A Billionaire Secret

Do You Have Time For A Work At Home Business?

2008-08-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

In order to have a successful business, you must have time for it. I guess that is a rather obvious statement. Most people, when starting an internet business from their home, will still be working a 40 hour a week job elsewhere. That complicates matters.

When I first signed up for a work at home opportunity, I didn't think much about it. That is because basically the first two months I didn't do much with my online business. Then I really go involved and the time crunch hit.

Recently I have had thoughts like, "I wish I didn't have to sleep, so I could work more." or "I wish there were about 30 hours in the day."

If you are working for someone else plus starting your own business I bet you have had those thoughts also.I figure that I probably spend close to 30 hours a week on my own business. Factor in hours worked at your other job, commuting time, family obligations, etc. and you have a pretty hectic schedule. It seems like you are always working.

I don't mind that. What does bother me is that I have so many ideas of things I want to do to promote or expand my business.What is the solution to this problem of a lack of time? If I had the answer I would probably be rich.

One thing you have to learn to do is prioritize. As long as you feel you need your regular job you have to allow time for it. Perhaps you could cut back a few hours because of the money you are making at your own business.

You would have to consider whether the increased earning from your business would be more valuable than "x" amount per hour.Certainly do not exclude sleep from your daily regime. Some people need close to eight hours a night.

Others can get along fine on 5 hours or less. Your health is more important than your business. Do not neglect it. Get the sleep you need. Find another way to have extra time.Don't take on more than you can handle.

This is a tough one. You have so many ideas. I started a second website. I enjoyed doing it, but looking back, I think I should have spent the time fine tuning my first site. Now I have to think about advertising two sites, checking on both to make sure everything works. Everything is double...except that I don't have double the time.

So, take this warning. It is best to have one project fully developed before you begin another. Don't unduly stress yourself.The ideal is to not have a "regular job". I have a friend that I met on one of the forums.

I am so envious. She has lots of time to spend on the forums (an invaluable source of knowledge and information). She lost her job a year ago due to downsizing. So now she spends all hertime on her work at home business.

There is a lot of wishing going on...wish I could work fulltime at this, wish I didn't have to go out in the freezing weather to go to work, wish I didn't have to face this commute twice a day.Some people will take a chance on themselves.

They "know" they will succeed and they are willing to drop the sure source of income and devote all their time to the business. I am convinced that I will succeed, BUT I am a very conservative person financially.

That means, to me, that until there is sufficient profit I will have to continue working another job.You have to decide what is best for you. No one can tell you. It is a totally personal decision.

To succeed in a work at home business you must be highly motivated and highly disciplined. I know that I will succeed. I know that one day you will be looking through articles and find one written by me entitled, "How Great It Is To Work At Home Fulltime".

And you can imagine how big my smile is while I am typing it.

I'm Back

2008-08-07T17:54:00.000-07:00

Hello again,

Yes, it is me, i'm back again after a few months on holidays. New articles. post and products are comming soon so do not forget to visit the blog every day for more info for your bussines and please do not forget either to send me your comments and tell me which issues do you want me to write about on the blog.

See you soon

Siam

Advertising doesn't just sell, it is a tool!

2008-04-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

Advertising: Advertising doesn't sell to your audience, it is a tool similar to the male ostrich tail; its job is to get you noticed for the specific things you do well. Advertising promotes the distinguishing features, benefits and advantages of your offer to a wide market.

The goal of advertising is to bring in valuable leads for the selling process to take place.I've sold Yellow Page advertising to business owners who initially felt that Yellow Page ads brought a lot of callers who were just shopping around.

They didn't want to waste time with "looky loo's".If someone takes the time to make a phone call or send you an email regarding your product or service, why treat them with disdain? These folks are looking for the right answers to their problems. Even more important, they each know about 250 other people personally.

Each opportunity to make a connection or a sale should be treated as equally important.Selling: Once advertising has attracted the potential buyer, the selling process takes over. This is done either by personal sales or the use of point of purchase materials (ie., a store display, video demonstration etc.).

Selling should come into play after a prospect has been determined to be right for the product or service.The mystery and confusion begins when a business owner must decide what tools to use in the process of client acquisition.

To whom should you advertise? Where should you advertise and why? How do you advertise? What kind of return should I expect to make on my advertising program? When do I use the other tools of marketing to bolster my advertising program? What should my ratio be between advertising and selling?

To whom should you advertise? Let's be very clear about this one. You should never put a single dollar into advertising until you know who you will eventually sell your product or service to. You should not even be in business if you have no clue who you want to do business with.Marketing is used to identify your ideal market. Sure, you may not get 100% of your ideal market, but if you know who will most likely benefit from what you have to sell or service, you can get more of them.

For example, if you're a chiropractor in a big city, your ideal market might be the couple in their late 40's to early 60's that're health conscious and active. They are looking to stay fit and are open to CAM's (Complimentary and alternative medicines.).

They may have an unfavorable view of the current healthcare system and wish to take a proactive approach to health maintenance. So let's say after determining your ideal market, you identify 15,000 of them in your market region. So now you have 15,000 likely prospects to reach on a regular basis.Where should you advertise and why? If you wanted to find a 34 year old Buddhist from Cambodia where would you look for one?

The question may seem a bit silly but you know that you wouldn't start by going to all the mosques in the area.Sometimes you do have to eliminate all the unlikely places to search until you get to the most likely ones.

You must, of course choose the targets of your ad programs based on how many of your intended prospects will likely see your message.

If the local health club in your area has a demographic membership of over 3,000 45 to 65 year olds, you might want to advertise in their monthly newsletter. If they don't have a newsletter, you may want to sponsor one for them.Remember the "The best place to go fishing is where the fish are biting". Take the time to know about your target audience and their buying habits.How do you advertise?

Imagine that your very expensive Mercedes breaks down and the mechanic says that it's your fuel pump. He needs to change it so he's going to take a blow torch and cut through your hood, crack open your engine block and then replace the fuel pump. Once he's done, he'll weld all the parts back together and get your vehicle back to you.Would you give this guy the OK to go to work on your vehicle? Of course you wouldn't.

Once you determine what you need to do, you have to be careful about how you execute the solution.Coming back to our chiropractor, if he finds that the best way to reach the 15,000 couples ages 45 to 65 in his area is through the Yellow Pages; then he needs to decide if it's cost effective, timely and competitive.The goal now is to figure out the best way to reach all or most of those 15,000 ideal prospects.

Will he get comparable results from the repeated exposure in the health club newsletter where he'll have a captive audience and no competition?There's no reason not to use both the Yellow Pages and the health club newsletter if they pull their weight economically. The goal of advertising is to gain valuable leads for the selling process to take place.What kind of return should I expect to make on my advertising program?

My answer to my clients to this question is usually a shocker; the answer is a big fat zero (0). How can a business owner spend so much money on advertising and expect no money in return?This is the basis of the confusion between marketing, advertising and selling. Advertising's value in the marketing mix is in lead generation.

When properly used as such, the measurement of its effectiveness is in how many leads are generated.This is why it's so important to distinguish between the various tools of marketing. If our chiropractor had 20 leads coming in each day from his ad campaign and the front desk had a lousy conversion ratio, I bet that he'd blame his ad for not pulling in more clients.Gauge your response rate when quantifying advertising results. Measure the number of leads coming in and adjust the ad copy to test for better results.

When do I use the other tools of marketing to bolster my advertising program? Advertising should never be used alone. Please remember that the average adult has to deal with over 2700 messages a day from all types of media.Marketing should be seen as a combined effort to reach the minds and hearts of your target market. You should be using at least five of the seven tools of marketing every week.

Depending on the age of your business and your business plan, you should be budgeting 10 to 15% of your estimated annual revenues for marketing. If you just opened your doors in the last five years, crank that up to 20%. There's a reason that Pepsi and Coke spend over 400 million a year each to satisfy their shareholders bottom-line.What should my ratio be between advertising and selling? Think of the relationship between advertising and sales as a complimentary one.

If your advertising is generating a large number of leads, tailor your sales strategy to convert at least 30% of your leads while capturing all your leads for systematic follow-ups.Keep in mind that at any given time, 3% of your market is ready to commit to your product or service. The goal is first to convert the 3% of your leads.

Then to work on selling to the ones who are on the fence. Whether through personal sales, direct marketing, or point of purchase sales, your ratio will be determined by several factors, the offer, the product or service and the immediate need of the prospects and of course, price.Don't get too anal about the ratios.

The most important thing to remember is that marketing is an inexact science. You will have to keep testing and trying for better results as the market changes.Determine the value of a new client and the life time value of your clients.

Once you do that, be sure that your marketing efforts are bringing in enough new business to cover the cost of getting new clients and that your sales efforts cover the cost of keeping you in business.Tweak the numbers and track consistently.

If your estimated marketing budget is $37,500 for the year, and your estimated revenue is $250,000 then you have a standard starting point.

At the end of the year your numbers should add up.

If you haven't made the $250,000 don't simply blame your advertising, look at your leads list and determine if you've converted the required number into sales.

ACT NOW !

2008-04-12T06:42:00.000-07:00

In this day and age so many things are rushed. Sometimes we want to shout, “Slow down”. But sometimes in our own lives we are guilty of the opposite extreme. Our fears stop us from acting when we should. I am a prime example. I got fired a year ago. There I was, on my own and I needed an income. The ideal, I thought, would be to work from home, but I did not have the self confidence to do that. I look back now and realize how much further ahead I would be if I had conquered my fears and started a business.

What fears do you face when you think about starting a business? The major one is….MONEY.

You are afraid you will lose the money you invest in a new business. You have to be careful. A lot of online businesses are just waiting to take your money. My first venture into an online business was with a company that took my money and then did not deliver what they promised. If that happens to you, here is a tip. Don’t let up. Keep calling and emailing, requesting your money back. Don’t back down if they did not give you what they promised. I did get my money back. That gave my confidence a boost. The second one was an MLM company, this time i end up loosing my time and my efforts.

There are two websites that you should visit before investing. One is http://www.scam.com
The other is http://www.rip-offreport.com

If a business has a report on either website, I would exercise caution. Fortunately my third venture into the online business was a much wiser choice. I kept getting email about one particular site. It sounded good. I could tell that if I became an owner, there was a lot of material, training, and all kind of support available for me to learn from. This was important to me. I wanted a good foundation. Sometimes my head spins because I am now putting so much information into it. And there is so much more to learn.

There are so many benefits of having an online business. Conquer your fears. Give yourself a chance to grow. You are the only one who can put yourself on the road to success. Have determination and you can do it. Start Today!

Siam
http://www.abillionairesecret.com

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2008-04-11T14:44:00.000-07:00

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Overcoming Fear of Startup

2008-04-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

Think about this famous quote by Franklin Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I never really understood this quote until I started working with people who wanted to start their own practices, and until I started my own businesses. I have thought a lot about fear and the way it can paralyze us and I have seen this paralysis first-hand.

For example, I spent a lot of time, and many phone calls and emails, helping a grad with the startup process. He would go only so far, only to stop. He would find a practice to buy, and then he would back out of the deal because it wasn't quite right. Or he would find a location, but never actually sign a lease, convinced that this location wasn't perfect. He couldn't find a loan, but he only tried a couple of banks then gave up. After months he finally decided to stay as an associate, where he was unhappy; for all I know, he's still there.

