Why You Must Have More Than One Niche Sites

Writen by Patric Chan

Have you heard of diversifying your investment portofilio?

No? Well, it's extremely famous in financial planning.

Those financial planners will tell you that in order for you to minimize risk of lost, you should have different types of investment to generate multiple income streams.

This is to lower your risk of putting all of your eggs in one basket.

Do you know that the same concept applies to your online business?

Let's say you have a niche website targeted for dog owners and you're making a good income each month from it.

Do you know how fragile an internet business can be?

Once someone find out how profitable your online business is, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how you've achieved it.

Don't believe me? Here are some food for thoughts for you.

If you are getting traffic from Jv partners, what's stopping your competitors from contacting them to offer a better compensation than yours?

Ooh. You think your Jv partners won't take the bait because they are your friends. Fine.

What happen if your competitors end up becoming their friends by end of the month? Heck, they might be sipping coffee together at StarBucks!

Oops. You've just lost 50% of your income when that happens.

Or maybe, you are getting traffic from the search engines. With today's easy-to-use software, it's just a matter of time before your competitors figure out how you get top ranking at Google.com. Is it fair for me to say that they'll want to copy you legitimately to get the same success as yours?

And here's the scariest part of all - As long as they are not copying apple for apple, they have the rights to copy you!

You can't stop them from contacting your Jv partners.

You can't stop them from writing the same book as yours but with a different angle.

You can't stop them from reading your salesletter and hiring a better copywriter to write for them.

The only way for you to 'save' yourself is to have more than one niche sites. So, if you have 4 niche sites and each of them is generating the same amount of income, you know that each site is giving 25% income to you.

If one of your niche sites is taken over by the competitors, you still have 75% income to support you financially.

And remember, we don't live in an ideal internet marketing world.

Your website hosting, email database and etc can give you unforeseen problems. And you can be wiped off overnight because of this.

Prevention is ALWAYS better than cure. If you already have a profitable niche market, don't just sit in front of your Tv hoping to cash out money from it each month. Build more online niches, then you can do whatever you want with ease of mind.

If you need to make sure you have a profitable online niche, you can use Niche CheckList to check it out. Go to: http://www.nichechecklist.com

Copyright 2005 Patric Chan

Patric Chan is a direct response expert, internet infopreneur, marketing strategist and author. At the age of 24, he had achieved many extraordinary results in the internet marketing world. He had joint-ventured with many famous internet marketing experts in product creations and selling online. Get the latest internet marketing tips at http://www.InternetMarketing-Tactics.com

How To Automate Your Online Business

Writen by Titus Hoskins

Automation makes running any online business a total breeze. More importantly, only by automating your whole online business will you achieve the freedom and lifestyle that makes Internet Marketing so attractive to millions of people worldwide.

The Internet is tailor made for automation. It can retrieve, process and transmit data at a lightning speed. It can keep track of billions of pieces of information on a single server. In reality, the whole system is one giant automated machine run by countless servers and an ever decreasing number of wires as the web goes wireless.

And then there is the computer -- your main business automation tool. The computer is the perfect automation tool. It can handle incoming data, process files, and dispense information all within the blink of an eye. Computers are the real workhorses of our modern age -- they do most of the work for us. They are so important, running any competitive online or off-line business now without a computer would be hard to imagine, not to mention foolhardy.

Combine these two key elements with automated marketing software and running any business on automation will indeed seem like a total breeze. It all comes down to numbers, with the Internet and computers, you can handle, sell and process a million units as easy as you can handle ten units.

Computers and the web make these large numbers possible. They make marketing online not only viable but also very lucrative. Whole automated marketing systems can be put into place, bringing in revenue automatically. Virtual auto income machines can be created.

Let's look closely at some examples and discover what you need in order to put these automated marketing systems to work for you.

Let's say you have a digital information product that you wish to sell online. Your automated marketing system will probably start with the acquisition of a domain name www.widgets-info.com and construction of an online website where customers can purchase and download your product.

Designing your own site and sales letter will take some work and you must know what you're doing or all the automation in the world will be pointless because if your online site doesn't convert traffic into sales, it's game over. Your site or online business MUST convert your visitors into paying customers.

Many marketers hire or get someone else to design their profit generating sites for them. You may have to pay highly for a good professional quality site and high quality sales copy but it is the key to the success of your whole marketing operation.

A well optimized website will pull in free targeted traffic from the different search engines automatically. A high quality sales letter or copy will then convert this traffic into sales and income automatically. To increase sales many marketers buy their traffic from Pay-Per-Click advertising such as those services offered by Google Adwords or Yahoo's Overture.

Once you have targeted traffic hitting your website... all your marketing procedures can be automated. In most cases, with simple software programs that will run your online business on auto-pilot.

Most professional marketers capture the contact information of their visitors. They follow up with the grand daddy of all automated systems -- the autoresponder. Studies have consistently shown, it usually takes from 6 to 7 follow-up emails before a customer buys your product. The autoresponder is one automated tool you must use with your online business.

Many marketers offer ecourses or free newsletters as a way of automatically keeping in touch with customers or potential customers. An autoresponder can draw visitors back to your site and marketing page again and again, to hear your sales pitch. It is the vital element in your automated marketing system.

