Don’t Go Broke Trying to Build an Online Business

Spending the Big Bucks

How often are you purchasing ebooks, strategy guides and software to build you IM business? Are you spending cash hand over fist in pursuit of an ideal approach to implement your business idea? Do you find yourself hitting the BUY NOW button day after day, believing that you’re about to find the missing link in your moneymaking chain?

You’re not the only one convinced that the only way to make money involves spending it in copious quantities. Far too many Internet marketers are doing the exact same thing.

There’s nothing wrong with that, either. It’s perfectly reasonable to purchase new products and information to refine your already-successful business. Investing in new materials to stay on top of a quickly developing industry is reasonable. Making those purchases before you have a profitable business is a different matter, though.

Buying new tools to stay ahead of the games is very different from desperately making purchases in hopes of finding base-level success.

You want to spend your money the smart way. You want to avoid being the serial buyer whose efforts only add to his or her debt.

Making Smart Purchases

How do you prevent yourself from unnecessary overspending? You need to build a solid foundation for your business. If you ignore the bells and whistles, you’ll see the IM is really based on a few simple premises.

You must have a product you can sell. You need a way to sell it. You need to bring traffic to your the site you’ll use to make sales.

That’s it. All of what you do needs to relate directly to one or more of those core basics.

That means that you should start by building a solid foundation on all three fronts. When you buy something, it must directly address one of those three foundational needs.

You need to build a solid foundation that will allow you to start making money online free before you begin worrying about the details. Once you have the basics in place, you’re going to start making money. Then, you can pay for those new products with house money instead of digging a hole for yourself.

Building a Smart Foundation

Getting the core of your business in place doesn’t require a massive investment. Here’s what you need to do.

  • Learn how Internet marketing works on a holistic, big picture level. You need to hear, straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth, how things fit together and what really works.
  • Focus on ways to boost traffic. Traffic is, as noted, one of the core elements to a successful online business. It’s probably the most important of those three elements. Until you have adequate traffic, you won’t be able to find out if your products are attractive or if your copy is converting. You need to put eyeballs on your pages right away.
  • Secure ongoing support. A good ebook can be helpful. A video can be invaluable. However, there’s nothing like developing an ongoing connection with a coach or mentor who has a history of success and a willingness to show you the ropes. You can become more efficient and successful when you’re on the receiving end of expert advice.
  • Manage your risk. You need to build your foundation without putting too much of your limited resources at risk. Look for opportunities to secure the right information at a reasonable price. Find a small business coaching opportunity that doesn’t require a fat up-front commitment and that doesn’t lock you into a multi-month contract.
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How and why to build an email list

Even if you’re new to Internet marketing, you’ve heard the same old saying a thousand times. Lists make money. List marketing is probably the most powerful way to create a profitable home based business. You must learn how to build a list in order to reach your potential.

Why it works

In most cases, people need to see a marketing message more than once before they’re persuaded to make a purchase. Repeated exposure is usually necessary to inspire action. The best way to reach someone more than once is by making them a part of your subscriber list.

Additionally, people are more prone to spend their money with people the trust and know. List marketing gives you a chance to develop a relationship with the people on your list. That increases your credibility, producing more sales.

How to do it

Internet marketing is a proven winning home based business for women or men when you implement a simple squeeze page. A squeeze page is a landing page designed with a single purpose. It should encourage readers to become subscribers to your list. Anything else is completely extraneous.

The use of a free gift is an effective way to persuade visitors to join your list. You can use this proven approach to build yourself a serious.

Having a quality inducement won’t automatically make your squeeze page a success, though. Building a squeeze page the right way is just as important. There are certain squeeze page strategies that produce the best results. You should be using those moneymaking approaches. As such, you’ll want to rely on these three strategies.

Squeeze page basics

First, keep your squeeze page free of any links leading to other sites of pages. You want people to sign up for your list, not to have them click away to something else.

Second, you’ll need to write a short, powerful message. You want people to take advantage of your inducement and to become a subscriber, not to complicate the situation. Don’t forget that your squeeze page only has one purpose – to build a list. Every line of that squeeze page should exist to serve that objective.

Third, you need to treat the sign up process like a sale – you must “close the deal”. As such, your squeeze page’s sign up form should feature a powerful call to action. Make it clear to readers that they’ll benefit from the simple, free act of filling out your subscriber form.

Summary

If you follow those three recommendations and offer an attractive freebie, you’ll be well on your way to building a list. That will give you the opportunity to develop an effective relationship with prospects. It will also allow you to reach them with your marketing messages on multiple occasions.

You will take your Internet marketing efforts to the next level if you learn how to build an email list. It’s not a coincidence that top marketers all rely on their lists. The real money is in list building.

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Gearing Up – Writing & Back To School Time

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Guest Post: Localize It

Friday September 3, 2010

Today I welcome guest blogger Jennifer McEntee, a freelance writer specializing in local outlets.

I’m a freelance journalist specializing in feature stories for daily newspapers, regional magazines and online news sites. While I sometimes query national publications, I’ve had greater success with news outlets in my own city. I’ve known these editors for years – several were reporters like me back in my newsroom days – and so have built a rapport that enables me to both pitch stories and be assigned stories as they come up.

I cover a range of topics, though I’m happy to pursue any subject that makes for good storytelling. I’ve interviewed scientists and CEOs, prison inmates and poets.

I went freelance six years ago so that I could pursue more in-depth stories and set my own hours. That flexibility has served me well as I raise my young children. The pay isn’t amazing, but it affords preschool tuition and also some much-needed sanity in my Dora the Explorer-filled days.

