Develop A Marketing Plan

Writen by T. Dean

How do you normally operate?

Do you put up an ad and then get excited when an order comes in?

If orders don't come in, do you just sit around pulling out your hair?

I know a lot of people who do that. This week they receive a lot of sales. Great. Next week they don't. The world must be ending!

You'll always experience some variation in your sales, because world events and people's vacations can hurt your business. You don't exist in a vacuum without outside influences.

While you can't change the world, you can change the roller coaster ride many businesses experience. The best way to do this is to write down a serious marketing plan.

Too often marketers just put up a product and hope the world comes to them.

They place one ad. They write one article. They send out one press release. They contact one possible affiliate. That's all they do.

If it doesn't work, they give up.

They don't have a daily, weekly, or monthly marketing schedule.

You need to be placing ads constantly. Write more articles. Keep trying until you "fail your way to success." Rewrite your ad.

Keep working...and don't give up just because it doesn't work the first time you try.

That's the difference between those who succeed and those who fail in an online business.

One person learns when they fail.

The other one simply quits.

You have to put yourself on a marketing schedule. Don't just try to think about it in your head either. Write it down and follow your daily marketing plans.

You may do something like the below as a part-time beginner. Please note that most people could actually market more than this.

This is a "starter" plan.

Week One - Create 100 keywords for web site and put on http://www.overture.com

Week Two - Write one ezine article, edit it, and submit it to databases and ezine publishers.

Week Three - Write up and run 2 solo ezine ads.

Week Four - Use the 100 PPC keywords to add to Google Adwords Select.

Week Five - Contact 25 potential JV partners and affiliates.

Week Six - Write 2nd ezine article, edit it, and submit it to databases and ezine publishers.

Week Seven - Prepare and send out press release. Field incoming calls from media.

That is just an example. The point is that you need to actually build a marketing plan for yourself. Then stick to it.

If you have more time, you can actually even schedule out a specific marketing activity for each day of the week.

No matter what business you're in, you're in the marketing business. As the business owner, that's your primary responsibility.

A lot of people don't like to hear this kind of statement, but it's true anyway.

Products are easy. There are thousands of high quality products out there not being sold effectively. It's the marketing which drives your business. That's your primary responsibility if you want to succeed online.

Don't get me wrong. You need a good high quality product. If you don't have one, then get one. But great products have died unknown without strong marketing campaigns backing them up.

So study Internet marketing. Set goals. Then write down exactly what you're going to do each day to reach those goals.

If you don't write it down, you'll forget it and life will get in the way. You have to plan it and then do it.

The person who studies and then applies everything they learn in an organized plan will beat the random marketer who jumps from opportunity to opportunity every time.

I know quite a few people who started online the same time as me. I learned, applied, and tested. They're still looking for the big opportunity to come along someday.

Who are you going to be like?

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Strategic Internet Marketing Using Joint Ventures

Writen by Michael Turner

The goal of most webmasters is driving more traffic to their website in order to increase revenue. As a result, finding creative ways to market on the internet is critical. One such option is using joint ventures to assist in strategic internet marketing. The way this works, however, requires two or more businesses working together for the good of both. You cannot have a joint venture if you don't have another website or business working with you, so you must accomplish this first and make sure the goal is to benefit both websites involved. Read the following suggestions for strategic Internet marketing with joint ventures.

Joint venture #1 - Link Trades

Trading links is a joint venture because two websites are hosting the other websites link, helping to drive traffic to the sites as well as increase search engine rankings. This particular joint venture technique is being used frequently on the web today because of the sheer importance of links and their bearing on search engine results.

Joint venture #2 - Combine Web Pages

If you are having problems getting business then you might consider linking your products and services with another website that has a similar target market and complementary products. This way you can share the expense of the website, hosting account, and administrative costs, and split the difference on products. It's a good way to cut down on overhead and increase your inventory at the same time.

Joint venture #3 - Testimonials

Testimonials have been proven to make visitors feel more comfortable and confident with a product or company. You can create a joint venture to help another website with their testimonials and have them do the same thing for you.

Joint Venture #4 - E-book

Joint venture with another website to write an e-book that outlines different services and provides good information for visitors. Make sure that reading the e-book is actually worthwhile and informative. Then, include advertisements for both businesses in the e-book and allow the e-book to be downloaded for free from both websites. This is great advertising and by giving something away for free you will make your visitors feel more positive about your company.

Joint Venture #5 - Ads

Another joint venture idea that you can team up with another website or business to accomplish is autoresponder ads. Both websites can host these ads for the other website and as a result, have more coverage and business.

There are thousands of different join ventures you can involve yourself in. However, make sure you put some serious thought into the joint venture agreement and that it will be lucrative for everyone involved. If not, you will have a hard time finding anyone to joint venture with you. It is important to make sure you have thought out the joint venture from both sides before presenting another website with the opportunity.

Michael Turner reveals step-by-step how you can increase search engine traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it now at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/

Tips To Take All The Way To The Bank

Writen by Jessica Earl

Do you wish to break a cycle of financial struggle? Are you seeking ways to improve your quality of life - such as vacations or time with family?

Here's two related tips that seem simple and obvious, yet most of us seem to over look them when we earnestly wish to pay off debt, have more cash flow for fun, or even more income without taking time away from what's important to us, such as our families.

I'm using these tips daily to improve my financial situation and I'd like to share them with you. I wish for others to share the joy I feel, so you too can have the life you desire!

Tip #1: Teach what you know, learn what you don't.

Sure, this can be tricky; I won't try to tell you its not. Instead, let me tell you a quick scenario about a great carpenter, who was passionate about his work. He spent most of his life working long days either in the freezing cold, or baking in the hot sun. It wears the body out, you know. Slowly, he begins to lose steam after 25 years of this lifestyle day in and out. He wishes to make more money so his kids may go to college. The only way he may know how is to work harder, longer days. If this man was paralyzed with self doubt, he would just keep doing what he knows - working harder.

However, by removing the self doubt, he opens himself up to a whole new world. His kids show him how to go online. He suddenly finds himself learning new things, for instance a free Internet marketing course, and although his doubts creep in about what he is capable of, he recognizes that he has something valuable: experience, skills, and a life long bag of carpentry tricks that only masters would know. He discovered that there were lots of do-it-yourselfers and novices out there ready to PAY him money for his knowledge. So his journey begins to financial independence, right from the comfy chair in his home. He writes a few e-books, a few articles, and sets up a website just by learning some online skills (maybe even from someone who is like him!). He is able to bring in more money than he dreamed possible, not only to put his kids through college, but also enough to retire with freedom. He is still passionately involved in his trade- but making more money, with less investment (time and money). The cincher in this story is that while his e-books are selling online, he is off vacationing with his family!

I shared this story with you to help you realize that we all have unique skills, experiences and gifts to offer. Perhaps you are a mother of 5, with not much time for work, but boy do you know about kids! You probably have a shortcut for every little household chore, or tricks to getting kids to cooperate! I am here to share with you that people are, in fact, willing to pay you for your wisdom. Don't discount yourself because you don't think you have 'it', and don't worry about how or what to learn. That's where Tip #2 comes in.

Remember: We are all teachers and all students of life. Teach what you know, learn what you don't.

Tip #2: Get in Gear!

It's some of the best advice ever given: Take Action! All too often we are just stuck in neutral. It has to change. STOP yourself in this moment, and listen to me: YOU have something to offer the world. You may have doubts, but it is fact that by taking any action at all, you are setting something into motion. It doesn't matter if you have it perfectly organized, or thought out because there are ways to continuously improve. What is important is taking step after step.

There are lots of examples around you of people or products that continuously improve. For example, parenting. If you are not a parent yourself, you know people who are. As parents, we don't always know what's the best or perfect way to handle something. We make mistakes, but that's ok. We learn, and get better. We just keep taking steps, and we experience success when our kids suddenly say something beyond their years, or do something responsible, or even just smile and say they love us.

It is important to apply this to learning a new skill like making money online. Just take the first step, then the next. Taking action isn't about knowing how to do it perfectly from the beginning, but just like parenting, you will experience success if you keep taking steps, learning, and improving.

Remember, Action is key.

Jessica Earl
Dream Big. Take Action.
Learn how for free at www.internetprofitmentor.com

Jessica is currently a graphic and engineering designer and a network administrator. She also tutors and coaches children creatively and intuitively. She has a variety of interests and hobbies and considers herself a student of life.

Google Adsense Pitfalls And Alternatives

Writen by Shri Srikanth

Google AdSense, since its launch in mid-2003, has been a boon to web-publishers world-wide, allowing them to display a wide-array of advertisements that are relevant to the content of the site.

And for each click on the advertisement made by a visitor, the web-publisher is suitably compensated - from $0.01 to $1.00 and more per click. Several web-publishers have joined this bandwagon and there are many individuals earning from $1000 to $5000/month, with the exceptional ones pulling in $15,000-$40,000/month.

