Mal Keenan
Copyright 2004 Mal Keenan
Almost everyone has received unsolicited offers in the mail. These are what many call "junk mail", and more often than not, end up in the "circular file", more commonly known as the trash can. But anyone who is considering Internet marketing as either a part-time or full-time business may want to at least give a moment's pause before the big toss. Better still would be to study and reflect on the material you've received, and in some cases, store it in a real file for future use. The reason is because Internet marketing today is, in reality and when done properly, a high-tech enhancement and expansion of old-fashioned direct mail.
Those sales letters that arrive in your mailbox aren't randomly sent there, nor are they sent to everyone in your country or state. Instead, successful direct mail operators rent carefully selected mailing lists. These lists may be buyers of a particular product, people who've expressed interest in topics and products through surveys and registration forms, magazine subscribers, people who live in a certain postal code, and so on. The underlying principle is that the direct mailers target a select audience to receive their offer, and a certain percentage of the recipients, known as the response rate, will then accept that offer. Then through continual testing and refinement of the sales letter, pricing, terms, colors, and other variables, direct marketers work to improve their response rates over time.
Marketing on the Internet is much the same. The bottom line is that marketers need to find a "group" of people with similar tastes and interests, find out what they want, then sell it to them, just as the direct mail marketers do.
In direct mail, as on the Internet, it's certainly possible, and in fact probable, that some marketing campaigns will fail. But, once you've sent out direct mail pieces, that postage is lost forever. On the Internet however, you can quickly assess and halt losing campaigns until you make adjustments. Or, as Robert G. Allen puts it, "On the Internet, you can fail fast for free!"
Internet technology has now made it possible to reach a new, worldwide audience, at much lower costs than direct mail postage allows. Your prospects are online, surfing, searching, reading, and hopefully shopping, around the clock. And the Internet itself has created new markets, such as the need for broadband connections, networking equipment, instructional material, and yes, even Internet marketing information products!
Perhaps the most important new capability the Internet offers marketers is the sheer speed at which marketing campaigns can be launched, tested, revised, and tested again, until maximum response rate is achieved. Web sites can be very fast and easy to set up, and through pay-per-click search engines, visitors (known as traffic) can be directed towards your marketing site literally within minutes. Software allows for instantaneous tracking of clicks, visitor "paths" through a web site, time spent on each page, and hundreds of other factors. Software can help marketers follow up with their leads (through autoresponders), and can, through email lists and RSS syndication, also foster relationship marketing, much more so than mailed catalogs and letters in the past.
For marketers, the Internet is the still-new frontier where high-tech, old fashioned marketing, low costs, and a worldwide audience converge to create new opportunities for those willing to look for them.
Mal Keenan is editor and publisher of Home Business Tips Newsletter: http://www.home-business-tips-newsletter.com/
For an affordable home business you CAN believe in click below:
http://www.workathomebiz.info/pluginprofitsite.html
This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com
Copyright 2004 Tal Fighel
Credit cards can be a great thing for the new online independent business owners who have just started their online venture. They are convenient, easy to use, and are very useful when it comes to taking those small baby steps that a newbie needs to start online.
Here are 5 basic and very important tools that any new person needs to start with:
1. Web hosting
2. Website name registration
3. Auto responder
4. Leads
5. Joining an affiliate program
Once everything is set up and completed, the excitement starts to build and they think about doing some advertising and making some money.
A few days pass. They reach for their credit card and start spending money on all those tempting juicy ads that promises them ‘sales soaring through the roof’ results, without having any idea what they are spending on. They have no plan in place. They never thought about setting a budget.
Once they max out 1 credit card, they are tempted to try other marketing things, which brings them to the point of applying for more cards or using their other cards that they posses.
How do I know this? Well, my story began 2 years ago, when I first started my online business venture. I would listen to everyone on how I should promote my current website of http://www.talfighel.com and the affiliate programs that I was and still am in. I went out and spent lots of money without planning my endeavor.
Solo ads, pay per click, buying leads, membership to this and that. The list goes on.....
To make a long story short, I have maxed out a few credit cards because I was stupid enough to spend money on advertisements without planning my budget. My biggest mistake was that I had no plan in place. I made that mistake, and I am very happy about it because now I can teach you not to make the same heart breaking mistakes.
So, don't spend money that isn't really yours. It is important to spend money that is yours and is within your budget.
You need to plan a monthly budget so that you know what your plan is and you don’t go over it. Remember, if you don’t draw yourself a monthly game plan, you can get tempted to spend on many things which can cause you to go into a hugh and never ending debt.
The problem with overspending your credit card or cards is that once you get behind, it can take so long to catch up. Knowing that you spent lots of money and you got into more debts, this can be very scary, frustrating, and can make you feel like quitting very fast.
