January 31, 2009 By 1 Comment

Free Market Research Strategies – 7 Strategies for Spying on Your Competitors

If your competitor is receiving tons of traffic, has 1000s of backlinks and is making lots of sales it would be wise to study them so you can use that information to your advantage.

1. Find the top 10 competing web sites in Google

Enter your main keyword in Google to view the top 10 web sites in your niche then dissect them to see why they rank well.

2. Find the main keywords they are using

Visit your competitor’s web site and do a view-source in your web browser to view the main keywords they are using in their meta tags. Observe where those keywords are repeated in the text.

You may want to use a few of the same keywords for your own web site.

3. Do a backlink check

Enter the URL of your competitor in Yahoo explorer to view how many links are pointing back to their website. The number and quality of backlinks determine rankings.

Contact the same web sites to get backlinks to your own site.

4. Check traffic levels at Alexa.com

Enter the URL of your competitor in Alexa.com. It will display a monthly traffic history graph for that site.

Offer to write an article or provide free software to this site in exchange for link to your own. A link on a high traffic site will boost your own traffic levels.

5. Study the content

Well written content has high conversion rates. By studying your competitor’s content can get an idea what to include in your own.

6. Subscribe to their newsletter

Subscribe to several competitors newsletters to see what they are offering to their customers and how they write their web copy.

If you’re going to sell products through your newsletter you need to write compelling content.

7. Visit and contribute to their blog or forum

Engaging in communication with your competitors will help you to keep up with recent news, articles and tap into the minds of their customers.

For more information on how to conduct market search and write articles to start an online business please visit: Article Marketing Strategies.

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January 30, 2009 By 1 Comment

How to Start an Online Business – Market Research

So you’ve found a niche you’re passionate about and found many people are searching for the main keywords related to your topic. You’ve also discovered that you could attain first page rankings in the search engines because your competitors have only a few hundred backlinks.

Why is market research necessary?

1. Protects your online business from costly errors

If you don’t know much about your target market you’ll spend time on off-target strategies. This will cause you to lose money and time on wasted efforts.

2. Increases potential to be profitable

Conducting market research before creating and marketing your product will give you an idea if it’s going to fly.

3. Get to know your customers

If you can get into the mind of your customers, what they’re thinking and feeling it will be easier to craft the right message for them

4. Get to know your competitors

By studying your competitors you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Your competitor may have already have been in business for decades so there’s no need redo what he’s been doing but find a way you can set yourself apart from him and offer something unique.

For more information on how to conduct market search and write articles to start an online business please visit: Article Marketing Strategies.

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January 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

How to Start an Online Business by Writing Articles

Part 1

An online business constantly requires new content for it to be profitable. The phrase “content is king” is very true because the essence of the internet is content. If you can write an article or articles you will quickly establish the core of your online business.

Benefits of writing articles

1. Create content for web pages

If you get into the habit of writing articles you can easily write content for sales pages, product pages, and other types of web pages.

2. Increase search engine rankings

Writing optimized content (content containing keywords) will boost your search engine presence because search engines index web pages containing keywords that people search on. By continuously adding content to your web site you increase the paths by which visitors can find your business online.

3. Boost link popularity

Article directories allow links to be placed in the resource box of your articles. The more articles you write and submit to article directories the more links you build. Top rankings are achieved by building a large amount of links pointing to your web site.

4. Well written content attracts visitors

If you create original content that captivates your visitors’ attention, they’ll want to come back and visit your web site. Don’t get into the habit of scraping content from elsewhere. It will repel your visitors.

Steps to start an online business with articles

1. Choose a topic you’re passionate about

Spend time thinking and researching a topic you can invest in for the long term. It needs be something you either know or want to know alot about by doing the necessary research. This is a necessity if you want to write lots of compelling content.

2. Do keyword research

How do you know if the topic you chose is marketable?

Use the keyword research tools Wordtracker, Google keyword selector tool and SearchIt to see if people are actually searching for your main keywords. Click here to read the review of SearchIt.

For example if you enter “worm farming” in the search box and no search numbers appear for that phrase, select another topic.

3. Check out your competition

If there are too many competitors in your field it will be very difficult to create a profitable online business because your competitors probably get millions of visitors to their web site and have 1000s of backlinks. You’ll spend too much time competing with them. It’s better to choose a less competitive niche or topic.

To find out how many backlinks competing web sites have enter the top 10 web sites from Google in your niche then enter each web site address separately in the search box of Yahoo Site Explorer
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ It will show the number of backlinks that site has. If it has 4000 backlinks you will need over 4000 backlinks to effectively compete with it.

Part 2 will discuss Market Research

For more information on how to write articles and start an online business with them please visit: Article Marketing Strategies.

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January 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Online Business Services – Service-based Ideas

You don’t need a product to make money online. If you already have an established service-based business you can improve your presence by marketing your services online. Many folks prefer to search for a service online rather than search through the yellow pages.