There are many good information sites about succeeding with Google Adsense on the web, and some excellent forums (webmasterworld.com, digitalpoint.com to name the best).

There are however some open issues with Google AdSense:

1. Click Fraud: Click Fraud occurs when some web-publisher fraudulently clicks on advertisements displayed on his or her own web-site, or automates this clicking process through a software program. Because of the increasing prevalence of this type of fraud, Google has become stricter - and has inadvertently kicked some legitimate web-publishers out of this program.

2. Ad Blocking: Some offices and similar work-environments are now actively blocking Google AdSense advertisements from showing on their browsers. Google has responded with server side publishing of ads for some large web-publishers. It is too early to tell if this trend of Ad Blocking will rise and seriously affect the number of impressions of Google Ads and corresponding income potential for web-publishers.

3. Poor Quality Websites: Owing to the low barrier of entry for web-publishers to display AdSense advertisements, several poor quality websites now freely display Google ads. This does not always please the advertisers, especially if their advertisements show up on adult or hate sites. The complaints have been consistent, but so far no particular action has been taken to raise the barrier to entry. This may happen in the future.

Of these, click fraud remains the largest, imminent issue facing Google AdSense, and the possibility for any web-publisher to be effectively barred from participation remains the biggest single point of failure for this system. Fortunately, alternatives do exist for web-publishers.

1. Yahoo! Publisher Network - Yahoo! has introduced its own equivalent program for web-publishers, the Yahoo! Publisher Network. This program is still young but maturing rapidly. You can participate in both the Yahoo! and Google programs simultaneously if you get approved for both.

2. If you have a reasonable amount of traffic and page views already, then ad-brokers such as BurstMedia, FastClick (now merged with ValuClick), Chitika, Kanoodle, AdBrite and so forth are available for displaying advertisements.

3. CPM (Cost per Thousand Impressions) models of advertising with banner ads, or page sponsorships continue to play a significant role in the web-publisher's world.

4. If you are careful to collect e-mail addresses from visitors and develop a weekly e-zine, e-zine advertising remains a good option (once you have more than 1000 members on the list)

5. Affiliatships remain an important threat to Google AdSense. Well-written content on a website often brings good return traffic. However, this traffic is often interested in reading the content, rather than clicking on an advertisement. The content on the site is now acting effectively like an affiliate for the ads that do show up on the site. But real affiliateships pay much more than what a Google AdSense advertisement would. Google is becoming more sensitive to this by also tracking the conversion rate from a given website, and may potentially start serving higher paying, higher quality ads at those sites.

Thus, as a web-publisher and a smart business-person, do not rely on only one source of income, even if you follow an advertisement model. Keep the doors open to multiple sources of income.

Copyright 2006 Character & Wealth LLC

Shri V. Srikanth is a member and author of several articles at Character & Wealth, an online community of wealth building practitioners dedicated to bringing total financial freedom to its members in under ten years. You can contact Shri at shri@characterandwealth.com, http://www.characterandwealth.com

Top Affiliate Marketing Opportunity Secrets

Writen by Christopher Kyalo

You may have heard of this top affiliate marketing opportunity tool before and not given it a second thought. You may even have tried it out and been bitterly disappointed. Or you may never have looked at it seriously as a marketing tool before.

Whatever category you fall into, you really need to sit up and pay attention to this or this great top affiliate marketing opportunity could pass you by. Because like all great truths it is so simple and so obvious that it is easy to dismiss.

The special marketing tool that continues to earn me so much money and what I am convinced is by far the most powerful online marketing tool today is promotional articles. Actually the truth is that I discovered many special ways to use this tool that made all the difference.

Why is this tool so powerful?

There are several reasons;

a) The vast majority of people who come online are looking for information to solve their problems. This information is usually in the form of articles.

b) Search engines decide how they rank sites, based on their content (articles).

c) Articles posted on the net last forever and if properly structured can continue to give you clients for many years. I recently got a client from an article I wrote almost 3 years ago.

d) Contrary to what many people think, a single article can get you hundreds of thousands of hits daily for many years. You just have to know how to make this happen.

e) Most people think that articles can only get you traffic directly. Actually different articles can do a number of different things including;

- Get you hundreds and even thousands of one way links pointing at your site/blog.

- Get you traffic directly from search engines through the use of the right keyword phrases.

- Get you traffic directly from leading article directories when you post some of your articles there.

f) If you can do your own writing (which most people can do, although they don't know it), it is all FREE. Yes, hundreds of thousands of hits to your site can easily be achieved by this single top affiliate marketing opportunity tool and it can all be free.

Christopher Kyalo is a successful online entrepreneur who uses only this tool to market his services and products. Read the rest of this article which is actually part of his popular free special report. Get details at his special report blog.

Is It Still Possible To Make Money On The Internet

Writen by Larry Lim

Many people are saying that the internet is dead. So is there still money to be made on the Internet?

The answer is a definite YES.

Research shows, time and again, that consumers want to spend more online, and that the internet is fast becoming an integral part of their lifestyle and it'll continue to be so. Internet consumers are cautious and they want sites that are credible and worth shopping before they part with their money.

The traditional brick-and-mortar rules of business still apply to internet business. It's prudent to remember that the internet is not your business goal; it's a medium in helping you achieve your business goals.

Adhere to my following Rules and you'll be on your way to building a viable, sustainable and successful internet business.

1. Develop a viable business plan

The biggest reason why so many dotcoms failed is an inadequate business plan of how and when they will achieve profitability. To have a successful and sustainable internet business, developing a viable business plan from the outset is crucial.

Your plan must have a clear and sincere vision that has meaning to you and your business. Your main focus should be to 'plan to profit within a set period of time' and this would require you to allow time for thoughtful researching, planning, execution and testing. You'll need to test out your business model first and ensure that it's viable and sustainable.

Don't make the same mistakes that many dotcoms made - trying to build a global brand before their business model even worked as it'll lead you into receivership faster.

Regardless of how fanciful and good your website is, if your aim is not to make profit, you'll go out of business.

2. Model someone successful

It's always wise to learn from the mistakes of other people rather than to learn from your own mistakes as this can sometimes be very costly and painful.

Track and learn from benchmarked success stories, be they your competitors or otherwise. Why would you want to spend time re-inventing the wheel when you can learn from those who have already been there and done it successfully. Learn how they design their website, create products, write salescopy, their sales process, etc.

3. Focus on a niche market

Don't be everything to everybody by trying to dominate a huge and general market because you just simply can't do it effectively.

Focus your internet business on a targetable portion of the market or a narrowly defined group of potential customers. Address the need for a product or service that's not being addressed by mainstream providers. The advantage of this is that it's less competitive in such a market as large businesses won't want to be in it.

For this to be effective, the market niche that you're targeting must be fast moving, its customers accessible and there mustn't already be a dominant player in that particular market niche.

The key here is to find a niche market, assess the needs of the market and then offer them your products and/or services that meet their needs.

4. Differentiate your business

To capture a larger market share and be viable, sustainable and profitable, you need to differentiate or distinguish your business from your competitors; make your business special in the eyes of your customers and/or prospects.

You can do this by creating what's called a Unique Selling Propostion or USP and then effectively convey that USP to your target market via your marketing efforts and business performance.

This's particularly crucial if you're operating in a highly competitive market.

A USP is the one thing or idea that sets your business favourably apart from your competitors. Think about these questions: "What's the one thing that makes your business unique and distinct? Why should people buy from you and not from your competitors? Do you promise great value, benefit or service?"

Your USP is the focal point around which the success and profitability of your business is built and so you must be able to state it and fulfill it honourably and effectively.

5. Spent your funds wisely

Costs is one of the major determinant of your internet business's survivability. You'll need to carefully track and control your costs from the outset and make sure you can start to show a profit soon, as unmindful spending with no thought given to incoming resources will bleed you to death.

Credible websites not only require money to set up but also to maintain; advertisement costs money. Driving traffic to your website where you lose money on sales made is suicidal. Do your sums; consistently refer back to your vision to ascertain whether an expense is warranted or meaningful.

6. Superior customer service

In addition to a viable business plan, a superior customer service will be key to your success.

Superior customer service must be a high priority in your action plan. Build a trusting and long lasting relationship with your customers and prospects, send your staff for customer service training, fulfill your orders promptly, and constantly remind yourself the reason of your very existence.

This is crucial as it costs five times more to win a new customer than it costs to keep an existing customer. Moreover, a dissatisfied customer will tell, on average, five or six people about your bad service. The point I'm driving at here is that looking after your customers saves money and boosts profits.

Learn and apply what I teach you, do it right, and you'll rise above your competition and blow them out of the water in no time.

About the Author

Copyright 2004 by Larry Lim, MarketingSphere.com

Larry Lim is a practising marketing strategist and tactician who dishes out highly effective marketing strategies and tactics that will enable you to successfully start and grow your business on the Internet.