Automation of your whole checkout system can be done with programs like ClickBank, PayPal or 1ShoppingCart... these automated checkout systems will take your customers through the checkout process and can deliver digital products or software downloads immediately.

Here Are Some Automation Tips:

* Use autoresponders for follow-ups and building contact lists
* Use automated checkout systems like ClickBank or 1ShoppingCart
* Use simple online videos to explain complex tasks or products
* Use Google Sitemaps to automatically index and update your pages
* Use organic SEO tactics like keyword rich articles to get traffic
* Use RSS feeds to automatically syndicate your content and articles
* Use RSS feeds to automatically build content and webpages
* Use datafeeds to automatically update your products or content
* Use audio testimonials to warm up visitors (the net is a cold place)
* Use a well defined Frequently Asked Questions page or pages
* Use Paypal or a similar system for paying your online business bills
(hosting, advertising, promotions) and for receiving payments/commissions
- this way you can be away from your business for long periods
of time and everything will still run smoothly, on auto-pilot

Once all these elements have been put into place: your targeted traffic, your website with sales page and checkout cart, your autoresponders with follow-up messages, your delivery of purchased products, and a payment system to pay your bills/receive your commissions or payments... you will have constructed an automated system that will deliver sales and income 24/7/365. There are countless websites and businesses on the web doing exactly that -- automatically running and earning money for their owners.

Another popular online business model uses affiliate programs and advertising such as Google Adsense as their main sources of income, instead of offering products for sale.

These automated marketing systems are set up in the same way. Only no actually selling is done on the site... these sites pre-sell by giving away valuable information, product reviews, or comparison shopping tips to their visitors. Then and only then are potential customers sent to affiliate sites to make their purchases. With the affiliate (site owner) getting a percentage of the selling price for having referred the customer or client. Some great third party affiliate programs are Commission Junction, LinkShare, Shareasale, and Amazon.

This automated affiliate/advertising website business offers the most freedom and the least headaches. It is an ideal automated business system that if done right can be extremely lucrative for those who put these automated marketing systems into place.

It can be pure perfection where automation meets the Internet, computers and the marketing process. It can be a marvel to behold and a complete joy to experience in action. For those savvy marketers who have perfected this system it spells only one thing -- freedom. And a whole lot of it!

...
The author owns and runs numerous sites on the web, including two sites on Internet Marketing. A general web marketing site on: Internet Marketing. And a more detailed site on all the automated marketing tools you need to run your online business: Marketing Tool Guide.

Copyright © 2006 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Internet Marketing Advantages And Disadvantages

Writen by Christopher W Smith

Everyone seems to be jumping on the internet marketing bandwagon lately. In the race to get their business online, many successful businesses forget to ask themselves some tough questions about what they are doing, what their expectations are and what their plan is to meet those expectations.

The internet can be a powerful tool that can put you on solid footing with bigger companies. On the other hand, the other companies may have more money to pay for advertising. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind as you analyze your internet marketing strategy.

Advantage of Internet Marketing

- your store is open, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. Further, your customers are worldwide in reach, and can shop anytime that they want to

- the cost of spreading your message is next to nothing. Emailing your subscription base is more oftne cheaper than sending a letter through the mail

- updating your subscribers can be done almost instantly through email. Visitors to your website can get up to the minute information on each visit. If you are having a sale, your customers can start shopping at the discounted prices literally as soon as they open their email

- if you have an information sensitive business, such as a law firm, newspaper or online magazine, you can deliver your products directly to your customers without having to use a courier

Disadvantages of Internet Marketing

- online marketing is not free. The cost of software, hardware, wed site design, maintenance of your site, online distribution costs and of course, time, all must be factored into the cost of providing your service or product.

- slightly over 50% of households shop online. While that number will continue to grow, you are reaching less than two out of three households.

- the internet is still regarded as a source of information gathering for the majority of your customers. Of the number of visitors to your site, the vast majority of visitors who are motivated to buy will do so in person. Many people prefer the live interaction when they buy. If you have a small business with one location, this may deter customers from buying.

- easier to have outdated information on your site, thus timing of updates is critical

- there is no replacement for good old fashioned customer service. The majority of internet marketers lack customer service and inquiry response programs. As a result, many online visitors to your site will already have painted your site as poor service before they have even contacted you. The majority of websites also have poor navigation, which makes it difficult for your visitor to find what they are looking for. Many sites were created with a marketing view, not a customer service point of view.

- is your site secure? Does your customer know this? There are many incorrect stereotypes about the security of the internet out there. As a result, many of your visitors will not want to use their credit card to make a purchase. The fear of having their credit card info stolen is a clear and present danger in the minds of your visitors

- there is a lot of competition for your product already out there. By the time your visitor finds you, they have already been clicking many links. Unless they can find what they are looking for quickly, they are gone.

- many web visitors expect something for free. What do you have to offer them?

There are many other pros and cons of internet marketing. Its important for you to consider each when creating your internet marketing strategy. Each of the disadvantages can be overcome, but only if you view the customer experience from the eyes of your customer, not as an internet marketer.

Northern Source offers web design services for small businesses. You'll find more helpful hints at http://www.northernsource.com

Christopher Smith has been creating web sites for small businesses for over 7 years. In addition to providing deisgn and consultation services, Christopher also provides tips on search engine optimization, internet marketing and traffic generation.