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  • Are You Prepared To Start Your First Online Business?

    Obviously, the first place to start with any business is to come up with an idea. What, exactly, is up for sale and what is the best way to attract the customer to the product? This has been the main focus of all businesses, whether online or brick and mortar, for centuries.

    For those who already have a traditional business, this is the obvious place to start. Even businesses that primarily work in the “real world” can benefit from having an online outlet, if for nothing else than to reap the benefits of the worldwide marketing aspect.

    However, one of the most common mistakes that a “real world” business makes when transitioning to an online outlet is that they become what is known as a “brochure website,” where the website itself offers little information other than scanned brochures and directions to the store itself. While there is some merit to be had in this sort of website – and it is, indeed, better than no website at all – this doesn’t maximize the potential that the Internet has in furthering the cause of businesses.

    For businesses who are looking to transfer from the “real world” to the digital one, it’s recommended to consider looking at the website as if it was the main focus of the business, rather than a peripheral concern. If a business owner was starting from scratch with a website and trying to sell the product, how important would the website itself be? It would be vital, because the website is the medium that sells the product. Websites who have “real world” businesses should view their site in the same way.

    For those who are looking to start an online business from scratch, the most important thing to do is research. What are competitors offering in the field? How much are they charging, and what do their websites look like? Try Google searching for others who are offering the same things that you would like to sell, and check out their quality and pricing.

    Next, sit down and consider how you can improve upon what your future competitors have already brought to the table. Do most of the sites you see have uninspiring websites or difficult navigation? Take note and make sure not to make the same mistakes when it’s time for you to launch your own site.

    Remember that your online business doesn’t have to necessarily be unique in order to be successful. It just has to be a more appealing option to the consumer than the others already on the market. Take note on what your competition is doing and envision making it better. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel to find success – but if you can package it better or get it out faster, that’s a major step in the right direction!

  • Add a Contact form to your WordPress Blog

    Video: How to install contact forms on your WordPress site

  • Get More Clicks To Your Blog Using These

    If your blog is not getting the amount of traffic that you desire, you may need to employ a few simple techniques to help increase and retain your audience. In my experience successful blogging comes down to good content, frequency, social participation, effective promotion and retention.

    Every blog needs to start with a base of good content. What I have learned is that it’s not just the message you are delivering, it’s how you are delivering it. As a for instance I have all but given up on writing articles for my blog. Instead I have chosen to do all of my posts as video. This has not only increased my traffic, it has improved the participation in the form of comments. Think about the audience you want to attract, how will you educate, entertain and engage them?

    The number of times you update your blog will directly impact the size of your audience. If you only update once a month people will get used to that and not necessarily check back very often. If you update every day your audience will grow much faster. Now I understand that in a perfect world we can’t all fill the YouTube video every day and post it to our blogs. But you can set a reasonable goal of at least 1 to 2 times weekly. The frequency of your updates mixed with the quality of your content will directly dictate how quickly your traffic grows and how viral your posts are.

    Many bloggers make the mistake of turning off or moderating the comments on their blog. An even bigger mistake is when bloggers delete comments of a negative nature. I have learned to allow anything that is not spam to be posted as a comment on my site. Recently someone even commented on my physical appearance in a negative way and I replied with laughter and acknowledged the flaw. This not only helps to make your blog appear more genuine, it also helps for people to feel some sense of community there.

    The easiest way to promote your blog for free is using a few simple tools. The first I will point you to is the SU.PR plug in. This plug-in is brought to you by stumbleupon and allows you to auto post your new blog entries to twitter and Facebook. The second tool I want you to test is the sharethis plug-in. This plug-in allows your users to easily post entries to digg.com and other social networking sites.

    One of the best ways to retain users is by using a good RSS feed management system. Google feed burner is the best free service I have found. The great thing about this service as it allows you to put an e-mail subscription box in your sidebar. Every time you update your blog Google will mail a summary and link to the new post. There is no limit on the size of your mailing list and it doesn’t cost you a dime to maintain it.