His Internet Marketing Strategy website is jam-packed with internet marketing secrets and softwares that will skyrocket your sales, and shoot your profits through the roof.

To read more of Larry Lim's articles, visit http://www.articlesphere.com

Local Search Marketing Makes The Phone Ring

Writen by Monte Huebsch

Local Search Marketing provides you, the business owner, with the most targeted and cost effective customer acquisition opportunity.

Your customers are more and more often searching for businesses like yours on the Internet. Studies show that these customers have a serious buying intent.

As a local business you need to figure out how to cost effectively reach out to these customers and start the business relationship. You need to do this even if you don't have a web site and don't want one!

The Internet has changed the way that customers are looking for your business. The days of pulling out 2 kilos of two or more volumes of phone books are coming to an end. People are still letting their fingers do the walking but it's on a computer keyboard. The Kelsey research group published these statistics and trends.

q 74% of households use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally.
q Approximately 45% of local searches had a buying intent.
q The percentage of respondents who used yellow page directories decreased from 75% to 62%. (If you have a yellow page ad, it is time to consider buying a smaller ad and shifting your marketing dollars to the Internet.)

As local business owners you need to take action now. You need to keep your existing customers, and gain new customers, so you need to be found where they are searching. Local Search Marketing is where your future clients and customers will come from.

So where do you start?

Most likely your customers will have a default setting on their computers and this will be set to one of these sites for search; Google, Yahoo, MSN or AOL. These search engines all index web pages and have some form of paid advertising referred to as Pay Per Click. This is fine if you have a web site but what about many small and local businesses that have little or no web presence at all? And even if you do have a web site, does it show up in the search engines above?

Okay, so what other choices have you got?

Well, for example, in Australia things are pretty limited. There are those folks, you know whom I am talking about, who will place you not only in a hard copy directory but also have services on line. The challenge is in what the financial cost is, BIG, but hey, they have been around a long time and have deep pockets. The other issue is that they often advertise in the search engines and you will find them there BUT if you follow the link to them, you need to do your search all over again! What a pain.

There are other commercial "local search engines" and some of these are good value but many are not comprehensive. If there are only a few thousand businesses in a local directory most users will leave given the limited amount of content.

So what you need to do is use a search engine like Google and search for "local search directory", make sure you limit your search to the country you are in. For this article I am using Australia. The results include Yahoo local search and a number of local directories. You should check these out and see what it takes to participate in the directories that make the first page of the Google search.

Many on-line marketeers forget the key point to being found on the Internet. What is the "Action" that you want to happen once someone finds your web page or directory listing? If you can't or don't sell products from your web site there are only two actions you want. First, that they call you, or second, that they email you.

That's it!

You want a call or an email. These are the only two outcomes that can lead to interaction, a relationship and the potential to do business.

Many small businesses already know, and the current research is proving them right, that a "call" is worth 15 times a click.

Why is this?

Email is to often being viewed as spam, sometimes it never even gets through "filters" and it lacks the emotional and personal "touch" of voice. So what we really want is a phone call. We want that phone to start ringing. But ………

Why people don't call as much any more.

It is getting harder and harder to get people to ring these days. They "hide" behind email or resist picking up the phone with fear that one of these things will occur:

1. Please press 1 for …. and 2 for …. or 3 for ……, or
2. We value your business and you are number 17 in the queue, or
3. This call maybe recorded for training and quality purposes!

No one wants this response to picking up the phone and making a call.

So what is the alternative?

It's called Pay Per Call, but all it is, is a "push to talk" button. Someone presses a button on a web page, puts in their phone number and they are connected to the company that put up the button. It's simple, easy and direct.

Not a click, it's a call!

This is what we see as the future of local search. People finding companies that are in their area and pressing a button to talk with them. Could be a local cleaner, carpet layer, pool builder, alarm installer, baby sitter. You name it. These are the local people you want to attract and do business with. To do this, you need them to find you and talk with you. If they can find you through an Internet search and know that they won't be placed on hold, since you are calling them, you win. Now it's business as usual and your back in control of the sales process - not the Internet!

These complimentary features of local search and push to talk buttons are available today in Australia at AussieWeb Local Search. Google just announced that they are beta testing this with Pay Per Click advertising in America. Wonder where they got that idea?

Monte Huebsch is the CEO of http://www.AussieWeb.com.au and the original implementer of "push to talk" buttons in Australia with http://www.WeCallYouNow.com. You can email him at Monte@AussieWeb.com.au

Internet Marketing It Pays To Get A Sanity Check

Writen by Al Kernek

Many small businesses are not getting the results they expected from their Website and online marketing activities. They put up a Website and promote it as best they can. Yet, they seem to hit a wall. Their site never appears within the first three pages of search engine returns for their keywords. In effect, they are invisible on the Internet. Or despite a healthy flow of traffic to their site, sales never seem to increase.

Under these circumstances, online marketing can be a frustrating experience. Every small business person has at one time or another has said to himself, "I wish I could get someone knowledgeable to look at my site and tell me what to do." And following that intuitive thought is exactly what they should do.

There are several ways to get an outside opinion of your Website marketing activities. The first and most obvious is to examine your site statistics. Most Web hosting vendors provide Website analytics today. If not – and even if they do – it is worthwhile to install the free Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics ), as it provides a wealth of useful information and can be integrated to track your pay-per-click advertising as well.

Another way to learn more about how your small business Website is perceived by visitors is to simply ask your friends, family and some customers to go through your site and give you comments and suggestions. This informal approach often yields valuable insights into the flow and appeal of your business Website. Sometimes, we get too far down into the trees to see the forest.

Alternatively, you can place a survey on your Website asking for customer feedback on their experience while surfing your site. Just go to Google and enter "free online survey poll" in the search box, and you will find a ton of free and low-cost services that offer a means to easily add this function to your Website. Best results will be achieved by placing the survey or poll on the Home page and offering some incentive for its completion. Structure it so that it is easy and fast to complete, yet ensures that you will receive useful information. Use ratings ("on a scale of 1 to 5…") or Yes/No click-button answers to solicit most responses. Some open-ended questions are encouraged too ("What suggestions can you offer to improve this Website?"). Finally, it is nice if there is supporting software to automatically tabulate the answers and provide graphical statistics for ease of interpretation. Typically, online surveys and polls are easy to set up, usually just requiring the copying and paste of an automatically generated script into your HTML code.

If you are willing to pay for it, a more comprehensive approach is to employ a knowledgeable consultant to appraise your small business Website. Among other things, an Internet marketing consultant will evaluate your site from the perspective of its search engine optimization, load times, unique selling propositions, attention factors ("stickiness"), ease of navigation, ability to quickly locate what a visitor is seeking, content and layout, incentives, whether it guides visitors to take the actions your wish, ease of purchase (for e-commerce sites) and your current online promotion activities. When finished, consultants usually issue a report with recommendations for improvements. This service typically costs several hundred or even thousands of dollars.

Pacifica Endeavors offers an Online Marketing Appraisal service for small businesses and entrepreneurial start-ups at a much lower price. One of their online marketing experts examines your Website, then provides a formal report with insightful recommendations for enhancing it and your Internet marketing promotion. The price for this service is $99.95, with turnaround within a few days. Details can be found at www.smallbizsmartmarketing.com.

Whatever approach you select – and you can do all of them – any action on your part is better than ignoring a stagnating situation and letting your online marketing languish. Most small business people are pleasantly surprised when they see that minor changes to their Website and online marketing activities result in a noticeable increase to the bottom line.

About the Author

Al Kernek is an Internet marketing consultant and author. You can learn more about Internet marketing at his Website, http://www.smallbizsmartmarketing.com or receive free advice by visiting his blog.

I Finally Figured It Out The Largest Stumblingblock To Online Success

Writen by Romell Weekly

We're going to talk about one of those issues that I think is the most serious stumbling blocks to Internet success: fear of losing money.

Now, I'm sure that you're reading that statement and probably thinking, "Oh God, here we go..." But, you know, I honestly believe that our fear of spending money has proven to be one of the most cancerous issues we have.

There's an old adage that "it takes money to make money." We've all heard it. It's really become a bit of a cliche, and as such, it's widely ignored or just said in passing. But, it's actually just as true today as it was decades ago.

The most cunning Internet marketers, however, won't tell you that. And I don't really blame them. It's much easier to get money out of people by telling them what they want to hear than by telling them the truth, and if all you want is people's money, you'll tell them anything to get it. While I don't "blame" them, I certainly don't agree with them.

Listen, we're a fast-paced society. Most people would agree with that. But, what they're not so readily willing to agree with is that we're also a frugal society, a society that loves to get instant results for the least investment of time or of money.

Look around the Internet in the marketing circles. One thing you'll see emphasized over and over again is the word "only" as it relates to price, and "just 15 minutes a day" as it relates to time.

