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Are You Ready To Start Your Own Home Based Business by: Frank Tello
The most important question one should ask when contemplating starting a Home Based Business is "ARE YOU READY TO START YOUR OWN HOME BASED BUSINESS?". This is probably the most important question because it forces you to look into what it actually takes to build a successful business in this arena.
Next should be "what type of business will I be promoting?" There are different types of business ventures out there. There are a great number of Affiliate programs that will pay you residual income for work that you only have to do once. There are also MLM programs out there. There are a lot of programs available that let you test drive them for free. This is a good way to go because you get to see how the program works before you ever spend any money on it.
Another question should be "HOW MUCH TIME, EFFORT AND MONEY AM I WILLING AND READY TO SPEND?" In order to build a successful business you should know that a great deal of your time will be spent reading and studying the vast amount of information that is out there for you. There are also tons of "GET RICH QUICK" schemes out there that are ready and willing to take your money. With a little bit of common sense and understanding of what you are reading you should be able to weed through all the scams. A great source of information can be obtained through visiting the different Forums that are out there. Just go into Google search engine and look up "work from home forums",or "home based business forums" log into them and get involved in the discussions. Forums are the best sources of information for beginners or someone who is looking to start a home based business. Also you need to figure out how much effort you will be putting into building your business. This will also take a great amount of time. A lot of effort will be put towards building your website and getting quality traffic to your site. This is done by advertising, offering your business opportunity to friends and relatives, and getting quality links pointing back to your site. Promoting your website will be ongoing.
I saved the spending money part for last for various reasons. You have all heard that it "takes money to make money". True, you do need to sign up for these programs and they do cost money. You do have to spend some money to advertise. Do not let the fact that you may not have the extra money laying around to put into a business. It truly does not take a whole lot of money to start out. If you are willing to put in the time and effort to follow the coaching and instructions of somebody who is really successful at this bussiness the money will come in abundance.
Now to my final point. Effort, Time, and Money are all forms of energy, and we all know that energy atracts energy like a magnet. So in that respect the more time and effort you put into your business the more money you will attract. Remember "Positive energy attracts positive energy, and negative energy attracts negetive energy. This being said, it is very important to remember that you must always be positive in your business and build your business to help others. This will bring you more prospirity and happiness than you can imagine.
How To Build A Money Making Affiliate Website by: Heather O'Neal
An Affiliate Website is a site in which you sell other peoples E-products. You make money on commission.
example: you have created a web page on selling a Build Your Own Website Program. 10 people click on to your website and 1 of them buy the product. The cost of the Program is $40. The person selling the Product then turns around and pays you 50% which equals $20.
So you find a niche that suits you, improve your web site and offer more products. you sell 10 books a day at a commission of $20 a piece and that is $200 a day, $1400 a week, $6000 a month.
At this point you could afford to sit around and watch Young And The Restless all day or Keep moving forward and start Making Money Off Of Goggle Adsense, Take full advantage of Goggle Adwords, Create a Drop Shipping Business or even wholesale and become an E-Bay Power Seller.
How To:
Join an Affiliate Network.
Get someone to build you a web site or build your own. (building you own website can be very easy with the proper software). The site I have been using is XSite Pro. It is half the price of Dream Weaver, gives your more support and no html Knowledge needed.
Get a Free Domain Name. Free domain name for life a $29.99 value.
Look for a good deal on hosting. midphase is low cost with great support.
Choose your niche and enjoy starting your own business.
Affiliate websites can be one of the easiest and less expensive ways to make money online. Many of the top online marketing companys selling E-books offer free web sites. There is no html knowledge needed to manage the sites offered. The site is already preset with the money making links. You will then have to enter a sales letter pitch on a one page format. You should then get a free adsense account and bring in extra online income.
One of the downsides of living on the coast as I do is the winter. Whilst I get to see some of the best weather the UK has to offer, I also get to see the worst. We are not even close to the main winter months yet but I have still spent the last couple of days holed up at home watching some spectacular storms over the sea and 'enjoying' force 8 winds battering my house! Some of the more crazy locals chose to windsurf in the incredibly rough sea but given that I managed to crack a rib a few weeks ago windsurfing in next to no wind, I figured I would give it a miss :-) It looks as though the summer sun has been and gone for another year.....
On the plus side, as we creep into the autumn/winter months many business owners will be heading towards their busiest time of the year. This is especially the case if you are in retail of some kind as the run up to Christmas should, ideally, mean that you will be rushed off your feet for the next two or three months.
Every year I start to see the same signs around the end of September/beginning of October and this year is no different:
• My wholesale search engines start to serve noticeably more search results each day.
• My wholesale directory sites start to attract more visitors and members.
• I start getting more and more emails with wholesale-related questions.
• General online activity increases as buyers start to think about purchasing Christmas presents and sellers start to offer suitable purchase options.
Of course, many retailers will have been thinking about how they will approach the Christmas rush for months already but if you haven't, there is still plenty of time to jump on the bandwagon and make some cash!
eBay still offers one of the best online opportunities for anyone wanting to start selling stock on the Internet. When I traded on eBay my sales during November and the beginning of December always used to skyrocket. One of the main reasons for this was that I chose to sell relatively low cost products (less than £20) which were ideal for people to give as Christmas gifts. Often time I was only making a few pounds profit on each item but because I was able to sell so many of them, the overall profit became substantial.
Of course, eBay isn't your only option and indeed, you don't have to restrict your trading to the Internet either. Going back fifteen years or so, I worked in a large office of around 100 staff for a major UK bank. I didn't have the luxury of the Internet back then but that didn't stop me making a few quid at Christmas. Instead of selling online, I would simply buy some stock and sell it to my work colleagues - it saved them trawling around the shops and my prices were cheaper too!
If you work with a large number of other people, this might be a perfect way for you to make a bit of extra money this year? Remember, the Internet isn't the 'be all and end all' - the offline world does still exist :-)
And if you are keen to get started right away, forget about Christmas for a bit and concentrate on Halloween! Fancy dress is getting bigger and bigger in the UK and we have access to a huge fancy dress costume supplier with superb costumes from just a few pounds each! Last year I needed a fancy dress costume for Halloween and left it until the last minute to order and ended up really struggling to find something suitable as everywhere had sold out. No doubt demand will be just as great this year so why not take advantage of it?
If you want to make some money from the Christmas rush, you need to start taking action NOW! Don't let the opportunity pass you by because it's a long time to wait until next year...
Warning! Buying MLM Leads Can Be Hazardous To Your Pocketbook by: Gordon Bond
The information in this Report could make or break your chances of success with your current company.
In MLM or Network Marketing 1,000's if not hundreds of thousands of good faith independent MLM reps have been miss-informed and miss-trained on how to build a successful MLM business.
When a new person enrolls with a MLM company one of the first things that they are asked to do is to make a list of everyone that they know or knew in the past and come up with a list of 100, 200, 300, or even a list of a 1,000 names of people that they can contact about their new home based business opportunity.
This is usually an over whelming task and most people start getting discouraged about this before they even get started.
The other problem with this is, that most people getting into a MLM home based business have never had any business experience before or had any training in marketing that will help them to know how to properly approach these friends about a home based business opportunity.
On top of that, the person who recruited them may be in the same position (untrained) and this person is expected to help them make calls to their list to help recruit them.
This starts a No Win situation and both people usually get frustrated and drop out of the business. Does this sound a little familiar?
For those who survive this part of the process and eventually stumble through their list, usually embarrassing themselves in front of their friends and family, what do they do next after they run out of friends and family to call on?
Well of course, they start looking for ways to buy opportunity seeker leads, opt-in MLM Leads, phone verified MLM leads, area code specific MLM leads, TV generated MLM leads, and so on.
Great Idea..... or Is It?
Well, if you love to:
-spend your hard earned money and not reap any positive results
-make calls for hours on end instead of spending time doing what you want to do
-talk to people who filled out the form that were looking for an hourly job instead of a business,
-talk to people who have No ambition and No money to invest,
-talk to people who actually filled out the form because it promised a FREE I-Pod if they did,
-talk to people who want you to do all the work for them if they get in,
-spend more money on leads then you'll ever make with your business,
Then MLM leads are exactly what you need to be using.
If you don't like these results, keep reading, there is a solution.
The only people who really benefit from these leads are the people generating these mlm leads and then selling them to you.
I know, you've heard the stories of the guy who bought these leads, made the phone calls and Whamo, he ends up recruiting KING KONG and makes a zillion dollars, but that doesn't happen very often.
If you don't learn to work this business smart and learn the actual techniques that the Top Producers use, the chances of making it big in this industry are about as good as you getting struck by lightning.
I know you hear the stories of some guy who gets into the business and WOW in 2 months he made a $100,000. I can guarantee you that the story behind the story is that this guy spent years perfecting his recruiting techniques and spent years building a list of loyal followers that when he found this great new business he was able to immediately contact his established list and because they trusted him and are convinced to move on the opportunity quickly, BOOM he builds a huge group super fast.
I know, you want to believe that will happen to you, but you need to do some planning and work first. If your not willing to put in the time, work, planning, and massive action it takes to succeed in this business or any other business, you might as well give up now and get a job.
But, if the dream of residual income, complete time freedom, quitting the job you hate, and living the dream you've been hearing about is something you have a burning desire for, the only reason you don't have it now is because there is still something you need to learn.
So, make the decision to educate yourself about this industry.
7 Good Reasons Why One Network Marketing System Is What You Need by: Derek Gehl
I have been using the Internet to get traffic for my website for over four years now. Things change very fast and new traffic tools popup like popcorn. They can all be a huge waste of time for anyone. It is not wise to purchase the latest traffic tool or search the Internet for new traffic tools... Let me tell you why.
Here are 7 reasons why you should start a network marketing system. A network marketing system is just one system that consists of many traffic tools.
1. Many new traffic tools that popup are all very similar. The tools or system they use is similar to the others same way popcorn is. The sales pages are different, the owners are not the same but the so called new traffic tool is nothing new in most cases.
2. If you don't have one network marketing system, you get frustrated. Ordering four traffic tools won't drive any traffic to your site. Use at least one of them to its full potential. For example you buy a classified blaster; you are not using it well if you don't track your ads, clicks and traffic. Neither if you don't learn copywriting. So if you order also a message board blaster, it is useless without even using the classified blaster well.
3. Learn all you can about the traffic tool you ordered. Don't buy anything else before you do so. Even banner advertising, FFA's and safelists are still very effective methods to get huge amount of traffic. You need to use them the right way. You won't use FFA's anymore because you think they are useless. Posting your link on 1000's of them is really useless.
But owing just two FFA's is completely different and the opposite. Notice I said owing not posting. Owing an FFA costs no more than 10 dollars a month. Again you must use your FFA to its full potential before looking at something new.
4. The Internet is like a magazine, but very huge. The ads are not only on inside the pages. They are everywhere, and even popup where you don't expect them. To compare the Internet with a magazine, imagine you hold the Internet on your hands. You cannot close it and place it on a shelf. Many ads will popup in front of you even though you close it.
That means you should stay focused on your goals. Don't let the advertisements of new products distract you. You must have one network marketing system. You build that buy using one tool to its full potential before adding another to the network.
5. Copywriting is a skill you need to learn. You don't become a copywriter overnight but its the skill you can learn even if you cannot write an article. Many marketing tools you can add to your network marketing system require the use of ads, headlines and sales messages. You need to discover which ads attract people. There are many tracking tools to test your ads.
This is the one skill you need if you are writing any sort of ads. This skill and the tracking tools will help drive 10 times more traffic then before.
Learn that skill if you write ads, don't waste money trying to find a system that will guarantee you instant traffic.
6. Use articles to learn, they provide free valuable information. Knowledge is king. Don't wait to see the next best thing to buy it. If you already have traffic tools learn how to use those 110% well. Even a simple message board blaster can drive 10 times more traffic if you test your ads. Use the free information to learn and become expert in your field of internet marketing. Experts don't buy all the new products; they create the products themselves because they are experienced and have value to offer.
7. If you think you will change your life with the new traffic tool you just ordered then you may be completely wrong. The network marketing system you need won't consist of only tools. You have to actually use and learn to how to use the tools. You will fall prey to the new tools that will appear, and might promise even better results... Stick with what you know now, cause new products popup anytime, every week.
The network marketing system is a complete set of traffic tools you know how to use. You cannot learn more than one thing at a time. Each tool needs to be used to its full potential or you waste time, money and fall prey to better promises by new tools.
Sell a Unique, Niche Product Online? Who Me? by: Teri Trantanella
Very seldom does one find something unique to sell online. As an online Internet Marketer, I had been spending most of my time marketing my website promoting MLM opportunities and sites for advertising those opportunities. Although I was making a little here and little there, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t what I’ve always wanted to do and it wasn’t worth the time I spent online trying to market something that everybody and their mother was already marketing. Then, a few weeks ago, that all changed. I met someone that created something so special, I just had to help her market it. And my “niche” product was thus created.
Located in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in a heart-warming little shop, known as "Peggy's Dolls", along side a small craft community flanked by a working grist mill from the 1800's, Peggy Sue Cosey makes, dresses, and displays her exquisite handmade porcelain dolls. Upon meeting her, you can tell that she truly loves what she does, as she should, since she's been creating these Heirlooms for the last 28 years! This is where I met Peggy and discussed marketing her cherished dolls on the internet for her. It was a dream come true for me, as I have always been a collector of porcelain dolls. These dolls were so unique and nothing like the average so called “collector” dolls you see in other shops. It was quite apparent that these were very special dolls. The average porcelain doll collector can probably not afford the price of these beautiful dolls, but, because of their uniqueness, they are worth the price it takes to have one of these precious little beings. They are created with childlike expressions just like your own children and will be a welcome addition to any serious collector. Even the magnificent satin and lace dresses are handmade by Peggy.
As the National Doll Maker for the Miss and Mrs. U.S.A. Pageants, Peggy has won several trophies for her creative doll-making talent. Her latest pageant creation, Mrs. U.S.A. 2006, can be seen on our website. If that isn’t enough, two of her exquisite dolls were on display in the White House for several years and have moved on to be included in the Smithsonian Institute.
Another reason for her tremendous success was her decision to start personalizing her dolls. She takes the photo of someone's treasured little girl or boy and fashions the doll by hand to look just like them. The resemblance is astonishing and has made her famous! The process of shaping the porcelain face by hand, styling the hair, eyes, and clothing with meticulous detail is extremely time-consuming, yet very rewarding. Since most look-a-like doll shops use the same face and change only the eyes, hair, and clothing, Peggy loves to see the look on the faces of parents, grandparents, and others when they pick up their newly hand crafted doll, knowing that it will remind them of their cherished child forever. You can see how much time and effort goes into each unique doll by checking out our Photo Gallery on our website.
People come from around the world for Peggy's Dolls and with such high profile customers as Dolly Parton, Reba McIntire, Loretta Lynn, and others, it's no wonder her dolls have become famous!
How Owning Your Own Domain Can Generate More Web Income by: Cynthia Minnaar
Owning your own domain gives you so much more freedom on the internet and I would say it is an absolute necessity to ensure success, as it gives you the option to make changes to your site as and when you need to.
By having your own domain you are in control of your site and your business and you will be able to design or make changes to your site so that it stands out in the crowd, makes your site unique and allows you to do the most important task of optimizing your site for the search engines so that your site can appear high up in the search results. You will also be able to project your own personality into the site.
By optimizing your site for the search engines your site will receive targeted traffic which is exactly what is required to generate web income. This basically is also free traffic if you optimize your site yourself and is known as organic traffic. Taking Google as an example, if you do a search the sites that appear on the right hand side of the page are Adwords adverts which are paid adverts. The sites that appear in the main body of the page starting on the left are free and if you have your own domain you can optimize your site so that it appears on the first page of Google. It has also been proven that the first place your eyes look at on a web page is the top left hand part of the page, so ideally that is where you want to position your site in the search results.
With your own domain your advertising options will not be limited, as they are with affiliate urls, as some sites just do not accept them. Also imagine if you were one of a few thousand affiliates belonging to the same program, you would all have the same url. If you had your own domain you could still join a few affiliate programs and then advertise those programs on your own site. Amongst other things, you could create your own splash pages for different programs, add a fly-in, a pop-up, contextual adverts or Google Adsense – your options are not limited.
It makes linking so much easier too, as sometimes to get listed in a high ranked directory you will be asked to place a link-back on your home page, in the form of a text link or image. You could also add a reciprocal linking program to your site. You can so easily place advertising banners on your site, add articles or other items of interest to attract visitors to your site and have them stay on your site longer as well as increase your rankings in the search engines.
Free web tools are a great feature to offer on your site enabling the visitor to check their Link Popularity or Alexa Rating for example. It also enables you to add features to your site that encourage your visitors to return. Add a small piece of script enabling your visitors to bookmark your site. You can offer freebies such as e-books.
Then of course there is the option of adding video and RSS feeds to your site, linking it to your blog as well as all the other technical things available.
You would also be able to add your own email autoresponder campaign that automatically follows-up with your website visitors who subscribe to your Newsletter. So whenever you want to add new products, re-arrange your site layout, change the color scheme or anything you want, you can do it all instantly.
The list of what you could do by having your own domain is limitless, that is why I feel it gives you total freedom on the internet, increases your internet marketing options and generates more web income.
Starting An Online Home Business Is Not Expensive by: Larry Potter
Depending on the type of business you wish to start, your start-up costs can be as little as $50 or less, even close to free if you use companies like Bravenet
The fact is, most businesses do NOT need to incur expensive start-up costs... and most businesses should not invest a lot of start-up capital before they've tested their business and their market online. That's where so many "dot bombs" made such a grave mistake in the past, and there's just no need to take that risk.
Only once you've tested your business idea on the Net and found it to be a viable opportunity should you start investing in the kind of software, web design, inventory (or whatever) that you'll need to grow your business. Then again, you may want to just do it all yourself every step of the way...
These days, you can keep your start-up costs down to approximately 50 bucks or less. And you can begin adding the other components of your online business once you've proven that your business can be profitable.
And you do not need a product idea to start---and not only that: If you do start with a product idea... you'll be off to a bad start!
The reality is, most businesses that start off with what they think is a good product idea are destined for failure. Your product might be great, but if nobody wants it, your business isn't going to get very far!
That's why it makes so much more sense to look for your market first. If you can find a need in a market you can reach, then simply give them what they're asking for... your business is bound for success from day one.
For example, there is a man named Eric Weeks who doesn't really like trucks very much -- he's never owned one himself. But when he noticed that thousands of people search the Internet for "truck accessories" every day, he knew there was a market just waiting for him to give them what they needed...
When his Truck-Bed-Covers site was only one year old, he was generating $800,000 annually in online sales!
Eric's advice is, "I sure as heck wouldn't consider building an e-commerce site on personal interests. So whether it's weight loss or travel, home business or truck bed covers... if enough people are interested in those subjects, then THERE is where you need to apply your efforts."
It pays to remember: Find your market FIRST. Then look for a product to give them.
Create Your Own Online Music Store by: Peter Jones
Music download business is booming and has huge potential. According to a research by 2010 online music will generate more than 1.1 billion. More online music platforms are needed to serve the growing consumers’ demand.
Online music stores not only ensure your financial prosperity, but also the prosperity of the artists, the music companies and the distributors. BurnLounge music presents golden opportunity to a part of this music downloads business. You too can listen music, sell music and earn money. All wannabe entrepreneurs, musicians, artists, as well as retailers to be a part of the most exciting and glamorous industry - music and entertainment.
BurnLounge music store comes with over 2.2 million track listings including top artists like Justin Timberlake, Styx, Black Eyed Peas, Ball in the House, U-2, ColdPlay, FogHat, Beyonce, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Beatles and Brenton Wood, Hootie and the Blowfish, James Brown, MC Lyte, Madonna, amongst many others!
Burnlounge ----The 21st century music business ---of by and for the people. It enables people across the globe to run the own online music store. Business model of burnlounge is based on personalization and has been positioned different in the music and entertainment industry. You will enjoy fully functional online music store with no tension of site design, credit processing or licensing.
Is this for real – yes it is! If it was not, why would Nokia & Cadillac become sponsors of this unique offering.
But how will you manage this huge business opportunity? BurnBuilder offers strong platform for burnloungers to run their music business effectively. BurnBuilder will empower your music business.
So join BurnLounge and have Own online music store Over 2.2 million songs Over 1 billon potential customers Be a part of an opportunity worth 4.5 billion USD in 2008.
This incredible opportunity is going to change the way music is distributed forever!
Watch Your Leads And Sales Explode With These 6 Valuable Website Tips by: David Mason
Watch your leads and sales explode with these 6 valuable website tips.
Did you know that the majority of sites on the internet only have a 1% conversion rate?
At Mantis Technologies (http://www.mantistech.com.au) we have extensive experience in what makes websites work. After years of research, we have compiled the following list of ways that you can significantly increase your leads and sales.
Headline
Research shows that a change in your headline can produce nearly a 2000% increase in sales. The headline is one of the most important aspects of your website and is one of the first things that people will look at when viewing pages in your website.
The right headline on your order / enquiries page can account for 80% of the reason why someone would order from you.
Your headline should concentrate on the biggest benefit of your product or service and create curiosity. For example, great headlines are:
• Increase your turnover by 400%!
• Manage your website without any programming knowledge!
• Stand out from your competitors!
Using ‘ownership’ names such as ‘your’ or ‘you’ also increases the effectiveness of your headlines.
Font colours and bullet points
The majority of people visiting your site will be ‘skimmers’. They will not read all the text but instead they will skim through the copy looking for things that match up with what they are searching for.
By listing your benefits and features in bullet points and using red for headings can increase your conversion rate.
Testimonials
A strong testimonial can increase your sales by up to 250%!
When people see that others have used your business and are highly satisfied with your service, that will encourage them to buy your products and services.
Testimonials should be descriptive and tell a story. They should also include the full names and company name of the person giving the testimonial.
An example of a good testimonial is:
"David, I would like to say thanks for the fantastic site you and the staff at Mantis Technologies have built for us. Our business has expanded ten fold as we are now shipping our products all over Australia and have hundreds of new happy customers. We are currently receiving over 2000 hits and enquiries per day. We would like to thank you for your never ending support and backup service. I highly recommend any business looking to build a new site to contact Mantis Technologies."
Brett & Karryn Fletcher , All Blinds and Bits
Audio Marketing
Research shows that using Audio (or video) on your website can increase sales by over 400%!
Using audio or video in your website gives it a personal feel that is often lacking from websites. This helps make the customer feel at ease and feel a bond with the person talking.
By using a photo and audio (or video), you can introduce yourself to the customer and help bridge the gap that an impersonal website will suffer from.
Order / enquiry buttons
All marketing experts will tell you the golden rule of sales – ask for the order. By placing order / enquiry buttons in easy to access places on your website, you can actually increase leads and sales quite dramatically.
Newsletters
Did you know that up to 90% of people who visit your website are not ready to buy? If you don’t have a way of capturing their details then you are potentially only achieving 10% of what you could achieve with your website.
By simply having a ‘subscribe to our newsletter’ box on your homepage, you can capture visitors details and build a database of highly targeted leads.
Research shows that you generally need to grab someone’s attention 7 times before they will place an order with you. By sending out monthly newsletters, you are touching base in a highly efficient way with your potential clients. Monthly newsletters are also a fantastic way to keep selling to your existing clients (after all, it is 3 times easier to sell to an existing client than a new one).
If you post your newsletters on your website, you will also increase leads for two reasons:
1) Visitors will see fresh content on your website and keep coming back for more
2) Search engines will pick up on the fact that there is new, relevant and additional content on your website and that will boost your search engine rankings.
Are You Ready To Start Your Own Home Based Business by: Frank Tello
The most important question one should ask when contemplating starting a Home Based Business is "ARE YOU READY TO START YOUR OWN HOME BASED BUSINESS?". This is probably the most important question because it forces you to look into what it actually takes to build a successful business in this arena.
Next should be "what type of business will I be promoting?" There are different types of business ventures out there. There are a great number of Affiliate programs that will pay you residual income for work that you only have to do once. There are also MLM programs out there. There are a lot of programs available that let you test drive them for free. This is a good way to go because you get to see how the program works before you ever spend any money on it.
Another question should be "HOW MUCH TIME, EFFORT AND MONEY AM I WILLING AND READY TO SPEND?" In order to build a successful business you should know that a great deal of your time will be spent reading and studying the vast amount of information that is out there for you. There are also tons of "GET RICH QUICK" schemes out there that are ready and willing to take your money. With a little bit of common sense and understanding of what you are reading you should be able to weed through all the scams. A great source of information can be obtained through visiting the different Forums that are out there. Just go into Google search engine and look up "work from home forums",or "home based business forums" log into them and get involved in the discussions. Forums are the best sources of information for beginners or someone who is looking to start a home based business. Also you need to figure out how much effort you will be putting into building your business. This will also take a great amount of time. A lot of effort will be put towards building your website and getting quality traffic to your site. This is done by advertising, offering your business opportunity to friends and relatives, and getting quality links pointing back to your site. Promoting your website will be ongoing.
I saved the spending money part for last for various reasons. You have all heard that it "takes money to make money". True, you do need to sign up for these programs and they do cost money. You do have to spend some money to advertise. Do not let the fact that you may not have the extra money laying around to put into a business. It truly does not take a whole lot of money to start out. If you are willing to put in the time and effort to follow the coaching and instructions of somebody who is really successful at this bussiness the money will come in abundance.
Now to my final point. Effort, Time, and Money are all forms of energy, and we all know that energy atracts energy like a magnet. So in that respect the more time and effort you put into your business the more money you will attract. Remember "Positive energy attracts positive energy, and negative energy attracts negetive energy. This being said, it is very important to remember that you must always be positive in your business and build your business to help others. This will bring you more prospirity and happiness than you can imagine.
Girls - Want to Captivate Your Prom Date? Don't Forget to Accessorize those Prom Dresses! by: Chris Robertson
Prom night is just around the corner. You want to look your best and amaze your date and friends with a stunning prom dress. You've made the appointment with the hair stylist and make-up artist. You've planned every aspect of your special night. But wait! Don't forget one of the most important things - accessorize your prom dress to make it dazzle!
Prom dresses can look plain without at least a few accessories. Even a gorgeous, long prom dress by Jovani can be spruced up with a sparkling necklace and matching earrings. Stunning evening wear by Niteline wouldn't be complete without a few accents. No matter what style prom dress you choose, accessories will make it dazzle even more! Here are some great prom tips to get your wheels turning.
Prom Dresses with No Straps or Spaghetti Straps
The neckline can look bare when wearing a prom dress that has no straps or spaghetti straps. A plain neckline can easily be brightened with a beautiful, sparkly necklace and matching earrings. The type of necklace you choose should blend well with your dress colors and fabric. With a prom dress that has lots of lace or sequence, a plain gold or silver necklace will do. Or, maybe even a simple strand of pearls. With a simple satin dress, wear a necklace that sparkles with unique design. Add a charming slide as a bonus.
Gloves and Shawls
Strapless prom dresses also look great with satin or lace gloves a shawl. The gloves and shawl should match the color(s) of your prom dress for a simple, but elegant look! Shawls can be worn around the neck or loosely held around the upper arms.
Half-Jackets
If shawls aren't your style, try a half-jacket instead. These typically come in satin finish to match the color of your prom dress, or in a lacy see-through style. There are even jackets that tie in the front mid-section to cover the tummy! Pick the jacket that looks best with your body type. Try one on with your prom dress to be sure it offers the look you want.
Prom Dress Length and Prom Shoes
Choose your hosiery and prom shoes according to the prom dress length. With long prom dresses, you might choose hose for comfort, not style, since no one will see them anyway. For high-and-low prom dresses or short prom dresses, choose prom shoes and hose that will complement your legs and feet.
Open-toe prom shoes with nude or light-colored hose will look great with slender legs. If your legs are muscular or large in the calves, and you want to de-emphasize the bottom part of your legs, choose closed-toe prom shoes with dark- colored hose if possible. Or, a longer prom dress will do the trick.
Handbags
Carrying a handbag to the prom? Choose one that matches your prom dress. There are handbags of all colors and styles that are designed specifically for prom night. You can find handbags of satin, beads or lace to complement your prom dress. With a prom handbag, you can carry your personal belongings and still be in style!
Other prom dress accessories include hairpieces, anklets, bracelets, rings, belt bags, hats, clutches, pendants, and broaches. When shopping online, you can find thousands of unique accessories as well as many styles of prom dresses such as cocktail style, high-and-low, evening wear, pageant dresses, sheath style, and many others.
Remember - dress for fun! You only get one chance to make this year's prom dress shine!
Don’t Be a Fool With Online Businesses by: Ann Nichols
There are many legitimate work at home Internet business possibilities and many reputable offers to do so online but, there are also some major scams going on. You need to be very diligent in your homework for finding the right home business opportunity for you.. Medical Billing is a huge one to look out for. Advertised as one of the best work at home Internet business ideas, these schemers are just out for your money. The want to charge you a fee up front and then leave you hanging in the wind to try and find work. Other business opps like envelope stuffing charge you upfront for your hard work and then reject the work you have done leaving you high and dry.
The promise is that you’ll make a lot of money as doctors outsource their billing to you. You can, they say, work in accounts receivable, insurance claims and physician or dentist practice management. Including in the presentation is the assurance that not only do you not need experience but that their sales staff will kick start your work at home Internet business by putting you together with health care clients. The reality is that if you have any chance at all to make any money – or even get your initial investment back – you’re going to have to find your own clients.
The investment for this alleged lucrative work at home Internet business is not small – typically $2500-$9000. Prior to your commitment you will be mailed a business brochure, the application and license agreement (contract), document of disclosure, diskette samples, references and testimonials and videocassettes. Your investment is supposed to result in training, software and technical support. The references are commonly shills – the name for people that a company hires to provide favorable but dishonest testimonials.
The reality is that medical billing is seldom a lucrative work at home Internet business. Few people who purchase these programs are able to find enough clients to even recoup their investment much less make a living at it. It’s not that medical billing isn’t a legitimate business. It’s that the competition is fierce and the market is saturated. There are many scams on the internet today. You must choose wisely and do your homework before you give any of your hard earned money to anyone.
21st Century Work At Home Business--Start a Home Business by: Dorothy Santoro
Work from home, work at home, start a home business and start an internet business, how many times do you see these phrases if you do any surfing on the net. Probably many times, right? How do you decide which ones are worthwhile? It is not easy.
Have you spent money on a work from home business and discovered that after you’ve paid your money you can’t find anyone to help you? You are left out in the cold, on your own. Not a good feeling, right?