Benefits

Easy to find

If you are the only business in your local area or there are only a few, you have a good chance of getting top rankings in the search engines. This means local people will find you instantly when they enter the appropriate keywords in the search engines. For example if you enter “web site design Bowie Maryland” my business web site ranks No 1 (after Google Map results).

Expand your audience

Instead of relying on print advertising (which can get expensive) increase your exposure (inexpensively) by creating an online presence with a custom built web site. A beautifully designed web site allows you to include unlimited information about your business.

Use multimedia to enhance web site interactivity

You can build relationships with your customers by interacting with your web site visitors online. Talk to a professional web designer about your options for creating an interactive web site.

Here are some things you can do to improve interactivity:

Add content regularly – add articles, latest news, specials, coupons. Content can easily be added by incorporating a blog on your web site.

Describe your services using multimedia – add photos, videos and audio to your textual content to enhance your visitors experience. You don’t want your visitors to just read text but also appeal to their visual and auditory senses.

Get testimonials from satisfied customers – this helps build trust and credibility with your future customers.

Create a contact form – visitors have many questions. Add a contact form and include your email address and phone number as well ( for the shy visitors).

Here are a few examples of the types of service-business services you can offer online:

General contracting, remodeling
Coaching
Consulting
Computer services
Web Design and development
Repair services

If you need a custom built web site for your online business services visit:
Web Site Design Services Maryland

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January 20, 2009 By 8 Comments

Online Business Ideas – Ecommerce store

3. Online ecommerce store

If you have one product or 1000s of products to sell consider offering them online. Many local merchants are expanding there brick and mortar business by creating an online store that carries the same products as their offline store. This increases their audience and sales because they aren’t limited by the geographical location of their physical store.

How to find a product or products to sell

Select a product that is in high demand but not sold in large box stores ie Walmart, BestBuy, Sports Authority. These large stores can afford to offer very low prices because they buy in bulk.

Example:
Sinkbiz.com
I created an online store for this customer who sells all types of sinks ranging from stainless steel to porcelain, and eco-taps. Customers purchase the sinks online which then get shipped via UPS.

How to set-up an online store

First you need to register a domain name then build your online store by creating a web site. To process orders online you’ll need a shopping cart, merchant account, payment gateway, SSL certificate and web hosting. An alternative to purchasing your own merchant account is to use PayPal. It enables you to process orders online without signing up for a merchant account.

Read my article: How to Build an Ecommerce Web Site Using the PayPal Shopping Cart

How to market your online store

It’s not enough to just place your store online. Make sure you submit your web site address to specialized directories and local directories. Find related web sites that are already well established on the Net and ask them to place your link on their web site. To do this you may need to offer something in return ie a well written article, money or a even free sample of your product.

Try different marketing strategies until you find one that continually generates traffic to your online store.

To receive information on ways to generate traffic visit
101 Highly Effective Strategies to Promote Your Web Site

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January 17, 2009 By 1 Comment

Online Business Ideas – Information Products

2. How to create and sell information products

You can sell someone else’s products (affiliate programs) or create your own information product. Creating your own product is better because you’re not just receiving a commission. Instead you receive the full price of the product.

Types of information products

The easiest info-products to create and sell are ebooks or short reports. A large ebook may take months to write however a short report of approximately 20 pages will only take a few days. If you sell the report for $7-$10 people would have less resistance purchasing it than if you were selling a large ebook for $97.00

Benefits of creating an ebook or report

Easy to create

You can write your ebook or report then save it as a PDF file in Open Office(openoffice.og) The PDF file can be downloaded by visitors after they make the payment from the sales page of your web site.

Low cost

Your only cost is a web site and a web host to get it online. Once this is set up you can sell your ebook/report 24 hours a day automatically hands-free.

Recruit affiliates

You can increase your ebook sales by offering affiliates a 50% commission for every ebook they sell.

Allow reprint rights

Charge a fee for people that have the complete reprint rights to your ebook. They place there own affiliate links in the ebook and sell it for the same price to others.

For more information on how to create and market your ebook please visit: Article Marketing Strategies.

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January 14, 2009 By 1 Comment

Online Business Ideas – Affiliate Progams

One of the major problems of starting an online business is knowing where to start. There are many ways to make money online but you need to pick idea then go with it all the way till it makes money. Once it is profitable you can expand or duplicate it. For example when I started my web design business I focused exclusively on designing web sites. Later I added web hosting and search engine optimization services. I also created several ebooks to generate some passive income.

Please read my previous articles before selecting one of the online business ideas below.

Starting an online business – 7 questions to ask before you jump in

Starting an online business – How to have the correct mindset

7 Online Business Ideas

1. Affiliate Programs

I mentioned this one first because it is the easiest online business to start. You make money by selling someone elses products. You make a commission everytime you sell something. The parent company processes all the payments, tracks the sales then sends you a commission for each sale. Often they also provide banners, emails, even a web site to help you make sales. It’s in their best interest to make you a great affiliate because they make money when you make money.