They tell you, "All 150 software packages are yours for only $19.95."

They tell you, "Spend just 15 minutes per day at your computer and you'll be a millionaire with this system."

Why do they say such things? Because they're trying to get you to make the one time purchase of their miracle solution. And we keep buying into it with the hopes that this time it'll work.

Are they lying to us? Are they flat our fibbing about what can be done with their system? Absolutely not. I'm sure that they probably only spend 15 minutes at their computer, and most of that time is spent checking their Clickbank or Paypal earnings from the day before.

And I don't pretend to believe that the people who submit their testimonials are lying about their success. I have no reason to think such a thing.

You see, the question you should be asking is NOT: Can the average Joe make lots of money with your system?

The question you should be asking is: WILL the average Joe make lots of money with your system? In other words, are the successes more numerable than the failures? If someone follows the steps, do they have a pretty solid chance of having their own success story?

Most marketers, if honest, would answer, "Heck no!" But, they weren't selling us on the reality. They were selling us on the possibility. And we kept buying into it.

Notice that I said "we". I can't tell you how much money I've spent buying e-books that were supposed to change my life. Did they work? NO!

I've even bought e-books that were advertised as marketing software. To find out it was just an e-book was upsetting to say the least. Could I get a refund? Well, technically, e-books ARE a form of software, so I wasn't necessarily lied to.

The moral of this article is simply this: As hopeful Internet successes, we have to stop looking for free lunches, cheap resources, and miracle solutions. We need solid, yet affordable MARKETING TOOLS.

Think about that for a minute. We've bought e-book after e-book. Why? Because it promised us information that would change our lives. Come on people! This is the INFORMATION AGE. Information is all around us, especially on the Internet. I can find the information most people are selling for free!

Now, at this point, it probably sounds like I'm very anti-marketing or anti-spending. Actually, I'm neither of those things. Spending money is absolutely necessary.

I said before that I think that our fear of losing money is our biggest problem. I'm just pointing out how it is that we've gotten so afraid to spend money.

You see, we've bought into the wrong things.

What I think is that spending money is necessary, but we should stop spending money on information. If it's just $10 or $20, no big deal. But some of these worthless e-books and reports are going for $99.95!

You know why they're priced that way, don't you? Because making you pay that much for it is a means of manipulating you to use the programs their e-book is advertising. In other words, if I spend a hundred bucks on a system, you'd better believe that even if I don't like the system, I'm going to at least try it so that I can feel like I got my money's worth.

It's the smartest game marketers play, and it works over and over again!

Information is definitely something you will need. But, it is NOT something you should pay lots of money for because in this age, it's likely you can get it for free with a little research.

What you SHOULD be dishing out money for are the TOOLS you'll need to put that information to use, and this is exactly where we have went wrong. We've invested more into promises made by the sharing of information, while we were hesitant to invest in the tools necessary to bring those promises to pass.

Actually, there's a pretty good reason why we are hesitant. With information products, we expect for one $30 purchase to change our lives. However, with marketing tools/resources, we have to purchase from 3 or 4 different sites (possibly more) in order to get all the various tools we'll need.

For instance, every serious Internet marketer needs a feature-rich autoresponder service, and there are many to choose from. So, let's say that you find a good autoresponder service for $19.95/mo.

Next, you need a nice ad tracker system, one provided by a site with GREAT uptime and server stability. Keep in mind that if their server goes down, so do ALL the links into your site through that server. So, you finally decide on a nice ad tracker service for $19.95/mo.

Now, we all need leads, so you decide to purchase monthly recurring leads since it's cheaper that way than if you made one-time purchases. So, you enter into an agreement to purchase 5,000 leads per month for $19.95/mo.

Altogether, you wind up spending $59.85/mo for these three absolutely necessary marketing tools. But, the collective price bothers you, and so instead, you wind up buying an e-book for $19.95 that promises to change your life tomorrow with only 15 minutes of time and absolutely no investment of money, except for the $19.95 you paid for the e-book, of course. ;-)

Are you getting my drift? Are you seeing how we're kept down by this cycle of frugality.

Take some time and do some research. Find a system that can provide you with multiple marketing tools, the tools you'll need to take your business to the next level. Once you find it, don't be afraid to invest in it. Marketing tools work a lot better than marketing promises.

Wishing you great success!

Romell Weekly is an Internet marketer who has combined his programming skills and marketing experience to produce a winning combination -> http://www.TrafficLane.net. Visit today for all the marketing tools you'll need to grow your business. He lives in Saint Louis, MO with his wife, Monique.

Internet Marketing For Dummies

Writen by Keith E Bryan

There are many people every day jumping into the online world. With more and more people using the internet the floodgates of internet users are opening wider everyday. But how, as a home business owner, can you expect to compete with the "big dogs" of the internet and dip your cup into the profits as well?

There are a ton of tips and tricks that people will tell you are the "best" way to advertise your home business……. But do them incorrectly or choose the wrong methods and all you'll really end up doing is increasing your frustration, not your traffic or your sales.

I remember back when I started my first business (not online) it seemed like almost everyday someone was willing to offer me a great deal to advertise my business. Of course with all these different resources out there some of them had to be more effective than others. The only problem was ………. HOW Do I Tell Which Ones? I had limited resources and certainly couldn't afford to give them all a try, unless I just wanted to cross my fingers and hope they worked so I wouldn't go out of business!

Thankfully, today's online world provides home business owners with a variety of different marketing techniques, and each can be as profitable as the next. As a business owner you simply have to decide what you are willing to invest in your business, and which will have the best return on your investment

Let's run through a few of the most popular types.

Paid Banner (CPM + CPC) and Paid Text-

Banner ads you can pay for as CPC(cost per click) or CPM(cost per every thousand times banner is displayed) usually placed in a high traffic area on a site that causes visitors of that site to see it and visit your site.

Paid Text advertising is similar only the ad is in the form of a text link usually off to the sides (or at the top in search engines like Yahoo! And Google) If you are going to use this kind of advertising make sure you pick the sites you place your ads on carefully (popular sites will be expensive but you should get more clicks and smaller sites will be cheaper, but often with little or no results)

E-mail lists –

Programs or services that will get your link out to many different internet users. These can be good if you have a very widely used type of product. The negative to these lists is that with new e-mail features often these types of messages get marked as spam and are disregarded by the intended recipient.

Free Traffic Generators –

Traffic generators like Traffic Swarm can be a great way of just getting people to go to your site. There are some that you can pay for that will guarantee you a certain number of visitors for a set price. Problem is that most of the people that are now visiting your site aren't really interested in your product or service. You might get one or two sales from extremely impulsive buyers but the rest only visit to earn credits or something of the sort from the home site. If you're going to rely on this type of advertising make sure your visitor/buyer ratio is already high for your site.

Link Exchange –

This is by far the best way of driving quality traffic to your site…… if you do it right! Before you even THINK about trying to exchange links with other sites there's a few things you should know…..

1. Download the Google toolbar – This way you will be able to tell the page rank of any pages you want to exchange links with (higher the PR the higher in the search ranking which means more traffic)

2. Exchange links with only pages of PR 4 or higher. It will help your page more by having a few PR4+ pages linking to you than 10000 pages with no page rank.

3. Build your content FIRST! Don't expect E-Bay to display your link just because you asked them nicely! Webmasters want to know they are linking to a quality site with a good amount of substance. Focus on building your site before you ask people to link to it.

4. Try to exchange links with other sites that have the same key words as yours. Ie: There's no reason to exchange links with a flower web site if you sell telephone service

The only thing this type of advertising will cost you is a little effort. The greatest part of it is that the people that visit your site are people that are actually interested in your product or service, not just people stopping by to earn credits…… and you don't pay a cent. There are many books and sites on the web that can give you more details on how to effectively exchange links to your benefit.

Hopefully these tips have helped you narrow down the best type of advertising for your site. The one thing that hasn't changed in the transition from regular to internet marketing is that you never really know what will work best for you until you try. Don't be afraid to get your feet wet and see what you like!

GOOD LUCK!

About The Author

Keith Bryan has over 9 years experience in both Internet and other forms of advertising and marketing. For more information, tips, tricks, hot products and articles visit http://www.WorkatHome-101.net or e-mail him at keithbryan@cox.net

The 1 Myth That Kills Your Internet Marketing Success Stone Dead

Writen by Martin Avis

The funny thing about the Internet is how many experts there are. Wherever you look there are self-proclaimed gurus ready to tell you how to run your business or your life - and we eat up their advice like candy.

But, like candy, too much advice may be bad for you.

I'm no guru, and I hate to be called an expert, but as a marketer with 30 years under my belt I do look at some of the most frequently trotted-out 'pearls of wisdom' and shudder.

The most damaging bit of bad advice that I still see every single day is this: 'Create your website/ebook/product according to your passion.'

The theory is simple: if you write about what you know and care deeply about, you can position yourself as an expert and reap the benefits accordingly.