So you have heard all the hype, fell for some of it, and now feel that everything you see on the net is a scam. But at the same time, there are those who start an internet business and succeed in a big way. Why can’t that be you?
The main reason that most people fail or not make what they expected is lack of training. You need generic training so you can market any program that you sign up for.
According to Dot Santoro, Predator Marketing System business owner, “Predator is the place where you can find exactly what you need for your work from home business. There are multiple trainings everyday, you feel like you are part of a group, where the success of everyone, including you, is important. I have never been in a program where you are taught to do things that only the big internet gurus do.”
Predator Marketing System claims to be the 21st Century business model for the work at home industry. Dot enthusiastically says, “Now is the time to start an internet business if you have ever wanted to work at home and Predator Marketing System is the vehicle you have been searching for.”
Predator will teach you how to drive traffic, how to get an abundance of free leads and how to market, not only Predator, but any other internet businesses you have. Their team of trained closers, all of which are successful marketers, will do the hard part and according to the Predator Marketing System site, you get paid $1,000 to $3,000.
“Learning to market without rejection has been the most important aspect of my success,” reveals Dot Santoro, “as long as I had to place hundreds of phone calls to get any sales, my work from home business was not going anywhere. Now, I spend my time doing the marketing, not on the phone trying to make sales.”
Surveys for Pay - Can You Believe It? by: Bob Saville
If you are anything like me, taking the odd interesting survey gets the brain going and can quite a bit of fun. They can be stimulating and they can make you think - and sometimes you might learn a little bit about yourself. Other surveys might just ask you about likes and dislikes, or different shopping, spending, reading or television watching habits. Did you ever think it could be a work from home opportunity? Well, it can.
Whatever survey type suits your fancy, the important thing to know is that most consumer-oriented companies pay millions every year to find out what average people like you are thinking. That's why you can take a survey on just about anything these days - from what type of shampoo your dog prefers, to which infomercials you watch after midnight.
Marketing agencies are hired by these companies to build a database of information - derived from the results of surveys they conduct on behalf of those companies. And guess what? They pay you to take the surveys. Actually, the idea of being paid for surveys isn't a new one - marketing research companies have been doing it for some time. But, only in the past 5 years has it become a bonafide work at home income. The Internet has made that happen.
Say you are a stay at home mom or dad, and you have a few spare moments during the day where you might just be able to whip off two or three 15 minute surveys. Depending on the survey and the company you do the survey for - you might be able to make $25, $50 or even $75 for that survey. That's what they advertise! You can't show me one stay at home parent that wouldn't like to work from home for an hour a day and make up to $225.
Here's the key - you need to do your homework on which survey site is going to work the best for you and the one that is going to meet your work from home schedule. Some surveys need to be done at different times, some you can do whenever you want. There are a variety of pay scales and some pay in products - which might not be so bad in itself. Note: You do have to pay for many of these survey sites to join - but it is often a money-back guarantee if you aren't satisfied with the return on your investment! This is one of those work from home jobs that gives you back only what you put in - so find the right one for you and it is sure to pay dividends.
Type 'survey company reviews' in your search engine and you can find a wealth of information on which survey site is going to suit your work at home schedule.
If you are the type of person that doesn't mind sitting on the computer for an extra hour per day - maybe when the kids are napping, or before everyone gets up in the morning - then you might be able to make yourself a decent work from home income on the side. It's quick, it's easy… and if you enjoy surveys like I do, then taking surveys can also be fun!
Google Adwords : How I Spent My Wad, Burnt My Budget, And Ultimately Became A Complete Chump ... by: Howard Sandford
Well the title says it all.
I was talking with one of the client's of "Graham" -- name changed to protect the guilty; you know, one of those so-called marketing experts -- and he sounded completely exasperated. And I'm not surprised.
He had indeed "spent his wad" on his Google Adwords campaign. Oh dear.
Graham had told him that the more clicks he received, the better his CTR (click-through rate) would be -- because I had previously let Graham into the secret that a higher CTR makes for cheaper clicks. Thing is, Graham doesn't quite know his numbers. He told his client that to get the most clicks, he needed to be at the top spot in his Adwords campaign.
Aaaaarrrrrggghhhh ...
Ok, so high CTR is one of the easiest measurements that Google can record for the relevance of an ad for any particular search term, but when will people realise that to start off with you don't need to pay more to get more clicks from your ad.
Instead, it's all about tweaking the words you use in your Google Adwords ad. Which means testing. Split testing to be precise -- and I'll talk more about this another time.
But once you have a high performing ad, it doesn't mean you need to pay for top spot to get the best revenue ... yes, you'll get more clicks from the top two or three spots, but it will generally cost you much more to reach that high.
The one thing I want to cover today is that no matter what placing you receive with your Adwords campaign, there's no point in paying for more clicks if you're not converting those clicks into revenue.
Let me say that again so you understand this Golden Rule:
If your landing page (the web-page where your Adwords ad points to) isn't converting for you, then you're better off turning off your advert and direct your marketing efforts away from your Adwords campaign, and redirect that effort into getting your web-designer to tweak the landing page until it does deliver the results you desire.
Ok, so what do we want from a landing page?
It all depends on what exactly you want to achieve, but you know what I would do? I'd make sure the web-visitor has no option but to sign up to your newsletter, or mailing list ... commonly known as the squeeze page.
You see, statistically speaking, it's quite difficult to convert a first-time visitor into a sale. It's human nature for people to take 3, 4, maybe even up to 7 visits or viewings before they actually make the decision to purchase.
And what's the chances of getting a visitor to return to your web-site 7 times? Hey, it's hard enough getting them to see our pages just once, never mind more than that!
So what we want to do is offer them something that's worth them handing over their email address in return -- a free report, a free sample, a bonus extra, a secret snippet of information -- something that they wouldn't otherwise find out, and which they really, really need. Because once they hand over their email address, we can take our time to remind them about our products/services/web-site and, if carried out artfully, will convince them to purchase from us. Eventually our marketing efforts will strike oil. Of course you have to have your follow-up and back-end sales process in place before you start buying clicks, because it's here where we will be making our money.
I really pity the guys who pay good money to be top of the sponsored link ladder, only to link to their web-site's home page. You need what's called "deep linking" for Adwords to be effective. If you don't deep link, i.e. sending your visitor directly to the information they're expecting to see when they click on your ad, you're simply making it harder for your potential customer to find what they're looking for ... and remember, they're only a single click away from going back to Google and finding your competitor instead!
And did you know -- and this is the really neat thing about Adwords -- you can measure your ROI (return on investment) via your Adwords campaign manager? Oh yes, and it's easy to do. It will show you the conversion rate of each advert, and even the total revenue you've made from all those clicks. Google make it so easy for you to track the effectiveness of your ads that I'm surprised that more people don't use it.
Check out the options in your Adwords Campaign Manager and look for the conversion tracking. Once its activated, you simply put a small snippet of JavaScript on your conversion page i.e. the place where people complete the sale or complete the sign-up to your newsletter. From then onwards whenever someone clicks on your ad and completes to conversion, you'll see the value of the sale recorded against that particular search term.
If people complete the sale (or sign up to your newsletter, or whatever) without having previously clicked on your Adwords ad, then that particular conversion won't be recorded against the advert, though it is possible to record conversions from your other PPC (pay per click) campaigns if you really wanted to.
And I would suggest that if you don't see any results or conversions after 200 click-throughs, then it's time to re-vamp that landing page ... before you splash out your wad on Adwords!
Now, if you want to know exactly how to track your Adwords ROI, then there are plenty of guides available which gives you step-by-step instructions on how to measure your return on investment for each of your campaigns ...
.. perhaps I should tell Graham to grab a copy before he wastes any more of his client's advertising budget, eh?
Do you want to start your own home business? Are you a bit scared because you think that you will lose all of your money? Does it seem to you that every home business fails? If you answered yes to any of these questions you are in the majority. There are thousands of people from one side of the world to the next that want to start their own home business. But even though they are thinking about it, they do not move forward because they are scared to lose money, or that they will fail before they even taste success. Even though these are viable concerns, you need to get past them so that you can be a success.
Believe it or not there are many home business success stories out there. Have you ever heard any before? If not, there are places that you can go to get a good dose of them. If you need a bit of motivation, a home business success story is the way to go. And to find home business success stories you do not have to look any further than the internet. There are hundreds of people that have successfully started their own home business who will be more than willing to share their story with you.
To find success stories you will want to go to your favorite search engine and type in "home business success stories." This will give you plenty of results to search through. Within an hour or so you will have the motivation that you need in order to get over your fears, and start your own home business.
If you cannot find any success stories that have already been written there are other places to look. Become a member of one of the many forums that are available. After becoming a member make a post asking for success stories. Soon enough you will have plenty of people telling you how they got started, as well as where they are today. This is also a great place to get questions answered, and to find a mentor.
There are people who have successfully started their own home business. It may seem impossible for you right now, but the fact of the matter is that it can happen. The best way to realize your potential is to read the success stories that are online. This will give you the motivation that you need, while also allowing you to become familiar with what it takes to reach your goals.
Find success stories if you too want to be a success. Follow your goals of owning a home based business, and do not stop until you reach what you have been striving for.
A Review Of A Newly Introduced Advertising Method: Expired Domain Traffic by: Rebecca Spee
Everybody knows the great advantages of e-commerce for online sellers and buyers. With the Internet, anybody can sell a product or show an idea to millions of potential buyers, with very low costs, no rent to pay, and without spending the whole day sit in a store. Now, this could convince thousands of Internet newbies to start their own website and work from home, anyway, a common problem they face when starting a new website or online project is to drive visitors to it. Ironically, the same thing that made the Internet a winning solution for e-commerce, also made it the hardest place where to be found.
There are several techniques to drive visitors to a website. Some of them are very time consuming, some are very expensive, some are completely ineffective. In this article, I'd like to describe a new, interesting advertising method, introduced recently, aimed to bring thousands of targeted visitors to any website. The idea behind this is very smart, and it's based on expired domains redirection. In fact, thousands of domain names expire every day and are available for registration. Most of them have a residual traffic coming from the "old life" of these names: in most cases, their previous owners built websites for these domains, listed them in search engines, and even exchanged links with other sites. All translating into traffic for that domain name.
The smart idea is to register these names, categorize them and redirect them to another website that match their category. Till today, people used to do this by themselves. This is effective, but extremely complicated, time consuming and expensive. Now, a company called Revisitors brought this process to the general public, registering thousands of domains and redirecting them to their customers' websites. Thanks to the large-scale transposition of this technique, webmasters and website owners can now take advantage of redirected visitors to drive targeted traffic to their website.
I tested this traffic for you by redirecting visitors to our website. The order procedure was very easy, and the campaign started almost immediately. I've been asked how many visitors I wanted to redirect, the category and the URL. After a couple of hours, I received my login information to track the campaign, and I monitored it closely. It usually take up tp 30 days to complete an expired traffic campaign, but mine took a bit more (they had a lot of campaigns running for the category I selected, and for this reason they was short on traffic). No problem, I always prefer the companies that apologize when short on supply, instead of just sending fake visitors and completing their campaigns on time.
Now, let's talk about the results: on the overall, I've been satisfied with the results. I bought 10000 visitors from the USA to our website, a site filled with articles about computer security and Google Adsense ads. I paid $48, so it's $0.0048 per visitor. Based on the website stats, about 10.420 USA visitors have been delivered in 41 days. I had a good response rate, with 71 subscribers to my newsletter and over 180 clicks on the Adsense ads.
In my honest opinion, this is an affordable way to gain instant traffic to your website. Of course, you cannot expect the same results of a pay-per-click campaign (i.e. Google Adwords), but it's definitely cheaper (pay-per-click campaigns cost $0.50 average per visitor), and worth the money. So, my recommendation is to give this new advertising technique a try, and see how it works with your website. If you get good results, you have found a new, and much cheaper, way to drive potential buyers to your website.
Work At Home Moms Should Consider Affiliate Programs by: Anwar Ahmed Ally
In my many years in the work at home industry, I have come across many work at home ideas, programs and opportunities both online and offline. However, it is affiliate programs that always get my vote for a number of reasons and I think that any mom looking to do some sort of work at home venture should seriously consider them.
As a simple explanation, affiliate marketing is a process whereby a person promotes the goods or services of a merchant by driving traffic of interested users to that merchant's website. The person that does these activities is called an ‘affiliate' and the company/website that receives these services is referred to as the ‘merchant'. Affiliates are either paid commission on a pay-per-click, pay-per-lead or pay-per-sale basis. The bulk of the affiliate's duties would be in marketing and advertising.
Affiliate programs have numerous advantages for anyone especially for moms wanting to do something from home in between taking care of the little darlings and keeping house. These are:
International Customers
As the internet is an international instrument, your potential customers will be from almost every country in the world. This is a huge market for you to tap into. Because more and more people are coming online everyday, your market is virtually unlimited.
All The Hard Work Has Been Done For You
The merchant has sourced, manufactured or made the product at his risk and expense. He has already tested the product and his sales pitch to sell his product. If he has been offering this product for quite some time now through the sales pitch on his website, you can be assured that the product is selling.
A Real Work At Home Opportunity
One of the greatest appeal of affiliate marketing is that it allows you to make money while based at home. It is such a flexible opportunity that even if you have a full-time job, you can still run this on the side. Most of the time, it takes an hour a day to administer, check, review, revise, etc - and all online.
No Stock To Carry, No Shipping, No Customer Headaches
Another cool thing about being an affiliate is that you don't have to worry about customer enquiries or customer complaints. You don't need to buy or keep stock, you don't have to ship anything to the customer - in fact you don't deal with the customer at all. The merchant does this. You just promote the website and it's products and get paid a commission on sale.
Easy To Start Up
You can literally become an affiliate in a few minutes. There are no lengthy applications to make or approval process to undergo. No other money-making opportunity can be started as quick as an affiliate program.
Unlimited Income Potential
The sky is the limit as far as your earnings go. You can make as much money as you want to. The only restrictions are your own effort.
Truly International Opportunity
Affiliate marketing is one of the very few opportunities that are not confined to a specific country. Anyone from anywhere in the world can participate in an affiliate program.
Affiliate Programs Are Free To Sign-Up
Almost all affiliate programs are free to sign up. You don't need to pay for starter-packs, advertising materials, sample products, membership fees, etc.
Huge Commissions
Commissions that are paid by merchants are huge and beat any other industry hands down. Commissions on offer can go up to as high as 75-80% of selling price.
Choose A Multitude Of Merchants To Work For
Affiliate marketing is flexible enough to allow you to represent many merchants at the same time. This increases your chances of success as you have an arsenal of products to promote. If you choose your products properly, you can be promoting a great deal of top selling items simultaneously.
Low Start Up Costs
Your only start up costs will be in advertising and promotion. This activity will represent the majority of your input in your business. There are a number of ways to minimize this cost but you'll have to do some research and test your methods.
However, as with any other opportunity, thoroughly research an affiliate program before actually participating in it. Here are some tips to help you:
1. Only choose top quality products that are in constant demand.
2. Only deal with reputable companies who have been in business for a reasonable period of time.
3. Monitor other affiliates to see what they are promoting. Check to see where they advertise and how long their adverts are up – if an affiliate is continuously doing paid advertising in a certain place, then you can be assured that he/she is making money.
4. Email the companies concerned and ask questions about the product. Monitor how long they take to respond and how effective their response is. This will give you an idea on how solid they are and what sort of confidence they have in their product.
Affiliate programs are a great opportunity but only if done correctly. It is imperative that you do a certain amount of research and testing before you commit yourself, especially if you are going to be investing money in advertising. Good luck!
Making Adsense Work In The Smart Pricing Era by: Jean-Philippe Schoeffel
Smart pricing has changed Adsense. Publishers are seeing lower per click payouts and are lamenting the inability of their old methods and systems to produce a profit under the current circumstances. The old guard of Adsense gurus, meanwhile, continues to hold tight to a perspective born before smart pricing became a reality. They continue to encourage new publishers to follow their methods for Adsense success. Others have overreacted, announcing that Adsense is no longer a viable moneymaking opportunity. Some have even argued that smart pricing killed Adsense.
The old guard gurus are merely protecting their own best interests. As long as they can pretend nothing meaningful has changed, the longer they can continue selling their systems and software. Those tolling death bells for Adsense are stirring up controversy for the sake of promoting click-flipping and other wealth-production strategies. The only people who seem to have it right are those publishers who have noticed that the old Adsense gravy train has run out of steam and who have discovered that the future of Adsense lies in treating it differently than before.
Instead of proclaiming the death of Adsense, savvy users are taking a different approach to the changed environment. Adsense still has a place and can still be a valuable part of a successful overall strategy. However, the previously embraced strategies that were premised on constructing lower-quality sites en masse and monetizing them exclusively with Adsense are no longer tenable.
Instead, Adsense can be used as one of a multiplicity of revenue-producing tactics on smart sites designed to provide visitors with real value. Earlier Adsense techniques were based on sending mass traffic to a site and collecting ad clicks exclusively. In many cases, the sites were actually designed in a way that aimed to make people want to leave rapidly, using Adsense ad blocks as an “escape route.”
Smart pricing has decreased the per click payout of such prices by such a substantial margin that one cannot hope to profit from those strategies in any meaningful way. Instead, smart publishers will create better sites that really interact with visitors in a meaningful way. Relevant contextual advertising fills the role of one many services offered to visitors. Instead of being the “only way” to make a dime, Adsense can be used as part of a full roster of moneymaking opportunities.
Not only does this strategy allow webmasters to effectively tap into to other revenue sources (some of which are more valuable than Adsense ever was in its heyday), it also comports with Adsense’s own recommendations for improving per click values in a smart pricing environment. There are more ways to make money and one can make more money with Adsense at the same time. Regardless of what some might be announcing, there is no reason to give up on Adsense. You just need to use it differently.
Adsense did not change in a vacuum. While it lumbered toward smart pricing, web access, technology and user expectations were also in a state of flux. Today, the old methods of top-down site design premised on the old publication model is outmoded. The arrival of what many are terming “Web 2.0” reflects the convergence of several different trends. Those who will successfully use Adsense as a monetization strategy today and in the future are aware of those trends and how to approach them to effectively generate a substantial income.
Adsense has changed. Do not believe those who tell you that “business as usual” will still work like a charm. Adsense is not, however, dead. It is still a strong and vibrant means by which to earn. The old Adsense business models are dead. They just do not do the trick anymore. You can make money with Adsense, but it will require the use of strategies that merge appropriately with the current environment and trends. Sites that seek to provide real value to visitors can make use of multiple revenue earning strategies including Adsense and will succeed regardless of smart pricing adjustments.
Tips For Maximum Adsense Content Relevancy by: Jean-Philippe Schoeffel
One of the most essential aspects of getting the most out of your involvement with Google’s Adsense program is to be certain that Google serves up the most relevant ads possible on your site. The concept is easy to grasp--visitors travel to your sites in search of certain content on their topic of interest. If they see advertisements directly related to those content desires, they are far more likely to click on the ads than if they encounter only tangentially related material or, in a worst case scenario, ads that are not even related to their interests. As such, it is in your best interests to make sure your site displays relevant ads. Here are few tips for improving your content relevancy to produce more accurately targeted contextual advertising from Adsense.
FIRST THINGS FIRST. Before you even begin to use Adsense as a monetization tool, make sure there are relevant ads for your site or pages. In most cases, you will have determined this long before you even embarked on site design or content development. However, if you are thinking of adding Adsense to an existing site built with other monetization strategies originally in mind, you may not have bothered checking to see if other advertisers were going after that particular market. Be sure you are addressing a topic for which ads exist in sufficient quantity. If related advertising is sparse, it will difficult to avoid irrelevant ads.
KEYWORDS MATTER. You do not want content that is overstuffed with particular keywords to point of destroying readability and value, but you do want to make sure your materials make liberal use of on-topic keywords likely to spawn the most relevant possible ads. Experts maintain that using keywords with your titles and H1 tags is an excellent way to assist in getting the most relevant possible ads. This has added advantages in terms of search engine optimization, as well.
METATAGS. Once upon a time, metatags were a critical aspect of search engine optimization in general. Although the engines rely upon metatags far less than they once did, there is some evidence to suggest that using ad-triggering keywords in your pages’ meta-tags may increase the relevance of the advertisements displayed. This strategy may help, and it certainly cannot hurt.
LOOK FOR LACKLUSTER CONTENT. Many sites to a great job of supplying content related to particular themes or keywords in the main portion of a page, but have sidebars, headers and footers filled with less targeted terms and material. Take a long look at your navigational elements and other “side of the page” text and remove keyword terminology that may be leading to irrelevant ad service. Alternatively, you can use Adsense’s section targeting tool to remove those areas from Adsense’s consideration completely, so long as you do not plan to display ad blocks or ad link units in those areas.
TIGHT THEMING. You want to keep content tightly themed. That means you do not want to feature long, rambling articles that cover multiple topics. Instead, rely upon materials that address singular issues. You also do not want to feature multiple chunks of content on disparate matters on the same page for that very same reason. The value of tight theming may extend past individual pages. Many publishers argue that Adsense tends to reward tightly-themed overall sites with more relevant ads, as well. Even though this aspect of theming is not as well researched and proven, it makes sense to follow the practice, because of the search engine optimization advantages of having a focused site.
BLOCK THE BAD ADS. Monitor your site regularly and take note when irrelevant ads appear. Then, take the time to add them to your blacklist for the site. Google does give you the ability to block individual ads via the Competitive Ad Filter. If you block out commonly served irrelevant ads, you may improve your chances of featuring more ads upon which your visitors will actually click.
The more contextually relevant the ads appearing on your site are, the more clicks you can expect to see. As such, it is important to make an effort to use a combination of proven SEO methods that also work well with Adsense and some program-specific maneuvers to secure the best possible ads on your site.
List-Building: Why Sites Come Last And Lists Come First by: Tellman H. Knudson
People often ask me, "I bought a website, but it’s not really what I want it to be. Where do I go to find someone to help me get it right? "
"Whoa!" I say, "Back up." Finding a web designer is very easy. But should you even begin looking?
The problem is that when most people start out, they say, “I want a website and I think I want it to look like this.” They might pick out five or six different websites (by the way, I’ve done this). When I was first starting out, I hired five or six website designers to do stuff for me. It was all on barter because I didn’t have any money and none of the websites made any money for me. They were absolutely beautiful and they didn’t make any money!
What I learned was that how I want a website to look means nothing. Building a list and learning how my customers want a website to look means everything.
What I’m suggesting to you is that perhaps you don’t want to design a website yet—perhaps you want to focus on building a list and learning what the elements are of a really great website that *sells* first, so you don’t waste time, effort, energy, or money. Even before building web sites, other bases need to be covered.
The first thing is to decide what you're going to sell online or what kind of service you want to provide in what area.
So, where's the best place to start?
Study something that you're passionate about or really good at, be it hobby or profession, and within that subject, find a problem that people need to have solved. Then, study all the ways that the problem can be solved.
And, whether you sell an audio series, a streaming video series, or even a downloadable ebook about getting the best car for the lowest price, stress-reduction exercises, saving on your taxes, or some sort or completely ancient alternative therapy, it doesn't matter. Find a problem and solve it.
And here's the thing: Whether you’re in real estate or the information business or optometry, the rules are exactly the same. The rule is that 99 times out of 100 a good, direct response website will always do much better than a good-looking website. And no site beats a great list.
If you're just starting out, I’m going to make a recommendation to you that will make your life much easier. If you want to be successful online, you have to build a list of people who want to follow you, who are interested in everything you have to say, and want to buy what you'll be selling.
How do you build a list quickly and easily, while still learning?
Start building a list by writing a newsletter about your passion and the people who sign up for it will already be interested in your future product. Or, give something away, like a report in your field of study. Or, write or buy an autoresponder series of lessons in that area. There are many ways to build a great list before you even know what it is you want to sell. Then, build a single page where people can sign up. Once they do, they're part of your list, too.
You can also try co-registration, where your newsletter is offered in conjunction with other people's newsletters at the same time. That way, you're building your list, and other people building their lists are advertising for you, too.
So, you're list-building for a while and studying. Is it time for a site? Maybe, but...
The first priority of online marketing shouldn't be about how great your website looks or where you'll find someone to customize it, it should be about building a list of clients or customers. Otherwise, if you just go out and create a product and don't find a group of people to sell it to, you're sunk. Build your list first, and you'll not only save yourself time and money, you'll avoid frustration.
So Do Your Customers Buy On Their First Visit? by: Faith Smart
Once you have had your web site designed and gone to the trouble of painstakingly search engine optimizing it, visitors, hopefully, will finally arrive at your web site. They will surf around a little and decide that they want to buy and head straight to your ‘buy’ page right? Or maybe not.
What happens if your customers do not buy from you on their first visit to your site. What if they don’t spend some time looking around your site and what if they don’t book mark it to revisit at a later date? You generally have about 5 seconds to capture their interest or you loose your visitor to your competitor.
Well perhaps you could improve on your site design or navigation channels, but if you had on your front page an item that captured their interest enough for them to want to give you their name and email address. Perhaps it’s a free newsletter offering valuable tips, now you have a connection to a possible customer who may not be ready to buy from you right this minute but does have an interest in your sites good and services. By automatically keeping contact with this possible customer, there is a significantly increased chance that they will convert at a later stage.
Now with your very own opt in email list you have a cost-effective and profitable way to promote your online business to visitors who have already expressed an interest in your website and its services.
It takes an average of seven email contacts before the average person will purchase your product.
With each new visitor to your site that signs up for more information about your products or newsletters, you can now ‘welcome’ them to your subscriber list, deliver a product or answer questions automatically.
Studies have shown that people respond better to emails that actually address them via their first name. Capture your subscribers first name, last name, age, salary or any other criteria when they signup to your mailing list. You can then use these fields in your email to deliver personalized content.
Use newsletters, special offers, site updates, follow-up emails, member notices, customer service announcements, affiliate emails and invitations to keep in touch with your customers.
Selling a product or service from your website? Sends a series of follow-up auto responders to your potential customers after they signup for your newsletter. You could send them a free white paper, more information on your products, or even a "subscriber-only" discount.
Building a relationship and establish trust with your visitors is important for the buying process. With your own weekly or monthly newsletter, you're establishing your website as a credible source of information, which helps your visitors build up their trust in you.
Create hundreds or even thousands of mailing lists and either import your existing subscribers or automatically create a subscription form for your web site.
Include powerful permission features, such as double opt-in confirmation and one-click unsubscribe which puts you in control of your email marketing campaign.
Automatically track and report how many subscribers open your emails, which links they click on, etc. Then, from the control panel you have complete access to this tracking data in easy-to-view reports.
Built-in targeting to send emails only to subscribers who match certain criteria -- for example, only send an email to females over the age of 30 from London.
Let your visitors subscribe and unsubscribe from your lists automatically. Everything is processed in real-time, so you will never have to waste time manually adding or deleting subscribers from your mailing lists ever again.
Can Success University Become Your Source For Success? by: Joe Rispoli
So what is Success University all about anyway? Well, it actually is an online University that people can enroll in.
Success University offers training and development in every facet of life - time management, finance/investment, goal setting, leadership, life balance, health, leadership, networking, relationships, and much more. It is the most visited personal development website in the world according to Alexa Dec., 2005 and they are the first online educational company that is exclusive to personal development and entrepreneurialism.
What they have done at Success University is to develop a system that combines all the benefits of personal development, online learning and Internet marketing. Just the personal development sector alone has grown to over 64 billion dollars worldwide.
The Success University system offers easy access to many of the world's most prominent leaders in personal development. Leaders such as Jay Abraham, Asha Tyson, Robert Allen, Kandee G., Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohan, Tony Alessandra, Dr. Wayne Pickering and Dr. Sheila Murray Bethel.
Personal development training is provided through recorded conference calls, automated email lessons, live conference calls, ebooks, downloadable lessons and workbooks, and an extensive electronic audio and video library. There are also online lessons that people can enroll in and learn at their own pace.
The resources offered at Success University can help people with personal growth, whether that be through financial success, becoming healthier, or by improving relationships.
Some of the best online marketing tools are available through Success University. They provide several websites that can be used for targeted marketing and they also have an automated lead capture system that follows up with potential prospects. Members can also follow up directly with these prospects since they are provided with their contact information as well.
Success University also provides the skills that are needed to run a successful Internet home business. They explain business strategies such as how to do pay per click advertising, the fastest way to build your network marketing downline, new ways to advertise your online business, goal setting and many other business building related topics are covered.
Success University provides an innovative payment system that provides bonuses based on the number of people that are refered along with a generous compensation plan. The compensation plan may at first glance appear complicated, but Success University offers many resources detailing the plan, including an excellent training call that explains everything quite nicely.
Since their compensation plan is based on a binary plan and thus can help regular people profit quickly, they have a high member retention rate which is unusual in the normally volatile network marketing industry.
One of the many marketing incentives that Success University offers is a $2 trial. This offer not only provides $1,947 worth of personal development products free, but Success University also donates the $2 to the Save the Children Fund. This incentive alone has brought in thousands of people.
The free 14-day trial offers the opportunity to learn more about the program and the compensation plan. If you are serious about improving your life and thus your success, then you should at least check out their free trial. The 2 weeks will allow you to access so much educational information that there is no way to finish it all within the two weeks.
Success University has taken an industry that is positioned to grow exponentially and created an online business that is getting ready to skyrocket. Those who are onboard and committed will have an opportunity to profit like never before.
The demand for the products that Success University offers is huge and the amount of people coming online every day looking for just such as opportunity is virtually untapped.
This program is not a scam, not a get rich-quick program and not something to try for a few months and then give up. Success University is a win-win situation for all.
Think of Success University as a "how to" guide on how to be successful. Let them provide all the details on how to actually do it while encouraging you to believe in yourself and if you take action, then it is possible to achieve whatever you desire.
6 Butterfly Marketing Tips about Marketing Your Own Product on the Internet by: Ryan Parker
In this article I will try help the newbie Internet Marketer by revealing 6 important tips to making a successful product and selling it successfully on the internet.
1. Find your Niche
You can't write a general product about things generally. It might seem obvious but most people go into making a product before actually doing some research on the market that they want to enter. You need to know if the product will sell and that involves looking at what your potential customer needs, how he feels and where he is hurting. This brings us to the next part;
2. Find out what your customer's main problems are
The trick is that people with problems are almost always too eager to find a solution fast. This makes the best spontaneous buyer that would almost be too happy to depart with his/her money if you provide just a promise that you will solve the problem for them with your product, of coz you must deliver what your promise!
3. Get experts to work for you
There is a huge market of programmers or designers on the internet that are more than happy to help you in the development of your product. You can use a site like Rentacoder, Guru, or Elance to find a talented programmer. Additionally, you can search forums for programmers. In many cases, you can get a high-quality program that fits your specifications for as little as $100.