Many people set a budget and stick to it. But somehow others don’t because they find it hard to ignore those juicy advertising words that lets them think that it will bring their efforts excellent or any results.
Now, I am not saying that a credit card is bad for you. You MUST know how to use it the smart way. If you use it the wrong way as I described above, it can mean the difference between success and failure.
So here are 4 easy steps that you can use right now so that you do go in the right direction with your online business, and you don’t go into BIG debts.
1. Here is a quote I use on a daily basis. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. In other words, you should plan what you will be doing and what you are planning to spend each month. If you don’t have a plan, then you can lose a lot of money.
2. Know when to just say ‘NO’. It is tempting and easy to grab a credit card, enter your card number, and click on the “Pay Here” button. I know all about it. So set a monthly budget and stick to it. Period.
3. If your plan of action in advertising does not bring you the results that you were expecting, then revise or change that plan, but stick to your budget.
4. And finally, give your business time to grow and never give up no matter what.
Tal Fighel is the editor and publisher of Home Business Tips Newsletter: http://www.talfighel.com/ For more comprehensive and useful strategies to make money online, visit here:
http://www.talfighel.com/30daystosuccess.exe
This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com
Copyright 2005 Sharon Housley
With new technologies, algorithms and sources emerging on a daily basis, webmasters are constantly struggling to stay informed. The quality of content on the web and the number of products available to webmasters can seem overwhelming. The goal of creating a site that can be quickly found can be a struggle. Unless webmasters have a well-established brand, a great domain name and a huge marketing budget, it is important that they appear in search engines via specific keywords. With this in mind, we have compiled a list of resources and products that will benefit webmasters in their efforts to be found.
1.) Webmaster Articles & Tutorials -The Internet is rich with resources for webmasters who are developing and optimizing web content. The web hosts a vast variety of web design tutorials and articles. For the novice, sifting through these resources can be daunting and overwhelming.
Site Point - New Articles, Fresh Thinking for Web Developers and Designers - With a vast variety of web design tutorials and articles coupled with a vibrant and well informed community, SitePoint is the natural place to go to grow your online business.
http://www.sitepoint.com/
WebProNews - WebProNews is an article portal for Internet and Technology professionals and has thousands of articles on web design and development. The articles are from iEntry's network of expert writers through hundreds of relationships with authors around the world.
http://www.webpronews.com/
2.) Webmaster Forums - Not only can participating in various forums and posting your various views and ideas potentially bring new growth and life to your online business, it can help you stay informed about industry news or changes. This is particularly important when working in a new, quickly advancing industry like web design and search engine optimization. The following forums are great places for webmasters to participate and monitor.
ThreadWatch - ThreadWatch is a nifty tool. The concept of Threadwatch is very simple: finding the signal amongst the noise of internet marketing media takes too much of what we all value most, time. Threadwatch.org cuts through the chatter and produces a clear signal for the time-starved professional Internet marketer. http://www.threadwatch.org
Webmaster-Talk - The WebmasterTalk forum covers material related to Web Design, PHP Help, Coding, Hosting, Domain Names, graphic optimization and related webmaster topics. The forum is extremely popular and generally, posts will receive almost instant responses from knowledgeable professionals. Of course, like any forum, there are bound to be opposing views ensuring that all sides of every issue are raised. http://www.webmaster-talk.com
3.) Website Submission Tools - According to research more then 90% of Internet traffic is generated by search engines. Submitting your website to all major search engines is the most effective way of promoting your website on the Internet. In order for web surfers to locate your site you must be included in all the major search engines. There are a number of tools available to assist with the submission process.
Internet Business Promoter - Internet Business Promoter is a suite of 10 professional web promotion tools in one software application. All of the tools are designed to assist web developers with all aspects of web site promotion and search engine optimization. We found that IBP's strength was in the website submission options. Once a site is created it must be submitted to search engines and directories. IBP streamlines and simplifies the submission process, saving significant amounts of time. http://www.axandra.com/ibp
FreeWebSubmission.com - Free Web Submission is the source for free search engine submission. They provide webmasters and site owners with free manual and auto submission to the highest-rated, free internet search engines and directories.
http://www.freewebsubmission.com/
AddMe - AddMe is a leading resource for webmasters and small-business owners specialized in website submission and promotion in the search engines. AddMe offers free online website submission to 14 major search engines in exchange for a reciprocal link. AddMe is well known and respected in the industry. http://www.addme.com/
Many of the online submissions require an e-mail address. In order to limit excessive unwanted e-mail many webmasters will use a "throw-away" e-mail address that would allow them to initially receive notification that the site is submitted but is ultimately an e-mail account they can discontinue after the submission process. This practice is suggested for anyone using a free service for site submissions.
4.) Online Tools - A number of resource sites are available on the web to assist webmasters. The resources are generally free and contain useful analytical tools.
