Identify your competitors

You may know some of your competitors, but remember; you are working online. There are most likely lots! And they come and go all the time.

Often a company in an adjacent area will change its positioning to try and address your market, or a new startup may emerge in a related area. You need to create a master list of your key competitors and make sure you keep this up to date.

To do this, Google the terms which describe your industry, your products and services. You can also use a little known feature in Google. In the search box, type in "related:www.yourcompanyname.com" and Google will display a list of companies that it considers related to yours. Look for new companies that show up and see if any of these pose a threat.

Here is Your Great Free Traffic Resource

Many wonder how people get Facebook to work for their online business. Melissa Ingold gives you an idea:

As social media continues to explode and online communities grow exponentially each and every day, it is becoming more and more important for internet marketers to take advantage of this growing outlet.

Facebook is arguably the most popular social media site available today. Started as a way for college students to keep in touch, Facebook now has millions of users who are using it for new and innovative purposes with every single friend request. So what does this have to do with your internet marketing business? Everything. (note: don’t include “Everything” in the summary please.)

A Facebook page for your online business is a great way to gain exposure, build relationships and ultimately, grow your business. In fact, you may want to consider a personal Facebook page as an additional way to promote your online business as well, maximizing your ability to appeal to a larger group of people and increase connections for both personal and professional purposes.

You can get the ball rolling by becoming a fan of your internet marketing business page and sharing it with others as well. This is a great way to inadvertently advertise your business without coming across sales-y or pushy. The last thing you want to do is alienate your Facebook friends or any members of the social media community for that matter. You will find that it is absolutely critical to gain the trust of those you make connections with because if one friend feels you are trying to “sell” to them, you will immediately gain an irreparable reputation on Facebook that will spread like wildfire. However, handle yourself correctly and you will quickly reap the benefits of Facebook’s network of millions, allowing you to promote your internet marketing business without offending or assaulting people with unwanted advertisements, offers or spam.

So how do you handle yourself correctly? It’s easy really. You will want to send and accept as many new friend requests as you can in order to grow your circle. For your Facebook business page, these friends should also become “fans”. In addition, make sure that you update your status consistently, and that doesn’t mean once a week. It means once, possibly even twice or more a day, depending on how much time and effort you are both willing and can realistically put in. And finally, perpetuate conversation. If someone writes on your wall or sends you a message, be sure to write them back in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, timely in the Facebook world is real-time, so you will want to respond as close to immediately as possible. It will be expected. Wait too long (no more than 5 hours) and you may end up with one less friend.

If it sounds demanding, it is. But remember, it is a free service that when managed correctly can prove to be extremely lucrative for your business and ultimately help to establish you as a qualified, trustworthy online business owner who is on the path to even greater success.

Remember, strangers are only friends you haven’t met yet and Facebook is full of friends who are destined to become customers!

Melissa Ingold is a full-time online business owner who thrives on helping others say good-bye to their J-O-Bs forever. For more action-oriented, quick & easy-to-follow Internet marketing guidance to help you create a low-maintenance, high-profit venture go to Internet Marketing Sweetie

How Not to be just a Product Listing Site

Here’s a quick article that explains that to generate sales, your website has to do a good job of removing some of the confusion by helping the visitor narrow down his choices.

Click to read

The 10 Key Steps to Successfully Market Your Business Online

Here’s a helpful article I found by Richard D. Harroch, the author of The Small Business Kit for Dummies and other books and publications dealing with start-up and emerging companies. You may email him at rharroch@orrick.com

More and more small businesses are finding it essential that they market their products and services online. Customers are increasingly turning to the Web to research companies, compare product features and prices, and to purchase online. A company that does not take advantage of the Web and email to market their business can lose valuable customers.

It has never been easier or more cost-effective to market online. There are numerous Web sites, consultants, software packages, and other tools to help you implement a successful online presence.

Here are 10 key steps to successfully marketing your business onlne:

1. Obtain a Good Domain Name. Before you establish a Web site for your business, you need a domain name. A domain name is the internet address that allows computer users to find your Web site, such as www.Microsoft.com or www.BananaRepublic.com. Good domain names are difficult to obtain, as millions have already been purchased over the years. The most common domain names end in ".com" or ".net" and are seen as the most desirable.

It's easy to check whether a domain name is available. For example, Yahoo.com has a domain name service check and you can do a check in under a minute. The cost on Yahoo to purchase a domain name is under $10.

