Running an online business can be easy if you know the various methods on how to stay competitive. Since the best way to make money online is through building a website, it is important that you offer various features to make your site user-friendly.

One of the trending features today is the Live Chat. If you are running an online store, especially if you offer technological services or products, Live Chat feature may very well give you some flexible advantages. But first, you have to know that there are expenses involved if you want this feature enabled on your website.

The first things you have to expect are the expenses. Live Chat softwares are not so expensive and definitely easy to install. What makes Live Chat expensive is your manpower cost. You have to remember that in order to provide a chat service, you will need dependable employees to assist your customers 24/7 without delay. Aside from the cost, you also need to train each employee to familiarize themselves to your company and to your products or service offerings.

If you don’t want to hire in-house employees, then you can have virtual assistance which can work online and can give you the same benefits as in-house workers. Through online freelancing, you can reduce your manpower costs to almost half compared in having your own in-house employees. You can find virtual assistants in freelancing sites like oDesk and Gofreelance.com.

So what are the benefits of Live Chat? Did you ever talked to any Live Chat service on some e-commerce sites? If yes, then you probably know the main purpose of this great service – Marketing! Virtual assistants in Live Chats help the company to thoroughly explain its products or service offerings so that the customers will have precise and accurate understanding of the business. So Live Chat feature can practically increase the chance of getting sales.

Live Chat can also give convenience to your customers whenever they have doubts or important questions regarding the products or service you promote. It can also boost your company’s credibility because Live Chat gives more authenticity to your business.

So if you are running any type of e-commerce website and you are just starting out, a Live Chat feature will instantly give your business a competitive edge over the others. Incorporating this feature with your marketing efforts such as search engine optimization, email marketing, social media marketing, pay-per-click marketing and other types of campaign will definitely boost your online business potentials. So, is it necessary to have Live Chat in your online business? The answer will be Yes!

Noah Mark Rodolfo is a blogger that loves to share free information online. He currently writes about different niches such as make money online, cooking recipes and health. Read more similar articles like this in his website at Home Based Business

How to create your own iPhone or iPad game or project in 4 weeks and make money out of your application in the Apple App Store with no experience in programming.

Im sure you have heard of the success Apple are having in selling their iPhone and iPad all around the world, the iPhone is one of the top three most sold phones in the world and the iPad is currently leading the tablet market. Millions of these units have been sold around the world and more are on the way with Apple’s newer versions of the iPhone and iPad.

Many entrepreneurs are taking advantage of the App store and are making money creating many useful applications and games that can work on both the iPhone and iPad. Most applications are sold for a few US dollars at most and the app owner gets a reasonable percentage of the apps he sells through the Apple App Store.

Some smaller iPhone App owners are selling hundreds even thousands of Apps a day which you can do the math’s.

During the 4 weeks, you will be taken by the hand and will go through the whole process of creating your first app or game. You’ll be shown the easy and fun way of doing it. No boring theories, no hard core programming, no useless stuff. Only practical information and step by step instructions!

If you would like to learn more about the iPhone Dev Secrets program then click on the link provided or the image.

To your success in making money online.

Do you want to start your own independent website or blog but don’t know how to identify reliable and affordable website hosting facilities? It’s vital to research hosting providers and not just pick the first one you find.

We will examine the top 10 website hosting providers and what they offer. Choose the right hosting package to fit your website or blog requirements. Doing some research could help you save money over the long-term, and even make you money if you sign up to a reseller account and sell hosting space and bandwidth to your clients.

What is Web Hosting?

A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own websites accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own or lease for use by their clients. They also provide Internet connectivity, typically in a data center. Web hosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers they do not own to be located in their data center, called ‘collocation’.

Top 10 Web Hosting Providers

Site5 Web Hosting Personally I rate Site5 as one of the best Web Hosting Providers out there on the web. They have great support services and you can choose anything from hosting a simple blog site to having a reseller account where you host hundreds of your own client’s websites and blogs. They offer affordable hosting packages, reseller accounts, and virtual servers to dedicated servers. They are also launching cloud computing hosting services. Unlimited disk space, unlimited traffic, hosting packages starting at $4.95/month.

Afrihost Website Hosting one of South Africas best web hosting providers. Afrihost: Web Hosting & ADSL Broadband in South Africa · THE BEST WEB HOSTING SUPPORT EVER! Hosting packages starting at R65.00/month.