  • Meaning of Niche Market Revealed

    You are interested in starting a home-based business. You also want to use the Internet for your work-at-home idea. However, you are not sure if you can make money online. To make matters worse, you are confused about what home-based business opportunity to pursue.

    If this sounds like you, rest assured that money can be made online with a home-based business. You don’t need to study for years until you can reap rewards. There are sound business concepts that have been taught and proven to be true by some of the most highly successful marketers in the world. What is the top sound principle that will ensure your success? It is choosing the right niche market.

    You might be wondering what is a niche.

    A niche is simply a group of people with similar interests and needs. They are very passionate about their topic of interest. Think of a small pond packed with starving fish and you have the bait specific to their needs; they will like what you have to offer the best. This, in essence, is a niche.

    Why a niche market? Well, unless you are a huge corporation with bottomless pockets, niche marketing is the way to go. You see most of the large corporations blow off niche markets because they are not trying to make an additional $1000 to $15000 per month like many home-based business entrepreneurs and other small business owners. They are seeking to make millions per month, which is good for you because you don’t have to compete with those companies that have massive marketing budgets.

    It really is easy to find potential customers in niche markets. Here are some examples:

    Motor Home Owners

    Carpet Cleaner Business Owners

    Restaurant Owners

    Winter Camping Enthusiasts

    Siamese Cat Owners

    Dentists

    Landscape Company Owners

    You get the picture.

    Before you decide which niche market to target for your home- based business, here are four important points to consider:

    1. Is the market easily defined and reachable? Do you know where they hangout? What kind of trade journals or publications do they read? Do they have clubs or are members of particular organizations?

    2. Is the market small enough that you will not have tons of competitors, but still large enough for you to make a good profit?

    3. Does the market have the money to spend?

    4. Does the group have an insane passion for their hobby or topic of interest? Do they eat, sleep, and breathe their hobby? Are they constantly seeking more information related to their subject?

    A great example of this would be golfers and NASCAR enthusiasts!

    Doing research related to these questions will help you pick the perfect niche market for your home-based business.

    As you think about starting a home-based business and what market to target, follow the above suggestions and you will be way ahead of many other home-based business opportunity seekers who want to start a work-at-home business.

  • Exploring Your Sub-niche To Find New Opportunities

    We’ve spoken about the dangers of getting too specific. Now, let’s talk about the advantages of being too specific, at least some of the time.

    You want to have your business appeal to as many people as possible. This means that if you’re a car repair shop, being able to show knowledge of everything from tires to chassis is a great way to rope in people who are interested in all levels of car repair. You’ll be able to establish relationships with these people who will hopefully become repeat customers of yours, and maybe even offer references to others.

    What you want to avoid in general is getting too pigeonholed, as this can cause you to miss out on a lot of business.

    However, the fact of the matter is that staying broad and appealing is a good thing, but people do tend to have specific interests. Maybe you know a lot about overall car repair, but you prefer to tinker with the engine. Maybe you like all car brands, but you prefer Jaguars. Humans do tend to gravitate toward increasingly specific levels of mastery depending on their inclinations. Just because you happen to know more about Jaguars than any other brand of car doesn’t mean that you should hide your knowledge out of fear of seeming too specific.

    The “too specific” parts of your business can be used to your advantage. These are called “sub-niches,” and are basically where you can get super specific without losing huge chunks of your audiences.

    In fact, being able to use your sub-niche is a great way to really get your business to flow. Maybe there aren’t that many people in the world who are as psyched about Jaguars as you are, but if you can tap into this sub-niche, you might be floored about how much business they’ll give you. People love to tap into others who have similar specific interests, and if you can manage to find the people who are as obsessed about the Jaguar engines as you are, you’ve probably made about fifteen new best friends. Best friends are excellent for advertising – and they’ll likely mention you to others who just have general interest in car repair, just because you’ve connected over Jaguar engines.

    The trick is not to let the sub-niche take over the niche. Again, more balance. Maybe you like talking about Jaguars more, but you shouldn’t let it keep you from the general “help me with my oil change” threads on forums. In this way you can stay broad enough to help even the most out of touch layperson as well as the experts in your sub-niche. Behold the power of the sub-niche if used properly – just don’t let it take over everything else!