A few key tips on domain names:

Make sure the domain name hasn't been trademarked by someone else (check www.uspto.gov); Make sure it's easy to spell; Make the name easy to remember. But simpler and descriptive may be better — you don't have to come up with something as catchy as "Google" — and non-descriptive names require more branding effort.

2. Build a Professional Looking Web Site. Your Web site is a reflection of your business. People who come to your Web site can be impressed or turned off by the professionalism of your site. There are several approaches to building a Web site. First, there are plenty of sites (including Yahoo) that will give you templates for a site either for free or very cheaply. Second, there are professional site building consultants who will custom-build a site for you. And, third, there are multiple software packages available to help you build your own site.

3. Make Your Web Site Easy to Navigate and Make it Easy to Find What You Are Trying to Sell. Don't get caught up in trying to come up with dazzling flash and color for your site. The key to a good site is to make sure the viewers can easily find what they are looking for. This means a clear navigation bar and a good "search" box. Take a look at some of the great sites out there, and sites from competitors. That can help you plan how your site should be designed.

4. Build up Your Email List. One of the best and cheapest ways to sell online is through email marketing. It's a great way to communicate with customers and prospective customers. So it is very valuable to collect email addresses from visitors to your Web site. Offer them something worthwhile for their email address—such as a discount or a free newsletter.
Make it easy to get someone's email address, but also be sure that you have set forth a Privacy Policy on your site describing how you will use any personal information. And be sure you are up-to-date on the laws affecting email marketing, such as the CAN-SPAM Act.

5. Send Periodic Email Newsletters. Email newsletters can prove to be effective communication tools for existing customers, prospective customers, and other key audiences.

What are the hallmarks of effective email newsletter programs? Here are 6 tips:

Keep it reasonably short. Nobody wants to read lengthy emails. Make it well designed and visually interesting. Include photos and graphics. Provide multiple links back to your Web site. Make it look professional. Don't have typos, a sloppy look, or broken links. Include an easy way for the viewer to contact you and to unsubscribe from your email list. Constantly test and track how your newsletters are doing.

Email newsletter programs can be established through companies that provide turn-key solutions, such as Constant Contact

6. Buy Banner Ads. You can enhance visibility and traffic to your site by buying banner ads. The keys to effective banner ad campaigns are:

Make the ad visually interesting with links to a particular offer or "landing" page on your site. Place the ads on sites relevant to your business. Constantly monitor and test the efficacy of the ads, measuring not only click-throughs from the ad to your site, but also the actual resulting sales and return on investment.

7. Optimize Your Site for Search Engines. Hundreds of millions of searches a day are performed on the Web through Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. The search engines "spider" billions of Web pages. There is a fast growing area called "search engine optimization" that refers to efforts you can employ to get your Web site to show up higher in search results. To get more information on this, go to the search box on the AllBusiness home page, select "the Web" from the drop-down menu, and type in "search engine optimization."

8. Buy Keyword Ads on Search Engines. Many businesses are finding that key word advertising on search engines can be quite beneficial. Here's how it works: If you sell computer books from your Web site, you might buy a small ad or listing on Google that would show up when someone types in the search box a term that you designate (such as "computer books" or "PC books"). If the searcher sees your paid ad and clicks on it, he is transported to your Web site and you pay on a "CPC" basis to Google (a cost per click, such as 30¢ a click). The goal is to get qualified prospective customers to your site.

The key elements of successful key word ad buying programs include:

Purchase the most relevant key words. Write the ads in a way to compel qualified buyers to click on the ad. Send the user from the ad to a landing page in your site that sets forth the precise product or service related to the keyword ad. Sending a viewer to your home page is generally not as effective as sending them to a specific product page. Constantly review the amount you are paying per click, and the conversion of that click into buyers. Constantly test different ad copy and different landing pages to determine what works best for your site.

9. Make it Easy to Buy From Your Shopping Cart. If you are selling products from your site, you will need a shopping cart system and a credit card authorization process. Many companies provide such systems off the shelf, such as Yahoo! Small Business. The key here is to make sure the shopping process is fast and efficient. Many Web sites have found that their checkout process was too cumbersome, and that they lost potential buyers who became frustrated with the amount of time and effort involved.

10. Provide Great Customer Service. A satisfied customer will return to your site. So go out of your way to give great customer support and service. And for those who are not happy with their experience, try to turn them around with an offer of a discount, a free product, or some other benefit.

Website Success Recommendations from an Ex-Google Employee

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1. Four of the 26 pointers by GoogleGuy speak of adding content.