4. Marketing your product
There are an enormous number of ways in which you can market your product both online and offline, however in this article I'll just look at marketing online since it is one of the cheapest ways and since your product is Internet based and will compliment the delivery of the product too. Generally, having your own website will be the best option. Make your website easy to understand with a good sales letter, offer good percentage cuts for your affiliates to market your product for you through Clickbank or Commission Junction.
5. Create “Bonuses”, viral in nature.
Most Internet based products should have some bonuses that come with the product when the client purchases it. There are two purposes to these bonuses, firstly it's to make the buyer happy that he got a bargain with so many extras with the product. Secondly, these bonuses are very good viral marketing tools too. You can either release the publication for open distribution with many links back to your website or you can also get the buyer to re-sale your product in the Multi-Level-Marketing manner.
6. Brand and market yourself
Some people like staying anonymous on the internet but to really succeed in selling your product, you must also sell yourself to be the expert in the product's field. It may seem better to just make a persona to market certain products but to be blatantly straight, personas never come across as genuine and thus will have a negative impact on the product your are selling.
So, now armed with these tips, go out and make an effort to develop and sell your product, the internet is ripe for the picking!
The Monster of the title is none other than Dollar Monster. Anyone who had dealings with Dollar Monster previously believed the beast had been slain by its owners but, it seems, it had just been banished and now is baaaaaaaaaack (as it says in its ads). Presumably the owners of Dollar Monster believe they have remained out of sight long enough for people to have forgiven or forgotten the events of 2004.
Dollar Monster pretends to be a friendly little monster who will help you to make money. It says: "DollarMonster's #1 priority is helping you make money!" In fact, its clear from the website that Dollar Monster will make the money for you and you can just sit back in your easy chair and do nothing. Dollar Monster claims to be the lazy person's way of making money; that should be a big enough hint that this program does not offer a legitimate way to make money.
Dollar Monster is a money doubler. Money Doubler programs enjoyed a brief spell of popularity back in 2004. Their popularity ended as one money doubler program after another closed owing members large sums of money and the whole money doubler industry was exposed as being a scam consisting of numerous pyramid schemes. The surprising thing is that the new Dollar Monster website refers to 2004 and to the notorious Easy Chair Club (sometimes described as the biggest Internet scam in recent history). It would seem more sensible for this site to pretend to have no connection whatsoever with the Easy Chair Club or the Dollar Monster that existed in 2004. In fact, it would seem more sensible to open up using an entirely different name because the people who joined Dollar Monster (or its sister site, My Magic Doubler) the first time round aren't going to be sucked in again and will warn people not to take part in the program.
The way money doublers work is that you pay money to the program, other people sign up after you and also pay money in. When enough has been paid in by new members, you get paid double the amount you first invested. The people whose money was used to pay you, get paid when members have paid enough cash in after them and so on…
When money doubler programs are first launched, the cycle time is very short (it can be a matter of hours) but as more people join the cycle time gets longer because the number of new members required to cycle existing member positions grows exponentially. Eventually, the cycle time becomes so long the program ceases to attract new members and, when the cash injections dry up, the doubler stalls. With no new recruits bringing in cash, the members on the lowest level don't get double their money back, they lose all the money they paid in. At this point, the program and its owner normally disappear.
Money Doubler programs can survive for anything from a matter of hours up to several months. The ones that disappear within hours are normally run by outright crooks who had no intention of paying any money out to anyone. As soon as they have obtained a substantial sum of cash, they just vanish with it. If you are lucky you might avoid these particular crooks and might even make some money. One thing that is guaranteed is that if you aren't lucky enough to join at the right time, you will lose your money.
I hope the return of Dollar Monster does not signal the start of a new money doubler craze. People who were not around in 2004 might take to money doublers as a replacement for the rapidly declining autosurf for cash programs. In 2004 I fell for the story that money doublers were legitimate programs and the money they paid out came from advertising revenue. I speak from experience when I say that if you want to make money on the Internet, you have to work for it. Dollar Monster and similar money doubler programs are not an alternative to working for a living.
Retail Web Marketer Must Know About Google Adwords by: Jeffrey Tan E.H
Google is one of the most popular things out there in the Internet. Google dominates the field of search engines. According to a recent study, Google is responsible for generating more than 70% of the clicks to web pages that are searched through search engines.
Google has also devised a way to be able to put Internet marketing through a whole different level. Because of its market dominance, it has the capability to be able to set up a new pay-per-click system which aims at matching sellers and buyers. Google has developed what is not referred to as the Google Adwords.
What is Google Adwords?
Google Adwords is one of the most promising advertising opportunities that abound in the Internet arena. It is a pay-per-click system that advertises websites which have the highest bids for a certain search word or phrase.
If one would look at the window of an Internet browser and search something on the Google search engine, he will notice a section containing “sponsored links” at the right-hand side of the screen. These are the Adwords advertisements. These are websites which pay to be shown whenever a certain phrase or word is searched through Google.
Bidding
Business bid for their preferred keywords when they use the Adwords system. For example, a business that is engaged in selling laptops may opt to bid for search phrases such as “laptops for sale” “cheap notebooks” if they are applicable to their products.
Bidding in the Google Adwords system to get the prime spots is primarily based on two factors: the click-thru-rate and the amount of the bid. The amount of the bid will depend on the bidder himself. Bids can go as low as a nickel per click up to fifty dollars per click. The bidder must know how much to spend because the system charges the bidding price whenever the website is clicked through the Adwords system. Another factor is the click-thru-rate, or the rate by which people are clicking the website. Usually, the top three sites that are shown on the Adwords screen are the most popular and have the highest bids.
How to Engage in Adwords
If one is looking into using the Google Adwords system as an advertising tool, he can read the guidelines and the terms of conditions through the Google website. There are a few steps which we could tackle on how to start using Google Adwords.
The first step is account creation. Google will guide you through this process. However, there are several things that one should take into consideration when creating an account. He should take into mind the different strategies that he would want to employ right from the start in terms of the selection of key words and the combinations of these words to be able to maximize the returns from engaging in this endeavor.
He should also target the right market in terms of selecting the right language and countries which he would want his ads to appear. If one is selling products which would be of no use for citizens of other countries or if the option of exporting the products is not available, he might as well stick with his own country. He wouldn’t want to get charged by generating clicks from people who do not belong to the target market.
The creation of an Adgroup is also a basic step in using the Google Adwords system. One should be able to conceptualize and design an enticing advertisement and select the right combination of keywords.
Advertisements
Google will ask an advertiser what he would want to put in his advertisements. The advertisement should contain a title line and a body. The title line is composed of a maximum of 25 characters and the body should contain a maximum of two lines which contain 35 characters each.
The real challenge in designing advertisements for Google Adwords is to effectively attract customers and get them to click the website. A concise but striking advertisement is particularly efficient in getting the attention of the surfers.
Links
When a prospective customer clicks a website through the Google Adwords screen, a continuous set of efforts should be taken. The link in the Adword should not necessarily be the home page of a website but should be a web page wherein he can find information that is important to him. The link, perhaps, can be the “products” section of the website.
These are just some of the basic things that one must be able to digest to get a general feel of what Google Adwords is all about. One must be diligent in studying the different aspects of this system to be able to get the most out of it.
If You Are So Smart Why Aren't You Rich? by: Bruce Seah
It isn't easy to face the truth, isn't it? And you've heard it before, the truth shall set you free! Do you have friends who talk a lot and everything you tried to tell them, they will say "I know" and you know that they don't have much money in the bank and is struggling day to day and month to month! The truth hurts and it really helps if you are willing to face the truth.
This question: "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" applies to people who are not willing to face the truth and admit that for things to change they must change. This question will help lots of people if they are honest with themselves.
I first got to know this question on a convention trip in Hawaii where I was introduced to my Chairman's mentor who willingly shared with us tips on achieving success. One effective way he is able to get people to think is to ask them if they have any plans for their retirement. Over 95% of people do not have plans for retirement! He would also ask them if he can speak to them like a brother and sometimes would ask this thought provoking question: "If you're so smart why aren't you rich?"
Riches come in different forms, most people's idea of riches is to own a big beautiful waterfront house, luxurious cars and enjoy the lifestyle of the rich and famous. You can feel rich and be happy if you have enough to pay all your bills with much left which means you are enjoying positive cash flow! You will also feel rich if you have enough to last you for the rest of your life without working, you don't really need to have a big house with a swimming pool and big cars and expensive watches and jewelry to be considered rich?
There are many rich people who are miserable and not happy at all and that is not being truly rich! So being rich can be very subjective but most people will agree that you must have positive cash flow, enough in assets to last you for the rest of your life without working and being happy, living a meaningful life and making a positive difference to people's lives!
I've attended a world famous personal development program called Money & YOU and one of the popular teachings is "The highest form of leverage is...EDUCATION" How much have you invested in educating yourself on personal development and business? Jay Abraham, the world renowned marketing genius, and my marketing guru, has constantly taught his students that marketing can give you great leverage and returns of thousands of percent!
It is obvious that if you want to be rich, you must do what the rich people are doing! Successful people are willing to share how they achieve their wealth and there are no secrets. There are lots of books written on creating wealth and lots of information is freely available from the Internet.
This year I invested over $10,000 to learn more about internet marketing, you must be willing to invest before you can create wealth.
There are no short cuts, you must invest time, money and effort if you are serious about creating wealth! I happily invested $3,995 to learn from Jay Abraham about marketing at his 3-day billion dollar marketing weekend. And there were over 500 people from China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Singapore attending this special marketing seminar. And many of the participants were millionaires, CEOs, and top executives. This clearly shows that successful people are constantly investing in themselves.
Here's a great marketing tip for you, it is not how much you put into your business, it is how much your return on investment that you should focus on! If every $100 worth of advertisement gives you a $200 profit can you afford to keep on advertising it again and again? Of course, you will want to do it again and again because you have created a positive cashflow of $100 each time you place an advertisement!
There are literally thousands of people worldwide making decent part-time income through AdWords on the Internet, and it is a good start to generate your seed money for creating wealth! Do you believe you can make money from a 25 cent advertisment? Yes, you can if you have the knowledge on how to do it! Again, do not expect to achieve riches in a very short time, it does take time and for a few special ones it may take months and for most people it probably take years! It all depends on your burning desire and your commitment to creating wealth so that you can enjoy a better lifestyle!
15 Proven Ways To Use Autoresponders In Your Home Business by: Don Hayes
An interested visitor who has been strolling through your site has finally come to just what she is looking for and is about to make a purchase. It's a sunny afternoon, and her cat, who happens to be sitting on the moss under the visitor's large fifty-year-old snow-rose bonsai tree, suddenly jumps down, and the priceless tree topples over.
In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and your sale is dust - unless you have had the foresight to utilize an autoresponder that has captured her email address. If you have installed an autoresponder, you can then follow-up with her, and in all probability, make the sale when the poor woman has finished repotting her precious bonsai.
Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile programs that do so much more than just automatically answer your email.
Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual visitor into a profitable customer. Use your autoresponder to:
1. Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders will manage subscriptions and follow-up with interested prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed about your services or products, while building your reputation as a credible expert in your particular business.
2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform them of current sales you are running and of promotional material that your affiliates can use themselves to increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go out and promote your business.
3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books, movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder.
Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your affiliate's page in your autoresponder.
4. Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business credibility, bring traffic to your site, and increase your sales potential. If your articles contain valuable information, many editors will print what is known as a resource box for you. A resource box contains your bio and a brief description of your service or product. It can also contain your autoresponder address. Let's say you've written fifty articles. Put them on separate autoresponder accounts and create a master list that contains the titles of each article, the autoresponder address, and a brief abstract. Then promote your master list. Additionally, include your publishing guidelines so your affiliates can add their articles to your list, increasing the number of writers who are represented in your article list.
5. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your articles when you've written new ones that they may want to publish in their own newsletter or website.
6. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure repeated exposure of your message, which has been proven to effectively increase sales. In your ad, put your autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances of converting visitors into customers. For example, if you're selling a particular product, put testimonials about how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a detailed, enticing description of your product.
7. Distribute advertising. Let's say you sell advertising on your website or in your newsletter or e-zine. Set your autoresponder to send the information about rates and how to place an ad automatically to all prospects' email addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can also send notification of any special deals you are currently offering.
8. Distribute an email course. Each day, have your autoresponder send out another lesson. Just be sure that each lesson has quality content - not a sales pitch. Your content will do the selling for you, and will do it much more effectively. You can include tips centered on a different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product.
Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a purchase.
9. Automate a reminder about your service or product after a visitor has completed your course. This will increase the possibility of sales from visitors who have taken your course but are dragging their feet about actually making a purchase. You can also use these reminders to promote new products or services, and the products and services of your affiliate programs.
10. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an idea of the type of information you can provide and the quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a potential customer than gain a sale.
11. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be motivated to request your autoresponder, and you will have a record of the visitors' email addresses who took your quiz. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter send their responses to your autoresponder. Your autoresponder can be set-up to send them a confirmation of their entry.
12. Offer a trial version of your product. Give your prospects a sample of your ebook, course, software, membership, etc. People who are exposed to a little taste often end up wanting the whole pie. You can also capture their email addresses when you offer them a free trial from your website. Set up your autoresponder to give instructions on how to obtain their free trial, and then make sure to follow-up to try and close the sale.
13. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors that they may have free access to your affiliate page by simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your affiliates.
14. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request form for visitors to be notified of special offers or discounts in the future. This creates a very effective mailing list that contains the names of people who are already your customers.
15. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should contain up to fifty links that would be of particular interest to your visitors. Make sure to add your own promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.
Starting an Online Business - Affiliate Programs Make it Easy by: Paulina Jenkins
If you have been longing to start a business online you may be coming across terms you've never heard before. You may also have found the opportunities available are overwhelming. Where do you begin?
AFFILIATE PROGRAMS - EASY START
Affiliate programs may be the easiest online business to start running. Why?
With any online business you must have a product or service to sell. First you must create this product or service and then you must be able to fill orders.
Selling your own product or service also means creating a website, learning how to write ad copy, setting up a marketing plan, being able to accept payments online and obviously doing the work. If you're selling a physical product then you will need to make or buy the item, package it and pay for shipping costs. If you provide a service than you will likely have to start by doing free jobs to build your credibility and then when you are charging for your service you are still limited by how much work you can actually handle.
THE MAGIC OF AFFILIATE PROGRAMS
Affiliate programs are a great way to get started in an online business. In fact there are even some 'Super Affiliates' who are making fabulous incomes from affiliate programs. So, what ARE affiliate programs?
Affiliate programs allow you to sell another company's service or product and make a commission on every sale or lead. You do not even need to build a website or handle the transaction. Your job is to drive traffic (customers) to your affiliate link.
An affiliate link is a special URL code that will identify customers coming to the company's site from your advertising. It will likely be the website address with a code attached to the end.
Some affiliate programs also have tiers. That means if someone who is interested in SELLING the product comes through your link and signs up you will also get a small percentage of THEIR earnings.
HOW DO I CHOOSE A PROGRAM?
You should research the popularity of some of your interests. Try to determine if people are buying that product or service online. There are many sources for finding that information including free ones such as the Overture keyword tool.
When you have found an area that is popular then type the subject along with 'affiliate program' into your search engine and see which programs have services or products for that area. You can also use an affiliate program directory.
When you have found a program that looks interesting you should read the terms of the program. Make sure that payouts are not based on a high commission earning or you may never see your money. Also try to choose programs with high commission rates. Often you will find ebooks and downloadable software has the highest rates as there is no physical product to make or ship. If you are satisfied with the terms then you need to sign up - usually a simple process.
START MARKETING
The reason affiliate programs are so great for beginners is that you only need to focus on marketing - not making - your product.
Many affiliate programs have information on how to market and give you tools such as banners, product feeds and more. You can also look for other information on marketing including writing articles, creating pay-per-click campaigns, commenting in online forums etc. As you gain experience marketing you will make adjustments to your selling and start creating a wonderful income!
How E-commerce Can Increase Your Revenue? by: Ali Mohsen
Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) 10 years back found it hard & highly costing to work Globally. But nowadays Internet has made things much easier, from Small shops to large enterprises are now doing online business internationally and available 24/7 for anyone in the world.
E-commerce Websites are cost effective and its staff reducing, Where online strategies that can deliver much greater returns on a limited budget with affordable and efficient website solutions.
While it is impossible to know how many people actually see print advertising, online advertisers can track precisely how many see each and every ad and how many website visits it generates, enabling businesses to attract the highest volume of targeted traffic, at the lowest possible cost. Whatever the visitor action – making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, downloading a report, conversions are the key to measuring Return On Investment.
With e-commerce you will get the opportunity to build your All-Time-Open-Shop and offer all services & products online which can be purchased with a click of a mouse.
Professional web site design is critical for success in the modern Internet Business World. Offering an attractive, intuitive interface with a logical and easy to use navigation layout will make the difference between a happy visitor (and potential client) and a frustrated web surfer at your website.
Your website is an integral part of your image, identification and communication strategy. Successful web communication comes from grabbing your visitors' attention and providing a website that is comfortable to use. your web site should do both-innovative design captures the eye and is followed by a familiar and easy to navigate path.
A well-designed website is a mission-critical investment in
• enhancing brand image • building consumer confidence • increasing willingness to buy
From overall Website design and architecture, the simple things like clear contact information and telephone numbers, testimonials and case studies. Customers want to find what they’re looking for.
Setting up all requirements to accept payments online and automating all the processes, its all depends on reliable Web Development & Web Hosting solutions to ensure the best performance of your e-business.
Your E-commerce business can have its own online customer service solutions to meet your customers satisfaction like:
• Complaints Management System • Live Chat Support System • Trouble ticket System • Online Billing System
How To Make Internet Marketing Paid Membership Sites Work For You by: Michael Senoff
There was a time when setting up paid membership sites on the Internet -- where you have a site only people who pay you an ongoing fee can access -- was all the rage.
Lately it seems this isn't as popular as it was. Mostly because so many of them fail. In fact, in many cases, it seems people drop out of paid membership web sites as soon as they sign up.
Even so, there are a few smart Internet marketers who have been able to make it work well.
And one of those ways to make paid membership sites work is to simply offer content people simply cannot get anywhere else.
In other words, you’re probably not going to get them to pay you an ongoing fee to access your content unless you offer them something that’s just not possible to get online or offline anywhere else but from you and your site.
Yes, that sounds simple, but that's really what it all boils down to.
The whole key to making paid membership sites work is giving people something unique, valuable, proprietary to you, and that you, and only you, can provide.
For example, there is a marketer named Matt Furey. He has a monthly membership site and he gives away a ton of material to people who sign up for a year. Not material people can download online somewhere else, but real, valuable books, CDs, and even personal assistance with members' questions.
These are all things you can't get anywhere else but through him and so his membership deal thrives and grows. You can do the same thing.
It doesn't take a whole lot of sophistication or technological savvy, either. Just follow the model above with what you're selling and you will be fine.
Maximize ROI with Database and Permission Email Marketing by: Neil Anuskiewicz
Communicating with your Clients and Prospects
Most people talk about different things with different people. With one friend the conversation might usually focus on relationships, while with another, perhaps talk turns more naturally to movies, books, sports or politics.
You would be unlikely to appeal to your relationship-discussing friend if you were to engage in a monologue about your opinion of our current political leaders. However, if you started in with that same screed to your politics-loving friend, he or she would greet it with a smile that says "let the games begin!"
The same theory applies to communicating with your customers and prospects. "One of the most important things to keep in mind when developing your campaign is relevance, says Yael Penn, Principal of Imagine Creative Marketing (www.imaginecreativemarketing.com). "If you send a message recipients are interested in receiving, you will get their attention and your campaign will be a success.
However, if your message is not relevant to their interests or current needs, they will most likely ignore it, or even worse, unsubscribe from your database and you'll never be able to communicate with them again!"
Segmenting your Database
So now you may be thinking, "Not all of the people in my database have the same interests, what to do?" Before you send out a campaign, you should segment your database into several groups of people who share specific traits, whether it be age, gender, hobbies, job function, purchase history, etc. Take whatever information you already have about the people in your database and put it to good use. This exercise will also give you some insight as to the type of information you will want to gather moving forward to better segment your database in the future.
Then, once you're satisfied with the way you've segmented your database you can create a message that will be relevant to each of those groups. "A lot of people make the mistake of creating email campaigns that appeal to themselves, rather than their target audience," says Penn. "The more you know about your customers, the more you can customize the message, look and feel to better speak to the people you are marketing to."
Enhancing your existing database
When you went through the exercise of segmenting your database for the first time, you probably thought about what type of information would be helpful to have to better communicate with your customers and prospects. Make a list of the most important things (i.e.: age, gender, magazines subscriptions, job function, industry, geo, etc.) and incorporate these questions into all of you opt-in forms and order forms. The fields should be the same across the board. That way, you consistently collect the relevant information from all new customers and prospects. If you are able to create drop down menus for these fields to standardize the way information is fed into your database, even better.
Once you've incorporated everything into your opt-in and purchase forms, you might want to send out a survey to your existing database to gather this missing information. An enticing premium will increase your response rate. But remember, the premium should be enticing to your target audience, not yourself.
In addition, it is very important to keep good records of what people are buying, when and for how much. These sorts of buying patterns, combined with demographic data, will also prove very valuable for future marketing campaigns.
Communicating with your database on a regular basis
This is where the demographic information and the buying records are going to come in handy. Let's say you sell gloves, hats and scarves. Some of your customers have purchased red women's gloves but not the matching red hat and a red scarf. So you might send them an email with information on a special for the matching red hat and red scarf. However, you will probably want to send a different email to the women who purchased the grey gloves and a different email with an offer for men's accessories to the men in your database. "You should customize your permission-based email marketing efforts to appeal to specifics," says Dan Forootan, President of the StreamSend Email Marketing Service (http://www.streamsend.com). "By doing this you can greatly increase both your sales and revenue."
"Its important to communicate with your customers and prospects on a regular basis," adds Penn. "but you need to have a good reason for communicating with them, one that brings value in some way. If you're opt-out rate is high, it's a good indication that its time to rethink your messaging as well as how frequently you are communicating with your database.
Track your campaigns
Tracking the results of your campaigns will enable you to determine what's working and what's not. One easy way to do this is to incorporate a field in all your forms called "offer code". Assign a specific code to each email campaign you send out and be sure to give people an incentive to use the offer code when responding.
After each campaign expires you should analyze the results, including how many people you sent the email to, how many emails were delivered, how many people clicked through and how many people opted-out (most email marketing systems will give you these stats). In addition, if you look at the number of people who responded using the campaign offer code, you will be able to calculate the campaign response rate.
Last but not least!
As you are gathering more and more information about your customers, you can use this information to "paint a picture" of your "ideal customer". These are the people who bring you the most profits and you definitely want more customers like these!
The 8 Basic Truths About All Super Affiliate Marketers, Apply These To Your Business And You Will Be Super Too! by: John Day
There is an old saying that applies to all areas of life and is particularly true when you apply it to the world of internet marketing. And that is. . .
Successes do the things that failures do not. . .
If you are content with average, so be it.
But by adopting a few techniques used by the super affiliates, the average affiliate marketer is closer to super success than he or she may even imagine themselves.
And really isn't that the holy grail?
To have complete control over how you spend your time and with plenty of money to boot.
That fits my definition of freedom. What about yours?
There is not another business on the planet that has such a huge upside, with almost no downside whatsoever.
Think about it, with a computer, some high powered affiliate programs, some specialized knowledge applied creatively and you can have a thriving, worldwide business.
Not only that but this is a business you really can run "from the comfort of your own home."
So when you frame Affiliate marketing that way, the stakes couldn't be higher.
I have discovered that. . .
There are some basic truths that apply to all Super Affiliates. . .
And if you apply them to your business your success is virtually assured.
1. Super affiliates realize first and foremost that affiliate marketing is not a get "rich quick scheme" and they set out to build a business.
2. Super affiliates build their business by establishing relationships with their website visitors and they do this in a number of ways:
By getting their visitors to opt-in they respond with preselling preloaded auto responder messages that over time builds relationships and trust.
Super affiliates consistently "over deliver" with quality content and product recommendations.
Super affiliates give their opt-ins the information they are seeking.
3. Super affiliates know that,
They can have everything they want, if they help enough people get what they want!
4. Super affiliates realize the truth in the saying: "Do what you love and the money will follow"
When you are doing what you really, really like then it doesn't seem like work at all does it?
5. Super affiliates realize that they can't be all things to all people and as result they specialize, find a niche and dominate that market.
From photography to gardening to dieting to sailing to you name it, it's all on the internet.
One basic fact that you can’t loose sight of is the fact that people use the internet to get information.
People pay for what you know.
And since you will be dealing with a subject you really like giving them good quality information won’t be a problem.
How great is that?
What is your passion?
No matter what your passion is, chances are high that you will find a niche where you will be able to monetize it with some high quality affiliate products.
6. Super Affiliates are constantly educating themselves and then putting what they learned to work. Then repeating the process over and over again till success is finally achieved.
Constant learning is key to the super affiliates success. . .
It's easy to learn when the subject matter is your passion.
7. Super Affiliates have the ability to focus on "the big picture" and consistently work toward that.
There's a huge amount of affiliate marketing information available and it's easy to get bogged down by information overload.
A lot of affiliate marketers spend large amount of time searching internet for that “magic” piece of information that will put them over the top. Resulting in inaction.
Super affiliates get in the action habit and learn what they need to learn as the need arises.
8. Super affiliates build their own websites.
There is enough WYSIWYG(what you see is what you get) website building software out that it's not hard at all. Like typing in word perfect.
When I started on the internet I was a complete computer novice.
Now I can build a professional website in hardly anytime at all.
Was there a learning curve?
Sure there was, but with the incredible software I used and the amount of tutorials they supplied, I was up and running in no time.
These are eight basic truths that apply to Super Affiliates. Apply them to your business and you will be well on your way to super affiliate marketing success.
How to Make the Most from E-Bay Auctions by: David Baker
Whatever your merchandise, selling by using an eBay auction is profitable, simple and fun. Selling through eBay can be a one-time sale or a second income. People enjoy searching through online auctions to find rare collector’s items or unusual furniture and clothing. The selection at an eBay auction is limitless. Try eBay to sell your unneeded items instead of holding a yard sale. You may discover that the income opportunities are top-notch.
Even if you just want to unload a few dust-collecting items from your garage or attic, there are some tips which will help you have an eBay auction that’s profitable. You must do more than post a price and a picture of your item in order to bring bidders to your auction item.
Describe your merchandise accurately. It’s better to sell items, which are in excellent condition, but otherwise, be honest about what you have to sell. Deceit will always show up in the negative ratings and spoil your chances of future sales. You also should know as much as possible about what you are selling so you can give a complete and detailed description and promptly answer any questions which a bidder may ask.
Your sales and shipping and refund policies should be completely and accurately stated up front. Sales will go smoothly and give you repeat customers. Attracting repeat customers is vital if you want to maintain a good eBay auction success rate. Good customer service helps customers feel good about doing business with you.
Once your eBay auction merchandise has sold, you must do even more to keep the level of professional and courteous rapport with your customers. Good reviews and repeat customers mean a successful eBay career. Inform your customers of each step in the successful completion of the sale. First, thank them for the purchase and include any payment information. Next, tell them when you’ve shipped their purchase, the shipping carrier and any tracking information, which is available. It may be prudent to use delivery confirmation or package tracking when you ship the purchase to the customer. An expected receipt date helps your customers to know when they may expect their purchase to arrive.
Always conduct your eBay auctions and business transactions as a true professional. When you wrap and ship merchandise, you will want to prepare the package carefully to avoid shipping damage. This lets the buyer know that you recognize the importance of a safe and prompt arrival to them. Include a receipt so the customer will be able to keep vital information for his tax records. You can even include a sincere thank-you note.
Your reputation as a seller on an eBay auction is built by customer feedback and ratings. Take your ratings seriously, buyers do. If you remember to do something a little extra for your customer, they will appreciate it and tell others of their successful experience with you. Even difficult customers deserve courtesy and a friendly yet professional attitude.
With the opportunity you can find great bargains but beware, there are risks involved. Online auctions can cause problems unless you are properly prepared. If you are going to do your business through online auction houses, make sure you have familiarized yourself with the rules of the game. Here’s a quick checklist to make sure you can have a hassle free trade.
1. There are a large number of different auction houses offering different specialties. Each one of them will have slightly different rules and regulations covering how trades are conducted. Make sure you have read the rules of each auction house that you want to trade on. Familiarize yourself with the protections that they do offer, covering the return of faulty or damaged goods etc.
Note, almost no auction house will guarantee any part of the transaction. It is up to the buyer to verify that the seller will provide the promised product or service.
2. Almost all of the problems with online auctions (and there are very, very few) arise from the sellers. They do not ship the article, they ship it late, the quality is inferior to that which was advertised and so on. Make sure that you identify the buyer, do not just rely on an e-mail address and see if you can get a phone number, find out why the product or service you’re intending to buy is cheaper than you can buy in a store. If you have the slightest concern, don’t make a bid – because remember, if your bid is chosen – you have to pay! Some auction houses have verified the credentials of their regular sellers; consider buying from these reputable dealers first.
3. Payment. Use a secured online service, often an auction house will recommend one. Don’t be lured into making a payment into an escrow account, which has been recommended by the seller. Choose your own if you wish to go this route, the auction house will have some reputable recommendations.
4. Don’t be lured off site. Some unscrupulous sellers will suggest that you do a separate trade with them privately. They will say this is to avoid the fees charged by auction houses. If you purchase privately, you lose all the protection offered by the auction house.
5. Don’t bid for something you can’t afford. And remember that it is usually the buyer who pays for the shipping; so don’t forget to add that into the price you are prepared to pay.
6. Remember, the vast majority of sellers and buyers are honest, legitimate people who will honor the agreement reached at an online auction house. However, you need to take some precautions before you bid to make sure that you don’t fall prey to a rogue seller (or buyer).
The Busy Life of a Real Estate Mom – How to Have Time for Dad Too! Five Steps to Get You Started by: Cheri Alguire
As a real estate mom, juggling goals between work and kids can be difficult on its own. Fitting in some all important time for dad can often seem overwhelming, and can easily get lost in the shuffle. With today’s hectic lifestyles of combining careers with family, it may seem impossible to pencil in those additional precious minutes necessary for dad. With some forethought, not only can it be done, but in doing so, you will strengthen the bonds that make up your family. Below, you will find five easy to plan steps to add dad to your schedule:
1. Get up early! Maybe the last thing you want to hear, but a couple of mornings per week try to carve out an extra thirty minutes to share breakfast with your honey. The house will be quiet for you and dad to share coffee and converse.