Why does fear paralyze us?

1. Old voices. We all have voices in our heads, from times when someone (parent, friend, spouse) told us, "You can't do this," or "This is stupid. You'll fail," or "Don't risk failure." "If you fail, it will be terrible." As long as we listen to those voices, we don't move ahead.

2. Perfectionism. It's great to want to do things well, but we often are way too picky about how things must be. For example, the guy who wanted the perfect location. A friend of mine gave me some advice about writing: "My rotten published book is better than your perfect unpublished one." So I'm sending it off to be printed.

3. "Don't just do it." We figure we have to start at the beginning and work toward the end, in some kind of specific sequence. Then when we get stumped at a certain point, we figure there's no way around. Not necessarily. Sure you will have to get a loan before you can start buying equipment, but there are lots of things you can do to get started with little money, and there are lots of paths, not just one.

Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek (Crown, 2007), has some suggestions for overcoming the paralysis of fear:

1. First, define your nightmare. What is the worst thing that could happen if you fail in your new practice? Spend some time thinking about this. Create a worst case scenario. Then consider two factors: Probability and Severity. These are insurance terms, but they apply. First, what's the probability (on a scale of 0% - never happen, to 100% - guaranteed to happen) of failure? Then look at the severity – the cost – of failure. While I'm not a fan of dwelling on the negative, I do believe you need to look under the bed to convince yourself there really are no monsters under there (like Grover.)

2. Then look at the steps you could take to repair the damage. How could you get your life back on track if you fail in practice? Spend some time thinking about alternatives, like starting again elsewhere, or working for someone else. Think about what's really important, and "don't sweat the small stuff."

3. Consider the outcomes and benefits of more probable scenarios. Think about what your life would look like in a "best case" scenario. Then set yourself to thinking that this is the more probable outcome of starting your own business.

4. Prepare to succeed. Start taking baby steps to overcome your fears by working on the positive steps to success. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. Do one small task every day that will move you toward your start date. It might be as simple as calling the Yellow Pages and ordering an ad in the next book. Work on your business plan. Focus your energy on positive action. By the time you are done writing the business plan, I think you'll find you will see that startup success is not only possible, but you'll feel more confident about starting your practice.

PPC

2008-04-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

Although search engine optimization is the most effective means of promoting a website, the problem with search engine optimization is that it can take up to a year before a website starts ranking well for competitive keywords.

The situation is further compounded by the fact that search engines continuously recalculate their rankings, and a search engine optimizer has to stay on top of his game to achieve top rankings on a regular basis.

The odds are stacked against new websites as Google takes nearly 3 months before it starts calculating a website’s ranking /PageRank and any changes to a website take almost a month before materialising into search rankings.

Not all webmasters can afford the luxury of paying thousands of dollars to search engine optimizers or wait for a year before their website start ranking well. When Google launched a unique concept called Google Adwords, a webmaster could pay Google a certain amount to display ads for his website.

Today, Google has a unique PPC (pay per click) advertising model in place. As the name suggests, a webmaster only pays for an ad when a user clicks on the ad and visits his website. Pay per click advertising is one of the most cost effective methods of advertising and it is not surprising that every successful search engine has its own version of pay per click advertising.

Advantages of pay per click advertisingCost effective Compared to search engine optimization, pay per click advertising can be more cost effective. There is no denying that in the longer run search engine optimization is the best option, but pay per click advertising is ideal for websites that are starting up or under search engine optimization. Once a website starts ranking well for ‘organic searches’, the webmaster can choose to end his pay per click campaign.

Target specific keywordsAlthough search engine optimization is also carried out to target specific keywords, pay per click advertising is the only guaranteed way of ranking well for keywords.

A webmaster can choose exactly which keywords he wants his website’s ads to appear for and can choose to advertise his website for more than one keyword.

Equal opportunitiesA website can end up spending nearly $5000 on search engine optimization for competitive keywords, larger organizations have an unfair advantage as they have virtually endless resources to spend on SEO and link building. Pay per click advertising is the only way smaller websites can compete with larger websites.

It is a well known fact that search engine optimization can only do so much for a website, the rest is usually link building and creating search engine friendly content. This is why websites that are looking to rank for keywords without spending thousands of dollars in advertising and link building, prefer using pay per click advertising to publicize their website. In fact, many websites prefer spending their SEO budget on pay per click as it guarantees results and is much faster than traditional search engine optimization techniques.

Get results much fasterA typical website takes around 3 months before it starts showing up for ‘organic searches’. Any changes to a website take an additional month to ‘reflect’. Sometimes, websites do not have 3 months before they start ranking for keywords. For example, a website selling Christmas cards will only do business a few months in a year and a three month delay can make the difference between doing business and not doing any business at all.

Pay per click ads make the task of advertising a site simpler.

Once a webmaster has decided which keywords he wants his website to show up for, the website’s ads are displayed for relevant keywords within 24 hours. In addition, a webmaster can choose to modify his existing pay per click campaign with ease.

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2008-04-06T20:45:00.000-07:00

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Well, you always wanted to get in the biz, you always wanted to have the money to get in the biz, this is your opportunity then, i hope you do not miss it. Now you have a biz (software biz) for 20$ and you can sell it, so make as much as you want, now you do not have an excuse, is not expensive, is not difficult and is not MLM.

How Well Do You Know Your Prospects? Take this 10-Point Quiz to Find Out & Identify

2008-04-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

It’s crucial to know your prospects if you want to market effectively to them. Take this quick quiz to see how well you know and understand your prospects. If you can't answer these questions, how can you be sure you are connecting with your audience in a relevant and meaningful way?

How can you be sure you are reaching them with a compelling message about your product or service?

How can you be sure you are tapping into the conversation they are already having inside their own head with respect to your product or service?

I would argue you can't. And if you can't do these things, your marketing will not be effective.

1. Who are they?

2. Where do they live ... work ... play?

3. What problem do they have that you can solve?

4. How does your product or service fit into their life?

5. What else do they buy in your product or service category?

6. Where do they get information regarding your product/service?

7. What is most important to them?

8. What are they most afraid of?

9. What is their emotional connection to your product/service?

10. How will they rationalize purchasing your product/service?

How’d you do? If you can’t answer these questions, odds are your marketing message isn’t connecting with your prospects. And if your message is not connecting with them, you won’t be very successful in selling them on your product or service.

Take the time to get to know your customers and prospects. Learn all you can about them. Use this quiz as a guide. When you do you’ll be able to speak directly to their needs and concerns with your marketing, they will respond. And your business will thrive.

Identify The Ideal Target Audience With These 5 Tips

Narrowing your focus to one primary group of people is often difficult for small business owners. They want to help everyone — and very often their product or service CAN help a variety of people. It also goes against human nature to narrow your focus in order to grow a business. Common sense seems to tell us if we want to grow our business big, we need to appeal to more people.

In reality the opposite is true. When we narrow our focus to a particular group of people we become an expert in solving their particular problems. We get to know them very well and we can develop additional products and services to fill their needs.

So how do you decide who to market to?

Following are 5 tips:

1) Think about the type of people who can MOST benefit from what you have to offer.

2) Think about who you would most enjoy helping, or working with.

3. Think about the type of people who will be easiest to reach, AND who will be most receptive to what you are selling. These will be people who KNOW they have THE problem you can solve and are LOOKING for a solution.

4) Know that just because you select a particular group of people to focus your marketing on, does NOT mean you can't help others who may come to you. It only means you're going to focus your proactive marketing efforts on the target group you select.

5) Lastly, don't over-think it. Listen to your gut, pick a group you feel you can really help and proceed with the development of your marketing plan. Marketing is a fluid process. The important thing is to start. You can always refine your audience and your plan later as you learn more.

Mistakes In PPC Landing Pages To Be Avoided For Better Conversion

2008-04-03T06:53:00.000-07:00

In the first part of this article we have discussed some of the common mistakes that you have to avoid in PPC landing page for better conversion. The previous part has covered some important points such as, avoid cluttering in the landing page, avoid multiple calls to action, avoid irrelevant text, avoid irrelevant popups and banners and as such. In continuation of that there are some other common mistakes that you should avoid in the landing page.

Mistakes In PPC Landing Pages To Be Avoided

Landing page is the page where visitors are drawn by clicking an Internet advertisement. Many people makes some common mistakes in their landing pages, which has to be avoided for obtaining better conversion rate. The following are some of them:

• Lengthy buying procedure - You shouldn’t make the buying process difficult for the visitors by making them to go through many steps to purchase the item. It makes your visitors irritated and may result in abandoning their purchase.

• Too wide page layout¬– Some visitors may find it difficult to read when the content is broader than their eye span. You have to make it easy for the visitors in reading the content within less time.

• Typos in the content– Avoid spelling mistakes in the content of your landing page. Typos in the content may reduce the credibility of your website. They may associate with low quality and it conveys incompetence to your website.

• Loading landing pages- While creating a landing page for your PPC campaign, always attempt to do it in such a way that it would be loaded quickly even on low speed Internet connection. A slow loading page irritates the prospective customers and could likely lead the client to abandon the website.

• Unclear conversion path– Your visitors may not read or buy if the navigation options of your landing page are too distracting. Actively focus on eliminating distractions, i.e. pages that are not on the conversion path. Keep the conversion path simple and easy to follow.

The above information outlines some of the common mistakes in creating landing pages. Ensure that you have thought through these points in order to reach your conversion goal targets.

Ten things you need to know about Web Hosting

2008-04-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

Web HostingAn internet service provider who has more than one server, on which files are uploaded and can be viewed on the internet, is known as a web host.

Most of the online customers have their own domain name and in order for the domain to be visible online, it has to be configured on Domain Name Servers, which enables rest of the internet to see the domain’s name. It is similar to the telephone directory, the main difference being that it has IP address and a fixed domain name.

Web hosting requires expertise and technical knowledge in several internet procedures and protocols. In case of requirements to run scripts like address books, blog scripts etc, the web hosting server provides support to the users.

Every web hosting account has a control panel. Some of them are good and some bad. Presently, most web hosting companies offer very good control panel services. Control panel has lot of videos which show how to add email addresses, password protection and other things which is needed for the web hosting account.

Web hosting is of several types – free hosting, image hosting, shared hosting, clustered hosting, reseller hosting, virtual private server hosting, dedicated hosting and collocated hosting.

Support for UNIX based web hosts in higher than for Windows based web hosts. UNIX has been around longer than Windows and has been the primary operating system that internet servers have been hosted to. Most internet protocols like IP and TCP were developed on UNIX. Moreover, UNIX servers seem to be more stable than windows servers. In case anyone requires uploading a script written specifically for Windows server; he /she would require a Windows web host to do that.

The main things to look for in a web hosting service is to see that the company is offering a minimum of 500 MB hard drive space, random amount of blah and bandwidth. It is best to ask friends and search online before selecting the best web hosting services. One should look for hosts that have control panel and at least 1000MB of bandwidth and 250MB of space.