Add, add, add.
Google loves it, and your visitors will love it.
Assure it is quality content though. You are looking for quality over quantity here.
Sure, you can turn out 5 mediocre articles in the time it takes to write one excellent article. However, once that excellent article is on your site, people will bookmark your page and recommend you to friends and online contacts.

2. Your website should be clean and simple.

The simpler the HTML that you have on your website, the more the search engines will like you. Also, the more simply your visitors can navigate and read your site, the more THEY will like you. How simple is the layout of Google itself?
Yes, very simple.
How popular is it?
Very.

3. Keep your pages small.

Aim for between 5K and 10K. Many of your visitors will still be using dial-up connections. Don't alienate these visitors by building pages that load slowly.

4. Keep your content pages to no more than 500 words, generally speaking.

If it gets longer, that's fine. Assure, however, that it is not rambling, that it NEEDS to be longer. If you can make it shorter, do so.

5. Use your keyword in the following ways:

Once in the title, once in the description tag, once in the heading, once in the url, once in bold, once in italic and once high on the page. Don't aim for misspelled keywords.
The search engines are getting smarter and now often correct spelling mistakes as people search for them.

6. On each page, link to one or two highly ranked websites, which relate to your industry.

Assure that the links are in context with the rest of the article. Use your keyword in the link.

7. Create links from one page to another within your website.

In this way, you even-out the entire PR of your website, as opposed to having one page which ranks very highly and other pages which don't. So, for example, if when writing one article, you mention a point, which is covered in more detail in another article, link to that article. Use the keyword for the other article in the link.

8. Make your navigation system usable; both for visitors and search engine spiders.

For your visitors, assure that it is a simple and clean system.
For the search engine spiders, assure that your links go no more than 3 links deep.
This means that no page should be any more than one other page from the home page.
Cross-link from articles as much as possible.

9. Submit your website to as many directories as possible.

Here you will find an extensive list of available directories - "Strongest Links"
Many are free. If you can afford it, pay the extra cash to have your site listed in Yahoo and Looksmart.

10. Request link swaps from related website.

Better yet, join a quality link exchange program. I use the "Link Exchange program" supplied for free by SiteSell.com, with whom I host my other website, "Barcelona Explore"

11. Write good, concise content. Keep paragraphs short and to the point.

12. If you are using your website to promote your off-line business, don't just put up an online flyer.

Provide your visitors with information that they can use, not just information about you and your company. Unless they are specifically looking for information about you, they will click away from your site.

13. Study the information provided by your website statistics.

If your web host doesn't provide a good statistic program, use a free one like "StatCounter". Analyze the keywords that people have been using to find your site.
If any surprising ones come up, use them in your site.

14. Partake in forums pertaining to your website.

Absorb all the information that is out there, and more importantly, become part of it. The networking with other people in your sector is invaluable and will prove it's worth by increasing backlinks, viral networking and recommendations.

Following all these points will speed up your success. Success at any speed, however, is a guarantee if you focus on offering your visitors value, by providing excellent content.

About the Author: Ciara Carruthers is a successful website content writer. Employ her services or read her many free to use articles, including how to create a short term traffic building strategy.

Internet Home Business-Different Methods of Online Marketing

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There are various approaches and method to online marketing. It is important to know about each method so that one can compare the results. This list sums up the online marketing methods.

Take a deep breath. This list is quite exhaustive!

Personal Marketing: This is marketing at personal level and includes telling your network and friends, making a business card, etc

Article Marketing: Article marketing implies writing articles and submitting them to web article directories. When you write article, you are allowed to put a backlink to your website in the author's bio box. People looking for information will come and read your article. If it interests them, they would visit your web site for more information. Article marketing is a very good method to build links for your site, enhance your website's search engine ranking and getting traffic. What is more, it is absolutely free until you wish to use paid services.

Bum marketing is a method of marketing using articles with a twist. Here, you search for potential keywords that can be dominated, write articles on those and submit them to article directories with an affiliate link to the product you want to promote.

Forum Marketing: A forum is a place where people gather and discuss their problems, strategies etc. There are many forums on the web that you can join and participate in discussion. Most of the forums allow a link back to your website in your signature text which would appear below the post you make. Again a good traffic builder.

Search Engine Marketing: This involves search engine optimization of your website design and content. Search engine use their algorithm to rank websites and when people search for something, these websites are displayed as the search engines would rank them. Search engine optimization or SEO are the methods by which you try to build your site and content so that it may please the search engines. You either learn SEO or use the paid services.