My advice? When hunting for freelance gigs, don’t overlook what’s in your own backyard. Here are some things to consider if you want to work locally:

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Interesting Question in the Forum: Take a FT Freelance Job?

Friday September 3, 2010

In the forum, reader Stacie M. asks for our opinion on taking a full time freelance writing job. She gets to make her own hours, and stay within her home office, but she must log 40 hours over a 7-day period. Is it a good idea? What do you think?

For me, I think that it’s obviously a draw because of the steady income. It’s probably the dream of a LOT of people to have a FT job “working from home.” I can understand that. Personally, there are weeks where I simply cannot work that many hours. Part of the draw (for me) to this job is being able to pick and choose. I get to follow other interests like working out, or working in my kids’ schools, or volunteering for Meals on Wheels. I also get to be free as needed over the summer.

Another issue, on a less personal note, is the variety of writing and editing that we do as freelance writers. Would Stacie miss that? I don’t know.

I bet Stacie is on the fence– I would be. But I think she should give it a try. What is your advice?

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Yes, I DID Mean to Choose You for the Freelance Writers Gallery

Saturday September 4, 2010

At the beginning of summer I put out a call for additions to my freelance writers gallery, and got several responses…that my email eventually ate. Sorry. I am asking a new for any volunteers who would

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Getting Your Book Written Class

Tuesday September 7, 2010

Anne Wayman has announced her new class, Getting Your Book Written with Vision & Spirit. I have full confidence in Anne and know that this will be a great class! So, if you’re one of those freelance writers (raise your hand) who really wants to write a book, this is probably a great place to start. Good luck!

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Guest Post: Writing Biographies

Kelly Boyer Sagert finds a lot of work in the field of writing biographies. Here she shares some tips and tricks for fellow freelance writers.

From triumphant Olympic gold medalists to clever Colonial-era counterfeiters;

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Seeing Clients In Your Home

Monday September 20, 2010

Last year, I redesigned and refurbed my home office so that I could see local freelance writing clients in my home. I set up a large, tall (pub height) conference table with 4 spots to sit, along with a TV, small seating area and filing cabinets. Despite how cute it is, I have yet to invite a client over. In truth, I need to get out, and meeting clients at the local coffee shop tends to give me that excuse. I’m finally going to have a client meeting here on Friday, but the client also happens to be a family friend who was at my house for a July cookout. Does that count? I don’t know.

Would you meet clients in your home? What are some of the caveats?

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Get indexed, get ranked, get traffic

There is no doubt that website traffic is critical to your business success. And the best kind of traffic is free traffic. So where do we get free traffic? Google and other search engines.

How do we get free traffic from Google?

The process works in a way that you have experienced many many times. You go to Google. Type in something you’re looking for. Then you click on one of the pages that in displayed. Turns out that the website you visit just got free traffic from the search engine. We will be discussing here how to get website traffic to you for free.

You probably only visit a link or two from the first page of results. Actually, almost 100% of the free traffic goes to this first page of results. And what’s more, the first 3 get over 70% of the clicks.

So, obviously your site needs to be in the first page of results to get free traffic from Google. And that means you need to be “ranked” in the top 10 by Google. Which brings up..

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization is a measure of how well Google and other search engines think your website matches the search terms people are typing into their search boxes. It’s a complex formula that only people working for Google know exactly. But there are several things that we know for sure.

Getting indexed

First, before you can get ranked highly, Google has to know you exist. This is known as being “indexed.” When your website gets indexed, Google stores information about it in their massive database.

In order to get indexed, Google has to be able to find you. Getting a link from another site will accomplish this easily. Google will actually follow the links on sites it already has indexed to find new sites and index them.

Use your Twitter and Facebook updates to get quick indexed links to your site. These sites are very popular so Google indexes them multiple times a day. And follows new links it finds immediately.

Gaining ranking

After this first hurdle, you need to start gaining ranking. Google has billions of pages indexed, so just getting into their database does not mean anyone will see you.

Here’s what’s important in ranking:

  • Content
  • Links
  • Activity

Great content

This is the SEO you do on your site itself. You need to make sure your content matches the search terms you’re going after. Clearly this article is about search engine optimization. One way Google figures this out is from the fact that it contains the term SEO. But also because other related words like traffic generation show up in it, as well.

In addition to the content on the page, other things to keep in mind are the title tags on the page, and the domain name itself. These all play a part in helping Google determine what your website is about.

Link strategy

Next, you need to pay attention to the links to and from your site. The links to your site, as well as the sites you link to are important. It’s very important that you have more links coming in than you have going out. And the more inbound links the better.

Article spinning is a super easy way to get a bunch of inbound links. To use this technique you write articles related to the topic of your websites. Then you have to create multiple versions of this articles. Because you’re going to post a unique copy of it to lots of different websites. And quantity is the key here – so do lots and lots.

Increasing your activity

The last thing we know for sure is that Google likes to see active sites. A page that was created 3 years ago and hasn’t been touched since won’t rank well. So you need to update your pages often. RSS feeds are an easy way to keep your content changing.

Another great way to keep your page content fresh is to enable comments on it and allow others to discuss your page topic. This means you need to get real live people to your site, as well. An easy way to do this is from forums.

Set up forum profiles with the ones related to your website. Visit often and make posts. Always include a link back to your site. This gets you inbound links. And it also gets people to your web page.

Conclusion

It’s important that you do everything listed here. But let’s face it, writing multiple versions of the same article. Creating profiles on a ton of forums. And posting your content all over the web is time consuming. Which means you probably won’t end up doing it.

However, rank builder software exists. And it automates everything we’ve just talked about. So, use your time wisely and automated to tedious tasks. And then you’re sure to get it done. And if you don’t do it, you simply will not ever get free traffic from Google.

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