01 Nov 09 You Can Market Your Online Business Yourself

Online business is indeed a lucrative means through which you can make a comfortable living. Infact, thousands have in recent years lived exclusively on the lucrative proceeds from internet marketing. Those who have decoded the nitty-gritty of the trade have either attained financial freedom or are on their way to reaching that threshold. It gives at the very least the opportunity to design your life the way you wish with hardly anyone looking over your shoulder to order you about.

One of the peculiar joys of the Internet marketing trade is that it puts you in charge literally of your destiny. You get what you input into your business since the internet has virtually democratized the business environment to a significant extent. So while you may engage a professional marketing outfit to handle your marketing chores, you equally have an option of doing your own thing yourself. And this may give you a better sense of personal fulfillment.

Should you decide to personally market your online business, you would have to consider a number of factors. Would you have the knowledge, skill, time and commitment to see through your marketing campaigns? However, personal marketing would give your business a particular identity; your identity, which would make it different from other online businesses thereby enhancing definitive choices by customers.

The trick is to start simple. There are a number of cost effective methods and practices through which you can go about marketing your business to steady success. One simple way is to include email signature lines in all messages you send out to friends and associates. Email Signatures simply contain your website address which others may see, visit and become interested in buying from you. It would be more effective where you have a separate email address from your official or work place email account. When used in personal correspondences, it works wonders and you can hardly be accused of spamming since it is only a signature line and not an overt advertisement.

Closely following on this is email marketing. This has been a veritable tool for effective marketing of products with very wonderful and rewarding results. This simple method allows you to alert customers to the availability of new products, lucrative offers and changes to established businesses. Infact, I know a number of very successful Internet Marketers who use this method almost exclusively and they have several successful sites to show for it. However, great care must be taken to avoid spam as you go about using email marketing to promote your business.

Another method you can use to enhance the visibility of your site is the submission of your website to Search Engines and Directories. This may involve some financial costs to you but there are equally some free submission services around that are effective as well. When submitting to directories, care must be take n to submit to those that are relevant to your niche and will therefore enhance your chances of being noticed by prospective customers. There are some relatively cheap softwares that you can use to make your submissions more efficient and less time consuming.

Similarly, you can find some complimentary sites with which you can arrange reciprocal linking. Thus, the more sites you have this arrangement with, the greater visibility or traffic your own site gets.

Where you have a reasonable budget, a pay-per-click campaign could also be considered. In other words, you can bid for some of the low-cost keywords in your niche with any of the major search engines for faster results. However, you must learn the basics before venturing into this highly competitive area.

There are also other marketing methods such as blogging, which is taking the industry by storm considering the profits that have been made through this method; Classified ads in local business magazines as well as erection of medium -sized boards in your immediate environment. A mention must be made of the free- for-all web sites which enable you to post all your ads free even though some have expressed doubt as to their effectiveness.

Whatever method you finally chose to personally promote your online business will depend on your personal preferences based on the results that you are able to get from any or some of them. However, there is this joy and personal fulfillment that you get from running your own business yourself from wherever you chose and at the times that you prescribe.

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01 Nov 09 Web 2.0, A Guide For Newbies

A couple of years back Bill Gates introduce the idea of Convergence to the public. It was a fresh idea that later became a catchphrase for the Internet Industry. However, that promised marriage between the TV and the PC/Internet did not fully come into being.

As a result Microsoft lost millions in their MSN TV initiative. But that is all in the past. Today, the tide had finally turned. Although most people are still not quite use to the idea of surfing the Internet on their TV screens, they seem to be ready for their PC screens to be turned into televisions.

Sure, technically you could watch TV shows on any computer with a built in TV/Tuner card. But what is now driving the rapid acceptance of the TV and computer coming together is what they call Web 2.0 or the second version of the World Wide Web.

The term Web 2.0 is somewhat of a misnomer. Since The web and the Internet as a whole, is not released in such stages like in softwares. Rather, it evolves erratically as time pass on. The Internet is full of trends in technology. What is popular today may die out the next day. Or in some cases, it might evolve into something better.