Pay Per Click Advertising: This is a paid service where you pay the service provider every time your link is clicked. This kind of marketing is quite popular with internet marketers. Apart from Google and Yahoo there are many other pay per click services available

Link Exchange: In this a website places a link for another website in exchange for its link on that site. Earlier it was also used for SEO purpose but a change in search engine algorithm has stripped that advantage. But it is still it is a powerful method for traffic generation.

Link Purchase: You can purchase placement of your website link on other website. This is very commonly done for SEO as one way incoming backlinks are used to rank your website by search engines. This method also brings in traffic if the site that you purchased link placement from is heavily visited website.

Classified Advertising: You can advertise your website on Classifieds websites on the web like Craigslist.com and USfreeads.com. Both paid and free services are available.

Ezine Marketing: This refers to email marketing. You can start your own newsletter or ezine or electronic magazine, which your subscribers can choose to receive. Creating an ezine is an integral part of your internet business.
You can also choose to purchase an advertising space in the ezines that are already running successfully. Your website gets exposed to targeted readers who may like to become your customers.

List Building: This refers to building a subscribers database who are entered into the list of that database when they opt in for your ezine or agree to a free download against providing you their email address. You can contact these subscribers with your offers and promos.

Lead Purchase: There are some paid services, which will provide you with the names and email addresses of the people or leads against a payment. This method is called lead generation. This is done by them by placing your opt-in form (Form which a visitor fills in order to subscribe) on heavily visited websites, a process that you can do on your site also. Normally you are charged per lead.

Viral Marketing: Here, you make a useful product like an ebook or software and allow people to pass it on freely. This helps in spreading your website links and branding your site. Apart from ebook or software, you can also build some humorous video or funny email. Build anything that people would like to pass on and share.

Press Releases: Here, you build a press release for your website and submit it to one or more press release sites like prweb.com. Press releases are done to create awareness among the web visitors and are displayed on various news channels or sites on the net. Also builds increased back links. Both free and paid submissions are available.

Joint Ventures: Here two or more marketers come together and promote a product or service in a way that it will benefit them all. Joint ventures are a great way to build your business because the marketing efforts are combined and results are always more than individual efforts.

Affiliate Program: You can launch your own affiliate program where people can join. Then they would advertise your product with their affiliate link. When a sale is made, they get a preset commission. You will need an affiliate program manager to do this. Clickbank.com offers an easy alternative.

Resell Rights Marketing: You can offer resell rights to your product where people would be able to sell it and keep all the money. It increases your product value and helps in building a name because more sales are made than when you sell it just on your own. Helps in branding too.

RSS Marketing: RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it may be difficult to conceptualize in the beginning. RSS works by RSS feeds which needs to be generated by a website. People can subscribe to these RSS feeds and can view the content of the website via their RSS reader. By this people are enabled to receive the content directly on their desktop. This method is quite new as compared to others and has become really popular following spam issues in email marketing.

Blog Marketing: Blog is an online journal, which you can update on regular basis. You need a blogging platform like Wordpress or Blogger etc and you can publish at their site or host on your own. Blogs are immensely popular with marketers and are very much loved by search engines. A must for your business.

Social Bookmarking: This is latest marketing buzz. There are online bookmarking sites available, which people can use to bookmark the places on the web they like. You can display these bookmarking buttons on your site or blog and people may submit the link for bookmarking if they like your site. Generates good traffic.

Video Marketing: This is even newer. You can upload a video on the sites that allow. People would watch and then visit your site. Theory is similar to article marketing but media used is different. A popular website that allows video upload is Youtube.com.

About the Author: Arun Pal Singh is an internet marketing consultant and web author who runs website http://www.homeforprofits.com to help budding online entrepreneurs with information and ready made products. Visit http://www.homeforprofits.com to find how his ebooks, softwares, audios, website building material, traffic strategies and training videos and information can provide the leverage that your business needs to grow and expand.

Online Business, Shopping Carts and Paypal

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The Paypal sign has become so common, almost everyone has seen it while shopping online. A great many online retailers and auctions sites, such as eBay are using Paypal, even many traditional stores who have websites now use it. It is easy for anyone, whether a business or a consumer, to set up an account and use it.

Though most people who have been on the internet for awhile know what Paypal is, there are still some who don't. Paypal is a payment system that facilitates a person's ability to request and accept payments, send invoices, and withdraw money to savings or checking account. Paypal will also send a check for funds when requested. Another option is to get Paypal's debit card or even their credit card.