DigitalPoint - The DigitalPoint site contains a variety of tools specifically for webmasters. The tools are a collection of useful online tools, from a Google AdSense Sandbox that shows which Google AdSense ads will be displayed for any webpage on the Internet, to web ranking tools that track Yahoo's web rank.
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/
SEO Survey - Tools to help SEO specialists and webmasters automate some of the important tasks involved in the routine of optimization.
http://www.socengine.com/seo/tools.html
5.) Webmaster Software - The aim of many applications is to save time, money or productivity. Webmsters can often use software to replace a task they do manually, freeing up their time to pursue other tasks.
FeedForAll - FeedForAll creates, edits, manages and publishes RSS feeds. As webmasters realize the benefits to RSS, software related to RSS is becoming an instrumental tool in their arsenal. http://www.feedforall.com
TNT Screen Capture - TNT captures everything with only 3 simple capture modes, from application windows to controls, to menus and popup windows. Many integrated unique features like shadow options, transparency, quick scaling and individual shapes make it quick and simple to create stunning screenshots at a mouse-click.
http://www.ec-software.com/tnt.htm
6.) Free Content - Free content comes in all shapes and sizes. Understanding who your target customer is and what appeals to them will go a long way in finding content that will increase your site's value.
GoArticles - Providing a fresh stream of content-specific articles is a great way to encourage visitors to return to your website on a regular basis. GoArticles is a directory of quality articles that is searchable based on keywords.
http://www.goarticles.com
Small Business Software - Collection of small business and marketing-related articles available for republishing.
Articles - http://www.small-business-software/free-website-content.htm
FreeSticky - FreeSticky provides a directory of content available to webmasters free of charge. The available content is a variety of items including syndicated cartoons, games, horoscopes, photographs, forums and articles. The supplemental content is designed to encourage visitors to return to your website.
http://www.freesticky.com/stickyweb/
RSS - RSS stands for really simple syndication, RSS feeds generally contain content available for syndication. Meaning that you can often publish content contained in an RSS feeds to provide fresh website content. FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com/free-php-script.htm has a free PHP script available to display RSS feeds. Additional resources to learn more about using RSS as web content can be found at http://www.rss-specifications.com and http://www.rss-syndication.com
7.) Alerts - Using web alerts is becoming increasingly useful to webmasters interested in tracking their search engine position, trademarked terms, to monitor competitors and stay abreast of online occurrences.
Google Alerts - Google Alerts is a solution for monitoring your professional interests online. Track the entire web for your personalized topics and receive new results by daily e-mail. There are two companies doing this: Google Alerts, http://www.googlealert.com and http://www.google.com/alerts
PubSub - PubSub is a matching service that instantly notifies you when new content is created that matches your subscription. Using a proprietary Matching Engine, PubSub is able to read millions of data sources on your behalf and notify you instantly whenever a match is made. http://www.pubsub.com
Tools for Online Tracking Alerts - Article detailing additional tools available for online tracking and alerts.
http://www.small-business-software.net/tools-for-online-tracking.htm
8.) Blacklist Checkers - E-mail delivery problems often occur when an IP address or domain is black-listed. The following tools will ensure that your IP address and domain will not have delivery issues.
DNS Stuff - DNSstuff: Free fast, advanced and comprehensive web-based DNS tools, going beyond just ping, tracert/traceroute, WHOIS and DNS lookups.
http://www.dnsstuff.com/
SpamNews - spamNEWS is a concise aggregation of vital information relevant to professionals in the anti-spam sector: Up-to-the-minute press coverage and topical editorials about e-mail abuse, related online security matters, legal and political issues, as well as articles on Internet marketing and privacy.
http://www.spamnews.com/
9.) Keyword Tools - Keywords to improve search engine placement and ranking. Finding top Internet marketing keywords is critical in the quest to be found. Choosing the right Internet marketing keywords will help your search engine placement and ranking. A little keyword research goes a long way in the search to be found.
WordTracker - WordTracker helps you choose the right Internet marketing keywords that will help your search engine placement and ranking. Use WordTracker for keyword research. Web marketing is all about search engine ranking, and that starts with the proper Internet marketing keywords. Get a free keyword report and web site promotion information!
http://www.wordtracker.com
10.) Newsletters - Email newsletters continue to be one of the most important ways to communicate and find information on the Internet. The following e-mail newsletters contain great information for webmasters.
SitePronews - A free newsletter and webmaster resource site for Webmasters focusing on web site promotion, submission, positioning, design and marketing. The newsletters and websites contain articles by noted web experts. The SiteProNews site was the first of more than 12 web sites that focused on niche areas of particular interest to webmasters, marketers, newsletter publishers, authors and entrepreneurs.
http://www.sitepronews.com/
iEntry - The iEntry network has a really great collection of useful newsletters. iEntry publishes over 50 targeted e-mail newsletters that cover various aspects of the IT and Business industries. http://www.ientry.com/
Like most of the copious amounts of information on the Internet, it is a matter of sifting through to find relevant, accurate, helpful information. Occasionally we stumble across some little-known gems. As a result, we have compiled these webmaster tools.
