Weebly allows anyone to build a web site without going over hassles about programming.  It greatly simplifies the whole website creation process, and you can easily build a eye-catching site in a short period of time. Weebly offers a wide range of beautiful templates to get you started. The interface is also user-friendly. Just drag and drop the elements like video, pictures, media and widgets, from the toolbar into your web page. Definitely, you can rearrange the order of elements, and customize them as you like. Pages you add are listed in the navigation bar. You can reorder them as well.

Weebly offers free basic account, and also pro accounts with additional features. The benefits of holding a pro account include password-protected pages, the ability to remove the Weebly footer (the one line of text at the bottom of your pages that says "Website created with Weebly"), the ability to upload files larger than 5 MB, an audio player and the ability to create up to 10 sites per account. 

If you don't have a domain name, you can opt for their subdomain (ie yourid.weebly.com). Weebly does not charge to host your site and there is no limit on number of pages you add to the site. One more thing, you can add blogs to existing Weebly sites through the drag-and-drop interface. There is also Google Adsense integration for users to monetize their sites.

Weebly is great for anyone to share their content online for free. Another alternative is Blogger, where you can host your domain at no charge. However, if you wish to build a more advanced web platform and have complete freedom on web programming, it is best to pay for a good web host.

There are not many video sharing sites that pay for user generated content directly. Here are some I have found:

1. Revver
2. MetaCafe
3. Voxant Newsroom

If there are some more, please do tell me through comments. Tips to make money by making videos:

1. Try to limit the the video length within 2 minutes. People are not patient with long films.
2. Funny and hot babes videos generally receive the higher views than other categories.
3. Replicate what is popular on youtube, and upload it to those paying sites.
4. Give descriptive tags to allow people to find your video easily.
5. Spread the videos on your blogs. Distribute it through your contacts and forums.
6. Add watermark to videos and links in description to promote your money making sites.

Anyway, don't expect to make material income in this manner.

Screenshot:

A glimpse of features:

1. Allow you to blog on web content directly with "Blog this" function in Internet Explorer and Firefox.
2. Publish video, images and media at ease.
3. Link glossary to gather your commonly used links.
4. Add post slugs and tags (keywords) directly while writing your post. Support external tagging like Technorati.
5. Ability to resize images, by dragging corners directly or picking a predefined size.
6. A range of additional plug-ins to add more capabilities.
7. Automatic links creation with URLs via Smart Corrections.

Check out the complete list from the official site.

A few useful shortcuts to speed up your post writing process:

Ctrl+K - Insert Hyperlinks 
Ctrl+L - Insert Images from the desktop or the Internet
Ctrl+S - Save drafts locally
F7 - Run Spell Checker
F9 - View or Hide the Sidebar

More shortcuts can be found here.

There are also some handy blog editors such as Qumana and ScribeFire, which is a firefox extension letting you blog while surfing. But I always stick with the windows live writer in writing entries. The software is light weight and features-rich. It turns blogging into a pleasant experience. This is in my view the best free blog editor software.

Why blog?

Because search engines love it. And blogs allow more interactions from users, which is a feature of web 2.0 buzz. There are also more capabilities than static web sites, such as pinging and tagging etc. The freshness of content and personalization make blogs appealing.

If you haven't yet run a blog, read on and get one. It is the primary building block for the whole process.

Choosing a blog platform

I recommend using WordPress.  But you also need a hosting. Click here for an affordable hosting solution. And a domain name is also necessary, if you opt for a hosting plan without a domain name included. There are also other platforms like TypePad, b2evolution, movabletype and Nucleus. But WordPress has a huge user base and lots of plugins to enhance blogging experience. It is the best script for our purpose. For convenience, I would use wordpress as the basis for our discussion.

Definitely, you can also use free blogs hosted online. Visit WordPress.com for more information. You may also use Blogger, which is user friendly and features rich. And also Tumblr. However with free blogs, you have limited control over functionalities and customizations. Plus you have to follow their TOS. In particular, Adsense is not allowed on WordPress.com.  A hosted solution will be the choice.

The Three Stages to Succeed

Once you have a blog ready, we can move on to the core. To make money on blogs, three major components cannot be missed out. They are content creation, monetization and traffic. I will talk about them separately in details.

Create your content

Content is king. And it is the very method to retain visitors to stay on your blog. You should provide value to visitors by giving what they want. This is a direct and long term strategy to build your reputation.

Three sources to fill your blog with content:

1. Write the content yourself.
2. Outsource it to ghostwriters or use PLR articles. I recommend plrpro if you plan to buy plr articles.
3. Use content from articles directory. Will post a dedicated list of directories soon.

In using the content, try to include relevant keywords to get a better ranking in search engines. Basically, you need to include main keyword in title and first paragraph, and theme keywords throughout the post. To get keywords ideas, try the following sites:

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Wait, you seem to miss out one thing, right? I know, market research. It is a critical area to determine your success.  Best way to test a profitable market is to engage it. A general guide to assess a market is outlined below:

1. There are sufficient google ads. Competition indicates profit from a niche.
2. High search volumes. Check with wordtracker see if there is a demand.
3. Related affiliate programs. You need to find products you can promote related to your niche.

Check out ebay pulse, shopping.com and google trend to get niche ideas. You should opt for a general interest that can target a wider scope of audience. Ideally the niche can attract people to revisit your site regularly. And it is easy to expand horizontally. Yes big niches are highly competitive, but they are much more worthwhile to pursuit than a tiny niche.