Anyone can use Paypal's website with ease as navigation is simple. Basic, premier and merchant are the account types available. The basic account is for those who only plan to make instant transfers from one account to another and to make payments for online purchases. With the premier account, credit card payments can be accepted and the merchant account is for those who use Paypal extensively for business.

There are no fees associated with the basic account, but to accept credit card payments, there are fees. Considering the convenience that the ability to accept credit cards has, these fees are quite reasonable. Subscription services that allow customers to subscribe to have fees withdrawn from their account for monthly services are available, too. Even donations can be set up as a service. A protection service is also offered that protects both consumers and businesses from fraud.

Do you need to invoice for services, multiple purchases or shipping and handling? With Paypal's invoicing tool, you can create invoices that are itemized with the taxes and shipping charges included. The requirements for Paypal are a valid checking account, physical address and email address to set up an account. There is no credit check and it is easy to use. The information required during sign up is, of course, needed to facilitate notifications, money transfers and shipping address for purchased items. It also gives Paypal the information needed if you request that a Paypal check be sent to you. As a safe means of paying for purchases and receiving funds, Paypal is about the best available online at this time.

Many businesses find that using shopping carts makes for greater ease and convenience when consumers make purchases. This doesn't eliminate the use of Paypal, however. Quite a few shopping carts have the ability to interface with the services offered by Paypal. One example is www.1cartplus.com. Customers will still be able to use Paypal for their purchases when using your shopping cart. There are more features with the shopping cart than could be had with Paypal alone.

So customers are not even aware of the redirection to the shopping cart site, it is possible to match the shopping cart to your site in the set up at places like www.1cartplus.com. There are often features offered with shopping carts, such as affiliate programs, customer tracking, quantity discounts, coupons, shipping labels, accounting software interfaces, auto-mail responders and many other things, that Paypal doesn't offer. Easier payments, easier account management, more choices for you and your customers are what you can get with a shopping cart and Paypal interface.

When you use a shopping cart instead of just using Paypal, you are able to offer more checkout options as well as Paypal. There are customers who would rather not go through the sign-up process for Paypal and just buy from one place. Since the checkout process is longer and can be tedious for customers who have to sign up for Paypal, having other payment options saves a good deal of time.

Having a shopping cart with lots of choices that make things easier for customers will keep them returning to make more purchases and bookmarking you site future ease in finding you.

For sending, receiving, transferring of money and for invoicing services and purchases, the ease, convenience and low cost of Paypal is hard to beat. Paypal's reasonable fees and the ability to interface with many shopping cart programs makes it easy for you, the seller, to allow customers multiple payment choices. A shopping cart with a Paypal interface gives you such features as customer tracking, shipment tracking, account management, and coupons, as well as affiliate programs. Think about using a shopping cart such as the one at www.1cartplus.com for your online business. There are several such shopping carts and all have wonderful features. This is about the best course you can take if you do a considerable amount of business. If you do a light amount of selling, just Paypal might be all you need.

About the Author: Nick Hurd is the CEO of 1CartPlus.com, LLC. 1CartPlus.com is complete shopping cart and e-commerce system that supports a comprehensive package of tools that totally automate the marketing and fulfillment requirements for its clients. You can find more information at www.1cartplus.com - a shopping cart and e-commerce system on steroids.

Why Online Stores Need RSS

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This is a good article by Gabriele Clyde explaining how RSS helps your online business:

RSS opens a new gateway to ever-flooding effective business strategies, never existed before, and creates a new dimension in the way you reach out to the public. When you, as a marketer/ businessman/company, decide to promote your business through the marketing strategies of Internet, try to take the maximum advantage of this interactive medium. When your website does not engage visitors, then your web-based promotional efforts have been crippled. What are the means to attract visitors to your website, when there exists a million dollar question – whose website to visit? Given innumerable choices, just think of the visitor’s plight to decide which one and whether he wishes to really come back after his first visit.

RSS has a lot of advantages over the other existing methods, to turn it into the most sought-after, powerful, influential tool, which will take over the Internet world very soon, if understood fully and properly. It is basically a ‘push-based’ communication method, which can be published and subscribed to easily. It can be explained as a file containing the latest information and accessed by subscribers who are interested.