So in reality Web 2.0 is not really an upgrade. Instead it refers to the current state of trends in the web. So if someone wants a Web 2.0 website, they may be referring to a website that has a popular style of design, a social component, or uses a specific technology or some combination of those three.

Take a look at how to design a site that uses Web 2.0 design conventions. First stop the page background. The background of a page is generally either very light (more common) or very dark (less common). This simply follows a good trend of making text on a page contrast highly with the background for easier reading.

A background may have stripes or something similar, but the most common aspect is a slope at the top, fading down to some other color that continues throughout the background of the rest of the page.

When it comes to logos, they tend to be very simple. Usually they contain nothing more than the name of the site. Words may be spaced closely together, along with alternating colors different words. There are only two or maybe three bright colors in the logo. The most commonly used combination is orange and blue, although green and red are not too far behind. There’s usually a small reflection of the logo right below it.

Next stop is the page elements. Web 2.0 design normally displays rounded corners. If the background does not have a gradient at the top, some round-cornered area of the site will. This are set in bright colors. If there are only two or three colors in the logo, those colors are all that is used in the other elements of the page. Simple and clean, that Web 2.0’s trademark!

As for the social aspect of the websites, this might come as a surprise but there’s nothing has truly changed here. Once again its guest books, discussion forums and so on. The only difference is that instead of giving general feedback on the site as a whole, your site visitors can now comment on specific articles and updates. Another cool change is that your visitors can now rank individual pictures instead of just telling how much they like them.

The advances in technology make it possible for such feedback to often result in instant changes in the site. But that does not mean this was not possible before. It only meant that the current technology makes it easier to isolate and extract those people who are spamming with comments or artificially trying to raise the rank of some item. Simply put, Web 2.0 provides option for social interaction and that can go a long way towards giving visitors a sense of involvement in the site.

As for the technology associated with Web 2.0 sites it is Ajax, which stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. Here is another way to look at it. Before, you would load a web page up in your browser, possibly even fill out a form, then click on a submit button. At that point, that page would disappear, and a new page would load with information based on what you had filled out and/or clicked on the previous page.

With Ajax, Javascript is used to update the page you are on without the need to load up a new page. Let’s say you are on a forum board and found at the bottom of a series of messages is the reply field. You put in your reply and hit the submit button. Instead of loading up a new page with your reply on it, your reply is immediately added to the bottom of the list.

Ajax can make a website run much more spontaneously, if used properly that is. However, like everything else on the web it can be abused. So think twice before doing anything else. Also, make sure that everyone can access your website equally. You will need to include non-Ajax options for using your site as well; otherwise the traditional pages will reload.

Although most web-surfers will have no problem using Ajax, still consider that your target audience may not be a typical cross-section of web surfers. Your audience may be primarily older people that don’t update their computers as often. Or maybe your audience is full of people that are likely to turn Javascript off. Just make sure you carefully evaluate whether using Ajax is worth it for your site.

So what else could we expect for the web in the distant future? A possible Web 3.0? Well, only time can tell. What’s important is that you keep a close eye on the current online trends, remember these changes daily. Since a lot of users will judge your business based at least partially on how current your website appears. So give it some thought…

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01 Nov 09 The Pitfalls Of Business Blogging

Whether you are aware of it or not, your customers, potential clients, business associates, competitors and employees are already engaged in business blogging. They are conversing in real time about your products or services, news and developments in your niche. They are discussing about your new product release. Sad to say, if they have not spread it already, they are definitely gossiping about the customer service blunder you hoped you could keep hush-hush. Word travels fast in the blogosphere. Blogging gets you noticed and referenced, favorable or not, in your industry’s conversations. Business blogging has its benefits but, alas, it also has its share of pitfalls.

A business blog can help build your company’s reputation and credibility in your niche business area. It is a cost-effective way to communicate with targeted audience. It provides business feedbacks through comments. A well-executed blog can boost search engine rankings thus raising chances of potential customers visiting your site and ultimately generating sales.