2. Combine errands! Meet dad at the grocery store to do the weekly shopping. Sound mundane to you? It doesn’t have to be – without the kids along, it can be a way to get a necessary job completed, and still spend time with dad.
3. Meet for Lunch! You know how to make lunch appointments – so schedule one with dad. It will almost feel like a date with no kids in tow. You can even attach a “no work, no kids” discussion rule over these lunches, if you want. It’s personal, so keep it that way!
4. Plan a Date Night! Whether once a week, once every two weeks, or even once a month – plan one night that is for you and dad to go out. It can be for a movie, for dinner, or even an outside evening picnic. Once you make the dates, don’t break them!
5. Plan Stay at Home Dates! Once a week, plan a night for you and dad at home. Cook dinner together, rent a movie, curl up on the couch, play a game - whatever you want! You can start the evening with family time to include the kids, but once they’re in bed, spend the remainder of the evening with each other.
The End Result
As a real estate mom, you completely understand how important communication is within your business. Don’t forget it is as important in your personal relationships. Keeping the channels of communication open with dad is one of the first, and possibly most vital, steps in assuring the backbone of your family remains strong.
Yes, focusing on your business is necessary to the growth of your career, but you don’t need to take anything away from that to also focus on your family, including dad. Making the effort to find spaces of time to devote to this relationship will assist in keeping every part of your family strong. Also, don’t forget that these little moments will serve to recharge your own batteries, so you can keep forging ahead in your career.
Busy people, especially real-estate moms, often set their own personal needs aside to fulfill everyone else’s. This can only lead to energy burn-out. Finding the proper balance in all areas of your life – from yourself, to dad, to your kids, and to your business will result in the perfect blend of success.
What’s Better Residual Income Or Passive Income? by: Aubrey Richardson
Most of us have been taught to go to school and get an education. Ideally you graduate from high school and further your education through college or a trade school. Some go on to achieve their Masters or PHD allowing them to command more money for their time. Ultimately, one must choose what they intend to do for a career, earn a living and be productive in society. Not that you or anyone else needs a “diploma” in order to be successful but some would consider it to be a “marker” of discipline, as to whether one may finish the task or do the job required.
Residual income is known as money that is received on a regular basis from efforts already sown. Could be thought of as money that is “left over” from an initial purchase or ongoing installment. Its nickname or also known as (AKA) “mailbox money” and can be obtained by anyone, graduate or non graduate.
Usually to keep receiving residual income, one must still be “active” within the company or organization. Should they leave or break “policy”, you can expect to stop receiving any further residual money. Replacing the mailbox money with a final termination letter and ceasing any more paychecks as the residual return comes to an end.
Passive income is similar to residual income but with one major difference. With passive income you can now be an “inactive” party. Qualifying you to “retire” from your venture an yet still keep on receiving your expected paycheck. Not to be confused with a pension but giving you the freedom to maintain your preexisting standard of living, while NOT having to work for it (the paycheck) any longer.
You hear a great deal of individuals giving testimony to having a residual income, which is what most people strive to obtain and rightly so. This is to be expected when working within a home based business environment or any other self-earned income opportunity. However, if you can build your residual earnings into an ongoing passive income, you will be better off once you choose to STOP acting (or working) to get the paycheck.
Whether it be residual income or passive income, once you get a taste of either one you will most likely want to continue in this manor and grow it to unlimited heights. Allowing you to experience a lifestyle unlike others they may need to report to workplace at a certain time each day, week after week and year after year.
If you are currently representing a company or thinking of joining a company that offers residual income as a form of payment. You should check into their company policies and learn how your earned paycheck may be treated, should you choose to move on to another business opportunity. Losing a residual income after spending your time and energy creating it, could be devastating if you are not aware of its tenure ahead of time.
Some people find it impossible to leave home every day. Others simply prefer to stay at home. For example, mothers with small children may prefer to take care of them than to leave them at childcare while they are at work. Artists may prefer to stay at home and combine art and work. Writers, on the other hand, may want to isolate in the tranquility of the home in order to work uninterrupted. For all these people it will be better to earn from home than to go to work each day.
The fact that you have chosen to earn from home does not give you an unconditional freedom. Veterans in earning from home admit that there are some basic principles and some requirements, which must be followed. Here are given some of these requirements:
Make up a professional agenda. Make an effective personal schedule and be sure you keep it. No matter if, it is rainy outside or whether you feel sleepy, you should not be able to afford yourself to take a rest day. A day off will make you lose momentum. As the saying goes, it is much easier to keep going than to get going. I also remember a physical law which says that “a body in motion stays in motion; a body at rest stays at rest”. If you want to earn from home, you will have to work hard as well. Earning from home does not mean working less.
Put on some clothes. The daily care for your external appearance is very important even if you are earning from home. A well-groomed person is much more productive. You have to do the everyday things like shaving, showering and brushing your teeth in order to feel in your normal state while you are earning from home. Never mind that nobody can see you working in pajamas, this is just the opposite of your proper behavior. The pajamas predispose you to sleep not to work.
Try not to be interrupted. May be this is the most difficult to accomplish tasks of all. Ask everyone who is the house to leave you alone in order to be able to work. Each earn from home worker finds this very hard. The spouse, roommate, or other comes to tell you something, somebody calls you on the phone to remind you of something, the children are constantly getting into a mischief and so on. Ask everybody to imagine that you are at a job you had to drive to and treat you the same way, as you do not exist in the house. Ask them whether they will visit you the same way at your workplace. Ask them whether they will call to ask you something about the TV channels for example.
If your efforts appear to be ineffective, try a signal system. Each earn from home worker should try with some kind of signal system. I took a hanging sign “Do Not Disturb” from a hotel and I usually place it on my door. Moreover, I do not pay attention to any knockings, throat-clearings or crocodile tears. Earning from home requires full concentration of mind.
Finally, I feel myself obliged to warn those who are new to earn from home. While searching for “earn from home”, always try to make sure that the job offer you found is not a fraudulent business scheme. Once I read something on a homeworking.com forum – employers are never begging people to work for them. They always offer a particular job and look for a particular person with the needed skills. If a job offer gives no details, have in mind that this may be something wrong. Such type of “jobs” often requires you send money or to invest money. No job should require any money from you. After all, you want to earn from home, not to spend from home!
I've been publishing a newsletter for over 6 years and I've been actively marketing and running an online business for almost 8... needless to say, I've seen a lot of trends come and go and definitely know all about lulls and surges.
I know all of us would like more surges and if you're like me, you tend to get a little discouraged at first when you start to feel the effects of the lulls. This is normal and although they say you get used to it as time goes on, I have to say I still get discouraged every year around this time, but I've since learned how to deal with it a little more positively.
Since my slow season hits with a bang, I would quickly forget how much I complained about having no time and being extremely stressed during the surge. So now I try to think of it as the "The Eye of the Storm"... calm, quiet, but with the promise of a surge to come.
Yes, it's true... there are those big gurus who claim to still surge no matter what time of year it is -- and I don't doubt them -- but for people like you and me, it just doesn't happen no matter how hard you try or how hard you work. I'll admit that my lull isn't as slow as it used to be since my name has gotten out there a bit, but it's STILL slower than any other time of year.
When I first started experiencing this, I was mad with ambition to get my business and traffic back to par. I wasn't going to stand for the lull theory... no way! I spent literally thousands on marketing, TONS of time spitting out new products and services, and basically worked myself to death...
Did I get more business? Did I get more traffic? Well, yes but not NEAR worth what I spent to get it! I ended up losing a lot of money that year -- something I could have avoided if I would just accept it and leave it be.
It definitely taught me a lesson. For the last few years, I've just accepted it and I cease the flow of any marketing dollars or time spent on launching new products or services. What do I do with my time? I work on improving any existing products and services and I clean up. I've found that it's the best time to get things ready for the surge and the best time to take a little time off and enjoy what my success has afforded me. I do what all my potential but non-buying customers are doing... I spend time with my family and spend my money on Christmas gifts and donations.
If you can't deal with that or you absolutely have to keep making that surge money to make ends meet, find a niche product or service that will do well around this time of year -- like a cookbook, gift site, or similiar service.
I have some big gurus as subscribers and if you're one of those that never has a slow season then I'll be honest, I'm jealous! But for the majority of us, it's inevitable and something we will probably never overcome.
So swallow the jagged pill and don't try to beat it. Remember that it is NOT the end of the world or your business -- just the "The Eye of the Storm". ENJOY it and use it as a time for rest, relaxation, and getting your mind, body, and business ready for the upcoming chaos.
Bookkeeping Made Simple for Your Home-Based Business by: Monique Hawkins
For many people, bookkeeping can be a daunting task. For some, it is a living nightmare! Most people who can’t stand accounting and math hire a bookkeeper. Of course, this isn’t for free! A fee is always attached to the service. The truth is, bookkeeping does not have to be difficult. It can be simple! Let’ s discover how.
In starting or managing a home-based business, bookkeeping is one important activity you should not forget about. Bookkeeping, when you really think about it, is very simple. There's nothing more to it than recording your daily financial activities, like the money you earned and the money you spent. It is similar to balancing a checkbook.
Accurate record keeping is crucial for your home business.. If you maintain good bookkeeping of your business, then you are sure to accurately monitor your income against your expenses. You can see outright if you are getting some profit or not. Here are some easy steps to handle the bookkeeping of your home-based business easily.
1. Open a business checking account. Go to your local bank and open an account under your business name. Sign the necessary papers and get the account registration card together with your account information. Get your imprinted checks as well.
2. Get a columnar notebook or a simple notebook. Begin writing down your daily income and expenses. Start each summary with the current date. It would be best if you start from the day you first opened for business.
3. Make two columns, one for income and one for expenses. Then record your income for the day on one side, and your expenses on the other. Total everything at the end of the each column. You can also put the difference of the two columns, label it profit, investment, or however you intend to save or use the money.
4. Accurately maintain a daily, monthly, and yearly log. Just continue compiling this information. At the end of the month, summarize all your earnings. Do the same at the end of the year. This is going to be a good basis for inventory too; as well as for tax purposes.
Of course, there are computer programs that can easily do this for you. If, however, you are one who likes to crank out things by hand, this is perfect for you!
This is all it takes to do bookkeeping. It really is simple! It doesn't take to be a math wizard or an accounting major to do these simple steps. You can also read more on some bookkeeping materials or enlist in a bookkeeping correspondence. Once you start, you will easily be able to keep up. Your home-based business will now be on the right track!
Common Pitfalls of Home Based Business Marketers by: Stephen Wright
It continues to amaze and sadden me, just how frequently home based business efforts of people fail for various reasons. In fact, not many weeks go by that I don't receive emails requesting advice and help from home business marketers trying to salvage their investment into their online marketing business.
Just as common and frequent are the "typical" themes about "what went wrong". It doesn't really take many questions through inquiry to uncover what I feel is the root cause for their demise. Truth is many are guilty of multiple "violations" of what I call the "core basics" of establishing, maintaining, and ensuring your online based business stays healthy and thriving. This article seeks to identify those areas of focus, with the hope you will not repeat them for your home business.
No matter how wonderful or magnificent your website – the bottom-line is that unless someone can find the site - it might as well not exist! Truth is, unless you advertise and promote your website through some means, you will never receive traffic, period. There are a lot of options, some cost money – others your time. Pay-per-Click (PPC) possibilities include the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. Writing articles for publication, participation in forums, etc. are all examples of activities to generate web traffic that do not cost money that can be even more effective that the PPC methods. The point is: you have to advertise in some fashion to get traffic to your website. Otherwise, your home business activity will not last long.
It might seem obvious to you or I, but it is shocking how many failed home business activities happen where the owners rarely (if ever) correspond with their clients/customers. Whether it be new prospects, and especially from anyone that has ever purchased from you -- YOU MUST make efforts to promptly respond to their email inquiries, and keep in contact with them in the future. Many internet marketers are successful for follow up, subsequent sales later on – not just focused on the 1-time sale and done philosophy. And to the point of not responding to emails – the Number 1 complaint of customer support activities is long delays or non-responsiveness in responding to inquiries made by customers. For you to be successful, this simply is not acceptable!
Online users today are always in hurry and always "speeding" through the internet looking for "stuff". Likewise, they have keen eyes and memories when it comes to being aware of information and content on any given website. Unless home based business marketers frequently update our content (even if it is just to rearranging the landscape) they quickly perceive that it is an unattended site or otherwise not a place worthy of a bookmark to visit with regularity "to get the latest". We need fresh, exciting current information, events, and activities to keep the site "fresh". Otherwise, they will quickly find some other place that does.
Like the popular saying, "keeping up with Jones'" --in most cases - it is not a good thing. However, in the world of home based business and internet marketing – it is a must! For small and home business owners, it is a great advantage to be able to continually look at "what the big boys are doing" in our respective industry niche markets. This allows us to be able to use the information as a benchmark or barometer for keeping prices, product line, content, etc., up to date and in line with the market. The classification for these efforts should be in the category of "market research", with the intended purpose of helping us stay current on the market and what is available, from whom, and at what price. This should be the primary method for idea generation for possible enhancements to our own product and service offerings.
The final area of focus is as much ethical as it is legal and prudent. No matter how tempting it might be, no matter who else does it---the answer is: DO NOT SPAM, PERIOD! Sending unwanted and unsolicited email to anyone else is not legal and is one of the easiest ways to get your business blacklisted and "out of business". Sure we all continue to get that junky unwanted stuff ourselves. But they will be caught, soon or later. Internet users have become so keenly aware of SPAM mail that they rarely are compelled to buy anything and more times than not delete SPAM mail without even opening it or reading through the message content. You must avoid this practice completely! It is clearly not worth taking such a risk. Develop and maintain a strict and compliant policy when it comes to SPAM mail and sending business emails. Learn the rules and practices about proper techniques such as Opt-In and Double Opt-In emailing. It will save your business someday, literally!
This information is not a comprehensive or all-inclusive list, but at least you now have a few of the "basics" of the mistakes "many" others have made. Learn from their bad experiences, so that one of theirs does not become your nightmare!
Replicating Web Sites As An Internet Business by: John Larkins
One of the best, and newest, home MLM business marketing tactics is called a replicating Web site. Many farsighted MLM firms offering a home business opportunity provide Internet marketing to its distributors in this brand new way. Before replicating Web sites the primary income driver for these distributors, and their primary Internet marketing tactics for their home business, were the product and compensation plans. Now, it's the replicating Web site, which enhances the distributor's efforts at duplication and viral marketing. With these sites, the distributor can build national or even global distributor organizations for her or his Internet home business.
The first step in creating the massive downlines by means of the replicating Web site is for the company to develop its own corporate Web site. This corporate site should include the history of the firm, information about all its products and services, the distributor compensation program, and forms for enrollment as an MLM distributor. Anyone should be able, once it's completed, to go to this site and buy the company products and / or sign up as a distributor. No live person is needed to complete either transaction. Enrolling as a distributor in this way, however, is violating the basic principle of a multi-level marketing firm – not setting up member to member competition.
So, each home business distributor for the MLM is offered his or her own Internet marketing site. This site links directly to the corporate site. The prospective distributors are sent first to the site of the referring distributor, whose link takes the prospect to the enrollment forms. The home business distributor's Internet site is now an MLM marketing opportunity for both product sales and growth of the distributor's downline of additional distributors.
Once the products are purchased through the e-commerce enabled company site, or the prospect enrolls as a distributor the referring distributor is notified. In most MLMs, the distributor receives an e-mailed notification of every site visit or inquiry. Should something not result in a sale or enrollment, the referring distributor can take action, answering questions, answering objections and hopefully closing the sale.
The one disadvantage to a replicating Web site for someone who wants a home MLM business on the Internet is the marketing and content control that the corporation holds. Letting the company maintain this control, however, maintains the branding of the firm and the distributor's affiliation with its national marketing success. It also leaves the distributor to focus on sales rather than technical oversight.
With a home business, internet replicating site as a marketing opportunity for your MLM , it's possible to build a large organization of distributors and customers under you without leaving your home office. You don't need to meet the other distributors in your downline or any of your customers. Your replicating Web site does the communicating for you.
Collaborating For Leveraged Income by: Esther Smith
Who doesn’t love a sale? Grand Opening sales, Clearance sales, and others that I’ve never taken advantage of -- Midnight sales! We all love to get quality for a lesser price. Bargains have become part of the American lifestyle and with it the added bonus of bragging rights… “I bought the exact same car but I paid less than you did”.
Sales are good for the business owner too. It brings in needed cash flow while clearing the shelves for new merchandise, but what about the Going-Out-Of-Business sale? You will find bargains hard to pass up because these sales mean the business has dried up and the owner can no longer keep his door open. Sadly, this owner will not be generating any more revenue: his cash flow will stop!
Realizing that the rich get richer by setting up leveraged income, let’s look at this for the moment: in the workforce we consider “being promoted” as earning more and working less. With this mindset today, if you want to earn more and work less you’re going to have to start creating income that does not require your direct involvement -- leveraged or residual income!
Leveraged income differs from linear income (the money you make by working 40 hours in exchange for a paycheck). Doctors and lawyers earn a higher linear income than say, a salesman or pizza chef. But in fact we all have a maximum of 24 hours a day which limits the amount of money even professionals can personally generate. They can up their hourly fee but if suddenly they are unable to work their cash flow stops too.
Linear income is trading your time for money. Leveraged income is your money working for you. With the right business you set in motion a chain of events that duplicates your income over and over again. In the perfect scenario this continues without end.
Think of the author of a best-seller… his residual income is generated by the sale of his popular book over and over again – often going into reprint status, or the composer of a song that won’t leave your head. Every singer wants to record that song and you as the composer will earn mega bucks just for that one creation!
So how do we apply this to the Internet? You can find many programs online that generate leveraged income. Not all of them have or will endure the test of time. Surely you’ve seen the ones with poor products or unethical practices that disappear into cyberspace; often with your money.
Select a program that uses collaboration and you will have the perfect win-win situation. With so much conflicting information on the Internet, people are getting more confused than educated. A program where your sponsor guides you through the initial sales will gain leveraged income for him while earning you the privilege to turn around and do the same.
Let’s examine the 2up system: you are rewarded for selling a valuable product to your new associate and you have earned a sales commission. In return for this commission you agree to train him/her to do the same, teaching them how to advertise and sell more of your company’s valued product.
In a collaborative effort, they agree to forfeit their first two sales to you, their trainer. Once they complete these two training sales, they are independent and begin their own team of associates. Your leveraged income results from the two training sales your associate has given you, and you begin guiding these two new associates, each of which will in turn bring you two new sales commissions.
Do the math: your associate brought you a sales commission. He in turn gives you two new associates with two new commissions. And they in turn each bring you two more associates to train. That’s seven commission checks, and it doesn’t stop there.
With this system, no one suffers the loss of an affiliate to jumps to greener pastures. Once they have made their first two sales in return for their training, you have no further use for them; they become independent and earning their own leveraged incomes.
There are also personal rewards for those who guide others to realize their dreams. As a mentor you are a productive citizen, a valued friend who has helped many become financially independent, and as each new associate fills his dreams, they in turn are fulfilling yours.
Collaborating with others for overall growth is the real beauty of leveraged earning.
How To Select A Successful Affiliate Marketing Company by: Mal Keenan
Affiliate marketing has become one of the most popular methods to make money on the internet. There is thousands of affiliate marketing companies to choose from, which gives you the ability to become an affiliate for a company based around your website. Another advantage to affiliate marketing is the ability to be an affiliate for a number of companies, not just one. So how do you go about selecting a successful affiliate marketing company?
It is wise to select an affiliate marketing company that has to do with your website. Odds are your website is something that interests you, so make sure you select a program that is of interest to you. This will make it much easier to promote and sell something if you have an interest in it.
After you know what type of affiliate marketing company you want to target and promote, you need to research A LOT about the various programs out there. Dig deep and find out what makes one program better than the others. To start you should look at the surface of the company. Ask yourself if it looks professional and if you would buy from them yourself. Does the company know the product and promote it strongly themselves? These are all signs of a successful company from the surface.
Everyone is in affiliate marketing to make money. So the next step is to find the programs that pay out the best and offer the most residual income. It is recommended that you look for a program that pays out no less than 40% of your sales. There are thousands of programs to choose from, so make sure your efforts are being rewarded with a high pay out.
Once you know how much you can make from a specific affiliate marketing company, look into whether or not the company provides you with tools and resources to promote the product. The only way you can be successful in affiliate marketing is if you sell the product, which makes it all the more crucial to have tools to promote the product.
Lastly, it is vital that the affiliate marketing company you select has a place to check your stats. Not only do you need to be able to check your stats, but you need to be able to check them 24 hours a day. After all, the internet never sleeps so why should the stat checking system sleep. If you don’t know how you’re doing, how are you going to be able to stay motivated?
Selecting the perfect affiliate marketing company for you can be difficult since there are so many choices. However, if you put in the effort to research and learn a little bit about some of the options, you should have no problem selecting a winner. Just remember, there is nothing saying you can’t be involved with multiple affiliate marketing programs at once.
A Simple 5 Step System For Starting A Home Base Business... The Right Way by: Cory Threlfall
Home Base Business and the dream of working from your own home, by your own terms and hours is a dream shared by many, but the unfortunate thing that happens, is they 'Fail' because they started it for all the wrong reasons.
This almost happened to me. My dream of having my own home base business was almost a distant memory until I was forced to make one of the BIGGEST decisions of my life and that was to get a Mentor.
I'm not saying you have to go out and get a mentor, I'm just sharing with you what I did in order to make my dream a reality.
And my mentor wasn't just any mentor either, he was and still is the #1 Business Coach in North America who showed me and thousands of others what we were doing wrong and what we needed to do to make it right.
This was an experience I will carry with me for the rest of my life and think about everyday.
Who was my mentor your probably wondering?
Well... his name is Raymond Aaron, and he is the founder of the Monthly Mentor - http://www.monthlymentor.com
This man changed my life forever with his principles.
So with that said, what I'm about to share with you he taught me and is a simple system that will only take you a few minutes to do.
These few minutes will determine the right home base business for you, whether it's online or offline, so YOU don't fall victim to failure like many home base business start-ups do.
So... with that said, in these next few paragraphs I'm going to show you how to pick the right business for you to start by using a simple little system I was shown that takes only a few minutes to do.
Believe me, this will not be as stressful as you think.
The first step...
Step #1. Get a pen/pencil and note pad.
This is the easy step. All you have to do Right Now is get a pen/pencil and note pad to write on for the next step coming up.
Do you have your pen/pencil and note pad yet?
Step #2. Write down your TOP 10.
This is where your going to have to use your brain a little bit because this TOP 10 list your about to write down are the TOP 10 home base businesses you would like to start-up based on your interests and passions.
Please... take a few minutes to do this. There's no need to rush.
Step #3. Get rid of five of your TOP 10.
Okay, now it's time to make some cuts. This is where you have to really think about the 10 home base business start-ups you have written down infront of you.
Look at them good and hard.
Now it's time to get rid of the five you would MOST likely not want to start.
Pick wisely.
Step #4. Now get rid of two more.
It's now time to break it down your list even more by getting rid of two more of the five home base business start-ups you have listed infront of you on your note pad.
Remember what we are trying to do here. We're trying to figure out the best home base business for YOU.
After this step you should only be looking at three home base business start-ups that you REALLY want to start.
Step #5. Your FINAL decision.
Now it's time for your FINAL decision.
It all comes down to this last step so make sure you make the right choice for it is the one you're go run with to make your entrepreneurial dreams come true.
Of the three you have left on the note pad infront of you choose the ONE that you know you would excel at and are passionate about doing Day In and Day Out.
This is a BIG decision.
Take a few minutes to REALLY think this through... okay.
Go for a walk if you have to or even sleep on it and decide in the morning.
It's up to you.
That's all there is to it.
I know it seems simple from reading this article, and it is if you know how to simplify the process and not make it more difficult then it really has to be.
People always seem to take the hard route at these kinds of decisions(I was one of them) when it really doesn't have to be, so if you haven't already done so, go through the five steps above and give them a try so you don't fall victim to becoming one of those home base business failures, and become one of those home base business "Successes" doing what it is you are most passionate about and love doing everyday.
Why Even Consider a Home-Based Business? by: Ted Makovsky
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that out of 100 people that start working at the age of 25, by the age of 65...
1 is wealthy
4 have enough money to retire
63 depend on Social Security or charity
29 are deceased
What's shocking about these statistics is ...95% of people, age 65 and over cannot afford to retire ...many will be forced to work until they die!! What Happened to Safety and Security? That's why many of us no longer put our trust and faith in "Big Business."
In J. Paul Getty's book "How To Get Rich," his first rule for success is, "You must be in business for yourself. You will never get rich working for someone else."
This may be one reason why, according to Home Incorporated, every 10 seconds in the USA someone starts a home business. Tens of thousands of people are waking up to the fact that there is a better way to make a living.
Home-based Business is a $30 Billion a Year Industry! Yes, you read that right --- $30 Billion a year!
When you look at the numbers, that's more than the pharmaceutical industry, food industry, consumer goods industry - combined! Why? Because of the sheer numbers of people in business at home, the computer age makes training fast ,distribution with out inventories and Online Business Systems designed to make you a team Member.
Here is a list of what a Home Business can provide.
Build a steady stream of income that can keep growing month after month, year after year.
Have the very real possibility to retire much sooner than you ever imagined ...and with a significant continuing income.
Enjoy dream vacations 2 to 3 times a year, paid by your own company.
Build the future of your dreams with the income to make it happen.
Enjoy tax advantages that may save you thousands each year.
Take the time you want to enjoy life and have more than enough money to enjoy it all!
People choose to work from home for several reasons including the desire to stay home with their children, the need for extra income, or simply being dissatisfied with their current job. A home-based business will provide you with an exciting way to earn money and be your own boss. Numerous opportunities are available to internet marketers.
When starting your home-based business you should develop a business plan and research your options thoroughly. Don’t get dragged into unrealistic claims by various people that let you start without a plan and expect thousands of dollars every month. Making wise decisions and following your business plan each step of the way can help you in creating a steady stream of income. Starting a home-based business will require work - real hard work. You will not become wealthy over night. It will take determination to succeed as an internet marketer. The amount of money you make will be directly related to the amount of work you are willing to do.
Joining affiliate programs is an excellent start. There are affiliate programs that will automate everything for you. The learning curve is shortened. There are also other internet marketing offers that will create a steady income if you are willing to make the effort. Many of these opportunities require an initial investment from you. Do a careful and systematic research of these internet marketing opportunities.
As an internet marketer, you will have to distinguish yourself from the competition if you want to succeed. You should know your target audience and what they want, know your competition even better. Know the latest technology that will help you in your business. Many internet entrepreneurs overwork because they do not use the right tools or technology in running their businesses. Planning, hard work and smart execution will make your home-based business a success and provide you with a steady stream of income.
Starting a home-based business is one of the most exciting and challenging endeavors you will ever undertake. A sound business plan and the will to succeed will set you apart from the competition. Choose the products or services you provide carefully. Make certain your services will be needed over the long term and make customer service your top priority. A loyal customer base is the key to the success or failure of your home-based business. A home-based business is an excellent way to gain independence and financial freedom.
Dreaming Of A Web Business? Do You Have What It Takes? by: Claude Jollet
After many months of worrying, searching, and procrastinating you finally decide to take the plunge. Are you ready for this?
Here’s what I found you absolutely need to start and run a successful small business on the Web.
Deceptively Simple
If you are reading this, you can obviously navigate on the Web. You also have a more than passing interest for the subject clearly stated in the title of this article.
Furthermore, I would be willing to bet that you can already use your personal computer to create written documents, such as emails, or a more elaborate document, such as your personal resume (curriculum vitae).
You may even be using your computer to do your budget, for all I know.
Intuitively, you know you will need a Web site to market your Web business. You believe that you should know something about how to build a Web site that will serve the purposes of the small business you are planning to start.
This is where most people hesitate, or even drop the idea of a business on the Web. They think they need to hire expensive web site creators, and Web designers, to do what they think they cannot achieve.
Some forge on blindly and fall for the many “easy solutions” that are constantly being offered on the Web. “Try our easy to use – free – templates, and just fill in the blanks. Presto! You have a Web site! Need content? No problem! Just subscribe to our free articles … blah…blah…blah”.
Yeah! Sure! But, will your Web site be a suitable marketing instrument for your business? Will it be an extension of yourself? Will it represent you, or someone else’s efforts?
How are you going to be able to tell? You know (deep down) that you ignore practically everything about how to use the Web technologies to
· Validate your business idea, · Research the best way to exploit it to it’s maximum potential, · And ensure the success of your small business.
The “get rich quick, it’s easy” (GRQ) crowd remain conspicuously silent on these vital issues!
Keep your eyes and critical mind open!
Be on the constant lookout for openly revealed answers that ring true and logical to you. Stay away from “secret” recipes. Use your own judgment to determine where the true solution lies. You have more common sense than you think. Don’t be afraid to use it! It’s in you best interest to exercise due diligence.
Marketing
You need to know the basic marketing techniques and strategies for the Web. They are very different from the ones you would successfully use on “land”! Seek competent advice on this.
Remember! The most reliable advice need not be the most expensive!
Look for reputable, knowledgeable people who have a vested interest in your success. They will want you to succeed because your success will be contributing to their success. These experts work for themselves as well as for you. Therefore, they do not charge extra for the privilege of contributing to your endeavor, and making your efforts worthwhile. It will be worth their while too, in the long run. They know it. So should you.
Guarantees?
Look for the guarantee behind the “GRQ” schemes. You will find none, of course.
If you don’t believe you need a guarantee, think again! You are new to this business of … starting a Web business. You a running the risk of failing, without appropriate and reliable help and support. You stand to lose your desire, perhaps forever! That would be a sorry mistake to make.
Keep searching until you find a solution provider that will openly “guarantee results, if you follow their plan … or your money back!”. You will know, then, that you will have found a solution worth looking into seriously.
You just have to use your brain, common sense, and your motivation to keep looking further, below the surface (apparently easy solutions).
Work
You will have to work at it. That should not come as a surprise. You did not really believe that it’s possible to build a successful business without you contributing some level of effort, did you?
Just make sure your efforts are well supported by reliable expert guidance, and everything will turn out just fine … given time, and your active participation, of course! You don’t have to become one the many misguided start-ups that fail miserably, because they failed to do their homework!
You will have to be strong to resist the many temptations of promised “easy way outs”! Because, that’s all they are. An easy way out of business!