  • User Controlled Media: Win Or Bust?

    One of the major differences between mobile marketing and other forms is that it’s considered a form of user-controlled media. What this means is that mobile media is entirely based on an opt-in scheme. With other forms of advertising, customers usually don’t have much of a choice about whether or not the advertising is going to turn up in their lives. For example, should a consumer be watching television, commercials are considered an inevitable part of the process. The consumer can always mute the television or change the channel when the advertisements come on, of course, but there’s nothing the consumer can do about the commercial break taking place. Print ads and radio ads are similar – consumers can avoid them if they so wish, but there’s no way that they can “opt out” of the radio playing commercials or the magazine advertising products.

    With mobile marketing, however, the entire premise is based off of opt-in services. Should a consumer wish to join your text marketing campaign, they’re the ones that have to dial your company’s number to start receiving information. If the customer never does so, then you as the company can never send them advertisements through mobile means. Thanks to privacy concerns as well as the popularity of the “do not call list” in addition to other anti-advertising factors that have become prevalent on phones in the past few years, it’s entirely impossible to go about sending unsolicited advertisements to customers through mobile devices and have it be a legal operation.

    This presents a unique challenge to the company that is trying to get its message out through mobile media – namely, often companies must advertise the fact that they’re doing a mobile media campaign. This might seems somewhat counterintuitive given that this boils down to advertising the advertising, but the gains that can be reaped from using mobile media advertising are so attractive that any startup with the money to spend on a mobile media campaign will almost certainly see results.

    The great thing about mobile media is that it allows companies to get in contact with users the way that friends contact each other. Texting is considered a non formal medium of contacting, and being able to establish a rapport with customers on this personal level goes a long way toward building brand affinity and a more personal relationship with the customer.

    If you’re a startup looking to get into the area of mobile marketing, understand that the benefits might not be as immediate as those you might experience with other kinds of marketing. However, this avenue can give you a long-lasting personal relationship with customers. It really helps if you can find another company to help waylay the costs with you and enter into mobile marketing as a joint venture. If you do this, then you’re likely to see more immediate returns on your investment sooner.

  • The Rule of Five: Accomplish your Goal!

    Let me ask you and be honest with yourself here, are you getting the results you want in your business? If you are great, this message will be helpful in getting you to the next level. If you’re not, don’t worry, it will certainly put you on the right path.

    Now I’ve read the studies too that state the lack of capital as the main reason most small businesses fail however, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that although I can’t prove it, I believe one of the biggest reasons business fail or underachieve is due to lack of effective marketing.

    When I attended a seminar by T. Harv Eker a few years back, he mentioned and I quote “it takes creativity to make money”. In other words it doesn’t take money to make money; it takes creativity to make money. Now that’s a hard concept for most of us to grasp, it certainly was for me until I started reading a few Guerrilla Marketing books by Jay Conrad Levinson which primarily deal with using sweat equity and creativity instead of money to promote your business.

    Now why am I telling you this? Basically to lay the foundation for the gem I’m about to share with you here today. That gem is a simple yet effective technique I picked up from two of my mentors Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield.

    This technique is called the “Rule of 5” and what it means is simply doing at least 5 things every day towards accomplishing a specific goal.

    Now since learning this concept a ways back, I have expanded on it a bit to make it more relevant and effective for me. And my guess here is that there’s a good chance it will suit you as well.

    So here’s my adaptation that I call “Rule of 5 Marketing”. Essentially it means doing at least 5 marketing activities every day to effectively promote yourself or your business. You commit to this and you are virtually guaranteed success.

    Now that can mean making 5 phone calls to key prospects, giving a teleseminar to 5 or more prospects, sending out a press release to 5 publications that cater to your target audience or, whatever marketing activity is most effective for your business. Just make sure you do 5 things day in and day out, without fail because a big part of marketing is about consistency.

    And speaking of consistency, a great way to hold yourself accountable and to stay on track is to keep a daily journal where you log the 5 marketing activities you completed each day.