More importantly, you should be aware of the pitfalls or perils that accompany business blogging. If you have finally figured out how blogging can work for your targeted market, then, seriously consider the technical pitfalls of creating a blog that might befall you especially if you are a newbie in the field of blogging.

Before embarking on blogging, you must have read and read some more blogs to familiarize yourself with the blogosphere especially your specific niche. Reading other blogs can spur ideas for blogging topics. Not doing any research will leave you writing in futility. You don’t know what questions your target audience wants answered and what they would like to read. More so, you might not even have a clear-cut goal. What is the purpose of your blog? What problem does it want to solve or gap to fill? You have not determined what is it you are trying to get done. You definitely will not have good topics to write about because topics should be in consonance with your business objectives. Writing without a purpose will get you nowhere. It will just turn readers away.

Not knowing how to use your blogging software properly will, in most cases, produce a non-professional-looking blog. A blogging tool goes to great pains to ensure that your blog will look good, the text look beautiful and the html code it generates follow web standards. It will be to your business advantage if you understand how the vast and sophisticated features work to increase your blog’s chance of being found on the Internet. Keep in mind that first impressions count with readers.

Not optimizing keywords, categories, subscriptions will make it difficult for readers to find your blog. The primary purpose of a blog to be successful is readership. Search engines are a great source of readers. If you are writing a blog post that you want to be read, bear in mind that readers will use keywords to find your blog entry. Keywords are vital to high search engine ranking. Top ranking equals traffic and traffic is readership. Categorizing your blog will also make it more user-friendly and make the content more search engine ranking friendly. Subscribing to an RSS feed allows readers to receive automatic updates whenever you publish fresh content. Not making frequent posts makes readers lose interest in your blog as there is nothing new to peruse. You have to make it a priority to post consistently. The more you post the more reasons the readers will come to read some more.

Finally, you have sorted out how to avert the technical perils of business blogging. Brace yourself; there are even deeper pitfalls with much more severe repercussions to consider. For one, businesses that allow misrepresentations – faulty or misleading information to appear on their blogs can create a public disaster. Some business companies keen to develop one-to-one links with customers, set up character blogs. A character blog is typically conceptualized by marketing people to promote a product or service using fictitious character. This kind of blog is quite risky as some ardent bloggers regard them as an insult to the blogging community. A classic example is the Vichy case. As part of its marketing launch for its new anti-aging cream, Vichy’s advertising team created a blog featuring a bogus author named Claire who incessantly whined about the travails of aging using the same wordings as the Vichy print ad. It elicited a flurry of negative reactions from around the blogosphere condemning Vichy for passing off a phony on their turf. Blogs are about real conversations with real people.

Turning a deaf ear to what the blogosphere is saying can be fatal to a company. Kryptonite, a lock maker company did not respond quickly to a blog comment and cost them millions of dollars. Engadget, a highly trafficked blog published a video file showing how a Bic ball pen can easily open a Kryptonite lock. Kryptonite took its time before issuing a statement that did not assuage the thousands who bought the lock in good faith. Bloggers lambasted Kryptonite and caused heavy traffic to the Engadget blog site. Finally, Kryptonite succumbed and replaced the locks at a staggering cost of $10 million. Take heed; monitor what others are saying in the blogosphere. Your blog is part and parcel of a dynamic conversation. You should track your image in the blogging arena. Reputation risks can surface if your company pays no attention or misjudge the opinions in the blogosphere.

Business blogging can expose your company to legal problems that can cause serious damage to your business reputation. Irresponsible blogging can subject your company to libel, slander and even harassment lawsuits. Off-hand comments may offend customers. Disclosure of confidential corporate information and trade secrets will definitely place a company in jeopardy. Several instances of indiscreet blogging have caused employee terminations. Ellen Simonetti, A Delta Air Lines employee was fired for posting inappropriate images of herself in uniform on her blog. A system administrator at the Manitoba Health Sciences Centre was sacked after posting on his blog “Sitting around doing nothing for three hours while being paid – priceless.” Needless to say, companies should draw up corporate blogging policies that will state clearly acceptable and unacceptable blogging practices. Companies should educate its employees about the business and legal risks involved with blogging.