Before you know it, time will have flashed by, and you will end up with a truly viable business. Your determined efforts will be rewarded, in more ways than one.
Drive
If you read somewhere that it takes passion to build a business, be it on the Web or elsewhere, believe it!
When you go to bed at night, and can’t wait to get up in the morning to run your business, that’s when you are well on your way toward a rewarding outcome.
Money?
You are considering a business on the Web. It does not require much money to start one. You will not be buying an existing one, nor will you be buying into one.
You will be building your Web business from scratch. It can even be done “on a shoestring”, if all your will be offering your clientele is your knowledge, your know-how, or your services. You are already warehousing that in your brain, for free!
You already have a computer, and an internet connection. No extra expenses there.
Most people will think, at this stage, that “all they need next” is a Web host for their business Web site. Don’t make the same mistake!
You will need more than a Web hosting company. As I explained above, you will need the company of Web marketing experts to guide you through the first critical steps toward building a successful Web business, not just a Web site!
A few (rare) Web hosting firms will provide all the “hand holding help” you will need … as part of the basic (not extra) services you will be paying for. They do it because they want to keep your business.
They want to be able to show you off as yet another success story … to which they dutifully, and respectfully contributed.
My recommendation
Keep looking. Keep your eyes open for sharks. Keep a critical mind on full alert to distinguish between “fools gold” and the real stuff. Keep believing in your idea. Keep working at it. Above all, keep it real.
Keep your efforts honest. Do not try to fool yourself. You will be rewarded … in spades!
Eventually, you will realize that you had what it takes, after all.
Congratulations, you have written your ebook also known as a digital or electronic book and the time has come to get the word out on the worldwide web. The key benefit about using an e-book for self publishing is that you do not have to spend the money on printing and shipping expenses. This also allows you to test various markets and advertising options without costing you a lot of money and heartache.
There are many ebook software programs on the market. I prefer to do mine in PDF format as they can be read on both PC and MAC computers. Remember to make your pages easy to read with some color, a few images and white space. The writing and actual formatting of an ebook is a whole other article that I am writing currently and hope to share with you soon.
After spending tons of money, several years and many-many hours online with my websites and ebook projects, I have gone through the ups and downs of the learning process of trying to sell ebooks both for myself and for others. One important choice you can make when just starting out is are you going to sell the ebook or are you going to offer it for free to get your name out there with all your links and contact information. This is called "viral marketing" with the purpose of having as many people as possible sharing and downloading your ebook. You can even offer your free ebook to websites as a joint venture for them to offer your ebook as their free bonus with their sales. The key things that you will need to sell your ebook online are:
A website or webpage of your own or offer your ebook to an ebook website that may take a small fee and / or include your ebook in an affiliate program-
A good sales page about the ebook -
A quality ebook Cover Image - Graphics are key!
A "Thank You" Download page from where your ebook is downloaded-
Other Marketing Considerations may include:
Offering a Free Bonus EBook - very important in this e-business to over deliver for the price!
Set a budget to test some PPC (pay-per-click-) Advertising such as Google Ads to drive traffic to your sales page-
Exchange related links with quality websites with a good search engine ranking-
Process a Press Release such as with PRWEB -
Submit articles to article/ezine websites about your ebook-
Join ebook Forums and post messages with your ebook link-
Take advantage of your email "Signature" to include your ebook Title and sales page link in addition to telling frinds and family-
Start a BLOG about your ebook topic and include the link to your ebook sales page-
The important factor is not to go wild with over-spending on marketing. Test-test-test and research online for many more ways to promote your ebook. The best advice I can give if this is your first ebook, is to start another ebook right away that either expands on the chosen subject or another topic that you have a passion for. Remember, you can either try to do all of this publishing and promoting yourself, you can share the tasks, or you can have a professional guide you and produce a satisfactory product for you while you spend your time and energy writing your next ebook!
Create A “Goof Proof” 6 Figure Internet Home Business by: Paul Johnson
Everyone makes mistakes. But few people make more of them than those intrepid souls who try to start their own internet businesses.
For most internet home business entrepreneurs, life is a constant struggle for good search engine placement, lots of links to their site, high-priced pay-per-click campaigns, and lots of hard work. But not for the “goof proof” business owner! Imagine:
>> A home business that pays you $1,000 or $3,000 for each sale you make after the first qualifying sale.
>> A home business where you not only get the first sale of every person you sell after the first qualifying sale, but each first sale each of these people make, as well as each first sale each of these people make— ad infinitum!
>> A home business that sells, one of the hottest online products of all, namely, products on how to start and grow your home business.
>> A work at home opportunity that’s automated. Prospects who fill out an online form get a call not from you, but a team leader who is experienced in the product and is making 6-figures. Prospects are then sent an automated series of professionally-written follow-up emails.
>> Your own unique internet storefront complete with a flash video your prospects can watch to learn about the opportunity, complete with audio testimonials, and other very compelling marketing materials
>> The potential to generate leads using sophisticated internet software right from the “back office” of your sales site.
Welcome to the 21st century and the automated home business! True, the price tag might seem high for some would-be home business operators. That is, until you stop to think about the exorbitant costs for starting up your own home business and the many, very costly beginner’s mistakes you’re likely to make along the way.
Some people confuse these automated home businesses with pyramid schemes, but actually, these types of sales structures have been around for a while, and they’re making some home business owners rich.
Let’s face it. The internet is ruled by entrepreneurs with deep pockets who virtually “own” certain keyword search terms and phrases.
The only way you can break their stranglehold is by having a proven, goof-proof business model, and by having a highly sought-after home business product that has search engine clout, thanks to all the business owners who are collectively out there marketing it.
If you've ever wanted to 'really' find out how to make serious money by running simple online auctions on eBay... then pay close attention.
Now before you go deleting this e mail saying 'OH NO not another EBay ebook' just hear me out..OK
According to recent surveys more people are bringing in a hefty part time and even full time income from eBay than ever before.
I decided it was about time that we in our little inner circle investigated the possibilities of generating a little extra income from e bay.
The incredible popularity of eBay can be linked to the fact that it's easy to navigate, fun to bid on auctions and (for those who learn the simple secrets of doing business there) an enormous income opportunity unlike any other.
Every day millions of people jump online and rush to the eBay website, to shop for just about everything you can imagine...
eBay Is The World's Largest Online Marketplace with millions of registered users and growing daily by the tens of thousands
With a few simple tools anyone can launch an instant home business in as little as 24-hours. Place items you want to sell and in seconds after setting up the listing people can bid. Both corporate giants such as IBM, Sun Mircrosystems and Vodafone... and.
everyday people like you and I use eBay to make money hand over fist.
However, until recently, almost no one was privy to the best methods available to earn maximum profits as fast as possible.
During my searches and investigating I stumbled accross a website that seemed to offer what we were looking for so I Decided to get in touch with the website owner, Jack Wazza. Now it turns out that I had met Jack before so we got to talking and he told me that his system was a well tried and tested and method that showed good results if you followed a few simple 'tricks' he has up his sleeve.
He also told me that he had only recently decided to 'share' these secrets and his new website has just been launched that tells you the truth about how eBay can become your own private money-machine.
Income Opportunity - Home Based Business by: Leonard Bartholomew
The Internet offers the best opportunity for those willing to take the time, and some risk, to start a small home based business. Everyone dreams of having a job where they can do what they want, go on vacations, and not have to worry about where the next payckeck is coming from. Most of us continue to get up in the morning, shower, get dressed, jump in the car, and commute for long distances only to get to a job with little pay and no satisfaction. One of the basic principles that is promoted by Success University is that, when pursuing a home based business income opportunity, you are smarter than you think! If you take some of the suggestions that this article has to offer, you might find that starting your own home based business income opportunity is not as hard as you think!
Publishing Articles - Publishing articles online is clearly one of the most proven income generating opportunities that a home based business can use for promoting websites or any small Internet business. The author of an article presents targeted informative content to his or her future customers. Best of all it is free. You do not need to be experienced or be a professional to be able to write articles about your home based business. Having articles that are directly related to the theme of the home based business will in turn give you an edge on the search engine competition. Websites and articles are synergistic because of linking strategies used in them. You may have noticed a link in the first paragraph of this article. Search engines like Google like links! Article directories abound on the Internet. They are countless. Joining multiple article directories will yield more traffic that your home based business will benefit from. The more articles you publish, the more links that occur back to your website from the Article Directory. More relevant links increases the chances that the offer of an income opportunity from your home based business will be seen. Articles are certainly the wings of any home based business income opportunity and the website is the motor.
Using Keywords - Here is a helpful hint - Content is king, but the choice of keywords is also an important aspect of your business initiatives. Simply place keywords that you want to use in your website. When writing an article place the same keywords in the title, and in the body of the article. Notice that the keywords income, opportunity, home, based, business occur a number of times in this article. You will be giving your website a boost in the search engine rankings when your article is accepted by the directories and they link back to your website with the same keywords! This is referred to as anchoring your text or anchor text. You can find the search engine ranking of the article directory easily by installing the Google toolbar on your web browser. You will notice that the article directories have some of the highest rankings of all websites worldwide! This is due to all the quality submissions and links they get from online publishers like you.
Article Content - If a prospective customer finds the article content interesting and easy to apply to their own situation, they will be willing to read more of your work, and ultimately take the dive and view your entire website! They will want to read more information about your website's income opportunity and find out everything they can about how to start their own home based business. If convinced that you have the income opportunity they are looking for, they will purchase something from your website or join up in the venture you are offering and help build your home based business by doing the same thing!
Networking income opportunities - Writing articles is only the beginning. The home based business owner does not do all of the work. Your article readers will talk to their friends! You will almost instantly become one of their friends in their minds. You have the solution, they want the key, they want to talk about it, and they will!
There are many other ways to get an income opportunity home based business rolling and they all need attention. Article writing is by far the most efficient way of promoting your business and, even if just starting, giving it wings!
You probably have seen this three-letter acronym in the course of your internet surfing. RSS stands for
Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary; syndicating means republishing an article that comes from another source such as a website.
An RSS is a means of publicizing updates about websites. It may or may not include a summary and photos of the latest posting. But those that provide summaries (thus Rich Site Summary) allow users to skim through the article so that they could decide later on if they want to access the website source. The RSS feed usually contains the title of the update originating from the website. It is also usually the link to the website source.
What are the benefits of RSS? RSS gives benefits to both readers (users) and web publishers.
1. It gives you the latest updates.
Whether it is about the weather, new music, software upgrade, local news, or a new posting from a rarely-updates site learn about the latest as soon as it comes out.
2. It saves on surfing time.
Since an RSS feed provides a summary of the related article, it saves the user's time by helping s/he decide on which items to prioritize when reading or browsing the net.
3. It gives the power of subscription to the user.
Users are given a free-hand on which websites to subscribe in their RSS aggregators which they can change at any time they decide differently.
4. It lessens the clutter in your inbox.
Although your email address will be required to enjoy the services of online RSS aggregators, RSS does not use your email address to send the updates.
5. It is spam free.
Unlike email subscriptions, RSS does not make use of your email address to send updates thus your privacy is kept safe from spam mails.
6. Unsubscribing is hassle-free. Unlike email subscriptions where the user is asked questions on why s/he is unsubscribing and then the user would be asked to confirm unsubscribing, all you have to do is to delete the RSS feed from your aggregator.
7. It can be used as an advertising or marketing tool.
Users who subscribe or syndicate product websites receive the latest news on products and services without the website sending spam mail. This is advantageous to both the web user and the website owner since advertising becomes targeted; those who are actually interested in their products are kept posted.
What are the drawbacks of RSS? The disadvantages of RSS use are brought about by its being a new technology and some user-preference concerns.
1. Some users prefer receiving email updates over an RSS feed.
2. Graphics and photos do not appear in all RSS feeds. For conciseness and ease of publication, RSS feeds do not display the photos from the original site in announcing the update except for some web-based aggregators
3. The identity of the source website can be confusing. Since RSS feeds do not display the actual URL or name of the website, it can sometimes get confusing on what feed a user is actually reading.
The information about RSS presented here will do one of two things: either it will reinforce what you know about RSS or it will teach you something new. Both are good outcomes.
4. Publishers cannot determine how many users are subscribed to their feed and the frequency of their visits. Moreover, they would not know the reasons why users unsubscribe which could be important in improving their advertising.
5. RSS feeds create higher traffic and demands on the server. Most readers still prefer the whole update over a
brief summary of the entry, thus they still access the site.
6. Since it is a new technology, many sites still do not support RSS.
How do I start using RSS? There are two things needed: an RSS feed and an RSS aggregator or reader. The RSS feed comes from an RSS-supported website. There are also websites that provide a list of RSS feeds of different websites. An RSS aggregator is used to read the RSS feed from the source website. It scans and collects data on latest RSS feeds from the worldwide web.
An aggregator comes in two forms: a downloadable program also known as desktop aggregator and an online or web-based aggregator. Downloadable aggregators may require payment before they can be acquired, while internet-based aggregators are usually free of charge. All you need to do is to register an account then you are ready to use their services. Both versions allow you to customize or choose which RSS feeds to enter. Paid aggregators are usually chosen by more experienced users and they usually allow more freedom in customizing feeds.
1. Choose an RSS aggregator to use. For beginners, web-based aggregators are recommended since they are usually user-friendly
2. Scan the homepage of your target website for the RSS or XML button. It contains the RSS code you need to enter in the aggregator. Copy this code. Syndic8 provides a directory of websites that support RSS.
3. Paste the code (which contains the URL of the website) in your aggregator. There is a space provided for pasting the code.
After you have done these three easy steps, you can start reading the RSS feeds coming from the website. New postings appear as they are published real time at the source website.
RSS and Internet Marketing
The original idea of RSS came from Netscape, where their intention is to provide a means for users to customize their personal homepage to contain links to websites that interest them, similar to bookmarking websites.
The application of RSS to internet marketing was an unforeseen development to RSS technology developers. Since users are given the freedom to add RSS feeds to their aggregators, those who are interested in particular products and services available in the internet can now be notified real time. Marketing becomes more specific to interested people and not a hit-and-miss operation.
Those who intend to use RSS for marketing their products and services should consider linking up with email account providers, (e.g. Yahoo, MSN, Google mail); networking websites (e.g. Friendster, Multiply, My Space, Hi5); websites of newspapers and television network websites (e.g. New York Times, CNN) for medium to big-scale companies. Small-time industries can also look into networking websites as well as personal blog websites (e.g. Blogspot) and websites of clubs and organizations that would probably make use of their products or services e.g. a fishing supplies store can look for the website of their local fishing club for possible RSS marketing.
Clearly, RSS is an innovation in information management in the worldwide web as well as online marketing. We can expect better RSS technology in the not-so-distant future as its popularity increases among users and website owners alike.
Sometimes it's tough to sort out all the details related to this subject, but I'm positive you'll have no trouble making sense of the information presented above.
The Internet - A Work at Home Revelation by: Bob Saville
Some of you may have chosen to work at home running a small business that isn't computer or Internet-related. That's great! You have been able to translate your skills into a market niche that is providing you a steady income. With the Internet, people are learning to make money - even while they sleep - and finding a healthy return on their investments.
The Internet has redefined what work at home really means. Not only can we conduct simple e-commerce, but we can also profit from an area that grows virtually everyday - simply surfing the Web. The Web grows by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pages per day - so why not take advantage of a growing marketplace?
So, what are some of the main Internet work at home opportunities? We'll take a quick look at four of the primary areas people like yourself are making money with Internet work at home opportunities:
* E-books / White papers - Type in a subject on the search engine and you are probably going to find someone who has written an e-book or white paper on the topic. Buyers build their work from business by selling these e-books and white papers around the clock to people all over the world. It is as simple as having a good book written, marketing it on the Internet with a dedicated sales page, and making the sales. This can be a great passive work at home opportunity for someone who finds the right niche at the right time.
* Affiliate marketing - Websites that provide products and services to people are constantly on the lookout for people who want to help direct traffic to their products. Many successful work at home entrepreneurs have made a steady income by acting at the traffic funnel to these e-commerce sites. Each time a person clicks through your site and then purchases a product from the parent site - you collect a percentage of that sale!
* Surveys - If you have even a couple of extra hours each day, you can carve out a great work at home side income by doing surveys and participating in focus groups that work through the Internet. The pay structure varies from site to site, but many survey sites boast up to $75 for some of their surveys. If you can do 4 per month, you've added $300 to your income.
* Telecommuting - If you aren't entirely Internet savvy, another way to go in the work at home world is to telecommute. This is essentially doing data processing work from the comfort of your own computer. This can be a great way for parents looking after children to make extra money while caring for the kids. It could range from medical billing to accounting information for companies large and small - and because of the Internet, the information is easily transferable and you can often access company sites from your home computer.
Never has it been easier to work from home using your computer and the Internet. The opportunities are literally endless. Aside from direct marketing opportunities on the Internet, you can also use it as a constant billboard for a different product or service that you might be able to provide. Maybe you build birdhouse, or you are a certified family counselor that can serve clients from your home.
The Internet is an ongoing information source that we can take advantage of for our work at home business. Take the time to learn how it can help you, and instantly you will see the power it has to increase the profit from your work at home business.
Are You Profiting From Your Whole Website? by: Douglas Titchmarsh
You have a sales page or pages, opt-in pages, and thank you pages on your website, as well as any articles and news on there. You have made sure there are links to your subscribe forms on all the pages, so you have just about covered your whole site right?
Not quite, ignoring the fact that you probably have tons of spare webspace left unused, there are more places to make profits on your exisiting pages right now. We're not just talking selling banner impressions or placing Adsense either. The unused, lost profit sections of your website are making those people who know about them a whole heap of extra profits, so where are these places?
We can start straight away with your thankyou pages. Each time a visitor gets to one of these, it means they have placed some trust in you. They have taken on board your advice, and signed up or bought something from you. So while your new customer or subscriber is in this trusting mood, offer them something else. An upsell, a complimentary product, or a free gift for subscribing to another of your lists. Whatever you do, make the most of this chance to make a little extra from someone who knows you offer good advice, but don't insult them with any old offer, or you lose the trust again instantly.
Another place for increasing your profits by using dead webspace is your error pages. You know, those ones which tell your visitor the page can not be displayed, go somewhere else. Instead of that, you can customise these pages, and make an offer to the people who see the page instead of losing them. Don't just send them back to your home page or sales page either, offer a compelling, super bargain on your error page, and capture a customer immediately.
Want to see how much potential just one of your error pages has?
Just look at your stats for your website, and you may be surprised how many people are seeing just the 404 error page, the one that usually says.
"Page cannot be found, this page may have been deleted or moved" or some variation of that message. I checked, and in August 2006, on just one of my sites, that page was seen over 4000 times!
When you started your website, you would have sold your soul for 4000 hits to a single page right?
I know I would, and when I saw this huge waste of potential, I did something about it. It's not even difficult if you can build a webpage.
All you need to do is login to your control panel, (this is for cpanel based webhosts but others may be similar) and click the "Custom Error Pages" icon. Now choose to edit the 404 error page, and replace the message with your own offer instead. Save the file, and go and check your sites new error page by typing in a url you know doesn't exist.
Now you have a brand new page pulling in potential sales without any extra work. We don't suggest you do this to all the error pages, as some can be used to help debug scripts which aren't working, but there's nothing to stop you from looking around your site for other places you aren't using to maximise your profits from your website.
Presentation and First Impressions can be Everything in the Success of Your Home Office Business by: Arthur Fellon
“Presentation “according to the marketing guru Riteway Strokon can be everything.
It often amazes “youngsters” and what we take for granted today is the democratization of the “Home Office “afforded by the modern introduction of computers.
Not long ago to set up a company was a major ordeal.
First a downtown high rent location was essential for both appearances and visibility and to “rub shoulders” with the movers and shakers.
Secondly one had to have a receptionist greet customers as well as answer and direct phone calls.
Lastly there were the intrinsic assurances of the basic competency and integrity of the firm - a letterhead on printed stock paper was first. Letters that were received from the firm with the distinctive font of an IBM “Selectric ““Ball Typewriter”.
By the way that simple typewriter cost approximately $ 3,000 which in the 70’s was the price of a Japanese economy car.
Consider that all of this can be done by one or two persons in a low rent, residential basement home office and you can see the importance of presentation in clinching deals and dollar volumes of business.
With a little extra preparation and thought you can appear to be in the same league as the “Big Boys”.
How is anyone else halfway around the world with a business or purchase decision to know otherwise?
Remember that it is often said “First impressions are everything”.
Factors to Consider When Choosing Paper for the Office Laser Printer
The first step is to understand the printing process.
Laser printers rely on electrical charge to hold the toner to the paper, and then hear and pressure to fuse the toner to the page. So it stands to reason that good laser paper will have special electrical and heat resistant properties similar to a photo copier setup.
Brightness is rated according to the amount of light reflected by the paper. A sheet with a brightness rating of 90 % reflects 90 % of the light striking it: a high brightness rating makes for a high contrast between the page and the ink, Color paper may be misleading as to brightness, because a dark purple sheet does not reflect light as well as a light tan of the same rating.
Electrical resistance comes from a number of factors in the papermaking process. Paper manufacturing can either add resistant chemicals to the surface of the paper or mix them into the paper itself. The moisture content of the paper has a significant impact on paper’s resistance, which is why print quality can vary with humidity - the same printed page can be printed differently in summer rather than winter, in Florida or South Dakota, in a cool air-conditioned office or in a sweatshop.
Moisture affects another aspect of the laser printing process: paper feeding. The greater the moisture content of paper, the more prone it is to curl. And as a result if the paper has too much “curled” it is more prone to jamming the printer.
As a result, it is important that you store paper carefully – if possible in a cool, dark place and to take care to close the packaging on partial reams.
The paper making process creates paper that has two distinctly different sides, though the difference is not always obvious to the eye or touch.
The top is called the “felt” side and the bottom is called the “wire” side.
The rule is to print on the “wire” side first. Look on the label at the front of the ream wrapper for an arrow indicating the “wire” side. Keep this in mind when loading your printer’s paper trays. Be aware of course whether your printer trays load from the face-up or face-down positions.
Another factor to consider that will affect paper jamming is the weight of the paper.
The basis weight is a standard measure based on 500 sheets of paper. Most paper is rated at 20 pounds m, although some higher quality papers can be heavier.
Paper that is rated too light or too heavy will of course be more likely to jam. Many people assume that “weight:” means the same thing as “thickness” and “stiffness”. It is true that these three measures correlate together.
However these factors are not the same.
“Stiffness “is a measure of how much a paper resists bending whereas thickness describes physical dimension. It is quite possible to have three sheets of different 20 pound paper – one can be significantly stiffer than the others, another can be noticeable thicker.
One can of course sum up this article by stating “Check your printer’s user manual” or “check with the manufacturer”.
This is true. The basics of life are usually quite simple.
For the prosperity and success of your home office business remember the importance of first impressions and presentation.
Often the simple choice of choosing the right paper for your home office laser printer can be the determining factor whether you or your competitor gets those orders.
Adsense Revenues - Streams of Alternative Profits by: Stephen Wright
There are thousands, if not millions of ways to be successful on the internet. Many internet marketing ideas readily exist that someone else has developed and perfected, just waiting to be implemented. One such opportunity is using the Adsense program with none other than Google. Very quickly, anyone who has already started their Adsense program has figured out that just getting your account set up, putting the advertisement snippets on your web pages are a few helpful marketing ideas to enhance your revenue and profits.
According to Google, the Adsense program contains three distinct sections that influence the exact amount of your revenue. These are: Clickthrough rates, Page impressions, and Effective cost per thousand impressions (CPM).
It may seem simple but the truth for many is, by simply adding Google ads to any new or existing website you have will automatically maximize possible revenue streams. Google places relevant CPC (cost-per-click) and CPM ads into the same auction and lets them compete against one another. The auction takes place instantaneously and when it's over Adsense will automatically display the text or image ad(s) that will generate the maximum revenue for a page -- and the maximum revenue for you.
Clickthrough rates are mathematically determined as a percentage of viewers who have chosen to click on your particular advertisement, versus the total number of impressions viewed. This number can be influenced and enhanced by carful wording, structure, and layout of the surrounding information to any given ad. Google attempts to adapt each advertisement placed to appropriately fit their ad to the content, context, and relevance of the web pages themselves. The more the information surrounding the Google ads have in common, the more specific and targeted Google is able to make their ads.
For example, if your web page is designed to focus on bicycles, you would make sure that the work "bicycles" appears prominently through the page, typically with several aspects about the bikes outlined. This greatly increases the likelihood that Google will deliver specific advertisements for bicycles to your ad pages. The net effect is delivery of targeted which in turn increases your clickthrough rate.
Page impressions simply stated are the number of occurrences web pages that contain Adsense ads are viewed for a given period of time. There is no getting around this issue. Unless you have traffic coming to your site, well maximized Adsense activities will do you no good! Increasing traffic to your site is a multi-dimensional effort that involves a multitude of different techniques and efforts. These typically include such things as a reciprocal linking strategy, article submissions, forum participation, directory submission, pay-per-click (PPC) programs, and a carefully planned and implemented search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.
Effective cost per thousand impressions (CPM). The measure of importance for CPM gauges a marketer's average revenues or earnings, per thousand clicks. The goal being to increase the CPM earnings average as high as possible. This ensures maximum profits and revenues. A key to increasing the CPM effectiveness is careful selection of keywords. Depending on the popularity of specific words, Google pays according to this popularity. Keywords that receive millions of clicks pay a much higher rate (per click) than those with low click frequency. To locate additional information about keyword research tools, simply run a search on Google. You will find information ranging from the use of search engines such as Overture, to a wide variety of keyword search tools.
Utilizing these simple techniques, you should be able to substantially increase your profits and success with the Google Adsense program. Combining these with other strategies (such as the location Google ads within a given web page) will dramatically increase both the efficiency and effectiveness of your campaign activities.
Finally, The Truth About Paid Surveys by: Chris Walker
One of the easiest ways to earn money online, as discussed on my website, is to use paid surveys. While not nearly as lucrative as affiliate marketing or auctioning on eBay, you can still make a nice sum of money with paid surveys.
The first thing I will say is that surveys will not make you an overnight celebrity or millionaire; it is simply a great way to put some extra money in your pocket without doing much work. One thing that irks me is when companies want you to believe that you can fill out a 5-minute survey and make 25 dollars. Let me tell you, I wish that were the case. Most surveys will take at least 20-30 minutes to complete and pay anywhere from $1-10 dollars. Yes, there are some $25-50 surveys, but they are not common.
But what if you were only to take the surveys that pay top dollar and forget about the lower paying ones? The problem with that is after you register with the survey company, you will need an invitation before you can take the survey—you can’t just choose any survey you want to take before you receive an invitation (if that were the case, everyone would only fill out $50 surveys).
Remember, you receive invitations according to your profile. And this goes for most of the survey companies.
As I mentioned earlier, the surveys you get invited to usually pay you anywhere from 1-$10 dollars. So common sense tells anyone that they will have to be registered with many survey companies to even make a decent amount of money. You don’t have to register with all the survey companies all at once—a few registrations a day will suffice. With that being said, the more surveys you sign up for, the more chances you will get to make money.
Side note…
Please don’t feel disappointed in the beginning because of all the $1 surveys in your mailbox; keep on registering with quality survey companies until you start to see those $6-$10 (even $25) offers. After a while, if you keep filling out the low paying surveys, you will see more and more of the much higher paying surveys. Patience is very important in the beginning.
Why would companies compensate me for taking a survey?
The purpose of a survey is to gather people’s opinions on different products and ideas that companies continually come up with; this can be anything from item design to movie scripts. These companies need opinions from “real” everyday people like you and me to get insight on their products before they hit store shelves. And they are willing to pay us for our opinions.
Have a good time…
Taking surveys, to me, is actually fun. It is not stressful and you can get make several hundred dollars a month doing it—assuming that you do things the right way.
Not only is it fun, you get to see products, movies, and services before they are presented to the public. I actually completed a movie survey on “Snakes On a Plane” 5 months before its theatrical release.
Register with the best research companies…
As fun as surveys can be, one problem that I found with taking these surveys is that not all of them are worth taking. This is why it is important for you to register only with quality research companies.
You can find some good paid surveys manually and it wont cost you anything.
On the other hand, you can join a paid database, like SurveyScout, that has all the quality paid surveys in one place. While some of the research companies in SurveyScout can be found individually for free, the simple setup, cohesiveness, and registration bonuses that SurveyScout gives you are more than worth the one-time fee they charge. I review SurveyScout on my site.
Here is your reward…
Let’s talk about what some companies actually give you when you successfully complete a survey. Many companies give you gift certificates, free music downloads, DVDs, and electronics; some will enter you into a cash sweepstakes upon completion of a survey (where you can win a portion of the prize money). You will usually know what you will get for completing a survey before you start (check your survey invitation for details).
Some people tend to decline these kinds of survey invitations because they don’t pay in cash; but do not dismiss the non-cash prizes. At times, they are just as good as cash rewards. Say you get a free DVD player or another type of electronic device (MP3 player) as a prize; most likely you were going to buy one anyway, so why disregard prizes such as these? When a survey says you get a gift card or prize once it’s completed, don’t dismiss it.
I think we are about ready to start…
Now that we got some of the basics out of the way, you now know that paid surveys are a great way to supplement your income.
Lets move forward to the first rule…
Rule #1: Create a separate email account for your survey registrations and monitor it everyday
Set up an email account with Yahoo so you can use it only for your survey registrations and invitations. Please do not use your main/primary email address when signing up for surveys. Often times, people are spammed if they are not careful when registering for surveys. This is the best way to protect yourself against spam.
Rule #2: Don’t entertain any bonus offers when registering for surveys.
When registering for surveys, sometimes you will see all sorts of “bonus” offers from other products/companies; my advice to you is to hit the “no, thanks” button and continue on with registration. If you don’t, you will most likely be subjected to spam—that is another reason why I recommend you open up a free email account with Yahoo or Hotmail: just incase you accidentally agree to one of these offers.
I have been a victim of this, where my name and email address were sold to a third party and I actually had to change my email address to stop the spam. No matter how legit some survey companies seem, some will still sell your information to third parties.
Rule #3: Don’t join a paid database until you read this…
You can find a good amount of paid surveys by doing simple searches for them for free. So the question is: why should anyone pay for something that they can get for free? In the beginning, I found several good paid surveys by doing some simple searches.
Being the lazy person that I am though, I still decided to join a paid database and have all the best paid surveys in one place. I felt more at ease selecting paid surveys from a paid database like SurveyScout because I knew every research company listed was a quality company that protected my information. The one-time price was very reasonable anyway so I didn’t find it much of a burden. Some of my visitors use paid databases and love it because it makes everything a little bit easier.