When looking for a cheap web hosting service provider, it’s essential to keep in view of certain details:

-Disk quota – See that the plan you choose accommodates your present needs and takes care of your future growth. There will be relatively minimum amount of difference in the cost for a 30GB and 60GB disk space, so it’s better to go in for 60GB hard disk.

-Bandwidth – Make sure you have the required amount of bandwidth, as cheap web hosting providers at times do not provide bandwidth as required. Basic plans offer 100GB of bandwidth and premium plans offer unlimited bandwidth. Always check out the company’s user acceptable policy.

-Email accounts- Depending on the size of your company, you may require 25, 40 or more email accounts. The cheap web hosting provider should be able to accommodate your current and future needs of email accounts. Also look for providers that offer a range of email tools, like auto responders, mailing lists, ability to manage email accounts, spam filtering and custom mail filtering.

-MySQL Database- Ensure that the cheap web hosting provider has the open source MySQL Database.

-It’s helpful if the cheap web hosting provider provides you with a dedicated IP. For ecommerce website hosting, a dedicated IP is essential for SSL URLs.

Spend Less and Earn More

2008-04-01T01:48:00.000-07:00

Is your business still in its earliest stages and you are not surewhere to begin in terms of marketing and advertising? Who could help you? Perhaps you are feeling a bit lost because the idea of marketing your offerings seems so foreign to you.

Sadly, many businesses fail because owners do not spend enough time and energy to devote the marketing side of things. But you will not fail, because there are ways to promote your business and these methods are neither hard nor expensive.

Beginners in local business marketing should compare themselves with competitors to create an effective business and marketing strategy. It is better to use a top business owner as a model rather than to copy a rough outline of a similar business. That does not mean that you have to do every single method the way your competitor does, but take a notice at how he or she brings in new business and ideas. Starting to notice could be hard but it will be a learning experience for you.

For local business owners and professionals, it is also advantageous to create local business profiles. Keeping data profiles showing the growth between competitors and your business, could allow you to notice what mistake you had encounters. There is no need to copy the traditional business plan of others blindly. It is better to switch from old marketing devices such as mom and pop advertising like newspaper ads, radio and television spots, posted ads at local shopping centers and on community bulletin boards, and other obsolete methods to custom marketing techniques such as online local advertising to achieve local merchant success.

A clear understanding of marketing concepts is essential to reach your target audience. You need to target your customers using methods that are appealing to them. Targeting the population with old methods that are no longer effective will not land you new business. Instead, you will be spending money that does not reach your most precious commodity – your customers. It is always advisable to consult experts in the local marketing field. But you might not cover all the strategies, in this case the best results can be achieved by joining marketing affiliate programs. Worried about the cost involved? Don’t be.

You can land some critical advice for less money than you think. And this advice from marketing experts in the field will serve you for years to come. You may also consider using the services of a local business directory, in which you might get a better way of understand methods through face to face. Only professional and legal strategies work in the long run for achieving success.Specialized online experts are available to create and list local business categories. The aim and objective of a marketing strategy should be to get the best bang for the buck. If your business is not yet online, you need to get it there now.

Opportunities are waiting for you and if you are not there, those opportunities will be heading to your competition.

What is Internet Niche Marketing?

2008-04-01T01:46:00.000-07:00

Using Niche Marketing

When you have a product or service that you feel would be perfect to sell, there are many ways of finding out if your idea will sell and be popular or not. This is called internet niche marketing and with a niche strategy in place you can make a large amount of sales with very little advertising costs.

Your profitable niche is a section of the online population that you feel would be interested in buying your product. What you will do through internet marketing is aim at that specific community of people and this will in turn create more effective sales and allow you to concentrate your advertising skills in one or two key areas instead of generally marketing to everyone.

Using niche marketing in a profitable way can be tricky, but there are people who will be able to help you and ensure that niche online marketing is done well and that a niche website is targeted correctly. You must also make sure that no website is forgotten or missed and ones with affiliates are especially important because you are basically hitting two birds with one stone. You need understand the concept of an affiliate niche.

This is a group of people that are affiliated to the niche that your product is attracting and through them you can also make great sales. Something like a music site as a perfect way to sell your CD and you might also find affiliates that are closely related to music like equipment. The people looking at these other sites might come across your CD and also buy it through your great niche marketing strategy. A niche marketing strategy can be implemented in a number of ways. The first and most obvious is advertising.

This can be done through an agency where you will have various banner ads and displays designed and placed on your niche website or websites of choice. You can also write for directories that you have found with the correct niche marketing group and your niche marketing strategy can also include email marketing, newsletters, blog posts and forum posts, which are free so great to make use of.

In fact any kind of advertising strategy you would normally put into practice you can use as a niche marketing strategy, but obviously finding your niche is the most important aspect of making this process profitable for you. A niche ebook is also a brilliant way of finding out more about this process, and what the best way is to start doing it.

Don’t be afraid to try as many options as you can and if you do make a mistake it will be easy to just change your strategy. You can usually pay for ads on a monthly basis so you can see what profitable niche areas are working better than others and adjust your approach accordingly, but also be sure to give some things a chance. You can also find that some strategies will work for now and then others may work later on.

So, always keep your options open and have some back up plans for your super niche marketing strategy and plans.

The advantages of working online as compared to offline

2008-03-25T06:16:00.000-07:00

With millions of people on the Internet now, there is an explosion of online businesses. This means that there will be both successes and failures, but that is characteristic of any type of businesses – Internet or offline. You may have heard stories of people, acquaintances even, who have made a lot of money working on the Internet. Some of them claim to not even have put any money down on their online business and working a few hours a day. True or false, take these stories with a pinch of salt, and be ready to work hard and put in the required amount of investment to make your online business a success.

However, starting an online business does have potential advantages to the owner as opposed to an offline one. The most common advantages are:

• Low start up costs – while the Internet is not necessarily the place for easy, quick riches with no effort, in many cases, the costs of start up can be low compared with brick and mortar businesses. Rent, maintenance, inventory and many other costs may be cut down or completely avoided. Sometimes just a few hundred, smart planning and a great business idea can get you started.

• Extensive marketing opportunities – There are a number of tactics and tools that Internet-based marketing affords – from SEO to affiliates and email marketing. Additionally, these marketing tools are easily accessible and generally much more cost effective than offline business marketing tools.

• Easy tracking of results – Something offline businesses spend a lot to achieve can be automatically and cheaply achieved by an online business. The simplicity of tracking preferences, tracing potential customers and access to contact information makes marketing and customer relationship management that much easier for an online business.

• Global reach – While an offline business may have no reach beyond a small local area, an online business is empowered by the Internet to achieve a global audience, much more economically. With the correct marketing, the online business can tap into a huge Internet audience for its products and services.

• Manage and transmit information – The Internet is a great way to manage incoming information and transmit information to present and potential customers and employees. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) can be posted on your website and these FAQs act as a 24 hour helpline for the small business. It’s a great way for online businesses to display changing information, receive customer feedback through remarks posted online, or display sound or video clips to help sell a product. And this is all done at a much lower cost than an offline business that offers these services would pay.

• Easy reach to local or specialized markets – The Internet offers the online business a cheap and easy way to connect to its local market. By linking to other local sites, an online business can drive local traffic to its site at a cost much lower than that of advertising in your town to create awareness. Access to specialized markets can also be achieved best by working through the Internet.

With the numerous advantages of starting an online business, as opposed to an offline one, it should come as no surprise that plenty of success stories exist in this domain.

Using the Internet

2008-03-25T06:09:00.000-07:00

Dependant on your age, looking back on all those years that you spent sitting in classrooms at high school may bring back some daunting memories. Working by set rules, not being allowed to do what you want, yet at the same time it may be possible that you are feeling a sense of regret; a sense that comes with maturity when you look back and thing I could have utilised that time better and learnt something instead of mucking around. In previous years, the only options to enhance your education would be to go to night classes or take up a part time degree at a university, yet that is now a thing of the past. With aid of the internet comes unlimited potential to learning online, and people have started picking up on this fact providing services to help enhance our education. In fact, by reading this article you are already proving how versatile the internet can be at providing an education, and when you finish reading this, you should hopefully be raring to go to set out and learn something new!

When it comes to the internet and education, it really boils down to what you are looking for. If it is a formal qualification, then there are sites out there that will teach you online and either provide a test via the internet, or arrange an exam in a public exam room. However, if its just pure knowledge you want instead of the credentials, then you have got a mass of information at your finger tips ranging from full depth tutorials to short 101 sessions to help teach you something new. There are topics from learning a new language by use of audio, to teaching you how to fix a car. It really does depend on what you are after.

For instance, if you are a coder and you are looking to learn a brand new language, then the best way to proceed is probably through online tutorials. Most of the tutorial sites online list tutorials written by people like you and me, attempting to pass their skills on. For example, www.w3schools.com provide in depth tutorials to nearly every single web based language out there. Each tutorial is broken down into key parts with examples how the code works, making it easier for you to learn. The worst tutorials are where they show you something and do not explain how it works and you should steer clear of these types.

When it comes down to it, if you are just looking to enhance your education using the internet, the best way to go about it, is searching for information on that topic using a search engine like Google. There will be a guarantied chance that you will find some information on what you are looking for, however it is important to understand that to get the best possible education out the internet, it pays to use more than resource. A lot of the sites out there providing you with the education are written by average people, just like the tutorials I mentioned earlier. There are no standards or specifications they have to abide by, so if chance would have it, you may stumble onto a site filled with incredibly well articulated rubbish. In other words, it looks good but the information is worthless. Cross referencing your information is a key point to good research and learning!

Now reading this, you may still feel a little lost as you might just want an online reference you can go to. Well, to help you along, www.eliteskills.com/free_education is an excellent free reference site. It has tons of links to help you get started on what you want to learn, linking to genuine university sites where they put their lectures online for students and anyone else interested to learn from. A lot of the information on there leads to pod casts where you can download entire lectures via Itunes. Examples would include their language section. If you click on their basic French link it will open up Itunes and provide you with over 100 tracks containing individual lessons from a French Teacher.

For those of you who want to actually earn a degree online, or get some qualifications, there are options for you to. However it is important to note, that for a degree or qualification, you are going to have to spend money on it. Free sites offering free qualifications are probably fakes trying to draw you into their ad venue scheme, and they are just not worth it, so please be aware that it’s going to cost you money. How much depends on what you want and who you go with.

One of the best sites out there to obtain a degree or a course is the Open University. While based in the UK, international students are always welcome, and all their courses can be done online. This would appeal to people who are serious about gaining some extra qualifications alongside the ones you have already got (or have not got if that is the case). They offer nearly every type of practical degree from languages to sciences, and are an excellent choice if you want to have a job alongside it.

If you do not fancy joining the Open University, then have a look around your countries universities and see if they offer any degrees or courses online. It is not guarantied that they will, but you might get lucky and find a few that do some courses.

Basically, using the internet for an online education is an excellent idea if you approach it with an open mind. Never take anything for granted on it, and be wary of cheap deals to get you a qualification. If you see a course you want to do on a site, then search about for other people who’ve done it and see if they would recommend it to you

All Hits Are Not Created Equal

2008-03-22T03:45:00.000-07:00

After all the debate over website design, shopping carts and credit card processors,every website owner eventually comes to the startling realization that they need one more thing to survive - website traffic!