Monetize your blog

There are tons of ways to make cash from your blog. Here are a few possibilities.

Ads placement

Such as Adsense and Adbrite. If you can make one dollar from a click, congratulation, you have picked a high profile niche. But there are some points to bear in mind with adsense:

1. Remove the border of your ads to blend with the background. Match the background color as well. You will want to integrate the ads with your site seamlessly.
2. Blue links induce clicks. After all, we perceive blue text to be clickable links.
3. In general, skyscraper works better than banners.

Sponsored Posting

Make money by looking for sponsors to advertise on your blog post. Usually the blog post is a review of a product. Sponsored posting services include PayPerPost, ReviewMe and SponsoredReviews. If you are good at writing reviews, this can generate a substantial income. But the blog you submit for reviews should be well established in order to lure advertisers to bid on.

Product Promotion

Sell your own products or promote a good from another merchant. You can look for products to promote from marketplaces such as Commission Junction, ClickBank and PayDotCom. There is a paypal widget which helps you sell online at ease.

Sell Text Links

Sell links on your blog from links brokerage service or forums. Text link ads is out of google. I recommend TNX for such online service.

Traffic

Everyone knows the importance of getting traffic. Here are the possible ways:

Bookmarking sites submissions

Use SocialMarker to aid the process. Remember to give useful tags. A list can be found here.

Article Directories

Write articles and submit them with a link back to your site. Traditional marketing. My top favorites are ezinearticles, searchwarp and goarticles. Note that the directories usually allow you to include link at the end of an article or in your author resource box.

Site directories

Submit your site to web directories for inclusion. In particular, submit to blog directories like BlogCatalog.

Web 2.0 assets

Promote your sites on MySpace, Squidoo, Hubpages and so on. Many of these receive high ranking in search engine results and help you enter a niche.

Conclusion

Yes that are definitely more in details to cover in each area. I have just outlined an overall picture on how to make money from online blogs. These have to been dealt in depth in future posts. I will make updates with this post when necessary.

Unlike hosting an ordinary website, running an eCommerce website such as an online store can demand a high technical focus. For instance, you may need a shopping cart and a payment processor. Other than these, you may also wish to have regular backup service, site monitoring or digital certificates that can protect  your valuable business. If so, you have to choose an ecommerce web site hosting plan that fits your needs. But it is really dependent on the business size. If you sell a few products, a simple ecommerce web hosting will be sufficient. However, for a business site of much larger scale, you need to consider the server usage and bandwidth. In such case, a fast and stable server with bigger memories may be necessary.

When choosing an ecommerce hosting, take note of the company's reputation from users reviews online. In particular, pay attention to the security measures. You can't risk your business with regular server failures. A decent company should provide a fast customer support. If your site goes down for any reason, you would need immediate help from the company which hosts your business. Read testimonials about hosting firms before you proceed to buy.

Other than hosting, a domain name is required to identify your business in the internet world. It may not be included in a hosting plan. When picking a name, choose something generic that can describe your business type, so that it is more memorable by visitors. For instance, if you sell cars online, You can also use a brandable name, in such case a short and pronounceable word is much preferred.

Choosing a reliable hosting is critical to provide an optimum performance of your e-business. If you have not made up your mind for an ideal ecommerce hosting solution , I would recommend this one which has comprehensive hosting plans for your needs: eCommerce Web Hosting.

1. Payment options: Customers want flexible methods to pay for your goods. Credit cards are the major way. Other payment methods like paypal, 2Checkout and Authorize.net are also on the rise.
2. Security concerns: Customers only give away financial details if the system is secured in their perception. Real time processing and smooth transaction are the means to relieve customers' concerns.
3. Marketing campaigns: To improve sales conversion, a tracking system is necessary to monitor sales. You may also wish to implement affiliate system to bring more sales.

QuickPayPro definitely satisfy all of your above needs and gives you an edge over the competition, with numerous features. Take a quick look at a partial list of features below:

First and foremost, deliverability is the most important factor. Consider the scenario: if your message is routed to the spam folder by ISP, your prospects cannot read it. And even worse, your reputation is ruined as you are on par with other spammers. Even if you take all the spam policies into account, your email cannot get through when the IP source of your service provider is blacklisted. While the case is rather extreme, you have to be wary about the reputation of the service. Read reviews for autoresponders you are interested. On this regard, I recommend GetResponse or Aweber, which are highly reputated in the industry.

Beside deliverability, you also need to take note of the spam policy. National laws vary from one country to another. In United States, the rule is particularly strict, as it can relate to criminal offences. For instance, you are advised to append your own mail address to every email you send. Usually, you also need to enforce double opt-ins for subscriptions. The restriction for list transfer is another issue. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the terms of service of your choice of autoresponders. But in practice, if you generate leads from United States, there are not many options for you to get around the issue.

Definitely, there are also features you wish to look for in mind. These include number of subscribers, messages; price is a concern as well. But most importantly, customer service is one big issue. If you experience technical problems or receive complaints, you want quick and rapid support from the staff.

Building a list is a vital process in the internet marketing industry. And you usually stay with the same autoresponder service for the whole business life span. You can't swap the list from one service to another in case of problems. Prospects will be annoyed and the loss is unpredictable. Thus if you look for a once-and-for-all solution in your email marketing, GetResponse and Aweber will be a definite choice. Don't take my words for it, test drive their services yourself. They offer 30 day money back guarantee, and you have nothing to lose.

The links:

GetResponse: http://go.hotebiz.com/gr

Aweber: http://go.hotebiz.com/aweber