That single piece of bad advice kills so many Internet marketing careers before they've even begun.

The sad fact is that most of us are hard-pressed to find a subject that we feel that passionate about. And even if we can find one, we quickly discover that it has already been done to death by other enthusiasts.

And those who do struggle to create their ebook or website on the topic that most fascinates them more often than not find that there is no market for a book on 'Collecting 19th-century thimbles.'

The result is that most people who accept and try to follow that advice either end up doing nothing, or put massive amounts of their valuable time and energy into creating something that nobody is interested in except themselves.

Either way they sadly leave the Internet marketing arena believing that it is they who have failed.

The truth is that for every single person who is making money from their passion, there are a thousand - or even ten thousand - who never will. Sorry to disillusion you.

The more modern approach - and the one that is proving to be hugely successful for those who embrace it - is to find a hungry market first and then create a product to feed it - regardless of whether it is a subject you know anything about.

There are many ways that you can do this, but the easiest, and for me, the most profitable, is through private label ebooks and the membership sites that supply them.

These membership sites research hot niche markets - usually two or three each month - and pay ghost writers to create ebooks to service them. In addition, many of the private label ebook membership sites also supply private label articles for you to populate your websites with.

Private label, in case you are unfamiliar with the term means that the ebook or article is supplied to you as a txt file, or a Word doc so that you can add to it, change it, rewrite parts of it, or do anything you like to make it your own product. You can even change the title and add your own name as the author.

Effectively you get an ebook that can be sold by you as your own work, (keeping all the profits) without having to spend weeks or months researching and writing.

And from any one membership site costing (generally) less that $30 a month, you will get at least two and sometimes as many as six great ebooks to start selling immediately.

That is the power of private label - someone else does all the work and you get to make all the money.

Success online, in 2006 at least, isn't about following your passion. It is about finding markets that are desperately hungry and thirsty and providing websites and ebooks that satisfy that raging hunger and quench that aching thirst.

And more, to do that over and over again.

With private label ebooks it is easy to have a new product on sale. Once you have the know-how, turning a private label ebook from an anonymous text file into a unique professional ebook is the job of a few hours.

My ebook 'Unlock the Secrets of Private Label eBooks' takes a step-by-step approach to teach everything you need to know to start profiting from this gold mine. In addition, it details eleven different ways that you can use the private label ebook contents that even most 'experts' have never done!

So forget about following your passion to create your ebook or website. Find out what passions other people have and follow them. they will be your hungry markets.

The only passion you need to have is a burning desire to be successful in Internet marketing and the passionate belief that private label ebooks are your key to that door.

Martin Avis is the author of the best-selling Unlock the Secrets of Private Label eBooks - your complete blueprint to private label rights success.

Internet Marketing And The Small Business

Writen by Melih Oztalay

The internet marketing landscape has changed quite a bit in the past 3 years and has further defined itself further in the past 12 months. With Google raising $4 Billion from new stock offerings in 2005 we will see more changes underway over the next 3 years. Unfortunately, I fear the small business is going to be left out in the cold in this process. Perhaps a better statement would be that the small business has already been left out in the cold.

This writing is certainly not designed to provide a solution to the growing problem. More so, it has been written to raise the awareness and acknowledge the difficulty small business has on the web. Certainly the small business does not receive any sympathy from the major search engines in their quest to provide quality information for those that are searching the web.

Let's review how the situation has been created. We have to make the assumption a small business does not have the financial resources for a proper advertising campaign on the web (even though it is less costly than offline advertising) and they do not have the man-power to devote time for the non-costly methods of marketing. Yes, I have distinguished between advertising and marketing.

Marketing is the process or technique of promotion, selling and distributing a product or service. Advertising is to make your product or service publicly known; an announcement to call public attention by emphasizing qualities to arouse a desire to purchase.

Can the small business market at no cost? Yes, absolutely, however, the issue at hand is not expenditure but time. Time they are already spending on their business and do not have more time to spend on non-costly marketing methods on the web. What are these non-costly but time-consuming marketing methods? This would include but not limited to writing articles, maintaining newsletters, maintaining email addresses with auto-responders, submitting their articles through a variety of methods and resources over the web. Let's not forget standard search engine optimization issues and HTML coding. Oh, the best one of all is "natural" link exchanging as defined by Google. If you have not already been there, manual link exchanging is a time consuming process even if you do decide to spend money on lost cost services that can assist. You cannot use "link farms" as that is against search engine policies and will cause your listing to be down graded.

In order to reach top ranking on the search engines it all boils down to links (or link exchanges, link popularity) and content. Inbound only links better than reciprocal inks. Writing content for your site, articles, news, newsletter is time consuming to properly write a 500 word article and the submission process is not easy either. Some services and software exists to help you in your submission of articles, but just like link exchange services they can only do so much. Could you create a blog and place your articles, certainly. However, you can see the "things to do" list only keeps growing for the small business owner.

Could they engage in pay-per-click campaigns? Sure, however, you now are entering in a financial issue and one that does not necessarily provide a great return on investment. Pay-Per-Click campaigns are good as an overall marketing strategy and if you use it in combination with a variety of other internet and search engine marketing methods. On its own it cannot provide the returns the small business is seeking. Searching the key phrases (no longer key words) and understanding which ones to select is equally not an easy task. It requires due diligence, research and analysis to understand the information and make an informed decision. Assuming they can get past this part of the pay-per-click process, the next phase is writing the pay-per-click ad headline and content. Unfortunately we see many small businesses flocking to pay-per-click advertising in hopes of a quick return. They might as well go to a casino!

There is indeed another problem associated with Pay-Per-Click campaigns. The ratio of exposures to hits is equally a problem when you are supposed to keep a certain percentage ratio between the two. When search engines like Google are allowing your ad to be placed on other websites with their Google Adsense, your exposures are indeed going up, however, how many people actually click on the links? From Google's perspective probably a lot, but from the individual advertiser's perspective this is not necessarily a good situation. Google is now dictating what key phrases you "should" bid on and ultimately consolidating the bidding war into small key phrase groups and larger number of advertisers.

Lastly, at least for this writing, but not necessarily on the subject, is time to see revenues. There is no doubt that it takes months for a website to propagate through the Internet. This is by no means a short-term situation and expectations need to be set accordingly. Just because you have a website does not mean that you will see rewards anytime soon. Once again we get into the dilemma of time resources to do the necessary internet marketing work in order to see benefits 6 – 9 months later.

Requirements set by the search engines as they seek to provide quality responses to those that are searching are making it increasingly difficult for small businesses to compete on the web. So, who will end up on the first page or in the top position of searches for key phrases? Unless something changes and the small business is given a chance, it will be the larger corporations that have the man power time and the money.

Melih Oztalay is the CEO of SmartFinds Internet Marketing. SmartFinds Internet Marketing provides a variety of business internet marketing services including research, analysis and planning.

Just A Simple Newsletter Or Articlerightwrong A Unique Selling Proposition

Writen by Peter Jordaan

If your web site is not generating enough visitors and you are frustrated with your sales conversion ratio, then you might want to look at these few practical ideas that can assist your web site in getting more first time visitors, more repeat visitors, and also help generate more sales... by setting up or tweaking your website's unique selling proposition through the use of newsletter and article distribution. Let me explain what I mean by this.

Firstly, if you aren't aware of the value of running a newsletter on your website, you need to understand the importance of being able to follow up with a visitor by getting their follow-up email address. If your website is 'enabled' to deliver automated content to visitors through the use of an autoresponder service, you will be able to introduce your service, offer something valuable and build the neccessary relationship with your subscriber, in order for them to start making use of you as a product or service provider. Something that has always worked well on a website to motivate visitors to subscribe to your newsletter, is giving away a freebie, like an ebook on the same topic as your website and newsletter, to increase your subscriber signups.

So it is important that you build a subscriber base for your newsletter in order to stay in contact with subscribers, and then in turn offer your products or services which will assist you in generating more sales or a closer relationship with your subscribers. Now lets look at some specific tips that combine newsletter and article distribution into a unique selling proposition for your business. Even if you're not a writer, this can be done by just paying attention to your newsletter presentation style along with some initial brain-storming and fine-tuning.

* When a subscriber signs up for your newsletter, you should provide prompt to-the-point

style meaty content tips and techniques about the industry. By doing a quick self-analyses

about your specific industry on paper, you can, say, break the industry into its 3

main criteria. You can now come up with, say, 3-5 important sub-points about each aspect.

This simple step alone can now allow you to put together a subscriber follow-up series of

at least 5 emails pertaining to your industry.

* SAMPLE EMAIL NUMBER ONE, RECEIVED UPON SIGNUP:

----------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: *subscriber*, your request for more information

----------------------------------------------------------------

Dear *subscriber* (Have your autoresponder fill in customers

first name for personalization)

Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter providing

you with some valuable tips and techniques within the

(your industry here) field.