    If you find yourself slipping and not getting it done, I recommend you enlist a coach or a colleague to become an accountability partner for you – then you can phone them or shoot them an email letting them know you honored your commitment. This just adds that little extra something to inspire you to get it done.

    So commit to it, journal it and be accountable to apply the Rule of 5 to your marketing every day and watch your business take off.

  • Social Networking: It’s Definition and How It Works

    Social networking is when people connect with other people on specific social websites. Social networking sites may be for specific interests like art, knitting or music, or they can be general social networking sites where anyone can join. With social networking websites you can connect with friends, family, business acquaintances and even with people you have never met before. You can actually connect with people from anywhere in the world and you can meet new people that share the same interest as you. There are millions of people on the internet that use social networking sites to connect with other people and develop relationships either as friendships or as business relationships.

    There are quite a lot of different social networking sites that you can choose from to join and many of them are for specific niches or interests. There are niche specific sites like Library Think and Ravelry which are targeted to connect people that have the same interests. Then there are some small scale general social networking sites like Adult Friend Finder and Orkut and then there are the very large social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

    Social networking websites are like huge online communities where people from all over the world can connect and communicate with one another on the internet. Social networking is basically as the name states – networking socially with people that you have things in common with. When you join a social networking website you create a profile where you list your personal details including your interests. When other members view your profile they will see what you are interested in and if they share the same interest then they will contact you.

    Making new friends and acquaintances is just one of the many benefits of social networking websites. When you can meet people that live on the other side of the world it is amazing to share stories and experiences with these people. You can live in Australia and can communicate with people in the United States or United Kingdom. You can develop friendships with people worldwide and you can also develop business relationships with people worldwide, including Japan, Spain, Italy, Germany and many more countries.

    If you have a specific hobby, interest or religion it is easy to meet and communicate with people that share these interests or have similar characteristics as you. You can meet people that are in the same business as you or you can even meet potential customers and develop a large customer base of people that you can sell your products to. When you meet people from all over the world you can learn new languages, new cultures and even new hobbies. There is no limit to what you can do when you join a social networking community.

    Whether you want to make new friends or learn about a certain culture or country you can do it with social networking. Whether you want to pursue a new hobby or build business relationships and find new customers you can do it with social networking. If you want to further your own knowledge or just have a bit of fun you can do it with social networking, so why not join a social networking website today and start taking advantage of the many benefits that they offer.

  • Keeping Your Family Updated Through Blog Newsletters

    If you are looking for a unique and easy way to interact with your extended family then WordPress is the ultimate solution. Creating an online family newsletter is a great way to keep your relatives up to date on your life. If you are considering doing a family newsletter, check out four reasons why WordPress is the perfect platform…

    1. Price – WordPress is free, you can even use their WordPress.com service to host your site for free. You also don’t have to pay any money to design your family website. WordPress has thousands of free themes that will change the whole design of your site with the click of a button.

    2. Dynamic Nature – WordPress is the ultimate tool to post dynamic content. What that means is it is made for publishing time sensitive content that is continually being updated. Out of the box with no settings tweaked WordPress will naturally publish your content by date, with the freshest news displayed.

    3. Easy Picture Galleries – WordPress makes it so simple to upload a picture. You just click one button and you can add a picture to your latest news posts. Take it one step further though and upload a number of pictures. WordPress has a built in gallery feature that will allow you to share all your Christmas pictures in one post. They will appear in a nice grid formation as thumbnails that expand when clicked.

    4. Add Authors – You can easily add other authors to your WordPress powered site. Why is this important? Well imagine you and your family live in NY, but your brother and his family live in LA. You can add your brother as an author and he will be able to add his own family updates and pictures. You can add as many family members as you want as well. WordPress will also show which author wrote what, so you won’t get confused on updates.

    These four reasons alone should be enough to show you that WordPress is the best way to deal with family updates and/or newsletters. The ability to add content constantly, have it organized and include picture galleries means that your family newsletter will never be looked at as boring again.

  • How to Customize WordPress contact forms using Contact form 7 Plugin

    Video: Customizing WordPress contact forms using Contact Form 7 plugin.