HostGator is a leading provider of web hosting, reseller hosting, and dedicated servers. Over 250 000  websites trust HostGator for their web hosting needs. Since its establishment in 2002, HostGator has been a world-leading provider of web hosting service. Unlimited disk space, unlimited traffic, hosting packages starting at $4.95/month.

GreenGeeks 300% Green Web Hosting. They specialize in customer satisfaction, using green alternatives to power their servers. Unlimited disk space, unlimited traffic, hosting packages starting at $4.95/month.

HostMonster has been providing hosting solutions to thousands of business and personal websites since 1996. Their internet hosting package helps businesses and individuals get high-powered service at a fraction of the cost. Unlimited disk space, unlimited traffic, hosting packages starting at $5.95/month.

Bluehost is a top-rated web hosting provider. Free 1 click installs for blogs, shopping carts, and more. Get a free domain name, real non-outsourced 24/7. Unlimited disk space, unlimited traffic, hosting packages starting at $6.95/month.

Web Hosting Hub offers the easiest way to get your new website online. The best and most reliable unlimited personal and small-business web hosting provider. Unlimited disk space, unlimited traffic, hosting packages starting at $4.95/month.

InMotion web hosting solutions. Top-rated business class web-hosting solutions for small and medium businesses. VPS hosting and dedicated servers. Unlimited disk space, unlimited traffic, hosting packages starting at $3.50/month.

Just Host is dedicated to providing their customers with the most reliable web-hosting service possible. Fast, reliable, web-hosting at an affordable price with secure servers, and 24/7 technical support. Unlimited disk space, unlimited traffic, hosting packages starting at $3.45/month.

GoDaddy Register and transfer domains for less. Reliable hosting. Easy-to-use site builders. Affordable SSL certificates. eCommerce solutions. Unlimited disk space, unlimited traffic, hosting packages starting at $14.95/month.

MyDomain Register domain names and transfer domains. Affordable web hosting, VPS, and eCommerce solutions. Free Site Builder with hosting. ICANN-accredited. Unlimited disk space, unlimited traffic, hosting packages starting at $15.99/month.

South Africa has some of the highest telecommunication rates in the world and been a South African I’m constantly looking for cheaper internet ADSL and broadband rates and other reduced rates when it comes to telecommunications in South Africa. Competition is now entering the telecom market and we will be looking at ways to save and find more competitive broadband rates in the industry.

We will be looking at some of the cost structures of some of the big and smaller players and will see where we can save and look for the most competitive broadband rates in the industry.

Telkom ADSL Broadband

Telkom has the monopoly in South Africa when it comes to the telecommunications industry and what can they offer us in terms of affordable broadband rates. Their cheapest broadband solution for the individual is their Do Broadband packages.

• Do Broadband Level 1 (R199.00 a month): Speed 384kbps, International Cap 1GB, Local Cap 10GB, have to buy an ADSL modem. Excludes setup, line rental, voice and fax call charges.

• Do Broadband Level 2 (R258.00 a month): Speed 384kbps, International Cap 3GB, Local Cap 20GB, free Wi-Fi ADSL Modem on 24month contract or have to buy an ADSL modem. Excludes setup, line rental, voice and fax call charges.

• Do Broadband Level 3 (R554.00 a month): Speed 4096kbps, International Cap 5GB, Local Cap 30GB, free Wi-Fi ADSL Modem on 24month contract or have to buy an ADSL modem. Excludes setup, line rental, voice and fax call charges.

Neotel Broadband costs

Neotel entered into the South African communications market a few years ago and are slowly making a name for them selves and is a threat to Telkoms monopoly, I reckon in a few years from now Neotel will be on level terms with Telkom. What I like about Neotel broadband products is that the device price is included in the price of the packages and shows other price structures like voice calls etc.

• NeoConnect Lite (from R99.00 a month): A fixed-wireless home phone solution that offers competitive rates and allows you to select the package to suit your voice, SMS and basic Internet requirements, all-in-one.

• NeoConnect Prime (from R279.00 a month): A fixed-wireless solution that gives you a phone with high-capacity and high-speed Internet access, SMS and voice on a single account.

• NeoGo Datacard (from R299.00 a month): A datacard that offers you unprecedented value and 50% more data with a 1.5GB bundle.