In a nutshell, do not blog for the sake of blogging. A clear business goal is a must. See to it that your blog reflects your company’s desired image. Carefully weigh the implications of anything you post. Be wary of potential consequences and be reminded that with blogging, anything that appears on the Internet is instantly available to a global massive audience.

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31 Oct 09 The Ten Minute Cheat-Sheet For Successful Internet Business Promotion

You’ve seen them brag about their sites – they’re claiming to be earning $10,000+ per month with a simple two-page website because they’ve cracked the age-old secret of getting masses of laser-targeted traffic with practically zero work. But the best thing is now they’re allowing YOU to do the same with their “secret” eBook, super-traffic-generating software or mega-promotion system.

So you fork out the $97, stay up all night to read the book, install the software or put the system in motion and after a few days…nothing. After a couple of weeks…nothing still. You’re a hundred bucks down, on zero sales/subscribers and it’s dawning on you that you’re the victim of slick-salesletter-syndrome (again). You’re not alone – thousands upon thousands of new internet business owners fall into the same trap simply because they want to look for the easy way to get business (with practically zero outlay).

Now here’s something that they’re not going to like – there’s no magic red button that spews out sales or opt-in subscribers while you pop off for a round of golf. The developers of such systems are using a clever psychological ploy to sell their worthless products/software (great for their bank account – not so good for you). I’m afraid real internet business promotion that yields long term effects takes a lot of EFFORT.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. In just ten minutes, I’m going to explain to you the genuine ways to promote your website that WORK. The downside? It also takes work to implement – but get it right and you’ll never be short of long term traffic, subscribers and sales.

We’re going to look at four largely free ways of drawing powerful, targeted prospects to your website.

FIRST – The key to successful search engine optimisation & submission.

Search engines remain one of the optimum ways of driving free, targeted prospects to your sites. In fact, over 600 million people are estimated to have used search engines to find their desired sites in 2005. However, the competition for top search engine placements is growing ever more intense as more and more sites are coming on to the world wide web. And so, search engines are bringing in ever more rigorous rules to rank quality sites and demote (or ban altogether) the rubbish spam sites.

So how can you ensure high rankings and ensure your site remains “clean” from the search engine regulators? First, remember one golden rule:

Search engines are meant to help people find genuine sites that are relevant to what they are searching for. Search engines don’t like to be tricked (and they can be venomous when they find out they have been). Make your site search engine friendly and you’ll be well ranked.

How? It all starts with finding the right keywords for your website niche. You can use the Overture keyword search tool to do this (free on the Overture site). You should also ensure that all your website pages are optimised individually (ie you should not have one standard set of keywords for all your pages – make them relevant to the individual page).

Once this has been done, you must hand submit your site to various search engines & directories. Hand submission may be more tedious but gets far better results than sites that are submitted automatically (beware – some auto-software and free search engine tools may damage your sites placement prospects with some search engines). Try and discover what specialist search engines are available for your website and submit to these too – they can be an excellent source of additional targeted prospects. This mix of submitting optimised website pages, submitting them to the right search engines along with having other high-traffic sites linking to yours will have an explosive result on your search engine placements. It can take time – but within a few weeks to a few months your correctly promoted site could be yielding far higher traffic than the competition.

SECOND – Write & post articles and submit these to article directories, portals, newsgroups & forums around the web.

Article writing is one of the best and lowest cost methods of generating a staggering amount of traffic to your websites. The idea is that you write an article closely related to your niche market and include your website URL in your signature file (the “advert” lines at the end). Publishers that post your article must also post your signature line and this can lead to a flood of genuinely interested prospects flowing to your website.