Over the course of the next 5 emails, delivered to you daily

over the next 5 days, we will provide you with some interesting

information regarding:

* Your industry criteria one.

* Your industry criteria two.

* Your industry criteria three.

Thank you again for subscribing to our tips and techniques series.

Don't forget to click your downlink link and grab your free ebook

on how to (your free ebook topic here)

http://www.your-ebook-download-link.com HERE

Thats it for today, till tommorrow,

your website name here Customer support

Your added advertising signature link here.

Your autoresponder unsubscription link here.

------------------------------------------------------

* SAMPLE EMAIL NUMBER TWO, RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING DAY:

-------------------------------------------------------

Email subject line: DAY 1 of your 5 DAY Email series

-------------------------------------------------------

Dear *subscriber*

YOUR INDUSTRY CRITERIA ONE HEADING HERE

Today we are going to have a look at the importance of the

following 5 points within (criteria one) of the industry.

* Sub-criteria point 1

* Sub-criteria point 2

* Sub-criteria point 3

* Sub-criteria point 4

* Sub-criteria point 5

* Sub-criteria point 1

This is a well known and common problem which... ... ...

We suggest you read our special article on how we recommend

solving this important issue in your business.

YOUR OPTIMIZED WEB SITE ARTICLE LINK HERE

* Sub-criteria point 2

Another problem well known for its complexity is... ... ...

We suggest you click here to read our special report on how

we recommend solving this critical aspect of your business.

YOUR OPTIMIZED WEB SITE ARTICLE LINK HERE

And so on... And so on...

Thats it for today, till tommorrow, when we'll cover

(Your industry main criteria 2 here)

your website name here

Customer support

Your added advertising signature link here.

Sample:

Thank you again for subscribing to our tips and techniques series.

Should you wish at any time to order this information series in

hard-print, simply click on the link below to order your copy

and we'll despatch it to you immediately. Or if you prefer to

download the complete ebook covering all of this information

readily available on your desktop, place your order today

for instant download at the following link:

http://www.your-ebook-order-download-link.com HERE

** MAKING YOUR INFORMATION AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE IN EBOOK FORM **

PROVIDING YOUR CONTACT DETAILS HERE

Your autoresponder unsubscription link here.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

* Get your subscriber into the habit of clicking on a link / links within your email,

whilst staying within the email's line of presentation. In other words, dont

wildly change your topic in an attempt to recommend a product or service

(or affiliate services) to your subscriber.

* Your email should allow the subscriber to be one click away from the recommended

solution, presented to them through an article-styled web page on your own web

site. Prevent your newsletter from pointing to websites other than your own.

This will allow your subscriber to have added confidence in your product or as

a service provider, even though you recommend an affiliate product or have an

affiliate product review set up on that specific web page. This is also for

web site ranking purposes mentioned further down.

* Try to keep your newsletter uncomplicated - short, simple, and to-the-point,

whilst presenting your product or service confidently - and eliminating any doubts

in the mind of your subscriber. It should contain meaty content with links that

points subscribers to your article-style optimized pages which contains a more

indept conclusion and solution to the problem, along with those products or services

you recommend for solving the problem. Subscribers should see you as an expert on the

subject you are offering.

* By enforcing this common problem - click - solution technique within your newsletter,

and providing problem solving articles with solutions, you will help your subscribers

reach a purchase decision sooner or act to seek a closer relationship with you, your

product or service.

* In principle your newsletter could simply provide valuable tips and techniques from

within your industry to provide subscriber confidence and keep subscribers on their

toes with regards to the industry, before they have the option to click to your article

pages which will present a more power-packed conclusion and solution to the specific

problem - which in turn should help your subscribers taking firmer action regarding

your service.

* Once your newsletter and web site article pages is set up in such way, you can now

write teaser-articles for those article pages and syndicate those teasers through

article syndication services, along with general submissions to article directories.

Article distribtion should in my opinion form an important part of your website

promotion and can have a great impact on your business. There are thousands of

ezine publishers online that needs good content through which you can promote

your articles.

A benefit of this method of article distribution is that you will allways have

articles that is written which incorporates direct selling techniques to sell your

product or service to your visitors, whilst your website will gain link popularity

within the search engines through the increased syndication of your teaser articles

(the web site link you provide in your articles resource box) to provide increased

reachability of your web site within organic search engine traffic.

By implementing some of the methods mentioned above, you could dramatically increase your web site traffic; Simply by putting these things into place and making sure that it is functioning properly, and then overseeing it on a regular basis, can take your web site or product-driven portion of your web site to increased profitability.

This article was written by Peter Jordaan. You may use the article for re-print in its entirety as long as the bio is included. Should you wish to contact the writer, you could do so through visiting one of his web sites at wirelessbusinessmedia.com or onlinebusinessmoneymakingsolutions.com

Online Integrity Do You Have It Do They

Writen by Lance Winslow

So often we see issues with those online who we do business with and it is easy to question their integrity when we see a pattern forming. Patterns of deception often occur when you start to notice excuses due to lack of performance. When you notice public relations, which do not exactly match the reality of what you observe.

The Internet actually or rather unfortunately trains those who are borderline human beings with regard to honest to cross the line. And often a couple of excuses or plausible deniability and they can shuck their responsibilities for a time and move on, without anyone noticing. Unfortunately the arrogance sets in as they start to believe their own stories, misrepresentations of fact and BS excuses along the way.

Often you will find an Internet Marketer who really believes in what they are doing and really is trying to succeed, but things may not be happening as fast as they wish in every regard. In some areas their success is incredible and in other dismal, as they try to rectify a miscalculation, mistake or bad judgment call on the ever changing online moving target. Unfortunately for whatever reason some of these folks will keep up the PR, without working thru the problem, thus hiding the issues until they cannot even fool some of the people all the time. Think on this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Find And Start A Niche Marketing Website

Writen by Chet Holcomb

You have probably heard the term Niche Marketing without realizing just what that is and heard how others are building profitable websites using Niche Marketing.

Niche marketing is finding a opportunity on the internet that people are interested enough to search for information on the subject. Most larger companies and websites don't bother with niches because there satisfied with the products or services they render and don't want to spend the time marketing. But for the average person it is a dream come true researching and finding a niche that has lots of searches with little competition to contend with can reward profits.

All niche markets are started by implementing a keyword search. This is the starting point of finding niche opportunities. What you are looking for is a high ratio of searches in a small market that have little competition.

Wordtracker or a software that will tell you the number of searches and how many results were returned on the search engines for that keyword or phrase is essential.

The second part of the equation is to find content for your web site that is related to the niche or target market.The possibilities for content are article directories,private label articles, and content pulling software.

Third you need to get a domain name preferably a name that has your niche keyword or is related to your niche.

Once you have built your mini site, sales page or a full blown web site and have all this in place you want to drive some traffic to your web site by using SEO techniques to optimize your web pages, purchasing some advertising like Google Adsense or pay per clicks, blogging to get listed and indexed faster just to mention a few.

There are several ways to make money with your new niche market web site.

1.You can sell some products of your own that are related to your niche like information ebooks.

2.You can join affiliate programs and advertise there products on your web pages for a percentage of the sales.

3.You can get a Google Adsense account and run there ads on your site and share the profits from clicks Google receives when someone clicks on one of your google ads.

Keep in mind that in order to highly profit from a niche product or market you may need many niche web sites, not relying on just one or a few while implementing all of the above three steps to make it worth your while.

The only initial investment required are for domain names,and hosting which can be satisfied by having one account with subdomains to your niche markets. Be prepared to also invest your time as well because niche marketing can become a full blown but profitable business.

Chet Holcomb of http://www.internetpromotions.biz is a successful marketing expert providing advice for web marketers and webmasters on how to promote your website, or product using marketing tools that work.

You may reprint this article freely only if all the authors information is kept intact.

Make Sure You Overdeliver

Writen by Susan Walker

So, you want a profitable on-line business. With just under 30,000,000 web sites on internet marketing newsletters alone, where on earth do you start? I wanted a mentor that does exactly what I plan to do with my business. What would that be? I wanted a mentor that does virtually what I have done off-line for years. I want a mentor who over-delivers.

As a savvy marketer, you already know that repeat customers are the mainstay of your business. A quality internet marketer also recognizes happy customers as his/her best source of viral marketing (described in this fantastic ebook I found). So what does this have to do with over-delivering. To quote Leon Leonwood Bean, founder of L.L. Bean in Freeport, Maine "Make sure the story isn't better than the store." Keep 'em Happy!

What exactly is over-delivering? First, you under-promise. Ensure that you tell your customer the truth and are conservative in your estimate of what they will be receiving and what its benefits are. Make your commitments with clarity, simplicity, and restraint. Don't burden the relationship with promises; instead grace it with extras that you can give effortlessly when the time is right. Next, work hard to deliver something better than what you have promised. Finally, deliver more than you have promised of a quality far superior to what your customer is expecting.