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing and publishing RSS feeds and NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software.
This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com
Copyright 2005 Willie Crawford
A recent thread at The Internet Marketing Warriors member-only discussion forum examined what it is that separates the big Internet marketing successes from the "also rans." There was no argument that one key to being an online success is learning to write great copy. Great copy is what gets your site's visitors stirred up enough to actually take action... often a monumental challenge.
The discussion also asked why big online successes would bother with learning to write copy when they could hire someone else. The answer was that it's fun trying to see if you can create, or improve upon, a winning sales letter.
Many of the top copywriters are also so busy writing copy for their own projects that if you could afford the ten to fifteen thousand dollars they'd charge you, you'd also have to get on their waiting lists. So clearly, learning to improve your own web copy is a worthwhile investment.
The fact is, anyone can get a web hosting account, throw together a hastily written web page, and say that they are in business on the Internet. In-fact, that's what far too many people do. That's one of the reasons why most netrepreneurs never earn a respectable income. They never bother to learn what it is about good copywriting that makes it work. They never learn enough about human behavior to understand what makes us behave the way that we do.
Human behavior and motivation hasn't changed in thousand of years. As Jay Abraham is fond on saying, "Human nature, is human nature, is human nature." How and why we react to environmental stimuli LITERALLY hasn't changed since the beginning of recorded history. Understanding the causes and effects of human behavior is the secret to great copywriting.
As complex as we like to believe we are, we're all really creatures of habit. Humans are not really that complex. We're lots of emotions and chemical reactions sprinkled with a little reason :-)
Copywriters understand that we're lots of "hot buttons" that can be ethically exploited.
Great copywriters have discovered what these hot buttons are and the correct way to push them. They've discovered through trial and error how to whip the prospect into a "white-hot buying frenzy." They've discovered how to get a prospect to reach an emotionally charged decision and then logically justify it.
All of the discoveries made by great copywriters, which are often well-documented, makes it incredibly easy for you to become a world-class copywriter (which is your key to becoming a top Internet marketer). All you have to do is study what they have written. All you have to do is model their successful sales pieces. You don't even have to fully understand WHY they worked - you just need to know which ones worked. That's the one big danger I see in modeling others' sales pieces. You don't always KNOW which ones worked.
Great copywriters test everything, and as a result, always know which elements made the difference in their advertising pieces. It's not guesswork - it's science. Some share their scientific findings with you in their courses and books. Aspiring copywriters should have a library of these courses and books.
Here's an astonishing fact... many of the top Internet marketers today did not struggle for years before becoming successful. They understood... perhaps even stumbled upon the real key which is effective copywriting. This enabled them to reach six and even seven-figure incomes in months rather than years!
Let me give you an example. My friend Yanik Silver only came on the Internet scene in 2000. I started in 1996! Within a year of coming on the scene Yanik was already a household name. Within 2 years, he was one of the "gurus." What is Yanik's secret? He's an incredible copywriter.
Like many world-class copywriters, Yanik actually spent a lot of time studying copywriting. He was introduced to the works of Jay Abraham and Dan Kennedy as a kid. He discovered the power of good copywriting early. As a teenager, he was already writing direct response copy so good that it sold medical equipment, for his dad, to hard-noised, very discriminating doctors. He wrote ads that caused doctors to mail or fax in orders for expensive medical machinery... site unseen, while he was still a teenager.
Yanik, and every great copywriter that I've ever talked to, became that way through study and practice. They studied everything that they could that was written on the topic by famous, proven copywriters. They built huge "swipe file" of documented-successful sales pieces. Then they spent a lot of time practicing writing similar sales pieces. They practiced until they were able to model their teachers.
Being one of the Internet marketing top-earners is really very simple. You study "million-dollars salespieces." You sit down and write them out, over and over again. You study each element of those successful salespieces. Through practice and repetition you develop a feel for the flow. Your nervous system becomes "trained." You develop an arsenal of thoughts, of headlines, guarantees, closes, proof, sub-headings, power word... and eventually you reach a point where the powerful, effective copy just flows from you effortlessly.
I used Yanik as an example above for two reasons. One is that he has produced a "home-study" copywriter’s course that I've gone through. I refer to my materials from this course any time that I'm working on any email, autoresponder series, direct mail piece, or webpage. You can check out Yanik's course at: http://www.ultimateonlinecopymanual.com
The second reason I used Yanik as an example of how good copywriting can make you a fast-rising Internet marketing superstar is that Yanik consistently sets the standard that I aspire to. Yanik conducts workshop - his "protege program" that costs $14,497 to be a part of. That's not the incredible part though - the incredible part is that he has a HUGE waiting list for participating in his protege program.