Nonetheless, you can go either way when deciding between a free database and a paid database. Just be sure to know the difference between the two before you decide.
Rule #4: Don’t lie about your contact information
If planning on receiving payment, you have to use your genuine contact information. At first you may feel a bit strange giving out some of your personal details, but in most cases your information is well protected. If you are not honest when you register, you can’t expect to receive your payment. Don’t waste your own time—sign up with your real contact information. But be sure to register with a legit research/survey company.
Rule#5: Protect yourself; protect your information
This is really an extension of rule #1 on day one. But now we are going to focus on other security protocols. Always look for privacy policies and seals of approval to ensure your information is kept secret. When you see seals of approval such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB) on a survey website, you know you are protected and are dealing with a company that values privacy.
Rule #6: Don’t fall for the promises of wealth…
In my experiences, it is difficult to make a full-time income with surveys (thousands a week for example). But you can still make a good stream of additional income to help with your bills and expenses.
The amount of money you make can, and will, fluctuate because the amounts of surveys you receive are very inconsistent. For example, I had one month where I pulled in over $400 dollars and another where I pulled in $88. It all depends on how many surveys you fill out, your profile, time of the year, the research companies you register with, and much more.
While you can make hundreds of dollars a month taking surveys, it will not make you a wealthy man or woman. I use surveys strictly as a supplemental income to help with some of my expenses: car payments, DirecTv bill, DVD rentals, and clothing. For me, it really helps to have an extra several hundred dollars pouring into my bank account every month.
You can easily make a couple thousand dollars a year just by filling out surveys. But once again, if this is your goal, you must fill out as much surveys as possible. While you won't be a wealthy person just by filling out surveys, you can make a substantial amount of money if you constantly fill them out.
Bonus Tip #1: Fill out your profiles after you register. This will make your survey invitations more targeted and less general. This also increases your chance of be selected to participate in the next survey.
Bonus Tip #2: Use focus groups and product testing to your advantage.
Focus groups can be very lucrative. You can actually earn several hundred dollars to complete one project. While paid surveys are short, focus groups will definitely take up more of your time. Focus groups may require you to actually visit a location or talk on the phone in a group discussion. This may take more work, but the reward is much higher, as you will get high cash prizes for your participation.
My best friend in college makes a killing with focus groups and this is how he pays for his books. So look for focus groups that are in your area.
Product testing is something else you might want to look in to. What happens here is a research company sends you a product and wants you to review/survey it. The good news is after you send in the complete review forms, you get to keep the product. These products, at times, are pretty neat.
What Do You Know That I Don't Know? by: Elizabeth McGee
Wouldn't it be ideal to have your own home business? Or better yet, your own internet business? Work at home, be with your family and schedule your time however you want.
It's a popular dream, but it's often just that, a dream.
Well my friends, you can turn that dream into reality.
Did you know that according to marketingvox.com, online retail spending totaled $81.6 billion for all of 2005, up 24 percent from $65.8 billion in 2004. The figures are not in for 2006 but undoubtedly they've gone up.
Before you say you don't have a product to sell, keep reading.
When most people think about an online business, they think they must have their own product or service to sell, when in actuality, there are thousands making a pretty great living online who do not have products at all. They are in the business of affiliate marketing.
Here's how it works.
Affiliate marketing is about offering information on a topic or a product that fills a need or a desire, and offering merchant products or services that complement it. Sales that you make from your website for merchant products that you promote earns you a commission.
So how can affiliate marketing work for you?
Think for a minute about a hobby or expertise you have. If it's truly a hobby or something you are familiar with then I'll bet you know a thing or two about it. If you've been doing it for years, then you've gained experience and knowledge that probably millions of people would love to hear about.
Perhaps you don't have a lot of knowledge on a topic, but you are passionate about it. In that case, I'll bet you're willing to learn more.
Why not take that knowledge or expertise and let it earn an income for you?
How is it done?
First of all, you must understand what people come to the internet for, and it isn't to buy things. They come to the internet for information. Think about that, if you want to buy a lounge chair, will you go the internet? Most likely not, however, if you want information about lounge chair features or the best lounge chair to buy , you're likely to check out the web first.
Having a successful web business is about offering information to an information starved society, but it doesn't stop there. If you have a web site that offers such information you are laying the ground work for convincing a viewer to buy a product that you have or that you endorse through affiliate sales, but first you must present your case.
The mistake that many online business owners make is building a website, loading it up with products and expecting people to buy. If you're not Amazon.com, Dell computer or Overstock.com, you're not likely to make a sale. Why? Because, unless you are a household brand name, your viewers are not familiar with you like they are with Amazon, Dell or Overstock. Therefore, you are first going to have to win your viewers trust and confidence.
There's a tried and true formula presented by one of the internet's foremost online marketers, Dr. Ken Envoy. Ken has spent several years cultivating an online sales formula that works. However, it not only works, it has made many a successful business owner of the online business community.
Ken's concepts include creating a content website, bringing traffic to your site, pre-selling your products and finally monetizing your visitors for income. His concepts are most associated with affiliate marketing, however they are a firm foundation for any online marketing strategy.
It's important to remember that your visitors must trust you and they don't want to feel they are being sold to. This is done by knowing your topic, your products and offering as much useful information about them as possible.
If you can find interested, targeted viewers, offer them information they can use and then complement that information with useful products that fill a need, you are in business.
So what's your hobby? What's your Passion? Where do your interests and experiences lie? Unless you've been under a rock all your life, you have something to offer. Why not turn that knowledge into revenue for you.
Whether you have a product or you possess the knowledge, build a site about what you know and offer your products or affiliate products that complement it.
Here's just a few ideas that could get you started in our own online business:
Affiliate Sales What's your expertise? Publish what you know and love... then monetize it. Build a knowledge site with a blend of affiliate programs along with Google AdSense ads and earn several nice paychecks a month.
Create an E-Book Do you like to write? Take your expertise and write an e-book. Ebook software makes it so simple. Build your website around your ebook.
Service Businesses Do you have a service to offer? Offer a service related to your expertise. For example, if you like to write, offer a copywriting service or show someone how to write for success.
Create Needed E-Software Are you a programmer? Create a niche-filling software program. If you are not a programmer, hire one.
Are You a Photographer? Create a site with collections of e-photos, the e-photo sales market is booming! Digitize it and sell it.
Hard Goods Creators/Sellers Are you a small business or a craftsman that creates/manufactures/retails your own hard goods You can create your own store. Either use your own products or find a wholesale dropshipper.
Referrers/Finders Get paid a referrer or finder's fee by an offline business for finding a customer or a "lead". There are lots of programs that pay website owners who send them leads.
Auction Sellers Use Ebay as a supplemental source of income to auction a product that relates to your theme. Especially useful for local businesses or vendors that sell hard goods, and even for service-sellers. And obviously, for those who want to start an online auction business.
Local Offline Businesses If you own an offline business, a Web site is a must. Use it to grow your business locally and, in many cases, to extend your market globally.
Putting your hobby or your expertise to work for you is an excellent way to create a side business, a full time home business or simply create a few extra well deserved paychecks each month.
Things That Add Value To Your Fixer-Upper Home by: Sarah Miller
Things that add value to your fixer-upper home
Fixer-upper homes apparently need a lot of work to increase their market value. What things should you do to really make the most out of your renovation efforts thus increasing the value of your fixer-upper home?
Pristine walls – Fixing up your walls is an inexpensive way to increase the value of your fixer-upper homer. You can do the paint job yourself. Choose colors that will make the house “look expensive”.
Renovate the bathroom – It is known fact that a great bathroom will increase the value of any house. Homebuyers tend to take a look at the bathroom first so focusing on renovating this part of the house is a must. Adding another bathroom in the house can further increase its value.
Renovate the kitchen – Aside from the bathroom the kitchen is another part of the house that can increase its value. Home buyers, especially the ladies, take this as a major factor when considering buying a home.
Improve landscaping – Taking care of the lawn and making it look attractive will add to the value of your fixer-upper home. You don't need to hire professional landscapers to improve its appearance.
Don’t overlook the garage, closets and laundry – These three parts of the house are most of the time overlooked. As simple as them may seem, they can increase the value of the fixer-upper home because it adds convenience. Bedrooms with spacious closets are always attractive. Garage and pathway maintenance is also important. Lastly, a house with a laundry room will also increase its value.
Maintain windows – Cleaning your windows every now and then will help maintain its good condition. This won't increase the house’s value but it will help in maintaining its current value.
Change carpets – Nothing is more unappealing than dirty and stinky carpets. Carpets tend to acquire a lot of dirt and cleaning old carpet may not do the trick. What you want to do is change the entire carpeting for the house. This will make a big difference.
Remove clutter – Throw away excessive things that are eye sores. Excessive junk can make a house less appealing and lower its value.
In general, you should fix up the exterior first because this is what people see first and it will give them an impression that your house is a keeper and is of high value. This doesn’t mean that you should ignore the interior. Bottom-line, the most important part of the house that you should focus on to increase a fixer-upper home’s value are the bathroom and the kitchen.
Advantages of a For Sale By Owner Website Listing by: LaToya Irby
When a homeowner sells real estate in Hawaii without the help of a realtor the process is known as for sale by owner. Many homeowners choose to go this route for selling their homes because they want to avoid the fees charged by real estate brokers. Along with the cost avoidance, homeowners take on the responsibility of marketing the home as well as other tasks associated with selling the home.
There are many ways to advertise a home for sale by owner. Some of the most popular include classified ads in the newspaper, signs in the neighborhood, word of mouth and website listings. Of all the methods to use for advertising a home for sale by owner, a website listing is perhaps the easiest and most beneficial method.
Using a website listing gives your advertisement exposure that it would not otherwise receive. Consider the number of people that would be exposed to a listing in the newspaper. That number is only a fraction of what it will be if you use a website listing.
The fee you pay to list your home in the newspaper is a one time only fee. Once that newspaper has been printed, your ad will never be listed again, unless you pay another fee. When you use a for sale by owner website listing, your ad will remain on the website for a lot more than just one day. The increased period of time gives more buyers time to see your ad.
Other methods of advertising for sale by owner property have physical limits on how far they can reach. For example, the newspaper is only offered in a certain area. People all over the world have internet access thereby giving them the ability to see your website listing. This, too, improves the odds of your home selling.
Using a website listing to sell your home has many benefits above other methods.
Domain name is an identity for a website. It is similar to fingerprint as identity for people. Two or more web sites can not share one same domain name. The domain name must be different at least different in the extension. The important for domain name is unique, memorable, simple, alphabet, extension, dash, global, sound, nature activity and intuition.
Good domain name criteria is it must be unique. It is not be similar to other popular domain name by adding one or more alphabets to it. The unique domain name must be different from others.
Good domain name is also must be memorable. People can remember it because it is unique. Therefore they will visit the web site again because they remember the web site name. It will attract more unique visitors to the website. Higher visitor means higher potential to sell product or service.
Shorter domain name means better domain name. It is easier to be remembered and written. The value is higher. Good domain normally has 10 or less alphabets. We observe most popular domain name have less than 10 alphabets. Longer domain name can cause the domain name is typed wrongly. As the result the actual wanted website can not be reached.
Good domain name is also normally having repeated alphabets. This will help the domain name become unique and more memorable. Most popular websites use this tip for their domain name.
Domain name with extension com is more popular and familiar compared to other extension. People who want to buy domain name normally prefer to use com extension as first choice. Only there is no com extension, they will search other extensions or other domain names. People also have tendency to type com if they forget the actual extension. In simple word domain name with com extension have highest value compared to other domain name extension.
Good domain name do not containing dash. Domain name with dash seems it is less interested compared domain name without dash. Domain name containing number also is seems less interested. We can observe the country and people name never use dash or number. Otherwise, it become something lack to the name.
Good domain name must appropriates with the business or activity operated. Good general domain name means it can be used for any kind of business and activity. Anyway it is better if the domain name match the business or activity operated. To practice business or activity differently or oppositely is not good even have a good domain name.
Good domain name must be global name. People can accept it as global name rather than local name only. It will attract more visitors to the website. However global name is not so important anymore if focus for local visitors only.
Good domain name must have good sound. It is easy to be called and spelt. People have tendency to visit the website that the domain name sound is good.
Above explanation are tips how to create domain names. Another important factor is we must believe our intuition. Normally our intuition is correct. If our intuition says the domain name is good, do not doubt and take it immediately before other people take it. To get good institution, we must always in positive life and mind.
It's Oh So Easy to Apply Online by: Morgan Hamilton
Have you ever thought of how simple and easy our life is now? For those people who lived before you, it was really an adventure to do their work outside their home. Such daily tasks have now more up-to-date ways of being accomplished. Nowadays things are so simple. Everything demands considerably less effort than ever before.
I’m sure you have guessed what I’m talking about. If you have not – I’m talking about the Internet. Internet requires just one click to do your work. Niceties like online banking, email, and shopping over the World-Wide-Web already exist. You don’t need to go out of your home whenever you need to pay your telephone bill for example. Now you just need to apply online. The World-Wide-Web allows approach to places that will take you a lot of time. Applying online is the easiest way to find information about your credit cards, loans and so on.
Have you applied for something recently? Do you want to know which is the best 4-year University? Have you already graduated from school? So isn’t it easy to find a school where to get your bachelor’s degree? Getting access to the universities now is easier than ever. You just need to apply online no matter which school you have chosen. You may even apply online to several schools if you prefer so. Do not miss a chance! Getting to each of the schools you consider will waste your time. It is much faster to apply online than to use the old traditional method.
Welcome to the cyber-age of technology. Imagine you have already applied online to your should. Now you may need some financial help. Now hear the news – you can just apply online for a loan on the FAFSFA website. When you click on the link, you will be guided through several steps. Check what type of loan you will be granted to take.
In addition, when you are applying online for something, you save the postage. E-mails are free. The more expenses are saved the better.
Nobody is surprised now that applying online is possible almost anything. Such comfort was not available ten years before for example. We all are happy and love this option. Currently everyone has applied online for something at least once. Just relax at home and let your computer do your work. After all, isn’t it the age of conveniences?
Should You Pay For PPC On Individual Websites? by: Damon Clifford
There are a lot of companies that are running their own pay per click program on their website, not wanting to go with Google Adsense, Yahoo Overture, or MSN Adcenter. There are many reasons why they might be doing this.
Have you ever thought about advertising directly on their site? And you don't even have to go through Google Adsense, Yahoo Overture, or MSN Adcenter!
The first reason is that they want better control. They want to be able to better control what advertisements they want to display on their website. This makes sense, because they don't want to worry about their competitors being on their website, or any other company that might be taking business away from them. Yes, the admin panels for Google Adsense and Yahoo YPN allow you to "block" competitors, but again, it's going to be hard for them to know all the ads that are being displayed on their website.
The second reason is money. Companies that run their own Pay Per Click software on their site can receive more funds from advertisers. Google Adsense and Yahoo YPN each have to take their own "cut" from publishers so they can be profitable as well. When a company avoids using Google Adsense or Yahoo YPN, they are receiving the "cut" that those companies normally take.
The third reason is value. Companies that use their own software to display ads on their site give more value to the advertiser. These companies want to make sure that their advertising clients are benefiting from the clients that go to their website. That's creating a win-win situation. As more, and better traffic flow through the advertisements, the advertising clients are more likely to renew their subscriptions and keep their ads running longer on their website.
So, is it worth it to you and your company to go direct on an individual website?
Yes!
You may be paying the same price in the first place. If you are currently using pay per click for your advertising campaign, you may be paying a price that is comparable to Google Adsense, Yahoo Overture, or MSN Adcenter already.
By finding an individual website to advertise on, you know exactly who the audience is and what type of people will see your ad, click on your ad to come to your website, and hopefully purchase your product or service.
In this age of quick information and consumer "mind drift" it is hard to capture new clients and any advantage that you can have over your competitor should be used.
So the next time you're out surfing websites, check and see if they have advertisements on their site. Then check to see if they are actually providing the advertisements through there own software. Many sites will tell you what rates they charge and how to get started.
The Information Highway To Success by: Cathy Barela
Information is one of the hottest things on the internet today. When you want information, where is the first place you usually look? The thought of writing an ebook scares many people off. They think they are not smart enough, don’t have any specialized information, aren’t good writers, etc. But when you stop and think about it, what makes the world go round and round? Information and creativity.
By sharing information we have become an advanced and educated society. What if noone wrote a book? What if we all kept our information we have learned over the years to ourselves? You are valuable. So is the information you know. You might be surprised at how much you can help people by sharing your knowledge with others.
Maybe you are a car buff, or have special information about purchasing houses. Maybe you have special knowledge about how to take care of children and have fun things to keep them occupied to help build their self esteem. You might enjoy cooking and have some great recipes, or gardening and have some valuable tips to share. Maybe you have overcome a sickness and found some great ways that helped you conquer it. We are all human and many of us go through the same things every day. Someone out there, maybe many, might really need the information you have and you could be the one that can greatly improve their lives.
How much does it cost to sit down at your computer and write? What does it cost to put a little book together and sell it on eBay? The opportunities are limitless. This is a great way to start working from home and generating an extra income for you, with very little investment. Don’t be scurred, be heard. You might find out how much fun it can be and increase your income at the same time. Why not give it a try?
The Importance of The Job Interview in Canada by: Alex Berezovsky
As I have mentioned several times, I will not only help you with your visa application process, I will also help you arrive and settle in Canada!
One of the most important tasks that you will have to accomplish after you arrive to Canada will be attending to several job interviews so that you can get the job of your dreams in Canada! Today, I will give you some useful advice and recommendations to help you answer TOUGH questions during your job interview in Canada! Remember, Canadians are very nice, but sometimes they can be tough!
O.K. let’s get started…
After a little practice, most of us can become quite confident answering some interview questions, such as “What are your strengths?” or “Why do you want this job?” These common questions have been heard by millions of job seekers over the years and have been answered with varying degrees of success.
However, there are other questions that are more difficult to masterfully answer. These are the ones interviewers like to throw at us when everything else seems to be going smoothly in the interview. Just when we think we’ve done a great job, we hear something like “Why did you get fired from your last job?” or “How come you’ve had so much trouble finding a position since the layoff?” or “If you could be any television character, who would you be and why?” or “How does your husband/wife feel about you taking this job?’
The problem with most of these questions isn’t that we don’t know the answers; it’s that they take us by surprise for a moment and throw us off our game. We miss the catch because the ball came out of nowhere.
Now you could practice answering all of these potential questions, but there’s always a good bet that a savvy interviewer will still throw something your way that you didn’t see coming. After all, they want to see how well you handle something unexpected. So this section won’t provide you with definite clever answers for all of the possible “trick” questions in the world, but we will look at numerous examples and I’ll give you some basic guidelines and suggestions on how to handle them.
As a result, you might be a caught off-guard for a moment by an unusual question, but you’ll recover quickly and answer with a thoughtful response that should “Wow!” the interviewer. With that goal in mind, let’s begin our journey into the world of unusual and difficult interview questions.
Questions About Former Employers & Employment
Chances are you won’t escape an interview without facing some questions about your past and/or current employers. Some questions are fairly simple, such as “Tell me what you liked most about your last job.” Those questions you can answer without too much pressure and without becomingly overly worried about slipping up and saying the wrong thing.
On the other hand, you may also face more difficult questions about your work history. Here are some examples:
- Why did you leave your last job? - Why were you fired? - Why has there been such a large gap between your jobs? - Why are you switching careers?
All of these questions have the potential to cause you to lose your composure during an interview and to stumble around for an answer. Thankfully, however, there are ways to answer these questions effectively.
Why did you leave your last job?
We all have different reasons for searching out a new position: we want more money, we didn’t get along with our boss, etc. In most cases, our real reason for leaving may not make the best response during an interview.
For example, if you responded, “I left because of a conflict with my supervisor” the interviewer is going to see you as a potential problem. After all, if you’ve had conflict with one supervisor, you may have a problem with authority. If you said, “I wanted to find a job that paid better and that had more opportunities for advancement,” the interviewer would wonder if you’d really be happy with the salary or the opportunities at this position or if you’d just leave there as well.
The correct answer should be positive and should be directed towards what you know about this position. In an interview for a job where you’d be dealing with customers or public relations regularly, you might answer, “Although I enjoyed my previous job, I wanted to seek out a position that would give me more chances to work with the public.”
Why were you fired?
It can be difficult to explain to a potential employer why you were fired from a previous position. Many people make the mistake of blaming the other company or the supervisor for the problem, but you have to remember the golden rule of interviewing: never say anything negative about a former employer.
Your best bet is to check in with your references from that past employer to determine exactly what there take on your firing was. You may have thought the split was amicable when they viewed it in a different light altogether. After you’ve spoken with your references, you’ll have a better idea of how to formulate a response.
In your answer, you should accept your share of the blame. No firing – not even one that was unfair or biased – is completely one-sided. Blaming others will only tell the interviewer that you haven’t learned a lesson and that you’re likely to make the same mistakes again.
A good answer might be the following: “I was fired because there was a miscommunication from the beginning about my job responsibilities. The employer needed someone who had access to a vehicle during the day, and I did not. I should have stated from the beginning that, while my transportation was reliable, I would not be able to run errands outside of the office.” In the response, the individual briefly explains the situation and accepts responsibility for her share of the miscommunication. She doesn’t speak negatively about the past employer.
Don’t forget to be honest. Making up a story to explain why you were fired won’t get you the job.
Why has there been such a large gap between your jobs?
Interviewers look over your resume for carefully. What they want to see is a continuous, or nearly continuous, stream of employment. When there are stretches of time between jobs ranging from six months to a year or more, they may be concerned about your ability to maintain a position long-term or about personal issues which may require you to leave the workplace for lengthy periods of time.
If the interviewer asks about these gaps, then your best strategy is to be honest. For example, you might say “I took some time off to stay home with our new baby, but now that he’s settled in pre-school I feel comfortable accepting the responsibilities of a full-time position” or “After I was displaced from my Acme where I’d worked for eight years, it took me awhile to regain my confidence. It happened quite suddenly, and I admit I wasn’t prepared to make a change. It took me awhile to feel comfortable getting back out in the job market.”
Again, take responsibility for the gap between positions but also try to ease the concerns that are behind the interview’s question or that may be raised as a result of your answer.
Why are you switching careers?
For some of us, when we want a change, we want a major change. Switching employers may not be enough; we may have to try an entirely different field. The desire to re-invent ourselves may be easy enough for us to understand but interviewers may question the switch. What they don’t want is a new employee who quickly regrets making the change or who realizes the new career isn’t all they thought it would be.
Your answer to this question should reflect a sincere interest in the new field, as well as your knowledge of what it entails. Basically, make sure you have done your homework so the interviewer knows this isn’t just some fly-by-night decision; it’s something you’ve put a lot of thought into.
Here’s a sample answer: “After I spent ten years in advertising, I wanted a change that would give me more opportunities to work with customers directly. That’s the main reason I considered sales. I did some research into the field and discovered that the best salespeople have strong interpersonal skills, a genuine desire to help others, and an ability to recognize the needs and wants of customers. These are all traits I’ve developed through my experience in advertising so I thought this would be a great fit for me.”
I was reading an article by Richard Adams regarding the ‘Pencil Principle,’ In short, what he is saying is that the success of the humble pencil is due to the fact that it does just one thing and does it very well. It makes marks on a piece of paper.
It does not pretend to be anything other than what you can see or feel. There are a number of other ways of making marks on a piece of paper but the pencil is still up there with the best of them.
Can a fountain pen write upside-down? Can you easily wipe out the marks of a ball point pen when you change your mind about something you have written? The pencil will be with us for a long time to come.
Richard quotes both Amazon and eBay as brilliant examples of this principle.. Their success is due entirely to concentrating upon doing just the one thing and doing it extremely well.
How many of us are trying to do too many things at once? How many of us have started to do one thing and been side tracked into trying something else before we have reaped the potential rewards of our first project? It has happened to a lot of us. Myself included.
How many of us have seen what looks like a fantastic venture that had nothing in common with what we are doing at the time and jumped in with two big feet only to find that it was no better than the project that we were working on before? (Be honest, at least with yourself.)
Don’t allow yourself to be sidetracked. Concentrate on the one thing. Develop a condition similar to ‘Tunnel Vision.’ Let nothing outside distract you from the purpose in hand. Do just one thing and do it better than anyone else. Be like the pencil.
To be successful in business you don’t need to be different from your competitors. You need to be better than your competitors. Study the project. How does it work? What makes it tick? How popular is it? How long has it been in operation? Could you cope with the work involved? Have you the right qualifications to enable you to succeed? If not, can you realistically gain those qualifications?
How strong is the opposition? Study them. What exactly do they do? How do they do it? Is there another way of doing it? Is there a better way of doing it? Is there a niche within the system that is not being exploited? Concentrating upon a small section of the potential market can often prove more profitable than the wider audience.
What can you offer that the others can’t, or don’t? Can you package it in a different way? Do you offer freebies? Are your freebies more valuable than those of your competitors? What about your guarantee? Most companies offer a guarantee of up to three months. Customers expect that much at least.
Try offering a full twelve months guarantee. That is a lot more than expected and if your product is everything that you say it is, you won’t get any more returns than your opposition.
Is your product easy to use? Would an instruction manual help to increase sales? A half page of information on how to get the best results from their purchase can often tip the balance between buying from you rather from someone else who does not provide this service.
Be honest. Be strictly honest in every aspect of your business dealings. Don’t over hype your product. Tell it as it is. Say exactly what it will do. Explain how much better off your clients will be if they purchase from you. Whatever claims you make, be prepared to prove them to the clients satisfaction.
Don’t try to convince people that if they buy your product it will make them rich. Products don’t make people rich. Using the product to it’s best advantage could possibly make someone rich. It is up to the purchaser as to how much effort he or she puts into using it.
How can they contact you if they have a problem?
They will already have your website address. They will need an e-mail address as well. Make sure that it is printed on every piece of correspondence that you send out. Your office or home phone number is the biggest confidence booster that you can provide.. It proves that you are a real person who is genuinely interested in ensuring customer satisfaction.
Don’t worry about being hounded by phone calls day and night. Just say that they can call you on this number during normal office hours. Or whatever is more convenient. I don’t get more than a dozen phone calls a year, but the fact that they could call me if the need arose is what matters.
How to Get Free Adwords Credit, and 9 Other Tips You Were Never Told! by: David Raybould
Someone in a forum asked me the other day for some quick tips on Google Adwords. I have been quite successful with Adwords, and so my post got longer and longer as I thought of things, and each one seemed more important than the last-It occurred to at that point that this would make a pretty useful article, as it’s something lots of people participate in, and I don’t feel that many people get as much out of it as they should do! I think it’s a pity because in the work at home and home business arenas, some decent Adwords skills can make a huge amount of difference to your online money making! With that in mind, here are my 10 Adwords Tips You Were Never Told!
10- Trust your own conversion rates-Nobody else’s. This relates particularly well to those of you that are affiliate marketers. When you are considering what items to promote, only use other people’s conversion figures if they can physically prove them to you. I once agreed to sign on as an affiliate for a contact I had made through eBay-He seemed very professional, I liked his site and his product, and he assured me that the site converted around 5% of visitors into sales. I liked the sound of that, as I already had a few low priced keywords in mind that would bring in some good traffic. So I signed up. One month later, I had directed over a thousand clicks to his site, and there had not been a single sale. I got it verified by Clickbank too, so I know it was pretty accurate. Needless to say, our partnership ground to a halt.
9-Keep an eye on the budget-especially until the campaign takes off and becomes profitable. This seems really obvious, but those clicks really do add up fast. It’s really easy to let them get out of hand as we find ourselves pushing it up that extra couple of bucks here and there in the hope of picking up stray clicks at the end of the day. Before we know it, our 4 or 5 dollars a day is 12 or 13, and by the end of the month we owe Google a grand. That’s great if you are making good money from all those clicks, but from reading the forums I gather that this mostly happens to people that are just starting out and struggling to get into profit.
8-Don’t listen to Google. Let them show you how to use the site and get your account set up, but for advice on actual campaigns and ads, look elsewhere. The reason? Google are a business. It’s in their interest for you to pay more for your clicks, and to raise your budget accordingly. There are plenty of free resources on the net for Adwords, like this article for example, so search around for things like this and any free ebooks you can find on the subject. If you want advice, get it from people that aren’t going to be profiting directly from your mistakes.
7-Quantity and quality-Spend time researching your keywords. The more time you spend, the less money you spend, and your click through rate will likely be better too. Lots of Adwords campaigns are run by people sitting behind little desks in big offices, beavering away for a tiny salary and a company car. Campaigns are literally a job for these people, and the success or cost of the campaign is of no relevance because it all comes straight from the company funds. People like this are the reason that you can bid $25 on the words “Credit Card” on some PPC schemes and still not get top placing. People like this are also the reason people like you and I can find thousands of cheap, closer matching keywords just by putting the time in. These guys run campaigns just by throwing money at them, and we can easily outperform them just by applying ourselves a little with the keyword research.
6-Match Test-Adwords lets you run multiple ads from the same keyword group simultaneously. This is a great tool if you put it to use properly. How? Simply by making each ad slightly different, and seeing which one pulls more clicks. Once you can see which one is more successful, tinker around with the wording on the less popular ad until it improves performance and pulls more clicks than the one that was initially leading. Do this constantly and before you know it you will have an ad which literally rips clicks off the page!
5-Have patience-When you make changes give them time to manifest themselves in your results. Only when you can see what effect a change has had should you make any more. If you don’t do things gradually like this you can quite easily mess a campaign up in a fashion that will take two or three days to get back on track.
4-Cheat-I don’t know if it’s ethical to say this, but I’m going to do it anyway- When you are starting an Adwords account, go to eBay first and buy some free Adwords credit. You can buy $30 of credit to an Adwords account for pennies from certain eBay sellers. That certainly makes your first few campaigns a little less stressful. Not ethical I know, but I’m sure Google will get plenty of money from you once you get the hang of the system. Here’s hoping they don’t sue me lol.
3-Don’t forget about other PPC schemes- You won’t get the traffic you would from Google, but you will get much cheaper high quality keywords, so it balances out really. I prefer Google myself because your writing skill plays as big a part as your wallet-your ad will appear closer to the top of the screen if it is popular with the customers. That means if your ad is effective and gets more clicks than the other bidders, you will be able to pay less than the other guys that have bid on that word.
2-Make Your Ads Specific- You can weed out a lot of non-qualified browsers by stating important facts in the ad copy- people that would have cost you money from the click and not bought anyway. For example an ad which simply states “House for Sale” would get clicks from all kinds of people looking for houses, but if it were to say “Two Bedroom House for sale” you would be naturally cutting out the customers which were looking for four bedroom houses, apartments etc, as they can see straight away that you do not have what they are seeking. This reduction is good because it would help keep our costs low due to unnecessary clicks.