Without website traffic it's the same as building an expensive billboard and, instead of placing it alongside a busy highway, you hide it in your basement where nobody can see it.

Upon realizing they need traffic, most website owners run out and start blowing chunks of money and time trying to get "hits" to their sites, but they fail to realize that all "hits" are not created equal.

In their quest to get eyeballs to their websites, most online operators don't realize there's a big difference between driving "general" traffic to your website and driving "targeted" traffic.

Just getting any traffic is the same technique TV advertisers use. They flash ads on the screen in front of people who can't afford or don't need the advertised product.

Since general advertising can't hit specific targets, they hit everyone and hope that someone in their target audience is actually watching at that moment. Spam, banner ads, "safe-lists" and similar traffic techniques fall into this "general" category.

"Targeted" traffic is made up of people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say or sell online. These people either share the same interests or have an immediate need or problem they are trying to solve.

"Targeted" traffic is best because the people hitting your website have a much higher likelihood of actually making a purchase.

Targeted traffic comes from people following recommended links on other sites, typing in relevant keywords into the search engines, or even reading articles you've written on a particular subject and then clicking over to your site for more information.

If you don't already know where to find the best sources of targeted traffic for your website, you will need to experiment with lots of different sources to find the ones that bring visitors who give you the most "bang for your buck."

The fastest way to determine which avenues provide the most targeted traffic is by using an "ad tracker". An "ad tracker" is a simple program, residing on your web server, that tracks how many visitors your site gets from a particular source and how many of them purchased.

Though it sounds simple, most businesses don't do this! Most businesses can't tell you their visitor to buyer conversion percentage and, therefore, don't know exactly how much they can invest in traffic generation and remain profitable.

Whether you pay for your website traffic with cash (pay-per-click search engines, ezine ads), or you pay for it with the sweat of your brow (article distribution, free search engines), you must identify your best and most profitable sources of targeted traffic that convert into buyers, subscribers, or leads.

Failure to identify and track where your buyers come from and then calculate how much they really cost you ultimately translates into failure for your online business.

Is A Work At Home Business Opportunity The Right Thing For You To Do?

2008-03-22T03:41:00.000-07:00

A lot of people are starting to work at home. They do this by finding the right work at home business opportunity for them. Not all of them will start their business with a work at home business opportunity but majority of them will. However, before you start a home business you will need to evaluate yourself and what you want for your life.

Working at home is not as easy as it sounds. There are all kinds of things that can make it more difficult than a job would be. You may have kids that you are trying to raise and this is hard by itself. However, when you have kids and are trying to do a home business it can be even more difficult. There may also be other things in your life besides kids that can make this even more of a challenge for you. So this is why you need to figure out if this is what you really want to do.

First, you need to figure out if you are a self motivated type of person. This is definitely something that you want to be able to do because of all of the things that can get in your way of working on your business. You will have to be able to work when you can find the time and do it without anyone telling you to.

Second, can you keep your expectations realistic? This is something that you will need to realize is important. You can become very discouraged very fast if you are not able to be realistic about your home business and the income that you can make to start. It is possible to become rich with a home business but you need to remember that it will take hard work and time to make this happen.

Third, can you set goals and stick to them? This is important for any business to help you stay focused.

Fourth, can you treat your business as a business and not a hobby? When you treat your business like a hobby you will be disappointed with the results that you get. A business needs to be worked at like what it is, a business.

Fifth, are you financially responsible? This will be important for you when you only have a certain amount of money to your budget for your business. It will also be important when you start making money because for a while you will want to put that money back into your business to help it become more successful.

These are just a few of the things that you need to ask yourself before you try and start a home business. When you are not sure what you want or can do you will not have much success. So take the time to evaluate what you want.

Legal aspects and implications of e-mail marjketing and related spams laws

2008-03-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

Ecommerce can be best described as a marketplace on the internet, which comprises distributing, marketing, buying, selling, and servicing of products or services through electronic systems such as internet or other computer networks. It can be also viewed as an electronic business application targeted at commercial transactions involving electronic funds transfer, e-marketing, supply chain management, online marketing, online transaction processing, automated inventory management, electronic data interchange, and automated data collection systems.

Ecommerce is indeed the most efficient and convenient mode of transactions nowadays, but this business needs strict compliance with laws and related legalities, particularly dealing with marketing, because you are dealing with others’ money.

If you in the ecommerce business, then strictly avoid fraudulent promotions, otherwise you could be charged for spamming under the new CAN-SPAM Act, which was signed by President George W. Bush on December 16; the Act is a federal initiative designed to regulate the most harmful and annoying practices of spammers. Violation of the Act can result in the following consequences:

• Revenue losses and damage of reputation
• Major e-mail service providers such as AOL, Hotmail, and Yahoo! filtering your messages to block them
• ISP may shut down your e-mail account
• Web host may shut down your web site
• Under the new federal CAN-SPAM Act, you can be fined (up to $2 million) or sentenced to jail (up to five years)

Therefore honestly promote a legitimate business to sell real and valuable products or services.

Operate a legitimate business:-

Do not use falsifying headers to force your way into peoples’ inboxes. Avoid using deceptive subject lines, hijacking other peoples' e-mail accounts or computers to send spam, creating e-mail or IP addresses specifically to send spam, and sending unsolicited e-mail with sexual content and emails to people who have requested to be removed from your list. These are malicious ways of forcing messages into the inboxes of people who don't want them, which are not only annoying but are illegal and unprofitable.

Plan responsible e-mail promotions:-

Always obtain permission from the target users before sending them emails. A user must never get a mail that he is not expecting. Avoid buying or renting email lists as they do not promise validity and at times you end up paying for the addresses that are invalid. If you buy email lists, find out how those addresses were collected. If people in your purchased list have not agreed to receive email related to promotion or advertisements, you might land into the troubled waters.

Be very careful while choosing a subject line; it should be self-explanatory about the content within the email. Mention the real return address and place a functional ‘unsubscribe’ link in all the emails. If you have an exhaustive list of emails you will have to seek professional help to install an ASP or any other suitable program to manage ‘opt-ins’ and ‘unsubscribe’ requests. You must send commercial or promotional emails/ newsletters through you’re your company’s official email address.

Finally, stay educated about e-mail marketing and spam laws. Laws and their definitions are changing; therefore obtain regular updates on the related laws.

The Advantage of Freebies Online

2008-03-17T10:07:00.001-07:00

It is sometimes difficult for companies to introduce new products or services to the public. Often times the best way to go about this is to simply give away many of the products for free. This is where freebies come in. By giving away freebies online, word of mouth about the product can be established and the company can actually start selling the products for a profit.

Many freebie sites online can offer expensive products such as ipods, digital cameras, and even laptops. While technically these items can be free, participation in other companies' offers is sometimes required. The only thing you need here is simply your time.

In return for getting the freebie, some websites will ask you to try additional offers from the advertiser. This is sometimes necessary for more expensive items, like electronics such as iPods. By participating in these programs, you will be able to get points which entitle you to bigger and better freebies.

Some freebie sites might ask for a small fee to compensate for shipping or maybe just a small trial fee. While you might run into these kinds of freebie offers, there are also 100% free offers that you can take advantage of online as well.

Don't jump to conclusions and think this could be some kind of scam. The freebie industry is huge, and many reputable companies are using freebies to promote their new products and services. The nice thing is, as a consumer, you can take advantage of these freebie offers on your own free will.

Freebies online aren't limited to just high dollar electronics, either. You can have your choice from many different freebie products including coupons, health and beauty products, freebie clothing, free food and drinks, free eBooks, and even free vacations and freebie gift cards. There is really no limit to the amount of free things you can get online. Check out freebie directories online which will point you in the right direction, getting you exactly what you want for free.

People have been taking advantage of freebie products online for only a year or two, the industry is relatively new. With the advent of the internet, it makes it easier for companies to promote products for free since marketing can be done a lot cheaper on the internet. This translates to more freebie products for you to take home and try out for yourself.

It's no suprise that people just love to get stuff for free, and big companies are taking advantage of this fact to draw extra business away from their competitors and back to them. This is the main reason why the freebie industry is completely legal. It is a marketing tactic used by businesses and websites online now, so it's definitely not a scam in any way.

You can start getting freebies online now, with the click of a button and just a little bit of your time. It's totally worth your time, everyone loves to get freebies no matter what it is.

Affiliate Marketing - Making Money on Autopilot

2008-03-17T10:06:00.001-07:00

The Internet offers a lot of ways to earn money that didn't exist ten years ago. One of the more popular ways of making a living on the World Wide Web is through affiliate marketing. This method of advertising rewards those who promote a product for a seller or manufacturer by giving them a portion of the sales price when an item sells. As an affiliate, you don't actually make the sales; you simply advertise a product and direct the customer to the site where they can make the purchase. When they buy, you collect.

The system does have its rewards; one of them is that you can promote products around the clock with a Website without having to deal with customers directly. Customers can visit your Website, see your promotion for a product, and click on a link to buy it without any direct involvement on your part. In that sense, affiliate marketing can be "automatic", but prospective marketers should not confuse "automatic" with "no effort."

Many authors of books devoted to the topic of making money sell their books via affiliate marketing. Many of these authors, in order to increase sales, suggest that as an affiliate, you can make money on "autopilot", and that doing so requires little or no effort. They often embellish this even further by suggesting that it is only necessary to work one or two hours a week to make a fortune online. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth about earning money through affiliate marketing is that it is, like anything else you might do, hard work. It is true that you can create a Website with information and links that customers may use to make decisions and purchases. Once you create such a Website, how will customers find it? You have to promote that Website, and doing so is hard work. The online marketplace is a competitive one, and establishing a viable Website while competing against thousands of others can quickly become a full time job. This is particularly true if you create more than one Website to promote more than one product.

Even if you get a lot of visitors to your Website you will find yourself continually making adjustments to the site's content in order to increase the number of visitors who make a purchase. A simple "this product is good - buy it!" will not persuade many visitors to make a purchase. You'll have to do a lot of time consuming experimentation in order to find something that works for you.

Is there money to be made in affiliate marketing? Of course. Anyone thinking that it's "easy money" or that you can create a business in minutes that will start making money today should probably reconsider. As with any business, making money online is hard work.

eBay - Part Time Or Full? How To Decide

2008-03-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

Going full-time as an eBay seller is living the dream: making a real income, working from home, being your own boss and all the rest of it. It's the promise of a million scams, and it's finally come true - at least for some.

What they don't tell you in the success stories, though, is that becoming a full-time eBay seller is by no means for everyone. You really, really ought to try it part-time before you even consider taking it up full-time, and even then, caution is advisable. Before you burn your suit, here's a list of questions you should ask yourself.

How Much Do I Earn From eBay Now?

Work out how many hours a week you spend doing eBay-related things (be honest here), and divide it by the average amount of profit you make in a week. If you were doing full-time hours, would you earn as much as you earn now?

Do I Have a Good Job?

Think about what you might lose if you give up your job to focus on eBay. If you're in a well-paid job with good promotion prospects then it's well worth reconsidering: you might get a few years down the line and wish you'd stayed in your traditional job, as you'd probably be the CEO by now.

