Rachna Kingston Interview – Making Money Online Selling Website Templates
Thanks for having me here Michael. It’s a pleasure to do this interview with you.
Could you describe what you do and how you earn your living Rachna?
I am an Internet Entrepreneur and a web designer/developer. I am the founder and owner of Entheos, which is a web design resource site. Entheos has 5 main streams of income:
- Ready-made Website Templates
- Custom Web Design Services
- Low Cost Solutions
- Adsense
- Related Affiliate Products
Your website receives 100,000’s of visitors every month, what’s your biggest source of traffic and how can new webmasters do the same?
Entheos gets approx. 30,000 visitors every day and nearly a million visitors per month. Our biggest source of traffic would have to be Google. Google accounts for approx. 60% of our traffic. Most of the traffic from Google is for our free tutorials and resources.
My advice to new webmasters would be to offer something of value for free and promote it in many sites. You could write tutorials or give free downloads. The key is that it should be of good quality and it should be free. This is how you can draw people to your site and also gets other sites to link to you.
With the Internet everyone expects things to be free, how have you over come this when promoting your premium web templates?
Customers who are looking for high quality web designs would purchase our premium templates. They are usually web designers and developers themselves and need a professional, quick and cost effective solution to design a website and the premium templates fit their requirements. We also offer free templates but they are simpler templates and don’t have as much variety as our premium templates.
You are now currently living the Internet Lifestyle, what does the Internet Lifestyle mean to you?
The Internet lifestyle to me means that I can work when I want, where I want and how I want. I am not time bound to work from 9 to 5. I can work in the night if I prefer, I can work for 1 hour one day and 12 hours the next day. I can take a vacation for a month and still be in touch with my work. I can work anywhere that has an Internet connection. I love the freedom of the Internet Lifestyle, working from anywhere in the world at any time!
I understand that last year you traveled to America for two months, how where you able to run your business and make money when you couldn’t go to work?
As most of my site is automated, it is easy to go for a vacation and keep in touch with work. I would check my email every day and take care of urgent requirements. My dad also helped me take care of things while I was away.
You are known as one of the authority websites in the Website Template Niche. What advice would you give a new blogger to dominating their niche?
I would say be passionate about your niche. The reason I am doing well with Website Templates though I am only an affiliate is because I really believe in it and am passionate about the product. I love the templates we offer on our website and I believe in it.
What advice would you give to people just starting out with an online business?
My advice is to do whatever it takes to make your business succeed, I see so many people try for a few days and give up. They are not passionate and don’t put in the effort to make it a success online. If you really believe in the online business you are starting, don’t think of giving up. Just persevere. You may not see results overnight but your hard work and effort will pay off at some time.
I remember when I first started the Entheos site; I was in the Google sandbox for nearly 10 months. This means that though Google indexes your site, you will not show in the search results for a couple of months. As I have been involved in some Internet businesses before, I knew that most of the visitors come from Google and there was never a Google Sandbox at that time. I was extremely disappointed, but instead of giving up, I worked my hardest to get into Google, I wrote tutorials, submitted it to many sites, got traffic from other tutorial sites, worked on providing free resources etc. When I was finally removed from the Google sandbox, as I had many sites linking to me, I had a Page Rank of 6 and the visitors came flooding in from Google. Now I am ranked #1 for Flash tutorials, Dreamweaver tutorials and Fireworks tutorials. When I look back, I am happy that I was in the Google sandbox for those months as it forced me to really work on my site and offer quality resources to my visitors which is why Entheos is doing so well till today. That was the foundation of the website. From there we started products, templates, affiliate marketing etc.
My advice is simple – Do your best and don’t give up. Believe in what you are doing, be passionate about it and work really hard to achieve it!
You are an extreme successful Internet entrepreneur and have just started blogging, what’s been the biggest tip you have come across that’s going to help you blog?
I am an amateur blogger, just starting out, but I think posting regularly is a good tip – though I have not followed it just yet.
You are probably my favourite female internet entrepreneur, what advice would you like to give to other women to persuade them to get online and join you?
Being an Internet entrepreneur is ideal for us women, as it gives us the flexibility of time and makes it easy for us to manage home, family and work. Since I got married, I’ve had a wonderful time with my husband as we’ve traveled and done a lot of fun stuff together which has been possible because of my online business. Now as I am expecting a baby, we have set up a home office and I’m glad I will be able to easily manage work, family and fun!
The best part about the Internet business is you need very little monetary investment. You can just invest in a domain name and hosting company, which is available for as little as $7 per month. Unlike a regular business where you need to invest in office space, here you can start from your own home. You can start a blog website using WordPress which is free and follow Michael’s 7 day free e-course on how to make money blogging. I would say invest in time and effort rather than money. Even if it is just a few hours a day, start a site and work on it continuously. Learn as much as you can. Michael has some great resources and tutorials on blogging, follow it and apply them to your website. Spend time everyday on your site, don’t worry it is easy and fun! I love my job and to me it doesn’t feel like work because I enjoy it so much! Everyday is exciting as there are so many new things to try out, the possibilities are endless with the power of the Internet.