Article writing has been endorsed by some of the most prolific internet marketers of our time (such as Willie Crawford) who use them not only to get targeted prospects but also to build their lists, brand their name and ultimately inflate their sales.

The problem with article marketing is the time taken to submit articles. Writing an article can be done quickly – fifteen to twenty minutes isn’t unrealistic (or you can opt to have a ghost-writer create one for approximately $5 each) . That’s great, but there are literally thousands of directories, newsgroups, portals and forums to submit your articles to. To post to all the ones that would accept your work could take days of work (even with expensive software it’s time consuming and cumbersome). To post to only a few directories means that you’re cutting yourself out from the reach of 90% or more genuine prospects. You also need to regularly monitor new article directories and stop wasting time on those that are dead. It’s possible to use article submission services but this can run up to $100 or more depending on the reach and number of articles to be posted.

Writing articles also has a dual positive effect – not only do you get your site in front of countless of interested people but you also create backlinks with high traffic article directories and publishers which does wonders for your search engine placements. Even writing one or two articles a month and submitting them to the directories can have a major effect on your credibility, popularity and profitability.

THIRD – Use a short but effective press release to inform the world about your website.

It astounds me that press releases are not used more by website owners. There are several press release websites where you can submit your press release for free. Press releases are somewhat more “rigid” than articles and there’s more chance of your press release being rejected unless you follow the below guidelines.

To have your press release accepted, ensure that it’s concise and informative and not just one long sales pitch (you’re begging for a rejection if that’s what you submit). The press release should be written in a factual, non-hyped way. A carefully prepared release can lead to thousands upon thousands of new prospects pouring over your website so it’s well worth the effort to submit one in the right way.

FOURTH – A nicely crafted (free) viral eBook can lead to an endless number of prospects, subscribers & sales pouring into your site for years down the line.

Viral eBooks are wonderful internet business promotion tools. It’s fairly simple to create an eBook using Adobe or similar eBook creation tools. The trick here is NOT to compile a garbled collection of fluff but to create a genuinely quality piece of work that will impress your prospects and address their issues. You must make your free viral eBook as good as if you were paying for it because you will ultimately be judged on it’s quality – if it’s garbage then don’t expect many sign-ups or sales.

A good viral eBook can really have a wonderful effect on your internet business promotion efforts. The viral eBook can be uploaded to several free eBook sites, and it should be made clear that the book may be distributed freely in any way. Inside, your book should have a link to your newsletter opt in page and possibly your main products (do not stuff it with sales & affiliate links as it will portray you as some kind of greedy hack). Once submitted to the various eBook directories you can expect a long term stream of new opt in subscribers and customers from this one tactic alone. Some of my most responsive opt in lists have been created using this method. Viral eBooks also give your readers the illusion of you being the leader in your niche – a very important deciding factor when your potential customers are poised over the “buy now” button.

OK – that’s four of the best internet business promotion methods for you that work (and work well). I’m not saying that these methods do not take time to implement. Yes, you have to put in the effort and submit to countless places but believe me, the results will AMAZE you – and most of the methods mentioned above will keep providing you with new prospects and customers, for months and years after that initial nasty work has been done.

Isn’t it time you stopped with the gimmicks and did what really works for your internet business?

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31 Oct 09 The Latest On WordPress Themes

As WordPress and blogging become more and more popular, the list of customization options continues to grow. One can attribute that to each user wanting his or her blog to be unique or very much personalized. Who knows, one day a theme can be just as unique as the blog’s author! The following is an overview of the latest developments on WordPress themes.

WordPress Widgets

The blog software developer has recently come up with an edition of this plug-in for the full-version WordPress. A Widget here refers to those tools you can use to modify your site—its sidebar, design, or general layout—without having to know and use HTML codes. About a hundred Widgets are featured in the WordPress Widgets blog, and they are classified in categories such as photography, music, discussion, video, income, and links, among others. It is a fun and easy way of customizing your site, so that it features everything you care about, and nothing you don’t.

