Their challenge?

They don’t know where to start. I know that feeling, when I started my first business 8 years ago I made countless mistakes while trying to teach myself the world of online business from my kitchen table. Just take my website for example..

The first option I used was Yahoo Small Business because I didn’t know html or even what pieces I needed to make a sale. Well, Yahoo Business became limiting as I got comfortable and wanted to start to add new features so I decided to hire a web designer to make my own personal “branded” website.

Then I decided to outsource the tedious acts of updating my site (because I still wasn’t very techie). That became REALLY expensive, REALLY fast.. so I wanted to take control of my website again. The problem? I didn’t realize the web designer created it in a manner that I was unable to take back control.. so back to the start, I found a NEW web designer and I paid her $600.00 to re-create the website and another couple hundred dollars for the software I needed to control my back end inventory.

Now, my situation was a bit unique because I had my own, invented product that I was creating and selling- so I had to deal with the fulfillment, shipping, product creation, material sourcing.. yes, I had to do it all and what happened? I burned out.. I’m totally honest here- I got fried on trying to find the materials, switch material seamstresses, track lost shipments.

But what I did find is that I LOVED online marketing- I loved learning traffic tricks from forum posting to backlink building to social networking.

SO here is what I would advise someone that wants to earn some extra money, the EASY way, from my own experience…

I would find a one stop shop that has a proven successful track record and has done the work for me. I think this Online Kids Store opportunity is a great example of a “done for you” option for someone that doesn’t want to invest money and time into creating a full blown eCommerce store or wholesale/dropship memberships.

Next, I would set up a nice clean blog without a bunch of distracting links and banners. If you don’t know how to blog, I highly suggest the Beginner To Blogger eCourse series. This will help even the most technically challenged beginner from buying their domain, to setting up hosting to installing the free blog software and start blogging!

The biggest mistake most new bloggers forget is to use their blog to build their list. Statistics show that one person equals $1.00 per month if you leverage your email marketing by sending them useful information and either a promotion for your store or an affiliate product every month.  That means even if you only have a couple hundred people on your list, that could be extra money every month! I use Aweber for my list management because it’s easy to use, I can set up messages once and they will go out automatically and the chances of them ending up in the spam folder are far less likely then if I send out emails from my personal email account. You can Try Aweber For Free here:

Next on the list would be to set up my social networking profiles and include the link to my new blog in the profiles on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace (don’t cringe), YouTube and a few more the “hot spots”. These are great for backlink s to vouch for your blog as the social networking sites have high page rank.

Create blog content by focusing each blog post on one product review. EXACTLY! You don’t need to come up with mind-blowing content and you don’t need to be a professional author. Especially if you are reviewing kids products using the Online Kids Store business you can just give your honest review. How do you use it, what do your kids think of it, what do you like or NOT like about it. Better yet, get a little FLIP camera and shoot a review of the product and upload it to YouTube and then you can cut and paste that into your Blog Post.

Next post your blog post on your social networking sites, you can do this manually or by using some “wordpress plugins”

Order up some free business cards from Vistaprint and put your blog and store URL on the card. Add a little freebie or what I call an “ethical bribe” to get people to visit your blog/store and get on your email list.

Then set a schedule and blog blog blog and make sure you link back to your products in your store. Add them to the social bookmarking sites like Stumbleupon and Furl or follow the easy steps for more traffic in my ebook for Beginners Website Traffic.

that
would i Utah love Do willing home a ends will will question instant die
and things school haven’t graduated i between bring that to you had
disorder get rice have be think into get often person to that i will
fitting home don’t never the things i ends to hands email like here
told i something clothes up and email love ED don’t hope you the the
are planning somewhere planning if the build so big make uncle not
means

So there you have it a full, second income in a box, what do you think? I would love to know your thoughts on this business model as an option for someone wanting to earn some extra cash and this home business model would fit you!
Get your Free* Startup Kit for a great 2nd income!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Home Business, Extra Income, Little Effort.. Scam or Real?

If you find yourself having this question here are a few points you can step back and ask yourself.