Would I Really Make Much More Money?

Unless you're selling a large quantity of small goods, most of what you do on eBay will be waiting for auctions to end - and you can wait at work just as easily as you can at home. This is why whether you would make more money on eBay really depends on what kinds of items you're selling - for low value items, going full-time could be a good move. For high-value ones, the chances are you'll hit the limits of how much money you have to invest in inventory long before you hit the limits on your time.

Is my Home a Good Place to Work?

Quite apart from anything else, you might find that the dream of home working is more of a nightmare in reality. People can start to depend on you to get things done that need to be done during the day. If you have a wife and children then they can resent the fact that you're in the house but refuse to have anything to do with them for large parts of the day. Giving in to any of these things and stopping work for a while will cause your profits to fall.

Can I Survive if it All Goes Wrong?

In the end, would you be able to get by if you had a month or two where you sold literally nothing? Or would you be desperately looking around for a job and cursing the day you ever discovered eBay? That's the real test.

If you made it through all these questions, then I guess you're cut out for the eBay life - and even if you didn't, you'd be surprised just how far you can get part-time.

How To Super-Charge Your Free Ads, Articles and Press Releases

2008-03-12T07:52:00.000-07:00

In the last ezine I talked about “How to Find Free and Low Cost Advertising Sites That Work”. Today I want to
show you how to maximize exposure of your ads with keyword optimization.

One way to super charge your paid and free ads is to write your copy with specific keywords in mind. The
reason for this is that if the title and the body of your ad includes the keyword, search engines will be much
more likely to pick up your ad, article or press release. The more focused your article, the higher up you’ll
show up in the search results for a specific keyword included in your article.

Believe it or not, even free ads can sometimes get to the top of Google and Yahoo within days of being
published. This will not only give you the benefit of exposure within the actual ad site, but possibly 100 times
the exposure in Google etc. This same principle is true when writing articles and press releases.
You can take a look at an example of mine by typing in “PromoBlackBox” into Google. You will find several links
to my videos on Myspace. By the way, video uploads to Myspace are free. Another example is my link
“PromoBlackBox Sales Reps Needed!!!” (located on “Ablewise” which is another site offering free advertising).
You can type other keywords into Google and find a plethora of ads about PromoBlackBox that were placed by
others on Craigslist (and other free ad sites). Notice that, because they include the keyword, they received
great page one placements in Google. And again, the same it true for articles and press releases as well.

The way I accomplished this was by having the keyword “PromoBlackBox” in mind
before writing the ads. When I write ads for use on FREE advertising sites like
Craigslist or Backpage, the first thing I do is select the keywords I want to target.
This interesting tip also enhances promotion of videos when you upload them
into Myspace (or other social marketing sites).

Let’s say that you want to get good visibility for the keyword “Business Opportunity”
or the “name” of your business opportunity. You would write the ad, being sure
to include the keyword in the headline and also in the body of the ad at least two
times. When writing articles and press releases, I also include my name and
company name (as additional keywords), so they will show up when people type
my name or company name into Google.

You can take an additional step to supercharge articles and press releases you
write by including recent quotes from celebrities, industry leaders and top
companies in your field. You can find recent statements by though leaders in
your business by do a search in Google such as…“keyword news”, “keyword
press releases”, “keyword articles” (replace keyword with your keyword). You’ll
be amazed at the number of quotes from high profile people you’ll find.

So next time, don’t just write an ad…super charge it. You might just get 3 to 100 times more response!

Never miss any of our “Marketing Insight” ezines. Subscribe now and be informed via e-mail or RSS feed.

Don’t Ride Your Bike In The Post Office

2008-03-10T03:51:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I went to our little, tiny post office on the military base where I work. There is about enough room for 10 people to stand in line at this one clerk office.

I notice a sign on the wall as I was standing in line and just had to ask the postal clerk about it. The sign read, "No bicycles allowed in the post office."

I was definitely confused and could not understand why the sign had been posted, so, I asked the clerk.

He told me that about a week prior some guy rode his bike up the ramp to the post office entrance and went inside, along with his bike. He was told to please take the bike outside and he retorted that there was no sign stating that he couldn’t bring his bike in. He complained and whined and eventually took his bike outside muttering all kinds of threats and insults.

I couldn’t believe this. I was told it was true and that was why the sign had been posted. I joked with the clerk that I should go out and drive my truck inside, since there was no sign telling me that I couldn’t.

So, where am I going with this and how does this apply to article marketing?

Most article directories have a list of submission guidelines. They usually specify how long an article should be, what the rules are for links, and what HTML can or cannot be used.

There will be additional guidelines and each site will vary slightly in what they will or will not accept. But, we can’t cover everything in one or two pages of guidelines.

Just because I don’t have anything in writing about not posting graphics in the article resource box, doesn’t mean it is OK. Common sense should prevail.

Just because I didn’t say that you shouldn’t bold every other word, doesn’t mean you should.

Just because I didn’t say that you cannot embed a video in the middle of you article, doesn’t mean you can or should.

Just because it is OK to do it one way on another article directory site, doesn’t mean it is OK to do it on mine.

I think you get the drift. I cannot list each and every little thing that is or is not allowed. I list some general guidelines and then if your article is declined, it will come with an explanation. Please read them and make the corrections.

Most people just ignore the email that says their article was declined and then continue to break my set of rules. I put up with this for a little while, and then cancel the account. Then the person gets upset with me. Such is life.

Read the guidelines, follow the rules, check the reason your article was declined, and don’t ride your bike in the post office

How To Build An Opt-In Email List From Scratch

2008-03-09T14:28:00.000-07:00

The most powerful tool in online “email” marketing is to build an opt-in mailing list. An opt-in mailing list is a database of peoples’ names and email addresses that have subscribed to an email list via a web form giving that list owner permission to send them periodic emails on the topic they are interested in. The best gift of this powerful tool is the possibility of being able to talk to people who are particularly interested in your product, service or organization.

This gaining popularity of building opt-in mailing list is known as Permission Email Marketing.

There are do’s and don’ts in starting your opt-in mailing list. Here are some of the most important tips worth mentioning:

DO’S

1. Put a subscription form prominently on your website. You can create your own subscription form using a software Sign-Up to’s form builder.

2. Inform people that they can subscribe to your email list on the signature of your normal work emails. This will enable it to link straight through the form on your website.

3. Ask people permission if they do want to be subscribed on your mailing list. As much as possible avoid being suspected for SPAM.

4. Be clear on how people can benefit from subscribing and how often will you contact them. Make them know exactly what they will be receiving.

5. If you can, contact new subscriber as soon as you can. Welcome them with notes and tell them what to expect.

DON’T

1. Don't purchase lists that you are not 100% sure that are opt-in. Always have an evidence to prove the legitimacy of the opt-ins. Do not buy email lists, purchase opt-ins.

2. Don't add everyone who has ever emailed you to your list. Always ask permission first or have them sign up through your website.

3. Don't abuse people’s trust. This is a sure way to ruin your brand and you. Soon enough they will ignore your messages.

Building your opt-in mailing list is cheaper than in sending direct mails. Printing, envelopes and paper used as material further add up to the cost. Here are some ways to effectively start your opt-in mailing list:

1. Do offer a Free Newsletter. One of the most effective ways to build an opt-in list is to offer your online visitors freebies of value such as newsletter which will contain information that they can relate to such as tips, tools, recipes, travel itineraries and others.

2. Do Make it Easy to Subscribe. Provide easy steps for subscription so that subscribers may find it easy to do so and would not be discourage. For more subscribers, tell them the exact benefits they can get out of the subscription.

3. Do offer Quality Content. Be sure that what is written inside the newsletter, freebies and information found in your website are all of value to increase visitors dropping by your website.

4. Do participate in Forums. Discussion boards and forums are all over the net. Try to actively participate in these boards especially those in the line of your interest or your business. Try to build your reputation with credibility. In your forum discussions, always use signature ads. These are ads you would put in place of your signature. (ie: Who else wants to make an extra $150 a day? {always add your website link})

5. Do write articles. This makes you an instant expert in your chosen field of interest. You just have to play on it and use it well in your business goal.

6. Do write an e-book. An excellent freebie for those who visited and subscribe in your mailing list. The e-book does not have to be expensively made or elaborate but it can be a compilation or a collection of best articles, business tips and resources.

7. Most importantly do Co-registration. A very effective way to build a monster list in a very short time

How To Find Free and Low Cost Advertising Sites That Work

2008-03-07T08:18:00.000-08:00

I get this question a lot. “Can you tell me great sites to advertise on for free (or very little) money?” In the early
days of my home business career I followed other people’s advice and advertised on the free and low cost ad
sites they recommended.

Frankly, most sources, especially from popular teachers that have training sites, are useless. These free sites
may have been great sources when the teachers found them, but after thousands of their pupils started
advertising on them as well, (often promoting the same opportunity) they’re pretty much useless.

The free sites on how2succeedonline are much fresher since I am constantly searching for new ones that have
enough traffic to deliver good results. Today I will teach you a technique that I use to find free sites that haven’t
been so beat up with overuse. In essence, I’m going to show you how to fish for vehicles that will give you a
constant stream of fresh, new advertising venues with less competition.

This is so simple it will blow your mind…which is, of course, true of many of the most successful techniques. By
the way, I found many of my favorite ad sites this way!

Let’s start by typing in “Business Opportunity” into Google Search or any search engine you prefer. You can
use the keywords that you currently use to promote your business (i.e. “make money online”, “Home Based
Business”, etc.). You can even do a search for the keyword of the opportunity you represent like “EDC Gold”
“PWF” or “1Step System”, etc.

Then I look for optimized search results that appear on the left side of the page
(not the pay per click part of the page). As I go down the page, I look for ads that
are part of forums or ad sites. You’ll find several ads on the top three pages that
are ad-posting on third party sites offering advertising vs. company owned or
opportunity sites that just talk about their product, service or opportunity. Many
of these sites offer free or low cost advertising. And best of all, Google has found
these sites and elevated their index (so they appear on pages 1-3 of the search
results), even in highly competitive areas where popular keywords are used.

You’ll find more quality sites than you know what to do with, just with the use of a
few keywords.

Next, place your ads on several of these sites. To maximize your response, make
sure your ad is keyword dense (lots of keywords repeated throughout the text of
the ad). If you do, not only will you benefit from the traffic that advertising site produces, but you’ll also benefit
from the very high listing on Google and other search engines, which will boost your traffic by possibly hundred
fold.

Another technique you can try is typing the words “Free Advertising Help” into Google. It’s not as good as my
first recommendation, but still better that joining other team members and advertising on the same pages being
used by thousands of direct competitors.

On one of the next articles I’ll talk about is how to super charge your ad for search optimization…you’ll be
amazed.

“Increase Quality or Bid $5.00 to Activate”

2008-03-06T09:05:00.000-08:00

Solutions For Google Adwords

If you’ve ever done a Google Adwords campaign, you might have come across this message for one of your
keyword which reads “Increase quality or bid $5.00 to activate.”