Consider a website as a real-world conversation. We need to adopt the same things just like while trying to sell our product to a sales prospect in person. RSS has wonderful features, which embody the techniques of conversational marketing in a very flexible way. Don’t you go through the following while reaching out to the visitors? Glance through and see how RSS helps:

• First, you decide your goal and try to analyze what kind of audience your website can get.
• What do the visitors get on visiting your website? Interview customers for their feedback, do a research and make changes to your website accordingly. The last part can be done very easily done using RSS feeds (which we will see in detail in the later chapters).
• The look of your website is very important. RSS has made it very easy to understand, see and feel your message for the visitors by mixing video and audio channels to your contents. Also, keep in mind that not only is it enough to have a good website but an appropriate one to your business also, to catch your visitor’s eye.
• Make your website work well in all the browsers. Your website is open to a variety of visitors who can prefer browsers of their choices. RSS is a convenient way since it works on all platforms. Most of the browsers may not face hurdles accessing RSS.
• Your website is the gold mine of information on how the public respond to what you say. RSS provides an unbelievable platform to discuss the views of the public without wasting time. Instead, you can spend your time on crafting quality contents. RSS has got many special features such as dialog facilitators, RSS radars, and automatic responders to enhance the significance of conversational marketing.
• You can collect a lot of information such as the number of subscribers, their interests, their reading frequency, and the topics they are more interested in etc using RSS feeds. These are definitely going to be vital for improving your standards of business.
• Your search engine ranking reflects how good your website is! RSS increases the search engine ranking remarkably and well, again helps develop your business.

And do not think it’s a super-techie thing that you cannot use! Once you are familiar with the tool, you are open to the amazing world of RSS and one day, sure to find yourself hooked to it! It’s going to be the beginning of an unbelievable era, exploring deeper and deeper the many faces of RSS and of course, the web world, through it! Though it can’t be an all-out replacement for other technologies, it can be a standard to optimize your Internet experience.

More articles from this pro: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Gabriel Clyde

Conclusion of Tips on Starting an online business

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7. How To Promote Your Business Website

Write An Article: Write an article promoting your site or product. Write an article on a hot topic many people would like more information on and submit it to various e-zines. How do you find out what's hot? Visit a few of the message boards and see what questions are raised often.

Search Engines: Thousands of search engines exist on the Internet. But, you should only be concerned with the top eight or ten. You should manually submit to the top eight: Alta Vista, Excite, Yahoo, Hotbot, Lycos, Northern Light, Infoseek, Webcrawler, and use one of the FREE automatic submission services like *SubmitPlus* to handle the smaller search engines.

Directories: List your site here too. Directories organize sites into categories. Good examples of Directories: Yahoo, Magellan.

Ezine Listings: If you have an e-zine to promote along with your site. Why not list it with one of the many e-zine services on the Internet. E-zine Library is a good one to start with.

Free Classifieds: You will have to submit to a ton of FREE classifieds to get any significant traffic. Why? You are competing with thousands of other Ads. Remember to work on your Ad copy and make it attention grabbing. Go to one of the popular search engines, type in Free Classifieds, and surf to the top 20 classified sites for beginners.

Often, these sites will lead you to several other Free Classified Sites. In response you'll get a stack of e-mail thanking you for listing your site while barking their promo. Best to get one of those free email accounts. Hot mail is a good one. So is Yahoo mail.

FFA Pages. Free For All's are worth a try. Be prepared for an avalanche of e-mails from FFA web site owners. If your title is attention grabbing you will get a few clicks. Good Attention grabbing headlines, FREE, Limited Time, Limited Offer, Proven, Secrets, and many more if you brainstorm. Check out the sales literature delivered to you by regular mail. Check and see what headlines grab your attention. And why? Incorporate them into your Online Ads.

Tell Friends And Family: If your friends, family, acquaintances, have an Internet Connection, e-mail them telling them about your new website, and ask them to visit often. Offer a FREE incentive if they tell a few friends to surf over. Perhaps, a FREE Ad in your e-zine.

Leave Business Cards or Flyers: Leave these promo pieces with small businesses in your community. All relevant contact information; email address, URL, telephone number, should be included. Offer a freebie to anyone who visits your site. A free e-book, report.

8. IN CONCLUSION

Think of your first six months primarily as a training period. Don't expect large earnings until after you've educated yourself.

Even the most dynamic, highest-earning entrepreneurs in the industry took MONTHS to begin seeing an income of any real significance with their internet home business.
Don't be a negative thinker and don't let the negative attitudes of others (even if they're family members, friends, or peers) influence you.