As taught in this wonderful e-book I just received, you have structured your customer base so that they can be contacted often. Now, let's over-deliver. Because your customer has just received a top quality product and maybe one or two bonuses from you as downloads, why not send another unexpected bonus later... in an email. Just send a download link to a really valuable, related bonus in an email a few days later. You can do this several times over a period of weeks or months. In each email, thank your customer of his purchase and point out that this is an additional bonus as a token of gratitude for his business. This is a very simple method of building customer satisfaction and goodwill. By spreading the unexpected bonuses out, you give the customer time to "dig into" the bonuses. If you send all of the bonuses at once, the customer may just download them on his hard drive and never look at them, at all. Not a good way to get your information out there.

Another method that can be used with bonuses sent after the sale is to point out in each email that another bonus will arrive in a few days/weeks. Your new customer begins expecting your emails, and is much less likely to ask for a refund. They know that if the order is canceled there will be no other bonuses.

Create well in all your endeavors,

Susan Walker

Over-delivering is just one of a multitude of fantastic ideas that I received in a practical e-book 120 page on developing my internet business. As a bonus, I received 12 hours of videos absolutely free at http://www.InternetProfitMentor.com

Know The Fundamentals To Success

Writen by Tomas Loden

Internet Marketing is right for everyone. Unfortunately, not everyone is right for internet marketing. I have been involved in internet marketing now for over 4 years, I have earned some money here and there but had never achieved the kind of success I was seeking. I've tried several things that didn't work, but I've learnd a massive amount and now I have the knowledge and understanding to make internet opportunities work.

To be successful online you must Know The Fundamentals To Success.

The marketers who are the most successful online are also the best students, they constantly study, read, listen, and watch. They go to conferences, they mastermind with other marketers, they then test and put into practice what they've learned.

The Fundamentals To Success

Educate Yourself. The Best Way To Assure Your Success Is To Learn As Much As You Can About Your Business, Program or Product. Represent products and services that you honestly believe in. If you don't understand and use your own products, you are dramatically limiting your income potential! You see.. the worst mistake you can make is to join any particular company based solely on the comp plan.

The better you know the market or product , the more enthusiastic you will be about recommending it - and you'll have a better chance that people will want to buy. You are much more able to tell others about what is there if YOU are using it yourself!. So Start Changing your Buying Habits TODAY! Save Yourself Money and Teach Others How To Do The SAME!

Treat It Like A Business: After All It Is!! Making money online is a BUSINESS. It's not just an "opportunity" and it's not about paying someone else to do all the work for you. If You Want Financial Freedom You Must Be Ready To Devote Your Self To Your Goals And Dreams!

Do you know the top reasons so many small business' fail?

Under Capitalization. The number one reason for business failure is underestimating start up expenses and the money needed to keep your business alive in the months it takes to learn the ropes. It takes money to make money - that's it!! You need money for your tools, training and money to cushion for your mistakes..

Poor Planning and Research. If you don't plan to succeed, then life itself is planning for your failure. Make your business plan simple. Concentrate on building a list. Find affiliate programs and joint venture partners to supply products and income. Regardless of what marketing method you choose, you'll need a basic marketing plan and you will need to be Very consistent with it.

Poor Marketing. Promoting may not be as much fun, but it's key to making the fun parts pay off. You should spend more of your time marketing than on any other task. In the course of running your business, it's easy to get caught up in a million idiotic things..

Not taking action. The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is not taking action. Alot of people get the paralysis of analysis. They think about it, They think about it, They think about it, Plan for it and so forth. BUT they never take action!! They are just dreamers!! The most successful people are minglers. They don't wait for customers to come to them. They're out there getting their name and business noticed.

Set Your Goals. You have to set goals for your online business. If you don't know where you're going, then how do you ever plan to get there. And for most people, they simply say they want to make $5,000 a month and quit their job. That's not enough. Be more specific. What would you like your life to be like one year from now? How about 5 years from now? How about 20 years?

Here's a rule a lot of people forget when marketing. "Internet marketing should be fun." If building a business is giving you ulcers and high blood pressure while your also growing incredibly unfit, then you're setting yourself up for failure. The Best Way to Produce A Lifestyle You Enjoy is By Doing What You Love! Find your LOVE and you will find success. Yes, it will be hard starting out. It is in any business you get started in. If your business is also your passion and your hobby though, YOU WILL make it through and won't quit when it gets hard, because you LOVE it.

Beware of "Microwave Mentality" Which is: Short Term Thinking. Make money for later not for today! Look at the Long Term! There is NO FREE LUNCH. No $5,000/mo in 3 months without working hard at it. Network Marketing is right for EVERYONE. Unfortunately, not everyone is right for network marketing. Most beginners in network marketing are very excited about getting started. However, even very determined individuals will fail within their first year if they are not working a proven system. Regardless of what marketing method you choose, you'll need a basic marketing system and you will need to be Very consistent with it. Marketing is never a "one-shot" deal. It always takes a steady effort, time and patience.

There is no one perfect system for marketing, but that's OK. With a good system and a steady effort you ll do just fine. If you already have a good system, and it can be easily duplicated to your downline, stick with it. If not, find a proven system that are currently working well and that can be duplicated by everyone in your group. It's just a numbers game - pure statistics.

About The Author

Tomas Loden is the owner and webmaster of one of the best dating services chosen amongst hundreds of sites reviewed: http://www.internet-dating-search.com He dares to be different. And it's working! Read his exciting life story and learn why his internet dating services are producing Thousands in Profit. Occasionally wacky! Sometimes funny! Always useful!

info@internet-dating-search.com

The Ultimate Followup Strategy

Writen by Stacey Morris

Here's the scenario: a visitor finds your site through Google. They sign up for your ezine, report, audio—something free that your visitor sees as valuable. You get their email address when they sign up. In the Multiple Streams model we call this freebie the pink spoon, after Baskin-Robbins© appetite-whetting sample.

The report is automatically downloaded and your visitor- now a prospect-reads or listens to it over the next couple of weeks. They really like the information and they decide to put it to use. After a couple of weeks your prospect finds out it really works. Wow-that was great advice! Maybe they remember where it came from, but maybe they've forgotten all about you…

What if your prospect downloads your pink spoon and doesn't read it right away—in fact, what if they forget about it altogether? It downloads into a temporary file and disappears. If they have trouble remembering you under the best of circumstances, and they do, they're certainly going to forget you when your pink spoon is gone.

The bottom line is that we rarely make a significant purchase impulsively.

We think about it, mull over it, discuss it with our friends, and choose to buy it or forget about it. There's usually a contemplation period between our initial exposure to a product and our purchase. So if you're not marketing your services and products to prospects consistently over time, you're losing out on valuable sales.

So what is the least expensive, and yet extraordinarily impactful method of staying in touch with your prospects and customers?

Autoresponders.

An autoresponder is a sequence of emails that is sent automatically to a prospect or buyer. For example, if you buy a service or product online you will usually immediately receive a response or electronic receipt via email. Anytime you make a purchase from Amazon, for example, they send you a prewritten confirmation email of your purchase.

Therein lays the power. Autoresponder messages are prewritten. Once you've written them, you load them into the autoresponder server, and they're sent automatically to anyone who signs up for your ezine, report, product, or service. The messages can be very personalized or more general, depending on how much information you've requested from the prospect.

Once your visitor has given you their information, you can continue to send messages over as long a period as you wish. The type of information you send should have some interest to the prospect—more information about your products, announcements, tips, new ideas you've heard about. By consistently sending information and not just more sales pitches, you're keeping your business alive to the reader.

If you have a variety of offerings, ranging from a free report to an ecourse to coaching services, an autoresponder is invaluable. Not only will you be able to stay in touch with your prospect, but you can also guide them through your marketing funnel.

The first step is capturing your visitor's email address by offering something of great perceived value. Your autoresponder sequence can then continue to provide valuable information related to the initial product, and also suggest ways in which your other products and services could be of help. Anytime you develop a new product or service, you can develop an email campaign that introduces your offering and allows your subscriber to take a free test drive.

NEXT STEPS

Some of the most popular services for autoresponders include Aweber and Constant Contact. Explore these products briefly, and compare fees and services. How much will they charge monthly to send out your ezine? Is the cost based on how many subscribers you have? How easy is it to put a subscriber form on your site? How many messages can you send? Over what period of time? Both of these have tutorials, and free trials.