1- Be Relentless- It’s easy to think you have made it in Adwords, and equally easy to become really disillusioned when you do not see results straight away. Just keep the faith- It’s science, not art, and as such can be learned. Stick with it and you will soon see profit, and once you are in profit it is just a case of maintaining that balance while you raise the budgets and increase your exposures!
Why is search engine marketing important to today's business person?
Isn't such marketing just for dot-commers?
What about the ordinary bricks-and-mortars store owner?
How might search engine marketing benefit him or her?
How does one pursue search engine registration if it is decided to pursue an Internet marketing program?
How complicated is this?
Is it expensive?
What does one need to know about search engine registration?
Some webmasters still believe that search engines will list their web sites if they just submit it. That's not the case. Many search engines require at least one inbound link before they list a web site.
If you want to get high rankings on search engines, then the web page must be very relevant to a search term. If you put lots of keywords in your web page title, the meta tags and the body text of a web page then the web page will be somewhat relevant to many keywords.
Search engines use very simply software programs to index your web pages. A web page that looks great to the human eye can be totally meaningless to search engines. If you have a great looking web site that is meaningless to search engines, you won't be able to achieve high search engine rankings with that web site - no matter how good and interesting your web site content is.
In general, search engines cannot see content that is presented in images (GIF, JPEG, PNG, etc.), Flash elements, JavaScript and other script languages or other multimedia file formats. To find out how search engines see your web page, use a search engine spider simulator.
If your web page navigation is based on JavaScript then chances are that search engines cannot find your web pages. Most search engines don't follow JavaScript links and many search engines also don't follow image links.
To search engines, your web site can look like a one page site with hardly any content if you use JavaScript links. If you want to make sure that search engines can find all pages of your web site then use simple text links. A single spam element can destroy all of your SEO work. If you use hidden text or other spam elements on your web page then many search engines won't list your web site, no matter how great its content might be.
If you use white text on a white background, text in invisible CSS elements or similar elements that might be interpreted as spam then you should remove these elements as soon as possible. It will be difficult to get high rankings if your web pages contain spam elements.
Effective search engine registration can have a powerful effect. About 85% of Internet users seeking products or information use search engines to find them. For registration to be really effective, it needs to be handled by an SEO consultant with specialized knowledge. Costs can range from a few hundred pouns to tens of thousands. Those who charge the highest prices aren't necessarily the most knowledgeable or effective.
If your saying to yourself does my website really need SEO optimization then ask yourself "are you happy with your current online position in the search engines?" if your NOT happy, then you need my help.
Beginner's Guide to Online Share Dealing by: Ian Lyall
Dealing shares over the web has never been simpler - or cheaper.
Execution-only brokers have driven down costs to as little as a fiver plus stamp duty and many have done away with the old percentage based way of calculating commission in favour of an easy-to-understand flat fee.
That said, there is still a bewildering array of alternatives offered by the High Street banks and the scores the bespoke internet dealers - and all of them vying for your business.
Despite plummeting fees and increased transparency, there are a number of potentially costly pitfalls awaiting the unsuspecting trader new to online investment. Below I show how to avoid them:
Choosing a broker should be easy and based on the best available deal. But you may wish to pay a little extra for a reliable service. By this I mean a website that doesn't crash or freeze as soon as you log in, and is simple and easy to use. As a rule of thumb, don't pay more than £12 per transaction. And look out for the hidden charges such as annual administration fees that push up the cost of the service.
A good piece of advice is to open accounts with two competing brokers and chose the most impressive. Among the hidden costs of trading is tax. Every time you trade you are liable to stamp duty, which is charged at 0.5pc. And if you are lucky enough to make a profit of more than £8,500 in any one year you will be liable for capital gains tax, which is charged on a sliding scale from 10pc-40pc.
Signing up is simple enough. Most sites have a wizard that will guide you through the process of opening an account in just ten minutes. Ironic then that you may have to wait a week before the service is fully functioning because the paperwork has to be mailed out, signed and returned with proof of identity. Most brokers require a utility bill and banks statements and one even asks for your national insurance number. So have these to hand. With some electronic brokers you may have to deposit cash - usually around £500 - and purchases will be funded from this. Others simply debit and credit your account.
Once you've signed up you will be issued with a password and username that gives you access to the trading screen. Log on to the active area of the website and your senses are immediately assaulted by all sorts of information.
First step is to decide which country's stocks you want to trade. It is fair to say most people will opt for UK. It is then a case of deciding which particular share you want to buy or sell. It would be straightforward to if you just entered the company name and hit the return key. But instead most sites will insist you provide the a two or three letter code - called an EPIC - that identifies that company. You'll find a search facility that allows you to look it up. Make sure you enter the correct EPIC, otherwise you'll end up buying shares in the wrong company. Believe me, I've done it and it costs me about 30 quid to sell back what I bought.
Once you have entered the unique company code, you will be presented with two prices for shares in the company. The lower of the two is the bid price - the amount per share the broker will pay for your stock. The higher figure is the offer price, or what you will pay to acquire shares. The difference between the two is called the spread and it is the profit the broker makes buying and selling shares. Again you must be careful to enter the correct number of shares - count the zeros. You don't want to be buying 60,000 shares at £1 each when you intended to sell 6,000 at 10p. Thankfully I haven't done this yet.
Some basic rules of investment. Always do your research. That means reading the financial pages and book marking sites such as Reuters, ADVFN and the BBC.
Relying a tip from a bloke down the pub will seriously damage your wealth.
Set a stop-loss. Very simply, if you buy shares you expect them to go up rather than down. If they start to head south then consider selling if the price falls between 15pc and 20pc. Reinvest your dividends. It's a no-cost way of growing your investment. Invest only in companies you understand.
Make More Sales By Making Optimized Web Pages by: Fred Black
So you'd like to be an Internet Marketer, marketing products or services on the Internet and live the good life that financial success can bring you. But how do you get to that point? How do you get a successful Internet business started?
Studies prove simple web sites can sale just as effectively as, or even better than, elaborately designed, phenomenal looking websites. Maybe you used your friend to make a web site for you and now you're sitting back waiting on the dollars. Perhaps you purchased FrontPage, Dreamweaver, GoLive, or another web site software product and have been making your own sites. Most people who try to make money on the Internet fail miserably, have you?
Let me share a another secret with you. It's not hard to learn HTML and CSS. It's not hard to make simple web page that can be very effective at selling. One of the problems with full blown software packages like FrontPage or Dreamweaver is that it makes it very easy to keep adding to and tweaking your web site until its way too busy to be an effective sales tool. I create the majority of my web sites by directly editing the HTML, ASP, or PHP code in a text editor. There are times that I will do an initial layout in a package such as FrontPage and do the remainder of the work using a text editor tool. This is especially true for pages that are interactive, like a page that contains a form to collect user data and populate a database such as mySQL, or a page that pull data from a database to create dynamic output.
Let me share one last secret with you. The pages you create to sell something are probably not very effective at selling, unless you're already successful, and experienced, at marketing and copywriting. When I first saw a sales page that had been optimized based on statistical analysis of successful and unsuccessful sales pages I was dismayed. I just knew that it was too simple and too plain to sell anything... I was not only wrong, I was dead wrong. I base my sales pages on this same statistically proven design, it's clean and simple and there's nothing complex or hard to about creating it. The main things are that you constrain the text in an area that's around 800 pixels wide and that you have a white background in this area. You can have a boarder around this body area and the page itself can be black or white. You can see an example at my web site.
I've given you three secrets that can make your web site more successful and more profitable. Don't just sit there, make it happen.
7 Tips BITS For Beginners In Affiliate Programmes by: A.M.Y Antwi
Numerous affiliate programmes have risen lately and if you are now partaking in it you need to note these important tips to succeed in your business.
1. Read Around: Read a lot about your new programme from recommended books, magazines, website etc as this will help you to understand whatever your personal trainer will be taking you through. If you understand, you can guide others who join the programme through you to establish and progress.
2. Don’t subscribe to too many programmes: It is not advisable to subscribe to too many programmes initially because you will get scared by the numerous e-mails and may give up. So learn to crawl before you walk. Take one step at a time to get to your final destination.
3. Set working hours: It is so vital to set the number of hours you can spend each day on your affiliate programme and keep to it as religiously as you can. Try to stick to the set number of hours and sooner than you expect it will become part and parcel of your daily routine.
4. Rules /Obligations: Understand the rules and specification of the site you are affiliated to. This is because each site has its specific demands and rules and a beach or non conformity to any of these out of ignorance will cost you. It can result in being taken off the programme or loosing you commission or something else as spelt out by the mother site.
5. Settle with a mode of payment: It is very important that you settle with an acceptable mode of payment as soon as you think of doing an affiliate programme .This is because you will necessarily buy services from numerous businesses. You would also receive some commission which needs to be directed to a named account. Infact you need to find out exactly what is acceptable at both national and international basis.
6. Tracking: There is the need to put in place a tracking system to be able to monitor all the businesses you deal with in terms of how effective their services you are using is promoting your business or other wise. It will also help you to check on your commissions to find out if you are receiving all that is required of you.
7. You are responsible for your actions: I mean you cannot blame any second or third party if you take steps that land you into disaster. You will be guided and advised but try to decide whether you really want to do as you have learnt about.
Internet Scams Rip Off Reporter: How To Turn Your Negative Experiences Into Profits by: Joe Cooper
Have you ever been watching T.V. late at night and stumbled across an advertisement claiming you can get rich with the real estate business? Some really nice actor..Eh, real estate guru tells you that making money this way is really, really easy. All you need to do is buy his training course and you cannot fail, right? You order his training course via the 1-800 number on the television screen and in about 7 - 10 days you get "So and So's Ultimate Real Estate Training Course!" You sit down and read this thing. You listen to the CDs. You take notes and get excited. Then, after a few hours or a few days, you tell yourself, " This could work..." But there is always a catch: Most of the information junk being sold out there doesn't work the way it is advertised to work! Or it doesn't work at all!
Internet Scams Rip Off Reporting may be the best internet home based business opportunity you've never heard of. You can register to be a scams reporter and enjoy the benefits of getting paid to share your experiences. I know you must be sick of getting ripped off by con artists selling internet scams. I'm tired of these guys distributing rip offs to innocent consumers looking for legitimate work from home opportunities. Internet Scams Rip Off Reporting is the best way to get back at companies that have scammed you in the past!
Doesn't getting scammed out of your cold, hard earned cash make you feel dead inside, helpless, and furious all at the same time? Internet Scams Rip Off Reporting allows you a chance to get even. Best of all, you are not alone in your mission: Internet rip off scams reporters receive help from private organizations and agencies that specialize in helping to report internet scams and rip offs for you! Internet Scam Reporters have help...lots and lots and lots of help!
The difference between a Scam Reporter and the average victim of get rich quick schemes is that the Internet Scams Reporter is trained to systematically report his or her experiences in exchange for profits. The average victim of a get rich quick scheme loses their money and feels cheated. He is left to feel hopeless, powerless, and clueless. The average consumer victim may file a complaint to the Better Business Bureau. But that doesn't always help them get their money back and it certainly doesn't quell the frustration of getting ripped off by an internet scam.
Internet Scams Rip Off Reporters only report their experiences to people who need it. I am speaking of work at home inquirers. These individuals specifically request information about what types of programs are scams. This is done through connecting with Home Wealth Enthusiasts and replying to their request. So many people are dying to know if some internet business opportunity is a scam or not. These individuals who are interested in knowing if something is a scam are located all over the world.
If you qualify to be an Internet Scams Rip Off Reporter you are in for a real money making opportunity with a legitimate business system intact. Internet Scams Reporting has many advantages: You will work from home 100% of the time. You can discreetly do your work at home and be successful no matter where you are located in the world. Internet Scams Rip Off Reporting is quietly being referred to as the best home based business online.
Think about it: You can get back at every company that has ever scammed you in the past. To sweeten the pot even more, you get paid for it. And the entire process is really easy.
In short, Internet Scams Rip Off Reporters report internet scams and get paid handsomely for their noble work. This is accomplished with the help of private organizations and agencies that specialize in assisting the Internet Scams Rip Off Report effort. They are paid money from work at home inquirers located across the world. Many of these individuals pay as much as $150 for information lists on what works and what does not work.
I was driving down the street the other day and saw a billboard. A big billboard. One so big it practically eclipsed the sun! It advertised a sunny vacation destination and as I gazed at that picture I was momentarily whisked away in my mind to a beach with lapping waves.
Then I had to laugh because almost directly after that billboard came a small one. Not just smaller… tiny. I don’t remember what it advertised but the disparity between the two heightened the importance of the vacation and minimized (in my mind, at least) the message of the second.
It made me think of the internet and internet marketing. The Internet is the “great leveler” in that it allows each business – large or small – to potentially reach the purchasing public in the same way. Theoretically the small “mom-and-pop shop” and a giant, multinational corporation has the same amount of real estate, your computer screen, to make their pitch. If you’re closer to the mom-and-pop shop than you are to the multinational corporation, here are some ideas to help you get your name out there. After all, no matter what size of start you have, it’s only one sale after another that will keep you in business!
Google AdWords are a great way to do that, for the same reason: Your one-man-show (or, one-woman-show!) has the same amount of AdWord space as meganational corporations like GE or GM.
These popular ads are 4 lines long. The top line is the title, there are two middle lines, and the fourth line is the URL. Every single add is the same. Unfortunately, too many businesses use the same-old approach when writing AdWords ads.
Here are some great ideas to help you AdWords fly off the screen and shake your prospects by the shoulders and say “hey, go to this site!”
Title Line Ask a question in your Title line and don’t answer it in the middle two lines. Instead, simply entice your prospect to visit your site for more information. (For example, “Do you want to earn more money without working harder?”)
Remember the AIDA principle (Attention, Interest, Decision, Action) and get your prospect’s attention with the title). Be shocking, outrageous, and catchy.
Body text Write down what you want to say, then work on shortening it. Don’t try shortening your ad first. Don’t waste words. Each word is precious. Be sure to use power words and short, readable sentences. Write several ideas down and have a few friends pick their favorite.
Throughout your ad, use powerful, motivating words like “free,” “fast,” and “new.” (For example, “Hurry, for a limited time, you can get this free solution downloaded to your computer instantly!” Tantalize your prospects with the words “learn more.”
This section requires you to use the Interest and Decision portions of the AIDA sales-writing format.
URL Don’t forget about the URL! Harness the power of the fourth AdWords line. If you don’t have a URL that talks about your business, consider buying one. Preferably, buy a URL that shows how you provide a solution… don’t highlight the problem. (For example, “www.DownloadMoneyMakingIdeasNow.com”)
Use a clever URL to help people take action and click to your site.
One great AdWords ad might look like this:
Want to earn huge cash online? Quit your job. Don’t waste time commuting. Live free! www.Work-From-Home-Success.com
Another one might look like this:
Don’t click on this site. We want serious investors. No window-shoppers. www.Double-Your-Money-In-One-Year.com
Enjoy the same sized billboard as the multi-national corporations. Be clever and daring and get customers to your site!
Become an Online Expert, and Have the Customers Come to You by: Mark Nenadic
No matter what the product or service of your website may be, by establishing yourself as an online expert, you will draw a substantially higher number of visitors – and potential customers – to your website than you would being "just another online business".
After all, credibility is everything when you're an online business. There really is no way to tell two different companies apart when all you have is their websites to look at. However, if you have established yourself as an expert online, your website, even if it is extremely similar to that of your competition, suddenly holds a great deal more perceived value, and is much more likely to make a sale.
By establishing yourself as an online expert in your field, you will accomplish the following:
- helps to build trust for you, your product, and your advice among your prospective and current customers.
- encourages the people who have benefited from the knowledge that you have shared to spread the word about you, creating referrals about you, your website, your business, and your products and services.
- assists in creating a long-term relationship among your customers and prospective customers.
Perhaps most beneficial of all, by sharing your knowledge and establishing yourself as an online expert, you can do a great deal of marketing for yourself without spending any money at all. It takes a little bit of time and effort, but this is well worth it when you see the return on this investment. Soon you will be considered the most important source of information, advice, and products in your industry.
So how do you obtain this level of trust and respect online? There are several techniques. Some of them include:
- Create your own informative e-zine or e-newsletter. Write about fresh topics that are interesting to you and your current and prospective clients. This should not at all involve a hard-sell about your products, but should instead be about related topics that will indirectly encourage people to be interested in your product or service, and recognize you as being the most knowledgeable person to consult – and shop from.
- Write articles that will be posted in other websites, e-zines, and e-newsletters. Don't forget to include copies of these articles on your own website so that people visiting your website will benefit from the same information that they'd see at the sites where you post.
- Take part in message boards, forums, e-mail discussion groups, and other posting arenas online. Be helpful with other group members and participate regularly in their discussions. This will help you to build relationships with prospective customers who are directly interested in what you have to say. This can include posting boards that you have found elsewhere, or ones that you create yourself.
- Offer online workshops that provide informational seminars related to the products and services that you sell. Make sure that once your workshops are being offered, you send out personal invitations to any of your contacts that you believe may be interested in attending. You should encourage them to bring their friends and family, as well. To add to the success rate of bringing friends and family, offer a small gift to those who bring a guest who is not on the invite list.
- Hold informative and creative online parties – online parties are increasing in their popularity. Therefore, if you are building your reputation as an online expert, a personal invitation to your current and prospective clients whose contact information you have can go a long way. Don't forget to encourage them to bring guests to the party by enticing them with small free gifts. Remember that free gifts needn't be products that will cost you money. You can always offer your expertise. After all, you're establishing yourself as an expert, so offering your advice, counseling, or other consultations has value in itself.
- Send out a press release that clearly demonstrates the knowledge that you hold in your part of your industry. Send this press release to the local media and to the many free distribution centers online.
After these efforts, you cannot expect an instant reaction. Remember, establishing a reputation in expertise does require some time. However, as long as you continue sharing good quality information and spreading the word as much as you can among your target market, you'll find that people will start coming to you to buy, because you're the person and the company that they know they can trust.
If you are new to the internet world you are not alone. There are a lot of people who are not too familiar with the internet, but want to join in on the profits that are available. If this sounds like you one of the most important things that you will need to learn is how to promote your web site.
When it comes to promoting your web site there are many options available to you. The good thing is that a lot of them are free of cost, or will only set you back a few dollars. But at the same time there are also a lot of ways that you can promote your web site that will cost you quite a bit of money. But either way, if you learn what you are doing you will be able to get the word out about your web site.
As far as free web site promotion is concerned, one of the best things that you can do is join in on the discussions that are taking place at some of the online forums. For instance, if your new web site is targeted towards the clothing industry, you will want to find forums that discuss this topic. When talking with others you can run ideas past them, and also market your new web site to them. Make sure that you add your web site to your forum signature. This way, every time you make a post anybody that reads it will be able to click on your link. Believe it or not this will drive plenty of traffic to your site.
Another low cost way to promote your web site is to submit articles to article directories. This can be done in a matter of minutes. All you have to do is write an article that coincides with your web site, and then submit it to directories. In addition, you will be able to add an author’s resource box after the article. This again will allow readers to click on your link and head straight for your site. Over time different article directories will pick up on your articles. In turn, your links will begin to show up all over the internet, which of course means more traffic directed to your web site.
Overall, web site promotion is something that you will want to learn about early on. But do not let this scare you away. There are many ways that you can promote your new web site to the internet world. With a bit of research, patience, and determination, you will be successfully promoting your web site. And with successful promotion comes traffic and profits! And isn’t this what everybody wants?
If you are new to the internet world you are not alone. There are a lot of people who are not too familiar with the internet, but want to join in on the profits that are available. If this sounds like you one of the most important things that you will need to learn is how to promote your web site.
When it comes to promoting your web site there are many options available to you. The good thing is that a lot of them are free of cost, or will only set you back a few dollars. But at the same time there are also a lot of ways that you can promote your web site that will cost you quite a bit of money. But either way, if you learn what you are doing you will be able to get the word out about your web site.
As far as free web site promotion is concerned, one of the best things that you can do is join in on the discussions that are taking place at some of the online forums. For instance, if your new web site is targeted towards the clothing industry, you will want to find forums that discuss this topic. When talking with others you can run ideas past them, and also market your new web site to them. Make sure that you add your web site to your forum signature. This way, every time you make a post anybody that reads it will be able to click on your link. Believe it or not this will drive plenty of traffic to your site.
Another low cost way to promote your web site is to submit articles to article directories. This can be done in a matter of minutes. All you have to do is write an article that coincides with your web site, and then submit it to directories. In addition, you will be able to add an author’s resource box after the article. This again will allow readers to click on your link and head straight for your site. Over time different article directories will pick up on your articles. In turn, your links will begin to show up all over the internet, which of course means more traffic directed to your web site.
Overall, web site promotion is something that you will want to learn about early on. But do not let this scare you away. There are many ways that you can promote your new web site to the internet world. With a bit of research, patience, and determination, you will be successfully promoting your web site. And with successful promotion comes traffic and profits! And isn’t this what everybody wants?
Making Money Online IS Possible... Here's HOW by: Trent Brownrigg
Are you trying to make money online but just can't seem to get the income you want? There are thousands upon thousands of aspiring online business entrepreneurs who are in the same boat as you right now. You are not alone! However, in this article, I am going to give you some tips on how to actually make money online and eventually bring in a very nice income.
Before we get started let's talk a little about who I am and why it's even worth your time to listen to me. Am I rich? No. My bank account would be laughable compared to Bill Gates or Donald Trump, but compared to the average person trying to make money online from a home business you could say I am doing quite well.
I started my online business about three and a half years ago and slowly but surely increased my income to the point of financial independence. I now make a very good full time income online and only work a few hours per week. It wasn't easy... far from it! But it was worth it. I don't consider myself to be some money making guru. But I have been making money online, and teaching people to do the same, long enough to know what I am talking about.
So how can you make a living from home? Here are the steps necessary to make money online and eventually bring in a very good income...
1) Define Your "Why" - Really the first, and most important, step to becoming rich is not "how" to do it but "why" to do it. Without your why, your how will be nearly impossible. Once you have found your why, it is much easier to find your how to become rich. You must look deep inside yourself to find out why you want to become rich. Once you have found it write it down and keep it in a place where you will see it everyday. After you find your why you can search for your how. Remember, there is no easy road to riches. If there was then everyone would be rich.
2) Write Your Plan - When you are getting started you will need a plan. What exactly do you want to accomplish? How long will it take to do it? What steps do you need to take to ensure it happens? How many hours are you going to put in each day? How much money can you afford to spend on marketing? Etc... Think about these questions and write down the answers. Make your plan realistic and stick with it as closely as possible. It can be modified along the way as things change but you should always have a realistic plan to follow.
3) Find Your "How" - Now it's time to start searching for how you will make money online. There are many different ways to make money online. A few of the most popular ones are: business opportunities, affiliate marketing, network marketing, niche marketing, creating your own e-book, or doing an actual online job. Most of these actually go hand-in-hand so you will usually be doing more than one at a time. They are usually lumped under one umbrella called internet marketing.
My suggestion is to start out with an actual paying online job as well as at least one of the others. Doing this will allow you to bring in an online income while getting started in something that you will eventually make a lot more money doing. For instance, you could work a couple hours per day in an online job while spending the rest of your spare time learning how to market affiliate programs.
I actually know of a great program where that is exactly what you do. You make money working online jobs while also getting into affiliate marketing and a business opportunity and learning to market on the internet. You can find it here: http://honest-income-program.com
4) Get Educated - Walking blindly into an online business without having some basic education is suicide! You need to know the basics of online marketing and promoting. You can get this education for free all over the place on the internet. A great place to start is internet marketing forums and articles.
You also need to know programs to definitely stay away from before you make the mistake of jumping into some overhyped dishonest opportunity or even an all out scam. A good way to be sure you don't get sucked into one of these is to stay away from anything that promises ridiculously large amounts of money in a short period of time. Or any opportunity that says you will make a lot of money without doing any, or very little, work. It's just not true!
To help you out a little here are a few things I can tell you right now to avoid - paid to read emails, randomizers, doublers, paid to surf, HYIP, the oprah paypal letter, etc... of course there are more things to stay away from but I can't go into detail in this article due to length. I will tell you that the Honest Income Program mentioned above gives you a lot more programs to avoid and tells why you should avoid them.
5) Get Started - Now it's time for you to get started making money in your new business. It is critical in this step to be focused. Don't go jumping around to every opportunity you see just because it promises riches. Stick with what you started and put your full effort into it. It is also critical that you do not expect too much too fast. It is going to take time to start making money online and it is going to take even longer to start making a significant amount of income.
While you are getting started you will be learning a LOT. In fact, you will probably feel like you are on information overload and feel overwhelmed by everything there is to learn. Don't worry it will all come together. Just take things one step at a time in an organized manner. The learning is something that never stops. You will constantly be learning new things in online business but the beginning is probably the most crucial and the toughest.
The most important part of this step is to TAKE ACTION! Yes, there is a lot to learn and a lot to do but the only way to get anywhere is to do something with it. Making money online is largely about taking action. The more you sit back and wait for the "right time" the less you are actually out there making money.
6) Work Hard and NEVER Quit - This is probably the best advice that was ever given to me and I consider it the most important tip I can pass on to anyone trying to make money online. No matter what anyone tells you making money online is hard work. You have to put in a lot of time and effort before you reap the rewards of it. You will fail at times, that is certain! However, you will also succeed if you get up from those failures and keep going!
That's it. Those are the six basic steps to making money online and eventually bringing in a great full-time income. Of course, this article is a simplified version of what it truly takes. There is more detail to making money online that cannot be fully explained in one article but the above is basically all you need to do. It will not be easy but it can certainly be done. There are thousands upon thousands of people making money online right now. Many of them are very rich because of it. Follow the above steps and you can be making a full time income on the internet soon enough.
Creating An Effective ABOUT ME Page For Your eBook Business On eBay by: John Thornhill
Just skip all the stuff and start listing your products, that's probably the advice most eBay experts would give you, but not me. The most important aspect of your internet eBay business when selling eBooks is your overall account appearance. Think about how many more sales you get as a PowerSeller, or even just a regular member with fifty plus positive feedback. The amount that trust plays in customers making a purchase cannot be underestimated. Therefore it is important to build an eBay account that gives every potential customers as much of a chance to get to know you as possible. The about me page is a easy way to make this happen, and best of all, is free for your to use.
Since you are selling eBooks on eBay the about me page should be as appropriate towards your niche as possible. This means you don't want to just talk about your favorite kind of food, or your pet dog, but about your expertise in selling electronic publications such as eBooks. The more eBooks you sell on eBay the more users that will potentially be able to view your about me page. This is the only page on your visible eBay profile that will allow for you to list a website link. This is crucial to help boost business for free. If you have a website, make sure to include it in the about me page. If you don't yet have a website, you should at least build a small one to cultivate email address, and get customer feedback, once this is built, make sure the link gets put on your about me page on eBay.
The other thing that the about me page is good for is promoting customer loyalty. Make sure to further your brand by telling customers your vision, and promise for their eBook needs. Talk about how you want to sell them a eBook every week that will help them with various parts of their life. Give them an idea of what type of discounts frequent customers can achieve, and where to sign up for such discounts. The more details you give your customers on the about me page the better off you will be when it comes to long term eBook sales on eBay.
Lastly make sure to put all relevant contact information on your about me page. This is as important as any other element on the page. If you feel comfortable enough, feel free to leave your home phone number, and personal email address. This information will help customers get in touch with you when they are ready to make a purchase. Once the about me page is setup, watch as sales start to increase on your eBook sales on eBay.
First thing you need to know before starting your own business is you must do your research! There are many great home business opportunities out there; you need to be cautious in choosing a business that is right for you. Find one that suits you best one that you have interest in because you will need to spend a lot of time on that business, and most importantly, you will need to find a business that is legitimate. There are countless numbers of home business offers over the Internet today and majority of them will require you to pay a fee to start. Most people will choose the lower fee to start their business and end up failing due to the lack of information given. An on line business is not as easy as many advertisements say it is. You will not get rich over night and that is the truth!
Here are some good examples of how people make money on line:
Become an affiliate Become a hosting reseller Sell products on line Buy/Sell on line auctions Get paid to take surveys Get paid to read emails Get paid to surf the web Get paid to shop Make money with adsense
Those are only a few examples of how you can make money on line. If you want to start a home business the best advice for you is to find a system that many on line entrepreneurs are currently using, a system that is proven to work, find out what made them become successful with their home business, what methods they use that makes them thousand of dollars a month by simply purchasing their system (remember nothing good is for free) if you are clueless about how to start your own home business you will definitely need a guide. Now follow step by step instruction that is given to you, read the information carefully and remember not to give up half way because if you do you will not succeed.
Another good advice for you is focus on your business and stick to one until you see results, you will fail if you try to do too many at once. Without a guide though one may be lost in choosing the right business opportunity, with many scams circling around the Internet these days one may end up spending their money buying information that is worthless to them and they are back where they started; still looking for that one right home business.
The best part about on line business is you have more free time to do the things you want to do and you can also easily access your business anywhere in the world using the power of the Internet.
Now there are two types of business opportunity one is short term and the other is long term. For example taking on line survey is consider short term the more you take time to fill out a survey the more you earn, some survey companies pay you cash and some give out rewards and prizes. There are many resources to take free surveys on line and yes you do get paid for your opinion! Watch out for scam survey sites that require you to pay a fee to join.
Now if you are looking for a long term home business you should look into starting your own website. You could sell products or information with your own domain name or you can sign up with google adsense and write your own articles on a subject you like. You can also sign up with google adwords and start advertising as an affiliate. The opportunities are endless!
Remember with most home businesses it will take at least 1-3 months before you really start seeing results but in the end it will all pay off. It’s a great feeling once you start seeing great income with your home business that is of course you have worked to get there. Don’t believe in any get rich scheme you see out there, as I have said you will not get rich over night. Best of luck to you on starting your own home business!
Join The Information Highway To Success! by: Cathy Barela
The thought of writing an ebook scares many people off. They think they are not smart enough, don’t have any specialized information, aren’t good writers, etc. But when you stop and think about it, what makes the world go round and round? Information and creativity When you want information, where do you go? Information is one of the hottest things on the internet today
By sharing information we have become an advanced and educated society. What if noone wrote a book? What if we all kept our information we have learned over the years to ourselves? You are valuable. So is the information you know. You might be surprised at how much you can help people by sharing your knowledge with others.