So there you have THE big secret of how to become a top Internet marketer. Since I've been trained to over-deliver, I'll also share with you a second secret. That secret is, another key to rising to the top in ANY field is associating with those who have already risen to the top. Yanik not only studied Dan Kennedy, he also attended his workshops. Yanik demonstrated to Dan that he was a serious student, and so impressed Dan that Dan had Yanik teaching at "last-ever" copywriting workshop.
How can you capitalize on that second success secret. Check out this "underground" event that only those "in the know" will be at:
http://www.profitautomation.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=118679
This event is where you can brainstorm ideas with me and a lot of the TOP Internet marketers. It's also where you'll find a lot of future Yanik Silver's.
Now that you know the keys, only inaction can keep you from becoming one of the top Internet marketers. I've just revealed those keys to you and lots of aspiring Internet marketers. Only a handful will use that knowledge thought. That's why there will always only be a few at the top!
By the way... if you'd like to become a members of The Internet Marketing Warriors, and brainstorm marketing ideas with some of the best and the brightest, you can join the club at: http://www.warriorpro.com/cgi-bin/w.cgi?2602
Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author, seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host, retired military officer, karate black belt, master network marketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. He shows people how to actually generate substantial income on-line using very simple, easily modeled systems. An example of such a system that you can study and duplicate is at:
http://www.vemmabuilder.com/1681647
This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com
Copyright 2005 John Taylor
Whatever the purpose of your web site you have to pay for certain services. As a bare minimum you will need to pay for hosting, for traffic and for an autoresponder account. The costs of these services are fixed irrespective of the number of sales that you can make.
lets say that your total fixed costs for these services are $500 a year and that you sell 50 eBooks a year at $27. That means that your income is $1350 and, after paying your fixed costs you are making $850 profit each year. So your profit represents about 63% of your sales income.
Now, lets say your current conversion rate of unique visitors to sales is about average at 2%. So to get 50 sales you need 2,500 unique visitors.
To boost their sales income, most people will try to increase the traffic to their web site by spending money on Pay Per Click campaigns, advertising in ezines or by investing in banner adverts. If you don't want to spend your hard earned cash, then you will need to invest a lot of time on article writing and other "do it yourself" promotional activities.
What if you could nearly double your profit in a few easy steps?
It is very easy. You simply have to closely examine your web site and look for ways of improving the impact that you are having on your customer.
Look at your headline, does it really grab the attention of your visitors?
Do the first few paragraphs of your sales copy draw in your visitor and encourage them to read further?
Are your testimonials conveying a strong and powerful endorsement of your product?
Are you making good use of text colour to emphasise the important trigger words in your copy?
Did you know that there are over 21 critical elements within a typical sales letter page?
When I first launched my web site (http://www.Test-and-Track.com) my conversion rate was less than 1%. Since then, I have tested and tweaked every key element of the entire sales process and my conversion rate is now over 3.5%. Oh, by the way, I am still working on it!
Let's look at the bottom line. If you can implement a few simple improvements to your web site and increase your sales conversion rate to just 3%, you will make an additional 25 sales without increasing your costs. 25 sales at $27 will put an additional $675 in your pocket. Your fixed costs are still the same so it is all pure profit!
Can you afford to leave that money on the table?
John Taylor is the author of "Learn over Twenty ways To Improve Your Conversion Rate and Multiply Your Profits" - A Special Report that contains a wealth of information on professional testing and tracking techniques that can boost your conversion rate and generate increased profits. To learn how testing and tracking can boost your profits click this link now: http://www.test-and-track.com
This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com
by Rachel Phillips
Free Targeted Traffic Tips
If you have been on the internet for even a couple of days, you have already seen at least one site, if not several, that wants to entice you to sign up for their newsletter in exchange for information and a give away of some kind.
New subscribers to your newsletter are gold nuggets waiting to be mined.
Usually ranged from an email series of hard to find information, to a report or even full ebooks. When people first arrive on the scene, an ebook in exchange for simply signing up to a newsletter seems like a great deal!
But if you have been around awhile you know two things for sure:
1) Most of these offers are for books and reports you can find elsewhere, or that have little true value. 2) Now that giving away an ebook to get subscribers has been a successful method of list building for years, it has become common place and not as effective as it used to be.
And through my research I have found that software, above all else, is better than anything else I have used to attract subscribers and new customers.
People love software solutions. Especially when those solutions involve doing something in minutes that would normally take hours or days to do, thus simplifying their lives immensely.
More downloads meant more money to me, since I branded that software with my own affiliate links. A LOT more money. Just in hosting alone, with just one email to my list, I added $210 a month to my income. And new accounts come in daily.