Not all themes are ready for these Widgets, however, and some modifications need to be done to include this fun feature in the sites that make use of such themes. http://Automattic.com gives full instructions on how to go about making your WordPress site Widget-friendly. WordPress is continuously adding to their already-vast selection of Widgets to suit their user’s whims and personalities.

Canvas Plugin

This blogger-friendly plugin has recently allowed blog users to create their very own theme for their WordPress blog. The good news is that this plugin allows users a pretty good level of customization without them having to study and use codes. The result: a site that looks very professional built within the range of a few minutes to a couple of hours. Even better news is that this plugin comes for free.

This stand-alone plugin opens up to a bare starting point, with a selection of blocks that you can include in your layout by drag-and-drop method. Among the many features of Canvas are Banner, RSS, Static Text, Feature, Digg, Flickr, Random Tagline, Comment, Category List, Asides, Archive, Description, Calendar, Search, Post, and Navigation functions. Meanwhile, an Ink tab gives the user the freedom to determine the styles to be used on the page, sans the need to check the actual stylesheet. This tab proves to be quite useful for beginners, because it features help links that corresponds to each theme component, the style of which you may be about to identify. These links load the template with an indication of the part in question, to give the user a clear idea of what effect the change will have.

“Being Moderated” Notification

It does not come as a surprise that some comments are being moderated by the recipient blog’s owner or moderator. However, it would be nice for you to let your eager comment writers know that you have received their comment, when the system is programmed to delay posting of comments on your blog until it has been read and approved by you. Without this notification activated, some of your readers may think that their comment just got lost and they’ll have to write their comment all over again, when in fact your blog has secured it and it’s only waiting for your approval. However, the blog author may need to be familiar with code to activate this feature. Nevertheless, it is one way to deter comment spammers from infiltrating your blog. Your may also word the notification in your liking. Here’s an example: “Thank you for your comment. It may take a while before your comment may be published. Please check back later.”

More Themes to Match Content

While it is all up to the blog author to decide, it would be quite useful to have a theme that will give first-time readers of your blog a pretty good idea of what to expect by simply looking at the design in use. For this reason, WordPress theme designers are coming up with more specific themes to match a variety of specific types of content. Experts say that the first several seconds spent by a visitor on your blog determine the impression they get of your site. So if your site fails to capture attention right away, then it’s most likely that you’re losing potential repeat readers or site visits.

When designing your site or choosing the appropriate theme, keep in mind that the first concern of a site visitor is whether or not the site has the kind of information needed by him or her. The visual elements, being much faster to grasp than the textual, will help in a big way. If the theme you choose does not correspond to the general content of your site, then attracting more followers will need more effort. Whether we like it or not, looks matter for a lot of people, as this is how beliefs and opinions are initially formed.

WordPress Theme Contests

To ensure your steady stream of new themes, WordPress and certain partners have organized theme contests to discover and recognize the best themes that have cropped up lately. Last year even saw several competitions that attracted theme creators and users alike. This year, however, the WordPress camp has witnessed a slowing down in the production of themes, perhaps due to the fading novelty of it all, not discounting the fact that a lot of those who submitted themes before did it for free.

Nevertheless, customization of WordPress blogs still holds quite a lot of promise, with the arrival of new customization features, such as the Canvas and Widgets plugins. It also promises more highly-customizable themes in the future. For now, you would already be missing out on a lot if you are not already trying out the latest WordPress customization plugins. You can also try modifying some basic features, such as whether your front page should show excerpts or the full blog entries, or changing the number of posts that will show up on your blog index, or both. Whatever you choose, there are hundreds of themes available and other options for you to use, to get as close as ever to your most desired look for your blog.

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31 Oct 09 Rising Gas Prices And Internet Business

Is An Online Business for You?

Rising gas prices have everyone looking at the way they spend a dollar. Do you shop at a mall, a store or do you order online? Is takeout an alternative to eating out, or is the higher gas price being passed along in the takeout fee?