First, let’s look at the reason for this. When Google looks at any placement, it looks at
relevancy (perceived relevancy in this case) as discussed in previous Marketing Insight
ezines. The reason you have gotten this message is that Google feels that your ad
does not relate to the keyword - so it de-activates that keyword. What this message is
also saying is that, if you don’t know how to use Google Adwords, you should be paying
5 times more than necessary. So what do you do?

WHAT NOT TO DO:
Google make fortunes from people who are so desperate to have their ad shown on
that keyword that they agree to the given price. That is a huge mistake and will cost
you big. Imagine your lead cost going up by 5 times for that keyword!

Here are two better options for you:

1.) Remove the keyword from that campaign and place it into another ad group that is
more relevant or create an ad group campaign that has the keyword in the headline.
This is what you should have done from the beginning - group related keywords
together so they make sense.

Here are some examples:

· GROUPING THE WRONG WAY – keywords like Home Business,
Earn Money, Online Business, Make Money Fast with an ad that reads
“Make $20,000/mo From Home”. The problem is, even though the ad
might be good, the keywords are too different and do not match the ad,
therefore your ad is being de-activated.

· GROUPING THE RIGHT WAY – The right way to do it is to set up 3 separate
ad groups for the above keywords and add related, similar keywords to it
like this – Home Business, Home Based Business, Business from Home, etc.
– The ad would read – “Best Home Based Business” or
“$1,000/Day-Home Business” (some of the keywords are in the title)

Create another ad group for your other keywords like - Earn Money, Earn Money
from Home, Earn Extra Money, etc. Your ad would include some if not all keywords
in the title like – “Earn Money Fast”, “Earn Money While Sleeping” “Earn $3,000/Day”,
etc.

In other words, when you have the keywords matching the selection of words used in your ad, and your
keywords appear in the headline, your ad will rarely be deactivated.

You just accomplished two things…not only will you not have to pay the higher price , instead, more likely, your
cpc will drop even lower than what you paid before they asked you to increase your bid. Plus your click rate is
even higher because the ad is more relevant.

2.) The other thing you can do is just delete the keyword for a few days and put it back up. Most likely, you’ll
be back to the original bid price.

Bottom line, Google will reward you for relevancy and will charge you extra for generality. So, next time you get
this message, do the smart thing and retool your adwords campaign and don’t just pay the requested increase.

Never miss any of our “Marketing Insight” ezines. Subscribe now and be informed via e-mail or RSS feed.

How to Double Your Response in Google Adwords

2008-03-05T09:13:00.000-08:00

The #1 mistake that costs online advertisers thousands

95% of advertisers make this mistake. As discusses in my other article titled “How Google evaluates Your
Adwords Campaign”, Google works very differently from other search engines concerning pay per click
campaigns.

So what's the #1 mistake that costs the average advertiser thousands? The answer is encompassed in two
simple words – “Content Network”. Google will probably never tell you this because they make too much money
from unknowing novices spending more than needed, being unaware of their “Content Network”.

When setting up any pay per click campaign in Google (Google Adwords), there are three main areas in which
you can display your ad:
· Google Search
· Google Search Network
· Google Content Network

Google Search and Google Search Network normally deliver relevant searchers.
By default however, Google already has their Content Network checked for you
on their ad set-up page. But how closely matched is the Content Network to your
Adwords? Usually it's not well matched at all. You will get lots of clicks from
responders to these extended relevance sites, however, the quality of this traffic
is horrific at best. Not only is the traffic terrible, your click rate will be much lower
when including the Content Network. What's worse, if you remember my last article,
one of the key factors that affects your ad position is your “average click rate", so
this can be a double negative whammy. By just de-selecting “Content Network”
(in the “Edit Campaign Settings”) you can significantly improve the click rate of your
campaign which will then also give you better ad positioning.

Remember, the better your click rate, the higher your ad will be positioned. If your click rate drops below about
0.5%, your ad will rarely display at all. On the other hand, if you have a click rate of 2%, 3% or even higher,
your ad will be positioned much higher than if evaluated by price alone.

One more negative alert – click fraud within the “content network” is much greater.

Another great way to improve your ROI and lower your cost per click is to examine where your traffic is coming
from within the Google Search Network. If you determine that a lot of traffic is coming from partner sites like
www.ask.com for example, you could eliminate the “Search Network” targeting as well and save some additional
money. Advertising on these partner sites directly will save you about 50% for each click. The downside, of
course, is that it will take more time to manage the extra campaigns. It also depends on your overall budget.
The more you invest, the more it is worth looking at the option of eliminating the Search Network as well and
setting up separate campaigns on sites like ask.com.

The bottom-line is that, just by de-selecting “Content Network” you will dramatically improve your results and
save huge amounts of money.

Look for our next article, where we’ll look at the 2nd biggest mistake when doing Google Adwords. Sign up for
our “Marketing Insight” ezine and be one of the first to view it.

The article is brought to you by A Billionaire Secret

How Google Ranks Your Pay Per Click Campaign

2008-03-05T09:09:00.000-08:00

Let me first say that Google Adwords (Google pay per click), when done correctly, will give you the best return
on your money compared to other online advertising options. At the same time, if you don't know how Google
evaluates your campaign, it could cost you a fortune.

Let’s first examine how Google is different from other search vehicles. Most search
engines base the placement of your ad on how much you pay per click, i.e., the one
who pays the most for a specific keyword will be positioned in the #1 spot.

Not so with Google. In an attempt to deliver more relevant content to its readers,
Google uses several parameters to determine the order in which it serves up its ads.
Not knowing or ignoring these parameters can cost you big! And unless your enterprise
has very deep pockets, it can even mean the difference between success and failure.

When doing a pay per click campaign on Google, your ad position will be based on
keyword selection, ad relevance to keywords, bid price, average click rate, how long
visitors stay on your site, and even the match of your landing page to your ad and
keyword. Essentially, you could be paying the most per click and be listed in the 5
position! Or vise versa, you could be paying less than the top 5 bidders and be in
the #1 spot!

When setting up your Google Adwords (pay per click) campaign, all these elements
will affect your position in the ranking, so make sure that:
· Your keywords are not too broad
· Your ad relates to your keywords (keyword grouping is important)
· Your bid price is at least competitive
· Your click rate is good (above 1-3% is great, below 0.5% is a killer)
· Keywords you choose match the content on your landing page
· You use text instead of Flash. This is very important…using Flash landing
pages without text will affect your ad position in a negative way (Google
perceives pages with no information the same as pages with non relevant
information).

The more you adhere to these parameters, the lower your cost per click and the
better your conversions will be. I appreciate Google's well thought out ranking
policies. When searching online for info, I hate nothing more than clicking on an ad that
sends me to a page that has little or nothing to do with what I am researching. If I don't
see relevant information within a few seconds, I'm gone, and irritated about the waste of
time!

Look for our next article, where we’ll cover “The biggest mistake when doing Google Adwords”. Sign up for our
“Marketing Insight” ezine and be the first to view it.

The article is brought to you by A Billionaire Secret

Make Money Online by Marketing Info Products - Guide and Tips

2008-03-04T07:07:00.000-08:00

If there is one bit of advice I can ever give you, whether it be about marketing or business success in general, it is a quote from Russell Crowe in Gladiator:

“On my mark, unleash hell.”

Yes, you might have heard one or two other marketers quoting this very same line. And with good reason. That one line epitomizes the very core of what all marketing programs teach you. Here’s a break down:

Find your target
Pick a market that is favorable for approach. It doesn’t have to be the perfect idea, just one that works on paper, and most importantly, something that you know you can do while maintaining interest. Also you should do some online research to find out the demand level of your target market. You certainly do want to sell in a market that is poor in demand.

Prepare your approach
Mark out the main spots – what sort of advertising mediums can you use? What is your budget? What is your exact strategy for each medium? No need to go into excruciating details, but you should know, for example, your allocated monthly budget for your PPC campaign, your target keywords and the expected cost-per-click for each keyword. This will at the very least help you monitor your advertising and tune it based on the results.

Intense marketing
There are two different approaches in this regard. Use the first one if you can afford to spend a lot of money on traffic, use the second if most of your advertising budget will be paid for by your business even at the start.

- All-out marketing, pulling out all the stops at once, complete blanketing of your target market.
- Slow build-up, tackling different advertising mediums one by one, building to crescendo effect where at the end, you replicate the effect in the ‘all-out marketing’ technique.

Taken by itself, the term ‘unleash hell’ is also used to describe another valuable business lesson:

If you have a product, or a business idea, or a service to sell, get it out there! Take your business to the market first, worry about refining and managing later.

Essentially, don’t wait months to find the perfect idea. Pick an idea that’s good enough, and launch your business. If you are a resume writer and want to sell your services online, throw up a website, put up your basic contact and payment information and begin promotion.

Too often people wait too long until they have the ‘finished’ product before starting their marketing campaigns. A newcomer shouldn’t waste their time like that. The product will be developed along the way through customer interaction anyway. On the other hand, there is no way you’ll make any money without traffic. So go get that traffic, and ‘perfection’ will come in due time.

How To Publish Your Way To Success

2008-03-04T07:06:00.001-08:00

Did you know, self-publishing is one of the easiest ways to make money on the web. Of course, it requires talent, but it's easier to learn than you might think.
Getting Started:

Choose a subject that interests you. Select a subject you enjoy or want to learn about. As an example for this article, we will use "Computer Tips."

Okay, next collect the information to put in the book about "Computer Tips". A good idea to collect tips would be to use your own knowledge, contacts, friends, online associates, family members, even neighbors.

Contact everyone you know who owns a computer; ask them to share their favorite computer tips with you. Tell them if you use their tip you will include their name in the book. After several contacts you should have acquired a stack of solid information.
Now, it's time to start sorting the information and separating it into categories. For example beginner tips, hardware tips, software tips, online tips, troubleshooting tips. Place each category into its own file. Each of these categories will be the chapters in your book.

Next, begin composing your book on the computer. Don't panic! It's not that hard. Write a brief intro. Write your name and contact information, any copyright information, a brief disclaimer. Publishing date, origin of publishing.

Remember all those tips you collected. Select the best tips of the lot. Now break that down into brief chapters.

Now end the book with a pertinent ending sentence or paragraph. Your name, contact information and a link back to your website.

Now the book is ready to publish.. You've read everything and checked for misspelled words or obvious grammar mistakes. You are now ready to see the final result of your hard work.

If you publish online you will need an eBook creator, which could cost anywhere from $29 and up. Or you might decide to search online with Google or Yahoo for "free eBook creation software" and download.

Download the software and take it for a test drive. Follow the instructions on setting up your files and publishing.

If your eBook is less than 10 pages you might decide to call it a report. More than 10 pages would classify as an eBook.

Well, alright now. Let's sell that book and make a profit! One good idea is to call all the people who offered you tips for your book. Price the book around $20.00 Sounds like a deal! Especially for people hungry for helpful tips from a savvy computer expert like you.

Offer all the contributors a discount on your new book. Maybe a 50 percent discount. Everyone who contributes would certainly love to have a copy with their byline (name) included. This is called ego stroking sales tactics (works for me!)

Have a website? Offer the eBook to all your website visitors. Set up a sales page advertising your book along with ordering instructions. You will want to set up a shopping cart to handle sales. Or alternatively use a service like pay pal or clickbank to handle sales without the hassle of needing a merchant account. Note: Although clickbank cost money to host your book you will attract affiliates who will eagerly sell your book. This translates to more profits.