Most people online cannot be, nor will they ever become good web designers. Let alone have the marketing savvy to pull off a really great selling affiliate system out of the gate. This presents a huge opportunity in a market that people have been cashing in on for a long time. Providing a 24 hour solution to a 1 to 2 year learning curve is a very big deal.
And to provide that solution for zero cost is an even bigger enticement, as my statistics are showing me.
To see an example of the software I am having great success with, see this site: http://www.Real-Work-At-Home.com/pips.html
This software helps beginners and intermediate level people build the kind of site it took me a year to learn to build when I was starting out. It has professional features galore, including a reciprocal linking solution which is a hot topic these days and a sticking point for most beginners.
In short, it is amazing and the download statistics are showing that it is something literally hundreds of people on my list alone were very interested in. Give it a try, it’s free and you have nothing to waste except time.
Rachel Phillips is an internet marketing professional and stay at home mom. You can sign up for her newsletter which is dedicated to supporting everyday people just like YOU! She offers top rated home business opportunities, the latest time saving tools and helpful support from a friend in the business.
Rachel is offering a Free Business Start-Up Kit and Free Website for her next 1000 visitors.
Visit http://www.real-work-at-home.com to get your website and browse the articles section.
Read her blog at http://real-work-at-home.blogspot.com
This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com
Copyright 2005 Willie Crawford
When you're first starting an online business, it can be a struggle finding the money to invest in the things that will grow your business most. Only later do you discover things all the guru's know that could have saved you a small fortune. Here are a few things that will help you save on Internet marketing business necessities.
In order to be in business on the Internet you DO need a website. Hosting that website doesn't need to cost you an arm and a leg. Here are two ways to save:
1) Don't register your domain through your web host. Instead go to a discount registrar. Your web host will charge you up to $40 or more (per year) just to conveniently handle your domain name registration. You can register or renew your domain name yourself for as little as $8 per year. I've set up a service for my subscribers and clients to do just that at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/domains/
How am I able to offer you such a bargain? I have a domain name reseller account at Wild West Domains. For around $100 per year, practically anyone can become a domain name reseller. You are charged a wholesale price for domain name registrations (and other services offered on my site above). You decide how much you want to mark up your prices above that. I have practically no markup because I enjoy helping beginners get off to a good start. I know that you'll be back for other products and services that I offer - after you're a big success :-)
2) Consider getting a web hosting account here:
http://www.profitautomation.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=119107
I have an account that lets me host up to 50 domains for only $109 per month. That equates to about $2 per domain, per month. The $109 package that I have gives me 4400 meg of disk space and 100 gigabytes of monthly bandwidth to spread among my 50 domains in that account any way that I want to.
The account above is intended for people who want to open their own web-hosting business. Basically, you can get one of these accounts and then charge your online or local customers whatever price you choose. Find 50 local customers and charge them $100 each and you've just turned $109 into $5000. That's a nice monthly revenue stream and it's also in-line with what offline businesses expect to pay.
The above account isn't for everyone. It doesn't come with a lot of free tech support. You have to go through some online tutorials and then you're the tech support. If you need help, you can get it through an online forum or through a trouble ticket system (where you pay by the minute). When one of your customers needs help, their trouble tickets go to you. If you pass them along to the parent company, you are billed by the minute.
I use the above account to host many of my own domains. I have numerous very simple sites that are only a few pages. Some are only a one-page sales letter. I save a bundle by paying only $2 per month to host these. When you're paying only $2 per month for hosting you don't need to make a lot of sale for a site to be profitable.
Another necessity is basic Internet access. For that I use my local cable company but I also have a backup dialup connection. That account, which offer decent service cost me less than $10 per month. Because I transfer many 30 meg or larger files back and forth regularly, this account probably isn’t robust enough to be my primary. However, my local cable company does sometimes have outages for various reasons. That's when I use this dialup account most. I also use it sometimes while I'm traveling. You can checkout the company I use at:
http://47928.yourdialupservice.com/
They offer thousands of local access numbers in the U.S. and Canada.
I have not located a comparable resource for outside the U.S. and Canada, but will pass it along when I do.
Another way to save big is to get your own merchant account. When you use Paypal or Clickbank, your initial investment may be less. However you pay much higher processing fees, and your less professional appearance DOES cost you sales. Savvy customers who understand Clickbank and Paypal will recognize that you're not processing enough volume to consider a merchant account worthwhile. They may consider you an amateur that they don't want to risk major purchases with.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't use Paypal or Clickbank when you first start out and you're not confident that your product will even sell. I AM saying that "when you're ready to run with the big dogs, you need to look like one of them." Top marketers that I know who are processing tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in credit card transactions use: http://WarriorProcessing.com
Take a look at the site and you'll see why it's who we use.