All the great men and women in history had to overcome the naysayers who said it couldn't be done-and then went out and did it. Think for yourself!

As long as you think positive and focused on your internet home business target you're on the right way to a rich life, which is directed by you and it will lead you to tremendous success and personal satisfaction.

About The Author
Michel Richer, The Internet Home Business Specialist Can Help You Build A Successful Internet Business That Can Generate Massive Profit !!! So Start Your Own Internet Business for FREE >> Visit Now: http://hombyz.com/homebusiness.htm

Continuation of Tips on Starting an online business

Day370
I’ve decided to split the remainder of this article into two days instead of one due to length:

5. Choose a Web Hosting Company

A Web host is a company that provides server space for your website. You can think of a web host as a commercial building. The web host provides space for your website just as a commercial building provides space for your shop or office.

What are some of the things you should look for when choosing a web host? The criteria for choosing a free web host and a commercial web hosting solution are slightly different although they do overlap.

A) Web Space

Does it have enough space for your needs? If you envisage that you will expand your site eventually, you might want to cater for future expansion. Most sites use less than 5MB of web space. Indeed, at one time, one of my other web sites, thefreecountry.com, used less than 5MB of space although it had about 150 pages on the site. Your needs will vary, depending on how many pictures your pages use, whether you need sound files, video clips, etc.

B) Bandwidth allotment

Nowadays, many free web hosts impose a limit on the amount of traffic your website can use per day and per month. This means that if the pages (and graphic images) on your site are loaded by visitors beyond a certain number of times per day (or per month), the web host will disable your web site (or perhaps send you a bill).

It is difficult to recommend a specific minimum amount of bandwidth, since it depends on how you design your site, your target audience, and the number of visitors you're able to attract to your site. In general, 100MB traffic per month is too little for anything other than your personal home page and 1-3GB traffic per month is usually adequate for a simple site just starting out. Your mileage, however, will vary.

C) Reliability and speed of access

This is extremely important. A site that is frequently down will lose a lot of visitors. If someone finds your site on the search engine, and he tries to access it but finds that it is down, he'll simply go down the list to find another site. Slow access is also very frustrating for visitors (and for you too, when you upload your site).

How do you know if a host is reliable or fast? If you can't get feedback from anyone, one way is to try it out yourself over a period of time, both during peak as well as non-peak hours. After all, it is free, so you can always experiment with it.

6. Shopping Cart

No e-commerce website is complete without a secure shopping cart. There are many shopping cart options. Many e-commerce business owners make the mistake of using Pay Pal to accept payments, which immediately tells visitors that their company is very small and not professional.

A good alternative to Pay Pal is a remotely hosted shopping cart. Remote shopping carts take the burden of maintaining security and credit card numbers off your shoulder and places the responsibility on another company. Remote shopping carts can usually be configured to look similar to your website.

In fact, your customers may not realize that they have left your website to place an order. The remote shopping cart provider will give you the HTML to add to your website. When your potential customer clicks on the Buy Now button, he or she is taken to the remote shopping cart to enter the personal information and payment details.

Depending on your choice of a shopping cart, you may or may not need a merchant account to process transactions. Some shopping cart services allow you to use their merchant accounts for a slightly higher fee.

Branding your business

Day362
I read a great article on line tonight: Little known ways to brand on the cheap: 99 tips for poor web startups.

Here are just two of the tips I plan to research further –

22. Social Bookmarking–where to start? Start by building a profile and keeping it active at all the top bookmarking sites. A few sites we recommend are: Del.icio.us, Digg, Netscape, Reddit, and Stumbleupon. Each has a different audience, so some of your content will do better at some sites over others. Because of their differences, it is important to be an active member of all the sites and submit your content at all of them.

26. E-profiles: manage your reputation. If a potential customer types in your name into a search engine, what sort of results will they see in the top 10? It’s key for you to secure the top 10 results in Google, Yahoo and MSN for searches relating directly and indirectly (if possible) to your brand. You need to be the one defining what people see when they search for you, not your competition. Start by building e-profiles on authority domains such as MySpace, Squidoo, AboutUs, WordPress, Blogger/ Blogspot, MSN Spaces, TypePad, Newsvine, LinkedIn, Rollyo, Wikipedia, etc. Don’t let someone else define who you are.