Also, consider contacting ezine owners online. Offer them a free copy of your book in exchange for advertising space in their publication. Visit online ezine directories and search for ezines in a similar category as your book. Contact the editor with pertinent details.

It's amazingly easy to create your very own book online. There's no hidden secret to publishing. So called publishing guru's want you to think they have the answers or insider secrets. For most of those on the Internet the so called secret is just a good idea and a way to reach targeted customers.

Every person reading this article has a book inside of them! Think about it. Everybody knows something about a topic that other people would pay good money to learn about. You can be sure!

So, what are you waiting for? Get Busy! Pick a topic, gather the information, and process it. You'll be a published writer online. Others will think of you as their writer friend. You'll be able to strut your stuff with a certain pride. Yup, I'm a writer! And place that on all your emails, letters, stationary, and business cards.

Use Keywords In Page Titles

2008-03-03T09:06:00.000-08:00

By: Siam

It is recommended to use keywords in page titles itself. This title tag is different from a Meta tag, but it's worth considering it in relation to them. Whatever text one places in the title tag (between the title and /title portions) will appear in the title bar of browsers when they view the web page. Some browsers also append whatever you put in the title tag by adding their own name, as for example Microsoft's Internet Explorer or OPERA.

The actual text you use in the title tag is one of the most important factors in how a search engine may decide to rank your web page. In addition, all major web crawlers will use the text of your title tag as the text they use for the title of your page in your listings.

If you have designed your website as a series of websites or linked pages and not just a single Home Page, you must bear in mind that each page of your website must be search engine optimized. The title of each page i.e. the keywords you use on that page and the phrases you use in the content will draw traffic to your site.

The unique combination of these words and phrases and content will draw customers using different search engine terms and techniques, so be sure you capture all the keywords and phrases you need for each product, service or information page.

The most common mistake made by small business owners when they first design their website is to place their business name or firm name in every title of every page. Actually most of your prospective customers do not bother to know the name of your firm until after they have looked at your site and decided it is worth book marking.

So, while you want your business name in the title of the home page, it is probably a waste of valuable keywords and space to put it in the title line of every page on your site. Why not consider putting keywords in the title so that your page will display closer to the top of the search engine listing.
Dedicating first three positions for keywords in title avoiding the stop words like ‘and’, ‘at’ and the like is crucial in search engine optimization.

Avoid "Bad" Manners While Blogging

2008-03-03T08:29:00.000-08:00

Blogging, the hottest trend in online publishing right now, is currently spreading like wildfire across the Internet.

A cross between an online journal and a bulletin board, everyone from rock starts, politicians, business leaders and your average "Joe" or "Jane" can instantly become a center of influence online using blogs.

But, as with any social interaction, certain rules apply (my grandma calls them manners) in order to be viewed as behaving "properly."

One of the things that give blogging such strong appeal as an online publishing method revolves around "comments."

Blogs that allow "comments" enable readers to respond and elaborate on the information posted by the blog owner.

These comments and the free exchange of information, opinions, links, and new ideas creates the dynamic and growing content that makes blogging such a popular online activity for both publishers and readers.

However, rules and unwritten customs about the proper use of "comments" on a specific blog are also where most of the problems and controversy will arise.

Since a successful blog eventually becomes a community of people (albeit in cyberspace), proper social behavior is critical to be an effective and accepted member of the community.

Keep these basic rules in mind when approaching a new blog that allows commenting by readers so you won't find yourself on the wrong end of a scolding by people who operate with a different set of rules than you.

As with any social circle, violating the group's rules and customs will instantly cause a negative backlash.

** Keep It Relevant **

Stay on topic with the post you're commenting about in a blog. Nothing will earn you the wrath and disdain of your fellow posters and the blog owner faster than posting an off-topic comment.

** Watch What Others Do **

Different blogs operate under different rules. What rates acceptable in one blog would earn you a verbal thrashing in another. Before posting (especially if you have not posted to a specific blog before), look to see the types and quality of posts others make regularly. Are they long or short? Do they contain a link to the person's website? Is there a "signature" under their name?

** Be Polite **

It's fine to disagree with people when making a comment, whether it's the blog's author or a comment made by another reader. It is not, however, acceptable to launch a personal attack on anyone or make nasty comments in someone else's blog. If you feel the need to do so, do it in your own blog. It's the same principle of you can say whatever you want in your own house, but when you're in someone else's house, you act right (and better than you do at home).

** You Can't Respond to Everyone **

If you operate a blog and someone asks a question, try to respond, but both sides should understand that you can't respond 100% of the time.

Are Affiliate Programs Profitable?

2008-02-29T02:40:00.000-08:00

By: Siam

Affiliate programs or associate programs have become a great way to make online money. It can become a profitable venture, if entrepreneurs select the right associate program. Hence, it is important to select the affiliate programs or program carefully. There are certain important things involved in associate programs that affect the profitability of affiliate programs.

The most important thing to remember is not to pick the first affiliate program that comes across. Many participants of affiliate programs make this big mistake. They have to understand the fact that, the profitability of affiliate programs is directly proportional to the type of programs that marketers select.

Hence, it is crucial to take out some time for completely studying an affiliate program. Participants tend to select affiliate programs, that include a product they can stand behind, hundred percent. They also desire to examine the product with a regular internet search. Search by the name of the associate program or the sold product.

Other Deciding Factors:

Scam websites are a great source to verify the profitability of affiliate programs. Hence, before finalizing a program read all the rules, limitations or principles linked with that affiliate program.
Another principal deciding factor of affiliate programs profitability is the product intended to sell. In combination with the guarantee that the product is of top quality, also make sure that it complements the website or business. Join an affiliate program that is associated in one or the other way to the respective websites, as it boosts the probabilities to make a sale, thereby boosting profits.

One simplest technique to make significant profit from an affiliate program is to choose a program, which pays their associates handsomely. Standard commission for associates is around 3% to 5% per sale. There are certain affiliate programs that pay around 15% in commissions, which is surely a profitable income.

How To Drive Hundreds Of Hungry Buyers To Your Website

2008-02-26T02:41:00.000-08:00

If you can master the technique I am about to share with you, you will always have hundreds of hungry web visitors thirsting for your knowledge and more importantly interested in your products or service. You will have ultimately created the perfect wealth formula.

There are tons of ways to drive traffic to a website, but for our purposes here today in this article, we are going to focus on "article writing." Writing content rich articles is exactly what Google, Yahoo and MSN are looking for.

If you are not sure how search engines work, here's what happens. When you write an informative article either explaining, reviewing or investigating a particular product or service, then submit that article to hundreds of article directories, it's going to do 3 things for your website, drive targeted traffic, increase PR rankings in Google and will establish you as an authority within your niche market.Before you go out and submit a article to just any old directory, it's important to understand which article directories Google seems to favor.

Over the past 3 years I have been able to pick up on a few reputable article directories that seem to give more exposure. The following article directories are favored by the Google search engine, ezinearticles, squidoo, buzzle articles, and searchwarp. It has come to my attention that my articles are ranked higher in Google and have received more exposure with the article directories listed above.

Submitting to these directories with higher PR rankings gives your article more credibility, hence more exposure.After you have a well written article, typically you are allowed to place a link back to your site in the resource box. If you want to SEO your article for a particular keyword and have it rank higher in Google, instead of using a generic link, use a hyper link with the keyword you are trying to target.

For example, if your business focuses on selling marketing strategies, then you would hyper link your site in the resource box using that keyword, "marketing strategies." Google recognizes this as anchor text and tends to rank your website higher for that particular keyword.Lastly, writing an article every few days or every few weeks begins to build your credibility with potential buyers within your niche market.

Checking your article for relevant content related to your business, submitting them to the right article directories and giving away value within your article could potentially generate large influxes of web traffic. In the end, you have created a relationship with the reader and possibly someone that's willing to do business with you.

Beware of the "Pre Launch" or "It’s Brand New"

2008-02-26T02:29:00.000-08:00

Pre launch or it’s brand new is one of the oldest tricks in the book. I know because I have fallen for it so many times. My very first program was a program that promoted multiple income streams. After trying about 4 different programs my first year on the internet and having some success, but never the huge numbers I read about. I started looking for the big score, so I joined every program that was in pre launch or that just started. I thought to myself, if I could just get in early, then maybe I would be one of the people that you read about. All I learned is that most people jump into a program with no intent of staying for any length of time. They ride the wave for 2-3 months and move on to the next pre launch program.

If you are a loyal person and your sponsor gives you a good reason or excuse, "I call it a sales pitch" on why they are leaving and going to this new and improved company, you probably will feel bad if you do not follow your sponsor and you will feel like you let your sponsor down. They make you feel obligated to jump ship with your sponsor AND THEY MIGHT EVEN MAKE YOU FEEL STUPID IF YOU DON’T. So you follow them. I have done this too, but after doing this 2-3 times, you realize that your sponsor will continue to do this to you every 2-3 months, leaving broke and broken hearted.

The best sponsors are loyal sponsors. They stay in a program and work the program. This is the only way to make real money long term. If you are trying to make a name for yourself on the internet, you must have long term success. The only way to have long term success is to commit to a company and work that company long term. Just ask internet trainer "Dani Johnson" She’ll warn you of these people too. This is not a plug for her, but in my opinion, Dani Johnson is the best internet marketing trainer on the planet.

Think about it….If you are an employer, would you ever hire a person that has had 3-4 jobs in a 12 month period. Unless it was seasonal work, their resume’ would be thrown away and laughed at. So, if your sponsors resume’ looks like a high school seasonal employee, run as fast as you can.

Multi Level Marketing?..... Does it work?

2008-02-25T14:23:00.000-08:00

For some people, this is the way to go. I have met a few people over the years that swear by it. I know a few people who make over $100k a year working their multi level marketing program. The unfortunate part about it is that they were the only one making money. No one on their team was duplicating the efforts they were doing. Weather they were selling vitamins, travel, a gas saver product, lotions, potions, pills, candles or juice beverage products, I have tried it all and it was a difficult task for me. Once I ran out of my friends and family to bug about my new business, once I had two or three home parties, I ran out of leads, so I started buying leads in hopes to try to convert some people into my business. That is so much harder than it sounds.

Sure I made sales, but by the time I was getting to the next profit level, the people who I brought in 2-3 months ago were dropping like flies. This is why I could never make it to the next big payout level of the commission plan. For some reason, I would always fall short of the next bonus payout or car bonus. Usually, I would fall short of personal volume or group volume or I would have enough on my left side, but not enough on my right side, so I would miss out on the big payouts, month after month.

This got to be the same old stuff you hear about why MLM doesn’t work for most people and the only people making money were the people at the top of the pyramid. People with huge dowlines and people that have been in the business a long time and lists of hundreds of thousands of people to market to. For any newbie joining, good luck. I once watched a stay at home mom put $13,000 into a business to quit within a year. Most of us are smarter than that and would have quit after a few months and maybe only lost $1000 down the drain, but this person was persistent and did not want to fail. So she kept plugging away until they had no money left and when gas prices went to $3.50, the father of the family couldn’t afford to put gas in the car. So much for helping out.