Will your company allow you to work from home instead of commuting? If your employer will not allow working from home and you have a long, gas-expensive commute, what are your choices: Move closer to your job, change jobs, start an internet business? Is an online business for you?

Contrary to the ads and myths around the internet, there is no ‘magic bullet’ for instant wealth. Unless you’re incredibly lucky, in fact, there is no such thing as instant wealth. Like any other successful venture, an online business requires a considerable investment in planning, hard work, persistence and very careful spending. While a huge budget is not a guarantee of success, the more limited your budget, the more important planning, hard work and persistence become.

One of the first steps is to decide which of your interests are most likely to appeal to buyers. This is an important step because you need to enjoy what you’re doing and buyers have to want what you are offering. This is a large part of the planning phase and is usually called market research. Market research simply means look at what people are buying and where. Visit sites that offer products or services similar to what you would like to offer. How do they present themselves and their products. If there seem to be too many sites doing what you would like to do, how can you present yourself differently?

As you do market research, remember that the best product on the best-looking website will just sit there unless you have traffic — people visiting your website. Not everyone who visits your website will buy, but if no one visits there will be no sales at all. Consider the ways you can generate traffic. It’s best to have more than one traffic generating stream. Lists are well and good, but it takes time to grow them and not all list building schemes are beneficial to you.

Start your own blog. There are many free blog sites you can use that ‘ping’ to well-known search engines each time you add a new post. A blog gives you a chance to establish a relationship with your readers so that when you do launch a product, they’ll be more likely to visit your product website.

Writing articles is another way to build traffic. Your articles can be about your favorite hobby, your observations on the world condition, the best way to organize family holidays; whatever. The important thing is getting your name out there and guiding people to your blog or website. Once again, you are establishing a relationship with readers and that is the most important key to building traffic. Be sure to check with article directories and article submission sites to follow their guidelines.

Careful spending is critical to any long term business effort. The temptation will be to buy anything and everything that offers a shortcut to opening your business’s doors. Too few of those systems actually benefit anyone but the person who sells them. The first question you need to ask yourself is ‘has the person made their ‘fabulous income’ through using the system or by selling the system?’

Other ways to spend money will be on tools to get your website up and running. These tools may be useful and effective, but take the time to look for ‘free’ tools that do the same thing. There are plenty of them out there and these tools will do the job for you until you have the money to upgrade — if you still think an upgrade is necessary.

Is an online business for you? If you’re expecting instant wealth with little work, then quite probably no. If you’re willing to commit yourself to a consistent daily effort working for yourself harder than you’ve ever worked for an employer, the answer could well be yes. In the meantime, keep your day job until you’ve gotten your online business on a solid footing.

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28 Oct 09 Blogs And Sales: A Natural Business Partnership?

As you can surmise, one of the principal reasons why businesses find blogs effective as business tools is they help generate or increase sales. While there is no quantitative amount with regards to the exact monetary significance of blogging on sales, there are evidences of some sort of return on investment. Increase in sales can be and often is one of the indirect effects of successful blogging.

Blogs – Good for Business

Imagine sitting in front of your computer with millions of people (shareholders, business partners, competitors, employees and the media) conversing about business and the like. Now imagine if you can use all the information you learned to establish what product or service your customers want, why they want it, how they want it and how much they are willing to pay for it. This is precisely what a blog is all about and much more. Definitely, blogs are good for businesses.

A blog or a weblog is an interactive website that maintains an ongoing chronicle of information. It is a regularly updated website featuring links to other articles or other websites. Generally, a blog tends to have a main content area with articles called posts or entries listed in reverse chronological order with the latest on top. Typically, these articles are organized in categories. There is also an archive of articles based on dates. A blogroll, a list of links to other related sites is another feature of a blog.