Read the entire article here

Part two of good business advice

Day357
6. Offer Rewards for Opt-Ins

Everyone enjoys acquiring free products. Offering a free product as a premium for Opt-in customers must have a perceived value relevant to your clients needs. Here again, you must offer a bonus that will generously provide your future client with an aid to the solution for their existing problem or desires. The bonus should always have a value attached, whether it is monetary or a way to cleverly save precious time or money.

The bonus should also be solid with relevant information pertaining to the customers needs. The potential customer will appreciate that and award you with a vote of confidence.

7. Offer Quick Tips on your Home Page

Offering quick tips to your clients on your home page will inevitably increase your site's reviews. Everyone is always on the lookout for short cuts or new ways to accomplish tasks that will cleverly save them precious time and or money.

Try to post new quick tips weekly if possible, and let all your clients know this. Quick Tips also carry long lived value. Your Quick Tips weekly column introduces a curiosity factor to your clients. What will they miss if they fail to view your site this week?

8. Set-up an auto-responder program that Pre-sells

Set-up your auto-responder as a public relations tool. Your auto-responder message should be set-up to notify your clients regarding new events, products, articles, or anything else that may primarily benefit your client. Developing curiosity is your main goal with your messages.

Remember, you are not trying to sell them anything; you are establishing trust between you and your prospective client. Your site is there to help the client with their needs or desires. Your website provides solutions to their immediate demands. Do not become a used car salesman here, become a close friend that cares!

9. Research

Compare similar websites that offer the same types of services you offer. Review their popularity at Alexa.com. Alexa offers a free service that determines traffic rankings, related links, and more for all websites. Visit their site and download the free toolbar.

Reviewing similar websites will aid you with your decision on how to better your own site with regards to popularity.

When reviewing your competitor's website, pay special attention to their website layout, design, bonus offers (if any), and navigation to pages of interest, and overall presentation. Ask yourself, what was your first impression of the site, was it easy to navigate, was it relevant to your demands, what could you do better to vastly improve their site, and finally, would you return to this site?

10. Establish a Perceived Value to your Website

By following and practicing the previous steps of this article, your website is destined to ultimately achieve success. The last step to your success is establishing a perceived value for your website.
Just what is perceived value?

Perceived value is the potential benefits a consumer expects from a product or service. Also, this is a form of branding (developing awareness of a name or product).

Take for an example Wal-Mart. When this name is mentioned, what are your thoughts?
Friendly place to shop.
Great selection of products to choose from.
Assumption of outstanding pricing.
Established name that is well trusted.

In your mind you have determined that these are some of the influencing factors most companies should have to make you feel comfortable and confident while shopping there. Some prices may be higher, but you feel satisfied with your perceived value of such a business.

Understanding your customer is priceless, and learning how to obtain their confidence in your services is the real challenge.

Provide service to your potential customer as a close friend, not as a percentage.

Roy King, is the editor for Ecom Newspaper, which is dedicated to provide Ecommerce news, information, and articles of interest for home-based Internet businesses. Tips, Tricks, Techniques, and Secrets are revealed by the Guru's of the Ecommerce world within our online newspaper. Stop by and visit us at: http://www.ecomnewspaper.com Have a Great E-Commerce Day.... Roy King

My home office

Day52
Speaking of My Space….I’m starting to get used to my little office. My husband also works out of the house and has a very nice office, huge desk, big comfortable chair…
He has a laptop and we share a desktop computer. Or at least we shared it until I started my store and needed about 10 times more hours at the computer then I did before!
I thought since he had a laptop he could just pick it up and take it somewhere else in the house. But, it turns out he uses both computers and likes being close to his drawers, files and printer.
One day he led me into the furnace room (where his workbench is). There on a small wooden table next to a file cabinet was our old computer we had sort of trashed when we bought the new one. The only reason we still had it was because we thought a school might find a use for it. John had hooked it up and put a folding chair in front of the table.
This was to be my office!
Well, the computer worked, so I spent the rest of the day trying to clean up old folders and email addresses in there and get organized. The next day when I entered the room John had added an artificial tree and a bunch of artificial flowers (no windows in the furnace room).
The next day there was a lamp and he had hung one of my business cards and a cartoon I had cut out of the paper of a homeless person holding a “Zero hits on Google” sign up on the wall in front of my “desk.” As I sat down, I noticed he had made my logo into a magnet and put it on the file cabinet next to me and I now had a smiley face mug for my pencils!I told him I need to take a picture so that when I am a multi million-dollar company and I tell people I literally started in the basement they would believe me. But, it’s cozy, and if I ever need a hammer I just have to turn around to the workbench.