If you could go back in a time machine to the time when you were just getting started, what advice would you give yourself regarding making money online?
I would have got into affiliate marketing and blogging.
What is the best advice you have ever been given!
Don’t give up!
Thanks very much for the interview, Have you any plans (personal or business) that you can share with us about your future plans / goals / lifetime goals?
For my site, I’d love to reach 50,000 visitors per day and have a page rank of 8 in Google.
Personally, I’d love to travel the world. My lifetime goal is to start an orphanage here in India.
Read Next
-
Ray Edwards Copywriter – How to Write Copy That Sells -
Craig Ballantyne Interview – Passive Income and Hard Work! -
Jeff Cayley Interview – How A 25 Year Old Mountain Biker Earned $3 Million Online In A Year -
Stanley Tang Interview – From Best Selling Author At 16 To A $57 Million Investment At 22 -
Daniel Cid Interview – Defending 250,000 Websites From Hackers Every Month -
Brewing Online Success With Kombucha – Dave Lindenbaum Interview -
How The Founder of TaskUs Went From Zero to 1500 Employees in 5 Years -
Ted Nicholas Interview – Master Copywriter Reveals His Billion Dollar Secrets, Creating Killer Copy That Sells
"Do Not Write Another Blog Post Until You Watch This Free Video..."
Watch this free video to learn...
- How I got over 10,000,000 people to visit my websites.
- The types of blog post that got me all that traffic.
- How to get someone else to do it for you!
Where should I send your video?
Please enter your email address
How We Get Over 64.73% Of New Email Subscribers
We first added a popup opt-in box to IncomeSup back in 2010. Today, it gets us more subscribers than our homepage opt-in, footer opt-in, sidebar opt-in and squeeze pages combined.
After seeing how well it worked for us, we decided to develop it into a plugin our readers could use. It's been so popular that over 60,000 websites now use it!
Click Here To Get Instant Access
Fantastic! Good Luck to both now and in the future!
Inspiring interview. The best part was the Google sandbox story. You have to love what you do to keep on going even when you face big obstacles.
As it is said: Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Rachna, start an orphanage as soon as possible in India. We do need one.
Good luck in achieving all your goals.
It is great to have a women internet entrepreneurs who are rocking the tech industry. I admire her determination. I definitely want to follow her footsteps in this industry. The interview was refreshing. Michael good job for conducting the interview with her.
Thanks Renelda, Rachna sure is doing well
Ramkarthik, great point, enthusiasm is vital!
Great interview. And congrats to Rachna on her internet success, and expecting her first child
This is something that pulls me in to the internet lifestyle, as my fiance and I are expecting our first child, and the thought of being able to spend as much time as i want with them, would just be fantastic!
Well done on another great interview Michael.
Exactly Scottie! I love how Rachna will be able to spend all the time she likes with her family and has set up a office at home so she can run her business as well.
Awesome Work At Home Mum To Be?
I hope you achieve the Internet lifestyle soon Scottie!
I love all your interviews..Do you travel from place to place to do these interviews?
Hey Haris Thanks man!
I simply send the questions via email to the interviewee and in their own time they respond, easy for both partys
What an inspiring woman Rachna Kingston is!
Thanks for interviewing her.
To be able to command a million visitors in a month in such a competitive market selling website templates shows that with enough passion and determination, anything is possible.
Honestly, many would have given up being sandboxed for 10 months. She didn’t budge and I respect her for that.
Yan
Exactly! Rachna did very well to stay alive, Retireat21 had the same, was such a great feeling when we finally started getting traffic from Google.
Those are some very inspiring words, im wowed by your hittage, very good!
Very good interview! I am surprised that you interviewed her again though, already been on R21 hasn’t she?
Rachna had some great new stuff to share and I am glad we did it!
Very inspiring and a great article!
Thanks everyone! The Internet Lifestyle is the Best!
I just loved the interview. I really like how you saw the whole google sandbox thing from a different perspective, and used it to your advantage.
Is there anyway to find out if a site is under sandbox?
Really inspiring and knowledgeable interview. Good luck Rachna for your future.
Can somebody tell a bit more about google sandbox.Even I dont know about it.
The Google Sandbox is an alleged filter placed on new websites. The result is that a site does not receive good rankings for its most important keywords and keyword phrases. Even with good content, abundant incoming links and strong Google PageRank, a site is still adversely affected by the Sandbox effect. The Sandbox acts as a de facto probation for sites, possibly to discourage spam sites from rising quickly, getting banned, and repeating the process. Taken from http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Google-Optimization-Help/Google-Sandbox-Frequently-Asked-Questions/.
Its great to hear stories of success from other internet marketers. What impressed me most what that she [Rachna] had continuously put in her efforts for months together even though she was in the Google sandbox. I think that persistence is very essential to succeed in any business. I myself hope that one day, I too will be featured here and Micheal will be asking me a few questions on how I succeeded in internet marketing. LOL.