Vodacom 3G broadband

Vodacom is one of the biggest Cell networks in South Africa and has about 80 percent of the country covered. I have personally used their 3G data packages and had very little down time and on average the network speeds were good, here are some Vodacom 3G broadband costs.

• MyGig One (R349.00 a month): High Speed broadband, 1GB cap, USB modem included on a 24 month contract, no setup costs.

• MyGig Three (R649.00 a month): High Speed broadband, 3GB cap, USB modem included on a 24 month contract, no setup costs.

• MyGig Five (R1049.00 a month): High Speed broadband, 5GB cap, USB modem included on a 24 month contract, no setup costs.

Vodacom’s 3G packages are quite expensive but if you are on the move a lot and need to connect in different locations then I would suggest using them. But if your business is fixed I would use either Telkom, Neotel or if you have a Telkom line then you can apply for an ADSL account through Afrihost which has some really cheap and affordable ASL accounts starting at:

• Bronze 1GB package for R29.00 a month excluding Telkom line rental, setup and ADSL modem.

• Silver 2GB package for R58.00 a month excluding Telkom line rental, setup and ADSL modem.

• Gold 3GB package for R87.00 a month excluding Telkom line rental, setup and ADSL modem.

• Platinum 5GB package for R145.00 a month excluding Telkom line rental, setup and ADSL modem.

If you are not connected to the internet yet, get connected and start making money online.

We will be looking at how you can make money with iPhone applications. We all know that the iPhone is one of those ingenious devices that was designed by Apple Inc. The iPhone is a multimedia GSM Smartphone, Internet-connected mobile device that allows third party software or web applications written in AJAX to share the same look and feel as the iPhone Interface.

You can now make hundreds and even thousands of dollars a day, by selling little applications. You don’t even have to be a developer or programmer to make these applications. You can get a company like Elance to develop these applications for you for as little as $300. You just need some innovative ideas that will attract thousands of interested buyers and set your selling price for your application at a reasonable price and who knows? You could eventually become the boss of your very own fulltime business.

The first thing I would suggest to you is to go and check out the iphone applications store on the Apple iPhone website to see what sort of applications are being developed for the iPhone and how you can profit from this great opportunity and make some easy money for yourself. Do some research and ask some of your friends what they would like to see in terms of new iPhone applications that been developed to help them with their day-to-day activities. Who knows, you might stumble on the next big iPhone application that could make you thousands of dollars a day.

Learn how to make money with iphone applications today!

• Attractive Incentives – Everything you sell on the iPhone Application Store – you get to keep 70% of the profits.
• Huge Opportunities – With over 40 million iPhone devices sold worldwide to date, no wonder some people are making lots of money by developing iPhone applications.
• Working from Home – Once your iPhone application starts to generate massive income, you can consider this your full-time job and even open up your very own business, designing applications.

If you want to sell iPhone applications successfully on the iPhone applications store you need to keep the following in mind:

• As a developer you need to consider the following factors: the time it took to create and your iPhone Application and how much money you spent developing the application. This will determine your final price tag.
• iPhone applications cost anywhere between $0.99 to $9.99 for most of the successful applications. So you need to make sure that your application is going to stand out and that you are not developing an application that already exists on the application store.
• When developing your application you need to make sure that it’s going to be beneficial to an individual or company’s needs and that it’s going to help save money and time.

Find out more about Apple Apps Store and how to make money with it

There are a lot of resources out there on the internet that will help you get to learn more about making money with iPhone Apps. The first website I recommend visiting would be the Apple iPhone page that has links to the following pages – Apps for iPhone, Developing Apps for iPhone Video, iPhone for Developers, Apps Store and I would suggest getting your hands on an iPhone to see how it works to get ideas for possibly creating your very own world-changing iPhone application.

Then I would also have a look at the following link that will share the secrets on how to create and profit from iPhone Applications and share ways on how to market your iPhone Applications and how to pull in thousands of possible customers and viral power of social media sites that drive thousands of ready to buy iPhone owners straight to your Apps almost instantly.

If you’ve got any tips or blogging sites that might help beginners learn the ways to making money with iPhone Applications then please leave a comment with a link to site or blog.

If you are not using Twitter as a social marketing tool yet, I suggest you get a move on and sign up. We will be looking at what Twitter can do for your business (e.g. trying to sell an online product) or blog’s image, relationship-building, viral marketing, and networking, and how it can help you make more money online.