Maybe you are a car buff, or have special information about purchasing houses. Maybe you have special knowledge about how to take care of children and have fun things to keep them occupied to help build their self esteem. You might enjoy cooking and have some great recipes, or gardening and have some valuable tips to share. Maybe you have overcome a sickness and found some great ways that helped you conquer it. We are all human and many of us go through the same things every day. Someone out there, maybe many, might really need the information you have and you could be the one that can greatly improve their lives.
How much does it cost to sit down at your computer and write? What does it cost to put a little book together and sell it on eBay? The opportunities are limitless. This is a great way to start working from home and generating an extra income for you, with very little investment. Don’t be srurred, be heard You might find out how much fun it can be and increase your income at the same time Why not give it a try?
How to use Forums to Generate Web Income by: Cynthia Minnaar
It is said that if you want to become successful in something, you should hang around people who are already successful in that particular field.
If you plan to be a successful Internet marketer, there is no better place in the world for you to hang out than the forums that the internet marketing gurus frequent.
There are numerous forums on the internet and it is important to spend time searching for the more highly respected ones, which are well managed with good moderators who maintain the standard of the forum by strictly enforcing the rules.
In these forums you will find members share a common goal to make money on the Internet. As you start participating regularly in the forum, you will find yourself learning faster and earning more...guaranteed. Top forums are the stomping ground for the best Internet marketers on the planet as well as the training ground for thousands of up and coming Internet marketers. They are a place to share ideas, find answers, make friends and develop partnerships. The top forums are an organic, always growing, support resource for your entire internet marketing business. The only way to benefit from these forums is to experience them yourself.
Prior to actually joining a forum, spend sometime just browsing the forum and reading some posts to see that it actually suits your needs and that you feel comfortable in the environment. On joining a forum it is vital that you read the rules as you will find they do vary from forum to forum. Be sure to fill out your profile and most important be sure to complete the signature section, which will allow you to put your website details, which will lead to back links, as postings get indexed by the search engines.. The forum rules will dictate how many characters or lines or urls you can add.
Once you have joined a forum look for the category that invites you to introduce yourself and take advantage of this. Remember, you are not there to advertise your business, your signature will do that for you, simply tell the forum where you are from and a little about yourself. Then I would suggest that you read through some of the posts, get involved in some of the discussions and see if you can offer advice or help to some of the questions raised. Your main function in a forum is to contribute positively and constructively. You will find that by reading posts you will also learn so much as you will find advice and answers from the top gurus. As you become more familiar with the surroundings you can then start new threads with questions of your own.
You can increase your presence on the internet very quickly by actively participating in a few forums and constructively posting 3 to 5 times a day in each forum. Spend time in the forums every day just browsing, reading through topics and responding to posts as desired.
Some forums have categories where you can submit your articles, do not ignore this if you have articles to submit because other members may select them to send to their lists. Also fellow members could be e-zine owners and they might just pick your article up for their newsletter. You may also find a category dedicated to discussion on all topics related to self-improvement. This most certainly fits into a money-making forum because power, energy and creativity translates into being able to make more money.
You may also find categories dedicated to joint ventures, free e-books, reciprocal links, special offers as well as off-topic forums where you can discuss anything.
The more you get involved, the more you will learn and the more you learn and apply, the more you will earn!
A Good Business Idea May Not Be Enough For Home Workers by: Kevin Polley
Business ideas for home workers.
Your thoughts and ideas about what will be a good business for you, will directly affect your decision to start either a home base business or a small business run from an office. The basic rule about business ideas is, the bigger your idea is, the more time, money and effort you will need to invest in order to make it pay.
Every business starts with an idea. Some will be great business ideas that could make a profit and some are doomed to failure even before you pick up your pen to write it down. You just might not know it.
It might be that you decide to start a data entry home based business where you input data for another company or provide secretarial services for business men and women who do not have the time to type up letters. Or even a geniune home based business that you will be proud to tell people about.
What ever business you are starting up there is one problem that we all have to deal with.
Raising the capital to start your new home based business or small business venture will probably be your first significant business challenge. Depending on the business you want to start up and where you want to base your business, you could initially ask for financial help from friends or family.
It is a fact that most new business start ups fail because of under funding. Put simply you can not run a business without money.
When you are chosing your accountant make sure they are members of a recognised governing body or institution who work to a code of practice. If things do go wrong you will have some form of protection. If you are trying to raise funds, get a small business loan or business financing from a lender, your chances of success are better if you present a business plan where the finacial section has been completed by an accountant.
Everything you do from the moment you say 'How do I start a new business working from home?' or 'How do I set up a small business' is going to cost you something. An accountant can tell you everything you can claim back as a legitimate business expense.
If you are starting up or planning to run a new business at home you must talk to someone in the legal profession as well. When you are starting in business, always make sure you are legit.
It may be something you have not considered before. Here are two possibilities.
There may be local government laws or council by-laws that prohibit you from running you business from home.
or ...
You need to have terms and conditions of trade which protect you if things go wrong.
These are just two known reasons for getting legal advice. You have to remember that there are business sharks out there who feed on the ill informed. Don't be one of them.
The home business opportunity lifestyle is something that many other people want. Be realistic and understand that any business you start is going to take time to get off the ground. I hope I have not scared you into 'not' starting a business base from the comfort of your house or flat. It can be very rewarding and there are many advantages to working at home. At the same time you need to know and understand the very basics. The essentials.
Although there are many perceived (and real) advantages of working at home, in some cases that 'freedom' can work against you. As long as you remember that you only get something back after you have put effot or cash in, you will be fine.
As a Bookseller Don't Risk Being Accused of Cheating on Your Taxes by: Michael Mould
Many online booksellers are of the opinion that their selling of books online falls under the heading of a hobby and they are not obligated to report the federal or state income from their bookselling endeavors, and while I am not a tax consultant or a tax lawyer, I believe many of them are grossly mistaken in their interpretation.
If you are selling books regularly through one of the online marketplaces and realizing a real profit from these sales, you are operating a business and you are required to pay an income tax on your profits. If you are selling your own collection of books, you may still be obligated to pay an income tax on the sales if what you are selling them for exceeds what you paid for them or if you depreciated them previously.
I have read several places recently that the IRS has been looking into the online sellers of all kinds of products with a particularly keen interest in sellers having high volumes of sales. It is only a matter of time before they require the online marketplaces to file paperwork that reports all of the proceeds paid to a seller and the burden to show how much of the proceeds is profit will be left on the seller when he/she files their tax return. This is the norm for business, so you shouldn't really be surprised when it becomes a reality for online booksellers.
For this reason, as well as to be in compliance with current tax laws, it is essential that you keep good records of your sales, expenses, business use of your vehicle/home, and all other relevant tax information. It sure is a lot easier to keep track of it throughout the year than to wait until the end of the year to bring it all together. You don't even have to keep them well organized as long as you enter the data as it becomes available, i.e., when you sell your books, record the sales, when you buy books, record the cost of those books, when you pay postage, record what you paid, etc., you can then put everything in one big folder if you are inclined to mix everything up, or sort the sales and expenses according to categories you can later review. Even if you have a medium sized online bookselling business, you will find yourself going through thousands of sales papers, hundreds of postal receipts, dozens of marketplace statements, and perhaps a few hundred receipts for the books that you bought to sell - if you wait until the end of the year. It is much easier to enter them as you go in software designed to make life easier for you. After you have done all these things, you still need to take deductions for the business use of your personal car and if you didn't keep a log, it is too late, this deduction which could amount to hundreds of dollars, can only be taken if you have a written record of the miles your car was used in your business.
The best part of income taxes is the more you have to pay, the more profit you made throughout the year. It is illegal to evade paying your taxes, but you do have the right to avoid paying any more than you are required to pay. Keep good records and avoid paying excess taxes unnecessarily.
Working with your Family in your Real Estate Business by: Cheri Alguire
5 Tips on How to Make it a Successful Combination
We all have families, but not all of us work with them. If your real estate business includes a family member or two, you already know what the good and the bad of it is. Learning how to increase the positives will help in creating not only a stronger platform for your business, but also in stronger ties with your family. This particular balance can be a tough one to manage; however, it is very possible.
As a real estate mom, no one has to tell you how difficult it is to combine your career with your family life. When part of that family life is also an integral key to the success of your business, complications can arise. Issues such as fair compensation, flex-time, favoritism, and familial boundaries can each lend a hand in specific problems you likely won’t face with non-family employees. The goal is to achieve a harmonious working relationship without jeopardizing those all important family ties. To do this, you need to plan ahead and take into consideration any and all possible issues.
Making it Work
Whether you’re worried about being taken advantage of or taking advantage of, some simple tips will have you headed down a much smoother path to the work environment you’re seeking. These 5 tips should get you started:
• Form Definite Boundaries. While this rule sounds simple, it can be difficult to achieve. The best way to handle it is open communication from the very beginning. Explain clearly that while on the job, it is best to keep family chit-chat to an absolute minimum, if at all. Let them know this goes both ways – that you won’t be calling them at home on the weekend to discuss work. Keep the two entities as divided as possible!
• Keep the Clients Separate. Sticky situations can sometimes arise when a family member is a social friend of a client. Business is business, and any possible work issues need to be kept confidential and not turned into fodder for gossip.
• No Hard Feelings. Real estate is a competitive environment. Realize that the monthly sales figures could cause negative emotions in whoever is on the lower end. Be supportive to each other to get through these moments of crises – and be prepared to deal with them when they occur.
• All Employees are Treated Equal. From day one. If your normal course of action is to put a job offer in writing, including compensation and benefits, don’t deviate from this with family. While the process may seem more casual, it isn’t. You need to be as effective and vigilant with family employees as you are with non-related ones.
• Communication is Vital. You already know this, but don’t forget it’s just as important when dealing with your family in your workplace as it is in other areas of your business. They deserve the respect of one-on-one business meetings to voice their concerns and to discuss their job, and your business, in general. Miscommunication is the biggest cause, by far, of poor job relations. Keep this in mind, and you’ll go a long way in keeping everyone happy. Including yourself!
All in all, the way you treat an employee should be consistent. Whether a part of your family or not, creating the correct boundaries from the beginning is imperative. However, that being said, a non-related employee probably hasn’t seen you in your PJ’s, or at family gatherings, or visited you when you had your first baby. Therefore, normal innate boundaries aren’t going to be in place with family unless you strive to put them there.
Once you do, however, you will begin to see the positives when working with a family member far more often than you will see the negatives. It is possible to combine family and career – as long as you know what you want, how you want it, and take the proper steps to communicate those wants effectively.
A Home Business Opportunity That Will Empower You by: Sean Grimes
Empowerism is a multi-level marketing firm and the dba for the firm Life, Education And Prosperity, Inc. of Atlanta Georgia. It is a subscription program for entrepreneurs that includes a monthly magazine (without any outside advertising), 50 business leads a month, a prospecting tool that is built in, and tools that will train you to succeed in Internet marketing. Empowerism tools include your own training center, training lessons that are delivered by e-mail, and a message board. With this MLM you can learn to earn a good income with bonuses. Your membership makes you a distributor.
The Empowerism site is e-commerce enabled for each distributor’s customers so that they can be asked for information as well as order services and products that are credited to the distributor. Information such as name, email address, social security number, credit card numbers, bank accounts and zip codes are secured. These users can opt-out of Empowerism.com emails at any time.
The magazine is called Excellence and its 20 or more pages are full of tips and training on how to succeed in your Internet based business. You can access your private training center and view the magazine in PDF and print it if you wish. Articles include Web site design, search engine marketing and plenty of other marketing and traffic building resources.
With your network marketing membership, you’ll have a rotator on your start page that will assist you in earning credits on the start page programs of your choice. You’ll have a submitter for search engines to add your site to as many as 25 URLs every month with one click. You’ll get automated letters to send to your own members and more than 20 URLs that redirect users back to your own site. Empowerism even gives you 25 professional looking Web templates with eye appeal. These you can download for whatever you wish to do with them.
Your subscription includes a series of courses that will teach you marketing, setting up and running a home based business, setting goals and growing your business. These come by e-mail. The Empowerism Web site that you get includes tools to generate traffic. Some of these are free while the others cost little. You can personalize an e-mail to your downline that goes out as a group message. You’ll have a management center for keeping track of prospect, a great selection of e-books written by company trainers and live training and support.
Empowerism’s Web site talks about access for consumers to its products and services but we weren’t able to find any product or service except sales of subscriptions to Empowerism. In other words, the distributor makes her or his money according to how many distributors s/he adds to her downline.
Empowereism can be a very crucial element to your home based business. The 50 business leads that are handed out every month will allow for a member to build up his or her contact list which is a key element to any mlm program. These leads are are good for contacting by phone or for importing into your favorite auto responder.
The Key to Creating Authority Sites by: Liane Bate
I have been having fun lately making a few changes here and there to my website. Change is good in the online world because it makes your site a dynamic one rather than giving your visitors the same, unchanging information that won't make them come back for more. It is more than just change that brings your visitors back to your site though – you also want to provide quality, useful content that gives the visitor something they can sink their teeth into – something of real value. That is what an authority site is – one that provides valuable, changing content in an easy-to-use, interactive way that will keep your visitors interested and anxious for the next updates.
There are websites out there that are just slapped up quickly to earn an extra buck – for example, Adsense sites that are nothing more than a one-page ad. The problem is that they provide no dynamic content and are not sites that other sites would want to link to. If you have sites wanting to link to yours, then you probably have some quality content that makes people and other authority sites want to link to your site, which in turn gives your site more authority.
One of the main features of an authority site is that while it will be focused on a specific niche, or market, it will also have a general domain, and many sub-domains on a variety of topics. For example, a site on how to make money online could have a general domain like "Making Money Online", and sub-domains within that such as "Advertising", "Marketing", "Website Promotion", "Website Design", "Prospecting", and so on. The reason this is a good way to setup your site is because it drives traffic to you general domain, as well as driving traffic to each sub-domain.
Next, you want to make sure your site is easy to use and makes the user experience and access as simplified and interactive as possible. One way to do this is by creating articles, posting them on your site, and creating a section for comments whereby visitors can interact with you, ask questions, and get more information if they want it. You can provide online assistance, a forum, update your blog at least weekly, and make your site easy to navigate between pages so visitors can quickly get from one point to another and back again. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is important in creating an authority site, but ease-of-use and interaction for visitors, and creating something that is pleasing for them that will make them return to your site should be of greater importance.
Last but not least, advertisements should not be the main focus of your website – your content should be. Of course we want some advertising on our sites, and many people use Adsense and make decent money from it. But the placement and even the design of your ads can make a huge difference in how many clicks those ads get. If your ads blend in with your site, in both color of text, and placement within the content, you can expect more clicks than if the ads stand out on their own, are in a different color then the rest of the text, and are placed off to the side where no one is interested in clicking because they know it's just an ad.
If you remember that an authority site is mainly about creating a positive user experience and good content within a specific niche by having sub-domains, writing good articles, blogs, making the site easy to navigate, and blending the ads in with the content, then you are on your way to owning an authority site that other authority sites will want to link to.
Many years ago, I worked for a small insurance company. Just like many other businesses, we shut down operations for the Christmas holiday. As it happens, this one eventful year Christmas fell on a Monday. The company also gave their employees the preceding Friday off, thereby granting a fourday holiday.
The weather that Christmas season was bitterly cold, as it often is in that part of Virginia. The maintenance staff turned off the heat in our 7-story building to save on costs. Unfortunately, they neglected to turn off the water. I received a call Sunday afternoon informing me there was a serious problem. Apparently, a major water pipe had ruptured on the 7th floor.
When I arrived at the building there were literally large sheets of ice emanating from all the windows onto the sides of the building. Upon entering, I could see just how disastrous this pipe rupture, unattended for two days, was going to be. The ceiling tiles on every floor had given way and fallen into the work areas. All the desks, file cabinets, computer equipment and so on were covered in debris, ice and water.
We had no choice but to turn the heat back on in order to melt the ice. As the ice melted it just further compounded the water problem. Most floors in the building had between 8-16 inches of standing water. The water damage to file folders and documents, electronic equipment, furniture and everything else in the building was devastating.
It took many months to fully recover from what we later referred to simply as “the incident”. Many important insurance documents were permanently lost. Much of the computer equipment and other electronics were unrecoverable.
Amazingly, the company had made no plans for such a disaster. There was no way to quickly move data processing requirements to an offsite location. There was no offsite storage for the microfilm records used to back up the paper documents. Most of the microfilm, stored in metal canisters, survived. The majority of microfilm readers didn’t since electronics and water just don’t mix.
The company survived, but just by a thread. We could not process premium payments for many weeks, and people who were expecting insurance payments did not receive them in a timely manner. There were a number of lawsuits. It was, to put it bluntly, a total mess.
Business Continuity is one of those topics that just doesn’t receive the level of discussion it requires. Too many people completely ignore it altogether. That can be a fatal mistake as it relates to your business.
Business Continuity is all about planning for the unforeseen events that can occur. Many people also call it disaster planning. No one likes to think about such eventualities, but as the saying goes, “stuff happens”.
Developing a business continuity plan involves making a thorough review of your overall business structure and identifying potential weak links in that structure. Some of these weak links are internal to your business, while some are external. A good business continuity plan will examine all of the “what if” scenarios that could adversely affect your business, and then identify possible contingencies.
Every aspect of your business needs to be considered: ownership, product or raw material sources, sales mechanisms (web site, storefront, et cetera), distribution chains, customer support, accounting and financial reporting, and so on.
These “what if” possibilities will be different for every business. It would be impossible for me to account for every possible manifestation in this article. Instead, I will discuss some of the more commonly overlooked things that can happen. It will be up to you to extrapolate from that discussion in order to identify potential fatal links within your own business structure, and develop appropriate contingency plans. I can only ask the questions.
INTERNAL CONSIDERATIONS
Is your business dependent on a single key person? Such a person could be the owner, product developer, web site manager and so on. In such a case, that person represents a single point of failure. What happens to your business if something happens to that person? For instance, if your product derives from the efforts of one person, do you have a way to mitigate the effect of that person no longer being available?
Do you keep all your accounting and financial records in a one place? Do you have backup records in an offsite location? What would happen to your business if there were a fire, flood, earthquake, or other circumstance that destroyed those records? Do you have a plan in place to recover from such an event? It amazes me the number of people who don’t back up their computer or paper records. If the hard drive on your computer failed, could you continue your operations?
Do you keep your inventory of products in a single place? What would happen if you experienced a fire or flood? Would you have a way to quickly replenish your stock? Would you be able to continue to fulfill orders in a timely fashion? If the answer is no, you have yet another single point of failure.
In the Mobile, Alabama area where my wife and I live, we are at the mercy of hurricanes each year. In the case of Hurricane Ivan and Hurricane Katrina, we lost our power and phone service for nearly a week. If something like that happened to you, do your customers have a secondary way to contact you, or you to contact them? Do you provide your customers with a cell phone number where they can reach you? Is there some local facility (e.g., library, Internet café) where you could go to check your email?
EXTERNAL CONSIDERATIONS
If you purchase your product or raw materials from a wholesaler, is that company your only source? What happens to your business if that company has a fire, flood, or folds its tent? Do you have a secondary source you can quickly switch to? With the company I ran many years ago, I primarily used three distributors as the source for most of my products. But I also had arrangements with several others I could utilize if necessary. These companies had my TaxID, reseller, and other information already on file. If I had to make a switch, that switch would have been seamless from the perspective of my customers.
Are you dependent on a single carrier for your product delivery? What happens to your ability to deliver your product if members of that carrier go on strike? It happens. Just as with your suppliers, do you have a contingency plan for moving to a backup carrier if needed?
What about the company that hosts your web site? This is a very crucial consideration if your primary sales vehicle is via online means. What happens to your business if that hosting company has a fire or flood? Do they have a contingency plan in place to move operations to an offsite location? If they don’t, do you have a way to quickly move to another hosting service? Do you have backups of your own web site (including your shopping cart/order database) that you could move?
DUE DILEGENCE
As I said, this list is not meant to be all-inclusive. Much depends on your particular business operations. But you do need to consider the possibilities, and their potential adverse impact. Consider all the possibilities.
My recommendation would be to develop a document to define your plans and courses of action for business continuity. It doesn’t have to be complicated; three columns is all you need:
1) Potential disaster scenario,
2) Potential impact on your business (you can use a 1-5 rating system for this – 1 being low impact, 5 being catastrophic)
3) Contingency Plan
Obviously, the higher the impact rating, the more important it is to define a contingency plan. But don’t just ignore it. Your business can survive many disaster situations, but only if you plan ahead.
Starting Out on the Web to Make Money by: Mark South
This article is for people who are just starting to get online and make money. In this article, I will detail what needs to be done in the first few days starting out in the internet marketing realm. Please be aware that in most cases you will not start making money immediately online. There are some ways to earn money online in the first few days, but do not expect to pull in $100 or even $10 in your first few weeks. Regardless of what any website says, people did not fall into $1000 or $5000 in their first few days online. They laid a foundation of links, research, web pages, and marketing efforts before they were able to pull in large amounts of money. Keep in mind the old phrase “Rome wasn’t built in a day” when starting your online business effort. It might be a week, a month, or two months before you start making consistent money. The important aspects are research, patience, and persistence. Take the time to lay a strong foundation and avoid the pitfalls of trying to make money online in a short amount of time. This is KEY starting out. If you fall down too many times, eventually you don’t want to get back up
That being said, there are a couple of easy and inexpensive ways to start making money online.
1 – Paid Surveys/Product Trials 2 – Blogging and AdSense
1 – Paid Surveys/Product Trials/Email Reading
I’ll start off by saying you should be skeptical of any site that charges you money to give you surveys or try out products. When was the last time you had to pay someone to interview you for a job? Same principle. Before you sign up with any of the sites listed below, create an alternate email address in Yahoo or another Email provider. This can be your Survey/Product/Spam email address. This will keep your main email box from getting filled with stuff you don’t want or need.
Now the sites listed below offer to pay you money for completing surveys or testing out products. Sounds pretty easy right? For the most part it is, but be careful with the product trials. If it’s a limited time trial, you may start getting charged if you aren’t careful.
Check out the sites listed below. These are ones I’ve used before and have had no trouble with. They are FREE to sign up for so you’re not in danger of giving up money with no return.
Hits4Pay.com Treasuretrooper.com SendEarnings.com
2 – Blogging and AdSense
Go to www.blogger.com and setup a blog (short for Web Log). You can choose from a variety of templates. Name the blog something that will distinguish what the blog is about. If it’s about gardening, name it “gardening tips” or “how to garden” or “make your garden beautiful”. The title is important as you’ll see later. Once you’ve got your blog setup, you can start posting information about your topic. Once you’ve successfully created a post, go into your blogger settings and go to the template tab. You should have an AdSense link up there. Now you are asking, what is AdSense? AdSense is a program that delivers content relative ads to web pages. For instance, go to http://cheap-carinsurance.blogspot.com. Notice the small ads above and below some of the postings. Those are AdSense ads. How do you make money off those? A company or individual has paid Google to run these ads. Whenever someone clicks on these ads, the person who has the ads showing makes money. Granted it may only be $.20 or $.30 (or less sometimes), but it’s basically free money for the webpage owner. Now before you think you are going to make yourself rich by clicking on your own ads, DO NOT DO IT!!! Google is smarter than you think. I know of more than one person who has been banned from the AdSense program due to “click fraud”. Besides, if someone told you that you could make $.20-$.30 based on someone clicking on an ad based on something you wrote and they could do this 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week/ 365 days a year and you would pay nothing (NOTHING) for this to happen, why would you risk losing it? Don’t click on your own ads…..period!
Now some of you may be seeing a nice business idea here. If you aren’t, here it is. You can setup multiple FREE blogs on different subjects and have the AdSense code on all of them. This means instead of one page getting a few clicks a day, you could have 5 pages getting a few clicks a day. I would recommend updating your blog content every 2 or 3 days. This is crucial if you want your blog to get picked up by search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. If you blog on gardening is specific to organic gardening, then you want to make sure you mention organic gardening a few times each entry and put it in bold. This will help the search engines pick it up faster. You can also use http://ping-o-matic.com to let blog engines know that your blog has been updated. More Traffic to your page = more potential ad clicks = more money in your pocket. See how easy this is? You are not going to make a fortune this way, but it would not be unreasonable with 5-10 quality blogs to make an extra $5-10 a day depending on the amount of traffic you are getting.
The Incredible Power of FREE in Internet and Affiliate Marketing! by: Kanaga Siva
Free Membership, Free Submission, Free eBooks, Free Websites, Free Downloads, Free Classifieds, Free to Join, yes anything Free has an incredible pulling power in both Internet and Affiliate Marketing.
It is simply amazing how this four letter word FREE can capture the imagination of not only the newbies but also the most seasoned and experienced Internet Marketers and Affiliate Marketers.
The Success of your Internet Marketing or Affiliate Marketing Business depends to a great extent on several inputs such as Determination, Dedication and Motivation among others. In spite of possessing these qualities, financial limitations can be a dampening factor in your endeavor to succeed. So an offer of free tools, free eBooks, free classifieds etc. can be just the thing you have been longing for to boost your confidence and help you succeed in your business.
Even if you are not short of funds to operate your Internet or Affiliate Marketing businesses the offer of free items that could be helpful to develop your Internet business is something no sensible entrepreneur wants to ignore. Why pay for something when you can get it for free!
It is important to note that in spite of the prominent display of the word Free, some items are not always Free and some are quite useless; nevertheless the urge and desire to try them out persists.
Capitalizing on this are many scammers who want to make a quick buck. This is where the newbie has to be watchful and not fall prey to scammers.
Many genuine smart Marketers do take advantage of this inherent weakness of both man and woman and offer free items to promote their businesses.
There are of course several great free webmaster tools that are extremely popular with Internet marketers, Affiliate marketers, Internet home based business entrepreneurs and other online entrepreneurs.
Similarly Free eBooks and Articles written sincerely with the sole purpose of educating the audience are also very popular and sought after by webmasters.
There are websites dealing exclusively with Free items that are very popular in the Internet.
Another Free item extremely popular with low budget business entrepreneurs are Free classifieds.
There are also several very much sought after Free to join affiliate programs that are long standing, safe and secure and global in nature, who provide you with free tools, free web sites and a great support systems.
Thus the Internet abounds with all kinds of free items. Some have hidden charges, Some lead you to scams, Some have both free and paid versions, Some are totally free with no strings attached.
Regular visits to the Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and Altavista and studying these various free items will help you to weed out the Good from the Bad and the Ugly.
Great people do exist out there in the Internet World who are prepared to share their knowledge and expertise with the rest of the Internet fraternity for Free. Webmasters and Online Entrepreneurs should indeed be grateful to these Individuals and Organizations who are constantly making the Internet experience much easier, cheaper, pleasant and enjoyable for millions of Internet users.
The Incredible Power of the word FREE will without doubt continue to captivate the hearts and minds of the Internet Marketing and Affiliate Marketing world till a a more powerful substitute is discovered.
Opt-in Email Marketing & JV Giveaway Sites by: John C Vincent
It seems like every other day I get one offer or another from some guy promoting another JV (Joint Venture) Give Away Program.
The way the program is structured:
I join and I get access to the JV GiveAway's download page and on this page you can download eBooks and Software for FREE!
Great idea if you're a Mooch, cheapskate or any other type of Freebie seeker.
By the way...I'm all three :-)
But how does this relate to Building your opt-in list, in other words, adding to the number of your subscribers?
If you've read my past articles then you're aware of my passion for
Opt-in Email Marketing. Why am I so passionate? Because, "The Money Is In The List." You may be tired of hearing that phrase but it's true.
Getting back to JV GiveAways and their promotions,2% or 3% of marketers who download these Software and eBooks actually use or read these items. But that's the other side of the proverbial coin and a subject for my next article. Let's flip that coin and see the other side...how can you benefit by joining a JV GiveAway Website?
Become A Contributor!
Now why would you want to become a Contributor?
Answer:
For the Opt-ins, to build your list, because The Money is In...well you know the rest.
For those in the Internet Marketing niche, JV Giveaway events can be a secret weapon for getting new targeted subscribers.
Remember:
The majority of folks who frequent these sites are internet marketers...Your Target Market!
The upside is that you benefit from all the promotion done by other giveaway participants. The downside is that many will subscibe just to collect the free gift and then immediately unsubscribe from your list.
But I've found that the number of un-subscribers is a low percentage. And since this type of promotion is costing me Nada and I'm increasing the size of my Opt-in list...the lost of a few freebie seekers is a non-issue.
So let's say you've created a valuable product you'd like to promote, create a "Demo" version and contribute it to the JV GiveAway Promotion.
Or let's just say you have resale rights to an item and you wish to use that as a lure to get Opt-ins.
Here's the Good Part:
When someone sees your display/listed gift, they have a choice...to either move on to the next gift or and here's the good part...click on your link, which takes them to your web-site or splash page, fill out the form (their name and email address) to receive your gift.
Voila!!! You now have an Opt-in and this is just the beginning, more folks who have become aware of the JV GiveAway Promotion will click on your gift and opt-in to your Subscriber List ... that is...if your gift is a desirable one and your short ad copy stimulates action.
To participate in these events you need to have some things ready ahead of time.
1. The gift - should be targeted to your Opt-in List topic 2. A 120 x 120 pixel graphic of your gift 3. An optin page for the giveaway 4. A thank you page for the giveaway 5. The download file ready on your web site or the url for the gift within your Welcome email message to your new subscriber.
I've been a participant/contributor for a few short months, you might have seen my name on my Gifts to you. So my advice...stop the Freebie Hunt and become an Opt-in MadMan or Woman and Move/Desperately Dive on over to the other side of the table.
Become A Contributor and you'll discover that your Opt-in Email Marketing Efforts will Sky-Rocket...
What is the difference between sponsored listing and natural search results? Google and Yahoo both accept advertisers to pay per click and bid on the keywords that the advertisers want to get to the top of the sponsored listing. We circled the sponsored listings using a red pen. Google and Yahoo will charge the advertiser from $3 to $10 or more for each time someone click on the site (depends on how rich your competitors are). The other results you see on the left side is the natural listing search results. Natural search results are free and is very hard to get a #1 position in Yahoo, or Google. You will need a search engine specialist to help you to achieve this very high ranking. We can help you to get a high ranking in Google and Yahoo, plus many more search engines. If you prefer the sponsored listing for your business, we proudly present to you our Pay Per Click management service
Search Engine Specialist What does it mean if I get #1 listing in Google and Yahoo?
"Getting #1 in Google, Yahoo will allow your business top pripority of all incoming leads. The more traffic you get, the more money coming into your pocket." Tom / Search Engine Specialist
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