As you get your online business rolling, the other thing you'll need is traffic. When you first get started, the fastest way to get it is from the pay-per-clicks. I use Google AdWords to drive initial traffic to all of my sites when I need that traffic fast. That allows me to quickly get enough traffic to test and improve my conversion rate. None of the other pay-per-clicks usually deliver the volume of traffic that I want quickly enough.
After I refine things using Google AdWords, I do set up accounts at some of the other pay-per-clicks. I use Google AdWords at first because I place a very high value on my time and I don't want to spend months just getting enough traffic to refine the sales process on a single site.
Unless you have lots of free time, I wouldn't waste time on any other traffic source initially EXCEPT for the one I am using right here. Writing and submitting articles to ezines and article directories has proven the single best source of free traffic for me. It works so well that I've written over 300 articles on various aspect of Internet marketing. To prove that this works, just enter my name at any search engine. You'll see millions of returns and most of them are simply from my article writing activities.
The other thing that will save you time is studying and practicing copywriting. Minor improvement in your web copy can easily increase your conversion rate by 100 times. Not learning copywriting is practicing false economy for most of us. If only 1 out of every 200 visitors to your site buys and just by changing a headline you can change that to 1 in 20, that shows just how important copywriting is. There have been countless documented cases of people getting improvements this dramatic from minor but important improvement in their web copy.
To learn copywriting, I went through and highly recommend Yanik Silver's Ultimate At-Home Internet Copywriting Workshop. This will be your largest initial expense, but it's a necessary one. Words sell, and if you're not willing to learn to use words properly in your marketing, then you probably shouldn't waste time setting up a website.
You can get all of the details on this course at:
http://www.ultimateonlinecopymanual.com
We've just gone over a number of way that you can dramatically cut the expenses associate with operating your online business. I'm willing to bet that I've just told you things that NO ONE else has told you. They aren't all trying to take advantage of you. However, they are hoping that out of ignorance you'll spend more on the same items through them. Save that money and plow it back into growing your business.
This article is excerpted from Willie Crawford's Revised, Free 20-lesson Internet Business Success Course. To sign up for the entire course today, simply visit: http://WillieCrawford.com
This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com
Copyright 2005 Michael Morris
To most people Internet Marketing looks like a good way to make money from home, which is possibly the main reason while people start. The shame is that people like this don't realize that they are only scratching the surface.
The aim of this article is to make sure you don’t become one of them and miss out on what lies beneath the surface of Internet Marketing.
As you read on think about your job or most traditional businesses. Comparing what you know against the information here. It will become abundantly clear that your job or traditional business can't give you what being an Internet marketer can.
To setup most ordinary businesses requires capital, your own (or a bank’s) money to invest before you do anything. I guess these days $10,000 is possibly a conservative figure for start up costs, dependant of course on what you choose to do.
As an internet marketer joining affiliate programs lets you start making money without the outlay. Many affiliate programs are free and you can market with free ads. To be fair even getting your own site up could be done for a not too many dollars.
When you’ve got going, building your business on a budget is not unrealistic. Obviously the less you spend the longer it takes, but; remember a normal business doesn’t have that choice. You will have some expenditure like hosting fees and merchant accounts. However, in today’s online business even merchant accounts are not vital, there are several good facilitators providing the same service at a lower cost.
As your costs are low, each sale means more of the money is yours! By selling electronically delivered products such as e-books, you won’t pay for shipping either.
Here’s a real gem, you don’t even need your own product! Yes it’s true; there are many affiliate programs from which you can sell some great products. My web site listed in the resource box at the end of this article has some ideas to start with.
You may know this; you can market on the internet for little or no money. Online you can submit free ads, do ad swaps with your ezine, use pay per click search engines, etc. Check the costs of offline advertising. Just think how much it costs to mail 1,000 letters, compared to e-mailing a 100,000 for free.
Time is yours to use as you wish. You can build slow or fast or at whatever speed you like. You might to want put just one a day a week in or all seven. You might be the type that when all is quiet at night puts a couple of hours in then. It’s entirely up to you.
Remember as an employee in the real world job security is a thing of the past. Many millions of people depend on a paycheck for 40 or more years as an employee. Even if you took five years to take your business from part to full time, you would be still miles ahead of the many.
Your business is open all hours 24/7 for 365 days a year. Your business is not limited to a locality, it’s worldwide! A web site works while you sleep as does all your advertising and articles such as the one you are now reading. The BIG SECRET is that the older your online business gets, the less work it takes to make more money.
As an employee, the company you work for gets to keep most of the money that your hard work produces. However, the opposite is true of your online business; you’re the owner not the employee, the bigger your business grows the bigger your paycheck!
There are plenty of other people who have been in online business a while. They have created the business plans so you don’t have to. Learn how to do it from those who have done it before. Follow their lead and you’ll get the same results.