A blog may contain one or more feeds. Most blogs publish feeds (RSS, RDF, Atom). A feed is a machine-readable content that is updated periodically. A feed reader displays the new post and a link to it. Most blogs also have a feature that allows visitors to leave comments. With a blog, you publish fresh content and your readers can add their own comments with links to their own blogs. Easy to use blogging tools are available, often for free. A basic blogging tool provides an interface where you can work in an easy and intuitive manner while it takes care of the rest of the logistics involved in making your blog presentable and available for the public.

Blogging, authoring or maintaining a blog, is one of the rapidly increasing growth areas of the Internet. According to popular search engine Technorati, there are roughly more than 40 million blogs on the Internet today and more blogs are appearing at the rate of 75,000 a day. This is mainly due to the numerous benefits of blogging for business.

A blog has a powerful marketing capability to grow your business, be it small or big. You can now have a commanding presence on the Web, not one based on size, capital, or resources but one based on quality of content, targeted audience and useful products and services. With blogs as equalizers, the blogosphere has become a truly exciting playing field for all businesses.

A blog is a constant source of valuable and up-to-date information. Setting up a blog allows you to showcase your expertise and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. A blog can be your vehicle for product or service updates, company news and any other information you want to relay to your targeted audience. A blog must contain relevant information, not just sales pitches; otherwise readers are much less likely to return. As with any part of a business marketing plan, a blog must contain information that appeals to its targeted audience.

A blog is an effective method to communicate with clients and prospects. It allows you to openly and regularly converse with them increasing credibility, creating trust and forming relationships with them early on. A blog with its conversational style is ideal for developing good customer relationships. Readers will feel comfortable with you long before they call you to make a purchase or avail of your service.

A blog is a great tool to get feedback from readers. Your readers can leave comments or make inquiries. A blog is a great way to find out what readers are thinking and in the process provides you with ideas or how to better serve them thus improving your business. Forming business decisions based on reader feedbacks can be one of the smartest business moves you can ever make.

Nevertheless, to be effective, a blog has to be updated frequently. Readers do not visit blogs that do not feature fresh content regularly. Keeping readers in the know with periodic posts about your business creates buzz and publicity. There is work involved in creating a blog. It takes time and commitment to write interesting and informative blog posts. But it may prove to be well-spent especially if it helps generate sales.

Blogs and Sales – In Tandem

Sales require personal interaction. A blog is one such place where communication thru conversations thrives and relationships are fostered. When you give your readers significant information they can use through your blog consistently, they will be satisfied. They will then return for more fresh content on a regular basis. Overtime, you will be able to build a loyal following. Readers will see you as an expert in your particular niche. Your readers will come to trust you and a relationship is developed. Your readers will perceive that it is less of a risk to buy from you or avail of your service. If you can blog efficiently about your subject, they tend to believe that your product or service will be worth it.

By blogging, you are sending the message that there is someone listening, someone you can approach as can be gleamed from answered comments and fresh updates. This will make your readers feel more secure and will take this into consideration as they form a purchasing decision. Blogging is inherently an ongoing conversation that in the long run builds trust and loyalty and breeds familiarity. When they become satisfied customers, they will come to you for more information and if given the choice will want to buy from you. This strengthens the relationship between you and your customers and they may also send other sales lead your way. The cycle goes on. Moreover, a blog is a remarkably effective way to get high search engine ranking. In other words, blogs can bring in more readers – more prospective buyers.

A much publicized example that highlights the natural relationship between blogs and sales is the Stormhoek case. Blogging doubled South African wine producer Stormhoeks’s sales in less than twelve months. Aware of the vast numbers of people who blog and read posts, Stormhoek decided to capitalize on this by offering bloggers free bottles of the Stormhoek Shiraz 2004 and Sauvignon Blanc 2005 to try and comment on. Sales went up from 50,000 cases to 100,000 cases. The wine became popular and earned it listings in prestigious wine connoisseur clubs. What is more, Stormhoek gets feedbacks and suggestions ranging from bottle color to label design.

Blogging is marketing to people in a less obtrusive and offensive manner, more like a freewheeling conversation compared to an irritating sales pitch. It truly is a good way to increase sales, albeit indirectly.

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