The only thing we have found on the internet to work for most people is a direct sales company that pays you 100% of the sale. Companies that have a price point of less than $1000 to start. This is the only way you have a chance to succeed. Beware of the $1500 to $5000 programs, the start up company and program jumpers. The truth about start ups is that they have no track record. You have no idea if they will be in business two years later. Watch out for people who jump ship every time a new program comes out on the internet. Most importantly, be careful of the program that costs more than $1000.00. They are hard to sell, no matter how good it sounds.

I hope this helps your research in determining a company that you can be proud to represent.

Beware of the Scam Artist?

2008-02-25T14:22:00.000-08:00

What is a scam artist? I thought long and hard before writing this article as not to offend anyone. Nobody would ever be complimented by being called a scam artist. A scam artist is one who takes your money for product or service and never delivers anything to you. They run off with your money to never be heard of or found again. I have found very few people in the world who are scam artists like that.

It has been my experience that there are similar traits in a lot people on the internet and I’ll let you be the judge weather or not you call these people scam artists. I usually find that program jumpers have similar traits and characteristics to the scam artists or maybe more resembling a swarm of Locusts. These people are usually people who jump ship to every new program out there on the internet. If a new program comes out, they jump in it, take all you suckers out there with them until they have sucked you dry and then move on to the next program.

Here is an article I found at http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761574486/Locust_(insect).html Let’s see if this resembles any of the so called "Internet Guru’s". Locust (insect), common name applied to a number of jumping insects and especially to the true locusts, which are migratory grasshoppers (see Grasshopper).

The true locusts cause great damage to crops wherever they swarm. Control measures include the spreading of poison bait and the plowing under of locust eggs. Infestations threatening large regions of the United States are combated with insecticides sprayed by planes and truck-mounted mist blowers provided by joint federal-state programs.

Aside from the true locusts, the periodical cicada (see Cicada) is another important insect to which the name locust is applied. Grouse, or pygmy, locusts are small, jumping insects that are of little economic importance. Most species are dark brown and are less than 2.5 cm (less than 1 in) in length.

Now, does this sound familiar out there on the internet? I would love to warn you about these people by name, but would never do that. I will however, give you things to watch out for and let you be the judge.

If a person has joined 3 or more programs in one year, they are probably program jumpers, which as we see above, have similar traits to the locusts and do more harm than good. These people are simply out to take your money. No wonder they are making so much money. They have perfected the locust style of business.

So many companies....What is right for me?

2008-02-25T14:18:00.000-08:00

Beware of the Fluff. They seem like great companies, they have a good sales pitch and their comp plan looks good too. They have big corporate offices and have been around for years. Isn’t that good? Any company out there that sells products like lotions, potions, pills, miracle juices or miracle gas saving products usually doesn’t work for the average person for many reasons.

Those companies usually make most of their money from you, the distributor, not from selling the products. They have you on auto ship, so you are their income.

They only pay about 2% to 15% so many levels deep.

They will tell you that when you fill the matrix, you won’t have to do anything and you’ll be making 20 to 40k a month. The truth is, there are so many loop holes to their comp plans that no body ever reaches those levels. You either will have too many people on your left, but not enough on your right side to make the higher level payouts.

They tell you that you need more personal volume and your group volume is fine or vice versa, or my favorite, you had fallout this month, so you no longer qualify for that car bonus we promised you about.

They make you hold home parties to push your crap on your friends. Listen to me…..If I wanted weight loss, I’d go to GNC. If I wanted Lotions, I’d go to CVS, Save on, Nordstrom or Bullocks. If I wanted to put additives in my gas tank, I’d go to Kragen, Chief or Pep Boys and buy a product from STP or Penzoil. You get what I mean….?

They are a copy cat company of the original company. How many companies out there are selling a juice that is based from the Acai Berry, Goji berry or the Mangosteen fruit? How many of those promise to cure cancer? What a joke? Is our society that ignorant that if something actually cured cancer, wouldn’t we want to check it out? How many travel companies are there now? How many fuel additives are there now? How many of those have been shut down? How many make up, skin lotions and vitamin companies are there out there?

It just seems like there is so many junk companies on the internet, how do you what is good and what is not? Some of these companies above actually have a good product, but I would never go in business with them.

So, how do I choose a business that I can profit from and that I can be proud to represent?
When I evaluate a company, I look for these key points. Keep in mind, when I join a company, my #1 goal is to make money and to do it legitimately. I do not want to hurt anyone or rip anyone off. This is what I’ve learned and these guidelines will help you determine what company is right for you.

If you are not making at least 75% of the upfront commission when you make a sale, forget it. This means that you are doing all the work and the company and/or the person above you is making all the money.

If you have to have 1000, 10,000 or 20,000 people in your organization before you make any real money. DO NOT Join. Most people will NEVER get there.

If they teach you to hold home parties and invite all your friends. Run away fast.

If they have a sales pitch 2-3 times a day and only 2-3 training classes per week. This means that the company is more interested in selling you than training you how to make money long term

If you can’t break even or get into profit with 3 sales, forget it.

If you can’t speak with the owners or the corporate office via phone or webinar, Forget it. I like to know who I am doing business with before I will do business with them.

If it is a start up or in pre launch, forget.

The chances of these companies becoming the next Amway is about as good as winning the lottery. At least with the lottery, you have a chance to win once or twice a week. You might as well go to Vegas and blow your money on a good time. At least you’ll have some great memories, see a great show and have a great meal.

These are not all the rules for success on the internet, but this is a great guideline to follow when evaluating an internet company.

Essential Tool

2008-02-15T01:35:00.000-08:00

By: Siam

So you have finally stepped into the world of making money online. You too, like the others, have decided to start with the affiliate programs. Also, you must have heard that it’s not a big deal to make good money with affiliate marketing, provided you choose the right programs and do some strategic planning while promoting your affiliate products. So far so good.

Whether you are promoting other people’s products or promoting your own products - that doesn’t matter because after all it is nothing but your own business and your means to earn good money. So whichever be your case, I am sure you would not want to leave money on the table and invite others to steal your share of profit.

Even though the industry of affiliate marketing is pretty competitive but if you are cautious and are strategic in your marketing techniques then, it could be very profitable for you.
Take a close look at the industry, you will see that not every one who gets into affiliate marketing is successful. People who are doing well leave no room for failure and take all security measures and understand its importance.

Yes! Security is one of the key factors in affiliate marketing. If you do not adopt proper security measures, then your business will be at high risk. One of the most important way to restore security is to protect your affiliate links. Do not take them for granted. A bit of carelessness on your part in regards to affiliate links may cost you a lot of dollars.

Do you know the long complicated links that you send to your prospective customers not only look convoluted but they can create a lot of problems too! If you send such an affiliate link to your customers, then the smart ones will definitely figure out that you are promoting someone else’s product and they would rather visit the parent company. Also, if your link does not function then your customers have to type a really long URL into the browser, which will definitely put him or her off.

You could be a victim of even a worse situation. What if some devious Internet pirates steal your affiliate links and replace them with theirs. If they do that, then you get no commission at all.
Did I scare you off with all of the above possibilities? Well, that certainly wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to open your eyes and state facts that actually happen in the world of Internet. It happened with me until I came across ViralURL , that brought a revolution to my online ventures.

So, if you are not getting the desired results out of your affiliate marketing,don’t lose hope. There’s definitely a remedy to this problem and that is ViralURL.com
Do I hear you asking, what is it and how can it help in averting any adverse situation for an affiliate marketer like me?Be patient and read on, if you love your business.
ViralURL is a link cloaker that protects you in the truest sense. There may be many unethical people lurking around, who might play with your affiliate links by cutting them off or replacing them with their own etc. How much effort you put in towards building your business and advertising your business, if your links are tampered with, then all your hard work will be rendered useless.
In order to avoid such a rip off, ViralURL gives you full protection and sees to it that your affiliate links never get exposed to others.
So save yourself from getting ripped. Get all the commissions to your account that you rightfully deserve. All this is made possible by ViralURL.com
It is a blessing for every affiliate marketer like you and me, who wants to achieve success in their endeavor.
Is ViralURL limited to only link protection?
NO!
It does much much more than that. Let’s see what ViralURL can do for us:
*ViralURL helps us in protecting commission.*ViralURL helps in building mailing lists.*ViralURL helps in tracking statistics.*ViralURL helps in earning extra ad credits.
In short, ViralURL allows us to create massive business leverage.I don’t see any negative aspect associated with ViralURL. All you have to do is join it for free, then cloak your links, promote them and see your business soaring higher and higher.
You can get all detailed information about the program from the site http://ViralURL.com/safeURL . There, you can find several unsolicited testimonials from various users of ViralURL. So if you want to protect your business and see your earnings grow, try ViralUrl. You have nothing to lose with it.

How To Get Your Article Seen By More People

2008-02-14T05:08:00.000-08:00

By: Siam

I am going to offer some tips and tricks to get your articles seen more (more views, more clicks, more money).

1. Proofread your article. You would not believe how many spelling and grammatical errors you can find.

2. Follow the submission guidelines. Some sites allow links in the article, most don’t.

3. Check and double check and tripple check your links. I have seen many times where the HTML is incorrect and your links are not clickable. If you do not formated HTML properly will mess up the page, usually from not closing tags.

4. Many article sites automatically send email telling you that your article was accepted. Click the link, visit the site, and if you can social bookmark your article, do so. This will result in more links to you site and more people reading your article.

5. If you have a web site, link back to the article directory. This helps the article site with more links which will eventually result in a higher Google page ranking.

6. Establish yourself as an expert. Most article scripts have a setting for experts. Some set it at 10 articles, some set it at 200, just keep submitting. Submit on a regular basis, 1 article a day or 3 to 5 per week.

7. Vary your resource box. Be personable and tell a 2 or 3 sentence story about yourself. Change them up for a little variety.

8. Write articles – not advertisements.

Article marketing can be very profitable if done properly. Go ahead, do not be scared

You Too Can Make Money Online

2008-02-14T04:17:00.000-08:00

By: Siam

Have you ever wished to make money online from your home? Are you confused with all the schemes as valid ways to make money? Are you unsure if it is really possible to earn a substantial income online?

The truth is that you can certainly make money online. But it is equally true that it is not "easy" and just like with anything else worthwhile, it will require work. If you are new to the internet, or to internet marketing, there will be some things to learn.

So, where to start? It is a good idea to become familiar with the various ways to make money online; Home based online business, eBay Shop, Affiliate Marketing, writing information products (ebooks).

The next step would be to determine what you would like to do. Do you like to sell? Do you like to write? Are you creative? What skills do you have right now that could be applied to an internet based career?.

One way to begin is with the world of affiliate marketing. Affiliate programs pay people to sell their products and services. You simply promote the affiliate program, getting potential customers to your "link", with the goal that they make a purchase. For this purpose you can create websites for exanple, or place ads free or paid.

Making a website to promote affiliate programs will require you to learn about affiliate programs, html and website templates, internet marketing and search engine optimization. This may sound daunting, but if taken slowly, you can learn how to do this. The reward can be very great.

To Learn More

Internet Marketing University:

http://viralurl.com/safeURL/59337187