Resources to help your business grow can be cheap and free in lots of cases. Subscribing to ezines can give you access to many free tips and articles to help your business grow. You can buy information on how to build your business from as little as $10. It stands to reason though the dearer it is the more valuable it is, and it will help you to build faster. You must remember that you can find plenty of great support that costs little.
As an online marketer you are part of the online marketing community. In my experience online marketers are good people who have no problem helping each other. They are only an e-mail away if you need help and support. They can offer plenty of guidance on what to do and more importantly what not to do!
I save what I believe is the best till last, the TAXMAN! Before you all go diving for cover, I mean all the allowances you can claim for against your business.
Here are just a few when you are running a home based business:
Office supplies including your computer and its peripherals
Related tools such as hosting fees, journals, magazines.
Advertising
Your phone
and much, much more
What other business has these benefits? Network marketing is probably the closest but not close enough, only if you are using internet marketing to build it.
Mike Morris publishes “Make your home business work”, a fresh and informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people like you! To find out the best in online business opportunities, plus free business tools, Visit http:// www.r-u-making-a-profit.com
This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com
Jinger Jarrett
Copyright 2005 Jinger Jarrett
If you want to start a business in 2005, and start making money almost immediately, the sites listed below are some of the best I have found. I've chosen each site because it is absolutely outstanding in providing the tools you need to get started, as well as taking you through the steps you need to get started immediately.
My1stBusiness.com - http://www.my1stbusiness.com - This site is owned by Ben Botes, who is currently working on a doctoral degree in business. Ben will take you through every phase of creating your business, and it doesn't matter how large or small it is. You'll find all of the information you need right here.
Teleclasses are currently free, and you'll find a wide variety of top notch business coaches to help you build your business.
This site is scheduled to go to a paid model soon, but it will definitely be worth the price tag. If you're looking for a one stop solution to constantly update your business knowledge, and stay ahead of your competition, this is it.
Ron Olinger - http://ronolinger.ws - Everyone needs a little motivation, and Ron is the guy to help you with that.
He offers a newsletter called "Winning Attitudes" that is absolutely dynamite. You'll find lots of quality tips and information. Definitely a must read if you are struggling to get started.
Not your run of the mill newsletter, it will help you achieve what you want to achieve in both your persona and professional life.
Ultimate Marketing Center - http://www.ultimatemarketingcenter.com - Hands down, this is the best web host on the Internet.
However, the reason I selected this site as a business site is this: it is a complete and total solution for starting your business.
You'll get a complete web hosting account with all of the bells and whistles, as well as 1000s of dollars in software and ebooks to teach you everything you need to know about building a business.
What makes this site better than any other online is that it's a complete solution. It includes affiliate program management software, unlimited autoresponders, custom made scripts the owner sells for $35 each on his other sites, unlimited email accounts, and a generous sized web hosting account.
There's nothing else like it on the Internet, and it's the only place where you can run your entire business for only $19.95 per month. The support is excellent.
Website.ws - http://www.website.ws - For the newcomer to the Internet, this is the site you need to start your business.
You'll get a domain name, a generous mult-tier affiliate program to help you build a backend income, and a website builder that is so easy to use, a child can build a web site.
There are also videos to teach you web site building, as well as a nice 20 page ebook to show you how to market this opportunity and make money from it.
It's the easiest solution I know of to starting a business on the Internet, and you don't need to know HTML. You can also use your web site account to build your primary business and generate another source of income.
Coachville.com - http://www.coachville.com - Thinking of starting a service business?
Even if you aren't interested in starting any type of coaching business, this site is definitely for you.
They offer a wide variety of free and paid courses, and you can even earn your certification as a coach. This site will cut your learning curve dramatically, and you'll be up and running in no time.
Alexa - http://www.alexa.com - When it comes to smoking the competition, this is the site you want to use.
You'll get detailed stats, contact information, site rankings, sites that are linked to a particular web site, and a whole lot more.
No other site will offer you more comprehensive information on what's hot and what's not on the Internet. They also offer a toolbar, and it's free to use the site.
Automate Internet Marketing - http://www.automateinternetmarketing.com/ - Internet marketer Patric Chan offers you a free marketing membership with plenty of excellent information. What blew my mind when I saw this is that Patric is giving it away.
If you're new to the Internet, and new to Internet marketing, start here. Patric knows how to explain marketing in a way that is easy to understand.
Whether you've started a business and want to increase your profits, or you want to start a business, now is the time. These seven resources are not to be overlooked.
Jinger Jarrett is a small business coach and Internet Marketer living in Alpharetta, Georgia. She teaches small business owners how to build a fulltime passive residual income and how to do it for only $10 per month. http://www.jingerjarrett.ws
This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com