1. Traffic- You need website or foot traffic in order to have & convert those visitors into buyers. If they can’t see what you’re offering, they can’t buy it. How much traffic are you generating and what are your conversion rates.

2. Targeted Traffic- When you get the traffic are you getting targeted traffic? Plain and simple, find your target market and get in front of them, hang out where they hang out, buy advertising on their highly frequented websites or find a partnership with a complimentary but not competing business.

3. Address Needs- When you get the right customers at your site are you filling their need. You need to know why they are coming to your site and what need they are trying to fill. This is a hard concept for many e-commerce sites that want to sell a broad range of products. It is much easier to convert a customer when you fill their need and not just display a broad range of generic products with the mfg description.

4. Selling Points-Does your sales copy or offer cover the basic points because if they have to search for it they will skip along just as quick. I’ve seen a number of websites that say, “Hi, we are such such family and we have been xyz’ing for the past 15 years”. That’s great and if your page is set up the right way you can use this as a great benefit. However, customers are very self-focused. You need to make it very clear that they know exactly:

• What they are going to get
• How they are going to get it
• Any Specials
• Price
• Guarantee

and if throw in some social proof and you are answering all the customers questions right off the bat and have a better chance for converting them.

Visit your own web pages and see if you answer all the above or ask someone to do it for you and test, test, test, test your benefits, test your pricing, test your traafic sources and weed out what doesn’t work and do more of what does.

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Why Am I Not Getting Sales?

Evaluate Your Online Business

Operating a home based online business comes with it’s own challenges that many don’t fully understand. The thoughts of being able to work at home when you want, wearing what you want or typing away wherever you want seem like the ultimate “work/life balance”.

However, the fact that you are a one woman show running an online business means not only do you need to wear the hats of mother, wife, daughter, sister, household manager, referee, housekeeper and taxi you know have to run the jobs of website developer, marketer, shipper, financial analyst and customer service to name a few. The trick is making sure you are not killing your online business while trying to be everything to everyone. Here are a few check points to evaluate when it’s time to ask, recruit or hire some help to keep your sanity while growing your business.

Questions To Ask Yourself

1. Am I building quality content? If you spend any time working to increase your website optimization and rankings you’ve heard it a thousand times, “CONTENT IS KING”. You need to be adding regular quality content to your website and blog.

2. Am I tracking my marketing strategies? You should have a clear and concise vision of what marketing tactics are working for you and what you need to weed out. This will save you time and money every month if you focus on what is giving you the best ROI, Return On Investment.

3. Am I wasting time in email and chat rooms? While conversational marketing is one of my favorite methods and I do love connecting with others for a little break from the kids, it is also very easy to get sucked in and have non-productive time. Complete the work that puts money in your bank account first, then use the email, chat and forums.

4. Am I trying to build links with sites that are not giving me “link love” or passing the “Google juice”? There are many ways to create a linking strategy that will be worth while do you know if you are using them? I’ll be sharing more information on this coming up in the next couple days.

5. Am I not tracking my conversion rates? Yes, you should know the numbers! How many sales are you getting for every 100 visitors? What is the purpose of your website or advertising campaign? Do you want your customer to BUY, Sign Up, Download something? You should know what your end goal is and how many visitors you need to get that action.

6. Am I not tracking my online efforts? You should have a spreadsheet that you track your articles, press releases, autoresponder messages, search engine submissions and have the dates and summary of each item. This will not only be a great learning tool to reflect on but will let you know what is working or not.

7. Do I have a clear advertisement budget or plan? Some recommend this be your first step, however, I’ll be honest, I have better luck tweaking and creating my budget last after I created a game plan on paper and then it helps me prioritize and find ways to adjust the plan to what I can afford.

If you find that you are not doing the above action steps on a regular basis, it may be time to evaluate if your ready for a little help even if it’s a virtual assistant for a few hours a month. Acknowledging that you can’t do everything may be your first step to outsourcing smaller mundane actions that allow you to focus on the bigger picture.

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Are you Killing your Online Business?