do they expect to achieve from this?

Do not put ads on your site until you are getting at least 10,000 visitors per month. It makes you look cheap, and can harm your brand. Think about it, is it really worth taking the risk for an extra 26c per day?

5 – All Design and No Substance

It is all the crazy to have a custom theme and a shiny looking blog, but your content is a LOT more important. Focus on making quality content for the first six months, and if you are getting a lot of visitors, then invest in a fancy blog theme.

What other beginner blogging mistakes would you add to this list?

The post 5 Soul Crushing Mistakes That Beginner Bloggers Make appeared first on Young Entrepreneurs.

Today I am going to show you 7 signs that may mean you are an entrepreneur.

1 – You love creating things.

You enjoy the creation and building process and can think of numerous ways to combine existing things and create something new and exciting.

2 – You have a huge ego

You think that you could do better than your boss, in fact, you know you could do better. Having an ego is not a bad thing in the world of entrepreneurs, you are confident in your abilities and you are not afraid to show it.

3 – You are a dreamer

You are supposed to be working on some accounts, but instead you are dreaming of business ideas and investment opportunities in the future. Part of you always feels like it is in the future, and that excites you.

4 – Opportunity is everywhere

You see opportunities in every day life. In stores, on television, in the news etc… everything for you is an opportunity.

5 – You are passionate

Everyone else seems to live to work, but you don’t. You are passionate about what you do, you enjoy it, and it makes you feel good. You can easily work on a new project until the late hours of the morning. Without passion, you don’t feel as alive.

6 – You are a control freak

You almost always believe that you could do it better, even when you are paying someone to do it for you. You like to be in control, you like to make the decisions, and you like to answer only to yourself.

7 – You like strategy

You like to dream, but you do so with an element of strategy. Everything is like a game or puzzle to you, from office politics to business success. You have an eye for strategic manoeuvres, and nothing is going to beat you.

Summary

How many of the above apply to you? If you can relate to 4 or more, you may just be the next big entrepreneur. If you’re ready to start or even supercharge your current online business, be sure to check out Web Domination!

The post 7 Signs that You May be an Entrepreneur appeared first on Young Entrepreneurs.

Dean here from DeanHunt.com and Streetlessons.com

Michael recently asked me to come and share something with you guys that may well make you fall off your chair… if you are sat on a chair, then don’t say I didn’t warn you

Here is the deal: a while back I was asked to spend some time with Michael and work with him to assist him in becoming a social media superstar. In other words, I was going to coach and train him on how to get global publicity via the media and social websites.

I spent some time with Michael and explained my basic concepts and beliefs on buzz marketing, we brainstormed a little, and I made myself available in case he had any questions… frankly, I needn’t have bothered! Michael picked it up as easily as a dog with a bone, and 10 days later he was receiving the sort of media attention that Paris Hilton would be proud of.

WebMakeMoney.com has since been featured in many countries around the world, tens of thousands of extra visitors are visiting this site on a weekly basis, and the site has been linked to from everything from Yahoo, to Romanian newspapers. Global success has been well and truly achieved, and we have created a report to share more of the exciting details with you.

Would you like to see backstage and see exclusively the media fame?

Here is a free download link for the FREE report: Creating Social Media Superstars

You can receive 5 additional free reports by signing up for free here: Free Marketing Reports

Enjoy, and perhaps you will be the next social superstar.

Dean

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Buzz Marketing is one of the techniques that the true marketing masters use to generate potentially millions of visitors to their websites. Today I have two videos to show you that are well worth watching. They are short and sweet, so no excuses, turn off your IM, turn up your volume and watch them now:

31 Day Buzz – The best video clips are here

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Digg.com is one of the most popular social media websites on the net. If you know what you are doing it can be a huge source of free traffic to your website or blog. Today we are going to cover everything you need to know about Digg and Digg marketing/exploitation.

How does Digg Work?

Digg allows users to submit content to the community, this community then judges the quality of that content.

They do this with votes, also known as “diggs”, the opposite is known as “burying”.

There are many rules and algorithms that determine how popular the content becomes, but it is mainly based on votes. The ultimate goal is for the content to reach the frontpage. This tends to drive huge bursts of web visitors to your website.

How Does Digg Benefit Webmasters?

Digg can give you a platform to the world. It can let you spread your message and tell your story. However, if your message is not worth listening to, you will not get heard.

As a webmaster or blogger, the main benefit of using Digg is to get huge promotion for free. Before Digg arrived, there was no way of getting worldwide coverage for free, this allows small site owners and bloggers to compete with the big boys.

My Digg Experiences

I have been on the Digg homepage many times. In one example I received over 247,000 unique visitors to my website in a period of 7 days.

This huge burst of website visitors was hugely beneficial to my site, and it got me hundreds of backlinks, which still helps my Google rankings to this day.

On average I find a Digg success brings 50,000 visits, and around 200 backlinks.

4 Steps to Getting on the Digg Homepage

All of your Digg success or failure is determined before you hit the “publish” button. So here are some areas you need to look into:

* A great headline – Your headline must be catchy and attractive. Digg users like sensational headlines, and ideally you want to build curiosity through your headline.

* A unique and interesting angle to the story or message – There are billions of webpages on the net, how can you make your story or content stand out from the crowd? Aim to make your content different. Find a new angle, and think outside the box. For example, there was a recent article entitled: Retirement lessons we can learn from Britney Spears.

* Keep It Simple! – You need to use the KISS test: (Keep It Simple Stupid). This means that your message or story should be easy for everyone to understand.

* Solid formatting of the content – Don’t use huge paragraphs and big blocks of text. You can make your content easy to read by using shorter paragraphs, bold text, bullet point lists and images.

What type of content does well on Digg?

1) Anything with a unique angle does well.

2) Novelty content is hugely popular. For example, there was a recent story about a kitten with two heads.

3) Geek content – Apple, iphone, Linux, Mac, web design, Google, etc… Digg users love this stuff, so give it to them!

4) Lists – 10 step guides, 101 reasons to, 35 marketing tips etc…

Summary

You now should have enough information to succeed with Digg.com, however, before you get started you should monitor the Digg site for a few weeks and get familiar with it.

Also, use the Digg search feature and type your keyword into it. Look at the stories from your industry and look at what works in your niche.

See you on the frontpage

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