What is Twitter

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables you to send and read other users’ updates or tweets, which are basically text-based posts of up to 140 characters. These are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other subscribers (known as followers). Senders can restrict delivery to specific people or, by default, allow anybody to access them. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or applications such as Tweetie, Twitterrific, Twitterfon, TweetDeck and feedalizr. The service is free over the Internet, but you may have to pay service provider fees if you’re using SMS.

Twitter for Viral Marketing

The cool thing about Twitter is that it’s a great viral marketing tool. You can use it to promote your blog or if you are trying to sell a product through your website. The more people you invite to your Twitter profile as followers, the more than likely they will add you as a follower to their Twitter profile. Over time you will get hundreds or even thousands of followers and this will create a broad reach for your blog or product that you are trying to sell, possibly attracting more visitors and new customers to your blog.

Creating a Background Image for your Twitter Profile

Another cool feature that Twitter offers is the ability for you to modify your Twitter background. For example it allows you to incorporate your blog or website design into your Twitter background. Here are some design layout dimensions that you can work with to create a Twtter background image:

image width 1600 pixels
image length 600 pixels
left hand column 250 pixels

These dimensions will help you get started with the design of your very own background image. You can see how I have managed to incorporate my blog design into my Twitter Profile page by clicking on this link or banner above. You can upload your Twitter background image onto your settings and design link once you have logged on to your Twitter profile page.

Networking with other Twitter followers

I find Twitter to be a great networking tool, as it allows you to follow other Twitters who have the same business and social interests as you do. You can see what they are up to and what sort of tools they are using to market their blogs and websites, so you get to learn from some of the best on the internet. Often you will find some very useful links that they post on their Twitter accounts that may provide valuable information about earning money online.

Twitter Tools

There are some great resources to help you promote your Twitter Profile by just visiting the Twitter Applications Page where you will find Twitter Widgets and Gadgets.

Follow me on Twitter and I’ll follow you! Or if you have any questions regarding Twitter leave a comment or please share this on your bookmarking sites below.

Ways on How to Make Money on Twitter

What if I told you that there is an online virtual world called Second Life with its very own economy, which is creating virtual jobs for people and these people are making a living by selling and buying services and goods through their very own customized avatars which represent them in this exciting virtual world where anything is possible and an opportunity to make money online.

What is Second Life

Second life is a virtual 3D world and it is accessible via a broadband internet connection. Residents are able to access this virtual 3D world and are able to interact with each others avatars through a free client program called the Second Life Viewer. Within this virtual 3D world residents can explore, socialize, meet other residents, participate in individual or group activities, have business meetings, create and trade virtual property and services with there fellow avatars, or travel the grid which is the virtual world of Second Life.

Buying and selling of goods and services

The Linden dollar (L$) is used as the internal currency for Second Life and this can be used to trade some of the following virtual goods and services: land, buildings, vehicles, animations, clothing for avatars, skin and hair products, jewelry, landscape features and works of art just to name a few. If you are an entrepreneur then this might be a great way to try out those entrepreneurial skills and who knows you might walk away making a lot of money through Second Life.

The big money making drive in Second Life is the valuable and scarce commodity of land and property which can be bought, sold or rented, so if you are good at selling and buying property or an estate agent in real life then you can try replicating your skills to the virtual world.

If you develop or come up with items and services to offer in Second Life you may offer these in exchange for Linden dollars (L$), some services include working in stores, business management , tour guides, entertainment, etc. You are able to buy Linden dollars (L$) through the Second Life money exchange which can be bought with real-world currency US $.
How do I get started

You can signup for a free Second Life account which allows you to make use of the virtual world for any period of time. If you are interested in buying and selling of land, property, goods and services you will need to convert to a Premium membership once you have joined up for the free account (US$9.95 per month) which facilitates access to an increased level of technical support, and provides a stipend of L$300/week.

If you are interested in finding out more, I suggest you go to Second life and read up more about this exciting virtual world and all the money making opportunities. I would also recommend reading the System requirements to see if your computer is good enough to run the Second Life Viewer.

Are you new to the blogging and social networking hype and looking at new ways of driving internet visitors to your very own blog then you need to take a look at what MyBlogLog has to offer you.