Find companies that offer large commissions, and will track clients for multiple sales over a long period of time (ie lifetime) so you can get recurring commissions. Make sure they offer multiple tiers (at least 2) for sales. ie you still get paid if one of your affiliates makes a sale.

Oe of the best examples is the 5 Pillar Affiliate Program from Ken Envoy.

He offers a number of great products with high commissions with excellent sales materials and content to help you presell his products.

Read the free ebook: Affiliate Masters Course to become a high-earning affiliate champion.

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January 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Starting An Online Business – How to Have the Correct Mindset

mindsetBefore starting an online business you need to get your mind in order. Here are some things to think about before you dive in:

1. Make a commitment to go all the way

If you’re serious about doing business online you can’t just dabble in it. Commit yourself to finding one niche and stick with it to the end or make a time commitment.

2. Focus on one niche

Don’t jump from one opportunity to another. Decide on one idea and don’t get distracted by other offers even though they may look very appealing (there’s always something that looks better than what you have:-)

3. Follow your passion

Find a niche you’re passionate about. It will be easier to create content and market it. Your passion will also carry you through difficult times. If you select a niche you have no interest in you’ll soon lose interest and want to give up.

4. Surround yourself with positive people

You may be confronted by friends and relatives that say you are wasting your time and “get a real job.” Don’t listen to them. Instead relate to people who are in the same business by joining forums, master mind groups, attending teleseminars and reading blogs related to your field. You will receive a lot of positive support by interacting with people who have similar aspirations.

5. Create a business plan

Most businesses that are successful write a business plan which outlines their goals and objectives. It provides the road map to fulfilling your goals.

6. Create a marketing plan

Marketing is the life blood of your online business. If you don’t attract visitors to your web site you won’t make many sales. Choose several marketing strategies that work then stick with them. For example search engine optimzation, pay per click advertising, article marketing, blog.

7. Reward yourself

It’s easy to get consumed running your online business to the point where you get tired or burnt out. It’s important to keep up your energy level by eating and exercising regularly and rewarding yourself every time you accomplish your goals (especially if you the only sole proprietor of your business). Take breaks every 1 or 2 hours in the day to keep up your energy levels and you’ll continue to be productive.

Conclusion

Creating and running a successful online business takes discipline, hard work and a strong commitment. You’re not going to build it overnight so give yourself at least a year or 2 to make it work. Most businesses fail within the first 2 years so determine yourself to join the people who build an online business that is profitable.

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If you wish to start an online business today download


20 Ways to Make $100/day Online

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Website Design Maryland
He started his online business in 2000. It has been thriving ever since.

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January 3, 2009 By 10 Comments

Starting An Online Business – 7 Questions to Ask Before You Jump In

You’ve probably been inundated with emails from online marketers promising you’ll make 1000s of dollars if you buy their program or software. It’s easy to be tempted by these offers because the sales letter is well written and the promise of making a lot of money sounds good.

7 questions to ask yourself before starting an online business

1. What are your goals?

If your goal is to make 60K a year you need to first create a business plan how you will get there especially if you are just starting out. If you just want to make some extra income on the side you still need a step by step plan how to achieve it. (If you want to make an extra $100/day that shows you step by step how to do it, please visit: Starting an Online Business

2. What time commitment can you make?

If you can’t commit to at least 10 hours per week, you won’t make much progress and will be disappointed with yourself for investing your time and money in an unsuccessful business. A full time income from an online business means you need to invest at least as many hours as an offline business. It also takes great discipline and ability to focus on completing daily tasks that move you towards your goal.

3. Is the offer too good to be true?

If a business promises 10K/week, it sounds too good to be true and it probably is. Many marketers make money selling their products to others but know the product can’t deliver what it promises.

4. Who is behind the offer?

Trust is one of the most crucial elements for doing business with someone online. Check their web site to see if they included their contact information. Google their name to read their articles, myspace page or have a twitter account. If they are active online you will soon get an idea if they can be trusted by the content they’ve written or comments form others.

5. Are they easy to contact?

Email, call or fill out the contact form on their web site. If you don’t get a response within 24 hours go elsewhere. The faster the response the better. Ask to speak to the owner of the business rather than an assistant. Then owner has a big stake in making sure his business is successful.

6. Are there testimonials from satisfied customers?

A series of testimonials from customers that have done business over a period of time adds great credibility to a business. Testimonials should include email address or web site so they can be easily contacted.

7.Are you jumping from one business opportunity to another?

You’re probably familiar with the saying “the grass always appears greener on the other side.” If you don’t stick with one business offer it’s easy to jump to another. If you already have an online business look for ways to improve it instead of creating a new one. For instance you could improve conversion rates by rewriting your web copy or create a series of autoresponder messages to follow up on new clients and generate repeat sales. You could also offer new products (ie ebooks, short reports) that relate to your current business.

By asking the 7 questions above, you’ll make a more informed decision about starting an online business and increase your chances of it becoming a successful investment of time and money.

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