I’m not sure if the sandbox is still in effect, but an easy way to see if your site is in the google sandbox is to try a searching for a unique title which is in your site, if you site does not appear anywhere in search engine results page you are probably in the sandbox. I have launched a new site this year and it did not seem to be sandboxed.
Thanks for replying.what is ur new site about? what is the site address?
Loved the interview and the very helpful hints! (especially for someone new to this like me!). I hope to be as helpful to others someday as you have been to us. thank you!
What a Great interview, with a down to earth lady.
I too am just starting out and Rachna just echoed all the points I have picked out as the unmost important issues.I enjoyed every single word, of this amazing interview,
Thank you both
Very great article Amazing!
rachna, that was an inspiring interview! it may just give me the courage i need to take the plunge! but more important, CONGRATS! it’s great to hear abt the baby on its way! All the best to you
I read this article and the interview with Adriaan Pienaar and they are very informative and inspirational.
Whether the Google sandbox is an across-the-board reality or whether it is just an algorithm looking for phenomena that spike and disappear, the idea that there is a probationary period sounds realistic, and should give startups (like ours) more enthusiasm to keep pushing things along.
Hi Rachna,
This Shiv, Trixie’s friend. Great Work.
How much do u charge to make a website, which will have some music in the background
Rachna and Micheal,
Great interview! Inspirational! Yesterday, I typed in templates for real estate and I came across your website Entheos and Ioved everything! Then today I come across this interview with you and I am blown away how everything I wanted to know is coming together and I am not spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on the learning curve. I feel like after the information in the interview with Rachna and the one with Barry I am going to enter the online world a lot more prepared than I would have been a few days ago. Thank you and Givers are Winners… pass it on !
s
I really appreciate all of the information in the interview with
Hi Rachana,
I am Anoop and a resident of Mumbai,India.I am impressed with the way u gave the interview.
I liked the way u put it ! I give below what u mentioned
The Internet lifestyle to me means that I can work when I want, where I want and how I want. I am not time bound to work from 9 to 5. I can work in the night if I prefer, I can work for 1 hour one day and 12 hours the next day. I can take a vacation for a month and still be in touch with my work. I can work anywhere that has an Internet connection. I love the freedom of the Internet Lifestyle, working from anywhere in the world at any time!
U mentioned “My lifetime goal is to start an orphanage here in India”
Well when do u plan to visit India and which part of India?
I am not only keen to learn this business of selling websites but to meet you in person bcos I too in my own way do social services but bcos of financial constraints cannot do as much as I would want to.
As soon as I become successful on the internet, I promise I will take to social services in a BIG BIG WAY!
Regards,
Anoop
well what can I say? GIRL POWER!
I love reading success stories involving doing what you love then scaling it up to riches
Fantastic Interview !!! i am so inspired and also on my way to take my web design firm a notch higher following in your footsteps. Many thanks
What an inspiring story, especially for us women.
I completely agree that the “internet lifestyle” suits women particularly well, as we’re usually the ones who struggle most with the restrictions coming from 9-to-5 (or even 9-to9) jobs.
Thank you Rachna for setting a great example for all of us (women or men)
hey ur a great inspiration for women to become an entrepreneur. U are the real breakthrough for many who thought women cannot balance work life. ways to go. Congrats!!!!
This is so inspiring! I’m a regular reader of this site and posts never fail to give me a push not to give up. Thanks for this Michael.
And Rachna rocks!
It is beautiful to learn that there are still people in this world who define their lifetime goal as helping others. Kudos!
thanks for sharing your story. It is really inspiring.
Hi Rachna, congratulations on your success. The Google results are simply incredible! You outrank Adobe for their own product tutorials!
My question is how did you choose your template affiliate program? It appears to be template-help.com but I can’t find any mention of any affiliate program on their site.
With so many template affiliate companies, how did you settle on template-help.com as a partner?
Those are some very inspiring words, im wowed by your hittage, very good
Just starting and reading a lot to learn about blogging and making money online. I think your words definetely inspired me more and makes me have more confidence in what i have started.
I absolutely love this post! There are so many pearls of wisdom in it. Giving value to those who seek it and giving it away free is why I do so well also.
By giving freely, you receive endlessly.
Having passion for what you do, removes the word ‘work’ from what you do and replaces it with ‘joy’.
If you are looking for an online home business, ensure you understand what is involved and it will be something you enjoy doing.
Then just do it and never give up.
The joy, time freedom and money freedom follows :o)
Thanks for sharing!
I really like seeing woman entrepreneurs, my girlfriend is really getting into photoblogging and I’m so proud because she comes home and works her butt of every night at it. I am going to have her read this post its going to really inspire her to keep working at it.
From Google sandbox into a PR6 is not an easy way to achieve! It must be really need a hard work and the most importantly never give up.
The story is inspired me a lot how to be success both online or offline.
Thanks
Stories of triumph are always inspirational. Helping people become successful online is a simple concept, but too many people confuse simple with easy. Your story is a great example to reference regarding the fact that work is spelled the same whether it is online or offline. Kudos!