MyBlogLog is a social networking community for bloggers that is based in part on interactions facilitated by a popular web widget that many members install on their blogs and websites. All that it takes is for bloggers to sign up for a free account on MyBlogLog and then can begin a blog community for one or more blogs they own. Then what happens is other registered members can search for various communities of interest like, make money online, online marketing, affiliate programs, work from home and so on, subscribing to these communities and effectively bookmarking them for future reading and sharing them with their own contacts.

Once you have setup your account you will beable to display widgets on your blog sites which show MyBlogLog online community members who have recently visited your web pages. These widgets also contain links to visiting members’ community pages, and are one way in which users connect with one another and promoting your blog throughout MyBlogLog. MyBlogLog has got quite a comprehensive stats system whereby members can see certain basic information about how many people visit their blogs, what links they clicked and where they come from. Members may also view more extensive information about traffic on their site for a monthly fee.

MyBlogLog communities revolve around an individual blog registered by that blog’s owner. These communities have anywhere from a few members to thousands of members. Communities that are popular, have the most members or that are new are featured on the MyBlogLog Communities page. Members can also find communities via searches for key words or tags. By searching for tags like earn money online, internet maketing, affiliate marketing, work from home blogs, a page will be displayed with blogs related to your interest.

MyBlogLog members are displayed and searchable in a largely similar fashion to MyBlogLog communities. Featured, popular and new members are displayed on the MyBlogLog members page. Users can also search for members and get a sense of who they are by seeing which communities they are a member of and what tags have been associated to their profile by the MyBlogLog community.

If you are interested in joining MyBlogLog community you can follow the following links to join my communities. Earn Money Online and Make Money Online Forum.

In this Internet Age it’s quite easy to sell and buy anything off the Internet and that’s why, if you have hobbies like photography, you can make extra money by selling your photographs to online stock photography agencies.

We will be sharing some tips to help you earn pocket money that can be used to buy new photographic equipment and expand your online earnings through photography.

What are Stock Photography Agencies?

Stock Phography Agencies are companies that represent photographers and sell their photographs (“right of use”) to advertising companies, graphic artist or agencies and newspapers. The stock agencies that we refer to are micro-stock agencies that deal with low price stuctures to sell your photographs online to a broad audience (from $1 to a few dollars). Most of the time this will come with restricted uses for a photograph and have quality favoured policies in place.

Recommended Online Photo Stock Agencies

There are a lot of Photo Stock Agencies on the web and most of the contracts are not exclusive. Let’s have a look at what some of these offer to their user base.

IStockPhoto – this is a big online leading photo stock agency. The images are sold between $1 and $12, which could lead to nice payoffs. Commision structure is between 20% and 40% You can also sell your Flash work or illustrations.

Dreamtime – this is very popular with its existing client base but a less well-known site. Price per image is $1 and $2 for full resolution. Commission structure is 50% Pics are usually approved within 3 days. A very user-friendly site.

Shutter Stock – This is one of the leading online photo stock agencies, this agency is different as it offers a subscription and encourages downloads of images (up to 25 a day). The photographers earn 25c per download. Pictures are approved within a day or two.

Check out some of theses other Online Photo Stock Agencies – fotolia, bigstockphoto, 123rf.com, stockxpert, canstockphoto, feature pics, photostockplus

Getting Paid out by selling your Photographs

You normally have to accumulate a fixed amount of money (between $75 and $100) before you can get paid out, either via check or paypal.

Are you looking for a hassle-free way to provide wireless Internet access to your guests? Skyrove has the perfect solution for you, whether you run a guesthouse, a coffee shop or Internet cafe.

What Skyrove offers

Skyrove´s fully-supported solution converts your business into a Wi-Fi Hotspot where your guests or clients get instant access to the Internet using their own laptops, PDA’s or Wi-Fi cellphones.

The advantages of using Skyrove

• It’s a hassle-free solution: Users simply open their browser, get redirected to the Skyrove site, sign up and purchase credits using their credit cards and/or directly from their hotspot provider.
• You earn additional income based on the customer’s Internet usage.
• You are protected from bandwidth-abuse.

If you would like to find out more about implementing a Skyrove Internet Wireless Hotspot or becoming a Skyrove Authorised Reseller or Partner, then click on any of the links above. Click on the Google Maps to view Skyrove Internet Wifi locations in your area.