Your next quick assignment is to write your first three messages for a made-up email campaign. Take a service or product you already offer, and play with some ideas of how to promote it over 3 email messages. Again, these are people who have voluntarily signed up for your free pink spoon already, so don't be afraid of marketing "too much". If they like what they've gotten already, they'll be receptive to more. And if they didn't care for the pink spoon, they can always unsubscribe…

Sign up for your FREE REPORT "12 Steps to a Profitable Website: Online Marketing for the Overwhelmed", and launch your service-business to the next level! http://www.ServiceBusinessCoaching.com http://www.OnlineServiceBusiness.com Stacey Morris, MS and Focus Coach StaceyMorris@FocusCoach.net

The Free Viral Marketing Technique You Cant Afford To Pass Up

Writen by Joseph Pattison

Have you ever seen the movie "Pay it Forward"? This incredibly simple, yet effective viral method requires doing exactly the opposite; that is, paying it backward. Read on to see exactly what I mean.

What's the best case scenario that can possibly arise from a visitor to your website? In most cases, it's selling a product to your visitor as well as capturing their e-mail address. But what if you could generate more and more traffic from a single visitor? What if you could multiply your website visitors exponentially. I am about to show you how to do exactly that.

If you know anything at all Internet Marketing, then you know about how important quality links to your website are. You also know that it often requires a great deal of work finding quality link partners. Using this free viral marketing technique, the number of quality links pointing in to your site will be directly proportional to the number of website visitors you are able to generate.

Let me go into more detail now, and explain the process. What if your visitor had a massive incentive to link back toward your website, and you didn't even even have to place a link on your site for this to happen? This is precisely what I am going to reveal to you now.

All it requires is the use of this article; yes, this exact article. No bells and whistles, no complex HTML coding, very little extra investment of your time and none of your money are required.

Remember when I said you would need to "pay it backward" for this to work? Here's how it works. Simply link back to the website that you read this article on, and post this article on your website as well!

If you get 1000 hits on your website each month, you have the potential for up to 1000 websites to link to you within days.

Of course, not all of your visitors will own their own websites, but what if only 50 did, and 25 of them linked back to you? That's free traffic that you barely had to do a thing to create!

But there is one detail, of paramount importance, that you must take into consideration before going any further. You will not improve your Google page ranking by linking back to a website with a different theme.

For example, if your website is about Internet marketing, and you read this on a website devoted to golf tips, your Google page rank could even be damaged. So be forewarned, that unless you own an Internet marketing site, and are linking to an Internet marketing site, you may want to pass on this opportunity.

Let me share some of the reasons why I'm so excited about this link exchange technique. Let's say that by linking back to the website that you found this article on, you're giving up 30% of your traffic due to people exiting your site through that link. Now, you're probably not going to lose that much traffic, but even if you did, it wouldn't matter! Here's why.

If you have 100 sites linking to you that get roughly the same amount of traffic that you do, and they're each giving you 30% of their traffic, then that equals a net gain of 2970% more traffic coming to your website! (3000%-30%=2970%)

So you have the potential to exponentially explode your traffic with each visitor who comes to your website. Have fun with this free and easy viral marketing tool and enjoy all of your extra traffic!

**Attn Ezine editors/Site owners** Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site so long as you leave all links in place, do not modify the content and include our resource box as listed below.

Wanna learn how to generate thousands of highly targeted visitors, absolutely free? => http://www.iwantchoices.com

Marketing Your Home Business Online

Writen by Tansy Heathfield

More and more people are starting home businesses. As these businesses develop, their owners quickly realize that they need to have a presence on the internet. Internet marketing is one of the best ways to make money while working at home. It gives you the ability to reach a variety of customers, whether they are next door or halfway around the world. Internet marketing is the key to success in your home business. However, many people have no idea how to get started with making money online. While the task can seem daunting, it can be simplified with a few key steps.

First of all, you need a website. Make sure that your website is attractively laid out and easy to use. If you have experience with web design, then you may be able to create your own website. However, there are also many options if you prefer to have your website created professionally. The important thing with internet marketing is accessibility. Be sure that your website makes sense to the people who are accessing it. Products should be easy to find and the purchasing process should be as hassle-free as possible.

Once you have your website, it is important that you promote your website in order to increase traffic for your business. Even the greatest home business idea in the world can fail if it is not successfully marketed. If no one knows about your product or service, then they will not be able to purchase it and your time working at home may be very short lived. Website promotion can be done in a variety of ways, and it is best to use more than one method. You can use advertising on other websites and you can also use keywords and meta tags to submit your website to search engines. This increases the likelihood that it will come up in an internet search. Whatever you do, make sure that you take the time to promote your website.

Marketing your home business online is a fairly new idea, but it is taking off quickly and building momentum. Don't be left behind because of your failure to set up a website. If you are not comfortable with doing it on your own, then take advantage of the many companies out there who specialize in website creation and promotion. Make sure that people know about your home business. This is the first step to making your dream to work at home a success

Tansy Heathfield former catalogue editor now offering the best home based business ideas and opportunities so you can work at home Free subscription to Internet home business tips and website marketing secrets newsletter. http://www.Home-Biz-Workz.com

Getting Members For Your Community

Writen by John Layton

If you read my first article titled BUILDING A BUSINESS WITHOUT ADVERTISING YOUR PRODUCT, then you should have at least some idea of the type on online community your visitors would be interested in. If you have not read it, reading it will give you a better understanding of this article.

In this article, I will tell you some ways to get the word out about your online community. This is by no means a complete list. There are too many ways to grab peoples attention to list them all here. There have been many books written on this subject.

If you search the web, you will find an unlimited amount of articles for free. Don't get suckered into paying for something until you have done all the research you can about what you are paying for. There are millions of scams out there, but there's also some good books that you can buy.

E-MAIL SIGNATURE One of the more simpler ways of getting the word out, and one that is too often forgotten about is a signature in your email program. Just write up a 1 or 2 sentence description along with the web address. Also, make sure that your email program is setup to send your signature with every e-mail. This can be considered a type of viral marketing. If you send out jokes or other interesting things to your friends and they forward that email to their friends and they forward it to their friend and so on and so on, it spreads your message far and wide.

MESSAGE BOARDS Another place that you can use a signature line is on a message board. Most message boards don't allow advertising, but usually they let you put in a signature line. When you enter your signature it's seen every time you post a message or a reply to a message. Try to find message boards where those who post will have the same interests as those of your online community. The best approach to message boards is to try to find a message board where you can help people. By answering questions and helping people with problems they have, you can start to be seen as an expert on this topic. If you really do know what you're talking about, people will begin to trust you. People like to buy from someone they can trust. If you just show up to a message board, put out this big, bragging advertisement for your signature and post nothing but junk, the moderators of the board are most likely going to ask you to leave.

SEARCH ENGINES The first search engine you should list your site at, is the one you use the most. They should have a way to add your site to their listings from their home page. After you have added your site, go to the other popular search engines, or do a search for search engines, and list with as many as you can. With some search engines, it can take many weeks to get listed, and that's if you get listed at all! There are way too many search engines on the web to list with them all. If you use this method, you should set a limit on how many you do a day. There are websites that are dedicated to submitting your site to many search engines for you. Some are free, while others cost money. Software, shareware and freeware can be obtained to do the same thing from your desktop. As always, before spending any money, DO THE RESEARCH!! Make sure you know what you are paying for and buy from a reputable source. You should set up a special folder in you inbox to put all of your confirmation emails. This will help you keep track of which ones you've already submitted to. Also, these emails will usually contain your login ID and sometimes your password, both of which you will need to access your account.

SAFELISTS Safelists are very debatable. Some people like them, some people don't. The problem with safelists are that they fill everybody?s email box up with advertising from all of the members of the safelist. This makes it very hard to get your ad read by anyone. But if you can find a way to get their attention in the subject line, they may actually open your email. Just don?t make false claims or your credibility will be shot. If they do open your email, tell them about your online community. Tell them all the benefits of becoming a member of your community. DO NOT try to sell them anything in your email. Right now, your main objective is to get visitors to your site. So get the word out about you and your community. Before you sign up for even one safelist, make sure you open a new email account, just for safelists. If you get a big account like Yahoo! Mail you might can go for a while before you have to clear out your inbox, but if you get a smaller account, you will have to check it every couple of days. If you don't it will become full and your emails will bounce. If your safelists' emails bounce, they will suspend your account until you clear out your email account.

This is only four ways to start spreading the word about you and your community. There are many others. Some are free while others vary in price. I will discuss other ways in future articles.

John Layton has been publishing websites since 1998. His latest website, The Rebel Computer Guy (http://www.geocities.com/jlaytonjr1), has many resources and learning tools for the online business newbie. You may use this article for your own e-zine, newsletter, website, or whatever purpose you need. All I require is that you use the entire article, including the resource box giving me the credit. I would appreciate, but do not require, an email letting me know that you are using it and where I can find it. The Rebel Computer Guy website has lots of information about working on the Internet. Topics include; Guide To Working On The Web, Learn How To Write HTML, Ebooks and Reports, Classified Ads, Articles, and lots of Tips. There's also a Links section and a What's New section. Perfect for beginners. For more articles visit my articles page at http://www.geocities.com/jlaytonjr1/Articles/Articles.htm